Logic seems to suggest...

[Ron Ecker]

All you have to do to see how easily Edgar and Clyde were controlled is to consider the fact that Hoover once said the Mafia didn't exist.

 

 

[David Josephs]

5 hours ago, Robert Card said:

I think what's needed is a broader study of history of the past 500 years in determining who gave the order to kill JFK

Funny you should mention....

FWIW I see much of the problems in our world caused by something the English invented... Documented Property Rights causing the Tragedy of the Commons

When this concept is extended to Sovereignty we get those WITH deciding the greatest possible outcomes for THEIR fortunes... not the betterment of humanity...

JFK... after WWII, Truman and Ike/Nixon still wanted the betterment of all mankind, not just some...  While some, controlled benevolence is allowed, 

in the end, there remains no altruistic reason for those who have the power to raise the level of everyone, rather than only a select few.

====

McCoy and Gilpatric were both partners at Cravath, Swaine and Moore while banking had been under control since the Fed Res Act of 1913 was passed using the little known Colonel House to guide Woodrow Wilson to making the right decisions... but not without reservations:

“Some of the biggest men in the United States, in the field of commerce and manufacture, are afraid of somebody, are afraid of something. They know that there is a power somewhere so organized, so subtle, so watchful, so interlocked, so complete, so pervasive that they had better not speak above their breath when they speak in condemnation of it.”

[John Butler]

Dancing in tutus?  Or, at least tutu for wear is rumored.

Edited January 11, 2019 by John Butler

[Ron Bulman]

4 hours ago, David Josephs said:

Funny you should mention....

FWIW I see much of the problems in our world caused by something the English invented... Documented Property Rights causing the Tragedy of the Commons

When this concept is extended to Sovereignty we get those WITH deciding the greatest possible outcomes for THEIR fortunes... not the betterment of humanity...

JFK... after WWII, Truman and Ike/Nixon still wanted the betterment of all mankind, not just some...  While some, controlled benevolence is allowed, 

in the end, there remains no altruistic reason for those who have the power to raise the level of everyone, rather than only a select few.

====

McCoy and Gilpatric were both partners at Cravath, Swaine and Moore while banking had been under control since the Fed Res Act of 1913 was passed using the little known Colonel House to guide Woodrow Wilson to making the right decisions... but not without reservations:

“Some of the biggest men in the United States, in the field of commerce and manufacture, are afraid of somebody, are afraid of something. They know that there is a power somewhere so organized, so subtle, so watchful, so interlocked, so complete, so pervasive that they had better not speak above their breath when they speak in condemnation of it.”

Hoover was afraid of exposure.  Therefore the FBI was stymied from any true investigation.

[Robert Card]

5 hours ago, David Josephs said:

 

“Some of the biggest men in the United States, in the field of commerce and manufacture, are afraid of somebody, are afraid of something. They know that there is a power somewhere so organized, so subtle, so watchful, so interlocked, so complete, so pervasive that they had better not speak above their breath when they speak in condemnation of it.”

I've been meaning to post this quote for the past couple of weeks.  There's some really bad people out there running things.  Anyone that you know the name of, and /or see in the media, they're pretty low level.

[Ron Ecker]

1 hour ago, Ron Bulman said:

Hoover was afraid of exposure.  Therefore the FBI was stymied from any true investigation.

When Hoover reportedly told someone that if the truth got out it would be bad for the country, it's hard to tell if he was referring to himself or the assassination.

 

[James DiEugenio]

I guess I have a  different take on this than most people here.

I personally do not think that Hoover was a part of the plot myself.  The actual plotters would know upon past performance that he would willingly go along with this.  For more than one reason.

1.  Since Oswald was an FBI informant, he would have had to cover up who Oswald was.  The late reporter Jim Phelan was a lying, two faced FBI toady, but in an unguarded moment he once told writer David Chandler that he was in Hoover's office a couple of days after the assassination and got the distinct impression that Hoover was ordering all FBI internal files on Oswald incinerated.

2.  No Attorney General ever made Hoover do the things that RFK did.  Including going along, however halfheartedly, with his civil rights program. Within days of the assassination, Hoover ripped out Bobby's private line into his office.

