"Umbrella Man" Does His Thing at JFK Assassination Scene More and more, one is struck by the extent to which the New York Times is
disassociated from reality. One might judge the paper's publishing of
official falsehoods as the occasional and accidental byproduct of the
pressure to produce so many articles, were it not for the consistency
and rigidly sclerotic way it loyally foists patently untrue material
upon the public.
I say this as someone who still reads the Times, still has friends working there, and still retains some isolated pockets of fondness for it.
But it is hard to overlook these constant transgressions. As we note here at WhoWhatWhy, these range from ignoring the real reasons for the invasion of Libya to apologizing for fraud perpetrated by its favorite Afghanistan propagandist (and the author of Three Cups of Tea). It
surely includes the paper's failure to share with its readers
overwhelming and constantly refreshed documentation of an organized coup
that resulted in the death of President John F. Kennedy and the end of
meaningful reform in America. I addressed that latter issue in the
article, "NY Times' Ostrich Act on JFK Assassination Getting Old."
Far from proper journalistic curiosity, the paper sees its job as
enforcing orthodoxy, and shutting down consideration of anything
untoward. According to the New York Times's peculiar brand of journalism, coups and plots happen with regularity abroad, but never, never, in the United States.
It is important to include the pejorative phrase "conspiracy
theorist" in every article, even acknowledging concern about the health
of democracy in America. It is important to have a good laugh at the
expense of those poor souls who trouble themselves inquiring into the
darker precincts of this country's history.
So it is with the 48th anniversary of Kennedy's death. Instead of assigning a single reporter to scrutinize the hundreds or thousands of meaningful, documented facts that do suggest more than "the lone nut did it," the Times gets busy with the disinformation business.
Here are two Times "contributions" on this occasion:
UMBRELLA MAN
On the 48th anniversary of Kennedy's murder, the Times ran an op-ed piece
and short film by documentary maker Errol Morris about another man's
research into "umbrella man." Umbrella Man is the nickname for a fellow
who famously brought an umbrella on a sunny day for the president's
visit to Dallas November 22, 1963, stood on the "grassy knoll," and,
just as the president's car passed, he opened the umbrella and pumped it
in the air. Many have speculated as to the significance, or lack of
significance, of this strange behavior. Some wonder if Umbrella Man was part of the assassination scenario, perhaps signaling to shooters.
There was even the September 1975 Senate intelligence committee
testimony by Charles Senseney, a contract weapons designer for the CIA,
that the agency had perfected an umbrella that shoots undetectable
poison darts that can immobilize and kill, raising questions about
whether this was in play that day. (See P. 168 in the Senate committee testimony, where Senseney explains specifically about the agency's use of a toxin and the ability to fire it from a modified umbrella.)
The self-described Umbrella Man, Louie Steven Witt, came forward to offer his testimony in 1978, or three years after the
CIA expert provided this now forgotten testimony on umbrellas as
weapons. Umbrella Man came forward just as a special House Select
Committee on Assassinations was focusing on the possibility of a
conspiracy (which, it concluded in its final report...was likely.) (You can order a video of a report on Witt's testimony, by then ABC News reporter Brit Hume, here)
The counsel for the Assassinations Committee, remarkably, does not
mention the prior Senate testimony by the CIA weapons expert that such
an umbrella device did exist, and instead quotes a more shaky claim by
an "assassinations critic" regarding such a device.
Mr. GENZMAN. Mr. Witt, exhibit 406 is a copyrighted diagram
drawn by assassinations critic Robert B. Cutler which shows two
umbrellas with rocket and flechette attachments. Mr. Witt, do you
know what a flechette is?