Jackie Kennedy and the assassination of JFK

[Tim Gratz]

[

The Mexico City Oswald does not serve as an argument "against CIA involvement in the assassination" unless one assumes that the agency is perfectly coordinated with no rogues running loose. And if the CIA had nothing to hide, it would not have had reason to destroy the audio tapes, which also "may very well argue against KGB involvement," as Tim Gratz says.

Tim Carroll

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

My point is that a "rogue CIA agent" who had the smarts to plan the assassination and cover-up would have been aware of the sophisticated CIA surveillance techniques in Mexico City so it would have been foolhardy at best to send in an Oswald imposter.

If LHO was a CIA agent (not sure where you stand on that one) it is possible the LHO trip to Mexico City was a CIA mission unrelated to the assassination, providing the CIA with a motive to destroy the tapes. I don't want to get too speculative, but it is even possible (possible) the CIA was trying to smuggle a trained assassin into Cuba under LHO's name (and known pro-Castro sympathies). Alternative suggestion: the imposter was an anti-Castro Cuban with some previous connection to the CIA so the tape erasure was to avoid CIA embarrassment.

Regardless of why the tapes were destroyed (and there are numerous possible explanations), no CIA rogue agent smart enough to plan the assassination would be stupid enough to believe he could, with impunity, send an imposter into the Cuban or Soviet embassies.

Now this is just a joke, so relax (and it may be a stupid joke but I throw caution to the winds: If Sen Church had been a Republican, would we be talking about "rogue donkeys" rather than "rogue elephants". Seriously, anyone know where the term originated? Did Church just make it up?

Finally, Tim: can you name the investigative reporter who first broke the story that E. Howard Hunt was (may have been?) in Dallas on Nov 22, 1963?

[Tim Carroll]

"Who did it" is not a function of political philosophy, other than if one wants to "pin" the assassination on the CIA to advance a left-wing agenda.

But as I tried to explain, the "KGB did it" ultimately lays the blame on the CIA in any event.  When, even after Castro's warning, and despite the expressed concern of several high-ranking CIA agents that Cubela may be an agent provocateur, Helms authorized Fitzgerald to meet in Paris with Cubela, claiming to be Robert Kennedy's personal emissary, he may (Tim: I said "may") have been signing President Kennedy's death warrant.  

If the CIA plots against Castro have no relevance to the assassination, perhaps the CIA was justified in failing to disclose them to the CIA? 

Come on, let's debate.  Castro had the strongest motive to kill Kennedy (self-defense).  (Castro's motive exists whether or not Kennedy was aware of the plots.  Kennedy was the chief executive of the country whose intelligence service launched numerous murderous attacks against Castro.   

Will you agree that much? That Castro had a strong motive.  Any disinformation there?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I do not, in ad hominem style, reject Trento's argument based upon any presumed ideology. Trento was a key player in the Liberty Lobby lawsuit with Hunt, cited in my seminar. My disagreement is with the presentation of the argument, put into Trento's mouth, herein. I don't consider his interpretation to be as one-dimensional as has been presented. As for the idea that when, "Helms authorized Fitzgerald to meet in Paris with Cubela, claiming to be Robert Kennedy's personal emissary, he may (Tim: I said "may") have been signing President Kennedy's death warrant," I will, and have gone further and acknowledged the possibility that the Cubela operation did have Bobby's approval.

I do not agree that Castro had an "imperative" to strike back. Khrushchev and Kennedy had to work together to circumvent the hardliners in their own governments. There is no mistaking that JFK took significant steps, openly recognized by Castro in the backchannel negotiations involving William Attwood and Lisa Howard, as well as the French journalist emissary Jean Daniel, that JFK was in a difficult position with regard to stopping operations which he had previously supported. The arrests at No Name Key aren't being ignored here I hope. "Castro had the strongest motive to kill Kennedy" only if you consider him stupid or suicidal. You say: "Castro's motive exists whether or not Kennedy was aware of the plots." That makes no sense, especially amongst sophisticated people who understand that a government is not of one spirit. You said, "Kennedy was the chief executive of the country whose intelligence service launched numerous murderous attacks against Castro." There can be no denying that. Kennedy's secret war against Castro during the period between the Bay of Pigs and the Cuban Missile Crisis was deserving of a quid pro quo action. So when you ask: "Will you agree that much? That Castro had a strong motive," I answer yes, he had a strong motive, prior to the invocation of the Neutrality Act and the measures taken by Kennedy, well known by Castro, following the Missile Crisis. The mixing time frames to scapegoat the Soviets in 1963 is disinformational. Trento, to my reading, doesn't consider the Soviets to be of a singular nature anymore than he considered the United States to be such. I go so far as to acknowledge that even the brothers Kennedy may have diverged, albeit altruistically.

