Lifton On Gofundme

First topic message reminder :

Looks like Lifton is running out of money to write his book.

https://www.gofundme.com/f/publishing-final-charade-seq-to-best-evidence

I welcome the reduction in temperature that I think your note represents. I may have gotten a little carried away in parts of my last note.
 
First, an addendum to my previous note.  Twice you asked why would they murder JFK when they had less risky ways to get rid of him, like planting salacious stories in the press. 
 
Are you familiar with the story of the FBI and MLK?  In '64 the FBI sent a letter to MLK telling him they knew about his extramarital sexual liaisons. They included a tape they had prepared of them. They threatened to make the information public.  They wanted him to commit suicide--''There is only one thing left for you to do. You know what it is....Better take it before your filthy, abnormal, fraudulent self is bared to the nation." 
 
King ignored the letter.  But in '67 he gave a famous speech expanding his scope from civil rights to being anti Vietnam war. He said the war effort was “taking the black young men who had been crippled by our society and sending them eight thousand miles away to guarantee liberties in Southeast Asia which they had not found in southwest Georgia and East Harlem”.  Most of the MSM panned him, saying he should stay in his lane.  The CIA was not amused.  They needed those young Blacks for the war.  One year to the day after the speech King was murdered.
 
It's not that easy to smear a public figure, like JFK and King, effectively enough to make them disappear, and I would argue King was an easier target than JFK. Moreover, the CIA is not supposed to be involved in domestic affairs (another thing honored mostly in its breach). Arguably their talents lie more in the area of killing people than smearing them, and there is little evidence they have been reluctant to do use it.
 
 

On circular reasoning

It is something that any of us can fall into unintentionally. In my thousands of posts on various sites, it would be astounding if I have not also fallen into at some stage.

Here is what I referring to an example in this thread.

Q: What was the motive to assassinate JFK?
A: He posed an existential threat to the plotters.


Q: What is the evidence that he posed an existential threat to the plotters?
A: They assassinated him.
 
RO:  That is not what I said.  The evidence of JFK being an existential threat to the CIA is manifest.  James Douglas wrote a great book essentially on that subject, JFK and the Unspeakable. (have you read it?). 
 
The CIA had lots of plans for the world, and Kennedy stood in the way of many of them.  Here is just a few.  Kennedy refused to take on Castro or the Russians during the Bay of Pigs and the missile crisis. He rejected the generals' plan to preemptively strike the Soviet Unions' nukes and eliminate the Soviets as a threat to US hegemony. He was getting out of Vietnam; he didn't believe their silly domino theory (but LBJ was on board).  And there was his peace speech at American University in the spring of '63 setting out his vision for the future that directly contradicted what the CIA wanted ("what kind of peace do I seek?"  A genuine peace, "not a Pax Americana enforced on the world by American weapons of war."--uh oh, that was a direct challenge to how the CIA saw its role in the world), followed by the limited test ban treaty with the Soviets, and back channel discussions with Khrushchev and Castro. Just scratching the surface.
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Your plotters are the CIA.
 
RO:  Yes, mainly, but I don't want to forget the role played by that psychopath, LBJ.

The CIA had a well-organized web of assets embedded in the media.  The existential threat to them was hardly likely to unfold before the election - therefore there was no reason to act to rashly and put into play a highly risky assassination plot. They had their media assets for  apurpose: the purpose was to sway public opinion to whatever ends they needed. That was the low risk/high percentage method for them to deal with their existential fears. 
 
RO:  Kennedy was not going to do anything about the CIA before the election.  That's not the point.  There was a reason to act when they did.  They couldn't let him be reelected and have 4 years to reign them in or destroy them.

Besides(and I ask this not knowing the answer), would the president even have the power to disband the CIA with the stroke of a pen? Would it not also take the Senate and the House to do this? Saying you want to scatter the CIA to the winds and actually being able to do it, seem like they could be miles apart. And the only evidence that the threat was eevn made, was in the form of hearsay.
 
RO:  I don't rely on that hearsay.  Early in his administration, in '61, Kennedy had Arthur Schlesinger write a memo on "CIA Reorganization".  He was already thinking about what to do about them, before their conflicts heated up.  The memo is 16 pages and has been released, but of course with 1 1/2 pages missing (probably where Schlesinger revealed what he really thought of them)
 
Congress passed the law creating the CIA in '47, signed by Truman.  As Truman later said in an amazing oped piece in the Wash Post one month after the JFKA, https://ratical.org/ratville/JFK/Unspeakable/TrumanLimitCIA.html,  titled "Limit the CIA Role to Intelligence", he had intended that the CIA *only* be a central repository for intelligence, who reported directly to the president.  In short the clandestine branch of the CIA that grew up under Eisenhower and the Dulles brothers, that went around the world overthrowing governments and killing people, was not what was intended by the legislation.
 
