The Journey 56. Mal Hyman: The Lies Started on Day One (The CIA and the Mainstream Media)

Mal Hyman and publisher RA “Kris” Millegan discuss Mal’s book, “Burying the Lead: The Media and the JFK Assassination.” JFK’s assassination was a coup d’état and the media covered it up. The CIA’s infiltration of the media, Dallas Mayor Cabell being a CIA asset spinning reporters, the FBI intimidating reporters, how Kennedy was at war with the CIA and the military, and how today’s post-literate youth can be inspired.

K: It’s amazing how much you put in your book and how ignored the whole damn thing is. When people have a book on the JFK assassination, I’ll say, “If it doesn’t say that Lee Harvey Oswald did it, we won’t get any media. We won’t get any shrift.”

M: The mainstream media typically marginalizes us, as they do most critical thought. I think after 30 years [of research I was] able to clarify a lot of things [in the book]. MSNBC still has the former head of the CIA on talking about national security issues – John Brennan. Or Jeremy Bash, who was the CIA and military chief of staff. They interview him. And Ned Price [a CIA officer loaned to the National Security Council]. MSNBC, Rachel Maddow, still basically reporting the lone nut theory. So we’re up against it and I appreciate your courage [to publish my book and others like it].

When I started teaching, when I talked about the assassination of John Kennedy, I could hold the interest of public school kids for as long as I wanted to talk. At Coker University, they let me teach a class on political assassinations.

K: What was the most amazing lie that you found? Maybe even a lie that still stands today.

M: They’re so many of them that made my head spin. The CIA connection to the media during the 1960s and 70s, where they talked about 400 to 600 reporters that worked with them in one fashion or another. Someone working for the Church Committee told me that it was at least that many. That portion of the Church Committee Report that dealt with the media ties to the CIA is still classified.

And the lies started at the very outset in misleading reporters from Day One. Mayor Cabell of Dallas was spinning reporters the day afterwards, claiming that Oswald was a lone nut with a deranged mind. And it was only a couple of years ago that we found out that Cabell was a CIA asset spinning things. Or the FBI who was intimidating reporters the day afterward whose stories indicated there could be a shooter from the grassy knoll or that it looked like an entry wound into the president.

K: The depth and breadth of your book is just amazing. Especially how much manipulation of this story there has been.

M: When I ran for Congress, I talked to Nancy Pelosi. And I asked for opposition research. And she said, “After you raise seven hundred thousand dollars and show us a poll that indicates you could win, we’ll be glad to help you.” That was it. When I talked to other candidates that year that had raised the money, they said that the Democratic congressional campaign committee comes in and starts to run their campaign and control their messaging. With money in politics, the Democratic Party has been suffocating the progressive wing of the party.

It’s tough to crack the mainstream media. We’re saying that Kennedy’s assassination was a coup d’état and that the media covered it up and they’re still covering it up. They’re not covering 9/11. They’re not covering the assassination of Martin Luther King or Robert Kennedy.

Kennedy was always at war with the CIA and the military. He had a different conception of foreign policy, being an Irish-Catholic. He understood colonialism better than most of our other presidents. He was changing foreign policy, whether it was toward Indonesia, Latin America, Vietnam, and the Soviet Union. He wanted to end the Cold War.

And the CIA has always been part and parcel of the corporate elite, set up by them, as is the mainstream media. These people used to go to the same schools. They’re part of the same clubs. They would party together. They would intermarry. They would socialize. And they saw the Cold War with the emphasis on WAR. They wanted to confront the Soviet Union during the Cuban Missile Crisis. They thought Kennedy was completely wrong with the Bay of Pigs. They could see that he pulling out of Vietnam. They [removed him], some of them out of patriotism, some out of interest, within that faction.