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This broadcast continues our visits with Jim DiEugenio–author of Destiny Betrayed and JFK Revisited–selected by Oliver Stone to write the screenplay for his latest documentary.
We highlight: Jefferson Morley’s observation that recent release of documents by Biden is inadequate—many documents remain classified, including many important ones; The discussion of Admiral Burkley’s aide James Young and his aides Mills and Martinell’s retrieval of material from the limousine; Ruby’s numerous Mob connections, and RFK’s role going after Mafia; The deep politics of Mob involvement in the assassination of JFK, as well as the killing of RFK; The Alliance for Progress: What JFK intended with the policy and LBJ’s steering of the program in a diametrically opposite direction; analysis of JFK’s attempts at establishing a more balanced policy toward the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. Topics covered include; JFK’s diplomatic overture to Nasser, to which the Egyptian president was receptive; Kennedy’s discussions with Israel seeking to gain assurance that the Dimona nuclear reactor was for peaceful purposes only.
On Mr. Emory’s Patreon site, the most recent one hour talks include: Debunking of the “controlled demolition” disinformation with regard to the 9/11 attacks; the O.J. Simpson case and the assassination of Martin Luther King, as well as Covid-19 and the Chinese economy post “Zero Covid.” Dr. Jeffrey Sachs “pretty convinced” Covid came from a U.S. Bio-Lab. WFMU-FM is podcasting For The Record–You can subscribe to the podcast HERE. Mr. Emory emphatically recommends that listeners/readers get the 32GB flash drive containing all of Mr. Emory’s 43 years on the air, plus a library of old anti-fascist books on easy-to-download PDF files.
Continuing our series of interviews about JFK Revisited, we visit with both Jim DiEugenio and David Talbot, the author of Brothers and The Devil’s Chessboard. (We have highlighted information from the latter in FTR#‘s 894, 1162.)
Note that David Talbot is a major contributor to the commentary in JFK Revisited.
The broadcast highlights the many topics of discussion that David Talbot contributes during the program. We also highlight David’s problems getting The Devil’s Chessboard reviewed.
Of note, as well, is David’s discussion of a document that he and Lisa Pease discovered: On the weekend of JFK’s assassination, Allen Dulles had decamped to Camp Peary aka “The Farm”–a major CIA training facility. The document later disappeared.
Our ongoing series of interviews with Jim DiEugenio–selected by Oliver Stone to write the screenplay for the documentary JFK Revisited and to write and edit the book derived from the film—presents an extremely enriching guest, John Newman.
Discussion concludes with what Senator Richard Schweiker noted: that there were “the fingerprints of Intelligence all around Oswald.” An important consideration bracketing this discussion concerns the CIA’s counterintelligence search/obsession for a KGB mole within the Agency. John has written, and is writing, about that subject. Oswald’s “defection” to the USSR overlapped that dynamic.
Author of among other titles JFK and Vietnam and Oswald and the CIA, John was deeply involved with Stone’s 1991 opus JFK.
The interviews begin with review of topics previously discussed in this FTR series, including: President Eisenhower’s order to kill Patrice Lumumba of the Congo, reaching a crescendo with Ike’s outburst at a national security meeting demanding aloud Lumumba’s termination; Presidents Trump’s and Biden’s balking at the mandated release of documents pursuant to the ARRB’s mandate; discussion of Operation Northwoods, Lyman Lemnitzer’s and Maxwell Taylor’s planned series of provocations designed to provoke a U.S. invasion of Cuba.
Next, we review JFK’s Vietnam policy (this, too, has been covered in past talks, however we present added depth drawing on John’s expertise and published book JFK and Vietnam.)
We then highlight General Curtis LeMay’s attitude toward and behavior with regard to JFK.
Of particular note is John Newman’s disclosure that no recordings of the meetings of the Joint Chiefs of Staff have survived intact!
This broadcast continues our visits with Jim DiEugenio–author of Destiny Betrayed and JFK Revisited–selected by Oliver Stone to write the screenplay for his latest documentary.
