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The Media Myth Of Camelot
The Jewish Press ^ | 11/21/03 | Jason Maoz

Posted on 11/22/2003 4:53:54 AM PST by alan alda

The Media Myth Of Camelot

By Jason Maoz

“Jack Kennedy was the mythological front man for a particularly juicy slice of our history. He talked a slick line and wore a world-class haircut. He was Bill Clinton minus pervasive media scrutiny and a few rolls of flab. Jack got whacked at the optimum moment to assure his sainthood. Lies continue to swirl around his eternal flame....”

— James Ellroy, American Tabloid

Assassination does wonders for a public figure’s place in history. John F.Kennedy was a president of questionable character and meager accomplishment, but his untimely and violent death, followed by decades of unceasing image control by the Kennedy family and their media apologists, has helped sustain one of the great myths of American history — a myth that there once existed in Washington a magical kingdom called Camelot, ruled by a dashing prince whose wisdom and bravery were matched only by his unshakeable devotion to his beautiful princess.

So powerful is the Camelot legend that the seamy discoveries of recent years have managed only to tarnish, but hardly to destroy, the reputation of a man who almost certainly would have been impeached or forced to resign the presidency had even a fraction of what we now know been made public while he was still alive and in office.

Even the very term that has come to symbolize the Kennedy era — Camelot — is an invention after the fact, a fabrication, a fiction, a sham. The notion of the Kennedy White House as Camelot has always been, as even Kennedy press secretary and longtime loyalist Pierre Salinger admits, a “fraud” — the word was never used to describe the Kennedy administration while Kennedy was alive.

The Camelot-Kennedy connection was nothing more than a widow’s ultimately successful attempt to glamorize her husband’s legacy. Not long after Kennedy’s murder, Jacqueline Kennedy, quoting the lyrics of the title song from a popular Broadway show, implored the writer Theodore White: “Don’t let it be forgot/That once there was a spot/For one brief shining moment/That was known as Camelot.”

White dutifully recorded her words in an article for Life magazine, and instantly and forevermore the Kennedy years became Camelot in retrospect. It is necessary to keep all this in mind when reflecting on any aspect of the Kennedy administration. Nothing was as it seemed, and the truth about those years began to seep out only after Kennedy had been dead for a decade.

In fact, the mythmaking about JFK was under way well before he was elected president — being born to a politically ambitious, fabulously wealthy and well- connected father has its benefits. “Kennedy,” the liberal journalist Lawrence Wright has observed, “had spent thirteen years in the House and Senate without passing a single important piece of legislation. And yet before his election to the presidency, people were comparing him with Franklin Roosevelt, with the young Churchill, with various movie stars, with Lindbergh.”

Kennedy’s best-selling books, Why England Slept and Profiles in Courage, which helped sell the notion that he was some sort of intellectual? Both were ghost-written.

The World War II incident that bestowed on Kennedy the aura of heroism? Papa Joe arranged production of the worshipful film “PT-109,” with John Kennedy approving the script in advance and actually choosing the actor (Cliff Robertson) for the starring role. But just how accurate was the story?

“It was true Kennedy had saved the life of one of his men on PT-109, on a mission in which Kennedy was supposed to torpedo a Japanese destroyer,” writes Lawrence Wright. “Instead, the lumbering destroyer managed to slice the PT boat in half, killing two crewmen. Apparently, Kennedy had failed to notice the ship until it was bearing down on top of him. ‘Our reaction to the 109 thing had always been that we were kind of ashamed of our performance,’ admitted one of the crew, Barney Ross. ‘I had always thought it was a disaster.’ ”

Wright continues: “Was this heroism? Or just luck — that Kennedy was still alive and not brought before a court-martial? The Navy rejected his application for a Silver Star, and it wasn’t until a friend of the Kennedy family, James Forrestal, became secretary of the Navy, that Kennedy received a life-saving award.”

Among close acquaintances Kennedy was candid about his heroics. In his 1991 book A Question of Character, historian Thomas Reeves quotes the son of a Kennedy intimate as saying, “He told her it was a question of whether they were going to give him a medal or throw him out.” And in 1946, Reeves relates, Kennedy told a friend, “My story about the collision is getting better all the time. Now I’ve got a Jew and a nigger in the story and with me being a Catholic, that’s great.”

Reeves, by the way, learned the lesson brought home to every author who dares deviate from the Kennedy party line: taking a hard-eyed look at a liberal icon is to automatically be viewed as nasty and mean-spirited. Whereas his earlier biography of Joseph McCarthy garnered widespread acclaim, the Kennedy book drew decidedly mixed reviews — with critics invariably taking issue not so much with Reeves’s facts(which, as the saying goes, are stubborn things) as with his allegedly negative tone.

It’s become fairly routine: Every few years since the mid-1970’s some enterprising reporter or biographer unearths new, highly unflattering information about Kennedy. The inevitable cycle of response — from the media, from liberal intellectuals, from the Kennedy family — is one of shock, followed by some degree of denial, followed by silence. Until the next round of revelations, at which point the cycle begins anew — shock, denial, silence.

Seymour Hersh is an investigative journalist with solidly liberal — some would say solidly leftist — credentials. For thirty years, just about everything he wrote was lapped up by appreciative liberal readers — until he took on the Kennedy legend in his 1997 book The Dark Side of Camelot. While offering little fresh material, Hersh did add a considerable amount of corroborative detail to stories unearthed by earlier authors, and for that both he and the book were trashed by liberal reviewers.

After spending years searching through the muck of pumped-up war stories, doctored medical records (contrary to the image of “vigor” he liked to project, Kennedy suffered from a variety of ailments and consumed a prodigious daily cocktail of pharmaceuticals), compulsive extramarital activity, Mafia ties, and electoral shenanigans (“The 1960 presidential election,” Hersh flatly states, “was stolen”), the liberal muckraker was forced to reevaluate a man he once admired.

“Kennedy,” said Hersh in an Atlantic Monthly web interview shortly after the publication of The Dark Side of Camelot, “was much more corrupt than other post-war presidents, by a major factor. Much more manipulative, though Nixon was a close second. There’s nothing wonderful about Nixon — Watergate proved that — but I think that Nixon was an amateur compared to Kennedy.... [Kennedy] was above the law; he didn’t think anything could stop him.”

Particularly irksome to Hersh and others who see through the Camelot haze is the claim by Kennedy apologists that had their man lived, he would have put an end to America’s involvement in Vietnam — this despite the fact that the U.S. commitment in Vietnam expanded from a few hundred military advisers under Eisenhower to nearly 17,000 troops under Kennedy; that the men generally viewed as the architects of Lyndon Johnson’s Vietnam policies, Secretary of State Dean Rusk and Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, were in fact holdovers from the Kennedy administration; that just two months before his death Kennedy told Walter Cronkite, “I don’t agree with those who say we should withdraw” and insisted to Chet Huntley that “We are not there to see a war lost”; and that the very speech Kennedy planned to give in Dallas the day he was killed warned that a diminished American commitment in Vietnam would “only encourage Communist penetration.”

The reason for the eagerness on the part of so many on the left to make over Kennedy’s feelings about — and plans for — Vietnam is really quite simple: Kennedy, whatever his failings, was a classic cold warrior who presided over a military buildup that, proportionately, trumped the Reagan buildup of the 1980’s and whose Inaugural address put the world on notice: “Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and success of liberty.”

Liberals haven’t acted or spoken that way since the Johnson administration, and perhaps Kennedy himself would have moved to the left along with his brothers Robert and Ted and most of the Democratic party. But it’s impossible to know for sure, and today’s liberals are stuck with the inconvenient reality that the Kennedy whose legacy they claim as their own was in fact far closer to Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush in terms of his foreign policy and essential world view.

Hence the desperate need of Kennedy court historians and media fellow travelers to posit all sorts of fanciful scenarios about how Kennedy would have shed his hawk’s wings and sprouted dove’s feathers had he lived and been reelected in 1964.

Of course, Kennedy insiders have a history of revisionism that goes beyond Vietnam. When the existence of Richard Nixon’s wiretaps and secret White House taping system was revealed in the early 1970’s, Kennedy loyalists were among the loudest critics, contrasting the sinister behavior of Tricky Dick with the supposed Olympian altruism of their golden Prince Jack. But several years later it emerged that Nixon was a mere piker in such matters, at least compared to Kennedy:

“The FBI and the CIA had installed dozens of wiretaps and listening devices on orders and requests from the attorney general [Robert Kennedy],” writes Richard Reeves in his 1993 study President Kennedy: Profile of Power. “Transcripts of secret tapes of steel executives, congressmen, lobbyists, and reporters routinely ended up on the president’s desk. The targets ranged from writers who criticized the president...to members of Kennedy’s own staff.”

And, adds Reeves, a White House taping system was “installed by the Secret Service with help from military aides early in 1962, on Kennedy’s orders. When he thought of it, the president used hidden switches in the Oval Office, the Cabinet Room, and his living room in Hyannis Port to secretly record meetings and phone calls.”

Bet you haven’t heard or read much of that this week as the media’s talking heads and print hacks mark the 40th anniversary of Kennedy’s assassination by glibly reinforcing the seemingly invincible myth of Camelot.

Jason Maoz is senior editor of The Jewish Press. He can be reached at jmaoz@jewishpress.com.


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Culture/Society; Editorial; Government; Miscellaneous; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: assasination; camelot; jfk; johnkennedy; liberalmedia; liberals; myth; politics
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1 posted on 11/22/2003 4:53:54 AM PST by alan alda
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To: alan alda
Had Kennedy lived, the mess in Viet Nam, if anything, would have gotten much worse much faster. The situation there was already sliding down into the pit after Diem was assassinated, and only the fact that JFK himself was cut down within weeks stayed the hand of the US government for nearly a year. There were many points at which it was still possible to extradite ourselves from Viet Nam (any of which would have handed an issue to Barry Goldwater in 1964), but once the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution was adopted, all the spigots were turned open.

1961 through 1980 was a very chaotic time for America, a long nightmare that almost totally realigned what it meant to be an American. Being born here no longer meant that by the time one reached voting age, one understood the basic American ideals, and had achieved the understanding to carry on the stewardship created through the previous two centuries.
2 posted on 11/22/2003 5:22:35 AM PST by alloysteel
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To: alan alda
You are so mean to awaken the sleeping Camelotians! They will strike back!

"...That's how conditions are, in Camelot!"

"The War does indeed have many facets; http://aztlan.net/ Look at your enemy."
3 posted on 11/22/2003 5:24:27 AM PST by GatekeeperBookman ("The War does indeed have many facets; http://aztlan.net/ Look at your enemy." Listen to Tancredo)
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To: All
the mythmaking about JFK

Why John Kennedy was a great president: He was telegenic.

OK, that about covers that.

What was it like back then? Well, the arrogant Kennedy pukes would tolerate no "disrespect." For example, Vaughn Meador's extremely mild (even by that era's standards) LP record parody of the Kennedys was censored. The Kennedy White House let it be known that they did not like it one bit. End of Mr. Meador.

Robert Kennedy was one arrogant mean political SOB*. Perhaps it cost the lives of both his brother and himself.

What of the Kennedy tax cut? Proposed in 1962 it was not passed until LBJ became president. Why did Republicans oppose the tax cut? In the days of traditional politics the debate was about such things as fiscal (Keynesian deficits) v. monetary (balanced budgets) policies. Today Democrats splutter Marxist class warfare rhetoric, "tax cuts for the rich." The traditional Democrat Party was run by patriotic Americans.

Why was John Kennedy a stauch "anti-Communist" when his Party was generally tolerant (but wary) of communism? Today of course the Democrat Party embraces the internationalists' dreams.

Well, googling for, Kennedy Khrushchev Vienna "James Reston", produces lots of evidence. Reston BTW was Associate Editor of the New York Times and was as powerful as any media guy can get. Here's what one columnist wrote about what happened in Vienna.

"Kennedy was humiliated at a meeting with Khrushchev in Vienna the following June as the Soviet tyrant berated him on his bungling at the Bay of Pigs. James Reston, Associate Editor of the New York Times, reported that as a result of this meeting, Khrushchev felt ready to "put offensive missiles into Cuba." Reston, in an article published in the N.Y.Times, Jan. 18, 1966, stated that Kennedy told him after the Vienna conference, that in order to make American power "credible" after the Bay of Pigs, he would intensify the war in Vietnam "not because the situation on the ground demanded it in Vietnam," but because he "wanted to prove a diplomatic point, not a military point." This diplomatic point cost America almost 60,000 lives and another defeat."

Tell us again about how Kennedy was against U.S. troops in Vietnam.

John Stacks' book about Reston has the details. To wit,

"'How was it [Kennedy's private meeting with Khrushchev]?' Reston asked casually.

"'Worst thing in my life. He savaged me,' Kennedy responded. The president seemed to Reston to be almost in shock, repeating himself and speaking with astonishing candor to the journalist. . . ."

* Robert Kennedy as council to the McClellan committee was giving Sam Giancana a hard time in questioning. Giancana answered each question by reading the fifth amendment with a smirk and from time to time a slight laugh. Frustrated, Kennedy asked the mob boss, "Are you going to tell us anything or just giggle? I thought only little girls giggled?" Keep in mind that at the time (late 1950s) the mob was prepared to "deliver" Chicago to old man Joe Kennedy and his son John.

4 posted on 11/22/2003 5:39:20 AM PST by WilliamofCarmichael
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To: alan alda
John F.Kennedy was a president of questionable character and meager accomplishment,

And who by his administration's inept bungling in foreign affairs starting with the Bay of Pigs damn near got us into an atomic war and also insured Castro stay in power
5 posted on 11/22/2003 5:50:47 AM PST by uncbob
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To: alan alda
Thank for the post Hawkeye.
6 posted on 11/22/2003 5:51:38 AM PST by Sgt_Schultze
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To: GatekeeperBookman
For example, Vaughn Mead[e]r's extremely mild (even by that era's standards) LP record parody of the Kennedys was censored. The Kennedy White House let it be known that they did not like it one bit. End of Mr. Mead[e]r.

As the Hertz ads say, not exactly. Meader's 1962 parody record, "The First Family," wasn't in the least "censored," and was a smash hit and earned a gold-record certification. It was so popular that a sequel album in early Fall 1963 was also released, but its sales popularity was cut short for obvious reasons. Meader himself took his uncanny Kennedy imitation to nightclubs, but never again was successful.

I still have both LP records, which my Republican father snapped up promptly four decades ago.

7 posted on 11/22/2003 5:58:32 AM PST by Greybird ("War is God's way of teaching Americans geography." -- Ambrose Bierce)
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To: alan alda
"John F.Kennedy was a president of questionable character and meager accomplishment" all right, but he was a far better man than the Democrats who were to follow him.

The greatest significance of the Kennedy presidency was the development of the powerful "mainstream media" propaganda machine that created the "myth" of "Camelot" and would prove relentless in distorting the truth and censoring and distorting the information that would reach the American people, severely damaging the United States and bringing it to a dangerous position in the world. It became a propaganda machine that believed its own propaganda.

8 posted on 11/22/2003 6:14:01 AM PST by Savage Beast (If Europeans have forgotten the price of appeasement, Americans are well qualified to remind them.)
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To: uncbob
And who by his administration's inept bungling in foreign affairs starting with the Bay of Pigs damn near got us into an atomic war and also insured Castro stay in power,

In all the fawning about JFK this week, not a negative word was spoken... Did anyone on these various shows note that the Berlin Wall was constructed on his watch. The Soviets threw that up in a weekend in August (1961)... I'm sure JFK and the Clan were vacationing in the Vinyard and just couldn't be bothered to step away... The Wall also provided a nice backdrop for his "Ich bin ein Berliner" speech... And people compare him with Reagan!

9 posted on 11/22/2003 6:52:53 AM PST by ReleaseTheHounds
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To: Savage Beast
The greatest significance of the Kennedy presidency was the development of the powerful "mainstream media" propaganda machine that created the "myth" of "Camelot" and would prove relentless in distorting the truth and censoring and distorting the information that would reach the American people

I'm so tired of seeing the mugs of Arthur Schlesinger Jr. and the awful (plagerist) Doris Kearns Goodwin (talk about BARF alert!). Glad this week is almost over.

10 posted on 11/22/2003 6:57:28 AM PST by ReleaseTheHounds
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To: Savage Beast
To: All

What a marvelous thread.

(steely)

11 posted on 11/22/2003 7:01:04 AM PST by Steely Tom
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To: alan alda
The comparison of Kennedy to the Democrats who were to follow him is reminiscent of the Romans of the decadent period who said, "Our fathers were better men than we are, and we are better men than our children."

The Democrat Party reflects a dangerous and sickening current of decadence that runs through the West, including America, and is even stronger in Europe.

It is this current of decadence that has emboldened Al-Qaida et al. terrorists; that has emboldened the world's Muslims with the hope of establishing Islam as the dominant and perhaps the only religion in the world; and that led to the September 11, 2001, attack on the United States and similar terrorist attacks throughout the world. It continues to embolden those who would overthrow the Western nations, destroy Western Civilization, and establish a worldwide Islamic theocracy, with the Koran as the only constitution and the shariah as international law.

Fortunately for the people of the world, the American Heartland remains a powerful bastion of Western Civilization, still ascendant.

President Bush is its quinesssence. He is a brilliant and courageous leader. We must hope that the people of the world prove wise enough to follow his leadership and to draw inspiration from the American Heartland rather than sinking deeper into the horrible quagmire of decay.

12 posted on 11/22/2003 7:07:22 AM PST by Savage Beast (If Europeans have forgotten the price of appeasement, Americans are well qualified to remind them.)
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To: alan alda
ON second thought, let's not go to Camelot. Tis a silly place.
13 posted on 11/22/2003 9:52:14 AM PST by Huck
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To: alan alda
As you hear all the Democrats deifying JFK, consider that he could not win a single one of their primaries today. He was pro tax-cuts and pro defense. He believed in limited government (by today's standards). And he had a backbone (thought it was heavily medicated).

Now look at the faces of today's Democrats. A collection of weasels that would yell Kennedy off the stage for supporting tax-cuts (for the Rich!) and for his willingness to use the military.

Please note that the above is not intended to show my support of JFK (who I feel is about at overrated as president's get), but instead to point out the hypocrisy of the current crop of DNC losers, including one (Kerry) who has spent his entire career pretending to be JFK's second coming. Can anyone imagine Kennedy willing to share the spotlight at a debate with Mosley-Braun or Rev. Al?

14 posted on 11/22/2003 10:08:27 AM PST by bootyist-monk (It's Enrico Palatso!)
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To: alan alda
Comparing Kennedy to Clinton is a gass - Clinton's choice in women paled in comparison!
15 posted on 11/22/2003 10:22:34 AM PST by ThinkLikeWaterAndReeds
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To: WilliamofCarmichael
Mobbed Up

The relationship between Giancana and the Kennedys became even more complicated when it was revealed that Giancana's girlfriend, Judith Cambpell Exner, was also having an affair with John Kennedy when he was in office. She had telephoned him at least 70 times since he had been inaugurated at the White House, a fact that had been discovered by FBI chief, J. Edgar Hoover. On March 27, 1962, Hoover apparently persuaded the president to discontinue the relationship. Or at least make sure the telephone connection was broken off.

It has been claimed that Joseph Kennedy, the powerful and ambitious patriarch of the Kennedy clan, had done a deal with Giancana to guarantee that he would arrange to rig the presidential election in Illinois, a critical state for campaigning candidates, and ensure that his son John would become president. The mobster had also helped raise money for JFK's crucial West Virginia primary campaign, or had arranged to pay off appropriate political figures. Judith Campbell Exner, one time girl friend of Giancana, admitted to Larry King on television in 1992 that she repeatedly acted as a courier, shipping satchels of money between the Chicago boss and John Kennedy. This money was used to help Kennedy, the underdog, defeat Hubert Humphrey, who was the favorite.

According to information that came from Louisiana Teamster official Edward Partin, Hoffa was seriously considering having Robert Kennedy and maybe even his brother murdered to stop the harassment he was facing.

