James DiEugenio

The Pfaff vs Bird exchange is slightly humorous considering what is in Goldstein's book. Because when Forrestal was telling Goldstein this anecdote, he also added the following : that Kennedy had privately told him that the odds against an American victory over the Vietcong were 100 to 1. (Goldstein, p. 239) I think that colors the conversation.

What is this Dave? Has it been declassified since? I don't think its the one that CIA is still holding back. BTW, in relation to your other post, Dulles was so determined to trick Kennedy on the feasibility of the plan that he would not let him take the designs with him to study overnight. After the meeting, he rolled them up and put them under his arm and told JFK they could not risk him taking them with him. What utter crap. Dulles knew that as an ex navy guy, if JFK actually studied these by himself for about an hour, and then called in someone like Red Fay, he would have cancelled the whole thing the next day. But in my view, all these discussions about the plan get too bogged down in the air conflict. As Kirkpatrick wrote in his excellent report, so what? Even if Castro's Air Force had been neutralized, the operation would have failed due to bad planning, lack of surprise, failed defections, and overwhelming odds, See, the CIA told JFK they would be able to get into the beach undetected. Not so. There was a very small patrol there that night since Castro had gone to high alert 48 hours earlier. And they saw the flotilla coming in. As Kirkpatrick writes, within 10 hours of the landing, Castro had the invasion force out manned and outgunned--he had tanks, cannon and mortar. Why? In addition to the lack of surprise, the CIA had failed to blow the bridges to the landing site. Which is so ridiculous that it really suggests not just incompetence but sabotage. I found this out by interviewing a veteran of the operation who was infiltrated into Cuba as part of the advance team. He said the communications were so bad that they never got the signal or the coordinates for the demolition of the bridges. Without that done, Castro had no problem getting his heavy artillery and armor to the landing zone. And of course, the whole Nino Diaz diversionary landing somehow went awry. (Or did it? More sabotage?) Meanwhile, the CIA had done such a bad job in surveilling the new site, they were unaware of the reef problem that existed there. So two supply ships sunk as the force was landing. It was an unbelievable bad job of preparation and surveillance in advance. It was so bad that as the Kennedys found out more about it--and believe me Kirkpatrick's report is a no holds barred expose of incompetence--they decided that Dulles and Bissell never thought it had chance of succeeding. They were relying on him caving in on his pledge. Kennedy himself said this to Fay--its in his book. But architecturally, any military strategist knows that in an amphibious operation--whether you have the air or not--you have to have a significantly higher number of troops than the enemy; since you know that--unless you have total surprise--you are going to lose a lot of men coming up the beach. Kirkpatrick was unrelenting in his report on this issue. He was deliberately trying to tell Kennedy that no realistic analysis of the plan could have missed this point. Therefore, the CIA was not being objective about its prospects. Because that was not the point. And let us not forget, the operation completely morphed from the time of the election to the time Eisenhower left office. It was originally designed as a multi stranded guerrilla operation. It changed to the strike force concept for the new administration. Why? Two reasons I think. First, the CIA knew that Castro was being absolutely methodical in rounding up the resistance to his regime at this time period., In fact, by the time of the landing, there was little or no effective resistance left. Second, in light of that, they felt that they could manipulate Kennedy into launching such a strike force, and then reversing himself when he was facing disaster. They miscalculated. And yes, there were voices trying to get JFK to cave, like Burke and Nixon himself. Cabell went to CIA HQ and tried to get Marchetti to write a report telling Kennedy there were MIGS in Cuba strafing the beach. But Marchetti knew that there were no MIGS there. So he would not sign off on a phony report.

