Why Lies Aimed At the "Left" about JFK are Far and Away The Most Important Lies

[Nathaniel Heidenheimer]

"He dug repetition but this repetition was structurally necessary" There. I have finished My epitaph and am ready for puncturation.

No seriously coma folks I am aware that I seem to ahem... emphasize.. the degree to which the WORST AND FAR AND AWAY MOST IMPORTANT [iN TERMS OF ITS EFFECT ON THE WHOLE FLOW OF COMMUNICATIONS ] disinformation about JFK and the CIA is aimed at the left but for RIGHTWARD reasons.

Recently this point was highlighted for me once again while listening to an episode of Black Op Radio. There was a young man on who was making what sounds like an incredible doc on the Bay of Pigs.

He emphasized the degree to which 99% of JFK documentaries are EITHER/OR in the words of Soren K's favorite tattooist. Either they are about the assassination, OR they are about JFK's policies. Nearly never that twain will meet between the same dust-jacket or on the same dvd.

Only Disconnect would seem to be the mandate for keeping curiosities caged.

It is THE LEFT who is the dangerous audience from the point of view of the CIA. I do not here mean the editors meant to control the left, which in the US is often conflated with the left. I mean by "the left" the fluidity of the population itself that might exist between left liberals and points further left. Not fixed positions but fluidity of the sort seen in the not-very-surprisingly-almost-never- written-about 1968 RFK campaign.

The profound implications of JFK's inchoate detente on both liberals' and the lefts' understanding of the National Security State would make the wedge between the two much more difficult to maintain.

You will notice how, especially since 1980 the so called "left" i.e. read allowed-to-be -published, is almost exclusively focussed on social history to the virtual exclusion of political history. You need both folks.

It is the CONNECTION of policy with the reality of the assassination that makes the JFK assassination so dangerous for the National Security State that-- for all intents and purposes -- IS the US government right now. And the threat comes POTENTIALLY from a leftward direction. THAT is why the best and most important lies NEED to be aimed at left audiences.

Recently I have finally come across a very very important article. Actually it is a chapter in a book by the former lead investigative journalist Fred Cook. It deals with how the Nation Magazine censored him on the JFK assassination. I am mining this article right now and I am finding it very very very interesting and I considered a fourth very.

-------

Originally published in Fred J. Cook, Maverick: fifty Years of Investigative Reporting. New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1984, pp. 273-282, 285-291. Reprinted by permission of the author. in HISTORY WILL NOT ABSOLVE US by E. Martin Schotz Wow.

This article is the mustest reading since the debatable thumb.

[John Dolva]

A very thought provoking post

[Douglas Caddy]

A very thought provoking post

I never miss reading Nathaniel's daily posts on Facebook because they, too, are always thought provoking.

[Guest Robert Morrow]

Here is Fred Cooks' book on Amazon http://www.amazon.com/Maverick-Fifty-Years-Investigative-Reporting/dp/0399129936/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1327616544&sr=8-1

Here is History will Not Absolve Us - one of the CLASSIC books on analysis of the JFK assassination. Anything that has Vincent Salandria or Martin Schotz is a must read.

http://www.amazon.com/History-Will-Not-Absolve-Orwellian/dp/0965381404/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1327616806&sr=1-1

[Paul Trejo]

...The WORST AND FAR AND AWAY MOST IMPORTANT [iN TERMS OF ITS EFFECT ON THE WHOLE FLOW OF COMMUNICATIONS ] disinformation about JFK and the CIA is aimed at the left but for RIGHTWARD reasons.

Recently this point was highlighted for me once again while listening to an episode of Black Op Radio. There was a young man on who was making what sounds like an incredible doc on the Bay of Pigs.

He emphasized the degree to which 99% of JFK documentaries are EITHER/OR...Either they are about the assassination, OR they are about JFK's policies.

...

It is THE LEFT who is the dangerous audience from the point of view of the CIA...

