The "Old" Morley Critics

You have to give credit to journalist turned JFK conspiracy theorist Jefferson Morley. He is certainly persistent in his promotion of misinformation about the assassination of the 35th President. And he is able to find sympathetic (or just in need of content) media outlets that are willing to provide him with a platform to promote his nonsense.

Morley's latest victim is Flemming Rose, a Danish journalist and author. Rose interviewed Morley after the noise made by his latest JFK "revelation"—an anonymous "whistleblower" who claims to have visited secret CIA archives where he or she saw both a video tape labeled "Mexico City" and a document describing the CIA's intentional obstruction of the House Select Committee on Assassination's investigation.

Morley told Rose that he "called on all the old critics to point out where I am wrong. They don't want to get into the debate that I have a point about the CIA and the Kennedy assassination..." It is unclear who the "old critics" Morley refers to are. They could be people like CIA historian David Robarge who has engaged in informal debates with Morley on several issues in the past. Or Morley could be referring to CIA media representatives who largely ignore him anyway.

The truth is that researchers and authors in the know have been actively engaged in fact checking Morley for some time now. For my part, I have published a detailed FAQ that refutes Morley's most notable claims.

Researcher and author Fred Litwin has written several articles on Morley. Additionally, Litwin has written extensively about New Orleans DA Jim Garrison whose scandalous claims were the basis for the movie JFK and Oliver Stone's ongoing criticism of the lone assassin viewpoint. This is relevant since Morley has expressed admiration for Stone's work.

Researcher and author Dale Myers has also tangled with Morley. Myers wrote the definitive book on the murder of JD Tippit and published work helping to debunk the HSCA acoustics evidence which was the sole basis for that panel's claim of "probable conspiracy." Myers also produced an award-winning animation project that authenticated the Warren Commission's single bullet theory. Myers, working with JFK author Gus Russo, wrote a series of articles circa 2008-2013 refuting many of Morley's claims.

Robert Reynolds is a professor in the Department of Foreign Languages and Literature at National Chi Nan University in Puli, Taiwan. Reynolds' area of study as it pertains to the JFK case is the National Archives Assassination Records Collection. Reynolds has written two articles which were published by author Max Holland's Washington Decoded. The first, Once More 'Round the Plaza, is from 2021 and primarily looks at file releases in compliance with the JFK Records Act but mentions Morley and his claims. The second article, When Is the News Media Going to Catch On? is about media mis-reporting on the file releases but has an extensive section on Morley.

Back in 2022, after the media attention Morley garnered following his "revelation" of a non-existent "smoking gun" in the JFK case, none other than Gerald Posner, author of the classic anti-conspiracy tome Case Closed, penned an article that was skeptical of Morley.

Finally, researchers working behind the scenes have provided information to those who write skeptical articles about Morley. These researchers include Paul Hoch, Steve Roe, Larry Haapanen and Jerry Shinley.

Rest assured that this particular group of "old critics" will continue to inform the public about Morley whether it is through archived articles that anyone can access and which are still totally relevant or through new material. However, speaking for myself as one of Morley's chief critics, I have come to understand a few things. The following is my own personal opinion and not necessarily that of other Morley critics.

First, Morley is no longer the serious journalist who once worked for the Washington Post and said things like he understood that Oswald was likely guilty but he was just asking questions. Morley is now really an activist who promotes far-left causes. One of those causes is the destruction of the CIA. It is likely that Morley was a "wolf in sheep's clothing" all along and was fully invested in the "CIA-did-it" narrative of the assassination. From the period of about 1996-2008 he was simply biding his time to develop a strategy and a vehicle through which he could pursue his ideas. That vehicle is his adoption of the "alternative media" model which takes the form of his Substack page.

The second sober realization I have come to is that Morley will never stop. He can't. He has a subscriber base (some of them paying monthly) and this base has to be fed material (regardless of the quality of said material) on a constant basis or he becomes irrelevant. To prove this there is no need to look further than his anonymous whistleblower "revelation" which was met with shocked silence from the assassination conspiracy community even though he promoted it as "the most important JFK story I’ve ever done."

So, the "old critics" will stay active. But we can't stop Morley nor should we in a free society. But perhaps we can educate the public and the news media who can then look skeptically on his claims, as we do.