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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsAfter JFK assassination, President Truman put his concerns about CIA in print.
One month after the assassination, President Harry S Truman expressed public concern CIA had strayed off the reservation from intelligence gathering of foreign news sources to cloak-and-dagger operations.
Limit CIA Role To Intelligence
By Harry S Truman
The Washington Post, December 22, 1963 - page A11
INDEPENDENCE, MO., Dec. 21 I think it has become necessary to take another look at the purpose and operations of our Central Intelligence AgencyCIA. At least, I would like to submit here the original reason why I thought it necessary to organize this Agency during my Administration, what I expected it to do and how it was to operate as an arm of the President.
I think it is fairly obvious that by and large a President's performance in office is as effective as the information he has and the information he gets. That is to say, that assuming the President himself possesses a knowledge of our history, a sensitive understanding of our institutions, and an insight into the needs and aspirations of the people, he needs to have available to him the most accurate and up-to-the-minute information on what is going on everywhere in the world, and particularly of the trends and developments in all the danger spots in the contest between East and West. This is an immense task and requires a special kind of an intelligence facility.
Of course, every President has available to him all the information gathered by the many intelligence agencies already in existence. The Departments of State, Defense, Commerce, Interior and others are constantly engaged in extensive information gathering and have done excellent work.
But their collective information reached the President all too frequently in conflicting conclusions. At times, the intelligence reports tended to be slanted to conform to established positions of a given department. This becomes confusing and what's worse, such intelligence is of little use to a President in reaching the right decisions.
Therefore, I decided to set up a special organization charged with the collection of all intelligence reports from every available source, and to have those reports reach me as President without department "treatment" or interpretations.
I wanted and needed the information in its "natural raw" state and in as comprehensive a volume as it was practical for me to make full use of it. But the most important thing about this move was to guard against the chance of intelligence being used to influence or to lead the President into unwise decisionsand I thought it was necessary that the President do his own thinking and evaluating.
Since the responsibility for decision making was histhen he had to be sure that no information is kept from him for whatever reason at the discretion of any one department or agency, or that unpleasant facts be kept from him. There are always those who would want to shield a President from bad news or misjudgments to spare him from being "upset."
For some time I have been disturbed by the way CIA has been diverted from its original assignment. It has become an operational and at times a policy-making arm of the Government. This has led to trouble and may have compounded our difficulties in several explosive areas.
I never had any thought that when I set up the CIA that it would be injected into peacetime cloak and dagger operations. Some of the complications and embarrassment I think we have experienced are in part attributable to the fact that this quiet intelligence arm of the President has been so removed from its intended role that it is being interpreted as a symbol of sinister and mysterious foreign intrigueand a subject for cold war enemy propaganda.
With all the nonsense put out by Communist propaganda about "Yankee imperialism," "exploitive capitalism," "war-mongering," "monopolists," in their name-calling assault on the West, the last thing we needed was for the CIA to be seized upon as something akin to a subverting influence in the affairs of other people.
I well knew the first temporary director of the CIA, Adm. Souers, and the later permanent directors of the CIA, Gen. Hoyt Vandenberg and Allen Dulles. These were men of the highest character, patriotism and integrityand I assume this is true of all those who continue in charge.
But there are now some searching questions that need to be answered. I, therefore, would like to see the CIA be restored to its original assignment as the intelligence arm of the President, and that whatever else it can properly perform in that special fieldand that its operational duties be terminated or properly used elsewhere.
We have grown up as a nation, respected for our free institutions and for our ability to maintain a free and open society. There is something about the way the CIA has been functioning that is casting a shadow over our historic position and I feel that we need to correct it.
SOURCE: http://www.maebrussell.com/Prouty/Harry%20Truman's%20CIA%20article.html
That would be better known, but for some reason it got left out of the afternoon edition and out of most all of the nations other newspapers.
To put some emphasis on Trumans essay, former CIA Director Allen Dulles tried to get a retraction:
Are Presidents Afraid of the CIA?
By Ray McGovern
December 29, 2009
Excerpt
Fox Guarding Hen House
The well-connected Dulles got himself appointed to the Warren Commission and took the lead in shaping the investigation of JFKs assassination.
Documents in the Truman Library show that he then mounted a small domestic covert action of his own to neutralize any future airing of Trumans and Souerss warnings about covert action.
So important was this to Dulles that he invented a pretext to get himself invited to visit Truman in Independence, Missouri. On the afternoon of April 17, 1964, Dulles spent a half-hour trying to get the former President to retract what he had said in his op-ed. No dice, said Truman.
No problem, thought Dulles. Four days later, in a formal memo for his old buddy Lawrence Houston, CIA General Counsel from 1947 to 1973, Dulles fabricated a private retraction, claiming that Truman told him the Washington Post article was all wrong, and that Truman seemed quite astounded at it.
No doubt Dulles thought it might be handy to have such a memo in CIA files, just in case.
A fabricated retraction? It certainly seems so, because Truman did not change his tune. Far from it.
In a June 10, 1964, letter to the managing editor of Look magazine, for example, Truman restated his critique of covert action, emphasizing that he never intended the CIA to get involved in strange activities.
CONTINUED...
SOURCE: http://www.consortiumnews.com/2009/122909b.html
Truman did not point a finger of blame at CIA, the Mafia or anyone. However, it is difficult to think of an innocent explanation for Mr. Dulles response and actions months before he would be appointed to the Warren Commission.
captain queeg
(11,117 posts)They seem to be their own little shadow empires. Why spend all that money when you can just watch Fox and various Twitter accounts and get all the info you need.
Kid Berwyn
(16,274 posts)An example of the dilemma from President Johnson, from The Atlantic:
LBJ: Oswald Wasnt Alone
Was President Kennedy murdered because of his actions against Cuba? His successor suspected so.
