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A CRUEL AND SHOCKING MISINTERPRETATION

Phil Shenon and I agree on at least a few things. In any resolution of the mysteries surrounding the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, Mexico City will undoubtedly be important. The investigation into what happened there in 1963 was, for some reason, seriously curtailed by the U.S. government. The government has, since then, fought tooth and nail to keep the full story about what happened there secret.

While I have never met Mr. Shenon, I have spoken with him several times by telephone. I first heard from him when he called me around 2011. He introduced himself as a reporter for Newsweek Magazine. He said he was working well in advance on an article for that magazine for the 50th anniversary of JFK’s murder. He wondered whether I would be willing to talk about the HSCA’s investigation in Mexico City. I agreed to speak with him.

Over the course of that first conversation, and several follow-up calls from him over the next couple of years, it became apparent to me that Mr. Shenon was only interested in our work investigating what had happened in Mexico City in 1963 insofar as it might provide some kind of basis for linking Oswald to Castro or the Cubans. I tried to discuss the details of the HSCA investigation into what happened in Mexico City in its anomalous issues, but he was uninterested in those details. While there is an acknowledgment in his book, A Cruel and Shocking Act, stating that Ed Lopez and I were “generous with their time and interviews for this book,” precious little, if any, of what we shared with him made it into the book or any of his subsequent writing on the subject of Mexico City. Not only does Mr. Shenon ignore the post-HSCA materials we tried to bring to his attention, he also ignores the primary thrust of our report written for the HSCA.

I would not take issue with Phil Shenon if I thought what he is claiming is, merely, that the possibility of Cuban assistance to Oswald should be investigated. While I think the evidence of that is very weak at best, I will not deny that any avenue of investigation that remains open should be pursued. What I take issue with Mr. Shenon about is his single-minded concentration on that one issue and the resultant misrepresentation of facts and questions related to, and arising from, Lee Oswald’s activities in Mexico City. It appears to me that Shenon may be carrying water for the proponents of the original conspiracy theory – that Castro did it – rather than offering any objective review of the complete evidentiary base of that underlies the Mexico City visit. Shenon deliberately ignores the indicators and evidence that suggest Oswald’s trip to Mexico was either designed in advance, or spun in the aftermath, to give the appearance of Cuban and Soviet collusion in the Kennedy assassination.

Shenon’s thesis, as most recently explicated in his article in Politico, “What Was Lee Harvey Oswald Doing in Mexico?”, is built on suspicions expressed by some government officials after the assassination and Charles Thomas’s reporting of the Duran twist party – a report based on a story first told by Elena Garro de Paz. Many had initial suspicions after the assassination: Lyndon Johnson alleged a communist conspiracy within twenty minutes of JFK’s death; Bobby Kennedy’s first question to CIA Director John McCone that day was, “Did some of your guys do this?” (The Warren Commission, in Executive Session, was very concerned about Oswald’s intelligence connections, but Allen Dulles told them it was something that couldn’t really be proven, as a good intelligence officer would lie under oath to the Commission.) When Shenon and I talked, I tried to get him to consider evidence and facts that have come to light about Mexico City and the CIA’s handling of various investigations since, including the one I worked on in 1978, in his evaluation of the twist party story that lies at the root of his speculations. My efforts had no effect. Any possible explanation other than Cuban complicity has been ignored by Mr. Shenon who seems hell-bent on promoting the idea that Castro was behind the assassination, refusing to address any other possibility.

I tried, in vain as it turns out, to get Mr. Shenon to consider that what we had learned about Oswald’s activities, and the government’s reaction to those activities, could support a different explanation which also pointed to an additional avenue of investigation that needed to be publicized and followed. In my view, Oswald’s activities are more consistent with his being involved in an intelligence operation being run by U.S. intelligence than with him trying to make contact with Cubans to garner support for an assassination attempt on the sitting leader of this country.

To fully appreciate why I say that, a little background from Washington in 1978, is necessary. In 1978 the CIA resisted the HSCA’s inquiry into Mexico City more than any other area of inquiry. The chief counsel, G. Robert Blakey, told the Committee on August 15, 1978, “[T]he deeper we have gotten into the Agency’s performance in Mexico City, the more difficult they have gotten in dealing with us, the more they have insisted on relevance, the more they have gone back in effect on their agreement to give us access to unsanitized files. For a while we had general and free access to unsanitized files. That is increasingly not true in the Mexico City area….” And we have since learned that they used George Joannides to shut down the investigation into Oswald and Mexico City. In doing so, they lied to us about who he was. He ran propaganda operations in

images A CRUEL AND SHOCKING MISINTERPRETATION

George Joannides

Miami in 1963-64 and was the case officer for DRE, the anti-Castro group that scored the anti-Fair Play for Cuba Committee coup using Oswald in New Orleans in August of 1963. As G. Robert Blakey has since acknowledged, “The CIA not only lied, it actively subverted the investigation.” I think the CIA expected we would take the superficial approach of considering the “Castro did it” theory, but when we went beyond the initial appearances and began pushing our investigation into the propaganda sources, seeking interviews with the actual penetration and surveillance agents, seeking to find others in Mexico City who may have seen Oswald, then the Agency resistance to our investigation turned to a stonewall. Shouldn’t it be enough to raise serious questions that when a Congressional Committee investigating specific disinformation operations ran by the CIA, the CIA brings one of those involved in the operation being investigated and uses him in an undercover capacity to forestall and subvert the investigation? But that’s not all.

