Benjamin Cole

Buy aligning themselves with Hamas, Tehran and Putin, the left wing is committing suicide. I sure hope so anyway.

It would take an aggressive and determined Chief Executive, assisted by dedicated JFA researchers and a platoon of dreadnought lawyers, to get this stuff out. The President might have to fire a CIA director and others to get the job done. The media might spread stories the President was unhinged, and so on. Well, the odds are low....

They may have to dig up landfills and remove WaPo copies...it is that toxic.

That's an interesting observation. Biden, of course, served on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, sometimes leading it, forever. The Senators on that committee, and even more so the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, always strike me as establishment minions. If anyone has heard insider scuttlebutt about the JFKA, it would be Biden. But...he is a company man, as they say. He ain't telling.

I agree 100%. The President has the authority to release the JFK Records. Do it. We are now more than 60 years from the JFKA.

Interesting. It took years before it was revealed that Clay Shaw just happened to be a CIA asset. Or additional docs on J Walton Moore, the CIA guy in Dallas. We know Moore linked Mohrenschildt to LHO. How about others, with Cuba ties?

Great stuff. As a youth, I hiked a lot in the San Gabriel Mountains. Back then there was Nike missile site, active, and (as youths) we authoritatively traded stories about trespassers getting shot on the site, which indeed had scary warnings posted along the perimeter chain-link and barb-wire fence. San Gabriel Peak from Mount Disappointment, with the old Nike Missile base foundation in between [OC] For non-L.A. residents, the San Gabriels run roughly north-south and are east of downtown L.A., maybe by 10 miles. Cities like Altadena and Pasadena are at the base of the mountains. There was another missile base in the Santa Monica mountains, as I recall. Forgotten today, JFK ran for Presidency, in part, on the "missile gap."

