Mowatt-Larssen Interview

 

     Here is the CC transcript of the recent Mowatt-Larssen interview, unedited and without the addition of the speakers’ identification:

     [Embedded video:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gc3eLlA6_E  (15:55, with CC and capturable CC transcript, 27 Oct 22)]

Former Moscow Station CIA Chief: Why I Believe Rogue CIA Agents Killed Kennedy | Breaking Points

Krystal and Saagar interview former CIA Agent Rolf Mowatt-Larssen about why he believes a few rogue agents plotted with Oswald to kill John F. Kennedy

 

……by an Administration being sued because

of their refusal to release in a timely

fashion records records related to the

assassination of JFK let's go ahead and

put this up on the screen This from NBC

News the headline is what are they

hiding group sues Biden and National

Archives over JFK assassination records

as a reminder the JFK records act which

was signed into law by Bill Clinton

required the document to be made

available by October of 2017. President

Trump sort of kicked the ball down the

road to Biden Biden has continued to

push forward the date when those records

will be released raising a lot of

questions about what it is that they are

so worried about revealing join us now

we have a guest who's actually quoted in

that article who caught my attention

he's the former CIA agent and actually

former Moscow station Chief Ralph Moet

Larson he's also senior fellow at the

Belfor Center at the Harvard Kennedy

School great to have you sir welcome

good to see you sir it's good to be here

thank you so you had a quote in that

article and you lay down you know based

on your long history and experience with

the agency what you think is the most

plausible explanation of who was behind

the plot to kill Kenny I'll read the

your quote here and then you can sort of

elaborate you say what I think happened

in a nutshell is that Oswald was

recruited into a rogue CIA plot this

group of three four or five Rogues

decided their motive was to get rid of

Kennedy after the Bay of Pigs Cuban

Missile Crisis because they thought it

was their patriotic Duty given the

threat the country was under at the time

and their views which would be more

Hardline or more radically

anti-communist and very extreme

politically so

um is that some of what you think might

be revealed in this document uh this

document release if they ever ultimately

come out what do you think could be in

those documents that would be

interesting to the public

yeah I think it's pretty clear that

after 60 years the documents should be

released with the exception of a few

things that might just frankly

compromise something that the people in

the U.S government should keep secrets

so it's not an unconditional release

everything position I have it's after 60

years the truth belongs to the American

people the American people should know

the full truth I think it's worth

pointing out before I offer any comment

on my own theories is that our own

government in 1979 put out a report from

the house assassination committee

hearings that had crucial findings that

started with the idea that there

probably was an assassination uh a

conspiracy to to assassinate John F

Kennedy which means it's not really a

pure conspiracy theory it's something

our own government believes that same

report included the findings that the

U.S government in all probability was

not involved whether that would be CIA

the president FBI or any other arm of

the U.S government and I think it after

60 years if the U.S government itself

was involved in the assassination of

Kennedy we would all know about it uh

because we couldn't keep that secret for

for 60 years if it was a government plot

at the same time the findings included

the uh the Judgment that it wasn't the

Russians the Soviets or the Cubans or

organized crime that set out to kill the

president so that leaves the theory that

if there was any sort of conspiracy uh

it includedly Harvey Oswald but also

probably a small number less than a

handful of people from the government

who had the motivation

the means and the opportunity to

potentially kill the president so that's

what I think the the documents will will

help shed light on for the serious

researchers and historians who still

want to know the full truth to look at

those that that those documents to see

whether we can still piece together uh

the information that would end the

mystery of who really killed JFK right

and what leads you though to that

conclusion and and why do you have

confidence that it would even be in the

documents I mean my understanding of the

revelations of MK Ultra cointelpro the

only reason we even know about it is

because documents were basically stolen

by a bunch of activists which allowed

foia people to know exactly what to foia

otherwise it was such a tightly

controlled program the documents

themselves would have been effectively

lost to history into the church

committee so why should we expect that

60 odd years later that a similar kind

of cover-up hasn't happened in that way

well I don't think there will be

documents where once the documents are

released we're going to collectively say

