Paul Rigby

Itches scratched simultaneously by the Bay of Pigs: Lanced boil of Guatemalan-style paramilitary counter-revolution Entrenched Fidel Castro in power Opened way to Red Army penetration of the island Discredited Kennedy (“soft” on Communism) Misdirected attention (real move against De Gaulle) Transformed the Dulles succession (Bissell’s chances of succeeding to Directorship of Central Intelligence ended) 5. The Dulles succession Richard Cumings. The Pied Piper: Allard K. Lowenstein and the Liberal Dream (NY: Grove Press, 1985), 159 Michael Holzman. James Jesus Angleton, The CIA, & the Craft of Counterintelligence (Amherst, Mass.: University of Massachusetts Press, 2008), 186-187 We know that Bissell met with Jacques Soustelle in Washington in December 1960. All together less well-known is the location of James Angleton in the summer of 1960. Confined to a sanitarium due to a “tubercular ailment,” the FBI reported: climbing mountains in the Languedoc region – in between excursions to Cathar ruins, it was claimed - of France, postcarded his wife, Cicely. As Holzman remarked, with quite admirable restraint, “It does seem remarkable he was able to go mountain climbing…so soon after leaving the hospital.”

I recently rediscovered the following piece. It's tongue-in-cheek, deadly serious, and thought-provoking - not a bad combo. Enjoy! Fidel Castro - Supermole by Servando González http://www.amigospai...rg/oagsg022.php A rare airing for the above: FIDEL CASTRO OF THE CIA http://aangirfan.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/fidel-castro-of-cia.html "Castro's road to power was conveniently paved by the American government and media..."

Ken, What is your source for the above timing? And does the source give the precise times for the two Rather descriptions for which I have provided transcripts? If there were three, as you have stated, I take it there was no version offered at the time specified by Dunkel? Paul

