Hemming died recently at the age of 70. In Covert History, Gary reprints a bit of private correspondence he had with the notorious soldier of fortune. In this missive, Hemming fulminates against JFK researcher Joan Mellen, who wrote a fine pro-Garrison book called A Farewell to Justice.
"Mellen-Head continues to maintain an intense hatred of RFK and company, and her attitude IS: that anybody who is CIA (and doesn't "Fess-up"to something) must be an evil-doer. Typical Commie-symp/wimp horseshit that I've been exposed to (and forced to put up with) even before fighting in Cuba, Nicaragua, Santo Domingo, Haiti, etc. !!
Lou Ivon had some interesting things to say about Garrison & Mellen-head, and "Big Jimbo's" boasting of what exactly her relationship actually involved !!"This, of course, is typical Fascist-symp/testosterone-overload horseshit. I don't pretend to understand the reference to RFK.
I doubt that Ivon -- Garrison's chief assistant -- dissed his old boss within earshot of Hemming. A couple of friends of mine interviewed Ivon about a decade ago, in the same Fontainebleau hotel where the well-known debriefing of David Ferrie took place. In the film version, Garrison is present during that interview. Actually, Ferrie did not trust Garrison and would speak only with his chief aide. During that debriefing, Ferrie fingered Clay Shaw -- and we all know what happened next.
Four decades have passed since that event, and many people have said many things -- often unfair and unkind things -- about Jim Garrison. But damned few researchers have bothered to speak to Lou Ivon, probably because he is an official member of the Slow Talkers of America Society, and is therefore a rather frustrating interview subject. (How a guy like that survived in New Orleans is beyond me.) As a result, the mud thrown at Garrison never really touched Ivon, who was a primary source for what we know about Ferrie.
And what does Joan Mellen have to say about Hemming? Turns out she is surprisingly complimentary. John Whitehead interviews her here:
Kennedy was, as Gerald Patrick Hemming, a CIA operative, said in one of his interviews with me, “the last president to believe he could take power.” So we see a vicious battle here.Mellen believes that the CIA functioned as the proverbial power behind the throne back in the 1960s. The situation is quite different today:
JW: Since then, no president has really challenged the CIA.
JM: That’s right, and I think Hemming was correct. Kennedy was a very shrewd, intelligent man. He was the last president who thought he could take power. Recently, when Bush gave his State of the Union Address, he looked up at Cheney, who was standing behind him, for his approval. Cheney gave him the thumbs up. This President is not in control. He is not in power. I believe Hemming was right.
But I want to note that the CIA under John F. Kennedy was not the same CIA that we have under George W. Bush. This truth is surfacing weekly. In fact, the CIA really told the truth about what was happening in Iraq. The CIA intelligence was good. The CIA knew that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. They told this to the current administration, which preferred to move forward rather than accept the good intelligence of the CIA. And as a result of the Bush Administration’s actions against the CIA, we see a decimation of the CIA’s clandestine services. The CIA was not to blame in this call up to war in Iraq. This is not the same institution that was involved in the murder of President Kennedy.I've made the same point repeatedly on this blog: No previous administration would have dared to cross the Agency the way Dubya, Cheney and the neocons have. In fact, the neocons routinely put out books and articles accusing the CIA of being part of the insidious liberal/Islamofascist conspiracy.
Back in the early 1960s -- when Gerry Patrick Hemming was running around with guns and camo gear, fighting first for then against Castro -- the John Birch Society organ American Opinion (which was tied into the anti-Castro underground) routinely ran articles excoriating the CIA as part of the insidious liberal/Marxist conspiracy.
In 1963, people who thought that way were considered fringe-dwellers, nutjobs, reactionary wackos. Now they have power. Now they have control -- not just of the White House, but of the weltanschauung.
So what changed? When did it change? How did a fringe movement come to the forefront?
And if the CIA is no longer the power behind the throne -- who is?
14 comments:
If Ivon did suggest that Garrison might have a sexual relationship with Joan Mellen, I wouldn't say that was dissing Garrison, who apparently did have an eye for the ladies. Have you seen the photo of Garrison and Mellen together? She was a babe.
Joseph wrote:
"And if the CIA is no longer the power behind the throne -- who is?"
I'm afraid to say it, but the "truth" is probably more insidious than any of us care to imagine.
I tend towards Peter Dale Scott's concept of deep politics -- plus Karl Marx -- with ever-changing cabals battling it out for power: various factions grouped within oil firms, multinational defense corporations, intelligence agencies, corporate lobby groups, international narcotics traffickers, dodgy financiers (Citi), mercenary outfits staffed by ex-military and ex-covert operators (Blackwater, Triple Canopy, DynCorp anyone!)