...

You will notice how, especially since 1980 the so called "left" (i.e. read allowed-to-be-published) is almost exclusively focused on social history to the virtual exclusion of political history. You need both folks.

It is the CONNECTION of policy with the reality of the assassination that makes the JFK assassination so dangerous for the National Security State that -- for all intents and purposes -- IS the US government right now.

And the threat comes POTENTIALLY from a leftward direction. THAT is why the best and most important lies NEED to be aimed at left audiences...

Interesting perspective, Nathaniel; I agree that the JFK assassination cover-up was a right-wing vs. left-wing political situation. However, I draw different conclusions from this observation.

My theory agrees to this point: the JFK assassination was the result of a right-wing plot, and the Warren Commission moved heaven and earth to attempt to take the heat off of the right-wing for this slaying. The players are not very difficult to identify - they were the Dallas right-wing of 1963, as Dallas was the de facto headquarters of the USA right-wing.

Now, the actions of the Warren Commission certainly gave a boost to the USA right-wing (as right-wing membership increased immediately after the JFK assassination). However, I tend to doubt whether the only motive for the Warren Commission cover-up was simply to increase right-wing power.

Clearly, J. Edgar Hoover only trusted the right-wing, but he also knew the right-wing has its kooks, and he was wary of them. For example, right-wing kooks tried to pressure the FBI and the Warren Commission to accept their conclusion that the Communists were behind this plot.

If Hoover had accepted their conclusion, he'd have no choice but to go to LBJ and recommend nuclear war against the USSR, starting with Cuba. But Hoover didn't accept that conclusion. He didn't blame the right-wing, but he didn't blame the Communists, either. Yes, said Hoover, Lee Harvey Oswald was a Communist, but he was also a deranged Loner. He acted on his own.

The myth of the Lone Gunman was finally rejected by the US Government in 1979 with the conclusions of the HSCA (House Select Committee on Assassinations). However, one can make the case that Hoover's invention of a Lone Gunman prevented World War Three.

Hoover's other choice -- pressing for the conspirators among the Dallas right-wing of 1963, would have had equally dangerous consequences, i.e. a Civil War in the USA between right-wing and left-wing, which would weaken the USA, which would tempt the USSR to invade; again sparking World War Three.

So, one can argue that Hoover did the right thing by focusing all blame onto Lee Harvey Oswald. (And if this is correct, then Marguerite Oswald justly said that Oswald's sacrifice was second-to-none for the USA.)

But how could Hoover have so confidently held that Oswald had no accomplices? If there were unknown accomplices, Hoover would have been risking further disasters.

The only possible answer is that that Hoover was confident because he already knew who the accomplices were! Hoover knew who they were, and he did not fear that they would make further trouble, since he knew that with the death of JFK they were fully satisfied.

That description of the accomplices best matches the description of the right-wing in Dallas in 1963.

Politics also move very slowly. Earl Warren knew this, and he said that the secret files on Lee Harvey Oswald would not be released to the American public until 75 years after. This would be a cooling off period between the left-wing and the right-wing.

I don't call the killing of JFK a coup d'etat because that suggests a change of Constitution. What actually happened was that the Constitution was allowed to persist more or less un-affected, that is, LBJ became President as expected, and he ran for office that year, as usual.

The conspirators of the JFK assassination did not jump up and claim responsibility and seize power, as in an ordinary coup d'etat. Rather, they hid in the shadows for the rest of their lives, and let life go on as normal, under the strange circumstances.

Did the right-wing show any remorse over what they had done? No, since they still tend to insist on the Lone Gunman theory, even though the US Government itself is beyond all that.

Rather, my question is why it has taken nearly a half-century for researchers to fully explore all the nuances of the Dallas right-wing in 1963.

Best regards,

--Paul Trejo

[Nathaniel Heidenheimer]

Paul,

Your use of the phrase right-wing is problematic for me. For ME the suffix wing connotes more hard scrabble on the ground birch types probably funded from warehouses in Los Angeles.