By Leo Janos
JFK ISSUE
The talk turned to President Kennedy, and [Lyndon B.] Johnson expressed his belief that the assassination in Dallas had been part of a conspiracy. I never believed that Oswald acted alone, although I can accept that he pulled the trigger. Johnson said that when he had taken office he found that we had been operating a damned Murder Inc. in the Caribbean. A year or so before Kennedys death a CIA-backed assassination team had been picked up in Havana. Johnson speculated that Dallas had been a retaliation for this thwarted attempt, although he couldnt prove it.
Source: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/08/lbj-oswald-wasnt-alone/309486/
Looking back 58 years, things could have been so very different with, ah, transparent governance.
CatWoman
(79,332 posts)Last edited Tue Nov 23, 2021, 02:56 PM - Edit history (1)
But it makes sense. More sense than the Mafia killing Kennedy.
The mafia knows how to plan murders for sure, but I just can't see them having the logistics needed to pull off the Kennedy murder.
The CIA had them for sure. And more.
Kid Berwyn
(16,274 posts)Agree CatWoman. Hard to see the Mafia having that much power unless the Mob got their one of their own into office.
The Mafias President: Nixon and the Mob
Posted on November 14, 2017
by Don Fulsom
Unbeknownst to most people even now, the election of 1968 placed the patron saint of the Mafia in the White House. In other words, Richard Nixon would go on to not only lead a criminal presidency; he would be totally indebted to our nations top mobsters.
By 1969, thanks in large part to his long-time campaign manager and political advisor Murray Chotiner, a lawyer who specialized in representing mobsters, Nixon had participated in secret criminal dealings for more than 20 years with sketchy figures such as Mickey Cohen, Mob financial guru Meyer Lansky, Teamsters union chief Jimmy Hoffa, and New Orleans Mafia boss Carlos Marcello. And with Chotiner as one of his key behind-the-scenes advisors in the White House, Nixons ties to the Mafia didnt end there. The Mafias President reveals a mind-blowing litany of favors Nixon exchanged with these sinister characters over decades, ranging from springing Jimmy Hoffa from prison to banning the federal government from using the terms Mafia and La Cosa Nostra. Drawing on newly released government tapes, documents, and other fresh information, The Mafias President by Don Fulsom offers a carefully reported, deeply researched account of Richard Nixons secret connections to Americas top crime lords. Read an excerpt of The Mafias President below.
Mobsters in Cuba
Santos Trafficante Jr., based in Tampa, was one of the most powerful Mafia godfathers in the countryand he was brutally vicious to his enemies. Known as the Silent Don because he was a keen adherent of the Mobs vow of silence, he wore thick glasses and dressed more like a bank president than a hood.
Yet Santos never hesitated to order hits on fellow mobsters who tried to encroach on his territoryor who had committed, in his deep green eyes, any other unpardonable sin. Among those Mafiosi reportedly bumped off on Trafficantes orders were Brooklyn boss Albert the Mad Hatter Anastasia; Chicago godfather Sam Momo Giancana; and Giancana lieutenant John Handsome Johnny Roselli. Trafficante also played a leading role in secret U.S. murder plots against Cuban leader Fidel Castro, instigated in 1959 by Vice President Richard Nixon.
Snip
Later, as vice president, Nixon summoned the loyal gangster who had shielded him from a potential Havana gambling scandal into service for a hush-hush government assignment. Always scheming, Nixon wanted to take advantage of Norman Rothmans old Batista-era contacts in Cuba.
So in 1960, at Nixons direction, Trafficante and several other Mafia heavyweights signed up as co-conspirators in secret Nixon-led Mafia-CIA plots to assassinate Fidel Castro. And among the key players in implementing the plots were Norman Rothman, former Nixon dirty trickster (and Hughes and Mafia associate) Robert Maheu, and CIA agents (and future Nixon dirty tricksters) Frank Sturgis and E. Howard Hunt. All of the Castro murder plots, of course, were miserable failures: the longtime ruler of Cuba died a natural death in his homeland in 2016.
Continues
https://www.thehistoryreader.com/us-history/mafias-president-nixon-mobsters-in-cuba/
None of the above was reported to the Warren Commission.
Big Liars. Thieves. Mass Murderers. Kleptocrats. Conservatives. Racists. Republicans. Traitors.
And We the People are told, Its a mystery!
Volaris
(10,374 posts)(even IF it was unofficial)
here's the thing tho...
AFAIC, Kennedy's murder, DOESNT REQUIRE any kind of conspiracy. You don't need a Majik Golf Ball to hit a hole-in-one...sometimes, a m'fucker JUST GETS LUCKY, and that's ALL THERE IS. The QAnon fools, need to let this go; JFK isn't gonna show lol.
He'd be 104 years old if he did. Even Jimmy Carter and Dick Cheney aren't gonna live that long...
dflprincess
(28,280 posts)going back to WWII when the CIA was the OSS.
Hekate
(92,605 posts)Kid Berwyn
(16,274 posts)Truman: I think it was a mistake. And if I'd know what was going to happen, I never would have done it.
The head of the Austrian-Libertarian Think Tank wrote down the story:
Truman Was Right About the CIA
by Jeff Deist
Mises Institute, March 8, 2017
Excerpt
Unfortunately it was only in hindsight that Truman came to see the "Iron Law of Oligarchy" at work, which posits that all organizations-- particularly government bureaucracies-- eventually fall under the control of an elite few. That elite, he came to understand, did not include the president or his cabinet:
Truman: But it got out of hand. The fella ... the one that was in the White House after me never paid any attention to it, and it got out of hand. Why, they've got an organization over there in Virginia now that is practically the equal of the Pentagon in many ways. And I think I've told you, one Pentagon is one too many.
Now, as nearly as I can make out, those fellows in the CIA don't just report on wars and the like, they go out and make their own, and there's nobody to keep track of what they're up to. They spend billions of dollars on stirring up trouble so they'll have something to report on. They've become ... it's become a government all of its own and all secret. They don't have to account to anybody.
