Michael Griffith

On 10/9/2022 at 11:21 AM, Joe Bauer said:

We knew the woman DLI student fairly well. This was in the 1990's.

I admit I didn't know exactly how long her immersion stint there was.

Yet, I do remember well her (or her husband) stating that she couldn't see her husband and their two young boys while she was in the immersion.

Maybe this was a later year "mini" immersion program as one of you stated?

Things were always changing at the DLI over the years from the 1950's through today.

Oh, I heard from several fellow DLI grads about DLI's development of immersion programs in the '90s. As mentioned, when I was there the second time, such programs were just getting started on an experimental, limited basis by one or two of the larger language departments. While the students were in the immersion building, they had to stay there the whole time and could only speak their target language. 

7 hours ago, Matt Allison said:

8 hours ago, Michael Griffith said:

FDR and his inner circle did not believe the Japanese would do much damage in their attack.

This statement doesn't really make a whole lot of sense to me.

Knox blamed Japanese-Americans living in Hawaii.

https://wapo.st/3RNpajb

I could easily answer these arguments, but Pearl Harbor is not the topic of this thread. If you want to start a separate thread on the evidence of advance knowledge, go ahead and I'll be glad to engage the issue and post more evidence.

More on the powerful impact of Operation Linebacker II, the warped liberal version of the operation, and Congress’s role in helping North Vietnam in the peace negotiations.

Military historian Earl Tilford discusses the powerful impact of Operations Linebacker I and II in an article titled “Linebacker II: The Christmas Bombing” published in 2014 on the Vietnam Veterans of America website. Among other things, Tilford notes that after the devastating December 26 bombing raids, Hanoi cabled Washington and asked that peace talks resume on January 8. Nixon rejected Hanoi’s offer and insisted that peace talks begin on January 2. When Hanoi refused Nixon’s terms, Nixon continued the bombing. After two more days of ruinous bombing, Hanoi agreed to resume negotiations on Nixon’s terms. Tilford also discusses just some of the distorted news media coverage of the bombing and observes that Linebacker II did minimal damage to North Vietnam’s cities and caused fewer than 2,000 civilian deaths. Here’s an excerpt from Tilford’s article (note: ARVN refers to South Vietnam’s army):

During the six months of Linebacker I (May 10-October 23) 155,548 tons of bombs fell on North Vietnam. The NVA’s Soviet-style blitzkrieg consumed 1,000 tons a day in fuel for tanks and trucks, as well as munitions for tank and artillery tubes, food for troops, and medicine for the considerable casualties inflicted by a stubborn ARVN defense. American air power, with more latitude in target selection than in the past, sharply reduced the supply flow, effectively blunting the offensive.

By October, with North Vietnam’s ports mined and blockaded, the vital northeast and northwest rail and road lines leading to China cut, and its divisions in the South taking a hard pounding, Hanoi seemed ready to end the war on terms acceptable to Washington. That included a ceasefire, the withdrawal of U.S. forces from South Vietnam, continued U.S. military aid to Saigon, and the return of American POWs. . . .

While the diplomatic jousting at the Paris Peace Talks continued into November, Nixon handily defeated Sen. George McGovern, the peace candidate, in the presidential election. Muddling Nixon’s political victory, however, the Democrats extended control over Congress and threatened to cut off funding for the war in January. . . .

The bombing on the night of December 26 got the Politburo’s attention. Instead of sending in waves of bombers throughout the night, 120 B-52s hit ten targets within two 15-minute periods. Remaining SAMs claimed two more B-52s, but the 1.66 percent loss rate was acceptable given the results.

Hanoi cabled Washington asking if talks might resume on January 8, 1973. Nixon demanded that talks start on January 2 and told Hanoi the bombing would continue until they agreed. Accordingly, the following night, sixty B-52s struck airfields and warehouses around Hanoi and Vinh, along with the Lang Dang Rail Yard near the Chinese border. While SAMs claimed two more B-52s, returning crews reported that the missile firings seemed less coordinated and more sporadic.

Sixty more B-52 sorties struck over the next two nights with no losses and no reported SAM firings. On December 28 Hanoi agreed to reopen negotiations on Nixon’s terms. Linebacker II ended on December 29, after eleven days of bombing the enemy’s heartland, including roads and troop concentrations in North Vietnam’s southern panhandle. Aerial attacks on NVA units inside South Vietnam intensified to encourage serious negotiations on Hanoi’s part. . . .

Critics of the war, and of the air war in particular, lambasted what became known as the Christmas Bombing. In Europe it was unfairly and erroneously compared to the firebombing raids on Dresden and Hamburg near the end of World War II. A December 28, 1972, Washington Post editorial asked if the Christmas Bombing was not the “most senseless and savage act of war…ever visited by one sovereign people on another?” The historical ignorance displayed by that question is astounding.

Former Vietnam War correspondent Gloria Emerson’s lack of objectivity—not to mention disregard for documentation—was evident in her book, Winners and Losers: Battles, Retreats, Gains, Losses, and Ruins from the Vietnam War, in which she cited an unidentified source in Hanoi to support her claim that 100,000 tons of bombs fell on “Hanoi alone” during Linebacker II. This is a physical impossibility given the number of bombers involved, their carrying capacity, distances to the target, and recycling time for the 210 B-52s available. Given that it took six months to drop 155,000 tons of bombs during Linebacker I, that should have been self-evident.

While Linebacker II severely damaged North Vietnamese military targets, the country’s cities were far from devastated. According to Hanoi’s own figures, 1,212 people perished in the capital, while 300 were killed in Haiphong.

