Ken Burns' Series On Vietnam War A Must See For All Citizens

Once more, documentary TV series ('The Civil War', 'Baseball') creator Ken Burns has produced a gem, this time an 18-hour series on the Vietnam War to be televised over ten days on PBS starting Sunday.  Burns in a recent WSJ spotlight piece acknowledges the series" takes no sides on the war", neither left nor right. What he does is to enlist a wide range of eyewitnesses to history, including U.S. and Vietnamese veterans (including the North Vietnamese), family members and anti-war activists. All play their role and contribute to the series' staggering breadth and depth.

To Burns' credit the series is also unsparing in its rightful criticism of military and political leaders (with more than ample reason, as I will subsequently show).  These felons of history - especially the odious LBJ - deliberately carried out nefarious policies (like using Agent Orange on crops) in support of an unpopular and corrupt South Vietnamese regime, then escalating engagement despite doubts that they could prevail. This dynamic was particularly applicable to Johnson and Nixon given JFK had earlier (1963) tried to extricate the U.S. from this miasma that killed over 58,000. There is no issue on that, nor that  John F Kennedy actually attempted to prevent it by signing  National Security Action Memorandum 263. 

Burns goes all the way back to the French establishment of Indochina in 1858 as the spark point for future conflict, but the American involvement is less defined. What we do know is that soon after the 1960 election  Johnson - according to FOIA released documents- secretly courted the military to fire up American aggression though Kennedy was steadfastly against it  The back channel efforts to curry favor with the military (especially prime JFK hater Gen. Curtis Lemay) entailed setting up a network to receive actual Vietnam intelligence behind Kennedy’s back – while ensuring the spooks and Pentagon sources delivered only doctored pap to JFK.    (Months later Kennedy became aware of this which clinched one more reason for him to dump Johnson from the 1964 ticket) In many nations, this would be regarded as high treason, and anyone who did it (and was found out)  put before a firing squad.

Much of the credit in digging up the relevant records goes to Military Science Professor John Newman in his book, JFK and Vietnam which documents that by November 24, 1963 – two days after Kennedy was dead (and before he was even laid to rest)-  a policy shift transpired toward massive commitment to American military forces in Vietnam – despite Kennedy’s NSAM 263.  

In the words of another researcher, Peter Dale Scott (Deep Politics and the Death of JFK, p. 30) it also proved  that Johnson – since 1961  - "had been the ally of the Joint Chiefs and especially Air Force Gen. Curtis LeMay."  Let us recall for reference it was LeMay who compared Kennedy to Neville Chamberlain when he refused to go all out to bomb and invade Cuba  during the height of the Cuban Missile crisis.

Scott summarized Johnson’s treason nicely (op. cit., p. 31):

“A back channel had been established whereby ‘the boys in the woodwork’ were feeding (Howard) Burris and Johnson a steady stream of accurate Vietnam intelligence reports which were denied to the President.”

These latter were almost uniformly false and “optimistic”.

He goes on (ibid.):

“Meanwhile, U.S. Army Intelligence in Honolulu kept producing a second series of reports, more accurate and gloomy. These were denied to the President and McNamara but supplied by a secret intelligence back channel to Johnson”

Kennedy eventually realized the only way to throttle Johnson and his backchannel was to write and  approve National Security Action Memorandum 263 to move all personnel from Vietnam by calendar year 1965.  Let's examine this in more detail because it remains controversial especially among disinformationists and revisionist historians.

What is often actually cited as the NSAM, i.e.

http://www.jfklibrary.org/Asset-Viewer/w6LJoSnW4UehkaH9Ip5IAA.aspx

Is in fact only the cover letter by McGeorge Bundy. It has only passing relevance to the actual content of the NSAM, but it does clearly state “the President approved sections IB(1-3) of the report". Which report? To find these, the researcher must turn to Document 142 in The Pentagon Papers: ‘Report of McNamara - Taylor Mission to South Vietnam'. Then the serious researcher will read:

IB(2) A program be established to train Vietnamese so that essential functions now performed by U.S. military personnel can be carried out by the Vietnamese by the end of 1965. It should be possible to withdraw the bulk of U.S. military personnel by that time.

IB(3): In accordance with the program to train progressively Vietnamese to take over military functions, the Defense Department should announce in the very near future presently prepared plans to withdraw 1,000 U.S. military personnel by the end of 1963.

Note the wording and that a partial drawdown of 1,000 was due for the end of 1963 and the bulk by 1965. Most lazy wannabes or pseudo-historians never get this far while some others that do mistake the "1,000" total for the entire intended lot.

Those of us (Kennedy assassination researchers) who acknowledge that LBJ had a role in his death  - at least enabling its execution-  underscore this occurred because if JFK lived LBJ's NSAM 273 (to activate the Vietnam War) could not have gone forward. Those who question this are left to answer the question:  IF untrue, why is it that LBJ found it necessary to issue NSAM 273, essentially nullifying JFK's NSAM 263? 

As pointed out by  Peter Dale Scott ( 'Deep Politics and the Death of JFK')  Johnson’s NSAM 273   “deleted Kennedy’s restrictions and sanctioned plans for U.S. operations to begin shortly thereafter”. (That is, after Nov. 21 – one day before JFK was shot dead in Dallas).  In other words, the fell plans for reversing Kennedy’s NSAM were already in existence a day in advance of the date JFK was killed. Scott notes (p. 30) a draft of this NSAM 273 had presumptively been readied for Kennedy to see. (The draft prepared for Kennedy’s signature spoke only of “additional resources” given by the South Vietnamese to fight North Vietnam – as per JFK’s original instructions in NSAM 263 – but this was the part deleted.)

I advise those who want to seriously delve further into the background to LBJ's NSAM -273 to check out the information in the link below:

http://www.jfklancer.com/NSAM273.html

Scott has also correctly observed that in the wake of this perfidy most media sources (e.g. Michael Specter in the NY Times) and talking heads (e.g. Noam Chomsky)  who prattled that “NSAM 273 continued Kennedy’s policies”,  did nothing of the sort. Scott further observes (p. 29)  that "even The Nation participated in this obfuscation of the record."  The Nation?  That icon of liberal media? You'd better believe it! At times, and too often to count, liberals can lose their bearings as much as conservatives.

