Prouty on Vietnam: NSAM 263 and 273 60 years on

[Jeff Carter]

2 hours ago, Roger Odisio said:

Jeff,

Do you have any information about to whom Bundy circulated his Nov 21 draft of 273?  Is there a routing slip? A cover memo from Bundy?

This is the relevant footnote from the article (36):

“I have other copies of this draft document that were done on various typewriters and they certainly indicate that this draft document had to have been quickly circulated through all of the highest governmental levels...on the 21st. On these draft copies there are some notes, and line outs.” Also: “in this original draft that he circulated among many of the top echelons of the Government, with personal ‘Cover Letters’ to the Director of Central Intelligence, John McCone and to his brother William in McNamara's office…” Prouty The Highly Significant Role Played By Two Major Presidential Policy Directives 1997. Collected Works

Prouty also identifies a copy “sent to Don Wilson with USIA”.

Distribution corroborated (Bundy acknowledges notes and revisions) in Newman's "JFK and Vietnam".

[Roger Odisio]

3 hours ago, Jeff Carter said:

This is the relevant footnote from the article (36):

“I have other copies of this draft document that were done on various typewriters and they certainly indicate that this draft document had to have been quickly circulated through all of the highest governmental levels...on the 21st. On these draft copies there are some notes, and line outs.” Also: “in this original draft that he circulated among many of the top echelons of the Government, with personal ‘Cover Letters’ to the Director of Central Intelligence, John McCone and to his brother William in McNamara's office…” Prouty The Highly Significant Role Played By Two Major Presidential Policy Directives 1997. Collected Works

Prouty also identifies a copy “sent to Don Wilson with USIA”.

Distribution corroborated (Bundy acknowledges notes and revisions) in Newman's "JFK and Vietnam".

Thanks, Jeff.

So Bundy wrote the first draft of 273 on Thursday Nov. 21 and , according to Prouty, on that day circulated it through the "highest levels of government", and in particular across the "senior layers of the national security apparatus".  273 went to McCone, the CIA Director, but not to McNamara, the Sec of Defense.  Instead Bundy sent it to his brother William at Defense, with the expectation that he (William) would review it and discuss it with McNamara.

As Sec of Defense McNamara should have been at the top of the list of the memo's addressees, since 273 was a marked change in the policy of 263. But Bundy knew McNamara had worked closely with Kennedy to establish 263 and agreed with the policy.  Bundy did not want McNamara alerting Kennedy to what they were up to. And Kennedy would be dead the next day.

263 was a major policy decision by Kennedy and 273 fundamentally changed it. The very purpose of the future effort in Vietnam was changed from training the Vietnamese to takeover the war in the midst the US removing the bulk of its military forces by the end of 1965, to staying to help them "win" it.  This was emphasized by any reference to the full pull out at the end of 1965 being removed in the 273 version.

Johnson wanted these changes. He could use the removal of 1,000 personal by the end of '63 in his '64 campaign where he posed as the peace candidate and branded Goldwater as a dangerous war monger.

273 was Johnson's policy, written for Johnson, not Kennedy who would not have signed it. Which Johnson and Bundy knew. 

Prouty thinks Johnson got the 273 draft on Saturday Nov. 23.  It wasn't something new to him.  There was another draft the next day.  Johnson signed the final version on Nov 26, 5 days after Bundy's first draft.

That has to be the record for speed in developing a major policy in Washington, or any policy for that matter. 

Changing Vietnam policy was a major focus of those planning to murder Kennedy.  They knew what they wanted to happen after they got rid of Kennedy.  They were set up to quickly put their policy in place after the murder.

What jumped out at me in your article, Jeff, was Prouty saying Johnson had not asked for the 273 draft (did he think Bundy wrote it on his own and it just happened to coincide with Johnson's preferred policy?) and that Johnson "had no expectation whatever of being President on Nov 21".  Nobody's perfect.

 

[Jeff Carter]

1 hour ago, Roger Odisio said:

What jumped out at me in your article, Jeff, was Prouty saying Johnson had not asked for the 273 draft (did he think Bundy wrote it on his own and it just happened to coincide with Johnson's preferred policy?) and that Johnson "had no expectation whatever of being President on Nov 21".  Nobody's perfect.

