Actually, you are asking the wrong question. You are asking for evidence of the CIA's motivation, which is to say, of the CIA's state of mind. I am far more interested in the CIA's actions than in its words or thoughts.
The pattern of CIA activity from roughly 1964 to 1974, described in my series of articles and further elucidated in the many links I provided, demands an explanation beyond that supplied by mainstream journalists and historians. These actions include, but are not limited to, the following:
1) Officially advising President Johnson in 1964 that the war was lost and that Vietnam should be abandoned to the communists;
2) Creating and funding anti-war front groups, beginning in 1965;
3) Praising and promoting said anti-war front groups via CIA propaganda networks operating through major newspapers and broadcast networks;
4) Ousting President Johnson through the so-called "Dump Johnson" campaign run by CIA contract consultant Allard Lowenstein, who recruited Eugene McCarthy to run against Johnson in the primaries;
5) Creating and leaking the so-called "Pentagon Papers";
6) Hampering Nixon's war efforts and negotiations with a never-ending stream of well-timed and extremely damaging leaks of classified information to the press;
7) Ousting Nixon through the so-called "Watergate" scandal;
All of the activities cited above demonstrate a consistent pattern on the part of our CIA to undermine and sabotage the war effort.
Rather than demanding from me proof of the CIA's motivation -- a topic on which I can only speculate or hypothesize -- I would urge you to pursue a more useful line of inquiry, which would be to consider the facts I have set before you, as well as the many links I provided which supplement those facts, and to ponder what these facts could possibly mean.
If you reject my explanation of these facts, please feel free to supply an alternative explanation of your own.
If you ask me, that is pretty evidential stuff you’ve listed.
I doubt there is any other way to explain the so-called **quagmire** that these days is simply refered to as “vietnam.”
“All of the activities cited above demonstrate a consistent pattern on the part of our CIA to undermine and sabotage the war effort.”
I despise the leftists and Cronkite as much as you or any other good conservative. It is obvious that leftists in our media proactively sought American’s defeat in Vietnam. I would even go as far as to say that much of the Watergate story was concocted to gain attention.
But I don’t see the support for a claim that the CIA, in it’s entirety set out as a policy covert or otherwise to have the US lose or withdrawl in Vietnam. Now, were there leftists within the CIA who may have done things to hinder us? Certainly.
But, to say that the CIA is basically rogue and coopted as an intelligence agency put your line of reasoning in the “CIA killed Kennedy in a coup” type of conspiracy reasoning.
Take your #7) “Ousting Nixon through the so-called “Watergate” scandal”
What is your proof of this claim? To say leftists within the media ousted him could possibly be show to have played a huge part. But you are saying the CIA directly did this?
What part did James Angleton (DCI) play?
Interesting thread. See Poe reply at #43.