Let’s bear in mind that the NSAM 273 perversion led directly to an even greater outrage, the fabrication of the Tonkin Gulf incident  in August 1964, when two U.S. gunboats - the Turner Joy and Maddox-  were allegedly attacked without provocation. This precipitated the Tonkin Gulf Resolution which directly led to the massive expansion in ‘Nam.  This is something Kennedy - having changed his Cold warrior stripes by late 1962- would never have done!

The Tonkin Gulf incident, for those who may not know, was confected on the basis that North Vietnamese had fired on U.S. gunboats in international waters. This was the immediate pretext for the entry into the war.  In 2005, an internal National Security Agency historical study was declassified; it concluded that the Maddox had engaged the North Vietnamese Navy on August 2, but that there were no North Vietnamese Naval vessels present during the incident of August 4. The report stated regarding August 2:

“At 1505G, Captain Herrick ordered Ogier's gun crews to open fire if the boats approached within ten thousand yards. At about 1505G, the Maddox fired three rounds to warn off the communist boats. This initial action was never reported by the Johnson administration, which insisted that the Vietnamese boats fired first”

And regarding August 4:

“It is not simply that there is a different story as to what happened; it is that no attack happened that night. [...] In truth, Hanoi's navy was engaged in nothing that night but the salvage of two of the boats damaged on August 2”


In other words, LBJ and  the U.S. war hawks like Lemay used it as a pretext to demand the Gulf of Tonkin resolution and launch a war that killed nearly 58,000. LBJ had finally delivered on his promise to the military-industrial complex to give them their war in return for having assisted in Kennedy's killing and its massive cover up.

Make no mistake, this cornpone Texas turd - so blindly idolized by too many uninformed liberals-   is nothing but a verminous traitor, racist and murderer. He not only saw to it Kennedy would meet his death in Dallas (including by altering the motorcade route and venue for his Dallas speech) but also created the  phony (Warren) commission to cover it up even as he manufactured a document to expand the war in Vietnam leading to monumental loss in blood and treasure.

Ken Burns'  PBS TV series  effort revives the dark past of the Vietnam War and to the extent that it enlightens a nation too ignorant of that history, is laudable.   And while there is the acknowledgement of atrocities like the My Lai massacre, the series never loses sight of the service and sacrifice of the hundreds of thousands who either volunteered or were drafted. Many lf them  are still plagued by the memories that often keep them awake at night. They were, after all, the pawns of the warmongers like LBJ, Curtis Lemay, and William Westmoreland.

But before watching Burns' invaluable film it is also worth knowing how the U.S. involvement got started, the 'backstory' as it were - mostly only revealed in the last 10-12 years. We owe it to ourselves to learn more about how the Vietnam War affected soldiers and protesters alike. But it is also worthwhile historically to understand the perverse role of the warmongers that wasted all those years, lives and capital.

Johnson's cooperation with the military itself - and seeking to exclude JFK - was probably based on two horrendously wrong theories popular at the time: 1) The "Domino theory" which held that if  Vietnam fell the other nations in Southeast Asia would likewise fall, and (2) the "containment theory"  based on the notion North Vietnam was the pawn of the Soviets and China to expand their communist sphere of influence. In many ways, (2) dovetailed with (1).

As you watch the Burns' documentary just think of what might have been if Kennedy's NSAM 263 had prevailed, and hence, Kennedy had lived.

HBO's LBJ Movie 'All The Way' - Good, But More Hagiography Than History

Which portrayal do you accept: The scum ball who helped plan JFK's killing, or the rising civil rights star who brought two major pieces of legislation to finality. In fact, both can easily be valid - with the latter helping to burnish the reputation of the assassination architect.


"Who controls the past controls the future.  And who controls the present controls the past.”

In those immortal words of George Orwell (from ‘1984’) we at once beheld the importance of history in determining the quality of our lives, and outcomes of public policy. Sadly, and I hate to say this – too many liberals don’t know their own past, the nation’s past, and don’t want to. They believe merely because they are scribes at Salon.com, HuffPo or some other site, they’re entitled to weigh in on recent history and distort it. Worse, they want to remain gloriously ignorant - steeped more in hagiography, or misplaced hero worship – than actual history.

This leads us to Ph.D. history student Matthew Rosza, writing in salon.com last month, who exhorted  all liberals to watch the HBO premier movie 'All The Way', to see the analogies to our current election - with Hillary in the similar position to LBJ (not exactly outside the establishment) and the GOP's Barry Goldwater playing the 1964 version of Donald Trump.

But Rosza's premise is totally off base, as when he writes:

"Like Johnson in 1964, Clinton in 2016 is hampered by her problematic background on racial justice issues, from fueling the mass incarceration of racial minorities to supporting a welfare reform bill that disproportionately impacted African Americans. Also like Johnson, though, Clinton has now vowed to fight for important civil rights measures, including overhauling drug sentencing laws, prohibiting racial profiling, and forbidding employers from asking applicants about their criminal history. If she is elected, the non-white voters who helped put her into office will have a right and responsibility to hold her feet to the fire and make sure she gets these things done… but to do that, of course, she must become president first."

But Rosza's  take is too superficial, as telegraphed by even remotely considering Barry Goldwater in 1964 as playing an analogous role to Trump in 2016. In fact, there was no comparison, given Goldwater may have been many things but he was not a bloviating buffoon. Indeed, at Loyola University (New Orleans)  ca. September, 1964, nearly half the student body was hyped over the prospect of having a President Goldwater. Massive student rallies were held and you had to get to classes early to avoid the congestion in the quad. They viewed his conservatism as solid and real - unlike the way Trump's version is seen today.

