Introducing the expansion of American experience with Chiang and his Kuomintang fascists into U.S. Cold War policy in Asia, we present Sterling Seagrave’s rumination about Stanley Hornbeck, a State Department flack who became: “. . . . the doyen of State’s Far Eastern Division. . . .”
Hornbeck “ . . . . had only the most abbreviated and stilted knowledge of China, and had been out of touch personally for many years. . . . He withheld cables from the Secretary of State that were critical of Chiang, and once stated that ‘the United States Far Eastern policy is like a train running on a railroad track. It has been clearly laid out and where it is going is plain to all.’ It was in fact bound for Saigon in 1975, with whistle stops along the way at Peking, Quemoy, Matsu, and the Yalu River. . . .”
In numerous programs over the decades, we have documented the fact that President Kennedy’s assassination was a decisive event in the U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War.
As laid out in NSAM #263 (crafted in October of 1963), JFK had decided to pull all U.S. forces out of Vietnam by Christmas of 1965. Two days after his assassination, the Sunday on which Ruby slew Oswald, Kennedy’s withdrawal program was canceled and the escalation policy that became manifest was put into effect, codified in NSAM 273.
This is discussed, in–among other programs–FTR#978, as well as numerous programs in our landmark series of interviews with Jim DiEugenio.
The Zapruder Film, which disproves the Oswald cover story, was purchased by Time Inc. and handled by Life Magazine, placing this crucial bit of evidence in the domain of Henry Luce, a primary promoter of Chiang Kai-shek and Mme. Chiang, aka Mae-ling Soong.
Thus, America’s eyes and ears on Chiang Kai-shek were the same as America’s eyes and ears on the assassination of JFK, which threatened to change the direction on which the railway line described by Stanley Hornbeck was headed.
The Assassination Records Review Board accessed the perspective of a CIA photographic expert, who opined that the Zapruder Film had been tampered with.
He viewed the film and saw what he believed was JFK reacting to between six and eight different shots, from at least three directions.
Life’s publisher was C.D. Jackson, a longtime intelligence and psychological warfare asset. He largely oversaw the Luce publishing outlet’s handling of the film.
During the course of the Cold War, Henry Luce had become “ . . . . a key CIA media asset.”
C.D. Jackson “ . . . . who had been in charge of Life since 1960 . . . . was no ordinary publisher. . . . Jackson had been a specialist in psychological warfare for the government . . . and was an expert in Cold War propaganda . . . .”
The magazine deliberately structured its publishing of still frames from the film to mislead a naive observer about the information contained in the film.
Life also published a cover photograph of Lee Harvey Oswald that had obviously been doctored, with the shadows in the photograph going in different directions!
Numerous eyewitnesses to the killing gave testimony to the effect that, at one point, the motorcade actually came to a complete halt, giving the snipers a stationary target at which to fire.
Among those who testified to that effect were Dearie Cabell, the wife of Earle Cabell, the mayor of Dallas. Cabell’s brother, General C.P. Cabell, had been a Deputy Director of the CIA, and was fired by JFK for lying to him about the Bay of Pigs invasion.
(Another of those fired was Allen Dulles, who served on the Warren Commission.)
President Biden continued the suspicious handling of JFK evidence by further delaying release of information about the murder.
The notion that the documents could compromise military, intelligence community or law enforcement methodology at this stage of the investigation strains credibility.
The JFK assassination–the key event to keeping American Far Eastern Policy traveling the straight railroad line described by Stanley Hornbeck–was also a central event in the career of Mort Sahl, the brilliant stand-up comedian and one of the inspirations for Mr. Emory’s life’s work.
“. . . . Mr. Sahl worked on radio and on local television in Los Angeles, but he didn’t help his cause with what some felt was on obsession with the Kennedy assassination. His performances began to include reading scornfully from the Warren Commission report [published by The New York Times—D.E.]. And he worked as an unpaid investigator for Jim Garrison, the New Orleans district attorney, who claimed to have uncovered secret evidence that Lee Harvey Oswald was not the assassin, and who accused a New Orleans businessman, Clay Shaw, of conspiring to murder the president. No convincing evidence secret or otherwise, was produced at Mr. Shaw’s trial, and the jury acquitted him in less than an hour.
