	id AA27475; Fri, 9 Dec 94 08:40:19 CST
Subject: Conspiracy Nation -- Vol. 3 Num. 16


              Conspiracy Nation -- Vol. 3  Num. 16
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                    ("Quid coniuratio est?")
 
 
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DAVE EMORY -- JULY 5, 1992
Observations on America's 216th Birthday
 
[...continued...]
 
DAVE EMORY [continues]:
And it is unfortunate that this is the case. Because I think, 
frankly, not only the mainstream media and mainstream 
intellectual culture, but also the "progressive" community -- I 
usually call it "the so-called 'progressive' community" -- has 
basically *clung* to this untenable position of intellectual 
orthodoxy to everyone's peril.
 
I received a letter a couple of weeks ago from a listener. It was 
actually a *copy* of a letter from professor Noam Chomsky of the 
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Chomsky is something of a 
deity on the American "left". And Chomsky has done some very, 
very good work.
 
However he also has taken some very destructive intellectual 
positions. And with the permission of this listener (a very 
supportive listener), I'm gonna read you a couple of paragraphs 
from this Chomsky letter. (And again, this individual in question 
is a good friend of Noam Chomsky's and a professional colleague.) 
Because I think it illustrates the destructiveness of 
intellectual orthodoxy and the unwillingness on the part of not 
only more reactionary people and mainstream people, but it 
demonstrates the unwillingness of the "progressive" political 
community to deal with documented political reality.
 
In his book, *Heartland*, comedian Mort Sahl, one of the early 
critics of the Warren Commission, asks the question: "How many 
lies can you allow yourself to believe, before you belong to the 
lie?" And in the speech, or in the talk by George Bernard Shaw 
that you heard, he talked about what one must do if one wishes to 
be intellectually and personally popular -- you have to conform. 
If you're a sixth-form student in the 15th century and you are 
aware of Copernicus and Leonardo DaVinci, if you said that, in 
fact, the earth revolved around the sun rather than the other way 
around, you would be burned as a heretic. If, on the other hand, 
you said that the sun, the planets, and the stars revolved around 
the earth in perfect circles or in perfect spheres, because the 
circle is a perfect figure and thereby reflects the perfection of 
the Creator, and the proof of this was that Joshua was able to 
make the sun stand still in the sky -- as George Bernard Shaw 
noted, you would be deemed a marvel of Aristotelian... a young 
marvel of Aristotelian science.
 
Well, just such intellectual orthodoxy has victimized us. And by 
way of offering some constructive criticism, not just... And by 
the way, I want to emphasize I'm not singling out Noam Chomsky. 
His intellectual shortcomings, I think, are *shared* by a great 
many other people. And rather than viewing this as a personal 
indictment (although I have many criticisms of him), rather I 
think this *exemplifies* a sort of intellectual and political 
orthodoxy which has brought us, to a large extent, to our very, 
very sorry state.
 
In this particular letter to a colleague, Chomsky writes,
 
  About JFK and the Vietnam pullout: the theory hasn't a leg to 
  stand on. What minimal credibility it might have had is 
  undermined by the documents that have appeared in a flood in 
  the past few years. On Cuba policy, Kennedy continued the 
  dual-track: testing the waters in terror; LBJ cancelled the 
  terror. The "no invasion" deal was largely fraud. Kennedy 
  promised nothing. The Test Ban Treaty merely regularized 
  testing by JFK... standards Reagan was an anti-nuclear 
  activist.
 
  These are all fairy tales, in my opinion. You can make a much 
  better case that the right wing should have tried to 
  assassinate Johnson or Reagan or Nixon. In my view, the left 
  is caught up in fantasies rather similar to the Ross Perot 
  fantasies -- a kind of cargo cult -- perhaps not surprising 
  under the current conditions of disillusionment and 
  marginalization, but dangerous and unfortunate nonetheless.
 
  Kennedy was a gangster, and the right wing knew it. Apart 
  from kooky elements that regard Nixon and Reagan as closet 
  commies, there were no notable elements that might have been 
  involved in assassinating Kennedy for political reasons, as 
  far as I can see.
 
(That last sentence again, 'cause it's a *real* doozie:)
 
  Apart from kooky elements that regard Nixon and Reagan as 
  closet commies, there were no notable elements that might 
  have been involved in assassinating Kennedy for political 
  reasons, as far as I can see.
 
(And then professor Chomsky goes on to say,)
 
  As for the assassination, I haven't been through the masses 
  of details. But I have seen enough to convince me that much 
  of the conspiracy story is based on very dubious evidence. If 
  you took a physics experiment and subjected it to close 
  scrutiny, you'd find all kinds of patchwork and scotch-tape 
  to make things work. If you take something as messy as this, 
  you'll find tons of such things. By such logic, one could 
  probably "demonstrate" that Hinckley's attempt to assassinate 
  Reagan was a CIA plot covered up by the establishment.
 
  I'm gonna write something about the foreign policy side of 
  this; already had something brief in *Lies Of Our Times*. 
  I've decided to keep away from the assassination issue, 
  however: first, I don't think it is of any more importance 
  than the latest murder in Roxbury; second, it's like having a 
  discussion with religious maniacs -- facts and arguments just 
  don't matter. Not worth it.
 
 
(And then he gives his regards.)
 
Well this is... Not only everything Chomsky here, is not only 
demonstrably false from the political record (his disclaimers to 
the contrary notwithstanding), but much of it is, I think, 
frankly, quite hypocritical from an intellectual standpoint.
 
Let's take what he says here a piece at a time.
 
