excerpts from the book

JFK

The CIA, Vietnam, and the Plot to Assassinate John F. Kennedy

by L. Fletcher Prouty

Skyhorse Publishing, 2009, paperback (originally published in 1996)

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Oliver Stone

Report From Iron Mountain on the Possibility and Desirability of Peace, by Leonard Lewin (based on a study commissioned by Defense Secretary Robert McNamara in August 1963)

The organizing principle of any society is for war. The basic authority of a modern state over its people resides in its war powers. War readiness accounts for approximately a tenth of the output of the world's total economy.

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Oliver Stone

[L. Fletcher] Prouty rightly lambastes the media "a growing profession that fully controls what people will be told and helps prepare us for war in places like Afghanistan, Africa, and the Caribbean, most recently Granada and Panama, the Middle East and other "LDCs" - a banker's euphemism for "less developed countries."

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Because of the enormous dollar potential of the war [Vietnam] to the great military-industrial complex of the United States and because of other threats to the power elite, it had become absolutely necessary, for them, to bring about this coup d'etat on the streets of Dallas.

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JFK [the movie by Oliver Stone] suggests that a conspiracy involving elements of a government, people in the CIA, people in the FBI, perhaps people associated with the Joint Chiefs of Staff, all in the service of the military-industrial complex that President Eisenhower warned us about, might have conspired to kill JFK [John Kennedy] because he was going sharply to change the direction of American foreign policy.

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In terms of the military-industrial interests there had to be a demand for their products and there had to be attrition of that materiel. Thus preparation for warfare and some form of warfare had to continue. All this was done while carefully avoiding a nuclear exchange.

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The series of so-called wars since 1945 were never fought to achieve victory. They were waged for dollars, without a true military objective.

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The enormity of the "cover story" fabrication about the assassination of President John F Kennedy. has prevailed for the past three decades ... plus. The reason why it has been possible to maintain, this enormous "cover story" for decades is that the greater crime committed on November 22, 1963 was that of the coup d'etat of the government of the United States. The conspirators took control.

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A power elite of international bankers and industrial giants totally disregard the sovereignty of nations and the individual rights of man.

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Alexis de Tocqueville in his book 'Democracy in America', 1835

The secret connection between the military character and that of the democracies was the profit motive.

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[Alexis de] Tocqueville modernized the true concept of warfare: It is driven by the profit motive; it must be profitable. Another way to put it is that the profiteers make war as a necessity.

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By mid-1963 [President John] Kennedy had arrived at the brink of a decision to keep all American troops out of Vietnam and to withdraw "all U. S. personnel"- military, CIA, and others -"from Vietnam by the end of 1965."

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NSAM #263 [National Security Agency Memorandum] is dated October 11, 1963. It is the basis for a policy decision confirming that "presently prepared plans to withdraw 1,000 military personnel by the end of 1963" and to "train Vietnamese so that essential functions now performed by U.S. military can be carried out by the Vietnamese by the end of 1965. It should be possible to withdraw the bulk of U.S. personnel by that time."

... In boardrooms, gentleman's clubs, and other secluded rendezvous locales, intimate groups of High Cabal principals quietly discussed this new policy and what it would do to their carefully planned, twenty-year objective: the "Saigon Solution.

... It was e clear that this latest "all out by '65" policy was going to assure JFK's reelection. He had to go. With that foremost in their minds, a gradual, firm, and positive consensual decision was reached. The present government must be overthrown. They wanted no more of Kennedy -and they could not abide the thought of a Kennedy dynasty.

With that, a highly professional movement was initiated: Part 1 was a professional hit job by skilled and faceless killers, and Part 2 was an intricate and most comprehensive cover story that gave us such indelible bits of lore as Oswald, Ruby, magic bullet, Warren Commission, and all the rest.

By November 22, 1963 ... Kennedy was dead. By November 26, 1963, President Johnson had signed NSAM #273 to begin the change of the Kennedy policy announced in NSAM #263 and in March 1964, LBJ signed NSAM #288 that marked the full escalation of the Vietnam War that involved 2,600,000 Americans directly, with 8,744,000 serving with the U.S. Armed Forces during that, period.

That was the "Saigon Solution.

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John F. Kennedy, October 29. 1960

If this nation is to be wise as well as strong, if we are to achieve our destiny, then we need more new ideas from more wise men reading good books in more public libraries. These libraries should be open to all - except the censor. We must know all the facts and hear all the alternatives and listen to all the criticisms. Let us welcome controversial books and controversial authors. For the Bill of Bights is the guardian of our security, as well as our liberty.

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[The] power elite is not easy to define; but the fact that it exists makes itself known from time to time. Concerning the power elite, R. Buckminster Fuller wrote of the "vastly ambitious individuals who [have] become so effectively powerful because of their ability to remain invisible while operating behind the national scenery... Always their victories [are] in the name of some powerful sovereign-ruled country. The real power structures [are] always the invisible ones behind the visible sovereign powers."

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The power elite is not a group from one nation or even of one alliance of nations. It operates throughout the world and no doubt has done so for many, many centuries.

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Thomas Maithus in 1805, postulated the idea that humanity is multiplying its numbers at a geometric rate while increasing its life-support capability at only an arithmetic rate. As a result, it has been universally concluded by the power elite that only a relatively few humans are destined to survive successfully in generations to come. The Malthusian theory thus provides a rationalization for the necessity of somehow getting rid of large numbers of people, any people, in any way-even genocide. With the Malthusian theory as the power elite's philosophical guide, this becomes an acceptable objective, because, they believe, Earth will never be able to support the progeny of so many anyhow. From this point of view, genocide-then as now-is accepted as all but inevitable. Who cares and why be concerned?

The third theory fortifies this approach further. Darwin persuades them to believe that because they survive, at no matter what cost to others and to Earth, they must therefore be-by definition-the fittest; and conversely, because they know they are the chosen, that is, the fittest, they are Earth's assured survivors, fulfilling the prophecy of Armageddon.