The WaPo story is behind paywall. But this link may work: https://archive.ph/0bupd I have re-posted the Aug. 24 article below in its entirety. The WaPo does not mention the Biden Administration's creation of the Transparency Board, nor the MFF lawsuit. The article reports, "in June 2023, he (Biden) announced that he had made his 'final certification" on files to be released, transferring his power to disclose documents to U.S. agencies." Oh, that. Well, OK. That sums it up. See the WaPo motto just below, in original. Is that a warning...or are they bragging? Democracy Dies in Darkness Trump vowed to release all remaining JFK files. What could they contain? Despite their differences about what they suspect happened on Nov. 22, 1963, in Dallas, two prominent researchers agree the remaining files should be released. By Kyle Melnick August 24, 2024 at 11:00 p.m. EDT After independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. suspended his campaign and endorsed Donald Trump on Friday, the Republican nominee pledged that if he’s elected to the White House, he will release all the documents related to the 1963 assassination of Kennedy’s uncle. “This is a tribute in honor of Bobby,” Trump said at a Friday evening rally in the Phoenix area. “I will establish a new independent presidential commission on assassination attempts, and they will be tasked with releasing all of the remaining documents pertaining to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.” For decades after the killing, many documents related to the event were withheld from the public, spurring conspiracy theories. The Warren Commission, which was created a week after John F. Kennedy’s death in November 1963, said that gunman Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in Dallas. But others have continued to question whether Oswald worked with Soviet, Cuban or CIA agents. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. told a New York radio station last year that he believes the CIA was involved in his uncle’s murder. Congress passed a law more than three decades ago intended to put to rest questions about the assassination by declassifying relevant records, but there remain more than 3,000 documents that still contain redactions, according to the National Archives and Records Administration, leaving some researchers puzzled. What to know When were the documents supposed to be released? What documents remain hidden? What revelations have been gleaned from documents released in recent years? What could we learn from the remaining files? When were the documents supposed to be released? The President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992 declared that all the documents about the assassination should be made publicly available by October 2017. However, the law allowed U.S. officials to postpone the release of documents if they thought national security and privacy concerns outweighed the public interest in disclosure. Roughly 320,000 documents were identified and slated to be declassified after the law passed. The law was signed the year after the release of director Oliver Stone’s political thriller “JFK,” a fictional portrayal of a New Orleans district attorney who found evidence of a conspiracy behind Kennedy’s death. What documents remain hidden? U.S. officials have cited privacy and national security concerns multiple times for postponing the release of some documents. When he was president in 2017, Trump announced that he planned to publicly disclose the remaining documents but ultimately delayed the release of some files for national security reasons, saying they would be released by October 2021. In 2018, Trump authorized the disclosure of 19,045 documents, many of which contained redactions. In October 2021, President Joe Biden also postponed the planned release of the documents, citing delays prompted by the coronavirus pandemic. “Temporary continued postponement is necessary to protect against identifiable harm to the military defense, intelligence operations, law enforcement, or the conduct of foreign relations that is of such gravity that it outweighs the public interest in immediate disclosure,” Biden said at the time. Biden released more than 13,000 documents in the following years, but in June 2023, he announced that he had made his “final certification” on files to be released, transferring his power to disclose documents to U.S. agencies. Gerald Posner, who wrote the 1993 Kennedy assassination book “Case Closed,” said he isn’t sure whether Trump will follow through on his promise if he’s elected in November. “You had an opportunity to do it, you said you were going to do it, and you didn’t do it,” Posner said about Trump. “Now, with the RFK Jr. endorsement, maybe that’s a quid pro quo, and maybe this time he’ll actually do it.” What revelations have been gleaned from documents released in recent years? Tens of thousands of documents were released between 2018 and last year. The last large batch of released documents came in December 2022, when Biden disclosed 13,173 documents. Jefferson Morley, the editor of the JFK Facts newsletter, said a few revelations have arisen from those releases. The documents showed that some CIA employees didn’t believe Oswald acted alone, Morley said, and a counterintelligence official tried to “wait out” the Warren Commission’s investigation by denying it information about Oswald. Posner, however, said that many of the recently released documents haven’t revealed a smoking gun, and he doubts the remaining documents will either. “Some of the biggest headlines that have been pulled from the JFK files the last four or five years are what I call tabloid stories about stories that were actually old,” Posner said. Some of the documents released since 2022 shed light on Oswald’s actions in the months before the assassination. One document from June 1962 indicated that Oswald might have been on the CIA’s radar more than a year before Kennedy’s assassination. Another said the CIA intercepted a call Oswald made in October 1963 from Mexico City to the Soviet Embassy there, wanting someone in the building “to send a tele-gram for him to Washington.” Last summer, a newly unredacted copy of a document named the CIA employee who intercepted Oswald’s mail before Kennedy’s murder. What could we learn from the remaining files? Morley and Posner said they believe the remaining documents might show that the CIA was aware of Oswald before the assassination. Morley said the evidence released so far leads him to suspect Kennedy’s opponents in the CIA might’ve been working with Oswald and the remaining documents could prove or disprove that theory. Posner said he thinks Oswald acted alone and the remaining documents might show the CIA failed to report him to the FBI before the assassination. A CIA spokesperson told The Washington Post in 2022 that the agency was not withholding information about Oswald or the assassination. “CIA believes all substantive information known to be directly related to Oswald has been released,” the spokesperson said. “The few remaining redactions protect CIA employee names, sources, locations, and CIA tradecraft.” Even if all the Kennedy documents are released, Posner said he doesn’t think the conspiracy theories will end. “Let’s say it doesn’t add to any evidence of a conspiracy in the case,” Posner said about the unreleased information. “People believing in conspiracy will say, ‘Well, see, there you go. They destroyed the real documents.’” Despite their differences about what they think happened on Nov. 22, 1963, in Dallas’s Dealey Plaza, both Posner and Morley hope to see the records fully released. “Is there a smoking gun in there? You know, this is not about a smoking gun,” Morley said. “This is about the law that says all of the government’s JFK records should be made public by October 2017. We’re seven years past that blown deadline.” By Kyle Melnick Kyle Melnick is a reporter on The Washington Post's General Assignment desk, where he covers national and international news.

Yes. I kept parts of my account brief, for brevity sake. What set the Jupiter missiles apart was their range, they could hit Moscow.