‘I spent years talking with people, Garrison notably, about the Kennedy assassination,’ Mr. Sahl wrote in ‘Heartland,’ a score-settling, dyspeptic memoir published in 1976, ‘and I was said to have hurt my career by being in bad company. . . . I don’t think that Jack Kennedy is bad company. I don’t think that Garrison is bad company. I learned something, though. The people that I went to Hollywood parties with are not my comrades The men I was in the trenches with in New Orleans are my comrades.’ He concluded, ‘I think Jack Kennedy cries from the grave for justice.’ . . . .”
A consummately important study of Vietnam War crimes was authored by Nick Turse. A review by the U.S. Naval Institute can be taken as an advisory in this regard.
Mr. Turse performs the remarkable feat of unsparingly searing presentation of the war crimes that were standard operating procedure for much of the American (and allied) forces in Vietnam by tracing the foundation of those crimes from the technocratic approach to military strategy pursued by the Pentagon and Robert McNamara, through the re-socialization and re-programming of young, often teen-aged, recruits to turn them into reflexive killers, chronicling the massive firepower available to U.S. forces, and documenting the recalcitrant attitude of the officer corps and General Staff, who were unwilling to countenance the professional and ideological damage that would result from presentation and adjudication of the truth.
In addition, Mr. Turse–while avoiding self-righteous posturing–highlights the doctrinaire racism of many U.S. combatants, who committed war crimes behind the “MGR”–the “Mere Gook Rule.”
“ ‘An important addition to Vietnam war studies . . . . Turse’s study is not anti-veteran, anti-military, or anti-American. It does not allege that the majority of U.S. military personnel in South Vietnam committed crimes. . . .” Proceedings (U.S. Naval Institute).
Nick Turse traces the strategic use of overwhelming firepower and de facto countenancing of civilian casualties owes much to the tactical approach of Japanese forces during World War II in China: “ . . . . These efforts were commonly known as ‘pacification,’ but their true aim was to depopulate the contested countryside. ‘The people are like water and the army is like fish.’ Mao Zedong, the leader of the Chinese Communist revolution, had famously written. American planners grasped his dictum, and also studied the ‘kill-all, burn-all, loot-all’ scorched earth campaigns that the Japanese army launched in rural China during the 1930s and early 1940s for lessons on how to drain the ‘sea.’ Not surprisingly the idea of forcing peasants out of their villages was embraced by civilian pacification officials and military officers alike. . . .”
Exemplifying the brutal reality of the crimes committed by G.I.‘s in Vietnam is the “double veteran” manifestation. Before killing them and adding them to the body count of “enemies” killed, GI’s raped female “guerillas.”
One of several role models who inspired Mr. Emory to do his life’s work is political comedian Mort Sahl. One of Jim Garrison’s investigators, Sahl paid the price for his engagement. From an entertainment and media superstar, he became relegated to the margins of exposure and earning power. In his 1976 autobiography Heartland, he chronicled some suspicious violent events in New Orleans that immediately preceded Garrison’s campaign for re-election. Sahl surmised that this was probably part of a CIA campaign to destroy Garrison. In our long series on Jim DiEugenio’s Destiny Betrayed, we noted that former CIA director Richard Helms committed the Agency to destroying Garrison’s efforts before, during and after the trial of Clay Shaw. That these events may have been part of the “after” is something to be carefully considered. In his text, Sahl also notes that part of the CIA’s task is ” . . . . to staff the left. They don’t staff the right–that’ll take care of itself; they staff the left. They give a fellow a liberal credential, they’ll let you trust him, and they’ll always give you a cookie. A guy writes an article for Ramparts and says, ‘The Gulf Oil company wants to start a war so they can drill offshore in Vietnam.’ The reader says, ‘Wow, what revelations.’ that’s your cookie. . . .”
This is the sixteenth of a planned long series of interviews with Jim DiEugenio about his triumphal analysis of President Kennedy’s assassination and New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison’s heroic investigation of the killing.
