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“Political language…is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.”
— George Orwell, 1946
EVERYTHING MR. EMORY HAS BEEN SAYING ABOUT THE UKRAINE WAR IS ENCAPSULATED IN THIS VIDEO FROM UKRAINE 24
ANOTHER REVEALING VIDEO FROM UKRAINE 24
Mr. Emory has launched a new Patreon site. Visit at: Patreon.com/DaveEmory
FTR#1264 This program was recorded in one, 60-minute segment.
FTR#1265 This program was recorded in one, 60-minute segment.
Introduction: Continuing our discussion with Jim DiEugenio about JFK Revisited, we begin with analysis of comparison between the “stab in the back” hypothesis floated by reactionaries in Weimar Germany, denying that they lost World War I, with similar revisionism floated by the right wing concerning America’s defeat in Vietnam.
Bridging discussion that will be continued from our previous program, 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.
. . . . 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. . . .
Exemplifying Kennedy’s understanding of how nationalist aspirations were at the forefront of struggles for national independence that were cast into the annihilating Cold War meatgrinder, we detail his trip to Indochina, where he networked with French generals, who told him that France was winning its struggle against the Viet Minh, and then with State Department professional Edmund Gullion, who opined that France was losing the war and would, in the end, lose.
Gullion also told Kennedy that, if the U.S. got involved, it would lose as well. It was Gullion’s conviction that the Vietnamese peoples’ desire for independence trumped anything the West could do.
We note that roughly 80% of the budget of the French war effort was bankrolled by the U.S. We also note that there was a contingency plan developed for a massive U.S. air support operation on behalf of the French called “Operation Vulture.” Part of that plan was the deployment of three atomic bombs for use against the Vietnamese.
For more about Kennedy’s early education about the realities of war in Southeast Asia, see—among other programs, FTR#1031.
This awareness guided JFK’s Vietnam policy, in which he not only resisted tremendous pressure to commit U.S. combat troops to Vietnam, but planned a withdrawal of U.S. forces from Vietnam.
Perhaps the most important change made after JFK’s assassination was Johnson’s negation of Kennedy’s plans to withdraw from Vietnam.
LBJ cancelled Kennedy’s scheduled troop withdrawal, scheduled personnel increases and implemented the 34A program of covert operations against North Vietnam. Executed by South Vietnamese naval commandos using small, American-made patrol boats, these raids were supported by U.S. destroyers in the Gulf of Tonkin, which were electronically “fingerprinting” North Vietnamese radar installations.
The electronic fingerprinting of North Vietnamese radar was in anticipation of a pre-planned air war, a fundamental part of a plan by LBJ to involve the United States in a full-scale war in Southeast Asia.
Despite having promised during the 1964 campaign that no American combat units would be committed to Vietnam, within three months of the election, the first combat units were dispatched to that unfortunate nation.
In addition to noting that Hubert Humphrey, contrary to popular misconception, was an opponent of Johnson’s war strategy, we note that Robert McNamara was also opposed to it, although he went along with the Commander in Chief’s policies.
McNamara did commission the Pentagon study of Vietnam policy that became the Pentagon Papers.
Jim notes that Noam Chomsky and Professor Howard Zinn initially opposed discussion of how JFK’s assassination changed U.S. Vietnam policy.
There is a clip in the film of a conversation between LBJ and McNamara where LBJ codifies his opposition to the JFK/McNamara policies in Vietnam.
In our discussion, we parse the reaction to early analyses of the JFK assassination as a pivotal event in U.S. involvement in Vietnam. See, among other programs, FTR#978.
The fledgling nation of Laos was also part of French Indochina, and Jim notes how outgoing President Eisenhower coached President-Elect Kennedy on the necessity of committing U.S. combat forces to Laos.
Again, Kennedy refused to commit U.S. ground forces and engineered a policy of neutrality for Laos.
Whereas JFK had implemented a policy affording neutrality to Laos–against the wishes of the Joint Chiefs, CIA and many of his own cabinet, LBJ scrapped the neutralist policy in favor of a CIA-implemented strategy of employing “narco-militias” such as the Hmong tribesmen as combatants against the Pathet Lao. This counter-insurgency warfare was complemented by a massive aerial bombing campaign.
JFK’s policy vis a vis the war of independence being waged by the French in Algeria is of particular importance.
