19 LIFTON THE FRAUD THE FRAUD THE FRAUD
Flounderball
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CHAPTER TWELVE
COME TO ME WITH YOUR PROBLEMS. BRING YOUR MANUSCRIPT.
"[M]ucking around in assassination research is a
highly charged affair. . . If any reader . . .
thinks he is getting obsessed, come to me. I'll
tell you my secrets. I don't charge very much." -
- David Lifton (1993)
"In Best Evidence, my own experiences during
this extraordinary period of my life are
faithfully recorded." -- David Lifton (1993)
In a January 26, 1981, televised interview on NBC's
Tomorrow Show, host Tom Snyder asked Lifton whether he did
not take a conclusion and set out to support it. Lifton
replied, "No, I looked for evidence to support the FBI
report. If I hadn't found it, there'd be no book."
(Author's notes) Mr. Lifton, whom Macmillan sent for
tutoring in how to handle such public appearances, evaded
Snyder's question and was less than candid with his
audience.
The personalization of Mr. Lifton's book may ultimately
prove to have been one major cause of its downfall. It
requires scant reflection to realize that, no matter how
honest one's intentions might be at the outset, the natural
desire and inclination to present oneself and one's work on
such a serious subject as the Kennedy assassination in the
most favorable light can yield to a compulsion toward self-
justification and compromises with fact, threatening the
integrity of the whole. Moreover, a work that purports to
lead its readers through the labyrinthine thoughts and
associations of its author as a device used to validate both
its biographical motif and its conclusions, necessarily
loses a great deal of its force in argument when all or some
of the "connective tissue" that both anchors and impels the
train of thought turns out to be wholly missing, or
significantly disrupted in continuity.
Such a book poses a dilemma to the critic and
historian: When the alleged journey is interwoven with its
destination, i.e., when the line of demarcation is blurred -
- and willfully so -- for alleged commercial considerations,
is anything about the author's detours, e.g., his collateral
research activities and theories, that he has failed to
disclose "off limits" to scrutiny, evaluation and comparison
with the final work so as to determine its precision and
fidelity to the facts? Since selectivity is the prerogative
-- and some might argue the duty -- of an author, I think
not, for the reason that such undisclosed information is
relevant to assessing bias, maturity of judgment, motive and
method.
As Lifton himself told radio announcer Ben Baldwin,
substituting for Larry King during a Mutual Radio interview
on January 30, 1981, "[There's] some point where there's a
line between the deceivers and the deceived." (Author's
notes from radio program.) The purpose of this section is
to demarcate that line.
There are several revealing aspects of Mr. Lifton's
experiences, insights, and theories in the course of his
research that he neglected to include in "Best Evidence",
which considered, illuminate its direction, structure and
substance so as to afford a more cohesive picture of Mr.
Lifton's systematic approach to the Kennedy assassination.
Instead, he seeks to persuade his readers that he is almost
apologetic for having to offer up the shocking theory of the
book by portraying his early motivations as benign:
"When I began my research, I found it difficult
to believe the authorities would lie, and my
initial interest stemmed more from being intrigued
with the event as an unsolved crime, and my
somewhat naive and abstract interest in seeing
that 'justice' was done, than from any political
or ideological motivation." (Chapter 4)
Lifton moreover implies that it was not until late
October 1966, when he appreciated of the "head surgery"
statement in the Sibert and O'Neill report, that he became
convinced of a high-level plot. (End of Chapter 7)
A Band of Little Men in the Woods
-------------------------------------------
David Lifton called Sylvia Meagher late on the night of
October 30, 1965, explaining that he wanted to show her that
he was "not far out and not a kook." (Meagher, Sylvia. Memo
of Telephone Conversation with Dave Lipton [sic], Saturday
night, 30 October 1965) Dutifully, Sylvia recorded for
posterity the early manifestations of Mr. Lifton's
propensity to explain all things in the assassination in
terms of disguise.
