Charles Drago Wrote:You got me, Nelson.

I am the illegitimate son of Lyndon Baines Johnson and Priscilla Johnson McMillan, and I commend you on ferreting out our "deeply hidden secrets and ulterior motives."

I just left LBJ's cryogenically preserved head after a lengthy meditation.

(Yes, we've frozen the mastermind's mind in anticipation of the day he can return to consciousness and take his rightful place in atop the pantheon of James Bond villains -- "the most evil and brilliant" of them all!)

It has been decided: Let's come out of the closet and celebrate the truth as you've discovered it.

LYNDON WAS THE MASTERMIND!

The heirs of Richard Nixon and Thomas Jefferson, I understand, are expressing their dismay at your characterization of LBJ as our "most evil and brilliant" president. But I say, Screw 'em! When you're right, you're right!

All of us at the ranch thank you for honoring our fallen -- but not for long -- leader.

But if it's not asking too much, would you do us one more favor?

Please show a cynical world how LBJ was the mastermind of the MLK and RFK hits. I mean, in your own words, "who else" could have done them in?

Thanking you in advance,

Charles "Gentleman Bird" Drago

Phillip F. Nelson Wrote:Have at it. . .I am really going to disappear now for a few weeks. You're Welcome, Charles.

James H. Fetzer Wrote:Something about these exchanges is bothering me, Charles. Which is that none of
them displays any real knowledge or familiarity with LBJ: MASTERMIND OF JFK'S
ASSASSINATION. You love to talk about the word, where I have noticed that you
employ two rhetorical tactics. One is that you exaggerate what it would take for
LBJ to have been "the mastermind". The other is that you minimize the powers
and opportunities that were available to Lyndon Baines Johnson. I cannot accept
either maneuver as sincere until I am at least reassured on these basic questions:
When did you obtain the book and when did you read it? Be so kind as to tell me.

You are doing everything but address the key issues here. When I offer the names
of some of those who knew Lyndon the best "up close and personal", you dismiss
them because they are not "deep politics analysts"? I am sure this is not supposed
to be a joke, but it is certainly unresponsive to the points I have been making. Now
I have to ask, have you read TEXAS IN THE MORNING, Madeleine's book (actually,
one of two, the other being DALLAS DID IT)? or A TEXAS LEGEND by Billy Sol Estes?
Or even my review of RECLAIMING HISTORY, for which I even provided you a link?
I laid out my take on the assassination and asked for a critique, but I didn't get one.

I ask because convergence of opinions (or of findings) in general requires different
persons to be considering the same evidence and the same range of hypotheses on
the basis of the same rules of reasoning. If I am right--that we are not basing our
reasoning on the same evidence, at the least--then that goes a long way toward an
explanation for our divergence of opinion. What you claim about this book, "Nelson
clearly is NOT using the terms 'mastermind' and 'pivotal player' synonymously. He is
attempting to ascribe to LBJ the Sponsorship role--which means Nelson is either an
ignoramus or an accessory after the fact", is either incredibly ill-informed (as would
be the case if you actually haven't read it) or else serious warped and irresponsible.

THE MAN WROTE A BOOK about the pivotal player in the assassination of JFK. And
he is hardly the first serious student of the case. While Phil's book weighs in at 729
pages, BLOODY TREASON runs 909. I worry that you have never studied it, either,
because I cannot imagine anyone of your character and intellect being so dismissive
of such substantial studies, where both assign a pivotal role to Lyndon. Noel Twyman
suggests "the most perfect combination, with the greatest probability of success" was

CIA/Military -- Secret Service -- Mafia -- LBJ -- Hoover

As he proposes on page 48,

* All the Mafia had to do was get the CIA involved and have the CIA recruit the Secret
Service and LBJ, and it would have had a perfect conspiracy.

* All LBJ had to do was recruit the CIA (who would use the Mafia as needed) and the
Secret Service, and he had a perfect conspiracy.

* Hoover would fall in line, after the fact, when confronted by LBJ and the Mafia with
the blackmail material they had on him.

* In this scenario, the right-wing extremists, if involved at all, would provide money.

