excerpts from the book
JFK
The CIA, Vietnam, and the Plot
to Assassinate John F. Kennedy
by L. Fletcher Prouty
Skyhorse Publishing, 2009, paperback
(originally published in 1996)
pix
Oliver Stone
Report From Iron Mountain on the Possibility
and Desirability of Peace, by Leonard Lewin (based on a study
commissioned by Defense Secretary Robert McNamara in August 1963)
The organizing principle of any society
is for war. The basic authority of a modern state over its people
resides in its war powers. War readiness accounts for approximately
a tenth of the output of the world's total economy.
px
Oliver Stone
[L. Fletcher] Prouty rightly lambastes
the media "a growing profession that fully controls what
people will be told and helps prepare us for war in places like
Afghanistan, Africa, and the Caribbean, most recently Granada
and Panama, the Middle East and other "LDCs" - a banker's
euphemism for "less developed countries."
pxiv
Because of the enormous dollar potential of the war [Vietnam]
to the great military-industrial complex of the United States
and because of other threats to the power elite, it had become
absolutely necessary, for them, to bring about this coup d'etat
on the streets of Dallas.
pxx
JFK [the movie by Oliver Stone] suggests that a conspiracy involving
elements of a government, people in the CIA, people in the FBI,
perhaps people associated with the Joint Chiefs of Staff, all
in the service of the military-industrial complex that President
Eisenhower warned us about, might have conspired to kill JFK [John
Kennedy] because he was going sharply to change the direction
of American foreign policy.
pxxii
In terms of the military-industrial interests there had to be
a demand for their products and there had to be attrition of that
materiel. Thus preparation for warfare and some form of warfare
had to continue. All this was done while carefully avoiding a
nuclear exchange.
pxxv
The series of so-called wars since 1945 were never fought to achieve
victory. They were waged for dollars, without a true military
objective.
pxxv
The enormity of the "cover story" fabrication about
the assassination of President John F Kennedy. has prevailed for
the past three decades ... plus. The reason why it has been possible
to maintain, this enormous "cover story" for decades
is that the greater crime committed on November 22, 1963 was that
of the coup d'etat of the government of the United States. The
conspirators took control.
pxxv
A power elite of international bankers and industrial giants totally
disregard the sovereignty of nations and the individual rights
of man.
pxxviii
Alexis de Tocqueville in his book 'Democracy in America', 1835
The secret connection between the military
character and that of the democracies was the profit motive.
pxxviii
[Alexis de] Tocqueville modernized the true concept of warfare:
It is driven by the profit motive; it must be profitable. Another
way to put it is that the profiteers make war as a necessity.
pxxxii
By mid-1963 [President John] Kennedy had arrived at the brink
of a decision to keep all American troops out of Vietnam and to
withdraw "all U. S. personnel"- military, CIA, and others
-"from Vietnam by the end of 1965."
pxxxiii
NSAM #263 [National Security Agency Memorandum] is dated October
11, 1963. It is the basis for a policy decision confirming that
"presently prepared plans to withdraw 1,000 military personnel
by the end of 1963" and to "train Vietnamese so that
essential functions now performed by U.S. military can be carried
out by the Vietnamese by the end of 1965. It should be possible
to withdraw the bulk of U.S. personnel by that time."
... In boardrooms, gentleman's clubs,
and other secluded rendezvous locales, intimate groups of High
Cabal principals quietly discussed this new policy and what it
would do to their carefully planned, twenty-year objective: the
"Saigon Solution.
... It was e clear that this latest "all
out by '65" policy was going to assure JFK's reelection.
He had to go. With that foremost in their minds, a gradual, firm,
and positive consensual decision was reached. The present government
must be overthrown. They wanted no more of Kennedy -and they could
not abide the thought of a Kennedy dynasty.
With that, a highly professional movement
was initiated: Part 1 was a professional hit job by skilled and
faceless killers, and Part 2 was an intricate and most comprehensive
cover story that gave us such indelible bits of lore as Oswald,
Ruby, magic bullet, Warren Commission, and all the rest.
By November 22, 1963 ... Kennedy was dead.
By November 26, 1963, President Johnson had signed NSAM #273 to
begin the change of the Kennedy policy announced in NSAM #263
and in March 1964, LBJ signed NSAM #288 that marked the full escalation
of the Vietnam War that involved 2,600,000 Americans directly,
with 8,744,000 serving with the U.S. Armed Forces during that,
period.
That was the "Saigon Solution.
p1
John F. Kennedy, October 29. 1960
If this nation is to be wise as well as
strong, if we are to achieve our destiny, then we need more new
ideas from more wise men reading good books in more public libraries.
These libraries should be open to all - except the censor. We
must know all the facts and hear all the alternatives and listen
to all the criticisms. Let us welcome controversial books and
controversial authors. For the Bill of Bights is the guardian
of our security, as well as our liberty.
p2
[The] power elite is not easy to define; but the fact that it
exists makes itself known from time to time. Concerning the power
elite, R. Buckminster Fuller wrote of the "vastly ambitious
individuals who [have] become so effectively powerful because
of their ability to remain invisible while operating behind the
national scenery... Always their victories [are] in the name of
some powerful sovereign-ruled country. The real power structures
[are] always the invisible ones behind the visible sovereign powers."
p2
The power elite is not a group from one nation or even of one
alliance of nations. It operates throughout the world and no doubt
has done so for many, many centuries.
p4
Thomas Maithus in 1805, postulated the idea that humanity is multiplying
its numbers at a geometric rate while increasing its life-support
capability at only an arithmetic rate. As a result, it has been
universally concluded by the power elite that only a relatively
few humans are destined to survive successfully in generations
to come. The Malthusian theory thus provides a rationalization
for the necessity of somehow getting rid of large numbers of people,
any people, in any way-even genocide. With the Malthusian theory
as the power elite's philosophical guide, this becomes an acceptable
objective, because, they believe, Earth will never be able to
support the progeny of so many anyhow. From this point of view,
genocide-then as now-is accepted as all but inevitable. Who cares
and why be concerned?
The third theory fortifies this approach
further. Darwin persuades them to believe that because they survive,
at no matter what cost to others and to Earth, they must therefore
be-by definition-the fittest; and conversely, because they know
they are the chosen, that is, the fittest, they are Earth's assured
survivors, fulfilling the prophecy of Armageddon.
