HAROLD WEISBERG, 2005 article
Don Roberdeau
being posted, so wanted to ensure it has been provided for reading....
http://www.fredericknewspost.com/sections/foi/display.htm?storyID=45264
(The WEISBERG article was linked from within a 9-17-06 article,
"Technology at Dietrich M.I.A."
http://www.fredericknewspost.com/sections/news/display.htm?storyid=52368
)
<QUOTE>
ONE MAN VS. ONE GOVERNMENT (Part 1 of 2)
By Liam Farrell
News-Post Staff
FREDERICK -- For decades, the most-powerful domestic intelligence
agency in the United States watched a Maryland chicken farmer.
For decades, the Federal Bureau of Investigation wrote analyses of his
public statements, books and newspaper articles.
For decades, the FBI's highest-ranking intelligence officials,
including its legendary and controversial director, J. Edgar Hoover,
personally exchanged correspondence on his life, which was spent
investigating the veracity of the government's conclusions on the
assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
The Frederick News-Post has obtained the FBI files of Harold Weisberg,
local author, farmer and noted expert on assassinations, through the
Freedom of Information Act.
Mr. Weisberg, who died in 2002 at his home just outside Frederick city,
has a 178-page file. The newspaper will appeal the government's
decision to withhold 39 pages.
Mr. Weisberg gained notoriety for his books criticizing the FBI and
Warren Commission for their investigations of JFK's assassination, and
he is well-known for his extensive collection of government files and
information, now housed in a library at Hood College.
The FBI looked into Mr. Weisberg long before he published his first
book in 1965, however.
In 1939, Mr. Weisberg jeopardized the security of government
information by leaking to a communist newspaper, The Daily Worker, and
harbored subversive ideological sympathies, the FBI file states.
Throughout the years, government documents contain frequent attacks on
the author's character, describing him as a miscreant with delusions of
conspiracy.
As Mr. Weisberg's efforts to obtain information for his books continued
from the 1960s onward, the FBI tried to obstruct his work. The FBI
ignored his requests even after the passage of the Freedom of
Information Act in 1966, culminating in a 1970 memorandum from Mr.
Hoover to a deputy assistant attorney general instructing that no
information be given to Mr. Weisberg.
"In view of Weisberg's character, he should not be given the
information he requests, and there is legal ground for our position,"
Mr. Hoover's memo states.
For decades, Mr. Weisberg was watching the government. And for decades,
it was watching him back.
In part one of a two-part investigation into the confrontational
history between Mr. Weisberg and the FBI, The Frederick News-Post will
examine his early government career.
These conflicts established the groundwork for the FBI's later
accusations that Mr. Weisberg was a communist and deserved to be denied
access to information about JFK's assassination.
In part two on Monday, the newspaper will explore the details of the
historian's battles for government transparency. Part two will also
look into the growing FBI case against Mr. Weisberg's supposed
political beliefs and how they played a significant role when he was
trying to find out the truth about President John F. Kennedy's
assassination.
Although the FBI's efforts would increase after Mr. Weisberg began
publishing his books, the roots of his FBI file go back to some of the
earliest moments of the nation's anti-communist fervor.
Mr. Weisberg was not only a later victim of the Cold War ethos; he was
also an early casualty.
The New World
As the torrents of immigrants into the United States continued in the
early 20th century, the waves of western Europeans were replaced by
eastern Europeans, who in turn became the new victims of not only
anti-immigration ideology but also virulent anti-Semitism and
anti-communism.
Mr. Weisberg was part of this changing society as the son of two Jewish
immigrants from Russia. He was born on April 8, 1913, in a
working-class neighborhood in Philadelphia.
In a 1993 interview with Joy Derr of Hood College, Mr. Weisberg
remarked how significant his birth in America was.
"I'm the first member of my family, as I've thought often in recent
years, ever born into freedom, going back as far as Adam and Eve," he
said.
Friends of the writer believe that his family's background was an
influential component in formulating his faith in America's promise and
ideals.
"He, being a first-generation American, was extremely patriotic," said
Clayton Ogilvie, a friend and caretaker of Mr. Weisberg's archives.
"His patriotic fervor was based on his parents telling him stories of
the old country."
After high school, Mr. Weisberg worked as a reporter for the Wilmington
Morning News and the Philadelphia Ledger, and he obtained some college
education at the University of Delaware in Newark before dropping out
when his father died.
Mr. Weisberg then went to work for the government.
