Gene Kelly

On 11/25/2023 at 12:23 PM, James DiEugenio said:

PS: The HSCA had limited resources, and only gained funding under the premise they were not re-investigating the case from scratch, but double-checking and adding to the scientific testimony, and pursuing new leads involving anti-Castro Cubans, the Mafia and CIA. So only a few witnesses called before the WC were asked to testify before the HSCA (such as Connally, and Marina), and this was mostly for show. 

I don't think this is really accurate Pat.

At the beginning, under Sprague, the HSCA was going to do a top to bottom reinquiry into the case. And Sprague asked for a large budget for that time.  This included forensic experts and technical equipment.  And at the time of Sprague's guidance, Jerry Policoff told me that he saw Ruth Paine at the archives going through files.  I think it is logical to assume she was looking at her past statements.

The HSCA took testimony from scores of people in public, and many, many more in informal interviews. I will admit that the approach was likely curtailed when Blakey came in.  Then it became I think much more reliant on being a critique of or a following of the previous inquiries. For example, in the reinvestigation of the Clinton/Jackson incident, the people who were sent up there were not allowed to interview anyone that Garrison had not.

But in the end, Blakey ended up giving back something like 400,000 dollars they did not use.

Jim and Pat:

Recall that the HSCA originally intended to interview George deMorenschildt. In March 1977, George was visiting a family friend in Manalapan, Florida. While he was there, George agreed to conduct an interview with Edward  Epstein for a feature story in Reader’s Digest. During the interview, HSCA investigator Gaeton Fonzi paid a visit to the home and left his business card with George’s daughter, and asked if he could call him once he (George) returned. George's daughter informed her father (in Spanish) to keep the house made - and to prevent the gardener from knowing what was going on - that Fonzi had dropped by. She gave him the business card and left to go shopping. Later that afternoon, George was found dead in his upstairs bedroom with a 'self-inflicted' gunshot wound. George's family insisted that he would’ve never committed suicide.

This all occurred while Sprague was still Chief Counsel, and before Robert Blakey took over the Committee.  If Fonzi was onto deMorenschildt, its likely he would've eventually pursued the Paines (imho). As you well know, in June 1977, Chairman Louis Stokes hired Blakey as chief counsel, and he along with Cornwell and Billings took over for Sprague and Robert Tanenbaum. And as you've written previously, when Robert Blakey took over, a veil of secrecy descended over the investigation, which steered the Committee away from investigating the role of the CIA and toward a predefined organized crime conclusion.

Gene

Agree on all points... I've always been intrigued by Shelley's role (he was after all Oswald's supervisor for 6 weeks) and he started at the Book Depository in 1945, and was still there (with Scott Foresman) in 1986.  That is quite a long time to stay in one posiition.  One wonders ... 

2 hours ago, Alan Ford said:

Mr. Kelly, an earlier account came to light in 2019. Agent James Hosty's draft report on that first interrogation. It exposes just how that Bookhout/Hosty join report misdirected the reader as to what Mr. Oswald really said-----------------

Regarding Mr. Shelley, there is no doubt Mr. Oswald did mention him. And I believe Mr. Shelley may have been the person who (under instruction) told Mr. Oswald to go to the Texas Theatre to meet a contact.

However, we have very good reason to believe that the man who cleared Mr. Oswald at the door was Mr. Truly, and that it happened no earlier than 12:40 p.m.

According to Postal Inspector Harry D. Holmes, Mr. Oswald in custody recalled being stopped at the front door ("The front entrance to the first floor" [Mr. Holmes]) by an officer, who only let him pass when he was cleared as an employee by his superintendent of the place. The superintendent of the place was Mr Roy Truly.

From Asst. Chief Charles Batchelor's report on the activities of Deputy Chief of Police George L. Lumpkin:

How on earth did Mr Oswald know the precise system that had been put in place several minutes after the shooting-----i.e. Mr Truly at the front door vouching for employees to a police officer? Because he had personally experienced it: Officer Kaminski was the officer who, having checked with Mr. Truly, allowed Mr. Oswald to step outside.

Mr. Billy Lovelady saw this front-door incident, and told Mr. James Jarman all about it. From Mr. Jarman's HSCA interview:

Well, there was a Billy Lovelady standing out there, he was on the steps, see... Oswald was coming out the door and [Lovelady] said the police had stopped Oswald and sent him back in the building, Billy Lovelady said that Mr. Truly told the policemen that Oswald was alright, that he worked there, so Oswald walked on down the stairs.

The Martin film shows that precise system in operation (Mr. Truly is standing behind the glass [right of screen]).
Mr. Lovelady is standing on the steps.
All as per Mr. Jarman's account.
Here, a black man is being ushered through the door here. Had Mr. Martin filmed a little before or after this moment, we would have footage of the scene as described by Mr. Lovelady to Mr. Jarman---------------Mr. Oswald being let out the front door:

NB! Mr. Oswald would have been given permission by Lt. Kaminski to step outside (as e.g. Mr. Bonnie Ray Williams here has). He was NOT given permission to leave the scene. But he did.

It's possible he spoke with Mr. Shelley after being cleared, going through the glass door, and coming off these front steps.

Thanks for the clarififcation and additonal detail Alan.  Very helpful.

The official Warren Commission account of Oswald’s activities have him leaving the Depository at 12:33 pm, just three minutes after the shooting (WR, p.156), implying some of Bookhout’s revised account may be inaccurate. But its clear that Oswald appears to have eaten his lunch before (not after) the assassination. Two of Oswald’s colleagues (Givens and Bonnie Ray Williams ) make it clear that Oswald ate his lunch before the shooting started. Other interview reports also confirm that Oswald was on the TSBD first floor when the President was shot.  

The lunchroom encounter, Vicki Adams' observations, and Prayerman front step debates also enter into this timeline, and there's obviously a lot of opinions in that regard.  But to me its clear that Oswald wasn't on the 6th floor, and that Shelley had to have a hand in his leaving the premises ... so he remains as a person of interest for me.

Gene

54 minutes ago, Joe Bauer said:

I'm sure many other researchers have done comprehensive studies of the combined timelines stated by almost all the witnesses who saw Oswald directly from just before 12:pm that day until after the shooting.

I have just read about 6 of those accounts via the JFK Witness Page internet site which shows their Warren Commission testimony and affidavits taken by others like the Dallas Police, the FBI, etc.

There are several timeline contradictions in the Oswald sighting accounts.

However, there are more timelines that match.

When Shelley and Arce took the elevator down from the 6th floor down to the second floor to have lunch, they gave a general timeline of 5 minutes before 12:pm.

Danny Arce said they encountered Oswald who told them to go on. Oswald was on the 6th or 5th floor. Arce wasn't sure about the exact floor.

Shelley said he went to his office to eat his lunch and spent 10 minutes there.

He then went down to the first floor to the lobby and then eventually went out the front door to the outside steps to watch JFK drive by.

Shelley said he saw Oswald using the first floor lobby wall mounted telephone when he ( Shelley) was there.

So, this was around 10 to 15 minutes after 12:pm?

Before I state all the other sightings of Oswald from 11:55 am to 12:10 or 12:15 in the lobby, let me just propose what a remarkable feat it must have been for Oswald to be running back and forth from the 6th floor to the first floor lobby while setting up his perch to do JFK at 12:30 pm.

And don't forget famous news journalist Robert MacNeil who stated Oswald directed him to a first floor phone just minutes after the shooting.

 

Joe

Robert MacNeil, an NBC reporter accompanying the five-city tour of Texas, ended up in the TSBD (looking for a pay phone) and saw a man using the phone who was (imho) most likely Shelley. In an affidavit made out that same afternoon, Shelley stated:

"I went back into the building and went inside and called my wife and told her what happened."

