W. Niederhut

Well, that is helpful. Piper's theories about Mossad involvement in the JFK assassination seemed mostly speculative to me-- an extrapolation from the JFK/Ben Gurion conflict to some operational link between Jack Ruby, Micky Cohen, and the Mossad. Factual, operational details are largely absent from Piper's theoretical Mossad narrative. The same could be said about Laurent Guyenot's related theory that the Mossad had in some way hijacked the CIA/Mafia false flag op in Dallas in order to turn an assassination attempt on the POTUS into an assassination.

As I recall, (from Alison Weir's account) Truman felt politically pressured to sign off on Israel's declaration of independence-- a decision which was opposed by a number of high level U.S. officials, including James Forrestal, who believed that the establishment of an Israeli state in Palestine would be a long-term disaster for U.S.-Arab relations. (Forrestal went on to, diplomatically, jump out of a 16 story hospital window.) In contrast, James Angleton tended to view a U.S.-aligned Israeli state as something that would be strategically useful for the U.S. In his book, Final Judgment, Michael Collins Piper repeatedly mentioned alleged connections between the JFK/Ben Gurion/Dimona conflict and Mafia figure Meyer Lansky, (and Jack Ruby.) Collins claimed that Meyer Lansky was the real "boss" of the Mafia in the U.S., and that there was some sort of operational linkage between the Mossad -- Itzhak Shamir and Menachem Begin-- and mob figures in the U.S.-- Lansky, Micky Cohen, Ruby, etc. Anything to it?

Barr is a stooge, but he's a remarkably shrewd stooge. He was originally brought into the DOJ, from the CIA, by GHWB to arrange for the pardons of the Iran-Contra cabal. He executed that Iran-Contra hat trick flawlessly. Barr seems to have a knack for using the power of the DOJ to protect people in the Executive branch who have broken the law.

I saw this story last year. * (Can't vouch for the source) A newly declassified document revealed that the CIA had, in fact, funded the opposition South Vietnamese military officials who murdered Diem. So, it's a bit confusing. Did the CIA and Joint Chiefs really oppose the coup d'etat that Harriman and Lodge wanted? One thing that seems certain is that JFK was shocked and appalled when he learned that Diem had been murdered. He abruptly left the room after hearing the news. As I recall, From Prouty's writings, General Ed Lansdale (USAF/CIA) had wanted JFK to appoint him Ambassador to Saigon. Instead, Lodge was appointed and Lansdale was recalled to Washington (and, eventually, assigned to oversee Operation Mongoose.) * https://intelnews.org/2018/04/30/01-2314/ Report reveals deeper CIA role in 1963 Vietnam coup and Diem’s assassination April 30, 2018 A newly declassified report by the Inspector General of the United States Central Intelligence Agency reveals that the South Vietnamese generals who overthrew President Ngo Dinh Diem in 1963 used CIA money “to reward opposition military who joined the coup”. Acknowledging that “the passing of these funds is obviously a very sensitive matter”, the CIA Inspector General’s report contradicts the sworn testimony of Lucien E. Conein, the CIA liaison with the South Vietnamese generals. In 1975, Conein told a United States Senate committee that the agency funds, approximately $70,000 or 3 million piasters, were used for food, medical supplies, and “death benefits” for the families of South Vietnamese soldiers killed in the coup. The report (.pdf), one of the 19,000 JFK assassination documents released by the US National Archives on Thursday, also contains new details about the South Vietnamese generals’ decision to assassinate Diem that contradict a conclusion of the coup’s history written by the CIA station in Saigon. The majority of the generals, said the CIA at the time, “desired President Diem to have honorable retirement from the political scene in South Vietnam and exile”. According to a newly declassified portion of the 49-page document written by the CIA’s Inspector General, an unidentified field-grade South Vietnamese officer who provided the CIA station with pictures of the bloodied bodies of Diem and his brother and advisor, Ngo Dinh Nhu, said that “most of the generals” favored their immediate execution: “The ultimate decision was to kill them. A Captain Nhung was designated as executioner”. A redacted version of the Inspector General’s report, dated May 31, 1967, was released by the National Archives in November 2017. In that version of the report, the paragraphs related to the use of CIA funds and the generals’ decision to murder Diem were excised. * William J. Rust is the author of four books about US relations with Southeast Asia countries during the cold war, including Kennedy in Vietnam. He is currently completing a book about US relations with Indonesia.

Jim, Is there a reference link about Dubya's 11/22/63 alibi? I've never read any thing about Dubya's account of his whereabouts on 11/22/63-- or comments from his Andover classmates.

