JFK RFK MLK Assassination Forum

"He told me that the message was coming through that Khrushchev had agreed to dismantle and withdraw the missiles under adequate supervision and inspection; that everything was going to work out satisfactorily; and that Mr. Khrushchev wanted to send his best wishes to the President and to me.It was quite a different meeting from the night before. I went back to the White House and talked to the President for a long time. While I was there, he placed telephone calls to former Presidents Truman and Eisenhower. As I was leaving, he said, making reference to Abraham Lincoln, "This is the night I should go to the theater." I said, "If you go, I want to go with you." As I closed the door, he was seated at the desk writing a letter to Mrs. Anderson. . . ."From Robert F. Kennedy, Thirteen Days: A Memoir of the Missile Crisis.(Mrs. Anderson was the widow of the U.S. pilot shot down during the cuban missile crisis)

Stan wrote:Bob, In "13 Days" there is line I will never forget.JFK is being pressured from all sides to invade Cuban and told he and the country would be viewed as cowards if he did not.He listens and dismisses the meeting, if I recall correctly. After everyone is gone, he is alone with Bobby.Pensively he says to his brother, "When a man abandons his own judgment, well, there's a dishonor in that."I've no idea if Kennedy actually said that, but his actions during that crisis certainly did.Indeed. Just imagine George W. Bu$h as President during that time. We would just be this...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hzv0TSSDgU

Stan, the short answer is, "No."Dulles later remarked haughtily, "That little Kennedy--he thought he was some kind of god."JFK put Cabot Lodge in Nam and gave the green light to removing the Diem brothers--when Lodge ran with Nixon in 60 and proved capable of audaciously acting independent of POTUS.Double Cross is the Giancana book describing the love in the room after Father Joe had told the powers, "Just deliver Chicago and you've got a friend in the White House--" and then along comes Bobby with his loppers.Oil men and their depletion allowance; steel men and their prices--One additional raid to remove the three T-33s might have meant success--so Castro survives, and has more access to JFK than the Brigade.Shatter in a million pieces the outfit that was making and breaking governments for decades?Was he tone deaf to the Bolden-described attitude in the Secret Service?He saw Seven Days in May and told a friend it could happen if a president made a Bay of Pigs mistake three times--Douglass in JFKU cites a minimum of five such moves.And he chose LBJ and protected Hoover, but talked of removing them before it was done.In sum, he made enemies wholesale and dealt with them retail.And now he belongs to the ages.

Good evening all,the speech JFK wrote that got him murderedhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9dOOFB8fs38

Pennyworth wrote:Good evening all,the speech JFK wrote that got him murderedhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9dOOFB8fs38The speech was a classic no doubt, but JFK had many like that, like the one at American University in the summer of 1963.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AG2PwhT0 ... relatedBut it wasn't words that caused JFK to be murdered. It was his policies. Policies like ending U.S. involvement in Vietnam. Policies like not invading Cuba. Policies like breaking the CIA into 1,000 pieces. Policies like NOT listening to the joint chiefs (like with Operation Northwoods or the Cuban Missile Crisis). Policies like the changes he was making to the Federal Reserve. Policies like making big oil paying it's fair share in the oil depletion allowance. It was policies like those that made the events of 11/22/1963 happen.

You can judge a man by the quality of his enemies. Kennedy's enemies were immoral sociopaths and psychopaths who enjoyed profiting from mass murder -- people with such a warped view of right and wrong that they were infuriated by anyone who prevented them from instigating murder. There seems to sometimes be an assumption that if JFK had only been smarter, he would willingly have colluded with his enemies to do what was harmful to his country in order to save his own skin. This is entirely inconsistent with his actions throughout his life.Incidentally, I've often wanted to see in writing Joseph Kennedy's alleged promise to the mafia. I know it's been repeated so much that it's widely accepted as fact. Maybe it did happen, but I'm suspicious of any statement if the original source is a psychopathic mobster with a warped sense of reality.

I believe it was Rose who held the famiy together and taught her children respect.I look at them as probably a perfect family because of herI think they lived life to the fullest of course they were a wealthy family. Money was obvious not a problem so I cannot imagine a life like that.might make you think you were invincible.

I vaguely recall that JFK made some comments within a day or so before his death about how easy it would be to kill a president with a rifle, etc. Given the "JFK - wanted for treason" posters, and the way Adlai Stevenson had recently been treated in Dallas, Kennedy knew he was going into "nut country" (not that all people from Dallas were ultra right wing nuts). I think that some people just make up their minds that they are not going to live their lives in constant fear: RFK, MLK, Lincoln and various officers on battlefields, for examples. (I don't think Stonewall Jackson got his nickname by being too dimwitted to know he might get shot if he didn't take cover.) It doesn't mean they're unaware of the danger.I'm sure Kennedy didn't know who or when -- nobody did -- but he was aware of the risk. He made the decision to not use the limo's bubble top anyway. It wasn't bullet proof, but James Files said they would have called off the hit that day if it had been on. RFK thought he would be assassinated before JFK. After the assassinations of JFK and MLK, and given his long list of dangerous enemies, RFK must have known of a high chance of being killed if he ran for President. But he did it anyway, because he wanted to stop the war. MLK had started speaking out against the war in Vietnam before his death. King had received numerous death threats, and had already been stabbed and stoned, and nearly killed. This at a time when blacks were being lynched and having their churches bombed. It's clear from his "I've been to the Mountaintop speech" shortly before he died that he foresaw his imminent death:"Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land! And so I'm happy, tonight. I'm not worried about anything. I'm not fearing any man! Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord!!"Maybe in the cynical, post-"me generation" world, we can't understand that kind of thinking.With regard to how the Kennedys were raised. They were taught by their father that, since they were priviliged, they had a responsibility to help the underprivileged. This has been evident in the family's actions for generations. It's not the norm for wealthy families to help the poor instead of helping the rich and powerful at the expense of the poor. People like the Kennedys and the Roosevelts are despised by other wealthy people as "traitors to their class."

I have heard old interviews with RFK and he said that they were very aware of their wealth and status and were taught from an early age to try to correct the social inequities the world presented. And that this was instilled from their mother, Rose. Just like Dealy Joe said. I remember those words well coming from his lips from an old interiew and thought it was very noble. That trait is a scarce commodity these days.

If JFK didn't know what he was up against, then I reckon it could be asked did the Powers That Be know who they were up against in Kennedy? His assassination would seem to indicate they didn't. So this begs the question, why was he placed in power? Was it because they vastly underestimated his character and felt he would be easy to control? Or was he chosen to be just such a sacrificial lamb?And can you find parallels with Obama? I'm of the school that Obama is an empty suit representing the same corrupt bankers and corporations his predecessor served. But is there a chance, however slim, that Obama could emerge as his own man in a similar fashion as Kennedy?