In reality, U.S. airpower could have obliterated North Vietnam far more quickly than the two-week period proposed by Gen. LeMay by bombing the dikes during the rainy season. . . . But those options never were considered given Washington’s limited strategic objectives. Linebacker II operated well within the law of proportionality prescribed by what was known as the Just War Doctrine. (https://vvaveteran.org/34-1/34-1_tilford.html)

Military historian Phillip Michael agrees, noting that civilian losses were minimal and that Linebacker II left North Vietnam “virtually defenseless”:

Major target complexes struck by B-52s and tactical aircraft included railroad yards, storage facilities, radio communications facilities, airfields, SAMs, and bridges. In total, LINEBACKER II bombed 59 targets. Railroad yards and complexes accounted for 36 percent of the total sortie effort; next were storage facilities such as warehouse complexes (25 percent). More than 20,000 tons of ordnance was dropped. Bomb damage included 1600 military structures damaged or destroyed; 500 rail interdictions; 372 pieces of rolling stock damaged or destroyed; one-fourth of petroleum reserves destroyed; and 80 percent of electrical power production destroyed. Based on the amount of ordnance dropped, civilian losses were minimal. Hanoi’s mayor claimed 1,318 civilians killed and 1,216 injured, while Haiphong reported 305 dead.

The Air Force and the Navy went after airfields, SAM sites, and communication centers. Prior to each night’s B-52 raids, F-11s struck MIG fields. On the night of 26 December, 120 B-52s hit a variety of targets within a 15 minute span. Additionally, 100 aircraft, including F-111s, F-4s, and Navy A-6s struck SAM sites and radar sites before, during and after the B-52 raids. The last two aircraft losses of LINEBACKER II came on Day 8. LINEBACKER II ended on 29 December, leaving North Vietnam virtually defenseless, their SAM supply depleted. (The Strategic Significance of Linebacker II, U.S. Army War College, 2003, pp. 11-12, https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA414163.pdf)

Tilford alludes a key point that is usually ignored in liberal sources: Liberals in Congress were loudly threatening to cut off funding for the war when Congress came back in session in January. This is why Nixon ordered Linebacker II and insisted that peace talks resume on January 2. Congress came back in session on January 3. Phillip Michael notes,

President Nixon enjoyed a solid reelection victory in 1972. Even so, he faced an imminent cutoff of funds for the Vietnam War, so he needed a decision strategy to end the war in a short period of time. (The Strategic Significance of Linebacker II, U.S. Army War College, 2003, p. iii, https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA414163.pdf)

Vietnam War scholars Dana Drenkowski and Lester Grau:

North Vietnam’s negotiators had walked out of the Paris Peace talks and were refusing to return, figuring that U.S. politics would force Nixon to abandon South Vietnam and the POWs without any concessions on their part. Congress was recessed, but when they returned from the Christmas recess, they were expected to force Nixon into unilateral withdrawal by stopping all funds for the war. Nixon’s position looked untenable, but he decided to launch a massive bomber strike against Hanoi to force the North Vietnamese back to negotiations before Congress could reconvene. The bomber campaign was named Operation Linebacker II. (Patterns and Predictability: The Soviet Evaluation of Operation Linebacker II, p. 1, http://www.admiraltytrilogy.com/read/Soviet_view_of_Linebacker_II.pdf)

Nixon feared that if peace talks had not resumed by the time Congress returned from the Christmas break, the liberal anti-war majority might well cut off all funds for South Vietnam. If Nixon had not had Congress ready and even anxious to betray South Vietnam if a peace deal were not quickly reached, he surely would have insisted on better terms in the Paris Peace Accords.

However, Nixon and Kissinger did succeed in getting a crucial provision into the accords that would have enabled South Vietnam to survive IF Congress had not refused to honor it, i.e., the provision that the U.S. could resupply South Vietnam on a one-for-one basis and up to the level of their existing equipment and supplies, which level was substantial.

But, tragically and treasonously, the liberal anti-war majority in Congress began slashing aid to South Vietnam soon after the accords were signed, sending the worst possible signal to North Vietnam. Even when it became undeniable that North Vietnam was attacking South Vietnam in brazen violation of the peace accords, Congress kept cutting aid to South Vietnam and refused to approve emergency funding requests from the White House. Even with the help of this Congressional treachery, and even with ample Soviet and Chinese supplies flowing to North Vietnam, it took the North Vietnamese two years and heavy combat losses to finally conquer South Vietnam.

20 hours ago, Lawrence Schnapf said:

not the last time I communicated with him about three months ago in connection with the letter to the House Oversight Committee requesting an oversight hearing on the JFK Records Act.  

First off, I'll say one more thing about FDR's allowing Pearl Harbor to be attacked: FDR and his inner circle did not believe the Japanese would do much damage in their attack, and they were stunned when they learned the extent of the damage. Navy Secretary Frank Knox revealed this to close friends, and the great damage that was done was the reason he decided to start disclosing FDR's foreknowledge to selected friends.

Beyond this, I'm not going to comment further on FDR's advance knowledge of Pearl Harbor. I lay out most of the evidence of advance knowledge in my previously mentioned book. I also present much of it on my Pearl Harbor website. Doug Horne presents a great deal of the evidence in his book on the subject, although Doug thinks FDR's duplicity was warranted and wise.

I engage in no "screed" against Democrats. I'm an eclectic Independent. I agree with the Democrats on several issues, including universal healthcare, most aspects of the Affordable Care Act, infrastructure spending, tougher environmental laws on proven big polluters, granting legal status to illegal immigrants who've committed no serious crimes, granting full citizenship to "Dreamers," and raising the minimum age for buying rifles to 21. When it comes to the Vietnam War, yes, I absolutely believe that liberal Democrats in Congress and the anti-war movement behaved terribly and treasonously. But, that was a long time ago. I'm conservative on many issues, moderate on many issues, and liberal on some issues. 

