Prouty on Vietnam: NSAM 263 and 273 60 years on

[James DiEugenio]

The reason I put that in italics is that it shows how in conflict JFK was with his main advisors on Vietnam.  And this was late in 1961.  At one of the meetings in the November 1961 debates, it was Bobby Kennedy who stepped forward and stated, "There will be no combat troops in Vietnam." That was clearly on advisement of his brother.

That was a line that Kennedy was not going to cross and there is no evidence that he ever wavered on it. All the evidence indicates he was getting out after the 1964 election.

That policy was clearly and deliberately altered by Johnson. And he did it within days of Kennedy's death.  By late January, he was doing something Kennedy was vigorously opposed to--meeting with the Pentagon on planning for war against the north.  In March those plan were complete, NSAM 288.  (The tragedy of Robert McNamara is that he did not get out on that day.)

For Selverstone to say that Kennedy might have committed 300,000 combat troops in theater is simply one of the wildest, most irresponsible, most bizarre statements one can imagine anyone making about this subject.

[Robert Morrow]

Would someone please find the YouTube video where LBJ is castigating Robert McNamara and saying he didn't approve of it when the Kennedy Administration was talking about getting out of Vietnam while they were LOSING the war. Someone will nimble search engine fingers please find this LBJ White House recording for me!

[Sandy Larsen]

18 hours ago, Michael Griffith said:

As just one example, let's take a look at the original draft of NSAM 273, i.e., the version that JFK was going to sign when he returned from Dallas.

 

Michael,

What makes you think that Kennedy was going to sign NSAM 273? He hadn't even read it. Wasn't it, therefore, just a recommendation made by the military and advisors?

@Jeff Carter, is the characterization I made of 273, in the prior paragraph, accurate?

 

[Sandy Larsen]

14 hours ago, Roger Odisio said:

That reversal of 263 was part of the [assassination] plan from the start.

 

That sure seems to be the case to me, based on everything I've learned on the forum about NSAMs 263 and 273, including this thread.

In which case McGeorge Bundy had to have known about the assassination plot before 11/22.

UNLESS... there could have been some other reason for Bundy to write it.

 

[Sandy Larsen]

5 minutes ago, Sandy Larsen said:

UNLESS... there could have been some other reason for Bundy to write [NSAM 273].

 

Oh, I see that Jim already stated such a possible reason:

 

14 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

I thought the reason for 273 was to coalesce a policy after Hawaii in relation to the overthrow of the government in Saigon.

 

So maybe McGeorge Bundy, writer of NSAM 273, wasn't aware of the assassination plot after all.

(I probably shouldn't be responding to these posts till after I catch up on them.)

[Sandy Larsen]

14 hours ago, Michael Griffith said:

I forgot to mention that Fletcher Prouty actually appeared on a third anti-Semitic program: On 11/11/1992, he appeared on The LaRouche Connection TV program, a program created by a lunatic fringe anti-Semite and Holocaust denier named Lyndon LaRouche (LINK).

 

Yes. And you wrote a number of books promoting the ideology of a church associated with polygamist marriage and racist practices aimed at those with black skin. A church whose scripture came largely from golden plates that nobody has seen, many of which were supposedly translated by the church's founder by burying his face in a hat and peering at two stones.

Do you think it right for someone to smear people like this? For being associated with people of questionable pasts?

 

[Sandy Larsen]

13 hours ago, Roger Odisio said:

I thought that was based primarily on Bundy running the White House situation room at the time of the murder, and sending a message to Air Force One on the way back from Dallas that the lone assassin had been arrested.  Something no one could have possibly known at the time.

 

Roger,

Are you sure that McGeorge Bundy's message to Air Force One was that a lone assassin had been arrested? Or could you be confusing that with his saying that there was no communist plot?

The latter is a point that @Cliff Varnell brings up occasionally. Although he attributes the source of that information to Averill Harriman.

This issue is very important IMO.

 

[Michael Griffith]

15 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

The reason I put that in italics is that it shows how in conflict JFK was with his main advisors on Vietnam.  And this was late in 1961.  At one of the meetings in the November 1961 debates, it was Bobby Kennedy who stepped forward and stated, "There will be no combat troops in Vietnam." That was clearly on advisement of his brother.

That was a line that Kennedy was not going to cross and there is no evidence that he ever wavered on it. All the evidence indicates he was getting out after the 1964 election.

