Matt Cloud

Whew! There's a lot in there and yes all valuable. Thank you. Here's another: Mrs. H.E. Talbott Dies in Fall; Widow of an Aide to ... The New York Times https://www.nytimes.com › 1962/07/16 › archives › mr... Mrs. Margaret Talbott, the widow of Harold E. Talbott, Secretary of the Air Force in the Eisenhower Administration, plunged to her death yesterday morning ... THE U-2 AFFAIR: HIGH-FLYING PLANE WAS BUILT ... CIA (.gov) https://www.cia.gov › readingroom › docs PDF 19, 1954, and questioned in great detail by Gardner and the scientists. over lunch with Harold Talbott, the Secretary of the Air Force,. Allen Dulles, and ... Meanwhile a tongue-in-cheek response until I've combed through more of the above: George Smathers and bawdy young woman was a pairing that continued into this century. Just don't ask me how I know.

Maybe that's why Roger Hilsman called me one day out of the blue in 2000 or so, panicked about whether Moynihan was going to go through with the Secrecy declassification legislation. Symington too, the younger. In the event it was gutted, by the aforementioned Mark A. Bradley, as part of the last minute wheeling and dealing of the Intelligence Authorization Act of that year. Arthur Schlesinger expressed his disapproval. "Mr. Bradley also served as a CIA intelligence officer and as Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan's legislative assistant for foreign affairs and intelligence matters and as his last legislative director. He co-drafted the legislation that established the Public Interest Declassification Board." https://www.archives.gov/about/organization/senior-staff/director-isoo Query: Does former Trump attorney Evan Corcoran fit in? Note the "former." https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/mss/mfdip/2004/2004cor01/2004cor01.pdf Donald Heath?

Wait, is this in there? p. 9, August 24, 1963: https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/104-10214-10036.pdf "Mr. Harriman called Mr. Helms ... and outlined to him the substance of what eventually turned out to be DepTel 243 to Saigon. To Helms query, Harriman confirmed that the thrust of the telegram contained an implicit pull out of American forces and support if the Nhus' were not ousted. Harriman said that the message had been cleared "with Hyannisport," with the Secretary of State, and with Mr. Gilpatric." Huh. So that reads like the "withdrawal policy" was actually a lever which the U.S. used to get rid of Diem and the Nhus. Interesting. Madam Nhu lived just around the corner from me in the 80s, in Washington, before she was murdered by her son. If only I had gotten her side of the story. ('Course she wasn't welcome at Germain's Vietnamese restaurant in Georgetown.)

You should. Your engagement with me has not been in your favor.

If you don't understand that progress comes through conflict -- by creating a clash -- well, you don't understand the politics of progressivism. Sorry. Read some Samuel Huntington. Understand Trotskyism and Hegel and neo-conservatism. These are the defining political philosophies of the day. Whether you like it or not. And as to the specifics of what any given underling at CIA or State or anywhere may have believed or intended, you might consider that upper-management has different agenda in mind. Of course however, management would need some rabid anti-communists on staff to begin that side of the conflict. Thanks again, Jim.

Quite addendum: You equate the idea of Kennedy giving up Vietnam in 64 or 65 with Biden given up Afghanistan, after 17 years of war? I don't see the comparison. If anything the appropriate analogy is the obvious one. Ford in 75 akin to Biden in 2021, not Kennedy in 64.

