For Jim DiEugenio- JFK's quote on the CIA confirmed

[Ron Bulman]

I also stumbled across this.  I had no idea Mansfield was so eloquent.  His words make me wonder if he might not have been trusted enough to have been told privately by JFK of a desire to splinter the cia.

Mansfield's poetic eulogy to JFK caught most off guard | Local News | missoulian.com

[Ron Bulman]

Mansfield's early "pessimistic observations" about Vietnam.

JFK Wanted Out of Vietnam | History News Network

"he admitted to Mansfield that his call for a total military withdrawal was correct."  Mansfield led JFK in this thought?

Edited February 23, 2021 by Ron Bulman

[Ron Bulman]

In this Rolling Stone article RFK Jr. attributes the quote to Arthur Schlesinger.

JFK's Vision of Peace: RFK Jr. on John F. Kennedy's Attempts to End the Cold War - Rolling Stone

[Ron Ecker]

Groden and Livingstone in "High Treason" state that JFK told Mansfield in 1961 that he wanted to tear the CIA "into a thousand pieces and scatter it to the winds" (p. 411 in my paperback edition). They cite no source. Their book is probably where I remember reading what JFK allegedly told Mansfield. I guess Groden would be the person to ask about the source.

 

 

 

 

[Chuck Schwartz]

Matt Novak wrote this in Gizmoda in 2017: " 

So how did we start to attribute this phrase to JFK and his attitudes toward the CIA? The first attribution of this quote to President Kennedy comes from a story in the April 25, 1966 edition of the New York Times. Notably, this was almost three years after Kennedy’s death:

Former President Truman, whose Administration established the C.I.A. in 1947, said in 1963 that by then he saw “something about the way the C.I.A. has been functioning that is casting a shadow over our historic positions, and I feel that we need to correct it.”

And President Kennedy, as the enormity of the Bay of Pigs disaster came home to him, said to one of the highest officials of his Administration that he “wanted to splinter the C.I.A. in a thousand pieces and scatter it to the winds.”

So did Kennedy say it? Possibly. The only attribution we have is an anonymous source from the Kennedy administration by a New York Times reporter three years after Kennedy was assassinated. I’ve found no record that pre-dates 1966. It’s not exactly like he said it in a public speech or even to a reporter directly.

The Truman quote comes from a December 22, 1963 article by former president Harry Truman himself in the Washington Post, published just a month after JFK’s assassination and has been used as fodder for conspiracy theorists who think that the CIA killed Kennedy.

Kennedy was clearly frustrated with the CIA after the Bay of Pigs fiasco. But as far as verifying a quote is concerned, this one from JFK isn’t rock solid. For all we know, this anonymous official was using his own words (leaning on a common phrase, of course) to relay the emotion that Kennedy was trying to convey at the time.

[Dan Rice]

2 hours ago, Chuck Schwartz said:

Matt Novak wrote this in Gizmoda in 2017: " 

So did Kennedy say it? Possibly. The only attribution we have is an anonymous source from the Kennedy administration by a New York Times reporter three years after Kennedy was assassinated. I’ve found no record that pre-dates 1966. It’s not exactly like he said it in a public speech or even to a reporter directly.

It does get stated as a fact by some while it does appear unproven.

[W. Niederhut]

     Here's a related factoid.  In 1956, Senator Mike Mansfield (D-Montana) proposed establishing a joint Congressional committee to oversee the activities of the CIA.

     Mansfield's proposal was defeated in the Senate by a vote of 59-27.

     The Senate Majority Leader, Lyndon Johnson, voted against it.

Item 048.pdf (hood.edu)

 

[S.T. Patrick]

3 hours ago, W. Niederhut said:

     Here's a related factoid.  In 1956, Senator Mike Mansfield (D-Montana) proposed establishing a joint Congressional committee to oversee the activities of the CIA.

     Mansfield's proposal was defeated in the Senate by a vote of 59-27.

     The Senate Majority Leader, Lyndon Johnson, voted against it.

Item 048.pdf (hood.edu)

 

Id be interested to know the 27 Senators who voted for it.

 

[W. Niederhut]

39 minutes ago, S.T. Patrick said:

Id be interested to know the 27 Senators who voted for it.