Rosza's arguments mainly fail because while he dredges up a docudrama history of LBJ from HBO's movie  'All The Way',  he excludes all the real pre-presidential history we now know (such as revealed in Phillip F. Nelson's book imaged above). This,  even as he references  Hillary's actual history via her "problematic background" i.e. on racial justice issues etc.. The result is that he essentially compares the hagiography of one with the history of the other. This in fact is the primary thread that runs through his article: Hillary's actual historical problems, bad decisions vs. only the limited ones we get too see on HBO's  TV movie on LBJ. (To be fair the movie only covered LBJ's first year or so in office, but this is all the more reason not to make comparisons with Hillary._

Most of us who have pursued the documents track since the release of records via The JFK Records Act, have been seeking the skeleton key, if you will, or the linchpin that ties together all the disparate, apparently unrelated facts  of the Kennedy assassination– originally portrayed by the media as “coincidences”, "oversights"  or “mistakes”.  At the time too many of us, excessively gullible, accepted the media's blarney instead of they're being premeditated actions of LBJ to cover his own ass. These included LBJ orders issued for:

-        All of Kennedy’s clothing, including the bullet –holed suit coat - destroyed.

-        The blood spattered and bullet- impacted limousine ordered dispatched to  Detroit,, where it was cleaned, disassembled, then completely rebuilt then sent to Ohio

-        Zapruder film (altered with attempted juxtaposition of frames

-     Original autopsy notes of Dr. J.J. Humes   (burned)

-        Kennedy’s skull (re-imaged using mattes in re-done autopsy photos to make the massive wounds appear in the front and the entry wound in the rear- to comport with the Warren Commission Single Bullet theory[1])

-        Kennedy’s brain (missing from the time the body arrived at Bethesda). The brain would have shown the path of 'cavitation' clearly and added to the weight of evidence for a frontal shot.

Over the years many of us began thinking that none of the preceding were coincidence or error – but deliberate- ordered by LBJ to cover his nefarious tracks, including via the ruse of the Warren Commission which HE created!  I mean, Oswald couldn’t have done those things. Nor could any of these have been done by the Mafia, angry Cubans or even rogue CIA agents. The orders had to come from the top, since the evidence was all material, and in addition under control (at various times) of federal agencies, including: FBI and Secret Service.  In fact, the relevant records disclose that none other than Cliff Carter (one of the co-conspirators found guilty in the Henry Harvey Marshall slaying) gave orders for the actions which, if refused, were followed up by Johnson himself making telephone demands.

Johnson also violated federal and state laws with assorted usurpations, destruction of material evidence (as listed above) , not to mention hijacking Kennedy’s body instead of allowing the autopsy to be performed at the same Parkland Hospital in Dallas.

Further, by of his creation of The Warren Commission on November 29, 1963, LBJ acquired the total power to block any House, Senate or Texas state investigations, while awarding himself the power to control all evidence that might possibly surface, and either ignore it, suppress it or allow it to be distorted- thereby further distancing himself, all in the name of “seeking justice”.  To quote a notable wit: “To commit the perfect crime it is only necessary to be in charge of the investigation that follows.”

Thus after much deliberation, we realized (some reluctantly) it could only have been ONE man – LBJ – who also had the most to lose if he didn’t get rid of Kennedy at just that juncture of time. In the words of author Phillip F. Nelson (Chapter 6: The Conspirators, in LBJ: The Mastermind of the Kennedy Assassination, p. 317):

“The crime could only have been accomplished with at least the acquiescence and foreknowledge of the only man capable of choreographing the massive cover-up which was immediately launched. It is axiomatic that since the cover-up started before the shots were fired, the order for JFK’s assassination could only have come from his successor, Lyndon B. Johnson.”

So I hate to break this to Rosza and others (like Elias Isquith, Maureen Dowd and even Bill Maher),  but most of us who’ve been involved in deep politics and researching the JFK assassination have finally come to realize that LBJ indeed was involved as one of the prime architects in taking him out – for all the reasons I delivered in the LBJ hagiography post from January 5th last year, e.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2015/01/hagiographers-masquerading-as.html

We only regret it took us over 20 years to realize Craig Zirbel was right all along! (Dating from his 1991 expose of Johnson's role in 'The Texas Connection'.

Unsaid in that blog post, not yet revealed, is the way LBJ secretly courted the military to fire up the Vietnam War though Kennedy was steadfastly against it – ultimately made clear in his National Security Action Memorandum 263. Hence, the lingering smoking gun of Johnson’s guilt pertains to his disgusting back channel efforts to curry favor with the military (especially prime JFK hater Gen. Curtis Lemay). This entailed setting up a network to receive actual Vietnam intelligence behind Kennedy’s back – while ensuring the spooks and Pentagon sources delivered only doctored pap to JFK.  In many nations, this would be regarded as high treason, and anyone who did it (and found out)  put before a firing squad.

Much of the credit in digging up the relevant records goes to Military Science Professor John Newman in his book, JFK and Vietnam which documents that by November 24, 1963 – two days after Kennedy was dead (and before he was even laid to rest)-  a policy shift transpired toward massive commitment to American military forces in Vietnam – despite Kennedy’s NSAM 263. 

In the words of another researcher, Peter Dale Scott (Deep Politics and the Death of JFK, p. 30) it also proves that Johnson – since 1961  - "had been the ally of the Joint Chiefs and especially Air Force Gen. Curtis LeMay."  Let us recall for reference it was LeMay who compared Kennedy to Neville Chamberlain when he refused to go all out and bomb Cuba and invade it during the Cuban Missile crisis.

Peter Dale Scott summaized Johnson’s treason nicely (p. 31):

“A back channel had been established whereby ‘the boys in the woodwork’ were feeding (Howard) Burris and Johnson a steady stream of accurate Vietnam intelligence reports which were denied to the President.”

These latter were almost uniformly false and “optimistic"

He goes on (ibid.):

“Meanwhile, U.S. Army Intelligence in Honolulu kept producing a second series of reports, more accurate and gloomy. These were denied to the President and McNamara but supplied by a secret intelligence back channel to Johnson”

If this duplicity was all there was it would be bad enough but the real smoking gun – I’d even say fired gun – goes off when it is learned how a secret NSAM (273) had been prepared by Johnson that effectively nullified Kennedy’s restrictions for further U.S. Vietnam involvement set out in NSAM 263..

