Tucker Carlson on the Kennedy Assassination

[Jon Banks]

According to the April 26, 1964 report, all of this was done with prior knowledge of the American Psychiatric Association, assistance of some qualified Texas assistants, and with results of the examination completely available to the court. Why the heck you think that he “stumbled upon” some dark secret is beyond me. The first thirty seconds of that sham video is as much as I could handle.

Are we going to have to assume that you cannot answer my questions?

Charles, in 1964 no one, except maybe high-ranking people at the CIA and the people wittingly involved with the research, knew the MKULTRA program existed. So it's reasonable to assume that few people would've thought it was strange for a psychiatrist with Jolly West's background to be treating Jack Ruby.


"MKUltra was so highly classified that when John McCone succeeded Dulles as CIA director late in 1961, he was not informed of its existence until 1963. Fewer than half a dozen agency brass were aware of it at any period during its 20-year history."

https://theintercept.com/2019/11/24/cia-mkultra-louis-jolyon-west/


Fast forward to the 1970s. After the program was brought to light, researchers have gone back and looked into the relationships and patients of people like Jolly West and Sidney Gottlieb. It may be coincidental that West treated Jack Ruby but given his involvement with MKULTRA, it can't be ruled out that West experimented on Ruby (which may have contributed to his psychosis).

Was West asked to find a way to silence Ruby before he spoke to the Warren Commission? That's a question worthy of further investigation.

[John Iacoletti]

The whole idea of a conspiracy is based on connecting imaginary random dots.

As is the whole idea that Oswald did it.

[Charles Collins]

Charles, in 1964 no one, except maybe high-ranking people at the CIA and the people wittingly involved with the research, knew the MKULTRA program existed. So it's reasonable to assume that few people would've thought it was strange for a psychiatrist with Jolly West's background to be treating Jack Ruby.


"MKUltra was so highly classified that when John McCone succeeded Dulles as CIA director late in 1961, he was not informed of its existence until 1963. Fewer than half a dozen agency brass were aware of it at any period during its 20-year history."

https://theintercept.com/2019/11/24/cia-mkultra-louis-jolyon-west/


Fast forward to the 1970s. After the program was brought to light, researchers have gone back and looked into the relationships and patients of people like Jolly West and Sidney Gottlieb. It may be coincidental that West treated Jack Ruby but given his involvement with MKULTRA, it can't be ruled out that West experimented on Ruby (which may have contributed to his psychosis).

Was West asked to find a way to silence Ruby before he spoke to the Warren Commission? That's a question worthy of further investigation.

I called the video a sham due to the apparent fallacy that West was “court appointed” as seen in the beginning graphics. And nothing you have written leads me to believe that the video has any worthwhile “revelations” that this guy has uncovered. What exactly is it about the video that you think is so important?

[Jon Banks]

I called the video a sham due to the apparent fallacy that West was “court appointed” as seen in the beginning graphics. And nothing you have written leads me to believe that the video has any worthwhile “revelations” that this guy has uncovered. What exactly is it about the video that you think is so important?

So the biggest issue for you are the details of "how" West got involved with Ruby's psychiatric care, not the fact the a doctor who was prominently involved with MKULTRA was treating Ruby? 

I think it's relevant to ask how he got involved with Ruby but like I said previously, in 1964, almost no one had heard of MKULTRA. Someone like him could've been placed in that role but easily slipped through the cracks in terms of vetting because of the lack of awareness of the program at that time...

[Charles Collins]

So the biggest issue for you are the details of "how" West got involved with Ruby's psychiatric care, not the fact the a doctor who was prominently involved with MKULTRA was treating Ruby? 

I think it's relevant to ask how he got involved with Ruby but like I said previously, in 1964, almost no one had heard of MKULTRA. Someone like him could've been placed in that role but easily slipped through the cracks in terms of vetting because of the lack of awareness of the program at that time...

The point is that if, at the very beginning, the video claims something that isn’t true, then I have no interest in learning about the other falsehoods that are likely to be contained in that video.

I think I remember reading in the article you posted that West claimed that he had no knowledge that the CIA was funding the research until many years later.

You posted the video in response to my question about where you got the idea that Ruby “wasn’t the same” after West’s visit. Does the video contain that gem? Rabbi Silverman was probably the person closest to Ruby during the time period in question. And I know of no one who was actually in contact with Ruby that makes the claim that Ruby “wasn’t the same” after West’s visit.

Ruby did ask for a lie detector test and/or truth serum in order for him to hopefully have more credibility when he testified that he wasn’t involved with a conspiracy. Perhaps (just speculating here) he got the idea of a truth serum test from Dr. West’s visit.

