Michael Ratner and Michael Steven Smith are the co-authors of a new book about the U.S. role in the killing of Cuban revolutionary, Ernesto “Che” Guevara. Born in Argentina in 1928, Che rose to international prominence as one of the key leaders of the 1959 Cuban Revolution that overthrew U.S.-backed dictator Fulgencio Batista. After a period in the new Cuban government leadership, Che aimed to spark revolutionary activity internationally. On October 8, 1967, he was captured by Bolivian troops working with the CIA. He was executed one day later. In their book, “Who Killed Che?” Ratner and Smith draw on previously unpublished government documents to argue the CIA played a critical role in the killing. “The line of the [U.S.] government was that the Bolivians did it, we couldn’t do anything about it. That’s not true,” Smith said. “This whole operation was organized out of the White House by Walt Whitman Rostow. And the CIA, by this time, had become a paramilitary organization.” On Che’s significance, Ratner says Che became “a symbol for revolutionary change… He still remains, of course, that today. If you go to Occupy Wall Street, if you go to Tahrir Square, you will see people who are wearing Che T-shirts, because they understand that their obligation, their necessity, is to take on the 1 percent. And that’s what Che was about. And that’s why I think he remains such a hero for people in the streets today.” [includes rush transcript]
Filed under Cuba, Author Interviews, Occupy Wall Street

Guests:
Michael Steven Smith, co-author of Who Killed Che? How the CIA Got Away with Murder. He is New York City-based attorney and a board member of the Center for Constitutional Rights.
Michael Ratner, co-author of Who Killed Che? How the CIA Got Away with Murder. He is president emeritus of the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York City and past president of the National Lawyers Guild.
Related stories

“A Moment in the Sun”: An Extended Interview with Independent Filmmaker, Author John Sayles
As Occupy Enters Third Month, a Look at How Protesters Are Building a Global Movement
Arundhati Roy: Occupy Wall Street is “So Important Because It is in the Heart of Empire”
Legendary Folk Duo Crosby & Nash on Soundtracking Movements from the 1960s to Occupy Wall Street
“Blood on the Tracks”: Brian Willson’s Memoir of Transformation from Vietnam Vet to Radical Pacifist

Rush Transcript
This transcript is available free of charge. However, donations help us provide closed captioning for the deaf and hard of hearing on our TV broadcast. Thank you for your generous contribution.
Donate
Related Links

“Who Killed Che? How the CIA Got Away With Murder.” By Michael Ratner and Michael Steven Smith. (OR Books, 2011)
“Law and Disorder Radio”, Hosted by Michael Ratner, Michael Steven Smith, and Heidi Boghosian

AMY GOODMAN: Michael Ratner and Michael Steven Smith are the co-authors of a book about the U.S. role in the killing of Che Guevara, the Cuban revolutionary. Born in Argentina in 1928, Che rose to international prominence as one of the key leaders of the 1959 Cuban Revolution that overthrew the dictator, Fulgencio Batista. After a period in the new Cuban government leadership, Che aimed to spark revolutionary activity internationally. In ’65, he led a secret Cuban operation aiding and training rebels in the Congo. Speaking to the United Nations the year before, Che Guevara had invoked the legacy of Patrice Lumumba, the first democratically elected leader of what is now known as the Democratic Republic of Congo, who was killed with the backing of the United States.

CHE GUEVARA: [translated] For it is the very essence of imperialism to turn men into wild, bloodthirsty animals determined to slaughter, kill, murder and destroy the very last vestige of the image of the revolutionary or the partisan in any regime that they crush under their boots because it fights for freedom.

AMY GOODMAN: After the Congo, Che Guevara went to Bolivia, helping to lead an uprising against the U.S.-backed government there. On October 8th, 1967, he was captured by Bolivian troops working with the CIA, executed a day later.

In their book, Who Killed Che? How the CIA Got Away with Murder, Michael Ratner and Michael Steven Smith draw on previously unpublished government documents to argue the CIA played a critical role in Che Guevara’s death.

Michael Steven Smith, what exactly did you learn?

MICHAEL STEVEN SMITH: Well, a lot of information has come to light recently: four excellent biographies of Che, the documents that Michael took the initiative to get under the Freedom of Information Act. Half of our book are these documents.

The line of the government was that the Bolivians did it, we couldn’t do anything about it. That’s not true. This whole operation was organized out of the White House by Walt Whitman Rostow. And the CIA, by this time, had become a paramilitary organization. They were told, “We’ll give you the broad outlines on what to do, but don’t tell the president, because we don’t want to embarrass him.” And the indication was: get Che. And that’s what was organized right out of the White House.

We have a quote from Jorge Castañeda, the Mexican diplomat and historian who wrote one of these biographies, saying that he interviewed Gustavo Villoldo. This was an artistic representation of Villoldo, who I’ll tell you about. And Villoldo said to him, “When I got off the plane in La Paz, I went right to the palace, where Barrientos, the U.S.-installed dictator, sat.” And he said to Barrientos, “We’re going to supply you with everything you need to get Che. When you get him, we want him killed.” And Barrientos said, “I give you my word, as president of Bolivia, that if we catch him, we’ll kill him.” That’s only one of the things in the book.

The CIA had tried to kill Che before. They tried to kill Castro 602 times. They killed Lumumba, as you indicated. A CIA agent drove around with the body of Lumumba in his trunk. It’s Murder Incorporated down there. Why? Because of regime change. Cuban Revolution took the 99 percent, and they became the 1 percent. And the 1 percent of the Cuban oligarchy went to Miami. And what they want to do, and what they still want to do, and why they have the embargo, is they want to take that 1 percent and put them back in and restore capitalist property relations in Cuba.

AMY GOODMAN: The significance of Che Guevara, Michael Ratner?

MICHAEL RATNER: Well, he was obviously incredibly significant for the Cuban Revolution, for the struggles in Latin America. He was so significant that, of course, the U.S. started to topple governments shortly after—during that period of the ’60s. And, of course, when you played the Víctor Jara song, it was really meaningful to me, because Víctor Jara was picked up by—during the Chilean coup, which was backed by the United States against Allende, and was murdered in the stadium. And so, Che became, and the Cuban Revolution, a symbol for revolutionary change in Latin America. That was then.