Johnson’s NSAM 273   “deleted Kennedy’s restrictions and sanctioned plans for U.S.operations to begin shortly thereafter”. (That is, after Nov. 21 – one day before JFK was shot dead in Dallas).  In other words, the fell plans for reversing Kennedy’s NSAM were already in existence a day BEFORE JFK was killed. Scott notes (p. 30) a draft of this NSAM 273 had presumptively been readied for Kennedy to see. (The draft prepared for Kennedy’s signature spoke only of “additional resources” given by the South Vietnamese to fight North Vietnam – as per JFK’s original instructions in NSAM 263 – but this was the part deleted.)

Peter Dale Scott correctly observes that in the wake of this perfidy most media sources (e.g. Michael Specter in the NY Times) and talking heads (e.g. Noam Chomsky) have prattled that “NSAM 273 continued Kennedy’s policies” which it did nothing of the sort – as I showed. Scott further observes (p. 29)  that "even the Nation participated in this obfuscation of the record."  The Nation?  That icon of liberal media? You'd better believe it.

Lastly, let’s bear in mind the NSAM 273 perversion led directly to an even greater outrage, the fabricat.tion of the Tonkin Gulf incident  in August 1964, when two U.S. gunboats - the Turner Joy and Maddox-  were allegedly attacked without provocation. This precipitated the Tonkin Gulf Resolution which directly led to the massive expansion in ‘Nam. As I’d previously written in March, 2013:

In other words, LBJ and  the U.S. aggressors used it as a pretext to demand the Gulf of Tonkin resolution and launch a war that killed nearly 58,000. LBJ had finally delivered on his promise to the military-industrial complex to give them their war in return for having assisted in Kennedy's killing and its massive cover up.

Make no mistake, this historically  reconstructed Texas turd - so blindly idolized by too many uninformed liberals-   is nothing but a verminous traitor, racist and murderer. He not only saw to it Kennedy would meet his death in Dallas (including by altering the motorcade route and venue for his Dallas speech) but also created a phony commission to cover it up even as he manufactured a document to expand the war in Vietnam leading to monumental loss in blood and treasure.

If one can therefore watch 'All the Way' as basically a work of selective fiction -  which skirts over how LBJ ascended to power (it was no "accident" of history as the intro voiceover tries to portray)then s/he can't go too far wrong. The film can then be enjoyed as a docudrama glossing over LBJ's most serious character defects (and treachery)  even as it probably exaggerates his cruder habits. (E.g.  showing him talking to Hubert Humphrey while seated on an opened door  Oval office toilet then wiping his ass, as HHH turns away.)

Hillary may have a checkered past in terms of her ill-advised Iraq war vote, the Libya intervention, Wall Street connections and some inconsistencies regarding racial issues, but none of those remotely compare to what Johnson did to our 35th President  And for that he will live on in infamy for many of us, irrespective of how the media and LBJ lackeys, hagiographers try to portray him as a basic, cornpone hero for civil rights.

Hillary, if she becomes President (the first woman in U.S. history) will have earned it, and not because she masterminded an assassination of anyone to secure power. Then portrayed it as an "accident" of history and a terrible "burden" (boo hoo)  that was totally unsought -- as HBO does with the depiction of LBJ's ascension to the oval office..

See also:

http://www.jfklancer.com/NSAM273.html

Muhammad Ali's Biggest Win Which You Won't Hear From the MSM

After the JFK assassination, many of us at the time remained shocked to the extent we sought distractions to take our mind off the foul deed. That shock was made worse because we suspected a conspiracy at work, especially after Jack Ruby shot and killed the alleged "lone gunman". Too neat and way too convenient.

Under the header 'American political climate in early 1964',  Wikipedia observes:

"Eleven weeks before the Beatles' arrival in the U.S. President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas. The nation was in mourning, in fear, and in disbelief..  The assassination came after a fifteen-year build-up of Cold War tension. The motivation and identity of the assassin would be doubted by many Americans for decades, despite the Warren Commission's issued report in September 1964.^[. As the United States tried to restore a sense of normality, teenagers in particular struggled to cope, as their disbelief began to be replaced by a personal reaction to what had happened: in school essays, teenagers wrote that "then it became real", and "I was feeling the whole world is going to collapse on me", and "I never felt so empty in all my life"

In Miami, FL where I lived at the time, I was putting the finishing touches on my high school science fair project 'The Structure of the Universe'.  This demanded concentration that took my mind off the assassination. The arrival of the Beatles coming to Miami Beach Convention Hall to perform on Feb. 13, 1964 also helped many of us. . E.g.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=r39USDyB5-U

The Beatles' performance was arguably (in many young persons' minds)  the single greatest balm to get over the immediate pain of losing one of the most beloved Presidents. Certainly at Monsignor Edward Pace High, which revered the first Catholic President.

What may have even been even more fascinating for many of us - apart from the lads from Liverpool-  was the arrival of a young, African-American boxer named Cassius Clay - earmarked to fight a former convict named Sonny Liston on February 25, 1964 at the same Miami Beach Convention Hall.

Clay's brash talk, unreal and rare for a black man at the time, was not only the talk of Pace High but Miami in general. Not to put too fine a point on it, most of us wanted young Cassius to beat the holy hell out of Liston who we regarded as a thug - having earned his boxing creds at the Missouri State Penitentiary. 

Most entertaining were Clay's (aka Ali's before he changed his name) insults to the "Bear" at the weigh in and even before.  But as another Wikipedia article put it:

 "Clay's brashness did not endear him to White America, and, in fact, even made Liston a more sympathetic character. In The New Republic, the magazine's editor, Murray Kempton (a future Pulitzer Prize–winner for distinguished commentary), wrote, "Liston used to be a hoodlum; now he is our cop; he was the big Negro we pay to keep sassy Negroes in line."

When young Cassius floored Liston, who the media predicted would maul him, we celebrated. I certainly did while listening to the fight on the radio.  Even my dad, not usually a boxing aficionado, got into it and heard the end and final knockout with me. He said: "Glad he beat that bum Liston"

From then on through other fights we became Cassius Clay (and later Muhammad Ali) rooters.

