CHAPTER TWO
THE SCENT OF A WOMAN, PART I:
David Lifton and Sylvia Meagher
Sylvia Meagher was the most perceptive and articulate
critic of her time, yet susceptible to anyone who seemed to share her goal of
achieving justice for both the accused assassin and the Warren Commission. There
is a delicious story about Sylvia and the researcher Ted Gandolfo. Gandolfo has
specialized in the collection of audio tape and other research materials
relating to the assassination since the early days of the case. He was (and,
from what I have heard recently, remains) an ardent supporter of Jim Garrison,
in whom Sylvia had no faith, as she did not hesitate to assert during the
late-Sixties. Their relations were accordingly quite strained, although Sylvia
did consent to appear on Gandolfo's public access cable television program in
New York City in 1977 to help him along.
During the mid-Eighties, Gandolfo was working on a book
that he eventually published privately. For over a year, he frequently called
Sylvia using the alias, "Bob Foster," disguising his voice and
pretending to be calling from out-of-state. As "Foster," he asked for
her advice as he worked on his book. His knowledge of the case impressed her,
and she was eager to see the results of his work. They spoke frequently about
how wonderful it would be to get together for dinner in New York whenever he was
in town.
When she eventually caught onto the ruse, Sylvia was
furious. I empathized with her feelings, but encouraged her to think of
Gandolfo's actions as a backhanded compliment; he needed her guidance so
badly—knowing that she would have nothing to do with him if he used his real
identity—that he saw a need to go to such extraordinary lengths to solicit it.
This seemed to assuage her anger. For a variety of reasons that will appear,
there would be no similar reconciliation in the offing between Sylvia and David
Lifton.
Between late 1965 and the end of 1970, Sylvia Meagher and
David Lifton had frequent contacts by mail and telephone. In a working
relationship that ran the gamut from hot-to-frigid, Mrs. Meagher during that
period nevertheless generously gave Mr. Lifton of her time, advice and
expertise. Among other materials, her files contain a thick collection of their
correspondence and her notes of their telephone conversations.
Lifton has repaid Sylvia by portraying her as either a
shrike or a dummy or both. He describes her in his essays as "extremely
domineering," having "steely suspicious eyes," and "boiling
over" with envy, as well as "confused" about the Warren
Commission, in that she believed them guilty of a cover-up (how foolish she was
to entertain such thoughts). He whines about what he perceived as her
"viscous abuse" [sic], implying that it related to his failure to
produce a book. He knows otherwise, although he is not telling. Writing
twenty-three years after she discarded him, and over four years after her death,
Lifton still demonstrates that conviction of righteousness, coupled with the
feeling of being misunderstood, which pervaded the letters he wrote to her a
quarter-century ago.
As Sylvia extended to him the help and encouragement that
he solicited from her, and attempted with piercing logic couched in the most
gentle and collegial reprimands to dissuade him from theories that are
charitably described as untenable, (see Chapter 12), Lifton lied to her
repeatedly; appropriated material from her unpublished manuscript for his own Ramparts
piece; sought unsuccessfully to elicit her sanction of—perhaps even her
participation in—a shady intrigue to obtain a bootleg copy of the Zapruder
film; and sought to rupture her friendship with at least one other major critic.
At every point in their relationship, he abused her, until she would tolerate no
more.
The Liebeler Controversy
In the prologue and first chapter of his book, Lifton
establishes the close working relationship he formed with former Assistant
Counsel to the Warren Commission, Wesley J. Liebeler, whom he first met on
October 12, 1965. He paints the critics as unreasonably suspicious of this
liaison, perhaps even paranoid. He portrays Sylvia Meagher as a screaming,
shrieking woman whose primary concern was the protection of her unpublished
manuscript for Accessories After The Fact, worried that Lifton would be
"co-opted" by Liebeler, whose reticence to publicly renounce the
Report that he privately conceded was defective rendered him morally
indistinguishable in her eyes from those other Commission lawyers who towed the
party line.
