O'Reilly Accused of Lying About JFK-Linked Suicide
HE WAS IN DALLAS, NOT ON FLA. DOORSTEP, EX-COLLEAGUES SAY
By Rob Quinn, Newser Staff
newser.com
( I magine now that O'Reilly's under the microscope, MANY lies will be unearthed. )
Posted Feb 24, 2015 11:27 PM CST | Updated Feb 25, 2015 4:58 AM CST
(NEWSER) – Another dramatic episode from Bill O'Reilly's past has been called into question by former colleagues. In his 2012 book Killing Kennedy, O'Reilly says that he was on George de Mohrenschildt's doorstep in Palm Beach, Fla., in March 1977, ready to "confront" the friend of Lee Harvey Oswald, when "he heard the shotgun blast that marked the suicide of the Russian." O'Reilly was a reporter for WFAA-TV in Dallas at the time, and two former colleagues at the station tell Media Matters that he was still in Texas at the time of the suicide. "He stole that article out of the newspaper," says WFAA reporter Byron Harris. Neither former colleague recalls O'Reilly ever mentioning being present on the doorstep.
Harris and former WFAA anchor Tracy Rowlett describe O'Reilly as untrustworthy, a "jerk," and the "most disliked man in the newsroom." Media Matters notes that assassination investigator and O'Reilly source Gaeton Fonzi wrote in his autobiography about how O'Reilly called him to confirm Mohrenschildt's suicide—and at his website JFKfacts.org, former Washington Post editor Jefferson Morley has recordings of O'Reilly apparently trying to chase the story down from Dallas and saying he planned to travel to Florida the next day. There is also no mention of O'Reilly in a 19-page police report on the suicide. O'Reilly didn't address the new allegations on his show yesterday, but he said criticism directed at him and Fox was politically motivated, Raw Story reports. |
