WEIRDLAND: In Retrospect: The Vietnam War, JFK

Thursday, August 27, 2020

In Retrospect: The Vietnam War, JFK

"The evil that is in the world always comes of ignorance, and good intentions may do as much harm as malevolence if they lack understanding. You will continue to suffer if you have an emotional reaction to everything that is said to you. True power is sitting back and observing everything with logic." -Albert Camus

540,000 American combat troops arrived to Vietnam by 1968. There were no combat troops in Vietnam the day President Kennedy was assassinated. Vietnam was a Rubicon that Kennedy never showed any signs of crossing. As the advisors who were noted, LBJ’s tone and attitude were much more militaristic, compromising and controlling than John Kennedy’s. (Robert McNamara, In Retrospect) LBJ said, “I am not going to lose Vietnam. I am not going to be the President who saw Southeast Asia go the way that China went.” Kennedy had appointed his Defense Secretary to supervise the withdrawal plan until its completion in 1965. Johnson not only ignored NSAM 263, he actually increased the advisors there to over 20,000. There is another manipulative statement Johnson made to McNamara that is probably the most revealing of all. He said, “How the hell does McNamara think he can—when he’s losing a war—he can pull men out of there?” It shows that Johnson was reading the Pentagon’s back channel reports about the true state of the war: namely Saigon was losing. Secondly, it shows that Johnson thought that Vietnam figured among America’s vital interests and it had to be defended at all costs. Because if we lost there, it would embolden the international communist conspiracy. This illustrates the difference between JFK and LBJ. 

Johnson was a classic Cold Warrior who completely bought into the Domino Theory. As National Security Advisor McGeorge Bundy told his biographer, that was not the case with John Kennedy. (Gordon Goldstein, Lessons in Disaster, pp. 230-32) By the end of 1965, Johnson had committed over 175,000 American ground troops into theater. Ken O’Donnell later wrote a book with Dave Powers where he specifically stated that Johnson had broken with Kennedy’s policy on Vietnam. After Nixon resigned, Gerald Ford took office. The Warren Commission cover-up veteran brought with him two young conservative firebrands: Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld. Those two did not care for Kissinger’s foreign policy. They actually considered him too moderate. Thus began the neoconservative movement. Which eventually took over Washington, including the Public Broadcasting System. Source: kennedysandking.com

Jim DiEugenio: Robert Loomis was a former top editor at Random House who was known for sanctioning books that specialized in concealing true facts about the assassinations of the 60's: in 1993 he sponsored Gerald Posner's infamous Case Closed; in 1970 it was Robert Houghton's book on the RFK case, Special Unit Senator; and then again, he helped publish Posner's 1998 book Killing the Dream. Not only did Loomis help get these spurious books published, he got them out at timely moments in history. The Houghton book was published right after the trial of Sirhan Sirhan. The John F. Kennedy book was out at the 30th anniversary of his death. The King book was also published at the 30th anniversary, in the midst of a swirling controversy. Loomis was also the editor of James Phelan's 1982 book The casebook of an investigative reporter, which featured a derogatory chapter on Jim Garrison. Before Phelan ever got to New Orleans for Clay Shaw's preliminary hearing, he had already done work for government agencies." (p. 244,  Destiny Betrayed). Albert Rossi's 2013 review of Destiny Betrayed: "DiEugenio shows the deliberate theft of JFK's terms of US foreign policy and how the unravelling of five decades has "betrayed" the character of John Kennedy."

That journalistic duo, Phelan and Aynesworth, were both on the scene: Phelan as a witness for the defense and Aynesworth to help Shaw's attorneys. Phelan's job was to put the spin on each day's testimony for the residing press, thereby controlling the entire national media reportage on the Shaw trial. He would invite all the reporters over to his rented house. On the day the Zapruder film, depicting Kennedy's body being violently knocked back, Phelan really shook up the press. It appeared Jim Garrison was right, that it had been a conspiracy. But then Phelan pulled a proverbial rabbit out of his hat. He began to outline the dynamics of the socalled 'jet-effect' explanation for the action on the film. That is, if Oswald was firing from behind Kennedy, why does Kennedy's body recoil with tremendous force to the rear of the car? This is how determined Phelan was to keep a lid on what came out of the trial. One can only assume where the reporter got his quick course in physics to dream up such a theory in a matter of hours.

The Kennedys were different, and that's why they were killed. Those who conspired to do so recognized that assassinating their characters would be a crucial part of the ongoing cover-up. I think they were fighting evil forces, and I will always consider them heroes. I'm usually very cynical about politics, and there are very few politicians I have admired during my lifetime. In comparison to their contemporaries, the Kennedys were about as honest as political figures can be. They actually did try to work for the greater good, and they were murdered because of it. If there are such things as "good guys," then John and Robert Kennedy fall into that category. In 1978, according to John Malcolm Blair’s definitive study The Control of Oil, the Rockefeller family had controlling interest in four oil companies of the top eight in the world. They were also in control of Chase Manhattan Bank, one of the biggest in the nation then and the largest today. 