The fourth, Heisenberg's nuclear age theory,
provides an excuse for their errors and confusion. Certainly,
if physical science is found to be indeterminate, economics can
be, and so can everything else. Let God throw the dice, and we'll
take it from there. The one caution, the power elite later reasoned,
was that new scientific discoveries and new technology must never
be permitted to overwhelm the status quo as precipitously as the
hydrogen bomb had done.
Each of these concepts has been conveniently
contrived to fit the occasion; each became the type of theory
that is useful at certain times and in certain cases, but can
never be proved and in most cases can easily be superseded by
a more modern technology, a development of the science involved,
or an awareness of the human rights that have been abrogated by
the application of these rules of the powerful.
From this point of view, warfare, and
the preparation for war, is an absolute necessity for the welfare
of the state and for control of population masses.
p7
No commander today can be given an objective such that if he ...
appears to be on the road to victory, he will force his enemy
to resort to that weapon of last resort, the hydrogen bomb.
p7
Today the power elite can see no assured survival for themselves
and their class if hydrogen bombs are utilized in warfare. Up
until the end of WWII, this power elite on both sides of the fray,
who exist above the war, have always been assured of survival.
In any war in the future in which there is an exchange of H-bombs,
there can be no assured Armageddon-type survival for the chosen,
for mankind, for all of nature, or for Earth itself.
Under such circumstances, since survival
is the strongest drive in man, what form can war take, given that
it is viewed as a necessity and that the men of this power elite
have that final choice to make?
... Faced with this dilemma ... world
leaders turned ... to an alternative, all-new type of invisible
war to be waged under the cloak of propaganda, black budgets,
and secrecy. They called it the Cold War.
p8
[The Cold War was] a very real killing war. Its battles loomed
everywhere, and its dead were counted in the millions. More of
the causalities were noncombatants than uniformed soldiers. It
was the Secret War, the Invisible War. From the point of view
of those in power, it was a welcome substitute. It consumed the
population and the product of the munitions makers and was reasonably
controllable on the side of the offense.
p8
American military leaders in Korea, Vietnam, and the Gulf were
not permitted to win. They were told only to "kill"
and to run up the "body count," but not to fight a real
war, because the closer they got to an assured victory in Vietnam,
the closer they would have been to the nuclear threshold. Our
military leaders were never permitted to approach that barrier.
p8
Even before the end of World War II, the newly structured bipolar
confrontation between the world of Communism and the West resulted
in the employment of enormous intelligence agencies that had the
power, invisibly, to wage underground warfare, economic as well
as military, anywhere - including methods of warfare never before
imagined. These conflicts had to be tactically designed to remain
short of the utilization of the H-bomb by either side. There can
never be victories in such wars, but tremendous loss of life could
occur, and there is the much-desired consumption and attrition
of trillions of dollars', and rubles', worth of war equipment.
p12
German foreign minister, Count Lutz Schwerin von Krosigk made
a speech in Berlin, reported in the London Times on May 3, 1945,
in which he used the Nazi-coined propaganda phrase "Iron
Curtain" ... Then on May 12, just three days after the German
surrender had taken place, Churchill wrote a letter to Truman,
who had become President one month earlier after the sudden death
of Franklin D. Roosevelt, to express his concern about the future
of Europe and to say that an "Iron Curtain" had come
down to conceal everything that was of Eastern Europe.'
... Nearly one year later, on March 4
and 5, 1946, Truman and Churchill traveled on the President's
special train from Washington to Missouri, where, at Westminster
College in Fulton, Churchill delivered those historic lines: "From
Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an Iron Curtain
has descended across the continent."
p15
[There are] centuries of belief on the part of British leadership,
among others, at territories they "discovered" (despite
the fact that the indigenous population may have been there for
thousands of years) belonged to them. Churchill gave evidence
that this same East India belief in the proprietary colony was
still alive when he and the other leaders discussed postwar plans
for Southeast Asia. He felt perfectly comfortable making such
colonialist decisions about these countries.
... When oil is found in the Middle East,
it is controlled by the petroleum companies. When gold is found
in South Africa, it is controlled by corporate mining interests.
And, if such things of value cannot be controlled by direct colonization,
they are controlled by an equally powerful and oppressive economic
force called the World Bank or International Monetary Fund. In
the process, genocide is practiced regularly to limit "excesses"
and to preserve Earth for the "fittest".
p18
In 1945, OSS units working with Syngman Rhee in Korea and with
Ho Chi Minh in Vietnam had set up and coordinated enormous shipments
of [military] equipment into those two Japanese-devastated countries.
Those shipments forecast that in these two locales would be fought
the two greatest conflicts of the Cold War ... and that both would
be fought "Cold War style," without a military objective
and to no victorious conclusion.
... By the end of WWII the great financial
powers of the Western world, aided by their omnipotent Wall Street
lawyers, had decided it was time to create a new world power center
of transnational corporations and, in the process, to destroy
the Soviet Union and socialism. To achieve this enormous objective
they chose as their principle driving force the covert power and
might of the CIA and its invisible allies.
p22
Machiavelli
The first impression that one gets of
a ruler and of his brains is from seeing the men that he has about
him.
p22
The post-World War II era would be managed and guided by the demands
and specifications of financiers, industrialists, and Wall Street
lawyers who were so well represented at Potsdam [WW II armistice
in 1945]
p22
The consensus that guided [President Harry] Truman's decision
[after WW II] was that the[atomic] bombs should be used, as much
to impress the Soviets and the rest of the world with their overwhelming
power as to further crush the hapless Japanese. The rationale
was that the use of the bombs to bring about the abject surrender
of the Japanese would save millions of live - American and Japanese
- by precluding an invasion of a kamikaze-indoctrinated country.
p24
World War II was over... Never again would it be possible - or
desirable - for those with the power over a nation or an alliance
of nations to wage an all-out, unfettered, classic war on another
group of nations with an expectation of victory that would include
an assurance of their own survival. Nuclear weapons had changed
all that.
p24
The Cold War, based upon a structured East-West confrontation,
provided the basis for a new type of very lethal, global conflict
that would depend upon large, invisible armies concealed under
the benign cover of intelligence organizations.
