What Did JFK Do that Caused Certain Powerful People to Have Him Killed?

[John Kennedy White]

1 hour ago, Joe Bauer said:

Was Oswald that psychopathic?

Had he ever killed anyone before his alleged murders of JFK and Tippit?

What could tip someone who never even hurt someone physically before ( except maybe a couple of shoving skirmishes and an accidental gun discharge in Japan ) to then in one day go all psychopathic and in such brutal way?

Blowing JFK's head off inches from his wife's face? 3 or 4 bullets into Tippit with a final mafia hitman kill shot into his head?

 

 

Oswald was a low-level operative more inclined to stir the pot than wield a weapon. He was more likely to be used to hand out pamphlets and get into staged skirmishes than to do any wet work.

[James DiEugenio]

5 hours ago, John Kennedy White said:

Most assassins would need to be psychopaths. None of that would bother them in the slightest.

I think the issue is, why did the plotters choose such a dramatic method to kill Kennedy in the first place.

As Salandria said, the CIA is a pretty imaginative group of sleuths who could have easily come up with something quieter. 

[James DiEugenio]

Paul:

Partly right. 

I actually think they wanted to target Stone's film.

And they decided to do it through Fletcher's information about the San Antonio group and also through confusion about Jones.

If you read Tim Wray on this, I mean that guy is actually disgusting.  And to think Wray was in charge of the military records procurement!  That is a bit scary.

This was a combination hatchet job and ambush.  To think, they spent all that time on this--and ended up wrong.  While the ARRB never completed its real function. Where was the leadership, through Gunn and Marwell?  I don't see any, which signifies that those two were willing to go along with this smear.

Thank God for Malcolm Blunt. 

(Kudos to Bart Kamp also.)

[John Kennedy White]

1 hour ago, James DiEugenio said:

I think the issue is, why did the plotters choose such a dramatic method to kill Kennedy in the first place.

As Salandria said, the CIA is a pretty imaginative group of sleuths who could have easily come up with something quieter. 

Perhaps to send a message to any other potential presidential hopefuls looking to challenge the MI complex/CIA.

[Gene Kelly]

Jim

This is the first that I've ever heard of the Jimmy Carter attempt. 

On May 5th, 1979, ten minutes before President Carter was due to speak at the civic center mall in Los Angeles, one Raymond Lee Harvey was arrested carrying a pistol. He later told the Police that he and another man (Oswaldo Ortiz) were hired to create a diversion, so that Mexican hitmen armed with rifles could kill Carter.

Police were led to the shabby Alan Hotel, which overlooked the mall where Carter was due to speak. Investigators found an empty rifle case, and three rounds of live ammo, in a room rented under the name, Umberto Camacho, who had checked out on the day of Carters visit … no further trace of the hitmen could be found.

A one-time story on May 21st, 1979, in Newsweek, confirmed that the suspect was arrested by secret service agents, he was carrying a .22 caliber eight-shot revolver, and 70 rounds of blank ammo. The suspect implicated a second man, a 21-year-old Hispanic who was arrested on bail of $100,000. The second man admitted that they had test fired the pistol, using blank rounds the night before Carter was due to speak. He said they had been hired by two Mexican hitmen to create a diversion, whilst they assassinated Carter using high powered rifles.

The Newsweek article stated that Assistant U.S. Attorney Donald Etra (a close friend of G. H. Bush and fellow Yale graduate) was expected to make a decision on the case, stating ‘Unless it’s clear that the defendant (Harvey) has committed the crime with which he is charged (conspiring to kill the president), we’re not going to present the case to a grand jury. No further news stories appeared, no charges were filed, and the case against the two publicly disappeared. James Richards (in a 2005 EF thread) speculated that there was ‘talk amongst the Cubans’ that Raymond Lee might have been one Eduardo Ochoa. a militant anti-Castro Brigade 2506 individual.  Carter - who had been rumored to be on the verge of making 'major policy changes' - never subsequently announced any changes and remained largely low-key throughout the Re-election campaign. 

Apparently, someone was sending the President a "message" ... 