That policy was clearly and deliberately altered by Johnson. And he did it within days of Kennedy's death.  By late January, he was doing something Kennedy was vigorously opposed to--meeting with the Pentagon on planning for war against the north.  In March those plan were complete, NSAM 288.  (The tragedy of Robert McNamara is that he did not get out on that day.)

For Selverstone to say that Kennedy might have committed 300,000 combat troops in theater is simply one of the wildest, most irresponsible, most bizarre statements one can imagine anyone making about this subject.

I have answered every one of these claims with documented facts, several times now, but you just keep ignoring those facts and keep repeating these claims (LINK, LINK, LINK, LINK). You can repeat these erroneous claims with all the adamance at your command, over and over again, but they will still be claims that are recognized as erroneous and fringe even by the vast majority of liberal scholars and historians, even by ultra-liberal historians such as Moise and Chomsky. I realize you don't care about this fact, but I think it should be pointed out for the sake of others.

No, Dr. Selverstone's suggestion that JFK may have committed 300,000 combat troops in response to the kind of dire situation that developed in 1965 is hardly "wild, irresponsible, and bizarre" but has been voiced by most scholars who have addressed the issue. I think that your polemic against this suggestion indicates that you are not qualified to be discussing JFK and Vietnam.

I should point out, again, that even Bobby Kennedy, in his April 1964 oral history interview, allowed that JFK may have authorized combat troops if the situation had become serious enough. You keep ignoring the fact that JFK was never faced with the situation that LBJ faced in early 1965. 

I devote an entire chapter to JFK and Vietnam in my new book A Comforting Lie: The Myth that a Lone Gunman Killed President Kennedy (chapter 20, which is 22 pages long).

I think that anyone who continues to defend Fletcher Prouty, given all that we now know about him, is showing a troubling lack of objectivity and credibility. 

Among the many pitiful excuses offered for Prouty is the argument that Prouty agreed to have the Holocaust-denying IHR Noontide Press republish his (nutty) book The Secret Team because no one else would publish it. One, if Prouty truly could not find a single other publisher who would republish the book, that should tell you something. Two, no matter how anxious I might be to get a book published, I would never, ever, ever agree to have a Holocaust-denying publishing company publish my book. 

Finally, regarding "fringe claims," yes, Prouty most certainly made a number of fringe claims. The claim that Ed Lansdale was a key plotter and was in Dealey Plaza is a nutty, obscene, fringe claim, and is recognized as such by 99.99% of the scholars and historians who have written on the subject. The claim that Prouty flew the Chinese delegation to the Tehran Conference and that Chiang and his delegation secretly attended the conference is a nutty, fringe claim, and is rejected by 99.99% of the scholars and historians who have written on the subject. The claim that the Israelis were to blame for high oil prices in the 1980s/early 1990s is a nutty, fringe claim, not to mention an anti-Semitic smear peddled by neo-Nazi groups and radical Muslims, and is recognized as such by 99.99% of the scholars and historians who have written on the subject. And on and on we could go. 

Edited February 6 by Michael Griffith

[Sandy Larsen]

46 minutes ago, Michael Griffith said:

Finally, regarding "fringe claims," yes, Prouty most certainly made a number of fringe claims. The claim that Ed Lansdale was a key plotter and was in Dealey Plaza is a nutty, obscene, fringe claim, and is recognized as such by 99.99% of the scholars and historians who have written on the subject. The claim that Prouty flew the Chinese delegation to the Tehran Conference and that Chiang and his delegation secretly attended the conference is a nutty, fringe claim, and is rejected by 99.99% of the scholars and historians who have written on the subject. The claim that the Israelis were to blame for high oil prices in the 1980s/early 1990s is a nutty, fringe claim, not to mention an anti-Semitic smear peddled by neo-Nazi groups and radical Muslims, and is recognized as such by 99.99% of the scholars and historians who have written on the subject. And on and on we could go.

 

Appeals to the majority fallacy.

You should stick to the evidence.

 

[Robert Morrow]

Michael Griffith says:

QUOTE

Finally, regarding "fringe claims," yes, Prouty most certainly made a number of fringe claims. The claim that Ed Lansdale was a key plotter and was in Dealey Plaza is a nutty, obscene, fringe claim, and is recognized as such by 99.99% of the scholars and historians who have written on the subject. 

