March 19, 1975

Was Assassination A U.S. Policy?

Having discovered that former president Richard Nixon lied, are we soon to learn that before him Presidents John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson murdered?

As shocking and incredible as this may sound, charges of accessory to assassination are seriously under investigation by several official committees looking into the shadowy activities of the Central Intelligence Agency.

Most prestigious inquiry committee is that appointed by President Gerald Ford and chaired by Vice-president Nelson Rockefeller.  The latter startled his associates two weeks ago by warning them that an aggressive congressional investigation of the CIA could "destroy two former presidents."

Inasmuch as Nixon already is destroyed, the conclusion of the Chicago Sun Times, Time Magazine and other news publications is that Kennedy and Johnson covered up three or more assassinations if not actually approving them.

The presidential commission is due to expire April 1, but Rockefeller has asked for two more weeks of sleuthing.

CIA Director William E.  Colby gave Ford a spoken report of assassination knowledge - after refusing to put it in writing.  White House "sources" are quoted that Ford was "shocked" by Colby's admissions.

The oral report came after Colby submitted a 50-page document outlining illegal domestic spying by the CIA in which personal mail of Congressmen was opened and files compiled on "millions" of individuals.

Columnist Jack Anderson joins the news publications in claiming inside information.  He says that the CIA, with Kennedy's knowledge, attempted to assassinate Cuban Premier Fidel Castro a few days before the Bay of Pigs Invasion and several times afterward.

The plot, if such it was, obviously failed.  However, critics of the Warren Report on the Kennedy assassination contend the U.S. president was killed by Lee Harvey Oswald, a Castro agent, in retaliation.  It is a fact that Oswald visited the Cuban embassy in Mexico two weeks prior to his assassination of Kennedy.

Other assassinations during the Kennedy administration were those of South Vietnam President Diem and Dominican Republic President Rafael Trujillo.  Johnson is tagged with knowledge of the assassination of Congo President Patrice Lumumba.

After Kennedy's death, Johnson's first reaction was that it might have been a "communist plot."  Later, he reportedly declared that "we" took care of Trujillo and Diem and that perhaps Kennedy's assassination was revenge.

That the CIA gave tacit approval of - if not direct orders for - Diem's murder has been substantiated.  The widow of Diem bitterly denounced Kennedy for her husband's assassination, and Nixon declared in 1971 that there was U.S. "complicity" in it.

I was inclined to feel that presidential involvement in the bizarre adventures of the CIA was mostly sensational talk.  But the Kennedy lovers who led the fight to destroy Johnson and Nixon are now taking to print to defend their hero which suggests they are trying to knock down evidence.

The Washington Post says, well - maybe - Kennedy permitted assassination at-tempts against Castro but if so it was former Vice-president Nixon's idea.

James Reston, resident propagandist for the New York Times, now has delivered himself of a masterful rationalization of Kennedy's involvement with the seamy aspects of political murder.  "Foreign espionage is an essential' but illegal activity, not to be confused with the political espionage and sabotage of the Watergate scandals," he declares.

Reston justifies the assassination cover-ups on the basis they "could not be disclosed to the general public without disclosing them to our adversaries and threatening the sources and even the lives of our agents."

If we have come to the point that we crucify a man for spying on his political opponents but laud another man for killing the heads of other nations, then we are in the last stages of decadence.

Despite all the rhetoric, I feel Kennedy and Johnson did not approve of the alleged assassinations and most likely did not even know about them before hand.

Likewise, I do not believe Kennedy and Johnson should be destroyed for trying to disassociate themselves from overzealous, stupid subordinates.  But we did it to Nixon, and equal justice now demands the same sacrifice from Kennedy and Johnson.

I must confess that my faith in the integrity of our leaders has been shaken.  The Watergate vendetta has conditioned my mind to accept any horrible possibility.

Under these conditions it is important that the various committees investigating the CIA and the Federal Bureau of Investigation proceed without delay.

Let us discover yet another cancer, if one exists, and cut it out immediately.

If it does not exist, let us announce it immediately.

This nation is in no state, emotionally, to tolerate another two-year torture.

Author: Lindsey Williams