Why did RFK help to cover-up the assassination of JFK?

[John Simkin]

Why did Robert Kennedy help to cover-up the assassination of JFK? This included denying access to JFK’s brain and the autopsy photos.

Why did the Robert and Edward Kennedy respond to the death of Grant Stockdale in the way that they did?

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKstockdale.htm

Soon after the assassination RFK told other members of the Kennedy family that he believed that senior members of the CIA organized his brother’s assassination. However, he was not willing to disclose this at that stage because he was being blackmailed. The information that the CIA had would destroy the reputation of JFK. His plan was to go along with the cover-up. The “Camelot Myth” would enable him to be elected in 1968. He would then appoint Ted Sorenson as head of the CIA. Sorenson would carry out an investigation into the assassination. In this way, the CIA would be exposed and the reputation of JFK and RFK would be protected.

This was why the CIA leaked the story in 1967 that JFK and RFK were involved in assassination plots against Fidel Castro. When this did not work the same men who assassinated JFK had no option to take out RFK.

It has to be remembered that when JFK was elected in 1960 he was judged to be more right-wing that Richard Nixon on foreign policy issues. For example, John Foster Dulles and Richard Bissell both provided JFK information about the proposed invasion of Cuba during the election campaign. As a result, JFK was able to attack Nixon for being soft on communism as the Eisenhower administration had done nothing to get rid of Castro. Nixon was of course unable to reveal what was really going on behind the scenes.

Nixon believed that the CIA leadership played a vital role in his defeat in 1960. He never forgave the CIA for this treachery and this is why he attempted to sort out the agency when he became president in 1968. The CIA fought back and set up Nixon over Watergate. When Richard Helms, refused to help him cover-up Watergate, he threatened Helms with exposing him for the role he played in the cover-up of the JFK assassination.

Richard Helms was in overall control of the CIA investigation into Oswald and replaced John Whitten as chief investigator with James Jesus Angleton when he got too close to the truth.

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKwhitten.htm

William Sullivan, the man who carried out the FBI investigation into Oswald, worked for the Nixon administration and had told him the full story of the Warren Commission cover-up. Sullivan was murdered before he could appear before the House Select Committee on Assassinations but his heavily censored autobiography, that were published after his death, makes clear that in his opinion Oswald was not a lone gunman.

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKsullivan.htm

When Helms refused to help, Nixon sacked him and replaced him with James Schlesinger. On 9th May, 1973, Schlesinger issued a directive to all CIA employees: “I have ordered all senior operating officials of this Agency to report to me immediately on any activities now going on, or might have gone on in the past, which might be considered to be outside the legislative charter of this Agency. I hereby direct every person presently employed by CIA to report to me on any such activities of which he has knowledge. I invite all ex-employees to do the same. Anyone who has such information should call my secretary and say that he wishes to talk to me about activities outside the CIA’s charter.

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKschlesingerJ.htm

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKhelms.htm

This was dynamite and the CIA now had to destroy Nixon before he destroyed them. This is why the CIA, in the form of Richard Ober (Deep Throat), provided information on Watergate to Bob Woodward at the Washington Post.

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKober.htm

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKwoodward.htm

This is why the CIA felt so betrayed by JFK over the Bay of Pigs. Before his election he had assured Dulles he would fully support the plan. Not only did he not do this, he punished the CIA by sacking Dulles and Bissell for trying to carry out a plan he approved.

An important ingredient of the Bay of Pigs plan was the assassination of Fidel Castro. In fact, without the death of Castro, the plan stood no chance of success. JFK allowed these assassination plots to go ahead. In fact, he put RFK in charge of them. As CIA officers testified later, RFK put them under a great deal of pressure to carry out this assassination. However, this was called off by JFK after the Cuban Missile Crisis. One of the reasons that JFK was assassinated was because in 1963 he was carrying out secret negotiations with Castro via Lisa Howard. She was murdered in 1965 but the documents about these secret talks have now been released:

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKhowardL2.htm

This was one of the stories that RFK was being blackmailed with. The original plan was to blame Castro for the assassination (motivation – retaliation against JFK for the attempts on his life) in order to trigger an invasion of Cuba. This would have got rid of Castro and blackened the reputation of the Kennedys.

The other thing RFK was being blackmailed over was the death of Marilyn Monroe. Of course, he had nothing to do with it, but they had collected a great deal of evidence to suggest that RFK had organized the killing. For example, see Dorothy Kilgallen’s report in the New York Journal American the day before Monroe died. Kilgallen was murdered in 1965.