That's a very dangerous thing in a democratic society, and it's got to be put a stop to. The people have got a right to know what those birds are up to. And if I was back in the White House, people would know. You see, the way a free government works, there's got to be a housecleaning every now and again, and I don't care what branch of the government is involved. Somebody has to keep an eye on things.
And when you can't do any housecleaning because everything that goes on is a damn secret, why, then we're on our way to something the Founding Fathers didn't have in mind. Secrecy and a free, democratic government don't mix. And if what happened at the Bay of Pigs doesn't prove that, I don't know what does. You have got to keep an eye on the military at all times, and it doesn't matter whether it's the birds in the Pentagon or the birds in the CIA.
This is a remarkable statement by Truman, even if delivered during a relatively unguarded moment with a trusted biographer. It shows a humility and willingness to admit grave error that is lacking in public life today. It also stands on its own as a inadvertent libertarian argument against state power itself.
Continues
https://mises.org/wire/truman-was-right-about-cia
Dont agree with their approach to Econ, but I think the guys pegged the problem.
jalan48
(14,069 posts)In 1954, the Guatemalan government of Colonel Jacobo Árbenz Guzmán, elected in 1950, was toppled by forces led by Colonel Carlos Castillo Armas[28] who invaded from Honduras. Commissioned by the Eisenhower administration, this military operation was armed, trained and organized by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency[29] (see Operation PBSuccess). The directors of United Fruit Company (UFCO) had lobbied to convince the Truman and Eisenhower administrations that Colonel Árbenz intended to align Guatemala with the Eastern Bloc. Besides the disputed issue of Árbenz's allegiance to communism, UFCO was being threatened by the Árbenz government's agrarian reform legislation and new Labor Code.[30] UFCO was the largest Guatemalan landowner and employer, and the Árbenz government's land reform program included the expropriation of 40% of UFCO land.[30] U.S. officials had little proof to back their claims of a growing communist threat in Guatemala;[31] however, the relationship between the Eisenhower administration and UFCO demonstrated the influence of corporate interest on U.S. foreign policy.[29] United States Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, an avowed opponent of communism, was also a member of the law firm, Sullivan and Cromwell, which had represented United Fruit.[32] His brother Allen Dulles, director of the CIA, was also a board member of United Fruit. United Fruit Company is the only company known to have a CIA cryptonym. The brother of the Assistant Secretary of State for InterAmerican Affairs, John Moors Cabot, had once been president of United Fruit. Ed Whitman, who was United Fruit's principal lobbyist, was married to President Eisenhower's personal secretary, Ann C. Whitman.[32] Many individuals who directly influenced U.S. policy towards Guatemala in the 1950s also had direct ties to UFCO.[30]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Fruit_Company#Guatemala
Kid Berwyn
(16,274 posts)The problem comes in when they defined America as their property.
A "killing field" in the Americas:
US policy in Guatemala
Third World Traveler
Excerpt
United Fruit Company
Under dictator Jorqe Ubico (1931-1944), American-owned United Fruit Company (UFC) gained control of forty-two percent of Guatemala's land, and was exempted from taxes and import duties. The three main enterprises in Guatemala -- United Fruit Company, International Railways of Central America, and Empress Electrica -- were American-owned (and controlled by United Fruit Company). Seventy-seven percent of all exports went to the US and sixty-five percent of imports came from the US.
"10 Years of Springtime"
Repressive governments have plagued Guatemala throughout its history, with alternating waves of dictators being the rule. But, between 1945 and 1954, there was a period of enlightenment -- an experiment with democracy called the "10 Years of Springtime" -- that started with the election of Juan Jose Arevalo to the presidency.
While in power from 1945 to 1951, Arevalo established the nation's social security and health systems and a government bureau to look after Mayan concerns. Arévalo's liberal regime experienced many coup attempts by conservative military forces, but the attempts were not successful.
Arévalo was followed by Colonel Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán who became president in democratic elections in 1951. At the time, 2% of landowners owned 70% of the arable land and farm laborers were kept in debt slavery by these landowners. Arbenz continued to implement the liberal policies of Arevalo, and instituted an agrarian reform law to break up the large estates and foster individually owned small farms. The land reform program involved redistribution of 160,000 acres of uncultivated land owned by United Fruit Company. United Fruit was compensated for its land.
Continues
https://thirdworldtraveler.com/US_ThirdWorld/US_Guat.html
Then the history of what had been a democracy turns violent. We see what these bastards did to Guatemala and so many other foreign countries, they and their ideological and genealogical offspring today do to the USA.
Thank you for the important history, jalan48! Cicero said, Not to know what happened before one was born is always to be a child.
jalan48
(14,069 posts)in other countries is always a noble one (spreading democracy in the Middle East according to George Jr.). I think the reality is that powerful corporate interests use the CIA to work to make other countries "corporate friendly". It's about power and who has it in our country. Too many Americans are indeed children when it comes to politics, hero worship is substituted for political reality. Thanks for your post!
kellytore
(190 posts)that Oswald was the shooter and probably acted alone. If the mafia, CIA, or Castro was behind the assassination, they would have used a better weapon than the Carcano rifle. This gun was made in 1940 and Italians would joke that this gun was the reason they lost WW2. Oswald purchased this gun thru the mail for $19.95 because it was the cheapest gun they sold. Oswald was a trained sharpshooter and still missed one of three shots. With a more sophisticated expensive rifle he would have been able to hit a slow moving target with all three. While it is true that Kennedy was disliked by some in the CIA and the mafia, the easiest way to dispose of his political career was to expose all of his infidelities before the next election which was less than one year away, and Hoover had a file full of this info.
I've long suspected it was just a crime of opportunity. IMO Oswald was an attention seeker (like TFG) who had apparently succumbed to Soviet propaganda and likely hated JFK for his anti-communism and Bay of Pigs. He found out that the JFK parade was going to pass directly under the place where he worked and he couldn't pass up such a golden opportunity.
The book Operation Dragon: Inside the Kremlin's Secret War on America published in 2021 by ex-CIA chief R. James Woolsey claims that Oswald was personally instructed by Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev to assassinate President Kennedy. I don't know how credible it is. Woolsey was a member of PNAC so maybe has an agenda or something.
