January 9 - British authorities announce that they have
discovered a large Soviet spy ring in London.
Congo
Patrice Lumumba was killed on 17th of January 1961. The
Congo supplied critical raw materials, including the uranium used in American
nuclear weapons. Both the United States and the Soviet Union saw the “Congo's
allegiance as a prize”.
“Lumumba's willingness to accept
assistance from the Soviets, and especially military aid, sealed his doom.
Dutch journalist Lugo de Witte, in a book published in English in 2001 under
the title "The Assassination of Lumumba," definitively documented
that Belgian officials assisted Congolese rivals of Lumumba in his abduction,
torture and murder. The U.S. government, enraged by Lumumba's openness to Moscow,
had its own plan to "neutralize" him, though agents of the CIA never
carried out the final element of the plan, which called for Lumumba to be
poisoned.”
Revisiting '60s-era
policy in Congo
Ex-CIA agent's memoir takes no responsibility for Lumumba's
assassination, Mobutu's coup, Reviewed by G. Pascal Zachary, Sunday, March 11,
2007
From Wikipedia:
Eisenhower had said "something [to CIA chief Allen
Dulles] to the effect that Lumumba should be eliminated".[15] This was revealed by a declassified interview
with then-US National Security Council minutekeeper Robert Johnson released in
August 2000 from Senate intelligence committee's inquiry on covert action. The
committee later found that while the CIA had conspired to kill Lumumba, it was
not involved in the murder.[15] In 1975, the Church Committee went on record
with the finding that Allen Dulles had ordered Lumumba's assassination as
"an urgent and prime objective" (Dulles' own words).[16] Furthermore, declassified CIA cables quoted
or mentioned in the Church report and in Kalb (1972) mention two specific CIA
plots to murder Lumumba: the poison plot and a shooting plot. Although some
sources claim that CIA plots ended when Lumumba was captured, that is not
stated or shown in the CIA records. Rather, those records show two
still-partly-censored CIA cables from Elizabethville on days significant in the
murder: January 17, the day Lumumba died, and January 18, the day of the first
exhumation. The former, after a long censored section, talks about where they
need to go from there. The latter expresses thanks for Lumumba being sent to
them and then says that, had Elizabethville base known he was coming, they
would have "baked a snake".[17]
Significantly, David Doyle, the then chief of base, Elizabethville, told
other CIA officers later that he had had Lumumba's body in the trunk of his car
to try to find a way to dispose of it.[18]
This cable goes on to state that the writer's sources (not yet
declassified) said that after being taken from the airport Lumumba was
imprisoned by "all white guards" (CIA document #CO 1366116).
References from original text
Government
JFK was inaugurated as the 35th president on 20th January.
It was a highbrow affair. JFK wanted to distance himself from his philistine
predecessors and make himself look very clever indeed. Celebs everywhere, and
intellectuals too. Robert Frost recites “The Gift Outright”.
“A half dozen foreign
crises were waiting to break the moment that he sat down in the Oval office. On
practically every continent there was suddenly war, revolution or bloody
repression: the Congo, Angola, Tunisia, Laos, Korea and Dominican Republic. And
the Russians were threatening to intervene in more than one of them .” Not
forgetting Cuba. In Laos the Pathet Lao and gov of Laos had reached a
negotiated settlement – why was this a problem for JFK?
“All the policy failures of the
Eisenhower Administration were now coming back to haunt America. It was as if
while moving into the White House, Kennedy found the roof falling in and all
the doors blowing off."”
JFK got Clark Clifford and Richard Newstadt on board from
August to September, to produce “organising the transition”, JFK’s plan to
build and administration. He was determined not to rely on justone set of
advisors.
EMBELLISH - JFK’s poor health couldn’t have helped. It
remained a problem for him in office. “Kennedy was gambiling that his health
problems would not prevent him from handling the job.” Dallek.
The New Guys
JFK intended to be his own Chief of Staff eliminating issue
of elevating one aide over the others. His aides, Sorenson, O’Brien, O’Donnell,
Powers & Salinger, were the new WH insiders. Arthur Schlesinger was the
administration’s spokesman to liberals and a “source of innovation, ideas and
occasional speeches on all topics.”
JFK’s “hope was to return the centre of decision to the Oval
office, rather than let it remain in the hands of the subordinates who were
supposedly running Eisenhower’s government.” Dallek.
He announced appointments to cabinet two days after the
election – suggested consistency with past. Decided to leave Dulles and Hoover
in place at FBI and CIA. LBJ put it “better to keep Hoover inside pissing out,
than outside pissing in”.
The Cabinet
The new administration consisted of Sec of Treasury Douglas
Dillon, an Eisenhower Republican; Sec of Defense Robert McNamara, former head
of Ford; Sec of state Dean Rusk former head of Rockefeller Foundation; Adlai
Stevenson was given the UN Ambassador job; and Arthur Schlesinger got a post as
“special assistant” or the unofficial “ambassador to Academia”.
Dean Rusk, Sec of State 1961 - 63
C Douglas Dillon, Sec of
Treasury 1961 - 63
Robert F Kennedy, Attorney General
1961 - 63
J Edward Day, Postmaster General
1961 - 63
Stewart L Udall, Sec of the
interior 1961 - 63
Orville L Freeman, Sec of Agriculture 1961 - 63
Luther H Hodges, Sec of Commerce 1961 - 63
Arthur J Goldberg, Sec of
Labor 1961 - 62
Robert F McNamara, Sec of
Defense 1961 - 63
Abraham A Ribicoff, Sec of Health,
Educationa and Welfare 1961 - 62
Republicans Henry stemson and Frank Knox were in FDR’s
cabinet, so to return the compliment JFK had a few Republicans in his. Aides
Galbraith, Schlesinger, Seymour Harris and other “Harvard liberals”.
Irish catholics: Powers, John Bailey, Dick Maguire.
JFK “needed” a Wall Street Sec or Treasury.
McNamara was poached from Ford Motors where he’d just taken
up the role of CEO(?). He was formerly involved in Pacific campaign
fire-bombing of Japan working for LeMay. In later life he admits war crimes
were perpetrated.
Straight away McNamara declared that the missile gap did not
exist. He had to withdraw the statement and apologise to JFK. In reality the
missile gap was 17 to 1in the US’s favour.
MIT economist Walt W Rostow became JFK’s head of State
Dept’s Policy Planning Council – Rostow’s brother, Eugene, was Dean of Yale
School.
Robert Troutman – Bobby K and plans for progress CEEO?
JFK made Hobart Taylor Jr – a black attorney – Vice chairman
of CEEO.
The Men Who Wanted War
LeMay had once fired a dud warhead at the Soviet Union – the
man who’d bombed and fire-bombed Tokyo in the spring of 1945 killing over
105,000 civilians. LeMay’s dud flew over a thousand miles tracked all the way
by Red Army radar before it ditched into the sea.
Air Force Chief of Staff General Curtis Lemay was in charge
of the firebombing of Japan in the war – and the Berlin airlift 1948 – 49.
“Guff, cigar-chomping, outspoken advocate” of air-power, became model for
air-force general Jack D. Ripper in “Dr Strangelove” 1963. He was so
unreasonable he drove Kennedy mad.
Bill Harvey in the CIA was trying to provoke WWIII by
continuing to send anti-Castro commando teams on raids along the Cuban coast.
When RFK found out he demanded Harvey be sacked, and he was temporarily removed
– but eventually sent ot Europe.