... It became necessary to create an organization
[CIA] that could, in time of "peace," continue the eternal
conflict using the networks of agents and spies in Eastern Europe
that had been established by the Allies and by the Nazis during
the war. The utilization of the World War II Nazi agent networks
in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union became a major characteristic
of the new Cold War strategy
p31
It has been politically necessary for each major power [United
States and Soviet Union] to have an enemy, even though both major
powers knew that they no longer had any way to benefit from a
traditional "all-out" war. Neither one could control
its own destiny or its own society without the "threat"
of the other.
p31
from the book 'Report From Iron Mountain'
The organization of a society for the
possibility of war is its principal political stabilizer. It is
ironic that this primary function of warfare has been generally
recognized by historians only where it has been expressly acknowledged-in
the pirate societies of the great conquerors.
p40
The CIA's undercover armies ... move unobtrusively with a small
team, plenty of money, and a boundless supply of equipment as
backup. They make contact with the indigenous group they intend
to support, regardless of who runs the government. Then they increase
the level of activity until a conflict ensues. Because the CIA
is not equipped or sufficiently experienced to handle such an
operation when combat intensifies to that level, the military
generally is called upon for support. At that time the level of
military support has risen to such an extent that this action
can no longer be termed either covert or truly deniable. At that
point, as in Vietnam, operational control is transferred to the
military in the best way possible, and the hostilities continue
until both sides weary of the cost in men, money, materiel, and
noncombatant lives and property. There can be no clear victory
in such warfare, as we have learned in Korea and Indochina. These
"pseudowars" serve simply to keep the conflict going...
that is the objective of these undercover tactics.
p40
The concept of the necessity of conflict takes much from the
philosopher Hegel (1770-1831). He believed that ... might certifies
right, and war is a legitimate expression of the dominant power
of the moment... [War] is a force for the good of the state since
it discourages internal dissent and corruption and fosters the
spiritual cement of patriotism.
p40
[War] will not stop as long as warfare remains synonymous with
nationhood. The elimination of war, in our structured society
... implies the inevitable - elimination of national sovereignty
and the traditional nation-state.
p41
from the book 'Report From Iron Mountain'
The war system [is] indispensable to the
stable internal political structure... war provides the sense
of external necessity without which no government can long remain
in power .... The organization of a society for the possibility
of war is its principal political stabilizer ... .The basic authority
of a modern state over its people resides in its war powers.
p41
Because there is no way to wage war with the H-bomb, there is
no proper strategic role for today's armed forces. Thus, WWIII
must be directed covertly by the so-called intelligence services.
It has been a war between the CIA and the KGB ... it is sometimes
no more than a conflict of the "make war" scenario,
with the CIA,' or the KGB, creating and supporting both sides.
The prevalence of worldwide terrorism shows this to be so.
p42
It had already been decided by these clandestine services [American
and Soviet intelligence services after WWII] ] that a new bipolar
world would be created, divided on the issue of communism. In
the councils of the power elite the issue was, as it has been
for centuries, the absolute necessity of controlling society by
the threat of war and the essential ceremonies of the perpetual
preparation for war - what is now called "defense."
p43
With the dropping of ... two nuclear bombs [Hiroshima and Nagasaki],
a horrifying realization crashed down upon the members of the
power elite. War, their most essential and valuable tool - that
device which had made it possible for them to control society
and to maintain the existence of nations and of national sovereignty
- had been taken from them by their own scientists... All that
remained to them was a choice between no war - and suicide A war
waged with hydrogen bombs would most certainly annihilate the
combatants and end life on Earth. Their role in the war-making
game would have to change. Thus, we have had the Cold War and
other types of contrived conflict.
p43
From September 2, 1945, forward and for as long as mankind could
be manipulated through a media that fully controlled what people
would be told, the great powers would go through all of the motions
involved in the preparation for war and in making war. But wars
would henceforth be victoryless conflicts in controlled and limited
scenarios.
Even the distinction between "us"
and "them" and between "friend" and "foe"
would have to be created arbitrarily. To lend this new warfare
credibility, the power elite would create a bipolar world with
two major superpowers, declared to be deadly enemies, armed to
the teeth, and violently opposed to each other on every count.
Each would be fortified as a defense against the other. This piling
on of arms would increase annually, with no end in sight.
By September 2, 1945, this new scenario
had been outlined. All that remained was to mold the opinion of
the world, changing it from the mind-set of World War II to a
new alignment based upon a massive East-West confrontation.
p44
Before the ink was dry on the documents being signed on the battleship
Missouri [WWII armistice], the first major battlefields of [a]
new Cold War, Korea and Vietnam, had been selected and were being
stocked with arms. All that remained was to create the political
climate for the bipolar world and to line up the combatants.
... The manipulative strings of the power
elite had not yet been pulled... It would take a few years of
skillful propaganda to prepare the world for the new scenario.
Time would pass before the power elite could create a new enemy
- the Soviets and communism; and new friends - the former Fascists,
Germany, Italy, and Japan, who were now to be known as friendly
"antiCommunists."
p45
World events are planned.
p45
The anti-Communist climate [in America] had been tuned to a hysterical
pitch, both at home and abroad. South Korea had been invaded by
"Communist" forces from the north, and through an intimate
new medium known as television, moving pictures of an ongoing
war were brought into the homes of millions of Americans for the
first time. Families also watched while Sen. Joseph McCarthy detailed
the internal threat of communism in government and industry. The
public viewed the scenario directly, and as the power elite wanted
it to: The Soviet Communists were the "enemy" all over
the world. Ho Chi Minh and the Democratic Republic of Vietnam
were no longer our friends. They, too, were now part of the "Communist"
enemy.
p46
As major manufacturers of military supplies and equipment, it
mattered not at all to the great industrial combines of the United
States who bought their products. War was the best business in
town.
p47
One of the fundamental purposes of the Cold War) has been to escalate
arms production and sales on a global basis.
p56
CIA Director Allen Dulles and his brother Secretary of State John
Foster Dulles] were in touch with the power elite, and a mere
President [Eisenhower] influenced them not at all. So many qualified
people who have worked "close to the seat of power"
... confirm that these so-called [government] leaders get their
instructions from a very high source. These "leaders"
are all fine actors, and certainly not true rulers... This is
true not only in the world of politics but is equally true of
banking, industry, academia, and religion.
