Eisenhower, JFK, RFK and CIA.

[robnisch]

Historical Documents - Office of the Historian

history.state.gov 3.0 shell

history.state.gov

JFK and RFK did not trust the CIA. It is well known that they wanted to destroy it.
It was also known that they did not want to be in Vietnam.
Dulles hated JFK. He was on the Warren commission.
Conspiracy theory?

 

[pood]

No.

You sure all your facts are straight?

 

[pood]

Also, what does your linked piece have to do with your OP?

 

[pood]

Actually, I should say, yes, it is a conspiracy theory, and like most, it’s BS.

 

[robnisch]

Also, what does your linked piece have to do with your OP?

JFK was furious when he found out what had happened to the president of Congo.

 

[robnisch]

Actually, I should say, yes, it is a conspiracy theory, and like most, it’s BS.

You may be right, but I just can not accept that LHO acted alone. I never will.

 

[bilby]

Actually, I should say, yes, it is a conspiracy theory, and like most, it’s BS.

You may be right, but I just can not accept that LHO acted alone. I never will.

How does the possibility that Eisenhower may have ordered the assassination of the Congolese president, have anything whatsoever to do with the assassination of JFK, by Lee Harvey Oswald; Or in any way suggest or imply that Oswald wasn't acting alone in that latter assassination?

And why do I get the feeling that I will regret asking?

 

[robnisch]

Actually, I should say, yes, it is a conspiracy theory, and like most, it’s BS.

You may be right, but I just can not accept that LHO acted alone. I never will.

How does the possibility that Eisenhower may have ordered the assassination of the Congolese president, have anything whatsoever to do with the assassination of JFK, by Lee Harvey Oswald; Or in any way suggest or imply that Oswald wasn't acting alone in that latter assassination?

And why do I get the feeling that I will regret asking?

I was trying (poorly it seems) to show that JFK did not trust the CIA. It was known he wanted to destroy it.

 

[GenesisNemesis]

In a court of law you need more evidence than just "x person hated y person, therefore x person is guilty!" Same shit here.

 

[bilby]

Actually, I should say, yes, it is a conspiracy theory, and like most, it’s BS.

You may be right, but I just can not accept that LHO acted alone. I never will.

How does the possibility that Eisenhower may have ordered the assassination of the Congolese president, have anything whatsoever to do with the assassination of JFK, by Lee Harvey Oswald; Or in any way suggest or imply that Oswald wasn't acting alone in that latter assassination?

And why do I get the feeling that I will regret asking?

I was trying (poorly it seems) to show that JFK did not trust the CIA. It was known he wanted to destroy it.

He was President for almost three full years. If he had wanted to disband (or "destroy") the CIA, there would be plenty of evidence of that; Starting with his closing them down, which was easily within his powers, as President.

And why would actions taken by the CIA at the behest of President Eisenhower be relevant to President JFK, three years after Eisenhower left the Oval Office? From the perspective of President JFK, any such actions were history.

And a history that strongly implies a CIA that is highly loyal to the Presidency.

 

[Swammerdami]

Historical Documents - Office of the Historian

history.state.gov 3.0 shell

history.state.gov

JFK and RFK did not trust the CIA. It is well known that they wanted to destroy it.
It was also known that they did not want to be in Vietnam.
Dulles hated JFK. He was on the Warren commission.
Conspiracy theory?

Is there something wrong with my DNS? OP's link takes me to a page which does NOT mention ANY of the six proper names mentioned in OP's summary of his link. Zero for six!

Instead OP's link mentions Lumumba, POSSIBLY assassinated with Ike's complicity when I was 11 years old. The proper names Lumumba and Katanga get dim recognition signals in my cortex (left over from 63 years ago???). But still no JFK, RFK, CIA, VIET, AWD or EARL.

@OP -- what gives?

 

[robnisch]

Historical Documents - Office of the Historian

history.state.gov 3.0 shell

history.state.gov

JFK and RFK did not trust the CIA. It is well known that they wanted to destroy it.
It was also known that they did not want to be in Vietnam.
Dulles hated JFK. He was on the Warren commission.
Conspiracy theory?