Richard Trask. Pictures of the Pain: Photography and the assassination of President Kennedy (Danvers, Ma: Yeoman Press, 1994), pp.86-87. As US television coverage of President Kennedy’s funeral demonstrated beyond peradventure, few things are more injurious to rational enquiry than a scheme of state mourning (1). Or, for that matter, more tedious: By the conclusion of CBS’s live-feed from the country’s capitol, official mourning’s staples – in no particular order, sententiousness, pedantry, and lugubriousness, to name but three - had not merely triumphed, but taken human shape, by name George Herman, to whom fell the thankless task of commentating on the arrival of the country-delegations at the White House, via the North West Gate, there to pay respects to the widow within (2). Even the shadowy, fleeting shots of Pennsylvania Avenue traffic were more interesting. Like all bad things, mercifully, this coverage came to an end, and viewers were, in an instant of casual television magic, once more back in a New York studio and in the marginally less bromidic presence of Walter Cronkite. Here, things swiftly took an unexpected turn for the more interesting, as I recently discovered when viewing, not before time, some mislaid DVDs I bought a couple of years ago, each of them containing an extended segment of CBS television’s output on Monday, November 25, 1963. The DVD coverage extends to, rough guess (3), no later than about 1630hrs (EST), but it nevertheless proved sufficient to shed revealing light on the heroic labours of both Larry Dunkel (for the uninitiated, aka “Gary Mack,” the curator of Dallas’ Sixth Floor Museum), and Richard B. Trask, two stalwarts of the anti-alterationist camp. Dunkel, it will be recalled, had, in a late August 1980 edition of Penn Jones’ probing organ, The Continuing Inquiry, damned Dan Rather with a manuscript of the latter’s only television description of the Zapruder film, “aired at 6:30pm (EST)” in the course of “CBS Evening News,” on November 25. Dunkel knew it was the only such television description as a direct consequence, presumably, of his “studies,” about which he about he boasted in the paragraph preceding the transcript, and which were of such a comprehensive and vigilant nature as to compel a scathing denunciation of the CBS man’s efforts. “There are,” Dunkel boomed, “at least eight significant errors in Rather’s description” (4). So many, perish the heretical thought, that it was almost as if Rather had viewed a different, and earlier, version of the Zapruder film. One man similarly determined to banish all such non-conformist nonsense, albeit a quarter of a century later, was Richard B. Trask, whose National Nightmare on six feet of film: Mr. Zapruder’s home movie and the murder of President Kennedy (Danvers, Mass: Yeomen Press, 2005) sought not to belabour Rather but instead, somewhat ambitiously, to reintegrate Rather’s multiple faux-pas into a all-new meta-narrative of authenticity, in part by the addition of another Rather transcript, that of the reporter’s earlier radio description of the Zapruder film, as furnished to Hughes Rudd and Richard C. Hotelett (5). This transcript was sourced to the papers of another indefatigable upholder of the authenticity of assassination films and stills, Richard E. Sprague (6). There was, it should be noted, an interesting, if unacknowledged, shift in accounting from Dunkel to Trask. Where Dunkel insisted upon one Rather television description, but permitted the possibility of more than one radio version (7), Trask acknowledged he wasn’t sure how many descriptions had been offered – but then proceeded as if there was one and only one description on each medium (8). The truth proved more Trask, than Dunkel, but neither emerge with any credit, as will become clear. In fact, as I established from the vantage point of a desk several thousand miles away, unfettered by the meagre resources of the Sixth Floor Museum, Rather had not one, but two goes at summarizing the film within 25 minutes of the cessation of CBS’ funeral coverage, with less than 9 minutes separating the attempts. The effect of such rapid quasi-repetition was dizzying - and profoundly suspicious. Indeed, one man who appears to have found it both was Walter Cronkite: In apparent response to a piece of paper landing on his desk instructing him of the imminent return to Dallas for Rather’s second shy at the target, he became notably discombobulated as he read the news item immediately preceding the reprise. So to the text of Rather’s first televised description of the Zapruder film. It occurred sometime between 3:45pm and 4:15pm (EST), occupied just under 6 minutes of air-time, and comprised a tad over 700 words: Quite; and about to get a little more remarkable. So to Rather’s second take, offered, as noted above, a full less-than-nine-minutes later. This was a superficially pithier affair, markedly so in time (5 minutes 20 seconds, give or take), less so in word-count (688). The shift in emphasis is most obvious at the end. Repeat after me: the limousine never stopped... So what on earth was going on here? Why the manifestly hasty and crass second attempt? Well, one obvious potential explanation is that Rather’s director(s) felt it imperative to get the interpretative prism just right for viewers before the film itself was shown later that evening on CBS. Is there any evidence for such wild and irresponsible heresy? Not for the first time in this thread, it would appear so, at least, according to an intriguing passage from the Black Op Radio appearance of John Barbour, producer of the Garrison Tapes documentary (8), just over three years ago: If Barbour was - is - right, and Rather did appear on CBS Evening News on Monday, November 25, 1963, accompanied by some or all of the Zapruder film, the orthodox history of the film and its chain of possession is, irrespective of the version shown, a corpse, and its advocates discredited. But was it the same version? The enduring, systematic suppression of the full number and nature of Rather’s television appearances describing the Zapruder film on Monday, November 25, 1963, strongly suggests not. Endnotes: (1) For a British example of this universal truth, see the funeral of the assassinated Diana, Princess of Wales. (2) For an early description of Jacqueline Kennedy’s post-funeral meetings at the White House, see William Manchester. Death of a President: November 20-November 25, 1963 (London: Michael Joseph, 1967), 689-696. (3) In the absence of on-air time checks, or a detailed CBS log for the day, I rely based this guess on a combination of Manchester’s Death of President, NBC’s There was a President (New York: The Ridge Press, 1966), 152, in particular, and on the evidence contained within the DVD in question. (4) Gary Mack, ‘The $8,000,000 Man,’ Continuing Enquiry, Vol 5 No 1, (August 22, 1980), 3-4. http://digitalcollec...o-jones/id/1181 (5) Richard B. Trask. National Nightmare on six feet of film: Mr. Zapruder’s home movie and the murder of President Kennedy (Danvers, Mass: Yeoman Press, 2005), 138-142. (6) Ibid., 360, Endnote 73: “’CBS Radio Description of Zapruder Film by Dan Rather,’ from a transcript from the Richard Sprague Papers, Special Collections Division , Georgetown University Library, Washington D.C. , p.[1-3].” (7) Mack, ‘The $8,000,000 Man,’ 3: “He [Rather] apparently did one or two versions for the CBS Radio Network, and another for CBS television.” (8) Trask. National Nightmare on six feet of film, 137: “How many times Rather described the viewing of the Zapruder film on Monday is unclear.” (9) John Barbour (Dir.). The JFK Assassination: The Jim Garrison Tapes (1992) 96 min: http://www.johnbarbo...m/garrison.html (10) Black Op radio, show #435, August 6, 2009, 44:40 until 47:36. It used to be available, but is no longer, at this link: http://www.blackopra...chives2009.html The show in question is still obtainable, though on disc only, at the following: http://www.blackopra...m/products.html

All BBC employees had a personnel file which included their basic personal details and work record. But there was also a second file. This included ‘security information' collected by Special Branch and MI5, who have always kept political surveillance on ‘subversives in the media’. If a staff member was shortlisted for a job this second file was handed to the department head, who had to sign for it. The file was a buff folder with a round red sticker, stamped with the legend SECRET and a symbol which looked like a Christmas tree. On the basis of information in this file, the Personnel Office recommended whether the person in question should be given the job or not. A former senior BBC executive recalls seeing one journalist’s security file, stamped with a Christmas tree symbol: 'For about twelve years it had recorded notes such as "has subscription to Daily Worker” or “our friends say he associates with communists and CND activists." It is fair to say that there were contemporary memos from personnel officials adding they thought this was ridiculous. But it was still on file.‘ The names of outside job applicants were submitted directly to C Branch of M5. They were then passed on to the F Branch ‘domestic subversion', whose F7 section looks at political ‘extremists', MP’s, lawyers, teachers and journalists. After consulting the registry of files, the names were fed into MI5’s computer, which contains the identities of about a million ‘subversives'. Once MI5 had vetted an applicant their decision was given in writing to the BBC’s Personnel Office. MI5 never gave reasons for their recommendations. But, quite often, if they said a person was a ‘security risk', that was enough to blacklist him or her permanently. Members of board interviews were advised not to ask questions. And it was only when an executive or editor put pressure on the Personnel Department that MI5's decision was overruled. Extract from: Blacklist: The Inside Story of Political Vetting by Mark Hollingsworth and Richard Norton-Taylor London: The Hogarth Press, 1988 ISBN 0 7012 0811 2