He still remains, of course, that today. If you go to Occupy Wall Street, if you go to Tahrir Square, you will see people who are wearing Che T-shirts, because they understand that their obligation, their necessity, is to take on the 1 percent. And that’s what Che was about. And that’s why I think he remains such a hero for people in the streets today.

AMY GOODMAN: Why did he go to Bolivia? I just want to warn you, we have about a minute to go. But why he went to Bolivia, and what most surprised you in the information that you got under the Freedom of Information Act?

MICHAEL RATNER: Well, he went to Bolivia because he believed that the Cuban Revolution could not survive unless other countries in the world, particularly in South America, also became revolutionary. He also believed that Bolivia was completely ripe for revolution. It had a couple of hundred changes in government in a period of very—you know, in a period of 200 years. It had a huge peasant population that was exploited by the United States. They had supported all the dictatorships. He, of course, wanted to make a revolution, as well, or be part of it, in his home country of Argentina. He looked at the spine of Latin America as critical to revolutionary movements. It had been under the heel of the United States really since the Monroe Doctrine and before.

AMY GOODMAN: And how you know CIA was involved?

MICHAEL RATNER: Well, the CIA here, this is—I mean, what’s interesting in the book is the documents we got. We got one from Walt Whitman Rostow that essentially said—

AMY GOODMAN: Who was working for president—

MICHAEL RATNER: Right, the national security adviser for President Johnson. He said all the documents he shoveled in to Johnson were from the CIA, the CIA’s reporting. “We want the fingerprints. We think Che did this. We think Che did that.” So it all comes out of the CIA. Rostow says the killing is stupid. But then you read Rostow’s memo, and you realize the first thing the United States wanted was Che dead, because that was the way to end revolutionary fervor in Latin America and in the world.

AMY GOODMAN: We’re going to do part two of this conversation after the broadcast, post it at democracynow.org. Michael Ratner, Michael Steven Smith, authors of Who Killed Che? How the CIA Got Away with Murder.

Michael Ratner and Michael Steven Smith are the co-authors of a new book about the U.S. role in the killing of Cuban revolutionary, Ernesto “Che” Guevara. Born in Argentina in 1928, Che rose to international prominence as one of the key leaders of the 1959 Cuban Revolution that overthrew U.S.-backed dictator Fulgencio Batista. After a period in the new Cuban government leadership, Che aimed to spark revolutionary activity internationally. On October 8, 1967, he was captured by Bolivian troops working with the CIA. He was executed one day later. In their book, “Who Killed Che?” Ratner and Smith draw on previously unpublished government documents to argue the CIA played a critical role in the killing. “The line of the [U.S.] government was that the Bolivians did it, we couldn’t do anything about it. That’s not true,” Smith said. “This whole operation was organized out of the White House by Walt Whitman Rostow. And the CIA, by this time, had become a paramilitary organization.” On Che’s significance, Ratner says Che became “a symbol for revolutionary change… He still remains, of course, that today. If you go to Occupy Wall Street, if you go to Tahrir Square, you will see people who are wearing Che T-shirts, because they understand that their obligation, their necessity, is to take on the 1 percent. And that’s what Che was about. And that’s why I think he remains such a hero for people in the streets today.”

Guests:
Michael Steven Smith, co-author of Who Killed Che? How the CIA Got Away with Murder. He is New York City-based attorney and a board member of the Center for Constitutional Rights.

Michael Ratner, co-author of Who Killed Che? How the CIA Got Away with Murder. He is president emeritus of the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York City and past president of the National Lawyers Guild.

“Who Killed Che? How the CIA Got Away With Murder.” By Michael Ratner and Michael Steven Smith. (OR Books, 2011)

AMY GOODMAN: Michael Ratner and Michael Steven Smith are the co-authors of a book about the U.S. role in the killing of Che Guevara, the Cuban revolutionary. Born in Argentina in 1928, Che rose to international prominence as one of the key leaders of the 1959 Cuban Revolution that overthrew the dictator, Fulgencio Batista. After a period in the new Cuban government leadership, Che aimed to spark revolutionary activity internationally. In ’65, he led a secret Cuban operation aiding and training rebels in the Congo. Speaking to the United Nations the year before, Che Guevara had invoked the legacy of Patrice Lumumba, the first democratically elected leader of what is now known as the Democratic Republic of Congo, who was killed with the backing of the United States.

CHE GUEVARA: [translated] For it is the very essence of imperialism to turn men into wild, bloodthirsty animals determined to slaughter, kill, murder and destroy the very last vestige of the image of the revolutionary or the partisan in any regime that they crush under their boots because it fights for freedom.

AMY GOODMAN: After the Congo, Che Guevara went to Bolivia, helping to lead an uprising against the U.S.-backed government there. On October 8th, 1967, he was captured by Bolivian troops working with the CIA, executed a day later.

In their book, Who Killed Che? How the CIA Got Away with Murder, Michael Ratner and Michael Steven Smith draw on previously unpublished government documents to argue the CIA played a critical role in Che Guevara’s death.

Michael Steven Smith, what exactly did you learn?

MICHAEL STEVEN SMITH: Well, a lot of information has come to light recently: four excellent biographies of Che, the documents that Michael took the initiative to get under the Freedom of Information Act. Half of our book are these documents.

The line of the government was that the Bolivians did it, we couldn’t do anything about it. That’s not true. This whole operation was organized out of the White House by Walt Whitman Rostow. And the CIA, by this time, had become a paramilitary organization. They were told, “We’ll give you the broad outlines on what to do, but don’t tell the president, because we don’t want to embarrass him.” And the indication was: get Che. And that’s what was organized right out of the White House.

We have a quote from Jorge Castañeda, the Mexican diplomat and historian who wrote one of these biographies, saying that he interviewed Gustavo Villoldo. This was an artistic representation of Villoldo, who I’ll tell you about. And Villoldo said to him, “When I got off the plane in La Paz, I went right to the palace, where Barrientos, the U.S.-installed dictator, sat.” And he said to Barrientos, “We’re going to supply you with everything you need to get Che. When you get him, we want him killed.” And Barrientos said, “I give you my word, as president of Bolivia, that if we catch him, we’ll kill him.” That’s only one of the things in the book.

