What is the Kennedy Cult anyway?

[Paul Brancato]

Cliff and Jim - there are a couple of things I agree with Cliff on that are not necessarily part of this exchange. I agree that high tech weaponry may have been used and was available at the time. I agree that the nexus from which assassins were chosen, whether by Hecksher or someone else, were also involved in the drug trade. 

I wish both of you you pay more attention to the connections between ‘ex-Nazis’ and the assassination, and with reserve Army Intelligence units. I don’t need to get involved with arguments about where the back wound was only because I think the triangulation of fire is obvious no matter. I care a lot more about who and why than how. I wish you could just agree to disagree about certain points, knowing that there is agreement on why. Am I mistaken on that? 

Edited May 19, 2018 by Paul Brancato

[Paz Marverde]

Yes, I do love JFK. So what?

[James DiEugenio]

Paul:

I was not talking about any of that.

Those to me are simply unknowables. As is his T-3 ice bullet idea. I don't like dealing with those kinds of things. This is why I said, fine, construct your own web site and I am sure these ideas will go over really big.  

But please note that in all of those queries about the Saigon coup and the Bay of Pigs he made here, that  is what I thought CV was doing. He was being provocative in order to throw in his  pet ideas about Harriman in 1963 and Bundy in 1961.  Which, as I predicted, is what he did.

He does not give one iota about all the other stuff. Nada.  And he is willing to be a provocateur with people on this forum in order to stir the pot about this. With that see through pretense, "Do you think it was alright  for Kennedy to passively greenlight the Saigon Coup."  When he knows that was not the case.  We have been through it many times here and other places.  Knowing this was a false pretense, he wants to do nothing but to say that somehow Harriman was behind it.  Just like the Bay of Pigs, his is an eccentric view. If you read Douglass, if you had to say one person was behind the coup --which I do not think was the case-- it was most likely Lodge.  (LBJ actually later came to  this collusion.) And I will wager a lot of money that CV is not even aware of the new declassified information that has just come out about why the coup proceeded when it did.  It was not because of  Harriman.  Same with the Bay of Pigs.  If you read Douglass, you will see that he uses the work of the Princeton Archvies and Lucien VandenBroucke.  That is the famous article in Diplomatic History in which Lucien wrote about how Dulles and Bissell had a secret agenda about Zapata which they later both confessed to.  And many authors have used this information.  If you can believe it, even Chris Matthews admits this in his new biography of RFK. (See p. 205)  But somehow once inside CV's Matrix, we are supposed to think it was really Bundy, Rusk, and in later mutations he even includes Joe Kennedy and Lovett!! 

To me, when I study the issue of Kennedy's foreign policy, what I am looking for is new information.  Info that goes ahead and furthers the geographical frontier. Or it deepens our understanding of an already important  issue. That is why you will see the use of a wide array of sources when I lecture on this subject. Sources that virtually no one knew about before. And it opens up people's minds and it leads somewhere. I am not looking for axe grinding.  Or at people  who refuse to look at new information. That does not tell  us anything about Kennedy.  It tells us about them. 

 

 

Edited May 19, 2018 by James DiEugenio

[Michaleen Kilroy]

When I was 20 I skipped my boring college math class and went to the school library.  There I happened upon a book that highlighted the things JFK had said and his proclamations on each of his 1,000 days or so.  It was more of a picture book, with a photo from each day and quotes underneath on every page.

I didn't know much about JFK other than my Irish Catholic parents loved him, he was assassinated, and he seemed to have been a smart, witty guy - like a lot of my Irish family, actually

Reading that book in that library (I read it over the next 3 hours or so), I found that I essentially agreed with every statement and sentiment JFK had made during his administration that was represented.

From his first act as president, which I recall was releasing stockpiles of food to the poor, to his comments about the environment and women's rights, JFK seemed to a man ahead of his time whose thoughts foreshadowed many of the issues that would come to the fore in the 1970s.

As I started reading more, I realized JFK seemed like one of those leaders in Russia or other autocratic nations whose true history and actions had been "disappeared."  He didn't at all fit the narrative the MSM tried to tell about him.  The majority of the American public still doesn't have a clue but I think they appreciate his reason and search for peaceful solutions in dangerous times.

