Deep Politics Forum

Jim Hargrove Wrote:

From:
The New York Times
Oct. 3, 1963

[ATTACH=CONFIG]5779[/ATTACH]

Er, Jim, you've just posted a very long defence of the CIA by Arthur Krock.

You're not the first, and doubtless won't be the last, but why any critic of the CIA would prefer Krock's next-day rejoinder to the real McCloy* below, is, frankly, mysterious:

Quote:The Washington Daily News, Wednesday, October 2, 1963, p.3

'SPOOKS' MAKE LIFE MISERABLE FOR AMBASSADOR LODGE

'Arrogant' CIA Disobeys Orders in Viet Nam

By Richard T. Starnes

SAIGON, Oct.2 - The story of the Central Intelligence Agency's role in South Viet Nam is a dismal chronicle of bureaucratic arrogance, obstinate disregard of orders, and unrestrained thirst for power.

Twice the CIA flatly refused to carry out instructions from Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge, according to a high United States source here.

In one of these instances the CIA frustrated a plan of action Mr. Lodge brought with him from Washington because the agency disagreed with it.

This led to a dramatic confrontation between Mr. Lodge and John Richardson, chief of the huge CIA apparatus here. Mr. Lodge failed to move Mr. Richardson, and the dispute was bucked back to Washington. Secretary of State Dean Rusk and CIA Chief John A. McCone were unable to resolve the conflict, and the matter is now reported to be awaiting settlement by President Kennedy.

It is one of the developments expected to be covered in Defense Secretary Robert McNamara's report to Mr. Kennedy.

Others Critical, Too

Other American agencies here are incredibly bitter about the CIA.

"If the United States ever experiences a 'Seven Days in May' it will come from the CIA, and not from the Pentagon," one U.S. official commented caustically.

("Seven Days in May" is a fictional account of an attempted military coup to take over the U.S. Government.)

CIA "spooks" (a universal term for secret agents here) have penetrated every branch of the American community in Saigon, until non-spook Americans here almost seem to be suffering a CIA psychosis.

An American field officer with a distinguished combat career speaks angrily about "that man at headquarters in Saigon wearing a colonel's uniform." He means the man is a CIA agent, and he can't understand what he is doing at U.S. military headquarters here, unless it is spying on other Americans.

Another American officer, talking about the CIA, acidly commented: "You'd think they'd have learned something from Cuba but apparently they didn't."

Few Know CIA Strength

Few people other than Mr. Richardson and his close aides know the actual CIA strength here, but a widely used figure is 600. Many are clandestine agents known only to a few of their fellow spooks.

Even Mr. Richardson is a man about whom it is difficult to learn much in Saigon. He is said to be a former OSS officer, and to have served with distinction in the CIA in the Philippines.

A surprising number of the spooks are known to be involved in their ghostly trade and some make no secret of it.

"There are a number of spooks in the U.S. Information Service, in the U.S. Operations mission, in every aspect of American official and commercial life here, " one official - presumably a non-spook - said.

"They represent a tremendous power and total unaccountability to anyone," he added.

Coupled with the ubiquitous secret police of Ngo Dinh Nhu, a surfeit of spooks has given Saigon an oppressive police state atmosphere.

The Nhu-Richardson relationship is a subject of lively speculation. The CIA continues to pay the special forces which conducted brutal raids on Buddhist temples last Aug. 21, altho in fairness it should be pointed out that the CIA is paying these goons for the war against communist guerillas, not Buddhist bonzes (priests).

Hand Over Millions

Nevertheless, on the first of every month, the CIA dutifully hands over a quarter million American dollars to pay these special forces.

Whatever else it buys, it doesn't buy any solid information on what the special forces are up to. The Aug. 21 raids caught top U.S. officials here and in Washington flat-footed.

Nhu ordered the special forces to crush the Buddhist priests, but the CIA wasn't let in on the secret. (Some CIA button men now say they warned their superiors what was coming up, but in any event the warning of harsh repression was never passed to top officials here or in Washington.)

Consequently, Washington reacted unsurely to the crisis. Top officials here and at home were outraged at the news the CIA was paying the temple raiders, but the CIA continued the payments.

It may not be a direct subsidy for a religious war against the country's Buddhist majority, but it comes close to that.

And for every State Department aide here who will tell you, "Dammit, the CIA is supposed to gather information, not make policy, but policy-making is what they're doing here," there are military officers who scream over the way the spooks dabble in military operations.