Leaky Allegations
According to the FBI file, Mr. Weisberg's first position with the
government was on the U.S. Committee on Education and Labor, also known
as the LaFollette Civil Liberties Committee, headed by U.S. Sen. Robert
M. LaFollette, Jr., of Wisconsin.
The committee had begun during President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New
Deal as part of a National Labor Relations Board inquiry into attempts
by businesses to disrupt unions. At the time, labor reform efforts were
increasingly seen as tantamount to communism.
Mr. Weisberg began working for the committee in September 1936 and was
stationed in Harlan, Ky., known as "Bloody Harlan" for its violence, to
investigate the efforts of coal owners to dismantle labor's strength.
In a 1993 interview, he told Ms. Derr he was "deep" into the region's
corporate corruption and violence.
Mr. Weisberg's actions were apparently high-profile enough that the
Louisville division of the FBI was alerted by an unnamed person that he
was in the state, according to a December 1947 summary of Mr.
Weisberg's activities.
Although FBI files from the late 1940s indicate Mr. Weisberg ceased
working for Mr. LaFollette in June 1939, the reason for his dismissal
is not established until the mid-1960s, following the publication of
his first book, which was critical of the FBI.
In a June 6, 1966 memo from Alex Rosen, the FBI assistant director of
the general investigative division, to Cartha "Deke" DeLoach, the
assistant to the director in charge of investigations, Mr. LaFollette
fired Mr. Weisberg for leaking information to The Daily Worker, the
foremost communist newspaper in America.
Neither the specific allegations or accuser is established until more
than 25 years after the fact.
Until the Rosen-DeLoach memo, FBI files only identified Mr. Weisberg as
editor of committee publications by a "reliable source of information"
who knew him from 1936 to 1937 and "was of the opinion that Mr.
Weisberg was at least a communist sympathizer, but probably was closer
than that to the Party."
Labor Problems
During the same time period that Mr. Weisberg was in Harlan, Martin
Dies, a Texas Democrat in the House of Representatives, got a
resolution passed on May 26, 1938 to create the Dies Committee.
Although ostensibly created to focus on German-American activities in
American Nazi organizations and the Ku Klux Klan, the committee was
actually the forerunner to the House Un-American Activities Committee.
It spent its time looking for communist sympathizers in New Deal groups
such as the Federal Theatre Project.
According to the FBI files, in March 1940, Mr. Weisberg told officials
that following his dismissal from the LaFollette Committee, he
conducted "special research" for the Dies Committee. No specific
chronology of his work is available in the FBI file.
The reason why a government body that evolved into a group synonymous
with anti-communism would hire someone who had spent three years
investigating on the side of labor and allegedly leaking information to
the very people Dies was trying to destroy is unclear, from both the
FBI files and past interviews with Mr. Weisberg himself.
"That does make it rather counterintuitive," said Gerald McKnight,
emeritus professor of history at Hood and a friend of Mr. Weisberg's
for 30 years.
According to the book "The Committee: The Extraordinary Career of the
House Committee on Un-American Activities" by politics and ethics
writer Walter Goodman, Mr. Dies had been actively trying to disrupt the
LaFollette Committee with a proposal of an investigation into sit-down
strikes "frankly designed to counteract" its work, which extended into
1941.
In Mr. Goodman's book, Mr. Weisberg was recruited by Gardner Jackson, a
legislative representative of the pro-labor group Labor's Non-Partisan
League, in an effort to uncover allegations that Mr. Dies had made a
secret agreement with right-wing groups that any investigations would
focus on left-leaning groups or individuals.
According to Mr. Goodman, David Mayne, a Washington representative of
the fascist group Silver Shirts, founded by William Dudley Pelley, sold
forged letters indicating a conspiracy between Mr. Dies and Mr. Pelley.
Mr. Weisberg, on instructions from Mr. Jackson, bought these letters
for $105.
Mr. Mayne, who eventually confessed to forging the letters in an
attempt to trap anyone out to get Mr. Dies, was brought to trial,
pleaded guilty and received a suspended sentence.
This event is referenced in a letter Mr. Weisberg wrote to someone
named "Cameron" on March 14, 1940, in which he wrote he can send
information about the "Mayne-entrapment story."
If he was actively trying to obtain more dire information about the
Dies Committee while working for it, no information definitively
indicates he was working as a double agent. The FBI reported on his
activities in Harlan in 1936 but the files indicate Mr. Weisberg was
not being studied until the investigation in March 1940.
Mr. Ogilvie said Mr. Weisberg knew about bribery and misconduct among
committee officials.
"He found corruption within the Dies Committee," he said, adding that
Mr. Weisberg was brought before a grand jury and made a scapegoat for
his work. "They knew they were being subject to scrutiny they couldn't
afford."
