The Patriotic Assassination

[Duke Lane]

I decided to place this in its own topic after "The 1963 Secret Service" thread degenerated into white noise. Many thanks to John Dolva for his response, quoted below.

I have pursued issues in the JFK assassination to a strong degree by the ages old question of "who were the most likely beneficiaries" of JFK's removal ?

... Unlike many, I believe that the support of LBJ and JEH had to be "insured" prior to any other steps being taken. The precarious positions which these two found themselves in 1963 politically, and LBJ's additional potential of being criminally prosecuted as well as being dropped from the Democrat ticket in 1964, almost insured their support and partcipation, merely by studying both their "character flaws and history" !

... I would like opinions on how a small number within the leadership of this group, could have "truly covertly" done this ? I feel that this would have been nearly impossible.

I often think that the question of cui bono? is often examined much too narrowly, and a very possible rationale for the whitewash that was the Warren Commission examined not at all. While by no means either exhaustive or definitive, consider these possibilities:

Why could not all of America have been perceived to the chief beneficiary of JFK's death? What greater motivation might some have had other than simple all-American patriotism? Patriotism, that is, as perceived by a relative few, with or without assistance from the official and semi-official circles most often mentioned as those with axes to grind?

Could not the WC (an appropriate acronym) have been the fruit of the realization that we'd never get at the evidence of the real perps' guilt, and that the lesser evil was in incorrectly and improperly "convicting" a man "in the press" (as it were ... but with an official imprimatur) than admitting that it was going to be extremely difficult if not actually impossible to catch the real killer(s) of the President of the United States, that the case would most likely go unsolved?

Sometimes it seems as if some of the WC assistant counsel went out of the way to get strange facts on the record, even if they never themselves made any follow-up to it or even gave any reason for why some of the questions they asked were asked. Were these but hints to future readers, or even to the perps that counsel was "onto" them, even tho' they'd probably get away with it?

. . . . .

Activists there are aplenty in this world, always have been, probably always will be. They're not of one political stripe or any other: consider the arch-conservative Silent Brotherhood that gunned down Denver broadcast personality Alan Berg, the more loosely-organized (?) folks who think nothing of bombing occupied abortion clinics, and at the same time the ultra-liberals who'll likewise perform outrageous acts in the name of ecology and endangered species (probably in their case killing more people out of naivete than actual malice), all simply to make a point about how the world should be in their view?

The Cold War world of 1963 was not far behind the days of the Communist-hunting campaign of Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy, whom many people still considered a true American hero and patriot. No matter your view on that subject, McCarthy's aims and tactics were celebrated by many as being the only true and correct way to root out the evil of the Communist menace from our democratic shores: "the Senator was a great American whose memory we must all revere" was how one conservative writer (below) put it in 1964.

... And John F. Kennedy - rich, young, Yankee, liberal, Democrat, Catholic - was going to simply give away our country to the USSR: not even sell us out, just give it all away. Or so went the outlook of - and outpourings from - the political Right, notably but not limited to the John Birch Society (JBS), "States Rights" parties, KKK and other conservative groups ... the "right-wing extremists," which the following author calls "the Bolshevik's code-word for informed and loyal Americans," that is, people just like you and me and all of us.

For a look at their version of Rush Limbaugh (on steroids!), read not only the WC testimony but also the collected works of one Professor Revilo Pendleton Oliver (or "RPO" to his friends and adherents; the link is to a search index because the revilo-oliver.com main page is currently hacked). In one article, "Marxmanship in Dallas" published in the February 1964 JBS periodical American Opinion (and written around Christmas, 1963), he haughtily notes in reference to the assassination that "obviously, something went wrong in Dallas — in our favor, this time," which he goes on to characterize as

... an act of violence both deplorable and ominous — as ominous as the violence excited by the infamous Martin Luther King and other criminals engaged in inciting race war with the approval and even, it is said, the

active co-operation of the White House

. It was as deplorable and ominous as the violence of the uniformed goons (protected by reluctant and ashamed soldiers) whom Kennedy,

in open violation of the American Constitution

, sent into Oxford, Mississippi, to kick into submission American citizens, whom the late Mr. Kennedy had come to regard as his livestock.

Such lawlessness, regardless of the identity of the perpetrators or their professed motives, is as alarming as the outbreak of a fire in a house, and if not speedily extinguished, will destroy the whole social order.

[emphases added]

And such was the threat of John Fitzgerald Kennedy as President, whose loss to the world was not to be mourned:

Rational men will understand that, far from sobbing over the deceased or lying to placate his vengeful ghost, it behooves us to speak of him with complete candor and historical objectivity. Jack was not sanctified by a bullet.