Saboburns
(2,807 posts)On April 10, 1963, Oswald left his wife a note and made for Walkers house. He took aim, ready to carry out his thoroughly researched plan.
Oswald lifts his rifle and stares into the window. Surrounding Walker are folders, books, and stacks of packages wrapped in brown shipping paper. The walls are decorated with panels of foil wallpaper embossed with an Asian-style flower motif. Walkers head is in profile. He has a pencil in hand, and he is perfectly still, focused on something at his desk. From outside looking in, it must look a bit like a paintingas if Walker is caught in thought with the right side of his face clearly visible.
"Oswald squints into his telescopic sight, and Walkers head fills the view. He looks so close now, and hes sitting so still, that theres no possible way to miss. Drawing a tight bead on Walkers head, he pulls the trigger. An explosion hurtles through the night, a thunder that echoes to the alley, to the creek, to the church and the surrounding houses.
Walker flinches instinctively at the loud blast and the sound of a wicked crack over his scalpright inside his hair. For a second, he is frozen. His right arm is still resting on the desk alongside his 1962 income tax forms. He doesnt know it, but blood is beginning to appear."
Oswald missed his shot and escaped into the night. The Warren Commission, relying on testimony from Oswalds widow, Marina, said Oswald tried to kill the general because he was an extremist, says the New York Times. The next day, Walker was interviewed about the attempted assassination.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/before-jfk-lee-harvey-oswald-tried-to-kill-an-army-major-general-609517/
Walker's politics are diametrically opposed to Kennedy's. Walker was a hard core right wing zealot and avowed white-supremist. And the fact that Oswald tried to assassinate Walker proves that Oswald cared nothing about either of his target's politics. Oswald did it for the attention, to finally show the world that he was an important man who deserved respect. Something he craved, and the reason he defected to the Soviet Union in the first place. It is telling that when he re-defected from the Soviet Union back to the US, Oswald expected to be headline news and the lead story in every newspaper and TV evening news. Oswald writes himself a prepared speech for his arrival interviews he was sure was to come. He expected a huge crowd, dozens of reporters and photographers waiting on him when he landed. Oswald was shocked and flabbergasted when nobody, not one person, was there upon his arrival.
17 months after Oswald returns to America John F. Kennedy President of the United States drives underneath his window in an open topped car at 5 miles an hour.
Just freakish odds and an immeasurable tragedy.
Kid Berwyn
(16,274 posts)From 2007. Still applies.
Oswald 'had no time to fire all Kennedy bullets'
By Tim Shipman in Washington
The Telegraph, 01 Jul 2007
Lee Harvey Oswald could not have acted alone in assassinating President John F Kennedy, according to a new study by Italian weapons experts of the type of rifle Oswald used in the shootings.
In fresh tests of the Mannlicher-Carcano bolt-action weapon, supervised by the Italian army, it was found to be impossible for even an accomplished marksman to fire the shots quickly enough.
The findings will fuel continuing theories that Oswald was part of a larger conspiracy to murder the 35th American president on 22 November 1963.
The official Warren Commission inquiry into the shooting concluded the following year that Oswald was a lone gunman who fired three shots with a Carcano M91/38 bolt-action rifle in 8.3 seconds.
But when the Italian team test-fired the identical model of gun, they were unable to load and fire three shots in less than 19 seconds - suggesting that a second gunman must have been present in Dealey Plaza, central Dallas, that day.
CONTINUED...
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1556184/Oswald-had-no-time-to-fire-all-Kennedy-bullets.html
Here's a picture that does include the bullet thay is reputed to have caused seven wounds in two men, including breaking bones - on the left. The others have been deformed merely by cotton wadding, water, and a sheep rib.
former9thward
(32,738 posts)In the Marines he received the lowest rating on the gun range. He was trained in electronic surveillance. Why people keep pushing the "trained sharpshooter" myth I don't know.
calimary
(82,754 posts)Even at this late date.
Thanks for posting this, Kid Berwyn!
Kid Berwyn
(16,274 posts)During a speech by President Harry S Truman, a supporter yelled out, "Give 'em Hell, Harry!"
Truman replied, "I don't give them Hell. I just tell the truth about them, and they think it's Hell."
Subsequently, "Give 'em Hell, Harry!" became a lifetime slogan for Truman supporters.
(Re-replied from reply 18)
Merle Miller: Mr. President, I know that you were responsible as President for setting up the CIA. How do you feel about it now?
Truman: I think it was a mistake. And if I'd know what was going to happen, I never would have done it.
The head of the Austrian-Libertarian Think Tank wrote down the story:
Truman Was Right About the CIA
by Jeff Deist
Mises Institute, March 8, 2017
Excerpt
Unfortunately it was only in hindsight that Truman came to see the "Iron Law of Oligarchy" at work, which posits that all organizations-- particularly government bureaucracies-- eventually fall under the control of an elite few. That elite, he came to understand, did not include the president or his cabinet:
Truman: But it got out of hand. The fella ... the one that was in the White House after me never paid any attention to it, and it got out of hand. Why, they've got an organization over there in Virginia now that is practically the equal of the Pentagon in many ways. And I think I've told you, one Pentagon is one too many.
Now, as nearly as I can make out, those fellows in the CIA don't just report on wars and the like, they go out and make their own, and there's nobody to keep track of what they're up to. They spend billions of dollars on stirring up trouble so they'll have something to report on. They've become ... it's become a government all of its own and all secret. They don't have to account to anybody.
That's a very dangerous thing in a democratic society, and it's got to be put a stop to. The people have got a right to know what those birds are up to. And if I was back in the White House, people would know. You see, the way a free government works, there's got to be a housecleaning every now and again, and I don't care what branch of the government is involved. Somebody has to keep an eye on things.
