Did the JFK assassination fail?

[Kirk Gallaway]

On 3/18/2019 at 10:48 AM, Steve Thomas said:

Jim,

 

The one take-away that I took-away (hey, I like that line. I think I'll store it away somewhere), is that the CIA is not a monolith. It's not enough to say, "The CIA did this", or "The CIA did that".

I don't think the author or authors of this position paper held the same world view as someone like a George Kennan.

The other thing I came away with is the idea that the only thing constant in life is change.

If the idea behind JFK's assassination was to maintain U.S. hegemony in the world, it didn't work. U.S. dominance in the world in the 1950's was not the same as the U.S. position in the world in the 1970's. The authors of this paper felt the same way.

From page 20:

The line about Coca Cola came from the paper itself. (See page 12)

I think I agree with the authors when they said that smaller nation-states like Scandanavia, aligned together based on mutual self-interest seem to work the best. (see page 30).

They are better able to cope with and adjust to rapidly changing conditions, where change is the only constant in life.

I think our Founding Fathers had the right idea of a confederation or republic of states bound together by mutual self-interest.

(I kind of like the idea of driving from North Dakota to South Dakota without needing a passport).

 

I agree with you wholeheartedly that Richard Nixon could not have been elected without JFK, RFK and MLK having been eliminated first. But the gain was a short term one.

 

Steve Thomas

 

 

Good article Steve, Even in a time when I would say a rather powerful rogue deep state did exist, many times more powerful then what could exist today. There were arms of government that were doing good intelligence work. The CIA  Factbook is an almanac of relevant information about the countries of the world that's been around since the 60's and is often a source for academic research papers, and is interesting for everyday people to read who take an interest in foreign countries.

It's always interesting to notice how little nuanced and how monolith driven that those who are always projecting to this day this government deep state are. Why wouldn't this be an earnest report, are we to believe that this would just be a monolithic CIA issuing a report to fool itself? There were many people who were wondering about the efficacy about world  interventionist policies back in the 40's and 50's, and JFK wasn't the first.

Steve says:

U.S. dominance in the world in the 1950's was not the same as the U.S. position in the world in the 1970's. The authors of this paper felt the same way.

Agreed. They realized the U.S couldn't hold on to the economic dominance  and perfect world image after WWll. Their task after the war was to hold on to as much of their economically superior position, controlling a quarter of the world's resources  and give as little back as they could. They keep track in tangibles, such as Coca Cola sales in the socialistic  countries and supplying consumer staples to an expanding world middle class, and heavy machinery to developing nations. 

If you subscribe that all 3 of the murders of the 60's were done by conspiracies, even if not the same conspiracy, They undoubtedly changed the course of history. It would have been fascinating to see what would have happened had they all lived. I love prognostication. I'll just throw some ideas about what might  have happened, for whatever they're worth.

Since the voting public has great amnesia and in ordinary times, basically there are 2  issues that determine whether world leaders remain in office, and they are Peace and Prosperity. I think World Peace would have been served had they all lived. The credit for JFK ending the Cold War would have been relatively short lived, as all things were at that time. But I don't see any way JFK or King would have avoided the race riots of the  60's, and there still would have been a rebellious youth movement. . I don't think if RFK  was elected President for 8 years,( Which I think would have happened.) he could  have stopped the economic malaise of the 70's. So at the end of his 2 terms.There would be a lot of people in the beltway who would have had it with this liberalization, the taxation and the withering economy as well as those who just idea ideologically disagree with the   Kennedy's, and the pendulum would have turned. It would still be tumultuous, but i think history would be kind to the Kennedy Brothers.

Somebody here was mentioning Hubert Humphrey. Humphrey was a casualty of the Anti War movement and their disillusionment with RFK's death. If Humphrey was elected, we would have had National Health Care for many years by now. That was truly his baby.  Instead we're facing a situation where that issue could cause such a divide it could break us.

Edited March 22, 2019 by Kirk Gallaway

[Paul Jolliffe]

11 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

Rostow first surfaced the idea of a blue ribbon panel on the 24th.  But LBJ was resistant to it, both that day and early the next morning.

It was the  about 10:40 AM on the 25th with Alsop, in a real stunner of a conversation,  that the resistance began to be chipped away.

And yes Ron, this does give at least a suggestion that the cover up was planned with the conspiracy.  This is why I really wanted to know who was in the room with Rostow.

Also, did LBJ know the whole MC thing was a mirage?

 

Jim,

I think we can conclude from LBJ's 11/29/63 conversation with Richard Russell that LBJ knew perfectly well that the "Russians did it" angle was a myth. Yet he used that to force Earl Warren to serve on the commission. To me, though, that is not proof that LBJ was behind the plot to assassinate JFK, merely that by the 29th of November he had received his marching orders from the Rostow/Alsop/Acheson voices and had bowed to the pressure to create the Warren Commission. Did LBJ have an inkling who was actually responsible for the assassination? I bet he did, and I bet he was terrified of them.

https://www.maryferrell.org/audio/LbjLib/Audio_lbjlib_K6311.06_A_Russell_29-Nov-1963_855P.mp3

Edited March 22, 2019 by Paul Jolliffe

[Cliff Varnell]

3 hours ago, Paul Jolliffe said:

Jim,

I think we can conclude from LBJ's 11/29/63 conversation with Richard Russell that LBJ knew perfectly well that the "Russians did it" angle was a myth. Yet he used that to force Earl Warren to serve on the commission. To me, though, that is not proof that LBJ was behind the plot to assassinate JFK, merely that by the 29th of November he had received his marching orders from the Rostow/Alsop/Acheson voices and had bowed to the pressure to create the Warren Commission. Did LBJ have an inkling who was actually responsible for the assassination? I bet he did, and I bet he was terrified of them.

https://www.maryferrell.org/audio/LbjLib/Audio_lbjlib_K6311.06_A_Russell_29-Nov-1963_855P.mp3

 

Terrified, indeed...

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/steven-m-gillon/a-new-wrinkle-in-the-jfk_b_339026.html

A New Wrinkle in the JFK Assassination Story

What [ Brigadier General Godfrey] McHugh claimed to have witnessed next was shocking. “I walked in the toilet, in the powder room, and there he was hiding, with the curtain closed,” McHugh recalled. He claimed that LBJ was crying, “They’re going to get us all. It’s a plot. It’s a plot. It’s going to get us all.’” According to the General, Johnson “was hysterical, sitting down on the john there alone in this thing.”

I soon discovered that McHugh had told a similar story when he spoke by phone with Mark Flanagan, an investigator with the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA). Ironically, McHugh gave the interview to the HSCA a week before he sat down with the Kennedy Library in May 1978. “McHugh had encountered difficulty in locating Johnson but finally discovered him alone,” Flanagan wrote in his summary to the Committee. Quoting McHugh, the investigator noted that the General found Johnson “hiding in the toilet in the bedroom compartment and muttering, ‘Conspiracy, conspiracy, they’re after all of us.’”

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[James DiEugenio]

Well Paul, from what I understand the Cronkite interview was edited.

It left out something tantalizing.

Allegedly, LBJ said words to the effect, "Oswald was a very interesting young man."