Unwanted Facts: Facts that Most Books on the Lincoln Assassination Ignore

[mikegriffith1]

(12-03-2018 05:27 PM)Rob Wick Wrote:  So, I'm Edwin Stanton. Two of my minions have just returned from the field with a diary purported to contain damning evidence of the perfidy committed by myself and other Republicans in the greatest crime of the century. Instead of taking the diary, throwing it into the fireplace, and forever keeping the world from ever knowing of it, I concoct a detailed editing of a book that only three or four people have direct knowledge of? I know I can count on Lafayette Baker and Everton Conger to remain quiet because they work for me. One has the worst reputation in the city and the other is a nobody who would have died in obscurity had he not become part of the search. Should either one try to blackmail me I have the overwhelming power of the government behind me to ensure that my secret is kept.

For three years I conspire to keep the edited book under wraps because even the parts I decided to leave in could still be trouble for me. When its existence is made known, I testify to the fact that I saw it at the same time as the two men who previously testified to that same fact. During those three years I do nothing to destroy the diary completely.

Yeah, that makes a whole lot of sense.

Actually, your logic makes no sense. It is downright silly, in fact. Here are a few facts that you failed to consider in your rush to see the Emperor's New Clothes:

One, too many people knew that Booth's diary had been recovered, and Stanton could not be certain that all of them would remain silent.

Two, Stanton knew that his chief henchman, Lafayette Baker, was furious over not getting a larger share of the reward, and he knew that Baker knew that he, Stanton, had received the diary.

Three, Stanton and Baker had already had one falling out before the assassination, which led to Stanton firing Baker.

Four, Stanton was surely aware that there had been early press reports about Booth's diary being recovered. Given these reports and given how many people Stanton knew were aware of the diary's recovery, he did not dare destroy it, because if just one or two of these people started talking, he would be unable to give any credible explanation for having destroyed the diary.

Five, given the above realities, Stanton's most logical move would have been to try to minimize the damage the diary could do if its existence became known and if he were forced to hand it over. So his next logical move would have been to alter the diary, via editing and redaction, to remove as much damning content as possible.

Six, no matter what theory one wants to cook up for why the diary was redacted and altered, the fact that the diary was heavily redacted and altered is beyond dispute--it is documented for all to see in the 1977 FBI report on the diary. In addition to the shifting of content, 86 pages--that's 80 plus 6 pages--were removed from the diary, and they were not removed in some hasty grabbing and yanking of pages, but were removed in a targeted, selective manner.

Seven, while you folks "see no evil" about Stanton's suppression of the diary's existence and his withholding of it from the conspiracy trial, Baker's disclosure of the diary's existence in 1867 caused a firestorm of controversy, especially when the diary's contents became known. A huge chunk of the American people could readily see that there was something very suspicious about the suppression of the diary and the failure to enter it into evidence at the conspiracy trial.

Eight, even Bingham did not float the silly, absurd argument that the diary had no evidentiary value. His argument was that it was suppressed and not entered into evidence because they didn't want to let Booth posthumously justify and glorify his actions. Congressman Baker rightly called that excuse "lame."