Let's Blame Bobby: Part Five

Posted on: May 27 2007, 06:26 AM [by Joan Mellen]
QUOTE (David Talbot @ May 26 2007, 09:18 PM)
I don't want to engage in a mudslinging debate with Joan – much of whose work on Garrison I respect. JFK debates too often descend into religious wars – particularly those around Garrison, who provokes such strong passions on both sides. But I would like to make some general points about our differences.

Clearly, the main ones seem to be this: Joan thinks I see RFK (and Sheridan) through rose-colored glasses, and I think she does the same with Garrison. I want to clarify, as much as I can in a short space, my views. My book acknowledges Bobby's flaws – his intemperate stance towards Castro (particularly in the early days of the administration), his arrogance, his absolutist tendencies (again, particularly early on), etc. And as for Sheridan, I make no effort to defend his investigative methods – except to say that in his and Bobby's minds, the evil of their organized crime targets merited this zealousness on their part. I think Sheridan's Irish-Catholic, ex-G man, pro-Kennedy intensity clearly carried over into his dealings with Garrison, which, as I write in the book, was tragic. Sheridan was unable to recognize Garrison's legitimate contributions to solving the case, once he concluded he was tainted. So I acknowledge all that – but I think Joan goes too far in her crusade against Sheridan (and Bobby). In doing that, she even accepts the corrupt opinions of notorious Kennedy haters like the CIA's Sam Halpern – who was the source for much of the poison in Sy Hersh's notorious book.

My own view of Garrison, as I've tried to make clear, is that he was a flawed hero. He was enormously brave to reopen the case and withstand the ferocious counterassault from the government and the media --and yes from RFK and Sheridan, who feared that he would expose Kennedy secrets and also contaminate the investigation, which they were intent on keeping under their control.

But those who defend Garrison without conceding his significant shortcomings and blunders are guilty of blind hero worship. He did indeed have puzzling blinders on when it came to Carlos Marcello – he thought the godfather of New Orleans, a venomous enemy of the Kennedys, was a "respectable businessman." I don't think Marcello was the architect of the assassination -- I think it came out of U.S. intelligence. But I think Mafia bosses like him (and I would also include Trafficante and Rosselli) played a supporting role in the crime -- and in the Ruby hit on Oswald. And we can argue all day about Clay Shaw, and whether – after losing Banister and Ferrie as targets – Garrison should have built his whole case on him. But the bottom line is that a jury didn’t buy it, and the result – as Bobby and Sheridan feared – was to contaminate the case for many years to come. So JG's legacy, in my mind, is a decidedly mixed one. As is Sheridan's – a man who also failed to crack the case and apparently abandoned it altogether after Bobby's murder. This plagued him until the end of his life, as I write in the book.

To sum up, Garrison and Sheridan were both motivated by a deep and genuine desire to crack the case. But they were both doomed to clash, considering their polar-opposite personalities and agendas. This was a tragedy for the entire country. UNQUOTE


[Joan Mellen replied – my editing for space-dwd]
I don't believe I see Garrison through rose-colored glasses. Unlike Garrison in his memoir, I discuss the false charging of Edgar Eugene Bradley, for example. I discuss Garrison's falling for the nonsense of "Farewell, America." Yes, compared with the forces arrayed against Garrison, he a small town prosecutor in state court, the adversary ranging from Richard Helms to Robert Kennedy, I judge that he should be respected for the effort he made. It's about time. Let me repeat, that Garrison knew full well that Sheridan had come down there to destroy him...Sheridan revealed that to practically everyone he met! Garrison remained perplexed. Why, why wouldn't Bobby Kennedy help him!

The sources for Robert Kennedy's plots against Fidel Castro I've listed in a previous message. Ramsey Clark told me he found memos of these efforts in his desk (they had survived the Katzenbach years) when he became Attorney General. Now, if it is convenient for you to call everyone who offers a less than favorable view of the Kennedys a liar, you are free to do that under the first amendment.

The same holds true for Sam Halpern. The CIA did not like the Kennedys (I have a whole chapter on that in "A FArewell to Justice."). But anyone who reads that oral history where Halpern is dumbfounded by the contradictory policy, the Kennedys making friends with Castro, and Bobby using Ford/Fiscalini to round up some Mafia in Canada to murder Fidel Castro, cannot in good conscience say that he is lying. Halpern simply can't believe what the evidence revealed to him, he is so surprised! I am not interested in what Sy Hersh made of that, or whether he "hated" the Kennedys. Halpern was not lying!