A row greeted with much cynicism at the time:

Outstanding, Robert, precisely the kind of material I’d long hoped to find, and despaired of ever doing. So now we know: JFK's first choice to supplant AWD was scuppered by a classic Angletonian sliming. I wonder (aloud) how the scupper-Hamilton-for-DCI operation ran? Was Ray Rocca hastily dispatched to unearth anything remotely useful in his voluminous Rote Kapelle notes? Were the Venona decrypts interrogated in search of a link, no matter how tenuous? The Amerasia archives thrown open in the desperate hunt for a usable morsel? Or was something simply invented & fed to Golitsyn, for conveyance to MI5’s Arthur Martin, who would in turn contact MI6’s Dick White with his non-discovery “discovery,” all amidst dark mutterings of a potential breakdown in the “special relationship”? And then, via the appalling White, to the FO, re-landing on US shores in the private bag of Ormsby-Gore? This is, after all, how the clique worked, not least in Dallas in late November 1963. Sincere thanks again - and keep it coming.

From the thread Arrogant CIA Disobeys Orders in South Vietnam: http://educationforu...=75#entry112048 Kennedy’s decision to back Lodge and recall Richardson was not the first time he had sided with an ambassador at war with his CIA station-chief, as Andreas Papandreou revealed in Democracy at Gunpoint: The Greek Front (London: Andre Deutsch, 1971), p.80: It is a measure of the CIA’s contempt for Kennedy that Campbell was transferred to Paris (1), a capital in which conviction that the CIA had prompted the Challe putsch was matched only by the belief that Langley was now sponsoring OAS terrorism. Shades of Langley’s decision to send William Harvey to Rome at the height of the Kennedy-backed “opening to the left.” Writing of the same period in Greece, Peter Murtagh emphasises the clash between Ambassador Henry Labouisse, a Kennedy-appointee, and Agency man Campbell. Labouisse had attempted to preside over honest elections; and it was this unprecedented commitment to free and fair elections by a US Ambassador that permitted Papandreou’s Centre Union “to win not one but two elections” (2). Murtagh goes on to note: “Not long before the second general election, a number of Army generals approached the Ambassador. They asked him how the US would react to a coup to forestall a Papandreou victory. Labouisse said the US would be against such a move and cabled Washington with a copy of his answer. The State Department supported his position” (3). (1) August 1962 – see Peter Murtagh. The Rape of Greece: The King, the Colonels and the Resistance (London: Simon & Schuster, 1994), p.71. (2) Ibid. (3) Ibid.

It's unquestionably one possible answer, Tom, but I have to observe, not the most likely or convincing. I wouldn't mind seeing one of your google harvests on Hamilton's background and social connections. I wonder who was his patron? Harriman? Friends of Dulles?

Not least McCone himself, according to this interview posted by Deborah Conway a couple of years ago: http://www.jfklancer...85949&mode=full Reflections on a life in Government Service, Conversations with John A. McCone, former Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, Former Director of the Central Intelligence Agency Conversations with History; Institute of International Studies, UC Berkeley Fall 1987, Spring 1988 On how JFK offered him the job: None of which, of course, advances us an inch in the search to establish why Hamilton was suddenly ditched after nearly two months of preparation for the role.

Very interesting, particularly that Freedman post. Thanks for both.

Gratefully received. The first link would suggest that Hamilton wasn't considered a security risk, but begs the question: why confine the man you originally selected to replace Dulles to a consultative body when you could have had him directing matters? I still find this baffling.

This is an old itch, Mark, and I can’t seem to scratch it, chiefly due to the apparent dearth of source material. I should explain that the Dulles succession intrigues me for two main reasons. First, this was an appointment of profound significance for Kennedy and his new diplomacy: If he couldn’t establish control over the Agency, what hope for his reassertion of the primacy of the diplomatic over the paramilitary, of détente over cold (and hot) war? I stress that this isn’t an example of retrospective imposition. The issue of the CIA’s behaviour was a matter of deep concern to the White House at the time. Second, the late shuffling of the deck which resulted in the appointment of McCone, not Hamilton, is eerily reminiscent of what happened in the senior ranks of the Secret Service at much the same time. If I had to place money on one hypothesis before the rest, it would be this: A late and sustained intervention by such as Acheson et al, perhaps supplemented by the emergence of a classic Angletonian smear. But this is pure guess-work and fit only for testing against the evidence. I just wish I could find some.