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKkilgallen.htm

[J. Raymond Carroll]

Why did Robert Kennedy help to cover-up the assassination of JFK? This included denying access to JFK’s brain and the autopsy photos.

RFK denied access to the general public, but are you suggesting that he denied access to official investigators?

Soon after the assassination RFK told other members of the Kennedy family that he believed that senior members of the CIA organized his brother’s assassination. However, he was not willing to disclose this at that stage because he was being blackmailed.

Which member of the Kennedy family revealed this information?

[John Simkin]

RFK denied access to the general public, but are you suggesting that he denied access to official investigators?

In an interview he gave on 3rd July, 1967, John J. McCloy said about the Warren Commission: “I think there’s one thing I would do over again. I would insist on those photographs and the X-rays having being produced before us.” During the investigation members of the Warren Commission were told by Earl Warren that the Kennedy family was blocking access to these photographs and X-rays.

Soon after the assassination RFK told other members of the Kennedy family that he believed that senior members of the CIA organized his brother’s assassination. However, he was not willing to disclose this at that stage because he was being blackmailed.

Which member of the Kennedy family revealed this information?

This story will be explained in a book published next year.

[Wim Dankbaar]

I believe the Marilyn Monroe murder played a part in that.

Let's assume for a while that The Kennedy's and Giancana had a hand in that. Wouldn't that be a great trumph card to keep Bobby silent about his brother's death?

Wim

[Guest Gary Loughran]

This was dynamite and the CIA now had to destroy Nixon before he destroyed them. This is why the CIA, in the form of Richard Ober (Deep Throat), provided information on Watergate to Bob Woodward at the Washington Post.

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKober.htm

Hi John,

Was it not Mark Felt who was revealed as Deep Throat?

Am I missing something, that I am blissfully unaware of...wouldn't be a first for me??

Kind Regards

Gary

[Ron Ecker]

I believe the Marilyn Monroe murder played a part in that.

Let's assume for a while that The Kennedy's and Giancana had a hand in that. Wouldn't that be a great trumph card to keep Bobby silent about his brother's death?

If it's true that both Kennedys were romantically involved with Monroe, they certainly had a motive to get rid of her if they feared she might go public. It would be hard to imagine a juicier scandal.

[Mark Stapleton]

RFK denied access to the general public, but are you suggesting that he denied access to official investigators?

In an interview he gave on 3rd July, 1967, John J. McCloy said about the Warren Commission: “I think there’s one thing I would do over again. I would insist on those photographs and the X-rays having being produced before us.” During the investigation members of the Warren Commission were told by Earl Warren that the Kennedy family was blocking access to these photographs and X-rays.

John, has a member of the Kennedy family ever confirmed this to be true? I would be reluctant to take Earl Warren's word for it.

Soon after the assassination RFK told other members of the Kennedy family that he believed that senior members of the CIA organized his brother’s assassination. However, he was not willing to disclose this at that stage because he was being blackmailed.

Which member of the Kennedy family revealed this information?

This story will be explained in a book published next year.

John, who's the author?

I believe the Marilyn Monroe murder played a part in that.

Let's assume for a while that The Kennedy's and Giancana had a hand in that. Wouldn't that be a great trumph card to keep Bobby silent about his brother's death?

If it's true that both Kennedys were romantically involved with Monroe, they certainly had a motive to get rid of her if they feared she might go public. It would be hard to imagine a juicier scandal.

Ron and Wim,

I have trouble believing JFK and RFK would stoop to that.

[J. Raymond Carroll]

Soon after the assassination RFK told other members of the Kennedy family that he believed that senior members of the CIA organized his brother’s assassination. However, he was not willing to disclose this at that stage because he was being blackmailed.

Which member of the Kennedy family revealed this information?

This story will be explained in a book published next year.

Does the author explain why, if RFK was so afraid of blackmail, he was not afraid to run for president in 1968?

[Ashton Gray]

Posting the same response here as I did to the same thing posted in the Watergate forum:

Very interesting post, John, in which I see various streams of data beginning to merge into a far more cohesive channel flowing together instead of dispersing all over the landscape.

Still, I have to comment on a few bits of flotsam and jetsam that I feel continue to attempt to float upstream:

Nixon believed that the CIA leadership played a vital role in his defeat in 1960. He never forgave the CIA for this treachery and this is why he attempted to sort out the agency when he became president in 1968.

What actions do you see as an attempt by Nixon "to sort out the agency" while leaving Richard Helms in place as DCI?

