On 4/6/2024 at 12:49 PM, Cliff Varnell said:

Trump Loves That RFK Jr. Is Running for President—and Helping Him Win

https://newrepublic.com/post/180190/trump-loves-rfk-jr-running

Kinzinger says RFK Jr.’s campaign ‘hijacked by MAGA’

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4578188-kinzinger-says-rfk-jr-campaign-hijacked-maga/

This is beyond absurd. Trump has been smearing RFK Jr. all over the place. So has Biden. So have the DNC and the RNC. Both Democrats and Republicans have been trying to sabotage his campaign (Democrats have been the worst offenders, but some Republicans are not far behind them in dishonorable conduct toward Kennedy).

No rational person who is following RFK Jr.'s campaign and who knows about his positions on the issues could believe that his campaign has been "hijacked by MAGA." Diehard Democrats and Republicans are both proving to be incapable of going against their party. 

And, just FYI, about 25% of RFK Jr.'s donations are coming from people who donated to Trump in 2016 and/or 2020, while about 35% are coming from people who donated to Hillary and/or Biden, and the rest are coming from people who did not donate to either party in 2016 and/or 2020. Blind partisans just can't wrap their minds around the fact that Kennedy is attracting many people who had given up on the political process.

Biden also declined to release all the documents. But, yes, Trump broke his promise to release all the documents. 

Of course, one can't be sure that Biden was the one who actually made this decision, given his increasingly obvious cognitive decline. He may have, or he may not have. You just can't know, and that's troubling. 

10 hours ago, Joe Bauer said:

Notice the Freudian slip Mrs. Harvey uttered at the end of this interview video?

She says " He ( Roselli ) had been recruited by some guy in the FBI for assassination purposes...on Kennedy."                  ..."Er-uh...I mean Castro."

I remember watching a documentary on the Bay of Pigs many years ago where two of the CIA officers who helped train the brigade angrily and bitterly condemned JFK. You could tell that these guys still absolutely, intensely hated JFK. 

A detailed answer to the kinds of smears this 9/11 Truther is spreading about RFK Jr. is Dick Russell's book The Real RFK Jr.: Trials of a Truth Warrior (2023). Yes, the same New York Times best-selling author named Dick Russell who has done so much ground-breaking research on the JFK case, especially on Richard Case Nagell. 

Russell spends two entire chapters on the issue of RFK Jr.'s research on vaccines and vaccine safety. 

It figures that a person who is a devout Fletcher Prouty apologist and a 9/11 Truther would be here trying to smear Bobby Kennedy Jr.

Just shameful. 

This is both revealing and fascinating. Thanks for posting this. 

A few days ago, Bobby Kennedy released a fantastic documentary on healing America's drug crisis: Recovering America: A Film About Healing Our Addiction Crisis. Rarely has a political video inspired and encouraged me the way this 44-minute documentary has. Bobby hosts and narrates the video. It is a good example of his open-minded, innovative approach to tackling issues and of finding solutions that can appeal to both liberals and conservatives. 

On 5/28/2024 at 2:38 PM, W. Niederhut said:

       There have been a number of detailed commentaries posted here during the past several months on the subject of RFK, Jr.'s 2024 presidential candidacy.

       Three of the best have been those of progressive Democratic luminaries; Naomi Klein, Robert Reich, and Edward Curtin.

        Klein and Reich raised important questions about RFK, Jr.'s progressive bona fides.   Curtin questioned RFK, Jr.'s endorsement of Netanyahu's Gaza genocide.

       Here are a few of my own observations and summaries.

 

Why I Don't Support Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. for President

1)  He has no legislative or executive experience in government.

2)  He has stubbornly promoted disinformation about the efficacy and risk of vaccines-- even after being corrected by medical experts.

3)  He has a history of impaired judgment and dysfunctional behavior, including heroin addiction.

4)  He uses anabolic steroids, for body-building, which can cause neuropsychiatric side effects, including rage attacks-- 'roid rage-- and mania. 

5)  His own family-- the Kennedy family-- has urged Americans to vote for Joe Biden.

6)  His own former environmentalist colleagues have denounced his candidacy.

