Documents / FOIA release
This is a Central Intelligence Agency release dated 2025-06-12 under the JFK Act. It collects 1975 newspaper and magazine clippings. They include Mark Harris's New York Times Magazine essay on a UCLA "Conspiracy in America" conference and the conspiracy-theory mindset, a Jack Anderson column on stalled CIA reform, and wire reports of Richard Helms calling CBS newsman Daniel Schorr "Killer" after he testified to the Rockefeller Commission. There is also an essay on power and a publishing item about Philip Agee's book.
“Cooper”5 pages
Read from the scan by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word.
# Ford, Ted haunted by Dallas WASHINGTON-President Ford and Sir Edward M. Kennedy [D., Nassl] share a dilemma. Present circumstances inhibit both men from advocating a new inquiry into the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Yet both are keenly aware of and perturbed by the steadily increasing volume of data challenging the Warren Commission's conclusion that Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone gunman on that black day in Dallas in Ted Kennedy's dilemma is the most agonizing. As the brother of the slain President and of the slain Robert Kennedy—Ted Kennedy inwardly recoils at the prospect of a repaired inquiry into one or both cases, the mass of publicity that would result, the need to relive those horrible episodes and the trauma that would be revisited upon the members of his family. MOREOVER a call for a new investigation would bring down on him burces of those who honestly believe they have new information, plus even greater numbers of "kooks" and conspiratorial-minded fanatics who already besiege his mail and his Capitol Hill office. For obvious reasons, Kennedy could assume a new probe into the death of one teacher without favoring similar investigation of the other, particularly since both are now clouded with suspicions of other participants in the crimes. Still others would term such a Kennedy call for an inquiry a political move designed to whip up public sympathy for a Ted Kennedy campaign for the Presidency in 1976-an office he insists he is not seeking. My brothers are dead, he tells those who pressure him. No amount of fun Our investigating will bring them back to life. Please understand my position. Ford's position is different but no less difficult. As a member of the Warren Commission, he is a signatory to the official report that Oswald acted alone. Of that seven-member bipartisan panel, only a few still live. For Ford to challenge their work is something he finds useless. More important, Ford finds himself constrained by his office. Right or wrong, he feels intensely that a Presidential call for a new inquiry into the Dallas assassination would have implications and reverberations that go far beyond the merits of such action. Indeed, he suspects some persons would accuse him as well as Ted Kennedy of trying to capitalize politically on the mounting public interest in a second look at John Kennedy's death. Yet, like Ted Kennedy, who launched privately the other day with John McCone, the former director of the Central Intelligence Agency, the President is deeply concerned about recent developments and detailed studies of the Laprude him of the Dallas shooting which suggests that President Kennedy might have been the victim of a plot. About a month ago, Ford checked out the wording of the Warren Commission's report and thus was prepared to answer the surprise question he received at his April 3 news conference in San Diego. The Warren panel, Ford said, found no evidence of a conspiracy, foreign or domestic. Yet, as every law student knows, the absence of evidence does not mean a conspiracy didn't exist but only that it hadn't been proved to exist. The President said he would have the Rockefeller Commission look into allegations of CIA linkage to the Kennedy staying in Dallas. Unfortunately that is not likely to lay the matter to rest because the executive director of the Rockefeller Commission on CIA misconduct happens to be David W. Belin, who was an assistant counsel on the Warren Commission and is a stout believer in the single-assassin theory. Fresh suspicion in the public's mind disconcerting to both Ford and Ted Kennedy was whetted this week by the statement of Richard Bizzell, head of the CIA's "dirty tricks" division during John Kennedy's administration, that high-ranking intelligence officials discussed plans to assassinate Cuban Premier Fidel Castro. Bizzell said the idea was vetoed by then CIA Director Allen Dulles, who McCone succeeded in November, 1961. THE IMPORTANCE of Bissell's testimony is that it adds credence to a theory of some Warren Commission critics who believe that anti-Castro Cubans were out to get even with John Kennedy because his Bay of Pigs adventure failed to liberate Cuba. Since it's clear that demands for a new inquiry into John Kennedy's death are mounting, not diminishing, it may be time for Congress to reopen the case. Rep. Henry B. Gonzales [D., Tex.] has such a resolution pending before the House Rules Committee. But it's not likely to get far. There are many other ways to devise a responsible group to check into the Kennedy assassination. Indeed, to be credible, the membership of such an investigatory body should be as far removed from politics as possible. Doing that would not be easy, but it would be the only kind of panel likely to overcome the dilemma of Ted Kennedy and President Ford while, most important, answering the question of a coverup or a conspiracy regarding the tragedy of Nov. 22, 1963. Universal Press Syndicate
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FOIA release, from the cia-readingroom collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. The text was read from the page images by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word. 83 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.