Consider the scenario of U.S. intelligence involvement in Oswald’s activities in Mexico City that we were not able to fully investigate in 1978. Let’s start with some background on David Phillips. David Phillips was one of, if not the, most experienced, ingenious, respected, and qualified disinformation officers in the CIA. In 1963 he was stationed in Mexico City, but, in early October, he was temporarily assigned to duty at Headquarters because he was being promoted from running anti-Castro propaganda operations to overseeing all anti-Castro operations in the

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David Atlee Phillips

Western Hemisphere. He was an experienced hand. In the late 1950’s he had been under non-diplomatic cover in Havana, where he worked with student leaders who would eventually form the Directorio Revolucionario Estudantil (“DRE”). During the Bay of Pigs, Phillips was stationed at CIA Headquarters where he had responsibility for the propaganda and psychological warfare aspects of the antiCastro operations. In running those operations he not only oversaw the operations he ran personally from Headquarters, he was also the supervisor of the propaganda operations flowing out of the JMWAVE station in Miami by William Kent (aka Doug Gupton, William Trouchard). When the students who had been recruited by Phillips fled Cuba, they were reorganized under Kent’s tutelage into the DRE based in Miami.

Phillips was transferred to Mexico City later in 1961 after the Bay of Pigs. Kent was promoted to Headquarters, and George Joannides took over Kent’s position in Miami, including supervision of DRE. While still stationed in Headquarters in the early 60’s, David Phillips had worked with Cord Meyer to develop the first disinformation campaign aimed at discrediting and disrupting a group of Castro sympathizers who had organized themselves into the Fair Play for Cuba Committee (FPCC). In the summer of 1963 Lee Harvey Oswald formed a chapter of the FPCC in New Orleans. In August of 1963 Lee Harvey Oswald, still in New Orleans, had an encounter with DRE which led to a lot of publicity linking Oswald to communists, labeling him as pro-Castro, and discrediting the FPCC. In July and August of that year there is strong evidence that Oswald was used to identify and contact pro-Castro students at Tulane University. In early September, Oswald was seen with David Philips in Dallas.

On September 16, 1963, the CIA informed the FBI that it was considering action to counter the activities of the FPCC in foreign countries. To my knowledge, the operational files on this new anti-FPCC operation have never been released by the CIA. In New Orleans, on September 17, 1963, Oswald applied for, and received, a Mexican travel visa immediately after William Gaudet, a known CIA agent, had applied for one. On September 27 Oswald arrived in Mexico City. This activity did not occur suddenly or in a vacuum. Oswald had started establishing his pro-Castro bona fides earlier that summer in New Orleans, including establishing an FPCC chapter there.

There are too many similarities between Oswald’s activities in New Orleans and Mexico City to simply dismiss, without investigation or discussion, the possibility that he was being used in an intelligence operation, either wittingly or unwittingly, in both cities. In addition to his contacts with the Soviet and Cuban diplomatic facilities in Mexico City, which could have been part of an intelligence dangle, an attempt to discredit the FPCC, or both, there is now also evidence of Oswald’s contacts with students at the National Autonomous University of Mexico and his presence at social events with Cuban Consulate

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Secret Wars Diary by David Atlee Phillips

employees. David Phillips frequently lied about Oswald and Mexico City, but in a footnote in a little known book he self-published, Secret Wars Diary, he wrote: “I was an observer of Cuban and Soviet reaction when Lee Harvey Oswald contacted their embassies.” [Emphasis added.] One purpose served by an intelligence dangle is to enable the dangling agency to observe the reaction and, from that observation, identify roles of employees, procedures and processes of the enemy.

There can be little doubt that Oswald’s activities, especially the more flagrant, blatant and egregious ones such as those alleged by Shenon to have occurred at the Cuban Consulate, could only have scandalized the Cuban diplomats who heard the threats and bluster – all to the discrediting of the FPCC, just as the publicity about the New Orleans encounter between Oswald and the DRE formed one of the propaganda nails in that organization’s coffin. It is much more likely, in my opinion, that the seasoned Cuban diplomats would be offended than it is that they would support someone exhibiting Oswald’s alleged behavior to attempt an assassination. It is much more likely that the Cuban diplomats would have, as the evidence shows they did, consider Oswald as a U.S. intelligence provocation. The Cubans knew of the surveillance on their facilities. Why would they use someone to do such a job who showed up under surveillance and announced his plans? On the other hand, someone as provocative as Oswald should have generated a cascade of response that, when observed by the watchers, would have revealed an abundance of information. It could also serve to discredit the FPCC with the Cubans. The CIA prevented us, in 1978, from interviewing then surviving penetration and surveillance agents who would have known more about such an operation.

In 1978, we knew not only about the allegations of the twist party, but also about the stories of Oswald’s contact with students. The CIA prevented us from interviewing Oscar Contreras, a student Oswald contacted. But Anthony Summers, and others, have interviewed him since. Contreras acknowledges that Oswald, in late September, 1963, approached him and three other students who were members of a pro-Castro student organization. He asked them for help getting a visa to Cuba from the Consulate. Contreras did have contacts at the Consulate and spoke to the Consul and an intelligence officer. Both warned him to have nothing to do with Oswald as they suspected he was trying to infiltrate proCastro groups. Contreras still wonders how Oswald identified him and his friends as the students, out of the thousands attending the University, as the ones with contacts in the Consulate. Shenon, some way or another, sees this incident as supporting possible Cuban involvement in the assassination. No mention is made to the similarity to what Oswald was doing with Tulane students in New Orleans.

While in New Orleans, Ruth Paine had asked fellow Quaker, Ruth Kloepfer, to check on the Oswalds while they were in New Orleans. Mrs. Kloepfer’s husband was a professor at Tulane University. There is information in the extensive records in this case that Oswald passed out FPCC leaflets near Tulane University and the homes of some of the professors there who were members of a local leftist group. The

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Lee Oswald in New Orleans leafleting for the Fair Play for Cuba Committee, 9 August, 1963

individuals who helped pass out pamphlets on the last occasion when Oswald passed out his FPCC literature in downtown New Orleans, were introduced by Oswald as students from Tulane. There are, keeping things in parallel, indications in the documentation about the case that Oswald, while in Mexico City, made contact with Quakers studying at the Autonomous University. There are indications that one Quaker student at the University at that time was an active agent of the CIA, although that person has never been identified and it has not been determined that he had any contact with Oswald in Mexico City. The reason that it has not been determined is that it has not been investigated.

It has to be pointed out that June Cobb, a known CIA agent, was very involved in Agency actions aimed at the FPCC in the early 1960’s. She appears again as the first person to report Elena Garro de Paz’s story about the Duran/Oswald twist party. At the time she made that report to the Mexico City CIA station, Cobb, a CIA asset, was renting a room from Elena Garro de Paz, Sylvia Duran’s cousin. And Shenon bases most of

Elena Garro De Paz

what he writes on a supposition that, based on this twist-party story, Duran was at the center of the Cuban recruitment of Oswald. But the fact is that it is still very much in question whether Duran had been recruited as an asset by the CIA. David Phillips, as well as other CIA employees, in 1978, were of the opinion that she may have been targeted for recruitment by the CIA. The CIA, then and since, has gone out of its way to keep details about Duran buried, claiming, among other things, to have destroyed her Mexico City P file.

But the point is, the activities in Mexico City in September and October, 1963, are a capsule version of Oswald’s activities in New Orleans in June, July and August of 1963. In the context of the other information we’ve learned about the CIA’s FPCC black propaganda operation, the people involved in those operations and the role of at least one of those people, George Joannides, in subverting the HSCA investigation, how can anyone not seriously consider whether Oswald’s Mexico City activities were part of a CIA anti-FPCC operation? The very first conspiracy theory, that Castro and the communists killed JFK – the one expressed by President Johnson 20 minutes after the assassination, and first seeing print in the DRE’s CIA funded newspaper, Trinchera, on November 23, 1963 – still has followers and proponents, the latest being Phil Shenon. None of the proponents, it seems, have ever really considered whether they may be the victims – or a part – of a very good, deliberate disinformation operation – possibly the best Phillips and Joannides ever ran.

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Dan Hardway, J.D. Attorney in private practice; former investigator, House Select Committee on Assassinations.

Tulsi Gabbard Admits She Asked AI Which JFK Files Secrets to Reveal

Tulsi Gabbard relied on artificial intelligence to determine what to classify in the release of government documents on John F. Kennedy’s assassination.

Donald Trump’s director of national intelligence fed the JFK files into an AI program, asking it to see if there was anything that should remain classified, she told a crowd at an Amazon Web Services conference Tuesday, the Associated Press reported.

It made reviewing the documents significantly faster, she added.

“We have been able to do that through the use of AI tools far more quickly than what was done previously—which was to have humans go through and look at every single one of these pages,” Gabbard said during a speech at the Washington, D.C. summit.

The government released around 80,000 pages of files on JFK’s assassination—bereft of bombshells—in March, just two months into Trump’s second term. Without the use of AI, Gabbard said, the process could have taken months or years.

When the release was announced, Trump said he never intended to redact any part of the files.

“I don’t believe we’re going to redact anything. I said, ‘Just don’t redact. You can’t redact,’” he said. “I said during the campaign I’d do it, and I am a man of my word.”

The thousand-plus documents that were delivered were difficult to parse: many were handwritten, impenetrable, and lacking a file number or agency, according to a New York Times analysis.

Gabbard, a former Democratic congresswoman who became a Trump ally, signaled that she was eager to embrace AI on a broad scale, even as critics have sounded the alarm on the new technology’s potential pitfalls, particularly its credibility.

When the release was announced, Trump said he never intended to redact any part of the files.

“I don’t believe we’re going to redact anything. I said, ‘Just don’t redact. You can’t redact,’” he said. “I said during the campaign I’d do it, and I am a man of my word.”

The thousand-plus documents that were delivered were difficult to parse: many were handwritten, impenetrable, and lacking a file number or agency, according to a New York Times analysis.

TR2R2EYK3JDIPNL2ANVVGN23XQ Tulsi Gabbard Admits She Asked AI Which JFK Files Secrets to Reveal

Gabbard signaled eagerness to deploy AI tools across American intelligence operations. Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

“There’s been an intelligence community chatbot that’s been deployed across the enterprise,” Gabbard said, according to MeriTalk. “Opening up and making it possible for us to use AI applications in the top secret clouds has been a game changer.”

Gabbard, who oversees the operations of America’s 18 different intelligence agencies, said at the conference that she would like to expand the intelligence community’s use of private-sector technology.

Gabbard intends to “look at the available tools that exist—largely in the private sector—to make it so that our intelligence professionals, both collectors and analysts, are able to focus their time and energy on the things that only they can do.”

Gabbard, a former Democrat, served as the U.S. representative for Hawaii’s 2nd congressional district from 2013 to 2021. She announced she was leaving the Democrats for Trump in August last year.

Since signing on to the Trump administration, Gabbard has signaled a willingness to upend the status quo.

Last month, NBC News reported that Gabbard was trying to turn Trump’s press briefing into Fox News-style broadcasts, because the president “doesn’t read.”

Gabbard also ordered intelligence officials to rewrite a report in February so that it couldn’t be “used against” Trump, The New York Times reported.

Another Trump official, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. landed in hot water last month when a report he published was riddled with errors—seemingly caused by the use of generative AI.

Judge Considers Early Release of Martin Luther King Jr. Assassination Documents

The materials are scheduled to be unsealed in 2027, but President Trump signed an executive order in January aimed at moving up the date.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Credit, Evening Standard/Hulton Archive, via Getty Images

A federal judge is considering whether sealed documents relating to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination should be released before 2027.

By Zach Montague

Reporting from Washington

June 4, 2025, 9:44 p.m. ET

A federal judge in Washington said on Wednesday that he was open to lifting a court order ahead of schedule to release potentially sensitive documents related to the assassination of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., nodding to an executive order President Trump signed in January aimed at achieving that outcome.

