2 hours ago, Greg Doudna said:

Roger, yes. But there is another unknown in this: exactly what wording did Nichols of the Dallas Bar Association use in asking Oswald if he would like the Dallas Bar's assistance in obtaining counsel? There is no record, or testimony, as to exact wording. By Nichols' own account, the Dallas Bar came to Oswald with no concrete offer of legal assistance, only Nichols' inquiry whether Oswald would like the Dallas Bar to attempt to find him a lawyer. How long would that take? Nichols could very legitimately have said (we don't know) this could take a couple of days, I can ask but you understand there is no guarantee on how immediate this may be. Nichols certainly was not volunteering himself to be counsel for Oswald, and Nichols explicitly told reporters afterward that he could not speak for any other lawyer until he made Oswald's request known and some other lawyer expressed willingness.

If it were expressed in terms of non-immediacy, Oswald, who may have anticipated being in direct phone contact or via intermediary with Abt imminently, as in within hours, could have answered to Nichols that he would pursue his Abt preference first. Which could then be reported by Nichols as Oswald turning down Nichols' offer to immediately begin seeking an offer of a lawyer for Oswald.

There was also activity on the same day, Saturday Nov 23, on the part of Oswald's mother, Marguerite, to obtain a lawyer. Not only was that on Marguerite's mind according to her own account and told by Ruth Paine, but Police Chief Curry directly told reporters that he had information that Marguerite was attempting to find an attorney for Oswald that day. 

That corresponds to Monk Zeldon, New Orleans' premier criminal defense attorney, representing Dean Andrews at the time and stating directly with Dean Andrews standing beside him, that the inquiry to Dean Andrews for legal counsel for Oswald on Sat Nov 23 had come from Marguerite Oswald of Dallas. Nobody has believed that. Everybody has bought the Clay Shaw angle as if that was gospel truth, as if Clay Shaw would have an interest in secretly finding a lawyer for Oswald (why would he care?). But what Monk Zeldon said is the true story of the true inquiry that came to Dean Andrews--who already was Oswald's lawyer in New Orleans--on that. And it was not Dean Andrews being asked if he wanted to do so, as if he had a choice. No, Dean Andrews was told to do it. And the reason Dean Andrews would not reveal who specifically had called him (the intermediary relaying the inquiry from Marguerite), even perjuring himself in his answers, is because it came through Marguerite's old Mob family contacts in New Orleans, and Dean Andrews feared them more than he feared legal prosecution for perjury! 

And we have it from Dean Andrews' son, in his recent book, that Dean Andrews was under a mob contract out on his life at the time, which Marcello was protecting Dean Andrews from! (Think about that. What does that sound like? Could that possibly have played a role in Dean Andrews' refusal to give straight answers concerning the lawyer inquiry?)

But back to Oswald in Dallas. Was Oswald aware of Marguerite's reaching out to New Orleans for a lawyer for him? Probably not necessarily. It would be good to know further details on how that worked on that day though, on Sat Nov 23.

16 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

Roger, I am very clear about where the idea of a blue ribbon commission started.

And so is Gibson.

The first guy to bring it up was Rostow.  And its right in Gibson's article.  (See The Assassinations, p. 7.)

So can we stop that one.

And I cannot believe you are now saying that somehow I do not know that the WC was a joke?  I have written, contributed to or edited,  five books on this subject Destiny Betrayed, The JFK Assassination: The Evidence Today, JFK Revisited, The Assassinations, and The JFK Assassination  Chokeholds.

So I think I know something about the WC.  But that is not the point. Which you keep on avoiding.  Namely that whatever would have occurred, with Hoover as the investigator the verdict would have been the same.

Yes, I get that you are very clear in *your mind* when you repeatedly assert *as fact* the idea of the WC did not come from Johnson, but he was convinced or bamboozled into it by others. You know something about the WC and have written five books about it.  Does that crude appeal to authority mean you won't be questioned about your assertions?

It's clear that has been your posture in this thread.

When I present you with countervailing evidence, even simple stuff like the Alsop suggestion had nothing to do with, was entirely different from, what became the WC, (as shown by the Alsop quotes in the Gibson article you keep asking me to read!) and therefore could not have been the source of the idea *as it played out*, you ignore that and simply repeat your assertion as fact. 

That's just the tip of the iceberg of reasons why Johnson wanted the WC he created, all of which you have ignored.

So it's not "we" who can or should stop this discussion. This is the second time you've wanted to skip away without addressing any alternative points.  I'm coming to believe there is nothing I could say that would cause you to reexamine your assertion.

For the record, I didn't say you didn't know the WC was a joke.  My point was the fact that the WC was a fraud intended to frame Oswald  rather than discover what happened, coincides precisely with the needs of the killers.  Whoever designed and implemented it that way could not have been Alsop or Rostow, unless you think they were in bed with the killers. Again, no response from you. Here I go, giving you more things to ignore.

You say I'm avoiding your point that "with Hoover as the investigator the verdict [of the WC]would have been the same.  It's true I forgot to mention this in my last post'

The WC was created in part because those who created it did not want to rely solely the FBI report. They didn't think it was good enough, but mostly because they (rightly)  thought there would be (large)segments of the population who woudn't believe the nothing-to-see here message coming statement from the FBI.

 Hoover was not "the investigator "of the WC. They hired a bunch of lawyers to create the record framing Oswald and 7 prominent Americans to front the pre-ordained conclusion. I'm sure you know this. I'm not sure why you made your claim.

8 minutes ago, James DiEugenio said:

RI: Alsop himself when the told Johnsons he was *not* suggesting a new investigative body.

This is just silly. And it can only stand if you do not read the dialogue. Alsop knew what he wanted from LBJ from the start.  He said what Roger hangs onto like a life raft only to detract from that agenda, to make it seem he was not manipulating him. Anyone can figure that out by just reading the whole thing.

In other words, Alsop was giving LBJ the Johnson treatment. And it worked.  Just read the thing.  At the beginning LBJ insists on a Texas Board of Inquiry.  At the end he is going to call Acheson who is clearly part of this loose confederation that is trying to get the inquiry out of Texas.

I cannot believe what else you are trying to convey here.  But I think you imply that somehow Johnson let himself be rolled because the WC is what he wanted all along?  Is that what you are trying to say? I mean that is really wild. So the Rostow and Alsop calls, the Washington Post threat was all smoke and mirrors in order to disguise what he really wanted?  And he only put up a fight with Alsop because he wanted that to exist in the record?

I mean that is really bizarre.  I really don't know what to make of that one.

Finally, Dulles lobbied to be on the Commission. The only one who did so. Johnson picked a Commission because that is what they were suggesting to him to do. Rostow wanted 7-9, Alsop wanted three.  But my point is that whether it was a presidential commission or a Texas Board of Inquiry, either one was going to be supplied by Hoover. So ultimately it would have made little or no difference.

