From:
[email protected] (Peter Lemkin)
Newsgroups: alt.conspiracy
Subject: GARRISON STATEMENT F.Y.I. GROUP...
Date: 30 Dec 91 00:15:00 GMT
WITH LIBERTY AND JUSTICE FOR ALL
An identifying characteristic of the super-state is its
readiness to conceal from the people facts which might make them
restless. In order to maintain power its officers must keep the
populace beleiving that it is living in the best of all possible
worlds. Consequently, those in control of the
governmental
machinery sometimes find it necessary to re-write history as
fast as it happens. The truth becomes not what occurred but
what they announce has occurred. Reality becomes just another
government-controlled commodity.
If the official myth to be presented is particularly
unbelievable it may be necessary to have honorable men study it
and announce that they have found it to be true [In 1939, after
having invaded and conquered western Poland because of alleged
Polish atrocities committed against German individuals, the
German government appointed a committee to make a careful study
to determine the facts with regard to the claimed Polish
misconduct. The final printed report of the study contained much
documentary evidence, including not only photographs, affidavits
and countless medical certificates but an authenticated
quotation from the year 1598 to the effect that barbarous
cruelty was one of the vices of the Polish people. The report
confirmed that the Poles indeed bad committed atrocities against
Germans and it indicated that things would have been even worse
were it not for the timely arrival on Polish territory of the
German rescuers. The conclusions of this painstaking study by a
government-appointed committee meant that Adolf Hitler would not
have to withdraw his armies and apologize to Poland. See:
"Polish Acts of Atrocity Against the German Minority in PoIand,"
German Library of Information, New York, 1940.]
This is not really as difficult as it sounds because there is
nothing to which honorable men joined in an honorable cause will
not stoop in the name of duty. As a general rule of thumb, the
more unbelievable the story the more honorable should be the men
assigned to prove its veracity.
To date, George Orwell's 1984 provided the best fictional
portrait of the correction of history to suit current political
needs. In Oceania, that dismal land presided over by Big
Brother, the power of the government had become Gargantuan and
the rights of individuals virtually had vanished. In order to
maintain this balance, the Ministry of Truth continually was
engaged in improving history to make it reflect govemment
pronouncements. This was justified on the ground of 'national
security,' a reasonably honest rationale inasmuch as the
government could not have survived without such wholesale
concealment of facts.
If, for example, Big Brother made an error which was
exposed by statistics, the offensive statistics were destroyed
and more satisfactory statistics were published. If books or
newspapers described facts which were embarrassing to the
government, they were merely re-written so as to conform with
official legend. The original troublesome material was simply
fed in the "memory hole," a chute leading down to the
incinerator. The government's policy of vaporizing into
nothingness unpleasant facts contributed in great measure to the
calm of the populace of Oceania. This was helped by the fact
that individuals who interfered with the public calm also tended
to disappear.
"Who controls the past," said the official slogan of the
super-state, "controls the future."
It now appears that, twenty years ahead of Orwell's
schedule, the United States has succeeded in producing the
classic model of re-writing history to conform to official
needs. It is hard to assay this accomplishment when we are
still so close to it, but when our contributions to civilization
are added up this well may rank ahead of our invention of napalm.
When the President of our country was executed on a public
street, one would have thought that there would have been a
general uncomplicated desire to catch the assassins and to bring
them all to justice. After all there was sufficient information
available concerning the strange movements of cars behind the
grassy knoll immediately prior to the assination, the fusilade
of rifle fire coming from there and the rapid departure of men
on foot and by car from that sector following the shooting.
Apparently, however, it was not as simple as an that. It appears
that when a President's heart stops beating considerations of
power and policy take over.
Instead of running down the men who killed John Kennedy,
the U.S. government simply ratified his execution and moved on
to more important matters. With regard to the men who actually
killed him, because of their displeasure with his foreign
policy, the assassination has been treated not as an offense but
as a mandate for change.
The young man so promptly nominated by the Dallas Police
Force was duly elected the lone assassin. He had excellent
qualifications, provided they were not examined too closely. He
wore the tag of a Communist defector who had spent 3 years in
Russia. He had been murdered, which assured that there would be
none of the time consuming problems of proof which a live
defendant would have presented. And his gun and three empty
cartridges had been placed at the 6th floor of the book
depository.
