James DiEugenio

Excuse me, it was from my review of Updegrove's book on JFK. Here is LBJ during the CMC: But what is important here in regard to Updegrove is that in reading the transcripts, Johnson was siding with the hawks. At a meeting on October 27, 1962—towards the end of the crisis when Kennedy was trying to corral the confidence of his advisors for an agreement—Johnson was not on board. He said, “My impression is that we’re having to retreat. We’re backing down.” He then said we made Turkey insecure, and also Berlin: People feel it. They don’t know why they feel it and how. But they feel it. We got a blockade and we’re doing this and that and the Soviet ships are coming through. (May and Zelikow p. 587) He then said something even more provocative in referring to a U2 plane shot down by Cuba, “The Soviets shot down one plane and the Americans gave up Turkey. Then they shoot down another and the Americans give up Berlin.” (Ibid, p. 592) He then got more belligerent. He said that, in light of this, what Khrushchev was doing was dismantling the foreign policy of the United States for the last 15 years, in order to get the missiles out of Cuba. He topped off that comment by characterizing Kennedy’s attitude toward that dismantlement like this: “We’re glad and we appreciate it and we want to discuss it with you.” (ibid, p. 597) It’s reading things like that which makes us all grateful Kennedy was president at that time.

If a missile can fly 2400 miles in the Western Hemisphere from north to south that makes it intercontinental. Which is why they were moved there. We will never know why Nikita did what he did. In fact, even the Russians never understood why he did it. Towards the end Kennedy asked Johnson what he thought. I noted this in my review of the CNN special on LBJ. He made it clear that he thought we were giving up too much for too little. As I said, Kennedy thought the Jupiters were being replaced by Polaris. And in fact they were being so as I proved in Black and white. I don't know what you mean by painting himself into a corner with a missile gap. JFK knew in 1961 because McNamara briefed him that there was no missile gap which Symington had mislead him about. There was simply no excuse for what Nikita decided to do. It was foolhardy and very dangerous to move a first strike 90 miles away into Cuba. It would have been a different thing if Moscow would have signed a formal treaty with Havana. That was something that could have been talked about and negotiated with probably the same results. But to do this all in secret?

I can. Kennedy did not create the CMC Ben and Kevin. And the installation was not about Cuba. At least that is not what JFK thought. The installation in Cuba consisted of about 60 medium and long range ICBM's in 5 missile regiments. The long range ones could fly about 2400 miles. There were 28 nuclear bombers. There were 7 nuclear bearing submarines. Just the submarines carried 1 megaton warheads. Which was 5 times the power of the Nagasaki bomb. So in other words, the Russians could now hit about 100 cities in the continental US. This was a very potent first strike. One that would have killed tens of millions. In addition, there was a wing of the the current MIG, plus a 45,000 motorized infantry, many missile defense systems, and the coup de grace, tactical nukes. These were of 2 varieties, a short range one of about 25 miles, and a long range one of about 80 miles. These would have incinerated any invasion force crossing over from Florida. These were not for defensive purposes. This was a first strike that was being protected by layers of supplementary missiles, aircraft, and thousands of Soviet advisors. But beyond that it had all been done in secret. Without the U2, they might never have been discovered. And then the Russian foreign minister lied to Kennedy about it right in the Oval Office. That one shocked him. If one listens to the tapes, and reads the introduction to the book, since Nikita K was always trying to stampede JFK about Berlin, Kennedy clearly thought that this was what it was about. It was not about an invasion, because the size and scope of this force would be like killing a fly with a howitzer. No, Kennedy thought this was going to be used to blackmail him over Berlin. And he says it more than once. And JFK was not going to allow that because to him that would roll up the Atlantic Alliance. For the record, Kennedy had two perfect opportunities to invade Cuba and he did not. If Nixon had been president during the Bay of Pigs, Cuba would be a colony of the USA today. And Johnson thought Kennedy's reaction to the CMC was way too mild. He can barely hide his disdain. Sorry to break up your paddle ball game.

yep, that is him and he should know. This did not last long. Very soon he and Quiroga began cooperating with Shaw's lawyers with some hilarious results.