I think Prouty is using a slight bit of sarcasm to sharpen the lens through which the origin of 273 might be best viewed.

He also pointed out the draft may have actually been composed on the plane returning from Honolulu. In that case, the request to his brother to show the draft to McNamara sticks out because McNamara was present on the same plane. It was a long flight, why didn’t Bundy just show it to McNamara himself? Your thoughts on why this didn’t and wouldn’t occur are sharply rendered.  The utility of having a draft dated November 21, of course, is it could be plausibly labelled, after the fact, a Kennedy administration document.

Regarding this draft:  “There’s enough there to present the feeling that somehow somebody knew things were going to change.”      Prouty interview with John Judge 1992

[Michael Griffith]

13 hours ago, Roger Odisio said:

Changing Vietnam policy was a major focus of those planning to murder Kennedy.  They knew what they wanted to happen after they got rid of Kennedy.  They were set up to quickly put their policy in place after the murder.

This specious scenario is one of the main reasons that most academics and journalists dismiss the case for conspiracy. The scenario is just not true. There is a mountain of evidence that contradicts it.

No one would accuse H. R. McMaster of being a pro-LBJ historian. Quite the contrary. Yet, even McMaster, in his best-selling and award-winning book Dereliction of Duty: Johnson, McNamara, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Lies That Led to Vietnam, documents in great detail (1) that LBJ did not want to send combat troops to Vietnam (certainly not in large numbers), (2) that LBJ hoped that the initial deployment of combat troops would be able to return within a year, (3) that when LBJ took office he hoped he could cut defense spending, (4) that LBJ hoped to keep Vietnam escalation to a minimum because he wanted to focus on his domestic agenda, and (5) that LBJ's relationship with the Joint Chiefs was anything but chummy and friendly.

I discuss these and other problems with the JFK-was-killed-over-Vietnam scenario in my thread The Myth that JFK Was Killed Over the Vietnam War.

 

[Robert Morrow]

4 hours ago, Michael Griffith said:

This specious scenario is one of the main reasons that most academics and journalists dismiss the case for conspiracy. The scenario is just not true. There is a mountain of evidence that contradicts it.

No one would accuse H. R. McMaster of being a pro-LBJ historian. Quite the contrary. Yet, even McMaster, in his best-selling and award-winning book Dereliction of Duty: Johnson, McNamara, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Lies That Led to Vietnam, documents in great detail (1) that LBJ did not want to send combat troops to Vietnam (certainly not in large numbers), (2) that LBJ hoped that the initial deployment of combat troops would be able to return within a year, (3) that when LBJ took office he hoped he could cut defense spending, (4) that LBJ hoped to keep Vietnam escalation to a minimum because he wanted to focus on his domestic agenda, and (5) that LBJ's relationship with the Joint Chiefs was anything but chummy and friendly.

I discuss these and other problems with the JFK-was-killed-over-Vietnam scenario in my thread The Myth that JFK Was Killed Over the Vietnam War.

 

I agree with Michael Griffith 100% when he says that JFK was not killed because he was not going to prosecute the Vietnam War. My *opinion* - and it is a well supported one - is that John Kennedy was murdered because the Kennedys were in a WAR with Lyndon Johnson; they were out to utterly destroy LBJ and he knew it. Therefore Lyndon Johnson and his Texas power brokers (D.H. Byrd, the owner of the TSBD) and LBJ's lawyer Texas power broker Ed Clark used their connections in military intelligence, the hard right Air Force and the CIA to murder JFK.

The Kennedys were not out to merely "drop" Lyndon Johnson from the 1964 Democratic ticket. Relations between the Kennedys and LBJ were so acidic that they were out to completely rip the bowels out of Lyndon Johnson.

I have Gen. Edward Lansdale in the plot because credible multiple people have identified him at Dealey Plaza, his career was immediately resurrected by LBJ who sent him to Vietnam, he had a long and dirty career murdering and torturing people and engaging in black propaganda, and Lansdale's top congressional sponsor, according to Max Boot, was Sen. Thomas Dodd, a very close friend of LBJ who celebrated the death of John Kennedy. Lansdale's motive would be his absolute rage over the death of his pal Diem in a CIA sponsored coup that he would blame squarely on JFK whose Administration and also Lansdale's being run out of Vietnam policy making in the Kennedy Administration where he was loathed.

