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Vietnam and the Assassination of JFK


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According to books written by Robert S. McNamara (Secretary of State for Defence) and Kenneth O'Donnell (Kennedy’s special assistant) Kennedy intended to withdraw from Vietnam after the 1964 presidential election. In his book, Memories of John F. Kennedy, O'Donnell claims that:

“Kennedy told me in the spring of 1963 that he could not pull out of Vietnam until he was re-elected, "So we had better make damned sure I am re-elected." ... At a White House reception on Christmas eve, a month after he succeeded to the presidency, Lyndon Johnson told the Joint Chiefs: "Just get me elected, and then you can have your war."

Kennedy had already upset the hawks by refusing to give adequate military support to the Bay of Pigs invasion. What is worse, Kennedy was involved in secret talks with Castro about a non-aggression treaty with Cuba (a decision that horrified the Mafia who were desperate to get back into Cuba).

Kennedy had also been deeply influenced by the Cuban Missile Crisis. Only he knew how close we came to a nuclear war that would have destroyed the planet. He was determined to bring the Cold War to an end. This did not please the hawks in the CIA or the arms industry.

Johnson changed this policy and the hawks did get their Vietnam War and the increase in military spending to fuel the Cold War. However, Johnson refused to accept the initial FBI report that the Kennedy Assassination had been planned by the governments of Cuba and the Soviet Union. Not that Johnson did not believe the report (although he was probably aware of who was actually behind the assassination) but he was convinced that any invasion of Cuba would result in a nuclear war with the Soviet Union. Johnson told Hoover to rewrite the report. This time he had to prove that it was a lone-nut who killed Kennedy. This report was then given to the Warren Commission to publish as its own conclusions. (All this information became available in 1994 when Johnson’s telephone conversations with Hoover, Warren, Richard Russell, etc. were published). For a full account of this see Michael R. Beschloss’s book, Taking Charge: The Johnson White House Tapes, 1963-64 (Simon & Schuster, 1997).

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Johnson was a mass murderer by any definition. Peter Taaffe's new book "Empire Defeated" details the appalling crimes of Johnson and Nixon and how they were ultimately defeated.

People who had information about the Kennedy assassination generally took the view "if these ppl would not hesitate to kill the president then they would not hesitate to kill me". It is unlikely that evidence directly linking Johnson to the Kennedy assassination will come to light. It is obvious that he and the hawks in the administration benefitted.

They were prepared to wade through any amount of blood to break the spirit of the Vietnamese people and they failed miserably. Perhaps that, rather than the minutiae of the conspiracy, is the real lesson.

Derek McMillan

socialist

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  • 2 months later...

Kennedy managed to get rid of the repressive Diem-Nhu regime in South Vietnam 3 weeks before they killed him. KGB officers in the CIA wanted the repressive regime in there and other third world countries to foster Communist insurgencies.

This is another excerpt from my book, "Secret Works Of Darkness: Ongoing Corruption In The Government & The CIA," and it includes critical information on Kennedy's effort to replace the Diem-Nhu regime. . .

KGB officers in the CIA were responsible for the United States installing and supporting repressive regimes around the world, as repression was the most effective way to sow discord. Leftist insurgencies were then established to combat the repressive governments.

Repressive regimes were being installed in third world countries in the months before they killed President Kennedy. An article on November 18, 1963, said that for a year and a half, American military aid had been used to overthrow constitutional governments and install repressive regimes. Kennedy continued to speak out against it until he was assassinated, while Barry Goldwater, a CIA officer being handled by the KGB officers, spoke out in favor of it.