During a hearing on Wednesday to discuss the possibility, Judge Richard Leon of the Federal District Court for the District of Columbia nonetheless cautioned that he intended to proceed slowly and prioritize privacy in an extended process to determine whether any documents should be released before 2027, the date that another judge set in 1977 for the documents to be unsealed.

Judge Leon said he would start by ordering the National Archives to show him — and him alone — an inventory of all the sealed materials related to Dr. King that have been stored there.

He said that the inventory, which the government says it has not reviewed, might help shed light on whether documents specifically related to Dr. King’s assassination in 1968, and the investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation that followed, had been separated out and could be efficiently processed.

The hearing on Wednesday came through a lawsuit brought by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the civil rights organization based in Atlanta associated with Dr. King, which has sued to halt any effort to unseal documents early.

It came in response to an executive order Mr. Trump signed in January that directed intelligence agencies to set in motion plans to release records related to the assassinations of Dr. King, President John F. Kennedy and Senator Robert F. Kennedy.

During Wednesday’s hearing, Johnny Walker, a lawyer for the Justice Department, proposed that Judge Leon authorize the department’s agents to look through the papers first and to fish out a subset that the court and associates of Dr. King could then approve for release.

Mr. Walker said the group would steer clear of potentially damaging details about Dr. King’s life that might have been stored in F.B.I. surveillance records that the Trump administration has moved to unseal.

Sumayya Saleh, a lawyer representing the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, said that the larger effort was part of a “deliberate effort to undermine the civil rights movement” and to “discredit” Dr. King’s legacy. She said it was far too difficult to define what documents were solely related to Dr. King’s death and that the government was asking the court to defy its own ruling from 48 years ago.

Judge Leon said the proposals discussed at the hearing were “the first few steps in a journey” that could take several years.

“This is delicate stuff,” he said.

However, he added that if the two sides could reach an agreement on a way to jointly review the sealed documents and settle on a subset that both felt could be made public, he could “bless” that decision and move more quickly to unseal them.

“Keep the lines of communication open,” he said. “That’s in everyone’s interest, including the president’s.”

READ MORE at The New York Times

NOTICE: 26th Annual JFK American University Address Commemoration

Courtesy of Director, Producer, Editor of The Searchers – a Portrait Of researchers of the assassination of John F. Kennedy, Randolph Benson

Tuesday, 10 June 2025 – 12:00 Noon

American University Peace Speech Memorial

4400 Massachusetts Ave. NW

Washington, DC

Commencement Address at American University, Washington, D.C., June 10, 1963

Transcript

President John F. Kennedy
Washington, D.C.
June 10, 1963

President Anderson, members of the faculty, board of trustees, distinguished guests, my old colleague, Senator Bob Byrd, who has earned his degree through many years of attending night law school, while I am earning mine in the next 30 minutes, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen:

It is with great pride that I participate in this ceremony of the American University, sponsored by the Methodist Church, founded by Bishop John Fletcher Hurst, and first opened by President Woodrow Wilson in 1914. This is a young and growing university, but it has already fulfilled Bishop Hurst’s enlightened hope for the study of history and public affairs in a city devoted to the making of history and the conduct of the public’s business. By sponsoring this institution of higher learning for all who wish to learn, whatever their color or their creed, the Methodists of this area and the Nation deserve the Nation’s thanks, and I commend all those who are today graduating.

Professor Woodrow Wilson once said that every man sent out from a university should be a man of his nation as well as a man of his time, and I am confident that the men and women who carry the honor of graduating from this institution will continue to give from their lives, from their talents, a high measure of public service and public support.

“There are few earthly things more beautiful than a university,” wrote John Masefield in his tribute to English universities–and his words are equally true today. He did not refer to spires and towers, to campus greens and ivied walls. He admired the splendid beauty of the university, he said, because it was “a place where those who hate ignorance may strive to know, where those who perceive truth may strive to make others see.”

I have, therefore, chosen this time and this place to discuss a topic on which ignorance too often abounds and the truth is too rarely perceived–yet it is the most important topic on earth: world peace.

What kind of peace do I mean? What kind of peace do we seek? Not a Pax Americana enforced on the world by American weapons of war. Not the peace of the grave or the security of the slave. I am talking about genuine peace, the kind of peace that makes life on earth worth living, the kind that enables men and nations to grow and to hope and to build a better life for their children–not merely peace for Americans but peace for all men and women–not merely peace in our time but peace for all time.

I speak of peace because of the new face of war. Total war makes no sense in an age when great powers can maintain large and relatively invulnerable nuclear forces and refuse to surrender without resort to those forces. It makes no sense in an age when a single nuclear weapon contains almost ten times the explosive force delivered by all the allied air forces in the Second World War. It makes no sense in an age when the deadly poisons produced by a nuclear exchange would be carried by wind and water and soil and seed to the far corners of the globe and to generations yet unborn.

Today the expenditure of billions of dollars every year on weapons acquired for the purpose of making sure we never need to use them is essential to keeping the peace. But surely the acquisition of such idle stockpiles–which can only destroy and never create–is not the only, much less the most efficient, means of assuring peace.

I speak of peace, therefore, as the necessary rational end of rational men. I realize that the pursuit of peace is not as dramatic as the pursuit of war–and frequently the words of the pursuer fall on deaf ears. But we have no more urgent task.

Some say that it is useless to speak of world peace or world law or world disarmament–and that it will be useless until the leaders of the Soviet Union adopt a more enlightened attitude. I hope they do. I believe we can help them do it. But I also believe that we must reexamine our own attitude–as individuals and as a Nation–for our attitude is as essential as theirs. And every graduate of this school, every thoughtful citizen who despairs of war and wishes to bring peace, should begin by looking inward–by examining his own attitude toward the possibilities of peace, toward the Soviet Union, toward the course of the cold war and toward freedom and peace here at home.

First: Let us examine our attitude toward peace itself. Too many of us think it is impossible. Too many think it unreal. But that is a dangerous, defeatist belief. It leads to the conclusion that war is inevitable–that mankind is doomed–that we are gripped by forces we cannot control.

We need not accept that view. Our problems are manmade–therefore, they can be solved by man. And man can be as big as he wants. No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings. Man’s reason and spirit have often solved the seemingly unsolvable–and we believe they can do it again.

I am not referring to the absolute, infinite concept of peace and good will of which some fantasies and fanatics dream. I do not deny the value of hopes and dreams but we merely invite discouragement and incredulity by making that our only and immediate goal.

Let us focus instead on a more practical, more attainable peace– based not on a sudden revolution in human nature but on a gradual evolution in human institutions–on a series of concrete actions and effective agreements which are in the interest of all concerned. There is no single, simple key to this peace–no grand or magic formula to be adopted by one or two powers. Genuine peace must be the product of many nations, the sum of many acts. It must be dynamic, not static, changing to meet the challenge of each new generation. For peace is a process–a way of solving problems.

With such a peace, there will still be quarrels and conflicting interests, as there are within families and nations. World peace, like community peace, does not require that each man love his neighbor–it requires only that they live together in mutual tolerance, submitting their disputes to a just and peaceful settlement. And history teaches us that enmities between nations, as between individuals, do not last forever. However fixed our likes and dislikes may seem, the tide of time and events will often bring surprising changes in the relations between nations and neighbors.

So let us persevere. Peace need not be impracticable, and war need not be inevitable. By defining our goal more clearly, by making it seem more manageable and less remote, we can help all peoples to see it, to draw hope from it, and to move irresistibly toward it.

Second: Let us reexamine our attitude toward the Soviet Union. It is discouraging to think that their leaders may actually believe what their propagandists write. It is discouraging to read a recent authoritative Soviet text on Military Strategy and find, on page after page, wholly baseless and incredible claims–such as the allegation that “American imperialist circles are preparing to unleash different types of wars . . . that there is a very real threat of a preventive war being unleashed by American imperialists against the Soviet Union . . . [and that] the political aims of the American imperialists are to enslave economically and politically the European and other capitalist countries . . . [and] to achieve world domination . . . by means of aggressive wars.”

Truly, as it was written long ago: “The wicked flee when no man pursueth.” Yet it is sad to read these Soviet statements–to realize the extent of the gulf between us. But it is also a warning–a warning to the American people not to fall into the same trap as the Soviets, not to see only a distorted and desperate view of the other side, not to see conflict as inevitable, accommodation as impossible, and communication as nothing more than an exchange of threats.

No government or social system is so evil that its people must be considered as lacking in virtue. As Americans, we find communism profoundly repugnant as a negation of personal freedom and dignity. But we can still hail the Russian people for their many achievements–in science and space, in economic and industrial growth, in culture and in acts of courage.

Among the many traits the peoples of our two countries have in common, none is stronger than our mutual abhorrence of war. Almost unique among the major world powers, we have never been at war with each other. And no nation in the history of battle ever suffered more than the Soviet Union suffered in the course of the Second World War. At least 20 million lost their lives. Countless millions of homes and farms were burned or sacked. A third of the nation’s territory, including nearly two thirds of its industrial base, was turned into a wasteland–a loss equivalent to the devastation of this country east of Chicago.

Today, should total war ever break out again–no matter how–our two countries would become the primary targets. It is an ironic but accurate fact that the two strongest powers are the two in the most danger of devastation. All we have built, all we have worked for, would be destroyed in the first 24 hours. And even in the cold war, which brings burdens and dangers to so many nations, including this Nation’s closest allies–our two countries bear the heaviest burdens. For we are both devoting massive sums of money to weapons that could be better devoted to combating ignorance, poverty, and disease. We are both caught up in a vicious and dangerous cycle in which suspicion on one side breeds suspicion on the other, and new weapons beget counterweapons.

In short, both the United States and its allies, and the Soviet Union and its allies, have a mutually deep interest in a just and genuine peace and in halting the arms race. Agreements to this end are in the interests of the Soviet Union as well as ours–and even the most hostile nations can be relied upon to accept and keep those treaty obligations, and only those treaty obligations, which are in their own interest.

So, let us not be blind to our differences–but let us also direct attention to our common interests and to the means by which those differences can be resolved. And if we cannot end now our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity. For, in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children’s future. And we are all mortal.

Third: Let us reexamine our attitude toward the cold war, remembering that we are not engaged in a debate, seeking to pile up debating points. We are not here distributing blame or pointing the finger of judgment. We must deal with the world as it is, and not as it might have been had the history of the last 18 years been different.

We must, therefore, persevere in the search for peace in the hope that constructive changes within the Communist bloc might bring within reach solutions which now seem beyond us. We must conduct our affairs in such a way that it becomes in the Communists’ interest to agree on a genuine peace. Above all, while defending our own vital interests, nuclear powers must avert those confrontations which bring an adversary to a choice of either a humiliating retreat or a nuclear war. To adopt that kind of course in the nuclear age would be evidence only of the bankruptcy of our policy–or of a collective death-wish for the world.

To secure these ends, America’s weapons are nonprovocative, carefully controlled, designed to deter, and capable of selective use. Our military forces are committed to peace and disciplined in self- restraint. Our diplomats are instructed to avoid unnecessary irritants and purely rhetorical hostility.

For we can seek a relaxation of tension without relaxing our guard. And, for our part, we do not need to use threats to prove that we are resolute. We do not need to jam foreign broadcasts out of fear our faith will be eroded. We are unwilling to impose our system on any unwilling people–but we are willing and able to engage in peaceful competition with any people on earth.

Meanwhile, we seek to strengthen the United Nations, to help solve its financial problems, to make it a more effective instrument for peace, to develop it into a genuine world security system–a system capable of resolving disputes on the basis of law, of insuring the security of the large and the small, and of creating conditions under which arms can finally be abolished.