And when you can't do any housecleaning because everything that goes on is a damn secret, why, then we're on our way to something the Founding Fathers didn't have in mind. Secrecy and a free, democratic government don't mix. And if what happened at the Bay of Pigs doesn't prove that, I don't know what does. You have got to keep an eye on the military at all times, and it doesn't matter whether it's the birds in the Pentagon or the birds in the CIA.
This is a remarkable statement by Truman, even if delivered during a relatively unguarded moment with a trusted biographer. It shows a humility and willingness to admit grave error that is lacking in public life today. It also stands on its own as a inadvertent libertarian argument against state power itself.
Continues
https://mises.org/wire/truman-was-right-about-cia
Dont agree with their approach to Econ, but I think the guys pegged the problem. Democracy to survive requires Truth.
calimary
(82,754 posts)LymphocyteLover
(6,005 posts)he makes the compelling case that former CIA director Allen Dulles was behind JFK's assassination.
dflprincess
(28,280 posts)Made it pretty clear the fix was in.
electric_blue68
(15,987 posts)tween then.
That's not good.
Kid Berwyn
(16,274 posts)He was speaking at the Passing the Torch conference at Duquesne University in October 2013. While the agency, per se, was not involved, Talbot named former Director Dulles as the Chairman of the Board of the assassination. He then proceeded to explain how.
https://www.democraticunderground.com/10024105197
Heres an excerpt of his thoughts on the subject:
The Devils Chessboard: Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise of the American Secret Government
DAVID TALBOT
Who What Why, 07/26/17
Excerpt
It was Dulles himself who jumped in to put out the Truman fire. Soon after the Post published Trumans diatribe, Dulles began a campaign to get the retired president to disavow his opinion piece. The spymaster began by enlisting the help of Washington power attorney Clark Clifford, the former Truman counselor who chaired President Johnsons intelligence advisory board. The CIA was really HSTs baby or at least his adopted child, Dulles pointed out in a letter to Clifford. Perhaps the attorney could talk some sense into the tough old bird and get him to retract his harsh criticisms of the agency.
Dulles also appealed directly to Truman in a strongly worded letter, telling the former president that he was deeply disturbed by his article. In the eight-page letter that he mailed on January 7, 1964, Dulles tried to implicate Truman himself. Calling Truman the father of our modern intelligence system, Dulles reminded him that it was you, through National Security Council action, [who] approved the organization in CIA of a new office to carry out covert operations. So, Dulles continued, Trumans ill-advised rant in the Post amounted to a repudiation of a policy that the former president himself had the great courage and wisdom to initiate.
To an extent, Dulles had a point. As the spymaster pointed out, the Truman Doctrine had indeed authorized an aggressive strategy aimed at thwarting Communist advances in Western Europe, including CIA intervention in the 1948 Italian elections. But Truman was correct in charging that, under Eisenhower, Dulles had led the CIA much deeper into skulduggery than he ever envisioned.
Unmoved by Dulless letter, Truman stood by his article. Realizing the threat that Truman posed, Dulles continued his crusade to discredit the Post essay well into the following year. Confident of his powers of persuasion, the spymaster made a personal trek to Independence, Missouri, in April, arranging to meet face-to-face with Truman at his presidential library. After exchanging a few minutes of small talk about the old days, Dulles mounted his assault on Truman, employing his usual mix of sweet talk and arm-twisting. But Truman even on the brink of turning eighty was no pushover, and Dulless efforts proved fruitless.
Still, Dulles would not accept defeat. Unable to alter reality, he simply altered the record, like any good spy. On April 21, 1964, upon returning to Washington, Dulles wrote a letter about his half-hour meeting with Truman to CIA general counsel Lawrence Houston. During their conversation at the Truman Library, Dulles claimed in his letter, the elderly ex-president seemed quite astounded by his own attack on the CIA when the spymaster showed him a copy of the Post article. As he looked it over, Truman reacted as if he were reading it for the first time, according to Dulles. He said that [the article] was all wrong. He then said that he felt it had made a very unfortunate impression.
The Truman portrayed in Dulless letter seemed to be suffering from senility and either could not remember what he had written or had been taken advantage of by an aide, who perhaps wrote the piece under the former presidents name. In fact, CIA officials later did try to blame a Truman assistant for writing the provocative opinion piece. Truman obviously was highly disturbed at the Washington Post article, concluded Dulles in his letter, and several times said he would see what he could do about it.
The Dulles letter to Houston which was clearly intended for the CIA files, to be retrieved whenever expedient was an outrageous piece of disinformation. Truman, who would live for eight more years, was still of sound mind in April 1964. And he could not have been shocked by the contents of his own article, since he had been expressing the same views about the CIA even more strongly to friends and journalists for some time.
After the Bay of Pigs, Truman had confided in writer Merle Miller that he regretted ever establishing the CIA. I think it was a mistake, he said. And if Id known what was going to happen, I never would have done it . [Eisenhower] never paid any attention to it, and it got out of hand . Its become a government all of its own and all secret . Thats a very dangerous thing in a democratic society. Likewise, after the Washington Post essay ran, Trumans original CIA director, Admiral Sidney Souers who shared his former bosss limited concept of the agency congratulated him for writing the piece. I am happy as I can be that my article on the Central Intelligence Agency rang a bell with you because you know why the organization was set up, Truman wrote back to Souers.
Continues
https://whowhatwhy.org/politics/government-integrity/devils-chessboard-allen-dulles-cia-rise-american-secret-government/
Thanks for caring, LymphocyteLover.
LymphocyteLover
(6,005 posts)They just did not want to talk about it, despite the new findings and IMO impeccable research.
Kid Berwyn
(16,274 posts)Published by the University of Kansas, the work by the Hood College professor emeritus of history spells out precisely how the Warren Commission failed the nation.
http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=10182
The Warren Commission Report on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy . . . was instantly implausible because the authors hid the secrets they knew (and ignored the ones they didn't). -- David Ignatius, Washington Post Book World
LymphocyteLover
(6,005 posts)ancianita
(37,222 posts)is one of the pillars of the CIA. Dulles built up the "rule of men" unaccountable and subversive agency that placed power above oversight and rule of law. He and his brother's (John Foster) toppling of the Shah; and the president of Ecuador because Allen was on the United Fruit Company board that turned that nation and Central America into wage slave plantation states; and then the f'n Bay of Pigs. From my layman's perspective, the CIA's covert exploits and blunders have done America far more harm than good.
