Final_Judgment

[330] Final Judgment 427
national weekly newspaper by which I was employed for some twenty one
years. What was particularly interesting about the article was that CAQ's
opening thrust speared The Spotlight for publicizing the release of Final
Judgment with much fanfare in January of 1994—resulting, it might be
added, in the sale of nearly 8,000 copies within two weeks time.
Although CAQ features much useful material and portrays itself as an
"independent" voice critical of the CIA and its misdeeds (and is, in fact, cited
in the pages of Final Judgment), CAQ is careful never to mention (other
than in passing) the CIA's incestuous relationship with the Mossad, even
when the Mossad has been engaged intimately alongside the CIA in many of
the matters that CAQ presumes to be dissecting for its readers.
Despite the fact that CAQ mentioned that the nation's best known JFK
assassination investigator, Mark Lane—certainly no "right wing extremist"
by anyone's definition—has represented The Spotlight, CAQ never once
mentioned Lane's stunning dismemberment of CIA operative E. Howard
Hunt in Hunt's libel case against The Spotlight (analyzed in Chapter 9 and
in Chapter 16 of Final Judgment.)
In fact, the results of Lane's work in that case have never once been
mentioned in CAQ at all. This is unusual, to say the least, in light of
CAQ's professed role as a CIA watchdog.
What then explains CAQ's bias against The Spotlight—and against
Final Judgment in particular? Perhaps it has something to do with the fact
that the Institute for Media Analysis (a "media watchdog" organization also
sponsored by Ellen Ray and Bill Schaap) has received substantial funding
from an influential foundation known as the Stern Family Fund—funded by
that same Stern family about whom we have heard so much in this
book. 835
It has been suggested that Ray and Schaap, the publishers of CAQ, felt
obligated to publish the attack on The Spotlight because many of their
Jewish readers were upset by an earlier CAQ report on the ADL spy scandal
in San Francisco in 1993. 836 By taking aim at The Spotlight, CAQ was
able to assure readers it was not adopting a stance toward the ADL similar to
that of The Spotlight which pioneered coverage of the ADL's spy
operations. In fact, CAQ could not very well have ignored the ADL spy
scandal affair, inasmuch as even "mainstream" media outlets (including
Editor & Publisher magazine) actually carried reports on the scandal.
What's more, because many self-styled "progressive" groups and
individuals had discovered that because they were targets of the ADL's spy
operations, CAQ—by virtue of its claim to be a voice for those same
progressives—was obligated to comment on the affair.
However, as noted previously, CAQ is otherwise reticent about daring
to criticize the Mossad. Thus, CAQ's effort to discredit The Spotlight and
its publicizing of Final Judgment is no real surprise, especially in light of
the financial backing that CAQ's publishers have received from the Stern
family so central to the New Orleans intrigue documented in this book.
Not only it seems did the Sterns have their fingers in the "right wing" pie
in New Orleans, through their association with INCA, but they've also