......By the way, the theory that the CIA sent Sheridan down there (the only other sponsor conceivable) can easily be disproved.

So I'll conclude that in order to give credibility to Sheridan and Bobby Kennedy, David Talbot had to crucify Garrison, yet again. The alternative is too dark.

Posted on: May 28 2007, 05:19 PM [by Joan Mellen]
QUOTE (Daniel Wayne Dunn @ May 27 2007, 04:46 PM)
Ms. Mellen, does it occur to you that Ramsey Clark's contention here seems so unlikely as to not even make good sense? UNQUOTE

[Joan Mellen replied] Ramsey Clark's surprise at finding those documents outlining RFK's plans with Edward Lansdale to assassinate Fidel Castro was genuine. Given that other evidence; the letters of Lansdale; the minutes of the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board; and yes, the shock evinced by Sam Halpern when he discovered the same thing, suggests that Clark was not lying. Why would he lie about such a thing anyway?

If you had been present with me at his office, you would have seen that Clark presented this fact to me, not as prepared disinformation, thinking I was looking for evidence against Bobby Kennedy, but as something that occurred that had shocked him.

Nor was Bobby Kennedy the subject of our discussion; Jim Garrison and Clay Shaw were our focus. Clark was very frank about how he had told the press that Shaw had been "cleared" after having been briefed that morning by Cartha DeLoach.

A good research topic might be to explore how John F. Kennedy and his younger brother Bobby were very different in their approaches to government, justice and the law. As I attempt to share with the forum people what my research uncovered, it occurs to me that Bobby's methods were not those of his brother, an idea I had never formulated, but which makes sense to me now.

Bobby resembled the Dad more than his brother, Jack.

And I'm writing not to "crucify" Bobby (he did that for himself), and the word of course suggests, again!, that he is to be spoken of in religious terms, but to study, beyond partisanship, what the Kennedy administration stood for, and what it accomplished. Bobby's attempt to destroy Garrison's work was shameful, and so extreme, that he must have had a good and highly personal reason to send his attack dog down to New Orleans to do his worst. The White Paper that Sheridan produced, a shoddy job as critics at the time noted, had been planned as the vehicle through which Sheridan would destroy Garrison's case. He had only to get as many Garrison witnesses as he could to come on television and repudiate Garrison. Many would not.

I'd appreciate hearing some views on whether the Hoffa conviction should have been overturned, given the illegal means by which it was obtained, and whether, indeed, the end justifies the means.

Ms. Mellen,
In thinking over your response and [the other member's] post, it occurred to me that possibly you both somehow drew the conclusion that my brief question might represent a glimpse of a touchingly naive inability on the part of a Hero-worshiper to face hard realities. If so, it may help to advise that at least since 1979-80 and until the past year or so I assumed John and Robert Kennedy were most likely very responsible for ordering CIA assassination attempts on Fidel Castro. (A by-product of Thomas Powers' mantra in The Man Who Kept the Secrets: what the CIA does is what [the president's real] policy is.) So I'm not appealing to anyone to try to gain the status of Sainthood for my lost heroes; I assume as a given the wisest course is that they "need not be idealized in death beyond what [they were] in life."

Having said that, sometime if I ever find the time, I would like to pontificate at some length on the subject of how so many stodgy white folks are infinitely involved and interested in "JFK assassination research/debate" yet even a generation later still appear too threatened and scandalized by the post-JFK politics of Robert Kennedy to indicate much (positive) interest in him or his own murder..... In the meantime, the following is more or less the reasoning for why I posted a brief question about Ramsey Clark's contention, in case it's still unclear.


Assuming that ordinary procedure when officials leave office is to remove (get rid of, take with them) all their papers and other personal effects, it strikes me as extremely unlikely that memos about plots against Castro would've been left behind, overlooked, misplaced, etc. Think about it: official documents, on a subject making them by definition highly sensitive material, even conceivably incriminating. We're not talking about paper clips or rubber bands or even one of Brumus' chew-toys....

But these official, highly sensitive, potentially incriminating documents not only were left in the drawers but stayed there for years until Ramsey Clark found them? No one else chanced upon them? It never occurred to Robert Kennedy that he might've left something like that behind; he didn't or wouldn't have somebody check on it?

Did Ramsey Clark produce those memos for you to look at? Did he direct you to where they are? Did he tell you what he did with them? Did you ask any questions along those lines?

The issues are not so much about Clark's veracity, though possibly about his judgment: he's an old guy and his mind may be real cloudy. The real issues are his reliability on this point as a support for your other arguments, and generally about the quality of the research if the researcher took Clark's contention at face-value and didn't ask pertinent questions about that contention.