UNQUOTE

There are many fine students of the JFK assassination who think that Gen. Edward Lansdale was photographed 5 feet of the Texas School Book Depository at 2:30PM on the afternoon of 11-22-1963.

Need I remind you that the vast majority of history and political science professors at colleges and universities are a bunch of politically-controlled morons who will tell you with a straight face that a Lone Nut Killed JFK and that Gerald Posner's book Case Closed is a great book to read on the JFK case. So no wonder they can't handle Gen. Edward Lansdale being involved in the JFK assassination.

A few years ago I went to a lecture in Austin, TX where Max Boot was promoting his biography on Lansdale The Road Not Taken and in that talk he slurred Fletcher Prouty with the ridiculous assertion that the man was a kook because he said Gen. Edward Lansdale was at Dealey Plaza. Afterwards I went up to "Lone Nutter" Neocon Kook Max Boot (who never met a war he did not like) and told him the Gen. Victor Krulak ALSO identified Edward Lansdale in that photo taken at Dealey Plaza and I asked Boot "So was Krulak a kook too?" 

Neocon kook (and lone nutter) Max Boot replied, "No."

Krulak's Lansdale identification: http://www.ratical.com/ratville/JFK/USO/appD.html

Boot did not even know that Krulak had also identified Lansdale at Dealey Plaza- and this man was a published author on Lansdale! It seems like that would be highly relevant to any biography of Edward Lansdale.

Danny Sheehan on May 23, 2016 said that even Lansdale's second wife Patrocinio Yapcinco Lansdale had identified Lansdale at Dealey Plaza! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JiRqNiG19dg

I then told the Crazed Neocon Kook Max Boot that around 1990 John Newman and David Lifton together went out to the Hoover Institution to go through the Lansdale papers. The reason Newman/Lifton were doing this was to find some sort of an alibi for Lansdale to PROVE that he was not at Dealey Plaza on 11-22-1963. Max Boot listened intensely to watch I will tell you next:

INSTEAD, what Newman and Lifton found was a piece of paper from a note pad at the Hotel Texas in Fort Worth - that happens to be the exact same hotel that JFK and Lyndon Johnson stayed at on the night of 11/21/1963, the night before the JFK assassination.

Newman/Lifton ALSO found correspondence between Edward Lansdale and his very good friend Gen. "Hanging Sam" Williams. In the letters, Lansdale said I am going to come make a personal visit to you this fall. Gen. "Hanging Sam" Williams lived in Denton, TX.

I am referring to Lansdale's great friend Samuel Tankersley Williams: 1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Tankersley_Williams and 2)  https://www.amazon.com/Hanging-Sam-Military-Biography-Williams/dp/0929398122 

Denton, TX is located exactly 38 miles to the northwest of Dealey Plaza.

John Newman told me, and I have this on videotape, that after he went through the Lansdale papers at the Hoover Institution, a few days later the librarian there called him and said government agents are here in the Lansdale papers and they are classifying as "top secret" everything that you and David Lifton just went through!!

Both John Newman and David Lifton confirmed to me personally they had indeed made this trip to the Hoover Institution to see the Lansdale papers and it was circa 1990 - before the movie JFK came out. The reason they went was because Oliver Stone wanted John Newman to go to Hoover and see if they could find an alibi for Edward Lansdale that would place him somewhere else than Dealey Plaza on 11-22-1963.

JFK researcher Alan Dale is very close to John Newman. Alan Dale told me that exact same things that John Newman and David Lifton told me about the visit to the Lansdale papers at Hoover.

Newman and Lifton were unable to find an alibi for Lansdale; instead they found letters of Lansdale to Gen. Sam Williams in which he said I will be coming to visit you in Denton, TX sometime this fall.

In Max Boot's book on Lansdale, he mentions that a mere 11 days after the JFK assassination, Gen. Edward Lansdale was back in government in the LBJ Administration in the Food for Peace program and he HAD AN OFFICE ON WHITE HOUSE GROUNDS IN THE OLD EXECUTIVE OFFICE BUILDING. That is the same building that Lyndon Johnson had his Vice-Presidential office.

Lyndon Johnson was a big fan of Lansdale and so was front row seat Kennedy-hater Sen. Thomas Dodd who hated the Kennedys as much as LBJ did. Deranged Neocon Kook author Max Boot will tell you that JFK-hater Sen. Thomas Dodd was Edward Landale's TOP CONGRESSIONAL SPONSOR.

