Saturday, 16 October 2010 22:06

Todd Leventhal: The Minister of Diz at Dealey Plaza

Written by William Kelly

The State Dept. official entrusted with dealing with the JFK conspiracy relies on Reclaiming History as his guide, as William Kelly shows.


TODD LEVENTHAL – MINISTER OF DISINFORMATION

During the Cold War and the hot wars that followed, "disinformation" was the buzz word for the false and deceptive information surreptitiously promoted by communist and foreign intelligence services.

Promoting disinformation wasn't something that the United States itself did, at least it wasn't something they wanted anyone to believe they did, as it was discussed by John Barron and others who studied and wrote about the propaganda put out by the Soviets&#8217 official Ministry of Dizinformation.

That the United States doesn't engage in such psychological warfare is an urban myth quickly dispelled by Todd Leventhal, America's Minister of Disinformation, whose official title is State Department Counter-Mis and Disinformation Officer. As such Leventhal has been the subject of a spate of recent publicity, especially in regards to debunking conspiracy theories.

We've heard from Leventhal before, pushing the Bush foreign agenda, disputing reports that Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq was a false pretense for war, and more recently as the State Department's spokesman designated to officially debunk conspiracy theories that the federal government considers serious threats-like UFOs, faked moon landings, 9/11 missiles and President Obama's birth certificate.

Leventhal's official blog on debunking such "conspiracy theories" serves as fodder for legitimate journalists looking for a good column when news is slow, but most real conspiracy theorists considered him just another media spokesperson for the government, not unlike those who speak for the al Quada and the Taliban, and trusted as much.

But Leventhal recently created a mini-firestorm when some mainstream publications began commenting on his inclusion of the assassination of President Kennedy among the "conspiracy theories" worth debunking, and his ridicule of those who believe anyone other than Lee Harvey Oswald was responsible for the murder of Kennedy.

As the official State Department specialist and spokesperson whose job is to counter-misinformation and disinformation, Leventhal's blog (since suspended but archived under Rumors, Myths and Fabrications1) touches on a number of controversial subjects, including AIDS, the moon landing and the war in Iraq, but the subject of the Kennedy assassination seems to have struck the most sensitive nerve.

THE MIS & THE DISINFORMED

On Leventhal's official State Department web site, under the banner of "Countering Misinformation," it is noted that, "The purpose of this webpage is to counter misinformation," which is defined in parenthesis as "unintentional mistakes." Their mission is also to counter "conspiracy theories, urban legends, and disinformation," which also rates the definition of "deliberate falsehoods and distortions."

Originally disinformation, as explained by John Barron2, was defined as not only "deliberate falsehoods and distortions," but contained the caveat that the deliberate falsehoods and distortions were the product of a foreign intelligence network.

It was technically defined as "Deliberately misleading information announced publicly or leaked by a government or especially by an intelligence agency for the purpose of influencing public opinion or the government in another nation."

Definition of Disinformation 3

Also see4

While some frequent users of the word5 have adopted it and use it frequently to apply to anyone they happen to disagree with, the classical definition will be used here, in order to distinguish those who actually are agents and/or assets of a government intelligence function.

There are clearly identifiable and categorizable disinformation agents who promote real disinformation about the assassination of President Kennedy – intentionally wrong information meant to deceive for the purpose of influencing public opinion and the government at the behest of an intelligence agency. Issac Don Levine, Priscilla Johnson McMillan, David Atlee Phillips, Virginia Prewett, Hugh Aynesworth, Max Holland, Edward J. Epstein and Gus Russo come to mind right away.6

But there are others who echo the same Lone Nut theme who are not so obviously connected to an intelligence apparatus and, for psychological or personal reasons, appear to be just spouting plain old misinformation. In light of the strict, classical definition above, this would include academics like John McAdams, Ken Rahn and some of their cohorts like Dave Reitzes and David Von Pein. They all maintain the hoary misinformation of Oswald being both the sole assassin and a Lone Nut case, when it can be proved he was a Covert Operative and designated Patsy, as he claimed to be.7

As the official US Government web page on the subject explains, "Some groups and individuals spread disinformation deliberately, often to try to achieve a political purpose. The media and others can make errors due to sloppiness, misunderstanding, or urgent deadline pressures, resulting in misinformation that may linger long after the initial error has been corrected."