The CIA had tried to kill Che before. They tried to kill Castro 602 times. They killed Lumumba, as you indicated. A CIA agent drove around with the body of Lumumba in his trunk. It’s Murder Incorporated down there. Why? Because of regime change. Cuban Revolution took the 99 percent, and they became the 1 percent. And the 1 percent of the Cuban oligarchy went to Miami. And what they want to do, and what they still want to do, and why they have the embargo, is they want to take that 1 percent and put them back in and restore capitalist property relations in Cuba.

AMY GOODMAN: The significance of Che Guevara, Michael Ratner?

MICHAEL RATNER: Well, he was obviously incredibly significant for the Cuban Revolution, for the struggles in Latin America. He was so significant that, of course, the U.S. started to topple governments shortly after—during that period of the ’60s. And, of course, when you played the Víctor Jara song, it was really meaningful to me, because Víctor Jara was picked up by—during the Chilean coup, which was backed by the United States against Allende, and was murdered in the stadium. And so, Che became, and the Cuban Revolution, a symbol for revolutionary change in Latin America. That was then.

He still remains, of course, that today. If you go to Occupy Wall Street, if you go to Tahrir Square, you will see people who are wearing Che T-shirts, because they understand that their obligation, their necessity, is to take on the 1 percent. And that’s what Che was about. And that’s why I think he remains such a hero for people in the streets today.

AMY GOODMAN: Why did he go to Bolivia? I just want to warn you, we have about a minute to go. But why he went to Bolivia, and what most surprised you in the information that you got under the Freedom of Information Act?

MICHAEL RATNER: Well, he went to Bolivia because he believed that the Cuban Revolution could not survive unless other countries in the world, particularly in South America, also became revolutionary. He also believed that Bolivia was completely ripe for revolution. It had a couple of hundred changes in government in a period of very—you know, in a period of 200 years. It had a huge peasant population that was exploited by the United States. They had supported all the dictatorships. He, of course, wanted to make a revolution, as well, or be part of it, in his home country of Argentina. He looked at the spine of Latin America as critical to revolutionary movements. It had been under the heel of the United States really since the Monroe Doctrine and before.

AMY GOODMAN: And how you know CIA was involved?

MICHAEL RATNER: Well, the CIA here, this is—I mean, what’s interesting in the book is the documents we got. We got one from Walt Whitman Rostow that essentially said—

AMY GOODMAN: Who was working for president—

MICHAEL RATNER: Right, the national security adviser for President Johnson. He said all the documents he shoveled in to Johnson were from the CIA, the CIA’s reporting. “We want the fingerprints. We think Che did this. We think Che did that.” So it all comes out of the CIA. Rostow says the killing is stupid. But then you read Rostow’s memo, and you realize the first thing the United States wanted was Che dead, because that was the way to end revolutionary fervor in Latin America and in the world.

AMY GOODMAN: Michael Ratner, Michael Steven Smith, authors of Who Killed Che? How the CIA Got Away with Murder.

PHOTO
Image: Malcolm X at a rally in Washington, DC, in 1963
Hulton Archive via Getty Images,
Malcolm X speaks at a rally in Washington, DC, in 1963. Excerpts of a little-remembered speech he gave in 1961 is set to be aired an event hosted by the Rhode Island Black Heritage Association as part of Black History Month.

PROVIDENCE, Rhode Island — The recording was forgotten, and so, too, was the odd twist of history that brought together Malcolm X and a bespectacled Brown University Ivy Leaguer fated to become one of America’s top diplomats.

The audiotape of Malcolm X’s 1961 address in Providence might never have surfaced at all if 22-year-old Brown University student Malcolm Burnley hadn’t stumbled across a reference to it in an old student newspaper. He found the recording of the little-remembered visit gathering dust in the university archives.

“No one had listened to this in 50 years,” Burnley told The Associated Press. “There aren’t many recordings of him before 1962. And this is a unique speech — it’s not like others he had given before.”

Some blacks insist: ‘I’m not African-American’

In the May 11, 1961 speech delivered to a mostly white audience of students and some residents, Malcolm X combines blistering humor and reason to argue that blacks should not look to integrate into white society but instead must forge their own identities and culture.

‘A dead people’
At the time, Malcolm X, 35, was a loyal supporter of the Nation of Islam, a black separatist movement. He would be assassinated four years later after leaving the group and crafting his own more global, spiritual ideology.

The legacy of slavery and racism, he told the crowd of 800, “has made the 20 million black people in this country a dead people. Dead economically, dead mentally, dead spiritually. Dead morally and otherwise. Integration will not bring a man back from the grave.”

The rediscovery of the speech could be the whole story. But Burnley found the young students in the crowd that night proved to be just as fascinating.

Malcolm X was prompted to come to Brown by an article about the growing Black Muslim movement published in the Brown Daily Herald and shown in an image on the NPR website. The article by Katharine Pierce, a young student at Pembroke College, then the women’s college at Brown, was first written for a religious studies class. It caught the eye of the student paper’s editor, Richard Holbrooke.

Holbrooke would become a leading American diplomat, serving as U.S. Ambassador to Germany soon after that nation’s reunification, ambassador to the United Nations and President Obama’s special adviser on Pakistan and Afghanistan before his death in 2010 at age 69.

But in 1961 Holbrooke was 20, and eager to use the student newspaper to examine race relations — an unusual interest on an elite Ivy League campus with only a handful of black students.

Sell-out crowd
Pierce’s article ran in the newspaper’s magazine and made her the first woman whose name was featured on the newspaper’s masthead.

Somehow, the article made its way to Malcolm X. His staff and Holbrooke worked out details of the visit weeks in advance. Campus officials were wary: Malcolm X had been banned from the University of California-Berkeley and Queens College in New York City.

PHOTO
Image: Malcolm Burnley
Stephan Savoia / AP
Brown University senior Malcolm Burnley, 22, stands with a copy of the 1961 edition of the Brown University Herald in the John Hay Library on campus in Providence, R.I.

Tickets — 50 cents — for the Brown speech sold quickly. About 800 people filled the venue, the 19th-century, Romanesque Sayles Hall, meant to hold about 500.

Pierce introduced Malcolm X and recalls him vividly.

