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Nathaniel Heidenheimer

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About Nathaniel Heidenheimer

  • Birthday 11/18/1963

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    nyc
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    Truth, St. Louis Cardinals.

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  1. " SAC was targeting Soviet nuclear missiles for destruction. In the Fall of 1962 after the Cuban Missile Crisis Kennedy made a pass at changing this and cutting missile production. I think Douglas has some details on this. The next year McNamara changed targeting to cities and ended any possibility of carrying out what was termed a "coercive" nuclear strike. When I say JCS in this reply I mean as a body - I have the impression that not all individual members of the JCS held extreme views during the entire JFK presidency, but I think it was dominated by those that did" Here you mention SAC and then JCS and the likely possibility that there were some differences within the JCS. You have probably encountered, as I have, some descriptions of SAC autonomy as far as first strike capability, even independently of JCS. Have you and have tried to find out what the real relationship (as opposed to paper relationship ) between JCS and SAC was. One source on SAC autonomy was, if I recall Richard Rhodes book Dark Sun. Also James Carrolls book House of War. Others too I will try to track them down. Of course this is not an easy question, because neither of these organizations sends out e-mails to middle aged social studies teachers.
  2. http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/06/04-7 Guru Noam at it again. Look at the stunning synopsis of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Tactical nuke aimed at the "left?" With a left like this no wonder we are so far right. This lying about JFK TO THE FAKE US LEFT will only get worse as we get closer to Mack Does Potempkin Village Day. It must be adressed head on and in a way that shows how much it helps the right. As I have tried badly to explain, what the so called "left" believes about JFK matters to the entire spectrum, even if they dont matter on anything else, which they dont because they have been marginalized with special niche-marketed lies about the National Security State.
  3. Everyone MUST read Turner and Christians book on the Assassination of RFK. And check out the publication history of this book.... When a friend of the authors called Epstein about the book's fate, he replied he did not want to speak about it. But what appears to have occurred is that when Random House was sold to Si Newhouse-Roy Cohn's family friend-Bob Loomis's star ascended, and Epstein's began to fade. As readers of Probe know, Loomis was once married to the secretary for James Angleton. He has been a mentor and shepherd for the likes of Sy Hersh, James Phelan, and Gerald Posner. In other words, he is dedicated to upholding the official story no matter how porous it may be. When asked why the Turner/Christian book was burned, Loomis replied, as Daryl Gates did about the disposal of crime scene evidence, "To make space for others. They do that with books." Not to apologize for Loomis, but if I was him, I would want to make this book disappear too. It is devastating to the official story. Because of an attorney named George Davis, Turner and Christian were on the case almost from the beginning. Davis was the San Francisco based lawyer for a man named Rev. Jerry Owen aka The Walking Bible. In 1968, Owen was like a low-rent Jerry Falwell, a traveling evangelist preacher. Owen had voluntarily gone to the Los Angeles Police Department with information about his meeting with Sirhan Sirhan just prior to the RFK assassination. That internal inquiry within the LAPD was called Special Unit Senator (SUS). The two men running it, Manny Pena, and Hank Hernandez, had no use for Owen even though his story seemed quite interesting and relevant. He said that he had encountered Sirhan the day before the California primary of June 4, 1968. Sirhan had been hitchhiking with a friend when Owen picked him up. The conversation turned to horses, and Owen told Sirhan he actually owned some. Since he was a former jockey, Sirhan told him he would be interested in buying one. A pair of Sirhan's companions--a male and female--arranged with Owen to return the following evening to the back of the Ambassador Hotel. They gave him a hundred dollars down, and promised two hundred more upon delivery. Owen said he could not fulfill the offer since he had a preaching appointment in Oxnard on the night of June 4th. On June 5th, traveling back from Oxnard, Owen stopped at a dinette in a hotel. He looked up at the TV and saw a photo of Sirhan-who he had known as "Joe". He then reported this information to the police. Some of the story seemed to make sense, e.g. Sirhan had four hundred dollar bills on him when apprehended, witness Sandra Serrano later reported that Sirhan had