Is there something wrong with my DNS? OP's link takes me to a page which does NOT mention ANY of the six proper names mentioned in OP's summary of his link. Zero for six!

Instead OP's link mentions Lumumba, POSSIBLY assassinated with Ike's complicity when I was 11 years old. The proper names Lumumba and Katanga get dim recognition signals in my cortex (left over from 63 years ago???). But still no JFK, RFK, CIA, VIET, AWD or EARL.

@OP -- what gives?

I should not have gone down that rabbit hole. I just had never heard of the Lumumba case. Just more shitty shit in our past.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

Regarding this section of the op post:

JFK and RFK did not trust the CIA. It is well known that they wanted to destroy it.
It was also known that they did not want to be in Vietnam.
Dulles hated JFK. He was on the Warren commission.

I have some impressions which might or might not be true. This is mixed with history and thoughts about what is plausible, not necessarily documented well and could be wrong.

I am going to change around the order of the sentences here:

It is well known that they wanted to destroy it.

Doing some Internet searches there is a quote that comes up a lot. The original source is a 1966 NYT article that cites an anonymous, very high-level official who quoted Kennedy as saying to him after the Bay of Pigs debacle in 1961:
Kennedy had said he wanted to "splinter the C.I.A. in a thousand pieces and scatter it to the winds."

If one considers the circumstances of what just had happened, he was elected Nov 1960, took office Jan 1961, quickly found out that Eisenhower, the military, and the CIA had planned an invasion of Cuba scheduled for mid-April, 1961...basically he had three months to be Command-in-Chief, before this invasion... So, as he was coming on board, you'd think he would want to double-check and triple-check everything he's being told. Right? The plan was implemented and so that means that everyone on hand was giving him positive feedback and assurances or he'd have changed the plan or canceled it. And after the serious debacle, the invasion failed within two days, and some of the elements were blaming Kennedy for it. So....Kennedy was probably very pissed off and could easily have made a statement that expressed his TEMPORARY feelings about the serious failure.

Now, here, a plausibly temporary feeling he had said to a trusted confidante and colleague could now be used over and over to exaggerate that he wanted to destroy the CIA. Maybe?

On the other hand, perhaps there is a grain of truth in the quote. So, it's also plausible that this early failure caused him to be skeptical of the CIA and seek better oversight of the operations and better control.

So this part:

JFK and RFK did not trust the CIA.

Seems like a better conclusion, than wanting to outright destroy it. After all, historically, Kennedy continued to rely on the CIA for things.

Approximately, a month after the Bay of Pigs debacle, Kennedy delivered a special message to Congress.

This section, the last paragraph in particular, is noteworthy:

VI. OUR OWN MILITARY AND INTELLIGENCE SHIELD

In line with these developments, I have directed a further reinforcement of our own capacity to deter or resist non-nuclear aggression. In the conventional field, with one exception, I find no present need for large new levies of men. What is needed is rather a change of position to give us still further increases in flexibility.

Therefore, I am directing the Secretary of Defense to undertake a reorganization and modernization of the Army's divisional structure, to increase its non-nuclear firepower, to improve its tactical mobility in any environment, to insure its flexibility to meet any direct or indirect threat, to facilitate its coordination with our major allies, and to provide more modern mechanized divisions in Europe and bring their equipment up to date, and new airborne brigades in both the Pacific and Europe.

And secondly, I am asking the Congress for an additional 100 million dollars to begin the procurement task necessary to re-equip this new Army structure with the most modern material. New helicopters, new armored personnel carriers, and new howitzers, for example, must be obtained now.

Third, I am directing the Secretary of Defense to expand rapidly and substantially, in cooperation with our Allies, the orientation of existing forces for the conduct of non-nuclear war, paramilitary operations and sub-limited or unconventional wars.

In addition our special forces and unconventional warfare units will be increased and reoriented. Throughout the services new emphasis must be placed on the special skills and languages which are required to work with local populations.

Fourth, the Army is developing plans to make possible a much more rapid deployment of a major portion of its highly trained reserve forces. When these plans are completed and the reserve is strengthened, two combat-equipped divisions, plus their supporting forces, a total of 89,000 men, could be ready in an emergency for operations with but 3 weeks' notice--2 more divisions with but 5 weeks' notice--and six additional divisions and their supporting forces, making a total of 10 divisions, could be deployable with less than 8 weeks' notice. In short, these new plans will allow us to almost double the combat power of the Army in less than two months, compared to the nearly nine months heretofore required.

