Paul Rigby

What a pity Bennett was facing the wrong way... An observation Lifton was capable of making, but one which passed you by, Tom.

Now here's a glimpse of Helms in action in the mid-1960s, inverting the truth of Kennedy's position, and aligning him with the militarists. The Agency, we are to understand, straggled opinionless, but compliant to Presidential wishes, some way behind. The lucky recipient of this classic piece of Helmsian spin was Cecil King, a once legendary newspaperman now better known as a senior MI5 man up to his neck in the 1968 coup plot to replace Harold Wilson with a "coalition of all the talents" fronted by Mountbatten:

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 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.

In today’s Grauniad, yet more BBC news footage manipulation-by-editing from the 1980s recalled. This is proving to be a fruitful little series. What a pity the paper couldn’t assign a reporter to bring all these disparate items together. Or re-evaluate its slavish editorial support for this discredited organisation. http://www.guardian.co.uk/letters/story/0,,2137476,00.html The two letters (Sense of injustice over strike reports, July 28) reminded me of a similar incident in the 80s. The TUC held a peaceful rally close to the Commons. Between us and a line of mounted police at the bottom of Whitehall were TV cameras. Suddenly floodlights came on and the mounted police charged towards us, stopping within 20 yards of the main crowd, then retreated. On that evening's TV news we saw the charge with the comment "police charge unruly trade unionists threatening parliament". Nothing could have been further from the truth. David Buckle Abingdon, Oxfordshire

In today’s Grauniad, yet more BBC news footage manipulation-by-editing from the 1980s recalled. This is proving to be a fruitful little series. What a pity the paper couldn’t assign a reporter to bring all these disparate items together. Or re-evaluate its slavish editorial support for this discredited organisation. http://www.guardian.co.uk/letters/story/0,,2137476,00.html The two letters (Sense of injustice over strike reports, July 28) reminded me of a similar incident in the 80s. The TUC held a peaceful rally close to the Commons. Between us and a line of mounted police at the bottom of Whitehall were TV cameras. Suddenly floodlights came on and the mounted police charged towards us, stopping within 20 yards of the main crowd, then retreated. On that evening's TV news we saw the charge with the comment "police charge unruly trade unionists threatening parliament". Nothing could have been further from the truth. David Buckle Abingdon, Oxfordshire

That special relationship - on all fours, with a ring through the nose.

Non-UK members might well have missed the finer details of the brouhaha which arose when an independent film maker, on a BBC contract, edited film to suggest, quite erroneously, that Brenda had stormed out of a photo-shoot with an American photographer. And thank goodness, too, for the matter is of little interest, save to note the grovelling apologies of the Beeb’s hierarchy to our reigning greatness. Far more interesting is the opportunity the row gave to some tiresome souls who insist upon refusing to forget the BBC’s MI5-directed role in propagandising against the miners during the strike that destroyed both them and the UK coal-mining industry in the mid-1980s. Four letters have recently been printed in the Guardian reminding us that the BBC engaged in a sustained and duplicitous campaign propaganda war in favour of Thatcher and the permanent state throughout that strike. The four can be read below. Astonishingly - or perhaps not – no apologies have yet been offered by anyone to the miners. 1) 14 July 2007, fifth letter down: http://www.guardian.co.uk/letters/story/0,,2126224,00.html 2) 26 July 2007, p.39: http://www.guardian.co.uk/letters/story/0,,2134594,00.html 3) 28 July 2007, p.33: http://www.guardian.co.uk/letters/story/0,,2136625,00.html

Very good piece in today’s Mail on Sunday: http://www.mailonsunday.co.uk/pages/live/a...in_page_id=1770 Needless to say, given the fear that grips UK politicians when it comes to the “intelligence” services, nothing will happen. Shocking stuff.

Interesting piece here: http://english.ohmynews.com/articleview/ar...06&rel_no=1

Noel-Baker's view on who - or rather, what - was running US foreign policy in 1965 was hardly unique. Here's a similar point of view from the same year: Galbraith's "take" on the same question, four years earlier:

We agree to differ about Harriman's approval of the coup; but, yes, you're right, he was a significant Washington casualty of both coups, the one in Saigon and the other one. Andrei Navrozov. The Gingerbread Race: A Life in the Closing World Once Called Free (London: Picador, 1993) [iSBN 0330376368] Try p.332 for a very good joke - one made by Raymond Seitz, no less - about the number 322! The unmistakable number, on which page Professor Winks begins his chapter on Angleton - not a Bonesman - in Cloak and Gown: Scholars in America's Secret War (London: Collins Harvill, 1987). Yale in-jokes - doing good for American democracy by stealth. Paul

