Benjamin Cole

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/DOC_0001359216.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwjliMnYkeKHAxXNzTgGHSNsB4YQFnoECCMQAQ&usg=AOvVaw0LuwPY4uTaQNstLidbcywZ This is an early CIA report on the USS Liberty incident. 6/13/67. From this report, you can conclude 1. The CIA works for Mossad, or.... 2. The USS Liberty was mistaken as Egyptian vessel.

Do you have any guess how many senior Democrats, after 11/22/63, surmised it was LBJ who perped the JFKA? But they decided to keep quiet for sake of party solidarity? Can you name any?

JD-- Oh, I don't contest it is possible, perhaps even 50/50 likely, Israel stole uranium the 1960s, or that, possibly, senior officials in the JFK-LBJ administration arranged to ship uranium to Israel, but wanted a plausible cover story denying responsibility. Given LBJ's lack of interest to pursuing leads...maybe JFK/LBJ decided an ally needed the weapons. Helms would lie about anything, and so he lied about the transfer of uranium also. Many people say Angleton was tight with Israel, and capable of running his own ops. Who knows? There could have also been a program to steal or buy uranium from notoriously corrupt Russia, and that had to be covered up. You need a plausible cover story to protect sources and methods. I stand by my statement that Israel deliberately attacking the USS Liberty was just a horrible mistake. Friendly fire incidents globally account for 20% of wartime military deaths.

JM--Thanks for your correx. It should be noted that SS agent Leslie Coffelt himself was killed in the gun battle, defending the US President

KB--- Thanks for your collegial comments. It may be that Israelis managed to smuggle plutonium out of the US. This sentence strikes me a far-fetched: "It’s possible that one of the USS Liberty’s objectives was to gather intelligence to confirm whether Israel could have this material and made nuclear weapons from it." I never heard of a signals-intel ship trying to gather intel on a years-old possible plutonium theft. Anti-Semitic crackpots have been going on about why Israelis attacked the USS Liberty since 1967, inventing any number of preposterous reasons, none of which make any sense. The real answer: Friendly fire happens, and Israelis soldiers and airmen are not giants. Her is a mind-boggling friendly fire incident: The friendly fire over Gela (Italy) would go down as the worst friendly fire incident of the war at the time for the Americans. 318 American soldiers were killed or wounded. Twenty-three transport planes were destroyed or lost. Many planes returned to base heavily damaged. ---30--- US Army soldiers manning anti-aircraft weapons, shot down 23---23!---US Army air transports, C-47s and C-53s, properly traveling in columns towards known objectives. They were the third wave of US planes in formation, following the same flight path. "As a result of the friendly fire incident, the airborne assault was widely scattered, missing assigned drop zones and objectives." "The first two formations of (US Army) transport planes followed their prescribed course and discharged their paratroopers squarely on target. These would be the only airborne soldiers to float down safely to the correct drop zone. When the next (US) formation appeared over the shoreline, a never identified nervous (US Army) gunner on the beach began shooting. Other scared gunners on shore and aboard ships sent volleys of fire lofting into the night sky (at US Army transports)." So the US Army shot down 23 of their own planes, that were traveling on the same flight path that two previous formations had flown over. Multiple, perhaps even dozens, of US gunners participated in the firing, from land and naval positions. No one says anything extra tricky or devious happened at Gela. Humans make mistakes, the adrenaline pumps, fear, perhaps even vain hopes for glory. Pilot training and technical assists were not tops in the 1960s. There was zero upside for Tel Aviv for an Israeli attack on the US warship.

