Cliff Varnell

I prefer to leave that speculation to those better informed on the matter. As to the current DiEugenio-Cloud debate over Moynihan, on a lark I googled "Averell Harriman Daniel Patrick Moynihan" and found that Moynihan worked for Harriman for 3 years when Ave was Governor of New York. Count Prescott Bush, Richard Bisssell, and Pat Moynihan as among Harriman's proteges. Normally I'd recoil from discussions with someone whose solipsistic terminology ("the Ramparts crowd," "the Left wanted Vietnam") was matched with a condescending attitude -- but I make an exception in Matt's case. I've long wondered if Harriman had a hand in Watergate. Ave spent 7 months in 1968 negotiating a peace deal with North Vietnam only to have Nixon scuttle it right before the election. Ave was angling for the Sec of State slot in a Humphrey Administration. Was Watergate Ave's revenge? Moynihan as Deep Throat? Deserves a look.

Fine and dandy, but I don't do the Oswald Assassination. I leave the LHOA to others.

The main architects of that policy were George Kennan, Robert Lovett and Averell Harriman. That's your idea of "the Left"? The Rockefellers and the Dulles brothers were "the Left"? In 1959 Nikita Khrushchev toured the United States. His first stop was Washington DC, his next stop New York City. From Spanning the Century The Life of W. Averell Harriman, by Rudy Abramson, pg. 575 <quote on> In his second-floor drawing room, Harriman gathered leaders from mining, manufacturing, oil, chemicals, banking, and insurance industries, including John D. Rockefeller III; General David Sarnoff, chairman of RCA; Frank Pace, chairman of General Dynamics Corporation; W. Alton Jones, chairman of Cities Service Corporation; and John J. McCloy, chairman of Chase Manhattan Bank. By his estimate, scribbled on a yellow legal pad before Khrushchev arrived, they represented assets of some $38 billion. Among them, as witnesses to history, were a few men of ordinary means, former ambassadors, educators, and, notably, Rockefeller Foundation president Dean Rusk, and Harvard economist John Kenneth Galbraith, the latter having invited himself as a "representative of the proletariat." Surround by Picassos and Derains, their voices muffled by Persian carpets, the capitalist Titans greeted the Communist chieftain one by one, then sat in a semi-circle savoring caviar and sipping champagne and New York wine as Averell conducted his exposition of capitalism, war profits, and American politics. No one present, nor any of their friends, he and the others assured the guest of honor, favored world tensions. The assembled war profiteers, said the host, were men who'd champion disarmament the moment it became safe for the United States. There was not a hint, however, that mingling with the millionaires did anything except reinforce Khrushchev's belief that he was then in the presence of the men who controlled America far more than Eisenhower and the members of Congress he had met in Washington. One testimonial to free enterprise followed another. And when the Soviet leader reasserted his stubborn belief that the men present composed the country's ruling circle, Galbraith later tattled, "Somebody demurred, but in perfunctory fashion." After it was over, Harriman insisted that the Soviet leader had gained insights of "real importance." <quote off> Note the heavy Rockefeller presence -- John D. 3, McCloy and Rusk. A bunch of lefties, Matt? YOU brought up "the Ramparts crowd." What was that other than an unjustified smear? YOU stated -- "The Left wanted Vietnam." But "the Left" opposed the Vietnam War. Were you around in the 60's, Matt? Averell Harriman was a "Trotskyite"? So the 50's were all about John Birch Society propaganda? Be specific, please. How did Bircher propaganda create a fissure in the Democratic Party? In 1952 Adlai Stevenson was a reluctant Democratic nominee -- his main competition was Estes Kefauver. How did they fit your "hard-line"/"appeaser" narrative? In 1960 a neo-con Democratic Senator from Washington became Chair of the Democratic National Committee -- for 6 months, then he drifted back into obscurity until 1972. Henry "Scoop" Jackson. In 1968 three Democrats ran for President -- Robert Kennedy, Eugene McCarthy and eventual nominee Hubert Humphrey. Do they fit your hard-line/appeaser narrative? In 1972 the McGovern wing of the Democratic Party and the Scoop Jackson wing of the Democratic Party emerged. Was that what you were thinking of?

After 1968? I thought we were discussing the '63-'64 lead up to the escalation of the Vietnam War. By the end of 1968 the American Left had been protesting the Vietnam War for almost 4 years. Where do you get the idea "the Ramparts crowd" -- Warren Hinckle and Robert Scheer most notably -- felt Halberstam and Sheenhan represented the American Left more than writers like I.F. Stone, Norman Mailer, Paul Krassner or Ralph Gleason? You got that right. In my book the JFKA Critical Community is chock-full of self-aggrandizing hustlers who've failed to grasp the significance of physical evidence in a cold case murder investigation. Me, I only tout ONE fact: JFK was murdered by a military-style ambush involving multiple shooters. Everything else is speculation. How did you verify the bona fides of these associated persons? So tell us -- who did it?

