Impeachable Offense?

[Tim Gratz]

Steve wrote:

In view of the last posting here by Mr Gratz, am I correct in assuming that this Forum has changed its theme somewhat and moved away from the assassination of Jack Kennedy to the assessment of his role in history, his womanizing, general indiscretions and his overall presidential performance?!

Steve these matters are appropriate here because they may relate to the assassination. For instance, it is widely known that the Mafia does not normally murder law enforcement officials. Those who posit Mafia involvement in the Kennedy assassination suggest the Mafia may have viewed Kennedy as a different case because he had accepted Mafia involvement in his campaign (including, reportedly, a $500,000 contribution) and had even shared a mistress with a mafia don.

Assassination research is in some senses akin to a murder investigation. Any murder investigation would, of course, include an investigation of the victim's habits that may have led to his murder, which would certainly include involvement with elements of organized crime. This may very well be one reason why RFK was not interested in an open-ended investigation of his brother's murder.

Edited May 10, 2005 by Tim Gratz

[David G. Healy]

TGratz wrote:

It does seem apparent from the heavily redacted FBI report copied in "The Last Days of Marilyn Monroe" that Kennedy had discussed national security matters with Marilyn Monroe. The seriousness of this cannot be over-emphasized.

[...]

So Tim,

... apparent? From a heavily redacted FBI report...? Who, is this apparent to? The FBI, you, maybe someone sporting the banner of the GOP? Hey, Kennedy liked the ladies - they liked HIM.

Let me give you a liberal take on the subject, summed up in one sentence: The seriousness of getting laid cannot be over-emphasized. How's that? Maybe someone can sell this thread to Floridians, it won't wash in California, never will!

[Tim Gratz]

Well, David, Hoover who saw the nonredacted copy took it pretty seriously.

And have you ever looked at the redacted copy that appears in "The Last Days of Marilyn Monroe"? If not, how can you dismiss it so flippantly?

The issue is not JFK "getting laid", sir. The issue is JFK revealing national security secrets to the women he was laying. That is definitely an impeachable offense. Is that so hard to understand?

Of course it made matters worse that the woman to whom JFK revealed the secrets then passed them on to a man who, unbeknownst to her, was reliably reported to be a Communist spy.

So tell me, David, would this be your opinion if it was disclosed that George Bush was having an affair with a woman to whom he was revealing our national secrets? Somehow, I think your opinion would be different in that case.

[Pat Speer]

The issue is not JFK "getting laid", sir.  The issue is JFK revealing national security secrets to the women he was laying.  That is definitely an impeachable offense.  Is that so hard to understand?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Well, what about wives, Tim? Is it not a threat to national security for a President to tell something to his wife? What's the difference? I'm serious. Because I don't see it.

Nancy Reagan may have had a fling with Frank Sinatra and told him a bit more than she should have. Should Ronnie have been impeached? If not, should he have been impeached because his wife was running the white house based upon a pagan belief system--astrology? What if the astrologer received a top security clearance? Would it be allright then?

As Henry Hyde found out during his attempted-lynching of Clinton, when you open up these doors, you never know what will pop out.

[Tim Gratz]

Pat, this may surprise you but it would be my opinion that the President should NOT share national security secrets even with his wife (or with her husband if the President is female). Any more than an attorney should not share a client's secrets with his or her spouse, or a doctor share his or her patient's confidences. If you consulted an attorney, would you want that attorney sharing your deepest secrets with his spouse, who might then share them with all the members of her bridge club? I think not. Remember, the spouse is not bound to the professional code of confidentiality.

And of course questions of morality aside anytime a president has an affair he opens himself up to blackmail.

I have not endorsed the scenario that RFK had Marilyn Monror killed but consider that had she gone public with her affair with the President it probably would have brought his presidency down, or at least guaranteed his defeat in 1964. A high stakes game was indeed being played.

Although there is no proof of it, I suspect Rosselli "planted" Campbell on JFK so the Mafia would have leverage over him.

The newest Kennedy biography (which is by no means unfriendly to him) has an excellent discussion of the perils Kennedy assumed by his "womanizing". It is not a matter that should be trivialed by, for instance, talking about "the seriousness of getting laid". When you are the POTUS it is indeed a serious matter with whom you lie.

Edited May 10, 2005 by Tim Gratz

[Peter Janney]

This is a test just to make sure I am showing up on the posts.

[Tim Gratz]

Hey, you passed with flying colors! Welcome to the forum, Mr. Janney!

[Peter Janney]

It is time for me to join this discussion, and I am very glad to be here. Thank you John Simkin for making this forum available!

Let me say some general things first which many of you may wish to respond and then I will begin to get much more specific. My perspective about the JFK Assassination, the assassination of Mary Pinchot Meyer (who was JFK's last true love), and The Warren Commission, as well as a number events has been informed largely by my growing up in Washington, D.C. My father was career CIA and as a family we were in close proximity with many of the controversial power broker people in Washington at the time (i.e. Ben Bradlee, Kay Graham, James Jesus Angleton, Tracy Barnes, Richard Helms,etc). I knew these people; I was friends with many of their children. I witnessed many, many things in regard to what was going on at the time.

