Gary Hart

[Tim Gratz]

Mark, I already read it, although my heart was not in it.

Lest you forget, however, the Washington Post is not a "liberal rag" but rather an arm of Operation Mockingbird.

[Mark Knight]

I believe that Hart, as a onetime leader of the Democrat party, understands better than anyone the Democrats' leadership crisis. In that respect, he's as insightful as he ever was, and said a lot of things that the Democrats in positions of power today might think, but dare not say.

Whether or not you agree with his points about the war in Iraq, I don't see how anyone could argue against his charge of a lack of courage in Democrat party leadership. They lack insight, they lack foresight, and they lack a vision as well.

[i know a lot of hard-core Republicans who have stopped reading newspapers altogether because they perceive the media to have a left-wing slant. I wondered if Tim might be another of those. I choose to read all that I can, and to then try to think for myself, instead of either "following" the "liberal media" or "marching in lockstep" as a "mind-numbed robot" of the "Dittohead" persuasion. ]

While Hart's influence is diminished from what it was in the 1970's, his words still carry the weight of his convictions, right or wrong...and I don't think they're saying what either the Democrats OR the Republicans want to hear...so they're probably right.

[Tim Gratz]

I certainly never agreed with all (or even most) of Hart's positions but I did admire his ability to attempt to "think outside the box". I do believe it is in the long term interest of the people of Iraq and the people of the world that there be democracy in Iraq. I think the problem is we did not have enough troops in the country to keep order, probably because we did not anticipate the virulence of the insurgency after the war itself was over. But it is unrealistic to expect democracy in a year or two. How long did MacArthur work in Japan? And look at the results!

[Dawn Meredith]

[quote=Mark Knight,Aug 31 2005, 09:07 AM]

I believe that Hart, as a onetime leader of the Democrat party, understands better than anyone the Democrats' leadership crisis. In that respect, he's as insightful as he ever was, and said a lot of things that the Democrats in positions of power today might think, but dare not say.

Whether or not you agree with his points about the war in Iraq, I don't see how anyone could argue against his charge of a lack of courage in Democrat party leadership. They lack insight, they lack foresight, and they lack a vision as well.

Mark:

I agree that the Dems have gotten themselves into a mess. They supported this war, now are stuck with it. That's why I was with Dean from the start. He knew enough to know W was wrong about the war and called it like it was. Still does.

I agree also with Gary's words, saw this a few days ago.

I just don't understand why the Democrats are not simply caling W on all the lies told to go into Iraq. But it seems it's like what Terry Mauro recently said "one party, two branches". Sad but true.

Dawn

[David Yarnell]

A Gallup Poll found that 64% of those surveyed thought the media treatment of Hart was "unfair" whereas 53% believed that marital infidelity had little to do with a president's ability to govern. Despite these views the stories about Rice had badly damaged his campaign. In the New Hampshire primary Hart won only 4% of the votes and soon after announced that he was withdrawing from the race.

As a result of this failure Hart left politics. Is it possible that the CIA was involved in stopping Hart becoming president? The CIA had long-term links with the Miami Herald.

No, that's not possible. He chose to have an affair with Ms. Rice. Shortly before the "Monkey Business picture" was taken, he dared journalists to investigate his private life.

The following people worked on his U.S. Senate staff in 1979 - 1980:

Rebecca Pinkston

Talia Skari

A morbidly obese older man who talked on a Hart office phone all day with friends about nuclear warfare. Forget his name. Gary Hart, now in Denver, would remember it.

Richard D. Mahoney, Hart's friend and speech writer, wrote the excellent Sons & Brothers about the Kennedy Assassination. Hart is not mentioned in the text but could he have been a source for Mahoney's theory that the CIA and the anti-Castro Cubans in Florida were behind the assassination?

[Robert Howard]

A Gallup Poll found that 64% of those surveyed thought the media treatment of Hart was "unfair" whereas 53% believed that marital infidelity had little to do with a president's ability to govern. Despite these views the stories about Rice had badly damaged his campaign. In the New Hampshire primary Hart won only 4% of the votes and soon after announced that he was withdrawing from the race.

