Mark Stapleton

I notice there have b een no substantive replies to my post.

Tim,

Just because the conspirators can't be identified with certainty doesn't detract from the historical analysis that a conspiracy ended the life of JFK. Are you now declaring there was no conspiracy?

Assuming that Brown & Root and other memebers of the military industrial complex were behind the assassination, who do you speculate were the mechanics chosen to carry it out? Mobster connected hitmen and anti-Castro Cubans don't fit with me. Too unreliable.

I agree. I intend to argue that it was the same group of people who organized most of the assassinations that was ordered by this group. I will develop this argument on the Assassination, Terrorism and the Arms Trade: The Contracting Out of U.S. Foreign Policy: 1940-1990 thread:

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=5799

John,

Without wanting to pre-empt your post, would they be from the same group who attempted the assassination of De Gaulle in '62?

Nixon and Connally were far from "politically opposed". In fact, in 1972 Connally headed Democrats for Nixon and he later switched parties.

He ran for the Republican nomination in 1980. Spent a ton of money but ended up with but one delegate and withdrew from the race.

BTW, MICC did not kill JFK. John has not one scintlla of proof for this scenario.

Moreover, EVEN if some members HAD, they certainly would have kept it close to their chest. According to John the entire Executive Board of Brown & Root knew who did it. This makes no sense at all.

John also fails to mention several salient facts. The bribes Connally was accused of taking had nothing to do with oil. They were allegedly from MILK producers--the AMPI was the name of their organization. And Connally was acquitted. Barbara Jordan was a character witness for Connally.

Tim,

While I acknowledge your determination to solve the case, you can't shoot down plausible scenarios with mere technicalities, especially this long after the event. Appreciate the info on Connally, though. I never knew he ran as a Republican. Nothing surprises me.

Either Gerald Ford (who is close to death I believe) or George Walker Herbert Bush?

Listen guys. You're taking this way beyond the scope of the Forum. Forget about it.

Interesting post, John. Nixon attempting to make Connally his VP? That's a bizarre scenario considering they were politically opposed but nothing would surprise me.

Attempting to determine the identity of the conspirators by tracing the trail of suspicious deaths is probably the best short cut to solving the case. It's got to be better than wading through the disinformation swamp.

Assuming that Brown & Root and other memebers of the military industrial complex were behind the assassination, who do you speculate were the mechanics chosen to carry it out? Mobster connected hitmen and anti-Castro Cubans don't fit with me. Too unreliable.

Great post.

Logically, the American and European Governments so alarmed by this development don't have a leg to stand on. Ahmadinejad also says he will ban inpectors if Iran is referred to the security council. He doesn't fear sanctions. It looks like America will just have to wear it.

There is also the possibility of a US backed Israeli strike on the Isfahan facility, similar to the attack on the Iraqi facility in 1981. The consequences of such an action could be disastrous.

CNN report today:

SANTIAGO, Chile (CNN) -- Chilean voters have elected their first female president, one-time political prisoner and socialist Michelle Bachelet.

Bachelet, who has also been a doctor and serves as defense minister for the outgoing government of President Ricardo Lagos, defeated billionaire businessman Sebastian Pinera in a runoff Sunday.

With more than 99 percent of precincts reporting, she had 53.5 percent of the vote to Pinera's 46.5 percent.

"I want our government to be remembered as the government by everyone and for everyone," she said.

Airline and broadcasting tycoon Pinera conceded defeat as results showed Bachelet with a solid lead and he thanked Bachelet for "her triumph today."

But the man who studied economics at Harvard vowed the fight would go on.

"We will continue to be a firm and constructive opposition."

Bachelet spent five years in exile following the 1973 coup that bought Gen. Augusto Pinochet to power.

Her father, an air force general, was tortured and killed after the U.S.-backed coup, and Bachelet herself was tortured before being sent into exile in Australia.

"What I want, and have and will always work for, is to build a society in which what happened to me and so many Chileans can never be repeated," she said in a December campaign appearance.