Unless there was some guy down in Texas who wanted to play hero and get himself killed.

First a suggestion. Stop categorizing my arguments--"silly" and "bizarre" this time--and just try to rebut them. Your rebuttal needs a lot of work.

You say Alsop told Johnson he was not suggesting a new investigative body because he (Alsop) was playing him.  Alsop knew what he wanted from Johnson. He said that to him only to make it seem like he was *not* manipulating him.  He said that only to "detract" from his actual agenda.

Did you mean "distract"?  How would that actually work?

In any case, what's missing from your formulation to make sense of your assertion is what Alsop *did* want Johnson to do. Why was he talking to Johnson?

Fortunately Alsop explains that in the dialogue you say you read but somehow failed to mention.  Here is what he said.  I'm not suggesting you establish a new investigative body.  I'm giving you PR, not political, advice about how to take the work the FBI has already done and better present it to the public to assuage their current misgivings. You need to appoint some prominent people with credibility to do that.

It's not like you could have missed that passage where Alsop explains his suggestion; I've mentioned it several times. 

Does that sound like the idea that led to the WC and how it worked? 

Today I went on the say that means "Johnson was *not* "convinced" or "bamboozled" by the suggestions made by the likes of Alsop and Rostow to create what became the WC as you have repeatedly asserted without obviously giving the slightest thought to what that means. The WC Johnson created and implemented bore *no* resemblance to the suggestions made by either Alsop or Rostow. Those suggestions did not lead to Johnson's creation of the WC.

I have several times asked you to explain where the idea for the actual WC and how it worked to frame Oswald, came from if not from Johnson.  Once again you've not answered.  Instead you have repeatedly tried to confuse things by suggesting that what Alsop and Rostow suggested convinced Johnson to create what became the WC. That's obviously false.

What else did I convey? it wasn't what you suggest--that Johnson let himself be rolled because he wanted the WC all along.  I hope I've just explained why that makes no sense.  Besides which, I have repeatedly told you that Johnson did not get rolled as you describe.  It boggles the mind that you have failed to grasp that and are still making that claim as if its what I think.

Here's a "what else" that you missed or at least made no comment about. While the WC had nothing to do with the suggestions of Alsop and Rostow, it did precisely fit the kind of investigation the killers wanted in order to get away with the murder and blame someone else.  Did you notice that? Hmm. Maybe if you gave some thought as to who so organized the WC, where its ideas came from, it would give you a clue to start figuring out how the planning of the murder worked and who was involved.  

12 minutes ago, James DiEugenio said:

Can you show me that Roger? 

 Who received it?  Because in neither book, and both wewre written at the time period, is that acknowledged.

As per Rose, in neither rendition is Johnson's name invoked.  And Manchester spends several pages on this.

15 minutes ago, James DiEugenio said:

Can you show me that Roger? 

 Who received it?  Because in neither book, and both wewre written at the time period, is that acknowledged.

As per Rose, in neither rendition is Johnson's name invoked.  And Manchester spends several pages on this.

Are you really claiming Manchester and Bishop are God's final word on what happened?  If they didn't know about it, it didn't happen?

Johnson's order was received by the security detail that by then worked for him.  Valenti says he was sitting next to Johnson on the plane when he gave the order. I don't have Valenti's book which is a relatively mindless puff piece for Johnson.  I am depending on Pat Speer's research for what the book says. If you think Pat might be mistaken, you might want to take it up with him. You haven't given me any reason to doubt him.

I will say this. Johnson had plenty of time between when Kennedy was declared dead and the body left Parkland for the plane, to have communicated his order to his security staff to take the body.  As I understand it, he had something like half an hour at Parkland with his detail, after the death was declared, before he left for the plane.  Believe it or not, some believe Kennedy died instantly from the head shots and it is possible Johnson was confident he was president before the official announcement of JFK's death. Maybe he gave a provisional order and then what Valenti heard was him following it up once he was on the plane. It's clear that Valenti was confident enough in what he heard that he published it in his book defending Johnson. 

The security detail did not have the authority on its own to snatch the body.  Only Johnson could have given the order.

1 hour ago, Keyvan Shahrdar said:

I my head, what logic dictates is the following:

1. President John F. Kennedy confronted Governor George Wallace in 1963 over the issue of racial segregation in Alabama's schools. This confrontation came to a head on June 11, 1963, during the infamous "Stand in the Schoolhouse Door" incident. Governor Wallace stood at the entrance of Foster Auditorium at the University of Alabama in a symbolic attempt to block two African American students, Vivian Malone and James Hood, from enrolling at the university. Wallace was making a statement against desegregation and in support of his pro-segregation stance. President Kennedy asserted his federal authority decisively and embarrassed Wallace.
2. General Curtis LeMay ran as the vice presidential candidate with George Wallace in the 1968 presidential election. It is easy to make a claim that General Lemay was a racist.  He was in a segregationist ticket with George Wallace after all!
3. General Lemay was a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
4. The Air Force tapes from that day have not been fully released, only redacted versions have.
5. After the assassination, did the General make it clear to LBJ that he needed to be sworn in before the plane took off from Dallas, probably by telling LBJ that they believed the Russians killed JFK?  I bet this is why the recordings have not been released.
6. My assertion is the secret service was in on the conspiracy.  JFK's original driver, Thomas Shipman "died" of a heart attach weeks prior to the assassination and the driver, William Greer, slowed the limousine down in the kill zone.  They probably forced the body be removed from Dallas.  There are no records that state Jaqueline wanted the body moved.
7. The Nix film has reference marks in places where shots were fired.  This makes me believe the FBI was probably investigating this to try to find out what happened.  My assertion is that J Edgar Hoover found out and told LBJ that there were multiple shooters and the assassination was a coup d'état by the generals.  LBJ had no choice but to go accept it and go along with it.  
8. I personally don't think LBJ knew anything about the assassination before hand.  
9. This assassination was a military operation by the JCS.

Thanks for the response. I have a few comments/questions.

Gen LeMay told LBJ he needed to be sworn in on the the plane before it took off from Dallas?  No, the swearing in was Johnson's idea as one way to delay departure while waiting for Kennedy's body, and Jackie, to arrive at the plane.  He knew he was already president under the Constitution; the swearing in was window dressing and could be done anytime later.  But he insisted on the ceremony and that it had to be done by local judge Sarah Hughes who had to be located and retrieved.  The length of the delay while most around him were urging him the get going is an indication that he knew he was in no danger of being attacked by JFK's killers.

The secret service, which now worked for Johnson, had no authority on their own to snatch the body from Dr Rose. But saying they had an order from the president probably was enough to stop Rose's resistance. Jack Valenti, who was sitting next to Johnson on the plane, has documented that Johnson gave such an order.

