deep politics

In Part 1 of this series, we told how Richard Case Nagell, a man who knew Lee Harvey Oswald and had apparent connections to intelligence, mysteriously walked into a bank, shot two holes into a wall, and awaited arrest — months before the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Here, in Part 2, we pick up after he is released from US prison and decides to travel to East Germany — all the while under the close watch of the CIA.

On September 20, 1963, two months before President John F. Kennedy was gunned down in Dallas, a highly decorated Army veteran named Richard Case Nagell walked into a bank in El Paso, fired two shots into a wall from a revolver, and went outside to await arrest. There was speculation, even by the officer who put him in handcuffs, that for some reason he wanted to be locked up. Nagell was charged with attempted bank robbery. Only later would he indicate to the FBI that he feared being implicated in an “inimical act” — one that involved accused JFK assassin Lee Harvey Oswald.

To those not acquainted with the multifaceted narrative of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination, the idea that US intelligence was somehow involved sounds like wild speculation — an alternative reality deserving of the pejorative label “conspiracy theory.”

But to those more familiar with the facts surrounding the case, and knowledgeable about the formation and history of operations of the various intelligence agencies — particularly the CIA — this doesn’t seem so far-fetched after all.

The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) today released its sixth 2017 batch of records that may in some way relate to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. The agency’s press release states that this latest cache includes 3,539 documents.

Anyone who has worked at a television network has loads of stories about pieces that were spiked or totally suppressed because the corporation went into damage-control mode. One recent example: 60 Minutes.

On December 3, during a congenial retrospective presentation — “Fifty Years of 60 Minutes” — the iconic news program re-lived some of the show’s biggest moments: trophy interviews, scoops and revelations, and, commendably, a few jumbo mistakes.

Was Mary Pinchot Meyer killed in an intricate, CIA-conducted operation like something out of the old television show, Mission Impossible?

Did Meyer, who was President John F. Kennedy’s mistress, know too much about his assassination, and about the organization she believed was involved? Her own husband, Cord Meyer, was in charge of a CIA division that was involved in, among other things, assassinations, according to Peter Janney.

The National Archives and Records Administration has just released 10,744 new JFK assassination files from the FBI.

From a NARA press release:

Who killed President John F. Kennedy’s mistress, and why?

In searching for the answers to this mystery, author Peter Janney came upon what seem to be the jagged fragments of an even bigger picture.

Those with a stake in avoiding the truth about John F. Kennedy’s assassination want you to believe Lee Harvey Oswald was a lone nut. If you won’t accept that, they have a fallback position: “It’s even worse. He was working for the commies.”

That “alternative” scenario revolves around a purported Oswald trip to Mexico City in the months before Kennedy’s death, when he allegedly visited Soviet and Cuban missions, met with a handler and sought his escape path to his beloved USSR.

There’s just one problem with this narrative. It probably isn’t true.

The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) just released the largest number of JFK assassination files it has released thus far this year — 13,213 mostly CIA files — but then introduced a frustrating wrinkle, raising doubts about the coherence of the process and about their intent.

NARA’s press office released the following statement with the files:

The following is an article about an open letter Dan Hardway sent to his senator. Hardway worked as an investigator on the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) in the late 1970s, and is a noted expert on the JFK assassination. He calls on all people interested in transparency to reject an all-encompassing government secrecy that threatens our very liberty and democracy. — WhoWhatWhy Staff

A 1964 CIA memo spells out clearly how James Jesus Angleton, the agency’s famous counterintelligence chief, wanted to deal with inquiries from the Warren Commission:

The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) released 676 additional JFK assassination records today. It appears that 582 were “withheld-in-full,” meaning they have never been seen by the public. From NARA:

For those of us waiting since passage of the JFK Act of 1992 for release of the last withheld documents on President John F. Kennedy’s assassination, the news last Thursday was beyond anti-climactic. It was infuriating — and illegal.

Given that President Donald Trump seized the opportunity to be in Dallas for a GOP fundraiser, it was also an insult to the memory of Kennedy’s assassination in the same city almost 54 years before.

A National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) official has told WhoWhatWhy that approximately 2,800 JFK assassination records remain withheld in full following Thursday’s disappointing release. Here is an up-to-the-minute count of the documents that NARA has not yet made public:

Withheld in Full — there remain approximately 2,745 documents withheld in full; of these 547 were withheld in full for tax or grand jury information that is not currently subject to release.

What happened on Thursday, Oct. 26, with the JFK records scheduled for release under the JFK Records Act? A travesty.

