JFK Assassination Brouhaha

An article in the Nation by Max Holland has reignited debate over the CIA’s involvement in the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy. In the article entitled “The JFK Lawyers’ Conspiracy,” Holland contends that a group of lawyers, namely Mark Lane, Jim Garrison, Gary Hart, and G. Robert Blakey, have conspired to overturn the findings of the Warren Commission, which concluded in 1964 that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in assassinating JFK. In a letter to the editor of the magazine, Lane accuses Holland of libel, rejecting as groundless Holland’s depiction of him and Garrison as unwitting agents of the KGB.

Holland accuses Lane of receiving funds from the KGB while doing research for his book, Rush to Judgment, in which he challenged the Warren Commission’s findings. The KGB, Holland argues, attempted to implicate the CIA in the president’s murder for ideological purposes. According to Holland, both Lane and Garrison, however unwittingly, served the KGB by promoting conspiracy theories about the CIA’s involvement.

Joan Mellen, an English professor at Temple University, also comes under attack for writing what Holland refers to as a “hagiography” of Garrison.

Holland also criticizes former Senator Gary Hart, a member of the Select Committee on Intelligence in the mid- to late 70s. According to Holland Hart challenged the Warren Commission’s findings by "twisting unpalatable truths into the logical equivalent of pretzels.” Holland also criticizes G. Robert Blakey, who served as chief counsel and staff director of the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) in the 1970s. In 1979, the HSCA concluded that JFK “was probably assassinated as a result of a conspiracy.” Holland lambastes Blakey for basing such a conclusion on “uncorroborated acoustic vidence” thought to be “unbelievable” by three dissenting members of the HSCA.

Mellen, in her letter complaining about the article, rejects Holland’s characterization of her book about Garrison as “hagiography.” Even Garrison’s family, Mellen notes, seemed disappointed by her refusal to idealize Garrison in favor of a realistic, warts-and-all portrayal of the New Orleans district attorney. Mellen also points out that, in 1967, the CIA circulated a document, "Countering Criticism of the Warren Report.” According to this document, critics of the Warren Report were to be branded as “Communist propagandists.” Mellen accuses Holland of merely following the CIA’s injunction to thwart further investigations of the Warren Commission by vilifying its critics.

Lane, in his letter, vigorously denies receiving funds from the KGB, claiming that Holland’s accusation is consistent with the CIA’s strategy of defaming critics of the Warren Commission. Echoing Mellen, Lane argues that Holland merely advances the CIA line that various people, many of them lawyers, adopted the KGB's approach to the assassination. Lane says that before writing his book he had never met his purported “coconspirators.” How, Lane wonders, could he possibly have been involved in a conspiracy with people whom he had not met?

Holland in response has come out swinging. He accuses English Professor Mellen of misspelling names and repeating lies in her book about Garrison. He insists the contents of the CIA document to which Lane and Mellen refer should not surprise anyone, since the CIA apparently intended to preserve the reputation of the U.S. government. He qualifies the statement he made about Lane receiving money from the KGB, suggesting that Lane may have been unaware of the source of his funds and had not received all of the money in one lump sum. For Holland, it is telling evidence that Lane has not sued for libel the authors who initially implicated him in the KGB plot.

Holland insists that the acoustical evidence cited by Lane and others does not support the claims made by the conspiracy theorists, citing a website for details.