W. Niederhut

Something about the guerilla war against our pervasive MSM disinformation reminds me of Sgt. Joe Friday's opening remarks in the old Dragnet series-- "It's an endless, glamorless, thankless job that's gotta be done." But, what happens if and when the web comes under the control of corporate and/or government censors? The truth about history disappeared in societies where that kind of censorship occurred-- e.g., in Stalinist Russia. And, as Orwell said, "Those who control the past control the present, and those who control the present control the future."

Excellent, detailed analysis. My question. What motivated Mr. Litwin to write and market this disinformazia? Was it money, notoriety, or some misguided political agenda?

Good post, Joe. The more I have learned about 11/22/63 in recent years, the more I have realized how skillfully LBJ, and others, have managed the false mainstream media narratives about JFK's presidency, and the sequelae of 11/22/63. Vietnam policy is the most obvious example, but DiEugenio's historical critiques have clarified how the same thing has happened in the case of the Civil Rights movement. Meanwhile, our corporate MSM continues to crank out defamatory narratives about the Kennedy family-- including the recent film about Chappaquiddick. (BTW, I also noticed that Monica Lewinsky has been back in the MSM headlines during the 2018 elections.)

Kirk, You referred to our discussion here about the falsified history of JFK as "naive." I simply pointed out that it is the very opposite of "naive" -- it is an historically accurate critique of the naive, falsified mainstream media narratives about JFK's policies (e.g., regarding Vietnam, Indonesia, and in the Civil Rights movement.) Here's a link to the other alleged photo of GHWB (with Ed Lansdale) in Dealey Plaza on 11/22/63. I first saw this while studying the writings of Col. L. Fletcher Prouty (after I learned that the character, "Mr. X," in Oliver Stone's film, JFK, was based mainly on Prouty.) https://riversong.wordpress.com/l-fletcher-proutys-letter-to-jim-garrison/ *

Kirk, Was GHWB in Dallas on 11/22/63? Yes. Was Dubya there, or at Andover? Who knows? Where was he? Any confirmed history from Andover? Also, there are two different photos from Dealey Plaza on 11/22/63 that appear to show GHWB. As for policy issues before and after JFK's murder, and the falsified popular histories of those issues, there is excellent emerging documentation about, 1) Vietnam policy, 2) Indonesia, 3) Cuban relations, and 4) Civil Rights. And, yes, the falsified histories of JFK's presidency and murder are still being cranked out in the mainstream media. That is, precisely, what Mr. DiEugenio's latest work reveals, in great detail. BTW, I have seen a de-classified CIA document from 1964 in which all agency personnel were ordered to do whatever was necessary to promote popular acceptance of the Warren Commission Report. Are you familiar with that document? What do you make of that strange mandate?

Didn't some CIA-affiliated publisher buy exclusive rights to Marina's "story" immediately after 11/22/63-- the "story" as it was eventually told by an Allen Dulles protege, Priscilla Johnson McMillan?

Kirk Galloway wrote: "While there's no shortage here of love for JFK or an ideal of where his potential might have lead. I've characterized Jim's adulation of JFK as adolescent hero worship. He's continually harped on this naive historical thread that the whole world would be completely transformed now if not for the JFKA, and it's MSM coverup has been passed on with a series of batons over 55 years by now, to a cabal of sinister modern news people... " Kirk, This is erroneous blather. The accurate telling of the "untold history" of the past century is the very OPPOSITE of what you are calling "naive" history here. On the contrary, "naivete" is something that applies more precisely to those who have accepted the mythical "history" handed down to us in our post-WWII mass media by the likes of Henry Luce, C.D. Jackson, William S. Paley, Phillip & Katherine Graham, the Sulzbergers, David Halberstam, et.al. Whatever happened to our historical consciousness of Operation Mockingbird and the Church Committee findings about the pervasive involvement of the CIA in our U.S. mainstream media, book publishers, and universities? Of the meticulously documented fictional narrative of the Warren Commission Report-- which, incredibly, is still being regularly championed by our mainstream media? When I read your comments, and those of Mr. Payette, I get the impression that you are completely unaware of these well-documented historical phenomena-- the "psy ops" and propaganda machinery of the modern U.S.A., and its relationship to the O.S.S. and derivative CIA. Didn't William Colby distinctly tell the Church Committee that the CIA "owned" our prominent journalists? As for the sequelae of JFK's assassination... It took LBJ, Nixon, and the U.S. TEN years of mass genocide to realize that JFK and Galbraith were correct about Vietnam back in October of 1963, when JFK signed NSAM 263. What about the estimated one million Indonesian students, lawyers, and "liberals" who were murdered by Suharto and his CIA pals after 1963? JFK had planned to visit Sukarno in 1964, if I'm not mistaken. It isn't "naive" to bring this "untold" history to light. It's accurate historiography.