Bachelet completed her training as a pediatrician in East Germany and served as health minister in Chile's center-left government before becoming defense minister.

The new president is an agnostic single mother in a male-dominated, overwhelmingly Catholic society where divorce was legalized less than a year ago.

"To have a woman president shows that we are a freer, more just, more diverse, more prosperous and more modern Chile," Lagos said.

In Washington, the White House congratulated Bachelet and praised Chilean voters "for their strong commitment to democracy."

"We have an excellent, long-standing relationship with Chile and look forward to working with the new president and her team," White House spokesman David Almacy said.

Bachelet's victory adds to a leftward shift in Latin American politics.

Leftists hold presidential power in Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay and Venezuela.

Bolivian President-elect Evo Morales -- a former coca farmer and union leader who promises to nationalize the country's natural gas industry -- is slated to take office January 22.

http://edition.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/americas/01/15/chile.vote/

This is just another illustration of how CIA’s covert activities in Latin America have backfired. Michelle Bachelet's father was killed and she was tortured by the CIA backed government in the 1970s. Since the return to democracy, Chile, a deeply conservative country, has elected three left-wing governments into power.

As CNN point out, Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay and Venezuela all have left-wing governments and Bolivia will follow later this month. The CIA is only partly to blame. Bush's neo-imperialism in the Middle East has reawakened Latin Americans to the history of American foreign policy.

Yes, the nations of South America are moving to the left with great rapidity. Democracy in its purest form, ie.without scores of parasitic lobbyists, will ultimately reflect the wishes of the people. Chavez in Venezuela has been a shining example to the rest of the continent. I agree the Bush Government's reprehensible behavior has also been a factor.

Americans will probably be puzzled. Given that 60% of them get their information from Fox news, the majority have no idea what is going on in the world and the acrimony towards America which has been caused by successive American Governments, especially this one. These new Governments in South America will attempt to improve the lot of their citizens, beginning with basic services. The Bush Government has never governed in the interests of its people. Instead, it has fed them lies and distortions in order to keep them distracted while they have lined the pockets of their mega-rich supporters (and themselves). The hordes of stinking lobbyists, which have attached themselves to the American body politic like a malignant cancer, ensure that Government policy exclusively favors the wealthy elites and punishes the less well off for being poor.

It's an amusing irony that these South American countries are going to teach the USA a lesson in how to run a democracy.

I'm taking a keen interest in the current hysteria concerning Iran's nuclear intentions. I suspect the hypocrisy of the whole affair is being driven by a fear that America and Europe won't be able to throw their weight around in the Middle East if Iran goes ahead and produces a nuclear weapon or two.

I believe nuclear weapons to be the ultimate deterrent and don't see why certain countries should be prevented from making their own national security arrangements.

Jim, Tom is correct in that the bullets were never tied to Oswald's gun. The shells recovered at the scene, however, were. Strangely, however, the officer who claimed to have initialed those shells couldn't find his intiials on them later. This is one of the many reasons people suspect something's fishy with the Tippit slaying.

I have resigned myself to the probablity it was Oswald.

An often-overlooked element of the Tippit slaying is that the number of shots fired conflicts with the earwitnesses. While the doctors discovered four bullets, and the police discovered four shells, the shells didn't match the bullets. This meant there was one shot fired that no one found and one shell used that was never recovered. (Unless of course the shells were a DPD plant.) This led the WC to conclude there were 5 shots fired. Amazingly, however, the majority of earwitnesses heard only 3 shots. That the WC failed to acknowledge thiat something similar could have happened in Dealey Plaza is indicative of its bias, IMO.

Pat,

There's something fishy about the Tippit slaying, to be sure. I can't resign myself to accepting LHO as the killer, though. I can't see why he would commit such a serious crime as killing a cop when he obviously didn't kill the President. This would require accepting that Oswald obligingly turned into a murderer just as he was being fitted up for another murder (of which he was innocent). What a stroke of luck for the conspirators--and how considerate of Oswald.

Stephen, you are absolutely correct. If indeed Trafficante was working on Castro's behalf, he is the nexus between Castro and Ruby.

