Generals mocking JFK behind his back during Cuban Missile Crisis caught on tape...

[Octafish]

"Adversity doesn't build character, it reveals it." -- Anonymous.

So. Talking about pressure:

'Go in there and frig around with the missiles, you're screwed'

The moment general mocked JFK behind his back at the height of Cuban Missile Crisis caught on tape

By DANIEL BATES
The Mail
24 September 2012

It was the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis and the nation was supposed to be pulling together.

But John F Kennedy’s top generals were actually bad-mouthing him behind his back - whilst standing in the White House.

When the former US President left the room Marine Corps Commandant General David Shoup said that Mr Kennedy was doing things ‘piecemeal’ and needed a talking to.

SNIP...

But the tapes reveal that after Mr Kennedy and Defence Secretary Robert McNamara went out the room, General Shoup launched into his own tirade - without realising the tape was still running.

CONTINUED...

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2207946/Revealed-JFKs-stabbing-generals-mocked-President-battled-avoid-regarded-trigger-happy-Americans-lost-Berlin.html

It's almost odd that this wasn't mentioned in my hometown newspaper. They must want us to forget something important.

[Trailrider1951]

1. Thank you for posting this

Our children's history books are a sham and an outrage. I firmly believe that President Eisenhower's warning in his farewell speech was ment for JFK's ears. I also believe that by the end of President E's second term, he was realizing that some other forces were wresting control of our country away from We, The People. And I also think that he realized that is vice president was, perhaps, complicit.

and here we sit, older and wiser, maybe. I guess all we can do is to tell our side of the story. You do it so well. Thank you.

Cheers, my friend!

[jwirr]

9. And big oils connections. Things do not seem to have changed much.

[Octafish]

18. You are most welcome, Trailrider1951! Here's the guy who should be writing the book on Gen. LeMay...

One of the characters referenced in the OP, Gen. Curtis LeMay, whom JFK promoted to Air Force Chief of Staff, had trouble keeping the story of his whereabouts on November 22, 1963 straight. LeMay said, at the time, he was on vacation with his wife's family in Michigan. Yet, the recently discovered (yet, "edited&quot Air Force One tapes from that day say he was working that day at a Royal Canadian Air Force Base.

Mr. William Kelly and his JFK Countercoup blog have reported on the contradiction. Put "Curtis LeMay" into the search window in the upper left corner for his work on the subject. The guy is a Hero of Truth.

Since that terrible day, the nation has felt like it's heading out of control down the river and is just about to go over the falls and certain ruin. Truth is the first step needed to turn course for a better destination. Thank you for understanding what's at stake and standing up to make a difference, my Friend!

[Norrin Radd]

2. kr

[Octafish]

44. The Railroading of LCDR Terri Pike

By William Kelly

EXCERPT...

The ARRB meeting report said that, “Pike explained that most of the relevant records they found were discovered ‘by accident;’ that is to say, they were misfiled in boxes outside where they should have been. This is important for two reasons. 1) If they had been filed where they ‘should’ have been, they would have been routinely destroyed by this point, and 2) as they continue their review of the approximately 900 cu feet of records they have self-identified, they expect they might well continue to discover records of interest to us...LCDR Pike further stated that ONI remained responsible for searching an additional 950 cubic feet of records located in Suitland, Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Seattle and San Francisco, and stated those searches were scheduled for completion during fiscal year 97..."

LCDR Pike Faxed the ARRB; indicating that she had finished a declassification review of the.8 cubic feet of defector records, and had prepared a page-by-page index of same. She indicated that transmittal of these documents would occur in the near future.

That appears to be the beginning of the end of such cooperation and the end of LCDR Terri Pike, as there are two different copies of this meeting report in two different typefaces, one with the first sentence of the fourth paragraph highlighted by two circles on one and completely redacted in the other. The line redacted reads: “There are a total of 18 folders of material which ONI has determined should go into the JFK collection and have earmarked for delivery to us...” Another redacted paragraph follows: “Pike said that ONI is going through review of all records covered by the EO; in most cases, they have been willing to release in full about 96% of the documents. She said that for the other 4% they expected that the Board has the power to overrule them anyway, but they had to at least make the request. [Ed. Note: this implies that they might perhaps be resigned to ‘losing’ some of the information they want to protect and would not appeal a Board decision to release some of this information.].”

The redacted paragraph reads: “Pike concluded her report by suggesting that we might find more of the records we suggested we wanted in BG38 the records of the CNO. She said that currently ONI is currently organizing a review team...to look through this group...however, ARRB staff may also wish to personally review these records for relevant material. She suggested that changes in alert status, etc. might also be found in CNO records...”

CONTINUED...

http://jfkcountercoup.blogspot.com/2011/10/railroading-of-lcdr-terri-pike-over.html

PS: Sorry this is so late in response, Norrin Radd. I'd wanted to point out that the United States government is still hiding JFK assassination information from the American people, even though the Federal courts have ordered the release of the information. In the above example, LCDR Terri Pike was reprimanded after she discovered records of what the Office of Naval Intelligence knew about Oswald's "defection" to the USSR.

[drokhole]

3. "JFK and the Unspeakable" by James Douglass should be required reading in classrooms

[hifiguy]

10. +1 That book explains the last 49 years

and why things have happened as they did better than any other.

Both Khrushchev and JFK had to circumvent their own militaries in order to prevent WW III. For their troubles Kennedy was murdered by the Military-Intelligence Complex and Khrushchev was toppled a year later by the Soviet equivalent.

[Octafish]

13. JFK, FDR and 'Seven Days in May'

By Lisa Pease
February 24, 2009

EXCERPT...