So, with that out of the way, Lawrence, I'm glad to hear that as of three months ago when you communicated with Summers, he had not embraced the lone-gunman theory. 

Years after the war, Bui Diem, the former South Vietnamese ambassador to the U.S., penned an eloquent essay that, among other things, addressed the wartime Communist propaganda line that the Vietnam War was a civil war, called out the gullibility and culpability of the American anti-war movement, and defended the morality of America’s effort to keep South Vietnam Free. Diem noted that Hanoi’s leaders themselves quickly dispelled the civil-war myth after Saigon fell. Diem rightly wondered if anyone in the anti-war movement felt any shame for their gullibility and actions. And, Diem cogently noted that only idealogues could still compare South Vietnam with “the chilling police state that destroyed it.” Here is an excerpt from Bui Diem’s essay:

The more vocal critics of the war in the sixties and seventies characterized the intervention, not just as wrong, but also as immoral. Their charge was based primarily on the theory that the war in Vietnam was a civil war, and that consequently American intervention was an act of aggression against people who were fighting to free themselves from an oppressive regime and unify their country in accord with the aspirations of the great majority of decent-minded Vietnamese.

It is my own belief that this theory held the field for so long primarily because it was a powerful attraction to the many Americans who were angry at their own government and society and were looking for issues to hang their anger on. Certainly, the facts that refuted it were readily available. From early on, both Saigon and Washington knew beyond a doubt that the National Liberation Front—the Vietcong—was a creation of the Communist Party, and that without North Vietnamese organization, leadership, supplies, and, starting in 1964, without the North Vietnamese regular army, there would have been no revolution to speak of and no war. It was one of my greatest frustrations that our firm knowledge of this—both from widespread and incontrovertible evidence and also from personal experience among many of us of communist “front” techniques—made no impact on popular understanding in the West. Regardless of what was there to be seen, people saw only what they wished.

After the war, when propaganda no longer mattered, the party dropped its pretense. “Our Party,” said Le Duan in his 1975 victory speech, “is the unique and single leader that organized, controlled, and governed the entire struggle of the Vietnamese people from the first day of the revolution.”

During the war, the North Vietnamese never openly admitted they had troops in South Vietnam. (Le Duc Tho even kept up this pretense with Henry Kissinger….). But afterward the party treated this subterfuge simply as an excellent piece of public relations and its own role as a matter of intense pride. As the North Vietnamese general Vo Ban told French television interviewers in 1983, “In May 1959 I had the privilege of being designated by the Vietnamese Communist Party to unleash a military attack on the South in order to liberate the South and reunify the fatherland.”

During the heyday of the antiwar movement, I marveled at the innocence of its spokesmen in believing something different from this. I wonder even now if they ever feel shame for their gullibility and their contribution to the tragedy. But they are not heard from.

The issue of morality, then, comes down to whether it was moral for the United States to have supported an admittedly flawed South Vietnamese regime in its attempt to survive against a totalitarian antagonist. Here, too, the answer seems to me self-evident. However unpalatable leaders like Nguyen Van Thieu might have been, South Vietnam was full of pluralistic ferment and possibilities for change and development. It was a place where good people could hope for something better to evolve, where they could even publicly advocate for it, as so many strong-minded opposition politicians, intellectuals, and writers did. None but idealogues can compare such a place with the chilling police state that destroyed it. And none, I think, can fairly question the morality of the effort to prevent its destruction. (Bui Diem, “A Viable State,” in Major Problems in the History of the Vietnam War, edited by Robert McMahon, Third Edition, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2003, pp. 379-380)

1 hour ago, Cliff Varnell said:

 

What makes you think such a commitment would have been possible with Diem in power?

I would rephrase that question to read, "Would such a commitment have been necessary with Diem in power?" 

There were reports Nhu was negotiating with the North. Regime change prevented the best chance for peace. And was thus more significant.

Those reports were baseless and absurd on their face. Anyone who knew anything about Nhu should have known they were fiction. 

And that decision was entirely up to Americans?

A rather moot point.

I suspect Averell Harriman headed a cabal determined to take control of the world's heroin market.  He negotiated the partition of Laos and the overthrow of Diem -- and the murder of JFK, I suspect.

Averell Harriman??? I think that's bizarre. Even LBJ eventually realized that Harriman was an overly gullible, peace-at-any-price dove. Harriman was the last person who would have wanted JFK dead. I lost interest in the rest of your reply after reading the above comments. 

3 hours ago, Cliff Varnell said:

 

Regime change is the far greater intervention, no?

Compared to sending hundreds of thousands of American ground troops to South Vietnam for years? No, I would say that the regime change was not the greater intervention. In any case, the point is that Jim was talking about the issue of whether or not to send regular combat troops.

Did MacArthur approve of what Kennedy green-lit in 'Nam?

Admittedly, Kennedy showed poor judgment and weakness in this affair. His first serious mistake was appointing Henry Cabot Lodge as ambassador to South Vietnam, a truly baffling and disastrous choice. JFK's second serious mistake was listening to his ignorant and self-righteous liberal advisors who were determined to get rid of Diem. 

JFK began having serious second thoughts about removing Diem, but he failed to take decisive action to call off the coup. He was afraid to challenge Lodge.

To be fair, JFK had no idea that Diem and his brother would be murdered. He assumed they would merely be exiled. Their murder should have alerted him to the fact that the generals whom Lodge and the CIA recruited to overthrow Diem were more repressive and undemocratic than Diem was (and not nearly as competent). This disaster never would have happened if JFK had appointed Edward Lansdale as our ambassador to South Vietnam, as JFK was initially considering doing.