As a result of this failure Hart left politics. Is it possible that the CIA was involved in stopping Hart becoming president? The CIA had long-term links with the Miami Herald.

No, that's not possible. He chose to have an affair with Ms. Rice. Shortly before the "Monkey Business picture" was taken, he dared journalists to investigate his private life.

The following people worked on his U.S. Senate staff in 1979 - 1980:

Rebecca Pinkston

Talia Skari

A morbidly obese older man who talked on a Hart office phone all day with friends about nuclear warfare. Forget his name. Gary Hart, now in Denver, would remember it.

Richard D. Mahoney, Hart's friend and speech writer, wrote the excellent Sons & Brothers about the Kennedy Assassination. Hart is not mentioned in the text but could he have been a source for Mahoney's theory that the CIA and the anti-Castro Cubans in Florida were behind the assassination?

I am going against my better instincts in mentioning this, as I even have a "loose theory" about government (and Republican Party) attempts to discredit Democratic Presidential Administration's, but that's another story. I certainly would not be surprised if it came out at some point that the CIA or whoever was attempting to discredit Gary Hart at one time, but for what its worth; in 1984 I was an alternate to the Texas State Democratic Convention for Gary Hart (ultimately Walter Mondale was the Dem's nominee). I carpooled with another Hart supporter who'm I believe was an actual delegate, on the way down to Houston we talked about the usual stuff, we knew Mondale would be a disaster against Reagan which is why we were for Hart (besides the fact that his position on domestic and foreign policy was what attracted us to him.) Anyway, the Monkey Business/Donna Rice scandal broke in 1987, but even then I remember us discussing reports of Hart's womanizing and theorizing that he might have a death wish as far as "wanting to be President," not a literal death wish, just that it was said that he didn't seem to have that incredibly intense desire to be President, that I at least, always associate with Presidential candidates. The womanizing was just a rumour at that time. Take it for an anecdotal account of the 1984 Hart Campaign.

Edited October 5, 2005 by Robert Howard

[John Simkin]

I found this interesting article by Lisa Pease on Bob Parry's website:

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2005/112205a.html

It includes the following section on Gary Hart:

Forty-two years ago, on Nov. 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy was gunned down in Dallas, Texas. In Bethesda, Maryland, this past weekend, a group of distinguished journalists, historians, scientists and others gathered to discuss and debate the evidence of conspiracy in the JFK case.

While the research community has often slammed the mainstream media for not covering the facts of the case, the blame must go both ways. The conference organizers offered no handouts, no summaries of what is new in the case this year, or any hook upon which a journalist might hang a story.

As one of the reporters said in a panel discussion, this is a story without an ending, and how satisfying is that?

But that is a tragedy, in light of the Downing Street Memo and other evidence that the Bush administration’s case for war in Iraq was built on a false platform. The common thread throughout the weekend was that secrecy and democracy cannot safely coexist, that the more we have of the former, the less we have of the latter.

The credentials of the speakers this year was more impressive than in previous conferences. Featured speakers included former presidential candidate Gary Hart, author James Bamford, journalists Jeff Morley and Salon founder David Talbot, and historians David Wrone and John Newman (who was a military intelligence analyst), and the former head of the House Select Committee on Assassinations, G. Robert Blakey.

Former Sen. Hart, a Colorado Democrat, recounted his experiences on the Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, more popularly known as the “Church Committee” after its leader, Sen. Frank Church.

Hart began with a disclaimer saying he didn’t read the assassination books, hadn’t reviewed his Church Committee files, and warned that everything he said should be prefaced with, “as I recall.”

According to Hart, there was little interest among Committee members in seriously investigating the intelligence community. There had been little oversight of the CIA since its creation 28 years earlier. Reviewing the CIA’s operations seemed both a gargantuan and ultimately unnecessary task. The Vietnam War was in its last days, and there was the sense that poking around in Agency business might undermine morale.

The Committee members also realized that if there was even one leak, their work would be over. That’s one of the reasons there was so little oversight in the years up to that point. Simply put, the CIA did not trust Congress to keep its secrets. So they implemented strict security.

One day, CIA Director William Colby asked for even more security than ever before. He wanted the room swept for bugs before they began. Colby also insisted only members, not their staff, attended.

