1963: racial strife

Racial Strife

George C Wallace was sworn in as Governor of Alabama, 14th January 1963, with a pledge of “segregation forever”.

MLK and JFK p.306

JFK warned King of close surveillance and not to lose his cause over a friend.

Two reporters responsible for the June 23rd story “V-girl scandal” were hauled from their homes in NY and flown to Washington in K’s prvate jet.

Reporters refused to name their sources. B threatened to bring an anti-trust suit against the paper. Hearst’s editors then dropped the story.

Suzy Chang was the other woman – not a prostitute – but moved in the wealthy London circles associated with Profumo.

Rometsch expulsion – pp 310, 311

In October K had no choice but to agree to tap MLK’s phone. October – this was the moment Kennedys lost control of Hoover – p312.

Iraq

In 1963 he authoritarian and anti-communist Baath Party was still small. A relatively small political faction in the Iraqi army. That was until the CIA decided to support them.

Hani Fkaiki, former Baathist leader – SH was among party members colluding with the CIA in 1962 and 1963. The 1963 coup was a bloodbath.

Saddam returned from Egypt and took part in he coup hat overthrew and killed Kassem.

5000 members of the Iraqi communist Party were hunted down and killed by the military regime that seized power in a February 1963 coup. The hit-list was provided by the CIA.

Britain welcomed the massacres and the new regime; foreign office wrote “such harshness may well have been necessary as a short term expedient.” The new rulers “have shown courage and steadfastness in hatching and executing their plot.”and they should be “somewhat friendlier to the west.”

Saddam Hussein was involved in the torture of leftists during the coup Britain supplied arms to Baghdad to support what they called the new regime’s “terror campaign” against the Kurds. Wilson decided not to reply to Kurdish leader, Mustafa Barzami, when he privately appealed in 1965 to prevent further use of weapons supplied by the British.

Johnson asked for more troops in Iraq in 1965 and got them. That was nearly double the number of US combat troops in Vietnam during 1965 “But with each US escalation came an increase in the number of Communist troops in South Vietnam and an increase in the violence.”

King and Abernathy were arrested on 12th April, released 19th April.

May 7th conflict in Birmingham reached peak when water cannons forced demonstrators from business districts. “Bull” Connor employed dogs, clubs, and cattle prods to disperse 4000 demonstrators in downtown Birmingham.

A Racist Governor & a Vicious Police Chief

Alabama’s racist governor George Wallace refused to surrender. June 11th he threatened to stand in the doorway of the state Uni to block the de-seg. On June 11, 1963 George Wallace, Gov of Alabama, stood in front of Foster Auditorium at the University of Alabama in an attempt to stop desegregation of that institution by the enrollment of two black students, Vivian Malone and James Hood. This became known as the "Stand in the Schoolhouse Door." Wallace stood aside only after being confronted by federal marshals, Deputy Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach, and the Alabama National Guard. However, there is evidence that the entire encounter was partially or wholly coordinated with the Kennedy administration to allow Wallace to save face with Alabama voters.[5]

He’d been elected governor on a pro-segregation, pro-states' rights platform in a landslide victory the previous year, proclaiming, “I say segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever”. 

Wallace disapproved vehemently of the desegregation of the state of Alabama and wanted desperately for his state to remain segregated. In his own words he says "The President (Kennedy) wants us to surrender this state to Martin Luther King and his group of pro-Communists who have instituted these demonstrations". Alabama Governor George Wallace, public statement of May 8, 1963 in the New York Times. May 9, 1963).  Wikipedia

JFK sent in 100s of US Marshalls. 1000s of troops in helicopters. Wallace had to step aside. Integration went ahead. JFK went on telly: “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 schools available; if he cannot vote for the public officials who represented 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 colour of his skin changed and send in his place?” JFK on telly June 11th 1963.

Within hours Mississippi NAACP leader Medgar Evers was shot and killed outside his home in Jackson.

Birmingham – the most racist big city in the US. Vicious chief of police, Theophilus “Bull” Connor. JFK received criticism for not helping.

