Monica Wiesak on BOR: America's Last President

[Pete Mellor]

On 3/9/2023 at 4:08 AM, Ron Bulman said:

I'd read of Angleton telling the Israeli's where the enriched uranium at NUMEC in Pennsylvania was and having the gate left open for them in 1964 or 65.  But I did not know about his friendship with Ben-Gurion.  Who, while putting off inspections at Dimona pursued by JFK, resigned, which resulted in a six month delay in the talks about this.  During which time JFK was killed.  When Ben-Gurion resigned, while JFK was still alive it seems to imply, Angleton went to visit him, at his home away from the capitol, just the two alone to "discuss business".

Ron,

Angleton's influence on U.S.-Israeli relationship touched upon the sensitive question of Israel's military nuclear ambition.  In 1960 Angleton ignored a request from the U.S. Intelligence Board, which reviewed CIA operations on behalf of the White House, that all information regarding Dimona be transmitted expeditiously.  Angleton also failed to notice, or report, about the stealing of weapons-grade enriched uranium from NUMEC in Apollo, Pennsylvania.  NUMEC had been created under U.S. government license by David Lowenthal, a Zionist financier, and was run by Zalman Shapiro, the son of an orthodox rabbi from Lithuania, who also was head of the local chapter of the Zionist Organisation of America.  Over the 9 years from '59 to '68, the Atomic Energy Corp., estimated that 267 kilograms of uranium went missing at the Apollo NUMEC plant. One Israeli, masquerading as a nuclear engineer who visited the plant was a Mossad agent named Rafael Eitan, who was known to Angleton.  With the fissile material stolen from NUMEC Israel was able to construct it's first nuclear weapon by 1967 and become a full blown nuclear power by 1970-the first, and still the only nuclear power in the Middle East.  Angleton, it is fair to say, thought collaboration with Israel was more important than U.S. non-proliferation policy.  (CIA & Mossad-Jefferson Morley)

Angleton's close personal ties with the DeShalit family and others in Israel made it inevitable that he would learn about the Dimona construction in the Negev.  Yet he never reported on the Israeli's efforts to build a nuclear reactor for military purposes.  (The Samson Option-Seymour Hersh)

Angleton made his first visit to Israel in 1951.  "He used to come from time to time, to meet the head of Mossad, to get briefings", recalls Efraim Halevy, who served as the Mossad's liason officer to the CIA station in Tel Aviv in the early 1960's.  "He used to meet with David Ben Gurion whom he knew for many years.  Ben Gurion ultimately left office in May '63 and Angleton went down to Ben Gurion's home in the Negev to meet him.  I didn't attend those meetings.  Those were just the two of them.  He had business to transact."  Angleton befriended Isser Harel founder of Shin Bet and chief of Mossad from 1951.  He also had a lifetime friendship with Amos Manor, director of Shin Bet from 1953 to 1963, and of Meir Amit, head of Mossad from 1963 to 1968.  When Yitzhak Rabin became Israeli ambassador to Washington (1968-73), Angleton met him as often as five times a week and had monthly lunches with Rabin.  (The Ghost-Jefferson Morley)

Mossad figure and future Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, (in November '63), was then a high ranking military officer, purportedly on a military briefing tour, was in Dallas at the time of JFK's assassination, according to Rabin's widow.  (Final Judgment-Michael Collins Piper) 

 

Edited March 25, 2023 by Pete Mellor
Typo

[George Govus]

9 hours ago, Pete Mellor said:

When Yitzhak Rabin became Israeli ambassador to Washington (1968-73), Angleton met him as often as five times a week and had monthly lunches with Rabin.  (The Ghost-Jefferson Morley)

Mossad figure and future Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, (in November '63), was then a high ranking military officer, purportedly on a military briefing tour, was in Dallas at the time of JFK's assassination, according to Rabin's widow.  (Final Judgment-Michael Collins Piper) 

I read Morley's The Ghost. I thought he underplayed the Angleton-Israel connection. I plumb forgot Morley mentioned the tie to Rabin. I guess I should read it again. Elsewhere I had read that Rabin was in Dallas that day. Things that make you go, "hmm." Is there any chance Rabin's assassination in 1995 had a deeper connection with JFK's?

[James DiEugenio]

I thought Monica was good on this angle and also gutsy.

Morley did talk about it a bit in his book also.  But I think Monica was more rigorous about it.

That opening with young JFK writing letters about the Palestinians is really something.

