The Final Chapter in the Assassination Controversy?

Edward Jay Epstein wrote this for the April 20, 1969 edition of the New York Times Magazine. His conclusion was wrong - Garrison was not the final chapter and there was a new investigation.

Money Quote:

Like Lane, each of the critics claimed to have access to at least part of Garrison's "secret evidence," and on this basis they warned the public that the Johnson Administration would face dire consequences if Garrison were ever allowed to bring his evidence to court. For his part, Garrison paid homage to the critics and their theories in most of his own appearances and sought to confirm the validity of their speculations by incorporating them into his case. When Garrison was challenged to reveal the grounds for his allegations, he would characteristically reply, as he did on the Johnny Carson show, "I am not allowed, as an attorney, to come up with evidence until the case comes to trial." The mysterious "secret evidence" never materialized in court and these critics of the Warren Commission, who had claimed access to it, were left holding the bag.

Money Quote:

That these magazine accepted Garrison's claims on blind faith leads one to wonder whether the Warren Report was not similarly rejected in blind contempt for the President who succeeded Kennedy, for reasons more political than evidentiary. In any case, by appearing virtually empty-handed at the trial, Garrison exposed a bluff larger than his own; he left many critics were instrumental in discrediting the Warren Report looking like something less than the disinterested factfinders they pretended to be. And in view of the discredit he brought them, it is not particularly surprising that now some disgruntled critics have even advanced the theory that Garrison was himself a C.I.A agent provocateur. Surely there was among many critics a measure of gullibility at the least, of outright dishonesty at the most. But not everyone who registered reservations about the Warren Commission's methods and conclusions rallied to Garrison's defense. To consider the validity of doubts still lingering in the minds of those critics of the commission who also openly and categorically dissociated themselves from Jim Garrison and his cause, to ask what questions about the assassination of President still do remain unanswered, it is worthwhile to recall the history of the controversy and its nature as a historical problem.

Epstein refers to a Playboy Magazine memo about Garrison's interview. You can see the entire memo at the bottom of this post.

Money Quote:

Much of the rhetoric on the talk shows and in magazine interviews was not designed to enlighten the public. Mark Lane made a practice of introducing pseudoscientific evidence, such as paraffin tests (misinterpreted to "prove" Oswald's innocence), which could only confuse audience's not versed in the nuances of forensic science. Jim Garrison characteristically dwelt on missing evidence, which was being kept "secret" by the Government but of which he miraculously seemed to know the contents. For example, noting that four frames of the famous film of the assassination taken by the spectator Abraham Zapruder -- numbers 208-211 -- were missing from the frame-by-frame reproduction of the film in the testimony and evidence published by the Warren Commission, Garrison claimed in his Playboy interview that these missing frames "revealed signs of stress appearing suddenly on the back of a street sign" and these "signs of stress may well have been caused by the impact of a stray bullet on the sign." But the "missing" frames into which Garrison glibly read stray bullets, while missing from the Warren Report volumes, are not missing from a copy of the film held by Life Magazine, which bought the film, and these frames, which were published after the Playboy interview, show no signs of "stress" or stray bullets.

Money Quote:

When it was shown that the Warren Commission had conducted a less than exhaustive investigation, a great many people assumed that a new investigation, not predisposed to the single-assassin theory, would uncover new evidence. Garrison, however, assisted initially by Life magazine and later by many critics of the Warren Report, searched for two years without finding any relevant new evidence of a conspiracy. At present there are no leads outstanding, nor is there any substantial evidence that I know of that indicates there was more than one rifleman firing.

It is, of course, possible that new evidence may yet develop to challenge the single-assassin theory. The lesson that Garrison has made abundantly clear is that the credibility of evidence cannot be divorced from the credibility of the investigator who presents it. Since there seems to be little prospect of a new investigation in the near future, and many of the critics have been discredited as investigators by the New Orleans episode, it appears likely that Garrison may be the final chapter in the Assassination Controversy.

Of course, Epstein was wrong -- Garrison was not the final chapter and there was a second investigation. The HSCA also found that Lee Harvey Oswald fired three shots and that one of them hit JFK in the head. And lest people berate me for not indicating that the HSCA thought that JFK was "probably" killed by a conspiracy -- that was based on the acoustics evidence which has been discredited.

And the recommendations of the HSCA were passed to the Department of Justice. Few people cite their response.

Here is the Playboy Magazine memo that Epstein refers to in his text above: (point four on the second page)

Garrison hoodwinked Playboy. He told them of some of his secret evidence, but of course nothing panned out.

Garrison's Playboy Interview - What Couldn't Be Printed

Garrison told Eric Nordern, Playboy's interviewer, secret information that could not be printed.

Garrison's Playboy Interview - More Secret Information

Garrison wrote a memo to Playboy with background information.

And here a link to a blog post about why Garrison held a preliminary hearing.