Are you clear about what the JCS, acting by themselves, wanted from the murder?  Did they get it? How could they be sure Johnson would go along with, protect them, and give them what they wanted, when he became president?

10 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

You know, I think Jacob posted this due to this debate going on when I posted my review of Under Cover of Night.

Let us take them one by one.  The idea that somehow LBJ forced the cadaver out of the hospital so there would not be an autopsy struck me as odd.  Since i had never seen that particular charge before.  So I went back to what should be the two best sources on this, namely Manchester and Bishop. Those two men wrote books based on many sources and interviews nearest to the time of the crime.  They were hour by hour, sometimes minute by minute chronicles.  

The man who wanted to get LBJ out of Dallas was Rufus Youngblood, and secondarily Roberts. (Manchester, pp 232-34; Bishop p. 245) Nobody knew at that time how extensive the plot was. Recall, the Lincoln assassination had at least three targets.  Youngblood also was the one who urged LBJ to get out of the hospital once Kennedy was dead. And, in fact, since JFK was dead, the Secret Service should have gone with Johnson. (ibid, p. 289) Because as Manchester notes, once JFK was dead, Jackie was not technically the First Lady and was not entitled to Secret Service, bodyguards or aides.

And actually, O'Donnell and Powers and O'Brien had no standing either.  

When Kilduff told LBJ that Kennedy was now dead, this is why Johnson told him that the Secret Service wanted him to leave.  In fact, they had sent agents out to guard his daughters, that is how palpable the sense of a wide ranging plot was. (Bishop, p. 250) Another indication is this: LBJ also told Kilduff to wait until he was gone before he addressed the press. (Bishop, p. 248). Johnson told Kilduff he would wait for Jackie. (Bishop p. 250)

It was Jackie Kennedy who said to O'Donnell, Powers and the Secret Service, "I'm not going to leave her without Jack."  She actually said this three times at different intervals. O'Donnell ordered a casket after the first time she said it.. (Manchester, p. 289) Clint Hill then picked out a casket at O"Neals. (ibid, p. 292) When they brought it back, Jackie looked at it.  O'Donnell then said, "We must get her out of here." (Bishop, p. 268) The body was loaded into the casket with Jackie watching.   Meanwhile the Pentagon calls Dallas and asks "Who is in charge?" Obviously worried about a big attack and what a response would be. (Bishop p. 272). LBJ calls the AG about taking the oath. (ibid.)

Kellerman is waiting for the death certificate from Clark so he can get the casket out to Air Force One ASAP. (Bishop p. 284) When he gets it the big confrontation with Earl Rose takes place. Manchester has a really good description of this.  No one in the Kennedy camp would listen to Rose, and this included Burkley.  O'Donnell was almost as vociferous in this as Kellerman. (Bishop p. 286, Manchester, p. 304). O'Donnell said, "I was in a panic to get out of there, that little lady just couldn't stand there with her husband's body that long." (Manchester, p. 306).   In fact, it was O'Donnell who gave the order to Kellerman to run over Rose. (Bishop, p. 286). Which they did.

Once they were out, Kellerman called AIr Force 1 and said they were on the way, as did O'Donnell. (Bishop p. 299) Kellerman described their vehicles and said once they were inside, to lock the gates. O'Donnell said to take off once they were on board. But Sarah Hughes was not there yet so they waited for her and Jackie for LBJ to take the oath. (Bishop, pp. 299-300). O'Donnell dreaded waiting since he thought Rose would follow them with a police detachment. (Bishop p. 306). AF One left at 2:47 PM

In about 75 pages of detail, I could find no order that Johnson demanded that Kennedy's corpse be taken out of the hospital over any objections by Jackie or Rose.  What happened is that Youngblood and Roberts wanted LBJ out of Dallas, as did the people in Washington. There really was a fear of a continuing plot. Once Youngblood made that decision then it was just a matter of waiting for Jackie.  And the decision to take the body out was clearly by JFK's assistants and the top level of the Secret Service.  

If someone can show me where this is wrong or something is missing, go ahead.  But please, unlike Hornberger, and Fetter, footnote your reply properly.

Actually, Jim, the best source for the fact that Johnson ordered the body to be brought to him on the plane is Jack Valenti, a close aide, as you know, who was sitting next to Johnson when he says Johnson gave the order.  Valenti called it Johnson's first decision as president, and "a good one".  That's in Valenti's book defending Johnson, A Very Human President, 1975.  Valenti was certainly not trying to bash or incriminate Johnson.  While has waiting for the body Johnson ordered some seats removed to make room for it.

The first time I heard of Valenti's revelation was from Pat Speer here a few months ago, citing the Valenti book. 

No one I know of claims Jackie objected to the body being sent to the plane for transporting it to Washington.  She simply made clear she was not going to be separated from it. Johnson probably knew that, or was told that, and taking the body also gave him the opportunity to have her come to the plane  as well. He wanted her present for the photo of the swearing in ceremony we have all seen.  A symbol of continuity.

Rose as a different story.  He had jurisdiction over the autopsy. He did object, apparently strenuously, to Johnson taking the body. There may have been as scuffle in the hallway. But I think the words "we have an order from the president" by the security detail now working for Johnson would have ended any real resistance.

10 hours ago, Benjamin Cole said:

RO-

My take is more along the lines of a very small group of witting pre-JFKA operatives, perhaps just two or three, all CIA assets, as was LHO.

I don't see much of a LBJ-LHO-Cuban exiles nexus. 

Just my IMHO. 

 

 

I didn't ask you to say again what your take is, but rather what did you disagree with that Hornberger said that underlies your different take.   I found little or nothing to disagree with him about. 

9 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

 

Thanks Ron. 

Also thanks for not quoting Ruby under the control of Jolly West.

Roger, I never said that the results would have been different if LBJ had not given in. Because he still wanted the Texas Court of Inquiry to be supplied by Hoover. But what I am saying is that he and the White House were worked on over this issue.  

So for Fetter to call it the Johnson Commission is misguided. It was not his idea and once it was up and running, we know who controlled it. 

12 hours ago, Benjamin Cole said:

I disagree with some of this, and tend to think LBJ was out of the loop, but it is well-presented, and Hornberger has been following the JFKA for many decades. 

https://www.fff.org/2024/04/29/lyndon-johnsons-role-in-the-jfk-assassination/

Lyndon Johnson’s Role in the JFK Assassination

by Jacob G. Hornberger

April 29,

Ever since the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, a question has naturally arisen: What role, if any, did Vice-President Lyndon Johnson play in the assassination?

