Ian Williams

could this name four leaves be related to cryptology or substitution?

Ok, this is a thread/experiment to see what kind of a case the researchers here would make if they were before a grand jury in trial or whatever method of another inquiry headed by them.

Not so much for debate as it is for finding out what kind of a case we'd have today if we were to be called upon to do another comission, or prosecute a trial against the guilty parties, or anything like that, so, name your strongest piece of evidence, the one that you think would "close the case" and establish a chain of evidence between the suspects and the crime.

Although I'm not nearly as informed as most of you, I'll start to give an example:

I think one of the best parts of the crime to highlight as proof of conspiracy might be the reports of two different rifles, with Oswald ordering one under alias, and it being by some reports very shoddy, whereas the other is an expert sniping weapon of that day, and the evidence that the prints on the gun may have been planted.

Why: it shows that someone is attempting to frame Oswald as the killer, as well as that the press and police were already "told" to go after Oswald before they should have had reason to suspect him as a primary conspirator.

*Edit* Also, please forgive me if my example is dead wrong, I never claimed to be any expert on any singular part of this case, and thus I usually avoid super specific posts like this, whereas this is intended as an example, not necessarily my "expert" opinion on it.

what do you guys think of these, then?

Zapruder Film Hoax

Zapruder Film Authentic

Why did RFK throw out the original coffin for JFK into the ocean? And why is he linked to disposing of some of the DNA evidence in the JFK assassination? I'm not casting theories here, just trying to understand preexisting ones: are these things true? I believe that, once again, TMWKK is where I heard this, and I was wondering if he did this, if so why, and is it connected to either assassination or not in your opinions?

I've always thought this would make for a good conversation piece/curriculum movie in a philosophy class, specially existentialism. What do you guys think?

From what I understand, their decline is well-deserved. They are mouthpieces for values such as Religious morals, conservative policies, and world leadership, but haven't actually practiced those values for at least 40 years. I don't think the democrats are much better, but at least they don't seem to always throw a senate or house temper tantrum for every bill any Republican tries to pass. And at least good domestic policy still exists on the radar to them. Neo-Conservative as a term even is a fallacy when applied to them, they should just be called the War Profiteering party, all else be damned once they actually get elected.

Real ID Wiki

It's still supposedly a few years off, in 2011 sometime, and it's supposed to "streamline" our identification processes, but it just sounds like a nightmare waiting to happen to me. Aside from the obvious possible paranoia(of surveillance or whatever), how much easier would any sort of scapegoating or identity theft be when all your Identity checks stem back to one single rfid card?

I was wondering if anyone here had already been researching this at all?

I know there is that dictabelt recording from a cops radio, but there's been debate as to whether that was actually there, and I was wondering if there are any other sources of audio from the assassination to cross-reference with that and the films to pin down the exact timing of events?

Hey did anyone find any evidence related to the claim(i believe it was in TMWKK) that there was a shooter in the next building from the Depository?

Are you referring to the Daltex building, Ian?

Bests,

Barb :-)

i believe so, yes.

I have a dumb question on this subject, just to get up to snuff?? How many copies of the Zapruder film were supposedly made, and who all did it change hands through before becoming public?

I've seen 2 types of reference to a "4th film"

Speculation that there is a virtually unknown film floating around or that one was destroyed or is used by the CIA for "training". Some of the speculation is centered around images of spectators who some think were filming or people who claim they filmed the assassination but had their copies seized e.g. "the Babushka Lady / Betty Oliver.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babushka_lady

Speculation by our own David Healy (and perhaps others) that an extra 1st gen. copy of the Z-film was made at the Dallas Kodak lab because one of the processing numbers is unaccounted for. I worked at a film lab in Boston (Cambridge actually) for a few years in the 1980's and there and then numbers being skipped was nothing particularly unusual.

And what do you think? Do you think there is a 4th film unreleased as of yet?

I've not really looked into it but I haven't seen much evidence there was. Oliver seems pretty obviously to be a xxxx and the images I've seen of the "Babushka Lady" are not clear enough to say one way or the other. Supposedly witnesses saw her or someone else shooting a fourth film but I haven't seen it. That's not to say it doesn't exist, because as I said before I haven't followed this very much.

As for RFK's asssassination I'm not sure I think it might even have been Sirhan but I haven't looked at it very closely either. Unfortunately my sound card isn't working I'll watch the Youtube when I get it fixed.

I haven't barely looked into RFK at all, honestly didn't even know he had been assassinated until about this year or so. The theory in that vid and a few others is that the weapon was an automated gun built into the limo itself or something...just sounded interesting and not something I'd heard so thought I'd run it by here.

Main question I have now is: is there any clear way to establish convincingly or even prove a motive/single set of motives that got JFK and possibly RFK murdered? I've heard lots of theories but most of them rely on witnesses only or other shaky chains of evidence to string things together. I'm not trying to take a stance on any theories out there, I just wouldn't mind a quick rundown of the currently held to be likely(and the currently totally debunked) theories, and also whether there even is a way to establish motive that strongly in this case, as I feel that legitimizing evidence we already have as well as potentially uncovering new evidence or witnesses would follow the chain of motive, provided we had a solidly provable one.

On a sidenote of strangeness, while posting about a spectacularly dumb pseudo-review of Watchmen by Alex Jones on facebook, the bot check captcha was Tippit Involved.

Is there any benefit to the common US Citizen? Why are meetings between Bush, Mexico and Canada taking place with such secrecy?

I would like to hear from someone who supports this union, as I know that everyone I talk to does not.

This recently aired on CNN with Lou Dobbs...

Comments and opinions welcome from all.

I actually saw that when it aired. Unfortunately, the only thing I can find concretely on the internet so far is evidence of a new "SuperHighway" from Canada to Mexico, bigger than any built before, and some misrepresentation sites, like taking theoretical souveneir amero coins created as a product and posing them as actual currency.

President Jimmy Carter’s 1978 Executive

Order 12036, FISA and Congressional Oversight:

Chronic Structural Issues in 20th Century U.S. Intelligence

Introduction:

Like any other discipline, the pertinent demand for History is to ask the appropriate question—pose the important problems. What is wrong with U.S. Intelligence? Is there too much congressional and public oversight? Not enough oversight? Is U.S. Intelligence too centralized? Too de-centralized? Are there too many spies? Not enough spies? Too much data? Not enough data? These are the quandaries. Who is in charge? Are they competent? Do they enjoy our confidence? If the problems are kept secret, are good answers likely to emerge? How much should people be told, and who should decide what is classified as top secret? Deep philosophical questions of political philosophy clash in this arena, in the running debate over intelligence and the U.S. national security agencies and departments. In politics the central questions are usually ‘who benefits?’ and ‘who will be held responsible?’ To probe the murky recesses of U.S. national security and intelligence history is to address these questions of public policy -- while impeded by structural walls of silence and misinformation.