Mr. McKnight was also aware of these events, and said Lillian, Mr.
Weisberg's wife and a worker in the U.S. agricultural department,
alerted her husband to the coming problem when she saw his name in a
memo.
"(His work in Harlan) got the attention of the Dies Committee," Mr.
McKnight said. "(Mr.) Dies would not have any problem with union
leaders being blown up in their homes."
In one of the 1993 interviews with Ms. Derr, Mr. Weisberg alluded to a
confrontation with the Dies Committee.
"They framed me. It was a hell of a fight," he said. "I won...I took
the grand jury away from the United States Attorney and I got the Dies
agent indicted on two felony charges. That was an experience like you
can't imagine."
Following Mr. Weisberg's strange role with the Dies Committee, the FBI
files indicate he worked for two magazines, Click and Friday as its
Washington, D.C. correspondent. While with Friday, Mr. Weisberg wrote
an article critical of Assistant Secretary of State Adolf A. Berle,
Jr., in 1940.
Mr. Weisberg told Ms. Derr that much of his reporting work centered on
uncovering the business of Nazi cartels. The FBI took notice,
mentioning his 1941 Click article about a Czech shoe manufacturer
entitled "Hitler's Foot Soldier."
The FBI also notes, "one Harold Weisberg was connected with the offices
of Congressman Vito Marcantonio," a politician noted for his radical
leftist politics. The FBI's summary states "it is not known if this
individual is identical with the subject of this memorandum."
Mr. Weisberg did have contact with the congressman, according to those
who knew him.
"They were good social friends," Mr. McKnight said. "That's all (Mr.)
Hoover would need to know."
>From Dec. 18, 1942 to Nov. 17, 1944, Mr. Weisberg served in the U.S.
Army. He did not see combat because he came down with mumps.
But very little of this information surfaces on FBI memos actually
dated for this time period. It is not until Mr. Weisberg is again fired
from a government agency, this time the State Department, for being an
alleged communist, that the FBI begins its prolonged interest in his
activities.
Postwar Paranoia
"The United States was trying, in the postwar decade, to create a
national consensus -- excluding the radicals, who could not support a
foreign policy aimed at suppressing revolution -- of conservatives and
liberals, Republicans and Democrats, around the policies of cold war
and anti-Communism," writes historian Howard Zinn in "A People's
History of the United States."
One of the marked results of the worries over domestic subversion was
the FBI's move toward investigations of political ideology,
particularly among government workers. Immunity for government
employees did not exist on any level, and Mr. Weisberg was caught up in
the purges of suspected communists in government positions.
In a recent interview with The Frederick News-Post, Mr. DeLoach said
the FBI's inquiries into the Communist Party were necessary. Once the
priorities of the FBI shifted from working on crime to intelligence
gathering and espionage during World War II, investigating communists
was a natural part of the FBI's missions, he said.
"The Communist Party, today, people think, is a futile organization,"
he said. "The Soviets viewed it as an excellent propaganda and
espionage tool."
As an example, Mr. DeLoach pointed to the FBI's "Solo Case," which
detailed the attempts of Soviet officials to buy influence in America's
Communist Party for millions of dollars.
Mr. DeLoach emphasized every case on suspected communists was opened
for good reasons, and the variety of FBI informants were of good
quality.
"Our purpose was to investigate and report to the attorney general and
the president of the United States. We didn't decide the principals,"
he said. "In order to protect the best interests of the United States,
it was absolutely necessary to investigate communism."
On March 24, 1947, President Harry Truman issued Executive Order No.
9835, establishing the Federal Employees Loyalty and Security Program.
In "Truman," historian David McCullough details how the president was
pressured into this decision by the elections of 1946, in which
Republicans had successfully campaigned on a platform of sniffing out
communists. Mr. Truman hoped an executive initiative could blunt the
overzealous factions in government.
"Importantly, he wanted no accusations of administration softness on
communism at home just as he was calling for a new hard approach to
communism abroad," Mr. McCullough wrote.
Under the program, 212 government employees were fired. Harold Weisberg
was one of them.
Anti-Government or Anti-Semitic?
Beginning in March 1946, Mr. Weisberg, despite being an alleged
political dissident and leaker to subversive literature, was hired by
the Office of Strategic Services, the forerunner to the Central
Intelligence Agency.
According to the FBI, he worked in the research and analysis branch for
the Latin American division.
Mr. McKnight said a difference in security culture between then and
now, as well as the lack of truth to Mr. Weisberg's communist leanings,
were probably the reasons a suspected communist was able to receive a
job dealing with highly sensitive information.