p57
In the case of Vietnam, the course followed by the U.S. government
was established by two international Wall Street lawyers, John
Foster Dulles and Allen Welch Dulles, among other, more invisible
powers.
p137
The members of the [high] cabal were able to control a commission
[JFK assassination] created by a President [Johnson] and headed
by the chief justice of the United States. They obtained the written
endorsement of two men who later, became Presidents: Ford and
Nixon. They have controlled the media and congressional activity,
to the extent that the assassination has never been investigated
adequately. And they have controlled the judicial system of the
state of Texas where by law a trial for the murder of President
Kennedy should have been, and must still be, convened.
p137
President Kennedy was shot dead in the streets of Dallas by the
closely coordinated rifle fire of a team of hired guns.
p138
Someone wanted to take over control of the presidency before JFK
could be reelected in 1964, and wanted it badly enough to kill
and to put up with the eternal burden of maintaining the cover-story
scenario - that one lone gunman, from a sixth-floor window of
the Texas School Book Depository building, did it with three shots
from an old, Italian-made rifle with an unreliable telescopic
sight. To maintain that cover story has taken real power; and
those responsible for the assassination have that power.
p138
The actual killing of the President [Kennedy] is relatively simple,
but shielding the gunmen and those who hired them, arranging for
their safe and undetected removal from the scene, creating a "patsy...
to take the blame, and releasing a cover-story scenario in those
early hectic moments and keeping it intact for the next several
generations takes a cabal with the power and longevity of a great
machine. The deft way it has been orchestrated reveals the skill
of the plotters and indicates that those responsible included
top-level government officials, plus their power elite masters.
... This cover story was not designed
for the sole purpose of concealing the identity of the killers
and their supporting team. It was designed to make possible the
total takeover of the government of the United States of America
and to make it possible for this cabal to control a series of
Presidents from Lyndon B. Johnson to the present day.
p138
[President] Kennedy had just established the first plank in the
platform for his reelection with his promise to bring one thousand
men home from Vietnam by Christmas of 1963 and to have all Americans
out of Vietnam by the end of 1965... The cabal could wait no longer.
The die had been cast, and the shots had to) be fired in Dallas
that day.
There can be only one reason powerful
enough to cause the almost spontaneous coalescence of a cabal
for that single purpose. That reason was the fear of Kennedy's
all-but-certain reelection. The alternative was to take control
of the power of the presidency at all costs.
p150
[Secretary of State Robert] McNamara said that the day had passed
when the armed services would be allowed to develop their own
weapons systems.
The services and the great industries
for whom the military establishment existed were staggered by
these developments. They had never encountered such a serious
challenge... On January 17, 1961, they had heard Dwight Eisenhower,
in a farewell address to the nation, urge vigilance regarding
the dangers to liberty implicit in a vast military establishment
and caution against the power of the military-industrial complex.
Now they had a President [Kennedy] who
was not just talking about that danger, but was taking their dollars
away to use them as he chose.
p151
The Kennedys ... were going to prepare America for peace. The
Vietnam War and its hundreds of billions of dollars in expenditures
were nowhere in their plans.
... [The] Kennedy agenda ... could have
had a greater impact on the enormous military machine of this
nation than the specter of peace. This Kennedy plan jeopardized
not hundreds of millions, not even billions, but trillions of
dollars. (The Cold War has cost no less than $6 trillion. It shook
the very foundation upon which our society has been built over
the past two thousand years.
p151
Report From Iron Mountain
War itself is the basic social system.
It is the system which has governed most human societies of record,
as it is today .... The capacity of a nation to make war expresses
the greatest social power it can exercise; war-making, active
or contemplated, is a matter of life and death on the greatest
scale subject to social control .... War-readiness is the dominant
force in our societies .... It accounts for approximately a tenth
of the output of the world's total economy.
p151
Report From Iron Mountain
War itself is the basic social system.
It is the system which has governed most human societies of record.
p151
Report From Iron Mountain
The capacity of a nation to make war expresses
the greatest social power it can exercise; war-making, active
or contemplated, is a matter of life and death on the greatest
scale subject to social control.
p151
Report From Iron Mountain
War-readiness is the dominant force in
our societies.
p151
Report From Iron Mountain
War-readiness is the dominant force in
our societies .... It accounts for approximately a tenth of the
output of the world's total economy.
p151
John F Kennedy and his advisers were playing a dangerous game
as they expertly moved along the calendar toward reelection in
1964... He needed al strong plank upon which to build his platform
for reelection. He chose / Vietnam, the cessation of all American
military involvement there. As his first step, Kennedy sent Gen.
Maxwell Taylor and Secretary McNamara to Saigon in late September
1963. They returned to the White House and presented him with
their voluminous report on October 2, 1963. In part that report
said: "It should be possible to withdraw the bulk of U. S.
personnel by that time..."
"That time," as stated clearly
in their report, was the end of 1965.
p152
Kennedy planned to get out of Vietnam and to turn the war over
to a new leader in South Vietnam. This was the first order of
business. To his adversaries, this confirmed the nature of the
course he had chosen. They began to move, to move swiftly and
with finality.
Ngo Dinh Diem, the first president of
South Vietnam, was killed on November 1, 1963, and Kennedy was
killed on November 22, 1963.
p154
[John] Kennedy did fail in his attempt to gain full control of
the CIA and its major partners in the Defense Department. It was
the most crucial failure of his abbreviated presidency.
p154
President John Kennedy
When I am reelected. I am going to break
that agency [CIA] into a thousand pieces.
p155
Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas
[The Bay of Pigs] seared him. He had experienced
the extreme power that these groups had, these various insidious
influences of the CIA and the Pentagon, on civilian policy, and
I think it raised in his own mind the specter: Can Jack Kennedy,
President of the United States, ever be strong enough to really
rule these two powerful agencies? I think it had a profound effect...
it shook him up!
p169
In the great struggle between [President John] Kennedy and the
entrenched power sources of Washington, as personified by the
CIA and its allies in the Defense Department and the military-industrial
complex, the President learned that his weapons were powerless
and his directives unheeded.
p171
[President] Kennedy's no-nonsense policy directives marked the
first steps in his ambitious plan to change the course of Cold
War operations, which, for the most part, had been made the responsibility
of the CIA since that agency's creation in late 1947... NSAM #55
[National Security Action Memorandum] led directly to the later
Reagan decision to do away with Eisenhower-period "plausibly
deniable" covert operations and to come out into the open
with Cold War operations, such as his action against Grenada and
the air strikes against Libya. The [George HW] Bush administration
has continued this "overt" policy with its attack on
Panama and the Desert Storm operation.
