Lifton on DiEugenio on JFK offering the Vice Presidential nomination to LBJ . . .

[Charles Drago]

I prefer it when we battle side-by-side rather than head-to-head!

So do I, Jim. So do I.

Accordingly, I'll abandon sarcasm and stand beside you (I'm to your left) as I make my final (God willing) comments on this subject:

Except, of course, only one man in the world was the Vice President of the United States at the time and, should some ill-fate befall his predecessor, be in a position to insure that no one would ever be prosecuted for the crime.

Remember, I'm not being sarcastic. In the paragraph above you neatly summarize the importance of LBJ to the conspirators' grand design. His cooperation was the sine qua non for the coverup's success.

While my friend Charles makes an impeccable point of logic, its value is constrained by history. One and only one man was in the position to make sure it happened[.]

And here's where I must note one of the fatal flaws in your argument. You fail to follow the word "happened" with the words "as it happened."

[...] and guarantee that it would be covered up (with a little help from his friends among the Joint Chiefs and the Secret Service, on the one hand, and his dear, lifelong "brother", J. Edgar and the FBI, on the other).

I might have used "sister" instead of "brother," but why quibble?

There were many ways to kill him, as JFK himself had observed. But if it had not been done in broad daylight before hundreds of witnesses, no one would have had any doubt that a conspiracy had been in place. The whole purpose of executing him in a public plaza and then stealing the body to manipulate the evidence ... was to deceive the public about the true causes of his death.

Or he could have been poisoned to appear that he died in his sleep of an embolism.

The complex drama that was written for and performed in Dealey Plaza boasted many themes, sub-plots, and sub-texts. The motives of those who commissioned its authors were many and varied. Among their goals, I submit the following pair:

-- Demonstrate their true power to all of JFK's successors, allies and enemies (domestic and foreign), and to all others with delusions of power.

-- Create a mind-numbing event that would usher in an age of uncertainty for all with the temerity to think that history can be known and that enlightenment can follow from such knowledge.

In other words: Stage an event clearly conspiratorial in nature, then have the parent state conclude that it was the work of a lone nut.

So no, Jim, the point was not to deceive the public. It was to CONFUSE and FRIGHTEN and COW the public. It is the very UNCERTAINTY provoked by a public execution that to even the most casual observer was the work of conspirators yet was explained by the parent state as the work of a lone nut that best served the Sponsors' immediate and long-term interests.

The public was not deceived then and is not deceived now. Deception was not the point.

Once LBJ and his co-conspirators secured a parent-state endorsement of the LNT, the deed was effectively done. Perpetual doubt was guaranteed.

DOUBT, not DECEPTION.

[T]he time has come to cut his losses and turn his attention to more promising issues.

To paraphrase myself from an earlier post, I ask you: Are you satisfied that the search for the TRUE Sponsors of JFK's murder is over? Are you ready to close up shop? Are you truly prepared to state for the record that in LBJ we have identified the Sponsor -- the Prime Mover -- of the JFK assassination, and that no further inquiry along these lines is warranted?

Truly?

Because I'm not. And I cannot imagine more "promising" or important "issues" than identifying the individuals and systems responsible for the sponsorship and facilitation of JFK's murder as the first step in our campaign to denude them of their power.

In the grand scheme of things, Lyndon Baines Johnson was, as Hyman Roth might put it, small potatoes.

VERY small potatoes.

Your true comrade,

Charles