A Typical Example

For example, highly trained trail watchers are an important part of the effort to end Viet Cong infiltration from across the Laos and Cambodia borders. But if the trailer watchers spot incoming Viet Congs, they report it to the CIA in Saigon, and in the fullness of time, the spooks may tell the military.

One very high American official here, a man who has spent much of his life in the service of democracy, likened the CIA's growth to a malignancy, and added he was not sure even the White House could control it any longer.

Unquestionably Mr. McNamara and Gen. Maxwell Taylor both got an earful from people who are beginning to fear the CIA is becoming a Third Force co-equal with President Diem's regime and the U.S. Government - and answerable to neither.

There is naturally the highest interest here as to whether Mr. McNamara will persuade Mr. Kennedy something ought to be done about it.

The following editorial accompanied Starnes' prophetic bombshell and points to a curious feature of the entire pre-coup period - most of the objections to the Agency's grotesque power were coming from the the GOP's establishment, a group far to the left of today's post-Clinton Democrats.

To illustrate the point, Starnes went to Vietnam, in September 1963, bearing a letter of introduction from Roy Howard, the Scripps-Howard's effective head (despite nominal retirement a decade before) and most definitely no Democrat, testifying to Starnes' bona fides. Howard and Walker Stone stood by Starnes - and his despatch - in the face of John McCone's angry demand, made in the course of face-to-face meeting with Stone, that the reporter be sacked.

At much the same time, Rep. John V. Lindsay of New York was being commissioned by Esquire's editor, Harold Hayes, to write a no-holds-barred attack on the Agency, based upon the resolution, seeking to curtail CIA power, that Lindsay had put before the House of Representatives in August 1963. It duly appeared in March 1964. But that's another story.

Quote:The Washington Daily News, 2 October 1963, p.32

Editorial: What's Wrong in South Viet Nam?

It is a brutally messed up state of affairs that our man, Richard Starnes, reports from South Viet Nam in his article on Page 3 today.

And the mess he has found isn't Viet Namese. It is American, involving bitter strife among U.S. agencies which may help explain the vast cost and lack of satisfactory progress in this operation to contain communist aggression.

The whole situation, as described by Mr. Starnes, must be shocking to Americans who believe we are engaged in a selfless crusade to protect democracy in this far-off land.

He has been told that:

The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has flatly refused to carry out instructions from Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge, frustrating a plan of action he took from Washington.

Secret agents, or "spooks," from CIA "have penetrated every branch of the American community in Saigon." Who are we fighting there anyhow? The communists, or our own people?

The CIA agents represent a tremendous power and are totally unaccountable to anyone. They dabble and interfere in military operations, to the frustration of our military officials.

The bitterness of other American agencies in Saigon toward the CIA, Starnes found, is "almost unbelievable."

On the basis of this last statement alone, there is something terribly wrong with our system out there.

Defense Secretary McNamara, just back from an inspection trip to Viet Nam, gave the President a preliminary report on his findings at the White House this morning. Mr. McNamara is a tough man of decisive action. It may be assumed he now is in a position to assess the blame for this quarreling and back-biting inside the American family whether it falls on the CIA or other agencies which accuse the CIA.

One way or the other, some official heads should roll.

*Apologies, couldn't resist.

Thanks, Paul. Krock was clearly an Agency apologist, which is why I highlighted the real meat of his story. The rest of the crap is irrelevant.

But I didn't realize until now that he probably cribbed all the actual information he had from Starnes' story.

OTOH, at least I didn't make the Real McCloy pun.

Thanks again!

As I wrote to Jim directly.. placing the Assassiantion of JFK at the feet of the CIA is basically the same as saying the hitman is to blame when acting on the orders of the Bonanno, Colombo, Gambino, Genovese and Lucchese families.
the MUSCLE decides how to do the job, the heads of the families issue the order...

The "CIA" is not a person. The assassination was planned by and carried out by people... not acronyms...
Are we actually to believe that the CIA agents on the ground took it upon themselves to "stand-up for Dulles" and for all the other JFK initiated attacks and just "took him out" ?

Which CIA agents were at Bethesda getting LeMay, Galloway, Burkley and Kinney to cover it up?
Which CIA agents got Hoover to do what he did... in the destruction, alteration, creation of evidence?
Which CIA agents changed the motorcade order/rout putting the press at the back, and removing McHugh from the front seat and bringing the target to the patsy?