The JFK assassination was not about JFK not wanting to fight the Vietnam War (which he did not), it was about the Kennedys going to WAR with Lyndon Johnson and the Texas power brokers whose investment in LBJ brought them so much money in oil depletion tax breaks and military contracts (see D.H. Byrd and George Brown of Brown and Root and any other extremely wealthy Texan who was close to LBJ). Texas power broker Ed Clark, LBJ's lawyer, and who the Reader's Digest described as the "secret political boss of Texas" made a career of feasting off of his connections to the very crooked Senator from Texas Lyndon Johnson. Ed Clark used to brag that he was involved in the JFK assassination.

Lee Harvey Oswald, in my view, was a completely innocent pre-selected CIA patsy who was a fake defector to Russia and was playing the role of a fake "pro-Castro Marxist" when he came back to the USA as he worked for the U.S. Government or outfits like Guy Banister that were closely related to the Government. Unlike LBJ and his Evil Eye Texas oil men and military contractors, Lee Harvey Oswald loved and adored JFK.

The notion that JFK was killed because he was very unlikely to prosecute the Vietnam War (totally true btw) is just flat out wrong. 

The people who actually SHOT JFK were most likely CIA operatives involved in the Miami JM Wave station, Operation Mongoose and other efforts against Castro and these people were roped into this "kill JFK" operation by Lansdale who certainly knew a ton of them from his work in Operation Mongoose. The fellow known as "Radio Man" or "Dark Complected Man," who was almost certainly a spotter for snipers on the Grassy Knoll, seems to me to be an anti-Castro Cuban of African-American descent. The people actually firing the bullets were mad at JFK over Cuba policy; but the people running the plot to kill JFK were Lyndon Johnson and his Texas power brokers.

My *opinion* is not merely that Lyndon Johnson orchestrated the JFK assassination - it seems so obvious to me - but rather that LBJ micromanaged the JFK assassination, even to such a degree that LBJ and his Secret Service agent Rufus Youngblood were listening to a radio turned down low as the JFK motorcade approached Dealey Plaza (Sen. Ralph Yarborough is the source on that! He was in the back seat with LBJ and Lady Bird.) Read up on LBJ and you will find that Lyndon Johnson micromanaged everything in his life from rigging student elections at San Marcos State Teacher's college, running the LBJ Ranch, and passing the 1957 Civil Rights Act (because maybe the liberals and blacks would quite hating him over civil rights). SS agent Rufus Youngblood once said that LBJ would micromanage you turning a screw.

Lyndon Johnson micromanaged the JFK assassination. There is absolutely no way this way was going to sit around twiddling his thumbs while the Kennedys were slitting his throat with a two track "destroy LBJ" plan of coordinated media exposes and a Senate Rules Committe investigation into his crimes. James Wagenvoord (RIP) told a COPA conference a few years ago that Robert Kennedy sent a Justice Dept. lawyer to Life Magazine with a dossier on LBJ's corruption. Burkett van Kirk of the Senate Rules Committee told Seymour Hersh that Robert Kennedy sent a Justice Dept. lawyer to the Republicans on Capitol Hill with a dossier on on LBJ's corruption. Lyndon Johnson was acutely aware of and highly agitated about the Kennedys efforts to destroy in him in real time in November, 1963. Just read LBJ aide Horace Busby on this: https://robertmorrowpoliticalresearchblog.blogspot.com/2020/07/lyndon-johnson-was-acutely-aware-by-nov.html Then Kennedys had sent over 40 national reporters to Texas to destroy LBJ with media exposes!

I happen to agree almost completely with Jim DiEugenio's take on John Kennedy's foreign policy. I think it is well supported how extremely dovish JFK was in reality (as opposed to publicly hardline comment occasionally for political reasons) and no, I do not think Kennedy was going to stampede a million American ground troops into Vietnam, even if we were about to "lose" Vietnam.

