John Chuckman

EXPANSION OF COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY SAM HUSSEINI IN CONSORTIUM NEWS

 

“Film ‘Official Secrets’ is the Tip of a Mammoth Iceberg

“A new film depicting the whistleblower Katherine Gun, who tried to stop the Iraq invasion, is largely accurate, but the story is not over”.

 

Good gripping tale.

As we can see from so very many modern instances, it matters not at all that truth is on your side, if what you are doing is attacking those with money and power.

And there’s an entire American establishment dedicated to keeping things just that way.

America’s public history of the last half century, at least so far as foreign relations and control of an empire are concerned, is almost entirely an artificial construct.

Absolutely no truth in everything from John Kennedy’s assassination, which was intimately connected with America’s schemes in Cuba, and the despicable Vietnam War to 9/11 and the despicable Neocon Wars in the Middle East which promptly followed.

From hundreds of millions of printed newspapers and television broadcasts to speeches from prominent American politicians, you have a gigantic fabric of lies not unlike that that was constantly being woven and altered by Oceania’s Inner Party in 1984.

That’s not even the slightest exaggeration, but, truly, are Americans in general the least concerned or bothered?

We have no evidence of significant concern. None.

The Democratic Party just weeded out of its debates for leadership the only candidate whom it had brave and informed enough to speak to truth in some of these matters, Tulsi Gabbard.

The ten left just represent varying degrees of hopelessness. On and on with describing dreams about this or that creative social program while the resources and close official attention dedicated to destruction in a dozen lands make all the dreams impossible.

At the same time, there is an almost complete lack of knowledge, and the courage to find out, about what America has been actually doing in Syria, in Iraq, in Libya, in Israel, and in such massively important countries as China, Russia, and Iran.

Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning are brave contemporary examples of the American establishment’s methods for shutting down truth and punishing severely those who reveal it. While they have followers and supporters, I am always amazed at how relatively small their numbers are.

And we have remarkably few individuals like Manning or Assange themselves, especially when you consider the scale and scope of America’s many dark works which involve huge numbers of workers. Mostly, we see only “willing helpers” carrying on with their sensitive, secretive, well-paid careers in government.

In the Democratic nomination contest, the “star” liberals, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, are virtually no different in these absolutely critical matters than a confirmed old puke of a war criminal like Joe Biden, someone who probably deserves recognition as father of Obama’s industrial-scale extrajudicial killing project with drones and Hellfire missiles making thousands of legally-innocent people in a dozen countries just disappear.

Biden has a long record of smarmy deeds and lack of courage and principles. He is, of course, the most likely to get the nomination.

Acts of killing by America’s CIA are no different in principle and in law than those of the old Argentine military junta’s massive efforts at dragging people they disliked off the streets, drugging them, and throwing them out of airplanes over the ocean, something they did to thousands.

Oh, and during that wonderful project in Argentina, there were no objections from the people in America who had detailed knowledge of what was happening, as at the State Department and the CIA. Only silence.

_______________________

Response to a comment expressing concern that America was going to be lost:

Sorry, but, oh please, America is lost, and has been so for a very long time.

Only tremendous, virtually revolutionary influences such as depression or war or the growth of competing states with the loss of the dollar’s privileged status, are going to change what has become reality.

America’s feeble democratic political system is capable of changing almost nothing. After all, it was constructed with just that in mind.

John Chuckman

COMMENTS POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY PASTOR CHUCK BALDWIN IN RUSSIA INSIDER

 

“These Are The Dates That Destroyed America, 1865 – 2016”

“Ever since Lincoln’s presidency, virtually every battle that free men have fought for the principles of limited government, State sovereignty, personal liberty, etc., has stemmed directly from Lincoln’s usurpation of power and subjugation and forced union of what used to be ‘Free and Independent States'”

 

https://russia-insider.com/en/politics/dates-destroyed-america/ri17307

 

This article, well-written and highly readable, is a strange grab bag of well-informed truths and unpleasant fantasies.

A truly American product, a tapestry of hard-headed thinking and bizarre mythical ideas with no relationship to reality, as in its specifically religious points such as that about the end of prayer in schools or the legalization of same-sex marriages

Some of his points about the evolution of the United States are dead-on, as his discussion of Lincoln and the Civil War.

That is exactly what the Civil War really was about, ending an America that was basically a set of associated and somewhat-cooperating mini-states. The war molded America, by force of arms, into a single giant of a country. Despite later embroidered legends about the Great Emancipator, slavery had relatively little to do with Lincoln’s motivation, although it formed an integral part of the society of the South, what I would describe in many ways as a true Jeffersonian society, and it was that society’s norms and conventions that the South fought to preserve.

The effort to fight the war created almost revolutionary industrial changes in the North, as with mass production of soldiers’ uniforms and equipment. Many new concepts were born, as with ready-made sizing and new materials used. Railroad building, important to the movement of troops and materiel, flourished in the North. The South badly lagged with its agriculture-based economy.

There were many military technology experiments, from the beginnings of machine-guns to the use of observation balloons and iron-clad ships and even a primitive submarine.

Unfortunately, this activity also had the side-effect of making America a true world power, and one that would set out on a new series of conquests, beyond those it had undertaken in its drive West and events like the Mexican War.

However, the effects of the Civil War I condemn are not the ones the author condemns. He is fixed on regret that the Jeffersonian republic died, something I believe was a very good thing because Jefferson was on the whole a pernicious, narrow, and prejudiced man, contrary to his public billing.

For an assessment of Jefferson, see:

https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2019/04/03/john-chuckman-comment-the-remarkable-case-of-thomas-jefferson-he-wasnt-at-all-what-so-many-think-he-was-how-the-needs-of-politics-can-twist-and-exploit-historical-figures-and-myth-making-as-a/

The author is also correct about the important role of the Kennedy assassination. It was indeed effectively a coup by powerful unelected forces like the CIA against an elected President, about the last strong and determined one America has had. It was followed by a national descent into vast and meaningless imperial wars on a global scale.

It marked the end of an elected president exercising serious authority over such entities as the Pentagon and CIA and FBI. Presidents since that time have not just been guided by informed advice from such agencies, they have been guided, full stop.

And he is right about the set of events stemming from 9/11, including passage of the insidious Patriot Act, the creation of the unwarranted Department of Homeland Security, the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, and the needless destruction of much of the Middle East which followed.

He doesn’t really tie these together, but I think it pretty clear they represent a series of steps to see the “birth of a new Middle East,” an unbelievably arrogant phrase if ever there was one, and an associated effort at home to “gird the loins” for the task with immense new institutionalized spying and intrusion into people’s lives and basically an effort to create a kind of Fortress America, a truly large-scale copy of many of the practices of Israel in its occupation of people who do not want to be occupied.

The domestic changes and preparations reflect anticipation of the “blowback” effects from the Middle East as its cities would be destroyed and its people maimed and made into refugees and killed in the millions.

Whoever was responsible – and it certainly wasn’t just the patsy, the radical Osama bin Laden and his merry band of men who lived in rude caves in faraway Afghanistan – the course of the United States and the world was terribly changed. The event represents a second internal American revolution, after the Kennedy assassination which had ensconced the power of unelected agencies in the governing of the country.

