Why did the History Channel accuse LBJ of JFK's murder?

[darrels joy]

Character Assassination
Why did the History Channel accuse LBJ of JFK's murder?

Thursday, February 19, 2004 12:01 a.m. EST
http://www.opinionjournal.com/medialog/?id=110004710

Can there be a way to prepare one's mind for the spectacle now before us, in which the History Channel explains its worthy reasons for airing a film back in November--part of the 40th anniversary of JFK's assassination--identifying Lyndon B. Johnson as the criminal responsible for John Kennedy's murder? We can but try.

Start with a different theory put forward in 1997 by Jim Marrs, a former Texas newspaper reporter, which holds that the president's murder might well have taken place because President Kennedy had full knowledge of alien landings on earth--and there were those who didn't want him spreading the news to the American people.

Hugh Aynesworth, a former reporter for The Dallas Morning News, tells us in his fascinating "JFK: Breaking the News" (International Focus Press) that at a debate after the publication of Mr. Marrs's book, which boasts confidences from the president about his deep wish to tell the public about the extraterrestrial visitations, Mr. Aynesworth had a question. Did he really believe, he asked the author, that JFK's alleged comments--ascribed to sources like a former steward and the "loadmaster" for Air Force One--constituted, as the book said, "tantalizing" evidence that the president had been killed to keep him from sharing news of alien visitations? To which he received the reply, "What should I have done, ignored it?"


The History Channel management would understand; its own explanation for the LBJ documentary reflects roughly the same point of view--if one it put less forthrightly. The History Channel has, of course, plenty to be less forthright about. After all, claims about JFK and alien visitations aren't in the same league of offenses as the Johnson documentary, conceivably the most malignant assault on sanity and truth--not to mention history--in memory. Titled "The Guilty Men," the film is based in part on a book of the same name by one Barr McClellan, who provides a grand assortment of testaments from the fever swamps. Still, the documentary's ever deepening mess of charges and motives is never less than clear about its main point--that Lyndon Johnson personally arranged the murder not only of the president, but also seven other people, including his own sister.
The work of British producer Nigel Turner, this story--described by British journalists who looked into its claims as total nonsense when it aired in England--didn't make much news when it appeared here in November. Though it did cause an appalled Tom Johnson, former head of CNN and now chairman of the LBJ Foundation in Austin, Texas, to try--unsuccessfully, it would turn out--to get through to the president of A&E, parent company of the History Channel, to ask for a rebuttal. For months there was silence from A&E, the History Channel. Not, however, from viewers who had, it seems, begun besieging the LBJ Foundation with threats to tear the place apart. They had, after all, seen the documentary on a network named the History Channel--which would not, they assumed, present a story so horrendous in its implications if there was nothing to it. And indeed, after "The Guilty Men" first aired, the network seemed to defend the program with a statement saying it was "presenting a point of view that has been meticulously researched."

It's a comment to bear in mind as one takes in the documentary's intricate network of plots and dark connections. The narrative consists mainly of pronouncements from alleged witnesses and sources offering clarifications on the order of "I know beyond a reasonable doubt that Johnson murdered Kennedy," all of it seasoned with input from a collection of intense-looking characters introduced as "assassination experts." Not to mention Madeleine Brown, self-described as a mistress to Lyndon Johnson--the man, she says, who arranged Kennedy's murder, and who, she declares, was just a wonderful person. She still has the hotel room key he pressed on her--also a son who is, she confides, Lyndon's. In tones heavy with significance, she reports that the night before the assassination, Johnson had sought her out at a large party, to whisper that those Kennedys would never laugh at him again.

Ms. Brown was but one of many similar exemplars of the film's meticulous research.


It was just a matter of time before the scandal about this documentary erupted, what with the flow of outraged responses; for example, from Bill Moyers, Lyndon Johnson's former press secretary, one of whose enduring memories is of that president's persistent fears that those behind the assassination of Kennedy could come after him next. With former Presidents Ford and Carter and others weighing in, including, not least, LBJ's widow, Lady Bird, who sent a powerful letter, the History Channel management was finally moved, in recent weeks, to release a public statement. One that revealed more than it intended, and that also reflected precisely those attitudes that had brought this disaster to pass. The network had not endorsed this film, the spokesperson announced, but had just put it forth "for public debate."

