Douglas Caddy

When Presidential Words Led to Swift Action

By ADAM CLYMER

The New YorkTimes

June 8, 2013

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/09/us/remembering-two-seminal-kennedy-speeches.html?ref=politics&_r=0

WASHINGTON — These days it is hard to imagine a single presidential speech changing history.

But two speeches, given back to back by President John F. Kennedy 50 years ago this week, are now viewed as critical turning points on the transcendent issues of the last century.

The speeches, which came on consecutive days, took political risks. They sought to shift the nation’s thinking on the “inevitability” of war with the Soviet Union and to make urgent the “moral crisis” of civil rights. Beyond their considerable impact on American minds, these two speeches had something in common that oratory now often misses. They both led quickly and directly to important changes.

On Monday, June 10, 1963, Kennedy announced new talks to try to curb nuclear tests, signaling a decrease in tension between the United States and the Soviet Union. Speaking at American University’s morning commencement, he urged new approaches to the cold war, saying,

“In the final analysis,” he continued, “our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children’s future. And we are all mortal.”

The next evening, Kennedy gave an address on national television, sketching out a strong civil rights bill he promised to send to Congress. For the first time, a president made a moral case against segregation. He had previously argued publicly for obedience to court orders and had condemned violence, but not the underlying system.

Kennedy said. “The heart of the question is whether all Americans are to be afforded equal rights and equal opportunities, whether we are going to treat our fellow Americans as we want to be treated.”

Action followed. An agreement to establish a hot line between Washington and Moscow came in a few days, and a limited nuclear test ban treaty in four months. In just over a year, the 1964 Civil Rights Act became the most important American law of the 20th century. Kennedy, of course, did not live to see the comprehensive civil rights legislation, a crowning achievement of his successor, President Lyndon B. Johnson and Republican leaders like Representative William M. McCulloch of Ohio and Senator Everett M. Dirksen of Illinois.

Robert Dallek, Kennedy’s leading biographer, said the two speeches were “not just two of his best speeches, but two of the better presidential speeches of the 20th century.”

Kathleen Hall Jamieson, the director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania and a scholar of political discourse, said the two “compelling” speeches invited the country “to see the world differently, expanding our concept of basic rights and propelling action vindicated by history.”

They are underappreciated as oratory, she said, because neither had a “simple central phrase” like “Ich bin ein Berliner,” which Kennedy said later that month, or “Ask not what your country can do for you,” from his inaugural address.

Though Theodore C. Sorensen, the president’s main speechwriter, was the principal writer of both speeches, they were prepared in very different ways.

The American University speech was a month in the making, growing out of Kennedy’s sense that if some progress on controlling arms was to be made, it had to happen in 1963, not in the election year of 1964, and from signals from the Kremlin that new talks might be productive. But it was kept secret from the Pentagon, because of fears that generals might object to any steps toward conciliation.

In contrast, the civil rights speech was written in a few hours and was almost not given.

Mr. Dallek said the American University speech reflected Kennedy’s “real passion” about his presidency, the goal of building “not merely peace in our time but peace for all time,” as Kennedy put it that morning.

To achieve it, Kennedy said, it was necessary to “examine our attitude toward peace itself.”

“Too many of us think it is impossible,” Kennedy said. “Too many think it unreal. But that is a dangerous, defeatist belief. It leads to the conclusion that war is inevitable — that mankind is doomed — that we are gripped by forces we cannot control.

“We need not accept that view. Our problems are man-made — therefore, they can be solved by man.”

Another step was to “re-examine our attitude toward the Soviet Union.”

He said that while it was “sad” to read Soviet propaganda insisting that the United States was planning many wars so it could dominate the world, “it is also a warning — a warning to the American people not to fall into the same trap as the Soviets, not to see only a distorted and desperate view of the other side, not to see conflict as inevitable, accommodation as impossible, and communication as nothing more than an exchange of threats.”

He said Americans should understand that “no government or social system is so evil that its people must be considered as lacking in virtue. As Americans, we find communism profoundly repugnant as a negation of personal freedom and dignity. But we can still hail the Russian people for their many achievements — in science and space, in economic and industrial growth, in culture and in acts of courage.”

Reminding his audience that at least 20 million Soviet citizens died in World War II, Kennedy said, “Among the many traits the peoples of our two countries have in common, none is stronger than our mutual abhorrence of war.”

“Today, should total war ever break out again — no matter how — our two countries would become the primary targets. It is an ironic but accurate fact that the two strongest powers are the two in the most danger of devastation. All we have built, all we have worked for, would be destroyed in the first 24 hours.”

On June 11, Kennedy had planned to speak about civil rights if there was trouble in Tuscaloosa, Ala., where Gov. George C. Wallace had vowed to stand in the way to prevent the integration of the University of Alabama. But Wallace simply made a statement and then stepped aside, and the process went smoothly. The speech seemed unnecessary.

Sorensen, who had labored over the Monday speech, went home, only to be summoned back at midafternoon when the president’s brother Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy persuaded Kennedy to go ahead. Sorensen finished his draft with only minutes to spare, and Kennedy ad-libbed concluding paragraphs.