Shelley’s timeline following the shooting - compiled from various sources including his later Warren Commission testimony - is unfortunately inconsistent, leaving questions about where he actually was. A few minutes after MacNeil saw what he described as "three calm men" in the lobby of the TSBD, and after he made his own phone call to NBC News, Oswald apparently left the building.  I don't believe that MacNeil was ever able to identify Oswald as the person who directed him to the pay phone.  

I went immediately into the clear space on the ground floor and asked where there was a phone. There were, as I recall, three men there, all I think in shirt sleeves. What, on recollection, strikes me as possibly significant is that all three seemed to be exceedingly calm and relaxed, compared to the pandemonium which existed right outside their front door. I did not pay attention to this at the time. I asked the first man I saw—a man who was telephoning from a pillar in the middle of the room—where I could call from. He directed me to another man nearer the door, who pointed to an office. When I got to the phone, two of the lines were lit up. I made my call and left. …I was in too much of a hurry to remember what the three men looked like. But their manner was very relaxed. (Ref: FBI report of Oswald at the police station, Warren Report, p. 619).

Gene

Alan

I beleive that William Weston's thesis about Shelley is taken from reports filed by  FBI agents James Hosty and James Bookhout, who attended Captain Fritz’s first interview with Oswald. They wrote a joint report on 23 November, from notes taken on the 22nd. Hosty’s and Bookhout’s joint account of the first–day interview is the earliest surviving account of Oswald’s alibi. It implies this sequence of actions:

• At “approximately noon” Oswald ate his lunch in the domino room on the first floor.
• He then went up to the second floor, where he bought a Coke from the vending machine in the lunchroom.
• Finally, he went downstairs and was on the first floor when JFK came past.

A second FBI account of the first–day interview (after Oswald was dead) by Bookhout included an encounter with a policeman and being outside the building with Shelley. The earliest report contains no mention of Oswald being stopped by a police officer, as Fritz would later report:

OSWALD stated that on November 22, 1963, at the time of the search of the Texas School Book Depository building by Dallas police officers, he was on the second floor of said building, having just purchased a Coca–cola from the soft–drink machine, at which time a police officer came into the room with pistol drawn and asked him if he worked there. MR. TRULY was present and verified that he was an employee, and the police officer thereafter left the room and continued through the building. OSWALD stated that he took this Coke down to the first floor and stood around and had lunch in the employees’ lunchroom. He thereafter went outside and stood around for five or ten minutes with foreman BILL SHELLEY, and thereafter went home. (WR, p.619) 

The testimony of James Jarman and Harold Norman proved that Lee Oswald was on the first floor of the TSBD just a few minutes before the assassination. There also exists a cryptic version of Captain Fritz’s handwritten notes of Oswald’s interrogations of a claim by Oswald that he encountered a police officer while he was “out with Bill Shelley in front” of the TSBD.  At least is how I understand the extant record. 

Gene

3 hours ago, Jean Ceulemans said:

Thanks, I remember now reading it, I had forgotten some parts of it 

According to William Weston, about four or five years after the assassination, Scott Foresman and another publisher called Southwestern decided to sever ties with the Texas School Book Depository. They constructed a new building in the northwest part of Dallas, which both companies shared. Dorothy Ann Garner, a former office supervisor at Scott Foresman, was interviewed by Weston. Ms. Garner told him that around 1969, Shelley quit the Book Depository and began working for Scott Foresman ... he was still there when Garner retired in 1986.

Weston later contacted William Shelley on March 20, 1995, and asked him if he would be willing to answer questions; his response was an abrupt no, and then added, "Everything that I have to say on that subject is in the public record. You'll have to go with that."

Shelley is an interesting character ... he was in charge of a work crew that spent the entire morning on the same floor where the sniper's nest, rifle, and empty cartridges were found. Plus, Oswald (in his early DPD interviews) had named Shelley as the one who told him he could leave the building.  If Oswald had been talking to Shelley prior to his departure, then he must've seen him getting away. Not long after, Shelley told Roy Truly that Oswald was missing (but how he came to this conclusion was never publicly disclosed).

Robert MacNeil was an NBC reporter on the White House staff, accompanying the President on his five-city tour of Texas. MacNeil ended up in the TSBD (looking for a pay phone) and saw a man using the phone who was likely Shelley, who claimed "I went back into the building and went inside and called my wife and told her what happened." About a minute or two after MacNeil saw what he described as "three calm men" in the lobby of the TSBD, Oswald was told to leave by Shelley.

Gene

On 11/16/2023 at 8:07 AM, Jean Ceulemans said:

Do we know how long he kept working for the TSBD post 11/22 ?

 

Jean

See the article in Kennedys and King in April 2020 by William Weston "The CIA and the TSBD".   Shelley started work at the Book depository in 1945 ... and he was still there 30 years later (at a relocated building site) when he was interviewed in 1975 by a young journalist named Elzie Dean Glaze.  The so-called "Glaze letters" (one of which was sent to the HSCA) are intriguing.  William Hoyt Shelley passed away in 1996, at age 70.

Gene

On 8/7/2023 at 11:27 PM, James DiEugenio said:

Hallin's book is the best I know on this subject.

In fact its one of the best on the media overall.

HIs whole theory about Hallin's Circles, and how it defines and creates the conventional wisdom, is so interesting.

Jim

Hallin's book is indeed a good read.  He writes the following about Elegant's widely accepted accusation:

All wars produce legends, and the war in Vietnam was no exception. Perhaps the most enduring legend about Vietnam is that the way the war was reported cost the United States a victory. Robert Elegant, a long-serving Asia expert and a former Vietnam correspondent himself, puts this view succinctly: “For the first time in modern history, the outcome of a war was determined not on the battlefield but on the printed page and, above all, on the television screen . . . never before Vietnam had the collective policy --no less stringent a term will serve--sought, by graphic and unremitting distortion, the victory of the enemies of the correspondents’ own side.”

Having lived through this period (I am now 73 years old), I witnessed the press coverage first-hand.  And it wasn't just television coverage (or Walter Cronkite) ... it was newspaper articles and editorials, "specials" about the war, attending public rallies (pro/con), and most importantly, hearing first-hand from friends and acquaintances about their personal experiences.  Speaking for myself (and others), I didn't form opinions simply based on watching television or reading the paper ... frankly, the term "public opinion" is an abstract simplification (measured in part by polls).  The books would come later, but in those days (1964-1974) we were not yet mistrustful of the President or our government (although that would change dramatically with Richard Nixon). And I didn't read Halberstam's "The Best and the Brightest" until years after the war had ceased ...  I found the following excerpt from Hallin's book about the media coverage of the war to ring true:  

Far from undermining the Administration, it allowed state secrets of enormous political sensitivity to be contained. It helped the official perspective of the war to dominate the headlines. It propagated official lies. It never questioned American objectives. It kept the American public ignorant of the political tactics, history and programs of the North Vietnamese and the NLF (the Viet Cong). And worse--as in all wars--it helped its government to dehumanize the enemy, banish him from human society, paint him as fanatical, suicidal, half-crazed vermin.

Regarding the controversial Tet Offensive, Hallin's conclusion was that the reporting of Tet actually rallied Americans behind the war effort, writing:

When, for complex social and political reasons, public opinion turned against the war, the media began to reflect it. In short, the media did not lead the swing; they followed it. The classic example is the Tet Offensive in January 1968 when thousands of NLF and PAVN troops attacked U.S. and RVN installations throughout South Vietnam. As news of the Tet Offensive was released, more and more media outlets and journalists began questioning official sources and obtaining information themselves.

Here is a link to a well written 2021 review of Hallin's book by Thomas Richardson in History Here and Now where he points out how journalists and news anchors walk a fine line between reporting events and the interpretation as such:

https://historyhereandnowhhn.com/2021/12/17/reporting-from-vietnam-a-review-of-the-uncensored-war-the-media-and-vietnam-by-daniel-hallin/

Gene

Michael

I found Dr. Veith's article interesting ... as a physicist, I liked his opening statement:

When it comes to the Vietnam War, we face almost the same situation that we do with physics: there’s really no “grand unified theory” among either scholars or the public. The staggering complexity of that conflict resists any conclusive definition of what, precisely, it was about.