BINGO, Ron. I'm not one of the resident experts here, but you hit the nail on the head. I was listening to an NPR interview on Thursday with the author of the recent NYT series about Russia and "fake news," and I wanted to ask the producer why they never talk about the Church Committee investigation of Operation Mockingbird, and the long history of CIA disinformazia in our mainstream media.

Monsieur Payette, There are so many erroneous assumptions and assertions in your above post that one scarcely knows where to begin. The so-called "scholarly consensus" that you reference (from 1982) was deeply flawed in many respects. An obvious example is the false historical paradigm about NSAM 263 and NSAM 273-- the myth that LBJ was merely continuing JFK's Vietnam policy after 11/22/63, rather than reversing it. Do you understand that subject correctly? As for the popular flawed "histories" denying the important role of the Kennedy brothers in the Civil Rights movement, Mr. DiEugenio's latest essays have described the problem in great detail. It's not a case of idealization of the Kennedy legacy, as you imagine, but, rather, a realistic critique of the odd devaluation of JFK by many journalists and "scholars" in our mainstream media.

Ron, Is it also possible that LBJ reversed his position on civil rights after 11/22/63 in order to minimize any suspicions that he was involved in the JFK assassination plot-- e.g., aligned with Southern segregationists who opposed the Kennedy brothers' efforts to uphold civil rights? A related phenomenon would be LBJ's public insistence after 11/25/63 that he was continuing JFK's Vietnam policies (which we now know was NOT true.)

Jim, As your latest work shows, the Republican Party more or less abandoned any meaningful support for the Constitutional (14th and 15th Amendment) rights of black citizens after 1876. But, along with later Republican leaders like Eisenhower and Nixon, Senator Lyndon Johnson also collaborated with his fellow Dixiecrats in the Senate to sabotage meaningful civil rights legislation prior to 1960. Then, after JFK's murder, LBJ shocked and alienated his Dixiecrat colleagues by championing the passage of the Civil Rights Act. Do you have an opinion about why LBJ went to such great lengths to pass the Civil Rights Act in 1964, and the Voting Rights Act in 1965, after his lengthy career as a Dixiecrat civil rights saboteur in Congress? Was it mainly a maneuver to win the support of northern "liberals" after 11/22/63?

Col. L. Fletcher Prouty reported this in his 1992 book on JFK, the CIA, and Vietnam. Prouty had been sent on a mission to Antarctica by General Ed Lansdale, and he had a stopover in Christchurch on November 22, 1963-- en route to the States.