JFK intervened after a day of brutality in Birmingham. He said “the civil rights movement owes Bull Connor as much as it owes Abraham Lincoln.”

He negotiated de-seg but next day terror began – Dr King’s brother had a bomb go off in his home. Another went off at Movement HQ. Then riots. Police attacked black neighbourhoods. JFK ordered troops into the city.

Thích Quảng Đức (died June 11, 1963) was protesting the persecution of Buddhists by South Vietnam's Ngô Đình Diệm administration. Photos of his self-immolation were circulated widely across the world and brought attention to the policies of the Diệm regime. Malcolm Browne won a Pulitzer Prize for his iconic photo of the monk's death, as did David Halberstam for his written account. After his death, his body was re-cremated, but his heart remained intact. This was interpreted as a symbol of compassion and led Buddhists to revere him as a bodhisattva, heightening the impact of his death on the public psyche.

Thích Quảng Đức's act increased international pressure on Diệm and led him to announce reforms with the intention of mollifying the Buddhists. However, the promised reforms were implemented either slowly or not at all, leading to a deterioration in the dispute. With protests continuing, the Special Forces loyal to Diệm's brother, Ngô Ðình Nhu, launched nationwide raids on Buddhist pagodas, seizing the holy heart and causing deaths and widespread damage. Several Buddhist monks followed Thích Quảng Đức's example and burned themselves to death. Eventually, an Army coup toppled and killed Diệm in November. The self-immolation is widely seen as the turning point of the Vietnamese Buddhist crisis which led to the change in regime.

After approximately ten minutes, Thích Quảng Đức's body toppled forward onto the street and the fire subsided. A group of monks covered the smoking corpse with yellow robes, picked it up and tried to fit it into a coffin, but the limbs could not be bent and one of the arms protruded from the wooden box as he was carried to the nearby Xa Loi Pagoda in central Saigon. Outside the pagoda, students unfurled bilingual banners which read: "A Buddhist priest burns himself for our five requests." By 13:30, around one thousand monks had congregated inside Xa Loi to hold a meeting while outside a large crowd of pro-Buddhist students had formed a human barrier around it. The meeting soon ended and all but a hundred monks slowly left the compound. Nearly one thousand monks accompanied by laypeople returned to the cremation site. The police lingered nearby. At around 18:00, 30 nuns and six monks were arrested for holding a prayer meeting on the street outside Xa Loi Pagoda. The police then encircled the pagoda, blocking public passage and giving observers the impression that an armed siege was imminent by donning riot gear.[22] That evening, thousands of Saigonese claimed to have seen a vision of the Buddha's face in the sky as the sun had set. They claimed that in the vision the Buddha was weeping.[23]

Funeral and aftermath

After the self-immolation, the U.S. put more pressure on Diệm to re-open negotiations on the faltering agreement. Diệm had scheduled an emergency cabinet meeting at 11:30 on June 11 to discuss the Buddhist crisis which he believed to be winding down. Following Thích Quảng Đức's death, Diệm cancelled the meeting and met individually with his ministers. Acting U.S. Ambassador to South Vietnam William Trueheart, warned Nguyen Dinh Thuan, Diệm's Secretary of State of the desperate need for an agreement, saying that the situation was "dangerously near breaking point" and expected that Diệm would meet the Buddhists' five-point manifesto. United States Secretary of State Dean Rusk warned the Saigon embassy that the White House would publicly announce that it would no longer "associate itself" with the regime if this did not occur.[24] The Joint Communique and concessions to the Buddhists were signed on June 16.[25]

June 15 was set as the date for the funeral of Thích Quảng Đức, and on that day 4,000 people gathered outside Xa Loi Pagoda, only for the ceremony to be postponed. On June 19, his remains were carried out of Xa Loi to a cemetery 16 kilometers (10 miles) south of the city for a re-cremation and funeral ceremony. Following the signing of the Joint Communique, attendance was limited by agreement between Buddhist leaders and police to approximately 400 monks.[25]