So now that we're debating in the open, what sense am I to make of your statement: "If the CIA plots against Castro have no relevance to the assassination, perhaps the CIA was justified in failing to disclose them to the CIA?" Huh? Switching from one-dimensional analysis to whatever the above statement implies, is convenient, if not disinformational. If the CIA was not single-minded, and had divergent factions, why would Castro feel an imperative to kill Kennedy, "whether or not Kennedy was aware of the plots," as you say? Especially if, as the record shows, he considered Kennedy's efforts to turn off the plots and provocations (the Soviet freighter in March, 1963) as sincere.

Tim

Edited December 9, 2004 by Tim Carroll

[Shanet Clark]

Not just Cuba.

The proposal that the KGB was involved does reflect poorly on the CIA, in general terms and especially in light of false programs like the Atsugi station experiments and known counter intelligence purges. Col Rawson, buck pearsall's buddy ie ROSELLI was up to his eyeballs in a "veritable murder incorporated" down there. So the emphasis that drives the agency's bad work in the caribean leaves you with these known american and cuban institutional and organized crime figures, gunrunners, typically. And that scenario fits, but a larger yoke may lay with the military coup, the incapacity, the military agencies, theoretically, I think we go there because it was hidden and the organized crime theories have sunk in but havent't satisfied us. Those gentlemen you named were involved.

[Tim Gratz]

Not just Cuba.

The proposal that the KGB was involved does reflect poorly on the CIA, in general terms and especially in light of false programs like the Atsugi station experiments and known counter intelligence purges. Col Rawson, buck pearsall's buddy ie ROSELLI was up to his eyeballs in a "veritable murder incorporated" down there. So the emphasis that drives the agency's bad work in the caribean leaves you with these known american and cuban institutional and organized crime figures, gunrunners, typically. And that scenario fits, but a larger yoke may lay with the military coup, the incapacity, the military agencies, theoretically, I think we go there because it was hidden and the organized crime theories have sunk in but havent't satisfied us.  Those gentlemen you named were involved.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

The decision of the CIA to involve the Mafia in the Castro assassination plots must surely rank near the top of the worst decisions ever made by a government bureaucrat. I'm not sure if Rosselli himself was a murderer, but reportedly his buddy Giancana had personally authorized over 200 murders. In his memoirs, Robert Maheu says (words to this effect) he liked Giancana because he was a good cook! So the Mafia guys were good cooks and drinking buddies, so what if they were brutal murderers? And the proposition that the CIA could withhold from the Mafia the true sponsor of the plots was as absurd as believing the CIA could stage the Bay of Pigs invasion but disguise U.S. involvement therein.

This may or may not be stretching things, but I think a plausible case can be made that the CIA assassination plots resulted in the deaths of 3,000 Americans on September 11, 2001. Why? Because the revelation of the assassination plots by the Church Committee led to the imposition of legislatively imposed institutional controls on the CIA that probably hampered the CIA's ability to infiltrate terrorist organizations. And it is certainly possible (underline "possible") that the CIA assassination attempts against Castro led to the assassination of JFK.

So, one way or the other, we paid dearly for a bureacrat's decision to utilize murder as an instrument of our foreign policy.

[Tim Carroll]

The decision of the CIA to involve the Mafia in the Castro assassination plots must surely rank near the top of the worst decisions ever made by a government bureaucrat....  This may or may not be stretching things, but I think a plausible case can be made that the CIA assassination plots resulted in the deaths of 3,000 Americans on September 11, 2001.  Why?  Because the revelation of the assassination plots by the Church Committee led to the imposition of legislatively imposed institutional controls on the CIA that probably hampered the CIA's ability to infiltrate terrorist organizations.  And it is certainly possible...that the CIA assassination attempts against Castro led to the assassination of JFK.  So, one way or the other, we paid dearly for a bureacrat's decision to utilize murder as an instrument of our foreign policy.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

