In this broadcast, we continue our discussion with the heroic Jim DiEugenio, selected by Oliver Stone to write the screenplay for his documentary JFK Revisited. Jim also wrote the book containing transcripts of both the two-hour and four-hour versions of the documentary and supplemental interviews.
The program begins with review of the manner in which our society is driven by visual events: the “crawl” at the end of the movie “JFK” led to the formation of the ARRB, in a manner analogous to how the airing of the Zapruder film on Geraldo Rivera’s Good Night America led to the formation of the House Select Committee on Assassinations.
Next, we note that the ARRB staffers were people who did not believe that JFK’s assassination was a conspiracy, nor did they think that there was a cover-up.
Notable in the ARRB’s proceedings is the fact that neither CIA operations records nor Congressional records are accessible via FOIA requests.
Notable in the ARRB’s proceedings is the fact that neither CIA operations records nor Congressional records are accessible via FOIA requests.
In this regard, the ARRB was empowered in an important and unprecedented way.
Meeting resistance from then President–and former CIA chief–George H.W. Bush, the ARRB was not staffed until Clinton became President.
Judge Tunheim (of the ARRB) noted that various Federal Agencies felt that they could just wait out the ARRB until its mandated time had expired.
The board received extensions of its mandated time, although it still was not able to get all the documents released.
The extensions stretched out ARRB’s tenure to four years.
A telling incident occurred when Judge Tunheim and the ARRB was parsing a CIA document they wanted released. The Agency officer present stated that there was a reason that the document could not be released, but he just “couldn’t think of it.”
The CIA’s counsel, who was present, indicated that the ARRB could proceed as planned.
Of note is the fact that Judge Tunheim disclosed that George Joannides, who over saw Carlos Bringuier’s DRE for the CIA, had served as the Agency’s liaison to the House Select Committee on Assassinations and that the ARRB, as well as the HSCA, was misled in this regard.
As noted previously, researcher Jefferson Morley’s Freedom of Information Act lawsuit directed at obliging CIA to disclose more information about Joannides was turned down by an appeals court, with Brett Kavanaugh casting a decisive vote, just before his nomination to the Supreme Court.
The CIA did release records about Lee Harvey Oswald, which had been in the province of the late James Jesus Angleton.
In our long series of interviews with Mr. DiEugenio about Destiny Betrayed, we noted that Harry Connick, who succeeded Jim Garrison as New Orleans DA, had ordered some of Garrison’s files to be burned.
Many were, however one of Connick’s assistants did not burn those records and kept the documents. Eventually, the ARRB got those documents.
Connick was not pleased.
Reviewing some of our synoptic discussion about Connick, from the written description for FTR#1050:
Key points of discussion and analysis about Connick:
1.–He was seemingly omnipresent in Clay Shaw’s criminal trial, operating to obstruct Garrison and aid Clay Shaw and the Federal Government, for which he worked.
2.–Station WDSU–very close to Clay Shaw and the vehicle for both the Walter Sheridan disinformation hit piece on Jim Garrison and the Ed Butler/Carlos Bringuier interview of the “Communist” Oswald–was active on behalf of Connick.
3.–The Gurvich brothers, who infiltrated Garrison’s investigation and networked with Clay Shaw’s defense team (with William appearing as a witness in the hearing on Shaw’s perjury trial), were active on behalf of Harry Connick.
4.–Clay Shaw himself, as well as DRE operative Carlos Bringuier contributed to Connick’s election campaign.
5.–In his second campaign to replace Garrison, Connick was successful.
6.–After becoming New Orleans DA, he burned many of Garrison’s files.
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. . . .
In 1992, author Dick Russell published “The Man Who Knew Too Much,” a comprehensive and insightful book on the JFK assassination.
Listen now: Side 1 | Side 2 | Side 3 | Side 4 The assassination of President Kennedy is a main focal point of Mr. Emory’s research. This series updates a number of aspects of the investigation into that crime. In addition to discussing a former CIA operative’s allegations that elements of the Agency were […]
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