The fourth, Heisenberg's nuclear age theory, provides an excuse for their errors and confusion. Certainly, if physical science is found to be indeterminate, economics can be, and so can everything else. Let God throw the dice, and we'll take it from there. The one caution, the power elite later reasoned, was that new scientific discoveries and new technology must never be permitted to overwhelm the status quo as precipitously as the hydrogen bomb had done.

Each of these concepts has been conveniently contrived to fit the occasion; each became the type of theory that is useful at certain times and in certain cases, but can never be proved and in most cases can easily be superseded by a more modern technology, a development of the science involved, or an awareness of the human rights that have been abrogated by the application of these rules of the powerful.

From this point of view, warfare, and the preparation for war, is an absolute necessity for the welfare of the state and for control of population masses.

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No commander today can be given an objective such that if he ... appears to be on the road to victory, he will force his enemy to resort to that weapon of last resort, the hydrogen bomb.

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Today the power elite can see no assured survival for themselves and their class if hydrogen bombs are utilized in warfare. Up until the end of WWII, this power elite on both sides of the fray, who exist above the war, have always been assured of survival. In any war in the future in which there is an exchange of H-bombs, there can be no assured Armageddon-type survival for the chosen, for mankind, for all of nature, or for Earth itself.

Under such circumstances, since survival is the strongest drive in man, what form can war take, given that it is viewed as a necessity and that the men of this power elite have that final choice to make?

... Faced with this dilemma ... world leaders turned ... to an alternative, all-new type of invisible war to be waged under the cloak of propaganda, black budgets, and secrecy. They called it the Cold War.

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[The Cold War was] a very real killing war. Its battles loomed everywhere, and its dead were counted in the millions. More of the causalities were noncombatants than uniformed soldiers. It was the Secret War, the Invisible War. From the point of view of those in power, it was a welcome substitute. It consumed the population and the product of the munitions makers and was reasonably controllable on the side of the offense.

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American military leaders in Korea, Vietnam, and the Gulf were not permitted to win. They were told only to "kill" and to run up the "body count," but not to fight a real war, because the closer they got to an assured victory in Vietnam, the closer they would have been to the nuclear threshold. Our military leaders were never permitted to approach that barrier.

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Even before the end of World War II, the newly structured bipolar confrontation between the world of Communism and the West resulted in the employment of enormous intelligence agencies that had the power, invisibly, to wage underground warfare, economic as well as military, anywhere - including methods of warfare never before imagined. These conflicts had to be tactically designed to remain short of the utilization of the H-bomb by either side. There can never be victories in such wars, but tremendous loss of life could occur, and there is the much-desired consumption and attrition of trillions of dollars', and rubles', worth of war equipment.

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German foreign minister, Count Lutz Schwerin von Krosigk made a speech in Berlin, reported in the London Times on May 3, 1945, in which he used the Nazi-coined propaganda phrase "Iron Curtain" ... Then on May 12, just three days after the German surrender had taken place, Churchill wrote a letter to Truman, who had become President one month earlier after the sudden death of Franklin D. Roosevelt, to express his concern about the future of Europe and to say that an "Iron Curtain" had come down to conceal everything that was of Eastern Europe.'

... Nearly one year later, on March 4 and 5, 1946, Truman and Churchill traveled on the President's special train from Washington to Missouri, where, at Westminster College in Fulton, Churchill delivered those historic lines: "From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an Iron Curtain has descended across the continent."

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[There are] centuries of belief on the part of British leadership, among others, at territories they "discovered" (despite the fact that the indigenous population may have been there for thousands of years) belonged to them. Churchill gave evidence that this same East India belief in the proprietary colony was still alive when he and the other leaders discussed postwar plans for Southeast Asia. He felt perfectly comfortable making such colonialist decisions about these countries.

... When oil is found in the Middle East, it is controlled by the petroleum companies. When gold is found in South Africa, it is controlled by corporate mining interests. And, if such things of value cannot be controlled by direct colonization, they are controlled by an equally powerful and oppressive economic force called the World Bank or International Monetary Fund. In the process, genocide is practiced regularly to limit "excesses" and to preserve Earth for the "fittest".

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In 1945, OSS units working with Syngman Rhee in Korea and with Ho Chi Minh in Vietnam had set up and coordinated enormous shipments of [military] equipment into those two Japanese-devastated countries. Those shipments forecast that in these two locales would be fought the two greatest conflicts of the Cold War ... and that both would be fought "Cold War style," without a military objective and to no victorious conclusion.

... By the end of WWII the great financial powers of the Western world, aided by their omnipotent Wall Street lawyers, had decided it was time to create a new world power center of transnational corporations and, in the process, to destroy the Soviet Union and socialism. To achieve this enormous objective they chose as their principle driving force the covert power and might of the CIA and its invisible allies.

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Machiavelli

The first impression that one gets of a ruler and of his brains is from seeing the men that he has about him.

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The post-World War II era would be managed and guided by the demands and specifications of financiers, industrialists, and Wall Street lawyers who were so well represented at Potsdam [WW II armistice in 1945]

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The consensus that guided [President Harry] Truman's decision [after WW II] was that the[atomic] bombs should be used, as much to impress the Soviets and the rest of the world with their overwhelming power as to further crush the hapless Japanese. The rationale was that the use of the bombs to bring about the abject surrender of the Japanese would save millions of live - American and Japanese - by precluding an invasion of a kamikaze-indoctrinated country.

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World War II was over... Never again would it be possible - or desirable - for those with the power over a nation or an alliance of nations to wage an all-out, unfettered, classic war on another group of nations with an expectation of victory that would include an assurance of their own survival. Nuclear weapons had changed all that.

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The Cold War, based upon a structured East-West confrontation, provided the basis for a new type of very lethal, global conflict that would depend upon large, invisible armies concealed under the benign cover of intelligence organizations.

