Why Col. L. Fletcher Prouty's Critics Are Wrong

[W. Niederhut]

8 minutes ago, Chris Barnard said:

Which page? (To save me time). 

Chris,

    FYI.  Prouty worked with Lansdale for years, as a military liaison to the CIA.  (The CIA had to rely on the military for their special ops.  They had no Air Force or Navy of their own, etc.)

     Prouty said that Lansdale was a "chameleon" -- very adept at manipulating people's impressions of who he was and what he was doing for Allen Dulles.

Edited April 28, 2023 by W. Niederhut

[Guest]

8 minutes ago, W. Niederhut said:

Chris,

    FYI.  Prouty worked with Lansdale for years, as a military liaison to the CIA.  (The CIA had to rely on the military for their special ops.  They had no Air Force or Navy of their own, etc.)

     Prouty said that Lansdale was a "chameleon" -- very adept at manipulating people's impressions of who he was and what he was doing for Allen Dulles.

I think Prouty is very credible indeed. I wondered where Michael got incontrovertible evidence that Landsdale didn’t want JFK removed. 
 

 

[Ron Ecker]

36 minutes ago, Michael Griffith said:

Oh, sheesh. Is there no ridiculous rumor or slander that you guys won't gobble up if it fits what you already want to believe?

 

Yes, I already wanted to believe that Lansdale threw people out of helicopters, so when I read it I gobbled it up.

 

 

[W. Niederhut]

25 minutes ago, Chris Barnard said:

I think Prouty is very credible indeed. I wondered where Michael got incontrovertible evidence that Landsdale didn’t want JFK removed. 
 

 

According to Prouty, Lansdale was deeply disappointed when JFK removed him from Vietnam.

Recall that Lansdale and the CIA had more or less created South Vietnam and the Diem regime, after John Foster and Allen Dulles decided to replace the French following Dien Bien Phu.

Allen Dulles wanted Lansdale to do in Vietnam what he had done with Magsaysay in the Phillipines.

[Michael Griffith]

Here are two items of evidence of Prouty's sleazy anti-Semitic associations that I have not discussed yet:

1. It turns out that Prouty spoke at another anti-Semitic, Holocaust-denying conference. We've already discussed the fact that he spoke at a Liberty Lobby convention and even took part in a panel discussion with Bo Gritz during that convention. Now, come to find out that Prouty spoke at an October 1990 conference held by the Holocaust-denying IHR. Other speakers at the IHR conference included Holocaust deniers Robert Faurisson, Doug Collins, and Mark Weber.  

Try to imagine how a serious, credible person would even get invited to an IHR conference to appear along with several Holocaust deniers, much less how a decent, credible person would accept the invitation. Just think about that angle alone. 

2. It turns out that in 1981, Prouty wrote a letter to an associate in which he expressed concern about Jews running weapon-system computers. The letter was discovered in the National Archives. Here's the most damning part of the letter:

          "The AWACS goes to a space satellite and from the satellite back to a massive computer in Southern California. Here the data is rapidly analyzed and instructions sent back to the satellite, then back to AWACS, then over to the F-15's terminal and into the fire control system. . . .

          "But what about the computer in California? Suppose the guy running it is a Jewish Sgt.?"

Humm, so Prouty was worried about what would happen if a Jewish sergeant happened to be running the targeting computer for F-15 combat operations. This explains why he gave the shamefully evasive answer of "I'm no authority in that area" when asked about Willis Carto's Holocaust denial. 

Enough already. Fletcher Prouty not only had close, long-term relationships with anti-Semitic, Holocaust-denying persons and groups, but he himself was anti-Semitic. 

Edited May 1, 2023 by Michael Griffith

[Sandy Larsen]

Based on everything I've read as a result of this thread, here is what I think happened:

Liberty Lobby founder Willis Carto was indeed anti-Semitic, but tried to hide his anti-Sematic views from certain of his publications and organizations, including Liberty Lobby. He did this by blaming Mossad (not Jews) for things like controlling world currencies. So while they showed critical views of the Zionist deep state, these wouldn't be considered anti-Semitic.

Carto liked Fletcher Prouty's book and adopted it to be among his many far-right conspiracy theories. Prouty was no doubt happy to have Carto's publishing arm publish the book, which Carto did for he benefit of Liberty Lobby members.

Now, just because Willis Carto was anti-Semitic doesn't mean that everybody he associated with knew he was, or that he was a Holocaust denier. Those were just two facets of Cartos's numerous far-right beliefs. I personally associate with a number of people on the far right myself. (Some of whom are probably anti-Semitic.) But that doesn't mean I share their views. When Prouty gave talks with other guest speakers invited by Liberty Lobby, that didn't mean that he agreed with the other speakers' messages.

