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The JFK Assassination: Its Impact on America’s History


Joan Mellen

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I've been asked to post the following information/opinion and link by a fellow researcher

who isn't a member of this forum:

DAVE, THIS IS A BIT MUDDLED. IT'S HARD TO BELIEVE THAT A CANADIAN COULD BE HEAD OF ANY FBI DIVISION - SULLIVAN YES, BLOOMFIELD NO.

AND I THOUGHT IT WAS THE OAS - SECRET ARMY ORG AND ALGERIAN COLONIALISTS WHO TRIED TO ASSASSINATE DEGAUL IN 62, NOT PERMINDEX.

ITS MORE THAN JIM GARRISON BEING HOODWINKED HERE.

JUST MY THOUGHTS AFTER GIVING OUR ANONYMOUS CONTRIBUTOR SOME SERIOUS ATTENTION.

I ALSO THINK WE SHOULD GIVE JOAN MELLON'S TALK AND THEME SOME SERIOUS ATTENTION.

BK

Walter Sheridan, Herbert J. Miller, Robert Peloquin, and William Hundley all worked under RFK as part of RFK's "Secret Team" inside the Criminal Division of the Justice Department. After they left the Kennedy Justice Department many of these guys (Sheridan, Peloquin, Hundley) went to work for INTERTEL the private security arm of organized crime chief Meyer Lansky's Resorts International in the Bahamas.

Joan Mellen points out that Walter Sheridan was sent to New Orleans by RFK. On this she is correct. And Garrison did not catch the CIA when he arrested Clay Shaw. What Jim Garrison had caught in Clay Shaw was the shadowy organization of Permindex led by Division Five head "Major Louis Mortimer Bloomfield" of which Clay Shaw was a Director under Bloomfield.

Permindex was also identified by French Intelligence as being the entity behind the 1962 assassination attempts on the life of French President Charles de Gaulle.

Jim Garrison was hood winked into pursuing the CIA by the circles around Lord Bertrand Russell and his British Who Killed Kennedy Committee.Lord Russell's minions were sent to New Orleans in order to get on the inside of Garrison's investigation to wreck it. This would include famed JFK researcher Mark Lane. This grouping around Lord Russell were able to get Jim Garrison off the trail of the real assassins (Permindex) and point him down a dead end leading to the CIA.

Interesting interview from 1998

http://www.dcbar.org/for_lawyers/resources..._law/miller.cfm

When I think of Joan Mellen and her book, in the context of the reaction it recieved, it validates Joan's own assertions that America has been drifting into an Orwellian culture where falsehood's can become facts and historical facts, if they do not jibe with the agenda of the powers that be, become "reckless allegations," if it doesent square with what is being propogated by the erstwhile media, one could almost say that to be "chewed up" by the media can be something of an acknowledgement that what one is saying or advocating [accompanied in a factual context] is perceived as dangerous, at least to the status quo.....

Regarding any book written about the JFK Assassination....Name one book that has ever been written that did not contain an error, or two. But this post is not about the accuracy or inaccuracy of Joan's book inasmuch as it is an attempt to show how a divided, bickering research community hurts everyone associated with it.

I also think Joan deserves a little better than what she has received, talk about "no good deed goes unpunished." Can you imagine the concept of facing hostility from the research community, in light of the fact that AF2J does accept and elaborate the case for conspiracy....Not that that is a criteria for acceptance, I am just trying to make a point.

At any rate, I believe it is an accepted fact that many [thinking] American's believe that when the CIA was the biggest game in town, it had been involved in activities which have been harmful not only to the American people but to America itself. Does it reflect well on America to show that we were supporting the overthrow of leftist governments when oft-times the fascist dictatorships that replaced them resembled the beast from the pit of hell See Augustin Pinochet; it has been some four decades since Bertrand Russell made the statement that "America, seems to have lost her way," yet nothing really has ever changed....The Congressional attempts enacted in the 1970's post-Church Committee to rein in the CIA are seen by some to have been an abyssmal failure; in the period when the Iran Contra Hearings were being conducted, Rep Jack Brooks of Texas was practically the only individual who sought to bring the truth about Iran Contra [re cocaine and Ollie North] to the fore, only to have Sen Daniel Inoyue say "this will be addressed in executive session."

If there was a timeline attempting to define a date in which there was a total break from the past ideal of America as a force for the "common good of democratic ideals," that may have been it.

Being one who supports Joan's work, I would also mention that bashing Jim Garrison is very big among media spin-meisters, who have about as much interest in the truth as an atheist does in going to Sunday School...

Jim made some mistakes, but think about the fact that at the time, the intelligence community was very aware that he posed a potential threat, hence the fact that he had to battle the national media, CIA spooks offering their help, and thanks to having at least one "investigator" on his staff who was only there to screw things up, turned his witness list over to the attorney's for Clay Shaw. Not to mention the Governor's of California/Reagan...Connally/Texas and Rhodes/Ohio refusing to extradite Edgar Eugen Bradley, Sergio Aracha Smith and Gordon Novel respectively.

