From nyt@blythe.org Thu Jul 29 15:21:59 1993 Date: Sat, 10 Jul 93 11:55:40 EDT From: NY Transfer News To: act@blythe.org, actpub@blythe.org, cov@blythe.org, covpub@blythe.org, gen.newsletter@conf.igc.org, alt.activism@conf.igc.org Cc: alt.conspiracy@conf.igc.org Subject: JFK:Open Letter to Noam Chomsky/2 Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit From: M.MORRISSEY@ASCO.central.de (Mike Morrissey) AN OPEN LETTER TO NOAM CHOMSKY from Michael Morrissey Kassel, Germany (Part 2 of 2 parts) I don't see how you or anyone can have read much of the assassination literature and come to the conclusion that there is no evidence of conspiracy and no evidence of government complicity, which seems to be your position. Obviously, if you believe that, there is no reason to be interested in the question of whether the government is so corrupt (and the population so propagandized, particularly the journalistic and academic elite) that it can murder the president (and Fred Hampton, MLK, RFK, etc.) and keep it secret for decades. Note, however, that what the government and the mainstream media may keep as an official secret need not be a secret to the majority of the population. Opinion polls have consistently shown that in contradistinction to the journalistic and academic elite (to which you belong), most Americans believe the JFK assassination (and probably the RFK and MLK assassinations, though I haven't seen any figures on these) was a conspiracy." You say that historians of the Vietnam war treat the withdrawal plans as without much importance for the simple reason that they were without much importance. I say they are behaving in full accordance with the propaganda model (PM 1) that dictates: "No Vietnam policy change between JFK and LBJ." As for the apparent exceptions, Roger Hilsman and Arthur Schlesinger, I have no quarrel with your pre- and post-Tet analysis. Post-Tet, in order to accommodate the Schlesingers and Hilsmans who wish to dissociate themselves with the US defeat, PM 1 can be modified to PM 2 (though PM 1 remains dominant): "LBJ reversed JFK's policy, and JFK might have acted differently"--but God forbid that this should imply any connection with the assassination (note Schlesinger's hysterical insistence on this point in his review of the Stone film). We do not have to assume that Schlesinger was either lying or ignorant, pre- or post-Tet. He believed what he was supposed to believe, according to PM 1 or PM 2, as one evolved into the other. The third alternative--that there was no withdrawal plan, even one based on the assumption of military success ("victory" if you like)--can also be eliminated. The answer to your question (Was he 1) keeping it secret in 1965, 2) unaware of it, or 3) unaware of it because it didn't exist) is: None of the Above. Schlesinger's behavior is a fine example of the propaganda model at work, applying more readily to academic elites than to the less "educated" population, who are much slower to conform. Schlesinger is neither a liar nor an ignoramus. He has merely done consistently what has been expected of him, and what he expects of himself, according to the evolving models of permissible thought which he submits to. PM 2 will be extended in due time to PM 3--that powerful, but "renegade," elements in the CIA and elsewhere were behind the assassination. Eventually, the passage of time will allow the arrival of the truth, with the difference that by then the world will be assumed to be a completely different and reformed place, and nobody will give a damn about Vietnam or JFK. Do you notice anyone getting upset now at the suggestions--treated seriously even by Newsweek--that Churchill and Roosevelt had prior knowledge of the attack on Pearl Harbor and chose to let it happen for strategic reasons? Of course I am talking here about the dominant PMs shared by the elite, not necessarily by the general population. This is a striking demonstration of the degree of control exercised by the ruling class. Half the population thinks the assassination may have been a coup d'itat, with Vietnam as a direct consequence, the message is flashed across the silver screen to millions--and virtually nothing happens. The lesson is clear: they have us by the balls. Result: further resignation. The Stone film may have been a bit of a gamble by Time Warner, the biggest propaganda machine in history, but it was well calculated, and it worked. The coup theory has been effectively laid to rest, at least for the time being, and the more general point has been made again, with emphasis: it doesn't matter at all what "the people" think. This particular PM, that we are powerless, is of course also lie, but it is firmly entrenched, and the end effect of the Stone film, unfortunately, is to entrench it further. I