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Assassination Theories


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I think that "national security state" is an established term that is synonymous with military/industrial complex, but is perhaps more descriptive. MIC leaves out "intelligence," which is readily identified with national security.

The times in which we live are very reflective of the beginning of the National Security State era. America had come out of World War II with the opportunity to forge a mutuality of interests with the Soviet Union. By 1949, however, with the detonation of an atomic device by the Russians and the impending success of the communist revolution in China, U.S. policy-makers concluded that coexistence with the USSR was impossible. The early policy of containment of Soviet expansionism in Europe was expanded to Asia and the first formal statement of American anti-communism policy was issued in a document known as National Security Council (NSC)-68. Overextending and misapplying considerations presented in an incredibly influential essay known as the “X” article, it stated, “The Soviet Union, unlike previous aspirants to hegemony, is animated by a new fanatic faith, antithetical to our own, and seeks to impose its absolute authority over the rest of the world.” It went on to say:

"The Kremlin is inescapably militant . . . because it possesses and is possessed by a world-wide revolutionary movement, because it is the inheritor of Russian imperialism, and because it is a totalitarian dictatorship. . . . It is quite clear from Soviet theory and practice that the Kremlin seeks to bring the free world under its dominion by the methods of the cold war."

NSC-68 concluded that the Soviet Union’s “fundamental design” required the destruction of the United States and therefore “mortally challenged” the U.S.

Contrary to the apparent conviction and certainty of NSC-68, the man who had authored the very document upon which it was based had serious misgivings. George Kennan was more afraid of the mind set being represented than about the need to generate more anxiety about Soviet intentions. NSC-68 would sanctify the rejection of diplomatic options and pretextualize a vast growth in the military establishment, as well as the militarization of foreign policy. Noting the attraction of promoting an enemy’s formidability, Kennan wrote:

"It is safer and easier to cease the attempt to analyze the probabilities involved in your enemy’s processes or to calculate his weaknesses. It seems safer to give him the credit of every doubt in matters of strength, and to credit him indiscriminately with all aggressive designs, even when some of them are mutually contradictory."

By the beginning of 1950, the chickens had come home to roost. The attack of “the primitives,” as Secretary of State Dean Acheson referred to the fervent anti-Communists, was reaching fever pitch. His own prior encouragement of such thinking notwithstanding, Acheson was dismayed by the perjury conviction of his friend, Alger Hiss, for denying his alleged involvement in Soviet espionage. Less than two weeks after Hiss’ conviction, Klaus Fuchs confessed to spying on the Manhattan Project for the Soviet Union. By February 9th, anti-Communist hysteria reached new heights with Senator Joe McCarthy’s allegation of Communist spies in the State Department. That spring, a Gallup Poll found that 39 percent of the respondents considered McCarthy’s charges “a good thing.” The commencement of the Korean War in June of that year was the icing on the cake. There remained little doubt in the minds of Americans that the battle against communism was at least as immediate and threatening as the Nazi movement of the late 1930s.

Bringing Cold War containment and hemispheric sphere of influence considerations together, a document classified as NSC-141 was issued. Applying the logic of NSC-68, it declared a commitment to “make the Latin American nations resistant to the internal growth of communism and to Soviet political warfare.” A secondary stated objective was to promote “hemispheric solidarity in support of our world policy.” This would be accomplished “through individual and collective defense measures against external aggression and internal subversion.” This document became the blueprint for the United States’ future Latin America policy just as NSC-68 had become the blueprint globally. The Monroe Doctrine had now been deftly adapted to new Cold War considerations.

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Tim, thank you for the thoughtful analysis. I believe the Turkish trade-off was a big deal, too. The level of discourse on some of these threads is so abysmal I'm glad to hear from you. Dresden, operation Gehlen org/paperclip, the nuclear BIG GUNS strategy of Eisenhower, all this isolated and limited Kennedy's range of motion... serious historians now look at the John Birch Society in California in the 1960's as the root of the Reagan re-alignment, and of course BUSH I and BUSH II are products of secret, compartmentalized federal power stemming from a Texas petroleum power base... the events at Andrews Air Force Base and Bethesda Naval hospital after the assassination show us clearly that established government forces played a major role in the whole sad event....