7)  His main source of funding is the extreme right-wing Republican billionaire, Timothy Mellon.

8 ) He has been promoted in the mainstream U.S. media by the right-wing propaganda mogul, Rupert Murdoch.

9)  His own campaign staffer said recently that the purpose of his candidacy is to help re-elect Donald Trump.

10) When confronted with examples of his errors in judgment, he has denied responsibility, and blatantly lied about his behavior.

This post is a smear job. 

Be advised, folks, that Niederhut is a devoted disciple and staunch defender of L. Fletcher Prouty. That should tell you all you need to know about his judgment and credibility.

BTW, a large chunk of RFK Jr.'s donations are coming from people who have never donated to political campaigns before. Also, about 1/4-1/3 of his donations are coming from people who donated to Democrats in 2016 and/or 2020, while about 1/4 of his donations are coming from people who donated to Republicans in the two previous elections. 

A good answer to Niederhut's smear job is the 30-minute documentary Who Is Bobby Kennedy?, narrated by Woody Harrelson:

For those who want to know more about Bobby Kennedy's positions, see my article What Conservatives and Liberals Would Each Get with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in the White House.

On 6/1/2024 at 12:03 PM, W. Niederhut said:

RFK Jr. tried to whitesplain the Confederacy. It didn't go well.

Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. offered praise for members of the Confederacy that sought to secede from the United States.

 

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. offered praise for members of the Confederacy (msnbc.com)

May 31, 2024, 10:00 AM MDT

By Ja'han Jones

Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. tried to whitesplain the Confederacy during a recent appearance on a right-wing podcast. And it didn’t go well. 

Kennedy has been quite cagey about publicly committing to various political issues. One issue he’s been remarkably consistent on, however, is his sympathy for insurrectionists. You may remember that earlier this year, he claimed that the Jan. 6 insurrection wasn’t actually an insurrection in his view and claimed he’d investigate their “harsh treatment” if elected.

But Kennedy’s comments on the removal of monuments celebrating Confederate generals suggest that his backing of anti-government assailants spans multiple centuries. 

As NBC News reported: 

Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. criticized the removal of Confederate statues in a recent interview, arguing that the people they honor may have had “other qualities.” Speaking Friday on the “Timcast IRL” podcast, Kennedy described a “visceral reaction to this destroying history.” “I don’t like it,” he told conservative podcaster Tim Pool. “I think we should celebrate who we are. And that, you know, we should celebrate the good qualities of everybody.” Kennedy also pointed to “heroes in the Confederacy who didn’t have slaves,” but he later praised Robert E. Lee, a slave owner, suggesting Lee, the top Confederate general, demonstrated “extraordinary qualities of leadership” that warranted recognition.

Kennedy continued, claiming, “We need to be able to be sophisticated enough to live with, you know, our ancestors who didn’t agree with us on everything and who did things that are now regarded as immoral or wrong, because they, you know, maybe they had other qualities."

You’d be hard-pressed to find a phrase as ahistorical and condescending as this one. Americans, for example, can and do “live with” the impact of Confederates, whether or not those Confederates are memorialized in statue form. Contrary to Kennedy’s claim, the issue isn’t that these Confederates “didn’t agree with us on everything,” the problem is that their most fervent belief — that Black people were subhuman and deserving of chattel slavery — is incompatible with civil society.

The idea that their behavior is only “now” regarded as immoral ignores the fact that it was immoral and wrong even then and many enslaved people denounced their bondage as they were experiencing it. And it’s highly offensive for anyone, let alone a wealthy, white Kennedy heir, to suggest that carrying this warped view of history amounts to “sophistication.” 

Kennedy’s veneration for Confederates is detached from reality. That comes as no surprise, considering he's widely known as a conspiracy theorist. But the fact that this veneration fits a trend of him publicly defending violent anti-government forces should concern any voters invested in democracy. 

Wow. Just holy cow wow. It is instructive and sad to see the fringe end of the far left making these kinds of absurd accusations against a man like Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a man who has devoted his entire lie to battling the corporate capture of our government, battling the military-industrial complex, preserving and protecting the environment, supporting labor and the middle class, fighting for the rule of law and justice, and talking about the truth regarding the JFK and RFK assassinations, etc.

