Vietnam Declassified: Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon

[James DiEugenio]

On this site, we tend to get lost in the details.  And at times we ignore what Prouty called The Big Picture.

This is the talk I gave up in San Francisco this past weekend.  It is a significantly revised and expanded version of a speech I gave in Virginia about 18 months ago.

As David Josephs said after, how could anyone deny that Kennedy was leaving Vietnam after that?  Well, maybe people who buy alien abductions?

Anyway, read it and learn the facts about a central issue in history that was covered up by the likes of LBJ, David Halberstam, and many others.  It took Oliver Stone, Fletcher Prouty and John Newman to drag it into the sunlight. And man the MSM did not like it.  For good reasons.  It proved they were full of BS.

https://kennedysandking.com/images/pdf/vietnam-declassified-rev-2018.pdf

 

[W. Niederhut]

3 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

On this site, we tend to get lost in the details.  And at times we ignore what Prouty called The Big Picture.

This is the talk I gave up in San Francisco this past weekend.  It is a significantly revised and expanded version of a speech I gave in Virginia about 18 months ago.

As David Josephs said after, how could anyone deny that Kennedy was leaving Vietnam after that?  Well, maybe people who buy alien abductions?

Anyway, read it and learn the facts about a central issue in history that was covered up by the likes of LBJ, David Halberstam, and many others.  It took Oliver Stone, Fletcher Prouty and John Newman to drag it into the sunlight. And man the MSM did not like it.  For good reasons.  It proved they were full of BS.

https://kennedysandking.com/images/pdf/vietnam-declassified-rev-2018.pdf

 

 

This presentation should be televised on PBS, and elsewhere in the mainstream U.S. media.

After all of these years, the American people need to finally learn the terrible truth about JFK and Vietnam.

[David G. Healy]

Excellent work, Jim.

DHealy

[Guest]

4 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

As David Josephs said after, how could anyone deny that Kennedy was leaving Vietnam after that?  Well, maybe people who buy alien abductions?

The extent to which I am inside of Jim's head is just a little concerning to me.  I'm not sure I want to be inside of Jim's head.  No, I'm pretty sure I don't.

Here's an interesting and very readable article from 2013 on conspiracy thinking:  https://slate.com/technology/2013/11/conspiracy-theory-psychology-people-who-claim-to-know-the-truth-about-jfk-ufos-and-9-11.html

See if you think they're talking about people like Jim - or maybe even you.  Maybe you will, maybe you won't.

Jim likes to pretend the conspiracy-prone mindset doesn't exist and isn't a well-documented phenomenon, but science says otherwise.  Jim likes to pretend "belief in alien abductions" and "belief in JFK conspiracy theories" are two entirely unrelated phenomena, but science says otherwise.  (BTW, I do not "buy alien abductions."  I buy "the existence of a phenomenon whereby hundreds of thousands of mostly sane people believe they have been abducted by aliens," just as I buy "the existence of a phenomenon whereby even more people than that believe JFK's assassination was the result of an elaborate conspiracy.")  Jim likes to pretend that belief in alien abductions is silly and the product of nothing but delusion and credulity, whereas belief in a JFK conspiracy is wise and the product of nothing but dispassionate historical research - but science says otherwise.

This is not to say all conspiracy theories are bogus or all conspiracy believers are prisoners of the conspiracy mindset.  But when you encounter an obsessive, intolerant, dogmatic conspiracy crank, it can be very helpful to keep in mind what this article is saying. 

Conspiracy Theorists Aren’t Really Skeptics

The fascinating psychology of people who know the real truth about JFK, UFOs, and 9/11.

Just brief sample:

Many studies and surveys have documented this pattern. Several months ago, Public Policy Polling asked 1,200 registered U.S. voters about various popular theories. Fifty-one percent said a larger conspiracy was behind President Kennedy’s assassination; only 25 percent said Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. Compared with respondents who said Oswald acted alone, those who believed in a larger conspiracy were more likely to embrace other conspiracy theories tested in the poll. They were twice as likely to say that a UFO had crashed in Roswell, N.M., in 1947 (32 to 16 percent) and that the CIA had deliberately spread crack cocaine in U.S. cities (22 to 9 percent). Conversely, compared with respondents who didn’t believe in the Roswell incident, those who did were far more likely to say that a conspiracy had killed JFK (74 to 41 percent), that the CIA had distributed crack (27 to 10 percent), that the government “knowingly allowed” the 9/11 attacks (23 to 7 percent), and that the government adds fluoride to our water for sinister reasons (23 to 2 percent).