5 hours ago, Bob Ness said:

Bad news.

He didn't. At least not in a way it would have been avoided.

FDR most certainly did have advance knowledge that Pearl Harbor would be attacked. His own Secretary of the Navy, Frank Knox, said he did. So did Secretary of State Cordell Hull. So did Congressman Martin Dies. So did the Red Cross's War Services director, whom FDR secretly ordered to send extra medical supplies to Pearl Harbor shortly before the attack. FDR knew from the intercepted bomb-plot messages alone that the Japanese were acquiring information about the position of ships in Pearl Harbor, information that they were not seeking about ships in any other port, which is why FDR fought tooth and nail to keep the bomb-plot messages sealed. I wrote a book on this subject last year titled The Real Infamy of Pearl Harbor: Separating Fact from Fiction about the "Unprovoked and Dastardly Attack."

FDR had been trying to provoke Japan to attack for weeks because he wanted an excuse to get the U.S. into WW II. 

Does anyone have any additional information about the rumor that Anthony Summers no longer posits a conspiracy in JFK's death and that he's writing a book that will support the lone-gunman theory? 

Given his 2016 book on Pearl Harbor, it would not totally shock me to learn that the rumor is true. HIs 2016 Pearl Harbor book, though excellent in nearly all key areas, presents downright pitiful, baffling rejections of the considerable evidence that FDR had advance knowledge that Pearl Harbor would be attacked, as I discuss in my Amazon review of the book: 

Great for the Most Part, But Disappointing in One Key Area (amazon.com)

I think Doug Horne has made a compelling case that JFK's body was switched from the ceremonial casket to a shipping casket on the plane trip from Dallas, that there was a secret pre-autopsy manipulation of the body, and that his body was then put back into the ceremonial casket.

On 10/8/2022 at 12:45 PM, Paul Brancato said:

I’m not convinced Marilyn wasn’t offed, even though medical records support suicide more. But I reject claims that the Kennedy brothers killed her, that RFK had a sexual relationship with her, or that she and JFK were romantically involved. Yes he had numerous liaisons, and a brief one with MM is likely based on real evidence. But claims that either Kennedy offed her are ridiculous, and part of a very wide ranging operation designed to besmirch their memories. It also seems shameful that MM is subject to a similar character assassination. She was very special, uniquely talented. I continue to respect and honor her work and mourn her too brief time on earth. 

I think Mark Shaw makes a strong case against suicide. Leaving aside the very strange circumstances surrounding her death, suicide makes no sense. Her career was on the upswing, and a number of other positive things were happening in her life. The last friend who saw her hours before she died said she gave no indication of being depressed, much less suicidal. 

I don't think we can wave aside the evidence that RFK was romantically involved with her. 

Well, now, why is it ridiculous to believe that either Kennedy may have arranged for her death, given the threat that she posed to their careers if she went public with her affairs with them? I'm agnostic on the subject, but I don't rule it out. 

23 hours ago, Ron Ege said:

Michael,

I do understand.

Regarding a specialized aptitude test - mine was administered about half-way through basic training, having only signed up for the "Administrative"
portion of the four parts Air Force initial aptitude test, which also included the categories entitled - "General", "Mechanical", and "Electronics".  Something in my score tipped them off the I'd make a pretty good Morse Intercept Operator - hence my eventual assignment to the USAF Security Service.

Part of my post - was - implying that LHO's record did not indicate a specialized aptitude test for score for language - because such would've been evidence that in addition to his official MOS, at some point, he had also undergone language training for his eventual intelligence role. 

Of course, I can't prove he did - but I don't believe it to have been impossible - given what appears to be unexplained absences during his active-duty time - that he could have received some sort of intense "undercover" language training.

And yes, I'm aware of the discussion on how good his Russia may or may not have been.  I guess I'm leaning on the - "it was somewhat too good to have been learned by the 'Berlitz method'" side of the equation.

Yes, in my view, Oswald's language test scores in Russian were far too good for someone who was merely self-taught in the space of a year or so. I mean, it's always possible that he could have gotten lucky and guessed that many correct answers, but it's extremely unlikely. I took the Arabic and Hebrew versions of the language test many times, and I would bet a huge chunk of money that nobody could guess that many correct answers. 

Quote

17 hours ago, James DiEugenio said: So whenever someone would suggest direct American intervention in Vietnam, Kennedy would say, go talk to MacArthur and tell me what he says.

2 hours ago, Cliff Varnell said: That would have been news to the Ngo Brothers, that JFK didn't green-light direct American intervention in Vietnam. [photo snipped]

Jim is talking about JFK's view on sending regular combat troops to Vietnam, and I think the evidence clearly supports Jim's argument that JFK strongly opposed doing this. Now, this is not the same thing as saying that JFK categorically ruled out deploying regular ground troops (he did not), but the evidence seems very clear that he intensely desired to avoid this option. 

One of the reasons JFK ardently disliked the idea of sending regular ground troops to Vietnam was that General MacArthur had passionately advised him against doing so. I might add that Eisenhower was also adamantly opposed to doing this. 

However, we get into trouble and open ourselves to valid pushback when we go beyond the evidence and claim that JFK was absolutely, positively going to totally disengage from South Vietnam by late 1965 regardless of the situation on the ground. RFK flatly rejected such a notion in his April 1964 oral interview, as did Dean Rusk. Arthur Schlesinger and Ted Sorenson said nothing about any such intention in their 1965 memoirs. And, every single statement we have from JFK himself in the months before his death contradicts the claim.