"I don't think people were as wrapped up in security as they are
today," he said. "I think if he were a stand-up card-carrying member he
wouldn't have gotten into security matters."
But it did not take long for the federal government to become
suspicious of Mr. Weisberg.
On Nov. 26, 1946, months before Mr. Truman's loyalty program started,
the State Department began its own inquiry into Mr. Weisberg, running a
neighborhood investigation, reference checks, and, most tellingly, a
review of the Dies Committee reports and Committee on Un-American
Activities information.
Soon afterward, the State Department brought in the FBI, and although a
Dec. 5, 1946, "spot check" of Mr. Weisberg came up with no information,
15 days later the FBI said he was a friend and contact for people under
investigation in the Nathan Gregory Silvermaster case.
The Silvermaster, or "Gregory" case, was an investigation into a Soviet
spy ring in the Department of Treasury. The FBI does not give any
further elaboration regarding Mr. Weisberg's association with the
Silvermaster case, despite repeating the claim in multiple FBI memos.
After a seven-month investigation, Mr. Weisberg and nine other
employees were dismissed on June 23, 1947, under the McCarran Rider,
which authorized the Secretary of State to terminate any employee when
it would be in the best interests of the United States.
Mr. Weisberg's communist sympathies are only definitively described in
FBI documents following his dismissal from the State Department, and
allegations against him continually expand as he becomes a high-profile
critic of the FBI in the 1960s.
It cannot be answered why Mr. Weisberg's communist sympathies were not
detailed earlier, and the knowledge gap lends credibility to any claims
the FBI only set about looking for its evidence after it had decided
the conclusion.
Both Mr. Ogilvie and David Wrone, history professor emeritus from
University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point and a friend of Mr. Weisberg's,
believe anti-Semitism had more to do with his firing from the State
Department than communism.
"(The employees) were Jews...it was an anti-Semitic thing," Mr. Wrone
said. "Harold Weisberg was not a communist by any means. It was a
political maneuver, so they tried to make them look like communists."
Because of his politics and dealings with labor, Mr. Weisberg
inevitably knew communists, Mr. McKnight said, but there is a
difference between those interactions and collusion.
"I don't doubt that Harold socialized (with communists), but he was
never a card-carrying member," he said. "But it didn't matter in those
days."
After a legal battle, Mr. Weisberg and his dismissed colleagues were
allowed to resign from the State Department without any record against
them in November 1947.
Mr. Weisberg's file contains a letter from his attorneys, several of
whom played large parts in Mr. Roosevelt's administration and the New
Deal -- Thurman Arnold, Abe Fortas, Paul A. Porter and Milton V.
Freeman. The letter thanks Mr. Weisberg for a gift he sent.
"You know it was a pleasure to be of service to you and your own
calmness and dignity under the most adverse circumstances were in no
small measure responsible for your ultimate vindication," the letter
states.
But in the FBI files, Mr. Weisberg was anything but vindicated.
<END QUOTE>
Best Regards in Research, Don
Don Roberdeau
U.S.S. John F. Kennedy, CV-67, "Big John," Plank Walker
Sooner, or later, the Truth emerges Clearly
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"Don Roberdeau" <drobe...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:1158602678.9...@b28g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
> Good Day.... Found the following 12-25-05 article, do not recall it
> being posted, so wanted to ensure it has been provided for reading....
You forgot to mention that Weisberg worked on the LaFollette Committee
with John J. Abt, the attorney who Oswald tried to contact to represent
him in Dallas. Weisberg mentioned Abt in a couple of his books, but he
never said anything about working for Abt because he always wanted to keep
that a secret because he didn't want his readers to know that he had
worked with the Communist Party attorney that Oswald wanted as his own
attorney in Dallas.
Weisberg told me about working for John Abt in a taped interview in 1992.
I got the same basic information in a taped conversation with John J. Abt
in 1986.
You also need to report that in 1947 Senator LaFollette wrote an article
for Colliers magazine in which he said why he had to fire some communists
and "fellow travelers" back in the 1930s, because they were stealing
confidential Senate documents and turning them over to the CPUSA which was
using them for their communist political propaganda purposes. (See "Turn
the Light on Communism" by Senator LaFollette, Colliers magazine, Feb. 8,
1947)
Weisberg told me that he was indeed fired by Senator LaFollette for taking
Senate documents that were later published in the CP newspaper.
