John Barbour: Averill Harriman ordered the assassination

[Cliff Varnell]

Who's assassination are we talking about? Howdy Doody's?

...Lamb Chop.

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/...-lambchop/

[Phil Dagosto]

Thanks for your reply Cliff. I still don't see any real evidence of Harriman's involvement in the assassination.

I think we're looking at Harriman's possible knowledge of the plot.

The Wise Men, Walter Isaakson & Evan Thomas, pg 640:

[11/22 Harriman's Chief of Staff] Bill Sullivan found Averell Harriman that afternoon sitting on the edge of his chair, in front of a television set, holding his head in his hands.

Sounds like Harriman was extremely uptight that afternoon.

Seems like he was more distraught than uptight. Or maybe he was simply stunned by the event like most other people. Besides, if he had knowledge of the plot and was enabling the coverup as you claim then why would he have reacted that way to an event that should have not been surprising to him and that he was in favor of?

That bit about "US gov't top Kremlinologists" was clearly a lie.

It was BS but may have just as easily been dissembling rather than a deliberate lie based on knowledge of the plot and a desire to enable the coverup.

He may have been full of it regarding his opinion about what "top Kremlinologists" had said and yes, it was way too soon to conclude that but how does that equate to "ordering the assassination" which is what this discussion is about?

I'm laying out my approach to the case, your mileage will vary no doubt. Look for the liars. Like Bundy:

The President Has Been Shot. Charles Roberts (p. 141) A reporter for Newsweek Roberts was on AFI and met McGeorge Bundy at Andrews.

I remember looking at (McGeorge) Bundy because I was wondering if he had any word of what had happened in the world while we were in transit, whether this assassination was part of a plot. And he told me later that what he reported to the president during that flight back was that the whole world was stunned, but there was no evidence of a conspiracy at all.

Was he actually lying or just repeating something he heard? Can we really know that? And couldn't that statement just as easily mean that there was no evidence of a conspiracy that he knew of at that time?

11/23 George HW Bush called the FBI to put the finger on fellow Young Republican James Parrott. Liar.

I agree that Bush's actions are suspicious and could represent covering his own tracks.

The evening of 11/22 Jock Whitney went into his office at the New York Herald Tribune to write an editorial identifying Oswald as a lone psychopath. Liar.

Whitney hated Kennedy and the "Jock, Pack. Jack" memo firing him probably did not help that relationship. Again, its hard to distinguish BS and personal enmity from outright lying. Whitney was part of the Mighty Wurlitzer and could have just as easily been parroting what he was told by Dulles and that crowd without actually having any first-hand knowledge or involvement.

Harriman, Bundy and Bush were Skull & Bones.

So, everyone in Skull and Bones was in on it?

Whitney, Harriman and Bush had pads in uber-exclusive Jupiter Island, Florida.

Interesting but hardly probative.

The cover-up was directed by high level WASPs.

Well, given that most high-level government positions were occupied by WASPS that's certainly true. The real question is which ones.

And even if he was lying as you claim he was he would have only been lying about his certainty that there was no Soviet involvement because in actual fact, there wasn't any! And again, there were many, many people in government discounting the possibility of any conspiracy , Soviet or otherwise, without having any more basis for their opinions than Harriman had for his. Were they all conspirators?

At 7pm EST 11/22/63 there was one guy pushing the no-conspiracy story -- McGeorge Bundy.

I don't think that's true at all. Ther most prominent examples are the most obivous ones - LBJ and Hoover (probably at the direction of LBJ). Johnson personally intervened with the Dallas Police not to charge Oswald with conspiracy and had Hoover barge into the case even though the FBI technically had no juridstiction. If you consider all of the evidence tampering and concealment of Oswald's real background and identity that was going on within 24 hours of the assassination (removing the body to DC, the fraudulent autopsy, the transfer of evidence from Dallas to Washington after which many new, suspicious items appeared, the confiscation of Oswald's seconday school records, etc.) all of which happened way too soon unless there was foreknowledge of the need to cover up a domestic conspiracy and exactly what needed to be done then that effort makes the "Castro did it" efforts seem puny by comparison. Of course, LBJ did use the "Castro did it" stories to strong-arm Warren into the no-conspiracy cover up.

