James DiEugenio

Pat leaves out the fact that Garrison's office was infiltrated by the CIA from a very early date, see a guy named Bernardo DeTorres, who many people think was actually involved in the JFK murder. Was Bernardo there to protect the Russians?

Contrary to what Jerry is implying, Mockingbird was hovering over all three reinquiries: CBS, NY Times and Life magazine. In the case of Life why cashier Tink and Kern, who were clearly doing the best work on gathering evidence? Yet keep Swank and Billings? The net published result of what McCombs did was so anemic as to be an insult, especially compared to what was in Six Seconds in Dallas. Yet, as weak as it was, Life even gave Specter the right to reply. Is it only a coincidence that both the Times and Life imploded their operations when they got into New Orleans?

Sometimes, I wonder if anyone reads me, e.g. Gerry Down.. This is from my review of Last Second. After giving the author his due, I must add that I did have some reservations with this part of the book. Some of it emerges from Thompson’s point of view, which is pretty much a first-person journey. Therefore, he cannot help but describe the shutting down of Life magazine’s inquiry into the JFK case. He only mentions in passing that the New York Times had fielded an inquiry and also shut it down. (Thompson, p. 92) There was an interesting crossover between the two inquiries. His name was Tom Bethell. Bethell ended up being a pal of Dick Billings. Billings was the member of the Life team who told Thompson the inquiry was being closed down. (Thompson, p. 91) Bethell was the Englishman who ended up working for Jim Garrison, but not before he journeyed to Texas to live and hang out with Penn Jones. Billings had been part of the infamous Bayo/Pawley raid into Cuba, an event which the author does not mention. The two B’s agreed that there was not a covert effort by the government, the Commission, or the FBI to conceal the truth in the JFK case. They also agreed that Life did not really suppress the Zapruder film, since interested parties could see it at the National Archives. This seems a bit ridiculous in light of what happened when the film was nationally viewed in 1975. Both Billings and Bethell were cognizant of the New York Times inquiry. Bethell said that in November of 1966 he had met up with Times reporter Martin Waldron in Dallas. Waldron had a 4–5 page questionnaire of items they were looking into as problems with the Commission. Many of these questions were about New Orleans and they focused on David Ferrie. This was independent of Jim Garrison. (Click here for details) This is important in two ways. Apparently, Thompson was unaware that around the time he was retired, early February of 1967, Billings was also in New Orleans. He had been tipped off by Life stringer David Chandler that Jim Garrison was investigating the JFK case. Garrison had agreed to share information with Billings in return for some photographic services. This links directly to the following quote: What Patsy [Swank] and I did understand was that there was a level of the Life investigation beyond our participation or understanding. I never knew what [Holland] McCombs was supposed to be doing, and it was apparent that I was not supposed to know. (Thompson, pp. 26–27) With the help of British researcher Malcolm Blunt, we now can shed some light on what McCombs was doing. As noted above, it seems that when the Times started delving into New Orleans, they decided to drop the case. That parallels what happened with Life. McCombs retired Ed Kern and Thompson, but Billings and Swank stayed. In fact, Swank was writing reports to McCombs on the case well into 1968. (Swank to McCombs 7/16/68) With Kern and Thompson gone, McCombs now began to turn his guns on Garrison. Why? Because as Blunt has shown, he was best of friends with Clay Shaw. (See letters of 3/9/68, 3/22/68, 6/20/68, 7/31/68 and beyond) McCombs now began to work with and encourage the likes of hatchet men like Chandler and Hugh Aynesworth. (See letter of 5/13/67 to Duffey McFadden) What makes this even more interesting is that, in February—around the time Thompson and Kern were cashiered—Billings had received a telegram marked confidential. It said Ferrie had been seen by two witnesses at White Rock Airport in Dallas in October and November of 1963. They also discovered a pilot in Dallas who knew Ferrie and flew to New Orleans to meet with him in 1964. (message of 2/26/67) Therefore, like the Times, Life now had interesting information about Shaw’s friend Ferrie. And make no mistake, Chandler knew of this relationship. His son emailed this reviewer in the early part of the millennium and said that his father knew that Shaw and Ferrie were friends. By May, McCombs was referring to Life’s reopening as a joke. (McFadden letter) In June, it got worse. McCombs was in direct contact with Ed Wegmann, Shaw’s lead lawyer. (See letters of 6/14 and 7/25/67) By 1968, Shaw was congratulating McCombs on making speeches against the critics of the Warren Report. About reading their works, Shaw wrote: “It is almost unbelievable how much nonsense I have had to absorb.” (Letter to McCombs, 6/20/68) The evidence adduced by Blunt would indicate that McCombs was there to ensure that what he labeled Life’s “so called reinvestigation” did not stray too far from the homestead, which was Rockefeller Center in New York City. In addition to these two inquiries, which were clearly neutered, there is a third parallel with what happened at CBS. Through the late Roger Feinman, we know those circumstances in detail, since Roger worked there. In that case, the middle level employees like Dan Schorr wanted to do a real investigation into what happened to President Kennedy. They were turned back by upper level management like Dick Salant, Bill Paley, and Frank Stanton. And then, as in the case of McCombs, John McCloy was employed as a secret consultant for the program. I know Thompson has this article since I sent it to him. (Click here for that essay) I bring this up for two reasons. In this book, Thompson says he and Kern were retired because Time-Life did not want to pay for a continuing inquiry plus the time to educate its reporters on the case (Thompson, p. 92) With what we know today, this is rather underplaying it, especially with Swank and Billings staying in place. I think I understand why Thompson underplays what I believe was a significant pattern. At a conference in Chicago back in 1993, we were both on a panel focusing on the media. As I recall it, he was the only person arguing that there was no broad pattern of editorial coercion on the JFK case. At that time, he chalked it up to the fact that there were too many editorial levels in the chain. When one has people like McCombs as a circuit breaker, one does not need such an institutional hierarchy. IV

