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New York Times, Washingon Post say no to review of David Talbot's book


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I haven't read the book yet. I appreciate very much Jim Di's well written, thorough review, and have personally noted in his and others past reviews, his list of revelations that he just posted from the book. But isn't it fair to say we don't have a smoking gun?

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I've not read the book.

As I understand, the book portrays Dulles accurately as a powerful, despicable person who had reason to loath JFK. IMO, this does not amount to a smoking gun. There were many powerful, despicable persons who had reason to loath JFK. All these persons probably rejoiced at JFK's death. That's why covering up JFK's murder was so easy; there were so many suspects, so many with so much to hide.

I've paid somewhat close attention to Dulles's behavior as a Warren Commissioner. Without doubt, he was all for Oswald-did-it. But I haven't seen any indication he manipulated Belin, Rankin, or Specter, who were jaw-droppingly dishonest and who basically steered the Commission to its lone-nut conclusion. I've read that Dulles persuaded McCloy to get on board with the Oswald-did-it-alone theory. That tells me more about McCloy than it does about Dulles.

Yes, there is an early W.C. executive session that takes up the possibility Oswald was on the FBI payroll, and Dulles asks aloud whether the transcript of that session can be burned. That's just an intel master trying to keep sources and methods under wraps, IMO.

I suspect that if most powerful individuals of the day were put under the same sort of microscope, the same sort of execrable portrait would appear.

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I've not read the book.

As I understand, the book portrays Dulles accurately as a powerful, despicable person who had reason to loath JFK. IMO, this does not amount to a smoking gun. There were many powerful, despicable persons who had reason to loath JFK. All these persons probably rejoiced at JFK's death. That's why covering up JFK's murder was so easy; there were so many suspects, so many with so much to hide.

I've paid somewhat close attention to Dulles's behavior as a Warren Commissioner. Without doubt, he was all for Oswald-did-it. But I haven't seen any indication he manipulated Belin, Rankin, or Specter, who were jaw-droppingly dishonest and who basically steered the Commission to its lone-nut conclusion. I've read that Dulles persuaded McCloy to get on board with the Oswald-did-it-alone theory. That tells me more about McCloy than it does about Dulles.

Yes, there is an early W.C. executive session that takes up the possibility Oswald was on the FBI payroll, and Dulles asks aloud whether the transcript of that session can be burned. That's just an intel master trying to keep sources and methods under wraps, IMO.

I suspect that if most powerful individuals of the day were put under the same sort of microscope, the same sort of execrable portrait would appear.

Kirk & Jon,

To me there isn't a smoking gun either. However, there is another way of looking at this if you believe the CIA were the plotters of the asassination.

I do believe the CIA were the plotters... elements of it, that is. So this "other way of looking at it" works for me.

Take all the POWERFUL people who hated Kennedy and conceivably wishes he were dead. Which of those people would have the influence over the CIA necessary to get them to plot something like this? Dulles immediately comes to mind. In other words, the "other way of looking at it" is that it narrows the field down. Considerably.

That Dulles sought to be on board the WC; yet had been fired from the position he cherished most by the very man he's supposed to be looking after; AND never misses a single meeting... well that tells me a lot!

Edited by Sandy Larsen
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David Talbott writes on Facebook today:

Paul Hofmann, a leading New York Times foreign correspondent throughout the Cold War, was a spook. And during WW II, he served in the German Army as a top deputy to the notorious "butcher of Rome," General Kurt Malzer, who was later convicted of the mass murder of Italian partisans. In his obit, the NY Times portrayed Hofmann as an anti-Nazi hero, secretly passing information to the Allies while he was on Malzer's staff. But no evidence of this so-called heroism was provided, and it's unclear when Malzer jumped ship to the Allies.

As I write in my book, the shrewdest Nazis in Italy near the end of the war -- like Karl Wolff, head of SS forces in Italy -- cut deals with Nazi-friendly officials like Allen Dulles, to save their necks. In any case, after Rome was liberated, Hofmann began working for Allied intelligence, and he formed a close connection to James Jesus Angleton, Dulles's man in post-war Rome, and later the infamous chief of CIA counterintelligence. The cozy relationship between Hofmann and Angleton continued as Hofmann was installed in the Rome bureau of the NY Times. Hofmann -- who covered Cold War hot spots from Africa to the Middle East to countries behind the Iron Curtain -- is a prime example of the murky fusion between U.S. intelligence and the American press, particularly correspondents for major media corporations like the Times who shuttled around the globe.

One of the more egregious examples of how Hofmann helped serve CIA interests occurred in 1960, when the NY Times sent Hofmann to cover the end game of Congolese leader -- and soon to be martyr -- Patrice Lumumba. Hofmann's over-the-top, vitriolic coverage of Lumumba as a Soviet puppet and buffoon and homicidal threat to whites (all lies) helped pave the way for the CIA-sponsored overthrow and assassination of Lumumba, one of the most tragic events in post-colonial history. After Lumumba was brutally tortured and murdered, the NY Times continued its character assassination, demeaning the brave and charismatic hope of his nation as a political con man who "combined the skills of the late Sen. (Joe) McCarthy with the brashness of a ward heeler and the magic touch of an African witch doctor."

The truth is that the New York TImes was deeply entwined with U.S. intelligence throughout the Cold War, particularly when it came to the newspaper's coverage of national security issues. (And during the War on Terror? Well that's a whole other line of inquiry.) Is this the reason that the Times studiously avoids writing about books like mine -- books that unearth these unwelcome phantoms?

Btw, [a] photo of JFK (next to Hofmann) was taken just at the moment that Kennedy got the news about Lumumba's death. The CIA had rushed to kill Lumumba before JFK -- a strong supporter of Third World nationalism -- could take office, and the agency kept Kennedy in the dark about Lumumba's fate for weeks.