At the same time we seek to keep peace inside the non-Communist world, where many nations, all of them our friends, are divided over issues which weaken Western unity, which invite Communist intervention or which threaten to erupt into war. Our efforts in West New Guinea, in the Congo, in the Middle East, and in the Indian subcontinent, have been persistent and patient despite criticism from both sides. We have also tried to set an example for others–by seeking to adjust small but significant differences with our own closest neighbors in Mexico and in Canada.

Speaking of other nations, I wish to make one point clear. We are bound to many nations by alliances. Those alliances exist because our concern and theirs substantially overlap. Our commitment to defend Western Europe and West Berlin, for example, stands undiminished because of the identity of our vital interests. The United States will make no deal with the Soviet Union at the expense of other nations and other peoples, not merely because they are our partners, but also because their interests and ours converge.

Our interests converge, however, not only in defending the frontiers of freedom, but in pursuing the paths of peace. It is our hope– and the purpose of allied policies–to convince the Soviet Union that she, too, should let each nation choose its own future, so long as that choice does not interfere with the choices of others. The Communist drive to impose their political and economic system on others is the primary cause of world tension today. For there can be no doubt that, if all nations could refrain from interfering in the self-determination of others, the peace would be much more assured.

This will require a new effort to achieve world law–a new context for world discussions. It will require increased understanding between the Soviets and ourselves. And increased understanding will require increased contact and communication. One step in this direction is the proposed arrangement for a direct line between Moscow and Washington, to avoid on each side the dangerous delays, misunderstandings, and misreadings of the other’s actions which might occur at a time of crisis.

We have also been talking in Geneva about the other first-step measures of arms control designed to limit the intensity of the arms race and to reduce the risks of accidental war. Our primary long range interest in Geneva, however, is general and complete disarmament– designed to take place by stages, permitting parallel political developments to build the new institutions of peace which would take the place of arms. The pursuit of disarmament has been an effort of this Government since the 1920’s. It has been urgently sought by the past three administrations. And however dim the prospects may be today, we intend to continue this effort–to continue it in order that all countries, including our own, can better grasp what the problems and possibilities of disarmament are.

The one major area of these negotiations where the end is in sight, yet where a fresh start is badly needed, is in a treaty to outlaw nuclear tests. The conclusion of such a treaty, so near and yet so far, would check the spiraling arms race in one of its most dangerous areas. It would place the nuclear powers in a position to deal more effectively with one of the greatest hazards which man faces in 1963, the further spread of nuclear arms. It would increase our security–it would decrease the prospects of war. Surely this goal is sufficiently important to require our steady pursuit, yielding neither to the temptation to give up the whole effort nor the temptation to give up our insistence on vital and responsible safeguards.

I am taking this opportunity, therefore, to announce two important decisions in this regard.

First: Chairman Khrushchev, Prime Minister Macmillan, and I have agreed that high-level discussions will shortly begin in Moscow looking toward early agreement on a comprehensive test ban treaty. Our hopes must be tempered with the caution of history–but with our hopes go the hopes of all mankind.

Second: To make clear our good faith and solemn convictions on the matter, I now declare that the United States does not propose to conduct nuclear tests in the atmosphere so long as other states do not do so. We will not be the first to resume. Such a declaration is no substitute for a formal binding treaty, but I hope it will help us achieve one. Nor would such a treaty be a substitute for disarmament, but I hope it will help us achieve it.

Finally, my fellow Americans, let us examine our attitude toward peace and freedom here at home. The quality and spirit of our own society must justify and support our efforts abroad. We must show it in the dedication of our own lives–as many of you who are graduating today will have a unique opportunity to do, by serving without pay in the Peace Corps abroad or in the proposed National Service Corps here at home.

But wherever we are, we must all, in our daily lives, live up to the age-old faith that peace and freedom walk together. In too many of our cities today, the peace is not secure because the freedom is incomplete.

It is the responsibility of the executive branch at all levels of government–local, State, and National–to provide and protect that freedom for all of our citizens by all means within their authority. It is the responsibility of the legislative branch at all levels, wherever that authority is not now adequate, to make it adequate. And it is the responsibility of all citizens in all sections of this country to respect the rights of all others and to respect the law of the land.

All this is not unrelated to world peace. “When a man’s ways please the Lord,” the Scriptures tell us, “he maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him.” And is not peace, in the last analysis, basically a matter of human rights–the right to live out our lives without fear of devastation–the right to breathe air as nature provided it–the right of future generations to a healthy existence?

While we proceed to safeguard our national interests, let us also safeguard human interests. And the elimination of war and arms is clearly in the interest of both. No treaty, however much it may be to the advantage of all, however tightly it may be worded, can provide absolute security against the risks of deception and evasion. But it can–if it is sufficiently effective in its enforcement and if it is sufficiently in the interests of its signers–offer far more security and far fewer risks than an unabated, uncontrolled, unpredictable arms race.

The United States, as the world knows, will never start a war. We do not want a war. We do not now expect a war. This generation of Americans has already had enough–more than enough–of war and hate and oppression. We shall be prepared if others wish it. We shall be alert to try to stop it. But we shall also do our part to build a world of peace where the weak are safe and the strong are just. We are not helpless before that task or hopeless of its success. Confident and unafraid, we labor on–not toward a strategy of annihilation but toward a strategy of peace.

Alan Dale: THIS

Today’s date is 4 June, 2025. The following was originally published 4 June, 2018.

50 years ago, the 4th of June fell on a Tuesday.