I've realized that it's not a sentimental cliche to believe the world did change when he died.   And today, after doing a fairly intensive study of the assassination literature with a critical eye, I do believe there is a better than 50/50 chance someone engineered a very clever trick in Dealey that day.  There was enough Cold War paranoia, naivete, absence of questioning authority, cunning among the intel community and general unity among other factions against Kennedy to pull it off IMO. And the reasons appear to be related to JFK's approach to key foreign policy issues.

I do recall conducting interviews with people a few years after reading that book as a local journalist covering the 25th anniversary of the assassination and finding that many people had hated JFK.  They wouldn't say it directly but I got many answers like, "Well, I didn't like his policies but I felt sorry for his family."  So if there was animus at the citizen level you have to know that it was magnified exponentially in the halls of power.

In any case, the reason I come to these forums is to essentially find new information that may help me get to the full truth of the assassination and JFK's presidency.  I appreciate anyone else who is on this quest 50+ years later and approaches the subject with honesty and critical thought.  I also appreciate anyone who has the time to dig deep into research because I unfortunately do not.

 

 

Edited May 19, 2018 by Mike Kilroy

[Paul Brancato]

7 minutes ago, Mike Kilroy said:

When I was 20 I skipped my boring college math class and went to the school library.  There I happened upon a book that highlighted the things JFK had said and his proclamations on each of his 1,000 days or so.  The book may have been called a 1,000 Days.  It was more of a picture book, with a photo from each day and quotes underneath on every page.

I didn't know much about JFK other than my Irish Catholic parents loved him, he was assassinated, and he seemed to have been a smart, witty guy - like a lot of my Irish family, actually

Reading that book in that library (I read it over the next 3 hours or so), I found that I essentially agreed with every statement and sentiment JFK had made during his administration that was represented.

From his first act as president, which I recall was releasing stockpiles of food to the poor, to his comments about the environment and women's rights, JFK seemed to a man ahead of his time whose thoughts foreshadowed many of the issues that would come to the fore in the 1970s.

As I started reading more, I realized JFK seemed like one of those leaders in Russia or other autocratic nations whose true history and actions had been "disappeared."  He didn't at all fit the narrative the MSM tried to tell about him.  The majority of the American public still doesn't have a clue but I think they appreciate his reason and search for peaceful solutions in dangerous times.

I've realized that it's not a sentimental cliche to believe the world did change when he died.   And today, after doing a fairly intensive study of the assassination literature with a critical eye, I do believe there is a better than 50/50 chance someone engineered a very clever trick in Dealey that day. And the reasons increasingly appear to be related to JFK's approach to key foreign policy issues.

I do recall conducting interviews with people a few years after reading that book as a local journalist and finding that many people hated JFK.  They wouldn't say it directly but I got many answers like, "Well, I didn't like his policies but I felt sorry for his family."  So if there was animus at the citizen level you have to know that it was magnified exponentially in the halls of power.

In any case, the reason I come to these forums is to essentially find new information that may help me get to the full truth of the assassination and JFK's presidency.  I appreciate anyone else who is on this quest 50+ years later and approaches the subject with honesty and critical thought. 

 

 

Great post Mike. 

[Rick McTague]

6 minutes ago, Mike Kilroy said:

... As I started reading more, I realized JFK seemed like one of those leaders in Russia or other autocratic nations whose true history and actions had been "disappeared."  He didn't at all fit the narrative the MSM tried to tell about him.  The majority of the American public still doesn't have a clue but I think they appreciate his reason and search for peaceful solutions in dangerous times.

I've realized that it's not a sentimental cliche to believe the world did change when he died.   And today, after doing a fairly intensive study of the assassination literature with a critical eye, I do believe there is a better than 50/50 chance someone engineered a very clever trick in Dealey that day. And the reasons increasingly appear to be related to JFK's approach to key foreign policy issues.