oh wow that's what happened I think

again it's going to provide the basis to

to continue research to finally I'm not

in the school of uh believers who think

that this mystery will never be solved

because it's been so long I think we

have to keep at it and the reason we

have to keep at it is the truth is more

important than anything else what we do

know is even before the Kennedy

assassination uh there were things that

CIA uh itself

failed to disclose that covered up in

fact it was a very fascinating uh

studies of intelligence article in 2013

that essentially said John McCone who

was the director of CIA after

um Helms have been fired by Kennedy

after the Bay of Pigs

deliberately

withheld information and deceived the

committee in the Warren Commission when

they asked him to testify so what that

proves is regardless of the reason and I

don't think it was to cover up any sort

of knowledge of the Kennedy

assassination the agency was worried at

the time about lots of things that could

have had tangential connections to the

Kennedy assassination I would call that

the covert action culture of the time

the assassination of the attempts to

kill Castro the dealings with organized

crime to do that overthrow governments

in Latin America there were a number of

activities the CIA was was conducting at

the time that that the CIA was clearly

trying to cover up and not disclose in

the aftermath of the president's

assassination so I think the reason

probably unfortunately this would be a

very bad reason of my judgment to

withhold documents that the agency or

the US government are embarrassed about

what the disclosures of these documents

might reveal about other things that

would to me be an unacceptable reason to

keep this secret we should know at this

point more more about those activities I

might point out that at the time Kennedy

was killed the CIA wasn't even under any

form of effective Congressional

oversight that didn't happen until 1979

with the church commission hearing so

again it's it's it's the idea of

disclosure and transparency is a duty

and if there's a a strong extenuating

reason why these documents should not be

revealed I think it would be wise forget

about the legality and the law it would

be wise for the U.S president to

indicate exactly what that would mean

that would that be that would cause him

to decide not to release these documents

that that belong to the American people

frankly not to the CIA well and the

current stance has hardly been

convincing to the American public a

majority of whom still believe that

there is more to the story than the

official government narrative here and

part of what makes you so interesting is

that you have so many years of

experience with the agency could you

speak to how what you learned about how

the agency operates how that informs

your theory of what you think the most

plausible scenario is here

yeah that's the question that got me

interested in this I I like so many

Americans uh I'm very interested in what

really happened I think it's a piece of

our history we need to know I didn't

become even uh suspicious that there

might be a a explanation where three to

five people might have conspired to work

with Oswald to kill Kennedy until I

examine that as a possibility and I

realized wait a minute if if there was a

small conspiracy of a very few number of

people who could keep the secret for 60

years and take the secret to their grave

be it fully witting collaborators with

Oswald in the plot

um then I I thought the most likely

explanation would be some CIA officers

at the time this is very this really

pains me to even suggest this and I'm

not saying I can I certainly can't prove

it I think it's something that needs to

be fully explored is the idea that it

looks kind of like a CIA operation in

terms of the motive that would be the

president uh betrayed for example uh the

all the people the CIA worked with at

the time to overthrow Castro at the Bay

of Pigs when he called out to Bay of

Pigs uh people would say well that's no

motive to kill the president but it

might you have to add to that perhaps

some of these maybe same people who

thought again a very few small number of

people who thought that the uh you the

president gotten over his head with with

uh the Russians in the in the Cuban

Missile Crisis and and there were civil

rights problems at the time and the

country was highly polarized I know now

we're living in a time when the

country's almost as polarized as it was

in the 1960s but it was a time AI when

there were extreme views on all sides

about the politics about what was

happening in the country and it's not

unimaginable

that a very small number of people

thought they were being Patriots if they

were to do something this monstrous

again this is not something I accuse the

agency of or think the agency had any

direct knowledge of but I when you look

at the key officials then and afterwards

even presidents later like Richard Nixon

and Lyndon Johnson and others they all

suspected there was a conspiracy I think

the most disappointing thing to me as an

American

because I serve the people first and

then I think of myself as a CIA offer

I'm a Citizen First the most