You do not have to believe that American agencies were directly responsible for 9/11 to recognize that they exploited the opportunity it represented to capture great new authorities and to embark on a terrible crusade abroad.

For many reasons, we know the effect of two airplanes passing through what were literally suspended outer curtain walls did not collapse those massively strong towers. Someone had to have arranged for the destruction of the central cores, immensely strong structures (Discussed in the first reference link below).

There will be a long and costly price to pay for this crusade, something just as blunderingly stupid as the original Crusades of the Middle Ages.

The price will be in lost authority of, and in respect for, the United States in the world, something well underway already. No one loves a bully or a patently dishonest actor in world affairs. The price will be in having created new forces it doesn’t even understand or know how to deal with, as the truly massive flows of refugees its bombing and overthrows have created.

And, of course, the price will be in tremendous permanent losses of individual freedom and privacy, not only in America but in all the “Western” countries America now so dominates.

But, ultimately its price will be in the United States having accelerated a natural evolution in the world that its establishment is not happy about, the evolution away from a world of “America as Leader of the Free World” and towards a multi-polar world, a world in which other states and blocs play important roles in world events.

 

 

Concerning 9/11 and the events which followed, see:

https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2016/09/11/john-chuckman-comment-a-survivor-says-even-the-simplest-questions-around-911-have-not-been-answered-by-government-yes-and-some-disturbing-truths-around-those-events-the-saudi-arabian-nonsense/

 

https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2018/10/04/john-chuckman-comment-author-says-9-11-was-an-operation-by-israel-i-dont-know-but-if-israel-was-involved-i-know-to-a-certainty-so-was-the-cia-review-of-some-dark-chapters-in-recent-american-his/

 

https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2017/11/18/john-chuckman-comment-more-crap-about-the-saudis-and-9-11-this-time-from-a-retired-fbi-agent/

 

https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2018/04/15/john-chuckman-comment-cbc-news-swims-in-the-muck-with-the-corporate-press-idiot-article-on-a-sustained-response-to-syria-the-neocon-goal-gifted-to-america-9-11-questions-as-pertinent-as-eve/

 

https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2019/05/18/john-chuckman-comment-important-new-fbi-documents-about-9-11-are-released-an-excellent-article-on-them-will-they-just-go-ignored-much-as-that-last-most-revealing-document-released-on-the-kennedy/

 

Concerning the Kennedy assassination, see:

 

https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2018/07/13/john-chuckman-comment-the-first-genuine-information-in-the-kennedy-assassination-records-release-to-give-us-some-genuine-information-about-what-happened/

 

https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2019/01/23/john-chuckman-comment-on-re-opening-the-kennedy-assassination-investigation-why-it-would-be-a-waste-of-time-the-nature-of-truth-where-empire-or-great-power-is-involved-some-truth-about-the-fbi/

 

https://chuckmanwords.wordpress.com/2017/10/31/reflections-on-how-little-is-revealed-by-just-released-jfk-assassination-documents-and-just-some-of-the-many-reasons-why-there-had-to-be-a-conspiracy/

 

https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2018/12/03/john-chuckman-comment-the-death-of-george-h-w-bush-what-his-presidency-really-told-us-about-america-in-the-late-20th-century-and-a-link-to-an-intriguing-video-concerning-the-kennedy-assassinatio/

 

https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2017/10/10/john-chuckman-comment-a-new-book-on-cia-murders-of-western-leaders-plus-another-important-book-lead-to-my-revaluation-of-the-kennedy-assassination/

 

John Chuckman

EXPANSION OF A COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE INDEPENDENT

 

“Epstein jail death: One of people watching disgraced financier not a proper prison guard, says report”

 

I think Jeffrey Epstein’s death tells us better than many events we’ve seen – and we have indeed seen many – just how utterly corrupt the American establishment is.

It’s of the nature of, but even goes beyond, such known matters as Hillary Clinton’s stealing the 2016 Democratic Party nomination or the murder of young Party worker, Seth Rich, a crime never even adequately investigated by authorities.

Likely the highest-valued prisoner in America manages to be killed inside a secure federal prison.

As one sharp comment said, the case resembles Lee Oswald’s getting shot by Jack Ruby.

Yes, it does.

Ruby – a small-time violent hoodlum-enforcer, originally from Chicago, and someone identified by witnesses both as being seen with Oswald before the assassination and as stalking him at police gatherings during the brief period between his arrest and murder – managed to kill Oswald, certainly the most important prisoner in the America of his day, right in the basement of Dallas Police Headquarters.

And look at how that killing was never adequately explained, just as the President’s assassination was never adequately explained.

As Lord Acton long ago so accurately observed, absolute corruption follows from absolute power, and I think we can agree that in a number of spheres America’s power establishment today wields close to absolute power.

Look at its bloody, bloody record abroad. In a dozen lands. Why would anyone think it should somehow be different at home, especially where the establishment’s very authority is threatened?

I don’t believe for a moment Epstein committed suicide. As one comment accurately stated, even the bed sheets in that prison are made of special paper. Hanging yourself is impossible.

Anyway, the man’s entire personality speaks against the idea of suicide. Although the mainline press keeps telling us about how people accused of such matters as pedophilia do commit suicide, I seriously doubt that Epstein thought of himself as a pedophile for even a moment.

This is not some twisted little man with a dirty secret he can share with no one.

He was not alone in his activity, ever. He always had people around him, and notably Ghislaine Maxwell, supporting him, actively assisting him, providing kind of a demi-monde family which could only validate what he did. No one he knew would ever use that term “pedophilia.”

And then there were all those famous people who shared his passion. Do you think the likes of Bill Clinton or Britain’s Prince Andrew or Alan Dershowitz or, as heavily rumored, Tony Blair, or, as I much regret to learn, George Mitchell, ever used the term “pedophile” about themselves or those they socialized with?

No, of course not, so Epstein, quite apart from his own extremely positive ego, was literally inoculated against the kind of psychology some in the mainline press unthinkingly try to pass off on us.

And all this is all even truer if he was in fact, as has been forcefully and knowledgeably suggested, working for a state security service in a honey-trap, sexual-compromise operation to secure future influence over notable people, something giving his work the highest imprimatur of official support and approval, even a sense of distinguished service.

We have an interesting new article from the New York Times by James B Stewart concerning his own ninety-minute meeting, of about a year ago, with Epstein.

He had asked Epstein for an interview because he heard Epstein was working with Tesla on financial matters. Well, Epstein stayed clear of that topic. And, as it turned out, much of what Epstein talked about proved rather vague and unspecific. To my mind, that tended to support questions about Epstein being a genuine financier type.

But he was sure ready to brag about how many celebrities he knew and how much he knew about their sex lives and drug habits.

A couple of new names came up, Saudi Arabia’s bloody Crown Prince, who apparently made many visits to Epstein just as Bill Clinton did, and Woody Allen.

Epstein proudly spoke about having sex with young girls, saying it had been a common practice in history. He saw it as being no more wrong than homosexuality, something which was also illegal in many parts of the world. Again, then, the notion of a pedophile’s suicide-prone psychology, being peddled by some of the mainstream press, is just false.