"Dave is certain that the [Moorman] photo was
doctored -- probably by someone high-up in the
Times-Herald, on instructions from LBJ, before it
was ever released, so as to conceal the betraying
details on the original." (Meagher, Sylvia. Memo
of Telephone Conversation with Dave Lipton [sic],
Saturday night, 30 October 1965)
"Dave believes that there was a massive
camouflage-and-guerrilla operation, involving
perhaps 100 men, and that the assassination was a
"high Texas" and "Army-military" attempted coup,
and that LBJ was forced to cover it up, because if
the high Texans were exposed, no one would believe
that LBJ was not involved, even if he really was
not.
"He believes that the trees on the grassy knoll
were camouflage; men were concealed in capsules;
they may have remained there until dark and then
made their escape. He believes there was a trench
in front of the concrete structure, with phony
hedges; and a trench also on the other side of Elm
Street, where gray and black shadows and swatches
appear on the Zapruders [sic] without any natural
explanation. ... I asked him also if it is
possible that the elaborate engineering job (which
he thinks was in progress for several days before
11/22/63) and the camouflage-and-guerrillas could
have escaped penetration by all of the numerous
witnesses who were present. ...He believes...that
they all saw what was really going on the grassy
knoll; and that they are maintaining silence for
the same reason that no one helped Kitty Genovese
when she was being murdered under the eyes of many
witnesses." (Meagher, Sylvia. Memo of Telephone
Conversation with Dave Lipton [sic], Saturday
night, 30 October 1965)
Apart from the possibility of their indifference, it
seems that Mr. Lifton also believed that some of the
witnesses were intimidated by direct threats from the
assassins. For example, In the case of Zapruder's
secretary, Marilyn Sitzman, who was steadying Mr. Zapruder
as he took his film, and who told the Dallas Sheriff's
office that the shots came from the Texas School Book
Depository [See, Decker Exhibit 5323, page 535 -- RBF], Mr.
Lifton was "certain that the guerrillas were right behind
Sitzman and probably spoke to her, warning her to say
nothing or she would be killed -- otherwise, how account for
her saying that the shots came from the TSBD, while all the
others including Zapruder thought the shots came from the
grassy knoll area?????" (Meagher, Sylvia. Memo of Telephone
Conversation with Dave Lipton [sic], Saturday night, 30
October 1965)
Sylvia was so dismayed by Mr. Lifton's call that she
wrote him: "I am sorry to say that you succeeded with one
phone call where the massive propaganda of the Warren
Commission and the news media had failed -- you made me
wonder for the first time if Oswald was not the lone
assassin after all." (Meagher, Sylvia. Letter to David
Lifton, November 2, 1965)
Again, this writer anticipates the charge of unfairness
and ill motive in calling attention to what might at first
appear the nascent follies of a young and enthusiastic
assassination researcher. Some of us have momentarily toyed
with theories which, in hindsight, seem appalling to us now.
This, however, is emphatically not the case with Mr. Lifton,
for while he downplayed his adherence to the "paper mache
trees" theory (which he self-effacingly prefers to call "the
men in trees" theory), in later correspondence and
conversations with Meagher, it resurfaced time and again,
after his studies had far progressed and become more
sophisticated:
In a 1967 memorandum synthesizing his analysis of the
JFK head snap in the Zapruder film, Mr. Lifton confronted
the theorists who believed in a double-head-hit based on the
forward motion of Kennedy's head during Z312-313, followed
by the backward thrust. He argued that the entire motion of
Kennedy's head could be explained as the result of a
forward-originating high-angle shot from the grassy knoll
area. A portion of this memorandum is adapted as narrative
in "Best Evidence", although significant portions are
omitted. For example, Mr. Lifton's memo recalled that he
had concluded in August 1965 that the hedge rows in front of
the concrete wall on the knoll, as well as whole trees, were
fake devices constructed to house men and equipment, and
that the knoll had been excavated to install a proper
foundation. Beneath the surface of the knoll were "bunker-
like" structures with men and material in them. Lifton now
argued, "The 312-313 [forward] motion means one of two
things: either camouflage was used, or the double-head-hit
theorists are correct." (Lifton, David. Memorandum Re: Head
Snap Phenomenon and Zapruder Film Frame Sequence, March 20,
1967)
As will be discussed in a later chapter of this work,
Mrs. Meagher attempted to dissuade Lifton from promulgating
his theory, lest it subject the critics to ridicule. Her
worst fears were realized, however, when Lifton was
interviewed on June 7, 1967, by an associate producer
involved in the preparation of CBS News' four-part
documentary on the Warren Report. Robert Richter reported
that,
"Lifton has been specializing his interest in
the photographic evidence. He plans to write a
book over the next couple of months on this and
other matters he was reluctant to discuss. But he
intimated he would have proof in his book of the
involvement of people 'very high up' in the
federal government
"He suggests that camouflage may have been used
in Dealey Plaza and left there, at least for a few
days. He suggests that this may have been
arranged with cooperation from the Dallas Mayor,
Earle Cabell, because his brother Richard Cabell
was one of the leaders in the CIA Bay of Pigs
operation.