disappointing thing about this is our

leaders we couldn't trust our leaders to

tell us the full truth we couldn't trust

our leaders to ensure that we knew the

full truth they wanted to spare us from

the truth and I have never in my

lifetime been comfortable with the idea

that our leaders should know something

that in some way at some point the

American people also don't know yeah

what impact do you think that has had on

um the public because even if like

regardless of what really happened you

have a majority of Americans who think

the government is lying to them I mean

what do you think this is the result

from that

I'm so happy you asked me that question

and we didn't do any sort of rehearsal

on all this so I was wondering where you

were going to come at it from and this

to me is one of the crucial questions

and the reason I agreed to do the

interview

um I'm not here to prove I think there's

a conspiracy of CI officers did that is

my fear that is my concern and that like

other conspiracies of that kind small

group of people work together on to kill

the president is is we should still

examine thoroughly but the reason why we

should release the documents is that

we're at historic levels of mistrust of

our government in general

usually because the government withhelds

things from us

that we have a right to know that we

need to sanction and it hasn't just been

in the 60s and 70s things like if you

remember Watergate it took the deputy

director of the FBI Mark felt

to be as we now know deep throat

Woodward and uh key source for Watergate

to topple Nixon in other words an acting

serving deputy director of the FBI was a

pivotal source of the truth so that we

could take down a corrupt president who

had broke broken the law and and in this

case with historic levels of mistrust in

the government I why add to that why not

explain if you're going to withhold

information after 60 years when a law

has been passed to release it

at least explain

justify why you would continue to take

that position instead of just release

the information I would accept that if

someone got up and said there's some

very specific things a few documents

we're not going to release but here's

all the rest of it that would be a much

more understandable position because if

the government is at a position in a

historic period where I think the US

government writ large but particularly

the National Security part of the

government defense department CIA FBI

Etc and the White House need to re you

know reinstill faith

with the American people that we're

being transparent and we don't use

secrecy to hide the truth yeah that's

really well said small step in that in

that direction

um well thank you so much for taking

some time with us we're really grateful

great to speak with you sir we should

have you back on soon appreciate it

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More on Lundahl

 Dear Bill,

I just finished reading your new article on the Cuban Missile Crisis
and the Assassination. Great stuff as always. Very informative and
inspiring.

The whole piece about Arthur "Art" Lundahl was new to me, and I found
it terribly interesting. I had never heard of Lundahl but can tell you
for certain he's got Swedish ancestry, as Lundahl is a uniquely
Swedish surname. I looked up his Wikipedia but there wasn't a whole
lot of biographical info on him.

You mentioned that Arthur Schlesinger had entered in his journal that
"when he asked RFK about the assassination, RFK replied that the CIA
thought there were two gunman, probably based on Lundahl's briefing."
That's what really caught my eye. I know Schlesinger had been
"agnostic" (let's put it) about the assassination, but I had never
come across this piece of information. Would you happen to have a
reference to where one can find it?

The two-gunmen analysis jibes with John Orr's and my own, which is
based on Orr's but also the acoustics evidence. If you reconcile the
two, you'll have five shots fired from two locations, by two gunmen
that is. Both were located behind the limo, one at the TSBD sniper's
nest and the other, on the roof of the County Records Building Annex.

I've fine-tuned the synthesis and the resulting sequence reads as follows:

1. First shot fired at Z186, passes limo at Z187. Report reaches "bike
with mike" at Z188, Zapruder at Z190.
2. Second shot fired at Z214, hits Kennedy at Z216. Report reaches
"bike with mike" at Z216, Zapruder at Z218.
3. Third shot fired at Z234, hits Connally at Z236. Report reaches
"bike with mike" at Z236, Zapruder at Z238.
4. Fourth shot fired at Z311, hits Kennedy at Z313. Report reaches
Zapruder (direct) at Z315, "bike with mike" (echo) at Z325.
5. Fifth shot fired at Z324, passes limo at Z326. Report reaches
Zapruder (direct) at Z328, "bike with mike" (echo) at Z333.

This sequence is consistent with Zapruder's film, the dictabelt
acoustics, and with the Alvarez jiggle chart. It's also broadly
consistent with Orr's analysis, with a few adjustments to accommodate
the other sources.

Note also that there is NO WAY a third shooter was firing from the
Grassy Knoll, and NO WAY Kennedy was hit twice in the head. All of
that is pure clown show stuff, which is quite easy to prove.