Lyndon Johnson was a military hawk his entire political career and he was a greedy beast of the military industrial complex and he feasted off of tens of millions in kickbacks from Billie Sol Estes to the military contractors. LBJ did not want to fight the Vietnam War but time and time again he pushed the escalation button because he saw what happened to Harry Truman when he "lost China" and LBJ simply was not wise enough, moral enough or courageous enough or selfless enough to take the political hit on letting our client state Vietnam slip away to the communists.

Lyndon Johnson would rather 58,000 Americans and a million Vietnamese die rather than him taking a political hit by not prosecuting a war.

 

Edited February 8 by Robert Morrow

[Roger Odisio]

2 hours ago, Michael Griffith said:

This specious scenario is one of the main reasons that most academics and journalists dismiss the case for conspiracy. The scenario is just not true. There is a mountain of evidence that contradicts it.

No one would accuse H. R. McMaster of being a pro-LBJ historian. Quite the contrary. Yet, even McMaster, in his best-selling and award-winning book Dereliction of Duty: Johnson, McNamara, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Lies That Led to Vietnam, documents in great detail (1) that LBJ did not want to send combat troops to Vietnam (certainly not in large numbers), (2) that LBJ hoped that the initial deployment of combat troops would be able to return within a year, (3) that when LBJ took office he hoped he could cut defense spending, (4) that LBJ hoped to keep Vietnam escalation to a minimum because he wanted to focus on his domestic agenda, and (5) that LBJ's relationship with the Joint Chiefs was anything but chummy and friendly.

I discuss these and other problems with the JFK-was-killed-over-Vietnam scenario in my thread The Myth that JFK Was Killed Over the Vietnam War.

 

(1) through (5) could be true, or at least not clearly false, Michael, and it changes nothing important.  The thing that Johnson wanted most, more than those things, was not to be seen as cutting and running from Vietnam, in the phrase of the day. That's made clear by the change in the purpose of the two memos, from preparing to leave in 263, to helping the South Vietnamese win the war in 273. 

Yes, Johnson knew heavy involvement in the war would threaten his War on Poverty. He had hoped the latter would be his legacy.  He cared more about that than the war.  But he got sucked into the Vietnam quagmire by the generals bit by bit.  Johnson did not understand the close minded stupidity of the generals like Kennedy did. 

I could think of Johnson as a tragic figure living out his days in Texas if he wasn't so #%!!#&%# evil.

[W. Niederhut]

1 hour ago, Roger Odisio said:

(1) through (5) could be true, or at least not clearly false, Michael, and it changes nothing important.  The thing that Johnson wanted most, more than those things, was not to be seen as cutting and running from Vietnam, in the phrase of the day. That's made clear by the change in the purpose of the two memos, from preparing to leave in 263, to helping the South Vietnamese win the war in 273. 

Yes, Johnson knew heavy involvement in the war would threaten his War on Poverty. He had hoped the latter would be his legacy.  He cared more about that than the war.  But he got sucked into the Vietnam quagmire by the generals bit by bit.  Johnson did not understand the close minded stupidity of the generals like Kennedy did. 

I could think of Johnson as a tragic figure living out his days in Texas if he wasn't so #%!!#&%# evil.

Roger,

     This is simply naive.    LBJ was a psychopath who was chiefly interested in maintaining the illusion that he, McBundy, et.al., had not fundamentally reversed JFK's Vietnam withdrawal plans with NSAM 273.

      LBJ was a critical part of the Cold War conspirators' plot to reverse JFK's foreign policies by murdering JFK.

       He told the Joint Chiefs in December of 1963, "O.K., gentleman, you can have your war (in Vietnam.) Just make sure I get re-elected next year."

      As for LBJ's progressive domestic policies-- including Civil Rights legislation-- he pursued them for reasons of political self interest.  He was wooing the liberal Democratic base-- after obstructing Civil Rights legislation for years in Congress.

Edited February 8 by W. Niederhut

[James DiEugenio]

 

No person--like Mike G-- should ever rely on one authority for an event as complex as what happened in Vietnam after Kennedy was killed.  I do not care who that authority is.  McMaster or anyone else. 

As James Blight proves in Virtual JFK, Johnson had two estimates on his desk by the JCS in 1965.  They both said it would take at least  five years and 500,000 combat troops to defeat the Viet Cong and repel the North.  So please do not cherry pick any one author, since the field of Indochina studies is quite large today.

