W. Niederhut

I have read, here and there, about possible Mossad links to the JFK assassination, but I don't pretend to understand the alleged evidence. David Ben-Gurion was, allegedly, furious about JFK's adamant opposition to Israel's nuclear weapons project at Dimona. Jack Ruby was, allegedly, in contact with L.A. mobster Micky Cohen (and Menachem Begin?) Another possible angle I have read about has to do with Permindex and Clay Shaw. And James Angleton, allegedly, worked closely with the Mossad during his storied career at the CIA.

Thanks for the info, Ron. Obviously, the story about an LBJ-Nixon meeting in Dallas on 11/21/63 doesn't sound credible, if LBJ was touring the Lone Star state with JFK and Jackie. I'll have to go back and study this issue of Nixon and Dallas. I thought I read somewhere that Nixon was speaking at a business convention in Dallas that week. Apparently, GHWB was also in Dallas, at an oilman's convention at the Sheraton on 11/21/63. Nixon was Ike's liaison to Operation 40 (Bay of Pigs) in 1960, and GHWB was also involved with Op 40, according to Russ Baker (?) Loose associations. I sometimes have a tendency to look for connections where none exist, although Bob Haldeman wrote that Nixon tended to refer to JFK's assassination as, "that Bay of Pigs thing."

French historian Laurent Guyenot described such a theory in his recently published book, From Yahweh to Zion. Perhaps borrowing from Michael Collins Piper's Final Judgment, Guyenot speculated that some sort of CIA-organized false flag op had been planned, in which Oswald was posing as a pro-Castro Marxist who attempted to assassinate JFK-- as a pretext to overthrow Castro. Concurrently, a Mossad op was implemented to actually kill JFK (because of his adamant opposition to Israel's nuclear weapons program at Dimona.) Somewhat convoluted, and I may be misrepresenting some details about Guyenot's theory. The gist of his theory is that there were two different ops, and that one of them had been organized by Menachem Begin and the Mossad.

One of the most intriguing claims that Roger Stone made in his book, Nixon's Secrets, was that LBJ and Richard Nixon met privately, for three hours, in Dallas on the afternoon of November 21, 1963. Not that I consider Stone a reliable source of information, but I have often pondered this one. First of all, is it true? Nixon, apparently, attended the party at the Murchison mansion that night, and flew out of Dallas on the morning of November 22nd-- later giving conflicting accounts of how he had learned about JFK's assassination. (Oliver Stone depicted the scene of a very nervous Dick Nixon (Anthony Hopkins) being plied with booze and teased by strippers at Murchison's party in his film, Nixon.) Secondly, if it happened, what did LBJ and Nixon talk about for three hours on November 21, 1963? These two sociopaths would occupy the White House for the next decade, after 11/22/63, and they would both preside over a series of truly genocidal bombing campaigns in Southeast Asia.

I agree. And I voted for Jimmy Carter for POTUS TWICE back in the day-- a no-brainer for me. I have always thought of Carter as a good man. But, I had also forgotten how unpopular he had become in "liberal" circles by late 1979, until reading James DiEugenio's comment above. Even during the 1976 Democratic primaries many of us thought Carter was too "bland" to be the liberal torch-bearer of the Democratic Party. (I voted for Jerry Brown in the '76 Rhode Island Democratic primary, which Brown won.)

And Clint Murchison.

I mentioned that Faneuil Hall story/flashback after reading James DiEugenio's remarks, because he reminded me of how unpopular Jimmy Carter had become by November of 1979, at least in Massachusetts (which, admittedly, has long been the most "liberal" planet in the U.S. solar system.)

Joe, The key word here is "huge." There does seem to be compelling evidence that Trump has committed war crimes in Yemen and Syria, though nothing, so far, on the "huge" scale seen in Nixon's bombing campaign in Cambodia, (in which he said, "Henry, I want to send anything that can fly.") There is also compelling evidence that Trump lied about his pretexts for bombing Syria in April of 2017 and April of 2018. General Mattis, himself, told Newsweek in February of this year that he had "no evidence" of chemical weapons use by the Assad regime in 2017, as claimed by Trump. BTW, ABC Australia has just reported today that Trump plans to bomb Iran next month-- in what may be a political parallel to LBJ's use of the August Gulf of Tonkin incident prior to the 1964 election. The source of the claim was, allegedly, a high-level Australian military official.