In your article, you refer to the PATHFINDER plot to kill Castro, "by
shooting him in the head as he rode by in an open jeep". I did not
know Brugioni wrote that memo, nor did I know he had been involved
with developing the Zapruder film. So that's also terribly interesting
and I will set aside time to look into it.

Regarding "shooting him in the head", note that the shooter on the
CRBA roof in Dealey Plaza fired twice and hit Kennedy both times –
first in the back and second, of course, in the back of the head. Why
fire twice at Kennedy, only wounding him the first time? The wounding
shot was placed near the spine to immoblise him in the "Thorburn
position", which is an involuntary neurological reaction to such
spinal wounds, forcing up the elbows and folding in the arms towards
the throat.

Once you're hit in the spine, you're completely immobilised and simply
can't move – nor do or say anything much, except for involuntarily
move the arms like Kennedy did in the Zapruder film as the limo
emerged from behind the road sign. That's important as the head will
be kept still and thus easier for the assassin to target with the
second kill shot. A headshot is otherwise a risky proposition as
people constantly move their heads around, which could easily cause
the shot to miss its target.

Speaking of Schesinger, as an anecdotal aside, I was actually invited
to his home once – for a cocktail party at that. That was in winter
1998/99, my then-girlfriend was working with the grand old man's son,
Stephen Schlesinger, at the World Policy Institute. So we got invited
to this little shindig thing at the Schlesinger residence, a stately
second-floor apartment overviewing the East River, in the diplomat
quarters right north of the UN Building. Arthur was there to receive
us, sitting in a chair in front of his fireplace, bowtie and all. A
very "Breakfast at Tiffany's" experience!

Are you in New Jersey, Bill, or is that only a figment of my imagination?

Best regards,
- Per


Per Berglund, PhD (economics)
formerly global head macro quant, senior research fellow, PwC New York
now retired and safely ensconced in Stockholm, Sweden

ARTHUR C. LUNDAHL, 77, DIES

By Bart Barnes

June 25, 1992

Arthur C. Lundahl, 77, a pioneer in photographic intelligence and the art of photographic interpretation who in 1962 informed President Kennedy that the Soviet Union had installed missiles in Cuba, died of respiratory failure June 22 at Suburban Hospital.

Mr. Lundahl was the first director of the Central Intelligence Agency's National Photographic Interpretation Center, and in that capacity he reviewed aerial photographs of construction activity in a field near San Cristobal, Cuba, that were taken in early October. On Oct. 16, he reported his findings to the president.

"Mr. President, I am as sure of this as a photo interpreter can be sure of anything," former colleague Dino A. Brugioni quoted him as saying in a book on the Cuban missile crisis, "Eyeball to Eyeball." " . . . I am convinced they are missiles."

Those findings led the president to impose a naval blockade and quarantine on Cuba. The crisis passed when the Soviets withdrew the missiles.

A Navy veteran of World War II, Mr. Lundahl began his career as a photo interpreter in the Aleutian Islands, where he analyzed photography obtained on reconnaissance flights over Japan.

After the war, he came to Washington as civilian chief of the photogrammetry division of the Naval Photographic Center. Later he became assistant chief engineer there. By the early 1950s, he had developed a reputation as a brilliant photo interpretation specialist and photo scientist who also was an articulate speaker with a talent for making highly technical material understandable to laymen.

This led the CIA to hire him to organize and develop its fledgling photographic intelligence division to process and interpret photography from U-2 reconnaissance flights, which were opening new directions in the intelligence field. For the first time, intelligence agencies had available precise and current data on land mass and physical installations throughout the world.

This intelligence-gathering process originally was intended to collect information on the Soviet Union, but it also was used elsewhere. Mr. Lundahl regularly briefed President Eisenhower, the secretaries of state and defense and the Joint Chiefs of Staff on the photographic findings.

After Francis Gary Powers's U-2 was shot down over the Soviet Union in 1960, the National Security Council ordered that a centralized photo interpretation center be set up for all the intelligence agencies. Mr. Lundahl was named its first director in December 1961.