Veith was too young to have fought in the Vietnam War and has never been to the Southeast Asian country; his book "Black April" was sponsored/supported by Henry Kissinger and impressively based on interviews with 50 former South Vietnamese military. His work with the National League of Families of American Prisoners and Missing in Southeast Asia is commendable ... amazing that there are still 1,579 Americans listed as missing and unaccounted-for from the Vietnam War.  I also agree with his view that "the war was never black and white, but shades of grey reflecting multiple variations of truth.”  His list of myths and falsehoods that exist in the public understanding of the Vietnam War is also revealing, although I'm not sure that I would agree with his reasoning in all cases:

1. Myth 1: The US had no reason to be involved in Viet Nam
2. Myth 2: The Vietnam war was illegal and immoral
3. Myth 3: Ho Chi Minh was a nationalist and a benevolent leader 
4. Myth 4: The South Vietnamese government denied the people a free election on unification 
5. Myth 5: The Viet Cong were an idealistic nationalist group, just like the American Minutemen
6. Myth 6: The rationale for US intervention in Viet Nam was based on a fraud
7. Myth 7: The US military routinely used inhumane tactics on the people, while the VC were benefactors
8. Myth 8: The great majority of villagers were VC sympathizers, so no counterinsurgency programs ever succeeded
9. Myth 9: The Tet Offensive was a devastating blow to the US and SVN forces and a victory for the communists
10. Myth 10: Media coverage of the war was balanced and accurate and contributed to appropriate US policies

Gene

Michael

Wiley and Droge's 2004 interview didn't much impress me ... the former makes apologies for the Gulf of Tonkin chicanery and the latter wasn't really a journalist, but rather a government employee who worked for the Agency for International Development.

I did come across a 2020 paper by Brock J. Vaughan, Wilfrid Laurier University that examines the role that media played in coverage of Vietnam, and its effect in shaping the ultimate outcome of the Vietnam War.  Entitled "War, Media, and Memory: American Television News Coverage of the Vietnam War", it references quite a few sources and writers on this subject. Here is a link:

https://scholars.wlu.ca/bridges_contemporary_connections/vol4/iss1/5

The author states that:

" ... (media's) role is often "grossly overestimated yet should still not be discounted entirely". Television news war coverage was nonlinear in that it reflected the complexities of battle, thus revealing the complexities of war itself. Although American public support and military policy were not directly influenced by television news coverage, our collective memories of Vietnam were."

American military policy concerning Vietnam was influenced by public opinion (Mandelbaum 1982). However, there is little evidence that television positively or negatively affected public support for the war. McClancy (2013) notes that combat footage is widely believed to have negatively influenced public opinion, yet this simplistic view is “based on assumptions contradicted by any study of news footage of the time”. Bailey (1976) points out that critics often rely on “anecdote and impressionistic memory” for their claims that media coverage of Vietnam had a profound impact on public opinion and military conduct, without “systemic research” to back up their assertions. Many Americans claim that had the war in Vietnam not been televised, the U.S. would not have lost. According to Mandelbaum (1982), “this has become a truism, a part of conventional wisdom about recent American history”. Even President Johnson criticized the news media at the time. Those arguing that television was to blame for declining public support, resulting in America’s withdrawal, turn to supposed issues of bias in the press. The main problem with their assertions is that there was little, if any, bias in media coverage during the war.

Russo (1971) mentions the fact that what may be considered “fair” or “unfair” coverage will vary from person to person. Still, major networks did not favor any particular stories that would paint the U.S. government as incompetent and incapable of winning the war. Hallin (1984) concludes that the basic structure, level of integrity, and objective nature of journalism throughout the war was consistent and remained “more or less unchanged”. It is imperative to mention that investigative journalism was seldom featured in Vietnam news coverage, as most journalists relied on official government sources. After the highly controversial Tet Offensive, press coverage did become more skeptical. Some media reports brought to light the struggles American troops were having with guerrilla warfare, although Huebner (2005) is quick to note that these reports “did not question the professionalism or courage” of the soldiers, but rather revealed the difficulties faced in “their ability to get the job done in [a] particular locale of Vietnam”. To claim the media was pushing an agenda is foolhardy and does not do the complexity of the situation in Vietnam any justice.

The Vietnam War, Hallin (1993) states, “was the first war in which reporters were routinely accredited to accompany military forces yet were not subject to censorship”. Although, the Nixon Administration still “retained a good deal of power to ‘manage’ the news” (Hallin 1993). Huebner (2005) points to the lack of press censorship and “official control” of the media during the Vietnam Era, which was certainly not the case during WWII and the Korean War. However, journalists sometimes faced requests to withhold information regarding troop movements, and television networks had policies which governed the release of any footage that had the potential to upset the families of dead and wounded soldiers (Huebner 2005). Despite this, television correspondents did not attempt to shield viewers from the reality of life on the ground.

Gene

8 hours ago, Michael Griffith said:

Below are excerpts from another source that is available online: Colonel Harry Summers’ famous book On Strategy: The Vietnam War in Context (U.S. Army War College, 1982) (LINK). Among other things, Summers was a Vietnam veteran and a professor at the Army War College.

          As we will see, our so-called strategic offensive in the South was never more than a tactical offensive, since we were unable to carry the war to the enemy's main force-the North Vietnamese Army-and instead expended our energies against a secondary force-North Vietnam's guerrilla screen. From a military standpoint, both air and naval programs were inhibited by restrictions growing out of the limited nature of our conduct of the war... The bombing of North Vietnam was unilaterally stopped by the United States a number of times, for varying periods of time, in the hope that the enemy would respond by stopping his aggressive activities and reducing the scope and level of conflict. In every case the Communists used the bombing pause to rush troops and supplies to reinforce their army in South Vietnam. Such unilateral truce efforts, while judged politically desirable, accrued some temporary military disadvantages to successful prosecution of the war.”    But these bombing halts were more than "temporary military disadvantages." They were fatal flaws. As Clausewitz had warned:

          “If the enemy is to be coerced you must put him in a situation that is even more unpleasant than the sacrifice you call on him to make. The hardships of the situation must not of course be merely transient-at least not in appearance. Otherwise, the enemy would not give in but would wait for things to improve...."

  Ironically, the air offensive did have a strategic impact, but its impact was not on North Vietnam. The debate over the nature of our bombing campaign produced a strategic theory that was to have a devastating effect on American offensive operations--the theory of graduated response. In his analysis of the Vietnam war, Brigadier General Dave Palmer tells how this came about:

          “President Johnson overrode the objections of his intelligence and military advisors. Indeed, it is not at all clear whether Secretary McNamara ever even bothered to convey their arguments to him. Ambassador Taylor, still addressed as "General," had given his blessings to their theory, approval which apparently cancelled the objections of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Thus was born the strategy of "graduated response.'"" (pp. 72-73)

 

Michael

I am finding Colonel Harry Summers’ book an insightful read.  It draws a lot from the classic writing of Clausewitz in understanding North Vietnam's actions. I also don't live far from Carlisle and have visited the War College.  I found the following excerpt - about Clausewitz's wisdom of not only having the right strategy but the importance of "mobilizing the will of the people" - of interest:

By an ironic twist of fate, the animosity of the Officer Corps was drained off to a large extent by General William C. Westmoreland. On his shoulders was laid much of the blame for our Vietnam failure. According to a 1970 analysis, "For the older men, the villains tend to be timorous civilians and the left-wing press; for the younger men, they are the tradition-bound senior generals and the craven press. For one group, it is the arrogance of McNamara; for the other the rigidity of Westmoreland." Those then "younger men" now make up the majority of the Army's senior officers. For example, the Vietnam experience of the Army War College Class of 1980 was mostly at the platoon and company level. As will be seen in subsequent chapters, placing the blame on General Westmoreland was unfair, but, unfair or not, it did spare another innocent victim-the American people. The main reason it is not right to blame the American public is that President Lyndon Baines Johnson made a conscious decision not to mobilize the American people-to invoke the national will-for the Vietnam war.

