On The Trail Of Delusion

[Fred Litwin]

Is the JFK assassination linked to 9/11 and Covid-19?
One of the big fans of JFK Revisited believes there is a linkage.

https://www.onthetrailofdelusion.com/post/is-the-jfk-assassination-linked-to-9-11-and-covid-19

[Jon Banks]

Those JFK-CTs who like Trump and his docility towards Putin should be happy to learn that their "JFK" movie make-believe and its apparatchik "JFK Revisited" originated as propaganda from the Soviet Union.

     This Is Where Oliver Stone Got His Loony JFK Conspiracies From

     The origin story for the CIA-killed-Kennedy myth is twistier than a magic bullet
     — by Tim Weiner, Rolling Stone, Nov. 22, 2021 ( Link )

    "The tale can be traced to a Russian disinformation operation...

     On March 1, 1967, the New Orleans district attorney, Jim Garrison, arrested
     Clay Shaw, the director of the city’s International Trade Mart and a somewhat-
     closeted gay man, and charged him with a central role in a conspiracy to
     assassinate Kennedy. The D.A. told reporters that what happened in Dallas
     had been “a homosexual thrill-killing.” Three days later, Paese Sera named
     Shaw as a conduit for CIA funds for espionage and dirty tricks in Rome.
     The story, crafted by the KGB, ricocheted around the world, landing in New York
     on the front page of a New Left weekly, the National Guardian, on March 18.

     Garrison seized upon it. He fed the falsehood to a friendly newspaper reporter in
     New Orleans and it landed on page one. told the world that Shaw was a
     longtime CIA operative. (He wasn’t, though he had been a casual part-time
     contact on questions of commerce, one among some 150,000 Americans who
     volunteered information to the cold-war CIA.) The prosecutor then doubled down.
     He proclaimed that the CIA had plotted to kill Kennedy and then covered up the
     conspiracy, that Oswald had been under its control, that the agency was “infinitely
     more powerful than the Gestapo,” and that it had masterminded a coup d’etat in
     America in the name of anticommunism...

     We have a moral obligation to call bullspombleprofglidnoctobuns when we see it. Especially when public
     figures promote lies for profit. Stone’s JFK films are fantasies. Conspiracy theories
     are not facts. They’re a kind of collective psychosis. And they’re driving our country
     down the road to hell."

Garrison initially arrested innocent Clay Shaw because the victim allegedly participated in "a homosexual thrill-killing". Probably playing to the homophobia of the times. The CIA and "coup d-etat" angles came a little later.

Tim Weiner is the same guy who, in spite of the overwhelming evidence, denies that the CIA played a role in international drug trafficking.

https://www.nytimes.com/1997/12/19/us/cia-says-it-has-found-no-link-between-itself-and-crack-trade.html



Also, his claim about Jim Garrison and Oliver Stone falling for Russian propaganda has been easily debunked.

DiEugenio's response to Weiner's hit piece:

"This phony prelude leads to Weiner’s main theme. It’s not an easy job to soften and make acceptable the life and career of CIA Director Allen Dulles. One would think that, after all we know about Dulles today, no one would try, but Weiner has to, in order to sketch in his other false alternative. Namely that Stone says that Dulles was the “presiding genius of the plot against the president.” (The film doesn’t really say that, but accuracy is not what Weiner is after.)

So now Tim pulls out his make-up kit for Dulles. He writes that the CIA Director did not back the plots to overthrow Charles de Gaulle of France, which is a startling statement. For many interested observers, one of the best books on the career of Allen Dulles is The Devil’s Chessboard. Author David Talbot uses a variety of sources to show that Weiner is wrong. For example, the newspaper Paris-Jour centered on Dulles as the main culprit in the attempted overthrow of April 1961. Later, bestselling French author Vincent Jauvert traced the sources of these stories in the French press to de Gaulle’s own foreign ministry. (Talbot, p. 414) In fact, De Gaulle had come to this conclusion himself. (London Observer, May 2, 1961) Author Andrew Tully also noted columns in Le Monde and l’Express which he wrote were owed to high French officials. (CIA: The Inside Story, pp. 48–49)

In the USA, The Nation reported that high level French government employees thought the CIA had encouraged the attempted overthrow. And using l’Express, they wrote that one of the dissident French generals had several meetings with CIA agents who advised him that getting rid of de Gaulle would do the free world a great service. (The Nation, May 20, 1961) These stories also appeared in American mainstream newspapers like The Washington Post. (April 30, 1961) Most fatally for Weiner, his former employer The New York Times also printed the story. Scotty Reston wrote that the CIA was indeed “involved in an embarrassing liaison with the anti-Gaullist officers.” (New York Times, April 29, 1961) But further, Talbot goes into the reasons behind the conflict between Dulles and de Gaulle. It was the desire of the French leader to get rid of NATO’s Operation Gladio elements in France and also his intent to set free the French colony of Algeria in North Africa. (Talbot, pp. 416–17) One would think that all this would be enough to satisfy most objective observers.

