Matt Cloud

I'm not interested in your recitation of what you think a neo-con is. Not one bit. I could not care less. It seems indeed you have the reading comprehension problem. I did not ask you or anyone to provide that. I said "wake me," when (if) Dieugenio gets to the definition, in his little expose. I know all about the neo-cons. If you want to start a topic on the war crimes of Condi Rice, Dick Cheney and Don Rumsfeld go right ahead. You might even have grounds, though I can't help but wonder whether if George W. Bush were eligible to run a third term and he could somehow sour the election against Trump, you wouldn't be in full favor of that. But that's neither here nor there, on this thread, just as as everything you have to this point contributed, in your little pick-a-fight screed.

Wait -- I thought you were the one telling me that Woodward was a coverup artist as regards ATPM? "Read Silent Coup! Or Silent Agenda! Have you read it. You obvously haven't," you screamed. At me. Why don't you stick with the conversation and actually help develop it, Moderator? I know all about everything you think you know. Do you understand? I'm interested in Dieugenio and his neo-con thesis and his development of that. That's the hard, intellectual part. Spouting off about war-mongering neocons and the Iraq invasion is not. And by the way, I heard the exact same things as we stormed the steps of the Capitol on Jan 6. Save it.

Ahem. Thanks for the lecture. I'm waiting on Dieugenio, who has come to this on account of my having introduced the topic, at which point he claimed Moynihan -- for whom I served as aide-de-camp (his last) -- was not a neo-con. We could debate that, but therein lies the point. If he, you, or anyone, won't get into Hegel and the philosophy -- or is it an anti-philosophy? -- no one will get even near to understanding the subject. Again -- thanks for the wikipedia view.

Wake me when we get to the definition of neo-con.

SS is CIA, essentially, or so someone knowledgable once told me. In any event, clearance level requirements would be co-terminus, necessarily, at least as to those SS with presidential detail.

Well, I don't know about that, not needing "to know exactly when." Seems that if you could figure out when, you'd be close to figuring out who -- and that would tell you quite a lot, even perhaps about why. I would also recommending reserving all judgment about the assumed identity of "Oswald." I think most everyone's in for some big surprises.

Well there is still a mystery as to when. Exactly when did that idea develop is not yet known. We've perhaps pinned down the latest, but by no means the earliest.

It's not clear the decision was Johnson's or the CIA's to make. That's an assumption. But the decision had been made, by someone, at the latest, as of the afternoon on the 22nd. P. 68: https://www.google.com/books/edition/Daniel_Patrick_Moynihan/bm-BjcLtRwwC?hl=en&gbpv=1&bsq=25 year old boy "And the thing is, Dungan had said, they will blame it on that 25-year old boy." Moynihan, Memorandum For The Record, Nov. 22, 1963.

Just FYI, a little background on Hwakeye Works / AKA Bridgehead ... "Cuban Missile Crisis: VIP Visits Bridgehead, a Secret Mission, and Surprising Outcome In the early 1960s, Bridgehead workers dutifully contributed to the resolution of the Cuban Missile Crisis. During that tumultuous time, Bridgehead expeditiously responded to the call to action. The workforce moved contact printers, Versamat Processors, and other equipment rapidly to the staging area, and they accomplished this move within 48 hours. Approximately 20 operators reported to the Naval Reserve Training Station in Suitland, MD, and installed and enabled operational equipment in support of curbing this emergent Soviet threat. Dr. Joseph V. Charyk, Under Secretary of the Air Force and the first Director of the National Reconnaissance Office, visited the Eastman Kodak Company during the Cuban Missile Crisis. He arrived by a private jet aircraft for a conference with Kodak Vice President Art Simmons and Ed Greene, General Manager of Special Programs. Under a shroud of secrecy, managers limited the audience for the meeting and did not retain documentation about the meeting. However, the authors remembered two action items that resulted from the event. ... Several examples of TA’s help provided during the U-2 program’s operational years included activities that expanded across both the eastern and western hemispheres. In Taiwan, starting in the 1950s and continuing for many years thereafter, Kodak engineers and technicians assisted with equipment installation, training, film processing, duplication, Quality Control procedures, and staffing assignments. In 1962, at the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis, the IC urgently needed evaluation of imagery from U-2 flights in Washington from film processed locally rather than in Florida. At customer request, Kodak personnel moved film processors, printers, chemicals, and other support equipment from wherever they could find them to the Naval Reconnaissance and Technical Support Station in Suitland, Maryland. They had the facility staffed and operating within 48 hours, and the operation lasted until the crisis passed. Another operation where Kodak provided the help of TA had a tragic ending. Three Kodak employees—Ted Simons, Dick Moyer, and Wayne Koehler—perished in a helicopter accident when leaving their location at the U.S. Naval Base in Subic Bay, the Philippines. Regardless, this type of assistance continued throughout the operational period of the U-2 program and beyond. Kodak customized this assistance to meet the needs at each installation." PDF available here: https://imagery.geology.utah.gov/pages/view.php?ref=287048&search=!collection21482+&order_by=date&offset=1&restypes=&archive=&per_page=50&default_sort_direction=DESC&sort=DESC&context=Root&k=&curpos=&go=next&# Bridgehead: Eastman Kodak Company's Covert Photoreconnaissance Film Processing Program https://rbj.net/2012/11/23/undercover-covert-photographic-operations-center-existed-at-kodak-plant/