Operating out of the Steuart Motor Car Co. building at Fifth and K streets NW in Washington, Mr. Lundahl's unit reviewed photographs the next fall of what at first glance appeared to be farmland in Cuba. But enlargements of the photographs allowed the interpreters to discover objects such as missile transporters, launcher-erectors and other equipment indicating the installation of a missile base. It was that information that he took to the president.

A resident of Bethesda, Mr. Lundahl was born in Chicago. He graduated from the University of Chicago, where he later was an instructor in photogrammetry, photo interpretation, cartography and surveying as part of a war training program.

He retired from the National Photographic Interpretation Center in 1973 because of severe arthritis. He also retired from the Naval Reserve as a captain that year.

At his retirement, Mr. Lundahl received the CIA's Distinguished Intelligence Medal, the Presidential National Security Medal and the Defense Intelligence Agency director's Exceptional Civilian Service Award.

The citation on the CIA medal called Mr. Lundahl "a superb technician in the science of photographic interpretation and photogrammetry with few, if any, peers."

Mr. Lundahl also received an autographed picture of former Intelligence director Allen W. Dulles. "Art Lundahl has done as much as any man I know to protect the security of this nation," was the inscription.

Mr. Lundahl was a member of Chevy Chase Presbyterian Church and the Cosmos Club, and he was a former president of the American Society of Photogrammetry.

His wife of 42 years, the former Mary Emily Hvid, died in 1986.

Survivors include two children, Ann and Robert Lundahl, and a granddaughter, all of Chevy Chase.

RODERIC W. MOSES.

Security Specialist

Roderic W. Moses, 52, a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel who was a security specialist and senior vice president of a Rosslyn technical services firm, died of a heart attack June 16 at a hospital in Moscow, where he was on a business trip. A resident of the Washington area off and on for 20 years, he lived in Alexandria.

Col. Moses retired from the Air Force in 1982 after more than 20 years of service. Since then he had worked for EG&G Dynatrend as a physical security and property management specialist.

His Air Force posts included Vietnam, where he was an operations and intelligence officer; the Pentagon; Maxwell Air Force Base in Alabama; Bitburg, Germany, and Hanscom Air Force Base in Massachusetts.

He worked on security for nuclear weapons and against terrorist attacks and had testified before Congress on national security matters. He helped form the team that installed the first operational security system for ground-launched Cruise missiles.

A native of Eau Claire, Wis., Col. Moses was a graduate of the University of Wisconsin. He received a master's degree in criminal justice from Troy State University and did additional work at the University of Southern California, the Air Command and Staff College and the National FBI Academy.

His military decorations included the Bronze Star, four Meritorious Service Medals and four Air Force Commendation Medals.

He was a member of the Air Force Security Police Association, the American Defense Preparedness Association, the Retired Officers Association and Aldersgate United Methodist Church in Alexandria.

His marriage to Mary Gayle Asher ended in divorce.

Survivors include his wife, Emily Currie-Moses of Alexandria; two children from his first marriage, Tiffany P. Moses and Todd R. Moses, both of Chelmsford, Mass.; his mother, Doris Wray Moses of Altoona, Wis.; a brother, Richard W. Moses of Menomonie, Wis., and a sister, Marilee Moses-Bennett of Chippewa Falls, Wis.

ARTHUR LEWIS QUINN.

Lawyer

Arthur Lewis Quinn, 91, a retired Washington lawyer who was an authority on the sugar industry and a past president of the Society of Friendly Sons of St. Patrick, died of heart ailments June 24 at the home of a daughter in Miami.

Mr. Quinn was born in Portsmouth, N.H. He moved to Washington in 1920, and he graduated from Georgetown University Law School.

In the 1920s, he worked for the State Department on claims against Mexico. In 1933, he entered the private practice of law.

In 1940, after a period as a member of a law firm, Mr. Quinn became a sole practitioner. In 1963, he was joined by his son, Arthur Lee Quinn. They practiced together until 1980, when the father retired from the firm of Hamel, Park, McCabe & Saunders, where he was of counsel.

Much of Mr. Quinn's work involved the sugar industry. In his book "The Super Lawyers," a study of the Washington legal establishment, Joseph Goulden referred to the Quinns, father and son, as "the uncrowned kings of the sugar lobby." Mr. Quinn numbered among his clients Tate & Lyle and other firms prominent in the sugar trade.

