Mark Lane, JFK assassination expert, has died.

[Octafish]

70. They couldn't out-think him, so they had to smear Mark Lane.

Wow! I had not previously seen that program cover to cover.

Old Bill knows how to go for the jugular: Your reputation is that of "a left liberal with respect to New York politics."

The nice crew cut to a station break just as Lane was detailing conspiracy.

Here's a bit o' transcript:

Buckley: ...You have, apparently, succeeded in persuading the majority of the American people that we cannot trust the most august conceivable panel to do a responsible job.

Lane: Yes, I believe that that is true. We cannot trust them.

Buckley: I think the criticism is different from that. I think we are entitled to say that this august panel didn't do the kind of a job which would protect them against the Mark Lanes of the future
and should have, that is very different from the first charge.

Lane: Well I think what we can say – I think we can go a bit beyond that – that the American people have a right to say we cannot trust Earl Warren or the other four Republicans or the two southern Democrats who made up the commission which the New York Times referred to as a politically well-balanced commission.

Buckley: why did you say ‘southern Democrats.’ Did you mean to insinuate something?

Lane: Well, of course.

Buckley: What? That they're racists?

Lane: Surely you understand that in the Democratic Party there is a split, and that we ended up with a commission, which the New York Times assured us was politically well-balanced. But, in fact, we ended up with a commission that was made up without a single Kennedy supporter. I think that raises a question at the outset of faith. I'd like to go beyond that because, I think that faith –

Buckley: Not a single Kennedy supporter?

Lane: No.

Buckley: Would you say Warren was anti-Kennedy?

Lane: I don't know if he was anti-Kennedy. He was a Republican. He was a Republican Governor. He was a Republican attorney general. He was a Republican candidate for the vice presidency.

Buckley: But, he's not a Kennedy supporter? Do you think that he would prefer Nixon to Kennedy in 1960?

Lane: That's a question you'd have to put to him. I don't know what his politics are.

Buckley: But, You appear very much interested by this. This is the workings of your mind.

Lane: No -

Buckley: Two southern Democrats and no Kennedy supporter.

Lane: Don't you think --

Buckley: Equals a fix.

Lane: That's your conclusion, certainly your right. And you may be right.

Buckley: There are intonations, I think. You're an interesting man, and the way you approach it is in and of itself interesting.

Lane: The way I approach it is this way: I say if it was a politically well-balanced commission, which it was not, it is still not entitled to our faith. You talk about faith in these institutions, or faith in the FBI, as if it's a religious experience to read the Warren Report. I think to the contrary, that all that we are to have faith in a democracy, is in our own ability to look at the facts and reach our own conclusions. I have not known you, in the past, to have invested in such a vast amount of faith in either in the government or Earl Warren. I'm surprised in this one instance you're willing to.

CUT TO STATION BREAK (my transcription, any errors are Octafish's)

Thank you, GreatGazoo! I’m proud to write that we must be two of those Mark Lanes of the future Billy Buckley talked about.