But which are you arguing? Was the authorization of assassination as a foreign policy tool initiated by the Eisenhower administration, employing Mafia killers, the cause of retaliation, or was the discovery and subsequent outlawing of that foreign policy tool the cause of 9/11? I recognize that both arguments are not mutually exclusive, but misplaced within a single-topic paragraph. Castro has said:

"We needed a kind of bridge, some sort of communication. Since Kennedy had such great authority in his own country after the crisis, he could have done things that he had not done before. In my view, he had the courage to do them. You had to have courage to defy the state of opinion on all these questions."[1] Castro's view of Kennedy's performances, as well as the Cuban historical view as a whole, is very interesting given the realities of the Bay of Pigs, the Secret War, and the Cuban Missile Crisis. Listening to Castro's remarks at an oral history conference in Cuba, James Blight concluded: "Kennedy is by far the most respected-even loved-U.S. president since the triumph of the revolution in 1959." He recorded the statement of one Cuban official:

"You see, by not attacking Cuba in April 1961 and October 1962, we believe Kennedy's anti-Cuban machinery turned against him, like Frankenstein's monster. Those forces-the Mafia, the radical Cuban exiles, and the CIA-afterwards conspired successfully to assassinate him, because he prevented them from assassinating Fidel and destroying the Cuban Revolution. In a strange way, we believe, Kennedy had to die so that the Cuban Revolution could live."[2] Blight's impression is that when Castro discusses Khrushchev and Kennedy, "one senses that the respect is highly qualified with respect to his old friend Khrushchev, but uncomplicated and sincere regarding his old enemy, Kennedy." Castro feels that because of the "boost in the authority he got after the October crisis, when his leadership was consolidated in the United States," Kennedy was "one of the presidents-or perhaps the president best able-to rectify American policy toward Cuba"[3]

1. James G. Blight, Bruce J. Allyn and David A. Welch, Cuba On The Brink. (New

York: Pantheon Books, 1993), 237.

2. Ibid., 191.

3. Ibid., 191-193.

Edited December 9, 2004 by Tim Carroll

[Tim Gratz]

"Who did it" is not a function of political philosophy, other than if one wants to "pin" the assassination on the CIA to advance a left-wing agenda.

But as I tried to explain, the "KGB did it" ultimately lays the blame on the CIA in any event.  When, even after Castro's warning, and despite the expressed concern of several high-ranking CIA agents that Cubela may be an agent provocateur, Helms authorized Fitzgerald to meet in Paris with Cubela, claiming to be Robert Kennedy's personal emissary, he may (Tim: I said "may") have been signing President Kennedy's death warrant.  

If the CIA plots against Castro have no relevance to the assassination, perhaps the CIA was justified in failing to disclose them to the CIA? 

Come on, let's debate.  Castro had the strongest motive to kill Kennedy (self-defense).  (Castro's motive exists whether or not Kennedy was aware of the plots.  Kennedy was the chief executive of the country whose intelligence service launched numerous murderous attacks against Castro.   

Will you agree that much? That Castro had a strong motive.  Any disinformation there?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I do not, in ad hominem style, reject Trento's argument based upon any presumed ideology. Trento was a key player in the Liberty Lobby lawsuit with Hunt, cited in my seminar. My disagreement is with the presentation of the argument, put into Trento's mouth, herein. I don't consider his interpretation to be as one-dimensional as has been presented. As for the idea that when, "Helms authorized Fitzgerald to meet in Paris with Cubela, claiming to be Robert Kennedy's personal emissary, he may (Tim: I said "may") have been signing President Kennedy's death warrant," I will, and have gone further and acknowledged the possibility that the Cubela operation did have Bobby's approval.

I do not agree that Castro had an "imperative" to strike back. Khrushchev and Kennedy had to work together to circumvent the hardliners in their own governments. There is no mistaking that JFK took significant steps, openly recognized by Castro in the backchannel negotiations involving William Attwood and Lisa Howard, as well as the French journalist emissary Jean Daniel, that JFK was in a difficult position with regard to stopping operations which he had previously supported. The arrests at No Name Key aren't being ignored here I hope. "Castro had the strongest motive to kill Kennedy" only if you consider him stupid or suicidal. You say: "Castro's motive exists whether or not Kennedy was aware of the plots." That makes no sense, especially amongst sophisticated people who understand that a government is not of one spirit. You said, "Kennedy was the chief executive of the country whose intelligence service launched numerous murderous attacks against Castro." There can be no denying that. Kennedy's secret war against Castro during the period between the Bay of Pigs and the Cuban Missile Crisis was deserving of a quid pro quo action. So when you ask: "Will you agree that much? That Castro had a strong motive," I answer yes, he had a strong motive, prior to the invocation of the Neutrality Act and the measures taken by Kennedy, well known by Castro, following the Missile Crisis. The mixing time frames to scapegoat the Soviets in 1963 is disinformational. Trento, to my reading, doesn't consider the Soviets to be of a singular nature anymore than he considered the United States to be such. I go so far as to acknowledge that even the brothers Kennedy may have diverged, albeit altruistically.

