Will he keep JFK secrets?
As confirmation hearings for John Brennan as the new director of the CIA get underway this week, the Senate and the public face basic issues of trust and transparency. How does the director of a necessarily secretive multi-billion-dollar agency retain public trust and maintain accountability within the democratically elected government?
One way is to come clean on the JFK story, especially the role of top CIA officials in the JFK story. The assassination of President John F. Kennedy is an important symbolic test of the CIA’s credibility. A poll taken in 2003 found 34 percent of respondents held the agency responsible for JFK’s death.
There’s no “smoking gun” proof of a JFK conspiracy, but there is a pattern of suspicious activity on the part of some senior CIA operatives that has never been clarified. As Robert F. Kennedy Jr, recently said in Dallas, even his father Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy privately feared “rogue CIA” operatives were involved in his brother’s assassination.
In the face of such widespread doubts, the CIA’s best option in 2013 — its only politically realistic option — is to be transparent, especially about one of Brennan’s most controversial predecessors, the late Richard Helms, the director of the CIA from 1967 to 1973.
Richard Helms: The man who kept the JFK secrets
As I noted last month in the Huffington Post, the next director of the CIA is going to face a season of cynicism and suspicion later this year. On the 50th anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, the agency is still withholding from public view more than 1,100 files related to JFK’s death, most of them dating from Helms’s tenure as deputy director in 1963.
CIA officials will no doubt tell Brennan what they have stated publicly: that the 1,100 files are “not believed relevant” to the JFK assassination story.
That is not accurate. These files are relevant. They were collected internally by agency officials in the 1970s as they prepared for JFK investigations. At that time, the agency itself determined that the records were related to JFK’s assassination. Now CIA officials have told the National Archives and JFK scholars that they do not have the “time or resources” to review and release these JFK files.
The National Archives data base and other sources identify the secret CIA files that are directly relevant to the JFK assassination story.
These are the files of Agency officers who who reported to Helms, the deputy CIA director in 1963, and his colleague, James Angleton, the chief of counterintelligence.
Both men figured prominently in the intelligence failure that culminated in JFK’s death on November 22, 1963. Angleton’s office had monitored accused assassin Lee Harvey Oswald closely from 1959 to 1963 and failed to identify him as a threat. Four senior officers reporting to Helms were informed of Oswald’s travels and Cuban contacts six weeks before JFK was killed. None expressed security concerns about the accused assassin.
The Top 5 JFK files John Brennan should release are these:
CIA officer E. Howard Hunt knew the underbelly of American power
1) Howard Hunt’s operational files. Notorious as the leader of the Watergate burglars, Hunt served at Helms’s behest as chief of the CIA’s Domestic Contacts Division in 1963. During the Watergate affair, Hunt all but blackmailed Helms by threatening to talk in court about “numerous Illegal conspiracies” in which he had participated. Late in life Hunt made cryptic remarks about a possible CIA plot to kill JFK in 1963 that he called “the Big Event.”
The CIA retains six files containing 332 pages of material on Hunt, who died in 2007.
David Phillips oversaw anti-Castro psychological warfare operations in 1963.
David Atlee Phillips’s operational files. Phillips was a protege of Helms and colleague of Hunt’s, known for the ruthless cleverness of his psychological warfare operations. Working undercover in Mexico City in 1963, Phillips was involved in the pre-assassination surveillance of Lee Harvey Oswald. There was a credible report he was seen in Oswald’s company. In 1998, the CIA acknowledged that Phillips worked with ultra-right-wing Chilean military officers responsible for a political assassination in October 1970. He later founded the Association of Former Intelligence Officers to defend the agency’s reputation.
The CIA retains four files containing 606 pages of material on Phillips, who died in 1987.
National Archives list of David Phillips files that remain secret
3) Eladio del Valle’s personality file: Eladio del Valle was a drug smuggler and gunman who worked for Havana organized crime boss Santos Trafficante in the early 1960s. He also worked with CIA officials reporting to Helms in the covert war on Cuba. He was an associate of John Martino, a gambling security expert who acknowledged advanced knowledge of a plan to shoot and kill Kennedy in Dallas. The Cuban intelligence service later conducted an investigation of JFK’s assassination and concluded that del Valle was involved. Del Valle was murdered in Miami in 1967. Fabian Escalante, retired chief of the Cuban counterintelligence service, told me “We are certain del Valle was involved somehow.”