But one story that you won't hear or see much in the midst of all the current "remembrances" and  celeb talk spots, concern's Ali's biggest win of all. This occurred on June 28, 1971 after s Supreme Court  verdict (heard on appeal) supported his conscientious objector claim to refuse to be drafted in a unanimous 8-0 decision.

 The case (Clay vs. United States) stemmed from Clay-Ali's refusal of induction into the U.S. Army. He was immediately stripped of his heavyweight title despite pleading conscientious objector status - - as my maternal grandfather did (during WW I)  after arriving from in the U.S. from Croatia nearly 50 years earlier.

Ali, sticking to his principles despite waves of whitey warmonger hatred,  was convicted of draft evasion, sentenced to five years in prison, fined $10,000 and banned from boxing for five yeas. 

Thankfully, Ali appealed the ruling  and  was vindicated on June 28,  1971 by the 8-0 Supreme Court decision that had the potential to be 5-3. But two justices (Woodward and Stewart)  argued strongly that the lower courts had made no solid case by which to deny appeals based on being a conscientious objector.

Thus: "The Supreme Court of the United States found the government had failed to properly specify why Ali's application had been denied, thereby requiring the conviction to be overturned. A unanimous decision (8-0), "the court said the record shows that [Ali's] beliefs are founded on tenets of the Muslim religion as he understands them."  (Wikipedia)

In an article from 2012 in the Chicago Law Bulletin, Michael I. Spak, a military law professor at IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law, said Ali’s case set a precedent in conscientious objector cases.

And so, in perhaps his greatest victory - a legal one - Ali won justice for himself as well as thousands of other conscientious objectors. This was particularly apropos in response to a fundamentally immoral war - basically launched on a phony pretext by LBJ using the Tonkin Gulf incident.

Sadly, even today the mainstream media doesn't seem able to get its facts straight as Charlie Rose was heard this morning to refer to Ali as a "draft dodger" leading up to one segment on Ali's history. But the Supreme Court decision firmly vindicated Ali's stance as a conscientious objector, which is not the same as a "draft dodger".

JFK Would Have Escalated In Vietnam Like LBJ? Absolute Bollocks!

Yet another historical revisionist, Godfrey Hodgson, has presumed to assert JFK - had he lived - would have escalated Vietnam the way LBJ did.  See e.g. the core presentation of his codswallop  in this salon.com piece:

http://www.salon.com/2015/06/07/the_60s_great_what_if_what_would_john_f_kennedy_have_done_about_vietnam/


Leaving out his swipes at Kennedy "partisans" including even his Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, this Yale-based buffoon writes:

"Given the disintegration of the situation caused by external factors including the collapse of successive governments in Saigon, growing confidence on the part of the Viet Cong, and the growing understanding that North Vietnam could reinforce its order of battle in South Vietnam by way of the Ho Chi Minh Trail faster than the United States could inflict casualties, it seems clear that JFK’s advisers would have given him the same advice they gave LBJ."

Forgetting totally that JFK's advisors (as well as the Joint Chiefs) also pushed him to bomb and invade Cuba at the height of the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, but he refused, resorting to a naval blockade instead.  Disclosing that unlike too many presidents, JFK was ultimately his own man and made his own decisions in given critical situation.

Hodgson then quotes McGeorge Bundy successor Walter Rostow as some kind of impeccable guru who asserted:

“My own net judgment, for what it’s worth is that, if President Kennedy had not been killed, he would have made the same decisions as President Johnson and quite possibly made them earlier.”

To try to reinforce this Hodgson adds:

"It is true that Rostow was a classic cold warrior, deeply hostile to Communism, but so was John Kennedy"

Which is false on its face, as James Douglass shows in his book, JFK and the Unspeakable - Why He Died and Why It Matters ('Part 1 - 'A Cold Warrior Turns' ) showing that by the end of the Cuban Missile Crisis Kennedy had dropped the Cold Warrior persona and become a powerful advocate for peace, even declaring for total nuclear disarmament in his June 1963 speech at American University. Then - as if to put an exclamation point on it - signing the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty in August, 1963. That really raised the ire of true cold warriors because of the provision in the Treaty outlawing development of all anti-missile systems.  The revisionists can spin this any way they want but those are the facts.

Regarding JFK's pulling out of Vietnam, let us now collectively get our heads straight and move away from what Mr X, Y or Z said to what JFK actually DID. That is, signed and approved National Security Action Memorandum 263 (which Hodgson doesn't even reference) to move all personnel out of Vietnam by calendar year 1965.  Let's examine this in more detail because it remains controversial especially among disinformationists and revisionist historians.

What is often actually cited as the NSAM, i.e.

http://www.jfklibrary.org/Asset-Viewer/w6LJoSnW4UehkaH9Ip5IAA.aspx


Is in fact only the cover letter by McGeorge Bundy. It has only passing relevance to the actual content of the NSAM, but it does clearly state “the President approved sections IB(1-3) of the report". Which report? To find these, the researcher must turn to Document 142 in The Pentagon Papers: ‘Report of McNamara Taylor Mission to South Vietnam'. Then the serious researcher will read:

IB(2) A program be established to train Vietnamese so that essential functions now performed by U.S. military personnel can be carried out by the Vietnamese by the end of 1965. It should be possible to withdraw the bulk of U.S. military personnel by that time.

IB(3): In accordance with the program to train progressively Vietnamese to take over military functions, the Defense Department should announce in the very near future presently prepared plans to withdraw 1,000 U.S. military personnel by the end of 1963.

Note the wording and that a partial drawdown of 1,000 was due for the end of 1963 and the bulk by 1965. Most lazy wannabes or pseudo-historians never get this far while some others that do mistake the "1,000" total for the entire intended lot.

So the documentary evidence, in conjunction with Kennedy's anti-Cold Warrior ACTIONS (including initiating a rapprochement with Castro and Cuba) show that Hodgson is totally out of his gourd on this claim that Kennedy would have escalated in Vietnam. No he would not have.