According to Gordon Goldstein, LBJ also knew that the air war over the North would not be enough to convince Hanoi to withdraw from the south.  In other words, he was advised in advance that a combination massive air war and 500,000 combat troops would take five years to get a Korea type settlement.

Let us not selectively choose materials that whitewash Johnson's reversal of Kennedy's policy.  

And this was an utterly conscious decision that was manufactured in secret.  Today there are three books on this particular subject--by Moise, Goulden and Logevall-- that all prove beyond doubt that as LBJ was saying one thing in public, he was planning the contrary in private.  That is a direct intervention in Indochina by land and air.  And he knew where to go to get that planning done:  Sullivan and Bill Bundy.  If you recall, Sullivan was the guy who wanted to take out the withdrawal plan from the Taylor/McNamara report. But JFK got wind of it and made them put it back.

This planning included even allowing for a "causus belli" event that would make a congressional resolution possible. In other words, the Tonkin Gulf Resolution was planned two months in advance. LBJ carried it around in his jacket pocket before it was passed.  And then every guy who he sent up to the Hill lied his butt off about what really happened. Even though at least two of them, one being Mac Bundy,  admitted that it was all a deliberate provocation.

VIrtual JFK also proves that Johnson later hired that unmitigated hawk Walt Rostow to write papers to deceive the public into thinking Johnson had not really broken with JFK's policy, which is utter and complete crap. Recall, JFK got so sick of Rostow that he transferred him out of the White House.  When even Mac Bundy could not take Johnson's fruity escalations, and retired, Johnson then brought the nutty Rostow back and gave him Mac Bundy's job.

Every major Kennedy advisor left over this issue.  The Bundy brothers ended up secretly supplying Humphrey with information on how around the bend Johnson was on Vietnam. He did not use it until it was too late.

Lyndon Johnson was a classic Cold Warrior, a Truman Democrat all the way. Kennedy was not, and he was a Roosevelt Democrat since 1957. They year of his great Algeria speech.  One can call LBJ tragic, but its a MacBeth kind of tragedy, not Hamlet.

 

PS I do consider Vietnam one of the major issues behind Kennedy's murder.

Edited February 10 by James DiEugenio

[Michael Griffith]

22 hours ago, Robert Morrow said:

I have Gen. Edward Lansdale in the plot because credible multiple people have identified him at Dealey Plaza, his career was immediately resurrected by LBJ who sent him to Vietnam, he had a long and dirty career murdering and torturing people and engaging in black propaganda, and Lansdale's top congressional sponsor, according to Max Boot, was Sen. Thomas Dodd, a very close friend of LBJ who celebrated the death of John Kennedy. Lansdale's motive would be his absolute rage over the death of his pal Diem in a CIA sponsored coup that he would blame squarely on JFK whose Administration and also Lansdale's being run out of Vietnam policy making in the Kennedy Administration where he was loathed.

The claim that Lansdale was part of the plot is obscene, embarrassing, and discrediting. It was popularized by the anti-Semitic crackpot Fletcher Prouty. It remains one of the main reasons that academics and journalists dismiss the case for conspiracy. Even Oliver Stone has distanced himself from this scurrilous claim.

There is no credible evidence that Lansdale was in Dealey Plaza. Zero. None. Zilch. Prouty's letter from General Krulak was exposed as a forgery when Harrison Livingstone interviewed Krulak on tape. 

Lansdale admired JFK and mourned his death. Lansdale was not a political partisan, either. The man with his back to the camera in one of the tramp photos is not Lansdale. Lansdale did not wear glasses, and the man is wearing a ring that Lansdale's family says he never wore. Lansdale's son insists the man is not his father. 

JFK did not intend for Diem to be killed, and he was shocked when he learned of Diem's death. Even many of the South Vietnamese generals did not know that Diem would be killed--indeed, many of them joined the plot on the condition that Diem would not be harmed. 

Diem's death proved to be a disaster for South Vietnam. In the two years following Diem's murder, South Vietnam had several coup attempts and four changes in government. Whereas the war effort had been going well since 1962, it began to unravel within weeks of Diem's death, causing North Vietnam to start sending massive, unprecedented amounts of troops and weapons into South Vietnam in early 1964.

