Subject: "Who is Roger Feinman?" Date: Thu, 09 Dec 1999 23:35:45 +0000 From: David Lifton Organization: EarthLink Network, Inc. Newsgroups: alt.conspiracy.jfk To all: Roger Feinman has been posting messages making false statements about me and my work, BEST EVIDENCE. Some years ago, when this problem first arose, I drafted two essays which was sent (hardcopy, via U.S. mail) to approximately 200 JFK researchers. One, "BEYOND ME: Who Is Roger Feinman and Why Does He Hate me So Much?", addresses the question of just who this fellow is, and how he comes to take the positions he does. It is reproduced below. The other, "SCREWBALL LOGIC" addresses Feinman's absurd allegations that I made up key aspects of BEST EVIDENCE simply to get a book contract. Of course, some years have passed since the original essays were written; and now Feinman can add to his "accomplishments" (which then included having been fired from CBS News) having recently been disbarred in a Federal court, in connection with his representation of Robert Groden, in a suit against Random House. I wrote these essays to avoid having to deal with Feinman, and all his lies, in the future. Whenever I would hear that Feinman was disseminating his nonsense to any third party, I would take a copy of the essay off the shelf, make a dupe, and mail it to that person. Since Feinman is starting up again, this time on a public bulletin board, I am reproducing the first essay below. Readers will find it much more than my response to a personal attacks. Anyone interested in the JFK case will find in this essay a guided tour of many of the "behind the scenes" events in the JFK research movement, starting in the mid 60's, up until the aftermath of the publication of Best Evidence, and the debate between certain JFK researchers and representatives of JAMA, in 1992. People who read it are going to find the portrait of Roger Feinman, er, "enlightening." Enjoy. David Lifton * * * "BEYOND ME": WHO IS ROGER FEINMAN? (and why does he hate me so much?) by David Lifton (Copyright 1993, all rights reserved) David Lifton 11500 West Olympic Blvd., Suite 400; L.A. CA 90064 TEL: (310) 445 2300; FAX: 310 445 2301 email: (Dec. 1999):) dlifton@compuserve.com 5/5/93 PREFACE In April 1993, in Chicago, at the Midwest Symposium on Assassination Politics, I was one of four members of a panel of Warren Report critics, the purpose being to debate four representatives of JAMA. Serving on the same panel, with me, was Roger Feinman. When it came Roger’s turn to speak, he opened his remarks with an attack on me and Best Evidence: i.e., he attacked a co-panelist, rather than the other side. Then, after returning to his home from Chicago, Feinman posted a 5,000 word attack on me and my work on the Compuserve Library; moreover, he has been using the Compuserve bulletin board throughout much of April, 1993, to attack me and my book. I have written a two part response. This essay, is my primary response to Feinmn. A companion essay, dealing more directly with my book, is titled: "SCREWBALL ‘LOGIC’: ROGER FEINMAN’S ABSURD ATTEMPT TO PROVE BEST EVIDENCE WAS A HOAX, and Paint me in a False Light." INTRODUCTION Roger Feinman, age 45, is a New York City attorney. In the mid-seventies, after graduating from Queens College and before he went to law school, he worked for CBS News, a job from which he was fired in 1976, when he was 28 years old. In an article explaining why he was fired, ("The Greatest Secret I Ever Learned About the Kennedy Assassination," published in Third Decade, July, 1992) Feinman recounted a lesson he had learned: ". . . I have learned never to tell anyone that he is wrong. Telling someone he’s wrong only makes him defensive. When he gets defensive, his adrenaline starts pumping a little faster, and calm discussion becomes even harder." Here are some excerpts from Roger Feinman’s recent writings (April, 1993) on Compuserve national bulletin board concerning me and my work, Best Evidence: o "It is correct to say that I do not like David Lifton. . . . I do not like his methods. I do not trust his motives. I do not believe he is objective. I do not believe he is sincere. I do not trust him . . . And, although it might have turned out otherwise, I do not believe that Best Evidence can be taken seriously as a work of scholarship, history, journalism, criticism, or other form of non-fiction." o "As further evidence of Lifton's dishonesty and deceit . . . Lifton plagiarized liberally . . ." o "I sincerely believe that Best Evidence is one of the greatest publishing hoaxes since Clifford Irving's book on Howard Hughes. The theory of body snatching and body alteration has no merit whatsoever. I do not believe that [Best Evidence] . . . could have [been] written . . . in good faith." o ". . . Lifton's theory is garbage, and he subverts the evidence that he cites in the book to suit his theory, which makes it a piece of garbage as well. And he knows it." In a subsequent Compuserve exchange, after he had calmed down, Feinman opined to someone who had come to my defense: o "Your assumption that I used my time to conduct ‘a vendetta’ is totally unfactual (sic) and incorrect. Why Mr. Lifton would feel that I have a personal vendetta against him is beyond me." "Beyond me..."; Beyond Roger Feinman? Well, let us attempt to journey to that land of the "beyond." [INSTRUCTION TO SOUNDMAN! Please begin playing the theme music from "The Twilight Zone."] VOICE: An alert reader, and especially anyone who has taken Psychology 101, may discern, at this point, that something is seriously out of kilter here: Roger Feinman does not seem to be in touch with his feelings. Moreover, inasmuch as Best Evidence was published 12 years ago, Feinman’s reaction, at this late date, seems peculiar. To borrow language from the Single Bullet Theory, Roger Feinman seems to be having a "delayed reaction." Why is that? This brings us to the subject of this essay: Just Who is Roger Feinman (and why does he hate me so much)? [SOUNDMAN: Please fade out the music. We are about to get serious.] Roger Feinman always wanted to write a book on the Kennedy assassination, but he never did. Instead, he became a lawyer (insurance law). Something else about Roger Feinman---he never out-grew his "ideological mother," Sylvia Meagher, author of Accessories After the Fact, the very fine critique of the Warren Report published in 1967. Roger met Sylvia in the Spring of 1975, when he was an employee at CBS News, and was just turning 27. In his July 1992 Third Decade article, Roger refers to her as "my best friend" and as someone who "became my only mentor on the assassination." Indeed, this relationship existed from about the time Roger turned 27, until Sylvia’s death, in 1989, when she was in her 60s, and Roger was 40. Prior to Sylvia, Roger had other heroes. Roger’s hero at CBS News, producer Joe Wershba, warned Feinman that "the Kennedy assassination is like a poison in the bloodstream: once it grabbed hold of you, it never let go. He knew that it was all too easy to become lost in the labyrinthine intricacies of the case..." Moreover, writes Roger: "Joe Wershba saw that I was lost in the case." One has to go back some 18 or 20 years to see the roots of Feinman’s anger towards me and Best Evidence because there is a major difference between Roger Feinman and me: I didn’t get lost, I found my way out of the labyrinth---psychologically, physically, and professionally. I have a book that has been in print now for twelve years, with four different publishers. And a video. And I’m now writing another book. But Roger’s anger is more than one man’s personal disagreement with another man’s book. It gets down to basic stuff, such as who he is, and certain life choices he has made: life choices about work, and life choices about what to believe. Life choices about who to make your best friend. Sylvia Meagher (pronounced "Marr") was a well respected researcher but---and this is an important but---from the outset, she clung to the idea that the Warren Commission was a deliberate cover-up; that the problem was with the investigators, not with the evidence. Hence, her book and its title: "Accessories After the Fact: The Warren Commission, the Authorities, & The Report." (emphasis added). She believed the mistaken conclusions of the Warren Report, which she documented with considerable skill, were deliberate, as if the Warren Commission and its staff were a conspiracy of liars (i.e., the evidence was there for all to see, but the Commission attorneys had not told the truth). Sylvia actually believed---and told me so---that the Warren Commission attorneys could (and should) be disbarred for the Warren Report. They were the culprits. I had an active correspondence with Sylvia Meagher in 1965 and much of 1966, when I was a graduate student at UCLA, and about 27, the same age Roger was when he first met Sylvia some nine years later. In October 1966, in the aftermath of the first wave of books on the Kennedy assassination (Inquest by Edward Epstein; Rush to Judgment, by Mark Lane), UCLA law professor Wesley Liebeler, who I had come to know, decided to teach a law seminar on the Warren Commission. He invited me to attend, and to play devil’s advocate. It was the beginning of the end of my relationship with