PB- "But there’s a huge swath of the public that is reeling from the long term effects of Capitalist driven globalism designed to make the rich richer still. If trickle down economics resulted in a river of support for the working class in their daily lives I’d be all for it. But instead what we see is a continuous attack on them, denying them adequate education, health care, housing, jobs. That’s the fodder that puts the current Republican Party on equal footing with the multi cultural Democratic Party. And to blame these less privileged citizens, to demonize them for supporting Trump, misses the essential point that they have been grievously injured by these long standing policies of favoritism for the rich." I have long admired your collegial demeanor in these pages, and I see we agree on the big issues, as you express above. The book "Trade Wars are Class Wars" by Michael Pettis is excellent reading, for anyone interested above and beyond the usual partisan tropes. No doubt there are racist elements in right-wing circles, and a rising tide of anti-Semitic crackpots in the American left. I loath such elements.

JD- I have been reading and admiring your work for years, decades. I think we can safely say JD is no right-winger, or Trump supporter. I happen to disagree with JD on some issues, and the interpretation of few events. So what? A forum is for expressing and tolerating various viewpoints. I agree that moderators should remove from EF-JFKA comments from racists and anti-Semitic crackpots.

Well, you have easily topped me in the Pogo department! I am envious!

Well, maybe. With 3,000 records darked (some say more) there could be enough fresh leads and confirmations to find out if Johannides and LHO were working together in New Orleans, and if LHO was in fact an intel-state asset in Russia. Maybe there is info on Alpha-66. Do you have any idea of there are connections between Alpha-66 and LHO? I would like to see a thread not on the "What" of the Biden Administration actions in suffocating the JFK Records Act, but the "Why?" The "protect sources and methods" angle is scarcely believable. Let's discard that answer. Was Biden an unwitting puppet? Was Biden threatened with incriminating or politically toxic information releases? Was Biden convinced the way Trump was convinced? Did Biden determine discretion was the better part of valor and not learn what was in the JFK Records? Or did Biden earnestly believe CIA disinformation story-lines that there "is nothing in the JFK Records" and let it go at that?

That's fine. Maybe LHO was in fact a verifiable CIA asset on his sojourn to Russia. Maybe that could be verified if the Biden/Harris Administration had not done what they intend to be a permanent snuff job on the JFK Records Act. Maybe, maybe, maybe.

Agreed. Back when I had physical books, I had the actual cartoon that was captioned, "We have met the enemy, and he is us."

WN- Surely, the Biden Administration actions regarding the JFK Records Act are indefensible, and presently in the news. Ask anyone at MFF, or on their legal team. The term "Biden snuff job" may be colloquial (or, in days gone by, in the "vernacular of the street") but...at bottom is truthful. That is not a political statement. Ask Jim DiEugenio his views. He breathes fire a lot hotter than mine, on this topic. Perhaps you are in error to politicize the JFK Records Act issue. This is not a red v. blue kool-aid topic. In fact, I am reduced to supporting no one in the pending election, since RFK2 has dropped out. I only supported RFK2 reluctantly, as I have lost faith in the two major parties, and RFK2 seemed the best of the Hobson Choices available. Vote against Trump, and many times, to your heart's full content, for all I care. David Talbot and Dick Russell, btw, were far more earnest supporters of RFK2 than I ever was. AFAIK, they are not big Trumpers. They are both JFKA scholars. My view: We are better off seeking new political parties and alignments.

LH "....and yes, as I'm making it obvious I am very much an opponent of Trump and a supporter of Harris...full disclosure, total partisanship here and for reasons having nothing to do with either candidate's histories with assassinations and conspiracy."--LH Nothing but admiration here for you, but I do wonder about current-day partisans in the US. It reminds me of people who are raised---pick any religion, but say Muslim for example---to believe Mohammed was a true prophet of the creator. That's fine. But as these people become adults, they come into contact with equally intelligent and decent people who believe Jesus was a true prophet or son of the Creator. Then the Jews, who believe the true prophet was not arrived yet. And then Buddhists and Hindus, and any number of other religions with their own interpretations of the creator. So...I do not begrudge anyone their sincere religious beliefs. Indeed, in many cases I think such beliefs are salutary (comforting) to the believer, and to society. This is how I view modern-day US politics. If you side with either major party you must know there are equally intelligent and decent people who side with the other party. I do not agree with the Fox/CNN tack of declaring followers of the rival party to be morally or mentally deficient, or belonging to a cult. (BTW, I have spent 40 years, on/off as a financial reporter, reading about monetary policy. I can tell you there are PhDs economists from top schools that say "X," and then PhDs from top schools that not "Not X" about monetary policy. OK, and The Truth is...) JD Vance, by all accounts, has a high IQ, is a decent fellow, and married to a Hindu. Yet he is a GOP'er. All to say, yes, I root for the L.A Dodgers, even though I know in the modern-world I am cheering for the properly-colored laundry. Mercenaries hired by equally avaricious owners. Not a bad analogy for the two major parties! So it goes.