Ok .. let's see here. You equate the idea of Kennedy giving up Vietnam in 64 or 65 with Biden given up Afghanistan, after 17 years of war? I don't see the comparison. "The middle portion" refers to the middle of the Vietnam War -- 67-68, when the draft was expanded and the number of troops there reached its maximum. Perhaps you'll re-phrase whatever it is you were trying to convey in light of that clarification by me. Of course there's U.S. self-interest involved. Most obviously today, when self-interest by the US is confirmed by the current status of the VN economy and it's large role in manufacturing goods for the Western markets. And it's check on China. And at the time of the VN war, it was in the US' self-interest to not be opposed to self-determination in light of the Cold War claims being made by the Soviet Union. That's the huge propaganda issue. But U.S. couldn't simply abandon Vietnam lest huge political outcry would ensue here, largely on the Right. Ergo, how to get self-determination while making it seem like you're fighting spread of Communism. And both are actually occurring. The dominos -- which never included Cambodia and Laos -- did not fall. The Philippines, Thailand and India for example did not go the way of VN. Was there perhaps a bit of horse-trading going on as between USSR (and China) and the US? You get VN but India remains non-aligned? Something like that? And to be sure, the far more cynical and far more ugly situation in Cambodia may yet prove to have been US sanctioned from an early period (1969) through the early 1990s (support of Pol Pot) in order to ensure a check against VN's possible territorial expansion. See the late Richard Holbrooke on that score. (U.S. more imposed to 1979 VN invasion of Cambodia then to Pol Pot.) If these responses aren't sufficient perhaps you could flesh out with a little more specificity what it is you are actually asking. In any case, you might say that the left was tricked into opposing the war -- which was in ways a fulfillment of global egalitarianism, however counter-intuitive that may seem, and the right -- was tricked into supporting it. But that's the art of government, especially in the Cold War when all was (and still is) not what it may seem.

Wait I thought Haig suspected Moynihan, or at least Helms told Haig to "watch Moynihan." Or was he just deflecting, or figuring out how much Nixon already suspected? In any case, Nixon wouldn't hear of it. That could be significant. Haig said to Nixon that Helms said to Haig, "Watch Moynihan?!" (At about 47:39.) https://www.nixonlibrary.gov/white-house-tapes/923/conversation-923-005

Here's a teaser for you. I found it just behind my old Kenner X-Wing Star Wars fighter toy that David Halberstam's nephew had given me in 1978. No joke. Deep Throat writes: Wednesday, Dec. 19, 1973: "A year and a day since the bombing resumed. [That'd be the Christmas bombing of Dec. 1972.] The doors of the trap snapped shut and I have been inside since. [That doesn't sound good.] And not for the better. What did I expect? War again in Vietnam. Wrong on that one. Garment [that's Leonard Garment, WH counsel and Nixon's personal lawyer, himself a candidate for Deep Throat*] and I concluded in the bar of the Hay-Adams that Henry Kissinger had six weeks left. Not exactly one hundred percent correct there. [The neo-cons are removing the realpolitikers.] I concluded that for myself I had finally been sucked into the Vietnam swamp. True only by general extension of a resumed identity -- this time with no extenuating circumstances of the least -- with Richard Nixon. And yet it was the same Richard Nixon and the same responses that saved Israel in the year past, and seems somehow to have brought more rather than less reasonableness to the parties in conflict. The Geneva Conference is going to open. Kissinger's brilliance, but Nixon's courage. It is only the moralists who came out of this badly: having a terribly skewed sense of morality. [Emphasis mine.] *See also Garment's wife, Suzanne Weaver, Moynihan's aide at the U.N., with whom Moynihan would write A Dangerous Place (New York, Little Brown: 1978).

And as to your comment that I never got to because your other about me was so wrong that "Cloud's main published reference on Watergate is All the President's Men," I'll be reading with joy my photocopied pages from Deep Throat's diary tonight, which I have just dusted off and brought down from the attic, having been privileged to read them at Moynihan's urging at the Library of Congress in the '90s. They're now at NARA, guarded over by my former colleague, CIA agent turned archive classification authority Mark Bradley, ever since the raid on Trump. Until that is, Bradley resigned, after the Biden docs were "found." https://www.archives.gov/about/organization/senior-staff/director-isoo Maybe I'll also skim over my father's notes from the period. He was TIME's Watergate correspondent after Vietnam, after Moscow, from where he was expelled for "being a spy" and his work at the NSA during the Cuban Missile Crisis, translating those Soviet shipping cables. (His papers, including a cable on N Vietnamese troop movements in 1971 (See CIA report on "intelligence failures associated with Lom Son 719") -- were in Howard Hunt's safe, the ones that Pat Gray was supposed to destroy, that Dean had said "should never see the light of day.") https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/LOC-HAK-537-4-11-9.pdf You can stick with Secret Agenda.

Drop it.