As some suspected he would, President Donald Trump has made the decision to delay the full release of remaining classified JFK assassination documents. The White House press office released a statement, which we have reproduced in full, below.

It’s 3:00 pm EST, and the National Archives has not yet released the long awaited JFK assassination documents. Weeks ago they assured WhoWhatWhy that we were on the mailing list for updates, while unwilling or unable to give out any information regarding the timing of the release, the number of documents, or whether any executive branch agencies had requested some or all of the documents to be withheld.

The day legions of Americans have been waiting for has finally arrived: Today the National Archives is set to release all remaining classified documents related to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

The highly anticipated release of long-withheld US government documents related to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy is scheduled for this Thursday, October 26. In anticipation, the media has devoted more attention to this history-altering political murder than at any time since the hoopla surrounding Oliver Stone’s 1991 film “JFK.”

On Saturday, President Trump tweeted:

The highly anticipated release of long-withheld US government documents related to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy is scheduled for Thursday, October 26. In the runup to this event, the media have devoted more attention to this history-altering political murder than at any time since the Oliver Stone film “JFK” came out in 1991.

The highly anticipated release of long-withheld US government documents related to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy is scheduled for October 26. In the runup to this event, the media have devoted more attention to this history-altering political murder than at any time since the Oliver Stone film “JFK” came out in 1991.

Today, a majority of Americans assume the government lied to us about the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. New evidence seems to prove they are right.

This is the story of a bullet — a spent, misshapen, but otherwise intact, bullet — that James Young, a Navy doctor, said was found late at night, on the floor, in the back of Kennedy’s limousine.  He inspected it himself.

In Part 1 of this absorbing mystery, we saw some of the confounding facts that have made this event so

incomprehensible, even after so many decades.

The Ken Burns/Lynn Novick documentary series on Vietnam, currently airing on PBS, skates very lightly over one of the war’s most contentious questions: Did John F. Kennedy intend to pursue the fight or to pull out?

It all started with a single gunshot from a Blackwater Security Company guard. A young man who was driving with his mother to pick up his dad from work was killed. His foot wedged against the accelerator causing his car to roll towards a Blackwater vehicle. Then, as one eyewitness recalled, “the shooting started like rain.” The young man’s car burst into flames after a direct hit by a grenade.

On October 12, 1964, Mary Pinchot Meyer, a Washington socialite, went for her usual jog along the Potomac River in a fairly deserted section of Washington DC and, for no apparent reason, she was shot twice at close range. She was neither raped nor robbed.

A witness, who heard screaming and shots ran to an embankment overlooking the scene, arrived in time to see a black man standing over Meyer’s body. He said the man stared at the woman for a bit, then put a dark object in his pocket, presumably a gun, and calmly walked away.

Webster’s dictionary defines disinformation as: “false information deliberately and often covertly spread (as by the planting of rumors) in order to influence public opinion or obscure the truth.” For a fascinating example of disinformation, mainstream-media style, consider this story in Politico Magazine, How the CIA Came to Doubt the Official Story of JFK’s Murder by Philip Shenon and Larry J. Sabato.

For decades, those investigating the assassination of President John F. Kennedy have been eagerly anticipating the release of previously withheld documents scheduled for later this year, October 26. One major question that remains is whether President Donald Trump will use his authority to further keep these documents from the public eye.(1)

Fifty-four years is long enough.

Here is the first major revelation from the historic release of previously withheld government records on the JFK Assassination: the mayor of Dallas when President John F. Kennedy was killed in that city was a CIA asset.

We were alerted to this salient fact by retired military intelligence officer and author John Newman, who is conducting a thorough analysis of the long-secret documents.

At the time of the assassination, Dallas Mayor Earle Cabell, brother of one-time Deputy Director of Central Intelligence Charles P. Cabell, had been a CIA asset since 1956.

Exactly 70 years ago today, President Harry S. Truman signed the National Security Act, creating the Department of Defense, the National Security Council, the Joint Chiefs of Staff — and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

As prior Watergate excerpts from Family of Secrets have shown, there is every reason to distrust the accepted story of this seminal event. In fact, Watergate teaches us to be much more skeptical of what we are told by the establishment — the government, academia, big media. Turns out that self-interest, conformity, and suppression of alarming insight are more common than even the most cynical of us may suspect.

Over the years, we have been told, ad nauseum, that Richard Nixon was the ultimate culprit in Watergate. And Watergate has come to represent the ultimate in presidential overreach and perfidy.

Yet, no one has been able to explain the real purpose of the burglary with any certainty, or why the burglars committed such rookie errors, leading to their discovery and arrest — and, eventually, to Nixon’s downfall.

