From Mae's files
Dialogue Conspiracy No. 288 · September 26, 1977 · KLRB-FM, Carmel
A week before Carl Bernstein’s article on the CIA and the news media reached the stands, Mae used it to read the whole Kennedy story as a story about the press, from the Warren Commission’s minutes to ABC’s new docudrama. The second half turns from the papers to the new inquiry: her telephone call to the House Select Committee’s chief counsel, who would not say whether he had the document she offered him . Then the week’s news supplies a witness. Marita Lorenz told the New York Daily News she had driven to Dallas with Frank Sturgis and an Oswald , and Mae read it, cautiously, as confirmation of what she had argued for five years.
Key Topics
- Mae announces Bernstein’s list of “400 persons in the news media” who worked with the CIA, and says the agency was trying to suppress it ; she faults his Watergate books for leaving out Howard Hughes, J. Edgar Hoover, Chappaquiddick and the Wallace shooting .
- From the bound minutes David Lifton obtained, she quotes Gerald Ford telling the Commission he could “handle the AP and the UPI” , and describes how it answered its first critics by asking the wire services for evidence of a conspiracy .
- Against ABC’s The Trial of Lee Harvey Oswald , she offers her own program built from the 26 volumes, where in her reading every piece of evidence against Oswald was forged or planted .
- She urges listeners to write and call in , recommends fellow researchers (Ted Gandolfo’s new cable show, Harold Weisberg, Penn Jones) , and takes issue with Sylvia Meagher’s subject index for leaving out Howard Hughes and twenty military-intelligence names .
- She reads a news item about dieldrin in imported coffee alongside the dieldrin she says reached school lunches in contaminated chicken .
- Her call to G. Robert Blakey: asked whether the committee had the Torbitt document, he said he would not tell her ; she plans to send it by registered mail “like serving a subpoena” . Loran Hall’s testimony has been put off again .
Notable Quotes
"The mass media uses the propaganda machine to cover the big lie."Mae Brussell, Mae Brussell Research Center, Broadcast 3 (26 Sep 1977), 10:58
"Just like I've collected probably the best-published library in the United States, the private library of political assassinations."Mae Brussell, on her own files, Mae Brussell Research Center, Broadcast 3 (26 Sep 1977), 22:28
"This evidence or testimony isn't sworn testimony. It isn't before the committee. It's an interview."Mae Brussell, on Marita Lorenz, Mae Brussell Research Center, Broadcast 3 (26 Sep 1977), 39:54
Outline
- 0:00:07 — Opening: No. 288 and the new Sunday slot
- 0:01:32 — Bernstein’s article announced
- 0:02:40 — The format change, KZAP, and the tapes
- 0:06:52 — The outlets Bernstein names
- 0:08:41 — The Warren Commission handles the press
- 0:12:59 — Time-Life: the rifle photograph, the Zapruder film, Mr. Rocco
- 0:16:14 — The New York Times and ABC’s Oswald trial
- 0:20:04 — What listeners can do
- 0:22:00 — Ted Gandolfo and the other researchers
- 0:25:30 — Sylvia Meagher’s index and the Torbitt document
- 0:28:07 — Dieldrin in the food
- 0:30:23 — The call to Blakey
- 0:35:59 — Loran Hall’s postponed testimony
- 0:37:22 — Marita Lorenz comes forward
- 0:40:05 — The Oswald double
- 0:42:37 — Sign-off
Mentioned Resources
Press and broadcasts
- Carl Bernstein’s article on the CIA and the news media (Rolling Stone, October 1977), which Mae calls “Rolling Stones”
- New York Daily News, September 20, 1977 — the Marita Lorenz story
- ABC, The Trial of Lee Harvey Oswald — two-part docudrama, September 1977
- Ted Gandolfo, Assassination USA — weekly New York cable program
- Midnight — the tabloid Mae wrote for
Documents
- Minutes of the Warren Commission’s executive sessions — the bound volume David Lifton obtained
- Hearings and Exhibits of the Warren Commission — the 26 volumes
- The Torbitt document — unpublished manuscript, Texas, 1970
Books
- Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, The Final Days
- Mark Lane, Rush to Judgment
- Joachim Joesten, Oswald: Assassin or Fall Guy?
- Thomas Buchanan, Who Killed Kennedy?
- Harold Weisberg, Whitewash (four volumes) and Frame-Up
- Penn Jones, Forgive My Grief (four volumes)
- Sylvia Meagher, Accessories After the Fact, and her subject index to the Warren Commission’s hearings
- Who’s Who in the CIA
- Coup d’État in America, co-written by A.J. Weberman
People
- Marita Lorenz (the witness who came forward in September 1977)
- Frank Sturgis (Watergate burglar and anti-Castro operative)
- Lee Harvey Oswald (named by the Warren Commission as the lone assassin)
- Fidel Castro (leader of Cuba)
- Loran Hall (anti-Castro trainer summoned by the House committee)
- Carl Bernstein (Washington Post reporter)
- G. Robert Blakey (chief counsel of the House Select Committee)
- Gerald Ford (Warren Commission member)
- David Lifton (researcher who obtained the Commission’s minutes)
- Ted Gandolfo (New York researcher and tape archivist)
- Sylvia Meagher (author and indexer of the Warren Commission record)
- Harold Weisberg (author of Whitewash)
- Penn Jones (Texas newspaper editor and author)
- Hays Gorey (Time correspondent Mae debated)
- A.J. Weberman (researcher who identified Sturgis as a Dealey Plaza tramp)
Closing
No. 288 catches the moment a witness to the road to Dallas surfaced, and records how Mae, five years ahead on Sturgis, weighed an interview that was not yet testimony.