Cliff, as usual, its nice to know you like to avoid the latest declassified info on central events. The information in my book is based on two major sources: the declassified Lyman Kirkpatrick IG Report as presented by Peter Kornbluh in the book Bay of Pigs Declassified, and the Taylor Commission Report. Those two works present the most direct information on what happened with the whole Bay of Pigs debacle. (Although, from my understanding, the CIA is still holding back one last section of the Kirkpatrick Report.) In the former one can plainly see that D Day was not April 15th. D-Day was April 17th. So when I say D Day air strikes, I am not referring to the April 15th preliminary air raids. Is that really so difficult to understand--since they are 48 hours apart in the time continuum, I would not think so. Unless you are trying to obfuscate or lose a factual point. Kennedy had resisted even having the preliminary air raids. For the simple reason that they would be difficult to deny responsibility for. And as every serious commentator notes, there were already reports that these planes were disguised American planes launched by the CIA--as Castro himself insisted they were. (Peter Wyden, Bay of Pigs, p. 185) But the more serious problem, from a tactical point of view was this: the original bomb damage assessment for the April 15th raid was exaggerated. They were not as effective as either planned or assessed afterwards. But further, along with other indications, Castro now knew that something was around the corner. So he went to high alert. (Wyden, pgs. 184-185) Because of this failure with the April 15th raids, this is one reason why Bissell and Cabell decided to go to the White House. The problem was that Bundy had called Bissell on the 16th to remind him that there would be no air raids on D Day (the 17th) unless they were from a beachhead in Cuba. But further, on the 16th Kenendy had told Rusk and Stevenson that he had not signed onto any D Day air raids. (DiEugenio, p. 46) Therefore, on the night of the 16th, when Bissell and Cabell went to the White House, they realized there was no point in talking directly to Kennedy. Which Rusk invited them to do. (ibid) The reason Kennedy felt this way was because of the pledge he had taken a few day earlier, that there would be no direct US intervention in Cuba. That is why the April 15th air strikes took place from Central America. But further, Kennedy--not Rusk-- had even cut back on the amount of planes to be used on the 15th! In fact, they were cut from 16 to 8. (Wyden, p. 170) This is how much JFK was resisting direct American involvement. Which in a larger sense was part of his whole philosophy against using American muscle in the Third World. I don't think I can make this any more clear. If you want to somehow blend the 15th with the 17th, that is your business. Historically speaking though, this is nonsense. As for contingency planning by US forces for direct American involvement, I have never read anything about this in either Kirkpatrick or Taylor. Which does not mean it did not exist. I have always suspected that Burke's nearby naval force was ready to enter the fray if Kennedy caved. Which he did not. Even though Burke asked him for permission to send in jet planes to knock Castro's Air Force down. (Kornbluh, p. 316) As per Dulles not being there during the invasion, this had been planned by him well in advance. He thought if he canceled it, it would be another indication to Castro that something was on the way. Therefore Cabell and Bissell ran the operation. In my opinion, it would have made no difference to the outcome if Dulles had been there. Your speculations about how somehow there was a subterranean conspiracy involving--of all people Lovett--in cahoots with Dean Rusk to make Allen Dulles a scapegoat in advance, I mean..what can I say? Except that extraordinary claims like that require extraordinary evidence. Please produce it. But beyond that, this kind of musing somehow denies the later confessions by both Dulles and Bissell that they both expected Kennedy to relent and take back his pledge. This is called direct evidence--from the pens of the designers themselves. Evidently that is not good enough for you. In some weird way you want to make Dulles into a victim rather than a perp. In your world, should Kennedy have fired Rusk instead of Dulles? BTW, I have always thought it interesting where Dulles went when he returned. He went to see Nixon, the guy he knew would have sent in the Navy in a flash. (ibid, p. 319) See, that is why the Bay of Pigs is such a key point in time. The CIA now knew just how different JFK really was from what had come before him. They would get further evidence of this a few months later when it was Kennedy who--against the advice of everyone else in the room-- objected to sending combat troops into Vietnam. As per your ads for Greg, I am sure he appreciates them.

No I won't spare you. This thread is about its title. It should be kept that way. If you or Greg want to open up one entitled, say "Parallels between JFK murder and Tate/LaBianca case", do so. As for your ideas about Atkins, having read about five books on that case, and talked to more than one authority, I can tell you that your ideas on her are, to put it mildly, out there. And that is the last word I will write on that in this thread.

Cliff: I don't agree, but that is not the point. This particular thread is about the upcoming Talbot book. OK? Let us keep it that way.

KD: Unfortunately it, too often, is 'his' story, 'his' beginning, 'his' ending. Truth is not a requirement for journalists. Count me a skeptic also. Wow. That is being fair isn't it? The book isn't even out yet. Further, Talbot has a track record in that his previous book about the case, Brothers, was an overall respectable effort, which was actually a milestone in the field. Its thinking like this that makes me wonder about the so called serious people in the community.

