References to data smog in this colour. To go directly to one of the references of data smog choose 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5.
Foreword
The assassination of President John F. Kennedy has produced an unusual paradox. On the one hand, the public has demonstrably thirsted for answers and consistently displayed a healthy scepticism toward some inadequate proposals set forth to explain the mystery of this unsolved murder. Public demands on this question could not be ignored, and in a decade and a half there have been no less than four official investigations which have addressed widespread doubts and suspicions. All told, more than forty volumes of official reports, hearings, exhibits, and findings have been published.
On the other hand, it is only an infinitesimal section of the public that has perused these forty-odd volumes. Of the four official reports which purport to summarize the mass evidence, only two have been widely available as commercial paperbacks. A citizen who wanted to know exactly what senators Richard Schweiker and Gary Hart concluded in their subcommittee investigation of the JFK murder might not know what to ask for at the local Government Printing Office bookshop. Who could be expected to know that this dramatic little report goes by the ponderous title, Book V, Final Report of the Select Committee to Study Government Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, United States Senate?
In short, Government investigation of the Kennedy assassination have turned up what can literally be called a wealth of information-millions of dollars’ worth of legwork and paperwork-to satisfy private citizens’ craving for answers. A significant fraction of the information has been published. But the manner of publication (or, in some cases, non-publication) has hardly been calculated to encourage private citizens to delve seriously into the mystery on their own. In fact, it has hardly been calculated to encourage on-going investigation by federal employees officially charged with this duty.
An obscure FBI Airtel of August 16, 1966, makes the point perfectly. It was addressed to the FBI’s Director, J. Edgar Hoover, from the Dallas office. Not surprisingly, the Dallas office of the FBI had had to follow up some leads in the Kennedy assassination; not surprisingly, putting together the Letterhead Memorandum that accompanied this particular Airtel required a great deal of work. Some poor FBI agent had to go all through the Warren Report trying to check small details. The author of the Airtel recognized that his would not be the last time that the FBI would be called upon to look into this case. But he had discovered, from the usual reliable sources, that in faraway New York lay an invaluable tool for the performance of these duties-an index! The FBI’s prose cannot be imitated:
To locate the necessary material to compile the enclosed LHM required extensive review of the report of the President’s Commission on the assassination of President Kennedy; and it is recognized that in the future, t will be necessary to perform numerous other research projects of similar nature. In this regard, it is noted, as set out in Dallas LHM, dated 8/9/66, captioned as above, that PENN JONES, JR., Editor, "Midlothian Mirror," Midlothian, Texas, mentioned that a SYLVIA MARR has complied an index n the testimony and exhibits contained in the President’s Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy Report and Hearings, which index has been printed by the Scarecrow Press of New York: PENN remarked that this is an excellent index for reference purposes.
The Bureau is requested to furnish one copy of the MARR index to the Dallas Office for future use in conducting research regarding captioned matter.
The FBI Airtel is a modest and misspelled tribute to Sylvia Meager’s monumental labor-a subject index to the Warren Commission’s twenty-six volumes of evidence. To the FBI agents in Dallas-who at least were doing their research on company time-the thought of plowing through thousands of pages of unindexed reference material was indeed daunting. Should we not pause to imagine how intimidating such work looked to spare-time researchers, that first generation of Warren Commission critics? Sylvia Meagher’s index to the volumes bot only enabled many researchers to get to work, pushed them over the first hurdle, so to speak; her efforts also provided a model of scholarly rigor and selfless personal dedication which has only grown more stunning with the passage of time.
The Warren Commission’s failure to provide an index to its twenty-six volumes-if only for the future use of the FBI-was inexcusable. An index would have cost the taxpayers some money, to be sure; but the sum could have approached one-half of the percent of what the Warren Commission had already spent. The long -term saving might have been measured in the time that the FBI could have saved in checking out future leads and rumors. The best that can be said in defense of the Commission is that it never dreamed that its volumes would receive such intense scrutiny over the years.
This argument turns inside out, however, when applied to subsequent investigations. Congressional investigations could not expect their evidence to escape the scrutiny to which the Warren Commission’s evidence was subjected. Decisions that limited the accessibility of their evidence-like the continuing failure to provide indexes-were, if not cynically intentional, at least taken with a conscious understanding of the consequences. The Schweiker-Hart Senate subcommittee held no public hearings, provided no index to its slender but fascinating report, and made none of its evidence public. The House Select Committee on Assassinations did hold public hearings and did publish fourteen volumes of supporting material, but neither its report nor the supporting volumes contain any index.
Once again, it was left for selfless private citizens-Sylvia Meagher and Gary Owens-to perform a task of essential scholarship that an official body did not see fit to provide despite its budget in excess of five and a half million dollars. The House Select Committee, in fact, specifically urged the Justice Department to pursue the investigation further. Can one seriously imagine the Justice Department staff making much headway in the fourteen-volume labyrinth without the guideposts that Meagher and Owens have provided so promptly and competently in this Master Index?
Researchers like Meagher and Owens have received little public recognition, and indeed they and other serious critics of official findings have often been lumped with irresponsible sensationalists in disparaging comments from the established media. How many times have we heard it asserted that speculation and conspiracy theories lead to lucrative book contracts and lecture tours? How ironically this image of the assassination-profiteer contrasts with the reality: few of the serious researchers can ever hope to receive even nominal financial compensation for the years of painstaking labor they have contributed to the effort to break open this case.
No piece of the JFK puzzle would make any sense without the guiding intelligence supplied from the beginning by a few critics like Sylvia Meagher who catalogued what was known and enabled others to match new pieces with old. The importance of such a simple research tool as an index can hardly be exaggerated. To face the forty-odd volumes of data without indexes would be an experience of quintessential frustration- as frustrating as, to drive the point home, being a journalist in Washington without a phone book.
"Index" has a double meaning. It can signify alphabetised listings of references, but it can also mean an emblem or sign. In this latter sense, the work of Sylvia Meagher and Gary Owens in dissecting the volumes of the House Select Committee is an index of our time. It is a sign that there is still research to be done, and that there is still hope that it will be done. What an extraordinary accomplishment: that something as inherently dull as an alphabetical list can communicate such optimism to kindred spirits!
Russell Stetler
January 1980
Meagher, S. and Owens, G. Master Index to the J.F.K. Assassination Investigations. The Scarecrow Press, Inc.: Metuchen, N.J., and London. 1980.