With the publication of Douglas P. Horne’s massive 5-volume book Inside the Assassination Records Review Board, the national-security establishment’s role in the assassination has now been established beyond a reasonable doubt. That’s because Horne meticulously detailed the fraud in the autopsy that the U.S. military carried out on Kennedy’s body on the very evening of the assassination. Horne served on the staff of the ARRB in the 1990s.

Examples of autopsy fraud set forth by Horne (which are summarized in my book The Kennedy Autopsy) include (1) sneaking JFK’s body into the Bethesda Naval morgue before the official start of the autopsy in order to perform pre-autopsy surgery designed to hide evidence of shots having been fired from Kennedy’s front and (2) two separate brain examinations, the second of which involved someone else’s brain rather than Kennedy’s. Horne’s findings have now been reinforced and built upon in a new book, The Final Analysis by David Mantik, M.D., Ph.D. and Jerome Corsi, Ph.D.

At the risk of belaboring the obvious, there is no innocent explanation for a fraudulent autopsy. It necessarily means criminal culpability of the national-security establishment in the assassination itself. There is no way around that. That’s how we can definitively conclude that the JFK assassination was one of the national-security establishment’s patented regime-change operations based on what have become the two most important words in the American political lexicon — “national security.” See FFF’s book JFK’s War with the National Security Establishment: Why Kennedy Was Assassinated.”

But what about Johnson? Was he just an innocent beneficiary of the assassination? Actually not. The circumstantial evidence establishes beyond a reasonable doubt that Johnson himself was up to his neck in the assassination. Johnson had three primary roles in the assassination.

The first role was to get JFK’s body out of Dallas and deliver it into the hands of the military. Keep in mind that JFK’s murder was a state criminal offense. At that time, it was not a federal crime to assassinate a president. Therefore, no federal agency had any jurisdiction over the crime. That includes the Pentagon, the CIA, and the FBI.

Under Texas law, the Dallas County Medical Examiner, Dr. Earl Rose, was required to perform an autopsy on JFK’s body. Immediately after JFK was declared dead, Rose announced that he was going to perform the autopsy. A team of Secret Service agents immediately declared that no such autopsy would be permitted. Headed by a Secret Service agent named Roy Kellerman, who was brandishing a Thompson sub-machine gun, the Secret Service team began screaming, yelling, and cussing as they began forcing their way out of Parkland Hospital  with the president’s body, which had been placed in a heavy casket. Rose refused to give ground, insisting, correctly so, that Texas law required him to perform the autopsy before the body could be released. One Secret Service agent physically picked up Rose, carried him to a nearby wall, and wagged his finger in his face. The others pulled back their suit coats to brandish their guns, thereby threatening to use deadly force against anyone who got in their way.

Kellerman declared that he and his team were simply following orders. There is only one person who could have issued such an extraordinary order to Kellerman — Lyndon Johnson, either directly to Kellerman or indirectly through one of Kellerman’s superiors. Who else would have dared to issue an order that violated state criminal law?

In fact, Johnson’s own actions confirm that he was the person who issued the order. Once JFK was declared dead, Johnson headed to Love Field, where he ordered seats to be removed from the back of Air Force One to make room for the big casket in which JFK’s body had been placed. Johnson had absolutely no intention of waiting at Love Field for the 2-3 hours that would have been needed to complete the autopsy. He was removing those seats in the full expectation that the casket and the body would be arriving shortly. How would he know that? Because he had to have been the one who issued the order to Kellerman to get the body out of Parkland at all costs and deliver it to Johnson at Love Field.

The second role that Johnson had was to conjure up the prospect of World War III by suggesting that the assassination might be the first step in a nuclear attack on the United States by the Soviet Union. He first raised this possibility while he was waiting at Parkland Hospital for Kennedy to be declared dead. He raised it again on the way to Love Field.

Yet, when Johnson arrived at Love Field, his actions belied any such concern. Rather than get up in the air immediately in order to direct America’s defenses and counterattacks to a possible Soviet nuclear attack, he instead lollygagged at Love Field, waiting, first, for a federal judge to arrive and swear him in as president and, second, for JFK’s body to be delivered to him. In fact, JFK was declared dead at 1 p.m. and LBJ waited until 2:47 to take off. That was the action of a person who knew for certain that the assassination could not possibly have been the first stage of a Soviet nuclear attack on the United States. The only way that Johnson could have been so certain is that he knew that it was not the Soviets who committed the assassination.

Once Johnson arrived at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland, he dutifully delivered JFK’s body into the hands of the military, notwithstanding the fact that the military had absolutely no jurisdiction whatsoever to conduct such an autopsy.

It was not the last time that LBJ conjured up the possibility that the Soviets or the Cubans had assassinated JFK, however. When he began inducing people to join what became known as the Warren Commission, he once again conjured up the possibility that the assassination had been committed by the Soviet Union or Cuba. Why would he do that? Because that was the way that the plotters were able to get the investigation into the assassination shut down immediately — in order to ostensibly avoid World War III and all-out nuclear war that would come with it.

How did this ingenious strategy play out? As I detail in my book An Encounter with Evil: The Abraham Zapruder Story, the plot called for shots being fired from the front and the back. That would establish a conspiracy with the supposed communist, Lee Harvey Oswald, a U.S. intelligence agent who the national-security establishment was setting up to take the fall. The only people with whom Oswald would have been supposedly conspiring were the Soviet Union and Cuba. That was the purpose of setting up Oswald in New Orleans and Mexico City as a supposed communist agent.

Keep in mind that JFK and his brother RFK had initiated Operation Mongoose, whose aim was to oust Cuban leader Fidel Castro from power. Keep in mind also that the CIA had repeatedly tried to assassinate Castro. Thus, Johnson’s second role was to assert that the communists had gotten to JFK first and that if the United States responded to their assassination of JFK, World War III would occur. Therefore, the only way to obviate going to war based on what the Kennedy brothers had started was to immediately shut down the investigation and hide the fact that shots had been fired from the front.

The third role that LBJ had was to ensure that there would never be an official investigation that could lead to the national-security establishment, including, of course, with respect to the military’s fraudulent autopsy. That was the purpose of appointing former CIA Director Allen Dulles to the Warren Commission. Dulles, who Kennedy had fired after the Bay of Pigs disaster and who loathed Kennedy, ensured that the commission stayed on track with the official lone-nut narrative.

Finally, it should be noted that if JFK had not been assassinated, it was a virtual certainty that LBJ would have been removed from office, indicted, and convicted for political corruption. In fact, it is also a virtual certainty that Johnson knew that Robert Kennedy, the attorney general, who loathed Johnson, was furnishing evidence of Johnson’s corruption to LIFE magazine. Thus, LBJ, who had a lifelong obsession to become president, had a choice: Go to jail or participate in the assassination of JFK and become president. He chose the latter course of action and, after being elected president in the 1964 election, gave the U.S. national-security establishment what Kennedy had refused to do–its war in Vietnam.

