The Official Bedtime Story

Can we ever know the truth? I don’t think so. Government commissions to investigate tragic events such as assassinations or terrorist attacks are not equipped to handle the situation. They are always strangled by their own political entanglements. If the people leading the inquiry are corrupt, then so will be the result of the investigation. Just read Gaeton Fonzi’s The Last Investigation and you’ll see what I mean. It is always the same song and dance. An unholy alliance of veteran political hacks, a time limited investigation, a media that is generally prone to repeat government assertions and theories as fact, government agencies that are fiefdoms unto themselves and experienced at stalling information, and finally the lawyers yes…yes the lawyers to tell us what the truth is. There is no path to arrive at the truth with this arrangement. A better choice would be a federal form or a grand jury that would have the time and resources to conduct a thorough analysis. I have no doubt as to why, over 40 years after the death of John F. Kennedy the debate continues on in print, Internet forums, and conferences dedicated to the subject.

What the public constantly receives from this is a well-crafted story. It’s well learned by those that rule us. The 9-11 Commission did the same thing, which is now largely regarded as a white-wash. Only they made sure not to make the mistake the Warren Commission did by releasing the evidence they had collected. (And the Bush admin went one better in having one of their own men, Philip Zelikow, to decide what is to be investigated and what not.) But the truth—now that’s somewhere out there, known to a select few, and outside of the common man’s understanding.

A case in point is the Warren Commission, in their final report, took Kennedy’s back wound and moved it to the back of the neck to make the trajectory of the single bullet theory work out. This was done under Gerald Ford’s insistence and his notes can be seen in the original draft. Ford then had the audacity to state years later that he wasn’t trying change history, but trying to clarify the issue. How does one clarify anything by moving bullet holes around? This amounts to blatant fabrication of evidence in a murder investigation.

His comment makes sense when you realize what he really means. The very thing Ford was trying to clarify is the narrative. Remember that. It’s how they always operate. It makes perfect sense now. It’s a nice bedtime story. Read it. Have it read to you. Go to sleep and get up the next morning and move along. Only it didn’t work out quite that way. After the Commissions report was released, the critics began to appear and they’ve never left. Even many of the original Commission members were doubtful of the conclusions they had drawn. And a majority of the public does not believe the official bedtime story till this day.

Their goal of convincing the American public that Lee H. Oswald was lone gunman largely failed. Conversely, they learned from their mistakes. Expect the next investigation of a future national trauma to be more of the same, only more controlled than the last. Expect the critics to be once again be lampooned as fools.