... It became necessary to create an organization [CIA] that could, in time of "peace," continue the eternal conflict using the networks of agents and spies in Eastern Europe that had been established by the Allies and by the Nazis during the war. The utilization of the World War II Nazi agent networks in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union became a major characteristic of the new Cold War strategy

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It has been politically necessary for each major power [United States and Soviet Union] to have an enemy, even though both major powers knew that they no longer had any way to benefit from a traditional "all-out" war. Neither one could control its own destiny or its own society without the "threat" of the other.

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from the book 'Report From Iron Mountain'

The organization of a society for the possibility of war is its principal political stabilizer. It is ironic that this primary function of warfare has been generally recognized by historians only where it has been expressly acknowledged-in the pirate societies of the great conquerors.

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The CIA's undercover armies ... move unobtrusively with a small team, plenty of money, and a boundless supply of equipment as backup. They make contact with the indigenous group they intend to support, regardless of who runs the government. Then they increase the level of activity until a conflict ensues. Because the CIA is not equipped or sufficiently experienced to handle such an operation when combat intensifies to that level, the military generally is called upon for support. At that time the level of military support has risen to such an extent that this action can no longer be termed either covert or truly deniable. At that point, as in Vietnam, operational control is transferred to the military in the best way possible, and the hostilities continue until both sides weary of the cost in men, money, materiel, and noncombatant lives and property. There can be no clear victory in such warfare, as we have learned in Korea and Indochina. These "pseudowars" serve simply to keep the conflict going... that is the objective of these undercover tactics.

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The concept of the necessity of conflict takes much from the philosopher Hegel (1770-1831). He believed that ... might certifies right, and war is a legitimate expression of the dominant power of the moment... [War] is a force for the good of the state since it discourages internal dissent and corruption and fosters the spiritual cement of patriotism.

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[War] will not stop as long as warfare remains synonymous with nationhood. The elimination of war, in our structured society ... implies the inevitable - elimination of national sovereignty and the traditional nation-state.

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from the book 'Report From Iron Mountain'

The war system [is] indispensable to the stable internal political structure... war provides the sense of external necessity without which no government can long remain in power .... The organization of a society for the possibility of war is its principal political stabilizer ... .The basic authority of a modern state over its people resides in its war powers.

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Because there is no way to wage war with the H-bomb, there is no proper strategic role for today's armed forces. Thus, WWIII must be directed covertly by the so-called intelligence services. It has been a war between the CIA and the KGB ... it is sometimes no more than a conflict of the "make war" scenario, with the CIA,' or the KGB, creating and supporting both sides. The prevalence of worldwide terrorism shows this to be so.

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It had already been decided by these clandestine services [American and Soviet intelligence services after WWII] ] that a new bipolar world would be created, divided on the issue of communism. In the councils of the power elite the issue was, as it has been for centuries, the absolute necessity of controlling society by the threat of war and the essential ceremonies of the perpetual preparation for war - what is now called "defense."

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With the dropping of ... two nuclear bombs [Hiroshima and Nagasaki], a horrifying realization crashed down upon the members of the power elite. War, their most essential and valuable tool - that device which had made it possible for them to control society and to maintain the existence of nations and of national sovereignty - had been taken from them by their own scientists... All that remained to them was a choice between no war - and suicide A war waged with hydrogen bombs would most certainly annihilate the combatants and end life on Earth. Their role in the war-making game would have to change. Thus, we have had the Cold War and other types of contrived conflict.

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From September 2, 1945, forward and for as long as mankind could be manipulated through a media that fully controlled what people would be told, the great powers would go through all of the motions involved in the preparation for war and in making war. But wars would henceforth be victoryless conflicts in controlled and limited scenarios.

Even the distinction between "us" and "them" and between "friend" and "foe" would have to be created arbitrarily. To lend this new warfare credibility, the power elite would create a bipolar world with two major superpowers, declared to be deadly enemies, armed to the teeth, and violently opposed to each other on every count. Each would be fortified as a defense against the other. This piling on of arms would increase annually, with no end in sight.

By September 2, 1945, this new scenario had been outlined. All that remained was to mold the opinion of the world, changing it from the mind-set of World War II to a new alignment based upon a massive East-West confrontation.

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Before the ink was dry on the documents being signed on the battleship Missouri [WWII armistice], the first major battlefields of [a] new Cold War, Korea and Vietnam, had been selected and were being stocked with arms. All that remained was to create the political climate for the bipolar world and to line up the combatants.

... The manipulative strings of the power elite had not yet been pulled... It would take a few years of skillful propaganda to prepare the world for the new scenario. Time would pass before the power elite could create a new enemy - the Soviets and communism; and new friends - the former Fascists, Germany, Italy, and Japan, who were now to be known as friendly "antiCommunists."

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World events are planned.

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The anti-Communist climate [in America] had been tuned to a hysterical pitch, both at home and abroad. South Korea had been invaded by "Communist" forces from the north, and through an intimate new medium known as television, moving pictures of an ongoing war were brought into the homes of millions of Americans for the first time. Families also watched while Sen. Joseph McCarthy detailed the internal threat of communism in government and industry. The public viewed the scenario directly, and as the power elite wanted it to: The Soviet Communists were the "enemy" all over the world. Ho Chi Minh and the Democratic Republic of Vietnam were no longer our friends. They, too, were now part of the "Communist" enemy.

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As major manufacturers of military supplies and equipment, it mattered not at all to the great industrial combines of the United States who bought their products. War was the best business in town.

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One of the fundamental purposes of the Cold War) has been to escalate arms production and sales on a global basis.

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CIA Director Allen Dulles and his brother Secretary of State John Foster Dulles] were in touch with the power elite, and a mere President [Eisenhower] influenced them not at all. So many qualified people who have worked "close to the seat of power" ... confirm that these so-called [government] leaders get their instructions from a very high source. These "leaders" are all fine actors, and certainly not true rulers... This is true not only in the world of politics but is equally true of banking, industry, academia, and religion.