The president had come to the civil rights issue only “grudgingly,” as Mr. Dallek put it. He thought segregation wrong and the Southerners who defended it “hopeless.” But for more than two years in the White House, he had treated the issue as a distraction from not only foreign policy but also tough domestic issues like a tax cut to spur the economy. Moreover, Mr. Dallek said, Kennedy and his brother thought the issue would cost him the Southern states he won in 1960 and could bring his defeat in 1964.

Still, by late spring in 1963 the spread of civil rights demonstrations, and the brutality used in Birmingham and elsewhere to suppress them, forced his hand. And while he had fitfully used the word “moral” in civil rights statements, he had not made it a cause.

He told the nation: “One hundred years of delay have passed since President Lincoln freed the slaves, yet their heirs, their grandsons, are not fully free. They are not yet freed from the bonds of injustice. They are not yet freed from social and economic oppression. And this nation, for all its hopes and all its boasts, will not be fully free until all its citizens are free.”

Kennedy said: “If an American, because his skin is dark, cannot eat lunch in a restaurant open to the public, if he cannot send his children to the best public school available, if he cannot vote for the public officials who represent him, if, in short, he cannot enjoy the full and free life which all of us want, then who among us would be content to have the color of his skin changed and stand in his place? Who among us would then be content with the counsels of patience and delay?”

He was not addressing just the South, or even just Congress. “It is not enough to pin the blame on others, to say this is a problem of one section of the country or another,” he said.

“A great change is at hand, and our task, our obligation, is to make that revolution, that change, peaceful and constructive for all. Those who do nothing are inviting shame as well as violence. Those who act boldly are recognizing right as well as reality.”

This “moral crisis,” he said, “cannot be met by repressive police action. It cannot be left to increased demonstrations in the streets. It cannot be quieted by token moves or talk. It is a time to act in the Congress, in your state and local legislative body and, above all, in all of our daily lives.”

In between the two speeches, another critical issue arose. At a busy intersection in South Vietnam’s capital, Saigon, a Buddhist monk named Thich Quang Duc set himself on fire. That set off the political developments that led to the ouster and murder of President Ngo Dinh Diem just three weeks before Kennedy’s own assassination.

Doug: Do you believe Wallace died in 1971? (I have a reason for asking that I am not at liberty to disclose at the moment).

Thanks,

Dawn

Dawn, my only knowledge on the subject is based on a newspaper report of his death. Your question implies the press report may be inaccurate. This is the first time I have heard of this.

It is important to place on the record that Billie Sol Estes maintained in no uncertain terms that LBJ arranged for "stone killer" Mac Wallace to be transported by U.S. military planes to the venues where he murdered the designated targets. Of course the pilot and co-pilot of the military planes had no idea of the purpose of their passenger's trip. They merely followed orders that came from on-high in transporting him to and from the venues.

I discussed this matter with U.S. Marshal Clint Peoples in his office in the Federal Courthouse in Dallas at one of the meetings we had in 1984 and he said that this was the same information he had obtained although he did not tell me who his source was.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2336782/Former-News-World-editor-Andy-Coulson-denies-conspiracy-hack-phones-make-illegal-payments-public-officials.html

Why is he referred to as "R.A. Kris Millegan"?

What is "the McClendon Group"?

Named after the late Sarah McClendon who held weekly lunches featuring important people and/or discussions of important events.

When I lived in Washington, D.C. decades ago, I regularly attended her lunches.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_McClendon

Nixon in Dallas on Nov.21, 1963. Audio kicks in about half way into the video.

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=20249

Rebekah Brooks pleads not guilty to charges related to phone hacking

Ex-News International chief denies conspiracy to commit phone hacking, pervert course of justice and unlawfully pay officials

Rebekah Brooks, the former News International chief executive, has pleaded not guilty to a series of criminal charges over a nine-year period when she edited the News of the World and the Sun, and latterly ran the newspaper publisher.

Brooks pleaded not guilty to five charges relating to three separate police investigations on Wednesday at Southwark crown court, where she appeared alongside a number of other defendants including her husband, Charlie Brooks, the racehorse trainer and friend of David Cameron.

She pleaded not guilty to one charge relating to an alleged conspiracy to hack phones between October 2000 and August 2006 and not guilty to two further charges relating to an alleged conspiracy to commit misconduct in public office by paying public officials money for stories.

The former News International chief also pleaded not guilty to two further charges connected to allegations that she conspired to pervert the course of justice after she was arrested in July 2011 in relation to alleged phone hacking.

Brooks's former secretary, Cheryl Carter, who sat in front of her in the dock, also pleaded not guilty to a charge of perverting the course of justice.

The second charge of conspiring to pervert the course of justice was made against Brooks along with six other defendants who sat with her in the glass dock and all of whom pleaded not guilty. These were her husband, News International director of security Mark Hanna, security officer Lee Sandell, chauffeur Paul Edwards and her former bodyguard, David Johnson.

A number of former News of the World executives and journalists were also in court on Wednesday facing one charge relating to phone hacking arising from the Metropolitan police's Operation Weeting.

The paper's former managing editor Stuart Kuttner, reporter James Weatherup and ex-royal reporter Clive Goodman all pleaded not guilty to the charge.

