The CIA, the JFK Assassination and the death of David Kelly

[John Simkin]

Norman Baker's book, "The Strange Death of David Kelly" has recently been published. Several members of the forum, including myself, helped him with his research. This includes this quotation on page 301; "John Simkin also makes the Machiavellian suggestion that the pressure could have been maintained by a threat to Blair from the Americans to leak death information about the death in a way that would have implicated the British government if Blair failed to follow the Bush line on the so-called 'war on terror' ".

I believe that the JFK case can provide clues about the death of Kelly. For example, the selection of Lord Hutton to carry out the investigation of Kelly's death. Like the members of the Warren Commission, Hutton was selected because he could be blackmailed into doing what the government wanted. In 1973 Hutton had represented the Ministry of Defence at the inquests of those killed on Bloody Sunday.

The actions of David Kelly's wife also mirrors that of Grant Stockdale's wife. We now know why Stockdale's wife claimed it was suicide. I suspect the same is true of Kelly's wife.

Another possible link is the botched nature of the killing of Kelly. It has often been pointed out that the killing of JFK and the amateur way Oswald was set-up, was done for a reason. It is a clear message to those who might be tempted to talk about what they know, that the secret state is all powerful. I believe the main reason for the killing of Kelly was to warn other potential whistle-blowers what will happen to them if they were tempted to speak-out. Secondly, it applied pressure on Blair to order a cover-up. That is what I believe happened to LBJ in 1963.

You can read about the David Kelly case here:

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=3495

Norman has some interesting things to say about the "war on terror" and companies like Blackwater. He has agreed to join the forum in order to answer questions on his book. It is a book that is well worth reading.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Strange-Death-Davi...1376&sr=1-1

[Tim Gratz]

John you wrote:

I believe that the JFK case can provide clues about the death of Kelly. For example, the selection of Lord Hutton to carry out the investigation of Kelly's death. Like the members of the Warren Commission, Hutton was selected because he could be blackmailed into doing what the government wanted.

Bill Miller wrote, admittedly in a different context:

One cannot help but wonder if some of the more ridiculous claims are being made so to make it appear that CT's are off their rocker.

John, I have no idea if you have a rocker or not and if you do whether you were on it or not when you wrote that.

Surely you do not seriously suggest that any member of the WC was being blackmailed to support the "party line" of LHO as a LN? If you do so assert, perhaps you can offer just a little support for that claim, e.g.:

(!) Which WC members were being blackmailed?

(2) Who was doing the blackmail?

(3) What was the nature of the blackmail?

I suggest, as Bill Miller did in another context, that the offering of bizarre theories only discredits the assassination research community. As you pointed out in another thread, it is critics such as Jeff Morley, whose statements are always capable of substantiation, who can achieve public attention and respect.

Edited November 26, 2007 by Tim Gratz

[John Simkin]

John you wrote:

I believe that the JFK case can provide clues about the death of Kelly. For example, the selection of Lord Hutton to carry out the investigation of Kelly's death. Like the members of the Warren Commission, Hutton was selected because he could be blackmailed into doing what the government wanted.

Bill Miller wrote, admittedly in a different context:

One cannot help but wonder if some of the more ridiculous claims are being made so to make it appear that CT's are off their rocker.

John, I have no idea if you have a rocker or not and if you do whether you were on it or not when you wrote that.

Surely you do not seriously suggest that any member of the WC was being blackmailed to support the "party line" of LHO as a LN? If you do so assert, perhaps you can offer just a little support for that claim, e.g.:

(!) Which WC members were being blackmailed?

(2) Who was doing the blackmail?

(3) What was the nature of the blackmail?

I suggest, as Bill Miller did in another context, that the offering of bizarre theories only discredits the assassination research community. As you pointed out in another thread, it is critics such as Jeff Morley, whose statements are always capable of substantiation, who can achieve public attention and respect.

Your ignorance about this case never ceases to amaze me. I know you are desperate to put your name at the end of every thread but surely you could have come with a better question.