Noel acknowledged that his hypotheses might have to be modified, or fail, or other
combinations emerge, including an "induced cover-up" by the CIA or the FBI, which
might fear the consequence of having its deepest secret exposed if the crime were
to be solved. Interestingly, in the context of this debate, Noel himself uses the term,
"mastermind", to characterize the person who had the central role in planning out the
assassination itself as a military exercise, which neither I nor Phil, to the best of my
knowledge, believe was done by Lyndon himself. The CIA, after all, had professionals
in the business, where a prime candidate for that role would be Edward Landsdale,
assisted by men like William Harvey and David Sanchez Morales, where others such
as Allen Dulles and David Atlee Phillips were certainly on the periphery. But surely it
cannot be for this reason that you have launched a one-sided vendetta against Phil.

LBJ was the pivotal member of the plot, since it could not have gone forward without
him. Those who are familiar with the reports of Madeleine Duncan Brown, Billy Sol
Estes, Barr McClelland, and E. Howard Hunt should appreciate what I am asserting.
The plan was to take out JFK and that no one would pay a penalty for participating in
the assassination. ONLY LBJ COULD CONTROL THAT. Plus Lyndon was a very "hands
on" guy, who even sent his chief assistant, Cliff Carter, to Dallas to make sure all of
the arrangements were in place. With Edgar at his side and the Secret Service and
the Joint Chiefs allied with him, he could steal the body from Dallas and get it under
military control, while destroying the most important evidence, the Lincoln limousine.

I respect those who hold different views about this, but were it not for LBJ, as Jack
Ruby observed, JFK would not have been taken out. I regard this as one of the best
books ever published about "The Big Event" As Lyndon told Madeleine, the CIA and the
oil boys decided that JFK had to be taken out. But the person who benefited the most
from that was LBJ himself. And he took steps to insure that it would be successfully
executed and successfully covered up. He was the pivot. As Jack Ruby observed, after
having been granted a new criminal trial, http://www.jfkmurdersolved.com/ruby.htm

Jack: Everything pertaining to what's happening has never come to the surface. The
world will never know the true facts, of what occurred, my motives. The people had,
that had so much to gain and had such an ulterior motive for putting me in the
position I'm in, will never let the true facts come above board to the world.

Reporter : Are these people in very high positions Jack?!

Jack : Yes. . . .

Jack: When I mentioned about Adlai Stevenson--"if he was vice president there would
never have been an assassination of our beloved President Kennedy"--[and was] asked
if he would explain it again, Ruby continued, Well, the answer is the man in office now.

It was true then and it remains true today. The pivotal player in the death of JFK was LBJ.

[quote=Charles Drago]I'll consider your request -- even as I let pass the nagging feeling that you're still in the posture of a grade school teacher who doesn't quite buy his student's "I did SO read the book" stipulation.

But don't get your hopes up. I'm auditing your courses.

BINGO!!!

Nelson clearly is NOT using the terms "mastermind" and "pivotal player" synonymously. He is attempting to ascribe to LBJ the Sponsorship role -- which means Nelson is either an ignoramus or an accessory after the fact.

Why on earth can't you come to grips with the greater implications of this transparent reality?

(And by the by, Johnson was not "the" pivotal player, but rather "a" pivotal player -- nor more or less so than, in my educated opinion, Alan Dulles.)

Back to the all-important point -- one that transcends mere semantics. When Nelson -- either out of ignorance or malignant intent (for me, the jury remains out) -- ascribes to Johnson powers and authority well beyond any he or any other post-JFK president ever came close to possessing, he gives aid and comfort to our shared enemy.

In other words: NELSON REINFORCES THE FALSE SPONSORSHIP OF LBJ -- AN ACT WHICH, BY DEFINITION, PRESERVES AND PROTECTS THE TRUE SPONSORS OF THE ASSASSINATION OF JOHN FITZGERALD KENNEDY!

Further, in doing so an innocent Nelson would demonstrate a naif's pathetically and fatally underinformed appreciation of deep political reality.

I categorically reject as credible witnesses and/or credible deep political analysts "Madeline, Billy Sol, Barr McClellan, E. Howard Hunt, Nigel Turner." Need I take you to task once more for your ... what's the word that won't offend you ... unimaginable endorsement of E. Howard Hunt, a man who saw you and me and so many of our colleagues as his blood enemies and as targets of opportunity for his disiniformation and propaganda?