In consecutive shifts my mother and then my father divided the day by driving small groups of voters from nursing homes to the polls where Robert F. Kennedy’s fight to win the California democratic primary was being waged. During my mother’s shift, squeezing as many as 5 elderly but determined Kennedy supporters at a time into our Dodge station wagon, my father took me into the Ambassador Hotel’s Embassy Ballroom where I hoped I would see Senator Kennedy, but instead, experienced only the incredibly blinding heat and glare of television lights. I had met Senator Kennedy two years earlier in New Albany, Indiana. I know I was excited at the prospect of meeting him again. He was alive when I fell asleep in a room upstairs before the results of the election were known.

He was still alive, but mortally wounded, when I awoke early the next morning and found, to my surprise, my father was awake and in front of the television, sitting with his hands clasped in his lap, leaning forward, watching the screen. I had never known my dad, a full-time professional musician, to be awake before late, late morning or noon. He hadn’t slept. Only I. Nobody else had slept. I may have asked what was going on. What I remember my father saying was this:

“Somebody should take the guy who did this and machine gun him against a wall.”

That’s how I learned what had happened. Senator Kennedy lived 25 and a half hours after being shot. He died at 1:44 am, 6 June, 1968. He was 42 years old.

Be glad you weren’t there.

ADDENDUM

KCBiTXv5_0506211201121sbpi-238x300 Alan Dale: THIS

Portrait by Jim Bama from a photograph by D. Gorton.

6 June, 2020

There are times when experience disrupts and displaces whatever “normal” might have been. Today we are living through a daily assault on the continuities upon which we have always relied; continuities that unite rather than divide and explain rather than bewilder; continuities that help us to define where and who “we” are, so that participation, without fear, is possible.

Fifty-two years ago, my personal life and the continuities that I, as an eight-year-old, associated with “normal” were disrupted, irrevocably.

Many of my Facebook friends will be aware of something I wrote on this anniversary date two years ago regarding what I remember about 4 June, 1968.

For most of my life I was unwilling and unable to discuss, analyze, or even admit that I had been there, at the Ambassador Hotel, with my parents on that devastating occasion. Although I was asleep at the time of the shooting, my parents were not. A few years ago, because of something that had been artfully crafted by my friend, Phil Dragoo, which pertained to the assassination of Senator Robert F. Kennedy for posting on a now defunct JFK forum, I publicly admitted what I had never told anyone: “I was there.”

That single admission was the first in a series of necessary steps for me to examine, deeply and honestly, the meaning and consequences of Senator Kennedy’s murder in relation to myself and my family. The short version is this: His death ended my childhood and destroyed the continuity of everything I had known and taken for granted while traveling across this country with my mother and father. It also set the course of my intellectual and emotional paths, alternatives to which I will never be able to consider.

It was not until that first acknowledgement, inspired and made possible by my friend’s creative posting on profound loss for which 1963 and 1968 are indelibly linked, I began to see that my parent’s lives were altered; their alcoholism was a direct result of disheartened grief; and I was traumatized my entire life by the effects of being in relatively close proximity to such an immense tragedy.

Until the period of the last five weeks of my father’s life, neither of my parents ever discussed the assassination with me. I understand now that they were not neglectful towards me about such a life changing experience; I see now and have come to accept that they could not have helped me, their only child, because they truly didn’t know how to help themselves. They had no solutions; they simply drank.

I will say this, sincerely: I did not realize how damaged I was until a small number of cherished friends and mentors involved themselves, meaningfully, to influence the necessity of dealing with this issue by talking about it.

Among those beautiful friends and teachers who have helped me, I include Malcolm Blunt, Dr. John Newman, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Professor Peter Dale Scott, Bill Simpich, Dan Hardway, Jefferson Morley, Heather Tarver Fear, Stu Wexler, Larry Hancock, Charles Drago, Pat Speer, Debra Conway, Sherry Fiester, Jay Harvey, Bart Kamp, Greg R. Parker, Jay Miles, Dr. Josiah Thompson, Dan Alcorn, Jim Lesar, and one other without whom I would be elsewhere in this process and this post would not be possible, my dearest friend, Darlene. This is what she said to me:

“I was thinking about our last conversation, and your feeling as a small child that you could have done something to save RFK– I am sure this is not news to you, but I keep thinking that you have, of course, spent a good part of your adult life saving him, or at least his legacy. Not many people can say that they have turned tragic events of their childhoods into something positive.”

It is she whose clarity and insight has been directly impactful, speaking from her heart in such a way as to expand my emotional awareness, which has allowed me to see, objectively, that it was possible for a young child to be exposed to tragedy, to the violent deaths of his heroes and, despite internalizing the trauma, to have chosen a path of positive engagement, deep commitment to principle, and appreciation of the constructive benefits of doing more with your suffering than just grieve. I am privileged and forever thankful to those who allow me to participate in a cause which I find meaningful and gratifying.

So, 52 years ago the 4th of June fell on a Tuesday. Sitting with my father during the final days of his life in late January of 2015, I decided that I should ask him about that night. His first sentence was the end of the conversation. He said, “I heard the shots coming from the kitchen pantry.”

Be glad you weren’t there.

ALL RIGHTS RESERVEDAARC

The Talbot-Croft Archive: Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.

A portrait of David Talbot at The Green Arcade bookstore, Wednesday, Jan. 8, 2020, in San Francisco, Calif. Talbot shares his experiences following his stroke in his new book, Between Heaven and Hell.

The Assassination Archives and Research Center, in cooperation with the Mary Ferrell Foundation, announces an extraordinary research resource: The Talbot-Croft Archive. This archive features the recorded conversations and transcriptions that were developed as primary sources in researching David Talbot’s books, Brothers: The Hidden History of the Kennedy Years (2007) and The Devil’s Chessboard: Allen Dulles, the CIA and the Rise of America’s Secret Government (2015).

This project is made possible with the permission of the author, David Talbot and his long-time research associate, Karen Croft, whose participation and involvement was integral to the creation and collection of these materials.