Fifth, to enhance the already formidable ability of the Marine Corps to respond to limited war emergencies, I am asking the Congress for 60 million dollars to increase the Marine Corps strength to 190,000 men. This will increase the initial impact and staying power of our three Marine divisions and three air wings, and provide a trained nucleus for further expansion, if necessary for self-defense.

Finally, to cite one other area of activities that are both legitimate and necessary as a means of self-defense in an age of hidden perils, our whole intelligence effort must be reviewed, and its coordination with other elements of policy assured. The Congress and the American people are entitled to know that we will institute whatever new organization, policies, and control are necessary.

Here I imagine a context that might not be the case but again, I think it is plausible. Former President was a General and a Republican. A lot of the upper echelon staff of the CIA were probably also Republicans, partisanship playing a role in nominations and so forth... After the enormous failure of the Bay of Pigs, and the blame game, I think it is plausible that many of the elements in the CIA saw Kennedy as a problem and populist risk and Kennedy saw them also as a risk and so wanted to get some control on them.

Here is one thing that happened next. Operation Mongoose.

Here is some info on Operation Mongoose:

The failed invasion strengthened the position of Castro’s administration, which proceeded to openly proclaim its intention to adopt socialism and pursue closer ties with the Soviet Union. It also led to a reassessment of Cuba policy by the Kennedy administration. The President established a committee under former Army Chief of Staff General Maxwell Taylor and Attorney General Robert Kennedy to examine the causes of the defeat suffered at the Bay of Pigs.

This examination and policy assessment, initiated in May 1961, led in November of that year to a decision to implement a new covert program in Cuba, with the codename of Operation Mongoose. Oversight for Operation Mongoose was provided by the 5412/2 Special Group, under the auspices of the National Security Council, expanded to include General Taylor and Attorney General Kennedy.

Operation Mongoose was designed to do what the Bay of Pigs invasion failed to do: remove the Communist Castro regime from power in Cuba. Orchestrated by the CIA and Department of Defense under the direction of Edward Lansdale, Operation Mongoose constituted a multiplicity of plans with wide-ranging purpose and scope. Lansdale presented the Project’s six-phase schedule to Attorney General Kennedy on February 20, 1962, and President Kennedy received a briefing on the operation’s components on March 16, 1962. Lansdale outlined the coordinated program of political, psychological, military, sabotage, and intelligence operations, as well as proposed assassination attempts on key political leaders, including Castro.

It should be noted here as well that Kennedy's insertion of General Taylor into the administration, directing these things was also a snub to the Joint Chiefs of Staff whom he had also been critical of post-Bay of Pigs.

To add--Taylor was very aligned to the Kennedy's. If I were to guess, I'd guess he was a Democrat and the next year, he replaced the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Note, though, that Kennedy hasn't smashed the CIA into a thousand pieces, but was utilizing them and trying to change and control them. He had his brother, whom he could trust, become an active part of checking them.

Here's something interesting...

The general that Taylor replaced as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff was Lyman Louis Lemnitzer.

From his Wikipedia page:

As chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Lemnitzer was responsible for drafting Operation Northwoods, a proposed plan to create support for military action against Cuba, by orchestrating false flag terrorism acts in the United States.

From the Operation Northwoods Wikipedia page:

Operation Northwoods was a proposed false flag operation that originated within the US Department of Defense of the United States government in 1962. The proposals called for CIA operatives to both stage and commit acts of terrorism against American military and civilian targets, blame them on the Cuban government, and would be used to justify a war against Cuba. The possibilities detailed in the document included the remote control of civilian aircraft which would be secretly repainted as US Air Force planes,[2] a fabricated 'shoot down' of a US Air Force fighter aircraft off the coast of Cuba, the possible assassination of Cuban immigrants, sinking boats of Cuban refugees on the high seas,[3] blowing up a U.S. ship, and orchestrating terrorism in U.S. cities.[2] [4] The proposals were rejected by President John F. Kennedy.[5][6][7]

Later on in 1962, is when Kennedy replaced Lemnitzer with Taylor.