Sylvia Meagher. I know that to some Sylvia Meagher was a warm and charming lady. That was not the side I got to see. She was deeply angered by Liebeler’s law seminar and by my attending that class---and the result was not just disagreement, it was cold fury; screaming and shouting on the telephone, angry letters, and finally, a disruption of the relationship. (I know that on the pages of her book, Mrs. Meagher comes off as a paragon of reason, but that is not the way she was with me.) Frankly, I found her view of the Warren Commission staff intolerant. Moreover, I was constantly amazed at Sylvia’s propensity to confuse the messenger with the message---and by that I mean, to blame the investigators, but not the evidence. (It is almost like blaming the newspaper, for the news. And this mode of thinking, I believe, indicates a seriously flawed perception of reality.) Much of this was detailed in Best Evidence---where I described what happened between me and Mrs. Meagher, because I was acutely aware that a whole generation of researchers looked up to her, and followed her book; and were caught up in this mode of dealing with certain very serious issues (e.g., contradictions in the medical evidence) as if the Warren Commission was the problem, not the evidence. I believe that is a serious error. It was a central insight obtained from attending Liebeler’s class at UCLA that any group of conservative attorneys, starting with the Commission’s evidence, would arrive at the Commission’s conclusion (and to make this point, I often joke at lectures, "To start with the Commission’s evidence and arrive at the Commission’s conclusions, you don’t have to be a member of a conspiracy; you just have to have gone to law school.") The most important evidence in this assassination is the body of the President. In 1966, I made the discovery that the FBI reported surgery (in the Sibert and O’Neill report, a document discovered by Paul Hoch and then published in several books). I brought that discovery to Professor Liebeler, and he thought it important enough to send a memorandum to the White House, the Kennedy family, and other members of the Commission (See chapter 10, Best Evidence, "The Liebeler Memorandum"). When it was clear that the Government was not going to do anything about the situation, I decided to conduct my own investigation, see where it would lead, and write a book. During the time I was writing and researching my work, I was subject to a stream of anger and ridicule from Sylvia Meagher. One has to flash forward 10-15 years to when Best Evidence was being finalized and brought to publication (circa, 1975-1980), to pick up the Roger Feinman thread of the story. During part of this period, for several years prior to 1976, while I was researching the assassination and writing my manuscript, Roger, having graduated from Queens College, was working as an employee at CBS News. As everyone should know, CBS News played a major role in rehabilitating the Warren Report in a famous four hour CBS News Special, aired on successive nights in June, 1967; and then in a re-fashioned one-hour version, broadcast in 1975. Roger worked in a low level position at CBS, and during that employment (and "on my own time," as he was careful to note in a letter he wrote to me two years later) he became involved in researching the Kennedy assassination and met several critics of the Warren Report---notably, Sylvia Meagher. He disagreed with the way CBS handled the assassination. In his Third Decade article, Roger explains how he felt at the time: "Back then, I thought that the senior management of CBS News was part of the grand conspiracy to cover up the truth of the assassination. They were more than wrong, I felt. They seemed suspicious." (emphasis added). Roger’s manner of expressing his objections to CBS policy didn’t go over very well. As a much-chastened Roger Feinman tells it in 1992: "Eventually, they fired me." During his tenure at CBS, Roger acquired information about how CBS News had put together its four part series defending the Warren Report, broadcast in June 1967. It was information that he darkly hinted was "explosive." Unfortunately, Roger could never ignite his "explosion." One reason, maybe, was that there was not much to explode. Another, as I understood it, was that once he went to law school, he could really never own up to how he obtained his information and keep his professional credentials intact. Still another was that Roger just had a lot of trouble sitting down and writing. Roger could contemplate, he could argue, he could debate, he could pontificate---but he couldn’t sit down and write a book. Let me make clear that---aside from his very revealing article in Third Decade----I do not know Roger Feinman all that well, and he doesn’t know me very well either. Over the course of the last 17 years or so (and for 12 years, from 1979 until 1991, I had absolutely no contact with the man) I have had, maybe, 10 conversations with him, and more recently, particularly in preparation for the debate with Dr. George Lundberg and other representatives of JAMA at the Midwest Symposium on Assassination Politics, held in Chicago, I had some additional contact with Feinman. Since we were both on the same four-man panel facing reps from JAMA, there were some E-Mail exchanges (we both have MCI mailboxes). But returning to 1976-78 and to my first contacts with him, from the outset, I picked up on several things. One was his concern as to whether or not he was "obsessed" with the Kennedy assassination; another was his relationship with Sylvia Meagher; and another was the suspicion with which he treated me. I first crossed paths with Feinman around 1976, and the transaction wasn’t all that pleasant. SUMMER OF 1976: FEINMAN AND TRANSCRIPT 1327-C I was living at the time in Los Angeles and was working on a section of my manuscript concerning the throat wound. As everyone knows, the Dallas doctors held a press conference after the President’s death, and Dr. Perry was quoted as saying he thought the wound at the front of the throat was an entrance wound. The Bethesda doctors designated it an exit in their autopsy report, and the question arose as to whether the Dallas doctors were correct, or whether they had been misquoted. No film or audio tape could be found of the press conference, nor was there any transcript---at least, these were the facts as presented in the Warren Report. However, in the four part CBS News Special aired in June 1967, Walter Cronkite made reference to a transcript. What transcript? Who had it? In 1968, I tried vigorously to obtain that transcript from CBS, and was in touch with one of the show’s producers---but to no avail. Subsequently, around 1976, I heard that there was a young man in his 20s, that he worked in a low level position at CBS news, that he was an assassination buff of sorts, that he had discovered the transcript in CBS’ files, and that he had a copy. His name was Roger Feinman. At the same time, I learned that he was a friend of Sylvia Meagher (whose book had been published in 1967). I saw trouble ahead. When I telephoned Feinman for a copy (summer, 1976), there was a certain amount of tension. He didn’t want to make available the copy he had, nor explain to me where it could be obtained. I made clear to Feinman that matters of truth were more important to me than where this document originated; that it was vital to my work; that I was more than willing to protect a source (i.e., Roger), but that I had to have the document. After some bickering, Roger revealed that the document was publicly available at the JFK library (actually, as it turned out, it was the LBJ library). As was explained to me---perhaps by Roger, or maybe someone else I spoke with---CBS had obtained its copy from White House files during the preparation of its four part (June 1967) documentary, Roger had found the document at CBS, and then, tracing its origins, had learned that, for record keeping purposes, it was considered a White House Press Conference designated "1327-C;" moreover, that its transcript was, therefore, officially available at the Presidential library. I immediately sent for a copy (this is August, 1976), and so I soon received two copies in the mail---one from the LBJ library, in response to my direct request to the Archivist, and one from Roger Feinman, who was very careful to send me a copy of his "LBJ Library copy", and not anything he had access to from CBS files. (Later, Roger would charge on Compuserve that I deliberately "duplicated" his effort to create the impression that I "discovered" the transcript myself. (Pure nonsense. As a writer, I needed my own copy from the National Archives. I have never claimed credit for Feinman’s discovery.) The transcript was important. It proved, once and for all, that Dr. Perry said---three times---that the wound at the front of the throat was an entrance. Because the story of how this transcript came to exist was interesting, I wanted to tell that story, and of course give full credit to Feinman in my book. In October 1976, I moved from L.A. to New York City, in connection with my stepped up efforts to find a publisher. Sometime in 1976 or 1977, after a meeting with my literary agent, I met Feinman for the first (and