So now that we're debating in the open, what sense am I to make of your statement: If the CIA plots against Castro have no relevance to the assassination, perhaps the CIA was justified in failing to disclose them to the CIA? Switching from one-dimensional analysis to whatever the above statement implies, is convenient, if not disinformational. If the CIA was not single-minded, and had divergent factions, why would Castro feel an imperative to kill Kennedy, "whether or not Kennedy was aware of the plots," as you say? Especially if, as the record shows, he considered Kennedy's efforts to turn off the plots and provocations (the Soviet freighter in March, 1963) as sincere.

Tim

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Tim: Have you read Trento's book? He devotes several pages to the proposition that a faction in the KGB, supported by Leonid Brehznev, orchestrated the assassination of JFK followed by the ouster of Khruschev. Like I said, he even names KGB agents involved in the decision. Read his book! (Please.) Then let me know what you think. You know if I did not value your thoughts I would not waste my time engaging in this discourse.

I'm not sure if you understand my point that it matters not whether JFK or RFK personally endorsed the Cubela operation, so since you are clearly very intelligent I apologize for not making myself clear.

Cubela tells Castro (not directly, presumably, but we will abbreviate here) that a CIA official tells him that Cubela's plan to kill Castro has the enthusiastic support of RFK. Neither Cubela or Castro have reason to believe that Fitzgerald was lying. Therefore, Castro has reasonable grounds to believe that JFK has personally endorsed and supports his murder.

So, one of two possibilities exist: the Kennedys were both unaware of the Cubela plot but the CIA gave Castro (through Cubela) the reasonable grounds to believe that they were; or, the Kennedys were aware of the Cubela plot and when the CIA told Cubela that RFK personally endorsed the plot, it was a true statement.

Whether the statement was true or not, Castro reasonably (underscore reasonably) believed it to be true.

So Castro thinks: JFK is approaching me (through a good looking lady at first) with "peace feelures" while he is at the same time (the same time!) plotting my demise! What a great fellow! If Castro reasonably thought JFK had endorsed Cubela's stated intent to kill him, how the heck could he consider JFK's "peace feelures" as "sincere" (as you put it)? If JFK was indeed aware of the Cubela operation, it is difficult to characterize the peace feelures as "sincere". Unless it was JFK's theory that we would resolve our differences with Castro either by negotiation or by murder, whichever occurs first!

How did the resolution of the Cuban missile crisis remove Castro's motive if the plots to kill Castro continued thereafter (as we know they did).

Forget about the politics of this for a minute.

Tom Smith thinks John Doe is trying to kill him. On September 7, Tom Smith tells John Doe, if you continue to try to kill me, I might have to retaliate. Tom Smith sends a man to John Doe who offers, for a price, to kill Smith for Doe. Doe says great, do it! Tell you what, I'll devise a weapon so you can kill Smith and get away with it!

On November 22, Doe is found dead.

Is Smith a natural suspect in Doe's murder? Well, that's obvious. Is it a defense that Smith says, Well, Doe was telling me let's resolve our differences (while at the same time he was trying to hire my killer and supply him with a weapon)? Of course not. What is the adage: actions speak louder than words!

Castro had a motive as long as the US continued its efforts to kill him. Those efforts were active on November 22, 1963.

As you know, it is not necessary to prove motive to prove a murder case, but motive is certainly a valid factor in a murder investigation.

Understand by making this argument I ought to sound not like a "right-winger" as much as a Castro apologist!

And let me get this out of the way: it cuts beyond politics. In once sense, the actual plot to kill Castro (and engage the Mafia to do so) started with Richard Bissell. Do you know who Bissell supported for President in 1960? And let's look at some other players: Robert Maheu was a Nixon supporter but his buddy Sam Giancana was a Kennedy supporter. So the efforts to kill Castro, as misguided as they were, had bipartisan support!

