04-11-2008, 09:15 PM
Paul Rigby Wrote:The dark game of M.S. Arnoni and The Minority of One
John J. Miller, “InDigestible: The decline of a great magazine,” The National Review, 11 February 2002:
http://www.nationalreview.com/11feb02/mi...1102.shtml
Let me begin with a proposition. Between January 1961 and December 1963, someone who read only the New York Times would have been better informed about President Kennedy’s attitudes, policies and domestic opposition – most notably and catastrophically, from the CIA - than someone who read, in the same period, only M.S. Arnoni’s The Minority of One (TMO). Absurd? Far from it, as we shall see.
To be continued.
In the same post-Bay of Pigs period, by contrast, readers of the NYT learned, in late April 1961, courtesy of the ordinarily pro-Agency James Reston (1), that the White House believed “that the CIA has gone beyond the bounds of an objective intelligence-gathering agency and has become the advocate of men and policies that have embarrassed the Administration” (2). In the same piece, Reston noted the Agency’s contacts with the leaders of the military putsch against De Gaulle, and set out White House intentions to strip CIA of long-cherished powers (and invest them in the Pentagon). Later, in November 1961, Reston revealed that Chester Bowles had spent much time in the aftermath of the Bay of Pigs travelling the globe in an attempt to enforce Kennedy’s insistence on the primacy of the diplomats over the spooks in the US’s overseas missions (3).
Nothing written in the TMO between January 1961 and December 1963 comes remotely as close to explaining the reasons for the coup d’etat in Dallas in November 1963.
Quote:(1) See, for example, Reston’s admiring estimation of Allen Dulles’ (and CIA’s) endeavours in overthrowing Arbenz, “With the Dulles Brothers in Darkest Guatemala,” NYT, 20 June 1954, p.E8.
(2) James Reston, “Pentagon to get some CIA duties,” NYT, 29 April 1961, p.3. On the same theme, see Thomas F. Brady, “Paris Rumors on CIA,” 2 May 1961, p.19.
(3) James Reston, “Shake-up at State,” NYT, 27 November 1961, p.24.
To be continued.