After Thích Quảng Đức, self-immolations were carried out by five further members of the Vietnamese Buddhist clergy up until late October 1963 as the Buddhist protests in Vietnam escalated.[40] On November 1, the Army of the Republic of Vietnam overthrew Diệm in a coup. Diệm was assassinated after the coup on November 2.[41] Monks have continued to burn themselves since, although for reasons unrelated to Diệm, such as honoring the Buddha.[42]

The Americans in Saigon often found the self-immolations to be surreal and made puns about "bonze fires" and "hot cross bonzes", almost as an escape mechanism from the bewilderment.[43] In one instance, the young son of an American officer based at the U.S. Embassy in Saigon doused himself with gasoline and set himself on fire. He was seriously burned before the fire was extinguished and later could only offer the explanation that "I wanted to see what it was like."[43] Thích Quảng Đức's actions were twice fatally copied in the United States in protests against the Vietnam War. Norman Morrison, a 31-year-old Quaker pacifist, poured kerosene over himself and set light to himself below the third-floor window of Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara at the Pentagon on November 2, 1965. Alice Herz, an 82-year-old woman, also burned herself that year in Detroit, Michigan.[44] Wikipedia

In 1963 the Kennedys started a dossier on Hoover but June 1963 – new woman trouble – Profumo.

According to persistent reports JFK had dallied with two of the women involved. 22 year old prostitute of Anglo-Czech parentage Mariella Novatny. In early 1961 – she’d been in New York. Procured by Peter Lawford for JFK.

N’s name linked to alleged Soviet vice ring at the UN. June 23rd NY Journo ------US aide implicated in vice girl scandal but Kennedy wasn’t named. - summers

28th August The March on Washington for jobs and Freedom attracted more than 200,000 demonstrators to the Lincoln Memorial. Organised by A Philip Randolph and Bayard Rustin, the march is supported by all major civil rights organisations as well as by many labour and religious groups. King delivered his “I have a dream” speech.

Then King met JFK and VP LBJ in the White House.

The Sept. 15, 1963, bombing at the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, was one of the most abhorrent crimes of the civil rights movement. Four young girls attending Sunday school—Denise McNair, Cynthia Wesley, Carole Robertson, and Addie Mae Collins, aged 11 to 14—were killed when a bomb exploded at the church. Twenty others were injured. The church was a center for civil rights meetings, and just a few days earlier, courts had ordered the desegregation of Birmingham's schools.

Bobby Frank Cherry, a demolitions expert, and three other white supremacists—Robert Chambliss, Thomas Blanton, and Herman Cash—were under investigation within days of the bombing. But two years later, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover declined to pursue the case, saying the chances for conviction were "remote." In 1968, federal authorities shut down the investigation.

In the 1970s, after a U.S. Justice Department investigation revealed that former FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover had blocked evidence, Jefferson County, Ala., prosecutors reopened the case. More than a decade-and-a-half after the crime, the ringleader, Robert Chambliss, was convicted of one count of murder in the death of Carol McNair in 1977. He died in prison in 1985 without ever publicly admitting a role in the bombing. By this time, it was too late to try suspect Herman Cash, who had died in 1994.

The remaining two suspects in the case, Thomas Blanton and Bobby Frank Cherry, were finally indicted in 2000—more than two decades after Chambliss's conviction—when an FBI agent in Birmingham obtained more than 9,000 FBI documents and surveillance tapes that had been kept from the original prosecutors. Blanton was convicted of murder in 2001 and sentenced to life in prison. In Cherry's trial, several of his relatives came forward to testify against him. Cherry had bragged to a number of them over the years about the bombing. In 2002, he was convicted of four counts of murder and sentenced to life in prison, where he died in 2004. One of the prosecutors in the case, Robert Posey, said Cherry "has worn this crime like a badge of honor." From an article by Borgna Brunner

29th September King is assaulted by an American Nazi at the SCLC conference in Birmingham, Alabama.

October 10th  Robert Kennedy authorised the FBI to wire tap King’s home telephone. Did JFK mention this when they met?

Civil Rights Act just made it through a deadlocked Congressional subcommittee got into House Rules Committee November 21st 1963 just as JFK left for a speech-making tour of Texas.