The power behind the throne is, well, power! Raw, brutal, merciless capitalist power; the "heartless heart" of the law of exchange value and the falling rate of profit.
Joe will undoubtedly disagree, but the set-up is a thoroughly bipartisan affair: look at the nest of vipers surfacing in the Sibel Edmonds scandal: Grossman, Scowcroft, Hastert, Solarz, Cohen, Wexler -- you get my drift. Can you even imagine a Franklin Roosevelt surviving a nanosecond in today's climate!
The same pirates leading the charge for war against Iran: neocons and neolibs wallowing in the same trough.
As far as Hemming goes, what else could he say? He had no defense, none whatsoever. Oswald was worse than a patsy, he was one of long-line of Manchurian candidates! Check out Dick Russel's The Man Who Knew Too Much as well as Joan Mellen's excellent biography of Garrison.
The "truth is out there," and man is it ever bleak.
Do you still believe the CIA is a monolithic entity? That's like perceiving the Catholic church or the United States as a monolithic entity where everybody operates in tandem and on command. The CIA has never been such an animal. It's a many headed hydra that has a Nazi box..a liberal box and conservative box..a business box..a corporation box..a media box, an assasination box, and an Islam box..etc. and a beautiful emplyee box (ala Plame) and always always remember it was started..given birth by and midwifed by Reinhard Gehlen, Hitler's Chief of intelligence for the Eastern front and a very powerful and deeply connected chief at that. With all his like minded and loyal (to Hitler) agents in the East European underground inside the Soviet Union and scattered all over the rest of the world, East West North and South.
Whenever you give thought to the "CIA" remember, it is a many headed hydra and the heads often do not even know each other. And especially do not even have the same agendas and levals of security. Much like the latest Bourne flick where the bad CIA is gunning for the good CIA guys. That is a very (very) accurate model and must be remembered and studied.
Ray McGovernn is a liberal minded, "retired" CIA analyst (or so it seems..one never knows for certain about any of the employees in "The Agency").
Think of it like several corporations that function independently of each other no matter who is the temporary head under whatever administration.
Remember Carter had his man Satnfield Turner at the top and they tried to clean house and fired many of the most radical or out of control agents, and those same agents, reappeared as assets in private companies that the CIA had created earlier..and then they sabotaged Carter in his Iranian hostage crisis efforts.
The corporations and off the shelf businesses that have been created in the last sixty years are all autonomous and operate freely and do not have to submit themselves to any scrutiny whatsoever..except for the managers that operate from the fascist boardrooms..like Doctor No..Ya know?
All bureaucracies share traits. I cant believe the CIA is any different. Its just another civil service job. Admittedly there are differences, but I would imagine the differences are trivial compared to the similarities. So of course the CIA is not monolithic. On the other hand, just as corporate cultures can change, so can civil service cultures. I imagine that following the influence of flower power liberals who grew up in the 60's the Agency would have mellowed. God knows how long it will take to get rid of the bloody fundamentalists and mormons who are currently applying for jobs.
And with regard to "the power behind the throne", well surely the business of government remains business? Moron scum bags like Perle spend their lives inventing rationisations for policies which benefit their masters. They aren't really the power. They are just the functionary. The doners are the power. They say they are buying "influence" or just the chance to put their view across.
What exactly does that mean? Who else has quite as much to gain or lose? And when in history was it ever any different. Eisenhower coined a beautiful phrase. We don't use it anymore for fear of being called liberals or commies.
G.H.W. Bush had been CIA Director, then he was POTUS, but if he - of all people - didn't have the so-called "power" - um, I don't know how to finish that sentence or question. And, well, you know, G.H.W. Bush's Vice-POTUS was the John Bircher dude, Dan "I'm assassination insurance" Quayle. I like the bumper sticker: Return The WELTANSCHAUUNG!
Following up on what Antifascist wrote, I have read Peter Dale Scott's THE ROAD TO 9/11 and I recommend it very highly.
John in NC
In part, it makes things simpler to look at agendas rather than trying to figure out factions. The CIA from the 50's to the 70's was a weird mixture of fanatical anti-Communists and Cold War liberals -- but if you believe Steve Kangas, its real aganda was always to prop up the elite and the business community and roll back the remains of New Deal populism.
If you follow that line of thought, the impression you get is that the CIA these days is far more professionalized and without an agenda of its own, but its tendency towards political meddling has been effectively privatized.
As one example, there are the NGO's operating under the National Endowment fror Democracy (like the International Republican Institute), which were originally set up in the 80's as a way of putting government funding into doing legally what was no longer permitted to the CIA.
As another, there are groups like the American Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers, which allegedly were getting CIA support back when, but which these days seem to be setting their own goals.
Both sets of groups are devoted to pushing a radical free-market, free trade agenda. And though they've done a certain amount of coordinating with the Bush administration, you can be sure they'd take on a far more adversarial role under any Democratic president.
I wouldn't say these groups are exactly "in charge" in the sense of the original question. But the only other bloc with comparable power is the traditional military-industrial complex -- and that seems to be so larded with left-over cold warriors and bomb-Iran fanatics that I doubt it has any relevant purposes of its own any more, besides getting bloated contracts for its members.
The business-related groups are far more certain about what they want and how to get there. Not only that, but along the way they've picked up many of the CIA's old tricks -- as can be seen in the NGOs' exercises in regime change and in the Chamber of Commerce's manipulation of support for CAFTA.
They've been pretty successfully flying under the radar up to now. But they showed their hand some in crushing John Edwards' candidacy -- and if anything like a genuine wave of populist sentiment does take hold in this country, we could have a few interesting years ahead.
Among other things, our courts have been heavily infiltrated by Federalist Society judges -- who form the intellectual wing providing the legal framework for the rollback of individual rights -- and that in itself could lead to some world-class battles if anyone starts pushing back.
Everyone here seems to be in a fog when pondering the inscrutable and enigmatic CIA. Whenever we say or think CIA, we of course can only speculate. Our speculations are arrived at based on the books we read and the seminars and lectures we attend and the fevered imaginings that we conjure.
Secrecy is still the watchword and the name of the game and the CIA's purpose from the very beginning in its development and recruitment was to perpetuate the "international" fascist agendas, and we all have a pretty god idea of what that means..corporatism.
The actual shape and size of that original child now grown full size is gargantuan since it has created many independent and autonomous legitimate businesses not unlike the mafia has done, and in fact, many of the "enterprises" of the CIA have morphed into Mafia managed companies in the drug trafficking businesses especially. The profits from heroin, cocaine and a long list of synthetic "mind candies reap the largest profits in the world, then combine that with the various oil interests (Zapata was G Bush's CIA affiliate company in the Kennedy years) and you have a behemoth unparalleled and unstoppable. Many have tried, like Carter and Kennedy, but failed, or achieved only temporary and minor successes.
Read Carl Oglesbys "The Secret Treaty of Fort Hunt" sometime..and "Blowback" by Christopher Simpson to get the scale and the agenda of what we call the CIA. Three llittle letters that we so bandy about as if we know something of the monster that was illegitimately created (without the will of Congress..it was a Presidential act) in 1947. Even Harry Truman that OK’s it’s creation, confessed, that he was not aware of the nature of the beast and regretted assisting in its birth.
Given the sixty years of its development and growth lets rethink its purposes and hope and pray for its demise.
messing around with both Ralph Schoenmann and Jim Garrison makes way more sense that killing General "Walker" AND JFK
The old saw had it that the CIA was the private army/secret police force for the oil companies.
In any case, I'd believe them more an instrumentality of the Powers that Be rather than a PTB itself, both then and now.
PERHAPS somebody like a Bill Harvey might go off on his own and do something that would change history (like arrange the killing of JFK), but isn't it clear that he was a tactician and a manager more than a strategist or mover and shaker? My guess is even back then, a Harvey or a David Atlee Phillips, whomever, did what they may have done because those higher in the food chain, with a superior office, dictated their action, to at least the level of ok'ing it into motion.
The early neo-cons' 'Team B' in the late '70s, early '80s TRASHED the Agency, with great effect, and the Agency appeared unable to mount an effective defense of its positions.
Hardly the record of a top power agency, to let such things happen to itself.
...sofla
"And if the CIA is no longer the power behind the throne -- who is?" der "weltanschauung"? If anyone knows the correct quote and source of this paraphrase......( never attribute to conspiracy and power what can be attributed to incompetence ) please correct me. The point is, especially with world power, is that we're looking at the entrails of the aftermath of a circular firing squad.
Hemming's given name was GERRY, not Gary. Sorry to be a stickler....
That red glow in the sky over California is my face, blushing. I wrote far too quickly. But I have corrected. Thanks.
There's a new book on the assassination due out this month from The Harvard University Press. It's title is THE ROAD TO DALLAS, and it is by David Kaiser a historian with a Harvard Phd. Kaiser says he can flesh out the case for conspiracy using the official government files.
It sounds fascinating!
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