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I was watching an old speech of Bill Clinton at the JFK library and he mentioned something that sparked a connection.

JFK only served 1000 days.

Girl in a jacket

Follow JFK’s 1000 Days in Office 50 Years Later, on Twitter

JFK’s predecessor, Dwight D. Eisenhower, had finalized support on March 17th, 1960, for a Cuban invasion by anti-Castro insurgents, but the wily general left its execution to the incoming Kennedy team. From the start, JFK recoiled at the caper’s stench, as CIA Director Allen Dulles has acknowledged, demanding assurances from CIA and Pentagon brass that there was no chance of failure and that there would be no need for U.S. military involvement. Dulles and the generals knowingly lied and gave him those guarantees. When the invasion failed, JFK refused to order airstrikes against Castro. Realizing he had been drawn into a trap, he told his top aides, David Powers and Kenneth O’Donnell, “They were sure I’d give in to them and send the go-ahead order to the [U.S. Navy aircraft carrier] Essex. They couldn’t believe that a new president like me wouldn’t panic and try to save his own face. Well, they had me figured all wrong.” JFK was realizing that the CIA posed a monumental threat to American democracy. As the brigade faltered, he told Arthur Schlesinger that he wanted to “splinter the CIA into a thousand pieces and scatter it to the winds.”

An inside job: CIA a suspect for some in JFK's killing

CIA officials were reportedly deeply angered by Kennedy’s lack of support in the failed Bay of Pigs invasion to oust Cuba's Fidel Castro, a debacle that cost Dulles his job in 1961. Conspiracy buffs argue that Dulles's firing incited plans for an assassination. Kennedy was even once quoted in a New York Times report, by an anonymous source said to be a trusted aide, as saying he wanted "to splinter the CIA into a thousand pieces and scatter it to the winds," following the Bay of Pigs.

Think the CIA isn't that petty? Think Again.

Chuck Schumer tells Trump the intelligence community can get back at you six ways from Sunday

The CIA denies it...

The Lie That Linked CIA to the Kennedy Assassination

For years, Soviet propagandists had sought to impugn the United States by linking it to France’s brutal colonial war in Algeria. The effort was a mediocre success until 22 April 1961, when four Algerian-based generals organized a putsch against President Charles de Gaulle, who was trying to extract France from the seven-year conflict. Coincidentally, one of the plotters, Air Force Gen. Maurice Challe, had served in NATO headquarters and was unusually pro-American for a senior French officer. This fact provided the basis for a fabrication that the plotters enjoyed the CIA’s support.

“This lie was first printed on the 23rd of April by a Rome daily,” Helms testified. In English, the headline in Paese Sera read, “Was the Military Coup d’état in Algeria Prepared in Consultation with Washington?” The very next day, Pravda, citing Paese Sera, ran a story alleging CIA support for the revolt, as did TASS and Radio Moscow. Other Soviet Bloc and then Western outlets picked up the story, which gathered credibility with every re-telling. Eventually Le Monde, the most respected and influential newspaper in France, ran a lead editorial that began, “It now seems established that some American agents more or less encouraged Challe.” The vehemence of the US Embassy’s denial was primarily taken as an indication of the allegation’s truth.