And regarding the laboriously labored issue of protecting Jim Garrison protecting Carlos Marcello, it has been mentioned that Governor McKeithen had a phone on his desk equipped with a hotline to Marcello himself, if I saw a black-op in Dallas, who would you go after? The intelligence agencies or the Mob....

As a final statement regarding Jim Garrison the following is from The Assassination's Probe Magazine page 364

----- [Michael] "Ewing was one of the people brought into the House Select Committee after Dick Sprague was forced out. Ewing has never complained in public about the failures of that inquest. There is a reason for this: he is a Blakey acolyte. Blakey liked him so much that he gave him a key assignment in 1978: close down the New Orleans investigation. The HSCA had found too much corroborating evidence supporting Jim Garrison's allegations about certain people involved with Oswald in the summer of 1963. One of these witnesses described elements of a conspiracy in New Orleans which included David Ferrie and Clay Shaw. He also said that Shaw knew Ruby. He then passed a polygraph with flying colors."

As Aretha Franklin once sang "Who's Zoomin Who"

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I've been asked to post the following information/opinion and link by a fellow researcher

who isn't a member of this forum:

DAVE, THIS IS A BIT MUDDLED. IT'S HARD TO BELIEVE THAT A CANADIAN COULD BE HEAD OF ANY FBI DIVISION - SULLIVAN YES, BLOOMFIELD NO.

AND I THOUGHT IT WAS THE OAS - SECRET ARMY ORG AND ALGERIAN COLONIALISTS WHO TRIED TO ASSASSINATE DEGAUL IN 62, NOT PERMINDEX.

ITS MORE THAN JIM GARRISON BEING HOODWINKED HERE.

JUST MY THOUGHTS AFTER GIVING OUR ANONYMOUS CONTRIBUTOR SOME SERIOUS ATTENTION.

I ALSO THINK WE SHOULD GIVE JOAN MELLON'S TALK AND THEME SOME SERIOUS ATTENTION.

BK

Walter Sheridan, Herbert J. Miller, Robert Peloquin, and William Hundley all worked under RFK as part of RFK's "Secret Team" inside the Criminal Division of the Justice Department. After they left the Kennedy Justice Department many of these guys (Sheridan, Peloquin, Hundley) went to work for INTERTEL the private security arm of organized crime chief Meyer Lansky's Resorts International in the Bahamas.

Joan Mellen points out that Walter Sheridan was sent to New Orleans by RFK. On this she is correct. And Garrison did not catch the CIA when he arrested Clay Shaw. What Jim Garrison had caught in Clay Shaw was the shadowy organization of Permindex led by Division Five head "Major Louis Mortimer Bloomfield" of which Clay Shaw was a Director under Bloomfield.

Permindex was also identified by French Intelligence as being the entity behind the 1962 assassination attempts on the life of French President Charles de Gaulle.

Jim Garrison was hood winked into pursuing the CIA by the circles around Lord Bertrand Russell and his British Who Killed Kennedy Committee.Lord Russell's minions were sent to New Orleans in order to get on the inside of Garrison's investigation to wreck it. This would include famed JFK researcher Mark Lane. This grouping around Lord Russell were able to get Jim Garrison off the trail of the real assassins (Permindex) and point him down a dead end leading to the CIA.

Interesting interview from 1998

http://www.dcbar.org/for_lawyers/resources..._law/miller.cfm

When I think of Joan Mellen and her book, in the context of the reaction it recieved, it validates Joan's own assertions that America has been drifting into an Orwellian culture where falsehood's can become facts and historical facts, if they do not jibe with the agenda of the powers that be, become "reckless allegations," if it doesent square with what is being propogated by the erstwhile media, one could almost say that to be "chewed up" by the media can be something of an acknowledgement that what one is saying or advocating [accompanied in a factual context] is perceived as dangerous, at least to the status quo.....

Regarding any book written about the JFK Assassination....Name one book that has ever been written that did not contain an error, or two. But this post is not about the accuracy or inaccuracy of Joan's book inasmuch as it is an attempt to show how a divided, bickering research community hurts everyone associated with it.

I also think Joan deserves a little better than what she has received, talk about "no good deed goes unpunished." Can you imagine the concept of facing hostility from the research community, in light of the fact that AF2J does accept and elaborate the case for conspiracy....Not that that is a criteria for acceptance, I am just trying to make a point.

At any rate, I believe it is an accepted fact that many [thinking] American's believe that when the CIA was the biggest game in town, it had been involved in activities which have been harmful not only to the American people but to America itself. Does it reflect well on America to show that we were supporting the overthrow of leftist governments when at least once the fascist dictatorship that replaced Alllende resembled the beast from the pit of hell See Augustin Pinochet; it has been some four decades since Bertrand Russell made the statement that "America, seems to have lost her way," yet nothing really has ever changed....The Congressional attempts enacted in the 1970's post-Church Committee to rein in the CIA are seen by some to have been an abyssmal failure; in the period when the Iran Contra Hearings were being conducted, Rep Jack Brooks of Texas was practically the only individual who sought to bring the truth about Iran Contra [re cocaine and Ollie North] to the fore, only to have Sen Daniel Inoyue say "this will be addressed in executive session."

If there was a timeline attempting to define a date in which there was a total break from the past ideal of America as a force for the "common good of democratic ideals," that may have been it.

