JFK and the Neocons-- Two New DiEugenio Essays

[Kevin Balch]

1 hour ago, James DiEugenio said:

This is what i mean:

https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/document/30189-document-19-memorandum-jcs-chairman-maxwell-taylor-secretary-defense-deployment

I’m not sure I understand what point you are trying to make. The Polaris sub deployments in the Med were to provide coverage that the Jupiters were supposedly providing. It was necessary to have the Polaris on station to get NATO/Turkish buy-off prior to dismantling the Jupiters as per the secret deal between JFK and Khrushchev that resolved the crisis. Most did not even know of the deal and seeing only a withdrawal of the Jupiters would have looked like a US capitulation to the Soviets.

I guess we’ll just have to disagree on the interpretation of RFK’s proposal. It’s a good thing Admiral Anderson did not seize upon it.

[James DiEugenio]

Kevin it means just what it says.

There was going to be a transition to Polaris.

Kennedy, quite justifiably, thought it was either taking place or had taken place.

[Matt Cloud]

11 minutes ago, James DiEugenio said:

Kevin it means just what it says.

There was going to be a transition to Polaris.

Kennedy, quite justifiably, thought it was either taking place or had taken place.

 

[Kevin Balch]

1 hour ago, James DiEugenio said:

Kevin it means just what it says.

There was going to be a transition to Polaris.

Kennedy, quite justifiably, thought it was either taking place or had taken place.

Here is the pertinent dialog (pages 99-100):

Bundy: I would think one thing that I would still cling to is that he’s not likely to give Fidel Castro nuclear warheads. I don’t believe that has happened or is likely to happen.

JFK: Why does he put these in there, though?

Bundy: Soviet-controlled nuclear warheads.

JFK: That’s right. But what is the advantage of that? It’s just as if we suddenly began to put a major number of MRBMs in Turkey. Now that’d be goddamn dangerous, I would think.

Bundy: Well, we did, Mr. President.

JFK: Yeah, but that was 5 years ago.

Note, the Jupiter deployments were proposed and known to the Soviets in 1957, the deployment agreement formalized in 1959 and went operational in late 1961-early 1962. I think JFK is wondering, why the Soviets did not respond sooner.

[Matt Cloud]

12 hours ago, Kevin Balch said:

 

Note, the Jupiter deployments were proposed and known to the Soviets in 1957, the deployment agreement formalized in 1959 and went operational in late 1961-early 1962. I think JFK is wondering, why the Soviets did not respond sooner.

Plot twist.

Tina and J.D. (!) Tippet's son in 1972 married the daughter of Lt. Col. James M. Kendrick, in Texas.  Kendrick had in the 1950s been with Van Braun on missile and orbiter programs, as well as having been stationed in Izmir, Turkey, from 1961-63, where the Jupiter missiles at issue during Cuban missile crisis were located.

 

 

[Matt Cloud]

12 hours ago, Kevin Balch said:

Note, the Jupiter deployments were proposed and known to the Soviets in 1957, the deployment agreement formalized in 1959 and went operational in late 1961-early 1962. I think JFK is wondering, why the Soviets did not respond sooner.

The Soviets knew to wait to exploit the "Photo Gap."

 

"It was the administration’s third secret, however, that has proven the hardest to unpack. The Kennedy administration “shot itself in the foot” when it limited U-2 surveillance for five crucial weeks in 1962, which is why it took the government a full month to spot offensive missiles in Cuba.[ ] If proven, this “photo gap,” as it was dubbed by Republican critics, threatened to tarnish the image of “wonderfully coordinated and error-free ‘crisis management’” that the White House sought to project before and after October 1962.[ ] The administration’s anxiety over whether cover stories about the gap might unravel even trumped, for a time, its concern over keeping secret the quid pro quo. After all, an oral assurance with the Soviets concerning the Jupiters could always be denied, while proof of the photo gap existed in the government’s own files. Largely because the administration labored mightily to obfuscate the issue, the photo gap remains under-appreciated to this day, notwithstanding the vast literature on the missile crisis.[3]"

 

https://www.cia.gov/resources/csi/studies-in-intelligence/volume-49-no-4/the-photo-gap-that-delayed-discovery-of-missiles-in-cuba/

[Matt Cloud]

3 minutes ago, Matt Cloud said:

The Soviets knew to wait to exploit the "Photo Gap."