So disinformation is deliberately wrong and has an intentional purpose, while misinformation is just plain wrong because people make mistakes or are often just wrong. So far so good, but then Todd Leventhal makes a big leaping jump when he says that, "Conspiracy theorists believe that vast, powerful, evil forces secretly manipulate events that actually have much less dramatic causes. Many believe urban legends, which often circulate by word of mouth or the Internet, because they put a widespread fear, hope, or suspicion into story form."8

Leventhal goes from trying to correct mistakes and clearly wrong perceptions to branding most of the people of the world as irrational zombies who will believe anything and "spread fear, hope and suspicion into story form?"

Now they estimate that 75 to 80% of the people are so-called "conspiracy theorists,"9 and he's put all conspiracy theories together in one big heap, even though, as John Judge likes to say, "not all conspiracies are created equal. "

And as the official government conspiracy debunking web site puts it, "Some topics have been the subject of misinformation and disinformation for decades. There are many myths about depleted uranium, probably because people mistakenly associate it with weapons-grade uranium or fuel-grade uranium, which are much more dangerous substances. Saddam Hussein's Iraq, Milosevic's Yugoslavia, and others have deliberately fanned these unwarranted fears. Soon after AIDS was first recognized, conspiracy theories began to appear blaming the U.S. government or others for this mysterious new disease. As Russian officials later admitted, the Soviet disinformation apparatus concocted false allegations about AIDS, blaming it on non-existent Pentagon experiments."

Now there we have it, REAL Dizinformation – the now dizolved "Soviet dizinformation apparatus concocted false allegations about AIDS, blaming it on non-existent Pentagon experiments." Now that's REAL disinformation, as it is traced directly to the Soviets' "disinformation apparatus."10

But then there's that "misinformation," or mainstream media that repeats the disinformation or otherwise wrong stories, such as "Television programs and newspaper articles repeating totally false organ and eye trafficking allegations won the most prestigious journalism prizes in France in 1995 and in Spain in 1996."

So people like to buy sensational stories like those on organ traffickers, and it wasn't the first time that mainstream news editors and journalists were fooled, and prizes given out for bogus articles, as it happens all the time. Just off the top of my head I can think of three cases of Pulitzer Prize winning stories being proven false and the prizes retracted. 11

But it's not just such false sensational stories that people soak up, there's the false 9/11 stories, as Leventhal points out. "After the September 11 attacks, conspiracy theories and urban legends arose, including one that falsely claimed that no Jews had died at the World Trade Center because they had been forewarned. In each of these cases and many others, it is possibly to demonstrate the falsity of these charges to fair-minded observers. That is what this webpage seeks to do."

Well okay, that's a good mission, as stated – to demonstrate the falsity of such charges to fair-minded observers, but that's not all Leventhal is doing.

But not many people would have even noticed the web site or what Leventhal was really doing if it wasn't for some mainstream media stories, such as the one in the Scottish Daily Record, which announced (from the Daily Record- Best of Scottish News 17 August 2010)12 Leventhal with the headline that "White House launches new web site to debunk conspiracy theories." Since the article is so short, I will quote it in its entirety:

"The White House has launched an official bid to shoot down conspiracy theories," the Scottish news wrongfully announced, as Todd Leventhal's position at the State Department preceded the reign of the Obama administration. Now that's just plain old misinformation the Scotts on the other side of the pond just didn't know.

The news story continued that,

"A new website aims to counter claims that the US government have been involved in top-secret plots and sensational cover-ups," then zooming right in on the Kennedy assassination angle.

"The Conspiracy Theories and Misinformaiton page – posted by the US equivalent of the Foreign Office – insists that Lee Harvey Oswald killed John F. Kennedy alone, and that the Pentagon was not hit by a cruise missile on 9/11."

For some reason they can't discuss the JFK assassination alone, they have to mix it in with 9/11 or UFOs or Marilyn Monroe.

"The site also says officials have not covered up the existence of aliens and the moon landings were not faked and filmed in Hollywood. The internet has led to an explosion of outlandish theories and rumors about the US Government."

Again dumping all "conspiracy theories" into one big heap, the article quotes the web sites as saying, "Conspiracy theories exist in the realm of myth, where imaginations run wild, fears trump facts and evidence is ignored."

Then the article quotes our good friend and Lobster13 publisher Robin Ramsay, "an expert in conspiracy theories," who said: "It will have about as much effect as a site appealing for sexual abstinence amidst the internet's oceans of porn."

