Martin Blank

8 minutes ago, Ron Bulman said:

It  wasn't presented as his idea, at least I didn't take it that way.  I don't think whose idea it was is addressed.

it sure wasn't JFK's. it did give the impression that it was McNamara

can anyone send Burns Newman's book and tell him to get rid of his copy of the Best and the Brightest.

W

1 hour ago, James DiEugenio said:

And the withdrawal is McNamara's idea?

Where is the layer of  truth that is actually the truth?

Chances are you won't hear anything abut NSAM 273 in the next installment either. that just might damage the conventional wisdom about how LBJ blundered into the the war when he and his backers actually had sought the war.

I am truly disappointed and plan to let Burns know what his crime is. No excuses. For this he should get an F

will it include discussion of  NSAM 263 and withdrawal. from what i saw last night about what will be on tonight, i m inclined to say no.

 

What is your feeling about this?

 

Or should we just wait?.

onsite facilitator

As a great industrial and military power, the United States has an interest in the region because it is an important source of strategic materials. Southeast Asia produces two-thirds of the world's tin and over 75 percent of its natural rubber. While its output of oil is not large in terms of total world production, American Policy 285 it is nevertheless of great strategic importance because so little oil is produced in South or Eastern Asia. In 1954 Free Asia (which for these particular commodities meant chiefly Southeast Asia) supplied the United States with 99 percent of its imports of copra, 91 percent of its natural rubber, 67 percent of its Manila hemp, 61 percent of its spices, and 58 percent of its tin. The loss of these supplies of strategic materials to the West would be serious but probably not irreparable. But free access to them by Communist countries would greatly strengthen the Red orbit. Before the war, the region also produced 65 percent of the world's copra, 40 percent of its palm oil, 85 percent of its pepper, 90 percent of its quinine, and 70 percent of its kapok. Burma, Indochina, and Thailand are also capable of producing tremendous quantities of rice.

You ask: "So how did the tools and talents developed by Bill Harvey for ZR/RIFLE and Operation MONGOOSE get exported to Vietnam? Kennedy immediately ordered (William R.) Corson to find out what had happened and who was responsible. The answer he came up with: “On instructions from Averell Harriman…. The orders that ended in the deaths of Diem and his brother originated with Harriman and were carried out by Henry Cabot Lodge’s own military assistant.”

 

The CIA got involved in  Vietnam in 1950 as CIA officers moved to French Indochina as a part of the legation of the United States in the city of Saigon. After their arrival, CIA involvement expanded to a new large base in Hanoi.  I doubt Harvey had a monopoly on these methods and skills.

 

you say:

Harriman/Bush were in on the drug trade and used those State-Department-upsetting CIA operations cowboys for gun/dope running?

 

remember what gary underhill said: 

Only hours after Kennedy was shot, CIA agent Gary Underhill left 
Washington, D.C., and drove to the home of friends on Long Island, N.Y. 
Underhill says he fears for his life and he must leave the country. 
"This country is too dangerous for me. I've got to get on a boat.Oswald 
is a patsy. They set him up. It's too much. The bastards have done 
something outrageous. They've killed the president! I've been listening 
and hearing things. I couldn't believe they'd get away with it, but they 
did.They've gone made! They're a bunch of drug runners and gun runners-a 
real violence group.I know who they are. That's the problem. They know I 
know. That's why I'm here.''

 The friends offered Underhill sanctuary but he left, never to return. 
Six months later, he was dead, a "suicide.'' The bullet was in his left 
temple. Underhill was right-handed.

10 minutes ago, Ron Ecker said:

I guess I missed it, but if the CIA had foreknowledge and went to Dallas to try to abort the assassination, why didn't it just tell JFK or the Secret Service and save them all a lot of trouble?

i was just thinking the same thing myself. although jfk might have asked "why did you wait so long to tell me."

i wish i had a dollar for every time allen dulles' name came up in the long video

not about managing the cover-up per se but about controlling the contents of the report. could either lbj or hoover serve as writer-editor for a job like this?