 

"It was the administration’s third secret, however, that has proven the hardest to unpack. The Kennedy administration “shot itself in the foot” when it limited U-2 surveillance for five crucial weeks in 1962, which is why it took the government a full month to spot offensive missiles in Cuba.[ ] If proven, this “photo gap,” as it was dubbed by Republican critics, threatened to tarnish the image of “wonderfully coordinated and error-free ‘crisis management’” that the White House sought to project before and after October 1962.[ ] The administration’s anxiety over whether cover stories about the gap might unravel even trumped, for a time, its concern over keeping secret the quid pro quo. After all, an oral assurance with the Soviets concerning the Jupiters could always be denied, while proof of the photo gap existed in the government’s own files. Largely because the administration labored mightily to obfuscate the issue, the photo gap remains under-appreciated to this day, notwithstanding the vast literature on the missile crisis.[3]"

 

https://www.cia.gov/resources/csi/studies-in-intelligence/volume-49-no-4/the-photo-gap-that-delayed-discovery-of-missiles-in-cuba/

Could there be a mole in the U-2 program?

[Matt Cloud]

3 hours ago, Matt Cloud said:

Could there be a mole in the U-2 program?

What set McCone -- edit: Bundy -- off on the morning of September 10?

 

"On 10 September, the issue came to a head. At 10:00 a.m., McGeorge Bundy, the national security adviser, made an out-of-channel request to James Reber, chairman of the Committee on Overhead Reconnaissance (COMOR), the interagency committee charged with developing surveillance requirements for the U-2. Within 30 minutes, Bundy wanted answers to three questions:

• How important is it to our intelligence objectives that we overfly Cuban soil?

• How much would our intelligence suffer if we limited our reconnaissance to peripheral activity utilizing oblique photography?

• Is there anyone in the planning of these missions who might want to provoke an incident?[25]

COMOR members found the third question so provocative that they wondered if they were really expected to comment on it."

 

ANSWER?

 

Washington Post, Sept. 10, 1962, p. A2:

"The Russians are casting longing eyes at Tregaron, the longtime estate of the late Joseph E. Davies, a former Ambassador to the Soviet Union.  They are in need of a new embassy, so crowded is the building on 16th street that the Communists inherited from the czars.

Soviet spokesman say the problem is whether to buy or build a new embassy and there is no definite plan as yet.  However, a good many Embassy officials, including Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin, have been out recently to look over Tregaron, one of Washington's most famous estates."

 

Query: Was Tregaron the HQ of the U-2 and overhead reconnaissance programs (COMOR)? 

 

 

Edited July 30 by Matt Cloud

[Matt Cloud]

JFK to RFK: Why is Phil Graham making our lives difficult?

In 1961, Kennedy named Graham to serve as an incorporator for the Communications Satellite Corporation, known as COMSAT, a joint venture between the private sector and government for satellite communications. In October 1961, he was appointed chairman of the group.

Mental health problems and death

[edit]

In Katharine Graham's book Personal History, she notes that her husband was always intense and spontaneous, but occasionally lapsed into periods of depression. In 1957, he had a severe manic episode and, at the time, no medicines were available for effective treatment. He retired to the couple's farm in Marshall, Virginia, to recuperate. Thereafter, periods in which he functioned brilliantly alternated with periods in which he was morose and erratic and isolated himself. He often drank heavily (something he had done prior to 1957), and would become extremely argumentative and blunt.

Through the Post Company's Newsweek arm, Graham eventually met Australian journalist Robin Webb, and in 1962 they began an affair. In 1963, he and Webb flew to Arizona; he appeared at a newspaper publishing convention inebriated and/or manic. At the microphone he made a number of provocative comments, including the revelation that Kennedy was sleeping with Mary Pinchot Meyer. His assistant, James Truitt, called for his doctor, Leslie Farber, who flew in by private jet, as did (subsequently) Graham's wife. Graham was sedated, bound in a straitjacket, and flown back to Washington. He was committed for five days to Chestnut Lodge, a psychiatric hospital in Rockville, Maryland with CIA connections.^[2]

Graham then left his wife for Robin Webb, announced to his friends that he planned to divorce his wife and immediately remarry, and indicated that he wanted to purchase sole control of the Post Company. In June, in a fit of depression, he broke off his affair and returned home. On June 20, 1963, he entered Chestnut Lodge for the second time, and was formally diagnosed with manic depression (now called bipolar disorder). He was treated with psychotherapy.