3. Since Hoover was good buds with LBJ, and he saw that Johnson was using the whole atomic holocaust excuse to keep everything under wraps, he realized heck, the fix is in.  Swim with the tide.

4.  Hoover did not give a damn about JFK personally.  Which is why, that Saturday, he was at at the track.  After all, he knew he was going to be fired in a Kennedy second term.

5.  Hoover was an expert at faking evidence and getting his agents to go along with both that, and presenting perjured testimony in high profile cases.  In The JFK Assassination: The Evidence Today, I spend about three pages going through examples of this kind of flim flammery, which  dates back to the Palmer raids. (See pages 237-40) Recall what Nixon said about the Hiss case: we built the typewriter.  That is not all the FBI did in that case.

 

There are three strong indications by Hoover himself that he understood what he was doing with the cover up.  There are two that come from from private interviews with personal acquaintances.  (Ibid, p. 246)  Plus the marginalia he wrote up about how the CIA had handed him a snow job about Oswald being in Mexico City.  But there is also what FBI agent Bill Turner said while working on an article about the JFK case.  Some agents still there gave  him some documents and Turner easily understood that the fix was in.  He told me there are three steps in any FBI inquiry: collection of all relevant leads, the following through of those leads to their ultimate ends, and the garnering of all info into a report that did not adjudicate.  Turner said it was obvious that step 2 was not done in this case.  And without that, you could not perform step 3.  But he said what made that worse was the fact that in this instance, the FBI actually did decide on a verdict anyway!  To him that was the dead giveaway that this got the OK from on high.  Even the WC was shocked by this.

As Turner told me, FBI agents do not act like this unless Hoover and Tolson wanted them to.

 

[Ron Ecker]

Has any photographic evidence ever been found that the Mafia or others indeed had the photographic wherewithal to blackmail Hoover about his sexual orientation?

I ask this because I myself may have seen such evidence, though I certainly can't attest to its authenticity.

Many years ago there was a monthly quasi-scholarly magazine called Sexology. Articles included things like "How to Live with a Sexual Deviation," "The Problem of Prison Sex," and "How It Feels to Be a Virgin." As a college kid I used to leaf through it at newsstands, since it was right next to the girlie magazines. Anyway I remember seeing a photo in Sexology purportedly of Hoover (and it certainly looked like him) performing a sex act on some other man (which I assume would be Tolson). I have to wonder why this and any other photos have not surfaced outside of that one issue of Sexology if the photo was authentic. And if it was authentic, how or where did they get it? 

Since I'm also the only person I know of who remembers seeing the arrival of the Dallas casket in front of Bethesda on live TV (a "false memory"?), that coupled with the photo I saw of Hoover (?) in Sexology puts me in pretty select company. (Just me and myself.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited January 11, 2019 by Ron Ecker

[B. A. Copeland]

Well, Danny with all due respect, logic may suggest it, but the gathered best evidence and research doesn’t seem to.

[Denny Zartman]

4 hours ago, B. A. Copeland said:

Well, Danny with all due respect, logic may suggest it, but the gathered best evidence and research doesn’t seem to.

I'm not sure what you mean by this. What's the alternative to someone with the authority to tell Hoover how the investigation was going to go?

[Denny Zartman]

I don't think Hoover and the FBI were the heads of the conspiracy. I suppose there's a possibility that they weren't part of the actual mechanics of the assassination. I do think it had to be someone over Hoover in authority.

I don't think the mafia had the ability to call up Hoover immediately after the assassination and tell him how things were going to go. It also had to be someone who not only had a disinformation team on the ground handling the evidence right away but had the ability and plan to feed disinformation to the press. I really don't know if the mafia had that sort of organization. The FBI were the ones handling the investigation and evidence, and intimidating the witnesses.

 

 

[Denny Zartman]

On 1/10/2019 at 9:37 AM, John Butler said:

I have always believed that the assassination of President Kennedy was an Executive Branch decision.  The cover up wouldn't work unless all were involved.  Vice President Johnson has never been given sufficient recognition for his role as the leader of the various groups in the Executive Branch in the assassination and the cover up. 

I'm learning that the CIA was an Executive Branch creation, and it appears that by JFK's time the CIA had transformed into something that couldn't be controlled by the President any longer and wasn't functioning as originally intended.