On September 25, 1963, less than two months before the KGB officers killed President Kennedy in an effort to get Goldwater into the Presidency, “The armed forces of the Dominican Republic overthrew Juan D. Bosch, the Caribbean nation’s first legally elected president in a generation. A right-wing civilian junta was installed.” (R.P. 186)

On October 3, 1963, “Honduras President Ramon Villeda Morales was toppled in a military coup. A military junta took over in the Central American country.” (R.P. 186)

Reporting from Honduras a Washington Post reporter wrote: “United States efforts to dissuade Honduran military leaders from launching the coup that ended democracy here last week were hampered by division and uncertainty among American Embassy officials . . . Some harbored reservations that turned to satisfaction when the military finally acted. There appears to be a strong tendency among U.S. military officials and members of the Agency for International Development mission here to regard the coup with considerable sympathy . . . Some of the 20 military men based here have expressed the view that the coup was ‘understandable’ . . . ‘Maybe this country just isn’t ready for democracy,’ one officer said.”(R.P.187)

Barry Goldwater charged on July 12, 1963, that President Kennedy was trying to “coexist with international communism wherever it thrives, even in the Western Hemisphere.” (R.P. 52)

On October 9, 1963, President Kennedy said that the U.S. is wholly opposed to military coups in Latin America, no matter what justification is made for them, and Kennedy stated that “dictatorships are the seedbeds from which communism ultimately springs up.”

On October 11, 1963, when Goldwater spoke to the Military Order of World Wars after his grandiose welcome in Texas, he praised the coup in the Dominican Republic, stating “that the Bosch government in the Dominican Republic had been ‘smashed altogether by military leaders who saw communism, not true progress, building behind the facade . . . The Administration curses the juntas that curse the communist curse.’”

An article on November 18, 1963, stated: “In Guatemala, Peru, Argentina, and Ecuador in the last year and a half . . . American military aid meant to fight communism has been employed to overthrow constitutional governments . . . So far, all the United States has gotten out of its $90 million per year military aid to the area is resentment on the part of those who are pushed around at the end of American rifles, the overthrow of several governments the U.S. had tried to protect, and a loss of ground to the Communists who thrive on the discontent produced by military dictatorships.” (R.P. 188)

In a speech on November 18, 1963, Kennedy “warned that those who support military coups against constitutional governments ‘tear apart the fabric and hope of lasting democracy.’” (R.P. 186)

On November 22, 1963, the day Kennedy was assassinated “Honduras announced a program that would produce civilian rule in 15 months,” three months after the U.S. Presidential election in 1964. (R.P. 186)

On November 26, 1963, the Dominican Republic announced a series of elections beginning with elections “for minor local officials between September 1, 1964 and November 30, 1964; municipal elections on January 15, 1965; a constituent assembly election on March 1, 1965; and a presidential election on July 15, 1965.” (At least this announcement of a bizarre series of elections didn’t “coincidentally” take place on November 22, 1963. It took place four days later.) [R.P. 190]

The timing of these announcements and the timetable for the alleged return to democracy both had a purpose. The announcements, neither of which proved to be true (as a phone call to either embassy would confirm), were meant to denigrate Kennedy’s anti-coup stand and make Goldwater’s perspective seem pragmatic. The CIA’s “anti-communist” excuse for their actions and their use of American embassies was never in doubt.

“Anti-communism” and the CIA’s use of an American embassy were more than evident in South Vietnam in the two months before they killed President Kennedy. It was actually the flip side of the CIA coups that installed repressive regimes.

A Washington Post article on September 22, 1963, about Kennedy’s efforts to oust the repressive Diem-Nhu regime in South Vietnam, said that “certain elements of the CIA believe that there is no alternative to the Diem-Nhu axis. These sentiments also exist among American military leaders . . . The brass simply feels that any change in American policy would wreck the war effort. The firmest opponents of change, however, seem to be certain top CIA people. There is strong reason to believe that the recent Times of Vietnam story exposing an alleged CIA coup attempt was actually leaked by CIA dissidents themselves in an attempt to forestall any American attempt to dump Nhu . . . CIA dissidents see positive virtues in Nhu . . . Ambassador Lodge cannot fully trust his own staff members.” (R.P. 186)

