"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable". -JFK

[IrishBubbaLiberal]

Another DU discussion pointed out this JKF quote, that I was previously unaware of.
Thank you

Re:

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100219808261


“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable”. -JFK


My favorite JFK speech was his acceptance to Liberal Party in New York state.

See:

https://www.jfklibrary.org/archives/other-resources/john-f-kennedy-speeches/liberal-party-nomination-nyc-19600914


The late great WHouse reporter Helen Thomas emailed too, that it was her favorite
JFK speech too. I was honored to correspond a few times by email with Helen Thomas,
Helen even used a question I suggested to ask President Bush JR

[Clouds Passing]

1. He is sorely missed

Last edited Tue Dec 10, 2024, 09:40 PM - Edit history (1)

The same wrecking crew who is causing this march to natseeism are the ones who murdered him.

Thank you IrishBubbaLiberal

[Kid Berwyn]

2. Receipts

History Lesson missing from post-Dallas curricula...

George H. W. Bush was in Dallas on November 22, 1963. I know so because AFTER THE ASSASSINATION he phoned the FBI to report a name he heard threaten JFK:

TO: SAC, HOUSTON DATE: 11-22-63

FROM: SA GRAHAM W. KITCHEL

SUBJECT: UNKNOWN SUBJECT;
ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT
JOHN F. KENNEDY

At 1:45 p.m. Mr. GEORGE H. W. BUSH, President of the Zapata Off-Shore Drilling Company, Houston, Texas, residence 5525 Briar, Houston, telephonically furnished the following information to writer by long distance telephone call from Tyler, Texas.

BUSH stated that he wanted to be kept confidential but wanted to furnish hearsay that he recalled hearing in recent weeks, the day and source unknown. He stated that one JAMES PARROTT has been talking of killing the President when he comes to Houston.

BUSH stated that PARROTT is possibly a student at the University of Houston and is active in political matters in this area. He stated that he felt Mrs. FAWLEY, telephone number SU 2-5239, or ARLINE SMITH, telephone number JA 9-9194 of the Harris County Republican Party Headquarters would be able to furnish additional information regarding the identity of PARROTT.

BUSH stated that he was proceeding to Dallas, Texas, would remain in the Sheraton-Dallas Hotel and return to his residence on 11-23-63. His office telephone number is CA 2-0395.

# # #

Of course, we didn’t know any of that until decades later when another FBI memo mentioned Mr. GEORGE Bush of the CIA” popped up when Poppy was running for preznit.

Date: November 29, 1963

To: Director
Bureau of Intelligence and Research
Department of State

From: John Edgar Hoover, Director

Subject: ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY
NOVEMBER 22, 1963

Our Miami, Florida, Office on November 23, 1963, advised that the Office of Coordinator of Cuban Affairs in Miami advised that the Department of State feels some misguided anti-Castro group might capitalize on the present situation and undertake an unauthorized raid against Cuba, believing that the assassination of President John F. Kennedy might herald a change in U. S. policy, which is not true.

Our sources and informants familiar with Cuban matters in the Miami area advise that the general feeling in the anti-Castro Cuban community is one of stunned disbelief and, even among those who did not entirely agree with the President's policy concerning Cuba, the feeling is that the President's death represents a great loss not only to the U. S. but to all of Latin America. These sources know of no plans for unauthorized action against Cuba.

An informant who has furnished reliable information in the past and who is close to a small pro-Castro group in Miami has advised that these individuals are afraid that the assassination of the President may result in strong repressive measures being taken against them and, although pro-Castro in their feelings, regret the assassination.

The substance of the foregoing information was orally furnished to Mr. George Bush of the Central Intelligence Agency and Captain William Edwards of the Defense Intelligence Agency on November 23, 1963, by Mr. W. T. Forsyth of this Bureau.

# # #

And the country today is set up with a Supreme Court majority that sides with a kakistocracy comprised of plutocrats, oligarchs and Putin.

[rampartd]

4. nixon "plumber" e howard huntwas on the grassy knoll that day. confessed to the crime on his death bed. n/t

[Upthevibe]

3. IrishBubbaLiberal........

Thanks for posting this.

I was looking for this a few days ago when a friend and I were having a discussion..