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John Newman wrote on Facebook today: Eisenhower ordered Dulles to assassinate Lumumba. The jpeg below [omitted here] is from Robert H. Johnson's 6/18/75 testimony to the Church Committee. Johnson further testified that, after checking with a superior as to whether he should include the president’s statement in his debriefing memorandum, he decided not to include it: “I suspect—but no longer have an exact recollection—that I omitted it from the debriefing. It was not unusual to occasionally omit some particularly sensitive subject from the debriefing."

Will Ruha commented on John Newman’s posting: Usually, in such cases, "executive" approval came through Nixon, who, as VP, was set up as chairman of the NSC "5412" subcommittee for the precise purpose of providing such approval to "executive actions," and other such sensisitve ops that were not to be traced back to Ike. Dulles had set this altered chain-of-command structure up, back in 1953 when he explained to Eisenhower that the CIA he was to lead, must be able to do "things with which you, as president, cannot afford to be connected." Dulles explained that communism was a "worlwide monolithic conspiracy' that required a wide variety of intelligence operations, some of which would be antithetical to our democratic-Constitutional form of government, but which would nonetheless be absolutely critical to its survival. Ike listened and approved Dulles' suggestion of an NSC subcommittee chaired by Nixon to approve ops too sensitive for his own "official" approval. Years later, when Nixon threatened Helms with disclosure over "the Bay of Pigs thing," (his code-name reference to the CIA's role in JFK's assassination), Hillary Clinton was placed on the Watergate Senate investigative committee, assigned to produce a top secret report on "assassination plots by past presidents," which, of course, would expose Nixon, his ties to E. H. Hunt and his gang of assassins, and the years of plots against not only JFK, but the Castro brothers, Che, Lumumba, Dag Hammarskjold, and a host of others. As this internecine battle intensified, CIA agent George H.W. Bush was dispatched to the White House to explain to Nixon the wisdom and necessity of his stepping down in order to preserve all the dirty secrets - at which point, the "CIA's best friend on Capitol Hill" Gerald Ford, assured Nixon that he, as president, would grant his predecessor "a full, free, and absolute pardon . . . for all offenses against the United States which he, Richard Nixon, has committed or may have committed or taken part in during the period from January 20, 1969 through August 9, 1974." This of course left open his earliet crimes, but that was the entire point of the agreement. We cover your ass for your presidential misdeeds, and we agree to cover eachother for the earlier crimes. Nixon realized this was the best deal he was going to be offered, and accepted.

John Newman then commented: Johnson felt he had a moral obligation to speak the truth that he had had a hand in covering up in 1960. It is clear when you read the whole deposition that he was shocked at the time and traumatized over the years. Dulles dragged his feet for a week and so Gordon Gray pounded on him a week later in a Special Group meeting: Mr. Gray commented, however, that his associates [a euphemism for President Eisenhower in the minutes used by Parrot] had expressed extremely strong feelings on the necessity for very straightforward action in this situation, and he wondered whether the plans were sufficient to accomplish this.

Edited by Douglas Caddy
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Nathaniel Heidenheimer wrote on Facebook on Dec. 23 in regard to David Talbot’s book: Posting on tons and tons of FB groups about books really works. With three more people posting W I D E angle, this book could be in the top 10 by New Years. I don't THINK this I KNOW it. I am basing my statement on a sample size of posting about a few key books every single day since mid 2008. I check Amazon sales numbers five times a day. I am aware of just how richly pathological this is, but I can't help it: because of my background, I can hear history being suffocated better than others, which is not a very good pick up line, in case you are trying to turn into a lucky citizen this evening.

You have the power to stop or prevent circulation. This is not 1966. Nobody who could make a difference will ever be allowed on The Tonight Show. This is when we are alive.

David Talbot commented: Well put, Nathaniel. Or as Patti Smith sang, "people have the power...to dream, to rule, to wrestle the world from fools." No books (or films or whatever) that radically challenge America Inc. (particularly its armed and dangerous security wing) ever get the media gatekeepers' stamp of approval. It's up to the people to spread the word about "notes from the underground" that can set us free.

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Additional comments to John Newman's remarks above;

Myra Bronstein on Facebook: I really don't understand why Eisenhower bothered to "warn" the public and incoming President Kennedy about the military-industrial-complex when he worked to further their goals and enable CIA assassinations for 8 years. Was he angry about the U2 spy plane incident?

Will Ruha replied: Ike was told in 1953 to fire Allen Dulles as CIA Drector or risk having his presidency undermined by agency field operations that would "force his hand" in foreign affairs. Joe Kennedy told Ike, "Dulles is mad for power," and Ike agreed, relating his consurrence that "Allen Dulles is a bit of a mad man. But I would sign a contract with the Devil himself," Ike said, "If it meant stopping the spread of this world monolithic communist conspiracy." After 8 years of Dulles' field operations, including sabotage of Francis Powers U2 flight that destroyed Ike's cherished dream of a Peace Summit, a test ban treaty, nuclear nonproliferation pact, and the beginning of detente, he recognized how wrong he had been, but still did not have the guts to fully disclose the nature of the damage he had done, instead attributing blame in more limited fashion to a "military-industrial" complex (which meant, of course, Dulles' S&C clients, but steered clear of the “intelligence” aspect.

Myra Bronstein responded: Thanks Will. It just galls me how Eisenhower spent 8 years constructing a military industrial hand grenade then tossed it to incoming President Kennedy and went on TV to say the grenade was live. Don't even get me started on Truman.

Edited by Douglas Caddy
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