When historian David Kaiser, author of The Road to Dallas, asked the CIA for the del Valle file, he was not allowed to see any of it.
The CIA’s response to a Freedom of Information Act request about a medal given to undercover officer George Joannides for his actions in 1963.
4) George Joannides’s medal memo. In 1981 a retired undercover officer George Joannides received the Agency’s Career Intelligence Medal in part for his operations in 1963. At the time, of JFK’s death, Joannides served as chief of psychological warfare operations in Miami. Working with Phillips, he handled contacts with the Cuban Student Directorate, an anti-Castro exile group whose members tangled with Oswald in the summer of 1963. Fifteen years later, Joannides hid what he knew about Oswald’s pro-Castro antics in 1963 from the House Select Committee on Assassinations.
Did the CIA honor Joannides for running an undercover psy-war operation involving Oswald and concealing it from congressional investigators? A five-page memo written in March 1981 explains why Joannides was given the Career Intelligence Medal. Access to the memo is now “denied in full” — for reasons of national security. Joannides died in 1990.
5) Files of Birch D. O’Neal. A former CIA station chief in Guatemala, O’Neal ran the counterintelligence office that kept the closest track of Lee Harvey Oswald from 1959 to 1963. As chief of the Special Investigations Group, O’Neal reported to counterintelligence chief Angleton. If there was a CIA effort to manipulate Oswald, O’Neal likely knew of it. The CIA retains three files on O’Neal’s operations, containing 222 pages of material.
Wow! This is the kind of thing that just blows me away: “Now CIA officials have told the National Archives and JFK scholars that they do not have the “time or resources” to review and release these JFK files.”
If they have not the “time or resources” to serve the public interest, then what in the name of Sam Hill do they have time for?
It’s a bit like going into a restaurant, paying the tab first, ordering a meal, and then being told we have niether the time or the resources to serve you dinner!
The CIA has devoted more time and resoures to the Katyn Forest massacre of 1942. The Cuban Missile Crisis has got attention, appropriately.
The CIA simply wants to avoid the subject of JFK and the Archives has acquiesced.
If interested parties had accepted the “official” version, and had not demanded responsible parties in Russia (Formerly USSR) release the documents, the world might still believe, as it did until sometime around the early 90′s, that Lee Harvey…er, I mean the Nazis did it.
is there anyone in congress, either the house or senate, who would have any interest in making an issue of the cia’s refusal to release these documents? that’s the only way i can see that it will happen. but even as i write this i realize the odds are against it. which means that, realistically, the cia can keep stonewalling as long as it wants to.
Good question, John. No there does not seem to be anyone in Congress willing to take up this issue. Those are interested in the holding the CIA accountable have more pressing and current issues to address (drones).
I hate to get off topic here, but is anyone else as profoundly, and as deeply disturbed by this business of executing American citizens via drone strikes? A citizen’s constitutional guarantees not withstanding. The state has now assumed the power of judge, jury and executioner!
It makes my blood run cold!
Those CIA and military intelligence officers who murdered JFK were not rogue. (No, I do not think John McCone was involved.) It was a matter of policy although personal agendas were clearly mixed into the JFK assassination.
These CIA and military officers were given a task to do by Lyndon Johnson and his shadow government of very powerful Dallas, TX oil executives. The Rockefellers, who LBJ was very close to as well, are legitimate suspects in the JFK assassination.
David Atlee Phillips – CIA officer from Fort Worth. Fort Worth is were Gen. Edward Lansdales travel records shows he was staying on 11/22/63. Ask DiEugenio about this fact. That is the same Lansdale (Air Force) who was photographed at TSBD on 11/22/63.
As for the CIA and National Archives’s behavior on this: it is outrageous. Folks, should contact their congressmen and senators about this.
E. Howard Hunt – very close to Allen Dulles, admits to being a “backbencher” in the JFK assassination which he pins on Lyndon Johnson.
I agree with you, Robert, that the CIA people involved were not “rogue”. Rogues don’t cover things up with a Warren Commission featuring “rogue” Alan Dulles.
