David Talbot of Salon takes a look at the so-called CIA "family jewels" and notes that within them, former director Richard Helms kicks RFK in the nuts one last time from beyond the grave:
The CIA's new honesty is also far from complete. There is nothing in the family jewels about agency officials long suspected by congressional investigators and researchers of ties to the Kennedy assassination, including deceased agents such as William Harvey, David Phillips, David Morales and George Joannides. The agency continues to keep these records under wraps, in brazen defiance of the law.In fact, the agency could not help taking another whack at the Kennedys with the release of its family jewels. Press reports about the declassified CIA secrets laid the blame for the assassination efforts against Fidel Castro directly on then-Attorney General Robert Kennedy. What's the original source for this anti-Kennedy smear? None other than Richard Helms, the No. 2 man at the CIA during the Kennedy presidency and a bitter enemy of the two brothers.
Helms, desperately trying to head off congressional investigations into CIA abuses in the post-Watergate period, warned that he would drag RFK -- by then conveniently dead -- into the Castro controversy. By doing this, the wily Helms was clearly trying to intimidate the Democratic-controlled Congress. At a lunch meeting in January 1975, Helms told his friend Secretary of State Henry Kissinger that "Robert Kennedy personally managed the operation on the assassination of Castro" -- confident that Kissinger would spread this around Washington, as he quickly did. Helms knew his accusation against RFK was a lie, and when later pressed by the Church Committee to provide proof, he could not, admitting that the CIA had misled Bobby about its plots. In truth, RFK was appalled when he learned that the agency was collaborating with the Mafia to kill Castro -- and Kennedy believed that he shut down this sinister operation. But he did not succeed -- the CIA continued to conspire against Castro for years after the Kennedys were removed from power.
So the next time you hear someone say that the Kennedy brothers authorized the CIA to have Castro killed, you'll know better.
8 comments:
Now I know. Thanks again, Vikki!
The way that government officials in the country can blatantly defy the law is sickening. God forbid anyone question, however. They could end up dead, or worse.
One thing is for certain. Lee Harvey Oswald did not act alone. Somehow either the mafia and/or rogue CIA agents were involved.
I agree with dad.
I doubt we will ever know the truth.
Too bad the Freemasons killed him.
A lot of the Castro plots were revealed by the Church Committee hearings in the seventies. A lot of them had elements of the Three Stooges. My personal favorite was an exploding cigar. I guess it might have worked had they not taken Wile E. Coyote's advice and gotten it from the Acme company. In another one, they tried to poison Castro's ice cream, but it got stuck in Castro's freezer.
Bubbles: I think, if I knew I would never be caught, there might be a few laws I would violate. None of them involve homicide, however. Oooh, except my exes. Maybe my exes.
Dad: Forward, and to the left. Forward, and to the left.
Cheer34: Apparently Grant already knows it.
Grant: Does Dan Brown know?
JohnnyY: Maybe the CIA should have painted the side of cliff to look like a cigar store...
It boggles the mind that they could say that Bobby Kennedy was running the whole Mafia/Castro assassination show, but that they had to go running to him to explain the Mafia/Castro assassination connection so that he didn't throw the book at the guy who botched Operation Is Phyllis Getting Laid... an operation to which he presumably would have given the green light, if he were running things.
These clowns need a continuity editor.
RFK Jr. appeared on "Hardball" with Chris Matthews last week and blasted Helms, Kissinger, and the CIA for spreading these tired old lies.
IMHO, he did a damn good job of defending the "Kennedy Family Jewels"...;)
PARTIAL TRANSCRIPT OF INTERVIEW:
"In 1975, the secretary of state, Henry Kissinger, told President Ford
“Helms”—that‘s Helms, the head of CIA—“said all these stories are just the tip of the iceberg. If they come out, blood will flow. For example, Robert Kennedy personally managed the operation on the assassination of Castro.”
Do you have any thoughts on that?
KENNEDY: Well…
MATTHEWS: It‘s apparently all going to come out next week.
KENNEDY: No. That is completely inconsistent with everything that has been found.
The Church Committee investigated this for almost a year, and found out that my father not only had nothing to do with those assassination attempts, but was furious, and rebuked the CIA when he found out about it. It was inconsistent with everything else my father did while he was in office and everything that his aides said.
Richard Helms, this was—was a rogue operator who—and this is what the Church Committee found out, who had run those operations by himself.
Now, you know, the quote that you have is a quote that is very self-serving, a quote by Richard Helms, as well as a quote by Henry Kissinger.
MATTHEWS: Yes.
KENNEDY: Richard Helms, a very, very antagonistic relationship with my father. He despised my father. My father did not trust him. And—and he was a very secretive and a very deceptive man.
And it doesn‘t surprise me that he would say something like this or that Kissinger would say something like this. But it‘s completely inconsistent with the facts, as they have been laid out by the Intelligence Committee and by the aides who watched my father function during that time. And it‘s inconsistent with everything he did during, for example, the Cuban Missile Crisis…
MATTHEWS: OK.
KENNEDY: … his concern, his deep concern, that we should be a moral nation, that we shouldn‘t do anything that would compromise our moral authority in the eyes of the world.
MATTHEWS: So, he wasn‘t involved with either Mongoose or AMLASH, either of those operations?
KENNEDY: He found out about them afterwards.
And the way he found out, you know, his aides were present, like John Seigenthaler and Dick Goodwin, at the time when he walked out of a meeting with two CIA agents who disclosed that they had tried to kill Castro using a cigar with a bomb in it.
MATTHEWS: Yes.
KENNEDY: And he was absolutely furious, and regarded them as kind of crackpots. And he was very, very angry that they had used the mob, which, of course, he had a history of—of antagonism with, in order to further their operations. He was furious at Helms.
And I—it doesn‘t surprise me that, after he died, Helms would then try to connect him to muddy the water. But, you know, the—the evidence is this, that Helms really took over the CIA, because he was instrumental in helping John McCone, who was the CIA director, in covering up the suicide death of his wife.
And, after that, McCone let him alone, and Helms went off as a rogue agent with Operation Mongoose and these other operations designed to murder Fidel Castro, that, when my father found out about it, that he didn‘t share the information, my father found out about it through other agents, and went after Helms.
And it doesn‘t surprise me that, after my father died that Helms or Kissinger would fabricate this kind of thing.
MATTHEWS: OK.
_(full video interview is available on YouTube..._____________________________
Bobby also talked about the CIA Family Jewels story in greater detail on his Air America radio show this past Saturday, June 30. You can hear the audio of the broadcast at http://ringoffireradio.com or see the video interview at http://goleft.tv
Great blog, thanks for all you do!:)
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