Shanet

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John

When you say the Mafia, it is a specific cell of Giancana/Roselli killers who were hired by the CIA in the first place to whack Fidel Castro...These guys then turned on JFK and helped Dulles, Hunt and Landsdale do the dirty deed while Hoover sat on his hands. The mob could only send shooters, they couldn't get inside Bethesda hospital or influence the FBI's lame Warren investigation...the mob didn't make the Secret Service detour and drive at walking speed...House counsel Blakely leaned a little too heavily on the Mob Angle as an easy out for him---no need to pursue the CIA/Bay of Pigs crew if he pinned it on the mafia hit squad. Evidence? Giancana and Roselli got whacked CIA style with small caliber arms right before they were due to testify, and as Moonie said in his nephew's book "the right hand didn't know what the left hand was doing" He had a deal with one part of the government and was getting prosecuted by another....great debate site.

Shanet

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John Simkin: Six months is a long time when investigating the Kennedy assassination. I would now argue that the Mafia had nothing to do with the assassination. My top one would be anti-Castro Cubans, members of Interpen and a few well-placed members of the CIA (Phillips, Morales and Harvey).

I agree with James that you have to distinguish between the assassination and the cover-up. I believe that the original plan was to blame the assassination on pro-Castro forces in America in order to get an invasion of Cuba. LBJ refused to go along with this and was able to persuade the FBI and CIA to cover-up the conspiracy (both had good reason to go along with LBJ’s plans).

John are you saying tha Giancana and Roselli didn't have any role in the assassination?

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John are you saying tha Giancana and Roselli didn't have any role in the assassination?

--------------------------

Interesting question. Also, was Charles Harrelson mafia or CIA?

Same question for

Frank Sturgis (Fiorini)

Chauncey Holt?

Giancana?

Posada Carrilles?

Guillermo Novo?

Felix Rodriguez?

Charles Rogers?

Roselli?

Nicoletti?

Ferrie?

Edited by Wim Dankbaar
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I would now argue that the Mafia had nothing to do with the assassination.

Do you believe it was coincidence that Eugene Hale Brading aka Jim Braden was arrested at Dealey Plaza for acting suspiciously, and that on the night of RFK's murder he was staying in LA not far from the death site?

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I still believe we should include the banking sector and Wall Street's financial houses [national and international], including the Federal Reserve Board and its members, as well as Allen Dulles' association via his Wall Street law firm.  Kennedy was planning on dismantling the Federal Reserve during his next term of office, had he been allowed to run and become re-elected.  Where would that have stood Dulles, and the special interest groups?  Who's doing business with whom, anyway?  Rockefeller is Standard Oil, Chase Manhattan is Rockefeller's bank.  You mention the Texas Oilmen.  Are they not doing business in the same way as the rest of these people?  You need banks to finance your projects, handle your assets.  They all come under the umbrella of the Federal Reserve, which isn't even a government entity, it's the bankers' entity.  If anything, they should be included due to the Dulles/Wall Street connection.

Executive Order 11110

AMENDMENT OF EXECUTIVE ORDER NO. 10289

AS AMENDED, RELATING TO THE PERFORMANCE OF

CERTAIN FUNCTIONS AFFECTING THE DEPARTMENT OF THE TREASURY

By virtue of the authority vested in me by section 301 of title 3 of the United States Code, it is ordered as follows:

SECTION 1. Executive Order No. 10289 of September 19, 1951, as amended, is hereby further amended --

(a) By adding at the end of paragraph 1 thereof the following subparagraph (j):

"(j) The authority vested in the President by paragraph b of section 43 of the Act of May 12, 1933, as amended (31 U.S.C. 821 b ), to issue silver certificates against any silver bullion, silver, or standard silver dollars in the Treasury not then held for redemption of any outstanding silver certificates, to prescribe the denominations of such silver certificates, and to coin standard silver dollars and subsidiary silver currency for their redemption," and

b. By revoking subparagraphs b and c of paragraph 2 thereof.

SEC. 2. The amendment made by this Order shall not affect any act done, or any right accruing or accrued or any suit or proceeding had or commenced in any civil or criminal cause prior to the date of this Order but all such liabilities shall continue and may be enforced as if said amendments had not been made.

JOHN F. KENNEDY

THE WHITE HOUSE,

June 4, 1963.

Jim Marrs put it this way in "Crossfire":

"Crossfire: Bankers"

Another overlooked aspect of Kennedy's attempt to reform American society involves money.