6 hours ago, Steve Thomas said:

Martin,

 

If he doesn't respond, you might be interested in reading what Bill Kelly posted on his Countercoup2 blog back in 2015. It looks like he is quoting Philip Shenon - from "A Cruel and Shocking Act" (2013): “Goldberg took on several writing assignments. He wrote the special chapter that listed – and rebutted – every major rumor and conspiracy theory."

 

Steve Thomas

i could have done that with no overall or comprehensive knowledge of the plot

2 hours ago, David Josephs said:

Martin...

 

How about the obvious?  J Lee Rankin with the help of Dulles and Ford.  I don't think one needed to have far reaching vision to see which direction the wind was blowing.  Rankin had to have been involved in the picking and choosing of evidence for presentation...  he oversaw the lawyers and as Spartacus puts it, he worked with the FBI and CIA...  Ford and Dulles...  just sayin'

"Following President John F. Kennedy’s assassination, Rankin was the unanimous choice of the Warren Commission to serve as general counsel in the inquiry that concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald had acted alone in killing President Kennedy. He was credited with redrafting and editing the commission’s voluminous report into a work of polished prose. Subsequently, Rankin practiced law in New York City until the 1970s, working seven years as the New York City Corporation Counsel (1966-1972). " -wiki

"In 1963 he became chief counsel for the Warren Commission. Apparently this was against the wishes of Earl Warren who wanted Warren Olney as chief counsel. Rankin's main role was to work with the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Central Intelligence Agency. Rankin appointed Norman Redlich as his special assistant. "  http://spartacus-educational.com/JFKrankin.htm 

...and it's our man Redlich who realizes that FBI WCD1 and SS WCD298 and ce585 are not telling the story that needed telling and so informs Rankin at the end of April.  As a result, the misleading ce884 and ce875 are born while "the shot that missed" becomes one of the great charades of history.

 

Dulles has crossed my mind one or twice but i wanted to get input from those here. rankin, i think, was just an errand boy and wouldn't have had the comprehensive knowledge of the plot necessary to do the task; ford was in hoover's pocket and probably was told what to write or add. he certainly wouldn't have had the overall vision this person would have needed. i was an editor for 40 years and buffed many a project into polished prose. moving commas around was one thing, substance was an entirely different matter and those for whom i was doing the work for always did the final reading of the piece. i may or may not have seen the piece after that.

1 hour ago, David Josephs said:

One more thought on this is about three men hardly ever mentioned yet seemingly very important to the FBI and the ultimate report:  

Supervisors Rogge and Thompson and Mr. Malley of the General Investigative Division

Mr. MALLEY. Mr. Belmont was in the same position that everyone else was in. He knew, I knew, that we had no actual jurisdiction. He did indicate to me that he had been in touch with Mr. Shanklin, who was the Special Agent in charge of Dallas, and that he would be back in touch with me as soon as there was more definite information available. That was about it for the time being. 
Later in the day, and I presume it must have been close to 3 o'clock, I was either told be(sic: by) telephone or asked to come down to Belmont's office, I cannot recall which, at which time he informed me that the General Investigative Division would be handling the assassination case of President Kennedy. 
Following that, and still not having many details to go on, I started lining up personnel that would be available on a round-the clock basis to handle whatever might develop. 

------

Mr. MALLEY. In the General Investigative Division, I happened to be the No. 1 man, and as you heard, I was assigned to handle liaison with the, oh, you haven't heard yet, I was assigned to handle liaison with the Warren Commission. 
There was also a criminal section, whose section chief was James Hanley. An individual by the name of Henry Schutz was a unit chief, under which was bank robberies and a number of other rather important criminal investigations, and there were two individuals that did work quite a bit on this particular case, by the name of Richard Rogge and Fletcher Thompson*(see Appendix). 
Mr. MCDONALD. Mr. Malley, regarding Rogge and Thompson, you just said that they worked closely with you on the case. 
Mr. MALLEY. They did in the early stages. They were the two individuals who were sent to Dallas to write the first two memorandums that I told you about, and we also had a civil rights section, which was under a section chief by the name of Clement McGowan. Does that cover what you have? 
Mr. MCDONALD. That is fine, thank you. 
Mr. Malley, in the investigation of the assassination how did the various divisions participate in the case? 
First of all, which was the primary division to run the case, the assassination case, and who was in charge of that investigation? 
Mr. MALLEY. As far as the actual assassination is concerned, it was definitely in the General Investigative Division. When you say who is responsible, are you referring to what section it was being handled and what supervisor was primarily responsible? 
Mr. MCDONALD. Which person was primarily responsible at the top to begin with? 
Mr. MALLEY. Well, because of what happened when I got back from Dallas I would say that I had to be. 