McCone was of course not institutional CIA; he was a hired political appointee, just as Stansfield Turner was. Neither could get to the bottom of what was really going on, where people like Helms and Angleton operated.
I am convinced that the main reason why we the people aren’t getting answers from our tax-funded CIA is because they as an institution are terribly guilty and are covering their collective a*ses. It’s a deep wound in our history and to confront it means you have to be of flexible mind, willing to question authority. I would presume that many Americans don’t want to do this. It’s too scary and uncomfortable for them, so they look away and make jokes about it, or try to pretend it’s no big deal. When Rosa Parks stayed in her bus seat on that day in 1955, most of her black compatriots either kept silent when she was confronted by the police or got off the bus because they didn’t want to get in trouble. Questioning authority was scary.
Google “George Joannides Bobby Ray Inman.” My neighbor down the street, Bobby Ray Inman, is the one giving Joannides the award for which reason the CIA will not reveal.
I interview Bobbie Ray Inman a few years ago and he told me that he would go to his grave thinking that Fidel Castro killed JFK. Inman told me that at every intelligence job he had, he checked the files to see if Lee Harvey Oswald was US intelligence and he had come up with nothing.
The utterly ridiculous “Castro did it” line is the self serving lie that Lyndon Johnson and the intelligence operatives who murdered JFK have been saying since … Day 1 after the JFK assassination. LBJ pulled that line on Ted Sorensen on 11/23/63. It has been used numerous times since by the usual suspects.
Inman and Joannides: http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2009/10/17/us/17inquire2.inline.jpg
(No, I do not think Inman was involved in the JFK assassination; just institutionally covering it up like they all do.)
There’s a credible report that Phillips was seen in Oswald’s company? You want to believe this; that doesn’t make it so. Every time Fonzi asked Veciana if Phillips was Bishop he always said no.
Was Oswald even in Dallas on September 1, 1963? Wasn’t he in New Orleans? Is there timeline that shows LHO was in Dallas? Any corroborating evidence? Did Oswald take a bus? Who drove him to Dallas? Other witnesses?
Phillips, a highly trained intelligence official, took time to meet two agents he was allegedly running on separate operations, at the same time, in a public place on the streets of Dallas?
“Phillips, a highly trained intelligence official, took time to meet two agents he was allegedly running on separate operations, at the same time, in a public place on the streets of Dallas?”
There’s no doubt that’s a great point. What I’m stuck on though, is how completely convinced Gaeton Fonzi was of the story’s veracity. He seemed to believe Veciana, out of fear, wouldn’t finger Phillips as Bishop. And, Veciana was shot in the head for some reason, after which he clammed up entirely.
As the saying goes, ‘He got the message.’
Great article. Although I believe David Sanchez Morales’s files should definitely be on any “top 5″ list. Morales confessed involvement to two people; his death was mysterious (according to Fonzi’s work, and others who knew him); & it was commonly known among associates of Morales that he was the only one capable of organizing such a hit. Where does JFKFacts stand on Morales?
Good point Steve. I had not checked the NARA data base for unreleased Morales files. I did just now and it turns out there is one file containing 61 pages of material. I would certainly put this on my list.
CIA David Morales, David Atlee Phillips & William King Harvey were all heavy drinkers. And they all hated JFK as did Lyndon Johnson, another person with a drinking problem (cases of Cutty Sark, the cheap stuff).
Much-needed piece Jeff. Helpful in getting some interest from those unfamiliar with the situation. Public pressure can’t hurt. Many thanks
Kilduff’s Finger: When Malcolm Kilduff announced JFK’s death at Parkland Hospital that Friday afternoon he told the press gathered that he had spoken with “Dr. Burkley,” the President’s White House physician who had told Kilduff that the president’s death was due to a “simple matter of a bullet to the brain,” at which point Kilduff, using his right index finger, points to a spot over his right eye. That is the shot that killed President Kennedy.
The first official U.S. Government statement on the president’s assassination told the simple truth. The truth itself was soon thereafter shot as well, but it is not dead. We will breathe life back into it this year.
The film clip can be seen on You Tube.
Would you like to see where the head kill shot to JFK occurred? Right about here. Except higher – right in the hairline over the front right temple of JFK, where there is hard bone: http://www.flickr.com/photos/infrogmation/4093189660/in/set-72157622728362077
I scrolled through those photos, and there’s one (http://flic.kr/p/7eGEFf) that so blatantly shows the unbelievable degree to which the president was left completely exposed.