"The camouflage may be, according to Lifton, in
the form of additions to trees on the knoll. He
concedes this is a 'radical approach' but he
believes it could make sense for the basic reason
that in frames 313 and following in the Zapruder
film, Kennedy's head snaps back and to the left,
strongly suggesting a shot came from the knoll
area. . . .
"Another claim for possible camouflage is a
report Lifton got from Liebeler from the FBI of a
big crane being moved thru [sic] Dealey Plaza late
in the evening of Nov. 22. the men who had been
running the crane thru the plaza had a large piece
of concrete in tow, which they told police
officers on the scene was for their plan to build
a monument for Kennedy. When the police insisted
they move on, the men got out of the crane cabin
and fled. It turned out to have been a stolen
crane. Lifton wildly speculates that the crane
may also have been designed for use to remove the
camouflage that night, and he says the peculiar
incident was never checked out. . . .
"At this time, and perhaps at all times, he
cannot be taken seriously." (Richter, Robert.
Memorandum re David Lifton, June 7, 1967)
Exactly two years after his last letter to her
mentioning the camouflage theory, Mr. Lifton wrote Sylvia
Meagher: "About trees. You know, I haven't pushed that, but
in my heart I think thats [sic] how it was done. . . . The
concept is so outlandish and ridiculous sounding that, even
if it were done, the only way it will ever be proven is
through direct evidence of its installation at a previous
hour." (Lifton, David. Letter to Sylvia Meagher, March 21,
1969)
The Impersonations of Kellerman and Greer
------------------------------------------------------
Lifton's association with Wesley Liebeler, and his
penchant for secrecy strained the Lifton-Meagher
relationship to a nearly complete breaking point. The
breach began to heal, and relations between them improved,
as Lifton demonstrated his ostensibly sincere interest in
researching the Warren Commission's unpublished documents.
By the early summer of 1970, however, the relationship
between Meagher and Lifton finally collapsed under the
crushing weight of her efficient demolition of his newest
insights.
Late April or early May 1970, Lifton revealed to Sylvia
Meagher that he believed there had been a switch of Secret
Service Agents in the presidential limousine at some point
along the motorcade route through downtown Dallas, and that
neither Secret Service Agents Kellerman or Greer were
actually in the presidential limousine at the time of the
assassination. (David Lifton Letters to Sylvia Meagher, May
16 and 27, 1970) In fact, he said, he had called both men
to ask them if it really was them in the limousine. (Ibid.,
May 16, 1970) Of course, this fantasy tempts us to ask: How
could David be sure that he was actually speaking to
Kellerman and Greer? Conversely, were they sure it was him?
Why could there not have been an agent switch at the other
end of the telephone line (much easier than executing such a
maneuver in full view of thousands of spectators lining the
streets of Dallas) or an alter ego substituting at Lifton's
end? Or both? He could have gone to the beach, they could
have watched a ball game, and the substitutes could have had
an interesting conversation.
Even at this late stage in his work on the case, Mr.
Lifton returned to his theory of camouflage on the knoll:
"I still suspect that camouflage was employed,
to some extent, on the plaza, to conceal shooters.
None of this will appear in my work. . . . I feel
it is more important to . . . let what one
suspects play the role of directing ones [sic]
investigation, as time permits.
