Hidden government group linking JFK, Watergate, Iran-Contra and 9/11

[Paul Brancato]

In my opinion posting links to articles that use Liberty Lobby as a source does not inspire confidence in the information therein or in the poster.

[Paul Brancato]

Larry - to be clear do you not consider Congressional investigations of the past 30 years become exercises in damage control rather than exposes of covert operations? I sure do. I would not equate Sheehan with sensationalist news. Practially no one is listening to him. I am all for hard journalism such as yours, and have read one of your books and have another on my queue. I don't seek out sensationalism because I don't like facts. In fact I don't call the conspiracy books I read and admire sensationalist at all. Facts only lead so far, because investigators are only allowed to see part, not all, of the story. It's up to us to fill in the blanks.

I have met both Sheehan and Kerry (twice) and find Sheehan genuine and Kerry a fraud. That is only my opinion of course, but I don't mind sharing it here. That doesn't mean that Sheehan is a totally reliable source, and it doesn't make Kerry entirely useless either.

[Larry Hancock]

Paul, I do not consider either the Church Commission, the Kerry Commission or a series of other Congressional oversight efforts including those on Angola to be frauds. I think many of those participating had good and sincere intentions and that a great deal of misconduct was exposed and highlighted. Now having said that, of course both agencies and individuals being investigated to exercised their own damage control, conducted knowing CYA and in many instances actively obfuscated and undermined the investigations. In several instances the investigations exposed issues and provided information that is still being worked and producing new insights. ....as I noted above, the CIA's own Inspector General exposes a key element of the Contra drug smuggling some years after the initial Kerry Committee work and in doing so confirmed many of the conclusions of the Committee. The Kerry committee's work forced the DEA to issue a report that while obfuscating, actually contained substantial data confirming the committee's conclusions. The same thing can be said for the Church Committee investigations of Guatemala. The fact that Congress as a whole, the Reagan Administration and its principals at DEA, CIA and Justice did not come clean on the issues and deal with them just reflects a fact of life relating to political CYA and the fact that for those involved the "mission" generally overrides peripheral issues and collateral damage. Shadow Warfare wrestles with some hard realities of that nature.

I do equate Sheehan with sensationalist news just as I do a number of contemporary journalists, but that's not a negative. The same can be said of the muckrakers of a century ago, to some reporters have to produce sensational stories to get them published. Real time reporting is sensationalist by its very nature (and the demands of the media which fund it), more so now than ever before, and because it is real time lots of things get tossed into the story, some turn out to be true, some not. The thing is that someone needs to come along behind them a few years later when more data and more details area available and try to reconcile their "real time" reporting with more in depth studies that can truly only be made sometime after the initial reporting - to a large extent that's what I attempt to do.

And for the UFO crowd, no the MJ-12 documents are not real, sorry. Larry

[Paul Brancato]

I studied UFO phenomenon for years and came to the same conclusion about MJ 12. It's a minefield of disinformation, crackpots, etc. but I also concluded that the phenomena were real, and that our government has contributed to that minefield purposefully. So I have to consider the possibility that the MJ 12 document was planted in order for investigators to discover that they were false, sowing seeds of confusion and obscuring the truth, whatever that is.

As for Congressional investigations, the pattern I see is that government secrecy is gradually winning the battle over democratic attempts to uncover truths. There are good people who participate, but they are increasingly stymied. Some Democrats can be trusted to keep the secrets, some can't. Seriously, Lee Hamilton serving on the 9/11 committee is a good example of the former. So is Kerry. Florida Governor Graham was so frustrated that he published a work of fiction in order to clear his conscience. What is the relationship between the Saudi ruling family and our government? Why were Saudi nationals allowed to leave the US while all other air traffic was grounded after 9/11? Why were most of the pages in the report dealing with Saudi Arabia redacted? The Church Committee was in my view the strongest. I do see your main point that the culprits are not the good elected officials that serve and attempt to wrest the truth out of the national security establishment. It's their relative ineffectiveness that troubles me. Investigators like yourself have the time and skill to dig out relevant information, and without you we would have next to nothing, because the official reports are weak. Sheehan got a lot closer to the truth in his investigation of Iran Contra than Congress did. Congress is supposed to have subpoena power, and they rarely if ever use it. They make deals with lawyers, close hearings, redact reports, and treat perpetrators of crimes with kid gloves. They are no doubt worried about their personal safety.