The two Dulleses were far from innocent; they turned America into a two-faced international actor. And then came the NSA.
Thank you for your post, Kid.
Kid Berwyn
(16,274 posts)Curiously missing from American history and any mention of the Warren Commission in corporate media:
Two of its members were directly responsible for the rise of post-war fascism. Allen Dulles, as a top official of the OSS and CIA, incorporated NAZI war criminals into the CIA from its founding. President Kennedy fired him for lying to his face regarding the Bay of Pigs invasion. John McCloy, as High Commissioner for Germany, allowed Klaus Barbie, Alfred Krupp, eight members of his board, and who-knows-who-else to escape justice. Of course, Dulles and McCloy also were barons of Wall Street and Beltway Insiders, at the heart of the military industrial complex. We all can see what that means for the United States today.
Background:
The American who let the Nazis rebuild Germany
https://thecritic.co.uk/issues/november-2021/the-american-who-let-the-nazis-rebuild-germany/
CIA and NAZI War Criminals
https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB146/index.htm
And We the People wonder how things today got so very fascist.
PS: You are most welcome, ancianata! Thank you for understanding and caring.
ancianita
(37,222 posts)the right wing white supremacist spread among the seditionist, militia and law enforcement populations.
Your great post resonates with what I've been reading Finite and Infinite Games -- A Vision of Life as Play and Possibility by James P. Carse. And old but amazingly relevant work that helps me understand the long game outlook on these men's actions. It examines, property (finite game) society, the arts culture (infinite game) evil, etc.
Lonestarblue
(10,771 posts)The book is The Brothers: John Foster Dulles, Allen Dulles, and Their Secret World War, by Stephen Kinzer. It was truly eye opening what these men did around the world that should have been illegal.
Theres a reason Allen Dulles wanted on the Warren Commission, and that was to hide anything that might link the CIA to Kennedys murder. They may have had nothing to do with it. There were certainly many people and groups against Kennedy. My thought has always been that the FBI was complicit with one or more powerful white supremacists who were upset at the direction Kennedy was taking on civil rights and integration.
Kid Berwyn
(16,274 posts)Dulles appropriated a Diego Rivera masterpiece for a holiday card. "Allen was delighted with the way Glorious Victory portrayed him and proudly handed out small-format copies." -- Stephen Kinzer, "The Brothers: John Foster Dulles, Allen Dulles, and Their Secret World War"
https://books.google.com/books?id=LVb4-1l1gF4C&pg=PT393&lpg=PT393&dq=kinzer+the+brothers+dulles+diego+rivera&source=bl&ots=oAzpiYDehY&sig=f_qxzSRtbNna7xjgv6CoOpAMfMs&hl=en&sa=X&ei=duIJVbzFG_WCsQSY3IKABA&ved=0CEYQ6AEwBg#v=onepage&q=kinzer%20the%20brothers%20dulles%20diego%20rivera&f=false
Diego Rivera: Victoria Gloriosa!
Mark Vallens
Art for Change
Friday, October 05, 2007
EXCERPT
Painted in 1954, the mockingly titled Glorious Victory has as its subject the infamous CIA coup of the same year that overthrew Guatemalas democratically elected government. At the center of the mural, CIA Director John Foster Dulles can be seen shaking hands with the leader of the coup d'état, Colonel Castillo Armas. Sitting at their feet is an anthropomorphized bomb bearing the smiling face of U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower - who gave orders to launch the military coup. In the background, a priest can be seen officiating over the massacre of workers, many of which can be seen lying slaughtered in the paintings foreground.
The head of the Central Intelligence Agency at the time of the coup, Allen Dulles, and the U.S. Ambassador to Guatemala during the coup, John Peurify, are depicted handing out money to various Guatemalan military commanders and fascist junta officials, as Mexican Indian workers slave away at loading bananas onto a United Fruit Company ship. I might add that Allen Dulles was on the board of directors of the United Fruit Company when the U.S. overthrew the government of Guatemala.
CONTINUED
http://art-for-a-change.com/blog/2007/10/diego-rivera-glorious-victory.html
Like the NAZIs, what Capitalism's Invisible Army wants, they get. Like Guatemala's land. Like Iraq's oil. Property Rights dont extend to the lower classes.
lagomorph777
(30,613 posts)Dulles should be investigated; his behavior was pretty suspect. Could help us get to the bottom of the JFK assassination and probably many other mysteries.
calimary
(82,754 posts)Must check that out.
LessAspin
(1,194 posts)Great book and interesting family.
David Talbot's brother Stephen went from child actor to documentary film producer...
Born: February 28, 1949 in Los Angeles, California, USA
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0847972/
He began his career in broadcast journalism as a reporter and producer at KQED-TV in San Francisco, where he also contributed feature news stories to the MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour.[2] Talbot has also worked as a producer and senior producer for the Center for Investigative Reporting and since 2015 has been the senior producer for short, journalistic videos for ITVS and the PBS series, Independent Lens.[3]
Before becoming a journalist and documentary producer, Talbot was a television child actor in the late 1950s and early 1960s. He is known for his role in the TV sitcom Leave It to Beaver, in which he played Gilbert Bates, friend of Theodore "Beaver" Cleaver (Jerry Mathers).[4]...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Talbot
Kid Berwyn
(16,274 posts)David Talbot, author of The Devils Chessboard: Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise of America's Secret Government, wrote about how Dulles had even less respect for Jack Kennedy's authority than he did for FDR's.