Edited December 18, 2018 by Guest

[W. Niederhut]

L.P.,

   In my opinion, as a Board Certified psychiatrist, there is no such thing as a monolithic "conspiracy mindset."  What the CIA propagandists began to disparage in the 1960s as "conspiracy theories," while trying to defend Allen Dulles's bogus Warren Commission Report, are mostly evidence-based theories about the scientific and forensic data in the case.  Most of these theories are firmly grounded in the data that was ignored or altered by the Warren Commission.  They have almost nothing in common with "conspiracy theories" about aliens, UFOs, chem trails, etc.

    In the case of 9/11, the Swiss historian Daniele Ganser has correctly pointed out that, "all theories about 9/11 are conspiracy theories," including Phillip Zelikow's official U.S. government narrative. Hence, the term is meaningless.

   That is the basic fallacy underlying all of these pop psychology articles that try to make  generalizations about so-called, "conspiracy theories."  It's comparable to lumping all theories about history into the same conceptual basket, in order to make generalizations about people who believe in "historical theories."

Edited December 18, 2018 by W. Niederhut

[Cliff Varnell]

Is there anyone who doubts the CIA aided and abetted cocaine/gun running in the 80's?

[Guest]

1 hour ago, W. Niederhut said:

L.P.,

   In my opinion, as a Board Certified psychiatrist, there is no such thing as a monolithic "conspiracy mindset."  What the CIA propagandists began to disparage in the 1960s as "conspiracy theories," while trying to defend Allen Dulles's bogus Warren Commission Report, are mostly evidence-based theories about the scientific and forensic data in the case.  Most of these theories are firmly grounded in the data that was ignored or altered by the Warren Commission.  They have almost nothing in common with "conspiracy theories" about aliens, UFOs, chem trails, etc.

    In the case of 9/11, the Swiss historian Daniele Ganser has correctly pointed out that, "all theories about 9/11 are conspiracy theories," including Phillip Zelikow's official U.S. government narrative. Hence, the term is meaningless.

   That is the basic fallacy underlying all of these pop psychology articles that try to make  generalizations about so-called, "conspiracy theories."  It's comparable to lumping all theories about history into the same conceptual basket, in order to make generalizations about people who believe in "historical theories."

I don't believe it's "monolithic" either, but likewise the underlying studies on which articles such as this are based are not "pop psychology" either.  I believe - and I believe what the literature shows - is that there is a propensity toward conspiracy thinking on the part of people who fit a particular psychological profile.  If the best evidence and inferences point toward a conspiracy, this is all irrelevant; those who don't fit the profile will see the conspiracy as well.  I think the relevance is that those who do fit the profile are prone to see conspiracies where the best evidence and inferences don't support them and to be the ones who gravitate toward "lunatic fringe" theories.  I've pointed that some of the most extreme lunatic fringe ideas are promoted by people who are highly educated, have excellent academic and professional credentials and seem generally sane.  When it comes to 9/11, one of my favorite philosophers and theologians, David Ray Griffin - who I was reading long before 9/11 - went pretty much completely off the deep end on 9/11.  I was agog.

It's not my intent to derail the thread or to minimize the quality of the work Jim may have done on JFK and Vietnam.  It's Jim who seems obsessed with the fact that I've mentioned on past occasions that I do have considerable experience (decades) in observing the conspiracy mindset within the UFO community (of which the alien abduction community is a subset) and other communities where fringe-type thinking is prevalent and that I do see similarities to the JFK conspiracy community.  It's simply something for people to be aware of, in themselves and in the communities in which they find themselves, as they try to navigate the landscape.

