02-08-2018, 07:20 PM
(This post was last modified: 05-08-2018, 10:42 PM by Jim DiEugenio.)
The thing is Chomsky is being 1.) less than candid and 2.) hypocritical on the subject of the JFK case.
As Probe magazine revealed many years ago, Chomsky was very interested in the JFK case around the mid sixties and was very skeptical about the official story. He had originally granted Ray Marcus an hour in his office to discuss the issue. That hour morphed into three hours and Chomsky cleared his schedule and would not take any calls. He then seriously thought about what Ray asked him to do, that is become part of the JFK critical movement. Through one of his colleagues, Ray got the message that Chomsky was going to decline for the simple reason that the opposing forces looked to powerful.
Instead he joined the anti-war movement. But in the mid seventies, he signed a petition to form the HSCA.
It was not until a bit after that, when that idiot David Barsamian made Chomsky the titular elder spokesman for Pacifica radio, when Pacifica still had some torque--before Amy Goodman coopted the whole apparatus--that he now changed his tune. And he never explained why.
What he and Alex Cockburn did when Stone's film came out was simply inexcusable. It resembled a three ring circus. The fact that Chomsky retitled and reconsecrated a whole book he had scheduled in order to knock Stone's main thesis in the film--namely that Kennedy was withdrawing from Vietnam at the time of his murder--shows you just how manic he got on this. But I thought the worst part was when Cockburn actually interviewed Wesley Liebeler in the pages of The Nation in order to defend the Single Bullet Fantasy. That was just a travesty, going back to the treatment of Mark Lane and Fred Cook at The Nation from the sixties. What spinelessness that showed.
The thing is, with what later was released by the ARRB on this issue, the data is so clear now that even the NY Times has to admit that JFK had a plan to withdraw from Vietnam. Kennedy even put together an evacuation plan that was delivered in November of 1963. We now even have tapes of Johnson revealing to McNamara that 1.) He had to grit his teeth when those two talked about getting out when they were losing and 2.) In 1965, people in the White House suspected Johnson was disguising his escalation plan by saying there was no difference between what he did versus what Kennedy did. That first point vitiates Chomsky's main argument of course. Kennedy knew Saigon could not win the war on its own. This is why he wanted Halberstam shipped out of Saigon. Because Halberstam, in his hawkish phase then, knew that also. But Halberstam and Sheehan wanted direct US involvement.
Which JFK was not going to do.
As Probe magazine revealed many years ago, Chomsky was very interested in the JFK case around the mid sixties and was very skeptical about the official story. He had originally granted Ray Marcus an hour in his office to discuss the issue. That hour morphed into three hours and Chomsky cleared his schedule and would not take any calls. He then seriously thought about what Ray asked him to do, that is become part of the JFK critical movement. Through one of his colleagues, Ray got the message that Chomsky was going to decline for the simple reason that the opposing forces looked to powerful.
Instead he joined the anti-war movement. But in the mid seventies, he signed a petition to form the HSCA.
It was not until a bit after that, when that idiot David Barsamian made Chomsky the titular elder spokesman for Pacifica radio, when Pacifica still had some torque--before Amy Goodman coopted the whole apparatus--that he now changed his tune. And he never explained why.
What he and Alex Cockburn did when Stone's film came out was simply inexcusable. It resembled a three ring circus. The fact that Chomsky retitled and reconsecrated a whole book he had scheduled in order to knock Stone's main thesis in the film--namely that Kennedy was withdrawing from Vietnam at the time of his murder--shows you just how manic he got on this. But I thought the worst part was when Cockburn actually interviewed Wesley Liebeler in the pages of The Nation in order to defend the Single Bullet Fantasy. That was just a travesty, going back to the treatment of Mark Lane and Fred Cook at The Nation from the sixties. What spinelessness that showed.
The thing is, with what later was released by the ARRB on this issue, the data is so clear now that even the NY Times has to admit that JFK had a plan to withdraw from Vietnam. Kennedy even put together an evacuation plan that was delivered in November of 1963. We now even have tapes of Johnson revealing to McNamara that 1.) He had to grit his teeth when those two talked about getting out when they were losing and 2.) In 1965, people in the White House suspected Johnson was disguising his escalation plan by saying there was no difference between what he did versus what Kennedy did. That first point vitiates Chomsky's main argument of course. Kennedy knew Saigon could not win the war on its own. This is why he wanted Halberstam shipped out of Saigon. Because Halberstam, in his hawkish phase then, knew that also. But Halberstam and Sheehan wanted direct US involvement.
Which JFK was not going to do.