The defunct Kennedy is the John F. Kennedy who procured his election by peddling boob-bait to the suckers, including a cynical pledge to destroy the Communist base in Cuba. He is the John F. Kennedy with whose blessing and support the Central Intelligence Agency staged a fake "invasion" of Cuba designed to strengthen our mortal enemies there and to disgrace us — disgrace us not only by ignominious failure, but by the inhuman crime of having lured brave men into a trap and sent them to suffering and death. He is the John F. Kennedy who, in close collaboration with Khrushchev, staged the phony "embargo" that was improvised both to befuddle the suckers on election day in 1962 and to provide for several months a cover for the steady and rapid transfer of Soviet troops and Soviet weapons to Cuba for eventual use against us. He is the John F. Kennedy who installed and maintained in power the unspeakable Yarmolinsky-McNamara gang in the Pentagon to demoralize and subvert our armed forces and to sabotage our military installations and equipment. He is the John F. Kennedy who, by shameless intimidation, bribery, and blackmail, induced weaklings in Congress to approve treasonable acts designed to disarm us and to make us the helpless prey of the affiliated criminals and savages of the "United Nations."

I have mentioned but a few of the hundred reasons why we shall never forget John F. Kennedy. So long as their are Americans, his memory will be cherished with execration and loathing. If the United States is saved by the desperate exertions of patriots, we may have a future of true greatness and glory — but we will never forget how near we were to total destruction in the year 1963. And if the international vermin succeed in completing their occupation of our country, Americans will remember Kennedy while they live, and will curse him as they face the firing squads or toil in brutish degradation that leaves no hope for anything but a speedy death.

"We will never forget how near we were to total destruction in the year 1963," he said, a destruction apparently circumvented primarily if not solely by the death of JFK. What "informed and loyal American" - what person just like you and me and the rest of us - would not consider it an honor to remove such a pestilence from the highest office of the land, that with the most influence and power over how our country moved ahead or if it even survived - if we even survived! - who aspired, it seemed to some, to destroy all that is "America" and "American?"

His re-election - which all seem to agree was in the offing - would have guaranteed it. All would be lost - our world today probably unrecognizable - unless RPO's "outbreak of a fire in a house" was in fact "speedily extinguished."

As I said: it is possible that "all of America" was the chief beneficiary. at least in the minds of those who perforce were able to plan and carry out the execution of the President, who may have been nothing less than patriots for whom the ends justified the means. As RPO also noted in another context, "there were enough honest and patriotic men on [the Dallas] police force" to identify and arrest Oswald (tho' "it required a gunman from outside to do the job" of killing him!).

Perhaps the final quoted paragraph above sums it up best as RPO notes that the US would in the end be well served if it survives now as a result of the "desperate exertions of patriots," whom he has already defined and identified with as informed and loyal Americans, honest and patriotic men who will, he said, "so long as there are Americans," carry JFK's memory "in execration and loathing" (let none say that RPO's speech was anything less than picturesque!). He defines Americans and patriots; is he saying also that their "desperate exertions" - as much as they hated shooting the SOB, he needed killing and someone had to do it - resulted directly in JFK's death?

If such people were in fact the perpetrators, how extremely fortuitous for "honest and patriotic men," those "informed and loyal Americans," those misnomered "right-wing extremists" to have a "Communist" to blame for killing the "Communist" President, the killer in turn being murdered by yet another "Communist" night-club owner cum "gunman from outside!" Talk about pervasive!

The question is: is it persuasive?!? Or is it merely a case of a strong offense ...?

John Dolva's response:

Really excellent summary IMO, Duke.

Further, (IMO): In reading RPO's artice one notes that the very FIRST thing he sets about to do is to set the stage for what follows in his writings, and this is verbalising in an academic tone a justification for it.

What I mean by this is that not only did he recognise that such ammunition was necessary for those who choose to follow his notions, but also he placed himself as a leading thinker, which serves a purpose of others not having to think, but rather feel the justification. Just accept the premise, and the rest is easy to assimilate. Following this non-sense, having justified the demolition of the 'Kennedy Myth', he then flows smoothly into the demolition, and then into the formation of a number of threads that have partly consumed the research community since then. He and others like him 'set the agenda'. One needs only (for oneself) see through the initial few pages to know what is to come.

As such his (and the writings of his compatriots like Ned Touchstone and Dan Smoo et al) contribution is easily put in context and applying a 'negative template' to it much can be understood.

One can almost get the impression that there is not just a little self-congratulation going on here and, recognizing the audience, a bit of information dissemination to boot....

[Myra Bronstein]

I don't think a discussion like this can be complete without addressing the original goal(s) of the plot, and whether or not the perps accomplished all of their goal(s). Obviously the murder was a goal.