Here again, however, Mr. Lifton fails abysmally to own up
to the truth, including the central thrust of Sylvia's objections, and his
serious misrepresentation to her of the nature and extent of his contacts with
Liebeler. He essentially repeats his misrepresentations in his Compuserve
essays: "She was deeply angered by Liebeler's law seminar and by my
attending that class…"
It was not the mere fact of Lifton's association with
Wesley Liebeler that aroused Sylvia Meagher's concerns and elicited her
objections. It was the fraternizing nature of that association. Was he merely
auditing Liebeler's law school classes and discussing matters with him in a
corridor, as he assured her verbally and in writing in downplaying the extent of
their dealings? (Meagher, Sylvia. Letter to David Lifton, November 4, 1966) Or,
was he conferring privately with Liebeler, disclosing the insights, stratagems,
disagreements, weaknesses, conversations, correspondence, works-in-progress and
raw research that the critics had shared with Lifton and/or among themselves in
private counsel? In the highly adversarial atmosphere of the day, and the fear
that they were being watched (which turned out to be justified), Mrs. Meagher
and other critics were concerned that Mr. Lifton's apparent fascination with
Liebeler could lead, even inadvertently, to potentially damaging, or at least
embarrassing, disclosures.
In Best Evidence, Lifton implicitly admits that he
provided Liebeler with ammunition to use against the critics; that Liebeler
intended to defend the Warren Report at any cost; and that ultimately Lifton
ceased to trust him and began to withhold information from him.
[Note: By early November 1966, Liebeler apparently realized
that nothing could ever satisfy Lifton. Lifton reports him as saying,
"You've got a commitment to this (head surgery theory) that goes way beyond
rationality, and you're never going to change your mind no matter what
happens." (BE, Chap. 11)]
Does Lifton, in chronicling his progressive disenchantment
with Liebeler, demonstrate the grace, dignity and intellectual honesty to admit
that Sylvia's fears were warranted? On the contrary, he portrays her as a
shrewish, shrill-sounding ideologue.
Looking at the available facts and circumstances of
Lifton's controversy with the critics over his lovefest with Liebeler a
quarter-century later, I find some degree of fault on both sides, with the
balance of equities leaning heavily in favor of the critics. The critics
appeared all too eager to assume the worst about Lifton's relationship with
Liebeler, and Best Evidence strongly implies that their assumptions were
not wholly incorrect. On the other hand, Mr. Lifton displayed a stunning naiveté‚
in thinking that he could successfully walk the tightrope and maintain his good
standing with the critics. The critics saw the problem in terms of a political
struggle; Mr. Lifton saw it in terms of academic freedom. They could not counter
his logic; he could not fully understand their fears. But they did not need his
help; he needed theirs, and this imbalance of power (which Mr. Lifton seems to
resent as "domination"), coupled with his apparent desire to have it
both ways, most likely tempted him to mount the pretense of "the big
secret" that he could not reveal—as I shall presently document—a secret
that turned out to be nothing more than a strained interpretation of a clause
within a sentence within a document that everyone had read, but a secret that
intrigued the critics just enough to stop short of "cutting the bait."
The Earthshaking Secret
Lifton gave Sylvia Meagher and other critics another reason
to mistrust him for, by early November 1966, he was beginning to tell them that
he had made some kind of discovery of great and conclusive significance that he
was unwilling to reveal to them, unwilling to submit for their consultation,
information, advice, help and friendship, even as he did not hesitate to seek
information from them—an "earthshaking discovery" that he was
unwilling to share with the critics, but willing to share only with his
"partners of first choice," Wesley Liebeler and Arlen Specter.
The breach of faith that Sylvia Meagher had only feared
before, now unfolded. She pointedly remarked to him: "The time has come for
you to ask yourself some searching questions about the alleged hostility of the
other researchers and their reluctance to have dealings with you. Who is out of
step with whom?" (Meagher, Sylvia. Letter to David Lifton, November 4,
1966) She was "shocked and outraged" at Lifton's conduct, and broke
off all contact with him for a long time. (Meagher, Sylvia. Letter to Harold
Weisberg, January 28, 1981)
Lifton attempted to see Meagher while she was visiting Los
Angeles in mid-January 1967. While she refused to see him, she accepted his
phone call on her last day in L.A., January 15. She noted, "Admits his
great big discovery, the one he took to WJL, is flash in pan." (Meagher,
Sylvia. Note for record re phone call from Lifton, January 15, 1967) Meagher
also recalled this phone conversation in a memorandum she wrote after resolving
finally to break off contacts with Lifton. (Meagher, Sylvia. Note for the
record, August 25, 1970; Lifton told her the sensational discovery he had taken
to Liebeler was "mistaken".)