Nearly every argument you can make against Robert E. Lee you can also make against George Washington, Patrick Henry, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, James Madison, and even Abraham Lincoln, etc., etc. Shall we start tearing down statues of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln? Shall we demolish the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial? 

You represent the partisan poison and extremism that are ruining our politics and polarizing our people. Your fire-eating "all or nothing" and "my way or the highway" brand of politics is a huge part of the problem, not the solution. 

On 6/4/2024 at 12:08 AM, Denise Hazelwood said:

Inspired by a discussion taking place on another thread unrelated to the acoustics, I just finished an article with some notes about the acoustics, including my echo pattern correlation, which is not in Part 9 of my documentary. I invite you to read my article at https://www.a-benign-conspiracy.com/some-brief-notes-on-the-acoustics.html. 

I invite you to comment on my thoughts below. 

Thie article is typical of the criticisms of the HSCA acoustical evidence: they miss the forest for the trees, focusing on minor issues and focusing on the limitations of the HSCA site test and ignoring the powerful correlations that support the acoustical evidence. Here is a summary of most of those correlations:

* At least four sets of gunshot impulse patterns with echo patterns unique to Dealey
Plaza occur on the dictabelt recording.

* Those echo patterns occur in the correct topographic order, which is an amazing
correlation all by itself.

* Remarkable locational correlations were found between the dictabelt gunshots and the
test-firing gunshots. The BBN scientists determined that the probability that chance
caused these correlations was “less than 1%.” Even the NRC panel admitted that their
own calculations showed there was a 93 percent probability that the correlations were
not the result of chance.

* The dictabelt contains N-waves from supersonic rifle fire, and those N-waves occur
only among the identified gunshot impulse patterns, and only in the two impulse
patterns that were recorded when the motorcycle’s microphone was in position to record
them.

* The dictabelt not only contains N-waves but it also contains muzzle blasts and muzzle-
blast echoes, and those N-waves, muzzle blasts, and muzzle-blast echoes occur in the correct order and interval.

* Windshield distortions occur in the dictabelt's gunshot impulse patterns when they
should and do not occur when they should not.

The HSCA Acoustical Evidence: Proof of a Second Gunman

On 6/9/2024 at 6:17 PM, Matthew Koch said:

The point of this thread is to

A.) show that the Israel killed JFK theory is rapidly gaining popularity amongst Left and Right extremists. . . .

It is mostly the radical liberals in this forum who peddle this embarrassing, fringe theory. I haven't seen any conservatives advance this awful theory. As you probably know, most of the liberals here who peddle the theory also defend and praise L. Fletcher Prouty, who spoke at two conferences held by anti-Semitic, pro-white-supremacy groups (Liberty Lobby and the IHR), who appeared 10 times on Liberty Lobby's sleazy radio program (a program that routinely included Holocaust deniers and white supremacists as "guests"), who praised the IHR's Holocaust-denying journal, etc., etc. 

Quote

@Matthew KochBut it seems that after looking at your Gaza thread that a lot of people on this forum do believe this conspiracy theory and do have sympathy for any theory that blames America and its "Fascist" allies like Israel.

Bullseye. You'd think that if ever there were an event that would reveal Hamas's true nature and Israel's innocence, it would be Hamas's barbaric October 7 attacks. Hamas murdered about 1,200 Israelis, many of them women and children, along with committing numerous rapes and acts of mutilation of the rape victims, and also taking hundreds of hostages. 

But, nope, true to form, radical liberals ignore or whitewash the October 7 attacks and actually fault the Israelis for their response to the attacks, as if Israel somehow "had it coming" and as if Israel's response was nothing but wonton destruction (when in fact Israel made a genuine effort to minimize civilian casualties, but that is hard to do when Hamas uses Gazan civilians as human shields).

When I have recited profusely documented history regarding the Arab-Israeli conflict, such as the Palestinian leadership's rejection of the 1947 UN partition plan that would have given the Palestinians a homeland, some of these same radical liberals have accused me of posting "fake history." 

