Allen Dulles and his secret behind Kennedy's assassintion

[Sandy Larsen]

I do not agree that the cover up was separate from the conspiracy.

Ditto. IMO another key is Ruby killing Oswald. Rubbing out Oswald was of course part of the cover-up. And who obviously would want to silence him asap when he got himself arrested? The same people who used him up as a patsy, i.e. the people who killed JFK.

IMO Oswald was supposed to be already dead, or on the way to his demise in the company of someone besides the DPD.

At least part of the cover-up had to have been separate from the assassination plot. We know that because the assassination plot pushed the alleged Mexico City trip and meeting with KGB assassinations agent Valeriy Kostikov (which the CIA informed the WC of), whereas the WC cover-up downplayed it.

I see no reason why the assassination conspirators would include any plans beyond what was needed to accomplish their goals. Part of their goals would have been to protect themselves and to direct blame toward their patsy. So, of course the assassination plot included elements of cover-up. The question is, where did the assassination plot end and the WC cover-up begin?

[Ron Ecker]

You see, that's where I disagree, the cover up didn't begin the moment Ruby killed Oswald

Well certainly the cover-up didn't begin with the killing of Oswald. I didn't say that it did. I said that the killing is a key to understanding that the cover-up was not separate from the conspiracy. The same people involved in setting up the patsy and killing JFK were involved in eliminating the patsy (i.e., in covering up).

just as it took planning to assassinate Kennedy, it also took [separate] planning to set up Oswald, get Oswald [out-of-the-way]

Yes, lots of planning was involved, including compartmentalization, so I guess you could say that each little plan in the plot was separate from the others. But I don't understand why that means the cover-up was separate from the conspiracy. The big picture involved assassination and cover-up, including setting up a patsy beforehand to blame it on and to eliminate afterwards. (Ruby having to do the elimination was due to some kind of screw-up.)

Edited January 24, 2016 by Ron Ecker

[Scott Kaiser]

But I don't understand why that means the cover-up was separate from the conspiracy.

If there is months of preparation and planning to assassinate the president and a location picked, there has to be a pasty. Oswald was killed two days after Kennedy's assassination, then there was another [six months or so] of cover-up to present Oswald as the lone shooter with the company spending more time on covering the Mexico trip then on any other part of the case. The cover up, is and will always be completely separate then the conspiracy to assassinate the president.

Edited January 24, 2016 by Scott Kaiser

[Ron Ecker]

There were people involved in the cover-up who were not involved in the conspiracy. Earl Warren, for example, did not fire a shot from the grassy knoll. The FBI may not have been involved in the conspiracy, but it had a field day ignoring, changing, or destroying evidence of same. But to say that the conspirators didn't plan any covering up of their crime doesn't make any sense to me. For one thing, they had a patsy, which is ipso facto covering up. And I think that's about all I have to say about it.

[Scott Kaiser]

There were people involved in the cover-up who were not involved in the conspiracy. Earl Warren, for example, did not fire a shot from the grassy knoll. The FBI may not have been involved in the conspiracy, but it had a field day ignoring, changing, or destroying evidence of same. But to say that the conspirators didn't plan any covering up of their crime doesn't make any sense to me. For one thing, they had a patsy, which is ipso facto covering up. And I think that's about all I have to say about it.

I'll try a different approach. The conspirators had a plan, which they needed to implement or put into action and they needed a pasty. Oswald was their man. Now, after the death of Oswald the cover had to take place in order to prevent what everyone wanted war. Blame Castro and the KGB Russians, it was the communist who did it yelled the anti-Castro Cubans. Let's invade Cuba!

LBJ knew all too well what could have happened had the United States entered war against Russia and Cuba, North Vietnam and China may have also gotten involved, who even knows how [out of control] this could have gotten over the assassination of Kennedy? So, it is much better to blame it on one man, then for a whole nation to perish.

Two very separate and different things.

[Ron Ecker]

I'll try a different approach. The conspirators had a plan, which they needed to implement or put into action and they needed a pasty. Oswald was their man. Now, after the death of Oswald the cover had to take place in order to prevent what everyone wanted war. Blame Castro and the KGB Russians, it was the communist who did it yelled the anti-Castro Cubans. Let's invade Cuba!

LBJ knew all too well what could have happened had the United States entered war against Russia and Cuba, North Vietnam and China may have also gotten involved, who even knows how [out of control] this could have gotten over the assassination of Kennedy? So, it is much better to blame it on one man, then for a whole nation to perish.

Two very separate and different things.

The conspirators indeed had a plan. IMO it was to assassinate JFK and blame it on Castro, for an invasion of Cuba. Another benefit, actually more important than making Cuba safe for mobsters again, was to get the war they wanted in Vietnam.

That plan and the lone-nut scenario are indeed "two very separate and different things." IMO the lone-nut scenario went into effect as a result of Oswald's arrest, ruining their plans to Castroize him further and necessitating his immediate elimination.

I don't know if LBJ actually feared WWIII or just fed that line to Warren to get him to head a cover-up commission. But the conspirators' plan included covering up, framing others, and probably included things which hadn't been planned, such as stealing the body to alter it after an ambush by Castro scenario went out the window.

Edited January 24, 2016 by Ron Ecker

[Scott Kaiser]

I'll try a different approach. The conspirators had a plan, which they needed to implement or put into action and they needed a pasty. Oswald was their man. Now, after the death of Oswald the cover had to take place in order to prevent what everyone wanted war. Blame Castro and the KGB Russians, it was the communist who did it yelled the anti-Castro Cubans. Let's invade Cuba!