In summer of 1964, Lyndon Johnson toyed with the idea of making JFK-hater Sen. Thomas Dodd as his vice presidential running mate. Instead, LBJ picked subservient Hubert Humprey as his VP candidate. And let's not forget that Sen. Hubert Humphrey was ALSO a huge fan of Gen. Edward Lansdale.

Fast forward to summer 1965. Lyndon Johnson has completely resurrected Lansdale's career and has given him his cherished Vietnam portfolio back. Newspapers across the USA report on their front pages that Vietnam expert and guru Gen. Edward Lansdale is heading to Vietnam (see Max Boot's book). Lansdale has come a long way since he was run out of the Kennedy Administration and forced to retire on 10/31/1963.

The way I see things: Gen. Edward Lansdale murdered JFK on behalf of Lyndon Johnson and his Texas power brokers who had deep military and intelligence connections. Lansdale used some of his rabid anti-Castro, anti-JFK CIA or military operatives (the kind of people you would find by the score in Operation Mongoose) to kill Kennedy. 

As a payback for splattering JFK's head all over Elm Street, Lyndon Johnson resurrected the career of Lansdale and gave him a high profile Vietnam portfolio in 1965.

That is called payback. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited February 6 by Robert Morrow

[Roger Odisio]

5 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said:

 

Roger,

Are you sure that McGeorge Bundy's message to Air Force One was that a lone assassin had been arrested? Or could you be confusing that with his saying that there was no communist plot?

The latter is a point that @Cliff Varnell brings up occasionally. Although he attributes the source of that information to Averill Harriman.

This issue is very important IMO.

 

Vince Salandria first came across the message to Air Force One, which, btw, was also sent to the Cabinet Plane on its way back from Hawaii, from reading Theodore White's Making of the President, 1964.

According to Salandria, White wrote that the presidential party "learned that there was no conspiracy, learned of the identity of Oswald and his arrest".  

He contacted both White and Pierre Salinger who wrote about it in his book, With Kennedy.  Salinger contacted NARA and tried to get the message for Salandria, but surprise! it had disappeared.

Undaunted, Salandria contacted the White House Communications Agency and was rebuffed with the response:  the logs and tapes of radio transmissions "...are kept for official use only.  These tapes are not releasable, nor are they obtainable from commercial sources." Even though White and probably Salinger had seen them.  

This was in 1968.  The contents of the messages also was confirmed by Robert Manning, Kennedy's Asst Sec of State for Public Affairs in 1993, who was on AF One. 

This info is from Salandria's speech at the 1998 COPA conference, False Mystery Concealing a State Crime.  He goes on to explain the message, and its worth repeating:  what those on the plane "had heard, smelled and seen was of no consequence. The patsy had been selected, and the conclusion of conspiracy ruled out. Bundy was indirectly instructing the presidential party and the cabinet members that he was speaking for the killers. He was telling them that what they had observed in Dealey Plaza was merely evidence, and that the needs of the state rose above evidence....They were being circuitously informed that the assassination had been committed by a level of US power that was above and beyond punishment."  IOW, don't interfere.

There is no confusion about the content of the message.

In his speech, Salandria tells of a speech he gave in 1971 about Bundy, hoping that Bundy would sue him.  He didn't.

Salandria's opinion of Bundy may have been formed without even knowing about Bundy's role in rewriting NSAM 263 while Kennedy was still alive.

Yes, this is important and I'm a little perturbed more people here haven't responded to it.

[Jeff Carter]

10 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said:

 

Michael,

What makes you think that Kennedy was going to sign NSAM 273? He hadn't even read it. Wasn't it, therefore, just a recommendation made by the military and advisors?

@Jeff Carter, is the characterization I made of 273, in the prior paragraph, accurate?

 

It can be said there was a faction within the foreign policy / national security bureaucracy which was not prepared to accept a withdrawal from Vietnam on the terms Kennedy had devised. Being generous, one could say the Bundy draft merely reflected these concerns in a way which kept all options open. On the other hand, and this is what Prouty emphasized, Kennedy’s policy had been fully expressed with NSAM 263 and a dissenting opinion submitted weeks later would not change anything. So why would Bundy go to the trouble of not only writing it up (in the form of a NSAM), but distributing it to a fair number of persons on November 21?

There is no record anywhere which shows that Kennedy had asked for, read, or was even aware of Bundy’s draft. I assume the dissenting voice on this thread bases his opposite opinion on material in Selverstone’s book. To assert that Kennedy was prepared to sign 273 is just wishful thinking.