At any rate, the idea that West “might have caused Ruby’s mental decline “accidentally on purpose” is just another example of the conspiracists’ MO of conjecture and innuendo. If there was any credible evidence that this actually happened, you would surely have stated it by this point in this conversation…

[Jon Banks]

The point is that if, at the very beginning, the video claims something that isn’t true, then I have no interest in learning about the other falsehoods that are likely to be contained in that video.

I've seen other accounts that Ruby's lawyer appointed Jolly West. I'm not sure if O'Neill is wrong or maybe should've given more details. Your expectation that every detail be accurate seems unreasonable for an informal live interview. In live interviews, it's pretty common for guests to err on some details that they discuss. Especially an informal interview like Joe Rogan's podcast. I just don't think that detail that you're referring to is the most relevant information that he shared.

If you watched the whole clip (it's not that long), O'Neill explains that he's not an expert on the Kennedy assassination. He just happened to come across the West-Ruby connection while researching the MKULTRA program.

I think I remember reading in the article you posted that West claimed that he had no knowledge that the CIA was funding the research until many years later.

Like other CIA assets, he might've lied in his denial. How many people in history have admitted to being CIA assets? Carter Page, one of the people caught up in the Trump-Russia investigations, is the only person I can think of. (https://www.foxnews.com/politics/carter-page-says-he-was-never-paid-one-cent-for-serving-as-cia-fbi-informant-as-bureau-paid-danchenko-200k)

It's legal for people who work with or (undercover) for the CIA to lie about their relationship with the agency. I imagine they get into more trouble for telling the truth than they do if they lie about it.

But even if he told the truth, are you not familiar with the MKULTRA program? It's one of the worst crimes against humanity committed by the CIA. They conducted experiments on unwitting Americans without their consent. An unknowable number of people died due to those experiments (only two people are confirmed to have died in the program). So the fact that West spent years working on that project is bad enough.

If people were aware of MKULTRA in 1964, I doubt West would've been allowed to treat Ruby.

At any rate, the idea that West “might have caused Ruby’s mental decline “accidentally on purpose” is just another example of the conspiracists’ MO of conjecture and innuendo. If there was any credible evidence that this actually happened, you would surely have stated it by this point in this conversation.

Ruby wasn't diagnosed with psychosis until after West began working with him. Coincidence? Maybe. But given West's background as part of MKULTRA, a program that included researching techniques for inducing psychosis, it can't be ruled out that something fishy happened.

Obviously, we'll never know but It seems very naïve to brush it off as a possibility.

[Charles Collins]

I've seen other accounts that Ruby's lawyer appointed Jolly West. I'm not sure if O'Neill is wrong or maybe should've given more details. Your expectation that every detail be accurate seems unreasonable for an informal live interview. In live interviews, it's pretty common for guests to err on some details that they discuss. Especially an informal interview like Joe Rogan's podcast. I just don't think that detail that you're referring to is the most relevant information that he shared.

If you watched the whole clip (it's not that long), O'Neill explains that he's not an expert on the Kennedy assassination. He just happened to come across the West-Ruby connection while researching the MKULTRA program.


Like other CIA assets, he might've lied in his denial. How many people in history have admitted to being CIA assets? Carter Page, one of the people caught up in the Trump-Russia investigations, is the only person I can think of. (https://www.foxnews.com/politics/carter-page-says-he-was-never-paid-one-cent-for-serving-as-cia-fbi-informant-as-bureau-paid-danchenko-200k)

It's legal for people who work with or for the CIA to lie about their relationship with the agency. I imagine they get into more trouble for telling the truth than they do if they lie about it.

But even if he told the truth, are you not familiar with the MKULTRA program? It's one of the worst crimes against humanity committed by the CIA. They conducted experiments on unwitting Americans without their consent. An unknowable number of people died due to those experiments (only two people are confirmed to have died in the program). So the fact that West spent years working on that project is bad enough.

If people were aware of MKULTRA in 1964, I doubt West would've been allowed to treat Ruby.


Ruby wasn't diagnosed with psychosis until after West began working with him. Coincidence? Maybe. But given West's background as part of MKULTRA, a program that included researching techniques for inducing psychosis, it can't be ruled out that something fishy happened.

Obviously, we'll never know but It seems very naïve to brush it off as a possibility.

If you want to pretend that you don’t see that the claim that the court appointed West is important because it insinuates a sinister act by the “conspirators” go ahead. 


I seem to remember reading, in the article that you posted, that West’s research was funded through a company. I don’t remember the actual name.  But it seems reasonable to me that West probably had no way of knowing that that company was funded by the CIA.