Posted on: Jun 25 2007, 07:01 AM [by Joan Mellen]
Just as the evidence is overwhelming that Bobby Kennedy sent Walter Sheridan down to New Orleans to discredit Jim Garrison and with his "White Paper" destroy the Garrison investigation into the murder of President Kennedy, so the documents are no less strong that Bobby enlisted Edward Lansdale in his plots against Castro. Sheridan NEVER acted on his own; Lansdale revealed Bobby's plots behind his back to J. Edgar Hoover. There is no possible truth to the defensive explanation that Lansdale was acting on his own....I realize that Bobby's application for sainthood must be protected at all cost...but this is absurd. Ramsey Clark never told me that Bobby had authored the document: what he told me was that he found documentation of mutual plots between Lansdale and Bobby. It comes to the same thing.... The truth will out, one hopes.

Posted Aug 16 2007, 06:16 AM [by Joan Mellen]
……Now we come to the matter of Halpern. I assume that you've read his oral history for the CIA, which cites many witnesses to Bobby Kennedy's enlistment of CIA help to find Mafia helpers to assassinate Castro. Reading Halpern's words, you can perceive his obvious perplexity at this contradiction: How could Bobby Kennedy, whose goal was to put away Mafia thugs attempt also enlist Mafia hitmen to plot against Castro's life. The tone of that interview speaks volumes, and, yes, I believed Halpern's evidence. [evidence? he made assertions-dwd, 2016] Halpern, in addition to other details, points to a meeting of the Special Group Augmented where Edward Lansdale pretty much admitted to what he and RFK were up to regarding the murder of certain 'leaders.' This does not make Halpern a saint. This does not mean that he was not Helm's right hand man. I am uncomfortable, on the other hand, with the claim that Halpern was lying simply because his evidence undermines the project of reinventing Bobby Kennedy. The circumstances of that interview, an older Halpern looking back, also should be taken into account.

I also believed Halpern because I found so much corroborating evidence. Ramsey Clark spoke to me about how astonished he was to find those plans in his desk sent by Lansdale to Bobby Kennedy with respect to assassination plots against Fidel Castro. [Clark found "plans in his desk sent by Lansdale to Bobby Kennedy with respect to assassination plots against Fidel Castro"? Evidently a highly-sensitive memo....JUST LEFT IN THE DESK OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA!!! Again, what did Clark DO with the alleged memo, what did he do ABOUT it, what became of the alleged memo?-dwd, 2007] F. Lee Bailey spoke to me with amazement too about that meeting at the Oval Office, attended by both Kennedy brothers, where an attempt on Castro's life was discussed and organized. [How believable is it that an Oval Office meeting "attended by both Kennedy brothers" would INCLUDE F. Lee Fuckin Bailey when "an attempt on Castro's life was discussed and organized"?!!-dwd, 2007] Angelo Murgado, who to this day admires Bobby Kennedy and speaks of him only with affection, spoke of Bobby Kennedy's desire to eliminate Castro. There is more. I'm unclear about whose ego is involved…….

To add another small personal note: I was an adult was [sic] Robert Kennedy ran for President, and a fierce opponent of the Vietnam War. I was not one of those goody two-shoes, as we called them, who put their faith in Eugene McCarthy as likely to get us out of Vietnam. Allow me to assure you that of those who were committed and fighting to end that war, no one I knew or every heard of, supported Bobby Kennedy. Rather, we were appalled that Bobby, noticing that McCarthy had done well in New Hampshire, suddenly entered the race for the Presidency. Liberal people of that day found Bobby Kennedy's name synonymous with the adjective "ruthless." There was cause…..

(John Simkin @ Aug 16 2007, 02:58 PM)
I was also a student activist in the 1960s. When JFK was assassinated in 1963 I had just got involved in politics. I always assumed he had been killed as part of a conspiracy but it did not bother me too much. I saw JFK as just another cold war warrior who was not really committed to the civil rights cause. (Of course, at this time, we were all unaware of the secret negotiations that were going on with Cuba in 1963). I thought that he had been assassinated on the orders of someone who happened to be more right-wing than JFK.

Reading the interviews carried out with RFK following the assassination as part of the Oral History Project (released to the public in the 1990s) only supported this view. It is clear that RFK had no real concern about the civil rights struggle. As he admitted, it was outside his experience. What we did get in the interviews is RFK talking about the deals he did with white politicians in the Deep South that included promises that the JFK administration would not pass effective civil rights legislation. (It is difficult to explain how appalled people in the UK were by the behaviour of white politicians in the Deep South in the 1950s and 1960s.)