Further, IF that was true, why is it that LBJ found it necessary to issue NSAM 273, essentially nullifying JFK's NSAM 263?  As pointed out by author Peter Dale Scott ( 'Deep Politics and the Death of JFK')  Johnson’s NSAM 273   “deleted Kennedy’s restrictions and sanctioned plans for U.S.operations to begin shortly thereafter”. (That is, after Nov. 21 – one day before JFK was shot dead in Dallas).  In other words, the fell plans for reversing Kennedy’s NSAM were already in existence a day in advance of the date JFK was killed. Scott notes (p. 30) a draft of this NSAM 273 had presumptively been readied for Kennedy to see. (The draft prepared for Kennedy’s signature spoke only of “additional resources” given by the South Vietnamese to fight North Vietnam – as per JFK’s original instructions in NSAM 263 – but this was the part deleted.)

Scott also correctly observed that in the wake of this perfidy most media sources (e.g. Michael Specter in the NY Times) and talking heads (e.g. Noam Chomsky)  prattled that “NSAM 273 continued Kennedy’s policies” which it did nothing of the sort. Scott further observes (p. 29)  that "even the Nation participated in this obfuscation of the record."  The Nation?  That icon of liberal media? You'd better believe it! At times, and too often to count, liberals can lose their bearings as much as conservatives.

Let’s bear in mind the NSAM 273 perversion led directly to an even greater outrage, the fabrication of the Tonkin Gulf incident  in August 1964, when two U.S. gunboats - the Turner Joy and Maddox-  were allegedly attacked without provocation. This precipitated the Tonkin Gulf Resolution which directly led to the massive expansion in ‘Nam.  This is something Kennedy - having changed his Cold warrior stripes by late 1962- would never have done!

I advise those who want to seriously delve further into the background to LBJ's NSAM -273 to go to:

http://www.jfklancer.com/NSAM273.html

Where Hodgson is at least moderately correct is when he observes, regarding the assassination of the Diems on Nov. 2, 1963:

"There has been a tendency to interpret this episode to mean that Kennedy wanted to overthrow Diem. It more clearly demonstrates that even a strong president cannot always ensure that his policy is actually at all times carried out."

This is true, and the episode really showed how the CIA - still seething over Kennedy's assorted end runs around them (and firing of Allen Dulles), took matters into its own hands.

As Douglass notes (op. cit. p. 192): Kennedy got his  final wake up call on who was controlling his government when, in an early September, 1963 meeting he was informed by a David Bell of AID (a CIA cover organization) that the funds from the Commodity Import Aid Program had “already been cut off”,  essentially assuring a coup would ensue with the Diem government in South Vietnam. (The Diems were killed on Nov. 2, 1963 and the CIA had planned for Kennedy to be taken out the same day in Chicago, except that trip was cancelled. The lone assassin set up for that hit was Thomas Arthur Vallee. (About whom details were provided in Douglass' book).

Kennedy was evidently livid and directly asked Bell who had told him to do that, to which Bell replied, “No one” (ibid.). The will to power disclosed here indicates the CIA felt it more powerful than Kennedy himself or his decision-making authority.  If they felt that way, there is nothing that they wouldn’t do to prevent the President from getting in their way.  

The incident was confirmed by New York Times journalist Arthur Krock  in his piece  ‘The Inter-Administration War in Vietnam’, The New York Times, Oct. 3, 1963). wherein he wrote:

"If the United States ever experiences an attempt at a coup to overthrow the government, it will come from the CIA”
 
This followed his observation  that:  "the CIA had flatly refused to carry out instructions from Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge.”

This in regard to disbursing the funds from the Commodity Import Aid Program.

All of which shows that some "historians" - like Godfrey Hodgson  - in his JFK revisionist phantasmagorias, are unworthy of the title. I prefer to call them anti-historians or pseudo-historians, much like the pseudo -scientists who spin the "global warming is a hoax" crap.

His new book, on which his salon.com article is based,  merits the same treatment as Vince Bugliosi's 'Reclaiming History': a rapid one way ride to the nearest dumpster!

Elias Isquith And Other Liberal Mouthpieces Need to Stop Covering Up for LBJ!

Henry Marshall (USDA official) was one of the bodies left behind in LBJ's rise to glory. Why don't liberals take their heads out of their asses instead of protecting a false icon?

“Who controls the past controls the future.  And who controls the present controls the past.”

In those immortal words of George Orwell (from ‘1984’) we see at once the importance of history in determining our lives, and outcomes of public policy. Sadly, and I hate to say this – too many liberals don’t know their own past, the nation’s past, and don’t want to. They believe merely because they are scribes at Salon.com, HuffPo or some other site, they’re entitled to weigh in on recent history and distort it. Worse, they want to remain gloriously ignorant - steeped more in hagiography, or misplaced hero worship – than actual history. See e.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2015/01/hagiographers-masquerading-as.html

Therein I noted that

“it is when hagiography eclipses facts and history that the critical mind must take note and understand when the wool is being pulled over its eyes.  Sadly, too many in the U.S. today are unprepared to cast a critical eye on goings on, far less be disposed to expose a so-called history as really pulp hagiography.”

