MORNING 105th Year, No. 29 Hagerst Stonewalled Frederick author battles U.S. for assassination files

By RICHARD F. BELISLE government has been stonewalling me FREDERICK, Md. — When Hitler's ever since they learned that I was becom- Germany fell to the Allies in 1945, the end ing an expert on the case and was starting came so quickly that the Nazis never had to dig into things they wanted kept quiet." time to destroy the mountains of records The 65-year-old author says facts sur- they had accumulated since the early rounding JFK's death may never be 1930s. known, including whether Lee Harvey The information was invaluable to Oswald was acting alone on that Friday in historians like William L. Shirer, who November 1963. credited the availability of records as one "I'm not chasing an whodunnit," he of his greatest assets in compiling The says. "What I am trying to do is to bring Rise and Fall of the Third Reich." out how the government acted in a Author Harold Weisberg of Frederick coverup of the facts and to stop it from did not have the same breaks, happening again." He, too, is involved in a gargantuan Many of his court cases have centered task of compiling data on two important around his charges that the FBI, CIA and chapters of history the assassinations other government agencies have been of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther guilty of censoring and manipulating the King Jr. facts in the case. But Weisberg has had to spend much Weisberg won some vindication last of his time fighting the federal govern- month when U.S. District Court Judge ment to force it to release documents on Gerhard Gesell ordered the release of a the slayings. He's been in court "so many second set of government documents on times I couldn't even count" in the last 12 the Kennedy assassination. Gesell also years, trying to obtain data for the six ordered that Weisberg be given copies of books he has written on both incidents. the second release free of charge. Others He's become so absorbed with the will have to pay 66,000 or more for the government's secrecy that he says "it's copies. no longer most important who killed The documents were mailed to Kennedy. What is important is that the Please turn to FREDERICK, page 4 HElti

.own, Md. Saturday, February 4, 1978.

- nolo by Mori Sow, Harold Weisberg and one of his books I.

' ' %,.7..7.7X,73,r4MATArleren,MAMMDROAIMAIMI),AVRV, On JFK, King assassinations Frederick author Continued from pegs 1 Weisberg had written and published three Weisberg last week — all 58,000 pages in of his first six books on the Kennedy I.6 cartons. He already Las them filed in assassination — "Whitewash", based neat rows in filing cabinets in the base- mostly on information supplied by the ment of his home on Old Receiver Road. Warren Commission Report on the He's still trying to get the first batch assassination: and "Whitewash II", which at no cost. explains his interpretation of how the FBI The first installment of the 200- and Secret Service covered up details sur- volume FBI assassination files on the rounding the Kennedy case, and a third Kennedy slaying was released In early book on surpressed photos of the killing. December. It contained more than 40,000 He has since published three more pages, but government experts have books, the latest in 1975. claimed that they contained no new Only one, the first, was sold through a revelations concerning Kennedy's commercial publishing house. murder. Weisberg says he was not a great ad- They mostly deals with the efforts of mirer of Kennedy during his early years in hundreds of FBI agents in tracking down office and only voted for him in opposi- leads, trips and rumors on the killing. tion to Richard M. Nixon, Kennedy's The latest release covers the con- challenger in 1960. "It wasn't until the tinuing investigation, from September, Cuban Missile Crisis that I began to see 1964 where the first installments left off, some value in him as a president." to recent times. According to Weisberg, He became inspired to write on the who has had several days to peruse the assassination because of his own back- documents, they contain little new or ground, he says. His parents moved to the astounding information. • United States from Russia following what Weisberg says the documents were he terms "the great persecution of Jews released to him on the basis of 50 Freedom in Russia — the beginning of modern anti- of Information Act requests against the semitism, I'm a first generation government. "Twenty-five of those re- American and I was taught to believe that quests were mine," he says. the theory of American Society is the freest The information act became law July form man has yet devised." 4, 1987 after it had been signed by then He says he sees his responsibility as President Lyndon Johnson. By that time, that "of a debt owed. I inherited it by be-

w.wp,k,r,ITO. f,ITNOVAY.Y.5141..... battles for files ing the first member of my family to be for several hours each day trying to im- born in America." prove his circulation. Weisberg says he lined up a literary In addition, he is compiling informa- agent in New York late in 1964, "gave him tion against the FBI for federal use a lead and summary on my first book on against the agency in court cases. Kennedy's death, and saw the hysteria "I'm a recognized expert on FBI sub- that resulted." version, especially in my own case." A publisher told him "nobody would He said in a recent press conference touch anything on a book about Kennedy in Washington that "If anyone else had that contained anything other than what done what they did to me, the FBI would the government was saying," he says. have gone all out to seek criminal She turned out to be right. I lost my charges." agent over it." The author says the FBI has harass- He then decided to publish and distri- ed him and used tactics designed to label bute his own books. He had 23,000 copies of him as a "conspiracy theorist and a kook. the first book printed and most of those sold. ''This is where I got the money to "You know, I'm running out of time. I buy this house," he explains. Subsequent have this circulatory problem, I'm getting books didn't fare nearly as well. "The along in years, I don't have much income first book is always the best seller. Se- and the Justice Department keeps me quels never do as well." busy compiling data for them. But I still He also complains of problems with have a lot to do. I want to make sure that distributors falling to pay him and dis- these records are available to anyone who tribution problems. Most of the books he wants to see them." now distributes are sold by mail through Weisberg says as far as he knows no his house. He has boxes of unsold copies of one has done so much in guaranteeing that all six books lining the walls of his base- the information on the Kennedy and. King ment. slayings is made available. He is building Adding to Weisberg's woes is a cir- a file of docin'inents for the University of culation problem in his legs that keeps Wisconsin "so that anyone who wants to him from being as mobile as he used to be. can have access to them and doesn't have He can no longer drive for great dis- to go through what I did. This thing has tances and is tied to an exercise machine really drained me over the years."