BTW, let me add one more thing to this whole Dulles vs. Kennedy conflict. When Dulles saw that the Kennedys were not going to let him off the hook for his deliberate lying to the president (RFK's presence on the Taylor Commission guaranteed that), he prepared a fallback plan. Knowing the commission proceedings would be classified for some time, he decided to get out his cover story first. He did it ostensibly through a reporter for Fortune named Charles Murphy. But the man who actually wrote the story for Murphy was Howard Hunt. (Destiny Betrayed, second edition, p. 46) In this article, called "To Set the Record Straight" (what a misnomer) Hunt and Dulles planted two memes about Kennedy that were quite pernicious. First, this is where the whole myth of the cancelled D Day air strikes began! In other words since Kennedy had figured out that the operation was planned to fail, Dulles reversed that verdict and blamed the disaster on JFK! I mean, does it get worse than that? Because, as Kirkpatrick argued in his report, so what if the airstrikes had been executed? Castro had his cannon and mortar and tanks on the beach within ten hours. Because he knew the invasion was coming. Castro had an army of 35, 000 regulars with about 200,000 reserves. As any military strategist will tell you, in an amphibious assault, the attackers have to outnumber the defenders. This was the opposite. Having read Kirkpatrick's report, RFK pummeled Dulles with that specific question. (p. 42) And it was clearly RFK's disbelief that Dulles could buy into such a proposition that made him think it was all a CIA manufactured illusion. Along with the fact that Dulles' other excuse, "Well, they could go guerrilla if the beachhead failed", this was also BS. Why? Because although Kennedy had been told this was a contingency, when the Taylor Commission interviewed the Cubans, they found out that not only did they get no guerrilla training, they were never told of the contingency in the first place! (ibid, p. 43) The exposure of this lie nailed the coffin shut for Dulles, Bissell and Cabell. And this is why Dulles had to get out a cover story. But secondly, the Hunt/Murphy article also said that Kennedy was naive about the communist threat, and he was listening to the wrong people both in the White House and abroad e.g. Schlesinger, Goodwin, Harold McMillan. And he had now put at risk, not just Cuba, but Indochina. (ibid, p. 54) It was this article, pure Black Propaganda, that alienated both the elites, and the Cubans against Kennedy. Kennedy was so angry when he read it that--unaware of who was really behind it-- he stripped Murphy of his Air Force reserve status. But Murphy told Ed Lansdale that he did not really mind that sacrifice, since his allegiance was not to Kennedy but to Allen Dulles. (ibid, p. 46) It was not until I read that letter to Lansdale that I realized just how enthroned and aggrandized Dulles was among the Eastern Establsihment. But that is how they thought of him, above the president. And we know, of course, what Dulles though of JFK: "That little Kennedy, he thought he was a god!" (ibid, p. 34) No Allen, he just thought he was president. PS I am absolutely frazzled by the comparison of the assassination of JFK to the Tate/ LaBianca murders, and even moreso by the goofy idea that Atkins was the ringleader.

Not only that Chuck, but I am pretty sure that Dulles was the only Warren Commissioner who did not have an official job. Therefore, he could spend so much time in his cover up efforts on the Commission. BTW, if you want to see what Dulles really thought of the JFK assassination, take a look in Best Evidence where the author describes an appearance that Dulles made at UCLA. LIfton brought some interesting exhibits with him, like stills from the Z film, check out how Dulles reacted to them. That shows right there that the WC was rigged.

It always breaks me up when I read that about Dulles passing out the Donovan book on American assassinations. When someone objected and said, but the Lincoln murder was a conspiracy, Dulles even tried to make out that it was a small one. LOL, ROTF Something like 16 people were rounded up, several were executed and one of the conspirators, the one who chopped up Seward with a knife, said before dying that "They didn't get but half of us." Which, today, appears to be the case. Just that strophe should have indicated that something was up with Dulles on the WC.