Kennedy apparently reasoned that by returning to the Constitution, which states that only Congress shall coin and regulate money, the soaring national debt could be reduced by not paying interest to the bankers of the Federal Reserve System, who print paper money then lend it to the Government at interest.

He moved in this area on June 4, 1963, by signing Executive Order 11,110 which called for the issuance of $4,292,893,815 in United States Notes through the U.S. Treasury rather than the traditional Federal Reserve System. That same day, Kennedy signed a bill changing the backing of $1 and $2 bills from silver to gold, adding strength to the weakened U.S. currency.

Kennedy's comptroller of the currency, James J. Saxon, had been at odds with the powerful Federal Reserve Board for some time, encouraging broader investment and lending powers for banks that were not part of the Federal Reserve system. Saxon also had decided that non-Reserve banks could underwrite state and local general obligation bonds, again weakening the dominate Federal Reserve banks.

A number of "Kennedy bills" were indeed issued - the author has a $5 bill in his possession with the heading "United States Note" - but were quickly withdrawn after Kennedy's death.

According to information from the Library of the Comptroller of the Currency, Executive Order 11,110 remains in effect today although successive administrations beginning with that of President Lyndon Johnson apparently have simply ignored it and instead returned to the practice of paying interest on Federal Reserve notes.

Today we continue to use Federal Reserve Notes and the deficit is at an all time high.

Considering that the battle over U.S. monetary control by a monolithic central bank is an issue which dates back to the founding of the Republic, some assassination researchers believe Kennedy's little-noted efforts to reform the money supply and curtail the Federal Reserve System may have cost him much more than just the enmity of the all-powerful international bankers. President Kennedy inched farther out on a limb with big business on January 17, 1963, when he presented both his administration's budget and proposals for tax reform which included a tax cut.

Kennedy's tax proposals included relieving the tax burden of low-income and elderly persons, revising tax treatment of capital gains for a better flow of capital funds, broadening the base of individual and corporate income taxes to remove special privileges and loopholes and even to do away with the oil depletion allowance.

This action brought the beleaguered President into direct confrontation with one of the most powerful and single-minded groups in America - wealthy oilmen."

From Don Gibson’s Battling Wall Street: pp. 84 - 87

"CHANGE IN DOMESTIC POLICY"

President Kennedy’s promise to get the country moving again was a reaction to real problems in the 1953 to 1960 period. Actions taken to prepare for and to fight World War II had brought the economy out of the Great Depression, and the war was followed by an eight-year period in which the overall investment and growth performance was very good. The next eight years, leading up to Kennedy’s presidency, however had featured stagnation and three recessions. During the years affected immediately by Kennedy’s policies, 1962 to 1964 or 1965, the US economy returned to and even exceeded the rapid growth displayed in the pre-stagnation period of 1948 to 1953.

What Kennedy attempted to effect, with some success, in the three years he was in office, was a moderate peacetime version of federal policy during World War II. That war was paid for primarily through borrowing and deficit spending on an unheard of scale. Government borrowing, lending, and spending generated a virtual industrial revolution, force feeding the development of new productive capacity in many industries. This growth provided the basis for the postwar prosperity that Kennedy thought was threatened by the recessions and stagnation after 1953. The huge expansion of debt and the growth in money supply during World War II did not lead to significant problems after the war, because these were accompanied by rapid growth in real production.

President Kennedy did not seek anything close to the level of deficits incurred during World War II, and by almost any standard were modest. The deficits were combined with stable interest rates, an adequate expansion of money and credit, the investment tax credit, rapid expansion of some government programs, and, in terms of the general economic climate, Kennedy’s focus on the things that would generate future economic progress (e.g. various tax reforms, support for education, science and research). Although many of the reforms he sought in order to reduce speculation and to channel investment into productive purposes did not get through Congress, he could rightly claim some credit for the prosperity and progress evident in the 1961 to 1966 period.

In an economy far more rooted in real production then today’s, there was a 5 percent growth rate by 1964. Wages and profits were rising, unemployment fell in 1964 to 4 percent, and there was a high level of optimism. It is also clear that when President Kennedy was killed in 1963, he viewed the progress already underway as something to be deepened and continued. This was not to be, and although it would be some years before the economy really began to unravel, there were some negative developments that appeared soon after Kennedy’s death.