On 10/6/2022 at 11:31 PM, Joseph Backes said:

There is absolutely no truth to the story that JFK and Marilyn Monroe were lovers. Nor did RFK have an affair with MM. 

It's just sleaze told to demonize all three of them.  And to make money for those who want to demonizing them. 

Don McGovern, I think, has proven this to be the case.  His book "Murder Orthodoxies" once out of print is now free and online.  

https://marilynfromthe22ndrow.com/wp/murder-orthodoxies/

Don has a great website where he shares a lot of information on MM.  Educate yourselves.  

Don was on Black Op Radio recently. His previous appearances are great too.

https://www.blackopradio.com/archives2022.html

Show #1114
Original airdate: Sept 29, 2022
Guests: Jen Abreu, Donald McGovern, Jim DiEugenio
Topics: Sirhan's Lawyer 
 

https://www.blackopradio.com/pod/black1114.mp3

This is untenable denial by overzealous JFK devotees. While there is no smoking gun that absolutely proves JFK was involved with Marilyn, there's too much anecdotal evidence to brush aside, unless one wants to believe they were all lying.

I've never said a word about JFK's sexual life in my writings because I think it's irrelevant to the assassination. But, I think the evidence is overwhelming that he had multiple affairs.

The Russian oligarchs will eventually force Putin to withdraw from Ukraine, but only if we continue to make the price of Russian occupation severe. Ukraine did nothing to deserve Putin's invasion. It's none of Putin's business if an eastern democratic nation wants to join the EU and/or the defensive alliance of NATO.

Putin misjudged Biden and thought that Biden would impose a few modest sanctions and leave it at that, as Obama did when Putin took Crimea. But, to his great credit, Biden continues to make Russia pay a stiff price for Putin's aggression. As happened with Russia's invasion of Afghanistan, even many Kremlin hardliners will support withdrawal when they become convinced that the price is going to be too severe if they remain in Ukraine.

As for the Pope's advice, the Pope should stick to dealing with his many pedophile priests. 

Now let’s get some facts straight about the Tet Offensive. Tet provides us with perhaps the best example of (1) the news media’s misleading and distorted reporting on the war, and (2) the equally misleading and distorted version of the war given by liberal scholars.

Imagine how ludicrous it would have been if, four days after the desperate German gamble of the Battle of the Bulge ended, Walter Cronkite and other liberals had declared that the war in Europe was a stalemate and was unwinnable. Imagine if they had lamented, “What’s going on? We thought we were winning the war. How could the Germans have mounted such a powerful offensive if we are winning the war? Surely our government has been lying to us about the war.”

The Tet Offensive was a desperate gamble that was done because Hanoi realized they had to abandon their prolonged-war strategy and go for a decisive victory to end the war. Why? Because the NVA and VC were suffering increasing casualties and because LBJ had finally lifted enough of the air-power restrictions that, by the spring of 1967, our bombing was destroying more war material than Hanoi could replace (Leonard Scruggs, Lessons from the Vietnam War, pp. 85-90). Vietnam War scholar Leonard Scruggs:

By mid-1967 the NVA’s escalating casualties and tightening logistical circumstances convinced the leaders of North Vietnam that they could not sustain a protracted war against the U.S. Time, they thought, was no longer on their side. They decided to abandon their protracted-war strategy and go for a swift and decisive victory that would quickly collapse the government in Saigon and result in a humiliating U.S. withdrawal. (Lessons from the Vietnam War, p. 90)

Historian Arthur Hermann:

By the end of 1967, the Communist cause in the Vietnam War was in deep trouble. The build-up of American forces — nearly half a million men were deployed in Vietnam by December — had put the Vietcong on the defensive and led to bloody repulses of the North Vietnamese army (NVA), which had started intervening on the battlefield to ease the pressure on its Vietcong allies.

Hanoi’s decision to launch the Tet offensive was born of desperation. It was an effort to seize the northern provinces of South Vietnam with conventional troops while triggering an urban uprising by the Vietcong that would distract the Americans — and, some still hoped, revive the fading hopes of the Communists. The offensive itself began on January 30, with attacks on American targets in Saigon and other Vietnamese cities, and ended a little more than a month later when Marines crushed the last pockets of resistance in the northern city of Hue.

It not only destroyed the Vietcong as an effective political and military force, it also, together with the siege of Khe Sanh, crippled the NVA, which lost 20 percent of its forces in the South and suffered 33,000 men killed in action, all for no gain. (“The Tet Offensive Revisited: Media’s Big Lie,” Hudson Institute, January 30, 2018, https://www.hudson.org/research/14134-the-tet-offensive-revisited-media-s-big-lie)

The after-action report of the U.S. Army II Field Force gives us a good idea of some of the developments that led Hanoi to conclude that they had to gamble on a major offensive to win the war quickly:

By November 1967 the operations of II FFORCEV and III Corps within III CTZ had succeeded in driving the bulk of the VC/NVA main forces away from the more heavily populated areas into the sparsely settled border regions. A captured document showed that the VC in MRIV - the region around Saigon - had suffered three times the losses in 1967 as in 1966.

The threat in Gia Dinh Province surrounding Saigon was reduced to the point that the 199th Lt Inf Bde was able to phase out Op FAIRFAX, and to move into War Zone D, leaving to the 5th ARVN Ranger Group primary tactical responsibility for the security of the Capital Military District.

The VC were in serious straits in Phouc Tuy and Long Khanh Province where allied pressure had broken down their supply system. The VC in western Hau Nghia Province had been reduced to the point that the 25th US Div was able to shift its brigade forces to operations northwest of Cu Chi; while the 25th ARVN Div continued pacifying Hau Nghia.