Not according to Mrs. Hester:

A rare chance to see some good quality photos of Fowler Hamilton, the man originally intended by JFK to replace Allen Dulles, courtesy of eBay. Here’s one from a batch currently available: http://www.ebay.com/...=item3a76d72bcf The accompanying caption reads: The following day, this AP story ran: Other sources confirm: Question: what happened to Kennedy’s original intention to replace Dulles with Hamilton? That that intention was no mere whim can be seen from the AP piece of 1 August – working with the outgoing Dulles for “several months” represented serious intent. So what went wrong, or caused Kennedy to change his mind? Was there a behind-the-scenes campaign of which we know little, even today? If so, who waged it and how? The switch from Hamilton to McCone surprised contemporary observers: One pointer that there is more to this story than meets the eye is this rank piece of disinfo from Victor Lasky, in a work first published in 1963: Did Lasky really believe JFK intended to replace Dulles with Telford Taylor? I very much doubt it. So what was this Taylor nonsense about

Poland and Vietnam, 1963: New Evidence on Secret Communist Diplomacy and the "Maneli Affair" By Margaret K. Gnoinska, The George Washington University Cold War International History Project, Working Paper 45 Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars March 2005 http://www.wilsoncen...WIHP_WP_45b.pdf

Left temple entry 1) Elm St eyewitness: Norman Similas: “I could see a hole in the President's left temple...,” Jack Bell, “10 Feet from the President,” NYT, 23 November 1963, p.5, citing “‘I saw president fall’ – Willowdale man,” Toronto Daily Star, (All Star Night edition), Friday, 22 November 1963, pp.1&13 2) Parkland medical staff: a) Dr. Robert McClelland: "The cause of death was due to a massive head and brain injury from a gunshot wound of the left temple," Commission Exhibit 392. [‘Admission Note,’ written 22 Nov 1963 at 4.45 pm, reproduced in WCR572, & 17WCH11-12: cited in Lifton’s Best Evidence, p.55; and Meagher’s Accessories After the Fact, pp.159-160.] Dr. Marion Jenkins: "I don't know whether this is right or not, but I thought there was a wound on the left temporal area, right in the hairline and right above the zygomatic process," 6WH48. [Cited by Sylvia Meagher, Accessories After The Fact: The Warren Commission, The Authorities, & The Report (New York: Vintage Books, 1992 reprint), p. 40.] c) Dr. Robert Shaw: "The third bullet struck the President on the left side of the head in the region of the left temporal region and made a large wound of exit on the right side of the head," Letter from Dr. Shaw to Larry Ross, "Did Two Gunmen Cut Down Kennedy?", Today (British magazine), 15 February 1964, p.4. d) Dr. David Stewart: “This was the finding of all the physicians who were in attendance. There was a small wound in the left front of the President’s head and there was a quite massive wound of exit at the right back side of the head, and it was felt by all the physicians at the time to be a wound of entry which went in the front,” The Joe Dolan (Radio) Show, KNEW (Oakland, California), at 08:15hrs on 10 April 1967. (Cited by Harold Weisberg. Selections from Whitewash (NY: Carroll & Graf/Richard Gallen, 1994), pp.331-2.) 3) Parkland non-medical staff: Father Oscar Huber: “terrible wound” over Kennedy's left eye [AP despatch, Philadelphia Sunday Bulletin, 24 November 1963]* 4) Bethesda: Drs. Humes & Boswell: “The autopsy documents also provide some cryptic indications of damage to the left side of the head. The notorious face-sheet on which Dr. J. Thornton Boswell committed his unfortunate 'diagram error' consists of front and back outlines of a male figure. On the front figure, the autopsy surgeons entered the tracheotomy incision (6.5 cm), the four cut-downs made in the Parkland emergency room for administration of infusions (2 cms. Each), and a small circle at the right eye, with the marginal notation '0.8 cm,' apparently representing damage produced by the two bullet fragments that lodged there. Dr. Humes testified that the fragments measured 7 by 2 mm and 3 by 1 mm respectively (2H354). Although he said nothing about the damage at the left eye, the diagram shows a small dot at that site, labeled '0.4 cm' (CE 397, Vol XVII, p.45). Neither Arlen Specter, who conducted the questioning of the autopsy surgeons, nor the Commission members and lawyers present asked any questions about this indication on the diagram of damage at the left eye. Turning back to the male outline of the figure – the one Dr. Boswell did not realize would become a public document even though it had to be assumed at the time of the autopsy that findings would become evidence at the trial of the accused assassin – we find a small circle at the back of the head about equidistant from the ears and level with the top of the ears. Apparently this represents the small entrance wound which the autopsy surgeons and the Warren Commission say entered the back of the head and exploded out through the right side, carrying large large segments of the skull. But an arrow at the wound on the diagram points to the front and left and not to the front and right. A forensic pathologist who was asked to interpret this feature said that it signified that a missile had entered the back of the head traveling to the left and front. As if in confirmation, an autopsy diagram of the skull (CE 397, Vol XVII, p.46) shows a large rectangle marked '3 cm' at the site of the left eye, with a ragged lateral margin, seemingly to indicate fracture or missing bone. The autopsy surgeons were not questioned about any of the three diagram indications of bullet damage at the left eye or left temple. Nevertheless, when Dr. Jenkins testified that he thought there was a wound in the left temporal area, Arlen Specter replied, 'The autopsy report disclosed no such developments,'” Sylvia Meagher. Accessories After the Fact: The Warren Commission, The Authorities & The Report (NY, Vintage Books, 1992 reprint), pp.161-2. 5) JFK shot in the face/front of the head/forehead: a) Alan Smith: “The car was ten feet from me when a bullet hit the President in the forehead…the car went about five feet and stopped,” Jack Bell, “Eyewitnesses describe scene of assassination: Sounds of shooting brought car to a halt,” NYT, 23 November 1963, p.5. James Chaney: “When the second shot came, I looked back in time to see the President struck in the face,” Anthony Summers’ The Kennedy Conspiracy (London: Sphere, 1992), p.23, citing, on p.543, an “unidentified film interview in police station and taped interview for KLIF, Dallas, on record ‘The Fateful Hours,’ Capitol Records.” See also: 22 November 1963, WFAA-TV, video packet, & Houston Chronicle, 24 November 1963. c) Dr. Perry: “When asked to specify the nature of the wound, Dr. Perry said that the entrance wound was in the front of the head,” Post-Dispatch News Services, “Priest Who Gave Last Rites ‘Didn’t See Any Sign of Life,’” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 24 November 1963, p.23A; also Associated Press despatch, shortly after 2 pm, quoted by WOR Radio, New York, at 2:43 pm, CST (Fred Newcomb & Perry Adams. Murder from Within, p.154, n.58): ‘Dr. Perry said the entrance wound—which is the medical description—the entrance wound was in the front of the head’” See also: AP, “Treatment Described,” Albuquerque Tribune, 22 November 1963, p.58: “When asked to specify, Perry said the entrance wound was in the front of the head.”