"I am well aware of the public relations blunder
it would be to voice my suspicions in the absence
of definitive proof, in a manuscript." (Lifton,
David. Letter to Sylvia Meagher, July 19, 1970)
Mr. Lifton's theory of the Kellerman and Greer "switch"
was tied to his theory pertaining to the Zapruder film,
i.e., that it had been altered to conceal a stop by the
driver of the presidential limousine during the
assassination sequence, as reportedly seen by a few
witnesses to the crime. Mr. Lifton believed those witnesses.
"[T]he film shows *every indication* that both men up front
[Kellerman and Greer] are waiting, aware of, the next shot
about to come." (Lifton, David. Letter to Sylvia Meagher,
June 27, 1970) Furthermore, according to this theory, the
film had been spliced to conceal the car stop (ibid.), and
faked to conceal the rear (Parkland) head wound after Z-313.
(Lifton, David. Memorandum re: Head Snap Phenomenon and
Zapruder Film Frame Sequence, March 20, 1967) But how?
Lifton theorized that the film had been intercepted before
reaching LIFE Magazine at the local F.B.I. and Secret
Service level in Dallas. "Doing the alterations is merely a
technical problem." (Lifton, David. Letter to Sylvia
Meagher, June 27, 1970) He pointed to Secret Service agent
Forrest V. Sorrel's shepherding of the Zapruder film through
processing and printing, as well as the F.B.I.'s alleged
complicity in its canvassing of the Dallas area for
spectators' films during the weeks following the
assassination.
Of necessity, the theory required that the surviving
occupants of the limousine (including Kellerman, Greer, and
the Connallys) were liars and perjurers, except for Jackie
Kennedy; she "was so panicked and frightened that she would
not possibly be able to remember." (Lifton, David. Letter
to Sylvia Meagher, June 27, 1970) (Compare this with his
reliance upon Jackie's Warren Commission testimony to
corroborate the location of Kennedy's head wound in "Best
Evidence")
Sylvia Meagher pierced this nonsense with ease. I will
simply summarize here the questions that Mr. Lifton was
obviously unprepared to answer: First, Did anyone know on
the afternoon or evening of the assassination just how the
Zapruder film ought to be doctored? Who would have done it?
(Lifton's interception theory assumed that the Army, or
NASA, or some Hollywood-type facilities and accomplices
would have to be involved.) What motive did the Secret
Service have to participate in the assassination? Was the
F.B.I. so thorough in its investigation of the case that it
could be relied upon to gather all the assassination film
available? What if some bystanders were to take their film
directly to the media and reveal footage irreconcilable with
the doctored Zapruder film? And, why go to all this trouble
to distract attention from the grassy knoll, when dozens of
still available witnesses thought the shots came from the
knoll, and hundreds rushed there in the immediate wake of
the shooting? Meagher suggested that, if Lifton were the
Captain on the sinking Titanic he would ask the ship's
carpenter to fix a broken chair.
Mr. Lifton went to extraordinary lengths during his
early career to gather evidence for his theory that the
Zapruder film had been altered. In late 1968, associates of
Lifton obtained a copy of the copy of the Zapruder film that
Jim Garrison had subpoenaed from LIFE Magazine for the trial
of Clay Shaw in New Orleans. (Lifton, David. Letter to
Sylvia Meagher, March 17, 1969) Scratches on that copy from
repeated projection, as well as petty squabbles among some
of the West Coast researchers over possession of the film,
impeded Mr. Lifton's research.
In June 1970, he engaged in a plan to induce LIFE to
afford him access in Los Angeles to a first-generation
duplicate of the original Zapruder film, as well as
transparencies. An inspection of the original in New York
City was also arranged, but apparently never realized. The
cooperation of a Hollywood film producer was secured in
trumping up a phony bid to purchase the film from LIFE. The
producer gave Lifton and his cohorts access to an office and
letterhead stationery. (Lifton, David. Letter to Sylvia
Meagher, June 17, 1970)
On Monday, June 22, 1970, LIFE flew two copies of the
film and many slides to Los Angeles by courier for the
producer's inspection. Mr. Lifton and his associates headed
for the producer's office. By pre-arrangement with Lifton,
the producer was absent from his office when the courier
arrived, but he placed a phone call to his office timed to
coincide with the courier's arrival, in order to excuse
himself and introduce Mr. Lifton and company as his
representatives in the proposed transaction.
