Crossfire: The Plot That Killed Kennedy (108 page)

His turnaround prompted assassination researchers to take a closer look
at the new chief counsel, with some disturbing results.

Having worked for both President Johnson and President Nixon, Blakey
had close contact with other ranking government persons involved in the
Kennedy assassination case, among them:

NICHOLAS KATZENBACH-the deputy attorney general, who in 1964 put
strong pressure on the Warren Commission to quickly endorse the
premise that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone.

LEON JAwORSKI-the Watergate special prosecutor who served as a
special counsel to the Warren Commission charged with determining if
Oswald had any ties to U.S. intelligence. (Jaworski found none, but
some years later it was discovered that a foundation of which Jaworski
was a trustee secretly used CIA funds.)

LEWIS F. POWELL-the attorney named by the American Bar Association
as an observer to the Warren Commission to protect Oswald's rights,
but who spent much of his time trying to have Commission critic Mark
Lane disbarred.

Although considered an expert in the "war against crime," Blakey
apparently had a strange connection with a reputed big-time gambler.
When Penthouse magazine was sued for libel by Rancho La Costa, it was
Blakey who sold his expertise and provided an affidavit condemning the
magazine's charges of mob ownership while conceding ignorance of the
truth of the charges. Any questions concerning this odd support of a resort
built by Teamster pension-fund money were referred to Blakey's own
attorney, Louis Nizer.

Furthermore, Blakey was recommended as chief counsel by HSCA
member Representative Christopher Dodd, the former law partner of former FBI director L. Patrick Gray, who was indicted during the Watergate
scandals.

While these connections don't prove compromise on Blakey's part, they
do serve to cast a shadow over his credentials as an uncompromising
crimebuster. They also raised doubts in many minds about Blakey's motives.

But is there any evidence that the findings of the assassinations Committee were undermined?

Apparently so. The main weapon used by Blakey to stop a meaningful
investigation was a "nondisclosure agreement," which Blakey insisted
everyone connected with the Committee sign. Signing this agreement,
which was instituted within one week of Blakey's arrival, was mandatory
for continued employment with the Committee. Even independent researchers who attempted to share assassination information with the panel
were made to sign it.

The agreement bound the signer not to reveal that he or she even worked
for the Committee; not to reveal anything learned while serving with the
committee; gave the Committee the power to take legal action against the
signer in the event of disclosures, even long after the Committee ended;
and made the signer agree that all legal fees would be paid should the
signer lose such a court suit.

Many persons who have seen this agreement, including attorneys, claim
it is in violation of the U.S. Constitution and therefore illegal. However, it stopped most of the Committee's personnel and hired consultants from
discussing the workings of the HSCA. It also effectively muzzled many of
the assassination researchers.

(Evidence of the weak legal standing of this agreement may be found in
the fact that Gaeton Fonzi has written scathing articles against the Committee and its operation in apparent violation of this agreement-yet there
has been no prosecution.)

Blakey invited ten prominent critics of the Warren Commission to
Washington for an exchange of assassination information. All were required to sign the "nondisclosure agreement," and all presented their
information. Blakey reciprocated with nothing of value. After their departure, Blakey instructed the Committee staff to have no further contact with
these researchers without his personal and specific authorization.

Even aides to Committee members were barred by Blakey from viewing
the Committee's progress.

In explaining his zeal for secrecy, Blakey wrote:

... it was resolved, then and there, that the Committee would conduct
its investigation in private until it was appropriate to hold public hearings, and it would do its best to remain immune from the fever of
assassination demonology.

Blakey also said such secrecy was necessary to protect the reputations of
people involved in the investigation-the "innocent associates."

Even more disquieting to researchers was Blakey's accommodating
attitude toward the FBI and the CIA-the two agencies that have become
suspects themselves over the years in the minds of many. Earlier, Sprague
had put both agencies on notice that subpoenas might be issued for access
to assassination material withheld from previous investigations. Probes
into CIA activity in Mexico City and the connections between Ruby and
Oswald and the FBI had been initiated.

Under Blakey, Committee investigators had to sign a CIA secrecy oath
before examining any classified files, thus giving the Agency the authority
to "clear" any information, including investigators' notes.

A January 25, 1978, Committee report states:

All staff members on the Committee have received or are in the process
of receiving "Top Secret" security clearances. The FBI, as an accommodation to the Committee, conducts the background investigations for these
security clearances. The CIA then reviews the background investigations
done by the FBI. After consultation with the FBI and CIA, the full Committee makes the determination regarding an individual's security clearance.

In other words, both intelligence agencies had direct control over who
participated in the Committee's investigation. This situation did nothing to ease the minds of researchers who already were convinced of intelligence
involvement in the Kennedy assassination.

Several persons were fired from the Committee staff for failing to
receive a security clearance, including one person who reportedly was told
by Blakey: "The CIA would be more comfortable if you were gone."

It also has never been explained how this clearance review was made to
conform with the CIA charter prohibition against domestic activities.

In a TV interview, original counsel Sprague stated he had refused to
yield to CIA and FBI demands for security clearances, as such agreements
would have given these agencies authority to decide what the Committee
could disclose. Sprague argued: "What's the point of getting material in
the first place, if they are going to control who sees it and what we can do
with it'?"

Blakey showed no such insight. In fact, in an article by writer Jerry
Policoff, Blakey is quoted as saying: "I've worked with the CIA for
twenty years. Would they lie to me?"

