CIA media asset Hugh Aynesworth has 3 claims to fame: 1) He has had sex with Marina Oswald 2) He has played a pick-up basketball game with Fidel Casto and 3) He does not know shit about the JFK assassination
The Following documents all relate to Dallas-based CIA media asset Hugh Aynesworth who spent 60 years denying that there was a conspiracy in the JFK assassination. Hugh Aynesworth personally briefed Lyndon Johnson on the affairs in Cuba in the year 1962. Aynesworth worked closely with the Johnson White House, the FBI and the CIA to cover up the JFK assassination.
Now, to be fair, I think that Hugh Aynesworth honestly believes that a lone nut killed JFK which makes him one of the dumbest, worst reporters in American history, right up there with the New York Times's reporter Walter Duranty, who was a tool for the USSR's Joseph Stalin and who told the world there was no famine in the Ukraine in the 1930s at the very time Stalin was starving millions of Ukranians to death. Hugh Aynesworth has said that when the JFK assassination occurred that he initially thought that the USSR, aka Russia, was behind the murder of JFK. Aynesworth quickly shifted to promoting the fantasy that a lone nut killed JFK. For this insanity, the Dallas Press Club has named their annual award for "best reporter" after Hugh Aynesworth. Lyndon Johnson and a handful of the richest most power Texans and residents of Dallas murdered JFK and Aynesworth has served his local masters well over the decades.
In May of 1967 Hugh Aynesworth sent the Lyndon Johnson White House a copy of his planned expose of Jim Garrison in New Orleans. Aynesworth wrote that Jim Garrison was trying to pin the JFK assassination on the CIA and the FBI. What is so hilarious is that around this time, President Lyndon Johnson was telling his Chief of Staff and #1 henchman Marvin Watson that the CIA was behind the JFK assassination! Aynesworth's contact with the Johnson White House was LBJ's press secretary George Christian.
The Newsweek article above is Hugh Aynesworth's gift to the Johnson White House - his preview of his May, 1967 hit piece on New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison who was investigating the JFK assassination in spring, summer 1967
Penn Jones Editorial on Hugh Aynesworth from June 22,
1967
chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/http://jfk.hood.edu/Collection/White%20Materials/White%20Magazines%20And%20Articles/Midlothian%20Mirror/67-06-22.pdf
In April, 1967 Lyndon Johnson told his chief of staff Marvin Watson, who told LBJ henchman at the FBI Deke DeLoach, that he LBJ thought there was as conspiracy in the JFK assassination and he also thought the CIA had something to do with a plot in the JFK assassination
FBI
Deke DeLoach, a man very close to Lyndon Johnson, wrote a memo on 4/4/1967
telling other top FBI executives about this and the fact that White House press
secretary George Christian thought there was some truth to the Jim Garrison
allegations about the JFK assassination.
Scroll 3 pages down in this 4/4/1967 Deke DeLoach FBI memo. Marvin Watson was LBJ's top aide in the White House and Deke DeLoach was Lyndon Johnson's henchman at the FBI even more than LBJ's former neighbor and pal J. Edgar Hoover was. Here is DeLoach's memo on LBJ thinking the CIA murdered JFK:
Good web link on Hugh Aynesworth:
JFK researcher Shirley Martin’s
letter (5-20-1967) to Jim Garrison regarding Hugh Aynesworth who said he had
sex with Marina Oswald
Here is the text of the Shirley Martin letter to Jim Garrison:
May 20, 1967
Dear Mr. Garrison:
I am so sorry that Newsweek chose Hugh
Aynesworth to use in its rebuttal of you.
In the summer of ‘64 I had a long
talk with Mr. Aynesworth, introducing myself to him as a friend of a relative
to General Clyde Watts, ex-Major General Edwin A. Walker's close friend and attorney
(Oxford). Mr. Aynesworth
mistakenly assumed that I was a political conservative and immediately deluged
me with disgusting anti-Kennedy stories. ("Kennedy needed a trip to
Dallas like a hole in the head," etc.) At the same time Mr. Aynesworth heaped
what seemed to me to be inordinate praise on the city of Dallas, the Dallas
police (Lt. George Butler, Captain Fritz, Chief Curry, etc.), and the Dallas Morning
News (for which newspaper Aynesworth was working at the time). He confided, too, that Tom Buchanan
(Paris) was a "fairy" and detailed for me a number of extremely
slanderous alleged incidents in the life of Mark Lane. In addition, Mr. Aynesworth
definitively labeled Mr. Lane a "communist."