As Mr. Lifton examined the 16 millimeter copy of the
Zapruder film LIFE had sent, the courier left the room for
several minutes. One of Mr. Lifton's associates then
whipped out a camera and began shooting pictures of the
transparencies arrayed on a light box.
When Mr. Lifton and his associates left the producer's
office, a 16 millimeter reel of the Zapruder film left also,
and a reel of electrical extension cord wrapped in tissue
was left in its box. (Lifton, David. Letter to Sylvia
Meagher, June 25, 1970)
It merits attention that Mr. Lifton goes to
considerable lengths in "Best Evidence" to conceal his early
preoccupation with the theory of Zapruder film alteration,
and his 1970 stunt to find evidence for it. In a lengthy
footnote in Chapter 24, he describes an examination of a 35
mm print of the film at Time-Life's Los Angeles offices in
1971, implying that he first discovered theretofore unknown
splices during that inspection. He says that, only then,
did he begin to explore "the possibility that the Zapruder
film itself had been altered" before it went to either
Time/Life or the Warren Commission, yet another example of
Mr. Lifton's rewriting the history of his activities in a
book marketed as non-fiction. Mr. Lifton proposes in his
book a theory that the "blob" seen on the right-front of the
President's head during the fatal wounding sequence of the
film is fake. One of my colleagues has suggested that
Lifton suffers from "selective amnesia". He suggests that
Mr. Lifton and his readers take a look at the WFAA-TV
interview with Zapruder on the afternoon of the
assassination in the commercially sold video tape, "The Day
the Nation Cried". There, Zapruder describes what he saw
while looking through his viewfinder, including the wound at
the right-front of the head.
The imagery of people and objects associated with the
assassination being moved around by unseen forces as pawns
in a game of chess occurs several times in Lifton's
correspondence with Meagher. It may well be the organizing
principle of Mr. Lifton's work on the assassination. I do
not emphasize this point, but mention it in passing as a
possible channel to the depth of abstraction in his pattern
of thought about the case. One may discern in the Marx
Brothers-like reconstruction of casket movements in "Best
Evidence" a degree of difficulty in reconciling neat
abstractions with real-world constraints.
Understandably, while Mr. Lifton writes about the toll
that his assassination research took on his personal life,
educational and career development, he nonetheless omits to
mention in his book that, by January 1966, as his
infatuation with the theme of surreal illusion in the
assassination grew, he became temporarily incapacitated from
his normal and customary pursuits. (Lifton, David. Letter
to Sylvia Meagher, March 21, 1969; Author's conversations
with Sylvia Meagher; and conversation with Raymond Marcus,
early 1989.) In the unexpurgated, real-life version of
"Best Evidence", the chips did not merely fall into place
over time, some of them fell off the game board to the floor
and had to be picked up.
The Cat Among the Pigeons
----------------------------------
Camouflage of the President's wounds is the motif of
"Best Evidence", not the interposition of multiple disguises
upon the scene of the assassination which preoccupied Mr.
Lifton during the late Sixties. Still, in presenting his
deconstruction of a medical forgery, it is Mr. Lifton
himself who guardedly camouflages his preconceptions and
political ideology. This is the second major cause of his
book's downfall. The conspiracy theory in "Best Evidence"
is, indeed, a hypothesis structured on a political theory of
sorts that germinated during the height of the Vietnam
conflict -- that Lyndon Johnson was involved ["I am of the
opinion and hold the theory that LBJ and Rusk were involved
before the fact, heavily involved, in the plot to kill JFK."
(Lifton, David. Letter to Sylvia Meagher, August 12, 1968);
"The JFK assassination was a high level plot, possibly
involving personalities such as LBJ, Rusk, and Dulles."
(Lifton, David. Letter to Sylvia Meagher, August 7, 1969)],
and that the Secret Service was intimately associated with
its execution ["I believe that some of the agents on that
follow-up car are involved ..." (Lifton, David. Letter to
Sylvia Meagher, June 27, 1970)]. It is this political
theory that guided Lifton's search for evidence,
notwithstanding that his publicity handlers tutored him to
respond otherwise to interviewers.