I'm not sure, Ben, what part you disagree with or why you think Johnson was out of the loop (would you care to elaborate?) but Hornberger nails many key points.

I would add a few things. Johnson's order to snatch the body from Dr. Rose was verified by Jack Valenti, who was sitting next to Johnson on AF1 at the time, in his book  defending Johnson, A very Human President.  He says the order was the first of Johnson's new presidency, "and a good one".

I don't know about the accuracy of the account of the struggle in the hallway with Rose, but Hornberger makes the key point.  It was likely settled by the statement Rose couldn't object to: we have orders from the President. 

Horne was also essential to uncovering the alteration of the Z film and the concurrent destruction of the original, another crucial part of the coverup of evidence.

13 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

Johnson, as advised by his lawyers, was legally correct.

But as Rostow, whoever his friend was--probably Acheson--and Alsop decided, the utterly shocking death of Oswald on TV was just too much.  Dallas was looking like Tombstone.  So they had all decided that you had to have a commission with a lot of luminaries on it to restore stability and equilibrium.  

This idea was good at the time because it was something that the media embraced without question. At least I have never found any real objection to the idea  at the time.    And once that was done, it meant they would go ahead and accept its verdict.  Which they did.  In fact CBS was leaked  the results and given permission to film witnesses as long as they supported the verdict, which--to their everlasting shame-- they did. 

Again, as with many things these CFR types come up with, I admire their brains as much as I don't the uses to which they put them.  Because in the long run, by letting Hoover be the main gatekeeper, it undermined belief in the system. And led to a steady erosion in democracy.

And that is something that somehow, some way, Sean Fetter missed.

 

"Facts mean nothing unless they are rightly understood, rightly related and rightly interpreted." R.L.Long

That Alsop and Rostow both suggested to Johnson that he create some sort of body that would help ease the public's distress at what they had seen, are both facts nobody denies.

Although you never mention another fact: Alsop said to Johnson he was *not* suggesting the creation of a new Investigative body, but rather some elite individuals who would take what the FBI had already done and better sell it to the public.  He was offering PR, not legal, advice, he said.  You leave that out because it destroys your claim that Alsop played a major role in convincing Johnson to create *the kind of commission we know the WC was*.

The actual WC was exactly what the planners of the murder wanted:  an official body set up to find Oswald guilty as the lone assassin, through all kinds of lying about, distortion, destroying, etc. of facts. Where did the idea of the actual WC come from if not from the killers?  The WC certainly was not what Alsop, and Rostow was suggesting to Johnson.

Do you honestly think the killers would have gone ahead with the murder telling the Oswald story, without giving serious thought to how to control an investigation they knew would happen once they got rid of Oswald? Having the WC come out with the verdict it did was absolutely critical to their getting away with the murder.

I've gone on from that idea to say it seems obvious to me that Johnson's implementation of the WC  plan was critical to the killers' success and that is one reason the killers would need assurances from him about what he would do after the murder. Other assurances were needed.  E.,g., they needed to be sure Johnson would implement some of the major policies Kennedy had been blocking as well.

Disagree with that if you want.  But can we dispense with the ridiculous idea that the WC and all it did to cover up the murder, was the idea of Washington denizens like Alsop and Rostow?  That they poured the idea into that empty vessel, Lyndon Johnson, who had never contemplated it before Rostow talked to him on the Nov. 25? 

2 hours ago, Robert Morrow said:

Lyndon Johnson was the planner of the JFK assassination. LBJ was the Mastermind of the JFK assassination. LBJ was the micro-manger of the JFK assassination. He was not checking in with any "planners" of the JFK assassination to get their permission on what to do or not to after a bullet goes into JFK's head.

Lyndon Johnson, who initially opposed a national commission, succumbed to political pressure to create one: HIS commission and he rigged it just like LBJ would have rigged a Texas Court of Inquiry. 

After Oswald was murdered in Dallas police custody, the national mood was we are not going to trust the results of any investigation based in Texas. But the problem was the leading murderer of JFK was the new president from Texas and he rigged the results anyhow mainly with the help of FBI Hoover, then CIA Allen Dulles and then CIA/FBI friendly Gerald Ford and LBJ/CIA friendly John McCloy.

I think you've gone way overboard with the claim that Johnson was *the* mastermind of the JFKA.  Threshold questions: who wanted Kennedy out of the way more, Johnson or Dulles? Who was the more powerful figure in the relevant parts of the government in Washington?  Which one had access to a world wide roster of killers?

I've said only that both participated in planning the murder.  It was a small group of planners that worked together, compartmentalized wherever possible.  61 years later I'm not sure sure it's important to go beyond that until more people become interested and buy into the basics.

I for one never said that Johnson asked permission from anyone for what to do after the murder.  For one thing, it's axiomatic that a coverup plan was in place before the murder.  Not that everything went according to that plan.

13 minutes ago, Kevin Balch said:

Why wouldn’t LBJ be even better able to control a Texas investigation?

Perhaps Eugene Rostow became alarmed at the possibility of an antisemitic backlash after Jesse Curry announced the death of Oswald and emphasized that Jack Ruby’s last name was Rubenstein. It would fit in with the timing of Rostow’s call to Moyers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P7Ds5dNzWRw

 

Because with the WC Johnson could pick the commissioners.  And, as others have said, the public would not have accepted a Texas verdict like they did from a body headed by the ChiefJustice of the Supreme Court.  How best to sell the Oswald story was the point.

It's true Johnson ran Texas, but how well did he knew Waggoner Carr?  How much did he trust him to run a fake commission like Warren and Dulles did. Dulles was a critical piece in the whole affair by keeping scrutiny of the CIA out of the WC investigation.

13 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said:

 

You mean the DPD was told that Oswald was the designated patsy, and that was the reason DPD directed their police officers to go to the Texas Theater and arrest Oswald?

If so, that would mean that the head of the DPD was in the the conspiracy.

I think it's much more likely that the conspirators somehow brought to the DPD's attention evidence of some kind indicating Oswald should be a suspect. Faked evidence.

 

No. the police were simply told to arrest Oswald. They had the Tippit murder as a proximate reason but that's not the point.  The police are like the military, they follow orders; they don't question them.  

At the time of the arrest, they had no real evidence tying Oswald to the JFKA unless you want to count that Oswald had left the TCBD, as others did, and vaguely matched the description given by a witness. Too flimsy for words.

They arrested Oswald without evidence because he was the designated patsy. Before the murder, they had prepared to arrest him because they needed to kill him before he could talk to a lawyer. They could have killed him, then framed him, without arresting him at the theatre, and some believe that may have been the original plan.  But it didn't work out that way if it was the plan.