Edited February 9 by Michael Griffith

[W. Niederhut]

      The U.S. government-employed propagandist Michael Griffith's bogus, redundant McAdams-esque propaganda tropes smearing Col. L. Fletcher Prouty are obscene, embarrassing, and discrediting.

      Griffith's propaganda tropes have been repeatedly debunked on the Education Forum, but he persists in re-posting them on every single thread where Prouty's critically important observations of CIA history are discussed.

      It's an example of the propaganda technique of "repeating the lies" until poorly informed people believe them.

      Does Griffith's redundant U.S. government propaganda belong on the Education Forum?

      This is a rare social media platform where scholarly people discuss evidence-based "untold history" -- debunking the ubiquitous government-sponsored disinformation that has inundated our mainstream (and social) media during the past 60 years.

[James DiEugenio]

William, that is a good question.

But just recall, Jeff's article is from Prouty's words.  Prouty sensed out of the box that he and Stone would be assaulted because of the film's thesis on Vietnam.  Because it seemed so revolutionary.  And in one sense it was.  Scott, O'Donnell and Powers and Prouty himself had written about the subject before.  But for the first time a mass audience actually saw what really happened.  Plus there were new details in the presentation. 

What the film did was clobber the MSM twice.  First on the Warren Report and then saying that hey, not only did they fall for that, but they completely missed the fact that within three months of the releases of the final volumes of the Commission, LBJ was now sending combat troops to Vietnam, something JFK did not do in three years.  (I should add, a follower told me he does not think they missed the story, they ignored it.)

Consequently, people like Epstein--a huge cover up guy--and Anson--a saliva dripping Garrison hater--decided to go after Prouty.  Out of those three persons, I would take Fletcher any day of the week.  His information on Vietnam and the San Antonio base was quite valuable for Oliver and everyone else.

Edited February 10 by James DiEugenio

[Robert Morrow]

On 2/9/2024 at 7:41 AM, Michael Griffith said:

The claim that Lansdale was part of the plot is obscene, embarrassing, and discrediting. It was popularized by the anti-Semitic crackpot Fletcher Prouty. It remains one of the main reasons that academics and journalists dismiss the case for conspiracy. Even Oliver Stone has distanced himself from this scurrilous claim.

There is no credible evidence that Lansdale was in Dealey Plaza. Zero. None. Zilch. Prouty's letter from General Krulak was exposed as a forgery when Harrison Livingstone interviewed Krulak on tape. 

Lansdale admired JFK and mourned his death. Lansdale was not a political partisan, either. The man with his back to the camera in one of the tramp photos is not Lansdale. Lansdale did not wear glasses, and the man is wearing a ring that Lansdale's family says he never wore. Lansdale's son insists the man is not his father. 

JFK did not intend for Diem to be killed, and he was shocked when he learned of Diem's death. Even many of the South Vietnamese generals did not know that Diem would be killed--indeed, many of them joined the plot on the condition that Diem would not be harmed. 

Diem's death proved to be a disaster for South Vietnam. In the two years following Diem's murder, South Vietnam had several coup attempts and four changes in government. Whereas the war effort had been going well since 1962, it began to unravel within weeks of Diem's death, causing North Vietnam to start sending massive, unprecedented amounts of troops and weapons into South Vietnam in early 1964.

Michael Griffith - we are going to have to "agree to disagree" on whether Gen. Edward Lansdale was in the photos with the 3 tramps. I happen to think that Gen. Victor Krulak was not being truthful with Harry Livingstone because I think Livingstone was working off of insider knowledge of Krulak's letter to Prouty. My *opinion* is that the Krulak letter identifying Lansdale in the photo of the 3 tramps is not fabricated by Prouty or his friends.

I will say the Livingstone/Prouty tape is a good point and can be used as evidence to support your opinion that the Krulak letter to Prouty was faked (I am still not sold on that).

So we can "agree to disagree" on all of the above. But the big question I have for you is CAN YOU DOCUMENT THAT GEN. EDWARD LANSDALE ADMIRED JFK AND MOURNED HIS DEATH? Do you have any books or web page articles that would support this statement? I have Max Boot's book The Road Not Taken and he makes it clear that Lansdale did NOT like Robert Kennedy, his Operation Mongoose supervisor.