[Larry Hancock]

Actually I blog about a number of the weaknesses of Congressional oversight and investigations on a fairly routine basis - with many of the same comments as yours. Certainly I agree that most of the investigations do not have the necessary powers or staff - such as those which would be used in criminal investigations - or fail to aggressively use those they do (including bringing charges of perjury). However I have to add that almost all investigations are heavily compromised by political obfuscation, not only by panel members but by the administrations involved. They are also heavily compromised by the fundamental imbalance in national security powers i.e. the people they are investigating are under oaths and legal constraints relating to revealing information which are much stronger than the equivalent legal disclosure powers of the committees. Beyond that in some of the instances we now know about, agreements between CIA and DOJ have exempted the Agency from laws and disclosures which would have normally been in play. That was a huge deal in Iran Contra. Unfortunately in many cases the Congress persons involved don't really seem to understand all this - and the agencies have a far better understanding of their legal responsibilities under the national security act of 1947 (and related legal code) than to do the people on the committees (or their legal staff).

In regard to the 9/11 investigation - well I deal with that in great detail in my next work and it's one of the most irritating things I've ever seen in regard to administration obfuscation - and either incompetence or denial by the principals, its hard to tell which is which. But that's another story.

And in regard to "other" stories, its not that government agencies practice CYA just the areas we are interested in.....the lack of financial oversight over the immense loss of investments in Iraq is hard to comprehend...and even when oversight agencies jump on it, nothing happens and nobody is ever penalized. The story behind this link is simply one of the most recent and minor examples of failure in waste and failure of effective oversight:

https://medium.com/war-is-boring/how-the-pentagon-quietly-turned-half-a-billion-dollars-into-32-000-78410958269e

Edited October 11, 2014 by Larry Hancock

[David Andrews]

Larry, just a thought if you're going to write about the 9/11 Commission: You may want to research whether the Warren Commission (or any previous investigations or reviews of Dallas or another tragedy on which there was public outrage) had any reputational influence on the 9/11 Commission, and evaluate the 9/11 Commission on how well or ill it lived up to any expressed ideal not to operate, mislead, or obscure as a previous investigation did.

This would be a small part of your writing, but evaluating perception vs. reality can be persuasive. Did major media compare the 9/11 and Warren commissions beforehand or afterward? Did the public? Did the 9/11 Commission itself? There's rhetorical rope for a factual hanging there - metaphorically speaking, of course.

Edited October 12, 2014 by David Andrews

[Robert Mady]

Larry, and others, truly amazing and informative posts.

Larry I find myself agreeing with most of what has been posted on both sides, many valid points, but to keep Sheehan's presentation in perspective, it is not a book or a research paper it is a presentation to a group with possibly little understanding of the subject matter, Sheehan provides highlights that successfully build a case for the inner workings of the elite and how conspiracy works. It is up for interpretation but what captures my attention is that the facts that I know are true are echoed in his presentation which allows me to trust that other information presented is most probably correct as well as Sheehan's conclusions. Most of all the case Sheehan builds is logical and reasonable, keeping in mind what has been posted is that we are not privy to all the information or evidence, we must by necessity take leaps to bridge the gaps.

I also agree with you that ultimately it is up to a meticulous researcher to verify the veracity of a theory by gathering and analyzing the details.

You thoughts on the subject are an inspiration to read your works, thanks for the posts.