[Tim Gratz]

But which are you arguing? Was the authorization of assassination as a foreign policy tool initiated by the Eisenhower administration, employing Mafia killers, the cause of retaliation, or was the discovery and subsequent outlawing of that foreign policy tool the cause of 9/11? I recognize that both arguments are not mutually exclusive, but misplaced within a single-topic paragraph.

I posted a note before you got here that the well-educated idiot (well, the policy was idiotic if not lunatic) who first authorized the use of the Mafia to kill Castro (for $150,000 in taxpayer funds) was Richard Bissell, a Kennedy supporter. To say "initiated by the Eisenhower administration" sounds like Eisenhower himself authorized the assassination plots while most historians believe he was not aware of them (although Allen Dulles endorsed them after the fact). But the assassination of Castro was first suggested (apparently) to Bissell by Barnes, who was relaying a recommendation made by E. Howard Hunt, a Republican. The assassination attempts continued under the Kennedy administration. So it makes no sense, really, to insert partisan politics. Let us assume that Truman was right that "the buck stops here" and attribute the plots to both Presidents, regardless of their knowledge thereof. It was as wrong for the Kennedy administration to continue the plots as it was for the Eisenhower administration to initiate them.

It was not the outlawing of assassinations that led to the CIA's failures with respect to 9/11, but rather other restrictions placed on the CIA as a result of the Church Committee revelations.

The assassination plots may or may not have led to Kennedy's death. Castro certainly had motive right up until Novembe 22, 1963, but motive alone does not prove culpability. I think it fair to say, however, that the assassination plots may have led to Kennedy's assassination. And the restrictions put on the CIA as a direct result of the revelation of the plots not only against Castro but also against Lumumba (killed during the Eisenhower administration) and Trujillo (killed during the Kennedy administration) certainly impeded the CIA's ability to discover the 9/11 plots.

As you know, there is a legal adage: "Hard cases make bad law." IMO, some of the intelligence "reforms" imposed in the mid seventies were "bad law" caused by the "hard case" of the CIA's assassination polts in the early sixties. And, I submit, even though the CIA's endorsement of political murder was bad enough, I think it was the CIA's employment of the Mafia that really shocked the Congress (even though dapper Rosselli charmed the Church Committee while telling it nothing its members did not already know).

Edited December 9, 2004 by Tim Gratz

[John Geraghty]

Jackie's diaries should be interesting to read when they are released somewhere around 2027, they could tell a lot.

[Tim Carroll]

I posted a note before you got here that the well-educated idiot (well, the policy was idiotic if not lunatic) who first authorized the use of the Mafia to kill Castro (for $150,000 in taxpayer funds) was Richard Bissell, a Kennedy supporter.  To say "initiated by the Eisenhower administration" sounds like Eisenhower himself authorized the assassination plots while most historians believe he was not aware of them....  So it makes no sense, really, to insert partisan politics.  Let us assume that Truman was right that "the buck stops here" and attribute the plots to both Presidents, regardless of their knowledge thereof.  It was as wrong for the Kennedy administration to continue the plots as it was for the Eisenhower administration to initiate them.

It was not the outlawing of assassinations that led to the CIA's failures with respect to 9/11, but rather other restrictions placed on the CIA as a result of the Church Committee revelations.

The assassination plots may or may not have led to Kennedy's death.  Castro certainly had motive right up until Novembe 22, 1963, but motive alone does not prove culpability.  I think it fair to say, however, that the assassination plots may have led to Kennedy's assassination. 

IMO, some of the intelligence "reforms" imposed in the mid seventies were "bad law" caused by the "hard case" of the CIA's assassination plots in the early sixties.  And, I submit, even though the CIA's endorsement of political murder was bad enough, I think it was the CIA's employment of the Mafia that really shocked the Congress (even though dapper Roselli charmed the Church Committee while telling it nothing its members did not already know).