I do recall conducting interviews with people a few years after reading that book as a local journalist and finding that many people hated JFK.  They wouldn't say it directly but I got many answers like, "Well, I didn't like his policies but I felt sorry for his family."  So if there was animus at the citizen level you have to know that it was magnified exponentially in the halls of power.

In any case, the reason I come to these forums is to essentially find new information that may help me get to the full truth of the assassination and JFK's presidency.  I appreciate anyone else who is on this quest 50+ years later and approaches the subject with honesty and critical thought. 

 

 

Really nicely put, Mike.  Balanced and thoughtful.  I am 100% with you on your last paragraph - that is why I am here too, not as part of some "JFK Cult".  Like all of us, he did good things and bad things, some of which we know about and probably many that we don't.  

Thanks again.

[James DiEugenio]

Mike: I do recall conducting interviews with people a few years after reading that book as a local journalist and finding that many people hated JFK.

Where was this Mike?

[Michaleen Kilroy]

12 minutes ago, James DiEugenio said:

Mike: I do recall conducting interviews with people a few years after reading that book as a local journalist and finding that many people hated JFK.

Where was this Mike?

Working at the Southern California Community Publishing Group covering Southeast LA actually.  I was asked to talk to city luminaries as opposed to average folk.  FYI, many represented the last white residents in what had become predominately Latino communities.

Edited May 19, 2018 by Mike Kilroy

[James DiEugenio]

BTW, let me add a point about the Bay of Pigs.

At the end of the first day, after it was clear that Kennedy was not going to authorize any air attacks, the CIA went ahead and launched one on their own. The mission failed. (Peter Kornbluh, Bay of Pigs Declassified, p. 314)

[Paz Marverde]

27 minutes ago, James DiEugenio said:

BTW, let me add a point about the Bay of Pigs.

At the end of the first day, after it was clear that Kennedy was not going to authorize any air attacks, the CIA went ahead and launched one on their own. The mission failed. (Peter Kornbluh, Bay of Pigs Declassified, p. 314)

Ditto

[Paz Marverde]

3 hours ago, Mike Kilroy said:

From his first act as president, which I recall was releasing stockpiles of food to the poor, to his comments about the environment and women's rights, JFK seemed to a man ahead of his time whose thoughts foreshadowed many of the issues that would come to the fore in the 1970s.

 

He absolutely was. Far ahead 

[Cliff Varnell]

5 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

Paul:

I was not talking about any of that.

Those to me are simply unknowables.

There is nothing more knowable than the movement of your shirts.

You spend a large percentage of your waking life wearing a shirt, it's literally under your nose, but it's movement is unknowable?

I know exactly what you're shirt is doing, Jim, given casual movement.

Nothing on the planet is more readily knowable.

Quote

 

. As is his T-3 ice bullet idea.

This is egregious.

Jim ascribes to me proprietary claim on the historical record.

JFK's back wound was at T3 because that's where the bullet holes in his clothes are; where the verified, properly prepared medical documents put it; the contemporaneous notes of 3 Federal agents; the consensus statements of another dozen back wound witnesses.

T3 is a proven fact.  Not even Pat Speer of David Von Pein argue JFK's clothing was elevated.  They both acknowledge it wasn't.

 

Quote

I don't like dealing with those kinds of things.

You don't like dealing with the historical record in regard to JFK's murder, that's obvious.

It was the idea of the autopsists the night of the autopsy that JFK was struck with rounds that wouldn't show up in the autopsy.

You attach proprietary claim to the historical record.

Wrong-headed, eh?

Quote

 

 

This is why I said, fine, construct your own web site and I am sure these ideas will go over really big.  

Not my ideas.

Facts.

Quote

But please note that in all of those queries about the Saigon coup and the Bay of Pigs he made here, that  is what I thought CV was doing. He was being provocative in order to throw in his  pet ideas about Harriman in 1963 and Bundy in 1961.  Which, as I predicted, is what he did.

It is a fact that Bundy proposed the D-Day-2 air strikes.

It is a fact that Harriman pushed strongest for the Diem coup.

Again, you ascribe the historical record to me.

