Nelson's LBJ Mastermind book

[Jim DiEugenio]

Am I reading this correctly?

BY referring to the assassination as "The Big Event", is Fetzer also endorsing that ridiculous Saint John Hunt story? You know the one he barfed up for "Rolling Stone" and then regurgitated for Alex Jones, and that, as Seamus Coogan point out, Jesse was unfortunate enough to swallow for his special?

Wow, if that is so then Fetzer has completely abandoned any kind of scholarly standards in the JFK field. He has now become a kind of caricature of Ahab and the White whale story.

What do I mean by that? This: In any kind of scholarly approach to a subject, one has to try to find the primary sources. If there is more than one, you then have to search to see if there is anything written at the time, or if there is any kind of majority view, or if one of the sources has credibility problems.

To put it mildly: Howard Hunt has some credibility problems. In fact, a lot of people believe--including me--that he was involved in the JFK murder. On top of that, he absolutely despised the Kennedys. So he would be willing to throw sand around to obfuscate things.

His son, Saint John Hunt, also has some serious credibility problems. He is a twice convicted felon who is not above selling naked pictures of his wife on the web. Further, he was the main source for the Rolling Stone article that gave wide circulation to the whole "Hunt confession" mess.

Now, anyone who knows anything about Watergate, or has read Jim Hougan's brilliant book on the subject, Secret Agenda, will see that Hunt's son is somewhat circumspect as a source. In that article, he has his father returning home after the discovery of the Watergate break-in, and then he and Dad dumping lots of recording equipment in a river.

The problem is that when the cops arrived at the Watergate, Hunt told McCord's assistant, Alfred Baldwin, to take the recording equipment to McCord's house. Which he did. (Hougan, p. 204)

Further, as Hougan later notes, Hunt did not go home after the cops arrived. He first went to his office at the White House compound. (ibid, p. 216) He got some cash to pay for a lawyer who he called, one Douglas Caddy. He then went to the Mullen Company, the CIA front company he worked at prior to joining The Plumbers. From there he called some relations of the Cubans who had ben apprehended.

Hunt had little to do with the actual taping and surveillance. McCord and Baldwin handled the large bulk of it. So Saint John's story is tainted. As is the whole Rolling Stone article.

Hunt's so called confession was a bunch of BS. And Saint John looks like a cheap hustler. For Fetzer to somehow accept this is, to say the least, puzzling. But considering his related endorsement of Nelson, its not surprising.

[James H. Fetzer]

This is so poorly reasoned and factually challenged that I am embarrassed that my good friend, Charles Drago, has posted it here. Most of his claims are so blatantly unjustifiable that I do not believe they require rebuttal. But, as anyone can read for themselves, I have defined LBJ's role as "the pivotal player" with regard to the killing of JFK. And Jack Ruby's observations confirm it. As a professor of logic for 35 years, it causes me mental anguish to see someone I hold in high esteem commit fallacies I taught freshmen and sophomores to avoid. Because it is NEW YEAR'S DAY and Jack and I have bigger fish to fry at the ROSE BOWL, I am going to leave this for now. But I am prepared to return to this post and explain why I regard it as one of Charles' most disgraceful performances. We are not allowed to simply "pick and choose" our evidence, which is known as "special pleading". If Charles does not understand what Madeleine, Billy Sol, Barr and E. Howard Hunt have to tell us, I am prepared to explain it to him in excruciating detail. I am with Charles up to the point where he departs from the standards of reason and rationality. Unfortunately, he did that on this thread from the beginning. I cannot praise hysterical and irrational responses to the mass of evidence we confront, where he has yet to confirm that he has even read Phil's magnificent book.

Agreed -- but I would be more precise in noting that LBJ's pivotal role was as the guarantor of post-plot security (or, if you prefer, the cover-up).

To the vast majority of Facilitators, the power of the presidency was unchallenged. To those who understood deep political realities, the power of the presidency was then, as it is now, a convenient illusion.

Yes, the plot could not have "gone forward" without LBJ. Which means nothing more or less than LBJ was a mega-important tool. Not the carpenter. Not the architect. Only the biggest hammer in the tool belt.




As one who is familiar with Estes and Hunt as prime fonts of disinformation, with McCelland as an unsophisticated source of misconception and exaggeration, and Brown as a lowest level regurgitator of emotion-clouded anecdote, I appreciate what you are asserting as a textbook example of appeal to false authority.




Yes. Which makes him nothing more or less than the biggest hammer in the tool belt.

So far, not a hint of even the flimsiest evidence for LBJ as assassination "mastermind."




Now there's a true "mastermind" at work: sending his publicly acknowledged "chief assistant" to the major city in his home state where his "masterful" plot to assume the presidency would manifest.




Jim, this statement is disingenuous, and you know it. Ruby clearly was indicating NOT that LBJ was any sort of "mastermind," but only that he was sufficiently corrupt and controllable so as to go along with big plan.