Like Joan, I dismissed RFK entry into the 1968 primary elections as pure political opportunism. Maybe he did really feel strongly about the Vietnam War and civil rights in 1968, but for most of us involved in these struggles, he failed to convince. It is significant that David Talbot first got involved in politics by working for RFK in 1968. If he had been as old as Joan and I, he would be more aware that RFK was coming very late to the cause.

From what we know about RFK attitude towards communism (it is important to remember it was a devout Roman Catholic, like his former mentor, Joe McCarthy) I suspect Halpern is telling the truth about these plots against Castro.

We now know that JFK was adopting a more moderate foreign policy in 1962 and 1963 but for political reasons, was still promoting himself as a cold warrior. There is no evidence that RFK supported JFK’s secret change in foreign policy.

So we were comrades! I also am grateful for the nod to Halpern, who of course was telling the truth in that oral history: he was absolutely dumbfounded at the contradiction between RFK after the Mafia and enlisting them.

On why JFK didn't support a ground war in Vietnam, I believe we have to look to the politics and economics of the Eastern establishment, of which JFK was a part. They were as nervous about the deficit and its impact on the economy as Zbigniew Brzezinski is today, why HE opposes the Iraq war, an unlikely comrade-in-arms for anti-war people indeed. But Brzezinski's strong statements against the Iraq war teach us something about JFK and the ground war in Vietnam.

Joan Mellen, on Aug 22 2007, 01:34 PM, said:
No one at the time, those who lived this history, confused Bobby Kennedy with Martin Luther King in terms of addressing the needs of the poor and the disenfranchised. Bobby can't ride those coattails, if you have an interest in history.

And I have to say, this all seems like a fairy-tale to me, this glorification of Bobby Kennedy as someone people today believe would have marshaled social change in a meaningful way. I can imagine that those, now dead, who knew what Bobby was about because they were close to these events would be absolutely astonished.....


Daniel Wayne Dunn, on Aug 23 2007, 12:08 AM, said:
Joan fails to mention the oft-repeated sentiment of actual black people, after the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.: "At least we've still got Bobby." But clearly Robert Kennedy was an evil man, and there's no point arguing with Joan or John S. on the subject, since they know so much.

From Robert Kennedy: A Memoir by Jack Newfield (New York: E.P. Dutton & Co., Inc., 1969).

[US Senators for the state of New York Jacob Javits and Robert] Kennedy visited a migrant farm worker camp just outside of Rochester, New York, in September of 1967. As the two Senators, a few union officials, and about a half-dozen reporters reached the campsite, they were welcomed by a sign that read, "Anyone entering or trespassing without my permission will be shot if caught." Most of the people in the entourage stopped, except for Kennedy: he kept on walking, head down, into an abandoned bus that was converted into living quarters for three migrant families. Inside the stench-filled bus, Kennedy saw six children, all less than ten years old. Their bodies were covered with unhealed scabs, and flies, and most of them had running noses. They were all black. Kennedy's face suddenly recaptured the terrible look it had in the months after his brother's assassination. Compassion, anger, and pain mingled and flattened his features. An old, bent woman wandered into the bus, and Kennedy asked her how much money she earned. She said, as she looked at her feet, that she earned $1 an hour picking celery. Kennedy made a face, and shook his head.

He went out and looked into the next dilapidated bus. It was empty except for one child playing on a filthy mattress. The windows were filled with torn cardboard. There was no running water and no stove. As Kennedy looked down at the child, his hand and his head trembled in rage. He seemed like a man going through an exorcism, or a religious experience.

He walked out and confronted the camp's owner, Jay DeBadts.

"You had no right to go in there," DeBadts shouted at Kennedy, gesturing to his sign. "You're just a do-gooder trying to make some headlines."

Kennedy looked at him, still struggling to control his emotions, and almost whispered, "You are something out of the nineteenth century. I wouldn't put an animal in those buses."

"It's like camping out," replied DeBadts.

Kennedy turned and left. But the memory was burned into his imagination. He talked about it again and again in other places. He wrote letters to Governor Nelson Rockefeller asking for an investigation of health conditions at the migrant camps. He wrote letters to labor leaders urging them to organize the migrants, and lobby to gain for them the right of collective bargaining. And he thought about what it might feel like to live in a bus and pick celery for $1 an hour...... (pp. 82-83)

Posted 23 August 2007, 06:54 PM [by John Simkin]
Daniel Wayne Dunn, on Aug 23 2007, 05:08 AM, said: Joan fails to mention the oft-repeated sentiment of actual black people, after the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.: "At least we've still got Bobby." But clearly Robert Kennedy was an evil man, and there's no point arguing with Joan or John S. on the subject, since they know so much.

