Old Wine in New bottles: Fletcher Prouty's New Critics recycle the Past

[James DiEugenio]

Jeff Carter continues the Kennedys and King examination of the ARRB, especially Tim Wray, and his battle with Fletcher Prouty. Some interesting stuff Jeff found in the declassified ARRB memos.

On BOR this week, I discussed this and concluded that this was really a way of getting at Oliver Stone.

 

https://www.kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-articles/old-wine-in-new-bottles-fletcher-prouty-s-new-critics-recycle-the-past

[Benjamin Cole]

On 8/20/2023 at 9:09 AM, James DiEugenio said:

Jeff Carter continues the Kennedys and King examination of the ARRB, especially Tim Wray, and his battle with Fletcher Prouty. Some interesting stuff Jeff found in the declassified ARRB memos.

On BOR this week, I discussed this and concluded that this was really a way of getting at Oliver Stone.

 

https://www.kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-articles/old-wine-in-new-bottles-fletcher-prouty-s-new-critics-recycle-the-past

Interesting. 

I realize being a JFKA'er, I tend to see conspiracies behind every pillar. 

Yet, anyone reading Wikipedia re the JFKA, or the critical reviews of Oliver Stone films, or the media treatment of the RFK Jr. candidacy (particularly at once liberal outfits such at the Rolling Stone or Daily Beast, now affiliated with the CIA) comes to suspect something is at work. So, is the Fletcher Prouty legacy being targeted? 

Op Mock lives and breathes, bigger than ever?

There was once a leaky, largely ineffective, but fleetingly admirable bulwark against the Deep State, that being the unorganized Democratic Party and liberal media. But the party and affiliated media have been converted.

The total media blackout on the JFK Records snuff job comes to mind. 

 

 

 

 

[W. Niederhut]

On 8/19/2023 at 8:09 PM, James DiEugenio said:

Jeff Carter continues the Kennedys and King examination of the ARRB, especially Tim Wray, and his battle with Fletcher Prouty. Some interesting stuff Jeff found in the declassified ARRB memos.

On BOR this week, I discussed this and concluded that this was really a way of getting at Oliver Stone.

 

https://www.kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-articles/old-wine-in-new-bottles-fletcher-prouty-s-new-critics-recycle-the-past

Great job by Jeff Carter here.  My only suggestion is that the essay could be entitled, "Old Vinegar in New Bottles."

Will we have to re-post Jeff's summary* in response to the Prouty detractors crawling out of the woodwork to re-post their old McAdams tropes?

What else can we do in response to Swiftboat Vetting defamation techniques?

*    "Therefore, the two express “hatchet-jobs” directed at Prouty in 1991 and 1996 - the Esquire piece and the ARRB interview - both promoting the pretension that Prouty was unstable and his concepts were easily “debunked” by the official record, have proved to be fundamentally in error, first over the NSAMs and second over the military intelligence units. To this day, Prouty’s detractors still cannot articulate where exactly he is wrong - about the assassination or about his experiences during his military career. This is why such criticisms invariably fade into a drab curtain of distraction, stained with reference to the Liberty Lobby, Scientology, Princess Diana, and other irrelevancies."

-- Jeff Carter/August 16, 2023

Old Wine in New Bottles: Fletcher Prouty’s New Critics Recycle the Past (kennedysandking.com)

[James DiEugenio]

i like that William, old vinegar, that would have been better I think.

Jeff actually may be working on a third part in the series.

[Paul Brancato]

Good work by Jeff. For me he answers some things satisfactorily, like the Liberty Lobby stuff from the early ‘90’s. I would encourage Jeff to write a sequel, and suggest he grapple with the part that Mr. Montenegro hammered home about Operation Bloodstone, and about his work in a very secretive part of the government. I’m too lazy at the moment to give exact info, but what I’m mostly interested in is whether Prouty knew far more than he ever revealed. Metta, in his follow on to Garrison, claims that Prouty named CMC and Harriman. According to a friend who translated the article written in Italian that Metta credits for that info, Prouty doesn’t actually come out and say that. 
The other most important issue is Lansdale. Was he in Dallas? Did Prouty actually point the finger at him? 
Someone at some time borrowed my first edition copy of The Secret Team. Does that book, or possibly another, name names?

[Ron Bulman]

Sorry, I can't resist.  A relevant (?) mellow oldie from the Red Headed Stranger.

 

[Michael Griffith]

On 8/19/2023 at 10:09 PM, James DiEugenio said:

Jeff Carter continues the Kennedys and King examination of the ARRB, especially Tim Wray, and his battle with Fletcher Prouty. Some interesting stuff Jeff found in the declassified ARRB memos.

