LBJ, J. Edgar Hoover and the JFK assassination conspiracy

[Glenn Nall]

Glenn,

JFK inherited the Bay of Pigs from the Eisenhower administration. It was a CIA project, and they expected the new young president to rubber-stamp it. The myth that JFK refused to provide air protection at the last minute is just one of the many smears against the Kennedys which aren't supported by the facts.

JFK was new to the job, and extremely naive politically at the time of the Bay of Pigs. More than any other event, in my view, this disaster changed the way he looked at the military-industrial complex and the intelligence agencies. His response- especially the firing of Dulles and Bissell- certainly impacted the way the tptb looked at the Kennedys.

It was, in fact, Nixon's Pet. Ike went with it, but, curiously enough, Nixon "bequeathed" it to Kennedy.

How interesting. things that make one go, "hmmm."

[Glenn Nall]

Glenn,

JFK inherited the Bay of Pigs from the Eisenhower administration. It was a CIA project, and they expected the new young president to rubber-stamp it. The myth that JFK refused to provide air protection at the last minute is just one of the many smears against the Kennedys which aren't supported by the facts.

JFK was new to the job, and extremely naive politically at the time of the Bay of Pigs. More than any other event, in my view, this disaster changed the way he looked at the military-industrial complex and the intelligence agencies. His response- especially the firing of Dulles and Bissell- certainly impacted the way the tptb looked at the Kennedys.

yes.

I know this.

I'm quite tired of some members in here assuming that i'm uneducated in JFK legacy, and/or that i'm an idiot. from what i've assessed, there's very little room for either judgement from very many contributors to this dialog.

i force myself to remember that some of you likely know things that are not very public. I'd encourage you all (not you, so much, Don, you've always been fair and objective --- please offer understandable definitions of these two words where required? I've given up) to extend others similar possibilities. What some people know might incontrovertibly xxxx your theories up.

Glenn,

JFK inherited the Bay of Pigs from the Eisenhower administration. It was a CIA project, and they expected the new young president to rubber-stamp it. The myth that JFK refused to provide air protection at the last minute is just one of the many smears against the Kennedys which aren't supported by the facts.

JFK was new to the job, and extremely naive politically at the time of the Bay of Pigs. More than any other event, in my view, this disaster changed the way he looked at the military-industrial complex and the intelligence agencies. His response- especially the firing of Dulles and Bissell- certainly impacted the way the tptb looked at the Kennedys.

Dulles - Bissell - oh, AND Cabell. Let's not forget that name....

[Glenn Nall]

David Andrews,

I believe I'm in the minority here in reading NSAM 263 not as a plan for withdrawing from Viet Nam per se but rather as an expression of hope that the South Vietnamese government could, by the end of 1965, take full responsibility for defending itself and its territory from the Viet Cong and NVA. It's clear to me, at least, that if the South Vietnamese government had not stepped up to the plate by the end of 1965, there would have been U.S. ground forces, in whatever number was needed, to keep South Viet Nam afloat in a second JFK term. JFK may have had a relatively good read on Viet Nam, but he was not about to hand the country over to Ho Chi Minh.

Ho Chi Minh and his compatriots wanted to take over South Viet Nam and were willing to try to do so at any cost. None of this changed on or after November 22, 1963.

Glenn Nall,

I was wrong to say JFK opposed the BOP invasion. IMO, he did not oppose the invasion forcibly enough to deter the half-hearted attempt that was made. As I understand, JFK told Richard Bissell of CIA that air cover would not be provided until the landing force had secured a beachhead. To me, that instruction, if it was in fact given, allowed for ambiguity. When would a beachhead be considered secured? That question does not have a precise answer. Ineffective air cover was provided and made no difference. To me, JFK was trying to game the situation. Surely IMO he would have claimed success if the landing had succeeded in overthrowing Castro. The fact he took responsibility for the landing's failure means nothing to me. He was going to get blamed no matter what. By taking responsibility, he seized the high road, a basic JFK strategy.

Just so you don't get me wrong Glenn, I consider the JFK murder to be the most important crime of the 20th century. I want justice for those responsible. At the same time, I don't wear rose colored glasses when it comes to JFK.

no offense. you and i are on the same page, mostly. except that i hold the entire planet suspect, except for my mom and dad, cause i know where they were that day.

right. if nothing else, K had backbone (dissimilar to today's D. Party). He took the bullet. Metaphorically. It's more likely, knowing CIA tactics and morals, that it wasn't Ks choice, anyway.

