Why the JFK Case Still Matters



WHY THE JFK CASE STILL MATTERS



I am sometimes asked, "Who cares who shot JFK?  That

happened way back in 1963.  What difference does it

make now?  And what can we do about it anyway?"



For those individuals who have studied the assassination

for decades, it is hard to understand how anyone could not

see the importance and relevance of the case.  On the

other hand, those of us who only got involved with the

case in the last few years can readily appreciate that some

people simply don't see what difference it makes any more

given the fact that the shooting occurred in late 1963.



I take myself as a case in point.  I was raised on the belief that

Oswald alone killed President Kennedy.  Period, end of story.

When I became aware that some people doubted this, I was

mildly interested to know who else, if anyone, might have been

involved, but I really didn't think about it all that much.  I do

recall, however, watching as a teenager in 1979 a news

report on the fact that the House Select Committee on

Assassinations (HSCA) had just concluded that the President

had probably been killed by a conspiracy.  I was fascinated

by this news, but, lacking any further information, and not

understanding the implications of the illegal removal of

an American President, I quickly forgot about the whole

affair and continued on with my daily life.



Like many other persons, I became seriously interested in the

assassination as a result of seeing Oliver Stone's movie "JFK."

I went to see it in the early part of 1992.  I was enthralled by

it almost instantly.  Breaking my usual theater habits, I didn't

get up to get popcorn. I sat there, glued to my seat, trying

to soak up every detail.  When the film ended, I sat in my

seat until every last credit rolled off the screen.  I was

stunned, utterly stunned.  I thought to myself, "If half of

what that movie says is true, this is incredible, and we're

in real trouble!"  It dawned on me that some of those who

were involved in the assassination conspiracy, as well as

those who took part in the cover-up that followed, might still

be alive.  I wondered how we, as a nation, could have been

misled for so long about the most important facts concerning

the death of one of our Presidents.  I decided I needed to

learn all I could about the assassination.  And here I am.



What if the official position of the U.S. Government on the

Holocaust were that it never really happened, and that the

number of Jews killed during WW II was drastically less than

6 million?  Why would we feel it important to set the record

straight?  Why would Jewish Americans in particular, as well

as the nation of Israel, feel it especially important to pass on

the true history of the Holocaust to the next generation?

The answers to these questions are self-evident.



In addition, why do we still attempt to bring Nazi war criminals

to justice so many years after the fact?  Again, the answer

seems obvious.  We want and deserve justice.  We need

justice.  An orderly, lawful, humane society cannot survive

when there is little or no justice.  Horrendous crimes cannot

be allowed to go unpunished.  Nor can we allow such crimes

to be covered-up.



Those who do not learn from the mistakes of history are bound

to repeat them.  In the '60s and '70s powerful forces conspired

to kill, not only President Kennedy, but also Robert Kennedy

and Dr. Martin Luther King.   A prime motivation for these murders

was the desire on the part of the conspirators to see the Vietnam

War continue and escalate.  Are those forces, or ones similar to

them, in operation today?  I believe there is evidence that suggests

the answer to this question is yes.



After the shooting, elements of the FBI, the CIA, and the

military worked to conceal the truth about President

Kennedy's death from the Warren Commission and, more

importantly, from the American people.   The Warren

Commission, however, was not exactly hard to fool.  Its

so-called "investigation" into the assassination will go

down in history as one of worst examples of ethical and

criminal negligence on the part of a federal investigative

body in the twentieth century.  Lyndon Johnson played

a major role in the cover-up.  The U.S. Government's

official stamp of approval was placed on an ugly, absurd

national lie, i.e., that Oswald alone killed Kennedy, that

the President's death was merely the random act of a

lone, crazed gunman, and that no conspiracy of any

kind was involved.  The true killers, along with those who

orchestrated the President's murder, were neither identified

to the public nor punished.