If, as seems logical to me, a second goal was to blame a "commie" country, like Cuba or Russia, and start or escalate a hot war as a result (not to mention further vilifying "commies"), then the perps didn't accomplish their goal.

The benefactors of war are: military (to justify their existence and budget) and industrial (to make loads of blood money). In the case of Cuba potential benefactors would have included those with businesses--casinos, fruit, banks, sugar--that were nationalized by Castro, who wanted their business back. United Fruit?/Standard Fruit?/CIA.

The war profiteers did get some of what they wanted eventually with Vietnam. But I think they wanted a bigger and more immediate bang for their buck and didn't get that.

They sheep-dipped Oswald for a reason.

[Duke Lane]

I don't think a discussion like this can be complete without addressing the original goal(s) of the plot, and whether or not the perps accomplished all of their goal(s). Obviously the murder was a goal.

If, as seems logical to me, a second goal was to blame a "commie" country, like Cuba or Russia, and start or escalate a hot war as a result (not to mention further vilifying "commies"), then the perps didn't accomplish their goal.

... They sheep-dipped Oswald for a reason.

A goals of any crime are:

1. to accomplish it;
   
2. to get away;
   
3. to not get caught afterward.
   

Are you familiar with the concept of red herrings? Think it through ....

[John Simkin]

Thank you for bring my attention to Revilo Pendleton Oliver.

[Myra Bronstein]

I don't think a discussion like this can be complete without addressing the original goal(s) of the plot, and whether or not the perps accomplished all of their goal(s). Obviously the murder was a goal.

If, as seems logical to me, a second goal was to blame a "commie" country, like Cuba or Russia, and start or escalate a hot war as a result (not to mention further vilifying "commies"), then the perps didn't accomplish their goal.

... They sheep-dipped Oswald for a reason.

A goals of any crime are:

1. to accomplish it;
   
2. to get away;
   
3. to not get caught afterward.
   

Are you familiar with the concept of red herrings? Think it through ....

And the gist of my post, Duke, was: what is IT?

Think it through...

[Mark Stapleton]

I decided to place this in its own topic after "The 1963 Secret Service" thread degenerated into white noise. Many thanks to John Dolva for his response, quoted below.

I have pursued issues in the JFK assassination to a strong degree by the ages old question of "who were the most likely beneficiaries" of JFK's removal ?

... Unlike many, I believe that the support of LBJ and JEH had to be "insured" prior to any other steps being taken. The precarious positions which these two found themselves in 1963 politically, and LBJ's additional potential of being criminally prosecuted as well as being dropped from the Democrat ticket in 1964, almost insured their support and partcipation, merely by studying both their "character flaws and history" !

... I would like opinions on how a small number within the leadership of this group, could have "truly covertly" done this ? I feel that this would have been nearly impossible.

I often think that the question of cui bono? is often examined much too narrowly, and a very possible rationale for the whitewash that was the Warren Commission examined not at all. While by no means either exhaustive or definitive, consider these possibilities:

Why could not all of America have been perceived to the chief beneficiary of JFK's death? What greater motivation might some have had other than simple all-American patriotism? Patriotism, that is, as perceived by a relative few, with or without assistance from the official and semi-official circles most often mentioned as those with axes to grind?

Could not the WC (an appropriate acronym) have been the fruit of the realization that we'd never get at the evidence of the real perps' guilt, and that the lesser evil was in incorrectly and improperly "convicting" a man "in the press" (as it were ... but with an official imprimatur) than admitting that it was going to be extremely difficult if not actually impossible to catch the real killer(s) of the President of the United States, that the case would most likely go unsolved?

Sometimes it seems as if some of the WC assistant counsel went out of the way to get strange facts on the record, even if they never themselves made any follow-up to it or even gave any reason for why some of the questions they asked were asked. Were these but hints to future readers, or even to the perps that counsel was "onto" them, even tho' they'd probably get away with it?

. . . . .

Activists there are aplenty in this world, always have been, probably always will be. They're not of one political stripe or any other: consider the arch-conservative Silent Brotherhood that gunned down Denver broadcast personality Alan Berg, the more loosely-organized (?) folks who think nothing of bombing occupied abortion clinics, and at the same time the ultra-liberals who'll likewise perform outrageous acts in the name of ecology and endangered species (probably in their case killing more people out of naivete than actual malice), all simply to make a point about how the world should be in their view?

The Cold War world of 1963 was not far behind the days of the Communist-hunting campaign of Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy, whom many people still considered a true American hero and patriot. No matter your view on that subject, McCarthy's aims and tactics were celebrated by many as being the only true and correct way to root out the evil of the Communist menace from our democratic shores: "the Senator was a great American whose memory we must all revere" was how one conservative writer (below) put it in 1964.

