Versions of Truth

Versions of Truth

The Press, Kennedy, and Vietnam

Revisited

Versions of truth

Advise and consent? Intra-administration conflict: JFK v the State Department

Outing a CIA agent/ Intra-administration conflict: CIA v the State Department

The abdication of the press

“Kennedy’s Struggle with Bureaucracy”

Gareth Porter’s findings in Harriman papers

March, 1962, North Vietnam indicated for the first time it was interested in peace negotiations on South Vietnam.

April, 1962, John K. Galbraith, US ambassador to India, proposed that the US put out peace feelers to the North Vietnamese through India and Moscow.

Kennedy insisted that Harriman send instructions to Galbraith on an Indian approach to peace talks.

GalbraithHarriman

Cable Never Sent

[Harriman’s actions] represented an

outright sabotage of Kennedy’s effort to

establish a diplomatic track on

Vietnam.

The following week, Harriman sent

cables to Galbraith and US

ambassadors in Saigon, Paris, and

Phnom Penh to reduce pressures

behind conference.

Little press coverage given to the findings of these papers.

Plan B

By midsummer ‘62 Kennedy shifted his attention from negotiations to a plan for phasing out the US military presence in South Vietnam as his main policy issue.

Kennedy’s overriding purpose in sending McNamara-Taylor mission to obtain a

recommendation from his most senior

advisors for complete withdrawal by the end

of 1965.

Gareth Porter

“Kennedy harbored doubts, extending to measured resistance, on the Vietnam War. But it was countered by the fact that he had such articulate and committed warriors to contend with” in his administration.

Galbraith, 2005

Today and yesterday

Outing a CIA agent:

“What I Didn't Find in Africa" by Ambassador Joseph Wilson July 6, 2003

“The British Government has

learned that Saddam

Hussein recently sought

significant quantities of uranium from

Africa.”

George W. Bush, January 28, 2003 State of the Union address

Robert Novak Outs CIA Agent - 2003

“Wilson never worked for the CIA, but his wife, Valerie Plame, is an Agency operative on

weapons of mass destruction.”

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David Corn, The Nation7-14-03

Did Bush officials blow the cover of a U.S. intelligence officer working covertly in a field of vital importance to national security and break the law in order to strike at a Bush administration critic and intimidate others?

Classified info leaked by “Two senior administration officials.”

Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, a Republican appointee, announced that Lewis "Scooter" Libby lied to a grand jury, lied to FBI agents and obstructed an investigation into the White House cover-up of the lies that led our nation to war in Iraq.

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History Revisited

“Ngo Dinh Nhu struck back at his American

enemies by using newspapers he

controlled in Saigon to reveal the name of the CIA station chief

in Saigon, John Richardson.”

Regime Change

Secrets that everybody knew: widespread dissatisfaction with the South

Vietnamese government

resulted in unfavorable publicity

the regime reportedly received funds from the CIA for Special Forces units

10-2 Krock, NYT “Whatever else these

passages disclose, that representatives of other Executive branches have expanded their war against the CIA from the inner government councils to the American people via the press.”

Ambassador Lodge enters the picture, Aug. 1963

Lodge was enthusiastic about the [Aug. 24th] cable… CIA Station Chief in Saigon Richardson reported back through CIA channels that the ambassador had regarded the cable as an order to support the coup.

Lodge considered that he had been undermined by the CIA Station Chief in Saigon.

Lodge’s priorities re the CIA

Station should be out of Chancery building

Head of Station not to be Special Assistant to Ambassador

Should end backgrounding press by CIA CIA has more money; bigger houses than

diplomats; bigger salaries; more weapons; more modern equipment…

Starnes Outs CIA Agent - 1963

10-2 Starnes, Scripps Howard"According to a high United States source here, twice

the C. I. A. flatly refused to carry out instructions from Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge…”

The C. I. A.'s growth was "likened to a malignancy" which the "very high Official was not sure even the

white house could control "any longer." "if the United States ever experiences [an attempt at a coup to overthrow the Government] it will come from the

C. I. A. And not the Pentagon."

“Dammit, the CIA is supposed to gather information, not make policy…”

The agency "represents a tremendous power and total unaccountability to anyone.”

10-2-63

Halberstam NYT 10-3-63

10-4 Frankel, NYT

“Mr. Lodge requested the replacement of the CIA chief John H. Richardson.”

Frankel, NYT 10-6-63“…one point of view in the State Department and another at the Pentagon, while the CIA was skating around them both.”

10-6, Pearson

Until [Lodge complained about Richardson] JFK appeared to be

listening more to the military and

the CIA than to his diplomats.”

NYT October 7, 1963

“Mr. Richardson was a critic of Vietnamese opposition

elements and until the Buddhist crisis, saw little

likelihood of a coup.”

My Father The SpyJohn H. Richardson, Jr.

Inspecting Special Troops

in the mountains

of Vietnam, 1962 With General Ton

That Dinh in Saigon, 1962

About John Richardson

1. One of the founding members of the CIA

2. Chief of station in Vienna, Athens, Philippines, Saigon

Lodge wanted him fired and replaced by General Ed Lansdale.

Kennedy refused.

October 10, 1963Q. Mr. President, could you discuss

some of the recent public accounts of CIA activities in South Vietnam, particularly the stories of, or reports of how the CIA has undertaken certain independent operations, ....

JFK. I can find nothing--and I've looked through the record very carefully over the last nine months and I could go back further--to indicate that the CIA has done anything but support policy.

White House Press Conference

CIA is not happy

11-21-63

President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board

Meeting

Leaks McCone

recalled the editor of Newsweek said he obtained information from State Department…

“There are two sets of foreign policy”:

1. Recommended by the State Department, and

2. that put into effect regardless of the State Department, by the CIA and US Military

Not just in 1963…

The result in 1963 When Kennedy was assassinated in

November 1963, there were 16,000 US military advisers in Vietnam.

That grew to more than 500,000, and the war raged for another decade.

Iraq?

Media Versions of Truth Story of war under

reported“failed to meet their

obligations”

Blame the messengers“Too close to the story”

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Lessons Learned?

I came dangerously close to forgetting that its

officials and journalists were waging the game

with real lives,and deaths.

Max Frankel

Versions of Truth