Yes, it's truly frightening to see how readily our mainstream U.S. media has been playing along with the latest Gulf of Tonkin stunt in the Persian Gulf. It's the same epic failure of American journalism that we saw in August of 1964 and March of 2003. And, unfortunately, those who cannot remember the past are destined to make all of us repeat it. Good article on the subject at The Intercept a few days ago. https://theintercept.com/2019/05/17/us-media-journalists-iran-coverage/

Strange but true. My wife and I were married by the same minister who conducted Lee Harvey Oswald's funeral. The Reverend Louis Saunders was a very close, personal friend of my father-in-law. (My father-in-law had worked as the Director of Public Relations at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth for many years back in the day.) I did not really know Rev. Saunders, (my wife knew the family well) but he seemed like a very kind, good man. He was a "liberal" Protestant, affiliated with the Disciples of Christ, and with the World Council of Churches-- an organization that was often anathematized during the Cold War. Saunders had, apparently, offered to conduct Lee Harvey Oswald's funeral after other ministers in the Dallas-Fort Worth area had refused. Unfortunately, when Louis Saunders was still alive, I never asked him any questions about Oswald's funeral. In those days, I was clueless. I had not studied any of the JFK assassination literature, and simply assumed that JFK was murdered by the "Lone Nut" in the "library" with the "rifle."

Just donated. I would be very disappointed to see this scholarly forum fold.

Point well taken. I included Phillip Graham in the list because he was, certainly, a "titan" of the mainstream U.S. media-- as majority owner of the Washington Post-- who was also closely involved with the CIA's "Mockingbird" operation. Has anything been written about possible connections between Phillip Graham's August 1963 "suicide" and the JFK assassination? I noticed that he used a standard CIA suicide methodology-- one of their preferred alternatives to jumping out of 16th floor windows. According to Wikipedia, (FWIW) Phillip Graham was, apparently, a friend of both Lyndon Johnson and John F. Kennedy, and had been involved in convincing JFK to put LBJ on the 1960 Democratic ticket.

William S. Paley, Frank Stanton, C.D. Jackson, Phillip Graham, et.al... The close relationships between these mainstream U.S. media titans of the early 60s and Allen Dulles, the WWII OSS and CIA never cease to amaze. And those guys were masters at controlling the narrative from Day One -- e.g., buying and sequestering the Zapruder film, telling Dan Rather to lie about the Zapruder film, and altering the Zapruder photo still sequence published in Life magazine, etc. I wonder if the ongoing CBS cover up -- and promotion of the WC-- was controlled all along from the top down by Dulles, Paley and Stanton.

Reading Family of Secrets was a real eye-opener for me, as well. And, as Joseph McBride discovered, GHWB was a Company man -- and hardly the squeaky clean, out-of-the-loop, bumbling ninny he presented in his public persona. His father was close to Allen Dulles, and was a leader of the extreme right-wing opposition to Eisenhower and the New Deal in the 1950s-- the ultimate plutocrat. And some believe that Prescott was even involved with other Wall Street bankers in the 1934 Wall Street coup attempt against FDR. If true, it seems fairly obvious that Prescott and his son had no compunction about participating in coup d'etat attempts against the POTUS -- in 1934, 1963, and 1980-- in addition to manipulating Presidential vote counts in 2000 and 2004.

George W. Bush (?) Was he in Dallas on 11/22/63-- on break from Phillips Andover Academy?

Well, so much for Fred Littwin's thesis that Garrison was out to impugn the reputation of New Orleans' gay community.

As I recall, from The Devil's Chessboard, Allen Dulles continued to meet regularly with his "Secret Team" members after he had been fired as CIA Director. And, as I recall, he was at "the Farm" at Langley on November 22, 1963.

Bob Woodward -- the voice of "Deep Throat"-- went to Yale and served in U.S. Naval Intelligence before being hired by Ben Bradlee at the Washington Post. Then, as I recall, Carl Bernstein conveniently omitted any references to the Washington Post in his well-known article about the CIA and the U.S. media, (published by Rolling Stone during the Church Committee investigations.) As for McCord hanging a picture of Richard Helms on the wall of his CREEP office-- it strikes me as an odd gesture. Why would he have advertised his Company credentials? (BTW, Roger Stone also worked for CREEP.) I wonder if Mr. Caddy, the lawyer of the most famous CIA mole involved in the botched Watergate burglary, had any contact with McCord in the aftermath of that famous crime caper.

For many years, until fairly recently in my life, I was suckered by the mainstream U.S. media into believing that Oliver Stone was a flaky pseudo-historian--- a meme that was recently repeated by Fred Litwin in his Canadian television ( CBC) interview, posted here by David Von Pein. I don't even remember where I originally got that erroneous negative opinion about Oliver Stone, but it was probably from the New York Times, which I have read fairly regularly for the past 45 years. It was only after I watched Stone's film, JFK, again a few years ago, and started reading some related literature (by Fletcher Prouty, Sylvia Meagher, James DiEugenio, and others) that I realized Oliver Stone had been skillfully defamed by the mainstream media. Lately, I have been carefully studying all of Oliver Stone's films-- including Nixon, W., Salvador, the Vietnam trilogy, On Any Given Sunday, Wall Street, Natural Born Killers, the Doors, Talk Radio, etc. I also watched his Untold History of the United States series, and read the companion book that Stone co-authored with American University history Prof. Peter Kuznick. I realize now that Oliver Stone is, frankly, a national treasure-- as an artist AND as a historian of our American culture and imperial mythology.