Lyman L Lemnitzer –
chairman of the JCS believed that generals should be running the country. “For
those military officers who were sitting on the fence, the Kennedy
administration’s botched Bay of Pigs invasion was the last straw…”President
Kennedy was pilloried by the super patriots as a “no-win” chief…the far right
became a fount of proposals born of frustration and put forward in the name of
anti-communism…Active-duty commanders played host to anti-communist seminars on
their bases and attended or addressed right wing meetings elsewhere.” Lemnitzer
and JCS had quietly slipped over the edge.
www.labournet/watch/0109/USIS.html James Bamford “Body of Secrets”
Bobby Kennedy had been looking forward to a legal career,
and now was now the new Attorney General of the united states (check his
qualifications, had he just come out of college? Experience?). He went on to
authorise the illegal bugging of the Mafia bosses’ homes and businesses.
America’s influence in Latin America and the Caribbean had
an especially sinister edge as the Mafia realised the money making potential
off the offshore havens. Cuba had thrown the Mafia out, but Giancona was trying
to set up a gambling business on the Dominican Republic. He dealt with the
corrupt politicians there, however they were to lose power – but when?
This, naturally upset the gangsters who believed they had
bought JFK. Giancana believed that he had swung the election for Kennedy, by
using his influence in Chicago, was under the impression that JFK as president
would go easy on his crimes. This is known from FBI bugging. Johnny Formosa
went as far as to offer to kill Frank Sinatra who had recommended that Giancan
support Kennedy .
See LBJ connection to Mafia in 1962.
FBI director JE Hoover had till then claimed organised crime
was a figment of the collective imagination and now was “forced in to an about
face when RFK, US Attorney General, exposed the existence of a national crime
syndicate and began ardently prosecuting its members – “Enemy Within” by RFK.
Robert Kennedys first probe exposed extent to which
organised labour was intertwined with organised crime – toppled Dave Beck and
sent him to jail.
Second probe struggled to nail Jimmy Hoffa, Beck’s
successor. Confrontations live on national telly – Giancana.
Edgar pre-empted Bobby’s declaration of war against the
mafia by an exhortation to fight communism.
FBI agents received specific orders not to help Bobby at
all.
In 1960 19 members of organised crime had been indicated.
In 1961 121 were indicated and 96 convicted
B Kennedy was popular among agents
All this annoyed hoover.
Carlos Marcello and Sam Giancana – prime targets mercilessly
harassed by the FBI.
Giancana thought he had bought Kennedy and so had been
“double-crossed”
When arrested July 12th 1961 at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport, he
lost his temper and shouted “Fuck J Edgar Hoover! Fuck your super boss, and
your super super boss! You know who I mean; I mean the Kennedys!”
“Listen Roemer [one of the agents],
I know all about the Kennedys and Phyllis knows more about the Kennedys, and
one of these days we’re going to tell all. Fuck you! One of these days it’ll
come out…”
Distorting Truth Abroad
The neo-con mission continued unabated -
The National Strategy Information Centre was founded by
Prescott Bush, George W’s grandfather, and his son Prescott Jr, William Casey
(eventually to become CIA boss), and Leo Cherne.
Find out more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leo_Cherne
http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=Leo+Cherne&btnG=Search&meta=
The centre came to be directed by Frank Barrett, former
program officer of the Bush family’s H. Smith Richardson Foundation. The centre
conduited funds to London-based Forum World Features, for the circulation of
the CIA authored “news stories” to some 300 newspapers internationally.
Bob Dylan arrived in NYC on January 24th, searching for
Woody Guthrie.
On January 25th Kennedy delivered the first live
presidential news conference. He announced that the Soviet Union has freed the
2 surviving crewmen of a USAF RB-47 reconnaissance plane shot down by Soviet
flyers over the Barents Sea July 1, 1960. (see RB-47H shot down)
January 30 - President John F. Kennedy delivers his first
State of the Union Address.
Blackmail
All the signs were that Kennedy was to bring a new sort of government
to the US. That he was going to be transparent, and just, etc. [put this better
b- thesaurus]. The reality: there were problems. One was the FBI – which had
dogged all presidents since Roosevelt. Hoover had dirt on Kennedy going back to
WW2 when Kennedy had an affair with a woman who’d been involved with Nazis
Goering and possibly even Hitler himself. Hoover himself had favoured Johnson
for President.
Kennedy got involved with the mafia in order to swing the
election. Johnson resorted to blackmail (in cahoots with Hoover) in order to
put himself on the ticket.
Hoover considered he was treated appallingly by Kennedy –
Bobby was installed as Hoover’s boss and this was strictly enforced.
December 1961 Hoover knew JFK was planning to fire him and deployed
his agents in an intense investigation. Joe Kennedy’s debilitating stroke
messed up the Kennedy’s xmas – managed to live on till 1969 but severly
debilitiated.
Hoover’s blackmail:
• Warime
affair
• Monroe
• Profmo
scandal
Escalation of American Violence In Vietnam
Page 23
Kennedy Took control
There are 2,000 U.S. military advisers in South Vietnam.
“As early as January
21st 1961 JCS understood that henceforth they were to be ruled…basic strategy
would be ruled by the president and himself [McNamara].”
Kennedy’s plan was to condct a limited war in order to force
a political settlement.
Ultimately he planned a withdrawal and was in some conflict
even within his own cabinet, including VP Johnson. National security Memo
NSAM263 was issued by Kennedy, a plan to withdraw 1000 US military personnel by
the end of 1963.
Despite that Kennedy never moved away from containment
policy of Truman and Eisenhower. Kennedy’s major contribution was bringing in
(creating?) the Green berets, inspired by the British example in Malaya where
special forces’ guerrilla tactics for counter insurgency warfare were used.
In 1961 the US escalated the attack against South Vietnam,
moving from support for the standard Latin-style terror state that Eisenhower
had instituted to outright aggression, including bombing of civilian targets by
the US Air force, the use of napalm, crop destruction to starve out the
indigenous resistance.
Dallek paints JFK as reluctant to enter into the Vietnam War
– he was vocal about it. But caved in. He was perfectly happy to break the 1954
treaty, lie about US involvement, cover-up US flying combat missions, calmly
talking about killing South Vietnamese leader while dealing with him as an
ally. JFK under pressure, who from? Media? Business? Military?
As one highly expert study explains, the goal of Kennedy’s
1961 escalation was “to fight the insurgency by destroying its economic base
and disrupting the social fabric of the areas where the [national liberation]
front was strongest.”
McNamara directed US personnel and equipment to participate
directly in bombing and other military operations against South Vietnamese,
also authorising crop destruction and the use of napalm , sabotage and
intelligence operations against North Vietnam.
Internal reports of 1962 described “indiscriminate
firepower” that “undoubtedly killed many innocent peasants and made many others
more willing than before to co-operate with the Viet Cong.”
By 1962, the Kennedy-McNamara war had far surpassed the
French war at its peak in terms of helicopters and aerial fire power. By
November 1963 US personnel in South Vietnam were almost at the level of France
in all of Indochina in 1949.
Fact-finding mission to Saigon 1961. Taylor and Rostow went, their dismal report concluded that they
should support Diem. Recomended economic package plus 58,000 troops. Ball
disagreed and didn’t want to get mixed up in French style war. JFK told Ball he
was way off.
January 31 1961 - Ham, a 37 pound male chimpanzee, is
rocketed into space aboard Mercury-Redstone 2, in a test of the Project Mercury
capsule, designed to carry United States astronauts into space.
February 12 1961 - U.S.S.R. launches Venera 1 towards Venus.
Space Race and Rockets
In March 1961 US war planes were ordered to destroy “hostile
aircraft” over South Vietnam – it was kept a closely guarded secret . – at
JFK’s behest.
Briefing to Kennedy on Bay of Pigs given on March 29th….
On March 29th “the CIA code name for the Bay of Pigs
invasion was Operation Zapata, and the plan was so referred to by Richard
Bissell of the CIA, one of the plan’s promoters, in a briefing to Kennedy in
the cabinet room on March 29th 1961.”