Like many of you, I have spent a number of years being overwhelmed with what Hollywood director called "the crime of the century," which was the assassination of JFK. I have met privately with Stone and talked with him about a number of things.

I also knew Mary Pinchot Meyer and her family. Mary's husband, Cord Meyer, worked together at the CIA. Our families were quite close; her middle child Michael was my "best friend" at age 9 when he was killed by a car crossing the street at dusk. My mother and Mary Meyer were college roomates at Vassar, along with Scottie Fitzgerald (F. Scott Fitzgerald's only daughter) and several others.

Since 1976, I have made it my business to get to the bottom of Mary Meyer's murder. There have been three attempts by authors to write books about Mary Meyer. The first attempt, and by far the most thorough, was made by author Leo Damore. Damore created a legendary reputation as a dogged, thorough researcher with the publication of his book Senatorial Privilege This was the definitive book about Ted Kennedy and the death of Mary Jo Kopeckne. Damore brought that same tenacity to his research on Mary Meyer, all of which I currently own. It was Damore who solved the crime about who actually murdered Mary Meyer, and I will go into that later. Damore committed suicide in 1995 and his book, Burden of Guilt, was never published ( I have several of his manuscripts). John Davis, a well-respected author and JFK researcher, then tried to pick up some of Damore's research and tried to write his book about Mary. He never finished it.(though I have his manuscript) When asked by a close friend why he did not finish it, he replied, "I wanted to live..." meaning that his life had been threatened. Davis has since had a bad stroke and is barely coherent. Nina Burleigh, as many of you know, has so far written the only book about Mary Meyer. There is another book, however, in the works by authors Myrna Firestone and Don Shannon who will claim that the CIA was responsible for Mary Meyer's death. I have talked to them, but they did not want to reveal anything to me.

The question, with regard to Mary Meyer's assassination, is why was it necessary to take her out? What did she know that could have proven to be so important and potentially embarassing to any number of people in the government and particularly the CIA? The last published piece about Mary Meyer so far came out in 2003. It was a chapter in C. David Heymann's book The Georgetown Ladies Social Club. I know Heymann well and we have talked for hours. When he confronted Cord Meyer shortly before his death and asked him who he thought had actually killed his former wife Mary Meyer, Cord replied, "the same sons of bitches who killed John F. Kennedy!"

Enough for now, but I shall return soon.

[J. Raymond Carroll]

Tim wrote: "Why anyone would involve oneself in a murder plot when a simple phone call to an investigative journalist from a Republican-oriented newspaper could have brought Kennedy down makes, in my opinion, no sense at all."

Congratulations, Tim, I think you have finally closed the case. If the sources you are promoting ( a self-confessed pimp named Bobby Baker, a charlatan exploiting Marilyn Monroe, and a self-confessed perjurer named Judith Exner) are reliable, then only 2 possibilities remain: either the Warren Report is true or JFK was not assassinated at all.

Ray

"Do not block the way of inquiry" C.S. Peirce

[Tim Gratz]

I cannot wait to hear more from Mr. Janney. His information may very well advance the investigation!

[Tim Gratz]

Reserved for my reply to Mr Carroll's last post.

[Tim Gratz]

Having recently reviewed the thread of Mary Meyer, one must add to this thread the report that President Kennedy and Mayer were "doing drugs" in the White House. A President under the influence of hallucegic drugs at the height of the Cold War is not a comforting thought.

[Dawn Meredith]

. This may very well be one reason why RFK was not interested in an open-ended investigation of his brother's murder.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

______________________________

And when did you become privy to the thoughts, views and wishes of the former Attorney General?

He was not a stupid man. After his grief subsided and he could look at the lunacy of the WC Report he set out on a campaign to set the record straight, something he only believed he would have the power to do if HE were in the WH. At least this is what was discussed by his top former campaign workers four years after RFK's murder, when they went on to campaign for Senator McGovern, for whom I worked a year as city coordinator.

For months now you push Castro did it, then it's onto why he should have been impeached.

I have long wondered the nature of your true agenda. You seem to have no real interest in who killed Jack Kennedy, which is what this forum IS devoted to discovering, no matter how many times you change the subject.

Dawn

[Tim Gratz]

Dawn, see my reply to Steve above re why Kennedy's indiscretions may, and I emphasize may, relate to who killed him.

His sharing a girlfriend with the Mafia and accepting election help from the mob would give the Mafia motive to kill him when he did not keep the Faustian bargain his father made with the Mob. Of course, it cannot be demonstrated that he or RFK knew of the father's arrangement and I give him credit for NOT keeping that bargain.

The potential problems with national security issues would add support to Shanet's theory of extra-legal removal from office by the power structure.

Understand of course that the issues raised here arguably have no relevance to the scenario that I suspect.