Public confidence and institutional competence are the goals of the reform effort, and ideology will drive the debate. Security and public accountability will be achieved, if at all, via debate, the exposure of unpleasant facts, political leadership and ultimately electoral support for appropriate changes. Without a parliamentary system, the U.S. Executive Branch is free from many of the challenges and constraints facing a Prime Minister. The general trend of 20th century U.S. political power was the gain in executive power, the concentration of power into the White House. The secret agencies (usually cited as fifteen in number) and the classified Presidential Cabinet staff paper system emerged at the expense of the individual, local, county, state, regional, legislative and judicial prerogatives. The events of September 11th 2001 and the two subsequent wars brought urgency to the debate over U.S. intelligence reform, and while the issue is largely historical in nature, the constitutional problems are contested, contemporary and chronic. Compelling, concise and coherent approaches are called for in the interrogation of the diplomatic and intelligence records.

Body:

In the 1960s and 1970s images and texts regarding Vietnam, Watergate and secret programs like the MK-ULTRA—i.e. intelligence failures—were more tightly limited, distribution of damning information was slower, and de-classification more calcified. Nevertheless, largely through congressional action and the activities of responsible national investigative reporting, certain reforms were put forward. The failure of the 1970s reforms to address the chronic structural problems in the secret agencies becomes clearer every day. Their byzantine relationships were only complicated and no real power relationships were simplified. However, in the 1970s the Senate (and to a much lesser degree, the House) were brought into the policy-making for and oversight over the U.S. intelligence community in a more meaningful way as President Ford, the Church Select Committee and the Carter administration placed limits on the runaway U.S. intelligence.

The National Security Advisor and his staff expanded their power, the Defense Intelligence Agencies and the DIA maintained autonomy, and the National Security Agency remained autonomously linked to both the CIA and Defense Department. Executive orders limiting the activities and defining the scope of the agencies were issued by both Ford and Carter. President Carter also signed the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 and the Intelligence Oversight Act of 1980, which then marked the end of the 1970s era of investigational oversight and relative transparency.

The historiography of recent U.S. Intelligence history falls into six categories. There are scholarly overviews, descriptive tomes, and think-tank projects, which are supplemented by more or less self serving memoirs, U.S. and foreign government documents and a large spectrum of critical non-standard works. Jeff Richelson of the National Security Archives offers a uniquely valuable descriptive digest of U.S. Intelligence. His very dry text contains a vast laundry list of secret branches and Byzantine corridors within the U.S. intelligence community. The sixteen pages of acronyms and short descriptive paragraphs gives an overview of the structures and functions occurring within U.S. Intelligence, and this is required reading in the field. His exhaustive compendium is backed by a voluminous and complete apparatus, and these notes display an annotation for almost every line of published text, comment, fact or declassified item on record which concerns U.S. intelligence. While the notes are pregnant with scandal, the text of Richelson’s book is less than critical of the status quo.

Critics abound, but legitimate academic voices are more difficult to find. Loch K. Johnson, in a series of books on U.S. intelligence, offers syllabus-quality narratives and interpretations from the point of view of the critical insider. Johnson points to “pathologies of the intelligence cycle” where analysts are severed from their sources. He outlines the chronic problem the relationship between the overseas ‘Chiefs of Mission’ (Ambassadors, i.e., State Department people) and the CIA’s own equally powerful ‘Chiefs of Station.’ Readers of Johnson become familiar with the chronic structural problems between the Intelligence Directorate and the Operations Directorate, (analysis versus espionage). Johnson looks sensitively at campus CIA connections to academics and he draws interesting graphic charts concerning the secret agencies’ public responsiveness, feedback cycles, oversight, and costs and tasking.

Memoirs are an important source of information in this field; many former CIA Directors have published autobiographies. They usually offer valuable insight into the activities of the intelligence community, and definitely show the paradox and tensions inherent in using intelligence in a representative system of government. Stansfield Turner’s book was important in my research and the writings of William Colby and Richard Helms are very valuable, as are Robert M. Gates’s and James Woolsey’s books.

I found the best single source on U.S. Intelligence policy to be Frank J. Smist’s Congress Oversees the United States Intelligence Community 1947-1989. Here is a calm but critical narrative paired with incisive analysis. Smist, a political scientist, applies an analytical model that is valuable. He distinguishes “Investigative Oversight” from “Institutional Oversight,” and shows the strengths and weaknesses of each. Georgia Democrat Richard B. Russell, who served in the Senate from 1933 until 1971, dominated the period of institutional oversight, which ran from the passing of the National Security Act of 1947 until the Church or Senate Select Committee was formed in early 1975.

Richard Russell chaired both the Senate Armed Services Committee CIA subcommittee and the Senate Appropriations Committee CIA subcommittee, and he defeated a 1953 attempt by Mike Mansfield to create a joint Senate-House Intelligence Committee. U.S. Senators Margaret Chase Smith, Carl Hayden and Leverett Saltonstall also had twin CIA subcommittee seats, and Russell embodied “institutional oversight.” In the lower house a similar conservatism prevailed; the Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee (1949-1953 and 1955-1965) Carl Vinson and his allies “were strong advocates for the intelligence community and presidential leadership in foreign affairs … in the closed door oversight conducted by these committees, secrets did not leak” Both Loch Johnson and Frank Smist point to early 1975 as the period where investigative or oppositional oversight in Congress replaced institutional or non-critical oversight. Although Gerald Ford (and his Vice President Nelson Rockefeller) made some progress in reining in the more blatant excesses of the CIA and other intelligence agencies via Executive Order, deeper reform only came with the election of Jimmy Carter and Walter Mondale in 1976 and the subsequent enactment of Church Committee recommendations within a Democratic majority House and Senate. President Gerald Ford’s progress was limited by the presence of his National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger, a Nixon administration veteran who was not as eager to expose recent unconstitutional acts, or limit national security executive prerogatives.

The Carter administration’s foreign policy has a mixed record, best known for its initiation of the Panama Canal Treaty and the brokering of the Camp David Accords, and its response to the 1970’s Oil Crisis and U.S. Embassy hostage crisis in Iran. Another significant foreign policy thread runs through the mid-1970s, however. With a Democratic majority in both the House and Senate, Jimmy Carter’s Administration was able to address the intelligence agencies’ severe credibility crisis. This crisis stemmed from the exposure of some of the excesses of the Vietnam War era, including foreign assassinations, domestic spying, drug experimentation by the CIA and rampant domestic wiretapping by the FBI and NSA. Carter followed up on the work of the Senate Select Committee, the “Church Committee” where his Vice President, Walter Mondale of Minnesota, had served before the election of 1976. On January 24, 1978 Carter issued Executive Order 12036 as one of his second annual budget and State of the Union policy initiatives, and he partially re-organized the intelligence community via this executive order.

Giving a special role to his Vice-President in strengthening oversight of intelligence community, Carter followed in the steps of his immediate predecessor, Republican Gerald Ford, of Michigan. Ford had depended on his Vice President, former New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller, to seriously begin the executive branch intelligence community reforms demanded by the public, the courts and Congress. Rockefeller’s recommendations to Ford, grudgingly supported by Henry Kissinger, laid the groundwork for the more sweeping re-structuring of the intelligence community carried out by Jimmy Carter. There are many parallels and continuities between the Ford and Carter administration reforms in the mid-1970s. President Reagan also appears to have given intelligence portfolio functions to his Vice President, the former CIA Director G.H.W. Bush, despite his claims of being “out of the loop.” Any Vice President is statutorily linked to intelligence oversight by sitting on the National Security Council with the President, Secretary of State and Secretary of Defense.