Aynesworth
was extremely bitter that Merriman Smith had won the Pulitzer for his coverage
of the assassination. Aynesworth sarcastically remarked that
Smith "did nothing and saw less" on the day in question, whereas he, Aynesworth
was "...the only reporter in America to make all four big scenes."
(1) In addition, Aynesworth boasted that a Commission attorney had already
confided to him (in July) what the Commission verdict was to be (in September).
Oswald would be named, but
according to Aynesworth it was in reality "...a communist plot. Warren will
do a cover-up for Moscow."
Aynesworth
insisted that Marina had had an affair with him after the assassination, and
that during this period she had revealed to him that she and Ruth Paine had
shared a Lesbian relationship prior to November 22, 1963. Aynesworth
also declared that he had been on 10th Street "looking down on the Tippit
murder scene at 1:05pm, not later than 1:10..." on November 22nd. (2)
Needless to say, the "only reporter in America" to be in on all four
"big scenes" was NOT called to testify before the Warren Commission,
which did, however, call Thayer Waldo, Fort Worth reporter, because he had been
in the police basement when Ruby shot Oswald. (3)
Finally, I have the statement by an
employee of the Dallas Morning News that Aynesworth was deliberately and ILLEGALLY
given the allegedly stolen Oswald diary story by a Commission attorney who was in
Dallas on business at that time. Earl Warren later put the FBI on the trail of
this illegal "leak", but as was to be expected no discoveries were made.
This, then, is the man chosen by Newsweek
to rebut you. What a pity Newsweek's taste is so concentrated in its tail.
- Sincerely,
(Mrs.) Shirley Martin
Box 226
Owasso, Oklahoma
cc: 10
1
Dealey Plaza, 10th Street, Texas Theatre,
Dallas police basement.
2
Thus
negating the Commission claim that Oswald. shot both Kennedy and Tippit.
3
Waldo's testimony is pertinent in regard
to Lt. Butler (not called by Commission.)
The case of Hugh Aynesworth, his 1975 contact with the FBI regarding
William Walter, a former New Orleans FBI clerk:
FBI Ted Gunderson memo to the FBI
director, dated 9/24/75
Jim DiEugenie 7-12-21 to Robert Morrow regarding Hugh Aynesworth
That one you have
is the best one I did that is online. I wrote a lot about Hugh in the second
edition of Destiny Betrayed. The part about him going to Clinton and trying to bribe Manchester is really
telling and shows his relationship with the CIA.
In the first edition of Destiny Betrayed I printed the telex from him to the FBI and the White House about his upcoming Newsweek hit piece on Garrison.
In the FBI report I saw on the dairy, they seemed to conclude that it was him also.
Jim D
Web
links on Hugh Aynesworth:
1) Hugh
G. Aynesworth (spartacus-educational.com)
3) Kennedys And King - Hugh Aynesworth Never Quits
Hugh Aynesworth answers the question “Are you a CIA media asset?’ And his answer in 2013 was "That is a fair question."
2013 Texas Book Festival – CSPAN2 Tent
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rTaz95ni22E
Aynesworth answered: “That is a fair question.”
James Feldman comment on video on YouTube:
QUOTE
I note that Hugh Aynesworth does NOT answer the key operative part of the question put to him: Are you or have you ever been a CIA media asset? He only says that he did not take money from any government agency, but that too does not help to answer the question, and, in fact, is a MISLEADING answer because the CIA very often pays its assets through business intermediaries and other such non-government fronts. I will give Aynesworth credit as a very skilled liar, however, with his cleverly deceptive and evasive answer that appears to be "sincere." But his complete failure to answer the question in a forthright, honest manner merely supports those who assert that Aynesworth has been a CIA media asset.
UNQUOTE
Hugh Aynesworth
went to Lyndon Johnson’s house during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 to brief
LBJ on the state of Cuban Affairs
https://lumcfs.org/wp-content/uploads/documents/v49PathwaysSpring09.pdf
[“Pulitzer-Nominated Author
commences LUMCFS Distinguished Speakers Forum,” Erin Rockett, Pathways: Leading
Children Home, Volume 49, Spring 2009. Published by the Lousiana Methodist
Children’s Home.]
