A few weeks ago, G. Robert Blakey, the former chief counsel of the HSCA, passed away. For years, the majority of WC skeptics condemned Blakey as "a sellout," "a CIA whitewasher," "a cover-up operative," etc. That began to change when Blakey realized and admitted in 2014 how severely he had been misled by the CIA during the HSCA investigation, and when Blakey then released a statement titled “The HSCA and the CIA: The View from the Top,” which Blakey presented at the 2014 Assassination Archives and Research Center conference.
I have long been a Blakey defender, arguing that, for all his faults, Blakey did an enormous amount of good to advance our knowledge of the assassination and to reframe the debate. It was a very big deal, a historic moment, when the HSCA formally concluded that JFK was killed by a conspiracy, that there were two gunmen and four shots, that there was a grassy knoll shot, that the first hit on JFK came at around Z190 (when the sixth-floor gunman's view of JFK would have been obstructed by the oak tree), that Ruby lied about how and why he shot Oswald, that there was movement in the sixth-floor window within two minutes after the shooting at a time when Oswald could not have been in the window, that Ruby's numerous phone calls to Mafia contacts in the weeks before the assassination could not all be explained as labor-related calls, that Silvio Odio's account was credible, that Ruby had significant Mafia ties, that JFK's back wound was nearly 2 inches lower than where the autopsy doctors placed it and that the wound was tunneled upward, that the WC failed to follow-up on leads that indicated conspiracy, etc., etc.
Jefferson Morley wrote the following about Blakey's passing in a recent blog post:
Bob Blakey was a central, sometimes controversial, figure in the second official investigation of JFK’s murder, the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA).
Jim DiEugenio’s sensitive obituary in Kennedys and King traces the learning curve of the organized crime prosecutor who served as HSCA chief counsel in 1978 and wrote the Committee’s final report. That report found that Kennedy “in all likelihood” was killed by conspirators who could not be identified.
The Washington Post obituary illuminates how and why the deception of CIA officer George Joannides caused Blakey to change his mind about who was responsible for the assassination.
The New York Times obituary is misleading because it is outdated. It omits the Joannides story and its influence on Blakey, despite the fact that Times reporter Scott Shane reported on the CIA’s “cagey” Oswald story back in 2009.James DiEugenio, a longtime Blakey critic who softened his attitude toward Blakey after Blakey changed his mind about the CIA's potential role in the JFK's death, wrote a largely favorable article to mark Blakey's passing:
https://www.kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-articles/g-robert-blakey-1936-2026Here is Blakey's 2014 statement:
https://share.google/LYbp2pCKzILMLxv0CMost of the historic ARRB disclosures from HSCA sealed records would never have happened had it not been for G. Robert Blakey. It was Blakey who authorized the collection of those records and who ensured they were preserved for future release.