Gene

[Calvin Ye]

On 9/28/2022 at 6:21 PM, Ron Bulman said:

American University Peace speech.

Limited Test Ban Treaty.

Using what he thought were back channel/secret methods to seek peace-rapprochement-dente with Khrushchev and Castro.

Pissing off the corporate owners and boards of the steel industry.

Pissing off the Federal Reserve by printing US backed money (which stopped with his death).

Refusing to commit troops to Laos.

Letting it be known beyond NSAM 263 through his demands of Mc Namara for an accelerated withdrawal plan for Vietnam as well as other actions in this vein (sending Galbraith to Vietnam, telling "confidants" of his intention to get out after the 1964 election). 

You forgot two things. Let add me them for you:

Proposed the idea of Soviet-American space cooperation

Anti-drug trade speech in 1962

[Paul Brancato]

On 10/1/2022 at 5:16 AM, Gene Kelly said:

Jim

This is the first that I've ever heard of the Jimmy Carter attempt. 

On May 5th, 1979, ten minutes before President Carter was due to speak at the civic center mall in Los Angeles, one Raymond Lee Harvey was arrested carrying a pistol. He later told the Police that he and another man (Oswaldo Ortiz) were hired to create a diversion, so that Mexican hitmen armed with rifles could kill Carter.

Police were led to the shabby Alan Hotel, which overlooked the mall where Carter was due to speak. Investigators found an empty rifle case, and three rounds of live ammo, in a room rented under the name, Umberto Camacho, who had checked out on the day of Carters visit … no further trace of the hitmen could be found.

A one-time story on May 21st, 1979, in Newsweek, confirmed that the suspect was arrested by secret service agents, he was carrying a .22 caliber eight-shot revolver, and 70 rounds of blank ammo. The suspect implicated a second man, a 21-year-old Hispanic who was arrested on bail of $100,000. The second man admitted that they had test fired the pistol, using blank rounds the night before Carter was due to speak. He said they had been hired by two Mexican hitmen to create a diversion, whilst they assassinated Carter using high powered rifles.

The Newsweek article stated that Assistant U.S. Attorney Donald Etra (a close friend of G. H. Bush and fellow Yale graduate) was expected to make a decision on the case, stating ‘Unless it’s clear that the defendant (Harvey) has committed the crime with which he is charged (conspiring to kill the president), we’re not going to present the case to a grand jury. No further news stories appeared, no charges were filed, and the case against the two publicly disappeared. James Richards (in a 2005 EF thread) speculated that there was ‘talk amongst the Cubans’ that Raymond Lee might have been one Eduardo Ochoa. a militant anti-Castro Brigade 2506 individual.  Carter - who had been rumored to be on the verge of making 'major policy changes' - never subsequently announced any changes and remained largely low-key throughout the Re-election campaign. 

Apparently, someone was sending the President a "message" ... 

Gene

What a weird story. It went no where, and there was no attempted assassination. But the two names together - well, it’s a message of some sort, probably to Carter and other Democrats, a death threat.

[Calvin Ye]

26 minutes ago, Paul Brancato said:

What a weird story. It went no where, and there was no attempted assassination. But the two names together - well, it’s a message of some sort, probably to Carter and other Democrats, a death threat.

CIA was obviously behind it. The reason why they would go that far because Carter's CIA director fired mass number of employees during his time as director in the CIA

[Gene Kelly]

Stansfield Turner, CIA Director, 1977–1981

Following congressional investigation into CIA activities by the Church Commission (1975-1976), presidential candidate Jimmy Carter put Langley in his sights. His CIA Director, Admiral Stansfield Turner announced that he would reduce staff in the CIA's Operations Directorate. Turner’s arrival in 1977 challenged agency norms, leading to the dismissal of many old-guard officers, who resented the “Navy mafia” brought in to shake up the CIA. Turner (a Naval Academy graduate and Rhodes scholar) was Carter’s second choice for the CIA job—the first was liberal lawyer and onetime Kennedy aide Theodore Sorensen, but the Senate rejected him. 