This was in reference to all the overblown hype and hoopla on how dear old “Lyndon” had really been the one to put the pedal to the metal on civil rights and pushed through those major pieces of legislation, the civil rights bill and the voting rights act. Do not believe it for a damned minute! LBJ was a feral, racist rat who also had JFK killed. He called the civil rights act “that nigger bill” and also used the word with abandon as his own tapes disclose, e.g.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r1rIDmDWSms

And indeed, while Chairman of a civil rights commission in the Kennedy administration, he deliberately held up the pending legislation for THREE years! WHY? Well, so he could cash in later when HE was President to build a specious legacy! Now, salon.com writer Elias Isquith appears to have jumped head first onto the LBJ hagiography bandwagon with his piece: ‘Roger Stone vs. the World: The Conspiracy-Filled Mind of Legendary GOP Trickster’. See e.g.

http://www.salon.com/2015/01/28/roger_stone_vs_the_world_inside_the_conspiracy_filled_mind_of_legendary_gop_trickster/

He commits the error of retrospectively condemning  current claims as invalid by virtue of an author’s previous actions. In this case, because Stone was a former GOP dirty trickster (who perfected the dark political art of “ratfucking”), then he clearly cannot be trusted to speak the truth now regarding claims made in his new book,  The Man Who Killed Kennedy: The Case Against LBJ.  Isquith also fails to process that the exact same case against LBJ  has already been made by Philip Nelson and Barr McClellan in earlier books. Indeed, it was first made 24 years ago by Craig I. Zirbel in his 'Texas Connection',  showing clearly how all the pieces we'd thought were disconnected (disposal of JFK's clothing, removal of the limo, autopsy manipulations  etc.) made sense when it was understood that only LBJ could be the "choreographer".  The most  Roger Stone can be guilty of then, is merely rehashing the prior work of others.


As Stone notes in one response to Isquith:

“He was a crude, corrupt, sadistic, unprincipled psychopath. This is a man who I believe ordered at least 17 murders on his way to power, murders to cover up corruption or voter theft. I make a compelling case in my book — using fingerprint evidence, eyewitness evidence, and deep [research into] Texas politics — that Lyndon Johnson was the linchpin of the conspiracy to kill John F. Kennedy. He has the motive, means and opportunity. So it reads like a murder mystery, it reads like a thriller novel, but unfortunately it’s the truth.”

 Is it false or "conspiratorial" because a former Reepo operative said ir? HELL NO! I say it TOO! So do many others who've finally  - after decades - removed the blinders, irrespective of party or ideology. Perhaps the best documentation is by researcher Philip Nelson in his own book (which I have read): ‘LBJ: The Mastermind of the JFK Assassination”  Those who wish to see the video version of this rat's background (prohibited from being seen in the U.S. in 2003)  can see it here:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQzLBYZP3mE

Pay particular attention to the last 15 minutes and former federal agent Walt Brown's narration concerning the finger print found on one of the boxes forming the sniper's nest at the Texas Scool Book Depository.  The print was sent to a latent fingerprint expert and found to contain a 34 pt. match to the earlier fingerprint (at the Kinser murder scene) of Mac Wallace, one of LBJ's longtime henchmen.

 Most of us who have followed the documents track since the release of records via The JFK Records Act, have been seeking the skeleton key, if you will, or the linchpin that ties together all the disparate, apparently unrelated facts – originally portrayed by the media as “coincidences”, "oversights"  or “mistakes”.  Which too many of us, excessively gullible, accepted instead of they're being deliberately planned.

These included:

-        All of Kennedy’s clothing, including the bullet –holed suit coat - ordered destroyed.

-        The blood spattered and bullet- impacted limousine ordered dispatched to  Detroit,, where it was cleaned, disassembled, then completely rebuilt then sent to Ohio

-        Zapruder film (altered with attempted juxtaposition of frames)

-     Original autopsy notes of Dr. J.J. Humes   (burned)

-        Kennedy’s skull (re-imaged using mattes in re-done autopsy photos to make the massive wounds appear in the front and the entry wound in the rear- to comport with the Warren Commission Single Bullet theory[1])

-        Kennedy’s brain (missing from the time the body arrived at Bethesda). The brain would have shown the path of 'cavitation' clearly and added to the weight of evidence for a frontal shot.

Over the years many of us began thinking that none of the preceding were coincidence or error – but deliberate- ordered by LBJ to cover his nefarious tracks, including in the Warren Commission investigation which HE created!  I mean, Oswald couldn’t have done those things. Nor could any of these have been done by the Mafia, angry Cubans or even rogue CIA agents. The orders had to come from the top, since the evidence was all material, and in addition under control (at various times) of federal agencies, including: FBI and Secret Service.  In fact, the relevant records disclose that none other than Cliff Carter (one of the co-conspirators found guilty in the Henry Harvey Marshall slaying) gave orders for the actions which, if refused, were followed up by Johnson himself making telephone demands[2].

Johnson also violated federal and state laws with assorted usurpations, destruction of material evidence (as listed above) , not to mention hijacking Kennedy’s body instead of allowing the autopsy to be performed at the same Parkland Hospital in Dallas.

Further, by of his creation of The Warren Commission on November 29, 1963, LBJ acquired the total power to block any House, Senate or Texas state investigations, while awarding himself the power to control all evidence that might possibly surface, and either ignore it, suppress it or allow it to be distorted- thereby further distancing himself, all in the name of “seeking justice”.  To quote a notable wit: “To commit the perfect crime it is only necessary to be in charge of the investigation that follows.”

Thus after much deliberation, we realized (some reluctantly) it could only have been ONE man – LBJ – who also had the most to lose if he didn’t get rid of Kennedy at just that juncture of time. In the words of author Philip Nelson (Chapter 6: The Conspirators, p. 317):

“The crime could only have been accomplished with at least the acquiescence and foreknowledge of the only man capable of choreographing the massive cover-up which was immediately launched. It is axiomatic that since the cover-up started before the shots were fired, the order for JFK’s assassination could only have come from his successor, Lyndon B. Johnson.”

So I hate to break this to Elias and others (like Maureen Dowd and even Bill Maher),  but most of us who’ve been involved in deep politics and researching the JFK assassination have finally come to realize that LBJ indeed was involved in taking him out – for all the reasons I delivered in the hagiography link. We only regret it took us over 20 years to realize Craig Zirbel was right all along! (Dating from his 1991 expose of Johnson's role.)

Unsaid in that blog post, not yet revealed, is the way LBJ secretly courted the military to fire up the Vietnam War though Kennedy was steadfastly against it – ultimately made clear in his National Security Action Memorandum 263. Hence, the lingering smoking gun of Johnson’s guilt pertains to his disgusting back channel efforts to curry favor with the military (especially prime JFK hater Gen. Curtis Lemay). This entailed setting up a network to receive actual Vietnam intelligence behind Kennedy’s back – while ensuring the spooks and Pentagon sources delivered only doctored pap to JFK.  In many nations, this would be regarded as high treason, and anyone who did it (and found out)  put before a firing squad.

