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

[W. Niederhut]

1 hour ago, W. Niederhut said:

True, Paul.  And, as I pointed out above, Prouty's belief that Operation Zapata was named by Allen Dulles and the CIA for the GHWB/CIA Zapata Offshore Oil Company may have been a result of Prouty not being privy to the secret deliberations of the CIA.  Prouty's job was to furnish transportation and equipment to the Dulles/Bush CIA people for their secret ops.

It's a nothing burger.  Another Prouty non-scandal.

As for Zapata Offshore, do Doug Campbell, Greg Kooyman, et.al., sincerely believe that GHWB and his CIA front company, Zapata Oil, were not involved in the CIA's Bay of Pigs op?

What bunk.

      So, is it just a coincidence that the guys serving up these Prouty pseudo-scandal nothing burgers are also aggressively denying that GHWB's CIA front company, Zapata Oil, was using it's platform off of the coast of Cuba to assist the CIA's Bay of Pigs invasion?

        Hmmmm... 

 

[Jeff Carter]

2 hours ago, Paul Brancato said:

Maybe all this misses a point. We didn’t need Prouty’s mistaken evidence of a Bush connection to the Bay of Pigs. McBride’s discovery of the Hoover memo to ‘George Bush of the CIA was a far more important clue. Prouty’s revelation was a misdirection, intentional or not. But that doesn’t amount to a vindication of George Bush, whose explanation for the memo, discovered on the eve of his appointment to CIA director, doesn’t ring true. I realize this is a thread about Prouty, not Bush. 

Some good points.

What I am seeing is a private letter addressing the topic of the covert Indonesian campaign of 1958. Prouty concludes the letter with a brief aside. Mr Campbell freaks out over the aside, and expends approximately 20 times the equivalent energy and verbiage attacking the intellectual foundations of this brief aside which, in context, appears in a private letter written 34 years ago. He could have saved himself a tremendous amount of personal energies by simply cutting and pasting “Proutyism #5” from John Mcadams’ rather infamous compendium of anti-Prouty talking points, because that is the whole content of his complaints. I think a far more relevant observation is: why are people coming to the Education Forum and promoting the concepts of persons such as John McAdams?

Paul, you earlier asked a question of Prouty’s military career which brings up a bit too much information to make a response at all appealing. All I will say is that his long interview with David Ratcliffe - Understanding Special Operations - appears on the ratical.org website and basically covers what you are interested in. The discussion is focussed on legal, practical and historical implications related to the codification of covert activities during the Eisenhower administration, which is one of the more important topics of which Prouty possessed actual expertise which remains of value.

[Paul Brancato]

3 hours ago, Jeff Carter said:

Some good points.

What I am seeing is a private letter addressing the topic of the covert Indonesian campaign of 1958. Prouty concludes the letter with a brief aside. Mr Campbell freaks out over the aside, and expends approximately 20 times the equivalent energy and verbiage attacking the intellectual foundations of this brief aside which, in context, appears in a private letter written 34 years ago. He could have saved himself a tremendous amount of personal energies by simply cutting and pasting “Proutyism #5” from John Mcadams’ rather infamous compendium of anti-Prouty talking points, because that is the whole content of his complaints. I think a far more relevant observation is: why are people coming to the Education Forum and promoting the concepts of persons such as John McAdams?

Paul, you earlier asked a question of Prouty’s military career which brings up a bit too much information to make a response at all appealing. All I will say is that his long interview with David Ratcliffe - Understanding Special Operations - appears on the ratical.org website and basically covers what you are interested in. The discussion is focussed on legal, practical and historical implications related to the codification of covert activities during the Eisenhower administration, which is one of the more important topics of which Prouty possessed actual expertise which remains of value.

Thanks - Ratical is an interesting website I have not previously visited. I’m reading the Prouty interviews. I tend to agree with you that his naysayers focus in on one thing or another but miss the forest for the trees. I fail to see what is so incendiary about his recollections that a cottage industry would form in order to discredit him. 

[Sandy Larsen]

On 10/20/2023 at 12:32 PM, Doug Campbell said:

@Rob Clark

@Larry Hancock

 

 

On 10/20/2023 at 3:03 PM, W. Niederhut said:

Not sure what to make of the "Barbara J." reference, if it's accurate.