This reminded me of an experience I had in Boston in 1979 when I was a first year medical student. I was in the square at Faneuil Hall on the morning that Ted Kennedy announced his candidacy for the Presidency in November of 1979. The place was packed-- standing room only-- and loudspeakers were being used to broadcast Senator Kennedy's announcement speech to the rapt crowd standing in the square. As we were waiting for Mr. Kennedy to speak, an old, intoxicated man in a tattered coat staggered into the square, and was desperately trying to push his way through the tightly packed crowd to get to Faneuil Hall. When he saw the huge crowd, he blurted out, "Let me through! I have to take a f--ing piss!" And some guy in the crowd said, "Oh, no! It's a Carter man!"

Obstruction, perjury, dissembling... you forgot to mention murder. 😱

OUCH! Touche... 😨 Putin could have added Nixon's '68 political rival RFK to the list, and the journalist Dorothy Kilgallen.

A theoretical consideration about foreknowledge. Isn't it possible that some people involved in the complex 11/22/63 "op" -- including Oswald -- may not have known that JFK would be assassinated? If tasks were compartmentalized and some of the "pawns" were informed about the big picture only on a "need to know" basis, perhaps they were simply performing certain limited tasks (e.g., Ruth Paine helping Oswald get his job at the TSBD) without knowing that the POTUS was going to be murdered.

Thanks for posting these references, Ron.

I am posting this question as a follow up to the recent discussion on the NYT/Anthony Lewis thread-- with apologies to the JFK scholars here who have probably resolved this question long ago. The subject of whether LBJ "ducked" out of sight as his limo approached the Texas School Book Depository on 11 /22/63 arose during that discussion. Phillip Nelson claimed (in his book LBJ, Mastermind of the JFK Assassination) that an Altgens photo proved that LBJ had, obviously, "ducked" out of sight in the back seat of his limo, at a time when Lady Bird and Senator Ralph Yarborough are still seen sitting calmly upright and waving to the crowd from the limo. Mr. DiEugenio mentioned that the Dealey Plaza photography expert Robert J. Groden had a better take on this subject than Nelson, in his book Absolute Proof. Unfortunately, Mr. Groden's book appears to be out-of-print. (Amazon only lists a few used hardback copies for upwards of $230!) Are there any good, readily-available, on-line analyses of the subject?

Carter was the only POTUS after 11/22/63 who attempted (however unsuccessfully) to reform the CIA, and to sincerely raise the issue of human rights in our foreign policies. He was also the only POTUS after JFK who was willing to actively intervene in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. For these efforts, any references to Carter are usually greeted in the U.S. with howls of execration and derision. The Ayatollahs, unwittingly, held the wrong POTUS hostage.

What about Elmer Moore's apparent close "relationship" with Earl Warren in 1964? Was Warren being blackmailed or threatened? Was there more to Warren's cooperation with the WC "Lone Nut" narrative than LBJ's "mushroom cloud" threat? And wouldn't Warren have learned as early as January of 1964 that Oswald had been an FBI informant-- a fact that must have raised serious doubts for the commissioners about the narrative of Oswald being a pro-Castro Marxist, etc. ? This leads to other questions about LBJ and Hoover in 1963, who were, apparently, next door neighbors in D.C. Do the research experts here believe Phillip Nelson's argument that LBJ had foreknowledge of JFK's assassination-- based on the Altgens photo of LBJ, allegedly ducking down in his limo as it approached Elm Street? I don't pretend to have the correct answer here, just the question.

Indeed, many of my all-time favorite "reporters" got "weird" over the JFKA case. 1) Dan Rather lied about the Zapruder film. 2) Jim Lehrer never questioned the WCR narrative, to my knowledge-- even in recent years. 3) Bill Moyers has never talked about what happened.

Agreed. That truly dark chapter in American history -- the GOP Florida vote hack of 2000 -- has never received sufficient coverage in the mainstream U.S. media, nor has Kissinger's comment in December of 2000, after the infamous 5-4 Bush v. Gore ruling, "Nothing would increase George W. Bush's low approval rating more than a terrorist attack against the United States."