The CIA fought back and set up Nixon over Watergate. When Richard Helms, refused to help him cover-up Watergate, he threatened Helms with exposing him for the role he played in the cover-up of the JFK assassination.

Cite? I have a vague feeling that you are referring here to the 23 June 1972 "whole Bay of Pigs thing" comment made by Nixon.

Now, personally, I don't mind, ever, seeing anyone interpret that statement by Nixon just as broadly as they like, not only to include the Kennedy assassination, but even to include the alleged Big Bang (or the alleged Tree of Life, if you prefer), by their own lights.

However: the thing that does just curdle the cream while still in the cows whenever I see such reference made is the almost predictable omission of the following statements made by Richard M. Nixon—who had been central to the planning of the Bay of Pigs—just moments before he made the "whole Bay of Pigs thing" statement. And it is this (my emphasis added):

• RICHARD NIXON ...we protected Helms from one hell of a lot of things. ...Of course, this is a— this is a— Hunt: you will- that will uncover a lot of things. You open that scab there's a hell of a lot of things and that we just feel that it would be very detrimental to have this thing go any further. This involves these Cubans, Hunt, and a lot of hanky-panky that we have nothing to do with ourselves.
  

Now, I do make an effort to reconcile such things with statements such as your earlier one that Nixon had tried "to sort out the agency" on taking office. I just can't. That's all.

And if you are, indeed, referring to the "whole Bay of Pigs thing" comment as your foundation for stating that Nixon "threatened Helms with exposing him for the role he played in the cover-up of the JFK assassination," please, please—if on no other basis than kindness and mercy—provide this pilgrim with some kind of rationale in response to the following pregnant questions:

1) If Nixon had some specific knowledge of "the role [Helms] played in the cover-up of the JFK assassination," then why didn't Nixon play this trump card publically right then, and sack Helms and put the CIA on trial for the murder of a president? It would have made Watergate look exactly like the "two bit burglary" that it was, and Nixon would have become the hero of the world instead of the most loathesome president in history.

2) The comment by Nixon was made on 23 June 1972 in a private meeting with Haldeman, so why was Helms allowed by Nixon to sit in the DCI seat for seven more months, not only past the Watergate indictments pointing to the White House; not only past the 1 October 1972 secret CIA Remote Viewing contract Helms and Gottlieb engineered; not only past Hunt purportedly "blackmailing Nixon"—of all the people Hunt could blackmail (please note that I'm refraining from laughing out loud right there); not only past Helms and Gottlieb destroying a still-unknown number of truckloads of damning CIA documents; not only past CIA's handing over of the Hunt-Liddy-Fielding photos that would spring Ellsberg and drive the final nails into Nixon's coffin; but even until after Hunt and "the Cuban contingent" had pleaded guilty? What possible "motive" could Nixon have had for sitting passively in his chair for seven months allowing Helms and the CIA cruds to bleed him from every artery, if Nixon had the goods on these same people in relation to the JFK assassination? How can anybody be that stupid and feed himself?

3) Why were payments purportedly of "White House funds" from LaRue given to Hunt's lawyer, Bittman, after Hunt had pleaded guilty to all counts?

None of it adds up. None of it.

When Helms refused to help, Nixon sacked him and replaced him with James Schlesinger. On 9th May, 1973, Schlesinger issued a directive to all CIA employees: “I have ordered all senior operating officials of this Agency to report to me immediately on any activities now going on, or might have gone on in the past, which might be considered to be outside the legislative charter of this Agency. I hereby direct every person presently employed by CIA to report to me on any such activities of which he has knowledge. I invite all ex-employees to do the same. Anyone who has such information should call my secretary and say that he wishes to talk to me about activities outside the CIA’s charter."

...This was dynamite and the CIA now had to destroy Nixon before he destroyed them.

<Head in hands> John, I appreciate your enthusiasm for this scenario. I mean that sincerely. But please, please consider the following incontrovertible facts:

1) William Colby, not James Schlesinger, wrote the directive. Schlesinger signed as he was picking up his hat and coat and walking out the door as DCI, being replaced by Colby. And the entire idea had come from Colby.

2) Schlesinger hadn't been in the DCI chair long enough even to get it warm: three months. He was nothing but a placeholder, since Colby himself had been (hear me, now, please) CIA Director for Covert Operation throughout the CIA's Watergate hoax, and throughout the simultaneous set-up by Helms and Gottlieb of the super-covert Remote Viewing program.