No police, no secret service, nothing! I mean a wide open target and a clear shot, like he’s being served up on a platter, so to speak. Incredible!
Does the law recognise compliance,merely by the release of the files in ANY form ? Or are there stipulations about the acceptable amount of , or the nature of , redacted material? Is the issue really as cut and dried as “release vs. withhold” ??
(BTW , minor point : the “F” in AFIO is ‘former’, not ‘foreign’)
I spent 12 years in Texas as a newspaper reporter — 4 years in Bryan-College Station, north of Houston, and 8 years in a suburb of Fort Worth. I interviewed politicians, including W when he was running for re-election as governor, legislators in Austin, city councilmen, police officers and every kind of “regular person” you could think of. I went to East Texas, the Panhandle, the Hill Country and far West Texas. I came away thinking of Texas as a big, friendly and surprisingly open place. The problem is how Texans think of themselves. They like to market Texas as the West but it’s really part of the South. One result is a predilection for violence on the part of men. I can’t count the number of times when I found myself a hair’s breadth away from a violent confrontation with a man because of some off-hand remark I had made. Sometimes it was nothing more than the expression on my face. I was a Yankee and would never fit in. I can understand how those involved in the assassination might have felt they had a right, even a duty, to murder the president in defense of what they would have understood to be the nation’s honor or national security or whatever you want to call it. The sordid nature of their real motives would have made high-sounding rationalizations all the more necessary.
Well, you pretty much got that right, John. I’m a life long Southerner, and spent 22 years media. There’s no love lost on so called, “Yankees” down South. And, believe it or not that sentiment extends to individual Southern states.
Being from the South in a state like Texas, or Georgia, is better than being from, say New York City! But, if you aren’t from TX or GA, then “you just ain’t from around here.” And, thats a scary place to be sometimes.
Malcolm Gladwell writes about cultural norms and about Southern violent culture in a study done at the University of Michigan. It’s true, and I’ve lived in the South–on average, men in the South tend toward being a bit quicker to react aggressively, although also on average, they can take longer to react or lose their cool than northerners, so it’s a difference. The Michigan study is mentioned in Gladwell’s “Outliers” book.
I think if my hunch is correct that you had both Southerners AND “Yankees” involved in the JFK assassination. Lyndon was a Southerner (Texan), many of the CIA people were from the Northeast. To me though, the assassination could have happened in Chicago just as easily as Dallas, as mentioned in “JFK & the Unspeakable”.
JSA,
What struck me about John Kirsch’s observations was not that violence is more prevalent in the South or in ‘Texas,’ but rather his more salient point:
“I can understand how those involved in the assassination might have felt they had a right, even a duty, to murder the president in defense of what they would have understood to be the nation’s honor or national security or whatever you want to call it.”
I believe that this mind-set was effectively portrayed in the movie “Executive Action” which featured characters guided by a moral (or lack thereof) philosophy that somehow justified the murder of an elected official to the highest office in America in order to advance a vision developed outside of democracy and perhaps on a global scale.
LS
“To me though, the assassination could have happened in Chicago just as easily as Dallas”
And I couldn’t agree more. In fact, the further expansion of “Dallas and greater Texas” as a player on the national scene could not have happened without the support of Chicago banks and businessmen.
However, would not the Daly machine have been a formidable challenge to insiders in Chicago plotting to murder Kennedy? Not so in Dallas.
LS
The Dalys were pro-Kennedy, that’s for sure. But I heard there had been a plot in Chicago in early Autumn of 1963 which JFK got some wind of, and cancelled his motorcade from O’Hare as a result of the threat. In the book, “JFK & The Unspeakable” the Chicago plot is touched upon. I would add that Los Angeles was the city where Robert Kennedy was gunned down.
I guess when I look at the possible culprits, being “Southern” doesn’t come directly to my mind. I look at institutional and political leanings, of some of the intelligence and military people, and of course when I look at LBJ, I see pathology and just cold blooded thinking at a high level, developed over the years, maybe in part from his Texas Hill Country past, but mostly I think just from being Lyndon Johnson.