... And John F. Kennedy - rich, young, Yankee, liberal, Democrat, Catholic - was going to simply give away our country to the USSR: not even sell us out, just give it all away. Or so went the outlook of - and outpourings from - the political Right, notably but not limited to the John Birch Society (JBS), "States Rights" parties, KKK and other conservative groups ... the "right-wing extremists," which the following author calls "the Bolshevik's code-word for informed and loyal Americans," that is, people just like you and me and all of us.

For a look at their version of Rush Limbaugh (on steroids!), read not only the WC testimony but also the collected works of one Professor Revilo Pendleton Oliver (or "RPO" to his friends and adherents; the link is to a search index because the revilo-oliver.com main page is currently hacked). In one article, "Marxmanship in Dallas" published in the February 1964 JBS periodical American Opinion (and written around Christmas, 1963), he haughtily notes in reference to the assassination that "obviously, something went wrong in Dallas — in our favor, this time," which he goes on to characterize as

... an act of violence both deplorable and ominous — as ominous as the violence excited by the infamous Martin Luther King and other criminals engaged in inciting race war with the approval and even, it is said, the

active co-operation of the White House

. It was as deplorable and ominous as the violence of the uniformed goons (protected by reluctant and ashamed soldiers) whom Kennedy,

in open violation of the American Constitution

, sent into Oxford, Mississippi, to kick into submission American citizens, whom the late Mr. Kennedy had come to regard as his livestock.

Such lawlessness, regardless of the identity of the perpetrators or their professed motives, is as alarming as the outbreak of a fire in a house, and if not speedily extinguished, will destroy the whole social order.

[emphases added]

And such was the threat of John Fitzgerald Kennedy as President, whose loss to the world was not to be mourned:

Rational men will understand that, far from sobbing over the deceased or lying to placate his vengeful ghost, it behooves us to speak of him with complete candor and historical objectivity. Jack was not sanctified by a bullet.

The defunct Kennedy is the John F. Kennedy who procured his election by peddling boob-bait to the suckers, including a cynical pledge to destroy the Communist base in Cuba. He is the John F. Kennedy with whose blessing and support the Central Intelligence Agency staged a fake "invasion" of Cuba designed to strengthen our mortal enemies there and to disgrace us — disgrace us not only by ignominious failure, but by the inhuman crime of having lured brave men into a trap and sent them to suffering and death. He is the John F. Kennedy who, in close collaboration with Khrushchev, staged the phony "embargo" that was improvised both to befuddle the suckers on election day in 1962 and to provide for several months a cover for the steady and rapid transfer of Soviet troops and Soviet weapons to Cuba for eventual use against us. He is the John F. Kennedy who installed and maintained in power the unspeakable Yarmolinsky-McNamara gang in the Pentagon to demoralize and subvert our armed forces and to sabotage our military installations and equipment. He is the John F. Kennedy who, by shameless intimidation, bribery, and blackmail, induced weaklings in Congress to approve treasonable acts designed to disarm us and to make us the helpless prey of the affiliated criminals and savages of the "United Nations."

I have mentioned but a few of the hundred reasons why we shall never forget John F. Kennedy. So long as their are Americans, his memory will be cherished with execration and loathing. If the United States is saved by the desperate exertions of patriots, we may have a future of true greatness and glory — but we will never forget how near we were to total destruction in the year 1963. And if the international vermin succeed in completing their occupation of our country, Americans will remember Kennedy while they live, and will curse him as they face the firing squads or toil in brutish degradation that leaves no hope for anything but a speedy death.

"We will never forget how near we were to total destruction in the year 1963," he said, a destruction apparently circumvented primarily if not solely by the death of JFK. What "informed and loyal American" - what person just like you and me and the rest of us - would not consider it an honor to remove such a pestilence from the highest office of the land, that with the most influence and power over how our country moved ahead or if it even survived - if we even survived! - who aspired, it seemed to some, to destroy all that is "America" and "American?"

His re-election - which all seem to agree was in the offing - would have guaranteed it. All would be lost - our world today probably unrecognizable - unless RPO's "outbreak of a fire in a house" was in fact "speedily extinguished."

As I said: it is possible that "all of America" was the chief beneficiary. at least in the minds of those who perforce were able to plan and carry out the execution of the President, who may have been nothing less than patriots for whom the ends justified the means. As RPO also noted in another context, "there were enough honest and patriotic men on [the Dallas] police force" to identify and arrest Oswald (tho' "it required a gunman from outside to do the job" of killing him!).