I am not suggesting that the CIA was not involved... far from it. But the muscle does not make the rules... the muscle does what it is told with assurances they will not be caught. Or if caught, not prosecuted, or if prosecuted, not found guilty, or if found guilty, not serve time... unless those who want it to be... let it be.

You want to believe HUNT was on the inside of this simply because he was in Dallas... Lansdale goes forward with something like this without assurances of coverage?

This discussion is not about absolving the CIA by any means... but it should not also be an idictment of an agency full of people, 99% of which had nothing to do with this.

Where does McGeorge Bundy come into play here Jim? You remember, the guy who cancelled the destruction of the last 3 planes on the ground in Cuba and the one who tells AF-1 there was no conspiracy and Oswald was the man.. ? Are you aware of HIS connections... you surely are not absolving HIM are you?
Raised in Boston, Massachusetts, Bundy came from a wealthy family long involved in Republican[SUP][1][/SUP] politics. His mother, Katherine Lawrence (Putnam), was the daughter of two Boston Brahmin families listed in the Social Register. His father, Harvey Hollister Bundy, was from Grand Rapids, Michigan and was a diplomat who helped implement the Marshall Plan.
Bundy attended the elite Dexter School in Brookline, Massachusetts and then the Groton School, where he placed first in his class and ran the student newspaper and debating society. He was then admitted to Yale University, one year behind his brother William. At Yale, where he majored in mathematics, he served as secretary of the Yale Political Union and then chairman of its Liberal Party. He was on the staff of the Yale Literary Magazine and also wrote a column for the Yale Daily News. Like his father, he was inducted into the Skull and Bones secret society, where he was nicknamed "Odin". He remained in contact with his fellow Bonesmen for decades afterward.[SUP][2][/SUP] He graduated Yale in the class of 1940. During World War II he served as a U.S. Army intelligence officer.[SUP][3][/SUP]

Career[edit]

From 1945 to 1947,[SUP][4][/SUP] Bundy co-authored recently retired United States Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson's third-person autobiography, On Active Service in Peace and War, which was published in 1947.
In 1949, Bundy took a position at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York to study Marshall Plan aid to Europe. The study group included such luminaries as Dwight Eisenhower, Allen Dulles, Richard M. Bissell, Jr. and George Kennan. The group's deliberations were sensitive and highly secret, dealing as they did with the highly classified fact that there was a covert side to the Marshall Plan, where the CIA used certain funds to aid anti-communist groups in France and Italy.[SUP][5][/SUP]

He left government in 1966 to take over as president of the Ford Foundation, a position he held until 1979.

Not too many connections to the "invisible hands" of this world for us to be concerned...
move along, nothing to see here....

::
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The documents found at the link at the bottom of this post plainly spells out JFK's desire to remove Deim yet to replace him PEACEFULLY with a civilian leadership sympathetic to US goals...
(Viet Nam, please remember, was a CIA created situation entirely thru the movement of 1.2 million North Vietnamese into the South and a campaign of terror via the "Strategic Hamlets")

Had JFK been aware of the steps that led to the conflict, would things have been different?
Either the Military, including McNamara and Taylor, were somehow snowed into thinking the situation in Vietnam was one thing when in fact is was another... or they were part of the charade...

If you've not read their report and the account by Prouty in JFK, Vietnam and the CIA... I highly suggest it.

The CIA leadership had its own agenda regardless of the President... yet WHO was it that IKE warned us about? the CIA? or a Military Industrial Congressional (removed for the speech) Complex

The militaryindustrial complex, or militaryindustrialcongressional complex,[SUP][1][/SUP] comprises the policy and monetary relationships which exist between legislators, national armed forces, and the military industrial base that supports them. These relationships include political contributions, political approval for military spending, lobbying to support bureaucracies, and oversight of the industry. It is a type of iron triangle. The term is most often used in reference to the system behind the military of the United States, where it gained popularity after its use in the farewell address of President Dwight D. Eisenhower on January 17, 1961,[SUP][2][/SUP] though the term is applicable to any country with a similarly developed infrastructure.[SUP][3][/SUP][SUP][4][/SUP]

Funny - sounds much more like the heads of the 5 families are more the problem than the hitmen pulling the trigger ... or the hitman who decides what's in the best interest of the family without knowing all the information.. those hitmen usually get hit themselves... Bugsy Siegel comes to mind.