In brief, the Carter intelligence reform was unable to solve the structural problem of the control of U.S. intelligence, and the “CIA re-chartering” bogged down in the late 1970’s, mainly on the issue of greater congressional oversight, or how many ‘outsiders’ would have access to the budgets, technology and personnel data of the fifteen secret agencies. At the time (post-Watergate and post-Vietnam) the CIA was unable to muster enough Congressional and Presidential support for the needed expansion of their powers over the NSA and the NRO satellite agency, although such changes were discussed. Certainly signals intelligence (SIGINT) ascended over human intelligence (HUMINT) in the 1970’s reforms, and ground agents were de-emphasized in favor of technical intelligence priorities. Stansfield Turner fired over 800 espionage case officers in one day. Although Carter Executive Order 12036, the FISA and the Senate Bill 400 were all important reforms, larger questions of counterintelligence sharing between the FBI, CIA and NSA were left unaddressed, and the power of the CIA director to control the other fifteen agencies remained weak, as the Carter White House and point man Lloyd Cutler retreated from investigatory oversight progressive reforms to the older Cold War institutional oversight norms.

Intelligence history, like its related discipline, diplomatic history, is a frustrating and highly restricted field. There are limited records available, they are almost all government documents, and they hide more than they divulge. Archivists at the Carter Library in Atlanta were helpful in my research, though, and they shared unmarked boxes of Presidential National Security Directives with me as well as extremely useful records originating from the Ford Presidential Library in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Now, with attorney Lloyd Cutler and the CIA/NSA re-organization plans back in the national headlines, I am beginning to feel that history may indeed repeat itself.

Executive Order 12036:

The Presidential Archives at the Carter Library have de-classified files from the Ford Administration and these shed light on Carter’s Executive Order 12036 and his efforts to reign in the intelligence community. In December 1974, after four months in office, President Ford received an unprecedented letter in which his Director of Central Intelligence William Colby confirmed a story published by Seymour Hersh in the New York Times. “I have already briefed the chairman of the Armed Services Committee” CIA Director Colby states, “some CIA employees . . . misinterpreted” orders and engaged in “unauthorized entry of the premises, breaking and entering, electronic surveillance . . . telephone taps of two newspaper reporters in 1963 and physical surveillance of five reporters in 1971 and 1972.” The Seymour Hersh New York Times articles immediately served as the final catalyst for Senate Majority Leader Mansfield to force through a Senate Select Committee, and both Frist and Johnson point to January 1975 as the turning point from the institutional to the investigatory oversight model.

This Christmas Eve letter was a bombshell for the un-elected President, and it was followed on Christmas Day by a sensitive, now declassified, memo from National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger to Gerald Ford in which Kissinger briefs the President on the issue: {{{quote}}}

A program to identify possible foreign links with American dissident elements was established within the CIA’s office of Counterintelligence in August 1967 . . . to determine whether U.S. dissidents were receiving support from outside the U.S.

Later in 1967 the CIA’s activity was integrated into an interagency program. In December 1970 an Interagency Evaluation Committee was established under the coordination of John Dean. . . . CIA continued its counter intelligence interests in possible foreign links with American dissidents . . . I have discussed these activities with him [DCI Colby] and must tell you that some few of them clearly were illegal, while others – though not technically illegal – raise profound moral questions. A number, while neither illegal nor morally unsound, demonstrated very poor judgment.

The response to the Hersh article and other investigative journalism, and to the Colby and Kissinger admissions, and to the pressure from the Senate and House was all co-ordinated in the Ford White House by the Vice President, Nelson Rockefeller. Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter’s two related Executive Orders both have their roots in this policy option memorandum. It is dated September 18, 1975 and signed by Vice President Nelson Rockefeller, Henry Kissinger, James Schlesinger, Phil Buchen and James Lynn, Ford’s inner circle of West Wing advisors: {{quote}}

Background: One of the most serious consequences of Watergate was that the intelligence community became a topic for Congressional investigations, as well as public and press debate. Starting with CIA links to Watergate, the issues have expanded to: CIA involvement in domestic spying and foreign assassination plots - FBI violations of civil liberties, - NSA monitoring of the telephone conversations of American citizens . . . insufficient control by Congress of the intelligence community purse strings and insufficient knowledge of its operations . . . poor management and control of intelligence community activities and resources, and poor performance of the community in specific instances. [Ford was presented with policy options:] Where in the Executive Branch should responsibility for oversight of the propriety of intelligence activities be placed? Should you issue an Executive Order restricting the activities of the CIA or the intelligence community as a whole . . . or a more comprehensive Executive Order which also incorporates a full statement of positive duties and responsibilities for the agencies . . . what actions are appropriate at this time to improve your supervision and control of the intelligence community? . . . Option 1. Extend the role of the PFIAB [President’s Foreign Intelligence and Advisory Board] to include oversight, (or) approve Option One but rename PFIAB, . . . retain PFIAB and create a new body solely for oversight . . . Second [option], issue an Executive Order restricting the collection of information on American citizens . . . [to restrict the CIA, all agencies, or all agencies except the FBI in a] comprehensive Executive Order . . . What actions are appropriate at this time to improve your supervision and control of the Intelligence community? Option – give formal authorization of the NSC Intelligence Committee to evaluate the programs and product of the intelligence community.

The importance of this 12-page policy paper to Jimmy Carter’s efforts cannot be underestimated. Walter Mondale, Zbigniew Brezhinski and Carter’s top staff arrived at nearly identical conclusions in 1977 before issuing Executive Order 12036, imposing much more stringent controls on the agencies than Ford had done in Executive Order 11905.

Carter would have trouble in the three years following the issuance of Executive Order 12036. Although the Order carried the force of law, the parallel legislation concerning Congressional oversight of intelligence and a new CIA Charter would bog down into a sustained deadlock. Although Carter signed the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act in 1978 and the Intelligence Oversight law in 1980, Carter Staff Counsel Lloyd Cutler’s boxes, marked “CIA Charter” show a loss of momentum in their dedication to further reforms. Most notably, Defense Secretary Harold Brown, Admiral Turner at CIA and Admiral Inman at NSA combined to sustain the status quo in overall Defense/CIA/NSA relations.

Controlled by a moderate Republican untainted by recent assassinations, Watergate or Vietnam scandals, the Rockefeller Commission moved parallel to the Church Senate Committee to establish controls on the runaway intelligence agency. The Rockefeller Commission’s report caused Henry Kissinger to add his voice to those urging sweeping reforms on Ford. Kissinger states: {{quote}}

The Rockefeller Commission was charged with investigating and making recommendations with respect to allegations that the CIA engaged in illegal spying on American citizens . . . propose revisions in the National Security Act which would clarify CIA’s authority by explicitly limiting it to foreign intelligence matters – this could also be accomplished by Executive Order . . . to prohibit improper domestic activities of CIA concerning US citizens, legislation to strengthen CIA’s internal organization and management structure including establishing a second Deputy Director position [and] stronger penalties for violations by present or former CIA employees . . . chang[ing] Executive Branch procedures on oversight of intelligence community and white House contact with CIA and a stronger role for the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board.

Ford promulgated Executive Order 11905 in the spring of 1976, and he took steps in these directions, but Carter’s election signaled that more sweeping intelligence controls were coming. David Aaron, Mondale’s staff adviser on foreign affairs and former counsel to the Church Committee organized the Carter White House reform efforts, which culminated in Executive Order 12036. (Mr. Aaron’s papers have not yet been declassified, but Carter’s revamping of the intelligence community is traceable in the Carter Library’s papers from National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brezhinski and Staff Counsel Lloyd Cutler’s desks).