only time, until 1991) in a New York City coffee shop. I was 37; he was about 28. There was a lot of uncertainty in both our lives. I had not yet found a publisher for the several hundred page rather technical manuscript (originally titled "Scenario for Treason") that I had brought to New York City. However, there was some significant interest, notably, at W.W. Norton where Evan Thomas, William Manchester’s editor, wanted to give it a green light (but had been overruled by the President of Norton, George Brockway, who believed the Warren Report). At a meeting with Thomas, I had talked at some length about my own personal journey in researching the case, and, upon hearing some of my "war stories," Evan had raised the possibility of my manuscript being more accessible to the average reader (and more salable to a publisher) if it could be recast in the form of a personal narrative. Peter Shepherd, my literary agent, thought this was a good idea, and we (Peter and I) had extensive discussions about how to go about it. Peter said that if I would write it, he would guide me in doing so. Writing is hard, it was an arduous process---and taking a lot of time. Writing "on spec"--i.e., without a publishing contract (but with the hope of obtaining one)---was a major gamble, a major personal decision entailing some major risks. As I say, it was a major crossroads in my life. Roger, it seemed, was at a cross roads of sorts in his own life. Having been fired from CBS News, he was trying to decide whether to go to law school, which law school, etc. He was also involved in a legal action against CBS, and also very interested in writing about the assassination. I felt a little bit sorry for him. He had received rejections from four magazines on one piece he submitted: The Village Voice, New Times, New York, and the New Yorker. On one or more occasions, he had submitted under a pseudonym. When I looked at Roger Feinman, I saw a very fresh faced naive young man, who thought he knew much more than he did. Moreover, while he obviously didn’t trust me (and I had my own idea where that attitude stemmed from) he was also curious about me. Meanwhile, I was also engaged in another writing project. Along with Jeff Cohen (now the head of FAIR), I had written a major piece on the King assassination, which was a cover story in New Times magazine. When I was flown down to Washington and briefed the Committee on my King work, Roger asked me whether I had told the Committee, in my talk, about him; I told him I had not, but would gladly mention his name in a follow-up communication (which I did). Although Roger never told me what he was doing at the time, it is now clear, from his July 1992 Third Decade article, that he was apparently pursuing with the House Select Committee on Assassinations his theory that certain high level CBS executives were involved in the grand cover-up. As Feinman wrote in July 1992, "I was . . . frightened by the experience that I had with these men." FEINMAN’S ‘CONSPIRACY’ From Feinman’s standpoint, one indicator of sinister activity was something he learned had happened at the time of the four June 1967 programs: CBS’ employment, in an important position, of a Warren Commissioner’s daughter (Ellen McCloy, daughter of John McCloy), in the office of CBS News President Richard Salant. Indeed, Ellen McCloy was Salant’s administrative assistant. Not only was Salant the immediate superior of Ellen McCloy, there was, as a result, a line of communication, through his daughter, between those working on the show and John McCloy. Here and there, McCloy’s advice was sought, and, probably as a result of his daughter’s connection, McCloy did something he never did before and would never do again: he granted a fairly lengthy filmed interview, one that was excerpted, in part, on the show, and was an entire episode on CBS’ Face the Nation in June 1967. Feinman thought the back-door connection to John McCloy via his daughter, Ellen, had been improper---and what particularly irked Roger was that, years later in the mid-seventies, when Roger was at CBS and had learned about all this, John McCloy had refused to grant him, Roger, an interview. McCloy corresponded with Salant about Roger’s interview request resulting in letters which, in Roger’s own words, "contained defamatory remarks and private information about me." Roger later wrote that "McCloy’s refusal to speak with me" on top of the fact that Ellen McCloy had been employed by Salant, "upset me further."* Feinman appears to have thought of himself, at CBS, as something of an insider. For example, in his Third Decade article, Feinman revealed that he had access to "a small snippet" of the June 1967 McCloy interview that was never broadcast or released publicly, because, in Feinman’s words, "McCloy had taken a badly worded jab" at Jim Garrison. At some point, Roger was fired. He believes he was fired "for asking questions about CBS’s handling of the Warren Report." Exactly what questions Roger asked I don’t know, because he had never discussed this with me, nor has he made any memos he may have written at the time (or any other information to which he may have had access) available. But one thing seems clear. In Roger’s world, CBS’ behavior toward him and their alleged cover-up of the JFK assassination had to some extent merged; and, in any event, become so intertwined that he brought what was, at least partially, his own grievance with his employer to a Congressional committee investigating the Kennedy assassination. Writing in Third Decade, he explained it this way: "I decided as a matter of conscience that I had to submit my evidence concerning the McCLoy-CBS dealings to the House Select Committee especially since McCloy was expected to be called as a witness." So Roger sent the House Committee what he felt were crucial documents. As he himself admits (again, in Third Decade, these are Roger’s own words): "I sent Professor Blakey a small collection of documents, carefully selected and arranged to make these dealings seem as conspiratorial as I thought they were." Roger had obtained the correspondence between John McCloy and others generated as a result of McCloy’s refusal to see Roger and connected with the employment of McCloy’s daughter at CBS. As previously noted, "The materials contained defamatory remarks and private information about me . . ." wrote Feinman, adding: "Looking at these documents in isolation and in the abstract, one might hastily conclude [this was, Roger’s interpretation, remember--DL] that criminal activity had occurred in connection with the 1967 CBS broadcasts." In understanding the difference between Roger Feinman and myself, one must understand this vast difference in perspective. When I think of "criminal activity," I think of the secret alteration of John Kennedy’s body, activity that would mislead the autopsy doctors, the FBI, and the Warren Commission. When I talk of criminal activity, I am not talking of how CBS or the New York Times did or did not show bias in their coverage, and even "covered up" the event. Roger Feinman’s idea of "criminal activity"---at least back then---concerned why CBS News agreed with the Warren Report (and maybe, even, why CBS News fired him). Roger was doing with CBS exactly what Sylvia Meagher was doing with the Warren Commission attorneys. Roger was dealing with the messenger; rather than the message. I was (and still am) dealing with the message--i.e., the evidence. Moreover, if there is one thing I have learned over the years it is this: one sure way to get trapped in the labyrinth is to confuse the two---to focus on the messenger, rather than the message. It is a sure-fire prescription for becoming trapped in an endless wilderness of mirrors, and one of your own making. Roger never heard back from the Committee. In 1992, he wrote that when the Committee’s evidence was published, he looked in vain to see if what he had sent in had been utilized. There was nothing there. He wrote: "No one on Blakey’s staff ever wrote or called me." I wonder why. But returning to 1977: Roger was applying to law schools, and it was discouraging. He had taken the LSAT and scored comfortably above average, but not exceptionally high. Sometime around 1977, Feinman was accepted at Yeshiva University, where he began in 1978, at age 30. Roger was starting law school at the same time as my manuscript, recast as a personal narrative and now titled Best Evidence, was being submitted to publishers. Both our journeys would take about three years. Best Evidence was published in 1981, the same year Feinman graduated from law school. CONVERSATIONS WITH FEINMAN, CIRCA 1978-79 During this period, we had about three conversations on the telephone. I was relatively oblivious to the main thrust of Feinman’s activity, and the extent to which he saw the CBS "cover-up" as central to the case. While attending law school, Feinman was obviously attempting to study the medical evidence very closely ("I continued working on the case in between law school classes.," he writes) and I was curious whether he would stumble across the surgery hypothesis, which, after all, was the subject of my own manuscript. I was surprised that he did not---after all, whether one agrees with the evidence supporting it or not, the dimensions of the wounds are reported as different at Dallas and at Bethesda, the doctors did come to different conclusions about the number and direction of shots, and the FBI did report "surgery of the head area." So I always wondered whether he would have the key insight I had ten years earlier (see Best Evidence, Chapter 7, "Breakthrough"); that after all, the body, itself, was evidence, and one could tamper with the body and thereby alter the basic facts. I wondered whether the phone would ring one day, whether it would be Roger Feinman, and whether he would say: "Guess what I found! You know those different wound dimensions---did you know that the FBI reported surgery? etc."