A snip from “Reclaiming History” by Bugliosi:

MKULTRA: MKULTRA was one of several CIA projects in the area of mind control. The first project was approved on April 20, 1950, right in the midst of the cold war, by CIA Director Roscoe Hillenkoetter. Originally code-named BLUEBIRD, it was soon rechristened ARTICHOKE. The goal was to “control an individual to the point where he will do our bidding against his will and even against such fundamental laws of nature as self-preservation.” The means was to be hypnosis (with psychiatric consultation) in conjunction with any other feasible aid, including neurosurgery and electroshock treatments, and some of the first subjects were twenty-five North Korean prisoners of war.

MKULTRA, approved by CIA Director Allen Dulles on April 14, 1953, with a budget of $300,000, was merely an offshoot of the original BLUEBIRD program, with the emphasis being on the use of biological and chemical agents, mostly psychedelic drugs such as LSD, to achieve the same end. Most of the subjects experimented on were inmates of the federal drug hospital in Lexington, Kentucky, who volunteered for the program with the understanding they would get a reduction of their sentences. However, under MKULTRA, LSD was apparently also administered to some subjects without their knowledge. Allen Dulles’s biographer, Peter Grose, writes that “at safe houses in New York’s Greenwich Village and San Francisco’s Telegraph Hill, hired prostitutes and hustlers secretly administered LSD to their varied . . . clientele as CIA men watched for reactions through one-way mirrors.” And apparently, and unbelievably, the CIA at least once administered the drug to one of its own people, with tragic consequences. Grose writes that “on November 27, 1953, seven months into MKULTRA, an American physician [who was] engaged in the project, Dr. Frank Olson, was found dead under a broken tenth-floor window of the Statler Hotel in New York City. Eight days earlier he had swallowed 70 micrograms of LSD, administered by a CIA colleague without his knowledge, in a glass of Cointreau as the team sat discussing their researches in New York. Olson apparently did not know that a week earlier the directors of MKULTRA had concluded . . . that ‘an unwitting experiment would be desirable.’” Per Grose, the CIA was of the opinion that the death of Olson was directly related to the LSD, although testimony from an LSD expert at one of my murder trials was that LSD leaves the body within twenty-four hours after ingestion. But then again there’s the well-known phenomenon of “flashbacks,” which may occur much later. Dr. Sidney Gottlieb, the CIA’s Dr. Strangelove, presided over most of the CIA’s mind control programs, and after two decades of feckless and silly efforts, he and the CIA abandoned their search for the Manchurian candidate in June of 1972. Although the CIA made an effort to destroy all of the documents that arose out of its mind control program, many of MKULTRA’s financial records survived and led to the exposure of the program in hearings before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence in 1977. (Marks, Search for the “Manchurian Candidate”, pp.21–23, 26, 29, 56–63, 204–208; New York Times, April 25, 1966, p.20; Grose, Gentleman Spy, pp.392–396; Leonard, Perfect Assassin, pp.3–5)The fantasy that Armstrong has come up with would seem to be outside the psychedelic scope of MKULTRA, and in any event, he does not produce for his readers one speck of evidence that Oswald was ever a part of MKULTRA, or of any other behavioral modification or mind control project run by the CIA. For the notion that not only Oswald but also Jack Ruby were under mind control (by German-Argentines trying to drive the stock market down at least thirty points) at the time of their acts through the use of techniques called Radio-Hypnotic Intracerebral Control, and Electronic Dissolution of Memory, see Lawrence, Were We Controlled? pp.23–24, 165–168.


Frankly I don’t claim to be an expert on MKULTRA but maybe if Gottlieb had gone to see Ruby (instead of West) you might have something interesting…

[Jon Banks]

If you want to pretend that you don’t see that the claim that the court appointed West is important because it insinuates a sinister act by the “conspirators” go ahead. 

What difference does it make whether the court or Ruby's lawyer hired West? I don't understand why you're fixated that detail.

I seem to remember reading, in the article that you posted, that West’s research was funded through a company. I don’t remember the actual name.  But it seems reasonable to me that West probably had no way of knowing that that company was funded by the CIA.

So that makes it "okay" if West conducted weird experiments with LSD and possibly drugged people without their consent?

Also, I think you're a bit gullible if you believe West worked on the MKULTRA project for over a decade yet had no idea who was running the program.

His denial proves nothing just as LHO saying that "he didn't shoot anyone" proved nothing.

For the notion that not only Oswald but also Jack Ruby were under mind control (by German-Argentines trying to drive the stock market down at least thirty points) at the time of their acts through the use of techniques called Radio-Hypnotic Intracerebral Control, and Electronic Dissolution of Memory, see Lawrence, Were We Controlled? pp.23–24, 165–168.

O'Neill never suggested that Oswald or Ruby were under "Mind-Control" at the time of the assassinations. His only theory, if you want to call it that, is that Jolly West might've induced Ruby to go insane prior to his Warren Commission interview.

Maybe watch the whole clip before making anymore assumptions...