Cuba

See Kennedy and Castro: the secret history

A fleeting back-channel contact between the two men managed by a network news woman.

Who runs CUBANET.ORG?

“It argues preposterously that these two hateful adversaries were on the verge of kissing and making up when Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas.”

Actually based on sound documentary evidence from the FoI Act.

Lisa Howard “pretty, bland soap opera star turned news anchor who hosted ABC’s afternoon news” went on “a one woman crusade for rapprochent.”

She managed to arrange face to face meetings between members of US and US delegates to the UN. Howard was wife of a top CIA official – spearheaded a small group of Washigton wives “who were trying to alter American politics by dosing their husbands with LSD.”

She turned against Kennedy and lost her job at ABC when she formed goup to campaign against Kennedy’s senate campaign.

In 1965 she killed herself.

17 days before his death JFK had managed to organise an American intermediary meeting with Castro.

Cuba was trapped in a relationship with the USSR, but wanted to reach an accommodation with the US. The news was relayed to JFK by Adlai Stephenson on 19th September 1963. Kennedy Conspiracy p 303

JFK wanted the process to be kept secret – CIA officers had for years been trying to topple Castro. This is where Lisa Howard came in – to act as a go-between for contacts with Havana.

There is ambiguity in JFK’s attitude to cuba. He seemed more liberal. But Bobby headed the anti-Cuban activities and there’s evidence in recent years that JFK was active in a duplicitous way towards Castro. Kennedy conspiracy p 304

The “signal” speech made in Miami on November 18th – Jean David said this was either an encouragement to castro to stand up to “a small band of conspirators” or that JFK saw Castro as one of the “conspirators” to be removed. Kennedy conspiracy p 305

It’s likely that JFK was offering support to those who wanted to removed Castro. The Kennedy brothers, despite the Attwood contacts with Havana pressed ahead with plans for Castro’s removal and assassination.

CIA officers met with Rolando Cubela to discuss how the Cuban leader could be removed – through Autumn 1963 at the same time that JFK was openly in dialogue with Castro.

Dean Rusk talking in 1994 – he learned of the coup-planning some time agfter the assassination and explained it was an “either/ or situation - that went on frequently.” It was a dangerous game.

A few months before he died, JFK was finally able to set up a network of trusted intelligence sources – South America? – might be Cuba

The End

It had been public knowledge for weeks that JFK would visit Dallas. On 20th September, the date 22nd November was announced. At exactly this time a so-called 2nd Oswald began to make appearances in Texas.

- A.Summers, page 306

Strongman and Parker on JFK assassination pages 58/59/60; 63/63; 66/67.

Who Wanted JFK dead? Everyone – Except Oswald

The military-industrial complex that Eisenhower had warned about wanted Kennedy gone - US Chiefs of Staff, arms manufacturers, steel and oil industries.

The mob were upset by Robert’s anti-mafia crusade.

Anti-Castro groups hand in glove with the CIA wanted JFK gone.

The FBI was hostile to JFK from the start. JFK wanted Hoover to retire.

LBJ had plenty to gain from JFK’s elimination too. Now he could avoid the Estes and Bobby Baker financial scandals. He was photographed smiling soon after Kennedy’s death. He cancels NSAM 263 and then tells Hoover he won’t be forced to resign his directorship in 1964.

LBJ set up the Warren Commission, bringing in right wing Ford, & Dulles who Kennedy fired over the Bay of Pigs.