The 1st Inf Div had been successful in opening and holding open Highway 13 to Quan Loi, splitting War Zone C from D, as well as facilitating civil and military movement north of Saigon. v/ The 9th Inf Div had commenced clearing Highway 1 from Saigon to the II-III Corps boundary turning it over progressively to the 18th ARVN Div.

The 9th Div was also able to draw down on forces in the northeastern portion of its TAOI while concentrating on expanding Mobile Riverine Force operations in IV CTZ in the Delta.

The Revolutionary Development program was accelerating. Public administration training was underway in all Provinces. Economic activity was improving, partly as a result of the opening of many road LOCs particularly in Hau Nghia and Binh Duong Province.

There was ample evidence that . . . the VC political infrastructure was losing its influence over key sectors of the population. (TET Offensive II Field Force Vietnam After Action Report, Defense Technical Information Center, 1 March 1968, pp. 1-2, https://archive.org/details/DTIC_ADA534568/mode/1up)

The Tet Offensive gamble ended up being a botched operation that incurred staggering losses. Several North Vietnamese sources describe those enormous losses. The offensive started badly when, due to confusion in the chains of command, some NVA and VC units attacked prematurely, squandering the element of surprise against most targets. The NVA/VC failed to take most of their objectives, and in a matter of hours or days they lost most of the objectives that they did take. Only in Hue and in a sector of Saigon did they manage to hold on for about four weeks, before being mauled by ARVN and American forces. Much to the Communists’ surprise, many ARVN units fought well, and very few South Vietnamese welcomed the NVA as liberators. And, NVA and VC atrocities during the offensive caused most South Vietnamese to more strongly support the Saigon government.

However, this is not the story that the American people were told by the news media. In his massive study Big Story: How the American Press and Television Reported and Interpreted the Crisis of Tet 1968 in Vietnam and Washington (Yale University Press, 1978, abridged edition), Vietnam War correspondent Peter Braestrup documents the countless erroneous, misleading reports that journalists and major news outlets gave about Tet. For example, Braestrup notes that the news media reported that VC fighters had occupied the first few floors of the American Embassy in Saigon, when in fact they never got inside the building and were killed in the embassy compound within six hours. Some reporters in Vietnam did file accurate reports on Tet, but the major news outlets in the U.S. ignored them.

Uwe Simeon-Netto, who witnessed Tet as the Far East correspondent for the German newspaper group Axel Springer, sheds light on the subject:

Forty years ago today, I witnessed the start of the most perplexing development in the 20th century – America's self-betrayal during the Tet Offensive in Vietnam.

The reason why I have never ceased wrestling with this event is this: On the one hand, Tet ended in a clear military victory for the United States and its South Vietnamese allies, who killed 45,000 communist soldiers and destroyed their infrastructure.

On the other hand, the major U.S. media persuaded Americans that Tet was a huge setback for their country. . . .

At 3 a.m. on Jan. 31, I stood opposite the U.S. Embassy in Saigon, watching a fierce firefight between Marines and Viet Cong attackers. . . .

Some days later, I was in the company of Marines fighting their way into communist-occupied Hué, Vietnam's former imperial capital. We found its streets strewn with the corpses of hundreds of women, children and old men, all shot execution-style by North Vietnamese invaders.

I made my way to Hué's university apartments to obtain news about friends of mine, German professors at the medical school. I learned that their names had been on lists containing some 1,800 Hué residents singled out for liquidation. . . .

Then, enormous mass graves of women and children were found. Most had been clubbed to death, some buried alive; you could tell from the beautifully manicured hands of women who had tried to claw out of their burial place.

As we stood at one such site, correspondent Peter Braestrup asked an American T.V. cameraman, "Why don't you film this?" He answered, "I am not here to spread anti-communist propaganda."

Many reporters accompanying U.S. and South Vietnamese forces realized and reported that the fortunes of war and the public mood had changed in their favor, principally because of the war crimes committed by the communists, especially in Hue, where 6,000-10,000 residents were slaughtered.

But the major media gave the Tet story an entirely different spin. (“The Tet Offensive and the Media,” Vietnamese and American Veterans of the Vietnam War, http://www.vietamericanvets.com/Page-Records-TetOffensive.htm).

David Henard, a former Army chopper pilot who served in South Vietnam during Tet:

Terrified reporters crouched behind the cover of the high wall that surrounded the embassy compound. . . . They nonetheless filed colorful, wildly inaccurate, and totally fabricated stories, claiming that the Vietcong had occupied the first five floors of the American Embassy. This claim was made despite the fact that the Vietcong failed to even enter the building. They reported too quickly before they had the facts and misled the American public. (Victory Stolen, LitFire Publishing, 2018 edition, pp. 110-111)

We now know that General Giap strongly opposed launching the Tet Offensive, fearing that if the NVA and VC left their safe areas in large numbers, they would be decimated. But Giap was overruled by the fanatics in the Politburo who truly believed that ARVN would quickly crumble and that most South Vietnamese would embrace the invaders as liberators. When Tet ended up being a horrendous military disaster, Giap was so upset that he left North Vietnam for a while.

Hanoi’s leaders were so shocked by the scale of the defeat that they considered halting the war effort for a few years (Scruggs, Lessons from the Vietnam War, p. 101; Dave Palmer, Summons of the Trumpet, Presidio Press, 1978, pp. 208-210)—and they may well have done so if they had not realized that the American news media was turning their severe defeat into a shocking political victory.

Liberal scholars usually understate the degree of decimation that the NVA and the VC suffered in the Tet Offensive, and they describe Tet as a “monumental intelligence failure.”