The film "Seven Days in May" began as a novel by Fletcher Knebel, inspired to a great degree by Knebel's conversations with Gen. Curtis LeMay, President Kennedy's contentious Air Force Chief of Staff who was furious at Kennedy for not sending in full military support during the Bay of Pigs incident.

Additionally, LeMay infamously argued during the Cuban Missile Crisis for a preemptive nuclear first-strike against the Soviet Union, a move Kennedy abhorred.

One of Kennedy's friends, Paul Fay, Jr., wrote in his book The Pleasure of His Company how one summer weekend in 1962, one of Kennedy's friends bought Knebel's book to his attention, and Kennedy read the book that night.

The next day, Kennedy discussed the plot with friends, who wanted to know if Kennedy felt such a scenario was possible. Bear in mind this was after the Bay of Pigs but before the Cuban Missile Crisis.

"It's possible," Kennedy acknowledged. "It could happen in this country, but the conditions would have to be just right. If, for example, the country had a young President, and he had a Bay of Pigs, there would be a certain uneasiness.

“Maybe the military would do a little criticizing behind his back, but this would be written off as the usual military dissatisfaction with civilian control. Then if there were another Bay of Pigs, the reaction of the country would be, 'Is he too young and inexperienced?'

“The military would almost feel that it was their patriotic obligation to stand ready to preserve the integrity of the nation, and only God knows just what segment of democracy they would be defending if they overthrew the elected establishment."

After a moment, Kennedy continued. "Then, if there were a third Bay of Pigs, it could happen."

CONTINUED...

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2009/022409a.html

PS totally agree re James Douglass, a hero of Truth.

[Octafish]

19. It makes the scales fall off readers' eyes.

How a great director put it:

Why does it matter? The death of JFK remains a critical turning point in our history. Those who caused his death were targeting not just a man but a vision -- a vision of peace. There is no calculating the consequences of his death for this country and for the world. Those consequences endure. To a large extent, the fate of our country and the future of the planet continue to be controlled by the shadowy forces of what Douglass calls "the Unspeakable." Only by unmasking these forces and confronting the truth about our history can we restore the promise of democracy and lay claim to Kennedy's vision of peace.

-- Oliver Stone

[drokhole]

20. To paraphrase one of my favorite comedians/philosophers...

"we always kill those good guys and let the demons run amok."

Imagine if RFK made it to office, as well (talk about another critical turning point in history).

And, to borrow another quote, this one from a favorite DU member (Uncle Joe) - thanks for the thread, Octafish!

[Octafish]

46. ''It's just a ride.''

"You can go to the sixth floor of the School Book Depository...and it's really accurate, you know, because Oswald's not in it." -- Bill Hicks

Thank you, drokhole. Every day, more and more, I wish I had known about Mr. Hicks while he was still with us. The guy was a living Buddha.

[truebrit71]

47. ^^This x 1000000000

[Octafish]

6. What JFK Really Said

Last edited Wed Sep 26, 2012, 11:57 AM - Edit history (1)

As Noam Chomsky reported, Shoup was alone among the Joint Chiefs to oppose escalation in Vietnam. However, in this case, the White House taping system caught the Marine Commandant in an act of insubordination -- denigrating the Commander in Chief before his fellow Joint Chiefs of Staff. The mis-translation of what was said in the meeting had been the "gold standard" among historians since the publication of tape transcripts created by Ernest R. May and Philip D. Zelikow, "academic" friends of the right.

What JFK Really Said

The author checked the Cuban-missile-crisis transcript in The Kennedy Tapes against the recorded words. He discovered "errors that undermine its reliability for historians, teachers, and general readers

by Sheldon M. Stern
The Atlantic

EXCERPT...

An unforgettable moment in these unique historical records concerns JFK's apprehension that military action in Cuba might touch off the ultimate nightmare of nuclear war, which he grimly describes at a meeting on October 18 as "the final failure." Brian McGrory, of The Boston Globe, who listened to this tape with me in 1994, after it was declassified, used those words in the lead of his article on the newly released tapes. But when I checked the transcript recently, I was unable to find "the final failure." Certain that the editors must be right, since they had technically cleaner tapes, I listened again; there is no question that Kennedy says "the final failure." The editors, however, have transcribed it as "the prime failure."

SNIP...

The participants then discuss evidence that work on the missile sites is continuing. They debate whether to add petroleum, oil, and lubricants (POL) to the list of quarantined materials immediately, or to wait twenty-four hours to see if talks proposed by UN Secretary-General U Thant produce a breakthrough. McGeorge Bundy, Kennedy's national security adviser, suggests that they "leave the timing until we've talked about the U Thant initiative." The inaccuracy in The Kennedy Tapes is especially bizarre in this case, with Bundy saying "leave the timing until we've talked about the attack thing." These last two examples—"the destroyers " and "the attack thing"—could easily leave a reader wondering what in the world these men were talking about. (Three days later, on October 29, U Thant was mentioned again. JFK asserts, "We want U Thant to know that Adlai is our voice." But The Kennedy Tapes transcribes this line as "We want you to know that Adlai is our voice.&quot

October 27 saw the darkest moment in the crisis. An unconfirmed report was received at midday that a U-2 spy plane had been shot down over Cuba by a Soviet SAM missile, and the pilot killed. On the tape of the late-afternoon meeting Kennedy discusses whether to order an air strike on the SAM sites if the incident is repeated (a delay that produced consternation at the Pentagon). He declares that two options are on the table: begin conversations about Khrushchev's proposal to swap Soviet missiles in Cuba for U.S. missiles in Turkey, or reject discussions until the Cuban crisis is settled. Kennedy chooses the first, with the caveat that the Soviets must provide proof that they have ceased work on the missile sites. He repeatedly refers to "conversations" and "discussions" and concludes, "Obviously, they're not going to settle the Cuban question until they get some conversation on Cuba." Incredibly, The Kennedy Tapes substitutes "compensation" for "conversation." It's easy to imagine how Cold War veterans like Rusk, Bundy, and McCone would have reacted to any suggestion of compensation for the Soviets in Cuba.

On October 29, the day after Khrushchev agreed to remove the missiles, the President and his advisers, relieved but not euphoric, conclude that surveillance and the quarantine will continue until the missiles have actually been removed. After a lull in the meeting, during which the conversation turns to college football, the President observes, "I imagine the Air Force must be a little mad," referring to the division of responsibility for aerial photography between the Air Force and the Joint Chiefs' photo-reconnaissance office. The Kennedy Tapes transcribes this as "I imagine the airports must be looking bad," which must leave many readers scratching their heads: the removal of the missiles had nothing to do with Cuban airports. Kennedy then ponders why, in the end, the Soviets decided to back down. He notes, "We had decided Saturday night to begin this air strike on Tuesday." No effort was made to conceal the military buildup in southern Florida, and Kennedy wonders if the impending strikes pushed the Russians to withdraw their missiles. The Kennedy Tapes, however, has JFK saying "We got the signs of life to begin this air strike on Tuesday," making his shrewd speculation unintelligible.

ONE particular error, among scores not cited above, seems to epitomize the problems with these transcripts. On the October 18 tape Dean Rusk argues that before taking military action in Cuba, the United States should consult Khrushchev, in the unlikely event that he would agree to remove the missiles. "But at least it will take that point out of the way," The Kennedy Tapes has Rusk saying, "and it's on the record." But Rusk actually said that this consultation would remove that point "for the historical record." The historical record is indeed the issue here.

CONTINUED...

http://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/issues/2000/05/stern.htm

The "prime failure" is much different than "final failure." Presidents -- especially the Hawks since then -- have all made clear to the Soviets, Russians, terrorists, rogue states that nuclear war was winnable and survivable. Unfortunately, "survivable" could be defined as zero enemy and one American.

[Javaman]

8. Who cares? they still followed the presidents orders.

Just imagine if they didn't wish to follow orders...

[loli phabay]

14. yup as long as they gollow civilian command who cares

The military probuably denigrates the cic in private all the time and its probuably a good thing as long as its between themselves and they follow orders.

[Octafish]

21. Not exactly. LeMay ordered unauthorizedoverflights of Soviet airspace during Cuban Missile Crisis...

While I trust the Pentagon and the nation's men and women in uniform, as a whole, there are a few exceptions.

Spy Flights of the Cold War

Review by Capt. Troy Thomas, USAF
Book by Paul Lashmar
Naval Institute Press, 118 Maryland Avenue, Annapolis, Maryland 21402, 1996, 256 pages, $29.95.
Document created: 13 May 99

Perceptions of the cold war often focus on nuclear arsenals and Third World surrogate conflicts, overlooking a persistent war of aerial espionage in which hundreds of airmen lose their lives. Spy Flights of the Cold War offers an intriguing yet controversial historical record of US and British aerial reconnaissance against the communist bloc from 1946 to 1963. The author’s research reveals numerous harrowing missions by brave aircrews flying deep into hostile territory on missions previously declared “routine.” Overlaying this operational history is a political account that indicts the US Air Force (USAF) and, specifically, Gen Curtis E. LeMay for exceeding presidential authority, manipulating intelligence estimates, and using the spy flights in an attempt to instigate another world war. Although it is a tribute to individual airmen, the text openly criticizes USAF leadership.

SNIP…

Criticism of the USAF and LeMay is a prominent theme. In addition to questionable evidence that LeMay encouraged unauthorized overflight missions, Lashmar devotes an entire chapter to SAC’s aggressive use of reconnaissance missions as a political tool intent on provoking nuclear war. If successfully implemented, Project Control overflights would “demonstrate the Russians’ military impotency” and possibly create the conditions for a preventive war. In addition to attributing a prolonged cold war to General LeMay and other senior USAF leaders, Lashmar also contends that SAC and the USAF intelligence community inflated Soviet missile, and later bomber, strengths to justify inordinate spending on SAC. Although estimates by the intelligence community later proved high, evidence for a duplicitous USAF agenda is suspect.

CONTINUED…

http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/bookrev/lashmar.html

That's why I care, my Friend.

[ArnoldLayne]

11. My Mother told me a long time ago when I was a kid about a guy that lived in our neighborhood

in Ohio in the late 60's. He was retired and was in the Air Force Intelligence in the early 60's. She asked him just how close did we really come to having a Nuclear War with Russia during the Missile Crises. He said you don't really want to know, she said no how close. He said and I'm quoting and I still remember her words telling me what he said "Like a Blink of the Eye" it could have gone either way. That is how close and he never talked about it again with my Mother or Father.

[Octafish]

41. Thank you for sharing that, ArnoldLayne! We're just starting to learn the story...

...For instance:

JCS Chairman Lyman LEMNITZER and CIA Director Allen DULLES knew the Bay of Pigs Operation was COMPROMISED, yet gave it their blessings to proceed, right to JFK's face. It's on the record, and too much public scrutiny may significantly decrease the treasonous bastards getting away with it.

The Cubans knew the time and place of invasion. And the United States knew they knew. Yet, JCS Chairman LEMNITZER and CIA Director DULLES knew Bay of Pigs Op was COMPROMISED, yet told President Kennedy their plan -- developed under Eisenhower and presumably for the Nixon madministration to come -- would work without the United States having to intervene militarily.

So, Castro knew the time and place for the attack. Knowing the plan was the compromised, let alone stupid from a military and political point of view, they failed to inform the President. How is that not treason?



Three MO' bits on JFK and the Bay of Pigs Thing...

Know your BFEE: At every turn, JFK was opposed by War Party

"Wasn't that, like, the Bay of Pigs Thing?"

JFK Would NEVER Have Fallen for Phony INTEL!

If it wasn't for JFK saying, "No," to the warmongering anticommunist paranoid greedheads, it's very possible none of us would be here now.

[MinM]

12. Kevin Costner's "13 Days" was a very accurate portrayal of this...

Last edited Fri Sep 28, 2012, 11:46 AM - Edit history (4)

General Curtis LeMay: You're in a pretty bad fix, Mr. President.

President Kennedy: What did you say?

General Curtis LeMay: You're in a pretty bad fix.

President Kennedy: Well, maybe you haven't noticed: You're in it with me.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0146309/quotes

Good Morning America played the actual tape of that yesterday morning and the Costner movie got it spot-on.

NPR's On The Media was impressed too...

On The Media: Missile Crisis Memories (August 27, 2010)

FRED KAPLAN: Word of the tapes first came out in 1982, 20 years after the crisis, when several of Kennedy's advisors — McGeorge Bundy, Robert McNamara, a few others — wrote a little article in Time Magazine in which they admitted that the myth of the Cuban missile crisis was false. When I interviewed Ted Sorensen about this five years ago, he admitted that basically Kennedy, after that last ex-con meeting, he took seven people into his office and he told them that look, I'm sending my brother over to the Soviet Embassy and I'm going to accept this deal, but you can't tell anybody, and that after Kennedy was assassinated they all got together and pledged that nobody would ever reveal this. The first tape was revealed in 1987, and it was of the last day of the crisis where Khrushchev comes out with a deal and Kennedy says hey, this is a pretty good deal, and everybody in the room is shouting him down, saying this will wreck NATO, we can't do this, it'll, it'll ruin our credibility. Kennedy lets them talk on and at one point he says look, to any man at the United Nations or any other rational man it will look like a very fair trade. I'm reading from the transcript here. And later he also says, and this I think is the - is the telling point, he says, well I'm just thinking about what we're going to have to do in a day or so, which is 500 sorties. The Air Strike Plan called for 500 air sorties against the Cuban missile sites every day for seven days:

PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY: I’ve been thinking about what, what we're going to have to do in a day or so, which is 500 sorties in seven days and possibly an invasion, all because we wouldn't take missiles out of Turkey. And I – we all know how –

FRED KAPLAN: Kennedy goes on: “All because we wouldn't take missiles out of Turkey. We all know how quickly everybody's courage goes when the blood starts to flow, and that's what is going to happen to NATO. When they start these things and they grab Berlin, everybody's going to say well, that was a pretty good proposition.”

BOB GARFIELD: Memoirists! Once these revelations came out in McGeorge Bundy's own memoir, how did journalism react, having been unwitting accomplices in a historical lie? Did newspapers jump on this story to kind of set the record straight, and do you think it had any effect?

FRED KAPLAN: I have to say, both among journalists and historians, this chapter of the Cuban missile crisis has not yet been fully incorporated into the dominant narrative, as academics might call it today, and to the degree that people do know there was a trade, it is as yet not generally well accepted how alone Kennedy was.

BOB GARFIELD: I'm curious about how much the truth of the Cuban missile crisis has found its way into the public consciousness. If it has, I suppose you can credit the film 13 Days from two years ago. Hollywood took another look at the history books and did substantially incorporate our current understanding in that film. Let's hear a little bit of that:

MAN: We've got time for one more round of diplomacy, and that's it. The first air strikes start in 28 hours. MAN: But we have to make them agree to it!

MAN: Right.

MAN: So how do we do that?

BRUCE GREENWOOD AS JOHN F. KENNEDY: Well we give them something. We tell them we're going to remove the missiles from Turkey — Hang on! But we do that six months from now, so it appears there's no linkage.

KEVIN COSTNER AS KENNY O'DONNELL: We also tell them if they go public about it, we'll deny it.

BRUCE GREENWOOD/JOHN F. KENNEDY: Right we deny, the deal's off.

KEVIN COSTNER/KENNY O'DONNELL: And we do it under the table so we can disavow any knowledge of it.

MAN: It's transparent, Kenny. The press'll be all over it.

KEVIN COSTNER/KENNY O'DONNELL: Six months from now we're not going to care, are we?

BOB GARFIELD: In your review of that film, 13 Days, you made another point about learning from history. It was about the supposition that a president, surrounded by a circle of trusted advisors, can be depended on to make the right decision. And you made a, a connection to the George W. Bush White House. Make it again.

FRED KAPLAN: [LAUGHS] The point was - I think George W. Bush had just been elected president, and a lot of people were wondering if he would be smart enough to deal with crises. And the common explanation at the time was well, don't worry, he has a lot of really smart people around him. And the point that you can take from the fourth draft of the history of the Cuban missile crisis is that the people around John Kennedy were really smart - I mean these were the people that David Halberstam later called, in a note of irony, "the best and the brightest," and yet John Kennedy realized that they really weren't very smart, after all. And the lesson of that is that you can have good advisors but the crucial thing is that you need a president. It's the president who makes the decisions...

http://www.onthemedia.org/2010/aug/27/missile-crisis-memories/

I was reminded of this movie again when Kevin Costner was so humbled by winning the Emmy® this past Sunday night.

[MinM]

17. 13 Days (2000) v Missiles of October (1974)

BOB GARFIELD: Okay, so what's the third rough draft? When did that happen, what form did it take?

FRED KAPLAN: The third draft was mainly by revisionists, by people like Gary Wills who in 1971 wrote a book called Kennedy Agonistes. Now, it had been revealed early on that Khrushchev had made an offer toward the end of the crisis basically saying look, I'll take my missiles out of Cuba if you take your missiles out of Turkey. At the time the United States had 15 nuclear missiles in Turkey, which were similar in range and power to the missiles that the Soviets put in Cuba. Ted Sorensen in his book dismissed that Khrushchev offer as total propaganda and that Khrushchev dropped in the end. Well, Gary Wills and the revisionists picked up on this and they said look, this guy Kennedy was a maniac. He was soaking in machismo. He'd led the United States and the world on the brink of World War III because he wouldn't take this sensible offer to do the missile trade.

BOB GARFIELD: Machismo was certainly part of the popular image of JFK back then. Here's a clip from a 1970s TV docudrama Missiles of October, starring a very young William Devane. [CLIP]:

WILLIAM DEVANE/JOHN F. KENNEDY: Now we must convey an uncompromising message. This government is prepared to negotiate, but not until those missiles are removed from Cuba. We will not be deterred. We will not be shaken. We'll bomb, if we must. We'll invade if we must. [END CLIP]

FRED KAPLAN: Yeah, that, that clip is just hilarious, diametrically opposed to the way John Kennedy was acting at any of those sessions. In fact, this does lead us to the fourth draft of history, tapes that Kennedy had secretly been making. Long before Nixon and before Johnson, Kennedy was taping a lot of things that happened in the Oval Office and in the Cabinet Room, where the ex-con meetings took place. And we hear very clearly in those meetings that Kennedy took Khrushchev's offer of the missile trade very, very seriously. In fact, on the third day of the crisis, Kennedy is already musing that well, you know, Khrushchev, he's made a miscalculation. He's obviously done this for bargaining leverage, and we're going to have to help him find a way to save face. Maybe if we trade those missiles in Turkey for the missiles in Cuba, that might be the answer. Nobody even takes him up on it. So on the last day of the crisis, when Khrushchev does bring it up, he's very eager to take it. And, in fact, he is the only one in the room who's willing to take it. You know, there's been this, this model from the first draft of history on, that the room was divided into hawks and doves and centrists. But, in fact, on the last couple of days of the crisis, the room was divided between John Kennedy and everybody else. Everybody else in that room wanted to bomb the missiles in Cuba, and only John Kennedy wanted to take the trade.

BOB GARFIELD: Now, unaccustomed as we are to having presidential tapes reveal the president in a positive light [LAUGHS] —

FRED KAPLAN: Yeah...

http://www.onthemedia.org/2010/aug/27/missile-crisis-memories/transcript/

[Octafish]

24. The Twelfth Day

Maj. Rudolf Anderson, Jr., USAF

"The Twelfth Day"

by Liz Newall

It's not often that we can say one person saved our way of life within our own lifetime. I don't mean a national leader. Nor a soldier going off to war, although surely all such American soldiers — from WWI, WWII, Korean War, Vietnam War, Desert Storm — have served to do just that. And I don't mean single-handedly.

On that day, the 12th day of the Cuban Missile Crisis, Major Rudy Anderson '48 took off for yet another U-2 overflight of Cuba.

But if you were born by the fall of 1962, you can say with certainty that fellow Clemson alumnus Rudy Anderson risked his life and lost it after a succession of missions that saved our homeland from a nuclear attack. And if you were born after those 13 days in October 1962 when the U.S. government faced down the Soviet Union in what became known as the Cuban Missile Crisis, your debt to Anderson is no less great.

'Big trouble' only 90 miles away

Oct. 16, 1962, U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy received a call from his brother President John F. Kennedy summoning him to the Oval Office with a foreshadowing of "big trouble."

CONTINUED...

http://www.clemson.edu/about/military/twelfthday/

Maj. Rudy Anderson should be a hero to ALL, Americans and people of planet Earth.

[MinM]

34. The Fourteenth Day

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=19545

[Octafish]

22. Thank you for the heads-up, MinM! Interesting Times, indeed: ''A U-2 has been lost off Alaska.''

I look forward to re-watching those films.

Regarding Gen. LeMay, it may be he was doing a little freelance warmongering to speed up the communist removal Thing:

Lost in Enemy Airspace

It became known around the Kennedy White House as “Black Saturday”: the closest the world has ever come to nuclear annihilation. On October 27, 1962, at the peak of the Cuban missile crisis, with Strategic Air Command at defcon 2 and Soviet nuclear weapons in firing position 15 miles from Guantánamo Bay, an American U-2 spy plane blundered deep into Russian airspace. In an excerpt from his new book, Michael Dobbs mines newly uncovered government documents, as well as the unpublished journals of the plane’s 36-year-old pilot, to reveal for the first time the full story of that 10-hour, white-knuckle flight.

by Michael Dobbs
Vanity Fair June 2008
Excerpted from One Minute to Midnight: Kennedy, Khrushchev, and Castro on the Brink of Nuclear War, by Michael Dobbs, to be published this month by Knopf; © 2008 by the author.

EXCERPT...

Returning from his midday swim, Kennedy passed by the Oval Office before heading up to the residence for lunch. The phone rang at 1:45 p.m. It was Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, and the news he reported could hardly have been worse: an American U-2 spy plane had gone missing off Alaska and may have strayed into Soviet territory. This was more than just an unfortunate incident: the intrusion into Soviet airspace by an American military plane at the height of a nuclear showdown between the two superpowers was a dangerously provocative act.

SNIP...

Robert McNamara was tired. The past two weeks had been an ordeal. He slept on a cot in the dressing room of his Pentagon office, and had managed to get home for dinner only once, on Friday evening. He rose by 6:30 a.m. and worked as late as 11 p.m. or midnight. His sleep was often interrupted by calls from the president and his senior advisers. He was losing some of his trademark sharpness and no longer dominated White House strategy meetings with his crisp analyses and multi-point options.

The defense secretary was jerked back to the here and now by an urgent message handed to him by General Curtis LeMay, the chief of staff of the air force, with whom Kennedy clashed repeatedly throughout the Cuban missile crisis. McNamara looked at the message.

“A U-2 has been lost off Alaska.”

SNIP...

The Maultsby incident had one salutary result: it reminded both superpower leaders of the growing risk of an accidental nuclear war. The following day, October 28, Khrushchev announced that he would withdraw his missiles from Cuba. But in a private message to Kennedy he expressed alarm at the American overflight: “One of your planes violates our frontier during this anxious time we are both experiencing when everything has been put into combat readiness. Is it not a fact that an intruding American plane could be easily taken for a nuclear bomber, which might push us to a fateful step?”

SNIP...

According to his written reminiscences, Maultsby went to his death angry at the air force for failing to “give me a steer” as soon as it found out that he was off course. His bosses never told him how they knew that he had penetrated Soviet territory: the fact that the National Security Agency was able to intercept the communications of Soviet air defenses remained a closely guarded intelligence secret for many decades. The former U-2 pilot was also upset with the president for referring to him as the “son of a bitch” who never got “the word.” He blamed his navigation error on the aurora borealis. “I wish that S.O.B. was sitting in my lap during that whole ordeal,” Maultsby grumbled to his wife, Jeanne. “It wasn’t a stupid mistake on my part. It was an act of nature.”

CONTINUED...

http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2008/06/missile_crisis_excerpt200806

We really are fortunate to be here -- me, especially, to have a Friend like you, MinM.

[LongTomH]

25. The generals were obviously trying to provoke the Soviets into a massive retaliation!

This idea of "a survivable nuclear war" has been a recurring theme since the 50s; it arose again during the Reagan / Bush I years, and I think, in a more subtle form in the Project for a New American Century document.

Along with that has been the continuing drive to gain a First Strike Capability by American hawks, always fed by the story that the Soviets were about to gain First Strike capability. One of the leaders of this was Gen. Danny Graham, member of the Team B project in the 70s and 80s. General Daniel O.Graham was also the driving force behind Strategic Defense ('Star Wars'), which still survives as Ballistic Missile Defense.

Graham and company attempted to sell this to the American public as an alternative to the McNamara's Mutual Assured Destruction doctrine. Admittedly, it was a seductive argument to the generations that had lived under the threat of nuclear annihilation for decades. To the Soviets, and to a lot of people in this country, it looked more like an attempt to gain First Strike capability over the Soviet Union.

A backstory of this was Danny Graham's attempt to co-opt the popular pro-space movement built up around the work of Dr. Gerard K. O'Neill of Princeton University. Dr. O'Neill's book: The High Frontier: Human Colonies in Space inspired the formation of a popular movement to settle the solar system. I was a member of the largest of the L-5 Society, the largest organization inspired by Gerry O'Neill's work.

Graham began co-opting Dr. O'Neill's work by naming his SDI organization High Frontier Inc.; and naming his book High Frontier.

I was one of the people writing to Graham to complain of the use of a title which had already become synonymous with Gerard K. O'Neill's space settlement concepts.. Graham's reply was that, "A book title cannot be copyrighted" (True!). Somehow, in the process, I ended up buying a copy of Graham's book and video (I did say his argument was seductive!).

A pro-Graham, pro-SDI faction led by science fiction writer, essayist and conservative activist Jerry Pournelle took over leadership of the L-5 Society, attempting to turn it into a vehicle to promote Strategic Defense. L-5 lost a major portion of its membership in the debate that followed. The greatly diminished organization merged with Wernher Von Braun's National Space Institute to form the National Space Society.

The L-5 Society had a local chapter network that was international in scope. The National Space Society soon became the PR arm of the Aerospace Industries Association. Local chapters were allowed; but their voices were muted.

This post got away from me; I really just intended to point out Gen. Graham's role in maintaining the Cold War at a high level, with a constant attempt to build a First Strike capability, which led to his advocacy of Strategic Defense. His destruction of the peaceful, pro-space movement is a subtext to this.

Someday, I need to work up a more coherent post on this. If I could ever discipline myself, it should be a book on the tension between space for peace and space for military conquest.

I still believe that settlement of space is necessary to the long-term survival of the human race.

"The universe is probably littered with the one-planet graves of cultures which made the sensible economic decision that there's no good reason to go into space--each discovered, studied, and remembered by the ones who made the irrational decision." ---XKCD

[MinM]

33. Operation Hollywood: Pentagon v Costner

Last edited Mon Oct 1, 2012, 11:14 AM - Edit history (2)

One reason I believe that Kevin Costner was so touched by that Emmy® last week could be the backlash his career has experienced from trying to set the historical record straight in his movies (ie., Jim Garrison and Curtis LeMay)...

Operation Hollywood
How the Pentagon bullies movie producers into showing the U.S. military in the best possible light.

—By Jeff Fleischer
| Mon Sep. 20, 2004 12:00 AM PDT

“The only thing Hollywood likes more than a good movie is a good deal,” David Robb explains, and that’s why the producers of films like “Top Gun,” “Stripes” and “The Great Santini” have altered their scripts to accommodate Pentagon requests. In exchange, they get inexpensive access to the military locations, vehicles, troops and gear they need to make their movies.

During his years as a journalist for Daily Variety and The Hollywood Reporter, Robb heard about a quid-pro-quo agreement between the Pentagon and Hollywood studios, and decided to investigate. He combed through thousands of Pentagon documents, and interviewed dozens of screenwriters, producers and military officials. The result is his new book, "Operation Hollywood." ...

...They also say it has to reasonably depict military operations. And if it’s based on history, they say it has to be historically accurate, which is really a code. They’re much less interested in reality and accuracy than they are in positive images. They often try to change historical facts that are negative. Like with the movie “Thirteen Days,” which was very accurate but very negative toward the military during the Cuban missile crisis, showing that they would have taken us down the path toward World War III. During the negotiations with the producers, Peter Almond and Kevin Costner, the military tried to get them to tone down the bellicose nature of Gen. Maxwell Taylor and Gen. Curtis LeMay -- who the record is very clear on, because before Nixon was taping in the White House, Kennedy was taping in the White House, and all the conversations from October 1962 are on tape. When Kennedy rejected LeMay’s insistence that we attack Cuba -- when Kennedy said let’s put up a naval blockade, we don’t want to get into war -- you can hear Curtis LeMay say, “This is the worst sellout since Munich.” He actually said that, when he didn’t think anybody was listening. Well, the military wanted to change it anyway, saying he was too bellicose and they had to tone it down. To their credit, Kevin Costner and Peter Almond stood up to the military, refused to buckle under, and made their film without military assistance...

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2004/09/operation-hollywood

Perhaps not to the extent that these guys paid...

Gaeton Fonzi, like Jim Garrison, and Richard Sprague et al., did some excellent work on that case. In spite of some extraordinary lengths that some went to in an effort to derail their efforts. Fortunately these guys were able to emerge from this relatively unscathed. Others were not so lucky...

Abraham Bolden, Mort Sahl, John Barbour, and Roger Feinman were not so lucky. They were among those that lost careers for attempting to pursue the case...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=1274427

But a price nonetheless when you don't play ball with the ptb.

[MinM]

35. Mother Jones' Operation Hollywood cont...

There was a movie called “Air Strike” by a guy named Cy Roth. Now, Ed Wood is often credited as being the worst director in Hollywood history, but Cy Roth would really give him a run for his money. Roth decided around 1953 that he’d made a Western, he’d made a space movie, now he wanted to make a war movie. This movie was set on a World War II aircraft carrier, and the lead characters were a young Jewish flyer and a young black flyer who are constantly being subjected to anti-Semitism and racism on the ship.

The military said, “No, we don’t want to show any kind of racism or anti-Semitism in this picture, you’ve got to change that.” They also said, “We don’t want a World War II-era picture, we want a movie set in the modern jet age.” And Roth went nuts. He called his congressman, he wrote a letter to President Eisenhower -- and the day after the White House got his letter of complaint, they sicced the FBI on him to see whether he was a Communist or not. Well, he finally caved in; he made the picture the way they wanted. So it was no blacks, no Jews, no propellers. If you look at this film, it’s so bad, it looks like a home movie shot on an aircraft carrier. So this film was completely changed...

http://m.motherjones.com/politics/2004/09/operation-hollywood

[Octafish]

37. World War II was so yesterday...Korea's the happening spot in 1953.

There is no bigger friend of the United States Navy than I, a junior ROTC army dropout. That said, Hollywood is rewarded when it produces what the Pentagon wants and punished when it strays from the company line. One Hollywood guy jumps to mind:

False Witness: Aptly Titled

http://www.ctka.net/pr599-lambert.html

PS: I now am an avid Cy Roth fan. That picture, BTW, was awful.

[Octafish]

36. Those who kept their wugs shut did all right.

One brave agent stepped forward in retirement. FBI Special Agent Don Adams interviewed racist Joseph Adams Milteer, a guy an FBI informant had taped detailing a pre-Dallas plot in Miami.

He wrote a book on the experience:

http://adamsjfk.com/?page_id=30

[Initech]

16. I wonder what this country would be like had we actually listened to Eisenhower's warning about the MIC taking over.

[Octafish]

40. War Resisters has a nice graphic...

...about the $965 billion I was looking for, just the other day.



"Money trumps peace."

[Blue_Tires]

45. Hell, I'd be happy if someone up top actually listened to it TODAY

[bobthedrummer]

23. Sole Surviving Son of a US Marine present and kicking, Sir!

Semper Fi...

[Octafish]

42. We owe our freedom to you father and all who've defended this nation...

...which is why it mystifies me to read how others have "interpreted" that oath. For instance, "ex"-CIA officer George Joannides was appointed as official CIA liaison to Congressional investigators looking into the CIA-Mafia Castro assassination program. For some odd reason, Joannides forget to mention the conflict-of-interest he was in, as a CIA paymaster overseeing a group of anti-Castro Cubans in New Orleans sheep-dipping the leaflet-distributing former United States Marine, Lee Harvey Oswald.

[patrice]

26. Shoup was pushing for full on nuclear war on Cuba and Le May was playing the angles either way. nt

[Octafish]

43. Echoed by Lemnitzer and Dulles who counseled the best time for a sneak attack was 'Fall 1963.'

I kid you not.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

CONTINUED...

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

Old news to you, patrice. However, this is not found in the history books, history programs, official history or general discourse of anything public. If it were, more people would connect the dots.

[gopiscrap]

27. Bunch of fuckers

if any of them are still alive, then court martial them and take their benefits away and for those already dead go after their estates and surviving relatives..that'll teach the rednecks to shut their god damn traps!

[loli phabay]

28. wtf with the redneck crap

What do you want to do stop anyone having private conversations anywhere in the chain of command. Do you feel the same about a couple of privates talking shit about their looie in private as well.

[gopiscrap]

29. they weren't in private

and this was during a national crisis. Most top brass are fucking republicans

[loli phabay]

30. yeah as far as tbey were concerned tbey were

They were taped by accident. So what about a generals political beliefs as long as hes competant and follows orders then it shouldnt be an issue same as everyone down the chain of command.