YOUTUBE – short film makes point that LBJ chose route of motorcade – if this is true it further implicates LBJ

Eventually, practitioners of assassination by the removal of power reach the point where they see that technique as fit for the removal of opposition anywhere. That was why President Kennedy was killed. He was not murdered by some lone, gunman or by some limited conspiracy, but by the breakdown of the protective system that should have made an assassination impossible. Once insiders knew that he would not be protected, it was easy to pick the day and the place. In fact, those responsible for luring Kennedy to Dallas on November 22, 1963 were not even in on the plan itself. He went to Texas innocuously enough: to dedicate an Air Force hospital facility at Brooks Air Force Base in San Antonio. It was not too difficult then to get him to stop at Fort Worth - "to mend political fences." Of course, no good politician would go to Fort Worth and skip Dallas. All the conspirators had to do was to let the right "mechanics" know where Kennedy would be and when and, most importantly, that the usual precautions would not have been made and that escape would be facilitated. This is the greatest single clue to that assassination. Who had the power to call off or drastically reduce the usual security precautions that always are in effect whenever a president travels? Castro did not kill Kennedy, nor did the CIA. The power source that arranged that murder was on the inside. It had the means to reduce normal security and permit the choice of a hazardous route. It also has had the continuing power to cover up that crime for twelve years.

L. Fletcher Prouty

C:\Documents and Settings\Admin\My Documents\The Book\research documents\April Commentary.htm  in my system

Events

President shot. The number of bullets and what happened. The witnesses – ones we never normally hear about.

Passerby James Tague was hit by a bullet. He was ignored by the WC – see page 74 of Strongman and Parker.

The circumstances surrounding oswald’s attempt to flee the scene. Police chase. The dead policeman who looked a little like kennedy.

Capture in a cinema.

Oswald said he was the patsy. The publicly reconstructed Oswald killed the president to gain personal notieriety, so why then did he deny carrying out the shooting? Oswald’s letter was destroyed.

Dodgy autopsy. Tampered evidence.

Jack Ruby’s suspicious motivations. He loved JFK apparently, which is why he was driven to shoot Oswald. His mafia connections were denied and later belittled. Why?

The leftist Fair Play For cuba was forced out of business by their Oswald connection.

By November 1963 US personnel in South Vietnam were almost at the level of France in all of Indochina in 1949.

Lee Harvey Oswald

The Lone gunman. LHO as we know him is a patched together misfit of various psychological traits to prove that he was purely self motivated in shooting the president. A communist, a Castro sympathiser, a political activist, psychologically unstable.

The fact that many doubted LHO’s role in the JFK assassination as the assassin may have been due to the fact that not one witness saw him shoot.

In December 1963 Truman wrote in a syndicated newspaper article “For some time I have been disturbed by the way CIA has been diverted from its original…..taled off – See Wise and Ross for complete text

In 1963, the US Air Force started development of the Manned Orbital Laboratory (MOL), a small space station primarily intended for photo reconnaissance using large telescopes directed by a two-man crew. It also had the designation KH-10 - Dorian. The station was the same diameter as a Titan II upper stage. The stations were to be launched with the crew riding atop in a modified Gemini capsule with a hatch cut into the heat shield on the bottom of the capsule.[1][2]

A number of NASA centers saw the MOL as something of a threat, and started back-room studies on various space station designs of their own.[citation needed] Most of these were simply "back of a napkin" type designs with no official backing. Studies generally looked at platforms launched by the Saturn V, followed up by crews launched on Saturn IB using an Apollo Command and Service Module (CSM), or alternately Gemini capsule on a Titan II-C, the latter being much less expensive in the case where cargo was not needed.

But at the same time NASA was also looking for proposals for a major post-Apollo follow-on mission, including studies of a very large 24-man station with an operating lifetime of about five years. Lockheed Martin was involved in this project, and proposed a station that they felt would be a natural follow-on to the moon missions. One requirement for a permanent station would be periodic resupply, and for this role Lockheed suggested both Apollo-derived cargo vehicles and a new lifting body craft. After a lengthy and circuitous history, the new supply vehicle would emerge as the Space Shuttle, and their space station proposal as Space Station Freedom. Wikipedia

Military-Industrial -intelligence

Advanced Technology

X-15 rocket in the mid 60s. A rocket plane which reached Mach 5.

The Blackbirds superseded by satellite technology. Went to the edge of earth’s atmosphere – flew as high as 60 miles – early shuttle technology – weightlessness experience – achieved 6.7 Mach , 1 ½ miles per second – heat a problem – Edwards Air Force base, a dried up lake bed, served as landing strip. Missions provided data for NASA.