The Cuban sugar quota in US markets was reduced to zero on
31st March.
On 12 April 1961, Major Yuri A. Gagarin became the first
human to travel into space in Vostok 3KA-2 (Vostok 1).
While in orbit Gagarin was promoted "in the field"
from the rank of Senior Lieutenant to Major.
On return Khrushchev rushed to his side and Gagarin issued a
statement praising the Communist Party of the Soviet Union as the
"organizer of all our victories". Khrushchev saw Gagarin's
achievement as a vindication of his policy of strengthening the Soviet Union's
missile forces at the expense of conventional arms. This policy antagonized the
Soviet military establishment and contributed to Khrushchev's eventual
downfall. Wikipedia
The space program was enormously important as a propaganda
device, but also as a way of stimulating high tech industries. Rockets became
extremely important militarily in the form of modern intercontinental ballistic
missiles (ICBMs) when it was realised that nuclear weapons carried on a rocket
vehicle were essentially not defensible against once launched, and they became
the delivery platform of choice for these weapons.
The Apollo 10 Command Module in orbit around the moon.
Fuelled partly by the Cold War, the 1960s became the decade of rapid
development of rocket technology particularly in the Soviet Union (Vostok,
Soyuz, Proton) and in the United States (e.g. the X-15 and X-20 Dyna-Soar
aircraft, Gemini). There was also significant research in other countries, such
as Britain, Japan, Australia, etc. This culminated at the end of the 60s with
the manned landing on the moon via the Saturn V, causing the New York Times to
retract their earlier editorial implying that spaceflight couldn't work:
Wikipedia
Pigs in Space
NASA head James Webb, Kennedy’s National space council - $30
to 40 bn. Likely to be spent by government on a project to advance weather
predicito, satellite comms, and provide jobs in the sw of the USA.
The space race began in the Nazi rocket experiments – Werner
von Braun who fled to America after WW2. His engineering skills were valuable
enough to the Us that his complicity with the Nazis could be ignored. The armed
forces fought over authority over rocketry.
Eisenhower was hostile towards the space race – realised its
hollowness and purposelessness. Military alarmism and political rhetoric
overcame his scepticism. Kennedy too had doubts, but gradually gave in to the
military.
NASA manipulated the press. Scientists and space advocates
worked hard to convince the public and politicians of the importance of the
space race.
There was never a defined purpose to the space race.
Sputnik became a symbol of American complacency. It was a
small chrome ball that went ‘beep beep’.
NASA was established to outdo the Soviets.
Based on Ian James Kidd’s review of “Dark Side of the Moon”
by Gerard J DeGroot, Fortean Times.
Bad news for American propagandists on 12th April when Yuri
Gagarin became the first man in space. He orbited the earth. JFK knee-jerked by
setting up the moon project as a counter coup.
US Ranger Program. Envisaged in 1961 to photograph the Moon
during approach and then eject a heavily insulated instrument capsule to
withstand a ‘hard’ landing at about 190mph – INSIGHT MAGAZINE.
The first 5 Rangers were all failures. Only four hit the
Moon but its electronics had gone dead before landing.
The Jet Propulsion Laboratory – builders of the Ranger.
It was during April that JFK asked the NSC to develop
emergency plans for intervention by “US troops to maintain order and preclude
communist control…he wanted no direct US involvement.” Bay of Pigs? / Vietnam?
Bay Of Pigs
Kennedy opposed this initially, but in the end allowed it to
go ahead, sabotaged it to ensure its failure and used it as a means to root out
some of his enemies.
April 15th In the morning planes flown by Cuban exiles
bombed several airfields in Cuba. The invasion was launched on the April 16th.
Monday morning Brigade 2506 landed at Giron Beach in the Bay of Pigs, South
Central Cuba. Castro mobilised armed forces and militia and defeated the
invasion within 48 hours.
Cuba invaded at Bay of Pigs by an estimated 1,200
anti-Castro exiles aided by U.S.; invasion crushed (April 17). Page 17/18
It was an Eisenhower Administration plan - to overthrow the
Castro. Central to such a plan, which was structured and detailed by the CIA
with minimal input from the State Department, was the arming of a
counter-revolutionary insurgency composed of anti-Castro Cubans. U.S.-trained
Cuban insurgents were to invade Cuba and instigate an uprising among the Cuban
people in hopes of removing Castro from power. On April 17, 1961, Kennedy
ordered the previously planned invasion of Cuba to proceed. With support from
the CIA, in what is known as the Bay of Pigs Invasion, 1,500 U.S.-trained Cuban
exiles, called "Brigade 2506," returned to the island in the hope of
deposing Castro. However, Kennedy ordered the invasion to take place without
U.S. air support. By April 19, 1961, the Cuban government had captured or
killed the invading exiles, and Kennedy was forced to negotiate for the release
of the 1,189 survivors. The failure of the plan originated in a lack of dialog
among the military leadership, a result of which was the complete lack of naval
support in the face of organized artillery troops on the island who easily
incapacitated the exile force as it landed on the beach. The incident was a
major embarrassment for Kennedy, but he took full personal responsibility for
the debacle. Furthermore, the incident made Castro wary of the U.S. and led him
to believe that another invasion would occur. Wikipedia
Castro nationalised all private schools on May 1st including
catholic schools, and upset the church.
First U.S. spaceman, Navy Cmdr. Alan B. Shepard, Jr.,
rockets 116.5 miles up in 302-mile trip (May 5).
In May the race issue kicked off in Alabama, the month
Kennedy chose to go on a tour of South East Asia.
The Freedom Riders wanted integration in bus terminals
during 1961. They were assaulted in Alabama in May. Two integrated bus loads of
young civil rights activists headed to the south to desegregate interstate
transport Freedom Riders. Both buses were attacked and set on fire. People on
board were beaten and bloodied. JFK was about to meet Krushchev at a summit in
Vienna. Bobby asked for a halt to freedom Rides – a “cooling off” period.
James Farmer: “we’ve been cooling off for 100 years. If we
got any cooler we’d be in the deep freeze.”
Bobby arranged a third bus – got guarantees from Governor
for safety of Freedom Riders – but mob attacked. Police held off for 20 minutes
and every ambulance in town had mysteriously broken down.
JFK ordered Bobby to send in a force of US Marshalls to keep
the peace.
Mississppi – James Meredith and State University in Oxford
governor Ross Barnet.
While Civil rights strife was going on in Alabama – May 16th
to May 18th JFK went to Canada, his first presidential trip abroad – Ottowa.
PM John Diefenbaker wished to distance Canada from US cold
war policies. He was opposed to Washington’s pressure for Canada to join the
Organisation of American states and requests to deploy nuclear weapons on
Canadian soil.
JFK pleaded to Canadian parliament. The pm threatened to
publish memo in which JFK described Diefenbaker as a SOB.
“Bobby recalled that his brother
“hated Diefenbaker – had contempt for him”. JFK – “I didn’t think Diefenbaker
was a so of a bitch, I thought he was a prick.” Robert Dallek’s JFK biog.
May 21st MLK addressed a mass rally at a mob sieged
Montgomery church.
May 24th JFK got a
report of an immenent attempt to assassinate Trujillo by political opponents.
He was assassinated on May 31st.
May 25th 1961 JFK gave an unusual ‘state of the union’ style
speech and described the US as the world’s “leader in freedoms cause…The great
battleground for the defense and expression of freedom today.”
He expanded civil defence shelters.
Had been sceptical but after Nelson Rockefeller the NY
government, called him complacent JFK caved in. He also announced a space
program. 58% thought this was a waste of money They were right.