I think that answer should already be very clear by now. No I do not; such things -- things which did not happen -- cannot be so stated as things that would have happened. It's a logical fallacy to pretend otherwise. A most honest appraisal of the understanding of Kennedy's motives comes from no less than Ted Sorenson, keeper of the Kennedy flame, who never went so far at all. Not once. Kennedy hoped the Vietnamese could shoulder the war, no doubt. Who wouldn't? But they couldn't. And after Diem, the situation got worse, not better. Moreover, this whole question rests on an absurd contradiction that fails to understand post-War policy in the United States. To be sure, it is a often (publicly) unstated policy but it is confirmed through history. (But see UN charter.) Post-war policy is to achieve self-determination for people's around the world. It is also U.S. policy to achieve de-colonialization. No more declared wars, no more wars of conquest; no more victory parades. (Israel being the exception, although that conflict is now entering a new stage. Plus the Ukraine.) If you're stuck thinking that the CIA is an instrument of imperialism you do not understand what it has been doing since its inception. It is and always has been a progressive organization. VN began and ended as a CIA war. The middle portion was to disrupt America by and large. The reason, as I stated on the other thread, why the Left, whatever part of the spectrum you want to pin them on -- be it the full left (USSR) or the center left (Harriman, Halberstam) -- are all in agreement and want the VN war is because it is the way to ensure de-colonialization. And that's what happened. That is the progressive agenda fulfilled and so the contradiction here is that many who oppose the war in VN fail to see that it was the means to achieve this. Unfortunately that is so. Neither the Left nor the Right wants to accept this. But power does not relinquish with less. And change is disruptive as Kennedy would say. The communist/anti-communist conflict was in many regards, especially in the third world, a front for a deeper agreement between both super-powers as to how to re-make the post-war order. There is more collusion between East and West in this regard than political leaders want to admit, for obvious reasons. Kennedy, like all politicians of the post-war period, was caught in this conflict and I'm sure he saw through it too, being as perceptive as he was. But I don't think that awareness could have relived him of the pressures that would fall on him had he lived. This, finally, confirms the understanding of him as one destined to be cut-down, before he could be tainted with the agonizing struggle of the war. Opposition to the Vietnam War may be a defining characteristic for many on this thread. I sense it is. But that is little more than projection onto what was, especially in the early 60s, a very complex situation. It would be helpful, especially at last today, with 60 years of hindsight and experience, if both left and right could see that Vietnam was neither a loss by the US nor an inglorious [edit: ignoble] struggle. There is plenty of reason -- the self-determination of the Vietnamese above all -- to see the war in that light, now. And it would be honest.

Right ... the significant character in all of this -- from 1951 on -- is John McMahon, who was a living cut-out for Pat Moynihan. Take a bite out of that and you're on your way to the whole enchilada.

"That crazy admiral?" Pat Moynihan (aka Deep Throat aka John McMahon) to me, 1999. https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP91-00901R000600210040-8.pdf JOHN MCMAHON TO REPLACE ADMIRAL BOBBY INMAN CIA (.gov) https://www.cia.gov › readingroom › docs PDF Mar 22, 2024 — McMahon, the number three man in the CIA, to replace Admiral. Bobby Inman. Inman resigned last week saying that he wanted.

Let's see: you misstate me, force a pointless defense by me, then when I return with "dishonest" -- which it was -- and "partisan loyalty" -- which we could explore, you then feel you can dismiss my defense as ad hominem. Cute trick. You went ad hominem to me. First. Period. You quoted me wrong, and then labeled me as associated ("Liberty Lobby") with certain political points-of-view as well. But you have now acknowledged the misquote, at least. Good. Could be better.