Being one who supports Joan's work, I would also mention that bashing Jim Garrison is very big among media spin-meisters, who have about as much interest in the truth as an atheist does in going to Sunday School...

Jim made some mistakes, but think about the fact that at the time, the intelligence community was very aware that he posed a potential threat, hence the fact that he had to battle the national media, CIA spooks offering their help, and thanks to having at least one "investigator" on his staff who was only there to screw things up, turned his witness list over to the attorney's for Clay Shaw. Not to mention the Governor's of California/Reagan...Connally/Texas and Rhodes/Ohio refusing to extradite Edgar Eugen Bradley, Sergio Aracha Smith and Gordon Novel respectively.

And regarding the laboriously labored issue of protecting Jim Garrison protecting Carlos Marcello, it has been mentioned that Governor McKeithen had a phone on his desk equipped with a hotline to Marcello himself, if I saw a black-op in Dallas, who would you go after? The intelligence agencies or the Mob....

As a final statement regarding Jim Garrison the following is from The Assassination's Probe Magazine page 364

----- [Michael] "Ewing was one of the people brought into the House Select Committee after Dick Sprague was forced out. Ewing has never complained in public about the failures of that inquest. There is a reason for this: he is a Blakey acolyte. Blakey liked him so much that he gave him a key assignment in 1978: close down the New Orleans investigation. The HSCA had found too much corroborating evidence supporting Jim Garrison's allegations about certain people involved with Oswald in the summer of 1963. One of these witnesses described elements of a conspiracy in New Orleans which included David Ferrie and Clay Shaw. He also said that Shaw knew Ruby. He then passed a polygraph with flying colors."

As Aretha Franklin once sang "Who's Zoomin Who"

Edited by Robert Howard
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“The past is prologue.”

Joan Mellen’s lecture is not history, but a weapon, one consciously fashioned for the particular needs of the establishment (anti-Bush) moment. It thus offers a blend of the truth and rank disinformation. It begins with a useful, if hardly earth-shaking, discrimination:

The Kennedy assassination is present even in its absence in the recent film, “The Good Shepherd,” a movie about the CIA. Its central character, played by Matt Damon, is based largely on the late head of CIA Counter Intelligence, James Jesus Angleton. The distortions of “The Good Shepherd” return us to the meaning of the Kennedy assassination. James Angleton in real life was the mastermind not, as the film suggests, of the Bay of Pigs (that was Richard Bissell), but of a false defector program that sent spies into the Soviet Union. Among them was one Lee Harvey Oswald.
Fine, but then look what happens….
Highly commended for his diligence, Mr. Otepka displayed to me, proudly, a wall filled with a display of framed commendations, including one signed by Secretary of State John Foster Dulles on behalf of President Eisenhower. (Certainly in these times President Eisenhower seems to be a bona fide liberal, not only for his prescient remark about the military industrial complex, but for another of his observations, that most of America has accepted the idea of the New Deal, but for a few oil millionaires in Texas).

Two classic pieces of nonsense here.

First, Mellen seeks to sell us Otto Otepka as a “liberal,” by the thoroughly convincing business of tenuously linking him to Eisenhower, whose very illiberal Sec of State, Foster Dulles, not Eisenhower, once commended Otepka. Curious, this, as Otepka was long a hero to the anti-Kennedy US Right, who could spot a zealous McCarthyite with rather more accuracy than Mellen. As the tremendously liberal John A. Stormer wrote, in that legendary hymn to liberalism, None Dare Call It Treason (Florissant, Missouri: Liberty Bell Press, 1964), “In November 1963, the several years drive to destroy the last remnants of a security program in the State Department culminated with the firing of Otto F. Otepka, chief of the Division of Evaluations in the Office of Security. Otepka was veteran security employee and dedicated anti-communist. He was fired by the State Department after he furnished the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee evidence to show that high State Department officials had lied under oath about security matters when they testified before the committee” (p.71).

No more reassuring is Mellen’s attribution of an alleged remark by Eisenhower to the effect that “most of America accepted the New Deal, but for a few oil millionaires in Texas.” This is both a very unEisenhower-sounding remark, and duff history. The finance for the planned fascist putsch outlined to Smedley D. Butler was to come from Wall St.; and both the Liberty League and the various fascist militias of the 1930s were pure Yankee corporate aristocracy. In short, what we appear to have here is an invented quote deployed to fashion a new, false paradigm – a rewrite of history, no less - for Mellen’s subsequent claims about the centrality of the Texas oil-CIA nexus in the assassination. I note in passing that this refashioning of history for subsequent purposes bears alarming similarities to the work of retired CIA man William A. Tidwell on the Lincoln assassination.

Otepka saw at once that there was something unusual about Lee Oswald, “tourist.” As he placed this list of defectors into his security safe, Mr. Otepka planned to request that the CIA look into this individual, “Oswald.” A nighttime burglary, obviously an inside job, resulted in this file vanishing. Soon Otto Otepka was demoted to an inconsequential post, writing summaries of documents. Oswald's “defection” was not to be scrutinized. Later I'll explain whom Mr. Otepka believes was responsible for the burglary and the destruction of his career.
Oswald “defected” to Russia in 1959. Otepka wasn’t dismissed until 1963. He must have pushed very hard and very early for that investigation of Oswald. Note the ensuing, and distinctly calculated, vagueness: “This all took place in the early sixties.” Not all, Ms. Mellen, just the “defection.”