Interviews preserve and document perhaps our most precious resource, the stories of those who have made history as told in their own words. It is through the dedicated efforts of historians, authors, the men and women who practice objective and accountable investigative journalism, by which we may delve most deeply into our past. For those to whom history is more than the record and analysis of documented events, little can be of greater value than the candid reflections of those whose lives have influenced its shaping. History may have many authors and many voices, but once those figures have passed and those voices stilled, we are left to study what remains: the documented record of their words and deeds.

“The greatest brotherly duo in American political history. They gave their lives for the country — and they died for a reason, not simply at the hands of two ‘lone nuts.’ Those who know the true story of the Kennedy brothers’ lives (and I’m not talking about the PBS version) know how truly heroic they were.”

— David Talbot speaking about John and Robert Kennedy, (2016)

This introduction addresses two equal sides reflected within this project for which David Talbot is responsible. The first pertains to the unique value of unscripted and unrehearsed personal interviews with historical figures. The second, of course, must recognize the strength of David’s ethics, his social conscience, his deeply compassionate conception of literary and social objectives which convey his concerns about where things have gone terribly wrong and how, if we are all properly informed (hidden history-wise), we can work together to make our society better for all. In considering essential points that should be communicated in this introduction, we acknowledge the inseparable connection between the stories he chooses to explore, his intrinsic determination to focus his attention upon darkly complex and meaningful subjects and the absolute integrity of his personal and professional character. It is sometimes said that great works are the product of great souls. David’s life and his works exemplify the best of what it was to which John and Robert Kennedy, and the band of brothers who served them, were so passionately committed: Full use of your powers along lines of excellence.

His works are a gift to all of us who are haunted by living in a society that emerged after our hopes, and perhaps our destinies, were disrupted by gunfire.

Some work of noble note, may yet be done,

Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.

The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:

The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep

Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,

‘T is not too late to seek a newer world.

Push off, and sitting well in order smite

The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds

To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths

Of all the western stars, until I die.

It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:

It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,

And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.

Tho’ much is taken, much abides; and tho’

We are not now that strength which in old days

Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;

One equal temper of heroic hearts,

Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will

To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield

(Ulysses, Tennyson)

Special thanks to AARC president, Dan Alcorn and MFF president, Rex Bradford; courtesy of David Talbot and Karen Croft, we are honored to present The Talbot–Croft Archive.

Dedicated to the memory of John and Robert Kennedy and to all those who continue to seek a newer world.

INTERVIEW 02

Audio: Peter Maheu

Transcript: Peter Maheu

Peter Maheu (10 June, 1942 – 6 April, 2016) was a businessman and former employee of CIA and Howard Hughes. He worked for his father, Robert Maheu, who was an extremely well-connected American businessman and lawyer, and for billionaire Howard Hughes. In 1963 Peter Maheu worked within CIA’s Office of Security. He was a licensed private investigator in Nevada and California, became a world leader in assuring regulatory compliance in the gaming industry. He wrote articles and lectured extensively on preventing business fraud. And he became involved in the emergence of overseas gaming, focusing on keeping organized crime out of casinos in those burgeoning markets.

Peter Maheu delivered lectures before some of the world’s most prestigious groups. Among them were the World Presidents’ Organization, the International Masters of Gaming Law Conference, the International Association of Gaming Attorneys Conference and the North American Gaming Regulators Association.

Early on, Peter worked for his dad’s company, Robert A. Maheu and Associates, where Peter played a major role in the management of not only Hughes’ gaming properties but in Hughes’ vast Nevada real estate and mining interests. Much of what are now high-end residential communities in northwest Las Vegas were built on land Hughes purchased as barren desert.

After breaking out on his own, Peter Maheu founded — and was president of — Trademark Protection Services, where he specialized in preventing trademark and copyright infringement on his clients’ brands.

TPS was said to have been at one time the nation’s largest firm of its type, with 30 offices nationwide that each employed a cadre of investigators and attorneys. Maheu’s clients included such business giants as 20th Century Fox, Walt Disney Co., Mirage Studios and Hard Rock Café.

He was known for his work with the Honor Flight Network of Southern Nevada, a non-profit group that sends World War II veterans to Washington, D.C., to visit memorials created in their honor. He was also involved in the business investigation company, Global Intelligence International.

ADDENDUM from AARC President Dan Alcorn: Peter Maheu’s father, Robert Maheu’s first job for CIA was to block Aristotle Onassis from shipping the Saudi oil. Maheu installed a telephone tap on an Onassis phone in New York. CIA favored Stavros Niarchos for the contract. CIA’s Al Ulmer went to work for Niarchos in London in 1962. Niarchos was a client of Werner von Alvensleben.

*****

INTERVIEW 01

Audio: Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.

Transcript: Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.

Arthur Meier Schlesinger Jr. (born Arthur Bancroft Schlesinger; October 15, 1917 – February 28, 2007) was an American historian, social critic, and public intellectual. The son of the influential historian Arthur M. Schlesinger Sr. and a specialist in American history, much of Schlesinger’s work explored the history of 20th-century American liberalism. In particular, his work focused on leaders such as Harry S. Truman, Franklin D. Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, and Robert F. Kennedy. In the 1952 and 1956 presidential campaigns, he was a primary speechwriter and adviser to the Democratic presidential nominee, Adlai Stevenson II. Schlesinger served as special assistant and “court historian” to President Kennedy from 1961 to 1963. He wrote a detailed account of the Kennedy administration, from the 1960 presidential campaign to the president’s state funeral, titled A Thousand Days: John F. Kennedy in the White House, which won the 1966 Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography.

In 1968, Schlesinger actively supported the presidential campaign of Senator Robert F. Kennedy, which ended with Kennedy’s assassination in Los Angeles. Schlesinger wrote a popular biography, Robert Kennedy and His Times, several years later. He later popularized the term “imperial presidency” during the Nixon administration in his 1973 book, The Imperial Presidency.

RELATED: 30 June 1961 Memo for the President

CIA Reorganization, RIF 176-10030-10422