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In the case of Vietnam, the course followed by the U.S. government was established by two international Wall Street lawyers, John Foster Dulles and Allen Welch Dulles, among other, more invisible powers.

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The members of the [high] cabal were able to control a commission [JFK assassination] created by a President [Johnson] and headed by the chief justice of the United States. They obtained the written endorsement of two men who later, became Presidents: Ford and Nixon. They have controlled the media and congressional activity, to the extent that the assassination has never been investigated adequately. And they have controlled the judicial system of the state of Texas where by law a trial for the murder of President Kennedy should have been, and must still be, convened.

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President Kennedy was shot dead in the streets of Dallas by the closely coordinated rifle fire of a team of hired guns.

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Someone wanted to take over control of the presidency before JFK could be reelected in 1964, and wanted it badly enough to kill and to put up with the eternal burden of maintaining the cover-story scenario - that one lone gunman, from a sixth-floor window of the Texas School Book Depository building, did it with three shots from an old, Italian-made rifle with an unreliable telescopic sight. To maintain that cover story has taken real power; and those responsible for the assassination have that power.

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The actual killing of the President [Kennedy] is relatively simple, but shielding the gunmen and those who hired them, arranging for their safe and undetected removal from the scene, creating a "patsy... to take the blame, and releasing a cover-story scenario in those early hectic moments and keeping it intact for the next several generations takes a cabal with the power and longevity of a great machine. The deft way it has been orchestrated reveals the skill of the plotters and indicates that those responsible included top-level government officials, plus their power elite masters.

... This cover story was not designed for the sole purpose of concealing the identity of the killers and their supporting team. It was designed to make possible the total takeover of the government of the United States of America and to make it possible for this cabal to control a series of Presidents from Lyndon B. Johnson to the present day.

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[President] Kennedy had just established the first plank in the platform for his reelection with his promise to bring one thousand men home from Vietnam by Christmas of 1963 and to have all Americans out of Vietnam by the end of 1965... The cabal could wait no longer. The die had been cast, and the shots had to) be fired in Dallas that day.

There can be only one reason powerful enough to cause the almost spontaneous coalescence of a cabal for that single purpose. That reason was the fear of Kennedy's all-but-certain reelection. The alternative was to take control of the power of the presidency at all costs.

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[Secretary of State Robert] McNamara said that the day had passed when the armed services would be allowed to develop their own weapons systems.

The services and the great industries for whom the military establishment existed were staggered by these developments. They had never encountered such a serious challenge... On January 17, 1961, they had heard Dwight Eisenhower, in a farewell address to the nation, urge vigilance regarding the dangers to liberty implicit in a vast military establishment and caution against the power of the military-industrial complex.

Now they had a President [Kennedy] who was not just talking about that danger, but was taking their dollars away to use them as he chose.

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The Kennedys ... were going to prepare America for peace. The Vietnam War and its hundreds of billions of dollars in expenditures were nowhere in their plans.

... [The] Kennedy agenda ... could have had a greater impact on the enormous military machine of this nation than the specter of peace. This Kennedy plan jeopardized not hundreds of millions, not even billions, but trillions of dollars. (The Cold War has cost no less than $6 trillion. It shook the very foundation upon which our society has been built over the past two thousand years.

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Report From Iron Mountain

War itself is the basic social system. It is the system which has governed most human societies of record, as it is today .... The capacity of a nation to make war expresses the greatest social power it can exercise; war-making, active or contemplated, is a matter of life and death on the greatest scale subject to social control .... War-readiness is the dominant force in our societies .... It accounts for approximately a tenth of the output of the world's total economy.

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Report From Iron Mountain

War itself is the basic social system. It is the system which has governed most human societies of record.

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Report From Iron Mountain

The capacity of a nation to make war expresses the greatest social power it can exercise; war-making, active or contemplated, is a matter of life and death on the greatest scale subject to social control.

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Report From Iron Mountain

War-readiness is the dominant force in our societies.

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Report From Iron Mountain

War-readiness is the dominant force in our societies .... It accounts for approximately a tenth of the output of the world's total economy.

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John F Kennedy and his advisers were playing a dangerous game as they expertly moved along the calendar toward reelection in 1964... He needed al strong plank upon which to build his platform for reelection. He chose / Vietnam, the cessation of all American military involvement there. As his first step, Kennedy sent Gen. Maxwell Taylor and Secretary McNamara to Saigon in late September 1963. They returned to the White House and presented him with their voluminous report on October 2, 1963. In part that report said: "It should be possible to withdraw the bulk of U. S. personnel by that time..."

"That time," as stated clearly in their report, was the end of 1965.

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Kennedy planned to get out of Vietnam and to turn the war over to a new leader in South Vietnam. This was the first order of business. To his adversaries, this confirmed the nature of the course he had chosen. They began to move, to move swiftly and with finality.

Ngo Dinh Diem, the first president of South Vietnam, was killed on November 1, 1963, and Kennedy was killed on November 22, 1963.

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[John] Kennedy did fail in his attempt to gain full control of the CIA and its major partners in the Defense Department. It was the most crucial failure of his abbreviated presidency.

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President John Kennedy

When I am reelected. I am going to break that agency [CIA] into a thousand pieces.

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Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas

[The Bay of Pigs] seared him. He had experienced the extreme power that these groups had, these various insidious influences of the CIA and the Pentagon, on civilian policy, and I think it raised in his own mind the specter: Can Jack Kennedy, President of the United States, ever be strong enough to really rule these two powerful agencies? I think it had a profound effect... it shook him up!

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In the great struggle between [President John] Kennedy and the entrenched power sources of Washington, as personified by the CIA and its allies in the Defense Department and the military-industrial complex, the President learned that his weapons were powerless and his directives unheeded.

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[President] Kennedy's no-nonsense policy directives marked the first steps in his ambitious plan to change the course of Cold War operations, which, for the most part, had been made the responsibility of the CIA since that agency's creation in late 1947... NSAM #55 [National Security Action Memorandum] led directly to the later Reagan decision to do away with Eisenhower-period "plausibly deniable" covert operations and to come out into the open with Cold War operations, such as his action against Grenada and the air strikes against Libya. The [George HW] Bush administration has continued this "overt" policy with its attack on Panama and the Desert Storm operation.

