The first reports are coming in on the new RFK files made public last week by the JFK Library. Here’s one from the U.K. Daily Mail Online.
Meanwhile, Gus Russo raises some valid questions about these records at the Secrets of Homicide blog.
If you see other news stories on the new RFK files, please drop me a line.
“Of course, any conclusion about what we are still being denied (or what has been removed permanently) misses the many elephants in the reading room:
How does a private family gain control over classified government records in the first place, files which they aren’t even cleared to look at?
How do federal employee whistleblowers get prosecuted for releasing government files to the public while private citizens are allowed to keep them from the American people for decades with help from the National Archives?”
Who approved the transmittal of these files to the Kennedys, rendering them immune to FOIA requests?
Are there other citizens we should know about who received a similar sweetheart deal? If so, can I get one too?”Gus Russo
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Been reading Mary’s Mosaic. Expected her to be absolutely beautiful. She’s not. Very normal. What first attracted JFK to this woman?
Cindy, Trust me, MPM was way above average in the looks department for her time. Sure, she was no Jackie Kennedy, but then who was or is? To you young people, it’s a matter of style why you can’t distinguish between the beauty of women more than two generations ago. For me, the women who came of age in the 1920s and before all look dowdy and drab, pretty much the same except for the obvious and rare stunner.
Besides, Kennedy was wowed mostly by Mary’s mind and spirit. She was way ahead of her time, and I don’t just mean with the pot and Timothy Leary’s LSD, which was developed by our fine CIA. MPM was sharp as a tack, perceptive as an electron microscope, with the heart of a lion. She called BS on the War Con right away and very publicly. That’s why our fine CIA shot her in the back, through the heart, and in the head while she was jogging by the canal. We don’t want no stinkin brave, decent folk round here!
Seriously, Cord Meyer, JFK and MPM knew each other from their late teen years. Cord and Jack had a visceral hatred for each other almost from the start. Jack got a kick out of Mary; they were kindred spirits, good-humored types, unlike sourpuss Cord Meyer. JFK never looked at MPM with amorous designs until she’d been divorced from old poker-face for several years. Cord’s CIA buddies did him a double solid by offing his ex, the mother of his children, while he was away in NYC with a good alibi. Still, this struck me more than anything else in the book: CM had a total, uncontrollable emotional breakdown at her funeral. He realized what happened. For a moment, he saw what cowardly filth his life and associates were. And he knew he would never, could never, do a damn thing about it. Welcome to America.
Gus Russo asks an extremely important question in his blog article: how does a family get granted classified information contained in former Attorney General RFK’s personal files when the general public would be arrested & prosecuted for possessing the same?
I began to wonder about the disposition of RFK’s Attorney General files after reading ‘Mary’s Mosaic’ & learning James Angleton had broken into Mary Pinchot Meyers house looking for her diary after she was murdered. Did a similar grab occur with RFK’s files? What did RFK do with his Attorney General files, memos, meetings, records, etc. when he left the office of Attorney General; did he take them with him & keep them all or did he destroy them? Who has them now if they still exist?
I expect RFK’s files will be sought after as much as the withheld JFK files because his files will reveal what he was being told about Oswald, Cuban operations, US Intel & criminal activities nationwide from Hoover & the friendly folks at the Intel Agencies as well what was being withheld from him. I’ve always wondered if the Secret Service or FBI informed RFK of the foiled Chicago plot against his brother shortly before JFK was ambushed & killed. The answer to that and countless other historical questions should be in his files.