Perhaps the final quoted paragraph above sums it up best as RPO notes that the US would in the end be well served if it survives now as a result of the "desperate exertions of patriots," whom he has already defined and identified with as informed and loyal Americans, honest and patriotic men who will, he said, "so long as there are Americans," carry JFK's memory "in execration and loathing" (let none say that RPO's speech was anything less than picturesque!). He defines Americans and patriots; is he saying also that their "desperate exertions" - as much as they hated shooting the SOB, he needed killing and someone had to do it - resulted directly in JFK's death?

If such people were in fact the perpetrators, how extremely fortuitous for "honest and patriotic men," those "informed and loyal Americans," those misnomered "right-wing extremists" to have a "Communist" to blame for killing the "Communist" President, the killer in turn being murdered by yet another "Communist" night-club owner cum "gunman from outside!" Talk about pervasive!

The question is: is it persuasive?!? Or is it merely a case of a strong offense ...?

John Dolva's response:

Really excellent summary IMO, Duke.

Further, (IMO): In reading RPO's artice one notes that the very FIRST thing he sets about to do is to set the stage for what follows in his writings, and this is verbalising in an academic tone a justification for it.

What I mean by this is that not only did he recognise that such ammunition was necessary for those who choose to follow his notions, but also he placed himself as a leading thinker, which serves a purpose of others not having to think, but rather feel the justification. Just accept the premise, and the rest is easy to assimilate. Following this non-sense, having justified the demolition of the 'Kennedy Myth', he then flows smoothly into the demolition, and then into the formation of a number of threads that have partly consumed the research community since then. He and others like him 'set the agenda'. One needs only (for oneself) see through the initial few pages to know what is to come.

As such his (and the writings of his compatriots like Ned Touchstone and Dan Smoo et al) contribution is easily put in context and applying a 'negative template' to it much can be understood.

One can almost get the impression that there is not just a little self-congratulation going on here and, recognizing the audience, a bit of information dissemination to boot....

Duke,

I think that was an informative and thought provoking post (hopefully this will mitigate the likelihood of my being on the recieving end of your acerbic wit).

These characters certainly displayed a special brand of insanity, based on hatred of any dissent from their narrow worldview. Fear was behind it all, imo, but someone like Steve Turner is more qualified than myself to comment on this.

As for them being the driving force behind the assassination, I doubt they had the reach to go it alone. Despite the obvious fact that Dallas was their home turf, there's all kinds of things required for an operation with the complexity and magnitude of the assassination of the Pres. Sheepdipping patsies, murdering witnesses and other recalcitrants, destroying evidence, arranging for the cabinet (most of) to be absent, garnering unanimous support from the mainstream media, establishing phony investigations etc, etc. It required more than affiliations within the DPD and other Dallas city officials, imo. And they would have felt mightily betrayed when LBJ subsequently gave them civil rights legislation for their trouble.

That said, its possible they may have been a driving force in persuading those in the power loop that this was the only way.

The most disturbing thing about your post is the possibility that others (such as Lemnitzer, Craig, LBJ, Hoover and some of the mega-wealthy, who were in the real power loop) actually shared the views of people like RPO but were more circumspect in expressing these views publicly.

Again, fine post.

[Duke Lane]

I don't think a discussion like this can be complete without addressing the original goal(s) of the plot, and whether or not the perps accomplished all of their goal(s). Obviously the murder was a goal.

If, as seems logical to me, a second goal was to blame a "commie" country, like Cuba or Russia, and start or escalate a hot war as a result (not to mention further vilifying "commies"), then the perps didn't accomplish their goal.

... They sheep-dipped Oswald for a reason.

A goals of any crime are:

1. to accomplish it;
   
2. to get away;
   
3. to not get caught afterward.
   

Are you familiar with the concept of red herrings? Think it through ....

And the gist of my post, Duke, was: what is IT?

Think it through...

First, a re-phrase of my "goals" list:

1. to accomplish a crime;
   
2. to not be suspected;
   
3. to not be caught if suspected.
   

These same three goals can be attributed to any crime, from shoplifting to murder.

The initial goal to be accomplished here was the removal of the President, in this case by murder. It is, in fact, the ultimate if not the only goal to consider here because all of the rest lead to places loaded with "ifs."

IF the goal was to blame a Communist country, IF the goal was to start or escalate a hot war, then you're right: the perps didn't necessarily accomplish their goals ... IF those were their goals at all. They may have been, but not provably so, especially since you can't say who the killers are to determine what motive(s) they might have had.

(That hot war actually escalated in 'Nam almost immediately afterward does not mean that it was a goal of the assassination, even if it was a consequence. North Vietnam did, however, happen to be Communist, so who's to say the perps didn't accomplish their goal? Just because it wasn't a direct conflict with the USSR?)