First of all, as far as JFK and the Vietnam pullout, Colonel L. 
Fletcher Prouty, again who drew up the documents, the report I 
should say, from which Kennedy made his withdrawal decision -- 
he's confirmed this. Kennedy's secretary of state for far eastern 
affairs has confirmed this. The brilliant Berkeley researcher, 
Peter Dale Scott, has written a landmark piece called "The 
Kennedy Assassination and the Vietnam War," that, and the book 
*The Assassinations: Dallas and Beyond*. (I have covered that in 
"The Guns of November -- Part 3".) Plus, the documents themselves 
have been released. And on paragraph 6, in paragraph 6 on page 2 
of NSA-273, it states that "the magnitude and effectiveness of 
American assistance must not be allowed to fall below the levels 
in the Diem regime" (operating from memory here, on that). Well 
when you're talking about magnitude, you're talking about size. 
The Diem regime ended on November 2nd, 1963, with Diem's 
assassination. The pullout, the initial pullout of a thousand 
military police personnel was to have been effected in December 
of 1963. That cancelled the troop withdrawal -- paragraph 7 
refers to the 34A program of covert operations against North 
Vietnam, which ultimately resulted in the Gulf of Tonkin incident 
and the whole bloody escalation under Lyndon Baines Johnson. [CN 
-- I suspect that in these last few sentences, Emory's thoughts 
have outraced his speech.] There's also a new book called *JFK 
and Vietnam* by John Newman(sp?) which has *much* excellent 
documentation.
 
Again, with regard to Cuba: Kennedy cancelled Operation Mongoose 
in the summer of 1963, a guerrilla warfare program against 
Castro's Cuba. And Kennedy diplomats, Kennedy administration 
diplomats, as well as Fidel Castro *himself* has confirmed the 
overture. When Castro heard that Kennedy was shot, he was meeting 
with a French journalist named Jean Daniel(?) and was discussing 
the deal proposed by Kennedy. And the two "pooh-poohed" the 
atmospheric test ban treaty. Again, the military opposed that 
bitterly. It kept nuclear weapons from being tested in the 
atmosphere, for which we are all very much the better.
 
And I think the assessment here by Chomsky, "Apart from kooky 
elements that regard Nixon and Reagan as closet commies, there 
were no notable elements that might have been involved in 
assassinating Kennedy for political reasons, as far as I can 
see." Well that is just *demonstrably* false. One of the things 
that the Warren Commission did... And by the way, I would note 
that the Warren Report *itself* is blasted into smithereens by 
the 26 volumes of Warren Commission testimony and exhibits. The 
Warren Report itself was authored by a fellow named Rudolph 
August Winnaker(sp?), who was head of the Pentagon's historical 
department. He was a German-born former OSS agent. I'd also note 
that the preface, the introduction to the Warren Report, was 
written by Louie Niser(sp?), who prosecuted the Rosenbergs.
 
But the Warren Report itself is completely destroyed by the 26 
volumes of Warren Commission testimony and exhibits. In an 
executive session of the Warren Commission they were discussing 
whether or not to release the 26 volumes of testimony and 
exhibits, and Allen Dulles -- again, a former CIA director, fired 
by President Kennedy for lying to him about the Bay of Pigs -- 
Allen Dulles said, basically, "People don't read anymore. Don't 
think people read. A few professors will read the record. Most 
people will read very little." He then went on to say that if you 
*don't* release the 26 volumes of testimony and exhibits, then 
people will accuse you of a cover-up. But if you *do* release 
them, but don't index them (which is what they did), then nobody 
will read them, and away you go. A few professors will read the 
record. (*That*, apparently, does not include professor Noam 
Chomsky.)
 
Something that I find really grotesque here is Chomsky's 
admission that he hasn't been through the body of documentation 
about the Kennedy assassination and this... frankly, an example 
of "begging the question" where he says,
 
  If you took a physics experiment and subjected it to close 
  scrutiny, you'd find all kinds of patchwork and scotch-tape 
  to make things work. If you take something as messy as this, 
  you'll find tons of such things. By such logic, one could 
  probably demonstrate that Hinckley's attempt to assassinate 
  Reagan was a CIA plot, covered up by the establishment.
 
There are distinct indications that that *may* have been the case 
-- not necessarily saying it was. I refer listeners to the 
program that I did about George Bush and the assassination of 
President Reagan, pointing out the numerous connections between 
the Hinckley family and the Bush family, and some of the odd 
aspects of John Hinckley's behavior: his membership in the 
American Nazi party and a number of other indications that that 
*may* have been the case. Not that it absolutely *was*, but there 
are indications it *may* have been the case.
 
The fact of the matter is, there is absolutely, there's a 
*massive* body of evidence proving beyond a shadow of a doubt 
that there was a conspiracy behind Kennedy's assassination. 
Again, the badly-compromised House Select Committee on 
Assassinations found a 95 percent probability of a plot behind 
Kennedy's assassination, and they recommended to the Department 
of Justice that, among other things, they begin investigating 
David Ferrie and the anti-Castro Cubans in the New Orleans area. 
That was who, David Ferrie was who Jim Garrison was after.
 
                   [...to be continued...]
 
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Aperi os tuum muto, et causis omnium filiorum qui pertranseunt.
Aperi os tuum, decerne quod justum est, et judica inopem et 
  pauperem.                    -- Liber Proverbiorum  XXXI: 8-9 

 Brian Francis Redman    bigxc@prairienet.org    "The Big C"
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    Coming to you from Illinois -- "The Land of Skolnick"        
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