Final_Judgment

[430] Final Judgment 527
Even a devout JFK admirer such as James DiEugenio, author of
Destiny Betrayed, must ask himself whether or not he has been fully
forthcoming with his readers.
In his well-written volume, which was nothing less than a paean to Jim
Garrison, DiEugenio compiled a compelling vindication of Garrison's case
against Permindex board member Clay Shaw and his role in the JFK
assassination conspiracy. Yet, DiEugenio was quite circumspect in his
dissection of Shaw's Permindex connection. Never once did DiEugenio
delve into the Israeli connection.
And although DiEugenio even went so far as to note Clay Shaw's
relationship with the powerful Stern family of New Orleans, the owners of
WDSU radio and television that played so central a part in portraying Lee
Harvey Oswald as a "pro-Castro extremist," DiEugenio was circumspect, to
say the least, in his treatment of the Stern-Shaw connection.
According to DiEugenio, the Stern family's motive for supporting
Shaw was "obvious." According to DiEugenio: "They did not wish to see
their city tarred with the conviction of one of its leading lights for
conspiracy to murder President Kennedy." 1091 Was their motivation really
that "obvious" or is DiEugenio skirting around the truth?
DiEugenio, despite his in-depth research into other aspects of the New
Orleans connection to the assassination, never once referenced CIA
operative Guy Banister's ties to ADL operative A. L. (Bee) Botnick, whose
New Orleans office of the pro-Israel ADL received extensive funding from
the Stern family (although, in all fairness, this may have been an oversight).
As we have seen, however, it is not an extraordinary leap of the
imagination to conjecture that Lee Harvey Oswald's assignment working
for Guy Banister—resulting in Oswald's public image as a "pro-Castro
extremist"—may indeed have been part of an ADL-sponsored "factfinding"
operation carried out through Banister's detective agency.
DiEugenio actually had good reason to be so reticent in pulling his
punches. After all, it was Sheridan Square Press that published his book.
The prime movers behind Sheridan Square are Ellen Ray and William
Schapp, founders of the so-called Institute for Media Analysis which (as
noted earlier in Final Judgment) includes among its financial backers the
Stern Family Fund, established by Clay Shaw's friends, the powerful Stern
family of New Orleans.
All of this—at the very least—perhaps demonstrates how even the most
dedicated JFK assassination researchers can be distracted or otherwise
misdirected in their own efforts to seek the truth.
Although I requested the opportunity to address the 1994 symposium of
the JFK Assassination Information Center in Dallas and the 1996
conference of the Committee on Political Assassinations in Washington, the
ruling cliques refused to allow me to speak. Likewise, neither the
aforementioned James DiEugenio nor any of the other "big names" among
JFK assassination researchers have even attempted to refute any of the