I didn't enter this debate, at least not on this thread. I am only here to correct the mischaracterization of what I had said. That has now been done. Why I was cited as stating one way or the other what Kennedy would do with respect to Vietnam is beyond me because as I stated it is unknown. Period. And I have never made such a statement. Plenty of others are down on record factually on that. Indeed, I have suggested on this forum that Kennedy was too conservative as regards US troop deployment. In that sense, when he was gone, yes, there was perhaps a hindrance removed in terms of escalation of the war. I do not however align with the view that that was the motive behind the assassination. And now, to your point, May 1963 is a whole lot different than October 1963, as regards the situation in Vietnam, and more different still than the Gulf of Tonkin month(s). My point all along has been that Kennedy was as susceptible as any president would be -- if not more so because of his rhetoric at least -- to pressure to commit further when and if facts on the ground so demanded. As they would. Whether he lived or not. (Not unconnected, perhaps, if you don't know, 1964 btw saw a thaw in US-Soviet relations not a chill.) In any case, even if Kennedy was reluctant even still at that point, in 1964-5, well, guess what, plenty of forces were in effect to create more terror in SVN, both "genuine" and "contrived" that would finally have forced Kennedy's hand. I do not not see any reason to think JFK and RFK were prepared to take the blame for the loss of VN. But again -- since I have an entirely different thesis as to the purpose behind the assassination, that is to say it was decades in the planning and simultaneously for protection of the Mole (i.e. Pat Moynihan) as well as to create the kind of lost mythos that has in fact happened -- the fantasia state of America that resulted with the conception of the lost king at the height of America's nobility and the ensuing paralyzing and distracting arguments over the next 60 years about who was responsible and what the motive was. All that aside, none of this has anything to do with the ostensible topic of this thread -- Secret Agenda. Again -- which I wasn't participating in. Why things have gotten so splintered around here, as to the discipline on the threads, I can't say. Again, however, a cheap grenade was thrown in my direction and I have responded to it (although as with so many of your posts), I received no notification as to that mention. Good thing I checked in to correct the record.

That's not my issue with you. My issue is simple: You mischaracterized what I wrote. Now you have provided the actual quote which doesn't say what you said it did. It says in fact what I said it did. If you want to hang your hat on 263 and the entirely speculative and hypothetical analysis it must rely on, to the exclusion of any realistic understanding of the fluidity of reality and any understanding of actual political behavior, and remain like some insect frozen in amber brought to life 60 years later go right ahead. I know all about Prouty. I know all about Secret Agenda. None of these books bother anyone. But they are neither here nor there as to my involvement on this thread. More, I'm not interested in this dishonest method of engagement by you. I have stated my thesis. You can ask for elaboration, you can disagree, you can ignore it, whatever. What I won't abide is misstatements of what I have said and then be subjected to some gotcha game of have you read this book?, have you read that book? That has no analytical merit to it. None at all. Your comments along those lines, I mean. If you want to say what do I think of the hookers at Columbia Plaza story just ask. Or -- what do I think of Prouty? Just ask. Real simple. No need for this manipulative "when did you stop beating your wife" queries and labeling by perceptive political association (which are completely without merit in the first place), which so frequently go on here, and which you specifically are doing right now. if you want to engage my analysis, do it -- straight up. But evidently you don't -- you're blinded with partisan loyalties it seems. Not my problem. But you can't solve this story that way. If that's what you are even interested in. And if you don't want to engage my analysis, ignore me. But don't go around saying I say things which I don't say, and then try and change the subject. Again -- do you understand?

You mischaracterized -- utterly -- what I said. Completely wrong. I said nothing of the sort which you alleged I did. Those are the facts I am referring to. Right? Understand?

Hey dude. No I didn't. And you should get a quote by me that supports that. Go on. What I said was it was not known what Kennedy would do -- and certainly 263 -- does not establish the question one way or the other. Indeed, if you followed my analysis, you understand that I think that Kennedy was regarded for those pushing the Vietnam War as too conservative. To Catholic. Too traditional. Like Diem. And Lansdale. And Kennedy too dedicated to special forces counterinsurgency and not mainline US troops on the ground. That said, my point was also that if CIA can instigate a monk setting himself on fire every other week, and a terrorist -- actual VC or otherwise -- blowing up a cafe three times a month, as they could -- and did, Kennedy had he lived might have found himself under pressure that he could not refuse to send in US troops. Indeed, some of those incidents were beginning to ramp up in the fall of 63 and yes 263 was reversed -- while Kennedy was alive. So get your facts straight.