[LeftInTX]

5. JFK's Role in the Overthrow and Assassination of South Vietnamese President Ng Đnh Diệm

In November 1963, a conspiracy at the highest levels of the United States government orchestrated a coup d’état that culminated in the assassination of the President. The victim of this conspiracy wasn’t President John F. Kennedy. It was President Ngô Đình Diệm of South Vietnam, assassinated in Saigon on 2 November 1963. For six decades, Kennedy’s role in the overthrow and assassination of his fellow president has been obscured by detractors and defenders alike. That role is now clearer, thanks to the declassification of extraordinary evidence.

JFK created the best evidence himself. He secretly tape-recorded 23 White House meetings weighing the pros and cons of regime change in Saigon. In the second year of his presidency, Kennedy had a Secret Service agent conceal microphones in the Oval Office and the Cabinet Room and hook them up to a Tandberg reel-to-reel tape machine hidden behind locked doors in the White House basement. The President could activate the tape recorder at the press of a button that looked like a buzzer. One button was under the surface of the Resolute Desk, another on the coffee table by his rocking chair in the Oval Office, and a third on the Cabinet Room table in front of his chair. The microphones were hidden under the desktop, on the coffee table in what looked like a buzzer box, and in a pair of light fixtures behind the curtains over the Cabinet Room windows. Kennedy held the secret of his taping system close, limiting knowledge of its existence to the Secret Service agents who changed out the tapes; his personal secretary, Evelyn M. Lincoln, who wrote the date and the time on each tape box; and his brother, Robert F. Kennedy, who was the President’s closest adviser and the Attorney General of the United States.⁠1

A second source of extraordinary evidence was the JFK Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB). The President John F. Kennedy Records Collection Act of 1992 empowered an independent board of impartial private citizens to declassify U.S. government documents related to the JFK assassination.2 The JFK ARRB used that power to open files that would ordinarily stay closed to the public. In its final report, the board said it “cast a broad net” to “release valuable documents from the early 1960s that enhance the historical understanding of that era, and the political and diplomatic context in which the assassination occurred.”⁠3 That context included the overthrow and assassination of Diệm. The JFK ARRB declassified the records of a congressional investigation of the coup by the Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, better known as the Church Committee, after Chairman Frank F. Church [D–Idaho]. The evidence and testimony collected by the Church Committee paint a fuller picture of President Kennedy’s role in the coup and assassinations than the committee’s 1975 interim report, Alleged Assassination Plots Involving Foreign Leaders.4

https://prde.upress.virginia.edu/content/JFK_Vietnam2

FWIW

Upon learning of Diệm's ouster and assassination, Hồ Chí Minh reportedly stated: "I can scarcely believe the Americans would be so stupid".[6] The North Vietnamese Politburo was more explicit:

The consequences of the 1 November coup d'état will be contrary to the calculations of the US imperialists ... Diệm was one of the strongest individuals resisting the people and Communism. Everything that could be done in an attempt to crush the revolution was carried out by Diệm. Diệm was one of the most competent lackeys of the US imperialists ... Among the anti-Communists in South Vietnam or exiled in other countries, no one has sufficient political assets and abilities to cause others to obey. Therefore, the lackey administration cannot be stabilized. The coup d'état on 1 November 1963 will not be the last.[6]

After Diệm's assassination, South Vietnam was unable to establish a stable government and several coups took place. While the United States continued to influence South Vietnam's government, the assassination bolstered North Vietnamese attempts to characterize the South Vietnamese as "supporters of colonialism".[179]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ngo_Dinh_Diem

[Kid Berwyn]

6. JFK did not green light Diem assassination.

President Kennedy had tentatively approved a coup, but not murder.

Adding to your post, LeftInTX, what JFK dictated Nov. 4, 1963:

(President Kennedy): Monday, November 4, 1963. Over the weekend the coup in Saigon took place. It culminated three months of conversation about a coup, conversation which divided the government here and in Saigon.

(President Kennedy): Opposed to a coup was General Taylor, the Attorney General, Secretary McNamara to a somewhat lesser degree, John McCone, partly because of an old hostility to Lodge which causes him to lack confidence in Lodge's judgment, partly as a result of a new hostility because Lodge shifted his station chief; in favor of the coup was State, led by Averell Harriman, George Ball, Roger Hilsman, supported by Mike Forrestal at the White House.