I'm not pretending to "diagnose" who does and doesn't share the conspiracy-prone profile.  I share it to some extent and try not to let it dominate or cloud my thinking.  Jim for some reason seems to take this all intensely personally and, moreover, to keep suggesting that I am one of the lunatic fringe of the alien abduction community if not the fake moon landing community.  Anyone who has read my posts knows this is not true, yet Jim keeps harping on it even in contexts such as this thread where it has no applicability.  This seems to be the preferred ad hominem approach he has adopted for me, as opposed to the seemingly endless and generally mindlessly dismissive ad hominem attacks he levels at all Lone Nutters and indeed everyone who dares to disagree with him.  Any lawyer who has spent years trying to convince judges of the merits of his arguments knows that this is a very counterproductive approach, yet Jim persists.  Ergo, I keep (1) setting the record straight in regard to myself and (2) attempting to clarify that the point I am making is a legitimate one and is not by any means a blanket condemnation of conspiracy theories or the people who formulate and believe in them.

[James DiEugenio]

Thanks WN and David.

And I am glad David has come back since I had not seen him in awhile.

This PP essay contains the most current information on this whole issue of Kennedy, LBJ, RMN and Vietnam.  I always thought that the best way to approach it was through a comparison of all four administrations, Ike through Nixon, in order to get, what is called in the historical trade,  a comparative analysis. 

I think everyone can learn from reading it.  Anyone who is open to new info should benefit from it.

The only thing that I do not have in here is the most current info about Max Taylor.  I might be able to add that in later.

But this version has a lot of new info about John K. Galbraith who was very influential in Kennedy's thinking on Vietnam.

The other reason I think its important is to show how Hallin's spheres were created on this issue. Specifically, that is the combination of LBJ inside the beltway and Halberstam in New York completely clouded what had really happened. Halberstam, Vann and Sheehan all  wanted direct American involvement.   They got it.  It was a disaster.  And then Halberstam tried to cover his tracks on his role in fomenting that disaster. A real profile in courage.  And neither him nor Sheehan ever acknowledged that they were wrong and Kennedy was right.  Even after Stone's film came out, Newman's book JFK and Vietnam was published, or the other books that built on Newman's thesis. Not a peep from Mr. MSM.

This is the kind of political culture we have in this country. Governed by Hallin's spheres in the media,  and the Overton Window politically.

BTW, I hope everyone goes to the end to see Saigon/Ho Chi Minh city today and all the McDonald's franchises there.  Some domino theory eh? Maybe it was all about Domino's Pizza?

Edited December 19, 2018 by James DiEugenio

[W. Niederhut]

L.P.,

    I don't want to hijack this thread about DiEugenio's important, accurate analysis of JFK, NSAM 263, and Vietnam.  He's spot on.

    If you haven't figured that out yet, do your homework-- read DiEugenio, Prouty, Newman, Peter Dale Scott, et.al.

   As for Professor David Ray Griffin, if you can't understand his very precise, logical analysis of the data, get a dementia work up--  serum TSH, folate, B12, and cranial MRI to rule mass lesions, hydrocephalus, etc.

    As for popular "studies" of "conspiracy theorists," they show the precise opposite of what you imagine-- no meaningful correlations with valid psychometric variables.

    That's precisely what we would expect to see when studying a bogus, non-monolithic variable, like "conspiracy mindset."

    If you consider my example, what sort of correlations would you expect to find among all people who believe in various "historical theories" -- e.g., Hegel, Marx, L. Ron Hubbard, Jules Archer, George W. Bush, and Young Earth Creationists like Henry Morris?

 

Edited December 19, 2018 by W. Niederhut

[Ron Bulman]

5 hours ago, David G. Healy said:

Excellent work, Jim.

DHealy

Ditto.  Cryin shame some CS MSM outlet won't let it out to the public.  Though many these days still wouldn't read it, it's more than 28 words, longer than their attention span.

[James DiEugenio]

Thanks Ron.  Please note all of this information that was not in the Burns/Novick 18 hour documentary on PBS.

But yet, it was all out there at the time it was shown and in production.

Recall, this is Public Broadcasting, which is supposed to offer an alternative to the networks.  But when it came to Vietnam, PBS has gotten as bad on that as they are on the JFK case itself e.g. the 1993, Gus Russo/Dale Myers Who was Lee Harvey Oswald? and the 2013 Cold Case Nova.