What people might do after an obstacle is removed, however they might be able to take advantage of a situation where there is no longer opposition as a result of someone else's action, that they were able to profit as a result of the result of that action does not necessarily make them complicit.

Example: If I kill you and you therefore are not in a place you otherwise would have been (e.g., walking to your doctor's office), thus you're not present to save a child from being hit by a bus, does not mean that I killed you so the child would get run over, or so the bus driver would go to jail. That someone else wanted that bus driver out of the picture so he could marry the bus driver's wife does not necessarily link him to your murder, even though it allowed him to do what he wanted.

People take advantage of situations as they arise. It doesn't mean that they contrived the situation to be what it is, or even knew that it would be what it is. Not everyone who had a motive to kill JFK did kill JFK - otherwise there probably wouldn't have been room in DP for the public - nor did everyone or every entity that gained directly or indirectly by his death have a hand in it, or even advance knowledge of it. Many people might even have wished it would happen, some even glad when it did happen. That doesn't make them complicit.

We do know, however, that a primary goal was murder, by the simple fact it was accomplished. That guns were introduced into the environment and actually discharged is sufficient to prove intent. This is true in my example scenario as well as in the JFK assassination.

If I can divert suspicion from myself, then I am well served in my second goal: to not be suspected. If someone ran out of a jewelry store that I'd been in, I might note how he'd been leaning over a shelf just before he took off running, and - lo and behold! - there's a diamond necklace missing. The natural inclination is to chase the running man while I walk casually away, the necklace in my pocket: I was a witness, not a suspect. By the time they caught up with him, I might well have been forgotten, might well have been essentially ignored as being relatively unimportant.

If they catch up to him and he has no necklace in his possession, suspicion may turn to me. That being so, I will have given the necklace to a cohort who was nearby so that by the time security caught up with me, I wouldn't have any incriminating evidence upon me: if suspected, I wouldn't be caught.

In the case at hand (JFK), a "Communist" killer was a major diversion. That he was himself killed before he could prove his denials - and deny, he did! - left the question open in a world where Commies were the omnipresent bogeymen, intent on subjugating the entire world by any and all means. Today, I might flee the scene wearing a kaffiyeh to ensure that "Arab terrorists" were suspected!

The important point is to divert suspicion. If you're successful, you won't get caught. The more suspects there are, the less likely the right one will be! I think, after all, Pogo said it best.

[Steve Thomas]

John,

Thank you for bring my attention to Revilo Pendleton Oliver.

Have you ever listened to tapes of any of his speeches?

It's enough to make you nauseous.

Nice command of the English language, but my oh my.

Steve Thomas

[Duke Lane]

Duke,

I think that was an informative and thought provoking post (hopefully this will mitigate the likelihood of my being on the recieving end of your acerbic wit).

Flattery will get you everywhere ... but don't count on it!!

These characters certainly displayed a special brand of insanity, based on hatred of any dissent from their narrow worldview. Fear was behind it all, imo, but someone like Steve Turner is more qualified than myself to comment on this.

As for them being the driving force behind the assassination, I doubt they had the reach to go it alone. Despite the obvious fact that Dallas was their home turf, there's all kinds of things required for an operation with the complexity and magnitude of the assassination of the Pres. Sheepdipping patsies, murdering witnesses and other recalcitrants, destroying evidence, arranging for the cabinet (most of) to be absent, garnering unanimous support from the mainstream media, establishing phony investigations etc, etc. It required more than affiliations within the DPD and other Dallas city officials, imo. And they would have felt mightily betrayed when LBJ subsequently gave them civil rights legislation for their trouble.

That Dallas was the "home base" for anyone is not necessarily probative, unless one ignores Chicago and Tampa, and potentially other places that we're not aware of (e.g., were aborted, weren't detected, etc.). The people discussed as part of this "patriotic coup" were not based in one place, and even the fact that Dallas was then considered a "hotbed" of ultra-conservative causes (as, say, Idaho and Oregon are today) does not mean that sympathizers were not in several other places, or did not or could not move between places, including places to meet and plan an action.

It likewise does not mean that any one group was involved since many had similar philosophies and roots: for example, JBS (or maybe it was States Rights? I forget since they're often so amorphous) was organized in the home of a local KKK wizard. According to an account of the Silent Brotherhood (a later group), they often supported each other if their aims coincided, or complemented the other. Assets from one organization in, say, Florida might travel halfway across the country to aid another based in Oregon do something in Colorado, as with the Alan Berg incident and events leading up to it.