Indeed, few would have noticed Leventhal's web site and behind the scenes work if it wasn't for these news stories, and Leventhal will certainly not convince the 80% of the world who are conspiracy theorists that they are wrong about the assassination of President Kennedy.

As John Judge noted at that point, "In the official U.S. government website devoted to debunking conspiracy theories, JFK is lumped with all the nonsense of course," and "we are allowed to believe anything but know nothing."14

TODD LEVENTHAL – DEEP BACKGROUND

Todd Leventhal is profiled on official web sites as "the Department of State's expert in this area," and a professional who "has 12 years of experience in researching and countering disinformation, misinformation, urban legends, and conspiracy theories. He is available to respond to reasonable comments and requests in this area, and will do his best to provide accurate, authoritative information."

On his archived blog page, under About the Author, it is noted that, "Todd Leventhal is the (State) Department's expert on conspiracy theories and misinformation – stories that are untrue, but widely believed. He enjoys reading obituaries, which tell the personal stories of people who have shaped the fabric of American life. Todd became interested in international affairs after a four-month trip to the Soviet Union, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India in 1972. He worked for Voice of America for seven years and bikes to work year-round."

Under Full Biography, it adds nothing, but elsewhere15 we learn that he is Harvard educated and his office bureaucratically comes under "The International Information Programs Bureau of the U.S. Department of State" and has a small, two-person team, composed of Todd Leventhal and Sarah Womer, "who counter false stories."

Todd Leventhal himself elaborated on his background when he wrote that,

"My interest in disinformation and misinformation has its roots in a four-month trip I took in 1972 to the Soviet Union, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India. The Soviet Union's militarization, lack of freedom, and gloominess made a huge impression on me and I began to read as much as I could about the Soviet Union and communism and decided to make this my career interest. After studying Soviet affairs, I moved to Washington, DC and eventually found a job countering Soviet disinformation at the United States Information Agency (USIA) in 1987. The Soviets had a sizable bureaucracy dedicated to churning out lies about the United States and other countries. We were busy responding to requests from U.S. embassies to provide them with material to refute lies about the United States that had appeared in the local media. It was satisfying work and in 1988 I wrote and edited the USIA report Soviet Active Measures in the Era of Glasnost, in response to a request from the U.S. House of Representatives for a report on this issue. ëActive measures' was the term the Soviet foreign intelligence service, the KGB, used for its clandestine political influence operations, which relied heavily on spreading disinformation."

"In 1990, when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, his regime spread a great deal of disinformation about its occupation of Kuwait and the U.S. effort to help protect Saudi Arabia and the other countries of the Gulf and liberate Kuwait. I began to counter Iraqi disinformation and was the main U.S. official doing so during the Gulf War and its aftermath."

(You can find material he wrote during that time here.16)

"Later, in 1999," Leventhal continues,

"I wrote a monograph recounting these events, Iraqi Propaganda and Disinformation During the Gulf War: Lessons for the Future, which was published by the Emirates Center for Strategic Studies and Research in the United Arab EmiratesÖ. After the Soviet Union collapsed at the end of 1991, I wrote a report in 1992, Soviet Active Measures in the "Post Cold War" Era, which explained the more sophisticated and conciliatory political influence operations of the Gorbachev era."

(This report has been posted on the Internet.17)

"After the Soviet Union collapsed, the main part of my efforts shifted to countering misinformation about the United States, especially what we called the ëbaby parts' rumor. This rumor, which has first burst into the world media in 1987, falsely claimed that Americans or others were kidnapping or adopting children from Latin America or other regions to use in organ transplants. Despite the fact that there was no truth whatsoever to this story, it spread all over the world. I wrote about the "baby parts" rumor in a 1994 USIA report to the United Nations The Child Organ Trafficking Rumor: a Modern Urban Legend."

"In 1996, I was displaced from my job in a reduction-in-force within USIA and did not return to countering misinformation and disinformation until October 2002, when I came to the Department of State (USIA became part of the Department of State in 1999), to resume my previous job. I countered misinformation and disinformation during the 2003 war in Iraq, and have continued since then."

Leventhal shows us that fighting propaganda, mis and disinformation, and dishing it out, is a bi-partisan affair, and it doesn't matter if the White House is occupied by a Republican or Democrat, conservative or liberal, the civil servant's job goes on.