On August 3, 1963, after Graham had made repeated requests of his doctors to be allowed a short stay away from the hospital, and "quite noticeably much better", according to his wife, he was permitted to go to their farmhouse in Virginia, Glen Welby, for the weekend. Graham killed himself with a shotgun while his wife was in another part of the retreat.^[3] His body was found in a bathroom about 1:00 pm.^[3] He was buried at Oak Hill Cemetery in Washington, D.C.^[4]

^{https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phil_Graham}

 

^"Kennedy realized that he had made a serious error in judgment. Fearing that Phil would start to talk about the internal workings of COMSAT, he asked Clark Clifford, former intelligence advisor to President Truman, the future head of the National Intelligence Advisory Board, and Kennedy’s personal lawyer, to report Phil’s activities to him. Clifford could oblige with no trouble because he was already involved with the Grahams’ problems as Agnes’s personal counselor and attorney for the divorce."

 

https://ratical.org/ratville/JFK/KatharineTheGreat.pdf

[Kevin Balch]

1 hour ago, Matt Cloud said:

What set McCone off on the morning of September 10?

 

"On 10 September, the issue came to a head. At 10:00 a.m., McGeorge Bundy, the national security adviser, made an out-of-channel request to James Reber, chairman of the Committee on Overhead Reconnaissance (COMOR), the interagency committee charged with developing surveillance requirements for the U-2. Within 30 minutes, Bundy wanted answers to three questions:

• How important is it to our intelligence objectives that we overfly Cuban soil?

• How much would our intelligence suffer if we limited our reconnaissance to peripheral activity utilizing oblique photography?

• Is there anyone in the planning of these missions who might want to provoke an incident?[25]

COMOR members found the third question so provocative that they wondered if they were really expected to comment on it."

 

ANSWER?

 

Washington Post, Sept. 10, 1962, p. A2:

"The Russians are casting longing eyes at Tregaron, the longtime estate of the late Joseph E. Davies, a former Ambassador to the Soviet Union.  They are in need of a new embassy, so crowded is the building on 16th street that the Communists inherited from the czars.

Soviet spokesman say the problem is whether to buy or build a new embassy and there is no definite plan as yet.  However, a good many Embassy officials, including Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin, have been out recently to look over Tregaron, one of Washington's most famous estates."

 

Query: Was Tregaron the HQ of the U-2 and overhead reconnaissance programs (COMOR)? 

 

 

Senator Kenneth Keating (R-NY) had been making statements since at least September 3 regarding Soviet personnel in Cuba.

Are you sure of the September 10 date? I ask because on October 10, Keating made a statement claiming that IRBM sites were under construction in Cuba and would be operational within 6 months. According to Dino Brugioni in Eyeball to Eyeball  (pages 168-172) this claim started a panic in the administration resulting in a flurry of activity between JFK, McCone and Lundahl.

Brugioni relates that attempts to find the source of Keating’s claims were undertaken but were never specifically identified. 

[Kevin Balch]

1 hour ago, Matt Cloud said:

JFK to RFK: Why is Phil Graham making our lives difficult?

In 1961, Kennedy named Graham to serve as an incorporator for the Communications Satellite Corporation, known as COMSAT, a joint venture between the private sector and government for satellite communications. In October 1961, he was appointed chairman of the group.

Mental health problems and death

[edit]

In Katharine Graham's book Personal History, she notes that her husband was always intense and spontaneous, but occasionally lapsed into periods of depression. In 1957, he had a severe manic episode and, at the time, no medicines were available for effective treatment. He retired to the couple's farm in Marshall, Virginia, to recuperate. Thereafter, periods in which he functioned brilliantly alternated with periods in which he was morose and erratic and isolated himself. He often drank heavily (something he had done prior to 1957), and would become extremely argumentative and blunt.

Through the Post Company's Newsweek arm, Graham eventually met Australian journalist Robin Webb, and in 1962 they began an affair. In 1963, he and Webb flew to Arizona; he appeared at a newspaper publishing convention inebriated and/or manic. At the microphone he made a number of provocative comments, including the revelation that Kennedy was sleeping with Mary Pinchot Meyer. His assistant, James Truitt, called for his doctor, Leslie Farber, who flew in by private jet, as did (subsequently) Graham's wife. Graham was sedated, bound in a straitjacket, and flown back to Washington. He was committed for five days to Chestnut Lodge, a psychiatric hospital in Rockville, Maryland with CIA connections.^[2]

Graham then left his wife for Robin Webb, announced to his friends that he planned to divorce his wife and immediately remarry, and indicated that he wanted to purchase sole control of the Post Company. In June, in a fit of depression, he broke off his affair and returned home. On June 20, 1963, he entered Chestnut Lodge for the second time, and was formally diagnosed with manic depression (now called bipolar disorder). He was treated with psychotherapy.