Economically, however, the Marshall Plan was a tremendous success-- especially compared to the fiasco of the Versailles Treaty, which, surely, laid the groundwork for the rise of fascism in Europe, and WWII. The darkest side of "incorporating" Naziism, in my opinion, was the way Allen Dulles and our Cold Warriors "imported" the Nazi weapons and intel people (like Reinhard Gehlen, et.al.) into our military-industrial- espionage complex. But, getting back to Reconstruction and Jim's new article, Rutherford Hayes and the Republican Party were too easily manipulated by the Southern plantation-owning aristocracy into abandoning the freed men of the former Confederacy in the aftermath of the split 1876 election. Hayes was a thoroughly decent man, and a true Civil War hero, but the North was weary of the military occupation of Radical Reconstruction, and experiencing a recession. What happened to the black citizens of the South after 1876 was a truly terrible tragedy. By 1900, black voters had disappeared almost entirely from the voter roles in places like Louisiana, Mississippi, and South Carolina, which had elected black legislators during Radical Reconstruction. Foner's statistics about this are horrifying to contemplate. What happened to the black population of South Carolina in the 20th century? Their numbers shrank from 60 percent (of the state population) in 1865 to less than 30 percent a century later! No doubt, there was some emigration to the North, but the numbers indicate significant rates of genocide.

Joe, I have read accounts of LBJ's antipathy toward Bobby Kennedy, in particular, but haven't read much about his "hatred" of JFK. Of course, LBJ benefited greatly from JFK's death, but did he hate the man? I don't know the answer. Bobby used to jokingly refer to LBJ as "Col. Cornpone," and enraged LBJ by making him the butt of his jokes. And there is the Madeline Brown quote in which LBJ, allegedly, said, "After tomorrow, those Kennedys aren't going to... etc., etc." I'm not aware of JFK behaving disrespectfully or demeaning LBJ, in person. If anything, JFK seemed somewhat wary of Lyndon as I recall.

Outstanding piece of work, Jim, and highly relevant to our nation's current political and racial turmoil. The only mainstream media production I have seen that focused on the Kennedy brothers' critical role in the Civil Rights movement is the recent Bobby Kennedy for President HBO series, which relied extensively on commentaries by African Americans involved in the Civil Rights movement, including Congressman John Lewis and Harry Belafonte. I started reading Eric Foner's Reconstruction a few years ago, to try to better understand the surprising hostility in some quarters to Obama's presidency. (I also watched Griffith's 1915 film Birth of a Nation for the first time, and was truly shocked by the venality of that horrific mythology.) What happened, historically, to JFK and RFK's Civil Rights legacy reminds me, to some extent, of what happened to Ulysses Grant. The best books I have read on the subject, along with Foner and James McPherson's outstanding Battle Cry of Freedom, are Grant's own fabulous Memoirs, (a 19th century bestseller, for good reason) the Grant biography by McFeely, (I haven't read the new Ron Chernow biography yet) and Ari Hogeboom's related biography of Rutherford Hayes. Hayes maintained a peculiar, sincere belief until late in life that the Southern aristocracy would protect the rights of the freed slaves after 1877. His delusion was fostered by unfamiliarity with the South, and an old college friend from Texas who corresponded with him for years, assuring him of the noblesse oblige of the plantation caste, etc. Meanwhile, Ulysses Grant-- the most popular American of the 19th century -- has been remembered largely as a drunken, inept grifter, while Robert E. Lee has been virtually canonized. Likewise, LBJ has been lionized for the passage of the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act, in sync with the continued character assassinations of Jack and Bobby Kennedy.

Who hated JFK in 1963? Probably a long list, but I would like to ask the forum. Here's a short, preliminary list -- based on reports from various sources that I have read in recent years. 1) Allen Dulles -- fired by JFK after the Bay of Pigs 2) General Charles Cabell-- fired, with Dulles, after the Bay of Pigs 3) Prescott Bush -- said he would "never forgive" JFK for firing Dulles 4) Cord Meyer-- cuckolded by JFK 5) General Edward Lansdale -- JFK rejected him as ambassador to Saigon, later shut down Mongoose 6) William Harvey -- demoted by JFK to a post in Rome 7) General Lyman Lemnitzer -- demoted as Head of the Joint Chiefs, after the Operation Northwoods proposal 😎 Henry Luce 9) David Ben Gurion -- furious about JFK's firm opposition to Israel's Dimona Nuclear Project 10) Meyer Lansky -- angry about JFK's capitulation on Cuba 11) Various Mafiosi (Trafficante, Marcello, Giancana) 12) Various Operation 40/Bay of Pigs personnel (?) including Nixon, GHWB, Hunt, Morales, et.al. 13) LBJ (?) 14) J. Edgar Hoover