 

[Sandy Larsen]

7 minutes ago, Sandy Larsen said:

Based on everything I've read as a result of this thread, here is what I think happened:

Liberty Lobby founder Willis Carto was indeed anti-Semitic, but tried to hide his anti-Sematic views from certain of his publications and organizations, including Liberty Lobby. He did this by blaming Mossad (not Jews) for things like controlling world currencies. So while they showed critical views of the Zionist deep state, these wouldn't be considered anti-Semitic.

Carto liked Fletcher Prouty's book and adopted it to be among his many far-right conspiracy theories. Prouty was no doubt happy to have Carto's publishing arm publish the book, which Carto did for he benefit of Liberty Lobby members.

Now, just because Willis Carto was anti-Semitic doesn't mean that everybody he associated with knew he was, or that he was a Holocaust denier. Those were just two facets of Cartos's numerous far-right beliefs. I personally associate with a number of people on the far right myself. (Some of whom are probably anti-Semitic.) But that doesn't mean I share their views. When Prouty gave talks with other guest speakers invited by Liberty Lobby, that didn't mean that he agreed with the other speakers' messages.

 

I'm glad we had this thread and that it received a lot of debate.

Before now I didn't know what to think about Prouty. On the one hand he seemed very credible to me, and nothing I've seen him write contradicted my working JFKA conspiracy theory. On the other hand, there are a few researcher like Michael Griffith who believe Prouty cannot be trusted at all. (Griffith goes so far as to claim that Prouty is anti-Semitic!)

Well, now that I've seen the reasons that researchers like Griffith say Prouty isn't credible, and have studied those claims myself, I now feel comfortable in jumping off the fence and accepting that Prouty is indeed credible.

Conclusion: Fletcher Prouty is Credible

IMHO

 

[Michael Griffith]

55 minutes ago, Sandy Larsen said:

I'm glad we had this thread and that it received a lot of debate.

Before now I didn't know what to think about Prouty. On the one hand he seemed very credible to me, and nothing I've seen him write contradicted my working JFKA conspiracy theory. On the other hand, there are a few researcher like Michael Griffith who believe Prouty cannot be trusted at all. (Griffith goes so far as to claim that Prouty is anti-Semitic!)

Well, now that I've seen the reasons that researchers like Griffith say Prouty isn't credible, and have studied those claims myself, I now feel comfortable in jumping off the fence and accepting that Prouty is indeed credible.

Conclusion: Fletcher Prouty is Credible

IMHO

Did you not read my previous post? Or, do you not think it's a big deal that Prouty spoke at an IHR Holocaust-denial conference, in addition to speaking at a Liberty Lobby convention? And do you not think it matters that Prouty expressed concern about what would happen if a "Jewish sergeant" happened to be manning a targeting computer during air combat operations? That doesn't scream anti-Semitic to you? 

Let's just summarize Prouty's aberrant history:

-- Appeared 10 times in four years on Liberty Lobby's radio program.

-- Spoke at a Liberty Lobby convention and at an IHR conference, the latter of which included several Holocaust deniers as fellow speakers.

-- Recommended that people read Liberty Lobby's newspaper, which repeatedly attacked Jews and Israel and accepted ads from neo-N-azi groups.

-- Attacked critics of Scientology and of Ron Hubbard and denied that Scientology was an exploitative cult.

-- Had a book republished by the IHR's publishing arm, the same publishing arm that published numerous Holocaust-denial books.

-- Expressed concern about "Jewish sergeants" running targeting computers during air combat operations.

-- When asked about Carto's Holocaust denial, said, "I'm no authority in that area."

-- Publicly praised Carto and Marcellus for having the IHR republish his book.

-- Blamed high oil prices on the Israelis.

-- Said that Princess Diana may have been killed by the Secret Team.

-- Took seriously Stalin's nutty theory that Churchill had FDR poisoned.

-- Falsely claimed that he played an important role in presidential protection and that this was why he was sent to the South Pole, and eventually admitted to the ARRB that there was nothing sinister about the trip, contrary to what he'd been saying for years.

-- Refused to identify the person who had supposedly told him that he recognized Ed Lansdale in one of the Dealey Plaza tramp photos when questioned by the ARRB.

-- Failed to produce the notes he'd claimed in writing that he'd taken during his mythical "stand down" phone call from the 112th MI Group when asked for them by the ARRB. 

The only rational, credible, sane conclusion: Prouty was an unreliable source who made numerous false claims, who made several nutty claims, who expressed anti-Semitic views, who spent years associating with Holocaust deniers, and who was arguably a genuine nutcase. 

Edited May 1, 2023 by Michael Griffith

[W. Niederhut]

Michael,

     Since you continue to post these serious tropes about "anti-Semitism," would you be so kind as to answer a few questions on that subject?

     I realize that it's a highly sensitive subject, especially in the aftermath of the Holocaust, of the Russian pogroms, and centuries of persecution of the Jews in Europe and the Levant.

