Let us take a look at the COPA mission statement, “What is the Coalition on Political Assassinations?”

In paragraph two COPA claims that these “official investigations [into the murders of President Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr.] were flawed.” Is “flawed” the operative word? Or were these apparently “flawed” investigations the only possible outcome of a process aimed at concealing obvious conspiracy? Indeed wasn’t the government ultimately able to use the so-called “flawed” nature of these investigations in its strategy of cover-up via confusion and uncertainty? From this point of view “flawed” investigations were exactly what was needed for the purposes of the pseudo-debate. Is the word “flawed” used rather than the more truthful word “fraudulent,” because such truth would threaten the coalition? If so, the commitment to coalition takes precedence over the commitment to truth.

In the third paragraph of this document we find the following words: “The inability of past and present government agencies to resolve public doubts and distrust concerning these murders ...” Is it really inability? Does the government really want to resolve doubts but is unable to? No, it is interested in fostering mystery and confusion. This sentence from COPA conveys the notion that the government has tried but failed to resolve doubts. To suggest that the government is unable to resolve doubts, is to invert the truth. In asserting this, COPA is allying itself with the government strategy of cover-up via mystery.

Paragraph two tells us that COPA’s policy is that “all US and foreign government records relating to these murders should be made public immediately.” We read on and learn that the Assassination Records Review Board is a government body charged with “locating, defining and facilitating the release of these files, unless clear and convincing evidence of harm to current intelligence sources and methods, or harm to individuals outweighs the public right to access ... [COPA] work[s] closely with ARRB ...”

To treat the government as if some part of it can be an honest broker, rather than indicating the ubiquitous nature of the cover-up across the entire society, and the central role of the intelligence community in the crime, is to be part of the cover-up.

Just how this orientation operates on a practical level can be seen by examining a newspaper article that was sent to me this past spring by its author, Dr. Gary Aguilar, a leading member of COPA. While what I say here may be perceived as particularly critical of this article, the reader should be clear that in my opinion, there is absolutely nothing unusual about this article. Neither do I believe that the author is consciously doing what he is doing. The article is an example of Orwellian crimestop functioning as unconscious self mind control.

The article in question appeared on March 17th, 1998 in the Marin Independent Journal and was entitled “Now that files are open, the case isn’t closed”. The words “case closed” are a reference to Gerald Posner’s book Case Closed. Indeed, the article in question was an attempt to reply to an article which had appeared on March 7th, in which a certain Don Kates attempted to slam the “critical community” and defend the Warren Report by praising Case Closed.

Aguilar’s reply opens with the following line, “Don Kates’ spirited defense of the official version of John F. Kennedy’s death – that Lee Harvey Oswald alone caused it – is uninformed as to the exciting new revelations from the Assassination Record Review Board.”

What is conveyed by this opening sentence? Wouldn’t the reader reasonably get the impression from Aguilar’s sentence, that were it not for the new exciting revelations from the ARRB, one might reasonably conclude that Oswald had indeed been the lone assassin? And the article continues with a mass of new detail. Aguilar at no time indicates that all this new material is totally unnecessary for the question of deciding whether there was or wasn’t a conspiracy. And in fact he winds up asserting that this question is still controversial, and at some point may be cleared up, when all the records are released.

The effect of all this is to totally distort the whole process by which the crime is being covered-up. Aguilar is leading the reader away from the fact that there is no doubt about a conspiracy, and that the confusion is based on a process in which the media, the departments of history, and the government are all complicit in cover-up via confusion. No, based on Aguilar one gets the impression that all these institutions of society are the innocent victims of a government that has failed to release enough information. This is the government’s line. This is the ARRB line. It is absolutely false. It is the essence of the cover-up.

Finally the article concludes, “It is also important, if embarrassing, to our just pride as Americans, that it took an Oliver Stone film to force the US government to do what it should have done without Stone – be open and accountable ...” So our pride as Americans is just? And the government is now open and accountable?? This is Orwellian crimestop. It is misleading the public.

But there in one final irony, and that is how Dr. Aguilar’s article in reality actually aids the forces which lie behind the production of Gerald Posner’s book, Case Closed. It order to see how this is the case, one must understand what Gerald Posner and Case Closed really are. Posner’s book is part of a governmental/establishment strategy for defending itself by establishing that the JFK assassination is a continuing mystery, and that the critics are at most conspiracy theorists. That is, that the idea of conspiracy in the case is only a theory. A critical necessity for such a strategy is to be able to continue to maintain that the Warren Report was and is debatable. In order for the Warren Report to be debatable, some “honest and intelligent” people have to be able to look at the Report and the evidence and claim that it is still valid.

Now of course, Posner is not honest. His entire book is a complete fraud. But this doesn’t matter because those institutions which the public more or less has allowed to decide what is and is not legitimate, these institutions proclaim that this is a serious book. A book which is complete and utter nonsense is produced by a “legitimate” publisher and is favorably reviewed by the “legitimate” press. Thus, it is “legitimate.” It must be taken seriously and debated. No honest person who takes the trouble to look into the case and to know something about it, should have to waste a moment on Gerald Posner. The reason for this is that the honest person should be able to put his hands easily on material that shows that the “theory” that there was a conspiracy is not a theory at all. It is a proven fact. And no one, no how, and no where, can unprove such a fact. (The fact that the honest person may not be able to easily put his hands on such material is the really profound failure of the “critical community.”)

Thus the purpose of Posner’s book is to provide the establishment with an assertion which it can claim has some substance and must be debated. The establishment doesn’t care whether you agree with Posner or not. They simply want him taken seriously enough to give the impression that there is something to debate here. And the basic thrust of Aguilar’s article is totally in line with this. There is a mystery. We still don’t know.