“Monumental intelligence failure”? Westmoreland, his staff, and senior field commanders concluded from U.S. intelligence and field reports that the Communists were going to carry out a major assault around the time of the Tet holiday. However, they believed the attack would come after the holiday, and they underestimated the scale of the assault because they did not believe the NVA and the VC would be foolish enough to come out in large numbers far from their sanctuaries. We had always wanted them to do this, but they had not obliged.

Westmoreland and his staff believed the attack would come some time after the Tet holiday because Hanoi had announced weeks earlier that they would once again honor the usual Tet ceasefire. The Communists had made similar Tet ceasefire announcements in the past and had always refrained from any major military actions during Tet, so we assumed they would do the same thing this time.

So, yes, Tet was an intelligence failure, but not in the usual sense of the term. In the weeks before Tet, Westmoreland informed numerous officials, and even some journalists, that he believed a major NVA/VC attack would soon occur. He was so convinced of this that, two weeks before Tet began, he wisely moved 15 battalions from outlying areas to positions near Saigon, a move that proved crucial during the offensive.

If our news media had covered Tet with honesty, balance, and perspective, they would have reported that the offensive was an enormous blunder by North Vietnam and a resounding victory for America. The Tet Offensive was only a “political victory” for North Vietnam because our news media made it into one. The 11th Armored Cavalry Vietnam veterans’ website sums up the situation well:

The 1968 Tet offensive was a total and complete military disaster for the North Vietnamese Communists no matter how you look at it. If you measure victory by territory gained or enemy killed, the North Vietnamese Army and the Viet Cong failed dismally in their attacks.

The NVA and VC had counted on a "People's Uprising" to carry them to victory; however, there was no such uprising. The NVA and VC did exactly what the American military wanted them to do. They massed in large formations that were incredibly vulnerable to the awesome fire support the U.S. military was able to bring to bear on them in a coordinated and devastating manner.

The NVA and VC attacked only ARVN installations with the exception of the U.S. Embassy in Saigon. Despite reports to the contrary by all major television news networks and the print media, the VC sapper team never entered the Embassy’s chancery building and all 15 VC were dead within 6 hours of the attack.

In the first week of the attack, the NVA/VC lost 32,204 confirmed killed, and 5,803 captured. U.S. losses were 1,015 KHA, while ARVN losses were 2,819 killed.

Casualties among the people whom the NVA/VC claimed to be "liberating" were in excess of 7,000, with an additional 5,000 tortured and murdered by the NVA/VC in Hue and elsewhere. In Hue alone, allied forces discovered over 2,800 burial sites containing the mutilated bodies of local Vietnamese teachers, doctors, and political leaders.

Only the news media seemed to believe that in some way the Communists had achieved a "victory.” To put this in perspective, the news media would have reported the Battle of the Bulge, Hitler's last-ditch attempt to stop the Allied forces in Europe, as a "disaster" for the Allies. They would have said that "despite Allied efforts, the enemy still has the means to mount a major offensive, and therefore the war in Europe is unwinnable." Sound goofy? Well, that is exactly what Walter Cronkite said on national TV after the 1968 Tet Offensive. (“Myth: The Tet Offensive Was a Communist Victory,” https://11thcavnam.com/education/myth_the_tet_offensive_was_a_com.htm)

On 8/27/2022 at 2:30 PM, Pat Speer said:

As I recall, Ho Chi Minh actually liked the U.S., and would almost certainly have been a pro-U.S. communist.

This is one of the inexcusable myths that some liberals continue to repeat, even though it has been thoroughly debunked--so much so that even some liberals have abandoned it.

Yes, we supported Ho during WW II, because we were willing to support just about anyone who was anti-German and anti-Japanese (which is why we also supported Stalin and Mao during WW II); and, yes, Ho initially tried to appear pro-American after WW II. However, a veritable mountain of evidence, some of it from North Vietnamese and Soviet sources, has long since proved that Ho was anti-American/anti-Western and that he was a devout, fanatical Communist who was trained and supported by the Soviet Union and Red China, not to mention that he was a ruthless killer and dictator (although Le Duan and Truong Chinh were even worse).

When McNamara began privately telling LBJ and others the lie that the war was unwinnable, he was like a basketball coach who had refused to play his best players for 45 minutes of every game and then privately complained to the ownership that his team could not win.

It is a basic, long-recognized principle of war that you must hit the enemy's supply chain at its collection point and not wait until the supplies have been dispersed to forces in the field, because, obviously, it's much harder to hit dozens of supply convoys than it is to hit the central collection point from which the supplies are dispersed. Even the most civilized rules of war recognize a combatant's right to do this, partly because it is an essential element of the natural right of a nation to protect its troops. 

The Joint Chiefs and other senior officers repeatedly explained this to McNamara and his ignorant "whiz kids," but they would not listen. Thus, McNamara refused to recommend that Haiphong Harbor be mined and that key overland supply routes from China be shut down. The Hanoi regime simply would have been unable to sustain their war effort if we had taken this crucial, essential step of warfare.

When Nixon mined Haiphong Harbor and hit some key overland supply routes above the 20th and 22nd parallels in Operations Linebacker I and II, from 9 May to 23 October and from 18 to 29 December 1973, North Vietnam's incoming supplies were cut by over 80%. During the last four days of Linebacker II, Hanoi's air defenses were forced to fight with only a fraction of their usual supply of SAMs (some air-defense units had none, while other units had far fewer than normal). This is not to mention all the damage that was done to North Vietnam's POL, energy, and transportation infrastructure, another action entirely authorized by the long-recognized rules of war.

Our air losses in Linebacker I and II were relatively light, contrary to North Vietnamese propaganda, but if we had done a similar operation for six months in 1965, before the Soviets helped North Vietnam build a formidable air-defense system, our losses would have been microscopic and North Vietnam would have been rendered impotent to wage war and most likely would have sued for a genuine peace rather than risk implosion and collapse.

