WILL KENNEDY ASSASSINATION BECOME EXCUSE FOR NEW WITCH-HUNT?
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By Joseph Hansen
One of the reasons why the Marxist movement has always vigorously opposed assassination -- aside from the personal repugnance Marxists have always felt toward bloodshed and violence -- is that it is completely futile as a means of weakening entrenched reaction, Still worse, a case of assassination, no matter by whom committed, is nearly always utilized by-a reactionary government to whip up a witchhunt and inflict murderous blows against the radical movement.
Will the assassination of Kennedy be utilized by the forces of reaction in the United States for such a witch-hunt? It is still too early to say definitively. . However, certain elements hope to turn the murder in this direction, This should be soberly noted.
One of the indications is the reinforcement given by “government sources" to the allegation by the reactionary General Walker that Oswald tried to assassinate him, too, This story, when first reported by the neo-Nazi National Zeitung und Deutsche Soldaten Zeitung of Munich, Germany, at the end of November was dismissed by responsible European newspapers, It took the American press, with a green light from "government sources" to give the report front-page billing, . ~LSee World Outlook December 13, ]
Another indication is the consistent campaign in the American news media to gloss over the glaring contradictions in the Dallas police version of the events, to picture Oswald more and more as the proved assassin, and to bring to the fore what is made out to be his "Marxist" convictions.
In Canada this type of propaganda reached truly vicious lengths in an article in the November 30 Toronto Star written by a staff writer, Ross Harkness,
This "expert" pointed to "hate literature" appearing in Canada that can set the scene for "violence" there such as occurred in Dallas.
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He cited a leaflet distributed by anti-Semitic forces in Toronto ‘"within days" of Kennedy's assassination. The leaflet.was headed: "SPECIAL BULLETIN -- WHITE MEN AWAKE." The first sentence read: "Our beloved President J.F.Kennedy was assassinated by Marxist Lee H, Oswald, who was silenced by Jew Jacob Rubinstein before he could expose that COMMUNISM IS JEWISH,”
Harkness mentioned other extreme right-wing forces, and the "Front de Liberation Quebecois," a French-Canadian separatist movement, then came to his intended target, which he amalgamated with the racists and os terrorists, This target was the Canadian Trotskyist movement which ae Harkness described as "most secretive," . te ede
"The Trotskyists," said Harlmess, “are the 'Jehovahts Witnessest _ of the Communist movement, so far to the left that even Khrushchov has disowned them,
“Lee Oswald, the man who is alleged to have killed President Kennedy, called himself a Marxist.
"The Soviet press has called him a Trotskyist -- a follower of the murdered Leon Trotsky who broke with Lenin over Communist doctrine.
"Ross Dowson of Toronto, the Canadian Trotskyist leader, told me Oswald's connection with- Trotskyism still has to be proved, though some opinions he expressed conform with Trotskyist: < doctrine.
Harkness included a statement by Dowson as follows:
"Someone says he was a Trotskyist. ‘Khrushchov and Isvestia use the term as a slander, But if it is proven beyond all doubt that Oswald was the assassin, then he was not a Trotskyist... We reject individual terror, assassination, as outside the whole tradition. of the Marxist political doctrine."
Harkness sought to cancel the effect of this “declaration by throwing in some new smear charges:
"Dallas police said Oswald twice visited Canada to participate in Trotskyist demonstrations. .A Montreal detective said he recognized Oswald as a recent participant in a demonstration in that city."
[Did Oswald make a side trip to Montreal on his way to Mexico City?] _ The final paragraphs of the article carried the smear still further by picturing the Canadian Trotskyists as seeking "to infiltrate © labor and moderate left-wing groups,"
Ina subsequent issue [December 6]. the Toronto Star granted Dowson a few inches to register a protest but this could scarcely counter the intended effect of the long article written by Harkness,
The American Trotskyists of the Socialist Workers party encountered some instances of witch-hunting in the days immediately following the
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assassination, They withstood this with the greatest firmess,
Farrell Dobbs, the national secretary of the Socialist Workers . party, joined with other leaders of the American radical movement to explain why the Marxist movement is completely opposed to assassination and. why the assassin of Kennedy, whoever he was, could not possibly have been a Marxist. His declarations, together with those of the other radical leaders, were published in the New York Times. [See World Outlook December 6,] The attitude of this powerful newspaper is often or great weight in setting tone for other newspapers in the United States,
Dobbs also issued a short statement to the press expressing per-~ sonal sympathy for Mrs, Kennedy in her bereavement, Since Dobbs’ conducted a most vigorous campaign against both Nixon and Kennedy in the 1960 election as the nominee of the Socialist Workers party and the only presidential candidate who defended the Cuban Revolution and denounced the projected invasion plans, his statement helped counter the poisonous witch-hunting effort to picture Marxists as unbalanced individuals who revel in bloodshed, gloat in the personal suffering of | the class enemy and advocate terror as a means to cure the ills of capitalist. society. oe —
- » The strong statement of the American Civil. Liberties Union denouncing the gross violation of Oswald's civil liberties has also helped: to counter the tentative moves by reactionaries to use the assassination of Kennedy as an excuse for mounting a new witch-hunt in the United States, Bo,
FRENCH PRESS