Epstein gave Stewart the impression of an energetic, rather charismatic person. Epstein enjoyed his notoriety, saying that while it made him taboo in some circles, it encouraged the people he socialized with to confide in him, feeling their own sins and secrets were rather small compared to what Epstein was noted for.

I’ve taken an interest in the story and made a number of observations, and likely will continue doing so. Readers may enjoy:

 

https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2019/08/10/john-chuckman-comment-jeffrey-epstein-kills-himself-just-as-the-fun-of-revelations-was-about-to-begin/

 

https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2019/08/11/john-chuckman-comment-more-intriguing-bits-on-jeffrey-epsteins-suicide-in-custody-an-excellent-piece-by-philip-m-giraldi/

EPSTEIN CASE REFERENCES:

https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2019/08/14/john-chuckman-comment-the-gift-that-just-keeps-giving-jeffrey-epstein-fascinating-new-facts-about-his-imprisonment-and-before-more-big-names-associated-with-him-and-a-big-and-highly-suggestiv/

https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2019/08/13/john-chuckman-comment-some-new-observations-on-the-death-of-jeffrey-epstein-why-i-believe-it-impossible-for-him-to-have-killed-himself-what-this-death-vividly-demonstrates-about-america/

https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2019/08/15/john-chuckman-comment-a-word-on-conspiracy-theories-reported-details-of-jeffrey-epsteins-death-just-raise-doubts/

https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2019/08/10/john-chuckman-comment-jeffrey-epstein-kills-himself-just-as-the-fun-of-revelations-was-about-to-begin/

https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2019/08/11/john-chuckman-comment-more-intriguing-bits-on-jeffrey-epsteins-suicide-in-custody-an-excellent-piece-by-philip-m-giraldi/

 

John Chuckman

COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY BEN NORTON IN CHECKPOINT ASIA

 

‘New York Times Admits It Sends Stories to US Government for Approval Before Publication

‘Casually acknowledges that it first sends major scoops to “national security officials” to make sure they have “no concerns”’

 

Well, that is very interesting, even though anyone who ever read the New York Times for a period understood that it consistently supported the American government in just about everything, including national tragedies like the Kennedy assassination, and especially wars, every single one of them.

I recall a bizarre business back at the time of the invasion of Iraq, an entirely criminal act from beginning to end, when the Times made an effort to bring back the WWII sentimental expression for citizen soldiers,” GIs” in its reports.

It was pure, obvious propaganda, but it was almost laughable, too, because it fit the situation so poorly.

Here were professional mercenary troops involved in an illegal invasion, one that ultimately killed about a million people and saw many atrocities and disgraceful behaviors such as the looting of the precious antiquities’ museum, being referred to as “GIs,” like something from a tearful old Jimmy Stewart movie.

That anecdote is very revealing of the Times’ traditional imperial bias. There never has been a war or conflict it didn’t essentially support. And all of those wars, every one of them since WWII, have been imperial enterprises having absolutely nothing to do with defending the United States.

Also, it was not a terribly long time ago that the Times admitted something many had suspected for years. Every story involving Israel is submitted to the official Israeli censor before being published.

Some journalism. Some brave free speech. Some liberal spirit.

Someone once described the New York Times as the official house organ for America’s establishment. No description has ever suited it better.

John Chuckman

COMMENT ON A REMARKABLE PHOTO OF GEORGE H W BUSH

 

Well, I have just come across the most remarkable photograph.

Here is a relatively young George H W Bush, standing nonchalantly, hands in his suit pockets, looking off to one side.

What’s remarkable about such a dull little photograph?

It was taken in Dallas in front of the Texas School Book Depository on November 22, 1963. George is on the left edge of the picture.

 

John Chuckman

COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY JAMES GOLDGEIER IN THE INDEPENDENT

 

“George HW Bush’s death marks the end of an era in American politics

“It’s fitting that George HW Bush, Second World War military hero and Cold War veteran, was the last American president to oversee a major military victory fought on behalf of the entire world against a dictator”

 

Here is an interesting different take on the late George HW Bush (link below).

It is intriguing, whether you accept it or not.

As someone with a long-time amateur interest in the Kennedy assassination, I can assure readers that this does have basic facts correct. It is not to be dismissed out-of-hand.

I’ve just never seen them assembled in this fashion.

Whether this elaborate speculation is accurate or not, Bush was, unquestionably, CIA, the first “made man” in the White House.

There are many things supporting that idea. Several of his major acts as President – attacking Iraq with a classic diplomatic false signal and going after Noriega, a man whom CIA loathed for several reasons – came right from the top of CIA’s to-do list. There was also his involvement in the Iran-Contra Affair when he served as Reagan’s Vice-President.

And they don’t name the headquarters at Langley after you, as they did for Bush, just because you spent a brief two years as an appointed director. We do have a couple of actual documents (they are discussed in the video below) which came to light after the Kennedy assassination referencing a George Bush of the CIA.

He was a lifetime CIA man, for sure, and that fact alone tells us something very important about America since the postwar period.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-NlJQJUUqR4

You may also enjoy:

https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2018/12/11/john-chuckman-comment-a-remarkable-dull-little-photograph-of-george-h-w-bush/

 

 

 

John Chuckman

COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN RUSSIA INSIDER

“JFK Took a Bullet When He Tried to Make Peace With Russia, Trump Bent the Knee Instead”
_______________________

Response to another comment which said, “I still believe that the assassination was Israel’s response to Kennedy’s pressure exerted on Ben-Gurion, to shed light on Dimona’s nuclear reactor in Israel”:

This is a possibility. Israel sure had motive. And Israel acts with no conscience or ethics regularly.

Jack Ruby who featured as a central figure in the plot was more than a small-time Mafia figure. He identified very strongly with his Jewish heritage.

Of course, the CIA, on Cuba, was already in bed with the Mafia, too. And a big Mafia figure, Meyer Lansky, was an intense Israel loyalist.

So, a mix of actors is quite possible.

There is even a theory that CIA had set up a phony assassination attempt to scare Kennedy into doing something about Cuba.

This phony set-up included the Oswald imposter going to Mexico City to associate Oswald’s name with Cuba and Russia.

This theory says that other covert actors became aware of this effort and used the opportunity in Dallas to really kill Kennedy from the grassy knoll.

No matter what the details, CIA had to be involved in some fashion if only for the reason they have done nothing but lie and hide stuff ever since.

LBJ and J Edgar Hoover both hated the Kennedys and were glad for the chance to go along with anyone getting rid of him.

LBJ removed the investigation from Dallas and put it into the hands of the phony Warren Commission.

Hoover did all the investigation for the phony Commission. They did none of their own. And Hoover was fixated for no known reason on Oswald almost from the very start.

Of course, CIA itself had lots of reasons to kill Kennedy.

He fired the three top men after the Bay of Pigs, including the legendary Allen Dulles.

He threatened more action against CIA.

He ignored their advice during the Missile Crisis, and formed an extensive backchannel communication with Premier Khrushchev.

He promised never to invade Cuba again.

And he had as his closest girlfriend, Mary Pinchot, a well-off and well-connected woman who talked extensively of peace in private with Kennedy and is known to have introduced him to some drugs.

Mary was herself murdered, in professional assassin-style, less than a year after Kennedy at a time when her own investigation into his death may have been having some success. She was extremely well-connected, knowing everyone who was anyone in Washington, and her ex-husband was a very high CIA official.