agree that it is difficult to conceive of a coup being carried out under the noses of so many people (about 220 million). But it would not have required nearly as many conspirators as you imagine. Just look at Schlesinger. He was close to the action, and I don't think he was a conspirator, a liar, or a fool, either then, when he conformed to PM 1, or now, when he conforms to PM 2. Why should anyone have thought differently? That takes care of 99.9% of everybody involved. As for the rest, the conspirators themselves, surely you don't expect them to have left a paper trail, or to confess. So maybe a conspiracy of such proportions was a historical first. So what? So was the holocaust, the moon landing, the capitalization of the Soviet Union, etc. Regarding this foolish and counterproductive debate between "structuralist" critics like yourself and "conspiracists," I frankly don't see much difference between your view of the world and theirs, when you write: "Another objective [of "the bitter class war that is waged with unremitting dedication by the corporate sector, its political agents, and ideological servants"] is to establish a de facto world government insulated from popular awareness or interference, devoted to the task of ensuring that the world's human and material resources are freely available to the Transnational Corporations and international banks that are to control the global system" ("--Year 501--World Orders Old and New: Part II," Z, July-August 1992, p. 8). That sounds like a conspiracy to me, whether you want to call the conspirators the "corporate sector," the military-industrial- intelligence complex, the power elite, or whatever. I must try to make clear to you that my motivation for persisting on this point has nothing to do with hero-worship, despite your comments about "millenarian movements" and "hagiography." The coup theory is in my opinion the most powerful intellectual force for potential revolutionary change that is likely to come along. Discussions of yet another example of despicable US policy, however often repeated and well footnoted, are nothing compared to this. If any idea can mobilize significant numbers of people and lead to radical change, this is the one. Otherwise we'll have to wait for the next big war, depression or other catastrophe. I don't think I am exaggerating. Suppose you, for example, agreed with me. Add the thousands (literally--no need for modesty) of leftist activists (and probably some right-wingers too) that would follow your lead to the millions who already think Garrison/Stone may be right (half the US population, according to the polls). What do you think would happen? If ever there was a chance for peaceful revolution, this is it, and I see the chance slipping by. The point is not to chase down individual culprits, as the anti- conspiracy theorists contend. The point is to use this most dramatic example to expose and destroy the STRUCTURE of secret government and the inherent collusion of the national security state with the anti-democratic capitalist forces which combined to make the coup, the war, and the continuing coverup possible. My motivation is therefore quite simply that if I can change your mind on this point, I feel I would be doing a service to what I presume is our mutual cause. JFK hagiography has absolutely nothing to do with it. Now, concerning your rendition of the "facts" on the withdrawal plan. 1. The withdrawal plan is not a thesis; it is a fact--namely, NSAM 263 and the three McNamara-Taylor recommendations it approves. These recommendations were Kennedy's LAST specific policy directive regarding Vietnam. 2. There is no indication in NSAM 263 that Kennedy was hesitant or had reservations about the recommendations he implemented. The instruction not to formally announce the 1000-man withdrawal by the end of 1963 does not amount to a reservation. 3. I cannot believe you fail to see a significant difference between: a) Mary is doing well in school. She should graduate on schedule. b) If Mary continues to do well in school, she will graduate on schedule. a) is analogous with McNamara-Taylor, containing a prediction and an assumption, or, if you like, an implicit condition. In a), graduation is assumed to be probable. In b), which contains an explicit condition, graduation is neither probable nor improbable. You refer to McNamara-Taylor as if it were analogous to b), implying that withdrawal was assumed to be neither probable nor improbable. This is simply not true, and misleading. The implication of NSAM 263 and the McNamara-Taylor recommendations was that withdrawal by the end of 1965 was probable. The phrase "without impairment of the war effort," which is in the McNamara-Taylor recommendations and which you attach great significance to, means, from the point of view of the people who made the statement (McNamara, Taylor, and JFK, confirming them), "without impairment of the effort by the South Vietnamese government, with US assistance, to suppress the Viet Cong insurgency." This was the official definition of "victory." When Kennedy issued NSAM 263, no such impairment was foreseen (officially, and as far as we know). "Victory" was in sight-- probable--by the end of 1965, and all US troops would be out.. All speculation as to how Kennedy may have really seen the situation is irrelevant to establishing the facts. My opinion is that he must have seen the writing on the wall, and was creating a context for withdrawal that would allow a "victory" of sorts regardless of the true military situation. You disagree, but I remind you that Bush withdrew from the Gulf after declaring a "victory" that was unconvincing to many, and Reagan withdrew from Lebanon without declaring anything at all. You insist that Kennedy would not have accepted any "victory" short of what Johnson and Nixon vainly pursued, but this is just as speculative as my opinion (and that of O'Donnell, Powers, Mansfield, etc.) that he would have. 4. The point is not that Kennedy WOULD HAVE withdrawn IF victory HAD BEEN assured. The point is that he WAS withdrawing BECAUSE victory WAS, if not assured, probable. (Whether he "really" thought victory was probable is a separate question.) This is the fact which has been ignored or misrepresented by most "serious historians," including the New York Times edition of the Pentagon Papers. The Gravel edition makes it clear, but it is incompatible with most secondary accounts, including yours. 5. The fact that the Oct. 2 White House statement was explicitly attributed to McNamara and Taylor does not mean JFK was dragging his feet or not entirely convinced of their recommendations. He officially implemented them with NSAM 263 on Oct. 11. It is obvious to me that mentioning McNamara and Taylor in the White House statement was intended to convey an impression of solidarity and of sound, well-considered military strategy in order to contain the backlash of the hawks in his own administration, in congress, and in the public at large. He failed, as the events of November 22 show. I know of no evidence that JFK distanced himself from the withdrawal plans or refused to commit himself to them, certainly not after Oct. 11. If there is any evidence directly attributable to JFK, on a par NSAM 263, that he changed his assessment of the war or his withdrawal plans after Oct. 11, I'll rethink it, but I haven't seen any yet. I see no reason to reject the thesis--and yes, this one is a thesis, not a fact--that JFK intended to withdraw short of "victory." There can be no evidence of JFK's secret intentions or of what he would have done. The closest we can come to "evidence" here is what O'Donnell et al. said Kennedy told them he would do, and it supports the thesis. I believe this thesis is correct, but I am trying to get to first base first, by getting you to accept the facts. You do not accept the facts if you continue to insist, as you do, that "there was no policy reversal." You can't have it both ways. You want to say: Of course the withdrawal policy was reversed, but this is totally uninteresting; the only thing that is interesting and important is that it wasn't REALLY a policy reversal. You're playing word games. If not, you would willing to state your position as I have been urging you to do: LBJ did reverse JFK's withdrawal policy, but it was because conditions changed; their basic policy of victory remained the same. I suggest you ask yourself again why you find this formulation unacceptable. 6. Optimism may have declined after Diem's assassination on Nov. 1, but again, I know of no evidence that JFK changed his assessment of the war or his withdrawal policy after NSAM 263. On the contrary, whatever one thinks of the Bundy draft and NSAM 273 itself, both confirm the policy announced on Oct. 2. I agree with Scott and (now) Schlesinger, who say Paragraph 2 of NSAM 273 is a lie, and I think Bundy wrote the draft for Johnson, but I need not insist on either point for the purpose of our discussion. 