Earlier this week, The New York Times published a story on how top Trump administration officials have asked Erik Prince, the founder of Blackwater, and billionaire Stephen Feinberg, who owns military contractor DynCorp, to come up with alternative plans on how to proceed in Afghanistan.

Happy Birthday, Poppy Bush! For us, the Bush family, and particularly George H.W. “Poppy” Bush, has been, in a way, a gift. We have learned more about elites in America, about the secret history of covert operations, about the fragile balance between money and democracy — just from studying this clan.

Raise a glass to the man himself, 93 today.

We are running this series because people are looking to Watergate as a guide from another time, when nother president was on the ropes. And we are running it because, as is often the case, the media did not truly investigate what went on, or why. They, along with many historians, continue to perpetuate basic falsehoods about what transpired during that epic scandal, while ignoring what Nixon actually did and said, as well as evidence suggesting that far different factors may have been behind his impeachment.

We are running this series because people are looking back at Watergate as a guide from another time, when another president was on the ropes. And we are running it because, as is often the case, the media did not truly investigate what went on, or why. They, along with so-called historians, continue to perpetuate basic falsehoods about what transpired during that epic scandal, what Nixon actually did and said — and they ignored intriguing evidence suggesting the real reason he was removed.

Stuart Wexler and Larry Hancock’s mini e-book, Killing King, on various attempts at assassinating Martin Luther King, does a good job of reporting on the tight KKK/Southern law enforcement network that pretty much committed every major regional bombing and assassination of civil rights activists (and of small children in the infamous 1963 bombing of a church in Bir

The evidence suggests the FBI went to extraordinary lengths to set up one of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s best friends, to ensure his help in convicting the accused Boston Marathon bomber.

Stephen Silva, who testified against Tsarnaev, was released on December 22, 2015, and is now a free man after being sentenced to time served:17 months. Had he not agreed to testify for the prosecution, he would have faced a maximum of 40 years for selling heroin — something the FBI manipulated him into doing.

When John F. Kennedy was assassinated on November 22, 1963, the United States lost more than its president. It lost its innocence. The subsequent investigations into the young president’s killing raised more questions than they answered — and caused Americans to lose faith in their government. Indeed, for many people in the US and across the world, the assassination marked the point at which their fundamental perceptions changed.

When John F. Kennedy was assassinated on November 22, 1963, the United States lost more than its president. It lost its innocence. The subsequent investigations into the young president’s killing raised more questions than they answered — and caused Americans to lose faith in their government. Indeed, for many people in the US and across the world, the assassination marked the point at which their fundamental perceptions changed.

When John F. Kennedy was assassinated on November 22, 1963, the United States lost more than its president. It lost its innocence. The subsequent investigations into the young president’s killing raised more questions than they answered — and caused Americans to lose faith in their government. Indeed, for many people in the US and across the world, the assassination marked the point at which their fundamental perceptions changed.

For more than half a century, the combined American thought establishment (media, publishing, film, academia, and the like) have been cranking out a steady stream of books, articles, films, plays and more that present a completely false picture of what the assassination of John F. Kennedy was about — including who was behind it, and why.

When John F. Kennedy was assassinated on November 22, 1963, the United States lost more than its president. It lost its innocence. The subsequent investigations into the young president’s killing raised more questions than they answered — and caused Americans to lose faith in their government. Indeed, for many people in the US and across the world, the assassination marked the point at which their fundamental perceptions changed.

When John F. Kennedy was assassinated on November 22, 1963, the United States lost more than its president. It lost its innocence. The subsequent investigations into the young president’s killing raised more questions than they answered — and caused Americans to lose faith in their government. Indeed, for many people in the US and across the world, the assassination marked the point at which their fundamental perceptions changed.

When John F. Kennedy was assassinated on November 22, 1963, the United States lost more than its president. It lost its innocence. The subsequent investigations into the young president’s killing raised more questions than they answered — and caused Americans to lose faith in their government. Indeed, for many people in the US and across the world, the assassination marked the point at which their fundamental perceptions changed.

With the end of the old Communist system, it seemed that free speech and a diversity of voices would flourish behind the former Iron Curtain. That certainly hasn’t happened in Russia.

Even more troubling, though, is how the corporate media in the United States repeatedly fails to uncover and report the truth about recent American history.

With the end of the old Communist system, it seemed that free speech and a diversity of voices would flourish behind the former Iron Curtain. That certainly hasn’t happened in Russia.