INSERT RACIAL UNREST
JFK’s determination to break the cold war stumbled at the
very first with his ill-fated meeting with Krushchev.
Pp 12/13
Kennedy-Krushchev summit in June 1961. JFK extended a visit to Paris,
30th May, to take in a summit in Vienna with the Soviet leader. JFK, unusually
for an American, was very popular in France and revelled in this for 3 days
before moving on to his next appointment on 3rd June. In Vienna, Berlin was the
main issue. Krushchev threatened the west’s grip on West Berlin. There was a
flood of emigrants pouring from East Germany through open sluice of the old
capital, and threatened to destroy the East German economy. Unless the US made
some sort of concession over Berlin the USSR would sign a peace treaty with
East Germany in December. JFK made no such concession.
Krushchev also indicated that the USSR would resume nuclear
testing – both countries had observed a voluntary moratorium for the last three
years. The one issue they did see eye to eye over was an agreement to stay out
of Laos.
JFK was appalled by what he saw as Krushchev’s bullying
behaviour, and completely failed in his hope that he would find some common
ground between them. Krushchev, on the other hand, secretly took a liking to
his American counterpart. JFK vowed never to meet with Krushchev again. Rose
Kennedy referred to Nina Petrovna, Krushchev’s wife, as “someone who could
serve in an American household as an entirely reliable baby sitter. Dallek.
After that, Kennedy went on the telly, gave his report to
the people, and announced increased military budget. He suggested that for the
next ten years the cold war would be fought chiefly in the third world. He used
this to justify a foreign aid program under consideration in congress. Asked
congress for authority to call up reserves and greater civil defence measures.
But he failed to come up with a policy for Berlin.
10th June USSR publicly renewed their threat to sign a
separate peace treaty with East Germany.
Alabama’s racist governor George Wallace refused to
surrender. On June 11th he threatened to stand in the doorway of the state
university to block the desegregation. JFK sent in 100s of US marshals, 1000s
of troops in helicopters. Wallace had to step aside. Integration went ahead.
JFK appeared on telly.
June 23rd the declaration of the neutrality of Laos signe
din Geneva by US and 13 other nations prohibits US invasion of portions of the
Ho Chi Minh trail inside eastern Laos.
After Kennedy came back from hi final trip to the Far East
in July, MacArthur repeated his advice. JFK resisting advice for escalation in
Laos, Vietnam, etc. using MacArthur to keep those advisors at arms length.
These advisors? Heavy on BBH and Skull & bones people – Harriman, McGeorge
Bundy, William Bundy, Henry Cabot Lodge, “Key London Oligarchs and theoreticians”.
George Bush was calling for escalation in Vietnam and a second invasion of
Cuba.
In July it was leaked that US military dependents had been
removed from West Germany and France and reinforcement and increase of US
Divisions in Germany and “some demonstrations of US intent to employ nuclear
weapons.” Krushchev asked “why should 200 million people die for 2 million
Berliners?”
July 8th Krushchev announced 1/3 increase in his defence
budget.
Schlesinger produced a paper on unexplored Berlin political issues
with state Dept Counseller Abram Chayes and Harvard Professor Henry Kissinger.
The conclusion was JFK should ask Rusk “to explore
negotiating alternatives and ask Acheson to supply the missing political
dimension in his argument.
Virgil Grissom becomes second American astronaut, making
118-mile-high, 303-mile-long rocket flight over Atlantic (July 21).
On the 25th July JFK went on the box again and blamed the
Soviets for the crisis; the US intended to defend the rights of Berliners. He
requested $3bn from congress in extra defence and £207m for civil defence. JFK
was criticised however for seemingly throwing away any hope for Berliners in
the East. But what else could he do?
Krushchev began putting up the Berlin Wall on August 12th.
(on August 13th according to Wikipedia)
Gherman Stepanovich Titov is launched in Soviet spaceship
Vostok II: makes 171/2 orbits in 25 hours, covering 434,960 miles before
landing safely (Aug. 6).
Barriers went up in Berlin on August 13th. Senator William
?? had wondered “why the East Germans didn’t close their border, because I
think they have a right to close it” and two weeks later they did.
A week before the wall – JFK said to Walt Rostow “East
Germany is haemorrhaging to death. The entire East bloc is in danger. He has to
do something about it. “
East Germans erect Berlin Wall between East and West Berlin
to halt flood of refugees (Aug. 13).
LBJ went to Berlin and attempted, “with considerable
success, to reassure the West Berliners of the strength of the American
commitment.”
Acheson, Joint Chiefs, Allen Dulles and some state and
defence department officials urged an overt military build up to intimidate
Moscow.
On the other hand Rusk, Stevenson, Bowles, Harriman,
Schlesinger, Sorenson, argue for a more flexible response – possible
negotiations and military preparations.
JFK went for talks to began at a “lower level”. He was
afraid of the Russian leadership and shied away from confrontation. It was a
major failing of Kennedy – he was a gutless coward.
August 28th – the March on Washington, civil rights rally.
Same day the USSR announced resumption of nuclear testing – when he found out
about that JFK said, “fucked again.”
Civil rights group membership in south went up in 60s.
Direct mass action became commonplace, against the conservative NAACP’s
philosoph. But NAACP stayed active with their Legal Defense Fund.
http://www.infoplease.com/spot/bhmjustice3.html
Block 1 missions
Ranger block I spacecraft diagram. (NASA)Ranger 1, launched
23 August 1961, lunar prototype, launch failure
http://history.nasa.gov/SP-4210/pages/Ch_6.htm
Civil rights
Black protest
1960 had been a year of black protest. Black college
students held sit-ins to integrate public restaurants and other facilities.
Martin Luther King was making waves.
On 23rd June King met privately with presidential candidate
JFK.
Alabama’s Burning
The James Meredith (wikipedia) case went to the Supreme
Court on September 10th 1962. He was the first black student at the University
of Mississippi – riots broke out and Fed troops were sent in.
Mississippi governor Ross Barnett (Wiki) a segregationist –
he resisted the supreme Court decision. Former Mississippi Governor James
Coleman – “moderate” urged by Bobby to not use troops . Lt Gov Paul Johnson –
September 26th personally blocked Meredith. 2000 protesters on the September
27th. JFK got involved directly and federalized Mississippi National Guard.
Barnett made ‘promises’ which he soon ditched and JFK had to send in the
National Guard. A shooting match occurred on the 30th.
Then came the Civil Rights Act. JFK had near 80% approval at
the time of Bay of Pigs. Now it was only 53%.
Freedom riders and FBI – page 281 Summers
Black agents – summers page 282
In September NSAM instructing McNamara to establish police
academies in Latin America. Chester Bowles opposed and got squeezed out. Page
14
Chester Bowles = July
1961 Bobby K had a rift with the under sec of state Chester Bowles. It was over
Cuba and Dominica. Part of the disagreement was Bowles’ wish to scrap the bay
of pigs operation, and he opposed the police academies in latin America.
Bowles took the liberal position so Bobby K had him shifted
to an embassy. Bowles refused to accept a posting in Brazil. November 3rd 1961
Bowles was made roving ambassador – George Ball was brought in – the same day
JFK authorised. Dallek – I think.
Early September 1961 – mob got shots of Bobby near Las Vegas
with 2 girls “on a blanket”. Kennedy was told in an attempt to blackmail him.
Alliance for Progress
In September 1961 the National Security Action Memo (NSAM)
instructing McNamara establish police academies in latin America to train the
military. Chester Bowles opposed this and for that he was squeezed out.
