Katie Couric,

I viewed with disappointment your recent interview with Gerald Posner and your presentations about the assassination of President John F. Kennedy under the misleading title "Truth or Conspiracy" as if the two were mutually opposed. Your program studiously avoided the truth of conspiracy in this case, which is very well researched, authenticated and reconfirmed in the recently released documents.

Gerald Posner's disingenous book, Case Closed, filled with factual errors and intellectual dishonesty, represents nowhere near the level of research and academic/investigatory skill or credibility of the real critics of the Warren Commission. His "tons and tons of research" does not compare to the meticulous work of hundreds of ballistic and medical experts, academicians and historians, forensic investigators and indepdendent researchers who have unearthed all the elements of a legal conspiracy in this case.

Your show lacked that balance and continued the disinformation and cover-up that has suppressed open investigation and honest inquiry into this case over the years by NBC and other major media. Do you not note the irony of showing the Zapruder film, the key piece of evidence in this case, on your network for the "first time" now 38 years after the event? Was it not newsworthy?

Posner contends that following the public outcry for release of the Warren Commission records, the actual files do not show a conspiracy and "no one is talking about them". In fact, our organization, the Coalition on Political Assassinations, was instrumental in the drafting, passage and implementation of the JFK Records Act, the largest release of classified documents in history, nearly 5 million pages to date. More files remain to be release, including parts of the Warren Commission files.

Posner has not read all these newly released records, as he himself has admitted. Others have read the bulk of them, or exhausted topic areas in the collection, and have found significant new documentation of conspiracy in the murder as well as government complicity in the case. They have been speaking out and writing about these findings, but have never gotten the sort of coverage the media has given to Posner. Posner's thesis is reassuring to a "free press" that has never honestly investigated the murder, he lets them off the hook.

Here are some of the revelations found in the files, not all of which have yet to be released according to the final report of the JFK Assassinations Record Review Board, which recommended an ongoing search for records, and the forced compliance of agencies like Defense Intelligence Agency, Office of Naval Investigation and Army Intelligence, among others, which failed to comply with the Act:

• A new understanding of the Cuban Missile Crisis, reflected in both academic transcripts and analysis and in the recent film 13 Days, which shows clearly that JFK was bucking both the Pentagon and his own advisors during those critical days when nuclear war or peace hung in the balance for the world. His attitudes are fully reflected in his famous commemoration speech at American University in the summer of 1963.
  
  
• A clear indication that the top levels of the CIA were aware of and tracking Lee Harvey Oswald from the time of his "defection" to the Soviet Union in 1958 up to the time of the assassination. The new records clearly show Oswald was the witting or unwitting target of a complicated incident in Mexico City just weeks prior to the assassination, that was orchestrated by the CIA. This incident involved a fake Oswald placing calls to Soviet and Cuban officials in Mexico City seeking a passport to Cuba and a return to the Soviet Union. This incident took on a much clearer importance in the aftermath of the shooting, and is mentioned in the new LBJ tapes as a factor leading him to create the Warren Commission as a way to put offical blame on Oswald as a "lone gunman", lest the idea of a foreign Communist conspiracy lead to nuclear war with the Soviets. Part of this documentation is outlined in Oswald and the CIA by University of Maryland historian John Newman, Ph.D., and subsequently released files continue to bear it out.
  
  
• A vindication of many of the suspicions of New Orleans D.A. Jim Garrison, whose story is recounted in the Oliver Stone film JFK. Authors Jim DiEugenio (Destiny Betrayed) and William Daly (Let Justice Fall) have unearthed hundreds of documents showing that Clay Shaw was actively involved with CIA operations, and that Shaw, David Ferrie and Oswald knew each other in New Orleans and were involved in political operations there. The new files bear out the conclusions of Garrison and the Stone film, they do not discount it.
  
  
• A documented record of misstatement and distortion of the hard medical evidence, including alteration and destruction by the officials responsible for the autopsy and investigation of the murder. New depositions taken by the Review Board from many people involved in both Dallas and Bethesda with the treatment and examination of President Kennedy before and after death reveal glaring discrepancies between what the Dallas doctors and the Bethesda technicians saw, and what the autopsists and offical investigations revealed. These were noted earlier by the House Select Committee on Assassinations, despite continued contrivance to cover them up by certain medical experts, which clearly concluded the Warren Commission investigation and conclusions were flawed and that a "conspiracy" had existed in the murder of JFK. These new revelations and findings are outlined meticulously in the writings of both Dr. Cyril Wecht (former president of our Coalition, as well as of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences) and by Dr. Gary Aguilar. Dr. Aguilar is currently contributing to a new book with Dallas eyewitness Dr. Charles Crenshaw, who was present at Parkland Hospital when JFK was admitted, and who assisted in his care. All of the new medical evidence released clearly points to multiple gunmen, as well as to intentional cover-up.
  
  
• The deep politics surrounding the assassination of President Kennedy and the links of key players to the netherworld of intelligence and organized crime are also revealed to a much greater extent in the new files, as well as the role played by many who surrounded Lee Harvey and Marina Oswald in Moscow, New Orleans and Dallas. One of the best authors on these matters is Peter Dale Scott, Ph.D. at USC Berkeley. His Deep Politics and the Death of JFK was followed by a series of articles based on the new files, focused on the New Mexico incident and the connections with anti-Castro Cubans and organized crime.

There are other areas being explored, and neither the release of these files nor a thorough reading of them has been completed. They will continue to dispel the media-touted notion that the files are open and the case is closed, which marked the news the day of the simultaneous appointment of the JFK Assassiantion Records Review Board and the release of Posner's book Case Closed. One recent area of re-examination is the acoustical tape that was a point of conclusion and controversy at the time of the HSCA report in 1978, which provides scientific evidence of a gunman firing from the Grassy Knoll area.

I would urge you to air a follow-up to your one-sided presentation on this issue, allowing serious and qualified researchers into this case to have a voice. Judge John Tunehim, a federal magistrate in Minneapolis, and former chair of the Review Board would add to public understanding of the process of release to date, and what remains to be done. Dr. Cyril Wecht and Dr. Gary Aguilar could provide fascinating new medical evidence, testimony, documents and photographs that reveal the hard forensic proof of a second gunman. John Newman, Jim DiEugenio and Peter Dale Scott could provide sound new historical documentation and revelations about the conspiracy to kill the president. There is no lack of expertise on the majority side of this argument. Also, there is a clear reason that people believe in a conspiracy in this case, which is not gullibility or lack of familiarity with the facts. Many of the best researchers and experts have never had national media coverage of any kind. They are articulate, informed, and intellectually responsible. I hope you will give them a chance to speak.

I am more than willing to provide contact information for these or other serious researchers into this case. I was the executive director of the national Coalition on Political Assassinations for many years, and continue to hold conferences and public forums on the various assassinations, including Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr. Our next regional meeting will be in Dallas from November 22-25 this year at the new Hotel Lawrence, just off Dealey Plaza. You are welcome to attend, I can provide details.

John Judge
COPA
P.O. Box 772
Washington, DC 20044