Later, that hoary old disinfo line about Cuba rears its head:

The young Warren Commission lawyers could find no motive for Oswald's shooting of President Kennedy, even as they blamed him. You might well ask, what, then, was the CIA's motive? Return to 1963 and the pressure by both the CIA's clandestine service and the Pentagon for a full-scale invasion of Cuba.

Bilge. The CIA installed Fidel Castro, and used the sabotaged Bay of Pigs raid as cover for the attempted overthrow of De Gaulle. It was so committed to the invasion of Cuba post-JFK that it launched how many subsequent attempts? That’s right, none. This is not the only occasion that an absence of proof is held to be irrefutable evidence.

It was a great disappointment to New Orleans district attorney Jim Garrison that Robert Kennedy did not assist him in his investigation. Instead, Robert Kennedy actively attempted to thwart his efforts. He sent Walter Sheridan, his “confidential assistant,” Sheridan's job description, to New Orleans to discredit Garrison. As a historian of Jim Garrison's investigation, I too have pondered why Bobby Kennedy remained aloof, and I have concluded that it could only have been because he did not want his own part in the assassination attempts on the life of Fidel Castro, during which Oswald came to his attention, to emerge.
Mellen first claims that Robert Kennedy sent Walter Sheridan to sabotage Garrison’s investigation; and then tells us he remained “aloof” from it. Well, which was it? Committed to its destruction or entirely disengaged? And how does an absence of proof – Mellen cites none – mysteriously metamorphose into hard and fast proof of RFK’s position? Furthermore, why the need to sabotage an investigation launched by a self-declared disciple of Ayn Rand, funded by oil-men not unfamiliar to the CIA, and assisted by such a fearless truth-seeker as Dick Billings?

The above paragraph of Mellen’s is the inevitable prelude to a hoary old piece of CIA-serving propaganda:

I located a document from the CIA's own Secret History, in which the CIA's History Staff is interviewing a CIA officer named Sam Halpern. Halpern reveals his own incredulity that Bobby Kennedy should be working with the Mafia in attempts on the life of Castro at the very same time that he was trying to send other Mafia figures to jail. A CIA operative named Charley Ford, alias Charley Fiscalini, was assigned by Bobby Kennedy to make contact with Mafia types in this country and Canada for the purpose of murdering Castro.

To all this, Charley Ford testified under oath before the Church Committee. That Bobby Kennedy repeatedly attempted to enlist anti-Castro Cubans for these assassination attempts against Castro I learned first-hand from Isidro Borja, of the DRE. “I know Bobby Kennedy was behind it,” he told me indignantly, “because his people approached ME!” Borja told me Bobby's people did succeed in recruiting his good friend Rafael Quintero Ibaria, also known as “Chi Chi.”

Let me reveal my own incredulity that Mellen should place any reliance on “the CIA’s own Secret History,” Sam Halpern, and a source like Charley Fiscalini. This is no more or less fantastic than Noam Chomsky seeking to persuade us of JFK’s love for the CIA based on one book – a hasty post-coup reissue at that - by Stewart Alsop and Thomas Braden.

Peter Lemkin seems to wish us to give a free pass to guff like Mellen’s. That’s his preference. It isn’t mine, and I urge others to resist as well.

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No more reassuring is Mellen’s attribution of an alleged remark by Eisenhower to the effect that “most of America accepted the New Deal, but for a few oil millionaires in Texas.” This is both a very unEisenhower-sounding remark, and duff history. The finance for the planned fascist putsch outlined to Smedley D. Butler was to come from Wall St.; and both the Liberty League and the various fascist militias of the 1930s were pure Yankee corporate aristocracy. In short, what we appear to have here is an invented quote deployed to fashion a new, false paradigm – a rewrite of history, no less - for Mellen’s subsequent claims about the centrality of the Texas oil-CIA nexus in the assassination. I note in passing that this refashioning of history for subsequent purposes bears alarming similarities to the work of retired CIA man William A. Tidwell on the Lincoln assassination.
PR

Paul,

There was no "refashioning of history" in Joan's comments on Eisenhower's view of the New Deal.

That view was expressed in a letter to his brother Edgar dated Nov 8, 1954. The relevant portion of that letter follows:

Now it is true that I believe this country is following a dangerous trend when it permits too great a degree of centralization of governmental functions. I oppose this--in some instances the fight is a rather desperate one. But to attain any success it is quite clear that the Federal government cannot avoid or escape responsibilities which the mass of the people firmly believe should be undertaken by it. The political processes of our country are such that if a rule of reason is not applied in this effort, we will lose everything--even to a possible and drastic change in the Constitution. This is what I mean by my constant insistence upon "moderation" in government. Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes you can do these things. Among them are H. L. Hunt (you possibly know his background), a few other Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or business man from other areas.5 Their number is negligible and they are stupid.