"Manufactured Dissent": The Financial Bearings of the "Progressive Left Media" By Prof. James F. Tracy http://www.globalres...xt=va&aid=32179 Global Research, August 3, 2012 Since the early 2000s US-based "left-progressive" media that purport to be independent have received tens of millions in grants and contributions while they have ignored some of the most important news stories of our time. History suggests a relationship between elite philanthropic sponsorship of such outlets and self-censorship toward pressing events and issues while concurrently maintaining a public semblance of issue-oriented rebellion and dissent. Why do the self-proclaimed left-progressive “independent” media repeatedly overlook, obfuscate or otherwise leave unexamined some of the most momentous geopolitical and environmental events of our time—September 11th and related false flag terror events, the United Nations’ "Agenda 21," the genuinely grave environmental threats posed by the Fukushima nuclear catastrophe, geoengineering (weather modification), and the dire health effects of genetically modified organisms?[1] In fact, these phenomena together point to a verifiable transnational political economic framework against which a mass social movement could readily emerge. Yet over the past decade the actual function of such journalistic outlets has increasingly been to "manufacture dissent"--in other words, to act as the controlled opposition to the financial oligarchs and an encroaching scientific dictatorship that to an already significant degree controls the planet and oversees human thought and activity. Indeed, many alternative media outlets that appear to be independent of the power structure are funded by the very forces they are reporting on through their heavy reliance on the largesse of major philanthropic foundations. With the across-the-board deregulation of the transnational financial system in the late 1990s and consequent enrichment of Wall Street and London-based investment banks and hedge funds, the resources of such foundations and charities have increased tremendously. Consequently, the overall funding of "activist" organizations and "alternative" media has climbed sharply, making possible the broadly disseminated appearance of strident voices speaking truth to power. In fact, the protesters and journalists alike are often tethered to the purse strings of the powerful. As a result, "Dissent has been compartmentalized. Separate "issue oriented" protest movements (e.g. environment, anti-globalization, peace, women's rights, climate change) are encouraged and generally funded as opposed to a cohesive mass movement."[2] The efforts of financial elites to influence left-progressive political opinion goes back a century or more. In the early 1900s, for example, the Rockefeller and Carnegie Foundations decisively shaped the trajectory of elementary and higher education. Yet a less-examined development is how such influence extended to the mass media. A specific instance of such interests seeking to influence the Left community specifically is the establishment of The New Republic magazine at a decisive time in US history. Purchased Political Opinion: The Founding of The New Republic Throughout the twentieth century powerful financial interests have sought to anticipate and direct American left wing social movements and political activity by penetrating their opinion-shaping apparatus. This was seldom difficult because progressives were usually strapped for funds while at the same time eager for a mouthpiece to reach the masses. In 1914 Wall Street’s most powerful banking house, J.P. Morgan, was willing to provide both. “The purpose was not to destroy, dominate, or take over but was really threefold,” historian Carroll Quigley explains. “(1) to keep informed about the thinking of Left-wing or liberal groups; (2) to provide them with a mouthpiece so that they could “blow off steam,” and (3) to have a final veto on their publicity and possibly on their actions, if they ever went “radical.” There was nothing really new about this decision, since other financiers had talked about it and even attempted it earlier. What made it decisively important this time was the combination of its adoption by the dominant Wall Street financier, at a time when tax policy was driving all financiers to seek tax-exempt refuges for their fortunes, and at a time when the ultimate in Left-wing radicalism was about to appear under the banner of the Third International.”[3] As an example, in 1914 Morgan partner and East Asia agent Willard Straight established The New Republic with money from himself and his wife, Dorothy Payne Whitney of the Payne Whitney fortune. "’Use your wealth to put ideas into circulation,’ Straight had told his wife. ‘Others will give to churches and hospitals.’"[4] The idea of funding such an organ partly developed between the wealthy couple after they read Herbert Croly’s The Promise of American Life, in which the well-known liberal author assailed the foundations of traditional Progressivism, with its Jeffersonian doctrine of free enterprise and inclination for decentralized, unrestrictive government. In such a laissez-faire arrangement, Croly reasoned, the strong would always take advantage of the weak. “Only a strong central government could control and equitably distribute the benefits of industrial capitalism. ... guided by a strong and farsighted leader.” Toward this end Croly proposed a “constructive” or “New Nationalism”, and a medium to reach a captive audience could promote such ideals on a regular basis.[5] As Croly recalls, Straight "hunted me up and asked me to make a report for him on the kind of social education which would be most fruitful in a democracy. Thereafter I saw him frequently, and in one of our conversations we discussed a plan for a new weekly which would apply to American life, as it developed, the political and social ideas which I had sketched in the book ... We hoped to make it the mouthpiece of those Americans to whom disinterested thinking and its result in convictions were important agents of the adjustment between human beings and the society in which they live."