I agree that real change is slower and probably we agree that the rightward shift in the country that either "resulted from" the coup of 1963-- or which the Coup of 1963 was at lease a powerful symptom, which must be obfuscated in order to distract from more structural connections to the true structure of power -- was the result of forces that had little to do with the intentions of operators on the ground and their personal ideologies.

I agree with those varied posters and writers who point to old New Deal tinged liberals who moved right after WWII. People like Tommy Corcoran, Eugene Meyer, Nelson Rockefeller, and sundry Graham crackers who were integrated with more liberal christmas trees in the classic Cold War bargain: leaving many of the New Deal domestic reforms in place, while increasingly supporting the transformation of the US into a garrison state. Problem was, as time passed this transformation was pregnant with a choice: would the US remain an industrial power, or did the emphasis on foreign intervention and the military industrial oil complex force the eventual fork in the road between Industrial Capitalism and Finance Capitalism.

So if we are looking for the true source of this long term rightward shift in our country it is more fruitful to look at key liberals moving right higher up on the food chain. They are the ones best situated to maintain the drunk marriage between old ideals and new economies of death and censorship.

And they are the ones who more likely to know how to fool their old allies among older left-liberals in the New Deal economic sense.

Industrial Capitalism v. Finance Capitalism. That is the fork in the road that books like Battling Wall Street and Thy Will Be Done point us. And when it comes to this change shifts among democrats are more important than the permitted doings of bewhiskered Western sheriffs. Even those allowed on KTLA!

[Paul Trejo]

Nathaniel,

In my view, the rightward shift of the USA began long before the so-called coup d'etat of 1963. Few people seem to be aware that the Democratic party at the turn of the 20th century was far more right-wing than the Republican party. Woodrow Wilson, that Democratic President and son of the South, was nominated largely because as president of Princeton University, he skillfully kept that college segregated. Woodrow Wilson was friendly to the Ku Klux Klan, which is why he promoted the racist film, Birth of a Nation (1915), which was originally titled, The Klansmen. Modern Democrats would be shocked if they heard the racist remarks and songs common at Democratic Presidential rallies in 1904 and 1908. (There's a chapter about this in the book, Lies My Teacher Told Me (1996)).

The essence of the Democratic party in the 1930's was FDR's protection of the Southern farmer from the ravages of the Great Depression. This was so popular that he was re-elected, and he expanded his winning policies with more and more social programs -- the reason he was elected in the first place. He saved the poor South from ruin, actually, with these programs.

But the tenor had changed from the racist Democratic party of the turn of the century to the social-services Democrats of the mid-century, on many grounds. The most important of these grounds was the sudden appearance of World War Two, and FDR's brilliant handling of it.

FDR could see that the British Empire was all washed up. He could also see that when the dust settled after World War Two, Britain would no longer regain her former glory as Global Empire, but would have to surrender that title to the USA. Envious Germany tried and failed to seize that mantle. But most Americans today can trace their national heritage to Germany rather than to England. So, there was plenty of compromise for both sides of World War Two, with the USA as the last Western nation standing - and the new Global Empire.

This was a sudden change for the USA. We did not expect it. Most Americans thought that the USA would simply prop Great Britain up once more to be the Global Empire, as we had always done. But no. Instead, the isolationist Americans were suddenly thrust into the limelight as the heir of the British Imperial power.

Many Americans were uncomfortable with this new duty - this noblesse oblige. They complained about Internationalism -- it was a communist plot! They complained about our Global duties to police the planet, as Great Britain had done. It was a communist plot! This isolationism became the core of the extreme right-wing in the USA.