I agree that it is absolutely shameful and embarrassing that some people in the research community claim that Israel was involved in JFK's death. This is patently ridiculous and inexcusable. Claims like these are the reason that so many academics and journalists do not take the case for conspiracy seriously.

And it certainly does not help matters when we have some people in this forum repeating Hamas and Iranian propaganda about Israel and whitewashing the long history of Arab attacks on Israel. 

9 hours ago, W. Niederhut said:

      RFK went out on a political limb to get Martin Luther King out of prison back in the day.  He knew the Dixiecrats would be angry.

      RFK, Jr. is doing the opposite.  He's pandering to white supremacists in the Trump cult.      

That is one of the most absurd, erroneous statements I've ever seen posted in an online forum. I won't even bother asking you to explain how you could possibly believe that RFK Jr. is "pandering to white supremacists in the Trump cult."

I am certain your answer would be as vacuous and lame as your excuses for Fletcher Prouty, who, by the way, appeared numerous times as a guest on a white supremacist radio show, who praised two journals that promoted white supremacy, and who spoke at two conferences hosted by groups that supported white supremacy. 

Folks, look at RFK Jr.'s positions in the liberal column in the article below and try to fathom how anyone could accuse him of pandering to white supremacists:

What Conservatives and Liberals Would Each Get with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in the White House

This video was aired in 2011 to mark the 50th anniversary of the Bay of Pigs invasion. At least some of the veterans still harbor resentment toward JFK and feel he betrayed them. Also, the video includes some strong criticisms of some of the CIA trainers voiced by the veterans. The video is only 18 minutes long.

No, I am confident that RFK Jr. would not tolerate any foot-dragging or excuses from the CIA and the FBI. 

I am supporting Bobby for president mainly because he meets all of my "must-have criteria" and because he's the only candidate in the race who can start to heal the partisan strife that is tearing apart our country. His determination to release all the assassination records is far down on my list of reasons for supporting him, but it is there.

BTW, two weeks ago I got to meet Nicole Shanahan at a campaign event in Virginia Beach. I even got to shake her hand and a have pic taken with her. She is an awesome, intelligent, and wonderful person. She'd make a great VP.

Why I Support Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for President

What Conservatives and Liberals Would Each Get with RFK Jr. in the White House (HTML version if PDF will not open)

Here's an article I've written on what conservatives and liberals would each get from an RFK Jr. presidency:

PDF version

HTML version

A very recent Zogby poll, one of the largest ever done, shows that Biden is the real spoiler and that RFK Jr. can win. This poll surveyed more than 26,000 likely voters across the country and has a margin of error of only 0.6%. 

The poll found that Biden cannot beat Trump but that RFK Jr. can. The poll also found that in a three-way race, Biden still loses to Trump. 

According to the poll, in a three-way race between Biden, Trump and Kennedy, Kennedy’s presence shifts the states of Maine and Virginia to Biden’s column, and no states to Trump’s column. IOW, Kennedy’s presence helps Biden, but Biden still loses to Trump.

Most significant, the poll found that in a two-way race between Trump and Kennedy, Kennedy wins. 

For more information on this revealing poll, see Biden is the Real Spoiler, Kennedy Only Candidate Who Can Beat Trump | Kennedy24.

I can tell you from my own experience as a Kennedy-Shanahan volunteer in Virginia, that about one-fourth of the volunteers in my area used to be Trump supporters. Mind you, these are volunteers, not just voters.

They like RFK Jr. because he strongly backs securing the border, requiring a photo ID to vote, getting the federal budget under control, enforcing laws against hiring illegal immigrants, protecting religious freedom, banning biological males from women's sports, banning transgender surgery and puberty blockers for minors, protecting gun rights, and standing by the state of Israel. They disagree with him on many issues, but they can tolerate those disagreements because of his above-mentioned positions. 

Very sad.

Actually, fully one-fourth of RFK Jr.'s donations are coming from people who did not contribute to a presidential campaign in 2016 or 2020, i.e., new donors, new voters who finally see a reason to be excited about a candidate. 