"Ultimate Sacrifice" demonstrates that the federal heat was on Trafficante through the Valachi hearings in the fall of 1963.

I also consider it significant that Trafficante knew Cubela (Escalante said in 1995 that Cubela helped negotiate Trafficante's release from Trescornia) and yet Trafficante, under oath, denied knowing Cubela. (If I recall correctly trafficante pleaded the fifth before the Church Committee but he did testify before the HSCA. It was before the HSCA that he denied knowing Cubela.

It may also be significant that the brother of trafficante's attorney was a high muckety-muck in the Castro regime.

Now "Rendezvous with Death" claims that there was a connection between Cubela and Oswald. It will be interesting to see how well documented that assertion is.

I think that if the scenario of "Rendezvous with Death" is that Castro (or pro-Castro Cubans) alone assassinated JFK, the scenario is deficient in not explaining the Ruby involvement.

The fact that the Cubela gambit, if you want to call it that, was being played out just as the Kennedy assassination was being plotted and carried out, has always seemed significant to me. Then add in the Cubela-Trafficante association and the plot really thickens.

Note that (per Ragano) Hoffa had asked Marcello and Trafficante to kill Kennedy on his behalf and you have the possibility that, through Trafficante, there were several sponsors of the assassination, who may not have been aware of each other.

The Kennedys had certainly made enemies of Castro, Hoffa, Trafficante and Marcello. It is not unreasonable to postulate that his enemies converged to effectuate his murder. This is the theory of Michael Kurtz (and it was my own theory even before I read Kurtz's book).

But re Matt's comment that it would be "hilarious" to see how Ruby was working for Castro, it is not hilarious at all. "Ultimate Sacrifice" argues quite persuasively that in the late fifties Ruby was "gun-running" for Castro, and that Ruby may have used his influence with the Castro regime to negotiate Trafficante's release from Trescornia. (In "Mob Lawyer" Ragano states that Trafficante told him that he (Trafficante, that is, had negotiated a deal with Raul Castro to secure his release.)

Tim,

Interesting stuff (and from Gerry about Molina).

I still don't think your theory is plausible, though. You've asserted that Trafficante had suspicious links but he's a gangster--all his links are suspicious. And the claim that Ruby worked for Trafficante is one I dispute. There's evidence his real boss was Meyer Lansky, ie, Ruby was Jewish, like Lansky.

The way I see it the Mafia, whether Sicilian or Jewish, wanted to see the end of Castro--they wouldn't be assassinating Presidents for him. If they did, then why have the media continued to cover it up all these long years later when all the reasons LBJ cited for the coverup are long redundant? The media covering up for the mafia and Castro--42 years later? Finally we agree on something--the ethics of the mainstream media. You're becoming a bit of a left winger, Tim.

Mark,

The above photo was taken on the Elm Street extension, not at the Tippit scene.

But you're right about the resemblance to Taylor. Note the same wavy hair. If this is indeed the same guy who walked past the tramps, he is walking back the other way in this photo. (Or if this photo was taken first, he walked from the knoll area to the TSBD, then walked back the other way when passing the tramps.)

Ron

My mistake. On the issue of "flatfoot", he's clearly the tramp walker (same clothes, same build and same hair). Whether or not he's Taylor is more of a problem but his claim that he was in Washington must be viewed with an element of doubt.

Can't answer your question, but look at the guy walking past the car. Why does his left leg look much longer than the other one, and why is his left foot still planted almost flat? Weird. He reminds me of my poor efforts as a kid to draw human beings.

I've wondered before if this is the same "Lansdale" guy photographed walking past the three tramps by the TSBD.

Ron and Adam,

He's the guy with the resemblance to Maxwell Taylor. The back of the head is a close match, IMO.

This means he was photographed at DP and also the Tippit murder scene. He's got a keen interest in the case for an innocent bystander.

All bets are off next summer, though--the Ashes are coming home. You guys should head down under to watch the slaughter. Warning: it won't be one for the faint hearted!!