? But that never happened. Instead, once again, Roger Feinman was following the messenger, not the message. It is a very paranoid style of reasoning. (And perhaps in employing this metaphor, I should use the plural, because in this case, the word "messenger" applies to the three autopsy doctors and their report.) Feinman apparently believed that certain things weren’t known at the autopsy because the doctors were "pretending" not to know them. (I have dubbed this the "sham" hypothesis or the "method actor" hypothesis.) The doctor bends over a body that has been shot from the front, for example, and "pretends" that it has been shot from the rear, when he knows better. There are several variants of this theme, depending on what you think the doctors are hiding, what they are "pretending not to know." FEINMAN’S "I’VE GOT A SECRET" HYPOTHESIS Feinman’s focus was on Doctor Burkley, and his posture at the autopsy. After all, he had been at Parkland. He should have known about the throat wound. Yet, both at the autopsy and in the report he wrote the next day, Burkley apparently treated that hole on the body (i.e., the wound at the front of the throat) as nothing more than a tracheotomy. (Note: In Best Evidence, I explain this in terms of Burkley’s honestly not knowing about the throat wound, because he arrived several minutes late in the Emergency room and the wound was hidden by the trach tube. See Chapter 14, "The ‘Low’ Back wound question...", p.375 in hard cover.) Because Dr. Burkley supposedly possessed this knowledge, yet hid it from the autopsy doctors, in my conversations with Feinman, I (or he, I don’t remember who) dubbed this the "I’ve-got-a-secret" hypothesis. Once or twice, I engaged Feinman in conversation on the subject, and once or twice, I thought that at any moment the truth just might dawn; I expected him to telephone me, and say: "Hey, wait a minute: I’ve got an idea. These doctors aren’t pretending at all! They are genuinely confused! You know something, they can’t find any bullets; (and did you know that FBI agents Sibert and O’Neill actually state the doctors ‘were at a loss to explain’ that?); by God, David, I think someone had altered the body! Have you ever considered that?" Frankly, I don’t know what I would have done had that happened, because, after all, I was rushing my own manuscript to completion; I had devoted some 10 years or more to studying the medical evidence; I had a mass of evidence indicating wound alteration and body interception. But I have great respect for, and love of scholarship and debate. And when a similar situation arose in a very late night phone call about a year before the appearance of my book with someone who was relatively new in my life, Wallace Milam, and when Wallace got very close to the key idea in my manuscript, I found it impossible to continue the relationship, yet keep such a secret, and so I said: "Wallace, I’m now going to tell you what my book is about, but I want you to honor my confidence until it is published." And he did. However, in the case of Feinman, I could not go down that path. I was getting the vibes of someone who was soaking up the animosity towards me from Sylvia Meagher (who was quite curious, to say the least, as to what was in my book), and who was extremely suspicious of me, perhaps envious of me, and, frankly, I didn’t want to pursue the relationship. Nevertheless, I did want to give Feinman proper credit for his discovery of Transcript 1327-C. However, dealing with Roger Feinman on the subject of Transcript 1327-C got very complicated. FEINMAN AND TRANSCRIPT 1327-C --- CIRCA SEPTEMBER 1978 In September 1978, we had spoken about it again---this time, I read him the page of my manuscript, dealing with the matter and in which I named him---but this brought objections, and we came to no satisfactory conclusion. After that conversation, Roger wrote me long, litigious-sounding CYA ("cover your ass"), letter in which he told me the terms he wanted me to adhere to in crediting him, and they were not the truth. Even though he discovered the transcript at CBS news ["...and I am quite proud of it" he said recently, on Compuserve], in my book he wanted me to state he had found it at the LBJ library---which, while protecting Roger Feinman, also would hide the fact that CBS had this very crucial document during the time they were preparing their "pro-Warren Report" specials back in 1967. What chutzpah, I thought, that this fellow wants me to tailor the truth for sake of his personal record at CBS. Roger (who once exclaimed to me "You said I’d be protected in this!") had not found the document because he was hanging out in Austin, Texas, at the LBJ Library. He found it because he was working at CBS News, in New York City. I called him up, told him that I understood his problem with CBS, would try to accommodate him by adjusting the language to protect him, but that I was adamant about telling the truth---which was that the transcript had been at CBS all these years. Then, it turned out, Roger had another agenda. He was writing something, he said, and the talk turned to Roger’s "manuscript." It was his understanding, he said, that I was not going to touch on CBS having the Perry transcript because if I did, why then I would be "co-opting" stuff he was "working on." (In his 1992 article, Roger described it as a memo, which grew to a "planned book.") I told Roger that, like it or not, the Perry transcript was now a public document at the LBJ library, that the world couldn’t wait for Roger to write his book, and that if he had an unpublished manuscript that dealt with the subject, I’d be more than happy to give him full credit and list it in my bibliography. Just show it to me, I said. How about us meeting in a coffee shop? No, he said, he didn’t want to. I told him I could share some data that had to do with this hypothesis. No, he didn’t have the time. (I told Roger he was engaged in "reverse Chutzpah"). I also told him that based on the several page letter he had written me (which he claimed he composed in a half hour), that he should have no problem turning out a book length manuscript in just a few months. The next summer, in August 1979, as Best Evidence was moving along towards publication (I had signed a contract with Macmillan in December 1978), I made one final effort to deal with Roger Feinman and the question of whether I could both give him proper credit for discovering transcript 1327-C, but also tell the truth about the provenance of that document (which, to keep matters in perspective, was dealt with in one paragraph in an 1877 page triple-spaced manuscript). I telephoned him in August 1979. I inquired about his lawsuit about CBS, which I had heard had not turned out well for him. He refused to comment. I repeated my request that if he had a manuscript about the autopsy, and if he wanted to show it to me, I’d give him full credit in the text of my book, for anything I hadn’t already found and list his manuscript in the bibliography. No, he wouldn’t do that. In that conversation, Roger wanted access to my interview with Commander Humes and he also wanted access to interviews with persons at Gawlers Funeral Home (whose staff had embalmed Kennedy at Bethesda, after the autopsy). I told him he could read about it in my book. "Book" was a sore spot with Roger, and at that point, he barked: "Don’t call me again," and hung up. My memo to file written the same evening records the humorous episode which then ensued: "Phones in NYC don’t disconnect that easily. So I just held the connection open. What ensued was a comedy scene, in which Roger kept coming back on the line, attempting to use his phone; apparently, to call someone else about what had just happened. But I remained on the line. This went on for five minutes---then I forced him to continue the conversation again. He was exasperated: "Are you trying to fuck up my phone?!" he screamed. Roger then hung up and stayed off the line, and that was the last I heard of him, for some 12 years. After all the veiled threats from Feinman, and seeing for myself his litigious personality, I deemed it best to tell the truth about transcript 1327-C, as I understood it, and describe how it was discovered by a CBS employee, but avoid the possibility of a frivolous lawsuit by not naming the CBS employee (see Ch 3 Best Evidence, p. 61 in the hard cover edition). At no time did I take credit for Roger Feinman’s discovery. BEST EVIDENCE --- THE PRE-PUBLICATION LEGAL REVIEW Meanwhile, in June, 1980, my new manuscript, which I had now retitled "Best Evidence," was