. PAGE 2 Chicago Tribune, October 4, 1993 Poking in the garbage "When you read all the conspiracy books, it's apparent they can't all be right because they flatly contradict each other," he said. "I knew there Was garbage on the record. I didn’t know how much." After he debunked as many inaccuracies and false leads as he could, he assumed there would be some issues that would require further investigation; perhaps questions about acoustics or ballistics or possible Mafia involvement. Yet toward the end of his research, Posner notified Bab Loomis, his editor at Random House, that he had taken an unexpected turn. "Twas convinced the Warren Commission had gotten it right. The evidence was overwhelming," he said. Posner also wds aware, of course, that a large majority of the populace thinks the Warren Commission had gotten it wrong, maybe on purpose. He got a feel for such skepticism when Loomis, vice president and executive editor of Random House, took his own poll at the next meeting of the publishing house's top editors, who periodically gather to report on works in progress, "Bob told them about what I'd found and asked how many believed the Warren Commission was right," Posner said. "Remember, these are some of the brightest, best-informed, best-educated people in New York City, and no one raised a hand except Bob Loomis." Posner: was not dismayed. “When people cite polls showing 70 or 80 or even 90 percent of the public as believing the assassination was the result of a conspiracy, I say I'm surprised it's’ not 100 percent when you consider that people have essentially heard only one side for three decades." 'JFK' an ‘abomination’ A 1978 congressional investigation estimated that ‘2,000 books, including thase that are self-published, had been written on the subject. All out a handful present a variety of Ssometimes-elaborate scenarios about plotters, motives, killers and cover-ups, and as a rule, the conspiracy books make hestseller lists, while the others dan't. “Then there are the TV documentaries, which are invariably pro-conspiracy,“ Posner said. “A recent ane was a five-hour British film for Arts & Entertainment called ‘The Men Who Killed Kennedy.‘ “ And most influential of all, he said, is Oliver Stone's $50 million movie, "JFK," released in late 1991. "Half of our country's present population weren't born (as of) November 1943. Stone's movie is a historical abomination that's filled with demonstrable falsehoods, but to young peaple, it's a documentary. "Even if they read articles criticizing it, they say, ‘Well, Stone may have exaggerated, but there's got to be something there.' Believe it or not, there's not." EXIS*NEXIS = — LEXIS:NEXIS@ ~LEXIS*NEXIS€= BWiceS1df Mebe Mala Leriaitac. Page 74
. PAGE 3 Chicago Tribune, October 2, 1993 What's especially galling, Posner said, is that Stone based his mavie on the investigation of former New Orleans District Atty. Jim Garrison, including his prosecution of businessman Clay Shaw as an alleged conspiratar. “Garrison's prosecution af Clay Shaw was disgraceful, criminal and has been thoroughly discredited. There was coercion of witnesses and changing of testimony," Posner said. “The jury took only 45 minutes to find Shaw not guilty, and one Of the jurors said it would have been 20 minutes but that several jurors had to go to the bathroom." Stone has said "JFK" was a "counter-myth" to the "myth" of the Warren Commission. The no-longer magic bullet Among the doctrines of conspiracy literature bolstered by "JFK," Posner noted, is that the so-called magic bullet found on Texas Gov. John Connally's stretcher at Parkland Hospital was almost pristine, couldn't have struck Kennedy and Connally, as the Warren Commission said it did, without zigzagging in midair, and was probably planted. "If ballistics tests didn't prove canclusively the bullet struck Kennedy and Connally, which they do, use your common sense," Posner said. “At the time the bullet was found, the conspirators wouldn't know if the bullets fired at Connally and Kennedy were still lodged in their bodies or had been recovered. "If they wanted to shield the conspiracy, there can only be three shots. More than that, and. the single assassin doesn't have time to shoot. So why risk exposing the conspiracy by planting a fourth bullet that wouldn't match ballistically with remnants of the other rounds?" And what about Jack Ruby, the Chicago native who moved to Dallas to run strip clubs? Did he just happen by the Dallas jail on Nov. 24 and shoot Oswald on the spur of the moment? "Ruby's murder of Oswald does more to undermine this case in terms of getting the truth cut than anything else," Posner said. “First, it prevents the trial of Oswald, where the evidence would have convicted him. It alsa gives us a second assassin, with ties to organized crime. It's hard for people to believe this was a coincidence, sa you're off and running with a conspiracy." Posner's account of Ruby's life and his actions during the assassination week demolishes any notion he was a conspirator. According to the trade journal Publishers Weekly, six books by major publishers will appear this fall to coincide with the 30th anniversary of the assassination, with "Case Closed" standing alone in its anti-conspiracy stance. Posner has been heartened by promising sales and positive reviews. "Many readers are put off by conspiracy books that select only material that's favorable to their position, whether it checks out or not. I think these people are buying the book." Thumbs up from the critics FXIS* NEXIS‘ _LEXIS:NEXIS LEXIS: "NEXIS = Wtviedd Af Ma Adi CAM AAP Ine Page 7