On BOR this week, I discussed this and concluded that this was really a way of getting at Oliver Stone.

https://www.kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-articles/old-wine-in-new-bottles-fletcher-prouty-s-new-critics-recycle-the-past

Your continued defense of Fletcher Prouty casts serious doubt on your credibility and judgment. It also makes this forum look bad. 

It is thoroughly documented, substantially with Prouty's own words, that Prouty was an anti-Semitic fraud who spoke at a Holocaust-denial event, who spent years closely associating with Holocaust deniers and other extremists, who made truly nutty claims on a wide range of subjects, who exaggerated (if not lied about) his credentials, and who back-peddled all over the place when he was gently and respectfully interviewed by the ARRB. 

[Jeff Carter]

With the essay, I was focussed less on attempting to influence opinion on Prouty and his work, and more on setting the record straight in the face of a resurgence of partially informed criticism sourced primarily from literal “hatchet-jobs” devised in the 1990s in reaction to Oliver Stone’s “JFK”. The motivation for these character attacks was the film’s inclusion of facts pertaining to NSAM 263 and 273, as Prouty himself noted in a 1994 interview:

“This was the most important fallout of working on this movie JFK for me personally. As soon as we put into the movie the fact of history that John F Kennedy had signed a White House paper, in those days called National Security Action memoranda, the highest most formal paper the executive branch could publish, number 263, it was dated 11 October 1963, in the month before he died. And that paper clearly said he was not going to put Americans into Vietnam. It went even further, in so many words it said that all American personnel were going to be out of Vietnam by the end of 1965. And the minute we put that into the script of the movie, even before the movie was made and put in the theatres, the newspapers and other pseudo-historians began to say ‘there’s no such thing, Prouty and Oliver Stone are wrong’.  Well, there certainly is. You can find it in the Foreign Relations U.S. series.”  (May 5, 1994)

As Len Osanic has noted elsewhere, the personal attacks related to the movie were primarily focussed on Oliver Stone, followed by Jim Garrison. However, the persistence of unmerited reputational assaults on Prouty long after his insights on NSAM 263/273 have been essentially confirmed, is certainly a curious feature of the contemporary debate.

[James DiEugenio]

Jeff did a nice job on that whole anti semitic smear.

And I agree with him and Fletcher: the idea that Kennedy was getting out of Vietnam was a bombshell of several megaton impact back in 1991. 

The MSM and the political establishment did not want to hear it.  period.

It was bad enough that they let the WC slide, now they failed to notice that--hey Johnson reversed Kennedy's policy and had troops in Vietnam less than four months after the final volumes of the WC were published?  And no one noticed that then?

Fletcher was Stone's original source on this.  And I am still trying to locate that excellent 1986 article he did on the subject.  That will be the focus of Part 3.

[Mervyn Hagger]

" .....Kennedy was getting out of Vietnam was a bombshell of several megaton impact back in 1991."

That's funny.

Which Kennedy are you referring to?

JFK died in 1963.

[W. Niederhut]

1 hour ago, Mervyn Hagger said:

" .....Kennedy was getting out of Vietnam was a bombshell of several megaton impact back in 1991."

That's funny.

Which Kennedy are you referring to?

JFK died in 1963.

He was referring to the emerging evidence about JFK, Vietnam, (and NSAM 263) around the time that Oliver Stone was producing, JFK, in consultation with Prouty.

That historical evidence had been effectively suppressed by LBJ and the Mockingbird M$M for decades.

IMO, the CIA had other important reasons for launching their "Kill-the-Messenger" smear campaign against Prouty thirty years ago.

1)  In addition to his revelations about JFK's NSAM263 Vietnam withdrawal policy, Prouty had also pointed out in detail, (initially in The Secret Team) how the NYT and the CIA tried to shift the blame for CIA/Lansdale ops in Vietnam (prior to 1964) onto the Pentagon, in The Pentagon Papers.

2) Prouty also outed Ed Lansdale in Dealey Plaza on 11/22/63.  Given Lansdale's longstanding close relationship with Allen Dulles, that was hitting too close to home.

Edited August 30, 2023 by W. Niederhut

[Paul Brancato]

6 minutes ago, W. Niederhut said:

He was referring to the emerging evidence about JFK, Vietnam, (and NSAM 263) around the time that Oliver Stone was producing, JFK, in consultation with Prouty.

That historical evidence had been effectively suppressed by LBJ and the Mockingbird M$M for decades.

IMO, the CIA had other important reasons for launching their "Kill-the-Messenger" smear campaign against Prouty thirty years ago.

1)  In addition to his revelations about JFK's NSAM263 Vietnam withdrawal policy, Prouty had also pointed out in detail, (initially in The Secret Team) how the NYT and the CIA tried to shift the blame for CIA/Lansdale ops in Vietnam (prior to 1964) onto the Pentagono, in The Pentagon Papers.