nearing publication. I spent many hours with the lawyers, going through the statements for factual accuracy. Contrary to what Feinman states, experts were consulted on medical matters, and the lawyers were extremely careful that every single statement of fact be checked against the record. And again, contrary to Feinman’s false statement, it was not just a matter of libel. I was working directly with the top executives at MacMillan (I was actually given the keys to the office, and, along with my associate, Pat Lambert, who was hired, flown in from California, and was functioning as editor, would work up there at night, often until 5 am.) At issue was the credibility of a major publishing house, in the publication of a serious charge against the Government. Then, at some point, a major law firm was retained. I met with two attorneys for hours on end, one of whom had a detailed, almost talmudic, approach to the evidence. Both were very impressed with the legal arguments, the logic in the book, and the level of factual documentation. We sometimes joked about the Warren Commission critics who were all running down the path of thinking the Commission had hidden some "secret," when the problem was that the President’s body had been altered---and the medical evidence for that was lying practically in full public view. I can also state that at no time did it even occur to anyone to give the manuscript to Harold Weisberg or Sylvia Meagher for "review"---a truly laughable suggestion in view of their oft stated views about the Warren Commission having been a deliberate cover-up, and, particularly, the hostility both had shown towards me. Moreover, in the case of Sylvia Meagher, it was not at all clear to me that she was even particularly current. She really hadn’t moved past her original stance, which was to compare the 26 volumes with the way the Report was written. And indeed, Feinman had told me, from his conversations with Sylvia Meagher, that her knowledge on the case was "shot." Roger said he was surprised at Sylvia’s naiveté---that she seemed to believe that a new investigation could clear things up by doing more honestly what the first investigation had failed to do. But she had no theory. This did not surprise me. Returning to my meetings with the lawyers. At one point, I had quoted a few lines from a letter Sylvia had sent me, and the lawyers wanted that taken out, unless I had permission. I called up Sylvia, and made an appointment to see her. It was an unforgettable meeting. I arrived with my publisher’s release form, and entered her apartment. This was the first time I met her (and the only time I ever would). She was one of the coldest people I had ever met, and her animus towards me was almost palpable, notwithstanding the fact that she offered me a glass of sherry (which I declined, being a non-drinker). She looked at me with these steely suspicious eyes, read the passage from the manuscript, and asked: "May I see the page on either side please?" I showed her the page on either side. She signed the release form; and I left. I felt then, and still believe, that she was boiling with anger inside over the fact that this whole Kennedy project was going forward, without her involvement. SYLVIA MEAGHER ‘KILLS’ TWO BOOKS In fact, I now know I was most wise not to include her. Sylvia Meagher later boasted to someone that her negative critique had "killed" two books on the assassination, both of which had been submitted to New York publishers, who had then turned to her for her advice and critique. One was Jim Garrison’s On the Trail of the Assassins; the other was Jim Marr’s CROSSFIRE. Marrs remembers the incident. A major publisher to whom he had submitted, around 1987, had said they were having his manuscript reviewed by an "expert." The "expert" was Sylvia, and the book was killed as a result. Garrison’s book met the same fate. Both books---responsible for a rekindling of interest in the late 80’s---were published by much smaller houses. Jim Marrs went to my publisher, Carroll and Graf; Garrison, to Sheridan Square Press. Both their books became best sellers. I am sure I had Sylvia Meagher pegged right from the beginning. She was an extremely dominating person, was into "control" (what she probably viewed as benevolent guidance) and if you didn’t submit, you were ostracized. I was one of those who wouldn’t submit---and so Best Evidence was carried out from inception to publication without her cooperation, her sanction, any pre-publication approval etc. Since she had contributed nothing to my book (other than her own book and her Index, for which she received full credit in the text), and had in fact been ridiculing me for the past ten or more years, I omitted her from my acknowledgments. (Since Weisberg had sent me some documents, and photographs when I needed them, I included him). Meanwhile, in January 1981, Best Evidence was published, and my life was filled with interviews, and travel , and lectures. Despite the fact that Meagher’s Accessories After the Fact set forth, with regard to the autopsy, 27 numbered "incongruities" which had to be resolved, and that Best Evidence in fact answered just about all of them, I never heard a word from Sylvia Meagher. Indeed, she went to her death (January, 1989) saying nasty things about me and the book. Whereas Sylvia Meagher kept her opinions to herself, and her small circle of friends (prominent among them, Roger Feinman), Harold Weisberg went on a letter writing rampage, actually writing letters to book reviewers (who would forward them to me!) ranting and raving about my book, in much the same language that Feinman does today. After August 1979, as noted previously, I had no further contact with Feinman until 1991, 12 years later, and it was under some unusual circumstances. Roger had gone on with his life, and become a lawyer. (As noted previously, he graduated from law school in 1981, the same year Best Evidence was published). He never wrote a book, and I am unaware of anything he ever wrote being published (other than his July 1992 article in the Third Decade). During that time, I was aware, he had become Sylvia Meagher’s "fair haired boy"---and as Roger himself writes, Sylvia was his "best friend." Sylvia, who once was married for about a year, had no children. She designated Roger Feinman co-executor of her estate. Despite their closeness, Feinman’s relationship with Sylvia Meagher was not without its problems. Some of the tension stemmed from the fact that Sylvia wanted Roger to write his book, but Roger, for whatever reason, didn’t want to do that. Although he later told me he "loved" her (platonic, let me make that clear), Roger could not write the book "for Sylvia’s sake." Meanwhile, Sylvia had other people in whom she was interested, intellectually, and one of those was Gregory Stone, an idealistic young researcher who had worked for and been close to Allard Lowenstein (who had initiated the "dump Johnson" movement in 1967, who later became a congressmen, who took an active interest in the RFK case; and who was later murdered by one of his admirers). Gregory Stone (no relation to Oliver Stone) was one of the foremost researchers in the RFK assassination. DEATH OF SYLVIA MEAGHER, JANUARY 1989 When Sylvia’s will was opened after her death, the message inside came as a shock to Roger Feinman (who was co-executor )---and this time, there was no confusing the messenger and the message. Despite their closeness, and despite indications she had given Roger to the contrary, Sylvia Meagher left all her papers, copyrights, and literary property, not to Roger Feinman but to Gregory Stone. Roger felt betrayed. Indeed, it was a slap in the face----from the grave. Sylvia’s rebuke to Roger for never having moved off the dime and written his book. To pick up the story, one must now move forward to January 1991, when Oliver Stone was preparing to film "JFK" and what happened that month: Tragically, Gregory Stone committed suicide. I had met Greg Stone just a week or so before he shot himself, and the issue, again, was Sylvia Meagher. Oliver Stone (again, no relationship to Greg Stone) wanted permission to use Sylvia’s material, and was willing to pay for it. We had spoken on the phone several times about Sylvia’s position on Garrison---that she thought Garrison (on whose story "JFK" was based) had no case against Shaw (or anybody else) and was a demagogue. I mailed Greg a copy of something Sylvia had published on Garrison. Then we had a breakfast meeting, primarily to get to know one another, and discussed it further. Greg honored Sylvia’s memory and, as I understand it, was forthright in refusing to accept a fairly large amount of money. He did this on principle. Although there was a troubled "scared rabbit" look in his eyes the morning we had breakfast, I had no idea he was contemplating (and in fact had made up his mind to) take his own life, which he did a few days later. I always wished that had I met Greg earlier, because I might have prevented this, because mucking around in assassination research is a highly charged affair, and Greg needed someone who knew how to handle it, and still lead a decent life. I had been doing that for years. (If any reader of this thinks he is getting obsessed, come to me. I’ll tell