J. Morley weighs in on differences and similarities between the JFKA and the Trump Assassination Attempt (TAA): The Latest From JFK Facts A Secret Service Assassination Coverup? There's a Lawsuit For That In 1995 the presidential protectors shredded key JFK files. The Mary Ferrell Foundation is holding them accountable in court in 2024. JEFFERSON MORLEY AUG 5 READ IN APP Of the six attacks on presidents in the last 75 years, two stand out for egregious lapses in Secret Service security procedures: the assassination of JFK on November 22, 1963, and the near assassination of Donald Trump on July 13, 2024. As I predicted last month, today’s media environment makes it possible for a real investigation and real accountability — neither of which happened in 1963. Secret Service director Kimberly Cheatle has resigned after scathing bipartisan criticism in a Capitol Hill hearing. In 1963, director James Rowley inexplicably kept his job for another eight years. The Secret Service has said agents will be disciplined, which seems likely after Acting Director Ronald Rowe Jr. said he was “ashamed” of the agency’s actions on July 13 when Trump was nearly killed by a fusillade fired by Thomas Crooks, the 20-year-old gunman who was killed by a Secret Service sniper. In 1963, no agents were disciplined, even though some had been out drinking until 5 a.m. on the morning JFK was ambushed in Dallas’ Dealey Plaza. The Warren Commission, created by President Lyndon Johnson to ratify the “lone gunman” theory, did no serious investigation of the agency’s security procedures in 1963. The record of the Secret Service on JFK’s assassination is the essential background to the work of the bipartisan House of Representatives task force, which is now looking into the near assassination of Trump. Absolute transparency and vigilant accountability are essential, lest the sorry history of 1963 repeat itself. Share What History Tells Us Vince Palamara, the leading expert on the Secret Service in 1963, has documented in painful detail the agency’s egregious failures in Dallas, showing that Kennedy’s security detail was much tighter on 20 previous public appearances in 1963. (Palamara’s YouTube channel is an indispensable tool for understanding the real history of Kennedy’s assassination. It’s much more accurate and comprehensive, for example, than Wikipedia’s outdated, biased pro-government entry on JFK’s assassination.) And when an independent civilian review board asked the Secret Service in 1995 to provide records of its actions in the fall of 1963, the Secret Service destroyed the records. In its final report, issued in September 1998, the Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB) stated: The board asked the Secret Service to submit a sworn declaration that it had complied with the JFK Records Act. The Secret Service ignored the board’s demand. Judge John Tunheim, chair of the ARRB, said no federal agency was worse than the Secret Service in complying with the 1992 JFK Records Act, which mandated the release of all government files related to President Kennedy’s murder. Suing Biden In October 2022, the Mary Ferrell Foundation, a nonprofit educational organization based in Ipswich, Mass., sued President Biden and the National Archives for failure to enforce the JFK Records Act. In its court filing, the foundation, which sponsors the internet’s largest collection of searchable JFK assassination records, cited the Secret Service’s failure to submit a sworn declaration of compliance. The lawsuit is ongoing in federal court in San Francisco. Last month, the foundation’s attorney, Bill Simpich, asked Chief District Judge Richard Seeborg for permission to initiate discovery proceedings to investigate whether the Secret Service records might still exist. “We are seeking the records of the destroyed Secret Service records because they may let us know what their practices were back in 1963 and what went wrong with JFK's protection,” Simpich told JFK Facts. “The kind of scrutiny that is happening now with the attempt on Trump's life simply didn't happen in 1963. Why not?" Share Other Attacks In four other presidential attacks, the agency’s managers were not at fault and its agents acted appropriately. In 1951, when two Puerto Rican nationalists attempted to shoot their way into Blair House, the presidential guest house where President Harry Truman was staying, the Secret Service returned fire and captured the assailants. Truman was not harmed. In two separate attempts on President Gerald Ford’s life in September 1975, the Secret Service hustled Ford to safety. In the attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan in 1981, agents quickly tackled gunman John Hinckley. But the events of Dallas in November 1963 and Butler in July 2024 revealed a dangerously incompetent agency. President Kennedy paid with his life, and Trump was fortunate to escape with his. To repeat, absolute transparency and vigilant accountability is essential, lest the sorry history of 1963 make a return appearance.

KB- You may be right, that the Israelis stole the uranium. Certainly a lot of people think so. On the other hand, maybe the Israelis just bought bought uranium from the always-corrupt Russians, and the US theft story leaked as a cover. Before its collapse in 1991, the Soviet Union had more than 27,000 nuclear weapons and enough weapons-grade plutonium and uranium to triple that number. Given the tight geography of Israel and its enemies, I wonder what kind of nukes the Israelis planned to use in 1967, or if that was just saber-rattling. The US and Russia maintain small tactical nukes, but even that seems unlikely for Israel. Anyway, the record shows Israel inflicted very little damage on Egyptian and Syrian populations in the 1967 and 1973 wars, despite having the ability to wipe out both those nations.