So, as I recall, Roger Stone said recently that his 2016 Email about dining "last night" with Julian Assange was only "a joke." Is it finally the CREEPy old dirty trickster's time to be in the barrel?

From what I can find, Anthony Lewis was one of NYT's best journalists at the time-- a two time Pulitzer Prize winner from Harvard, who was best known for his coverage of judicial issues. So, this Warren Commission Report article probably wasn't a case of shoddy journalism per se. I don't recall whether Carl Bernstein mentioned Anthony Lewis as a contract journalist for Operation Mockingbird (in Bernstein's Church Committee era article about the CIA and the U.S. media in Rolling Stone.) The fact that he panned Oliver Stone's movie, JFK, speaks volumes.

Michael, Nixon's Secrets was so bad that I gave the book away as a gag white elephant gift at a Christmas Party last year. There were two anecdotes in that book that I found intriguing, though. 1) Stone claimed that Nixon and LBJ had a three hour private meeting in Dallas on the afternoon of November 21, 1963. 2) Stone asked Nixon, shortly before his death, whether he and LBJ had been involved in any way in JFK's murder. Nixon, who was sloshed, paused for awhile then, allegedly, said, "Well, let's just say that Lyndon and I both wanted very much to be President."

Is Roger Stone's book, LBJ-- The Man Who Killed Kennedy, worth reading? I read Nixon's Secrets, and thought it was poorly written, and horribly edited-- with a lot of redundancy and very little new information -- but I noticed that Stone's LBJ book has received positive reviews on Amazon. (Couldn't find a review at Kennedys and King.) I also read both of Phillip Nelson's books about LBJ and the JFK assassination, and don't know if Roger Stone has presented much new information. Any opinions?

My advice is that you carefully study all of the well-documented, highly-detailed evidence in Mr. DiEugenio's latest opus on The JFK Assassination, which carefully critiques Bugliosi's big book of JFK assassination baloney. For a detailed critique of the Warren Commission Report, study Sylvia Meagher's Accessories After the Fact.

Frankly, from what I have read, I don't believe Oswald even fired a single shot on 11/22/63. He had no gun powder residue on his face, and his prints weren't on the Carcano (until after his murder.) He was also seen by multiple witnesses in areas of the lower TSBD floors inconsistent with being in the 6th floor "sniper's nest." I have NO doubt, whatsoever, that the fatal head shot was fired from the grassy knoll area, causing a right frontal entry wound, and an occipital exit wound. So, it wasn't fired from the TSBD. Oswald was a patsy, as he insisted, who had been an FBI informant posing as a pro-Castro Marxist in New Orleans and Dallas. His Dallas area contacts included CIA-affiliated assets like George De Mohrenschildt, David Atlee Phillips, (aka Maurice Bishop) and Ruth Paine (who got him the job at the TSBD in October of '63.) As nearly as I can tell, Oswald was a pawn in a much larger black op who thought he was going to be flown out of Red Bird Airport on 11/22/63.

Michael Wolff said, in Fire and Fury, that Trump has a tendency to agree with the last person he has spoken with. That is, no doubt, an exaggeration-- but he has, certainly, flipped 180 degrees in an apparent bait-and-switch on any number of his 2016 campaign positions-- promising a "terrific" healthcare plan for all, pledging that, "the forgotten Americans will be forgotten no more," criticizing Obama's military ops in the Middle East, etc. My take on Trump (in violation of my profession's "Goldwater Rule) is that he is a lifelong sociopath and bully, and, obviously, an extreme narcissistic personality. He is grandiose and self-aggrandizing, exploitative, manipulative, lacking in empathy, and, evidently, sadistic. He began his presidential campaign by consulting with the likes of Roger Stone and Sam Nunberg-- and searching for a sales pitch on the basis of "marketing" research by Nunberg and others. This seems to be how he initially latched onto the "white nationalist" strategy of bashing immigrants and minority groups (which was eerily in sync with the Russian-funded Facebook ads in 2016.) Anyway, I don't want to high-jack the thread. It was interesting to hear Mr. Caddy's comments here about Roger Stone's sociopathic personality the other day.