[Al_U_Card]

This just in, JFK telling NASA to cooperate with the Soviets and provide info about their defensive aspects (???????) to State so that they could share "knowns and unknowns" with the Soviets... referring to UFOs it appears.

[The_Badger]

Given that UFO paranoia was generally rife in the late 1950s/early 1960s and...beginning in the 1950s, the US Central Intelligence Agency began a research program code named Project MKULTRA. Experiments included administering LSD to CIA employees, military personnel, doctors, other government agents, prostitutes, mentally ill patients, and members of the general public in order to study their reactions, usually without the subjects' knowledge. The project was revealed in the US congressional Rockefeller Commission report in 1975...I'm not surprised by anything that happens, or has happened in the USA, or for that matter in any country, including my own, where politics and governmental department intelligence meet.

[jjbrr]

im not a jfk conspiracy guy, but mkultra is small fries compared to the stuff revealed about operation northwoods, right?

[The_Badger]

jjbrr, on 2017-October-27, 23:33, said:

im not a jfk conspiracy guy, but mkultra is small fries compared to the stuff revealed about operation northwoods, right?

Thanks for that jjbrr. Interesting reading. I've learnt so much more about USA intelligence, foreign policy and US domestic politics thanks to BBO forum members now that I've retired, and having the internet at my fingertips lets me access information that is rarely seen in the British press.

[Al_U_Card]

David Talbot's "The Devil's Chessboard" and James Douglass's "The Unspeakable" are two very good primers on what was going on and why JFK was "in the way". The anti-communist paranoia was a pre-cursor to today's anti-Russian diversions. Northwoods was a JCS "plan" to fake or even take the lives of US citizens and blame Castro and the Communists so that the army could invade Cuba. Elucidated by Veep R.M. Nixon through "Operation 40", the CIA knew the Bay of Pigs invasion would fail without US military involvement and they hoped to oblige JFK to get involved. Happily, he did not and the fact that Russian battlefield commanders in Cuba had tactical nukes and the authority to use them against a US invasion is why we are still here today.

[jjbrr]

absolutely, i am without question ignorant of a lot of the jfk stuff, and i dont believe 9/11 conspiracies myself, but to read about northwoods and the idea to false flag bomb miami, it makes 9/11 conspirators sound a little less crazy.

i just don't want to live my life concerned that the US government is out to get us, even if they are. call me a good little sheep maybe, but i have more important things to spend my life worrying about.

[Al_U_Card]

Not government but the power-brokers behind them. People with power and privilege care little for anything or anyone else (human nature, I suppose...). We, the people, want fairness and security. The PTB use that against us and btw it was the CIA that instigated the term "conspiracy theorist" to marginalize and discredit their "critics" (real investigators).

[Winstonm]

jjbrr, on 2017-October-28, 06:53, said:

absolutely, i am without question ignorant of a lot of the jfk stuff, and i dont believe 9/11 conspiracies myself, but to read about northwoods and the idea to false flag bomb miami, it makes 9/11 conspirators sound a little less crazy.

i just don't want to live my life concerned that the US government is out to get us, even if they are. call me a good little sheep maybe, but i have more important things to spend my life worrying about.

A point to keep in mind is the cultural aspects of the times when incidents occurred. 1963 was a much different time culturally than 2001; during the former, there was much greater trust of the actions of the government.

[kenberg]

jjbrr, on 2017-October-28, 06:53, said:

absolutely, i am without question ignorant of a lot of the jfk stuff, and i dont believe 9/11 conspiracies myself, but to read about northwoods and the idea to false flag bomb miami, it makes 9/11 conspirators sound a little less crazy.

i just don't want to live my life concerned that the US government is out to get us, even if they are. call me a good little sheep maybe, but i have more important things to spend my life worrying about.

I am pretty much in your corner on this. There have always been some stupid ideas floated, and it can get scary that some of them actually get as far as they get. It's a long way from there to assassinating president. The problem I have with a lot of the conspiracy theorists is not so unlike the problems that I have with many who are convinced of this or that possible, but unlikely, explanation of whatever. They have read a lot, they have thought a lot, and they really believe it. Sometimes there really is something deeply sinister and hidden going on, usually there isn't, and to sort out which is which requires more devotion to thi than I am able to muster. At the time JFK was shot, I was in in graduate school preparing for qualifying exams, I had a young child, my finances were such that I could not afford a car, and so on. Later, when Rush to Judment came out, I read it. I thought mark lane, the author, had some good points about the lack of care in the Warren Commission report, but it also seemed that his own ideas were very far fetched. It's the old story that it is much easier to find fault with what someone else has done than it is to come up with something coherent yourself. Pretty much I decided that I hope someone figures this all out and then I went back to my own life.

Some of the quoted statements seem stupid. Again I am not going to track everything down, but apparently there were high up people speaking of how important it was to reassure Americans that there was no conspiracy. Indeed this is importantt, but the way to do that is to do a careful and thorough job of accounting for just exactly what happened. "This is important, we are going to take our time and get it right" is the way to assure people that what is said is the same, or in all important respects the same, as what is true. Telling the commission that they have to come up with a soothing report is not in fact the way to sooth anyone. This advice applies to many things, but unfortunately is often ignored.

[jjbrr]

this is way outside the scope of this thread of course, but as a general comment about mkultra and as someone who may or may not know something about LSD/hallucinogenics/psychoactives as I suspect some of you probably do, I think the US is tragically, woefully behind in the science of what these chemicals do to the brain medically or psychologically or whatever.

i think we all sort of have a general impression that these drugs can perform miracles in treating or mitigating symptoms of some very scary and destructive diseases and disorders.

i would never advocate for unethical experimentation, but i feel very, very strongly that science needs to do more to study the effects of these things on the human brain.

[Al_U_Card]

Being able to link pseudonyms to people and programs is one of the important results from the analysis of these released documents. Be it ZR Rifle (William King Harvey and his "Executive action" group of sniper assassins.), or JM Wave (anti-Castro Cuban militants used in the Operation Mongoose attempts to raid Cuba and assassinate Fidel.) Putting the pieces together is the way to solve the jigsaw puzzle that are the intrigues of the intelligence community.

[Al_U_Card]

Another area of interest remains the LHO tax records. Suppressed info concerning "his" whereabouts from before the Marines leads one to speculate (including J.Edgar in a memo about CIA involvement PRIOR to Nov. 22) about more than one individual with those initials...a tangled web of intrigue that helps to explain the reticence to release information for "national security" reasons.