JC-- Maybe. But records of what Joannides was doing in New Orleans at the same time as LHO might be informative. Additionally, we don't know what we don't know. Why did the Biden Administration do a permanent snuff job on the JFK Records Act? Why did AG Merrick Garland engage in such vast legal chicanery and subterfuge in creating the Orwellian "Transparency Board"? Garland and Biden went a long, long way, expended considerable effort and tax dollars, to stop you and me from seeing the JFK Records Act documents. And Biden (or his handlers) and Garland are still defending their illegal actions in court, against the Mary Ferrell Foundation. Because there are only anodyne and innocuous documents being kept from the public? I don't buy it. ---30--- PS I am working on a speculative post. One reason for the JFK Records Act snuff job was to bury info of conspiracy...as there was another assassination planned. Imagine if the JFK Records Act documents revealed Deep State complicity in the JFKA...and then someone took out Trump. The public would be much more amenable to CT explanations on Trump, than just LN explanations---if the truth had come out on the JFKA. As I said, speculation....

Verily. I am afraid to say anything more. I might get banned.

KB- Thanks for your collegial response. Israel's response in 1967 to having its major (only) southern port blocked (an act of war by international law) by Egypt, and Egypt moving troops close to its borders...Egypt announcing major military alliances...after years of Arab nations vowing to destroy Israel and kill all the Jews...was it justified? Certainly the Israelis will say so. I tend to agree with them. Nor, in 1967, did Israel respond with "total" war. Israel did not bomb Cairo or Damascus, though neither city had any air defenses. Though the Arabs had vowed to kill all the Jews, the Jews in 1967 did not kill Arab civilians. Total war is what happened in WWII. Firebombing Tokyo, Dresden, etc. The US firebombed Tokyo, and nuked Hiroshima and Nagasaki, after Japan bombed a military installation (Pearl Harbor). There is a lot of literature out there written by anti-Semitic crackpots, some of it in these very pages. I advise caution in what you believe.

Think what the Op Mock did to Garrison...and what may be happening today as well.

The lead up to the 1967 included Nasser militarizing the Sinai and blocking the Gulf of Aqaba, considered an act of war (blockading a a an important civilian harbor is an act of war). So who started he war? Depends who you ask. Tel Aviv says they warned Cairo that blocking Eilat was an act of war. "on May 14, 1967, Nasser mobilized Egyptian forces in the Sinai; on May 18 he formally requested the removal of the UNEF stationed there; and on May 22 he closed the Gulf of Aqaba to Israeli shipping, thus instituting an effective blockade of the port city of Elat in southern Israel. On May 30, King Hussein of Jordan arrived in Cairo to sign a mutual defense pact with Egypt, placing Jordanian forces under Egyptian command; shortly thereafter, Iraq too joined the alliance. Main events of the war In response to the apparent mobilization of its Arab neighbours, early on the morning of June 5, Israel staged a sudden preemptive air assault that destroyed more than 90 percent Egypt’s air force on the tarmac. A similar air assault incapacitated the Syrian air force. Without cover from the air, the Egyptian army was left vulnerable to attack. Within three days the Israelis had achieved an overwhelming victory on the ground, capturing the Gaza Strip and all of the Sinai Peninsula up to the east bank of the Suez Canal." https://www.britannica.com/event/Six-Day-War ---30--- As you point out, the Arabs attacked Israel in 1973. But back to my point; JFK was known as a strong supporter of Israel through his brief presidency, and loved in Tel Aviv as he was through much of the world. I believe JFK would be today too. JFK did not want Israel to have nukes. That is a reasonable concern, and non-proliferation is a good idea. This is a link to a 1960 JFK speech. Granted it is a speech, and all pols say things in speeches. But JFK sure sounds like an Israel supporter. https://www.jfklibrary.org/archives/other-resources/john-f-kennedy-speeches/new-york-ny-19600826

KB-- Thanks for your collegial comments. Yes, playing the "counterfactuals" game can be be beguiling, and...well, we let our biases lead us to our conclusions. My take is JFK (and RFK1) would have avoided the large military blunders of Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan, which together is no small thing. We are talking hundreds of thousands of lives (millions, depending on how you want to count) and trillions in outlays. On Israel, hard to say. Where the Israel of the 1960s faced somewhat non-theocratic enemies, who might be reasoned with (and were, after they lost two wars they started in 1967 and 1972) present-day Middle East nations and terrorist proxies have become increasing illiberal and theocratic, meaning they believe they are serving God, and are implacable and unreasoning. It is a wise policy to separate church and state, as our founding fathers knew. And Russia has changed too, from a communist nation to a capitalist kleptocracy and thug state. Unchanged is China, still a communist dictatorship, becoming more brutal with each passing year, conveniently underplayed by US media and apologists as globalists have so much of their manufacturing base and other interests linked to the CCP. Hard to say what JFK would do in the modern world.