So that was one place for JFK after reelection to start "reforming" the CIA (btw, the statement about scattering to the wind refers only to the war mongering part of the CIA, not the intelligence gathering part, per Truman's distinction).  The Democrats had overwhelming control of both houses.  He could have dragged ol' Harry back to DC (he was over 80; more likely it would have been one of his aides) to explain the original intent of the law and convince Congress to clarify its purpose to restore that intent and get rid of the war mongers. 
 
There were also smaller things he could do himself internally.  He tried one thing to limit the CIA's run of the place about which my memory is hazy.  Something to do with making the CIA go thru the Pentagon for certain things. 
 
So no, nobody, then or now was for eliminating a central intelligence *gathering* agency. But Kennedy could eliminate the clandestine monster that had grown up --following upon Truman's suggestion in the Post.  And the CIA knew it.


Fred Korth on the other hand, did not have the luxury of time, nor the media assets to set loose. His only hope of not being further examined was the immediate removal of Kennedy and the installing of LBJ. And that is how it panned out. Investigations ceased. Korth would also have had other motives. He was one of those who wanted to nuke Cuba during the CMC. But the only urgent motive was the first one listed.

I do not believe it was any coincidence Korth's wife was related to Roy Truly, or that he was Edwin Ekdahl's legal representative in all matters, including the divorce from Marguerite, or that his wife and Truly were also related to Robert Sansom whose law office was used to type up Lee's manuscript on life in Minsk. 

It is all a neat little package.
 
RO:  The Korth story parallel's LBJ's.  Congressional hearing looking into one of LBJ's many corrupt dealings were scheduled for the day of the JFKA.  They were cancelled as well.  Just another reason for LBJ to want Kennedy eliminated, as if he needed another one. 

As for [the visit of] Louis H Nichols of the Dallas Bar Association - I am a little suspicious that he got access, but the guys from the DCLU never. The Bar Association he reptresented was not a criminal bar association. Cruiminal lawyers had their own separate association. In any event, it was Prof Chuck Webster who talked Nichols into going to speak to Oswald. Webster was at those initial interrogations and was most likely the person who gave Oswald the name Abt. Webster was also associated with FBI informant William Lowery in political matters.  Nicholls represented the Big End of town and its interests. The whole thing stinks and we only have Nicholls word on what was said. It did its work thouhj... assured the press that Oswald was legally okay and could get a lawyer any time he wanted. Absolute bullshit. 
 
RO: I think Nichols' visit was mostly performative, to try to take the heat off of the police for denying Oswald a lawyer.  Probably any right wing shyster the bar assoc. would have supplied would not have helped Oswald. But when Oswald said he would take one of them if he couldn't get whom he wanted, it made clear he was pushing for at least someone from the bar he could tell his story to. They couldn't allow that.


Other points

GP  -Oswald was initially being framed somely [sic - I have no feakin idea what I was trying to type there!] by the Dallas police because it is what they did.  
 
RO: A favorite theme of yours.  But it's bogus.  The frame of Oswald was setup beforehand by the perps.  The Dallas police could be trusted to help because that's what they do.  That was their role. The JFKA would never have happened without a frame as an integral part up front.

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I suspect here, we talking at cross purposes. What you seem to be talking about is the plot to get get him working on the parade route and whatever else you think was part of the planning to set things up. What I am talking about is the police frame that took place to convict him of double murder. 
 
RO:  No, what I am talking about is the frame itself.  The outlines of their story, which had some loose ends that were adjusted later, but which was established before the murder.  The police's role to execute the frame came afterwards, and was supervised by the perps to fit their story.  I think one of the main purposes of the initial interrogation of Oswald was to get his alibi so they could get about destroying evidence of it right away.

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GP-Oswald was killed by Ruby on behalf of the police to avoid an embarrassing trial in fron of the World media
 
RO:  Nah. Another needlessly psychological conclusion.  Ruby killed Oswald to keep him from defending himself against the frame 

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Now I am confused.

Are you suggesting Ruby was one of the plootters? 
 
RO:  No, nor was he one of the plotters.  He was used by the plotters.

The evidence is very clear that Ruby was assigned the role via Det Olsen and that he immediately set about trying to extracate himself from that by ( a ) solving the case ( b ) trying to get someone to ordder him out of the state and ( c ) making telephone threats against Oswald to try and get security boosted so no attempt could be made.
 
RO:  I think you've explained Ruby's dilemma well.


 
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