9 hours ago, Robert Morrow said:

Jim DiEugenio is 100% correct. Lyndon Johnson did not think of or support the concept of what became known as the "Warren Commission."

What LBJ did was PICK HIS BEST FRIENDS AND ALLIES to be on the "Warren Commission" so LBJ could rig it to blame it all on a lone nut named Oswald. LBJ did this all the while telling people behind the scenes that it was an "international communist conspiracy" that that Fidel Castro had killed JFK.

Russell and Boggs were best friends with LBJ. McCloy was friends with LBJ, Clint Murchison Sr. and longtime LBJ-fixer Abe Fortas.

Allen Dulles had been FIRED by JFK just like LBJ was within days of being FIRED by John Kennedy. And just like Lyndon Johnson's blood brother and neighbor of 19 years (1943-1961) J. Edgar Hoover was going to be FORCED TO RETIRE when he turned age 70 on January 1, 1965.

Gerald Ford was picked specifically by LBJ because FORD HAD CIA EXPERIENCE as Lyndon Johnson explicitly told him and you can hear this today on YouTube.

The only screw up by LBJ was putting a personal friend of JFK, Sen. John Sherman Cooper, on his presidential commission. Sen. John Sherman Cooper thought in real time that LYNDON JOHNSON HAD JUST MURDERED JFK and Cooper was leaking Warren Commission information to journalist Dorothy Kilgallen (see RFK and Cooper aide Morris Wolff for those relevations).

Lyndon Johnson wanted to rig the cover up of JFK's death with a Texas Court of Inquiry led by Waggoner Carr.

Of course LBJ opposed a national commission, but the critical point is he rigged it anyhow by putting his best friends and CIA/FBI friendly people on it.

Lyndon Johnson told Madeleine Brown at the Driskill Hotel on 12/31/63 that Texas oil and "xxxxing renegade intelligence bastards" had killed JFK. Of course, this psychopath made a point to leave out his own involvement in the JFK assassination.

 

Look, JIm, I'm disagreeing with Robert.

Robert, I'll ask you the same question Jim keeps avoiding.  If the planners knew an investigating body would be necessary once they got rid of Oswald, and Johnson was going to be responsible for setting it up, how could they have *not* have sought his ideas about it and made sure he was on board with what they wanted? The results of an investigation would be crucial to the success of the whole project.

I'll say it again, the murder would not have happened without some idea beforehand about how to control the subsequent investigation and get the result the planners wanted.

Johnson did *not* oppose a national commission, no matter what he said to fool you on those calls he taped.. Some sort of investigation was going to happen.  He wanted a commission he could control that would make the findings he wanted.  That's what he got.

10 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

Roger,

This is the last reply I will make to this since I think you are close to joining the Robert Morrow club.

The references I will make are to the Gibson essay in The Assassinations.

Gibson begins his essay by saying that the version on the creation of the Commission in the HSCA is largely based on Katzenbach and is therefore not complete. (p. 4). For one, both Hoover and Johnson were dead.

Its quite clear that Hoover did not want a Commission, as Gibson writes, he opposed the idea. (ibid). And Katzenbach admitted that , "I am sure I talked about it with people outside the government entirely who called me and suggested old friends or former colleagues." (p. 7)  Incredibly, or predictably,  the HSCA did not follow this lead up.  

The first time anyone brought it up specifically was by Rostow on the 24th.(p. 7)  Right after Ruby shot Oswald. Rostow was a figure outside the government, at Yale. Rostow had talked to Katzenbach already about it (more than once), and he is now talking to Moyers. Rostow specifically said that his suggestion was of a "Presidential commission",  one "of very distinguished citizens".  He wanted a set of 7-9 people to "look into the whole affair of the murder of the President." (p. 7) 

Why?  Because, Rostow went on to say, that "American opinion is just now so shaken by the behavior of the Dallas Police that they're not believing anything." (p. 7)  And Moyers agreed with that perception.  And then Moyers repeated the idea of a blue ribbon commission.  And then he said he would bring it up with LBJ. (p.8) And we know that Rostow recruited Katzenbach because Hoover mentions that Katzenbach had suggested the idea late on the 24th.  And there is some evidence that Walter Jenkins had also been approached. (p. 9)

Now I do not see how you can get any more specific than that. Because Rostow's concept is what happened. And Rostow had now recruited, at least, Katzenbach and Moyers to his idea.

On the morning of the 25th LBJ is talking to Hoover. Johnson says that a  DOJ rep, likely Katzenbach, is lobbying  with the Washington Post about a presidential commission.  He then says he thinks that "would be very bad".  Because he does not think the White House should be part of this. (p. 9). He then brings up the idea of jurisdiction. (p. 10)  (Which legally, he is correct on.)

Later on in the conversation LBJ says that he favors an FBI report which would then be given to the AG.  If not then a Texas Board of Inquiry supported by the FBI.  (p. 10). After this conversation is when Alsop now called LBJ.   Rostow was the guy working the flanks and softening up the ramparts.  Alsop will now go in for the kill.

RIght at the  beginning, LBJ says he favors a Texas inquiry backed by the FBI.   Something from outside would be really bad.(p. 10) He actually said this three times to Alsop at the start.  Alsop steps right over this by saying that the Post is going to advocate for a blue ribbon commission.  He then says that Johnson should announce, in this case, a smaller commission, of three men, preferably lawyers.  And they will write a report. He accents that this report has to be reviewed outside of Texas.(p. 11)

He then resorts to flattery and tells him if he does this, he will have The Post behind him and also the rest of the press. LBJ still resists, since he does not want to interfere with a state matter, and says he has been advised by lawyers not to.  Alsop battles back and plays his ace card:  this is  the murder of a president! (p. 12). LBJ still resists.  But Alsop comes right back and plays his other ace: only in this way can the country be convinced. He then says he is worried about the Post but LBJ can get ahead of them. He even says that Moyers should call Kay Graham and tell them that he is going to do it. (p. 14). LBJ is now cowered and says he will talk to Acheson about it.  Alsop plays the affection card, and says "I hate to interfere sir, I only dare to do so because I care so much about you." (p. 14) And LBJ falls for this and says, "I know that Joe."

And within 72 hours of this, LBJ had reversed himself and announced he will form a commission. The double team of Alsop and Rostow worked.   I stand by what I said, the Commission was not LBJ's idea. It was brought to him by players outside the government. 

 

19 hours ago, Keven Hofeling said:

 

19 hours ago, Keven Hofeling said:

 

1 hour ago, James DiEugenio said:

Roger, your reply to Gibson above is, to say the least, rather weird.

Plain and simple: LBJ did not want a blue ribbon commission. 