you my secrets. I don’t charge very much.) Shortly after Greg’s death, I called Roger Feinman (who I hadn’t spoken with in 12 years, but who, I had been told, might have some say in the disposition of her literary estate). Rather than finding a person on the other end of the line who was compassionate about Greg Stone’s situation, I found him making statements like "How much do you think Oliver Stone offered Greg for the rights?", and, with regard to Sylvia having chosen Greg to be the custodian of her literary property, "Sylvia displayed very poor judgment in what she did." In talking about how much Oliver Stone might be prepared to offer, Roger said; "Greg probably had to think twice about it, I mean, principles can only go for so much." Then he added: "I’m just kidding." Roger then told me his own view of what had happened with Sylvia’s will. And in reading what I write next, keep in mind that this is Roger Feinman’s theory about Sylvia Meagher---and that I do not necessarily agree that it is true. Sylvia Meagher, he said, had her own problems of obsession with the Kennedy case (there were certain "darker aspects" of her character, said Roger) and that she had fastened on to a whole sequence of men, all younger than herself, to all of whom she tried to transfer her obsession. Each was supposed to crack the case, achieve the "big break." First it was Edward Jay Epstein (author of Inquest, published in 1966); then it was Josiah Thompson (author of Six Seconds in Dallas, published in 1967). Then it was him, Roger Feinman ("but I resisted her," he said). Roger was supposed to "crack the case." Indeed, said Roger, Sylvia told several people that he would have the next big Kennedy book, that it would break the case wide open etc. And then, when he didn’t do as she wished, she turned to Greg Stone. Essentially, this was Roger’s explanation as to why, when it came to Sylvia Meagher’s literary property, he had been cut out of the will. Roger then told me about his writing efforts. To assist him in writing, he had purchased a computer program, "ThinkTank," and was using the outlining program there to get hold of his thoughts, and try to set them down. He explained how the program would ask questions, in order to facilitate the writer getting his thoughts down on paper. He had been recording his thoughts, in this manner, with citations to underlying materials, and someday he would convert the outline into a manuscript, and, why then he would have a book. But, said Roger, he had a very long range "historical" perspective on this---that he had no desire to "crack the case," just to do a kind of sleepy, historical, heavily footnoted book, that some people might appreciate, but others might find very dull, certainly not a book proposing any specific theory, and he cited the recent books pointing at organized crime which, said Roger, "I consider to be basically junk." Roger’s long perspective was so long that I remember him once telling me he (Roger) intended to wait till all the CBS officials published their books, so that they would be "locked into" their stories. Then, he would publish. Curiously, at no point did he say whether he agreed or disagreed with Best Evidence. He didn’t bring it up. I didn’t ask. He also gave me his lecture about not getting "obsessed" with the Kennedy assassination." He realized, he said, that my book and video had been successful "but eventually this has to come to an end." He sounded like a father lecturing an errant child. I felt sorry for Feinman in that conversation, because it seemed to me that Roger still wanted to write, and he was trying hard. I didn’t say to him what I could have: I didn’t remind him of all the viscous abuse I had taken a decade earlier, and for many years before that, emanating from Mrs. Meagher---the taunts and laughing that I wasn’t writing a book, that it was a hoax, that it was all talk and no substance, that I had "nothing new"---the same mindless charge Roger now repeats, endlessly, on the Compuserve bulletin board. (In this regard, see my response, the companion essay to this piece, "SCREWBALL ‘LOGIC’: Roger Feinman’s Absurd Attempt to Prove Best Evidence was a Hoax, and Paint me in a False Light," filed as "BESTEVID.2XX in the Compuserve library). Nor did I tell Roger what I really thought about his relationship with Sylvia---that by blaming the Commission instead of the evidence, so similar to what he seemed to have done at CBS, she probably played a role in reinforcing his own distorted view of the problem, and possibly contributed to his troubles with his former employer. Meanwhile, in that same conversation, Roger explained how he felt about Oliver Stone’s effort, based as it was on Garrison. Roger told me he wanted to see Oliver Stone’s film "pounced upon very close to its release so that it is discredited from the outset." And he obviously had little respect for Stone, as a person. In his Third Decade article (published in July 1992, about six months after the film’s release), Feinman wrote, referring to Stone’s time in Vietnam: "One who participates in the napalming, defoliation, bombing and raping of a tiny country, then back home wears his heart on one sleeve while raking in millions with the other deserves less attention than Mr. Stone receives, and certainly less obsequiousness from some of our colleagues [i.e., the critics of the Warren Report] than he enjoys." To read this passage, Oliver Stone, producer of PLATOON and JFK, was practically a war criminal. The first time I met Roger Feinman after my 1976 (or 1977) New York City coffee shop meeting was at the ASK 92 conference in Dallas in October 1992. At that time, if he disagreed with Best Evidence, he never let on, and we did have some significant contact because of a young man who showed up with a scrapbook containing some documents. His name was Patrick Boyles. Patrick Boyles, more of a collector than a researcher, had in his possession a document he had obtained from Gawlers Funeral home in Washington in 1987, a year before he (Boyles) had ever read Best Evidence. The document: the Gawlers work order for the embalming of Kennedy’s body, and the purchase of the casket (in which Kennedy was buried at Arlington). This document had been given by to Boyles by Joe Hagan, one of the key officials at Gawlers. The work order---written by Hagan on November 22, 1963, said: "Body removed from metal shipping Casket at USNH [United States Naval Hospital] at Bethesda." Wallace Milam and I were quite impressed, but the young man wouldn’t give us copies. We asked Mary Ferrell for her help. She finally implored in terms I can only state revealed a combination of energy and psychology that would do honor to Sarah Bernhardt and Sigmund Freud. Boyles finally agreed to come to my room where researcher Rick Anderson filmed an interview with him. Roger Feinman, who had witnessed the activity in the hallway, invited himself into my room. On camera, I asked Boyles most of the questions about how he had come into possession of this document. At some point, Roger requested to go before the camera, and he spent about 10 minutes questioning the young man. If the document was accurate, it constituted written evidence the body had arrived in a shipping casket, just as Paul O’Connor (and other witnesses) had maintained. But the issue has become cloudy. Some weeks later, Mr. Hagan told another researcher, Gus Russo, that by "shipping casket" he meant the Dallas casket, in which the body had been "shipped," and although I find that difficult to believe, that is where matters stand now; that is what he maintains is the explanation for why he wrote the words he did. As Mary Ferrell noted, the document was, potentially, of great importance---written evidence, from a principle involved in receiving the body, that it had in fact arrived in a different casket. If true, it would, as they say, have been the ball game. Unfortunately, Joe Hagan’s explanation largely defuses this item of evidence. Anyway, my lasting image of Feinman is him sitting on the bed in my hotel room, the lights on the young man who had the crucial document, asking him questions about it. After the filmed interview, Boyles permitted me to copy the document. I gave a copy to Feinman. CHICAGO - APRIL 1993 This brings me to Chicago and the Midwest Symposium on Assassination Politics, organized by Doug Carlson and planned for the first four days of April, 1993. Roger was somehow selected to be one of the four members of the panel against JAMA. For months, he had been saying that boy, this was going to be something; that he had some bombshells. In a November (1992) E-mail, he wrote: "Wait till they get a load of what I've got in store for them. It's sort of like a graduated program of pain for each successive seminar, only this time I'll have plenty of lead time to get word to the media." But as the date drew near, I wondered just what Roger’s position was. At one point, I asked what he thought of my book. "Well, you have a theory that really can’t be proved or disproved," he said, and then, when I pointed out something about the reported difference between the head wounds between Dallas and Bethesda, Roger actually seemed to make a statement that was supportive, but I wasn’t sure. It was confusing. And