From the May-June, 1998 issue (Vol. 5 No. 4)

Letter from the Chairman

James Earl Ray died in April. With him went any hope for a trial in the King case. As we note here, this was tragic for Ray, but it is also sad for the King family and America. In our view, Ray was nothing more than a small-time criminal who was used and then spit out by forces much more powerful than he. Later the FBI and the local Tennessee authorities, with the help of the bombastic and deceitful Percy Foreman, made sure that there would be no semblance of justice and that Ray would get nothing but a show trial reminiscent of the Soviet Union under Stalin. We show here why, in all likelihood, Ray was not the assassin, and outline the media’s role in his public framing. In a complementary story, we update what is still left of the effort to obtain a new investigation of the case. The focus has shifted from Memphis to Washington. Janet Reno is now pondering a request by Coretta King to look at some new evidence that she has relayed to the Attorney General. Judging from Reno’s past performance, don’t expect much. But whatever the result, the King family has been nothing short of heroic through this entire ordeal.

On the RFK front, Lisa Pease completes her milestone two part investigation into that case. In the first part, Lisa showed how Sirhan could not have been the assassin and how this fact was covered up by the authorities. In this installment, Lisa examines how the operation was most likely executed. She unearths some new suspects, especially in regards to who the girl in the polka-dot dress was, and who some of her cohorts may have been. Sirhan is the last of the "lone nuts" of the sixties still alive and he has a writ before a California court to get a new trial. Let’s keep our fingers crossed. In an accompanying piece, we examine the career and writings of Dan Moldea and raise some questions about his methodology and thoroughness, among other things.

We are proud to be able to publish excerpts from the book by Ernest May and Philip Zelikow, The Kennedy Tapes. This valuable volume contains a complete transcription of all the conferences taped by JFK during the Missile Crisis. It also contains a wonderful analysis of that crisis with much newly available material. As the commentaries we have printed show, it shows a JFK at the top of his abilities and instincts.

We also include a couple of posthumous voices to respond to Sy Hersh. We reprint Teddy White’s moving, memorable interview with Jackie Kennedy in the wake of the assassination. It was her idea to place the title of Camelot over the Kennedy years. Also, we exhibit a document memorializing RFK’s response to his "multitude" of extramarital affairs (even in El Paso?). His alleged harem included, of course, MM. Don’t show it to John Davis!

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