KK-- I have noted over the years that your contributions are collegial in nature, even if you disagree with me (or others) on a particular issue or event. May other participants and moderators take note. This is how you do it.

Bill Fite: Thanks for your collegial tones. Is it a peasant relief from the derogatory flatulencies that define the partisan posturing that perfumes the EF-JFKA. I do not trust Trump. Vance I know little about. He must be quite smart, a Yale law grad who wrote a best-seller. Why do you regard him as a fake hillbilly? My limited understanding is he grew up in eastern Ohio in modest circumstances. Walz I know nothing about. He seems like a decent fellow. Who lies and who would tell the truth? In the larger world-view, I think the elite political class lies to America as a matter of (perceived) necessity and general policy. Big issues are, in fact, trade issues and immigration issues, now demeaned as "populist," "nativist" or "nationalist" issues. Michael Pettis' "Trade Wars are Class Wars" book probably best sums up globalist trade. Plantation owners were the most ardent immigrationists in US history. There is a lesson there. https://cepr.net/trade-wars-are-class-wars-even-more-than-klein-and-pettis-say/ The above is a review so you don't have to buy and read the whole book, and it might be worth reading. So...Trump tells his cruddy little perfidies...but on the big stuff, the establishment lies every day, they destroyed the Industrial Heartland (now, the Rust Belt), and have undercut labor for decades and decades. Then also, useless wars in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan. I should vote for one of the establishment parties? Will office holders selected by party establishments open up the JFK Records? For me, the two establishment parties are a Hobson's Choice.

PB- Thanks for your collegial question. I wish I knew. Tennent Bagley said that LHO was a witting asset in Russia. John Newman, who at times specializes in obscurantism, seems to think as much. OK, likely LHO was an intel-state asset. Larry Hancock may soon present a view that LHO ceased being an asset in 1963, and that LHO was an earnest Marxist/socialist. I wonder...if LHO's sojourn-stay to New Orleans coincided with George Joannides being there (as appears the case)...seems like LHO was still an asset into 1963, October. That's a guess. But the Bannister office? Working with customs people? Calling the FBI when he was arrested? Just happened to be palling around with CIA asset Clay Shaw? My guess is the LHO meeting with Kostikov in MC was contrived. By the US intel-state. But...I would not like to debate Larry Hancock. He is a circumspect and careful researcher and writer. @Larry Hancock

I am only posting FYI what Morley has to say, about the most important live issue before the JFKA research community today. As an aside, I know almost nothing about Walz, and still don't. TBH, I did not recognize the name before he was selected. Maybe I am a real hillbilly. Would Walz open up the JFK Records? I wonder if anybody has a clue, among our readers. Interesting side angle: Under the law, the US President, and also the Vice President, can unilaterally release any document held in the US federal government (possibly excepting a few one-offs, such as personal income taxes). So, maybe we will see soon if Walz releases the JFK records....