entered the Ambassador that night with a male and female companion. Owen said that after making his police report he began to get threatening calls. Deciding he better get out of LA, he stayed at a friend's house in Napa Valley. That friend knew Davis. Davis heard the story, got it into the local papers, and called a news conference. Turner and Christian, both reporters at the time, arrived at his office to hear it. It never came off. SUS got wind of it and immediately flew up Pena and Hernandez to stop it. Davis complied, but he got Turner a private one-hour interview with Owen. Owen told him what happened, and Turner taped it. And like an old-fashioned adventure story, this is what sets the two protagonists out on "a tale full of sound and fury". But unlike Shakespeare, it signifies a lot. The paradox with the Bobby Kennedy case is this: although on the surface itappears to be a simple open and shut case, once you peel away that surface, it is more clearly a conspiracy than the JFK case. And once you realize that not only did Sirhan not kill RFK, but he could not kill him, then you enter a world of threats, intimidation, shootings, and falsified evidence. One could say that it resembles the JFK case. But there are elements of it that are not like anything in the JFK case. And no matter how cheapjack writers like Dan Moldea and David Heymann try to cover them up, they will not go away. In the JFK case you have what is perhaps one of the worst autopsies ever performed in a high profile case. In the RFK case, Thomas Noguchi's painstaking, thorough work is crucial to unraveling elements of the conspiracy. In the JFK case, the actual assassins were mostly out of sight, hundreds of feet away, and never identified. In the RFK case, they were in direct proximity to Kennedy, in plain sight of witnesses. Further, they were questioned and even apprehended. With Oswald, you have basically a simple frame-up, sometimes called a "throw down"; with Sirhan, the framing circumstances are much more complex and intriguing. This is where one gets into the utterly and endlessly fascinating aspects peculiar to this case: namely the Manchurian Candidate, and the Girl in the Polka Dot Dress. The great achievement of this book is not that it makes all of the above credible. But it makes it convincing. One of the reasons for this is that Turner is a skillful writer. In an inherently dramatic but true story, he takes time to fashion, not just a narrative, but to draw "scenes", which makes the strange tale both realistic and easier to visualize. (A form of art that is sorely lacking in the field. See the recent work of Lamar Waldron and Joan Mellen.) This approach is especially useful in understanding the difficult concept of hypnoprogramming. Which Turner did a lot of homework on. He interviewed two of the eminent experts in the field: Herbert Spiegel and Edward Simson-Kallas. He also read one of the most important texts in the discipline: the chronicle by Paul Rieter of the famous Nielsen/Hardrup case which took place in Denmark in the early fifties. That study shows, beyond any doubt, that you can hypnotize someone into doing something they would never do in a waking state. That you can install post-hypnotic suggestion. And that it is possible to then deprogram the hypnotized victim who has commited the crime-not of his own free will--but for his controller. It was all done in the Danish precedent. And in that case, the court decided that Hardrup was innocent of the crime and convicted his programmer Nielsen. One of the great ironies of the RFK case, is that the Danish case was first mentioned in what--up until that time--was the standard book on the Bobby Kennedy case: Robert Blair Kaiser's RFK Must Die (1970). In his last chapter, Kaiser mentions the hypnosis sessions that Sirhan had with his court appointed psychiatrist Dr. Diamond. Diamond was struck by how quickly and deeply he could induce Sirhan into a trance. He became convinced that Sirhan was in a trance that night in the pantry of the Ambassador Hotel. But since Sirhan's incompetent, and probably compromised, legal team had agreed to the prosecutor's evidence, their defense had to be tapered in this aspect. They argued that Sirhan did it, but in a trance that was self-induced. In that famous last chapter, Kaiser mentions things like previous sightings of Sirhan with the Girl in the Polka Dot Dress, of murder suspect and Sirhan look-alike Michael Wayne, and a man named Van Antwerp who disappeared the day RFK was shot, not to reappear until two weeks later. At that time he told the FBI he never knew Sirhan, even though he had roomed with him for five months. Though he mentions these tantalizing leads and angles, Kaiser's book ends up being a Sirhan-did-it tract. He asks, "Who would have wanted to use Sirhan? I didn't know." (p. 537) A page later he writes that it would have taken him another year to explore all these fascinating trails. That would have been another book and he had to get this one published. What the Turner/Christian