We would if the Australian Cricket Board would allocate us some tickets

http://cricket-online.org/news.php?sid=4813

Yes, I've heard they're extremely hard to get. I believe there's an army of about 50,00 Poms coming down to watch the carnage (and flaunt their economic imperialism).

All bets are off next summer, though--the Ashes are coming home. You guys should head down under to watch the slaughter. Warning: it won't be one for the faint hearted!!

Maybe. However, I think we will do slightly better than you in the World Cup in Germany.

You're on safe ground there John but remember we have Supercoach Hiddink. And two years ago we made mincemeat out of Fiji.

. My original question to this forum was whether anyone knew if LBJ was linked and if so, could this have been a possible motive for the killing of JFK who was not.

Oh McGoo you've done it again !

In one of the Johnson bios (sorry I can't remember which one - It may be Sam Johnson's Boy)

It is reported that Lady Bird instigated a detailed research project into LBJ's ancestry. Apparently the project was abandoned when it became clear that there was more bad blood than blue blood in his lineage.

LBJ was determined that the Royal House of Hillbilly be given their turn.

Although this thread is straying dangerously close to becoming a love-in, I echo Tim's gracious comments. Sincere thanks to John and Andy.

All bets are off next summer, though--the Ashes are coming home. You guys should head down under to watch the slaughter. Warning: it won't be one for the faint hearted!!

Steve,

You're not alone. I'm struggling to understand what Tom's talking about, too.

Mark

On the Amherst College website is an outline of public service for John J. McCloy. Many things overlap the 1961 period.

1947 - 1989 Trustee of Amherst College

1956 - 1969 Chairman of the Corporation (Amherst)

1952 - 1965 Chairman of the Board of Trustees, Ford Foundation

1953 - 1971 Chairman of the Council on foreign Relations

1961 - 1989 Milbank, Tweed, Hope, Hadley & McCloy

1961 Jan-Oct Advisor to President Kennedy

1961 - 1974 Chairman of General Advisory Committee on Arms Control and Disarmament

McCloy had a falling out with Kennedy on the subject of a Comprehensive vs Limited Test Ban Treaty. By the June dates that you suggest Kennedy had taken a giant step back in the US push for a comprehensive test ban that would push all countries toward curbing the spread of nuclear weapons. Kennedy believed that we could not guarentee the French would approve of such a plan and that the Soviets could not guarentee China's approval so why bother. After the assassination of Kennedy, McCloy was back in Geneva working toward the treaty that was signed by some 70 nations in, I believe, 1968.

My research seems to suggest that it is Kennedy that did not have a solid position on the spread of nuclear technology and that it was McCloy who was pushing the tough stance. It was October of 1961 that McCloy was removed from negotiations with the Soviets after they complained to Kennedy about his tough positions.

June 10 was the date of Kennedy's major speech spelling out a new negotiating position with the Soviets on testing. The Soviets had always opposed inspections and it is not surprising that their ally, Egypt would take the same position. It would not be a stretch to believe that McCloy would be put in a very delicate position to push for inspections in the Middle East, where the oil companies he represented had special interests, while having been taken off the negotiating team with the Soviets for pushing to hard for inspections.

"This attempt by JFK to correct McCloy's failure to accurately spell out to Nasser what his position on the arms race was is the most likely point where JFK and McCloy fell out, IMO."

IMO it was JFK's inconsistancy in this arena over several years that I am begining to believe may have played into not only the "falling out" between McCloy and Kennedy but may have led to actions on the part of McCloy that only ended when the Warren Report was completed.

Remember that it was during this same period (June 12, 1963) that McCloy wrote his "interesting" letter to Edwin Anderson Walker.

Jim Root

Jim,

Thanks for that. I agree that John McCloy is a person of significant interest. BTW, were you aware of McCloy's role as Presidential emissary to Egypt and Israel? The reason I ask is that JFK's efforts to curb nuclear proliferation in the Middle East seem to have been erased from the public domain. I have Dallek's bio of JFK (JFK: An Unfinished Life), which runs to over 700 pages and the book doesn't contain a single word about JFK's efforts in this important area.