So please, please help this poor pilgrim better understand this scenario by providing some kind of rationale and substantive fact in response to these other pregnant questions:

1) From whence comes the idea that Schlesinger was some kind of loyalist Nixon puppet instead of the die-hard CIA veteran slimebag he was? This reads almost like Mother Goose to me. What is the foundation? What do you feel is the invisible and mysterious thrall that Nixon had Schlesinger in?

2) What benefit did Nixon ever derive from the CIA's "Family Jewels"?

3) Do you have any record at all of Nixon ever even seeing the "Family Jewels"?

While I'm very heartened indeed to see new evaluations of data going in new and interesting directions, I am loath indeed to see old and tiresome myths—many of them written and disseminated by the very Operation Mockingbird that you rightly expose and decry—continue to be perpetuated in the public consciousness when they have no foundation in material fact, and so I cannot do otherwise than call them to attention with an invitation for close and sober analysis and inspection.

Ashton

Edited November 23, 2006 by Ashton Gray

[J. Raymond Carroll]

In an interview he gave on 3rd July, 1967, John J. McCloy said about the Warren Commission: “I think there’s one thing I would do over again. I would insist on those photographs and the X-rays having being produced before us.” During the investigation members of the Warren Commission were told by Earl Warren that the Kennedy family was blocking access to these photographs and X-rays.

If Earl Warren said this, then it is extremely unlikely that he was being truthful. As noted in the foreword to the Warren Report (GPO edition, p. X), "On December 13, 1963, Congress enacted ..Public Law 88-202 empowering the Commission to issue subpoenas requiring the testimony of witnesses AND THE PRODUCTION OF EVIDENCE RELATING TO ANY MATTER UNDER ITS INVESTIGATION."

No reasonable person could dispute that the autopsy photos and X-Rays were highly relevant to the Commission's investigation, and there is nothing in the Warren Report or the 26 volumes that hints at RFK attemting to influence the course of the investigation in any manner. RFK even offered, in writing, to testify before the Commission, but Earl Warren apparently never responded to RFK's letter. (See CE 3025

http://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk...Vol26_0305a.htm

It would have been a damn-fool idea for RFK to force the Commission to subpoena the photos and X-Rays, which were in any event under federal control at the time.

I suggest that it is not because of anything RFK did or didn't do that so many people, including so many serious researchers, consider Earl Warren's report to be a BIG LIE.

[Antti Hynonen]

J. Raymond Carroll Posted Yesterday, 09:26 PM

QUOTE(John Simkin @ Nov 23 2006, 04:32 PM)

In an interview he gave on 3rd July, 1967, John J. McCloy said about the Warren Commission: “I think there’s one thing I would do over again. I would insist on those photographs and the X-rays having being produced before us.” During the investigation members of the Warren Commission were told by Earl Warren that the Kennedy family was blocking access to these photographs and X-rays.

If Earl Warren said this, then it is extremely unlikely that he was being truthful. As noted in the foreword to the Warren Report (GPO edition, p. X), "On December 13, 1963, Congress enacted ..Public Law 88-202 empowering the Commission to issue subpoenas requiring the testimony of witnesses AND THE PRODUCTION OF EVIDENCE RELATING TO ANY MATTER UNDER ITS INVESTIGATION."

No reasonable person could dispute that the autopsy photos and X-Rays were highly relevant to the Commission's investigation, and there is nothing in the Warren Report or the 26 volumes that hints at RFK attemting to influence the course of the investigation in any manner. RFK even offered, in writing, to testify before the Commission, but Earl Warren apparently never responded to RFK's letter. (See CE 3025

http://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk...Vol26_0305a.htm

It would have been a damn-fool idea for RFK to force the Commission to subpoena the photos and X-Rays, which were in any event under federal control at the time.

I suggest that it is not because of anything RFK did or didn't do that so many people, including so many serious researchers, consider Earl Warren's report to be a BIG LIE.

I fully agree.

The WC decided not to use this key medical evidence as part of their report, because it didn't agree with their pre-determined conclusion.

[John Simkin]

Posting the same response here as I did to the same thing posted in the Watergate forum:

Very interesting post, John, in which I see various streams of data beginning to merge into a far more cohesive channel flowing together instead of dispersing all over the landscape.

Still, I have to comment on a few bits of flotsam and jetsam that I feel continue to attempt to float upstream:

Nixon believed that the CIA leadership played a vital role in his defeat in 1960. He never forgave the CIA for this treachery and this is why he attempted to sort out the agency when he became president in 1968.

