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[Reelya]

That wasn't really the CIA's game at all.

You can blame prohibition and the successors to the Narcotics Control Board for the origin of the war on drugs, aided by some politicians, but not the CIA, which only came into existence after WWII. Even the FBI under J Edgar Hoover wasn't all that interested in policing drugs or organized crime: he was much more interested in rooting out which politicians were pinkos so he could manipulate them.

The "War on Drugs" was solely pushed by the Narcotics Control Board and it's successors, much more than any other government department. And there's a reason for that: pushing the war on drugs expanded the power of that one government agency relative to all else, so only they really gave a shit about it. J Edgar Hoover's FBI was about expanding their own power, so they focused on areas that weren't the territory of Narcotics, e.g. rooting out "lefties" was the main one.

The CIA's role is only damage control later on, and in fact their main role has been in preventing the other agencies from arresting "assets" who also deal in drugs. e.g. it's a myth that all government intelligence agencies work together on this stuff. In fact, there are constant turf wars, with them deliberately getting in each other's way to make their own agency more important.

[Reelya]

The question of that is then how much is innocent "inadvertent" drug-transporting and turning a blind eye to "friendly" groups ... and how much is plain old corruption on one hand, or an amoral means of funding operations on the other hand. e.g. comparable to the illegal arms-dealing they did in Iran-Contra.

e.g. I read somewhere about an admission that heroin was flown in US cargo planes by Air America during Vietnam, but the admission came with a proviso that no Americans knew what was in the canisters, only dirty Asians did. I forget who this particular statement came from however. But it kinda seems too preposterous to be accurate.

[bloop_bleep]

the JFK thing is the #1 most popular conspiracy idea in the USA. Current polling is that 60%+ don't believe the official version.

I'm surprised there are people who still do. I'm not saying that the evil Zionist reptilian overlords teamed with mind-controlling aliens from outer space to implant a small bomb in JFK's head while he was sleeping; I'm not even supporting the "grassy knoll" theory. But do you seriously expect me to believe, that Lee Harvey Oswald assassinated JFK acting independently, and then was himself assassinated, just two days later, in the basement of police headquarters, by someone else who was also acting completely independently? This is a textbook case of a lynching! And it's quite obvious the authorities are involved in it as well!

[MrRoboto75]

What if there was no shooter and JFK's head just naturally did that?

[wierd]

None of those are what make me suspicious of the whole thing.

What does, is the sheer number of ricochets that the bullet had to perform in a very short period of time, while still remaining intact, and possessing lethal penetrating energy.

The "magic bullet" is an almost textbook example of a tortured explanation, created to satisfy a false premise. That bullet can only have carried a finite quantity of energy, it has a predictable sheer threshold, and hitting even a single major bone tends to fragment pretty much all projectiles fired from conventional weapons that ordinary people can buy.

The multiple shooters postulate better fits the geometry of the scene, and the vectors of penetration injuries of the president. It also better fits witness testimony of multiple gunshots.


Who shot JFK? Who the fuck knows. Perhaps Oswald DID shoot the president. The real question is WHO ELSE shot the president-- because that magic bullet stuff? Does not really work in reality. That bullet would have turned into little BB sized bits after it hit the major bones in his body. At the 'best', it would have deformed significantly, and been greatly slowed by subsequent passage through soft tissues, and would have lost ballistic stability once it left the body, and lost quality penetration capability for the other bevy of injuries on the president and Mr Connally.

[Reelya]

The Robert Kennedy one is also weird as hell.

The doco I saw a while ago (on mainstream TV in Australia, not a web doco) said Sirhan Sirhan claims to have no memory of it, and to actually be a supporter of the Kennedys, the gun he used vanished from police evidence before they could do forensics on it, and the doctor who looked at Sirhan Sirhan said he'd never seen anyone so easy to hypnotize in all his life. Plus, the doco mentions that the coroner's report says death by point-blank gunshot wound to back of the skull, while all witnesses say Sirhan was three foot in front of him waving the gun around.

I don't know who or what, but it's all too weird especially for another political brother to be killed in a weird way, which also has inconsistent information about the gun used in the shooting.

Personally, I pin the most likely suspect, if there was a conspiracy, as being Cord Meyer (a CIA guy) for a few reasons. First, Cord Meyer was one of the people shitbagged over Bay of Pigs and hated JFK for that. Second, JFK was banging his ex-wife, and he also hated JFK for that reason. Third, that ex-wife was outspoken about the JFK killing, and was killed herself by an unknown gunman about 1 year after JFK died. Fourth, E Howard Hunt (the convicted Watergate criminal) pinned it on him, according to two of Hunt's sons. Fifth, Nixon is on tape saying he didn't want Hunt around because "he knows too much about the whole Bay of Pigs thing". Which, if Nixon actually knew about it, would make sense and they might be using "the whole Bay of Pigs thing" as an allusion to the Kennedy assassinations, if that was in fact coordinated by CIA agents pissed about taking the blame as scapegoats for the Bay of Pigs failure. And finally, the context for Nixon being mortally scared of having hunt around because he "knows too much" about The Bay of Pigs "thing" seems hard to explain. What "thing" did he know? ... and how would it implicate Nixon? If Hunt's sons are telling the truth and their father really did a deathbed confession about JFK then that would be a sensible explanation.

[Reelya]

Well if the KGB said it, it must be true. I'm sure if we found things in the KGB archive that we didn't agree with, we'd just say that those are misinformation planted there.

