A Comprehensive Review of Reclaiming History Part VIII

James DiEugenio 30 Bugliosi’s Bungle, Part VIII
fact that his name had been exposed by an American journal
called Counterspy. In fact, the leftist rebel group who killed him had issued a
communiqué beforehand that revealed that they knew his name then (Schorr,
p. 191). In a classic case of political propaganda, Ford and the CIA pulled out
all the stops in using Welch’s funeral as psychological warfare against the
committees. Welch’s body was flown into Andrews Air Force Base—but the
plane circled the base for fifteen minutes, to time the landing for the morning
news shows (ibid.). Ford attended the chapel service—but the press was barred,
in order to suggest that they were to blame for Welch’s murder. Colby issued a
statement saying that Welch’s death was the result of a “paranoiac attack on …
Americans serving their country”. David Phillips was interviewed by CBS and
said, “American agents are in less danger today from the KGB than from the
‘moral primitives’ who ‘condemn my label’.” (ibid.) Welch’s body was buried at
Arlington with full military honors; his coffin was carried on the same horsedrawn
caisson that carried President Kennedy’s. Colby gave the flag draped over
it to Welch’s widow. As Schorr wrote, “This is the CIA’s first secret agent to become
a public national hero.” (ibid.)
It worked. Henry Kissinger jumped on the committees: “I think they have used
classified information in a reckless way ….” (ibid., p. 194) Both committees
closed up shop shortly after. Ford and the CIA held veto power over what could
be published. When Otis Pike defied that agreement, Congress bottled up his
report. A copy was smuggled to Daniel Schorr. As he was arranging to have it
released, his boss, Bill Paley, lunched with Bush (ibid., p. 201). The Pike Report
was published in a special issue of The Village Voice. Forgetting his own use of
classified material for his Oswald book, Ford now proposed an FBI investigation
to find out who gave the report to Schorr (ibid., p. 208). After Paley’s meeting
with Director Bush, Schorr was taken off the air by CBS. After a two-hour impromptu
interrogation—during which he was not represented by counsel—
Schorr was fired by the network. He was later investigated by the House, but
refused to reveal his source for the report.
Ford’s performance with the Pike and Church Committees reveal his character
in extremis. When it came to the intelligence community and their role in covert
operations—including coups and assassinations—Ford joined whole-heartedly
in the cover-up. This sheds retrospective light on his performance for the Warren
Commission. But you would never know that from reading Reclaiming History,
because you will find not one reference there to either Daniel Schorr or Richard
Welch; therefore, you are not informed of how Ford engaged in warfare
with the Pike and Church Committees. The Pike Committee is mentioned four
times in the book, but only as a source: Bugliosi never chronicles what happened
to it at the hands of Ford and the CIA. The influence of Colby’s leak
about Angleton to Hersh, and Ford’s creation of the Rockefeller Commission, is
dealt with in a footnote (p. 1236). In the references to Ford in the book, I could
find no mention of the lunch with the New Yotk Times and his blurting out the
word “assassination” as the reason why he picked who he did for the Rockefeller
Commission.
ASSASSINATION RESEARCH / Vol. 6 No. 1 © Copyright 2009 James DiEugenio