In spite of these conveniences there was a slight problem.
The overwhelming weight of legitimate evidence clearly indicated
that he could not possibly have fired a shot at the President.
There was, to begin with, the fact that the rifle
originally brought down from the book depository at 1:05 p.m.,
and briefly exhibited as the assassins rifle, had, unlike Lee
Oswald's rifle, no telescopic sight. There was the fact that
the Marine Corps shooting records showed that Oswald could not
hit the side of a barn. There was the tense fact that the
nitrate test indicated that Oswald bad not fired a rifle of any
kind. There was the fact that the ancient Italian rifle, which
Oswald was supposed to have used, could not conceivably have
accomplished the ballistic miracle with which it was credited -
particularly causing a single bullet to inflict seven different
wounds, including bone destruction, in two different men. There
was the fact that the President was hit from several different
directions and that his fatal wound quite obviously was received
>from his right front, in the area of the grassy knoll.
To make matters worse, there were probably more witnesses
to President Kennedy's murder than to any other in history and
the great majority of them were very conscious of the fact that
most of the shots came from in front of the President. There
was also the embarrassing evidence that Lee Oswald had been an
employee of the Central Intelligence Agency and had acquired the
stigma of a Communist defector while in the service of the
United States and as the result of instructions given him by the
United States government. Most of the embarrassing evidence was
simply buried at the outset in a swift funeral devoid of
ceremony.
The autopsy photographs and X-rays, for example, which
would have revealed that the President was struck from a number
of directions, [Dr. Robert N. McClelland, at Parkland
Hospital, examined the President and concluded that the cause of
death was a gunshot wound of the left temple. Similarly, Dr.
Mahlon Jenkins recalled, in his testimony before the Warren
Commission, that there was a wound in the left temple, right in
the hair-line. The book depository, although it may since have
been moved, at the time of the assassination was located to the
rear of the President.]
These autopsy photographs and X-rays were whisked away and have
been kept hidden ever since. By now there has been time to
construct new autopsy photographs and X-rays which more closely
harmonize with the official myth than did the original ones.
Hundreds of significant government files and memoranda have been
laid away in vaults where they cannot be seen. Among the hidden
Central Intelligence Agency files alone are to be found such
titles as: "Oswald's Access to Information about the U-2,"
"Reproduction of Central Inteligence Agency Official Dossier on
Oswald" and "Information on Jack Ruby and Associates." Inasmuch
as we have been assured by horrorable men that neither Oswald
nor Ruby had any connection with the Central Intelligence Agency
it probably would be unpatriotic to speculate on what these
secret files contain.
As bad luck would have it, a rash of conflagrations swept
away other vital evidence in the government's custody. The only
notes known to be taken during the long 12-hour interview of Lee
Oswald after the assassination appear to have been burned. Notes
taken by a federal agent who interviewed Oswald before the
assassination also went up in flames. A secret Central
Intelligence Agency memo concerning Oswald, written prior to the
assassination, went up in smoke while being thermofaxed. This
phenomenal instance of spontaneous combustion occurred in
Washington the day following the asassination. The autopsy notes
describing the President's wounds were cremated in his fireplace
by the attending Navy pathologist.
This is not to say that the government has not shown
concern for the people's right to know. For those citizens who
are curious about how and why their President was killed, the
Ministry of Truth has made available the dental charts of Jack
Ruby, photographs of Russian scenery, grammar school records of
Oswald and Ruby, a careful analysis of Oswald's pubic hairs,
irrelevant letters, irrelevant telegrams, picture postcards
showing bullfights, a copy of the proceedings in an unrelated
divorce case, a list of traffic citations received by Jack Ruby,
and an excellent photograph of an unidentified man.
For those whose curiosity about the assassination may not
have been satisfied with this frank display of evidence, it has
been announced that even the secret files will be made
available. There will, however, be a slight delay of 75 years
before they can be examined. This farsignted provision not only
assures a long
period of national tranquility with regard to the assassination,
but also substantially reduces the danger of the involved
government officials being lynched.