Whatever its perceived failings, the only agenda behind the book was to present a balanced view of Garrison and his inquiry into the assassination. In that, she did a commendable job. In trying to surpass that by extending that original inquiry, she managed to find new information - the import of which is yet to be tested. That may yet happen in a proper legal setting.

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I've been asked to post the following information/opinion and link by a fellow researcher

who isn't a member of this forum:

...

Translation, someone who has no credibility and/or no nerve wants to spread some story but deny forum members the opportunity to debate the details.

What they lack in nerve they make up for in agenda.

Myra,

thanks for your translation.

:lol:

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I've been asked to post the following information/opinion and link by a fellow researcher

who isn't a member of this forum:

DAVE, THIS IS A BIT MUDDLED. IT'S HARD TO BELIEVE THAT A CANADIAN COULD BE HEAD OF ANY FBI DIVISION - SULLIVAN YES, BLOOMFIELD NO.

AND I THOUGHT IT WAS THE OAS - SECRET ARMY ORG AND ALGERIAN COLONIALISTS WHO TRIED TO ASSASSINATE DEGAUL IN 62, NOT PERMINDEX.

ITS MORE THAN JIM GARRISON BEING HOODWINKED HERE.

JUST MY THOUGHTS AFTER GIVING OUR ANONYMOUS CONTRIBUTOR SOME SERIOUS ATTENTION.

I ALSO THINK WE SHOULD GIVE JOAN MELLON'S TALK AND THEME SOME SERIOUS ATTENTION.

BK

Walter Sheridan, Herbert J. Miller, Robert Peloquin, and William Hundley all worked under RFK as part of RFK's "Secret Team" inside the Criminal Division of the Justice Department. After they left the Kennedy Justice Department many of these guys (Sheridan, Peloquin, Hundley) went to work for INTERTEL the private security arm of organized crime chief Meyer Lansky's Resorts International in the Bahamas.

Joan Mellen points out that Walter Sheridan was sent to New Orleans by RFK. On this she is correct. And Garrison did not catch the CIA when he arrested Clay Shaw. What Jim Garrison had caught in Clay Shaw was the shadowy organization of Permindex led by Division Five head "Major Louis Mortimer Bloomfield" of which Clay Shaw was a Director under Bloomfield.

Permindex was also identified by French Intelligence as being the entity behind the 1962 assassination attempts on the life of French President Charles de Gaulle.

Jim Garrison was hood winked into pursuing the CIA by the circles around Lord Bertrand Russell and his British Who Killed Kennedy Committee.Lord Russell's minions were sent to New Orleans in order to get on the inside of Garrison's investigation to wreck it. This would include famed JFK researcher Mark Lane. This grouping around Lord Russell were able to get Jim Garrison off the trail of the real assassins (Permindex) and point him down a dead end leading to the CIA.

Interesting interview from 1998

http://www.dcbar.org/for_lawyers/resources..._law/miller.cfm

Hi Bill,

regardles of Myras translation, I continue to forward the information from the mysterious one.

I'll be happy to share his e-mail address if someone wants to discuss matters outside of this

platform directly.

The information I forward, I trust to be factual, but lack time,resources and knowledge to check them

myself.

From reading through them though, I think it is worth posting.

It is just a matter of me trying to be helpfull, and I don't care if some don't like/understand that.

So here it goes:

Louis Mortimer Bloomfield was recruited into William Stephenson’s “Special Operations Executive (SOE) in 1938. That same year Stephenson acting as an emissary of Churchill negotiated an agreement with FDR allowing British Intelligence to set up shop in the United States and effectively merge it’s operation with those of the FBI and military intelligence. Under SOE commission Bloomfield was given an officers rank in the US Army and assigned to the newly created OSS, the wartime predecessor of the CIA.

As a major in the OSS, Bloomfield was detailed into the Federal Bureau of Investigation as the contracting (recruitment) agent for it counterespionage Division Five. Bloomfield developed a strong relationship with J. Edgar Hoover and through that relationship Bloomfield was able to retain his powerful position in Division Five long after the war had ended. As late as 1963 when Bloomfield was case offering the assassination plot against John F. Kennedy he was still a top official in Division Five.

Walter Sheridan was also a top official in Division Five. Sheridan would later co ordinate political protection and intelligence services for Resorts International –Lansky casino empire.

##- read the series of articles appearing in Paese Sera on March 4, 12. 14 1967 for editorial references to Permindex’s role in the assassination attempts against de Gaulle in 1962.

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I won't dignify the insults which are so damaging and unnecessary and demeaning to John Simkin's often interesting forum. Let me just correct one obvious and seemingly deliberate error. Nowhere do I say that Otto Otepka was a "liberal." The reverse is true, and all the more telling because Mr. Otepka, shocked by what happened to him, was a conservative of the old school. I would suggest that other researchers interview him for themselves. Thank you Greg for clarifying for these people the statement by President Eisenhower. The mean-spiritedness of people denying that something is true while being entirely ignorant of whether it is or not boggles the mind. Sam Halpern had no reason to lie about Robert F. Kennedy's contradictory policies, either. Please read his interview which is available at the National Archives.