Partin went to visit Hoffa in his office in Washington in June 1962. The Teamster boss discussed two murder plans, one involving blowing up Robert Kennedy's house in Virginia, and the other having him shot dead by a sniper using a high-powered rifle fitted with a telescopic sight. This plot apparently escalated to also include the president. In 1979, the House Assassination Committee examined this in more detail and concluded:

"There is solid evidencethat Hoffa, Marcello and Trafficante -- three of the most important targets for criminal prosecution by the Kennedy Administration -- had discussions with their subordinates about murdering President Kennedy."

16 posted on 11/22/2003 10:44:17 AM PST by kcvl
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To: bootyist-monk
You are right in that the modern Dem Party would not embrace John F. Kennedy as he was in life. I despise JFK. But it must be said that, given the generation he came from, and the fact that he was a Roman Catholic, it is probable he also would have opposed Roe v. Wade, gay marriage, and other modern-day Leftist causes.
17 posted on 11/22/2003 10:47:51 AM PST by Wolfstar (An angel still rides in the whirlwind and directs this storm.)
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To: alan alda
“It was true Kennedy had saved the life of one of his men on PT-109, on a mission in which Kennedy was supposed to torpedo a Japanese destroyer,” writes Lawrence Wright. “Instead, the lumbering destroyer managed to slice the PT boat in half, killing two crewmen. Apparently, Kennedy had failed to notice the ship until it was bearing down on top of him. ‘Our reaction to the 109 thing had always been that we were kind of ashamed of our performance,’ admitted one of the crew, Barney Ross. ‘I had always thought it was a disaster.’

Here's the official report of the incident

Report on the Loss of PT109

Notice that Ross was the lookout, that the destroyer was sighted only 200 to 300 yards distant and was approaching fast, that it was night, that Kennedy was at the wheel and patrolling at idling speed on one engine.

If this is an example of Wright's accuracy, and if Wright's accuracy is typical of the article, then the article is worthless.

18 posted on 11/22/2003 12:50:10 PM PST by liberallarry
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To: alloysteel
There were many points at which it was still possible to extradite ourselves from Viet Nam

There was no point (between 1950 and 1975) at which any American politician could have extricated us from VietNam without committing political suicide.

Even just before Tonkin, when it was clear to all that the choice was either massive commitment of ground forces, nuclear attack, or withdrawal, the latter was unthinkable.

Our ideology - the domino theory and the need for containment - simply did not permit it.

1961 through 1980 was a very chaotic time for America, a long nightmare that almost totally realigned what it meant to be an American

I would say 1965 to 1980 but otherwise you're absolutely right. No one who didn't actually live through the changes can appreciate their magnitude or significance. We still have not recovered what was lost.

19 posted on 11/22/2003 1:02:00 PM PST by liberallarry
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To: kcvl
From your link

It now seems certain, looking back in history from this point in time, that the CIA conspired with prominent figures in the Mafia to have Fidel Castro killed...

These men acted with the approval and consent of the CIA Deputy Director of Planning, Richard M. Bissel, along with the Deputy Director of Operations, Lieutenant General Charles Cabell...

About a year after Castro assumed control of Cuba on January 1, 1959, the USA decided on drastic action. By September 1960, the CIA had agreed on a plan to assassinate Castro. It involved Giancana, Roselli and also Santo Trafficante Jr, the Mafia boss of Tampa and West Florida. Both Allan Dulles, Director of the CIA, and Cabell were fully briefed...

Bissel joined the CIA in February, 1954 and became its director for special plans in 1959. In other words, collaboration with the Mafia and the plan to work with them to assassinate Castro were the work of the Eisenhower Administration.

The CIA's involvement with the Mafia compromised the Kennedy Administration's war on organized crime, driven by Attorney General Robert Kennedy...

Although both the Kennedy brothers were strongly behind the efforts to remove Castro from power, they never learned of the Mafia involvement until at least a year after taking office...

On May 7th, 1962, Robert Kennedy discovered that the CIA was working with the Mafia in its assassination attempts against Castro, and he ordered that it stop...

20 posted on 11/22/2003 1:26:52 PM PST by liberallarry
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