William: This was the point of my talk at the Wecht Conference in Pittsburgh. Which I did not really include in my substack article. But I did hint at it above. Kennedy tried to maintain a balance of influence and power in the Middle East, no tipping over to either side. And Nasser very much appreciated this. Kennedy also understood the Palestinian refugee problem. And again Nasser appreciated this. When Kennedy passed on, the balancing point was lost. And I don't just mean toward Israel but toward Saudi Arabia. Once Nasser died, I think things got even worse. As I have mentioned elsewhere, IMO, Nasser would have never signed on to the Camp David Accords. Just by chance, last night, I met up with a friend of mine Leo Zahn, and his girlfriend who is from Syria. She was quite learned and astute and she said that Sadat sold out the Palestinians by not having them there in any real form. Contrast this with how the Palestinians reacted upon the news of Nasser's death: 75,000 of them chanted in unison, "Nasser will live forever." My point: the evidence is that things would have never gotten to this mess if Kennedy had lived. I mean what was the idea behind trying to overthrow a secularist leader, Assad, and never anticipating that the Russians would come in because they did not want the Nusra Front, made up of radical Islamic fundamentalists, near their border? That woman from last night told me that today, Syria is being protected on one half by Russia and the other half by Iran. The USA is uniting some strange bedfellows in their strategic blundering.

Jerrie Cobb was a spy who used the name June Cobb? And she was at Redbird, and she was also the Babushka Lady? This high profile female astronaut was being used as part of the JFK assassination plot?

SL: Any opinions on what JFK would have done after the 10/7 Hamas attack on Israel? Sandy: Let me repeat, in all probability there would have been no 1967 war if JFK had lived. From Robert Rakove's Kennedy, Johnson and the Nonaligned World: "As the embassy counselor, Donald Bergus, reported, a thousand Egyptians came to the American Embassy to write messages of condolences. Many were prominent citizens, including Prime Minister Ali Sabri and and influential member of the Presidency Council named Anwar Sadat. Others though, were ordinary citizens. Bergus observed, "The expressions on their faces left no doubt concerning the genuineness of their sorrow." Mourners remarked that "Kennedy was the first president who really understood the Afro-Asian world." ...An editorial in the daily Al-Ahram stated that Kennedy had transformed the Unites States from the "repugnant rich brother" to the "cherished rich brother of the human family." Rakove goes on to describe on the next page, how within a year, this had changed: now angry mobs assaulted US owned libraries in Egypt. He later goes on to describe how Johnson, unlike Kennedy, relied on coercion in the Third World.. He explains what he means by this: "he was reluctant to aid or otherwise abet states that refused to side with the United States. Johnson's own utterances reveal a general exasperation with the proclamations and demands of nonaligned states, an attitude shared by much of the American public....He had comparatively little patience for states that refused to choose sides or...accepted US aid while continuing to criticize or oppose his policies. He held, at heart, a more traditional view of the Cold War, as a struggle in which states ultimately should choose sides....Thus, with Johnson's ascendance, the departure that Kennedy initiated came to its end--not immediately but inexorably." What Rakove is talking about in one aspect is the battle over foreign aid. Which LBJ used as described above, if you criticized the USA it was much harder to get it or as much as JFK gave you. Therefore, as he describes later in the book, Nasser turned to the USSR. It was this policy that Kennedy was against--driving Nonaligned leaders into the arms of Moscow. (p. 245). In fact Sadat, Nasser's deputy, said that under Johnson American policy toward Egypt was worse that during the Dulles era. In complementary style, Nasser made a speech on Mayday saying that America, in light of Indochina, was the leading counterrevolutionary state in the world. But it was not just that, it was the fact that LBJ had clearly titled toward not just Israel but, of all places, Saudi Arabia, backers of the Muslim Brotherhood. (p. 246) BTW, this is just a few pages from a rich book. IMO, its the best there is on the topic.