Which raises a question: If even this primitive piece of conspiracy-mongering could win a respectful airing on the History Channel--on the ground, no less, that it's a subject worthy of public debate--then what dregs of crackpot theory would the network consider beyond the pale?

Not every organization in the TV industry subscribes to the notion that every claim deserves its place in the sun. At HBO, not long ago, the management seems to have understood something was amiss when Oliver Stone came back from Cuba with a new film about Fidel Castro that appeared distinctly strange--notably the part that contended that there were, today, no political prisoners in Cuba. Filmmaker Stone had Castro's word for it. HBO's response was to drop the project, till such time as Mr. Stone came up with a film about Cuba that bore a closer relation to truth. Mr. Stone might have done better going straight to the History Channel.



Last week that network's management announced that three renowned historians, Robert Dallek, Stanley Kutler and Thomas Sugrue, would investigate the documentary and the credibility of the theory that Lyndon Johnson was involved in the assassination of John Kennedy. In the course of its new onward march toward reflection and openness, the network also decided it would refuse to make copies of "The Guilty Men" available to the press, or anyone else. An effort, no doubt, to limit further commentary while the historians go at their task. A familiar tactic that. It is also regrettable mainly because, in its grim way, this event represents an opportunity of sorts--a breathtaking way to grasp where we have arrived now, in what they used to call "standards and practices."

It's to be hoped that the scholars add to their report a recommendation that the embargo on the film about Lyndon Johnson's murder of eight people, President Kennedy included, be lifted, so that everyone has a chance to view what it is possible to present on air now, as just "one theory" among others.

Looks like the lunatics are still running the asylum.

[phuloi]

Makes about as much sense as the Warren Commission Report...

[reeb]

I am glad to see that I wasnt the only person that saw that show.

Undocumented facts by the Washington Post.

enough..........

[BLUEHAWK]

What Griz said... in spades.

[frisco-kid]

In late'67 at Ft. Bragg, a guy in my platoon shows me an article from a S.F. Bay Area underground newspaper [Berkeley Barb?] that he had gotten in the mail. He was from the Bay Area also so probably thought that I would like, and agree with, the article.WRONG! I read the article as far as I could stomach it, and tossed it back to him. I reminded him that Johnson was our CIC and told him to shitcan it, and I didn't want to see him showing it around. If I did, I was going to take him and the article to the CO. I had recently made E-5 and was his squad leader.

The gist of the article was that Johnson was the ringleader in the assassination. His motive was an extreme dislike of the Kennedys, and a desire for the presidency and all the power that came with it. It claimed to be an investigative report, but read like a bad novel. Where it lost me was a description of Johnson taking a private view of the President at either the morgue or the funeral home; I forget which. At one point, he goes off on a tirade to the corpse. He's screaming in Kennedy's face and, at one point, slaps his face. I couldn't read anymore. I never heard or saw anymore about this story. I've never heard another theory of Johnson's involvement until now. I didn't see the History Channel program but, now as then, deem it BULLSHIT

[reconeil]

"BULLSHIT" or not, and as I (no doubt many others also) asked many years ago regarding The Assassination,...you (others also) should ask same serious questions about the matter.

The questions being:

1. If no evidence, facts or realities were purposefully excluded or altered, and the OPEN Warren Commision was the final and end all conclusion of the matter,...why-the-hell were all records, intelligence and/or evidence pertaining to The Case SEALED FOR 75 YEARS?

2. Just what-the-hell needs hiding FOR 75 YEARS,...and especially in a supposedly(?) OPEN and supposedly(?) FREE Democracy?

3. Besides,...do Public Hirelings and/or elected officials have the right to hide such things from: "We The People (supposedly?)" governed by; "A Government of The People, By The People, and For The People (supposedly?)? I don't think so.

To me it seemed more so like what The Old Soviet Union would've done regarding a fallen leader,...so that those taking over power and control could live happily ever after.

Neil :cd: :cd: :cd: