David Talbot talks to Patrick Marks at the Green Arcade bookstore about “The Devil’s Chessboard,” his biography of Allen Dulles: “It’s a counternarrative about power.”
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(Q) “Interesting. We’re well on from that now. It seems to me that in this question of the “deep state” we described informal interactions during a time that is no longer. This now seems to be very dangerously consolidated. A president in another context, who might be quote “reformist” can’t get anything done.”
(A) “Well, John Kennedy had problems of the same kind, and he fired Dulles. And that was a no-no. You don’t fire people like Dulles. Kennedy embarked on a new course. He talked with Khrushchev, he had people, interlocutors, who talked with Castro, and, worst of all, he issued two executive orders, saying that 1,000 U.S troops would be pulled out of Vietnam by the end of 1963 and the bulk of the rest by 1965. He was going to give up Southeast Asia to the Commies, and God knows what would happen next with the dominoes falling and Indonesia, and my God… So he was killed by the “deep state.”
(Q) “Are you familiar with the new book by David Talbot? [Talbot, Salon’s founding editor, published “The Devil’s Chessboard” shortly before this interview.]
(A) “I am, and I am also familiar with an earlier book by James Douglass, which is the most persuasive of all. It’s called “J.F.K and the Unspeakable.” Now this is all necessary background, because when Obama comes in, even though it’s been a lot of years, he faces the same kind of military power—even enlarged—and a security apparatus that has grown like topsy since 9/11. The CIA’s budget has grown three-fold since 9/11.”
From ““Intelligent people know that the empire is on the downhill”: A veteran CIA agent spills the goods on the Deep State and our foreign policy nightmares,” by former CIA employee Ray McGovern, http://www.salon.com/2016/02/07/intelligent_people_know_that_the_empire_is_on_the_downhill_a_veteran_cia_agent_spills_the_goods_on_the_deep_state_and_our_foreign_policy_nightmares/
Per the article, the quotes are about 3/4ths down. It’s interesting to reference the author’s association: He is not the only ‘expert’ wanting the truth to be told.
Per another poster: If a few discrepancies impeaches a theorist or theory, then by the same logic, a Warren Commission True Believer faces a dilemma. It would be foolish to state that there are no discrepancies, at all, in the WC report and given the number of actual unresolved discrepancies in the WC report, the report itself would have to be declared suspect by the WCTB, him or her self (by the same logic used to declare other theories suspect).
Talbot forwards the idea that Dulles might have been culpable by his character, position, and motive. How is this not logical?
The Mudd archives at Princeton prove that Dulles’ adversarial relationship with the Kennedys is nothing but a myth created by individuals with more of a desire to demonize Dulles than to do real research.
It is quite apparent that Talbot was totally ignorant of the Mudd collection and the record of close and cordial communication between Dulles and Robert Kennedy it contains. It is shocking that he could write a book unaware that his central belief that Dulles hated the Kennedys could be disproven by easily obtained records maintained at a prestigious American university. What isn’t shocking is how readily CTers will latch onto any narrative supporting a conspiracy viewpoint without simply asking if that narrative has any verifiable evidence to support it and the willingness to continue to support it even when presented facts that impeach the narrative.
Talbot’s book is full of undocumented claims,unsourced allegations and willful belief in the stories of completely unreliable individuals like the meth addict St. John Hunt. No wonder nobody in the MSM gave it any credence and that sales have dried up.
Oh Photon,
No one has to DEMONIZE Allen Dulles. Mr. Dulles did a fine and complete job of doing that all by himself, as he overthrew governments and made his buddies mega-wealthy at the expense of innocent human life.
To “pretend” that no one has done “serious research” on the destruction done by Mr. Dulles is so hypocritical of you as to be cartoonish…
“Mr. Dulles did a fine and complete job of doing that all by himself, as he overthrew governments and made his buddies mega-wealthy at the expense of innocent human life.”
As have hundreds of other politicos and bureaucrats past and present. That doesn’t mean that he was the architect or a planner in the taking out ofJFK.
Oh Photon,
Let us hear from another “expert” that has worked on the crime of the century:
“I now no longer believe anything the Agency told the committee any further than I can obtain substantial corroboration for it from outside the Agency for its veracity. We now know that the Agency withheld from the Warren Commission the CIA-Mafia plots to kill Castro. Had the commission known of the plots, it would have followed a different path in its investigation. The Agency unilaterally deprived the commission of a chance to obtain the full truth, which will now never be known.
Significantly, the Warren Commission’s conclusion that the agencies of the government co-operated with it is, in retrospect, not the truth.
We also now know that the Agency set up a process that could only have been designed to frustrate the ability of the committee in 1976-79 to obtain any information that might adversely affect the Agency.
Many have told me that the culture of the Agency is one of prevarication and dissimulation and that you cannot trust it or its people. Period. End of story.
I am now in that camp.”
Did you CAREFULLY read what Mr. Blakey said about your beloved WC? That there was NO cooperation during the case.
Remind me, Photon. Is that LYING?
“No wonder nobody in the MSM gave it any credence and that sales have dried up.”~Photon
Hahaha! Yea, no wonder the propaganda machine marginalized Talbot’s book as it doesn’t fit the BS myth propagated by the Public Relations Regime.
Great argument from a true believer in statism, from a propagandist for the illegitimate and unconstitutional syndicate squatting in DC.
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I agree with you Photon in that there isn’t any evidence of an adversarial relationship between Dulles and JFK and RFK. I do think that Dulles and others participated in a cover up. I would count among those others RFK who publicly supported the findings of the Warren Commission. I think that what was being covered up was agency operations including the plots against Castro.
Scapegoating Dulles as one of the masterminds who took out JFK is something that there isn’t any evidence for. I put that in the same category as Lone Nutter stuff. I call it Dulles Nutter.
Dulles was a ‘soldier’ who thought he was helping to protect the world from communism and communist infilitration of third world countries. The guy wasn’t a saint that’s for sure but that doesn’t justify the leaps that some make in fingering him as the devil who got JFK
“The Guy wasn’t a Saint”. He helped insure the gassing of many more Jews by his holding of this information from Roosevelt. I know a Jew, he seems like a pretty good guy.
Maybe Ruby was right about a Jewish Conspiracy. But I’m not endorsing it personally. Just a thought.
Exactly. The “discrepancies” in the Warren Report also aren’t just careless mistakes either. There are many items, such as Oswald’s letter to the Soviet Embassy in DC (to name just one), which are prima facie evidence of a conspiracy.
David Talbot states:
“…That’s the source of the plot, not Castro himself. Its the anti Castro operation being run by the CIA with the mafia’s help. That’s the blowback that killed JFK”
I can understand this point of view when you consider certain facts. The DRE were CIA assets, but this was not known by either the WC or HSCA because the CIA did not tell them. George Joannides, the CIA operative who was the case handler for the DRE, was appointed as CIA liaison to the HSCA but did not inform them of his role in 1963. This was a shocking act of deception and a felony. Whatever George Joannides was trying to hide, he was willing to risk breaking the law.
The CIA lied to and misled official investigations into the assassination and, to me, it all seems to centre around anti-castro operations.
“I have posted several items showing that Talbot is simply fat out wrong on some of the claims that he made in the book.”~Photon
Photon, to be more accurate and honest you have posted several items CLAIMING TO show that Talbot is simply fat out wrong on some of the claims that he made in the book. And those were tepid little matters that require some editing. The “Magic Bullet” gaff is truly a triffling bit of oinkism for you to ululate about.
Other “items” can be due to sentence structure and (again) editing problems.
The main thing Photon, is you haven’t proven that Talbot lied. You may have proved he made some small errors in directions, and a funny mistake about the title of a bullet. Tisk tisk…
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Please give proof that Dulles maintained a residence at the CIA training facility near Williamsburg.
Please give proof that Dulles did not maintain a residence at the CIA training facility near Williamsburg.
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Talbot claimed that Williamsburg is in Northern Virginia. That is certainly a lie.
He lied about Dulles’ travel history on Nov 22. Dulles left National Airport early on Nov. 22 to arrive in Newport News for a 9:00 Brookings briefing at a nearby Williamsburg private venue-which specifically was NOT at the Camp Peary facility-which Dulles NEVER VISITED on Nov. 22. Upon hearing that JFK had been assassinated Dulles left the Tidewater area about 3:00 PM, probably along Rte 301. He returned to his Georgetown home by early evening of Nov. 22-and remained there the rest of the weekend-except for paying his respects on Saturday at the White House.
Talbot’s claims about Dulles spending the weekend at ” the Farm” ( a training facility, NOT a center for intelligence analysis) is an unsupported lie. His claim that Dulles had a private residence at Camp Peary is an unsupported lie. His travel history for Dulles is based on unsubstantiated conjecture from 2010-and a mistaken interpretation of that conjecture. The previously mentioned Mudd collection documents completely impeach Talbot’s claims-and reveal that his research activities do not extend to evaluating genuine historical documents.
Photon,
I try to set an example by painstakingly supporting almost every detail in my comments that is not
solely my opinion or analysis. You’ve included not a single link or exact citation in support of your
claims and presented details. When you do not like the source, instead of describing an inaccuracy as an error, you proclaim it a lie, over and over. Applying your own hyper-judgment on your own claims,
how many lies have you presented in your opinions about the background of David Baldwin or page images from ancestry.com of the 1954 NOLA city directory? You react to the content of my comments as if it was at all similar to the predictably unsupported and sometimes “lie riddled” comments you’ve been submitting. Review your own comment and explain why I or any other reader should accept your claims and your opinion of author Talbot’s intent. Why not present your best, instead of a poorly supported and hypocritical presentation?
What lies in regard to Baldwin? I questioned the sources of the allegation that Baldwin was a covert agent in 1952. While you have posted several references mentioning that he was a covert agent, how much of this came ultimately from Joan Mellen? I note that her 22 Feb 2006 interview with Rex Bradford makes multiple claims for CIA involvement, including a claim that Baldwin’s brother was a CIA asset. This interview also claims that Shaw was actively acting as a CIA agent even up to the time that Garrison began to persecute him. The narrative of Mellen, DiEugenio and other Garrison defenders (as I see it) is that David Baldwin was an active CIA asset who was funneling CIA money to Sheridan and possibly others in a concerted CIA effort to destroy Garrison. The proof is that Baldwin was a covert agent in 1952 – and apparently once a CIA agent,always a CIA agent. What source have you posted that refers to David Baldwin as a covert agent that predates William Martin’s memo to Garrison from May of 1967? None of the newspaper clippings that you posted do. None of the CIA records do- those records seem to have been composed in response to the Garrison investigation. In addition, the narrative seems to be that Shaw and David Baldwin were close personal friends- an ideal way to prove Shaw was active with the CIA. But how close were they? Shaw knew everybody-so what? The problem that I have with all of these associations ( besides that they have absolutely nothing to do with the physical facts of the assassination) is that they seem to be based on assumptions that may actually be factually incorrect. Was the CIA out to destroy Garrison-or was the New Orleans political and social establishment tired of his persecution of a respected local figure and his damage to the reputation of New Orleans?
Photon, this was your reaction after I posted from what reasonable people would consider a primary source. (Not a Mellen or Bradford secondary description.):
Your response was unequivocal.:
http://www.nara.gov/cgi-bin/starfinder.exe/0?path=jfksnew.txt&id=demo&pass=&OK=OK
search terms: David and Baldwin :
The link I presented in my comment excerpted below resolves to a Maryferrell page displaying
images of three index cards and the handwritten date, 11-17-52 – compare NARA search result in image above.
Another lie……(by the severe standard Photon is holding author Talbot, to…):
http://www.nara.gov/cgi-bin/starfinder.exe/0?path=jfksnew.txt&id=demo&pass=&OK=OK
search terms: David and Baldwin :
“The previously mentioned Mudd collection documents completely impeach Talbot’s claims”~Photon
You keep mentioning the Mudd you are mixing into the discussion here Photon, but fail to provide a link to what you are talking about.
And knowing the MO of Dulles who would expect him to admit to the events that Talbot presents in his book?
It is simply established historical fact that Allen Dulles was a jackal that built his entire life on deceit.
Provide direct links to the documents you are referring to Photon or this will be considered another of your ‘weird neck’ ploys.
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“Gentleman Spy, The Life of Allen Dulles”, Peter Grose
‘Allen was flying to his Long Island country home toward noon on Friday, November 22, 1963, after giving an early morning interview in Boston. Arriving in Lloyd Neck for a relaxed weekend, he heard the news that jolted the entire wold to attention, and to grief. Like countless others in a hundred nations, he could say for years to come, “I shall never forget when I first heard the news of the Dallas tragedy.”‘ pg. 540
Leslie,
That is the only source I have found with that description, and it is contradicted by numerous
other accounts placing Dulles in Williamsburg on the morning of that date. Dulles in Boston was
earlier in that same week.
Tom, I suspected that, but I think it’s significant and worth highlighting as indicative of a failure by credible publishers to employ conscientious fact checking and that if David Talbot is going to be tarred for his errors, those errors by authors whose books once skirted close scrutiny by the establishment let alone assassination researchers, should be brought to task. And how do we know if Grose was or was not innocent in positioning Dulles in Long Island?
As of 4:46 this AM I posted proof that Talbot obviously lied. It is there, if you are willing to look.
It is perhaps the most damning evidence that I have ever posted refuting a conspiracy falsehood.
Do these papers of Dulles contain the details about the genocide in Guatemala that ensued after Dulles engineered the coup for United Fruit?Perhaps these notes were redacted for reasons of “National Security”?
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Willy,
This site is JfkFACTS.org. Please assign blame, and credit where it is due. Stand back and let feelings
get in the way of the arguments of the other side. Check your feelings at the door.
“The major factor in the successful outcome was the disaffection of the Guatemalan armed forces and the population as a whole with the tyrannical regime of Arbenz. The air support enjoyed by Castillo Armas, though meager, was important in relative terms; it gave the regular armed forces an excuse to take action in their own hands to throw out Arbenz. The rest of Latin America was not in the least displeased. . . .
By the middle of 1954 Latin America was free, for the time being at least, of any fixed outposts of Communism.”
Anyone who knows the real history of this situation knows this is totally unmitigated propaganda. The aftermath of that coup was massive oppression, and fascist death squads.
This has nothing to do with my “feelings” Tom. It has to do with historical truth, which is hidden under reams of propaganda like the quote above.
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Willy,
Did you read the attribution from which you just quoted? Those are Eisenhower’s words. You dismiss them
as propaganda. I think you misunderstand, sometimes, my vision for Jfkfacts.org comments. I do not see much of value, or that is interesting, coming out of the LN vs. CT discussions.
Accuracy is unpredictable, but it is interesting.
Willy, if you cannot convince me that Dulles was not just a cog in the machine that “tweaked” the status quo in Guatemala in ’54, and with JFK at the helm, attempted to do the same in the BOP “invasion” of ’61, why waste your time preaching your opinions to those clearly on “the other side”?
I’ve observed Chris Mathews minimization, ridicule, scorn at Bernie Sanders on MSNBC over the past year.
It is about the insecurities of private property, Willy. That is what the machine amounts to, the acting out of the machine that exists to soothe the insecurities of private property, draped in a flag festooned with stars and stripes. They will not have this, or they will not have that. Truman made a mistake in not running in ’52. The republicans took control of congress in ’46. Their most important legislative accomplishment was the Taft-Hartley Act.:
Our former soldiers who fought to keep us free came back and voted to screw themselves and their families,
ushering in a long, slow bleed from which Bernie Sanders has emerged. Wealth concentration is historically
reversed in two ways, bullets or ballots. The machine attempts to suck in what it does not already own or control, until it is halted and reversed.
This was penned by a president who waited until he was leaving office to warn the nation of ‘The Military Industrial Complex’. Eisenhower would have been fully aware that United Fruit was under threat in Guatemala. Is UF named in Dulles’ pursuit of Eisenhower’s endorsement?
It certainly is in the seminal highly footnoted (with original sources) work of Gerard Colby and Charlotte Dennett, “Thy Will Be Done,” to wit:
‘SIL [Rockefeller backed Summer Institute of Linguistics) had entered Guatemala in 1952 to provide translations to American Protestant missionary organizations including C.A.M [Central American Mission]
. . . . the new democratically elected government headed by President Jacob Arbenz Guzman. The government’s nationalist program of improved wages and land reform had threatened one of the wellsprings of conversions for the C.A.M.: the United Fruit company, the largest landowner in Guatemala. . . .
After assuming office in 1951, Arbenz had initiated his land-distribution plan against foreign-owned United Fruit. . . . [the Mission group] had marked “Red Russia” as the outside agitator responsible for Guatemala’s unrest. It had four intercessors pray daily that “the door of Guatemala and other Central American Republics . . . remain open in spite of Communist[s] . . . that Satanic opposition in the form of Communism be broken” . .
Cam [Townsend, founder of Rockefeller funded Summer Institute of Linguists] caught the first plane out of Lima [for Guatemala]. He flew back and forth to the country four times in 1953 . . .
The [US embassy in Guatemala] biggest concern was for United Fruit. Arbenz’s chief worry was the smaller coffee growers in the highlands and their allies among other rural landlords, the clergy and the military. The growers dominated most of the best lands, which left the mass of the Indians landless . . . Arbenz was convinced that roads, education, and fairer prices for goods and services would end the backwardness of the highland Indians.
. . . the Arbenz government expropriated 173,000 acres fro United Fruit’s Banassera plantation . . . [bringing the total loss for United Fruit to more than 400,000 acres. … Guatemala’s peasantry had recovered [1/7] of their country’s arable land. . .
While Arbenz acted, friends and associates of Nelson Rockefeller met secretly to bring Arbenz to his knees . . . Adolf Berle drew on the legacy of Nelson’s work at the Chapultepec conference to urge the Eisenhower administration to use the OAS as the auspices through which Arbenz could be overthrown. . . . Nelson’s old friend J. C. King became the first field general in the CIA’s plot to overthrow Arbenz; relying on the military and United Fruit . . .
CIA Director Allen Dulles and Deputy Director Frank Wisner decided that this time King needed troops . . .’
Here we see Berle and King in an almost mirror image when they surface in the late 50’s, discussing the ‘plight’ of Freeport Sulphur in Cuba.
Eisenhower did not shrink from using the assets of United Fruit to justify intervention in Guatemala, but the
underlying message was that if we give them an inch, we fear they will take a mile. IF Sanders continues to do
well, maybe you will see that it has little to specifically do with a United Fruit or a Freeport Sulphur.
Dulles is dead 46 years. Is Talbot criticizing “the enterprise”?
I think you run the risk of making what this is about, less than it is, when you focus on Dulles or the people
with stakes in one or two corporations, or on genocide in Guatemala as a consequence of a successful US intervention. Demonizing Dulles becomes a safety valve that concentrates blame and distracts from where we’ve
come from and where we are. It is systemic.
(Part I)
In fairness to Eisenhower the man, and as evidence that the power of the Executive Branch was being slowly eroded, this is a fascinating read describing the events that provoked Eisenhower’s concerns.
http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2011/01/14/what-caused-ike-to-criticize-the-“military-industrial-complex”/
” Entitled “Deterrence & Survival in the Nuclear Age,” it was known informally as the Gaither Report after its panel chairman, H. Rowan Gaither of the RAND Corporation. The report—classified “top secret”—cited “spectacular progress” in Soviet military development after World War II. The Soviets, the authors claimed, had enough fissionable material for 1500 atomic weapons and had “probably surpassed” the U.S. in the production of nuclear-tipped intercontinental missiles. They proposed a massive military spending program that would not only match the alleged Soviet offensive capabilities, but commit more than $20 billion to a nationwide system of nuclear fallout shelters. . . . The period following the Sputnik-Gaither crisis demonstrates Eisenhower’s military-industrial-complex critique in its early stages. After all, who was behind the faulty intelligence and calls for military buildup in the Gaither Report? The leadership consisted of known and trusted Eisenhower advisers, but there could be no hiding the fact that the billions in increased military spending called for by the panel would benefit many of the very people making the recommendations. . . . From the studies he had conducted for the Army in the ‘30s, Eisenhower was keenly aware of the interdependency between the military and private industry. And while he believed that protecting the American economy and private enterprise was a critical mission for the military, that goal also involved ensuring that the military and the economy had to be restrained from merging into a behemoth that could threaten both. By the time of the Sputnik-Gaither frenzy in1957, it could be argued that just such a situation had come to pass, and Eisenhower glimpsed it in what might seem an unlikely venue—trade journals catering to the aerospace industry . . .
(cont.)
‘But perhaps more mesmerizing than the magazines’ editorial content was their advertising. To flip through these publications in the late 1950s was to peer into an otherwise hidden America, where prosperity and security seemed to orbit solely around a single vast and growing industry. Aviation in 1957 was approximately an $11 billion business, with giants like Boeing, Douglas Aircraft, and General Dynamics bringing in more than $1 billion each in annual revenue (IBM that year had revenues of $734 million and General Motors about $10.8 billion). Nearly all of that revenue came from military contracts, and these magazines were where military contractors hawked their goods.
There were also ads for the raw materials needed to make planes and rockets: titanium, graphite, rubber, stainless steel, aluminum. Layered on top of that were dozens of subindustries that had sprung up after the war, many of which straddled the line between public subsidy and private enterprise: makers of helicopters, circuit breakers, aircraft bolts, aircraft engines, roller bearings, navigation and radar systems, aircraft spark plugs, rockets and much else. A typical full-page ad from January 1957, for example, hawks a product made by the Radio Corporation of America—RCA, at the time, the 25th largest company in America, with nearly 80,000 employees and well over a billion dollars in annual revenue. Most Americans associated it with radios and televisions, but RCA also—as this ad made clear—had a “defense electronic products” division that made guidance systems for Air Force planes. An illustration shows seven white Air Force fighters, each with its system trained on a large, black, unmarked aircraft. The copy promises readers, “Fire control radar tells WHERE TO AIM/WHEN TO FIRE!”
Congressman Gerald Ford tried to reassure him with a variety of explanations: the Air Force had recently revised its cost estimates; the increase was much less than what many in Congress were proposing; other parts of the missiles appropriation had been reduced. But Eisenhower was not persuaded. According to the meeting notes, “The President protested the political pressures that the munitions industry brings to bear on the Congress, and especially the resort to full-page advertisements such as that by Boeing in regard to the BOMARC. He thought it was clear that other elements than the basic defense of the country were entered into the handling of these problems. . . . Thus, a year and a half before the speech that caused so many Americans to wonder about Eisenhower’s motives, he was well down the path of frustration with the influence, and confluence, of military and industrial power.”
(notes: Gerald Ford in service to the MIC. And RCA, parent company of NBC)
Tom S. perhaps you misinterpreted my argument, or better said, the argument made by Colby and Dennett. Dulles was a ‘player’ and I do not and never have advocated he was a ‘lone wolf’ or a crazed demagogue who thought he could authorize the murder a US President in broad daylight and get away with it. As you posit, and as I’ve tried to expose for months and months, Dulles was a ‘cog’. I’m interested in all of the components in the wheel, but I don’t see them as faceless or nameless like some do. These were individuals, and Dulles has served as the “face” of their conspiracy, just as the Bush family have served as a front that draws attention from those in the shadows, just as Clay Shaw and David Ferrie were flamboyant characters perfectly suited as suspects in the first legitimate trial related to the assassination, and just as George deMohrenschildt served as a foil whose international reputation and business dealings made for the perfect headlines when discussing a young ex-Marine defector. Maybe it’s time to erase the blackboard and start a new investigation, separating the wheat from the chaff.
I think it’s unreasonable to argue that the whole apple be eaten on this site related to how this history is effecting the upcoming election unless a dedicated thread or even an entirely separate window at jfkfacts is introduced for that very purpose.
Fletcher Prouty pointed out many times that the key word in CIA was “agency”. As an agency, the CIA were effectively always working for a client.
“As an agency, the CIA were effectively always working for a client.”~jeffc
Yes of course, but WHO was the real “client”?
Was it actually “The President”? Or was it the high financial elite? The oligarchy if you will?
Prouty spoke of the “High Cabal” often. I think he is saying that ultimately they were the real clients of CIA.
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A Note on the Necessity of Historical Memory
“What happened here was the gradual habituation of the people, little by little, to being governed by surprise; to receiving decisions deliberated in secret; to believing that the situation was so complicated that the government had to act on information which the people could not understand, or so dangerous that, even if the people could not understand it, it could not be released because of national security.
Each step was so small, so inconsequential, so well explained or, on occasion, ‘regretted,’ that unless one understood what the whole thing was in principle, what all these ‘little measures’… must someday lead to, one no more saw it developing from day to day than a farmer in his field sees the corn growing…. Each act… is worse than the last, but only a little worse. You wait for the next and the next. You wait for one great shocking occasion, thinking that others, when such a shock comes, will join you in resisting somehow.” – Milton Mayer, They Thought They Were Free, The Germans 1933-45
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WHO was the real client Willy? Today we call them the 1%. They own the Main Stream Media and support virtually all candidates just in case a populist wins somewhere. The CIA, like the MSM only have one client. They are owned.
In Devil’s Chessboard Mr. Talbot refers to “them” in his references to The Power Elite by C. Wright Mills.
http://www.amazon.com/Power-Elite-Galaxy-Books/dp/0195006801/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1455158528&sr=1-3&keywords=The+Power+Elite
The Power Principle
https://youtu.be/2q0Wdk7ek7Q?t=2065
This video details the history of coups throughout the world perpetrated by CIA on behalf of industry.
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Fantastic article. Everyone should watch and discuss.
I need to re-watch and take notes before commenting.
Very Deep.
I have posted several items showing that Talbot is simply fat out wrong on some of the claims that he made in the book. His error concerning the “Magic Bullet” is not the most egregious one, but is the best example of how sloppy his research is and how woefully the book was edited-if at all.
It is popular with conspiracy enthusiasts because it promotes a narrative that many CTers ” know” must be correct, despite a total absence of any evidence implicating the CIA in any aspect of the assassination of JFK aside from possible negligence in not appreciating his potential for violence.Unfortunately, what CTers ” know” to be correct is often clearly erroneous when the facts are brought to light. I personally believe that many CTers are deathly afraid of allowing these facts to be brought up, ergo the blatant censorship of LN viewpoints on many Conspiracy-oriented blogs, eg, the Burnham site where a pro conspiracy comment that I submitted was posted, no questions asked but another comment posting clearly documented facts from a LN position was banned ( thereby avoiding the need to confront facts that contradicted his position.)
David Talbot gives a realistic portrayal of those powerful men who hated JFK with a passion – Dulles, Hover, Harvey, LeMay et al., and creates the real circumstances that allowed them to kill JFK using their most popular political tool – the covert intelligence operation that is designed to shield those actually responsible – plausible deniability.
Unlike many CTs and all LNs like Photon, David Talbot doesn’t know or try to convince you who killed JFK – but sets the accurate situation that allows for JFK to be killed and those responsible to go Scott free.
Photon, like the designated Patsy, uses alias and other attributes of the Cover Operational Personality – COP profile – so he knows what I am talking about and must promote the LN thesis, no matter how untenable because it threatenes his personality and sub culture, but once it is beyond despute that one man alone could not have executed the Dealey Plaza operation his fall back position will be that Castro was behind it – the original cover story built into the operational plan.
And it has yet to be determined exactly where Dulles was in the hours after the assassination, and I understand the “magic bullet” sentence will be corrected in future editions – though the Warren Report’s errors go uncorrected. I think the head shot was the magic bullet as it was fired from a different direction by a first class trained sniper – one shot one kill – and it was the shot that killed him – not the single bullet.
You can read my review of David Talbot’s important book at http://JFKCountercoup.blogspot.com
And more on the CIA plans to kill Castro, one of which was redirected to kill JFK at Dealey Plaza.
Bill Kelly
My path toward understanding has been guided by fiction, not non-fiction.
Too many of the non-fiction books I’ve read about 11/22 have been poorly written and full of unresolved questions. I don’t count Talbot’s book among them. As Kelly says, Talbot’s book helps establish the context, the grounding, for the assassination.
“The Third Bullet,” by Stephen Hunter and the “Natchez Burning” trilogy by Greg Iles present the theory Kelly has mentioned — that the fatal shot was fired not by Oswald but by a second gunman.
Now that I think of it, “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance” presented a similar idea — the man who shot Liberty Valance was not the man who actually did shoot Liberty Valance.
In the relevant scene, John Wayne times his shot — the fatal shot — to coincide with the shot by James Stewart, the shot that the newspaperman says killed Liberty Valance — “When the legend becomes fact print the legend.”
“Valance” was released in 1962. How eerily prescient.
Please refer to the YouTube video titled “CBS News Live Converage of the Assassination of President Kennedy Part 17” .
Oh Photon,
Willy—and a large number of people on this site— have done a fine job of dealing with the NON-EXISTENT chain of custody on the “magic bullet.” As well as the NON-EXISTENT chain of custody in the Tippet bullets.
The difference is…?
I listened to the whole interview with Talbot this morning. I found it informative and interesting. Just the kind of real history that drives spooks like Photon to hysterics.
After all the junk Photon has posted on this site, I don’t see how anyone can take him serious at all.
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After exposing his lies about where Dulles was on Nov 22-23 , 1963 I don’t see how anybody can take his research methods seriously. He didn’t even know which round was the ” Magic Bullet”-and he is supposed to be a serious researcher? Well, maybe in CT circles.
When you can’t argue facts….
BTW, you think JFK has inhuman anatomy. You have no known credentials. Why should anybody care what an anonymous sock puppet thinks?
I read the debates faithfully on this site and I am never surprised at how quickly the Dulles Twins hit squad triangulates and sniper-targets comments driving by in an open car. Not sure if it’s from Depository or grassy knoll.
And it’s Nov. 22 all over again as the Dulles Twins are aided and abetted by the same people they cite. Brilliant but science will catch up with them soon.
Let me say this, the Dulles Twins and some others rely upon a fictional version of the Kennedy Assassination-The Warren Report. It would be like a Civil War Website had critics who rely on Margaret Mitchell’s Gone With The Wind to rebut comments about the Civil War. The Warren report should be re-titled Gone With The Evidence.
David Talbot’s book will bring you peace of mind. I visit this site less often. It’s one of the few Kennedy Assassination narratives that makes sense from all angles.
To misquote Samuel Johnson about Photon’s first shot that missed here: “David Talbot’s book is like a mighty white stallion with a big black fly nipping at him. But in the end the mighty white stallion will always be a white stallion, while the black nipping fly will always be a black fly.” With apologies to Mr. Johnson.
Dr. Marty Feeney
My vote for quote of the week:
“The Warren report should be re-titled Gone With The Evidence.”
Martyfeeney, Alan Dulles and John Foster Dulles were brothers but not twins.
They did spawn an evil stepchild, however: Paul Photon Dulles. He is the school nurse at Langley.
And a Prince of the Roman Catholic Church who was one of the most esteemed theologians of the 20th Century. But no, I am not their stepchild. Just evil.
Photon, I am sure you are not Avery Dulles, John Foster’s son, who was born Presbyterian but converted to Roman Catholic and was named cardinal by John Paul II.
Avery is dead. But, on the bright side, Donald Trump is Presbyterian.
Communion is the only ETOH he consumes.
Never trust a teetotaler.
After the Zapruder film exposed the omission of JFK’s backward head snap during the fatal shot, I don’t see how anyone can take the Warren Report seriously.
BTW, credential-obsessed Photon, how could the WC make all those assertions about Oswald’s psychology with ever once consulting a mental health expert?
Oh Photon,
A LARGE number of people on this site have punched so many holes in your beloved Warren Omission report and yet you expect us to believe that load of crap. What is the difference between Talbot and the Warren Report?
Oh, wait, I know. At least Talbot tried to write a book based on the evidence that was available, instead of taking the “evidence” and making it fit a predetermined narrative…