John Chuckman

COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE INDEPENDENT

JFK files: Lee Harvey had ‘no links’ with CIA newly released documents reveal
Spy agency files say a thorough search had been conducted of records inside and outside the US

I’m not aware of any highly-rated researcher who ever regarded Oswald as having been CIA. It’s kind of red herring logical fallacy to say that he was not.

But, while never working directly for CIA, Oswald was unquestionably part of a flaky fake-defector program in the 1950s, a program associated with CIA.

He was recruited while in the Marines and taught Russian in one of the military or security service high-intensity language schools.

We know he spoke Russian before his phony defection.

James Angleton, a very senior CIA official as its Chief of Counterintelligence, created and ran that program.

The revealing fact is in the way in which Oswald came back to the US with no charges, with secret help, and a Russian-speaking wife. McCarthyite fury was at its height in those days, but it somehow didn’t touch Oswald.

Later, however, there is no question he worked as a paid FBI informant. His informant FBI number and an uncashed FBI voucher for $200 were discovered. But that obviously crucial matter was dropped when old J. Edgar Hoover assured the Warren Commission that Oswald had not been an informant.

There is a great deal of evidence of CIA obstruction and disinformation through the whole case. And now they are still at it. Why would that be?

If you want to read further, see:

https://chuckmanwords.wordpress.com/2017/10/31/reflections-on-how-little-is-revealed-by-just-released-jfk-assassination-documents-and-just-some-of-the-many-reasons-why-there-had-to-be-a-conspiracy/
__________________________

Response to another comment about the CIA’s Mexico City telephone intercept tapes having been “routinely erased”:

CIA also released a supposed surveillance photo to the investigation.

It was of a complete stranger, looking nothing like Oswald, and that fact was never explained.

The embassy was under 24-hour-a-day photo coverage and telephone intercepts by CIA. If Oswald or anyone went there, CIA would have proof.

Few things scream CIA hiding stuff more loudly than Mexico City events.

We have no actual proof Oswald even being in Mexico City.

Yes, for sure, someone who resembled him and claimed to be him was there.

But we also know someone who resembled him also pulled a number of showy stunts in Dallas before the assassination, including taking a car for a test spin with a salesman and talking bizarrely to leave a lasting impression. But the fact is that Oswald couldn’t drive.

Assassins don’t call attention to themselves this way either. It’s laughable.

What the Mexico City events represented was an effort to associate Oswald with Castro and Russia before the assassination. A kind of sheep-dipping.

The real assassins wanted to “kill two birds with one stone,” to eliminate the despised Kennedy and to have Cuba in some way be blamed so that it could again be invaded, and despite Kennedy’s Cuban Missile Crisis promise to Khrushchev not to invade.

And whom do we know who desperately wanted to invade Cuba?

You guessed right if you guessed the CIA.

Motive writ large.

Kennedy was killed for a series of reasons, all of them relating directly to CIA concerns, especially concerns about Cuba.

First, the failure of the Bay of Pigs Invasion by CIA-trained and supplied Cuban refugees when Kennedy was first in office. CIA blamed Kennedy for refusing the air support for the invasion. They had asked him for it when they explained what they had planned during the last administration, but he refused, not wanting Americans directly involved.

Second, Kennedy’s embarrassment over the failed invasion was acute and it caused him to fire three top officials, including Director Dulles. This did not go down well with the CIA loyalists. Dulles had the status of a demigod or Mafia godfather in those days. Kennedy’s people believed the invasion failed because it was so badly planned, not taking account of the intense loyalties to Castro in Cuba. The evidence does point in that direction, but big shots do not like being told such things. Resentments were positively feudal.

Third, when Kennedy made an agreement with Premier Khrushchev to end the Cuban Missile Crisis, he gave Khrushchev his pledge not to invade Cuba again. This infuriated CIA loyalists. During the crisis, Kennedy also established backchannel communications with Khrushchev, again something that would not be well received by CIA. And, still, in the early stages, Kennedy refused advice that the crisis be used as an excuse for an immediate invasion. And a good thing, too, since CIA was ignorant of the fact that Soviet troops working on the missiles in Cuba had some operational short-range tactical Luna nuclear missiles to protect themselves against invasion.

Fourth, and perhaps just the straw that broke the camel’s back, was Kennedy’s affair with Mary Pinchot, a beautiful and connected Washington establishment figure who was a free-spirit type and whose former husband was a very senior CIA official, Cord Meyer. As his wife, she had made her hostility to CIA operations well known in the circles who went to cocktail parties together.

Mary introduced Kennedy to marijuana (he welcomed anything which might help his bad back quite apart from any aspects of pleasure) and possibly LSD. Kennedy talked a lot with Mary about peace and doing something for peace. She became, unlike most of his casual lovers, a deeply regarded friend he loved talking to. Mary had a harebrained scheme of her own about trying to get a group of high-ranking wives in Washington to get their husbands turned on to LSD and peace. We can only imagine the faces of CIA mandarins learning these things from recorded pillow talk, on top of all the other reasons they felt Kennedy was unfit for office.

John Chuckman

EXPANSION OF COMMENTS POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY YOUSSEF EL-GINGIHY IN THE INDEPENDENT

JFK files: As Donald Trump looks to release classified documents, last living link to assassination drops bombshell
Antonio Veciana, 88, has authored a memoir that promises to shed light on one of the greatest mysteries of our time

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/long_reads/john-f-kennedy-assassination-cuba-cia-lee-harvey-oswald-antonio-veciana-a7957481.html

This is one of the best summary articles to appear in any newspaper on the subject of the assassination.

I have a life-long interest in the assassination, have read most of the important literature on it, have written published essays on the subject, and have always been a skeptic on the Warren Report.

Indeed, “skeptic” is too tame a word. I have always treated the Warren Report as a shameful compilation of lies since its publication.

One of the greatest minds of the 20th century, Bertrand Russell, after reading an advanced copy of the report back in the 1960s, said:

“If, as we are told, Oswald was the lone assassin, where is the issue of national security?”

That profound question has never been answered.

Readers may enjoy;

https://chuckmanwords.wordpress.com/2011/10/18/1544/

___________________________

Response to another reader who said: “The key to what happened centres on Kennedy’s sacking of John Foster Dulles in November 1962”

Yes, that and one or two other important events, but I think you mean his brother, Allen Dulles, Director of CIA.

The outcome of the Cuban Missile crisis, including Kennedy’s backchannel communication with Khrushchev, was another.

Kennedy opposed both Pentagon and CIA advice during the Crisis, and thank God that he did. They would have launched WWIII by landing troops to destroy the Soviet installations.

The CIA and Pentagon were ignorant of the fact that the Soviets had many thousands of troops in Cuba working on and guarding their medium-range missile installations.

The Soviet troops were equipped with a number of short-range Luna nuclear-armed missiles ready to be fired at any landing force.

I think perhaps the final spur for the assassins, if any were needed, was Kennedy’s romantic affair with Mary Pinchot (Meyer), a well-connected society type who had a project for world peace. She introduced Kennedy to marijuana in the White House and may well have introduced him to LSD.