But these same USA rightists were not intellectuals -- they did not wish to study Marx in order to refute him. Rather, they redefined the Communist plot in their own terms; starting with Joe McCarthy, then proceeding through Ezra Taft Benson to Robert Welch. With Robert Welch and his writers in the early 1960's, a new element was added -- the Southern States hatred of the Yankee States was portrayed as the Freedom loving States versus the US States that had already capitulated to Communism. These were called by the John Birch Society, "The Eastern Establishment."

In this way, like the Nazi writers of the 1940's, Capitalism and Communism were held to be two sides of the same movement fomented by the same Eastern Establishment. The Jews were no longer the enemy (except to a few who regarded New York as Jewish dominated; Robert Welch never said that, but quite a few of his followers did say that).

The war of the John Birch Society was the war of small capital (the good ole boys) against Large Capital (the Eastern Establishment). With the Cold War drawn up on these terms, as a local USA problem, and not a global problem, the extreme right-wing was far more bother to the US Government than they were worth; like ants at a picnic.

Yet because of the relative failure of the US Education system in the Southern States, the John Birch Society became sacred text in many places (and we must include Los Angeles as part of the Southern consciousness). Here was a political force to be reckoned with -- entirely oblivious to the new duty of Global Empire that the USA inherited as the Superpower at the end of World War Two.

Then, as the post-war events unfolded, over the decades, the left-wing shrunk into oblivion, and today mainly repeats John Birch Society propaganda as its predominant source of commentary.

I myself don't believe that the USA has become a garrison State; rather, I see the USA as the unwilling, unwanting perpetrator of the British Empire.

FDR saw this coming. He wanted to change things. FDR envisioned earth without any colonies. He called for a halt to the colonialization of Hong Kong, Kuwait and Vietnam. (If FDR had lived long enough to enact his anti-colonial policies, the USA would never have suffered through the Vietnam conflict.)

But FDR died too soon, and he was succeeded by the high-school graduate, Harry Truman, who chose to H-bomb Japan and to allow the French to keep their colony in Vietnam (to make the Marshall Plan cheaper). Geniuses like FDR come along once in a century, I reckon.

JFK arises as the most liberal President that the Democrats ever had. He was part of the Eastern Establishment -- and he didn't think much of Southerners. He walked all over General Edwin Walker - and to many Southerners, that was unforgivable.

Anyway, I don't see an actual coup d'etat in the killing of JFK. Also, I don't see the graduation from Industrial Capital to Finance Capital to be the major crossroads of US history in the post-war era. Finally, I don't see the USA as a garrison State.

Rather, the struggle between traditional US isolationism on the one hand, and the duty of Global Empire on the other, clashed in such a way as to kill JFK. We are still struggling with our duty to handle the issues that the British Empire used to handle. Our recent and current wars in the Middle East are solid evidence of my position, I maintain.

Best regards,

--Paul Trejo

[Nathaniel Heidenheimer]

"US isolationism on the one hand, and the duty of Global Empire "

These foreign policy characteristics are too dichotomous as to capture the conflict between JFK and his killers. JFK was far from an isolationist. He just thought that third world nationalism and anti-imperialism need not be subsumed into ideas of monolithic communist conspiracy that were used to justify a more purely oil-banking- and military economy.

This difference between JFK and his more Latin American and Asian oriented unilateralist opponents had its corresponding economic policies, in the lowering of tariffs, the extension of free-trade zones to include countries led by right wing dictatorships propped up by the CIA and the death of American industry in favor of a NAFTA, purely finance, oil and military based economy.

The reason it was a coup is because permanent intelligence bureaucracies permanently replaced elected officials when it came to sovereignty. A couple of presidents may have been slow learners, but there is no longer any doubt.

[Nathaniel Heidenheimer]

http://www.truth-out.org/anniversaries-unhistory/1328369965. This really MUST BE responded to. Will do so as soon as I get a chance. It is now impossible, in my view, to see Chomsky as anything other than willfully disinforming on JFK and Vietnam. This is beyond cherry picking and his sourcing is fresh as Pompeii. Edited February 7, 2012 by Nathaniel Heidenheimer

[Paul Trejo]

...The reason it was a coup is because permanent intelligence bureaucracies permanently replaced elected officials when it came to sovereignty. A couple of presidents may have been slow learners, but there is no longer any doubt.

