by BAR editor and senior columnist Margaret KimberleyPresident John F. Kennedy's assassination in 1963 was rooted in previous crimes and created a cascade of subsequent crimes. Indeed, none of the high profile political killings of the Sixties can be understood apart from the larger matrix of official criminality. Even “the American mafia owes its very existence to the CIA, which protected and promoted the illegal drug trafficking responsible for so much loss of life and destruction of entire communities.”
Freedom Rider: Assassination
by BAR editor and senior columnist Margaret Kimberley
“The president of the United States was gunned down as a direct result of his connections with criminals and with anti-Castro Cuban exile terrorists.”
November 22, 2009 will mark 46 years since the assassination of president John F. Kennedy. That date is usually reserved for sentimental nostalgia for the days of “Camelot” and tales of the charismatic president and a family still admired by many people. It ought to be a date to remember the past and continuing corruption of American domestic and foreign policy which led to a day that changed our history and set in motion crimes committed years later.
The official explanation of the president’s death – than an unstable man acted alone – is impossible to believe and ignores information that was never brought before the American people. There are individuals such as Santo Trafficante and John Roselli who confessed to involvement in the president’s death in later years. None of those individuals were ever investigated in even a cursory manner. Doing so would have exposed the government’s illegal activities at home and abroad. As a result of this inaction, the same individuals may have played a part in the killings of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy and continued their illegal activities in the Watergate scandal.
“The Kennedy brothers’ ongoing financial and tactical support of violent Cuban exiles and organized crime figures brought about the president’s killing.”
The Kennedy administration was far from the romantic beacon that it has been portrayed to be for nearly 50 years. At the time of his assassination, the president and his brother, attorney general Robert Kennedy, were involved in a plot to overthrow the Cuban government. The Kennedy brothers’ ongoing financial and tactical support of violent Cuban exiles and organized crime figures brought about the president’s killing. The cover up led to further killing.
On November 9, 1963, avowed white supremacist Joseph Milteer was recorded by a police informant predicting that president Kennedy was about to be killed. Milteer had connections with mobsters Carlos Marcello and Santos Traficante. Milteer also spent years attempting to kill Martin Luther King. He openly offered a bounty to anyone who would kill him. Milteer had connections with convicted assassin James Earl Ray. The cover up of one assassination led to another years later.
Theories about the JFK assassination and the identity of the shooter or shooters vary a great deal. The confusion is a direct result of government lies that have been told for decades. Despite the fact that the 1992 JFK Act requires the release of all documents related to the assassination, they will not be released until 2017 at the earliest. All of the government files on the King assassination have not been released, neither to the House Special Committee on Assassinations or to the public.
“All of the government files on the King assassination have not been released.”
Among the untold stories of the presidential assassination is that of Abraham Bolden, the first black Secret Service agent to serve in a presidential detail. He experienced overt racism at the hands of his superiors and witnessed gross incompetence among his fellow agents. In November 1963 Bolden was stationed in Chicago, where an attempt to kill the president was revealed, causing the cancellation of a motorcade through that city. There was also an assassination plot uncovered in Florida that same month.
When Bolden attempted to contact the Warren Commission and reveal his information about the two assassination attempts, he was himself arrested on a trumped up charge of selling government documents. Despite the fact that a witness against him admitted to lying and a prosecutor pleaded the Fifth Amendment when asked about his conduct in the case, Bolden was convicted and spent three years in prison.
Bolden was punished because he wanted to tell what would have been a very inconvenient truth. The two previous attempts that November proved that the president of the United States was gunned down as a direct result of his connections with criminals and with anti-Castro Cuban exile terrorists. Some of those gangsters were eager to return to their lucrative activities in pre-Castro era Cuba, some took revenge because the president’s brother threatened their livelihoods with his headline-making prosecutions.
“Drug dealers and other criminals operate with the full assistance of the American intelligence agencies.”
Little has changed in the way our government has been run in the past five decades. Drug dealers and other criminals operate with the full assistance of the American intelligence agencies. The American mafia owes its very existence to the CIA, which protected and promoted the illegal drug trafficking responsible for so much loss of life and destruction of entire communities.
In 2009, narco-traffickers in Colombia now operate with the full blessing of the United States government. Journalists work hand in hand with the government to spread propaganda, and good people who dare to speak out against government crimes are themselves silenced through a variety of means.
By all means, the 22nd of November should be remembered. Remember that the CIA refuses to release information, claiming that doing so would cause “extremely grave damage” to national security. In other words, they want to tell their lies in perpetuity. Remember that Robert Kennedy approved J. Edgar Hoover’s surveillance of Martin Luther King and sowed the seeds of destruction of the civil rights movement. Remember that King’s killers had full government protection after killing a president. The truth isn’t pretty, but it must not be forgotten.