Lansdale wrote his autobiography and titled it In the Midst of Wars. If you go to the index of that book you will see the names JOHN KENNEDY and LYNDON JOHNSON do not appear in Lansdale's entire book, not even one time. Weird, because most people who write books just LOVE to name drop presidents names especially if they like them. But Lansdale who knew JFK, LBJ and the close friends of LBJ pointedly does not mention their names and not even once! Similarly, when D.H. Byrd wrote his late 1970s autobiography I am an Endangered Species, he mentioned his friendship with LBJ but he completely avoids talking John Kennedy or Lee Harvey Oswald which is weird because at the time of the JFK assassination, D.H. Byrd OWNED the Texas School Book Depository. The silence is deafening especially when you know D.H. Byrd and James Ling made huge insider stock buys into their defense contractor company in the weeks BEFORE the JFK assassination and LBJ have them a big fat contract in January, 1964.

Back to Lansdale: do you have any documentation that Lansdale admired JFK and that Lansdale mourned JFK's death?

I do know for a FACT that Sen. Thomas Dodd, Edward Lansdale's chief congressional sponsor was a Cold War hawk Democrat and that he actually celebrated the death of John Kennedy and I also know that Lyndon Johnson at least pretended to be considering Sen. Thomas Dodd as his vice presidential selection in summer 1964.

 

 

 

[James DiEugenio]

RI: Changing Vietnam policy was a major focus of those planning to murder Kennedy.  They knew what they wanted to happen after they got rid of Kennedy.  They were set up to quickly put their policy in place after the murder.

This is what is so striking about the Vietnam issue, and its why I think it was a major reason for the coup, perhaps the major reason.  Most people who study this aspect, and I have spent a lot of time doing so in the last few years, are just startled how this was missed by almost everyone for so long. But by the time Kennedy was buried, the policy was in the process of being changed.  But at the same time, the signals are going out that, hey, we are in sync with Kennedy's policies, we are continuing them.  Which was simply false.

This is called consciousness of guilt by prosecutors. And I go back to the November 27th meeting in 1961.  If you recall, Kennedy arrived late, and this was after he had fought so hard to get NSAM 111 through, which allowed for more aid and advisors but no combat troops. And he more or less bellowed: once policy is decided, those on the spot either abide by it or they get out!

 He knew that even at that time higher ups wanted combat troops in Vietnam.  And he was not going to do it.  His next questions was:  Now who is going to implement my policy in Indochina? McNamara raised his hand.

This is why in October of 1963, when Kennedy and McNamara are talking about getting out, Bundy doesn't know what they are talking about. And Bundy retroactively realized that Kennedy had gone around him because he knew he was too hawkish. And when confronted with these facts decades later, he had nothing but admiration for what Kennedy had done.  

Whether or not LBJ was part of the plot, he was the perfect guy to lead an all out escalation in Indochina because he was such a natural xxxx who could literally be saying one thing and thinking something else. It almost makes you feel sorry for Goldwater.  Since LBJ was accusing him of doing exactly what he was doing and would do.

Edited February 11 by James DiEugenio

[James DiEugenio]

Let me add, the media was complicit in all this.  And it was not all because of ignorance or stupidity.

In late summer of 1964, when everyone knew Johnson would crush Goldwater, LBJ brought in Kate Graham and her senior  editors to the White House.  He then told them about his escalation plans in Vietnam.  Graham made no objections to them. And right then and there became a dyed in the wool Johnson fan. Knowing that what he was telling the public was simply false, and unfair to Goldwater.  She liked being at the center of power. And Johnson liked having her in his hip pocket. 

He said, "She is worth two divisions to me."

Kind of disgusting eh? But that is the way the game works.

 

Edited February 11 by James DiEugenio

[Sandy Larsen]

24 minutes ago, James DiEugenio said:

This is why in October of 1963, when Kennedy and McNamara are talking about getting out, Bundy doesn't know what they are talking about. And Bundy retroactively realized that Kennedy had gone around him because he knew he was too hawkish. And when confronted with these facts decades later, he had nothing but admiration for what Kennedy had done.

 

Bundy admired Kennedy decades afterward for his (Kennedy's) going around him? That doesn't seem right.