During the 1953 to 1960 period the Federal Reserve System had contributed to two recessions by reducing the availability of money, and this "tight money" policy played a role in the third recession of that period. Kennedy was determined either to prevent these downturns altogether or at least to reduce their severity. Also, during the 1950s interest rates had risen during most years and had more than doubled during the decade. The prime rate, charged by large banks to corporate clients, had been 1.5 percent from 1939 until 1947, even though the government was incurring some of the largest deficits in history. It rose during the 1950s and was 4.82 percent in 1960. Under Kennedy it declined slightly to 4.5 percent, where it remained until 1965. It then began rising, and by 1969 was at 7.96 percent, then thought of as an extremely high level. In his detailed analysis of economic trends from 1948 to 1969, John Kendrick concluded that the strong economic improvement which began in 1961 ended in 1966 and was followed by a three-year period of marked slowdown.

The 1960s began with Kennedy’s aggressive program "to get America moving again." That program was accompanied by his emphasis on progress in science and technology, in production and the standard of living, and in the areas of social justice and international peace. With Johnson in the office the policy toward underdeveloped nations returned to the neo-colonialist direction that existed throughout most of the century. The purposes of the Alliance for Progress were abandoned in favor of those private interests that sought both dominance over and suppression of the economies of the undeveloped world. Kennedy’s sympathy with independent Third World leaders was replaced by renewed aggression. His efforts to shift some of the decision-making power away from organized private groups to the federal government came to an end. Johnson’s willingness to go to war was accompanied by timidity when it came to government’s role in promoting progress both within the United States and internationally.

Economic progress was a central goal in Kennedy’s policies, something he viewed a good in itself and as a basis for social justice. During the 1960s, after Kennedy was killed, the atmosphere began changing. Writing in the early 1970s John W. Kendrick observed that in the 1960s:

"The intellectual climate changed appreciably. No longer is economic growth accepted uncritically as a national goal. Increasing emphasis is being placed on the costs of growth, in the forms of pollution and other environmental deterioration and the social disorganization attributed by some in part to technological advance and other dynamic economic changes." The growing criticism of growth and technological progress that Kendrick refers to was in many ways more extreme than these comments suggest and went beyond a reasonable concern for air and water quality and specific problems such as chemical dumping. The criticisms often amounted to a rejection of the modern world and its peoples and cultures. It contrasted sharply with Kennedy’s outlook and goals. Much of this change in intellectual climate did not well up from the general population, but came from the same circles of power that appeared so often in the conflicts over Kennedy’s policies." [end of Battling Wall Street excerpt]

Clearly then it develops that the enemies of John Kennedy were much more than a ragtag band of anti-castro CIA sponsored Cubans, or the Mob. Those are the false sponsors used to divert attention from the monied international power centers that were at the root of what culminated on 22 November 1963. This group includes the Morgan Banks and the Rockefeller Empire, in company with international bankers, and other like minded members from the Federal Reserve System.

But, that's just MHO, FWIW.

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Do you believe it was coincidence that Eugene Hale Brading aka Jim Braden was arrested at Dealey Plaza for acting suspiciously, and that on the night of RFK's murder he was staying in LA not far from the death site?

I don't know about Brading but I would liked to have seen Roy Hargraves, Gerry Hemming and Lawrence Howard grilled about where they were. The following is Hargraves' response when asked about the Robert Kennedy assassination. Gerry of course being Gerry Hemming and Fat Larry being Lawrence Howard.

Three of us from the JFK thing were on the ground at that time, here. (laughs) Fat Larry, Gerry and I. Yeah, We were here. And I pulled the operation. I don’t even know Larry is out here. I knew he was up in California, bull didn’t know he was on the ground at the time.

The infamous Eugene Thane Cesar who I believe fired shots at RFK is another suspicious character in all of this.

James

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John are you saying tha Giancana and Roselli didn't have any role in the assassination?  Interesting question. Also, was Charles Harrelson mafia or CIA?

Same question for  :

Frank Sturgis (Fiorini)

Chauncey Holt?

Giancana?

Posada Carrilles?

Guillermo Novo?

Felix Rodriguez?

Charles Rogers?

Roselli?

Nicoletti?

Ferrie?

Wim

I know about Harrelson, Ferrie, Nicoletti, Roselli, Giancana and Sturgis---and have a rough idea how they fit into the picture.

Who are these other guys?

(I know Felix Rodrigez was a big Contra paramilitary guy that knew GHW BUSH)

Shanet

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