Some of what Talbot said at Passing the Torch conference at Duquesne University in 2013:
After he was fired from the CIA by Kennedy, Dulles continued to meet with a steady stream of top- and mid-level CIA officials at his home in Georgetown. The two-story brick house on Q-Street became the seat of a sort of government in exile.
Among those Dulles remained in contact with were a number of CIA officials who later came under suspicion for the assassination of President Kennedy, including Jim Angleton and many of his aides, (including) Bill Harvey and Howard Hunt. Over the years, Harvey in particular has aroused strong suspicions.
John Whitten, the CIA official who was originally charged with the agency's investigation of the (John F.) Kennedy assassination, would later tell the House Select Committee on Assassinations in 1978 that Harvey was a likely suspect in the case. Robert Blakey, the committee's chief counsel, and his investigator, Dan Hardway, came to share these suspicions about Harvey, but their investigation ran out of political support and money before it could be completed.
Dulles gave Bill Harvey the CIA's highest medal and its most murderous assignments, including the Mafia hit or attempted hit against Castro. Bill Harvey was a creature of Allen Dulles' lawless and lethal CIA, a culture that operated with little governmental oversight and little respect for international law.
It was the kind of unhinged environment, where a man like Harvey could seriously propose recruiting mafia hit men, while on duty overseas, to kill members of a left-wing, democratic party, and then draw a gun on one of his own deputies, when the deputy objected on moral and legal grounds. It was the deputy, by the way, who was withdrawn back to Langley, and not Harvey, whose CIA career kept careening out of control for several more years.
Allen Dulles continued to meet with a variety of other sketchy characters when he was in so-called retirement in 1962 and 1963, including (with) Cuban exile leader Paulino Sierra Martinez, who was closely tied in with the Mafia. Dulles also met with -- thank you, Joan Mellen, for this -- also met with Philippe (Thyraud) de Vosjoli, the head of French intelligence in Washington and a close associate of Jim Angleton. Dulles asked de Vosjoli to investigate the placement of Soviet missiles in Cuba and report back to the CIA.
Now these are the activities not of a man who has gracefully accepted retirement and is puttering around his garden. This is the calendar of a man who still thinks he is running the show.
Allen Dulles himself makes another curious appearance in the Kennedy story in spite of his so-called retirement. In the fall of 1963, he went on a promotional tour for his memoire, "The Craft of Intelligence, stopping over in Dallas for two days at the end of October.
On that fateful Friday, November 22nd, 1963, Dulles interrupted his book tour when he got the news from Dallas. Thank you, Lisa Pease for this: Dulles did not go home when he heard the news. According to his own day calendar, Dulles went to something called the Farm.
I wanted to make sure the Farm was not a family retreat. I interviewed people close to Dulles, including his own daughter; and she had never heard of the Farm. But, the Farm we know was the term given (to) a secure CIA facility located on the Camp Perry Military Reservation near Williamsburg, Virginia.
In 1972, a local newspapar reported that the cia used the facility to, among other things, train assassins.
So, even though he had no longer -- he no longer had any official reason to be there, Dulles spent the entire weekend (of the assassination) at the CIA's facility, the Farm.
During that eventful weekend, of course, Kennedy's body was flown back to Washington and subjected to a controversial autopsy. That same weekend, Jack Ruby, a Dallas nightclub operator and hustler, whom Robert Kennedy's Justice Department investigators quickly connected to the Mafia, shot down accused JFK assassin Lee Harvey Oswald, conveniently silencing him forever. And throughout that fateful weekend, the grief stricken Attorney General made a series of frantic inquiries into the murder of his brother.
We know from the nature of these inquiries that Bobby Kennedy immediately suspected his brother was the victim of the CIA and the Mafia, the intelligence agency's junior partner in the murder business.
in other words, Robert Kennedy, the nation's top lawman and the president's devoted protector, a man who had spent much of his own life investigating the dark side of American power, immediately concluded that his brother had been the victim of the same CIA killing machine that had been directed at Fidel Castro and other world leaders deemed trouble.
This machine, built by Allen Dulles in the 1950s, had essentially been brought home to kill the President of the United States. It was a killing machine comprised of contract assassins, cut-outs, underworld operators and other unsavory types and overseen by the Ivy League swashbucklers whom Dulles had recruited to enforce U.S. interests around the world.
Continues
Any mistakes are mine, as the transcription is based on a noisy recording.
PS: You are welcome, lagomorph777! Thank you for understanding and caring!
Poiuyt
(18,167 posts)Kid Berwyn
(16,274 posts)Oh, Hey! The CIA Admitted To Lying About JFKs Assassination, But No One Really Noticed
BY: BEA KAYE
Upproxx, 11.02.15
After the Bay of Pigs fiasco in the early 60s, John F. Kennedy forced out then-director of the CIA, Allen Dulles, replacing him with engineer John McCone. McCone was an outsider to the boys club at the CIA, and Kennedy hoped the new director might shake things up and bring a fresh perspective to the organization. When Kennedy was assassinated, McCone faced the Warren Commission as the chief proponent of the Lone Gunman theory the assertion that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone.
In September of 2014, 50 years after his death, the CIA released a classified document related to the investigation into the Kennedy assassination. It concedes that more than 70 percent of the American public believes Kennedys death was part of a larger conspiracy, and admits that McCone kept a lot of information secret that could have aided the commissions investigation.
CIA historian David Robarge included this classified report with his biography of John McCone, who died in 1991. The biography is still unpublished, but the CIA has gone public with the report in order to highlight misconceptions about the CIAs connection to JFKs assassination (according to their statement to POLITICO).
Chief among the facts that were never brought to light during the hearings were the multiple assassination attempts of Fidel Castro by the CIA, and even the mafia, which could have led to the possibility of a retaliation on Cubas part. Undocumented conversations took place after JFKs death between attorney general Robert Kennedy and McCone; Robert Kennedys awareness of the CIAs attempts on Castros life makes it difficult to conclude he wasnt also afraid that Cuba had a part in his brothers death. The attempts on Castros life were later made public in the 70s, but this declassified document adds new background information to the commonly accepted idea that the CIA knew more about Kennedys murder than they told us.