We are here at the "Deep Politics Forum"... not the "It's So Obvious" forum. Does it not distress anyone that if the CIA is so OBVIOUSLY the culprits, and the CIA is in the business of deception... "obvious" allows most to call it a done deal and go home... while the actual cuprits in the matter continue doing their thing to this day.

The ONI and Military Intelligence along with the Industrial and Congressional parts of the warning remain a revolving door of opportunity and influence... and even THEY ahve masters..
The NSA and CFR are indeed the only acronyms whose "people" are the entity...

If we are ever to find cupability here, sifting thru the offered and "obvious" minutia of the CIA is not going to get us there...

Cui Bono...? Who benefits?

===============
DOCUMENT 3
Memorandum of Conversation, "Vietnam," August 26, 1963, Noon
SOURCE: JFKL: Roger Hilsman Papers, Country Series, box 4, folder: Vietnam: White House Meetings 8/26/63-8/29/63, State Memcons
The first of a series of records of meetings in which President John F. Kennedy and his lieutenants consider the implications of a coup and the difficulties of bringing off a successful one.


Fast forward now to 10/29/63 and there is full blown White House discussion of what to do about the coup that was coming...


[ATTACH=CONFIG]5782[/ATTACH]

.. the transcript of Diem's last phone call to U.S. ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge, inquiring "what the attitude of the U.S. is" towards the coup then underway; Lodge dissembled that he was not "well enough informed at this time to be able to tell you."

http://www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB101/
Records of the Kennedy national security meetings, both here and in our larger collection, show that none of JFK's conversations about a coup in Saigon featured consideration of what might physically happen to Ngo Dinh Diem or Ngo Dinh Nhu. The audio record of the October 29th meeting which we cite below also reveals no discussion of this issue. That meeting, the last held at the White House to consider a coup before this actually took place, would have been the key moment for such a conversation. The conclusion of the Church Committee agrees that Washington gave no consideration to killing Diem. (Note 12) The weight of evidence therefore supports the view that President Kennedy did not conspire in the death of Diem. However, there is also the exceedingly strange transcript of Diem's final phone conversation with Ambassador Lodge on the afternoon of the coup (Document 23), which carries the distinct impression that Diem is being abandoned by the U.S. Whether this represents Lodge's contribution, or JFK's wishes, is not apparent from the evidence available today

David,

You may be right. The CIA plotters who set up "Oswald" as the fall guy may well have been following the commands of others. But I can't prove it and neither can you.

What we can prove, at the very least, is the CIA looked and behaved damned guilty. In your search for Deep connections elsewhere, why take the spotlight off the CIA?

Why let the CIA go? Why madly point everywhere else?

Direct evidence for the assassination points to the CIA. You can do all the Deep Political Thinking you want, but the EVIDENCE still points to the CIA.

If you have evidence against ONI or McGeorge Bundy or LBJ or Hoover or Curtis Lemay or the ghost of Marilyn Monroe, please post it here in the clearest and simplest terms possible.

And if you want to run with body alteration at Bethesda, be my guest, and lots of luck winning over the public with that.

Why not start squeezing the one organization we can definitely show was involved?

Jim Hargrove Wrote:David,

You may be right. The CIA plotters who set up "Oswald" as the fall guy may well have been following the commands of others. But I can't prove it and neither can you.

What we can prove, at the very least, is the CIA looked and behaved damned guilty. In your search for Deep connections elsewhere, why take the spotlight off the CIA?

Why let the CIA go? Why madly point everywhere else?

Direct evidence for the assassination points to the CIA. You can do all the Deep Political Thinking you want, but the EVIDENCE still points to the CIA.

If you have evidence against ONI or McGeorge Bundy or LBJ or Hoover or Curtis Lemay or the ghost of Marilyn Monroe, please post it here in the clearest and simplest terms possible.

And if you want to run with body alteration at Bethesda, be my guest, and lots of luck winning over the public with that.

Why not start squeezing the one organization we can definitely show was involved?

In a well-planned set-up of a Patsy, the evidence points to the Patsy... no? Doesn't make the evidence indicative of the reality.

In a well-orchestrated conspiracy, crime, or what-have-you - there still needs to be a Patsy behind the patsy... be it the dead girl who is not really dead but gets away with it (Body Heat)
or in this case a group that can weather the storm... that can stonewall for YEARS... those that are really good at it while also fighting for their own survival.