Hang in there, Roger. I think you're analysis is sound and that you're onto more than you may know. LEONARD STORY ZARTMAN OBITUARY Newspapers.com https://www.newspapers.com › ... › Oct › 11 › Page 5 Oct 11, 1982 — OBITUARIES Leonard Story Zartman, ex-secretary of Kodak, Nixon aide and lawyer Leonard Story Zartman, 56, former secretary of the Eastman Kodak ... Moynihan Helped to Smooth Way For Kodak-FIGHT ... The Harvard Crimson https://www.thecrimson.com › article › moynihan-helped... Since September, FIGHT has been demanding that Kodak hire and train 6000 unskilled, unemployed Negroes. ... His friend of 25 years, Story Zartman, who was ... Moynihan Picks 4 Harvard Men NO WRITER ATTRIBUTED January 24, 1969 Daniel Patrick Moynihan, the executive secretary of President Nixon's Urban Affairs Council, has appointed four Harvard-connected men to be among his six assistants. Moynihan was director of the Joint Center for Urban Studies and a member of the Institute of Politics of the John Fitzgerald Kennedy School of Government before Nixon appointed him. Two of Moynihan's aides are former fellows of the Institute: Stephen Hess, author of a Nixon biography and a former Eisenhower aide-whose name had been disclosed earlier-and Christopher C. DeMuth, former secretary of the Ripon Society and a member of the staff of Sen. Charles Percy (R-III.). Also named was Richard Blumenthal '67, former editorial chairman of the CRIMSON and last year assistant to Katherine Graham, publisher of the Washington Post. Blumenthal, who coined the term "New Middle," wrote his senior honors thesis on the Moynihan Report. John Price '62 is the fourth Harvard man among the aides. Price is the only black on the staff. He is 30 years old and a New York lawyer. The other two assistants are Michael C. Monroe, who served on Nixon's campaign staff, and Leonard S. Zartman, an attorney formerly with Eastman Kodak Company. The President convened the Urban Affairs Council for the first time yesterday after signing an executive order to create it. Other members of the Council are Vice President Spiro T. Agnew, Secretary of Housing and Urban Development George Romney, and Secretary of Transportation John A. Volpe. https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1969/1/24/moynihan-picks-4-harvard-men-pdaniel/

