Did the ARRB Prove a Conspiracy in the JFK Assassination?
Screen shot from JFK Revisited: Through the Looking Glass
Oliver Stone makes the claim in his so-called documentary, JFK Revisited: Through the Looking Glass, that the Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB) turned conspiracy theory into conspiracy fact. Here is an excerpt from a transcript: (1:06:18)
Oliver Stone: With all the documents declassified by the Review Board, we can see this scene in a new light. In regards to the JFK assassination, conspiracy theories are now conspiracy facts. The forensics show evidence of multiple shooters, with Oswald not even at the sixth floor window at the time of the assassination. And his fingerprints not found on the supposed murder weapon. Still, there was no trial for Lee Harvey Oswald,
James DiEugenio, the writer of JFK Revisited, has also said this on Twitter:
The theme that the ARRB has proved conspiracy in the JFK assassination has been repeated many times by James DiEugenio. For instance:
By creating a smoke and mirrors distraction, Kirchick can sidestep what does exist in the film [JFK Revisited]. That is the revelations of the Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB) which completely overturn the verdict of the Warren Commission.
What the film does is it exposes the Commission as an utterly corrupt body. And that view was made possible only by the ARRB.
Utterly false. Oliver could make much more money doing features. He took a very big pay cut in doing this film. He did it because no one else would tell the public about the ARRB discoveries. Patrick Collins sure as heck is not going to, because they destroy the WR.
The ARRB even proved Jim Garrison was right:
It turned out the ARRB proved he was right about almost everything he said.
We know today that CE 399 was worse than a joke: it was a smoke and mirrors illusion. The work of the ARRB—which Litwin avoids like CV-19—has made it superfluous.
All one needs to know about what happened to the HSCA is that it took the ARRB to show us the depth of the fraud the Magic Bullet was mired in.
The ARRB did some amazing work in seeing that millions of pages of documents were released. But did those documents actually prove conspiracy? Let's quickly look at a few examples from JFK Revisited: Through the Looking Glass.
John Stringer was the photographer at JFK's autopsy. James DiEugenio wrote in The JFK Assassination that "John Stringer testified that he did not take the pictures of Kennedy's brain that are in the National Archives." (page 165) This allegation was repeated in JFK Revisited at 53:05.
When you read John Stringer's deposition before the ARRB, it is clear that his memory is not the best. For instance, he could not remember if he had used Kodachrome or Ektachrome film for his photographs. And yet JFK Revisited makes a big point about the fact that he did not remember using ANSCO film for the photographs of the brain. Stringer was momentarily confused when he was shown photographs of JFK's brain because there were no identification tags. He also did not remember if identification tags were used at the time the brain was photographed. Stringer never denied that he took the brain photographs of President Kennedy.
But to Oliver Stone and James DiEugenio, that is enough for them to believe that Stringer photographed a different brain.. Now which is more likely? A different brain, or a lack of memory for minor details after 32 years?
There are many other examples of how JFK Revisited uses ARRB documents to make unwarranted conclusions:
It is one thing for Stone and DiEugenio to use ARRB documents to reach their own conclusions; it is quite another thing to mislead people into believing that the ARRB uncovered proof that there was a conspiracy.
This overreach obscured the real mission of the organization. The final report of the ARRB notes:
The JFK Act, however, necessitates that the Review Board's report be different from reports of other assassination-related commissions and committees. Previous assassination-related commissions and committees were established for the purpose of issuing final reports that would draw conclusions about the assassination. Congress did not, however, direct the Review Board to draw conclusions about the assassination, but to release assassination records so that the public could draw its own conclusions. Thus, the Final Report does not offer conclusions about what the assassination records released did or did not prove.
In 1998, Tom Samoluk, Deputy Director of the ARRB, had to reiterate this to James DiEugenio:
Indeed, Judge Tunheim has never claimed that the ARRB proved conspiracy in the JFK assassination. Here is what he had to say in 2017:
Reporter: Based on everything that you’ve read, which is the whole file that has been a secret, do you believe that President Kennedy’s assassination was a conspiracy or done by a lone gunman?
Judge Tunheim: I think, first of all, the only hard evidence supports Oswald. It was his rifle, his prints were all over it, he worked in the building. He was in the building during the assassination. The bullets in the vehicle that hit Kennedy were tied to that gun. This is all evidence that would have convicted Oswald beyond a shadow of a doubt. I think he was the sole shooter that day....
Judge Tunheim: That’s probably the best evidence of a conspiracy is Ruby....