Although the Carter Administration would never reach consensus with the Democratic Congress on Congressional investigational oversight of the intelligence agencies or develop a new charter for the fifteen intelligence agencies, on Tuesday, January 24, the White House did issue Executive Order 12036, which placed explicit controls and limits on the intelligence community and re-organized the lines of responsibility. On Friday, January 20th, 1978 President Carter received a large package in his in-box from his National Security Advisor ‘stage-managing’ the signing of the Executive Order. This memo is a briefing for the signing ceremony for E.O. 12036. Brezhinski tells Carter:{{quote}}

This executive order is the product of the most extensive and highest-level review of our foreign intelligence activities ever conducted through the NSC system and an unprecedented dialogue with Congress. It builds on the experience under President Ford’s Executive Order 11905 and is intended to provide a foundation for the drafting and enactment by Congress of statutory charters. The Order ensures that U.S. government foreign intelligence and counterintelligence activities are conducted in full compliance with our laws and are consistent with broader national security policies. . . [it will] establish effective oversight of the direction, management and conduct of foreign intelligence activities . . . clarify the authority and responsibility of the DCI and the several departments and agencies that have foreign intelligence and counterintelligence responsibilities . . .the Senate Select Committee is proud of its significant contribution and its recently formed counterpart, the House Select Committee, while not as much involved, wants to publicly associate itself with the new Executive Order . . . Emphasize the unprecedented degree of constructive dialogue with the Congressional oversight committees. Stress the fact that in this very sensitive area the Administration and Congress are working in harmony – provide the Congressional leaders with an opportunity to make remarks for the record. (underlining in the original)

The President’s address is included in this file, and here he announces the basic changes brought by Executive Order 12036 in four parts. In part one, Carter announced that the Policy Review Committee and the Special Coordination Committee, standing committees of the National Security Council, “will, short of the President, provide the highest level review and guidance for the policies and practices of the Intelligence Community.” The PRC would henceforth be chaired by the DCI, Admiral Stansfield Turner, and the SCC would be chaired by the National Security Advisor himself, Zbigniew Brezhinski. The second part of Carter’s speech is more immediately of interest. He stated this groundbreaking doctrine, “the authorities and responsibilities of all departments, agencies and senior officials engaged in foreign intelligence and counterintelligence are being made public. Those implementing directives which must remain classified for security reasons will be made available to the appropriate Congressional oversight committee.”

Part Two of the President’s speech explained, yet glossed over, a Byzantine struggle over turf between the Secretary of Defense Harold Brown and the DCI, Stansfield Turner. Carter said, “the new Order implements my earlier decision to centralize under the DCI the most important national intelligence management functions – collection requirements, budget control, and analysis – while operational and support activities are left unchanged and decentralized.” This opaque statement only makes sense in light of the New York Times article of 1/23/78 and other secondary sources. DCI Turner, pushing for both improved organization and personal power, had pressed for day-to-day CIA control of the Defense Department’s powerful intelligence agencies, the National Reconnaissance Office (spy satellites) and the National Security Agency (signals intelligence, wire-tapping and code-breaking). Admiral Turner’s efforts ran counter to the vision of Dr. Brezhinski and Vice President Mondale. They were engineering a popular limitation on the CIA’s power, by changing its charter and its oversight boards. Carter and Admiral Turner had agreed on some additional management duties for the DCI (see Presidential Directive NSC-17, below) but the Admiral was never given control of the NRO and NSA, two major intelligence agencies under the Secretary of Defense. Turner never seemed to understand that the new Executive Order was designed to limit the CIA and control it, not to give it greater power and independent authority. The behind the scenes struggle is glossed over, but Carter summarized the final decision; the DCI was given more management and policy input, but the “operational and support activities are left unchanged and decentralized.”

In Part Three of his address, Carter expresses the dilemma of executive intelligence actions in a representative republic. {{quote}}

Our intelligence agencies have a critical role to play in collecting and analyzing information important to our national security interests and, on occasion, acting in direct support of major foreign policy objectives. It is equally important however, that the methods employed by these agencies meet the Constitutional standards protecting the privacy and civil liberties of US persons and are in full compliance with the law . . . a major section of the Executive Order is devoted entirely to setting forth detailed restrictions on intelligence collection, covert activities in support of foreign policy objectives, experimentation, contracting, assistance to law enforcement authorities, personnel assigned to other agencies, indirect participation in prohibited activities, dissemination and storage of information and a prohibition on assassinations. The FBI’s intelligence activities no longer have a blanket exception to these restrictions . . . [and there will be] a greatly enhanced role for the Attorney General.

In Part Four Carter announces the formation of an Intelligence Oversight Board and instructs the DCI “to report to the Congressional Intelligence Committees in a complete and prompt manner.” Carter concluded the speech by stating “this Executive Order . . . assur[es] the American people that their intelligence agencies will be working effectively for them and not infringing on their legal rights.”

In an attached memo, Brezhinski specifically reminds the President to call up to the podium Senate Select Committee members Daniel Inouye, Birch Bayh, Dee Huddleston and Congressmen Boland and Murphy of the House Select Committee. An unprecedented Congressional/Executive agreement on U.S. Intelligence reform was acted out that day.

One final memo in this file sheds light on the character and policies of two major intelligence community figures, Admiral Stansfield Turner and Attorney General Griffin Bell. Chief Speech Writer James Fallows and Griffin Smith wrote a memo for Carter concerning the recommendations of Turner and Bell for Carter’s speech.{{quote}}

ADMIRAL TURNER suggests –“That you acknowledge this Executive Order was produced by close cooperation between the Secretary of Defense and the DCI.” – “that you indicate your support for Admiral Turner’s management of the agency ‘which you suggested earlier’” and “that you express hope that the charter legislation will move smoothly, with Congress refraining from placing too much detail in the charters [as] ‘we need some flexibility in intelligence operations and oversight.’” [caps in original]

Turner here shows much of the problematic character he is often pictured as having. In his first request, he wants the President to re-characterize the fierce wrangling between the CIA and the DOD as “close co-operation” and then he suggests that Carter (to paraphrase) ‘remind them I’m doing a good job,’ and ‘tell Congress not to tie my hands.’ Turner was probably not the best individual to work within the new Mondale/Brezhinski/Congress re-charter program for intelligence. This note shows the pettiness of Turner, especially when contrasted to the high-mindedness of the second half of the memo, which indirectly quotes Attorney General Griffin Bell. Bell suggested that the President announce: {{quote}}

Constitutional rights of privacy and civil liberties are fully protected by this Order . . . requiring [the Attorney General] to set procedures that ensure compliance with the law, protect constitutional rights and privacy and ensure that any intelligence activity within the U.S. or directed against any U.S. person is conducted by the least intrusive means possible.

No such constitutional re-iteration of the basic premises of the Executive Order are seen in the defensive, self-serving jockeying found in the Turner proposals, and Griffin Bell stands considerably higher in historical stature than the frustrated and over-reaching Turner.

Conclusion:

Turner’s egoism and heavy-handed bearing are fully aired in his memoirs, as well.