You're probably right about JFK's consistency concerning the Soviets. However, his policy concerning nuclear proliferation in the Middle East appears to be perfectly consistent and solid. From his first meeting with Prime Minister Ben-Gurion at the Waldorf-Astoria in 1961, during which he extracted tentative guarantees concerning inspections of the Dimona facility, right through to the time of his assassination, JFK was strongly opposed to any nuclear proliferation in the region. The small research reactor constructed with US assisstance at Nachal Soreq was not the major concern, the Dimona facility--with the plutonium separation plant constructed by Israel with French assistance--was the issue. The situation changed rapidly after JFK's demise, despite LBJ's window dressing.

John

John J. McCloy was partner in the law firm Milbank, Tweed, Hope, Hadley & McCloy during the period 1961-1989. He represented the major oil companies (known as the Seven Sisters) during this period. His duties included OPEC negotiations, antitrust investigations annd divestitures.

What is interesting is that he took this position at about the same time that he ceased being a Kennedy "advison" which dates to October of 1961.

As I have stated on other threads McCloy seems to have had a falling out with Kennedy over arms negotiations with the Soviets etc. There seems to be some evidence of McCloy dealings with Bobby Kennedy, as Attorney General, on behalf of the oil companies that were less than productive.

I tend to believe that McCloy was a major player in the assassination conspriacy. Does this dovetail in with some of your information?

Jim Root

Jim,

John McCloy's activities on behalf of the Government did not cease in 1961.

On 15 June 1963, the same day Kennedy wrote a strongly worded letter to Israeli PM David Ben Gurion (which Ben Gurion never opened), he also sent a letter to Egyptian President Gamal Abdul Nasser. In both letters, JFK warned of the dangers of the continuing arms race in the Middle East and expressed his interest in the parties reaching some form of agreement to curb this development. He ended his letter by saying that in accordance with his earlier readiness to discuss the matter through a Presidential envoy, he named John McCloy to speak on his behalf because of his "unmatched experience in the arms control sphere".

This comes from Avner Cohen's 1998 book, "Israel and the Bomb" which I intend to make the subject of a new thread shortly. Cohen is a senior research fellow at the National Security Archive at George Washington University. He has taught and researched in universities in Israel and the United States (from the book's back cover). The book was the result of a ten year research project and has over 1200 footnotes.

Anyway, McCloy met Nasser in Cairo on 27 June 1963. This was the first stop on a two part mission which was intended to include a trip to Israel (the latter was called off after Nasser's negative response to McCloy's proposals). Robert Komer, National Security Council advisor on Middle East affairs, and JFK both expressed disappointment at McCloy's performance.

From Chapter 12, "the Arabs and Dimona" (pp249-250):

"On 5 July,1963 Kennedy sent his toughest letter on the matter of Dimona to Israel's new PM, Levi Eshkol. McCloy was not informed of the letter. Two days later the State Department cabled Ambassador Badeau, asking him to see Nasser for clarification of the points on which McCloy had failed to elaborate, that is, the American concern over Dimona. Badeau was asked to tell Nasser that the "Dimona reactor is now in an advanced stage of construction and, while intended for peaceful purposes, it does have the potential capability of producing fuel for nuclear weapons". He was told to stress to Nasser that it was the American estimate "that Israelis are not and have not decided to start developing such weapons. However, Israelis are approaching the stage where their combination of technical skills and physical plant, though developed for peaceful uses, also could give them the capability for producing a nuclear weapon within a few years if the arms race should expand into highly sophisticated fields".

The cable again linked the UAR missile project and Israel's nuclear development: the Egyptian work on advanced missile development allowed the Israelis to justify "their moving into the nuclear weapons field if they should decide to do so". This was the reason for the U.S. initiative.

