History is proving LBJ killed Kennedy

[Greg Burnham]

Averell Harriman had absolutely nothing to do with the JFK assassination. Nothing. Nothing at all. In 4-5 years of intense JFK research I have found almost nothing in the literature or in comments among the top JFK researchers to indicate that Averell Harriman had anything to do with the JFK assassination.

Spoken from a position of utter ignorance, Robert strikes again...

Indeed you haven't read very much so it's no wonder you haven't gotten to it yet.

[Guest Robert Morrow]

Averell Harriman had absolutely nothing to do with the JFK assassination. Nothing. Nothing at all. In 4-5 years of intense JFK research I have found almost nothing in the literature or in comments among the top JFK researchers to indicate that Averell Harriman had anything to do with the JFK assassination.

Spoken from a position of utter ignorance, Robert strikes again...

Indeed you haven't read very much so it's no wonder you haven't gotten to it yet.

Burnham, aren't you the one who did not know (in 2012 no less!) Robert Kennedy was on the verge of destroying Lyndon Johnson both by feeding LIFE magazine damaging info and by sending a lawyer up to the Senate Rules Committee with the same agenda?

And you didn't even know that your supposed friend Jack White emphatically thought Lyndon Johnson was behind the JFK assassination? Which he stated on many occasions - for decades - as he fingered LBJ as the most important player in the JFK assassination.

I agree I don't know a lot things, but you really don't impress me, Burnham.

Averell Harriman had absolutely nothing - and I mean nothing - to do with the JFK assassination. And what I have learned is Cuba policy played a far, far bigger role in it than Vietnam policy.

And if anyone DOES think Averell Harriman, a friend of John Kennedy, was involved in the JFK assassination, please list some books or some good web links for me and others to read on this topic.

Just because Harriman disagreed with his FRIEND John Kennedy on Vietnam, does not mean he murdered him. However, Lyndon Johnson was having a 3 year war with the Kennedys and was on the verge of political execution and personal destruction by them.

Edited December 11, 2012 by Robert Morrow

[David Josephs]

Averell Harriman had absolutely nothing to do with the JFK assassination. Nothing. Nothing at all. In 4-5 years of intense JFK research I have found almost nothing in the literature or in comments among the top JFK researchers to indicate that Averell Harriman had anything to do with the JFK assassination.

Spoken from a position of utter ignorance, Robert strikes again...

Indeed you haven't read very much so it's no wonder you haven't gotten to it yet.

And even more OBVIOUS, imo...

is if his statement is correct... wouldn't this lead one to believe - given his proximity - that Harriman and the other "sponsors" had done an amazingly good job at covering ANY tracks leading to them?

Doesn't the notion that LBJ could even be CONSIDERED a "materstermind" automatically remove him from possiblity? What "mastermind" creates a plot that includes himself as a possibility?

I've read Robert write about CFR-based sponsors repeatedly.... LBJ was not a CFR insider - he took orders.

If anything Harriman and the sponsors easily kept their finger on LBJ... the idea that LBJ was the second "patsy" is actually quite profound imo....

Not only was he fearing being killed, but being outed as well... LBJ was a player on the chessboard... he had not real idea who owned the pieces

DJ

[Joseph Backes]

I would like to ask that people either read, or re-read John Newman's presentation from Lancer 1999

Mexico City a New Analysis

A lot of it is on Mexico City, yes, but John goes into great detail on how Lyndon manipulated people into silence, into stopping investigations, in Dallas at the local level, at the state level, and preventing two from ever starting at the federal level in the House or the U.S. Senate and finally into signing on and as John said "blessing," the lone nut scenario.

[Greg Burnham]

Averell Harriman had absolutely nothing to do with the JFK assassination. Nothing. Nothing at all. In 4-5 years of intense JFK research I have found almost nothing in the literature or in comments among the top JFK researchers to indicate that Averell Harriman had anything to do with the JFK assassination.

Spoken from a position of utter ignorance, Robert strikes again...

Indeed you haven't read very much so it's no wonder you haven't gotten to it yet.

Burnham, aren't you the one who did not know (in 2012 no less!) Robert Kennedy was on the verge of destroying Lyndon Johnson both by feeding LIFE magazine damaging info and by sending a lawyer up to the Senate Rules Committee with the same agenda?

And you didn't even know that your supposed friend Jack White emphatically thought Lyndon Johnson was behind the JFK assassination? Which he stated on many occasions - for decades - as he fingered LBJ as the most important player in the JFK assassination.