They also owned the single most expensive piece of real estate in the country, Rockefeller Center in New York City. Among the list of private companies they own are IBM and Eastern Airlines. As Mort Sahl relates, before the 1960 election, he liked to say that Kennedy was the scion of a multimillionaire. Kennedy cornered him once on this topic and asked him point blank how much he thought his family was worth. Sahl replied, “Near two hundred million.” Kennedy then asked him how much he thought the Rockefellers were worth. Sahl said he had no idea. Kennedy replied sharply, “Try about four billion. Now that’s money, Mort.” The Rockefellers minions were John J. McCloy, Allen Dulles, with close ties to the Texas oil men who, along with the CIA, probably arranged the JFK assassination. If General Ed Lansdale was involved, then Allen Dulles very likely was (look at Dulles outrageous behavior on the Warren Commission farce), and if Allen Dulles was then Nelson Rockefeller very likely was. And if Nelson Rockefeller was involved in the JFK assassination, then I think it is very likely that Henry Kissinger knew exactly what was happening. Kissinger went to Harvard with McGeorge Bundy, Kennedy's NSC advisor who acted extremely suspiciously in promoting the "lone nutter" fantasy within hours of JFK's murder, not a reasonable thing to do base on the overwhelming real time evidence of multiple shots and shooters (plural). McGeorge Bundy was the secretary of the CFR at the same time future CIA head Allen Dulles was the president of the CFR. The CFR was heavily influenced, almost controlled by the Rockefellers. It's possible the Rockefellers used the CIA/military to kill JFK. Then Allen Dulles, Gerald Ford and John McCloy covered it up on the Warren Commission farce.

About Mimi Alford's story, it is clear that Robert Dallek's conclusion that Alford had an affair with President Kennedy is not borne out by what Barbara Gamarekian actually said in her oral interview archived in the JFK Library.  Yet it is remarkable how many journalists cited Dallek in their articles as if this story was true. It speaks to the lazy state of journalism in today's internet world and it speaks poorly of Dallek that he would write what he did. What Gamarekian said in 1964? Here are a few statements she made in that interview: "It could have been one of the special assistants who was interested in Mimi and flew her down to Nassau. I don't know if JFK wasn‘t implicated in it. I like to think that as far as the President was concerned, he indulged in this all sort of vicariously and it was fun to have pretty girls around." Even someone like Edward Jay Epstein could figure it out. A couple of excerpts from his 1997 article that appeared in the Los Angeles Times: "The conclusions Hersh drew about a sexual relationship between JFK and Marilyn Monroe had no basis except for unsubstantiated celebrity rumors. Hersh's other discoveries all involve recovering snatches of lost memories from distant or defective witnesses, a questionable technique of reporting that he pushes to the limit of credibility. About Robert Kennedy and Marilyn, Hersh must have invented these facts. Such license may serve to expand the universe of creative journalism, but it unfortunately does not produce credible history. When his pretensions fade away on scrutiny, this book turns out to be, alas, more about the deficiencies of investigative journalism than about the deficiencies of John F. Kennedy."  Source: educationforum.ipbhost.com

John Kennedy Jr. signed his will on December 19, 1997, some 15 months after his marriage to Carolyn Bessette, who died with him in the tragic plane crash on July 16, 1999. JFK Jr's will had the heading: "I name my cousin Anthony Radziwill as executor of my will; and if for any reason, he fails to qualify in that capacity, I name my cousin Timothy Shriver as my executor in his place. I give all my tangible personal property, wherever it is located, to my wife Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy." In the event his wife didn't outlive him, his will provided that his belongings would go to their children, if they had any. If not, he directed that all the property go to Caroline Kennedy's children. Christopher Andersen, author of The Day John Died (2000) refuted reports of discord between John Kennedy Jr and his wife Carolyn Bessette. "All this talk about them headed for a divorce was baloney," he says. "John Jr was an astoundingly moral and ethical person and he wanted this marriage to work." Andersen found no evidence to support rumors that Bessette abused cocaine. "I've talked to people who knew that Carolyn was taking antidepressants, but there was no indication of drug abuse. It's awful that she continues to be defamed."

Andersen says another misconception about John Kennedy Jr, founding editor of George magazine, was his intellectual prowess: "John Jr had a tremendous wit and native intelligence, and above all, he was a really nice guy." "I'm a warts-and-all writer," Anderson reckons, "and I couldn't really find any warts in John's life. He was loved by everybody." JFK Jr's godmother, Martha Bartlett, called Carolyn's ex Michael Bergin's book The Other Man "Pure fiction and hogwash. In my day, we would call this Bergin character a cad, especially since John and Carolyn are no longer around to defend themselves." Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis's cousin John H. Davis also weighed in: "I'm horrified by this book," Davis said. "It's really horrible these things are being said, and they're not true." Likewise, Painting Horses: A Memoir by Sybil Hill was discontinued (out of print) in 2016 due to its dubious veracity. Source: www.usatoday.com

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