 

i still think they were still errand boys following orders or whose work was ground down in some respect to make it fit holes.

3 hours ago, Michael Walton said:

Martin, good question and good insight on your post.

I think it just gradually happened once the K memo came out.  They all had their marching orders.  Even late in the game, when Ford scribbled in "neck" in the almost final report, they knew what it needed to say.  Did someone on high tell Ford to scribble it in?  I doubt it.  Ford was playing along like the rest of them and being a lawyer like he was - knowing the game of subterfuge they were all playing - he scribbled it in to just give it that final touche.

And then of course it's so very easy to stand up in front of a bank of microphones, look earnest, and state, "My adding the word 'neck' in the final report was earnest and I did it with entirely pure intentions.  Thank you."  Then he meets a big-wig from France years later and reveals in private it was a conspiracy. 

 

2 hours ago, David Josephs said:

Martin...

 

How about the obvious?  J Lee Rankin with the help of Dulles and Ford.  I don't think one needed to have far reaching vision to see which direction the wind was blowing.  Rankin had to have been involved in the picking and choosing of evidence for presentation...  he oversaw the lawyers and as Spartacus puts it, he worked with the FBI and CIA...  Ford and Dulles...  just sayin'

"Following President John F. Kennedy’s assassination, Rankin was the unanimous choice of the Warren Commission to serve as general counsel in the inquiry that concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald had acted alone in killing President Kennedy. He was credited with redrafting and editing the commission’s voluminous report into a work of polished prose. Subsequently, Rankin practiced law in New York City until the 1970s, working seven years as the New York City Corporation Counsel (1966-1972). " -wiki

"In 1963 he became chief counsel for the Warren Commission. Apparently this was against the wishes of Earl Warren who wanted Warren Olney as chief counsel. Rankin's main role was to work with the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Central Intelligence Agency. Rankin appointed Norman Redlich as his special assistant. "  http://spartacus-educational.com/JFKrankin.htm 

...and it's our man Redlich who realizes that FBI WCD1 and SS WCD298 and ce585 are not telling the story that needed telling and so informs Rankin at the end of April.  As a result, the misleading ce884 and ce875 are born while "the shot that missed" becomes one of the great charades of history.

 

sorry  but put response here in the wrong place.my apologies

I think the person ultimately responsible, though, would have had to have had a global view of the assassination plot; these others that are mentioned seem like they would have been directed.

Ensuring that the Warren Report, as printed, supported the lone nut theory was a big job that took the talents of an eye in the sky so to speak.

For example, someone had to know which witnesses to interview and which to leave out; when to cut off or redirect witnesses’ testimony; which questions to ask and which questions to avoid; which evidence had to be suppressed, altered, falsified, or fabricated out of whole cloth.

Obviously this person or persons would have to have intimate knowledge of the plot to take such a comprehensive view. They would know who jack ruby really was and why he acted. They also would know of the existence of two oswalds and the need to meld two biographies into one flawed life story. This individual also would have supervised/edited the report.

I think you get the picture.

My question is who was this master managing editor who knew how to assemble a report that pointed in the wrong and predetermined direction so convincingly that it duped a lot of unknowing people for such a long time. 

Thanks

I always liked this quote about the media from that great american ken kesey:

"Perhaps one wire out of a thousand (of the media) leads to one of the sources, to the heart of the man holding the microphone, while the other 999 go through a bramble of ambition, ego, manipulation and desire, sparking and hissing and finally joining into one great coaxial cable that leads out of this snarl and plugs straight into the Bank of America."
 