The program reviews Kennedy’s stance on Algeria. A French colony in North Africa, Algerian independence forces waged a fierce guerrilla war in an attempt at becoming free from France. Once again, Kennedy opposed the Western consensus on Algeria, which sought to retain that property as a French possession.
The French people were divided over the Algerian struggle, and those divisions led to the fall of the Fourth Republic and the rise of Charles De Gaulle. De Gaulle granted Algeria its independence and then faced down the lethal opposition of the OAS, a group of military officers grounded in the fascist collaborationist politics of Vichy France. De Gaulle survived several assassination attempts against him and there are a number of evidentiary tributaries leading between those attempts and the forces that killed Kennedy.
Maurice Brooks Gatlin–one of Guy Banister’s investigators–boasted of having transferred a large sum of money from the CIA to the OAS officers plotting against De Gaulle. In addition, Jean Souetre–a French OAS-linked assassin was in the Dallas Fort Worth area on 11/22/1963.
JFK, Algeria and operational links between JFK’s assassination and OAS attempts on De Gaulle’s life are discussed in FTR#1162.
Note that JFK told the French that he could not control his own intelligence services.
The program concludes with discussion of JFK’s policies with regard to Africa, the Congo in particular. This topic is presented at greater length in our next interview with Jim.
1. Bridging discussion that will be continued in our previous program, 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.
. . . . 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. . . .
2. Exemplifying Kennedy’s understanding of how nationalist aspirations were at the forefront of struggles for national independence that were cast into the annihilating Cold War meatgrinder, we detail his trip to Indochina, where he networked with French generals, who told him that France was winning its struggle against the Viet Minh, and then with State Department professional Edmund Gullion, who opined that France was losing the war and would, in the end, lose.
Gullion also told Kennedy that, if the U.S. got involved, it would lose as well. It was Gullion’s conviction that the Vietnamese peoples’ desire for independence trumped anything the West could do.
We note that roughly 80% of the budget of the French war effort was bankrolled by the U.S. We also note that there was a contingency plan developed for a massive U.S. air support operation on behalf of the French called “Operation Vulture.” Part of that plan was the deployment of three atomic bombs for use against the Vietnamese.
For more about Kennedy’s early education about the realities of war in Southeast Asia, see—among other programs, FTR#1031.
3. No aspect of JFK’s foreign and national security orientation is more important than his policies toward the Vietnam War. Building on the foundation toward the conflict built in his trip to [then] French Indochina and his networking with Edmund Gullion, Kennedy refused to commit the U.S. to “winning” the war and was implementing a withdrawal program as of October of 1963: the withdrawal was to be completed by the end of 1965.
Not only did LBJ reverse those policies but, after campaigning in 1964 on a promise not to commit U.S. forces to Vietnam, LBJ had revised JFK policies in a meeting on Sunday, 11/24/1963–the day on which Ruby slew Oswald.
Within three months after being elected, LBJ had introduced the first American combat troops into Vietnam.
When the United States reneged on its commitment to pursue independence for the colonial territories of its European allies at the end of the Second World War, the stage was set for those nations’ desire for freedom to be cast as incipient Marxists/Communists. This development was the foundation for epic bloodshed and calamity.
Jim reviews then Congressman John F. Kennedy’s 1951 fact-finding trip to Saigon to gain an understanding of the French war to retain their colony of Indochina. (Vietnam was part of that colony.)
In speaking with career diplomat Edmund Gullion, Kennedy came to the realization that not only would the French lose the war, but that Ho Chi Minh and the Viet Minh guerrillas enjoyed great popular support among the Vietnamese people.
This awareness guided JFK’s Vietnam policy, in which he not only resisted tremendous pressure to commit U.S. combat troops to Vietnam, but planned a withdrawal of U.S. forces from Vietnam.
Perhaps the most important change made after JFK’s assassination was Johnson’s negation of Kennedy’s plans to withdraw from Vietnam.
LBJ cancelled Kennedy’s scheduled troop withdrawal, scheduled personnel increases and implemented the 34A program of covert operations against North Vietnam. Executed by South Vietnamese naval commandos using small, American-made patrol boats, these raids were supported by U.S. destroyers in the Gulf of Tonkin, which were electronically “fingerprinting” North Vietnamese radar installations.