Here is Morley's take. Just passing along, no comment from me. ---30--- The Latest From JFK Facts RFK Jr. Joins Trump in Call for Full JFK Disclosure They seek to overturn Biden's 2023 order on assassination files JEFFERSON MORLEY AUG 24 READ IN APP Robert Kennedy Jr. appeared with Trump at a rally in Arizona on Friday. From Axios: Trump said he'll task the commission with releasing all of the remaining documents pertaining to the assassination of former President John F. Kennedy. Horserace journalists ask, Will Kennedy’s endorsement help Trump? ABC News predicts “minimal impact” Fox News hopes it will be “huge.” Historians and political journalists ask: Will Trump actually deliver on the JFK files? Trump’s initiative would put him at odds with the intelligence community again. The commission would replace President Biden’s “final order” on JFK files of June 2023, in which the White House turned over all decisions about the release of 3,400-plus assassination-related records to the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Agency. When Michael Flynn, former director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, tweeted that Trump should appoint Kennedy as head of the CIA, former agency spokesman Larry Pfeiffer expressed the horror of the intelligence community. Under Biden’s order the intelligence community can keep JFK records secret indefinitely. Under Trump’s plan that would change Late on a Friday Night, Biden Guts the JFK Records Act JEFFERSON MORLEY · JULY 1, 2023 Read full story Risks for Kennedy In subordinating his call for full JFK records disclosure to Trump’s investigation of his own assassination, Kennedy risks putting Trump’s political interests ahead of his own goal. He also invites further conflict with his family over assassination-related material that is still in possession of the Kennedy family. Trump promised to release all the files in October 2017 but quietly acquiesced to CIA and FBI demands for continuing secrecy around certain records related to CIA operations involving Lee Harvey Oswald, the accused assassin who denied killing JFK and said he was a “patsy” for others. Oswald was killed in police custody before he could explain his defense. In his campaign, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. repeatedly expressed his belief that rogue CIA officers were complicit in his uncle’s death, the scenario amply documented in Rob Reiner and Soledad O’Brien’s popular podcast “Who Killed JFK?” Fact-checking organizations, Politifact and Factcheck.org, have not disputed the accuracy of Reiner and O’Brien’s reporting. Silence of the Fact-Checkers JEFFERSON MORLEY · JAN 22 Read full story Tucker Carlson’s Source The contents of the JFK files are explosive, according to Tucker Carlson. Earlier this year the Twitter/X talk show host said former CIA director Mike Pompeo threatened legal action against him if Carlson talked more about his claim that a high-level government source told him the assassination files implicate the CIA in Kennedy’s death. Carlson was rightly incredulous that a former CIA director suggested that talking about the agency’s possible role in Kennedy’s murder might be considered a crime. On this issue, I believe Carlson. But when I asked him to share his source, he declined. What is known is that the withheld JFK files include: Transcripts of a confidential 1964 interview with Jacqueline Kennedy in which the First Lady disputed the official story of the gunfire that left her husband dead in her arms. The interview is controlled by Kennedy’s cousin, Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg, whose son has emerged as the family critic of RFK Jr. a 1961 White House memo on JFK’s plans to reorganize the CIA out of existence—a document that RFK Jr. cited in his campaign. the personnel file of an undercover officer whose paid agents generated propaganda about Oswald before and after JFK was killed, also cited by RFK Jr. Surveillance tapes of organized crime boss Carlos Marcello, a sworn enemy of the Kennedys. The closed door testimony of senior CIA officials to Senate investigators in the 1970s about sensitive operations involving Oswald. As Reported in JFK Facts The declassification of CIA files under both Trump and Biden has shed new light on the causes of the assassination. Oswald was not a “lone nut.” In fact, he was a man of deep interest to top CIA officers opposed to Kennedy’s liberal policies. The CIA Man Who Read Oswald's Mail JEFFERSON MORLEY · JULY 19, 2023 Read full story The CIA took photos of Oswald six weeks before JFK was killed but never shared them with investigators. This was a JFK Facts exclusive. She Took Lee Harvey Oswald’s Picture for the CIA JEFFERSON MORLEY · OCTOBER 29, 2023 Read full story One CIA office did not believe the story of a “lone gunman” and investigated JFK’s right-wing enemies instead. Declassified Memo Reveals CIA Investigated Cuban Exiles for JFK's Assassination JEFFERSON MORLEY · JANUARY 19, 2023 Read full story If Trump’s commission results in full JFK disclosure, the results are sure to be newsworthy. The question is whether Trump and Kennedy will deliver on their promise.