You also forgot to mention that Weisberg was exposed for publishing a
faked letter about Martin Dies in The Nation magazine in 1940. This
information can be found in some of the New York Times issues of that
year. I have a copy of the Times articles and the faked letter as
published in The Nation in 1940. (See the NYT Feb. 1, 1940) (See The
Nation Jan. 27, 1940)
After more than a decade of working against our country for the Soviet
communist cause, he retired from government spying after he was fired from
the State Department in 1947, along with several other men who were found
to be associating "with known Soviet agents" (See the Washington
Times-Herald report about this from 4-21-47).
Weisberg became a chicken farmer between 1948 and 1963. He was a farmer
for less than 15 years. He went back to work on anti-American causes when
he began his series of fraudulent JFK "conspiracy" articles and books in
1963. His "conspiracy" work was praised in several issues of the Soviet
propaganda magazine "New Times" in the 1980s.
Don Roberdeau
Good Day....
((((part 2))))
http://www.fredericknewspost.com/sections/foi/display.htm?storyID=45265
<QUOTE>
ONE MAN VS. ONE GOVERNMENT (Part 2 of 2)
By Liam Farrell
News-Post Staff
Among Harold Weisberg's voluminous files, the late, self-made historian
had written a small note, possibly meant only for his eyes.
It is a poem, a brief rumination on the power of confusion. It contains
a reference to an excerpt in the Bible, Isaiah 59:9.
"So justice is far from us, and righteousness does not reach us," the
Bible passage reads. "We look for light, but all is darkness; for
brightness, but we walk in deep shadows."
Such sentiment is indelible to Mr. Weisberg, who spent the bulk of his
lifetime searching for answers to what he considered the darkest and
most troubling events in American history.
Mr. Weisberg, who died in 2002 at the age of 88 at his Frederick County
home, is known for a tumultuous career investigating assassinations and
self-publishing controversial books asserting government wrongdoing and
cover-ups.
His eight books, notably "Whitewash: The Report on the Warren Report,"
"Whitewash II: The FBI-Secret Service Cover-up," and "Post-mortem: JFK
Assassination Cover-up Smashed!," primarily focused on the
investigation into President John F. Kennedy's 1963 assassination, and
Mr. Weisberg tried to use the government's own documents against it.
He asserted the FBI and Warren Commission inquires into JFK's
assassination were faulty, ignoring, discarding, or obscuring evidence,
and were preconceived to conclude that Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone
assassin.
Mr. Weisberg worked extensively in getting the government to release
documents on the JFK assassination and others, such as the shooting
death of Martin Luther King, Jr.
In an interview with Joy Derr of Hood College in 1993, he estimated he
had been involved in 13 separate lawsuits to obtain information, most
of which he managed to get released.
In all, he donated the more than 300,000 government documents he
collected in filing cabinets in his basement to Hood College.
"(My work) is selfish. It's selfish," Mr. Weisberg told Ms. Derr. "Here
I was, the first member of my family ever born into freedom and when I
was old enough to realize it, I felt that I had an obligation to meet.
"What are (poet Robert) Frost's words? 'Promises to keep and miles to
go before we sleep'? It gave me an opportunity to repay that
obligation. And it means much to me, so much to me that although I have
sleep problems I never have trouble falling asleep."
Mr. Weisberg's FBI file was obtained by The Frederick News-Post through
the Freedom of Information Act.
The FBI, which had investigated Mr. Weisberg since the late 1930s and
escalated its efforts after he was dismissed from the State Department
for allegedly being a communist, had not stopped watching him after he
left public employment in 1947.
In fact, the legacy of dissidence he created during his government
career, from 1936 with the LaFollette Civil Liberties Commission to
1947 when he was fired from the State Department, would haunt him as he
worked to investigate the JFK assassination and other historic events.
Counting chickens
Mr. Weisberg's reappearance in FBI files was not planned. The roughly
16 years between his dismissal from the State Department's Office of
Strategic Services for alleged communist sympathies and the
assassination of Mr. Kennedy were focused mainly on chicken farming.
In the early 1960s, Mr. Weisberg made headlines in Frederick newspapers
because of the work on his Coq d'Or Farm in Hyattstown, where he and
his wife, Lillian, raised an assortment of poultry and founded the
"Geese for Peace" program, which donated ducklings and geese to St.
Lucia and Liberia for the Peace Corps and subsistence farming programs.
Mr. Weisberg was also an award-winning cook, claiming the National
Barbecue King title in 1959. His wife was also a star in that field,
winning many contests, including being named the 1956 National Chicken
Cooking Champion.
According to the interview with Ms. Derr, on Nov. 22, 1963, Mr.
Weisberg was in the henhouse gathering eggs when the transistor radio
on his waist broadcast the news that Mr. Kennedy had been shot.
