Still working on this topic of exactly who ordered and plotted the death of John F. Kennedy, I recently read JFK: The CIA, Vietnam, and the Plot to Assassinate John F. Kennedy by retired army Colonel Fletcher Prouty. You may know him from the Oliver Stone movie, "JFK." He was played by Donald Sutherland as the unnamed man from army "Black Operations" that briefed Jim Garrison played by Kevin Costner and challenged him with the question of "why" Kennedy was killed.
Prouty includes in his book some of his experiences at and around the time of the JFK assassination and as such he is a valuable primary source. He was in New Zealand at the time of the killing and testifies that the local paper there ran a story within 8 hours of the shooting naming Lee Harvey Oswald as the lone gunman and providing a detailed biographical account of his life.[1] This is primary source evidence that the plotters of the assassination had access to the worldwide press and were able to plant this story ahead of time because it was released before the Dallas police had even charged Oswald with the crime. Congressional investigations and many books have detailed the CIA's ability to manipulate public opinion with the press, so this is further evidence that the plot was a covert operation of the CIA.
Prouty also provides primary source evidence that someone in command of the Secret Service was part of the plot. Prouty relates a phone call he made after the assassination to a member of the army unit in San Antonio specifically trained for protection of the president. The commander was told to "stand down," he was "point blank and categorically refused by the Secret Service." The army has groups like this all over the country that assist the Secret Service by doing lots of the preparatory work in an area when the president is to come. There are many things the Secret Service must do when a president tours in a car at slow speeds. On November 22, 1963 when Kennedy was killed, many of these things were not done: no men were stationed on top of all the buildings, no men were detached to close all the windows in all the nearby buildings, and the sewers were not sealed. As I have written before the route was not standard protocol. Prouty adds to this list of omissions with his story about the instructions to the army unit. The commander “knew Dallas was dangerous” and this is why he had argued with the Secret Service and had to be told to “stand down.” [2]
Prouty is good when he sticks to relating his own experiences, but goes awry with some of his interpretations. He writes extensively about the “nameless High Cabal” that was behind not only the Kennedy’s assassination, but planning the Vietnam War ahead of time, the 1973 Arab Israeli War with the subsequent increase in oil prices, and the 1990 fall of communism among other things. His proof for the 1973 and 1990 events is that he heard them predicted at business conferences. Therefore they were planned? He presents much more information on Vietnam, but still fails to convince me of the theory that the people who ordered the plot also said, “we must kill Kennedy because he will not launch a war in Vietnam.” This was doubtless on a list of many crimes Kennedy had committed in his reluctance to prosecute the Cold War vigorously enough, but I think both Oliver Stone and Fletcher Prouty assign too much causality to Vietnam because they write after the fact of such a traumatic event for our country. Their pie-eyed description of the Kennedy assassination being quietly ordered by a group of powerful bankers meeting for martinis as we read in Prouty[3] or oilmen meeting in a smoke filled room as we see in Stone’s movie does more harm than good for getting the truth out. It allows the suppressors of truth to point at these guys and call them kooks and discount all the rest of the solid evidence they present. If bankers or an oilmen were behind the plot then lets have their names and evidence to prove it.
I want to start doing this in my next posts. I have about five names of Secret Service men that I can document lying, negligence, or other suspicious behavior too in the Kennedy assassination. This may be the topic of my next post.
[1] [1] L. Fletcher Prouty, JFK: The CIA, Vietnam, and the Plot to Assassinate John F. Kennedy, New York: Birch Land Press, 1992, page 306.
[2] Ibid, page 294.
[3] Ibid, pages 344-345.
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2 comments:
Bill--
As you know, I've investigated this thing all my life, and I've found that most authors and filmmakers cannot grasp the entire picture (after all, the JFK assassination is a morass of details, methodologies and motivations); thus, their work is flawed by a sort of lack of universal thinking. One must try to consider all elements of the plot--who killed him, how did they do it, and why did they do it. For instance, David Lifton's book addresses the "how" but largely ignores the "why." Jim Marrs' book covers the "who" but is deficient in the "how." Prouty is very cryptic when it comes to the "how" and "who."
But one book which has clarified my thinking is James Douglass's excellent "JFK And The Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters." Don't know if you've read this yet, but it is the best book on the topic ever. It made me understand, once and for all, the "why" of this thing. And once you understand this, all other things will fall into place. I struggled with the "why" for 40 years until Douglass set me straight.
Tim Fleming
www.AuthorsWebTV.com
BlogTalkRadio.com
Thanks again for your comment. I looked it up when you or somebody mentioned it before. The book is still new and expensive so I was waiting until I could get it through the library or buy a cheap used copy. Glad to hear there is another good one out there; I will read it.
I need to post again. I have read Madeline Duncan Brown's book Texas in the Morning, Mark Lane's book Plausible Denial, and Robert Morrow's Firsthand Knowledge since my last post.
I have also seen quite a few things on the internet such as E. Howard Hunt's deathbed confession given to his son in 2007 where he admits to being one of the hobos and a back-up shooter. I read his son's unpublished memoir on a PDF file I bought from him for $6. It is an interesting read. He details the heirarchy of the plotters, but of course this is Hunt (a known lier) and needs to be vetted.
I also listened to an interview with Madeline Brown that can be found on the internet. In this interview she names over a dozen people who were at the meeting at Clint Murchison's house the night before the assassination when the possibility of Kennedy's death was discussed.
I think my next post needs to be about what we know from her.
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