I’m always fascinated — and somewhat amused — by articles that pooh-pooh the possibility of a national-security state conspiracy in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. The authors of such articles say that national-security state conspiracies just don’t happen. They say that the reason that assassination researchers point to a conspiracy involving the CIA and the military in the JFK assassination is not because the circumstantial evidence points in that direction but rather because the researchers simply cannot accept the notion that a little man supposedly killed the president of the country.
But the reality is that conspiracies have always been an inherent part of the national-security state apparatus ever since it was grafted onto our governmental structure in 1947. Let’s examine 22 of these conspiracies during the 10 years before the JFK assassination and the 10 years after the assassination, especially ones involving regime change and assassination.
1. The CIA conspired to initiate a coup in Iran, with the aim of ousting the democratically appointed prime minister of Iran, Mohammad Mossadegh, from office and installing a pro-U.S. unelected dictator, the Shah of Iran, in his stead.
2. After the conspiracy to effect regime change in Iran succeeded in achieving its aim, the CIA conspired to train the Shah’s secret national police-intelligence forces in the art of torture and oppression, with the aim of indefinitely maintaining a pro-U.S. dictator in power in Iran.
3. The CIA conspired to oust and, if necessary assassinate, the democratically elected president of Guatemala, Jacobo Arbenz, and replace him with a pro-U.S. military dictatorship.
4. The CIA conspired to assassinate Patrice Lumumba, the leader of the independence movement in the Congo and the first democratically elected prime minister of the Republic of the Congo.
5. The CIA conspired to initiate a military rebellion against Indonesian president Sukarno.
6. The CIA conspired to invade Cuba, a country that had never attacked the United States or even threatened to do so.
7. Knowing that President Kennedy had told the CIA in advance that there would be no U.S. air support for the CIA’s invasion of Cuba, the CIA nevertheless conspired to trap the president into providing such support.
8. The CIA conspired to commit acts of terrorism and sabotage inside Cuba with the aim of producing regime change.
9. The CIA conspired with organized crime, i.e., the Mafia, to assassinate Cuban president Fidel Castro, notwithstanding the fact that Castro, either personally or through the Cuban government, never engaged in acts of terrorism, assassination, or invasion against the United States.
10. During the Cuban Missile Crisis, the CIA conspired to commit acts of sabotage within Cuba, without the knowledge, consent, or approval of President Kennedy, thereby knowingly and intentionally risking all-out nuclear war with the Soviet Union.
11. During the Cuban Missile Crisis, the U.S. military conspired to raise the nuclear alert status to Defcon 2, one step below nuclear war, without the knowledge, consent, or approval of President Kennedy, thereby knowingly and intentionally risking an all-out nuclear war with the Soviet Union.
12. With its MKULTRA program, the CIA conspired to subject American citizens to dangerous and life-threatening medical experimentation, including through the use of LSD, without their knowledge, approval, or consent.
13. The CIA conspired to destroy all its records relating to MKULTRA, with the aim of preventing the American people from learning the details and the extent of MKULTRA operations.
14. The CIA conspired to give former Nazi officials safe haven in the United States.
15. The CIA conspired to assassinate the ruler of the Dominican Republic, Rafael Trujillo.
16. In Operation Northwoods, the U.S. military conspired to commit terrorist attacks within the United States and against the U.S. military base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, with the aim of falsely blaming the attacks on Cuba, thereby providing a justification for invading Cuba.
17. The CIA conspired to oust pro-U.S. South Vietnamese ruler Ngo Dinh Diem in a military coup, with full knowledge that the coup would likely result in Diem’s murder, which it did.
18. The U.S. military conspired to concoct a fake and false attack by North Vietnam on U.S. forces in the Gulf of Tonkin, which was fraudulently used to secure a congressional resolution authorizing U.S. combat troops to be sent into Vietnam.
19. The CIA conspired to oust the democratically elected president of Chile, Salvador Allende, in a military coup and replace him with a pro-U.S. military dictator.
20. The CIA conspired to instigate economic chaos and crisis in Chile, with the aim of creating conditions favorable to a military coup.
21. The CIA conspired to kidnap the commander of the Chilean army, Rene Schneider, owing to Schneider’s allegiance to the Chilean constitution and his fierce opposition to a military coup, with full knowledge that the kidnapping could result in Schneider’s murder, which it did.
22. The CIA and the U.S. military conspired to assassinate two American citizens during the Chilean coup, Charles Horman and Frank Teruggi.
I wonder why those people who pooh-pooh the possibility of a national-security state conspiracy in the Kennedy assassination never discuss these 22 national-security state conspiracies within the context of their articles. My hunch is that the reason for that is that the national-security state — i.e., the CIA, the military-industrial complex, and the NSA — holds such an exalted, even holy, position in the minds of these people that they simply cannot bring themselves to contemplate the existence of such conspiracies. Moreover, since in their minds national-security state conspiracies just don’t happen, why, I’ll bet they even claim that many, if not most, of these 22 conspiracies really didn’t take place at all.