Since the CIA was the central information gathering point for all the other military intelligence agencies, it does seem that the CIA was turned around from a relatively passive intelligence collection resource to an active participant in carrying out extralegal actions for the president and the military, and may have been used by the military to carry out the assassination.

Getting into the autopsy room at Bethesda is key to an effective cover up. As powerful as the mob and the wealthy right wing oilmen were at the time, it is still a task to get into that room and direct how things are going to go. It is also quite a feat to be in the position to continue the cover up through all the official investigation, and I just don't see how that is done by someone outside the highest levels of government.

I think Lyndon Johnson is a natural suspect. Judging from the way detectives work in mystery fiction, you'd think that he had a motive, means, and opportunity. Certainly he jumped into the cover up with both feet right away, so even if he wasn't the one who gave the ultimate "go order" beforehand, he still shares guilt in acting to obscure the truth and aid the assassins in their escape. His immediate and enthusiastic participation in the cover up also shows consciousness of guilt. At the same time, it might have been Joint Chief of Staffs decision that just happened to get lucky have a Vice President in waiting and Director of the FBI who were more than willing to participate.

I try to look suspiciously at any aspect of the JFK assassination that involves luck, happenstance, or coincidence, though... so that's why I'm questioning the way I'm trying to analyze this whole thing.

[John Butler]

Denny,

This comes under the heading of More Musings.  I believe that Lyndon Johnson's desire to be president was not enough to trigger the assassination.  What could be involved that the Executive Branch thought Kennedy had to go?  I believe they saw him as a threat to the country and a threat to their interests.  There may have been real or manufactured evidence suggesting that President Kennedy was becoming an agent of the Soviet Union.  HIs actions in office towards Cuba and Viet Nam may have aggravated this notion.  I don't really see anything else that would get everyone on board.

I see my "favorite president" as being the kind to manufacture evidence and further widen the rift between Kennedy and the CIA and the Joint Chiefs.  I don't believe he had a great deal of trouble convincing his neighbor to go along and he had helped the then current Secret Service Chief obtain his position.   

Edited January 11, 2019 by John Butler

[Denny Zartman]

47 minutes ago, John Butler said:

Denny,

This comes under the heading of More Musings.  I believe that Lyndon Johnson's desire to be president was not enough to trigger the assassination.  What could be involved that the Executive Branch thought Kennedy had to go?  I believe they saw him as a threat to the country and a threat to their interests.  There may have been real or manufactured evidence suggesting that President Kennedy was becoming an agent of the Soviet Union.  HIs actions in office towards Cuba and Viet Nam may have aggravated this notion.  I don't really see anything else that would get everyone on board.

I see my "favorite president" as being the kind to manufacture evidence and further widen the rift between Kennedy and the CIA and the Joint Chiefs.  I don't believe he had a great deal of trouble convincing his neighbor to go along and he had helped the then current Secret Service Chief obtain his position.   

I agree with you. I don't think satisfying Johnson's desire to become President and get him out of trouble was the initiating cause. I do understand how just applying simple detective logic would lead one to him, though. If we ask ourselves, "who benefits?" it would appear that Lyndon Johnson would be at the top of that list.

The more I look at it, it seems to me that the trigger for the JFK assassination had to come from the upper level military. They used the CIA, and the CIA used multiple proxies to hide its involvement.

Cuba and the Soviet Union were clearly major factors that military types would take into consideration when mulling this sort of extraordinary action. It's hard to ignore the change in policy in Vietnam in the wake of Kennedy's death and the amount of money that was poured into military coffers. If one were to truly:

1. "Follow the money"
2. Ask "who benefits?"
3. Ask who had the authority to tell Hoover how it was going to go?
4. Ask who had the ability to get into the autopsy room at Bethesda?

It certainly would be logical (in my view) to suspect the highest levels of the military.

[Ron Ecker]

2 hours ago, John Butler said:

I believe that Lyndon Johnson's desire to be president was not enough to trigger the assassination

But that desire plus the possibility of going to prison could have been more than enough. Perhaps the most striking coincidence in this whole saga was a hearing on Johnson corruption taking place on Capitol Hill on 11/22/63. Never to be reconvened.