 

It appears to me that 1) Prouty, being aware that the Bay of Pigs operation was name Zapata; that 2) one of the ships he had acquired was renamed to "Barbara J.;" and that 3) Houston was the residence of George Bush, honestly -- though incorrectly -- assumed that J was Barbara Bush's middle initial and that Operation Zapata was named after Bush's company. And that is why he wondered if those three things were a mere coincidence.

It doesn't appear to me that Prouty ever claimed that they were anything more than a coincidence.

 

BTW, could Prouty in 1989 have known that George Bush was CIA, and that he had been involved in the Bay of Pigs, if he himself had not been involved? That is the year he wrote that letter to Harold Weisberg. If the answer is no, then isn't the Weisberg letter proof that Prouty was involved?

 

[W. Niederhut]

1 minute ago, Sandy Larsen said:

 

 

It appears to me that 1) Prouty, being aware that the Bay of Pigs operation was name Zapata; that 2) one of the ships he had acquired was renamed to "Barbara J.;" and that 3) Houston was the residence of George Bush, honestly -- though incorrectly -- assumed that J was Barbara Bush's middle initial. And that is why he wondered if those three things were a mere coincidence.

It doesn't appear to me that Prouty ever claimed that they were anything more than a coincidence.

 

BTW, could Prouty in 1989 have known that George Bush was CIA, and that he had been involved in the Bay of Pigs, if he himself had not been involved? That is the year he wrote that letter to Harold Weisberg. If the answer is no, then isn't the Weisberg letter proof that Prouty was involved?

 

Sandy,

         If I recall correctly, from his books, Prouty was directly involved in providing transportation and supplies for the CIA's Bay of Pigs invasion.  He also described personally witnessing the phone call from (?) McGeorge Bundy (or one of JFK's staffers) nixing additional, last minute U.S. air support for the invasion.  Some planes were on stand-by, but they didn't get the go-ahead order to fly.  

        Joseph McBride's discovery of the J. Edgar Hoover memo about "Mr. George Bush of the CIA" was publicized in July of 1988, so it would have been public knowledge in informed circles in 1989.  (My hunch is that Prouty must have known, previously, that GHWB and Zapata Oil were CIA assets, but I may be mistaken.  I don't recall Prouty mentioning GHWB as a CIA asset in The Secret Team or in JFK--The CIA, Vietnam, and the Assassination of John F. Kennedy.) 

        

[Sandy Larsen]

11 minutes ago, W. Niederhut said:

24 minutes ago, Sandy Larsen said:

BTW, could Prouty in 1989 have known that George Bush was CIA, and that he had been involved in the Bay of Pigs, if he himself had not been involved? That is the year he wrote that letter to Harold Weisberg. If the answer is no, then isn't the Weisberg letter proof that Prouty was involved?

 

11 minutes ago, W. Niederhut said:

Joseph McBride's discovery of the J. Edgar Hoover memo about "Mr. George Bush of the CIA" was publicized in July of 1988, so it would have been public knowledge in informed circles in 1989.

 

Okay, thanks William. It's a shame that that cannot be proven in this way.

Nevertheless, it still hold that Prouty simply made some mistake about the Barbara Bush's middle initial and the source of the code name for the BOP invasion. He never claimed anything nefarious predicated on those mistakes.

 

[Paul Brancato]

Greg and Doug - are you willing to digress from Prouty for a moment? Or do I have to dredge up an old thread? It seems to me that you are using Prouty to whitewash George Bush. You could be 100% right about Prouty’s claims regarding the names Zapata and Barbara, and be 100% wrong about the more important questions re Bush and Zapata Oil, and about the Hoover memo. It’s almost like Prouty handed you a perfect setup. But that kind of logic doesn’t cut it. I would sincerely like you both to answer this question - was JFK’s assassination the work of Lee Harvey Oswald? 
What I’m trying to figure out is why many posters here want to tear Prouty to shreds. Maybe you think Prouty was a deep state tool who deliberately laid traps over rabbit holes for intrepid researchers. Or maybe you think his many assertions are a threat to the continuing deep state dominant narrative and are doing your best to destroy his credibility in defense of that narrative. Maybe it’s something else entirely that drives you. I have no way of knowing without clarification. Are you both of the opinion that GHWB and his Zapata company were in no way involved in the Bay of Pigs? Or are you just here to knock Prouty off a pedestal and restore sanity? Or something else?