It's complicated. Are you familiar with "automatic obedience," which is exhibited by some people during episodes of catatonia? As with MPD, people need to observe these phenomena to realize that they are real. Some people respond to childhood trauma by becoming resourceful, empathic humanitarians (or veterinarians in the case of one of my former patients.) Others become serial murderers-- if they develop a pathological "identification with the aggressor." To be honest, I have never used hypnotic suggestion(s) and/or psychotropic drugs to induce a patient to commit a crime. What sort of person would do such a thing?! And, yet, we know that the CIA's MK-ULTRA doctors experimented with those techniques.

There are multiple determinants of the severity of PTSD and dissociative disorders. Some people I have treated were shattered by experiences that others weathered. In the case of dissociation, one factor is whether the traumatized child had sufficient mirroring and empathic support (from SOMEONE) to develop narrative memory-- an integrated sense of self over time, including an ability to integrate full consciousness of their traumatic experiences, rather than blocking (dissociating) them. If you are as functional as you sound, my hunch is that you had SOMEONE in childhood who supported and empathized with you sufficiently to help you integrate your traumatic experience into a continuous narrative memory-- rather than having a fragmented (dissociated) self. The hallmark of dissociation is amnesia. If you can remember your normal, and traumatic, childhood experiences, you don't have a dissociative disorder. As for Sirhan, how do you know that he killed someone-- as opposed to firing blanks?

Utterly horrific. I didn't realize that Sirhan had experienced such severe childhood trauma. All children have a capacity to dissociate-- to escape from painful experiences through alter states of consciousness-- but this dissociative capacity is enhanced by childhood trauma. No wonder Sirhan was so dissociative, and so susceptible to hypnotic induction.

Before I started working in the late 80s on a psychiatric ward that specialized in treating MPD, (mainly in on-call coverage) I was skeptical about dissociative disorders. At times, adult patients there would talk and act like four year old children, and describe amnesia and apparent fugue states-- losing time, finding themselves in places without knowing how they got there, and even buying things without knowing they had done so. I gradually realized that we all have "alter" ego/self states-- e.g, our 5 year old self, 15 year old self, etc.-- but that most of us have co-consciousness of our shifting ego states, and an integrated sense of self over time. But some people do not. Usually in response to childhood developmental trauma, they develop enhanced dissociative defenses against trauma, and "wall off" traumatic self experience from consciousness. I don't know a great deal about Sirhan's childhood, but susceptibilty to trance and hypnotic induction (and amnesia) is often increased in people who experienced childhood trauma.

I should probably chime in here, because I am a Board Certified psychiatrist (1989) and a graduate of Harvard Medical School (1983.) During my 35 year career as an adult psychiatrist, I have observed many adults experiencing hypnotic trance states, psychogenic amnesia, fugue states, and even true multiple personality disorders. In fact, I worked for awhile in the late 80s on a psychiatric ward here in Denver that specialized in the treatment of MPD. These dissociative phenomena are very real. And the hallmark of dissociation is amnesia. (Benzodiazepine, barbiturates, and alcohol can also cause amnesia.) I have also conducted amytal interviews, with some positive results. People have variable susceptibilties to hypnosis. Some, like Sirhan, are easily induced. I believe that Sirhan fired a gun at RFK in response to a conditioned post-hypnotic suggestion, and that he has amnesia for the event, which is psychogenic, and, possibly, drug-induced.

I probably know less about this stuff than anyone on the forum, but I do recall reading about a 1978 HSCA file that was declassified in October of 2017 regarding a Cuban American, Orest Pena, who owned a bar n New Orleans in 1963. Pena testified to the HSCA that he had observed Oswald meeting with an FBI agent in his bar-- the same FBI agent that Pena, himself, reported to. I can't remember the FBI agent's name, but I think it was De Brueys (?)

It seems apparent that another fatal flaw (literally fatal in some cases) with the "covert" aspect of the cover up was that, over time, many "insiders" must have learned that Oswald had, in fact, been working for U.S. intelligence, and was not a lone assassin. Is that, perhaps, why C.D. Jackson died in September of 1964? As I recall, the Warren Commissioners, themselves, learned as early as January of 1964 that Oswald had been an FBI informant, rather than a KGB, pro-Castro asset.

Jim, Do you know whether Clay Shaw had known or worked with William Harvey circa 1963? Wasn't Harvey transferred to Rome around the time that JFK fired Allen Dulles?

Thanks for posting this review. As a newbie on this scholarly forum, I will ask what is, most likely, a "sophomoric" question. Does Metta describe any details about the alleged* connections between CMC, Permindex, and the Banco Commerciale Internationale (BCI) of Basle, Switzerland? * Michael Collins Piper alleged in his book, Final Judgment, that the Israeli Mossad financier Tibor Rosenbaum and BCI were somehow involved with Permindex-- but the documentation for this allegation is unclear to me. From your review, it sounds like Metta has not unearthed anything about the alleged Mossad involvement in Permindex. (As I recall, Collins also alleged that Meyer Lansky was also involved, through BCI, with Permindex.)