Of course, there is no real guarantee that, even if you are
very patient, you will actually get to examine these files in 75
years. New concerns by the government with regard to national
security may require an additional 75 years delay, and it even
might come to Pass that one day it will be announced from
Washington that actually no assassination ever occured. In
time, it can be explained that John Kennedy really never existed
at all and that Dwight Eisenhower was followed by Grover
Cleveland or Calvin Coolidge, all depending on which words best
suit the government's Purpose at the time. Any of these
announcements would be every bit as accurate as the official
myth that Lee Harvey Oswald, the lone assassin killed President
Kennedy
In the super-state, it really does not matter at all what
actually happened. Truth is what the government chooses to tell
you. Justice is what it wants to happen.
In Dealey Plaza reality destroyed illusion, the illusion
that we were fiving in the best of all possible worlds. The
fairy tale of the lone assassin represents an effort to
resurrect the illusion, to legitimize it by proclamation and to
impose it by muscle.
In the interest of tranquility the decision has been made
somewhere that it is better for you not to know what really
happened. It is better for you not to know that at midday on
November 22nd there were many men who, in many places, were
glancing at their watches. It is better for you to believe that
the successive murders of the President of the United States,
Officer Tippit and Lee Oswald were simply three meaningless
incidents which happened to occur one weekend in Dallas.
Above all, it has been decided that you are not to know of
Lee Oswald's relationship with the Central Intelligence Agency.
Nor are you to know that a number of the men actually involved
in the assassination had been employees of the Central
Intelligence Agency. You are not to know about those matters
because of something called "national security."
When national security is used as the excuse for concealing
essential facts surrounding a disaster, it usually refers to the
security of the men who allowed the disaster to occur.
Actually, the greater threat to national security is the cynical
concealment of such facts from the people.
Behind the facade of earnest inquiry into the assassination
is a thought control project in the best traditions of 1984.
Because of their role in the Establishment and their failure to
conduct any effective inquiry, major news agencies have a vested
interest in maintaining public ignorance. They look away from
the widespread evidence that something is wrong, just as the
members of the Warren Commission looked away from the autopsy
photographs and X-rays of the murdered President. [To a man the
members of the Warren Commissionrefused to examine the autopsy
photographs and X-rays. This evidence could have clarified once
and for all the number of times the President was shot and the
various directions from whcih he was shot. the Commission,
however loyally refused to play Russian Roulette with the "lone
assassin" theory. The unviewed autopsy evidence was locked away
behind concrete walls and the Dallas Police Department scenario
duly was adopted as the official national myth.]
Tranquility, the time-honored message reads, is better
than knowledge.
In the authoritarian state, it is regarded as a selfevident
truth that the control of history is an inalienable right of
government. All words are created free and equal.
If it is proclaimed in Washington tomorrow that the moon is
made of Limburger cheese, a horde of honorable men can be
produced to attest to that fact. If it is proclaimed that an
elephant can hang from a cliff with its tail tied to a daisy, a
phalanx of experts will appear to confirm it. Anyone rash
enough to question these official verities can expect to be
exposed as a villain or a fool. The name of the game is not
truth it is power.
The Ministry of Truth has announced that the assassination
of John Kennedy was investigated exhaustively, that no evidence
of a conspiracy was found and that the matter should be
considered closed.
The greatest lies are told in the name of truth. The
greatest crimes are committed in the name of justice.
The American people have suffered two tragedies. In
addition to the assassination of the President by dishonorable
men our national integrity is now being assassinated by
honorable men. It does not matter what the rationale is -
whether to calm the public or to protect our image - the fact
remains that the truth is being concealed.
The United States Constitution, assuming that it has not
accidentally been burned to a crisp, does not give anyone the
power to re-write history. The fact that this has happened
should be evidence enough that it is far later than any of us
have dream.
The question now is whether we have the courage to come
face to face with ourselves and admit that something is wrong,
whether we have the will to insist on an end to deception and
consealment with regard to the execution of John Kennedy-or
whether we win let the official fairy tale be told and re-told
until the truth itself fades into a vagrant rumor and finally
dies forever.
If we will not fight for the truth now - when our President
has been shot down in the streets and his murders remain
untouched by justice - it is not likely that we will ever have
another chance.
JIM GARRISON
New Orleans, Louisiana
September 1, 1967