I’m sure the assassination could have happened in Chicago. In fact, it appears that it almost did. It’s just that I think Texas offered a particularly congenial location for the assassination. (I am using “congenial” in a very ironic but I think accurate sense.) The president is shot, dies about 30 minutes later and the vice president, who is in the presidential party because he is, of course, from Texas, is sworn in and Air Force One returns to Washington with the new president on board. I’ve always been struck by how quickly all that happened and how smoothly the transition took place. Just as I’ve always been struck by the fact that the police never taped their interrogation of Oswald or even called in a court reporter to produce a full, credible record of the interrogation of the man who supposedly committed one of the greatest crimes of the 20th century. The unspoken message is: oh, yes, the president came down here and he was shot and no one really knows what happened. Not unlike the local’s response to the deaths of the 3 civil rights workers whose bodies were found buried in an earthen dam. Federal intervention got results in that case and clouded the truth in the JFK case.
John,
Wouldn’t a ‘smooth transition’ require far more than Johnson could provide – there was simply too much detail to be tended to. For instance, the county judge who happened to be at the Trade Mart waiting to be whisked back to the courthouse, arraign Oswald, encounter Ruby, and stop by Parkland en route. That’s a busy day for someone simply caught in the serendipity of fate.
It seems to me that Johnson played his particular role with stealth and pragmatism by maintaining a level of plausible deniability until the Warren Commission was established and his presidency was secured. Yes he benefited, and I think he was kept apprised during the planning. But did he authorize the events of the day? I think not. This was a machine and over the years, the machine was behind Johnson but I believe that he worked for it and not the reverse. Knights or Rooks seldom take complete charge of the chess board.
LS
Leslie, I don’t know if Johnson played a part or knew what was going to happen ahead of time. Not to be flippant, but the entire scenario, from the president’s death to LBJ’s swearing in to the shooting of Oswald (whose death meant there would be no trial) reminds me of the Church Lady: “How convenient!” The question is, convenient for who?
I’m a native Texan. I knew a man who interviewed the notorious Billy Sol Estes after he was released from federal prison, just as Oliver Stone’s “JFK” was very much in the news. In the interview Estes made many claims about LBJ, but one line in particular struck me: “Those Harvard boys just didn’t know how to handle Texan men.” Wish I’d secured a copy of the video; the interviewer is deceased, but I understand Estes is still alive (though his trustworthiness is always an issue).
Send me an email to Morrow321@aol.com and I will send Billie Sol Estes very valuable and rare book “Billie Sol Estes: A Texas Legend”
Who was Joe Shimon and what would he have known about Dallas? In Peter Janney’s book “Mary’s Mosaic”, on the murder of Mary Meyer, he is presented as having been a D.C. cop who was a U.S. Government assassin. In Janney’s book Shimon tells his daughter that if anything happens to him she should watch the movie “Executive Action” (Burt Lancaster, Robert Ryan) because it shows how the JFK assassination was carried out. I had never heard of Shimon until Janney’s book came out. What is known about him?
JSA,
You’ve probably seen the movie that alludes to the scenario you’re talking about where JFK is canceling a trip to Chicago but he and Bobby are fighting over who’s going to break the news to Daly because they’re both afraid of him. It’s a poignantly funny scene.
Perhaps the most significant consideration is just how vast the conspiracy must have been to have involved multi-locations from which to choose.
Undoubtedly the machine which killed Kennedy flourished in Dallas but of course there are significant overlaps of influence with Chicago, Los Angeles, New Orleans, Miami, Atlanta, Birmingham, NYC, DC, etc. so I’m not suggesting that the ability and brazenness to execute an assassination rested solely in Dallas.
However, wouldn’t that beg the question that if Oswald was in Russia at the behest of the CIA or some other agency, if he was primed as a patsy in New Orleans, or even if he was the lone shooter (which is a nonstarter in my view), was he floating from location to location just waiting for the heads up? We know that not to be the case.
So if the assassination was to be in say, Chicago and he hadn’t been positioned there, who then was the Chicago “Oswald?” (Interestingly enough, Leslie Welding in Ft. Worth is associated with a firm in Chicago, Hosty was once an employee of FNB Chicago which loaned money to a number of independent oil operators in Dallas, Henry Crown of General Dynamics was headquartered there, and of course there’s Ruby so it’s not difficult to develop a theory – many have.)