https://medium.com/illumination/the-origins-of-america-first-cd602afb8176 The Origins of ‘America First’ The history of ‘America First’ is deeply rooted in U.S. foreign policy Jonathan Bell · · Jan 5, 2023 Anti-war protesters at the Capitol (1917) — Wikipedia Commons / Library of Congress The term ‘America First’ has dominated the lexicon of U.S. politics in recent years, quickly becoming one of the most frequently used phrases of the Trump era. The notion of ‘America First’ was a core element of President Donald Trump’s foreign policy rhetoric, which he underlined in his inaugural speech on 20 January 2017, when he famously declared: “from this day forward, it’s going to be only America first. America first. Every decision on trade, on taxes, on immigration, on foreign affairs, will be made to benefit American workers and American families.” However, the idea of an ‘America First’ — or a more broadly isolationist — foreign policy has deep roots in U.S. history. In his hugely influential work Common Sense, published in 1776, Thomas Paine warned against the dangers of foreign alliances and, in a spirit of revolutionary enthusiasm, proclaimed: “It is the true interest of America to steer clear of European contentions.” Paine wasn’t the only American to offer such a warning. Thomas Jefferson laid out a similar view on foreign affairs: “Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations; entangling alliances with none”, and 20 years later, George Washington showed comparable scepticism towards U.S. involvement with the Old World, advising in his Farwell Address: “the great rule of conduct for us, in regard to foreign nations, is in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connection as possible.” Whilst a common warning can be traced through these three statements about the nature of U.S. entanglement in European affairs, this does not mean that Paine, Jefferson or Washington advocated for an ‘America First’ foreign policy. However, these early prophecies about American power and international relations do set the scene for the strand of isolationist thinking that would rise to prominence in American politics during the early twentieth century. We must turn to what historian Eric Hobsbawm termed “The Age of Extremes” to really understand the roots of ‘America First’. ‘America First’ in the twentieth century The phrase ‘America First’ first appeared on the political scene during the 1880s, but the term gained national prominence in 1915 when it became a catchphrase of President Woodrow Wilson during his campaign trail. Wilson was an internationalist and hoped to position the U.S. as a peacemaker on the international stage, but used the term to reach out to isolationists, who desperately wanted to prevent the nation from becoming involved in the First World War. As the Great Powers of Europe devolved into the bloody stalemate of trench warfare, America fuelled Great Britain and France with weapons and munitions but opted to stay out of the conflict directly — and In April 1915 Wilson defended his position of neutrality, stating in a speech: “Our whole duty for the present, at any rate, is summed up in the motto: ‘America First’.” This notion of ‘America First’ would become a core part of his campaign strategy during the 1916 Presidential Election, where Wilson’s slogan “He Kept Us Out of War” was used to great effect to highlight the benefits of neutrality. President Woodrow Wilson breaks off relations with Germany (1917) — Wikipedia Commons Despite the political pressure, U.S. neutrality would not last indefinitely. On 2 April 1917, Wilson asked Congress for a declaration of war against Germany after both the debacle of the Zimmermann Telegram and Germany’s use of unrestricted submarine warfare in the North Atlantic. Despite ending on the victorious side of the war, Wilson would still have to deal with isolationist interference in his foreign policy, with the Senate later rejecting the post-war Treaty of Versailles and U.S. involvement in the League of Nations in November 1919, which firmly prevented further American commitments in European affairs. However, his ‘America First’ rhetoric had proved popular with an American public eager to avoid war — and with nearly one in seven Americans born in one of the warring nations, Wilson had shown that ‘America First’ could provide a clear political advantage at the ballot box. Europe returns to war As war once more returned to Europe in September 1939, the question of isolationism again became a critical political question — but this time, ‘America First’ would become a much more central part of the debate around U.S. foreign policy. Just as in 1914, public opinion in 1939 was hesitant about U.S. involvement in another European war, with most Americans favouring economic recovery from the Great Depression over military intervention. After Hitler’s invasion of Poland in September 1939, Gallup conducted a poll asking about American attitudes towards support for Britain, France and Poland. The poll found that whilst most Americans supported sending food supplies to the Allies (74%-27%) and narrowly supported providing military equipment (58%-42%), direct