For example, I would refer you to the following telephone conversations LBJ had with the following:

J. Edgar Hoover (10.30 am, 25th November, 1963)

J. Edgar Hoover (1.40 pm, 29th November, 1963)

Charles Halleck (6.30 pm, 29th November, 1963)

Richard B. Russell (8.55 p.m 29th November, 1963)

John McCormack (29th November, 1963)

I would also suggest you read Gerald D. McKnight’s Breach of Trust, for a full account of how LBJ selected the members of the Warren Commission.

[Tim Gratz]

It would have been nice if you would have had the courtesy to provide a brief summary of the conversations.

But I will get out my book, read the tapes and see if they came anywhere near to supporting your assertion.

I note that only one conversation was with a member of the WC, Richard Russell, LBJ's friend and mentor. You contend the conversation indicates LBJ was blackmailing Russell? I'll believe it when I read it!

[Tim Gratz]

I was able to find on-line portions of LBJ's November 29 1963 telephone call with JEH.

Here is the link:

http://americanradioworks.publicradio.org/...estapes/b3.html

I saw nothing that even came clse to hinting at a scheme to blackmail members of the WC.

What am I missing here, John?

[Tim Gratz]

On the wonderful mary ferrell web-site I located a transcript of the entre November 25, 1963 telephone conference between LBJ and JEH to which you refer, John.

Here is the link:

http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/...amp;relPageId=1

No reference at all that even comes close to blackmail.

What flavor of kool aid are you drinking these days, John? Suggest you stick to that wonderful English tea!

[John Simkin]

On the wonderful mary ferrell web-site I located a transcript of the entre November 25, 1963 telephone conference between LBJ and JEH to which you refer, John.

Here is the link:

http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/...amp;relPageId=1

No reference at all that even comes close to blackmail.

What flavor of kool aid are you drinking these days, John? Suggest you stick to that wonderful English tea!

For example, here is part of the telephone conversation between Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard B. Russell (8.55 p.m 29th November, 1963):

Richard Russell: I know I don't have to tell you of my devotion to you but I just can't serve on that Commission. I'm highly honoured you'd think about me in connection with it but I couldn't serve on it with Chief Justice Warren. I don't like that man. I don't have any confidence in him at all.

Lyndon B. Johnson: It has already been announced and you can serve with anybody for the good of America and this is a question that has a good many more ramifications than on the surface and we've got to take this out of the arena where they're testifying that Khrushchev and Castro did this and did that and chuck us into a war that can kill 40 million Americans in an hour....

Richard Russell: I still feel it sort of getting wrapped up...

Lyndon B. Johnson: Dick... do you remember when you met me at the Carlton Hotel in 1952? When we had breakfast there one morning.

Richard Russell: Yes I think so.

Lyndon B. Johnson: All right. Do you think I'm kidding you?

Richard Russell: No... I don't think your kidding me, but I think... well, I'm not going to say anymore, Mr. President... I'm at your command... and I'll do anything you want me to do....

Lyndon B. Johnson: Warren told me he wouldn't do it under any circumstances... I called him and ordered him down here and told me no twice and I just pulled out what Hoover told me about a little incident in Mexico City and I say now, I don't want Mr. Khrushchev to be told tomorrow (censored) and be testifying before a camera that he killed this fellow and that Castro killed him... And he started crying and said, well I won't turn you down... I'll do whatever you say.

[Tim Gratz]

John, you see some reference to blackmail in that conversation? I sure don't.

[Tim Gratz]

Well, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, when I challenged John's statement that members of the Warren Commission were selected becuae they were susceptible to blackmail, his first response was, well I guess you could call it snide:

Your ignorance about this case never ceases to amaze me. I know you are desperate to put your name at the end of every thread but surely you could have come with a better question.

He then listed five telephone conversations in each of which LBJ was a participant. In two of which LBJ was talking to JEH. I posted links to the substance of one of those conversations and the entire transcript of the other. Nothing at all about blackmailing a member of the WC.

One of the conversations was between LBJ and Richard Russell when he "twisted" Russell's arm to join the WC even though Russell wanted nothing to do with Earl Warren. But no blackmail there either.

That leaves but two conversations between LBJ and a member of Congress, one Dem and one GOP. Do you think there is going to be any discussion or even hint of blackmail there?