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Tim,

First off, I admit to not yet having read Trento's book, The Secret History of the CIA, and I had generally withdrawn from actively pursuing the minutae of that period, having even given away my awesome collection of books in an effort to simplify my life. I believe I lost an inordinate number of brain cells reading Epstein's stuff on Nosenko. It all becomes very twisted, as Angleton well understood. Angleton's years-long hunt for a mole has now been turned around to implicate Angleton himself. It's twisted enough to be possible. But I assure you, as I previously mentioned Trento's Liberty Lobby contribution, that I do not at all dismiss him in any regard, and absolutely not on any perception of his ideology. I've never had a thought about his ideology. Now that I've reread this thread, I noticed that you asked if I knew who broke the story of Hunt in Dallas. I believe that was Trento. On that point, I've also previously said that he may have overreached on that one. That Hunt may have been in Dallas on the evening of the 21st, but was being honest about being in D.C. on the 22nd. As for why he would have a problem in his contorted testimony that centered on how he could assert both his children's doubts about his role and his presence at home with them all that weekend, this could be explained by his lying about being at home with said children, as he probably had a busy working weekend. Also, the purported memo initialed by Helms and Angleton is questionable, as I am increasingly becoming aware that many documents we hope to unearth will have been compromised by the time they're obtained. This concern was demonstrated with CBS' National Guard document fiasco. Bush's commander's secretary asserted that the document was fake; but most people failed to note the important part of what she said: that whoever produced the fake had to have had the real document, as the language and facts contained therein were accurate. All they have to do is reveal truths in leaked, retyped documents, and the revealed truth is discredited.

I agree with your statement: "So it makes no sense, really, to insert partisan politics." I don't intend that, and don't excuse JFK's highly-charged secret war on Cuba and development of Operation Mongoose, following on the heels of the Bay of Pigs humiliation. However, it isn't as simple as to say, Eisenhower and Kennedy both did it. The time period discussed is relevant. There is evidence that JFK did not know of the Mafia plots prior to the Bay of Pigs, and afterward, unlike the Eisenhower approach, he created a whole indigenous army of saboteurs at JM/WAVE with Operation Mongoose. Admittedly, he did not terminate ZR/RIFLE and Harvey until after the Missile Crisis. But I would argue that it is too one-dimensional to say that Kennedy engaged in certain behavior without also questioning, during which period? Based on the dark history of sanctioned assassinations in the Caribbean, and LBJ's subsequent aversion to such, one could wrongly conclude that Ike and JFK were killers and LBJ was not.

I agree with most of the following: "The assassination plots may or may not have led to Kennedy's death. Castro certainly had motive right up until November 22, 1963, but motive alone does not prove culpability. I think it fair to say, however, that the assassination plots may have led to Kennedy's assassination." But that could work differently than the above statement implies. Castro was aware during the year prior to November 22, of the difficult position JFK was in. And despite not being informed directly, he had a clear sense that Kennedy and Khrushchev had made a secret deal. He understood that he had been used as a pawn, and that the Soviet deployment of missiles to his island had nothing to do with the defense of Cuba. As he said, "That was elementary logic.... Withdrawing missiles from Turkey completely contradicted the theory that the main objective of the deployment had been defending Cuba."* Kennedy had supported Mongoose stridently until the Missile Crisis, but I find a great deal of persuasive evidence that he had a wake-up call, and then was dangerously engaged in trying to suppress what he had previously supported, like trying to put a genie back into the bottle.

In the immediate aftermath of the Crisis, upon "learning, angrily, that CIA sabotage missions into Cuba were still going on, he told Director McCone point-blank to terminate operations. And he instructed Secretary McNamara to start pulling the Jupiters out of Turkey. Said John McNaughton, one of McNamara's civilian aides, to a task force of admirals and generals, who were resisting the Turkey part of the deal: 'Those missiles are going to be out of there [Turkey] by April 1 if we have to shoot them out.'"**

The Cubela plot is well covered in my seminar, and I recognize FitzGerald as being so close to Bobby, that I entertain the almost unthinkable notion that Bobby acted on his own to get rid of Castro, like one of King Henry II's henchmen acting on their own to rid their king of that meddlesome priest, Becket. This is how I postulate that Bobby could have been kept from pursuing his brother's killers; because something he had encouraged backfired. The pain was etched on his face for his remaining days.

I agree with the statement: "IMO, some of the intelligence 'reforms' imposed in the mid seventies were 'bad law' caused by the "hard case" of the CIA's assassination plots in the early sixties. And, I submit, even though the CIA's endorsement of political murder was bad enough, I think it was the CIA's employment of the Mafia that really shocked the Congress." There was quite a bit of overreaction in the wake of the post-Watergate, Church Committee disclosures which had long-term ramifications. The overreaction was understandable, however. A house cleaning is one thing - to institutionally tie the hands of our intelligence gathering capabilities is another. But I consider the law banning assassination of foreign leaders to have been a good thing which should not have been done away with because of 9/11. Shanet's seminar on intelligence reform addresses these issues far better than I could here.