 

I'd be very surprised if Senator John F. Kennedy did NOT vote for Mansfield's proposal.

My guess is that it was opposed by most Republicans and Dixiecrats.

[S.T. Patrick]

2 hours ago, W. Niederhut said:

I'd be very surprised if Senator John F. Kennedy did NOT vote for Mansfield's proposal.

My guess is that it was opposed by most Republicans and Dixiecrats.

I agree, but I'll see if I can find the vote somewhere so we can know.

[Ron Bulman]

18 hours ago, Ron Ecker said:

Groden and Livingstone in "High Treason" state that JFK told Mansfield in 1961 that he wanted to tear the CIA "into a thousand pieces and scatter it to the winds" (p. 411 in my paperback edition). They cite no source. Their book is probably where I remember reading what JFK allegedly told Mansfield. I guess Groden would be the person to ask about the source.

 

 

 

 

Thanks Ron.  This may well be where I first saw it attributed to Mansfield.  I looked through the indexes of a half dozen books for Mansfield, including High Treason.  Looked right at it and missed it I guess.  The tiny print in HT is my only excuse, though there is no excuse.  I just re checked Livingstone's The Radical Right and the Murder of JFK for the sake of it, nothing there.

I don't think they made this up out of thin air.  One of them heard or read of it prior to 1989 when the book was published.  While they did not document it there has to be a source.  Reliable?  I guess they felt so. 

This also pushes back the time to a more definable point, 1961.  I think even more so.  The NYT article in 1966 leaves open any point in JFK's entire presidency.  In the sentence before HT mentions Mansfield they are talking about the firing of Dulles.  "High-level CIA personnel were fired by the President, . . . Dulles, ... Cabbell, ... Bissell."  Then, "It was at this time, in 1961 that President Kennedy told Senator Mike Mansfield that he would tear "the CIA into a thousand pieces and scatter it to the wind".   

If I remember right JFK fired them in December 1961.  So, at that time would mean then or shortly after.  Eight months after the BOP, after basically Bobby's investigation, grilling them with questions they couldn't answer.  Even then delaying the asking for their resignations (?) until December.

What I wonder, if is Mansfield repeated this, even confidentially he thought at the time.  Dulles had confidential sources, everywhere. 

Scatter what I built to the wind?  I've deposed, destroyed and murdered Head's of State throughout the World.  I'll scatter your brains . . .     

Edited February 25, 2021 by Ron Bulman

[Paul Rigby]

17 hours ago, S.T. Patrick said:

Id be interested to know the 27 Senators who voted for it.

 

Congressional Record, 84^th Congress, 2^nd Session, V102 Part 5, 11 April 1956, page 6068

1.       Barrett

2.       Clements

3.       Ervin

4.       Fulbright

5.       Gore

6.       Green

7.       Hill

8.       Humphrey

9.       Jackson

10.   Jenner

11.   Kefauver

12.   Kennedy

13.   Kerr

14.   Langer

15.   Lehman

16.   Mansfield

17.   McCarthy

18.   McNamara

19.   Morse

20.   Mundt

21.   Murray

22.   Neely

23.   Neuberger

24.   Pastore

25.   Payne

26.   Smith, Maine

27.   Welker

Senate debate and vote in Congressional Record, v. 102, April 9, 1956: 5890-5891, 5922-5939; April 11, 1956: 6047-6063, 6065, 6067-6068.

On the April 11, 1956 vote, twelve of the original co-sponsors of S. Con. Res. 2 reconsidered their position and voted against the concurrent resolutions.

The Campaign for Congressional Oversight of the CIA: Mike Mansfield and Intelligence Reform

By Nolan Franti

August 2012

http://exhibits.lib.umt.edu/mansfield/essays/cia

Mike Mansfield’s connection to intelligence reform can be traced almost all the way back to the creation of the CIA itself. Following the end of World War II, there arose a need to consolidate the operations of the various wartime intelligence-gathering services under one roof. With the National Security Act of 1947, Congress established both the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Council.[1] Congress followed by authorizing many of the clandestine abilities and functions of the CIA with the Central Intelligence Agency Act of 1949.[2]  Mansfield voted for both measures.