I was waiting for John to post a LBJ/JEH conversation in which LBJ asked JEH if he didn't have a file on WC member [select your own member] in which JEH had proof that the WC member had (a) cheated on his wife with a sheep; ( raped a nun; © taken bribes from organized crime; (d) was in the habit of sleepwalking down public streets in the nude; or some other nefarious deed, and LBJ went on to ask JEH to call the WC member and ask him to support the FBI position that LHO was the lone assassin, while subtly reminding the WC member that JEH "had the goods on him". Somehow I don't think John is going to be able to produce any such transcript but I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that there is some reference to blackmail on at least one of the two remaining tapes he had mentioned. One out of five is not so good, but I guess it's better than nothing.

Maybe I am not quite as ignorant as John believes. I read "The Assassination Tapes" at length shortly after the book came out. Had there been any hint of blackmail I would have remembered it.

Edited November 26, 2007 by Tim Gratz

[Tim Gratz]

RFK recommended two of the WC members to LBJ. Did he do so because they were "susceptible to blackmail"?

[Charles Drago]

John, you see some reference to blackmail in that conversation? I sure don't.

Lyndon B. Johnson: Dick... do you remember when you met me at the Carlton Hotel in 1952? When we had breakfast there one morning.

Richard Russell: Yes I think so.

Lyndon B. Johnson: All right. Do you think I'm kidding you?

Richard Russell: No... I don't think your kidding me, but I think... well, I'm not going to say anymore, Mr. President... I'm at your command... and I'll do anything you want me to do....

No blackmail indicated in that exchange.

Hooooo dogie! My guess is that Polecat Lyndon was workin' up a powerful appetite, so he reminded ole Dick just how ornery a big Texas boy can git when the chuck wagon is smokin' and "Come 'n git it!" echoes through the prairie mornin' chill.

John: What are the chances of you settin' up a kids' table at dis here bar-b-q? You know, where Pecos Tim, Dead Eye Purvis, and Little Lamby can jaw away at each other til the crick rises widdout aggervatin' us grown-up cowpokes?

Tex Drago

Edited November 26, 2007 by Charles Drago

[John Simkin]

John, you see some reference to blackmail in that conversation? I sure don't.

Lyndon B. Johnson: Dick... do you remember when you met me at the Carlton Hotel in 1952? When we had breakfast there one morning.

Richard Russell: Yes I think so.

Lyndon B. Johnson: All right. Do you think I'm kidding you?

Richard Russell: No... I don't think your kidding me, but I think... well, I'm not going to say anymore, Mr. President... I'm at your command... and I'll do anything you want me to do....

No blackmail indicated in that exchange.

Then there is this passage:

Lyndon B. Johnson: Warren told me he wouldn't do it under any circumstances... I called him and ordered him down here and told me no twice and I just pulled out what Hoover told me about a little incident in Mexico City and I say now, I don't want Mr. Khrushchev to be told tomorrow (censored) and be testifying before a camera that he killed this fellow and that Castro killed him... And he started crying and said, well I won't turn you down... I'll do whatever you say.

In fact, the tapes are full of blackmail threats. Read the taped conversations about Don B. Reynolds, who had testified in a secret session of the Senate Rules Committee on the day JFK was assassinated. Reynolds told B. Everett Jordan and his committee that Johnson had demanded that he provided kickbacks in return for him agreeing to a life insurance policy arranged by him in 1957. This included a $585 Magnavox stereo. Reynolds also had to pay for $1,200 worth of advertising on KTBC, Johnson's television station in Austin. Reynolds had paperwork for this transaction including a delivery note that indicated the stereo had been sent to the home of Johnson. Reynolds also told of seeing a suitcase full of money which Baker described as a "$100,000 payoff to Johnson for his role in securing the Fort Worth TFX contract".

On 17th January, 1964, the Senate Rules Committee voted to release to the public the secret testimony of Don B. Reynolds. Johnson responded by leaking information from Reynolds' FBI file to Drew Pearson and Jack Anderson. On 5th February, 1964, the Washington Post reported that Reynolds had lied about his academic success at West Point. The article also claimed that Reynolds had been a supporter of Joseph McCarthy and had accused business rivals of being secret members of the American Communist Party. It was also revealed that Reynolds had made anti-Semitic remarks while in Berlin in 1953.

