John Kenneth Galbraith: A Hero in our Time

[Scott Kaiser]

Does it really matter that NSAM 263 was drawn up by Jack off McGovern's report in December 1962? And, does it really matter how many men died under ANY of these administrations when the war didn't belong to us, just like everything else, the United States decided to poke its nose in it.

Bottom line, Jack was beginning to feel the pressure from the public about the war unlike Nixon, boy did he really get it!

And, Jack wanted out, no matter the cost, even at a vote sit down at camelot's round table, now that's a joke, along with that bad memo written by Jack that magically found its way into the hands of the CIA on Friday, that Saturday Diem was dead, pack it up boys we're going home!

[James Lateer]

The only pretty sure thing that I have heard about J K Galbraith is that he was at the dinner or meeting where JFK officially "turned his coat" from being a Northern Catholic Conservative like Senator Thomas Dodd and Speaker John W. McCormack. In that one meeting he cast his lot with the Adlai Stevenson/Eleanor Roosevelt (and Galbraith) crowd.

I think that it's fair to analyze that switch in terms of "professional leftist" and/or "professional conservative" comparable to today. But the foreign policy issues today are nowhere like they were in the 1950's and 1960's and are not really comparable, so a "liberal" on foreign policy in 1963 would not equate to a "liberal" on foreign policy in 2018.

As for Vietnam, it was obvious that the Vietnam steam roller was in full force beginning in 1945 as proven by Col. Fletcher Prouty. Indeed, Ho Chi Minh was a bus-boy at the 1919 Versailles Peace Treaty conference, so you could date the issue at least back to 1919 from that perspective.

So JFK was run over by the Vietnam steam roller because he contemplated pulling out. Since my thesis is that he was killed by Nazis over German political issues, I can't really say he was killed over the Vietnam issue. Maybe you could say that even if he got Germany right, he still got Vietnam wrong, so either way he would have been shot, investigated, impeached, poisoned or something.

If JFK had survived the shooting on 11-22-63, I personally don't think he would have had a chance in hell of ending the Vietnam War prematurely. The Vietnam steamroller ran over Ike, JFK, LBJ and Nixon. Jerry Ford survived but that was because the Vietnam issue had burned itself out like a late-night campfire by 1975.

James Lateer

[Phil Dagosto]

No one is arguing that JFK was a "professional leftist". Jim clearly pointed out that he used that term in reference to polemicists and commentators like Chomsky, Cokburn and the Counterpunch crowd.

I disagree that Vietnam was a "steamroller" that would have "overrun" JFK. It wasn't a "steamroller" until Johnson's massive escalation in 1965. Eisenhower's commitment was small and considered much less important than Laos.

Kennedy did a hell of a lot more than "contemplate" withdrawal - he had concrete policies and plans that had already been set in motion. And it wasn't just Vietnam that got him assassinated. It was the combination of his willingness to ratchet down the whole Cold War enterprise by exploring detente with the Soviet Union, normalization of relations with Cuba and the Limited Test Ban Treaty.

[Jim DiEugenio]

I agree Phil. It was not just any one thing that got him killed.

It was a number of matters. He was not getting out of 1963 alive.

[James Lateer]

How can real experts on JFK's foreign policy like Mr. DiEugenio sort out all the reasons that "historians" like David Halberstam might lie about actual historical facts?

It seems that some like Larry Sabado (of the University of Virginia) are professional conservatives and some like Chomsky are apparently professional leftists.

But why does the public buy more books that are built around lies than books that really dig deep into facts and report truth?

Sad that "patriotism" is built around lies like the sinking of the battleship Maine, the Lusitania, Pearl Harbor, 9-11 and on and on.

Why does "patriotism" have to be built on lies and not on truth? Or at least on half-truths or three-quarter truths? Is reality really that intolerable and that bad? Or that miserable?
I guess you have to chalk it up to mythology. Every culture has their myths, be it creation myths or mythical creatures, etc. etc.

I try real hard to accept the fact that one's fixation on the truth in history and one's possible future efforts and discoveries about the history of the 1950's and 1960''s would be considered unpatriotic and opposed by most people.

The well-known people who post here on this site seem to be able to walk the line between actual truth and facts on the one hand, and "patriotic" myth-making or image-making of Presidents like JFK.

It seems at this point that the few who keep the faith about the JFK assassination, etc. are like the pilot light in a furnace. The pilot light is a very small flame but is necessary to expand the heat at a later point in time when the season changes and people expand the heat and flames later as needed.

So don't give up. The truth will broaden down the road. And maybe eventually will be accepted.

Or not.

James Lateer

[Scott Kaiser]

If JFK had survived the shooting on 11-22-63

He would've had New York next, I doubt he would've escaped New York. Jimmy D's the JFK expert let's hear what he has to say about that?

As for Vietnam, well, we all know it took a hell of a lot of pressure from the public to get Nixon to pull out, although, organizations such as the VVAW were targeted, it was based on a communist thing, mostly Cuba, not so much Vietnam.

[Scott Kaiser]

Scott, you mean to say Cuba, a small Island in which the United States had NEVER claimed to be in war with, unless you somehow count the Bay of Pigs, was a much bigger deal than Vietnam where we loss millions of men there how can you say something like that?