“He came surrounded by a security detail,” she recalls. “You got the sense — this is an important person. He was handsome, absolutely charismatic. I was just bewildered that my class paper could have led to something like this.”

‘Not anti-white’
In his speech, Malcolm X outlined Black Muslims’ beliefs and argued that black Americans cannot wait for white Americans to offer them equality.

“No, we are not anti-white,” he said. “But we don’t have time for the white man. The white man is on top already, the white man is the boss already… He has first-class citizenship already. So you are wasting your time talking to the white man. We are working on our own people.”

Pierce said the speech exposed her and other students in the audience to a different side of America. She gives Holbrooke credit for bringing Malcolm X to campus.

The recording of the address is in pristine condition. Pierce obtained the tape after the event — she isn’t sure who made the recording — and it sat in a box of mementos for years before she mailed it to the university archives.

Burnley has had the tape digitized and plans to air excerpts next week at an event hosted by the Rhode Island Black Heritage Association as part of Black History Month.

Lehigh University professor Saladin Ambar, who is working on a book about Malcolm X’s 1964 visit to Oxford University, said any new recording of him is reason to celebrate.

“Malcolm’s best speeches, they’re just gone,” he said. “He’s not nearly as well-documented as he should be, when you consider his power as an orator.”

The Associated Press and msnbc.com staff contributed to this report.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46277619/ns/us_news-life/#.TzBjE8XOV2B

Averting the “Final Failure”: John F. Kennedy and the Secret Cuban Missile Crisis Meetings.

by Jeffrey W. Taliaferro

Averting the “Final Failure”: John F. Kennedy and the Secret Cuban Missile Crisis Meetings. By Sheldon M. Stern. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2003. 419 pp.

The Cuban missile crisis is the most “over-studied” crisis in history. For 13 days in October 1962, the United States and the Soviet Union stood at the brink of nuclear war. Since that time, the deliberations of President John F. Kennedy and the Executive Committee of the National Security Council (ExComm) have been the subject of innumerable books, articles, documentaries, and films. With the John F. Kennedy Library’s 1996 release of the secret recordings of the ExComm meetings and the subsequent publication of Ernest May and Philip Zelikow’s The Kennedy Tapes (Harvard University Press, 1997; Norton, 2001), it appeared that we had the “definitive” account, at least on the U.S. side. Is there anything new to learn about the Cuban missile crisis? The answer evidently is yes. Sheldon M. Stern’s Averting the “Final Failure” greatly contributes to our understanding of the ExComm deliberations and JFK’s role as a crisis manager.

Stern, the retired historian of the Kennedy Library, presents a comprehensive narrative account of the ExComm meetings based upon exhaustive analysis of the recordings. His main claim is that the 1997 edition of The Kennedy Tapes and the 2001 revised edition contained numerous errors or omissions that substantially alter our understanding of the missile crisis. Despite Stern’s efforts, however, there will never be a “definitive” or completely “unbiased” analysis of the ExComm deliberations. Any scholar who listens to the tapes will bring his or her own theoretical predispositions to the endeavor.

Stern’s analysis reveals that JFK and his advisors were cold warriors, bearing “significant responsibility for provoking the missile crisis–because of the Bay of Pigs invasion, ongoing covert plots against Cuba and [Fidel] Castro, a massive nuclear arms buildup and ‘contingency’ plans to invade Cuba again. The Kennedy administration had clearly contributed to polarizing the Cuban issue and ironically had become stuck on its political tar baby” (p. 32). Yet, JFK and his advisors were also realists, cognizant of the implications of the Soviet missile deployment for the global balance of power, the importance of alliance cohesion, and the need to legitimize any U.S. response to domestic and international audiences. JFK realized that any precipitous action could escalate to a nuclear exchange or prompt a Soviet conventional attack on West Berlin. He consistently resisted calls by the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), particularly Air Force Chief of Staff Curtis LeMay, for immediate air strikes or an invasion.

For many readers, the book’s main contribution is its analysis of the interpersonal dynamics within the ExComm. JFK’s leadership was understated and subtle, but remarkably effective in keeping options open. For example, the Cuban military’s firing on low-altitude U.S. reconnaissance planes on October 26 and 27 nearly precipitated retaliatory air strikes on Soviet SAM (surface-to-air missile) sites, which would have certainly led to a nuclear exchange. JFK restrained Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara and JCS Chairman General Maxwell Taylor by deferring authorization of further low-level reconnaissance flights.

Stern’s analysis confirms that from October 17 onward, Kennedy strongly supported the removal of the Jupiter missiles from Turkey and pledged not to invade Cuba in exchange for Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev’s promise to remove all missiles from the island and permit international inspections. This quid pro quo remained secret for 25 years. Contrary to previous accounts, the idea for the missile exchange did not originate in Khrushchev’s October 27 public letter. Furthermore, the tapes reveal that JFK faced vehement objections not only from hawks like Assistant Secretary of Defense Paul Nitze, but also from moderates like Secretary of State Dean Rusk, Secretary of the Treasury Douglas Dillon, Ambassador-at-Large Llewellyn Thompson, and, initially, CIA Director John McClone and Undersecretary of State George Ball.

The most surprising revelations from the tapes concern the roles played by Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, Special Assistant to the President for National Security McGeorge Bundy, and Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson. Stern demolishes the myth that the younger Kennedy was the author of the “Trollope Ploy”–the decision to reply to Khrushchev’s October 26 private letter offering a missile withdrawal in exchange for a U.S. non-invasion pledge, while ignoring the October 27 public call for the Cuban-Turkish missile exchange. The tapes reveal testy exchanges between JFK and his national security advisor. Bundy, a former dean of Harvard’s faculty …

Chesapeake students researching Kennedy assassination
DAVID E. MALLOY
The Herald-Dispatch
Huntington, WVA
February 02, 2012 @ 12:00 AM

PHOTO courtesy of Ashlee Miller
Students in Colleen Sexton’s college prep English class at Chesapeake High School present some of their findings in a project that has them asking and searching for answers to the question, “Who killed JFK?”

CHESAPEAKE, Ohio — The question of who killed President John F. Kennedy in 1963 is still worth debating some five decades later as far as Colleen Sexton is concerned.