The Marcello accusation is always the last bastion of the JG smear. Bill Davy deals with this in his book, Let Justice be Done, from pages 149-167. This began with Aaron Kohn and Life magazine back in the sixties and was continued by John Davis in the 80's. The guy at Life who was charged with this was Dick Billings, who teamed up with David Chandler. I found out through Billings' notes that he had, to be mild, misrepresented in that book Fatal Hour his questioning of Garrison on this point. That is how desperate Life was. There was never anything to any of John Davis' charges either, e.g. that Garrison got some kind of deal on his house because the builder had an Italian last name. (Davy, p. 154) There was never anything to the Davis accusation that Garrison somehow avoided Marcello's taverns in his raids in the French Quarter. At least four of them were padlocked by the DA. In fact, in the case of one of them, he told his assistant to shut it down for a year and prove that the ostensible owner was really a front for Marcello. (ibid, 154-55) And Garrison did investigate the Mob angle. From an article in Newsday in 1967 : "Garrison is trying to learn whether the Cosa Nostra and anti Castro Cubans may have been linked by mob controlled gambling operations in pre Castro Cuba...Garrison is trying to determine if there is a thread which binds the Cosa Nostra , anti Castro groups, the late David Ferrie, Oswald and Jack Ruby." He later wrote a memo to his staff on this subject. (ibid, p. 155). Aaron Kohn, an FBI employee who worked with Shaw's lawyers, tried to insinuate this smear during Garrison's investigation. He would end up being indicted by a grand jury and convicted of contempt. (ibid, p. 159) BTW, this whole Mob smear was also tried on Richard Sprague when he was HSCA chief counsel.(ibid, p. 164) But none of this matters to Greg. Neither does it matter that Blakey and Billings tried everything they could to somehow make a case against Marcello. As Carl Oglesby notes in the Afterword to On the Trail of the Assassins, although the HSCA spent lots of time and money on the Mafia theory, what did they come up with? Drum roll please! Oswald did shoot and kill JFK. The Mafia figured that a guy who could not hit a barn door, and using the worst rifle a sniper could find, that was their best solution to rid the scourge of the Kennedys. I mean please. What this really means is that the HSCA could not find anything of any credence in their hopes of escaping an intelligence/Cuban exile plot. People like Gus Russo have always bandied about the Brilab tapes. Jeremy Gunn had those and sent me the ARRB transcripts. There is no there there. So then came the Waldron termed Cam Tex transcripts. Waldron billed these as new. They were not. The great Peter Vea sent them to me years prior. He billed them as the "Crazy Last Days of Marcello". And they were. Marcello's dementia was clearly manifest: as the guards in the prison observed, he was cracking his head against the wall. When he got out, he was pretty clearly gone around the bend, as even his relatives admitted. But yet, any game is allowed in the Hochian goal to get Garrison. Nothing is out of bounds, no foul or insult is too flagrant. And remember, Clay Shaw was as pure as the driven snow. Which is why he lied his head off about everything.

Castro was very happy with the message he got from Kennedy through Daniel. He was actually kind of stunned and said that Kennedy would now go down in history as the greatest president since Lincoln. When he got the news of the shooting he was beside himself with grief. He said three times, this is bad news, this is bad news, this is bad news. He was right since that was the end of detente. And except for one short respite with Obama, no one has picked up the baton since.

First of all, Shaw's relationship with the CIA has been declassified. He was a well paid contract agent, and cleared for a covert security clearance. And the CIA tried to cover this up for decades on end. Until the arrival of the ARRB. In fact, the guy on CIA records, concluded that the CIA had ransacked Shaw's files. Now if that does not smell of a cover up, what does? And that is from the expert's own mouth. Now do you want me to list all the times that Shaw lied about this? Including under oath? Including with his pal FBI asset James Phelan in a printed interview? In a BBC interview? In fact, even the CIA was shocked by the fact that Shaw had not told his own lawyers about it. If Shaw was innocent, then why did he lie so consistently on this subject? And how did he know he would be protected on it? I can tell you why. The following quote is from Carlos Bringuier in April of 1967: "Garrison had something big, high persons were involved in the assassination conspriacy. Shaw felt confident because he knew that these high persons would have to defend him" (Destiny Betrayed, Second edition, p. 286) If there was no intel relationship in New Orleans then how does one explain Jesse Core? And Garner? That was a really neat operation. First, Quiroga delivers the flyers to Oswald and Garner sees it--and Quiroga lies about it-- for Oswald's leafleting in front of the ITM. But before that, Shaw's right hand man, Core had picked up a flyer that Oswald had dropped on Canal Street. He then drew an arrow to the 544 Camp Street address and sent it to the FBI! Now, it that is not enough for you, according to the reporters at WDSU, the ITM event was on the schedule when they got into work that day! Coincidence? LOL🤫