By Erin Rockett, LPC,
LMFT
Pulitzer-Nominated Author
Commences LUMCFS Distinguished Speakers Forum By Erin Rockett, LPC, LMFT Saturday,
March 21 launched the highly-anticipated first event for the LUMCFS
Distinguished Speakers Forum, a fund-raising event held at the Henning OWL Conference
Center at 6:30 pm. Not an empty seat remained as approximately 200 guests and additional
agency staff attended the forum, which sold out prior to event day. The
evening's program included dinner prepared by Tall Timbers Lodge, which was
served to guests by MCH staff. Following dinner, guests listened to a presentation
by Mr. Hugh G. Aynesworth, Pulitzer-prize nominated author and former chief
Investigative Reporter for ABC-TV 20/20 news program. Afterwards, Mr. Aynesworth
answered audience member questions and provided autographed copies of his works
for purchase. Mr. Aynesworth captivated audience members with an account of his
involvement with the JFK assassination story as events unfolded in Dallas on that
fateful day in America's history. He revealed that his coverage was unplanned,
as the Dallas Morning News had not assigned him to cover the Presidential visit.
His presence on location catapulted his involvement into all aspects of the
breaking story, including conducting interviews, examining evidence, and tracking
leads. For years to follow, the author pursued evidence of various conspiracy
theories, finding little credible evidence. Mr. Aynesworth was the first print
journalist to interview the widow of Lee Harvey Oswald. His extensive body of
research was published in a 2003 book release: “JFK: Breaking the News.” This title
commemorated that 40th anniversary of the assassination, and was recently featured
in the PBS/BBC special television program entitled “Oswald's Ghost”. In
addition to extensive research on the JFK assassination, Mr. Aynesworth discussed
investigation of conspiracy theories surrounding the Huey Long assassination. He
described his experiences of interviewing colorful characters from Louisiana's
past, keeping selected findings private for decades to protect the safety of sources.
When questioned by audience members, Mr. Aynesworth revealed that his most memorable presidential interview
occurred in 1962 during the Cuban missile crisis. Having just returned from a
trip to Cuba, the author was hastily summoned to the home of Lyndon B. Johnson
to provide details on the state of Cuban affairs.
He recalled that the Johnson's home was still
half-unpacked from a recent move, leaving few areas for seating. The odd juxtaposition
of conducting state affairs amidst a stack of boxes and picture frames stood
out among the multitude of presidential interviews conducted across the author's
career. During
an interview graciously granted by Mr. Aynesworth prior to the forum, he
revealed additional personal projects in progress. Included among his list are
a 60-year career retrospective manuscript, and an unnamed television documentary.
When asked to reflect on the future direction of the investigative journalism field,
Mr. Aynesworth lamented the decline of investigative journalism integrity, due in
part to economic conditions, print publication closings, and due to the advent
of abundant but unvalidated sourcing from internet bloggers. In closing the interview,
Mr. Aynesworth praised Louisiana Methodist Children's and Family Services for the
array of community-enhancing and therapeutic services provided to the state by
the agency. Citing Louisiana's high adult incarceration rate, he declared that
“more people ought to know about this”, referring to the mission of the organization.
He added that LMCH was “one of the best-kept secrets” of Louisiana, indicating his
belief that agency work should be known across the nation. Mr. Aynesworth and his wife
concluded their visit to the Ruston area by attending local Sunday morning worship
services at Trinity United Methodist Church.
Hugh Aynesworth
interviewed Fidel Castro after playing basketball with him in Havanna – Radford
University (located in Radford, VA) interview of Hugh Aynesworth – 2016- article
by Max Esterhuizen
Distinguished journalist
visits campus, gives advice and insight
Oct 25, 2016
Max Esterhuizen
(540) 831-7749
westerhuizen@radford.edu
QUOTE
Few people know as much as journalist Hugh Aynesworth when it
comes to the Kennedy Assassination.
Aynesworth visited Radford University as the cornerstone of a
course team-taught by Professors Stephen Owen and Tod Burke.
The distinguished journalist was a reporter for the Dallas
Morning News, the Dallas Times Herald, Newsweek and United Press International.
As part of his work, Aynesworth witnessed the Kennedy Assassination, the arrest
and subsequent murder of Lee Harvey Oswald and interviewed both Ted Bundy and
Henry Lee Lucas. Aynesworth
also interviewed Cuban dictator Fidel Castro, a feat which he was able to
achieve after playing basketball with him in Havana.
“We hated
each other’s guts,” Aynesworth said of when he interviewed Bundy.
Aynesworth
noted that a major difference between investigating a crime now is how
information spreads.