(President Kennedy): I feel that we must bear a good deal of responsibility for it, beginning with our cable of early August in which we suggested the coup. In my judgment that wire was badly drafted, it should never have been sent on a Saturday. I should not have given my consent to it without a roundtable conference at which McNamara and Taylor could have presented their views. While we did redress that balance in later wires, that first wire encouraged Lodge along a course to which he was in any case inclined.

(President Kennedy): Harkins continued to oppose the coup on the ground that the military effort was doing well. There was a sharp split between Saigon and the rest of the country. Politically the situation was deteriorating. Militarily it had not had its effect; there was a feeling, however, that it would. For this reason, Secretary McNamara and General Taylor supported applying additional pressures to Diem and Nhu in order to move them.

(John Kennedy, Jr): Unclear

(President Kennedy): You want to say something? Say something. Hello.

(John Kennedy, Jr): Hello.

(President Kennedy): I was shocked by the death of Diem and Nhu. I'd met Diem with Justice Douglas many years ago. He was an extraordinary character. While he became increasingly difficult in the last months, nevertheless over a ten-year period he'd held his country together, maintained its independence under very adverse conditions. The way he was killed made it particularly abhorrent.

(President Kennedy): The question now is whether the generals can stay together and build a stable government, or whether Saigon will begin... will turn on... public opinion in Saigon, the intellectuals, students, etcetera, will turn on this government as repressive and undemocratic in the not too distant future.

Source: https://millercenter.org/the-presidency/educational-resources/jfk-memoir-dictation-assassination-of-diem

For some reason, the nation’s press have consistently repeated the claim that JFK ordered the coup. In contrast with the more pro-colonialist approach others in the US Government took in Vietnam are the excerpts below, courtesy of The Education Forum operated by the great DUer John Simkin:

Who changed the coup into the murder of Diem, Nhu and a Catholic priest?

From The Secret History of the CIA by Joseph Trento"

Who changed the coup into the murder of Diem, Nhu and a Catholic priest accompanying them? To this day, nothing has been found in government archives tying the killings to either John or Robert Kennedy. So how did the tools and talents developed by Bill Harvey for ZR/RIFLE and Operation MONGOOSE get exported to Vietnam? Kennedy immediately ordered (William R.) Corson to find out what had happened and who was responsible. The answer he came up with: “On instructions from Averell Harriman…. The orders that ended in the deaths of Diem and his brother originated with Harriman and were carried out by Henry Cabot Lodge’s own military assistant.”

Having served as ambassador to Moscow and governor of New York, W. Averell Harriman was in the middle of a long public career. In 1960, President-elect Kennedy appointed him ambassador-at-large, to operate “with the full confidence of the president and an intimate knowledge of all aspects of United States policy.” By 1963, according to Corson, Harriman was running “Vietnam without consulting the president or the attorney general.”

The president had begun to suspect that not everyone on his national security team was loyal. As Corson put it, “Kenny O’Donnell (JFK’s appointments secretary) was convinced that McGeorge Bundy, the national security advisor, was taking orders from Ambassador Averell Harriman and not the president. He was especially worried about Michael Forrestal, a young man on the White House staff who handled liaison on Vietnam with Harriman.”

At the heart of the murders was the sudden and strange recall of Sagon Station Chief Jocko Richardson and his replacement by a no-name team barely known to history. The key member was a Special Operations Army officer, John Michael Dunn, who took his orders, not from the normal CIA hierarchy but from Harriman and Forrestal.

According to Corson, “John Michael Dunn was known to be in touch with the coup plotters,” although Dunn’s role has never been made public. Corson believes that Richardson was removed so that Dunn, assigned to Ambassador Lodtge for “special operations,” could act without hindrance.

SOURCE:

“The Secret History of the CIA.” Joseph Trento. 2001, Prima Publishing. pp. 334-335.

And the situation on the ground, as reported a month prior to the murderous coup from a real reporter:

'SPOOKS' MAKE LIFE MISERABLE FOR AMBASSADOR LODGE

'Arrogant' CIA Disobeys Orders in Viet Nam

Richard Starnes
The Washington Daily News, Wednesday, October 2, 1963, p.3

SAIGON, Oct.2 - The story of the Central Intelligence Agency's role in South Viet Nam is a dismal chronicle of bureaucratic arrogance, obstinate disregard of orders, and unrestrained thirst for power.

Twice the CIA flatly refused to carry out instructions from Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge, according to a high United States source here.

In one of these instances the CIA frustrated a plan of action Mr. Lodge brought with him from Washington because the agency disagreed with it.