A series of more recently de-classified Presidential Directives shed light on the struggle between Turner and the other Intelligence chiefs. An August 1977 Presidential Directive NSC-17 shows the steps Carter went through in re-defining the role of the Director of Central Intelligence relative to the other agencies such as the NRO and NSA. Admiral Turner’s role is enhanced when Carter directs that the PRC committee (under the DCI) “define and prioritize substantive intelligence requirements and evaluate analytical product performance.” The Directive states “DCI will have full tasking responsibilities [for] . . . specific intelligence collection objectives and targets and assigning these to intelligence collection agencies [to be] . . . jointly manned by civilian and military personnel.” This empowered the DCI to steer the NSA and NRO but not to oversee the Defense Department agencies. The “DCI is named as principal budget forecaster” is to be “provided adequate staff” and “continue to act as primary advisor to NSC and President and retain all other powers,” but, most importantly, “authority to hire and fire personnel and to give day to day direction (to the NRO and NSA, the satellite and wiretapping agencies) . . . will remain with the heads of the relevant departments and agencies [D.O.D]” This Directive sets the stage for Executive Order 12036 and shows the compromise Carter worked out with Turner, which gave forecasting, targeting and budget control over the NRO and the NSA to the DCI but stopped short of greatly enhancing the CIA Director’s power over the two large military intelligence agencies, the NRO and the NSA. This, of course, is the substance of today’s post 9-11 debate over intelligence authority.

After January 1978, President Carter was unable to rapidly forge a Congressional consensus on intelligence reform, even with Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress. The CIA Charter remained a hot internal White House issue until the Reagan inauguration and the question of Congressional oversight became the main sticking point for preventing additional legislative reform under Carter. I now believe that Lloyd Cutler, in his role as senior counselor to Bill Clinton, drew on his Carter White House experience to discourage President Clinton from attempting the difficult structural reforms which are now, in hindsight, seen to be so critical. Clinton, under the advice of Cutler, made no effort to eliminate any of the fifteen agencies or place the NRO and NSA under the DCI’s direct control, and of course, the FBI and CIA counterintelligence functions remain segregated, competitive and at cross purposes. Under Reagan, Bush, Clinton and Bush II, the chronic structural problems which weakened U.S. intelligence co-ordination and efficacy remained, after the window of opportunity and public clamor of the 1970s had passed into quiescence.

Executive Order 12036 and the FISA were the high points for Jimmy Carter and Walter Mondale’s intelligence program. Following on President Ford’s Executive Order 11905, which Vice President Rockefeller had promoted, Executive Order 12036 broke new ground in publicly addressing civil rights questions and assassinations. 12036 placed very specific domestic limits on the CIA and FBI for the first time, and the FISA codified tasking and targeting norms for the fifteen agencies overseas. This progress in regulating the espionage and analysis units of the Federal government was limited by the personalities of the major players, specifically Stansfield Turner, and also by the more conservative approach to Congressional oversight of the CIA that was taken by the maturing Carter Administration in the late 1970s. The administration strayed from its 1976 mandate for investigative oversight and retreated into a milder and ineffective institutional oversight, which was further weakened by the Reagan-Casey regime. .

In very general terms, the leadership of the intelligence community (from both political parties) must be improved. The agencies and the military intelligence units must be firmly indoctrinated in constitutional law, the Bill of Rights, the Geneva Convention and universal humanist ethics. The ideology of the partisan leaders should not drive the analysts to pre-arranged and politically expedient conclusions. The programs, techniques and activities of the fifteen agencies need to be placed under rigorous and ongoing scrutiny. Programs need to be questioned by the appropriate congressional leaders, via investigational oversight, as institutional oversight has proven to be too weak to raise performance standards. Ultimately, our safety as a nation -- and as a global society -- rests on the vigorous, exhaustive and critical oversight of the various intelligence communities.

Sources Cited

Very, very informative post for me, more like this are needed in all debates I think. The one relevant thing I can see missing is that the EFF brought lawsuits against the cooperators with the NSA in their warrantless illegal wiretapping, and the case was never allowed to go forward for fear of "state secrets" being revealed, which leads me to think that they also wanted to avoid more of the Nixon Era scandal recurring.

It appears to me at least that Science vs Religion is one of the oldest debates that still rages just as hotly, and as usual, it's a false dichotomy. I've seen plenty of religious dogma in the most science-minded, and plenty of scientific theorizing in many religious folk. It's like debating Sci Fi vs Fantasy, they both meld into each other after you've read enough books, and it's more than rare to find one that is Sci Fi to the exclusion of all Fantasy elements and vice versa. I'd say, check out Bill Moyer's take on Religion, then apply it to Science as well. Both have their uses, but are struggling to continue being totally relevant to the worldviews today.

Feeding the Pigs

Obama and the Altar of Greed

By PROF. DAVID MICHAEL GREEN

Counterpunch.org

March 20-22, 2009

http://www.counterpunch.org/green03202009.html

Barack Obama is dumber than a bag of hammers.

I never thought I’d say that about the guy. I thought he would probably disappoint me with many of his policies. I thought he would probably fail to be bold enough for his times. I thought he might miss opportunities to do great things because of his seeming desire to be Mr. Rogers, complete with cardigan. But I never expected him to be really dumb.

But if you’re willing to risk the entirety of a potentially great presidency on making sure that a handful of already wealthy sociopaths who got rich destroying the global economy are not denied massive taxpayer-funded bonuses to keep them in jobs they’ve already completely mishandled, despite the fact that many of them took the money and left the job anyhow – if that’s you, and you’re the new president of the United States with a load of challenges and lots of public good will solidly behind you – well, then, you’re dumber than a bag of hammers.

Like I said, I never thought I’d say that about Barack Obama. But then I never thought I’d witness such inane stupidity (or, worse – is it venality?) from the man.

If you think that I’m exaggerating when I say that Obama may be betting his entire promising presidency by taking the wrong side in this AIG scandal, think again. His presidency rises and falls on essentially one question: Is he doing everything he can to fix the economy? In order to fix the economy, given the astonishing mess he’s inherited, he is going to continue to need unprecedented forbearance from the public and Congress so as to take unprecedented steps. People are already freaking out at what has been done and what has been spent, and we’re only just starting the rescue, with all its enormous costs. The Republicans, who made this mess, are going to try to block Obama at every turn. The president needs to convince the public to trust him and follow him, if he is going to win the legislation necessary fix the economy.

But if people see that Obama is using their hard-earned tax money to reward the predatory parasites at AIG, even after they’ve wrecked everything in sight, how is he ever going to get public support for spending another trillion bucks to repair the economy? And if he can’t get the tools necessary to do the job, how can he ever expect it to get fixed? And if it doesn’t get fixed, how can he expect to have a successful presidency?

He can’t, and he won’t. And, thus, it is no exaggeration to say that this vibrant and well-liked president, who carries the hopes and aspirations of a nation on his shoulders with a robust foundation of good will to match, is potentially giving away everything in order to make sure that a band of corporate pirates keep their stolen taxpayer money. And doing that, ladies and gentlemen, is as dumb as... Well, you know.