U.S. involvement in the war was hugely unpopular (16%-84%). Protests against U.S. entry into the Second World War (1941) — Wikipedia Commons This isolationist sentiment would express itself through the America First Committee (AFC), established in September 1940 with the goal of opposing American entry into the Second World War. Originally founded at Yale University, the AFC would grow to reach 800,000 members across 450 chapters, with especially high levels of support across the Midwest. Among its founding members were Sargent Shriver (future director of the Peace Corps) and Potter Stuart (future Supreme Court Justice), alongside Gerald Ford — which gave the movement a great deal of energy and ambition. Even a young John F. Kennedy would donate $100 to the organisation, showcasing its popular appeal. The America First Committee not only opposed U.S. involvement in the war but also President Franklin Roosevelt’s Lend-Lease Plan. The plan provided material support to the Allies and aimed to make the U.S. “the great arsenal of democracy”, and after Roosevelt submitted the Lend-Lease Bill to Congress in January 1941, the group promised to oppose the measure “with all the vigor it can exert.” Despite the AFC’s fierce opposition, after much debate, Lend-Lease would pass both houses overwhelmingly, with Roosevelt’s request for $7 billion to purchase the equipment also being accepted. The AFC attracted people from across the political spectrum, ranging from union leaders, pacifists, Republicans, Democrats, socialists, anti-communists and — of course — sympathisers of Hitler’s Germany. The most prominent member of the AFC was undoubtedly the aviator Charles Lindbergh, whose popular public profile helped to attract nationwide attention to the movement. The AFC argued passionately for an ‘America First’ foreign policy, with Lindbergh asserting: “The doctrine that we must enter the wars of Europe in order to defend America will be fatal to our nation if we follow it.” However, some of the rhetoric, including from Lindbergh himself, brought accusations of antisemitism and a pro-German bias towards the group. During a speech in Des Moines, Iowa, on 11 September 1941, Lindbergh fiercely declared: “Instead of agitating for war, the Jewish groups in this country should be opposing it in every possible way for they will be among the first to feel its consequences,” and bitterly complained that “their greatest danger to this country lies in their large ownership and influence in our motion pictures, our press, our radio and our government.” The speech was heavily criticised by opponents of the AFC for its antisemitic tone and quickly raised suspicions of pro-Nazi sympathies, further damaging its reputation. From ‘America First’ to world war Despite its strong membership, the America First Committee was to collapse as quickly as it emerged. After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on the morning of 7 December 1941, an almost immediate wave of patriotic fervour swept across the nation — and only a few days later, on 11 December, the AFC disbanded itself. In a final press release, the committee laid out their future vision for America and its role in the war: “Our principles were right. Had they been followed, war could have been avoided. No good purpose can now be served by considering what might have been, had our objectives been attained. We are at war. Today, though there may be many important subsidiary considerations, the primary objective is not difficult to state. It can be completely defined in one word: Victory.” Students opposing U.S. involvement in World War Two (April 1940) — Wikipedia Commons / National Archives and Records Administration The AFC would divide opinion with its ‘America First’ rhetoric — both at the time and in the future. In April 1941 Harold Ickes, Secretary of the Interior, accused the organisation of being one of “Hitler’s unconscious tools” and took aim at both Lindbergh and Robert E. Wood (national chairman of the AFC) as being a “fellow traveller” of the Nazis. However, the AFC’s attempts to keep America out of the war remained relatively popular with an American public that perceived foreign entanglement as a threat to their interests — and the AFC were undoubtedly able to tap into this anxiety and attract supporters from across party lines. Ultimately, events overtook the ‘America First’ movement of the early 1940s and the organisation failed to prevent U.S. participation in the war, but its huge membership base and influential lobbying showed how powerful the concept of ‘America First’ could be. From Woodrow Wilson to the Second World War (and beyond), the notion of an ‘America First’ foreign policy has always had a certain allure with sections of both Democrats and Republicans — even if their leaders had very different goals in mind when championing it. And it is certainly no surprise that present-day politicians, like President Trump, have continued to take up the ‘America First’ cause and utilise it for their own purposes. History shows us that ‘America First’ is deeply rooted in American history, and the cause it represents is unlikely to disappear any time soon.

