JFK describes "The Unthinkable" -- "The High Cabal"

[Ed Jewett]

I do, however, disagree with your idea that that perception diminishes those who hold it, and that it diminishes a man who was -- however excellent, loved and even revered he is and was by many -- a mortal and flawed man (aren't we all?!).

But he believed in redemption, and worked toward it. As do we.

Agreed, Ed, regarding how enlightenment emerges from caring disagreement.

Alas, I was less than artful in writing, "We dare not try to turn JFK into a secret society conspiracy theorist. To do so diminishes him and us."

My points are simply this:

1. JFK's spiritual evolution and growing political awareness, unlike our own, were neither inspired nor informed by the single historic event that most powerfully drives our own maturation as deep political scientists: JFK's murder.

2. JFK's greatness does not depend upon our demonstrating that somehow he was aware of secret societies/alliances that govern us. Had he come to understand that, as RFK said later (I'm paraphrasing), the world works in ways he never previously imagined? I don't know, but in the speech in question I see no evidence that he did.

3. In claiming otherwise we're needlessly grasping at straws -- even as we give the enemy another reason to lampoon JFK and/or us. Can't you see the headline: "Conspiracy Theorists Try to Enlist JFK in Their Cause"?

But by all means argue on. I love to be proven wrong.

Thank you for this, Charles. (It is a much better articulation, and I certainly understand how anyone can be less than articulate in a hurried post in between other pressing obligations. In my case, labor to improve my own articulation has become a lifelong challenge.) I appreciate your continued dialogue. Your first point is impeccable.

I take no delight in proving you (certainly, of anyone) wrong, and that is not the intent, either in terms of personalization of target or of superiority of perspective. Hopefully, the best of us, or our ideal goal, is understanding and comprehension, not engagement in personal duels.

But let me respond to points #2 and #3.

I can certainly understand your comment that you see no evidence for my POV in the speech. I'll almost go as far as stipulating to the point. But my interpretation (best stated as open hypothetical questions) doesn't come on the basis of the text of the speech; it comes from "the surround", the historical depth and perspective from other sources which it must been proven -- if the hypothesis has validity -- to have been available to the mind and education of JFK. (Does being POTUS at that time provide additional verification through advise, intel, etc.? Can't answer that yet, certainly here and now.) I think I can demonstrate that potentially-valid sources speaking to the existence and power of secret societies existed and were available (albeit not widely or popularly) to JFK and his contemporaries and milieu in and around the era of World War II. This surely was true in Europe, where he toured and his father and brother served. I can't prove that JFK accessed them, but it is conceivable that he did, or that others did who in turn influenced him or made them privately available. Even that would not be proof, merely reasonably valid supposition seeking confirmation not from inside the speech but in other terms.

Finally, I don't see this as either grasping at straws or in any way a denigration of the man. Certainly that is not my intent. It is a simple and honest question that needs further development. If, after further review, I see the question crumbling like a tower of Cape Cod sand in a winter storm, I'll be the first to say so.

[Ed Jewett]

Oh, and Charles, I forgot to add (what with the pressures of a nursing home visit, a birthday dinner and two loads of laundry) that this issue of JFK & secret societies can become (and, imho, needs to become) a vehicle by which the matter of the impact of secret societies on US and global governance and policy can be better examined.

For me, given my own much stronger orientation to the present day and the future for three grandbabies, it is less about how the matter of this speech and whatever was going on in that era relative to those secret societies and US governance played a role in the events of Dealey Plaza (if they did) than how they may have evolved, in a "lessons learned" fashion, after the assassination and its cover-up to drive events in the 70's, 80's, 90's, the new millennium, today and tomorrow.