Court number 4 was packed with journalists and lawyers sitting in front of Mr Justice Saunders, who recently took charge of the cases arising from the phone-hacking scandal.

Among those forced to stand after queuing for an hour were the Labour MP Tom Watson who was at the vanguard of parliament's investigation into News of the World phone hacking and Mark Lewis, the solicitor representing alleged phone hacking victims.

The crown told the court it had changed the indictment in relation to alleged phone hacking to combine all of the original 19 charges into one.

Brooks sat throughout the two-hour hearing talking to Kuttner and taking notes on the back of a blue envelope.

Kris Millegan, Publisher at TrineDay, will Speak to the McClendon Group at the National Press Club on Thursday, June 13

R.A. Kris Millegan will speak to the McClendon Group at the National Press Club, Thursday, June 13. The topic is: “Hidden Dynamics: Narcotics, Secret Societies, Intelligence Agencies and Generational Politics.”

Walterville, OR (PRWEB) May 31, 2013

R.A. Kris Millegan will speak to the McClendon Group at the National Press Club, Thursday, June 13. The program begins at 6:30 pm.

The topic is: “Hidden Dynamics: Narcotics, Secret Societies, Intelligence Agencies and Generational Politics.”

Mr. Millegan is the publisher at TrineDay, the country’s leading publisher of suppressed works. Millegan, 63, was born in Washington, D.C. and raised in Fairfax, Virginia, while his father was working for the Central Intelligence Agency. The last overt job of Millegan’s father was serving as Branch Chief, Head of the East Asia Analysis Office. Ten years after leaving the agency in 1959 and moving the family out to Oregon, Lloyd spoke to his son about his experiences in intelligence, especially about psychological warfare, narcotics trafficking, secret societies and the conflict in Vietnam.

The National Press Club is located at 529 14th St. NW, 13th Floor in Washington, DC.

Free Parking is available for the event at the PMI parking lot at 1325 G St NW located next to the Church of the Epiphany.

Also speaking that night will be Mark Osler, a former federal prosecutor who has become a leader in religiously inspired legal reform. Osler, a law professor in Minnesota and the current head of the Association of Religiously Affiliated Law Schools, speaks against the death penalty and overly harsh drug possession sentences.

For additional information, contact John Hurley at 703 855-1266.

Don't miss watching this video from the Wall Street Journal:

http://live.wsj.com/video/jfk-authors-find-conspiracy-theories-sell-lots-of-books/97124964-21D1-4D42-997E-341CE634C756.html#!97124964-21D1-4D42-997E-341CE634C756

For JFK Authors, the Truth Is, Conspiracy Theories Sell Lots of Books

50th Anniversary of Assassination Prompts Torrent of Words; Four 'Whitewash' Titles

Wall Street Journal

June 2, 2013

By JEFFREY A. TRACHTENBERG

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323716304578483551858498688.html

When it comes to President John F. Kennedy's assassination, no word has been left unturned.

As the 50th anniversary draws near, some might think there is little left to say. That turns out not to be the case.

Skyhorse Publishing, an eclectic New York house whose imprints offer titles ranging from essayist John Graves's "My Dogs & Guns" to Nobel Prize winner Mo Yan's "Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out," is publishing 25 books related to the assassination this year.

Who Killed President Kennedy?

As the 50th anniversary of President John F. Kennedy's assassination draws near, here are some new titles and reprints arriving on the already crowded JFK bookshelves.

Other publishers also are coming out with JFK-related titles tied to the anniversary. But Skyhorse is issuing eight new titles, flanked by 17 reprints. The publisher started the year with 12 JFK-related titles, which means it will have 37 by year's end.

"This is a big gamble for us, but I don't see that much downside," says Tony Lyons, Skyhorse's publisher. "It's one of the biggest events in history."

It has been covered. Bowker's Books In Print says nearly 1,400 titles related to President Kennedy, including his assassination, conspiracy works, biographies and speeches, have been published in the U.S. over the past five decades.

By comparison, the company says there were more than 3,300 titles related to Abraham Lincoln published during the same period, and nearly 800 about the Titanic.

Many of the Skyhorse works have vivid titles, among them Mark North's "Act of Treason: The Role of J. Edgar Hoover in the Assassination of President Kennedy" and Patrick Nolan's "CIA Rogues and the Killing of the Kennedys."

For those who doubt the Warren Commission's finding that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone on Nov. 22, 1963, Skyhorse is republishing four separate "Whitewash" titles by the late Harold Weisberg, including "Whitewash III: The Photographic Whitewash of the JFK Assassination." Skyhorse is also republishing related titles by Mark Lane and the late Jim Garrison, the former New Orleans district attorney whose "On the Trail of the Assassins" helped inspire Oliver Stone's movie "JFK."

"We've been fortunate to be able to track down and acquire so many of the classics in the field," says Mr. Lyons.

It takes more nerve than dollars to publish so many titles about JFK.

Mr. Lyons says Skyhorse's eight new books on the subject represent an investment of about $1 million, including costs related to acquisition, printing and marketing.

Skyhorse is investing about $300,000 to $400,000 to publish its 17 JFK reprints. If it sells only 3,000 copies of each of those, it will likely lose money, he says. But if it sells 5,000 to 10,000 copies each, Mr. Lyons says the books "will be very profitable."