Mr. Quinn, who had lived in Miami since 1989, was a former member of the parish of Our Lady of Victory Catholic Church in Washington.

His wife, Elizabeth White Quinn, died in 1978.

In addition to Arthur Lee Quinn, who lives in Potomac, survivors include two daughters, Mary Immer of Miami and Elizabeth Kelly of Annandale; 11 grandchildren; and a great-grandchild.

https://www.nga.mil/innovators-leaders/Arthur_C_Lundahl_.html

As the father of modern imagery analysis, Arthur Lundahl briefed President John F. Kennedy on critical intelligence issues. As head of the National Photographic Interpretation Center — a predecessor to NGA — Lundahl kept Kennedy informed of Soviet movements during the Cuban Missile Crisis. He has been honored by presidents and was even inducted into the Order of the British Empire with the rank of Honorary Knight Commander by Queen Elizabeth II.

Lundahl was inducted into the GEOINT Hall of Fame in 2001.

David Talbot on Why JFK Still Matters

 DAVID TALBOT :

For all those who couldn't be there... my Saturday speech:

Why JFK Still Matters

Speech at Sonoma Community Center, June 4, 2022, sponsored by the Praxis Peace Institute

We live in dreary times. Joe Biden has become a war and oil president, just when we desperately need the Democrats to fight like hell for their failing domestic agenda – the Green New Deal, Medicare for All, the end of student aid bondage, criminal justice reform, reproductive rights, gun control.

We’re now facing the real prospect of a Republican resurgence in the midterm elections --- and a Trump restoration in two years. In other words, an American nightmare. My prediction? Phony GOP populism will trump failing corporate liberalism.

And if Trump and his Republican confederates steal the next presidential election, will we loyal Americans have the nerve to take back our democracy?

 

Our only hope – and it’s a slim one – is that the Democrats stop listening to Senators Manchin and Sinema and the party’s billionaire benefactors and follow the lead of the militant labor activists and political leaders who are breathing fire into American life.

Democrats need look no farther than their own past.

Once upon a time, we had a Democratic president who engaged directly with the most burning issues in America. That’s not how the presidency of John F. Kennedy gets taught in school rooms or on TV shows. But JFK was the type of brave, principled leader we desperately need today. I’ve written two books that examine the Kennedy presidency and its violent termination – “Brothers” and “The Devil’s Chessboard.” And I could talk all day about why JFK was a unique leader – and why he was killed.

But today I will just focus on the final months of his 1,000-day presidency. Perhaps someday the eternal flame that burns next to his Arlington resting place will light our way forward.

In early June 1963, while President Kennedy and his brother Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy and several of their aides closely monitored the crisis, Governor George Wallace stood in the doorway of the admissions building on the University of Alabama campus and blocked Deputy Attorney General Nick Katzenbach and two African American students – Vivian Malone and James Hood – from desegregating the all-white university. Wallace finally stood aside, after President Kennedy federalized Alabama’s National Guard, with Wallace denouncing the federal government’s “military dictatorship.”

But it’s important to note that President Kennedy was willing to shed blood to integrate the university. People had died just months before during a segregationist riot at Ole Miss that JFK had quelled only when Army troops finally showed up on his orders. The night before Malone and Hood were to integrate the University of Alabama with federal support, there was a big Ku Klux Klan cross burning near the campus. Federal marshals were issued a shoot to kill order by President Kennedy if anybody attacked the black students.

Kennedy was also willing to split his own party -- shedding the Dixie Democrats, who had been a key part of the party coalition since the days of FDR, to advance the cause of civil rights. After losing the showdown with Kennedy at the university, Wallace told the press: “I say the South next year will decide who the new president’s gonna be. Because you can’t win without the white South. And you’re going to see the South is going to be against some folks.”

Wallace’s grim view of Kennedy was widely held throughout the white South, nearly all of which JFK expected to lose in the ’64 presidential election. That’s why Kennedy was leaning toward keeping Lyndon Johnson on his ticket, despite his growing political baggage – and that why’s he felt compelled to visit Texas in November of that year.