“If you
wanted to find out about something happening instantaneously, you had to find a
police radio and get near it,” Aynesworth said. “People didn’t have mobile
phones or the internet then.”
Aynesworth
got near an FBI car that belonged to a friend to listen to the radio in the
aftermath of the Kennedy shooting to try and uncover more information.
The
instinct served him well. Aynesworth heard suspicions of where Oswald was
heading and witnessed his subsequent arrest.
This was
just one of the many investigations that Aynesworth was a part of during his
career. He also worked to prove that Lucas was admitting to murders that he
could not have committed. His work on that case earned him a Pulitzer Prize
nomination.
Aynesworth
offered advice to students based upon his experiences, telling them to “work
hard.”
“The
harder you work, the luckier you get,” Aynesworth said.
The
investigative journalist also urged the audience to not believe everything they
read, but rather question it to discover the truth.
“Today,
you don’t know what you’re reading on the internet,” Aynesworth said. “There are
so many different stories for everything that happens. You just don’t know what
to believe.”
Oct 25, 2016
Max
Esterhuizen
(540)
831-7749
westerhuizen@radford.edu
UNQUOTE
Hugh Aynesworth
offered to snitch on William Walter for the FBI in 1975
Info on William Walter
Cashdavid:
I am looking for a
document included in William Walter's testimony before
the HSCA. Relevant numbers HSCA RG 233. NARA 180-10076-10413, JFK exhibit
#83, perhaps #87.
William Walter, a Tulane student, was a part-time security clerk in the
New Orleans FBI office. He testified before the HSCA that on August 10th,
1963 he took a call from the NOPD saying they had Oswald in custody and he
wanted to talk to FBI agent Warren DeBrueys. DeBrueys was not on duty but
John Quigley was. Quigley told Walter to check the files to see if they
had anything on Oswald. Walter testified they had two files: one a
surveillance file and one a CI, confidential informant, file. It is my
understanding that both files disappeared after the assassination.
Walter also was on duty in New Orleans on Nov. 17th, the day Oswald left a
note in James Hosty's box at FBI Dallas. The telex was from FBI
headquarters and was addressed to every FBI office in the US. It asked
that agents contact their confidential informants to determine if there
was any credibility to the threat that "terrorists' were going to attempt
to assassinate JFK in Dallas the next week. Walter hand copied the
contents of the telex and typed it up when he got back to Tulane. Every
copy of the original disappeared. Officially, there was no telex.
Oswald's note to Hosty was destroyed. It allegedly contained a threat of
violence against the FBI or Dallas police if they didn't stop harassing
Marina. One would think that after the assassination evidence of Oswald's
inclination to violence would be saved. If, on the other hand, the note
was a warning about an attempt on the President, it certainly would have
been destroyed.
Walter's copy of the telex was entered into evidence during his 73 page
HSCA deposition. Can someone please help me find it?
Also, this on William Walter House Select Committee on Assassinations Final Report (maryferrell.org)
Long favorable article on Hugh Aynesworth who knows absolutely nothing about the JFK assassination
https://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2007/jul/08/hugh-grant-aynesworth-20070708/
Hugh
Grant Aynesworth
Arkansas was the starting point for the prodigious
journalism career of Hugh Aynesworth. A prime authority on the assassination of
President John F. Kennedy, he's still working hard while recently retired
by Jack Schnedler | July 8, 2007 at 5:18
a.m.
DALLAS — In 1950, a 19-year-old West Virginian so poor that
he'd had to drop out of college as a freshman found a sportswriter's job for $32
a week at the Fort Smith Times Record.
That was the Arkansas beginning for the illustrious career of journalist Hugh Aynesworth. He's a four-time Pulitzer Prize finalist, a premier authority on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy and co-author of two books about notorious serial killer Ted Bundy.
"No one knows more about malice and murder than Hugh, who has stalked politicians, movie stars, wayward preachers and priests gone bad, mad men, crazed widows and serial killers, for more than a half-century," writes Arkansas native Wesley Pruden, editor in chief of the Washington Times. That's from his foreword to Aynesworth's 2003 book JFK: Breaking the News.
Hired by Pruden in 1989, Aynesworth retired this spring as the Times' Southwest bureau chief. Working on two more books and other projects, he professes to be busier than ever as his 76th birthday looms next month.
"I've had some strange experiences in my life," he says, sitting in his Dallas living room amid a clutter of books, magazines and newspapers.