If you consider that even Kennedy allies like Katzenbach were pushing the no conspiracy angle in the days immediately following the assassination then its hard to conclude that everyone who did so was somehow part of the WASP establishment that was behind the plot and the cover up. Remember that the issue that started this thread was Garrison's speculation that Harriman "ordered the assassination". I still don't see any convincing proof of that in anything you've written.

There was more activity painting Oswald as a Red agent.

Bill Kelly compiled the following:

6)Julio Fernandez, one of three anti-Castro Cubans whose boat was financially supported by Clair Booth Luce, called Luce, wife of the publisher of Time-Life on the evening of the assassination to report information on Oswald's activities in New Orleans. Fernandez, a former Cuban publisher, was married to an attorney who worked for Catholic Welfare Services in Miami.

7)In Miami, shortly after the assassination, Dr. Jose Ignorzio, the chief of clinical psychology for the Catholic Welfare Services, contacted the White House to inform the new administration that Oswald had met directly with Cuban ambassador Armas in Mexico.


8)In Mexico City, David Atlee Philips of the CIA debriefed a Nicaraguan intelligence officer, code named "D," who claimed to have seen Oswald take money from a Cuban at the Cuban embassy. [see: Alvarado Story]


10)Brothers Jerry and James Buchanan, CIA propaganda assets, began promoting the Castro-did-it theme immediately. According to Donald Freed and Jeff Cohen (in Liberation Magazine), the source of the Buchanan's tales was the leader of the CIA supported International Anti-Communist Brigade (IAB). "Back in Miami," they wrote, "a high powered propaganda machine was cranking out stories that Oswald was a Cuban agent…" Sturgis is quoted in the Pampara Beach Sun-Sentinel as saying that Oswald had talked with Cuban G-2 agents and fracassed with IAB members in Miami in 1962.

None of this proves Harriman-dunnit, but it does make him a Person of Interest deserving closer scrutiny.

Sorry, not convinced at all. If I were on the Grand Jury I'd vote no-bill.

[Cliff Varnell]

Sorry, not convinced at all.

At this point Phil I could give a fuck.

[Cliff Varnell]

From Spanning the Century: The Life of W. Averell Harriman, by Rudy Abramson, pgs 624-5, 630 emphasis added:

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Some of Averell's friends, including [Roger] Hilsman, who had heard Bob Kennedy muse about the possibility of Harriman as secretary of state, thought there was still a chance that Averell might yet get the Foggy Bottom job he long coveted. But that had been before the notorious coup cable [243 authorizing Diem coup 8/24/63].

Though the President had avoided criticism of Averell in the episode, Harriman knew Kennedy's confidence in him was shaken. After working his way to the seventh floor, he was suddenly viewed as a problem. Almost overnight, he looked ten years older. Privately, the President and the attorney general talked of finding a way to rehabilitate him, to find a job that would get him out of the Vietnam business. There was a need to put more emphasis on hemispheric matters, and the President thought that one way to solve two problems might be to create a new post of undersecretary for Latin American affairs for him.

As deeply as the administration had involved itself in the machinations against Diem, Kennedy still appeared stunned when the long-anticipatred coup ended with the assassination of Diem and Nhu on November 1. The United States could technically claim that it had been a Vietnamese affair; but the administration had conditioned the atmosphere, beginning with the Harriman-Hilsman cable to Lodge.

By that time, Averell was already turning more attention to hemispheric problems. The afternoon of November 22 was set a side for a meeting with oil company executives about the future of their contracts with the government in Argentina. Beforehand, he went to a Hilsman luncheon for a delegation of politicians from the Phillipines. He was finishing his dessert and talking with Senator Frank Church about extremism in American politics when Church was called to the telephone. A minute later, the senator rushed back into the room, his face ashen. The President had been shot, and was feared dead. There was a momen of silence, and then turmoil, shouted questions, and people getting up from the table to head for telephones. Averell hadn't heard, and when Church repeated the news, his reaction was that it couldn't be true. "No, sir, I'm not joking," said Church.