We'll never know.

[Jon G. Tidd]

Jim,

Thanks. Count me as strange, but I don't believe JFK would have let the South Vietnamese government fall to "communist aggression".

Reasons: JFK had worked out a so-called neutrality deal for Laos. In the first year or two of the 1960s. Laos loomed large on Americans' radar screens; Viet Nam was deep in the background. When Viet Nam emerged from the background with the Ngo brothers' persecution of Buddhists, literally erupting in flames in the streets of Saigon in 1963, JFK had a problem. Diem was corrupt and inefficient. But JFK wanted to keep the South Vietnamese government from falling to the communists.

He wanted, however, to do it on the cheap from the viewpoint of U.S. military leaders. JFK sent advisors and helicopters to South Viet Nam. Increasingly, the advisors got drawn into combat. In addition, JFK sent special forces (Green Beret) troops to Viet Nam. JFK believed that special forces troops were the way to oppose Communist wars of national liberation.

I agree JFK did not want to get sucked into a ground war in Viet Nam. With the Laos precedent, I don't believe he would have been ready to consign the South to Ho Chi Minh; to just hand the South over. He never faced that choice.

As for McGeorge Bundy, he was a first class hawk. I've never had any use for that POS.

As for MacNamara, talk about weaklings. He knows by 1965 or 1966 that LBJ's plans for Viet Nam are doomed. Yet he continues to order American boys to the deaths. My suggestion to all here: read the NYT opinion piece on Mac upon his death in the 1990s.

[Glenn Nall]

I agree. it's my guess, and that's all it is, that Mac's (Bundy) still cowering under a table somewhere (is he dead yet?). he's one of those overlooked puddles of mud. you step in it, cuss, shake it off and keep going, not too curious what the eff it was you just stepped in.

some will say i must be thinking of LBJ, but anyone who stepped in him knew exactly what it was. Their foot stank for a week.

Edited October 2, 2015 by Glenn Nall

[Chris Newton]

As for McGeorge Bundy, he was a first class hawk.

McGeorge is on the short list of conspiracy suspects with foreknowledge for his draft of the NSAM reversing JFK's Vietnam policy written 11/21/63.

See Greg Burnham's excellent video. Skip ahead to the 15:00 minute mark if you want save time but I recommend the whole thing:

[Jon G. Tidd]

Chris,

What is your branch and rank in the photo you present? Thanks.

[Glenn Nall]

yep. Chris (what's that, like LCDR Newton...? , you're right. The man has been given some attention. Short list? cool. The irony is that people like me wish people like him would get more attention, but his truths are no more likely to take us to the light than discovering how many bullets hit Jack and where.

God: yep, Glenn, Mac was involved. so was Lyndon, Edgar and Mr. Ruby. Five bullets came from the rear, three from the front. Umbrella Man did his job. Sturgis and Hunt were in DalTex, and Files doesn't know his ass from a hole George HW Bush dug.

Me: great. helps a lot, God. Thanks for nothing.

God: you're welcome. and wait ten minutes before you get your paper tomorrow morning. Tree limb's set to fall and it might hurt.

[Glenn Nall]

Chris,

What is your branch and rank in the photo you present? Thanks.

that's SO funny you ask that, as i JUST implied the same question with my allusion to LCDR (he's clearly not Navy).

As if he's not listening, I'm guessing he's USArmy and those are the Bronze Oak Leaves of an O-5... but I could be wrong.

I've been wrong before. (don't tell TGraves - he thinks if i touch my keyboard I'm wrong)

Edited October 2, 2015 by Glenn Nall

[Chris Newton]

What is your branch and rank in the photo you present? Thanks.

Armor, SGT E-5, at the time the picture was taken.

O-5

Hell no. I actually worked for a living and I could read a map,

Edited October 2, 2015 by Chris Newton

[Glenn Nall]

What is your branch and rank in the photo you present? Thanks.

Armor, SGT E-5, at the time the picture was taken.

O-5

Hell no. I actually worked for a living and I could read a map,

Ah. Armored. Even better...

There is still honor.

Rah.

[James DiEugenio]

Jon:

With all due respect, it does not matter today what someone thinks or assumes.

In your reply you did not counter one piece of evidence that I put forth. Except to say that you did not like McNamara or Bundy.

Which is utterly irrelevant to the point. They as well as Taylor (I assume you hate him also) were witnesses to what happened. That is, they were there in the room. All of them later said that JFK would never have committed combat troops to Vietnam. Their testimony has value since they discussed the matter with him publicly and privately.