This is intriguing, Nathaniel. Surely there were intelligence bureaucracies before World War Two. Yet after World War Two, when the USA emerged the Global Superpower that it is today, naturally the USA intelligence bureaucracies that emerged after the cataclysm would be special because they had reached the absolute limit of global purview.

Further, these USA intelligence bureaucracies absorbed the German intelligence bureaucracies and then interlaced with the French and British intelligence bureaucracies -- this is a special entity in world history. Naturally it would take on a special importance. Naturally it would arrive on the scene to stay. But for all that, he remains purely American and Constitutional.

Yes, it takes a special sort of President now to control this sort of creature. But it is still an American President, and he is still elected to a four-year term.

All best,

--Paul

Edited February 8, 2012 by Paul Trejo

[Guest Robert Morrow]

http://www.truth-out.org/anniversaries-unhistory/1328369965. This really MUST BE responded to. Will do so as soon as I get a chance. It is now impossible, in my view, to see Chomsky as anything other than willfully disinforming on JFK and Vietnam. This is beyond cherry picking and his sourcing is fresh as Pompeii.

This article did not show up. Is there another link? Or the title of this article so I can google it?

[Nathaniel Heidenheimer]

my neo-Colonial bad. Here is the link http://www.truth-out.org/anniversaries-unhistory/1328369965

[Paul Trejo]

"US isolationism on the one hand, and the duty of Global Empire "

These foreign policy characteristics are too dichotomous as to capture the conflict between JFK and his killers. JFK was far from an isolationist. He just thought that third world nationalism and anti-imperialism need not be subsumed into ideas of monolithic communist conspiracy that were used to justify a more purely oil-banking- and military economy.

This difference between JFK and his more Latin American and Asian oriented unilateralist opponents had its corresponding economic policies, in the lowering of tariffs, the extension of free-trade zones to include countries led by right wing dictatorships propped up by the CIA and the death of American industry in favor of a NAFTA, purely finance, oil and military based economy.

The reason it was a coup is because permanent intelligence bureaucracies permanently replaced elected officials when it came to sovereignty. A couple of presidents may have been slow learners, but there is no longer any doubt.

Nathanial, here's what I infer from US Isolation and Global Empire.

The right-wing in the US, resistant to change from any direction, continued to demand US Isolation. Keeping out of foreign wars is one of their ideals. This would clearly prevent losses to life and resources, but it would also prevent foreign entanglements, strange bedpartners, and the disappointment of endless broken treaties. Other ideals of the right-wing reflect a melancholy of what the USA could have been if we had respected their call to Isolation, i.e. a more Christian society, a less racially diverse society, a society with more consistent cultural values. Preventing change was high on the list of rightists in 1960. Even if this meant delaying Civil Rights as long as possible -- change was the enemy.

Few leftist intellectuals were aligned with Isolationism. Progress involved foreign investments, foreign travel, foreign friendships, foreign adventures and the inevitable foreign conflicts. For most of US History, our model in the Global approach to politics was the United Kingdom of Great Britain.

When the USA entered World War Two in December, 1941, we joined the Allied Powers already in progress in their modern warfare against the Axis Powers. Since Americans almost exclusively spoke English, we kept closer to the UK than to our other Allies. Again, the UK was our model in Global survival. The UK was a Global Empire, and the USA was largely a smaller economic force before WW2, content to follow the UK lead in most (but not all) foreign matters.

To make a very long story very short, the Allied Powers won WW2, but at a terrible cost. London had been reduced to rubble. Much of Europe had been reduced to rubble. Some reports said the USSR lost 20% of its population to WW2. The USA did not expect it, and did not necessarily want it, but the fact remained -- the USA was the most powerful nation on the planet.