In these broadcasts, we are additionally privileged by the participation of Paul Bleau, a veteran JFK assassination researcher who is prominently featured in JFK Revisited.
The recent inquiries into the 1/6/2021 insurrection have yielded some journalistic coverage (Washington Post) of Secret Service destruction of records of 1963 threats to JFK from “white supremacist” groups. We begin by presenting Paul’s analysis of the Chicago plot against JFK’s life; with apparent shooters positioned in a high-rise building to eliminate JFK as he traveled in a motorcade.
Next, Paul analyzes the plot against JFK’s life in Tampa.
Following discussion of the previous plots against JFK in 1963, we turn to Oswald’s presence in New Orleans and the cast of characters revolving around Guy Banister’s “detective agency.”
In a previous program, we noted that the term “Conspiracy Theorist” was greatly elevated in its use and intellectual profile by stressing the utility of the moniker in discrediting Warren Commission critics.
Instead of “conspiracy,” the term “networking” is both accurate and resonates positively with the relationships that characterize the JFK assassination landscape.
Among Paul Bleau’s numerous articles available on kennedysandking.com is one about Oswald’s escorts. We delve into some aspects of the networking involving Oswald and the Camp Street milieu in New Orleans.
These programs continue our series of interviews with Jim DiEugenio about the Oliver Stone documentary JFK Revisited, for which Jim wrote the screenplay.
Yet another area in which JFK’s policy outlook ran afoul of the prevailing wisdom of the Cold War was with regard to the Congo. A Belgian colony which was the victim of genocidal policies of King Leopold (estimates of the dead run as high as 8 million), the diamond and mineral-rich Congo gained a fragile independence.
In Africa, as well, Kennedy understood the struggle of emerging nations seeking freedom from colonial domination as falling outside of and transcending stereotyped Cold War dynamics.
In the Congo, the brutally administered Belgian rule had spawned a vigorous independence movement crystallized around the charismatic Patrice Lumumba. Understanding of, and sympathetic to Lumumba and the ideology and political forces embodied in him, Kennedy opposed the reactionary status quo favored by both European allies like the United Kingdom and Belgium, as well as the Eisenhower/Dulles axis in the United States.
In 1961, there was another assassination that overlapped events leading up to JFK’s killing. U.N. Secretary General Dag Hammarskjold was on the same page as JFK with regard to Congolese independence from Belgium, negation of the Belgian-sponsored attempt at getting mineral-rich Katanga province to secede and was of the same mind as JFK with regard to assuring Patrice Lumumba’s survival.
Hammarskjold’s 1961 death in a plane crash was not the accident it was represented as being:
JFK Revisited: Through the Looking Glass by Jim DiEugenio; Skyhorse Publishing [HC]; Copyright 2022 by Jim DiEugenio; Introduction Copyright 2022 by Oliver Stone; ISBN 978–1‑5107–7287‑8; p. 105.
. . . . The photos of Hammarskjold show his body as the only one not burned or charred. And he had a playing card, reportedly the ace of spades, stuffed into his shirt collar above the know in the tie. Now, due to Susan Williams’ book and new evidence offered by Desmond Tutu and the Union of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, there are controversial document that indicate Allen Dulles was involved in the sabotage of the plane. The project was called Operation Celeste and was to be carried out through a secret white supremacist group called SAMIR.
Kennedy’s old mentor Edmund Gullion advised JFK that Hammarskjold’s death was not the accident it was represented as being.
JFK Revisited: Through the Looking Glass by Jim DiEugenio; Skyhorse Publishing [HC]; Copyright 2022 by Jim DiEugenio; Introduction Copyright 2022 by Oliver Stone; ISBN 978–1‑5107–7287‑8; pp. 402–403.
. . . . Suspicions were everywhere that there had been foul play. The first person on the scene was the US air attache. And there were bullets that he said were in the victims including Hammarskjold. And a close friend of President Kennedy, Edmund Gullion, sent a cable home saying: Contrary to the official explanation for this tragic incident, this was an assassination . . . .
In the Congo, LBJ reversed JFK’s policy stance, and the corporate looting of the Congo resulted under General Joseph Mobutu, himself a beneficiary of the piracy.