Even more troubling, though, is how the corporate media in the United States repeatedly fails to uncover and report the truth about recent American history.

With the end of the old Communist system, it seemed that free speech and a diversity of voices would flourish behind the former Iron Curtain. That certainly hasn’t happened in Russia.

Even more troubling, though, is how the corporate media in the United States repeatedly fails to uncover and report the truth about recent American history.

Something new at WWW! We are pleased to introduce the WhoWhatWhy Blog. Check it out for short pieces on issues that matter to the WhoWhatWhy community.

The blog will feature updates to our stories, rants and raves, commentary, memes, polls, etc. And we will include plenty of “eyebrow-raisers” — news, rumors and the like that caught our attention.

With the end of the old Communist system, it seemed that free speech and a diversity of voices would flourish behind the former Iron Curtain. That certainly hasn’t happened in Russia.

Even more troubling, though, is how the corporate media in the United States repeatedly fails to uncover and report the truth about recent American history.

With the end of the old Communist system, it seemed that free speech and a diversity of voices would flourish behind the former Iron Curtain. That certainly hasn’t happened in Russia.

Even more troubling, though, is how the corporate media in the United States repeatedly fails to uncover and report the truth about recent American history.

Michael Hand, the co-founder of the infamous Nugan Hand Bank who disappeared in 1980 when Australian authorities began investigating the bank’s criminal activities, has been found.

Several years ago, when I heard that George H.W. Bush’s “biographer” was preparing an authorized account of the 41st president’s life, I was curious, to say the least. How would he handle the remarkable fact that Bush 41, known to friends and family as “Poppy,” was nothing like the man the public thought he was?

The underlying story of Benghazi is one that cannot and will not be talked about in any open session of Congress. This means that Thursday’s hearing featuring former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was nothing but an exercise in futility.

As you watch, perhaps with alarm, while thousands of refugees from Muslim countries make their way through Europe in a seemingly endless parade, you may be wondering if some of them will end up living near you, and how this might affect your life.

If you step back and look at the bigger picture, you will see the situation in reverse: how much the dominating presence of those from the western world has affected the daily lives of people living in Muslim countries.

As you watch, perhaps with alarm, while thousands of refugees from Muslim countries make their way through Europe in a seemingly endless parade, you may be wondering if some of them will end up living near you, and how this might affect your life.

If you step back and look at the bigger picture, you will see the situation in reverse: how much the dominating presence of those from the western world has affected the daily lives of people living in Muslim countries.

As you watch, perhaps with alarm, as thousands of refugees from Muslim countries make their way through Europe in a seemingly endless parade, you may be wondering if some of them will end up living near you, and how this might affect your life.

If you step back and look at the bigger picture, you will see the situation in reverse: how much the dominating presence of those from the western world has affected the daily lives of people living in Muslim countries.

George W. Bush sent thousands of Americans to their deaths in wars that could have been avoided — while he himself dodged the draft as a young man. Dan Rather’s reporting on how Bush allegedly got away with it led to the famed television news anchorman’s spectacular downfall.

George W. Bush sent thousands of Americans to their deaths in wars that could have been avoided — while he himself dodged the draft as a young man. Dan Rather’s reporting on how Bush allegedly got away with it led to the famed television news anchorman’s spectacular downfall.

No one can possibly understand the precarious state of American democracy today without scrutinizing the often secret path the country was taken on by those in power from the 1950s to the present.

Among the elemental figures in forging that path was Allen Dulles.

He was the most powerful, and, it appears — the most sinister — director of the Central Intelligence Agency. Given that outfit’s history, that’s some accomplishment.

Dulles’s job, simply put, was to hijack the US government to benefit the wealthy.

No one can possibly understand the precarious state of American democracy today without scrutinizing the often secret path the country was taken on by those in power from the 1950s to the present.

Among the elemental figures in forging that path was Allen Dulles.

He was the most powerful, and, it appears — the most sinister — director of the Central Intelligence Agency. Given that outfit’s history, that’s some accomplishment.

Dulles’s job, simply put, was to hijack the US government to benefit the wealthy.

No one can possibly understand the precarious state of American democracy today without scrutinizing the often secret path the country was taken on by those in power from the 1950s to the present.

Among the elemental figures in forging that path was Allen Dulles.

He was the most powerful, and, it appears — the most sinister — director of the Central Intelligence Agency. Given that outfit’s history, that’s some accomplishment.

Dulles’s job, simply put, was to hijack the US government to benefit the wealthy.

Ben Carson, now a leading candidate in the polls, has drawn criticism for some of his more extreme statements about foreigners — and, like so many of his fellow GOP candidates, has had to step back and declare he was misunderstood.