She had a bit of a hare-brained scheme for getting eight high Washington society women to turn on their husbands to LSD and somehow manipulate them for world peace. The list of names does not come down to us, but they were all wives of major figures in Washington.

One can just imagine the mandarins at Langley listening to recordings of the Kennedy-Pinchot pillow-talk in 1963. And with Kennedy’s proved independent-mind set, I think they decided he was a danger to their idea of the United States.

Mary was assassinated less than a year after Kennedy, and her diary was stolen. She had got up a head of steam concerning what may have really happened to Kennedy while working on her own investigation, and being so well-connected, her investigation might well have been fruitful. After all, her ex-husband, Cord Meyer, was a high-ranking CIA operator.

She was completely aware of the things the CIA did and knew well many people like James Angleton and the Washington Post’s Ben Bradlee, almost certainly a covert CIA man.

By the way, many well-informed people believe Angleton himself ran the program of fake American defectors to the Soviet Union in the late-1950s, the one for which Oswald was recruited as a young Marine. Here was a young Marine in the late-1950s suddenly receiving communist literature in the mail at his base and who somehow mysteriously learned to speak Russian.

He was obviously being “sheep-dipped” for his “defection” to the Soviet Union. He then went to live in the Soviet Union for a couple of years, coming back to the United States with a Soviet bride, both of them admitted with relatively little trouble considering the harsh political climate then. They ended-up living among, and being assisted by, a community of Russian-speakers in Dallas, a truly remarkable connection.

The defection program was just the kind of goofy, elaborate scheme that that dangerous man, Angleton, was fond of. Years later, he was dismissed from the CIA, having caused a great many serious internal problems.

But he was still regarded as a demi-god in intelligence circles in the early 1960s, and his name comes up several times in key events around the assassination, especially for some years afterward. He was involved in retrieving secret files from Mexico City after the assassination, he was involved in events around Mary Pinchot’s murder, and he became embroiled in the infamous Nosenko affair at CIA during the 1970s, an affair with some connections to the assassination.

Having been part of the (secret) defector program and having returned to the US made Oswald a perfect candidate for patsy, being vulnerable to being described as a far-out communist, something he most certainly was not. We know Oswald was working as a paid FBI informant at the time (his informant number actually was discovered long ago), and he must have stumbled across the plotters in New Orleans who, in turn, saw his potential as a patsy.

The Kennedys were leaning hard in those last days on all the CIA-established Cuban refugee terror camps in an effort to improve American-Russian and American-Cuban relations. The CIA operations had been huge and made anything Osama bin-Laden later had in the mountains of Afghanistan look like scout camps. And, of course, the Kennedys well knew that the CIA often ignored or misinterpreted presidential directives with which its management disagreed, as they still do today. So, the FBI, undoubtedly against J Edgar Hoover’s personal wishes, was ordered to become involved in discovering and breaking-up facilities. Oswald was just one of their informants. He obviously hit the jackpot and paid with his life.

JOHN CHUCKMAN

POSTED RESPONSES TO A COLUMN BY ANDREW COHEN IN TORONTO’S GLOBE AND MAIL

The Kennedys were simply America’s Borgias.

The Borgias had grace and beauty and wealth, but they also were ruthless and murderous and had ambition beyond bounds.

The full story of the Kennedys’ greed and manipulation has not been – and likely never will be – told. Despite many revelations coming to light, the family has succeeded time and again in suppressing much evidence.

This film may or may not be what the author of this article claims, but it does seem strange to me a man who wants to be taken seriously would spend time criticizing a television show.

We know, absolutely, that such a show will be vapid, whether it dwells on the sleaze or not.

Here are some reflections on Kennedy, the president, people may enjoy:

https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2010/11/19/the-dark-aspects-of-kennedys-road-to-the-white-house-were-far-darker-than-described-by-british-journalist-andrew-marr/
_______________________________

Joe Kennedy wasn’t just a crook as a reader has commented.

He was a ruthless and highly immoral man whose behavior included acts like bringing home young women he picked up or paid for sex right in front of his family gathered in the living room.

He was also brutally anti-British in his views, and correspondingly somewhat of a Hitler admirer.

He was so stupidly outspoken in these unpleasant views that the British government asked the United States to withdraw him as ambassador to Britain, not a common occurrence in diplomacy, a request with which Roosevelt complied.

Joe made his fortune in illegal alcohol, working with some very unpleasant and murderous gangsters, a connection which was exploited later in getting funds and support for his son’s drive to be president.

Jack himself, while a far classier guy on the surface with his tailored suits and quotes and manners, shared a number of his father’s characteristics, albeit in varied forms.

John’s womanizing we all know about, although not everyone is aware that at least one of the women – Judith Exner, a woman who paid him calls right in the White House – was tied to high levels of the Mob.

And not everyone knows that one of his early relationships, while in the military, was with a woman German spy. J Edgar Hoover was on to it, and had it not been for the Kennedy wealth and influence, his career would have died right there.

The abuse of privilege, in avoiding responsibility for your actions, was just as big a part of the Kennedys as it was that dishonest mediocrity and ignorant frat boy, George W Bush.

Much was made of John’s PT-109 exploits at the time of his running, and he did help save a man’s life, but the entire incident – the loss of his craft and the misery of his crew – was owing to his incompetence and lack of appropriate caution as a commander.

The same behavior from anyone else, without the connections, might well have resulted in a court martial.

Kennedy’s good taste included taking on people like Theodore Sorensen as writer/advisor – his family wealth allowed them to hire what essentially became a platoon of smart flaks, people who helped very much in smoothing over the bumps in the road of family history and who gave an aura of intelligence and worth.

But it is certain that more dishonesty came into play here too. Sorensen almost certainly wrote Kennedy’s Pulitzer prize-winning book, although he was such a loyal follower he denied it always. Sorensen also, to a certainty, was author of speech phrases like “Ask not what….” If you read Sorensen’s book about Kennedy, the cadence and style of the writing are so recognizable.

John also played a very two-faced game in the White House with regard to Cuba. After the Missile Crisis blew up in his face – and the CIA, as well as attempting to assassinate Castro many times, had been very much in the business of planning another invasion of Cuba as Khrushchev feared when he considered sending missiles to Cuba – the agreement that ended the crisis was Kennedy’s agreeing to not invade Cuba as well as withdrawing certain missiles from Turkey.

Word of the agreement made the anti-Castro thugs the CIA had sponsored for years – Osama’s boys in the mountains made a peanut-sized operation compared to the multi-million dollar terror operation the CIA ran in the early 1960s (just one of countless examples of U.S. hypocrisy around the use of terror) – bitterly, fiercely angry, making them one of the prime suspects in Kennedy’s assassination.

Kennedy had his brother, as Attorney General and stand-in voice of the President, make a big show of raiding camps in the South where these thugs carried on with their CIA-provided weapons and training. Robert also secretly was in charge of more attempts to murder Castro.

The Kennedy brothers were always getting involved in heated battles. For reasons that still are not clear, Robert conducted a vendetta against a number of big mobsters, despite the fact that the Mob had financed his brother’s presidential campaign and kept such connections as Judith Exner. That behavior made the Mob another chief suspect for Kennedy’s assassination.