LBJ also reversed JFK’s policy toward Indonesia.
In 1955, Sukarno hosted a conference of non-aligned nations that formalized and concretized a “Third Way” between East and West. This, along with Sukarno’s nationalism of some Dutch industrial properties, led the U.S. to try and overthrow Sukharno, which was attempted in 1958.
Kennedy understood Sukarno’s point of view, and had planned a trip to Indonesia in 1964 to forge a more constructive relationship with Sukharno. Obviously, his murder in 1963 precluded the trip.
In 1965, Sukarno was deposed in a bloody, CIA-aided coup in which as many as a million people were killed.
Of particular interest in connection with Indonesia, is the disposition of Freeport Sulphur, a company that had enlisted the services of both Clay Shaw and David Ferrie in an effort to circumvent limitations on its operations imposed by Castro’s Cuba.
It should be noted that Freeport had set its corporate sights on a very lucrative pair of mountains in Indonesia, both of which had enormous deposits of minerals, iron, copper, silver and gold in particular.
Cuba was an area of major conflict between JFK and the Powers That Be.
When JFK gave a green light to the attempted overthrow of Castro via the Bay of Pigs invasion, he had understood that the plan itself was destined to work.
In fact, Allen Dulles knew the plan as formulated would fail, and expected Kennedy to authorize the military to step in and neutralize Castro.
Realizing that he had been lied to, JFK dismissed Allen Dulles, Richard Bissell and General C.P. Cabell.
He also spoke of shattering the CIA into a thousand pieces. It is grimly, morbidly ironic that it was Kennedy’s head that was shattered, and that he was “decapitated.”
During the Cuban Missile Crisis, JFK rebuffed the pressure from the Joint Chiefs of Staff to invade Cuba, thereby avoiding the confrontation with Soviet tactical nuclear weapons that had been provided to Castro, unbeknownst to the U.S.
Opting for a blockade, Kennedy also established a quid-pro-quo with Nikita Khrushchev, agreeing to remove U.S. nuclear missiles from Turkey.
This was followed by a number of back-door diplomatic attempts at normalizing relations with Cuba.
At the moment that Castro heard JFK had been killed, he was meeting with French journalist Jean Daniel, who had functioned as one of those back-door diplomatic channels to Castro.
After discussion of the “dual front” 531 Lafayette Place/544 Camp Street in New Orleans run by “private investigator” Guy Banister, we review the alleged “leftist” Lee Harvey Oswald’s involvement with that organization and his apparently contrived altercation with Carlos Bringuier, the anti-Castro Cuban and member of the DRE, part of the CIA-sponsored fronts operating against Castro.
As we have seen in past programs, George Joannides directed the DRE for CIA during Bringuier’s tenure with the organization. Researcher Jefferson Morley filed a FOIA suit against CIA to precipitate more disclosure about Joannides, who had been the Agency’s liaison with the House Select Committee on Assassinations.
Appellate Court Judge Brett Kavanaugh cast a deciding vote negating Morley’s appeal.
Discussion concludes with analysis of how two visual events keyed major events in the investigation of JFK’s assassination: a 1975 TV program, on which Geraldo Rivera–featuring comedian Dick Gregory and Robert Groden–aired the Zapruder film. The uproar following that led to the formation of the House Select Committee on Assassination.
The “crawl” at the end of Oliver Stone’s JFK, informing the audience that the HSCA had classified key documents until 2029, generating further outrage and leading to the formation of the Assassination Records Review Board.
Beginning with discussion of the genesis of JFK Revisited, we highlight a 2013 conference in Pittsburgh, PA, at which Jim DiEugenio delivered a power point presentation about President Kennedy’s foreign policy program and the decisions that resulted from that.
Because the address drew a standing ovation from the audience, one of the attendees brought the material in the presentation to the attention of Oliver Stone, which, in turn, led to the launching of this documentary project.
Citing the routine rhetorical dismissal of the realities of the JFK assassination as a coup d’etat, journalists and politicians routinely employ the rhetorical device “Conspiracy Theory.” Meaning, in effect, a “deranged, lone nut,” the term has its applied origins in an internal CIA discussion about how to counteract Warren Commission critics!