You are right he did. You can read the articles here: http://coat.ncf.ca/our_magazine/links/53/spivak.html Great find and delighted to see both Spivak pieces available on the web. I've often wondered at the market for a book along the lines of Great American Political Journalism of the 20th Century: An Anthology; within, Spivak, Stone, Starnes et al. Pity it would almost certainly have to be done outside the US. What was it De Tocqueville wrote? Bitter experience or foreigners? Paul

As a dedicated anti-Harrimanite, Cliff, have you read this? Andrei Navrozov. The Gingerbread Race: A Life in the Closing World Once Called Free (London: Picador, 1993) [iSBN 0330376368] Try p.332 for a very good joke - one made by Raymond Seitz, no less - about the number 322! Paul

Good to see Butler getting a thread of his own. But recall that Spivak wrote two articles for New Masses, not just the one. Details to follow: From the Education Forum thread entitled: Roosevelt and Kennedy (Feb 2007) http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.ph...15&start=15 To finish, a suggestion for John/the appropriate mod; and a couple of reflections on the BBC programme. John/the appropriate mod, why not simply re-label this thread something like "Smedley D. Butler and the plot to overthrow Roosevelt," and subtitle it "Link to BBC Radio 4 programme on the subject, July 2007"? The programme was a solid enough primer on the subject, marred only by a bizarre intro that wondered why we'd heard so little about it. Er, could it be that organisations like the Beeb have hitherto steered clear of such controversial - and, for understanding US politics, essential - subject matter? Or didn't the BBC exist in 1934, and in all years subsequently? What exasperates me about the BBC - leaving aside trivial matters like compelling me to pay to be lied to - is the way it allocates resources. This topic surely demanded longer than 30 mins - was there really insufficient cash to devote an hour to it, and produce some new material? I'm not advocating wall-to-wall conspiracism or anything of the sort - God forbid - just the proper application of tax payers money to more interesting, if uncomfortable, truths about the world we really inhabit. Paul

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/history/document/document.shtml Still, better late than never. But do remember, ALL BBC programmes are brought to you care of spook-vetted reliables.

According to Mieczyslaw Maneli, the Polish diplomat at the heart of the hitherto most publicized diplomatic attempt to bring peace to Vietnam, Saigon saw a profound change in atmosphere at precisely the time Kennedy’s "soundings" began: Elsewhere, Maneli notes, in passing, that one consequence of the Buddhist revolt - in which he "possibly" saw the CIA's hand, and reported home to that effect at the time (p.126), but not the ambassador's (Nolting's) - was to delay Nhu's participation in peace negotiations (pp.126-7).

The CIA’s abandonment of not merely Diem and family, but the entire concept of a political strong-man in Saigon, was formally announced – more accurately, retrospectively acknowledged - by none other than Edward Lansdale in the Foreign Affairs edition of October 1964. America’s repeated attempts at “engineering a great patriotic cause led by some universally loved Vietnamese of American selection,” a process in which no US official had been more central than Landsdale himself, were now dismissed as a “puerile romance” which “should not be attempted in real life.” The CIA terminated both Diem and the concept he represented for a very good reason: There was to be no future civilian-political figure in the South with whom the North could cut a peace deal. In Diem’s place, and that of a motley succession of older military men and discredited politicians, were to stand the Agency-formed “Young Turks,” who were eventually brought to power, in the face of considerable resistance from within the US foreign policy elite, in the years to follow. There is every reason to believe Lansdale had been guilty of a great deal more than mere advocacy of the “Young Turks” strategy during the Kennedy years. According to John Pilger, the creation and use of “Force X,” which “infiltrated” the Viet Cong and then undertook “atrocities that would then be blamed on the insurgency” was “pioneered by…Colonel Edward Lansdale.” (1) Bernard B. Fall, “The Second Indochina War,” International Affairs, January 1965, (Vol 41, No 1), p. 70. Fall comments of Lansdale’s condemnation “But this was precisely what was done.” (2) John Pilger, “Phoney war,” The Guardian, 19 October 1999, p. 18.