This was a program of secret US interventions in Cuba, Brazil,
British Guiana, Peru, Haiti, Dominica, etc. There were new threats in June of
1962 from Ecuador, Columbia, Guatemala and Venezuela. “In its brief 18 months
life the alliance had become an imperfect cover for traditional actions serving
perceived US national security.” Dallek
Che Guevara denounced
US president Kennedy’s alliance for progress at conference at Punta del Este in
Uruguay.
In cuba the confrontation between church and government came
to a head. Church demonstrations – 130 priests deported to Spain, the number of
priests declined from 800 to 200. Religious schools were closed.
On September 4th the US passed the Foreign Assistance Act of
1961, prohibiting aid to Cuba and authorising the president to establish and
maintain a total embargo on all trade between Us and Cuba.
USSR fires 50-megaton hydrogen bomb, biggest explosion in
history (Oct. 29).
Kennedy’s approach
Racial desegregation finally happened on November 1st 1961.
The ‘Black / White’ signs came down.
While black groups wanted a voting rights law – the Kennedys
didn’t want anything as radical as that. JFK was worried about triggering
“large scale” violence in the Deep South. Delayed hearings by civil rights
commission into abuses in Louisiana and Mississippi. Harvard Law School dean
Erwin Griswald commission recommended, unanimously, cutting off federal funding
to Mississippi. This upset JFK. July 26th King spoke against JFK – he “could do
more”. Check year
On October 19th King was arrested at a dept store sit in and
sentenced to 4 months hard labour. JFK’s intervention ensured he was freed.
King met JFK in October and urged a second Emancipation Proclomation to
eliminate segregation. CHECK YEAR
King and Kennedy met in October and urged a second
emancipation proclamation to eliminate segregation.
On October 11th Kennedy ordered a dispatch of a USAF
farmgate squadron to south Vietnam. 12 planes especially equipped for
counter-insurgency warfare (combat modified T28 fighter bomber trainers SC-47s,
and B-26 bombers), soon authorised “to fly coordinated missions with Vietnamese
personnel in support of Vietnamese ground forces.”
In the autumn the conflict widened. 26,000 VC launched
attacks on south Vietnamese troops successfully. Diem requested more military
aid.
October – top JFK aides Maxwell Taylor and Walt Rostow
visited Vietnam to look at the deteriorating situation. Taylor advised
expanding the number of military advisors and to send 8,000 combat soldiers.
McNamara and the JCS recommended alternative -
that of a massive show of strength – six divisions (200,000 men) to
Vietnam. President decided against any combat troops.
On October 24th JFK sent a letter to diem pledging “the US
us determined to help Vietnam preserve its independence…”
Putting The Screws On Cuba
Page 17
Fixing sugar quota to zero
Operation Mongoose authorised on November 3rd 1961, with
bobby in charge.
Operation Mongoose and put Bobby in charge. – JFK said “my
idea is to stir things up on the island with espionage, sabotage, general
disorder, run and operated by the Cubans themselves with every group but
Batistates and communists.”
Dallek – I think.
Ranger 2, launched 18 November 1961, lunar prototype, launch
failure
Block 1, consisting of two spacecraft launched into Earth
orbit in 1961, was intended to test the Atlas/Agena launch vehicle and
spacecraft equipment without attempting to reach the Moon.
Most elements of spacecraft technology taken for granted
today were untested before Ranger. Perhaps the most important of these was
three-axis attitude stabilization, meaning that the spacecraft is fixed in
relation to space instead of being stabilized by spinning. This would permit
pointing large solar panels at the Sun, a large antenna at Earth, and cameras
and other directional scientific sensors at their appropriate targets. Rocket
propulsion carried aboard the spacecraft was another critically important new
technology, needed for accurate targeting at the Moon or distant planets.
In addition, two-way communication and closed-loop tracking,
requiring spacecraft and ground system development, and the use of on-board
computing and sequencing combined with commands from the ground, all had to be
developed and tried out in flight. Unfortunately, problems with the early
version of the launch vehicle left Ranger 1 and Ranger 2 in short-lived,
low-Earth orbits in which the spacecraft could not stabilize themselves,
collect solar power, or survive for long. In 1962, JPL utilized the Ranger 1
and Ranger 2 design for the failed Mariner 1 and successful Mariner 2 deep-space
probes to Venus. Wikipedia
Sino-Soviet Rift
At a meeting of 81 Communist parties in Moscow in November
1960, the Chinese delegation clashed heatedly with the Soviets and with most of
the other party delegations, but eventually a compromise resolution was agreed,
preventing a formal rupture. At the 22nd Congress of the Communist Party of the
Soviet Union in October 1961, however, disagreement flared again. In December,
the Soviet Union severed diplomatic relations with Albania, expanding the
dispute from one between parties to one between states.
Foreign Policy
Latin America
JFK made the decision to shift the mission of Latin American
military from “hemispheric defense” to “internal security” changed US stance
from toleration ‘of the rapacity & cruelty of the Latin American military”
to “direct complicity” in “the methods of Heinrich Himmler’s extermination
squads” according to Charles Maechling who led counter-insurgency and internal
defence planning from 1961 to 1966. CHOMSKY
Adolf Eichman, a German Nazi, who’d managed to escape to
Argentina, was executed by Israel.
January 25 1961- Acting to halt 'leftist excesses,' a junta
composed of 2 army officers and 4 civilians takes over El Salvador, ousting
another junta that had ruled for 3 months.
1961
Alliance for Progress
In Sep 1961 the National Security Action Memo (NSAM)
instructing McNamara establish police academies in latin America to train the
military. Chester Bowles opposed this and for that he was squeezed out.
This was a program of secret US interventions in Cuba,
Brazil, British Guiana, Peru, Haiti, Dominica, etc. There were new threats in
June of 1962 from Ecuador, Columbia, Guatemala and Venezuela. “In its brief 18
months life the alliance had become an imperfect cover for traditional actions
serving perceived US national security.” Dallek
Failed miserably as tool to bring democracy, social reform
and modernisation in South America. US officials administering Alliance were
same as those who had supported status quo. Old bureacrats couldn’t be changed.
American leaders channelled Alliance funds into pet projects and sometimes
their own pockets. Some dictators refused aid if it meant sharing land or
loosening grip over their country.
In South America US corporations’ assembly operations were
to grow rapidly through the 1960s.
Brazil in crisis
Kubitschek, president of Brazil, moved the capital to
Brasilia. A huge white elephant. He was
replaced in 1961 by Janio Quadros, elected president but resigned in august,
several months after the election, plunging country into a constitutional
crisis. He was succeeded by his left wing (labour party) V-P Joao Goulart..
The resignation was an attempt to gain greater power from
congress. A constitutional amendment served as a compromise which allowed him
(?) to become president with Tancredo Neves (conservative) as pm.
One of the Rio [CIA] station’s main political-action
operations spent during the 1962 electoral campaign at least the equivalent of
some 12 million dollars financing anti-communist candidates, and possibly as
much as 20 million. “Inside the company: CIA Diary” Philip Agee (??).
Dominican Republic
On May 24th 1961 JFK got report of imminent ‘attempt to
assassinate Trujillo’ by political opponents – Salinger announced Trujillo’s
death to press and JFK was “mad” as it suggested he was in on killing – which
he was desperately trying to distance himself from.
The year 1957 was the beginning of the end. With Johnny
Abbes, an obscure and heinous man directing the Intelligence Military Service
(the secret police), the regime became more violent and increasingly isolated
from other nations. This isolation compounded the dictator's paranoia,
prompting him to worsen his foreign interventionism. Months before, the
Spaniard Jesús de Galíndez, a professor at Columbia University in New York, had
been kidnapped and murdered in the Dominican Republic.