We discuss the MSM’s conflation of the Q‑Anon types with researchers such as Mr. DiEugenio and Mr. Emory.
Immediately following the release of the documentary (along with the DVD’s of the material and the book JFK Revisited), author Tim Weiner penned a piece for Rolling Stone magazine in which he represented the arguments presented in the film (and in the accompanying book, by extension) as stemming from Soviet disinformation.
We note that this type of misrepresentation is in line with the widely distributed propaganda assertion scapegoating Russia and Vladimir Putin for this country’s problems and those of the world in general.
Suffice it to say that none of the material in the documentary is Soviet/Russian.
By way of demonstrating the nonsensical nature of the contention that “Soviet/Russian propaganda” underlies the arguments presented by Stone/DiEugenio, we review a key element from Jim’s magnum opus Destiny Betrayed.
When Richard Helms, head of the CIA at that time, convened a group to discuss Jim Garrison’s prosecution of Clay Shaw, Ray Rocca, the top aide to Agency Counter-intelligence chief James Angleton, opined that Garrison would obtain a conviction of Shaw. Rocca was the acknowledged expert at CIA on Garrison/JFK assassination.
Not even Tim Weiner could dismiss the CIA’s number two counterintelligence official as “a Soviet agent/propagandist.”
Attempts at portraying the JFK assassination as a Soviet conspiracy continue to this day with former CIA chief James Woolsey having authored the recently-released Operation Dragon, which uses the allegations of a former Romanian intelligence agent to pin responsibility for the assassination on the U.S.S.R.
Attempts to attribute the JFK assassination on the Soviet Union and/or Fidel Castro’s Cuba are not new.
The war in Ukraine is a direct echo of an aspect of attempting to “paint Oswald Red.”
The Nazis and fascists in control of the reins of national security power in Ukraine are directly descended from the OUN/B of Stephan Bandera, whose forces collaborated with the Third Reich during World War II.
This political and historical dynamic is set forth in a number of programs, including FTR#876.
After Oswald’s return to the U.S., he was met by Spas T. Raikin, Secretary General of the American Friends of the Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations. This despite the fact that Oswald had proposed giving military secrets to the Soviet Union.
After the death of Bandera, the OUN/B was headed by Yaroslav Stetzko, the head of the WWII Nazi collaborationist government, which implemented Hitler’s ethnic cleansing programs. The OUN/B dominated the ABN, which was originally named the Committee of Subjugated Nations, when it was formed by Adolf Hitler in 1943.
Echoes of the Bandera organization and the ABN are present in the destabilization of China, as well.
LBJ successfully used the fears of a Third World War that might stem from the perception that the USSR and/or Cuba was behind the assassination in order to persuade Earl Warren, among others, that they should serve on the commission. We discussed “the painting of Oswald Red” in numerous programs, including FTR#‘s 925, 926.
For much of this year, the nation’s attention has been focused on the January 6 Hearings. Noteworthy is the fact that the nation’s lawful government was overthrown on 11/22/1963.
When Biden intones that “our democracy is under fire,” he is “a day late and a dollar short.”
“Our democracy” was, literally, under fire on that Friday in Dallas, and democracy has been a mere façade in the time since.
Members of Congress have sounded grave warnings about the Secret Service and apparently “lost” communications concerning the assaults of 1/06/2021.
As these talks progress, we will highlight the Secret Service and their performance vis a vis the assassination of JFK. Congress, too, is “a day late and a dollar short.”
As will be detailed later in this series, both Presidents Trump and Biden delayed release of the ARRB records at the designated junctures.
Another interesting “Team Trump” link to the assassination investigation concerns Jefferson Morley’s FOIA suit to learn more about George Joannides, who managed the Carlos Bringuier-linked DRE for the CIA.
Morley’s appeal was turned down by an appeals court, with Brett Kavanaugh casting the deciding voter, just before decamping for his hearings on his qualifications for the Supreme Court.