Regarding John Kennedy's role and decisions, the following was of interest:

In the Vietnam war the problem was not so much coordination of effort toward a common objective as it was determining that objective in the first place. Contributing to this deficiency was the erosion of the NSC structure. According to Hoopes, "President Kennedy...scrapped the entire structure of the NSC." Instead he chose to rely on "irregular meetings at the White House attended by the President, [Secretary of State] Rusk, [Secretary of Defense] McNamara, and [National Security Advisor] Bundy, augmented from time to time by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Director of Central Intelligence, and others..." President Johnson inherited "this somewhat amorphous set of arrangements for foreign policy formulation, coordination, and control."

Just to show you that I am of an open mind ...

Gene

Michael

My mind is far from made up ... and Dr. Turner's qualifications are indeed impressive.  I did have a hard time following Robert Elegant's writing, and simply don't agree with his premise about the press.  My mention of Brock is only because I came across references to his book; the strategy described to promote conservative views reminded me of the tenor in your posts.  I am not interested in debating left-wing versus right-wing beliefs, nor do I appreciate being typecast in that context. I am interested in facts, and learning about the origins and political decisions that shaped the war. Bigger picture, it was a central topic in JFK's short tenure as president and his influence is of particular interest to me ... recall that the original thread topic (begun almost 4 months ago) is the Top Five Books on JFK and Vietnam.  

I lived through Vietnam and have friends and family who served; very few of them describe it as a "noble cause" nor do they characterize it as a conflict that we "won".  Not sure yet what to conclude about the Domino Theory but it doesn't seem to have panned out (opinions seem divided on that as well). Vietnam is obviously a complex story, and there's quite a lot written about it to digest.  I have only begun my reading and study, and I will take a look at Peter Braestrup's book.  

Gene

21 hours ago, Michael Griffith said:

Since you say that you have not made up your mind yet about the Vietnam War, and that you are still researching the subject, and since you seem to be searching for sources online (although somehow you only seem to find leftist sources), here are some online sources that I recommend:

How to Lose a War
http://academics.wellesley.edu/Polisci/wj/Vietnam/Readings/elegant.htm

Myths and Realities in the Vietnam Debate
http://www.viet-myths.net/turner.htm

 

Mike

Not sure where you're going with the insinuation that "somehow you only seem to find leftist sources".  I don't select articles and information based upon the political leanings of the authors. 

In "How to Lose a War: The Press and Viet Nam", Robert Elegant (a confidante of both Nixon and Kissinger), seems to put blame on the media and journalists for losing the war, and refers to "journalistic lemmings" stating:

But never before Viet Nam had the collective policy of the media—no less stringent term will serve—sought by graphic and unremitting distortion the victory of the enemies of the correspondents' own side.

In "Myths and Realities in the Vietnam Debate", Robert Turner (a public affairs fellow at Stanford's Hoover Institution on War, and member of the Council on Foreign Relations and Federalist Society), he seems to put blame on anti-war protestors for losing the war,

The people who protested against Vietnam were, in the overwhelming majority, as good, as decent, and as patriotic as any of us here. If you think I am suggesting that they were in any way evil, you have misunderstood me. But for all of their innocence, their actions had consequences. Because of their protest, tens of millions of people lost their freedom and millions of others lost their lives. Each protester will have to come to terms with that reality on their own.

Neither of these authors or their theses moved me. At the risk of provoking your political sensitivities, I did come across "The Republican Noise Machine: Right-Wing Media and How It Corrupts Democracy" by David Brock, who posits a deliberate strategy to promote conservative views and talking points in the mainstream media by:

1. fostering the illusion that the mainstream media has a liberal bias,
2. creating a phony academic body of entities (primarily think tanks, but also funded university programs) to manufacture "scholarship" that promotes the right-wing talking points so that they appear objective,
3. leveraging the perception of liberal bias in the media to demand "equal time" for presentation of the laundered right-wing media talking points as news.

Gene

On 7/27/2023 at 9:15 AM, Michael Griffith said:

 

As for the article about Army officer Donald Duncan, who quit after serving in Vietnam, Duncan is part of a very small minority of Vietnam veterans who have denigrated the war effort. The vast majority of Vietnam vets, when polled repeatedly, have said they view the war as honorable and are proud of their service, and a large majority of that vast majority have said they believe the war was winnable and that misguided restrictions from Washington prevented victory. But, of course, you choose to believe the small minority over the vast majority of Vietnam vets.

 

Michael

I don't think Duncan was part of a "very small minority" of veterans. I'd recommend that you read the 2017 paper "A Divided Front: Military Dissent During the Vietnam War" by Kaylyn L. Sawyer of Gettysburg College. ABelow are some excerpts from her summary:

The turmoil in social and economic spheres during the 1960s combined with contradictions about America’s role in Vietnam and realization of the government’s deception regarding the nature and progress of the war itself fueled the largest movement of servicemen and veteran dissent in this nation’s history.

This incidence of brutality at My Lai led the Vietnam Veterans Against the War to conduct the Winter Soldier Investigation, a hearing on war crimes, in 1971. Their goal was to prove that “the use of terror and mass destruction tactics against Vietnam’s civilian population was a pervasive phenomenon directly resulting from U.S. war policy.” Operation Speedy Express and the My Lai Massacre exposed the brutality of tactics, the failure of leadership, and the utter immorality of the body count strategy that could no longer be overlooked. Men serving in the Armed Forces, by this time, had seen enough hypocrisy, deception, and immorality in their leadership to justify dissent and outright disobedience. Over in Vietnam, soldiers saw clear evidence that the United States was neither supporting democracy nor the will of the South Vietnamese people.

Here is the link ... https://cupola.gettysburg.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1177&context=ghj

Another reference is "GI Resistance: Soldiers and Veterans Against the War," Vietnam Generation: Vol. 2 : No. 1 , Article 1. Available at: http://digitalcommons.lasalle.edu/vietnamgeneration/vol2

Gene

On 7/24/2023 at 5:44 PM, Michael Griffith said:

I am now reading Marc Selverstone's book and find much of what he says to be thought-provoking.  I am not as well-versed as you and others in this topic (the "great what-if" as it's called) but I am performing my due diligence. While not a student of military history, I lived through Vietnam and - thanks to your thread and challenges - have become more interested in what might have happened in a 2nd Kennedy term. 

I am glad to hear you are reading Selverstone's book.

I believe that each newly elected president inherits the decisions/policies of the previous administration (both good and bad).  As John Newman writes, Kennedy had a lot on his plate ... Vietnam in the early 1960's was a marginal issue compared with problems regarding Berlin, Cuba, Mississippi, the nuclear test ban treaty and Capitol Hill.  Nonetheless, JFK 'inherited' the Vietnam conflict similar to the Cuban Bay of Pigs from Dwight Eisenhower, who initially chose in 1954 to stay out of the French conflict (and not American commit troops). When Kennedy took office, Diem’s government appears to have been faltering. As Edward Cuddy wrote in 2003 in "Vietnam: Mr. Johnson's War or Mr. Eisenhower's?”:

After the partition of Vietnam into a communist North and pro-western South, Eisenhower chose to invest huge sums of money and prestige in transforming South Vietnam into a showcase of a new “free Asia.” Spending billions of dollars, sending military advisers, supporting the increasingly brutal tactics of the South Vietnamese regime of Ngo Dinh Diem—all this effort would help create a pro-American bastion in Southeast Asia and halt Communism. Yet it also left a terrible decision for his successors.