To be sure, Trujillo did have cause to resent the leaders of
some nations, such as Cuba's Fidel Castro, who assisted a small, abortive
invasion attempt by dissident Dominicans in 1959. Trujillo, however, expressed
greater concern over Venezuela's president Rómulo Betancourt (1959-64). An
established and outspoken opponent of Trujillo, Betancourt had been associated
with some individual Dominicans who had plotted against the dictator. Trujillo
developed an obsessive personal hatred towards Betancourt and supported
numerous plots of Venezuelan exiles to overthrow him. This pattern of
intervention led the Venezuelan government to take its case against Trujillo to
the Organization of American States (OAS). This development infuriated
Trujillo, who ordered his foreign agents to plant a bomb inside Betancourt's
car. The assassination attempt, carried out on June 24, 1960, injured but did
not kill the Venezuelan president.
The firestorm caused from the incident inflamed world
opinion against Trujillo. The members of the OAS, expressing this outrage,
voted unanimously to sever diplomatic relations and to impose strong economic
sanctions on the Dominican Republic.
Finally on the night of the May 30 1961, Rafael Trujillo was
shot to death in the street on Santo Domingo - San Cristobal Avenue, Santo
Domingo. He was the victim of an ambush plotted by Modesto Diaz, Salvador
Estrella Sadhalá, Antonio de la Maza, Amado García Guerrero, Manuel Cáceres
Michel (Tunti), Juan Tomás Diaz, Roberto Pastoriza, Luis Amiama Tió, Antonio
Imbert Barrera, Pedro Livio Cedeño, and Huáscar Tejeda. According to American
reporter Bernard Diedrich, the CIA had supplied some of the guns used to kill
the president. In a report to the Deputy Attorney General, CIA officials
described the agency as having "no active part" in the assassination
and only a "faint connection" with the groups that planned the
killing. However, an internal CIA memorandum states that an Office of Inspector
General investigation into Trujillo's murder disclosed "quite extensive
Agency involvement with the plotters." Wikipedia
The CIA assasinated Rafael Trujillo, murderous dictator that
Washington had supported since 1930. Trujillo’s business interests had grown so
large (60% of economy) that they had begun competing with US business
interests.
JFK received news of Trujillo’s assassination on May 31st.
In April JFK asked the NSC to develop emergency plans for
intervention by “US troops to maintain order and preclude communist control…he
wanted no direct US involvement.”
But that wasn’t the end of the problem. Joaquin Balaguer was
likely to succeed and might tilt to the left. So Bobby led WH officials in urging US intervention. Bowles
stepped in to oppose action. “Convinced that the new Dominican government might
“team up with Castro” Bobby, supported by McNamara, Goodwin and Schlesinger,
wanted to take what Bowles…called ‘half cocked action’ or ‘action for action’s
sake’.
“For starters” – and this is the
important bit – “Bobby suggested that they consider blowing up the American
consulate to provide the rationale for an invasion. Bowles opposed again and
Bobby attacked him as a “gutless bastard” and Bowles complained to JFK and got
his backing.
Juan Bosch won the Presidency and had no apologies for his
leftist views. Poverty was worsening and there had not been a free election
since the 1920s. But Bosch was quickly overthrown by a right wing coup.
Pro-Bosch supporters took up arms against the government. 1965.
The CIA overthrew the democratically elected Juan Bosch in a
military coup and installed a repressive right wing junta.
Bay of Pigs
Bobby was put in charge of Operation Mongoose. JFK
authorised it on November 3rd 1961. Nearly a $100m a year spent on Cuban
emigres, a small navy, a small air force, acts of sabotage in Cuba. OM planned
a series of bizarre acts of sabotage (in an attempt to “stir things up”):
burning tons of sugar, drugging farmworkers, using chemicals on Castro to make
his beard fall out.
“the CIA code name
for the Bay of Pigs invasion was Operation Zapata, and the plan was so referred
to by Richard Bissell of the CIA, one of the plan’s promoters, in a briefing to
Kennedy in the cabinet room on March 29th 1961.”
Kennedy agreed to the invasion provided US forces were not
used. 15th April, in morning planes piloted by Cuban exiles bombed several
airfields in Cuba. 17th Apirl – Monday morning Brigade 2506 landed at Giron
beach in the Bay of Pigs, south central Cuba. Castro mobilised armed forces and
militia and defeated invasion within 48 hours. Captured 1180 prisoners the
invasion strengthened loyalty to Castro contrary to CIA’s hopes.
Blasier 1985: “The 1400 well-armed and well trained Cuban
exiles were no match for Castro’s 200,000 man ably led army.”
Cuban policies of USA in ruins. Castro stronger than ever in
Cuba. The government in Cuba used the opportunity to arrest 10s of 1000s of the
domestic opposition and from 1960 to 1962 the US received ¼ million Cuban
emigrants from ranks of the middle class.
From “George Bush: the Unauthorised Biography” by Webster G
Tarpley & Anton Chaitkin
“The abortive Bay of Pigs invasion
of Cuba was launched on April 16th to 17th, prepared with the assistance of the
CIA’s “Miami Station” (also known under the code name JM/WAVE). After the
failure of the amphibious landings of Brigade 2506, Miami station, under the
leadership of Theodore Shackley, became the focus for Operation Mongoose, a
series of covert operations directed against Castro, Cuba, and possibly other
targets.”
Georgie Anne Geyer points to the obvious in a recent
book:”…an entire new Cuban cadre now emerged from the Bay of Pigs. The names
Howard Hunt, Bernard Barker, Rolando Martinez, Felix Rodriguez and Eugenio
Martinez would, in the next quarter century, pop up, often decisively, over and
over again in the most dangerous American foreign policy crises. There were
Cubans flying missions for the CIA in the Congo and even for the Portuguese in
Africa; Cubans were the burglars of Watergate; Cubans played key roles in
Nicaragua, in Irangate, in the American move into the Persian Gulf.” (Georgie
Anne Geyer, Guerrilla Prince (Boston: Little Brown, 1991) Felix Rodriguez tells
us that he was infiltrated into Cuba with the other members of the “Grey Team”
in conjunction with the Bay of Pigs landings; this is the same man we will find
directing the contra supply effort in central america during the 1980s, working
under the direct supervision of Don Gregg and George Bush. (Felix Rodriguez,
Shadow Warrior (New York: Simon and Shuster, 1989)). Theodore Shackley, the
JM/WAVE station chief, will later show up in Bush’s 1979-80 presidential
campaign.”
JM/WAVE
“After the ignominous defeat of the
Bay of Pigs invasion, there was great animosity against Kennedy among the
survivors of brigade 2506, some of whom eventually made their way back to Miami
after being released from Castro’s prisoner of war camps. There were also great
animosity against Kennedy on the part of the JM/WAVE personnel.”
“David Atlee Phillips (embittered
JM/WAVE employee), in his autobiog, “The Night Watch” says that Howard Hunt had
been immediate superior of a young CIA recruit named William F Buckley”. In
Hunt’s autobiog “No event since the communisation of China in 1949 has such a
profound effect on the US and its allies as the defeat of the US trained Cuban
invasion brigade at the Bay of Pigs in April 1961. Out of that humiliation grew
the Berlin wall, the missile crisis, guerrilla warfare throughout Latin America
and Africa, and our Dominican Republic intervention. Castro’s beachhead triumph
opened a bottomless Pandora’s box of difficulties that affected not only the
US, but most of its allies in the Free World. These bloody and subversive
events would not have taken place had Castro been toppled.”
The legacy
The JM/WAVE – Miami station complex was growing to become
the largest of Langley’s many satelites. It’s centre was at the former Richmond
Naval Air Station south of Miami, which had been a base for anti-submarine
blimps during WW2.
Following the failure of Bay of Pigs, this base held as many
as 3,000 Cuban agents and subagents. There were as many as 55 dummy
organisations to provide employment cover and commercial disguise for all these
operatives. See Bush biog.