another thing bothered me about Feinman: in our conversation, he seemed to imply that by hiding his true beliefs, he might get a position on any new investigation. Was Feinman nurturing some Walter Mitty-like fantasy that, now that he was an attorney, that, now that he had studied the case all these years, he could achieve national acclaim, as had Specter, by winning a position on some future JFK investigation? But the most important barometer about Feinman was his changing position regarding CBS. Although I never had subscribed to the "grand conspiracy" theory, the shows were in fact lopsided, yet in the July 1992 Third Decade article, he seemed full of apologies for his previous position. "When I worked for CBS News, I had the notion that I knew how broadcast journalists should treat the Warren Report better than some of the most experienced and talented people in the business." In explaining his earlier views, he wrote: "I was younger then." "I was younger then"? What does his age have to do with the truth? Exactly what had changed? Nothing will ever make those CBS shows balanced---they are lopsided. The theme was repeated later in the article, reflecting on how his views had changed; "I had grown older and grown up. I had learned to tolerate human fallibility and human foibles somewhat more than I did when I was younger. And time had soothed my passion and indignation . . . " Then, there was the episode that occurred when Feinman’s documents "leaked" and became a featured part of a Village Voice article co-written by Jerry Policoff. Feinman, angry that this had happened, angry that an article was being published which called into question the propriety of having Ellen McCloy, daughter of John McCloy, having a connection with the programs, now telephoned Richard Salant (formerly President of CBS News when Feinman was fired), himself, to personally warn him and apologize. He described his mea culpa this way: "I told him I was to blame for years ago setting in motion the events only now taking shape, and sought to assure him that I am not a person who seeks to inflict gratuitous harm on people. I let him know that he would be receiving a call from a reporter. I told him roughly what to expect." Obviously, Roger Feinman had changed, and changed a lot. No longer was his the voice of the youthful idealist. Here was the voice of someone who, in the words of the "under thirty" generation, had sold out. Indeed, in telephoning Salant, he was almost behaving like a stool pigeon. Finally, I began focus in on the question. What did Roger Feinman really think happened that day in Dallas? In my conversations with Roger, I couldn’t figure out just what his beliefs were. Speaking in broad terms, Roger would tell me that the autopsy was "crooked," but, frankly, I didn’t understand his specific position on Kennedy’s wounds. Roger, after all, had discovered the Transcript 1327-C that showed that Dr. Perry, facing the press, said three times the wound was an entrance. This major quotes from the transcript were published, for the first time anywhere, in Best Evidence (see chapter 3): Question: Where was the entrance wound? Dr. Perry: There was an entrance wound in the neck Question: Which way was the bullet coming on the neck wound? at him? Dr. Perry: It appeared to be coming at him. Question: Doctor, describe the entrance wound. You think from the front in the throat? Dr. Perry: The wound appeared to be an entrance wound in the front of the throat; yes, that is correct. Frankly, I didn’t really care whether Feinman agreed with my body-tampering theory or not (and the evidence that this wound and the associated trach incision) had been greatly enlarged, and a bullet removed [See Chapter 11 of Best Evidence]). I simply wanted to know, taking this one step at a time, what Feinman thought about the wound---not what may or may not have happened to it afterwards. Was it an entrance, or an exit? So, finally, I just asked. Roger, I asked, could you please tell me what your position is on the throat wound. Entry or Exit? "Exit," said Feinman. Kennedy’s throat wound, an exit? I found this amazing. Oh really? I said. Well, if the throat wound is an exit, where did that bullet enter? "At the back," said Roger. I was quite surprised: Roger believed in a back to front trajectory through Kennedy’s neck and/or back area! From someone else, I understood Roger believed Kennedy was shot in the head from behind, something that I, too, gathered from our conversation. Thus, on the two trajectories, Feinman upheld, in essence, the medical conclusions in the Warren Report. What, pray tell, was he doing on our panel? We were supposed to be debating JAMA, and not on some minor procedural manners. Presumably, the people on our panel believed the official story was incorrect. Specifically, I knew that Wallace Milam was in accord with many of the conclusions in Best Evidence, and that Dr. Wecht, who had now met with many of the technicians in the autopsy room, no longer had the confidence he once had in the authenticity of the autopsy x-rays and photos. In a conversation shortly thereafter with the conference organizer, I happened to mention Feinman’s statements to me, and he, concerned with making this as feisty a debate as possible, was similarly astounded. Feinman would be yanked off the panel "tonight," if those were really his views---that was his initial reaction. Besides, we needed more doctors on our panel (we had only one M.D., Dr. Wecht), and if Feinman wasn’t on the panel, an M.D. could be substituted. No, don’t do that, I said. That would be wrong. First, the programs were already printed. Second, I said, that whatever Feinman "really" believed, I was sure (he being an attorney) that he would make a decent showing. In short, I defended Feinman’s presence on the panel. "The Truth We Can Worry About Later" Meanwhile (this is around March 18) Roger sent an E-Mail (to my MCI mailbox) called "Thinking Like a Lawyer." In this communication, Roger explained that he wasn’t really interested in the truth, ("the truth we can worry about later" he said), which, incidentally, I think should be Feinman’s epitaph. He was interested in re-opening the investigation, and to do that, you had to make a case. And there were tactics you followed in doing that. As a lawyer, he said, he would feel he had a good day if, he said, if he could simply use the other guys evidence, against that fellow’s case. To ward off the notion that I am quoting Feinman out of context, I am taking the liberty here to reproduce that (March 1993) communication in full: "From: Roger Feinman" "Subject: Thinking like a lawyer" "I just wanted to make sure that I expressed this in the right way: To some it may seem like equivocating. We are trained to try to win cases, not establish some abstract ideal of truth. If I can take the evidence that the other side gives me, and still argue a winning case, I've had a very good day. More interestingly, I suppose, is that I have minimized my vulnerability to counterattack." "In our case, of course, we are not trying to win, but to re-open an investigation. The concept is still the same as it would be, however, if I were defending a criminal case: create a reasonable doubt in the mind of the jury. The truth we can worry about later. THAT DOES NOT MEAN GOING ABOUT PRESENTING THE CASE DISHONESTLY. No. It simply means achieving the maximum of gain with the minimum of risk." Feinman’s next (and final) paragraph was a swipe at Best Evidence: "So, for example, what would be the practical (emphasis) difference if one successfully argued that Kennedy was shot by at least two assassins from behind the limousine (or even just one, but from a location other than the 6th floor of the TSBD), as opposed to successfully arguing that he was shot only from the right front? Probably the difference between a tight, 50-page monograph and a 900 page book. [the length of B.E. in DELL paperback --DL] Or, the difference between contradicting umpteen medical and ballistics experts versus throwing their own evidence and opinions in their faces. Think about it." I replied by E-Mail, and told Feinman that I was "in profound disagreement" I continued: "When I was about 25," I said, "I made my final decision that I could never be a lawyer, because I am a truth seeker, and I cannot employ the strategies you speak of. When I approach a problem, I want to find out what happened, what makes something tick---not figure out how to structure an argument, on a subset of data. The tradition I follow goes back to Socrates, the one outlined in your E-mail, to the Sophists. "I am not interested in a strategy of persuasion. I am interested in finding the truth. If I find the truth, and if I have the evidence, I will say so, regardless whether it is popular or "practical" at the time. You write: "The truth we can worry about later." The truth is what concerns me now---and always has." I said that although I didn’t think he was behaving dishonestly, he was making a case. I said that people wanted answers, and so did I; they did not want technical procedural criticisms. I pointed out that Best Evidence offered just that---explanations for contradictory evidence, and I recounted the publishing history of Best Evidence---four publishers, some 