As for our dear friend Jack White: Why not let him weigh in on the "mastermind" crux of our argument?

Robert Morrow Wrote:Why would the psychopathic, serial killer Lyndon Johnson be SO enthusiastic about Nelson Rockefeller for president in spring, 1968?

Robert Morrow Wrote:Johnson as president was crumbling under the weight of Vietnam and his fears of exposure for his key role in the JFK assassination. Richard Goodwin and Bill Moyers both had separately gone to psychiatrists and described LBJ's very scary mental behavior and they came back with a "back of the envelop" diagnosis of a "paranoid in disintegration."

Robert Morrow Wrote:So why does the usurper traitor murderer Lyndon Johnson, this "paranoid in disintegration" feel SO comfortable with Nelson Rockefeller as the next president?[sic]

1. The Smather's on-camera statement was made decades later, so there has to be some allowance here for a slight jumbling in recollection and "re-transmission"
   
2. (and more important) :very likely, Lyndonwhen he talked to JFK about this-- dissembled (as he always seemed to do), beat around the bush, and very likely sent a confusing message to JFK, which, in the re-telling to Smathers, may have been jumbled (and/or misunderstood) ; and then we have (as noted in my point 1) the re-telling, by Smathers, to a camera, decades later.
   
   So this is a very interesting problem of separating "the signal from the noise" (as they say in information theory); and I think what is truly important is that Smathers remembers JFK complaining, on 11/18, and on a ride aboard AF-1 from Florida, that (a) he didn't want to go to Texas and (b) among the many problems he had to deal with was this business of LBJ wanting Jackie to ride with him.
   
   This interview by Smathers provides really excellent "first hand" evidence of the extent to which JFK was being personally lobbied, by his own Vice President, on matters pertaining to the Texas tripi.e., on getting him to go there (to Texas, AND to Dallas) in the first place; and then to the extent of the actual configuration of which car she would ride in, in the Dallas motorcade (!). If it weren't for Smathers, all we'd have is the mealy-mouthed cop-out language of Sorensen, and others like him.
   
   3. Also, please do note the logical problem if LBJ really wanted to ride with JFK: IF that little snippet of a quote were to be taken seriously (and I do not take it seriously), then the actual configuration (i.e. Car-seating) would be that Lyndon Johnson would want to be in the same car as JFK, so if that were to be sothen how could it then be that LBJ "wanted Jackie to ride with him"? The phrase "ride with him" implies separate cars. Clearly.
   
   And, finally, for the same reason that the President and the vice President do NOT ever fly on the same aircraft, I am positive thatjust on those grounds aloneit would be a complete violation of security for the President and the Vice Presient to appear in an open car together.
   
   So my appraisal of this "re-transmission" (by Smathers) of what he heard JFK saying, is that: (a) Lyndon was making a bunch of noise, complaining about this and that; and (b) buried in that "noise" was his real message; and that his real message was that he, as a "galaant" Texas, wanted the President's wife to ride with him. I think that the rest of what Smathers heardor thinks he heard, and then re-transmitted, in this interviewis simply false.
   
   And again, let me repeat my reasons for saying so. . .
   
   Because:
   
   (1) Common sense rules out that the Pres and the Vice Pres would ride in the same limo. (Ever).
   
   (2) IF LBJ really wanted "to ride with JFK," then his request that he wanted Jackie "to ride with him" would make no logical sense.
   
   OK. . . Those are my beliefs about this remarkable little piece of information.
   
   First of all; I think its valid; and secondly, it shows what a sneaky bastard LBJ wasto try to actually lobby the President so that he would not have his wife within inches, and it would make him an easier target.
   
   Of coursehad LBJ succeeded in this gambit, he would have to have had a lot of explaining to do afterwards, to credibly explain why Jackie was not seated next to her husband, in Dallas, as she obviously was in other cities.
   

Charles Drago Wrote:Thank you, Mr. Sellers.

I would submit to you the argument that IS worth making: To elevate falsely LBJ or anyone else to a Sponsor role in the JFK assassination is to protect the true Sponsors, prolong the coverup, open the serious, honorable critical community to ridicule, and further Balkanize that already fractured community.

Best,

Charles