Kennedy’s Struggle
Hunt blamed JFK for Bay of Pigs debacle., even though men
like Allen Dulles and Richard Bissell had designed and recommended it.
“After the Bay of Pigs disaster”
McNamara let it be known that the Pentagon would no longer play the role of
passive accomplice of the CIA and the State Department.”
Kennedy fired Allen Dulles, his deputy Bissell and CIA
deputy director Charles Cabell.
Kennedy had become deeply suspicious of the intelligence
community and any proposal for military escalation, including Vietnam. He
brought in MacArthur for an outside, expert opinion on military matters.
It’s not surprising that Kennedy distrusted the military.
One example is Airforce Chief of staff, Curtis Le May, who when asked about
answers to the Berlin question, said “bomb the hell out of em”.
From the Bush Biog: “Almost ten years ago, a reliable source
shared with one of the authors an account of a meeting between Kennedy and
MacArthur in which the veteran general
warned the young president that there were elements inside the US
government who emphatically did not share his patriotic motives, and who were
seeking to destroy his administration from within. MacArthur warned that the
forces bent on destroying Kennedy were centred in the Wall Street financial
community and its various tentacles in the intelligence community.”
Kennedy did meet with McArthur in the latter part of April
1961, after Bay of Pigs. “According to Kennedy aide Theodore Sorenson,
MacArthur told Kennedy, “the chickens are coming home to roost, and you happen to
have just moved into the chicken house”, and MacArthur “warned against the
commitment of American foot soldiers on the Asian mainland, and the President
never forgot this advice.” This is grudgingly confirmed by Arthur M
Schlesinger, another Kennedy aide who had a vested interest in villifying
MacArthur, who worte that “MacArthur expressed his old view that anyone wanting
to commit American ground forces to the mainland [of Asia] should have his head
examined.”
After Kennedy came back from his final trip to the Far East
in July 1961, MacArthur repeated his advice.
So here we have JFK resisting advice for escalation in Laos,
Vietnam etc, using MacArthur to keep those advisors at arms length. These
advisors? Heavy on BBH & Skull & Bones people – Harriman, McGeorge
Bundy, William Bundy, Henry Cabot Lodge, “key London oligarchs and
theoreticians”. George Bush was calling for escalation in Vnam and a second
invasion of Cuba.
Cuba
In September confrontation between church and government
came to a head. Church demonstrations occurring. 130 priests deported to Spain.
Number of priests declined from 800 to 200. Religious schools closed.
September 4th US passed Foreign Assistance Act of 1961,
prohibiting aid to Cuba and authorising the president to establish and ,maintain
a total embargo upon all trade between the US and Cuba.
December 2nd, Castro proclaimed he was a Marxist-Leninist.
Cuban secret war
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Lyman L. Lemnitzer
and his fellow JCS members wanted to remove Castro from Cuba.” These military
men considered Castro an impediment to be expunged by means of overt war”.
On January 22nd the US pressured the Organisation of
American States to suspend Cuba. Cuba responded by calling for armed revolt
throughout the hemisphere against “repressive capitalist regimes”.
February 7th JFK declared an embargo on all trade with Cuba.
Therefore the USSR and other communist states were able to move in to fill the
breach.
JFK’s belated discovery that the CIA, at the cost of ½ m
dollars had chemically contaminated part of a cargo of Cuban sugar bound for
the USSR. “undercover: thirty five years of CIA Deception” Darell Garwood.
James Bamford, a former Washington investigative producer
for ABC, “the JCS drew up and approved plans for what may be the most corrupt
plan ever created by the US government. In the name of anti-communism, they
proposed launching a secret and bloody war of terrorism against their own
country in order to trick the American public into supporting an ill-conceived
war they intended to launch against Cuba.”
Codenamed Operation Northwoods, the plan, which had the
written approval of the chairman and every member of the JCS, called for
innocent people to be shot on American streets; for boats carrying refugees
fleeing Cuba to be sunk on the high seas; for a wave of violent terrorism to be
launched in Washington, DC, Miami and elsewhere.
People would be framed for bombings they did not commit;
planes would be hijacked. Using phoney evidence, all of it would be blamed on
Castro, thus giving Lemnitzer and his cabal the excuse, as well as the public
and international backing, they needed to launch their war.
Among the actions recommended was “ a series of
well-co-ordinated incidents to take place in and around “ the US navy base at
Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. This included dressing “friendly” Cubans in Cuban
military uniforms and then have them “start riots near the main gate of the
base. Others would pretend to be saboteurs inside the base. Ammunition would be
blown up, fires started, aircraft
sabotaged, mortars fired at the base with damage to installations.”
Nexus magazine, The Hidden Face of Terrorism, written by
Paul David Collins.
See www.1stbooks.com/bookview/13401
See http://www.barnesandnoble.com
E-book: ISBN1-4033-6798-1
or paperback: ISBN1-4033-6799-X
For Operation Mongoose attempts to assassinate Castro
http://www.seas.gwu.edu/nsarchive/nsa/DOCUMENT/930827.htm
Internally, Escalante was sent into a diplomatic semi-exile
in eastern Europe and the ORI was suspended. Half the members were exiled. The
ORI was then reorganised by Castro.
1960
RECAP
The terror state installed by Washington has already killed
some 70,000 to 80,000 people but could not contain the resistance it had
aroused by violence and repression.
Kennedy Took control
“As early as January
21st 1961 JCS understood that henceforth they were to be ruled…basic strategy
would be ruled by the president and himself [McNamara].”
In 1961 the US escalated the attack against South Vietnam,
moving from support for the standard Latin-style terror state that Eisenhower
had instituted to outright aggression, including bombing of civilian targets by
the US airforce, the use of napalm, crop destruction to starve out the
indigenous resistance. But to what level
was JFK involved?
In March 1961 US war planes were ordered to destroy “hostile
aircraft” over South Vietnam – was kept a closely guarded secret. –p444 Dallek,
JFK wanted to keep such actions secret.
McNamara directed US personnel and equipment to participate
directly in bombing and other military operations against South Vietnamese,
also authorising crop destruction and the use of napalm , sabotage and
intelligence operations against North Vietnam.
Dallek paints JFK as reluctant to enter into the Vietnam War
– he was vocal about it. But caved in. He was perfectly happy to break the 1954
treaty, lie about US involvement, cover-up US flying combat missions, calmly
talking about killing South Vietnamese leader. While dealing with him as an
ally, JFK under pressure, who from? Media? Business? Military?
As one highly expert study explains, the goal of Kennedy’s
1961 escalation was “to fight the insurgency by destroying its economic base
and disrupting the social fabric opf the areas where the [national liberation]
front was strongest.”
US involvement was changed from support for a standard Latin
America style terror state to direct aggression against South Vietnam. Internal
reports of 1962 described “indiscriminate firepower” that “undoubtedly killed
many innocent peasants and made many others more willing than before to
co-operate with the Viet Cong.”
By 1962, the Kennedy-McNamara war had far surpassed the
French war at its peak in terms of helicopters and aerial fire power. By
November 1963 US personnel in South Vietnam were almost at the level of France
in all of Indochina in 1949.
Fact finding mission to Saigon 1961. Taylor and Rostow went, their dismal report concluded that they
should support Diem. Recommended economic package plus 58,000 troops. Ball
disagreed and didn’t want to get mixed up in French style war. JFK told Ball he
was way off.
Diem
How mad was Diem? He refused to allow Chevrolet Corvettes to
be sold in the south as the name sounded too French.
In the south 18 nationalists send a petition to Diem
advocating that he reform his rigid, family-run, corrupt government. Diem
ignored the petition but closed opposition newspapers and arrested journalists
and intellectuals.