This led to a dramatic confrontation between Mr. Lodge and John Richardson, chief of the huge CIA apparatus here. Mr. Lodge failed to move Mr. Richardson, and the dispute was bucked back to Washington. Secretary of State Dean Rusk and CIA Chief John A. McCone were unable to resolve the conflict, and the matter is now reported to be awaiting settlement by President Kennedy.

It is one of the developments expected to be covered in Defense Secretary Robert McNamara's report to Mr. Kennedy.

Others Critical, Too

Other American agencies here are incredibly bitter about the CIA.

"If the United States ever experiences a 'Seven Days in May' it will come from the CIA, and not from the Pentagon," one U.S. official commented caustically.

("Seven Days in May" is a fictional account of an attempted military coup to take over the U.S. Government.)

CIA "spooks" (a universal term for secret agents here) have penetrated every branch of the American community in Saigon, until non-spook Americans here almost seem to be suffering a CIA psychosis.

An American field officer with a distinguished combat career speaks angrily about "that man at headquarters in Saigon wearing a colonel's uniform." He means the man is a CIA agent, and he can't understand what he is doing at U.S. military headquarters here, unless it is spying on other Americans.

Another American officer, talking about the CIA, acidly commented: "You'd think they'd have learned something from Cuba but apparently they didn't."

Few Know CIA Strength

Few people other than Mr. Richardson and his close aides know the actual CIA strength here, but a widely used figure is 600. Many are clandestine agents known only to a few of their fellow spooks.

Even Mr. Richardson is a man about whom it is difficult to learn much in Saigon. He is said to be a former OSS officer, and to have served with distinction in the CIA in the Philippines.

A surprising number of the spooks are known to be involved in their ghostly trade and some make no secret of it.

"There are a number of spooks in the U.S. Information Service, in the U.S. Operations mission, in every aspect of American official and commercial life here, " one official - presumably a non-spook - said.

"They represent a tremendous power and total unaccountability to anyone," he added.

Coupled with the ubiquitous secret police of Ngo Dinh Nhu, a surfeit of spooks has given Saigon an oppressive police state atmosphere.

The Nhu-Richardson relationship is a subject of lively speculation. The CIA continues to pay the special forces which conducted brutal raids on Buddhist temples last Aug. 21, altho in fairness it should be pointed out that the CIA is paying these goons for the war against communist guerillas, not Buddhist bonzes (priests).

Hand Over Millions

Nevertheless, on the first of every month, the CIA dutifully hands over a quarter million American dollars to pay these special forces.

Whatever else it buys, it doesn't buy any solid information on what the special forces are up to. The Aug. 21 raids caught top U.S. officials here and in Washington flat-footed.

Nhu ordered the special forces to crush the Buddhist priests, but the CIA wasn't let in on the secret. (Some CIA button men now say they warned their superiors what was coming up, but in any event the warning of harsh repression was never passed to top officials here or in Washington.)

Consequently, Washington reacted unsurely to the crisis. Top officials here and at home were outraged at the news the CIA was paying the temple raiders, but the CIA continued the payments.

It may not be a direct subsidy for a religious war against the country's Buddhist majority, but it comes close to that.

And for every State Department aide here who will tell you, "Dammit, the CIA is supposed to gather information, not make policy, but policy-making is what they're doing here," there are military officers who scream over the way the spooks dabble in military operations.

A Typical Example

For example, highly trained trail watchers are an important part of the effort to end Viet Cong infiltration from across the Laos and Cambodia borders. But if the trailer watchers spot incoming Viet Congs, they report it to the CIA in Saigon, and in the fullness of time, the spooks may tell the military.

One very high American official here, a man who has spent much of his life in the service of democracy, likened the CIA's growth to a malignancy, and added he was not sure even the White House could control it any longer.

Unquestionably Mr. McNamara and Gen. Maxwell Taylor both got an earful from people who are beginning to fear the CIA is becoming a Third Force co-equal with President Diem's regime and the U.S. Government - and answerable to neither.

There is naturally the highest interest here as to whether Mr. McNamara will persuade Mr. Kennedy something ought to be done about it.

SOURCE:

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=7534&mode=threaded

The nation’s press are the ones who’ve consistently echoed the claim that JFK ordered the coup. Thank Goodness for the Jesuits, John Simkin and DU.