And there is evidence that Blakey's trust in the Agency went beyond
simple naivete. After it was discovered that the CIA held a "201 file" on
Lee Harvey Oswald-evidence that he worked for the Agency according to
several former CIA agents-Blakey retrieved the file from CIA headquarters. According to the House Committee, it was virtually an empty folder.
Agency officials explained that the file was actually just a "Personality"
file that had contained a few news clippings on Oswald after being opened
on December 9, 1960.

Yet researchers today have a copy of a CIA "Memorandum For The
Record" dated April 27, 1979, which states:

On 27 April, 1979, Mr. G. Robert Blakey, Chief Counsel and Staff
Director of the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA),
visited CIA Headquarters. . . . Mr. Blakey examined only that material
held [Blanked out]. He apparently did not go elsewhere within the
Agency, [Blanked out] to examine their holdings. . . . Comment: Files
reviewed by HSCA staff members fill nine four-drawer safes. The files
include the Lee Harvey Oswald 201, which fills two four-drawer safes.
Oswald's 201 file was not completely reviewed by HSCA staff members.

Despite not reviewing all of the CIA's held material-including the
Oswald 201 file-the House Committee confidently concluded: "The
Secret Service, Federal Bureau of Investigation, and Central Intelligence
Agency were not involved in the assassination of President Kennedy."

Some investigators resigned from the Committee because of the control
by intelligence agencies and because they felt the investigation had become
too narrow in focus.

Other staff members-twenty-four of them investigators-were discharged
on grounds that the Committee had no money. Yet in February of 1978, Blakey returned $425,000 to Congress, saying the funds were not
needed.

Whether or not the charges that Blakey sidetracked any meaningful
investigation are true, the seeds of doubt were sown. This is reflected in a
magazine article by Jerry Policoff and William Scott Malone, who wrote
in 1978: "So poisoned has the atmosphere become from months of bitterness that whatever conclusions the Committee comes up with will be
suspect. "

According to assassination researchers who followed the HSCA closely,
Blakey forced out or fired some of the most able investigators, severely
restricted areas of investigation, hand-picked scientific experts who mostly
denied any hint of conspiracy, and then locked Committee investigative
material away for fifty years.

If Blakey wanted to restrict and misdirect the investigations of the
House Select Committee on Assassinations-although at this point there
is no definitive evidence to demonstrate that this was his wish-he could
not have done a better job.

With Blakey's arrival as chief counsel and staff director, many aspects
of the HSCA changed dramatically.

Under Sprague, Committee investigators had been running down promising leads in Dallas, Miami, New Orleans, and Memphis. Under Blakey,
these field investigations-far from the oversight of Washington powerwere severely restricted.

The focus of the Kennedy probe moved away from looking at intelligence and anti-Castro Cuban involvement and began scrutinizing the
organized-crime aspects.

Somewhere along the way, the Committee dropped any investigation
into the Robert F. Kennedy assassination and the shooting of Governor
Wallace, despite the abundance of evidence raising serious questions about
the official versions of both those events.

By October 1977, a Scripps-Howard article stated: "The Committee's
investigation of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy has been
scaled down and the panel's professional staff apparently has been spending-virtually- all its time exploring new leads in the King case. "

On March 13, 1978, the HSCA received House approval for $2.5
million in funding to last until January 3, 1979. The final vote-204 to
175-was achieved despite objections from some Republican representatives who claimed the Committee had accomplished little in its year and a
half of existence.

Scaled down and with a restricted agenda, the Committee nevertheless
went to work. According to Blakey, the Committee spent a total of
$5.5 million during its thirty-month investigation. Blakey wrote in an
introduction to the Committee's report: "[This] may sound like a lot, but it should be contrasted with the fact that the Warren Commission spent the
equivalent in 1977 dollars of over $10 million in ten months."

Blakey admitted that early on the HSCA experienced "some rough
sailing," and that the period of "rigorous factfinding" lasted only six
months-from January to July of 1978. However, this fact finding was
"intense and wide ranging," wrote Blakey. He claimed that Committee
members and staffers made trips to Mexico, Canada, Portugal, England,
and Cuba. There were a total of 562 trips to 1,463 points for more than
4,758 days of field investigation. More than 4,924 interviews were conducted and 335 witnesses heard, some in public hearings and some in
executive session. There were 524 subpoenas issued and 165 witnesses
were granted immunity for their testimony.

Beginning in late July 1978, the HSCA conducted a series of public
hearings that lasted until September 28, 1978. There was a parade of
technical and scientific experts, but no one cross-examined them-no one
asked the obvious follow-up or embarrassing question. And the testimony
of each witness seemed designed to further cement the idea that Lee
Harvey Oswald was the lone assassin of Kennedy.

Some witnesses, such as Louie Steven Witt-who claimed to have been
the "umbrella man" in Dealey Plaza-gave an implausible story that
went unchallenged.

Dr. James Humes, the leader of the Kennedy autopsy team, was never
asked why he waited fifteen years to become convinced that a bullet
entered near the top of Kennedy's head well above where the other two
autopsy doctors still place it. Humes also could have given more details
about the military authorities present at the autopsy who directed the
doctors in their inadequate work, but he was never asked in public. Humes
even quipped: "They had their chance and they blew it."

Many of the researchers watching the televised hearings felt the testimony was orchestrated and that it followed carefully selected lines of
interrogation. This perception prompted a group of researchers who had
formed an Assassination Information Bureau to comment: