Mark Lane, Early Kennedy Assassination Conspiracy Theorist, Dies at 89

[Octafish]

72. Thanks to his efforts, MinM, we KNOW.

When Mr. Lane started, all he had were the facts as reported by the FBI and the Warren Commission. He found their evidence weak and analysis slipshod, but also intentionally skewed to make Lee Harvey Oswald guilty without benefit of trial or a public examination of the evidence. He found that railroading of Oswald un-American.

Here's his presentation at Duquesne on C-SPAN, followed by Joan Mellen's presentation:

http://www.c-span.org/video/?315655-1/kennedy-assassination-conspiracy-theories-mark-lane-joan-mellen

One important part he talked about was the reason for the official cover-up: President Johnson wanted to avoid an accidental nuclear war with the Soviet Union. He had to invoke the "Little incident in Mexico City" to get Chief Justice Earl Warren to cross the line dividing the three branches of government to give legitimacy to the President's Commission to Investigation the Assassination of President Kennedy" -- the Warren Commission.

Which reminds us that at a meeting in July 1961, CIA head and later Warren Commissioner Allen Dulles counseled JFK to attack in the Fall of 1963, when the USA would enjoy optimum strategic and tactical superiority. It's something important that's been missed by journalists and historians due to all copies but one getting burned...

Did the U.S. Military Plan a Nuclear First Strike for 1963?

Recently declassified information shows that the military presented President Kennedy with a plan for a surprise nuclear attack on the Soviet Union in the early 1960s.

James K. Galbraith and Heather A. Purcell
The American Prospect | September 21, 1994

During the early 1960s the intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) introduced the world to the possibility of instant total war. Thirty years later, no nation has yet fired any nuclear missile at a real target. Orthodox history holds that a succession of defensive nuclear doctrines and strategies -- from "massive retaliation" to "mutual assured destruction" -- worked, almost seamlessly, to deter Soviet aggression against the United States and to prevent the use of nuclear weapons.

The possibility of U.S. aggression in nuclear conflict is seldom considered. And why should it be? Virtually nothing in the public record suggests that high U.S. authorities ever contemplated a first strike against the Soviet Union, except in response to a Soviet invasion of Western Europe, or that they doubted the deterrent power of Soviet nuclear forces. The main documented exception was the Air Force Chief of Staff in the early 1960s, Curtis LeMay, a seemingly idiosyncratic case.

But beginning in 1957 the U.S. military did prepare plans for a preemptive nuclear strike against the U.S.S.R., based on our growing lead in land-based missiles. And top military and intelligence leaders presented an assessment of those plans to President John F. Kennedy in July of 1961. At that time, some high Air Force and CIA leaders apparently believed that a window of outright ballistic missile superiority, perhaps sufficient for a successful first strike, would be open in late 1963.

The document reproduced opposite is published here for the first time. It describes a meeting of the National Security Council on July 20, 1961. At that meeting, the document shows, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the director of the CIA, and others presented plans for a surprise attack. They answered some questions from Kennedy about timing and effects, and promised further information. The meeting recessed under a presidential injunction of secrecy that has not been broken until now.

CONTINUED...

http://prospect.org/article/did-us-military-plan-nuclear-first-strike-1963

''And we call ourselves the human race.'' - President John F. Kennedy, after walking out of that briefing.

It took Mark Lane standing up to power, and his purusuit of truth through the FOIA and an act of Congress establishing the House Select Committee on Assassinations. And now -- thanks to the continuing efforts of his colleagues and those who follow in his footsteps -- we have pretty much the exact picture of what happened, Who did What, Where, When, How, and To Whom -- but also to the "Why?"