 

4 hours ago, Robert Morrow said:

Michael Griffith says:

QUOTE

Finally, regarding "fringe claims," yes, Prouty most certainly made a number of fringe claims. The claim that Ed Lansdale was a key plotter and was in Dealey Plaza is a nutty, obscene, fringe claim, and is recognized as such by 99.99% of the scholars and historians who have written on the subject. 

UNQUOTE

There are many fine students of the JFK assassination who think that Gen. Edward Lansdale was photographed 5 feet of the Texas School Book Depository at 2:30PM on the afternoon of 11-22-1963.

Need I remind you that the vast majority of history and political science professors at colleges and universities are a bunch of politically-controlled morons who will tell you with a straight face that a Lone Nut Killed JFK and that Gerald Posner's book Case Closed is a great book to read on the JFK case. So no wonder they can't handle Gen. Edward Lansdale being involved in the JFK assassination.

A few years ago I went to a lecture in Austin, TX where Max Boot was promoting his biography on Lansdale The Road Not Taken and in that talk he slurred Fletcher Prouty with the ridiculous assertion that the man was a kook because he said Gen. Edward Lansdale was at Dealey Plaza. Afterwards I went up to "Lone Nutter" Neocon Kook Max Boot (who never met a war he did not like) and told him the Gen. Victor Krulak ALSO identified Edward Lansdale in that photo taken at Dealey Plaza and I asked Boot "So was Krulak a kook too?" 

Neocon kook (and lone nutter) Max Boot replied, "No."

Krulak's Lansdale identification: http://www.ratical.com/ratville/JFK/USO/appD.html

Boot did not even know that Krulak had also identified Lansdale at Dealey Plaza- and this man was a published author on Lansdale! It seems like that would be highly relevant to any biography of Edward Lansdale.

Danny Sheehan on May 23, 2016 said that even Lansdale's second wife Patrocinio Yapcinco Lansdale had identified Lansdale at Dealey Plaza! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JiRqNiG19dg

I then told the Crazed Neocon Kook Max Boot that around 1990 John Newman and David Lifton together went out to the Hoover Institution to go through the Lansdale papers. The reason Newman/Lifton were doing this was to find some sort of an alibi for Lansdale to PROVE that he was not at Dealey Plaza on 11-22-1963. Max Boot listened intensely to watch I will tell you next:

INSTEAD, what Newman and Lifton found was a piece of paper from a note pad at the Hotel Texas in Fort Worth - that happens to be the exact same hotel that JFK and Lyndon Johnson stayed at on the night of 11/21/1963, the night before the JFK assassination.

Newman/Lifton ALSO found correspondence between Edward Lansdale and his very good friend Gen. "Hanging Sam" Williams. In the letters, Lansdale said I am going to come make a personal visit to you this fall. Gen. "Hanging Sam" Williams lived in Denton, TX.

I am referring to Lansdale's great friend Samuel Tankersley Williams: 1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Tankersley_Williams and 2)  https://www.amazon.com/Hanging-Sam-Military-Biography-Williams/dp/0929398122 

Denton, TX is located exactly 38 miles to the northwest of Dealey Plaza.

John Newman told me, and I have this on videotape, that after he went through the Lansdale papers at the Hoover Institution, a few days later the librarian there called him and said government agents are here in the Lansdale papers and they are classifying as "top secret" everything that you and David Lifton just went through!!

Both John Newman and David Lifton confirmed to me personally they had indeed made this trip to the Hoover Institution to see the Lansdale papers and it was circa 1990 - before the movie JFK came out. The reason they went was because Oliver Stone wanted John Newman to go to Hoover and see if they could find an alibi for Edward Lansdale that would place him somewhere else than Dealey Plaza on 11-22-1963.

JFK researcher Alan Dale is very close to John Newman. Alan Dale told me that exact same things that John Newman and David Lifton told me about the visit to the Lansdale papers at Hoover.

Newman and Lifton were unable to find an alibi for Lansdale; instead they found letters of Lansdale to Gen. Sam Williams in which he said I will be coming to visit you in Denton, TX sometime this fall.

In Max Boot's book on Lansdale, he mentions that a mere 11 days after the JFK assassination, Gen. Edward Lansdale was back in government in the LBJ Administration in the Food for Peace program and he HAD AN OFFICE ON WHITE HOUSE GROUNDS IN THE OLD EXECUTIVE OFFICE BUILDING. That is the same building that Lyndon Johnson had his Vice-Presidential office.

