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Editorial: Most Outrageous Right Wing Comments of 2006 - The offensive, the senseless, the bigoted, the inaccurate: a year in right-wing nuttery
Media Matters for America
December 28, 2006.
The top 11 (in chronological order):
William A. Donohue, president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights: "Well, look, there are people in Hollywood, not all of them, but there are some people who are nothing more than harlots. They will do anything for the buck. They wouldn't care. If you asked them to sodomize their own mother in a movie, they would do so, and they would do it with a smile on their face." [2/9/06]
Fox News host John Gibson: "Do your duty. Make more babies. That's a lesson drawn out of two interesting stories over the last couple of days. First, a story yesterday that half of the kids in this country under five years old are minorities. By far, the greatest number are Hispanic. You know what that means? Twenty-five years and the majority of the population is Hispanic. Why is that? Well, Hispanics are having more kids than others. Notably, the ones Hispanics call 'gabachos' -- white people -- are having fewer." [5/11/06]
Right-wing pundit Ann Coulter on the New York Times' decision to report on the Bush administration's warrantless domestic wiretapping program and a Treasury Department financial transaction tracking program: The Times had done "something that could have gotten them executed, certainly did get the Rosenbergs (Julius and Ethel) executed." [7/12/06]
Coulter responding to Hardball host Chris Matthews' question, "How do you know that [former President] Bill Clinton's gay?": "I don't know if he's gay. But [former Vice President] Al Gore -- total fag." [7/27/06]
Nationally syndicated radio host Michael Savage: "That's why the department store dummy named Wolf Blitzer, a Jew who was born in Israel, will do the astonishing act of being the type that would stick Jewish children into a gas chamber to stay alive another day. He's probably the most despicable man in the media next to Larry King, who takes a close runner-up by the hair of a nose. The two of them together look like the type that would have pushed Jewish children into the oven to stay alive one more day to entertain the Nazis." [8/7/06]
Coulter on Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., an African-American: "Congresswoman Maxine Waters had parachuted into Connecticut earlier in the week to campaign against [Sen. Joseph I.] Lieberman because he once expressed reservations about affirmative action, without which she would not have a job that didn't involve wearing a paper hat. Waters also considers Joe 'soft' on the issue of the CIA inventing crack cocaine and AIDS to kill all the black people in America." [8/9/06]
Nationally syndicated radio host Rush Limbaugh, blaming America's "obesity crisis" on "the left," "liberal government," and "food stamps": "Because we are sympathetic, we are compassionate people, we have responded by letting our government literally feed these people to the point of obesity. At least here in America, didn't teach them how to fish, we gave them the fish. Didn't teach them how to butcher a -- slaughter a cow to get the butter, we gave them the butter. The real bloat here, as we know, is in -- is in government." [8/29/06]
Coulter on Sen. Lincoln Chafee, R-R.I.: "They Shot the Wrong Lincoln." [8/30/06]
Conservative pundit and former Republican presidential candidate Pat Buchanan: "Look, [Rep. Jim] Kolbe [R-Ariz.] is gay. He is an out-of-the-closet gay. [Rep. Mark] Foley [R-Fla.] was gay. The House clerk who was in charge of the pages [Jeff Trandahl] was gay. Foley's administrative assistant, Mr. [Kirk] Fordham, the New York Times tells us, was gay. You hear about a lot of others. What's going on here, Joe [Scarborough, MSNBC host], is basically these, this little mafia in there looked upon the pages, I guess, as their -- sort of their personal preserve. And it stinks to high heaven what was done. And it stinks to high heaven that it was not exposed and these types of people, thrown out by the Republican Party." [10/9/06]
CNN Headline News host Glenn Beck to Rep.-elect Keith Ellison, D-Minn.: "OK. No offense, and I know Muslims. I like Muslims. ... With that being said, you are a Democrat. You are saying, 'Let's cut and run.' And I have to tell you, I have been nervous about this interview with you, because what I feel like saying is, 'Sir, prove to me that you are not working with our enemies.' " [11/14/06]
Right-wing pundit Debbie Schlussel on Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill.: So, even if he identifies strongly as a Christian ... is a man who Muslims think is a Muslim, who feels some sort of psychological need to prove himself to his absent Muslim father, and who is now moving in the direction of his father's heritage, a man we want as president when we are fighting the war of our lives against Islam? Where will his loyalties be?" [12/18/06]
Honorable mentions (also in chronological order):
Beck: "Cindy Sheehan. That's a pretty big prostitute there, you know what I mean?" [1/10/06]
Republican strategist Mary Matalin: "I mean, you know, I think these civil rights leaders are nothing more than racists. And they're keeping constituency, they're keeping their neighborhoods and their African-American brothers enslaved, if you will, by continuing to let them think that they're -- or forced to think that they're victims, that the whole system is against them." [2/8/06]
Pat Robertson, host of the Christian Broadcasting Network's The 700 Club: "But it does seem that with the current makeup of the court, they still don't have as many judges as would be needed to overturn Roe [v. Wade]. They need one more, and I dare say before the end of this year there will be another vacancy on the court." [3/7/06]
Albert Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and host of the daily Christian radio show The Albert Mohler Program: "Well, I would have to say as a Christian that I believe any belief system, any world view, whether it's Zen Buddhism or Hinduism or dialectical materialism for that matter, Marxism, that keeps persons captive and keeps them from coming to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, yes, is a demonstration of satanic power." [3/17/06]
Nationally syndicated radio host Neal Boortz on Rep. Cynthia McKinney's (D-Ga.) hairstyle: "She looks like a ghetto slut. ... It looks like an explosion in a Brillo pad factory. ... She looks like Tina Turner peeing on an electric fence. ... She looks like a shih tzu!" [3/31/06]
Boortz on McKinney's hairstyle (again): "I saw Cynthia McKinney's hairdo yesterday -- saw it on TV. I don't blame that cop for stopping her. It looked like a welfare drag queen was trying to sneak into the Longworth House Office Building. That hairdo is ghetto trash. I don't blame them for stopping her." [3/31/06]
Limbaugh discussing a videotape released by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the then-leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq: "[I]t sounds just like the DNC (Democratic National Committee) is writing his scripts now." [4/26/06]
Beck: "Blowing up Iran. I say we nuke the bastards. In fact, it doesn't have to be Iran, it can be everywhere, anyplace that disagrees with me." [5/11/06]
Jonathan Hoenig, managing member of Capitalistpig Asset Management LLC, on Fox News' Your World with Neil Cavuto: "I think when it comes to Iran, the problem is we haven't been forceful enough. I mean if you -- frankly, if you want to see the Dow go up, let's get the bombers in the air and neutralize this Iranian threat." [6/5/06]
Fox host Geraldo Rivera: "I've known [Sen.] John Kerry [D-Mass.] for over 35 years. Unlike me, he is a combat veteran, so he gets some props. But in the last 35 years, I've seen a hell of a lot more combat than John Kerry. And for a smart man like that in a political ploy to set a date certain only aids and abets the enemy, and the Democrats are at their own self-destructive behavior once again." [6/22/06]
Savage: "I don't know why we don't use a bunker-buster bomb when he comes to the U.N. and just take [Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad] out with everyone in there." [7/21/06]
Boortz: "I want you to think for a moment of how incompetent and stupid and worthless, how -- that's right, I used those words -- how incompetent, how ignorant, how worthless is an adult that can't earn more than the minimum wage? You have to really, really, really be a pretty pathetic human being to not be able to earn more than the human wage. Uh -- human, the minimum wage." [8/3/06]
Syndicated columnist and Fox News host Cal Thomas on businessman Ned Lamont's victory in Connecticut's Democratic primary for the U.S. Senate: "It completes the capture of the Democratic Party by its Taliban wing. ... [T]hey have now morphed into Taliban Democrats because they are willing to 'kill' one of their own, if he does not conform to the narrow and rigid agenda of the party's kook fringe." [8/10/06]
Fox News host Sean Hannity, two months before the November midterm elections: "This is the moment to say that there are things in life worth fighting and dying for and one of 'em is making sure [Rep.] Nancy Pelosi [D-Calif.] doesn't become the [House] speaker." [8/29/06]
Beck: "The Middle East is being overrun by 10th-century barbarians. That's what I thought at 5 o'clock this morning, and I thought, 'Oh, geez, what -- what is this?' If they take over -- the barbarians storm the gate and take over the Middle East (this is what I'm thinking at 5 o'clock in the morning) -- we're going to have to nuke the whole place." [9/12/06]
Savage: "My fear is that if the Democrats win [in the November midterm elections], and I'm afraid that they might, you're going to see America melt down faster that you could ever imagine. It will happen overnight, and it could lead to the breakup of the United States of America, the way the Soviet Union broke up." [10/13/06]
Republican pollster Frank Luntz on Nancy Pelosi's appearance: "I always use the line for Nancy Pelosi, 'You get one shot at a facelift. If it doesn't work the first time, let it go.' " [10/31/06]
Limbaugh on the Middle East: "Fine, just blow the place up." [11/27/06]
Fox News host Bill O'Reilly (on his radio show): "Do I care if the Sunnis and Shiites kill each other in Iraq? No. I don't care. Let's get our people out of there. Let them kill each other. Maybe they'll all kill each other, and then we can have a decent country in Iraq." [12/5/06]
New York Post columnist Ralph Peters on Iraq Study Group co-chairman James Baker: "The difference is that [Pontius] Pilate just wanted to wash his hands of an annoyance, while Baker would wash his hands in the blood of our troops." [12/7/06]
Conservative syndicated radio host Michael Medved on the animated movie "Happy Feet": The film contains "a whole subtext, as there so often is, about homosexuality." [12/11/06]
Fox captions
Additionally, although these are not examples of specific conservative commentators making outrageous comments, we would be remiss if we did not mention that Fox News made a regular practice of attacking Democrats or repeating Republican talking points in on-screen text during its coverage of political issues. Some examples:
"All-Out Civil War in Iraq: Could It Be a Good Thing?" [2/23/06]
"Attacking Capitalism: Have Dems Declared War on America?" [2/18/06]
"Dems Helping the Enemy?" [5/22/06]
"A Lamont Win, Bad News for Democracy in Mideast?"
"Have the Democrats Forgotten the Lessons of 9/11?"
"Is the Democratic Party Soft on Terror?" [8/8/06]
"The #1 President on Mideast Matters: George W Bush?" [8/14/06]
"Is the Liberal Media Helping to Fuel Terror?" [8/16/06]
Comment on this Editorial
Editorial: Bush, the Inept Marionette
By Curt Maynard
Al-Jazeerah
December 25, 2006
Yeah, whatever, the AP can write whatever they like, but the truth is al-Maliki "punked," Bush, which is modern vernacular meaning that Bush was intentionally disrespected publicly. To my knowledge nothing like this has ever happened before - as a rule Presidential advisors do everything they can to ensure that the President of the United States never gets embarrassed in such a manner. In any case, al-Maliki's absence spelled out something quite clearly - Bush has no influence in the Middle East any longer - zero.
Many Americans are beginning to realize the obvious, President Bush has completely wasted any capital that he may have once had. Foreign leaders are already aware of this, nobody takes him seriously, he is seen for what he is, a weak, inept marionette.
Recently we saw the new Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki literally stand Bush up at an allegedly important meeting in Jordan - he literally left Bush standing alone waiting on his own subordinate, at least from Bush's perspective. The Associated Press did their best to mitigate what happened and to spin the implications, but it did a poor job at best.
According to the AP the meeting that Bush and al-Maliki were scheduled to meet at was scrubbed, not because al-Maliki "punked" Bush by not showing up, but for some other reason, but not before Bush was expecting al-Maliki as evidenced by the fact that when the meeting was scrubbed, he was already inside Raghadan Palace and had posed for photographs alone with the king.
White House counselor Dan Bartlett denied that the delay was a snub by al-Maliki directed at Bush or was related to the leak of a memo written by White House National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley questioning the prime minister's capacity for controlling violence in Iraq."
Yeah, whatever, the AP can write whatever they like, but the truth is al-Maliki "punked," Bush, which is modern vernacular meaning that Bush was intentionally disrespected publicly. To my knowledge nothing like this has ever happened before - as a rule Presidential advisors do everything they can to ensure that the President of the United States never gets embarrassed in such a manner. In any case, al-Maliki's absence spelled out something quite clearly - Bush has no influence in the Middle East any longer - zero.
To further support this fact and to support something else the mainstream media would prefer that you don't know, Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad recently admonished George Bush publicly too, he stated the obvious in response to a comment Bush made about him, when Bush said that Ahmadinejad was out of step with the rest of the world. Iran's President replied by saying that perhaps Georgie needs to step out of [his] glass palace and go to [his] people to see how isolated [he is], not only across the world but also in your own country." Ahmadinejad continued by saying "Mr. Bush can travel to one of the American states, inviting the people to a stadium to see how the people would treat him... I am sure that the American people would treat Mr. Bush as the Indonesian people treated him," he said referring to protests that greeted Bush on a visit to Indonesia last month. Yeah, fat chance that'll ever happen.
Ahmadinejad then stated what everyone but the most avid Fox News viewers are starting to conclude, and that is that Some so-called superpowers have gathered together and they think that they can control the whole world. I'm telling them: Open your eyes, today, the world no longer thinks your decisions have any value. "By God's grace, the enemies have not been able to do anything (against Iran) as yet and they will not be able to do anything in the future either," he said.
The above comments weren't made lightly, the Iranian President is well aware of the fact that the power elite in Washington DC cannot afford to allow him to make them look like monkeys, but nonetheless that is exactly what he has successfully done.
Another thing the Iranian leader has done that truly has exposed the so-called modern western democracies to the embarrassment they so desperately deserve is to hold the holocaust conference that he did a few weeks ago, and to do so under the provision that it was held because it could not be held in the west, which by the way is an empirical fact.
Despite the fact that President Ahmadinejad is the leader of a nation that according to our media suppresses freedom of speech, Ahmadinejad correctly pointed out that it is the west, not Iran, that throws its historians in prison for questioning certain aspects of the holocaust story, not as the media would have you believe, whether or not it occurred, but rather numbers and methods.
The fact is, not a single holocaust revisionist would state that the Nazis did not persecute Jews during the Second World War, but most of them question the idea that six million were killed or that any of them were gassed at Auschwitz.
By holding that conference and by emphasizing the undeniable fact that the so-called modern democracies in the west imprison skeptics, the Iranian President has further highlighted the fact that Bush is a "limp dick."
The media wants you to believe that anyone that would question any aspect of the official holocaust story is crazy and/or a "conspiracy theorist." The fact is, the reason some people question certain details associated with the holocaust is for exactly the same reason that many people question the "official version" of 9-11, because there are a tremendous amount of perfectly legitimate questions and no forthcoming answers.
The media would have you believe that only uneducated fools, anti-Semites and racists would question their version of what happened to Jewry during WWII, the mainstream media pumped out more than 1,000 articles about the holocaust conference in Iran, but not a single one of them ever mentioned that every scholar that appeared in Tehran to speak was a credentialed academic, meaning that they had at least a graduate degree.
Nope, the Mainstream Zionist media doesn't want you to know that.
They do however want you to know that David Duke appeared, so that they can cast aspersions on the entire conference by dredging up the fact that Duke was associated with the KKK some thirty years ago, but at the same time not a single one of those so-called "objective" articles mentioned the fact that Duke has a PhD in history or that he appeared, not to question the holocaust, but in order to authoritatively speak about how the mainstream western media spins and distorts the facts, as evidenced by their very coverage of Dr. David Duke and what he actually said. I highly encourage anyone and everyone to disregard what the media said took place in Tehran and what the speakers said, and to see for themselves what transpired there by reading the words of the revisionists that were there, and by reading what Dr David Duke actually said in regards to free speech and its suppression in the west, in his own words.
Was the holocaust conference a success?
You bet it was, not three weeks after its conclusion, Austria released David Irving from prison, no doubt as a result of the embarrassment brought upon it by way of the truths spoken at the conference. David Irving owes a large debt of gratitude to those that spoke out on his behalf in Tehran, now let's hope he recognizes that fact and reciprocates without succumbing to the pressures of political correctness that often bar those seeking fame in the modern era.
Bush has taken the world to the very edge, he has threatened the leaders of nations with absolute destruction, as he did with Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf, when he sent Zionist lackey Richard Armitage to Pakistan after 9-11 to tell the Pakistani leader that the United States would bomb Pakistan "back to the stone age," unless Musharraf cooperated with the United States in its war on terror. The fact that Pervez Musharraf even admitted this publicly as he did back in September also is a strong indicator that Bush's impotence is well known among Muslim leaders. None of them believe anything he says, which has led to the inevitable, a "broke dick" foreign policy approach by the President and his Zionist sponsors.
"Broke dick" is another term I learned while in the U.S. cavalry, it essentially means "irreparably broken," and better describes Bush's misadventures in the Mid east, than any other word that comes to mind.
It isn't just Middle Eastern leaders that have called Bush's bluff, the entire world sees the fool for exactly what he is, a "limp dick" with a "broke dick" administration. The only thing holding Bush up at this point is the Zionist media, who have been busily engaged in making him appear as if he weren't the moron that he in fact is - a tough job to be sure.
The Russians and the Chinese have absolutely no respect for Bush, no matter what he does they ignore him and move on with their own interests. Hugo Chavez the popular and democratically elected leader of Venezuela accurately labeled Bush the devil and did so before the entire UN assembly, in New York City no less, and stated something else that should wake up the American people, and that is that Bush's government [Democratic and Republican elite alike] are the first enemies," of the American people," and that the Zionist-American elite's empire is on its way down.
Chavez provided several examples as to why this eventuality is in fact inevitable, one of which was witnessed by the entire world, and that was when a United States veto at the United Nations allowed the Israelis with impunity to destroy Lebanon in front of us all as we stood there watching."
Americans must wake up, their government is ill, it has become a pathological liar, unable to tell the truth, because the truth will lead to its downfall.
Bush allegedly sent the US military to Iraq in order to bring "democracy" to the Mid east, but democracy isn't working out very well for Bush and company, because democratically elected leaders aren't siding with the Zionist warmongers that inhabit Washington DC and the western media - in fact - they are doing exactly what Bush and the Zionists least expected, they are standing up to their bullying tactics - they are no longer afraid, which leaves Bush in the unenviable position of having to do something about the world's lack of fear.
Unfortunately for Bush, he has no real options, he can go nuclear which will lead to his downfall and the collapse of the American government at best, and at worst, death to tens of millions of people worldwide, including most likely millions of Americans, which will also lead to his downfall and the collapse of the American government.
No, the truth is, Bush is completely impotent, there is no guarantee that the American people will fall for anymore lies or another staged attack - everyone knows Bush lied us into a war in Iraq and its subsequent disastrous occupation, everyone now knows that Bush, despite his rhetoric, supports the amnesty of twenty million illegal immigrants in this country, not because he gives a damn about them, but because his Zionist puppet masters want them there for a variety of reasons, to disenfranchise the American working man, to water down the voting power [if any still exists] of the majority, to force down wages, and most importantly to create disharmony and discord among the American people by way of disingenuous accusations of racism, which will distract Americans from what Bush does elsewhere - Machiavellian principles at their finest.
No, it's very difficult to tell whether or not another staged terror attack like 9-11 will have the desired effect, but that isn't to say Bush and his Zionist masters won't attempt one, in fact, I'd say it's inevitable, I don't think they see any other way out of the mess they created, they'll fabricate a new 9-11, not so much to provide an excuse to nuke Tehran, which will come later, but to impose Martial Law here in the United States - an attack can wait, but the growing dissent among Americans cannot - that spells imminent doom for the Zio-American entity.
The question that must be plaguing their minds though is whether or not Bush still has enough credibility to compel Law Enforcement and the National Guard to kill American citizens in the millions.
Personally I doubt it - the imposition of Martial law will prove to be the final nail in the coffin of the Zionist-led government in Washington. That doesn't mean I'll be around to see it, the Neo-Cons will follow to the letter the policies of their ideological predecessors and eliminate with extreme prejudice any opponents, but nonetheless I'll leave this world knowing that they'll soon follow.
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Editorial: Bush's Worst Lies of 2006 - A look back at some of the biggest falsehoods of 2006.
By Eleanor Clift
MSNBC
26 Dec 06
In the spirit of holding our political leaders accountable, this year-end review will tabulate the worst lies told by Bush and company, along with several stories that were underreported in the media. Much of what was generated got lost in the fog of war, but the long arm of history will retrieve these moments. As the president said in his news conference this week, if they're still writing about No. 1-George Washington-there's plenty of time before the historians can properly evaluate No. 43. Judging by the mess in Iraq, it could be 200 or 300 years - if ever - before Bush is vindicated.
Bush has shifted his rhetoric in deference to the grim and deteriorating reality on the ground in Iraq. Asked by a reporter on Oct. 25 if we are winning the war, Bush said, "Absolutely, we're winning." Offered the opportunity at his press conference to defend that statement, Bush has adopted a new formulation. He now says, "We're not winning, but we're not losing." That sounds like the definition of a quagmire.
Exploitation of the war gained Republicans seats in '02 and got Bush a second term in '04, but it wasn't enough in '06. Karl Rove decided the best way for Republicans to retain control of the House and Senate was to embrace the war in Iraq and run against the Democrats as "Defeatocrats" and "Cut and Runners." It might have worked, had not most Americans decided they did indeed want to cut and run. Not right away-the voters want an orderly exit-but they weren't buying Bush's big lie about the Democrats.
Bush campaigned this fall as though the Democrats were the real enemy, not the terrorists. "They [Democrats] think the best way to protect the American people is wait until we're attacked again ... If you don't want your government listening in on terrorists, vote for the Democrats." Now that the Democrats have won, watch Bush try to off-load blame for the failure in Iraq. If the Democrats won't go along with whatever cockamamie scheme he comes up with, he can always accuse them of losing the war.
Days after giving Defense Secretary Rumsfeld a ringing endorsement, declaring he would be there until the end, Bush fired him. It was the most obvious lie of his presidency. And it tripped so easily off Bush's tongue. There was none of the stammering that usually accompanies his public utterances. It was as big a lie as Rove's assertion on National Public Radio that all the public polls pointing toward a rout for the GOP were wrong. "I have the math," Rove proclaimed. A lot of people believed Rove, but the voters didn't.
The administration had the media snookered much of the time. Stories that were underreported largely because they ran counter to administration spin include:
# A study that shows the death toll among Iraqis has reached as high as 655,000. Extensively researched by teams of doctors commissioned by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, Md., the study-and the controversy over its sampling methodology-was given scant attention by the media because it was so far out of line from the administration's projection of perhaps 50,000 civilian deaths. That's still a horrendous death toll of innocents in a country the size of Iraq. Now, 100 bodies routinely turn up every day in Baghdad's morgues, the victims of sectarian violence, and the report, published in October in The Lancet medical journal, seems to be closer to the truth than anything the Bush administration has acknowledged.
# Private contractors in Iraq. There are 100,000 government contractors in Iraq, a number that rivals the 140,000 U.S. soldiers in the country. It's dangerous work; some 650 contractors have died there. They do a lot of the jobs the military used to do, everything from providing security and interrogating prisoners to cooking meals for the soldiers. They work for military contractors like KBR and DynCorp International, which are helping train the Iraqi police force. This is the largest contingent of civilians ever operating in a battlefield environment, and there's been no congressional oversight or accountability. That should change with the Democrats taking over the investigative committees on Capitol Hill. The abuses may be just waiting to be uncovered.
# America's secret torture prisons, whose existence Bush acknowledged as part of his tough-guy campaigning this fall. Set up in the aftermath of 9/11 to hold suspected terrorists indefinitely, the legality, morality and practicality of these so-called "black sites" have come under scrutiny. After a brief flurry about the use of torture tactics like "water boarding," where a prisoner is made to feel he's drowning, the story of these CIA-operated overseas prisons faded. Yet they contributed to the central tragedy of the Bush administration, the collapse of America's standing around the world.
Original
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Editorial: Remembering Gerald Ford: US Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld Linked to "Murder of CIA Scientist"
by Gordon Thomas
20 August 02
Secret documents have revealed that Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld are "linked to the murder" of a former senior CIA scientist.
In 1953 Frank Olson, who was a key member of the CIAs secret brainwashing programme MK-ULTRA, was sent plunging from a New York hotel window.
He had threatened to reveal the CIA involvement in "terminal experiments" in post-war Germany and in Korea during the Korean War.
For almost half a century his son, Eric, a psychologist, has insisted his father was murdered "on orders from the highest level".
Now a California history professor, Kathryn Olmstead, revealed she had discovered at the Gerald Ford library documents written by Cheney and Rumsfeld at the time of Frank Olson's death.
They show how far the White House went to conceal information about Olson's death - and his role in preparing anthrax and other biological weapons. Part of his work had been at Britain's Porton Down Chemical-Bio Research Centre.
Cheney and Rumsfeld were given the task of covering up the details of Frank Olson's death. At the time, Rumsfeld was White House Chief of Staff to President Gerald Ford. Dick Cheney was a senior White House assistant.
The documents uncovered by Professor Olmstead include one that states "Dr Olson's job was so sensitive that it is highly unlikely that we would submit relevant evidence".
In another memo, Cheney acknowledges that "the Olson lawyers will seek to explore all the circumstances of Dr Olson's employment, as well as those concerning his death. In any trial, it may become apparent that we are concealing evidence for national security reasons and any settlement or judgement reached thereafter could be perceived as money paid to cover up the activities of the CIA".
Frank Olson's family received US $750,000 to settle their claims against the US government.
But Professor Olmstead's revelations will almost certainly bring further embarrassment to Rumsfeld and Cheney as the persistent fallout from the FBIs investigation into the anthrax mailings last year, which lead to five deaths in America, continues to escalate.
Both the offices of Rumsfeld and Cheney have declined comment on their role in the murder of Frank Olson.
But from his home outside Washington, Eric Olson said that the documents involving Rumsfeld and Cheney show they "have questions to answer".
He added: "The documents show the lengths to which the government was trying to cover up the truth. For decades there was a cover up. And then, under the guise of revealing everything, there was a new cover up."
But a CIA spokesman, Paul Nowack, insisted that the CIA had "fully cooperated in allowing the full truth to surface. Tens of thousands of documents were released".
Eric Olson has contended that his father was murdered to cover up his ultra-secret research in Korea and later in Europe and Britain.
"My father was among scientists studying the use of LSD and other drugs to enhance interrogations, as Cold War tensions ran high, and Americans feared that captured soldiers had been brainwashed in Korea. My father had gone to Europe, where he observed the interrogation of former Nazis and Soviet citizens at a secret US base", said Eric Olson.
He contends that in the final days of his life, his father became "morally distraught" over his work and decided to quit. Records show that CIA officials were concerned that he was a security risk. Eric Olson believes that the thought of Frank Olson quitting was a motive for the government to want him dead.
"In 1993, Eric Olson arranged for his father's body to be unearthed and examined by a forensic scientist, James Starrs. Starrs concluded that Frank Olson had probably been struck on the head and then thrown out of the hotel window," writes Frederick Tulsky in the Mercury News.
Starrs' conclusion is one of the tantalizing pieces that Eric Olson has gathered to support his belief that his father was murdered.
In late November 1953, Frank Olson, then 43, joined a group of government officials at a conference at Deep Creek Lodge in western Maryland. For days afterward, Olson was withdrawn. His son, Eric, says his father told his wife that he intended to quit his job.
But Frank Olson did not quit. And on November 23 he went to New York with another government official, where he twice visited Harold A Abramson, a doctor who was one of the first researchers to study the effects of LSD.
Olson returned to Washington, then went back to New York on November 28 and checked into the Statler Hotel. He was scheduled to enter a sanitarium the next day.
But early in the morning of November 29, Frank Olson went through the window of the hotel room he was sharing with a colleague, Robert Lashbrook. Lashbrook told police that he was awakened by the sound of breaking glass.
"The Olson family knew little else. But in 1975, a commission headed by Vice President Nelson Rockefeller issued a report on CIA abuses, and an account in the Washington Post included a mention of an Army scientist who jumped from a New York hotel room days after being slipped LSD in 1953," writes Tulsky.
"We realized they were talking about my father," Eric Olson recalled. Family members talked to reporters about their outrage and said they would sue the government. Days later, the family was invited to the White House to meet President Ford. He assured them that they would be given all information about what happened to Frank Olson.
Soon after, family members were invited to lunch with CIA Director William Colby, who gave them a file of documents that amounted to the CIA investigation into Olson's death. But the documents left many questions unanswered about both his work and the circumstances of his death.
"The express understanding was that the government had promised to give us all information, which clearly meant information about his work relationship with the CIA," the Olsons' attorney, David Rudovsky of Philadelphia, said this week. "It now appears that was not the case."
Over the years Eric Olson turned up many clues, real or coincidental. There was, for example, the assassination manual that the CIA declassified in connection with its Guatemala activities. The manual, created in the early 1950s, identified "the contrived accident" as "the most effective technique" of secret assassination.
"The most efficient accident, in simple assassination, is a fall of 75 feet or more onto a hard surface," the manual stated. "It was exactly what happened to my father," said Eric Olson.
Original
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Editorial: Remembering Gerald Ford: The Kennedy Assassination
A SOTT Special Report
Giving Consent
We were slightly taken aback when we found this item yesterday. We asked ourselves: Do they really believe this type of manipulation can work?
Then we remembered the WMD in Iraq, 9/11, the 2000 elections. Of course it will work.
No JFK conspiracy, new analysis shows
October 28, 2003
The United States' ABC television network said today it conducted an exhaustive investigation of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, complete with a computer-generated reconstruction, which irrefutably confirms that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone.
A two-hour special on the event is scheduled to air on ABC News in the United States on November 20, two days before the 40th anniversary Kennedy's killing.
"It leaves no room for doubt," said Tom Yellin, executive producer of the special, narrated by Peter Jennings.
He called the results of ABC's study "enormously powerful. It's irrefutable". The conclusion that Oswald alone shot Kennedy during a motorcade in Dallas mirrors that of the Warren Commission, the official government inquiry into the assassination.
Even today, public opinion surveys find that less than half of Americans don't agree with that conclusion, said Gary Mack, curator of the Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza in Dallas.
But that reservoir of doubt, largely fed by government secrecy and Oliver Stone's movie on the assassination, is important to address, Yellin said.
ABC News worked with an expert who created a computer-generated reconstruction of the shooting based on maps, blueprints, physical measurements, more than 500 photographs, films and autopsy reports, ABC said.
It enables a person to view the scene from any number of perspectives, including what Oswald saw from the sixth floor of the former Texas school book depository, Yellin said.
"When you do that, it's chillingly clear what happened," Yellin said.
He dismisses theories that there was another gunman.
Through interviews and other documentation, ABC News also concludes that Jack Ruby, who later killed Oswald, acted simply out of his love for Kennedy.
The computer-generated technology, only available for the past few years, is now frequently used in criminal investigations, Yellin said.
While Stone's movie raised doubt in many people's minds about the Warren Commission, it also led to the release of many government documents that had previously been kept hidden and fueled conspiracy theorists, Yellin said.
None of the documents offer significant evidence refuting the conclusion that Oswald acted alone, Yellin said.
Still, much of Americans' cynicism about their government can be traced to November 22, 1963, making further investigation important even 40 years later, he said.
"I think it's very hard for people to accept the fact that the most powerful man in the world can be murdered by a disaffected person whose life had been a series of failures up to that point," Yellin said.
Both Yellin and Mack admit that no matter what evidence ABC News lays out, it's not likely to quiet people who believe otherwise.
"The history of this subject is pretty clear," Mack said.
"No matter what information comes out, people are going to believe what they want."
So, based upon maps, blueprints, physical measurements, more than 500 photographs, films and autopsy reports, the good folks at ABC have made a computer-generated reconstruction of the shooting that leaves no doubt that Oswald acted alone. We have some excerpts from a book below that also used many of the same materials and arrived at the opposite conclusion: JFK was murdered by a powerful group of CIA operatives and politicians who were staunch "anti-communists." This work, The Taking Of America, 1-2-3 by Richard E. Sprague, also has a long chapter on how the main news producers in the US were involved in the cover-up by withholding these same documents from the public eye.
And that is the fundamental question: Will these documents be made public so that individuals can investigate them themselves and form their own opinions based upon the evidence? And if they are, will they be the real evidence, or will they be "computer reconstructions" of the original documents?
In his work, Sprague is looking at how assassinations were used to shape the outcome of elections from 1964 through 1976. He explains his outlook this way:
This book is not about assassinations, at least not solely about assassinations. It is not just another book about who murdered President Kennedy or how or why. It is a book about power, about who really controls the United States policies, especially foreign policies. It is a book about the process of control through the manipulation of the American presidency and the presidential election process. The objective of the book is to expose the clandestine, secret, tricky methods and weapons used for this manipulation, and to reveal the degree to which these have been hidden from the American public.
Assassinations are only one of many techniques used in this control process. They have been important only in the sense that they are the ultimate method used in the control of the election process. Viewed in this way, an understanding of what happened to John or Robert Kennedy becomes more important because it leads to a total understanding of what has happened to our country, and to us, since 1960. But the important thing to understand is the control and the power and all of the clandestine methods put together.
According to Sprague, Kennedy was killed, to be replaced by Johnson. Johnson was "convinced" not to run again in 1968 because he was too lenient with the Black population. Nixon was their man, and in order to ensure he got in, Robert Kennedy had to be eliminated.
Sprague had doubts about the Warren Report from the beginning. These doubts increased as he tried to verify the facts himself.
Now, the most important thing initially that happened in finding the photos was discovering a number of photographs- -films and still photos--that showed the sixth floor window empty with nobody in it. This is what originally convinced me that we had a different sort of conspiracy going than one involving Lee Harvey Oswald, because if he wasn't in the window--and nobody was in the window--then what happened?
Who fired the shots? And where from?
To do this, he constructed his own virtual model of the assassination scene, but without the help of a computer. Do you know that there are other films of the assassination? Wonder why we never hear about them? They have been bought up by the major news organizations and have been locked away from public scrutiny. But when Sprague was working, in the mid-sixties, much of this material was still available. It was only later, towards 1968-69, that the tide shifted and the material was sequestered.
Lest one doubt Sprague's capacities in computer analysis, he was a specialist and a pioneer in the field of electronic computers and a leading American authority on Electronic Funds Transfer Systems (EFTS). He co-founded the Computer Research Corporation of Hawthorne, California in 1950. In 1960, he became the Director of Computer Systems Consulting for Touche, Ross, Bailey, and Smart. He became a partner in that company in 1963, and started its Advanced Business Systems Department in 1964 where he stayed until 1968. In his book he discusses the way UPI used computer analysis to promote the lone gun theory.
Confirming that the films and photographs I was looking at were taken at the critical time the shots were fired, or immediately before or after that, involved a lot of work: work with plat maps, other photos, and other materials. I got hold of a map made by the surveyor for Dealey Plaza (I believe his name was Clarence West) which was drawn to scale, and Bob Cutler helped me draw onto it all of the various things that happened including all the vehicles that were moving through. And I managed to lay a set of films end-to-end starting with one rounding the turn onto Houston Street all the way through Dealey Plaza so I could track any vehicle that was in view eighteenth- of-a-second by eighteenth-of-a-second (Zapruder film speed) all the way through Dealey Plaza. This enabled me to determine where Kennedy was at all times and where anybody else was that showed up in any of the photos-- particularly moving pictures--at times Kennedy was at spot so-and-so or spot such-and-such.
By doing this, with some triangulation, I was able to pin down the exact timing of two particular sets of photos: a film--the Hughes film--the last frame of which shows the sixth floor window empty and ends 5.7 seconds ahead of the first shot--the first shot being fired/tied down at frame 189 of the Zapruder film; and two photos taken after the shots were fired by Dillard and, believe it or not, an intelligence man from Navy intelligence named Powell. Powell's and Dillard's photos were taken almost at the same time, 3.5 seconds after the fatal and last shot (Z-313).
Sprague wasn't using computer reproductions. He used his brain and the original photos and films.
So that total time span is less than 17 seconds--if you add up the 5.7 seconds after the end of the Hughes film, plus the 6-plus seconds while the shots were being fired, plus the 3.5 seconds before Dillard and Powell's photos were taken--of blank, non-coverage of that window and there's no way Oswald could have gotten into the window, aimed, fired three shots, and gotten out of the window so you that couldn't see him in 17 seconds.
But anyway there was another film taken by Beverly Oliver otherwise known as the Babushka lady that was confiscated by News Orleans FBI agent Regis Kennedy, and a still photograph taken by Norman Similas, confiscated by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police from "Liberty" magazine (which was going to publish the photo), who then turned the photo and its negative over to the FBI. I interviewed Similas and the "Liberty" magazine editor both of whom told me they had carefully examined the photograph and had seen no one in the photograph appearing in the eastern-most sixth floor window, which I calculated had been taken about half-way into the 17-second interval.
I made two attempts soon after the Freedom of Information Act "viewing room" in the FBI office in Washington, D.C. was created, to request to see the Similas photograph and Beverly Oliver film, but each time the FBI person assigned to me was not able to find these photographs. But the testimony of the people involved was good enough for me to conclude that there was nobody in that window ever. Once I got to that point I started looking for other evidence that would show where the shots did come from and I started finding all kinds of evidence of shots from the grassy knoll, and from the Dal Tex building, and from the roof or the seventh floor of the western end of the depository building--both photographs as well as witness testimony--and that lead me to decide that this was a powerful conspiracy which had involved at least four gunmen firing shots. This then lead me to decide that I should pursue the whole pattern of conspiracy including, eventually, the Martin Luther King assassination, the Bobby Kennedy assassination and the George Wallace attempt. And that led to the book.
Through all of this, I just know I never would have concluded that it was a powerful and well-planned conspiracy if I had not determined that Oswald wasn't in that window-- nobody was in that window. That was the first key.
Are we starting to get some sense of why this material was never made public?
There's one other thing I'd like to point out. The title of the book has more than just simple significance and it shows up in all the chapters that link all these assassinations and their cover-ups. Namely, our country has been taken from us. Us being the citizens of the United States as of 1963, and any time after that, by robbing us of our capability of electing a president we wanted for at least three, and more likely four, elections. One way of taking the country away, is to control the elections and that's really, at least part of the essence of the book. It's close to what Henry Gonzalez proposed in his original bill. He wanted the Congress to look into all four of the major assassinations--the fourth being the attempted assassination of George Wallace--and find the links between and among them, and the cover-ups, and particularly the links between the intelligence agencies and the cover-ups that he was sure were involved in all of them. And if we had had a committee which had done that, well then, we'd have been a lot further along than we are 13 years later. -- phone interview with the author, June 3, 1992
If you were not alive in the sixties, it is hard to understand the level of hatred that existed for the Kennedy's among right-wing groups such as the Minutemen. The myth that has come down is that he was beloved by everyone. Notice how ABC decides that Ruby killed Oswald because of his great love for Kennedy!
How could this manipulation of the public be carried out? Sprague gives five keys:
INGREDIENT 1. A PATRIOTIC ISSUE. A fundamental issue permeating nearly all conditions of life in the U.S. is needed, around which the rest of the fooling can be constructed. The perfect issue since 1947 has been "The Red Menace," or "Communism" or "The Radical Communist Left Conspiracy." No one is more adept at using this issue than Richard Nixon.
The people, to be fooled, have to really believe in the issue, from the heart, from the gut. In a democracy this is the most essential ingredient. In the U.S. many, many people believe it. Some believe it because they have never heard or read anything other than "The Communists are going to take over." Others believe it because they or their parents or relatives came from Europe and "know what it's like to live under Naziism or Communism." (They don't distinguish.)
Some believe because they are religious, and somehow religion is always linked to anti-communism. Others aren't sure, but they think "radical" groups might be Communist controlled. The flag waving, the national anthem, the American Legion, our prisoners of war, the draft of the past--all of these symbols are linked to the one big issue of "Communism." [...]
INGREDIENT 2. REACHING THE MINDS OF THE PEOPLE. To fool a majority of the people all of the time it is necessary to reach into their minds over a relatively long period of time.
[...] Go back in time to 1935, if you are over 50, or go back to 1945, if you are over 40, or back to 1955, if you are over 30. Examine your general overall attitudes, beliefs and prejudices as developed over that period of time between then and now. You will discover that your political beliefs about the U.S., the Presidency, foreign policy, wage and price controls, and your own economic conditions, etc., have been strongly influenced by the various news media.
INGREDIENT 3. CONTROLLING THE NEWS MEDIA. In Chapter 9, the author proves that it has been possible for a very small group of people in power to control or fool nearly all of the major news media in the U.S. about the assassination of John F. Kennedy and subsequent investigations conducted by groups other than the sources of power (Warren Commission, FBI, Secret Service, CIA, Justice Department, the President).
According to polls taken between 1963 and 1970, 50% to 80% of the public at one time or another during this period believed there was a conspiracy. Nevertheless, the major news media took the opposite position. A poll conducted today would, no doubt, show about one-half of the people believing there was no conspiracy. How did this happen? Is it conceivable that the power sources of two succeeding administrations (Johnson and Nixon) fooled or controlled the news media to that extent?
The problem is not so difficult as it seems. Only sixteen media organizations are involved. These sixteen provide each of us with nearly all of the news we either read, see or hear. It is only necessary to control the sixteen men at the very top and that is exactly what happened. The proof contained in Chapter 9 contains specific facts about what happened inside of eleven of the sixteen organizations.
INGREDIENT 4. CONTROLLING THE LEGAL SYSTEM. Perhaps the most important long-range ingredient in fooling the people of America is the control and influence over the legal system. The U.S. in the post-war era has reached the stage where, in case of doubt on a major issue, the people will wait to see how it is resolved by the courts. The American people in general have always had tremendous faith in their own legal system.
With the exception of the South taking issue with the Warren court over black rights, the American people tend to believe that the Supreme Court will eventually right any wrongs. The faith goes much further than adjudication of crimes or disputes. People have come to rely on the legal system to tell them where the truth lies on a major issue when two sides differ completely on the facts. They believe that the adversary procedure and the perjury penalty system will ferret out the truth.
Thus, to fool the people, and make them believe lies, it is essential to control the legal system. The Nixon and Johnson administrations and the Invisible Government lying underneath or off to one side of both administrations became very adept at controlling the legal system. It can be done, and has been done in several ways. Nixon, of course, loaded the Supreme Court. That is important. The complete control of the Justice Department and the FBI is also obvious. Not so obvious is the need to control Federal judges throughout the land. Truth might leak out in a trial at a local level, so U.S. courts in each area must be controlled.
The Federal grand jury scheme worked out by Nixon, Mitchell and Robert Mardian is a beautiful way to guide, direct and control the legal system. It more than proved its worth in fooling the people in cases involving classified documents, the Black Panthers and other situations where the truth had to be obscured. [...]
INGREDIENT 5. PAID COLUMNISTS OR LACKEYS. Control of the news media includes controlling or hiring selected columnists, newsmen, commentators, and lackeys. Sometimes these people are called "spokesmen for the administration." Many of them are supposedly independent. Their importance in the process of fooling the people has increased as the number of independent news media organizations has decreased and the number of organizations relying on syndicated, national columnists or commentators has increased.
In looking over this list, it is clear that these elements continue to function in the US today. Look at the successful cover-up of 9/11, the way the courts were used to ensure Bush Jr. got into the White House, the media shills who whipped up anti-Saddam hysteria to justify the occupation of Iraq, the entire sequence wrapped up in patriotism and the belief that "It can't happen here." The Communist threat has been replaced by the Terrorist threat, and the well of anger and negative energy of the Cold War is being redirected to the endless war on terror.
And anyone who challenges the official version is accused of being a "conspiracy nut." But as Sprague says:
One of the favorite tricks of the media throughout the years has been to couple the words "conspiracy" and "theory" together; never once did the major media mention any of the hard evidence pointing to conspiracy in any of the four major cases.
Instead they sequestered it. Put it under lock and key.
Did you know that Oswald was an informant for the FBI?
That the shells found near Officer Tippett were from Oswald's gun, but that the bullets that killed him were not?
Many of the same individuals, including Richard Nixon, were involved in the Bay of Pigs invasion, the assassination of Kennedy, the blackmailing of Ted Kennedy at Chappiquiddick, and Watergate.
Read Sprague's book and decide for yourself. This is the chronology of events he gives relating to the take over of the US.
The evidence for the Power Control Group's and Ford/Nixon's strategy is as follows:
1. Nixon was White House action officer on Cuban invasion plans in 1960.
2. Nixon was in contact with Hunt and others during the Bay of Pigs planning.
3. Nixon lied to the American people by his own admission about the Bay of Pigs during his TV debates with Kennedy in 1960.
4. Nixon was financially linked to the Mafia and to Cuban casino operations before Castro took over.
5. Nixon was acquainted with Hunt, Baker, Martinez, Sturgis, Carlos Prio Socarras, and other Watergate people and anti-Castro people in Florida, and he was financially linked to Baker, Martinez and Socarras.
6. Hunt, Baker, Sturgis and Socarras were connected with the assassination group in the murder of JFK.
7. Nixon was in Dallas for three days, including the morning of the JFK assassination. He was trying to stir up trouble for Kennedy.
8. Nixon went to Dallas under false pretenses. There was no board meeting of the Pepsi Cola Company as he announced his law firm had had to attend.
9. Nixon did not admit being in Dallas on the day Kennedy was shot and did not reveal the true reason for his trip. He held two press conferences on the two days before the assassination, attacking both Kennedy and Johnson and emphasizing the Democratic political problems in Texas.
10. Research indicates that Nixon either knew in advance about assassination plans, or learned about them soon after the assassination.
11. Nixon proposed to Lyndon Johnson that Gerald Ford serve on the Warren Commission.
12. Ford led the Commission cover-up by controlling the questioning of key witnesses and by several other means.
13. Ford helped firmly plant the idea that Oswald was the only assassin and that there was no conspiracy by publishing his own book, "Lee Harvey Oswald: Portrait of the Assassin."
14. Ford purposefully covered up the conspiracy of the PCG in the JFK assassination and also covered up the fact that Oswald was a paid informer for the FBI. He did this by dismissing the subject in his book as worthless rumor and by keeping the executive sessions of the Commission (where Oswald's FBI informer status was discussed) classified Top Secret.
15. Ford continued the cover-up when he was questioned before being confirmed by the Senate as Vice President. He lied under oath twice to the Senate Committee. He stated that he had written his book about Oswald with no access to classified documents. He lied about this because his book used classified documents about Oswald's FBI informer status. He lied when he said that the book was entitled, "Lee Harvey Oswald: Portrait of *an* Assassin." This was significant in 1973 because the public by then had become very skeptical about a lone assassin. By changing one word in the title, Ford made the book seem a little less like what it actually was--an effort to make Oswald the assassin.
16. Jaworski aided in the JFK cover-up by sitting on evidence of conspiracy accumulated by Waggoner Carr, Texas Attorney General, who he represented in liaison with the Warren Commission. He also stopped the critical testimony of Jack Ruby when he testified before the Warren Commission, and diverted attention away from Ruby's intent to reveal the conspiracy to kill both Kennedy and Oswald.
17. Nixon became president in 1968 only because Robert Kennedy was killed by a conspiracy. Nixon was well aware of the conspiracy whether or not he approved of it in advance.
18. John Mitchell and J. Edgar Hoover joined Nixon and the lower level members of the PCG in covering up the RFK murder conspiracy. They classified the evidence "Top Secret" and murdered several witnesses, controlled the judge in the Sirhan trial and the district attorney and the chief of police in Los Angeles during and after the trial. They still control these people and the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors. Clarence Kelly also became involved.
19. The plumbers group ordered the assassination of George Wallace in 1972 to insure Nixon's election by picking up Wallace's vote (about 18%, according to polls).
20. J. Edgar Hoover and Richard Helms were aware of who killed John Kennedy and Robert Kennedy. They helped cover-up both conspiracies.
21. John Mitchell controlled the trial of Clay Shaw and the Garrison investigation and discredited Garrison by framing him in a New Orleans gambling case.
22. Nixon and Haldeman discussed the assassination of John Kennedy, the conspiracy, Hunt's involvement, the possibility that Hunt might talk, the cover-up, the Bay of Pigs relationship between Nixon, Hunt and the other PCG members, and the briefing Nixon might have had to give anyone running against him in 1972, on matters of "national security".
23. Nixon and Mitchell discussed the assassinations and the attempt to assassinate George Wallace. Mitchell executed orders to suppress the truth about these events.
24. Gerald Ford had possession of the most critical tapes on which assassinations and cover-ups were discussed.
25. Jaworski could be counted on to keep the assassination material under wraps even after his resignation. He was aware of the conspiracy evidence and cover-up in all three cases (JFK, RFK, George Wallace).
26. Hunt was taken care of and will keep silent. He had been out of jail and living on a beautiful $100,000 estate in Florida with plenty of money, across the street from his Bay of Pigs friend, Manuel Artime.
27. Clay Shaw was murdered by the PCG, undoubtedly to keep him from talking once the truth about his CIA position was revealed by Victor Marchetti. He was embalmed before the coroner could determine the cause of death. Evidence indicates he was killed somewhere and then brought back to his apartment.
28. Hale Boggs, a Warren, Commission member, was possibly killed by the PCG. Bogg's airplane disappeared in Alaska. No trace of it was ever found and no explanation of how the plane could have crashed has ever been given. Mrs. Boggs has expressed doubts about it being an accident.
29. Four of the seven Warren Commission members are dead: Warren, Dulles, Russell and Boggs. Of the remaining members, Ford was President, John McCloy is retired and living in Connecticut, and John Sherman Cooper was made ambassador to East Germany.
30. Richard Russell, Hale Boggs and Cooper believed there was a conspiracy in the JFK assassination. Russell and Boggs both said so publicly.
31. Haldeman erased 18 1/2 minutes of a taped discussion with Nixon. This tape undoubtedly contained "national security" matters. The fact that Haldeman did the erasing can easily be determined by tracing the trail of possession of the tape from the day it was taken out of the vault to the day the gap was discovered. Haldeman had the tape with the recorder alone for nearly 48 hours. No one else had the tape alone long enough to do the erasing.
32. Ford and the PCG contemplated pardons for Mitchell, Haldeman, Ehrlichman and possibly others who know the number one secret.
33. Ford's statements to the sub-committee of the House Judiciary Committee concerning his pardon of Nixon dodged the real issue. Only Elizabeth Holtzman asked questions coming close to the number one secret. When she asked about a prior agreement, Ford said, "I have made no deal, there was no deal, *since I became Vice President*." Those last few words were not reported by the press, but a large number of Americans watched and heard him say them. Of course he spoke truthfully because the "deal" was made *before* he became Vice President.
There is also this from Gerald Ford in 1997:
Ford jottings offer something new for JFK conspiracy theorists
By MIKE FEINSILBER
The Associated Press
07-02-1997
WASHINGTON (July 2) - Thirty-three years ago, Gerald R. Ford took pen in hand and changed - ever so slightly - the Warren Commission's key sentence on the place where a bullet entered John F. Kennedy's body when he was killed in Dallas.
The effect of Ford's change was to strengthen the commission's conclusion that a single bullet passed through Kennedy and severely wounded Texas Gov. John Connally - a crucial element in its finding that Lee Harvey Oswald was the sole gunman.
A small change, said Ford on Wednesday when it came to light, one intended to clarify meaning, not alter history.
"My changes had nothing to do with a conspiracy theory," he said in a telephone interview from Beaver Creek, Colo. "My changes were only an attempt to be more precise."
But still, his editing was seized upon by members of the conspiracy community, which rejects the commission's conclusion that Oswald acted alone.
"This is the most significant lie in the whole Warren Commission report," said Robert D. Morningstar, a computer systems specialist in New York City who said he has studied the assassination since it occurred and written an Internet book about it.
The effect of Ford's editing, Morningstar said, was to suggest that a bullet struck Kennedy in the neck, "raising the wound two or three inches. Without that alteration, they could never have hoodwinked the public as to the true number of assassins."
If the bullet had hit Kennedy in the back, it could not have struck Connolly in the way the commission said it did, he said.
The Warren Commission concluded in 1964 that a single bullet - fired by a "discontented" Oswald - passed through Kennedy's body and wounded his fellow motorcade passenger, Connally, and that a second, fatal bullet, fired from the same place, tore through Kennedy's head.
The assassination of the president occurred Nov. 22, 1963, in Dallas; Oswald was arrested that day but was shot and killed two days later as he was being transferred from the city jail to the county jail.
Conspiracy theorists reject the idea that a single bullet could have hit both Kennedy and Connally and done such damage. Thus they argue that a second gunman must have been involved.
Ford's changes tend to support the single-bullet theory by making a specific point that the bullet entered Kennedy's body "at the back of his neck" rather than in his uppermost back, as the commission staff originally wrote.
Ford's handwritten notes were contained in 40,000 pages of records kept by J. Lee Rankin, chief counsel of the Warren Commission.
They were made public Wednesday by the Assassination Record Review Board, an agency created by Congress to amass all relevant evidence in the case. The documents will be available to the public in the National Archives.
The staff of the commission had written: "A bullet had entered his back at a point slightly above the shoulder and to the right of the spine."
Ford suggested changing that to read: "A bullet had entered the back of his neck at a point slightly to the right of the spine."
The final report said: "A bullet had entered the base of the back of his neck slightly to the right of the spine."
Ford, then House Republican leader and later elevated to the presidency with the 1974 resignation of Richard Nixon, is the sole surviving member of the seven-member commission chaired by Chief Justice Earl Warren.
Sprague also recounts an interview between LBJ and Walter Cronkite in 1969 where the former president admitted the existence of a conspiracy.
CBS edited out one other important piece of TV film. In November 1969, Walter Cronkite conducted a three-part interview with Lyndon B. Johnson at his ranch in Texas. The series was broadcast in the spring of 1970 and on the first program an announcement was made that portions of the taped interview had been deleted at Lyndon Johnson's request, "for reasons of national security."
What actually happened and what Johnson had said six months earlier was made public due to a leak at CBS. The story appeared in newspapers all over the U.S. several days before the broadcast.
Johnson told Cronkite that there had been a conspiracy in the assassination of President Kennedy, that Oswald was not a lone madman assassin, and that he, Johnson, had known it all along. Johnson reviewed the tapes a week or so before the program was to go on the air and then called up the CBS management, asking that his remarks be deleted.
Someone at CBS who was very disturbed by this called a member of the Committee to Investigate Assassinations and told him what had been deleted. This led to the story being printed in the newspapers.
Rep. Albert Thomas of Houston winks at LBJ during his swearing in on Air Force One. What, one wonders, was there to wink about? Kennedy had spoken at a dinner to honor Thomas the night before...
During the final events on this list, George H.W. Bush was the director of the CIA. Sprague argues that Bush knew of this activity on the part of the "Power Control Group." How does he fit in here?
George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography
CHAPTER VIII-b - THE BAY OF PIGS AND THE KENNEDY ASSASSINATION
by Webster G. Tarpley & Anton Chaitkin
[...] According to George Bush's official biography, he was during 1963 a well-to-do businessman residing in Houston, the busy president of Zapata Offshore and the chairman of the Harris County Republican Organization, supporting Barry Goldwater as the GOP's likely 1964 presidential candidate, while at the same time actively preparing his own 1964 bid for the US Senate. But during that same period of time, Bush may have shared some common acquaintances with Lee Harvey Oswald.
Between October, 1962 and April, 1963, Lee Harvey Oswald and his Russian wife Marina were in frequent contact with a Russian emigré couple living in Dallas: these were George de Mohrenschildt and his wife Jeanne.
During the Warren Commission investigation of the Kennedy assassination, de Mohrenschildt was interviewed at length about his contacts with Oswald.
When, in the spring of 1977, the discrediting of the Warren Commission report as a blatant coverup had made public pressure for a new investigation of the Kennedy assassination irresistible, the House Assassinations Committee planned to interview de Mohrenschildt once again. But in March, 1977, just before de Mohrenschildt was scheduled to be interviewed by Gaeton Fonzi of the House committee's staff, he was found dead in Palm Beach, Florida.
His death was quickly ruled a suicide. One of the last people to see him alive was Edward Jay Epstein, who was also interviewing de Mohrenschildt about the Kennedy assassination for an upcoming book. Epstein is one of the writers on the Kennedy assassination who enjoyed excellent relations with the late James Angleton of the CIA. If de Mohrenschildt were alive today, he might be able to enlighten us about his relations with George Bush, and perhaps afford us some insight into Bush's activities during this epoch.
Jeanne de Mohrenschildt rejected the finding of suicide in her husband's death. "He was eliminated before he got to that committee," the widow told a journalist in 1978, "because someone did not want him to get to it." She also maintained that George de Mohrenschildt had been surreptitiously injected with mind-altering drugs.
After de Mohrenschildt's death, his personal address book was located, and it contained this entry: "Bush, George H.W. (Poppy) 1412 W. Ohio also Zapata Petroleum Midland." There is of course the problem of dating this reference. George Bush had moved his office and home from Midland to Houston in 1959, when Zapata Offshore was constituted, so perhaps this reference goes back to some time before 1959. There is also the number: "4-6355." There are, of course, numerous other entries, including one W.F. Buckley of the Buckley brothers of New York City, William S. Paley of CBS, plus many oil men, stock brokers, and the like. [...]
It is established that between October, 1962 and late April, 1963, de Mohrenschildt was a very important figure in the life of Oswald and his Russian wife. Despite Oswald's lack of social graces, de Mohrenschildt introduced him into Dallas society, took him to parties, assisted him in finding employment, and much more.
It was through de Mohrenschildt that Oswald met a certain Volkmar Schmidt, a young German geologist who had studied with Professor Wilhelm Kuetemeyer, an expert in psychosomatic medicine and religious philosophy at the University of Heidelberg, who compiled a detailed psychological profile of Oswald.
Jeanne and George helped Marina move her belongings during one of her many estrangements from Oswald. According to some accounts, de Mohrenschildt's influence on Oswald was so great during this period that he could virtually dictate important decisions to the young ex-marine simply by making suggestions. Oswald was in awe of de Mohrenschildt, according to some.
[...] According to Mark Lane, "there is evidence that de Mohrenschildt served as a CIA control officer who directed Oswald's actions."
Much of the extensive published literature on de Mohrenschildt converges on the idea that he was a baby sitter, handler, case officer, or control agent for Oswald on behalf of some intelligence agency.
De Mohrenschildt's pedigree evokes haunting parallels to the typical figures of the PERMINDEX networks of Georges Mandel, Ferenc Nagy, Max Hagerman, Max Seligman, Carlo d'Amelio, Lewis Mortimer Bloomfield, and Clay Shaw, to which public attention was called during the investigations of New Orleans district attorney James Garrison.
It is therefore highly interesting that George Bush's name turned up in the personal address book of George de Mohrenschildt.
The Warren Commission went to absurd lengths to cover up the fact that George de Mohrenschildt was a denizen of the world of the intelligence agencies. This included ignoring the well-developed paper trial on de Mohrenschildt as Nazi and communist sympathizer, and later as a US asset abroad. The Warren Commission concluded:
The Commission's investigation has developed no signs of subversive or disloyal conduct on the part of either of the de Mohrenschildts. Neither the FBI, CIA, nor any witnesses contacted by the Commission has provided any information linking the de Mohrenschildts to subversive or extremist organizations. Nor has there been any evidence linking them in any way with the assassination of President Kennedy.
On the day of the Kennedy assassination, FBI records show George Bush as reporting a right-wing member of the Houston Young Republicans for making threatening comments about President Kennedy. According to FBI documents released under the Freedom of Information Act,
On November 22, 1963 Mr. GEORGE H.W. BUSH, 5525 Briar, Houston, Texas, telephonically advised that he wanted to relate some hearsay that he had heard in recent weeks, date and source unknown. He advised that one JAMES PARROTT had been talking of killing the President when he comes to Houston.
PARROTT is possibly a student at the University of Houston and is active in politics in the Houston area.
According to related FBI documentation, "a check with Secret Service at Houston, Texas revealed that agency had a report that PARROTT stated in 1961 he would kill President Kennedy if he got near him."
Here Bush is described as "a reputable businessman." FBI agents were sent to interrogate Parrott's mother, and later James Milton Parrott himself.
Parrott had been discharged from the US Air Force for psychiatric reasons in 1959. Parrott had an alibi for the time of the Dallas shootings; he had been in the company of another Republican activist. According to press accounts, Parrott was a member of the right-wing faction of the Houston GOP which was oriented towards the John Birch Society and which opposed Bush's chairmanship.
According to the San Francisco Examiner, Bush's press office in August, 1988 first said that Bush had not made any such call, and challenged the authenticity of the FBI documents. Several days later Bush's spokesman said that the candidate "does not recall" placing the call.
One day later after he reported Parrott to the FBI, Bush received a highly sensitive, high-level briefing from the Bureau:
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 US 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 US but to all 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 those 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.
William T. Forsyth, since deceased, was an official of the FBI's Washington headquarters; during the time he was attached to the Bureau's subversive control section, he ran the investigation of Rev. Martin Luther King. Was he also a part of the FBI's harassment of Dr. King? The efforts of journalists to locate Captain Edwards have not been successful.
This FBI document identifying George Bush as a CIA agent in November, 1963 was first published by Joseph McBride in The Nation in July, 1988, just before Bush received the Republican nomination for president. McBride's source observed: "I know [Bush] was involved in the Caribbean. I know he was involved in the suppression of things after the Kennedy assassination. There was a very definite worry that some Cuban groups were going to move against Castro and attempt to blame it on the CIA."
When pressed for confirmation or denial, Bush's spokesman Stephen Hart commented: "Must be another George Bush."
Within a short time the CIA itself would peddle the same damage control line. On July 19, 1988 in the wake of wide public attention to the report published in The Nation, CIA spokeswoman Sharron Basso departed from the normal CIA policy of refusing to confirm or deny reports that any person is or was a CIA employee. CIA spokeswoman Basso told the Associated press that the CIA believed that "the record should be clarified." She said that the FBI document "apparently" referred to a George William Bush who had worked in 1963 on the night shift at CIA headquarters, and that "would have been the appropriate place to have received such an FBI report." According to her account, the George William Bush in question had left the CIA to join the Defense Intelligence Agency in 1964.
For the CIA to volunteer the name of one of its former employees to the press was a shocking violation of traditional methods, which are supposedly designed to keep such names a closely guarded secret. This revelation may have constituted a violation of federal law. But no exertions were too great when it came to damage control for George Bush.
George William Bush had indeed worked for the CIA, the DIA, and the Alexandria, Virginia Department of Public Welfare before joining the Social Security Administration, in whose Arlington, Virginia office he was employed as a claims representative in 1988. George William Bush told The Nation that while at the CIA he was "just a lowly researcher and analyst" who worked with documents and photos and never received interagency briefings. He had never met Forsyth of the FBI or Captain Edwards of the DIA. "So it wasn't me," said George William Bush.
Later, George William Bush formalized his denial in a sworn statement to a federal court in Washington, DC. The affidavit acknowledges that while working at CIA headquarters between September 1963 and February 1964, George William Bush was the junior person on a three to four man watch shift which was on duty when Kennedy was shot. But, as George William Bush goes on to say,
I have carefully reviewed the FBI memorandum to the Director, Bureau of Intelligence and Research, Department of State dated November 29, 1963 which mentions a Mr. George Bush of the Central Intelligence Agency....I do not recognize the contents of the memorandum as information furnished to me orally or otherwise during the time I was at the CIA. In fact, during my time at the CIA. I did not receive any oral communications from any government agency of any nature whatsoever. I did not receive any information relating to the Kennedy assassination during my time at the CIA from the FBI.
Based on the above, it is my conclusion that I am not the Mr. George Bush of the Central Intelligence Agency referred to in the memorandum.
So we are left with the strong suspicion that the "Mr. George Bush of the CIA" referred to by the FBI is our own George Herbert Walker Bush, who, in addition to his possible contact with Lee Harvey Oswald's controller, may thus also join the ranks of the Kennedy assassination cover-up.
It makes perfect sense for George Bush to be called in on a matter involving the Cuban community in Miami, since that is a place where George has traditionally had a constituency. George inherited it from his father, Prescott Bush of Jupiter Island, and later passed it on to his own son, Jeb.
Texas and Florida. Funny how these two states play such an important role in the imposition of the Bush Reich, from the sixties until today.
Let's get this straight: It seems that George Herbert Walker Bush was a CIA operative in 1963 at the time of the assassination of a sitting president of the United States. Not only that, but he was friends with the handler of the "patsy" assassin. There was a paper trail leading to his name as popping up ON THE DAY OF THE ASSASSINATION - reporting a "plot to assassinate the president. Bush said that he had heard of this plot "in recent weeks." It's clear from the evidence that the CIA not only knew about, but was complicit in the assassination of JFK, which suggests that G.H.W. Bush also knew. He was not merely part of the cover-up, he was part of the conspiracy to assassinate Kennedy. His call, just like the attack on the Pentagon on 9-11, was a "signature." I think I would call that hubris.
But this is all only the ravings of conspiracy nuts, right? Then what to make of the situation at the time Bush was appointed head of the CIA by Ford, the guy who altered the Warren Report?:
It will be seen that at the beginning of Bush's tenure at the CIA, the Congressional committees were on the offensive against the intelligence agencies. By the time that Bush departed Langley, the tables were turned, and it was the Congress which was the focus of scandals, including Koreagate. Soon thereafter, the Congress would undergo the assault of Abscam.
Preparation for what was to become the Halloween massacre began in the Ford White House during the summer of 1975. The Ford Library in Ann Arbor, Michigan preserves a memo from Donald Rumsfeld to Ford dated July 10, 1975, which deals with an array of possible choices for CIA Director. Rumsfeld had polled a number of White House and administration officials and asked them to express preferences among "outsiders to the CIA."
Among the officials polled by Cheney was Henry Kissinger, who suggested C. Douglas Dillon, Howard Baker, Galvin, and Robert Roosa. Dick Cheney of the White House staff proposed Robert Bork, followed by Bush and Lee Iacocca. Nelson Rockefeller was also for C. Douglas Dillon, followed by Howard Baker, Conner, and James R. Schlesinger. Rumsfeld himself listed Bork, Dillon, Iacoca, Stanley Resor, and Walter Wriston, but not Bush. The only officials putting Bush on their "possible" lists other than Cheney were Jack O. Marsh, a White House counselor to Ford, and David Packard. When it came time for Rumsfeld to sum up the aggregate number of times each person was mentioned, minus one point for each time a person had been recommended against, the list was as follows:
Robert Bork [rejected in 1987 for the Supreme Court] White McGee Foster [John S. Foster of PFIAB, formerly of the Department of Defense] Dillon Resor Roosa Hauge
It will be seen that Bush was not among the leading candidates, perhaps because his networks were convinced that he was going to make another attempt for the vice-presidency and that therefore the Commerce Department or some similar post would be more suitable. The summary profile of Bush sent to Ford by Rumsfeld found that Bush had "experience in government and diplomacy" and was "generally familiar with components of the intelligence community and their missions" while having management experience." Under "Cons" Rumsfeld noted: "RNC post lends undesirable political cast."
As we have seen, the CIA post was finally offered by Ford to Edward Bennett Williams, perhaps with an eye on building a bipartisan bridge towards a powerful faction of the intelligence community. But Williams did not want the job. Bush, originally slated for the Department of Commerce, was given the CIA appointment.
Familiar names, no? Cheney and Rumsfeld? Part of the decision-making team for installing Bush at the CIA. And what did Bush Sr. do while he was Director? From Sprague:
Postscript
On April 27, 1976 "The New York Times" published a story on the Senate Intelligence Committee revelation that the CIA would be keeping twenty-five journalist agents within the news media.
The Committee disclosed that George Bush planned to keep these people in the media positions that they had occupied for a long time.
The significant point about the story was a statement by a Committee staff member that many of the individuals were in executive positions at American news organizations. Bush had directed that the CIA stop hiring correspondents "accredited" by American publications and other news organizations. The "Times" recognized that the pivotal word in Bush's directive was "accredited." "Executives who do not work as correspondents are apparently not covered by Mr. Bush's directive, nor are freelance writers who are not affiliated with a specific employer." The article also said that in most cases the media organization was not aware of the individual's CIA connection.
This was yet the best confirmation that the CIA had its Secret Team members planted at the top of the media. Only one executive is required at the top of a media organization to control it when needed. Since the CIA had twenty-five executives planted, that figure is more than enough to control the fifteen media organizations mentioned in this chapter.
Control the minds and you control the people. Control the media and you can control the minds. Look at the current state of the US public: dumbed down by decades of television, blockbuster movies, and music videos.
There is no population on the face of the planet better controlled than the US. The ABC special on JFK will put another nail into their coffin, presenting irrefutable proof through a medium they have integrated into every aspect of their lives, the computer simulation. The illusion is now "truth." I think we can say with some certainty that we have had two presidents of this country - and speculate on the others - who were directly involved in a conspiracy to assassinate a Sitting President of the United States.
America is only an illusion and the people have bought into it lock, stock, and barrel. It is almost as if, to go to the next level, to move beyond the forty year cycle that started on the day of Kennedy's assassination, the Power Control Group needs this little symbolic act. Bring down the curtain on the set-up and proceed to the endgame.
For forty years, the US public has bought into the lie: the assassinations of JFK, RFK, Martin Luther King. Malcolm X is dead. John Lennon is dead. Anyone who could provide a rallying point for dissent or questioning is no longer here; picked off one by one.
We are left with the lies of Georgie Jr, more outrageous than any Hitler ever told.
The future created by the choices made today. Do you buy into the lie or do you speak up for the truth? Where do you draw the line? Truth or the comfort of the lie? Defense of the truth permits the infusion of creative energy into the situation, something new and unpredictable that can completely change what appears to be an unchangeable and hopeless situation. But only truth permits this influx of new energy. Only facing the lie in the face, confronting it, refusing to believe it, and working to expose it will open this door.
Turning one's back and retreating into love and light, "positive" thinking, or the wishful creation of new states of illusion will not.
Each of us makes the choice, every day.
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That Lobby
Stalin's Jews - We mustn't forget that some of greatest murderers of modern times were Jewish
Sever Plocker
YNetNews
21 Dec 06
In 1934, according to published statistics, 38.5 percent of those holding the most senior posts in the Soviet security apparatuses were of Jewish origin. They too, of course, were gradually eliminated in the next purges. In a fascinating lecture at a Tel Aviv University convention this week, Dr. Halfin described the waves of soviet terror as a "carnival of mass murder," "fantasy of purges", and "essianism of evil." Turns out that Jews too, when they become captivated by messianic ideology, can become great murderers, among the greatest known by modern history.
Here's a particularly forlorn historical date: Almost 90 years ago, between the 19th and 20th of December 1917, in the midst of the Bolshevik revolution and civil war, Lenin signed a decree calling for the establishment of The All-Russian Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counter-Revolution and Sabotage, also known as Cheka.
Within a short period of time, Cheka became the largest and cruelest state security organization. Its organizational structure was changed every few years, as were its names: From Cheka to GPU, later to NKVD, and later to KGB.
We cannot know with certainty the number of deaths Cheka was responsible for in its various manifestations, but the number is surely at least 20 million, including victims of the forced collectivization, the hunger, large purges, expulsions, banishments, executions, and mass death at Gulags.
Whole population strata were eliminated: Independent farmers, ethnic minorities, members of the bourgeoisie, senior officers, intellectuals, artists, labor movement activists, "opposition members" who were defined completely randomly, and countless members of the Communist party itself.
In his new, highly praised book "The War of the World, "Historian Niall Ferguson writes that no revolution in the history of mankind devoured its children with the same unrestrained appetite as did the Soviet revolution. In his book on the Stalinist purges, Tel Aviv University's Dr. Igal Halfin writes that Stalinist violence was unique in that it was directed internally.
Lenin, Stalin, and their successors could not have carried out their deeds without wide-scale cooperation of disciplined "terror officials," cruel interrogators, snitches, executioners, guards, judges, perverts, and many bleeding hearts who were members of the progressive Western Left and were deceived by the Soviet regime of horror and even provided it with a kosher certificate.
All these things are well-known to some extent or another, even though the former Soviet Union's archives have not yet been fully opened to the public. But who knows about this? Within Russia itself, very few people have been brought to justice for their crimes in the NKVD's and KGB's service. The Russian public discourse today completely ignores the question of "How could it have happened to us?" As opposed to Eastern European nations, the Russians did not settle the score with their Stalinist past.
And us, the Jews? An Israeli student finishes high school without ever hearing the name "Genrikh Yagoda," the greatest Jewish murderer of the 20th Century, the GPU's deputy commander and the founder and commander of the NKVD. Yagoda diligently implemented Stalin's collectivization orders and is responsible for the deaths of at least 10 million people. His Jewish deputies established and managed the Gulag system. After Stalin no longer viewed him favorably, Yagoda was demoted and executed, and was replaced as chief hangman in 1936 by Yezhov, the "bloodthirsty dwarf."
Yezhov was not Jewish but was blessed with an active Jewish wife. In his Book "Stalin: Court of the Red Star", Jewish historian Sebag Montefiore writes that during the darkest period of terror, when the Communist killing machine worked in full force, Stalin was surrounded by beautiful, young Jewish women.
Stalin's close associates and loyalists included member of the Central Committee and Politburo Lazar Kaganovich. Montefiore characterizes him as the "first Stalinist" and adds that those starving to death in Ukraine, an unparalleled tragedy in the history of human kind aside from the Nazi horrors and Mao's terror in China, did not move Kaganovich.
Many Jews sold their soul to the devil of the Communist revolution and have blood on their hands for eternity. We'll mention just one more: Leonid Reichman, head of the NKVD's special department and the organization's chief interrogator, who was a particularly cruel sadist.
In 1934, according to published statistics, 38.5 percent of those holding the most senior posts in the Soviet security apparatuses were of Jewish origin. They too, of course, were gradually eliminated in the next purges. In a fascinating lecture at a Tel Aviv University convention this week, Dr. Halfin described the waves of soviet terror as a "carnival of mass murder," "fantasy of purges", and "essianism of evil." Turns out that Jews too, when they become captivated by messianic ideology, can become great murderers, among the greatest known by modern history.
The Jews active in official communist terror apparatuses (In the Soviet Union and abroad) and who at times led them, did not do this, obviously, as Jews, but rather, as Stalinists, communists, and "Soviet people." Therefore, we find it easy to ignore their origin and "play dumb": What do we have to do with them? But let's not forget them. My own view is different. I find it unacceptable that a person will be considered a member of the Jewish people when he does great things, but not considered part of our people when he does amazingly despicable things.
Even if we deny it, we cannot escape the Jewishness of "our hangmen," who served the Red Terror with loyalty and dedication from its establishment. After all, others will always remind us of their origin.
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'Corrie' canceled in Canada - Play has potential to offend Jewish community
By RICHARD OUZOUNIAN
Variety
It's curtains for "My Name Is Rachel Corrie" in Canada.
CanStage, the country's largest not-for-profit theater, has reversed its earlier decision and opted not to present the show as part of its 2007-08 season.
Play, about the 23-year-old American activist who died under the wheels of an Israeli bulldozer in 2003, was originally produced at London's Royal Court Theater in 2005.
James Nicola programmed it this year for the New York Theater Workshop, but that production was canceled after resistance from board members and subscribers. Show was eventually produced Off Broadway, where it ran for two months.
"It didn't seem as powerful on the stage as it did on the page," said CanStage creative producer Martin Bragg after seeing the production at Gotham's Minetta Lane Theater.
But in a situation eerily similar to the one that faced Nicola, it appears that Bragg faced pressure from some of his board members not to alienate Toronto's Jewish community.
While admitting he has neither read nor seen the script, CanStage board member Jack Rose said, "My view was it would provoke a negative reaction in the Jewish community."
Philanthropist Bluma Appel, after whom CanStage's flagship theater is named, concurred. "I told them I would react very badly to a play that was offensive to Jews," she said.
Bragg denied he was lobbied by the board in any way and insisted, "I pick the plays. No one on our board has ever told me what we can and can't do."
CanStage posted a $700,000 loss in its most recent season and is facing a struggle as this year it produced 10 plays, none of which met with critical or audience approval.
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Slime: Former AIPAC Director implies that Jimmy Carter has Nazi sympathies
OP-ED By Neal Sher
die jüdische
27 Dec 2006
Comment by Jeffrey Blankfort:
In this article, former AIPAC Director and Director of the Justice Dept. Office of Special Investigations, Neil Sher, implies that former president Jimmy Carter has Nazi sympathies. What people like Sher, the Jewish lobby and the US government need to be asked is why those "Special Investigations" only concerned lower level ex-Nazis (who were of no use to the US) and why Sher and the lobby have never said a word about the war criminals and terrorists from around the globe, apart from those who wore Israeli uniforms, who have been coddled and protected by the American government and whose crimes were arguably far worse and much more extensive than anyone ever investigated by the "Office of Special Investigations," including the SS officer referred to below, which was just another way in which the lobby used the American government and US taxpayers money to justify Israel's crimes against the Palestinian and the Lebanese peoples.-JB
NEW YORK, Dec. 26 - It was the spring of 1987 and the Office of Special Investigations, the Justice Department's Nazi prosecution unit, which I headed at the time, was in the midst of one of our most productive and historic periods.
On April 27, as a result of an in-depth OSI investigation and despite resistance at the State Department, Austrian President and former U.N. Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim, who had served as an officer in the Nazi army, was barred from setting foot ever again on U.S. soil.
One week earlier, after eight years of bruising litigation, we deported to the Soviet Union one Karl Linnas, who had been chief of a Nazi concentration camp in Estonia. To do so, we had to outmaneuver concerted attempts to block the deportation by Patrick Buchanan, the Reagan White House's communications director, and my boss, U.S. Attorney General Ed Meese.
A month later, OSI announced the loss of citizenship and removal from the United States of a former Chicago resident. Martin Bartesch admitted to our office and the court that he had voluntarily joined the Waffen SS and had served in the notorious SS Death's Head Division at the Mauthausen concentration camp where, at the hands of Bartesch and his cohorts, many thousands of prisoners were gassed, shot, starved and worked to death. He also confessed to having concealed his service at the infamous camp from U.S. immigration officials.
In Bartesch's case, OSI researchers uncovered iron-clad documentary evidence of his direct, hands-on role in the Nazi genocide. Among the SS documents captured by American forces when they liberated Mauthausen was what we described as the Unnatural Death Book, a register of prisoners killed, along with the identity of the SS guard responsible for the murder.
So powerful was this evidence that, in postwar trials conducted by the U.S. military, the book served as the basis for execution or long prison sentences for many identified SS guards.
An entry on Oct. 20, 1943, registers the shooting death of Max Oschorn, a French Jewish prisoner. His murderer was also recorded: SS man Martin Bartesch. It was a most chilling document.
Bartesch's family and "supporters," seeking special relief, launched a campaign to discredit OSI while trying to garner political support. Indeed, OSI received numerous inquiries from members of Congress who had been approached.
After we explained the facts of the case, however, the matter inevitably was dropped; no one urged that Bartesch or his family be accorded any special treatment.
Well, there was one exception - Jimmy Carter.
In September 1987, after all of the gruesome details of the case had been made public and widely reported in the media, I received a letter sent by Bartesch's daughter to the former president. Citing groups that had been exposed for their anti-Semitism, it was an all-out assault against OSI as unfair, "un-American" and interested only in "vengeance" against innocent family members.
It's axiomatic that the families of every person prosecuted under the criminal or immigration laws are affected and subjected to hardship. It was obvious, I thought to myself, that no reasonable person could genuinely believe that the Bartesch case was worthy of special dispensation.
On the contrary, it would be a perversion of justice to accede to the family's demands and grant Bartesch relief to which no one else would be entitled. Not even the staunchest and most sincere devotee to humanitarian causes could legitimately claim that an SS murderer who deceived authorities to obtain a visa and citizenship was somehow deserving of exceptional treatment.