Your assumption that JFK would not let Saigon be overrun by the communists is just that, an assumption. And by the way, it was not Ho Chi Minh in charge in the late sixties, it was Le Duan. This info is available in recently translated North Vietnamese volumes on the war.

Further, in these books which a friend of mine has read, Hanoi did not commit regular troops to the south until 1964 for the specific reason that they felt Kennedy would withdraw. In fact, Giap later said that he understood that to be the case by 1963.

Very soon, they saw that LBJ was going to reverse Kennedy's strategy. So they begin to infiltrate their regular army into the south expecting that, very soon, American troops would be there. They were correct.

You can call Giap and Le Duan etc, all POS too. But the point is, they were right there in the middle of things getting communications from several different directions, including China and the USSR. So maybe they did know something that most others did not? I mean you cannot beat GIap's record can you?

As John Newman once said to another doubter, in this case, Warren Hinckle, "Just show me Kennedy's plan for staying in Vietnam. I will gladly look at it. But I couldn't find it in ten years."

Because its not there.

BTW, when the Hanoi tanks rolled into Saigon in 1975, did the American public rise up in rage against the men who allowed it to happen?

For me, and many others, the sheer amount of data on this issue has simply closed the case. Plus, the more we learn about Kennedy's overall foreign policy from new authors like Rakove, his withdrawal plan is all of a piece with the other parts of the mosaic. Kennedy was not going to use American combat troops in the Third World. If he did not commit them during the Bay of Pigs, or Laos, or in Vietnam in 1961--when everyone wanted him to--then it was simply a non starter.

See, JFK was in Saigon in 1951, and he was determined to take the real pulse of that colonial struggle with France. And he did, mainly through State Department official Edmund Gullion. (I hope you know who he is.) Through him, he came to the conclusion that it was a lost cause--three years before DIen Bien Phu. And he used the same arguments he used in 1951 in 1961, during a two week debate in the White House. Its all there in the Burris memo of that 1961 meeting which is in the book Virtual JFK. If you have not read that book, you really should. Its a treasure trove of data and new documents.

So this is what I have done on this issue. I don't call witnesses POS, or crumbs or whatever. Because I understand what happened. Johnson was determined to reverse JFK's policy and then to cover up his own tracks. And that evidence is in VIrtual JFK also.

And BTW, I don't even call Johnson a POS. Because after reading about him, I understand who he was, a classic Cold Warrior, who got eaten alive by his own ignorance.

To me Nixon and Kissinger were really POS. Why? Because as Ken Hughes proves, they knew the war could not be won as early as 1969. But they kept at it anyway, killing hundreds of thousands of innocent people. All of this to get a fig leaf of a Peace Accord, which they knew would collapse. But as long as it allowed for a Decent Interval, that was fine with them.

With successors like that, JFK looks pretty darn good.

Edited October 3, 2015 by James DiEugenio

[Glenn Nall]

"With a successors like that, JFK looks pretty darn good."

right. which was the whole idea. toiletry, by design.

[Martin Blank]

Glenn,

JFK inherited the Bay of Pigs from the Eisenhower administration. It was a CIA project, and they expected the new young president to rubber-stamp it. The myth that JFK refused to provide air protection at the last minute is just one of the many smears against the Kennedys which aren't supported by the facts.

JFK was new to the job, and extremely naive politically at the time of the Bay of Pigs. More than any other event, in my view, this disaster changed the way he looked at the military-industrial complex and the intelligence agencies. His response- especially the firing of Dulles and Bissell- certainly impacted the way the tptb looked at the Kennedys.

It was, in fact, Nixon's Pet. Ike went with it, but, curiously enough, Nixon "bequeathed" it to Kennedy.

How interesting. things that make one go, "hmmm."

everything was set up for nixon to be prez. jfk upset the apple cart with some help from his "friends"

Edited October 3, 2015 by Martin Blank

[James DiEugenio]

But what they didn't expect was that Kennedy would launch an investigation afterwards to see why it was a debacle.

And it included his brother, who asked Dulles too many pointed questions, like "How could you believe that 1500 Cuban exiles could hold a beachhead against 35,000 Cuban regular troops and tens of thousands of supplementary militia?"

Did LBJ launch an inquiry after Tet? Did Ford launch an inquiry after the debacle of the fall of Saigon under chaotic circumstances? And Bush 2 wanted an inquiry of 9-11 with, of all people, Kissinger in charge? LOL