Rachel Maddow admits Vietnam war only happened because JFK was assassinated

[Ken Garretson]

Totally agree Dawn.

Its people like Jennings, and Maddow, and Rather, and Brokaw who have allowed the cover up to endure for so long. About both the assassination and who JFK was. In Brokaw's special for the 50th he had that clown Richard Reeves try to deny that JFK was withdrawing from Vietnam. BTW, Brokaw used the same consultant that Jennings did ten years earlier, Mr. Handy Man, Gus Russo. Need to cover up the JFK case? Give Gus a call. Or--Mr. Single Bullet Fact-- Dale Myers.

BTW, those are nice photos Tracy. This is what JFK was pushing for: the moderate secularists in the area would channel democracy and progress into the lower classes. Avoiding the extremes of monarchy and Islamic fundamentalism.

When Kennedy was murdered, Nasser went into a month long depression and demanded his funeral be shown on national TV four times. Sadat was the first person at the embassy to sign his condolences. Ben Bella of Algeria declared a week of mourning.

In 1964, mobs in Egypt and Indonesia assaulted US owned libraries. Three years later, after LBJ reversed so many of Kennedy's policies in the region in favor of Israel, Egypt broke relations with the USA.

Except for Carter, its been pretty much downhill there ever since.

Love to see Rachel interview, not Goldstein about Vietnam, but Robert Rakove of Stanford about Kennedy and the Middle East.

When I read this, I felt this implied that Kennedy was not "pro-Israel" so-to-speak. But it seems not to be the case. Again, perhaps I misread this. Thanks

[Jim DiEugenio]

Its not Ken.

This is a reference to two things. First, RFK really did not like the Shah. And it was mutual. So Bobby commissioned a private study on what it would take to bring back Mossadegh.

The Shah really understood that RFK was serious. He responded with the White Revolution.

The problem was that the after JFK passed, the attitude by LBJ toward the Shah was much more softer due to Johnson's close relations with the Rockefellers, especially Nelson. Then of course, it got worse under Nixon due to the Kissinger/David Rockefeller compact.

The Shah, if I recall, did not attend RFK's funeral.

If JFK was pro Israel then why did Nasser order his funeral shown four times on national TV, and why was Sadat the first person at the embassy to sign in?

Kennedy was dead set against Israel getting the bomb and made this a very strong bargaining point with Ben Gurion in letters to him.

[Albert Doyle]

Kennedy was dead set against Israel getting the bomb and made this a very strong bargaining point with Ben Gurion in letters to him.

Which are still classified to this day.


JFK foresaw the present one-sided mess in the Middle East and the problems it would bring. The side that killed Kennedy saw the imbalance as something they could solve by Military Industrial Complex means.

[Tracy Riddle]

Here is one JFK letter to PM Ben Gurion:

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jso...18_63.html

[R.K. Locke]

Its not Ken.

This is a reference to two things. First, RFK really did not like the Shah. And it was mutual. So Bobby commissioned a private study on what it would take to bring back Mossadegh.

The Shah really understood that RFK was serious. He responded with the White Revolution.

The problem was that the after JFK passed, the attitude by LBJ toward the Shah was much more softer due to Johnson's close relations with the Rockefellers, especially Nelson. Then of course, it got worse under Nixon due to the Kissinger/David Rockefeller compact.

The Shah, if I recall, did not attend RFK's funeral.

Furthermore, when Jimmy Carter refused to let the Shah into the U.S. for medical treatment, David Rockefeller initiated Project Alpha--the point of which was to isolate Carter to the point where he had no choice but to change his mind.

One part of this strategy appears to have been a (very thinly) coded message in the form of a foiled assassination plot. The two would be assassins names being "Ray Lee Harvey" and "Oswaldo Ortiz."

If this doesn't clue you in as to who was at the Sponsorship level of the plot then nothing will.

[Ken Garretson]

Its not Ken.

This is a reference to two things. First, RFK really did not like the Shah. And it was mutual. So Bobby commissioned a private study on what it would take to bring back Mossadegh.

The Shah really understood that RFK was serious. He responded with the White Revolution.

The problem was that the after JFK passed, the attitude by LBJ toward the Shah was much more softer due to Johnson's close relations with the Rockefellers, especially Nelson. Then of course, it got worse under Nixon due to the Kissinger/David Rockefeller compact.

The Shah, if I recall, did not attend RFK's funeral.

If JFK was pro Israel then why did Nasser order his funeral shown four times on national TV, and why was Sadat the first person at the embassy to sign in?

Kennedy was dead set against Israel getting the bomb and made this a very strong bargaining point with Ben Gurion in letters to him.

Thanks for your reply. It's very helpful.

To further clarify, I understood that Kennedy's admin was the beginning of the US-Israeli military alliance, with Kennedy giving the OK to sell Israel weaponry. I do understand he firmly wanted to stop them from getting atomic weapons--that would be true of any nation in Kennedy's case--nothing unique about Israel I'd say. Johnson also alluded to Kennedy's fondness for Israel when he promised to be an even 'better friend' than JFK, or words to that effect. I suppose this is all a matter of degree. By that I mean Kennedy's public words of support, relative to future presidents, and also the public posture, relative to the behind-the-scenes words and actions. Trying to keep Israel from getting the bomb doesn't equate in my mind to being "anti-Israel" so I was just looking for other ways JFK's lack of support for Israel was shown.

[Jim DiEugenio]

1.) Malcolm Blunt actually was the guy who somehow got those letters from JFK to Ben Gurion out of the archives. And he showed me that one plus another one he had.

