Willy Whitten – February 22
I am reminding this forum yet again that I will not engage with anyone who has called me a liar.
(Editor’s note: These are two, unapproved recent comments. They were submitted in two different discussion threads and neither commenter has seen the comment of the other, until now.)
“He planned on escalation by the South Vietnamese military. See paragraph 1, NSAM 263.”~Bill Clarke
https://jfkfacts.org/coming-soon-ebook-jfk-cia/#comment-878993
Yes indeed, here it is in paragraph 1, NSAM 263.
As has been shown all along, NSAM 263 was meant to train the Vietnamese military to fight their own war. Kennedy had no intent whatsoever in sending US ground troops to fight that war for the Vietnamese.
It is pure calumny to say that John Newman is a “fool”, it is baseless slander. Not only to claim Newman is a fool, but to misrepresent the evidence and testimonies Newman presents.
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AMERICAN SECURITY PROJECT – BRIG. GENERAL JOHN JOHNS
Brig. General John Johns
Brigadier General Dr. John H. Johns served as a combat arms officer in the Army for over 26 years, retiring as a brigadier general in 1978. During his career, he served in command assignments up to Assistant Commander of the 1st Infantry Division. He also served in a number of staff positions, including 8 years on the Army General Staff, retiring as the Director of Human Resources Development. He taught leadership and ethics at the U.S. Military Academy and has lectured on ethics at the Air War College, the Army War College, the U.S. Military Academy, and the Naval Academy.
After retirement from active duty, Dr. Johns continued to serve in the Department of Defense until retirement in 1995. He served four years as a Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense (Career SES 5) before becoming a Professor of Political Science at the National Defense University at Ft. McNair. In addition to teaching Political Science and Strategic Decision making, he taught a 12 week Ethics course to over 700 students over a 10 year period. From 1990 to 1995, he served as the Dean of Faculty and Academic Programs at the Industrial College of the Armed Forces, one of the colleges of the National Defense University teaching courses on the US Constitution and on ethics. From 1996 to 2004, he was an adjunct professor at the Federal Executive Institute in Charlottesville, Va.
http://www.americansecurityproject.org/about/consensus/members/brigadier-general-john-johns/
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Vietnam: The War Crimes Files
Civilian Killings Went Unpunished
Declassified papers show U.S. atrocities went far beyond My Lai.
By Nick Turse and Deborah Nelson
Special to The Times
August 6, 2006
The men of B Company were in a dangerous state of mind. They had lost five men in a
firefight the day before. The morning of Feb. 8, 1968, brought unwelcome orders to
resume their sweep of the countryside, a green patchwork of rice paddies along Vietnam’s
central coast.
They met no resistance as they entered a nondescript settlement in Quang Nam province.
So Jamie Henry, a 20-year-old medic, set his rifle down in a hut, unfastened his
bandoliers and lighted a cigarette.
Just then, the voice of a lieutenant crackled across the radio. He reported that he had
rounded up 19 civilians, and wanted to know what to do with them. Henry later recalled
the company commander’s response:
Kill anything that moves.
Henry stepped outside the hut and saw a small crowd of women and children. Then the
shooting began.
Moments later, the 19 villagers lay dead or dying.
Back home in California, Henry published an account of the slaughter and held a news
conference to air his allegations. Yet he and other Vietnam veterans who spoke out about
war crimes were branded traitors and fabricators. No one was ever prosecuted for the
massacre.
Now, nearly 40 years later, declassified Army files show that Henry was telling the truth
— about the Feb. 8 killings and a series of other atrocities by the men of B Company.
The files are part of a once-secret archive, assembled by a Pentagon task force in the
early 1970s, that shows that confirmed atrocities by U.S. forces in Vietnam were more
extensive than was previously known.
The documents detail 320 alleged incidents that were substantiated by Army investigators
— not including the most notorious U.S. atrocity, the 1968 My Lai massacre.
Though not a complete accounting of Vietnam war crimes, the archive is the largest such collection to surface to date. About 9,000 pages, it includes investigative files, sworn
statements by witnesses and status reports for top military brass.
The records describe recurrent attacks on ordinary Vietnamese — families in their
homes, farmers in rice paddies, teenagers out fishing. Hundreds of soldiers, in interviews
with investigators and letters to commanders, described a violent minority who murdered,
raped and tortured with impunity.
Abuses were not confined to a few rogue units, a Times review of the files found. They
were uncovered in every Army division that operated in Vietnam.
Retired Brig. Gen. John H. Johns, a Vietnam veteran who served on the task force, says
he once supported keeping the records secret but now believes they deserve wide
attention in light of alleged attacks on civilians and abuse of prisoners in Iraq.
“We can’t change current practices unless we acknowledge the past,” says Johns, 78
http://www.genocidewatch.org/images/Vietnam6Aug06CivilianKillingsWentUnpunishedDeclassifiedPapersShowU.S.AtrocitiesWentFarBeyondMyLai.pdf
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ENOUGH!
Yes Mr Clarke has posted this same thing about page 322 at least three times too many already. He claims he has not been proven wrong. This is BS, he is making his claim by simply calling O’Donnell a liar. He has no basis for calling O’Donnell a liar but for his empty assertion.
Repetition-Repetition is not valid argumentation, it is senseless redundancy.
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Willy Whitten
February 29, 2016 at 9:45 pm
ENOUGH!
Yes Mr Clarke has posted this same thing about page 322 at least three times too many already. He claims he has not been proven wrong. This is BS, he is making his claim by simply calling O’Donnell a liar. He has no basis for calling O’Donnell a liar but for his empty assertion.
I make the claim because Newman didn’t reference the basis of his book. You cloud it by drifting off on O’Donnell, a side step shuffle often used by your counterpart over in Dr. McAdam’s group.
If I’ve posted it three times that is three times you have failed to prove me wrong.
Willy,
You quote something O’Donnell said in 1970, but can you quote him or anyone else (McNamara, Galbraith, etc.) prior to 1967 or 1968 saying that JFK had already decided on a complete withdrawal from Vietnam? There ought to be some 1960s oral histories or public statements on JFK’s plans in Vietnam out there somewhere but so far I can’t find any, other than the ones I’ve posted from RFK.
Willy, do you think Robert Kennedy was lying when he answered this question in 1964:
“[Interviewer] Martin: There was never any consideration given to pulling out?
Kennedy: No.”
Was RFK lying when he said this?
“Martin: [….]But the president was convinced that we had to keep, had to stay in there . . .
Kennedy: Yes.
Martin:. . . and couldn’t lose it.
Kennedy: Yes.
Martin: And if Vietnamese were about to lose it, would he propose to go in on land if he had to?
Kennedy: Well, we’d face that when we came to it.”
http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/vietnam.htm
Was RFK lying in this 1965 interview:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmQ0BY8ak5w
A clear yes or no would be great.
“A clear yes or no would be great.”~Jean Davison
As Dalton Trumbo said in answer to such a question at the House Un-American Activities Hearings;
“There are certain questions that only a moron, or a utter fool would answer yes or no to.”
Since we have discussed this countless times I will give you generally the same answer as I have given before:
This answer by RFK is the crux of the matter:
Kennedy: Well, we’d face that when we came to it.”
….
Further I remind you and the forum that there were NEVER any ground troops to remove in Vietnam during JFK’s administration – ALL of the military personnel at that time were there in an advisory capacity.
I will also remind you that “remaining engaged” does not equate to direct US military engagement.
Kennedy told quite a few of his closest advisers including O’Donnell that he was determined to unilaterally pull the military out of Southeast Asia.
I refuse to relitigate these arguments here one more time.
Kennedy was going to withdraw from Vietnam.
That is a FACT.
Take it or leave it.
Wag your tongues on this issue until your teeth rot and your faces fall off, I don’t care.
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Willy Whitten
March 1, 2016 at 1:16 pm
“A clear yes or no would be great.”~Jean Davison
“As Dalton Trumbo said in answer to such a question at the House Un-American Activities Hearings;”
“There are certain questions that only a moron, or a utter fool would answer yes or no to.”
So you can give us a yes or no answer. Great news Whitten.
“Since we have discussed this countless times I will give you generally the same answer as I have given before:”
Why? Since your arguments have been roundly shown to be incorrect don’t you feel the need to come up with something new? Something correct?
This answer by RFK is the crux of the matter:
Kennedy: Well, we’d face that when we came to it.”
….
Further I remind you and the forum that there were NEVER any ground troops to remove in Vietnam during JFK’s administration – ALL of the military personnel at that time were there in an advisory capacity.
So these “advisers” died in Vietnam from old age or what?
“I will also remind you that “remaining engaged” does not equate to direct US military engagement.”
In 1962 with the formation of the MACV command JFK sent the helicopter units, the 7th Air Force (bombers and fighters) and the M-113s. No matter how bad this hurts you, that Whitten is “direct US military engagements. The M-113 I rode on could not fly. It was always on the “ground”.
“Kennedy told quite a few of his closest advisers including O’Donnell that he was determined to unilaterally pull the military out of Southeast Asia.”
As Proton has explained to you several times, if JFK planned on making a “unilaterally” withdrawal why did he approve the overthrow of Ngo Dinh Diem? I’ve never seen you answer this one. I suppose you can’t answer it.
I refuse to relitigate these arguments here one more time.
Good.
Kennedy was going to withdraw from Vietnam.
That is a FACT.
“Take it or leave it. “
As so many others have, I’ll leave it. It is mere speculation.
Bob Prudhomme
February 28, 2016 at 6:20 pm
Are you a supporter of Donald Trump, Photon?
———————————————————–
Did I ask a difficult question?
As far as this issue, KENNEDY AND VIETNAM:
If there is anyone who thinks there will be a RESOLUTION to this argument here, they are obviously daydreaming.
This issue is crucial to the argument against a military-industrial coup d’etat. None of the four main antagonists to this view will EVER give in to the idea that Kennedy was actually pulling out of Southeast Asia, no matter how much evidence is offered that he was.
The Warrenistas have no real motive to apply to Oswald. So they are attempting to remove the motive of the Military-Industrial-Complex. They therefore rely on the mainstream views and so-called “scholarship” to argue their points – the very same mainstream media and academia that supports the mythos of the Warren Report; despite the fact that the Report has suffered mortal rebuke in the ensuing half century since it was published.
So the flaming round’about churns and turns and burns here.
At the same time fruition of the full spectrum dominance of the global tyranny is at hand, and the peoples remain in trance to the insidious propaganda machine that has lulled them into the role of passive consumers of plastic widgets, high tech toys and gadgets, junk food, and mindless entertainment, and a systemic addiction to war and conquest.
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Willy Whitten
February 29, 2016 at 10:25 am
As far as this issue, KENNEDY AND VIETNAM:
“If there is anyone who thinks there will be a RESOLUTION to this argument here, they are obviously daydreaming.”
True Whitten. The population will always have a collection of nuts, fools and down right liars. They can read NSAM 263 but they either lie about what it says (Newman, Galbraith, and on and on)or they truly suffer from a lack of reading comprehension. As you say, they will never learn.
“This issue is crucial to the argument against a military-industrial coup d’etat. None of the four main antagonists to this view will EVER give in to the idea that Kennedy was actually pulling out of Southeast Asia, no matter how much evidence is offered that he was.”
I will NEVER give in to a bunch of BS about Vietnam, a subject dear to my heart. I don’t think the other three you mentioned will either. Some of us here are more interested in a factual history than a propaganda line by the likes of Prouty, Newman and you.
“the likes of Prouty, Newman and you.”~Bill Clarke
What a wonderful unintended complement from Mr Clarke…
Prouty, Newman and me!
To be counted as part of such esteemed company.
Thank you Mr Clarke, you have truly made my day!
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Willy Whitten
February 29, 2016 at 2:09 pm
“the likes of Prouty, Newman and you.”~Bill Clarke
“What a wonderful unintended complement from Mr Clarke…”
“Prouty, Newman and me!”
“To be counted as part of such esteemed company.
Thank you Mr Clarke, you have truly made my day!”
Oh it was intended alright, Whitten. The fact that you find it flattering is funny. You continue to crack me up.
I find the virulence against John Newman that Bill Clarke holds baffling. It is hard to believe that Clarke read JFK AND VIETNAM, in other than to skim it looking for ammunition for argumentation against it. He certainly misses the meat of Newman’s case, as well as denying Newman’s remarkable credentials as a military analyst.
It is entirely spurious and dishonest to claim that Newman’s book is not adequately footnoted, or that his sources are suspect. He calls O’Donnell a “Kennedy sycophant” for example, with no other reason than that O’Donnell proves that Kennedy intended to unilaterally withdraw from Vietnam.
Clarke calls McNamara a liar, for the same reasons he calls O’Donnell a sycophant; because McNamara claimed that Kennedy was intent of unilateral withdrawal. Anyone who knew that Kennedy had such plans and reveals it, such as Galbraith, Schlesinger, Prouty; is automatically framed as a “liar, or a nut, or a sycophant” as far as Clarke is concerned.
This is the definition of delusional bias on Bill Clarke’s part.
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Willy Whitten
February 29, 2016 at 1:57 pm
“I find the virulence against John Newman that Bill Clarke holds baffling. It is hard to believe that Clarke read JFK AND VIETNAM, in other than to skim it looking for ammunition for argumentation against it. He certainly misses the meat of Newman’s case, as well as denying Newman’s remarkable credentials as a military analyst.”
Oh no, I read it pretty close. That is why I know he couldn’t support the basis of his book;
I’ll give you an example from Newman’s book, page322. This is the basis of the book. I’ve posted this many times before and not once have you shown me wrong. You got anything here?
________________________________________________________
“Kennedy decided to use Taylor’s and Harkin’ reports of battlefield success to justify the beginning of the withdrawal he was planning.” Italics by Newman.
“Kennedy kept his plan a closely guarded secret, but by March he was determined not only to withdraw—come what may—after 1964, but, if possible, to take a clear step in that direction….”
_____________________________________________
“It is entirely spurious and dishonest to claim that Newman’s book is not adequately footnoted, or that his sources are suspect”.
See above. Newman didn’t have a source for his, “ but by March he was determined not only to withdraw—come what may—after 1964,”. He pulled it out of the air all by himself.
“He calls O’Donnell a “Kennedy sycophant” for example, with no other reason than that O’Donnell proves that Kennedy intended to unilaterally withdraw from Vietnam.”
O’Donnell and JFK were whoring around buddies. Trust him with your loss of face.
“Clarke calls McNamara a liar, for the same reasons he calls O’Donnell a sycophant; because McNamara claimed that Kennedy was intent of unilateral withdrawal. Anyone who knew that Kennedy had such plans and reveals it, such as Galbraith, Schlesinger, Prouty; is automatically framed as a “liar, or a nut, or a sycophant” as far as Clarke is concerned.”
McNamara is a liar. If you haven’t learned that yet you have a very long way to go here Whitten.
“I’ll give you an example from Newman’s book, page322. This is the basis of the book. I’ve posted this many times before and not once have you shown me wrong. You got anything here?”
~Bill Clarke
Mr Clarke wants to relitigate this issue concerning pg 322 yet again. His argument hinges on calling O’Donnell a liar. Just as he argues that McNamara was a liar. It boils down to anyone Bill Clarke disagrees with, he calls a liar. And this is simply because he cannot deny that these people who knew Kennedy intimately, related what they themselves hear Kennedy say.
I for one will simply not accept this disingenuous hand waving and spurious argumentation. Mr Clarke can repeat this BS to his dying day, but it won’t pass as reason, for it is only hard core bias.
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So Whitten, show me where Newman supports this crap of his I just posted. You got anything? I doubt it.
I ask for proof that Diem got on and off a plane. You show me nothing.
I have asked for proof that Newman’s referenced accounts I have posted many times.
And on and on but you never have anything but your speculation. Very weak Whitten.
As far as distinguishing between who was military and who was CIA; it should be kept in mind that Major General Edward Landsdale was ostensibly an “Air Force” General, but this was actually a cover for him as being CIA.
There is no way to tell who was real military and who was covert CIA by the time of the Vietnam conflict. Landsdale was in Vietnam as early as 1953 – He was CIA, with military cover.
There were also soldiers of fortune in Southeast Asia throughout the early period. Even Daniel Ellsberg was in Saigon as a mercenary at the time*.
[*see; ‘The Secret Team’, by Prouty]
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Ronnie Wayne
February 28, 2016 at 11:16 pm
“Photon, If the CIA was running things in Vietnam, and Laos in the early 60s’ theoretically there would be little/no records of their activity. A 51, 51s or 51D used in Vietnam after his death is irrelevant to it.”
Just my opinion Ronnie but I don’t think the CIA ever ran things in Vietnam. They played a role for sure but I don’t think “running things” is the right words. I think there is no doubt that the CIA played a large role in Laos, especially after the accords were accepted by JFK.
“Just my opinion Ronnie but I don’t think the CIA ever ran things in Vietnam.”~Bill Clarke
At last, Mr Clarke admits that it is just his opinion!
His opinion doesn’t hold much water however. What US personnel other than CIA were involved in Indochina prior to US military involvement in Vietnam?
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Willy Whitten
February 29, 2016 at 11:31 am
“Just my opinion Ronnie but I don’t think the CIA ever ran things in Vietnam.”~Bill Clarke
At last, Mr Clarke admits that it is just his opinion!
“His opinion doesn’t hold much water however. What US personnel other than CIA were involved in Indochina prior to US military involvement in Vietnam?”
The U.S. military had a presence in Vietnam in 1945. The National Security Act of 1947 established the CIA.
You want me to do the math for you? Since i stated this was just my opinion I don’t feel obligated to furnish you with a reference here.
Timeline of U.S. Involvement in Vietnam Conflict
1950 First shipment of American military aid to the French colonial administration in Vietnam arrives
1955 President Eisenhower sends first military advisors to South Vietnam to train the South Vietnamese Army
1956 At French exit the US Military Assistance Advisor Group (MAAG) assumes full responsibility for training South Vietnamese forces
1959 First two Americans are killed during a Viet Minh guerillas strike at Bien Hoa
1961 President Kennedy sends 100 Special Forces troops to South Vietnam
1961 A U.S. aircraft carrier arrives in Saigon and Vice President Johnson visits Saigon….
http://mahargpress.com/wounded/additional-material/timeline-of-vietnamconflict/
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Willy Whitten
February 29, 2016 at 7:11 pm
The Deer Mission started July 16, 1945. Led by Major Allison Kent Thomas, the seven men who landed at Tan Trao began to train the Viet Minh, to provide them with explosives and small arms, and to provide medical assistance to Ho Chi Minh, who on first contact was found to be very ill. Historian Cecil B. Currey maintains that the team’s medic, Paul Hoagland, treated Ho Chi Minh and may have saved his life.”
http://www.moneyteachers.org/Vietnam.htm
It is odd, when you think about it, that Bill Clarke rages at Kennedy.
Kennedy was dead and buried by the time Bill was sent to Vietnam. If he would wake up to the fact that he wouldn’t have ended up there had Kennedy survived to pull out of Southeast Asia, Bill wouldn’t have had to endure the horrors of war that he did.
It seems an oxymoron that many Nam Vets are inflicted with.
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Willy Whitten
February 29, 2016 at 12:42 pm
“It is odd, when you think about it, that Bill Clarke rages at Kennedy.”
Get this straight Whitten. I have no problem with JFK. He was a much better president than we have had of late.
What enrages me is the Camelot Shiners that lie about history to turn JFK into a saint. He was not.
No rage at Kennedy Mr Clarke?
“Camelot shiners”? “Kennedy sycophants”?
Mr Clarke should not be disingenuous in such a blatant manner on this forum, it is “conduct unbecoming to a gentleman and officer.”
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Willy Whitten
February 29, 2016 at 7:13 pm
“No rage at Kennedy Mr Clarke?”
No. My rage is towards the Camelot Shiners.
“Camelot shiners”? “Kennedy sycophants”?
“Mr Clarke should not be disingenuous in such a blatant manner on this forum, it is “conduct unbecoming to a gentleman and officer.”
Come back to see me when you know something about being a gentleman and officer.
Forget about being an Officer or a gentleman. How about simply getting facts straight before making false statements easy disproved by a simple review of documented history.
The Flying Tigers using P-51s? Air America came from the Flying Tigers?
Willy, crack open a history book once in a awhile .It helps your argument if you stay away from factually incorrect statements. Quoting Prouty guarantees making factually incorrect statements.
“O’Donnell and JFK were whoring around buddies. Trust him with your loss of face.”
~Bill Clarke,
February 29, 2016 at 7:59 pm
https://jfkfacts.org/assassination/21772/#comment-860469
How can Mr Clarke seriously consider this tabloid style defamation a valid argument?
This is the most astonishing BS I have read on the blog to date__it even tops Photon’s nonsense!
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Photon, If the CIA was running things in Vietnam, and Laos in the early 60s’ theoretically there would be little/no records of their activity. A 51, 51s or 51D used in Vietnam after his death is irrelevant to it.
A BACKGROUND BRIEFING by Fletcher Prouty [1]
“When Kennedy was briefed by President Eisenhower in January of 1961, President Eisenhower told him about the hotspots around the world. He didn’t use the word “Vietnam” at all, he talked about Laos. Time Magazine, in all of 1960, mentioned Vietnam only six times, and four of them had nothing to do with the war. You know, Vietnam was not a hot button. Cuba was, Laos was, Berlin was, and so on. So it’s easy to forget the preface to Vietnam when you don’t remember these things.
These events led up to the Vietnam scene much more significantly than most people want to remember. Of course, the generation gap is coming and the people coming of age now don’t remember this at all. They just know that 25 years ago Kennedy was killed. But they don’t remember the antecedents to the decisions he made about the Bay of Pigs and about Vietnam.
This was a very interesting period. When we got this Bay of Pigs thing behind us (much to our disgust), we did move toward Vietnam. For instance, C-123 aircraft that we were using in these operations were flown to Vietnam. They became the Agent Orange spray planes, they played that part. The B-26’s that had been converted with the eight guns in the nose (what was left of them), were flown to Vietnam and became the first heavy combat aircraft over there. Helicopters that had been used in different operations in Laos were moved to Vietnam and they became the air patrol capability in Vietnam. The P-51 fighters that we had fixed up for Indonesia: they went into Vietnam. They were available — all these aircraft were available, and they scraped them all together and parked them in Vietnam. In other words, the war was going to happen whether anybody planned it or not. Everything was moving in that direction.
So we saw the years from 1960 into ’61 and ’62 as years when a certain amount of momentum kept going. And the only command structure in Vietnam at that time was CIA. The military were in the position of being the logistics staff. We provided the equipment, we provided certain training.”
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A BACKGROUND BRIEFING by Fletcher Prouty [2] continued:
“For instance, people don’t think about helicopters. In those days, for every hour a helicopter flew (a military helicopter), it had to receive 24 hours of maintenance. That was just a general rule: twenty-four hours of maintenance. Which meant we had to cover Vietnam with helicopter maintenance people. They were called soldiers. And it looked like the troop size was growing, because they were soldiers or marines or whoever — airforce people — but they were maintaining helicopters. Anytime you get a helicopter squadron together, you have to get a helicopter supply unit together.
If you have a supply unit, you have to get a maintenance unit. So what was 400 men becomes 1200 men. You get 1200 men together, you have to have a PX, you have to have a hospital, and so on. We were creating a structure in Vietnam built upon the operation of helicopters. And all they did was to fly the Vietnamese soldiers around more or less like a police activity — transporting the Vietnamese military. The next thing you know, we had 3,000 men in Vietnam, then we had 6,000. By the end of 1963, at about the time of Kennedy’s death, there were somewhere between thirteen and sixteen thousand military (so-called military) in Vietnam.
What was strange was that a great number of those military were really not military. They were cover military; they were involved with the CIA or other covert programs. That has a great significance. Has it ever occurred to you why, of all the wars the United States ever fought, that at the end of this war we created a League of Families for the Prisoners of War in Southeast Asia? Why did we turn the Prisoners of War program over to wives, mothers, sisters of soldiers in Vietnam? Do you know why? I was a founding advisor of that organization, by request of a general. I was retired by that time, but I was asked to come back and work on it because I knew Vietnam so well and I knew the situation so well.”
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Willy Whitten
February 28, 2016 at 11:39 am
A BACKGROUND BRIEFING by Fletcher Prouty [2] continued:
“For instance, people don’t think about helicopters. In those days, for every hour a helicopter flew (a military helicopter), it had to receive 24 hours of maintenance. That was just a general rule: twenty-four hours of maintenance.”
So if we flew for, say 8 hours minus refueling time, the bird would be down for maintenance for 8 days or so. In other words, the bird would be down around 89% of the time. Do you understand how silly this is? I do. I have some friends that were chopper jocks, I’ll ask them for comment on this. But I got to tell you Whitten, from personal experience I know this is more BS from Prouty.
“Has it ever occurred to you why, of all the wars the United States ever fought, that at the end of this war we created a League of Families for the Prisoners of War in Southeast Asia?”
For shame on you and Prouty for using this terribly sad chapter for your political purpose.
Yes, seemingly an exaggeration; if just maintenance hours are concerned – however part supply wait-times. Recovery of downed copter time before Maintenance can begin…
There may be good reason Prouty made such an estimate.
“Helicopters don’t fly — they beat the air into submission. … The Vietnam era helicopters generally have two bladed (teetering) rotor systems while … That is, four hours of maintenance is conducted for every flight hour. …”
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/aircraft/rotary.htm
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A BACKGROUND BRIEFING by Fletcher Prouty [3] continued:
“The reason I was asked to be an advisor was that we had so many men who were called “Captain So-and-so” but really were civilians with the CIA. When one got shot down, the people that captured him found his records: “Captain So-and-so.” But the U.S. Army wasn’t missing a captain, so nobody declared him a prisoner. Their records were so messed up because of the way these people were lost: out of “Air America,” the CIA airline, out of helicopter support units, out of all these other contrived units that we were putting in there which were not military. So that insurance programs, mortgage payments, all the normal things people have to take care of, were tumbling down on this group of people called Prisoners of War over there. And our own Army, Navy and Air Force couldn’t account for them. We didn’t even know they were missing.
I talked at great length to the father of a Navy pilot who went down. He was telling me about all the abnormal things that had happened in his dealings with the Navy since his son went down somewhere in Indochina — he didn’t even know where. So I turned to the father and I said, “Do you know if your son was flying for the Navy?” He said, “Of course he was, he — ” “No,” I said, “do you know for sure? Or was he flying for CIA or Air America?” That poor man was totally shocked. He went over to the Pentagon immediately and demanded an answer. He found out his son was flying for CIA, and he never knew that. You see, what are you going to do with a situation like that?”
http://www.ratical.org/ratville/JFK/USO/chp1_p3.html#17316
Read Prouty’s work, learn the real history of the era.
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Prouty’s information is still relevant. Strictly speculation on my part but I think he could have had further documentation put away in a safe place for insurance. Lansdale’s opinion of him is telling. His books are informative to anyone not familiar with him.
The website has some quite interesting articles also.
http://www.prouty.org/
Yep, old Col. Prouty was quite the expert on Vietnam. Those B-26s with the conversion to eight guns in the nose-being a cargo pilot the Colonel was apparently unaware that the Invader ( A-26 at the time) was designed with an eight .50 caliber nose version in 1945! He obviously didn’t know much about the plane, nor about the aircraft actually used at the Bay of Pigs. But heck, let’s look at his other claim-the use of P-51s in Vietnam. He knew about the P-51 from his World War II, service, but forgot that its designation had been F-51 for years. And here is the kicker-the F-51 was never used by the Americans or South Vietnamese in Vietnam. The T-28 supplied all of the single engine air support needs for the early SVN Air Force and was easier to fly and had the advantage of allowing an American ” advisor” to ” help” the SVN pilot.
Prouty didn’t know what he was talking about. The advantage that he had was that the people who believed his nonsense knew even less-as Willy has demonstrated by referencing Prouty’s mistakes.
Yes of course Photon knows more about aircraft than Prouty, who had been a pilot since the time of the ‘Army Air Force’ days.
I knew there would be absolute hysteria here at the mention of Prouty. And here it is Defamation Inc. in full roar.
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Well I certainly know more about the use of ” P-51s” in Vietnam than ” expert” Prouty. I know that despite his claim they weren’t there. He just never thought anyone would ever check.
Basically, there were three kinds of US clandestine and covert operations:
– CIA operations, which were essentially para-military in nature, and usually used some kind of a front (about which usually not really much is known until today);
– covert USAF operations, flown by aircraft with or without US- markings (meanwhile most of such operations were well covered in different publications)
– private enterprises, most of which worked on a smuggling for profit efforts (the history of most such operations remains to be published).
Their relatively small volume characterized usual para-military operations organized by the CIA, with a small number of aircraft involved (except in SEA), and by their air-to-ground tasks. Types used foremost during the 1950s and 1960s were Douglas B-26 Invader and North American P-51 Mustang, which were available in abundance after the end of the WWII, and large number of which were now in storage, from where they could be removed without much attention from the public. If any kind of aerial opposition was expected, everything possible – sometimes short of engaging official US military forces – was tried in order to neutralize it early during the operation by a concentrated counter-air operation. Despite this, several times US aircraft involved in clandestine operations were engaged in air-to-air combats by local air forces, and here are the backgrounds behind such cases.
Operation “Haik”
Officially, this operation was never undertaken by the CIA. Until today the Agency never admitted it took place. The background of the operation might look strange at the first view: it was that the CIA obviously “felt”, that President Sukarno’s Indonesia was turning communist, and that something had to be done about that, with the best apparent solution being to bring him to fight the communists.
http://www.acig.info/CMS/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=150&Itemid=62
Also see:
Over twenty variants of the North American P-51 Mustang fighter were produced from 1940, when it first flew, to after the Second World War, some of which were employed also in the Korean War and in several other conflicts.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_P-51_Mustang_variants
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There have long been reports of unmarked P-51s flying covert missions in Indochina…
Aside from the F-51K designated aircraft used in Vietnam….
Prove it . There is nothing to support Prouty’s claim that P-51s were used for close-air support in the early 1960s in Vietnam.
There is nothing to support claims that P-51s were used for any other purpose in Vietnam.
Ahhh…. two submitters of dueling comments, sans links….gotta love it. The world is watching, but luckily for Photon, as always, he is the expert commenter behind the mask, and he expects us to trust him at his word, because…..
Update: An apology to Willy, I did not see that you posted links in support of your P-51 comments until after I submitted this comment.
General Claire Chennault and the famous Flying Tigers in China, flew P-51 Mustangs, The Flying Tigers eventually became ‘Air America’, the CIA covertly operated airlines, that ended up all over Southeast Asia.
An F-51D is essentially a P-51, both considered “Mustangs” and both ubiquitous in the skies over Asia from the time of WWII forward.
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Willy, the Flying Tigers flew P-40s.
By the time the P-51 came along the Flying Tigers had been disbanded.
Granted Photon, I accept that. But that doesn’t prove Prouty wrong about P-51s being used in Southeast Asia.
Whether the Flying Tigers were “disbanded” or folded into CIA’s ‘Air America’, is the more critical question.
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Thomas Gardiner (Tommy) Corcoran, 80, a leading architect and lobbyist . . One of Mr. Corcoran’s preoccupations through the war and beyond was Gen. Claire Chennault’s Flying Tigers, American volunteer fighter pilots who flew missions against the Japanese before Pearl Harbor. . . . Sterling gave Mr. Corcoran’s brother, David, a part-time leave of absence to manage an organization called China Defense Supplies, to support the Flying Tigers with American material. Thomas Corcoran served as lawyer for the organization, and soon was wrestling with the problem of shipping supplies — “over the hump” — to the Far East. . . . After the war, Mr. Corcoran retained his interest in the two civilian airlines spun off from the Flying Tigers. One of them, C.A.T., was sold to the Central Intelligence Agency for operations in Indochina. . . . . He represented many defense contractors in wartime. . . Other clients included the United Fruit Co.. . . .
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/1981/12/07/thomas-g-tommy-corcoran-lobbyist-of-new-deal-era-dies/e95f174b-338e-4486-ab2c-eb11103b6190/
‘In 1932, . . . [Tommy Corcoran] was appointed by President Herbert Hoover as counsel to the newly formed Reconstruction Finance Corporation in Washington. . . . Mr. Corcoran was introduced to Mr. Roosevelt by Professor Frankfurter . . . [Corcoran] was one of Roosevelt’s principal strategists in shaping such historic innovations as the Securities Act of 1933, the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938.‘
http://www.nytimes.com/1981/12/07/obituaries/thomas-g-corcoran-aide-to-roosevelt-dies.html
And look who followed in the footsteps of Tommy the Cork at the Reconstruction Finance Corporation AND the Securities & Exchange Commission not to mention counsel to United Fruit:
Malcolm L. Monroe was a lawyer with Reconstruction Finance Corp. and the Security and Exchange Commission in Washington, DC, before joining Monroe & Lemann, where he became a managing partner. He was a director of the Whitney Natl. Bank of New Orleans, . . . the New Orleans and N. W. Railroad, and New Orleans Terminal Company. He was a member of the Boston Club, . . . note: Monroe & Lemann were counsel to United Fruit on behalf of the official corporate counsel, the Dulles’ brothers’ firm Sullivan & Cromwell, and whose lobbyist was Tommy the Cork Corcoran.
https://paw.princeton.edu/memorials/32/86/index.xml
For historical context consider at the time of Corcoran’s rise thru insider power structure, FDR’s relationship with the Murchison, Richardson, Wynne /Texas Independent Oil cabal as recounted in this 3-part series: ‘Islands of the Oil Kings” that indicates that Roosevelt – at the behest of this cabal – anointed Lyndon Johnson as the up and coming star of the Democratic Party.
http://res.dallasnews.com/interactives/oilkings/part1/
I don’t see the predominant hand of the Central Intelligence Agency here … what I do see is the rationale for such an intelligence apparatus whose leading characters in 1963 carried what were in fact deceptive credentials as representatives of the elected US Government.
Watch for Tommy Corcoran, Clark Clifford and John Connolly in this 1955 montage narrated by LadyBird Johnson:
Willy Whitten
February 28, 2016 at 11:36 am
A BACKGROUND BRIEFING by Fletcher Prouty [1]
“So we saw the years from 1960 into ’61 and ’62 as years when a certain amount of momentum kept going. And the only command structure in Vietnam at that time was CIA. The military were in the position of being the logistics staff. We provided the equipment, we provided certain training.”
MAAG (Military Assistance Advisory Group), Vietnam, was an organization of military personnel, sent to train and assist South Vietnamese armed forces. Originally, the delegation was sent to support the French military in the First Indochina War and named MAAG Indochina. MAAG Vietnam was in operation from 1955-1964. http://sca.gmu.edu/finding_aids/vietnammaagphotos.html#IDP10H0A3WQEMJBKZKSPZW4SOBNIT0DWTU21FRK2KWZSPX1OP0PVOG
While their work was logistics and training, as you point out, MAAG was a command all of it’s own. Commanded by Major and Lieutenant Generals which indicates the importance of this command. If you and Prouty think these Army Generals took any crap from the CIA you are very wrong. Again.
Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV)
Located at Tan Son Nhut Air Base outside Saigon, the U.S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), was a unified command subject to the direction of the Commander in Chief, Pacific. The MACV commander was responsible for all American military activities in Vietnam. MACV was first established at Saigon on February 8, 1962, after President John F. Kennedy had ordered an increase in U.S. military personnel. The Military Advisory and Assistance Group (MAAG), which had been in Vietnam since November 1955 remained in charge of advising ARVN (Army of the Republic of Vietnam), but on May 15, 1964, MACV succeeded MAAG in that responsibility as well. Between that reorganization on May 15, 1964, and its departure from Vietnam on March 29, 1973, MACV directed the United States Army, Vietnam; Naval Forces Vietnam; the Seventh Air Force; III Marine Amphibious Force; the Fifth Special Forces Group; I Field Force Vietnam; II Field Force Vietnam; the XXIV Corps; and a variety of pacification programs. Four people commanded MACV: General Paul Harkins (February 1962 to June 1964); General William Westmoreland (June 1964 to July 1968); General Creighton Abrams (July 1968 to June 1972); and General Frederick Weyand (June 1972 to March 1973).
http://vietnamwar.net/MACV.htm
Did Prouty not know about MACV? At the beginning of 1962, this was the big one. Out of this came the helicopter units, jet fighters, bombers, M-113s and the men to fly and operated them. It was the beginning of the end.
“If you and Prouty think these Army Generals took any crap from the CIA you are very wrong. Again”~Bill Clarke
If Mr Clarke can be sure of which generals were actually military and which were covert CIA with military cover, he might have a point. As it is however Mr Clarke is just ruminating.
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Willy Whitten
February 29, 2016 at 9:33 am
“If you and Prouty think these Army Generals took any crap from the CIA you are very wrong. Again”~Bill Clarke
If Mr Clarke can be sure of which generals were actually military and which were covert CIA with military cover, he might have a point. As it is however Mr Clarke is just ruminating.
So you think we had four star generals working undercover for the CIA. You continue to amaze me Whitten. And not in a good way.
The Psychopathic US Military was planning a Nuclear First Strike for 1963.
The U.S. was far ahead in the arms race. Yet the military continued to press for a rapid build-up of strategic missiles. Curtis LeMay had asked for at least 2400 Minutemen; Thomas Powers of the Strategic Air Command had asked for 10,000. All were to be unleashed in a single paroxysm of mass annihilation, know as SIOP, the Single Integrated Operating Plan.
SIOP was a recipe for blowing up the world, whether in a first or a second strike.
Not some lone nut like Gen Jack D. Ripper of Dr. Strangelove; No! The entire military establishment.
While being briefed on the US capability of a successful first nuclear strike, President Kennedy got up and walked out of the meeting, remarking in disgust, “And we call ourselves the human race.”
http://www.maryferrell.org/pages/Essay_-_Did_the_US_Military_Plan_a_Nuclear_First_Strike_for_1963.html
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Photon
A question, please. Are you a supporter of Donald Trump?
My apologies to everyone for going off topic.
I can’t support any that are running. I haven’t been able to since Bill Clinton. Has our nation stopped producing leaders?
I’ve come to the conclusion that all the candidate’s who have reached the nominee level since Reagan were vetted by the upper echelon of the Council of Foreign Relations. Of course he too was a tool of them via Bush and resulting appointments. Didn’t I read somewhere Hillary was the first woman invited to speak at the annual gathering many years ago? Trump today refuses to reject the support of the KKK. I still think he will meet with rejection by traditional Republicans at their convention or implode. Maybe I’m nuts and he’s the darling of the CFR and they will rally around him. After South Carolina Bernie will have a tough time with the rest of the upcoming South.
I just don’t see the competition necessary from the GOP from any of their other candidates than Trump and feel the public will ultimately reject him. That probably means we will show the world our “freedom” by electing our first Woman ever. Maybe I’m nuts. JMO. Will she FREETHEFILES if I’m right?
Excuse my pessimism as I age.
If this happens, and anyone in her loop monitors or observes this site, I suggest a statement.
My Husband met JFK, he inspired him to become President. In the interest of Trust between a President of the United States and it’s People and it’s Government as a whole, as well Laws regarding them these records should be released.
Bob, are you a supporter of Bernie Sanders?
Is your name Photon? Or McAdams? I believe he can answer his own questions.
If Bernie Sanders was able to run for prime minister here in Canada, I would give serious consideration to voting for him.
If Rob Ford was able to run for President here in the U.S.I would give serious consideration to voting for him.
The IRS, now political affiliations?
This site is in danger of becoming a chat room.
Are you a supporter of Donald Trump, Photon?
Bob, your question makes me wonder. Is Photon really Donald Trump himself?
Where Angels Tread Lightly: The Assassination of President Kennedy Volume 1 April 23, 2015
by John M. Newman
“The first in a series of volumes on the JFK assassination, Where Angels Tread Lightly is a unique scholarly examination of historical episodes that go back to WWII, the Office of Strategic Services, and the early evolution of the CIA—up to and beyond Castro’s assumption of power in Cuba in 1959. This book is a groundbreaking investigation of America’s failure in Cuba that uncovers the CIA’s role in Castro’s rise to power and their ensuing efforts to destroy him.
This work retraces the paths taken by many of the key players who became entangled in the CIA’s plots to overthrow Castro and the development of the myth that Castro was responsible for the assassination of President Kennedy.
With rigorous scholarship and the brilliant insight of a trained textual records interpreter and document forensic specialist, Dr. John M. Newman sheds new light on the multiple identities played by individual CIA officers. Where Angels Tread Lightly deciphers the people and operations that belong to a large number of CIA cryptonyms and pseudonyms that have remained, until now, unsolved.”
* * * * *
After reading JFK AND VIETNAM, I am looking forward to reading this new series by John Newman.
I would urge all who are interested in the JFK Assassination and the links to the Vietnam conflict to read Newman’s works. He does not disappoint.
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Willy, Angel’s is Deep Politics. A book that left me felling I need to re-read it to fully absorb the information. I’d never heard of Catherine Taaffe or Tepedino before. I remember the parts on Sturgis and June Cobb being informative as well.
Yes Ronnie,
I fully expect ‘Angel’s’ will be deep and fully footnoted, as are all of his works.
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Willy Whitten
February 27, 2016 at 10:48 pm
Yes Ronnie,
I fully expect ‘Angel’s’ will be deep and fully footnoted, as are all of his works.
Well Newman damn well didn’t footnote the most important part of “JFK and Vietnam”.
I’ll give you an example from Newman’s book, page322. This is the basis of the book.
_______________________________________________
“Kennedy decided to use Taylor’s and Harkin’ reports of battlefield success to justify the beginning of the withdrawal he was planning.” Italics by Newman.
“Kennedy kept his plan a closely guarded secret, but by March he was determined not only to withdraw—come what may—after 1964, but, if possible, to take a clear step in that direction….”
_______________________________________________
“Withdraw come what may”. How grand! Total BS. You wonder why there isn’t supporting evidence for this blooper? There is none and none is listed in the book. No Kenny O’Donnell said Jack told him this, No senator saying Jack told him this. Nothing. Newman pulled it straight out of the air. Pure junk.
“Kennedy kept his plan a closely guarded secret, but by March he was determined not only to withdraw—come what may—after 1964, but, if possible, to take a clear step in that direction….”~Newman
“…he had made up his mind that after his reelection he would take the risk of
unpopularity and make a complete withdrawal of American military forces from Vietnam. He had decided that our military involvement in Vietnam’s civil war would only grow steadily bigger and more costly without making a dent in the larger political problem of Communist expansion in Southeast Asia” (O’Donnell, p. 13).
Just before he was killed he repeated this commitment:
“‘They keep telling me to send combat units over there,’ the President said to
us one day in October [1963]. ‘That means sending draftees, along with volunteer
regular Army advisers, into Vietnam. I’ll never send draftees over there to
fight’.” (O’Donnell, p. 383).
. . . .
“Kennedy decided to use Taylor’s and Harkin’ reports of battlefield success to justify the beginning of the withdrawal he was planning.”
~Newman
This is in fact Newman’s own analysis based on the information in his Source Notation. O’Donnell makes clear Kennedy was determined to end US involvement (p. 13).. As other’s including McNamara & Sen Mansfield have as well.
______________________________________
I am going to add here, that those who attempt to defame Fletcher Prouty, do so because he is the strongest and most authoritative voice on these matters. Attempts to characterize his as a “crank” or a “nut” are simply scurrilous nonsense. Prouty’s military record is clear, he was exactly who and what he said he was.
The efforts to defame him have been relentless and ongoing precisely because his credentials are impeachable, his opinions formed by personal experience; HE WAS THERE__in the thick of it while it happened.
Prouty is an ORIGINAL SOURCE.
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Why did JFK support the Diem coup if he had decided to withdraw?
Prouty believed that L. Ron Hubbard’s war record was ” sheep-dipped” in order to hide the fact that he was wounded-to support a false claim that Hubbard made.
He believed that the “Umbrella Man” shot JFK with a flechette-probably because he was aware of the efforts to promote the SPIW as the next generation firearm, but as he retired before the program fell apart and he was no longer in the loop he didn’t realize that the flechette firing weapon concept had evaporated.
Prouty didn’t believe that mass suicides took place at Jonestown.
Prouty didn’t believe that petroleum was a fossil fuel, but was a naturally occurring mineral found in vast deposits that were hidden by oil companies.
He believed in Flying Saucers.
But the central fact with Prouty was that after retiring he missed being at the center of things. It was easier to stay important by appealing to groups not interested in checking his ” facts” but who would accept his claims because they supported their preconceived notions. This wholesale acceptance of his made-up stories produced a crisis about the time of the movie ” JFK” when some folks actually looked at some of Prouty’s ramblings and discovered that he was a rank anti-Semite and contributed to the Liberty Lobby’s neo-Fascist literature.
Despite the scrambling excuses of Oliver Stone and others, an objective study of Prouty confirms that he was an eccentric fabulist with extreme views concerning race and the international financial system. He made things up-and the gullible accepted those myths without ever actually investigating what he said and the basis for saying it.
Willy Whitten
February 28, 2016 at 6:37 am
Your continued use of Fletcher Prouty and Kenny O’Donnell as references is very telling about you, Whitten.
One was a nut, the other a glorified pimp for JFK. Can’t you find a more respectful group to run with?
http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/prouty.htm
Prouty is all wet on presidential protection:
http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/prouty.htm#ism3
Prouty believed Churchill had Roosevelt killed:
http://www.prouty.org/coment11.html
Prouty believes the “Secret Team” killed Princess of Diana:
http://web.archive.org/web/19981203142429/www.anaserve.com/~wethepeople/message2/27.htm
Anatomy of an Online Atrocity: Wikipedia, Gamaliel, and the Fletcher Prouty entry
A few short months after the creation of a Wikipedia entry in 2004 for L. Fletcher Prouty – a career military man who had briefed presidents and who was undeniably involved in the conduct of major clandestine operations at the start of the Cold War – a certain Wikipedia user under the name “Gamaliel” began editing the entry. Gamaliel would spend the next ten years systematically skewing the perspective on Prouty in the entry toward the negative, adding links to anti-Prouty websites, removing links to Prouty’s own official site over a period of years until finally getting that official site blacklisted from Wikipedia in 2011. Users outraged or frustrated at Gamaliel’s antics would be banned from Wikipedia for life. Gamaliel would highlight associations between Prouty and unsavory groups, exaggerating them until the material was moderated by other users. He even created Wikipedia entries for Prouty critics, later denying he had ties to those critics at all. You might well ask: How was this possible? Wouldn’t this kind of persistent bias and even vandalism be corrected by Wikipedia?
The answer is, of course, no. The reason why is that Fletcher Prouty, a man who coordinated between the Air Force and the CIA from his office in the Pentagon for nine years, committed the unpardonable sin of being unconvinced by the Warren Commission’s official finding that President John F. Kennedy was killed by Lee Harvey Oswald – and Oswald alone.
https://wikipediaonlineatrocity.wordpress.com
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“Prouty believed Churchill had Roosevelt killed”
~McAdams
Anyone who actually reads this article will see that Prouty did not say he believed that Churchill killed Roosevelt, he reported that Stalin told Elliott Roosevelt that Churchill had his father poisoned.
So again McAdams reframes the actual text in order to defame Prouty.
You will find this true of all of the Warrenistas here, they will spin and fume and make false claims about Prouty.
They will use Prouty’s opinions about UFO’s against him, as if this isn’t a genuine controversy even among astrophysicist and other scientist.
They will assert that he believes that Princess Diana was killed by covert forces, as if that isn’t proven to actually be the most likely case. Anyone who has looked into this case deeper than the crap in mainstream media knows this.
As far as Petroleum being a “fossil fuel”, Prouty’s argument may not be ‘popular’, but they are not entirely without merit.
The charges of “antisemitism” against Prouty are utter nonsense.
On and on this defamation has gone on for the simple reason that Prouty proved that the Warren Report is total garbage. An unforgivable sin to the champions of that tome of fantastical nonsense.
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Willy, how many examples do you need to realize that Prouty made things up for the benefit of conspiracy -oriented folks like yourself?
The most laughable example is Prouty claiming to be an expert on the U-2 on YouTube. He simply made things up -and that was the judgement of an individual I know who spent years on maintainance of U-2s . He couldn’t even get the landing gear arrangement correct.
“Willy, how many examples do you need to realize that Prouty made things up for the benefit of conspiracy -oriented folks like yourself?” ~Photon
I need examples that can be proven to be true Dr. Photon, not BS from clowns like you and your comrades.
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Just as an anecdote, my step father worked on the U2 for Lockheed, being sent to Groom Lake, Nevada for the secret project.
I remember when Gary Powers was said to have been ‘shot down’, Ernie (my step dad) exclaimed, “Nonsense! The Soviets don’t have anything that could hit that plane at the altitude it flies at!”
He was adamant that there was something going on that wasn’t being made public. I had rarely seen him more agitated over a news story up until that time.
He was on the phone to his friends at Lockheed soon after – there was quite an uproar about this incident by those who knew what the U2 was capable of.
Later, when Ernie retired, he hadd some great tales to tell about Area 51 at Groom Lake, Nevada.
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I love when Photon thinks he’s supporting his own arguments, by saying things that mean just the opposite – it would have been deeply in McNamara’s own interests of legacy and reputation to tell us that JFK intended to STAY in Vietnam; so anything he said to the contrary has complete credibility. Case closed.
The whole thing is much simpler than either side of this debate over whether or not JFK was planning to withdraw troops from Viet Nam wishes to admit.
Whether or not he is in total favour of making peace, can any Presidential candidate stand a chance of getting elected if he appears to be too soft on America’s perceived enemies? Even if JFK had intended to bring all the troops home by 1965, would it not have been political suicide to broadcast this prior to the 1964 election?
“Even if JFK had intended to bring all the troops home by 1965, would it not have been political suicide to broadcast this prior to the 1964 election?”~Bob Prudhomme
It is not speculation to note that it was worse than “political suicide” — NSAM 263 turned out to be a ‘Death Warrant’ for JFK.
Whether any here understand what the NSAM meant, the military industrial complex knew exactly what it meant; not only withdrawal from Southeast Asia, but peace with the USSR, and the end of the financial boon of the Cold War.
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It’s always worth recalling Robert Dallek’s Atlantic article, JFK vs the Military: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/08/jfk-vs-the-military/309496/
“Leftist” defenders of the “official version,” including Max Holland and Alex Cockburn, have typically portrayed JFK as a clanking Cold Warrior, spoiling for a fight. From John Newman, Howard Jones, etc., and from the declassified files Robert Dallek drew from, it’s pretty clear that on Kennedy’s watch, the military and war profiteers rightly feared the jig was up.
As if Kennedy’s refusal to light the War Pipe during the Bay of Pigs and during the Cuban Missile Crisis wasn’t evidence enough.
Gary
JFK vs. the Military
President Kennedy faced a foe more relentless than Khrushchev, just across the Potomac: the bellicose Joint Chiefs of Staff argued for the deployment of nuclear weapons and kept pressing to invade Cuba. A presidential historian reveals that Kennedy’s success in fending them off may have been his most consequential victory.
Thank you, Dr. Aguilar. Well said!
Thank you Dr. Aguilar,
I just read ‘JFK vs. the Military’, Robert Dallek’s Atlantic article that you linked to. It was excellent and made some very perceptive points.
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What I find most troubling about the article is a constant tone about how the Military kept pushing for aggressive actions and JFK continuously rejected it. We also hear about JFK getting poor advice .
Why didn’t he fire the military chiefs he disagreed with? What kind of leader would tolerate statements from military commanders at odds with his own policies? This article is replete with excuses.No matter what JFK was told, it was his decision to set the Bay of Pigs fiasco in motion-too many revisionists fail to notice that.The mention of the National Guard casualties brings up another issue-perhaps JFK was more open to direct military support of the landings than we have been led to believe and that his termination of further direct support had more to do with recognizing that the action was going worse than he anticipated than any reluctance to have American forces involved. He made a bad decision-but it was his decision. The same thing happened with the Diem coup-that time he had multiple staff members advising against supporting the coup-including his senior military consultant, Taylor. In hindsight it was a terrible decision-but it was his decision.
The most troubling thing about the article is WHO JFK did turn to for comfort and reassurance during the evening of the highest tension, an evening when his brother was involved with secret negotiations with a Soviet agent, when his advisors were conducting crises meetings and other back door contacts.
A 19 year old intern.
What I find most troubling about Photon’s troubles is how he finds Kennedy’s dalliance with a 19 year old intern as the worst aspect of Kennedy’s activities. To be disturbed over such a trite aspect shows what a trite thinker Photon is.
And of course Photon fails to mention that Kennedy inherited the Bay of Pigs operation from the Eisenhower regime, and had to be talked into it by the fanatic warmongers he had around him giving “military advice”.
Both Photon and Bill Clarke seem to think it would have been so simple for Kennedy to simply fire all these maniacs, as if there were no practical politics involved in this very touchy position a brand new President was in.
These unrealistic suggestions by Photon and Clarke give a glimpse into their puerile and jejune thinking; showing an extreme lack of sophistication in understanding the architecture of political power.
That they misconstrue so much so constantly is what makes communication across the abyss of epistemic paradigms so difficult and baffling.
It comes down to people who can think for themselves, verses people such as they, who can only think what they have been conditioned to think by indoctrination into the insipid gray world of conformity.
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Yes, it would have been simple to fire ” all of those maniacs”- he was the President. What “touchy” political position was he in? His Party had firm control of the Congress, he had close friends in the Press,to the point of ignoring JFK’s reckless associations, not just with women, but women who had contacts with organized crime figures and potentially foreign intelligence services. One would think that the leader of the Free World would have had more sense than to fool around with a 19 year old coed while his staff and his brother were trying to stop World War III with covert negotiations. It was a manifestation of a reckless personality, which may have contributed to the assassination. I think that Larry Sabato was correct in believing that JFK took too many chances and was vulnerable to assassination, more so than his predecessors.
So he inherited the Bay of Pigs from Eisenhower. Are you claiming that JFK was obligated to continue Ike’s policies? He went forward because he thought it would work and he wanted to get rid of Castro, just like everybody else in Washington. He was too inexperienced to see the weakness of the plan and too vacillating when it began to unravel. His performance and the disaster at Vienna a few months later was the basis for the Soviet conclusion that he could be rolled and was weak-and the direct consequence was the placement of Soviet MRBMs in Cuba.
Blaming others for mistakes does not excuse those mistakes-nor create motives for assassintion .
Photon, please submit your evidence in support of your opinion. You present your opinion as if it is verifiable fact. This is an internet comments thread. Please post links supporting your “19 year old intern” accusations, do not wait in the hope others will posts links on your behalf, as you did with your recent linkless claim of youtube video evidence of Dulles’s whereabouts in the hours following the Kennedy assassination.
I’ll extend you a reasonable amount of time to respond with comments including supporting links. My research supports that
there is a partisan motivation for this particular character assassination attempt against the reputation of the assassinated president. IOW, I can present a well supported argument. You stated a linkless opinion, supported AFAIK by rumor, and by the claims of one individual of highly partisan close association, intent on selling a product, a book.
Your standards of evidence certainly seem flexible, when it suits you.
“So he inherited the Bay of Pigs from Eisenhower. Are you claiming that JFK was obligated to continue Ike’s policies? He went forward because he thought it would work and he wanted to get rid of Castro, just like everybody else in Washington.”~Photon
No not at all, I am saying that he thought it would work if they followed the plan to a tee on what was agreed to. The plan was NOT followed to a tee, and he refused to turn to an open invasion by US military.
He learned is first lesson in the fallibility of military “expertise”, and his first suspicions that they were not being honest in their assessments, and may have in fact planned on the defeat on the beaches of Cuba as an excuse to force Kennedy to use US forces to make amends for their “mistakes”.
As for your theory that it would be simple to fire his entire staff of flag officers… it is jejune to the point of insanity for you to propose such nonsense.
I find your arguments quite disingenuous Photon. I find that it is a sequential problem with you.
And all this flapping and quacking from McAdams framing remarks such as those I just made are equally disingenuous, ponderous, and produced by hobbled reasoning.
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Willy Whitten
February 27, 2016 at 9:29 am
“It comes down to people who can think for themselves, verses people such as they, who can only think what they have been conditioned to think by indoctrination into the insipid gray world of conformity.”
Your self-righteousness is exposed here Whitten. Despite you thinking you are a “free thinker” and a “sophisticate” I’ve yet to see you come out with an original thought. Instead you regurgitate the BS of Prouty, Newman, McNamara and other fools and liars.
Not very impressive.
Mr. Ad Hominem strikes again.
We know what Willy is like, but where is Tom, who is supposed to be the moderator here?
“Mr. Ad Hominem strikes again”~McAdams
McAdams hasn’t the slightest idea of what Ad Hominem means, all it means to him is an opinion that he doesn’t like.
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Willy Whitten
February 27, 2016 at 6:36 pm
“So he inherited the Bay of Pigs from Eisenhower. Are you claiming that JFK was obligated to continue Ike’s policies? He went forward because he thought it would work and he wanted to get rid of Castro, just like everybody else in Washington.”~Photon
“No not at all, I am saying that he thought it would work if they followed the plan to a tee on what was agreed to. The plan was NOT followed to a tee, and he refused to turn to an open invasion by US military.”
Of course JFK himself changed much of the plan himself, beginning with the location of the invasion point. It was, Whitten, a damn fool operation, doomed to failure from the beginning. Anyone should have recognized that fact.
“He learned is first lesson in the fallibility of military “expertise”, and his first suspicions that they were not being honest in their assessments, and may have in fact planned on the defeat on the beaches of Cuba as an excuse to force Kennedy to use US forces to make amends for their “mistakes”.
The Bay of Pigs was a CIA operation, the military being mostly out of the loop. Peeved at being out of the loop they signed on to the operation. The mistake belongs to the CIA and JFK for allowing it to go forward.
“As for your theory that it would be simple to fire his entire staff of flag officers… it is jejune to the point of insanity for you to propose such nonsense.”
Jejune this Whitten. JFK later replaced (fired) the entire Joint Chiefs with the exception of LeMay. Why didn’t they kill JFK at this time?
Proton knows what he is talking about here. You, as usual, do not.
Whom do you think you are fooling?
Anybody can see you turn nasty toward anybody who disagree with you.
Dr. McAdams, this discussion thread is a “boxing ring” intended to “wall off” the vitriol that negatively
impacts the readability of all comments section on Jfkfacts.org. You’re here, you’re throwing a few and
taking a few punches. Can I offer you a gatorade, energy bar, or a towel? Look! Your shoelace is untied.
Tom, why are you refusing to approve my post about Mimi Alford?
Dr. McAdams, I’m seeing a pattern here. In the lower example (near the bottom of this comment), Photon never provided a supporting link, you and or Jean Davison literally rushed in, attempting to be helpful. In response to you asking about the status of the two identical comments you submitted yesterday, they both contain a link in support of Photon’s opinion. I really, really, would prefer reading a link in a comment submitted by Photon, himself, in support of a point or an opinion. If Photon is willing, I could share with you, the non-working email address accompanying each of his comments, and you can fruitlessly (as Jeff and Peter and I all have, see- https://jfkfacts.org/assassination/keep-those-comments-coming-just-not-all-at-once/ ) attempt to email information to him to include in his own comment. While we wait, consider that you would never accept validity of Mimi Alford’s, “late to the party,” single source claims if the claims were contrary to yours. If you’ve suddenly become more flexible, let us examine how your new flexibility raises the weight of claims made by other witnesses, even first time claims, decades later. Oh…. and it certainly does not impress me that Mimi’s best friend and closest confidant had always been Marnie Stuart Pillsbury….. You hyper-partisan, anti-JFK rumor mongers remind me of the buffs you describe
as regarding every factoid as sinister.
This is from Marnie’s daughters wedding announcement. :
Then you should move substantive discussion of Kennedy and Vietnam to another thread.
Dr. McAdams, “Kennedy and Vietnam” comments would be in every thread, if some effort was not
already being attempted to discourage commenters from emphasizing the issue.
I’ve got an idea, why not just bide our time until Jeff posts an article on that particular topic?
I expect you understand the problem. Bill Clarke, just for example, posts on almost nothing other than
“Kennedy and Vietnam”. I sometimes do not approve that initial post on a thread intended for discussion unrelated to “Kennedy and Vietnam”. If I approve Bill’s initial comment in a thread, Willy likely replies, which is not an unreasonable reaction to Bill’s initial comment. Bill then replies to Willy, a reasonable reaction, as well. Then, it is off to the races.
Do not be concerned, Dr. McAdams, this very thread has the potential to eventually include 500 or more comments specifically responsive to “Kennedy and Vietnam”.
“Photon never provided a supporting link, you and or Jean Davison literally rushed in, attempting to be helpful…”
I have no idea what you’re referring to, Tom. Where did I “rush in”?
Do all claims made here now require an acceptable supporting link?
Jean, I posted a link (see below) to the thread I cited as an example.:
https://jfkfacts.org/assassination/comment-of-the-week-16/
I’ve pasted and linked the specific example. I’ll concede that in the example I cited,
you did not “rush in,” you were simply first to present a link in support of Photon’s linkless claim. Dr. McAdams was actually first to attempt to “backstop” Photon, but I did not approve his comment. It is still waiting to be approved.:
Forgive me for assuming, in my experience, that there are other commenters almost eager to post links supporting Photon’s link less comments. Maybe I’m just a bit jealous, having to work to present what appears in my comments.:
Jean in asking your last question, did you take into account my point; Photon has never included
a link in any of the 540+ comments he has submitted since I have been comments editor? I wish I could
be more exact on that 540 number, but it is 545 (+/- 5), “link free” comments. He moved around more than usual, using
several IP#’s in the second week of January during his trip to a midwestern U.S. city. Photon has submitted 2306 comments I am aware of. I don’t have time now to verify that all of them are “link free,”
but I expect not to find a link in any of them, based on recent observation.
From the Washington Post article:
Unlike some of the “juicier” accounts from Jean Hill or Roger Craig, Alford has not been caught in any lies.
And independent historical sources point to her as one of Kennedy’s assignations.
Why Dr. McAdams, doesn’t Barbara Gamarekian’s claim amount to no more than gossip, or at best, speculation?
You are the last person I would expect to post a factoid of that low quality.
I suggest you ask Photon to post a link to your “Washington Post article,” since I have been asking him
to support his points and opinions with links and not wait for others to carry water for him.
Doesn’t this even seem a little creepy/weird even to you Dr. McAdams? I know nothing is possibly sinister
or suspicious from your POV, but in my experience participating on internet forums, the entities who can be expected not to post supporting links turn out to be trolls or bots.
Tom, the Mimi Alford claim was directly from Willy’s reference to Dallek’s article about JFK’s issues with the military. On Oct 27 JFK spent the night with her, according to Dallek.
She was 19 at the time. You can doubt her story, but Seymour Hersh published a variation on her story in “The Dark Side of Camelot” where Dave Powers’ anxiety was released in an unconventional manner.
Obviously some aspects of her claims were true-although perhaps she felt more important to him than she really was.
Trivia question-name the two ” Star Trek ” characters played by the husband of the most famous paramour of JFK.
For a bonus, named the executed prisoner he portrayed in his most famous role.
Photon, how about posting a link to a page with information on Dallek’s primary source,?
Former White House intern meets and marries modern day equivalent to key PT Barnum aide.:
This string of letters and symbols is an internet link, aka a URL :
http://oubliette.library.umass.edu/view/full/mums700-b0004-f010-i064
Memorandum from Mark H. McCormack to executive staff worldwide
McCormack writes regarding the creation of a Publicity and Public Relations Profit Center and asks for ideas on how this can generate additional money for International Management Group.
(Mark H. McCormack Papers)
http://oubliette.library.umass.edu/view/pageturn/mums700-b0002-f031-i012/#page/1/mode/1up
Memorandum from Mark H. McCormack to Richard R. Alford
McCormack asks Alford to create a definitive proposal for what they can do for Allstate including fees.
(Mark H. McCormack Papers)
And that matters how?
(I ask, knowing full well that I’m going to get another incoherent answer.)
Partisan?
Is the Washington Post an anti-Kennedy partisan paper?
Is Dallek an anti-Kennedy partisan?
New students of the assassination would do well to recognize who is participating on this particular forum; we have among us those who argue that chance events were the backdrop of the assassination of John Kennedy in broad daylight followed quickly by the murder of Lee Oswald by Jack Ruby in front of a cadre of law enforcement and media photographers in the middle of the day. This piece published in a highly esteemed widely read newspaper of record, “The Guardian” presents the theories of the organization “NonConspiracists United” **
But first, a bit of context related to the author:
A visit to John McAdams: http://www.kenrahn.com/Photo_shows/MarquetteAug05/McAdams.html
A visit to Jean Davison
http://www.kenrahn.com/Photo_shows/VTOttawa_Aug99/Burlington/Burl.html
“America’s Greatest WhoDunnit Solved” — Kenneth Rahn, The Guardian, Friday, November 21, 2003
“. . . Unpredictable events occur every minute of every day, but we focus on the tiny fraction that yield spectacular results. We should not forget all the public events where presidents have not been shot, including Kennedy’s six previous motorcades on the same trip.
Oswald and Ruby were also drawn together by parallel strands of chance. Oswald was brought to Ruby by two unforeseeable delays in his 10am transfer from City to County Jail, one for an hour’s further interrogation by the chief postal inspector who skipped church at the last minute to see whether he could help the police and another by Oswald’s last-minute re-quest for a dark sweater for TV.
Ruby was drawn to Oswald when he decided to close his nightclubs for the weekend because of the assassination. That threw his dancers out of work.
One of them called him on Sunday morning, asking for $25 for food and rent. Ruby went downtown to wire her the money. With his favorite dog Sheba in the car, he left home an hour after Oswald should have been transferred.
He wired the money and walked over to the police station, where he had noticed a small crowd outside. Arriving just as a truck came up the ramp and distracted the guard, he ducked into the basement.
‘Forty years of failed speculation are enough. It is time to admit there was no conspiracy and there was never any serious evidence for it. . . . The real story of the assassination is this: Kennedy was killed by one misfit guy, a cheap but effective rifle, a good vantage point from the building where he worked and a run of fortuitous events. . . . It is over. We must realise that this horrible event was not some evil plot. It was the product of chance, not conspiracy.’
· The author is Professor Emeritus at the University of Rhode Island. Co-signed by Steve Barber, John Cahill, JEAN DAVISON, Joe Durnavich, Joel Grant, Martin Kelly, David Reitzes, Rob Spencer, and Larry Sturdivan (in alphabetical order). The group’s members have carried out a total of 200 years of study into the JFK assassination.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/nov/21/usa
**http://www.kenrahn.com/Noncons/index.html
**http://www.kenrahn.com/JFK/Critical_thinking/Chance.html
“I’ve pasted and linked the specific example. I’ll concede that in the example I cited, you did not “rush in,” you were simply first to present a link in support of Photon’s linkless claim. Dr. McAdams was actually first to attempt to “backstop” Photon ….”
Tom, you’re assuming you know why I posted this link but your assumption is wrong. I had already posted a link to the Mudd Library collection on Dec. 18, 2015, and it wasn’t in order to “backstop” anyone:
https://jfkfacts.org/assassination/allen-dulles-first-ceo-of-the-secret-government/
I reposted the link because Willy repeatedly asked for it and because I considered the Mudd collection an important source of primary material (Dulles’ diaries, etc.) that was relevant to the discussion of Talbot’s book.
If Photon never posts links, I hadn’t noticed it. Surely he’s not the only one? IMO his comments generally are more accurate than many by others here who post links to unreliable secondary sources, which is worse than no link at all, imo.
Okay, Jean, I accept your explanation for why you posted a link to the specific Mudd Library folder containing details related to Allen Dulles’s activities and location on 23 November, 1963. I apologize for misunderstanding and misstating your intentions.
If you are satisfied with a commenter providing no working email address submitting under an alias, at least 540 and possibly as many as 2300 link free comments to JFKfacts.org, please contact Jeff and request that he amend the comment submission rules. Until that happens, I think it might enhance JFKfacts.org to initiate a week long experiment requiring a supporting link to be included in at least every other submitted comment, on average.
Tom S.
February 28, 2016 at 3:13 pm
I expect you understand the problem. Bill Clarke, just for example, posts on almost nothing other than “Kennedy and Vietnam”. I sometimes do not approve that initial post on a thread intended for discussion unrelated to “Kennedy and Vietnam”. If I approve Bill’s initial comment in a thread, Willy likely replies, which is not an unreasonable reaction to Bill’s initial comment. Bill then replies to Willy, a reasonable reaction, as well. Then, it is off to the races.
I point out that at least I know something about JFK and his Vietnam policy. Whitten…not so much.
And if you look you will see that most often Whitten post some BS and I reply to it. I’m not the man that starts it but I can’t allow the BS of Whitten to stand without comment.
Bill, I am replying to your complaint submitted in the last few hours here, in a thread (last week’s “Comment of the week”) devoted to discussion of the very issue you are complaining about, instead of in the thread (this week’s “Comment of the week”) you would have a disruptive effect in, if I were to approve your post (in image below) you submitted to that thread. I have no way of knowing if your actual intent is to divert discussion in the majority of article threads in this entire website, Bill. I have to prevent your comments having that effect on this forum, regardless of your actual intentions.
Bill, I do not think your proclivity has all that much to do with “Whitten,”. The comments submitted to JFKfacts.org are moderated, this is clearly communicated to anyone submitting a comment. You prefer to discuss
matters related to Vietnam in almost every thread you submit a comment to. I prefer that you often attempt to stay on topic. I approved one mention of Vietnam by you in the thread you complain now that your post, in the image above, has not appeared in.:
…and one comment of your ancillary pet topic, as well.:
Tom,
The problem as I see it, is that Bill Clarke seems to think he owns the word, “Vietnam”.
And he sees any comment about Vietnam as an excuse to repeat, what has in fact been repeated over and again by him for literally years now; and on any thread of any topic. He simply hijacks the thread from that point on.
Any answer, even one that definitively proves him incorrect, will be rebutted, until it becomes a carousel that has spun around way too many times on JFKfacts.
Even saying that you don’t want to go round and round with him is going to bring some blast of something on the order of, “Yea, and you better not go round with me because I always show you up for what a liar and moron your are.
‘Repetion-Repetition’is not going to make his arguments any stronger, they just end up boring everyone. He cannot seem to grasp this.
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Tom S.,
Maybe I’m not understanding this, but how is it that Bill is being “disruptive” when he didn’t bring up “Vietnam” in that thread? He was replying to J.D.’s March 2 comment: “Dallek believes JFK would never have escalated in Vietnam…” Actually the Vietnam War was first mentioned in the post at the top of the thread.
Jean, I do not have funds enough to rent billboards. I am known for my outreach during my time as an Education Forum
moderator, so I have a sense that the problem has not been my failure to communicate to commenters here at JFKfacts.org.:
Okay, but immediately after your March 1 post saying, “This thread is still young enough to attempt to keep on topic,” J.D. brought up Vietnam. Bill replied.
You seem very upset with me and my “colleagues” lately, Tom. Could I offer you a Snickers?
Jean, you and your “colleagues” assist in keeping the discussions interesting. Go peruse the threads over at Greg Burnham’s
forum for the sake of comparison. Thank you for the generous offer of the Snicker’s bar, BTW. I’ll take a rain check for now because I am holed up in an undisclosed location and my P.O. box rental lapsed due to non-payment. The post office I use, fifty miles from my current “twenty,” does not accept Bitcoin.
J.D. brought up Vietnam, just after I damped down the sudden eruption of speculation related to the gory, brutal murders of Nicole Simpson and Ron Goldman. Should I bring the comments waiting to be approved related to that brief foray, over to this thread, too? I’d be happy to, if you are interested in reading them.
Ms Davison,
It is so tedious and tiresome to read you and your comrades denial of the obvious on this issue of Bill Clarke’s singular focus on the issue of Kennedy and Vietnam.
Mr Clarke obviously considers himself THE EXPERT on Kennedy and Vietnam, and has declared openly that he refuses to let the “lies” being told on the pages to pass without his personal correction.
As I pointed out in an earlier post; it is obvious that Mr Clarke feels that he owns the word “Vietnam” on this site. He has consistently bullied the forum with his own opinions here as if they are sanctioned by some Angelic Guardian of the Truth.
He has hand-waved first hand testimony of those who heard JFk that he was determined to unilaterally withdraw from Southeast Asia, by simply and with no rational cause to call all of these parties “liars”.
He claims that O’Donnell and Kennedy were “whoring buddies”, an outrageous slur without the slightest foundation. He calls many other’s liars with the same flatulent and senseless reliance on his own twisted biases.
I consider Mr Clarke’s attitudes and actions here to be the product of hysterical rage – not rational argumentation.
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”Maxwell Taylor was soon to recommend that 8,000 American combat troops be sent to the region at once. After making his report to the Cabinet and the Chiefs of Staff, Taylor was to reflect on the decision to send troops to South Vietnam: “I don’t recall anyone who was strongly against, except one man, and that was the President. The President just didn’t want to be convinced that this was the right thing to do…. It was really the President’s personal conviction that U.S. ground troops shouldn’t go in.”[4] . . . “Robert Kennedy: His Life and Times” Arthur Schlesinger
. . .
Perhaps Ms Davison or Mr Clarke would like to tell us which of the two above are “lying”,
Robert Kennedy or Arthur Schlesinger?
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Big Hug. Thanks for all your work Sir.
“Newman’s argument is stronger: Kennedy, had decided to begin a phased withdrawal from Vietnam, he had ordered this withdrawal to begin.”
Who would know JFK’s policy better, author Newman or his brother Robert?
Have you forgotten that Robert said in April 1964 that his brother hadn’t yet made that decision?
QUOTE:
[….]
[Interviewer] Martin:There was never any consideration given to pulling out?
Kennedy:No.
Martin:But the same time, no disposition to go in all . . .
Kennedy:No . . .
Martin:. . . in an all out way as we went into Korea. We were trying to avoid a Korea, is that correct?
Kennedy:Yes, because I, everybody including General MacArthur felt that land conflict between our troops, white troops and Asian, would only lead to, end in disaster. So it was. . . . We went in as advisers, but to try to get the Vietnamese to fight themselves, because we couldn’t win the war for them. They had to win the war for themselves.
Martin:It’s generally true all over the world, whether it’s in a shooting war or a different kind of a war. But the president was convinced that we had to keep, had to stay in there . . .
Kennedy:Yes.
Martin:. . . and couldn’t lose it.
Kennedy:Yes.
Martin: And if Vietnamese were about to lose it, would he propose to go in on land if he had to?
Kennedy:Well, we’d face that when we came to it.
Martin:Mm hm. Or go with air strikes, or–direct from carriers, I mean, something like that?
Kennedy:But without. . . . It didn’t have to be faced at that time. In the first place, we were winning the war in 1962 and 1963, up until May or so of 1963. The situation was getting progressively better. . . .
UNQUOTE
http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/vietnam.htm
This was from an oral history interview RFK did for the Kennedy Library.
“This was from an oral history interview RFK did for the Kennedy Library.”~Jean Davison
I hope you don’t find it too inconvenient that I point out that that was RFK you are quoting and not his brother John.
. . .
“You made a claim about what “the NSAM called for,” not some unspecified “inside discussions.”
~Jean Davison
Jean, You made a claim and backed it up with Kennedy’s public remarks at a press conference.
You love to quote from JFK press conferences, from a period that Kennedy was in a life and death struggle with CIA, and he knew it. Revealing his true attitude toward CIA in public at that time would have put his life in more danger than he already knew it was in. You act as if JFK was not at least on the surface, a practical politician who understood how to play the PR game as well as his enemies did. You fail to note certain nuances in his public statements and take them at face value – despite knowing what was eventually in store for him. Hindsight is a marvelous thing for the living. Kennedy doesn’t have that luxury now, they killed the man.
You deny that CIA was involved in the coup in Dallas, therefore you interpret all of this from that bias; regardless of the overwhelming evidence that leads to the conclusion that the assassination was in fact a coup d’etat by the National Security State and it’s corporate sponsors.
We are all aware of your authorship of ‘OSWALD’S GAME’ – what intrigues many of us on JFKfacts is; what is Jean Davison’s Game? I think it obvious, and so do many other’s here Jean. Your “clever” rhetorical gamesmanship is not quite so clever as you may like to believe.
The minutes to the – “inside discussions.” – meetings concerning the withdrawal from Vietnam are now public. These meetings clarify what NSAM 263 called for:
[See my next comment]
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“I hope you don’t find it too inconvenient that I point out that that was RFK you are quoting and not his brother John.
And who did you quote, Willy? Not JFK, not RFK, but a secondary source, John Newman.
I also quoted NSAM 263, which you incorrectly claimed called for — your words — “the unilateral withdrawal of the remainder of US personnel by the end of 1965.”
Instead of relying on secondary sources like Newman, I believe it’s better to look at the original record in, e.g., the documents here:
https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1961-63v04/d321
Why rely on anyone to interpret this record when we can read it for ourselves?
If JFK had already decided to withdraw “unilaterally” from Vietnam, why didn’t RFK say so in the 1964 interview? Why didn’t Schlesinger say so in “A Thousand Days”? Why didn’t Sorensen say so in his first book on Kennedy? Why didn’t Galbraith say so prior to c. 1968, when the war no longer seemed winnable? (If you can find any of these JFK insiders on record prior to that time saying that JFK had already made the decision to withdraw completely, please put it up here. (I don’t mean what anyone claimed *later* but anything in the record from that time.)
Since I voted for JFK myself, I’d like to believe that he would’ve eventually decided to withdraw rather than escalate the war as LBJ did, but we’ll never know, because as RFK said, “we’d face that when we came to it…it didn’t have to be faced at that time.”
If Jean thinks this is going to turn into another, “Yes it is. No it isn’t. Yes it is. No it isn’t.” Monty Python skit, she is daydreaming.
“Why rely on anyone to interpret this record when we can read it for ourselves?”~Jean Davison
I have read those very same documents myself, and I agree with take of McNamara, Newman, Prouty, P.D. Scott, Galbraith, and others.
“A pivotal period of U.S. involvement in Vietnam, punctuated by three important events: the overthrow and assassination of South Vietnam’s president Ngo Dinh Diem; President Kennedy’s decision on October 2 to begin the withdrawal of U.S. forces; and his assassination fifty days later.”~McNamara
(‘In Retrospect’ – Chapter 3.)
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Anybody who believes the McNamera version of events must have been comfortable with investment advice from Bernie Madoff.
The true author of American military expansion in Vietnam was McNamera. His ” whiz kids” approach to calculating force requirements and calculated responses only lead to a prolonged conflict with no strategy to win. This reprehensible individual apparently concluded early on ( if you believe him) that this strategy would never produce a victory, and yet he continued to feed hundreds of Americans int o a pointless meat grinder that killed tens of t hours ands-for what?
Hundreds of thousands into the meat grinder and killed tens of thousands-for what.
Bad keyboard.
“Hundreds of thousands into the meat grinder and killed tens of thousands-for what.”~Photon
BIG Big-Money honey, for the Military Industrial Complex.
The essential reason that Kennedy was murdered, for standing in the way of that “Meat Grinder” and saying, “Not on my watch!”
And we know you knew this all along Photon, You just needed the proper warrant to admit it.
“1,2,3,4 can we have our little war? Sisbum boombah Coup d’ta!”….Altogether Now!!!
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Willy Whitten
February 26, 2016 at 5:15 am
“If Jean thinks this is going to turn into another, “Yes it is. No it isn’t. Yes it is. No it isn’t.” Monty Python skit, she is daydreaming.”
All you have to do is read it. Doing that removes all doubt. Jean has been “pointing this out” to you over and over again. You even cut and paste the NSAM 263 but you can never show us the “all”. Come on man.
“Why rely on anyone to interpret this record when we can read it for ourselves?”~Jean Davison
“I have read those very same documents myself, and I agree with take of McNamara, Newman, Prouty, P.D. Scott, Galbraith, and others”.
I believe all of these tellers of tall tales, with the possible exception of McNamara, claim that “ALL” the troops will be withdrawn. If you agree with them how do you account for; Willy Whitten November 23, 2015 at 7:01 pm “No I don’t think ALL personnel would have been withdrawn, but I think those who would remain after 1965 would have been mainly diplomatic corps, with the withdrawal mainly being advisers, and military equipment, and getting the meddling CIA out of there as best as could be managed.”
McNamara, in the Miller Center Tapes quoted here many times, tells JFK that we would have 3,500 men remaining in Vietnam after this withdrawal. That puts the spin on “ALL” the troops. I remind you again that McNamara’s book was noted for its dishonesty.
“If you agree with them how do you account for; Willy Whitten November 23, 2015 at 7:01 pm “No I don’t think ALL personnel would have been withdrawn,”~Bill Clarke
That quote is 4 months old.
I learned more information and upgraded my opinion to account for those new facts.
These things happen when one is open to new facts and data.
One avoids the quagmire of bias by being open to new information.
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Willy Whitten
February 27, 2016 at 5:30 pm
“If you agree with them how do you account for; Willy Whitten November 23, 2015 at 7:01 pm “No I don’t think ALL personnel would have been withdrawn,”~Bill Clarke
That quote is 4 months old.
“I learned more information and upgraded my opinion to account for those new facts.
These things happen when one is open to new facts and data”.
You preach the “ALL”, then you slip up and admit that not “ALL” and then you regain your propaganda and are back to “ALL”. And you call me a clown! You crack me up, Whitten.
Be advised, NSAM 263 was written in 1963. Since that time there have been no changes in the words of 263. There has been no “new information” about it except for the BS of some, Newman being the greatest. All you have to do is read it.
Can you tell me where you found this “new information”?
Hah…I just read Bill Clarke’s remarks; the same trite and moldy comments he has been peddling for years.
What does one expect from a dupe of mainstream propaganda, but a regurgitation of that propaganda?
It is a fruitless endeavor to argue with the calcified mind of one blinded by the popular myths generated by the Public Relations Regime. Mr Clarke will likely sleepwalk through this engineered dream for the rest of his mortal life.
I won’t insult with pity nor words of condolences, they wouldn’t be sincere from my quarter at any rate; I feel most people draw the lot they deserve.
Almost all of us began with “Run Spot Run”, it is a matter of personal initiative to get to the point of using ones own mind to interpret the words put to print, rather than relying on the dictates of authority.
Good night…and good luck.
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Willy just can’t control himself. Frustrated when anybody disagrees with him, he turns to insults.
When he does that, he’s admitting defeat. If he could argue the evidence, he would.
Just keep piling on insults, Willy.
Apparently, you think that if you insult somebody you have defeated them in the argument.
All you have really done is to create a sordid spectacle. You would be right at home on alt.conspiracy.jfk.
“All you have really done is to create a sordid spectacle. You would be right at home on alt.conspiracy.jfk.”~McAdams
Here you are taunting and pushing with insults like the one I quote above, as if you are in some way in a superior moral position. You are not.
You are also not ‘addressing the issues’ or providing facts. You are simply pushing the envelope of belligerence and not admitting your own participation.
If you want to take the high road for yourself then why don’t you STFU?
I have never made the pretense of being some academic Prima Donna, nor a “gentleman” from the realms of higher learning.
You can’t wear your dainty little frilly bib and sling barbs and arrows yourself; you had better grow some dermis or get a kevlar vest.
If you want to make substantive arguments “professor” then DO IT.
But if you want to continue spitting like a snake, don’t be “shocked” by the responses you get.
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Anybody can see that you simply insult people who frustrate you by arguing against you.
When I call you out on it, you claim to have been insulted. You attack somebody, and when they point out you have attacked, you play the victim.
Everybody can see you are the aggressor.
I’m astonished that Tom lets you get away with all your nasty posts.
I see nothing but a personal attack here, Whitten. But that is okay. I can take it. Can you?
“I won’t insult with pity nor words of condolences, they wouldn’t be sincere from my quarter at any rate”
Be advised Whitten; I’ve long ago learned not to expect anything sincere or factual from your quarter.
“Here is Robert McNamara’s summary of the October 2, 1963 meeting, my comment, and his description of the outcome:
One faction believed military progress had been good and training had progressed to the point where we could begin to withdraw. A second faction did not see the war as progressing well and did not see the South Vietnamese showing evidence of successful training. But they, too, agreed that we should begin to withdraw. . . . The third faction, representing the majority, considered the South Vietnamese trainable but believed our training had not been in place long enough to achieve results and, therefore, should continue at current levels.
As McNamara’s 1986 oral history, on deposit at the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library, makes clear (but his book does not), he was himself in the second group, who favored withdrawal without victory—not necessarily admitting or even predicting defeat, but accepting uncertainty as to what would follow. The denouement came shortly thereafter:
After much debate, the president endorsed our recommendation to withdraw 1,000 men by December 31, 1963. He did so, I recall, without indicating his reasoning. In any event, because objections had been so intense and because I suspected others might try to get him to reverse the decision, I urged him to announce it publicly. That would set it in concrete. . . . The president finally agreed, and the announcement was released by Pierre Salinger after the meeting.’
On the day Kennedy died, the course of policy had been set. This is not speculation about a state of mind. It is a statement of fact about a decision.”~James K. Galbraith
http://www.thenation.com/article/jfks-vietnam-withdrawal-plan-fact-not-speculation/
The record shows definitively that JFK had determined to pull the US out of Vietnam. There is simply no question about it. Those are the FACTS. Some may speculate that had Kennedy lived he would have changed his mind… That is SPECULATION.
. . . . . .
Jean,
Also Note; RFK’s final words you quoted were: “Well, we’d face that when we came to it.”
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“Here is Robert McNamara’s summary of the October 2, 1963 meeting, my comment, and his description of the outcome”
Why don’t you read the minutes of that Oct. 2 meeting instead of relying on McNamara’s account?
https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1961-63v04/d169
It says, for instance:
“The President objected to the phrase “by the end of this year” in the sentence “The U.S. program for training Vietnamese should have progressed to the point where 1000 U.S. military personnel assigned to South Vietnam could be withdrawn.” He believed that if we were not able to take this action by the end of this year, we would be accused of being over optimistic…”
And on the next page:
“Noted the President’s approval of the following statement of U.S. policy which was later released to the press:
1. The security of South Viet Nam is a major interest of the United States as other free nations. We will adhere to our policy of working with the people and Government of South Viet Nam to deny this country to Communism and to suppress the externally stimulated and supported insurgency of the Viet Cong as promptly as possible. Effective performance in this undertaking is the central objective of our policy in South Viet Nam.”
https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1961-63v04/d170
Does that sound like a withdrawal plan to you?
“Does that sound like a withdrawal plan to you?”~Jean Davison
It reads like waffle language to me. That is why I see McNamara’s account more accurate.
The announcement of the 1,000 man withdrawal was in fact released by Pierre Salinger after the meeting; it was banner headlined on Stars & Stripes Magazine the next issue; I have seen a photocopy of it myself.
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Willy Whitten
February 26, 2016 at 4:57 am
“Does that sound like a withdrawal plan to you?”~Jean Davison
“It reads like waffle language to me. That is why I see McNamara’s account more accurate.”
Good god, Prouty would be more honest that McNamara. And that surely is not saying much.
“The announcement of the 1,000 man withdrawal was in fact released by Pierre Salinger after the meeting; it was banner headlined on Stars & Stripes Magazine the next issue; I have seen a photocopy of it myself.”
Yes, I also have seen a photocopy of it myself. Your counterpart over in Dr. McAdams group is very fond of posting it.
I thought I had a reference for it but can’t seem to find it at this time. But I agree with you here. Unfortunately all we can read is the Headline which says, best I can remember, “All Troops Out by 1965”.
Years ago I tried to find the article but there was some trouble with their archives and it wasn’t available. I’ll try to find my password you can use if you would like to do a search.
I post this below not to defend it (I don’t) but to show you the hazards of depending on Stars and Stripes for your history;
http://starsandstripes.newspaperarchive.com
Saturday, November 16, 1963
U.S. DROPS PLANS FOR BIG VIET CUT
WASHINGTON (UP!) — President Kennedy said Thursday that the United States has abandoned plans to withdraw 1,000 U.S. troops from the Republic of Vietnam by the end of the year.
He told a news conference, however, that “several hundred” would be withdrawn but that the exact number would depend upon a decision reached Nov. 20 in a high-level meeting of U.S. officials in Honolulu.
Kennedy was asked whether the United States, in view of the military coup in South Vietnam, still intended to withdraw 1,000 men as had been reported by Defense Secretary Robert McNamara and General Maxwell D Taylor, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, after their Vietnam tour in September.
“No,” Kennedy replied, “we are going to bring back several hundred before the end of the year, but I think of the question of ‘ the exact number, I thought we would wait until that meeting of Nov. 20 (of highranking officials in Hawaii).”
Kennedy also expressed full confidence in General Paul D.
(Continued on Back Page, Col. 4)
What you quoted was accurate:
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=9519&st=&st1=
Also, JFK said:
It will be noticed what McAdams bolded in that comment on the press conference, and what he did not:
“Now, that is our object, to bring Americans home”
McAdams did bold these words:
“an increased effort in the war.”
In the context of the first, this obviously means an increased effort by “the new government” in Vietnam…
The object in all of this was clear in Kennedy’s mind and words “to bring Americans home”
Kennedy was determined not to allow the situation to turn into an American war.
As I have pointed out before; The only US personnel in Vietnam under Kennedy’s watch were ADVISERS.
It is clear enough that Kennedy would not and did not approve of the US military fighting that war; despite all of the lunatic advice from his maniacal Military Chiefs of Staff.
All arguments to the contrary are counterfactual, and at this late date in history disingenuous propaganda.
The deadline for unilateral withdrawal was 1965.
If you don’t like the term “unilateral”, you are going to have to live with it as the last word anyway. Kennedy was determined to end US involvement one way or another.
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First of all, U.S. “advisers” were leading ARVN troops into combat, and the U.S. was taking casualties.
Secondly, if Kennedy was resigned to letting the Communists take over the South, prolonging U.S. involvement through the end of 1965 (or beyond, since the hope was that “the bulk” of U.S. forces would be out) would be grossly immoral.
Kennedy hoped that with U.S. aid the South Vietnamese could step up and defeat the Communist invasion from the North.
>>Who would know JFK’s policy better, author Newman or his brother Robert?<<
Who would be better equipped to give a serious, comprehensive answer: an experienced historian with access to a wide range of documents and sources and the advantage of being able to spend years sorting through the evidence before coming to his conclusions, or an active participant in the events with only a few months' perspective on them and who, in all likelihood, was not eager to publicly criticize the current policies of an administration he was still a member of?
An author who apparently didn’t realize that every assumption he made concerning NSAM 263 ( correct or incorrect) was rendered inoperative by the Diem coup.
I am beginning to wonder if the revisionist proponents even realize that there was a coup, a coup that JFK actively supported despite the advice of several members of his senior staff-a coup that even JFK admitted afterwards meant increasing US involvement, a coup that took a different direction than he apparently anticipated (although with the prior history of attempted coups against Diem he should have known that the plotters would almost certainly feel the need to kill Diem and Nhu).
But I again bring up the central contradiction to this whole line of reasoning. If JFK knew that Diem was trying to reach an accommodation with the Communists and that that accommodation would lead to a request from Diem to withdraw American forces, why would Kennedy agree to removing Diem, when leaving him in power would have given him a free ” Get Out of Vietnam” pass? The obvious answer is that the assumptions of those who state that JFK wanted to withdraw from Vietnam in the manner claimed are simply not correct.
The answer is obvious, and am surprised you are unable to see it, Photon.
Considering the intense nationalistic perspective of the Vietnamese, and that to them there was no such thing as “North” or “South” Viet Nam, and that this concept of two countries was forced upon them by colonialist and imperialistic governments (with zero input from the Vietnamese), just what kind of “accommodation” do you think Diem could have achieved with the Communists?
And how much time do you think such an “accommodation” could have bought Diem? Six months, maybe?
The Vietnamese had their hearts set on having one unified country, and had been in the process of evicting a long line of invaders that included the Chines, the French, the Japanese, the French again and finally the Americans. Are you really naive enough to believe they would be willing to give up this dream, simply because Diem was willing to make a “deal”? The same people who suffered over a million casualties, and were just as dedicated to the fight at the end of the Viet Nam War, as they were at the beginning? Seriously?
Bob Prudhomme
February 26, 2016 at 1:16 pm
The answer is obvious, and am surprised you are unable to see it, Photon.
“Considering the intense nationalistic perspective of the Vietnamese, and that to them there was no such thing as “North” or “South” Viet Nam, and that this concept of two countries was forced upon them by colonialist and imperialistic governments (with zero input from the Vietnamese), just what kind of “accommodation” do you think Diem could have achieved with the Communists?”
I certainly agree with you on the nonsense of Diem (or anyone else) making a deal with the northern communist. They might have agreed to a short face saving time for the U.S but as you say it probably wouldn’t last long at all.
I would caution against thinking the north and the south of Vietnam was one big happy family. They were not and had never been. Though out their history if they were not fighting Chinese invaders they fought among themselves. Much like our own north and south, the two groups in Vietnam didn’t like each other.
I don’t think the south wanted to join the northern communist.
Photon obviously doesn’t even know the events as they took place with Diem. He had actually made it to the plane to take him to France successfully. For some reason he got off and went back to the palace. He found it empty with no guards. He took an escape tunnel leading away from the palace. When he emerged from the tunnel there were soldiers in on the coup there who captured him and killed him.
So it wasn’t Kennedy’s plan to get him safely out of the country that failed, it was the stupidity of Diem himself that caused his death.
The rest of Photon’s theory is equally counterfactual to history.
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Willy Whitten
February 26, 2016 at 6:34 pm
“Photon obviously doesn’t even know the events as they took place with Diem. He had actually made it to the plane to take him to France successfully. For some reason he got off and went back to the palace. He found it empty with no guards. He took an escape tunnel leading away from the palace. When he emerged from the tunnel there were soldiers in on the coup there who captured him and killed him.”
Where in the hell did you come up with this crap. Reference please. I’d certainly like to read that on my own!
“So it wasn’t Kennedy’s plan to get him safely out of the country that failed, it was the stupidity of Diem himself that caused his death.”
We’ll have to wait for proof for your statement that Diem “got off the plane”. I believe this to be another of your BS stories. Unless you have evidence for it. Do you?
Of course, though, we will never know what was waiting in the plane when Diem arrived. That may explain why he went back to the palace.
The Murder of President Diem
So his departure from Vietnam was supposed to be the same departure any chief of state would make who was going somewhere else to deliver a lecture and make a visit. So a special airplane (a commercial airplane, not military) was being flown into Saigon that day to take him to Belgrade, with his brother. (The other brother had already left and Nhu’s wife had already left.)
For reasons that none of us have ever known, the two Diem brothers went to the airport, went up the stairs to the airplane and got in it, and came out again. And, to the surprise of the few people there that knew they were leaving (among them the people we had spotting this affair, that Krulak had), saw them get back into their car and go speeding back into town (where they went into the palace, the presidential palace), and suddenly realized they were alone.
They were in some sense incompetent — they didn’t understand political government. Their people had been so repressive that they knew as soon as the Diems left they would be killed. The people would attack them. They hated that guard that was around Diem. So they had all run. And when the Diems went back into the palace it was empty. There was nobody there.
They immediately realized what was going on, and they went into a tunnel (that had been dug for this purpose beforehand) that went under the river, over to the suburb of Saigon called Cholon. Unfortunately, at the other end of the tunnel, there were some soldiers there who had been ordered to be there, and they put them in a van and they killed them in the van. And that’s how they were killed. It had nothing to do with the plan that had been laid on for them.
I was in my office that afternoon and General Krulak came in and he was absolutely blanched. He said, “The Diems have been killed.” He said, “I can’t believe that they wouldn’t follow the program we had lined up for them.” He said, “But we just had a call saying that they went in the plane, came out of the plane, and went back to the city. Later it was discovered that they’d been killed.”
To the people that had carefully planned their movement out of the country — and of course it was going to be a coup d’état — maybe Diem felt that it was and didn’t want to leave, or something.
http://www.ratical.org/ratville/JFK/USO/chp1_p3.html
Bob Prudhomme
February 27, 2016 at 12:26 am
“Of course, though, we will never know what was waiting in the plane when Diem arrived. That may explain why he went back to the palace.”
Bob, I certainly think we should see some evidence that “Diem got on the plane” in the first place. I don’t think he did and as usual Whitten has no reference for this. We don’t know if it is fact or if it is another one of his “stories”.
Fletcher Prouty. Of course.
Willy, I posted some time ago an interview with Prouty where he claimed to know specifics about the U-2 that were obviously made up because the had no relationship to documented facts about the airplane.
But that was only one of multiple examples of Prouty proving that he was nothing but an eccentric fabulist with nothing to back up his claims.
“I posted some time ago an interview with Prouty where he claimed to know specifics about the U-2 that were obviously made up because the had no relationship to documented facts about the airplane.”~Photon
Did ya now? And we are supposed to take YOUR word for it? Hahahaha!!!
Willy Whitten
February 27, 2016 at 3:55 am
http://www.ratical.org/ratville/JFK/USO/chp1_p3.html
Prouty! I should have recognized his BS. But I asked for a reference and you gave me one. Way to go Whitten.
Of all the accounts of the murder of Diem that I have read the Prouty account is the only one having Diem get on a plane to start with, much less get off.
For a fresh account of the murder please see; Stanley Karnow, “Vietnam A History”, page 320. See page 292 for photo of Diem’s body laying inside the ACAV.
Are you talking about his claim that the U-2 was not shot down, but just landed?
http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/proutyism4.ram
Oh, my! The “George Bush named three ships” nonsense.
http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/prouty.htm#ism5
“Are you talking about his claim that the U-2 was not shot down, but just landed?”~McAdams
Yes McAdams, If you have read Prouty’s case for that you would know it is strong and very likely.
See:
http://www.ratical.org/ratville/JFK/SAP.html
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J.D.
February 26, 2016 at 1:20 am
>>Who would know JFK’s policy better, author Newman or his brother Robert?<<
"Who would be better equipped to give a serious, comprehensive answer: an experienced historian with access to a wide range of documents and sources and the advantage of being able to spend years sorting through the evidence before coming to his conclusions,"
Newman might have been equipped but he certainly didn't make good use of it. The lack of scholarship in "JFK and Vietnam" is shocking. Here is an example from Newman’s book,"JFK and Vietnam"" page322. This is the basis of the book.
________________________________________________________
“Kennedy decided to use Taylor’s and Harkin’ reports of battlefield success to justify the beginning of the withdrawal he was planning.” Italics by Newman.
“Kennedy kept his plan a closely guarded secret, but by March he was determined not only to withdraw—come what may—after 1964, but, if possible, to take a clear step in that direction….”
__________________________________________________________
Do you not wonder why there is no reference to support this? I don't. I know why there is no reference.
Bill, my point was not to get into a discussion of Newman’s book but simply to argue that it’s silly to pretend that out-of-context quotes from historical figures can be used to explain history. You can find numerous quotes from FDR on the eve of Pearl Harbor insisting that he had no intention of involving the United States in a European war, but most historians do not take that at face value and argue that FDR probably knew that entering the war was inevitable. Similarly, you can find numerous quotes from Lincoln in which he prevaricates on the issue of slavery, but to take those quotes out of context and use them to “prove” that the Civil War had nothing to do with slavery, as many people have, would be ridiculous. The interview with RFK is interesting, but it needs to be taken in context and balanced with other evidence.
JD,
Bill Clarke just wrote this to you:
“Newman might have been equipped but he certainly didn’t make good use of it. The lack of scholarship in “JFK and Vietnam” is shocking. Here is an example from Newman’s book,”JFK and Vietnam”” page322. This is the basis of the book.”
After quoting from Newman, Clarke continues:
“Do you not wonder why there is no reference to support this? I don’t. I know why there is no reference.”
. . .
In fact that is referenced:
‘Johnny, ‘We Hardly Knew Ye: Memories of John Fitzgerald Kennedy’ Pg. 16, by Kenneth P. O’Donnell.
At Kennedy’s request, O’Donnell had invited Senator Mansfield to meet with Kennedy in his office, where he confided to Mansfield; “Kennedy decided to use Taylor’s and Harkin’ reports of battlefield success to justify the beginning of the withdrawal he was planning.”
“After Mansfield left the office, the President said to me, “in 1965 I’ll become one of the most unpopular presidents in history. I’ll be damned everywhere as a Communist appeaser. But I don’t care. If I tried to pull completely now from Vietnam , we would have another Joe McCarthy scare on our hands, but I can do it after I’m elected. So we’d better make damned sure that I am elected.”
Kenneth Patrick “Kenny” O’Donnell was an American political consultant who served as the special assistant and appointments secretary to U.S. President John F. Kennedy from 1961 until President Kennedy’s assassination in November 1963.
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Willy Whitten
February 26, 2016 at 5:29 pm
JD,
Bill Clarke just wrote this to you:
“Newman might have been equipped but he certainly didn’t make good use of it. The lack of scholarship in “JFK and Vietnam” is shocking. Here is an example from Newman’s book,”JFK and Vietnam”” page322. This is the basis of the book.”
After quoting from Newman, Clarke continues:
“Do you not wonder why there is no reference to support this? I don’t. I know why there is no reference.”
. . .
“In fact that is referenced:”
Not in Newman’s book and not by Newman. The fact that you reference O’Donnell makes me roll on the floor laughing.
‘Johnny, ‘We Hardly Knew Ye: Memories of John Fitzgerald Kennedy’ Pg. 16, by Kenneth P. O’Donnell.
At Kennedy’s request, O’Donnell had invited Senator Mansfield to meet with Kennedy in his office, where he confided to Mansfield; “Kennedy decided to use Taylor’s and Harkin’ reports of battlefield success to justify the beginning of the withdrawal he was planning.”
“After Mansfield left the office, the President said to me, “in 1965 I’ll become one of the most unpopular presidents in history. I’ll be damned everywhere as a Communist appeaser. But I don’t care. If I tried to pull completely now from Vietnam , we would have another Joe McCarthy scare on our hands, but I can do it after I’m elected. So we’d better make damned sure that I am elected.”
Kenneth Patrick “Kenny” O’Donnell was an American political consultant who served as the special assistant and appointments secretary to U.S. President John F. Kennedy from 1961 until President Kennedy’s assassination in November 1963.
NOTES for pages 322 & 323 of Newman’s book JFK AND VIETNAM are on, Page 327, # 50 & 51:
“O’Donnell, ‘Johny We Hardly Knew Ya’ pg. 16.
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J.D.,
The question isn’t a complicated historical issue. It involved knowing JFK’s thinking about Vietnam and what he planned to do. Had he already decided to withdraw from Vietnam? Who do you think JFK confided in, if not his brother Robert?
Jean,
If JFK had decided to withdraw from Vietnam, and had confided in his brother, what on earth leads you to believe that RFK would have been willing (or able) to tell the world about that only a few months after JFK’s violent death, at a time when RFK was still a member of the Johnson administration?
And yes, JFK’s Vietnam policy is absolutely a complex historical issue, and it doesn’t have a simple sound bite answer. I find it disturbing that you think otherwise.
Welcome, to the twilight zone. Where Truth becomes reality through Facts.
RFK didn’t “tell the world,” J.D., he was interviewed for an oral history for the Kennedy Library. This interview is still not widely quoted but it’s in the record for future historians:
http://www.jfklibrary.org/Search.aspx?nav=N:4294945924
RFK resigned as Attorney General 9/64. Here’s a brief comment he made in 12/65 about getting out of Vietnam, in response to a Canadian reporter’s question:
The relevance of that remark is not obvious. RFK was still attorney general, and still answering to President Lyndon Johnson, when he gave the interview you cited.
“The relevance of that remark is not obvious. RFK was still attorney general, and still answering to President Lyndon Johnson, when he gave the interview you cited.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_F._Kennedy
According to the link, the interview was originally broadcast in Dec. 1965. RFK had already resigned as Attorney General in Sept. 1964.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_F._Kennedy
Jean,
Both John and Robert Kennedy made public statements specifically to mollify the military. JFK was attempting to keep them sedated by making statements that wouldn’t clue them in on his plans for withdrawal. The military chiefs were deceiving Kennedy, Kennedy decided to play their game against them.
But after NSAM 263 was announced the military caught on, and that document became his death warrant. That is precisely what precipitated the coup in Dallas.
Do you think that Bobby was an idiot? They had just killed his brother and he knew it. He wasn’t about to make any noises in public to arouse their rage.
Of course in 1968 when Bobby won the Democratic primary, the same people that killed his brother killed him.
If you can’t connect these dots Jean, you are being preciously naïve, or spectacularly duplicitous. And yes, I suspect the second is the case.
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Again, Willy can’t control himself.
And Tom let a nasty comment through.
“Do you think that Bobby was an idiot? They had just killed his brother and he knew it. He wasn’t about to make any noises in public to arouse their rage.”
You apparently think RFK was a liar and a coward. I don’t. The oral history interview wasn’t “in public.”
So Robert Kennedy lied about his brother’s Vietnam policy for the historical record preserved by Kennedy Library, according to you?
“So Robert Kennedy lied about his brother’s Vietnam policy for the historical record preserved by Kennedy Library, according to you?”
~Jean Davison
Why don’t you post the relevant passages that you think are so “revealing” Ms Davison? In context if you would.
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“Why don’t you post the relevant passages that you so “revealing”…”
Scroll up to February 25, 2016 at 12:42 pm for the relevant passages. Here’s the link again to more of the text:
http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/vietnam.htm
If you want the full interview I suggest you contact the JFK Library:
http://www.jfklibrary.org/Research/About-Our-Collections/Oral-history-program.aspx
Robert F. Kennedy Oral History Interview – JFK #3, 4/30/1964 :
http://www.jfklibrary.org/Asset-Viewer/Archives/JFKOH-RFK-03.aspx
Jean, I read the snippet that is available on McAdams site of this interview – it is NOTHING NEW! We have been over those remarks by RFK before:
Martin:
And if Vietnamese were about to lose it, would he propose to go in on land if he had to?
Kennedy:
Well, we’d face that when we came to it.
. . . .
Beyond that Martin is merly prodding Kennedy to make supposition, not account what actually happened.
* * * * *
And then there is this; obviously McAdams remarks trying to frame Kennedy’s word to mean what McAdams wants them to mean:
“So would Kennedy have fallen into the Vietnam quagmire just as Johnson did? No one can be sure, and Kennedy supporters can certainly believe that he would have avoided Johnson’s massive committment — even though he had the same advisors as Johnson and the same desire to prevent a Communist takeover.
However, the Oliver Stone version of the Kennedy assassination, as expressed in the movie JFK, holds that Kennedy had already decided to pull out of Vietnam, and was killed for that reason. That’s just not so.”
. . . .
Sure Johnson had essentially the same military advisers that Kennedy had. The difference is that Kennedy wouldn’t accept their insane advice, while Johnson fell for it and ended up in the quagmire Kennedy had avoided.
Jean and McAdams prove nothing by spinning their take on what RFK said in that interview, nothing but their own biases. Biases that we are already firmly aware of.
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Sometime after that Kennedy told O’Donnell again that
“…he had made up his mind that after his reelection he would take the risk of
unpopularity and make a complete withdrawal of American military forces from
Vietnam. He had decided that our military involvement in Vietnam’s civil war
would only grow steadily bigger and more costly without making a dent in the
larger political problem of Communist expansion in Southeast Asia” (p. 13).
Just before he was killed he repeated this commitment:
“‘They keep telling me to send combat units over there,’ the President said to
us one day in October [1963]. ‘That means sending draftees, along with volunteer
regular Army advisers, into Vietnam. I’ll never send draftees over there to
fight’.” (O’Donnell, p. 383).
Kennedy’s public statements and actions were consistent with his private
conversations, though more cautiously expressed in order to appease the military
and right-wing forces that were clamoring for more, not less, involvement in
Vietnam, and with whom he did not want to risk an open confrontation one year
before the election. As early as May 22, 1963, he said at a press conference:
“…we are hopeful that the situation in South Vietnam would permit some
withdrawal in any case by the end of the year, but we can’t possibly make that
judgement at the present time” (Harold W. Chase and Allen H. Lerman, eds.,
Kennedy and the Press: The News Conferences, New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1965,
p. 447).
http://govt.eserver.org/gulf-war/jfk-lbj-and-vietnam.txt
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JFK AND VIETNAM [1.]:
Newman’s argument is stronger: Kennedy, had decided to begin a phased withdrawal from Vietnam, he had ordered this withdrawal to begin. Here is the chronology:
(1) On October 2, 1963, Kennedy received the report of a mission to Saigon by McNamara and Maxwell Taylor, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS). The main recommendations, which appear in Section I(B) of the McNamara-Taylor report, were that a phased withdrawal be completed by the end of 1965 and that the “Defense Department should announce in the very near future presently prepared plans to withdraw 1,000 out of 17,000 U.S. military personnel stationed in Vietnam by the end of 1963.” At Kennedy’s instruction, Press Secretary Pierre Salinger made a public announcement that evening of McNamara’s recommended timetable for withdrawal.
(2) On October 5, Kennedy made his formal decision. Newman quotes the minutes of the meeting that day:
The President also said that our decision to remove 1,000 U.S. advisors by December of this year should not be raised formally with Diem. Instead the action should be carried out routinely as part of our general posture of withdrawing people when they are no longer needed. (Emphasis added.)
The passage illustrates two points: (a) that a decision was in fact made on that day, and (b) that despite the earlier announcement of McNamara’s recommendation, the October 5 decision was not a ruse or pressure tactic to win reforms from Diem but a decision to begin withdrawal irrespective of Diem or his reactions.
[To be continued…]
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JFK AND VIETNAM [1.]:
(3) On October 11, the White House issued NSAM 263, which states:
The President approved the military recommendations contained in section I B (1-3) of the report, but directed that no formal announcement be made of the implementation of plans to withdraw 1,000 U.S. military personnel by the end of 1963.
In other words, the withdrawal recommended by McNamara on October 2 was embraced in secret by Kennedy on October 5 and implemented by his order on October 11, also in secret. Newman argues that the secrecy after October 2 can be explained by a diplomatic reason. Kennedy did not want Diem or anyone else to interpret the withdrawal as part of any pressure tactic (other steps that were pressure tactics had also been approved). There was also a political reason: JFK had not decided whether he could get away with claiming that the withdrawal was a result of progress toward the goal of a self-sufficient South Vietnam.
The alternative would have been to withdraw the troops while acknowledging failure. And this, Newman argues, Kennedy was prepared to do if it became necessary. He saw no reason, however, to take this step before it became necessary. If the troops could be pulled while the South Vietnamese were still standing, so much the better.4 But from October 11 onward the CIA’s reporting changed drastically. Official optimism was replaced by a searching and comparatively realistic pessimism. Newman believes this pessimism, which involved rewriting assessments as far back as the previous July, was a response to NSAM 263. It represented an effort by the CIA to undermine the ostensible rationale of withdrawal with success, and therefore to obstruct implementation of the plan for withdrawal. Kennedy, needless to say, did not share his full reasoning with the CIA.
(4) On November 1 there came the coup in Saigon and the assassination of Diem and Nhu. At a press conference on November 12, Kennedy publicly restated his Vietnam goals. They were “to intensify the struggle” and “to bring Americans out of there.” Victory, which had figured prominently in a similar statement on September 12, was no longer on the list.
(5) The Honolulu Conference of senior cabinet and military officials on November 20–21 was called to review plans in the wake of the Saigon coup. The military and the CIA, however, planned to use that meeting to pull the rug from under the false optimism which some had used to rationalize NSAM 263. However, Kennedy did not himself believe that we were withdrawing with victory. It follows that the changing image of the military situation would not have changed JFK’s decision.
[to be continued]
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JFK AND VIETNAM [1.]:
(6) In Honolulu, McGeorge Bundy prepared a draft of what would eventually be NSAM 273. The plan was to present it to Kennedy after the meeting ended. Dated November 21, this draft reflected the change in military reporting. It speaks, for example, of a need to “turn the tide not only of battle but of belief.” Plans to intensify the struggle, however, do not go beyond what Kennedy would have approved: A paragraph calling for actions against the North underscores the role of Vietnamese forces:
7. With respect to action against North Vietnam, there should be a detailed plan for the development of additional Government of Vietnam resources, especially for sea-going activity, and such planning should indicate the time and investment necessary to achieve a wholly new level of effectiveness in this field of action. (Emphasis added.)
(7) At Honolulu, a preliminary plan, known as CINCPAC OPLAN 34-63 and later implemented as OPLAN 34A, was prepared for presentation. This plan called for intensified sabotage raids against the North, employing Vietnamese commandos under U.S. control—a significant escalation.5 While JCS chief Taylor had approved preparation of this plan, it had not been shown to McNamara. Tab E of the meeting’s briefing book, also approved by Taylor and also not sent in advance to McNamara, showed that the withdrawal ordered by Kennedy in October was already being gutted, by the device of substituting for the withdrawal of full units that of individual soldiers who were being rotated out of Vietnam in any event.
(8) The final version of NSAM 273, signed by Johnson on November 26, differs from the draft in several respects. Most are minor changes of wording. The main change is that the draft paragraph 7 has been struck in its entirety (there are two pencil slashes on the November 21 draft), and replaced with the following:
Planning should include different levels of possible increased activity, and in each instance there be estimates such factors as: A. Resulting damage to North Vietnam; B. The plausibility denial; C. Vietnamese retaliation; D. Other international reaction. Plans submitted promptly for approval by authority.
The new language is incomplete. It does not begin by declaring outright that the subject is attacks on the North. But the thrust is unmistakable, and the restrictive reference to “Government of Vietnam resources” is now missing. Newman concludes that this change effectively provided new authority for U.S.–directed combat actions against North Vietnam. Planning for these actions began therewith, and we now know that an OPLAN 34A raid in August 1964 provoked the North Vietnamese retaliation against the destroyer Maddox, which became the first Gulf of Tonkin incident. And this in turn led to the confused incident a few nights later aboard the Turner Joy, to reports that it too had been attacked, and to Johnson’s overnight decision to seek congressional support for “retaliation” against North Vietnam. From this, of course, the larger war then flowed.
• • •
https://www.bostonreview.net/us/galbraith-exit-strategy-vietnam
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Willy Whitten
February 25, 2016 at 10:55 am
JFK AND VIETNAM [1.]:
“At Honolulu, a preliminary plan, known as CINCPAC OPLAN 34-63 and later implemented as OPLAN 34A was prepared for presentation. This plan called for intensified sabotage raids against the North, employing Vietnamese commandos under U.S. control—a significant escalation.”
You do know that JFK started these raids? “He (JFK) also initiated the program of paramilitary harassment against North Vietnam that eventually, under Johnson, grew into OPLAN 34A”. Ed Moise , private email. Moise calls them a pinprick under both presidents.
Are you and Newman clear that no Americans went north of the DMZ on these operations?
“While JCS chief Taylor had approved preparation of this plan, it had not been shown to McNamara. Tab E of the meeting’s briefing book, also approved by Taylor and also not sent in advance to McNamara, showed that the withdrawal ordered by Kennedy in October was already being gutted, by the device of substituting for the withdrawal of full units that of individual soldiers who were being rotated out of Vietnam in any event.”
More Newman BS and more of his lack of scholarship. JFK and McNamara agreed to bring these 1,000 men home by normal rotation. That means Whitten that as one man goes home a new man shows up in Vietnam to take his place. It seems JFK had some tricks up his sleeve too.
http://tapes.millercenter.virginia.edu/clips/1963_1005_vietnam/index.htm
President Kennedy: Otherwise we ought to just do it by rotation of.. [unclear].
McNamara: Or we can do it just through normal attrition…[unclear: normal rotation]
JFK: Yeah.
McNamara: Normal rotation.
The Convergence of OPlAN 34A and DESOTO patrol activities in the Gulf of Tonkin
“OPlAN 34A was a clandestine program of coastal and air raids conducted against North Vietnam and was but one of several Johnson administration initiatives designed to pressure Hanoi into abandoning its support of the insurgency in the south. It is important to this story because of its attendant SIGINT Support Plan, known as KIT KAT, and the convergence of OPlAN 34A and DESOTO patrol activities in the Gulf of Tonkin in early August of 1964.
Once the president approved OPlAN 34A, CINCPAC directed an increase of 130 SIGINT personnel in South Vietnam to staff the KIT KAT SJGJNT support program. Intercept stations at Saigon, Phu Bai and Danang were augmented with personnel from the Philippines and Hawaii, and Army Colonel Richard Gales, the NSA representative in Saigon, set up a Special Support Group-known as the SSG-to consolidate SIGINT reflections of OPlAN 34A raids. Located in the MACV II compound on Tran Hung Dao street in Cholon, the SSG pulled together all the KIT KAT SIGINT results from the intercept sites and passed them to SOG, the joint MACV-CIA Studies and Observations Group, nerve center for OPlAN 34A operations.
(5 eeO) By the end of July 1964, OPlAN 34A MAROPS (maritime operations) were being launched almost daily from Danang. On July 30, South Vietnamese naval commandos staged a midnight amphibious raid on the North Vietnamese islands of Han Me and Han Nieu in the Gulf of Tonkin. At the time of the assault the USS Maddox was 120 to 130 miles away, heading north into the gulf on DESOTO patrol under sailing orders forbidding her to approach closer than eight nautical miles to the North Vietnamese islands in the gulf.”
https://www.nsa.gov/public_info/_files/gulf_of_tonkin/articles/rel2_gulf_tonkin_incident_desoto.pdf
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Willy Whitten
February 25, 2016 at 12:52 pm
“The Convergence of OPlAN 34A and DESOTO patrol activities in the Gulf of Tonkin”.
McNamara and Rusk then insisted there was no coordination between the DeSoto Patrols and the Op Plan 34A raids, saying they were conducted by different navies and directed by wholly different command structures.
http://www.factbites.com/topics/DESOTO-patrol
These PTFs were manned with South Vietnamese crews and conducted a series of coastal attacks against targets in North Vietnam as part of Operation 34A. Originally begun by the Central Intelligence Agency in 1961, 34A was a highly-classified program of covert operations against North Vietnam. After several early failures, it was transferred to the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam Studies and Observations Group in 1964, at which time its focus shifted to maritime operations.
http://militaryhistory.about.com/od/vietnamwar/p/gulfoftonkin.htm
“The main recommendations, which appear in Section I(B) of the McNamara-Taylor report, were that a phased withdrawal be completed by the end of 1965….”
NO. Again, the Section I(B)recommendation says:
“A program be established to train Vietnamese so that essential functions now performed by U.S. military personnel can be carried out by Vietnamese by the end of 1965. It should be possible to withdraw the bulk of U.S. personnel by that time.”
IT SHOULD BE POSSIBLE to withdraw THE BULK….
This is a reading comprehension test, it seems.
Jean Davison
February 25, 2016 at 1:36 pm
“The main recommendations, which appear in Section I(B) of the McNamara-Taylor report, were that a phased withdrawal be completed by the end of 1965….”
NO. Again, the Section I(B)recommendation says:
“A program be established to train Vietnamese so that essential functions now performed by U.S. military personnel can be carried out by Vietnamese by the end of 1965. It should be possible to withdraw the bulk of U.S. personnel by that time.”
IT SHOULD BE POSSIBLE to withdraw THE BULK….
“This is a reading comprehension test, it seems.”
Oh dear! Looks like Whitten might have to retake the course in reading comprehension! I hope he passes this time.
This thread is pathetic, and a shame on JFKfacts. Why are the intelligent people posting so incapable of avoiding posting merely to cause offence, or rise to slights made by others.
As a less informed and less intelligent individual I relegate the opinions of those demonstrating these traits to the wastebin and assume the facts they purport to present may be managed to suit their agenda.
I am however guilty of slights, as this post demonstrates
Tom, for what it’s worth I have to disagree somewhat. The Facts focus of the site is what attracted me well before you started moderating it. However, perspective is necessary for some of us to understand new facts. New facts also can also lead to further speculation. In some cases I care what other commenters think.
Including, most of the time what you think.
No, I’m not kissing up here, just being Honest.
But we do need perspective, without blinders.
JohnR, and Ronnie,
I don’t have the flexibility to influence the format you seem most comfortable with. I do try to support these descriptions of this site,
and not merely pay lip service to them. I’m not perfect. I am convinced I read (and approve) too many comments lacking evidentiary support. Strong
opinions are easy to present. Unaccompanied by supporting links, are they interesting enough to merit approval?
Tom,
You are well aware that I have a great deal of respect for you, both as a person and as a JFK researcher. I have personally e-mailed you on several occasions and said as much. You are the finest moderator on the net, and your ability to look beyond the “official version” is second to none. You are a breath of fresh air.
You are also like me in that you really don’t care who killed Kennedy. JFK was, at the very heart of the matter, a politician. Depending on what you read from the “experts,” he was also not a great one. That, of course, is a matter of opinion. Who killed JFK? Who cares? I don’t. He was another corrupt politician in a long list of corrupt politicians.
You are also like me in that you really don’t care about LHO’s guilt or non-guilt. Whether he fired three or thirty shots matters not one whit to me. He could have used a cross-bow for all I care.
However, what I DO care about is the state of American “democracy” and the people like Allen Dulles and his ilk, who were never elected to any office, but were able to engage in activities that are NOT sanctioned ANYWHERE in our constitution. And, with all due respect to Bill Clarke, the president of the US is also NOT allowed to assassinate foreign leaders or overthrow foreign governments that won’t play nice with American business. That is UNCONSTITUTIONAL: and ILLEGAL. I don’t care how many different ways Photon and McAdams insist that the CIA and the FBI were “innocent” on these matters, the amount of documentation available today refutes everything and every point they try to make.
Speaking of Photon and McAdams, I would like to discuss the double standard that exists on JFK facts. Everyone knows that McAdams’ site discourages thinking that is not covered in the WR. This site does. However, you say you are only going to print comments that have sources attached. How about starting with Photon? Why is he allowed to use the name Photon? Why is he allowed to say JFK had a carbon fiber neck, with no source to back it up? How can he claim to be a forensic and ballistics expert with no source to back up his claims? After all, isn’t fair to one fair to all?
Note that Stirlen is not discussing issues, but just complaining that people here disagree with him.
It’s what happens all the time on this board. When discussion gets down in the trenches, conspiracists get schooled on the evidence.
So they retreat to ad hominem, or posts like this one bitching about the fact that people disagree with them.
They just get terribly frustrated that not everybody agrees with them.
Steve Stirlen
February 25, 2016 at 11:09 am
“And, with all due respect to Bill Clarke, the president of the US is also NOT allowed to assassinate foreign leaders or overthrow foreign governments that won’t play nice with American business.”
I agree Steve. I apologize for not making this more clear when I made the post. What I was trying to do was point out that the sins of the CIA and others can often be traced back to the president. So I think the blame should go all the way to the president and shouldn’t stop half way up the chain of command.
I certainly don’t think just because the president orders a murder that makes it acceptable. It surely does not.
Tom,
(part 2)
When I joined JFK facts, I went through the charade of posting quotes from various books, and from people like Gunn, Curry, and Blakey. Photon, Jean, and McAdams said these direct quotes were only “:opinions” and therefore not valid. However, someone like Brennan and Gerald Ford and Hoover can express their “opinions” and because they happen to be in the WR, they are to be believed? That is bullshit. Hoover said he “had the basic facts” three days—THREE days—after the assassination. And I am supposed to believe that? The fact that Hoover even had a job could be a comment of the week, if you really want to have a true discussion.
If one dares to venture away from the WR, all McAdams has to do is cry “ad hominem,” and we are supposed to cower and feel sorry for him. Nope, not me. You have provided MULTIPLE sources of people with suspicious ties that SHOULD have been investigated by the WR but were not. McAdams has NO interest in following any lead NOT covered by the WR. Why should he be allowed to say things like “huff and puff” without someone challenging that? Again, fair is fair.
The man who owns this site, Jefferson Morley, has a lawsuit against the CIA for the release of the documents that the CIA has not already destroyed. He has also said on this site that Angleton and Helms and his buddies should have been tried for perjury. Why isn’t more space on this site devoted to his views and his reasoning? Why does McAdams get the chance to scream “ad hominem” about a question concerning the CIA’s role, but Mr. Morley is not given more space to show Mr. McAdams that indeed his beloved CIA is culpable in so many ways?
But Mr. Stirlen,
We DO have the opportunity to confront McAdams, and Photon, and Jean, and the fourth often unnamed side kick of these clowns, Bill Clarke. That is the very thing that makes this whole thing click. That is what makes it fair.
We know that McAdams is autocratic (to put it in the mildest of terms) – we can point out his stupendous hypocrisy and hubris, just as he can act out that part.
All I can say is: Bravo for free speech!
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Yet more ad hominem. Each and every post like this underlines the fact that the buffs here hate to discuss issues, and simply try to drive people away with abuse.
“Each and every post like this underlines the fact that the buffs here hate to discuss issues, and simply try to drive people away with abuse.”
~McAdams
Absolute and total BS “professor”, we discuss the issues deeply here, it is in fact you yourself who fails to discuss issues, you deflection tactic being to continually fling unfounded charges of ad hominem, when in fact my characterization of you and your comrades is spot on.
I asked what you really think of the late president, John Kennedy on this very thread. You refused to answer, and then attempted to turn that refusal around to make it appear that I was not answering you claimed “because it would be a very revealing window into your thinking.”
Which is obviously the reason I inquired as to your opinion of John Kennedy.
If that isn’t you acting out of stupendous hypocrisy and hubris, I would like to know what could be more blatant than you are in such characteristics.
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You just can’t control yourself, can you?
You just pile insults on top of insults, somehow feeling you can win an argument that way.
All I’m trying to point out is the “Be civil” part.
From the what it’s worth department,
The comments here sometimes do get nasty. So what? This is the discussion that SHOULD HAVE HAPPENED in 63 and 64 instead of the bs that we were given by the ass kissing lapdogs that were selected by the single most corrupt American politician in the history of this country. And, that is saying a ton when you consider we have also had Richard “I am not a crook” Nixon and Gerald “Mr. Nixon assures me he is not a crook, honest” Ford.
Steve,
I have a sense that readers, for the most part, visit this site intending to read “JFK facts”. If the atmosphere in discussion
threads features rancor instead of a welcoming and inviting first impression, why would a first time reader ever want to re-visit
JFKfacts.org, let alone ever consider contributing a comment?
People visit wikipedia.org in search of information. Have you noticed that the “talk” page of each wikipedia article is divorced
from the article, itself? – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_John_F._Kennedy and “talk” – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Assassination_of_John_F._Kennedy
I cannot permit each discussion thread to also include the personal boxing ring of a few comments contributors and still maintain an interest in reading and approving comments seven days a week, even if I did not regard my position as being an advocate for JFKfacts.org and all of its readers and commenters.
Familiarity fosters boldness. Commenters become comfortable and self-empowered to declare who does or doesn’t have a privilege to submit
comments or to present a contrary opinion. There are as many judges here, it seems, as there are commenters.
I’d like to devote a week to confining comments to link supported content; require commenters to post a link supporting every point
in their comment. I read every submitted comment. Readers do not view comments that are not approved. I’ve tried to raise the bar
through exhaustive presentation of examples of link supported comments.
The fact still remains that the most frequent commenters to JFKfacts.org rarely post links in support of each point they attempt
to present.
This is not a chat venue. Readers do not care what another commenter “thinks”. They are interested in reading what other commenters
can prove. If you have proof and experience difficulty presenting it in a comment, explain your problem and solicit my help to
present it in your planned comment.
“Readers do not care what another commenter “thinks.” They are interested in reading what other commenters can prove.”
Wrong, Tom. Proof is subjective, individualistic, and elusive. You are delusional if you think merely providing a link without explanation “proves” anything. I need to know why you THINK it’s relevant or important.
If you want focus on something, focus on the insults and tone.
“It is better to die on your feet than to live on your knees!”
~Emiliano Zapata
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I think the criteria for choosing the comment of the week should be just ad rem, not ad hominen.
Sounds like a civil war is going on here in the thread.
This is just a skirmish compared to what Tom had to moderate at Simkin’s watering hole……. right, Mr. Rago?
Let me clarify my message to the forum here, as it seems to have confused our befuddled Mr Clarke:
I refuse to engage Bill Clarke DIRECTLY. That is address his person in any of my commentary. That does NOT mean that I will not dispute the nonsense he insists on posting on the matter of JFK and Vietnam.
If this distinction alarms the soldier boy, I offer him smelling salts and a large grin.
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Willy Whitten
February 23, 2016 at 7:55 pm
“That does NOT mean that I will not dispute the nonsense he insists on posting on the matter of JFK and Vietnam.”
Nonsense? I was telling an old friend about your goofy theory that JFK didn’t escalate in Vietnam but that Max Taylor did it behind JFK’s back. When my friend finally got over his laugh he asked; Gee, didn’t JFK have a TV in the White House? That one go over your head?
If you would like to discuss more of your Vietnam nonsense I can probably clear my schedule.
Please don’t bother Bill. It’s quite redundant.
Yes Ronnie, it would be boring and redundant with the added absurdity of reliance on TV, the Born Sucker Machine.
It’s like saying “gee didn’t Kennedy have his mind control chip implanted in his brain?”
. . . .
“Media psychology draws from multiple disciplines such as sociology, anthropology, neuroscience, political science, rhetorics, computer science, communications, and international relations.
How TV Effects Brainwaves
“Formal Features” are the camera cuts, pans, zooms, etc. used very frequently in TV and movies. Because these “formal features” are so novel, and different from normal everyday reality, they trigger the brain’s “orienting response”. The “orienting response” is an important brain reflex that alerts us when there is a change in the environment. This “orienting response” is an essential survival mechanism because it forces us to pay attention to any (potentially dangerous) changes in the environment. Because of the involuntary nature of the “orienting response”, another name for it is “involuntary attention”.
. . . .
Voodoo Ritual 2
The state is a mythical concept, a jejune concept, one that humanity needs to find the maturity to grow out of. The unquestioning acceptance of this myth, one saturated with internal contradictions, is that which defines the ‘TVZombie’.~Willy Whitten
THE GOLDEN CALF
Television as an Altar
[*] Media and the Pathological Society
In the technocratic society, culture is merely the scum grown in a petri dish.
https://hybridrogue1.wordpress.com/2014/09/10/voodoo-ritual-2/
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Willy Whitten
February 24, 2016 at 4:33 am
“Yes Ronnie, it would be boring and redundant”
Don’t be so harsh on yourself Whitten. Your statement that JFK didn’t know about the escalation in Vietnam was both new and exciting. You should write a book!
After reading about the subject for over 35 years I had never heard such crap before. Way to go on something new Whitten.
“with the added absurdity of reliance on TV”.
I knew that one was going over your head. The statement was meant to show how impossible it would have been for Max Taylor to hide the escalation in Vietnam from JFK. I’ll go slow here; if you read or watched the news even the slowest would realize something was going on in Vietnam. JFK certainly was not the slowest.
Lords of the Press by George Seldes
file:///C:/Users/Willy–PC/Downloads/Lords_Of_The_Press-George_Seldes-1938-411pgs-POL.sml.pdf
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Mr Clarke misframes my argument, I did not claim that Kennedy was unaware of the “escalation” in Vietnam, I have pointed out that there were never any ground troops, but only advisers the whole of the JFK presidency.
I have pointed out that JFK was opposed to escalation to the point of the US fighting the war for the Vietnamese. I have pointed out the NSAM called for the withdrawal of 1000 military personnel by the end of December 1963, and for the unilateral withdrawal of the remainder of US personnel by the end of 1965.
I have pointed out that the military was deceiving Kennedy on the progress of the war. And I pointed out that NSAM 273 was altered by Lodge and Johnson to allow for full introduction of US ground forces; something Kennedy had never contemplated.
So I suggest Mr Clarke avoid arguing against his own straw man arguments, because they are not mine.
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“I have pointed out the NSAM called for the withdrawal of 1000 military personnel by the end of December 1963, and for the unilateral withdrawal of the remainder of US personnel by the end of 1965.”
And it has been pointed out that NSAM 263 does not in fact call for the unilateral withdrawal of the remainder of US personnel by the end of 1965.
Instead it recommends that “A program be established to train Vietnamese so that essential functions now performed by U.S. military personnel can be carried out by Vietnamese by the end of 1965. It should be possible to withdraw the bulk of U.S. personnel by that time.”
http://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1961-63v04/d194
http://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1961-63v04/d167
“It should be possible”… “bulk.”
Even the “1000” was not set in stone. In his 10/31/63 news conference JFK was asked:
“[3.] Q. Mr. President, back to the question of troop reductions,[…]is there any speedup in the withdrawal from Viet-Nam intended?
THE PRESIDENT. Well, as you know, when Secretary McNamara and General Taylor came back, they announced that we would expect to withdraw a thousand men from South Viet-Nam before the end of the year [….]. If we are able to do that, that would be our schedule. I think the first unit or first contingent would be 250 men who are not involved in what might be called front-line operations. It would be our hope to lessen the number of Americans there by 1,000, as the training intensifies and is carried on in South Viet-Nam. As far as other units, we will have to make our judgment based on what the military correlation of forces may be.”
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=9507
My comment in answer to Jean’s post above is this:
There are public remarks in the political language of diplomacy, and there are inside discussions on policy that take place.
The distinction of which clarifies the written orders most accurately is not as mysterious as several of the participants in this conversation seem to think.
As Jean knows, this ground has been trod on many occasions now. I will state for the record; my current remarks as to the situation on Kennedy and Vietnam while the President was alive preempt and amend any other remarks I have made up to this present time.
I stand by this position firmly, as new information has come to my attention to convince me of the propriety of that position.
That position is stated clearly in my current remarks on this subject.
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And as I have repeatedly stated the coup against Diem makes any assumptions made involving American troop levels prior to that event totally irrelevant.
Indeed, “this ground has been trod on many occasions,” Willy. NSAM 263 doesn’t say what you claim it says.
“My comment in answer to Jean’s post above is this:
There are public remarks in the political language of diplomacy, and there are inside discussions on policy that take place.”
You made a claim about what “the NSAM called for,” not some unspecified “inside discussions.”
“The President approved the military recommendations contained in Section I B (1 -3) of the report, but directed that no formal announcement be made of the implementation of plans to withdraw 1,000 U.S. military personnel by the end of 1963.”
–NATIONAL SECURITY ACTION MEMORANDUM NO. 263
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implementation:
im·ple·men·ta·tion
ˌimpləmənˈtāSH(ə)n/
noun
the process of putting a decision or plan into effect; execution, the act of implementing, or putting into effect; fulfillment.
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Willy Whitten February 24, 2016 at 6:32 pm
“I did not claim that Kennedy was unaware of the “escalation” in Vietnam,”
You came as close as you could and again no reference on this “greatest likelihood. Willy Whitten, December 18, 2015 at 8:16 pm. “There is the greatest likelihood that the Joint Chiefs under the lead of Maxwell Taylor were covertly ordering the buildup you are so convinced Kennedy is responsible for.”
Willy Whitten December 21, 2015 at 10:26 am. “Who ordered the build up Mr Clarke? As much bluff and bravado as you have spewed here, anyone paying attention knows that you do not know, that you cannot prove that Kennedy knew of the massive build up until it was a fait accompli.”
To not know would make JFK the dumbest president we have had. I certainly don’t believe he was. Do you? Do you savvy Commander in Chief?
“I have pointed out that there were never any ground troops, but only advisers the whole of the JFK presidency”.
You’ve “pointed out” little. You make statements and expect all of us to buy them. Arrogant. I posted the remarks of Dr. Edwin Moise which differs from your BS. Moise is a noted historian; you are not.
“I have pointed out that JFK was opposed to escalation to the point of the US fighting the war for the Vietnamese.”
Good work Whitten. You finally got one right.
“I have pointed out the NSAM called for the withdrawal of 1000 military personnel by the end of December 1963, and for the unilateral withdrawal of the remainder of US personnel by the end of 1965.”
Allow me to “point out” how conflicted you seem to be about NSAM 263;
Willy Whitten, September 3, 2015 at 11:53 am. “I am not the one that made a false claim about what NSAM 263 had to say.”~Bill Clarke
“Oh yes indeed you are, those of us here who have dug into this controversy know you are the one who is making false claims. Kennedy was pulling 1000 troops by the end of 1963, and all of them by 1965 – yes, come hell or high water.”
To this, Willy; Willy Whitten, November 23, 2015 at 7:01 pm. “No I don’t think ALL personnel would have been withdrawn,”
So which is it Willy?
Jean Davison, February 24, 2016 at 11:42 pm shows you, and not for the first time, your “mistake” about NSAM 263.
“I have pointed out that the military was deceiving Kennedy on the progress of the war.”
It is a bit more complex than that but I’ll give you a C+ on it.
“And I pointed out that NSAM 273 was altered by Lodge and Johnson to allow for full introduction of US ground forces; something Kennedy had never contemplated.”
“The two versions of NSAM 273 differ in no relevant way, apart from the weakening of paragraph 7 in the final version. http://www.chomsky.info/articles/199209–.htm
Bill Clarke quotes me thus:
‘There is the greatest likelihood that the Joint Chiefs under the lead of Maxwell Taylor were covertly ordering the buildup you are so convinced Kennedy is responsible for.’
And by implication, attempts to show that the first statement is incongruent with this statement, also mine:
‘I did not claim that Kennedy was unaware of the “escalation” in Vietnam’
Clarke even comes out and says so plainly:
“Your statement that JFK didn’t know about the escalation in Vietnam was both new and exciting.”~BC
So let me ask anyone reading this if I ever said that JFK didn’t know. I said the joint chiefs were acting covertly. I did NOT say that Kennedy didn’t know about it.
So let us again post the question, who is it that has the reading comprehension problem here? It is either that or blatant rhetorical nonsense. On both Jean and Clerke’s part, as she attempts to defend his BS.
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Continuing my thoughts from above:
I said the joint chiefs were acting covertly. I did NOT say that Kennedy didn’t know about it.
Kennedy knowing about it is not tantamount to Kennedy’s approval, because this covert activity was aimed at fooling Kennedy. And this gets into the issue of what Kennedy decided to do about it – play the game back on the military, knowing their traitorous tactics and leading them into his will by using stealth also.
Some people are so naïve that they seem to think Kennedy was playing patty-cake with these warmongers in the US military. To the contrary this was a war of wills of mortal proportions. It is not hyperbole to say that Kennedy was facing mutiny by his flag officers.
As we all know that mutiny resulted in Kennedy’s death in a military coup d’etat.
\\][//
Willy Whitten February 27, 2016 at 5:23 pm
Bill Clarke quotes me thus:
‘There is the greatest likelihood that the Joint Chiefs under the lead of Maxwell Taylor were covertly ordering the buildup you are so convinced Kennedy is responsible for.’
And by implication, attempts to show that the first statement is incongruent with this statement, also mine:
‘I did not claim that Kennedy was unaware of the “escalation” in Vietnam’
Clarke even comes out and says so plainly:
“Your statement that JFK didn’t know about the escalation in Vietnam was both new and exciting.”~BC
Sorry you missed my biting satire.
“So let me ask anyone reading this if I ever said that JFK didn’t know. I said the joint chiefs were acting covertly. I did NOT say that Kennedy didn’t know about it.”
I understand your need to disassociate yourself from this silly theory you proposed. But your finger prints are all over it. This following statement of yours indicates your wish that JFK didn’t know about the buildup. How silly. Willy Whitten December 21, 2015 at 10:26 am. “Who ordered the build up Mr Clarke? As much bluff and bravado as you have spewed here, anyone paying attention knows that you do not know, that you cannot prove that Kennedy knew of the massive build up until it was a fait accompli.”
I might add, Whitten, that this is simply one more lame attempt of yours to keep Camelot shining. “He didn’t know about it”, “he was making a TOTAL withdrawal when they killed him”. All total BS. Do I need to explain “covertly” to you?
“So let us again post the question, who is it that has the reading comprehension problem here? It is either that or blatant rhetorical nonsense. On both Jean and Clerke’s part, as she attempts to defend his BS.”
I assume you are peeved at Jean for giving you a very bloody nose about NSAM 263. I enjoyed it myself. In all the years of knowing Jean I have never seen her defending “BS”. Mine or anyone else. What she does, Whitten, is post with great knowledge and the most civil tone I’ve seen in these groups. She also makes great use of references, something you could and should learn by.
Jean has defended me against some personal attacks and I greatly appreciate that. I would certainly have her back against personal attacks from people like you.
“All total BS. Do I need to explain “covertly” to you?”~Bill Clarke
Mr Clarke needn’t “explain” anything to me.
I know precisely what “covertly” means and I explained precisely what it meant in the context of my comment: It was a covert action against Kennedy.
Mr Clarke’s attempts to reframe my arguments, are blatant and juvenile. His OPINION that my position is BS, is nothing more than an opinion.
It is a confused opinion based on mainstream conformist information/propaganda. It is reliance on the spin of other propagandist who favor Mr Clarke’s own bias and spin.
Take his disputing Prouty’s account. Everything he puts forth is so, as far as it goes, but it doesn’t disprove that Diem went to the plane BEFORE he went back to the palace and took the tunnel to the point where he was apprehended by his killers.
This is a point that Mr Clarke fails to comprehend. As he fails to comprehend so much on the issues of Vietnam, and Kennedy’s determination to get the US out in his second term.
Relitigating all of these points over and again is, as I said before, futile. Mr Clarke fails to be persuaded because his mind is locked and will not accept new information.
He does however make it a point to fault me for changing my views when I have found new data that demands such adjustment. He frames that as my contradicting myself. And on and on he spins, complaining that I am ‘insulting’ him while insulting me in the process.
I know my point of view “insults” Mr Clarke’s delicate sensibilities. I find that simply too bad. His opinion “insults” me equally.
Ganders geese and a sheep that gets fleeced.
Say “Baahh” Mr Clarke, it becomes you.
\\][//
Willy Whitten
February 27, 2016 at 6:12 pm
As we all know that mutiny resulted in Kennedy’s death in a military coup d’etat.
No, we don’t know that. Neither do you. It is, as you so often do,your opinion without reference. Without evidence. In other words; BS.
Willy Whitten
February 27, 2016 at 9:12 pm
“All total BS. Do I need to explain “covertly” to you?”~Bill Clarke
Mr Clarke needn’t “explain” anything to me.
“I know precisely what “covertly” means and I explained precisely what it meant in the context of my comment: It was a covert action against Kennedy.”
Total BS that you have no support for. Your unsupported opinion which is a poor joke.
“Mr Clarke’s attempts to reframe my arguments, are blatant and juvenile. His OPINION that my position is BS, is nothing more than an opinion.”
As is so much of your fluff. Your opinion which counts not at all with me.
“Take his disputing Prouty’s account. Everything he puts forth is so, as far as it goes, but it doesn’t disprove that Diem went to the plane BEFORE he went back to the palace and took the tunnel to the point where he was apprehended by his killers.”
Can you or Prouty prove the two brothers went to a plane? No, you can’t. And may I ask Whitten, just how you and Prouty think Diem and Nhu drove away from the palace when it was surrounded by troops loyal to the Generals? How did they get back into the palace? A little common sense goes a long way. A pity you have none. And he wasn’t “apprehended”. He called Big Ming and ask for safe passage out of the country. Big Ming said sure and sent a M-113 to pick them up. They were killed in the back of the M-113. Most think Big Ming ordered the assassination when he sent the troops to pick up the two brothers. Probably so I think.
“He does however make it a point to fault me for changing my views when I have found new data that demands such adjustment. He frames that as my contradicting myself. And on and on he spins, complaining that I am ‘insulting’ him while insulting me in the process.”
So what is this “new data”? Did they recently re-wright NSAM 263? I don’t think so!
I said;
As we all know that mutiny resulted in Kennedy’s death in a military coup d’etat.
Bill Clarke replied;
“No, we don’t know that. Neither do you. It is, as you so often do, your opinion without reference. Without evidence. In other words; BS.”
And I now remind Mr Clarke;
“We have now sunk to a depth at which restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men.” ~George Orwell
\\][//
“In addition to Operation Northwoods, under the Operation Mongoose program the U.S. Department of Defense had a number of similar proposals to be taken against the Cuban regime of Fidel Castro.
Twelve of these proposals come from a 2 February 1962 memorandum entitled “Possible Actions to Provoke, Harass or Disrupt Cuba,” written by Brig. Gen. William H. Craig and submitted to Brig. Gen. Edward Lansdale, the commander of the Operation Mongoose project.[12][6]
The memorandum outlines Operation Bingo, a plan to “create an incident which has the appearance of an attack on U.S. facilities (GMO) in Cuba, thus providing an excuse for use of U.S. military might to overthrow the current government of Cuba.”
[…]
Even after General Lemnitzer lost his job as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Joint Chiefs of Staff still planned false-flag pretext operations at least into 1963. A different U.S. Department of Defense policy paper created in 1963 discussed a plan to make it appear that Cuba had attacked a member of the Organization of American States (OAS) so that the United States could retaliate. The U.S. Department of Defense document says of one of the scenarios, “A contrived ‘Cuban’ attack on an OAS member could be set up, and the attacked state could be urged to take measures of self-defense and request assistance from the U.S. and OAS.”
The plan expressed confidence that by this action, “the U.S. could almost certainly obtain the necessary two-thirds support among OAS members for collective action against Cuba.”[13][14]
Included in the nations the Joint Chiefs suggested as targets for covert attacks were Jamaica and Trinidad-Tobago. Since both were members of the British Commonwealth, the Joint Chiefs hoped that by secretly attacking them and then falsely blaming Cuba, the United States could incite the people of the United Kingdom into supporting a war against Castro.[13]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Northwoods
Also see:
http://whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICLES/northwoods.html
\\][//
“The final straw may have come during a White House meeting on February 26, 1962. Concerned that General Lansdale’s various covert action plans under Operation Mongoose were simply becoming more outrageous and going nowhere, Robert Kennedy told him to drop all anti-Castro efforts. Instead, Lansdale was ordered to concentrate for the next three months strictly on gathering intelligence about Cuba. It was a humiliating defeat for Lansdale, a man more accustomed to praise than to scorn.
As the Kennedy brothers appeared to suddenly “go soft” on Castro, Lemnitzer could see his opportunity to invade Cuba quickly slipping away. The attempts to provoke the Cuban public to revolt seemed dead and Castro, unfortunately, appeared to have no inclination to launch any attacks against Americans or their property Lemnitzer and the other Chiefs knew there was only one option left that would ensure their war. They would have to trick the American public and world opinion into hating Cuba so much that they would not only go along, but would insist that he and his generals launch their war against Castro. “World opinion, and the United Nations forum,” said a secret JCS document, “should be favorably affected by developing the international image of the Cuban government as rash and irresponsible, and as an alarming and unpredictable threat to the peace of the Western Hemisphere.”
Operation Northwoods called for a war in which many patriotic Americans and innocent Cubans would die senseless deaths, all to satisfy the egos of twisted generals back in Washington, safe in their taxpayer financed homes and limousines.”
From BODY OF SECRETS, James Bamford, Doubleday, 2001, p.82 and following.
Scanned and edited by NY Transfer News.
http://whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICLES/northwoods.html
\\][//
I do not want to shortchange any commenter. I also do not want to burden readers
of Jfkfacts.org comments. This week’s “Comment of the week” is intended as a
compromise. Some insist on having the last word, but my sense is that the larger
readership seeks more informative reading than struggles to achieve the last word.
We have already discussed in a recent “Comment of the week,” whether there should
be a mechanism here to attempt to prevent “lies” in approved comments….
See- https://jfkfacts.org/assassination/comment-of-the-week-8/
When I saw you had rejected my message this morning I didn’t complain or say a word because clearly it needed rejecting. In my anger at Whitten I wrote a petty and immature reply to something he said in an earlier message. What I wrote didn’t help JFK Facts in the least. I apologize to you personally and to the group itself for doing so.
As for Whitten, he has solemnly swore this oath before. It didn’t mean much because he then jumps right back in it with me about the military. He’ll do the same again.
Of course I don’t write for Whitten’s respect; I study and write in order that a beginner to the subject that comes along will know that there is a different set of “facts” from Whitten’s propaganda and that said beginner does not necessarily have to accept Whitten’s.
Liar is an ugly word and I’m trying to reduce my use of it. I didn’t call Whitten a liar for the fun of it. I even asked him to edit his false statement before I tagged him. Of course his arrogance would not allow this so his false statement remains. Reference on request. I stand firm on what I called Whitten.
Tom, you do an excellent job here and you work harder than any moderator I’ve ever seen. I had much rather depend on your judgement here, on a case by case decision, than I had to create a rigid long list of what can be said and not be said. That usually retards discussion I think.
Of course, Tom approved this:
Maybe it was just a slip-up on his part. I’ve slipped up moderating alt.assassination.jfk too.
Dr. McAdams, you neglected to provide a link or any explanation of context. Ronnie Wayne submitted that comment
in a “Comment of the week” discussion thread.
This is the entire text of that “Comment of the week.”:
https://jfkfacts.org/assassination/comment-of-the-week-8/
This is the last sentence in the first comment in the thread, authored
by me.:
I leave comments unapproved as a last resort. I have attempted to keep comments out of threads in which they will divert
discussion into what amounts to exchanges of insults. This week’s “Comment of the week” is an example of that effort. If
you think it is misguided, I would appreciate reading your views, here in this thread. I know you remember what it was like,
wondering whether or not comments you submitted to this site would ever appear. Recently I did hold one of your comments,
you were attempting to post a link Photon had been requested to provide. Come to think of it, he still has never included
a supporting link in a comment.
“You are just calling people who disagree with you on certain issues liars.
Don’t you know how that harms your credibility?”
Oh Professor McAdams, you never will understand how much inadvertent hilarity you are responsible for! That comment of yours is tantamount to Donald Trump complaining about someone else being responsible for the low level of discourse in this year’s GOP presidential contest.
John, post the link to the full context. I was called a liar in the process. My statement is based on your lying on behalf of the discredited Warren Omission which itself is full of lies. E.G. the Magic, Pristine Bullet created by Arlen Specter and (future president) Gerald Ford. Or the finding that Jack Ruby had no significant ties to organized crime.
You are just calling people who disagree with you on certain issues liars.
Don’t you know how that harms your credibility?
“Don’t you know how that harms your credibility?”
~McAdams
I am rather surprised that McAdams would have the temerity to mention the word “credibility”.
\\][//
“I am rather surprised that McAdams would have the temerity to mention the word “credibility”.”
What do you think these personal attacks and insults do to your credibility, Willy?
“What do you think these personal attacks and insults do to your credibility, Willy?”
~Jean Davison
Frankly Ms. Davison I am not concerned about my credibility in the slightest. Are you afraid for your own? I might understand it if you do.
\\][//
Mr. McAdams,
Calling certain people liars?
Uhhhh, John, they were liars. You know it.
What would you prefer to call them? Truth-stretchers? Maker-uppers? Imaginators?
When someone lies, John, they become liars.
Jean,
With all due respect to you, what does Mr. McAdams show when he says that people “huff and puff” and are “kooks?”
Where is your question to John about his credibility?
I would think with the recent trouble that Mr. McAdams has had at Marquette, you might be a little concerned about his credibility.
Or, is this ANOTHER case of the double standard that exists in this case? You know, Jean Hill was a crazy lady trying to make money, but Howard Brennan was a saint who only concern was justice???
Just calling people liars sends the clear message that you can’t debate the issues. If you could, you would. But you buffs get debunked again and again and again. So you resort to “liar, liar” rhetoric.
Brennan was perfectly honest when he told the Warren Commission that he had seen Oswald on TV before he was taken to the line up.
And he was honest in the following exchange:
You buffs seem to be defined by hatred.
“You buffs seem to be defined by hatred.”
~McAdams
What an extraordinary and scurrilous statement.
And you can sit there behind your keyboard making complaints about the “ad hominem” of your adversaries here!
So tell us true “professor” what is your real opinion of John Kennedy?
\\][//
You need to explain why that matters.
Oh John,
I can debate the evidence and the issues. YOU cannot and will NOT discuss anything outside of the WR. The WR is your bible, and anything outside of it, is, in your mind, off limits. Although to give you credit, you did mention Blakey and the “failures’ of the WR.
Jefferson Morley, who owns this site, has said on many occasions that Helms and Angleton and his buddies should have been convicted of perjury for their role in the JFK assassination. Is Mr. Morley a liar?
Here is something else you won’t discuss: Allen Dulles. So, let me try this ONE more time. Now that YOU and I and America KNOW that Dulles helped overthrow foreign governments and foreign leaders who weren’t friendly to American businesses, should he still be considered credible. Is he a criminal? Is there any difference between Dulles and Hitler?
DON’T give me that crap about how this has nothing to do with JFK’s assassination. You talk all the time about the credibility of Ford and Specter and the lot. What about the credibility of a man who killed millions and millions of innocent men, women and children?
Mr. McAdams,
“Brennan was perfectly honest when he told the Warren Commission that he had seen Oswald on TV before he was taken to the line up.”
But he was the only one who was perfectly honest? What about the scads of witnesses who WANTED to be perfectly honest, but were NEVER called by the WC?
Oh, let’s say James Sibert. Why wasn’t he called?
“You need to explain why that matters.”~McAdams
This is the “professor’s” answer to my question of what he really thinks of John Kennedy.
Do I REALLY need to explain why that matters?
I now wonder more than ever. Why would that be some deep dark secret for Mr McAdams?
\\][//
Yes, because it would be a very revealing window into your thinking.
If he said this, he’s sounding like an unbalanced zealot.
He has no evidence that either had a role in the JFK assassination.
The vast majority of witnesses were honest, although some were mistaken.
A very few withheld information, like Hosty who did not mention the Hosty note.
There were a bit over 400 witnesses in Dealey Plaza, and perhaps 200 who left some paper trail and could be located. The WC could hardly talk to all of them, and it did have their statements to the Sheriff, FBI, etc.
Why should he have been? The WC had his report from the autopsy.
It’s easy to posit, without any evidence, that this or that witness who was not called would have proven conspiracy.
But the “conspiracy witnesses” that were known about in early 1964 were called: Jean Hill, Roger Craig, Sam Holland, Arnold Rowland, etc.
Mr. McAdams,
Your words:
“If he said this, he’s sounding like an unbalanced zealot.
He has no evidence that either had a role in the JFK assassination”
John,
Aren’t you the one is who is always yelling “ad hominem?” Calling a man an unbalanced zealot is meant as a term of affection, correct?
Remind me, John, of the two of you, which one is ACTUALLY doing something about the CIA, i.e. SUING them for the release of all the documents they have not already destroyed? Are you? Why aren’t you?
Or, do you believe ALL of the necessary documents have been released?
Because as you know, LHO was a “crazed and angry loner.” Why would the CIA still hold 1,100 documents if he was a “lone wolf.”
I would welcome a debate on the facts. However, sometimes, you will need to close your copy of the WR to discuss certain parts of the case that, as Mr. Blakey said, the WC failings.
Sibert is on the list that includes Special Agent for the FBI Bardwell ‘Hart’ Odum. Odum was responsible for collecting the earliest physical evidence in the TSBD building; he collected the shells in the sniper’s nest, within an hour he was present at the Texas Theatre when a suspect was arrested, he was known to Ruth and Michael Paine and inspected the room that Lee and Marina had occupied the afternoon of the assassination, that evening he cropped the photograph that had been rushed from Mexico City and took it to Marguerite and Marina to identify. He WAS NOT called to testify. WHY does that not enrage you, John . . . and Jean?
Agent Odum’s wife grew up in Jacksonville, TX, a descendant of Thomas Augustin Cocke, born in Hopkinsville, Kentucky.
http://www.tomatocapital.com/people/cocke-ta.html
Sibert is on the list that includes Special Agent for the FBI Bardwell ‘Hart’ Odum. Odum was responsible for collecting the earliest physical evidence in the TSBD building; he collected the shells in the sniper’s nest, within an hour he was present at the Texas Theatre when a suspect was arrested, he was known to Ruth and Michael Paine and the afternoon of the assassination he inspected the room that Lee and Marina had occupied, that evening at the behest of Agent Hosty he cropped the photograph that had been rushed from Mexico City and took it to Marguerite and Marina to identify. He WAS NOT called to testify. WHY does that not enrage you, John . . . and Jean?
Agent Odum’s wife grew up in Jacksonville, TX, a descendant of Thomas Augustin Cocke, born in Hopkinsville, Kentucky.
http://www.tomatocapital.com/people/cocke-ta.html
I said “sounding like” an unbalanced zealot.
But what evidence is there that either man was “lying” about anything material to the JFK assassination?
I’ve never seen Morley produce any.
You are just looking for an excuse to strike a self-righteous pose.
The Warren Commission could hardly call everybody with any connection to the assassination. They would have had to interview 10,000 people.
So it’s easy for you folks to find this or that person who had some connection with the assassination who did not testify.
Plenty of his reports were in the Warren Commission record.
But you folks feign outrage about this or that person not being called.
Dr. McAdams, why are you unable to confine your responses/critiques to the individual you are addressing,
instead of your constant stream of “you buffs,” “you folks,” etc? It tends to create an impression of your
entire participation here as a diatribe directed at a countless number of people.
Any single commenter engaging you triggers an opportunity for you to wave your rather broad brush at seemingly
everyone you hold in low esteem; leftists, the politically correct, the curious, the suspicious, the skeptics.
Thanks for the link to that page with the opening dialog to SEVEN BEAUTIES; Lina Wertmüller’S masterpiece on human frailty.
I saw the film several times back when it was first released in the US. Would love to see it again!
Just a couple days ago I recommended it to a internet friend…strange coincidence.
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Who is pretending here John? I am outraged at the failure of the Warren Commission to call among others Bardwell Odum, an FBI agent intrinsic to the first 24 hours of the investigation. His version of events from the time the weapon was located and his calling in the description might or might not have clarified discrepancies that plagued the investigation from the outset. Or perhaps you’re comfortable with those discrepancies as they continue to serve the version promoted by “you folks”, your lot who hate the ‘little commie bastard’ so badly you would throw away his posthumous, constitutional rights before you would have any testimony contradict your theories. Remember John, yours is but a theory built on the incompetence of the Warren Commission.
I have an image of you being stopped in your tracks, just as Trump was by Rubio in the last debate – pointing out Trump’s repetitive, robotic, bombastic, banal statements having no substance. I did see today Trump wants to arrest dissenters at his rallies (or punch them in the face), spewing something about ‘political correctness is destroying our nation’. Your guy, John?
http://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2016/02/27/donald-trump-protester-kkk-shirt.cnn
Bzzzzzz!
There is no such thing.
You are just arbitrarily picking out people from the many with some marginal connection to the assassination and claiming that of course this was an absolutely critical witness from whom it was terrible not to take testimony.
It’s just a game you play.
I would think Trump would be your guy, Leslie.
‘Arbitrarily picking out’ the FBI Special Agent involved in critical aspects of the immediate investigation? A witness involved in the chain of custody of the alleged murder weapon? You are playing games.
You’re right, presumption of innocence isn’t in our constitution; so as it seems such a frivolous concept to you, John, we’ll mark your card in the event you are ever accused of a serious crime. Fair enough?
‘The Ius commune was the common law of Europe from the twelfth to the seventeenth centuries. . . . For them the maxim meant “no one, absolutely no one, can be denied a trial under any circumstances.” And that everyone, absolutely everyone, had the right to conduct a vigorous, thorough defense.
http://faculty.cua.edu/pennington/Law508/InnocentGuilty.htm
“Odum was responsible for collecting the earliest physical evidence in the TSBD building; he collected the shells in the sniper’s nest…”
Where did you get that idea, Leslie? Odum didn’t collect the shells or any other physical evidence in the TSBD — the police did.
