“For some time I have been disturbed by the way the CIA has been diverted from its original assignment,” wrote former president Harry Truman in the Washington Post on December 22, 1963. It was exactly one month after the assassination of President Kennedy.
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The Woodstein Tapes
Pakula had Goldman’s script in hand. But the obsessive filmmaker desperately wanted more detail and color about key events as well as a complete change of tone in the screenplay. So in February 1975, he sat down with Woodward (then 32 years old) and Bernstein (then 31) for the first of several sessions, taping their recollections for reference.
E.J Dionne gets JFK right: the forever-young president 100 years on
He was a fervent Cold Warrior whose most important triumphs came in the name of peace. He avoided nuclear holocaust during the Cuban missile crisis and negotiated a partial nuclear test-ban treaty with the Soviet Union. He took office with a muscular promise that the United States would “pay any price, bear any burden” in the battle for freedom. But five months before his death, he became a prophet of what would be called detente, describing peace as “the necessary, rational end of rational men.”
Source: JFK, the forever-young president, 100 years on – The Washington Post
The ‘Deep Throat’ story is coming to your screens
It’s a Liam Neeson flick that screened at Cannes. And speaking of Mark Felt, the FBI man nicknamed “Deep Throat” while serving as a secret source for the Washington Post’s Watergate reporting, the History Channel is working on a documentary about him.
CIA report sheds new light on Angleteon’s role in Watergate
James Angleton, chief of the CIA’s Counterintelligence Staff.
Legendary CIA counterspy James Angleton was interviewed by federal investigators in 1973 about a reported meeting with Watergate burglar Howard Hunt, according to a declassified CIA history made public this week.
Angleton responded by dissembling about his relationship with Hunt and threatening legal action against the source of the story.
The report, first obtained by Judicial Watch, sheds new light on the agency’s role in the burglary that brought down President Richard Nixon in 1974 and changed the course of American politics.
James Jesus Angleton, chief of the agency’s Counterintelligence Staff, reached the peak of his powers during the Nixon’s presidency. But his backstage role in the Watergate affair has gone largely unnoticed.
Fox News correspondent James Rosen delivered the goods: Read more
Trump and the anxiety of assassination
Donald Trump’s comments about the 2nd Amendment and Hillary Clinton have unleashed the anxiety of assassination that always–always–courses beneath the surface of American political culture. This anxiety is the enduring result of the searing trauma of November 22, 1963 on generations of Americans. Before there was 9/11 there was 11//22.
Dog bites man: blowhard hijacks Republican party
“We will explore every single option that exists, whether it be persuading him to resign, trying to force him to resign, constraining his power, removing his ability to spend money.”
(H/T Texas Tribune)
‘Eyewash’: How the CIA deceives its own workforce about operations
Senior CIA officials have for years intentionally deceived parts of the agency workforce by transmitting internal memos that contain false information about operations and sources overseas, according to current and former U.S. officials who said the practice is known by the term “eyewash.”
Source: ‘Eyewash’: How the CIA deceives its own workforce about operations – The Washington Post
Comment of the week
Photon – February 1
Tom S, please refer to the Washington Post article of Jan 31, 2016: “‘Eyewash’: How the CIA deceives its own workforce about operations”
Please note the following statements from the article: ” …eyewashing was a standard practice that had been in existence for decades.” Read more
JFK author Mary La Fontaine passes
Comes the sad news that Mary La Fontaine has died. I first met Mary and her husband Ray in 1993 after reading a maunscript version of their book Oswald Talked. I was impressed with their writing for many reasons: its witty tone, its use of original sources,and its granular depiction of a subject oddly ignored by JFK researchers: Cuban exiles in Dallas.
It was the LaFontaines who highlighted me to the role of the Cuban Student Directorate (DRE) in the JFK story, a hunch that was amply confirmed by my subsequent reporting. Without the LaFontaines, I might never have discovered the curious case of George Joannides.
‘Stunning’ new FBI study casts doubt Warren Commission’s JFK findings
Warren Commission Exhibit 665
Lee Harvey Oswald was linked to the Mannlicher-Carcano rifle alleged to have been used to shoot President Kennedy by the hair and fiber analysis of FBI expert Paul Stombaugh. The Warren Commission’s final report drew conclusions from Stombaugh’s testimony that buttressed assertions about Oswald’s guilt, particularly the association between hair and fiber evidence allegedly tying Oswald to the rifle.
The Commission considered Stombaugh’s testimony of “probative value,” the report stated.
But a devastating recent study by the Justice Department and the FBI shows that close analysis of cases involving hair and fiber testing raises grave concerns about the role of similar scientific testimony by law enforcement experts in criminal convictions.
Obama completes the journey that JFK began
Presidents Castro and Obama. (Photo: MWC News)
This was the moment President John F. Kennedy was angling for 52 years ago: reconciliation between the United States and Cuba.
President Obama met yesterday with Cuban president Raul Castro, the first face to face meeting of the country’s leaders since the mid-20th century. Obama said “Cuba is not a threat to the United States.” His appearance was condemned by Obama’s Republican critics just as JFK’s Cuba policy was condemned by his opponents.
Ideological polemics notwithstanding, Kennedy was no hawk on Cuba. Read more
More video evidence illuminates Bill O’Reilly’s JFK fib
From the Washington Post’s Erik Wemple, some priceless video of the young Bill O’Reilly covering the story of the suicide of CIA asset and Oswald pal George de Mohrenschildt in March 1977. Read more
What Ben Bradlee taught me about Washington journalism
I was hired as a junior editor at the Washington Post in September 1992, one year after Ben Bradlee retired. The man still prowled the newsroom, and, as one one attendee (I won’t say mourner) at his R-rated funeral service in Washington yesterday said, “As an actor, he was straight out of Central Casting. He was obvious. But he had cast himself in a pretty good role.”