What actions do you see as an attempt by Nixon "to sort out the agency" while leaving Richard Helms in place as DCI?

The CIA fought back and set up Nixon over Watergate. When Richard Helms, refused to help him cover-up Watergate, he threatened Helms with exposing him for the role he played in the cover-up of the JFK assassination.

Cite? I have a vague feeling that you are referring here to the 23 June 1972 "whole Bay of Pigs thing" comment made by Nixon.

H. R. Haldeman, The Ends of Power (1978:

I was puzzled when he (Nixon) told me, 'Tell Ehrlichman this whole group of Cubans is tied to the Bay, of Pigs.'

After a pause I said, 'The Bay of Pigs? What does that have to do with this?'

But Nixon merely said, 'Ehrlichman will know what I mean,' and dropped the subject.

After our staff meeting the next morning I accompanied Ehrlichman to his office and gave him the President's message. Ehrlichman's eyebrows arched, and he smiled. `Our brothers from Langley? He's suggesting I twist or break a few arms?'

'I don't know. All he told me was "Tell Ehrlichman this whole group of Cubans is tied to the Bay of Pigs".'

Ehrlichman leaned back in his chair, tapping a pencil on the edge of his desk. 'All right,' he said, 'message accepted.'

'What are you going to do about it?'

'Zero,' said Ehrlichman. 'I want to stay out of this one.'

He was referring to an unspoken feud between C.I.A. Director Richard Helms and Nixon.. The two were polar opposites in background: Helms, the aloof, aristocratic, Eastern elitist; Nixon the poor boy (he never let you forget it) from a small California town. Ehrlichman had found, himself in the middle of this feud as far back as 1969, immediately after Nixon assumed office. Nixon had called Ehrlichman into his office and said he wanted all the facts and documents the CIA had on the Bay of Pigs, a complete report on the whole project.

About six months after that 1969 conversation, Ehrlichman had stopped in my office. 'Those bastards in Langley are holding back something. They just dig in their heels and say the President can't have it. Period. Imagine that! The Commander-in-Chief wants to see a document relating to a military operation, and the spooks say he can't have it.'

'What is it?'

'I don't know, but from the way they're protecting it, it must be pure dynamite.'

I was angry at the idea that Helms would tell the President he couldn't see something. I said, 'Well, you remind Helms who's President. He's not. In fact, Helms can damn well find himself out of a job in a hurry.'

That's what I thought! Helms was never fired, at least for four years. But then Ehrlichman had said, 'Rest assured. The point will be made. In fact, Helms is on his way over here right now. The President is going to give him a direct order to turn over that document to me.'

Helms did show up that afternoon and saw the President for a long secret conversation. When Helms left, Ehrlichman returned to the Oval Office. The next thing I knew Ehrlichman appeared in my office, dropped into a chair, and just stared at me. He was more furious than I had ever seen him; absolutely speechless, a rare phenomenon for our White House phrase-makers. I said, 'What happened?'

'This is what happened,' Ehrlichman said. 'The Mad Monk (Nixon) has just told me I am now to forget all about that CIA document. In fact, I am to cease and desist from trying to obtain it.'

When Senator Howard Baker of the Evrin Committee later looked into the Nixon-Helms relationship, he summed it up. 'Nixon and Helms have so much on each other, neither of them can breathe.'

Apparently Nixon knew more about the genesis of the Cuban invasion that led to the Bay of Pigs than almost anyone. Recently, the man who was President of Costa Rica at the time - dealing with Nixon while the invasion was being prepared - stated that Nixon was the man who originated the Cuban invasion. If this was true, Nixon never told it to me.

In 1972 I did know that Nixon disliked the CIA Allen Dulles, the CIA Director in 1960, had briefed Jack Kennedy about the forthcoming Cuban invasion before a Kennedy-Nixon debate. Kennedy used this top secret information in the debate, thereby placing Nixon on the spot. Nixon felt he had to lie and even deny such an invasion was in the works to protect the men who were training in secret. Dulles later denied briefing Kennedy. This betrayal, added to Nixon's long-held feeling that the agency was not adequately competent, led to his distrust and dislike.

And now that antipathy was to emerge again on June 23, 1972, when Nixon would once again confront and pressure the CIA

This time the CIA was ready. In fact, it was more than ready. It was ahead of the game by months. Nixon would walk into what I now believe was a trap.

[John Simkin]

Now, I do make an effort to reconcile such things with statements such as your earlier one that Nixon had tried "to sort out the agency" on taking office. I just can't. That's all.