Whether or not this new military policy has been formally proclaimed the official guideline of the United States, it is being practiced today, as evidenced by the Gulf War. This policy means, in effect, that national sovereignty no longer exists and that a nation's independence and borders are no longer sacred.

As this newer doctrine becomes more widely implemented, the traditional family of nations will dissolve into a shambles of raw power. From now on, no one will be safe. There is no sanctuary. Everyone, everywhere, is someone's potential target. There is no place to hide.

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John Kennedy's NSAM #55 [National Security Action Memorandum, June 1961] went directly to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, bypassing the CIA

I wish to inform the Joint Chiefs of Staff as follows with regard to my views of their relations to me in Cold War operations:

a. I regard the joint Chiefs of Staff as my principal military adviser 'responsible for initiating advice to me and for responding to requests for advice. I expect their advice to come to me direct and unfiltered. (

b. The joint Chiefs of Staff have a responsibility for the defense of the nation in the Cold War similar to that which they have in conventional hostilities.

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Mao Tse-tung's 'Little Red Book' [had become part of the new U.S. military strategy]

... All military actions are means to achieve certain political objectives, while military action itself is a manifested form of politics.

... The world today is already in a new era of evolution and today's war is already approaching the world's last armed conflict [nuclear]... The majority of mankind, including the 450 millions of China, is already engaged or preparing to engage in a great, just war against the aggressors and oppressors of the entire world. No matter how long this war is going to last, there is no doubt that it is approaching the last conflict in history. After such a prolonged, ruthless war, there will emerge an historically unprecedented new era for mankind in which there will be no more wars.

p181
Since World War II, the Department of Defense had become the perennial biggest spender in the government, if such a level of spending was to be continued, Cold War or not, there had to appear to be some reason for the vast procurement orders other than for actual warfare; and, perhaps even more important, there had to be some way to consume military hardware so that it would have to be replaced from new procurement.

... It is quite customary to find that for every defense dollar spent on new military equipment, ten more dollars are spent for support during its military "life of type." These same figures, perhaps even higher on the average, apply to the military hardware that is sent as "military aid" to other countries and maintained and consumed overseas.

On such a scale, a modest $50 million order may grow to $500 million over time. With this in mind, it is essential - from the point of view that the industrial complex supports, and in turn is supported by, the military - to have as broad a base as possible throughout the world in the armed forces of as many countries as possible.

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MAP (Military Assistance Program) - from the report by Army General Richard G. Stilwell and Air Force General Edward G Lansdale titled "Training Under the Mutual Security Program", 1959 - this new United States military doctrine essentially follows the teachings of Communist China's Chairman Mao Tse-Tung.

... The Officer Corps is ... deeply involved in domestic affairs. Those who lead, or are destined to lead, must therefore acquire qualifications and attributes beyond the criteria which identify the successful commander in combat.

... the ranks of the Officer Corps in most less developed countries are a rich source of potential leaders of the national civil service, the professional class, and other nonmilitary sectors. Here one finds a high degree of discipline, dedication, and political moderation. Moreover, one must reckon with the possibility - indeed probability - that the Officer Corps, as a unit, may accede to the reins of government as the only alternative to domestic chaos and leftist takeover. Both considerations point to a program for selection and preparation of promising officers for essential occupation of high level managerial posts in the civil sector, public and private.

... It is not enough to charge armed forces with responsibility for the military aspects of deterrence. They represent too great an investment in manpower and money to be restricted to such a limited mission. The real measure of their worthiness is found in the effectiveness of their contribution to the furtherance of national objectives, short of conflict. And the opportunities therefore are greatest in the less-developed societies where the military occupy a pivotal position between government and populace. As one writer has phrased it, ". . . properly employed, the army can become an internal motor for economic growth and sociopolitical transformation."

... a key requirement may be direct military action against armed dissidents; consequently, appropriate elements of the army should be equipped and trained for unorthodox warfare.

... Here is the ultimate test of the armed forces. Their role, in the countries under discussion, is unique. They are at once the guardians of the government and the guarantors that the government keeps faith with the aspirations of the nation. It is in their power to insure that the conduct of government is responsive to the people and that the people are responsive to the obligations of citizenship. In the discharge of these responsibilities, they must be prepared to assume the reins of government themselves ... We have embraced the struggle for the minds of men...

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Mao Tse-Tung

The world today is already in a new era of evolution and today's war is already approaching the world's last armed conflict .... No matter how long this war is going to last, there is no doubt that it is approaching the last conflict in history.

p186
By the mid-1950s, significant elements of the U. S. military establishment had begun to accept the fact that a nuclear war was impossible and that the Cold War was the best scenario for those who saw some form of warfare as essential to the existence of the nation-state.

p187
Many good strategists in the U. S. military ... designed the parameters of the new type of ... constant warfare that would, for the most part, take place in the territory of relatively powerless Third World nations.

p217
The distinguishing feature of the smaller countries [Third World or less-developed countries] is that the are not broad-range manufacturers or producers. They do not make typewriters, radios or televisions, coffeepots, fabric, automobiles and trucks, etc. Their biggest business, as a nation, is the import-export business. Therefore, much of their national revenue is derived from customs fees, and much of their private wealth is derived from individual franchises for Coca-Cola, Ford automobiles, Singer sewing machines, and so forth. They are totally dependent upon such imports and exports.

In such an economy, the ins, regardless of politics, control these lucrative franchises, and the outs do not. This creates friction. It is based on pure economics and greed and has nothing to do with communism or capitalism.

Therefore, if the ins solicit franchises from businesses in the United States, they are called friendly and pro-Western. If they turn to other sources, they are designated the enemy. If they are the enemy, we have labeled them Communists.