Sexton, a Chesapeake High School English teacher, assigned 25 college prep English students to read a book about the assassination, research the question on the Internet, and then debate the issue before a jury comprised of high school juniors.

“It’s part of a year-long study of modern history from the 1930s to the 1970s,” Sexton said Tuesday. “We get them reading a book, ‘Plausible Denial,’ then asked them to use all different types of media to research the issue and then make a presentation. They learn to work as a team. It’s also part of a team teaching project with Tyler Marcum, a history teacher, and Chris Smith, the assistant principal.”

“I do believe (Lee Harvey) Oswald acted along, being the only shooter,” said Ashlee Miller, a Chesapeake senior. She worked with the group that argued the Lone Gunman Theory. “I just haven’t seen enough evidence to convince me someone was on the Grassy Knoll. However, I do think Oswald had connections with others including the CIA.”

Miller researched what the Warren Commission had to say about the shooting.

“What I gained from this experience is a whole new perspective on how anyone, be it a random person off the street or people with high status including the CIA or FBI would do anything to get rid of someone, even if it was the most powerful man in the world,” Miller said.

Benji Koletka, a Chesapeake senior, made the argument that while Oswald shot the President, he also thinks there was another person on the grassy knoll that day in Dallas.

“Fifty-one witnesses say the saw someone on the Grassy Knoll,” he said. Eighteen of those witnesses died of suspicious circumstances following the shooting, he said.

Heath Fields, a Chesapeake senior, said they used information from three films and a National Geographic television show in their presentation. While his group believes Oswald fired the fatal shot, “we all believe there was a conspiracy.”

The debate will continue at Chesapeake High School this week, Sexton said.

Prosecutors rebut jailed RFK assassin’s claims in freedom quest

Los Angeles (CNN) — A controversial assertion by convicted Robert F. Kennedy assassin Sirhan Sirhan to win his freedom was challenged this week by the California attorney general who said “overwhelming evidence” exists against Sirhan’s claims.

Sirhan’s attorneys have said that a second gunman actually assassinated Kennedy in 1968 and that Sirhan was hypno-programmed to fire a gun as a diversion.

“In sum, (Sirhan) cannot possibly show that no reasonable juror would have convicted him if a jury had considered his ‘new’ evidence and allegations, in light of the overwhelming evidence supporting the convictions and the available evidence thoroughly debunking (Sirhan’s) second-shooter and automaton theories,” Attorney General Kamala Harris said in federal court papers filed this week.

Sirhan, the sole person convicted of killing Kennedy, is seeking a new trial or freedom from his life sentence based on “formidable evidence” asserting his innocence and “horrendous violations” of his rights, defense attorneys said in federal court papers filed last year.

Harris, who is asking a federal court in Los Angeles to dismiss Sirhan’s request, conceded in court papers filed Wednesday that his lawyers may be able to show two guns were involved in Kennedy’s assassination. Kennedy was seeking the Democratic presidential nomination when he was killed.

But even if Sirhan’s lawyers can show 13 shots were fired in the Kennedy shooting, Sirhan shouldn’t be released from prison, Harris said.

“The mere possibility that more than one firearm was discharged during the assassination does not dismantle the prosecution’s case” against Sirhan, the attorney general said in the latest court documents.

Harris said Sirhan is relying on acoustic expert Philip Van Praag’s analysis of a tape recording of the Kennedy shooting that concludes 13 shots were fired during the murder and “demonstrates the existence of a second shooter because (Sirhan) only fired eight shots.”

The attorney general argues that even if there was a second gunman involved in the Kennedy shooting, Sirhan hasn’t proven his innocence.

Sirhan “at most has shown that, according to Van Praag, two guns could be heard firing 13 shots in an audiotape of the shooting,” Harris said.

Authorities have said eight bullets were fired in the kitchen pantry of the former Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, with three bullets hitting Kennedy’s body, a fourth passing harmlessly through his suit coat and the rest striking five other victims, who survived. Kennedy, younger brother of the assassinated U.S. President John F. Kennedy, was shot shortly after midnight on June 5, 1968, only moments after the presidential candidate had claimed victory in California’s primary election. He died the next day.

Defense lawyers William F. Pepper and Laurie D. Dusek say Van Praag’s analysis of the tape recording shows two guns fired 13 shots — five more gunshots than Sirhan could have fired from his eight-shot revolver. Sirhan had no opportunity to reload his gun in the pantry.

Harris calls Van Praag’s analysis “pure speculation.”

The recording of the Kennedy shooting was made by free-lance reporter Stanislaw Pruszynski. ABC News television videotape of the hotel ballroom, where the senator had just claimed victory in the California primary, shows Pruszynski holding his recording equipment in his left hand while descending a small set of ballroom steps, approximately 40 feet away from the kitchen pantry shooting, and moving towards the pantry during the period when the shots were being fired there, off-camera.

Harris said that even if it could be proven “that a second gunman successfully shot Senator Kennedy, (Sirhan) would still be guilty of the charged crimes.” She said that under California’s vicarious liability law, “an aider and abettor ‘is guilty not only of the offense he intended to facilitate or encourage, but also of any reasonably foreseeable offense committed by the person he aids and abets’.”

The defense argues Sirhan did not knowingly fire at Kennedy but thought he was shooting at circular targets on a firing range. They contend Sirhan was a victim of hypno-programming by conspirators who programmed him to fire shots as a diversion for the senator’s real killer.

For his hypo-programming defense, Sirhan is relying on Daniel Brown, an associate clinical professor in psychology at Harvard Medical School who has interviewed Sirhan for 60 hours over a three-year period, according to defense attorneys.

But the attorney general rejected the hypno-programming claim.

“The theory that a person could be hypnotized into planning and committing a murder against his will is a controversial (if not fantastic) one and has not been adopted by most of Brown’s peers, including the American Psychological Association,” Harris wrote.

“Thus, even if (Sirhan) could show that some psychologists believe in mind control or hypno-programming, his showing of actual innocence is nevertheless based on a debatable theory that is not universally accepted in the psychology community,” Harris said.

Sirhan, who turns 68 next month, was denied parole at a hearing last year where he once again claimed to have no memory of the Kennedy shooting, an assertion Sirhan has maintained since 1968.

http://edition.cnn.com/2012/02/04/justice/california-sirhan-rfk/index.html

Please consider signing it in support of former Secret Service Agent Abraham Bolden who threatened to expose the Chicago plot to kill President Kennedy in 1963.

