Fletcher Prouty's Cold War

[Paul Brancato]

On 9/26/2024 at 7:01 PM, Jeff Carter said:

The website for the film:

https://www.oculartip.ca/fletcher-proutys-cold-war.html

When was the interview with Prouty and Ratcliff published?

[Jean Ceulemans]

39 minutes ago, Paul Brancato said:

When was the interview with Prouty and Ratcliff published?

You mean before the 1999 book? Not sure it was really, but 10 years is a long time, and way before my time here.

[Jeff Carter]

1 hour ago, Paul Brancato said:

When was the interview with Prouty and Ratcliff published?

The transcript of the original audio interview, which was conducted in 1989, was published in book form under the title Understanding Special Operations in 1999. The print run was "sold out" some years ago, but a new edition is said to be imminent.

The interview transcript is also available online:

https://ratical.org/ratville/JFK/USO/index.html

Portions of the audio interview are used in the film, particularly in the discussion of the 1947 National Security Act.

[James DiEugenio]

That is a valuable book I think.

A lot of insightful comments by Fletcher.

Jim Douglass used it as a source.

[Michael Griffith]

If one wanted to make the case that certain researchers are disinformation plants in the research community, the prime suspects would have to be those researchers who continue to defend Fletcher Prouty and who continue to peddle his embarrassing claims. I suspect there is still an intelligence operation whose mission is to track JFK assassination research and to seek to discredit evidence of conspiracy. I think Mary Haverstick's encounters with intelligence/defense personnel support this suspicion. However, I do not believe that Prouty apologists are plants but rather are rabid ideologues who simply cannot bring themselves to admit the obvious truth about Prouty. 

Lone-gunman theorists have had, and will continue to have, a field day using Prouty's discredited, outlandish claims, not to mention his sleazy associations, to attack the case for conspiracy. Their attacks have had an especially devastating impact among academics and journalists. 

Lone-gunman theorists have also had, and will also continue to have, a field day associating the case for a JFK assassination plot with the 9/11 Truther theories. Dr. Stephen Knott, in his recent book Coming to Terms with John F. Kennedy, says that if you "scratch the surface of a middle-aged 9/11 Truther . . . you are almost guaranteed to find a JFK conspiracist" (p. 171). It only makes matters worse when visitors come to this forum and see JFK researchers defending the 9/11 Truther theories.

 

[Jeff Carter]

Fletcher Prouty was subject to reputational attack due to his articulate analysis of NSAM 263/273 and his related role as an advisor to the Oliver Stone JFK film. That these attacks continue decades later is simply astounding and, if anything, underline that Prouty’s insights retain relevancy. The resort to character assassination is the surest sign the argument is otherwise lost, as Prouty well understood as he had witnessed such tactics used on others numerous times across his career.

[James DiEugenio]

Glenda D, the organizer of CAPA,  told me that I would be introducing Jeff's film at CAPA.

I am glad to do so.

What a conference that will be: Aguilar, Mantik, Horne, Paul Bleau, Larry Schnapf, Matt Crumpton, and myself, among several others.

BTW, Andrew Iler, one of the best lawyers on the JFK Act, will be making a presentation on the issue of the ARRB's FInal Determinations decisions.  He will be at NARA for four days prior.

If he comes back with what I think is there, and what Tunheim thinks is there, then it will go a long way to prove that what Biden is doing breaks the law. I will be introducing him also.

Edited Thursday at 08:15 PM by James DiEugenio

[Robert Morrow]

On 10/9/2024 at 11:35 AM, Jeff Carter said:

Fletcher Prouty was subject to reputational attack due to his articulate analysis of NSAM 263/273 and his related role as an advisor to the Oliver Stone JFK film. That these attacks continue decades later is simply astounding and, if anything, underline that Prouty’s insights retain relevancy. The resort to character assassination is the surest sign the argument is otherwise lost, as Prouty well understood as he had witnessed such tactics used on others numerous times across his career.

Fletcher Prouty thought that Gen. Edward Lansdale was involved in the JFK assassination. I happen to agree with him.