Letters America First was not a pro-Nazi organisation This article is more than 7 years old Letters Sun 5 Mar 2017 14.20 EST Share David Smith claims that the slogan “America first” “originated with Nazi sympathisers” (Trump plans huge increase in US military, 28 February). This was very far from the case, although the America First founders were certainly determined to keep the US out of the European war. The organisation America First was the 1940 brainchild of Yale student Robert Douglas Stuart, the son of the vice-chairman of the Quaker Oats Company of Chicago. Among Stuart’s fellow students on the original committee were Gerald Ford (later president of the US) and Potter Stewart (who later became a distinguished jurist). Another member, although not one of the founders, was John F Kennedy. This student organisation was quickly taken up by the isolationists in the Congress and Senate, and grew into a very considerable national organisation. It certainly attracted many people from the Republican right, but there were probably as many Democrats in its ranks. The movement was at its strongest in and around Chicago and in New York, where it was run by the leftwing journalist John T Flynn, famous for his attacks on the excesses of Wall Street and corruption in the gambling industry. From the outset, America First made it plain that Nazis and antisemites were unwelcome. Henry Ford, for example, was kicked off the board for his hostility to Jews. The movement barred American fascist organisations such as the Silver Shirts, the Ku Klux Klan and other such groups. Most of the US’s Nazis were to be found in the ranks of the noisy German-American Bund, who proved an embarrassment to the millions of their German-American countrymen. By far the biggest mistake America First made was to appoint the aviator Charles Lindbergh as one of its major spokesmen. Lindbergh’s contacts with Nazi Germany and his criticism of Jewish interests did the organisation no good at all. But America First did survive until December 1941, when it was wound up after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and Hitler’s declaration of war on the US. In an interview in 2000, the America First founder Robert Stuart was asked if the America First activists had ever held a reunion. “No, we did not,” he replied. “We may be a little sensitive to the fact that the world still thinks we’re the bad guys.” It seems that the world still does. George Rosie Edinburgh https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/mar/05/america-first-was-not-a-pro-nazi-organisation