You won't vote for the one candidate who will positively release all remaining records related to the JFK case. This ranks at the bottom of my reasons for supporting RFK Jr.

Biden is mentally unfit for high office, and Trump is morally unfit for high office.

As most here know, as of a few months ago I was rather skeptical about RFK Jr. Truth be told, I considered him something of a crackpot when it came to politics. However, after spending many hours watching his interviews and speeches and reading his writings, I have changed my mind and am now supporting him for President. No, I do not agree with him on every issue, but I agree with him on enough issues that I can support him, and I think he is the only candidate who can start to heel the bitter partisan divide that is tearing apart our country. I feel the same way about his running mate, Nicole Shanahan.

I explain my reasons more fully for supporting RFK Jr. here:

Why I Support Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for President

On 2/24/2024 at 1:02 PM, Jeff Carter said:

 

Regarding what Robert Kennedy may have said in a 1964 interview,

There's no "may" about it. The interview was recorded. 

it worthwhile to recall he was still, at that point, Attorney General and member of LBJ’s cabinet, thus subject to direction as set out in paragraph 4 of NSAM 273:

4. The President expects that all senior officers of the Government will move energetically to insure the full unity of support for established U.S. policy in Vietnam. Both in Washington and in the field, it is essential the Government be unified.

Oh, please. This is a truly lame argument. That paragraph would not have prevented RFK from truthfully discussing his brother's intentions regarding the war. 

Furthermore, even after RFK left the Johnson Administration, he never, ever, ever claimed that JFK planned on withdrawing from Vietnam without victory. But just never mind that inconvenient fact, right?

Indeed, as late as March 1968, just three months before his death, Bobby opposed a unilateral withdrawal and called the idea "unacceptable":

          I do not want, and I do believe that most Americans do not want, to sell out America's interest to simply withdraw -- to raise the white flag of surrender in Vietnam -- that would be unacceptable to us as a people, and unacceptable to us as a country. (“Remarks at the University of Kansas, March 18, 1968,” John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum website, https://www.jfklibrary.org/learn/about-jfk/the-kennedy-family/robert-f-kennedy/robert-f-kennedy-speeches/remarks-at-the-university-of-kansas-march-18-1968)   

There is a huge difference between saying that JFK did not want to send in U.S. "combat troops" and saying that he intended to withdraw without victory. You guys also keep ignoring the fact that Bobby said that JFK would have provided air attacks to defend South Vietnam if necessary, and that JFK felt we "had" to win the war.

More detail on the development of NSAM 263, including more information on McNamara’s input both at the time and his recollections afterwards, can be found in James Galbraith’s Boston Review article "Exit Strategy" from 2003:

https://www.bostonreview.net/articles/galbraith-exit-strategy-vietnam/

Yeah, I've cited that article and given that link several times. 

Noam Chomsky published a reply shortly after, many of which talking points have been repeated by the dissenting voice on this thread. Galbraith in turn replies to Chomsky:

https://www.bostonreview.net/articles/chomsky-galbraith-letters-vietnam-jfk-kennedy/

Yes, and anyone see that Galbraith ducked most the evidence that Chomsky presented and resorted to more special pleading and cherry-picking. 

The "dissenting voice on this thread" represents the position of 99% of scholars who have written on the subject. The majority voice in this thread represents a fringe viewpoint that was conceived by the anti-Semitic crackpot and fraud Fletcher Prouty and that is rejected even by the vast majority of liberal scholars. 

It should be noted that the Dallas authorities were originally going to charge Oswald with taking part in a conspiracy but that the LBJ White House pressured them to drop the conspiracy claim and to assert that Oswald acted alone. 

IOW, before the Dallas authorities knew what they were supposed to say, they believed Oswald had been part of a conspiracy. 

I should add that Dallas Police Chief Jesse Curry later revealed that he believed Oswald was part of a conspiracy and that one of the shots came from the front. 