When I look at Edward Lansdale's detailed knowledge of black ops like Mongoose, it seems like a very short leap to imagine him organizing the 11/22/63 op in Dallas. Interesting also to contemplate the "Special Group" list involved in Mongoose in the weeks prior to the Cuban Missile Crisis -- LBJ, Bundy, Lemnitzer, McCone, and Bill Harvey, among others.

So, was LBJ's misguided commitment to escalating the war the result of a quid pro quo agreement with the men who conspired to kill JFK? If so, he and the conspirators would have had a very good reason to falsify the history of NSAM 263, JFK, Galbraith, etc.

A related question is WHY this JFK/Vietnam history was deliberately falsified by Halberstam's sources. Was it done; 1) to deflect blame for the Vietnam War debacle, or 2) to hide a significant motive for JFK's assassination?

And people buy this falsified history, unfortunately-- even some highly-educated people I have known. When mythology is promoted by the mainstream media, it is very difficult to dislodge it. No wonder LBJ's public-relations expert, Bill Moyers, has been so enthusiastic about the "power of myth..." 👺

Great article. Very illuminating. So, in the absence of footnotes, it is impossible to know who was giving Halberstam his false history of JFK's intention to get out of Vietnam, and/or directing him to falsify history. It seems fairly obvious that the Cold Warriors who wanted to escalate the war in Vietnam -- Bundy, Rostow, Lemnitzer, Dulles, Lansdale, LBJ, et. al. -- were also very invested in distorting the true history of NSAM 263 and its radical reversal after 11/22/63. And David Halberstam was their principle mythologist.

Has anyone ever tried to uncover and document CIA-linked payments to "historians" like Halberstam and Bugliosi? I read Carl Bernstein's Church Committe-related Rolling Stone article about Operation Mockingbird, but I don't recall any references to David Halberstam. (Incidentally, I went to a lecture Halberstam gave at Brown when I was an undergrad in the late 70s, which he, jokingly, called the "Charles Colson Honorary" guest lecture, in reference to that notorious Brown alumnus.) I imagine it would be virtually impossible to trace funding for pseudo-historical publications to the Company. In his book, Regicide, Gregory Douglas published a list of CIA-affiliated writers in an appendix, from his CIA source-- possibly bogus material.

I read somewhere that Nixon talked about using nukes in Vietnam as a kind of "Mad Man" bluff tactic. As for Ken Burns, my question is, "Why?" (As with Halberstam.) Are they simply bad historians, or is it something worse?

Lance, I agree, entirely, that it is important for all of us to get the facts straight, and to eschew the propagation of disinformation. As a matter of philosophical logic, however, I would point out that disproving a particular alleged "fact" -- or theory based on that fact -- does not constitute proof of a different theory, like the Warren Commision's "Lone Nut" theory. (A so-called "straw man" rhetorical trick.) So, for example, as JFK assassination researchers work to assemble facts and organize explanatory theories about the details of JFK's murder -- like assembling a jigsaw puzzle with some missing pieces -- their occasional mistakes don't prove, by any stretch, that the Warren Commission Report was a true representation of reality, the true "picture." It wasn't.

Lance, If you're sincerely interested in common sense and logic, my suggestion is to stop wasting your time on these straw man arguments. Try studying Newton's laws of motion as they pertain to the Zapruder film. That is all you need in the way of "common sense and logic" to thoroughly debunk the Warren Commission's "Lone Nut" in the TSBD with the Carcano fiction. People can endlessly debate about the many complex, forensic details of JFK's murder, but the "Lone Nut" in the TSBD with the Carcano narrative is, obviously, nonsense. Frankly, I'm amazed that any rational, informed person would still believe that it is a scientifically viable theory. It isn't.