Can we really understand the murder of President Kennedy

[Myra Bronstein]

...

Robert Gaylon Ross offered a theory regarding the countries of Iran, Iraq, North Korea, which basically stated that a possible ulterior motive that these countries would have been targeted by the West is due to the fact that they are three of the small handfull of countries which, do not have a Central Bank, interesting idea......

Really interesting idea Robert.

I don't think it would be the first time that a country is punished for refusing to turn over their monetary system to private central bankers.

I read that the Rothschild banker Jacob Schiff retaliated against Russian Tsars, who spurned central banks & supported President Lincoln (who bypassed the central banks to print his own greenbacks), by spending $20 million through the firm, Kuhn, Loeb & Co. to finance the Russian Revolution.

[Myra Bronstein]

Myra

Alfred McCoy in his books confirms your suspicions.

It never ended, Oliver North brought the industry to

Central America in the 1980s and just look at the

situation in Afghanistan today !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yes Shanet. And didn't the Taliban prohibit growing of poppies as well as refuse to allow the US access to the caspian pipeline?

So many reasons to invade; so few tall terrorists in caves.

[Myra Bronstein]

I've read almost nothing on this subject and am starting to wonder if that's an oversight.

Peter Dale Scott places great emphasis on the significance of the international drug trade in his book "Deep Politics."

However I haven't read his books that focus more directly on the subject, such as "Cocaine Politics" & "Drugs, Oil & War."

More specifically, no matter how much I read about the Vietnam war I can't find a satisfactory answer to the question "why indochina?"

Hi Myra,

This may be of use, not drugs but gold. I found it to be a vitally important topic on the forum in my macro understanding of the murkier side of things in that part of the world.

I hope you find it as important as me. I believe Sterling was ill but is or should be back with us soon.

Gold Warriors Topic

Gary

Thank you Gary. This is just the kind of thing I want to read. And I wasn't aware of the book 'til you mentioned it.

[Myra Bronstein]

At the risk of sounding synchophatic (not a word - I just made it up), I totally agree with Gary Loughran and Charles Drago.

They said it better than I could. The Seagraves' book is an instant classic.

Honesty compels me to admit I only finished a third of it, read the last chapter and put it down. I'm blaming Larry Hancock, Gerald McKnight, George Michael Evica, Michael Kurtz, Edward Haslam, and Paris Flammonde, and most recently, David Talbot.

...

Funny, I'm blaming Larry Hancock too.

I just put another book (a thousand pager... ) on pause to reread Someone Would Have Talked.

I'll get back to that other book but I really needed another pass at SWHT.

[Myra Bronstein]

Myra: "What do y'all think?"

IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

What I think probably doesn't gel with most, but it is an aspect that will be attempted to be dealt with in "Foundations: Dreams of a Grand Southern Empire" leading to "Foundations and Empire" and thus to "Empire". This will be from the point of view of over a hundred years ago involving financing of various Western groupings through the then opium trade.

Another aspect is that the "Golden Triangle" is not just about drugs, it's significantly also about precious stones, minerals, gems and territory including the evolution of post foreign-control of China and Chinas particular 'Manifest destiny'.

In a broad historical sense (IMO), Kennedy threatened to interrupt a stream of historical events that certain powerful forces could not accommodate.

I think it's really important to recognize that Kennedy interrupted an ongoing process, many ongoing processes actually.

I wonder if any uncorrupted person could have survived as president at that point in time with all those forces aligned against them.

[Myra Bronstein]

Myra, my answer is a bit less global in scope than the others but it would also be yes.

However it would be very specific and involves the names in the chapter of my last appendix on a

small clique in the CIA. I'm virtually certain that it was the broader drug/arms "network" which served as

the incubator and shield for the people who murdered JFK; without its power they might not

have had the means, even if they had the will.

Don't think just drugs though, think drugs and arms...the two go hand in hand with these folks.

The weapons buy the political influence the want and the drugs fund the power game.

-- Larry

Ok, thanks Larry.

I'm looking at that appendix right now, in fact I'm re-reading your book. A lot to absorb there.

Drugs and arms, right.

Can't have planes taking guns somewhere then coming back empty. That's bad business. Take guns and return with drugs. That's good business.

On edit:

I re-read the appendix Larry.

Fascinating stuff about Underhill.

Also, the arms angle is interesting in light of the apparent fact that Oswald was part of some kind of investigation into the ease of ordering guns by mail (Senator Dodd's investigation?). Probably just a coincidence.