LBJ knew all too well what could have happened had the United States entered war against Russia and Cuba, North Vietnam and China may have also gotten involved, who even knows how [out of control] this could have gotten over the assassination of Kennedy? So, it is much better to blame it on one man, then for a whole nation to perish.

Two very separate and different things.

The conspirators indeed had a plan. IMO it was to assassinate JFK and blame it on Castro, for an invasion of Cuba. Another benefit, actually more important than making Cuba safe for mobsters again, was to get the war they wanted in Vietnam.

That plan and the lone-nut scenario are indeed "two very separate and different things." IMO the lone-nut scenario went into effect as a result of Oswald's arrest, ruining their plans to Castroize him further and necessitating his immediate elimination.

I don't know if LBJ actually feared WWIII or just fed that line to Warren to get him to head a cover-up commission. But the conspirators' plan included covering up, framing others, and probably included things which hadn't been planned, such as stealing the body to alter it after an ambush by Castro scenario went out the window.

Exactly....

The conspirators indeed had a plan. IMO it was to assassinate JFK and blame it on Castro, for an invasion of Cuba.

Now... Ask yourself, what was Watergate about?

[Ron Ecker]

Now... Ask yourself, what was Watergate about?

I don't know what the break-in was about. Some say it was about hookers, which I guess is as good a reason as any. But it was sabotaged in order to bring down Nixon.

It's possible that the only real reason for the break-in was to have something to sabotage and get Nixon. (Has anyone else thought of that, or can I take credit for it?)

[Terry Martin]

Now... Ask yourself, what was Watergate about?

I don't know what the break-in was about. Some say it was about hookers, which I guess is as good a reason as any. But it was sabotaged in order to bring down Nixon.

It's possible that the only real reason for the break-in was to have something to sabotage and get Nixon. (Has anyone else thought of that, or can I take credit for it?)

I believe Ashton already mentioned that on another thread. But I could be wrong. Maybe you do get the credit.

[Scott Kaiser]

It only stands to reason to have your best men on an operation of which America thought was a botched burglary.

I don't blame America for being misinformed....

[Scott Kaiser]

Terry, I posted some of the information on this thread, a teaser if you will to better understand what Watergate was truly about, in my next material I dive right into it and explain it step by step that anyone can understand, even the more intellectual people will get it.

[Greg Burnham]

Even Hemming maintained that the reason the Watergate criminals were caught was because they were set up. According to him, the reason for their having been betrayed was to eventually implicate and take down Nixon.

[James DiEugenio]

SL: At least part of the cover-up had to have been separate from the assassination plot. We know that because the assassination plot pushed the alleged Mexico City trip and meeting with KGB assassinations agent Valeriy Kostikov (which the CIA informed the WC of), whereas the WC cover-up downplayed it.

This is the major thesis of Newman's book Oswald and the CIA. Which, again, not enough people have read.

​In the last part of the book, he makes the case that all of this skullduggery down there by the CIA--particularly Phillips, Goodpasture and Angleton--was done to set up this whole USSR, Cuba, Oswald plot.

That this in turn would raise the spectre of World War III. That, in turn, would throw Washington into a cover up mode at all costs.

And, guess what, that is what happened. You can actually hear it on the White House tapes. Hoover doesn't know what the heck is going on in Mexico.

​Then Johnson tells Warren and Russell, they have to sign on to a Hoover report no matter what it says or else forty million will be incinerated.

Douglass does a very nice job with this in his book.

Around the same time two other things are happening: 1.) Men outside the White House are besieging LBJ to construct a blue ribbon panel to get the crime out of Texas now that Oswald is dead, and 2.) Dulles is lobbying to be on that panel.

Edited January 24, 2016 by James DiEugenio

[Jon G. Tidd]

If anything, the CIA undermined the case for Oswald's being in Mexico City. Hoover was clearly confused about Oswald's allegedly being in Mexico City.

As for Dulles's lobbying to get appointed to the Warren Commission, he surely had an interest in protecting the CIA, which had a lot of dirty laundry. I'm sure Dulles felt it was better to take the offered patsy than to open up who knew what cans of worms.

Only if the CIA could be portrayed in 1964 as having a hand in the assassination does Dulles's place on the Warren Commission become suspicious to me. Even today, despite lots of information on CIA misdeeds and machinations, I find nothing in the record, nothing that holds up rock solid under scrutiny, that convinces me the CIA or any of its employees were involved in the plot to kill JFK. I'll buy post-assassination cover-up, dirty dealing, lies, and obfuscation on CIA's part. Those things are to be expected of any intelligence service in the world.

[Tom Neal]

If anything, the CIA undermined the case for Oswald's being in Mexico City. Hoover was clearly confused about Oswald's allegedly being in Mexico City.

As for Dulles's lobbying to get appointed to the Warren Commission, he surely had an interest in protecting the CIA, which had a lot of dirty laundry. I'm sure Dulles felt it was better to take the offered patsy than to open up who knew what cans of worms.

Only if the CIA could be portrayed in 1964 as having a hand in the assassination does Dulles's place on the Warren Commission become suspicious to me. Even today, despite lots of information on CIA misdeeds and machinations, I find nothing in the record, nothing that holds up rock solid under scrutiny, that convinces me the CIA or any of its employees were involved in the plot to kill JFK. I'll buy post-assassination cover-up, dirty dealing, lies, and obfuscation on CIA's part. Those things are to be expected of any intelligence service in the world.

Jon,

If you read "The Devil's Chessboard" with an open mind, IMO your confidence that CIA was NOT involved in the assassination will greatly diminish, if not vanish altogether.

Tom (who obviously thinks that a reasonable analysis of Dulles is impossible without reading THIS book)