book does is go down some of those trails. For instance, it fits into a rough mosaic the role of the Girl in the Polka Dot Dress with the man who probably "used Sirhan" by hypnoprogramming him. That man's name is Dr. William J. Bryan. His name was first mentioned in book form here. And the way it tumbles forward, out of -- of all things -- the Boston Strangler case, is almost worth the price of the book. The book does this repeatedly. The roles and backgrounds of Pena and Hernandez are delineated. And the latter's task of beating down witnesses, especially Sandra Serrano-who first exposed the Girl in the Polka Dot Dress-is clearly defined. The book outlines in character and performance the two ballistics experts who would face off in this case: DeWayne Wolfer and William Harper. (If there is a hero in the RFK case, it is Harper. The authors dedicated the book to him.) Some of the chapter titles describe what are today, hallmarks of the RFK case: "Tinting Sirhan Red", "The Quiet Trial of Sirhan Sirhan", and "Too Many Guns-Too Many Bullets". I should also note that because it describes the last of the four great political assassinations of the decade, the book is elegiac. To slightly alter Clausewitz: assassination is an extension of politics by other means. The assassination of Robert Kennedy, for all intents and purposes, lowered the curtain on one era and raised it on another. By the summer of '68, RFK was the last great hope of the sixties. His assassination brought to power the era's anti-Christ: Richard M. Nixon. In the actual histiography on that case, the Turner/Christian book is a milestone for what came afterwards. For the first time in book form, both the conspiracy and cover up in the Bobby Kennedy case were now out in the open: lying there naked in the glaring sunlight. That exposure inspired the subsequent fine work of people like Phil Melanson, Greg Stone, and Lisa Pease. With that kind of impact and influence, one can see why Loomis panicked. But it was too late. That was bad for him. It was good for us. Buy this book. It's that good. * * * Return to Main Page
  4. Mr. Colby, it seems, sees a President in every other 1963 Brazilian governor.
  5. I was very alarmed last year when Thompson was celebrated for his Umbrella Man bit. To me what stood out was that Thompson did not manage to sneak in one iota of pro-conspiracy argument into the clip. He knew that this piece would get way, way more coverage, given those involved. And then the NYT picked it up and used it to, without stating it, scoff at all pro-conspiracy viewpoints. Thompson is not a dummy. He knows that his work on this movie would get Huge Corporate Media coverage. He can ride into Education Forum with his posse all he wants and proclaim that he still believes in Conspiracy. THAT DOES NOT MATTER SO LONG AS THE ONLY THING THAT REACHES MILLIONS--RATHER THAN A FEW HUNDRED HERE-- IS HIS STATURE AS A BAD BOY NOW GONE GOOD, I.E. posing for a film or article which he knows damn well will only reach a wide audience if it plays to the ear of our Court Media. Unless Thompson gets some pro-conspiracy points before the same wide audience fast.... I am growing kind of suspicious here. I'm sure, given his reputation, he does not care what I think. But ultimately what this case is about is neither a former Yale professor or some middle ages social studies teacher. It is the legitimation (or just delegitimation ) of an outdated political model and political language that is forced on 310 million citizens a year-- and at a media and schoolin cost of tens of billions of dollars-- which only serves to obscure the realities of power for ourselves and any future generations that can survive this bad faith blather about elections and checks and balances. That is what's at stake. That is the high cost of Thompson's de facto mea culpa limelight dancing.
  6. Jim there are ,without question, some outstanding and unique (in the sense that they are published by an academic press who normally will not go into some of the dangerous waters [for academics] that this book features.) I would be praising it to the hilt all over FB. However there is some serious Trojan Horse in there that is like WTF, if you pardon the expression of a middle aged organism who has been in a room with adolescents and in an America with worse for far too long. Keep reading, I think you will see what I mean. I might change my mind, I am still mulling this one over. The question that keeps coming up is "How is is possible for a person who knows so much about variables a,b,c to be THAT wrong about e,f,g. Don't get me wrong, I would be suspicious of books that reinforced all of my footnoted prejudice. But the stunningly machiavellian nature of JUST HOW WRONG variables e and f are just have me in a neoliberal daze I guess. Wait, I have to go and write Michael Albert at Z magazine to find out what neoliberal means this week. (amazing how the masses are still not at the barricades, what with Noam, Amy and Uncle Albert after all these years!)