That's a fabulous understatement about decades of adventure fueled
by relentless pursuit of news stories and studded with derring-do. Aynesworth
tells a good yarn, and he has myriad good yarns to tell.
Over the years, he worked for a half-dozen newspapers, a wire service, Newsweek magazine and ABC's 20/20 program.
He covered every U.S. manned space flight from the first Mercury orbital voyage by John Glenn in 1962 to the Apollo 11 moon landing in 1969. He reported a host of big stories, from the hunt for Martin Luther King Jr. assassin James Earl Ray in 1968 to the 1993 Waco siege by federal agents that ended in the deaths of more than 70 Branch Davidians.
Along that peripatetic way, he got to know a galaxy of oddball characters, from Truman Capote to Billie Sol Estes to Geraldo Rivera. He does a delightful vocal impression of Capote, whom he met when that famously idiosyncratic writer was doing In Cold Blood, the best-selling book about the murders of the Herbert Clutter family in Holcomb, Kan.
Aynesworth had covered that gruesome1959 crime for the Wichita Eagle, reaching the scene through heavy snowfall by furiously pumping a railroad handcar with another reporter for 30 miles.
"When you're young, you do silly things," he says.
Of Capote, he says, "Truman was such a brilliant, fun guy to be around."
On Nov. 22, 1963, Aynesworth was the only reporter present in
both Dealey Plaza when Kennedy was fatally shot and in the Texas Theater when
police arrested suspect Lee Harvey Oswald.
Two mornings later, he was standing about 15 feet away in the Dallas City Hall basement when Jack Ruby shot Oswald to death. The following March, having established himself at the Dallas Morning News as what he calls "the go-to guy on the JFK assassination," he was the first newspaperman to get an interview with the widowed Marina Oswald.
Aynesworth had met Kennedy in a mildly odd setting in 1960, doing a campaign interview while the over-scheduled Democratic presidential candidate took a shower in a Denver hotel room.
In 1962, he interviewed
Lyndon B. Johnson in the wake of the Cuban missile crisis while the exhausted vice
president climbed in and out of bed in his pajamas.
In 1960, Aynesworth was with United Press International in Denver when the hazards of investigative reporting came into play. A hit man hired for $1,000 by a corrupt labor union that the UPI reporter was investigating broke into his apartment and slashed his throat with a knife.He managed to break a bottle in the bathroom and chase off the thug, who got a seven-year prison sentence.
"When I went to Dallas to interview at the Morning News, I still had a big bandage on my neck," says Aynesworth. "They asked, 'What happened to you?' I said, 'Oh, I got my throat cut.' They probably should have said, 'I don't really think we want to hire you.' But they did, and the rest is history."
INSPIRATION AND PERSPIRATION
His career, starting in Fort Smith under the byline "Huey Aynesworth," amplifies the adage that success is 10 percent inspiration and 90 percent perspiration - not to mention the occasional risk of life or limb.
Born in the glass-factory town of Clarksburg, W.Va., he was an
only child 1 year old when his father died. His widowed mother took in laundry,
while his aunt cleaned houses. He edited the newspaper at Roosevelt Wilson High
School and was a stringer covering sports for the daily Clarksburg Exponent.
Enrolled at Salem College in Clarksburg, he was elected president
of the freshman class. But he ran out of money in April 1950 and had to drop
out.
"That's how poor I was," he says. "And that's the only college I ever had. I found the sportswriting job in Fort Smith through an ad in Editor & Publisher. I don't think I'd more than heard of Arkansas. It was just out there somewhere."
At first, "I wasn't very good. I don't know how I did it,
covering games and writing stories. But in those days, if you really tried, you
had a chance. And I worked hard. I always did. Eventually, they made me a
sports columnist."
In 1954, Aynesworth moved to Little Rock to join the staff of
Arkansas Gazette Sports Editor Orville Henry. He became fast friends with Pruden,
then also a fledgling Gazette sportswriter, who observes in the JFK foreword:
"I first noticed that [Hugh] had a way with the girls, and I took notes. I soon discovered ... that he had a way with everyone. Hugh had the gift of actually listening when people talked. People ... told Hugh things, sometimes when for their own good they shouldn't have. Listening to people who talk too much for their own good is manna for a reporter."
Aynesworth discounts the remark about his knack with women. "I wasn't a man about town," he says. "But I was single. I worked hard and I guess I played hard. It was nothing but work and play."
In 1955, he was hired as managing editor of the morning Southwest
American and the Sunday Southwest Times Record, at thetime two of Donald W.