On balance, the news industry failed us miserably.  Instead of

independently investigating the assassination, the press pretty

much took its lead from the federal government, and in most

cases actively defended the lone-gunman scenario.  This sad

pattern continues to this day, as evidenced by the inordinate

amount of praise the news industry heaped upon Gerald

Posner's badly flawed defense of the single-assassin theory,

CASE CLOSED.  With few exceptions, the press still parrots

and defends the lone-gunman scenario.  Some of the worst

offenders continue to be U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT,

TIME, NEWSWEEK, and CBS.



One of the reasons I was more or less indifferent to the

Kennedy assassination was that I believed JFK had been

a weak, socialist-leaning liberal whose economic and

defense policies were doing harm to America and to

the cause of freedom.  It's only been in the last few years

that I've learned that the Bay of Pigs disaster was not really

Kennedy's fault, that he was strong on defense, and that,

far from being a socialist, he was very much a free-market,

fiscal conservative who, among other things, favored tax

cuts, curbing the power of the Federal Reserve System (if

not eliminating it entirely), and backing our currency with a

valuable metal.



It is important that citizens trust their government.  It is equally

important that the government be deserving of their trust.

Noted conservative author Kevin Phillips recently observed

that the marked decline in the public's confidence in the

government began with the publication of the Warren Report.

Acknowledging the whole ugly truth about President Kennedy's

death, and about the shameful cover-up that followed, would

be a valuable, major step in restoring the public's faith in the

government.  We have, in my opinion, the greatest form of

government in the world.  But in order for our system to work

and thrive and prosper, the government must be honest with

the people; and the people, in turn, must take a strong interest

in making sure that the government is ethical, efficient, and

obedient to the Constitution.



The assassination of President Kennedy was nothing less

than a bloody coup d'etat, a coup whose goal was to escalate

the war in Vietnam and to put an end to Kennedy's monetary,

social, and defense-policy reforms.  This coup was followed by

a massive cover-up, a cover-up that was carried out primarily

by Lyndon Johnson and by powerful elements in the FBI, in the

CIA, and in the military.  Certain key members of the Dallas Police

Department also played an important role in the cover-up.  It is

important that this be understood so that our nation will not

suffer such an awful crime and tragedy again.  Dr. Cyril Wecht,

a nationally recognized forensic expert and a former member

of the HSCA's medical panel, put it well when he said,



     I think it's extremely important for the American people

     to know that there can be the overthrow of a government,

     that there can be a coup d'etat in America, and that that

     in fact did happen with the assassination of President

     Kennedy.  In order to prevent that kind of thing from

     happening again, and in order to expose the forces

     that were responsible for that murder and for the

     cover-up that has ensued,  . . it's necessary to expose

     them, otherwise we can have the same thing happen

     again. . . .  If they were able to do it to John F. Kennedy

     in 1963, they could do it to some other president in the

     future.



Incredibly, our government continues to place its official stamp

of approval on the single-bullet theory, which is the most crucial,

and the most fraudulant, component of the lone-gunman

story.  Our government also continues to maintain that Lee

Harvey Oswald fired all the shots that struck President

Kennedy, in spite of the evidence to the contrary.  It is time

for these lies to end, and for our government to formally

repudiate them once and for all.



Disturbingly, there are indications that many of the same forces

that were responsible for President Kennedy's death are alive

and well today.  Most of the names have changed, but the

philosophy and goals appear to have remained the same.



It is possible that some of those who played a role in President

Kennedy's death are still alive, and some of the individuals who

took part in the cover-up are most certainly still alive.  These

are two more reasons that the case very much still matters.



We, as Americans, want and expect the truth, especially about

such an historic and monumentally important event as the

assassination of one of our Presidents.  The Kennedy

assassination is, among other things, the story of how some

of our most important institutions--our government, our press,

and later our higher educational system---failed, failed us,

failed America.  Surely it is important for us to know as much

as possible about this event.  We cannot learn from the tragic

mistakes, gross abuses of power, and crimes that were involved

in President Kennedy's death.  We know about many of them,

thanks in large part to the patriotic and tireless efforts of private

citizens and organizations.  But there is still much to be learned,

much that NEEDS to be learned.  And our government still needs

to repudiate the lone-gunman story and to conduct a thorough,

honest investigation into President Kennedy's death.