I agree I don't know a lot things, but you really don't impress me, Burnham.

Averell Harriman had absolutely nothing - and I mean nothing - to do with the JFK assassination. And what I have learned is Cuba policy played a far, far bigger role in it than Vietnam policy.

And if anyone DOES think Averell Harriman, a friend of John Kennedy, was involved in the JFK assassination, please list some books or some good web links for me and others to read on this topic.

Just because Harriman disagreed with his FRIEND John Kennedy on Vietnam, does not mean he murdered him. However, Lyndon Johnson was having a 3 year war with the Kennedys and was on the verge of political execution and personal destruction by them.

You raised many irrelevant objections in your reply.

We were talking about Harriman. But, since you brought it up:

I last spoke to Jack White, in person, in 2010--after my COPA presentation--where I met you.

Jack affirmed that immediately following the assassination and for many years thereafter he believed LBJ was behind it--the mastermind--and he said he thought that most Texans believed that, as well.

However, upon many years of research he concluded that although LBJ was an essential figure, no doubt, he was not in any way the "mastermind" -- and not really even close to it. Later in life he leaned

heavily toward Dulles being in that role. That conclusion (Dulles) is not one that Jack and I shared.

[Paul Brancato]

Oswald went to Mexico, but was it Oswald or the 'mystery man' that met with Kostikov?

I read through Mr. Newman's presentation, and if I understand his views correctly he is saying that whoever dreamed up the Kostikov/Oswald connection (virus) knew that it would provide cover for the actual conspirators because it would cause the massive cover-up that ensued. Isn't it also possible that the plan was cooked up by extreme anti-communists willing to gamble on the possibility of nuclear war? You know, guys like general Buck Turgidson or Jack D. Ripper? If the Kostikov story was a deliberate plant it had to at least have been conceived by someone who knew who he was. I doubt that LHO knew, because assuming he wrote the intercepted letter to the Soviets he got his name wrong. I doubt that the Soviets or Castro would have taken a gamble on a virus that implicated themselves - too dangerous - and don't think the mafia were that sophisticated. That pretty much leaves renegade US military and intelligence, retired military commie haters like general Walker, and of course LBJ himself. The advantage of the LBJ theory in this case is that he was in the best position to make sure that the virus worked as intended. But as I am sure, and history shows, that LBJ would never have sanctioned a nuclear strike on the Soviets, he would have had to be very sure of his ability once he became president to control the investigation.

To get back to Oswald in Mexico, if he wasn't trying to get a visa and wasn't meeting with Kostilov, what was he doing? I've read some of the confusing and sketchy info on this and can't make much sense of it. But I don't buy the idea that he was trying to get to Cuba.

[Cliff Varnell]

And if anyone DOES think Averell Harriman, a friend of John Kennedy, was involved in the JFK assassination, please list some books or some good web links for me and others to read on this topic.

Why? You'll just rationalize dismissing it, just as you've done with everything presented in this thread...

Just because Harriman disagreed with his FRIEND John Kennedy on Vietnam, does not mean he murdered him. However, Lyndon Johnson was having a 3 year war with the Kennedys and was on the verge of political execution and personal destruction by them.

That was nothing compared to the battle going on in the Kennedy Administration over SE Asia policy -- Kennedy v. Harriman.

Ellen J. Hammer's A Death in November: America in Vietnam 1963, pgs 177-80:

Washington, August 24, 1963

A handful of men in the State Department and the White House had been awaiting an opportunity to encourage the Vietnamese army to move against the [Diem] government. They intended to exploit the latest crisis [massive raids on Buddhist pagodas August 21] in Saigon to the full. "Averell [Harriman] and Roger [Hilsman] now agree that we must move before the situation in Saigon freezes," Michael Forrestal of the White House staff wrote in a memorandum to President Kennedy.

..."Harriman, Hilsman and I favor taking...action now," Forrestal informed the president. Kennedy was at his Hyannis Port residence in Massachusetts for the weekend. The three men had drafted a cable of their own to [uS Ambassador to South Vietnam Henry Cabot] Lodge. The substance, according to Forrestal, had been generally agreed to by [commander in chief of Pacific Command (CINCPAC)] Admiral [Harry D.] Felt. "Clearances [are] being obtained from [Acting Secretary of State] Ball and [the Department of] Defense...Will advise you reactions Ball and Defense, but suggest you let me know if you wish comment or hold-up action." A copy of their draft was dispatched to the president.

This would become Department of State telegram No. 243.