While the JFK assassination may have sparked the most recent public interest and response to Leventhal's government work, others have written and complained about him before, especially journalist Larry Chin and investigative reporter Wayne Madsen.

In a 2006 story headlined, "Call the US State Department's –counter-misinformation' office what it actually is: official misinformation,"18 Chin wrote:

The US State Dept.'s "counter-misinformation" office headed by Todd Leventhal is the subject of a nationally syndicated article originally published in the Hartford Courant, and reprinted in major papers, including the San Francisco Chronicle. Leventhal, and the Bush administration's "truth ministry" (the US State Department "Identifying Misinformation" Web Site) was previously exposed by Wayne Madsen as a shameless attack and cover-up apparatus. Madsen himself is the target of many of Leventhal's attacks. Since Madsen's 1995 expose, Leventhal's ministry has obviously remained busy. Among Leventhal's current targets, all of which he concludes (as an official asset of the US government) are myths: 9/11 "conspiracy theories," US plans to invade Venezuela, and the US creation of Osama bin Laden.

Historians, investigators, journalists, researchers and academics know full well that a great number of Leventhal's targeted items, notably the above, are not myths, "urban legends" or "conspiracy theories," but fact, proven by official US government documents and credible mainstream news reports. The site identifies what issues this administration considers threatening enough to "debunk"--- i.e. cover up, deny, and discredit. It identifies groups and individuals that the government wishes to undermine.

It is also no surprise that Leventhal's office has resorted to a familiar trick: lump genuine facts and real history into one cesspool along with bad, genuinely "crackpot" material, so that the important facts and real history are flushed down the pipe. Anything deemed to be damaging to the image of the US government is fair game. This includes documented facts.

The site goes out of its way, for instance, to label John Perkins' book, Confessions of an Economic Hitman, a work of fiction. The book details how Perkins sabotaged the economies of various nations while in the employ of the National Security Agency (NSA). Perkins responded to the State Department's web site: "Their mission statement is a lie. So when they use their mission statement to say my book is a lie, I think it speaks for itself."

The very existence of this "truth ministry" speaks volumes about what this country has become, and how low this administration has stooped. Again, see the original expose by Wayne Madsen.

The government has devoted an enormous apparatus (which includes the State Department, the CIA, a corporate media, a corrupted educational system, and more) to control what you think, openly manipulate reality, and cover up its malfeasance.

In Wayne Madsen's April, 2005 article19 on Leventhal, titled: Bush administration's "Ministry of Truth" attacks American journalists who fail to adhere to the official line, Madsen wrote:

After revelations that the Bush White House cleared a gay male prostitute as a daily credentialed member of the White House press corps and that the administration was paying journalistic shills like Armstrong Williams, Maggie Gallagher, Michael McManus, and Karen Ryan to pump out pro-Bush propaganda to the media, nothing should come as any surprise when it comes to the Fourth Estate's buckling under to political pressure from the right-wing regime that rules America.

What is surprising is that, in addition to using the media to concoct favorable propaganda, the Bush administration maintains an office in the State Department that keeps an eye on American and other journalists and does not hesitate to attack them for straying from the party line. To show how much censorship exists in America today, this journalist would have likely never known about the existence of a one-man office in the State Department that acts to debunk and attack anything the Bush administration deems is false. Thanks to a recent report by veteran America watcher and journalist Jyri Raivio in Finland's Helsingin Sanomat newspaper, it can now be reported in the United States that the State Department uses taxpayers' money to attack American journalists who refuse to parrot the Bush administration's disinformation and propaganda.

The head of the State Department's Counter Mis-Information ëTeam' is Todd Leventhal, a long-time neoconservative propaganda operative who once worked for the U.S. Information Agency's (USIA) Bureau of Information to counter Soviet and other disinformation with his own Brand X of American disinformation. Raivio reports that Leventhal was part of the Bush administration's effort to convince the world that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction {WMD). Leventhal also contends in the Helsingin Sanomat report that any suggestion that false WMD intelligence was cooked up by the Bush administration is merely a conspiracy theory and that the faulty intelligence on Iraqi WMD was merely a huge mistake.

Although he is basically a one-man show (he does have a full-time assistant and one part-timer), Leventhal does not seem to produce much for his work at the State Department. Leventhal was actually laid off by the State Department in 1996 after his Cold War-era counter-disinformation office was disestablished, but he was rehired in October 2003 after the White House decided to resurrect its propaganda effort under the rubric of ëstrategic influence operations.' Leventhal's attacks are narrowly focused on particular stories, sources, and journalists. His web site has an explanation of how to spot disinformation ó Leventhal contends that most conspiracy theories are rarely true and that they are spread by ideological extremists, that is liberals, because right-wingers like Leventhal would never be willing to address right-wing extremism (such as Fox News, the National Review, and The Wall Street Journal editorial page) in the media. Leventhal's dismissing conspiracies as often untrue will, nevertheless, come as a great shock to the Criminal Division of the Justice Department, which has put away many a criminal based on violation of criminal conspiracy laws.Ö..

... ... In what is frightening and amusing at the same time, Leventhal makes an offer to those who have questions about the news stories they are reading: ëIf you wish, ask us. We can't respond to all requests for information, but if a request is reasonable and we have the time, we will do our best to provide accurate, authoritative information.' The State Department's website provides Leventhal's phone number for those who wish to have him interpret the news for them: 202-203-7492. Just another friendly service from your taxpayer-funded Ministry of Truth!

THE MINISTER OF DIZ AT DEALEY PLAZA

That's all a lead in to what the official government Minister of Mis and Disinformation has to say about the assassination of President Kennedy.

Last July on his blog 20, which is called "Rumors, Myths and Fabrications, Leventhal wrote, "Last week, I did a Web chat on conspiracy theories, in which I was surprised by the number of questions on the Kennedy assassination.

TRANSCRIPT OF WEB CHAT ON CONSPIRACY THEORIES -

FOUR QUESTIONS on JFK Assassination:

Q [Gerak]: Is the assassination of Kennedy a conspiracy?

Q [Olabisi]: the Mafia and US Govt killed Kennedy and not Oswald. That's what I believe

Q [tito]: how about jfk assassination

Q [Alan]: The true story behind the Kenndey assassination. Rumour has it that the CIA plotted the murder.

A [Todd Leventhal]: The true story behind the Kennedy assassination is that Lee Harvey Oswald, acting as a lone assassin, killed President Kennedy.

A [Todd Leventhal]: The most comprehensive book on this subject is "Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy" by Vincent Bugliosi, published in 2007. In this 2,700-page book (which includes the attached CD)", Bugliosi establishes clearly that Oswald acted alone.

A [Todd Leventhal]: From an early age, Oswald was a bitter, angry loner, ill-suited to working with, much less taking orders, from others. In grade school, he refused to salute the American flag. At age 13, he told his school psychiatrist "I dislike everybody." He quit or was fired from every job he ever held, except the factory job he had in the Soviet Union. He defected to the USSR in 1959, requesting Soviet citizenship "because I am a Communist," complaining that he "lived in a decadent capitalist society, where the workers are slaves." Even after returning to the United States in 1962, Oswald remained strongly pro-Communist, idealizing Cuban communism-not the type of person who would be likely to want to work for the CIA, or whom they would be likely to entrust with the most sensitive mission imaginable.

A [Todd Leventhal]: The KGB observed Oswald while he was in the USSR and concluded that he was a "mediocre, uninteresting, useless man," in the words of Vladimir Semichastny, who headed the KGB when Oswald lived in the USSR. Semichastny added, "I had always respected the CIA and FBI, and we knew their work and what they were capable of. It was clear that Oswald was not an agent, couldn't be an agent, for the CIA or FBI," noting that "Oswald's actions in Minsk [where he lived in the USSR] were not those of a foreign agent. His primary interest was in attending dances."

A [Todd Leventhal]: Bugliosi cites one of Oswald's friends when he lived in Fort Worth, Texas, George de Mohrenschildt, who wrote: I never would believe that any government would be stupid enough to trust Lee with anything important ... an unstable individual, mixed-up individual, uneducated individual, without background. What government would give him any confidential work? No government would.

A [Todd Leventhal]: In April 1963, Oswald attempted to kill retired General Edwin Walker, a fierce anti-Communist.This was the act characteristic of an unstable individual who hated anti-Communists, not that of a government agent. In August 1963, he planned to hijack a plane to Cuba-not a likely activity for a U.S. government agent. In September, he travelled to Mexico City, visiting both the Cuban and Soviet embassies in an unsuccessful attempt to travel to Cuba-the act of someone who hated America, not a U.S. government agent.