The FBI and the CIA continue to resist full disclosure of

sealed assassination-related records.  In fact, on May 15,

the FBI filed a brief to block the full disclosure of 13

important FBI documents relating to the assassination.

The CIA has yet to explain suspicious aspects of Oswald's

CIA files.  George Bush seemingly did all he could to

prevent the formation of the Assassination Records Review

Board, which is doing such an important, valuable work.

The Justice Department's performance on the case has long

been abysmal, to put it mildly.  So as far as certain elements of

the government are concerned, the assassination definitely

still matters.



Why does the JFK case still matter?  Because it concerns

principles that affect the very heart of our democratic system

and our institutions. Because some of those responsible for

President Kennedy's death might still be alive and could

be brought to justice.  Because some of those who took

part in the ensuing cover-up are most certainly alive and

could also be brought to justice, or at least fully exposed.

Because much of the physical evidence in the case has

yet to be properly examined and analyzed.  Because many

of the witnesses are still alive, and will remain alive for at

least the next ten to twenty years.  Because no nation can

build upon national lies.  Because no nation can prosper

and grow when the people increasingly distrust the

government.  Because those who fail to learn from the

mistakes of history are bound to repeat them.  Because

many of the same forces that brought about JFK's murder

appear to be alive and well and need to be exposed and

dealt with.  Because millions of Americans continue to be

inspired by President Kennedy's vision of a better, stronger,

and more just America.  Because we owe it to the thousands

of Americans who were needlessly killed or wounded in

Vietnam to fully expose the forces that murdered President

Kennedy.  Because we owe it to ourselves.  Because we

want and deserve the truth--and the truth, as the saying goes,

will indeed set us free.



It matters because, in a very real sense, it led to subsequent

major scandals and tragedies, such as the Phoenix Program,

Watergate, the assassinations of RFK and Dr. King, CIA

abuses in Central America, the Vietnam War, and the

resulting civil unrest that so badly divided our nation, the

attempt on Gov. George Wallace's life, the Iran-Contra

affiar, Ruby Ridge, and the tragedy at Waco.  Indeed some

of the same forces--and, in a few instances, a few of the

same individuals--suspected of involvement in the Kennedy

assassination surfaced in some of these later scandals

as well.



Even some staunchly conservative commentators, writers

who have previously defended the FBI, have become

disturbed about what they rightly see as instances of

gross abuse of power by FBI agents (as well as by other

federal agents).  There have been several reports, a few

of them presented on major network TV, that federal agents

have confiscated private land on the basis of clearly phony

charges.  In recent months a senior FBI lab scientist made

the news when he reported that the FBI's heralded crime

lab had repeatedly doctored evidence.  And certainly the

behavior of the federal agents who were involved in the

Ruby Ridge incident, in which, among other things, a

teenage boy and his mother were shot by federal snipers,

raises the serious question of whether or not important

elements of the FBI and the BATF are out of control.

What is most disturbing about the FBI's actions in these

cases is the apparent willingness of top federal officials to

cover-up or downplay the clearly abusive, improper actions

of federal agents.



Finally, I would like to add a personal note about my criticism

of "our government."  I do not want my comments to be taken

to mean that I in any way oppose our wonderful system of

government, or that I believe our government is totally

corrupt.  In speaking of "the government's" handling of the

case, we're actually talking about certain departments and

factions in the government, not about the government as a

whole.  The principal problem areas appear to be among

elements of the FBI, the CIA, and the Justice Department.

I believe that most of the individuals who serve in our

government are honorable, decent people.  As we have

seen over the years, however, not everyone in the

government fits this description.



Mike Griffith