Direct energy weapons discovered during high altitdue nuclear test. Code name “statrfish”. “warriors of the night” Ernest Volkman.

Controlling the Mind

The science of mind control. Shrouded in secrecy, and much invested in by US intelligence, military, secret government.

ARTICHOKE and BLUEBIRD projects led to MKULTRA. It was purely to help with interrogations but the CIA hoped that it would yield either assassins to eliminate troublemakers or patsies – fall guys that killings could be blamed on.

See Clockwork Orange about this sort of manipulationof the brain. Years later Roger Lewis tried to access Burgess’s CIA file and was told that it was not available for ‘national security‘ reasons.

MKULTRA began at fort Bliss and then shifted to several US cities. Techniques involved

             manipulation of the brain’s alpha waves:

             sodium pentathol, a so-called truth drug

             deep hypnosis

             autosuggestion

             hallucinogenic drugs

LSD was dished out to unwitting CIA workers and ‘outside agency’ citizens. Sometimes to casual passers by. People attending hospital for minor psychiatric ailments were injected with a big dose of mescaline.

See ‘John Lennon and the FBI Files’ Strongman & Parker pp 34, 35, 36

Especially page 36 – about Frank Olson & Harold Blaur.

FIND WHERE MKULTRA BEGINS – PULL IT ALL TOGETHER

“The Manchurian Candidate” directed by John Frankenheimer, based on the novel by Richard Condon.

Brainwashing techniques began with Pavlov in the early 20th Century. He discovered isolation, periodic denial of food and water, cold and exposure, life/death stress and indoctrination produced erasing of previous behavioral conditioning

Pavlov used dogs. In the 1950s the Chinese experimented with people.

Stanford University 1960s.

William Colby

“controlling human behaviour” funded by Dept of Defence.

MKULTRA and Dr. Jose Delgado.

A radio controlled bull in 1985.

See also “parallax view” Movie by Alan J Pakula (1974).

Kennedy and Civil rights

http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/john_kennedy_and_civil_rights.htm

Thaw in the Cold War – opportunity missed?

Krushchev had disclosed the man-power strength of the Soviet armed force in January 1960. This was the first time this had happened since WW2. He announced a dramatic reduction by one third over the next two years. But the USA failed to respond. As the USSR then began to implement this policy unilaterally, the US continued to ignore it. Not surprising since the Pentagon appeared to be running things in the White House.

After the Gary Powers incident Krushchev refused to meet Eisenhower. Was this due to his dead duck status? Was he banking on soon to be president JFK being a pushover? He nearly ended up having to deal with Nixon.

JFK New foreign policy

He started out trying to implement a ‘flexible response’ policy. Put forward by aide Maxwell Taylor, with McNamara being appointed to apply it. To do this he needed to increase the arms budget. He managed to get his defence requests through congress. He was also persuaded to invite Krushchev to a meeting. The invitation was sent in February, but wasn’t answered until after the Bay of Pigs fiasco.

McNamara was to stoke up the cold war yet more – he insisted that the US needed 1,000 nuke missiles to counter the Red Menace. This when the USSR had precisely 4 missiles. – Washington Babylon.

Cold War

In January Krushchev pledged Soviet support for “wars of national liberation” throughout the world. His statement greatly encouraged “communists” in North Vietnam to escalate their armed struggle to unify the country. LOOK UP SPEECH – WHAT DID HE SAY? WHY? WHO AT SPECIFICALLY?

After the Bay of Pigs – Krushchev decided to accept JFK’s invitation to meet.

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 concessioin 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 countires 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.

The Berlin Wall

After, 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. 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.

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 defense 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”.

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.

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 the 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. “

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.

Berlin

JFK visited Berlin on 26th June 1963.

A-Bomb tests

28th August the USSR announced resumption of nuclear testing – JFK’s response was to say “fucked again”. On the 25th Septemebr JFK made disarmament proposals in the UN. On the 30th October USSR tested a 50 megaton bomb. JFK ordered preparations for the resumption of US atmospheric testing.