Take it up with Maria Shriver. Sargent Shriver Robert Sargent Shriver Jr. (November 9, 1915 – January 18, 2011) was an American diplomat, politician, and activist. As the husband of Eunice Kennedy Shriver, he was part of the Kennedy family. Shriver was the driving force behind the creation of the Peace Corps, and founded the Job Corps, Head Start, VISTA, Upward Bound,[2] and other programs as the architect of the 1960s War on Poverty.[3] He was the Democratic Party's nominee for vice president in the 1972 presidential election. Born in Westminster, Maryland, Shriver attended Yale University, then Yale Law School, graduating in 1941.[2] An opponent of U.S. entry into World War II, he helped establish the America First Committee but volunteered for the United States Navy before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. During the war, he served in the South Pacific, participating in the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal. After being discharged from the navy, he worked as an assistant editor for Newsweek and met Eunice Kennedy, marrying her in 1953.

There are two different and opposing concepts here which are being conflated, and not for the first time, this being central to the historical confusion that has obtained in political understanding of the 20th century. One concept is isolationism; the other is financial support for pre-war Nazi Germany, as well as support, both pre-war, in-war, and post-war, for the Soviet Union, although that has gone unaddressed here so far. These two concepts are not the same thing, albeit pre-war propaganda successfully equated the two. Be that as it may, however, the fact that capitalist internationalists, such as Rockefeller, Harriman, Bush, created the conditions under which World War II could occur in Europe by building-up the German war machine under, yes, first neutrality, does not somehow transform those persons into isolationists. They were not. Indeed, if any of the so-called ruling elite or, if you like "fascist ruling class," could be said to want to maintain neutrality in the face of a war that they themselves helped set in motion it was the never-quite-accepted-member of that circle Joe Kennedy. He didn’t get the memo evidently that described how to create global capital integration by forcing the conditions under which the transformative world war would occur. For this reason, the internationalists — the persons who funded both Hitler and Stalin and, yes, profited from that — Harriman and Bush, e.g. — hated Joe Kennedy. He either didn’t understand or didn’t accept the multi-step process involved in creating a new world order. That could only come about through, first, world destruction, followed by the rebuilding out of the ashes — the Marshall Plan, among other things, which Bissell and Barnes personally implemented. This is the broad view of history, Don, one un-blinded by partisan loyalties, which does not confuse, conflate and obfuscate the issue or the motivations. Profiting off the support of Germany, through whatever genealogical connections you may identify, is not isolationist. If you had said “they were for Hitler before they were against him,” that would be more accurate. Similarly would be “they were for Stalin before they were against him,” too. Neither of those statements however align with or support the claim made here that Barnes and Bissell somehow reflect the non-interventionist strand in American political thought. They did not, and no supporting material has been, or could be, offered in support of this position, here or elsewhere. Indeed, even if I were to take Paul Brancati’s word that his friend has seen some picture of Barnes and Bissell from 1940 at Yale (of all places (!), THE incubating American institution for globalism, not isolationism), and presume that it depicts them at an America First rally or standing beside some banner proclaiming same or something, I would offer the thought, totally defensible in light of their later careers, that what Paul’s friend has witnessed, nay what he has fallen for, is the very political “dirty tricksterism” that Paul bemoans of these persons, these political antecedents of say a Donald Segretti or Roger Stone. (This is why I stated Paul does not analyze these persons under the deceptive tendencies he attributes to them. He sees them at an America First rally and concludes that is it, end of story, that is what they are.) That is to say, was America First in some real sense a controlled opposition scam, possibly set-up, at least infiltrated certainly, by internationalists in order that that political concept — equating isolationism with Nazism — could be shamed and ruined — as it was. This is the model after all of 20th century political warfare. Cf. CRP & The Plumbers and Watergate destroying “The Silent Majority” for a generation; see also Jan. 6. Nothing narrow whatever about this understanding, Don. It’s broader than almost anything yet published. It excludes nothing, as contrasted from your point-of-view which excludes consideration of the possibility of deception as well as the longer-term political strategy achieved by first supporting the Bolshevik Revolution (see A. Sutton), then supporting Germany, to create the inevitable conflict, then opposing it, Germany, once the conflict has been ignited. In order to have a decisive fight between and within socialism, and to ensure one form wins out as between national socialism and international socialism (the Right-Left and Left-Left I referenced before), you need to make sure both can actually have the fight. Hence the arms build-up. The U.S. meanwhile sits out the conflict for as long as possible, in keeping with its population’s overall traditional reluctance to engage in European political ideological conflicts, until as late as possible, and then enters to tip the balance in favor of the Left-Left. Next up, remove any Stalinistic nationalism that remains, which is to say begin the internationalist revolution of Trotsky, both at home and abroad. That’s the neocon revolution, the dialectical Hegelian advancement of Progress, circa 1958-2016. Cf. Moynihan, “Responses to Fukuyama,” The National Interest, Summer 1989. That’s what happened. You may not like it. That’s understandable. But that is the History and the Philosophy, both. Narrow it is not.

And FWIW, Those Angry Days is as anti-isolationist, anti-America First book you can find, replete with all sorts of dismissiveness over concerns of what might called true heartland conservatism (I pay little heed to overwrought and overinflated terms such as America First -- that being part of the psy-op -- along with the Nazi-Bund smear), but you will find no discussion whatever of persons such as Barnes and Bissell as being in any way lumped-in -- and the author lumps-in whomever she can -- with anti-interventionism. You don't like the CIA and the OSS before it. I understand. (In that regard you share far more than you will admit with the Trump wing of the current Republican Party.) But you want it both ways again, here as elsewhere: The CIA are liars and crooks and deceivers according to you but you don't analyze that deception in your analysis of what their operations and their purpose was, certainly what it would become. They're happy to play the bad guy you see because conflict, as I have said before, is what brings change. Indeed it might be the only thing that does. If you don't get that, you don't understand the philosophy of the organization and its partners in government (State, DOJ, e.g.). And to return to Allan Dulles, and his objecting to the 5412 committee going on all sorts of adventurism, which he thought would give the CIA a black eye, I'll ask again: Is that why he was fired? Because he wasn't interventionist enough? Not modern enough, too conservative in other words, for the liberal warriors of the New Frontier (Goodwin, Hilsman, Bundy, Gilpatric, Harriman et al.)? You will answer no but you do not know the answer to that. Or you are afraid to consider the possibility? The documents I have supplied, however, may support that view, that Allen Dulles was, yes, too cautious. In any event, it is something perhaps to discuss, if only the needed detachment could ever be achieved in these parts.