[Pete Mellor]

15 hours ago, George Govus said:

I read Morley's The Ghost. I thought he underplayed the Angleton-Israel connection. I plumb forgot Morley mentioned the tie to Rabin. I guess I should read it again. Elsewhere I had read that Rabin was in Dallas that day. Things that make you go, "hmm." Is there any chance Rabin's assassination in 1995 had a deeper connection with JFK's?

Morley also writes:-'In December 1987 in Jerusalem with deputy Mossad chief Efraim Halevy, also four past and future chiefs of Mossad, his friends Meir Amit and Amos Manor and the upper echelon of Amal, the Israeli military intelligence service, came to pay tribute to their loyal friend in Washington.'

John Newman writes:-'I would like to place on the record, however, that Angleton's professional friends overseas, then and subsequently, came from the Mossad and that he was held in immense esteem by his Israeli colleagues and by the state of Israel, which was to award him profound honours after his death.'

Is there any chance Rabin's assassination in 1995 had a deeper connection with JFK's?

George, the same thought has crossed my mind too!  Who knows?

[Michael Griffith]

On 3/25/2023 at 7:54 AM, Pete Mellor said:

Ron,

Angleton's influence on U.S.-Israeli relationship touched upon the sensitive question of Israel's military nuclear ambition.  In 1960 Angleton ignored a request from the U.S. Intelligence Board, which reviewed CIA operations on behalf of the White House, that all information regarding Dimona be transmitted expeditiously.  Angleton also failed to notice, or report, about the stealing of weapons-grade enriched uranium from NUMEC in Apollo, Pennsylvania.  NUMEC had been created under U.S. government license by David Lowenthal, a Zionist financier, and was run by Zalman Shapiro, the son of an orthodox rabbi from Lithuania, who also was head of the local chapter of the Zionist Organisation of America.  Over the 9 years from '59 to '68, the Atomic Energy Corp., estimated that 267 kilograms of uranium went missing at the Apollo NUMEC plant. One Israeli, masquerading as a nuclear engineer who visited the plant was a Mossad agent named Rafael Eitan, who was known to Angleton.  With the fissile material stolen from NUMEC Israel was able to construct it's first nuclear weapon by 1967 and become a full blown nuclear power by 1970-the first, and still the only nuclear power in the Middle East.  Angleton, it is fair to say, thought collaboration with Israel was more important than U.S. non-proliferation policy.  (CIA & Mossad-Jefferson Morley)

Angleton's close personal ties with the DeShalit family and others in Israel made it inevitable that he would learn about the Dimona construction in the Negev.  Yet he never reported on the Israeli's efforts to build a nuclear reactor for military purposes.  (The Samson Option-Seymour Hersh)

Angleton made his first visit to Israel in 1951.  "He used to come from time to time, to meet the head of Mossad, to get briefings", recalls Efraim Halevy, who served as the Mossad's liason officer to the CIA station in Tel Aviv in the early 1960's.  "He used to meet with David Ben Gurion whom he knew for many years.  Ben Gurion ultimately left office in May '63 and Angleton went down to Ben Gurion's home in the Negev to meet him.  I didn't attend those meetings.  Those were just the two of them.  He had business to transact."  Angleton befriended Isser Harel founder of Shin Bet and chief of Mossad from 1951.  He also had a lifetime friendship with Amos Manor, director of Shin Bet from 1953 to 1963, and of Meir Amit, head of Mossad from 1963 to 1968.  When Yitzhak Rabin became Israeli ambassador to Washington (1968-73), Angleton met him as often as five times a week and had monthly lunches with Rabin.  (The Ghost-Jefferson Morley)

Mossad figure and future Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, (in November '63), was then a high ranking military officer, purportedly on a military briefing tour, was in Dallas at the time of JFK's assassination, according to Rabin's widow.  (Final Judgment-Michael Collins Piper) 

I find it just sickening to see all this bashing of Israel, and especially to see suggestions that Israelis may have been involved in JFK's death. This is a sad reflection of the fact that extreme liberals, who form a large segment of the research community, are becoming increasingly anti-Israeli. This is also another example of ultra-liberals going well beyond JFK's views on Israel while acting like they are defending JFK's approach to the Arab-Israeli conflict. 

I can tell you from my correspondence with her, and from reading her book, that Monika Wiesak has a rather strong anti-Israeli bias and that her research on the Arab-Israeli issue has been one-sided and incomplete, to put it gently.

