Background
The purpose of this post is to provide a quick reference for the basis of my beliefs regarding the U.S. empire, the assassinations of JFK and RFK, and the U.S. equivalent to the Praetorian Guard that governs the empire from behind the scenes. I have written about this before in this venue: Being Woke to the Praetorian Guard - With Update. That post covers my overall outlook quite well, but does not address the specifics of the JFK assassination. The assassination always seemed suspicious to me, but I never had a clue as to the motivation. After all, the conventional wisdom is that Kennedy was a Cold War hawk who escalated U.S. involvement in Vietnam.
Three books provide in depth answers to this question:
- JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters, by James Douglas
- The Devil's Chessboard : Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise of America's Secret Government, by David Talbot
- The Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, Crime, Conspiracy and Cover-Up - A New Investigation, by Tim Tate and Brad Johnson
I am frankly of the belief that no amount of American military assistance in Indochina can conquer an enemy which is everywhere and at the same time nowhere, "an enemy of the people" which has the sympathy and covert support of the people.
Assuming the Presidency
The CIA instigated Bay of Pigs invasion followed in April 1961. It proved to be a fiasco -- one which Kennedy failed to rescue by sending in U.S. air forces as had been hoped for by the CIA. The military-intelligence hostility to Castro would continue to frustrate Kennedy's attempts to defuse the Cold War. The CIA made 6 attempts to assassinate Castro during Kennedy's presidency, partnering with organized crime in the process.
Vietnam
A pivotal period of U.S. involvement in Vietnam, punctuated by three important events:
- the overthrow and assassination of South Vietnam’s president Ngo Dinh Diem;
- President Kennedy’s decision on October 2 to begin the withdrawal of U.S. forces;
- his assassination fifty days later.
In Saigon and Chicago (Chapter 5), Douglas reinforces the image of Kennedy losing grip on his government, especially in Saigon, where his ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge was pushing for a coup to oust Diem, while Kennedy wanted Lodge to use diplomacy.
It’s quite apparent, in retrospect that Kennedy’s attempt at appeasement of conservative Republicans by appointing two of their own – Lodge in Vietnam and John McCone as head of the CIA, backfired in Kennedy’s face.
National Security Action Memorandum Number 263 (NSAM-263) was a national security directive approved on 11 October 1963 by United States President John F. Kennedy. The NSAM approved recommendations by Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Maxwell Taylor. McNamara and Taylor's recommendations included an appraisal that "great progress" was being made in the Vietnam War against Viet Cong insurgents, that 1,000 military personnel could be withdrawn from South Vietnam by the end of 1963, and that a "major part of the U.S. military task can be completed by the end of 1965."
Did John F. Kennedy give the order to withdraw from Vietnam? Certainly, most Vietnam historians have said “no”—or would have if they considered the question worth posing. They have asserted continuity between Kennedy’s policy and Lyndon Johnson’s, while usually claiming that neither president liked the war and also that Kennedy especially had expressed to friends his desire to get out sometime after the 1964 election...
A more thorough treatment appeared in 1992, with the publication of John M. Newman’s JFK and Vietnam.1 Until his retirement in 1994 Newman was a major in the U.S. Army, an intelligence officer last stationed at Fort Meade, headquarters of the National Security Agency. As an historian, his specialty is deciphering declassified records... Here is the chronology, according to Newman:
On October 2, 1963, Kennedy received the report of a mission to Saigon by McNamara and Maxwell Taylor, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS). The main recommendations, which appear in Section I(B) of the McNamara-Taylor report, were that a phased withdrawal be completed by the end of 1965... At Kennedy’s instruction, Press Secretary Pierre Salinger made a public announcement that evening of McNamara’s recommended timetable for withdrawal...
On October 5, Kennedy made his formal decision...
On October 11, the White House issued NSAM 263...
On November 1 there came the coup in Saigon and the assassination of Diem and Nhu. At a press conference on November 12, Kennedy publicly restated his Vietnam goals. They were “to intensify the struggle” and “to bring Americans out of there.” Victory, which had figured prominently in a similar statement on September 12, was no longer on the list...
The Honolulu Conference of senior cabinet and military officials on November 20–21 was called to review plans in the wake of the Saigon coup...
In Honolulu, McGeorge Bundy prepared a draft of what would eventually be NSAM 273. The plan was to present it to Kennedy after the meeting ended. Dated November 21, this draft reflected the change in military reporting.
At Honolulu, a preliminary plan, known as CINCPAC OPLAN 34-63 and later implemented as OPLAN 34A, was prepared for presentation. This plan called for intensified sabotage raids against the North, employing Vietnamese commandos under U.S. control—a significant escalation.5 While JCS chief Taylor had approved preparation of this plan, it had not been shown to McNamara. Tab E of the meeting’s briefing book, also approved by Taylor and also not sent in advance to McNamara, showed that the withdrawal ordered by Kennedy in October was already being gutted, by the device of substituting for the withdrawal of full units that of individual soldiers who were being rotated out of Vietnam in any event.