At that session, Colby presented Committee members with the 600-page Inspector General report on Agency abuses, a document popularly known as the “family jewels.” Included in that document were tales of drug experiments on both witting and unwitting subjects, the wholesale opening of mail, bugging operations, and plots to overthrow governments including -- “with almost demented insistence,” Hart said -- the attempts to kill Fidel Castro.

The Committee members were shocked. And significantly, Hart said that only a few items from that report have ever made it to the public, begging the question of what other abuses occurred. How can we measure the success of Congressional oversight if we don’t know if any of those other abuses were successfully handled?

Hart recounted an episode where he had the chance to meet one of the CIA’s top contract assassins, known only as QJ/WIN. After a long series of instructions, Hart arrived at the location, only to find QJ/WIN did not want to talk to him. Hart wrote about that episode in fictional form in the novel Double Man (co-written with William Cohen).

When Hart ran for president, he said he was frequently asked what he would do about the Kennedy assassination. He promised if elected, he would reopen the investigation. But then he was caught with Donna Rice on a boat in Florida. “If you’ve seen the movie ‘Bullworth,’ you know that now we can assassinate people with cameras,” he said.

[Dawn Meredith]

I found this interesting article by Lisa Pease on Bob Parry's website:

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2005/112205a.html

It includes the following section on Gary Hart:

Forty-two years ago, on Nov. 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy was gunned down in Dallas, Texas. In Bethesda, Maryland, this past weekend, a group of distinguished journalists, historians, scientists and others gathered to discuss and debate the evidence of conspiracy in the JFK case.

While the research community has often slammed the mainstream media for not covering the facts of the case, the blame must go both ways. The conference organizers offered no handouts, no summaries of what is new in the case this year, or any hook upon which a journalist might hang a story.

As one of the reporters said in a panel discussion, this is a story without an ending, and how satisfying is that?

But that is a tragedy, in light of the Downing Street Memo and other evidence that the Bush administration’s case for war in Iraq was built on a false platform. The common thread throughout the weekend was that secrecy and democracy cannot safely coexist, that the more we have of the former, the less we have of the latter.

The credentials of the speakers this year was more impressive than in previous conferences. Featured speakers included former presidential candidate Gary Hart, author James Bamford, journalists Jeff Morley and Salon founder David Talbot, and historians David Wrone and John Newman (who was a military intelligence analyst), and the former head of the House Select Committee on Assassinations, G. Robert Blakey.

Former Sen. Hart, a Colorado Democrat, recounted his experiences on the Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, more popularly known as the “Church Committee” after its leader, Sen. Frank Church.

Hart began with a disclaimer saying he didn’t read the assassination books, hadn’t reviewed his Church Committee files, and warned that everything he said should be prefaced with, “as I recall.”

According to Hart, there was little interest among Committee members in seriously investigating the intelligence community. There had been little oversight of the CIA since its creation 28 years earlier. Reviewing the CIA’s operations seemed both a gargantuan and ultimately unnecessary task. The Vietnam War was in its last days, and there was the sense that poking around in Agency business might undermine morale.

The Committee members also realized that if there was even one leak, their work would be over. That’s one of the reasons there was so little oversight in the years up to that point. Simply put, the CIA did not trust Congress to keep its secrets. So they implemented strict security.

One day, CIA Director William Colby asked for even more security than ever before. He wanted the room swept for bugs before they began. Colby also insisted only members, not their staff, attended.

At that session, Colby presented Committee members with the 600-page Inspector General report on Agency abuses, a document popularly known as the “family jewels.” Included in that document were tales of drug experiments on both witting and unwitting subjects, the wholesale opening of mail, bugging operations, and plots to overthrow governments including -- “with almost demented insistence,” Hart said -- the attempts to kill Fidel Castro.

The Committee members were shocked. And significantly, Hart said that only a few items from that report have ever made it to the public, begging the question of what other abuses occurred. How can we measure the success of Congressional oversight if we don’t know if any of those other abuses were successfully handled?