On October 5, 1963, the Washington Post reported: “John H. Richardson, CIA station chief in South Vietnam, is being recalled to Washington . . . Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge is reported on good authority to have requested Richardson’s replacement . . . Richardson has been one of the key men in development of the U.S. Role of helping the Diem government fight Communist guerrillas . . . There have been persistent reports of differences between Lodge and the CIA staff.” (R.P. 192)

At a news conference on October 9, 1963, President Kennedy “vigorously defended the role of the Central Intelligence Agency in South Vietnam . . . The President devoted a good share of his 30 minute news conference to the subject of the CIA, a normally sacrosanct matter which the White House never airs in public.”

On November 1, 1963, three weeks before the KGB officers killed the President who was the antithesis of their ostensibly right-wing megalomaniac endeavors, the Diem-Nhu regime was ousted in a coup.

“Diem was defended to the last by the special forces troops trained by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency.” (R.P. 193)

The KGB officers had not foreseen Kennedy’s removal of the Diem-Nhu regime before his death, and Kennedy’s interference with their agenda was a clear reason why they wanted an intelligence officer under their control to be President.

The removal of the Diem-Nhu regime, however, wasn’t going to change the KGB’s agenda, especially since they killed the President responsible for it. The KGB officers in the CIA were still intent on having a Communist insurgency take over in South Vietnam, and the CIA and the American military were used to restart the repressive environment. After all, exactly two months before the CIA killed President Kennedy, the Washington Post article said that “CIA dissidents see positive virtues in Nhu,” and American military brass in South Vietnam “simply feels that any change in American policy would wreck the war effort.”

Only President Nixon’s desperate attempt to fend off political fallout from the Watergate scandal as his second term began brought about a ‘peace’ treaty in January 1973, but it was nothing more than an American agreement to bid a hasty retreat from South Vietnam, nine years and three months after President Kennedy “vigorously defended the role of the Central Intelligence Agency in South Vietnam.”

The KGB’s plan failed in the Dominican Republic when, in 1965, President Johnson sent American troops to end a civil war that broke out when the right-wing civilian junta installed by military leaders refused to yield to democracy. The American troops, however, did not install democracy and elections were not held.

As cited in the section on a lack of Congressional oversight of the CIA, in May 1966, Senators Russell and Saltonstall claimed that the CIA was not crafting foreign policy, and Senator Young suggested that the Senate Foreign Relations Committee set up its own “special subcommittee on the CIA.” The Foreign Relations Committee Chairman, Senator J.W. Fulbright, said that they had previously tried to do that, but when the Director of the CIA, Admiral William Raborn, appeared before the Committee, he refused to answer the Senators’ questions, claiming that to do so would be illegal. Characteristic of the CIA’s warped perspective, a perspective that they’ve always proffered as being legitimate, the CIA Director was asserting that the Senators were asking him to do something illegal.

Senator Fulbright’s statement that Admiral Raborn “took the position that he was not authorized under the law to respond to our questions,” clearly shows that 19 years after the CIA was created, the Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee thought that the Central Intelligence Agency was incredibly powerful, and that by comparison, he and the other Senators had no power at all.

The aggregate of everyone’s perspective on the CIA would account for the fact that seven months after Senator Fulbright’s unconditional surrender to the CIA, Senator Joseph Clark said that the CIA “has achieved a position of power pretty close to the danger line.”

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  • 2 weeks later...

Kennedy, who talked the conventional Cold War-Soviet menace talk when he had to before the election, but who, after the Bay of Pigs and the Cuban Missile Crisis, went off the rails as far as the military-industrial complex was concerned. He did a deal with Kruschev and promised to leave Cuba alone; he began trying to wind down the ClA's army of anti-Castro Cubans; he signed the Test Ban Treaty; he was preparing to allow the Italian Communist Party into a coalition government; he was planning to cut US defence spending abroad to reduce the US balance of payments deficit; and wanted to begin pulling the US out of Vietnam. These are not the actions of a Cold Warrior. The Cuban Missile Crisis had scared the politicians involved in it.