The final version of NSAM 273, signed by Johnson on November 26, differs from the draft in several respects... the thrust is unmistakable, and the restrictive reference to “Government of Vietnam resources” is now missing. Newman concludes that this change effectively provided new authority for U.S.–directed combat actions against North Vietnam. Planning for these actions began therewith, and we now know that an OPLAN 34A raid in August 1964 provoked the North Vietnamese retaliation against the destroyer Maddox, which became the first Gulf of Tonkin incident. And this in turn led to the confused incident a few nights later aboard the Turner Joy, to reports that it too had been attacked, and to Johnson’s overnight decision to seek congressional support for “retaliation” against North Vietnam. From this, of course, the larger war then flowed.
McNamara confirms one of Newman’s central claims: NSAM 273 changed policy.
Correspondence with Khrushchev and Castro
In the missile crisis, Kennedy turned toward peace. At the height of the terrifying conflict his own anti-Castro policies helped precipitate, he sought a way out. Kennedy chose a route his generals thought unforgiveable. He not only rejected their pressures to attack Cuba and the Soviet Union. Even worse, the president reached out to the enemy for help. That could be considered treason. Khrushchev saw it as a sign of hope.
The genesis of the Kennedy-Khrushchev turnaround during the missile crisis was their secret correspondence, which began over a year earlier. After their failed meeting in Vienna in June 1961, Khrushchev wrote a groundbreaking letter to the president, dated Sept. 29, 1961... through their secret correspondence, the two men struggled to achieve a better understanding of each other and their differences. The Cuban missile crisis a year later was proof they had not resolved their conflicts. Yet it was thanks especially to the secret letters that each knew the other as a human being he could respect...
Once Kennedy and Khrushchev turned together in the missile crisis, they began conspiring for peace. The breakthrough was Kennedy’s address in June 1963 at American University. By introducing his vision of peace as a response to the Russians’ suffering in World War II, Kennedy bridged the gap with the enemy. Khrushchev later told the American diplomat W. Averell Harriman that it was “the greatest speech by any American president since Roosevelt.” ...
Kennedy’s announcement at the university of his unilateral cessation of atmospheric nuclear tests and his expressed hope for treaty negotiations in Moscow opened the door. Within six weeks, he and Khrushchev signed the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. It was a confirming sign of their joint decision to end the cold war.
Another sign was Nikita Khrushchev’s counsel to Fidel Castro that he should begin to work with John F. Kennedy. Castro had been furious with Khrushchev for withdrawing his missiles at the 11th hour of the crisis without consulting his Cuban ally, in return for only a promise from a capitalist. Khrushchev, however, wrote a peaceful, reconciling letter to Castro on Jan. 31, 1963, that corresponded to his Noah’s Ark letter to Kennedy. Castro accepted his invitation to come to the Soviet Union.
Castro made that visit to Khrushchev from May to June 1963. The two leaders traveled together around the Soviet Union. Castro said later that Khrushchev gave him a tutorial on their joint need to trust Kennedy. Day after day, Khrushchev read aloud to Castro his correspondence with Kennedy, emphasizing the hope for peace they now had by working with the U.S. president.
President Kennedy, perhaps shaken by the events of October 1962, looked for ways to defuse the situation and reach accommodation with Castro. On March 30, 1963, the State Dept. and Justice Dept. jointly announced their intent to ensure that Cuban exile groups conducting sabotage raids would no longer do so from U.S. soil. Faced with raids on training camps and loss of support, some of these groups relocated to other countries such as Nicaragua.In September, following an interview of Castro by journalist Lisa Howard, Kennedy approved secret contacts between U.N. delegate William Attwood and Cuban Ambassador to the U.N. Carlos Lechuga. A preliminary meeting took place, and plans for more substantive talks in a neutral setting such as Mexico were proposed...
In the midst of these events, the CIA reactivated contacts with Rolando Cubela, code-named AMLASH, an apparently disgruntled Cuban government official interesting in overthrowing Castro. High-level CIA officer Desmond Fitzgerald, at this time head of the Special Affairs Staff, took the extraordinary step of meeting with Cubela directly, and representing himself as an emissary of Robert Kennedy (there is no indication RFK was informed of this).
Conclusion
- Vietnam War
- Johnson presidency
- RFK assassination
- Nixon presidency
- Watergate
- Iranian revolution and transition to Reagan presidency
- Iran - contra affair
- Iraq 2003 War
- Trump-Russia collusion allegations
- Trump's failed attempts to withdraw troops from Syria and Afghanistan, and to reduce tensions with N. Korea and Russia
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