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I won't dignify the insults which are so damaging and unnecessary and demeaning to John Simkin's often interesting forum.....

Joan. the same person has described Harold Weisberg as a witting tool of the CIA, and implied the same about Josiah Thompson, while mischaracterizing their work. So, in a sense you are in good company.

Thanks for your participation here.

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Paul,

There was no "refashioning of history" in Joan's comments on Eisenhower's view of the New Deal.

That view was expressed in a letter to his brother Edgar dated Nov 8, 1954. The relevant portion of that letter follows:

Now it is true that I believe this country is following a dangerous trend when it permits too great a degree of centralization of governmental functions. I oppose this--in some instances the fight is a rather desperate one. But to attain any success it is quite clear that the Federal government cannot avoid or escape responsibilities which the mass of the people firmly believe should be undertaken by it. The political processes of our country are such that if a rule of reason is not applied in this effort, we will lose everything--even to a possible and drastic change in the Constitution. This is what I mean by my constant insistence upon "moderation" in government. Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes you can do these things. Among them are H. L. Hunt (you possibly know his background), a few other Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or business man from other areas.5 Their number is negligible and they are stupid.

Fair point, though I have to observe, following Myra Bronstein, that if Mellen had expressed herself more clearly, there would have been no objection, save to point out that Eisenhower was not looking too closely at some of the funkier activities of think tanks and professors working with subventions emanating a long way from Texas. As it was, Mellen appeared to be arguing that Eisenhower confined contemporaneous opposition to the New Deal to the aforementioned Texan oil men.

Whatever its perceived failings, the only agenda behind the book was to present a balanced view of Garrison and his inquiry into the assassination.

Now, really, Greg - anything on Garrison's conversion from Ayn Rand disciple to belated champion of the New Frontier? These were ideologically compatible? Is there truly nothing to explain on the subject? And how does Mellen deal with the founders of Truth and Consequences, Inc.? Are you not even mildly curious as to their motivation and past associations? And Mellen?

Amd what are we to make of Mellen's rehash of the old CIA line that the Kennedys were up to their necks in secret plots to kill Castro? No agenda here?

Paul

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Joan. the same person has described Harold Weisberg as a witting tool of the CIA, and implied the same about Josiah Thompson, while mischaracterizing their work. So, in a sense you are in good company.
I must thank the world’s leading expert on Len Colby’s choice of fonts for reminding me of my perspicacity on Weisberg and Thompson. I understand Hogan’s distress, readily discernible even beneath the thick carapace of sycophancy he carries about him: I accurately characterise their work.

Here’s a little sample of the fearless Weisberg in that searing indictment of the FBI- Secret Service Cover-up otherwise known as Whitewash II:

“In almost constant attendance upon the dead President was Roy H. Kellerman, Special Agent of the U.S. Secret Service, a devoted and distraught public servant of 23 years experience, then assistant special agent in charge of the White House detail. He is an exceptionally conscientious man who was in charge of the security detail on the President’s fatal trip to Texas,” (NY: Dell pbk, May 1967, p.184).

Pure Mills & Boon. Now for two real investigators on Kellerman, the Weisbergian hero of Elm Street:

“Roy H. Kellerman, the Secret Service agent in charge of the trip, sat in the front right seat of the limousine. He neither offered warning nor took any action to protect the President. Kellerman claimed, in an interview with two FBI agents the same day, that after this shot [the shot to the throat – PR], the President said: “Get me to a hospital.” Later, he changed his story and quoted the President as having said, “My God, I am hit.” In his testimony, before the Warren Commission…Kellerman called the FBI report incorrect…”

The same authors, from the same chapter, on another ripe lie from Kellerman:

“Five days after the assassination, Kellerman tried to lead FBI investigators to believe that the President was shot in the back and not in the throat. Kellerman embellished his point by telling FBI agents that as a reaction to this shot the President reached round to his back with his left hand – an action not shown on the film or described by witnesses”

Fred Newcomb & Perry Adams. Murder From Within (Santa Barbara, Calif.: Probe, 1974: Chapter 3: Execution).

If Mellen wishes to rehash ancient CIA disinfo, that is, of course, her choice. It is mine to oppose it.

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Nowhere do I say that Otto Otepka was a "liberal."
Quite so. But you unquestionably imply it, presumably unintentionally, we now learn. Myra Bronstein was right.
Sam Halpern had no reason to lie about Robert F. Kennedy's contradictory policies, either.

Fiddlesticks.

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Nowhere do I say that Otto Otepka was a "liberal."
Quite so. But you unquestionably imply it, presumably unintentionally, we now learn. Myra Bronstein was right.
Sam Halpern had no reason to lie about Robert F. Kennedy's contradictory policies, either.
Fiddlesticks.

I agree with Paul about Halpern, except I suspect Halpern was mistaken, not lying. It seems there were a number of CIA employees under the impression RFK was running every aspect of the Cuban operation. The testimony of Helms and Harvey before the Church Committee, however, demonstrates this to be untrue. Both admitted that they'd kept assassination plots away from RFK, and even from McCone. In Michael Kurtz's recent book he says it is unthinkable that Fitzgerald would represent himself to Cubela as RFK's rep, without RFK's approval. Think again. No matter how hard some try to put the blame on RFK, the fact remains that Helms and Harvey had the chance to blame him, and refused to do so, even though it made themselves look bad in the process. RFK was dead when they testified, and neither of them was then employed by the CIA. Thus, there was truly NO reason for them to lie.