Lyndon Johnson was a big fan of Lansdale and so was front row seat Kennedy-hater Sen. Thomas Dodd who hated the Kennedys as much as LBJ did. Deranged Neocon Kook author Max Boot will tell you that JFK-hater Sen. Thomas Dodd was Edward Landale's TOP CONGRESSIONAL SPONSOR.

In summer of 1964, Lyndon Johnson toyed with the idea of making JFK-hater Sen. Thomas Dodd as his vice presidential running mate. Instead, LBJ picked subservient Hubert Humprey as his VP candidate. And let's not forget that Sen. Hubert Humphrey was ALSO a huge fan of Gen. Edward Lansdale.

Fast forward to summer 1965. Lyndon Johnson has completely resurrected Lansdale's career and has given him his cherished Vietnam portfolio back. Newspapers across the USA report on their front pages that Vietnam expert and guru Gen. Edward Lansdale is heading to Vietnam (see Max Boot's book). Lansdale has come a long way since he was run out of the Kennedy Administration and forced to retire on 10/31/1963.

The way I see things: Gen. Edward Lansdale murdered JFK on behalf of Lyndon Johnson and his Texas power brokers who had deep military and intelligence connections. Lansdale used some of his rabid anti-Castro, anti-JFK CIA or military operatives (the kind of people you would find by the score in Operation Mongoose) to kill Kennedy. 

As a payback for splattering JFK's head all over Elm Street, Lyndon Johnson resurrected the career of Lansdale and gave him a high profile Vietnam portfolio in 1965.

That is called payback. 

Robert, appreciate you putting this together. As my colleague Len Osanic handles the Prouty archive, people share with him various items from the inter-webs when Prouty’s name is invoked. From those non-scientific samplings it has been discernible that a contemporary wave of focussed negativity directed towards Prouty has been an actual “thing” over the past three or four years. At a cursory glance, much of this generates from an equally discernible rehabilitation of Ed Lansdale.

For many years, Prouty did not speak publicly of the three tramps photo or Krulak’s confirming ID, but he did share this information confidentially with other researchers. Harrison Livingstone broke Prouty’s confidence, and publicized the Lansdale ID and also directly confronted Krulak, who naturally reacted defensively. Most persons who attack Prouty on this issue are unaware of this background. They are also either unaware or in denial regarding the information about Lansdale’s presence in Denton Texas, which is most relevant and important.

 

1 hour ago, Roger Odisio said:

Vince Salandria first came across the message to Air Force One, which, btw, was also sent to the Cabinet Plane on its way back from Hawaii, from reading Theodore White's Making of the President, 1964.

According to Salandria, White wrote that the presidential party "learned that there was no conspiracy, learned of the identity of Oswald and his arrest".  

He contacted both White and Pierre Salinger who wrote about it in his book, With Kennedy.  Salinger contacted NARA and tried to get the message for Salandria, but surprise! it had disappeared.

Undaunted, Salandria contacted the White House Communications Agency and was rebuffed with the response:  the logs and tapes of radio transmissions "...are kept for official use only.  These tapes are not releasable, nor are they obtainable from commercial sources." Even though White and probably Salinger had seen them.  

This was in 1968.  The contents of the messages also was confirmed by Robert Manning, Kennedy's Asst Sec of State for Public Affairs in 1993, who was on AF One. 

This info is from Salandria's speech at the 1998 COPA conference, False Mystery Concealing a State Crime.  He goes on to explain the message, and its worth repeating:  what those on the plane "had heard, smelled and seen was of no consequence. The patsy had been selected, and the conclusion of conspiracy ruled out. Bundy was indirectly instructing the presidential party and the cabinet members that he was speaking for the killers. He was telling them that what they had observed in Dealey Plaza was merely evidence, and that the needs of the state rose above evidence....They were being circuitously informed that the assassination had been committed by a level of US power that was above and beyond punishment."  IOW, don't interfere.

There is no confusion about the content of the message.

In his speech, Salandria tells of a speech he gave in 1971 about Bundy, hoping that Bundy would sue him.  He didn't.

Salandria's opinion of Bundy may have been formed without even knowing about Bundy's role in rewriting NSAM 263 while Kennedy was still alive.