     But even Albert Einstein and Hannah Arendt criticized some actions of Irgun and Israeli nationalists after WWII.

     Do you consider any criticism of domestic or foreign Israeli government policies "anti-Semitic" per se?

     For example;

1)   Is it "anti-Semitic" to criticize the 1967 Israeli military attack on the U.S.S. Liberty?

2)  Is it "anti-Semitic" to criticize the 1946 bombing of the King David Hotel by Menachem Begin and Irgun members who dressed up like Arabs to stage that deadly terrorist attack on British nationals?

3)  Is it "anti-Semitic" to criticize the 1954 Lavon affair, in which Mossad members disguised themselves as Arabs while attempting bomb theaters, libraries and schools in Egypt-- civilian attacks which were supposed to be blamed on the Muslim Brotherhood?

4)  Was it "anti-Semitic" for Fletcher Prouty to point out that the WWII era oil pipelines to Haifa were shut down after the establishment of the State of Israel?

[Sandy Larsen]

39 minutes ago, Michael Griffith said:

....do you not think it's a big deal that Prouty spoke at an IHR Holocaust-denial conference, in addition to speaking at a Liberty Lobby convention?

 

For the second part of your question, no it's not a big deal.

For the first part of your question, did the advertisement for the conference actually state it was about Holocaust denial? If not, then no, it's not a big deal

 

39 minutes ago, Michael Griffith said:

And do you not think it matters that Prouty expressed concern about what would happen if a "Jewish sergeant" happened to be manning a targeting computer during air combat operations? That doesn't scream anti-Semitic to you?

 

Show me the whole Prouty letter so I can understand the "Jewish sergeant" phrase  in context. Then I can answer your question.

 

[Joe Bauer]

1 hour ago, Sandy Larsen said:

Well, now that I've seen the reasons that researchers like Griffith say Prouty isn't credible, and have studied those claims myself, I now feel comfortable in jumping off the fence and accepting that Prouty is indeed credible.

Conclusion: Fletcher Prouty is Credible

IMHO

Here here.

I repeat a question I posted:

How did Lansdale take JFK's unceremoniously firing his long time friend Alan Dulles?

A mutual admiration and respect friendship and highest level association that went way back before JFK was even a congressman?

No animosity at all towards JFK for doing such?

I find that take hard to believe.

How about JFK sleeping with Cord Meyers estranged wife Mary Meyer?

Lansdale must have known Cord Meyer.

And how can anyone depict Prouty's military service record in any way but mentally sound, reasonable and high achieving and performing on the highest levels?

 

Edited May 1, 2023 by Joe Bauer

[James DiEugenio]

BTW, to take just one example off of Mike's list.

The story about Stalin and the FDR poisoning was in Parade magazine in an article by Elliot Roosevelt back in 1986.

The whole point of it was to show how FDR's death had wrecked any hope for any kind of continuance of the alliance after the war.  This destruction is what Churchill would have wanted.

BTW, Anthony Eden said the same.  That it was FDR's death that caused the breakdown after WW 2 and led to the calamitous results .

[James DiEugenio]

Here is a quote from Len Osanic, who knows more about Prouty than anyone. I asked him for his reply to Mike.  He declined except for the above quote from Eliot ROosevelt.  But this is what he said.

"Jim this is way too crazy to spend time on the guy is an______

  I don't have time for flat earthers.

Nothing you say will stop this childish behavior

 

He is like  a child wailing about something he doesn't understand."

[Michael Griffith]

I will be posting documentation of Prouty's "Jewish sergeant" remark and of his speaking at an IHR conference today or tomorrow. I just need to upload the documents to my Google Drive so I can link them. 

[Michael Griffith]

16 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

BTW, to take just one example off of Mike's list.

The story about Stalin and the FDR poisoning was in Parade magazine in an article by Elliot Roosevelt back in 1986.

The whole point of it was to show how FDR's death had wrecked any hope for any kind of continuance of the alliance after the war.  This destruction is what Churchill would have wanted.

BTW, Anthony Eden said the same.  That it was FDR's death that caused the breakdown after WW 2 and led to the calamitous results .

None of this irrelevant evasion changes the fact that Prouty clearly took Stalin's nutty theory seriously, just as he thought it was a real possibility that the Secret Team murdered Princess Diana. The guy was a nutjob. 

As for Len Osanic's comment, I think it goes way beyond childish to whitewash or ignore Prouty's appearance at the 1990 IHR conference and his "Jewish sergeant" remark. This is serious, ugly stuff. If Osanic knew Prouty so well, was he aware that Prouty spoke at one of the IHR's Holocaust-denial conferences? Was he aware of Prouty's ugly "Jewish sergeant" remark in one of his letters? Was he aware that Prouty recommended Liberty Lobby's anti-Semitic newspaper and appeared 10 times in four years on Liberty Lobby's radio program? 

How can any person ignore this stuff and hope to maintain a shred of credibility?