It stated that the American government could not tolerate a situation in which power lay in [Diem brother and head of SVN secret police] Nhu's hands. Military leaders were to be informed that the United States would find it impossible to continue military and economic support to the government unless prompt dramatic actions were taken by Diem to redress Buddhist grievances and remove the Nhus from the scene...Ambassador and country team should urgently examine all possible alternative leadership and make detailed plans as to how we might bring about Diem's replacement if this should become necessary...

...Harriman and Hilsman were determined to send their cable that very day. They found Acting Secretary of State [George] Ball on the golf course, and he telephoned the president in Hyannis Port. Kennedy made no difficulty about giving his approval, assuming that the appropriate officials agreed.

After the call to Kennedy the rest was simple. Ball telephoned [secretary of State Dean] Rusk in New York and told him the president had already agreed, and Rusk gave his own unenthusiastic endorsement. When Roswell Gilpatric (McNamara's deputy at Defense) was called at home by Forrestal, he too was told that Kennedy had cleared the telegram and he was assured that Rusk had seen it. Gilpatric reluctantly gave the clearance of the Department of Defense but was concerned enough about the substance of the cable and the way it had been handled to alert General Taylor, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Taylor sent for a copy of the cable. When he read it, his first reaction was that the anti-Diemists in the State Department had taken advantage of the absence of the principal officials to get out instructions that would never have been approved as written under ordinary circumstances. John McCone also was out of town, and rather than try to locate him Harriman had reached Richard Helms, who provided the clearance of the Central Intelligence Agency.

With the president's approval State Department telegram 243 was dispatched to Saigon at 9:36 P.M. on August 24.

John Kennedy would regard this as a major mistake on his part, according to his brother Robert. "He had passed it off too quickly over the weekend at the Cape--he had thought it was cleared by McNamara and Taylor and everyone at State. In fact, it was Harriman, Hilsman and Mike Forrestal at the White House and they were all the ones who were strongly for a coup. Harriman was particularly strong for a coup.

ibid, pg 185:

Washington, August 26-27, 1963

...In the cool halls of the White House the hectic plotting of the weekend took on an air of unreality. Robert Kennedy had talked with Taylor and McNamara and discovered that "nobody was behind it, nobody knew what we were going to do, nobody knew what our policy was; it hadn't been discussed, as everything else had been discussed since the Bay of Pigs in full detail before we did anything--nothing like that had been done before the decision made on Diem, and so by Tuesday we were trying to pull away from that policy..."

President Kennedy belatedly realized that no one had spelled out to him the ramifications fo the plicy he had approved so lightly. He was irritated at the disagreement among his advisers. Taylor, McNamara, and McCone all were critical of the attempt to run a coup in Saigon. Even Rusk seemed to have second thoughts. "The government was split in two," Robert Kennedy recalled. "It was the only time really in three years, the government was broken in two in a very disturbing way."

ibid, page 198, quoting Robert Kennedy:

"The result [of the cable of August 24] is we started down a road from which we never really recovered...[uS Vietnam military commander General Paul] Harkins was against it and Lodge wasn't talking to Harkins. So Henry Cabot Lodge started down one direction, the State Department was rather in the middle, and they suddenly called off the coup. Then the next five or six weeks we were all concerned about whether they were going to have a coup, who was going to win the coup, and who was going to replace the government. Nobody ever really had any of the answers to any of these things...the President was trying to get rid of Henry Cabot Lodge...The policy he [Lodge] was following was based on that original policy that had been made and then rescinded...that Averell Harriman was responsible for..."

"The government was broken in two in a very disturbing way" -- Robert Kennedy

Very disturbing, indeed.

Edited December 12, 2012 by Cliff Varnell

[Cliff Varnell]

Ron Ecker: It's from the book The President Has Been Shot. Charles Roberts of Newsweek was on AF1 as it returned to Washington with the president's body. He wrote this about the arrival at Andrews and the unloading of the casket (p. 141):

"I remember looking at (McGeorge) Bundy because I was wondering if he had any word of what had happened in the world while we were in transit, whether this assassination was part of a plot. And he told me later that what he reported to the president during that flight back was that the whole world was stunned, but there was no evidence of a conspiracy at all."

So! We have Jim Bishop reporting on AF1-WH communication transcripts and a journalist quoting Bundy as being the first to say there was no evidence of a conspiracy.

The case against Bundy looks solid!

Keep looking at Bundy and GHW Bush, Robert. You'll see the puppeteer's wires in due time...

Edited December 12, 2012 by Cliff Varnell