The program opens with continuation of discussion of an unfortunate piece from The Huffington Post about Clay Shaw. In addition to parroting canards about Garrison’s case being baseless, Clay Shaw being a “Wilsonian/FDR liberal” and Garrison’s nonexistent stance that the JFK assassination was a “homosexual thrill killing” by Clay Shaw & company, the HP piece mentioned an appearance by Jim Garrison on Johnny Carson’s “Tonight Show.”
The actual story of Garrison’s appearance on Carson is important and interesting. When the brilliant comedian Mort Sahl was on Carson’s show, the subject of the Garrison investigation came up. Sahl asked the audience if they would like to have Garrison come on the show, and they responded with overwhelming enthusiasm.
Eventually, Garrison did appear on the show and Carson engaged in an openly confrontational discussion. Carson was so outraged that he told Mort Sahl that he would never appear on the program again. Mort did not appear on the “Tonight” show until Jay Leno succeeded Carson as the host.
In this regard, it is worth noting that NBC–the network that aired Walter Sheridan’s hit piece on Garrison–has profound connections to the intelligence community, as discussed in FTR #1045.
Jim also relates that, when in Los Angeles, Robert Kennedy was querying China Lee–Mort’s wife at the time–about what Garrison was doing in New Orleans. As we have seen in past programs–including FTR #‘s 809, 892, 1005–Robert Kennedy was waiting until he got elected President before opening an investigation into his brother’s murder. Of course, he, too was killed before he could become President.
The program then turns to James Kirkwood, another of the designated media hatchet men who pilloried Garrison. Networked with James Phelan, he helped mint the canard that Garrison prosecuted Shaw in the context of what the DA supposedly saw as a “homosexual thrill killing.” Unfortunately, this nonsense has endured, as a Huffington Post article makes clear.
Another of the media hit men who defamed Garrison was David Chandler:
Destiny Betrayed by Jim DiEugenio; Skyhorse Publishing [SC]; Copyright 1992, 2012 by Jim DiEugenio; ISBN 978–1‑62087–056‑3; p. 276.
. . . . But Chandler’s most serious blast against Garrison and his inquiry was a two-part article written for Life in the fall of 1967. This appeared in the September 1 and September 8 issues of the magazine. The pieces masqueraded as an expose of Mafia influence in large cities in America at the time. But the real target of the piece was not the mob, but Garrison. The idea was to depict him as a corrupt New Orleans DA who had some kind of nebulous ties to the Mafia and Carlos Marcello. There were four principal participants in the pieces: Chandler, Sandy Smith, Dick Billings, and Robert Blakey. Smith was the actual billed writer. And since Smith was a long-time asset of the FBI, it is very likely that the Bureau was the Bureau was the originating force behind the magazine running the piece. . . .
. . . . It was the work of Chandler, a friend of both Clay Shaw and Kerry Thornley, which was the basis of the completely phony concept that Garrison was somehow in bed with the Mafia and his function was to steer attention from their killing of Kennedy. . . .
The subject then turns to Clay Shaw’s defense team. It should never be forgotten that Shaw’s attorneys networked with: the infiltrators into Garrison’s office, the CIA and the media hatchet men who helped destroy Garrison’s public image.
We return briefly to Guy Johnson, initially a member of Shaw’s defense team. In this context, it is worth remembering what Banister investigator Tommy Baumler said:
Destiny Betrayed by Jim DiEugenio; Skyhorse Publishing [SC]; Copyright 1992, 2012 by Jim DiEugenio; ISBN 978–1‑62087–056‑3; p. 274.
. . . . In the spring of 1968, Harold Weisberg interviewed Tommy Baumler. Baumler had formerly worked for Guy Banister as part of his corps of student infiltrators in the New Orleans area. Because of that experience, Baumler knew a lot about Banister’s operation. For instance, that Banister’s files were coded, and that Banister had blackmail material on the subjects he kept files on. He also knew the intelligence network in New Orleans was constructed through Banister, Clay Shaw, and Guy Johnson; how close Shaw and Banister were; and that “Oswald worked for Banister.” In Weisberg’s interview with Tommy, he would occasionally ask to go off the record by telling him to turn the tape recorder off. Clearly, there were things going on in New Orleans that Baumler considered too hot to be attributed to him.