Or maybe even a lot dumber still. Month after month of headlines detailing the latest scandal, many of them involving not just the theft of people’s savings but crashing the global economy as well, and you begin to wonder if there’s any bottom to the barrel of fiscal depravity and governmental enabling. Obama is now charting new paths in that direction. Just the concept that AIG executives who brought down the roof should get anything besides pink slips and orange jumpsuits is sickening, let alone that they should get bonuses.

But wait, it gets better. Then we’re told that the bonuses are necessary because only these criminals can undo the mess they’ve created. So they’re paid millions to stay. As if those who know how to wreck a global economy also know how to fix it. As if these are the only folks in the world who have these skills.

Okay, well, fine then. At least they have to earn these ‘retention bonuses’, right? Nah. That would so responsible. Turns out that a bunch of them took the money supposedly provided as incentives for them to stay and then split anyhow. One guy grabbed $4.6 million in retention bonus cash from the taxpayers, funneled through AIG, then promptly unretained himself. More than fifty others did the same, eleven of whom took over a million bucks to stay. Except they didn’t.

Then we have Team Obama telling us that these are legal contracts that cannot be violated. As knowledgeable legal commentators have pointed out, however, that seems highly unlikely for a whole slew of reasons. There are all sorts of legitimate mechanisms recognized by the law through which contractual agreements can be bypassed in order to serve higher societal purposes.

But even apart from all that, let’s remember that these are bonuses! Isn’t the very nature of a bonus – as opposed to salary – the idea of contingency on performance? Do the contracts say, “We’ll reduce you bonus down to eight figures if you destroy the company, and a mere several million bucks if you take down the global economy”? If not, why weren’t these people paid 23 cents in order to fulfill a legal obligation and told to go hide in Argentina or something? And count their blessings? Instead, over seventy employees of the AIG London-based unit that brought down the company and the rest of us to boot have become millionaires.

Why did Democrats in Congress creep in late at night and remove language from the bailout bill which would have prevented this noxious use of taxpayer money? Why did Obama sign such a bill? Is there really no depredation that greed cannot induce anymore? Is there really no politician in America who actually thinks these crimes are crimes anymore?

Of course, it’s not exactly shocking news when Washington politicians are found to be in bed with the corrupt captains of American finance. Indeed, if there’s one thing that Democrats and Republicans can most readily agree upon, surely it’s how cool it is to whore for Wall Street.

Still, I can’t help being a little disappointed (some will no doubt say a lot naive) observing the degree to which Obama has joined this crowd. Admittedly, I don’t get invited to the smoke-filled rooms where political deals are cut between politicians and the people who buy them, so maybe I have no clue what I’m talking about. But it strikes me that Obama never had to be just another corporate Democrat, like Harry Reid or Chuck Schumer.

The Obama campaign was a political and, especially, a financial juggernaut, the likes of which we’ve never seen, from either party. He was practically printing campaign dollars. They were pouring in from so many ordinary contributors, in such a high volume, that he literally walked away from tens of millions of free federal funding he could have had simply by opting for government financing of his campaign. But he actually pulled in way more by foregoing the matching funds and just opening up the floodgates for a public anxious to throw money at Change They Could Believe In.

So why does a guy in that happy situation staff his economic team with Wall Street mercenaries like Tim Geithner and Larry Summers? Does he really believe that these people hold some sort of leverage over him and over the United States government? It’s just astonishing to think so.

The reality is that the American overclass has just been on the most amazing feeding frenzy for three decades now, to the extent that they’ve simply lost any sense of proportion, whatsoever. The sense of predatory entitlement has become what water is to fish. It is so much a part of their world view that they no longer even have consciousness of it, or any alternative to it, any more than a tuna ever wonders what it might be like to walk on two legs and breathe air.

Fine. I mean what a shock it is, eh?, to find that there are people in this world whose social conscience maxed out in kindergarten, where instead of coloring they instead cut business deals to trick the other kiddies out of their graham crackers. It’s just a given that we have that sort of sicko running around. That’s why we have jails, and that was once why we had the SEC.

Far less clear is why those who are supposed to represent the public’s interests need adopt such mentalities – though, of course, many of them are readily and frequently bought off. But, again, it seems to me that Barack Obama had nothing to gain and everything to lose by carrying water for the mansion-on-every-continent set. Obama has an independent base of support – some of it quite emphatic – and a national crisis or six on his plate compelling even those who are skeptical about the guy in the direction of wishing him every success as president, since his will be theirs as well. So why is he turning his back on those hundreds of millions of supporters and instead looking out for the interests of what are the financial equivalent of serial rapists?

Is this a case of ideological osmosis? Of a complete failure of imagination? Have we simply reached the point where anyone who could plausibly be president in this country cannot fathom government existing for any other purpose than to enrich the already fabulously wealthy, any more than our friend the tuna could possibly dream of playing soccer?

Political analysts have long spoken of ‘regulatory capture’, the process by which industries which are meant to be regulated instead capture control of the government agencies which are meant to be regulating them. A more contemporary version of this concept, and one more applicable perhaps to Obama than to his minions, is the arguably far more dangerous idea of ‘cognitive regulatory capture’. Under that scenario, you don’t even need to infiltrate the agency, because you’ve already captured its mind and narrowed the range of what is thinkable therein. Just as in Orwell’s “1984", the most powerful effect you can have on people is not by physically limiting their behavior, per se, but instead by getting them to limit themselves in terms of the concepts they are even capable of entertaining.

Has Barack Obama been the object of cognitive regulatory capture? It’s hard to know. But it is astonishing that time after time he keeps deferring to the interests of not only the economic elites, but of the outrageously criminal economic elites. He puts Tim Geithner in his cabinet, not Bernie Sanders. And when somebody floats the idea of capping salaries at companies on the government dole, or of limiting bonuses, or of the government truly acting like the owner it actually has become of many of these bailed out firms, there’s Geithner and Summers telling him (and, presumably, Robert Rubin telling them), “No, no, you can’t do that”. And, in fact, no, no, Obama doesn’t.

Imagine that radical concept. Limit executives who have crashed their firms, and the global economy as well, from taking multi-million dollar bonuses out of taxpayer-funded bailout money? Sounds vaguely Marxist, doesn’t it? After all, we can’t have government intervention in the private sector. Don’t forget your catechism. (And just ignore the seeming contradiction of government intervention in the form of bailouts. I mean, why bother with having a religion if you’re not going to be hypocritical?)

When Bill Clinton did this stuff it was surprising, only because he was the first Democratic president since Roosevelt to sell out the public’s interests as if he were a full-blown Republican. What makes it surprising in Obama’s case is that he has so little need to do so, given the crisis we’re in and the support and good will that it automatically provides him, not to mention the self-mutilation of the opposition party’s credibility.

And what makes it really surprising is that Obama not only doesn’t need to go down this path, but he is potentially destroying his presidency by doing so. There is a growing public anger out there, anger that is long overdue. People are finally beginning to wake up, however foggily, to who is the real enemy of America’s interests and who is the real predator with its fingers rifling their pocketbooks. If this populist rage is properly directed, we could get some sort of healthy outcome, like a reprise of the New Deal social safety net and a badly needed robust regulatory apparatus. If it is not, it might instead be miraculously used to breathe political life back into the very corpses of those who brought this storm down on all of us.