Margaret Kimberley's Freedom Rider column appears weekly in BAR. Ms. Kimberley lives in New York City, and can be reached via e-Mail at Margaret.Kimberley(at)BlackAgandaReport.com.
Comments
Puzzling
“The Kennedy brothers’ ongoing financial and tactical support of violent Cuban exiles and organized crime figures brought about the president’s killing.”
This puzzles me. RFK was well-known for going after the Mafia and the Teamsters (because of their mob connections) in spite of resistance from Hoover. In an era before RICO, RFK used everything he could to gain convictions against the mob, in one case even using the Migratory Bird Act. The animus between Hoffa and RFK was well-known and has been well documented.
The Bay of Pigs operation was inherited by the Kennedy administration from Eisenhower and Nixon. Kennedy felt pressured to continue with the invasion by the military (he honestly feared a military coup) but stated adamantly that there would be no air cover for the invaders. He told his generals that he did not want to be dragged into a confrontation with the USSR over Cuba. His generals chose not to believe him, thinking that at the last minute Kennedy would order air support. He did not and we avoided what would have been a devastating (and possibly apocalyptic) war.
All of this has been public knowledge for some time. The Kennedy brothers were far from perfect. They backed the civil rights movement reluctantly at first. JFK should have dropped all support the of the Bay of Pigs (although, IMO and in the opinion of others with much more knowledge than I have, it was his lack of overwhelming support for the military/CIA/industrial powers that led to his assassination). In addition to the Douglass book (which I haven't yet read), a good source is the book by Russ Baker, "Family of Secrets: The Bush Dynasty, the Powerful Forces That Put It in the White House, and What Their Influence Means for America").
Alternative Theories are Interesting
Has anyone ever considered the fact that the (essentially) Italian Mob viewed Kennedy's aggressive pursuit of them as benefitting the Irish Mob? Just saying... After all didn't Joe Kennedy earn the family jewels by bootlegging and other assorted "crimes?"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_Mob
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/97427.Paddy_Whacked_The_Untold_Story_...
Lastly, for an excellent account of Kennedy's struggles and decision-making in the foreign policy field, from the Bay of Pigs, the Cuban Missile Crisis, to Vietnam, I highly recommend reading or renting the dvd on Robert McNamara: The Fog of War. McNamara is a fascinating story teller and a first-rate intellect, and is brutally frank and honest, even "human," as he recounts his experiences in the Kennedy White House as Defense Secretary, his 10 Lessons are epic, my "favorite ones" (if there's such a thing) are: "Rationality will not save us." And, "Empathize with your enemy."
There could be no more timely read or viewing at this juncture in US history, with major US military wars being fought in 2 (+) countries.
http://www.alternativereel.com/includes/articles/display_article.php?id=...
IMO, Kennedy was whacked by the National Security Appartus, aided and perhaps executed by the Italian Mob, with assistance from Cuban Exiles. McNamara makes a compelling case that JFK was going to deescalate from Vietnam, not with rhetoric but with steep troop drawdowns and and real exit strategy. Kennedy became convinced that, militarily, Vietnam was a loser. Shortly thereafter he was assasinated. Also keep in mind that the CIA was doing things that Kennedy didn't know about, therefore the notion that the US, and by extension JFK, coddled the mob-La Costra Nostra has resonance. The CIA being an arm of the US government.
Speaking of the CIA, with the agencies history and Dick Cheney's "Left Behind Strategy," and Sibel Edmond's revelations, who the hell knows what the National Security Appartus is up too?? Which makes Obama's practice of keeping Bush/Cheney holdovers all the more puzzling and reprehensible.
http://thinkprogress.org/2009/03/31/hersh-cheney-behind/
Terry Gross: “Are you saying that you think Vice President Cheney is still having a chilling effect on people who might otherwise be coming forward,” asked Gross. “I’ll make it worse,” answered Hersh, adding that he believes Cheney “put people back” in government to “stay behind” in order to “tell him what’s going on” and perhaps even “do sabotage”:
HERSH: I’ll make it worse. I think he’s put people left. He’s put people back. They call it a stay behind. It’s sort of an intelligence term of art. When you leave a country and, you know, you’ve driven out the, you know, you’ve lost the war. You leave people behind. It’s a stay behind that you can continue to contacts with, to do sabotage, whatever you want to do. Cheney’s left a stay behind. He’s got people in a lot of agencies that still tell him what’s going on. Particularly in defense, obviously. Also in the NSA, there’s still people that talk to him. He still knows what’s going on. Can he still control policy up to a point? Probably up to a point, a minor point. But he’s still there. He’s still a presence.