[John Simkin replied:] I am sure they did say this. However, I wonder what they thought about RFK if they read Edwin Guthman and Jeffrey Shulman (ed.), Robert Kennedy in his Own Words (1988). In these interviews he explained what his real views on civil rights were.

I guess what they would think would depend on what "his real views on civil rights were." And I guess you know you're taking an unusual stance on this subject. Even if you give credence to some impeccable sources on the subject of how, for almost 3 whole years, Robert Kennedy struck fear in the hearts of CIA officials and ran a "Murder, Incorporated" to "get Castro," it's hard to seriously argue the man's commitment to civil rights was insincere, all for show, all politics, etc.

I believe you're aware it was the US Justice Department headed and staffed by Robert Kennedy in the early 1960s which was responsible for drafting quite a bit of civil rights legislation, arguing cases in federal courts, sending federal marshals into various situations, etc. Not enough, I guess? and far too many compromises with the status quo in the South? IF ONLY you (or I) could rule the world -- or at least go back and change history, and change realities from what they were into something more pleasant and gooder.

Are you aware that Eugene McCarthy's only victory over Kennedy in the Democratic primaries in 1968 was in Oregon -- a liberal, antiwar State, but economically prosperous and lacking in any significant "minority problems"? Very white and bourgeois, in other words. When McCarthy campaigned in California, he once bemoaned the "interest group politics" he had to fight against. (I believe this is a very early use of a euphemism more commonly associated since with our friends on the right, a way of appealing to the "white backlash" vote [against minorities] while appearing to say "one nation, under God, we should all be united") Kennedy got a bullet in his head for his endeavors. About a decade later McCarthy endorsed Ronald Reagan for president. Which one was "sincere"? Which one was consistent?

You mention a source and suggest Robert Kennedy's "real views on civil rights" are revealed in it, and that black people and progressive white people would find these "real views" distasteful or at least contrary to the mythic image. Fair enough. Since the local library doesn't have the book, I guess I'll have to take your word for it. But I've been down these roads before.

One example was when I made a passing, parenthetical comment about Jack Ruby's frenetic behavior from Friday through the shooting on Sunday seeming to indicate he was "hopped up" on speed or some type of amphetamine. I was taken to task for such speculation (by someone I have immense respect for) because it was "completely unfounded" and one of Jack's strippers (a primary source) had certified that Jack was no drug user. Several weeks later I was re-reading the Warren Report and found this: "On arriving at the ["Dallas Morning News"] newspaper building at about 11 or 11:30 a.m., [Ruby] talked briefly with two newspaper employees concerning some diet pills he had recommended to them." [850] (p. 334) ["850. C. Ray Hall DE 3, p.4: see also CE 1479, 2321."]

(Certainly no "smoking gun" for Jack Ruby using uppers, but wouldn't be bad euphemistic phrasing for drug use afoot. The kind of thing you might tell the cops, for instance.)

Another example was in a longish discussion about Lyndon Johnson's sincerity or lack thereof regarding civil rights: the statement was made that Johnson used the term nigger(s) when referring to black people. Since I was unfamiliar with this, and my "discussion partner" said he'd read quite a bit in LBJ biographies, I assumed this was true. A couple months later I read Michael Beschloss's Taking Charge, transcribed conversations from LBJ's White House tapes from Nov. 22, 1963 to late Summer or early Fall of '64. I found that LBJ consistently referred to black people as nigrahs, and the 2-3 times he used the word nigger(s) he was derisively mocking/aping typical racist attitudes of his region. (Senator Richard Russell, on the other hand, did occasionally use the term niggers in those conversations.) Nigrah was "Negro" as pronounced by Southern/Midwestern/"hick" Americans, which non-Americans might not recognize as different from "nigger." Maybe LBJ used the N-word privately when he was not "on the record"?

This is a long, roundabout way of saying that these forums are a real peach when people make assertions about their beliefs, merely mentioning some source, and leave it up to someone else to spend time investigating the matter. I do what I can under the circumstances, but it would be really pointless trying to "research" the issue whether or not Robert Kennedy was a rabid racist at heart, or finding that your objection amounts to something like "the Kennedys should have done more to rile up Southern white people." I'd only wind up begrudging the time spent, and probably come back here and bitch about it.