David Andrews

PNAC precursor-related: There's a meme on the internet about 9/11, in particular the WTC attack, being a "30-year conspiracy," in that plans were floated as early as the 1970s. When I find a study that turns that meme into an actual school of thought, I'll report back here or in an appropriate thread. Thanks, Anthony, for raising the level of discourse in this thread.

Not to go off-track into loony-land, but I've always wondered about that overdetermined name of his: Thane - Scottish nobility, as in Macbeth (a king killer) Eugene - "well-born" or "beautifully created" Cesar - speaks for itself (also a name associated with assassination) It's enough to turn you into Peter Levenda.

Fine, but the fallout among the hoi polloi has left ugly scars, as in the El Paso and Dayton shootings (from having spent some time in Dayton, I suspect that shooting was more racially motivated than has been reported). As far as sustaining wealth, well, the US has created an uncontrollable narcostate from La Pas to Tegucigalpa to Ciudad Juarez, which many Mexicans are also fleeing, and from which the US citizenry is suffering. I have worked a job where I dealt with seasonal Mexican labor, some on H2-A visas and some illegals, and I don't have one damned objection to them sending remittances home for their 80-hour weeks of painful, underpaid labor. Economy, heal thyself - you're not doing a thing for me or for anyone else I know, despite the profit from the narcotics industry. Call HRH on this, 'k?

Love me that Bakersfield sound. Loved Buck as a kid before Hee-Haw, grew up to appreciate Don Rich. Y'all go to it, boy!

You also have a narrow, tendentious notion of the concept of debate. Running for office much?

Harwood: I believe you have a limited understanding of the term libertarian, some questionable reading skills, and a poor conception of how to frame an argument without resorting to invective. Wiki on a Warren court decision: "Griswold v. Connecticut struck down a state law that restricted access to contraceptives and established a constitutional right to privacy.' Wiki on libertarianism: "a collection of political philosophies and movements that uphold liberty as a core principle.[1] Libertarians seek to maximize political freedom and autonomy, emphasizing freedom of choice, voluntary association and individual judgment.[ "[...] Libertarians have been advocates and activists of civil liberties, including free love and free thought.[46][47] Advocates of free love viewed sexual freedom as a clear, direct expression of individual sovereignty and they particularly stressed women's rights as most sexual laws discriminated against women: for example, marriage laws and anti-birth control measures "

Kenny O'Donnell literally drank himself to death by 1977 out of depression over the deaths of the Kennedy brothers. That aside, I doubt he had any involvement in the JFKA. I see him as political only in he party-loyalist sense. I'm certainly interested in other facts and opinions.

I have never formally accused LBJ of involvement in JFK's murder. I do not know what happened there. CIA, Mob, anti-Castro Cubans - there's more reliable leads in that direction. Johnson famously browbeat Earl Warren to head the Commission, until Warren was in tears from having his refusal denied. Do you think Warren volunteered? Warren lived in fear of right-wing assassins over his civil rights support and other liberal-libertarian actions. There were "Impeach Earl Warren" billboards in Dallas over JFKA weekend. Johnson knew that, as Committee head, Warren would make few waves. The phone call in which Johnson ordered Russell to serve is a well-known recording. LBJ would have expected Russell, once cowed into serving, to put a pro forma stamp on FBI findings. But being forced to serve and to be made to seem to endorse the ridiculous SBT is why Russell was angry in the phone call you posted.

Jim Harwood: LBJ has to kiss Russell's behind a little and seem to agree with him, since LBJ bullied Russell into joining the Warren Commission in an attempt to stack the panel. He also doesn't want Russell venting publicly, only to him, the President who cornered him into accepting a seat. Don't you ever BS people in order to make them go away? Read the article in the link to see a decent history of Johnson's assassination comments, even if assembled by Max Holland, apologist for the lone gunman, the SBT, and the WCR.