Edited October 12, 2014 by Robert Mady

[Larry Hancock]

David, that's a very good point although actually I've written about the event itself, simply using the Commission's report as one source. Since my focus is on warning, preparedness and response (primarily in regard to national command authority performance and command and control) I don't spend a lot of time on the Commission per se, although I do take its report to task for political correctness in several areas. I also take them to task for choosing not to comment on data which they discovered - an example being the history of NORAD exercises against airborne terror attacks. It is worthwhile noting that a great deal of the information produced by their efforts actually resulted tin data produced their report was done - in that regard their work simply served as the "point of the spear". Working with their interviews, documents and with supplemental info like the transcripts from NECAP allows us to absolutely refute portions of the official record as well as comments from individuals such as Condi Rice and the NORAD commander of that day.

As to the Commission itself, my view is that Shenon's book did a fantastic job deconstructing the Commissions work and pointing out the White House manipulation efforts, especially by individuals closely associated with Condi Rice. Shenon's study is not just a study of the 9/11 Commission but to a great extent the agenda and conduct of the GWB Administration. Which is why I was so disappointed by his book on the Warren Commission - which is in no way comparable. The main reason I find for that is that there were 9/11 Commission staff who quickly realized they were being manipulated, resented it, tried to push back against it (and generally lost) and were willing to tell the story afterwards. Nothing similar can be seen with the WC, indeed its staff still seem to be in a state of pure denial....so Shenon had no comparable sources from within the WC.

I should also say that I spent a good deal of time comparing the national command authority response on 9/11 to that of Nov 22, 1962 and that is pretty interesting. Its also interesting that at least the phones worked on AF1 in 1963 even if LBJ totally ignored his Commander in Chief role in using them- ditto for GWB in 2001 but reportedly even the AF1 phones didn't work then..........

[Robert Mady]

Alan Watts said there are two main types of people ones who prefer Goo the others prefer Prickles.

Goo people are satisfied with a concept, example what is light - it is a wave.

Prickle people are satisfied with details, example what is light - it is particles.

Since light is clearly a wave the Goo people are correct but since light is clearly particles Prickle people are correct, clearly they both can not be correct, yet both views are completely scientifically verifiable and valid.

Prickles need to understand the details before conclusions may be derived, Goos understand the concept, both are correct, both are needed.

Edited October 12, 2014 by Robert Mady

[Larry Hancock]

Robert, thanks for the kind words and the point is well taken about his exploration of the "inner workings of the elite and how conspiracy works." I think its critically important to understand how social networks at the highest level of power do develop and operate. Of course Peter Dale Scott had worked in that area for ages and the concept of "deep politics". To me that is a counterpoint to a study of how the CIA actually conducted/conducts executive action or covert political operations. You have to have a firm "construct" of how the process works in the real world before you try to map actual events against it.

From my own experience, I've seen enough of Corporate America, from strategic planning to public relations, to appreciate that "deep politics" is always in play, where its business alliances for market growth and profit or political alliance for the power to manipulate events for profit (not being cynical, that's just the way it is). And the PR and image folks are always there to tidy up, handle loose ends

and deal with damage control (well "we" were before CEO's started texting for themselves.....glad I'm out of PR now). That's part of the reason I'm always alert for CYA as an alternative to "conspiracy".

-- of course its also important not to confuse incompetence with conspiracy (I stole that from the actual quote which I don't recall word for word). Larry

[Greg Burnham]

-- of course its also important not to confuse incompetence with conspiracy (I stole that from the actual quote which I don't recall word for word). Larry

I hate it when that happens. It's like throwing out a disc in your brain. It's not a "slipped disc" -- but a slipped chip.

[Larry Hancock]

Yeah, me too.....every now and again I hear this cracking sound inside my head, I'm tempted to look around and see if my wife hears it too - but I really don't want to know...

[Paul Trejo]

The new, October 5th article by veteran JFK researcher, Peter Dale Scott, namely, The Hidden Government Group Linking JFK, Watergate, Iran-Contra and 9/1, is so full of half-truths and desperate reaching that somebody needs to point out its flaws.