Members were drawn from a wide range of people, including state and local officials (e.g., Bull Connor, a county commissioner in Birmingham, Alabama, most infamous for setting firehoses and dogs on voting-rights demonstrators), police, military personnel (including generals, such as Edwin Walker, who was more of a "sponsor" and "agitator" than a "member"), doctors and lawyers, as well as your "average Joe."

It is a great misconception that all were uneducated hicks in overalls, incapable of pulling off an assassination, much less without getting caught.

An interesting and possibly parallel case is that of the September 15, 1963, bombing of Birmingham's Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, not alone because it came to pass that J. Edgar Hoover had blocked evidence and closed the investigation. Four men were under investigation almost right from the beginning: Robert Chambliss, Herman Cash, Thomas Blanton and Bobby Frank Cherry. Chambliss, the ringleader, was convicted of one count of murder only after 15 years had passed (and a Justice Department investigation revealed Hoover's malfeasance). Blanton and Cherry were indicted even later - in 2000, 37 years after the bombing! - and convicted one and two years later, respectively. Cherry died in prison in 2004 in his eighties; Cash, who was not indicted, died in 1994. Chambliss, who also died in prison in 1985, never publicly admitted to his role in the bombing, even after his conviction and sentencing to life in prision.

And there are those among us that think "someone would have talked?!"

There is nothing to preclude the possibility that the actual shooters were from elsewhere, or that anybody in Dallas necessarily knew who they were - or that their identity, at least, was widely known. All that would be required - as people like to say about the Secret Service - is for certain actions to be not taken, people ignored, actions overlooked, leads not followed. This was clearly the case with, say, other firearms being reported on the police radio, even including one in the vicinity of 10th and Patton after LHO had been carted away to City Hall, and a rifle in a station wagon after Tippit had been shot (with R.C. Nelson having been sent to investigate it, then subsequently leaving pursuit to a "civilian" as he himself went to Oak Cliff in search of the cop-killer). None of these people - assuming even that they were looked into - was brought downtown as an "investigative witness," that is, simply for questioning.

As to things like "the Cabinet" being on a plane over the Pacific when the news broke, that could well be a normal situation that gained significance only after the fact. If it can be stated unequivocally that this had never happened before and has never happened since, perhaps it might be important ... but if it's only "odd" or "suspicious," then it may well be nothing more than government functioning as it always did.

Where was the Cabinet - or several members of it - in October when Kennedy was in Chicago, or earlier in the month when he'd visited Tampa? If they'd been likewise out of circulation at those times, then there's a whiff of conspiracy in this. If not, it only goes to show that having them outside CONUS was not by any means necessary to the success of assassination: after all, even if they were all in Washington on November 22, there was nothing at all they could have done to prevent Kennedy's murder, and nothing at all they could've said that would have changed anything LBJ did in its aftermath as President. Likewise, if they were in Washington during the Chicago and Tampa trips, and one of those plans had been successful, how would anything that ensued have changed?

I don't think having the Cabinet out of town was central to the plot, but turned out to be perhaps a happy circumstance for the plotters, and one more place for suspicion to be cast ... away from the actual perpetrators!

Finally, as to "sheepdipping," what was more necessary was simply being aware of the activities of malcontents, as they were with not Oswald alone, but also others in the TSBD such as Joe Molina, a member of a veterans' organization similar to, say, the VFW except that it focused on Mexican-American veterans. DPD apparently considered it quite "subversive," in apparently much the same way as they did the ACLU and anything else remotely liberal or in favor of "lesser citizens" like Mexicans and Negroes. Is it not interesting that DPD surveilled those groups, but not Walker's acolytes when they were in town? Why wasn't Walker under surveillance himself that April night when he was shot at? After all, he'd been arrested and charged in several federal crimes. Did DPD not consider his brand of politics "subversive" or dangerous in any way at all? Clearly the powers that be who dismissed him from his command did. DPD would rather spy on a bunch of Mexicans in a veterans beer hall than someone who was forcibly retired from the military for his non-conformist views?

That said, its possible they may have been a driving force in persuading those in the power loop that this was the only way.

... Again, fine post.

I left the last sentence just to bask in the flattery once more!

The biggest driving force in persuading those in the power loop that "a bird in hand is worth two in the bush" is, in my estimate, the realization that there was not going to be any evidence developed against anyone other than Oswald. The actual perps could have covered their tracks exceedingly well (especially given the reprieve of the Tippit diversion), and/or those charged with collecting the evidence could simply have ignored or destroyed it.

In any case, it's not "evidence" until an investigator actually turns it in, reports it, or at the very least, acknowledges it. If that doesn't happen, then for all intents and purposes, it never existed. What doesn't exist can't be used in a prosecution, and somebody clearly needed to be prosecuted if possible, or the dead sole suspect "convicted" if not. That Oswald was not a Communist and was not acting on behalf of any Communist entity needed to be proven to satisfy the American people and mollify the Soviets, and thus prevent any possible conflict between the US and a Communist nation-state, especially the in-this-event guiltless USSR.