And I regard this as one of the most dangerous-to-the cause, book-length presentations of disinformation ever published about the murder of John Fitzgerald Kennedy.

So what?




In other words, you are distressed when "worthies" find fault with your positions.

So what?

Robert Morrow, as evidenced by his sophmoric appreciations of all things deeply political, engages not in informed speculation, but only in linguistically challenged shouting matchs. He buys Nelson's indefensible central thesis hook, line, and sinker. I have not the slightest respect for his intellect or for his command of the subject matter.

And if he did not agree with your positions, neither would you.




Don't worry about DPF, Jim. We'll take care of ourselves and maintain our standards. You might be better served by focusing on a very simple question -- one that I've posed over and over again, but which you decline to answer. So let's try one more time:

How do you define "mastermind" as the word is used by Nelson to describe LBJ's role in the assassination?

As I see it, you and I are at loggerheads in two areas: the "mastermind" definition, and the ways in which we view the likes of Estes and Hunt.




Please quantify that statement.




I agree that LBJ had much to gain from JFK's murder -- including a "Get Out of Jail Free" card and all the wealth that the (limited) power of the presidency can generate.

But none of this brings us to a logical conclusion that LBJ was the "mastermind" of the assassination. And not even you have dared define the term, let alone defend the premise.

Jim, I reiterate: Nelson's book, informed by selective research and ultimately invalidated by illogical conclusion, is a disinformation textbook.

Here, in a nutshell (nut case?), is the process which, if we are to conclude that Nelson is an otherwise innocent naif, led to his "mastermind" conclusion:

A scientist trains a flea to fly. "Fly, flea," the scientist would say, and the flea would fly. "Fly, flea," and off it would soar.

Then one day the scientist surgically removed the flea's wings.

"Fly, flea," said the scientist. But the flea would not fly.

And so the scientist concluded, "When one removes the wings from a flea, it becomes deaf."

[Dawn Meredith]

Enjoy the game. I look forward to your response to CD's points. And he has read the book. Which makes him the perfect person to critique it here.
Dawn

[Jim DiEugenio]

Who the heck gives credence to someone like Billy Sol? The guy went to jail twice for being a con artist. Yet, he would have rather gone to jail than let loose the tapes he made of LBJ masterminding the plot?

Sure.

Now, show us the connection Jim between LBJ and Ruby. Everyone knows that Ruby was getting injections from Jolly West. Plus he lied through his teeth during his polygraph test. What did he say he feared? That they would find out about the guns, find out about New Orleans, find out about everything?

Please show us where LBJ figured in his gun running, New Orleans, and Ruby's Mafia ties.

Madeleine Brown probably had an affair with LBJ. There are many such "I slept with JFK or I slept with LBJ" stories. But her details about LBJ's knowledge of the conspiracy have changed through time. And his presence at the so-called Murchison party as relayed through her is very questionable. As is that so-called assassination ball in the first place.

I just dealt with McClellan and Hunt above.

I don't know what is worse, their stories, or the fact you take them seriously.

[Charles Drago]

I cannot praise hysterical and irrational responses to the mass of evidence we confront.

Yet you continue to offer such responses.

Hunt did not provide us anything of value other than evidence of his mastery of the art of disinformation. His confession tells us nothing that hasn't been put forward previously. It is indeed his masterpiece -- a hand-chosen amalgam of the sexiest suspects and motives as previously and repeatedly discussed here and elsewhere. Hunt mocks us from the grave as you accept his deception as holy writ and I dignify it by responding to you.

Don't bother regurgitating Hunt's disinformation -- unless, of course, you can mine and present a single nugget of Aurum from that dull pile of Iron pyrite you breathlessly carry to the assay office, visions of untold wealth dancing in your head.

But we can agree on this much: the herein under discussion, JFK-related toxic spills of Hunt and Nelson are of a pair. And no, I'm not ready to accuse the latter of being a willful agent of disinformation. Rather, I'm noting their similar methodologies, if not motives, and the identical values of their vile products.

Not to mention the damnably similar, sinister impacts of their work on our community.

[Charles] has yet to confirm that he has even read Phil's magnificent book.

I can confirm that I have NOT read Nelson's "magnificent" book. Please tell us its title and subject matter, and I'll get right on it.

I HAVE read Nelson's LBJ/"mastermind" book. It is an abomination in every sense of the word.

[Robert Morrow]

Billie Sol Estes? A con artist who went to jail twice. Wouldn't that be EXACTLY the kind of person that Lyndon Johnson would have close associations with? The kind of reminds me of people saying who are you going to believe Bill Clinton OR a drug addicted crack whore Bobbie Ann Williams.

Obviously, the more credible source between Bill Clinton and a drug addicted crack whore IS the drug addicted crack whore.