Greg D is a dyed in the wool Paul Hochian on the issue. Hoch is about as worthy on this subject as was James Kirkwood. Look, there was so much suspicion about Clay Shaw in the wake of the assassination that the FBI had to lie about it. And if it had not been for the ARRB, we would have never known about it. When Ramsey Clark said that Shaw had been investigated, he had to take that back--not because it was false, but because it was true. But the FBI would know that the obvious next question would be : why was Shaw investigated? And they did not want to reply to that, for good reason. On March 2, 1967, DeLoach wrote a memo to Tolson saying: "The AG then asked whether the FBI knew anything about Shaw. I told him Shaw's name had come up in our investigation in December, 1963 as a result of several parties furnishing information concerning Shaw." (my emphasis) In other words, within a week of the assassination, the FBI had something like 6-7 leads coming in about Shaw and the assassination. Who else can we say that about? The only person who comes close is Ferrie. And by the way, under oath at Shaw's trial, Regis Kennedy said that he was looking for Clay Bertrand as part of that FBI investigation. Once he admitted that, AG John Mitchell told him not to answer any other questions. I wonder why?

Whew, Ben is really working overtime to try and turn JFK into a neocon on Cuba. I guess I hit a nerve. The CIA sent a letter to Johnson after Kennedy's death telling him that in the whole six month period of Jan-June 1963 that there had been something like 5 raids into Cuba. They said these were worse than useless. Because 1.) They had no impact and 2.) Castro would boast about turning them back. That is why they recommended stopping the whole thing. But as anyone familiar with the subject would know, once Kennedy was killed, the quest for detente also ended. Castro was still interested, but Johnson was not. William Attwood said that if Kennedy had lived, he had no doubt that he would have been flying to Havana through Mexico City. That was the real difference.

Thanks for that Roger. Its the untold part of the story. And it explains much of what happened in the late Yeltsin phase and after Yeltsin. And why his regime was such a failure. It set the stage for Putin. Secondly, my information on Kennedy and the Middle East does not come from Monika. My information on that comes from Philip Muehlenbeck, Robert Dreyfus, and Robert Rakove. And I would be willing to wager that no one here has read their three books, and probably 90 per cent of you never heard of all three. Which is saying something because IMO the Rakove book is the best there is on JFK and the Third World, and the Dreyfus book is the best on American/British relations with Moslem fundamentalists. For example, it was the British who started The Moslem Brotherhood. If anyone thinks the Neocons are doing well, well you did not read tne end of my piece. If that were so then why is BRICS making so much progress? Also ask yourself, when is the last time Biden had a sit down with Putin? 400,000 casualties is not something to talk about? I predict, even though he has five months, that he will never talk to Putin about a settlement. Just remember, even Ike tried to arrange a summit near the end. And when the U2 crash ended that, he made his best speech ever. One that rivals JFK's Algeria speech, his civil rights speech and the Peace Speech. But this is how far past the old GOP the Democratic Neocons have gone.

Well, you should read that book. The interesting thing about that question is Shaw's story about that weekend. First he said that he was traveling by train to SF at the time of the assassination.. Garrison later discovered he was already in SF at the time in the company of Monroe Sullivan, the director of the ITM there. After his arrest Shaw now changed his story to him being at the St. Francis Hotel at the time of the assassination. At his trial he said he was there at the request of Sullivan to make a speech. Except Sullivan always disputed this. He said that Shaw called him several weeks earlier and asked him to put together a luncheon. Further, that Shaw would pay for it all, and they exchanged letters about this. Sullivan said Shaw arrived in SF mid morning on the 22nd. They were talking when the news of the murder came in. Sullivan was shocked, but Shaw was somehow nonplussed. Sullivan asked Shaw if he wanted to continue with the luncheon and surprisingly Shaw said he would. (Bill Davy, Let Justice Be Done, pp. 63-64) Now, if this was all prearranged then I think the answer to your question would be yes. But although I think the evidence above would be preponderant, it would not be beyond a reasonable doubt. So i would have to say I do not know.