"I stayed glued to the television as much as I could," he said. "None
of the things that happened should have happened."
Lee Harvey Oswald was killed the following day and about two weeks
later Mr. Weisberg filed a lead and summary for a proposed book to his
agent, convinced from the suspicious train of events in Dallas that
Oswald could not have been the true assassin.
The reply was not what he expected.
"She said 'I can't possibly handle this because nobody in New York will
consider anything other than what the government is saying'," Mr.
Weisberg told Ms. Derr. "She was so right you can't imagine how right.
I couldn't get another agent."
Fighting the power
Mr. Weisberg's overt conflicts with the government began again in 1961,
when Mr. Weisberg and his wife filed a federal torts suit against the
government for $9,950 in damages caused by low-flying helicopters they
claimed were ruining their poultry farm. The Weisbergs were awarded
$750, but the most serious damage the FBI did to Mr. Weisberg had
nothing to do with farming.
During the 1950s the FBI had been building its case that Mr. Weisberg
was a communist. A memo from the special agent in charge in the
Washington Field Office to FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover on Jan. 1,
1955, implicates Mr. Weisberg in the Harry Dexter White espionage case,
which was related to the investigation of the Treasury Department spy
ring and Nathan Gregory Silvermaster.
The memo concerns a suspect in the White case whose name was blacked
out by the FBI. A telephone directory seized from this person's home by
Washington Metro Police in 1948 contained Mr. Weisberg's name,
according to the FBI file.
No information is provided to explain Mr. Weisberg's connection to
either investigation. The events relating to the espionage cases
occurred seven years prior to the memo, and no other documents in the
FBI file contain this information.
While the telephone directory did not become part of the FBI's official
canon of communism on Mr. Weisberg, other tenuous information did.
The FBI states Mr. Weisberg inquired in Sept. 1959 about how Soviets
would react to his chickens competing against Russian poultry. Despite
the time frame of this information and some ambiguous references in
earlier memos, the alleged communist activities of Mr. Weisberg on his
farm are only published in definitive form in memos dating from the
mid-1960s and later.
This demonstrates the significant increase in the amount of
correspondence detailing Mr. Weisberg's life after the release of his
first two books -- in 1965 and 1966.
In a summary of Mr. Weisberg's history from Nov. 8, 1966, new
information is inserted, stating the farmer held celebrations of the
Russian Revolution with an annual picnic "attended by 25 or 30 people."
No informant or source of the new information is cited.
David Wrone, professor emeritus of history from University of
Wisconsin-Stevens Point and a friend of Mr. Weisberg's, said the idea
of Mr. Weisberg holding celebrations of the Russian Revolution is
absurd.
He said Mr. Weisberg would invite a local rabbi and Jewish children to
his farm, letting them play with his animals in celebration of the
Jewish new year.
"They were observing a Jewish ritual," Mr. Wrone said. "That was in
September. The Russian Revolution was in the last part of October."
Mr. Weisberg got the files the FBI had on him, Mr. Wrone said, and he
was extremely troubled by this information.
"It so enraged Harold when he got these documents," he said. "Why would
someone do this?"
The farmer knew the FBI was watching him, Mr. Wrone said, as Mr.
Weisberg could often pick out "men in dark suits" during public
appearances to talk about his books and he kept a log of the suspicious
phone calls he received in the middle of the night.
The first major criticism of Mr. Weisberg's work, and not his alleged
political beliefs, occurs after the printing of his first book,
"Whitewash: The Report on the Warren Report," which contended both the
FBI and Warren Commission engaged in egregious failures of evidentiary
investigation to reach a preconceived conclusion that Lee Harvey Oswald
was the lone assassin.
In a June 6, 1966 memo from FBI assistant director Alex Rosen to Cartha
"Deke" DeLoach, an assistant to Mr. Hoover and the No. 3 man in the
FBI, Mr. Weisberg is attacked for what the FBI considers his book's
failures.
"Due to the inaccuracies, falsehoods and deliberate slanting of facts
to fit his own purpose, coupled with Weisberg's subversive
background...it is not felt the Bureau should add dignity or
credibility to him by acknowledging his communication," Mr. Rosen
writes.
Mr. Rosen did not stray from personal attacks in the memo.
"He also said that there are nervous people and neurotics inevitably
(sic) there are those who have axes to grind -- hatreds or dislikes to
be indulged, and political objectives to be attained," Mr. Rosen wrote.
"From these comments it would appear Weisberg is adequately describing
himself."
This memo also offers a paragraph of background information that is
included in virtually all correspondence about Mr. Weisberg's
publications and attempts to get government documents.