Quote

He does not give one iota about all the other stuff. Nada.  And he is willing to be a provocateur with people on this forum in order to stir the pot about this. With that see through pretense, "Do you think it was alright  for Kennedy to passively greenlight the Saigon Coup."  When he knows that was not the case.  We have been through it many times here and other places.

No, we haven't.  Your side of the discourse never gets beyond hurling insults and unspecific criticisms.

Quote

 Knowing this was a false pretense, he wants to do nothing but to say that somehow Harriman was behind it.  

You're denying Harriman's lead role in the overthrow of Diem?

I posted my arguments to the contrary, you never respond directly with fact-based counter argument.

Quote

 

 

Just like the Bay of Pigs, his is an eccentric view. If you read Douglass, if you had to say one person was behind the coup --which I do not think was the case-- it was most likely Lodge.

I never said one person was behind the coup.  I'm citing the historical record which clearly shows Harriman played the lead in that policy.

I cite evidence, you pretend the evidence doesn't exist.

Quote

 

 

 (LBJ actually later came to  this collusion.) And I will wager a lot of money that CV is not even aware of the new declassified information that has just come out about why the coup proceeded when it did.  It was not because of  Harriman.  Same with the Bay of Pigs.  If you read Douglass, you will see that he uses the work of the Princeton Archvies and Lucien VandenBroucke.  That is the famous article in Diplomatic History in which Lucien wrote about how Dulles and Bissell had a secret agenda about Zapata which they later both confessed to.

Of course they had their own agenda!

It's axiomatic.

I posit Rusk and Bundy (and Lovett and Old Joe) also had a secret agenda -- get Allen Dulles.

How many times did Allen Dulles or Richard Bissell communicate directly with JFK during the BOP?

They had a secret agenda but didn't act on it themselves.

There was nothing they could do to get Kennedy to send in the Navy.

Kennedy made that fact very clear going into it.

Quote

And many authors have used this information.  If you can believe it, even Chris Matthews admits this in his new biography of RFK. (See p. 205)  But somehow once inside CV's Matrix, we are supposed to think it was really Bundy, Rusk, and in later mutations he even includes Joe Kennedy and Lovett!! 

Rusk and Bundy took over BOP planning after Kennedy rejected the Escambray operation.

It's right there in the memos.

Thank you David Josephs for the tip on these memos:

https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1961-63v10/d64

<quote on, emphasis added>

Washington, March 15, 1961.

SUBJECT

Meeting on Cuba, 4:00 PM, March 15, 1961

CIA will present a revised plan for the Cuban operation.1 They have done a remarkable job of reframing the landing plan so as to make it unspectacular and quiet, and plausibly Cuban in its essentials.

The one major problem which remains is the air battle. I think there is unanimous agreement that at some stage the Castro Air Force must be removed. It is a very sketchy force, in very poor shape at the present, and Colonel Hawkins (Bissellʼs military brain) thinks it can be removed by six to eight simultaneous sorties of B-26s. These will be undertaken by Cuban pilots in planes with Cuban Air Force markings. This is the only really noisy enterprise that remains.

My own belief is that this air battle has to come sooner or later, and that the longer we put it off, the harder it will be. Castroʼs Air Force is currently his Achillesʼ heel, but he is making drastic efforts to strengthen it with Russian planes and Russian-trained pilots.

Even the revised landing plan depends strongly upon prompt action against Castroʼs air. The question in my mind is whether we cannot solve this problem by having the air strike come some little time before the invasion. A group of patriotic airplanes flying from Nicaraguan bases might knock out Castroʼs Air Force in a single day without anyone knowing (for some time) where they came from, and with nothing to prove that it was not an interior rebellion by the Cuban Air Force, which has been of very doubtful loyalty in the past; the pilots will in fact be members of the Cuban Air Force who went into the opposition some time ago. Then the invasion could come as a separate enterprise, and neither the air strike nor the quiet landing of patriots would in itself give Castro anything to take to the United Nations.

I have been a skeptic about Bissellʼs operation, but now I think we are on the edge of a good answer. I also think that Bissell and Hawkins have done an honorable job of meeting the proper criticisms and cautions of the Department of State.

<quote off>

 

https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1961-63v10/d65

<quote on, emphasis added>

65. Editorial Note

According to summary notes prepared by General Gray, CIA officials returned to the White House on March 15, 1961, to present a revised plan for the operation against Cuba; see Document 64. The Presidentʼs appointment book indicates that the meeting took place from 4:30 to 5:45 p.m. The meeting was attended by Vice President Johnson, McNamara, Rusk, Mann, Berle, Dulles, Bissell, McGeorge Bundy, William Bundy, and Gray. (Kennedy Library, Presidentʼs Appointment Book) Although not listed in the appointment book, it is likely that at least one member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, probably General Lemnitzer or Admiral Burke, also attended. According to Grayʼs notes on the meeting:

“At this meeting the Zapata plan was presented to the President and a full-length discussion of it followed. The President expressed the belief that uprisings all along the island would be better than to concentrate and strike. The President asked how soon it was intended to break out from this area and Mr. Bissell stated that not before about D+10. The President was also concerned about ability to extricate the forces. The President did not like the idea of the dawn landing and felt that in order to make this appear as an inside guerrilla-type operation, the ships should be clear of the area by dawn. He directed that this planning be reviewed and another meeting be held the following morning.” (Summary notes prepared on May 9, 1961; Kennedy Library, National Security File, Countries Series, Cuba, Subjects, Taylor Report)

 

https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1961-63v10/d66

<quote on, emphasis added>

On March 16, 1961, CIA officials outlined for President Kennedy the revisions to the Zapata plan that the President had called for on the previous day. The Presidentʼs appointment book indicates that the meeting took place in the White House from 4:15 to 5:23 p.m. The meeting was attended by Vice President Johnson, McNamara, Rusk, Mann, Berle, Dulles, Bissell, McGeorge Bundy, William Bundy, and Gray. (Kennedy Library, Presidentʼs Appointment Book) Although not listed in the appointment book, it is clear from his subsequent debriefing on the meeting that Admiral Burke also attended. According to Grayʼs notes on the meeting:

“At meeting with the President, CIA presented revised concepts for the landing at Zapata wherein there would be air drops at first light with [Page 160]the landing at night and all of the ships away from the objective area by dawn. The President decided to go ahead with the Zapata planning; to see what we could do about increasing support to the guerrillas inside the country; to interrogate one member of the force to determine what he knows; and he reserved the right to call off the plan even up to 24 hours prior to the landing.” (Summary notes prepared on May 9, 1961, by General Gray; Kennedy Library, National Security Files, Countries Series, Cuba, Subjects, Taylor Report)

On March 17 Admiral Burke provided the JCS with additional details about the discussion of the revised Zapata plan. According to Burke, the President wanted to know what the consequences would be if the operation failed. He asked Burke how he viewed the operationʼs chance of success. Burke indicated that he had given the President a probability figure of about 50 percent. President Kennedy also inquired what would happen if it developed after the invasion that the Cuban exile force were pinned down and being slaughtered on the beach. If they were to be re-embarked, the President wanted to know where they could be taken. According to Burkeʼs account of the meeting: “It was decided they would not be re-embarked because there was no place to go. Once they were landed they were there.” In the course of the discussion, it was emphasized that the plan was dependent on a general uprising in Cuba, and that the entire operation would fail without such an uprising. (Review of Record of Proceedings Related to Cuban Situation, May 5; Naval Historical Center, Area Files, Bumpy Road Materials)

<quote off>

 

Quote

To me, when I study the issue of Kennedy's foreign policy, what I am looking for is new information.  Info that goes ahead and furthers the geographical frontier. Or it deepens our understanding of an already important  issue. That is why you will see the use of a wide array of sources when I lecture on this subject. Sources that virtually no one knew about before. And it opens up people's minds and it leads somewhere. I am not looking for axe grinding.  Or at people  who refuse to look at new information. That does not tell  us anything about Kennedy.  It tells us about them.

You're looking for new information when you have no understanding of the old information.

That's why you keep re-inventing the wheel as a square.