It was through this latter Act that Mansfield, serving in his fourth term as a U.S. Congressman from Montana’s 1st District, was first to involve himself with the idea of intelligence reform. P. E. Delaney, Acting Recording Secretary of the Butte Stationary Engineers Union, wrote to Mansfield on March 25, 1949, expressing the union’s desire “for an explanation of your action on voting on this measure.”[3] An attachment, referencing an interview Mansfield had given shortly before the vote on the bill, detailed the union members’ concern. “This bill (HR 2663),” the attachment read, “contains in it a provision allowing the government to send intelligence agents (spies) into various organizations, including unions.” The interview further stated that the unions had asked Mansfield to vote against the bill, but that Mansfield “felt he had to vote for it.”[4]

In his response to the Butte Stationary Engineers Union, Mansfield first reassured them that the CIA would have no authority to act in a domestic capacity. He quoted fellow representative Chester Holifield (D-Ca.), who had served on the committee that originally created the CIA, as saying, “It was clearly brought out at that time that no internal security work of any kind would be done by the CIA.” The new CIA bill would not change this fact, Mansfield contended.  Unfortunately, the domestic abuse of power would become one of the key issues in future congressional investigations into the CIA, further involving Mansfield in the issue of intelligence reform

Mansfield’s most prominent effort to increase oversight of the CIA came after his election to the Senate in 1952. As a freshman senator from a sparely populated state, Mansfield sought to make a name for himself by addressing the growing—and unchallenged—power of the Agency during the Cold War era. Earlier (contrasting) efforts at CIA reform had included the Hoover commission, chaired by former President Herbert Hoover, and Senator Joseph McCarthy’s claims of communist infiltration of the CIA.[5] Mansfield’s solution to what he perceived as a lack of transparency in the CIA’s relations with Congress was the creation of a permanent Joint Congressional Committee, composed of members of the both the House and Senate, that would oversee the budget and activities of the CIA. Mansfield introduced concurrent resolutions in the Senate in 1953 and 1954 to establish such a committee. Neither of these resolutions passed the Senate Armed Services committee, then chaired by Republican Leverett Saltonstall of Massachusetts.[6]

[1] Rhodri Jeffreys-Jones, The CIA and American Democracy (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989), 40-1.

[2] Ibid, 59.

[3] P. E. Delaney to Mike Mansfield, letter, 25 March 1949, Mike Mansfield Papers, The University of Montana, Missoula, Mont., Series 2, Box 39, Folder 14.

[4] Attachment, Letter of P. E. Delaney, Mansfield Papers, Series 2, Box 39, Folder 14.

[5] Jeffreys-Jones, 58, 74.

[6] Ibid, 78.

[S.T. Patrick]

Thanks for posting this, Paul.

Joe McCarthy voted for it, huh? Wow. Interesting. 

Edited February 25, 2021 by S.T. Patrick

[Paul Rigby]

1 hour ago, S.T. Patrick said:

Thanks for posting this, Paul.

Joe McCarthy voted for it, huh? Wow. Interesting. 

During the McCarthy-CIA fight, Dulles organized a group to keep tabs on McCarthy's activities and to feed the senator disinformation. James Angleton and James McCargar, who by this time was out of government, were lunching one day, when Angleton mentioned that he knew of the other's work with the Pond in Hungary. Angleton described his concerns about Grombach and asked McCargar to meet with Grombach from time to time and report back. But Angleton wanted something more. He arranged to provide McCargar with false information, supposedly acquired in France, which would appear derogatory to CIA. Angleton hoped Grombach would pass the materials to McCarthy, who would use them. They could then be discredited, embarrassing the senator and hopefully throwing him off the CIA. In order to provide a pretext for giving this information to Grombach, McCargar was to hint that he wanted back in the intelligence game.

_{— Mark Stout: "The Pond: Running Agents for State, War, and the CIA. The Hazards of Private Spy Operations", Studies in Intelligence, vol 48, no3}

[Ron Bulman]

Another interesting article on Mansfield I stumbled across.

How Mike Mansfield saved Joe Biden’s political career | Local | mtstandard.com