In a neat bit of cherry picking, Weiner never mentions any of these sources. He borrows a trick from Max Holland and says that the idea that the CIA backed the attempts by dissident French officers to overthrow de Gaulle was all part of a Russian disinformation campaign that began in Italy. To most informed observers the idea that Scotty Reston would rely on the Italian newspaper Paese Sera is ridiculous on its face...

https://www.kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-articles/why-tim-weiner-never-called-me

[Jon Banks]

I see where Paese Sera is briefly mentioned at the end, but where does DiEugenio debunk Weiner's article?

You only have to go to Wikipedia to see that Tarbot is as big a conspiracy fruitcake as DiEugenio and most of his apologists at JFK Ed-Forum.

    "Talbot's book The Devil's Chessboard: Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise of
     America's Secret Government is a biography examining the career of Allen Dulles.
     According to Talbot, Dulles orchestrated the assassination of Kennedy at the
     behest of corporate leaders who perceived the President to be a threat to national
     security, lobbied Lyndon B. Johnson to have himself appointed to the Warren
     Commission, then arranged to have Lee Harvey Oswald take sole responsibility
     for the act. The book charges that the conspirators in JFK's death also murdered
     Bobby Kennedy as they perceived him to be "a wild card, an uncontrollable threat"
     that would reveal the plot.

     The book has stirred debate about the history of the CIA. In a review for the
     San Francisco Chronicle, Glenn C. Altschuler stated, "Talbot’s indictment is long,
     varied and sensational." Altschuler wrote: "Animated by conspiracy theories, the
     speculations and accusations in his book often run far ahead of the evidence, even
     for those of us inclined to believe the worst about Allen Dulles."

David Talbot spouted his lies and misinformation on-screen in "JFK Revisited". Fred Litwin sorts out his Talbot's false claims.

• "JFK Revisited" Misleads on Supposed CIA Support of the 1961 Coup Attempt in France ( Link )
• "JFK Revisited" Misleads by Putting Words in Kennedy's Mouth... ( Link )
• "JFK Revisited" Misleads by Putting Words in Kennedy's Mouth, Part Two ( Link )

I'm open to the probability that Dulles had nothing to do with with the French coup attempt. The details are too murky to know what the truth is.

However, Weiner is wrong to imply that the Soviets were the source of the suspicions of CIA involvement and DiEugenio is correct that it originated from multiple sources, including the French security services.

On David Talbot, his book on Dulles is a very informative biography. I recommend it. The speculation about Dulles' role in the French coup attempt and the Kennedy assassination comes towards the end of the book and Talbot makes it clear that he was speculating about what role Dulles may have played in those events.

If you don't trust Talbot, Stephen Kinzer wrote a great book about the Dulles brothers too ('Brothers').

No one knows the absolute truth about any historic event. Often times, historians must speculate to fill in gaps. Which apparently, you think is a bad thing even though it's a common academic practice...

[Fred Litwin]

Talbot's book is really horrible.

More debunking of Talbot to come.

fred

[Fred Litwin]

Fred Litwin on Conspiracy Clearinghouse
A podcast that tries to debunk conspiracies. It was a pleasure to appear on the podcast.

https://www.onthetrailofdelusion.com/post/fred-litwin-on-conspiracy-clearinghouse

[Jon Banks]

Talbot's book is really horrible.

More debunking of Talbot to come.

fred

The Devils Chessboard by Talbot and The Ghost by Jeff Morley are two great books for learning the history and nature of the CIA.

I highly recommend both.

[Fred Litwin]

"Guilt by Orientation" - The CIA Strikes Again

Jamie Kirchick's excellent article, "Guilt by Orientation," on Oliver Stone's three-decade long slander of Clay Shaw, has made some people go batty.

https://www.onthetrailofdelusion.com/post/guilt-by-orientation-the-cia-strikes-again

[Fred Litwin]

"Guilt by Orientation" -- the CIA Strikes Again, Part Two
More ridiculous tweets about Jamie KIrchick's excellent article, "Guilt by Orientation."

https://www.onthetrailofdelusion.com/post/guilt-by-orientation-the-cia-strikes-again-part-two