Crawling into bed with Public Enemy Number One against the leading wedge of a populist revolt is about as stupid an idea as imaginable for the Obama administration. Why doesn’t he offer another monotone denunciation while he’s at it, this one of pedophiles? Perhaps adding a heartfelt expression of how disappointed he is that there just isn’t more that can be done, darn it. Danged legal contracts! Hey, maybe he could also staff up his Justice Department with paroled sexual predators, too, precisely as he has done in the equivalent manner at Treasury.

And while he’s at it, he can complete the job he began by putting so many Republicans in the cabinet. The GOP has been busy committing suicide for years now, but has dramatically sped up the pace of late, trotting out clown-like figures the likes of which neither Barnum nor Bailey could ever have conceived, even on a particularly pungent acid trip. Jindal, Steele, Limbaugh, Palin, Palin’s daughter. Wow. If there is a Hell, you can bet Barry Goldwater is down there right now furiously trying to change his party registration. Best of all, not only are these losers the face of the Republican Party, lately they’ve taken it a step yet further and have been bringing out the long knives to eviscerate each other. It’s hard to imagine a better situation to be in for a Democratic president.

Which makes Obama’s idiocy all the more astonishing. Probably no one on the planet could rescue the GOP right now, except for Barack Obama. So why on earth is he doing so? Why is he throwing a rope to a drowning disease? And then handing it a cudgel? Why is he breaking into the vault at the CDC in order to cut loose the smallpox virus once more? What could he be thinking? Or is the bag of hammers thinking at all?

Republicans, in their usual fashion, have been highly successful at marketing disastrously pernicious ideas. So, lately, they’ve been out there associating Obama’s massively expensive economic rescue plan with wasteful government spending. In fact, it isn’t that at all. In fact, it is the only hope remaining for reviving this horridly destructive economy that the greedy Wall Street sharks and their political minions created. There will be no monetary policy solution. Interest rates are close to zero, and there’s nowhere left to drop. Demand from China is not going to rescue this economy. Consumer spending? Yeah, right. Rising property values as ATMs for homeowners? How very 2007. This is likely the whole enchilada. If wholesale Keynesianist countercyclical government spending doesn’t rescue the economy, it’s really hard to see what Plan B could possibly be.

But, of course, Republicans have never met a national interest they weren’t anxious to steamroll on the way toward achieving their own narrow self-interests, and this situation is no different. If you’re in the GOP and all you care about is winning elections (and, if you are in the GOP, that is all you care about), your only bad scenario looking ahead is for Obama to successfully rescue the economy. So you try to block him at every turn, and you lie about his program, calling a desperate last-ditch rescue effort straight out of the Macro Economics 101 textbook a porkbarrel exercise in wasteful government spending.

The public doesn’t necessarily want to hear that right now, and certainly doesn’t put a lot of trust in the source. But then there’s old Brilliant Barack, staffing his economic team not only with Wall Street hacks, but tax-cheating, TARP-blowing, Wall Street hacks at that. And then these flunkies tell us there’s just no way that public money can be stopped from being used as a reward for the scam artists who got us into this mess originally. And guess what? All of sudden, miraculously, the worst offenders in the Republican Party start to sound credible.

And if that happens, Obama’s already sinking chances of passing massive rescue legislation sufficient to end this nightmare will diminish fast.

And if that happens his chances of fixing the economy will fall rapidly.

And if that happens his presidency will swirl down the toilet.

And if that happens it will be Jeb Bush in a walkaway in 2012.

David Michael Green is a professor of political science at Hofstra University in New York. He is delighted to receive readers' reactions to his articles (dmg@regressiveantidote.net), but regrets that time constraints do not always allow him to respond. More of his work can be found at his website, www.regressiveantidote.net.

Yeah, I've been scratching my head over his economic policies of late as well....

That's an intriguing point you make, Chris. I had heard earlier that Myers got the frame rate wrong but I had never heard of what film he got wrong. Thanks for the update.

Josiah Thompson

Josiah Thompson quote:

"Hence, the films and photos from Dealey Plaza form a bedrock of evidence in the case that future historians can use to evaluate eyewitness testimony and physical evidence. This will happen even if the films and photos from Dealey Plaza are not used in a future legal proceeding."

Math will rule the day. It is admissible in a court of law.

The Towner camera FPS / Myer's individual film frames sync contradiction awaits.

What type of movie camera's filmed at 24FPS back in 1963? Surely not Towner's 8mm.

chris

Hey did anyone find any evidence related to the claim(i believe it was in TMWKK) that there was a shooter in the next building from the Depository?

You seem to always keep your posts on an even keel rather than ranting, that's pretty rare on any net forums these days.

Maybe the "even keel" you perceive, is related to Len either claiming he does not understand obvious points illustrating the record of lack of credibility at the top of US political hierarchy supported by clear examples, along with his minimization of unusual (incredible) pronouncements made by the powerful ?

Hey, I was just commenting on general non-flaminess of posts, I don't claim to know much of anything yet about the veracity of his counterclaims, or whatever. It's fairly startling to me not to have someone jump down each person with an opinions throat yelling XXXX XXX!!! or XXXXX!!! after any view that disagrees with them. Of course, I extend that to the forum in general as well, it's just, well, it seems that any kind of good earnest debate always draws flamebaiters, and that hasn't seemed to be the case here....yet. I suppose it's a little easier since it's strictly against the rules and all, but still...

I've seen 2 types of reference to a "4th film"

Speculation that there is a virtually unknown film floating around or that one was destroyed or is used by the CIA for "training". Some of the speculation is centered around images of spectators who some think were filming or people who claim they filmed the assassination but had their copies seized e.g. "the Babushka Lady / Betty Oliver.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babushka_lady

Speculation by our own David Healy (and perhaps others) that an extra 1st gen. copy of the Z-film was made at the Dallas Kodak lab because one of the processing numbers is unaccounted for. I worked at a film lab in Boston (Cambridge actually) for a few years in the 1980's and there and then numbers being skipped was nothing particularly unusual.

And what do you think? Do you think there is a 4th film unreleased as of yet?

I've not really looked into it but I haven't seen much evidence there was. Oliver seems pretty obviously to be a xxxx and the images I've seen of the "Babushka Lady" are not clear enough to say one way or the other. Supposedly witnesses saw her or someone else shooting a fourth film but I haven't seen it. That's not to say it doesn't exist, because as I said before I haven't followed this very much.

As for RFK's asssassination I'm not sure I think it might even have been Sirhan but I haven't looked at it very closely either. Unfortunately my sound card isn't working I'll watch the Youtube when I get it fixed.

I haven't barely looked into RFK at all, honestly didn't even know he had been assassinated until about this year or so. The theory in that vid and a few others is that the weapon was an automated gun built into the limo itself or something...just sounded interesting and not something I'd heard so thought I'd run it by here.

Main question I have now is: is there any clear way to establish convincingly or even prove a motive/single set of motives that got JFK and possibly RFK murdered? I've heard lots of theories but most of them rely on witnesses only or other shaky chains of evidence to string things together. I'm not trying to take a stance on any theories out there, I just wouldn't mind a quick rundown of the currently held to be likely(and the currently totally debunked) theories, and also whether there even is a way to establish motive that strongly in this case, as I feel that legitimizing evidence we already have as well as potentially uncovering new evidence or witnesses would follow the chain of motive, provided we had a solidly provable one.

The CNN guy is Lou Dobbs.