A [Todd Leventhal]: Bugliosi also points out that Oswald had no help from any co-conspirators when attempting to flee after killing President Kennedy, taking a bus and then a cab back to his room in Dallas.

A [Todd Leventhal]: Oswald only had a total of $183.87 to his name when he killed President Kennedy. He lived in a tiny (1.5 meters by four meters) room, which he rented for eight dollars per week. Nobody had paid him big bucks to be a hit man.

A [Todd Leventhal]: Oswald lived in a world of grandiose, make-believe delusions. He thought the USSR would be paradise; later Cuba. He told his wife that someday he would be "prime minister" of the United States – a job that has never existed. He was a nut obsessed with making his mark in history, which he, tragically, did, all by himself.

(Read more from the above quoted Web chat here.)

You would think that the official government spokesman on misinformation, disinformation and conspiracy theories would quote the Warren Report or the Final Report of the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA), the last official government body to investigate the assassination, but instead he quotes Vincent Bugliosi.

The former prosecutor who put Charlie Manson behind bars for engineering murders for which he was not even at the scene, can't see the similar manipulations behind what happened at Dealey Plaza, and shamelessly promotes the official cover story of the event as if he's solved the crime. The same exact information is provided at Leventhal's web site.

As John Judge notes, "The sole source of evidence are two sophomoric essays by some government hack (Leventhal) who claims to have read Bugliosi and praises his conclusions as exhaustive. I am sure he neither fully read Bugliosi nor did he read much else on the case from his illogical commentary."

Indeed, Bugliosi's 2,700-page book (which includes the attached CD) is of biblical proportions, and certainly gives a false portrait of the designated Fall Guy and Patsy, one that is repeated, almost word for word, in the JFK Assassination section of Leventhal's now suspended blog. It appears he merely quoted portions of Bugliosi and then read what he had prepared for the web site, which reads:

The most comprehensive book on this subject is the 1600-page book Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy by Vincent Bugliosi, 21 published in 2007. Bugliosi clearly establishes that Oswald acted alone.

In his profile of the mediocre, uninteresting, useless, unstable, degenerate, Lone Nut Loser and assassin, apparently based primarily on Bugliosi's book, Todd Leventhal wrote:

Bugliosi also points out that Oswald had no help from any co-conspirators when fleeing after killing President Kennedy. He took a bus and then a cab back to his room in Dallas, and then hid in a movie theater. Oswald only had a total of $183.87 when he killed President Kennedy. He lived in a tiny (1.5 meters by four meters) room, which he rented for eight dollars per week. Nobody had paid him a lot of money to be an assassin."

Oswald was obsessed with making his mark in history. He told his wife that someday he would be "prime minister" of the United States-a job that has never existed. He was a fool but, tragically, made it into the history books, entirely on his own."22

The Leventhal/Bugliosi's "portrait of the assassin" is wrong on a number of counts, the most significant being that the evidence and witness testimony convincingly indicates that Oswald wasn't the Sixth Floor Sniper, was not the assassin of the President and was set up at the fall guy and Patsy, just as he claimed to be.

Besides this false and intentionally deceptive portrait of the Patsy, there are more realistic and perceptive profiles of Oswald, including the Covert Operational Personality (COP) for which Oswald sets the mold, and which I developed after reading the Secret Service/Justice Dept. Study of Assassins and potential threats to the president, which didn't include any such personality profile or threat.

(Secret Service Study: http://www.secretservice.gov/ntac.shtml)23

AMERICAN ASSASSINS AND THE ORIGIN OF THE LONE-NUT THEORY

Allen Dulles took a book with him to one of the first meetings of the Warren Commission, Robert Donovan's The Assassins, which is about how American assassins appear to be psychologically deranged lone-nuts. Dulles gave out copies of the book to other commissioners and he recommended they read it. 24

As detailed by Donald Gibson in his The Kennedy Assassination Cover-up (2000)25, in which he wrote in the chapter Shaping the Investigation, Gibson wrote:

...Warren briefly mentioned the mental illness issue. Dulles then also brought this up and he began but did not get to finish a description of books he had been reading which focused on 'the psychiatric angle.' On December 16, Dulles was far more aggressive in his promotion of this "angle." Dulles was handing out copies of a book which analyzed seven previous attempts on the lives of U.S. Presidents. Dulles gave this book to members of the Commission and to the Commission's lawyers. As indicated by Dulles, the theme of the book was that such attempts were typically the acts of lone individuals, usually individuals with mental disorders.