Averell heard the shattering confirmation of Kennedy's death in George Ball's office moment later. So undone that he could only think of nothing else to do, he convened his oil meeting, but it lasted only a few minutes. When an executive tastelessly suggested an urgent approach to the new President to write the government of Argentina in behalf of American oil interests, he adjourned in disgust.

He spent the afternoon helping Ball, who was, if anyone truly was, running the United States government, since Rusk and several other Cabinet members were airborne, coming home after turning back from a flight to the Far East. As darkness fell, Averell drove out to Andrews Air Force Base with Ball and Alexis Johnson, joining the official mourning party standing silently on the floodlit ramp as the President's casket was lowered from the rear door of Air Force One.

The following days were a blur of meetings and trips to airports to greet delegations arriving from all over the world for the state funeral. While Rusk and Ball attended to ceremonial duties, Harriman sat down with visitors who brought urgent diplomatic problems with them--an insurgency developing against the government in the Dominican Republic, intelligence warnings of political upheaval in Brazil, and signs of new trouble between India and Pakistan over Kashmir...

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Harriman blew off his fondest desire -- the Sec. of State slot -- in order to prosecute his own Vietnam policies.

Kennedy was planning to withdraw from 'Nam.

As a banker W. Averell Harriman financed 45% of Nazi raw material purchases for Hitler's war machine; as a member of FDR's administration he was the #1 war hawk, pushing the United States toward war with Germany.

Who implemented the Marshall Plan, re-building Europe after the world war Harriman personally facilitated?

W. Averell Harriman.

If a man as treacherous as Averell Harriman could sacrifice his greatest personal ambition in order to maintain a militarized So. Vietnam, how hard would it have been for him to push a button on JFK?

[Cliff Varnell]

Joseph Trento, The Secret History of the CIA, pgs 334-5:

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Who changed the coup into the murder of Diem, Nhu and a Catholic priest accompanying them? To this day, nothing has been found in government archives tying the killings to either John or Robert Kennedy. So how did the tools and talents developed by Bill Harvey for ZR/RIFLE and Operation MONGOOSE get exported to Vietnam? Kennedy immediately ordered (William R.) Corson to find out what had happened and who was responsible. The answer he came up with: "On instructions from Averell Harriman…. The orders that ended in the deaths of Diem and his brother originated with Harriman and were carried out by Henry Cabot Lodge's own military assistant."

Having served as ambassador to Moscow and governor of New York, W. Averell Harriman was in the middle of a long public career. In 1960, President-elect Kennedy appointed him ambassador-at-large, to operate "with the full confidence of the president and an intimate knowledge of all aspects of United States policy." By 1963, according to Corson, Harriman was running "Vietnam without consulting the president or the attorney general."

The president had begun to suspect that not everyone on his national security team was loyal. As Corson put it, "Kenny O'Donnell (JFK's appointments secretary) was convinced that McGeorge Bundy, the national security advisor, was taking orders from Ambassador Averell Harriman and not the president. He was especially worried about Michael Forrestal, a young man on the White House staff who handled liaison on Vietnam with Harriman."

At the heart of the murders was the sudden and strange recall of Sagon Station Chief Jocko Richardson and his replacement by a no-name team barely known to history. The key member was a Special Operations Army officer, John Michael Dunn, who took his orders, not from the normal CIA hierarchy but from Harriman and Forrestal.

According to Corson, "John Michael Dunn was known to be in touch with the coup plotters," although Dunn's role has never been made public. Corson believes that Richardson was removed so that Dunn, assigned to Ambassador Lodge for "special operations," could act without hindrance.

<quote off>

David Talbot, The Devil's Chessboard, pgs. 753-4

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William Corson, a former Marine Corps officer and Navy intelligence agent who was close to Dulles, confirmed that the spymaster pulled strings to get on the Warren Commission. He "lobbied hard for the job," recalled Corson, who had commanded young Allen Jr. in the Korean War. After he took his place on the commission, Dulles recruited Corson to explore the Jack Ruby angle. After spending months pursuing various leads, Corson eventually concluded that he had been sent on a wild goose chase. "It is entirely possible I was sent on an assignment which would go nowhere…Allen Dulles had a lot to hide.