2) Prouty also outed Ed Lansdale in Dealey Plaza on 11/22/63.  Given Lansdale's longstanding close relationship with Allen Dulles, that was hitting too close.

Other than identifying Lansdale in pics was he proven to be in Dallas that day?

[W. Niederhut]

4 minutes ago, Paul Brancato said:

12 minutes ago, W. Niederhut said:

He was referring to the emerging evidence about JFK, Vietnam, (and NSAM 263) around the time that Oliver Stone was producing, JFK, in consultation with Prouty.

That historical evidence had been effectively suppressed by LBJ and the Mockingbird M$M for decades.

IMO, the CIA had other important reasons for launching their "Kill-the-Messenger" smear campaign against Prouty thirty years ago.

1)  In addition to his revelations about JFK's NSAM263 Vietnam withdrawal policy, Prouty had also pointed out in detail, (initially in The Secret Team) how the NYT and the CIA tried to shift the blame for CIA/Lansdale ops in Vietnam (prior to 1964) onto the Pentagono, in The Pentagon Papers.

2) Prouty also outed Ed Lansdale in Dealey Plaza on 11/22/63.  Given Lansdale's longstanding close relationship with Allen Dulles, that was hitting too close.

Other than identifying Lansdale in pics was he proven to be in Dallas that day?

Paul,

I think John Newman, or some other researcher, found evidence that Lansdale was in the Dallas area at the time.

I don't recall Prouty saying anything on the subject other than Lansdale telling him that he was planning to engage in some, "fun and games" after his official retirement in October-- lingo for "special ops."

[James DiEugenio]

The idea that JFK was getting out of Vietnam had been systematically suppressed by LBJ and then the media for decades.

In fact, Johnson actually tried to say the contrary: that he was continuing Kennedy's policy in Indochina, when he knew this was false.

A very good example of this suppression was through David Halberstam and Neil Sheehan. Both NY TImes reporters.

The Best and the Brightest, as Warren Hinckle once said, is one of the greatest BS books ever written.

In that book, Halberstam did all he could to conceal what Kennedy was really doing in his last months, and also the role of John K. Galbraith.  That book sold well over a million copies and has had a terribly pernicious influence, since it tried to pass itself off as history.    Which it was not.

There were some attempts to correct this mythology, for example, by Peter Scott.   But they had little influence in the MSM. 

It was not until 1991, when Stone utilized what Prouty had done, and had it reinforced by Newman, that the impact of this policy reversal was first felt.  And man how it was resisted.  This is I think, and I think Jeff does also, the reason they tried to pillory Fletcher.

But today, this information is now out there and prevalent both in the critical community and the public.  There is no putting it back in the bottle. Its the truth.

 

Edited August 30, 2023 by James DiEugenio

[Benjamin Cole]

1 hour ago, James DiEugenio said:

The idea that JFK was getting out of Vietnam had been systematically suppressed by LBJ and then the media for decades.

In fact, Johnson actually tried to say the contrary: that he was continuing Kennedy's policy in Indochina, when he knew this was false.

A very good example of this suppression was through David Halberstam and Neil Sheehan. Both NY TImes reporters.

The Best and the Brightest, as Warren Hinckle once said, is one of the greatest BS books ever written.

In that book, Halberstam did all he could to conceal what Kennedy was really doing in his last months, and also the role of John K. Galbraith.  That book sold well over a million copies and has had a terribly pernicious influence, since it tried to pass itself off as history.    Which it was not.

There were some attempts to correct this mythology, for example, by Peter Scott.   But they had little influence in the MSM. 

It was not until 1991, when Stone utilized what Prouty had done, and had it reinforced by Newman, that the impact of this policy reversal was first felt.  And man how it was resisted.  This is I think, and I think Jeff does also, the reason they tried to pillory Fletcher.

But today, this information is now out there and prevalent both in the critical community and the public.  There is no putting it back in the bottle. Its the truth.

 

Correct.

NSAM 263 is proof, but in the broader picture JFK knew that being a Western power asserting control, enforced at gunpoint, over Asian nations was a losing proposition. Colonialism was on the way out. Western soldiers and officials would be seen as intruders. 

And inevitably, Western intrusion was at the behest of, or beckoned, Western or globalist commercial interests, thus polluting any idea of moral high grounds.  

And what was the upside of fantastically expensive, counterproductive globalist wars? 

Why the JFKA matters---the globalists have run Washington foreign, military and trade policy ever since (and media), deposing any president not willing to do their bidding. 

The globalized US military eats $1.5 trillion a year (DoD, VA, black-budget, pro-rated interest on the national debt). That's $5,000 for every man, women and child in the US, every year. That's $20,000 off the dinner table for an average family of four. Every year.

Just like you will never read about Biden's snuff job on the JFK Records Act in US media, you will also never read about the true cost of globalism for American taxpayers.