On 5th June, 1970, Nixon held a meeting in the White House that was attended by J. Edgar Hoover, Richard Helms and the chiefs of the NSA and the DIA. Nixon spoke of his concern that the different agencies were not working well together. Soon afterwards Nixon had a meeting with Tom Charles Huston, a former FBI agent who now worked with John Dean. Huston was asked to write a report on reforming the intelligence agencies.

Huston’s 43 page report on how the intelligence agencies could enhance cooperation was delivered to Nixon on 14th July. This was sent to and approved by all the agencies. However, this was not the full report. One section was kept secret from the other agencies. Known as the “Huston Plan” it suggested five activities, some of which were clearly illegal. The sixth suggestion was the creation of a new agency to deal with internal security that was to be under the control of the president.

As Nixon later recalled: “I felt they (the six points of Huston’s Plan) were necessary and justified by the violence we faced.” Soon afterwards Nixon appointed Jack Caulfield to take charge of this new “in-house” agency.

When John Dean was doing a deal with the prosecuting authorities in 1973 he sent a copy of this secret Huston Plan to Judge John Sirica. It now became public knowledge. However, it is possible that the FBI and the CIA had already discovered what was going on. As Jack Caulfield and Tony Ulasewicz were both to later point out, the Sam Ervin committee seemed uninterested in this secret “in-house” agency.

[Ashton Gray]

Posting the same response here as I did to the same thing posted in the Watergate forum:

Very interesting post, John, in which I see various streams of data beginning to merge into a far more cohesive channel flowing together instead of dispersing all over the landscape.

Still, I have to comment on a few bits of flotsam and jetsam that I feel continue to attempt to float upstream:

Nixon believed that the CIA leadership played a vital role in his defeat in 1960. He never forgave the CIA for this treachery and this is why he attempted to sort out the agency when he became president in 1968.

What actions do you see as an attempt by Nixon "to sort out the agency" while leaving Richard Helms in place as DCI?

The CIA fought back and set up Nixon over Watergate. When Richard Helms, refused to help him cover-up Watergate, he threatened Helms with exposing him for the role he played in the cover-up of the JFK assassination.

Cite? I have a vague feeling that you are referring here to the 23 June 1972 "whole Bay of Pigs thing" comment made by Nixon.

H. R. Haldeman, The Ends of Power (1978:

I was puzzled when he (Nixon) told me, 'Tell Ehrlichman this whole group of Cubans is tied to the Bay, of Pigs.'

After a pause I said, 'The Bay of Pigs? What does that have to do with this?'

But Nixon merely said, 'Ehrlichman will know what I mean,' and dropped the subject.

After our staff meeting the next morning I accompanied Ehrlichman to his office and gave him the President's message. Ehrlichman's eyebrows arched, and he smiled. `Our brothers from Langley? He's suggesting I twist or break a few arms?'

'I don't know. All he told me was "Tell Ehrlichman this whole group of Cubans is tied to the Bay of Pigs".'

Ehrlichman leaned back in his chair, tapping a pencil on the edge of his desk. 'All right,' he said, 'message accepted.'

'What are you going to do about it?'

'Zero,' said Ehrlichman. 'I want to stay out of this one.'

He was referring to an unspoken feud between C.I.A. Director Richard Helms and Nixon.. The two were polar opposites in background: Helms, the aloof, aristocratic, Eastern elitist; Nixon the poor boy (he never let you forget it) from a small California town. Ehrlichman had found, himself in the middle of this feud as far back as 1969, immediately after Nixon assumed office. Nixon had called Ehrlichman into his office and said he wanted all the facts and documents the CIA had on the Bay of Pigs, a complete report on the whole project.

About six months after that 1969 conversation, Ehrlichman had stopped in my office. 'Those bastards in Langley are holding back something. They just dig in their heels and say the President can't have it. Period. Imagine that! The Commander-in-Chief wants to see a document relating to a military operation, and the spooks say he can't have it.'

'What is it?'

'I don't know, but from the way they're protecting it, it must be pure dynamite.'

I was angry at the idea that Helms would tell the President he couldn't see something. I said, 'Well, you remind Helms who's President. He's not. In fact, Helms can damn well find himself out of a job in a hurry.'

That's what I thought! Helms was never fired, at least for four years. But then Ehrlichman had said, 'Rest assured. The point will be made. In fact, Helms is on his way over here right now. The President is going to give him a direct order to turn over that document to me.'