Abraham Bolden:Imprisoned for Following the Oath
Published February 12, 2011

To the President of These United States of America
The Honorable Barack H. Obama

The undersigned hereby petitions the President of the United States of America to expunge, pardon or take other executive action that will clear the record of conviction of Abraham W. Bolden, Sr. In support of this petition, we submit the following:

Abraham Bolden is an African American and was born to Daniel and Ophelia Bolden in East St. Louis , Illinois on January 19, 1935. He attended Lincoln High School and, upon graduation, entered Lincoln University in Jefferson City , Missouri . Later, Bolden married his long time friend and schoolmate, Barbara L. Hardy (Bolden) to whom he was married for 49 years prior to her death. To that marriage were born 3 children, Ahvia Maria Bolden (Reynolds), Abraham Bolden Jr., and Dr. Daaim Shabazz . Bolden has two grandchildren, Ismail and Cydni Bolden.

Bolden attended public schools in East St. Louis , Illinois and was graduated from Lincoln High School in June, 1952. Because of his proficiency in playing the trumpet, he received a scholarship to Lincoln University in Jefferson City , Missouri and was graduated “cum Laude” in June of 1956 with a BA in Music Composition.

After graduating from Lincoln University , Bolden decided to enter the field of law enforcement. He subsequently became the first African American Detective to be employed by the Pinkerton National Detective Agency. After leaving the detective agency, he served as a State Highway Patrolman in the State of Illinois . Continuing to advance in the field of police work, Bolden became a member of the United States Secret Service in October 1960.

Bolden met President John F. Kennedy in Chicago , Illinois and, after a brief conversation with Bolden, President Kennedy was instrumental in making Bolden the first African American to be assigned to the Secret Service White House Detail in Washington , D.C. in June of 1961.

Bolden traveled with the President; but he became disenchanted with the assignment when some of his fellow agents used racial slurs in his presence and engaged in a pattern of conduct that, in Bolden’s professional opinion, endangered the life of President John F. Kennedy. Bolden was very vocal in his criticism of the protective detail first discussing the matter of the laxity and misconduct of the President’s security with the then Chief of the United States Secret Service U.E. Baughman. Bolden further complained above the unprofessional activities of the detail with his immediate superiors in Chicago , Illinois .

After President John F. Kennedy was assassinated and after having previously discussed his complaints of secret service misconduct with the Chief of the U.S. Secret Service and his immediate superiors in Chicago to no avail, Bolden was intent upon bringing information concerning the President’s lack of proper security to officials of the Warren Commission who were investigating the President’s death. On May 18, 1964, while attending Secret Service School , Bolden was whisked out of Washington , D.C. under a pretext, returned to Chicago whereupon he was denied a request for representation by an attorney and hastily arrested by high administrators within the secret service who charged Bolden with the commission of a federal crime.

Bolden endured two federal criminal trials within a period of less then two months in the Federal District Court in Chicago , Illinois . At the end of the first trial, during the deliberation of the jury, the trial judge stated to the jury that in his opinion, the evidence sustained a verdict of guilty on all counts of the indictment. The trial judge then prompted the jury to continue deliberation taking the judge’s opinion into consideration. That trial ended when the jury, in spite of the judge’s prejudicial remarks, was unable to reach a verdict. (See United States vs. Bolden, 64CR324 and Fed. 2nd 453)

Bolden’s second trial was conducted before the same trial judge who denied a motion for a substitution of judge and a change of venue. At the conclusion of the second trial on August 11, 1964, at the judge’s instigation and acquiescence, Bolden and his attorney, and other non government employed spectators, were locked out of the court building during the deliberation of the jury. During the forced absence of Bolden from the trial procedures, a verdict of guilty was returned.

The case against Bolden began to fall apart when one of the witnesses, Joseph Spagnoli, who testified against Bolden, confessed that he and another witness, Frank William Jones, concocted and fabricated the criminal case against Bolden with the help of an Assistant United States Attorney. In spite of Spagnoli’s confession and documentary evidence tending to support Spagnoli’s accusation, the government refused to deny the charges levied by Spagnoli. When questioned before a three judge panel during oral arguments before the United States Court of Appeals concerning Spagnoli’s assertions made under oath in open court, the accused assistant government attorney refused to answer the question of the subornation of perjury and availed himself of his fifth amendment rights against self incrimination. Notwithstanding, Bolden was sent away to the penitentiary.

Bolden was subsequently sent to the prison camp at the Springfield Medical Center for Federal Prisoners. Following a disagreement with one of the psychiatric patients, Bolden was held in solitary confinement, in the psychiatric ward against his will and without the mandatory court order regarding inmate medical treatment. He was forced to ingest psychotropic drugs. The effort to declare Bolden insane was unsuccessful and Bolden was paroled in September of 1969 after serving three years and three months in federal confinement.

After being released from prison, Bolden established himself as a master at quality control administrative procedures in various machining and metal fabricating companies in Chicago . He retired after serving 35 years in quality control supervisory positions.

For his tireless efforts in the pursuit of justice and equity before the law, Bolden has been the recipient of the 2008 Scottish Hugo’s Companion Tankard Award for Courage, the 2008 African American Arts Alliance Award for Excellence, the 2008 Alpha Phi Alpha Award for Courage. He has been cited by the National Urban League as one of America ’s Outstanding Black Men.

He now lives in Chicago , Illinois where he has been a resident for the past 47 years.

The undersigned believes that the above circumstances of injustice and a lack of due process in obtaining a conviction of Bolden cry out for executive action that will remedy the sufferings of Abraham W. Bolden, Sr. He has been a model citizen since his release from federal confinement on September 25, 1969 and it is now time that his human rights as an American citizen be completely restored. Executive action by the President of These United States of America is his last resort. We pray that such action will be forthcoming.

http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/12123

31 January 2012

Douglas Brinkley, historian:
“So far I’ve bought into the Posner, Case Closed”
…
“The big question still remaining: `Why did Oswald do it?’”
…
“I believe Oswald could have made the shot.”