The leaders of the Contras, who used to serve Somoza in Nicaragua, wanted their valuable U. S. franchises back. For this they were willing to kill. For this the CIA helped them kill. The CIA supported them because it supports U. S. business.

p219
from the book Report From Iron Mountain on the Possibility and Desirability of Peace by Leonard Lewin

War fills certain functions essential to the stability of our society, War is virtually synonymous with nationhood. The elimination of war implies the inevitable elimination of national sovereignty and the traditional nation-state.

p219
[Leonard Lewin's book 'Report From Iron Mountain on the Possibility and Desirability of Peace' represents] the classic views of a cabal of leaders in our society who fail to see any reason other than war for the existence of man.

p220
With the lessons of such things as the overt invasion of Grenada, the attack on Libya, the Contra attempt to overthrow the Ortega government of Nicaragua, the use of U.S. military forces to augment the national police of Bolivia, American military aid to the rebels in Afghanistan, the attack on Panama, the "Desert Storm" fighting against Iraq, and the recent creation of a regular U.S. Special Warfare Force for the pursuit of "low-intensity conflict"' all over the world, respect for the concept of national sovereignty has fallen to a dangerous low in the world family of nations.

p220
Knowledgeable grand strategists of the power elite realize today that there cannot be a true, all-out war in a world society equipped with thousands of hydrogen bombs. But Grand Strategy requires that warfare be waged for the purpose of attaining the highest national objective - Victory. No nation can go to war knowing full well that the prosecution of that war with hydrogen bombs will inevitably lead to the elimination of all mankind and to the destruction of Earth a living system. These strategists have been looking for an alternative.

... As this realization has permeated the various levels of world leadership, those in positions of genuine power face the chilling reality of this truth. Their game of nations, their house of cards, is already showing signs of falling apart. Principal among these fading truths is the very evident decay of national sovereignty. Without sovereignty there can be no nation-state, and without the state, what remains? A New World Order?.

p222
political philosopher Jean Bodin

A state remains a state as long as it is sovereign .... Sovereignty determines the structure of the state.

p230
The essence of covert operations directed and carried out by the government of the United States, from the top down, is the denial of the international concept of nation-state sovereignty, the principle upon which the family of nations exists.

This situation has been brought about by the existence of the Earth-destroying hydrogen bombs, by the uncontrolled and uncontrollable growth of world-around communications, by the runaway power of transnational corporations, and by a new economic system of corporate socialism. All of these factors threaten and destroy sovereignty.

p230
Arnold Toynbee, the British historian, quoted in the New York Times of May 7, 1971

To most Europeans, America now looks like the most dangerous country in the world. Since America is unquestionably the most powerful country, the transformation of America's image within the last thirty years is very frightening for Europeans. It is probably still more frightening for the great majority of the human race who are neither Europeans nor North Americans, but are Latin Americans, Asians, and Africans. They, I imagine, feel even more insecure than we feel. They feel that, at any moment, America may intervene in their internal affairs, with the same appalling consequences as have followed from the American intervention in Southeast Asia.

For the world as a whole, the CIA has now become the bogey that communism has been for America. Wherever there is trouble, violence, suffering, tragedy, the rest of us are now quick to suspect the CIA had a hand in it. Our phobia about the CIA is, no doubt, as fantastically excessive as America's phobia about world communism; but in this case, too, there is just enough convincing guidance to make the phobia genuine. In fact, the roles of America and Russia have been reversed in the world's eyes. Today America has become the nightmare.

p236
from Report From Iron Mountain on the Possibility and Desirability of Peace by Leonard Lewin

War fills certain functions essential to the stability of our society; until other ways of filling them are developed, the war system must be maintained-and improved in effectiveness.

p236
according to Leonard Lewin [the author of 'Report From Iron Mountain on the Possibility and Desirability of Peace', the "Special Study Group" that produced the report voted to keep it under wraps because the members of the group felt that:

The reader [of the report] may not be prepared for some of its assumptions - for instance, that most medical advances are viewed more as problem than as progress; or that poverty is necessary and desirable, public postures by politicians to the contrary notwithstanding; or that standing armies are, among other things, social-welfare institutions in exactly the same sense as are old-people's homes and mental hospitals... that the space program and the controversial antimissile missile and fallout shelter programs are understood to have the spending of vast sums of money, not the advancement of science or national defense, as their principal goals, and that military draft policies are only remotely concerned with defense.

p236
One of the least-own divisions of the CIA is that headed by the 4 deputy director of economics. This division moves into a country to work with a new regime and to begin the task of selecting and setting up new franchise holders for as many goods as possible to assure that they are imported from American companies and that those from other /'sources, formerly the Soviet sphere in particular, are excluded.

These new franchise holders are usually closely associated with the / new President. They are members of his cabinet and other top government officials. The CIA screens and selects these new "millionaires" and arranges for them to meet with the various companies they will front for under the new regime. It might be said that this cleansing of the economic system is the real reason for mot coups and that political ideology has very little to do with it. The ins (the men in the foreign government) are called "friends of the West" and "anti-Communist," but that is just for public consumption. On the other side of the coin, the outs are well aware of the system-having been the ins and beneficiaries of the same, or similar, largess under the prior administration.

But it happens that over a period of time an administration begins to believe that it is truly in power and that it actually runs the government. This leads its officials to make franchise arrangements with an ever-increasing number of sources. Some of the more daring, in an attempt to escape the severe financial and profit-making controls placed upon them and their government by U. S. manufacturers and by the canopy of international banks that is spread over all imports and exports to their country, attempt to make deals with other countries. They believe that they may be able to buy essential goods cheaper that way and to sell their resources and labor at better rates. To oversimplify, this is what Ferdinand Marcos was doing in the Philippines before he was ousted.