A coup to overthrow Diem was attempted in November. It
failed and a harsh crackdown followed, with 50,000 arrests, and many civilians
tortured & executed. Diem became even more unpopular. Thousands fled to
North Vietnam.
LBJ in May assured “pro-western Asians that the US had no
intention of withdrawing and to put pressure on Premier Ngo Dinh Diem in SVN to
step up his efforts to improve conditions in that country.” LBJ “stressed the
importance of the area for the US and the consequent need for American action
there.”
Eugene A Stanley, a Stanford economist, went to work with
Saigon to increase ‘aid’ to Vietnam. He decided to increase the size of MAAG
–against the 1954 Geneva Accords.
On October 24th JFK sent a letter to Diem pledging “the US
is determined to help Vietnam preserve its independence…”
He then sent additional miliitary advisors and US helicopter
units to transport and direct South Vietnam troops in battle thus involving US
troops in combat operations. JFK justifies expanding the US role as a means
“…to prevent a communist takeover of vietnam” as US had done since 1954.
Diem became a real problem to the White House by 1962. The
US had already withdrawn a thousand advisors to protest Diem’s refusal to
reform. JFK promised to pull out the rest soon after the 1964 election.
The North
North Vietnam responded to the deepening crisis by
introducing universal military conscription with indefinite tour of duty
(April).
Of these many returned to the South as members of the
North’s People’s Liberation Armed Forces, the Viet Cong (communist Vietnamese).
In December the National Liberation Front was set up as the political
organisation for Viet Cong guerrillas.
The National Liberation Front was started by the Viet Cong -
left wing guerrillas in the north. Unpopular priests were beaten. Brutal
landlords shot. Their gunmen driven out. Food surpluses stolen and
redistributed. It made the NLF very popular. In the US-backed south all they
had was the threat of torture and/or summary execution for anyone caught
helping the VC. Crude and not effective.
Ho Chi Minh - the Vietnamese will fight “whatever the
sacrifices, however long the struggle… until Vietnam is fully independent and
reunified.”
Laos
Laos – from Dallek – three sided civil war. Pathet Lao
communists, pro west royalists, neutralists – presented the possibility of
communist control in Laos and all of south east Asia (?!?). and if Laos fell,
then Thailand would fall, then the Philippines, or so they believed. Even the
Nationalist regime on Formosa would go.
Ike favoured unilateral intervention was against the
coalition government but was reluctant to intervene.
Laos was stable but guerrilla warfare was intensifying in
Vietnam.
1960 (?) – At the start of the year Phoumi went to battle
with Pathet Lao forces at Nan Tha/ Thu (?), near border with Thailand and was
completely routed. Eisenhower threatened to interfere and met with CIA director
John McCane. This worried JFK. JFK’s actions were designed to neutralise the esinhower
threat. Pathet lao immediately agreed to resuming negotiation and june 12
laotian faction agreed to form a coalition government under phoumi. The times
(London) reported that the CIA was “actively opposing US policy in Laos and
working against a neutral government.” But Krushchev was supportive of JFK’s
actions.
Command operation – military build up during guerrilla war
in 1962.
Crisis in Laos after the Bay of Pigs debacle. Procommunist
Pathet Lao advancing on cabinet. Royal Laotian army was refusing to fight –
giving in.
Eisenhower had sent $300m military aid. JFK’s military
advisers insisted that the Pentagon airlift 60,000 US troops to the landlocked
country.
JFK had learned from Bay of Pigs and questioned his
advisors, eventually decided on a political solution against his advice. He
proposed a coalition government and included Pathet Lao. Unthinkable under
Eisenhower. Lao accepted deal and peace was achieved.
US presence
October - 30% of all missions in South Vietnam had USAF
pilots. US directly involved in large military actions in Mekong Delta and
Camau Peninsula.
By 1962 there were 10,000 US troops in South Vietnam. Air
commandos of Special Operations Force “wearing civilian clothes and flying
planes with marking of South Vietnamese Air Force…attacked VC concentrations in
the jungles.”
JFK sent 400 US Green Beret “special advisors” to south
vietnam to train soldiers in methods of ‘counter insurgency’ against Viet Cong
guerrillas. The GBs established Civilian Irregular Defence Groups (CIDG) of
fierce mountain men – the Montagnards who wnet on to establish fortified camps
along mountains to thwart North Vinetam infiltration.
The US was involved in direct military attacks against
indigenous popular forces in South Vietnam.
B-52s were being based in Guam and Thailand.
Despite this on January 15th, during a press conference, JFK
denied any US combatants were involved in fighting in Vietnam.
By November 1963 US personnel in South Vietnam were almost
at the level of France in all of Indochina in 1949.
The War
1961
July 23rd Declaration of the neutrality of Laos signed in
Geneva but the US and 13 other nations prohibits US invasion of portions of the
Ho Chi Minh trail inside eastern Laos.
In the Autumn the conflict widened, 26,000 VC launched attacks
on South Vietnamese troops, successfully. Diem requested more military aid.
October –Top JFK aides Maxwell Taylor and Walt Rostow
visited Vietnam to look at the deteriorating situation. Taylor advised
expanding the number of military advisors and to send 8,000 combat soldiers.
McNamara and the JCS recommended alternative - that of a massive show of
strength – six divisions (200,000 men) to Vietnam. President decided against
any combat troops.
On October 11th 1961 Kennedy ordered a dispatch of a USAF farmgate
squadron to south Vietnam, 12 planes especially equipped for counter-insurgency
warfare (combat modified T-28 fighter bomber trainers, SC-47s, and B-26
bombers), soon authorised “to fly coordinated missions with Vietnamese
personnel in support of Vietnamese ground forces.”
November Neutrality Agreement on Laos - fell apart over the winter of 61 – 62. US
client General Nosavan Phouni refused to share power with two rivals as
required in the agreement.
In December VC guerrillas now control much countryside of
south vietnam and frequently ambush south Vietnamese troops. US costs rises to
$1m a day.
On December 16th McNamara authorised their participation in
combat operations. These were the first steps in engaging of US forces directly
in bombing and other combat operations in South Vietnam from 1962, along with
sabotage missions in the north.- Chomsky, “501” page 271.
1962:
February 6th MACV, the US military assistance Command for
Vietnam is formed. It replaces MAAG, The military assistance advisory group,
established in 1950.
February 27th two renegade South Vietnamese pilots flying US
made WW2 fighters bomb the presidential palace in Saigon. Diem and his brother
survive unhurt.
March – operation Sunrise – begins the Strategic Hamlet
resettlement program where several million individuals from rural population in
South Vietnam are driven from their ancestral farmlands into “fortified
villages” or concentration camps defended by local militias. However over 50 of
the hamlets are infiltrated and taken over by VC who kill or intimidate village
leaders. So Diem orders bombing raids against suspected VC hamlets, supported
by US pilots. Civilian casualties erode popular support for Diem and result in
growing peasant hostility towards the USA.
US admit bombing and strafing in Vietnam in a public
statement.
In May VC organised into battalion sized units operating in
central Vietnam.
McNamara visited South Vietnam and announced “we are
winning”.
LBJ – as V-P – was sent to South Vietnam to show support for
Diem – it was his first personal contact with Vietnam.
V-P Johnson went to Vietnam in May to see Diem. He went on
to hail Diem as “Winston Churchill of Asia”.
A VC victory on Jan 3rd 1963– Battle of Ap Bac – is front
page news in the USA. 350 VC fighters managed
to defeat a large force of US-equipped SVN troops trying to take a radio
transmitter. Three yanks in a helicopter were also killed. Were SVN forces so
crap because Diem wanted them to avoid conflict as much as possible?
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