Some of the best-known conspiracy authors are lawyers by training, but it is a wide-open field. In April, Skyhorse issued "Hit List: An In-Depth Investigation into the Mysterious Deaths of Witnesses to the JFK Assassination," by actor/comedian Richard Belzer and investigative journalist David Wayne.

"If anyone doesn't think there was a conspiracy in the assassination, they only have to read this book," Mr. Belzer says.

Spread across 50 chapters, "Hit List" has this to say about gangster Sam Giancana: "Congressional investigators knew that Giancana was linked to the JFK assassination and ordered him to testify. On June 19, 1975, very shortly before that testimony would have taken place, Giancana was gunned down in the basement kitchen of his quiet suburban Chicago home while frying sausages."

The chapter's conclusion: Mr. Giancana was killed as part of a conspiracy to cover up the conspiracy to kill the president.

Presidential historian Robert Dallek believes he knows why—despite the Warren Commission's conclusion—so many think there was a conspiracy to kill President Kennedy. "People can't believe that somebody as consequential as Kennedy was killed by somebody as inconsequential as Oswald," he says.

Mr. Dallek's new book, "Camelot's Court," a look at how President Kennedy weighed the counsel provided by his brainy advisers, is being published this fall by Harper, an imprint of News Corp NWSA -0.19% .'s HarperCollins Publishers. News Corp. also publishes The Wall Street Journal.

Fascination with the JFK assassination remains a fixture of the national psyche. Among the most successful nonfiction titles of 2012 was "Killing Kennedy" by Bill O'Reilly and Martin Dugard, which has sold more than 1.6 million copies in the U.S. in all formats, according to its publisher, Henry Holt.

While measuring the literary popularity of presidents is hardly an exact science, JFK memorabilia remain in strong demand, says Daniel Weinberg, who sells presidential books and memorabilia at the Abraham Lincoln Book Shop in Chicago.

He ranks the interest in JFK material right behind that in Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt. "Collectabilty and popularity go hand in hand," he says.

"We have people coming in all the time, asking for what's new," says Patrick Whyte, co-owner of the Conspiracy Culture bookstore in Toronto. Mr. Whyte is confident there was a conspiracy behind the JFK assassination and believes the truth may be close to emerging.

"A lot of people involved are probably reaching the end of their rope and want to get stuff off their chest," he says.

Who killed President Kennedy? In his book "Betrayal in Dallas: LBJ, the Pearl Street Mafia, and the Murder of President Kennedy," Mark North argues that the guilty parties were contract killers hired by the Mafia to stop federal investigations in New Orleans and Dallas.

"The public hasn't been told the truth," he says.

Some conspiracy books have stayed in print for years. Peter Dale Scott, author of a title Skyhorse is issuing this September as "Oswald, Mexico, and Deep Politics: Revelations from CIA Records on the Assassination of JFK," says the title had three earlier publishers. "Some people want to know more about the assassination, but more want to understand the American political process," he says.

One group that may not be as aware of the anniversary is the nation's millennial generation.

"They come in knowing very little about the assassination," says Tom Stone, a senior lecturer in English at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, who has taught classes about it for 20 years.

"They know he was president, they know he was shot and died, they know it happened in Dallas," Mr. Stone says. "Beyond that, they are a blank slate. That's why we have anniversaries that end in zero, so we can educate people."

Write to Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg at jeffrey.trachtenberg@wsj.com

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2333618/TOM-LEONARD-The-death-outrageous-American-fraudster-raises-tantalising-question--Was-LBJ-Kennedys-assassination.html

http://www.nationalenquirer.com/celebrity/presidential-aide-lbj-arranged-jfks-assassination

I wonder who the "source" was, IF there was a "source." I mean, this guy (or gal) seems pretty knowledgeable--and fully cognizant of Jackie's most private thoughts.

Could it be...could it be...this source was simply INVENTED by the author to flesh out an otherwise skin and bone story.

Nah. REAL journalists like those employed at the Enquirer would never do such a thing.

Roger Stone is not employed by the National Enquirer. Early this week he announced that he had decided not to run for Governor on the Libertarian Party ticket in Florida. I merely posted the National Enquirer story because I have never seen a book on the JFK assassination receive as much pre-publication publicity as has Stone's book. Everyday I have a new posting on my Facebook page of some additional publication in the U.S. or abroad that has featured it. I don't know who he sources are for the book but I gather he and his researcher had access to the materials stored at the Nixon library that perhaps no one else had bothered to look at because Nixon remains a reviled character in most quarters.

http://www.nationalenquirer.com/celebrity/presidential-aide-lbj-arranged-jfks-assassination

• On Facebook May 29, 2013, author Roger Stone wrote that LBJ and Nixon secretly met at the Baker Hotel in Dallas on the day before JFK was killed. So I wrote Roger and posed the following inquiry:
• Roger, If it is true that Nixon met with LBJ the day before JFK was killed, that would a shocking revelation, one I have never heard before. What is the basis for believing that such a meeting took place? What evidence exists?