I don't agree that the plug was pulled on the air raid at the Bay of Pigs and I do not agree that Bundy and Rusk therefore were culpable. I disagree with Prouty on this. I devoted an entire chapter in Destiny Betrayed to this event entitled "Bay of Pigs: Kennedy vs. Dulles" and its about 23 pages long. Rex Bradford liked it so much he excerpted it at MFF. The D-Day air strikes were never a part of the operation plans. These air strikes were contingent upon attaining a beachhead and launching them from the Cuban mainland. This is why, when JFK rejected the first plan, the CIA came back with a new site that did have a natural air field. In fact, as the CIA memo reads, "The beachhead area contains one and possibly two airstrips...." (p. 37) And they admit that the proviso is that D Day air strikes could only be launched from inside Cuba. (p. 45) Both Bissell and Cabell knew this. In fact, in the Taylor Report, it is revealed that Bundy had told Bissell about this the day before, so there could be no misunderstanding. (ibid, p. 46) This is why, as Larry Hancock describes the scene, when Rusk gave the two CIA managers the opportunity to talk to JFK about it, they knew that their pleas would fall on deaf ears; since Kennedy made it clear that unless a beachhead was maintained there would be no air strikes. He also said in public, about nine days before, there would be no direct US intervention in Cuba. In the notes of his confessional aborted Harper's magazine article, Dulles admits he did not buy into this ban. Found at Princeton, the notes reveal that Dulles thought that, once Kennedy saw the mission as failing, he would adapt and order direct American intervention. Which, as Nixon said, he would have done. But even in Hunt's book on the matter, Give Us this Day, he admits that Cabell balked at sending in a D Day air strike since he knew Kennedy had banned them unless a beachhead was attained. But on the second day, according to both Lyman Kirkpatrick and Peter Kornbluh, someone at CIA did authorize air strikes. They did not do the job since there was a fog that came in. Today, its pretty obvious through Dulles' notes, and a 1960 CIA memo to Bissell, that the designers knew the invasion was hopeless. (ibid, pgs. 44 and 47) But they were planning that Kennedy's youth and inexperience would cause him to cave and take back his pledge. He did not. Just as he never wavered in his commitment not to send combat troops into Vietnam. Just as he refused to give in during the Missile Crisis when almost everyone was telling him to bomb the missile silos. Kennedy realized he had been lied to. Since, contrary to what the CIA said, there were no Cuban nationals who defected and there were no guerrilla groups to link up with. As one witness told the Taylor Commission, if you were not expecting massive defections, then what were the 30,000 extra rifles for? (ibid, p. 42) RFK was stupefied by the answers Allen Dulles gave during the Taylor hearings. (ibid) They were such utter BS that the Kennedy brothers concluded shortly thereafter that the CIA had tried to dupe him into using Arleigh Burke's naval convoy, about 90 miles away, to bail out the mission. After both investigations were completed--Taylor's and Kirkpatrick's--on the advice of Joe Kennedy, RFK got in contact with Lovett. (ibid, pgs. 48-49) The father had served on a CIA oversight committee with Lovett and David Bruce in the fifties Lovett told JFK that they had tried to get Allen Dulles fired more than once during Eisenhower's administration. They could not since his bother protected him. That was not the case now, and JFK should make a clean sweep since he had the goods on them. He did. But what I think what Talbot is going to say is Dulles won out in the end.

Chuck: Let us not forget, in addition to the Cabell connection, Dulles was in Dallas about a month before the assassination. And he joked about this, plus the fact of his relationship with Mary Bancroft, which put him about two degrees away from Ruth and Michael Paine. You know those two sweet, innocent Good Samaritan types who went into overdrive to try and convict Oswald within hours after the murder. I forgot one more point: Dulles' special visit to Truman--while sitting on the Warren Commission--trying to get him to retract his editorial in the Post about how the CIA had seemed to have gone rogue of late. Truman started writing that editorial about a week after the assassination. In the materials given to me by Ray Marcus from the Truman Library, it is apparent that Dulles thought the article was written owing to Truman's suspicions that somehow the CIA was involved in Kennedy's murder. And one step beyond that, he also thought that Truman suspected Vietnam was a big motive in the assassination. (Destiny Betrayed, Second Edition, pgs. 378-81) I am really surprised that more people have not picked up on this point. I mean how incriminating is incriminating.

GB: Dulles didn't give orders. He took them. JD: Not trying to pick a fight with you, but I would not put Allen Dulles as a second stringer to anyone except the very top level of power. The level above presidents. ​David, as per The Wise Men, I would never take someone like Isaacson as the last word on something like that since he himself is the MSM ultimate insider. ​How does one explain the combination of having Foster Dulles as Secretary of State and Allen Dulles as CIA Director? If that isn't power then what is? Just take a look at what happened in Congo, Indonesia, Guatemala and Iran. Its Dulles' unique position inside the EE that makes him such an intriguing suspect. Plus his connection to those who, the weight of the evidence reveals were involved on the managerial and operational level. And finally, his leading position as part of the WC cover up.

Jim: Why would you think that? If you look at the WC, Dulles was there more than McCloy was and asked more questions and seems to have worked behind the scenes more than McCloy. McCloy had a job at that time, Dulles did not, at least not overtly. As per their careers, they pretty much are comparable to each other in importance to the Eastern Establishment: Wall Street corporate lawyers, CFR, government service at a rather high level, both worked in espionage a lot, perhaps Dulles even more. The difference as I see it is that Dulles actually got to, more or less, create a covert arm for the people he worked for, that is the CIA. Which he pretty much revolutionized; as Sidney Souers said to Harry Truman, when Truman was prepping his letter/editorial to the Post. To the point that it did not even resemble what Souers designed. In fact, even some stalwart EE Members like Lovett and Bruce could not stomach the Frankenstein Dulles created. Not trying to pick a fight with you, but I would not put Allen Dulles as a second stringer to anyone except the very top level of power. The level above presidents. I always thought Kai Bird's book was mistitled in that regard. For example, when McCloy worked Project Alpha to bring down Carter, by allowing the Shah into the USA, he was working for David Rockefeller.