Yes, this is important and I'm a little perturbed more people here haven't responded to it.

Bundy was also the man who called off the late air-strike against Castro’s one remaining jet, thus assuring the failure of the Bay of Pigs operation.

[Cliff Varnell]

10 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said:

 

Roger,

Are you sure that McGeorge Bundy's message to Air Force One was that a lone assassin had been arrested? Or could you be confusing that with his saying that there was no communist plot?

The latter is a point that @Cliff Varnell brings up occasionally. Although he attributes the source of that information to Averill Harriman.

This issue is very important IMO.

 

The President Has Been Shot, Charles Roberts  (p. 141) A reporter for Newsweek, Roberts was on AFI and met McGeorge Bundy at Andrews.

<quote on, emphasis added>

I remember looking at (McGeorge) Bundy because I was wondering if he had any word of what had happened in the world while we were in transit, whether this assassination was part of a plot. And he told me later that what he reported to the president during that flight back was that the whole world was stunned, but there was no evidence of a conspiracy at all.

<quote off>

[Sandy Larsen]

@Roger Odisio & @Jeff Carter,

Wow!

Thinking aloud...

It has been my belief for a long time now that the CIA used the Mexico City incident to paint Oswald as being in cahoots with Russia (via Kostikov) and Cuba (via Sylvia Duran's contacts, $6500 payment. etc.) to kill Kennedy for them. Thus setting a pretext for invasion of Cuba or war with Russia, which the generals wanted.

This thing with McGeorge Bundy now has me thinking that the plan signed off by Bundy's group (whoever that is) had no plans of implicating the communists. And that the generals influenced a group of CIA people to piggyback onto the Bundy plot the part about Cuba and Russia being behind the assassination.

But when Bundy's group got wind of the faked evidence pointing to Cuba and Russia, they quickly put the kibosh on that. Bundy's group apparently had no interest in having a conflict with the communists, other than Vietnam, and declared Oswald the lone killer.

 

[Roger Odisio]

26 minutes ago, Jeff Carter said:

It can be said there was a faction within the foreign policy / national security bureaucracy which was not prepared to accept a withdrawal from Vietnam on the terms Kennedy had devised. Being generous, one could say the Bundy draft merely reflected these concerns in a way which kept all options open. On the other hand, and this is what Prouty emphasized, Kennedy’s policy had been fully expressed with NSAM 263 and a dissenting opinion submitted weeks later would not change anything. So why would Bundy go to the trouble of not only writing it up (in the form of a NSAM), but distributing it to a fair number of persons on November 21?

There is no record anywhere which shows that Kennedy had asked for, read, or was even aware of Bundy’s draft. I assume the dissenting voice on this thread bases his opposite opinion on material in Selverstone’s book. To assert that Kennedy was prepared to sign 273 is just wishful thinking.

 

Robert, appreciate you putting this together. As my colleague Len Osanic handles the Prouty archive, people share with him various items from the inter-webs when Prouty’s name is invoked. From those non-scientific samplings it has been discernible that a contemporary wave of focussed negativity directed towards Prouty has been an actual “thing” over the past three or four years. At a cursory glance, much of this generates from an equally discernible rehabilitation of Ed Lansdale.

For many years, Prouty did not speak publicly of the three tramps photo or Krulak’s confirming ID, but he did share this information confidentially with other researchers. Harrison Livingstone broke Prouty’s confidence, and publicized the Lansdale ID and also directly confronted Krulak, who naturally reacted defensively. Most persons who attack Prouty on this issue are unaware of this background. They are also either unaware or in denial regarding the information about Lansdale’s presence in Denton Texas, which is most relevant and important.

 

Bundy was also the man who called off the late air-strike against Castro’s one remaining jet, thus assuring the failure of the Bay of Pigs operation.

I think we can be more assertive, Jeff.  If you know anything about Kennedy's view of a war in SE Asia, developed in particular after he went there, and the thorough process he went through to produce 263, and I think you do, it's clear he was not going to sign 273. Johnson and Bundy knew it too

273 was not written for Kennedy's signature.  It was to replace Kennedy's policy with Johnson's.  Johnson later admitted to McNamara that he never agreed with Kennedy's decision to withdraw, but he kept his mouth shut.

So, why was the draft of 273 written before Kennedy was murdered?  It doesn't take a genius to conclude that Johnson and Bundy did not expect Kennedy to return from Dallas.