From plemkin@igc.org Mon Dec 30 13:51:21 1991 From: plemkin@igc.org (Peter Lemkin) Newsgroups: alt.conspiracy Subject: GARRISON STATEMENT F.Y.I. GROUP... Date: 30 Dec 91 00:15:00 GMT WITH LIBERTY AND JUSTICE FOR ALL An identifying characteristic of the super-state is its readiness to conceal from the people facts which might make them restless. In order to maintain power its officers must keep the populace beleiving that it is living in the best of all possible worlds. Consequently, those in control of the governmental machinery sometimes find it necessary to re-write history as fast as it happens. The truth becomes not what occurred but what they announce has occurred. Reality becomes just another government-controlled commodity. If the official myth to be presented is particularly unbelievable it may be necessary to have honorable men study it and announce that they have found it to be true [In 1939, after having invaded and conquered western Poland because of alleged Polish atrocities committed against German individuals, the German government appointed a committee to make a careful study to determine the facts with regard to the claimed Polish misconduct. The final printed report of the study contained much documentary evidence, including not only photographs, affidavits and countless medical certificates but an authenticated quotation from the year 1598 to the effect that barbarous cruelty was one of the vices of the Polish people. The report confirmed that the Poles indeed bad committed atrocities against Germans and it indicated that things would have been even worse were it not for the timely arrival on Polish territory of the German rescuers. The conclusions of this painstaking study by a government-appointed committee meant that Adolf Hitler would not have to withdraw his armies and apologize to Poland. See: "Polish Acts of Atrocity Against the German Minority in PoIand," German Library of Information, New York, 1940.] This is not really as difficult as it sounds because there is nothing to which honorable men joined in an honorable cause will not stoop in the name of duty. As a general rule of thumb, the more unbelievable the story the more honorable should be the men assigned to prove its veracity. To date, George Orwell's 1984 provided the best fictional portrait of the correction of history to suit current political needs. In Oceania, that dismal land presided over by Big Brother, the power of the government had become Gargantuan and the rights of individuals virtually had vanished. In order to maintain this balance, the Ministry of Truth continually was engaged in improving history to make it reflect govemment pronouncements. This was justified on the ground of 'national security,' a reasonably honest rationale inasmuch as the government could not have survived without such wholesale concealment of facts. If, for example, Big Brother made an error which was exposed by statistics, the offensive statistics were destroyed and more satisfactory statistics were published. If books or newspapers described facts which were embarrassing to the government, they were merely re-written so as to conform with official legend. The original troublesome material was simply fed in the "memory hole," a chute leading down to the incinerator. The government's policy of vaporizing into nothingness unpleasant facts contributed in great measure to the calm of the populace of Oceania. This was helped by the fact that individuals who interfered with the public calm also tended to disappear. "Who controls the past," said the official slogan of the super-state, "controls the future." It now appears that, twenty years ahead of Orwell's schedule, the United States has succeeded in producing the classic model of re-writing history to conform to official needs. It is hard to assay this accomplishment when we are still so close to it, but when our contributions to civilization are added up this well may rank ahead of our invention of napalm. When the President of our country was executed on a public street, one would have thought that there would have been a general uncomplicated desire to catch the assassins and to bring them all to justice. After all there was sufficient information available concerning the strange movements of cars behind the grassy knoll immediately prior to the assination, the fusilade of rifle fire coming from there and the rapid departure of men on foot and by car from that sector following the shooting. Apparently, however, it was not as simple as an that. It appears that when a President's heart stops beating considerations of power and policy take over. Instead of running down the men who killed John Kennedy, the U.S. government simply ratified his execution and moved on to more important matters. With regard to the men who actually killed him, because of their displeasure with his foreign policy, the assassination has been treated not as an offense but as a mandate for change. The young man so promptly nominated by the Dallas Police Force was duly elected the lone assassin. He had excellent qualifications, provided they were not examined too closely. He wore the tag of a Communist defector who had spent 3 years in Russia. He had been murdered, which assured that there would be none of