If you'd slow down a bit you'd see I am not letting the CIA off in the least... I am indicting the PEOPLE within the CIA who were the HITMEN... It would be nice if you would distinguish between the two.

If there was direct evidence that the ONI or Bundy were involved... you suppose it would be "obvious" like what the CIA feeds us?
or rather that it would even exist anymore? or existed in the first place.

This again is DEEP POLITICS... we have no idea who either Lee or Harvey was or worked for... you claim the CIA based on the evidence we have been allowed to see...
have you never encountered forged documents?

These are Harvey's notes on ZR-RIFLE - phony backdated 201's.... "planning should include provisions for blaming Sovs or Czechs in case of blow(back)"

So squeeze away Jim... and be happy and thankful with what we get? And assume the Obvious is the Truth....

To each his own - I choose to keep my eyes on the brass ring... not the phony carousel horse's cracking teeth...


[ATTACH=CONFIG]5783[/ATTACH]

David Josephs Wrote:In a well-planned set-up of a Patsy, the evidence points to the Patsy... no? Doesn't make the evidence indicative of the reality.

Plenty of evidence pointed to the Patsy. Enough to "fool" four government inquiries, and all our major news media.

David Josephs Wrote:In a well-orchestrated conspiracy, crime, or what-have-you - there still needs to be a Patsy behind the patsy... be it the dead girl who is not really dead but gets away with it (Body Heat) or in this case a group that can weather the storm... that can stonewall for YEARS... those that are really good at it while also fighting for their own survival.

I'll leave the patsy-behind-the-patsy philosophy to you. Let's talk about EVIDENCE!

David Josephs Wrote:If you'd slow down a bit you'd see I am not letting the CIA off in the least... I am indicting the PEOPLE within the CIA who were the HITMEN... It would be nice if you would distinguish between the two.

Now we're making progress. Please name the CIA agents you indict for the assassination of JFK.

Myself, I'm not so sure which agents to blame, though I do believe that officials at both the Miami and MC stations were involved. I'd rather go after the whole rat's nest and start shaking, just like a real prosecutor would.

David Josephs Wrote:If there was direct evidence that the ONI or Bundy were involved... you suppose it would be "obvious" like what the CIA feeds us?
or rather that it would even exist anymore? or existed in the first place.

So, we must ignore the evidence the "CIA feeds us" that the CIA killed JFK so we can go after McGeorge Bundy because evidence against him no longer exists? Is that the plan?

David Josephs Wrote:This again is DEEP POLITICS... we have no idea who either Lee or Harvey was or worked for... you claim the CIA based on the evidence we have been allowed to see... have you never encountered forged documents?

Holy Crap, Batman! You "have no idea who either Lee or Harvey was or worked for?"

Are you kidding?

Do you really support John Armstrong's work?

Jim "Amazed in America" Hargrove

Looks to me like two separate operations co-ordinated from on high.

One team was tasked with killing Kennedy.

The other team was tasked with sheep-dipping/killing Oswald the Red Agent.

We hear a lot about the latter, they who screwed the pooch.

I doubt if we've ever heard one word about the guys who actually killed Kennedy.

I apply a negative template to Oswald -- anyone who had anything to do with the guy had nothing to do with the actual murder of JFK.

Back-up patsies, the lot of them.

Hi, Cliff,

That's an interesting line of thought... but I still think it is better to go after the leads we have rather than think about the leads we don't have. As you suggest, even if the patsy set-up and the hit were separate ops, they still had to be coordinated somehow. And the people who could handle intel agents surely limits the field.

And the evidence is profound that the CIA and JFK's Administration were at war. At war over Cuba, at war over Vietnam, and undoubtedly at war over JFK's attempted Soviet rapprochement.

From the news story that broke less than two months before the assassination:


Jim

Cliff Varnell Wrote:Looks to me like two separate operations co-ordinated from on high.

One team was tasked with killing Kennedy.

The other team was tasked with sheep-dipping/killing Oswald the Red Agent.

We hear a lot about the latter, they who screwed the pooch.

I doubt if we've ever heard one word about the guys who actually killed Kennedy.

I apply a negative template to Oswald -- anyone who had anything to do with the guy had nothing to do with the actual murder of JFK.

Back-up patsies, the lot of them.

Kudos Cliff... well said.

What remains the key aspect of magic and illusion? Keep them looking over here, while reality is over there.

::fortuneteller::