Edited May 20, 2018 by Cliff Varnell

[Cliff Varnell]

6 hours ago, Paul Brancato said:

Cliff and Jim - there are a couple of things I agree with Cliff on that are not necessarily part of this exchange. I agree that high tech weaponry may have been used and was available at the time. I agree that the nexus from which assassins were chosen, whether by Hecksher or someone else, were also involved in the drug trade. 

I wish both of you you pay more attention to the connections between ‘ex-Nazis’ and the assassination, and with reserve Army Intelligence units. I don’t need to get involved with arguments about where the back wound was only because I think the triangulation of fire is obvious no matter.

But it does matter.  The T3 back wound proves the shot in the throat was from the front; it proves the Fox 5 BOH autopsy photo is a fraud as is the final autopsy report; proves JFK had two wounds of entrance with no  exits.

These are the root facts of the case.  Physical evidence is supreme.

Denying roots facts is obfuscatory.

 

 

[Michael Clark]

57 minutes ago, Cliff Varnell said:

But it does matter.  The T3 back wound proves the shot in the throat was from the front; it proves the Fox 5 BOH autopsy photo is a fraud as is the final autopsy report; proves JFK had two wounds of entrance with no  exits.

These are the root facts of the case.  Physical evidence is supreme.

Denying roots facts is obfuscatory.

 

 

I have heard this many times, that Jim denies a T3 entrance wound. I don't recall him ever saying that. I don't expect him to respond to this, probably because it has been hashed-out over and over through the years.

So, I'll ask Cliff for clarity, is it your contention that Jim denies the T3 entry, or that he does not support your claim; there is a difference. I can understand if it is the latter because, like Salandrai cautioned us about, it amounts to minutiae in the larger picture in as far as when one engages a person who is otherwise disinterested, the details won't make the case; the overview is what needs to be expressed, if the listener has confidence in you.

I can understand if Jim's gig is not in the arena of (and I don't mean to diminish the importance of physical evidence, but I have doubts as to what it will mean to the average person) minute details, but I would be surprised if he thought that the shot from the rear actually exited the throat. Is that what Jim claims?

The easiest point on which one can convince a disinterested party of the fact of conspiracy is that LHO did not act alone, by any number of arguments. The false claim of CE399 entering the back and exiting the throat is just one of them. Does Jim believe this scenario? I can understand if he does not want to enter that fray, as per Salandria, but has he stated that he believes this?

Edited May 20, 2018 by Michael Clark

[Cliff Varnell]

27 minutes ago, Michael Clark said:

I have heard this many times, that Jim denies a T3 entrance wound. I don't recall him ever saying that. I don't expect him to respond to this, probably because it has been hashed-out over and over through the years.

He said it was unknowable.

Quote

So, I'll ask Cliff for clarity, is it your contention that Jim denies the T3 entry, or that he does not support your claim; there is a difference.

I make no claims.

I point out the obvious.

There is nothing to it.

Jim is denying the obvious.

Quote

I can understand if it is the latter because, like Salandrai cautioned us about, it amounts to minutiae in the larger picture in as far as when one engages a person who is otherwise disinterested, the details won't make the case; the overview is what needs to be expressed, if the listener has confidence in you.

When Salandria said conspiracy is obvious he's pointing to the clothing evidence.

There is a difference between "minutiae" and "root fact."

That JFK was shot in the back at T3 is as per Salandria a root fact.

Quote

I can understand if Jim's gig is not in the arena of (and I don't mean to diminish the importance of physical evidence, but I have doubts as to what it will mean to the average person) minute details, but I would be surprised if he thought that the shot from the rear actually exited the throat. Is that what Jim claims?

He claims it's unknowable.

Quote

The easiest point on which one can convince a disinterested party of the fact of conspiracy is that LHO did not act alone, by any number of arguments. The false claim of CE399 entering the back and exiting the threat is just one of them. Does Jim believe this scenario? I can understand if he does not want to enter that fray, as per Salandria, but has he stated that he believes this?

He claims it's unknowable and he basically doesn't give a xxxx.

Edited May 20, 2018 by Cliff Varnell