Morale within CIA at the time was low, following three years of congressional probes and newspaper exposés that had left CIA in scandal along with Watergate and the Vietnam war.  In the five prior years, the agency had been headed by five different directors. Turner had an office in the Old Executive Office Building - next to the White House - and he met the president frequently for one-on-one briefings.

President Carter and Congress both took measures to: (a) Clarify in writing that the CIA had no business conducting U.S. operations unless it was necessary and closely tied to their main mission ... foreign matters; and (b) dismantle those departments which were solely engaged in domestic operations. A large number of “operatives” within the CIA were not working on foreign matters but were working on domestic matters (the purview of the FBI) ... illegal actions under US law and human rights violations. Turner’s tenure was also notable for the release of 20,000 documents relating to Project MKUltra, a covert operation during the 1950s and ’60s that involved experiments aiming to modify the behavior of citizens, using LSD, hypnosis and various forms of abuse.

On Oct. 31, 1977, in what the media dubbed the "Halloween massacre," Turner announced the elimination of 820 positions among the CIA's clandestine operations staff ... 649 jobs would be eliminated through attrition, 154 by involuntary retirement and 17 were simply fired. Turner later called two meetings of 500 senior CIA officials each in August 1979 to warn that the firings were imminent. He also sent out a detailed memo explaining how the cuts were being made. Some of the officers who left had been with the CIA since its inception in 1947. The cuts were undertaken partly in an effort to open up advancement paths for a number of younger officers in the middle grades.

Turner shifted the Agency's focus on high-tech intelligence collection such as satellites.  He aimed to make intelligence gathering more computer-based and less reliant on unethical techniques that compromised agents in the field. The admiral’s military bearing, and reformist approach, clashed with the agency’s ranking establishment of clandestine officers. Turner later expressed regret for the extent of “the Halloween Massacre,” as the job cuts were known. The revelation led to a Senate inquiry in 1977.

 

[Ron Bulman]

22 minutes ago, Gene Kelly said:

Stansfield Turner, CIA Director, 1977–1981

Following congressional investigation into CIA activities by the Church Commission (1975-1976), presidential candidate Jimmy Carter put Langley in his sights. His CIA Director, Admiral Stansfield Turner announced that he would reduce staff in the CIA's Operations Directorate. Turner’s arrival in 1977 challenged agency norms, leading to the dismissal of many old-guard officers, who resented the “Navy mafia” brought in to shake up the CIA. Turner (a Naval Academy graduate and Rhodes scholar) was Carter’s second choice for the CIA job—the first was liberal lawyer and onetime Kennedy aide Theodore Sorensen, but the Senate rejected him. 

Morale within CIA at the time was low, following three years of congressional probes and newspaper exposés that had left CIA in scandal along with Watergate and the Vietnam war.  In the five prior years, the agency had been headed by five different directors. Turner had an office in the Old Executive Office Building - next to the White House - and he met the president frequently for one-on-one briefings.

President Carter and Congress both took measures to: (a) Clarify in writing that the CIA had no business conducting U.S. operations unless it was necessary and closely tied to their main mission ... foreign matters; and (b) dismantle those departments which were solely engaged in domestic operations. A large number of “operatives” within the CIA were not working on foreign matters but were working on domestic matters (the purview of the FBI) ... illegal actions under US law and human rights violations. Turner’s tenure was also notable for the release of 20,000 documents relating to Project MKUltra, a covert operation during the 1950s and ’60s that involved experiments aiming to modify the behavior of citizens, using LSD, hypnosis and various forms of abuse.

On Oct. 31, 1977, in what the media dubbed the "Halloween massacre," Turner announced the elimination of 820 positions among the CIA's clandestine operations staff ... 649 jobs would be eliminated through attrition, 154 by involuntary retirement and 17 were simply fired. Turner later called two meetings of 500 senior CIA officials each in August 1979 to warn that the firings were imminent. He also sent out a detailed memo explaining how the cuts were being made. Some of the officers who left had been with the CIA since its inception in 1947. The cuts were undertaken partly in an effort to open up advancement paths for a number of younger officers in the middle grades.