Oglesby's essay on "The Assassinations and the Closing of the Frontier" is also excellent.

The Fall of America – Bitter Tale to Tell

 

‘…same electric lightning south

follows this train

Apocalypse prophesied­ –

the Fall of America

signalled from Heaven –‘

– Allen Ginsberg

Back in 1965-1971, when Allen Ginsberg wrote the poems that made up the collection entitled The Fall of America that was published in 1972, he was referring to that time as the autumn of the republic.

 

Things have changed, however, as the latest Nobel laureate in literature told us two decades ago, and I believe that now is the winter of America (as would Ginsberg were he still alive).

 

America has fallen as surely as the leaves from the trees.

The republic is dead. All that remains is disposing of the carcass to the highest bidder. Negotiations have already started.

Turn around,

Go back down,

Back the way you came,

Can't you see that flash of fire ten times brighter than the day?

And behold a mighty city broken in the dust again,

Oh God, Pride of Man, broken in the dust again.

                                                            – Hamilton Camp

 

The Founding Fathers’ great experiment has foundered on the rocks of greed, power, and arrogance. We thought we were special, exceptional, and chosen as a people. God had spoken to us   and our destiny was manifestSadly, we turned out to be just like everyone else in this world.

This morning as we awoke from our long sleep we expected the nightmare of the previous evening to dissipate. To our horror, it was no dream. It was real, and it wasn’t going away anytime soon – if ever. In that moment of naked lunch, we became scared to the bone – for our children, our grandchildren, our country, our planet, and ourselves.

Yesterday’s step toward national oblivion should have come as no surprise to those who post and converse here. After all, we have dedicated our lives to studying that moment in Dallas in November 1963 when the rot entered the system and the cancer began to grow in the body politic.

The last person who thought he was the president – the real president – was violently taken away from us by the people who took over our nation for their own benefit. To most eyes, the system seemed to function as it was intended to. Democracy had been preserved. That was the important thing.

Candidates ran for office. Elections were held as they always had. And the winners took office and worked for their constituents. America was different; it was no banana republic.

Something didn’t seem right, however, and the whole mess began to smell like Hamlet’s Denmark. It soon became clear to some that although we had retained the forms of democracy, the substance had been lost. Our leaders, it seemed, had learned a lesson that the Russians hadn’t and that was: you can give the people all the rights you want, but if they have no power what can they do?

I wonder who they are

The men who really run this land

And I wonder why they run it

With such a thoughtless hand

Today, the cancer has metastasized to incredible proportions and the nation is on life support. Don’t believe me just look around.

                                 Nowhere to run to, baby, nowhere to hide

                                  Got nowhere to run to, baby, nowhere to hide.

So what are we to do? Your answer is up to you. Whatever you choose to do, though, take time to remember a less cynical world when a president could be taken at his word when he told his audience:

"Harry Truman once said, 'There are 14 or 15 million Americans who have the resources to have representatives in Washington to protect their interests, and that the interests of the great mass of the other people - the 150 or 160 million - is the responsibility of the president of the United States, and I propose to fulfill it.'" 

He made good on his word for almost a thousand days. We can only wait and see whom Trump serves

 .

Me? I’m going to follow the advice of that Nobel laureate again

 

so go joshua

go fit your battle

i have t' go t' the woods

for a while

i hope you understand

but if you don't

it doesn't matter

i will be with you

nex' time around

don't think about me

i'll be ok

While I’m in the woods, I’ll strap myself to a tree with roots

 

Sincerely,

 

Me

 

thought it was great; very logical and laid out things very well. kudos to all those here who participated. i would have sat through another two hours at least. 

i've only read his books and thought they were poorly written and edited. most of all the lack of documentation gave me pause. it's like he pulled things out of thin air

just ask jefferson morley about the government releasing papers

MacBird! anyone? A parody of Macbeth by Barbara Garson a 1967 satire that superimposed the transferral of power following the Kennedy assassination onto the plot of Shakespeare's Macbeth

quote: "It's the 21st century now, and we should hold to a higher degree of scholarship."

so says the worst offender. physician heal thyself.

is it me or did someone actually equate Gene McCarthy with Gen. Walker?

why yes they did!