Ric misses my point, although its a good article that started at Mintpress. In all probability there would have been no 1967 war if Kennedy had lived. And all you have to do is look at Nasser's reaction when Kennedy died. Secondly, Nasser had broken relations with USA at this time because LBJ had lost Kennedy's balance in the area.. This is well defined by both Rakove and Muehlenbeck.

William hit upon the key point. Kennedy was very aware of how complex morally the Middle East question was. And this goes back to his young man experience in Palestine. He never lost sight of the Nakba, and he was always aware of how Nasser had fought and defeated the Muslim Brotherhood. He was also aware of Nasser's attempt to arrange a Pan Arab union, since he thought the oil in the MIddle East belonged to all the Arabs. But the problem Kennedy had here was that his alleged allies like England did not want Nasser to win in Yemen. Because they knew if he did, Saudi Arabia would be next, and London would now have to deal with Nasser not the dissolute King Saud. England knew the longer the war dragged on the tougher it would be for Kennedy to support Nasser. These are all the complexities about the area that I really did not recognzie until I read Rakove and Muehlenbeck and Dreyfuss. Very clearly, LBJ did not want to deal with them and neither did Kissinger and Nixon. Slowly but surely, the Johnson Plan was discarded into the dustbin of history as was Kennedy's policy. And the alleged triumph of Jimmy Carter was not. He should have never settled for an agreement without the Palestinians there in some manner. Any historian will tell you that Sadat was not a follower of Nasser. In order to please the US he discarded the Russians, and he agreed to an isolated instead of a comprehensive agreement at Camp David. Well, we can see that result today in Gaza. As one historian summed up Camp David: By the time he left office in January 1981, Carter: A very important point is this: Egypt was kicked out of the Arab League. And therefore was never in the apogee point in the Middle East or Arab world after Camp David, as it had been under Nasser. Kennedy's whole strategy had been subverted.

Joe: You know the reason. King ended up supporting the Commission of sorts. Although I am still trying to figure out that ending. But in his interviews, he certainly did so. Like Bill Paxton, he got close to the Sixth Floor and Gary Mack. Therefore he got the softball interview in NY Times with Errol Morris.

Its actually "Gaza and JFK", which changes the focus a bit.

William: My reference to Timber Sycamore is not specious at all. The reason I brought it up is because Assad is a secularist leader of a Middle East country, therefore the apt comparison to Nasser. Its the same reason I mentioned the bombing of Libya. The idea that, the way Kennedy felt about Africa, that he would resort to NATO bombing of an African country? So both of those are in the framework of the topic of the essay.

And BTW, I did not know about those heavy doors. Boy is that interesting. So in addition to the old fashioned, rickety, bare, hammer and nail wooden steps, there were these doors? And they still did not hear him? Whew.

Roger: To me, the main points are: 1.) The Commission refused to do a reconstruction, even though she wanted to do so. Why? I can see no benign reasons not to do so. I can think of a malignant one. 2.) Refusing to do that reconstruction, they then appear to have suborned Lovelady and Shelly in order to disguise the timing. To any practicing DA, these indicate what is called "Consciousness of guilt". They knew what would happen if they did the recreation. So they then resorted to number two.

Roger: If you turn to Sylvia Meagher's book, on page 72 you will see that there is no dichotomy. The key point is the timing. "After the last shot, she and Sandra Styles immediately ran down the back stairs to the first floor, where she saw Lovelady and Shelley standing near the elevator." As Meagher so acutely points out the problem is the whole rigamarole the Commission tried to insert about the dynamic duo running over to the tracks first. As Sylvia shows , this was obviously inserted later, and she proves how and why. (p. 73)

I am familiar with the affair Paul. And I don't think its accurate to call the scientists Nazis. But I don't know about Nasser's comments on it.

Dreyfuss said, I think in one of his speeches, that he thought the only time you could have had peace in the Middle East was under Nasser. And if you just apply some elementary logic, that would mean with JFK, since Foster Dulles before and LBJ after essentially had little use for Nasser, largely because of his pan Arab ambitions. What makes that notable is that Dreyfuss just presents the facts and has no attachment to JFK at all. And I should add, he leaves some important stuff out. But he does include the fact that Kennedy also commissioned a State Department study of the advantages and liabilities of bringing back Mossadegh in Iran also. Kennedy's policy in the area was both creative and original. And until the likes of Rakove and Muehlenbeck was pretty much hidden.

If the discussion went off topic, it is because that seemed to be the goal of some people on the thread. My original essay was about JFK and his view of the problem both as a young man and as a president. That topic is perfectly suitable for this forum.