Pat: You stil l have not commented on my last question. Most people are wising up about the worthlessness of arguing with DVP. Simply useless. I hope you do also some day. Meanwhile I will bug out of this until you answer my question.

I have not been in contact with Sean for awhile. Have you? I was trying to talk him into writing an essay for CTKA. But I really don't care where it appears. I jus think it should be out there someplace.

PS: Perhaps Humes (who orchestrated the photos) asked too much of Stringer, and asked him to capture both the entrance on the back of the head and large defect on top of the head in one shot. Isn't this the payoff? ​As most of us think, there is no way JFK is in a position at Z 313 to sustain one shot from a FMJ bullet that will do this from the sixth floor. ​And yes I recall you and this photo from your DVD.

Ok, if its taken at an angle to the table, where is the camera, above or below the table? And in what position is the corpse? Is it lying on its stomach or its back? If its on its stomach, is someone lifting the head up? And why that bizarre angle? You can't orient anything with it. What does this mean: depicting missile wound over entrance in posterior skull, Is he saying there are two wounds in the rear of the skull?

Take a look at the 7:39 mark. How Shaw refers to the patsy. Priceless.

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I would generally have to agree on this. Although I am not quite as certain about it as Greg is. One of the worst things that researchers can do is to accept any one version of what Oswald said while in detention. Just compare the hours he was supposed to be questioned with the tiny amount of notes that exist, and you will see that Oswald had to have said a lot more than we will ever know. And then he tries to call John Hurt on Saturday? And then Ruby, who had been monitoring the police station the whole weekend, fabricates that phony excuse from the Carlins, waits for the signal from WU, then hides behind a cop and kills LHO with Fritz breaking the protection cup? He then lies about it all so badly that the FBI had to falsify his polygraph? Something was happening in those interrogation sessions.

Pat: Before I answer your question, I would like to ask a question. What the heck is this photo anyway? I have heard so many different takes on it, that I cannot keep them straight. To this day, some experts cannot explain what it is or why the camera was oriented like that. Was the point to make it as unrecognizable as possible? Because if that was it, they succeeded.

How can you say that if you have not read it yet?

Ray, Dave: Me and Bob and Ken have all left the field. I mean I think I accomplished what I set out to do, especially on the fictional rifle order. If you keep on feeding the xxxxx, then you allow him to keep up this exhibition of nonsense which was already discredited by James, just a few weeks ago. I mean I have no interest in doing this any more. And neither should you.

One more level of the conflict needs to be mentioned in this context. Documents show that, as early as the mid-1960s, the key mistaken assumptions of the war -- that the Vietnamese foe was a tentacle of world communism, that the war was a front in the Cold War rather than an episode in the long decolonization movement of the twentieth century, that the South Vietnamese were eager for rescue by the United States -- were widely suspected to be mistaken in official Washington. ​That about says it all does it not? And Kennedy was the only one who understood the Big Picture. Not the ignoramus LBJ of the self styled foreign policy expert, Tricky DIck. ​The Turse book is a real good one from what I understand. He did an interview with Bill Moyers as I recall. The Vietnam War was just one long nightmare from 1965 to the end. Thanks Steve.

BTW, there are tapes of LBJ discussing Vietnam. They are in the two volume set edited by Beschloss, called Taking Charge. From what I recall, Johnson was pretty anguished about the whole escalation thing. But he still went ahead and did it anyway. If you expect to hear anything like what you are implying, you won't. LBJ considered the contracting not bribery but patronage, sort of like Lincoln in the Spielberg movie. Or moving some of NASA to Texas. And the reason he escalated was pretty simple: unlike Kennedy, he was a dyed in the wool Cold Warrior and Domino Theory advocate. He actually compared losing SVN to losing China. Incredible. But see, LBJ never was considered a foreign policy maven, and he never built himself up as one. Nixon did. But it turns out that, at least with Vietnam, Nixon was as stupid as LBJ was. Maybe even stupider. Because Johnson considered some of the things Nixon did and decided they would not work, which they did not e.g. bombing Cambodia, mining Haiphong. But Nixon bought his own medicine, namely the Madman Theory. It turns out that the only person that the Madman act fooled was Nixon.