Turner shifted the Agency's focus on high-tech intelligence collection such as satellites.  He aimed to make intelligence gathering more computer-based and less reliant on unethical techniques that compromised agents in the field. The admiral’s military bearing, and reformist approach, clashed with the agency’s ranking establishment of clandestine officers. Turner later expressed regret for the extent of “the Halloween Massacre,” as the job cuts were known. The revelation led to a Senate inquiry in 1977.

 

Sorenson's rejection was a sham (Counselor).  But I've never read of the depth of Turner's actions. Thanks.  Lest we forget, one of Carter's first actions or was it before actually taking office was to tell George Herbert Walker Bush to clean out his desk.

[Gene Kelly]

And William Colby is later murdered in 1996 (15 years later) ... hard to believe that it was an accidental drowning.  He was fired by Ford in 1976 and replaced by George Bush 9for one year). Colby's courage and revelations actually saved the Agency:

https://www.justsecurity.org/68065/how-late-dci-william-colby-saved-the-cia-and-what-that-can-teach-us-today/ 

His son said the following:

He took on the toughest, dirtiest assignments that the White House could throw at him, and then they used him up and hung him out to dry. He was the reformer who saved the C.I.A. from itself. The price he paid was becoming the sacrificial lamb. Somebody had to take the fall. I think he took on the whole mess and was in turn consumed by the flames. It was like he purged himself of all the guilt and then walked away and re-invented himself just like phoenix rising from the ashes.

 

[Calvin Ye]

1 hour ago, Gene Kelly said:

And William Colby is later murdered in 1996 (15 years later) ... hard to believe that it was an accidental drowning.  He was fired by Ford in 1976 and replaced by George Bush 9for one year). Colby's courage and revelations actually saved the Agency:

https://www.justsecurity.org/68065/how-late-dci-william-colby-saved-the-cia-and-what-that-can-teach-us-today/ 

His son said the following:

He took on the toughest, dirtiest assignments that the White House could throw at him, and then they used him up and hung him out to dry. He was the reformer who saved the C.I.A. from itself. The price he paid was becoming the sacrificial lamb. Somebody had to take the fall. I think he took on the whole mess and was in turn consumed by the flames. It was like he purged himself of all the guilt and then walked away and re-invented himself just like phoenix rising from the ashes.

 

He was killed because he knew too much about the Nebraska sex scandal and inspired his friend to write an book covering the scandal

Edited October 28, 2022 by Calvin Ye

[Michael Griffith]

14 hours ago, Gene Kelly said:

And William Colby is later murdered in 1996 (15 years later) ... hard to believe that it was an accidental drowning.  He was fired by Ford in 1976 and replaced by George Bush 9for one year). Colby's courage and revelations actually saved the Agency:

https://www.justsecurity.org/68065/how-late-dci-william-colby-saved-the-cia-and-what-that-can-teach-us-today/ 

His son said the following:

He took on the toughest, dirtiest assignments that the White House could throw at him, and then they used him up and hung him out to dry. He was the reformer who saved the C.I.A. from itself. The price he paid was becoming the sacrificial lamb. Somebody had to take the fall. I think he took on the whole mess and was in turn consumed by the flames. It was like he purged himself of all the guilt and then walked away and re-invented himself just like phoenix rising from the ashes.

Yes, Colby was one of the good guys in the CIA. I don't know if his death was accidental or deliberate, but he was one of the decent and straight-shooting people in the agency. If his death was not an accident, perhaps it was simply a delayed revenge killing for his having revealed so many agency misdeeds in earlier years.

Part of me wonders if some of the plotters killed JFK out of sheer spite and revenge, not because they thought he posed an existential threat to their power or interests. Perhaps the rogue CIA elements did not care, or maybe did not know, that JFK planned to overthrow Castro with a carefully orchestrated coup that was scheduled to occur in early December. The coup would have involved a high-ranking and popular Cuban general (General Almeida), who had agreed to participate.

Certain Mafia leaders, on the other hand, certainly had every reason to view JFK as an existential threat.