Both Pauls: There is an interesting book on the subject you are trying to get across. And I used it for my talk in Pittsburgh. Its called Devil's Game by Robert Dreyfuss. There is a lot of information in there I did not know about. Like this: the British financed the beginning of the Muslim Brotherhood. Why? Because they wanted to keep the monarchies in place in the Middle East so they would not have to deal with Republican governments in their need for oil. Churchill wanted the great British navy to run on cheap Arabian oil. Once Saudi Arabia grew so powerful after the 1973 OPEC embargo, they financed the Muslim Brotherhood. This relates back to JFK and his attempt to build a relationship with Nasser. The British, especially Anthony Eden, despised Nasser. For that reason: he wanted to throw off the shackles of Islamic Fundamentalism, which is why he went to war with the Muslim Brotherhood and expelled them from Egypt. Its the same reason that Eden plotted with France and Israel to overthrow Nasser in 1956. To my knowledge, Kennedy was the only Western politician who understood how important Nasser was in the Middle East and how he could stabilize the area against the dangers of an explosion of Islamic Fundamentalism. That explosion occurred of course in 1979 in Iran. And the area has not been the same since.

She was quite articulate I thought. I had never heard her do a live interview before.

It figures this is to Holland McCombs. McCombs put the kabosh on the original inquiry by getting rid of both Tink Thompson and Ed Kern, who were the guys digging up the most interesting material. Thompson disagreed with me on that one, but it turned out that Malcolm Blunt later discovered just how close McCombs was to Shaw and his lawyers. And he also found out that the inquiry did not end after Tink and Kern were cashiered. It went on until at least 1968 since Patsy Swank was still filing reports. If you take a look at what Kern and Tink dug up and then you read the results of that inquiry as published by Life, you can see why Tink wanted to write his book. BTW, McCombs even gave Specter the right of reply to their very weak story anyway. So McCombs and Hugh was a pretty likely match.

Jonathan: I cannot understand your reliance on Occam's Razor, because to proclaim that you have to array all the facts in evidence. 1. The DPD spent the better part of two days rummaging through the Paine home, which was rather small. But they missed this note allegedly inside a book. And the note was in Russian? 2. Why was it so necessary for Ruth to convey the book, which was called Book of Helpful Instructions. She said it was because Marina used it each day. Oh really, while she was in detention and under 24 hour watch by the FBI and Secret Service? 3. The note was not dated and did not have Oswald's latent fingerprints on it. Even though it took up almost one side of the paper. In fact, seven prints were on it, but none matched Lee or Marina. 4. The Secret Service returned the note to Ruth because they thought she wrote it. (Destiny Betrayed, second edition, pp. 200-03)

Paul; Let us not be baited by Mike and Jonathan into a debate over the whole history of the dispute. I would rather keep it on topic. Just to play it safe and keep it in this forum.

To Mike and Jonathan: The struggle for control of Palestine started way before the so called Exodus of 1948. And JFK mentions some of it in his letters from the late thirties. The idea you are trying to put forth was exemplified by a book called From Time Immemorial by Joan Peters, championed by people like Alan Dershowitz and Martin Peretz. That book was demolished twice, once by Yehoshua Porath in Ny Review of Books and by Norman Finklestein in an article for In These Times. Let us not get into the whole long story that goes back for literally centuries and picks up the pace with Herzl and his followers. What I liked about Kennedy's approach was his ability to see both sides of the argument, something that he was good at. And his stalwart intent at maintaining a relationship with Nasser in the face of monumental odds. Plus the fact that he never gave up on the Johnson Plan. And how that differs in every aspect from what happened later. I am convinced after studying all this that the 1967 war would not have happened if Kennedy had lived, due to his relationship with Nasser.

I saw the film and its quite interesting. If you have not seen it, do so.

I do not agree. And the proof is in the actual article. Which Newsweek published. That article was a pile of utter BS. Worse, it was really black propaganda, as if written by a CIA agent, (Which many think Hugh was.) What access was necessary? He was not trading for anything except protection. What do I mean by that? See, someone like Sy Hersh will tell you he talks to the CIA about his books. And sometimes, there is some truth in them, like his biography of Kissinger. Sy does not ask for anonymity. He tells you he confered with Halpern for example. Halberstam is another example e. g. in his first Vietnam book, The Making of a Quagmire. He makes no bones about talking to the Pentagon. And that book showed it. But Hugh, in this case, simply made up stuff, which he had a habit of doing. And he wants to be legally protected for that. It is not at all a matter of access. Prime example: bribing a witness is a crime, as he tried to do with Manchester. This is what Hugh was bartering for. David Chandler was another one. Chandler got protected by the governor. Hugh was protected also.