NOTE: Oswald could have “made the shot” if he’d owned the rifle, had been on the sixth floor of the Book Depository, had gotten graphite on his hands or cheeks by doing so, had bullets that matched those found in the bodies and limousine, had enough competence to aim the gun and correct for the scope, and could do better than all the Army weapons experts who tried with a repaired gun at an easier target who failed to hit it. Reality is such a hard taskmaster.

Then again, what shot could he have made from there? Maybe the one that went through Governor Connally’s chest or the one that missed and hit James Tague near the overpass.

He could not have made either shot the Warren Commission credits him with. The fatal head shot clearly comes from the front. The “single bullet” shot, if it had actually happened, would have caused a wound from JFK’s back through to his throat. Robert Cutler took the Warren Commissioners at their word and traced that wound at the angle they described and the other required angles that the wound information would allow. He took it backwards instead. It goes well below the sixth floor and well to the south of the Book Depository.

Oswald could not have made a shot through both Kennedy and Connally since there was not time time to shoot twice and the interval between those wounds is too long for one bullet, unless it suspended in mid-air. The angles are all wrong for one bullet as well, as are the angles and timing of the wounds to Connally’s wrist and thighs. Then there’s the problem of the windshield, but never mind.

Anyone COULD have made any number of shots. NOBODY could have fired three bullets from one location and killed Kennedy and caused the other damage and wounds that day in the limousine on Elm Street.

So is the historian’s standard of evidence and conviction not proof positive, proof logical or much less proof without reasonable doubt, but only proof of possibility ignoring all other evidence? Only if the one book you read is by Gerald Posner, who distorts all the evidence.

Who knows, maybe an ambivalent Oswald COULD have fired from two different and distant locations at almost the same instant (3.2 second intervals max). Maybe Oswald had help. Maybe two lone gunmen showed up at the same time and location with the intent to kill Kennedy as the Washington Post suggested long ago when acoustical evidence of a fourth shot that day convinced the House Select Committee on Assassinations that there was a “probable conspiracy” involved. After all, they noted, there is no proof the gunmen knew each other.

Then again, maybe Oswald didn’t fire a gun that day at either Kennedy or Tippit. Maybe Oswald was a patsy, just as he said he was, with no stress level in his voice. In fact, Oswald COULD have been framed for a crime he did not commit to protect a conspiracy of people who did all the shots and got away with it. I’m an historian too, so I’ll pick this one. At least there’s evidence for all of it. John Judge

http://jfkcountercoup.blogspot.com/2012/02/air-force-one-radio-transmission.html

Air Force One Radio Transmission Transcript – Update

- Andrews Sideband.Sir?
- This is Dorman, General LeMay’s aide. General LeMay is in a C-140
- The last three numbers are
- He is in bound. His code name is Grandson, and I want to talk to him.
- Grandson. We’re really busy with Air Force One
- You don’t have the ability to do two at once?
- What is your drop?
- Either
- If you can’t do it now it will be too late because he will be on the ground in a half hour.
- Okay, and what is your name again sir?
Colonel Dorman. D-O-R-M-A-N
We’ll get back to you…

Richard E. Snyder, Foreign Service officer who handled Oswald’s attempted defection, dies at 92
Washington Post
By T. Rees Shapiro
Published: January 31

Richard E. Snyder, a Foreign Service officer who as a senior consul in Moscow handled the attempted defection of future presidential assassin Lee Harvey Oswald to the Soviet Union, died Jan. 9 at a health-care facility in Georgetown, Ky. He was 92.

He had Alzheimer’s disease, said his daughter Dianne Snyder.

Mr. Snyder served as a Japanese and Russian specialist in the State Department from 1950 to 1970. He spent the much of his career serving in posts across Japan, and he helped prepare for the 1972 transfer of the Ryukyu Islands from the United States back to Japan.

But it was his two years in Russia during the height of Cold War tensions that proved the most eventful.

From July 1959 to July 1961, Mr. Snyder served as a senior consular official at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow. During that time, he attended the trial of Francis Gary Powers, an American spy-plane pilot who was shot down in 1960 over the Ural mountains.

In 1979, Mr. Snyder wrote an expansive account published in The Washington Post of his encounters with Oswald.

It was on a Saturday — Oct. 31, 1959 — that Mr. Snyder was approached by Oswald, a slim and primly groomed man who announced his desire to dissolve his American citizenship. He had recently separated from the U.S. Marine Corps and had traveled to the Soviet Union inspired by his professed belief in Marxism.

When he came to Mr. Snyder’s desk that day in October, Oswald thrust his U.S. passport into the consul’s hands.

Mr. Snyder inspected Oswald’s papers and found that he’d just had his 20th birthday. During his tenure in Moscow, Mr. Snyder had dealt with such defection cases before.

“Among the humanitarian and political considerations in such cases was the naivete of the principals,” Mr. Snyder wrote in The Post. “A common characteristic of those who chose the Soviet Union as the place to work out their problems was that they knew nothing about it.”

Although Oswald seemed adamant about becoming a Soviet citizen, Mr. Snyder told the young man to think about his decision and return the following Monday to sign the appropriate documents. In the meantime, Mr. Snyder stowed Oswald’s passport in his embassy desk for safekeeping.

Oswald did not come back for 20 months. During that time, he worked in a factory in Minsk.

When Oswald returned to the U.S. Embassy in July 1961, he told Mr. Snyder that he had “learned a hard lesson the hard way.”

As one of his last duties in Russia, Mr. Snyder agreed to return Oswald his passport. Days later, Mr. Snyder left Moscow for another assignment in Tokyo.

Mr. Snyder later wrote that Oswald had been “relegated to a forgotten corner of my mind” until President John F. Kennedy was fatally shot in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963. Oswald was shot and killed two days later by nightclub owner Jack Ruby.

Oswald was the principal suspect in the presidential assassination, and Mr. Snyder later testified for the Warren Commission about his handling of Oswald in Moscow.

“Why, an acquaintance once asked me, did we let a guy like Oswald back into the country?” Mr. Snyder wrote in 1979. “The answer is that an American doesn’t need permission to return to his own country. Unlike some, the American state has no power to banish those it thinks unworthy.”