Both of the Kennedys actually, for whatever well-organized group killed Jack knew they also had to kill Robert if he was going to become President. Robert’s ruthless use of power meant that the full powers of the office of the president would go after his brother’s assassins, as the pathetic Warren Commission never made any attempt to do.

Sleaze in fancy suits, ruthless people with a veneer of class – that’s the Kennedys.

 

 

 

JOHN CHUCKMAN

POSTED RESPONSES TO A COLUMN IN TORONTO’S GLOBE AND MAIL

The Globe’s piece on the interview with Judyth Baker is so condensed, I’m sure it has lost much meaning.

I cannot at all assess her words treated poorly, as they are, by the Globe, although when she mentions things like the Reily Coffee Company, I know exactly to what she is referring.

The cancer labs ring bells too since a significant figure in the conspiracy was a highly eccentric pilot and gifted amateur researcher in New Orleans named David Ferrie, a man who was later murdered in an extremely violent fashion.

Her connection of the lab work like that with the CIA is likely something she surmised but did not actually know. If the CIA sets up such operations, the people who work there never know for whom they are actually working, much like the employees of the fake Apple Stores in China who believed they worked for Apple.

Her talk about Oswald in intelligence also rings true. Oswald, when he went to Russia from the Marines, was undoubtedly a low-level spy set up to find out about the realities of Soviet life by one or another of America’s numerous intelligence agencies. We know for a fact that there were a few other servicemen who did much the same thing in the 1950s.

Her talk about Oswald’s loyalties rings true. He was, in fact, a fairly patriotic young man who joined the Marines when underage, and because of his above-average intelligence, he was trained for secret radar operations with the new U-2 ultra-high flying spy planes in Asia.

The young Marine suddenly had a series of still unexplained incidents in his life abroad, started taking an interest in Russian matters, and someone trained him in a condensed course in the Russian language, a difficult language to learn. The course almost had to be the kind developed by and commonly used by the American military and intelligence.

Then he showily defected to Russia, with a lot of silly, deliberately public statements about his approval of the Soviet Union – something which totally goes against every factual thing we know about Oswald.

When he eventually returned, he was peacefully integrated back into American life…with, of all things, a Russian bride – this, at a time when there was such intense red-baiting that you could get in trouble in the United States for subscribing to the wrong magazine. It really was that dark and hostile, and what happened with Oswald’s return just could not ever have happened without hidden explanations.

(Oswald’s reintroduction to American life included his mysterious introduction to a group of Russian-speakers living in the Dallas area, an event whose probability of chance happening must be virtually zero.)

We also know Oswald worked at least part time in the period of his work at the Reily Coffee Company as an FBI informant. The Warren Commission itself was knocked off its pins when it learned something of this, but managed to sweep it under the carpet.

Next door to Reily’s was the Crescent City Garage, which just happened to provide parking for various government agencies. Two blocks away was the Newman Building, where ex-senior FBI Agent Guy Bannister had an office and where Oswald was not only seen but some of the pro-Castro leaflets Oswald sometimes showily distributed were actually stamped with its address.

There is sound testimony that a known FBI agent was seen once handing Oswald an envelope around the Reily location. Money? And of course, Oswald’s last note to the FBI in the Dallas office was literally destroyed by the Agent in Charge immediately after the assassination. We have nothing but lies about what it said from the very people who should have gone to prison for destroying evidence and obstructing justice.

As someone who, years ago, spent a good deal of time studying the assassination, I remain convinced Oswald was sucked into something he did not fully understand, but he didn’t shoot the president, and indeed, both temperamentally and by poor shooting skill, he simply couldn’t have.

The only genuine candidates for carrying out the elaborate scheme – and it was elaborate – were a few well-equipped candidate groups who had genuine motives and plenty of resources. For any one of whom to be identified in 1963, would have meant a major loss of confidence in America’s security organizations and perhaps a major blow to American policies. Also, there is the distinct possibility that the authorities never learned who was responsible – a fact itself which have been highly damaging to the sense of national security and well worth covering up.

While I have many questions about the statements thrown together in the Globe piece, I know Ms Baker is an intelligent woman who did indeed work in research. That is no guarantee of truth or of detailed knowledge but it is reason to read what she says. I look forward to reading her book

Readers may enjoy:

http://chuckmanwords.wordpress.com/2011/10/18/1544/

http://chuckmanwords.wordpress.com/2009/06/06/lincoln-was-wrong-the-ease-of-fooling-most-of-the-people-most-of-the-time/

___________________________

“Oh, God… Spare us the JFK conspiracy nonsense.

“I’ve been to Dealey Plaza and the ‘grassy knoll’ several times. The physical space is much smaller than it appears on the Zapruder film.

“Any decent Marine markman could’ve laid down several accurate shots from the Texas School Book Depository window.

“End of story. Unless you’re Michael Moore.”

Just the kind of comment one gets from someone who has read or studied virtually nothing serious on the subject but yet feels qualified to speak.

The Zapruder film – long suppressed early on – shows Kennedy’s body responding, according to the laws of physics, to a shot from the front, full stop.

Interestingly, several notable press descriptions of the unseen film at the time – most notably Dan Rather’s on CBS – proved absolutely inaccurate later.

Interesting also is the fact that in the Warren Commission’s hastily assembled jumble of evidence, some key frames from the film were printed out of order, blurring the evidence of response to a projectile from the front.

The Luce family who originally purchased the film – of Life Magazine and Time fame – were well known for cooperation with the CIA. Luce publications are known to have been used as covers for phony foreign correspondents.

The autopsy photos, poor as they are, show massive damage to the rear of the head, half the scalp hangs down – always evidence of an exit wound with bullets as they mushroom through flesh.

The doctor in charge of the autopsy wrote one report and then destroyed it – actually a criminal act.  The one we have is his re-write, the re-write of a military man under great pressure.

All those attending the president at the hospital in Dallas attest to massive damage at the rear of the head.

Bullet entrance wounds – unless dum-dum bullets are used – always resemble what you’d see from the stab of an ice-pick. Often they are almost undetectable, as witnesses to the killing of a young man at a Toronto school realized.

The Warren Commission said hard-jacketed bullets were used, so the case for the back of the head being an entrance wound is zero.

Oswald was not a decent “Marine marksman.” He was a terrible shot, getting his badge finally as a mercy with a low score.

Those who knew him in Russia confirm his utter lack of facility with a rifle.

Finally, no expert marksman has repeated the feat attributed to Oswald. Indeed, a few years ago, tests in Italy – it was an Italian rifle supposedly used – confirmed its impossibility.

The overwhelming majority of witnesses in the Plaza turned towards and pointed towards and ran towards the grassy knoll immediately after the shots.

Last, the second investigation of the assassination – the Congressional one – accepted that there was a shooter from the front on the basis of expert analysis of inadvertent recordings of a policeman’s motorcycle radio left open.

 

 

 

 

 

JOHN CHUCKMAN

POSTED RESPONSES TO A COLUMN BY ANDREW COHEN IN TORONTO’S GLOBE AND MAIL

The Kennedys were simply America’s Borgias.

The Borgias had grace and beauty and wealth, but they also were ruthless and murderous and had ambition beyond bounds.

The full story of the Kennedy’s greed and manipulation has not been – and likely never will be – told. Despite many revelations coming to light, the family has succeeded time and again in suppressing much evidence.