But the fact remains, Oswald was in Dallas (or at least men who looked like him). If we go down the rabbit hole of other cities, then wouldn’t a major percentage of research involving Oswald simply collapse? Obviously too much has been uncovered based on his direct of indirect involvement to seriously investigate the possibility that the assassination might have happened elsewhere and without him. And if the argument could be made otherwise, then are those remaining undisclosed CIA documents pertaining to him all that significant – unless of course they might provide insight into method and other “Oswalds?” Off the top of your head, do you know the alleged time periods of other possible attempts?
LS
>>Off the top of your head, do you know the alleged time periods of other possible attempts?<<
There were possibly two previous assassination setups in November 1963. One in Chicago, early November; the other in Tampa, a few days before the Dallas event.
Here's an interesting link citing, among other things, a 1967 taped conversation between LBJ and John Connally: http://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/issues/2004/06/holland.htm
Scroll down about midway. Connally discusses a rumor involving four, 4-man hit teams sent to the US by Castro. I wonder if the rumor was partly true, with the hit teams being created and controlled by the usual suspects rather than Castro. (Disclosure: I don't think Oswald fired at Kennedy or was an integral part of a hit team, although I believe he killed Tippit.)
Thanks Bill,
I’ll have a look.
Two more elaborate plans, possibly two more patsies and two more to kill the patsies, two different local media to control in the immediate aftermath, etc.? It boggles the mind.
LS
I think the guy in Chicago who was allegedly groomed to be the set up was named Thomas Arthur Vallee. I could have the spelling wrong. Another man who claimed to be groomed (but shot his gun into the ceiling of a bank in El Paso) was named Richard Case Nagell. I read his book too, which is pretty interesting.
Vallee was a marksman, btw.
Google those two names, Vallee and Nagell. Who knows how many people were groomed or worked on to have on hand, but it looks to me like the JFK assassination was extremely well planned—not perfectly, as Lee Oswald didn’t get killed the same day and lived to be “interrogated” and the Dallas doctors didn’t fall into line right away—but the cover up did it’s job and the agencies, people and LBJ got away with it. The public remained confused by the apparent inconsistencies, but they trusted their government back then to not lie to them.
JSA,
My copy of “The Man Who Knew Too Much” is mangled from years of study and cross referencing. I thought that one of Dick Russell’s premises was that Nagell was one of Oswald’s shadows, not necessarily being set up as a separate patsy let alone in another city but more in place to monitor Oswald’s activity and adherence to the plan (I’m paraphrasing there and may be misinterpreting).
Regardless, Nagell was not carefully positioned at TSBD as was Oswald, and as an aside, he was significantly taller than LHO to have been one of the alleged doubles in Dallas at the time, a theory posed by some.
I think my point is that if there were more than one assassination plan in play in November, had the assassination not occurred in Dallas, then the people around Oswald (particularly those named in this crucial FOI request proposed by Jeff Morley) who have been so significant to dozens and dozens of researchers over the last decade might not even be on the radar. Other characters would have taken on importance and become the focus.
Perhaps they too, the Vallees as you mention, would lead to the same source; or maybe Joannides in the Tampa area was involved with others beyond just Oswald as he related to the Dallas plan, but as yet I don’t think we have proof of that.
I’m trying to recall if Milteer named the location of the upcoming assassination that he knew about?
So not to beat this horse to death, but if the assassination had happened in Chicago or Tampa, where would the deMohrenschildt and White Russian community connection with Magnolia/Mobil Oil figure in; where would Michael / Ruth Paine’s connection to the Hyde family or Bell Helicopter fit into the scenario? How would the influence of the Dallas establishment on Marina’s and Marguerite’s lives immediately after the murder prove important?
It’s easy enough to follow common threads as mentioned earlier, ie. Crown and General Dynamics Chicago (whose president, Frank Pace sat on the board of ABC Paramount and Time) having commonality with Bell and Hilton Hotels for that matter – perhaps the Chicago patsy’s wife and mother might have been ensconced at the Hilton in Chicago rather than 6 Flags? Or another case in point: Nagell’s possession of a booklet composed by a black sheep as it were of the blue blood Lamont family, his brother being an executive with one of JP Morgan’s banks and board member of several Texas companies.