That is correct. And...at Kavanaugh's confirmation hearing, the Senators (I won't mention from which party) were very, very, very concerned with what a juvenile Kavanaugh did at a high school beer party. You can't make this stuff up.

JFKA scholars can hardly agree on anything, but I think we can say a ton of leads point to the Cuban exile/intel community, and possibly the CIA JM Wave station in Miami (more than 400 officers there, and the only CIA facility, other than HQ, on US soil). Some people favor US Army intel as possible assassins, and that possibly through Alpha-66. But again, the word "Cuba" is prominent. James H. Johnson wrote a book in 2019 entitled Murder, Inc.: The CIA under John F. Kennedy The book is interesting. Excerpted below. One view on JFK is that the CMC happened, and then JFK displayed solid diplomatic skills to prevent a nuclear holocaust. This view leaves out some details, such as JFK installing Jupiter nuclear-tipped missiles into Turkey in 1961, within range of Moscow. JFK also authorized the BoP regime-change op in 1961, and Operation Mongoose. In 1962, the Kennedy Administration devised plans for a 261,000-troop invasion of Cuba, which Castro obviously lacked the conventional forces to withstand. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2017/10/30/u-s-planned-261-000-troop-invasion-force-cuba-newly-released-documents-show/813376001/ I believe JFK's aim was not to recolonize Cuba on behalf of American capitalists, but to try to establish a working liberal democracy there. The distinction, of course, mattered little to Castro. From Johnson's book, and he has some cred: Some other details: Document 30 Bromley Smith, National Security Council, Draft, “A Covert Harrassment/Sabotage Program against Cuba,” April 16, 1963. Apr 16, 1963 Source Gerald R. Ford Library: Rockefeller Commission Parallel File, box 6, folder: “Assassination Materials, Miscellaneous (5).” This comprehensive policy paper by Bromley Smith shows that the Kennedy administration decided to put an end to American restraint and once again committed the CIA to sabotage campaigns against Cuba, “This paper presents a covert Harassment/sabotage program targeted against Cuba; included are those sabotage plans which have previously been approved as well as new proposals.” The paper acknowledges that “While this program will cause a certain amount of economic damage, it will in no sense critically injure the economy or cause the overthrow of Castro.” But it might “create a situation which will delay the consolidation and stabilization of Castro’s revolution…” The paper then summarizes previously approved programs of “subtle” sabotage and makes a series of new proposals, including attacks on shipping by “the placing of explosive devices with suitable time delays on the outside of ships either in Cuban or in non-Cuban ports,” as well as other maritime strikes and attacks on land targets. (One oddity rarely discussed: LBJ put the kibosh on the anti-Cuba activity). Of course, perhaps JFK was just trying to be true to his word. In Dec. 1962 (mere months after the CMC) JFK delivered perhaps the most florid, bellicose, jingo-istic speech in presidential history at the Orange Bowl, to a crowd of anti-Castro supporters. If you don't believe that, then read it: https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/remarks-miami-the-presentation-the-flag-the-cuban-invasion-brigade ---30--- Something about Cuba...keeps coming up in the JFKA. The view that the CMC just happened, and then JFK extracted the world from a nuclear war...seems like less than half the story. The view that a chastened JFK, post-CMC, then sought peace, especially with Cuba, might need some (heavy) revision. JFK, by placing nukes into range of Moscow in 1961, could be said to be acting provocatively. Then the Kennedy Administration worked high and low to remove Castro, including through the BoP op, no doubt intimidating Castro. Whether Castro got wind of 1962 Kennedy Administration plans for a 261,000-troop invasion is unknown (at least to me). So Castro accepted the Russian nukes, lacking any other way to defend himself (btw, I regard Castro as a thug dictator). Russia, with US nukes bristling on the Turkish flank, had their own justifiable reasons for installing missiles in Cuba (from their viewpoint). Did JFK trigger the same CMC for which he gets credit for defusing? Then, even after the CMC, tempers and hopes regarding Cuba were raised to pitch, within the Cuban exile community, and within related US mercs and intel assets. RFK1 reportedly thought there was a Cuban angle to the JFK. When he asked McCone "if your guys did it (the JFKA)," was he referring to CIA Cuban assets?