Regarding yesterday’s post on the 1971 FBI break-in that was kept quiet for decades, Paul F. wrote:
“Look at the New Jersey Bridgegate issue as a parallel. At first it seemed like a small group of top aides to Gov. Christie conspired to create havoc for motorists trying to cross the GW Bridge. Now as the story develops we are seeing a much larger number of people involved, including numerous Port Authority police officers, port authority executives, political allies and aides to the governor. For example, the police were told to tell people to complain to the local mayor’s office. And someone had to authorize the placement of the cones and execute the plan.
“Yet despite all the planning that went into this and the number of people involved on some level, it was chance that it was uncovered. It very easily could have never been uncovered and none of those people had any personal interest in outing the scandal.
“JFK assassination is the same thing. It was in nobody’s interest to talk.”
Or, as John Kirsch wrote:
“This quote by Carl Sagan sums up my feelings about the official story and the hold it continues to have over a significant minority of Americans, and, unfortunately, major media organizations:
‘One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.'”
Because I take pleasure in learning new things, and also because I think showing that you’re willing to admit a mistake is a sign of good character, I don’t think I have much reluctance to admit that I made a mistake. I would be very ashamed of myself if I realized that I was not admitting having been mistaken just out of pride.
My high school library had a set of the Warren Commission volumes that I referenced consistently in 1965. When I examined printed visual evidence the WC/FBI reconstruction of the shooting it became obvious to me that a fast one had been pulled on the public. Missing from the re-enactment photos and bullet trajectories paths were the entire car of government security guards tailgating President Kennedy down the slope of Elm Street by a few feet with no visual evidence to demonstrate a book depository ‘sniper’s nest’ shooter had clearance to hit President Kennedy with said obstacles immediately to his rear. Later in life after visiting the site in Dallas I could vividly see this in person with a taller friend positioned behind me the length of JFK’s car trunk plus 5 feet or so of ‘tailgate’ space between simulated cars (boxes we sat on in the street) as I stood on the headshot X. My friend blocked my entire view of the 6th & part of the 7th floor of the TSBD. If JFK was struck in the head on Elm Street from a TSBD ‘sniper’s nest’ gunner it wasn’t at the headshot street X. There was no clearance available to hit JFK there. Visit the site & try it for yourself; early Sunday mornings are the best for sparse traffic. I guarantee you will feel ‘bamboozled’.
Twenty or so years ago, I was in Dallas on business and took a run, as was my custom, down to Dealey Plaza, where I’d never been. I entered south Houston Street, a warehouse district, and found myself at once facing the TSBD. I ran down Houston and turned left on Elm. What struck me hard was how small the space was on Elm Street; a literal shooting gallery.
If I were going to open an investigation of the assassination, I’d want to pin down who routed the motorcade down Elm.
Forget for the moment the Secret Service let down, which is apparent. Who directed the motorcade, JFK’s limo being #2, down Elm street? When you’re there, in the plaza, short of the triple underpass, near the picket fence, everything closes in.
If the limo slows for a second or two, pre-planned shots are a slam dunk.
I hunted rabbits and pheasants as a kid in the Midwest in the 1950s and early 1960s. To get such a meal in an open field, you’ve got to have good hand-eye coordination. The assassins had good eyes and knew their weapons.
Who do you think routed the motorcade? Lyndon Johnson?
It was the most direct route from downtown Dallas to the Trade Mart.
Ultimately JFK authorized the route.JFK made the decision to leave off the bubble top- not that it was bulletproof anyway.
JFK left the pre planned SS route at least once after arriving at Love Field by wading into the crowd contrary to the original plan. At least once he directed the motorcade to stop to allow people to approach the limo- again,contrary to the SS planned route.
He was careless with security and it finally caught up with him.
This was also apparently a trait shared by his brother Bobby, unfortunately.
Still, JFK’s cavalier attitude toward his own security did not cause the Secret Service to allow open windows in high rises along the motorcade route, something that was clearly contrary to their normal practice. You can see many upper windows open along the motorcade route in extant photos.
Yup, blame the victim. Got to love the lone-nutters.
Have you vetted all the reasons that the other available locations were not chosen for the luncheon, given the logistical impossibility of securing the Trade Mart…?
Another aspect of Dealey Plaza on a sunny day at noon is that there is a lot of light sharply contrasted with the dark area at the top of the knoll and fence area there. Hard light and shadow in a very close space. Shooting gallery is a good description.
If any really serious crime had been committed in Bridgegate (someone had been assassinated, the bridge had been blown up, etc), the mainstream media likely wouldn’t be digging so aggressively for the truth. But this is a “safe” scandal, one that can be blamed on “a few bad apples,” and doesn’t threaten the power structure as a whole.
Exactly.
Perceptive comment.
TLR:
Here’s the issue with Bridgegate: when Christie was riding high, everyone was afraid to challenge him, even the Democrats, who have large majorities in the state legislature. NJ has a very weak press corps because there is no major NJ-based TV news and the newspapers are all struggling to survive.
Christie was ruthless in his use of powers. Cross him and your town doesn’t get state aid, or your brother gets fired from a state. Omission or indicted or so on. While he was seen as a viable presidential candidate, he could laugh off questions, because they would never get followed up.
But when the emails came out showing his aides laughing about the traffic, and he was forced to apologize, his aura crumbled overnight. Democrats in the legislature now are investigating (as they should) and Christie can’t retaliate — not only because people are watching where they weren’t before, but allegations suddenly are more credible in light of a pattern.
Again, the comparison to JFK: unless you have more power than the people doing the cover-up, like the CIA and maybe LBJ, it is hard to not only get attention but to get anybody to believe you. And nobody part of the plot is going to admit they helped kill a president and suffer the consequences. Some people have made admissions late in life, or to close family, but those can be dismissed by skeptics because they came out later or indirectly.
Jeff, I wish I knew you would feature my comment, I would have spent more time editing and fixing the grammar!
That’s all true, but I look at people like Rachel Maddow who are happily examining different “conspiracy theories” as to why and how it happened, and these are the same people who sneer at “conspiracy theories” about JFK and other subjects.
But this is the level of government that people in the media are comfortable with – the partisan puppet show, not the “Deep State.”
Speaking about being bamboozled: A profound, adverse change has taken place in America over roughly the last 60 years, to the applause of many. The change is the shift of power from the states to the federal government.
The change has occurred because of Supreme Court decisions, mainly handed down in the 1960s and 1970s. Mainly. The states, which were to be separate laboratories for social and legal experimentation, were behaving badly. In the areas of criminal procedure and civil rights. Bull Connor in Birmingham, Alabama, singlehandedly made the case in the mid-1960s for transferring power from states to the federal government. At the time, the FBI was pretty much revered; no one suspected J.Edgar Hoover was a larger menace by far than Bull Connor.
Fast forward to 2014. Power is concentrated in Washington, D.C., in a way the Founders wanted to avoid. Huge, secretive, unaccountable national bureaucracies (DHS, NSA, CIA, IRS, etc.) can and do crush individual citizens. In 1960, neither the federal government nor any state had such power over the entire country.
I’m not pining for the good old days but rather lamenting a history that has undermined the political process, bred distrust in government, and created a vicious tendency toward cover-up.