Roger Stone Claim by Madeline Brown but confirmed by RN. ' I saw Johnson the day before the shooting. He was cool as a cucumber but furious about Rep. Bruce Alger's attacks on JFK" Brown said they met for 1 hour at the Baker Hotel but RN's schedules shows a meeting at the Adolphus Hotel.

It is my understanding that there were five teams assigned to assassinate JFK on his trip to Dallas, each comprised of two shooters and one spotter. All were unmindful of the others.

The assassination obviously was extremely carefully planned. All contingencies had to be covered. For example, if at the beginning of the parade or soon thereafter, JFK or the First Lady or someone else decided to have the top installed on the presidential limousine, then that might have eliminated the assassination taking place where it did later on. So the grassy knoll and the Textbook School Book Depository Building were only two locations utilized in the planning of the assassination. There were other locations.

Since the assassination was successful where it took place, other teams did not have to be utilized. There was no way that JFK would arrive back in Washington on that trip without being killed one way or another at some location.

Just as the assassination was intricately planned, so was the cover-up that began within seconds of the assassination. This has been documented so thoroughly that I only allude to it here to show how carefully both the assassination and the cover-up were planned and executed.

To cite one not well known example of the cover-up that took place 14 years after the assassination: In 1977 NYPD Detective James Rothstein and his colleague, Detective Matthew Rosenthal, accompanied Marita Lorenz back to her NYC residence to await the arrival of Frank Sturgis who had threatened to kill Lorenz to keep her from testifying before the House Select Committee on Assassinations. They arrived at Lorenz’ residence at 1 PM. Sturgis did not arrive until 10 PM at which time the detectives arrested him. While they waited for Sturgis to arrive, Rothstein and Rosenthal examined the contents of 10 to 15 boxes of documents, photographs and other JFK assassination evidence that Lorenz had placed against one wall of her residence in preparation of appearing before the House Committee.

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=20008&page=2

Sometime soon after the arrest of Sturgis, a close and trusted NYPD colleague of Rothstein transported Lorenz' boxes to Washington where he delivered them to the House Committee.

http://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/select-committee-report/

Years later Rothstein, who lives in Minnesota where he is mayor of his municipality, had the opportunity to talk with Federal Judge Jack Tunheim of Minnesota, who had examined all the files. When Rothstein inquired of Tunheim what he thought of Lorenz’s files, the judge said that he never saw the files. He also told Rothstein that he had the impression other batches of files were missing. Yet, we have Judge Tunheim recently publicly stating that he had seen all the files and even gratuitously offering an opinion that Oswald was the sole assassin. Chalk one up for one more mystery surrounding the cover-up of the JFK assassination.

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=19776

Does the cover-up continue to this day? Certainly, why else do thousands of key documents and other materials continue to be withheld from release to the public?

This is the full quote on Gerry Hemming from page 443 of the Notes as the end of H.P. Albarelli’s masterful book, A Secret Source:

Gerry Hemming: In 1999 and 2000, I interviewed Hemming by telephone. Then, in 2001, I interviewed Hemming in North Carolina. My primary interest in meeting Hemming was an American soldier of fortune, Richard “Rex” Sanderlin, who had mysteriously died in 1963 in Cuba. Sanderlin, a former U.S. Marine who served in Korea, had been recruited to go to Cuba by Frank Sturgis. I also took the opportunity to ask Hemming about Lee Harvey Oswald. Hemming was a wealth of information on Oswald, Cuba, and many other subjects but recalled only meeting Sanderlin briefly in Cuba. I had been referred to Hemming by two other soldiers of fortune, Neill W. Macaulay and David Soldini, both of whom lived in Florida. Hemming spoke confidently about Oswald saying that he met with him twice in the United States and one perhaps other time. I carried on an e-mail correspondence with Gerry for years after I met him. I was saddened by his death in January 2008. He was one in a billion. Volume Two of this work will contain a full chapter on Hemming. Hemming was a central member of a group of anti-communist soldiers of fortune retained by the CIA to train anti-Castro Cubans in the early 1960s at a secret compound on No Name Key, Florida, 25 miles north of Key West. Hemming consistently said over the past two decades that he was never a CIA employee. Hemming, who knew David Morales, but thought “Morales lacked the hard-earned skill to train certain Cubans in counterinsurgency techniques,” told this writer that the JFK assassination was acted out by “three teams” consisting of “two shooters” and “one spotter.” “Each team was unmindful of the others,” he explained. Hemming identified Cuban Nestor Izqauierdo as one of the spotters in the assassination. “Nestor was close to Morales or Roselli,” Hemming said, “in a school-boy sort of way. He thought Morales was the cat’s pajamas,” Hemming said sarcastically. “He admired Rosselli because of his amorous skills with the women he always brought around, I guess.” [More on Hemming in Volume Two of this work.]

Oh c'mon please. I mean Pulease!

PULEASE!

PULEASE!

NO MORE SNIPERS ON THE GRASSY KNOLL! OK!

I mean this is getting ridiculous and embarassing. Just loony. How many people can we get up there? I don't even want to make a list out of who is there already. And for this the 50th? Fodder for Chris Mathews and O'Reilly. That is one reason I stayed away from this stuff in my book.

I expected more from Hank. And in God's name, of all people Hemming? Let me repeat that, Hemming?