The spaghetti bowl of possibilities that emerges with multi-plans is what boggles the mind. I join many who believe that this was a vast conspiracy and I admit that I’m a bit wedded to my particular theory about Dallas and not simply because that is where the assassination occurred. But the possibility of plans for Chicago or Tampa is by no means unfathomable and only confirms the vastness and expense of the coup d’etat, and the capacity to silence those who knew.
I joined the discussion for several reasons: to acknowledge John Kirsch’s insight into the Texas psyche and because I think that it is critical to not lose sight of “THE crime scene.”
But I also joined because the prospect of a Brennan appointment given his involvement in the drone program early on is an example of ‘continuity of governing’ (with emphasis on ‘ing’) since Kennedy was murdered. Bell benefited from Viet Nam, and Bell/Textron has been a significant factor in the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle development for years.
LS
I’m not saying that Texans should hang their heads in shame over the assassination, though I’m troubled by the refusal of Dallas officials, even now, to look the event squarely in the face. President Kennedy could just as easily have been killed somewhere else but I do think, as I said before, that Texas in general and Dallas in particular offered a particularly convenient place to carry out the ambush. One reason I say that is the loose way the police department operated after the assassination. No tape recordings or even shorthand records of the Oswald interrogations. (At least none that have ever been released to the public.) You would have thought the police had brought Oswald in on a traffic charge for all the seriousness they seemed to show. They allowed the media to effectively take over the police building, providing cover for Ruby, a man with a shady, violent past, to get close enough to Oswald to shoot him. While Oswald was surrounded by police officers. In the basement of the police station. On national TV. Where was police authority in all of this? Did they even care? Were the police officers anxious to send Oswald on his way so they could go to lunch or work on their book deals? Southerners have a very lax attitude toward government because they associate it with defeat and Reconstruction. Texas has big cities with big buildings and lots of freeways and lots of high-tech stuff, though, tellingly, W never visited NASA while he was governor. But underneath that thin veneer the heart of the Old South beats on, as full of venom and nullification as ever.
John,
Agreed. And in the words of Fletcher Prouty or was it Donald Sutherland? Who Benefited?
LS
New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison at his press conference on 12/26/67:
“President Johnson is currently the most active person in the country in protecting the assassins of John Kennedy.”
“President Johnson must have known by the time of the arrest that Oswald did not pull the trigger.”
“You are being fooled. Everyone in America is being fooled. The whole world is being fooled.”
“Why? Because of power – because if people knew the facts about the assassination they would not tolerate the people in power today. Keep in mind who profits most. Who appointed the Warren Commission? Who runs the FBI? Who runs the CIA? The President of the United States.”
And Garrison said this later on 2/21/68. Netherlands Television broadcast and interview of Jim Garrison
Jim Garrison: “President Kennedy was murdered by CIA elements. Those who were involved in the murder worked laboriously to give such a presentation that the suspicion would rest on others. This manner of organizing a murder is standard procedure within the CIA.
Joachim Joesten, The Dark Side of Lyndon Johnson, p. 267: “Garrison also said in this context that he had to assume that President Johnson knew that the CIA killed Kennedy because he appointed an investigation committee composed of mainly pro-CIA persons.”
Robert Morrow,
I too believe that there are many aspects of the Garrison case against Clay Shaw that are valuable to any discussion about the assassination and that a good deal of credible research rests on the shoulders of his efforts.
But I think that the simplistic days of assigning the assassination to a “pro-CIA” element or even a “rogue CIA” element are over and that it’s essential to look beyond the convenient stereotypes.
To begin with, beyond the obvious CIA involvement, who were the members of the Warren Commission and who were their investigators and what were their ties to the establishment? Could it be that the CIA was “pro some other entity other than an elected government” and not the reverse?
Have you studied Peter Grose’s “Gentleman Spy?”
LS
The CIA/military intelligence were working on behalf of the outside government of Dallas, TX oil executives (Murchison, Hunt, Byrd) & Lyndon Johnson.
Hoover, Dulles, Nelson Rockefeller, GHW Bush all likely candidates for involvement.
I think McGeorge Bundy quickly acceded to the coup and was not a plotter. McCloy and Ford covered it up. As did Nixon.