Richard Edward Snyder was born Dec. 10, 1919, in Newark. During World War II, he served in the Army in Europe and received the Bronze Star Medal for helping to evacuate his wounded comrades while under enemy fire. He spent 10 years in the Army Reserve and retired at the rank of major.

He was a 1948 Yale University graduate and received a master’s degree in Russian studies from Harvard University in 1956.

Mr. Snyder lived in Alexandria for more than 30 years before moving to Kentucky in 2004.

His wife of 64 years, Anna Dimeo Snyder, died in 2006.

Survivors include two daughters, Dianne Snyder of Alexandria and Gail Wiederwohl of Georgetown, Ky.; a brother; three grandchildren; and two great-granddaughters.

PHOTO
In this 1965 Globe front page photo, John Kennedy Jr. ran down a street in England, with Jack Walsh keeping pace. (AP FILE PHOTO/ 1965)

Jack Walsh was a relatively new Secret Service agent when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated, and he soon was assigned to protect Jacqueline Kennedy and her two young children, Caroline and John Jr.

“Those were difficult times,’’ said Jim Christian, a retired special agent in charge with the Secret Service. “The nation was in mourning, she was probably the most important person in the United States, and the country pretty much adopted the children.’’

The assignment brought Mr. Walsh more than the standard chores of missing his children’s birthdays so he could guard the children of America’s Camelot. As fascination with the Kennedys increased, writers sought him out to see if he would share secrets.

“We would get repeated calls from people writing the unauthorized Kennedy books. He wouldn’t take a call,’’ said Mr. Walsh’s son David, of Cincinnati. “Whatever happened behind the walls at the Kennedy compound, stayed behind those walls.’’

Mr. Walsh, who became agent in charge of protecting the late president’s children and was so well loved by the family that he was a pallbearer at the funeral of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, died in his home of cancer Thursday. He was 79 and had lived in Milton for more than 40 years.

“Jack had one of the more difficult jobs in the Secret Service,’’ Christian said. “He had to keep Washington happy and that meant keeping the children safe, and it also meant keeping her happy. That was an enormous balancing act.’’

When the president’s widow lived in New York City, she “wanted to keep those children safe, but she also wanted them to have normal lives,’’ Christian said. “The desire was that the children and their friends would not see the agents, but the agents had the responsibility of not letting anything happen. With all the other protectees, you were right there. Here, you were trying to stay out of the way, sometimes on busy New York streets.’’

Mr. Walsh, he said, “did it all, and he did it well.’’

Despite efforts to fade into the scenery, Mr. Walsh occasionally showed up in books by and about the Kennedys, or on the Globe’s front page, as he did May 17, 1965. In a photo, John Kennedy Jr. runs joyously down a street in England as a smiling Mr. Walsh towers over him, keeping pace.

Sarah Bradford’s 2000 book, “America’s Queen,’’ quoted a letter Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis wrote in 1967 about a trip to Ireland. She thought she was swimming alone on the coast when a current threatened to sweep her away.

“I was becoming exhausted, swallowing water and slipping past the spit of land, when I felt a great porpoise at my side,’’ she wrote. “It was Mr. Walsh. He set his shoulder against mine and together we made the spit.’’

She recommended that the Secret Service award Mr. Walsh its highest commendation and requested that he lead the detail protecting the family.

“He was fiercely loyal and loved loyalty more than anything else,’’ said Geoffrey Kierstead, a friend and retired Secret Service agent. “And he was so loyal to the Kennedy family.’’

The feeling was mutual. Raymond L. Flynn, a former mayor of Boston, knew Mr. Walsh and his family since their childhoods in South Boston.

“I was in New York jogging one day through Central Park, and Jacqueline Kennedy was there,’’ he said. “She was sitting by herself trying not to be noticed, but I recognized her. I went over and introduced myself and said, ‘I’m a friend of Jackie Walsh.’ I ended up sitting with her for 45 minutes. All she wanted to do was talk about him.’’

John F. Walsh grew up in South Boston and, despite traveling the world with the Kennedys, never really left.

Photos of Southie hang in his Milton home. He attended Gate of Heaven Church in South Boston and its high school.

When he served in Korea with the Marines, he answered the obligatory “where you from’’ with: “Gate of Heaven.’’ Pressed to provide more, he would add: “I and 8th,’’ the street corner close by his family’s home.

Mr. Walsh was part of the Aces, a street gang from the days when pride was the weapon young guys wielded.

“He was known as Jack Walsh, I and 8th, one of the Aces,’’ David said. “He hadn’t lived in Southie for a long, long time, but you’d never know it.’’

Standing several inches above 6 feet, Mr. Walsh started going gray while still in high school.

“He had silver hair at 18 years old,’’ said his son John II, of Milton.

After returning home from Korea, Mr. Walsh graduated from Suffolk University and worked at City Hall until he became a Secret Service agent.

When the Kennedy children were too old for Secret Service protection, Mr. Walsh switched to the Boston office and coordinated protection when Pope John Paul II visited Boston in 1979. The Walsh family was up front during Mass, receiving Communion from the pope.

In 1963, Mr. Walsh married Ann Welch, whom he always called “my Ann.’’ Family was so important that while guarding the Kennedys in New York, he sometimes drove to Milton just to spend the night, and headed back the next day.

As if to make up for holidays and birthdays he missed while on duty, in retirement “he went to every one of his grandchildren’s games,’’ David said.

In addition to his wife and two sons, Mr. Walsh leaves a daughter, Maura Walsh-Hammer of Hingham; another son, Matthew of New York City; a brother, Joseph of Hyde Park; a sister, Ellen Concannon of South Boston; and nine grandchildren

A funeral Mass will be said at 10 a.m. today in Gate of Heaven Church in South Boston. Burial will be in Milton Cemetery.

When his illness progressed, Mr. Walsh “had three requests: ‘I want to die in my bedroom, I want to be waked at O’Brien’s Funeral Home in South Boston, and I want my funeral at Gate of Heaven,’ ’’ David said.

Mr. Walsh may have spent years training his watchful gaze on those who made history, but in the end his own past was most important.

“The best praise is when the people you grew up with and lived with respect you,’’ Flynn said. “That’s the greatest tribute that Jackie got. He traveled with presidents, popes, and prime ministers, but the people who love him the most are the people he grew up with.’’