I like Hank. I actually do. And I think some of what he writes is good stuff. But he has a weakness for accepting too much at face value from questionable CIA sources.

I am sure Tom agrees with me, because of that "info" about the CIA safehouse in Janney's book.

This is the full quote on Gerry Hemming from page 443 of the Notes as the end of H.P. Albarelli’s masterful book, A Secret Source:

Gerry Hemming: In 1999 and 2000, I interviewed Hemming by telephone. Then, in 2001, I interviewed Hemming in North Carolina. My primary interest in meeting Hemming was an American soldier of fortune, Richard “Rex” Sanderlin, who had mysteriously died in 1963 in Cuba. Sanderlin, a former U.S. Marine who served in Korea, had been recruited to go to Cuba by Frank Sturgis. I also took the opportunity to ask Hemming about Lee Harvey Oswald. Hemming was a wealth of information on Oswald, Cuba, and many other subjects but recalled only meeting Sanderlin briefly in Cuba. I had been referred to Hemming by two other soldiers of fortune, Neill W. Macaulay and David Soldini, both of whom lived in Florida. Hemming spoke confidently about Oswald saying that he met with him twice in the United States and one perhaps other time. I carried on an e-mail correspondence with Gerry for years after I met him. I was saddened by his death in January 2008. He was one in a billion. Volume Two of this work will contain a full chapter on Hemming. Hemming was a central member of a group of anti-communist soldiers of fortune retained by the CIA to train anti-Castro Cubans in the early 1960s at a secret compound on No Name Key, Florida, 25 miles north of Key West. Hemming consistently said over the past two decades that he was never a CIA employee. Hemming, who knew David Morales, but thought “Morales lacked the hard-earned skill to train certain Cubans in counterinsurgency techniques,” told this writer that the JFK assassination was acted out by “three teams” consisting of “two shooters” and “one spotter.” “Each team was unmindful of the others,” he explained. Hemming identified Cuban Nestor Izqauierdo as one of the spotters in the assassination. “Nestor was close to Morales or Roselli,” Hemming said, “in a school-boy sort of way. He thought Morales was the cat’s pajamas,” Hemming said sarcastically. “He admired Rosselli because of his amorous skills with the women he always brought around, I guess.” [More on Hemming in Volume Two of this work.]

Oh c'mon please. I mean Pulease!

PULEASE!

PULEASE!

NO MORE SNIPERS ON THE GRASSY KNOLL! OK!

I mean this is getting ridiculous and embarassing. Just loony. How many people can we get up there? I don't even want to make a list out of who is there already. And for this the 50th? Fodder for Chris Mathews and O'Reilly. That is one reason I stayed away from this stuff in my book.

I expected more from Hank. And in God's name, of all people Hemming? Let me repeat that, Hemming?

I like Hank. I actually do. And I think some of what he writes is good stuff. But he has a weakness for accepting too much at face value from questionable CIA sources.

I am sure Tom agrees with me, because of that "info" about the CIA safehouse in Janney's book.

In his new book, Albarelli writes that Gerry Hemming, whom he admired as being a source who was one in a billion, told him that "..the JFK assassination was acted out by 'three teams' consisting of 'two shooters' and 'one spotter.' 'Each team was unmindful of the others,' he explained. Hemming identified Cuban Nestor Izquierdo as one of the spotters in the assassination. "Nestor was close to Morales and Rosselli,' Hemming said..."

--------------------------------------------------------

To which I add the following inquiry to the above excerpt from Albarelli's book:

Was Frank Sturgis one of the shooters and Howard Hunt his spotter when the assassination took place?

http://archive.truthout.org/the-hidden-tragedy-cias-experiments-children62208

Len:

Why did you omit mention of the report by the Inspector General on the Edmonds' case? So that the full story is told, here are its conclusions:

http://www.fas.org/irp/agency/doj/oig/sedmonds.html

IX. CONCLUSION

The majority of the allegations raised by Edmonds related to the actions of a co-worker. The allegations raised serious concerns that, if true, could potentially have extremely damaging consequences for the FBI. These allegations warranted a thorough and careful review by the FBI.

Our investigation concluded that the FBI did not, and still has not, adequately investigated these allegations. Our review also found that many - although not all - of Edmonds' allegations about the co-worker had some basis in fact. This evidence does not prove, and we are not suggesting, that there is sufficient evidence to conclude that espionage or any improper disclosures of FBI information occurred. However, we believe the FBI should have taken Edmonds' allegations more seriously and investigated them more thoroughly. As discussed in this report, the FBI's investigation of the information regarding the co-worker was significantly flawed. Had the FBI investigated the claims thoroughly, it would have found that many of Edmonds' allegations regarding the co-worker were supported by documentary evidence or other witnesses. Instead, the FBI seems to have discounted Edmonds' allegations, believing she was a disruptive influence and not credible, and eventually terminated her services. Even now, the FBI has not carefully investigated the allegations about the co-worker to determine if the co-worker compromised any FBI information. In light of the need for FBI vigilance about security issues, as demonstrated by the Hanssen case, we believe the FBI should have investigated these serious allegations more thoroughly.