<quote off>


Corson had been recruited by Kennedy to find out who ordered the assassination of Diem and Nhu -- did Dulles send Corson on a wild goose chase to prevent him from investigating who killed Kennedy?

Allen Dulles was Averell Harriman's personal lawyer for decades.

Perhaps Dulles was trying to keep Corson from drawing the same conclusion about the Kennedy assassination that he did with the Diem murder -- Harriman ordered it.

[Phil Dagosto]

Sorry, not convinced at all.

At this point Phil I could give a fuck.

Very substantive reply /s.


And by the way, neither could I ....

[Phil Dagosto]

Look, if Barbour has files from Garrison that document that Harriman personally "ordered" the assassination of Kennedy let him release them, at least to qualified researchers, to be properly evaluated. Until he does that it remains nothing more than supposition and is exactly the kind of unsubstantiated sensationalism that discredits the entire assassination research effort.

What, if any, role was played by Harriman or any one else may have played in the assassination is a legitimate topic for research. Going beyond that at this time IMO is a stretch until the evidence is rock solid and irrefutable - the kind of evidence you could go into court with and no one could question.

[Scott Kaiser]

Scott, its the other way around. He says it was not the Russians.

And so, I stand corrected, I must have miss understood this sentence written above, "So I have difficulty concluding that this is hard evidence of Harriman "lying" about the view of Soviet experts about their involvement (or lack of same) in the assassination."

A promised view of Soviets experts, and Harriman is lying? Don't we all have some theory based off some documentation we call FOIA dumps? Bits and peices are promising, but a mountain is more rewarding.

[Cliff Varnell]

Sorry, not convinced at all.

At this point Phil I could give a fuck.

Very substantive reply /s.


And by the way, neither could I ....

Phil, a quote was attributed to Averell Harriman offering "the president the unanimous view of the U.S. government's top Kremlinologists. None of them believe the Soviets have a hand in the assassination."

A quote was attributed to McGeorge Bundy, that what "he reported to the president during that flight back was that the whole world was stunned, but there was no evidence of a conspiracy at all."

I find these statements highly suspicious. The original "rush to judgment."

You say -- in the manner of a defense attorney protecting his clients -- that these statements are not suspicious "at all".

Doesn't seem like the basis for a good faith discussion.

[Phil Dagosto]

What I actually said is that I was not convinced that Harriman's statements did not constitute convincing evidence that he ordered the assassination which, as I keep having to remind you, was the original point of this discussion. You don't think I'm acting in good faith but you 1) initially quoted a known CIA mouthpiece and lone nut apologist (Max Holland) to support your argument and 2) conveniently moved the goal posts so that the issue was not whether Harriman had ordered the assassination to whether he was lying about the opinion of Kremlinologists. That is arguing in good faith.

I'm not trying to be Harriman's defense lawyer. I'm simply saying that you can't get from Harriman lying (or being full of shit) about what Kremlinologists though in the immediate aftermath of the assassination to proving that he ordered the assassination without more convincing evidence than you've presented. And being part of the cover up either wittingly or unwittingly does not mean that Harriman "ordered the assassination".

If you want to convince anyone that Harriman ordered the assassination you have to

1) provide convincing evidence of such an order either in documents or testimony from sources with no axe to grind against Harriman.

2) explain what entity or individuals he gave the order to and show that he was in a position to give such an order

All you've done so far is provide evidence that Harriman made unsubstantiated statements about what Kremlinologists thought about Soviet involvement and that he was opposed to Kennedy's Vietnam policy. There could be many other explanations for the first one and the second one hardly makes him unique.

I've conceded that Harriman's actions and statements are worthy or further research. And Barbour could clear this up by simply releasing the documents he claims he has. That' the whole point here.

I'm done with this thread. You can have whatever last word you want.