Much of the credit in digging up the relevant records goes to Military Science Professor John Newman in his book, JFK and Vietnam which documents that by November 24, 1963 – two days after Kennedy was dead (and before he was even laid to rest)-  a policy shift transpired toward massive commitment to American military forces in Vietnam – despite Kennedy’s NSAM 263. 

In the words of another researcher, Peter Dale Scott (Deep Politics and the Death of JFK, p. 30) it also proves that Johnson – since 1961  - "had been the ally of the Joint Chiefs and especially Air Force Gen. Curtis LeMay."  Let us recall for reference it was LeMay who compared Kennedy to Neville Chamberlain when he refused to go all out and bomb Cuba and invade it during the Cuban Missile crisis.

Peter Dale Scott summarized Johnson’s treason nicely (p. 31):

“A back channel had been established whereby ‘the boys in the woodwork’ were feeding (Howard) Burris and Johnson a steady stream of accurate Vietnam intelligence reports which were denied to the President.”

These latter were almost uniformly false and “optimistic”.

He goes on (ibid.):

“Meanwhile, U.S. Army Intelligence in Honolulu kept producing a second series of reports, more accurate and gloomy. These were denied to the President and McNamara but supplied by a secret intelligence back channel to Johnson”

If this duplicity was all there was it would be bad enough but the real smoking gun – I’d even say fired gun – goes off when it is learned how a secret NSAM (273) had been prepared by Johnson that effectively nullified Kennedy’s restrictions for further U.S. Vietnam involvement set out in NSAM 263..

Johnson’s NSAM 273   “deleted Kennedy’s restrictions and sanctioned plans for U.S.operations to begin shortly thereafter”. (That is, after Nov. 21 – one day before JFK was shot dead in Dallas).  In other words, the fell plans for reversing Kennedy’s NSAM were already in existence a day BEFORE JFK was killed. Scott notes (p. 30) a draft of this NSAM 273 had presumptively been readied for Kennedy to see. (The draft prepared for Kennedy’s signature spoke only of “additional resources” given by the South Vietnamese to fight North Vietnam – as per JFK’s original instructions in NSAM 263 – but this was the part deleted.)

Peter Dale Scott correctly observes that in the wake of this perfidy most media sources (e.g. Michael Specter in the NY Times) and talking heads (e.g. Noam Chomsky) have prattled that “NSAM 273 continued Kennedy’s policies” which it did nothing of the sort – as I showed. Scott further observes (p. 29)  that "even the Nation participated in this obfuscation of the record."  The Nation?  That icon of liberal media? You'd better believe it!

Indeed,  from all I’ve seen, and in exchanges with so-called “liberals” at various sites (e.g. smirkingchimp) it is clear to me this bollocks about NSAM 273 has been swallowed as completely as the crap that LBJ was this avid defender of civil rights. These libs would rather peddle these fairy tales – along with LBJ’s hagiographers and puppets – than face the brutal truth that a former DEM President was a bloody conspirator and murderer. ("Oh me oh my, we can't provide any more fodder to the Repukes! Better to hide the truth!")

But I make no apologies for bringing the truth out, any more than others have, and my only regret is too many choose to bury heads (and brains) in the sand emulating the ostrich.

Lastly, let’s bear in mind the NSAM 273 perversion led directly to an even greater outrage, the fabrication of the Tonkin Gulf incident  in August 1964, when two U.S. gunboats - the Turner Joy and Maddox-  were allegedly attacked without provocation. This precipitated the Tonkin Gulf Resolution which directly led to the massive expansion in ‘Nam. As I’d previously written in March, 2013:

“In 2005, an internal National Security Agency historical study was declassified; it concluded that the Maddox had engaged the North Vietnamese Navy on August 2, but that there were no North Vietnamese Naval vessels present during the incident of August 4. The report stated regarding August 2:

“At 1505G, Captain Herrick ordered Ogier's gun crews to open fire if the boats approached within ten thousand yards. At about 1505G, the Maddox fired three rounds to warn off the communist boats. This initial action was never reported by the Johnson administration, which insisted that the Vietnamese boats fired first”

and regarding August 4:

“It is not simply that there is a different story as to what happened; it is that no attack happened that night. [...] In truth, Hanoi's navy was engaged in nothing that night but the salvage of two of the boats damaged on August 2”


In other words, LBJ and  the U.S. aggressors used it as a pretext to demand the Gulf of Tonkin resolution and launch a war that killed nearly 58,000. LBJ had finally delivered on his promise to the military-industrial complex to give them their war in return for having assisted in Kennedy's killing and its massive cover up.

Make no mistake, this cornpone Texas turd - so blindly idolized by too many uninformed liberals-   is nothing but a verminous traitor, racist and murderer. He not only saw to it Kennedy would meet his death in Dallas (including by altering the motorcade route and venue for his Dallas speech) but also created a phony commission to cover it up even as he manufactured a document to expand the war in Vietnam leading to monumental loss in blood and treasure.

Anyone who doesn’t do the background work from the released document trail, and that includes Isquith, Maher and Maureen Dowd et al, doesn’t merit any pass to call out “excess conspiracy” on anyone else – even a former Reepo dirty trickster. Let’s be clear here that simply because one’s political past might be shady doesn’t mean he’s off target in his claims – especially concerning LBJ. The liberals and LBJ hagiographers who protect this POS merit no remote consideration – until they also do the grunt work of document parsing! 

See also:

http://www.jfklancer.com/NSAM273.html

Addendum (2/1): It was heartening to see Mel Brooks trying to set Bill Maher right on the last 'Real Time',  referring to LBJ  as the "bigot" who passed the civil rights bill. Sadly, Bill had imbibed too much kool aid - like too many libs, to accept the hard truth.

---

[1] Photo-optic specialist Robert Groden, however, believe that the skull was actually reconstructed using mortician’s plaster, then photographed. See the details in his book Killing Kennedy.

[2] Twyman, High Treason,  p. 92.