JFK Blackmailed as a "Soviet Agent"? -- A Hypothesis

[Charles Drago]

At one point in the book tour for The Dark Side of Camelot, Seymour Hersh was asked by an MSM interviewer if, during his research, he had discovered anything so controversial or unnerving about John Fitzgerald Kennedy that he could not possibly include it in the final draft.

"I heard things about JFK I didn't want to believe," was Hersh's cagey response.

My interpretation: The disinformation boys were trying to sell him the tall tale that JFK, beginning in the mid-30s and until the second he died, was a witting Soviet agent.

I offer this troubling hypothesis for consideration. It is composed of informed conjecture. It must not be confused or conflated with the product of classic research. Rather, it emerges from the imagination which in turn is informed and directed by hard-won knowledge.

Its totality is greater than the sum of its parts.

In recent weeks, here and on other JFK asssassination websites, much has been written about the likelihood of JFK being the target of sexual blackmail. The discussions have ranged from sober inquiries to sticky exercises in onanism.

I submit for your consideration that JFK may have been threatened with exposure not of his wanton womanizing, but rather with his receptivity to a Soviet intelligence recruitment effort -- or a Western intelligence provocation disguised as a Soviet recruitment effort -- which may have taken place during his brief tenure at the London School of Economics in 1935.

Let me be clear: I am not suggesting for a nanosecond that JFK in fact did become a witting Soviet asset. But even a youthful, idealistic, quickly terminated dalliance with Marxism, perhaps as championed by Harold Laski (JFK's teacher), would have been enough to hang over JFK's head in later public years and amount to prime blackmail material.

If run by a Western service, the operation would have been the intellectual/ideological equivalent of a so-called honeytrap.

Something to put in the bank for later use.

Sexual blackmail vis a vis JFK has never cut the mustard for me. There would have had to have been something far more damaging, far more likely to have been exposed by the Cold War media to the Cold War public.

So damaging, perhaps, that even though totally fabricated, it still had -- and has -- the power to control JFK's actions and those of his family.

Imagine ... the likes of Novotny and Rometsch held over his head not for the fact that they were his sexual partners, but rather because they were among his Moscow Center conduits.

I'm treading very delicately here.

Your thoughts, please.

[Charles Drago]

I should clarify: The when and where of the hypothetical recruitment operation is insignificant to this exercise. I gravitated to JFK's LSE experience for its dramatic resonance.

[Alan Dale]

Hello Charles,

The hypothetical scenario you offer is not at all implausible. I don't necessarily feel that there had to be something far more damaging than allegations of... well, whatever would be sufficient to make the president vulnerable to sexual blackmail during the era of separate beds for Rob and Laura Petrie. But, it's a thought-provoking hypothesis.

As a young man venturing out on his own, JFK shared in common with his sister, Kathleen, an early sense of individuality in relation to the rest of the family; not being the paternally "favored son" provided freedom for developing intellectual independence outside the mold. His intellect and inquisitiveness must surely have been obvious to all he encountered, I believe, even in the earliest days of his secondary education.

The fact that our familar OSS veterans who became the executives of CIA made their original beds in the company of British intelligence demonstrates an established relationship between those who may have had information relevant to your conjecture, and those who would have been in a position to exploit that information.

How interesting would have been the autobiography of John F. Kennedy?

As for Seymour Hersh, whatever his personal feelings may have been towards the Kennedys prior to Dick Goodwin's resignation from the McCarthy campaign to join with Bobby's last crusade, I'm pretty sure they didn't improve thereafter.

You're a great writer.

Thanks for reading.

[Charles Drago]

How interesting would have been the autobiography of John F. Kennedy?

It's heartbreaking to contemplate.

As for Seymour Hersh, whatever his personal feelings may have been towards the Kennedys prior to Dick Goodwin's resignation from the McCarthy campaign to join with Bobby's last crusade, I'm pretty sure they didn't improve thereafter.

May I suggest that you start a "hypothesis" thread in which you expand upon this reasoning.

the era of separate beds for Rob and Laura Petrie

The perfect analogy, and for the simple reason that the characters were designed as JFK and Jackie metaphors. I mean, look at them!

Thanks for reading.

Back atcha!

Charles

[Charles Drago]

I might add that Dick Goodwin remains one of the key undervalued members of the Kennedy Administration.

He's worthy of a dedicated thread, which I'll get to shortly.

[Albert Doyle]

If they did they probably restrained it during the assassination conspiracy for the reason if they used their entire spook arsenal on him it would have been too obvious it was intel going after him. If this conspiracy device existed it was probably withheld as a nuclear device to be used as some desperate last ditch measure.