This film may or may not be what the author of this article claims, but it does seem strange to me a man who wants to be taken seriously would spend time criticizing a television show.

We know, absolutely, that such a show will be vapid, whether it dwells on the sleaze or not.

Here are some reflections on Kennedy, the president, people may enjoy:

https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2010/11/19/the-dark-aspects-of-kennedys-road-to-the-white-house-were-far-darker-than-described-by-british-journalist-andrew-marr/
_______________________________

Joe Kennedy wasn’t just a crook as a reader has commented.

He was a ruthless and highly immoral man whose behavior included acts like bringing home young women he picked up or paid for sex right in front of his family gathered in the living room.

He was also brutally anti-British in his views, and correspondingly somewhat of a Hitler admirer.

He was so stupidly outspoken in these unpleasant views that the British government asked the United States to withdraw him as ambassador to Britain, not a common occurrence in diplomacy, a request with which Roosevelt complied.

Joe made his fortune in illegal alcohol, working with some very unpleasant and murderous gangsters, a connection which was exploited later in getting funds and support for his son’s drive to be president.

Jack himself, while a far classier guy on the surface with his tailored suits and quotes and manners, shared a number of his father’s characteristics, albeit in varied forms.

John’s womanizing we all know about, although not everyone is aware that at least one of the women – Judith Exner, a woman who paid him calls right in the White House – was tied to high levels of the Mob.

And not everyone knows that one of his early relationships, while in the military, was with a woman German spy. J Edgar Hoover was on to it, and had it not been for the Kennedy wealth and influence, his career would have died right there.

The abuse of privilege, in avoiding responsibility for your actions, was just as big a part of the Kennedys as it was that dishonest mediocrity and ignorant frat boy, George W Bush.

Much was made of John’s PT-109 exploits at the time of his running, and he did help save a man’s life, but the entire incident – the loss of his craft and the misery of his crew – was owing to his incompetence and lack of appropriate caution as a commander.

The same behavior from anyone else, without the connections, might well have resulted in a court martial.

Kennedy’s good taste included taking on people like Theodore Sorensen as writer/advisor – his family wealth allowed them to hire what essentially became a platoon of smart flaks, people who helped very much in smoothing over the bumps in the road of family history and who gave an aura of intelligence and worth.

But it is certain that more dishonesty came into play here too. Sorensen almost certainly wrote Kennedy’s Pulitzer prize-winning book, although he was such a loyal follower he denied it always. Sorensen also, to a certainty, was author of speech phrases like “Ask not what….” If you read Sorensen’s book about Kennedy, the cadence and style of the writing are so recognizable.

John also played a very two-faced game in the White House with regard to Cuba. After the Missile Crisis blew up in his face – and the CIA, as well as attempting to assassinate Castro many times, had been very much in the business of planning another invasion of Cuba as Khrushchev feared when he considered sending missiles to Cuba – the agreement that ended the crisis was Kennedy’s agreeing to not invade Cuba as well as withdrawing certain missiles from Turkey.

Word of the agreement made the anti-Castro thugs the CIA had sponsored for years – Osama’s boys in the mountains made a peanut-sized operation compared to the multi-million dollar terror operation the CIA ran in the early 1960s (just one of countless examples of U.S. hypocrisy around the use of terror) – bitterly, fiercely angry, making them one of the prime suspects in Kennedy’s assassination.

Kennedy had his brother, as Attorney General and stand-in voice of the President, make a big show of raiding camps in the South where these thugs carried on with their CIA-provided weapons and training. Robert also secretly was in charge of more attempts to murder Castro.

The Kennedy brothers were always getting involved in heated battles. For reasons that still are not clear, Robert conducted a vendetta against a number of big mobsters, despite the fact that the Mob had financed his brother’s presidential campaign and kept such connections as Judith Exner. That behavior made the Mob another chief suspect for Kennedy’s assassination.

Both of the Kennedys actually, for whatever well-organized group killed Jack knew they also had to kill Robert if he was going to become President. Robert’s ruthless use of power meant that the full powers of the office of the president would go after his brother’s assassins, as the pathetic Warren Commission never made any attempt to do.

Sleaze in fancy suits, ruthless people with a veneer of class – that’s the Kennedys.

 

 

 

 

 

 

JOHN CHUCKMAN

POSTED RESPONSES TO A COLUMN BY ANDREW MARR IN THE TELEGRAPH

It seems to me that Andrew Marr misses many of the juicy bits about Kennedy.

This is pretty tepid stuff, and none of it is news to people who lived in America at that time.

The treatment of Hubert Humphrey, one of the more honorable men to run for president in the 20th century, was very shabby.

But the Kennedys were ruthless people, all of them. They were the kind of people who would send a quick elbow into the face of an opponent in a race of any kind.

Britain knew what a truly nasty, prejudiced, and ruthless man the father was from the time he served as American ambassador. He left an outstandingly unfavorable impression.

The old man wasn’t just said to be a rum-runner during prohibition, that’s in fact how he made his fortune, and he maintained mob connections afterward.

The connections of the old man with the mob gave Jack a huge secret campaign contribution. There was a suitcase delivered with a $1 million cash gift, a very great deal of money in 1960.

Indeed, it has been reported many times that mob donors were extremely disappointed in Kennedy as President, accusing him of ingratitude.

The connections continued with Jack himself who was a friend of “the rat pack” in Vegas. One of Jack’s girlfriends, Judith Exner, was a former (?) girlfriend of Chicago mafia boss, Sam Giancana.

Perhaps the dirtiest Kennedy business was election fraud. Jack was elected by a very close vote, and it was fraud in Chicago that gave him Illinois plus fraud in Texas, courtesy of good old Lyndon, that tipped the total in his favor.

The election practices in Chicago were legendary when I was a young man. Vote counters who kept pencil lead under a fingernail to spoil paper ballots, local politicos who accompanied voters into the supposedly secret voting machines of the time, and the wholesale registration of names from local cemeteries as valid Democratic voters.

Lyndon Johnson’s career in politics in Texas is documented as having begun with local machine vote fraud with his first election to Congress. He made sure Kennedy got the same favorable treatment. His exclusion from any important roles in the administration was made all the more painful for knowing how he helped Kennedy get elected.

Mr Marr thinks Nixon might have made a good president if elected at a younger age, but there is little basis for that belief.

Nixon had a long and hateful record as a red-baiter. His first run for the Senate in California, while not involving vote fraud, very much involved the lowest of low tactics. He called the honorable woman, Helena Gahagan Douglas, who was his opponent, “pink right down to her underwear” among other charming epithets. Nixon’s work on the Alger Hiss case (a convicted spy) almost certainly involved fraudulent evidence from J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI. Hoover was always a friend and admirer of Nixon’s, Hoover being one of the most unsavory characters ever to hold power in America.

Kennedy’s entire presidency was riddled with ambiguities and dark doings, despite his heroic appearance.
_________________________________

On the Cuban Missile Crisis, often cited as Kennedy’s best moment, there is a complex background which makes his role far less admirable and indeed helps make Kennedy responsible for its ever happening.

Kennedy was a martinet about military matters, and he dedicated his administration to getting rid of Castro. It was under Kennedy that many plans and attempts to murder Castro were made, reportedly his brother being the main report-to for the dirty work.