[6] Straight designated Croly editor-in-chief of The New Republic's and the young socialist writer Walter Lippmann, who by his mid-twenties was an adviser to presidents and a member of the shadowy Round Table Groups, was approached to be a founding editorial board member and subsequently entrusted with gearing the American readership toward a more favorable view of Britain. Croly later noted how Straight was hardly liberal or progressive in his views. Rather, he was a regular international banker and saw the magazine’s purpose “simply [as] a medium for advancing certain designs of such international bankers, notably to blunt the isolationism and anti-British sentiments so prevalent among many American progressives, while providing them with a vehicle for expression of their progressive views in literature, art, music, social reform, and even domestic polices.”[7] Following establishment of The New Republic, Straight considered purchasing The New York Evening Post or The Washington Herald. "He longed for a daily newspaper," Croly recalls, "which would communicate public information in the guise of news as well as in the guise of opinion and which would be read by hundreds of thousands of people instead of only tens of thousands, to serve as his personal medium of expression."[8] Straight and Payne Whitney’s son, “Mike” Straight, carried on The New Republic through the 1940s in close alignment with Left and labor organizations, even providing Henry Wallace with a position on the editorial staff in 1946 and backing Wallace’s 1948 presidential bid. With Willard Straight’s early death in 1918 another Morgan partner, Tom Lamont, apparently became the bank’s representative to the Left, supporting The Saturday Review of Literature in the 1920s and 1930s, and owning the New York Post from 1918 to 1924. Lamont, his wife Flora, and son Corliss were major patrons to a variety of Left concerns, including the American Communist Party and Trade Union Services Incorporated, which in the late 1940s published fifteen union organs for CIO unions. Frederick Vanderbilt Field, another well-heeled Wall Street banker, sat on the editorial boards of The New Masses and the Daily Worker—New York’s official Communist newspapers.[9] Progressive-Left Media's Financing Today Since the 1990s the framework for guiding the Left has developed into a vast combine of powerful, well-funded philanthropic foundations that function on the behalf of their wealthy owners as a well-oiled mechanism of opinion management. Such philanthropic entities oversee formidable wealth that today's heirs to the Straight and Payne Whitney tradition seek to shield from taxation while. At the same time they are able to employ such resources to influence political thought, discourse, and action. Further, following the broad-based 1999 protests of the World Trade Organization in Seattle, global elite interests recognized the importance of developing the means to “manufacture dissent.” Such foundations no doubt exert at least subtle influence over the editorial decisions of the vulnerable progressive media beholden to them for financing. This is partially due to the personnel of the foundations themselves. The task of doling out money frequently falls to foundation officials who are retired political advocates with certain notions about what organizations should be funded and, moreover, how the money should be spent. As Michael Shuman, former director of the Institute for Policy Studies observed in the late 1990s, “A number of program officers at progressive foundations are former activists who decided to move from the demand to the supply side to enjoy better salaries, benefits and working hours. Yet they still want to live like activists vicariously... by exercising influence over grantees through innumerable meetings, reports, conferences and “suggestions” . . . Many progressive funders treat their grantees like disobedient children who need to be constantly watched and disciplined.”[10] Doling out grant money to a journalistic outlet is especially controversial since genuine journalism is inherently political given its inclination toward pursuing and examining the decisions and policies of power elites. As Ron Curran of the Independent Media Institute notes, money from foundations “has engendered a climate of secrecy at IAJ (Institute for Alternative Journalism n/k/a Independent Media Institute [iMI]) that’s in direct conflict with IAJ’s role as a progressive media organization.” He continues, “the only money nonprofits can get these days is from private foundations–and those foundations want to control the political agenda.”[11] If funding is any indication of sheer influence over progressive media, that influence has grown by leaps and bounds at the foremost left media outlets since the 1990s. For example, between 1990 and 1995 the four major progressive print news outlets, The Nation, The Progressive, In These Times, and Mother Jones received a combined $537,500 in grants and contributions. In 2010, however, The Nation Institute (The Nation) alone received $2,267,184 in funding, The Progressive took in $1,310,889, the Institute for Public Affairs (In These Times) accepted $961,015, and the Foundation for National Progress (Mother Jones) collected $4,725,235.[12] These figures are for grants and contributions alone and do not include revenue generated from subscription sales and other promotions. Alongside the overall compromised nature such funding can bring, the tremendous increase over the past decade suggests one reason for why specific subject matter that is off-limits for coverage or discussion. With the development of the internet several new alternative-progressive outlets have emerged between the late 1990s and early 2000s, including Alternet, Democracy Now, and satellite channel Link TV. Recognizing their influence a vast array of “public support” has likewise made these multi-million dollar operations alongside their print-based forebears. For example, between 2003 and 2010 Democracy Now has taken in $25,577,243—an annual average of $3,197,155, with 2010 assets after liabilities of $11,760,006. Between 2006 and 2010 the Pacific News Service received $26,867,417, or $5,373,483 annually. The Foundation for National Progress (Mother Jones) brought in $46,623,197, or $4,662,320, and Link TV raised $54,839,710 between 2001 and 2009 for average annual funding of $6,093,301.