Since when did David Halberstam and Neil Sheehan represent "the Left"? Or W. Averell Harriman and the anti-Diem faction within the CIA? Unless you were privy to the inner counsels of the plotters you can't state that as a fact.

Ellen J. Hammer, A Death in November, pg 156: <quote on, emphasis in the original> When [Diem and Nhu] had first claimed that Americans were active behind the scenes in the agitation spreading in Saigon, they had sounded paranoid – a favorite word among Americans for Diem and Nhu that summer. But who could disbelieve [David] Halberstam, with his excellent sources in the Central Intelligence Agency, when he reported that the CIA had been openly sending its agents into the pagodas and making daily contact with Buddhist priests and “other participants in this crisis”? These agents were acting under orders – and they did not go to the pagodas to discuss the finer points of Buddhism. <quote off> James W. Douglass, JFK and the Unspeakable, pg 192: <q> Kennedy was losing control of his government. In early September, he discovered that another key decision related to a coup had been made without his knowledge. A White House meeting with the president was discussing whether or not to cut off the Commodity Import Program that propped up South Vietnam's economy. It was a far reaching decision. For the United States to withdraw the AID program could prompt a coup against Diem. David Bell, head of AID, made a casual comment that stopped the discussion. He said, "There's no point in talking about cutting off commodity aid, I've already cut it off." "You've done what?" said John Kennedy. "Cut off commodity aid," said Bell. "Who the hell told you to do that?" asked the president. "No one," said Bell. "It's an automatic policy. We do that whenever we have differences with a client government." Kennedy shook his head in dismay. "My God, do you know what you've done?" said the president. He was staring at David Bell, but seeing a deeper reality. Kennedy knew Bell's agency, AID, functioned as a CIA front. AID administrator David Bell would not have carried out his "automatic" cutoff without CIA approval </q>

In Saigon, yes. In Washington DC it was Harriman -- according to JFK and others, Joseph Trento, The Secret History of the CIA, pgs 334-5 <quote on, emphasis added> Who changed the coup [overthrow of Ngo Brothers in South Vietnam 11/01/63] into the murder of Diem, Nhu and a Catholic priest accompanying them? To this day, nothing has been found in government archives tying the killings to either John or Robert Kennedy. So how did the tools and talents developed by Bill Harvey for ZR/RIFLE and Operation MONGOOSE get exported to Vietnam? Kennedy immediately ordered (William R.) Corson to find out what had happened and who was responsible. The answer he came up with: “On instructions from Averell Harriman…. The orders that ended in the deaths of Diem and his brother originated with Harriman and were carried out by Henry Cabot Lodge’s own military assistant.” Having served as ambassador to Moscow and governor of New York, W. Averell Harriman was in the middle of a long public career. In 1960, President-elect Kennedy appointed him ambassador-at-large, to operate “with the full confidence of the president and an intimate knowledge of all aspects of United States policy.” By 1963, according to Corson, Harriman was running “Vietnam without consulting the president or the attorney general.” The president had begun to suspect that not everyone on his national security team was loyal. As Corson put it, “Kenny O’Donnell (JFK’s appointments secretary) was convinced that McGeorge Bundy, the national security advisor, was taking orders from Ambassador Averell Harriman and not the president. He was especially worried about Michael Forrestal, a young man on the White House staff who handled liaison on Vietnam with Harriman.” At the heart of the murders was the sudden and strange recall of Sagon Station Chief Jocko Richardson and his replacement by a no-name team barely known to history. The key member was a Special Operations Army officer, John Michael Dunn, who took his orders, not from the normal CIA hierarchy but from Harriman and Forrestal. According to Corson, “John Michael Dunn was known to be in touch with the coup plotters,” although Dunn’s role has never been made public. Corson believes that Richardson was removed so that Dunn, assigned to Ambassador Lodge for “special operations,” could act without hindrance. <quote off>

When DiEugenio wrote that article he regarded the location of JFK's back wound as "unknowable." All of Fetzer's odd notions put together don't equal the absurdity of DiEugenio's former position on the back wound, or his current position regarding the clothing evidence. "The above quote shows an almost astonishing lack of perspective and self-reflection. As we have seen in this relatively concise review of his public career, Jim Fetzer has had more gloves laid on him than a wealthy woman at a Gucci store in Beverly Hills." That's rich coming from DiEugenio, a critic who cannot abide criticism.

What's the title of the thread? Geez William, I don't even post here much anymore and when I do it's usually about other subjects. At least Fetzer understood where the back wound was -- it took DiEugenio decades to figure it out and Pat Speer never has. Pardon my interruption of the usual bum-smooching.