Judge Tunheim: [Kennedy] had a lot of enemies, yeah. But when you actually look at the massive evidence through the years, there’s no evidence of a conspiracy. . . I think everyone should keep an open mind in case there are further disclosures in the future, but up until this point, there’s no real hard evidence of a conspiracy that could convict anyone of a conspiracy....
Judge Tunheim and Tom Samoluk both appear in JFK: Destiny Betrayed to talk about the work of the ARRB. But their segments are sandwiched between allegations that the ARRB proved conspiracy.
For instance, in episode 1 of JFK: Destiny Betrayed, Tunheim and Samoluk discuss the processing of documents for release and the process of purchasing of the Zapruder film for the National Archives. Tunheim calls it "the most important piece of evidence." (47:55) The next scene shows the 'back and to the left' motion of JFK's head. Do viewers think, at least subliminally, that Tunheim and Samoluk are back-and-to-the leftists?
In episode 4, Tunheim and Samoluk discuss the Secret Service destruction of two boxes of domestic survey reports, Here is an excerpt from a transcript: (19:25)
Judge Tunheim: They destroyed a group of records which involved threats to President Kennedy in the fall of 1963. They have what they're called threat sheets and there were many threats made to President Kennedy's life during the year 1963. They fought us on the release of those records. They even enlisted Vice President Gore's wife to help them because she had a very legitimate concern for mental health records. And the idea was that this might disclose the names of people who had mental health problems.
No doubt Tunheim and Samoluk were right to be upset about the destruction of two boxes of records. But right after their appearance in JFK: Destiny Betrayed, the documentary moves to supposed plots against JFK in Chicago and Miami. The juxtaposition is not by accident - since there is no documentary evidence that there was a threat in Chicago, JFK; Destiny Betrayed uses Tunheim and Samoluk to imply that the destroyed records contained valuable information related to the supposed plot.
But the HSCA had already looked at Secret Service documents during that period:
No evidence ever materialized to corroborate the supposed Chicago plot.
The Secret Service wrote a letter to the ARRB noting that "the folder concerning the canceled trip to Chicago would only have contained a preliminary survey report, if any document at all, since final reports are not conducted when a trip is canceled." Preliminary survey reports are just the basic plans for a trip.
The documents released by the ARRB do not prove conspiracy in the JFK assassination.
Unfortunately, James DiEugenio and Oliver Stone both suffer from a "poverty of imagination," in which non-conspiratorial explanations are never considered. For instance, they claim that the refusal of the family of Dr. George Burkley to allow ARRB investigators to go through the papers of his lawyer was sinister. But he was conferring with his lawyer on tax issues and there was no reason to believe he would have any relevant documents.
Issues of memory, decades after events have occurred, were ignored by Stone and DiEugenio. For instance, Saundra Spencer remembered, over thirty years after the fact that she developed autopsy photographs that are not in the collection at NARA. DiEugenio and Stone neglect to inform viewers that she only saw the prints for a total of ten to fifteen seconds.
The deposition transcripts and other medical evidence that were released by the Review Board should be evaluated cautiously by the public. Often the witnesses contradict not only each other, but sometimes themselves. For events that transpired almost 35 years ago, all persons are likely to have failures of memory. It would be more prudent to weigh all of the evidence, with due concern for human error, rather than take single statements as “proof” for one theory or another.
Oliver Stone and James DiEugenio's gullibility extends way beyond "failures of memory." For instance, they both believe Perry Russo's recovered memory of an assassination planning party in September 1963. He was injected with sodium pentothal and was then hypnotized three times. They bought his story hook, line and sinker.
The millions of pages of documents that the ARRB released give James DiEugenio and Oliver Stone a larger playpen. Their documentary proves that it takes adults to actually understand them.
Anna Nelson, one of the historians on the ARRB, concurred with Judge Tunheim that the ARRB did not find evidence of conspiracy: (interview for Patricia Lambert’s documentary on The History Channel, August 29, 2000)
The Review Board found no conspiracy. The review board looked for conspiracy. Very clear looked for conspiracy. It felt that was something we, we had to do. We found no conspiracy inside the government. Whether anyone can ever go through all those records and find conspiracy outside the government, we didn't see it. maybe somebody can. I think that we did not help the conspiracy theories but there are many people who are still using our records to prove their own theories. As will always happen. But I have a great trust that in the long run, once you release documents and you have a number of people looking at them, the truth ultimately will come to the fore, my optimism as a historian.
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