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In reply to the discussion: Octafish to attend JFK assassination conference. Do you think JFK still matters? [View all]Octafish
(55,745 posts)193. You are most welcome, Sir!
I very much look forward to your analysis of the Air Force One Tape. I will do my best to share what I learn on DU.
A more complete recording of the the Air Force One communications recently was released:
Chilling tape from Air Force One on day JFK shot just released.
CBS News, Jan. 31, 2012
It's been nearly a half-century since the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
EXCERPT...
The full audio of transmissions from White House Communications Agency (which captured the tapes) that day includes 42 minutes edited out of the original public version. It's likely to peak the interest of conspiracy theorists who are already asking why this material was cut out of the original.
Then-Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Curtis LeMay had been a frequent opponent of Kennedy's. His whereabouts on the day of the assassination has always been a mystery.
In the newly public audio, we learn that LeMay was airborne, even as JFK's body was being flown back to Washington. And an aide to LeMay tried urgently to reach his boss.
"General LeMay," the aide said, "is in a C 140. ... He's inbound. His code name is Grandson. And I wanna talk to him. ... If you can't work him now, it's gonna be too late, because he'll be on the ground in a half-hour."
Historian Robert Dallek suggests doubters will wonder if the aide's comments about not reaching LeMay within 30 minutes may be "too late" could have some sinister meaning. "I'd doubt these tapes will put the conspiracy theory to rest," he says. "They continue to believe it was a conspiracy and again, they just can't accept the proposition that a lone wolf, a single, and someone as dysfunctional as Lee Harvey Oswald, could have carried off this assassination of the president."
CONTINUED...
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505263_162-57368696/chilling-tape-from-air-force-one-on-day-jfk-shot/
For those new to Gen. Curtis LeMay and his relationship with President Kennedy:
JFK Cuba crisis tapes released
By Jon Marcus
A ssociated Press
BOSTON (AP) -117 At the height of the Cuban missile crisis, one of President John F. Kennedy's top military commanders warned him that failing to invade the island would be like backing down to Hitler's initial demands in Europe.
"This is almost as bad as the appeasement at Munich," Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Curtis LeMay told Kennedy on Oct. 19, 1962, according to newly declassified White House tape recordings released Thursday.
LeMay's comment "was an amazing thing to say to any president, but it was a particularly amazing thing to say to this president," said Sheldon Stern, historian at the John F. Kennedy Library in Boston, where the tape recordings were released. "It's a deep personal insult."
Kennedy's father, Joseph P. Kennedy, served as U.S. ambassador to Britain at the time of the 1938 Munich conference, where the British and French agreed to let Nazi Germany take land from Czechoslovakia in exch ange for a short-lived promise of peace. The elder Kennedy's support of appeasement later was strongly criticized and may have cost him any hope of running for national office.
LeMay, like other military leaders, advocated immediate military intervention to destroy the Soviet missiles and unfinished silos that had been detected by aerial reconnaissance in Cuba. He said blockading ships bound for Cuba, as other presidential advisers urged, would lead to war anyway.
President Kennedy, who privately called LeMay "field marshal," did not respond to the remark and the meeting went on to cover other military and diplomatic issues.
CONTINUED...
http://www.chron.com/CDA/archives/archive.mpl/1996_1373492/tapes-from-cuban-missile-crisis-reveal-insult-by-k.html
What Mr. Kelly found is that Gen. LeMay did not tell the truth about his whereabouts on Nov. 22, 1963:
WAS GENERAL LEMAY AT CAMP X ON 11/22/63?
Where was General Curtis LeMay at the time president Kennedy was assassinated?
by Bill Kelly
JFK Countercoup, June 4, 2012
Was he on vacation hunting and fishing in upstate Michigan, as his official biographies attest, or was he at Camp X or at a secret command & control bunker overseeing the Dealey Plaza operation?
An official biography of Air Force General Curtis LeMay reports that at the time President Kennedy was assassinated he was on vacation, hunting and fishing with family members in upstate Michigan.
"Iron Eagle: The Turbulent Life of General Curtis LeMay," by Thomas M. Coffey (p.430) reports that LeMay's wife was from Michigan and he had apparently told his biographer he was in Michigan on vacation and "hurried back to Washington in time for the funeral."
But an Andrews Air Force base log book, that was salvaged from the trash and almost destroyed, indicates that LeMay ordered a special Air Force jet to pick him up in Canada shortly after news of the assassination was widely broadcast, which indicated to some that he wasnt hunting and fishing in Michigan.
Exploring the possibility that Gen. LeMay attended JFKs autopsy at Bethesda, as Navy medical corpsman Paul OConner attests, Doug Horne, the Chief Analyst for Military Records for the Assassination Records Review Board, made note of LeMays presence in Canada rather than Michigan, as his official biography reports.
And Larry Hancock, author of Someone Would Have Talked and Nexus, also thought it significant and notes: "I was struck by the fact that it (LeMays bio) made a big deal of his being so remote that he was out of contact and was not even able to make it back to Washington until the funeral. I don't see that as a minor thing, the book definitely creates the impression that he was not back in Washington that weekend. This really is an important point, if Doug is right and can be verified it looks pretty certain that LeMay was handing out disinformation and there would need to be a good reason for that. After all, it would not be unusual for him to rush back to DC or to some other AF base where he could achieve command and control capability. What seems to me not at all understandable is why he would go to Bethesda, and then lie about it."
From the salvaged Andrews Air Force Base Log Book for 11/22/63, it is officially noted that a special order to pick up LeMay in Toronto was requested at 1:20 PM CST (2:20 PM EST, 1420 GMT) and a special SAM Special Air Mission C-140 jet took off Andrews at 1446 (1:46 PM CST 2:46 PM EST) to pick him up in Toronto, but after the plane took off (1:50 PM CST 2:50 PM EST) it was redirected to Wiarton, a Canadian Air Force base north of Toronto.
The official internet web site for Wiarton includes a photo of the Air Force base, but also makes tantalizing references to Camp X, the secret training camp for spies used by the British and Americans during World War II, and used as a hideaway for a prominent Soviet defector during the Cold War.
CONTINUED...
http://jfkcountercoup.blogspot.com/search?q=lemay+whereabouts
Thank you for your great work you share through your blog. It is hard to imagine what the United States has become were it not for Dallas. It cannot be over stressed how important are the people who care about truth, justice and democracy to its future.
It would be my privilege and honor to meet you in Pittsburgh.
In the meantime, a most hearty welcome to DU!
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Octafish to attend JFK assassination conference. Do you think JFK still matters? [View all]
Octafish
Oct 2013
OP
Five years ago, DU2 had a pair of mammoth threads that I can longer access...
Octafish
Oct 2013
#169
Kick/Rec. Yes, it matters because of the word you used - truth. It's in ever increasingly short
NRaleighLiberal
Oct 2013
#6
No...thank YOU for what you are doing - and always do for us here...and for teaching me a new word!
NRaleighLiberal
Oct 2013
#191
Thanks, notadmblnd! People wonder why the USA tortures children, invades innocent countries...
Octafish
Oct 2013
#199
I imagine that to be the case for the under-educated who believe history is not relevant.
LanternWaste
Oct 2013
#139
Thanks for your POV, pscot. There are many CIA papers that bear direct relevance...
Octafish
Oct 2013
#202
JFK's Assassination was/is a watershed moment in our nation's history, it is of great importance.
Uncle Joe
Oct 2013
#13
Yes, it matters. But looking ahead Mother Nature is going to kick human ass. IT WILL BE UGLY.
hunter
Oct 2013
#15
When it comes to the disease, we must strike at the root -- the radical approach.
Octafish
Oct 2013
#231
Good posts rebutting the willing ignorance of the JFK CTists, but you may as well be shouting
stopbush
Oct 2013
#146
For many, and, on certain levels, I'd go as far as to say "most" if not all. As for the economy,
whathehell
Oct 2013
#91
Of course not. You're still young & immature enough to think calling us "old" is a debate strategy
whathehell
Oct 2013
#116
I'm pretty sure that, being in possession of all the academic information you have, in addition
whathehell
Oct 2013
#163
Sorry, Brad, unlike yourself, I'm not a man of any color -- I'm a female, like Juajen, who also
whathehell
Oct 2013
#227
What I meant by that is, it seems to be the moment when the other side decided to just start killing
stranger81
Oct 2013
#51
Exactly. All the same political actors benefited from each "lone nut" assassination.
villager
Oct 2013
#88
Superficially, no it wasn't. but there is a fundamental yes underlying that time.
Egalitarian Thug
Oct 2013
#197
Exactly. I doubt the deniers have ever fired a shot, much less from elevation
Link Speed
Oct 2013
#22
2 shots out of 3 on a target ranging from less than 60 to less than 100 yards away?
Spider Jerusalem
Oct 2013
#105
Justice demands one ex-Secret Service Agent and one ex-FBI Agent testify before Congress...
Octafish
Oct 2013
#252
Interestingly enough I'm currently reading a book by L. Fletcher Prouty about the subject...
rwsanders
Oct 2013
#25
Thanks Octafish, that's the book I'm reading. So far it is very sad as it kind of picks up where...
rwsanders
Oct 2013
#251
Dismissing conspiracy theories about the assassination is not making light of the event. n/t
Bolo Boffin
Oct 2013
#41
And you do so in violation of the SOP for GD and the Terms of Service for DU.
Bolo Boffin
Oct 2013
#166
Correct. ALSO is the operative word. It was bigger than Oswald there was a likely conspiracy
avaistheone1
Oct 2013
#93
It was fifty years ago. It's a very cold case. The original investigation may indeed
struggle4progress
Oct 2013
#46
I'm not a 'boomer' whatever that is, and it very much interests me. It is part of the history of
sabrina 1
Oct 2013
#87
It most certainly is still relevant. You see how our country STILL won't speak to Cuba?
loudsue
Oct 2013
#70
I believe that open-minded persons never close the door. We know we are fed propaganda
rhett o rick
Oct 2013
#72
considering how long it takes to get things declassified I would say it does still matter.
liberal_at_heart
Oct 2013
#76
We are on the threshold of a grand and open conspiracy to destroy Constitutional government.
gordianot
Oct 2013
#81
I think Lincoln's assassination IMO matters a great deal more than Kennedy's
Hippo_Tron
Oct 2013
#185
Michael Parenti: The JFK Assassination and the Gangster Nature of the State
Junkdrawer
Oct 2013
#119
Hoping for a great conference, looking forward to your comments on it. Rec. n/t
Judi Lynn
Oct 2013
#160
I think some of JFKs wish list like civil rights, programs for the poor
arely staircase
Oct 2013
#242
It matters as much as our Constitution due in part to its first establishment.
Festivito
Oct 2013
#186
JFK threw himself upon the broken barricade between democracy and the fascist national security stat
hedda_foil
Oct 2013
#229
I have traveled to almost every continent and one thing I have seen almost everywhere
DonRedwood
Oct 2013
#241
I now realize that Daniel Brandt's Name Base is back online-it's wonderfully easy to use-KICK
bobthedrummer
Oct 2013
#247
I am excited for you Octafish. I know you are going to enjoy this symposium.
avaistheone1
Oct 2013
#260