Litwin tries to explain the above away by saying Shaw had a civil case against Garrison and therefore would not have said this. What he does not say is what Alecia Long wrote in her book: Shaw did not think his lawyers believed in it or would pursue that case. My question: how many instances of perjury does one have to commit in order for the observer to see consciousness of guilt? Is there anything that Shaw told the truth about? Do I really have to list all the BS this guy said, a lot of it under oath? There are very few people one can make a better case against than Shaw. Because not only was he prevaricating, he had everyone else doing so, including his own lawyers. And they were doing so 30 years later.

Let me close with some new information as to why Shaw was probably grinning while reading Meagher’s letters. Doug Caddy is an attorney in Houston. He has a strong interest in the JFK case. He noted online that he had a friend who lives in Houston who had told him for years about a meeting he had with Shaw. His name is Phil Dyer, and at that time—late 1972—he would regularly visit an acquaintance of his in New Orleans who was an interior designer. It was usually on weekends. The reader must comprehend that, at this time, Garrison’s case had been thrown out of court. Shaw had now gone on the offensive and filed a civil suit against Garrison. Therefore, Shaw was in the clear as far as any legal liability went. Because of the two (phony) tax cases the Justice Department had filed against him, Garrison was not going to be DA much longer. In fact, in several months, he would be voted out of office. Phil and his friend had a mutual female companion, who was a gynecologist. On the weekend under discussion, they were staying with her. Phil planned on leaving on Sunday after they had brunch. His friend had arranged for them to meet an acquaintance of his named Clay Shaw for that brunch. Since at this stage of his life Shaw was restoring homes and turning them over for nice profits, that relationship would make sense. Shaw was impeccably dressed and had sharp blue eyes. He was accompanied by an older woman. Phil recalled the Shaw trial and he came from a family who practiced hunting. So, during the conversation, and over some drinks, he asked Shaw if he knew Lee Harvey Oswald. Shaw replied that yes he did, he knew him fairly well. Phil asked him what kind of a person he was. Shaw said that he knew him to be pretty active in the French Quarter, but he was always kind of quiet around him. Phil now asked his last question about Oswald. He told Shaw that he did not think that Oswald could have done what the Warren Commission said he did, getting off those precise shots in that time sequence. Shaw said quite coolly that Phil had to understand. Oswald was just a patsy. He was also a double agent. When I told Phil that Shaw had denied knowing Oswald on the witness stand, he replied with words to the effect: if you were in his position would you have admitted knowing him? In other words, everything Shaw’s defense presented in court was false. And Shaw knew it was false. (Interview with the author on August 8, 2020) In retrospect, how Sylvia Meagher could equate Oswald with Clay Shaw is both baffling and shocking.

I made a mistake and looked at Matt Koch. Hey we all do. Are you going to tell me the Trump attempt was a plot? How many pictures were taken? Where were the frame up films from New Orleans? And please do not tell me the SS allowed it to happen because the SS has been out to lunch for decades on end. They are a lawless agency. And I do not consider myself a leftist. I consider myself a Kennedy Democrat. I do consider myself a credible historian. Sorry.

Ben: The Neocons control both parties today. That was the point of my article. Did you miss that? Both HRC and Biden voted for the war resolution against Iraq. Any idiot could have found out that there was no yellowcake in Iraq. I mean if I could find it, you are going to tell me that those two could not? Sorry, but no sale. What they wanted to do was to protect themselves from any attack from the right, whether it be from the GOP or from the MSM. Biden was the administration's point man on Ukraine. And now for two years at least he has refused to countenance at least three agreements to end that war. Because he thinks that would be giving Russia a "victory." So 400,000 casualties and over a hundred billion dollars is not enough. This is pure Cold War style thinking. Something Kennedy said back in 1960 that we have to get away from. And it was Biden who essentially ran Snowden into Russia. Do you really think that Kennedy would have used NATO to bomb Africa? Over 9,000 strike sorties. Thus creating a failed state with arms and slave auctions? Do you really think that Kennedy would have gone to war against a secularist leader in Syria? That was the kind of thing he was trying to encourage in the Middle East. The Neocons won. I don't like it. Perhaps you do. Fine, we have a difference of opinion.