Finally, as to the statement: "It was not the outlawing of assassinations that led to the CIA's failures with respect to 9/11, but rather other restrictions placed on the CIA as a result of the Church Committee revelations." In my opinion, 9/11 was an excellent example of the mindset revealed in the Kennedy administration's Operation Northwoods. The types of activities and personnel involved with the CIA necessitate strong oversight. The original 1947 ban against any domestic activities was well-founded and constitutionally necessary. The Wall between domestic and foreign intelligence sharing was also a good thing: imagine J. Edgar Hoover as intelligence czar! Oversight committees such as the 5412 Committee were and are the appropriate approach.

I admittedly resist explanations that one-dimensionally try to blame Castro or Khrushchev because they ignore much of the secret and comlex history that was transpiring, not within the CIA or military, but between leaders. Kennedy had his military clique, which was highly supported by LBJ; Khrushchev had his hardliners led by Brezhnev, and Castro was having problems with a new, more rabidly communist insurgency in the Escambray Mountains and the more dogmatic positions advocated by Che. He also felt used and betrayed by the Soviets by being left out of the resolution of the Missile Crisis. Everything is not as it seems. Castro says it well: "Since Kennedy had such great authority in his own country after the crisis, he could have done things that he had not done before. In my view, he had the courage to do them. You had to have courage to defy the state of opinion on all these questions."***

When history didn't buy into the lone nut theory, the next fall back was that Castro did it, then that the Soviets did it, then in the mid-1970s it was the Mafia. But the confluence of the Mafia and CIA, personified by the close relationship between Wild Bill Harvey and Johhny Roselli, as well as the fallback funding received by the more rabid anti-Castroites from Big Oil, Military Industial Complex and the Mafia when Kennedy made efforts to terminate the attempts to provoke war, was the most revealing scenario of the type of multi-entity operations that could, and to my mind did, bring about a Coup d' etat In America. I know this view is often ridiculed as the "everything but the kitchen sink" type of explanation, but there was a confederation of ideologues from all of these groups that did business together. I believe that history is clear enough on that point. So to recap, I don't believe there is any one group, let alone Jim Root's "one man" thesis, that can be credited with JFK's murder.

Tim Carroll

* James G. Blight, Bruce J. Allyn and David A. Welch, Cuba On The Brink,(New York: Pantheon Books, 1993), 225.

** Robert Smith Thompson, The Missiles of October, (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992), 345.

*** Blight, 237.

Note: Blight's work is a compendium of conferences which included Castro and McNamara as participants. The exchanges and revelations that emerge in such historical conferences, while always an opportunity for some revision, are generally invaluable in the search for truth.

Edited December 11, 2004 by Tim Carroll

[Wim Dankbaar]

Here another angle:

http://www.januaryjones.com/

Wim

[Tim Carroll]

Here another angle: 

Wim

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Wim,

Here I just get done pouring my heart out, and you come back with this. Very funny. You must have really enjoyed the last line below: "Until an actual assassin confesses, my theory is as valid as any other theory so far presented." But Wim, since you have the rights to the real confessed assassin's story, she's missing the boat, right? Since we're heading from the sublime to the ridiculous, what is your information on Marilyn Monroe's murder? Do you have a witness you deem credible who has anything to say about personal involvement in that? Does it ever occur to you that when you post this kind of nonsense, even in humor, that it reflects on the seriousness of some of the other stuff on your site?

Tim

*Just to save anyone else the trouble of going to that site, here is the nonsense:

Most FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS taken from interviews given by January Jones:

WHAT IS YOUR THEORY?

My Love triangle Theory implicates Aristotle Onassis and Jackie Kennedy in the assassination of John Kennedy. I connect them romantically before the murder and prove that they had the motivie and means to commit the perfect crime of this century.

WHAT WERE THEIR MOTIVES?

Jackie desperately needed cash, and Ari desperately needed class. Onassis was obsessed with Jackie and they fell in love with each other.

DID JACKIE REALLY NEED ONASSIS'S MONEY?