Here's more on what Lemnitzer did in the future (back to his own Wikipedia page). I get the feeling he was a Republican because of the opposite party support:

In 1975, President Gerald Ford appointed Lemnitzer to the Commission on CIA Activities within the United States, also known as the Rockefeller Commission, to investigate whether the CIA had committed acts that violated US laws, and allegations that E. Howard Hunt and Frank Sturgis (of Watergate fame) were involved in the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

So...to be clear, above you can observe all the shenanigans Lemnitzer was willing to do in Operation Northwoods. From this, one can get a reasonable feel for what he plausibly did under Eisenhower and perhaps as the Supreme Allied Commander of NATO in the late 60s during the Cold War. This makes it very interesting that Ford would choose Lemnitzer in 1975 to investigate the CIA; the extent to which Lemnitzer had been willing to do very, very unethical, illegal things was pretty intense.

If you review the findings of the commission mentioned in its Wikipedia page, they do not match to the level of severity of those things, but are more mild...which would make one wonder that the bigger things they did not include. But there were later commissions that apparently did so. Here is the beginning of the Wikipedia page on that commission:

The United States President's Commission on CIA Activities within the United States was ordained by President Gerald Ford in 1975 to investigate the activities of the Central Intelligence Agency and other intelligence agencies within the United States. The Presidential Commission was led by Vice President Nelson Rockefeller, from whom it gained the nickname the Rockefeller Commission.

The commission was created in response to a December 1974 report in The New York Times that the CIA had conducted illegal domestic activities, including experiments on US citizens, during the 1960s. The commission issued a single report in 1975, touching upon certain CIA abuses including mail opening and surveillance of domestic dissident groups. It also publicized Project MKUltra, a CIA mind control research program.

Several weeks later, committees were established in the House and Senate for a similar purpose. White House Personnel, including future Vice President Dick Cheney, edited the results, excluding many of the commission's findings from the final report. Some of these findings were included in later reports by the Congressional Committees.

Before it was even released, the report faced scrutiny from the media, and was deemed a "whitewash." The investigation was intended to be independent of Presidential interference, but the findings and recommendations included in the final report were highly altered from what was chosen by the commission itself. It was ultimately superseded in notability by the more substantial Church Committee in what became known as the "Year of Intelligence."

Given actual real coverups and conspiracies of the times, I think the suspicions by people will continue for some time. That said, the truth of large conspiracies seems to eventually come out and the perpetrators become known. It's too difficult to keep these things hidden.

 

[pood]

Also, what does your linked piece have to do with your OP?

JFK was furious when he found out what had happened to the president of Congo.

So furious that later on, he ordered Operation Mongoose for the CIA to remove Castro by any means necessary, including assassinating him? Note too that JFK signed off on the Deim coup which ended with the latter being assassinated. When LBJ took office and got wind of all this, he said something to the effect that “We’re running a damned Murder Inc. down there in the Caribbean,” and put an end to it. JFK was angry over the Bay of Bigs and offhandedly spoke of “scattering it to the wind,” as noted above, but hardly did it. He did fire Dulles, and laster Dulles served on the Warren Commission, and the belief of many of historians is that LBJ and RFK wanted him on the commission to divert the commission from discovering Mongoose. RFK sometimes thought that Castro ordered the assassination of his brother in retaliation for the attempts on his life. But like all JFK conspiracy theories, there is not a shred of evidence to support this claim.

 

[pood]

Whereas there is a mountain of evidence against Oswald, including eye and ear witnesses to his firing the gun, and not one speck of evidence that he had any kind of help or was part of any conspiracy.

 

[Elixir]

Actually, I should say, yes, it is a conspiracy theory, and like most, it’s BS.

You may be right, but I just can not accept that LHO acted alone. I never will.

I have always considered that the most sinister possible explanation would be that LHO acted alone. If that was the truth, it said that our society needed an emergency overhaul, because we were cultivating crazy lone wolves and no one was safe.