A few weeks later the New York Times reported that Lyndon B. Johnson had used information from secret government documents to smear Don B. Reynolds. It also reported that Johnson's officials had been applying pressure on the editors of newspapers not to print information that had been disclosed by Reynolds in front of the Senate Rules Committee.

The tapes show that LBJ was constantly working with Hoover in order to blackmail politicians from disclosing important information. Members of the Warren Commission was only a small part of this activity.

[Charles Drago]

Nuclear blackmail: We must stage a pre-emptive strike against the truth, Mr. Chief Justice, or the smoking gun in the Kennedy conspiracy may take the form of a thousand mushroom clouds.

Learn from history, dear Americans, or be prepared to live it over and over again.

As I have argued previously -- most felicitously in exchanges with Robert Charles-Dunne and Cliff Varnell -- the prime sponsors of the assassination never intended to bring about a retaliatory invasion of Cuba. Their purpose in thoroughly sheepdipping LHO as a Castro sympathizer/assassin (in a manner sufficient to convince an Earl Warren or Richard Russell) was to use the threat of disclosure of Cuban/Soviet "responsibility" for the president's death as a means to blackmail (there's no other word for it) otherwise honest investigators into endorsing the LN cover story.

Thus the prime sponsors are protected to this very day.

(I might add that the fictional Cuban/Soviet sponsors likely were described as "rogue elements" of their respective governments, thus countering any argument that the act of war in Dealey Plaza was state-sponsored and thus deserving of a massive, American state-sponsored retaliatory counter-strike.)

Charles

[Tim Gratz]

I have now read the complete transcript of each telephone conversation John listed in Post #3. There is not a hint of blackmail or a discussion of possible blackmail in a single one of them. JS owes me an apology and the readers a correction.

John posted:

Then there is this passage:

Lyndon B. Johnson: Warren told me he wouldn't do it under any circumstances... I called him and ordered him down here and told me no twice and I just pulled out what Hoover told me about a little incident in Mexico City and I say now, I don't want Mr. Khrushchev to be told tomorrow (censored) and be testifying before a camera that he killed this fellow and that Castro killed him... And he started crying and said, well I won't turn you down... I'll do whatever you say.

Maybe John does not understand the meaning of the term "blackmail". Here are three dictionary definitions of "blackmail":

MERRIAM WEBSTER ON-LINE:

extortion or coercion by threats especially of public exposure or criminal prosecution.

MSN ENCARTA:

Use of secrets to compel: the act of forcing somebody to pay money or do something by threatening to reveal shameful or incriminating facts about him or her.

CAMBRIDGE DICTIONARY ONLINE:

When you obtain money from people or force them to do something by threatening to make known a secret of theirs or to harm them.

The common, in fact the only meaning of the term "blackmail" is to force someone either to pay money or to perform an act by a threat to reveal a shameful, embarrassing or criminal act.

The line that LBJ used to persuade Earl Warren to head the investigation, that if a foreign conspiracy is revealed it could lead to a catcylsmic nuclear exchange, is nowhere close to blackmail. For LBJ to imply to Earl Warren that unless he obfuscated facts there could be terrible consequences is not by any stretch of the imagination blackmail

Nor is the Don Reynolds example that John cites blackmail. It is as simple as this: LBJ tried to counter the bad things Reynolds testified against him by leaking derogatory information about Reynolds. That ain't blackmail. Now if there was evidence that LBJ had attempted to prevent Reynolds from testifying by threatening to reveal derogatory information about him, THAT would be blackmail (if it worked) or attempted blackmail (if it did not).

John wrote:

The tapes show that LBJ was constantly working with Hoover in order to blackmail politicians from disclosing important information. Members of the Warren Commission was only a small part of this activity.

Absolute, utter nonsense. I have the book with me. John, cite a single conversation in which LBJ discusses with Hoover the possibility of blackmailing anyone. I am aware of no such passage in the entire book.

Edited November 27, 2007 by Tim Gratz

[Tim Gratz]

Now "blackmail" can be close to coercion. While blackmail normally involves forcing someone to do something, or perhaps not do something, by threatening to publicly reveal derogatory information, coercion means forcing someone to do something or not do something through a threat of physical violence. "Nuclear blackmail" means a threat by one party (presumably a nation-state) to use nuclear weapons (clearly a form of violence). It is probably more proper to call that "nuclear coercion."