JFK Assassination Researchers Are Fractured, Unproductive

By Donald Jeffries

Every November for decades, a good number of researchers into the assassination of President John F. Kennedy gather in Dallas. There are always a number of speakers, addressing various aspects of the crime. These conferences also occur in other parts of the country, and even in the United Kingdom and Australia.

John Barbour, who like this author has been absolutely ignored by those who organize and promote these conferences, recently wrote on Facebook: “Pardon me if this upsets anyone, but I do not understand why anyone would either put on another JFK Conference, speak at one or attend one. . . . Every Nov. 22 should be America’s Bastille Day, with the thousands involved with these events or signing useless petitions to Congress instead gathering at the Robert F. Kennedy Justice Department.” Barbour should reasonably be seen as the face of the research community at this point, given his work with Jim Garrison and his impressive show-business pedigree.

From the beginning, when citizen critics of the Warren report like Mark Lane and Harold Weisberg began publishing works that demolished the official story, there was bickering and envy between the large egos and difficult personalities that have always been the predominant researchers in the case. Lane and Weisberg despised each other. Weisberg, especially, was jealous of all the others and regularly panned their work. When Oliver Stone’s “JFK” was released in 1991, Weisberg carried the enmity many critics felt toward the director making Garrison his protagonist to an absurd extreme—leaking an advance copy of the film’s script to a CIA-friendly asset at The Washington Post. Weisberg, like most of the other leading critics, wanted to be portrayed as the hero in the movie. Garrison’s investigation split the critical community, with even the best of them, like former World Health Organization employee Sylvia Meagher, turning against the New Orleans district attorney.

When Michael Collins Piper, longtime writer for American Free Press and its predecessor, The Spotlight, published Final Judgment: The Missing Link in the JFK Assassination Conspiracy in 1993, it was ignored or ridiculed by the research community. The predictable charges of “anti-Semitism” were leveled against him. Recently, on one of the larger JFK assassination forums, this author responded to a thread revolving around JFK’s battles with David Ben-Gurion and Israel’s burgeoning nuclear program by noting that credit should be given to Piper, whose research first shed light upon this area. Unsurprisingly, those posting ignored that, and continue to deny Piper the credit he deserves.

The lack of cohesion in the critical community, with the continuous internal arguments among researchers, has played into the hands of the state-controlled media, which has always sought to paint those who doubt the Warren report as eccentric “wackos.” Critics routinely dismiss each other as “disinformation agents” and “limited-hangout” dupes of one intelligence agency or another. In 2013, this author attempted to bring researchers together by writing the following consensus statement: “The Warren Commission, FBI, and Dallas police did not solve the mystery of who assassinated President John F. Kennedy on Nov. 22, 1963. The House Assassinations Committee of the late 1970s left more questions than answers behind them. Despite the fact a real investigation has never been conducted, the available evidence shows conclusively that Lee Harvey Oswald was not the assassin and was framed by others for the crime. On the verge of the 50th anniversary of the most significant political assassination of the 20th century, it is more important than ever for there to be an open and independent inquiry into the matter for the very first time.” It was published on the largest JFK assassination forum, “Spartacus,” out of London.

The responses generated to this consensus statement illustrated the problem. Very few researchers would agree to it, and most wanted to battle over a word or a perceived inference. The long discussion that ensued developed into something akin to Bill Clinton’s memorable, “It depends on what the meaning of ‘is’ is.” It is difficult for those who have devoted decades to researching the assassination, as this author has, to accept the level of dysfunction among those who share the same intense interest in the subject.

Heated battles over things like body alteration, film alteration, and Judyth Vary Baker, the woman who claims to have been Lee Harvey Oswald’s lover, occupy most of the critical community’s attention, and form the basis for the speakers invited and subjects explored at all the research conferences. This author’s writing has received little to no support from the vast majority of JFK assassination researchers, many of them longtime cyber friends.

Lone nutters don’t argue with each other about anything. The same can’t be said for those who are awake to the truth that a conspiracy took the life of JFK.

Donald Jeffries is a highly respected author and researcher whose work on the JFK, RFK and MLK assassinations and other high crimes of the Deep State has been read by millions of people across the world. Jeffries is also the author of three books currently being sold by the AFP Online Store.