18-09-2016, 07:59 PM
How Strong Is the Junta?
By M.S.Arnoni
The Minority of One, September 1964, [(Vol 7, No 9), 58)], pp.1, 11-15
To follow, the first page and a third of one of the very best pieces written in the year following the coup:
Quote
By M.S.Arnoni
The Minority of One, September 1964, [(Vol 7, No 9), 58)], pp.1, 11-15
To follow, the first page and a third of one of the very best pieces written in the year following the coup:
Quote
The United States is the site of a titanic power struggle, which has already cost it the life of one President, constantly endangers the life and Constitutional powers of a second, the incumbent, President, and may deliver the country to the whims of a military-industrial cabal, whose effective power even now brings to naught many a Constitutional provision. Concealed at this struggle remains from public view, it is nonetheless involves a constant danger of civil war, in which various services and units of the U.S. military would combat each other. This is not a struggle between "ins" and "outs"; the two competing camps are integral parts of the United States power structure. Their competition is for hegemony and as long as it is not resolved, each of the two contenders has to reckon with the existence and the factual veto power of the other. This state of affairs accounts for the fact at the present juncture the United States Government lacks the effective power to make decisive moves in world diplomacy.
The challengers of the Constitutional government are an aggregate of powerful forces within the executive and legislative branches as well as in private industry. Specifically, they include such organizations as the Central Intelligence Agency, the U.S. Air Force and identifiable defense contractors. In Congress, the insurrectionists are so strong that on many important issues, and especially on arms procurement, the Government has repeatedly lost out to them. The cabal made concentrated efforts to influence the Presidential elections in 1960; in 1964, it is actually presenting its own candidate, Barry M. Goldwater, and hopes with him to capture the rest of the government as well as the cloak of Constitutional legality.
The junta controlling the insurrectionist forces is so power-entrenched that for years it has been blackmailing the White House and other echelons of the Constitutional power hierarchy into silence concerning the life-and-death struggle behind the scenes, President Johnson, even while offering determined resistance to the junta, does not dare openly to complain about its existence and activities. The U.S. Chief Justice, while investigating the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, does not dare to tell the truth about it to this generation. Congress does not dare to turn down procurement requests of the junta even when they are made over the heads and against the explicit recommendations of the Administration. The Administration's reorganization plans for the armed services and for the intelligence agencies have been repeatedly over-ruled by the junta. Both the Administration and the armed forces are dangerously infiltrated by the insurrectionists. In most instances, the Administration's effective power does not suffice for the removal of these infiltrators, General Curtis E. LeMay, the Chief of the Air Force, being the most notable and frustrating case in point. In fact, General Curtis LeMay is one of the principal leaders of this rebellious junta.
Even though the allegations made here are the result of conjecture and speculation, the margin of error seems to be limited to detail, the specific composition of the junta and its specific undertakings; the actual existence of a wide rebellion in the ranks of the Administration and outside its immediate framework is presented as evident fact. Then, too, it is probable that in this conjecture there are more errors of omission than errors of statement.
The warning of the military-industrial complex,' which President Dwight D. Eisenhower sounded in his farewell address, remained something of a solitary voice in the maze of official U.S. pronouncements, but the concern which prompted it was more than shared by John F. Kennedy. Even before he had taken office, he had a study conducted with the view of asserting civilian authority over the military. The panel was headed by Senator Stuart Symington and included Clark M. Clifford, Kennedy's liaison aide with the retiring Eisenhower Administration, Thomas Finletter, one-time Air Force Secretary, Roswell Gilpatric, one-time Air Force Under-Secretary and attorneys Fowler Hamilton and Max Leva. The report of that study group was published around the middle of December, 1960, and made the following main recommendations:
* All defence funds would be appropriated directly to the Secretary of Defense, who would have authority to spend them as he saw fit.
* Service chiefs would report directly to the Secretary of Defense; the separate departments of the Army, Navy and Air Force, with their various Secretaries, Under Secretaries and Assistant Secretaries, would be abolished.
*The Joint Chiefs of Staff would be replaced by a Military Advisory Council made up of senior officers who would be permanently separated from their respective services. The council would be headed by a Joint Staff Chairman, who would be principal military adviser to the President and the Secretary of Defense.
* Individual services would maintain their identity but would be subordinate to three separate commands: a Strategic Command, responsible for the strategic missions of all-out nuclear war; a Tactical Command, responsible for all limited war operations; a Defense Command, responsible for all continental defense missions. (Time magazine, December 19, 1960.)
Undoubtedly, the enforcement of these recommendations would suffice to bring an end to the virtually sovereign status which the military had gained and to re-establish its subordination to civilian authority. But it was precisely this potential effect which doomed the plan from the outset. President Kennedy knew how strong Congressional support of the military was and had no illusions about his chances to have curtailing legislation approved. Even Eisenhower's reorganization plan for the Pentagon, nowhere nearly as radical and sweeping as that of the Symington panel, remained unrealized despite the fact that Congress had approved it as far back as 1958. With Carl Vinson, the traditional defender of the war industry interests, as chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, Symington's recommendations would not stand a chance; the Congressman thought even Eisenhower's reorganization plan to be much too extreme.