(Figure 1) Media Organization 501© 3 Total Support 2001-2010 Average Annual Support 2001-2010 Net Assets After Liabilities (2010) Democracy Now Productions Inc. Yes $25.577,243 (from 2003) $3,197,155 $11,760,006 Schumann Center for Media and Democracy Yes NA $3,471,682 (2010) $33,314,688 Nation Institute (The Nation) Yes $22,246,533 $2,224,653 $4,798,831 Pacific News Service Yes $26,867,417 (2006-2010) $5,373,483 $712,011 Foundation for National Progress (Mother Jones) Yes $46,623,19 $4,662,320 -$1,189,040 The Progressive Yes $8,702,146 $870,215 $5,493,782 Link TV Yes $54,839,710 (excludes 2010) $6,093,301 $1,533,308 Institute for Public Affairs (In These Times) Yes $4,469,119 (excludes 2006, 2007) $558,640 -$114,532 Institute for Independent Media (Alternet) Yes $14,441,678 $1,444,168 $900,585 Figure 1. Grants, Gifts, Contributions, and Membership Fees of Select “Independent Progressive” Media or Media-Related Organizations 2001-2010 (unless otherwise noted). Based on 2001-2010 IRS Form 990s. Bill Moyers’ Schumann Center for Media and Democracy, which funds The Nation Institute and online news organ Truthout, has net assets of $33,314,688 and brought in $3,471,682 in 2010 income.[13] Because these organizations assert under their 501c3 status that they have no overt political agenda, all income is untaxed.[14] Nor are they required to list the sources of their funding—even especially generous contributions. As the early 1990s grant figures for The Nation, The Progressive, In These Times, and Mother Jones suggest, nickel-and-dime contributions constitute a small percentage of such outlets' overall "public" support. Funding and Self-Censorship / Conclusion Given the extent of foundation funding for left-progressive media, it is not surprising how such venues police themselves and proceed with the wishes of their wealthy benefactors in mind. As Croly observed concerning The New Republic, the Straights and Payne Whitneys "could always withdraw their financial support, if they ceased to approve of the policy of the paper; and in that event it would go out of existence as a consequence of their disapproval."[15] Indeed, this is the left news media's greatest fear. In light of these dynamics and the big money at stake the progressive media's censorial practices are understandable. At the same time self-censorship involves a fairly implicit set of social and behavioral processes. As Warren Breed discovered several decades ago, journalists' socialization and workplace routinization constitute a process whereby newsworkers themselves internalize the mindset and wishes of their publishers, thereby making overt censorship unnecessary.[16] We may conclude that a similar process is in play when today's "progressive" journalists and their editors share or accept many of the same interests, sentiments and expectations of those who hold the purse strings--and who would likely disapprove of attending to certain "controversial" or "conspiratorial" topics and issues. With this in mind the foremost concern with such media is the uniform declaration of their "alternative" and "independent" missions--claims that are as problematic and misleading as Fox News' "fair and balanced" mantle. A more appropriate (and honest) moniker for the foundation-funded press is a caveat emptor-style proclamation: "The following content is intended to impart the illusion of empowerment and dissent, yet can leave you uninformed of the most pressing issues of our time, in accordance with the wishes of our sponsors." Notes [1] On false flag terror see Daniele Ganser, NATO's Secret Armies: Operation Gladio and Terrorism in Western Europe, New York: Routledge, 2005. On Fukushima see Fukushima: A Nuclear War without a War: The Ongoing Crisis of World Nuclear Radiation, ed. Michel Chossudovsky, Ottawa: Centre for Research on Globalization, January 25, 2012, http://www.globalres...xt=va&aid=28870. For ongoing reportage see Enviroreporter.com. On Agenda 21 see Rachel Koire, Behind the Green Mask: UN Agenda 21, The Post-Sustainability Press, 2011. On geoengineering and weather modification see Project Censored 2012 Story #9, "Government Sponsored Technologies for Weather Modification," Censored 2012: The Top Censored Stories and Media Analysis of 2010-2011, New York: Seven Stories Press, 2011, 84-90, http://www.projectce...r-modification/. On genetically modified organisms see Jeffrey M. Smith, Genetic Roulette: The Documented Health Risks of Genetically Modified Foods, White River Junction, VT: Chelsea Green, 2007, and F. William Engdahl, Seeds of Destruction: The Hidden Agenda of Genetic Manipulation, Ottawa: Centre for Research on Globalization, 2007. [2] Michel Chossudovsky, "Manufacturing Dissent: The Antiglobalization Movement is Funded by the Corporate Elites," GlobalResearch.ca, September 20, 2011, http://www.globalres...xt=va&aid=21110 [3] Carroll Quigley, Tragedy and Hope: A History of the World In Our Time, New York: MacMillan, 1966, 938. [4] Ronald Steele, Walter Lippmann and the American Century, Boston and Toronto: Little, Brown and Company, 1980, 60. Payne Whitney would continue to fund the publication until 1953. [5] Steele, Walter Lippmann and the American Century, 59. [6] Herbert Croly, Willard Straight, New York: Macmillan & Company, 1924, 472. [7] Quigley, Tragedy and Hope, 940. [8] Croly, Willard Straight, 474. [9] Quigley, Tragedy and Hope, 945-946. [10] Michael Shuman, “Why do Progressive Foundations Give too Little to too Many?” The Nation, January 12, 1998, 11-16, The Nation ( January 12): 11–16. Available at http://www.tni.org/archives/act/2112 [11] Ron Curran 1997. “Buying the News.” San Francisco Bay Guardian, October 8, 1997. Cited in Bob Feldman, “Reports from the Field: Left Media and Left Think Tanks—Foundation Managed Protest,” Critical Sociology 33 (2007), 427-446. Available at www.irasilver.org/ wp-content/ uploads/ 2011/ 08/Reading-Foundations-Feldman.pdf [12] Feldman, “Reports from the Field.” [13] All tax-related information obtained through GuideStar, http://www2.guidestar.org/Home.aspx, and Foundation Center, http://foundationcenter.org/ [14] Progressive-left finger pointers such as Center for American Progress and Media Matters for America are similarly awash in foundation funding and require separate treatment. [15] Croly, Willard Straight, 474. [16] Warren Breed, "Social Control in the Newsroom: A Functional Analysis," Social Forces, 33:4 (May 1955), 326-335. Available at https://umdrive.memphis.edu James F. Tracy is Associate Professor of Media Studies at Florida Atlantic University and blogs at www.memorygap.org