One of JFK’s stances that put him greatly at odds concerning national security and foreign policy was his view toward, and actions in conjunction with, the former Soviet Union.
In that regard, we note: Kennedy’s authorization of the atmospheric test ban treaty, the first substantive arms limitation agreement with the former Soviet Union—bitterly opposed by key members of the national security establishment; JFK’s refusal to invade Cuba during the Cuban Missile Crisis, which, combined with his refusal to utilize the military to assist the Bay of Pigs invasion, cemented the view among key national security players that he was a traitor/Communist; Kennedy’s June 1963 speech at American University, in which he recognized the USSR’s enormous contribution toward the defeat of Nazi Germany and called for a new relationship with the USSR; JFK’s proposal that the U.S. and U.S.S.R. undertake joint space exploration.
Bridging discussion that will be continued in our next programs, we note a key quote from the book and documentary by Lisa Pease, noting that JFK stood apart from the Eisenhower/Dulles view that non-alignment among the former colonial territories that achieved independence was the equivalent of pro-Communist orientation.
JFK Revisited: Through the Looking Glass by Jim DiEugenio; Skyhorse Publishing [HC]; Copyright 2022 by Jim DiEugenio; ISBN 978–1‑5107–7287‑8; p. 352.
. . . . Lisa Pease: His [JFK’s] approach was a radical break from his predecessor. In an oral history interview that Sukarno gave after John Kennedy’s death, he said words to the effect that what made Kennedy special is that he believed non-alignment was not amoral as it had been under John Foster Dulles. I thought that was an interesting way of putting it. . . .
Revisiting the event that propelled Mr. Emory into this field of endeavor, this program reflects on the assassination of President Kennedy on the 58th anniversary of his killing.
One source of Mr. Emory’s “Dealey Plaza Blues” is a depressing piece in Rolling Stone magazine from 11/22/2021.
In addition to the minor stylistic sin of ending a sentence with a preposition, Tim Weiner tars those who have grasped the documentary truth of the JFK assassination as victims of Soviet/Russian propaganda.
In the midst of the red-baiting, Weiner does offer one unintentionally ironic, true statement: “ . . . . Our body politic is being poisoned by lies. . . .”
Ironic article selection by The New York Times featured a multi-page story on the Chinese purchase of a Freeport McMoRan cobalt mine in the Congo.
This story, too, was published by Times on the anniversary of the assassination.
Presenting the predictable ideological framing of the purchase as part of China’s grab of minerals that are key to the development of “Green” technologies, the article comprises a synopsized, slanted Cold War recapitulation of U.S. mineral development in the Congo, with particular emphasis on the reign of Joseph Mobutu.
(What does not occur to U.S. media outlets, is that China’s proprietary advances in this area are an altogether comprehensible strategy for continued industrial expansion in the century to come, while moving to reduce greenhouse gases and pollution in keeping with the international legal and diplomatic targets for environmental sustainability.)
Below, we present information featured in FTR#‘s 1054, 1055 and 1056.
The article has historical resonance on this 58th anniversary of JFK’s assassination in several respects:
1.–Freeport Sulphur (part of the company involved with the Congo) was one of the institutions in which Clay Shaw and David Ferrie’s maneuvering permitted Jim Garrison to connect them with the milieu of the JFK assassination.
2.–Freeport also benefitted enormously from JFK’s assassination. The events of 11/22/1963 reversed JFK’s policy of engagement with Indonesia’s Sukarno. The bloody 1965 coup–highlighted in FTR#1212–permitted Freeport to benefit enormously by developing Indonesia’s mineral resources.
3.–Kennedy’s killing dramatically altered U.S. policy vis a vis what was the Belgian Congo at the time. Following the assassination, the U.S. threw its weight behind the forces promoting Joseph Mobutu and Moise Tshombe in the Congo. Ironically, Tshombe characterized the unrest in the Congo as “Chinese inspired.” (In the Congo, as in so many countries, the World War II Allies reneging on their initial pledge to grant independence to European colonial territories that had been occupied by Axis countries, propelled colonial properties into the Cold War meat-grinder in an attempt to gain independence.)