the time consuming problems of proof which a live defendant would have presented. And his gun and three empty cartridges had been placed at the 6th floor of the book depository. In spite of these conveniences there was a slight problem. The overwhelming weight of legitimate evidence clearly indicated that he could not possibly have fired a shot at the President. There was, to begin with, the fact that the rifle originally brought down from the book depository at 1:05 p.m., and briefly exhibited as the assassins rifle, had, unlike Lee Oswald's rifle, no telescopic sight. There was the fact that the Marine Corps shooting records showed that Oswald could not hit the side of a barn. There was the tense fact that the nitrate test indicated that Oswald bad not fired a rifle of any kind. There was the fact that the ancient Italian rifle, which Oswald was supposed to have used, could not conceivably have accomplished the ballistic miracle with which it was credited - particularly causing a single bullet to inflict seven different wounds, including bone destruction, in two different men. There was the fact that the President was hit from several different directions and that his fatal wound quite obviously was received >from his right front, in the area of the grassy knoll. To make matters worse, there were probably more witnesses to President Kennedy's murder than to any other in history and the great majority of them were very conscious of the fact that most of the shots came from in front of the President. There was also the embarrassing evidence that Lee Oswald had been an employee of the Central Intelligence Agency and had acquired the stigma of a Communist defector while in the service of the United States and as the result of instructions given him by the United States government. Most of the embarrassing evidence was simply buried at the outset in a swift funeral devoid of ceremony. The autopsy photographs and X-rays, for example, which would have revealed that the President was struck from a number of directions, [Dr. Robert N. McClelland, at Parkland Hospital, examined the President and concluded that the cause of death was a gunshot wound of the left temple. Similarly, Dr. Mahlon Jenkins recalled, in his testimony before the Warren Commission, that there was a wound in the left temple, right in the hair-line. The book depository, although it may since have been moved, at the time of the assassination was located to the rear of the President.] These autopsy photographs and X-rays were whisked away and have been kept hidden ever since. By now there has been time to construct new autopsy photographs and X-rays which more closely harmonize with the official myth than did the original ones. Hundreds of significant government files and memoranda have been laid away in vaults where they cannot be seen. Among the hidden Central Intelligence Agency files alone are to be found such titles as: "Oswald's Access to Information about the U-2," "Reproduction of Central Inteligence Agency Official Dossier on Oswald" and "Information on Jack Ruby and Associates." Inasmuch as we have been assured by horrorable men that neither Oswald nor Ruby had any connection with the Central Intelligence Agency it probably would be unpatriotic to speculate on what these secret files contain. As bad luck would have it, a rash of conflagrations swept away other vital evidence in the government's custody. The only notes known to be taken during the long 12-hour interview of Lee Oswald after the assassination appear to have been burned. Notes taken by a federal agent who interviewed Oswald before the assassination also went up in flames. A secret Central Intelligence Agency memo concerning Oswald, written prior to the assassination, went up in smoke while being thermofaxed. This phenomenal instance of spontaneous combustion occurred in Washington the day following the asassination. The autopsy notes describing the President's wounds were cremated in his fireplace by the attending Navy pathologist. This is not to say that the government has not shown concern for the people's right to know. For those citizens who are curious about how and why their President was killed, the Ministry of Truth has made available the dental charts of Jack Ruby, photographs of Russian scenery, grammar school records of Oswald and Ruby, a careful analysis of Oswald's pubic hairs, irrelevant letters, irrelevant telegrams, picture postcards showing bullfights, a copy of the proceedings in an unrelated divorce case, a list of traffic citations received by Jack Ruby, and an excellent photograph of an unidentified man. For those whose curiosity about the assassination may not have been satisfied with this frank display of evidence, it has been announced that even the secret files will be made available. There will, however, be a slight delay of 75 years before they can be examined. This farsignted provision not only assures a long period of national tranquility with regard to the assassination, but also substantially reduces the danger of the involved government officials being lynched. Of course, there is no real guarantee that, even if you are very patient, you will actually get to examine these files in 75 years. New concerns by the government with regard to