Krushchev’s “We will bury you AGAIN WHY? AND PRECISELY WHEN?

Nukes

The US had over 500 nukes that could reach the USSR  while Russians had around 20 that could hit the US mainland. Colonel Jack D ripper in Strangelove was said to have been based on Curtis.

Hotline

The hotline between Moscow and Washington was active by the end of August 1963.

Test Ban Treaty

The nuke test ban treaty had been signed – the US, UK, USSR signed it.

1962 July – the Peruvian government overturned an elecetion and arrested President Manuel Prado.

Ecuador

CIA-backed military forced the democratically elected President Jose Velasco to resign. V-P Carlos Arosemana replaced him. The CIA field the vacant V-P slot with its own man.

A CIA  backed military coup overthrew President Arosemana, whose independent policies have become unacceptable to Washington. A military junta assumed command, cancelled the 1964 elections and began abusing human rights.

British Guiana

In February there was a problem. Leader Jagan Lordan saw no threat. CIA and state dept had already decided to overthrow Jagan. The US discouraged GB from granting independence until 1963. Other discussions between JFK and MacMillan could go ahead.

Former GB colony – wanted to grant independence in august 1961. Cheddi Jagan, the head of the People’s Progressive Party, had “leftist leanings”. JFK pressed the GB to stop Jagan’s election in August – unsuccessful; or allow US to stop it.

Mexico

E Howard Hunt was stationed there. This guy had served the OSS during WW2, then the CIA and for a while was stationed in China. He wrote spy novels. In the 60s he worked to undermine legitimate government in Guatemala.

Cuba

Operation Mongoose

Commanded by Theodore Shackley. Documents regarding the incorporation of businesses were falsified, income tax returns were faked. FAA regulations were violated by planes taking off for Cuba or for forward bases in the Bahamas and elsewhere. Explosives moved across highways that were full of civilian traffic. The munitions act, the neutrality act, the customs and immigration laws were routinely flouted .

“Gallant anti-communist fighters filled their planes and boats with illegal narcotics to be smuggled back into the US when they returned from their missions. By 1963, the drug running activities of the covert operatives were beginning to attract attention. JM/WAVE, accelerated the slide of Miami area towards being the drug and murder capital of the USA.

According to Chester Bowles Bobby was “a true believer in counter insurgency.” The Kennedys wanted to train guerrilla fighters “to combat communist subversion” and “train 3rd world police forces to counter clandestine infiltration and communist inspired mob violence.”

Kennedy’s administration carried out an “international terrorist campaign against Cuba.

At their secret meeting Ike had advised JFK that he was helping anti-Castro forces to the utmost and that the US was currently training such a group in Guatemala.

The US had fixed the Cuban quota at zero in December 16th for the first quarter of 1961 – establishing the policy of eliminating the Cuban quota entirely.

“31st March JFK reduced sugar quota in US markets to zero. May 1st 1961 Castro nationalised all private schools, many catholic, and upset the church. Religious education restricted to church itself from May 1st.”

In Cuba, by 1961 popular militias number greater than 300,000 committees for the defense of the Revolution nearly 800,000.

Council for Coordination, execution, and inspection, JUCEI had attributes of a local political authority and a special state apparatus for coordination and inspection at the local or provincial level…it functioned from 1961 to September 1965. Mounting activities of counter revolutionary invasion forces.

January 2nd Castro demanded that the US embassy persons assigned to Havana be cut down to eleven, the same number as in Cuban embassy, Washington.

Eisenhower responded the next day by severing diplomatic relations.

Buddhist immolations

In May 1963 there were Buddhist riots in SVN when they were denied the right to display religious flags during their celebration of Buddha’s birthday. SVN and army troops shot demonstrators in Hue killing one woman and eight children. JFK came under enormous pressure to cut off support for Diem. A Buddhist told US officials, “you are responsible for the present trouble because you back Diem and his government of ignoramuses.”

From June to August the Buddhist demonstrations spread. Some burned themselves to death in protest. Pictures of these events caused further PR problems for the pro-War faction in the US.