I'd start with his buzz-words, “Deep Politics” and “Deep State” and “Deep Events”, which are Scott’s stock-in-trade. These clever buzz-words remind us that Peter Dale Scott isn’t a professor of history, but of English. He’s a wordsmith making a career of conspiracy literature.

Now, what’s meant by “Deep State” is little more than what the JBS (John Birch Society) in 1961 called, “The Hidden Government.” In the early days the JBS cited the CFR (Council on Foreign Relations) as their bogey-man to scare the public. The JBS also used terms like “Shadow Government” to justify using words like “treason,” and “conspiracy” and “overthrow of the Government”. These are the sorts of terms that Peter Dale Scott’s readers also expect to read.

Scott the wordsmith wishes to highlight the five most controversial US political events since the end of WW2, namely, the JFK murder, Watergate, the Iran Hostage Crisis, the Iran-Contra scandal and 9-11, and to elucidate these he uses his original term, “Structural Deep Events.”

Peter Dale Scott wishes his readers to view these events, occurring over a 40 year period, as having a common source; what he calls, “an endemic process.” Instead of the CFR (which is already old-hat) Scott will focus on the Pentagon’s old, 1950’s “Doomsday Project,” though by its official name, Continuity of Government (COG) planning.

The COG, as it turns out, is still in operation and still handsomely funded. Not much is known about it, which gives Peter Dale Scott plenty of room for his wordsmith skills to run free. What Scott wants us to worry about is that fact that civilians were originally included in COG, and still remain to this day. Civilians in government organizations; oh no!

Further, Scott wishes to weave a yarn about all of the five “Deep Events” he named above; they were really, secretly the work of this secret cabal of civilians operating the COG.

Scott’s main focal points in this article are the Iran Hostage Crisis and the Iran-Contra scandal (and even here he qualifies his statements with many slippery ifs and maybes). Can Scott really link the COG with the JFK murder? Not really. Yet Scott prefers to pose his point in the form of a question: could the COB network also have been used to murder JFK?

Just in time for Halloween.

What Scott passes off as a COG plot to murder JFK comes down to two members of the COG in 1963, who were also working in the Secret Service to support the JFK motorcade through Dallas. For some readers, of course, that connection is enough. Guilty as charged. End of story.

But for critical readers Scott must offer more detail. So he tries. He’ll throw out raw meat in the form of two names: Winston Lawson (SS man in the lead car, in charge of the motorcade SS radio channels) and Jack Crichton (Army Intel reserve officer who with DPD Deputy George Lumpkin selected the Russian interpreter for Marina Oswald’s first, error-ridden FBI interview).

Winston Lawson corrected himself in his WC testimony regarding the motorcycle guard around JFK’s limo. Instead of flanking JFK’s car, Lawson had to change his story and admit that the DPD motorcycles actually rode just behind JFK. Also, a DPD Captain testified that this arrangement was designed by Winston Lawson himself.

Granted that this is very suspicious, the critical reader must promptly add that the COG is not linked with this breach of protocol by any evidence offered by Peter Dale Scott.

Winston Lawson is also cited as the one who installed the radio frequency transmissions for the Secret Service throughout the JFK motorcade. Now, these tapes form a key document of the assassination of JFK, yet they were never reviewed by the Warren Commission, the HSCA or the ARRB.

Again, I grant that this is very suspicious, and yet again, Scott fails to offer any evidence to link the COG with this breach of protocol.

Finally, Scott’s narrative about the DPD radio announcement to make way for an ambulance carrying a supposed epileptic man about ten minutes before the JFK murder, amounts to a tempest in a teapot.

What about COG member Jack Crichton? His “crime” according to Peter Dale Scott was his “collusion” with DPD Deputy Chief George Lumpkin to select a Russian interpreter for Marina Oswald, Ilya Mamantov, on 11/22/1963, and this interpreter was not as accurate as someone else might have been.

Peter Dale Scott wishes to seize upon one of the mistakes made by Mamontov, namely, that Marina Oswald actually said (in Russian) about Lee’s rifle scope, “it was a hump but I never saw through it,” while Mamontov interpreted this as: “she says there was a hump on the rifle but there was no scope.”