In a sense the debate about who Kennedy was is easily solved: there were two Kennedys. The Cold Warrior Kennedy who got elected changed - or dropped his conservative cover - after the Cuban missile crisis and became a liberal Democrat.

Perhaps most significant of all, Kennedy wanted out of the then rapidly expanding war in Vietnam. The military-industrial-intelligence complex and the political right saw retreat in the Caribbean followed by the prospect of retreat in the Far East. The military-industrial complex wanted the Vietnam war as part of what they saw as the ongoing Cold War struggle with communism: it was just a bonus that, in pursuing the war, they stood to make a lot of money and have good careers. Whether or not we try to locate the assassination conspiracy in this milieu, and many of the researchers do, Kennedy was going up against the military-industrial complex on almost all fronts - the forces his predecessor had warned against. When the scale of what Kennedy was thinking of doing is understood it is very tempting to see it as Kennedy stepping too far out of line and the system getting rid of him.

Extract from Who Shot JFK (2002)

http://www.lobster-magazine.co.uk/who-shot-jfk.htm

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A Washington Post article on September 22, 1963, about Kennedy’s efforts to oust the repressive Diem-Nhu regime in South Vietnam, said that “certain elements of the CIA believe that there is no alternative to the Diem-Nhu axis. These sentiments also exist among American military leaders . . . The brass simply feels that any change in American policy would wreck the war effort. The firmest opponents of change, however, seem to be certain top CIA people. There is strong reason to believe that the recent Times of Vietnam story exposing an alleged CIA coup attempt was actually leaked by CIA dissidents themselves in an attempt to forestall any American attempt to dump Nhu . . . CIA dissidents see positive virtues in Nhu . . . Ambassador Lodge cannot fully trust his own staff members.”

On October 5, 1963, the Washington Post reported: “John H. Richardson, CIA station chief in South Vietnam, is being recalled to Washington . . . Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge is reported on good authority to have requested Richardson’s replacement . . . Richardson has been one of the key men in development of the U.S. Role of helping the Diem government fight Communist guerrillas . . . There have been persistent reports of differences between Lodge and the CIA staff.”

At a news conference on October 9, 1963, President Kennedy “vigorously defended the role of the Central Intelligence Agency in South Vietnam . . . The President devoted a good share of his 30 minute news conference to the subject of the CIA, a normally sacrosanct matter which the White House never airs in public.”

On November 1, 1963, three weeks before the KGB officers killed the President who was the antithesis of their ostensibly right-wing megalomaniac endeavors, the Diem-Nhu regime was ousted in a coup.

“Diem was defended to the last by the special forces troops trained by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency.”

The KGB officers had not foreseen Kennedy’s removal of the Diem-Nhu regime before his death, and Kennedy’s interference with their agenda was a clear reason why they wanted an intelligence officer under their control to be President.

The removal of the Diem-Nhu regime, however, wasn’t going to change the KGB’s agenda, especially since they killed the President responsible for it. The KGB officers in the CIA were still intent on having a Communist insurgency take over in South Vietnam, and the CIA and the American military were used to restart the repressive environment. After all, exactly two months before the CIA killed President Kennedy, the Washington Post article said that “CIA dissidents see positive virtues in Nhu,” and American military brass in South Vietnam “simply feels that any change in American policy would wreck the war effort.”

Only President Nixon’s desperate attempt to fend off political fallout from the Watergate scandal as his second term began brought about a ‘peace’ treaty in January 1973, but it was nothing more than an American agreement to bid a hasty retreat from South Vietnam, nine years and three months after President Kennedy “vigorously defended the role of the Central Intelligence Agency in South Vietnam.”

(I've attached the section of my book about repressive regimes and how they relate to Kennedy's death.)

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