"Following a review of this book it was determined it is nothing more
than a vitriolic and diabolical criticism of the President's Commission
and the FBI relating to the assassination of President Kennedy," the
memo states.
Credibility and character
Mr. DeLoach, who worked extensively with the media and the release of
information during the JFK investigation, was confident the FBI, the
Warren Commission and others involved in the JFK assassination reached
the right conclusion.
"Many authors try to sell a book and get a fast buck," he said in a
recent interview with The Frederick News-Post. "The fact remains that
Lee Harvey Oswald and Lee Harvey Oswald alone assassinated John F.
Kennedy."
Although he did not remember Mr. Weisberg well, Mr. DeLoach said he
read his work on the Martin Luther King, Jr., assassination, which was
of primary concern because he headed the FBI's investigation.
He said Mr. Weisberg's work contained "many fallacies."
"We always looked at criticism to determine whether they were valid or
not," Mr. DeLoach said. "We never investigated the authors (of critical
books) just to investigate them."
In addition, Mr. DeLoach said the FBI worked as efficiently as possible
giving out information to the public, but the FBI has responsibilities
to its sources and the sensitivity of its files.
"We tried the best we could to give out any information," he said. "I
have many good friends in the press. I've always worked with the press
and trusted them."
Although the FBI goes to great lengths detailing its disagreements with
Mr. Weisberg's findings and his statements during radio and television
appearances, the agency also criticized his character and used his
background as a reason not to give him information.
Here are some examples:
"All in all, the interview with Weisberg was a rehash of the many
unfounded allegations which have been made concerning the assassination
and merely another effort on the part of a writer to exploit the
assassination for his own financial gain." - Milton A. Jones, chief of
FBI crime records to Robert E. Wick, Mr. DeLoach's deputy, Sept. 13,
1966.
"In view of Weisberg's suspected Communist background, it was
recommended...that the FBI could not be of assistance to Weisberg in
this matter." - memo from R.H. Jevons, FBI assistant, to Ivan W.
Conrad, assistant chief of FBI Bureau Lab, Nov. 8, 1966.
"In view of Weisberg's background and his baseless allegations toward
Bureau Agents, it is not felt his letter of March 24th or any
subsequent correspondence should be acknowledged as it will only
encourage further letters from him." -- memo from G.E. Malmfeldt, an
agent of the FBI, to Thomas E. Bishop, assistant FBI director, April 1,
1969.
"It is unfortunate that the change in administration has not and
apparently will not make you certain that the element of politics
played no role in the investigation of the assassination of President
Kennedy or the formulation of the guidelines for release to the public
of information on the matter in Government files." - letter from Will
Wilson, assistant attorney general criminal division, to Mr. Weisberg,
April 8, 1969.
Some of these quotes are contradictory in noting how Mr. Weisberg's
communist background precludes agency cooperation while publicly
telling him politics are not a factor.
In a memo from Mr. Hoover to an assistant attorney general, dated Oct.
28, 1970, the director sets forth a policy based on Mr. Weisberg's
background.
"In view of Weisberg's character, he should not be given the
information he requests, and there is legal ground for our position,"
the memo states.
In denying Mr. Weisberg's requests for information, the FBI had offered
any one of three reasons: Mr. Weisberg was incorrect, the FBI did not
have the information he was looking for and his requests were not
legitimate because he had a history of communist activity.
The timing of the FBI's allegations, and the testimony of friends that
its information about Mr. Weisberg is baseless, can easily lead to the
question of what the bureau's real motives were.
Mr. Weisberg suspected the FBI was trying to obstruct him, commenting
in a Frederick News-Post article on July 31, 1980, "The truth is (the
FBI is) out to get me...they're out to stop me."
Even years before, when he was working as an investigator for James
Earl Ray, accused of killing Martin Luther King, Jr., Mr. Weisberg
wrote a letter to Attorney General John Mitchell on March 12, 1969,
accusing the FBI of spreading false information about him.
"I have been informed that teams of FBI agents are going around telling
people, some of whom I have never met, that I am a dangerous person, in
some unspecified way under 'Communist' influence," the letter states.
In spite of what the FBI file contains, the people who knew Mr.
Weisberg are adamant that he was not a communist.
Mr. Wrone said the author spent his life trying to improve America's
institutions, not bring them down.
"He thought this was the greatest country that ever lived," he said.
"Sometimes people call that patriotism."
Gerald McKnight, professor emeritus at Hood College and a friend of Mr.
Weisberg's for 30 years, said the farmer's personality could be
overwhelming and confrontational, and although such an attitude harmed
their friendship it was necessary to the work he did.
