With President Trump’s critics decrying his lack of respect for America’s democratic system by his refusal to concede to Joe Biden, now would be a good time to remind such critics of one dark-side aspect of America’s much-vaunted democratic system—the national-security’s state’s violent regime-change operation in Dallas on November 22, 1963.
Oh, yes, I know the standard response of the Pentagon, the CIA, and the NSA and its ardent supporters in the Washington, D.C., establishment and the mainstream press. They immediately cry “Conspiracy theory!” whenever anyone points to that particular regime-change operation.
Mind you, they don’t cry “Conspiracy theory!” when one brings up other anti-democratic regime-change operations on both sides of the Kennedy one — Iran 1953, Guatemala 1954, Congo 1961, and Chile 1973. It’s only with the Kennedy regime-change operation that they cry “Conspiracy theory!”
From the beginning, the official story has been that a lone-nut communist ex-U.S. Marine, with no apparent motive, assassinated the president. Nothing to see here, folks, time to move on — U.S, officials said. Just a plain old ordinary murder case.
Really? Then why was the entire episode shrouded in national-security secrecy from the very moment that Kennedy was declared dead at Parkland Hospital? If it was just a matter of a random lone-nut, communist ex-U.S.Marine killing a president, what the heck does “national security” have to do with it? Why all the secrecy?
Indeed, why the need for a Secret Service team to force its way out of Parkland Hospital with the president’s body to prevent an autopsy from being conducted by Dallas County medical examiner? That Secret Service team, which said it was operating under orders, knew that Texas law required the autopsy to be conducted by the medical examiner.
Why deliver the president’s body into the hands of the military for the autopsy? The mainstream press has always held that that was normal. Really? I thought this was a democratic government, not a military one.
What about those enlisted men who came forward in the late 1970s telling how they had sneaked the president’s body into the Bethesda morgue at 6:35 p.m., almost an hour and a half before the official entry time of 8 p.m.? Why had they all been sworn to secrecy just after the conclusion of the autopsy?
What about Marine Sergeant Roger Boyajian, who was discovered by the Assassination Records Review Board in the 1990s? Why did the military keep him secret for 30 years? He told the ARRB that he was in charge of the team that carried in the president’s body at 6:35 p.m. in a cheap, military-style shipping casket rather than the expensive, ornate casket into which it had been placed in Dallas. He even handed the ARRB a copy of his official report to the military that he wrote at the time of the event. That military had never disclosed that report to the Warren Commission, the House Select Committee on Assassinations, the ARRB, or anyone else. They kept it secret the whole time. Why?
What about Saundra Spencer, the Navy petty officer in charge of the White House lab at the Naval Photographic Center in Washington. She told the ARRB in the 1990s that she had developed the autopsy photographs of President Kennedy’s body. She also had been sworn to secrecy. Given that she was participating in a top-secret, classified operation, she had kept her secret for some 30 years. She told the ARRB in the 1990s that the official photographs of the Kennedy autopsy are not the ones she developed, which suggested two separate sets of autopsy photographs, one genuine and one deceptive.
What about Col. Pierre Finck’s testimony in the Clay Shaw trial in New Orleans in the late 1970s? He was one of the three autopsy physicians. He said that Navy Commander James Humes, who was another of the autopsy physicians, telephoned him at 8 p.m. on the night of the assassination to seek his help with the autopsy. He said that Humes told him that they already had x-rays of the president’s head. But 8 p.m. was also the official introduction of the president’s body into the Bethesda morgue. How could they already have x-rays of the president’s head, unless what those enlisted men said about the early secret introduction of the body into the morgue at 6:35 p.m. was, in fact, true?
Finck also testified that the reason he didn’t “dissect” the president’s neck wound was that someone in authority ordered him not to. Who was that person? Finck said he couldn’t remember his identity. To this day, we don’t know who that person was, but clearly there was a powerful, darker, deep-state force in charge of autopsy operations at the Bethesda morgue that evening.
The time has come for America to accept its national-security state regime-change legacy, including anti-democratic regime changes, not only in overseas countries like Iran, Guatemala, Congo, Cuba, Chile, Iraq, and Afghanistan, but also right here in the United States.
It’s time to release all of the official assassination records of the CIA, the FBI, the Pentagon, and all other federal agencies. The national-security rationale for continued secrecy is ludicrous and baseless. The only reason for continued secrecy is that the national-security establishment knows that the records will fill in more pieces to its November 22, 1963, regime-change operation.
In the 1990s, the JFK Records Collection Act gave federal agencies another 25 years to release their assassination-related records, based on the ridiculous claim of “national security.” That period of time expired early in Trump’s administration. After promising to release the files, Trump surrendered to the CIA’s demands for more secrecy, extending the time for secrecy until October 2021.
But we all know what’s going to happen in 2021. The CIA is going to tell President Biden that national security requires more years of secrecy and Biden is going to defer to the CIA.
Time’s up. Amidst all the hoopla over whether Trump is behaving disrespectfully of America’s democratic system, how about ordering the release of the estimated 15,000 records of the CIA and the federal agencies that are still being kept secret from the American people? After all, it’s pretty hard to reconcile regime-change and cover up with America’s much-vaunted democratic system, isn’t it?
President Trump — Do the right thing. Order the National Archives to release those long-secret assassination records to the American people now. Who cares if the CIA, the Pentagon, and other federal agencies get upset?