[Kingofalldems]

31. Not surprised by that response.

They should have been fired on the spot.

[gopiscrap]

32. Agreed!!!!

[MinM]

38. In October 1962, human civilization came close to being destroyed.

http://www.armageddonletters.com/

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=19553

[Octafish]

39. CIA still pushing the ''Castro Knew Ahead of Time'' Lie

The assassination of President Kennedy is still news, 49 years on. And one government agency seems intent to continue foisting the lie that JFK and RFK were trying to kill Castro via "their" man in Havana, Rolando Cubela. Trouble is, the CIA guy claiming to be with RFK, wasn't.

Spies: Ex-CIA Agent In Raleigh Says Castro Knew About JFK Assassination Ahead Of Time

Former CIA agent and author Brian Latell in Raleigh

By The Raleigh Telegram

RALEIGH – A noted former Central Intelligence Agency officer, author, and scholar who is intimately knowledgeable about Cuba and Fidel Castro, says he believes there is evidence that Castro’s government knew about the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963 ahead of time.

SNIP...

Robert Kennedy, as the Attorney General of the United States, was in charge of the operation, said Latell. Despite the United States’ best efforts, the operation was nonetheless penetrated by Cuban intelligence agents, said Latell.

Latell said there were two serious assassination attempts by the United States against Castro that even used members of the mafia to help, but both of them were obviously unsuccessful.

He also said that there was a plot by the United States to have Castro jabbed with a pen containing a syringe filled with a very effective poison. Latell said that he believes the experienced assassin who worked for Castro who originally agreed to the plan may have been a double agent. After meeting with a personal representative of Robert Kennedy in Paris, the man knew that the plan to assassinate Castro came from the highest levels of the government, including John F. and Robert Kennedy.

The plan was never carried out, as the man later defected to the United States, but with so many double agents working for Castro also pledging allegiance to the CIA, Latell said it was likely that the information got back to Havana that the Kennedy brothers endorsed that plot with the pen.

CONTINUED...

http://raleightelegram.com/201209123311

Some of what Gaeton Fonzi and other honest investigators found...

James Jesus Angleton
and the Kennedy Assassination, Part II

by Lisa Pease

EXCERPT...

Phillips is the CIA man who most closely ties Angleton in the frequency of his appearance in the assassination story. Phillips appears to have been seen in the presence of Oswald by Antonio Veciana.21 And a "Mr. Phillips" who was running CIA operations against Cuba at a time when that was David Phillips’ job was seen by Gordon Novel in the presence of Guy Banister and Sergio Arcacha Smith, who were themselves in turn seen with Oswald. Oswald even rented an office in Banister’s building that had previously been rented by Sergio Arcacha Smith.22 When the HSCA investigators tracked down the many false "Castro did it" leads, they kept tracing back to assets run by Phillips.23 Dan Hardway, who had much documentation to support that allegation, told Gaeton Fonzi,

I’m firmly convinced now that he ran the red herring, disinformation aspects of the plot. The thing that got him so nervous was when I started mentioning all the anti-Castro Cubans who were in reports filed with the FBI for the Warren Commission and every one of them had a tie I could trace back to him. That’s what got him very upset. He knew the whole thing could unravel.24

Angleton was close friends with Win Scott and ran operations with him. Scott, in turn, was so close to Phillips that he recommended Phillips be his deputy in the Mexico City station while waiting for the next Deputy, Alan White, to arrive.25 Phillips, in turn, connects to JM/WAVE.26 JM/WAVE is another key component in the assassination story, because JM/WAVE trained assassins and participated in some of the plots against Castro. The line between Des FitzGerald’s Special Affairs Staff (the replacement for Harvey’s Task Force W) and the actions of JM/Wave is blurred. The weekend of the Kennedy assassination, John McCone’s executive assistant Walt Elder saw Fitzgerald, and FitzGerald told Elder he had met with Rolando Cubela. He did not tell him that he had given him a poison pen to be used against Castro, nor that he had pretended to be an emissary of Bobby Kennedy’s (Helms had told him not to worry, that he would approve that lie). No mention of assassination was made. But Elder had the distinct impression that FitzGerald was particularly upset that weekend. Evan Thomas, in his book The Very Best Men, painted the following scene:

Elder was struck by FitzGerald’s clear discomfort. "Des was normally imperturbable, but he was very disturbed about his involvement." The normally smooth operator was "shaking his head and wringing his hands. It was very uncharacteristic. That’s why I remember it so clearly," Elder said in 1993. He thought FitzGerald was "distraught and overreacting."

Des Fitzgerald’s wife told author Evan Thomas that the first and last time she ever saw her husband break down in tears was when Oswald was shot by Jack Ruby. Her husband had been upset from the moment of the assassination, and sat silently, watching the news along with millions of others around the globe. When Jack Ruby performed his deed, Fitzgerald began to cry, and said, somewhat cryptically, "Now we’ll never know."27 Thomas evidently thinks this has something to do with Cubela. But does it? Cubela later turned out to be a double agent. But when was that known? Was the CIA trying to provoke Castro, knowing Cubela was his agent and planning a plot with him? Was the CIA engaging in a true assassination plot, or a deception they could later refer to in Castro-did-it scenarios?

CONTINUED...

http://www.ctka.net/pr900-ang.html

Gee. Why would the CIA continue to go through such pains to connect JFK, RFK and Castro 49 years later? -- especially how the historical record clearly shows the CIA hired the Mafia to kill Castro during the Eisenhower administration. Maybe some brave reporter will one day ask someone like Mr. Latell.

[Justice4JFK]

48. An interesting read.

Encouraged that there are critical-thinkers not buying the rubber-stamped version of what happened on Friday, November 22, 1963.