Ditto Billie Sol Estes. How do you think he became so fabulously wealthy in his mid 30's? By HITCHING HIS RIDE TO LYNDON JOHNSON.

By the way, I do not believe that Billie Sol Estes has those tapes. I think he is lying about that. Billie Sol Estes loves money so much that he would have sold those tapes a long time ago for millions of dollars.

That does not mean he is not telling the truth about his other criminal dealings with Lyndon Johnson. Remember it was Texas Ranger Clint Peoples, a close observer of the corrupt Lyndon Johnson for decades, who coaxed Billie Sol Estes into coming clean with the truth in the 1980's - ten years AFTER Lyndon Johnson had died and presumably when it was safer to speak out.

[Peter Presland]

As an ignorant Limey I hesitate to take issue with people whose mastery of the minutia of the JFK assassination I will never match. I like to think I do have a fairly robust hold on the big picture though and, though already referred to by Charles D, it prompts the following general - and to me overriding - observation:

I find it difficult to accept that the holder of ANY elected public office, no matter it's apparently overwhelming power in the perceptions of the masses, could be THE prime-mover - the Mastermind if you like - of such an epoch-defining deep-political event as the JFK assassination. As Charles says - the biggest, most important tool/weapon in the arsenal of the REAL prime movers - yes, but the prime mover himself? It just doesn't fit what I have leaned of the workings of the nexus of agencies and powers that define Permanent Government in most of what we fondly refer to as the "Western Democracies". The holders of elected offices have ALWAYS gone through a vetting procedure that defines how they will be used. If they read the runes aright and 'smell the coffee' then, Tony Blair-like, they will be richly rewarded; if they don't, they will be dealt with one way or another. But prime-movers / masterminds? the skill set required to sell the snake-oil cures of real power to the masses says "NEVER" - they're just too bloody lightweight.

[Jim DiEugenio]

The truly unfortunate thing about a book like Nelson's is, as CD has stated, this: by exaggerating LBJ's role--calling him a mastermind--he naturally inflames the real critics of this case.

No one who has studied this case in any depth could possibly believe that LBJ could have conjured up and then controlled the almost superhumanly complex conspiracy that took the life of JFK. I mean, sitting in the White House for 8 years, LBJ could not even understand the Vietnam War until Tet!

So the idea that somehow he put together a plot that was so fiendishly clever that it took five years for anyone to get an inkling as to what had happened (Garrison in Playboy), sorry--I don't buy it.

[Robert Morrow]

I think that is what some folks are missing. Players like Ed Lansdale, Richard Helms, James Angleton ultimately "work for" higher powers.

And those "higher powers" would be folks like the Rockefellers (Nelson Rockefeller in particular), Allen Dulles, Texas oil barons such as Clint Murchison, Sr., John J. McCloy - basically the shadow government.

The Texas oil barons (Clint Murchison, Sr., H.L. Hunt, whoever their closest allies were) and the Rockefellers (who were friends with Texas oil) were simply telling the intelligence agencies to murder John Kennedy.

I have a biography of James Angleton and it shows him carrying the ashes of his mentor Allen Dulles at his funeral in 1969. Now that is CLOSE. All Texas oil and the Rockefellers had to do was go through Allen Dulles to manipulate the CIA - even long after Dulles was fired. LBJ always said "Power is where power goes."

Did Lyndon Johnson work FOR or work WITH the shadow government? Both - and they ALL wanted John Kennedy murdered.

I think Clint Murchison, Sr. and Nelson Rockefeller and Allen Dulles had a lot more power than Helms, Angleton and Lansdale. Those last 3 guys are the hired help; just like J. Edgar Hoover was the hired help to the power elite. John J. McCloy, a Rockefeller man, was up there with immense power - he was a key agent for folks like Clint Murchison, Sr. and Nelson Rockefeller.

And remember, ultra key witnesses like Madeleine Duncan Brown, Billie Sol Estes, Barr McClellan and E. Howard Hunt did not start speaking out until Lyndon Johnson had been DEAD a full 10 years in the 1980's and beyond. Judyth Vary Baker did not speak out until the late 1990's.

If they had spoken out Monday morning November 25th, 1963 we would have solved the 1963 Coup d'Etat right off the bat ... of course they might be DEAD, too.

[Charles Drago]

The technique is as old as deep politics:

Begin with a logical exposition of the truth ... and then WHAM! ... jump to a wholly illogical and indefensible conclusion.

Sow confusion.

What is this, grade school?

"ultra key witnesses like Madeleine Duncan Brown, Billie Sol Estes, Barr McClellan and E. Howard Hunt"

"Ultra key"???

Like, wow, man.

"Ultra key," as in an emotion-addled mistress, a criminal dissembler, a sad, perhaps even disturbed lawyer, and the master disinformationalist of our time -- none of whom offered an iota of sustainable evidence to back their sad and/or sinister claims.

Like, golly gee, it was Lyndon in the library with the candlestick ...