I'm currently reading Unspeakable. The letter sent to the Soviet embassy in Washington on November 18 was too much and blew back on them exposing an obvious frame-up of Oswald as a Lone Nut patsy. The Warren Commission got away with a whopper by having Ruth Paine say she saw Oswald typing it and then had her lie and say she had stolen the rough draft and had it in her possession. They then did the obvious high school level trick of retroactively altering the rough draft to distort the meaning of the final version sent to the embassy.

This is a pathetic trick that should have been called at the time but the government bulls used their usual intimidation tactics to shut-up any critics. Ruth Paine perjured herself in cooperation with government authorities who had illegally seized control of a government commission. They were basically all CIA friends working out a plausible cover story for their being caught. This is high treason and should be prosecuted as such by the people against those government and public members who perpetrated it.

Anyway, the reason I mention the overkill embassy letter is because if Kennedy had been booby-trapped with a red-baiting connection way back it would probably be something they would have used only if things had really unraveled and they needed a last ditch line of defense to justify executing Kennedy as a traitor working with the enemy. They probably would have combined this with the Khrushchev letters to show Kennedy was in cahoots with the commies and had to be taken care of in a way that preserved the honor of the office without causing too much public disruption and loss of confidence in the government.

Technically, Kennedy was executed for cooperating with the commies, but only because his peace pursuits were so radically, relatively different than the extreme war-mongering of those who killed him.

[Charles Drago]

Technically, Kennedy was executed for cooperating with the commies, but only because his peace pursuits were so radically, relatively different than the extreme war-mongering of those who killed him.

This is an astute observation.

It's not so great a leap from "technical" or de facto cooperation to witting accomplice.

To set up Joe Kennedy's kid in 1935 for future blackmail-related control -- not to mention more immediate control of his then-ascendent, powerful father -- seems well within the desires and capabilities of the deep political state and its intel programs of the day.

And what better way to conscript elements of the military into a JFK assassination plot than by presenting "proof" of the target's treason?

[Albert Doyle]

And what better way to conscript elements of the military into a JFK assassination plot than by presenting "proof" of the target's treason?

This is somewhat off-topic to this thread, however, after reading Unspeakable I think the plot originated when on March 31 1963 Kennedy controlled the CIA in Miami by confiscating their boats and restraining the exiles.

The way these guys think is they confront anyone or anything that threatens or opposes them. When Kennedy acted against CIA in Miami he took action against the shadow rogue CIA government centered around the Bay Of Pigs. When Nixon referred to "that Bay Of Pigs thing" he was probably referring to this event - or at least the center of gravity it represented. Kennedy signed his death warrant with this action. He had sided with the enemy against the CIA. More importantly he had given CIA the excuse it needed to convince the actual low-level operators that would be doing the killing that this was now justified. These people were the most important because they would not only do the killing but then help in the cover-up and following actions after Kennedy was dead.

When Kennedy moved on JM/WAVE JM/WAVE moved on him. I'm pretty confident in this.


.

[Charles Drago]

Albert,

So many elements of this plot predate your preferred starting point.

But that's not my main objection.

I'd ask you to think about the way you're thinking about the CIA -- which is as a monolithic entity and a force unto itself, rather than as an ideologically divided mechanical subsystem of a larger power structure.

My hypotheses threads are the better for your participation. But in this case, and in my judgement, you're off base.

[Albert Doyle]

So many elements of this plot predate your preferred starting point.

Agreed. I don't necessarily disagree. The influences were mixed amongst different political wavelengths from different sources. Allow me to cop out to save space and plead the "Mastermind" loophole that JM/WAVE was 'pivotal' lol.

I'd ask you to think about the way you're thinking about the CIA -- which is as a monolithic entity and a force unto itself, rather than as an ideologically divided mechanical subsystem of a larger power structure.

I'm trying to say CIA wherever I can in order to defeat their tactic of compartmentalization whose purpose is to create the very disagreement you are seeing in this exchange. The room full of mirrors is owned by one group in one room, though I humbly yield to any more precise inquiries.


It's weird. When reading Unspeakable I imagined the center of gravity of CIA's efforts as being a force so strong it created a blurry transparent ball of energy floating in the room. The blurry ball of energy was definitely in Lodge's office in Viet-Nam and Diem's as well. The strength of the forces Kennedy represented vs those of the CIA were focused and concentrating in Saigon. Diem was being used as a proxy for Kennedy by CIA outside of US borders where CIA was in control, not Kennedy. It was a brilliant strategy to send the message who was in charge and how it would be handled. The message was clear as to what would happen to leaders who challenged CIA's control and objectives or tried to displace them. CIA took a stand against Kennedy's neutralization policy for self-determination of subject states in Viet-Nam determined to head-off Kennedy's attempt to repeat his neutralization success in Laos in Viet-Nam.

The energy ball was definitely somewhere there in Dealey Plaza...