https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Fs.wsj.net%2Fpublic%2Fresources%2Fimages%2FB3-CD678_MOYNIH_C_20181024161518.jpg&tbnid=6ThkQybQ7DdGnM&vet=10CAQQxiAoAGoXChMI6OryhP6uhgMVAAAAAB0AAAAAEBY..i&imgrefurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.wsj.com%2Farticles%2Fthe-odd-couple-nixon-and-moynihan-1540479048&docid=nk9RAW2AGum5JM&w=167&h=94&itg=1&q="Moynihan" Nixon&ved=0CAQQxiAoAGoXChMI6OryhP6uhgMVAAAAAB0AAAAAEBY#imgrc=6ThkQybQ7DdGnM&imgdii=Lg9nVPk5rLId0M It was my job to know the man, and his career, inside and out. And my research is finished. I'm just helping you out.

Or is it you don't think he was "distinguished-looking"? Here, color-photos better. Plus, hairs have been known to turn silver during WH employment. Fast. Especially with Nixon no doubt. https://www.google.com/imgres?q="Moynihan" Nixon&imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Fimage.pbs.org%2Fvideo-assets%2F57yLO26-asset-mezzanine-16x9-bVQ32oa.jpg&imgrefurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.pbs.org%2Fwnet%2Famericanmasters%2Fmoynihan-on-working-with-nixon-across-party-lines-clsjhu%2F31830%2F&docid=3qLaYV-Acw0pTM&tbnid=jbS6ra_i4Bd57M&vet=12ahUKEwiPy4D-_a6GAxX-FlkFHYdvBtIQM3oECFwQAA..i&w=1920&h=1080&hcb=2&ved=2ahUKEwiPy4D-_a6GAxX-FlkFHYdvBtIQM3oECFwQAA

https://www.google.com/search?sca_esv=60f5b356054dd9ee&sca_upv=1&rlz=1C5CHFA_enUS775US775&sxsrf=ADLYWILVPTYM7XWF4paPXgoL9PDvHoiAnQ:1716852500794&q="Moynihan"+Nixon&uds=ADvngMgoxBifNZSFCILBf-jevBfUPsg_yN5l45myr5CULJuFMGu8Gl-82olChWynthPTMIH5Ad5mIcqZo6GGCGNs8AvmVx5Wm1MrkAcd4jOmhZ_i11T4YNugvL0mEA9F6G-S1Fs8b9-LgTTiXxb_tsIg1V08QMjfnMGs2rMnkqVjPZCpIw0CAw7DuQ_ngri8p6CZd8xbnrHrns2d5rii7j-rVEqMZYsEEU4gzcFkKm97hjEV1uPP2HCAPvS9entZ8FJ5b_8qxzbrRvhvY8nBbbSiiIpSIpdFleBHUpA4WRCHpZoj0R8vwTBgKKWPkEUfi1RGxHdFGAPmAc6ANiQCVHayEQs76Yo4pg&udm=2&prmd=invsmbtz&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiE4sP7_a6GAxViGFkFHc-RBzoQtKgLegQIFBAB&biw=1680&bih=943&dpr=1#vhid=Lg9nVPk5rLId0M&vssid=mosaic

Just flipping through my copy of ATPM now, the most damning piece of info was that there were deliberate erasures on the tapes, from Woodward/DT meeting of early Nov. 73. Again -- Moynihan and Butterfield very close, also Georff Shepard, who did the "expletive deleted" for the transcripts. Also I'm looking for the passage that says to the effect that Watergate had much more to do with the drug operation or something like that. Will find it and post here. The book by Edward Jay Epstein -- another of Moynihan's protege -- on the drug war, which they were working on together in many ways, is also highly relevant to "untangling the knot." TIME interview with Woodward in 1976/5 he states "he [Deep Throat] has a career in government." Felt was out by then, and in trouble. That's not to exclude possibility of Woodward as ever possibly misdirecting but should be taken into consideration, withal.