Absolutely. Jackie was broke. The Kennedy money was all tied up in trust funds. It was set up for those lucky enough to be born a Kennedy, not for those who married into the family. On her wedding day to Ari, he gave her $5M in cash with no strings attached. It was the the very first time in her life that she had money of her own.

WHY WOULD JACKE EVER GET INTO A CAR NEXT TO JFK KNOWING IT WOULD BECOME A SHOOTING GALLERY?

Onassis would have hired the best assassins in the world through intermediaries. In order to protect their identities neither Ari nor Jackie would have been privey

to the mechanics of the hit. Jackie had to be there since her presence would be a perfect alibi for her and anyone she were to marry in the future. Onassis was very upset that she was so close to the actual shooting. He loved her which explains why he immediately flew to DC to stay in the White House during the president's funeral.

WHY WOULD JACKIE RISK HER REPUTATION?

This was a rsik free proposition for Jackie. All of the risk would be squarely on Ari's broad shoulders. If Ari eliminated her husband by committing the perfect crime, it would be very easy to conside marriage to him after a proper period of mourning. If Onassis failed and was implicated, Jackie could easily condemn him by saying he was a lunatic obsessed with her.

WHAT WOULD SHE GAIN BY CONSENTING TO THE MURDER OF HER CHILDREN'S FATHER?

With Jack out of the picture, Jackie was free to create the Camelot Legend. She could give her children the "father" of her dreams. She could endow JFK with the mantle of medieval kingship, shivalry and fidelity. This way Jackie would be able to ignore and hide from her children the truth about their father's philandering ways.

HOW DID YOU COME UP WITH THIS THEORY?

History repeats itself. There have been other famous love trangles throughout history. After all, what was Camelot? It was another love triangle. Then there was Cleopatra with Julius Ceasar and Marc Antony.

HOW CAN YOU POSSIBY IMPLICATE JACKIE KENNEDY?

Jackie was involved with two of the most wealthy, powerful and ruithless men of the last century. She certainly knew what kind of men she married and got into bed with. Jackie swam with sharks, and she out swam them both. I portray her as a heroine. She was a survivor.

WHY DID JACKIE SEAL HER PRIVATE PAPERS UNTIL 2044?

Obviously, there was something she did not wish made public until the middle of the next century. When her papers are opened, I think that Jackie will again rewrite history. Just as she did with the creation of Camelot, she will then step to the forefront and take her place in history as the dominant Kennedy of the last century.

WHY DO YOU THINK YOUR THEORY IS THE RIGHT ONE?

There is a legal term called Qui bono which means Who benefits? Think about it, there were only two people who really benefited from this murder. One was obviously Lyndon Johnson and the other one was Aristotle Onassis. I don't feel that even Johnson would have been arrogant enought to invite a man into his own home, as in the stat of Texas, and kill him. I feel that Onassis ordered this hit through intermediaries to protect his invlolvement. He brilliantly ordered the hit to take place in Dallas which would forever cast Johnson as the subliminal villian.

WHAT MAKES JANUARY JONES AN EXPERT?

I am not, not have I ever claimed to be an expert. I am just an average woman who has applied common sense to a very complicated crime. I have presented a theory that anyonce can understand. There is nothing new under heaven and earth. After years of theoretical assassins, I address WHO ordered the hit. My answer eliminates Conspiracy Chaos. It gives us a European villian removed from the American scene. My theory eleinates the internal American conspiracies promoted by the media. Until an actual assassin confesses, my theory is as valid as any other theory so far presented.

[Tim Carroll]

Deleted Post. Darn computer and/or website posted the above nonsense twice.

Edited December 9, 2004 by Tim Carroll

[Shanet Clark]

January Jones has stated, in a rather reduced way, the GREEK TYCOON theory.

In the masculine world of the mediterranean, to the victor go the arms and the woman. International Oil shipping and new Pentagon contracts joined the Greek to the ,,,,,

I guess there isn't much more to the ARISTOTLE ONASSIS theory. Except that Jaquie married the guy and WHAT WAS THAT ALL ABOUT?

Tim Carroll: this will make you L O L :

Jackie Kennedy Onassis ran hot water to her toilets! Now that is class!

[Tim Carroll]

Jackie Kennedy Onassis ran hot water to her toilets!  Now that is class!

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Fact? What is your source?

Edited December 10, 2004 by Tim Carroll

[Shanet Clark]

Ted Kennedy, Tip O'Neil and Kitty Dukakis all told me!