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Paul,

There was no "refashioning of history" in Joan's comments on Eisenhower's view of the New Deal.

That view was expressed in a letter to his brother Edgar dated Nov 8, 1954. The relevant portion of that letter follows:

Now it is true that I believe this country is following a dangerous trend when it permits too great a degree of centralization of governmental functions. I oppose this--in some instances the fight is a rather desperate one. But to attain any success it is quite clear that the Federal government cannot avoid or escape responsibilities which the mass of the people firmly believe should be undertaken by it. The political processes of our country are such that if a rule of reason is not applied in this effort, we will lose everything--even to a possible and drastic change in the Constitution. This is what I mean by my constant insistence upon "moderation" in government. Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes you can do these things. Among them are H. L. Hunt (you possibly know his background), a few other Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or business man from other areas.5 Their number is negligible and they are stupid.

Fair point, though I have to observe, following Myra Bronstein, that if Mellen had expressed herself more clearly, there would have been no objection, save to point out that Eisenhower was not looking too closely at some of the funkier activities of think tanks and professors working with subventions emanating a long way from Texas. As it was, Mellen appeared to be arguing that Eisenhower confined contemporaneous opposition to the New Deal to the aforementioned Texan oil men.

Paul, Joan "appeared to be arguing that Eisenhower confined contemporaneous opposition to the New Deal to the aforementioned Texan oil men" since that is what he said, save that he included a small band of politicians and businessmen as among those in opposition. Since you grasp precisely that point, it seems to have been expressed clearly enough. That you chose to disbelieve it, is no reflection on anyone but you.

Whatever its perceived failings, the only agenda behind the book was to present a balanced view of Garrison and his inquiry into the assassination.
Now, really, Greg - anything on Garrison's conversion from Ayn Rand disciple to belated champion of the New Frontier?

People can and do convert from one value system to another, just as they do from one religion to another, one political party to another. However, the characterisation of Garrison as champion of the New Frontier seems to be yours. Maybe I should re-read it, but I don't recall that characterisation appearing in her book. As I recall it, she presented Garrison as a flawed individual. That he uncovered government meddling in the affairs of its citizens would surely have pleased the likes of Ayn Rand.

These were ideologically compatible? Is there truly nothing to explain on the subject?

Paul, these straw arguments are beneath you. And the level of animus displayed goes beyond what may be generated by mere disagreement. What gives? Honestly...

And how does Mellen deal with the founders of Truth and Consequences, Inc.? Are you not even mildly curious as to their motivation and past associations? And Mellen?

Once again, I'd have to reread the book. Unfortunately I do not currently have the time.

Amd what are we to make of Mellen's rehash of the old CIA line that the Kennedys were up to their necks in secret plots to kill Castro? No agenda here?

Not that I'm aware of.

Paul

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Document #1147; November 8, 1954

To Edgar Newton Eisenhower

Series: EM, AWF, Name Series ; Category: Personal and confidential

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower, Volume XV - The Presidency: The Middle Way

Part VI: Crises Abroad, Party Problems at Home; September 1954 to December 1954

Chapter 13: "A new phase of political experience"

Dear Ed:1 I think that such answer as I can give to your letter of November first will be arranged in reverse order--at least I shall comment first on your final paragraph.

You keep harping on the Constitution; I should like to point out that the meaning of the Constitution is what the Supreme Court says it is. Consequently no powers are exercised by the Federal government except where such exercise is approved by the Supreme Court (lawyers) of the land.2

I admit that the Supreme Court has in the past made certain decisions in this general field that have been astonishing to me. A recent case in point was the decision in the Phillips case.3 Others, and older ones, involved "interstate commerce."4 But until some future Supreme Court decision denies the right and responsibility of the Federal government to do certain things, you cannot possibly remove them from the political activities of the Federal government.

Now it is true that I believe this country is following a dangerous trend when it permits too great a degree of centralization of governmental functions. I oppose this--in some instances the fight is a rather desperate one. But to attain any success it is quite clear that the Federal government cannot avoid or escape responsibilities which the mass of the people firmly believe should be undertaken by it. The political processes of our country are such that if a rule of reason is not applied in this effort, we will lose everything--even to a possible and drastic change in the Constitution. This is what I mean by my constant insistence upon "moderation" in government. Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes you can do these things. Among them are H. L. Hunt (you possibly know his background), a few other Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or business man from other areas.5 Their number is negligible and they are stupid.

To say, therefore, that in some instances the policies of this Administration have not been radically changed from those of the last is perfectly true.6 Both Administrations levied taxes, both maintained military establishments, customs officials, and so on.

But in all governmental fields of action a combination of purpose, procedure and objectives must be considered if you are to get a true evaluation of the relative merits.