"There was a real authentic loyalty to the United States. He was
determined to fight this tooth and nail," Mr. McKnight said. "He had a
cathedral-like ego. One had to put up with that because it took someone
like that."
Mr. McKnight said Mr. Weisberg's accomplishments, regardless of his
personality, deserve respect.
"He was dictatorial, a control freak," he said. "On the other hand I
have to honor him because he was a remarkable man. Every day of his
life he worked on this topic."
Listening to Mr. Weisberg's own statements, he is candid about what he
tried to accomplish.
"If you want your country to be what it's supposed to be, no matter how
many times you don't succeed, you keep on trying," Mr. Weisberg told
Ms. Derr. "If you want to accept what happened and pretend it didn't
happen, you have a right to do it. But I don't want a country that lies
to the people.
"I don't want a country in which a president can be gunned down in
broad daylight on the streets of an American city and consigned to
history with the dubious epitaph of a whitewashed investigation.
"I don't want a country in which federal agents can lie with impunity,
including under oath, and only be promoted for it, in which the courts
don't work the way they're supposed to work, in which the Congress
doesn't and the media don't.
"And I don't think it's going to change right away. I have reason to
believe it will but I know that if you don't try you can't succeed."
mikesm...@hotmail.com
anything about working for Abt because he always wanted to keep that a
secret because he didn't want his readers to know that he had worked with
the Communist Party attorney that Oswald wanted as his own attorney in
Dallas. "
How would it have helped the readers to know who killed JFK?
gary...@yahoo.com
How about posting some of these articles? 50 year old copies of news
stories aren't that easy to come by.
jwrush
<mikesm...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:1158624004.2...@i42g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
It would have helped the readers to know the political affiliations and
associations of Weisberg, the author of the conspiracy books they were
reading.
The public already knew who killed JFK before Weisberg's books came out.
garag...@gmail.com
Thanks for this. It's terrific!
Gary
mikesm...@hotmail.com
jwrush wrote:
> <mikesm...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:1158624004.2...@i42g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
> > "Weisberg mentioned Abt in a couple of his books, but he never said
> > anything about working for Abt because he always wanted to keep that a
> > secret because he didn't want his readers to know that he had worked with
> > the Communist Party attorney that Oswald wanted as his own attorney in
> > Dallas. "
> >
> > How would it have helped the readers to know who killed JFK?
>
> It would have helped the readers to know the political affiliations and
> associations of Weisberg, the author of the conspiracy books they were
> reading.
>
analyses it. How does Weisberg's political point of view prove true or
wrong his analysis? That's the question.
gary...@yahoo.com
Thanks Johann for the documents. I am interested in one statement you
made, that "Weisberg told me that he was indeed fired by Senator
LaFollette for taking
Senate documents that were later published in the CP newspaper." I
would be interested in hearing your interview with Weisberg.
jwrush
<gary...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1158766425.8...@i3g2000cwc.googlegroups.com...
He told me that he did take the documents and did turn them over to someone
who had them published, but he claimed that the documents were not secret.
His attitude was that no government document should be secret, if, in his
opinion, it shouldn't be secret, therefore he didn't recognize any secrecy
claim on any documents he took. He was the sole judge of what documents
should and should not be "secret". That's why La Follette fired him. That is
not a decision that a low-level staff member can make.
He also claimed that he had no idea that the guy he turned them over to had
any communist affiliations and he also claimed that he didn't know if John
Apt had any communist affiliations. He acted like his theft of confidential
documents and having them published in a pro-Soviet communist newspaper was
nothing wrong. Of course La Follette fired him for doing what he did.
Today, this kind of theft and release to the press of confidential
government documents from a government agency by a staff member is called a
"leak". Weisberg liked to "leak" the documents he stole to the CP and their
associates so they could put a leftist political and pro-Soviet spin on the
documents when they published them. Today, that would be like someone
leaking a confidential government document not to the mainstream media, but
to the Arabic anti-American press. The CP and pro-Soviet press of the 1930s,
'40s, '50s, and '60s was an anti-American press. This anti-Americanism was
put on "hold" for a few years during WW II when we were allies with Russia
in the fight against Germany.
Of course Weisberg knew Abt and the others were communists. This was well
known back in the 1930s and '40s. People were openly communists back then.
They pretended the CP was just an average political party. It wasn't until
after WWII that government intelligence agencies, the mass media, and the
public began to fully realize that the CP was directly affiliated with the
Soviet government.
Abt published a book back in 1993 titled:
"Advocate and Activist: Memoirs of an American Communist Lawyer" by John J.
Abt.