The electronic fingerprinting of North Vietnamese radar was in anticipation of a pre-planned air war, a fundamental part of a plan by LBJ to involve the United States in a full-scale war in Southeast Asia.
. . . . Clearly now that the withdrawal was imminent, Kennedy was going to try and get the rest of his administration on board to his way of thinking. Not only did this not happen once Kennedy was dead, but the first meeting on Vietnam afterwards was a strong indication that things were now going to be cast in a sharply different tone. This meeting took place at 3:00 p.m. on November 24. . . . Johnson’s intent was clear to McNamara. He was breaking with the previous policy. The goal now was to win the war. LBJ then issued a strong warning: He wanted no more dissension or division over policy. Any person who did not conform would be removed. (This would later be demonstrated by his banning of Hubert Humphrey from Vietnam meetings when Humphrey advised Johnson to rethink his policy of military commitment to Vietnam.) . . . . The reader should recall, this meeting took place just forty-eight hours after Kennedy was killed. . . .
. . . . Therefore, on March 2, 1964, the Joint Chiefs passed a new war proposal to the White House. This was even more ambitious than the January version. It included bombing, the mining of North Vietnamese harbors, a naval blockade, and possible use of tactical atomic weapons in case China intervened. Johnson was now drawing up a full scale battle plan for Vietnam. In other words, what Kennedy did not do in three years, LBJ had done in three months.
Johnson said he was not ready for this proposal since he did not have congress yet as a partner and trustee. But he did order the preparation of NSAM 288, which was based on this proposal. It was essentially a target list of bombing sites that eventually reached 94 possibilities. By May 25, with Richard Nixon and Barry Goldwater clamoring for bombing of the north, LBJ had made the decision that the U.S. would directly attack North Vietnam at an unspecified point in the future. But it is important to note that even before the Tonkin Gulf incident, Johnson had ordered the drawing up of a congressional resolution. This had been finalized by William Bundy, McGeorge Bundy’s brother. Therefore in June of 1964, Johnson began lobbying certain people for its passage in congress. . . .
. . . . Johnson seized upon the hazy and controversial events in the Gulf of Tonkin during the first week of August to begin he air war planned in NSAM 288. Yet the Tonkin Gulf incident had been prepared by Johnson himself. After Kennedy’s death, President Johnson made a few alterations in the draft of NSAM 273. An order which Kennedy had never seen but was drafted by McGeorge Bundy after a meeting in Honolulu, a meeting which took place while Kennedy was visiting Texas. . . .
. . . . On August 2, the destroyer Maddox was attacked by three North Vietnamese torpedo boats. Although torpedoes were launched, none hit. The total damage to the Maddox
was one bullet through the hull. Both Johnson and the Defense Department misrepresented this incident to congress and the press. They said the North Vietnamese fired first, that the USA had no role in the patrol boat raids, that the ships were in international waters, and there was no hot pursuit by the Maddox. These were all wrong. Yet Johnson used this overblown reporting, plus a non-existent attack two nights later on the destroyer Turner Joy to begin to push his war resolution through Congress. He then took out the target list assembled for NSAM 288 [from March of 1964–D.E] and ordered air strikes that very day. . . .. . . . For on August 7, Johnson sent a message to General Maxwell Taylor. He wanted a whole gamut of possible operations presented to him for direct American attacks against the North. The target date for the systematic air war was set for January 1965. This was called operation Rolling Thunder and it ended up being the largest bombing campaign in military history. The reader should note: the January target date was the month Johnson would be inaugurated after his re-election. As John Newman noted in his masterful book JFK and Vietnam, Kennedy was disguising his withdrawal plan around his re-election; Johnson was disguising his escalation plan around his re-election. . . .
In addition to noting that Hubert Humphrey, contrary to popular misconception, was an opponent of Johnson’s war strategy, we note that Robert McNamara was also opposed to it, although he went along with the Commander in Chief’s policies.
McNamara did commission the Pentagon study of Vietnam policy that became the Pentagon Papers.
Jim notes that Noam Chomsky and Professor Howard Zinn initially opposed discussion of how JFK’s assassination changed U.S. Vietnam policy.
There is a clip in the film of a conversation between LBJ and McNamara where LBJ codifies his opposition to the JFK/McNamara policies in Vietnam.