Dwight Eisenhower managed to avoid an American war in Vietnam during his two terms, but he invested so much American prestige and effort in the success of South Vietnam that by the end of the 1950s, America had become deeply invested in its fate. Eisenhower created an American Vietnam, and his successors would wage a bitter – and failed – war to keep it. Unfortunately, Eisenhower chose to ignore the Geneva Accords, committed America to South Vietnam, and played a major role, during and after his presidency, in creating the heavy pressures that shaped Lyndon Johnson's Vietnam decisions.

I think Cuddy's analysis is deeply flawed and some of his history is just wrong. For example, Ike had nothing to do with the huge North Vietnamese escalation that Johnson faced. That escalation was a direct result of the disastrous Hilsman-Lodge-Forrestal-Harriman-pushed coup against Diem in November 1963. We know from North Vietnamese sources that Hanoi's leaders were thrilled with Diem's removal, and that the political instability in South Vietnam following Diem's death led Ho Chi Minh and Le Duan et al to decide to vastly escalate their war effort. 

If you are interested in all sides of the debate and a good weighing of the pros/cons of this topic, I would refer you to Mark White's November 2020 essay in American Diplomacy entitled “Without Dallas: John F. Kennedy and the Vietnam War”, where he opines:. . . .

I have already read White's article. He makes a few mistakes in the article, and I disagree with his conclusion, but he does a decent of presenting both sides of the argument and does not pretend that he knows what JFK would have done in '64 and '65.

What I have learned thus far is that this "What-If" is a subject of fierce debate among historians, and there's no shortage of books, articles and opinions. What some conclude (notably Selverstone) is the best historians can do is to speculate about JFK’s real intentions in Vietnam.

Selverstone is undoubtedly correct. I am not aware of a single recognized historian who disagrees with the self-evident fact that we can only speculate about what JFK would have done if he had faced the same kind of massive North Vietnamese escalation that LBJ faced. Unless someone claims to have supernatural powers to divine what JFK would have done in that situation, a situation that he never came close to facing during his presidency, there is no way anyone can do more than theorize. 

I'm not sure what you infer by the "liberal/orthodox position on the war", but I remain open to all views and input.  Gene

It is a bit complicated. In terms of the civilian academic world, the view that the Vietnam War was wrong and unwinnable is the "orthodox" position. This position is held by most civilian academic scholars on the war, and the vast majority of those scholars are liberals. Scholars who disagree with the orthodox view are often called "revisionists" and their viewpoint is called revisionist/revisionism. Their view is the minority position in the civilian academic world.

In the military academic world, i.e., the military war colleges and historical divisions, the situation is different. Among Vietnam War veterans, the overwhelming majority believe the war was morally justified and winnable--we know this from a great deal of polling done by the DoD and by other institutions. 

All this being said, in the civilian world you have many Vietnam War scholars (1) who support the orthodox view but do so with crucial qualifications, or (2) who lean toward aspects of the revisionist view but who reject other aspects of that view. You also have some Vietnam War scholars who focus on certain aspects of the war without expressing a firm view on its morality and winnability. 

Michael

The following paper by Derek Shildler of Eastern Illinois University in 2008 provides a good description of the orthodox/revisionist positions and their advocates: "Vietnam’s Changing Historiography: Ngo Dinh Diem and America’s Leadership."  Here is a summary:

Three scholarly views have arisen and become increasingly heated. Orthodox scholars follow the traditional doctrine that America’s involvement in the war was unwinnable and unjust, while the revisionists believe that the war was a noble cause and Vietnam, below the 17th parallel, was a viable and stable country, but policies and military tactics were improperly executed. The heated debates have focused on two central issues—Ngo Dinh Diem and his reign over South Vietnam and poor leadership by American presidents and top officials. Orthodox scholars argue that Diem as a corrupt tyrannical puppet, while revisionists believe Diem was an independent leader who knew what was necessary to allow his young country to survive. According to the orthodox scholars, American presidents John Fitzgerald Kennedy and Lyndon Baines Johnson and other top officials did their best to control the situation in Vietnam, though the war was doomed from the beginning. Revisionists do not believe the war was lost on the battlefield but was lost due to poor decisions and lack of attention to the war. Recently, another group of scholars have weighed in on this subject. These scholars, post-revisionists, do not even admit defeat—arguing that the United States won the war by late 1970.

Gene

3 hours ago, Michael Griffith said:

28 hours ago, @Gene Kelly said:

Jim 

I've been following this extended debate and discussion about JFK, Diem and Vietnam.  I am also now reading Monika Wiesak's fine book, "America's Last President: What the World Lost When It Lost John F. Kennedy".  My question is, in your estimation, why did Foster Dulles and company originally back/support Diem?  Was it because they felt he was a controllable puppet?  Or perhaps a Catholic leader they thought could unite the north and south? 

Surely, they must've known how flawed and weak he was. But they had Edward Lansdale continue to prop him up as a leader.  What was their end game here? 

You should have directed these questions to someone whose research has not been so limited and one sided. 

Who says Diem was "weak"??? The standard complaint is that he was too forceful, too aggressive. Are we talking about the same Diem who crushed the Binh Xuyen (the South Vietnamese Mafia), subdued the Cao Dai and the Hoa Hao, and decimated the Communist movement in South Vietnam?

Diem's flaws paled in comparison to Ho Chi Minh's and Le Duan's flaws. 

And, FYI, Lansdale had very good reasons for supporting Diem, and he was by no means the only American official who thought highly of Diem.

Ike and John Foster Dulles opted for Diem because they believed he was the best anti-communist leader available, and they were right. 

On 7/22/2023 at 4:27 AM, @James DiEugenio said:

That is a good question.  

Because even Bao Dai thought that Phan Huy Quat was a better choice.  (Seth Jacobs, Cold War Mandarin, pp. 18-19) And Quat was both anti French and anti communist.

Phew! "Even" Bao Dai? "Even"? Once again you show you have no clue what you are talking about. Some relevant facts:

One, the indolent and corrupt Bao Dai disliked Diem because Diem was not a yes-man and because Diem would not go along with his corruption schemes. Two, when Diem began his crackdown on the South Vietnamese Mafia (the Binh Xuyen), Bao Dai tried to halt the crackdown because he was getting huge payoffs from the Binh Xuyen. Three, Phan Huy Quat, though a genuine anti-communist, did not possess half the leadership skills and force of character that Diem did. Four, Bao Dai supported the disastrous 1963 coup against Diem. And, five, at the prompting of the Hanoi regime, Bao Dai issued a statement in 1972 (from his home in France) calling for the withdrawal of American troops from South Vietnam but not for the withdrawal of North Vietnamese troops. 

Sheesh, "even Bao Dai." This is as discrediting as saying "Even Allen Dulles thought that Nixon was a better choice than JFK in the 1960 election."

I reviewed Selverstone.  

You did not really "review" Selverstone's book. You wrote a specious hit piece on it that ignores most of the evidence Selverstone presents, as anyone who reads his book and then reads your "review" can see. 

Really not worth reading.  

Leaving aside the fact that you have done only a small fraction of the research that Selverstone has done, why do you suppose that scholars from all across the spectrum have praised Selverstone's book? Why do you suppose you cannot cite a single recognized scholar who supports your fringe rejection of Selverstone's book? 

He actually said in an interview that it is hard to say what Kennedy would have done.
 
Uh, yeah, he "actually said" that because he, unlike you, is a credible scholar who recognizes the obvious fact that JFK was never confronted with the kind of massive North Vietnamese escalation that LBJ faced in '64 and '65. I have pointed out this fact to you many times, but you just keep ignoring it. As I have also pointed out to you, even Arthur Schlesinger Jr. likewise noted that we simply cannot say for sure what JFK would have done if he had been faced with the situation that LBJ faced. And, as I have further pointed out to you, in his April 1964 oral history interview, RFK himself indicated that JFK may have sent in combat troops if South Vietnam appeared to be on the verge of collapse ("were about to lose it").