2.) RK, I had heard about this before, the foiled assassination plot with those two names. But I could not verify it. Is it really true?

If so, then I agree with you. Its very incriminating.

Ken:

The best book on JFK's Mideast policy I know of is Rakove's. What Kennedy was trying to do, as he was in almost every key area, was to counteract what he perceived as errors by Dulles and Eisenhower. In this instance, he perceived that Dulles had made a mistake in dumping Nasser and Aswan. He also thought that Dulles had multiplied that mistake by trying to use Saudi Arabia's monarchy as a counterweight to Nasser, for example in the Bagdhad Pact.

Kennedy actually liked Nasser. As Mac Bundy once said, Kennedy was actually fascinated by the Egyptian leader. And he told Bundy that repairing the relationship with Egypt and Nasser was going to be a high priority with his administration. (Please note, Nasser was a pan Arabist and a socialist.) To him and RFK, Nasser and Sadat should be favored over the monarchies in Egypt and Saudi Arabia because they held promise of modernizing, and channeling ideas about economic and social progress and democracy into a moderate and stable course. (See the photos Tracy posted above.) For Kennedy, the monarchies in Iran and Saudi Arabia were dangerous examples to ally oneself with because they held no promise of any future progress and they also made it possible for an explosion of Islamic fundamentalism to take hold.

In his first administration, what Kennedy wanted to do was to ally himself with the moderate elements in the Middle East, and do what he could to encourage them e.g. Nasser's importation of troops into the Yemen civil war. He also wanted to make it clear he did not like the governments of Saudi Arabia and Iran. He did both.

In his second administration, he then wanted to discourage the militarization of the Arab/Israeli rivalry and then begin to address the whole Palestinian problem. In my reading of Rakove and others, this is the best précis I can make so far. But understand, everyone in this JFK field has been so obsessed with Vietnam and Cuba that I am a pioneer here. So I have little doubt that I am missing parts of it.

Concerning Johnson saying he was continuing JFK's policy of friendship with Israel, it has been my experience in studying Kennedy and Johnson that whenever I read or see LBJ say that he is "continuing his predecessor's foreign policy", the antennae in my temples immediately go up, and an alarm starts ringing in my head, accompanied by the blaring announcement: "line of BS ahead".

[R.K. Locke]

1.) Malcolm Blunt actually was the guy who somehow got those letters from JFK to Ben Gurion out of the archives. And he showed me that one plus another one he had.

2.) RK, I had heard about this before, the foiled assassination plot with those two names. But I could not verify it. Is it really true?

If so, then I agree with you. Its very incriminating.

There is a Wikipedia page for Raymond Lee Harvey, including some links to articles from the time:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raymond_Lee_Harvey


Project Alpha appears to have begun around February/March 1979:

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=5dK6...er&f=false

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=fl0u...er&f=false


This all ties in with the hostage crisis, Iran-Contra and the October Surprise, of course. There is some more interesting info here:

http://spitfirelist.com/anti-fascist-arc...tion-pt-3/

[Jim DiEugenio]

It looks like its genuine.

And it looks like Carter got the message too.

[Ken Garretson]

1.) Malcolm Blunt actually was the guy who somehow got those letters from JFK to Ben Gurion out of the archives. And he showed me that one plus another one he had.

2.) RK, I had heard about this before, the foiled assassination plot with those two names. But I could not verify it. Is it really true?

If so, then I agree with you. Its very incriminating.

Ken:

The best book on JFK's Mideast policy I know of is Rakove's. What Kennedy was trying to do, as he was in almost every key area, was to counteract what he perceived as errors by Dulles and Eisenhower. In this instance, he perceived that Dulles had made a mistake in dumping Nasser and Aswan. He also thought that Dulles had multiplied that mistake by trying to use Saudi Arabia's monarchy as a counterweight to Nasser, for example in the Bagdhad Pact.

Kennedy actually liked Nasser. As Mac Bundy once said, Kennedy was actually fascinated by the Egyptian leader. And he told Bundy that repairing the relationship with Egypt and Nasser was going to be a high priority with his administration. (Please note, Nasser was a pan Arabist and a socialist.) To him and RFK, Nasser and Sadat should be favored over the monarchies in Egypt and Saudi Arabia because they held promise of modernizing, and channeling ideas about economic and social progress and democracy into a moderate and stable course. (See the photos Tracy posted above.) For Kennedy, the monarchies in Iran and Saudi Arabia were dangerous examples to ally oneself with because they held no promise of any future progress and they also made it possible for an explosion of Islamic fundamentalism to take hold.

In his first administration, what Kennedy wanted to do was to ally himself with the moderate elements in the Middle East, and do what he could to encourage them e.g. Nasser's importation of troops into the Yemen civil war. He also wanted to make it clear he did not like the governments of Saudi Arabia and Iran. He did both.

In his second administration, he then wanted to discourage the militarization of the Arab/Israeli rivalry and then begin to address the whole Palestinian problem. In my reading of Rakove and others, this is the best précis I can make so far. But understand, everyone in this JFK field has been so obsessed with Vietnam and Cuba that I am a pioneer here. So I have little doubt that I am missing parts of it.

Concerning Johnson saying he was continuing JFK's policy of friendship with Israel, it has been my experience in studying Kennedy and Johnson that whenever I read or see LBJ say that he is "continuing his predecessor's foreign policy", the antennae in my temples immediately go up, and an alarm starts ringing in my head, accompanied by the blaring announcement: "line of BS ahead".

Thanks again, this helps. As you may have imagined, I'm having a 'discussion' with someone in this regard, so I appreciate the 'ammo' ;-)