The record indicates that the first guy to suggest this to the White House was Gene Rostow on the 24th. RIght after Ruby shot Oswald. And Rostow had already talked to Katzenbach.  Rostow tells Moyers this had to be done, the appointment of a commission and Moyers  tells him he will bring it to Johnson's attention. And Rostow said he had talked to one other person about this matter already.  Further, Walter Jenkins was also cognizant of the idea that day.  Since he wrote a note about it.

On the 25th, in a call with Hoover, Johnson voices his opposition to it and calls it "very bad".  But he is aware that some have gone to the Washington Post about the idea. He wants an FBI report that would then be passed on to the AG. HIs second suggestion is a Texas Court of Inquiry to be supplemented by the FBI.

Now that is where LBJ was right before the Alsop call on the 25th and its all in B and W, right in Gibson's essay.

It was clearly the Alsop call that changed Johnson's mind on this issue. Because at the beginning of the call, he still is insisting that the Texas authorities take the inquiry since its a state crime.  And he thinks they should be supplemented by the FBI.

It was at this point that Alsop took over the call and he invokes the Washington Post and the name of people like Dean Acheson to serve on the Commission.  And the FBI would serve as the investigatory body.

WIthin 72 hours LBJ reversed himself and supported the Commission.  So no, the Warren Commission was not Johnson's idea. The other stuff you have in there does not relate to what Gibson is saying here. Its theorizing.

Jim,

You've ignored my point and simply repeated what you said before. I'm not going to call your post weird, but you ought to think twice before resorting to such tactics. Ignoring a person's point and simply repeating the same things is not how conversations are supposed to work.

My point is, saying Johnson did not want "a blue ribbon commission" is not the right question ask.  Who was it that wanted, not just any commission, but the kind of commission the WC was and was able to bring it to fruition?

Clearly that was not Alsop or Rostow, whose suggestions to Johnson weren't even on point to what happened.  Alsop says right out he wasn't suggesting a new Investigative body to Johnson but rather some people to take the FBI findings already made and better present them. He was, he said, only offering Johnson PR, not legal, advice. 

Alsop's suggestion had nothing to do with Johnson's ultimate creation of the WC.  He did *not* change Johnson's mind 

In fact, Johnson's mind was not changed at all despite what he claimed. Only the gullible believe he really wanted an investigation in Texas, beyond his ability to name the investigators and control the result, based on the transparently false reasoning he offered Alsop, as I explained.  My earlier post left out one other thing he said to Alsop about preferring a Texas investigation:  my lawyers tell me the president must not inject himself into "local killings".  Could there anything more phony than that? Even Alsop had to remind him that it was the US president who was killed, sir.

How unpleasant it is to see you resorting to the old CIA trick to dismiss what I said: I have the facts; you're just theorizing. In fact there was no theorizing involved in what I said. I took facts and deduced their logical connections to reach a conclusion about what happened.  You can challenge the facts or the logic but it won't do to claim I was merely theorizing.

For example, I assume you accept as fact that the planners of the murder chose Oswald as the patsy to blame and resolved to kill him before he could talk to a lawyer, thus eliminating a trial.  Which they did.  That meant there would have to be an official investigation. The POTUS had been murdered; it was no small matter.

It follows that before the murder, in fact as a condition that must be met in order to go ahead with the murder, the planners must have considered how to do that investigation to give themselves a good enough chance to get away with it.

We know as the new president the responsibility fell to Johnson to create and staff that investigation. We know that in the end the WC lied about, distorted, ignored, and destroyed evidence in order to reach a pre-ordained conclusion that Oswald was guilty and acted alone. Absolving the actual killers. The WC's purpose was not to find out what happened, but to conceal it.

You don't have to believe that Johnson was involved in this train of events but it seems pretty clear to me that he was not only involved but essential to acheving most of it.  If not Johnson, who?

Go ahead, Jim, take a whack at that if you disagree.

3 hours ago, Keven Hofeling said:

A little more than a month ago in response to one of your posts on another thread, after reviewing the Tucker Carlson videos in question, and seeing that Tucker Carlson had made a big production out of calling for Pompeo to be a guest on this particular segment in which Tucker was announcing confirmation of the involvement of the CIA in the JFKA from a source familiar with the withheld JFK records, I was led to speculate that it had actually been Pompeo who had been the source (I was suspicious that Tucker's announcement about Pompeo was intended to give Pompeo a kind of plausible deniability):

The following video starts out with part of the hurrah Tucker was making about Pompeo declining to appear on his show to comment on the segment:

I had at the time been assuming that there was a friendly collusion going on between Tucker and Pompeo behind the scenes, but after hearing Tucker share his animosity toward Pompeo on the recent Rogan interview, that assumption is definitely out the window. Another possibility might be that Tucker was opportunistically trying to set up the segment to have Pompeo offer more to Tucker about what he or another had already disclosed to him about the involvement of the CIA, and maybe the call to Tucker from Pompeo's lawyer was really a way for Pompeo to communicate to Tucker that he should shut up about it because of Pompeo's culpability for disclosing classified information to Tucker?

 

This line of thought doesn't work, Keven, because in the first instance it contains no reason for Pompeo to push Trump to conceal CIA records, then, based their records he saw, tell Carlson they were in fact involved. Setting aside schizophrenia.

Nor would Carlson, at the same time he is revealing what his informant (Tucker in your version) told him confidentially then invite the same person to talk to him about it publicly. The informant must have already requested confidentiality and both he and Carlson knew Carlson did not have to, and would not, reveal his source.  As well as anyone Carlson knows confidential sources are the lifeblood of journalism. 

It's much more likely Carlson challenged Pompeo to come on his show in order to challenge him about the things his real source had said. Knowing Pompeo would refuse. 

Carlson did not need Pompeo to tell him about the vulnerability of confidential sources and Pompeo knew that.  That wasn't the reason for the call.

On 4/26/2024 at 4:29 PM, Sandy Larsen said:

 

Oh I don't know, Roger. Maybe whatever it was that got the whole police force out to arrest Oswald... which they did at Texas Theater.

I didn't say it was valid evidence.

 

 

Say what?

LBJ was hoping for a death bed confession from Oswald. Why would he have hoped for that if he knew Oswald was innocent?

Of course LBJ and Hoover thought Oswald was guilty.

 

 

That IS the easy choice!

 

 

I'll let J. Edgar Hoover tell you. Here is what he said to LBJ over the phone regarding the evidence implicating Cuba:

"This angle in Mexico is giving us a great deal of trouble because the story there is of this man Oswald getting $6,500 from the Cuban embassy and then coming back to this country with it. We're not able to prove that fact, but the information was that he was there on the 18th of September in Mexico City and we are able to prove conclusively he was in New Orleans that day. Now then they've changed the dates. The story came in changing the dates to the 28th of September and he was in Mexico City on the 28th. Now the Mexican police have again arrested this woman Duran, who is a member of the Cuban embassy... and we're going to confront her with the original informant, who saw the money pass, so he says, and we're also going to put the lie detector test on him."