A conspiracy explanation was basically saying that the usual bad actors were still killing each other, and that it is just the rules of the game.
Our own leaders would knock off lots of other leaders if they thought it would benefit them and they would get away with it. Trump would have poor sleepy joe knocked off in a heartbeat if he wasn’t afraid it might cost him votes.

 

[steve_bank]

Historical Documents - Office of the Historian

history.state.gov 3.0 shell

history.state.gov

JFK and RFK did not trust the CIA. It is well known that they wanted to destroy it.
It was also known that they did not want to be in Vietnam.
Dulles hated JFK. He was on the Warren commission.
Conspiracy theory?

That is a new one, haven't heard that one before.

What JFK said after the Bay Of Pigs fiasco was that he made a mistake in trusting the generals who planned it.

One theory was that JFK was going to pull back on VN and was assassinated from within for it.

RFK and JFK wanted to rembve Hoover as head of the FBI, but he had the dirt on everybody in DC.

Joe Kennedy had bargained with organized crime leaders for union votes and made pros sises which were not kept. RFK went after them. To me organized crime is the likely suspect for the assassination.

If the Russians did it and it was proven it could have been nuclear war. I double it was the Russians. I don;t see the Russians risking it.

There was Castro, but again it would have been a high risk for a tiny island nation off our coast.

Could it have been disaffected members of the intelligence community? I suppose it is possible. Hoover ran the FBI as his perrsoal militia and secret police. He developed dossiers on public figures of all kinds.


There were Christians who did not like have a Catholic 'papist' in the WH.

My gadmother's brother in law was a fiesty Irish Ctaholic. He got invited by anehforto a John Birch meerting. The speaker prcamed there wrer comminusts in the government. When he asked who the spaeker siad JFK, My grandmother's brother in law let koose with a barage of angry swears. I listened to him tlkng abou it to my relatives.

The John Birch Socety was one of the wacky right wing groups of the day, point being JFK had many enemies.

 

[pood]

All of these people and groups who night have had a motive for killing JFK, or who at least hated him, is fine and dandy.

Now, is there any evidence to link of them to the crime?

No.

 

[pood]

As to Vietnam, there are competing lines of evidence about what JFK intended to do.

On the morning of his death, in a speech in Forth Worth, he bragged about how the U.S. was the ‘“keystone in the arch of freedom” supporting South Vietnam and others against Communist aggression, and said that if we left Vietnam, the south would collapse overnight.

OTOH, in an interview with Walter Cronkite about a month before his death, he talked about how “I don’t think we can win there” (in Vietnam) though said we should stay, but as advisers, not combatants. His we can’t win there” comment seemed to be in reference to the prospect of a full-scale U.S. ground commitment.

In a 1964 interview, after JFK’s death, RFK said the president “had a strong reason” for being in Vietnam, and that he fully subscribed to the “domino theory,” first articulated by Eisenhower, that if Vietnam fell to the Communists, all of southeast Asia would fall like dominoes.

But at the same time, privately, JFK was telling aides “Those people (the South Vietnamese) are going to throw our asses out of there.” He seemed to have come to recognize by the end of his life that the war in Vietnam was seen primarily by the Viet people as a war against imperial aggression and colonization, and a lot of people in the south regarded us the same way they regarded the French, as imperial colonizers. JFK also frequently quoted Gen. Douglass MacArthur’s warning against getting involved in a huge land war in Southeast Asia, drawing on his experience in Korea.

So who knows? One thing that seems really unlikely is anyone would have sensibly killed JFK to make sure LBJ got us involved in a full land war in Vietnam. They would have had no reason to think that. LBJ was much more interested in domestic than foreign policy and we know from his taped calls after he became president that he agonized over Vietnam. If, in 1963, I wanted the U.S. involved in a huge land war in Southeast Asia, and I had to choose who was more likely to provide it, JFK or LBJ, I would have chosen JFK.

 

[Swammerdami]

The Dark Side of Camelot by Seymour Hersh is an interesting mind-opening read. Some people changed their opinions of Hersh after they read this book but he was respected and honest in his books before Camelot as well as in his later books, so I think he should be trusted for The Dark Side of Camelot as well.

Hersh reports that JFK had shared with some insiders his intention to reduce America's involvement in Vietnam, but wanted to wait until after the 1964 elections.