From my understanding, in the book accompanying their completely mediocre series, they did the same thing, discounting all of this information about JFK's intent to withdraw from Vietnam.  So Jamie Galbraith got really upset and wrote a really neat article lambasting their mishandling of the evidence.

If you always wondered why Jamie Galbraith was a strong advocate for Newman's book this is why.  Its pretty obvious that his father told him all of this stuff.  And that idiot Halberstam tries to say that Galbraith was really not a part of the debate on the issue.  When in fact he was in Washington at the November debates and supplied the memo that JFK used to parry all the request for the entry of combat troops.  This is one of the problems I have with journalists masquerading as historians.  They build a false narrative because their work is based on interviews with people who end up having agendas.  And believe me, in 1972, then it was now clear the war was a debacle, there were a lot of people with agendas trying to hide their tracks.

Including David Halberstam. Who wanted everyone to forget what a hawk he had been and how opposed to JFK's policy of no combat troops.

Edited December 19, 2018 by James DiEugenio

[W. Niederhut]

As I recall, PBS has colluded for decades in the mainstream media cover up of the conspiracy to assassinate President John F. Kennedy.

I don't recall the specifics, but I do recall being disappointed to hear Jim Lehrer repeat the bogus WCR narrative during a PBS 11/22 anniversary telecast.

I also, vaguely, recall Jim Lehrer mentioning that he (or, possibly, Robert McNeil?) had been in Dallas on 11/22/63.

[James DiEugenio]

I think both were there.  Lehrer worked for a local newspaper and McNeil was on the press bus.

As per PBS, they really began to go south during the Reagan years.  There were so many attempts to cut their funding that they began to vigorously search out for other sources of revenue.

But really, who would have thought they would have joined the JFK cover up like they did? On both the assassination and Vietnam.

BTW, Newman, when he heard Burns was going to do this, challenged him to a debate. Kenny did not reply.

Wonder why?

[W. Tracy Parnell]

2 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

From my understanding, in the book accompanying their completely mediocre series, they did the same thing, discounting all of this information about JFK's intent to withdraw from Vietnam.

I am in the process of watching the PBS series for the first time since it is now on Netflix. I have to say I thought the coverage of JFK was very fair and even minded. I fully expected to hear the "JFK was going to withdraw from Vietnam" philosophy but happily that was not the case. 

Jim, the NYT article you quote from in your PDF does indeed report on documents that discuss a withdrawal of advisors. But it also states that "no one will ever know if these plans would have been carried out." The article also says that "some believe [the plans] were a political façade erected for the 1964 elections; others think they were based on overly optimistic battlefield reports;  still others see them as a device to force South Vietnam's corrupt government to change." The Times article also reports on JFK's public stance which was that of not supporting a withdrawal as when he spoke to Cronkite in September, 1963. 

The times reports 16000 advisors in 1963. Assuming that is an accurate number, 1000 would be a drop in the bucket even if it happened. I believe JFK's strategy was clear and also correct. Use advisors and air power to support South Vietnam in hopes of achieving a "Korea-like" outcome at the minimum. I doubt JFK would have escalated the conflict as Johnson did, but I see no outright withdrawal.

[Guest]

22 hours ago, W. Niederhut said:

L.P.,

    I don't want to hijack this thread about DiEugenio's important, accurate analysis of JFK, NSAM 263, and Vietnam.  He's spot on.

    If you haven't figured that out yet, do your homework-- read DiEugenio, Prouty, Newman, Peter Dale Scott, et.al.

   As for Professor David Ray Griffin, if you can't understand his very precise, logical analysis of the data, get a dementia work up--  serum TSH, folate, B12, and cranial MRI to rule mass lesions, hydrocephalus, etc.

    As for popular "studies" of "conspiracy theorists," they show the precise opposite of what you imagine-- no meaningful correlations with valid psychometric variables.

    That's precisely what we would expect to see when studying a bogus, non-monolithic variable, like "conspiracy mindset."

    If you consider my example, what sort of correlations would you expect to find among all people who believe in various "historical theories" -- e.g., Hegel, Marx, L. Ron Hubbard, Jules Archer, George W. Bush, and Young Earth Creationists like Henry Morris?