Oswald reportedly had been paid $6500 for the hit in the Cuban Consulate. And was paling around with Silvia Duran and some Cuban officials while in Mexico City. (This according Elena Garro, June Cobb, and Gilberto Alvarado.) And then there was the evidence that Oswald met with KGB assassinations chief Valeriy Kostikov at the Soviet Embassy. And the letter Oswald supposedly sent to the Soviet Embassy in Washington DC saying that he had conducted his business with Comrade Kostin (i.e. Kostikov).

 

One other quick answer.  When they arrested Oswald at the theatre shortly after the murder, they had no evidence of him killing Kennedy. They arrested him because he was the designated patsy.

14 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

My latest substack is on this subject.  It is still free, what a bargain.

"Tucker Carlson on the JFK Case: Pompeo was protecting James Angleton"

Here you go.

 

https://substack.com/home/post/p-144086075?source=queue

On 4/26/2024 at 7:37 PM, James DiEugenio said:

The Warren Commission was not Johnson's invention, that is not accurate.

Johnson did not want a blue ribbon commission. 

He had to be convinced to do it by, first Eugene Rostow, and then Alsop.  And Alsop then told him that the Washington Post was going to come out with that idea also. LBJ did not want it and Alsop's conversation with him was a masterful piece of flattery, persuasion, and massaging to get him to construct it.

I mean, everyone knows what happened after. It was a mess.  But what did anyone expect with Hoover running the inquiry?  Hoover actually was on record as closing the case before Katzenbach was. In fact, I now think that his memo the night before might have been the model for Katzenbach's.  About 80 per cent of the inquiry  was done by Hoover. In second was the Secret Service, and as we all know--Elmer Moore for one--they were about as bad as the FBI was. Does anyone even want to talk about the CIA, and that stunt they pulled in Mexico CIty?  Which even Hoover saw through after about six weeks.

So with those three bodies doing the inquiry, it was pretty much a foregone conclusion.  But then you had the MSM basically encouraging it and accepting it and then giving it a rocket boost when it came out. It is really bizarre to me how the MSM did not scream, or even object, to the WC having closed hearings.  Not one peep.  And the only witness who complained was Mark Lane.  I mean closed hearings on the public execution of the president?

As per Dulles, remember, Talbot in his biography of the man, revealed that he was the one commissioner who lobbied for the job.  Therefore, it might not have been solely LBJ's decision on that one.  But he clearly understand after that this was a mistake, and I think he tried to cover it up.

1 hour ago, James DiEugenio said:

Roger:

Do you know a lot of nice sweetie pies who work for the CIA?

So I don't know where you are going with that.

RO: I don't know anyone who works there except Ray McGovern who used to. You don't know where I'm going with what.Jim?

But the significance of this is that it corroborates what Trump told Napolitano.  Because Pompeo is the guy who, on the day the documents were supposed to be let go, pleaded with Trump not to do it.

RO: Pompeo pleading with Trump to not release records not only does not corroborate that he was the source saying the CIA was involved, it contradicts it. If he was the source and knowing Tucker would report it, the resulting uproar created would clearly undercut  his case to keep the records secret. Isn't that obvious?

 So he threatens Carlson with a lawsuit, and previously he got Trump to, IMO, break the law.

I like what Carslon said to him, so  you shutting me up is more important than who killed JFK?

RO:  I'm not trying to shut you up Jim, I'm simply disagreeing with you. That's Ok with you isn't it?

 

13 minutes ago, James DiEugenio said:

I am not sure if Jeff Morley is aware of this. 

But I sure hope someone tells him about it.

This is something he can run with, since he gets more face time on the MSM than anyone on our side.

I wouldn't run too, far with this if I was Jeff.  First of all, Carlson saying Pompeo's lawyer contacted him to say revealing classified info was a crime was not really much of a revelation. Pompeo himself issued a public statement saying  that.  He was just sending his lawyer to make sure Carlson got that message, and trying to intimidate him from pursuing the JFKA further.

In making your claim, you're ignoring the rest of what Carlson said about Pompeo.  He is really sinister, an outlaw, a bad guy who is a criminal in Carlson's opinion. He convinced Trump not to release information the public has a right to now after 61years.  Most of all he plotted to kill Assange. Yet everywhere Pompeo goes now he is treated royally, which outrages Carlson.

Yet we're supposed to believe Pompeo is the guy who spilled the beans to Carlson that the CIA was involved in the JFKA?  Which Carlson immediately went with on his show, creating considerable interest in the murder. Don't you think the guy who told that to Carlson should have suspected Carlson would do that with the information?  Doesn't compute that it was Pompeo does it?  Whether or not you believe Carlson that Pompeo was the central figure getting Trump to withhold JFK records.

The interview was not the first time Carlson had called Pompeo a criminal.  It's interesting to contrast Carlson's view of Trump, who he likes despite his flaws Carlson recognizes, with Pompeo who he has no compunctions saying publicly he despises.

10 hours ago, Cliff Varnell said:

In this scenario Castro would have been accused of starting it by whacking Kennedy.  The Soviets got what they wanted out of Cuba when the US withdrew missiles from Turkey.  Their response would have been diplomatic, railing against American imperialism at the UN.  The US could have countered by citing the alleged Oswald meeting with Kostikov in Mexico City.

No, the same principle would have been an attack on the USSR from the soil of an American ally.  The US bombed the hell out of North Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia and there was never talk of nuclear confrontation over it.

Why would Kennedy's advisers think the US didn't enjoy nuclear superiority in 1963?

And surely Khrushchev wasn't crazy enough to initiate a nuclear exchange over a country that wasn't vital to USSR security.

I disagree with your assessment of relations at the time between the SU and Cuba, between Krushchev and Castro, that underlies your comments.  The Soviets "got what they wanted out of Cuba " when the US removed the missiles it had in Turkey?  You think that's why put them in Cuba, with nuclear warheads! in the first place?

Have you heard about the Bay of Pigs?  And the constant attempts to kill Castro?

Krushchev and Castro were in constant contact. It was Krushchev who convinced Castro that he could talk to Kennedy, and those talks were just starting when Kennedy was murdered (another reason for the murder). As the mortal threat to Castro from the US continued unabated, Castro was agitating for more protection from the SU.

Cuba was a great prize in the Western Hemisphere for Krushchev. Castro was to become an important figure internationally.  Krushchev agreed to the missiles hoping they would give Castro some breathing room and be a deterrent to the US. 

To resolve the crisis Kennedy realized he had to offer more than just his assurances he would not try to invade Cuba again.  Even if sincere, it would not bind future presidents.  That's why he agreed to quietly, unannounced, remove the missiles in Turkey, which were of little value to the US anyway.