Ben: 1. Kennedy was withdrawing from Vietnam at the time of his death. Period. He was not going to make Vietnam an American war. He had done all he could do with NSAM 111. In October of 1963 the decision had been made final with NSAM 263 and the McNamara/Taylor Report that America was leaving. Johnson disagreed with this and he reversed the policy within three months with NSAM 288. And he then did what Kennedy was never going to do, he got a declaration of war, Tonkin Gulf Resolution, and then landed combat troops at DaNang. And by the way, this had all been planned out by Johnson in advance. 2. During the CMC Kennedy rejected any amphibious invasion of the island or bombing of the missile silos. He settled on the blockade as a way of negotiating a way out.

Kevin: That is really interesting about the balance of payments for Israel. Without the US are you saying it would be a bankrupt state?

Ben: There were no American troops in SVN. These were advisors, who Kennedy was withdrawing at the time of his death. Concerning the CMC, Kennedy warned Moscow that he would allow defensive but not offensive weapons in Cuba. When JFK confronted them about this, they lied to his face. So he had to take the next step. And until the end Nikita insisted the over 100 ICBM's he had in Cuba were not offensive weapons. They constituted a first strike. Kennedy, if you listen to the tapes, thinks this is a ploy to take Berlin. Which he will not give up.

BC: the whole neo-con era is over, No its not. They triumphed. We are going to be living with these people for decades in the future.

Nice one Bill. Thanks. Funny about Kennan. He is really the author of the whole containment policy toward the USSR from about 1946 and the Long Telegram. But as time went on, he thought his ideas had been hijacked and transformed into something he did not mean. In fact, on that ground, he was one of the witnesses during the Fulbright hearings that Johnson feared the most. In fact, IIRC, LBJ got CBS to not show him live. He said that if the USA reacts like a wild elephant in every Cold War confrontation in Asia and Africa, we will lose the respect of the world. Which is why I closed my last part as I did, with Kennedy's warning about being on the wrong side of history.

That is a great story William. I mean really. Thanks, it shows just how different the education systems are. To be perfectly honest, I never knew about the failure of Operation Barbarossa until I went to college. And I was a history major. But World War II was lost on the steppes of Russia. It was really over by Normandy. That is one reason that no one was there for the Germans. Cornelius Ryan made a mint from a myth.

Henry Jackson was a very strong Zionist, and you can see how his offspring followed him. Richard Perle once said words to the effect, everything I know about foreign policy I learned from Jackson. One of the things I really find maddening is this: that the Neocons had a habit of comparing the USSR with the Nazis. Jackson would do this explicitly. And this is how he justified advocating for almost each and every Pentagon project that came down the pike. And this is how he went nose to nose with Warnke. I don't agree with that. When the Russians took control of East Europe it was with Churchill's approval as part of spheres of influence. Because the Germans had invaded Russia twice in less than three decades. With utterly horrendous impact. No country even came close to the casualties and waste endured by the USSR during World War II. And Kennedy credited them for this in his Peace Speech. And let us never forget--and the Kuznick/Stone book makes this clear--contrary to what Hanks and Spielberg try and say, it was the Russians who broke the back of Hitler's great war machine. At the siege of Leningrad, the battle outside of Moscow (the first time the blitzkrieg had been stopped), and the climactic battles of Stalingrad--the greatest infantry battle ever-- and Kursk--the greatest tank battle ever. In a very bad miscalculation, really a reckless gamble, Hitler had placed about 85 percent of the Wehrmacht on the Russian front. And over two years, they were defeated. Has any other president ever given them the credit that Kennedy did? But its the truth. That is why they wanted control of East Europe, I mean they were carrying the war against Hitler until the invasion of Africa. And George Kennan, not exactly a dove, always said one of the stupidest things he ever heard was that somehow the Russians were going to invade West Europe through Germany. Albright was one of the dunces he was talking about.

There was actually another book, Divert! by Grant Smith on the same subject, NUMEC. The Kennedy vs Johnson reaction to this tells you all you need to know about the two men and the Middle East and what happened there after Kennedy's murder. As does Kennedy's advocacy of the Jospeh Johnson plan for Palestinian repatriation. Oh and did you know that as a rising diplomat in New York, Benjy N slept in Jared Kushner's bed?

William: Thanks so much for mentioning Monica. Her book does not get nearly enough credit or attention. But its the best book about the Kennedy presidency since Jim Douglass. So its a nice neighborhood.

I assume you mean through NUMEC?