Also, the fact that KGB was spreading their own rumors doesn't mean that people are innocent. e.g. the choice to pin it on E Howard Hunt would be because of Watergate, and that he was already one of the most likely people. He doesn't become less likely because of the later KGB meddling.
 
Also the facts I wrote about Cord Meyer, they're all matters of public knowledge. The other thing I mentioned was the Nixon tapes, another public-record thing, and what the Hunt son's said. But even if Hunt's sons were lying that doesn't change what I wrote about Cord Meyer.

And "the media wasn't convinced" Hunt's sons were credible isn't really direct evidence that the two Hunt sons were liars. googling "e howard hunts sons jfk" I find that most of the articles from mainstream sources are open to the possibility.

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/recycled/2007/01/e_howard_hunts_final_confession.html
e.g. Slate interviewed him here before his death, and when asked about CIA involvement in JFK's death he refuses to answer with a "no comment" reply then is reported to look away looking nervous. This in fact seems to back up his sons viewpoint, but I guess the Slate interviewer could have just fabricated that too.

[Reelya]

It's a "well they would say that" moment however. e.g. if the rest of the family don't want the family name dragged through this and to "let skeletons lie" they could hand-wave it away as ramblings. There are definite problems when the people critiquing the claims aren't independent assessors, but have some personal vested interest in the matter. So if we're dismissing the brothers on account of them possibly gaining money from it, then the rest of the family also have personal motives for their own position. Which just comes even.

Personally, I'm not fully convinced that the son's "coaching" can explain away how he refused to just say no to the CIA / JFK link when interviewed by Slate in 2004. the choices are that his two sons are evil talented mind-controllers vs the choice that the rest of the family follow their mother who just wants it buried and forgotten. e.g. I find it far less likely that Hunt's two sons just happen to be JFK conspiracy nuts who want to pin it on their own Dad for pure lulz, than the idea that the mother doesn't want it coming out and the rest of the family listen to her instead of "senile" Dad.

However, the whole Nixon "bay of pigs" thing seems weird:

http://www.thehistoryreader.com/contemporary-history/nixons-bay-pigs-secrets/

first, Nixon had to tutor Haldeman on just how to make the threat to Helms. During a June 23 rehearsal of Haldeman for the critical meeting with Helms later that day, the president carefully instructed his No. 1 aide on what to tell the CIA chief: “Hunt knows too damned much . . . If this gets out that this is all involved . . . it would make the CIA look bad, it’s going to make Hunt look bad, and it’s likely to blow the whole Bay of Pigs thing

At his meeting with Helms, when Nixon’s emissary brought up the Bay of Pigs, according to Haldeman, the CIA chief gripped the arms of his chair, leaned forward and shouted: “The Bay of Pigs has nothing to do with this! I have no concern about the Bay of Pigs.” Haldeman said he was “absolutely shocked by Helms’s violent reaction” when he delivered Nixon’s message. Helms “yelled like a scalded cat,” said Nixon aide John Ehrlichman when Haldeman mentioned the Watergate trail might lead to “the Bay of Pigs.” Ehrlichman sat in on the meeting.

The context is that Haldeman was briefed by Nixon to tell CIA Director Helms that if he didn't cooperate on silencing Watergate, then Hunt was a loose cannon who could blow open the whole "bay of pigs" thing, whatever that meant, and Haldeman was shocked when Helms basically had a heart attack right on the spot on hearing this. Helms started screaming and clutching at his chair. Basically whatever Hunt knew was damaging enough to send the head of the CIA into paroxysms, and it was obviously something Nixon and Helms both understood, but Haldeman did not.

[Reelya]

However, the link actually comes from Bob Haldeman himself, who was there:

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/893526.The_Ends_of_Power

e.g. maybe the link is spurious, but Bob Haldeman, Republican operative, who was a Nixon aide made the claim that "Bay of Pigs" was a codeword for the JFK assassination with a certain sect of people, and that he eventually put 2 and 2 together and worked out what they were talking about.

e.g. now we have to say that Hunt was merely coached on his deathbed, and that Haldeman also got the complete wrong end of the stick with that and similar exchanges he mentions in his book, which linked Hunt to "bay of pigs" and which Haldeman eventually inferred actually referred to the assassination.

[ChairmanPoo]

What if there was no shooter and JFK's head just naturally did that?

This is my new favorite conspiracy theory

[Harry Baldman]

It's how the Kennedy strain propagates.

[ChairmanPoo]

It's how the Kennedy strain propagates.

Thats why they covered it up. Lee H Oswald was a useful fool.

[wierd]

It's how the Kennedy strain propagates.

No, does not fit the facts behind poor miss Kennedy's lobotomy.

(Unless of course, you think the late patron of the family intended the lobotomy to prevent Rosmary's head from spontaneously exploding, and thus this was how he intended for it to prevent unwanted progeny from interfering with his political dynasty.)

[ChairmanPoo]

It's how the Kennedy strain propagates.

No, does not fit the facts behind poor miss Kennedy's lobotomy.

(Unless of course, you think the late patron of the family intended the lobotomy to prevent Rosmary's head from spontaneously exploding, and thus this was how he intended for it to prevent unwanted progeny from interfering with his political dynasty.)

I think it's kind of obvious the surgery was aimed at preventing an explosion.



It was only partially successful

Also if you look at the autopsy photos it DOES SEEM that the explosion went from inside outwards

[Egan_BW]

gross