Edited June 27, 2007 by Myra Bronstein

[Guest David Guyatt]

I would add further reading to your list Myra (sorry) and include here Fletcher Prouty's JFK book. Prouty wrote something very important (in my view) about Vietnam and Korea in his book, namely that at the end of WWII the US war surplus arms were split 50/50 and sent to Korea and Vietnam. I couldn't help but wonder, when reading this, that Flecther was telling us all something very important (he was!) and that was simply that the Korean war and the Vietnam war were already plannned by the end of WWII. When you read a few other little gems dropped into his book, this interpretation begins to clarify.

Personally, I strongly suspect that the CFR War & Peace Studies Project had lined these wars up for Uncle Sam. We'll never really know,because the study has never been published in full, although bits of it are in the public domain. Those "bits" are quite suggestive.

For these reasons, I don't entirely agree that Vietnam was just about drugs. It was more about long-term American hegemony --- both economic and political. Of course, drugs were an added bounty to this.

Forgive me but I just cannot bring myself to wax lyrical (no disrespect intended to anyone here) about Sterling Seagrave. I know the man and still smoulder at him for ripping off some of my own "black gold" research material for his book. I had sent him a bunch of documents on the understanding that there were to be kept strictly confidential. This understanding was covered by a written email agreement we had about the confidentiality of said material. Not only did he break this confidentiality agreement and use the material in his book, he also published some of the damned documents in his accompanying CD. Seagrave is a deceitful old trickster. His research material was good. Some of it came from me. But much of it came from Bob Curtis, who I put him in touch with after he lost contact with him many years earlier.

Thanks Sterling.

And yes, old boy, I do still have all the emails we exchanged :->.

Over the years I have been in contact with just about every well known black market gold dealer. They are the tricksiest and most dishonest bunch of people you'll ever meet. Very intelligence or former intelligence types, but also con men, killers and your common or garden variety of crook -- plus princes and kings and governments and, well, all the players (I didn't get to meet or know the latter variety of crook though).

The hoard of WWII plundered gold (which incidentally, included gold plundered from the Tsar of Russia back in 1918) and which appears to have ended up in Mukden, Manchuria, where the Japanese purloined it a second time) is used as backing collateral for all sorts of leveraged financial trade (speak about "absorbing the wealth of the world" or wot!). Unbeknonst to me at the time, one of the biggest of all these black market transactions, known as "Project Hammer" (Hammer, I later learned was a codename used by Oliver North) originated in the City bank where I was a Director/Treasurer. This deal should have come across my desk (they all had to) but not this one. It was kept confidential by a troika of the three most senior executives of the bank (not surprsingly, I suppose, "we" specialised in arms financing which was why, ultimately, I had to leave the City and take up penury as an alternative -- an occupation known to most as freelance journalism).

David

[Nathaniel Heidenheimer]

Myra -- I also recomend Douglass Valentine's Book The Stregnth of The Wolf. It shows how the Federal Bureau of narcotics could be told to lay off by the CIA, in terms of allowing drugs into the US. He is coming out with a new book

covering roughly 1971-to the present later this year.

[Mark Stapleton]

...

Robert Gaylon Ross offered a theory regarding the countries of Iran, Iraq, North Korea, which basically stated that a possible ulterior motive that these countries would have been targeted by the West is due to the fact that they are three of the small handfull of countries which, do not have a Central Bank, interesting idea......

Really interesting idea Robert.

I don't think it would be the first time that a country is punished for refusing to turn over their monetary system to private central bankers.

I read that the Rothschild banker Jacob Schiff retaliated against Russian Tsars, who spurned central banks & supported President Lincoln (who bypassed the central banks to print his own greenbacks), by spending $20 million through the firm, Kuhn, Loeb & Co. to finance the Russian Revolution.

It's a very plausible idea, imo, given that the banking system finances wars just like they back any investment which will return a profit. I still haven't discarded the theory that the Fed was somehow mixed up in JFK's demise, either. It's in my 'do not discard this theory' file.

Myra, sorry if my earlier post looked like a thread hijack--as well as a passable rendition of a raving lunatic. The prohibition issue gets me steamed, mainly because of the unnecessary damage it does to society, chiefly those at the lower end of society.

Good luck with those books. A very worthwhile investment of time.

p.s. I have at least ten of interest I've yet to read. There's no time.