That's why I was so taken aback by the personal, handwritten note Jimmy Carter sent to me seeking "special consideration" for this Nazi SS murderer. There on the upper-right corner of Bartesch's daughter's letter was a note to me in the former president's handwriting, and with his signature, urging that "in cases such as this, special consideration can be given to the families for humanitarian reasons."
Unlike members of Congress who inquired about the facts, Carter blindly accepted at face value the daughter's self-serving (and disingenuous) assertions.
As disturbing as I found Carter's plea, and although his attempted intervention has always gnawed at me, I chalked it up at the time to a certain naivete on the part of the former president. But now, in light of Carter's most recent writings and comments, I am left to wonder whether it was I who was naive simply to dismiss his knee-jerk appeal as the instinctive reaction of a well-meaning but misguided humanitarian.
His latest book "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid," and his subsequent defense of it, leaves no doubt that Carter has a problem with Israel and its American Jewish supporters. His blame-Israel approach through the distortion of easily verifiable facts; his whining about the influence of the pro-Israel lobby; and even the whiff of plagiarism have been exposed and are now spread upon the public record for all to see.
Kenneth Stein, who resigned his 23-year association with the Carter Center at Emory University, described it this way: Carter's book "is not based on unvarnished analyses; it is replete with factual errors, copied materials not cited, superficialities, glaring omissions, and simply invented segments."
Some believe that there's a venal element at work. To be sure, Carter and his publisher and editor knew that, if nothing else, the intentionally provocative, misleading and insulting title would be good for sales.
Moreover, Carter and his center appear to care little about how they fill their coffers. After all, among the most generous contributors to the Carter Center - at least a million dollars each, according to the center's published accountings - are Saudi Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Bin Abdulaziz, best known for having offered $10 million to New York City after the Sept. 11 attacks, an offer that was rejected by then-Mayor Rudy Giuliani after the prince implied that the attacks may have been justified because of U.S. support for Israel; the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia; the Saudi Fund for Development; and, most interestingly, the Bin Laden Group.
Make no mistake, these are not simply benevolent donors looking for a good cause; they expect something in return. And Carter gave them exactly what they paid for: an unequivocal stamp of approval from a former, if failed, U.S. president for their decades of anti-Israel, anti-Semitic ramblings. It's a diplomatic and public-relations dividend that likely will far exceed their investment.
The exposure of Carter's views on Israel and the Jewish lobby has shed a clearer light on his attempt to influence me in the Bartesch case. We know from his own confession that he has had lust in his heart. Unfortunately, he has given us ample reason to wonder what else is lurking there.
Neal Sher, a New York attorney (see picture), previously served as Director of the Justice Department's Office of Special Investigations and is a former Executive Director of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.
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I Witness the Israel Lobby in Action
By Philip Weiss
New York Observer
26 Dec 06
A few weeks back at Columbia, I watched with amazement as the former Israeli soldier Yehuda Shaul, who started the group Breaking the Silence, gave his presentation on the horrors of the occupation to about 75 students in a darkened hall. My amazement had to do with the fact that Shaul's visit was sponsored by a largely-Jewish group at Columbia - Pro-Israel Progressives - and was attended by members of the Hillel chapter at the school. Kudos to them.
After Shaul's speech, representing "my comrades and not just myself," he was bombarded by hostile questions from Israel supporters in the audience. Shaul handled them with strength and ease. (Q. "Do you know of a counterpart organization where Palestinians question their moral decisions?" A. "I really don't care-I am an Israeli who has to raise his children in Israel...")
Just as gripping to me was the discussion that took place after the event between Rachel Glaser, the campus coordinator of the rightwing Zionist Organization of America, and the students who had organized the event.
"What did this accomplish? What did it accomplish?" Glaser barked at the organizers.
"It achieved something important," one of the Jewish students said. "People perceive pro-Israel groups as monolithic. They think that we are not able to take responsibility for the bad things that happen."
Fine, Glaser said, but the students should have organized "a panel," in which Shaul was just one voice. "Have someone else," she said. (Just as the New York Theatre Workshop wanted to "contextualize" the Rachel Corrie play with pro-Israel voices.)
It was one thing to have Yehuda Shaul give a talk inside Israel, Glaser said. "Outside of Israel, you're playing with fire."
This chilling statement was a candid expression of the goals of the Israel lobby. A member of a Jewish organization was saying that it's OK to have a wide-open discussion of these issues in Israel, but it's dangerous to have such a discussion here. Why? Because America is the mainstay of support allowing Israel to continue its policies in the Occupied Territories. The Israel lobby fears that Americans, if left to their own devices, will abandon Israel, out of indifference, or antisemitism. So Americans must be influenced-in this case by having the information they get about Israel/Palestine vetted, and by pressuring Jews on campus to toe the party line.
I bring this up because Glaser's group, the Zionist Organization of America, is now trying to have the Jewish group that sponsored Shaul's tour, the Union of Progressive Zionists, kicked out of a consortium of campus groups that promote Israel's image on campuses. Why? Because (per the Jewish Telegraphic Agency) "Jewish money should not be spent on programming that provides fodder for Israel's most virulent critics."
This is shameful news. Jews are better than this, America is better than this...
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Hillel Chapters Break New Ground by Hosting 'Breaking the Silence'
Philip Weiss
New York Observer
5 Dec 06
There's been an important, wonderful development on the Israel/Palestine front that typically has gotten no attention: Hillel societies at American universities have helped sponsor the tour of the Israeli army veterans' group, Breaking the Silence. I find this association as startling as that other great development of 2006: when the LRB published Walt and Mearsheimer on the Israel lobby.
What am I talking about? What is Breaking the Silence?
I met Yehuda Shaul last summer in Hebron. Raised Orthodox in Jerusalem, Shaul was a sergeant in the IDF serving in the Occupied Territories when he woke up one morning a couple of years ago and realized he did not recognize the person in the mirror. Everything he had been told was right and wrong as a boy had gotten blended into nothing. He had done hideous things that would make his parents and friends vomit if they knew about them, and he had curtained off these actions and been numbed to it all. He began talking to other soldiers and formed an organization, Breaking the Silence, to describe what Israeli society was forcing its youth to do for the occupation. He read history and came to the awareness that all military occupations become corrupt in exactly the ways that Israel's is: humiliating the occupied, depriving them of human rights, let alone civil and democratic freedoms.
Shaul is this week wrapping up a five-week tour of the U.S. notable for the unbelievable photos he shows, taken by IDF soldiers, that document abuses. For instance, pictures taken by Israeli soldiers of other soldiers treating handcuffed and blindfolded Palestinian detainees as mannequins to do monkeyshines with.
The amazing development is that some of Shaul's college events have been sponsored by Hillel chapters, the on-campus Jewish organization. (This according to Tammy Shapiro, who heads the Union of Progressive Zionists, which also sponsored portions of Shaul's tour.) At some universities, the Hillel chapter declined to sponsor Shaul; and he was sponsored there by Palestinian groups. But (Shapiro notes,) at the U. of Wisconsin, the Hillel staff and leaders had a special meeting with Shaul, to hear what he had to say. At Columbia, a largely-Jewish group called Pro-Israel Progressives, which is related to the College Democrats, sponsored Shaul.
I find this amazing because it shows the discourse really is changing. And who is changing it? Youth. Shaul hasn't met with any congressmen; Lantos and Pelosi already know what to think of the occupation-no problem-so they won't meet with him. But these American campus organizations are tired of their role as cheerleaders for Israel. They understand that there is truth in the progressive understanding that occupation is crushing Israel's soul. Can American Jewish youth break the logjam on the Israel lobby? Well they can help.
Israeli progressives will lead us, as they feel greater freedom to discuss these matters. Here I would point to the comments of two other members of Breaking the Silence who visited the U.S. a year ago. "My commanding officer told me that public opinion in the U.S. is the most powerful weapon that Israel has," said Noam Chayut. "Public opinion here enables us to do many things that in my opinion are bringing us to our social destruction." To which his friend Avichai Sharon chimed in: "It's about time you know what you are enabling."
Their insight recalls a statement by the black South African poet Dennis Brutus. When he was in prison under apartheid, a jailer said to him, "The African National Congress will never win, you know why-because the U.S. is on our side." (Thanks to James North, author of Freedom Rising, for that.) The Israelis have placed a similar wager on our endless support for their injustices. They have been enabled so far by a stiffnecked, fearful and obedient Jewish leadership here. What a beautiful thing if it is idealistic Jewish youth that at last brings down this moral house of cards.
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UK: Sixty years on, we finally pay for the war - # £45m is the last instalment to US
Philip Webster, Political Editor and Elizabeth Judge
The Times, London
27 Dec 06
Britain will this week pay off the last instalment of the multibillion-dollar loans that were secured from the United States and Canada more than sixty years ago to help fund the war effort.
On Friday this country will make its final repayment on the US$4.33 billion loan given by the United States in 1945. Canada will also receive the last payment on its Can$1.25 billion loan.
The payments - $83.25 million (£43 million) to the US Government and $22.7 million to Canada - are the last of fifty instalments that have been paid since 1950, totalling $7.5 billion to the United States and $2 billion to Canada, including 2 per cent annual interest on the initial loans.
Britain agreed the loan with the United States in 1945 in the form of a direct line of credit worth $3.75 billion and a lend-lease facility worth $585 million. It was intended as a final settlement for the financial claims of each country against the other for costs arising out of the Second World War, and provided the essential capital to fund Britain's postwar construction. Canada followed suit with a direct line of credit of $1.25 billion agreed in 1946.
Ed Balls, the City minister, told The Times last night that it was a historic moment. "This week we finally honour in full our commitments to the US and Canada for the support they gave us 60 years ago. It was vital support which helped Britain defeat Nazi Germany and secure peace and prosperity in the postwar period. We honour our commitments to them now as they honoured their commitments to us all those years ago."
Under the arrangement, the US handed a financial lifeline to Britain, allowing it to secure oil, food, arms and other military equipment on credit to help the war effort. Though other countries also benefited under the programme - a $48 billion project - Britain received the largest chunk of aid.
When the war finished, the economist Maynard Keynes - by then the government adviser Lord Keynes - led a delegation to the U.S to agree repayment for those materials for which it had been charged and to secure a loan of $4 billion. He warned that Britain had been left facing a "financial Dunkirk".
In 1950, Britain's national debt stood at about 200 per cent of Gross Domestic Product. Today the comparable figure is 36.8 per cent.
The loans have been repaid on the same principle as a home mortgage. Repayments cover both the capital sum borrowed and the interest due on the loan. In the 1950s and 1960s, payments were geared mainly to paying off the interest, while in latter years, the repayment of capital has increased.
Under the terms of the agreement, this country was allowed to defer up to six annual instalments and did so in 1956, 1957, 1964, 1965, 1968 and 1976, on the grounds that international exchange rate conditions and the UK's foreign currency reserves made payments in those years impractical.
The loans were taken out under two facilities - a line of credit of $3.8 billion and a lend-lease loan facility of $586 million (about £145 million at 1945 exchange rates) which represented the settlement with the US for lend-lease. With interest added Britain's total bill was $7 billion.
The conditions of the loan included that the pound should be convertible into the dollar within 12 months.
The payments will be made by a simple electronic transfer of funds, and are timed for December 29 simply because it is the last working day of the year. the British Government has never in the duration of the loans lobbied to have them reduced or cancelled, and has always insisted it is right to meet the commitments it made in return for the financial support given by the United States and Canada both before and after the war.
While Friday's payments will close the book on the UK's Second World War debts, Britain still owes and is owed billions of pounds in relation to loans made and costs incurred during the First World War. However, since a moratorium on all war debts agreed at the height of the Great Depression, no debt repayments have been made to or received from other nations since 1934.