Bundy, McNamara, and Taylor have all said that Kennedy was never going into Vietnam.  Those were his three major defense advisors. So why is it hard to tell?  Taylor even said that Kennedy was the one guy who stopped American intervention.

I refuted this collection of falsehood and distortion just a few days ago, yet here you are repeating it again. We both know that if you repeated this stuff in a forum of Vietnam War historians, even the liberal historians would strongly reject it. Even a fire-breathing anti-war historian such as Edwin Moise has flatly rejected this garbage. But you just keep peddling it.

18 hours ago, @Gene Kelly said:

Jacobs wrote that, following the removable of the emperor Bao Dai, the nation was led by a Confucianist authoritarian Ngo Dinh Diem, who gave preference to a Catholic minority (of which he was a part). 

Jacobs' book contains a lot of valid information, and I agree with much of what he says. However, he is wrong in repeating the myth that Diem favored Catholics at the expense of everyone else. Actually, the substantial majority of the members of Diem's administration were non-Catholics, and most of the generals who supported him were also non-Catholics. In addition, Diem did a great deal to help the Buddhists. 

You will get a more balanced view of Diem in such books as Tuong Vu's The Republic of Vietnam, 1955-1975 (a compilation with chapters authored by numerous Vietnamese scholars) and Canadian historian Dr. Geoffrey Shaw's The Lost Mandate of Heaven: The American Betrayal of Ngo Dinh Diem. Some of the Asia scholars who have praised Dr. Shaw's book include Thomas Marks, Nghia M. Vo, Andrew Finlayson, and William Stearman.

While interesting to consider, Marc Silverstone's thesis doesn't convince me.

It sounds like you have no intention of reading Selverstone's widely acclaimed book, or any other book that challenges the liberal/orthodox position on the war. 

It's simply not credible that JFK would've escalated similar to LBJ in the ensuing years. 

Exactly why is it "simply not credible" that JFK would have escalated similarly to the way LBJ did when faced with the same massive North Vietnamese escalation that LBJ faced in 1964 and 1965, given the fact that JFK escalated dramatically from 1961 through 1963 when faced with a far smaller North Vietnamese escalation than the one LBJ faced?

You realize that JFK increased our military presence in South Vietnam from a few hundred troops in January 1961 to 16,000 troops by late 1963, right? (They were not regular infantry troops but were armed troops nonetheless, and hundreds of them were specialized combat troops, i.e., various kinds of special forces troops). 

A New York Journal of Books review states that "Silverstone speculates about JFK’s real intentions in Vietnam, suggesting that Kennedy and his national security team would probably have acted on the basis of the military situation on the ground as it evolved over the next several years". But the reviewer also points out that most of the people advising Johnson on Vietnam after Kennedy’s death were Kennedy’s people. 

The fact that LBJ escalated our involvement when most of his adviers were JFK's people should suggest that JFK had no intention of abandoning South Vietnam after the war, should it not? This is especially logical given the fact that the LBJ White House tapes reveal that never did any of the LBJ's former JFK advisers say anything like "hey, we should not escalate because JFK planned on withdrawing unconditionally after the election!" 

In one very revealing recording, LBJ is criticizing McNamara for having announced a withdrawal shortly before JFK's death, yet not once does McNamara attempt to defend the withdrawal announcement by saying anything such as "Hey, I'll have you know that JFK himself told me that he was going to pull out of Vietnam after the election no matter what." Neither McNamara nor any other former Kennedy adviser ever uttered one word on the White House tapes about any intention to abandon the war effort after the election. 

Michael

I am now reading Marc Selverstone's book and find much of what he says to be thought-provoking.  I am not as well-versed as you and others in this topic (the "great what-if" as it's called) but I am performing my due diligence. While not a student of military history, I lived through Vietnam and - thanks to your thread and challenges - have become more interested in what might have happened in a 2nd Kennedy term. 

I believe that each newly elected president inherits the decisions/policies of the previous administration (both good and bad).  As John Newman writes, Kennedy had a lot on his plate ... Vietnam in the early 1960's was a marginal issue compared with problems regarding Berlin, Cuba, Mississippi, the nuclear test ban treaty and Capitol Hill.  Nonetheless, JFK 'inherited' the Vietnam conflict similar to the Cuban Bay of Pigs from Dwight Eisenhower, who initially chose in 1954 to stay out of the French conflict (and not American commit troops). When Kennedy took office, Diem’s government appears to have been faltering. As Edward Cuddy wrote in 2003 in "Vietnam: Mr. Johnson's War or Mr. Eisenhower's?”:

After the partition of Vietnam into a communist North and pro-western South, Eisenhower chose to invest huge sums of money and prestige in transforming South Vietnam into a showcase of a new “free Asia.” Spending billions of dollars, sending military advisers, supporting the increasingly brutal tactics of the South Vietnamese regime of Ngo Dinh Diem—all this effort would help create a pro-American bastion in Southeast Asia and halt Communism. Yet it also left a terrible decision for his successors.

Dwight Eisenhower managed to avoid an American war in Vietnam during his two terms, but he invested so much American prestige and effort in the success of South Vietnam that by the end of the 1950s, America had become deeply invested in its fate. Eisenhower created an American Vietnam, and his successors would wage a bitter – and failed – war to keep it. Unfortunately, Eisenhower chose to ignore the Geneva Accords, committed America to South Vietnam, and played a major role, during and after his presidency, in creating the heavy pressures that shaped Lyndon Johnson's Vietnam decisions.

If you are interested in all sides of the debate and a good weighing of the pros/cons of this topic, I would refer you to Mark White's November 2020 essay in American Diplomacy entitled “Without Dallas: John F. Kennedy and the Vietnam War”, where he opines:

Kennedy’s manifest capacity to reject his military’s hawkish advice, his shift towards a more conciliatory foreign policy in 1963 and his enhanced credibility in international affairs due to his successful management of the Cuban missile crisis (and hence the limited pressure he would have felt to prove in Vietnam that he could cut the mustard on the world stage) indicate that Kennedy would probably have decided against going to war in Vietnam.  His default approach to politics and policy was caution, in sharp contrast with his private life.  Putting his presidency on the line by fighting a land war in Southeast Asia would not ultimately be a decision he could have made with equanimity.

What I have learned thus far is that this "What-If" is a subject of fierce debate among historians, and there's no shortage of books, articles and opinions. What some conclude (notably Selverstone) is the best historians can do is to speculate about JFK’s real intentions in Vietnam. I'm not sure what you infer by the "liberal/orthodox position on the war", but I remain open to all views and input.  

Gene

1 hour ago, Steve Thomas said:

Gene,

I can't think of the FPCC without thinking of these two guys.

This is from the Simkin Educational Forum pages:

"On 1st June, 1953, [Jack] Caulfield joined the New York City Police Department. Caulfield spoke fluent Spanish and therefore two years later he was transferred to the NYPD's Bureau of Special Service and Investigation (BOSSI).

Caulfield also investigated political groups including the American Nazi Party, the Fair Play For Cuba Committee (FPCC) and a terrorist group based in Canada.

 

(ed. note: BOSSI was New York City’s Red Squad.)

 

In 1949 [Tony] Ulasewicz joined the NYPD's Bureau of Special Service and Investigation (BOSSI).

Richard Nixon defeated Hubert Humphrey in the 1968 presidential election and in April, 1969, Caulfield was appointed as Staff Assistant to the President. Soon afterwards Nixon decided that the White House should establish an in-house investigative capability that could be used to obtain sensitive political information. After consulting John Ehrlichman and H. R. Haldeman the job was given to Caulfield.

Caulfield now appointed an old friend, Tony Ulasewicz, to carry out this investigative work."

 

Steve Thomas

Shades of Chappaquiddick ...

