JFKA CTs need to believe a government agency or rogue actors thereof killed JFK

[Jon Banks]

I want to elaborate on my earlier comment to Steve about the CIA going rogue for more clarity:

Do I believe it's plausible that plotting JFK's assassination was ever official CIA policy? No. I don't think the CIA director ordered a hit on Kennedy.

At worst, I find it plausible that some individual CIA officers and contractors went rogue against Kennedy. Which is close to the HSCA's conclusion.

A year or so ago, I listened to a podcast that featured legendary CIA officer, Felix Rodriguez. In explaining the differences between the CIA today and the 1960s, he basically said, back then, they would do unethical stuff and let the CIA's lawyers clean it up afterwards. In contrast, today, the CIA officers talk to lawyers before proceeding with operations.

Under the context of the CIA's earlier years when there were agents who did some things that they had to hide from the President and even the CIA director, I don't find it implausible that some CIA operatives could've been involved in a plot against JFK. Recently declassified files have confirmed that upper levels of the CIA didn't know much about some of James Angelton's most secret operations. He hid stuff from everyone, including people who worked closely with him. And it's well known that CIA officers hid stuff from John McCone, Kennedy's pick for CIA director, after Dulles was fired.

If all of that is true or even suspected of being true, it would be in the interest of the CIA as an agency to cover up any potential links to Oswald or the Kennedy assassination rather than come clean about the possible involvement of their guys.

It's that context which explains why the CIA didn't disclose to the HSCA that George Joannides ran the DRE at the time when LHO was engaging with their operations in New Orleans. And why James Angelton lied under oath to the HSCA about his interest in Oswald prior to the assassination.

From the 1961 letter from Schlessinger to Kennedy:

"I submit the following views as one who worked in OSS during the war and served as a periodic CIA consultant in the years since.

On balance, CIA's record has probably been very good. In the nature of clandestine operations, the triumphs of an intelligence agency are unknown; all the public hears about (or should hear about) are its errors. But again in the nature of the case, an agency dedicated to clandestine activity can afford damned few visible errors.

The important thing to recognize today, in my judgment, is that the CIA, as at present named and constituted, has about used up its quota. Its margin for future error is practically
non-existent. One more CIA debacle will shake faith considerably in US policy at home as well as abroad. And, until CIA is visibly reorganized, it will (as in the Algerian instance) be widely blamed for developments of which it is wholly innocent.

The argument of this memorandum is that the CIA's trouble can be traced to the autonomy with which the agency has been permitted to operate and that this autonomy is due to three main causes: (1) an inadequate doctrine of clandestine operations) (2) an inadequate conception of the relationship between operations and policy: (3) an inadequate conception of the relationship between operations and intelligence. The memorandum also suggests ways in which come of these problems can perhaps be alleviated."


Link - https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/2025/0318/176-10033-10145.pdf


Kennedy didn't succeed at reorganizing the CIA. The significance of the letter is that it proves that Kennedy was concerned about the way the agency was operating at that time.

[Tom Graves]

From the 1961 letter from Schlessinger to Kennedy:

"I submit the following views as one who worked in OSS during the war and served as a periodic CIA consultant in the years since.

On balance, CIA's record has probably been very good. In the nature of clandestine operations, the triumphs of an intelligence agency are unknown; all the public hears about (or should hear about) are its errors. But again in the nature of the case, an agency dedicated to clandestine activity can afford damned few visible errors.

The important thing to recognize today, in my judgment, is that the CIA, as at present named and constituted, has about used up its quota. Its margin for future error is practically
non-existent. One more CIA debacle will shake faith considerably in US policy at home as well as abroad. And, until CIA is visibly reorganized, it will (as in the Algerian instance) be widely blamed for developments of which it is wholly innocent.

The argument of this memorandum is that the CIA's trouble can be traced to the autonomy with which the agency has been permitted to operate and that this autonomy is due to three main causes: (1) an inadequate doctrine of clandestine operations) (2) an inadequate conception of the relationship between operations and policy: (3) an inadequate conception of the relationship between operations and intelligence. The memorandum also suggests ways in which come of these problems can perhaps be alleviated."


Link - https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/2025/0318/176-10033-10145.pdf


Kennedy didn't succeed at reorganizing the CIA. The significance of the letter is that it proves that Kennedy was concerned about the way the agency was operating at that time.

Banksie,

Do you think this proves the evil, evil, evil CIA killed JFK?

Did JFK really say he was going to break the CIA into a thousand pieces?

Do you think reorganizing the CIA was the only suggestion by Schlessinger that JFK didn't implement?

[Jim Hawthorn]

To the extent the FBI or CIA participated in any "cover up" it was to protect themselves from criticism that perhaps they should have kept better tabs on Oswald.  At worst it was CYA.  To extrapolate from that to participation in a conspiracy to assassinate the president, frame Oswald, and kill the patsy is light years in difference.

[Jon Banks]

Banksie,

Do you think this proves the evil, evil, evil CIA killed JFK?

No. The Schlessinger memo disproves Steve's point about the CIA never going "rogue".

But your problem here is that almost all of that was approved or ordered by Presidents (Cointelpro was done by the FBI). E.g., the covert war on Cuba essentially ended after JFK was killed. Why do you think that happened? Did you read the Weiner book on the CIA? The nasty stuff was on orders of Presidents. Ike, JFK, Nixon. I think that's why leftists like I.F. Stone and Chomsky, and a few others, didn't and don't believe in the "CIA did it" conspiracy. They knew who JFK was and they knew that many of the awful things the CIA did was on orders. It wasn't a rogue agency.

The memo clearly proves that Kennedy was concerned that the agency had too much "autonomy".

[Tom Graves]

ME: Do you think the Schlessinger memo proves the evil, evil, evil CIA killed JFK?

BANKSIE:  No. The Schlessinger memo disproves Steve's point about the CIA never going "rogue".

ME: Why the convoluted answer?

[Jon Banks]

ME: Do you think the Schlessinger memo proves the evil, evil, evil CIA killed JFK?

BANKSIE:  No. The Schlessinger memo disproves Steve's point about the CIA never going "rogue".

ME: Why the convoluted answer?

I answered your question and explained my real reason for posting the Schlessinger quote.

You’re welcome.

[Tom Graves]

I answered your question and explained my real reason for posting the Schlessinger quote.

Left Bank,

Please freshen my memory as to why you posted the Schlessinger memo.

To prove that JFK wanted to splinter the CIA into a thousand pieces?

To prove that the evil, evil, evil CIA (or some evil, evil, evil rogue agents thereof) killed JFK to prevent him from doing that?

What?

Thanks, Left Bank.

[Jon Banks]

Left Bank,

Please freshen my memory as to why you posted the Schlessinger memo.

To prove that JFK wanted to splinter the CIA into a thousand pieces?

I see what you're trying to do Vlad.

I don't know if JFK ever said that exact quote but the recently unredacted memo proves that it was true that JFK was concerned about the CIA "going rogue".

The claim that 'everything the CIA does is approved by the POTUS' wasn't true in 1961.

I don't know if it's true or not today. Things may have changed at the agency since then.