4. The fledgling nation of Laos was also part of French Indochina, and Jim notes how outgoing President Eisenhower coached President-Elect Kennedy on the necessity of committing U.S. combat forces to Laos.
Again, Kennedy refused to commit U.S. ground forces and engineered a policy of neutrality for Laos.
. . . . At his first press conference, Kennedy said that he hoped to establish Laos as a “peaceful country–an independent country not dominated by either side.” He appointed a task force to study the problem, was in regular communication with it and the Laotian ambassador, and decided by February that Laos must have a coalition government, the likes of which Eisenhower had rejected out of hand. Kennedy also had little interest in a military solution. He could not understand sending American troops to fight for a country whose people did not care to fight for themselves. . . . He therefore worked to get the Russians to push the Pathet Lao into a cease-fire agreement. This included a maneuver on Kennedy’s part to indicate military pressure if the Russians did not intervene strongly enough with the Pathet Lao. The maneuver worked, and in May of 1961, a truce was called. A few days later, a conference convened in Geneva to hammer out conditions for a neutral Laos. By July of 1962, a new government, which included the Pathet Lao, had been hammered out. . . .
Whereas JFK had implemented a policy affording neutrality to Laos–against the wishes of the Joint Chiefs, CIA and many of his own cabinet, LBJ scrapped the neutralist policy in favor of a CIA-implemented strategy of employing “narco-militias” such as the Hmong tribesmen as combatants against the Pathet Lao. This counter-insurgency warfare was complemented by a massive aerial bombing campaign.
5. JFK’s policy vis a vis the war of independence being waged by the French in Algeria is of particular importance.
The program reviews Kennedy’s stance on Algeria. A French colony in North Africa, Algerian independence forces waged a fierce guerrilla war in an attempt at becoming free from France. Once again, Kennedy opposed the Western consensus on Algeria, which sought to retain that property as a French possession.
. . . . On July 2, 1957, Senator Kennedy rose to speak in the Senate chamber and delivered what the New York Times was to call the next day, “the most comprehensive and outspoken arraignment of Western policy toward Algeria yet presented by an American in public office.” As historian Alan Nevins later wrote, “No speech on foreign affairs by Mr. Kennedy attracted more attention at home and abroad.” It was the mature fruition of all the ideas that Kennedy had been collecting and refining since his 1951 trip into the nooks and corners of Saigon, It was passionate yet sophisticated, hard-hitting but controlled, idealistic yet, in a fresh and unique way, also pragmatic. Kennedy assailed the administration, especially John Foster Dulles and Nixon, for not urging France into negotiations, and therefore not being its true friend. He began the speech by saying that the most powerful force international affairs at the time was not the H‑bomb, but the desire for independence from imperialism. He then said it was a test of American foreign policy to meet the challenge of imperialism. If not, America would lose the trust of millions in Asia and Africa. . . . He later added that, “The time has come for the United States to face the harsh realities of the situation and to fulfill its responsibilities as leader of the free world . . . in shaping a course toward political independence for Algeria.” He concluded by saying that America could not win in the Third World by simply doling out foreign aid dollars, or selling free enterprise, or describing the evils of communism, or limiting its approach to military pacts. . . .”
The French people were divided over the Algerian struggle, and those divisions led to the fall of the Fourth Republic and the rise of Charles De Gaulle. De Gaulle granted Algeria its independence and then faced down the lethal opposition of the OAS, a group of military officers grounded in the fascist collaborationist politics of Vichy France. De Gaulle survived several assassination attempts against him and there are a number of evidentiary tributaries leading between those attempts and the forces that killed Kennedy.
Maurice Brooks Gatlin–one of Guy Banister’s investigators–boasted of having transferred a large sum of money from the CIA to the OAS officers plotting against De Gaulle. In addition, Jean Souetre–a French OAS-linked assassin was in the Dallas Fort Worth area on 11/22/1963.
JFK, Algeria and operational links between JFK’s assassination and OAS attempts on De Gaulle’s life are discussed in FTR#1162.
Note that JFK told the French that he could not control his own intelligence services.
6. The program concludes with discussion of JFK’s policies with regard to Africa, the Congo in particular. This topic is presented at greater length in our next interview with Jim.
Mr. Emory I appreciate your research. If this were Rome, you would be Pliny the Elder.