Hart recounted an episode where he had the chance to meet one of the CIA’s top contract assassins, known only as QJ/WIN. After a long series of instructions, Hart arrived at the location, only to find QJ/WIN did not want to talk to him. Hart wrote about that episode in fictional form in the novel Double Man (co-written with William Cohen).

When Hart ran for president, he said he was frequently asked what he would do about the Kennedy assassination. He promised if elected, he would reopen the investigation. But then he was caught with Donna Rice on a boat in Florida. “If you’ve seen the movie ‘Bullworth,’ you know that now we can assassinate people with cameras,” he said.

It's so appalling that someone as intelligent and conspiracy-aware as Gary Hart allowed himself to be so set-up. And I just love how the bastards also have thier little sense of humor at our expense: "Monkey Business".

Hart acted like a trained monkey and fell for the plot so easily.

Dawn

[Peter McGuire]

name='Tim Gratz' post='36776' date='Aug 13 2005, 06:25 AM']I suspect that it is possible that someone set Hart up with Rice, and that the relationship was then "leaked" by someone who wanted, for whatever reason, to derail his candidacy. It is only a suspicion.

But a single affair ruined Hart's presidency.

Clearly anyone with knowledge of the facts could have ruined JFK's presidency by publishing the fact that he shared a friend with a major Mafia don and that he had an affair with a lady suspected of ties to an Eastern bloc intelligence organization. Or, they could have used their knowledge of those plots to blackmail Kennedy.

Why, then, the assassination?

Several possibilties suggest themselves: (1) the conspirators were unaware of either relationship (but Rosselli and Giancana were aware of Campbell); or

(2) the conspirators hated JFK enough they wanted to murder him, not just drive him from office. [/qoute]

It seems to me that Kennedy was impeachable or at least, as you said, in a position to be driven from office. Good question. If this was so, why the assassination?

Edited December 11, 2006 by Peter McGuire

[David Yarnell]

It's so appalling that someone as intelligent and conspiracy-aware as Gary Hart allowed himself to be so set-up. And I just love how the bastards also have thier little sense of humor at our expense: "Monkey Business".

Hart acted like a trained monkey and fell for the plot so easily.

Dawn

Hart, like Kerry hadn't a chance from the beginning...if they hadn't been politically or sexually assassinated, they would have been physically assassinated once elected, I'm sure. They both knew at least the outlines of the Grand Conspiracy behind many events, not the least of which were Dallas, Iran-Contra, Watergate, et al. Tosh Plumlee told Hart about several of these things long ago. He also testified before Kerry's subcomittee. Not that Plumlee knew all...but enough. They knew [and believed] too much truth to ever get elected and without scandals being set upon them.

To learn more about Gary Hart, contact one of the many aides he employed at his U. S. Senate office. You have Talia Skari, Rebecca Pinkston, a strange fat man who used the senator's phones for hours every day rambling to a friend about nuclear war, and so many other employees.

[John Simkin]

It is said that Gary Hart came within 6 inches of becoming president.

[William Plumlee]

It's so appalling that someone as intelligent and conspiracy-aware as Gary Hart allowed himself to be so set-up. And I just love how the bastards also have thier little sense of humor at our expense: "Monkey Business".

Hart acted like a trained monkey and fell for the plot so easily.

Dawn

Hart, like Kerry hadn't a chance from the beginning...if they hadn't been politically or sexually assassinated, they would have been physically assassinated once elected, I'm sure. They both knew at least the outlines of the Grand Conspiracy behind many events, not the least of which were Dallas, Iran-Contra, Watergate, et al. Tosh Plumlee told Hart about several of these things long ago. He also testified before Kerry's subcomittee. Not that Plumlee knew all...but enough. They knew [and believed] too much truth to ever get elected and without scandals being set upon them.

This letter (attatchment) was in reference to events that were taking place through 1980-85, (Drug War) before Iran Contra became publicly known and befor GH started his 84 bid for President... He was st-up by the CIA_ CAG OMC Operation. The Secret Air Base at Santa Elena CR was being constructed and "The Fat Lady " Berry Seal's C-123 was stuck in the mud. A few months later, it was shot down with the loss of two crew members... hence secret Iran/Contra operations 'Supermarket and Enterprize" were exposed.

Edited November 29, 2008 by William Plumlee