The cable also criticized the Egyptians for their opposition to inspection and international safeguards for reasons of national sovereignty, even though Egypt had no significant nuclear facilities. This objection-in-principle to inspection only served the Israelis, who already had nuclear facilities at the time, by allowing them to reject international inspections of facilities on similar grounds and argue that Egypt was secretly developing nuclear weapons. It would be in Egypt's interests to accept the external safeguards and allow the United States to press Israel on this matter.

This attempt by JFK to correct McCloy's failure to accurately spell out to Nasser what his position on the arms race was is the most likely point where JFK and McCloy fell out, IMO.

Fascinating stuff. I've never dreamt of the assassination but always thought that the entire tableau--from the turn into Elm until the final headshot--had an unreal, illusory, dreamlike feel to it. The limo then suddenly speeding towards the underpass represented a rude awakening to the nightmare of lies which followed.

I'll eat lots of camembert (I like it runny) and throw in a few radishes and see how I go.

It is becoming clear that US political lobbyists might have been involved in a large number of illegal covert activities carried out by CIA operatives and their foreign assets. For example, Tommy Corcoran (the overthrow of Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala), Irving Davidson (the assassination of JFK) and Michael Deaver (death squads in El Salvador and Argentina).

Members might be interested in Gary Younge's account of how political lobbyists are undermining democracy in the USA.

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=5801

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, democracy can't function effectively when special interests are allowed to bribe politicians and corrupt the system. As Gary's excellent post implies, the Government becomes a vehicle for the implementation of policies which benefit those with the most money, to the detriment of the vast majority. The pharmaceutical lobby, with two lobbyists for every congressman, is a great example. The lobby ensures that cheap, generic alternatives to the most popular therapeutic drugs don't become available to the general public and massive profits to the industry and its' shareholders are the result. Cheaper alternatives, manufactured in Mexico, are even advertised on this Forum. Add to this the fact that the US is the only western country without some form of universal health care and you have a health system for the rich only. I don't know why there aren't riots in the streets.

The corruption of the democratic system exists in other countries as well, but its most rampant manifestation is in the US. Banning political donations seems like the only solution which might prevent the system from collapsing but, of course, this is replete with practical difficulties. It's a well that's so deep. As China and India gradually squeeze America and other western countries into lowering the living standards of their citizens in order to compete, those citizens might just realise that the last two decades have seen massive wealth tranfers to a tiny proportion of the population and the political systems which they so cherish have done nothing to prevent it. By the people, for the people etc. is just a bunch of crap.

Some more information on Issac Irving Davidson.

According to the John H. Davis book "Mafia Kingfish: Carlos Marcello and the Assassination of John F. Kennedy" one of David's clients, who he represented in the United States, was Fidel Castro.

Tim,

If the person you are referring to here is Davidson (not "David"), then it doesn't seem to make sense that he would represent Castro, given his apparent aforementioned client base.

Bill,

Thanks for addressing those questions. My only disagreement is in the argument that the conspiracy must have left a paper trail leading to the assassination. While the Cuban ops left a trail, the assassination was an "off the books" assignment, IMO. There's no paper relating to it or incriminating trail leading to it. Just my opinion, of course.

Diving too deep into the covert Cuba ops kind of makes my eyes glaze over but I don't want to slow down your thread. There's many experts on the matter here who can debate these issues with great authority. For me, the Cuban imbroglio has been used for too long to feed the chooks. I'm looking elsewhere at the moment.

Now hold on, Robert, Russo is a creep merely because he disagrees with your conclusions?

Tomorrow I will post a great quote from Benjamin Franklin, probably one of the most intelligent of our founding fathers, made at the constitutional convention, demonstrating great intellectual humility.

If it fits for Franklin, it fits for all of us.

Tim,

For heaven's sake Tim, spare us that Benjamin Franklin stuff. Robert didn't call him a creep because he disagrees with him--it was you who added that. Rather, I think he was alluding to Russo's rude dismissal of anyone daring to challenge his firm belief in Oswald's guilt.

FWIW, I too think Russo is full of AMCRAP.

Chris,

Thanks for the info and links. I guess there's still a glimmer of hope.