You say that the foreign policy of the two Administrations is the same. I suppose that even the most violent critic would agree that it is well for us to have friends in the world, to encourage them to oppose communism both in its external form and in its internal manifestations, to promote trade in the world that would be mutually profitable between us and our friends (and it must be mutually profitable or it will dry up), and to attempt the promotion of peace in the world, negotiating from a position of moral, intellectual, economic and military strength.

No matter what the party is in power, it must perforce follow a program that is related to these general purposes and aspirations. But the great difference is in how it is done and, particularly, in the results achieved.

A year ago last January we were in imminent danger of losing Iran, and sixty percent of the known oil reserves of the world.7 You may have forgotten this. Lots of people have. But there has been no greater threat that has in recent years overhung the free world. That threat has been largely, if not totally, removed. I could name at least a half dozen other spots of the same character.

This being true, how can anyone be so unaware of what is happening as to say that this Administration has conducted foreign affairs under the same policies as did the former Administration? As a matter of fact, if you will press any individual who brings to you all these strictures and comments, I venture that your experience will be the same as mine. That experience is that these individuals have no idea of what the "foreign policy" of the previous Administration was and what the present one is. They have heard certain slogans, such as "give away programs." They have no slightest idea as to what has been the effect of these programs in sustaining American security and prosperity. Moreover, they have no idea whatsoever as to comparative size of them now as compared to even two or three years ago.

You say that these critics also complain about the continuance of "controls," presumably over our economy. There is nothing in your letter that shows such complete ignorance as to what has actually happened as does this term. When we came into office there were Federal controls exercised over prices, wages, rents, as well as over the allocation and use of raw materials. The first thing this Administration did was to set about the elimination of those controls. This it did amid the most dire predictions of disaster, "run away" inflation, and so on and so on. We were proved right, but I must say that if the people of the United States do not even remember what took place, one is almost tempted to regret the agony of study, analysis and decision that was then our daily ration.

You also talk about "bad political advice" I am getting. I always assumed that lawyers attempted accuracy in their statements. How do you know that I am getting any political advice? Next, if I do get political advice, how do you know that it is not weighted in the direction that you seem to think it should be--although I am tempted at times to believe that you are just thrashing around rather than thinking anything through to a definite conclusion? So how can you say I am getting "bad" advice; why don't you just assume I am stupid, trying to wreck the nation, and leave our Constitution in tatters?

I assure you that you have more reason, based on sixty-four years of contact, to say this than you do to make the bland assumption that I am surrounded by a group of Machiavellian characters who are seeking the downfall of the United States and the ascendancy of socialism and communism in the world. Incidentally, I notice that everybody seems to be a great Constitutionalist until his idea of what the Constitution ought to do is violated--then he suddenly becomes very strong for amendments or some peculiar and individualistic interpretation of his own.

Finally, I must assure you again that I am delighted to get your own honest criticisms, particularly if you will only take the trouble to lay down the facts on which you reach what seem to me to be some remarkable conclusions. But the mere repetition of aphorisms and political slogans and newspaper headlines leaves me cold.

I am sorry you are not going to be at Abilene.8 It would be easier to tell you these things than to write them--except that by this method I hope to make you do a little thinking rather than devote yourself just to the winning of a noisy argument. As ever

P.S. I attach a paragraph and a cartoon that came to me in the same mail as did your letter. At least it represents a different viewpoint. Incidentally, it comes from one of the most successful businessmen in the nation.9

1 A draft version of this letter, with Eisenhower's handwritten emendations, is in AWF/Drafts.

2 "I have faith in your inherent desire to operate this country on a constitutional basis," Edgar had written, "giving to the states what are legitimately their rights, and assuming for the Federal Government only those limited powers which the Constitution intended that it should have" (AWF/N).

3 On June 7 the Supreme Court had ruled that sales of natural gas by the Phillips Petroleum Company to pipelines that distribute it in interstate commerce were subject to regulation by the Federal Power Commission. This decision gave the FPC control of a domain traditionally reserved to the states (Phillips Petroleum Co. v. State of Wisconsin et al. 347 U.S. 672 [1954]). Eisenhower deleted from this section of his earlier draft the followiwng sentence: "I think there has been some tortuous reasoning applied."

4 See for example Wickard v. Filburn, a case that upheld the federal government's power to regulate farm production even when no part of the product was intended for interstate commerce and the product was consumed on the farm where it was grown (317 U.S. 111 [1942]).

5 Haroldson Lafayette Hunt, billionaire founder of the Hunt Oil Company, had often been a champion of conservative causes. For background on Eisenhower's relations with Hunt see Galambos, Columbia University, vol. X.

6 "For your information," Edgar had written, "there are a great many people in all walks of life with whom I have talked, who have made the statement that there is very little difference between the policy of your administration and that of the former administration" in the handling of foreign relations and many domestic programs.

7 For background on the Iranian crisis see nos. 281 and 457.

8 Eisenhower would be in Abilene on November 11 for the dedication of the Eisenhower Museum (see no. 1144).

9 We have not found these items in AWF.

Bibliographic reference to this document:

Eisenhower, Dwight D. Personal and confidential To Edgar Newton Eisenhower, 8 November 1954. In The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower, ed. L. Galambos and D. van Ee, doc. 1147. World Wide Web facsimile by The Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial Commission of the print edition; Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996

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