Perspective on this unhappy anniversary comes from The New York Times’ use of a Third Reich alumnus named Paul Hofmann as a foreign correspondent, beginning with the Gray Lady’s coverage of the CIA’s participation in the overthrow of Patrice Lumumba.
” . . . . During the war, he served in Rome as a top aide to the notorious Nazi general Kurt Malzer, who was later convicted of the mass murder of Italian partisans. At some point, Hofmann became an informer for the Allies, and after the war he became closely associated with Jim Angleton. . . .”
The Times published the historical fiction enshrined as the Warren Report.
Next, the program highlights parts of the HSCA’s investigation that support Garrison’s thesis.
” . . . . On September 1, 1977, staff counsel Jonathan Blackmer, authored a 15-page memorandum addressed to Blakey, as well as staff members, Gary Cornwell, Ken Klein, and Cliff Fenton. Blackmer was the lead counsel for team 3, the HSCA team responsible for the New Orleans and Cuban angles of the investigation. After an investigative trip to New Orleans, Blackmer concluded in his memo: ‘We have reason to believe Shaw was heavily involved in the anti-Castro efforts in New Orleans in the 1960’s and [was] possibly one of the high level planners or ‘cut out’ to the planners of the assassination.’ . . . .”
The excerpt comes from another magnificent book on the Garrison investigation–Let Justice Be Done by Bill Davy. The book was the focus of FTR#190.
The latter portion of the broadcast highlights the CIA’s intense interest in the Garrison investigation. This interest was manifested through an agency conclave informally named “The Garrison Group.”
” . . . . [CIA Director Richard] Helms wanted the group to ‘consider the possible implications for the Agency’ of what Garrison was doing in ‘New Orleans before, during, and after the trial of Clay Shaw.’. . . [CIA official Ray] Rocca then said something quite ominous. He said that he felt ‘that Garrison would indeed obtain a conviction of Shaw for conspiring to assassinate President Kennedy.’ This must have had some impact on the meeting. Since everyone must have known that Rocca had developed, by bar, the largest database on Garrison’s inquiry at CIA. . . .”
We conclude with a story that gauges the degree of psychological dysfunction gripping much of this society becomes more ironic as the date November 22nd approaches–this is another generating force behind “The Dealey Plaza Blues.”
The QAnon milieu is embracing the notion the JFK, Jr. will re-appear in Dealey Plaza and all sorts of things will then transpire.
For a nation that has chosen to ignore what is perhaps the decisive event in American history–the assassination of JFK (Sr.) in Dallas, Texas–the gothic fantasy driving a disturbingly significant number of people is, perhaps, a fascist after-dinner drink.
Kool-Aid?
Ironic article selection by The New York Times featured a multi-page story on the Chinese purchase of a Freeport McMoRan cobalt mine in the Congo. Presenting ideological framing of the purchase as part of China’s grab of minerals that are key to the development of “Green” technologies, the article comprises a synopsized, slanted Cold War recapitulation of U.S. mineral development in the Congo, with particular emphasis on the reign of Joseph Mobutu.The article has historical resonance on this 58th anniversary of JFK’s assassination in several respects; we present information from FTR#‘s 1054, 1055 and 1056.) Freeport Sulphur (part of the company involved with the Congo) was one of the institutions in which Clay Shaw and David Ferrie’s maneuvering permitted Jim Garrison to connect them with the milieu of the JFK assassination. 2) Freeport also benefitted enormously from JFK’s assassination. The events of 11/22/1963 reversed JFK’s policy of engagement with Indonesia’s Sukarno. The bloody 1965 coup–highlighted in FTR#1212–permitted Freeport to benefit enormously by developing Indonesia’s mineral resources. 3) Kennedy’s killing dramatically altered U.S. policy vis a vis what was the Belgian Congo at the time. Following the assassination, the U.S. threw its weight behind the forces promoting Joseph Mobutu and Moise Tshombe in the Congo. Ironically, Tshombe characterized the unrest in the Congo as “Chinese inspired.” WFMU-FM is podcasting For The Record–You can subscribe to the podcast HERE.
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