, . PAGE 4 Chicago Tribune, October 3, 1993 Three weeks after its release, it is eighth on The New York Times national best-seller list and seventh on the Tribune's list of Chicago's best sellers. U.S. News @ World Report, which ran excerpts from "Case Closed," writes: "Posner achieves the unprecedented. He sweeps away decades of polemical smoke, layer by layer, and builds an unshakable case against JFK's killer . . . Lee Harvey Oswald." It quotes. Stephen Ambrose, biographer of Dwight Eisenhower and Richard Nixon: "The chapter on the (magic) bullet is a tour de force, absolutely brilliant, absolutely convincing." New York Times book critic Christopher Lehmann-Haupt writes that "Posner effectively refutes hundreds of claims that have added up to conspiracy theories." In a Tribune review, author Jeffrey Toobin writes that “Case Closed" is “utterly convincing in its thesis, which seems, in light of all that has transpired over the past 30 years, almost revolutionary." Pasner, 39, didn't set out to be a writer, instead complying with the wishes of his father, a union official in San Francisco. "My father dealt with a lot of lawyers. He said, ‘Son, these fellows charge fees you can't believe.' " So Posner attended law school at the University of California at Berkeley, | where he was an honor student, then joined a prestigious Wall Street law firm, leaving two years later to form his own firm. In 1981 he represented Jewish victims of Dr. Josef Mengele, .the notorious Nazi war criminal who escaped from Germany after World War II and died in hiding in South America. "It was a pro bono case, and I sued the Mengele family and the German government," Posner said. "Nathing came of the suit, but I accumulated 25,000 documents about Mengele, so I thought I'd write a book." “Mengele: The Complete Story," which he co-wrote with John Ware, was published in 1984, prompting Posner to leave the law-and write full time. “Case Closed" is his fifth book. "A weakness of mine is that I tend to underestimate the difficulty of each project I undertake. This was true with this book, but as I kept going I kept finding answers to things I didn't think I could get answers to." The real cover-ups Posner agrees with critics of the Warren Commission who say its investigation was flawed. "There was a cover-up by the FBI and the CIA, but they weren't attempting to conceal their involvement in the murder of the president but rather their oun inefficiency and bungling," Posner said. "I go into detail in exposing these cover-ups, but they can't be interpreted as evidence of conspiracy." The Warren Commission's work also was tarnished by a dubious finding of the 1978 investigation by the House Select Committee on Assassinations, Posner said. EXIS*NEXIS = —LEXIS:NEXIS@= LEXIS: ‘NEXIS HWices of Meke Odld GeHeehArc. Page 76
PAGE 5 Chicago Tribune, October 3, 1993 "The committee's acoustics experts tested a Dictabelt recording of radio traffic on Dallas police channels and said they were 95 percent certain there had been a fourth shat, therefore a second shooter and a conspiracy." A retest by the National Academy of Sciences discredited the committee's experts, concluding that the recording was made a minute after the shooting, Posner said. ; Half of “Case Closed" is a meticulous examination of Oswald's entire life, culminating in an almost day-by-day chronicle of his movements in the last two months before the assassination. “Many conspiracy books almost ignore Oswald. But he's the key, and it's amazing how much is known about him," Posner said. "It's certainly enough to disprove all the theories that he was a spy ora patsy. "My technique was to ga to original sources. Too many boaks quote secondary sources, some of which are passing on misinformation, which means the garbage is disseminated again and again, becoming fact. “Here's an example. 'JFK' opens with Rose Cheramie, a prostitute, warning her doctors that the Kennedy assassination is going to take place in Dallas and naming Ruby as involved. I found her doctor, who said she was psychotic and didn't mention the assassination until the day after it happened or Ruby until the day after he killed Oswald." Posner paused. "I can go on." GRAPHIC: PHOTO GRAPHIC PHOTO (color): Gerald Posner, debunker of conspiracy theorists, at Smyth School on West 13th Street, which Jack Ruby attended. Tribune phota by Charles Cherney. SRAPHIC: The three shots. From: "Case Closed: Lee Harvey Oswald and the Assassination of JFK," by Gerald Posner (Random House, Sept. 1, 1993.) See microfilm for complete graphic. LANGUAGE: ENGLISH LOAD-DATE-MDC: December 7, 1993 EXIS*NEXIS@_ LEXIS*NEXIS@# LEXIS:NEXIS@# BRices1 St? MeBe Data Dortrai Arc. Page 77