"I got to take a look at that shirt.” Arlen Specter to Gaeton Fonzi. https://ratical.org/ratville/JFK/GaetonFonzi/WCTandAS.html Fonzi confronted Specter with the bullet holes in JFK's clothes, pushing Specter into a nervous breakdown over the demolition of the Single Bullet Theory. The significance of that line is so far over the head of either Jim DiEugenio or Pat Speer it may as well have been uttered on the moon.

At the 5 minute mark Dr. Wecht performs a 2 minute destruction of the SBT based on the back wound location indicated by the autopsy face sheet and the bullet the holes in JFK's clothing. This has been done many times before, but not so much in this century. It's the most economical way to establish the fact of conspiracy in the murder of JFK. No need to drone on and on about the provenance of CE339, or inveigh the public with animated recreations based on micro-analyses of the Z-film, or pontificate upon the Neutron Activation Analysis of the Magic Bullet, or bother with gunshots on the police dictabelt -- or dive down any of the other myriad rabbit holes so often touted hereabouts. The bullet holes in the clothes are too low to associate with the throat wound, as Dr. Wecht so ably demonstrated.

RIP Dr. Wecht

https://wtop.com/j-j-green-national/2014/10/how-the-cia-headquarters-broke-ground-in-langley-va/ Foggy Bottom is a neighborhood. The CIA was headquartered there in the 50's. A continued presence? Your guess is as good as mine.

Air Force Chief Gen. Curtis LeMay was on vacation and returned to view the autopsy. Planes in the air ready to bomb Cuba would have been under his command. There's no record of such a conversation, to be expected. Bundy came up with an affectionate nickname for Harriman -- The Ol' Crocodile. The Wise Men, Walter Isaacson & Evan Thomas, pg. 640: <quote on> [The Diem] coup was messy. Diem's body was found riddled with bullets and stab wounds. John Kennedy himself was shot to death three weeks later. Bill Sullivan [Harriman's chief of staff] found Averell Harriman that afternoon sitting on the edge of his chair, in front of a television set, holding his head in his hands. <quote off> Harriman appeared very uptight that afternoon. Sorrow over the death of the man who recently demoted him -- or sorrow the patsy was captured alive?

McGeorge Bundy was at the Situation Room. Averell Harriman was at the Foggy Bottom headquarters of the State Department. Max Holland's The Assassination Tapes, pg 57: <quote on> At 6:55 p.m. Johnson has a ten minute meeting with Senator J. William Fulbright and diplomat W. Averell Harriman to discuss possible foreign involvement in the assassination, especially in light of the two-and-a-half-year sojourn of Lee Harvey Oswald [in Russia]...Harriman, a U.S. ambassador to Moscow during WWII, is an experienced interpreter of Soviet machinations and offers the president the unanimous view of the U.S. government's top Kremlinologists. None of them believe the Soviets have a hand in the assassination, despite the Oswald association. </q> The US governments "top Kremlinologists" were Llewellyn Thompson, Charles Bohlen, George Kennan and Harriman himself. There was no consultation between them that day. There's no record of contact between Harriman and the generals. According to Craig Roberts and Jim Bishop, it was McGeorge Bundy who claimed to have spoken to Johnson on AF1.

I care about Marilyn. I just don't care who she slept with. Because the overthrow of Diem led to the death of millions, including my brother who finally succumbed to the leukemia he contracted from Agent Orange exposure in 'Nam. Junior probably has pushed Trump to the right on public health issues -- Don Fuhrer vows to abolish the pandemic-response team at the White House in spite of the looming threat from bird flu. Dumbing down to dictatorship...

How? You ask how? 1) The subject holds not a scintilla of significance -- a quarter scintilla at best. 2) I didn't want to distract you from the Prime Objective -- canvassing the neighborhood for permission to put up RFKjr lawn signs. 3) Payback for your snub of Faye Dunaway as Mrs. Evelyn Mulwray in your list of great Hollywood actress roles. Understand? Or is it too tough for you?

Hollywood’s blackmailer-in-chief: the dirty cop behind Confidential, the tabloid the stars feared https://www.telegraph.co.uk/films/0/hollywoods-blackmailer-in-chief-dirty-cop-behind-confidential/

That had more to do with the magic mushroom chocolate bar I pounded earlier that evening. I neglected to mention that. You thought the grin on my face was because I was glad to see you, and I didn't want to indicate otherwise.

Forget it, Cory. It's the Ed Forum.

In James Ellroy's hard-boiled masterpiece The Cold Six Thousand, Ellroy fingers Fred Otash as the notorious "Raoul," James Earl Ray's alleged handler. I have no idea how he made that ID -- but it's a fictional tale, so who knows. Otash appears in three other Ellroy novels I haven't read yet. Screenwriter Robert Towne used Otash as his inspiration for Jake Gittes, the Jack Nicholson character in Chinatown. That is the limit of my interest in, or knowledge of, Fred Otash.

Taking my victory laps...