Besides Meagher's contemporary accounts, there is abundant
corroborating evidence for Mr. Lifton's self-imposed isolation. As his book came
to light, The Washington Post reported that Mr. Lifton "was forever
tantalizing his contacts in the research community with the claim that he was
the only one on the right track. 'He always claimed he was the one researcher
among us who knew the answer,'" The Post quoted one unnamed source
as saying ("David Lifton's Startling Study of JFK's Murder, The
Washington Post, September 5, 1980, p. C1) Ordinarily, I would not rely
solely upon even a well-respected newspaper's quote from an unnamed source,
neither is there any need to do so. The Post's report not only conforms
to my recollection of limited personal contacts with Mr. Lifton during the
mid-to-late-Seventies, but to his own admissions.
"At various times in the past two years, I may have
mentioned to various people that I am 'working on a manuscript' for publication.
None of them know what area [of the case] it is, or any specifics . . ."
(Lifton, David. Letter to Sylvia Meagher, February 12, 1969)
"I am not dealing with any of the Warren Report
critics in regard to my new work. This has been my policy since I started to
work full time on this case, in the fall of 1966. There are people with
whom I have perfectly cordial relationships (such as Fred Newcomb, or Bill
O'Connell) yet with whom I do not discuss even the existence of such
matters." (ibid.)
"I don't want new ideas, research materials etc. to be
stolen by someone who hears about it on the grapevine." (ibid.)
He also exhibited worry for his personal welfare. (ibid.)
Specifically, he said he had "lowered a wall of
silence" between himself and anyone who was sympathetic in any way towards
Jim Garrison. That included a large number of critics, but not Sylvia Meagher,
who was vocal in her distaste for Garrison's evidence and methods. "Even
knowledge of the area in which I am working is absolutely taboo." (ibid.)
Contrary to the apparent implications of this quote, however, Mr. Lifton did not
disclose his alleged "head surgery insight" to Meagher.
One must approach Lifton's correspondence with Sylvia
Meagher with ever-present caution. Although hindsight might lull readers into
concluding that the foundation of Best Evidence was indeed the big
secret, the Lifton-Meagher correspondence tends to indicate on closer inspection
that, within the period encompassing their relationship, he was studying and
either writing or attempting to write on unrelated areas of the assassination
(in which case much of the semi-autobiographical account of his researches in Best
Evidence falls under suspicion), or else that he was deliberately misleading
her into believing that he had taken her into his confidence while actually
throwing her off the track. Based upon the article "His J.F.K. Obsession:
For David Lifton, The Assassination is a Labyrinth Without End" (Los
Angeles Times, November 20, 1988, Magazine, p. 20), previously cited in this
work, which establishes through personal interviews that by 1975 Mr. Lifton had
no manuscript at all; his January 1967 article for Ramparts Magazine
entitled, "The Case For Three Assassins" (discussed in the next
chapter of this manuscript); and inferences reasonably drawn from the record of
Mr. Lifton's correspondence with Meagher, I have concluded that the
semi-autobiographical account contained in Best Evidence for the
development of Mr. Lifton's theory during the years up to late 1970 is, at best,
grossly exaggerated and, at worst, a literary deceit.
For example, as late as January 1970, Lifton called the
following matters that he and Meagher had discussed "integral" to his
work and subject to confidentiality:
the alleged interception of the Zapruder film before it went to LIFE Magazine, and the eradication of the alleged car stop that was reported by a handful of eyewitnesses to the assassination (the film alteration theory is briefly discussed in a footnote in the book);
the administrative relationship between Gemberling, Shanklin, and the Dallas Field Office investigation, including Shanklin's transfer to Dallas before the assassination (not covered in the book);
the alleged substitution of windshields before one was sent to the FBI laboratory for analysis (another footnote in the book);
the shooting of Governor Connally as an "accident" (ignored in the book);
the accidental happenstance of Zapruder's film (not explained in the book);
the manner in which Jack Ruby got into the Dallas Police Department's basement to shoot Oswald (not covered in the book) (Lifton, David. Letter to Sylvia Meagher, January 23, 1970); and
the paraffin tests of Oswald's hands after his arrest in the Texas Theater on the afternoon of the assassination (this, too, is not covered in Best Evidence).
It seemed evident to many when his book was published that
Lifton's "earthshaking discovery" was the alleged "head
surgery" reference in the Sibert and O'Neill report, something about which
both Harold Weisberg and the team of Fred Newcomb and Perry Adams had already
written.
There is no doubt that, as early as 1966, Mr. Lifton raised
a question about the meaning of the "head surgery" remark in the
Sibert and O'Neill report. This is documented in FBI file materials that I have
examined. The questions are, "Where and when did he get The How?" and,
"When will he tell us The Who?"
Ahead to Chapter Three
Back to Chapter One
Back to Roger Feinman