Analyze: JFK and Dan Rather

Dan Rather has a rather long television history of reporting the JFK murder events. It would be most interesting to see a full analysis of Dan's long relationship with this unresolved murder case. Here are some clips I scrounged in a few minutes on youtube...

DAN RATHER REPORTS LIVE FROM DEALEY PLAZA IN DALLAS ON NOV. 23, 1963

Dan Rather and the Zapruder Film

Dan Rather reports from Dallas on November 21, 2003

JFK Assassination - Don Cook / Roy Cooper Film 6


If you listen rather closely, Dan Rather quotes in one video that it was the "4th floor" and in the next last video Walter Cronkite is quoting the "5th floor". Are they nervously reciting a script from memory? Later Dan Rather says it was the "top floor". Did these serious newsmen not know it was the "6th floor" within 24 hours of the assassination? It strikes me as odd.

JFK and Dan Rather is a fascinating topic. How does a newsman respond when suddenly thrust into the television spotlight during a moment of national crisis. Or could there be a secret hidden in plain sight?

In this thread let us collect more data about JFK and Dan Rather. Let us analyze and scrutinize that data! Go ATS! Deny Ignorance!

The following article originally appeared in the July 22, 1977 issue of "The Continuing Inquiry."
Dan Rather Blinked
by Penn Jones, Jr

Here is how Rather slides by his incorrect description, the only possible narration depicting the actual shooting of the President that the nation had that Saturday: "...Regrettably, it was not without error, in terms of what was unsaid about the movement of the President's head. A few who had tried to sell themselves as assassination experts misused that account to build themselves a false premise.


"It is gruesome even now, and always will be, to talk about this scene, but the single most dramatic piece of the film is the part where the President's head lurches slightly forward, then explodes backward. I described the forward motion of his head. I failed to mention the violent, backward reaction. This was, as some assassination buffs now argue, a major omission. But certainly not deliberate." Source webcache.googleusercontent.com...:hlbScHFPZ04J:www.acorn.net/jfkplace/09/fp.back_issues/05th_Issue/rather.html+zapruder+film+dan+ra ther&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=opera&source=www.google.com

One more classic before I hit the hay...

Even Dan Rather recalled seeing things in the z-film which WE cannot see, eg, Connolly's physical appearance of his suit jacket and his behaviour and most importantly, JFK's head, according to Rather, "his head could be seen to move violently forward". Dan Rather's job here seems to plant the earliest seeds of "3 shots" and "the car never stopped, it never paused". Dan Rather's account from November 25, 1963 :

To see a great newsman in action... Dan Rather for the 40th anniversary, this would be 2003. It is a wonderful thing that dedicated people out there in the internet actually saved these videos who are now uploading these videos so we can review them at our leisure. I'll post a few more as I find them.

"A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes." Said by Mark Twain. Maybe. quoteinvestigator.com...

www.weeklystandard.com...

Actually, I read one account of a class of schoolchildren cheering after John F. Kennedy was killed. A grade school teacher, on hearing the news, found herself unable to teach, and announced, "Children, class is dismissed." She followed with, "The President of the United States is dead," but she spoke so quietly and the children were cheering so loudly at class being dismissed that they didn't hear. The films of (presumably Dallas area) children crying outside of Parkland Hospital on November 22, 1963 are quite real and air on every anniversary.

a reply to: CoriSCapnSkip

Just my personal opinion, but, Dan Rather represents the conspiracy between politics and entertainment. And if I were to say that Rather epitomizes a disjunct between real public and the network public, that means there are two publics --- the public that exists autonomously in the world and the public which exists in the venue of network television news reporting.

Those are two different publics. Dan Rather somehow got trapped in between the two. Rather's appearance here with R.E.M. on the Letterman show only complicates the strange relationship Dan Rather has with reality.

a reply to: CoriSCapnSkip

Thanks for bumping the thread by the way. Dan Rather is instructive! He plays a role in the media but I can't explain exactly what that role is. Here is Dan Rather vs. George Bush in 1988 and it's a solid testament to Dan Rather's fearlessness? Can I use that word and get away with it??

Fearlessness can sometimes be confused with naiveté and perhaps Dan Rather was simply naive about his role in tv journalism. Was he a truly dedicated to objective journalism or did he at some point realize that he was a tool of the news media eastern establishment elite who dictated the network news every night to the American public???

This is a great example Dan Rather's roleplaying in the news media. Is he actually doing an expose for journalistic integrity or is he doing this expose to allow George Bush the air-time to promote the Reagan/Bush line?? Did you notice how Bush goes straight after Rather and the editors of the news program? To me, this is a very complicated piece of progaganda. Bush is given the network time to rebut a lot of public accusations -- these accusations are delivered to Bush by Rather.

If we are to believe that Rather is a totally objective journalist the we can decisively root for him and take his side. But if he is a network role-player, allowing Bush the opportunity to opinionate without proof and conjecture without basis, then Rather could be a willing tool in the establishment.

It's so hard to evaluate Rather. I'd like to hear from some others on ATS who might have studied this guy in depth.

a reply to: SayonaraJupiter

I have not studied Rather in depth nor do I know what to make of him, either. I know after he took over the evening news, CBS started being called the "Communist Broadcasting System," (lifetime CBS viewers, we switched to NBC and have watched it ever since), but whether he was really a liberal pawn, conservative pawn, or just one mixed-up dude I don't know. He told soldiers in Vietnam he would have shot Morley Safer for reporting their war crimes (torching a village where someone had shot at them--they never proved who or if the shooter was even from anywhere near there). That doesn't sound like a very commie thing to do, saying he would have shot a reporter for making American troops look bad. I remember watching some exposé he did, of a pastor or something, where Rather disagreed with his methods for getting kids off drugs and effectively put him out of business. My sister's boyfriend became furious at Rather, saying if this guy got even one kid successfully off drugs he should never have been shut down. Of course I remember the time Rather walked off and the CBS Evening News actually went to black (remember that scene in Network where a news station almost went to black? ) Someone's 13-year-old son who was visiting said, "If Dan can't go on, I'd be happy to fill in." That's one of my favorite stories! Walter Cronkite, by then retired, said he would have fired him! I dunno...I've always sensed something a bit off about Dan. After he was roughed up by thugs at the 1968 Democratic Convention, a cab driver, and finally the "Kenneth" guy, someone wrote that there's something unstable about Dan which sets off people who are out there anyway, people who would not attack others. Even though the "Kenneth" guy really was crazy and eventually killed someone else, there was still a lot of sense in this statement.