What role does compartmentalisation of knowledge into public and private spheres play in investigating the JFK assassination?

Garrison details the difficulties he encountered in accessing information and subsequently the difficulty of having his own information accessed. Garrison's explanation for the latter is that he belongs "in a time when the hidden machinery of government intelligence intimidates many publishers" (Garrison, p.vii).

Censorship can take on many forms: supplying misleading information, wilful unknowing (or as Garrison would deem "the serenity of ignorance"), concealment of information and "disinformation".

Garrison tracks the unravelling disinformation from November 22 1963 to the publication of On the Trail of the Assassins in 1988. "As time passed, previously unheeded witnesses were located, investigative reports of the assassination were found to be false, and other evidence was found to have been altered or destroyed. Even the concealment of assassination evidence for 75 years by the federal government could not prevent independent critics and researchers from uncovering gaping holes in the Warren Commission report." (Garrison, p.xii)

Perhaps the greatest "gaping hole" would have to be the lack of an index to the report. The failure of the Warren Commission to provide an index to such a voluminous work can only be construed as an intentional effort to dissuade public investigation. The lack of such a research tool implies that at the conclusion of the Warren Commission Report no further correspondence was to be entered into, from within the Commission or not.

Russell Stetler's introduction to Meagher and Owens Master Index to the JFK Assassination demonstrates the need for such a tool and the implications of its absence from both public and private spheres of knowledge.

Garrison's account of censorship in his investigation is in the text font of this page in the window to the left.