One thing you can almost always count on: When a major narrative takes over the news, it will be devoid of any sort of useful context. Put another way, when we are saturated with a “mega-problem,” we can be sure that we will not be told the real cause — not if it so happens the US had something to do with it. No, it is always just a new thing to occupy us, to push out other stories, to encourage copious amounts of superficial debate (of the sort that typically rages over spectator sports), that never begins to get at the truth.

Podcast, with Russ Baker explaining WhoWhatWhy’s reporting on a little-known but absolutely central explanatory story regarding 9/11. Were elements of the Saudi royal family complicit in the 9/11 attacks? (Sound quality a bit staticky— run time approximately 9 minutes)

Hijackers

THIS WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN 2011

Introduction:

Introduction:

Introduction:

You will be riveted by this video, not even three minutes long, showing JFK’s Secret Service protection being waved away from his car, and the perplexed reaction of at least one Special Agent.

BearCat in Boston lockdown.

If you’re a small town or perhaps a university security department, the US Department of Defense has got a deal for you!

Written and produced by Adam Curtis, The Power of Nightmares—The Rise of the Politics of Fear explores the similarities between the ascent of the American Neo-Conservative movement and the trajectory of radical, fundamentalist Islamism in three one-hour films.

This 4-part BBC mini-series aired in 2002, tracing the development of Freudian psychology and its exploitation by advertising to manipulate people into wanting things they don’t need. The documentary describes the impact of Freud’s theories on the perception of the human mind, and the ways public relations agencies and politicians have used this during the last 100 years for their engineering of consent.

A top FBI official brazenly warned off the former chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence because of his persistence in pursuing connections between the Saudi royal family and the 9/11 attacks.

In the latest indication of a rolling government cover-up of the September 11, 2001, attacks, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is disowning an explosive internal report that suggests high-level Saudi involvement. And Washington seems only too happy to accept this latest peculiar FBI apologia.

WhoWhatWhy Editor-in-Chief Russ Baker and reporter Andy Thibault are tweeting live from the opening of the trial of accused Boston Marathon Bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. Tune in for real-time updates and analysis from inside the John Joseph Moakley U.S. Courthouse in Boston.

The post WhoWhatWhy Live from the Opening of the Boston Bombing Trial appeared first on WhoWhatWhy.

The First Circuit Court of Appeals on Feb. 19 will hear arguments on Boston Marathon Bombing defendant Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s latest attempt to move his trial.

It didn’t take long for the government to rattle its sabers about cyber-security after the hacking of health insurer Anthem.

On Monday, attorneys representing victims of the 9/11 attacks filed papers alleging substantial Saudi financial support for Al Qaeda and terrorism, including a plan to shoot down Air Force One. This Saudi support supposedly continued up to shortly before 9/11. Donors included leading members of the royal family.

A woman holds up a picture of Alberto Nisman at a rally.

The death of Argentinian prosecutor Alberto Nisman couldn’t be more like the opening scenes of a Hollywood thriller.

One intriguing—if barely discussed—aspect of the Paris massacre was the quick progress authorities made in their investigation.

According to CNN, this was thanks to a staggering error—by one of the two now-dead alleged perpetrators. The man, Said Kouachi, reportedly left his identification card in the abandoned getaway vehicle. “It was their only mistake,” Dominique Rizet, police and justice consultant for CNN-affiliate BFMTV, opined.

Are Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s lawyers trying to defend his case on the facts at all, or are they just trying to save his life?

Based on the overwhelmingly lopsided advantage the government holds, with a virtual monopoly on investigative evidence, it’s safe to assume the latter.

Barrett Brown.

A feisty, confrontational journalist who exposed explosive details about the machinations of the national security apparatus and faced more than a century in prison has been sentenced to five years and three months.

Petraeus and President Obama in better days.

There’s no doubt that Gen. David Petraeus’ affair was a colossal blunder: it forced him from the CIA’s top job and tarnished what had been a sterling military career.

But was the general sharing more than just his bed with a junior officer, and will it land him in prison?

Petraeus and President Obama in better days.

There’s no doubt that Gen. David Petraeus’ affair was a colossal blunder: it forced him from the CIA’s top job and tarnished what had been a sterling military career.

But was the general sharing more than just his bed with a junior officer, and will it land him in prison?

Photo collage of the Boston Marathon Bombing. By DonkeyHotey.

We do not know what will come out of the trial of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, but one thing we are pretty sure of: we will not get the real, complete story of what actually happened.