As such actions increase, the national leadership will be increasingly attacked by the United States on the grounds that it is turning toward communism and becoming a base for the infiltration of the Communist ideology and military system into the hemisphere. In other cases there are more or less "legitimate" coups d'etat as internal opposition rises against an oppressive dictatorship. There could have been no more "anti-Communist" dictators than Rafael Leónidas Trujillo Molina, who ruled the Dominican Republic from 1930 to 1961 and then was assassinated with American aid, or Fulgencio Batista in Cuba and Anastasio Somoza of Nicaragua. All of these men, to cite a few, had been in power so long that they believed they could throw their weight around and extend their franchise selections to other countries. In such cases (Trujillo is the exception) the United States does not so much aid the insurgents as it just sits on its hands and lets the aged dictator be eliminated by others who want his job and the largess that goes with it.

Sometimes the United States gives the old leader a firm and friendly cue, as when Director of Central Intelligence William Casey visited the Philippines in 1985 and suggested to Marcos that he ought to "hold an election." As we have seen, such a suggestion is the kiss of death. It remained for President Corazon Aquino to heed the hints that poured out from the Office of the Deputy Director of Economics and other "friends" as she faced the task of rebuilding the franchise networks. This means big money to the country involved and to the United States and to the bankers who manage the finances in both directions.

p238
R Buckminster Fuller, in his book 'Critical Path'

Each new year's foreign aid bill had a rider that said that if American companies were present in the country being aided, the money [from foreign aid funds] had to be spent through those American companies .... Foreign aid paid for all the new factories and machinery of all the American corporations moving out of America. This became a fundamental pattern: first the 100 largest corporations, then the 200 largest corporations followed, then what Fortune calls the 500 largest corporations .... So the Wall Street lawyers simply moved their prime corporate operations elsewhere .... But the main objective of the Wall Street lawyers was for the corporations to get out from under the tax control of the American government.

p241
The objective of "low-intensity conflict" [is] to continue the wasting of money, the pointless killing of defenseless people, and the consumption or attrition of costly war materiel to make way for the procurement of more.

p241
"Low-intensity conflict" is a way in which the hundreds of billions of dollars of armaments produced each year can be used, destroyed, and wasted this year in order that more may be procured and used next year. It is a general rule in the military procurement business that for every dollar spent for new weapons, ten more dollars will be spent on those same weapons for their maintenance and support during their "life of type.

p241
The true definition of "less-developed country" [LDC] has nothing to do with politics, ideology, or military power. An LDC is a country that differs from others because it does not have the ability to produce or manufacture all of the things it needs or wants to survive, even at a relatively low level of subsistence.

... As a result, the biggest business in a less-developed country, and the sole reason for its governmental power structure, is import and export. LDCs hope that they can export enough, in dollar values, to provide the money required to make payments on the interest on their national debt, with enough left over to pay for all the things they must import.

The government of such a country is a business monopoly over its people and its territory and is motivated much less by some political ideology than by the very pragmatic aim of controlling the import-export business.

... The government of an LDC makes its money by granting exclusive and monopolistic franchises to its friends, relatives, and true financial d traditional leaders of its national infrastructure, for everything from chewing gum and Coca-Cola to Cadillacs and F-16 fighter planes.

These franchise holders, the ins, are usually assured of becoming millionaires. Their franchises are obtained through contacts with select sources in the United States and other Western powers. They cover all the essentials required by the populace; there is no other way to obtain non-locally produced goods, including foodstuffs, which must be imported. The same franchise system applies to the nation's exports.

The outs, on the other hand, are those who have been stripped of their franchises, usually as a result of a coup d'etat, in favor of the ruling group.

... In most LDCs there can be no meaningful campaigns and elections. In most cases, the votes, if elections are held, are counted by the armed forces, and the armed forces are the instrument of the in power group. Such controls leave little alternative to the outs other than the coup d'etat method of power transition.

In all less-developed countries, the difference between the ins and the outs has little, if anything, to do with political ideology. The scenario exploited by the major powers divided the world into "Communist" and "the West" or some other structure. As far as each LDC is concerned, the game is quite simple: "Where do they buy - that is, where are the franchise materials produced and sold - and to whom do they sell their own resources, to include physical labor?"

The supremely powerful international bankers keep the books and balances for each side. They make these transactions possible by offering the loans, issuing letters of credit, collecting huge fees for their role in each transaction, and collecting the interest on the entire package. In many LDCs the total amount of interest paid to the banks and their international financing structure amounts to more than half of the total value of dollars earned by their exports. For this reason annual payments are seldom more than the interest involved and none of the principal. This is one reason why the principal never comes back to the United States.

p243
The struggle for less-developed countries is not a political contest such as Communists versus the West. It is, rather, a struggle for an import-export lock on each country, with the aim of creating markets and consumers, along with a maximized flow of dollars in both directions that includes a heavy overhead burden of interest for the bankers.

p244
Since WW II, approximately $100 billion per year has been spent on foreign military aid, and in real dollar terms as of 1980, a staggering total of $6 trillion has been legally transferred from the U.S. people's national capital account over to the capital ownership account of the stockholders of the one thousand largest transnational, exclusively American-flag-flying corporations.

When so much money is loaned to the less developed countries and when the contacts that lead to the award of exclusive franchises for American-manufactured items are made, the next question is: To whom should these franchises be awarded by the American corporations involved? This question points to a need for a reliable American source in the LDCs who has information, that is, "intelligence," on all key families in the country. The CIA fills this role quietly and unobtrusively.

The CIA station chief in each less-developed country will create a list of key families who are close to the ruling power. In many instances, a son will be enrolled in the military of that country and will then, as a function of the U. S. Military Aid Program, be put on a quota of officers who have been selected to attend a "radar school" or other military course in the United States.

... Upon return, these students and their families will be looked upon as future franchise holders for the import of U.S. -made products. This effort is cloaked in the military uniform, but it has been arranged by the CIA for business purposes.