7. Agreed that it was clear from late December that the withdrawal plan was doomed. Note too, however, that Johnson began to have "doubts" about it in early December (according to PP Gravel), that is, within days of the assassination. The fact that JFK's advisers sensed no departure from JFK's policy--assuming we can know what they "sensed" at the time--is of no significance. NSAM 273 STATED that there was no departure. In order to "sense" a departure, in contradiction to stated policy, one would have to have been psychologically willing and able to deal with the implications: that the new president was a liar and that the murder of the old one may have been a coup. People have trouble enough dealing with those implications now. I think YOU have trouble dealing with those implications! How many people do you think could have managed it then? Remember too that we are talking about military and government careerists, who are not generally noteworthy for their independence of mind, and this "sense of departure," given the implications, would require them to be revolutionaries. This is also the answer to your argument that no conspiracy of such grand proportions could have occurred. How do you think the lie that US national security was at stake in Vietnam was propagated and maintained? That was not a deliberate lie, and thus not a conspiracy, for the great majority, even at the upper echelons. Lies work not because most people are liars but because most people believe them, if they support, rather than challenge, the general political mythology ("All Americans are on the same side," "American policy is always well-intentioned," "If there was a scandal the free press would expose it," "A coup d'itat is impossible in America," etc.). Conspiracies, which are conglomerations of lies, work for the same reason. The number of actual conspirators does not have to be-- cannot be--large. What is necessary for a conspiracy to obtain grand proportions, while initiated and maintained at the center by a relative small number of knowing participants (liars), is that the capacity of the human mind to shift "paradigms," as Thomas Kuhn calls them, be quite limited ("Orwell's problem"). Schlesinger is a case in point. Post-Tet (and now), he merely admits the truth he failed to recognize in 1965--that LBJ reversed the withdrawal policy. Of course he knew about NSAM 263 at the time, but he failed to "sense" LBJ's reversal of the policy because it clashed with the imperative propaganda of the time, which was that there was "no change in policy." When the war had been clearly lost (post-Tet) and it became permissible to blame Johnson and Nixon for it, and simultaneously exonerate JFK and, by implication, himself, his sense of reality changed accordingly. If he goes beyond that, now, and speculates as to what Kennedy WOULD HAVE done, that is also permissible now, but it remains speculation, just as your contention to the contrary is speculation. Schlesinger was not ignorant, nor lying, in 1965 or now. He knew the "facts," then and now--just as I think you and I know them, despite our discussion. The only thing that has changed, in Schlesinger's case, is that he no longer feels compelled (unconsciously) to maintain the myth that there was no policy reversal. He now permits himself to recognize that there was a policy reversal, but at the same time he does not permit himself to recognize its possible connection with the assassination. Since this is an obviously naive and unreasonable position, he must defend it with the kind of hysterical name-calling he resorts to in his review of the Stone film, without even attempting justification. Schlesinger's current position, though naive, is more tenable than yours, in my opinion. He may refuse to see a connection between the facts of the assassination and the policy change, but at least he sees the facts. You refuse to accept the fact that the policy changed. And it's quite clear why. If you accept the fact that LBJ reversed the withdrawal policy--it doesn't matter exactly when, but sometime between Nov. 22, 1963 and March 1964 (at the latest)--you MUST take the coup theory seriously, unless you want to assume Schlesinger's ostrich position. Why you are driven to avoid the notion of conspiracy at all costs is your problem, but I suggest that your notion of propaganda models applies. Radicals internalize propaganda too. In your case, the general aversion to conspiracy theories that has become doctrinal in certain leftist traditions prevents you from accepting the fact of the policy reversal, because this fact makes the political significance of the assassination, and the monstrous conspiracy that perpetrated it and covered it up (to this day), impossible to ignore. Accept the policy reversal, and you're into conspiracy theory, perforce. Never mind, we're all human. You're wrong on this, but I know I won't change your mind. Consider this, though: Suppose Garrison/Stone et al. are right. What more could the CIA ask for than to have the No. 1 American dissident saying they're wrong? You'll say no, it's just that there's no evidence that they are right, but you're quite wrong about that too. I would welcome a response from Noam and/or anyone else who's interested (could this be less than everyone?). Sincerely, Michael + Join Us! 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