Edmonds also alleged that the FBI retaliated against her by terminating her services as a CL. We concluded that Edmonds' allegations were at least a contributing factor in why the FBI terminated her services. We recognize that the FBI Whistle blower regulations do not apply to Edmonds because she was a contractor rather than an FBI employee. We also recognize that her varied and insistent allegations of misconduct may have been frustrating, and that not all of her allegations were true. However, many of her allegations had a basis in fact, and the way the FBI responded to her allegations contributed to her persistent claims. Moreover, we believe the FBI should not discourage employees or contractors from raising good-faith allegations of misconduct or mismanagement and the FBI's termination of Edmonds' services may discourage others from raising such concerns.

With regard to Edmonds' other allegations of misconduct, most were not supported by the evidence we reviewed. However, she did raise a valid concern about unnecessary travel for certain linguists.

Finally, our review also found problems in the oversight of FBI CLs. The FBI needs to more carefully oversee and monitor their work. Towards this end, we made several recommendations regarding the FBI's hiring and oversight of CLs. We believe that the FBI should carefully consider these recommendations, which we believe could help improve the operation of the FBI's language translation program.

I just finished reading "A Secret Order", which I had difficulty putting down until I finished it from cover to cover. A masterful work full of revelations by a skilled writer at the top of his trade.

Excerpt from recently published “A Secret Order: Investigating the High Strangeness and Synchronicity in the JFK Assassination” by H.P. Albarelli, Jr.:

The author, who is not easily given to wild speculation or conspiracy theories, did not originally intend to offer the above chain of intriguing coincidences and high strangeness in an effort to induce readers to believe that Lee Harvey Oswald may have been the unwitting subject of some devious government sponsored mind-control scheme that eventually placed him on a path toward the murder of President John F. Kennedy. That, in my view would have been irresponsible and outlandish, but when most of these odd connections between young Oswald and the CIA’s MK/ULTRA programs were first detected I was unaware that the CIA and U.S. Army had funded and engaged in substantial behavioral modifications involving children.

…While there remains little direct evidence that Oswald was some sort of programmed assassin or covert operative there certainly are enough circumstantial facts that nudge this possibility into areas for serious consideration.

Was there time in New York City to perform such scientific manipulation on Oswald? Without question there was. Lee Harvey Oswald was reportedly absent from school for at least 50 days while in New York City. Surely, he did not spend all these unaccounted for days at the Bronx zoo or riding the subway.

Why Rational People Buy Into Conspiracy Theories

By MAGGIE KOERTH-BAKER

Published: May 21, 2013

The New York Times Magazine

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/26/magazine/why-rational-people-buy-into-conspiracy-theories.html?ref=magazine

In the days following the bombings at the Boston Marathon, speculation online regarding the identity and motive of the unknown perpetrator or perpetrators was rampant. And once the Tsarnaev brothers were identified and the manhunt came to a close, the speculation didn’t cease. It took a new form. A sampling: Maybe the brothers Tsarnaev were just patsies, fall guys set up to take the heat for a mysterious Saudi with high-level connections; or maybe they were innocent, but instead of the Saudis, the actual bomber had acted on behalf of a rogue branch of our own government; or what if the Tsarnaevs were behind the attacks, but were secretly working for a larger organization?

Crazy as these theories are, those propagating them are not — they’re quite normal, in fact. But recent scientific research tells us this much: if you think one of the theories above is plausible, you probably feel the same way about the others, even though they contradict one another. And it’s very likely that this isn’t the only news story that makes you feel as if shadowy forces are behind major world events.

“The best predictor of belief in a conspiracy theory is belief in other conspiracy theories,” says Viren Swami, a psychology professor who studies conspiracy belief at the University of Westminster in England. Psychologists say that’s because a conspiracy theory isn’t so much a response to a single event as it is an expression of an overarching worldview.

As Richard Hofstadter wrote in his seminal 1965 book, “The Paranoid Style in American Politics,” conspiracy theories, especially those involving meddlesome foreigners, are a favorite pastime in this nation. Americans have always had the sneaking suspicion that somebody was out to get us — be it Freemasons, Catholics or communists. But in recent years, it seems as if every tragedy comes with a round of yarn-spinning, as the Web fills with stories about “false flag” attacks and “crisis actors” — not mere theorizing but arguments for the existence of a completely alternate version of reality.

Since Hofstadter’s book was published, our access to information has vastly improved, which you would think would have helped minimize such wild speculation. But according to recent scientific research on the matter, it most likely only serves to make theories more convincing to the public. What’s even more surprising is that this sort of theorizing isn’t limited to those on the margins. Perfectly sane minds possess an incredible capacity for developing narratives, and even some of the wildest conspiracy theories can be grounded in rational thinking, which makes them that much more pernicious. Consider this: 63 percent of registered American voters believe in at least one political conspiracy theory, according to a recent poll conducted by Fairleigh Dickinson University.

While psychologists can’t know exactly what goes on inside our heads, they have, through surveys and laboratory studies, come up with a set of traits that correlate well with conspiracy belief. In 2010, Swami and a co-author summarized this research in The Psychologist, a scientific journal. They found, perhaps surprisingly, that believers are more likely to be cynical about the world in general and politics in particular. Conspiracy theories also seem to be more compelling to those with low self-worth, especially with regard to their sense of agency in the world at large. Conspiracy theories appear to be a way of reacting to uncertainty and powerlessness.