Skipping to the chase, when the skip involves a quantum leap in understanding, generally results in reactionary rejection. Not worth my time. Better to take things a step at a time. Think of me as your Deep Throat, when he says "we do this my way." "i'll point you in the right direction, keep you in the ballpark," etc, but you have to come back and show me your engaged. Show me you put things together for yourself somewhat. If you don't like that, sorry. Them's the rules. I'm not really here to convince or change minds as such. Rather to suggest, and point out where things may be wrong analytically. This forum is in no way central to the action that's being taken on this. For that, you want to keep an eye on the Florida documents case. That said, a quick answer to your question would be to go back and read All The President's Men, especially the Deep Throat exchanges. What does he say: "There's a way to untangle the Watergate knot." Well, yeah, because he tied the knot. Moynihan set the Plumbers operation up in the first place ostensibly under an extension of Operation Chaos, with new emphasis on crackdown on heroin smuggling both abroad -- the French Connection -- and in large cities including in DC. (Indeed, Katherine Graham of The Post, along with Edward Bennett Williams, met most confidentially with Moynihan in the first months of the Nixon admin, when he was domestic counterpart to Kissinger as Urban Affairs Advisor, to urge Nixon to "garrison the city with army reserves.) You might know that Woodward, in his early days at the post, which is to say in circa 1970 before he was sent out to farm in Montgomery County, was covering the police and drug beat for the Post. It is in this capacity that the relationship with Moynihan developed. I have no doubt that the "distinguished silver-haired gentleman" that he met in 1969 outside the WH situation Room while then still in the Navy was Moynihan. Not the place for an FBI guy like Felt to be hanging around. lus Felt didn't have silver hair then. Moynihan did. The Drug Operation, involving Krogh, Liddy and Hunt, was also a NATO operation and the kind of thing that would be discussed in the situation room. And that brings to mind that perhaps Felt, and the "flaws" if you like in the claim that he was Deep Throat would be worthwhile place to start. Again, Felt as many have observed was not likely to be one hanging around the sit room. Deep Throat, if we are to believe Woodward, knew of the taping system. Not indication that Felt knew of this or could have known. Felt is also not really anyone Woodward would seek a mentor relationship with; Felt being of the not-in-the circle of DC elite. Total class distinction. Felt is for wiretapping. He's for busting up the Weather Underground. He supported Nixon; has no motive here. Which brings up his arrest and conviction. Just how did he secure a pardon from Reagan, who it happens benefitted tremendously from Watergate, as the New Right could emerge from the Nixon shadow. If you watch the POW-like videotape of Larry King interviewing Felt, Felt remarks that if "he [Reagan] hadn't pardoned me I would have made sure he did," or words to that effect. You might also note that the lawyer for Felt's family has stated publicly that he was extremely cognizant of making sure the Vanity Fair piece out\ting Felt was artfully worded, hence the attenuated title, "I'm the guy they called Deep Throat." I could go on, but that's enough for starters. You could also engage in a negative implication analysis -- the dog that didn't bark in the night -- but asking how is it that Moynihan's name never comes up during the Watergate hearings or in any speculation as to Deep Throat. The Watergate timeline begins basically when Moynihan first leaves the admin. He got out in the right time that is. Plenty to go on here. The question you ask however isn't necessarily the right or best one. The issue isn't the information necessarily -- as virtually all of the Post staff at the time say his significance wasn't so specific. He provided road maps and generally lines of enquiry to pursue. It's a big story -- and it's not separate from the Kennedy assassination. They are linked. A small factoid that may be of interest: It was what in 1970, after I thinkMoynihan's trip to Turkey to work on cutting down the opium supply through there that the Turkish premier broke the news that the Jupiter missiles in Turkey during the cuban missile crisis had been removed as part of a deal. That revelation, that disclosure, would have been greenlit by Moynihan, I have no doubt. t

The meaningful question as regards Moynihan and the neo-cons is why did he ostensibly break from them, in public that is, after 1982. Why do histories of neoconservatism say that after 1982 moynihan is ideologically meaningless from the neo-con pov? To begin to answer that you need to begin to understand Moynihan's relationship with DDCI John McMahon. (That's the classified portion of this history.) Remember McMahon debriefed Gary Powers plus Golitsyn and Nosenko, and then in 1985 "staked is career on Yurchenko's bona fides."