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Articles About CTKA Resources CTKA formerly published Probe Magazine. Most of the articles on this site first appeared in Probe. We will occasionally add new articles as appropriate. If you would like to submit an article to be considered for publication on this site, please send mail to us at here. BILLBOARD New Articles/Reviews Jim DiEugenio analyzes and
summarizes Larry Hancock's interesting and unique new book Nexus: The
CIA and Political Assassination Jim DiEugenio reviews the work
of Chris Matthews on the life and death Mark Lane's latest book, BETRAYAL
IN DALLAS:
LBJ, the Pearl Street Mafia, and the Murder of President Kennedy The Second Dallas, a DVD Robert Kennedy documentary produced, written and directed by Massimo Mazzucco. Reviewed by Jim DiEugenio The Connally Bullet Powerful evidence that Connally was hit by a bullet from a different assassin, by Robert Harris Journalists
and JFK, those who were in and around Dealey Plaza that
day and those who made a career of the case afterwards. Joseph Green on the late Manning Marable's new full scale biography of Malcolm X. JFK and the Majestic Papers: The History of a Hoax by Seamus Coogan - and - Seamus Coogan on
Joseph Farrell's new book LBJ and the Conspiracy to Kill Kennedy:
A Coalescence of Interests by Donald Byron Thomas The
Real Wikipedia? by JP Mroz and Jim DiEugenio (3 part series) Sirhan and the RFK Assassination Who is
Anton Batey? Inside
the ARRB Reviews
of Douglas Horne's multi-volume study of the declassified medical evidence
in the JFK case. Reviewed by Jim DiEugenio, David Mantik and Gary Aguilar. COMING SOON: Exclusive excerpts from Mitchell Warriner's long awaited new book on Gary Aguilar and Pat Speer continue to critique the work of Professor Billy Kelly does an update and addition to the Chicago plot to kill JFK. Joseph Green reviews the new book edited by Caroline Kennedy
and Bill Davy continues our Wikipedia exposure series by examining an entry dealing with the JIm Garrison investigation.
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JFK and the Majestic Papers: The history of a HoaxPart VII: Conclusion
We have covered some extensive ground with JFK and MJ-12. We effectively started out in Hollywood, journeyed into space and then returned to Dallas. So how to summarize all of this within a page or two was always going to be a challenge. But at least I hope the reader has learned the following:
What’s ironic is that Russo and his buddies, bar one or two barbs hurled at Marrs for entertaining the JFK-MJ-12 documents, were just as bad as he was and never saw the need to castigate or investigate the Collins, Doty and Cooper, the people behind the documents. The reason for doing so is remarkably transparent. To oust these people would be an admission that at least one US intelligence agency was running a disinformation campaign aimed at trivializing the Kennedy assassination in the aftermath of Stone’s film JFK. For in exposing these assets in the former, they ran the risk of expsoing themselves in the latter. In Preamble I, I briefly discussed the bad blood existing between the DIA and CIA and their disputes over the USAF. There is a possibility that in muddying the waters of the Kennedy assassination that the documents do seem to have one or two jabs at the CIA within them. CIA disinformation rarely, if ever, implicates themselves in anything. It’s usually, Johnson, Mob, Cuba, not to mention the classic Kennedy had blowback coming to him for something. But then again it could still be CIA all the way, or some sort of ‘fruity’ salad all outputting the BS. Organic Self Sustaining Disinformation, the Best Kind.While trying vainly to wrap this whole thing up I consistently found myself going over my notes and returning to points I made at the very beginning of this exercise. In the Preambles one will note how I discussed the CIA’s playing both sides of the UFO equation, effectively marginalizing those voices asking the real questions about the CIA’s manipulation of UFO’s e.g. Leon Davidson. In Parts I till now you would have seen this initiative mutate into associating UFO’s with JFK researchers. But it failed to divide assassination researchers over a JFK-UFO link, nor have the two groups ‘joined at the hip’. After the film, they merely planted their usual little disinformation seeds on both sides of the Kennedy debate, while sending an invitation for Ufologists to join it. They then sat back and watched as an assortment of UFO crazies, new age pseudo leftists, and the Libertarian right grew into weeds effectively burying the much smaller Kennedy research base with their own vivid imaginings. The free market, which appealed to and exploited these appetites, has long been exploited by the CIA and its rival agencies. The UFO detour into the Kennedy quadrant was simply a detour for this longstanding operation and was achieved with relative ease. The hype surrounding the X-Files is a case in point as Coppens writes in his article ‘Alien Overlords’ The drive that the government – and specifically the CIA – is involved in an “alien cover-up” was paramount throughout the 1990s, popularised by the existence of “The X Files”, which in the eyes of the UFO community seemed to “validate” them. While I wholeheartedly agree with Coppens that it gave Ufologists a ‘voice’ (and a lousy one at that), the X-Files article he linked it too was extremely poor. It lacked any of Coppens skeptical analysis in his previous articles and exemplified why he contributes to Nexus and is friends with the likes of David