Economic recessions, terrorist attacks and natural disasters are massive, looming threats, but we have little power over when they occur or how or what happens afterward. In these moments of powerlessness and uncertainty, a part of the brain called the amygdala kicks into action. Paul Whalen, a scientist at Dartmouth College who studies the amygdala, says it doesn’t exactly do anything on its own. Instead, the amygdala jump-starts the rest of the brain into analytical overdrive — prompting repeated reassessments of information in an attempt to create a coherent and understandable narrative, to understand what just happened, what threats still exist and what should be done now. This may be a useful way to understand how, writ large, the brain’s capacity for generating new narratives after shocking events can contribute to so much paranoia in this country.

“If you know the truth and others don’t, that’s one way you can reassert feelings of having agency,” Swami says. It can be comforting to do your own research even if that research is flawed. It feels good to be the wise old goat in a flock of sheep.

Surprisingly, Swami’s work has also turned up a correlation between conspiracy theorizing and strong support of democratic principles. But this isn’t quite so strange if you consider the context. Kathryn Olmsted, a historian at the University of California, Davis, says that conspiracy theories wouldn’t exist in a world in which real conspiracies don’t exist. And those conspiracies — Watergate or the Iran-contra Affair — often involve manipulating and circumventing the democratic process. Even people who believe that the Sandy Hook shooting was actually a drama staged by actors couch their arguments in concern for the preservation of the Second Amendment.

Our access to high-quality information has not, unfortunately, ushered in an age in which disagreements of this sort can easily be solved with a quick Google search. In fact, the Internet has made things worse. Confirmation bias — the tendency to pay more attention to evidence that supports what you already believe — is a well-documented and common human failing. People have been writing about it for centuries. In recent years, though, researchers have found that confirmation bias is not easy to overcome. You can’t just drown it in facts.

In 2006, the political scientists Brendan Nyhan and Jason Reifler identified a phenomenon called the “backfire effect.” They showed that efforts to debunk inaccurate political information can leave people more convinced that false information is true than they would have been otherwise. Nyhan isn’t sure why this happens, but it appears to be more prevalent when the bad information helps bolster a favored worldview or ideology.

In that way, Swami says, the Internet and other media have helped perpetuate paranoia. Not only does more exposure to these alternative narratives help engender belief in conspiracies, he says, but the Internet’s tendency toward tribalism helps reinforce misguided beliefs.

And that’s a problem. Because while believing George W. Bush helped plan the Sept. 11 attacks might make you feel in control, it doesn’t actually make you so. Earlier this year, Karen Douglas, a University of Kent psychologist, along with a student, published research in which they exposed people to conspiracy theories about climate change and the death of Princess Diana. Those who got information supporting the theories but not information debunking them were more likely to withdraw from participation in politics and were less likely to take action to reduce their carbon footprints.

Alex Jones, a syndicated radio host, can build fame as a conspiracy peddler; politicians can hint at conspiracies for votes and leverage; but if conspiracy theories are a tool the average person uses to reclaim his sense of agency and access to democracy, it’s an ineffective tool. It can even have dangerous health implications. For example, research has shown that African-Americans who believe AIDS is a weapon loosed on them by the government (remembering the abuses of the Tuskegee experiment) are less likely to practice protected sex. And if you believe that governments or corporations are hiding evidence that vaccines harm children, you’re less likely to have your children vaccinated. The result: pockets of measles and whooping-cough infections and a few deaths in places with low child-vaccination rates.

Psychologists aren’t sure whether powerlessness causes conspiracy theories or vice versa. Either way, the current scientific thinking suggests these beliefs are nothing more than an extreme form of cynicism, a turning away from politics and traditional media — which only perpetuates the problem.

Maggie Koerth-Baker is science editor at BoingBoing.net and author of “Before the Lights Go Out,” on the future of energy production and consumption.

A version of this article appeared in print on May 26, 2013, on page MM15 of the Sunday Magazine with the headline: Sure You Saw a Flying Saucer.

Why was a Sunday Times report on US government ties to al-Qaeda chief spiked?

http://ceasefiremagazine.co.uk/whistleblower-al-qaeda-chief-u-s-asset/

Excerpt:

Other intelligence experts agree that Edmonds had stumbled upon a criminal conspiracy at the heart of the American judicial system. In her memoirs, she recounts that FBI Special Agent Gilbert Graham, who also worked in the Washington field office on counter-intelligence operations, told her over a coffee how he “ran background checks on federal judges” in the “early nineties for the bureau… If we came up with xxxx – skeletons in their closets – the Justice Department kept it in their pantry to be used against them in the future or to get them to do what they want in certain cases – cases like yours.”A redacted version of Graham’s classified protected disclosure to the Justice Department regarding these allegations, released in 2007, refers to the FBI’s “abuse of authority” by conducting illegal wiretapping to obtain information on U.S. public officials.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2330674/Kennedy-assassination-How-emergency-room-JFK-died-demolished-stored-secret-underground-bunker-years.html