So Diem imposed marshall law with US trained squads carrying out violent crack-downs on Buddhists. More anti-Diem protests followed. Nhu Diem’s flamboyant wife gave a US interview where she referred flippantly to the Buddhist immolations as a barbecue. The situation worsens. The White House begin to talk about what to do with Diem.

July 4th SVN general, Tran Van Don, a Buddhist, contacted the CIA in Saigon about staging a coup against Diem. On Aug 22nd new US ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge arrived in SVN. On the 24th a US state dept message sent to Lodge is interpreted by Lodge so that he should encourage the military coup against Diem. On the 26th Lodge met Diem for first time. Under instructions from JFK Lodge tells Diem to fire his brother and to reform his government. Diem refuses to even discuss these matters. 26th JFK and top aides began three days of heated discussions over whether the US should support the coup against Diem. 29th Lodge sends a message to Washington stating “…there is no possibility, in my view, that the war can be won under a Diem administration”. JFK gave Lodge free hand to manage events in Saigon. However the coup fizzled out due to suspicion within the conspirators.

September 2nd JFK described Diem as “out of touch with the people” on a tv interview. Moreover, the SVN government might regain popular support “with changes in policy and perhaps in personnel.” JFK also confirmed his commitment to Vietnam, “if we withdrew from VN the communists would control VN. Pretty soon, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Malaya, would go…”

October 2nd JFK sent Lodge a mixed message that “no initiative should now be taken to give any encouragement to a coup.” But that Lodge should “identify and build contacts with possible leadership as and when it appears.” 5th Lodge informed JFK that the coup against Diem appeared to be on again. The rebel generals led by Duong Van “big” Minh first ask for assurances that US aid to SVN will continue after Diem’s removal and that the US will not interfere with the actual coup. This scenario suits the White House as it would appear that there was no direct US involvement. JFK gave his approval. The CIA then signalled to conspirators that the US would not interfere. On 25th White House sought assurances from Lodge that the coup will succeed. On 28th Lodge reported that coup was imminent. 29th A nervous White House instructs Lodge to postpone the coup. Lodge responds that it could only be stopped by betraying conspirators to Diem. (It was Gen Duong Van Minh  with two other senior SVN army officers) November 1st Lodge meets Diem in morning at the palace, then departs. At 1.30pm the coup begins as rebel troops roar into Saigon, surround the palace, seize police HQ. The Diems are trapped inside the palace and reject all appeals to surrender.

Diem telephones the rebel generals and attempts and rejects to talk them out of coup. Fails. Diem then calls Lodge and asks “…what is the attitude of the United States?” Lodge responds “…it is four thirty am in Washington and the US government cannot possibly have a view”. Lodge then expresses concern for Diem’s safety, to which Diem responds, “I am trying to restore order.”

At 8pm Diems slip out of the presidential palace unnoitced and got to a safe house in the suburbs that belongs to a wealthy Chinese merchant. November 2nd at 3 am Diem’s aides betrays his location to the generals. Diems offer to surrender inside a Catholic Chirch. They are taken into custody by rebel officers and placed in the back of an armoured personnel carrier. During the journey to Saigon the vehicle stops and Diem and Nhu are assassinated. – Minh’s personal bodyguard shot Diem and Ngu. “the Price of Power” Seymour M Hersh.

According to witnesses JFK’s face turned a ghostly shade of white when he was told. In his diary he wrote, “I feel that we must bear a good deal of responsibilty for it.”

Saigon celebrated the downfall of Diem’s regime. But the coup results in a power vaccuum in which a series of military and civilian governments seize control of SVN, a country that becomes totally dependent on the US for its existence.The VC use the unstable political situation to increase their hold over the rural population of SVN to nearly 40%. After the 22nd President JFK is assassinated in Dallas, and LBJ now grapples with the VN problem. He pretty much sticks with the same policy advisors that Kennedy used. 24th LBJ announced that he will not lose Vietnam during a meeting with Lodge in Washington.

By year’s end there are 16,300 US military advisors in SVN which received $500m in US aid during 1963.