Hatcher Childress. Coppens praises the courage of the shows of director Chris Carter and their pioneering qualities (despite his mentioning of Doty’s consultancy in the show). Now the X-Files pioneered something alright, but it wasn’t ‘positive’. Furthermore, the X-Files didn’t spark the ‘conspiracy’ subculture; it was Stone’s JFK. And evidence suggests this ‘subculture’ was created purely as a reaction to Stone’s film in an attempt to conflate the Kennedy assassination (a stand alone event wholly unrelated to UFO’s) with all manner of tabloid fantasies. Now, I don’t buy this ‘lighten up it’s only a show’ line. Programs like the X-Files and others have subverted real inquiry into real issues for purely entertainment and disinformation purposes. (And it culmianted in silliness like Men In Black.) Stories based around fake UFO abductions, which were apparently covered on the show, albeit as an aside, yet The X-Files hammered Aliens as real most of the time. It their audiences look for truth in carefully marketed and designed myths, and quite clearly put the idea out there that anybody thinking such a thing, or that Kennedy was killed by the ‘Cancer Man’ in the Storm Drain must be a fan of the show or a ‘conspiracy theorist’. The large amounts of people who have told (note ‘told’, most X-Files UFO types never ask serious researchers anything) me of this last ludicrous idea is considerable. I have even had someone tell me in all seriousness the cancer man ‘did it’. Films like Z, The Parallax View and JFK were never intended for this sort of thing. Costa Gavras, Alan Pakula and Stone took big commercial risks in presenting such ugly, fearful and most of all, real, views of the world we live in. The individuals in their films saw conspirators as faceless and sinister ‘gods’ whose only goal was control of control itself. In The X-Files we can see that the elite conspirators are doing so in a ruthless yet benign fashion to bide time in preventing an imminent Alien invasion of Earth (which was the major plot arch of the series). If that premise isn’t selling the hoary old ‘elites know best’ ‘have a plan’ or they do what they do ‘for the common good’, I don’t know what is. People also forget that the series was a fantastic advertisement for the FBI, and they aided in the show’s development.To this endI’ll give the reader a quote discussing one of the nineties most undeserving heroes, namely The X-files creator, Chris Carter from page 83 of Greg Bishop’s book Project Beta: The Story of Paul Benewitz, National Security, and the Creation of a Modern UFO Myth (thanks to Steve Snider for bringing it my attention):
Contrast Carter’s hassle-free ride he received in the press for his shows, with what Stone got after JFK. There were no reports of Stone hanging out at the FBI shooting range after JFK’s run in the theatres ended. Hence it’s safe to say I think the question of who has more ‘manna’ is pretty darn obvious. Kennedy’s death won’t lead anyone to little green men, but it may lead us to the man whom, in large part likely helped create them, Allen Dulles. Who probably would have been something of a fan of X-Files. After all, he was part of that Elite the show depicts as benign. Thus we return to the problems discussed at the very beginning of this essay. Why are there balanced debates about the greatest questions of our time ‘is there a God’ and/or ‘are we alone out there’. Yet Tom Hanks jumps on board the Bugliosi ‘lone nut’ band wagon and Leonardo DiCaprio gets involved in Lamar Waldron’s lame and unfounded conspiracy musings? Neither initiative brings any balance to the table, nor valid discussion. If life ‘out there’, is such a concern for the CIA, why have they tried to associate and mock serious JFK researchers as being aspiring Ufologists since the sixties. And why whenever something concerning the assassination and/or other important events gets notoriety, UFO’s suddenly get bandied around in the press? The big lie that X-Files spouted was that the ‘Truth is out there’. The reality is that the ‘Truth is really within us’. Once we strip away the hype from the myths we can see who is behind them, and if their points are worthy of pursing or not. Ultimately, when it comes down to conspiracy, I am an ardent advocate of the late Carl Ogelsby’s comment with regards to the Kennedy assassination: “We must be careful of runningoff into the ether of our imaginations.”In particular nowadays, when it is precisely our imaginations that are being targeted by intelligence inspired, consumer driven conspiracy nonsense like the JFK-MJ-12 hoax. The ‘Truth’ in matters of conspiracy is usually far stranger, yet more banal, than the fiction.
Special ThanksDuring the course of this project two people who would have been rather interested in its outcomes CH and TS passed away. I didn’t know either as well as I would have liked and found out about their interests in SETI and UFO’s respectively much too late. CH whom I met through his associates CM and GH had in fact given myself a lot of support over the ten years I’ve known him in various endeavours. With particular relevance to this assignment my very good friend and now draft editor for much of my CTKA work JS lost her brother TS, a person also deeply interested in the UFO field. What added to the sadness was that they both witnessed the famous Kaikoura light shows of the seventies as children, which left an indelible imprint on them. My thoughts and feelings go out to CM, GH and JS for their loss, not to mention, a big ‘thanks’ for all their help. |
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