2 hours ago, Karl Kinaski said:

 

According  to Pierre Salinger in an interview he  (Salinger)gave to the german television Kennedy said to him (Salinger) two days before his assassination: "I will enter peace talks with the north (of Vietnam), and make clear that there will be no war" KK

JFK supposedly said this to Salinger two days before the assassination, huh? Well, that's mighty curious. Salinger said nothing about this alleged statement in his 1966 memoir With Kennedy. He devoted several pages to describing his last encounters with JFK before JFK left for Texas, but he said nothing about Kennedy making any such statement. Not one word. Not even about Vietnam in general. Nothing. 

Why didn't Bobby Kennedy ever claim that JFK had said anything like this to him? Huh? When Bobby was asked specifically about this issue in his April 1964 oral interview, he flatly rejected the idea that JFK was going to withdraw from Vietnam or settle for anything other than victory.

JFK never said anything about withdrawal without victory to William Bundy, either, nor to Dean Rusk, nor to McGeorge Bundy. Not one shred of evidence for such an intention is found on the JFK White House tapes. Not one syllable. This is not to mention the fact that every single firsthand statement from JFK himself flatly contradicts the Stone-Prouty-Newman myth.

But you guys just don't care. You brush aside all this and much more evidence and instead rely on hearsay statements made years after the fact and on McNamara's fraudulent "secret debrief" (which he inexplicably failed to mention in his memoir or in any recorded White House discussion before or after JFK's death). 

And, just to be clear, we're talking about the same Pierre Salinger who claimed in 1996 that an intelligence agent had sent him a document that proved that TWA Flight 800 was shot down by friendly fire. The document was a hoax that had been circulating on the Internet for weeks and had been emailed to him by a former airline pilot. This sad episode spawned the term "Pierre Salinger syndrome" to describe people who believe that everything on the Internet is reliable. 

In 2000, Salinger further embarrassed himself by claiming that the two Libyans on trial for the bombing of Pan Am 103 were innocent and that he knew who the real bombers were. Incredible. The two men were tried because Qaddafi had handed them over, and they were found guilty at their trial in the Netherlands.

13 hours ago, Denise Hazelwood said:

In the interview of Custer posted online, he describes using the sella turcica to orient the image and speculates that the "white patch" area was a "double-density" of a skull fragment from the front of the head being blown to the back of the head, although to Vanity Fair he admitted that the X-rays were "fake."

The double-density explanation for the white patch does not work. Not even close. The OD measurements of the white patch prove that the patch would have to be bone from nearly one side of the skull to the other if the patch actually represented bone.

To put it another way, if the white patch was not added to the lateral x-ray, the bone behind it would have to be much thicker than that area of the right skull table plus a frontal fragment blown to a point within the image of the patch. Even four skull fragments within the image of the white patch would not produce the patch's OD measurements. 

We have to keep in mind that when the x-rays were altered, (1) everyone thought the x-rays would remain sealed for at least a few decades, and (2) the science of optical density measurement was barely in its infancy. 

On 2/14/2024 at 5:47 PM, Jeff Carter said:

The non-public discussions are self-contradictory as well.

 

You are twisting the focus of the debate  (I.e. withdrawal or engagement)  into a construct (i.e. to win or to lose) which is not relevant to the specific terms by which the policy (263) was developed. The specific terms dealt with the question of whether the United States military had a direct role to play in the Vietnam conflict. The determination, as unambiguously expressed by the actual language of 263, was it did not and thus the personnel would be withdrawn.

 

The “unconditional-withdrawal myth” is something you made up. There’s nothing in Prouty or Newman’s extensive work which endorses this alleged “myth”. In fact, the expression of this “myth” which does appear in the record (with your preferred definition I.e. a complete withdrawal regardless or despite a Communist victory) is attributed to Robert McNamara, spoken during a classified debrief in October 1963 regarding his McNamara-Taylor trip to Vietnam. Over the past year, on this Forum, you have variously and erroneously attributed McNamara’s own words to Prouty, Newman, Galbraith, DiEugenio, and “JFK”’s screenwriters.

