Posted on 03/19/2025 4:50:25 AM PDT by hardspunned
Schlesinger called the CIA a rogue “state within a state.”
“No one knows how many potential problems … are being created by CIA clandestine operations.”
Schlesinger: “The contemporary CIA possesses many of the characteristics of a state within a state.”
“There is no doctrine governing our conduct of clandestine operations.”
Schlesinger slammed the idea that the CIA should “fight fire with fire” to defeat communism.
“If fighting fire with fire means contracting the freedoms traditionally enjoyed by Americans in order to give more freedom to the CIA, no one seriously wishes to do that.”
Schlesinger: “CIA operations have not been held effectively subordinate to US foreign policy.”
“In short, no one knows how many potential problems for US foreign policy — and how much potential friction with friendly states — are being created at this moment by CIA clandestine intelligence operations.”
In practice, Schlesinger told JFK, the State Department had become a “rubber stamp” for CIA clandestine operations.
“The concept of ‘contingency planning’ has legitimized the concrete preparation of operations still presumably in a hypothetical stage.”
“If a group is assembled and revved up on a contingency basis, then the failure to carry the project through (it is argued) will invite the disappointment and alienation of the group.”
“CIA has effectively ‘made’ policy in many parts of the world.”
“A number of governments still in power know that they have been targets of CIA attempts at overthrow — not a state of mind calculated to stimulate friendly feelings toward” the US.
Schlesinger recalled Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs Thomas C. Mann’s reaction to the botched Bay of Pigs invasion:
“I would never have favored initiating this operation, but, since it has gone as far as it has, I do not think we can risk calling it off.”
Schlesinger proposed that JFK de-couple the CIA’s clandestine operations from its research and analysis work.
“If intelligence is too closely connected with operations, then those committed to a particular operation will tend to select out the intelligence which validates the operation.”
In conclusion, Schlesinger proposed “a drastic overhaul of the State Department” to rein in CIA clandestine operations.
“The State Department would be granted general clearance authority over all clandestine activity.”
Schlesinger also proposed splitting the CIA into two agencies, one for clandestine and paramilitary activities and another for information collection and analysis.
One month after JFK’s assassination, former President Harry Truman echoed Schlesinger’s fears outlined in this 1961 memo.
“There is something about the way the CIA has been functioning that is casting a shadow over our historic position.”
Truman wrote that he set up the CIA to streamline information-gathering.
“At times, the intelligence reports tended to be slanted to conform to established positions of a given department.”
But between his presidency and JFK’s, Truman witnessed a change in the CIA.
“For some time I have been disturbed by the way CIA has been diverted from its original assignment.”
“It has become an operational and at times a policy-making arm of the Government.”
“I never had any thought that when I set up the CIA that it would be injected into peacetime cloak and dagger operations.”
Truman called for the termination of the CIA’s “operational duties” and the restoration of the agency to its “original assignment as the intelligence arm of the President.”
Makes me think of Peter Falk in “The In-Laws” and the JFK picture on the wall. The Bay of Pigs. “At least we tried.”
“It has become an operational and at times a policy-making arm of the Government.”Sounds very much like the leanings of the Obama Democrats and their RINO enablers going forward over these last many years. "Peacetime cloak and dagger operations" equals "regime change," and included, in my setimation, the attacks on President Trump throughout the first temr and now into his second.“I never had any thought that when I set up the CIA that it would be injected into peacetime cloak and dagger operations.”
I saw that Roger Stone posted this about his conversation with Nixon regarding the assassination.
“President Nixon told me that the Warren Commission was “the biggest goddamn hoax in American history.”
He also told me, “Lyndon Johnson and I both wanted to be president—the difference was, I wasn’t willing to kill for it.”
https://x.com/rogerjstonejr/status/1902170097982099696?s=46&t=oXM3QUNDayEotvdo1W-zQA
Roger Stone’s book on the JFK assassination is one of the best ones out there:
https://www.amazon.com/Man-Who-Killed-Kennedy-Against/dp/1626363137
LBJ had the means, the motive and the opportunity to participate in the planning the crime and lead the coverup of the crime.
They turned him into a nut instead.
Left him still breathing, with all the relevance of a fart in the wind. Clever of the bastards really. Kennedy is a martyr and if Art had gotten popped, it would have brought a lot of attention to what he was worried about...
CIA made sense to me during the Cold War...back when it supported AMERICAN interests. Once the Democrats got control of the CIA, it became time to get rid of it.
its always the clowns
if you dig deeper, you may find that the Cold War was a creation of the CIA
They took out JFK. Maybe that was enough (plus grabbing the short hairs, as they seem to have adopted with domestic players to cement 'their' power & influence).
“if you dig deeper, you may find that the Cold War was a creation of the CIA”
I’d say the Soviet policy of spreading Communism around the world also had a bit to do with getting the Cold War going.
Well, GHWB couldn’t remember where he was that day....which, you’d think he would....
But Shirley, there was no way that he was lying....
I call BS on most of this. A month before JFK was killed, he, along with the CIA, organized a coup in S. Vietnam that resulted in the death of their president. Kennedy was perfectly willing to use the CIAs dirty tactics if it suited his purposes.
The Obama Clinton Soros branch of government is about selling off parts of the US to make money for themselves. Guns, weaponry, vaccines, education, intelligence. Everything is for sale in their world. Obama is just a carnival barker.
Agree.
In the context of this thread about the JFK memo, it suggests President Trump and his top officials are already targeted by those profiteers and their carnival barker. Our prayers for this administration and its ongoing goals are most apt. Best wishes.
To quote Rudy Rutiger’s dad after the bar scuffle scene: “Don’t nuthin ever change around here?”.
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