Barry Goldwater said publicly on a few occasions he wants to know whats in Area 51 (though he didn’t call it that), Gary Hart made his doubts about the JFK assassination, the Church Committee which they and 3 other future/ex-presidential candidates were members of uncovered all sorts of skullduggery as did the Kerry Committee. All sorts of former high level pols and military/intelligence folks said they think Israel attacked the USS Liberty knowing it was American.

Pierre Salinger has gone public with his belief TWA 800 was shot down. The Washington Post and NY Times were responsible for uncovering Watergate and publishing the Pentagon Papers, more recently the Times uncovered domestic espionage by the NSA (though they sat on it) Seymour Hersh uncovered all sorts of secrets including the Mai Lai massacre and recently spoke publicly about assassinations squads run by Cheney. Not only did the Pittsburg Post-Gazette push the Clinton body count nonsense they published Tink’s scathing review of the Bug’s book. Across the state the Philadelphia Daily News raised questions about the crash of flight 93. The History Channel broadcast “The Men Who Killed Kennedy” as well as documentaries pushing USS Liberty and Apollo CT’s.

I’m not saying the situation is perfect but it’s hardly as dire and monolith as you make out.

You seem to always keep your posts on an even keel rather than ranting, that's pretty rare on any net forums these days.

nm, funny vid but inappropriate i would guess for the younger people who might view these forums.

http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=59049

Executive Order 11110 - Amendment of Executive Order No. 10289 as Amended, Relating to the Performance of Certain Functions Affecting the Department of the Treasury

June 4, 1963

By virtue of the authority vested in me by section 301 of title 3 of the United States Code, it is ordered as follows:

SECTION 1. Executive Order No. 10289 of September 19, 1951, as amended, is hereby further amended --

(a) By adding at the end of paragraph 1 thereof the following subparagraph (j):

"(j) The authority vested in the President by paragraph ( of section 43 of the Act of May 12, 1933, as amended (31 U.S.C. 821 (), to issue silver certificates against any silver bullion, silver, or standard silver dollars in the Treasury not then held for redemption of any outstanding silver certificates, to prescribe the denominations of such silver certificates, and to coin standard silver dollars and subsidiary silver currency for their redemption," and

( By revoking subparagraphs ( and © of paragraph 2 thereof.

SEC. 2. The amendment made by this Order shall not affect any act done, or any right accruing or accrued or any suit or proceeding had or commenced in any civil or criminal cause prior to the date of this Order but all such liabilities shall continue and may be enforced as if said amendments had not been made. JOHN F. KENNEDY

THE WHITE

Yeah, that's what I referenced in the JFK forums, it interests me that we apparently still have rights to print metal-backed dollars yet don't.

Aren't they then interest free also?

Anyways do you think it ties into the motive of why he was killed?

I’ve seen 2 types of reference to a “4th film”

Speculation that there is a virtually unknown film floating around or that one was destroyed or is used by the CIA for “training”. Some of the speculation is centered around images of spectators who some think were filming or people who claim they filmed the assassination but had their copies seized e.g. “the Babushka Lady / Betty Oliver.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babushka_lady

Speculation by our own David Healy (and perhaps others) that an extra 1st gen. copy of the Z-film was made at the Dallas Kodak lab because one of the processing numbers is unaccounted for. I worked at a film lab in Boston (Cambridge actually) for a few years in the 1980’s and there and then numbers being skipped was nothing particularly unusual.

And what do you think? Do you think there is a 4th film unreleased as of yet?

Also, a couple of other questions:

Do you think the murders of RFK and JFK are related/same perpetrators?

what do you think of this theory?

Hey, I've been to some home-brewed constitutional law classes and a lot of websites that claim the Federal Reserve is unconstitutional and has controlled most of our depressions, but I usually find very little evidence, and I've been trying to show a friend who is very intelligent but very skeptical(in the way of denying anything but the mainstream view of things, for instance, his view was "why worry about the federal reserve or the national deficit? it's not like we'll ever have to pay it ourselves anyways"). So, I was wondering if someone could point me to books or(preferably) websites that have the factually based evidence on the Federal Reserve's wrongdoing instead of the rhetoric about it being ungodlike or whatever.

Things I know about it so far:

--it was built partially as "economy insurance" to protect us from just the kind of economic troubles we are having right now

--it is not Federal/Governmental

--it is owned by commercial banks in each district, and throughout the world

--it "creates money" by how much it lends at what interest, how many stocks bonds it buys/sells, etc, and writes out a "blank check" of interest-free dollars for each expense it's facilities have.

--it uses the fractional reserve deposit system in it's loans to normal banks, so as to only have roughly 2% of the money supply in actual existence at any one time(mostly)

--it was pushed through without enough senators/congressman, or with the bare minimum, over a holiday, ala the Patriot Act

--it(the idea) was sold to our gov't by a central banker from europe

--it was created officially in 1913

--it caused the passing of new amendments(indirectly) such as the 16th about income tax, which some debate are even constitutional

--it bypassed the requirements of only our congress printing money by using "US Credit Rating" to borrow billions back then at unfeasible interest even today from those banks

Things I've heard thirdhand but have not looked up or have not found from a direct source yet:

--it demanded all of our gold(in fort knox and elsewhere) and even seized gold from private citizens for it's first interest payment, thus the gold in fort knox may or may not be there, but isn't even ours anymore anyways

--it has no clause, stipulation or explanation of how the primary debt can even be paid down in it's creation

--it caused the great depression and other collapses by calling in all of it's loans at once, even though it obviously knew noone was in a position to pay them, and then proceeded to speculate in land, more banks, and other ventures

--it was involved with switching from gold and silver standard monies to worthless paper credits that "resolve" your debt to the federal reserve when used but are ultimately valueless themselves, in every sense of the word

--the IRS are actually it's tax collectors, and thusly, strictly illegal, which is why many have won on a constitutional grounds when not paying income tax

--when every child is born, a dummy corporation with it's name in all capital letters is created with it's equal portion of the national debt, as a promissary for work it will do

--there are technically 3 gov'ts in effect right now: the constitutional US, the sovereign nation of the United States, and the Federal US, and the way income tax and the national deficit works is to treat us all as indebted merchants under the admiralty law of the Federal Govt, which allows trials only as a privilege, and in which one judge's word is law, rather than a Jury of Judges who interpret within the spirit as well as the letter of the law, as I've been told Constitutional trials did.

I’ve seen 2 types of reference to a “4th film”

Speculation that there is a virtually unknown film floating around or that one was destroyed or is used by the CIA for “training”. Some of the speculation is centered around images of spectators who some think were filming or people who claim they filmed the assassination but had their copies seized e.g. “the Babushka Lady / Betty Oliver.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babushka_lady

Speculation by our own David Healy (and perhaps others) that an extra 1st gen. copy of the Z-film was made at the Dallas Kodak lab because one of the processing numbers is unaccounted for. I worked at a film lab in Boston (Cambridge actually) for a few years in the 1980’s and there and then numbers being skipped was nothing particularly unusual.

And what do you think? Do you think there is a 4th film unreleased as of yet?

Ian,

I apologize- it looks like I misinterpreted your post. And once I start ranting....

Sorry about that!

That's alright, I figured you thought it was all my post and not the original post with small responses to each paragraph. I just didn't wanna bother quote/unquoting each section.