Reynolds' newspapers in Fort Smith. Most 24-year-old newsmen, now as then, are
cub reporters. But the management position required him to supervise a staff of
80 - a good many with the college degree he lacked. That prodigious challenge
helped anneal him for the successes that lay ahead.
"I always felt like I was in over my head as managing editor," he says. "I had this inferiority complex. I really had to read a lot and work a lot harder. I learned a little more discipline in that job, and I learned how to deal with people."
Circulation of the two newspapers increased by several thousand
during Aynesworth's two years as managing editor, which paradoxically led to a
six-month detour from journalism.
As he explains, "Don Reynolds had promised me, 'If you get
circulation up 3,000 or 4,000, we'll give you this big raise.' I gotit up
there, but he refused to give me the raise. And I was working my head
off."
One day, the disgruntled Aynesworth happened to meet the owner
of a plumbing supply business, "who offered me double what I was making at
the newspapers to sell equipment for him."
Aynesworth took that job in Muskogee, Okla., "but I missed
newspapering, and I made two bad mistakes that ended my plumbing career."
The first error involved a bidding slip-up. The second, as he remembers it, was more critical: "I sold a big job in Tulsa at a 40-unit motel. But I didn't know there were right-handed bathtubs and left-handed bathtubs. As you approach a tub, it depends on whether the water comes in from the right or the left. Not knowing that, I just ordered 40 bathtubs. Well, 20 of them were wrong. I didn't evengo back to the office."
Instead, he found a reporting job at the Wichita Eagle, where he
became the aviation editor. Winter in Kansas proved too cold for him, even when
not pumping a handcar through the snow, so he moved to the Dallas Times Herald.
Before long, he joined UPI in Denver at almost double his Times Herald salary. Hired next at the Dallas Morning News, slashed throat and all, he got the aviation and space beat in time to cover Glenn's initial U.S. orbital flight from Cape Canaveral, Fla.
On Nov. 22, 1963, he had a 2 p.m. appointment to interview a professor about the space program.
"Just about every other reporter had an assignment to cover
JFK's visit, which was a really big deal," he says. "I was a little
upset, figuring I should have been assigned something on it."
A little before noon,
Aynesworth decided to walk to Dealey Plaza and watch the presidential motorcade.
He was in the dense crowd as Kennedy's limousine came into view, and at 12:30 p.m.
he heard the first loud pop of a rifle.
"I know there were
three shots," he says. "And I know that if I'd looked up at the Texas
School Book Depository 75 feet away, I probably would have seen Oswald in that
sixth-floor window."
Quickly, Aynesworth's reporter's instinct kicked in, "and I
knew I had to start interviewing people. I reached into my pockets for paper to
start taking notes. The best I could do was a couple of utility payments I hadn't
yet mailed, and a letterfrom a bank thanking me for opening an account."
Next, "I found I had nothing to write with. In the middle
of the pandemonium, I spotted a scared little boy, embraced tightly by his dad.
I noted that he was gripping a fat jumbo pencil, like the ones kids used to use
in early grade school. It had a little American flag on the eraser end."
He paid the boy 50 cents for "the ridiculous-looking pencil and plunged through the panicked crowd toward the book depository, grabbing witnesses and digging into the mass confusion."
His first bylined story on
the JFK assassination, in the next day's Morning News, was a news feature on
J.D. Tippit, the Dallas policeman fatally shot by the fleeing Oswald. Then he
shifted into overdrive, teaming with columnist Larry Grove fora detailed report
on the escape route Oswald took after he shot Kennedy.
"That story ran just six days after the assassination, and its facts have stood up over the years," Aynesworth says. "With all the rumors starting, I knew it was important to determine how Oswald got out of the depository, where he went, what the timeline was until he got caught. It all related to whether he acted alone or not, and all the information in that story is consistent with the fact he did."
Aynesworth became a
Pulitzer Prize finalist for the first time for that story and a number of other
JFK exclusives, including publication of the diary Oswald had kept during his
time as a defector in the Soviet Union.
"Confidential
sources are the only way you can exist in this business," he says. "There
are abuses, but there are abuses to anything. Of 25 major stories I developed,
20 of them came about because people trusted me with their confidences. I've been
called before grand juries, and I've always kept my word to my sources."