On the same sweltering day in Tuscaloosa, Alabama that President Kennedy and his men stood down Governor Wallace and his segregationist followers, JFK decided to go on TV and deliver the most powerful civil rights speech of his presidency. His top aides – including Ted Sorensen, Larry O‘Brien and Kenny O’Donnell – were all against him givng the speech, arguing that it would further isolate him politically. But JFK was for it – and the speech he gave in the White House that night, written by wordsmith Sorensen and partly ad-libbed by the president himself – should be viewed on YouTube by every citizen in our still racially divided nation.

Here is some of what President Kennedy said that night:

“This is not a partisan issue. We are confronted primarily with a moral issue. It is as old as the Scriptures and as clear as the American Constitution.

“The heart of the question is whether all Americans are to be afforded equal rights and equal opportunities, whether we are going to treat our fellow Americans as we want to be treated. If an American, because his skin is dark, cannot eat lunch in a restaurant open to the public, if he cannot send his children to the best public school available, if he cannot vote for the public officials who will represent him, if, in short, he cannot enjoy the full and free life which all of us want, then who among us would be content to have the color of his skin changed and stand in his place?

“One hundred years of delay have passed since President Lincoln freed the slaves, yet their heirs, their grandsons, are not fully free. They are not yet freed from the bonds of injustice. They are not yet freed from social and economic oppression. And this nation, for all its hopes and all its boasts, will not be fully free until all its citizens are free.”

Kennedy, “vowing that the time has come for the nation to fulfill its promise,” announced his intention of introducing in Congress what became the historic civil rights bill of 1964. LBJ get credit for it – but it was Kennedy who took the bold political step of introducing the bill and who gave it its most passionate endorsement.

In fact, after Kennedy’s White House address, Martin Luther King Jr, hailed it as “one of the most eloquent, profound and unequivocal pleas for justice and freedom for all people ever made by a president.”

What makes this even more of a milestone in the Kennedy presidency is that only the day before – on June 10, 1963 – JFK also delivered what became known as the Peace Speech at American University. These twin speeches – on the most controversial issues of the day, civil rights and the Cold War – demonstrate that Kennedy was willing to plunge into the burning house to lead the country in the right direction.

In this remarkable speech, which Kennedy’s defense secretary Robert McNamara told me years later should also be viewed by every American, JFK did something that no American president had done before or has done since. He called on his fellow Americans to change their consciousness about war and peace – and to empathize with the Communist enemy, the enemy we had been taught to fear and hate.

“In short, both the United States and the Soviet Union have a mutually deep interest in a just and genuine peace and in halting the nuclear arms race. For, in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children’s future. And we are all mortal.”

The Peace Speech paved the way for the limited nuclear test ban treaty, which banned the atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons – the first nuclear treaty of the Cold War. President Kennedy was alarmed by reports that traces of radioactive poisoning were showing up in children’s bones and teeth and in the breast milk of nursing mothers. Ted Sorensen later told me that JFK decided to run for president in 1960 because as a student of history he feared a nuclear Armageddon could break out despite world leaders’ best intentions. Kennedy already prevented one such nuclear holocaust during the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962. And he was committed to deescalating Cold War tensions with Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev.

Khrushchev and JFK’s wily negotiator Averell Harriman had hammered out the test ban treaty over the summer months in Moscow. But Kennedy feared that he’d be unable to gather the 67 votes in the Senate he needed to ratify the treaty. Indeed, Republican Senate leader Everett Dirksen and anti-Communist nuclear scientist Edward Teller were leading a successful resistance on Capitol Hill – aided by the Pentagon and CIA. (At one point during the anti-treaty campaign, as I revealed in “Brothers,” the Air Force under the belligerent leadership of Gen. Curtis LeMay -- pictured below -- even hid an Air Force officer who could prove if the Russians were abiding by the treaty.)

To win the critical battle over the test ban treaty, the Kennedy brothers decided to play Washington hardball – a tough game that today’s Democrats seem to have no skill at playing. Finding out that Dwight Eisenhower – the former president who ironically had warned the nation about the growing power of “the military-industrial complex” as he left the White House – was the power behind the opposition to the treaty, the Kennedys put the squeeze on him. Eisenhower had let it be known that if the Kennedy brothers’ Justice Department dropped its corruption case against his White House chief of staff Sherman Adams, they “would have a blank check with me.” The Kennedys let Ike know they wanted more than his gratitude – they wanted him to drop his opposition to the treaty. The old general reluctantly agreed. And with Senator Dirksen suddenly singing the treaty’s praises, it was easily ratified by the Senate on September 24, 1963.