25 printings, etc. over a 12 year period; and the history of the video: almost 50,000 copies sold. (What this illustrates to me is that there really is a hunger for answers, and not for semantic quibbling.) I also wrote: "I can’t conceive of tailoring my position thinking I might someday get a berth on a new investigation." I told him, "There was a time, many years ago, when my rolodex had "Kennedy" and "non-Kennedy." Now the two have merged. My only wish is that my work is vindicated by actual proof in my lifetime." I asked him how in the world he could believe the throat wound was an exit, and then, harking back to my old debate with Sylvia Meagher, I added this P.S.: "P.S. Thought to ponder (about the motives of the different folks involved in all this): If you, who obviously believe there was a plot, and who believes the autopsy was crooked---if you can honestly believe the throat wound is an exit---why should we impute dishonest motives to those on the other side, who arrive at the same conclusion, but believe that as part of a gestalt in which LHO is the lone assassin? Aren’t they simply following honestly held beliefs about the evidence?" This E-Mail exchange, I believe, is what apparently unhinged Roger Feinman. And the rest, as they say, is history. The Chicago conference was a four day affair, beginning on Thursday, April first, and the JAMA debate was the main event on Saturday morning. The format was that after JAMA presented its four panelists, our side would start with each of us making an 22 minute presentation. On Friday, there was one or more preparation sessions during which I had plenty of contact with Feinman. From the preparation sessions, I had no hint of what Feinman was carefully planning to do: to open his remarks with an attack on me. After I gave my presentation, it became obvious. Feinman, who followed me, strode to the podium and opened his presentation with an attack on Best Evidence! Many in the audience were confused, (as someone said, it was like watching someone run the wrong way on a football field) and most of those I have spoken with thought his behavior was in poor taste. So did the conference organizer. I felt I had gotten fragged. Then, Roger attacked the autopsy doctors (following his old theory that they were "pretending not to know" certain things) and implying they were liars and perjurers (even though, as far as I can see, Feinman differs with their trajectories only as to matters of angle). Then, afterwards, walking around amongst the guests, Feinman told several people that the publication of Best Evidence had "set the movement back" many years; and that Best Evidence had been published "to prevent the publication of my work." To "prevent the publication" of Roger Feinman’s "work"? What "work"?! Feinman was now on the warpath, and a number of other incidents followed. On Friday evening, April 2, Feinman sat down at a dinner table with several critics and Oliver Stone. Feinman was most respectful of Stone. (This is the same Feinman who told me in January 1991 that he wanted to see Stone’s film "pounced upon very close to its release so that it is discredited from the outset" and who described Stone, in Third Decade, conjuring up images of napalming babies, and in terms that are applicable to a war criminal.) But, as I say, now he was talking out of another side of his mouth, and making remarks to Stone such as: "Well, I just hope you’re not listening to Crazy David Lifton." More recently, in order to obtain something he wanted from Harrison Livingstone, an extreme critic of my work who is now writing still another book, Roger "traded" with Livingstone, giving Livingstone something he regards as pejorative about me, from nearly 30 years ago, probably something obtained from Sylvia’s files. And now, of course, there is his 5,000 word Compuserve essay, and other writings, night after night on the Compuserve bulletin board, filled with nonsense that my book was a hoax, the greatest hoax since Clifford Irving, "garbage and he knows it", that I made up this or that; that I wrote it at the last minute because of "an urgent need for cash," that events really didn’t occur when I said they did, that I manufactured the book to fit a publisher’s commercial requirement, etc. etc. ad nauseam. In short, as pointed out previously, Roger is saying that my life really didn’t happen, as it did. To put it mildly, Roger has a severe case of book envy. But the problem goes further. Roger is now in his mid forties. Like everyone else, he has to pass through his "mid-life" period. He must question how he has lived his life, and the basic choices he has made. Roger must attack Best Evidence because if Best Evidence is proved correct, then Roger’s whole world falls apart. It will turn out that his mentor, Sylvia Meagher, was wrong---that the Warren Commission did not conduct a deliberate cover-up, but was seriously mislead by falsified evidence. It will turn out that Roger’s pet hypothesis---that the doctor’s were "pretending" not to know certain things at the autopsy is false. To the contrary, they were genuinely deceived by an altered body. In short, it will turn out that Roger followed the wrong person, that he believed the wrong things. From his days at CBS, he kept focusing on the messenger instead of the message. My take on Roger Feinman goes something like this. For thirteen years, from age 27 to age 40, Roger grew up, intellectually, at the knee of Sylvia Meagher, and, whatever he learned from her that was positive, he also absorbed all her anger and prejudices. Then, unfortunately, he got rejected by the very woman he so admired, someone he calls "my best friend"--- at her death. That rejection occurred, in part, because Roger Feinman never wrote his book. The combination of all this has been very destructive. Roger always wanted to write. He tried to do so, but just wasn’t very successful, one reason being that he didn’t have a theory. His work didn’t have focus. He’s one of those people who mucks around with uncertainty. And, as to anyone who does have a theory, why Roger feels terribly threatened by that. Moreover, Roger’s legal training has worked against his finding the truth. He has been trained to catalogue inconsistencies even if he can’t figure out what they mean; to make a semantic argument, to quibble over details, to use grandiose phrases that deal with procedure, not substance; but he doesn’t know how to synthesize, to reconcile contradictory evidence, to make a viable hypothesis. As one person who worked with Feinman said: "Roger has a lot of information; he just doesn’t know what he believes." When I think of Roger, I think of Woody Allen, who wrote: "I am plagued by doubts. What if everything is an illusion and nothing exists? In that case, I definitely overpaid for my carpet!" Or, to quote Holden Caulfield, who was paraphrasing Descartes, "I think I am. But how do I know?" I don’t know whether to be angry at Feinman, or pity him, because it seems so clear to me what is going on here and I certainly don’t like being the scapegoat for his own shortcomings. And now, he apparently spends time he should be spending writing (or even working out his writing problems) with angry communications about me and Best Evidence on Compuserve. The other day, when Roger’s Compuserve essay was first forwarded to me, and was coming off my laser printer, I was astounded---not at its content (a friend of mind keeps asking, "Where’s the Beef?"), but its length. And its anger. I had this image of Roger, crouched over his computer in his Jamaica, Queens, apartment, sitting there, almost like a character in a Conrad cartoon, venting his frustrations over the book he never wrote, over the path not taken. "It is correct to say that I do not like David Lifton. . . . I do not trust his motives. I do not trust him . . .;" "I sincerely believe that Best Evidence is one of the greatest publishing hoaxes since Clifford Irving's book on Howard Hughes;" ". . . Lifton's theory is garbage . . . And he knows it;" ". . . why did [Lifton] spend 14-15 years prying information and ideas out of other researchers, pretending all the while that he had some great secret which he would never agree to reveal? The reason is that he had nothing." I wondered: does the man have any love in his life? Does he eat right? Does he get exercise? What kind of person writes the things he does? And look at the time he has devoted to all this: He pompously inscribes, at the beginning of his essay, "Copyright, 1989, 1993." In other words, for the four years that George Bush was President, Roger has been honing his attack, while, recently, pretending collegiality and friendship in our renewed communications since 1991. One good thing has come out of this. Roger Feinman has finally burst into prose. He has finally found something he can write about. Me. The flip side of this coin is not very pretty: Roger Feinman now has something new to get obsessed about: Best Evidence. [INSTRUCTION TO SOUNDMAN! Please resume music from "The Twilight Zone." We must now conclude.] VOICE: You have just heard a story of envy. A story of obsession. It is the story of what happens when someone gets overly immersed in a subject, and loses all perspective. It is the story of Roger Feinman.