One example of CIA obfuscation: The agency was apparently tracking Oswald before 1963, after he tried to defect to the Soviet Union in the 50s. It was part of an incredibly illegal operation called HTLINGUAL that had the CIA opening peoples mail. Its obvious why the agency wouldnt want that to come out during a murder investigation. It also demonstrates a knowledge of a known threat in Oswald, years before the agency says he went rogue and killed Kennedy:
Max Holland, one of the most fair minded scholars of these events, has concluded that if the word conspiracy must be uttered in the same breath as Kennedy assassination, the only one that existed was the conspiracy to kill Castro and then keep that effort secret after November 22nd. In that sense and that sense alone McCone may be regarded as a co-conspirator in the JFK assassination cover-up.
CONTINUED w/loads o' links...
http://uproxx.com/life/2015/11/jfk-lying-cia-conspiracy/2/
Boomerproud
(8,120 posts)had way more power than necessary and lawful for a democratic society. Truman was correct.
Kid Berwyn
(16,274 posts)A NEW BIOGRAPHY TRACES THE PATHOLOGY OF ALLEN DULLES AND HIS APPALLING CABAL
by Jon Schwarz
The Intercept, Nov. 2 2015, 1:24 p.m.
EXCERPT...
Because what the Safari Club demonstrates is that Dulles entire spooky world is beyond the reach of American democracy. Even the most energetic post-World War II attempt to rein it in was in the end as effective as trying to lasso mist. And today weve largely returned to the balance of power Dulles set up in the 1950s. As Jay Rockefeller said in 2007 when he was chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Dont you understand the way intelligence works? Do you think that because Im chairman of the Intelligence Committee that I just say I want it, give it to me? They control it. All of it. All of it. All the time.
In February 2002, Saudi Prince Turki Al Faisal, head of Saudi intelligence from 1977 until September 1, 2001, traveled to Washington, D.C. While there, Turki, whod graduated from Georgetown University in the same class as Bill Clinton, delivered a speech at his alma mater that included an unexpected history lesson:
In 1976, after the Watergate matters took place here, your intelligence community was literally tied up by Congress. It could not do anything. It could not send spies, it could not write reports, and it could not pay money. In order to compensate for that, a group of countries got together in the hope of fighting communism and established what was called the Safari Club. The Safari Club included France, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, and Iran so, the Kingdom, with these countries, helped in some way, I believe, to keep the world safe when the United States was not able to do that. That, I think, is a secret that many of you dont know.
Turki was not telling the whole truth. He was right that his Georgetown audience likely had never heard any of this before, but the Safari Club had been known across the Middle East for decades. After the Iranian revolution the new government gave Mohamed Hassanein Heikal, one of the most prominent journalists in the Arab world, permission to examine the Shahs archives. There Heikal discovered the actual formal, written agreement between the members of the Safari Club, and wrote about it in a 1982 book called Iran: The Untold Story.
And the Safari Club was not simply the creation of the countries Turki mentioned Americans were involved as well. Its true the U.S. executive branch was somewhat hamstrung during the period between the post-Watergate investigations of the intelligence world and the end of the Carter administration. But the powerful individual Americans who felt themselves literally tied up by Congress that is, unfairly restrained by the most democratic branch of the U.S. government certainly did not consider the decisions of Congress to be the final word.
Whatever its funding sources, the evidence suggests the Safari Club was largely the initiative of these powerful Americans. According to Heikal, its real origin was when Henry Kissinger, then secretary of state, talked a number of rich Arab oil countries into bankrolling operations against growing communist influence on their doorstep in Africa. Alexandre de Marenches, a right-wing aristocrat who headed Frances version of the CIA, eagerly formalized the project and assumed operational leadership. But, Heikal writes, The United States directed the whole operation, and giant U.S. and European corporations with vital interests in Africa leant a hand. As John K. Cooley, the Christian Science Monitors longtime Mideast correspondent, put it, the setup strongly appealed to the U.S. executive branch: Get others to do what you want done, while avoiding the onus or blame if the operation fails.
This all seems like something Americans would like to know, especially since de Marenches may have extended his covert operations to the 1980 U.S. presidential election. In 1992, de Marenches biographer testified in a congressional investigation that the French spy told him that he had helped arrange an October 1980 meeting in Paris between William Casey, Ronald Reagans 1980 campaign manager, and the new Islamic Republic of Iran. The goal of such a meeting, of course, would have been to persuade Iran to keep its American hostages until after the next months election, thus denying Carter any last-minute, politically potent triumph.
De Marenches and the Safari Club certainly had a clear motive to oust Carter: They blamed him for allowing one of their charter members, the Shah, to fall from power. But whether de Marenches claims were true or not, we do know that history unfolded exactly as he and the Safari Club would have wished. The hostages werent released until Reagan was inaugurated, Reagan appointed Casey director of the CIA, and from that point forward Americas intelligence community was back in business.
And yet normal citizens would have a hard time just finding out the Safari Club even existed, much less the outlines of its activities. It appears to have been mentioned just once by the New York Times, in a profile of a French spy novelist. It likewise has made only one appearance in the Washington Post, in a 2005 online chat in which a reader asked the Posts former Middle East bureau chief Thomas Lippman, Does the Safari Club, formed in the mid-70s, still exist? Lippman responded: I never heard of it, so I have no idea.
CONTINUED...
https://theintercept.com/2015/11/02/the-deepest-state-the-safari-club-allen-dulles-and-the-devils-chessboard/
PS: Thank you for understanding and caring, Boomerproud! The events of 1963 and the actors from then and their ideological heirs continue to impact the present.
electric_blue68
(15,987 posts)present we should know the truth in general, and certainly most if not all of the past, (while reasons for some current secrecy), will also help us make a better future.
FakeNoose
(34,025 posts)Thanks! I want to catch up on all of this when I have time for ALL of it.
Happy Thanksgiving