What was Hanoi's attitude to the prospect of a negotiated settlement? Ho Chi Minh’s strategy in the years preceding Diem’s overthrow was encapsulated in his “Descending Spiral Theory.” Ho believed that a resumption of guerilla warfare in the South would inevitably issue in a full-scale US invasion. He therefore did everything he could to avoid its recrudescence.(1) The public consistency of Ho’s position in favour of a negotiated settlement throughout 1962 was reflected in three interviews he gave in March, July, and December to, respectively, a British Daily Express journalist, Bernard Fall, and Jules Roy. As Fall wrote: “It was obvious to all three observers that the DRVN had backed off from outright conquest of South Viet Nam and was veering toward a negotiated solution embodying the existence of a neutral South Vietnamese state that would not be reunited with the North for a long time to come.”(3) (1)Wayne H. Nielsen, “The Second Indo-China War and the American Press,” The Minority of One, October 1964, p. 15. (2)Bernard Fall. The Two Vietnams: A Political and Military Analysis (London: Pall Mall Press, 1963), p. 199. (3)Ibid. The resultant articles appeared in the Daily Express, 28 March 1962; The Saturday Evening Post, 24 November 1962; and L’Express, 10 January 1963. Fall’s interview with Ho appeared in “A Talk with Ho Chi Minh,” The New Republic, 12 October 1963, pp. 19-22. In The Making of a Quagmire, David Halberstam offers a paragraph on Fall’s Ho interview without once mentioning the minor fact that Ho was urging a peaceful settlement to the war. Instead, Halberstam confined himself to portraying Pham Van Dong as patronising Diem (Quagmire, p. 70).

Cliff, I readily concede that contemporaneous public references to Kennedy-instigated moves for a Laotian-style peace deal in Vietnam are hard to find, but they do exist. Here's two examples: And then there's a fleeting reference in a piece by Dick Starnes: And you're very right when you observed "Commies were bad for the heroin trade."

Funny that you say that because the "Baby Doc" administration tried using international law to justify invading Iraq (They were in violation of Security Council resolutions) I don’t know if “might makes right” is the answer by most accounts the invasion of Iraq has left “radical Islam” a lot stronger than before. The US has a lot bigger guns than Brazil, Sweden, the Netherlands, Costa Rica, South Africa, Japan etc yet with minor exception those and many other small gunned countries have free (or almost free) of terrorist attacks. The UK and Spain only became targets due to their support of the invasion. How many Afgans and Iraqis joined the “resistance” after having friend or loved ones killed/maimed/raped/tortured by “coalition forces”? Why do a majority of Iraqis of all ethnicities say they want the US out and that they were better off under Saddam? Might Israel suffer less if it treated the Arabs in and around it better? Perhaps part of the problem is that the US and its allies are too quick to use their ‘big guns’. Eagerness to send others to war or be tortured don't equal courage and reluctance to do doesn't equal cowardice. Hats off to Mr. C for an excellent post.

More on the Diem-Nhu negotiations with Hanoi in the months preceding the coup of 1 November. First up, veteran CIA water-carrier, Joe Alsop. Note the ever so subtle attempt to equate negotiating with Hanoi with insanity; and the recourse to an old Cold War stand by of the American foreign policy elite, “a secret French intrigue”: Next up, Madame Nhu, as filtered first through right-wing - of the Atlanticist, not Gaullist variety, I suspect - French journalist, Lucien Bodard, & published in the pages of Le Nouveau Candide; and then a figure described only as “Special to the New York Times”:

Feared as much.

Noel-Baker's view on who - or rather, what - was running US foreign policy in 1965 was hardly unique. Here's a similar point of view from the same year: And another observer, Senator Morse, on the same theme:

Cliff, OK, let's assume for the moment - I'm every bit as sceptical of the audio record of the period as I am of the film versions of the assassination, but I'll let that pass for the sake of discussion - that Harriman was in favour of the coup. Two objections arise immediately: Was Harriman intent on Diem's removal for the same reasons as the CIA? And, no, Kennedy doesn't characterise Harriman as "the power behind the coup." He's merely one name on a list. That list is very odd: It comprises all the key figures in favour of the proposed opening to China, a move long urged on Kennedy by the British political establishment in general, and the Labour Party in particular. How did the violent overthrow of Diem and his regime sit with that objective? It makes no sense at all, not least in the absence of any obvious figure of comparable stature to replace Diem, and thus to serve as a focus for stability and negotiation. A final question occurs - who finances the National Security Archive? Paul

John, First stab at an answer. Lodge appears to have shared JFK's conviction that no military solution, only a political one, was available or desirable in Vietnam. In his characteristically "diplomatic" memoir, The Storm Has Many Eyes (NY: WW Norton, 1973), Lodge wrote: Second, and relatedly, Lodge, like JFK, was a committed multilateralist: he left the Atlantic Institute, recall, to take the poison chalice that was the Saigon ambassadorship. Third, Kennedy's most pressing problem was the US press: Lodge was essentially being asked to reprise, only under much less favourable circumstances, the role of presidential shield he had undertaken for Eisenhower at the time of Khrushchev's visit. In both instances, Lodge was tasked with deflecting charges of insufficient presidential anti-communist zeal - the chief charge of Halberstam et al was, after all, that Diem wasn't prosecuting the war with anything like enough enthusiasm - while simultaneously not offending the the distinguished guest/host. Fourthly, Lodge, like Diem, spoke French. Sorry this is rushed, but tired and work beckons! Paul