Those who are pushing this anti-Israeli agenda should consider what JFK said in August 1960 to the Zionists of America convention in New York City:

          I first saw Palestine in 1939. There the neglect and ruin left by centuries of Ottoman misrule were slowly being transformed by miracles of labor and sacrifice. But Palestine was still a land of promise in 1939, rather than a land of fulfillment. I returned in 1951 to see the grandeur of Israel. In 3 years this new state had opened its doors to 600,000 immigrants and refugees. Even while fighting for its own survival, Israel had given new hope to the persecuted and new dignity to the pattern of Jewish life. I left with the conviction that the United Nations may have conferred on Israel the credentials of nationhood; but its own idealism and courage, its own sacrifice and generosity, had earned the credentials of immortality.

          Some do not agree. Three weeks ago I said in a public statement: "Israel is here to stay." The next day I was attacked by Cairo radio, rebuking me for my faith in Israel. . . .

          For Israel was not created in order to disappear - Israel will endure and flourish. It is the child of hope and the home of the brave. It can neither be broken by adversity nor demoralized by success. It carries the shield of democracy and it honors the sword of freedom; and no area of the world has ever had an overabundance of democracy and freedom.

          It is worth remembering, too, that Israel is a cause that stands beyond the ordinary changes and chances of American public life. In our pluralistic society, it has not been a Jewish cause - any more than Irish independence was solely the concern of Americans of Irish descent. The ideals of Zionism have, in the last half century, been repeatedly endorsed by Presidents and Members of Congress from both parties. Friendship for Israel is not a partisan matter. It is a national commitment.

          Yet within this tradition of friendship there is a special obligation on the Democratic Party. It was President Woodrow Wilson who forecast with prophetic wisdom the creation of a Jewish homeland. It was President Franklin Roosevelt who kept alive the hopes of Jewish redemption during the National Socialist terror. It was President Harry Truman who first recognized the new State of Israel and gave it status in world affairs. And may I add that it would be my hope and my pledge to continue this Democratic tradition - and to be worthy of it. (Speech by Senator John F. Kennedy, Zionists of America Convention, Statler Hilton Hotel, New York, NY | The American Presidency Project (ucsb.edu)

If you are anti-Israeli and/or you view the Israelis as the bad guys and the Palestinians as the victims, and if you are willing to read one book that challenges this warped position, I recommend Princeton and Harvard graduate David Brog's 2017 book Reclaiming Israel's History: Roots, Rights, and the Struggle for Peace. 

Edited March 28, 2023 by Michael Griffith

[Pete Mellor]

2 hours ago, Michael Griffith said:

I find it just sickening to see all this bashing of Israel, and especially to see suggestions that Israelis may have been involved in JFK's death. This is a sad reflection of the fact that extreme liberals, who form a large segment of the research community, are becoming increasingly anti-Israeli. This is also another example of ultra-liberals going well beyond JFK's views on Israel while acting like they are defending JFK's approach to the Arab-Israeli conflict. 

I can tell you from my correspondence with her, and from reading her book, that Monika Wiesak has a rather strong anti-Israeli bias and that her research on the Arab-Israeli issue has been one-sided and incomplete, to put it gently.

Those who are pushing this anti-Israeli agenda should consider what JFK said in August 1960 to the Zionists of America convention in New York City:

          I first saw Palestine in 1939. There the neglect and ruin left by centuries of Ottoman misrule were slowly being transformed by miracles of labor and sacrifice. But Palestine was still a land of promise in 1939, rather than a land of fulfillment. I returned in 1951 to see the grandeur of Israel. In 3 years this new state had opened its doors to 600,000 immigrants and refugees. Even while fighting for its own survival, Israel had given new hope to the persecuted and new dignity to the pattern of Jewish life. I left with the conviction that the United Nations may have conferred on Israel the credentials of nationhood; but its own idealism and courage, its own sacrifice and generosity, had earned the credentials of immortality.

          Some do not agree. Three weeks ago I said in a public statement: "Israel is here to stay." The next day I was attacked by Cairo radio, rebuking me for my faith in Israel. . . .

          For Israel was not created in order to disappear - Israel will endure and flourish. It is the child of hope and the home of the brave. It can neither be broken by adversity nor demoralized by success. It carries the shield of democracy and it honors the sword of freedom; and no area of the world has ever had an overabundance of democracy and freedom.

