FOR THE FIRST TIME ON TELEVISION -
A RE-EXAMINATION OF THE WARREN COMMISSION FINDINGS: A MINORITY REPORT broadcast Saturday, November 12, 1966 9:00pm to Midnight.
The report of the Warren Commission says Lee Harvey Oswald, working alone, killed President John F. Kennedy. This discussion is largely an emphatic and often hotly argued rebuttal to the commission's findings. It begins with "The only way you can believe the Warren Report is to not read it" and ranges through charges of incompetence on the part of the Dallas police and destruction and misrepresentation of evidence by the FBI, and accusations of carelessness, as well as suppression of evidence and testimony, on the part of the commission.
Included in this heated debate the timeline to all activities on that tragic day, November 22, 1963, filmed interview accounts by eyewitnesses, transcription highlights of the Warren Commission Report and eerie details concerning those individuals who were involved, directly and indirectly in the assassination's, who are now dead under mysterious circumstances.
Panelists: Mark Lane, hired as counsel to protect the dead Oswald's interests by Mrs. Marguerite Oswald, is the author of "Rush To Judgement." Journalist Leo Sauvage has written "The Oswald Affair." Harold Weisberg recently published "Whitewash: The Report On The Warren Report." Editor Penn Jones wrote, "Forgive My Grief." Historian Jacob Cohen calls himself "by and large a defender of the commission." Syndicated columnist Jim Bishop is the moderator. Journalist/correspondent David Schoenbrun introduces the program.
NOTE: After repeated requests, and silence from members of the Warren Commission during the production of this special TV presentation, producer Mel Bailey received acceptance from the commission to participate in a follow up report, stated at the beginning of this broadcast.
There is also mention by David Schoenbrun that Bailey is now working on a program featuring these members and their reflections of the commission and its staff.
It is not known if this program was ever completed or broadcast.
VARIETY REVIEW COLUMN:
"Well before the taping (August 30th) of this broadcast Warren Commission members and staff were invited by letter to be represented on this program. Fortunately, there were no acceptances (most didn't bother to answer), and "Re-Examination" became one of those very rare tv public service efforts with a sharp point of view...that is negative on the Warren Report and forcefully inquisitive about the myriad loose ends and stacks of suppressed evidence surrounding President Kennedy's assassination.
Moderator Jim Bishop (who is adding the Kennedy shooting to his list of the "Day Such and Such" books) and Jacob Cohen, historian and author of the article "The Missing Documents," defended the Commission Report. But they were swamped by the text and arguments of Mark Lane, attorney and author of the current best seller, "Rush to Judgement." Leo Sauvage, correspondent for the conservative French newspaper Le Figaro and author of "The Oswald Affair"; author Weisberg; and Penn Jones, Author of "Forgive My Grief" and editor of the Midlothian Mirror, a weekly newspaper published outside of Dallas.
With this gathering of anxious and articulate dissidents, it was not easy for moderator Bishop to keep the entire three hours to the methodical format, which traced events before, during and after the President's shooting. But apparently firm ground rules had been laid down in advance, and Bishop did a noble job of shutting off the segments before they were lost in minutiae.
There were numerous slide exhibits (and a couple of filmed interviews by Lane of witnesses not called by the Commission).
A loud three cheers to Metromedia, WNEW, producer Mel Baily & company for airing the views of the panelists. For better or worse, these are men who have with incredible doggedness and considerable courage challenged the findings of President Johnson's Warren Commission. The one thing on which the entire panel agreed completely, Bishop and Cohen included, was that the pile of evidence being withheld by agencies like the FBI and CIA and suppressed in the National Archives (for release says President Johnson, in the year 2039), should be made public and now.
In this forthright airing of the challengers' views, WNEW has joined with certain American book publishers, certain American magazines(like Ramparts out of San Francisco), crusading American weekly newspaper publisher Penn Jones and the foreign press in putting the First Amendment of the Constitution to the uses for which it was written.
Now, where are the Networks?
All three made gushing documentary endorsements of the Commission Reports when it was released (as did the U.S. press in general).
NOTE:
Occasionally transmission audio interference is heard but not often and not interfering with the comprehension of this almost three hour round table discussion, sans commercials. 