  7. It was the best of books, it was the worst of books. That is my review so far. Jim DiEugenio mentioned this book on last nights Black Op Radio. It is, in some ways, a major breakthrough by an academic writer. But there are huge costs involved. For now let me just say that the books major weakness is its failure to include the thorough, grounded historical account of the CIA manipulation of journalists-- a history which is now abundant and available, though perhaps not employable, for today's may- as- well-be-government journalists--as part of the book's broad,sociological investigation of how the term Conspiracy Theory took hold as a catchall term, with broad coattails and negative connotations. Other institutions, such as Academia do, to some extent get called on the mat or as much mat as Florida State, a great school in many ways, can afford. There are also many excellent aspects of the book. This book deserves long discussion because it bares directly on our challenges in explicating the significance of the Coup of 1963. The editor of this book, is Mark Crispin Miller, a writer of many good books , but also one who promotes the Waldron Hartmann books. http://www.amazon.co...g/dp/0292743793
  8. Thanks for exemplifying the cure for vagueness. Heal thyself lately?
  9. Did you ever notice how Michael Parenti stopped getting those groovy Pacifica bookings sometime around 1996?
  10. Richard, Hedges is 1) published 2) on the left. THEREFORE he will not write anything revealing about JFK. Today's hothouse, foundation funded, left is simply not allowed to write about the National Security State acting independently of elected officials. Off limits. Much great about Hedges but the line has been dug too deeply, and everyone toes it. Dug so deep nobody even needs to mention it. You can tell by the condescending scoff. They are allowed to write about social history. They are not allowed to write about the INTERACTION between broadcast words and social movements. That's not too difficult because the Democrats have not said anything that could interact with social movements since early June, 1968.
  11. Yes this peppering strategy is necessary. I plan on repeatedly posting on her FB threads as I have already been doing with the JFKfacts article, as imperfect as that is. The reason the public peppering is so much more important than the letter writing to big-wigs strategy, is that without the sunshine exposing the problem to more people, there is no LEVERAGE on teh big wigs, because we have not imposed a political cost. Both are fine, but IMO there has been too much petitioning and letter writing without enough of the leverage of wide-angle posting.
  12. World War II required an overarching system of opinion management. This is described in the book Nervous LIberals by Brett Gary. That system involved a controlled left, that could be used to scramble issues that would otherwise align in logic dangerous to the state. It also involved getting some instruments in the spectrum-symphony to go sotto voce when they should have blaired. This total systems approach to media management-- in which a managed "left" could end up pulling in the same direction as the right-- was perfected during WWII, and preserved by the Cold War. The partiel liberalization of US culture and media beginning with the 1957 movie The Sweet Smell of Success provided an ambiguity whereby a kind of Prague Spring could blossom between 1959-63. But that totalizing media control had already been perfected. In short Walter Lippmann's critique of the crude nature of WWI propaganda had been taken to heart. The mighty Wurlitzer could now feign left notes but they were played through a colander that found a wealth in division. The perfection of this propaganda system that took place during WWII explains the main difference between Sacco and Vanzetti v. JFK coverage.
  13. Hmmmm. This is very apples and oranges. But that is just what needs comparing at this overripe stage of human progress. The fact is that racism, nativism, and class conflict have always been segmented in analysis, but mixed up in US historical reality, to a degree unlike any other country. When JFK began writing the 1964 Civil Rights Act, it was clear that this obfuscation was threatened. Now one wing of the Democrats-- with still protean and ambiguous backing-- was going to attempt, for the first time since Bacon's Rebellion in 1676, to fight racism where it was most practical for the ruling class: in the payroll. LBJ would eliminate the potential for white and black working class solidarity by beginning Wall Street's desired transition from industrial to finance capitalism. JFK was against that.
  14. Weird how I did not know this until today. http://jfkfacts.org/assassination/on-this-date/silence-like-a-cancer-grows/?fb_action_ids=233431483463178&fb_action_types=og.likes&fb_source=aggregation&fb_aggregation_id=288381481237582
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