Dr. Wecht has done a great deal of fine work on the JFK case. I wish he had not commented on the alleged alien autopsy, but that does not change the fact that he has been right about the forensic evidence far more often than he has been wrong.

Technically speaking, Dr. Finck was qualified to help perform JFK's autopsy, since he was board certified in forensic pathology in 1961, but he had not done an autopsy in over two years (his WC testimony suggests he had not performed an autopsy since 1958). 

Ferrie may have killed himself because he feared he was about to be violently silenced, although I find the circumstances of his death to be suspicious. I'm open to both possibilities.

The website On the Trail of Delusion is the latest manifestation of denying, distorting, and ignoring evidence and of seeing the emperor's new clothes.

I admired Antonio Veciana for defending the CIA at the 2014 AARC conference, even though he revealed at that conference that his handler had been David Atlee Phillips. What Veciana said about the CIA was, and is, absolutely true, and his audience needed to hear it. However, if you watch the video of his presentation, you get the clear sense that his defense of the CIA did not go over well with the audience.

When people get on JFK assassination forums and say extreme things like "the CIA is a terrorist organization," they risk helping to perpetuate the myth that only fringe ultra-liberals push the idea that JFK was killed by a conspiracy. 

15 hours ago, Joe Bauer said:

Morrow focuses on LBJ primarily.

Yes, but he also spends considerable time citing and quoting Prouty. 

The fact that most JFK conspiracy theorists have cited and quoted Prouty, and that most continue to do so, is one of the very things that have caused most journalists and historians to reject the case for conspiracy and to embrace the lone-gunman theory. 

Even with all its flaws, I believe Oliver Stone's movie JFK was a vitally important and noble effort. But, the film could have been so much more credible and impactful if it had not repeated Prouty's claims.

In Prouty's book on the JFK assassination, he clearly seems to imply, or at least indicates an openness to the idea, that the "Churchill gang" killed FDR. 

It's really too bad that Oliver Stone relied on Prouty for information on key issues for his movie JFK. If you look at the issues that critics raised about the movie, you'll notice that many of them are claims that came from Prouty, such as the following:

-- That NSAM 263 meant that JFK was going to abandon South Vietnam by late 1965 (an interpretation that is nowhere supported in the NSAM or in any of its background and associated documents, and an interpretation that was flatly rejected by RFK in April 1964).

--  That Prouty's trip to Antartica was suspicious/sinister and was arranged to get him out of the way for the assassination (he back peddled on this claim in his ARRB interview and admitted the trip was not "unusual" and that it was in fact "routine").

-- That Edward Lansdale engineered the assassination and that he did so because he fiercely disagreed with JFK's Vietnam and defense policy (an utterly ludicrous and demonstrably false claim--Lansdale strongly opposed sending large numbers of combat troops to Vietnam, respected JFK, and was saddened by JFK's death; Lansdale was intensely disliked by most of the senior brass at the Pentagon because he opposed sending combat troops to Vietnam and opposed Lodge's handling of Diem, so any conspiracy that Lansdale would have attempted to organize would have found very few if any senior officers willing to join in the effort).

-- That Prouty called a man whom he knew at the 112th INTC Group (316th INTC Detachment) and that during this call the man told him that the Secret Service had refused the unit's offer to help with presidential security (pressed by the ARRB, Prouty changed his story and said the man called him, although he had no good explanation for why the man would have called him, and then admitted that he didn't know anyone in that unit, that he, Prouty, had nothing to do with presidential protection schedules, and that, contrary to his earlier claims, he did not have the notes that he made during the alleged phone call).

I think it's entirely plausible that the Mafia obtained proof of Hoover's homosexuality and used it to blackmail him into largely ignoring organized crime. If this was not the case, and if he was not bribed, I would be curious to know why Hoover denied the Mafia's existence and did so little to combat it.

On 10/4/2022 at 3:56 AM, James DiEugenio said:

I Guess this has been a longtime in the writing.  Since Cyril Wecht told me about it years ago.

Its called JFK: Medical Betrayal.

This writer is from across the pond and has spoken at more than one conference, over there and here.

Has anyone read this yet?

https://www.amazon.com/JFK-Medical-Betrayal-Where-Evidence-ebook/dp/B0B6WTCR9Y/ref=sr_1_13?qid=1664870013&refinements=p_27%3AKent+Russell&s=books&sr=1-13

I read the preface and foreword and the first two chapters, because they're available free of charge as the Kindle version preview. Dr. Wecht gives the book a ringing endorsement in the foreword. The first two chapters look solid to me. 

I agree. I concluded years ago that Beverly Oliver was not the Babushka Lady. 

The FBI fought tooth and nail to keep the photos of the tie sealed. When Harold Weisberg finally obtained the photos (and they were top-quality photos), his suspicions about the FBI's dogged refusal to release the photos were confirmed: the photos prove that no bullet went through JFK's tie and that no bullet nicked the edge of the tie. This fact alone refutes the single-bullet theory, especially given the lone-gunman claim that the slits beneath JFK's collar were made by the exiting magic bullet.

If one wants to argue that the FBI untied and then retied the tie, the first question that comes to mind is, Why would they have done that? Other questions come to mind: Surely, surely, if they were going to untie the tie, would they not have taken several photos of it before doing so to preserve a photographic record of the tie in its original configuration? Why is there no evidence that they untied and retied the tie? Why has the FBI never claimed they untied and retied the tie? 

If the FBI did untie and retie the tie, you can bet your 401K and IRA that if the original configuration of the tie put the nick on the edge of the knot, they would have documented this with photographs.