It isn’t there for dead people.
Why is this so hard for you to understand?
Your “outrage” makes no sense.
Odum’s reports were in the WC record.
You are just looking for an excuse to be “outraged” and huff and puff about the WC.
Sashay(tm)!
Willy won’t explain why it matters what I think of JFK.
Why not? Because if he tried to explain, his explanation would simply reveal his illogic.
Except that Oswald was never “convicted.” A government panel said he killed Kennedy, but that’s not a conviction in a court of law.
Further, in the case you mention it’s not the dead defendant who has rights.
The issue was whether Ken Lay’s family would get to keep his money. It was their rights that were at issue.
In reply to John McAdams.
…a long-held doctrine called abatement, which allows a conviction to be vacated if defendants die before they are able to exercise their right to appeal. Courts typically rule that defendants’ constitutional rights to challenge their convictions outweigh other considerations, and the law hesitates to punish the dead, the analysts said…
Dr. McAdams, your response was your spin, it is what you do.
Tom, you are slow getting this.
The constitutional right was that of Ken Lay to appeal his conviction.
Since he died before he had a chance to appeal, he did not have a chance to exercise his constitutional right.
Thus his conviction was thrown out, and his family got to keep the money.
Dr. McAdams, my perspective is that you are quick to spin it. I’m taking literally what “legal experts said.”
You posted:
Your “spin” shifts to “family,” a word not mentioned in the legal analysts’ explanation. You’ve repeated your opinion twice. Since this is a thread in which everyone does their damnedest to attempt to get the last word in, I won’t reply again. Your turn….
John, The controversy has always been whether the Warren Commission determination was a miscarriage of justice or merely the object of historical controversy. We’re not even having the same conversation but I venture you are more concerned with how the history of the assassination is recorded than you are justice.
Both you and Jean drifted from the debate regarding Jesse Curry and the Howard Brennan affidavit. Jesse Curry’s OPINION – ‘we have Oswald in the window’ – carried quite a lot of weight with the Warren Commission after all. In fact, what was once mere OPINION morphed into the commission’s lead item of EVIDENCE.
(please note item (a) following the opening paragraph of the “Conclusion” of the Warren Report)
‘This Commission was created to ascertain the facts relating to the preceding summary of events and to consider the important questions which they raised…. These conclusions represent the reasoned judgment of all members of the Commission and are presented after an investigation which has satisfied the Commission that it: has ascertained the truth concerning the assassination of President Kennedy to the extent that a prolonged and thorough search makes this possible.
1. The shots which killed President Kennedy and wounded Governor Connally were fired from the sixth floor window at the southeast corner of the Texas School Book Depository. This determination is based upon the following:
(a) Witnesses at the scene of the assassination saw a rifle being fired from the sixth floor window of the Depository Building, and some witnesses saw a rifle in the window immediately after the shots were fired.
https://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/warren-commission-report/chapter-1.html#conclusions
Leslie,
“Jesse Curry’s OPINION – ‘we have Oswald in the window’ – carried quite a lot of weight with the Warren Commission after all.”
Absolutely not. Curry’s opinion carried ZERO weight with the WC. It wasn’t even mentioned in the Warren Report.
“In fact, what was once mere OPINION morphed into the commission’s lead item of EVIDENCE.”
Nonsense, you’re misreading it.
“please note item (a) following the opening paragraph of the “Conclusion” of the Warren Report)[….]
(a) Witnesses at the scene of the assassination saw a rifle being fired from the sixth floor window of the Depository Building, and some witnesses saw a rifle in the window immediately after the shots were fired.
https://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/warren-commission-report/chapter-1.html#conclusions
Good grief, Leslie, Curry wasn’t a witness on the scene who saw a rifle in the window. Those who actually saw a rifle in the SN window were listed — Brennan, Euins, Robert Jackson, and Malcolm Couch:
http://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=946#relPageId=88&tab=page
You can’t even read what you wrote.
The “defendant” was Ken Lay, who died before he could exercise “his right” to appeal.
“Good Grief” Jean, are you deliberately insulting the intelligence of anyone who has followed the trajectory of this particular debate? Please identify where I argue that Curry was a witness.
The debate began with (paraphrasing. let me know if you require specific quotes):
Jesse Curry stated ‘we cannot put that rifle in that man’s hands in that window’
followed by your linking to Jesse Curry’s later statement ‘we now have him in the window’
followed by my questioning whether or not the Brennan affidavit was the primary proof Curry was relying on when he changed his tune
followed by your argument (one that John chimed in support) that what Curry stated publicly was opinion not evidence – avoiding the question of what had prompted Curry to say ‘we’ve got him in the window
followed by my challenging you that based on his “opinion” Curry had called off further pursuit of other suspects including a 30 plus yr old white male weighing between 35-40 lbs more than Lee Oswald
followed by your further, vehement insistence that Curry’s was OPINION and did not impact the investigation
followed by my pointing out that Curry ended the man hunt based on his “opinion” so it impacted the investigation irrevocably
followed by my linking to the first item in the Conclusion of the Warren Commission Report: Item 1. (a) Witnesses at the scene of the assassination saw a rifle being fired from the sixth floor window of the Depository Building
which has prompted this your latest attempt to deflect: ‘Good grief, Leslie, Curry wasn’t a witness on the scene who saw a rifle in the window.’
Curry said ‘we have him in that window’ based on the Howard Brennan affidavit and the Warren Commission took that EVIDENCE (not “opinion”) that had prompted Curry to suspend pursuit of any other suspects and listed it as the first item in their Conclusion of the Warren Commission Report.
Simple enough?
The Brennan testimony is incredulous and would never have held up under skilled defense arguments, yet it is fundamental to the Warren Commission conclusion. You have argued that Brennan’s eyewitness testimony is not central to your personal conclusions, and yet apparently it was essential to the conclusion of the Warren Commission.
That’s a buff factoid.
Here is what the WCR said:
Emphasis added.
Without benefit of documents that might or might not be available via FOIA, the following is highly inconclusive, but I argue it is reasonable to speculate as to the significance: Bardwell Odum’s youngest brother Arthur Milton Odum was a US foreign service officer posted in Maracaibo, Venezuela from Oct. 1962 – Sept. 1963. The precise date of the discovery of the arms cache that captured Kennedy’s keen interest on the even of his trip to Texas is buried but it’s reasonable to speculate that Arthur Odum was in a position to have known about the discovery if not in country, at least on his immediate return to Washington DC with the State Department. News records suggest the discovery was in early November. Do we know ho long either government sat on the story? As author Stephen Rabe has pointed out, the revelation of the discovery was on Kennedy’s desk when he left for Texas. https://books.google.com/books?id=hVhuAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA107&lpg=PA107&dq=stephen+rabe+venezuela+arms&source=bl&ots=beu11_uw1j&sig=JML7griffByikivsBPeLt_–eOQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwin6MGryu7LAhVhsoMKHecQCN0Q6AEIIzAB#v=onepage&q=stephen%20rabe%20venezuela%20arms&f=false
Arthur Odum returned from Venezuela to DC with the Foreign Service and (somewhere wedged into his bio is a post in London) was then posted to Moscow when Llewelyn Thompson returned as ambassador under Johnson in ’67. Thompson had been Kennedy’s US Ambassador to Russia when Marina was granted a visa and allowed to enter the US. Thompson’s WC testimony is packed with tension, including his insistence that Marina’s visa was highly unusual. One of the attorneys for the WC argues that her pregnancy would have been a mitigating factor in the Soviets’ decision to allow her to leave to which Thompson defers – reluctantly imv. http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/russ/testimony/thomps_l.htm
According to a US State Department notice, Bardwell’s brother Arthur Odum was in the Navy from ’56 – ‘58 and graduated from the University of Texas, Austin in 1960 and joined the US Foreign Service.
https://books.google.com/books?id=bz9XAAAAMAAJ
United States. Dept. of State, United States. Foreign Service, United States. International Cooperation Administration – 1971 – Snippet view – More editions
… GS- 14 supvr atty-ad 1/67, asst chief Dom Opers Div, Ppt Off 1/67, GS- 15 2/70. (w— Mary Obert). Odum, Arthur Milton-b Tex 12/13/36, m. U Tex BA 60. US Navy 56-58 overseas. STATE Dept R-8 2/62, O-8 5/62. Maracaibo 10/62, O-7 9/63.
When he left Moscow and the presumably the FSO, Arthur returned to Dallas where former FBI Special Agent Bardwell Odum and his other brother William T. (an architect) were living. The fourth Odum brother was Dr. Harold G., a relatively well-known Presbyterian minister living in San Angelo, Tx who’s obit emphasizes his visit to Moscow (perhaps related to Arthur’s posting?).
(cont)
(re. Arthur Milton Odum, brother of Bardwell Odum, SA FBI at the time of the Kennedy assassination)
(cont.)
The coincidence of Arthur being in Maracaibo compounded by the particular timing he was there (’62-’63 just prior to Dallas) is fascinating given the fact that his brother Bardwell was (at the very least) involved on the periphery of the investigation into gun running related to the Kennedy assassination investigation.
Although Bard was never interviewed by the WC, he does appear in the room during Sylvia Odio’s testimony, states he doesn’t really remember her, and leaves within a minute. Was his presence meant to intimidate her, was the commission wanting to establish he was the person who questioned her initially, or?
Mrs. ODIO. I started working initially the 15th of September, because it was too far away where I lived in Irving. I started the 15th of September, I am almost sure of the 15th or the 9th. Let me see what day was the 9th. It was a Monday. It was the 9th, sir, that I started working at National Chemsearch.
(Special Agent Bardwell O. Odum of the Federal Bureau of Investigation entered the hearing room.)
Mr. LIEBELER. This is Mr. Odum from the FBI. As a matter of fact, Mr. Odum was the man that interviewed you.
Mrs. ODIO. I remember. He looked very familiar.
Mr. ODIO. What is the name?
Mrs. ODIO. Odio.
[note: I argue this is a stenographer’s error. It is “MR. ODUM” stating ‘I interview so many people, not Odio]
Mr. ODIO. I interview so many people, it slips my mind at the moment.
(Agent Odum left the hearing room.)
When Bard’s brother Arthur Odum moved to Dallas after Moscow, he worked for security brokers McKinney & Rose and for R.W. Presspritch (what was his financial training?) – a firm headed by Kenneth Langone (who would become the uber-conservative business mogul who later founded HomeDepot). Presspritch was the firm that took Ross Perot’s EDS to IPO in the mid-‘60’s. Eventually Arthur Odum opened his own brokerage firm with an office at One Main Place, Dallas. (the significance is too deep to get into here). What prompted Arthur to move to Midland, TX is yet to be determined. His wife, Dr. ‘Bitsy’ – an educator (now deceased) was raised in San Angelo, a stone’s throw from Midland and the hometown of Arthur and Bard’s brother Harold G. It could be as simple as that.)
All of this as background that leads to what might be the second most fascinating aspect of Arthur Odum’s career outside his stint in Maracaibo at the height of the Venezuela/Cuba alliances and how it may or may not have bearing on the Kennedy investigation. In the early 2000’s Arthur is listed as director of Solgas Energy – an oil/energy concern that was caught up in a major political scandal in Nigeria in the last decade. Solgas was founded by major Republican donor Tom A. Russell of Tulsa OK,
(Leslie Sharp has been unsuccessful in submitting Part III of her comment and requested that I
present it here, on her behalf.)
“Thomas Russell: A former World War II paratrooper who founded an enormously successful natural gas equipment supply company in Oklahoma, Russell has been a steady, GOP donor who has never dabbled in super PACs. He, too, has given the maximum $334,000 to the GOP’s central command.”
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/06/republican-national-committee-megadonors-2016
In 2002, Solgas negotiated a highly controversial 3.6 Billion dollar contract with the government of Nigeria to manage and develop the country’s steel industry in spite of having no record of experience let alone success in the field. Arthur Milton Odum is a signatory / representative of Solgas Energy on that contract.http://news.biafranigeriaworld.com/archive/ngguardian/2002/jun/03/article20.html
President George W. Bush hosted Nigerian president Obasanjo within months of moving into the White House (May, 2001) and traveled to Abuja, the capitol of Nigeria in July of 2003 in a reciprocal visit with Obasanjo. (nice bookends regardless of coincidence?)
President Obasanjo is rumored to have been close ‘friends’ with the CIA over the decades.
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/1999/03/nig-m17.html
Entwined with the Solgas Energy scandal is Russian entity, TPE; whether or not Arthur Odum had established let alone maintained Russian contacts from the late ‘60’s and was then instrumental in facilitating the introductions for the Nigerian contract is not yet determined: “ . . . chairman of SOLGAS Energy Nigeria Limited, Mr Tom Russel [sic] said at an interactive session with newsmen in Abuja recently that the company would raise about 12 billion dollars as revenue “within 10 years of operation.” He also said SOLGAS would liaise with the Russian company that built Ajaokuta to “achieve a harmonized [sic] technological approach to its operations.”
Side note: another Nigerian drama related to the Bush family was Jeb’s role in a water pump scheme in the West African country that he promoted as “I am the son of the President of the United States” [George HW]
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/06/jeb-bush-david-eller-mwi-bush-el-nigeria
Is it possible that the Odum brothers, Bard and Arthur were not close in 1963, let alone that they never discussed high security issues related to Bard’s experience with the FBI and Arthur’s history with the State Department in a Latin American hot spot? Of course it’s possible. Is there any reason to believe that Arthur Odum’s move to Midland TX had anything to do with the Bush family connections within the oil industry let alone billion dollar contracts in Nigeria while Bush Sr. and Jr. were president? A huge leap, perhaps.”
Long thread. RE: Brennan. Have you ever stood close to where he was, looked up at the window Oswald supposedly shot from and wondered could I identify my spouse or a friend in it? I have. NO.
Anybody watching this board can see that it’s the conspiracists who are always calling people who disagree with them “liar.”
If you find that “hilarious,” shame on you.
‘Brennan was perfectly honest when he told the Warren Commission that he had seen Oswald on TV before he was taken to the line up. . . . And he was honest in the following exchange . . .
You buffs seem to be defined by hatred.’
Anybody watching this board can see that you have side stepped, danced around, shuffled thru a serious discussion of Brennan’s affidavit using diversions instead of addressing the facts. You have yet to comment specifically on Brennan’s affidavit that states he had seen the shooter from the belt up, that he couldn’t say whether there was a scope (which would have been a good 8-10 inches in front of the man’s face) but that he was certain it was the man he had seen ‘from the belt up’, that he had seen the man ‘step back’ and that he could see him lower the rifle to his side …. all when there were boxes of books between this person and the window that would prevent him from standing close to it, not to mention the additional depth of the wall in which the window was set. You have yet to acknowledge you have watched the film of the reenactment to argue that any shooter, crouched to fire the alleged rifle, could have been seen from street level to the degree Brennan swore to in that affidavit. Discuss the facts, John, rather than roll out your juvenile taunts; it is you who undermines this site, perhaps deliberately.
Mr. McAdams,
You also have failed to answer a question I have asked of you at lease a half dozen times.
You KNOW, FOR A FACT, that Dulles overthrew governments, which led directly to the killing of innocent men, women, and children. Yet, this same murderer sat on the very commission that was trying to solve a murder.
How does Dulles have any credibility with you? Or, because he was an American, somehow he is more “important” than a child from Iran?
Again, the difference between Dulles and Hitler is…? One killed in hatred, the other killed for money and power. Can you help me see the difference?
Anytime you would like to discuss the facts—even the ones NOT covered by the WC, I am certainly ready to chat.
You want to substitute hating Dulles for discussing the assassination.
Dulles was not any sort of assassination witness.
Do you want to discuss the assassination, or just have the Two Minutes Hate directed toward Dulles?
Dr. McAdams, do you think it is unreasonable to believe Dulles “served” on the WC as both an advocate of and informant for
the CIA executive team and executive team alumni, including himself?
To his credit, Dulles performed his surveillance – obstruction openly. Gerald Ford advocated on behalf of and secretly informed confidential WC deliberations to DeLoach and Hoover. Can you argue with sincerity that, once Ford delivered the
details of the first WC executive session to DeLoach, Ford was not “owned” by the FBI, as far the rest of his WC “service”?
Predictably, the 2008 release of FBI informant and WC commissioner Ford triggered this attempt at damage control by
your fellow, concerned citizen, volunteer “finger in the dike,” spinmeister, “move along folks, nothing to see here, grab another brewski from the fridge and return to your couches,” “blogger,” Dale Myers.:
http://jfkfiles.blogspot.com/2008/08/gerald-ford-warren-commission-and-media.html
Watching you fretting about the impact of perceived overreaction and reading your blizzard of comments intended to drive home the point that nothing associated with the Warren Commission, from its inception to it members, to their conclusions are at all cause for concern or objection is an experience most who disagree with you do not trouble themselves to do.
I’ve read almost nothing in your comments that I was not already aware of, and coming into this, I had anticipated that I
did have some things to learn from you. You admire and defend integrity of federal authority in place in your youth, at least until the inauguration of JFK, and again in the immediate aftermath of his assassination, but you are generally highly critical of the perfomance or the potential of “government”.
What in the world do you mean by “cause for concern?”
Shenon, who is not some crazy buff, is critical of the WC on many fronts, but he doesn’t believe there was a conspiracy to kill Kennedy.
He doesn’t believe the WC was a “cover-up,” although he thinks that Warren was less assertive than he should have been in (for example) interviewing Duran, questioning Jackie and getting the autopsy photos and x-rays.
Is this cause for “concern?”
I don’t think so. I think it’s just an historical fact.
What does cause for concern mean?
Are you trying to claim you quibbles with the WC are evidence of conspiracy?
IMO, the creation of the Warren Commission and the choices of the commissioners was a sham intended to give the appearance
of an official investigation, not even a criminal investigation. The creation of it took swift advantage of the impressively swift death of the only accused suspect, and the circumstances of the Dallas Police Department, losing the
two most significant individuals present in Dallas from separate gunshot murders, in just under two days time, the second occurring while the victim was chained to a DPD homicide detective and surrounded by numerous Dallas police personnel,
in the basement garage of the police headquarters.
IMO, the creation of the Warren Commission and the choices of the commissioners was the result of several political decisions of the new LBJ administration. The intent of those decisions was to convince the American public, if not the world, that Lee Harvey Oswald was solely and criminally responsible for the Assassination of President Kennedy.
In my comment you are replying to, I linked to the spin of Dale Myers because it strikes me as extremely similar to what
I predictably read from you, aka, “nothing to see here….,” (there is nothing to this, folks, it is easily explained away.)
What you both do is similar to the theme of the current Geico TV commercial. “Mothers always call at the wrong time, if you are a mom, it’s what you do….”
Myers omitted the word, or any reference to “briefcase,” and there is this. (Dr. McAdams, I want to read your assurances DeLoach is describing what Ford disclosed to him by December 17, 1963, as Myers tried to persuade his readers.) :
https://www.google.com/search?tbm=bks&hl=en&q=%22by+cartha+deloach+gerald+ford%2C+our+chief+contact
Hoover’s FBI: …..By Cartha D. Deloach
Dr. McAdams, Shenon, Myers, and Holland exhibit a consistent pattering of attempting to step in between the details of primary sources and the reaction of a reasonable person in consideration of those details. Your comments often remind me of what I’ve seen those names do.
John,
How can we discuss the assassination when all you is respond with the words ad hominem and hatred and huff and puff and buff and kook, whenever someone does not bow at the feet of the WR? You refuse to discuss ANYTHING that cannot be found in the WR.
I have asked you several times about Allen Dulles, and how a man responsible for the murder of millions of innocent men, women and children can serve as a “commissioner” on a murder investigation? You respond by saying I want a “hate-fest.” What the hell does that even mean? You say you want to discuss the case, but one of the key members doing the investigation was a murderer. That is not hate. That is called a FACT. Look up the United Fruit Company. Look up the Shah of Iran. Then, instead of using the words hate and liar, and whatever else you can imagine, we can then discuss how a man that killed for money can decide on a murder case that involved to a great deal the agency he used to HEAD. Can you try that?
How about this. Here is a quote, as Tom S. has now said we need. What do you think of it, John?
“Law: Were you surprised you weren’t called before the Warren Commission?
Sibert: I was at the time, but now I can understand why.
Law: Why do you think you weren’t called?
Sibert: Why? In other words, with that single-bullet theory, if they went in there and asked us to pinpoint where the bullet entered the back and the measurements and all that stuff, how are you going to work it? See, the way they got the single-bullet theory, was by moving that back wound up to tile base of tile neck.”
Here is another one to consider. Be careful, John because this man, not me, calls Arlen Specter, the man who wrote Passion for Truth as Long as it Guarantees me a life in Washington.
O’Neill and Sibert are adamant that the single-bullet theory is wrong. “That’s Arlen Specter’s theory,” O’Neill told me. It’s quite evident from my conversations with them that they have no respect for the one-time assistant counsel to the Warren Commission, now Senator from Pennsylvania. When I questioned Jim Sibert about the single-bullet theory and Arlen Specter, he went as far as to say, “What a liar. I feel he got his orders from above – how far above I don’t know.”
Care to really discuss the case, John?
John,
I believe Tom S. said it better than anyone:
“IMO, the creation of the Warren Commission and the choices of the commissioners was a sham intended to give the appearance
of an official investigation, not even a criminal investigation.”
Yep, John it is an opinion. However, it is an opinion based on a hell of a lot of truth. It was a sham. It was created by a sham, unless, of course you think LBJ was a “moral” leader. It had “commissioners” that had dubious ties ALL over the place, which you are unwilling to discuss.
A sham? Yep, the best one foisted on this country.
Sibert has been reading conspiracy books.
You have no evidence he would have testified that way in 1964.
And we know where the back wound was: at T1.
Steve Stirlen
February 27, 2016 at 11:11 pm
John,
“I have asked you several times about Allen Dulles, and how a man responsible for the murder of millions of innocent men, women and children can serve as a “commissioner” on a murder investigation?”
The U.S. presidents were responsible for this loss of life. Ike for interfering with Guatemala and Iran. JFK for the Bay of Pigs. I fail to see how you blame Dulles for the president’s policy. Dulles simply carried out the policy given to him. Yes, he has blood on his hands but so do the two presidents. Why not give some of the blame to them?
By the way “professor” McAdams,
What is your opinion of JFK?
I want to know because it will be a window into your soul.
So?
\\][//
Bill, trust me, if numerous comments in any discussion are about Vietnam and the thread is actually on another topic, the thread becomes a discussion related to Vietnam. This seems fine, to you.
I represent all readers and commenters and I have a sense most prefer to discuss the topic at hand.
Mr. Clarke, can you please elaborate on your comment….?
Which country are you referring to, and how is it a ‘shot’…?
Ahh…Ok…now I think I understand….I think…