These landmark political battles – over civil rights and national security – demonstrate the true courage of the Kennedy presidency. They also help explain why President Kennedy was a marked man when he flew to Dallas on November 22 of that year. Thomas Merton, the Trappist monk who was a passionate critic of the Cold War mass death cult, sagely remarked on the fragility of the Kennedy presidency while JFK still occupied the White House. Only by a “miracle,” he predicted, would Kennedy “break through” the nuclear hysteria of the era. “But such people,” Merton wrote, “are before long marked out for assassination.”

Allen Dulles, the deeply sinister CIA spymaster fired by President Kennedy after the Bay of Pigs debacle in April 1961, snarled to a journalist years after JFK’s assassination: “That little Kennedy… he thought he was a god.” In fact, Kennedy – who at 6’ 1” was not “little” by the way -- had no such divine delusions. He knew he was a deeply flawed man. But as president he had the courage of his convictions. And if he had been allowed to live – and if leaders like Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy had been allowed to live – our country would have gone in a very different historical direction.

But John F. Kennedy and the others were killed for a reason. Their enemies triumphed. It’s our duty, our responsibility, as American citizens to grapple with this this fraught history. Because the past is never past. As Orwell taught us, he “who controls the past controls the future.”

 

Thank you

Jefferson Morley

 

Jefferson Morley(He/Him) • 1stEditor, Reporter & Historian3d • 3 days ago

 

In 2012, I co-founded JFK Facts, a blog, with Rex Bradford of the Mary Ferrell Foundation. Our goal was to counter the pervasive phenomenon of poorly informed journalism about the assassination of JFK. The facts of the JFK story, we believe, are more important than the "theories."

Ten years later, with 3,078,788 pages views and 50,810 comments, the concept has proven sound. JFK Facts journalism has been picked up by NYT, WaPo, CNN, Fox, Politico, Associated Press, Economist, Newsweek, and the Miami Herald, to name just a few. #journalism

Now JFK Facts is taking the next step toward decisive clarification of Kennedy's assassination. JFK Facts, the blog, is now JFK Facts, the Substack Edition.

With the new platform comes a new focus: to expose, undermine and defeat the CIA's strategy for evading JFK accountability. We know about this strategy from the history of CIA malfeasance in the investigations of JFK assassination--malfeasance that continues to this.

People ask what is my JFK theory and I invariably disappoint the questioner by saying, my only JFK theory is that the CIA can be made to obey the law in 2022. This theory, I must admit, is unproven.

But, I insist it is plausible. President Biden has issued an order calling for "maximum disclosure" by December 15, 2022. All indications are that the CIA intends to keep its JFK secrets in defiance of Biden's order. But if the agency's intention to hide incriminating secrets is exposed to Congress and the public, then U.S. officialdom may be shamed or forced into doing something that is, according to the JFK Records Act, FIVE YEARS OVERDUE. #law

And what are those secrets? That's what I'll be reporting on in JFK Facts/Substack Edition. To get the full story, you'll have to subscribe.

I can tell you this: There is now compelling evidence the CIA is hiding the existence of at least one CIA operation, never acknowledged publicly, that targeted one Lee Harvey Oswald for intelligence purposes, starting in January 1963. If there was such an operation, documentation of it is known to exist and is possession of the CIA. #intelligence

If I'm wrong--if this is just another preposterous "conspiracy theory"--the CIA can release these records tomorrow and prove me the fool. To which I say, "Go ahead. Make my day."

The fact that the CIA will do no such thing is telling.
Consistent with its deceptive actions in 1963, 1978, 1997, and 2017, the CIA will disavow any knowledge of this operation. Indeed, certain Agency officials today are seeking to make sure that this documentation is NOT made public on December 15, 2022.

Against such obfuscation, JFK Facts/Substack Edition, seeks nothing less than full JFK disclosure in 2022.

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