[Myra Bronstein]

It's a very plausible idea, imo, given that the banking system finances wars just like they back any investment which will return a profit. I still haven't discarded the theory that the Fed was somehow mixed up in JFK's demise, either. It's in my 'do not discard this theory' file.

Myra, sorry if my earlier post looked like a thread hijack--as well as a passable rendition of a raving lunatic. The prohibition issue gets me steamed, mainly because of the unnecessary damage it does to society, chiefly those at the lower end of society.

Good luck with those books. A very worthwhile investment of time.

p.s. I have at least ten of interest I've yet to read. There's no time.

Actually I thought you made a really good point about the gov't declining to legalize drugs thereby eliminating their profit from the illegal ones Mark.

Besides, if people aren't mad about the real government they aren't paying attention.

[Myra Bronstein]

Myra -- I also recomend Douglass Valentine's Book The Stregnth of The Wolf. It shows how the Federal Bureau of narcotics could be told to lay off by the CIA, in terms of allowing drugs into the US. He is coming out with a new book

covering roughly 1971-to the present later this year.

That sounds like an interesting one, discussing the inter-agency fix. Thanks Nathaniel.

[John Dolva]

Mark, you raise a very good issue IMO.

Not only does criminalizing consenting adult private drug use support the drug trade, it also drives the problem underground and because of the tampering with drugs endanger the users and make them less likely to have easy access to speedy overdose responses and to rehab opportunities.

At the same time, the addiction to hard drugs and the drug trade accounts for a massive portion of crime to support said habits.

The solution is simple: registered, stigma free atmosphere, drug addicts with a guaranteed cost controlled quality sanctioned supply with accompanying exposure to treatment options.

Clean 'shooting galleries', and readily available counseling.

The ramifications to society would be enormous, with a dramatic drop in crime rates to supply money for illicit drug purchases.

The persons involved and their familes and friends would have access to support, and the police freed to deal with 'real' crimes.

Jail costs, court costs, and all attendant costs to society can be better spent.

The only looser would be the illegal drug trade as it is.

Edited June 28, 2007 by John Dolva

[Myra Bronstein]

I would add further reading to your list Myra (sorry) and include here Fletcher Prouty's JFK book. Prouty wrote something very important (in my view) about Vietnam and Korea in his book, namely that at the end of WWII the US war surplus arms were split 50/50 and sent to Korea and Vietnam. I couldn't help but wonder, when reading this, that Flecther was telling us all something very important (he was!) and that was simply that the Korean war and the Vietnam war were already plannned by the end of WWII. When you read a few other little gems dropped into his book, this interpretation begins to clarify.

...

I finished reading Prouty's JFK book about a month ago David. I think a lot of Prouty and it had a lot of interest. The image of piled up arms sitting outside Japan earmarked for Korea and Vietnam is pretty chilling, knowing that it was a business decision already made.

Though I don't think he successfully explained why Asia was targeted and why Korea and Vietnam were targeted within Asia. He repeatedly asked the question "why Indochina?" and implied he'd answer it but to my recollection he never actually did. He made clear that the military industrial complex wanted a profitable war but didn't tie it in with drugs, which seems to explain the location of the wars. Poppies, opium, golden triangle.

Regardless, it was a totally worthwhile book. He sure put the pentagon papers in perspective for me.

[Myra Bronstein]

Mark, you raise a very good issue IMO.

Not only does criminalizing consenting adult private drug use support the drug trade, it also drives the problem underground...

And makes more criminals which makes more prisoners which gives industry more slave labor.

[Guest David Guyatt]

I would add further reading to your list Myra (sorry) and include here Fletcher Prouty's JFK book. Prouty wrote something very important (in my view) about Vietnam and Korea in his book, namely that at the end of WWII the US war surplus arms were split 50/50 and sent to Korea and Vietnam. I couldn't help but wonder, when reading this, that Flecther was telling us all something very important (he was!) and that was simply that the Korean war and the Vietnam war were already plannned by the end of WWII. When you read a few other little gems dropped into his book, this interpretation begins to clarify.

...

I finished reading Prouty's JFK book about a month ago David. I think a lot of Prouty and it had a lot of interest. The image of piled up arms sitting outside Japan earmarked for Korea and Vietnam is pretty chilling, knowing that it was a business decision already made.