Yes, Kennedy was angry with the CIA for its failure at the Bay of Pigs invasion, but only because the failure embarrassed him, not because he didn’t wholeheartedly support the goal.

It was under Kennedy that the mafia was involved with the CIA in its efforts to kill Castro. At least two big mafia figures were involved in these efforts, Sam Giancana and Johnny Roselli. After Kennedy’s assassination, when it was reported that these men might be telling what they knew to Congressional investigators, they were both murdered in classic mafia style.

Kennedy kept a set of terrorist camps going and growing, run by the CIA and using Cuban émigrés, in places like Florida that make the efforts of Osama bin Laden in the mountains of Afghanistan look like Boy Scout stuff.

Millions of dollars were poured into training, equipment, and supplies and plans for dirty tricks. Some of the members of these vast terror groups shot up Soviet ships from boats, planted bombs in places like hotels, buzzed Cuban locations with planes, and even attacked those in the United States who did not support them.

American spy planes regularly flew over Cuba, and surreptitious missions were taken by submarine, landing cutthroats to do dirty work. And, of course, the U.S. refused to return Guantanamo to the Cubans from whom it was on lease, the lease having expired.

It truly did appear from both Castro’s and Russia’s point of view that America was preparing to invade Cuba.

Kruschev fixed upon the movement of missiles to Cuba to protect Castro. It still is not completely clear whether he planned to use them as bargaining chips or only as a defensive threat. In the end, the Missile Crisis was settled by an American commitment not to invade Cuba, plus some other matters as removing Jupiter missiles from Turkey.

It may be argued that Kennedy’s response to events in Cuba brought us closer to nuclear war than is generally known. The Russians had armed with nuclear warheads a number of the short-range missiles, as protection while the rest were assembled. The idiots in the Pentagon were ready to land an assault force immediately, and it is likely that they would have been met with tactical nuclear weapons on the beach which were in the battlefield commander’s control. Kennedy did not oppose the Pentagon, he only wanted to try another approach first. That was his merit.

More than a few people think that Kennedy’s settlement was the beginning of assassination plans by whatever group did in fact assassinate him. Kennedy had so many bitter enemies – the mafia, elements of the CIA, the ferocious and armed Cuban émigré community, plus others, including Israel for his intense secret opposition to its becoming a nuclear power – and no one who has studied events of that time carefully believes that poor old Oswald was anything but a patsy in some plot he did not even understand.

The modern history of America has a good deal in common with that of the Borgias in Italy. What we get on television and in newspapers and in most books is highly sanitized.

JOHN CHUCKMAN

 

POSTED RESPONSES TO A COLUMN IN TORONTO’S GLOBE AND MAIL

Obama has called the recent incident a “systematic failure” of intelligence.

What else was the original 9/11 attack but a “systemic failure”?

What else was the assassination of John Kennedy but a “systemic failure”?

During the Cold War, it is a legendary fact that CIA’s estimates of the Soviet Union were consistently failed.

The CIA didn’t even forecast the final collapse of the Soviet Union.

America’s bloated intelligence agencies have never been effective.

Big Intelligence simply does not work.

But they sure can eat resources and make things miserable for ordinary people.

And the good old CIA sure knows how to torture people.

____________________

Readers may enjoy my piece of a few years ago, “Why The CIA Will Always Be A Costly Flop.”

You’ll find it at:

http://chuckmanwords.wordpress.com/2009/05/31/why-the-cia-always-will-be-a-costly-flop/

_______________________

“A senior taliban leader in Pakistan stated, very clearly, that islam and democracy are incompatible. Muslims do not need democracy, as the koran should be used as an example of how a muslim should live his life.

“Notice that it’s ‘his’ life, as a woman has no standing in muslim society and is only a commodity”

This person should know the words to the music before getting up to sing.

What a complete load of uninformed nonsense he/she has written, contributing only to the huge pile of propaganda and ignorance we see about Muslims.

Those statements apply precisely to economically backward societies always and everywhere.

Women were commodities in Europe only a few centuries ago.

Wealthy men can today still buy a wife in India.

Indeed, the practice of “bride burning” is still common in India.

Twelve year old girls are often married off to wealthy old men making payments to the “bride’s” family. Then when she is a widow at a very young age, she is treated like a social outcast and must conform to many terrible rules of behavior. Her life is as good as over. Millions are affected this way.

Women in Africa, to the tune of 3 million a year, suffer the horrors of genital mutilation. And in many parts of Africa, young girls are routinely raped by older village men.

Women in Canada could not have bank accounts without their husband’s written permission well into the 20th century.

Democracy is incompatible with all old societies. It took the United States two hundred years AFTER its revolution to achieve something even vaguely close to democracy.

It is estimated that about 1% of the population of Virginia could vote. Even white males could not vote because of property requirements.

The Senate wasn’t even elected until 1913.

Women couldn’t vote until 1920.

Great masses of black people couldn’t vote until the 1960s.

And today, because of an outdated, anti-democratic provision of the Constitution, Americans still do not directly elect their president: this has produced a number of minority presidents plus a number of political farces like the 2000 election.

JOHN CHUCKMAN

 

POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN IN THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE

The mayor, like so many of those crazed exiles in Miami, was in his efforts to keep Elian in Florida behaving little better than a thug.

These people held a little boy as hostage for their politics. That is simply contemptible.

Elian had a loving father, extended family, and friends in Cuba, but this bunch broke the laws and ignored court orders in their adopted country to abuse the boy psychologically and put him in an impossible situation.

The entire shabby set of events was the result of a stupid set of American policies. America, as a way of getting at Castro, gave virtually automatic green cards to any Cuban who made it into American waters.

This thoughtless policy caused many poor people, including the boy’s mother, to try reaching the U.S. in pathetic wrecks, putting their lives at risk on the high seas.

In effect, the American policy was responsible for her death and the deaths of many others.

If you want to understand just how peculiar this American policy was – it has since been altered – just consider the efforts of poor Haitians to reach the U.S. a few years back. They were all turned back, and none were given green cards. They were trying to leave horrors behind to improve their lives, but they didn’t happen to be running from the right hated government. The terrors and hideous poverty of Haiti were just fine.

The same groups who held Elian hostage and abused his affection for his father included people who had been part of CIA-sponsored anti-Castro terror groups in the 1960s. There were huge training camps and tons of supplies and millions of dollars supplied to people who did stuff like shoot up ships in Cuban harbors, plant bombs in Cuban hotels, and blow up the odd airline. The scale of operations made bin Laden’s little camp in the mountains look like a boy-scout operation.

Their terror operations included activities in the U.S. There were a number of violent incidents, including a Miami newsman, writing things that were unacceptable to them, who had his legs blown off.

More than one student of the Kennedy assassination has concluded that some of the most violent of these people were responsible for the president’s death. The assassination clearly was about trying to catapult the United States into an invasion of Cuba. Kennedy became hated by these groups after his agreement to end the Cuban Missile Crisis including a promise not to again invade Cuba.

American policy over Cuba this last 45 years has caused an immense amount of misery, violence, and waste. But some of these exiles still try to exact concessions through American politics, and the silly politicians encourage them.