Listen here:
The idea that Cheney would seed the government with trusted contacts is not surprising. As Hersh noted in his talk with Gross, Cheney has “been around forever” and “understands bureaucracy much better” than almost anyone in government. In 2006, Robert Dreyfuss reported for The American Prospect that when Cheney helped staff the Bush administration in 2001, he put together a “corps of hard-line acolytes” that served “as his eyes and ears” in the federal bureaucracy. Former officials called them “Dick Cheney’s spies.”
Additionally, before leaving office, the Bush administration aggressively placed political appointees into permanent civil service positions as part of a process known as “burrowing.” Some of the burrowed former political appointees have close ties to Cheney, such as Jeffrey T. Salmon, who was a speechwriter for Cheney when he served as defense secretary. In July, he was named deputy director for resource management in the Energy Department’s Office of Science"
The American Exceptional National Security Apparatus: "Change You can Believe In."
Assassination
oujiQualm, I'm coming around to your thinking on JFK. Everyone keeps saying RFK would've done this and he would've done that. We don't know what he would've done. My guess is, at best he'd probably do whatever it took to save the System. JFK seemed to me to be capable of change. RFK was a nasty piece of work; Suddenly, he walks on water. I'm don't buy it.
Oversimplification of JFK's Cuba Policy
IMO this is an oversimplification of Kennedy's Cuba policy. We now know that the CIA was doing TONS behind his back on both Vietnam and Cuba. Did Kennedy have SOME belligerant policies towards Cuba? Of course, no US President would not have. But we now know that JFK's policies were changing drastically and by late 1963 he was seeking a reporachment with Castro. The CIA knew this and did not like it much.
The best new book that is must reading is James W. Douglas JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters. Daniel Ellsberg, of Pentagon Papers fame, said that this book fundamentally changed his mind on both JFK's policies and his assassination > CIA.
There has been a tremendous amount of disinformation about JFK's CUba and Vietnam policies by Journalists like Cockburn Chomsky, and Hersh, all of which are far too reliant on Richard Helms lacky Sam Halperin.
Back in the late 80s or early
Back in the late 80s or early 90s, a writer was on CSPAN's Book TV plugging a book about JKF and MLK. The writer mentioned how MLK had to really pressure JFK to be more involved in the civil rights struggle. Does anyone know the name of this book or its author? I've been unable to find the info on CSPAN. Thank you.
beverly:your ques.'s been on my mind - new article on TruthDig
may have some of the answer. I don't know. www.truthdig.com has an article, Nov. 24, 2009 by Willaim Pfaff, "Delay Worked For Kennedy".
In it, he mentions that McGeorge Bundy was working with a writer, Gordon Goldstein, at the time of Bundy's death on his memoirs. And said something of an earlier book they did together. Kennedy did not want to send troops. I hope you find the answer and let us know. Am curious.
Assassination
Upon hearing of JFK's assassination, Malcolm commented that the "..the chickens had come home to roost..''
It'd be easy to infer that he may've been thinking of Joe Kennedy's business with the Mafia; What goes around, comes around.
p.s. Attorney Lynne Stewart's appeal was rejected (check out the article today on the Playahata web site). One of the judges said her sentence wasn't long enough. That'd be right coming from that lot.
What a disgrace.
Am old enough to remember the events.
While I remember to say it, Earl Caldwell, journalist on WBAI "Caldwell Chronicle" www.wbai.org, had an experience in re the Rev. ML King Jr. assassination: he was staying in the motel, arrived back to the motel a few minutes after the shooting and the FBI never questioned him. He has a long tale about it. He was in Memphis on assignment from the NYTimes.
(On WBAI - there's been a coup, see www.takebackwbai.org )
I was in my 20s in the 1960s. I lived in NOLA when Jim Garrison was DA, for 2 years, at any rate. I believed Garrison as he wrote in the newspaper at the time, but he was "dissed".
When I see the word "assassination", I cringe. It's so American. I don't even have to say what every reader is thinking about now.
John F. Kennedy Assassination
Everyone who was alive and old enough to understand events will always know where they were that awful November day in 1963.After a 25 year study of the events of that weekend I have come to realize that the American people have been lied to and the entire event has been covered up and filled with red herrings to mislead anyone who tries to open the true facts surrounding the case.After a complete examination of a person who was very close to the main people involved in this case my conclusions are that he was involved in some form in the plot to kill President Kennedy.That person is George deMohrenschildt .
Who
is that?