Fletcher Prouty gives his insights in a 3/6/90 letter to Jim Garrison: http://www.prouty.org/letter.html Here is a 3/14/85 letter by Gen. Victor H. Krulak also identifying Edward Lansdale at the TSBD on 11/22/63: http://www.ratical.com/ratville/JFK/USO/appD.html Edward Lansdale, the CIA’s assassinations expert, - his presence in Dallas indicts the CIA and Air Force . Here is a web archive of Krulak’s identification of Lansdale: https://web.archive.org/web/20101128210811/http://www.ratical.com/ratville/JFK/USO/appD.html

 

[Robert Morrow]

On 10/9/2024 at 8:04 AM, Michael Griffith said:

If one wanted to make the case that certain researchers are disinformation plants in the research community, the prime suspects would have to be those researchers who continue to defend Fletcher Prouty and who continue to peddle his embarrassing claims. I suspect there is still an intelligence operation whose mission is to track JFK assassination research and to seek to discredit evidence of conspiracy. I think Mary Haverstick's encounters with intelligence/defense personnel support this suspicion. However, I do not believe that Prouty apologists are plants but rather are rabid ideologues who simply cannot bring themselves to admit the obvious truth about Prouty. 

Lone-gunman theorists have had, and will continue to have, a field day using Prouty's discredited, outlandish claims, not to mention his sleazy associations, to attack the case for conspiracy. Their attacks have had an especially devastating impact among academics and journalists. 

Lone-gunman theorists have also had, and will also continue to have, a field day associating the case for a JFK assassination plot with the 9/11 Truther theories. Dr. Stephen Knott, in his recent book Coming to Terms with John F. Kennedy, says that if you "scratch the surface of a middle-aged 9/11 Truther . . . you are almost guaranteed to find a JFK conspiracist" (p. 171). It only makes matters worse when visitors come to this forum and see JFK researchers defending the 9/11 Truther theories.

 

Question: is Dr. Stephen Knott A LONE NUTTER on the JFK assassination?

What kind of credibility does this man bring to the table? Does he think the moon is made of green cheese and that men can get pregnant too?

Btw I am no 9/11 "Truther," but I do think the USA government is covering up the role of Saudi Arabia in the JFK assassination. They were either in it or they knew what was coming and they probably made financial bets base on foreknowledge of the attack.

Edited Friday at 02:34 PM by Robert Morrow

[Ron Bulman]

On 9/14/2024 at 12:45 PM, James DiEugenio said:

Thanks Ron, and man where do you get the songs?

That one was easy Jim, I've danced to it many times, primarily with my wife.  Willie wrote it along with several others Ray recorded and made them both a bunch of money.  Before Willie became famous, they became lifelong friends excepting one incident for a few years.  Here's one more Willie wrote, and Ray made famous, a few years after that happened.

 

[Sandy Larsen]

On 10/8/2024 at 10:30 AM, Michael Griffith said:

... compelling evidence that Prouty was a fraud and an anti-Semite who spent years chumming around with virulent anti-Semites and right-wing extremists and who made numerous bizarre and truly fringe claims.

 

Talk about a guilt-by-association logical fallacy.

 

[Robert Reeves]

Col. Fletcher Prouty's personal insight into the CIA's Focal Point Network that sought to - and had - infiltrated every echelon of power in USA is unmatched. The tentacles of CIA infiltration are the key to the confusing inability to reveal the truth behind what happened in Nov 22nd 1963. The alarming ignorance of powerful people to just what they were being infiltrated by is fascinating. Prouty's recollection of a phone call from Lemnitzer asking him who the hell Gen. Lansdale is an why he was being recommended by Alan Dulles for the rank of General just about sums up the shady infiltration of CIA's power influence.

I don't care what Col. Prouty believed in outside of his assassination revelations. I am just interested what he knew from his lofty position in the JCOS, as chief of Clandestine Ops. What Prouty surmises was going on in Dealey Plaza was relevant in 1964, and remains so now in 2024!

I think 'they' will still attack the people who've somehow managed to get very close to the truth of who was shooting at JFK.

[James DiEugenio]

Nice one Robert.

BTW, an Army special forces unit member in Vietnam told me that on every mission they were assigned to, and this included cross border commando raids into Cambodia, that the CIA had a guy there on the supervisory level.  And he was in on every meeting and every written communication.

Prouty was also, to my knowledge, the first guy who revealed that the CIA had approved lists of doctors and lawyers on hand to cover up domestic operations.  This was way before the ARRB revealed such things existed.