Walter Ego
Illuminator
Attorney and conspiracy author Mark Lane, best known for his JFK assassination book Rush To Judgement, a critique of the Warren Report published in 1967, is back with Last Word: My Indictment of the CIA in the Murder of JFK, a book so important that it has not received a single review in any major publication.
A committed leftist and tireless self-promoter, Lane managed to insert himself into every prominent radical political movement of the 1960s and 70s.
Lane's last shred of credibility with the American political Left, which had grown increasingly tired of his ceaseless self-promotion and self-serving shenanigans, was destroyed by his actions of first defending and then denouncing his client Jim Jones in 1978.
Lane has the distinction of being one of the handful of survivors of the Jonestown Massacre and was able to cash in on the Jonestown debacle with a quickie book and campus lecture tour. Needing some more cash, he then went to work as a hired legal gun for the right-wing Liberty Lobby defending anti-Semites and Holocaust deniers.
Lane is also known for his mendacity. The publishers description of the book begins with an outright lie.
The case in question was a libel trial in 1985 where Lane defended the Liberty Lobby's publication The Spotlight in a libel action brought to court by E. Howard Hunt. Lane was lying about this case in 1993 in his book Plausible Denial and he's apparently still lying about it today.
Hunt was accused by The Spotlight of being in Dallas on November 22, 1963, and having a role in the Kennedy assassination. (Hunt was still a CIA agent in 1963.) Hunt lost his case but the jury decision was based on Hunt's status as a public figure. When a “public figure” like E. Howard Hunt is attacked in the media, he cannot win a libel judgment merely by showing that the attack is untrue and unfair. Under a 1964 Supreme Court decision called New York Times v. Sullivan, the plaintiff must show “actual malice” on the part of the defendant.
The jury ruled per Sullivan that there was not "actual malice" in The Spotlight's publication of the article, not that the article was necessarily true. More details on the trial here.
A committed leftist and tireless self-promoter, Lane managed to insert himself into every prominent radical political movement of the 1960s and 70s.
Lane's last shred of credibility with the American political Left, which had grown increasingly tired of his ceaseless self-promotion and self-serving shenanigans, was destroyed by his actions of first defending and then denouncing his client Jim Jones in 1978.
Lane has the distinction of being one of the handful of survivors of the Jonestown Massacre and was able to cash in on the Jonestown debacle with a quickie book and campus lecture tour. Needing some more cash, he then went to work as a hired legal gun for the right-wing Liberty Lobby defending anti-Semites and Holocaust deniers.
Lane is also known for his mendacity. The publishers description of the book begins with an outright lie.
The case in question was a libel trial in 1985 where Lane defended the Liberty Lobby's publication The Spotlight in a libel action brought to court by E. Howard Hunt. Lane was lying about this case in 1993 in his book Plausible Denial and he's apparently still lying about it today.
Hunt was accused by The Spotlight of being in Dallas on November 22, 1963, and having a role in the Kennedy assassination. (Hunt was still a CIA agent in 1963.) Hunt lost his case but the jury decision was based on Hunt's status as a public figure. When a “public figure” like E. Howard Hunt is attacked in the media, he cannot win a libel judgment merely by showing that the attack is untrue and unfair. Under a 1964 Supreme Court decision called New York Times v. Sullivan, the plaintiff must show “actual malice” on the part of the defendant.
The jury ruled per Sullivan that there was not "actual malice" in The Spotlight's publication of the article, not that the article was necessarily true. More details on the trial here.