 

The first sentence is about as disingenuous as you have ever posted on this Forum - and that is saying a lot. The entire paragraph is in fact disingenuous. You make sweeping statements referring to “instructions that JFK himself gave to Lodge afterward” which supposedly make it “crystal clear that the withdrawal was conditioned on the situation on the ground” - without actually identifying what you are referring to or why anybody should accept what you say. I don’t see any “ifs” or “buts” or otherwise conditional language in the approved recommendations. Further, the recommendations were not about “winning the war” as you insist, they were about replacing US personnel with Vietnamese personnel.

 

All you are doing here is repeating Establishment talking points as first set out by Les Gelb in the New York Times in December 1991. While these points seek to contradict the informed commentary of persons such as Fletcher Prouty and John Newman, they fail to address the actual point of contention - which is the understanding of the Kennedy administration’s Vietnam policy as expressed in NSAM 263. Your personal rejection of these “mythical” views relies on a straw-man “unconditional-withdrawal myth”, and the rather questionable opinion that Kennedy would have actually introduced combat forces in Vietnam during his second term. Your commentary in general on the Vietnam War, as expressed on this Forum, reveals a belief the US war effort was in fact a noble endeavour, an opinion shaped by a conservative worldview imbued with a strong, if somewhat antiquated, anti-communist bent. That, it seems to me, is a formula for exactly misunderstanding the Kennedy administration and/or its policies.

Given replies such as this one, I find it increasingly hard to take you seriously. I think it should be mentioned that you continue to defend Prouty's ludicrous claim that Chiang attended the Tehran Conference, that he flew the Chinese delegation to the Tehran Conference, that Churchill didn't have any ID on him when he disembarked in Tehran because he was wearing a pocketless flight suit, that a Soviet checkpoint held up the British delegation in Tehran because of Churchill's alleged lack of ID, that Stalin discussed Mao's military operations at the Tehran Conference, that Elliott Roosevelt saw the Chinese delegation at Habbaniya Airport in Iraq en route to Tehran, that Elliott Roosevelt saw the Chinese delegation in Tehran, etc., etc. This is all just abject nonsense peddled by a fraudulent storyteller. No historian takes these claims seriously.

I've already refuted your false claim that your side (such as it is) does not claim that JFK intended to unconditionally withdraw from Vietnam after the election. I don't understand how you can float such a denial. Your side's most prominent spokesmen, James Galbraith and John Newman, make exactly this claim. Go back and re-watch Newman's segment in JFK Revisited, where Newman, citing McNamara's fraudulent "secret debrief," claims that JFK was going to withdraw even if it meant South Vietnam fell to the Communists. You can't get more unconditional than that. As for Galbraith, see his articles on the subject wherein he argues that JFK ordered a "complete withdrawal" and that it did not depend on conditions on the ground, such as this one: LINK. (For interested readers, here's Noam Chomsky's demolition of Galbraith's arguments: LINK.)

I see no point in repeating facts and sources to you because you are beyond persuasion on this issue. There is a reason that even ultra-liberals like Moise, Bird, Chomsky, and Karnow have rejected your side's ahistorical interpretation of NSAMs 263 and 273 and of JFK's Vietnam intentions. Anyone can read the background documents for those NSAMs and readily see that they flatly contradict your spin on them. And anyone can read Bobby's April 1964 oral history interview and see where he flatly rejected the idea that JFK was going to withdraw from Vietnam without winning first. 

13 hours ago, David Von Pein said:

It's more than sixty years later, and yet this headline from page 2 of the December 1, 1963, edition of my hometown newspaper is still as valid and correct as it was back in 1963 (despite the opinions of the many conspiracy theorists who believe otherwise) —— "Evidence Does Not Support Theory Of Oswald Conspiracy" ....

Just SMH. You're citing a news story that was based on statements made by a handful of Dallas officials.

Sixteen years later, the House Select Committee on Assassinations concluded that two gunmen fired at JFK, that four shots were fired, that one of the shots came from the grassy knoll, that JFK was hit at a time when the sixth-floor gunman's view of the limo would have been obstructed by the intervening oak tree, that Ruby had extensive underworld ties, that Ruby lied about how he entered the police basement, that Ruby lied about why he shot Oswald, that Silvia Odio's account was credible, etc., etc.

And, it's worth noting that polls continue to show that 65% to 85% of the American people do not buy the lone-gunman theory.