On August 3, 1963, after Graham had made repeated requests of his doctors to be allowed a short stay away from the hospital, and "quite noticeably much better", according to his wife, he was permitted to go to their farmhouse in Virginia, Glen Welby, for the weekend. Graham killed himself with a shotgun while his wife was in another part of the retreat.^[3] His body was found in a bathroom about 1:00 pm.^[3] He was buried at Oak Hill Cemetery in Washington, D.C.^[4]

^{https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phil_Graham}

 

^"Kennedy realized that he had made a serious error in judgment. Fearing that Phil would start to talk about the internal workings of COMSAT, he asked Clark Clifford, former intelligence advisor to President Truman, the future head of the National Intelligence Advisory Board, and Kennedy’s personal lawyer, to report Phil’s activities to him. Clifford could oblige with no trouble because he was already involved with the Grahams’ problems as Agnes’s personal counselor and attorney for the divorce."

 

https://ratical.org/ratville/JFK/KatharineTheGreat.pdf

Shortly after the murder of Mary Pinchot Meyers, James Truitt’s wife called Ben Bradlee to ask Bradlee to get possession of Meyers diary.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-angleton-children-tell-their-side/2011/11/19/gIQAZLYEMO_story.html

 

[Matt Cloud]

50 minutes ago, Kevin Balch said:

Senator Kenneth Keating (R-NY) had been making statements since at least September 3 regarding Soviet personnel in Cuba.

Are you sure of the September 10 date? I ask because on October 10, Keating made a statement claiming that IRBM sites were under construction in Cuba and would be operational within 6 months. According to Dino Brugioni in Eyeball to Eyeball  (pages 168-172) this claim started a panic in the administration resulting in a flurry of activity between JFK, McCone and Lundahl.

Brugioni relates that attempts to find the source of Keating’s claims were undertaken but were never specifically identified. 

Sept. 10 is correct.  The material I quoted is from Max Holland, quoting McCone -- edit: Bundy.  He has supplied the footnotes. 

One of which, the memo from McMahon relaying Bundy's questions of COMOR, is this:

https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP63-00313A000600100097-9.pdf

 

In addition, you should be aware of the March 1, 1963 reconstruction of the events of Sept 10, 1962, as documented here, 

https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP80B01676R001700120011-1.pdf

"1 March 1963

SUBJECT: White House Meeting on 10 September 1962 on Cuban Overflights 

1. The following is a reconstruction of the reasons for the meeting at the White House in Mr. McGeorge Bundy's office on 10 September 1962 at approximately 5:45 p.m., and a report on what transpired at that meeting. This memorandum is based upon discussions with Mr. Parrott of the White House, General Carter, Dr. Herbert Scoville, and Messrs. Cunningham and Reber of Dr. Scoville's office who also attended the meeting.

2. A memorandum for the record prepared by Mr. McMahon of the Office of Special Activities (the CIA unit concerned with U-2 over- flights) records that at approximately 10:00 on the morning of 10 September he received a telephone call from Mr. Parrott passing on a request made by Mr. Bundy on behalf of the Secretary of State. According to Mr. Parrott, the Secretary of State had expressed the hope that there wouldn't be any incidents this week, and Mr. Bundy asked that the following questions posed by the Secretary of State be answered.

a. How important is it to our intelligence objectives that we overfly Cuban soil?

b. How much would our intelligence suffer if we limited our reconnaissance to peripheral activities

c. Is there anyone in the planning of these missions who might wish to provoke an incident?"

Now, Kevin, I direct your attention to para. 3:

"Mr. Parrott indicated that Mr. Bundy desired an answer within a half hour. Mr. McMahon immediately contacted the Chairman of COMOR which was in session at that moment, and they agreed to provide a response as quickly as possible. Mr. Parrott called a second time to advise Mr. McMahon that Mr. Roger Hilsman had advised that hewould accept the responsibility for providing the answers to the Secretary of State, and that he had scheduled a meeting that afternoon with Mr. James Reber, the Chairman of COMOR, in order to obtain the answers."

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_N._McMahon

 

John N. McMahon (born July 3, 1929) is a former senior U.S. official of the Central Intelligence Agency.