Though I don't think he successfully explained why Asia was targeted and why Korea and Vietnam were targeted within Asia. He repeatedly asked the question "why Indochina?" and implied he'd answer it but to my recollection he never actually did. He made clear that the military industrial complex wanted a profitable war but didn't tie it in with drugs, which seems to explain the location of the wars. Poppies, opium, golden triangle.

Regardless, it was a totally worthwhile book. He sure put the pentagon papers in perspective for me.

I doubt that Prouty was aware of the CFR War & Peace Studies Project and was, therefore, using deductive reasoning for what he did know. Mind you, I don't know about the War & Peace Studies Project either, as it hasn't been made public -- other than a few snippets. But those snippets are full of promise. My deductive reasoning thinks this project of the old British imperial policy of fostering wars to destablise regions it had an economic interest in. But then I'm just an old cynical Brit at heart.

The War & Peace Studies Project began in 1939 and lasted through to 1942 (by which time I believe it had been cast in stone). I believe it quickly understood the great gains that could be made by America on the world stage becaue of the war in Europe. I also think it led to Pearl Harbour.

The following extracts are culled from Shoup & Minters book "IMperial Brains Trust" and purloined off an old internet site:

Quote:

p102

... The work of the War and Peace study groups was to involve about a hundred men over the next five years. They included the top bankers, lawyers, businesspeople, economists and military experts of the era. A central steering committee guided the work of five study groups labeled Economic and Financial, Political, Armaments, Territorial and Peace Aims. These groups were to "engage in a continuous study of the course of the war, to ascertain how the hostilities affect the United States and to elaborate I concrete proposals designed to safeguard American interests in the settlement which will be undertaken once hostilities cease.

p103

... In the summer and fall of 1940, the Economic and Financial group conducted a series of studies on trade balances and surpluses which concluded that the American economy must be linked with the British Empire, Asia and South America if it was to grow and prosper. Anything less would create trade imbalances, insufficient outlets for manufactured goods, and a shortage of raw materials, it was claimed. The result would be a stagnating economy that would need government intervention and a greater degree of planning than was acceptable to the great majority of the participants in the study groups.

Having defined the national interest in terms of the improved functioning of a free-enterprise economy that had been rescued from a lengthy depression only by rearmament programs, the War and Peace study groups then turned their attention to developing the policies that would ensure United States hegemony in what the council called the "Grand Area." The result was Memorandum E-B19 in October, 1940. Prepared for the President and the Department of State, it was intended "to set forth the political, military, territorial and economic requirements of the United States in its potential leadership of the non-German world area including the United Kingdom itself as well as the Western Hemisphere and Far East." The proposal called for a fast pace of American rearmament, opposition to Japanese expansionism and development of the international economic and political institutions necessary to integrate and protect the Grand Area.

The council returned to the needs of the Grand Area in 1941 wit-h Memorandum E-B34. It reemphasized the need to defend the entire area so that the American economy could function

properly. It stressed that the area could serve as an organized nucleus in building a postwar economy. It called for further study of the mechanisms for integrating the Grand Area:

At the end of recommendation E-B34, the Economic and Financial Group outlined the key topics for future study on integrating the Grand Area. Leading the list were financial measures-the creation of international financial institutions to stabilize currencies, and of international banking institutions to aid in investment and development of backward areas. They had thus identified at a very early date the need for the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, which they were to specifically suggest in February 1942.

When the United States became involved in the war in December, 1941, leaders within the State Department and the council immediately decided to create a special committee on postwar planning within the department. The proposal for this Advisory Committee on Postwar Foreign Policy was drafted by department planner Pasvolsky in consultation with the council president. Its subcommittees-Armament, Political-Territorial and Trade-Financial-corresponded with the structure of the War and Peace study project. Drafting of committee reports would be by government agencies and by "such non-governmental agencies as the Council on Foreign Relations."

Unquote

I especially liked the bit about the CFR and State forming a special committee on "postwar planning" immediately the US became involved in the war in December 1941 (that "day of infamy"). Now there's confidence for you. I also liked the word "integrating" used in conjunction with the "Grand Area." Imperialist thinking at its best.

Obviously, these are my interpretations of the foregoing. I may be wrong. But to concede that I would want to sit down and read the entire study project and it remains unavilable. My guess is that it will continue to remain unavailable (even though it is partly a government project) until hell freeezes over. This guess is based on the sense that "there lies dragons"... or in a JFK sense, the smoking gun.

My pennyworth.

David