It wasn't just war we were fighting, it was socialism, communism, a political way of life, more than just Cuba, it was Russia too!

[Phil Dagosto]

OMG. In this day and age? That is just crazy.

This is what I mean, the damage done by professional leftists like Cockburn, Chomsky and Paul Street. Who will never admit they are wrong, no matter how much evidence you produce.

Because its not about evidence. Its about status and ideology.

Reminds me of Cockburn trotting out Wesley Liebeler in order to revivify the Single Bullet Fantasy.

Counterpunch is at it again:

Some select quotes

"According to Ellsberg, the American plan for nuclear annihilation was presented to John F. Kennedy when he was President. Evidence elsewhere suggests that Mr. Kennedy came close to implementing it twice during his shortened time in office once during the Berlin crisis' of 1961 and also during the Cuban Missile Crisis. American historical accounts of the latter have until recently been near complete fantasy."

Note how he uses Ellsberg as a source in juxtaposition to "Evidence elsewhere", without citing a source. Casual readers will likely recall that Ellsberg said that Kennedy came "close to implementing" a nuclear first strike. I don't think Ellsberg said anything like that and the claim is provably untrue to begin with since Kennedy was one of the few voices of sanity in the upper levels of the power structure who found the idea total lunacy.

"Kennedy initiated the Cuban Missile Crisis when the Soviets delivered nuclear missiles to Cuba in response to the CIA's invasion of the Bay of Pigs and the U.S. deployment of nuclear missiles to Italy and Turkey. The crisis' was an American provocation followed by domestic political concerns that balanced nuclear annihilation against a politics that conflated an unwillingness to end the world with weakness."

Did his spell-correct somehow transform "Khrushchev" to "Kennedy"?

"Astonishingly, or not, Kennedy appeared to have been unaware that he had approved the deployment of first-strike nuclear weapons to Italy and Turkey when the missile crisis began. The U.S. had vastly more nuclear capacity than the Soviets. And Kennedy had already been presented with the U.S. plan to launch a nuclear first strike against Russia that included annihilating the civilian population of China to save the trouble of doing so later."

Weren't those missiles placed in Turkey and Italy as a result of decisions made in the Eisenhower administration? How many times did Kennedy try to have them removed before the Missile Crisis?

[James Lateer]

Despite endless repetition of the fact that JFK negotiated the removal of the IRBM's from Italy and Turkey, it is never mentioned that those missiles were NATO missiles and not mainly U. S. missiles.

Since those IRBM's in Italy were the only nuclear strike capability of NATO, and JFK bargained them away, that led (as a major part, perhaps THE major part) to the JFK assassination.

The NATO IRBM's had been the brainchild and the major work of General Lauris Norstad, SACEUR of NATO. LBJ was pushing General Norstad to sit on the Warren Commission as revealed in the LBJ phone calls.

What most people don't hear about is that Germany dominated the NATO command on 11-22-63. And ex-Nazi's dominated the German Government on military matters. Added into this mix is Henry Kissinger who was (even then) the major expert on the diplomacy of Nuclear weapons in Europe. And Kissinger was an acolyte of the Rockefellers which family also (in some ways) dominated the JFK administration, especially in foreign policy matters.

Last of all, it should be mentioned that the first proven advance knowledge of the JFK assassination came from Santo Trafficante who revealed same in September, 1962.

I believe that the Cuban Missile Crisis was due to tacit collusion between JFK and Khrushchev, neither of whom wanted Germany to have any (even indirect) control over nukes. And to this day (11-19-2018) the Germans still don't have their fingers on nukes. Maybe JFK was the sacrificial lamb toward that goal and toward that end.

James Lateer

[Phil Dagosto]

Despite endless repetition of the fact that JFK negotiated the removal of the IRBM's from Italy and Turkey, it is never mentioned that those missiles were NATO missiles and not mainly U. S. missiles.

Since those IRBM's in Italy were the only nuclear strike capability of NATO, and JFK bargained them away, that led (as a major part, perhaps THE major part) to the JFK assassination.

The NATO IRBM's had been the brainchild and the major work of General Lauris Norstad, SACEUR of NATO. LBJ was pushing General Norstad to sit on the Warren Commission as revealed in the LBJ phone calls.

What most people don't hear about is that Germany dominated the NATO command on 11-22-63. And ex-Nazi's dominated the German Government on military matters. Added into this mix is Henry Kissinger who was (even then) the major expert on the diplomacy of Nuclear weapons in Europe. And Kissinger was an acolyte of the Rockefellers which family also (in some ways) dominated the JFK administration, especially in foreign policy matters.

Last of all, it should be mentioned that the first proven advance knowledge of the JFK assassination came from Santo Trafficante who revealed same in September, 1962.

I believe that the Cuban Missile Crisis was due to tacit collusion between JFK and Khrushchev, neither of whom wanted Germany to have any (even indirect) control over nukes. And to this day (11-19-2018) the Germans still don't have their fingers on nukes. Maybe JFK was the sacrificial lamb toward that goal and toward that end.

James Lateer

Eh, I'm not sure they were "NATO" missiles per se since the US maintained control over the nuclear warheads. I think you're really reaching with that last claim about Kennedy and Khrushchev "colluding" to create the missile crisis.