Thanks Jim ... Seth Jacobs work is an interesting read.  I also plan to get John Newman's "JFK and Vietnam: Deception, Intrigue, and the Struggle for Power".  The book summary describes "an intense power struggle that plagued the Kennedy Administration before the Vietnam War" ... Newman contends that the president's advisors conspired to deceive Kennedy and push the United States into combat (similar to what occurred with Cuba and Bay of Pigs). There is also Howard Jones 2004 book "Death of a Generation: How the Assassinations of Diem and JFK Prolonged the Vietnam War".  In a concluding chapter entitled "The Tragedy of JFK" he states:

Just as the withdrawal plan moved closer to implementation, President Kennedy was assassinated on November 22, 1963, bringing the process to a close. His successor, Lyndon B. Johnson, assured Americans that he would continue his predecessor's domestic and foreign policies. Indeed, Newsweek observed that the White House intended to fulfill its October 2 decision to withdraw 1,000 troops by the end of the year. In a bitter irony, however, Johnson's pledge to continuity helped to undermine the rest of the withdrawal plan because the Kennedy administration had so carefully kept its existence from public view that any further troop reduction would appear to repudiate previous policy. The United States still intended to withdraw the first thousand troops in Vietnam by the end of the year; but the Johnson administration escalated the nation's military involvement, and the heart of the plan soon died.

While interesting to consider, Marc Silverstone's thesis doesn't convince me.  It's simply not credible that JFK would've escalated similar to LBJ in the ensuing years. A New York Journal of Books review states that "Silverstone speculates about JFK’s real intentions in Vietnam, suggesting that Kennedy and his national security team would probably have acted on the basis of the military situation on the ground as it evolved over the next several years". But the reviewer also points out that most of the people advising Johnson on Vietnam after Kennedy’s death were Kennedy’s people.

Gene

David

I would recommend reading the informative three-part essays by Paul Bleau in Kennedys and King, "Exposing the FPCC".  In a related Bleau's article, "The Three Failed Plots to Kill JFK", he describes/links eight subjects who shared similar traits to Oswald.  Eight of the nine subjects profiled are connected to cities visited by Kennedy during the six months that preceded his assassination. Each of these cities was a territory exploited criminally by Mafiosi of interest.

• At least three moved to the cities and got employment in strategically located buildings along the motorcade route shortly before the planned presidential visit.
• Seven were ex-military and eight of them exhibited behavior that can very plausibly be linked to intelligence gathering or Cuban exile interaction.
• Seven were directly linked to the FPCC; seven of them had visited Mexico City, and six attempted to visit Cuba, three of them successfully.
• Seven had links to Cuban/Latino exiles.
• Six were described as having psychological problems and seven exhibited anti-Kennedy behavior… but none were probed seriously by the Warren Commission.

Researchers (e.g., Bill Simpich, John Newman) and Garrison investigators maintain that Oswald was being sheep-dipped so that the Soviets or Cubans could be blamed. Paul and others point out that four of the patsies (including Nagell) could be linked to the FPCC adds even more credence to this claim. It is also interesting to note that one of the mysterious investigators for the Chicago plot, Daniel Groth, had intelligence links and was likely tasked with monitoring the FPCC. When Oswald, already notorious for his Russian adventure, opened an FPCC chapter in, of all places, New Orleans by the middle of 1963, one can assume that he was a known quantity to all the agencies. And there is evidence that Oswald agitated for the FPCC in Dallas before moving to New Orleans.

The opening of a Miami FPCC chapter in 1963 by Santiago Garriga is more evidence of illegal domestic espionage on or through the FPCC by the CIA. According to Bill Simpich, author of State Secret, Garriga’s resumé was perfect for patsy recruiter/runners - interaction with Cuban associates in Mexico City; seemingly pro-Castro behavior; and his crowning achievement: like Oswald in 1963, he opened an FPCC chapter in a market deemed very hostile for such an enterprise. Garriga also represents a potential fall guy who is the most clearly linked with intelligence.

According to According to John Newman, the CIA - led by David Phillips and James McCord - began monitoring the FPCC in 1961. In December 1962, the CIA joined with the FBI in the AMSANTA project.  A September 1963 memo divulged an FBI/CIA plan to use FPCC fake materials to embarrass Cuba. There are strong indicators that the CIA efforts to penetrate and use the FPCC were local and illegal––such as spying on U.S. citizen/members of the FPCC.

This FPCC was definitely a creation/creature of the CIA.

Gene

On 7/22/2023 at 4:27 AM, James DiEugenio said:

That is a good question.  

Because even Bao Dai thought that Phan Huy Quat was a better choice.  (Seth Jacobs, Cold War Mandarin, pp. 18-19) And Quat was both anti French and anti communist.

But Diem had been in the USA for awhile. His big backer was Wesley Fishel at Michigan State who had ties to the CIA, as did the university president John Hannah. But there was also Spellman and he was important since he knew a lot of people in NYC and Washington. And he  likely got him an audience with Pope Pius in Rome.

The next year, 1951, he got an interview with the State Department chief of Indochina. He attacked Bao Dai and said that he would give the country over to the commies.  That got him an interview with Acheson. From then, Spellman set him up at Maryknoll Seminary. He was in the USA for about three years.  One commentator said that his catholicism was his greatest asset.  This had an appeal in America.  And Diem then began to speak at eastern and midwestern universities.  This got him some good newspaper and magazine coverage.

When that happened Spellman connected him with Justice William O. Douglass at the Yale Club in NYC. Douglass then introduced him to John McCormack, a higher up in the House.  He then told  Robert Amory of the CIA. about him.  Once Dien Bien Phu fell, then this was the choice Boa Dai made. Knowing full well that Diem had backers in DC.

The French officials did not like it since they thought Diem would fail.  But once Bao Dai picked him, the CIA and Foster Dulles sent Lansdale over to usher him in.

Thanks for the feedback, Jim. 

I did some research into this topic of Diem, specifically the work of Seth Jacobs who is an Associate Professor in History at Boston College and teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in American military and diplomatic history, the Vietnam War, the Cold War, and America in the 1950s.  He authored "Cold War Mandarin: Ngo Dinh Diem and the Origins of America’s War in Vietnam" among other works.  In a 2004 paper by Jacobs entitled, “America’s Miracle Man in Vietnam: Ngo Dinh Diem, Religion, Race, and U.S.” he makes the following comment:

Americans had a number of “ideas, notions, and images … in their heads” about Asia, and these made up the universe within which U.S. government officials weighed options and fashioned strategies. American ideas, notions, and images— specifically racist and religious ones—led policymakers to conclude that Diem was the perfect viceroy to prevent South Vietnam’s absorption by the red empire. These long-implanted biases enabled Washington officials to ignore or reject the accumulating evidence that their policy was not working.

Jacobs wrote that, following the removable of the emperor Bao Dai, the nation was led by a Confucianist authoritarian Ngo Dinh Diem, who gave preference to a Catholic minority (of which he was a part). He describes Diem as a Vietnamese who, while he had worked as a civil servant in French Indochina, had strong credentials both as a nationalist and anti-communist. He left Vietnam between 1950 and 1954, in part, due to credible Communist threats on his life. He also distrusted the Bao Dai proto-state relationship with France.

Jacobs describes the "Diem Experiment" which began on July 7, 1954, when Ngo Dinh Diem, the Prime Minister of South Vietnam, took control of the South Vietnamese government. During the initial stages, Diem inspired little confidence in the South Vietnamese, Americans, and French, but the Eisenhower administration welcomed Diem's rise to power. Jacobs gives Diem credit for being an effective networker ... like most politicians, he cultivated the support of influential patrons by seeking out their company and telling them what they wanted to hear. Jacobs described a pivotal May 1953 luncheon where Diem made the acquaintance of Senator Mike Mansfield, who was instrumental in keeping Diem in office during the subsequent Battle for Saigon (along with Cardinal Spellman), characterizing that meeting as “one of the most fateful encounters of the postwar era”.  But Jacobs does not portray Diem as a puppet.  He wrote the following:

Diem was shrewd enough to understand that American cold warriors came in different stripes and responded to different overtures; thus, he emphasized his devoutness when lobbying conservative Catholics like Spellman and played the “third force” card to great effect with liberals like Kennedy, Mansfield, and Buttinger. More important, Diem had the perspicacity to build a power base in the United States. While other anticommunist Vietnamese like Phan Huy Quat, Tran Van Huu, and Nguyen Van Tam conducted their campaigns for the premiership either in their native land or with Bao Dai on the French Riviera, Diem concentrated for the most part on winning over American government officials and influential private citizens. He recognized that Washington, not Paris or Saigon, would have the final say in determining who occupied the Norodom Palace.  

