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Author Topic: New Dorothy Kilgallen book  (Read 4162 times)

brianhenke

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New Dorothy Kilgallen book
« on: December 04, 2016, 11:38:57 AM »
  A new book about newspaper columnist and What's My Line? panelist Dorothy Kilgallen - "The Reporter Who Knew Too Much", by Mark Shaw -  will be released Tuesday. It maintains a long-held belief that she was probably murdered because she was working on a column that would have shed new light on the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

   http://nypost.com/2016/12/04/dorothy-kilgallens-tell-all-on-a-mafia-don-might-have-got-her-killed/

   Brian
   
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chris319

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Re: New Dorothy Kilgallen book
« Reply #1 on: January 01, 2017, 04:47:22 PM »
At the time of her death she was working on a book about the assassination to be published by Bennett Cerf's Random House.

Dorothy had interviewed Jack Ruby. She would then come to studio 52 every Sunday night and tell everyone that she was going to blow the lid off the Kennedy assassination. Within earshot was likely John Daly, whose father in law was Earl Warren, head of the eponymous Warren Commission which was investigating the assassination.

It is not unreasonable to think that Daly was leaking information about Dorothy's investigative reporting to his father in law; Dorothy's unpublished book was thus probably known about in Washington.

My personal theory is that LBJ was behind the assassination. Dorothy's book, with Jack Ruby as a primary source, could have exposed LBJ's role in the assassination. It thus became important in Washington to snuff out Dorothy and seize her notes. Dorothy's notes for the book disappeared when she was murdered.

By November, 1963 LBJ's political career was a shambles. JFK had decided LBJ would not be on the 1964 ticket and LBJ was embroiled in a scandal involving Bobby Baker. My theory has LBJ's Texas oil-baron buddies bankrolling a mob hit on the President, carried out by the Corsican mafia. JFK had been threatening to eliminate the oil depletion allowance, a big tax break which, if eliminated, would have cost LBJ's oil-baron buddies millions; they thus had an economic motive to do away with the President. Once in the White House, LBJ could grant his cronies political favors, such as keeping the oil depletion allowance in place, which he did. There was thus a political motive to assassinate Kennedy.

brianhenke

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Re: New Dorothy Kilgallen book
« Reply #2 on: January 29, 2017, 06:38:16 PM »
  A followup to this. The Manhattan DA is now probing Kilgallen's death.

  http://nypost.com/2017/01/29/manhattan-das-office-probing-death-of-reporter-with-possible-jfk-ties/
 
  Brian

 
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Fedya

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Re: New Dorothy Kilgallen book
« Reply #3 on: January 29, 2017, 07:27:45 PM »
It never ceases to amaze me how much of the culture seems stuck in reliving the 1960s.
-- Ted Schuerzinger, now blogging at http://justacineast.blogspot.com/

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JakeT

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Re: New Dorothy Kilgallen book
« Reply #4 on: January 29, 2017, 08:19:57 PM »
It never ceases to amaze me how much of the culture seems stuck in reliving the 1960s.

Well, there is no statute of limitations on murder so if there were those who outlived me who believed I had been murdered, I would hope they would pursue the truth endlessly, no matter how many decades passed.

JakeT

WarioBarker

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Re: New Dorothy Kilgallen book
« Reply #5 on: January 29, 2017, 10:43:13 PM »
Dorothy had interviewed Jack Ruby. She would then come to studio 52 every Sunday night and tell everyone that she was going to blow the lid off the Kennedy assassination.
I think mentioning it in public in the first place was a horrifically bad idea, but especially given Daly's connection to Warren. Personally, I think she should've just told Bennett and gave him copies of her notes just in case.
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BrandonFG

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Re: New Dorothy Kilgallen book
« Reply #6 on: January 29, 2017, 11:00:07 PM »
At the time of her death she was working on a book about the assassination to be published by Bennett Cerf's Random House.

*snip*
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Eric Paddon

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Re: New Dorothy Kilgallen book
« Reply #7 on: February 06, 2017, 12:46:48 PM »
A few things.

#1-The DA's office is *not* reopening the investigation.    I believe that what the author of this book has done is seize on the fact that he got some kind of form letter thanking him for contacting them and that a staff member is reading his book.   That's the only thing the article says.

#2-Back in 1997, when I was doing some research for my dissertation at the National Archives, I took some time to go through material mentioning Kilgallen that had been released under the JFK Assassination Records act and it formed the basis for a 1997 essay of mine that is on-line and which I am planning to revise for an upcoming book project on the history of WML.      In a nutshell there was *nothing* that could credibly connect Dorothy to the Assassination as a reason for her death.    The material I went through which consisted of FBI reports and copies of her columns that were clipped make it clear that the FBI in late September 1964 *dropped* all interest in investigating Kilgallen about the leak after Kilgallen wrote a poison pen column falsely maligning the Bureau for investigating her on this when she was well-aware (as the memo indicated) that the FBI was interviewing her because the Warren Commission staff had *asked* them to do so.     So the FBI in effect was saying, "Forget it, if we push this further, she's going to harm our image."

#3-Dorothy's actual knowledge of the assassination was not based on any independent investigative work of her own but consisted of reporting second-hand stories she'd picked up from others and almost all of them came from a dishonest individual named Mark Lane.      Dorothy's columns about the assassination consist almost entirely of previews of items that would appear in Lane's book "Rush To Judgment" in 1966 and all of them I might add are points that have long since been discredited by serious assassination scholars.     There is not one speck of information that points to her doing serious work uncovering things *on her own* separate from what others were feeding her.   And when you stop and realize that Lane died only last year, that begs the question of why go after someone who had done *less* work while leaving the guy who actually *got* numerous books published alone?

#4-There is no evidence that points to any exclusive private interview with Jack Ruby that could have had any impact on the case.    The only thing we have some confirmation of is an eight minute visit in the courtroom during a recess when Ruby's attorney was sitting nearby and he could have listened in had he wanted to.    Stories of some separate interview with just the two of them are not supported by the evidence.     And even if it had taken place, Ruby could hardly have told her anything in 8 minutes that he didn't tell other intimates (such as his Rabbi) in *many* private talks that we know about.    Also, the alleged "interview" would have taken place *before* Dorothy started writing her columns later that year yet amazingly she was "reporting" stuff from people like Lane without any frame of refernce to any alleged shocking info she'd gotten from Ruby.    The simple fact is that if Ruby *had* said anything shocking to her she would have run it.    I have seen columns of hers where she ran any kind of salacious rumor she'd heard including even a false rumor that a Commission member had seen a photo of Oswald firing the rifle in the window!     The idea that she would have sat on that for in excess of 20 months leading to her death and not even telling her friend Mark Lane about it stretches credibility.

I have had a lively exchange with the book's author at Amazon.com where I note many of the things he withholds from readers regarding the actual archival evidence and also how he makes up things out of whole cloth (his narrative where he describes Dorothy watching the coverage of the shooting of Oswald is laughable because he's describing a scenario totally at variance with how that coverage unfolded on TV.    He has Dorothy watching Oswald getting off the elevator and scowling at him as she watches when suddenly Ruby comes forth and shoots him.     Unfortunately for Shaw, I have all three networks coverage of the shooting and *none* of them shows Oswald getting off the elevator.    NBC got there with two seconds to spare, CBS was late cutting to the shooting as it happened and ABC didn't have a cameraman on the scene!).      Shaw is the kind of author who loves to prey on the fact that most people aren't going to have time to go the National Archives or the New York Public Library (as I did) and cross-check the relevant source files that show a completely different context of what he writes about.     It might get him some attention in the media but as far as serious history writing goes, his book is a piece of junk.