This, Scott thinks, was proof of conspiracy, because the FBI researched a report from a store owner that one “Lee Oswald” (whom he never saw) asked for a scope to be placed on a similar rifle in his Dallas store only weeks before the JFK murder. The FBI debunked the witness. Peter Dale Scott believes that the witness told the truth, and that there was a scope, but that the FBI (and Mamontov) deliberately withheld the fact in order to eliminate the possibility that Oswald had any accomplices (e.g. the rifle store owner).

That’s reaching. It’s reaching twice as far to hope that his readers will then blame the COG for this alleged conspiracy, with no further evidence whatsoever. Scott uses words like “sinister” and “conspiratorial” and the like, to allude to his point, all without further evidence.

Finally, Peter Dale Scott raises his final point about the JFK murder – namely, the radio report that Lee Harvey Oswald was 5’10” and 165 pounds. (Actually, Oswald was a half-inch shorter, and 34 pounds lighter.) Scott rightly concludes that Howard Brennan, the unqualified “eye-witness” wasn’t the source of that report, despite FBI insistence that he was.

Instead, the origin of that report seems to be the CIA, which had those figures in its 201 file on Lee Harvey Oswald. However – and this is my key point – Peter Dale Scott neglects to mention the fact that Bill Simpich in his 2014 book, State Secret, indicated that a high-level mole-hunt inside the CIA that started in September 1963 in Mexico City, deliberately falsified Lee Oswald’s 201 file with that same faulty description!

Furthermore – it was only that mole, sought by that mole-hunt, who would have obtained that false information, and who would have been quick to pass it on to other members of his ROGUE conspiracy! Thus, since David Morales was almost certainly the mole in question in Mexico City, we should first suspect that David Morales was probably the CIA mole who obtained Oswald’s falsified 201 file and supplied the DPD with this information.

So, we don’t have evidence that the COG passed forward this false data – and we do have evidence that David Morales, working with a local, civilian, Dallas plot, was the actual source of that false data about Lee Harvey Oswald in the early minutes of the JFK murder.

Well, that was it. That’s all Peter Dale Scott had to say about the JFK murder and the COG in his October 5^th article, which is really a preliminary to his new book coming out in a matter of weeks, entitled: The American Deep State.

I just don’t find his poetic wordsmith talents to be worthy of an authentic historian. If you like fiction, and if you liked JBS material when you were younger, you’ll probably enjoy this new book by Peter Dale Scott.

Best regards,

--Paul Trejo

<edit typos>

Edited October 13, 2014 by Paul Trejo

[Paul Brancato]

And now you want us all to know how you really feel about Peter Dale Scott, a great researcher to whom we all owe a debt of gratitude for his unflinching courage. What is this board to you? It seems like you consider it your own bully pulpit where you can repeat your theories ad infinitum so posterity will know what a genius you were, in total disrespect for the good researchers and citizens who try to engage in meaningful exchanges here. And you admit it, straight out. You repeat yourself over and over just in case some stray reader chances upon this board in need of some Trejo wisdom.

Sorry folks - I just can't stand the veneer of politeness that Trejo uses to hide his agenda. There is nothing humble about Mr Trejo. His voice is the only one that matters.

If I have violated the terms of use on this board so be it.

[Paul Trejo]

Well, Paul B., I'm also interested in meaningful exchanges here.

I'm less interested in flattering so-called "good researchers" who mainly spread disrespect or alarmism toward the US Government.

Peter Dale Scott isn't a sacred cow. Furthermore, I doubt that he'd run away from criticism.

Peter Dale Scott, IMHO, is one of the many JFK researchers who evade the question of the ground-crew in order to remain at a high-level and to blame an abstract CIA and COG 'cloud' for the murder of JFK.

From my perspective, Scott's work emphasizes the 'big picture' too much, and the 'ground-crew' too little.

Regards,

--Paul Trejo

Edited October 13, 2014 by Paul Trejo