After that bit of politics, Edwin Walker was an outspoken Anticommunist on the order of Senator Eugene McCarthy, and for Edwin Walker the problem of Fidel Castro and Cuba was the most important political issue of 1962-1963.

​you know if someone ever tells me from this point on that they know who did something, i will know that it actually means in some weird newspeak that they don't really know who did it. crazy world ain't it.

I like A.J. Weberman. With Garbology you can find out things about people. It's legal as long as the garbage

is left by the curb.

Kathy C

no one said you couldn't, he's just a little too crispy for me. not trying to start an argument just giving a broader picture of the man for those who may be unfamiliar with him

For example: Weberman has written on the life and works of Bob Dylan, including creating a word concordance of Dylan's lyrics, and writing the Dylan to English Dictionary published in 2005. One of Weberman's theories on Dylan's songwriting is that some of Dylan's songs are actually about, or addressed to, Weberman himself. Most Dylan scholars and biographers have rejected Weberman's interpretations of Dylan's work while others have not addressed his interpretations.

Rolling Stone magazine called Weberman "the king of all Dylan nuts" and he has been described as obsessively stalking Dylan and being "off the deep end". Dylan, annoyed by Weberman who was constantly digging through his garbage,assaulted Weberman on Elizabeth Street in Manhattan and beat the hell out of him. In another article, Rolling Stone reported that Weberman, "a man that terrorized Bob Dylan during the '60s," had now "returned to hassle his son," Jakob Dylan. Weberman claimed that the younger Dylan was a heroin addict.

Weberman expressed his unhappiness with Bob Dylan to him in a telephone conversation that he recorded and was able to have briefly distributed as an LP by Folkways Records.

As of 2015, Weberman is still an active "Dylanologist", infrequently posting Dylan-centric videos on YouTube. In many of his videos, Weberman implies that Dylan is still communicating to him through his music. When Bob Dylan's 2016 NFL Super Bowl advertisement for IBM was released, Weberman thought it was about himself because he had written articles about Dylan using an IBM computer in 1971. The first IBM PC was available in 1980, so its unclear if there's any element of truth to that statement. He has also made unfounded connections between Bob Dylans' music and Holocaust Revisionism, going as far as claiming Dylan has a racist agenda. On top of this, Weberman firmly believes Dylan has been hiding an HIV/AIDS diagnosis for years, but has failed to provide any evidence other than fragmented and delusional connections to Dylans' lyrics.

In 2002, Weberman, along with the Jewish Defense Organization, and JDO chief Mordechai Levy, were successfully sued for libel in Brooklyn, New York. The jury stated that Weberman was responsible for $300,000 of the $850,000 judgement.

here's what's on weberman's website about that judgment and apparently others:

THIS WEBSITE HAS BEEN SEIZED BY THE LAW OFFICE OF GARY KURTZ TO ASSIST IN THE ENFORCEMENT OF DEFAMATION JUDGMENTS OBTAINED BY GARY KURTZ AND HIS CLIENT, STEVEN RAMBAM, AGAINST:

STATEMENTS ABOUT STEVEN RAMBAM AND GARY KURTZ MADE BY WEBERMAN AND HIS ASSOCIATES WERE DECLARED BY NEW YORK AND CALIFORNIA COURTS TO BE FALSE AND DEFAMATORY AND PUNISHABLE BY MULTIPLE JUDGMENTS IN EXCESS OF ONE MILLION DOLLARS ($1,000,000.00).

THE LAW OFFICE OF GARY KURTZ REQUESTS YOUR ASSISTANCE IN IDENTIFYING ANY AND ALL ASSETS OF ALAN JULES "AJ" WEBERMAN, AND HIS FELLOW JUDGMENT-DEBTORS: "MORDECHAI LEVY" (aka MARK LEVEY, MARK LAVEY) AND THE "JEWISH DEFENSE ORGANIZATION".

​i guess i need more than this. how could columbia even touch him?