Background

[edit]

John Norman McMahon was born on July 3, 1929, in East Norwalk, Connecticut. His parents were Frederick Francis McMahon and Elizabeth Collins. In 1951, he obtained a bachelor's degree from the College of Holy Cross.^[1][2]

Career

[edit]

CIA

[edit]

McMahon joined the CIA in 1951^[3] or 1966.^[4]

He served as Deputy Director for Operations from January 11, 1978, to April 12, 1981, and later, nominated by US President Ronald Reagan, as Deputy Director of Central Intelligence under Director William J. Casey as of April 27, 1982, succeeding Bobby Ray Inman.^[5][6][7] Questioning McMahon during his nomination included US Senators Daniel Patrick Moynihan (who guided publication of the VENONA papers in the mid-1990s).^[8]

On March 4, 1986, McMahon, age 56, resigned and left office on March 26, succeeded by Robert M. Gates.^[4] "McMahon had clashed with Capitol Hill conservatives who considered him less than zealous in his support of aid to guerrilla fighters in Afghanistan and Nicaragua."^[7] President Reagan expressed regret at his resignation.^[7]

Lockheed Martin

[edit]

In August 1986, McMahon joined Lockheed Martin Corporation as an executive vice president for plans and programs in its Missiles & Space Company.^[9] In 1995, McMahon was president and CEO of Lockheed Missiles & Space Co.^[10]

In 2004, McMahon was registered as a lobbyist for the Lockheed Martin Corporation.^[11]

Post-career

[edit]

In May 2015, 20 ex-CIA officials, including McMahon, signed a letter opposing the decision by The New York Times to publish the names of three undercover officers working for the CIA.^[12]

Awards

[edit]

• 1995: Distinguished Public Service Medal from NASA^[10]

Personal life

[edit]

On April 15, 1952, McMahon married Margaret Joan Hugger, with whom he had four children: Patricia Joy, Christopher John, Timothy Richard, and Peter Collins.

 

 

Edited July 30 by Matt Cloud

[Matt Cloud]

30 minutes ago, Kevin Balch said:

Shortly after the murder of Mary Pinchot Meyers, James Truitt’s wife called Ben Bradlee to ask Bradlee to get possession of Meyers diary.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-angleton-children-tell-their-side/2011/11/19/gIQAZLYEMO_story.html

 

Yes.  Janey too grasps the significance of COMSAT, in Mary's Mosaic, albeit obliquely. Sic-- Janney

Edited July 30 by Matt Cloud

[W. Niederhut]

2 hours ago, Kevin Balch said:

Shortly after the murder of Mary Pinchot Meyers, James Truitt’s wife called Ben Bradlee to ask Bradlee to get possession of Meyers diary.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-angleton-children-tell-their-side/2011/11/19/gIQAZLYEMO_story.html

 

Kevin,

     There are multiple convoluted, conflicting stories from Ben Bradlee, the Angletons, Truitts, et.al., about James Angleton's confiscation of Mary Meyer's diary.  The two best analyses of the bunk are;

1) James DiEugenio's essay on The Posthumous Assassination of John F. Kennedy, in The Assassinations, (pp. 339-345)

2) Peter Janney's book, Mary's Mosaic, (pp. 73-80)

    As Janney points out, Ben Bradlee's autobiographical account differs from his testimony, under oath, in Mary Meyer's murder trial.

    In court, Bradlee testified that he went to Meyer's apartment on the night of her murder, not later.

    He also reported that Angleton was in the apartment when he (Bradlee) got there.

P.S.  Did you post this on the wrong thread?

Edited July 30 by W. Niederhut

[Matt Cloud]

29 minutes ago, W. Niederhut said:

Kevin,

     There are multiple convoluted, conflicting stories from Ben Bradlee, the Angletons, Truitts, et.al., about James Angleton's confiscation of Mary Meyer's diary.  The two best analyses of the bunk are;

1) James DiEugenio's essay on The Posthumous Assassination of John F. Kennedy, in The Assassinations, (pp. 339-345)

2) Peter Janney's book, Mary's Mosaic, (pp. 73-80)

    As Janney points out, Ben Bradlee's autobiographical account differs from his testimony, under oath, in Mary Meyer's murder trial.

    In court, Bradlee testified that he went to Meyer's apartment on the night of her murder, not later.

    He also reported that Angleton was in the apartment when he (Bradlee) got there.

P.S.  Did you post this on the wrong thread?

The point here, Neiderhut, is about COMSAT.  Kevin did not post in the wrong thread.