Whether or not this new military policy
has been formally proclaimed the official guideline of the United
States, it is being practiced today, as evidenced by the Gulf
War. This policy means, in effect, that national sovereignty no
longer exists and that a nation's independence and borders are
no longer sacred.
As this newer doctrine becomes more widely
implemented, the traditional family of nations will dissolve into
a shambles of raw power. From now on, no one will be safe. There
is no sanctuary. Everyone, everywhere, is someone's potential
target. There is no place to hide.
p171
John Kennedy's NSAM #55 [National Security Action Memorandum,
June 1961] went directly to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, bypassing
the CIA
I wish to inform the Joint Chiefs of Staff
as follows with regard to my views of their relations to me in
Cold War operations:
a. I regard the joint Chiefs of Staff
as my principal military adviser 'responsible for initiating advice
to me and for responding to requests for advice. I expect their
advice to come to me direct and unfiltered. (
b. The joint Chiefs of Staff have a responsibility
for the defense of the nation in the Cold War similar to that
which they have in conventional hostilities.
p179
Mao Tse-tung's 'Little Red Book' [had become part of the new U.S.
military strategy]
... All military actions are means to
achieve certain political objectives, while military action itself
is a manifested form of politics.
... The world today is already in a new
era of evolution and today's war is already approaching the world's
last armed conflict [nuclear]... The majority of mankind, including
the 450 millions of China, is already engaged or preparing to
engage in a great, just war against the aggressors and oppressors
of the entire world. No matter how long this war is going to last,
there is no doubt that it is approaching the last conflict in
history. After such a prolonged, ruthless war, there will emerge
an historically unprecedented new era for mankind in which there
will be no more wars.
p181
Since World War II, the Department of Defense had become the perennial
biggest spender in the government, if such a level of spending
was to be continued, Cold War or not, there had to appear to be
some reason for the vast procurement orders other than for actual
warfare; and, perhaps even more important, there had to be some
way to consume military hardware so that it would have to be replaced
from new procurement.
... It is quite customary to find that
for every defense dollar spent on new military equipment, ten
more dollars are spent for support during its military "life
of type." These same figures, perhaps even higher on the
average, apply to the military hardware that is sent as "military
aid" to other countries and maintained and consumed overseas.
On such a scale, a modest $50 million
order may grow to $500 million over time. With this in mind, it
is essential - from the point of view that the industrial complex
supports, and in turn is supported by, the military - to have
as broad a base as possible throughout the world in the armed
forces of as many countries as possible.
p183
MAP (Military Assistance Program) - from the report by Army General
Richard G. Stilwell and Air Force General Edward G Lansdale titled
"Training Under the Mutual Security Program", 1959 -
this new United States military doctrine essentially follows the
teachings of Communist China's Chairman Mao Tse-Tung.
... The Officer Corps is ... deeply involved in domestic affairs.
Those who lead, or are destined to lead, must therefore acquire
qualifications and attributes beyond the criteria which identify
the successful commander in combat.
... the ranks of the Officer Corps in
most less developed countries are a rich source of potential leaders
of the national civil service, the professional class, and other
nonmilitary sectors. Here one finds a high degree of discipline,
dedication, and political moderation. Moreover, one must reckon
with the possibility - indeed probability - that the Officer Corps,
as a unit, may accede to the reins of government as the only alternative
to domestic chaos and leftist takeover. Both considerations point
to a program for selection and preparation of promising officers
for essential occupation of high level managerial posts in the
civil sector, public and private.
... It is not enough to charge armed forces
with responsibility for the military aspects of deterrence. They
represent too great an investment in manpower and money to be
restricted to such a limited mission. The real measure of their
worthiness is found in the effectiveness of their contribution
to the furtherance of national objectives, short of conflict.
And the opportunities therefore are greatest in the less-developed
societies where the military occupy a pivotal position between
government and populace. As one writer has phrased it, ".
. . properly employed, the army can become an internal motor for
economic growth and sociopolitical transformation."
... a key requirement may be direct military
action against armed dissidents; consequently, appropriate elements
of the army should be equipped and trained for unorthodox warfare.
... Here is the ultimate test of the armed
forces. Their role, in the countries under discussion, is unique.
They are at once the guardians of the government and the guarantors
that the government keeps faith with the aspirations of the nation.
It is in their power to insure that the conduct of government
is responsive to the people and that the people are responsive
to the obligations of citizenship. In the discharge of these responsibilities,
they must be prepared to assume the reins of government themselves
... We have embraced the struggle for the minds of men...
p186
Mao Tse-Tung
The world today is already in a new era
of evolution and today's war is already approaching the world's
last armed conflict .... No matter how long this war is going
to last, there is no doubt that it is approaching the last conflict
in history.
p186
By the mid-1950s, significant elements of the U. S. military establishment
had begun to accept the fact that a nuclear war was impossible
and that the Cold War was the best scenario for those who saw
some form of warfare as essential to the existence of the nation-state.
p187
Many good strategists in the U. S. military ... designed the parameters
of the new type of ... constant warfare that would, for the most
part, take place in the territory of relatively powerless Third
World nations.
p217
The distinguishing feature of the smaller countries [Third World
or less-developed countries] is that the are not broad-range manufacturers
or producers. They do not make typewriters, radios or televisions,
coffeepots, fabric, automobiles and trucks, etc. Their biggest
business, as a nation, is the import-export business. Therefore,
much of their national revenue is derived from customs fees, and
much of their private wealth is derived from individual franchises
for Coca-Cola, Ford automobiles, Singer sewing machines, and so
forth. They are totally dependent upon such imports and exports.
In such an economy, the ins, regardless
of politics, control these lucrative franchises, and the outs
do not. This creates friction. It is based on pure economics and
greed and has nothing to do with communism or capitalism.
Therefore, if the ins solicit franchises
from businesses in the United States, they are called friendly
and pro-Western. If they turn to other sources, they are designated
the enemy. If they are the enemy, we have labeled them Communists.
The leaders of the Contras, who used to
serve Somoza in Nicaragua, wanted their valuable U. S. franchises
back. For this they were willing to kill. For this the CIA helped
them kill. The CIA supported them because it supports U. S. business.
p219
from the book Report From Iron Mountain on the Possibility and
Desirability of Peace by Leonard Lewin
War fills certain functions essential
to the stability of our society, War is virtually synonymous with
nationhood. The elimination of war implies the inevitable elimination
of national sovereignty and the traditional nation-state.
p219
[Leonard Lewin's book 'Report From Iron Mountain on the Possibility
and Desirability of Peace' represents] the classic views of a
cabal of leaders in our society who fail to see any reason other
than war for the existence of man.
p220
With the lessons of such things as the overt invasion of Grenada,
the attack on Libya, the Contra attempt to overthrow the Ortega
government of Nicaragua, the use of U.S. military forces to augment
the national police of Bolivia, American military aid to the rebels
in Afghanistan, the attack on Panama, the "Desert Storm"
fighting against Iraq, and the recent creation of a regular U.S.
Special Warfare Force for the pursuit of "low-intensity conflict"'
all over the world, respect for the concept of national sovereignty
has fallen to a dangerous low in the world family of nations.
p220
Knowledgeable grand strategists of the power elite realize today
that there cannot be a true, all-out war in a world society equipped
with thousands of hydrogen bombs. But Grand Strategy requires
that warfare be waged for the purpose of attaining the highest
national objective - Victory. No nation can go to war knowing
full well that the prosecution of that war with hydrogen bombs
will inevitably lead to the elimination of all mankind and to
the destruction of Earth a living system. These strategists have
been looking for an alternative.
... As this realization has permeated
the various levels of world leadership, those in positions of
genuine power face the chilling reality of this truth. Their game
of nations, their house of cards, is already showing signs of
falling apart. Principal among these fading truths is the very
evident decay of national sovereignty. Without sovereignty there
can be no nation-state, and without the state, what remains? A
New World Order?.
p222
political philosopher Jean Bodin
A state remains a state as long as it
is sovereign .... Sovereignty determines the structure of the
state.
p230
The essence of covert operations directed and carried out by the
government of the United States, from the top down, is the denial
of the international concept of nation-state sovereignty, the
principle upon which the family of nations exists.
This situation has been brought about
by the existence of the Earth-destroying hydrogen bombs, by the
uncontrolled and uncontrollable growth of world-around communications,
by the runaway power of transnational corporations, and by a new
economic system of corporate socialism. All of these factors threaten
and destroy sovereignty.
p230
Arnold Toynbee, the British historian, quoted in the New York
Times of May 7, 1971
To most Europeans, America now looks like
the most dangerous country in the world. Since America is unquestionably
the most powerful country, the transformation of America's image
within the last thirty years is very frightening for Europeans.
It is probably still more frightening for the great majority of
the human race who are neither Europeans nor North Americans,
but are Latin Americans, Asians, and Africans. They, I imagine,
feel even more insecure than we feel. They feel that, at any moment,
America may intervene in their internal affairs, with the same
appalling consequences as have followed from the American intervention
in Southeast Asia.
For the world as a whole, the CIA has
now become the bogey that communism has been for America. Wherever
there is trouble, violence, suffering, tragedy, the rest of us
are now quick to suspect the CIA had a hand in it. Our phobia
about the CIA is, no doubt, as fantastically excessive as America's
phobia about world communism; but in this case, too, there is
just enough convincing guidance to make the phobia genuine. In
fact, the roles of America and Russia have been reversed in the
world's eyes. Today America has become the nightmare.
p236
from Report From Iron Mountain on the Possibility and Desirability
of Peace by Leonard Lewin
War fills certain functions essential
to the stability of our society; until other ways of filling them
are developed, the war system must be maintained-and improved
in effectiveness.
p236
according to Leonard Lewin [the author of 'Report From Iron Mountain
on the Possibility and Desirability of Peace', the "Special
Study Group" that produced the report voted to keep it under
wraps because the members of the group felt that:
The reader [of the report] may not be
prepared for some of its assumptions - for instance, that most
medical advances are viewed more as problem than as progress;
or that poverty is necessary and desirable, public postures by
politicians to the contrary notwithstanding; or that standing
armies are, among other things, social-welfare institutions in
exactly the same sense as are old-people's homes and mental hospitals...
that the space program and the controversial antimissile missile
and fallout shelter programs are understood to have the spending
of vast sums of money, not the advancement of science or national
defense, as their principal goals, and that military draft policies
are only remotely concerned with defense.
p236
One of the least-own divisions of the CIA is that headed by the
4 deputy director of economics. This division moves into a country
to work with a new regime and to begin the task of selecting and
setting up new franchise holders for as many goods as possible
to assure that they are imported from American companies and that
those from other /'sources, formerly the Soviet sphere in particular,
are excluded.
These new franchise holders are usually
closely associated with the / new President. They are members
of his cabinet and other top government officials. The CIA screens
and selects these new "millionaires" and arranges for
them to meet with the various companies they will front for under
the new regime. It might be said that this cleansing of the economic
system is the real reason for mot coups and that political ideology
has very little to do with it. The ins (the men in the foreign
government) are called "friends of the West" and "anti-Communist,"
but that is just for public consumption. On the other side of
the coin, the outs are well aware of the system-having been the
ins and beneficiaries of the same, or similar, largess under the
prior administration.
But it happens that over a period of time
an administration begins to believe that it is truly in power
and that it actually runs the government. This leads its officials
to make franchise arrangements with an ever-increasing number
of sources. Some of the more daring, in an attempt to escape the
severe financial and profit-making controls placed upon them and
their government by U. S. manufacturers and by the canopy of international
banks that is spread over all imports and exports to their country,
attempt to make deals with other countries. They believe that
they may be able to buy essential goods cheaper that way and to
sell their resources and labor at better rates. To oversimplify,
this is what Ferdinand Marcos was doing in the Philippines before
he was ousted.