national security may require an additional 75 years delay, and it even might come to Pass that one day it will be announced from Washington that actually no assassination ever occured. In time, it can be explained that John Kennedy really never existed at all and that Dwight Eisenhower was followed by Grover Cleveland or Calvin Coolidge, all depending on which words best suit the government's Purpose at the time. Any of these announcements would be every bit as accurate as the official myth that Lee Harvey Oswald, the lone assassin killed President Kennedy In the super-state, it really does not matter at all what actually happened. Truth is what the government chooses to tell you. Justice is what it wants to happen. In Dealey Plaza reality destroyed illusion, the illusion that we were fiving in the best of all possible worlds. The fairy tale of the lone assassin represents an effort to resurrect the illusion, to legitimize it by proclamation and to impose it by muscle. In the interest of tranquility the decision has been made somewhere that it is better for you not to know what really happened. It is better for you not to know that at midday on November 22nd there were many men who, in many places, were glancing at their watches. It is better for you to believe that the successive murders of the President of the United States, Officer Tippit and Lee Oswald were simply three meaningless incidents which happened to occur one weekend in Dallas. Above all, it has been decided that you are not to know of Lee Oswald's relationship with the Central Intelligence Agency. Nor are you to know that a number of the men actually involved in the assassination had been employees of the Central Intelligence Agency. You are not to know about those matters because of something called "national security." When national security is used as the excuse for concealing essential facts surrounding a disaster, it usually refers to the security of the men who allowed the disaster to occur. Actually, the greater threat to national security is the cynical concealment of such facts from the people. Behind the facade of earnest inquiry into the assassination is a thought control project in the best traditions of 1984. Because of their role in the Establishment and their failure to conduct any effective inquiry, major news agencies have a vested interest in maintaining public ignorance. They look away from the widespread evidence that something is wrong, just as the members of the Warren Commission looked away from the autopsy photographs and X-rays of the murdered President. [To a man the members of the Warren Commissionrefused to examine the autopsy photographs and X-rays. This evidence could have clarified once and for all the number of times the President was shot and the various directions from whcih he was shot. the Commission, however loyally refused to play Russian Roulette with the "lone assassin" theory. The unviewed autopsy evidence was locked away behind concrete walls and the Dallas Police Department scenario duly was adopted as the official national myth.] Tranquility, the time-honored message reads, is better than knowledge. In the authoritarian state, it is regarded as a selfevident truth that the control of history is an inalienable right of government. All words are created free and equal. If it is proclaimed in Washington tomorrow that the moon is made of Limburger cheese, a horde of honorable men can be produced to attest to that fact. If it is proclaimed that an elephant can hang from a cliff with its tail tied to a daisy, a phalanx of experts will appear to confirm it. Anyone rash enough to question these official verities can expect to be exposed as a villain or a fool. The name of the game is not truth it is power. The Ministry of Truth has announced that the assassination of John Kennedy was investigated exhaustively, that no evidence of a conspiracy was found and that the matter should be considered closed. The greatest lies are told in the name of truth. The greatest crimes are committed in the name of justice. The American people have suffered two tragedies. In addition to the assassination of the President by dishonorable men our national integrity is now being assassinated by honorable men. It does not matter what the rationale is - whether to calm the public or to protect our image - the fact remains that the truth is being concealed. The United States Constitution, assuming that it has not accidentally been burned to a crisp, does not give anyone the power to re-write history. The fact that this has happened should be evidence enough that it is far later than any of us have dream. The question now is whether we have the courage to come face to face with ourselves and admit that something is wrong, whether we have the will to insist on an end to deception and consealment with regard to the execution of John Kennedy-or whether we win let the official fairy tale be told and re-told until the truth itself fades into a vagrant rumor and finally dies forever. If we will not fight for the truth now - when our President has been shot down in the streets and his murders remain untouched by justice - it is not likely that we will ever have another chance. JIM GARRISON New Orleans, Louisiana September 1, 1967