 

You, as a licensed mental health professional, are suggesting that I should get a "dementia work up" if I do not buy into David Ray Griffin's "very precise, logical analysis" of the data indicative of a major - indeed vast - conspiracy in relation to the events of 9/11?  Have I got that right?  Is the board that issues your license aware that you make suggestions like this on internet forums?

If every study shows the precise opposite of what I'm suggesting, perhaps I have stumbled into some alternative universe.  Would you like me to flood this thread with references to and quotations from such studies?  The studies indeed do not show mental illness or anything of the kind.  "Alien abductees" are remarkably healthy in this regard, which is what intrigued the late Dr. John Mack of Harvard University.  But they do share documented propensities that distinguish them from the population as a whole. 

I take it you're revealing that you are a 9/11 Truther as well?  OK, let's just take a quick look at David Ray Griffin and perhaps rethink your "dementia work up" suggestion.  This is from a review of one of his books by Political Research Associates, http://www.publiceye.org/conspire/Post911/dubious_claims.html:

Griffin makes a number of claims suggesting a widespread conspiracy to create and carry out the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. This conspiracy, as outlined in Griffin's book, would involve numerous U.S. government elected officials as well as multiple state level, commercial, and media conspirators. To accomplish this vast conspiracy would necessarily involve hundreds--if not thousands--of individuals. Griffin never explains how this conspiracy would actually function, claiming that is not his goal. Nor does Griffin summarize his many claims in one place. Here are some of his more alarming claims:

The U.S. government caused or deliberately allowed the attacks of 09/11/01 to take place.

The collapse of the twin towers of the World Trade Center was caused by a controlled demolition (bombs planted in the buildings prior to the planes striking the buildings).

The Pentagon was not struck by American Airlines flight 77 or any commercial jet, but was hit by a guided missile.

The commercial jet that crashed in Pennsylvania was hit by a heat-seeking guided missile launched by the government to silence the hijackers who could have exposed government complicity.

Bush knew in advance that the attacks would take place because after the attacks began he stayed talking to children in a classroom.

Griffin is constantly stating that he does not know what actually happened, but that he is just analyzing possible scenarios that need to be investigated. This is disingenuous at best. While Griffin repeatedly refers to the “claims” of “critics” of the “official” account of the events of 9-11-01, he is clearly endorsing these views. In a number of cases Griffin becomes an apologist for authors (such as Thierry Meyssan or Illarion Bykov and Jared Israel) whose assertions have been thoroughly demolished by an armada of writers across the political spectrum. Griffin accomplishes this by selectively highlighting certain aspects of their work while sidestepping their most lurid and outlandish conclusions in which they claim the functioning of vast conspiracies on the flimsiest of evidence. Griffin is far more straightforward and candid about what he really believes in an interview he gave to the Santa Barbara Independent, ("Thinking Unthinkable Thoughts: Theologian Charges White House Complicity in 9/11 Attack," by Nick Welsh).

May the record reflect that Griffin is also entry number 160 in the Encyclopedia of American Loons, http://americanloons.blogspot.com/2011/02/160-david-ray-griffin.html:

He has written several books on the subject, and they have become increasingly insane, ending up being featured on Alex Jones’s show. Among his books is “Christian Faith and the Truth Behind 9/11: A Call to Reflection and Action,", and Griffin has pointed out that “If 9/11 is not a religious issue, then I don't know what is.” Griffin is really in at the deep end of trooferism, and he is really crazy.

Known for snowing and making extensive lists of things he objects to in the “official stories” (so that when one is thoroughly refuted he has at least thirty more – most of them resting on such fundamental misapprehensions and paranoia that they are not even properly characterized as “wrong”).

He is also a creationist, by the way (quoted by Behe), claiming that there is no evidence for evolution anywhere. It just struck me that the whole problem may simply be that Griffin just doesn’t understand what evidence is.

A masterful debunking of some of his recurring arguments can be found here.

Diagnosis: Virulent crackpot who has carved himself quite a lot of influence, Griffin is confirmation bias embodied. He started out as an übernut professor of philosophy of religion and has plummeted downwards from there. Mind boggling.

I'll let you in on a little secret:  I'm beginning to suspect my participation here is the functional equivalent of a "dementia work up."

Edited December 20, 2018 by Guest