... There comes a time when the in government is overthrown by the outs. In spite of all the propaganda, the new ins are rarely, if ever, "Communists," "socialists," or other ideologues. They just want to cancel all existing franchises, turn out the former franchise holders, and begin the whole process again. In such a system, it becomes necessary for the United States to side with one group or the other.

p275
From the beginning the Pentagon Papers were a compilation of documents designed to paint President John F Kennedy as the villain of the story, and to shield the role of the CIA... There are altogether too many important papers that did not get included in this study. too many that were absolutely crucial to any understanding of the origins of, and reasons for, this war [Vietnam].

p285
Those who planned the murder of the President [Kennedy] knew the inner workings of the government very well. This fact is made evident not so much by the skill with which the murder of the President was undertaken as by the masterful cover-up program that has continued since November 22, 1963.

p287
[President John] Kennedy had made it clear to the gnomes of the military-industrial complex that he was in control and that they were not. This raised the pressure for the ultimate confrontation between the President and a cabal of extremely powerful financial and industrial groups.

p287
During the Kennedy years, people within the government and their close associates in academia and industry discussed frequently and quite seriously many of the major questions phrased by Leonard Lewin in Report From Iron Mountain. I had been assigned to the Office of the Secretary of Defense before the Kennedy election and was there when the McNamara team of "Whiz Kids" arrived. Never before had so many brilliant young civilians with so many Ph.D. s worked in that office. It was out of the mouths of this group that I heard so frequently and precisely the ideas that Lewin recounts in his "novel." A brief sampling will show these words' power on the thinking of that era:

Lasting peace, while not theoretically impossible, is probably unattainable; even if it could be achieved it would most certainly not be in the best interests of a stable society to achieve it.

War fills certain functions essential to the stability of our society; until other ways of filling them are developed, the war system must be maintained-and improved in effectiveness.

War is virtually synonymous with nationhood. The elimination of war implies the inevitable elimination of national sovereignty and the traditional nation-state.

The organization of a society for the possibility of war is its principal political stabilizer ... . The basic authority of a modern state over its people resides in its war powers.

p289
With [President] Kennedy's announcement that he was getting Americans out of Vietnam, he confirmed that he was moving away from the pattern of Cold War confrontation in favor of détente. He asked Congress to cut the defense budget. Major programs were being phased out. As a result, pressure from several fronts began to build against the young President. The pressure came from those most affected by cuts in the military budget, in the NASA space program, and in the enormous potential cost-and profit-of the Vietnam War.

Kennedy's plans would mean an end to the warfare in Indochina, which the United States had been supporting for nearly two decades. This would mean the end to some very big business plans.

p290
Continuing the war in Vietnam was of vital importance to powerful financial and manufacturing groups.

p290
[President] Kennedy had announced a reduced military budget, the end of American participation in Indochina, and a major change in the race to the moon. It takes no special wisdom or inside knowledge to understand that certain vested interests considered the Kennedy proposal to defuse Vietnam and these other major budget items to be extremely dangerous to their own plans.

p334
The assassination of President John F Kennedy ... has demonstrated that most of the major events of world significance are masterfully planned and orchestrated by an elite coterie of enormously powerful people who are not of one nation, one ethnic grouping, or one overridingly important business group. They are a power unto themselves for whom these others work. Neither is this power elite of recent origin. Its roots go deep into the past

p335
There was a plan to murder [President John] Kennedy in order to escalate the Vietnam war and decimate most of the less-developed countries through a form of banker-managed, predatory economic warfare.

p337
Roy L. Ash, president of Litton Industries, speaking at a "White House Conference on the Industrial World Ahead, a Look at Business in 1990" - February 1972

State capitalism may well be a form for world business in the world ahead; that the western countries are trending toward a more unified and controlled economy, having a greater effect on all business; and the communist nations are moving more and more toward a free market system. The question posed [during the conference] ... was whether "East and West would meet some place toward the middle about 1990."

p338
[In 1972] under President Nixon, an unusual and most effective international business organization was formed by the business interests of the Dartmouth Conference, whose meetings were regularly scheduled by the Rockefellers. It was called US-TEC, for the United States-USSR Trade and Economic Council. Backed by the Nixon administration and the international banker David Rockefeller, the Council that listed most of the Fortune 500 corporate leaders among its membership, along with hundreds of their counterparts in the Soviet Union, opened offices in New York and in Moscow for regular activities.

... They have worked busily to create the New World Order. Their work has included the promotion of the military-industrial complex and of the massive international agricultural combines in their voracious search for new business in new fields. In this connection, the CIA is one of the primary activists and promoters for these combines.

p339
Much of the [1970s] "energy crisis" was a massive production designed and orchestrated to raise the price of petroleum from its long-time base of approximately $1.70 per barrel to a high, at times, of $40.00. Except for the international drug trade, no other production in the fields of economic warfare had ever made so much money ... and continues to do so.

It takes little imagination to discover that this is another product of the High Cabal elite and that while the energy and drug projects are operating most profitably the international food business cannot be far behind. As conventional battlefield warfare diminishes in value to the world planners, economic warfare is moving boldly to the front of the stage.

p341
Clear evidence indicates that the old Hegelian doctrine that nations require conflict still prevails. But you may be sure that the scenario of the conflict itself must change. Here we need to look at an important example of the Reagan era that is being used repeatedly to demonstrate how the power elite and their warmakers utilize all manner of plots to achieve their ambitious goal of establishing the highest level of costly military preparedness under all kinds of political conditions. This method of international gamesmanship is called "Terrorism."

p344
While the president of the United States [Ronald Reagan] harangued the world about the Evil Empire, his good friends, our senior businessmen, were packing their briefcases for another big meeting for business-as-usual in Moscow. [David Rockefeller] ... and his banking interests had been working there since 1927.

p346
The affairs of man and of nature are not determined at random or by mere chance.

p346
When a Vietnam War, the assassination of John F. Kennedy, or the destruction of a Korean airliner are necessary, they will be caused to happen. They will not be left to chance... This is the way things are.

p354
The Kennedy victory at the polls, in 1960, was perhaps as much a cause of his eventual assassination, in 1963, as anything else. There was no way he could win against the power centers, including that of the military-industrial complex.

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