LBJ didn't want a national-level investigative commission, he wanted it all explained away in Texas as a state crime. He supported the WC at the time the Report was released because it evaluated and approved FBI investigative findings, partly by weighing them against witness testimony. At the time, this support included not questioning the single-bullet theory, or questioning John Connally's objection to it. I don't know of any instance where Johnson objected to the SBT, except in the post-Presidential interviews where he expressed general non-confidence in the WR. Not to split hairs, but that's not in itself a statement against the SBT, especially since he also speculated that a foreign power could have directed Oswald. Johnson's most explicit statement, to Leo Janos, doesn't go so far as to involve multiple gunmen: "'I never believed that [Lee Harvey] Oswald acted alone, although I can accept that he pulled the trigger,' he explained to Janos." https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2004/06/the-assassination-tapes/302964/?fbclid=IwAR1zC6r8ftGnxbkRT57XeUqcTQhNlBll_0YtV-n3HJw5YpEiM35a9C7R9Us Talking along these lines - also to Howard K. Smith, and lastly to Walter Cronkite for CBS - deflected attention from any involvement of himself, though he later regretted speaking at all and asked that CBS quash his more extreme statements. If you read what Johnson said in his taped phone conversations from the White House (article linked above), Johnson's first reaction is to put a spin on the alleged "secret" of the Garrison investigation, an investigation that pointed to the CIA and anti-Castro Cubans, not a Castro-sponsored Oswald. People have been known to conduct structured conversations when they know they are being recorded, in order to deflect blame from the guilty. Johnson may have wanted such a record, in order to challenge any perceptions about US conspiracy the Garrison investigation might raise, and deflect blame for the JFKA on Bobby Kennedy, still alive during the 1967 calls. Putting Bobby in the spotlight for ordering a CIA-Mafia hit on Castro would be a blow to RFK's political potency. It would also call Garrison's investigation into question. And it would partly absolve the CIA of blame, and potentially keep a candidate the Company feared out of the race. Lyndon was "a gamblin' man," as he himself said. What about the famous overheard LBJ statement to the Joint Chiefs about Vietnam? "Just get me elected and you can have your damned war" [paraphrase]. Of course Johnson feared being at the helm of a land war in Asia, and would have avoided it. Of course he considered not running. But he made his choices, and perhaps not for fame and power alone, as his domestic policies testify.

There are different types of CIA officer. Some run foreign nationals as agents in their home country, because that's what their department does. A US-based department that has operational administration of a complimentary department in that country's CIA branch might oversee that branch's running of agents. Some officers in the US communicate with foreign nationals on US soil. There are many other CIA officers in departments and branches that do not directly run agents. The whole "agent" mystique is blown out of the elder terminology of the British secret services, and probably out of FBI usage, since their operatives are called agents. Add TV shows like Secret Agent Man, comic books like Nick Fury ("Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D."), and the Bond films, and people's paranoia and awe lead them to think everybody at CIA is an "agent" or a "spy." Some CIA employees just advise officers to turn the computer off, and then back on again.

In CIA parlance, an agent is a foreign national cooperating with the CIA.

I know Evelyn Lincoln had said she thought LBJ blackmailed JFK and Philip Nelson did the same in his LBJ mastermind book but I don’t buy into that theory myself. I don't know the truth there, either. But if LBJ had dirt on JFK, he may have gotten it from Hoover. Another angle: The Kennedys may have had financial or sexual dirt oh LBJ, even as early as nomination season. Why didn't they use it? I don't remember all the details, but I remember the Johnson pick was settled quickly, maybe in 48 hours, and RFK was angry at being left out of the loop.

Well, then why make the offer to LBJ at all? To curry favor in the Senate? By other accounts, JFK was prepared to name Stuart Symington, but feared he might not get Southern votes without LBJ on the ticket.

Does one originate such an official position, take it in many extreme directions, and hold so much damaging knowledge - even as Allen Dulles did - and then relinquish it all to an Executive threat? I suspect Hoover was blackmailed into a few major things, but would have joined the JFKA works if he were as straight and unsullied as Victor Mature.

Bitchin'!

An accidental find on YouTube shows some Manson family arms in the LA DA's office evidence locker. Looks like a sawed-off pump gun, perhaps an M-16, and a lever-action rifle. Starts at 3:07:

Seriously, search for "Lambchop" in the back threads, where you'll find the now-departed Jack White, among others, debating whether that's a small, crushed bouquet in the back seat, or a stuffed doll of Lambchop, a popular kids' show character, that Jackie was given at Love Field. The Lambchop doll may have given rise to Jean Hill's often-mocked statement that there was a small dog in the car, between the Kennedys.

The New Pope is:

Ron, I haven't got the documentation to back this up, but from my reading Helms let Gottlieb and MKULTRA go unmolested through the later 1960s, despite the shredding party in 1973. Gottlieb was still available to sweet-talk the Olsons in the Ford admin.

This is how Oswald got it in the theater.

If he's holding his camera, then where did the Warren Commission exhibits come from? Not that there's anything wrong with the Warren Commission --

Welcome back, Rich. Do you have any cigarettes?

Yes - check the internet. Aren't you an old member?

I know it, Paul - but as I said, operationally it would be a big risk to have two Oswalds in one theater with a lot of cops charging around, many unwitting of the plot. I guess it was a big-risk day, especially if one believes that an Oswald was to be killed in the theater while resisting arrest. Hell, maybe it was "Kill either one - we don't care." But would that not have crossed the balcony Oswald's mind? What if they had a dead-twin-Oswalds back-up story to blame on the Russians, just in case? Also - if we believe one Oswald went to the theater to give the other the pistol, then we have to believe that the two were aware of each other and had met at least once before. In that case, why the business of the torn dollar bills and the orchestra-seat Oswald searching for an unknown contact in the dark, if he'd already collected the pistol from his double?