No matter what, the murder of the President could not go unsolved, and that is the biggest driving force of all. Even today, nearly 45 years later, the US Government will not admit - indeed, in the scheme of things, cannot admit - that it was unable to solve Kennedy's murder, that it "convicted" the wrong guy, and that it actually has no real idea - or at least no proof of - Who Killed Jack.

After all, it took 'em 39 years to prosecute and convict the killers of four little black girls in an Alabama church with no such constraint, didn't it?

[Thomas Graves]

In post #9, Duke Lane said:

[...] The actual perps could have covered their tracks exceedingly well (especially given the reprieve of the Tippit diversion) [...]

_________________________

Duke, excellent point. I'd never thought of the Tippit shooting as being a diversion, but it does make sense....

--T.G.

_________________________

In the same post, Duke also said:

[...] That Oswald was not a Communist and was not acting on behalf of any Communist entity needed to be proven to satisfy the American people and mollify the Soviets, and thus prevent any possible conflict between the US and a Communist nation-state, especially the in-this-event guiltless USSR. [...]

___________________________

Duke, another excellent point.

Makes me look at LHO's handcuffed, defiant and somewhat puzzling "Communist salute" in a different way, as if he's saying, "If the authorities want to avoid WW III, they're gonna have to realize real quickly that I'm a triple agent," (or something like that), and that my activities have been sanctioned, to the best of my knowledge, by an agency of the U.S. government. In fact, I was led by that agency to believe that my mission was to try to prevent the assassination of JFK and/or help to entrap the conspirators."

Unfortunately, the authorities were able to convince the American people (and themselves?) that LHO was just your run-of-the-mill highly-perturbed sociopath....

--Thomas

___________________________

Edited May 23, 2007 by Thomas Graves

[Duke Lane]

In post #9, Duke Lane said:

[...] The actual perps could have covered their tracks exceedingly well (especially given the reprieve of the Tippit diversion) [...]

Duke, excellent point. I'd never thought of the Tippit shooting as being a diversion, but it does make sense....

Thomas, you're not alone. In fact, for the hundreds of pounds of books I've got on my shelves on this topic, I don't believe anybody has ever suggested that, so ... it must not be true! Even Harold Weisberg missed it, QED! (Ummm ... did Posner, Myers or Bugliosi mention it? If not, it's clearly immaterial!)

In the same post, Duke also said:

[...] That Oswald was

not

a Communist and was

not

acting on behalf of any Communist entity needed to be proven to satisfy the American people and mollify the Soviets, and thus prevent any possible conflict between the US and a Communist nation-state, especially the in-this-event guiltless USSR. [...]

Duke, another excellent point.

Makes me look at LHO's handcuffed, defiant and somewhat puzzling "Communist salute" in a different way, as if he's saying, "If the authorities want to avoid WW III, they're gonna have to realize real quickly that I'm a triple agent," (or something like that), and that my activities have been sanctioned, to the best of my knowledge, by an agency of the U.S. government. In fact, I was led by that agency to believe that my mission was to try to prevent the assassination of JFK and/or help to entrap the conspirators."

Unfortunately, the authorities were able to convince the American people (and themselves?) that LHO was just your run-of-the-mill highly-perturbed sociopath....

--Thomas

Read Weisberg. It's actually pretty amazing that anyone could write so many words in succession without typos or cross-outs on a manual typewriter as he - or more likely Lillian - did, or organize their thoughts without aid of a word processor in 1965. He claimed - despite the "shrill" nature in which he presented his material, the sole "substantial" criticism I've ever read about his stuff - that nobody had or has ever proven any of his assertions in error. (I wonder: did Bugliosi even try, specifically?)

He might ask: what is the proof that Oswald's expression was a "Communist salute?" Or was that merely the "spin" (not a word then, at least not in the same context!) that the authorities put on it to make their sole suspect the "obvious perpetrator?" Did LHO ever utter a word that we are aware of - and if he ever uttered one, wouldn't we be aware of it, even among Fritz's supposedly un-taken notes? - about his beliefs that anyone would or should interpret the handcuffed-fist photo as a "Communist salute?" Did anyone else - other than the WC and Gerald Posner - attribute such beliefs or actions to him? If so, can you name them and cite their testimonies?

Edited May 23, 2007 by Duke Lane

[Duke Lane]

Thank you for bring my attention to Revilo Pendleton Oliver.

Well, shoot, there, John: you know I'm always trying to be accomodatin'! Anyone else you can think of that you haven't thought of lately?