Dealey Plaza - Was it a Sign?

[John Simkin]

In his book, With Kennedy, Pierre Salinger wrote about a meeting between E. M. Dealey, the publisher of the Dallas Morning News and JFK. Dealey told him: "We need a man on horseback to lead this nation, and many people in Texas and the Southwest think that you are riding Caroline's bicycle."

Salinger adds:

The same day the President was assassinated, the Dallas Morning News ran a full-page ad, paid for by "American-thinking Citizens of Dallas," accusing him of pro-Communist sympathies. The day before, a News columnist advised the President to confine his remarks in Dallas to yachting: "If the speech is about boating you will be among the warmest of admirers. If it is about Cuba, civil rights, taxes or Vietnam, there will sure as shooting be some who heave to and let go with a broadside of grapeshot in the presidential rigging."

[Tim Carroll]

John:

I believe that Ted Dealey's statement to JFK in front of a luncheon of newspaper publishers touched on a highly significant issue that is seldom recognized.

In November, 1961, wearing his distinctively bizaar green eye shades, Ted Dealey said "We can annihilate Russia and should make that clear to the Soviet government.... We need a man on horseback to lead this nation, and many people in Texas think that you are riding Caroline's bicycle." While this story is often told as having pissed JFK off because of the reference to Caroline, Dealey had perhaps unknowingly touched on one of the most sensitive and secret subjects within the administration. At the time, JFK replied angrily, "Wars are easier to talk about than they are to fight. I'm just as tough as you are, Mr. Dealey. I have the responsibility for the lives of 180 million Americans, which you have not; and I didn't get elected by arriving at soft judgments."

That same month, after six months of the highest level of debate, JFK concluded that the historical mutual deceit by Khrushchev and Eisenhower that the Soviets were "building missiles like sausages," which Ike and a select few knew to be untrue from the U-2 overflights but played along with as it pretextualized the huge military industrial expenditures, now was putting JFK in a bad spot with the clamor for a massive and unnecessary ICBM build-up. Khrushchev's recent speech to the Party Congress showed the danger of allowing him to continue his false boasts unchallenged. JFK decided to let the true state of U.S. massive weapons superiority be known in a fairly discreet manner. He had Roswell Gilpatrick let the true degree of the imbalance be revealed in a speech to the Business Council in Hot Springs, Virginia. The expected result was an increased buildup of Soviet ICBMs. However, Khrushchev didn't have that much time, didn't have the money, and couldn't afford to have himself shown to be a Paper Tiger to the Chinese. His quick fix was the deployment of missiles to Cuba.

As for the idea that JFK was warned with a "broadside of grapeshot" if his speech at the Trade Mart in Dallas was too provocative for that city's delicacy, JFK apparently was not willing to mollify his remarks, which included the following:

"But today other voices are heard in the land—voices preaching doctrines wholly unrelated to reality ... doctrines which apparently assume that words will suffice without weapons, that vituperation is as good as victory and that peace is a sign of weakness.... I realize that this Nation often tends to identify turning-points in world affairs with the major addresses which preceded them. But it was not the Monroe Doctrine that kept all Europe away from this hemisphere—it was the strength of the British fleet and the width of the Atlantic Ocean."

Tim

Edited November 4, 2004 by Tim Carroll

[Dawn Meredith]

John:

I believe that Ted Dealey's statement to JFK in front of a luncheon of newspaper publishers touched on a highly significant issue that is seldom recognized.

In November, 1961, wearing his distinctively bizaar green eye shades, Ted Dealey said "We can annihilate Russia and should make that clear to the Soviet government....  We need a man on horseback to lead this nation, and many people in Texas think that you are riding Caroline's bicycle."  While this story is often told as having pissed JFK off because of the reference to Caroline, Dealey had perhaps unknowingly touched on one of the most sensitive and secret subjects within the administration.  At the time, JFK replied angrily, "Wars are easier to talk about than they are to fight.  I'm just as tough as you are, Mr. Dealey.  I have the responsibility for the lives of 180 million Americans, which you have not; and I didn't get elected by arriving at soft judgments."

That same month, after six months of the highest level of debate, JFK concluded that the historical mutual deceit by Khrushchev and Eisenhower that the Soviets were "building missiles like sausages," which Ike and a select few knew to be untrue from the U-2 overflights but played along with as it pretextualized the huge military industrial expenditures, now was putting JFK in a bad spot with the clamor for a massive and unnecessary ICBM build-up.  Khrushchev's recent speech to the Party Congress showed the danger of allowing him to continue his false boasts unchallenged.  JFK decided to let the true state of U.S. massive weapons superiority be known in a fairly discreet manner.  He had Roswell Gilpatrick let the true degree of the imbalance be revealed in a speech to the Business Council in Hot Springs, Virginia.  The expected result was an increased buildup of Soviet ICBMs.  However, Khrushchev didn't have that much time, didn't have the money, and couldn't afford to have himself shown to be a Paper Tiger to the Chinese.  His quick fix was the deployment of missiles to Cuba.

As for the idea that JFK was warned with a "broadside of grapeshot" if his speech at the Trade Mart in Dallas was too provocative for that city's delicacy, JFK apparently was not willing to mollify his remarks, which included the following:

"But today other voices are heard in the land—voices preaching doctrines wholly unrelated to reality ... doctrines which apparently assume that words will suffice without weapons, that vituperation is as good as victory and that peace is a sign of weakness.... I realize that this Nation often tends to identify turning-points in world affairs with the major addresses which preceded them. But it was not the Monroe Doctrine that kept all Europe away from this hemisphere—it was the strength of the British fleet and the width of the Atlantic Ocean."

Tim

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Contrast those words with any speech given by Bush. It makes me weep.

Dawn

[Tim Carroll]

John:

"But today other voices are heard in the land—voices preaching doctrines wholly unrelated to reality ... doctrines which apparently assume that words will suffice without weapons, that vituperation is as good as victory and that peace is a sign of weakness.... I realize that this Nation often tends to identify turning-points in world affairs with the major addresses which preceded them. But it was not the Monroe Doctrine that kept all Europe away from this hemisphere—it was the strength of the British fleet and the width of the Atlantic Ocean."

Tim

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Contrast those words with any speech given by Bush. It makes me weep.

Dawn

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Delta Dawn:

I don't think Bush could pronounce "vituperation," let alone understand it.

Tim