[Sandy Larsen]

52 minutes ago, Paul Brancato said:

Greg and Doug - .... What I’m trying to figure out is why many posters here want to tear Prouty to shreds.

 

Paul,

I don't know about Greg and Doug, but I believe that some here are Prouty critics simply because he said things that contradict their strongly-held beliefs. For example, Michael Griffith for Prouty saying JFK was getting out of Vietnam.

 

[Michael Griffith]

On 10/21/2023 at 8:41 PM, Paul Brancato said:

What I’m trying to figure out is why many posters here want to tear Prouty to shreds. 

Because Prouty was an obvious fraud and a crackpot. Because he spent years palling around with vile anti-Semites and Holocaust deniers, speaking at their conferences, appearing on their radio program, praising their "courage" and "vision," praising their publications, etc. Because he made many claims that were demonstrably false, including some claims that were downright nutty. Because he back-peddled all over the place in his ARRB interview. And because he viciously attacked former Scientologists who were trying to expose that cult's manipulation and corruption. 

Perhaps a better question is, Given all that we now know about Prouty, how can anyone defend him?

[W. Niederhut]

Pathetic.

Paul Brancato asked the disingenuous Prouty bashers an honest question last Saturday, and-- as I predicted-- the response from Michael Griffith is to simply repeat his same old debunked John McAdams defamation tropes.

Mcadams - Laughing stock of the internet (blackopradio.com)

 

[Michael Griffith]

On 10/21/2023 at 9:40 PM, Sandy Larsen said:

 

Paul,

I don't know about Greg and Doug, but I believe that some here are Prouty critics simply because he said things that contradict their strongly-held beliefs. For example, Michael Griffith for Prouty saying JFK was getting out of Vietnam.

You're kidding, right? In this entire thread, how many lines have I spent on attacking Prouty over his erroneous claim that JFK was getting out of Vietnam? Maybe, oh, 15 or 20 out of dozens of replies?

Anyone who reads my posts in this thread will readily see that I repudiate Prouty (1) because he spent years palling around with--and agreeing with--anti-Semites and Holocaust deniers, (2) because he attacked Scientology whistleblowers and defended L. Ron Hubbard, (3) because he made bogus claims about Chiang Kai-shek and the Tehran Conference, (4) because he made bogus claims about Chiang and the Sino-Japanese War and the Pacific War, (5) because he back-peddled on nearly every major claim he'd been making about the JFK case in his ARRB interview, and (6) because he peddled truly nutty theories (Diana may have been killed by the Secret Team; the Jonestown Massacre was a U.S. intel operation; etc.).

I haven't felt the need to spend much time attacking Prouty over his claim that JFK was getting out of Vietnam because so many other scholars have destroyed that myth. As I've mentioned many times, even the vast majority of liberal scholars reject the idea that JFK was going to unconditionally withdraw from Vietnam after the election. A major reason for this rejection is the evidence from the JFK White House tapes and from JFK's own public statements on the war in the last months of his life, including one that he gave the day before he died and another that he was going to give at the Trade Mart, in addition to Bobby's statements about JFK's intentions in his April 1964 oral interview.

Edited October 25, 2023 by Michael Griffith

[James DiEugenio]

Mike Griffith does not want to think that JFK's withdrawal plan was for real.

Even though David Kaiser, James Blight, and Gordon Goldstein, among others, have proven that to be the case.

Kennedy was unmistakably getting out of Vietnam.  Period.  Over and out.

Ignoring all the problems with the Selverstone book, he tried to say it was the only book to read on the subject.

Whew.  

It was Prouty who originally gave Stone the idea to center his feature film on NSAM 263.  So Mike wants to  trash Fletcher.

Kennedy should be recognized and praised for having the wisdom and the insight to avoid going to war in Indochina, as he was advised not to by DeGaulle and MacArthur. Unlike LBJ and Nixon, who not only did go to war, they expanded the horrible conflict into Laos and Cambodia.  With disastrous results, including the genocide in Cambodia.