I seriously doubt he was a devotee of Kennedy's policies in the Middle East since one of Kennedy's policys was to prevent Israel from obtaining nuclear weapons. I think you could be on to something here, Mike. Which begs two obvious questions: Why would a senior Israeli spy, engaged in furthering the very nuclear proliferation in the Middle East that Kennedy strove so bravely (and correctly) to prevent, work to champion the Garrison case? What was there in the film project for the Israelis and their US allies?

More on Milchan, the noted liberal humanitarian, devotee of Kennedy's policies in the Middle East; and the patriotic arms smuggler who risked all to produce Oliver Stone's JFK: http://www.richardsi...smuggling-ring/

Manufactured Realities: The Truth About The Arab Spring by Bill Noxid

I realise this isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but for the few souls interested in reading further, Luís Nuno Rodrigues’"Today's Terrorist is tomorrow's statesman: the United States and Angolan Nationalism in the early 1960s," * offers a partial but fascinating insight into the point at which Kennedy’s hopes for a radically different approach to Africa ran into the conflicting objectives of the Warfare State, and CIA assets such as Holden Roberto. Worth bearing in mind what is not in Rodrigues’ essay: Roberto was seemingly talent-spotted by a CIA “missionary” and groomed, initially at least, by a CIA-front based in Zurich *Portuguese Journal of Social Science Volume 3 Number 2. © Intellect Ltd 2004.Article. English language. doi: 10.1386/pjss.3.2.115/0 Abstract: In the early 1960s, the US government and some private organizations developed close contacts with Angolan nationalist movements. In Washington, this policy gained momentum with the new African policy followed by the Kennedy administration in 1961. Kennedy wanted to extend the ‘new frontier’ to Africa and his administration adopted a policy of favouring self-determination and independence of former colonial territories in that continent. This African policy had several aspects, from the votes and public statements in the United Nations to the increased investment in educational programmes for future African leaders and to the close contacts with those leaders and organizations that could play a decisive role in the future of African nations.

Gullion on the need to take action against Portuguese support for Tshombe, April 1963: http://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1961-63v20/d419

Two of the CIA team who worked so assiduously to scupper Kennedy and Gullion in the Congo: http://aliciapatters...m-making-critic

I agree, but at least it gave the interested the chance to hear him, perhaps for the first time. For a much richer picture of Gullion and the Congo, there’s Richard D. Mahoney's seminal and startling Ordeal in Africa, which desperately needs reprinting (or “kindling”) in a more affordable edition. And for anyone interested in seeking confirmation as to how radical a departure Kennedy’s policies in Africa were, Luis Rodrigues' A New African Policy? JFK and the crisis in Portuguese Africa * is both complementary and useful – ignoring for one moment the giant lacuna where the CIA should be - on the domestic complexities and pressures which faced the White House. The contrasting US approach to Africa under Eisenhower is weighed critically, much to Kennedy’s advantage, here: http://web.jmu.edu/h...nbeck-paper.pdf * International Conference “The End of Empires? Cold War Diplomacy, Trajectories of Development and the Formation of the Third World,” organized by the Department of Portuguese and Brazilian Studies and the Department of History (Brown University) and the Institute of Social Sciences, University of Lisbon, May 2011 You can see LBJ's point: America was, after all, menaced imminently by vast hordes of yellow dwarves with knives.