At the end of WW2, like it or not, the USA was the heir of Great Britain as the Superpower of planet Earth.

Some Americans loved the idea. Many Americans were most uncomfortable with the idea. For one thing, it was nearly impossible for US rightists maintain an attitude of Isolationism when the world looked to the USA as a Global Superpower.

Did we rise to the occasion? In some cases yes, and in other cases, no.

I believe that JFK rose to the occassion - for the most part. I believe that many among the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and many retired Generals as well, did not rise properly to the occasion. General Edwin A. Walker, for example, continued to rail loudly in all news media possible, that the United Nations is Treason!

Any political figures that did not embrace McCarthyism, or rightist Christian jingoism, or University race segregation, were for the extreme USA rightists, Communists pure and simple. And like all Communists, they must all be wiped out. Thus the extreme rightists in 1963 identified their main Communist enemy not in Moscow, but in Washington DC.

This had a suppressive effect on US politics, as should be obvious. Many in the Soviet world enjoyed the buffoon side-show of rightist Americans attacking leftist and even moderate Americans, because they knew it weakened the unity of America.

JFK took particular exception to these new Isolationists in the early 1960's. He made speeches against them. He encouraged movies to be made to criticize them (e.g. Seven Days in May (1962)). He had little or no patience at all with them. JFK was trying to adapt the Presidency and the USA to the demands of being the Global Superpower -- something new and unsteady for our people.

So, Nathaniel, when I spoke of US Isolationsists, I referred to the US right-wing in 1963, including H.L. Hunt, Billy James Hargis, Dr. Fred C. Schwarz, Robert Welch, and General Edwin A. Walker.

This is why I said that JFK was killed as a result of the clash of US Isolationists with Globalists -- I presumed it was self-evident that JFK was among the Globalists.

Best regards,

--Paul Trejo

[Nathaniel Heidenheimer]

Paul the far right such as Birchers etc were no longer isolationists. Yes they railed against the UN and multi-latteralism but it was because of unilateral interventionism in Latin America and Asia and not for isolationism. I think you are misunderstanding the key 1950-56 period in which a fierce unilateral interventionism in the name of anti-communism triumphed over the Taft wing. As early as 46 47 with the Vandenberg conversion, the isolationist right was a thing of the past.

The reason they might SEEM sometimes isolationist is, as you rightly point out, their fierce opposition to UN Eurocentric multi-latteralism. But that is not the same as isolationism. The new rightists wanted to intervene more freely without UN approval. These are the western interventionists of the China Lobby and other unilateral adventurists. We see this concern with "will the US still be able to act like Latin America is our back yard" already in the Senate Debates over the Versailles treaty and we see it most clearly -- in so far as the JFK assassination is concerned-- in Nelson Rockefeller's machinations around Argentina just before the San Francisco UN convention in 1945. Again this is unilateral interventionism not isolationism.

Edited February 17, 2012 by Nathaniel Heidenheimer

[Guest Robert Morrow]

"I think you are misunderstanding the key 1950-56 period in which a fierce unilateral interventionism in the name of anti-communism triumphed over the Taft wing. As early as 46 47 with the Vandenberg conversion, the isolationist right was a thing of the past."

The Birchers of the 1950's and early 1960's hated the United Nations - seeing it as unelected world government, but they were not non-interventionist or "isolationist."

A Bircher like H.L. Hunt was quite militaristic, aggressive, imperialistic and interventionist and also a big supporter of the "Curtis LeMay" and "Edwin Walker" elements in US military.

In my opinion, H.L. Hunt was absolutely one of the big players of the JFK assassination. He considered JFK to be a traitor and Hunt was a close friend of Lyndon Johnson. From Hunt's point of view, it was ok that Johnson was a socialist, as long as he buttered the bread of the oil industry. That would be most important to Hunt, even above his ultra-reactionary politicis.