Helms did show up that afternoon and saw the President for a long secret conversation. When Helms left, Ehrlichman returned to the Oval Office. The next thing I knew Ehrlichman appeared in my office, dropped into a chair, and just stared at me. He was more furious than I had ever seen him; absolutely speechless, a rare phenomenon for our White House phrase-makers. I said, 'What happened?'

'This is what happened,' Ehrlichman said. 'The Mad Monk (Nixon) has just told me I am now to forget all about that CIA document. In fact, I am to cease and desist from trying to obtain it.'

When Senator Howard Baker of the Evrin Committee later looked into the Nixon-Helms relationship, he summed it up. 'Nixon and Helms have so much on each other, neither of them can breathe.'

Apparently Nixon knew more about the genesis of the Cuban invasion that led to the Bay of Pigs than almost anyone. Recently, the man who was President of Costa Rica at the time - dealing with Nixon while the invasion was being prepared - stated that Nixon was the man who originated the Cuban invasion. If this was true, Nixon never told it to me.

In 1972 I did know that Nixon disliked the CIA Allen Dulles, the CIA Director in 1960, had briefed Jack Kennedy about the forthcoming Cuban invasion before a Kennedy-Nixon debate. Kennedy used this top secret information in the debate, thereby placing Nixon on the spot. Nixon felt he had to lie and even deny such an invasion was in the works to protect the men who were training in secret. Dulles later denied briefing Kennedy. This betrayal, added to Nixon's long-held feeling that the agency was not adequately competent, led to his distrust and dislike.

And now that antipathy was to emerge again on June 23, 1972, when Nixon would once again confront and pressure the CIA

This time the CIA was ready. In fact, it was more than ready. It was ahead of the game by months. Nixon would walk into what I now believe was a trap.

Thank you for posting this excerpt, John. I have read it many times. Although I rarely leave complete exchanges quoted in full when attempting to respond to specific points, I'm leaving this fully intact so readers can have the full comparison to points I'm about to make concerning this.

I've said before, and I'll say eternally, that the deducement from any and all of this that Nixon somehow was "threatening Helms with exposure of CIA's cover-up of the Kennedy assassination" is what I consider to be in the class of reading tea-leaves and the entrails of birds. But I don't really give a tinker's dam. I don't care what people read into it in an effort to prop up some favorite precious "theory."

When they start proseletyzing me, though, to accept this article of faith, clung to with religious fever, it ain't going to happen.

And now, here's another "anecdotal account" that I really want people to read, and I've left Haldeman's little melodrama intact so that the quick and the bright can see that it is exactly the same CIA-written fiction with only the names and documents-at-issue change. The exact same fairy tale—none of which of course can be independently verified. (Now, there's a surprise.) But what I'm posting below appears to have been written by the same CIA fiction ghostwriter who wrote "Haldeman's" cute little anecdote. Who do you think might qualify? Anybody want to take a guess? Well, first, read the fiction, and compare to the above:

• Quoted from the source:
  ...In late January 1961, Bundy had been given an extraordinary briefing by Daniel Ellsberg, a twenty-nine-year-old analyst working for the RAND Corporation, a think tank that did classified studies for the federal government. A junior fellow at Harvard, and an expert in game theory, Ellsberg was one of only a handful of civilians who had seen the Joint Chiefs' operating war plans, known as the Joint Strategic Capabilities Plan (JSCP). What he saw sickened his stomach. The war plans called for the swift destruction of every city of any consequence in the Soviet Union, China and Eastern Europe.
  "It was just a trucking plan," Ellsberg said, "for moving thermonuclear explosives as fast as possible to every urban center in the Eastern bloc." Moscow alone was to receive 170 atomic and hydrogen bombs. There were no intermediate steps, no flexibility and no warnings. He called it a first-strike plan because it was the Joint Chiefs' planned response to any level of "armed conflict with the Soviet Union." The chiefs' planned response to a division-level Soviet attack on West Berlin, for instance, would be the annihilation of hundreds of millions of civilians. Ellsberg thought there were few safeguards against an accidental triggering of the JSCP. Worse, he had been told that Eisenhower had given individual commanders written authorization to use their nuclear weapons if in their best judgments they were under attack and out of communication with the White House. Ellsberg knew that the commander of the Seventh Fleet in the Pacific, for instance, was out of communications with Washington on average a few hours each day. So it was entirely possible that a nuclear war could be initiated by an isolated admiral without the president's knowledge.
  Ellsberg was worried. Within days of Kennedy's inauguration, he had convinced Assistant Secretary of Defense Paul Nitze that he ought to see the JSCP. Nitze authorized his deputy, Harry Rowen, and Ellsberg, working under him, to study the whole problem.
  Almost immediately, Ellsberg and Rowen were stymied; after requesting a copy of the war plan for Nitze's reading, Ellsberg was told by a two-star army general working for Nitze, "No, he can't see it. He has no need to know." Nitze was not the kind of man who liked to be told no, and when he learned of this rebuff, Rowen arranged for Ellsberg to see Mac Bundy in the White House. When Ellsberg arrived, he began by trying to explain how he had received access to a document as sensitive as the general war plan. Bundy interrupted and said coldly, "Is this a briefing or a confessional?"
  Ellsberg pulled himself together and replied, "There is a plan which no president has read, and which no secretary of defense has read, and it has the following characteristics." He then reeled off the bare facts of the plan, emphasizing how small of an armed conflict could initiate full-scale nuclear war. Within thirty seconds Bundy took out a pad of paper and began scribbling notes.
  A briefing that was scheduled to last ten minutes stretched to an hour and a half. Mac was particularly astonished by Ellsberg's assertion that Eisenhower had issued presidential authorization in writing that would allow individual commanders to launch nuclear weapons.
  Soon after Ellsberg left, Bundy picked up the phone and called the staff director of the Joint Chiefs. When he got a deputy, he said, "This is Mac Bundy; the president wants to see the JSCP." There was a long silence at the other end of the line until the general replied, "Oh, we never release that." Bundy responded, "No, I don't think you understand. I'm calling for the president and he wants to see the JSCP." Again the general said, "But we don't release that." Dumbfounded, Bundy shouted, "I don't think I'm making myself clear." At this point the general offered a compromise, "Well, we could give the president a briefing on the JSCP." Bundy snapped, "The president is a great reader; he wants to read the JSCP."
  Bundy never did see the full war plan, but he wrote a memo to Kennedy describing a summary of the plan he had been given by the Joint Chiefs. He called it "dangerously rigid and, if continued without amendment, may leave you with very little choice as to how you face the moment of thermonuclear truth."
  —excerpted from The Color of Truth by Kai Bird
  

(Now, of course, will come the not-quite-bright accusing me of accusing Kai Bird of... To them: oh, please do everybody a favor and just shut up before you start.)

For those with better sense, you'll see immediately that the author of the passage above has accepted an anecdotal story given to them by someone they believed and trusted, and has passed it along as historical "fact."

Just as you, John, have uncritically accepted an anecdotal and unverifiable story from someone that you trust and believe is telling the "truth."

And that is your right. And it is an unalienable right. And I would not deny anyone their heroes or gods.

But I don't have to accept them. And I do not.

Perhaps it is being a writer and editor that makes such re-packaged hack fiction glow almost radioactively when I read it. But: whatever gets you through the night.

Ashton

Edited November 24, 2006 by Ashton Gray

[Myra Bronstein]

RFK denied access to the general public, but are you suggesting that he denied access to official investigators?

In an interview he gave on 3rd July, 1967, John J. McCloy said about the Warren Commission: “I think there’s one thing I would do over again. I would insist on those photographs and the X-rays having being produced before us.” During the investigation members of the Warren Commission were told by Earl Warren that the Kennedy family was blocking access to these photographs and X-rays.

John, has a member of the Kennedy family ever confirmed this to be true? I would be reluctant to take Earl Warren's word for it.

Soon after the assassination RFK told other members of the Kennedy family that he believed that senior members of the CIA organized his brother’s assassination. However, he was not willing to disclose this at that stage because he was being blackmailed.

Which member of the Kennedy family revealed this information?

This story will be explained in a book published next year.

John, who's the author?

I believe the Marilyn Monroe murder played a part in that.

Let's assume for a while that The Kennedy's and Giancana had a hand in that. Wouldn't that be a great trumph card to keep Bobby silent about his brother's death?

If it's true that both Kennedys were romantically involved with Monroe, they certainly had a motive to get rid of her if they feared she might go public. It would be hard to imagine a juicier scandal.

Ron and Wim,

I have trouble believing JFK and RFK would stoop to that.

I don't believe it for a second.

In fact I consider it to be one of the main components in the Kennedy smears. The subtext being that the Kennedy's murdered so it's ok that they were murdered. Don't worry your little heads John and Jane Q. Public; JFK and RFK aren't worth the angst.

Right.