Belzer Richard - Dead wrong: straight facts on the countrys most controversial cover-ups

Copyright 2012 by Richard Belzer and David Wayne Afterword copyright 2012 by Jesse Ventura

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data [TK]

ISBN: 978-1-61608-673-2

eISBN: 978-1-62087-551-3

Printed in [TK]

This book is dedicated to all those who defend the increasingly rare proposition that this country belongs to The People (not corporations, military contractors or the best politicians that money can buy) and its still up to The People to determine how it should be governed.

History is the version of past events
that people have decided to agree upon.

Napoleon Bonaparte

There are those in positions of power who malign the pursuit of justice by intentionally associating the word conspiracy with the delirious hallucinations of unbalanced minds.

Theyre wrong.

The real-world definition of conspiracy is simply; two or more persons agreeing to commit a crime. In short, they are everywhere, a constant component of daily events throughout our history, and are by no means the restless imaginings of an over-attentive audience.

Most Americans are completely unaware that a jury in Tennessee in 1999 reached the verdict that a conspiracy involving agencies of the U.S. government was responsible for the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King. In some of the most important court testimony in American history (which was completely ignored by mainstream media), in one of the most important trials in American historythe extent of media manipulation in the United States was clearly delineated by William Schaap, an attorney and professor who has testified as an expert witness in the areas of intelligence and governmental use of media for disinformation and propaganda:

• The reason that there was no mainstream media coverage of the trial resulting in a conspiracy verdict in the King assassination in 1999 is directly linked to governmental control of the media in the United States.
• Disinformation is not only getting certain things to appear in print, its also getting certain things not to appear in print. I mean, the first thing I would say as a way of explanation is, the incredibly powerful effect of disinformation over a long period of time that I mentioned before. For thirty years, the official line has been that James Earl Ray killed Martin Luther King and he did it all by himself. And when that is imprinted in the minds of the general public for thirty years, if somebody stood up and confessed and said: I did it. Ray didnt do it, I did it it just wouldnt click in their minds.
• About a third of the CIAs budget is for its media operations, which includes domestic use of propaganda, such as solidifying and continuing the public perception that there were no conspiracies in the murders of President Kennedy, Senator Robert F. Kennedy, and Dr. Martin Luther King. Their budget is secret (its kept classified because you dont tell people that they are being intentionally misinformed); but at least a billion dollars per year goes to media propaganda operations, and much of it is in the United States.
• There is still an active focus on media propaganda in the U.S. by Intelligence agencies to discredit conspiracy theories and solidify the official version of historical events. Americans are particularly vulnerable to intentional misinformation as a result of the way that the notion of conspiracy has been so maligned by the press:

I mean, after all, conspiracy just means, you know, more than one person being involved in something. And if you stop and think about it, almost everything significant that happens anywhere involves more than one person. Yet here there is a - not a myth really, but theres just an underlying assumption that most things are not conspiracies. And when you have that, it enables a government which has a propaganda program, has a disinformation program, to be relatively successful inin having its disinformation accepted.

You are certainly correct in assuming that not each death of a celebrity or public official signifies a conspiracy. You are also correct in assuming that, in some cases, the death of a famous person was the result of a conspiracy.

A more simplistic argument thats often heard is, Too many people would have known, someone would have talkedsimply doesnt stand up to reason. To whom would they have talked?try getting a story like that published in mainstream media. Why would they have talked?wasnt keeping them quiet the whole point? And, in point of fact, some actually have talkedfor example, longtime undercover operative William Plumlee, whose official Affidavit on the JFK assassination appears in our chapter on that subject.

Another common misconception conveyed in the mainstream media is that in order for a government cover-up to occur, numerous members of various agencies necessarily must conspire to commit that act. Nothing could be further from the truth. All thats necessary for a cover-up is a government deciding whats in its own best interest and acting accordinglyutilizing whatever method (often deemed national security interests) that best achieves their predetermined destination.

Picture a high-level FBI executive explaining to an underling, the need to follow the White Houses intervention in an investigation on the pretext of the highest levels of the nations security. An average agent in the field is just going to go along. Its not a matter of conspiracy; its simply the realities of the situation. Your country needs you is a very strong argument and more than sufficient for most people. So one is very inclined to just shut up and do their job. Realistically, the President of the United States is your Commander-in-Chief. Most people in general, and most law enforcement officials in particular, would be happy, even honored, to participate in what they perceive as the official objectives and best interests of their nation.

Miguel Rodriguez was a heroic prosecutor who realized that Vince Fosters civil rights had been violated by a cover-up of the true circumstances of his death and he attempted to prosecute those who obstructed justicehe was forced to resign as a result. He responded eloquently to the argument of:

How could so many people be involved in the cover-up?

Rodriguez replied that the evidence did not suggest that all the officials conspired together, just that everyone did what they were told to do, with a number of people fibbing about small matters that together added up to something far greater.

It also bears noting that those who cover up a crime are not necessarily those who commit it. When issues perceived to be affecting national security arise, cover-ups tend to follow. Cover-ups are not the realm of conspiracy-mongers with overactive imaginations. They are very real and have taken place on a regular basis throughout history.