It seems clear that the whole big idea that Gates-Mullen crafted post Rumsfeld, and sold to both Obama and McCain more than a year ago, will be stillborn. Petraeus is getting his troops. But where will they go? What will they blow up and bury? The sand itself, Sahib?

It will be interesting to see if the additional 10,000 troops Petraeus asked for (ahem) in February (beyond the 16,000 then in transit) will actually be put on ships. If not, it will be a quiet sign that Gates-Mullen have reconsidered.

I should note that the notion that the BoP raid was a conscious provocation (by its planners in CIA and Pentagon) of the callow new president is NOT my invention. It’s a rather common view among people who have studied the disclosed history.

The famous internal CIA report by the CIA Inspector General (which became public only in the early 90s if memory serves) supports the notion, by concluding that the raid had absolutely zero chance of any kind of success on the ground in Cuba. The numbers were just ridiculously small given the well organized and populous Cuban militias.

The IG specifically destroyed the old Right Wing canard that if the White House had merely okayed air cover (using the B-26s out of … Guatemala if memory serves) the invasion would/might have succeeded. The IG said no way.

There was (according to John Ehrlichman) only one copy of this report, kept in a no-access vault at the CIA, for the eyes of the President and DCI only.

But the tenor of the IG’s investigation had become clear as he conducted his interviews with the planners and managers of the raid — and thus this report haunted the Apparat (knowing nothing but expecting the worst) for years.

The early dispute among Nixon and Helms (DCI) over files — Nixon wanted the CIA’s BoP files — were related. Helms was trying to keep what the IG knew from becoming White House scuttlebutt …

Back to the main point.

Aside from the IG, there are many voices from the time that support the notion that the plan was to set something in motion that the PResident would be compelled by circumstances — ie, by the Briefers from the Pentagon and CIA — to “rescue” to avoid “embarrassment” and avoid “losing to the Commies.

And rescue meant giving the green light to a few transports already on the water loaded with Marines and what not.

Kennedy instead pivoted and said no — and took all the heat thereafter that the planners had in effect blackmailed him with.

This digging in of heels — again, only 76 days on the job — is what’s most remarkable about Kennedy’s performance.

It seems to me he knew enough about the Apparat, from:

– service as a lowly lieutenant in a long shooting war

– 12 years in Congress and

– a lifetime in a family that traded at the very highest political levels …

He knew enough, given that, to smell a rat.

Knew (as few Americans did/do) of the failed 1958 invasion of Indonesia, which was also run by CIA but with 10x the number of people.

Knew that the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs (Lemnitzer) and his sidekick (LeMay) were bona fide “nuts” (as Kennedy put it early in 1961) — already sending memos about the need to nuke China now.

Kennedy in short had a lot more experience with, and thus healthy skepticism about, the National Security Apparat than Obama, who seems to love the dudes and is, manifestly, so far, allowing them to run foreign policy.

Will he begin to dig in his heels is the question. Doing so was not easy for Kennedy, and of course in the end he lost the struggle.

The demonstrations in Pakistan are getting bigger and bolder.

To continue tracking events in Pakhanistan thru time, click here.

We were in Cochin China (later known as Vietnam) during World War II, arming the natives in their battle against the Japanese.  Afterward, without interruption, we enhanced our supply of arms to these people soon labelled insurgents in the western press since they were now fighting the French, not the Nips.  (Prouty provides firsthand reportage on all this.)

When the French said adieu post Dien Bien Phu, we officially opened a CIA shop in Saigon.  Sole Proprietor: OSS veteran Edwin Lansdale 1954.

Seven years later, Lansdale’s application to become Ambassador of South Vietnam was rejected by President Kennedy during his first weeks in office.

Less than three years later, Lansdale’s pal and quasi-puppet in Vietnam, President Diem, was murdered in a local coup more or less condoned by the Americans.

(That is:  The White House went back and forth on the notion of replacing Diem for months. Several false starts started, encouraging then discouraging more than one local pretender. The White House seems to have condoned the specific operation that resulted in Diem’s death but (this much is clear) that operation included a jet provided by the CIA to remove Diem and his extended family to Paris.

Prouty reports that the Diem and his brother (a top advisor) actually boarded the jet, then disembarked in an unexplained panic and drove back to the president’s palace, where they found coupsters already arranging furniture.  A chase ensued and the brothers were shot.

JFK was in the company of a half dozen others when the news of Diem’s death was delivered.  Those several witnesses concur that he blew his top in a most extraordinary way.

It may be that the US ambassador in Saigon, Henry Cabot Lodge, encouraged the local rivals to kill Diem. Lodge and the White House were at odds on Vietnam, aka the War on Communism, thru out the period.  Their disagreements explain much of the administration’s confused stance on the whole question since the spring.)

The day Diem died, about 16,000 US troops were in Vietnam — under CIA auspices and direction. Weeks before, JFK had signed an order bringing 10,00 out by New Year’s and anticipating full withdrawal by year-end 1965.

Twenty days after Diem was dispatched, Kennedy himself was murdered. Less than a week later, President Johnson signed an order rescinding Kennedy’s withdrawal plan.

Then, after Johnson’s 1964 election victory and subsequent State of the Union address, he gave the Pentagon the green-light it had been seeking in Southeast Asia since Eisenhower’s second term, during which a failed CIA invasion of Indonesia (1958 — ten times larger than Bay of Pigs) and then failures against Peking in Laos, had raised Cowboy Commie-fighting land-grabbing fevers to a pitch.

See Dr Strangelove and (or better yet read) Seven Days in May.  The rest being history as television and textbooks more or less tell it.

Thus, contrary to Dallek’s headline, our Vietnam War did not begin until 1965. It was the child of Johnson and the Pentagon.

What transpired between 1943 and 1964 was different: a mix of diplomacy, arms supply, covert operations and advising of the nascent South Vietnamese army.  Was run by the OSS and then the CIA.  Was minor (re expense of US lives and treasure) compared to what followed, as troop levels escalated to over half a million.  And was in the process of being shut down on the morning of November 22, 1963.

Dallek of course is a biographer of both Johnson and Kennedy and has feelings among sources past and present to protect. (The way he sketches the history in his piece suggests tightrope walking.)

And of course there have been a number of LBJ associates across the years who have told the public that Johnson was in some way involved in JFK’s murder.  I have not looked into it well enough to have an opinion; if compelled to bet money Yes or No would bet no.  Because the murder was such a widespread and professional operation.

(The homespun LBJ theory has his old Texas hatchet man Max Wallace doing the shooting.  But who called off the Secret Service and the Army Intelligence security unit and (re Roger Craig’s testimony) the Dallas Sheriff’s office and who flew a brigade from Germany to Washington (over the city when the shooting occurred) and kept it circling in the air for hours then flew it back to Germany?   And who prepared the extensive press package on Oswald that was already  distributed and founding public reportage before Oswald had been accused by Dallas PD of the Kennedy murder?  And what about the testimony and statements of Morita Lorenz and Howard Hunt …)

It was a large scale professional hit.  Impossible for me to imagine it was Johnson’s initiative.  Equally hard to think he was a manager.  Possible to believe however (as a Dallas girlfriend repeatedly said) that he was told/warned shortly before it happened and did nothing to stop it.  But … No opinion.