Verily. I regret to say the recordings of my band are now legendarily known as "the lost sessions," usually spoken of in hushed, and sometimes reverent tones by old-time industry greats, the kind of guys who do not have tattoos. Well, the part about the recordings being "lost sessions" is true. Actually, I don't think we ever recorded our music.

In high school I played piano in a band that played at parties and Val Halen sometimes played at those parties too. Pasadena, Arcadia area. But, alack and alas, my talent caught up with me. The PS website is a formidable collection of evidence. I disagree with a few points, but so what? That is a forum is for.

Looking forward to Hankock's book. My take is LHO was obviously smart. His report on Russia upon his return shows real promise for someone with so little formal training. GDM, Titovits, and a guy named Donovan in the Marines, all smart guys, all enjoyed conversations with LHO.

JFK was an incredibly intelligent individual, and a remarkable speaker. But remember, he is also the man who wrote the book, "Why England Slept," and personally served in WWII in the Pacific against a monstrous illiberal imperialist power. JFK authorized the BoP op, and put 15,000 troops into South Vietnam. When there was a chance to take down bad guys at a low cost, JFK was for it. In this speech, given in late 1962 regarding Cuba, JFK essentially promises to overthrow Castro and establish democracy in Cuba: "I want to express my great appreciation to the brigade for making the United States the custodian of this flag. I can assure you that this flag will be returned to this brigade in a free Havana." https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/remarks-miami-the-presentation-the-flag-the-cuban-invasion-brigade The entire speech could be considered inflammatory. (BTW, I sometimes wonder if the above promise played a role in the JFKA, heightening a sense of betrayal in the Cuban exile community.) JFK, and RFK, were both ardent supporters of Israel. I agree that JFK would never have become mired down in Vietnam, and he sought exit ramps in Cuba, not nuclear war. Like any sensible statesman, he knew that discretion is the better part of valor. But that does not mean JFK would have appeased or pandered to Mideast despots, Russian thugs or Beijing bureaucrats. My take is JFK would have taken the best options in opposing such loathsome retrograde powers. Best options does not mean nuclear war, or endless wars, but nor does it mean constant appeasement.

I am keeping an open mind. History tells us that organized assasination plots often make use of a patsy. A patsy better dead, btw.

JB- Thank you for your collegial comments. I will try to track down if the reporter, Corinne Whitehead, ever went back to New Orleans or if she got Op Mocked out of the picture.

This newspaper is the Paducah Sun-Democrat, undated, but I think 1967 on the day a three-judge Louisiana panel ordered Clay to stand trial, after a Grand Jury indicted him. Imagine a small-town paper today sending a reporter or correspondent to cover such a trial. The Paducah Sun-Democrat still exists, btw. The reporter, Corinne Whitehead, does a credible job, and alludes to "murder" in her final three paragraphs. She does not try to discredit Vernon Bundy, who said he saw Clay giving money to LHO. She suggests the public is getting a sanitized version of the proceeding. I think the big anti-Garrison Op Mock began in earnest after this. (Of course, after Clay was ultimately acquitted it came out Clay had been on CIA payrolls.) ]

Jefferson Morley 2d ∙ JFK Facts Update. The lawsuit Mary Ferrell Foundation v Biden is reaching a critical stage. Next week we are asking the judge to grant us “discovery,” meaning the right to interview witnesses and compel the government to produce missing JFK records. Stay tuned! JFK Facts Biden Sued For Concealing JFK Assassination Documents After 60 Years Mary Ferrell Foundation lawsuit seeks hidden and destroyed records.

RM-- Thanks for your collegial response. I disagree with Ayton on the JFKA/RFK1A, which in my view are siamese twin political assassinations. But, a forum is for having debates and not monologues, so let Ayton be Ayton.

I don't know much about Mel Ayton, but he wrote a book on Presidential assassinations and attempts, and a couple books on RFK1A and Sirhan. Lori Spencer thinks highly of him. Maybe an EF-JFKA'er has read his books and has a comment.

JB Congratulations. Maybe EF-JFKA can be a collegial experience wherein different points of view are appreciated.