The "dark secrets of Camelot", as Hersh called them, do certainly suggest why Robert would want a cover-up since any full-fledged investigation surely would have revealed them. Which is another reason this topic is relevant.

But please do not judge my motives. Even though I have, through my interest in the assassination and related writings, discovered matters about Kennedy, e.g. his relationship with Rometsch and his sharing national security matters with Monroe those matters do not diminish one iota my interest in solving the assassination and bringing the conspirators to justice, whomever they may be and whatever their political allegiances. For whatever Kennedy's faults may have been, and it appears they were legion, nothing supports his murder. Tears well up in my eyes whenever I see Frame 313 and when I see the picture of John Jr. saluting his father's casket.

Moreover, as I have said before, I wish that the "dark secrets of Camelot" had not been exposed and they probably would not have been but for the assassination inquiries. So unless the conspirators killers can be brought to justice, all these inquiries have accomplished, in my opinion, is to blacken the reputation not only of Kennedy but of others who may not have had anything to do with the assassination.

But I swear that if a conspirator can be found and convicted to death under Texas law, I would pay money to be able to be the person to administer the fatal injection. I would do that for Jack Kennedy and for my country, since the assassination was as much a crime against America as it was a crime directed toward JFK himself.

In summary, although it may be hard to understand, despite my political differences with JFK, I am confident I feel as strongly about solving the assassination as anyone who idolizes JFK. I am sure the same can be said for Ron Ecker who agreed above that JFK rightly should have been removed from office if he knew he was sharing a mistress with one of the nation's worst, most evil mobsters.

Edited May 12, 2005 by Tim Gratz

[Mark Stapleton]

Dawn, see my reply to Steve above re why Kennedy's indiscretions may, and I emphasize may, relate to who killed him.

His sharing a girlfriend with the Mafia and accepting election help from the mob would give the Mafia motive to kill him when he did not keep the Faustian bargain his father made with the Mob.  Of course, it cannot be demonstrated that he or RFK knew of the father's arrangement and I give him credit for NOT keeping that bargain.

The potential problems with national security issues would add support to Shanet's theory of extra-legal removal from office by the power structure.

Understand of course that the issues raised here arguably have no relevance to the scenario that I suspect.

The "dark secrets of Camelot", as Hersh called them, do certainly suggest why Robert would want a cover-up since any full-fledged investigation surely would have revealed them.  Which is another reason this topic is relevant.

But please do not judge my motives.  Even though I have discovered matters about Kennedy, e.g. his relationship with Rometsch and his sharing national security matters with Monroe do not diminish one iota my interest in solving the assassination and bringing the conspirators to justice, whomever they may be and whatever their political allegiances.  For whatever Kennedy's faults may have been, and it appears they were legion, nothing supports his murder and tears well up in my eyes whenever I see Frame 313.  Moreover, as I have said before, I wish that the "dark secrets of Camelot" had not been exposed and they probably would not have been but for the assassination inquiries. So unless the conspirators killers can be brought to justice, all these inquiries have accomplished, in my opinion, is to blacken the reputation not only of Kennedy but of others who may not have had anything to do with the assassination.

But I swear that if a conspirator can be found and convicted to death under Texas law, I would pay money to be able to be the person to administer the fatal injection.  I would do that for Jack Kennedy and for my country, since the assassination was as much a crime against America as it was a crime directed toward JFK himself.

In summary, although it may be hard to understand, despite my political differences with JFK, I am confident I feel as strongly about solving the assassination as anyone who idolizes JFK.  I am sure the same can be said for Ron Ecker who agreed above that JFK rightly should have been removed from office if he knew he was sharing a mistress with one of the nation's worst, most evil mobsters.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Tim,

If we're going to play a game of retrospective impeachments for all those Presidents who "got into bed" with mob connected figures, we'd better not stop with JFK.

The 1932 Democratic Convention was considered to be in New York Mayor Al Smith's keeping until FDR managed to gain the support of New York State's Tammany Hall--controlled lock, stock and barrel by Lucky Luciano. How did he do this? A deal, brokered by Luciano associate Frank Costello, by which in return for the mob's support, FDR promised to call off the Seabury investigation into the underworld, which was making life hell for the mob in NYC. While Al Smith was mob connected, the mob reasoned that if FDR got the nomination he would be a certainty to win the Presidency and thus be able to deliver on his side of the bargain. While Hoover was unpopular because of the depression, the mob felt that Smith was probably not the lay down misere that FDR was--so they went with the strength.

When Smith was told of the mob's switch of allegiance he cried--literally bawled--and told Luciano that it was his biggest mistake and that FDR would doublecross them. Sure enough, once he had the nomination in the bag and won the Presidency FDR did exactly that. Seabury was given increased powers and, spurred on by public indignation about the mob's activities, new Mayor Fiorello Le Guardia had a field day--dumping scores of slot machines in the East River. In the resulting tsunami of anti-mob sentiment, Luciano was convicted of profiting from prostitution by New York D.A.Thomas Dewey in 1936 and got a long stretch. He was exiled in 1946.

Impeachable ?