MOST FIRSTHAND KNOWLEDGE
By dint of hard-nosed digging, Aynesworth became the journalist "who had more firsthand knowledge about the participants in the assassination drama than any other reporter," writes Vincent Bugliosi in Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
Famous as the prosecutor of Charles Manson and co-author of the
Helter Skelter book about that California ritual-murder case, Bugliosi devotes
his new 1,600-page tome to debunking the myriad JFK conspiracy theories.
Aynesworth is also a firm
conspiracy disbeliever, in the face of polls showing that 70 percent of Americans
believe Oswald did not act alone 44 years ago.
"No one can be
absolutely sure there was no conspiracy, because you can't prove a
negative," he says. "But I would bet my life, and I rather enjoy my
life, that you can't show me one shred of evidence leaning toward a specific
conspiracy theory."
The theories persist, he says, "partly because there's
money in it, and partly because it's more fun to believe in conspiracies. Also,
it's a little scary to think that two almost deranged type people, Oswald and
Ruby, could change the course of history."
Noting the existence of morethan 200 JFK conspiracy theories, he
observes, "If anything, that proves more than 199 of them have to be
wrong."
In 1975, Aynesworth's career took another intriguing turn. He left journalism again and spent more than a year running a private detective agency, which took him to East Africa to successfully negotiate the release of five U.S. geophysicists kidnapped for ransom by the Eritrean Liberation Front.
"That was a little bit scary," he says. "When we
first met the kidnappers in the Sudan, we didn't have passports or anything
else. We were led down this hall to a little room with one light bulb hanging
down, and several teenagers pointing high-powered rifles at us. Life is cheap
over there."
Having returned to journalism as an investigative reporter with
ABC's 20/20, he quit that job in 1979 to write his first book, The Only Living
Witness: The True Story of Serial Sex KillerTed Bundy. His collaborator was
Stephen G. Michaud, now a nationally known writer who has been his co-author
for five other volumes: Ted Bundy: Conversations With a Killer; If You Love Me,
You Will Do My Will; The Vengeful Heart and Other Stories; Murderers Among Us;
and Wanted for Murder.
"Hugh is far and away the best interviewer I've ever been around,"
says Michaud, who also worked
with Aynesworth on JFK: Breaking the News. "He's so very good at
being empathetic with the person he's trying to squeeze information out of. And
he's one of those rare people who is absolutely dependable. I've never heard
him say he'd do something that he didn't do."
Back at the Dallas Times Herald, Aynesworth was a Pulitzer Prize finalist three more times.In 1986, he and colleague Jim Henderson achieved an unusual Pulitzer distinction as finalists in two categories. The double honor came for an investigative series revealing that self-confessed mass killer Henry Lee Lucas couldn't have committed more than a few of the 200-plus murders that Texas authorities had cleared off the books based on his confessions.
AN EXCELLENT TEACHER
Hired by Pruden in 1989, Aynesworth worked for several years in the Washington Times' main newsroom before returning to Dallas as chief of the paper's one-person Southwest bureau.
"He became the icon of
a generation of our young reporters," Pruden says. "He's a terrific
teacher, and anyone who has ever worked with him has learned a lot - including
a lot about integrity."
Aynesworth remembers interviewing Bill Clinton in Little Rock in
1991, "when he was still thinking about running for president. I'd already
heard from three ladies regarding what would become known as his 'bimbo eruptions.'
I asked him, 'What are you going to do about these allegations?' He replied,
'Well, I'm just not going to talk about them.'
"I remember saying to him, 'Good luck.'"
Now retired from full-time newspapering, Aynesworth says he has
no hobbies.
"I've never had time, and I probably never will," he says.
"I don't play golf. That took too much time. I swim occasionally, although
our backyard pool is always dirty. I do intend to enjoy more sun this
year."
Last November, he took a Mediterranean cruise with his wife, Paula, who works in development for the Dallas publictelevision station. He has three grown children from two previous marriages and four grandchildren. He occasionally comes to Arkansas to visit a cousin who lives in Alma.
One of the two books Aynesworth is writing will fully tell the
story of Lucas and the hoax he perpetrated with so many false murder confessions.
The other, with the
working title My First 50 Years in Journalism, sounds like a memoir.
"But let's not call
it that," he says. "Memoirs don't sell."
He's writing My First 50 Years because "I just need to do it. I was thrown into journalism at a very young age. Fortunately, I enjoyed hard work. And it paid off. The work ethic is something you can't buy. You're either born with it and raised with it, or you're not."
Pruden sums up Aynesworth as "an old-time newspaperman, in
the best sense of that term."
Michaud says his co-author "is lucky to be alive, given all
of his adventures. And we're all the better for it."