Gene

Jim 

I've been following this extended debate and discussion about JFK, Diem and Vietnam.  I am also now reading Monika Wiesak's fine book, "America's Last President: What the World Lost When It Lost John F. Kennedy".  My question is, in your estimation, why did Foster Dulles and company originally back/support Diem?  Was it because they felt he was a controllable puppet?  Or perhaps a Catholic leader they thought could unite the north and south? 

Surely, they must've known how flawed and weak he was. But they had Edward Lansdale continue to prop him up as a leader.  What was their end game here? 

Thanks,

Gene

9 minutes ago, Joseph Backes said:

 

Yes, the cancelling of the FBI Security flash on Oswald was important and very odd, inexplicable if you're not involved in the conspiracy to kill JFK. If you're not, then why did you do this? 

But there was a key event before LHO went to MC that is crucial.  The CIA asked permission from the FBI about doing something targeting the FPCC and it had an international aspect to it as well.  They are a little vague about exactly what they're planning to do.  But, they get it. This is before LHO goes to MC.  And it is a big thing largely overlooked by people interested in MC.  MC would not have happened at all without this. I think this also involved Marvin Gheesling and Lambert Anderson.  This is mentioned in one of John Newman's books.  

Joe  

Joe

I tried to dig into Gheesling a little, but there's not much out there.  I tend to think that he was duped, and just doing his job.  He retired (after being banished to a field office as punishment) and died in 1982 (buried in a Catholic ceremony).  There does however exist some doubt about Lambert Anderson, who may've convinced Gheesling to remove the FBI flash.

Lambert Anderson was one of the two agents at FBI headquarters who had been specifically charged with handling the Oswald file. He was also involved in running a joint FBI-CIA operation targeting the pro-Castro Fair Play for Cuba Committee for disruption. In the second half of 1963, Lambert Anderson held down the Cuban desk for the FBI’s Nationalities Intelligence division.  Simpich labels Anderson as "an intriguing character", as he was with Nationalities Intelligence, had the FPCC file, and he was "the new guy" at the Cuban desk. He answered to Branigan and Robert Lenihan, who were the case supervisors of the Domestic Intelligence Division.  He only served with the Cuban section for a short period of time, a few months in 1963.  Anderson was “fairly new" and "not considered to be an expert on Cuba.”

Bill Simpich believes that a more likely reason (for removing the FBI security flash) is that "Anderson got wind of a tip that Oswald was of some use to the FBI".  Simpich raises a question of whether Gheesling and Anderson took Oswald off the security watch list based solely on the report about Oswald's cooperation with the FBI, or whether they had also been tipped off that a molehunt was about to begin with Oswald's file. He concludes that "the timing would suggest that both factors were in play". Anderson was also 'censured for not putting Oswald on the security index, as well as CIA Soviet Section Chief Bill Branigan for his overall responsibility.  But Simpich makes it clear that "the record is unequivocal that Gheesling was the man most severely punished – and his punishment was specifically based, at least in part, for cancelling the flash on Oswald". Gheesling was a 33-year veteran of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and worked for the Michigan office as a specialist in espionage cases until his retirement in 1976.

Ann Egerter is a person of interest here ... she was interviewed by HSCA investigators on 3/31/78 and asked to use an alias. Egerter complained to the CIA after her deposition was over that she had not done well, citing her problem with the “Lee Henry” handwriting on documents, among a host of other issues. Her deposition of 5/17/78 remains one of the only depositions - if not the only deposition - still classified more than thirty years later.

Gene

On 7/1/2023 at 7:52 PM, Benjamin Cole said:

JB--you sure know your stuff.

Ben

To build on what Joe shared, Jane Roman was interviewed by Jefferson Morely at her house on Newark Street in Cleveland Park on November 2, 1994. He was accompanied by a colleague, John Newman.  Here is a link to a summary of that interview from History Matters: "What Jane Roman Said: A Retired CIA Officer Speaks Candidly About Lee Harvey Oswald" by Jefferson Morley

https://www.history-matters.com/essays/frameup/WhatJaneRomanSaid/WhatJaneRomanSaid_2.htm

Some interesting observations and comments by Morley ...

Roman insisted I tell her how I had found her. I said, ridiculously, that I had my sources. She said she wanted to know or she didn’t see the need to go any further. I promptly folded. “I found the property records on your daughter’s condo,” I said. Roman nodded and seemed grimly satisfied. I pulled out my tape recorder and she balked again. Newman reassured her that taping was the best protection for all concerned. She relented.

Listening to the tape of the 75-minute interview that ensued, I am struck by several things. Above all, the tone is professional. Newman and Roman spoke as colleagues in the intelligence business. They understood what the other one was saying. Newman was assertive, well prepared, self-possessed. Roman was circumspect, thoughtful and concise. Right from the start, Roman and Newman parried with revealing results.

Gene

22 hours ago, Joseph Backes said:

Newman picked Angleton in the updated version of "Oswald and the CIA," I believe.  

Makes sense Joe ... Angleton was close to Dulles (see the photo from Allen Dulles funeral), and also kept the false defector Nosenko under wraps. I speculate that Russia knew what happened and sent Nosenko to distance them from the setup (and the Kostikov "virus balloon"). And it was the suspect mole Bruce Solie who "cleared" Nosenko.  Lots of intrigue here.

I am also puzzled by the Marvin Gheesling/Lambert Anderson who cancelled an FBI security flash on October 9th ... after two misleading CIA cables about Mexico City.  And only days later, Oswald is hired at the TSBD.  Bill Simpich concluded that the flash was removed because CIA/FBI were using Oswald in some kind of intelligence-related operation.  He is giving the benefit of the doubt to Gheesling and Anderson.  Gheesling was punished and transferred from HQ to a field office (and as Newman points out, 33 other agents were disciplined by Hoover).  It seems the "Kostikov Virus Balloon" effectively blackmailed the FBI into cover their reputation later.  What little I've read about Gheesling tells me he wasn't complicit, but rather used ... not so sure about Anderson. 

Gene

19 hours ago, Greg Doudna said:

The caller (who seems to not be Oswald) does NOT refer to Kostikov--that is the Russian person answering the phone at the Soviet consulate who volunteers the name.

October 1 at 11:30 a.m.

The same voice, still speaking in broken Russian, telephones the Russian Consulate. He speaks to a man identified as "Obyedkov."

Oswald: Hello, this is Lee Oswald. I was at your place last Saturday and talked to your Consul. They said they'd send a telegram to Washington and I wanted to ask you whether there was anything new, but I cannot remember the name of the Consul.

Obyedkov: Kostikov. He is dark?

Oswald: Yes. My name is Oswald.

Obyedkov: Just a minute. I'll find out. They say they have not received anything yet.

Oswald: Have they done anything?

Obyedkov: Yes, they say a request has been sent out, but nothing has been received yet.

Oswald: And what...

Obyedkov: (hangs up)

(source: https://www.newsweek.com/transcript-lee-harvey-oswald-calls-soviet-embassy-revealed-jfk-file-release-701924)

Since it seems to be an impersonator calling, and the impersonator says "I cannot remember the name", could this be a phishing call? The US side knows Oswald went in and talked inside but does not know to who exactly, and is trying to find out more information? The phishing call gets lucky and a name is learned?

Good clarification Greg ...