          It is worth remembering, too, that Israel is a cause that stands beyond the ordinary changes and chances of American public life. In our pluralistic society, it has not been a Jewish cause - any more than Irish independence was solely the concern of Americans of Irish descent. The ideals of Zionism have, in the last half century, been repeatedly endorsed by Presidents and Members of Congress from both parties. Friendship for Israel is not a partisan matter. It is a national commitment.

          Yet within this tradition of friendship there is a special obligation on the Democratic Party. It was President Woodrow Wilson who forecast with prophetic wisdom the creation of a Jewish homeland. It was President Franklin Roosevelt who kept alive the hopes of Jewish redemption during the National Socialist terror. It was President Harry Truman who first recognized the new State of Israel and gave it status in world affairs. And may I add that it would be my hope and my pledge to continue this Democratic tradition - and to be worthy of it. (Speech by Senator John F. Kennedy, Zionists of America Convention, Statler Hilton Hotel, New York, NY | The American Presidency Project (ucsb.edu)

If you are anti-Israeli and/or you view the Israelis as the bad guys and the Palestinians as the victims, and if you are willing to read one book that challenges this warped position, I recommend Princeton and Harvard graduate David Brog's 2017 book Reclaiming Israel's History: Roots, Rights, and the Struggle for Peace. 

Michael, Read my post again.  I have never expressed any political views about Israel.  My post contains only quotes from books written by JFKA researchers.  The post was to add info to Ron Bulman's input on this thread.  What anyone thinks in relation to Israelis and Palestinians should really belong on another Forum.  

[Michael Griffith]

Here's an insightful and interesting 2013 article on JFK's views about Jews as people, his willingness to publicly call out the Soviet Union for its persecution of Jews, his appointment of Jews to high-ranking positions, and his approval of the sale of HAWK missiles to Israel:

Jews have special reasons to remember JFK on 50th anniversary of assassination | Jewish Rhode Island (jewishrhody.com)

JFK actually overrode Eisenhower-era State Department policies and increased arms sales to Israel (John Kennedy: A Martyr Who Worried About the Spread of Nukes - U.S. News - Haaretz.com).

Some anti-Semitic websites have grossly misused a speech that JFK gave soon after the Bay of Pigs, claiming that he warned of the "menace" of Zionism/Jews when in fact he was talking about the menace of international communism (Anti-Semitic video distorts JFK speech - Australian Associated Press (aap.com.au). 

Some radical Muslims, including the Mullahs in Iran, have been spreading the lie that Israel was behind the JFK and RFK assassinations. As recently as 2020, the Tehran Times ran an article titled "Israel Is Behind Serial Assassinations of Kennedy Brothers." Many of these same folks have made disturbing, nutty claims about the Holocaust and Hitler. 

JFK's misguided attempt to prevent Israel from acquiring nuclear weapons does not mean he was anti-Israeli. He never did follow through on his private threats to isolate Israel over Dimona (nor did LBJ). The idea that the Mossad played any part in the conspiracy to kill JFK is obscene and preposterous, as is the attempt by some ultra-liberals to paint JFK as being anti-Israeli. 

[James DiEugenio]

Mike:

I have never said anything about the Israelis being involved in the JFK case.

If you can show me otherwise, please do so.

What we are talking about is the Israeli relationship with Angleton, and Kennedy's ability to be fair minded about the whole Palestinian issue.  If you think there is nothing to be fair minded about there and Palestine has no claim to any state or homeland there, then you should say so. 

That would put you in the ranks of the present guy in charge.  Who they are rioting and demonstrating against. 

[Paul Brancato]

The speech to the Zionists was during an election campaign. He says some things about past presidents in that speech that Michael quotes that are a bit exaggerated. A good source on this in my mind is Ken Burns America and the Holocaust. And Jim is right. Support for the state of Israel does not have to come at the expense of support for a Palestinian homeland. 

[James DiEugenio]

Kennedy, as Monica points out--and I was not aware of this--never gave up on the UN plan for Palestinian repatriation.

Now, go ahead and try and find another president who pushed for that since.

Let me know when you do.  As far as I know, that whole plan was completely dropped under LBJ and RMN.

And those two also dropped Kennedy's ultimatum about Dimona. Again, show me another president since who threatened to put funding for Israel in limbo over atomic weapons. Again, that was buried under LBJ and RMN.

Edited March 30, 2023 by James DiEugenio

[Ron Bulman]

I think Monica's investigation of so many multiple aspects of JFK's Presidency and the depth of her reporting is unprecedented.  Amazing for a young lady who was curious about him and now.