At this time, April of 1968, Weisberg considered Baumler to be an “unabashed fascist.” He explained this further by saying that Baumler was ‘aware of the meaning of his beliefs and considers what he describes as his beliefs as proper.” He then explained to Weisberg the following, “that whatever happens, the Shaw case will end without punishment for him [Shaw], because federal power will see to that.” He further said that this would also happen to anyone else charged by Garrison. . . .
In addition to Johnson, Irv Dymond, another Shaw attorney, networked with the intelligence community, Walter Sheridan and the spook infiltrators into Garrion’s office. In FTR #1045, we noted that Fred Leemans claimed he was coerced, in part, directly by Irv Dymond in Dymond’s law office. Dymond worked directly with Hunter Leake of the CIA’s New Orleans office.
Shaw attorneys Edward and William Wegmann also networked with the intelligence community, employing Wackenhut, formerly Southern Research, an intelligence-connected private security outfit to monitor Garrison’s communications.
Another Shaw attorney–Sal Panzeca–received a list of Garrison witnesses from Garrison office infiltrator Tom Bethell.
Destiny Betrayed by Jim DiEugenio; Skyhorse Publishing [SC]; Copyright 1992, 2012 by Jim DiEugenio; ISBN 978–1‑62087–056‑3; p. 290.
. . . . Tom Bethell had been one of the DA’s key investigators and researchers . . . . Since Garrison had designated him as his chief archivist, he had access to and control of both Garrison’s files and his most recent witness list. . . . Secretly, he met with Sal Panzeca, one of Shaw’s attorneys, and gave him a witness list he had prepared, with summaries of each witness’s expected testimony for the prosecution. . . .
The program concludes with the obstructive efforts of then Attorney General Ramsey Clark.
Clark tried to dismiss Clay Shaw’s involvement inthe assassination by claiming that the FBI had cleared him back in 1963.
Destiny Betrayed by Jim DiEugenio; Skyhorse Publishing [SC]; Copyright 1992, 2012 by Jim DiEugenio; ISBN 978–1‑62087–056‑3; p. 261.
. . . . One point man for the Johnson Administration in damaging Garrison’s case was Ramsey Clark. In March of 1867, right after his confirmation as Attorney General by the Senate Judiciary Committee, Clark made an extraordinary intervention into the case: he told a group of reporters Garrison’s case was baseless. The FBI, he said, had already investigated Shaw in 1963 and found no connection between him and the events in Dallas. . . .
Clark also assisted with the quashing of subpoenas that Garrison served.
Destiny Betrayed by Jim DiEugenio; Skyhorse Publishing [SC]; Copyright 1992, 2012 by Jim DiEugenio; ISBN 978–1‑62087–056‑3; pp. 272–273.
. . . . At around this time, Garrison issued subpoenas for both Richard Helms and any photographs of Oswald in Mexico City that the CIA held. . . . [CIA General Counsel Lawrence] Houston then wrote a letter to New Orleans judge Bernard Bagert who had signed the subpoena. He denied there were photos of Oswald in Mexico City. This reply was run by Attorney General Ramsey Clark and White House adviser Harry MacPherson. . . .
Finally, Clark denied Garrison proper access to autopsy photos and information about the assassination.
Destiny Betrayed by Jim DiEugenio; Skyhorse Publishing [SC]; Copyright 1992, 2012 by Jim DiEugenio; ISBN 978–1‑62087–056‑3; p. 287.
. . . . After the Attorney General had bungled his first attempt to discredit Garrison’s case, he secretly tried another method. Garrison had been trying to secure the original JFK autopsy photos and X‑rays to exhibit at the trial. They would form an important part of his case, since, to prove a conspiracy, he had to present evidence against the Warren Report, which maintained there was no conspiracy and that Oswald had acted alone. In 1968, Clark convened a panel of experts–which did not include any of the doctors who had performed the original examinations–to review the autopsy photos and X‑rays. In early 1969, just a few days before he left office and on the eve of the trial, Clark announced that this panel had endorsed the findings of the Warren Report. The panel released its findings, but none of the original evidence on which it was based. This was clearly meant to influence public opinion before Shaw’s trial began. . . .
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