Aynesworth says, "Journalism has changed so much, but it's
been so good to me. It's always allowed me to wake up in the morning eager to
get to work on this project or that project. I can't remember a dull day."
SELF PORTRAIT Hugh Aynesworth
DATE AND PLACE OF BIRTH Aug. 2, 1931, Clarksburg, W.Va.
THE FAVORITE OF ALL MY JOBS HAS BEEN Covering the early U.S. space
program in the years up to the 1969 moon landing.
MY TOUGHEST INTERVIEW WAS
When in 1971 I confronted the director of the Dallas Crime Commission, John
McKee, and told him I knew he had been involved in a murder before coming to
Dallas, changing his name and becoming the city's leading citizen. He pulled a
.38 pistol and shoved it in my face. Another touch-and-go interview
was late at night in the Sudan in a small room with several high-powered rifles
pointed at me by a band of terrorists from the Eritrean Liberation Front who had
kidnaped five U.S. geologists.
MY FIRST QUESTION TO LEE
HARVEY OSWALD WOULD HAVE BEEN "Why?"
THE LOONIEST JFK CONSPIRACY THEORY IS The one that resulted in
Oswald's exhumation - the allegation by a British lawyer that the man buried in
the Fort Worth cemetery was, in reality, a Russian spy.
MY STORIES I'M PROUDEST
OF ARE The Dallas Morning News exclusive in June 1964 about Lee Harvey Oswald's
Russian diary, and the 1985 story that proved Henry Lee Lucas couldn't have
committed hardly any of the 214 murders the Texas Rangers had cleared on him.
WHEN I WAS A BOY I wanted to grow up to be a coach.
SOMETHING NOBODY KNOWS ABOUT ME IS That I was the runt of my high
school class, possibly 135 pounds at graduation.
IF I'VE LEARNED ONE THING IN LIFE, IT'S To keep an open mind on
virtually everything.
I WISH I KNEW MORE ABOUT How the brain works and why I can remember
my 1945 telephone number, but occasionally not what I had for lunch.
MY BIGGEST REGRET IS THAT I have not really accomplished near
enough in this life.
ONE GOAL I'VE YET TO ACHIEVE IS How to program half the
electronic gadgets my wife, Paula, and I have accumulated. I am getting much better
at turning on the TV and even the lawn watering system, but ...
IF I HAD ONE WISH, IT WOULD BE To be young enough and wealthy enough
to spend several years helping the poor, the needy and the ill in Africa and Asia.
TO RELAX I read and work crossword puzzles.
THE GUESTS AT MY FANTASY
DINNER PARTY WOULD BE Truman Capote, Clarence Darrow, Huey Long, Billy Graham
and Alger Hiss.
ONE WORD TO SUM ME UP Lucky.
High Profile, Pages 39, 42 on 07/08/2007
CIA media asset Hugh Aynesworth sits on the board of the Press Club of Dallas and the Press Club gives out an annual Hugh Aynesworth Award for Excellence in Journalism!
https://pressclubdallas.com/hugh-aynesworth-awards/
Presented to Texas journalists and their organizations for outstanding investigative, spot news and feature reporting, as well as photography and videography, during the calendar year 2017.
Hugh Aynesworth – toasted in 2016 by the Dallas
Historical Society for his contributions to HISTORY!
2016 Excellence Awardees Are Toasted At Dallas
Historical Society Patron Party
Drink
glasses were raised, and there was much applause Tuesday, October 26, when
about 65 guests gathered at Libby
and Doug Hunt’s beautiful, classic home to recognize recipients
of the Dallas Historical Society’s 2016 Awards for Excellence in Community
Service. The awards, scheduled to be presented at a luncheon at the
Fairmont Hotel on Thursday, November 17, are given annually to honor “generosity of spirit, civic
leadership, and [the] ability to encourage community-wide participation” in the
growth of Dallas.
Hugh Aynesworth
May 15, 1967 Newsweek article “The JFK Conspiracy” – a hit piece on Jim
Garrison’s investigation into the JFK assassination
What stuck out to me about a link to his CIA connections was his sudden move to Africa to run a detective agency -- wtf? Why would anyone do that, especially given he had work with 20/20 on ABC? I guess he is still alive. I looked him up and he will be 92 next week. Robert, you should try to do an interview with him and grill him about the CIA.
ReplyDeleteBingo! Weird. Detective agency. Head to Africa out of the blue .... looks like CIA to me!
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