Aware that a frontal attack on the usurped position of the military establishment could not be successfully undertaken, John F. Kennedy, upon becoming President, tried to curtail the military by gradual measures. By the middle of 1961, the controversy over the open participation of the brass in right-wing political activities had reached its point of culmination. President Kennedy gave his unqualified support to Senator J. W. Fulbright's campaign against the military sponsoring radical right-wing speakers, conducting "freedom" and Cold War seminars and otherwise participating in political propaganda directed to the armed forces as well as the civilian population. During a press conference on August 10, 1961, President Kennedy stated:
"The United States military, due to one of the wisest actions of our Constitutional founders, have been kept out of politics, and they continue their responsibilities, regardless of changes of Administration.
The problem always is how can the military remain removed from political life and how can civilian control of the military be effectively maintained…([i]The New York Times[i], August 11, 1961)."
The challengers of the Constitutional government are an aggregate of powerful forces within the executive and legislative branches as well as in private industry. Specifically, they include such organizations as the Central Intelligence Agency, the U.S. Air Force and identifiable defense contractors. In Congress, the insurrectionists are so strong that on many important issues, and especially on arms procurement, the Government has repeatedly lost out to them. The cabal made concentrated efforts to influence the Presidential elections in 1960; in 1964, it is actually presenting its own candidate, Barry M. Goldwater, and hopes with him to capture the rest of the government as well as the cloak of Constitutional legality.
The junta controlling the insurrectionist forces is so power-entrenched that for years it has been blackmailing the White House and other echelons of the Constitutional power hierarchy into silence concerning the life-and-death struggle behind the scenes, President Johnson, even while offering determined resistance to the junta, does not dare openly to complain about its existence and activities. The U.S. Chief Justice, while investigating the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, does not dare to tell the truth about it to this generation. Congress does not dare to turn down procurement requests of the junta even when they are made over the heads and against the explicit recommendations of the Administration. The Administration's reorganization plans for the armed services and for the intelligence agencies have been repeatedly over-ruled by the junta. Both the Administration and the armed forces are dangerously infiltrated by the insurrectionists. In most instances, the Administration's effective power does not suffice for the removal of these infiltrators, General Curtis E. LeMay, the Chief of the Air Force, being the most notable and frustrating case in point. In fact, General Curtis LeMay is one of the principal leaders of this rebellious junta.
Even though the allegations made here are the result of conjecture and speculation, the margin of error seems to be limited to detail, the specific composition of the junta and its specific undertakings; the actual existence of a wide rebellion in the ranks of the Administration and outside its immediate framework is presented as evident fact. Then, too, it is probable that in this conjecture there are more errors of omission than errors of statement.
The warning of the military-industrial complex,' which President Dwight D. Eisenhower sounded in his farewell address, remained something of a solitary voice in the maze of official U.S. pronouncements, but the concern which prompted it was more than shared by John F. Kennedy. Even before he had taken office, he had a study conducted with the view of asserting civilian authority over the military. The panel was headed by Senator Stuart Symington and included Clark M. Clifford, Kennedy's liaison aide with the retiring Eisenhower Administration, Thomas Finletter, one-time Air Force Secretary, Roswell Gilpatric, one-time Air Force Under-Secretary and attorneys Fowler Hamilton and Max Leva. The report of that study group was published around the middle of December, 1960, and made the following main recommendations:
* All defence funds would be appropriated directly to the Secretary of Defense, who would have authority to spend them as he saw fit.
* Service chiefs would report directly to the Secretary of Defense; the separate departments of the Army, Navy and Air Force, with their various Secretaries, Under Secretaries and Assistant Secretaries, would be abolished.
*The Joint Chiefs of Staff would be replaced by a Military Advisory Council made up of senior officers who would be permanently separated from their respective services. The council would be headed by a Joint Staff Chairman, who would be principal military adviser to the President and the Secretary of Defense.
* Individual services would maintain their identity but would be subordinate to three separate commands: a Strategic Command, responsible for the strategic missions of all-out nuclear war; a Tactical Command, responsible for all limited war operations; a Defense Command, responsible for all continental defense missions. (Time magazine, December 19, 1960.)
Undoubtedly, the enforcement of these recommendations would suffice to bring an end to the virtually sovereign status which the military had gained and to re-establish its subordination to civilian authority. But it was precisely this potential effect which doomed the plan from the outset. President Kennedy knew how strong Congressional support of the military was and had no illusions about his chances to have curtailing legislation approved. Even Eisenhower's reorganization plan for the Pentagon, nowhere nearly as radical and sweeping as that of the Symington panel, remained unrealized despite the fact that Congress had approved it as far back as 1958. With Carl Vinson, the traditional defender of the war industry interests, as chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, Symington's recommendations would not stand a chance; the Congressman thought even Eisenhower's reorganization plan to be much too extreme.
Aware that a frontal attack on the usurped position of the military establishment could not be successfully undertaken, John F. Kennedy, upon becoming President, tried to curtail the military by gradual measures. By the middle of 1961, the controversy over the open participation of the brass in right-wing political activities had reached its point of culmination. President Kennedy gave his unqualified support to Senator J. W. Fulbright's campaign against the military sponsoring radical right-wing speakers, conducting "freedom" and Cold War seminars and otherwise participating in political propaganda directed to the armed forces as well as the civilian population. During a press conference on August 10, 1961, President Kennedy stated:
"The United States military, due to one of the wisest actions of our Constitutional founders, have been kept out of politics, and they continue their responsibilities, regardless of changes of Administration.
The problem always is how can the military remain removed from political life and how can civilian control of the military be effectively maintained…([i]The New York Times[i], August 11, 1961)."