As such actions increase, the national
leadership will be increasingly attacked by the United States
on the grounds that it is turning toward communism and becoming
a base for the infiltration of the Communist ideology and military
system into the hemisphere. In other cases there are more or less
"legitimate" coups d'etat as internal opposition rises
against an oppressive dictatorship. There could have been no more
"anti-Communist" dictators than Rafael Leónidas
Trujillo Molina, who ruled the Dominican Republic from 1930 to
1961 and then was assassinated with American aid, or Fulgencio
Batista in Cuba and Anastasio Somoza of Nicaragua. All of these
men, to cite a few, had been in power so long that they believed
they could throw their weight around and extend their franchise
selections to other countries. In such cases (Trujillo is the
exception) the United States does not so much aid the insurgents
as it just sits on its hands and lets the aged dictator be eliminated
by others who want his job and the largess that goes with it.
Sometimes the United States gives the
old leader a firm and friendly cue, as when Director of Central
Intelligence William Casey visited the Philippines in 1985 and
suggested to Marcos that he ought to "hold an election."
As we have seen, such a suggestion is the kiss of death. It remained
for President Corazon Aquino to heed the hints that poured out
from the Office of the Deputy Director of Economics and other
"friends" as she faced the task of rebuilding the franchise
networks. This means big money to the country involved and to
the United States and to the bankers who manage the finances in
both directions.
p238
R Buckminster Fuller, in his book 'Critical Path'
Each new year's foreign aid bill had a
rider that said that if American companies were present in the
country being aided, the money [from foreign aid funds] had to
be spent through those American companies .... Foreign aid paid
for all the new factories and machinery of all the American corporations
moving out of America. This became a fundamental pattern: first
the 100 largest corporations, then the 200 largest corporations
followed, then what Fortune calls the 500 largest corporations
.... So the Wall Street lawyers simply moved their prime corporate
operations elsewhere .... But the main objective of the Wall Street
lawyers was for the corporations to get out from under the tax
control of the American government.
p241
The objective of "low-intensity conflict" [is] to continue
the wasting of money, the pointless killing of defenseless people,
and the consumption or attrition of costly war materiel to make
way for the procurement of more.
p241
"Low-intensity conflict" is a way in which the hundreds
of billions of dollars of armaments produced each year can be
used, destroyed, and wasted this year in order that more may be
procured and used next year. It is a general rule in the military
procurement business that for every dollar spent for new weapons,
ten more dollars will be spent on those same weapons for their
maintenance and support during their "life of type.
p241
The true definition of "less-developed country" [LDC]
has nothing to do with politics, ideology, or military power.
An LDC is a country that differs from others because it does not
have the ability to produce or manufacture all of the things it
needs or wants to survive, even at a relatively low level of subsistence.
... As a result, the biggest business
in a less-developed country, and the sole reason for its governmental
power structure, is import and export. LDCs hope that they can
export enough, in dollar values, to provide the money required
to make payments on the interest on their national debt, with
enough left over to pay for all the things they must import.
The government of such a country is a
business monopoly over its people and its territory and is motivated
much less by some political ideology than by the very pragmatic
aim of controlling the import-export business.
... The government of an LDC makes its
money by granting exclusive and monopolistic franchises to its
friends, relatives, and true financial d traditional leaders of
its national infrastructure, for everything from chewing gum and
Coca-Cola to Cadillacs and F-16 fighter planes.
These franchise holders, the ins, are
usually assured of becoming millionaires. Their franchises are
obtained through contacts with select sources in the United States
and other Western powers. They cover all the essentials required
by the populace; there is no other way to obtain non-locally produced
goods, including foodstuffs, which must be imported. The same
franchise system applies to the nation's exports.
The outs, on the other hand, are those
who have been stripped of their franchises, usually as a result
of a coup d'etat, in favor of the ruling group.
... In most LDCs there can be no meaningful
campaigns and elections. In most cases, the votes, if elections
are held, are counted by the armed forces, and the armed forces
are the instrument of the in power group. Such controls leave
little alternative to the outs other than the coup d'etat method
of power transition.
In all less-developed countries, the difference
between the ins and the outs has little, if anything, to do with
political ideology. The scenario exploited by the major powers
divided the world into "Communist" and "the West"
or some other structure. As far as each LDC is concerned, the
game is quite simple: "Where do they buy - that is, where
are the franchise materials produced and sold - and to whom do
they sell their own resources, to include physical labor?"
The supremely powerful international bankers
keep the books and balances for each side. They make these transactions
possible by offering the loans, issuing letters of credit, collecting
huge fees for their role in each transaction, and collecting the
interest on the entire package. In many LDCs the total amount
of interest paid to the banks and their international financing
structure amounts to more than half of the total value of dollars
earned by their exports. For this reason annual payments are seldom
more than the interest involved and none of the principal. This
is one reason why the principal never comes back to the United
States.
p243
The struggle for less-developed countries is not a political contest
such as Communists versus the West. It is, rather, a struggle
for an import-export lock on each country, with the aim of creating
markets and consumers, along with a maximized flow of dollars
in both directions that includes a heavy overhead burden of interest
for the bankers.
p244
Since WW II, approximately $100 billion per year has been spent
on foreign military aid, and in real dollar terms as of 1980,
a staggering total of $6 trillion has been legally transferred
from the U.S. people's national capital account over to the capital
ownership account of the stockholders of the one thousand largest
transnational, exclusively American-flag-flying corporations.
When so much money is loaned to the less
developed countries and when the contacts that lead to the award
of exclusive franchises for American-manufactured items are made,
the next question is: To whom should these franchises be awarded
by the American corporations involved? This question points to
a need for a reliable American source in the LDCs who has information,
that is, "intelligence," on all key families in the
country. The CIA fills this role quietly and unobtrusively.
The CIA station chief in each less-developed
country will create a list of key families who are close to the
ruling power. In many instances, a son will be enrolled in the
military of that country and will then, as a function of the U.
S. Military Aid Program, be put on a quota of officers who have
been selected to attend a "radar school" or other military
course in the United States.
... Upon return, these students and their
families will be looked upon as future franchise holders for the
import of U.S. -made products. This effort is cloaked in the military
uniform, but it has been arranged by the CIA for business purposes.
