That makes no sense. So if Nixon had the gods on the CIA in killing Kennedy and knew that the CIA had some involvement in the break in, why didn’t he declassify them? That would have thrown Watergate off the front pages. Just the threat of revealing the JFK papers would have made the CIA defend Nixon to the death.
That makes no sense. So if Nixon had the gods on the CIA in killing Kennedy and knew that the CIA had some involvement in the break in, why didn’t he declassify them? That would have thrown Watergate off the front pages. Just the threat of revealing the JFK papers would have made the CIA defend Nixon to the death.
First, it wasn't known in 1972 just what "papers" there were. That material started coming out AFTER Watergate.
Second, virtually every president that has come after the assassination has been compromised in some way, usually relating to the assassination itself. Nixon acknowledges this himself when he asks on the recording was it Lyndon? was it Dick? Nixon had a rather ill-timed meeting at the Pepsi bottlers convention in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963. And he may have been at that suspect party with HL Hunt and LBJ the night before. Doesn't look good. The point of the call to Helms is that he doesn't know what's in the CIA records ... that's why he's asking -- pleading really -- them to tell him.
And of course Nixon had run the anti-Castro operations as VP and so was mixed up with many implicated in Dallas. Everyone in the circle of knowledge is compromised. That's how the secrets stay secret. Every so often it becomes necessary to sacrifice a member or two, for violating the agreement, because they have lost their usefulness, or because the public inquiries become too much to resist and a bone or two needs to be thrown to the public.
The bitter irony is that 99 percent of the story can be told today, through open-source and declassified materials -- owing largely to Moynihan (!) -- but no journalistic organizations will undertake the task, owing to the shallow model of the news business and their own complicity. As a philosopher said once: "Hell is truth found out too late."
My responses below should be amended to note that declassification of previous administration and CIA sins was a Nixon strategy but one that never got rolling and was subsumed by Pentagon Papers and Watergate. Plan was to leak by Nixon Admin. details regarding Diem assassination, Cuban Missile Crisis and Bay of Pigs, Powers and U-2, etc. Interesting that this included events during Nixon's time as VP. Nixon wanted a small team (Colson, Huston, Strachan, Allen, e.g.) of researchers to dig into it led by a "young bearcat." Hunt himself was proposed by Colson to lead it. That may have been a bad choice. Listen here:
I think that was more due to that idiot Kissinger advising Nixon not to do it since it would set precedent. But seeing how the CIA was willing to kill one president, I would have thought that Nixons paranoia would have kicked in to get them before they got him. Declassifying JFK’s assassination, which thanks to Mort Sahl, Dick Gregory and others spawning theories , as well as influential Camelot members still alive (think Jackie, Sorenson and Sallenger, et all) Then throw in MLK and RFK assassination CIA involvement thoughts, and I think would have knocked all that other crap off the NY Times front pages. It would have been too huge to ignore and every congressman and Senator would have been thanking Nixon, thus securing his guaranteed survival. An internal government agency involved in overthrowing the government through assassination? That would have been too huge for the Times to ignore, and Watergate and Pentagon Papers goes bye bye.
And Nixon had just gone after Ellsberg for leaking the Pentagon Papers. Can't very well turn right around and say some secrets shouldn't be secret. Also not in his psychological make-up. He cherished secrecy.
That makes no sense. So if Nixon had the gods on the CIA in killing Kennedy and knew that the CIA had some involvement in the break in, why didn’t he declassify them? That would have thrown Watergate off the front pages. Just the threat of revealing the JFK papers would have made the CIA defend Nixon to the death.
First, it wasn't known in 1972 just what "papers" there were. That material started coming out AFTER Watergate.
Second, virtually every president that has come after the assassination has been compromised in some way, usually relating to the assassination itself. Nixon acknowledges this himself when he asks on the recording was it Lyndon? was it Dick? Nixon had a rather ill-timed meeting at the Pepsi bottlers convention in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963. And he may have been at that suspect party with HL Hunt and LBJ the night before. Doesn't look good. The point of the call to Helms is that he doesn't know what's in the CIA records ... that's why he's asking -- pleading really -- them to tell him.
And of course Nixon had run the anti-Castro operations as VP and so was mixed up with many implicated in Dallas. Everyone in the circle of knowledge is compromised. That's how the secrets stay secret. Every so often it becomes necessary to sacrifice a member or two, for violating the agreement, because they have lost their usefulness, or because the public inquiries become too much to resist and a bone or two needs to be thrown to the public.
The bitter irony is that 99 percent of the story can be told today, through open-source and declassified materials -- owing largely to Moynihan (!) -- but no journalistic organizations will undertake the task, owing to the shallow model of the news business and their own complicity. As a philosopher said once: "Hell is truth found out too late."
My responses below should be amended to note that declassification of previous administration and CIA sins was a Nixon strategy but one that never got rolling and was subsumed by Pentagon Papers and Watergate. Plan was to leak by Nixon Admin. details regarding Diem assassination, Cuban Missile Crisis and Bay of Pigs, Powers and U-2, etc. Interesting that this included events during Nixon's time as VP. Nixon wanted a small team (Colson, Huston, Strachan, Allen, e.g.) of researchers to dig into it led by a "young bearcat." Hunt himself was proposed by Colson to lead it. That may have been a bad choice. Listen here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6fYEOYzECs
and here, @9:11
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vqnCYD_50mw&list=LL&index=31
I think that was more due to that idiot Kissinger advising Nixon not to do it since it would set precedent. But seeing how the CIA was willing to kill one president, I would have thought that Nixons paranoia would have kicked in to get them before they got him. Declassifying JFK’s assassination, which thanks to Mort Sahl, Dick Gregory and others spawning theories , as well as influential Camelot members still alive (think Jackie, Sorenson and Sallenger, et all) Then throw in MLK and RFK assassination CIA involvement thoughts, and I think would have knocked all that other crap off the NY Times front pages. It would have been too huge to ignore and every congressman and Senator would have been thanking Nixon, thus securing his guaranteed survival. An internal government agency involved in overthrowing the government through assassination? That would have been too huge for the Times to ignore, and Watergate and Pentagon Papers goes bye bye.
And Nixon had just gone after Ellsberg for leaking the Pentagon Papers. Can't very well turn right around and say some secrets shouldn't be secret. Also not in his psychological make-up. He cherished secrecy.