Kennedy deserves kudos for what he was trying to do.  And Oliver Stone deserves a lot of credit for making the Prouty/Newman thesis the fulcrum of his feature film.  

Edited October 26, 2023 by James DiEugenio

[James DiEugenio]

Let me add one more thing about this issue.

As time has gone on, and more and more evidence has surfaced showing that Kennedy was getting out, I am more and more in the camp that this was the main reason behind the assassination.

Some of this has to do with how fast the policy was reversed, e.g. NSAM 288, which--disagreeing with Newman-- Fletcher thought was the real order that turned the whole thing around. And also, the completeness with which it was overhauled.  All of those changes leading to the chilling scene out of Karnow and Newman, of LBJ saying to the JCS, "Just get me elected and I'll give you your damn war."

Another thing that disturbs me is the CIA trying to change its estimates in the fall of 1963.  This indicates that they knew Kennedy was using the false prognostications as the basis for his withdrawal plan. In other words, he was hoisting them on their own petard. The CIA and JCS were so disturbed by Kennedy's plans to get out that they prematurely exposed NSAM 263, which Kennedy wanted to keep secret until after the November Honolulu Conference  They made it public out of Saigon in October, so Bundy said, well, you might as well announce it since your enemies already did so.

Prouty was on to most of this back in the 80's.  And then Newman filled it in with more detail. The November 1961 meeting, where Kennedy exploded at his advisors over Vietnam, described in his revised edition, is worth the price of that book.

The revelations about this reversal to a mass audience was a true shock to the system. Which the MSM did all it could to try and deflect.  And they were dead wrong and deserved to be humiliated. Which they were; Sec Def May of 1963.

Edited October 26, 2023 by James DiEugenio

[Sandy Larsen]

14 hours ago, Michael Griffith said:

You're kidding, right? In this entire thread, how many lines have I spent on attacking Prouty over his erroneous claim that JFK was getting out of Vietnam? Maybe, oh, 15 or 20 out of dozens of replies?

 

I've seen the evidence that JFK was getting all US advisors/troops out of Vietnam, and it is very convincing.

I haven't seen evidence that JFK would discontinue providing military aid to South Vietnam. Did Prouty claim that to be the case? (Not that there isn't such evidence.)

 

14 hours ago, Michael Griffith said:

Anyone who reads my posts in this thread will readily see that I repudiate Prouty (1) because he spent years palling around with--and agreeing with--anti-Semites and Holocaust deniers, ...

 

I think Prouty paled around with lots of people. Some anti-Semite, some adulterous, some abusive, some alcoholic, etc.

But that doesn't make him an anti-Semitic, adulterous, abusive, alcoholic person.

If Prouty were anti-Semitic, he surely would have made his share of anti-Semitic remarks. Which he didn't.

 

14 hours ago, Michael Griffith said:

... (2) because he attacked Scientology whistleblowers and defended L. Ron Hubbard, ...

 

I'm not educated on that topic.

 

14 hours ago, Michael Griffith said:

... (3) because he made bogus claims about Chiang Kai-shek and the Tehran Conference, (4) because he made bogus claims about Chiang and the Sino-Japanese War and the Pacific War, ... 

 

Prouty said that that was a highly secretive meeting. It being highly secretive could be the reason there is no known evidence for it.

 

14 hours ago, Michael Griffith said:

... (5) because he back-peddled on nearly every major claim he'd been making about the JFK case in his ARRB interview, ... 

 

I've read what the pro-Prouty folks said about that, and I think what they said made sense and was reasonable. But yes, this could reasonably be used as anti-Prouty evidence.

 

14 hours ago, Michael Griffith said:

... and (6) because he peddled truly nutty theories (Diana may have been killed by the Secret Team; the Jonestown Massacre was a U.S. intel operation; etc.).

 

Regarding Diana, he merely said that it might have been a secret operation for all he knew. Or something like that.

I'm not educated on the latter.

 

[James DiEugenio]

Sandy,

This junk is mostly out of the McAdams play book.

All this rubbish had been effectively countered, especially by Jeff,  and Mike knows it.

 And if he does not know it he is being deliberately obtuse. 

Mike had a pretty good JFK site at one time, he has pretty much denigrated himself on this forum.

Edited October 26, 2023 by James DiEugenio