... There comes a time when the in government
is overthrown by the outs. In spite of all the propaganda, the
new ins are rarely, if ever, "Communists," "socialists,"
or other ideologues. They just want to cancel all existing franchises,
turn out the former franchise holders, and begin the whole process
again. In such a system, it becomes necessary for the United States
to side with one group or the other.
p275
From the beginning the Pentagon Papers were a compilation of documents
designed to paint President John F Kennedy as the villain of the
story, and to shield the role of the CIA... There are altogether
too many important papers that did not get included in this study.
too many that were absolutely crucial to any understanding of
the origins of, and reasons for, this war [Vietnam].
p285
Those who planned the murder of the President [Kennedy] knew the
inner workings of the government very well. This fact is made
evident not so much by the skill with which the murder of the
President was undertaken as by the masterful cover-up program
that has continued since November 22, 1963.
p287
[President John] Kennedy had made it clear to the gnomes of the
military-industrial complex that he was in control and that they
were not. This raised the pressure for the ultimate confrontation
between the President and a cabal of extremely powerful financial
and industrial groups.
p287
During the Kennedy years, people within the government and their
close associates in academia and industry discussed frequently
and quite seriously many of the major questions phrased by Leonard
Lewin in Report From Iron Mountain. I had been assigned to the
Office of the Secretary of Defense before the Kennedy election
and was there when the McNamara team of "Whiz Kids"
arrived. Never before had so many brilliant young civilians with
so many Ph.D. s worked in that office. It was out of the mouths
of this group that I heard so frequently and precisely the ideas
that Lewin recounts in his "novel." A brief sampling
will show these words' power on the thinking of that era:
Lasting peace, while not theoretically
impossible, is probably unattainable; even if it could be achieved
it would most certainly not be in the best interests of a stable
society to achieve it.
War fills certain functions essential
to the stability of our society; until other ways of filling them
are developed, the war system must be maintained-and improved
in effectiveness.
War is virtually synonymous with nationhood.
The elimination of war implies the inevitable elimination of national
sovereignty and the traditional nation-state.
The organization of a society for the
possibility of war is its principal political stabilizer ... .
The basic authority of a modern state over its people resides
in its war powers.
p289
With [President] Kennedy's announcement that he was getting Americans
out of Vietnam, he confirmed that he was moving away from the
pattern of Cold War confrontation in favor of détente.
He asked Congress to cut the defense budget. Major programs were
being phased out. As a result, pressure from several fronts began
to build against the young President. The pressure came from those
most affected by cuts in the military budget, in the NASA space
program, and in the enormous potential cost-and profit-of the
Vietnam War.
Kennedy's plans would mean an end to the
warfare in Indochina, which the United States had been supporting
for nearly two decades. This would mean the end to some very big
business plans.
p290
Continuing the war in Vietnam was of vital importance to powerful
financial and manufacturing groups.
p290
[President] Kennedy had announced a reduced military budget, the
end of American participation in Indochina, and a major change
in the race to the moon. It takes no special wisdom or inside
knowledge to understand that certain vested interests considered
the Kennedy proposal to defuse Vietnam and these other major budget
items to be extremely dangerous to their own plans.
p334
The assassination of President John F Kennedy ... has demonstrated
that most of the major events of world significance are masterfully
planned and orchestrated by an elite coterie of enormously powerful
people who are not of one nation, one ethnic grouping, or one
overridingly important business group. They are a power unto themselves
for whom these others work. Neither is this power elite of recent
origin. Its roots go deep into the past
p335
There was a plan to murder [President John] Kennedy in order to
escalate the Vietnam war and decimate most of the less-developed
countries through a form of banker-managed, predatory economic
warfare.
p337
Roy L. Ash, president of Litton Industries, speaking at a "White
House Conference on the Industrial World Ahead, a Look at Business
in 1990" - February 1972
State capitalism may well be a form for
world business in the world ahead; that the western countries
are trending toward a more unified and controlled economy, having
a greater effect on all business; and the communist nations are
moving more and more toward a free market system. The question
posed [during the conference] ... was whether "East and West
would meet some place toward the middle about 1990."
p338
[In 1972] under President Nixon, an unusual and most effective
international business organization was formed by the business
interests of the Dartmouth Conference, whose meetings were regularly
scheduled by the Rockefellers. It was called US-TEC, for the United
States-USSR Trade and Economic Council. Backed by the Nixon administration
and the international banker David Rockefeller, the Council that
listed most of the Fortune 500 corporate leaders among its membership,
along with hundreds of their counterparts in the Soviet Union,
opened offices in New York and in Moscow for regular activities.
... They have worked busily to create
the New World Order. Their work has included the promotion of
the military-industrial complex and of the massive international
agricultural combines in their voracious search for new business
in new fields. In this connection, the CIA is one of the primary
activists and promoters for these combines.
p339
Much of the [1970s] "energy crisis" was a massive production
designed and orchestrated to raise the price of petroleum from
its long-time base of approximately $1.70 per barrel to a high,
at times, of $40.00. Except for the international drug trade,
no other production in the fields of economic warfare had ever
made so much money ... and continues to do so.
It takes little imagination to discover
that this is another product of the High Cabal elite and that
while the energy and drug projects are operating most profitably
the international food business cannot be far behind. As conventional
battlefield warfare diminishes in value to the world planners,
economic warfare is moving boldly to the front of the stage.
p341
Clear evidence indicates that the old Hegelian doctrine that nations
require conflict still prevails. But you may be sure that the
scenario of the conflict itself must change. Here we need to look
at an important example of the Reagan era that is being used repeatedly
to demonstrate how the power elite and their warmakers utilize
all manner of plots to achieve their ambitious goal of establishing
the highest level of costly military preparedness under all kinds
of political conditions. This method of international gamesmanship
is called "Terrorism."
p344
While the president of the United States [Ronald Reagan] harangued
the world about the Evil Empire, his good friends, our senior
businessmen, were packing their briefcases for another big meeting
for business-as-usual in Moscow. [David Rockefeller] ... and his
banking interests had been working there since 1927.
p346
The affairs of man and of nature are not determined at random
or by mere chance.
p346
When a Vietnam War, the assassination of John F. Kennedy, or the
destruction of a Korean airliner are necessary, they will be caused
to happen. They will not be left to chance... This is the way
things are.
p354
The Kennedy victory at the polls, in 1960, was perhaps as much
a cause of his eventual assassination, in 1963, as anything else.
There was no way he could win against the power centers, including
that of the military-industrial complex.
Assassinations
page
CIA
watch
Home Page