As Gibson notes:

When Donovan later wrote the introduction to the Popular Library Edition of The Warren Commission Report on the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy, he applied his generalizations to the Kennedy assassination: "For the murder of President Kennedy was so horrifying, so senseless and heart-rending that the act was difficult to comprehend in terms of the average person's experience. To anyone who happened to know the history of the assassinations of American Presidents, Lee Harvey Oswald conformed remarkably to the pattern of obscure misfits, loners, fanatics, cranks and mentally deranged and deluded men who committed these historic crimes. Indeed he even bore a vague physical resemblance to them. To millions everywhere, however, the crime in Dallas was too momentous in all its implications to be accepted as the pitifully simple thing it was, the solitary act of a deranged and deteriorating wanderer, taking his revenge on the world by destroying one of its finest living figures. Surely, it seemed to many-especially to many abroad-there must be further explanation, a more complex cause, a plot, a conspiracy.

Donovan uses about eight different terms to suggest Oswald was a lone-nut. The official line that developed during the hours immediately following the assassination has not changed[.]

If Dulles was more interested in determining the truth about the assassination, than promoting the bogus Lone-Nut theory, he would have the other commissioners read his own book, The Craft of Intelligence, 26 in which he quotes Sun Tzu's ancient manual The Art of War. 27

In the very first chapter, on page one, under the title "The Historical Setting," Dulles notes that:

In the fifth century B.C. the Chinese sage Sun Tzu wrote that foreknowledge was 'the reason the enlightened prince and the wise general conquer the enemy wherever they move'ÖRejecting the oracles and seers, ...Sun Tzu takes a more practical view. What is called ëforeknoweldge' cannot be elicited from spirits, nor from gods, nor by analogy with past events, nor from calculations,' he wrote, 'It must be obtained from men who know the enemy situation.'

(See: Foreknowlege and the JFK Assassination.28)

"In a chapter of the Art of War called ëEmployment of Secret Agents,' Sun Tzu gives the basics of espionage as it was practiced in 400 B.C. by the Chinese," wrote Dulles, "much as it is practiced today."

According to Sun Tzu:

Now there are five sorts of agents to be employed. These are: native, inside, double, expendable and living." A native agent is one of the nationality of the enemy. An inside agent is one who lives and works in the enemy's camp. A double agent is an enemy agent who works for both sides. An expendable agent is one that can be cut loose after achieving his goal, while a living agent is one that can get into the enemy camp and return with information.

It appears from this description that in his short life of 24 years Lee Harvey Oswald had already served as three, maybe four of those types of agents, including inside, living, double and ultimately expendable. Despite Leventhal's quoting of Bugliosi as saying Oswald was not the type of person the CIA or a secret organization would use, he actually fits the profile of the type of person they would use for certain missions and operations.

(See: Oswald and the Covert Operational Profile COP.29)

THE ASSASSINATION OF RABBI KAHANE:

WHY IT'S IMPORTANT TO DIFFERENTIATE LONE NUTS FROM COPS

As detailed in The Cell – Inside the 9/11 Plot, and Why the FBI and CIA Failed to Stop It, by John Miller and Michael Stone, with Chris Mitchell (Hyperion, NY, 2002),30 on November 5, 1990, a 35-year old Egyptian-born militant named El Sayyuid Nossair assassinated co-founder of the Jewish Defense League (JDL) Rabbi Maier Kahane at a hotel ballroom in New York City.

In circumstances similar to the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, Nossair almost escaped, having fled in a cab and shooting a policeman in pursuit, similar to the official scenario of Oswald's escape from Dealey Plaza.

Later, at a packed news conference, the chief of detectives of the New York City Police Department Joseph Borelli announced that Kahane's murder was the work of a "lone, deranged gunman," with no ties to known terrorists or conspiracies.

But, before the day was out, detectives had tracked down Nosair's rented house in Cliffside Park, New Jersey, where investigators carried out some 16 boxes of files that included training manuals from the Army Special Warfare School at Fort Bragg, copies of teletypes for the Secretary of the Army and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, bomb-making manuals, maps of landmark locations like the Statue of Liberty, Times Square, Rockefeller Center and the World Trade Center, and notes in Arabic.

According to John Miller, "The FBI now says it turned the files over to the Manhattan District Attorney's Office, after it was decided, following a series of meetings and phone calls, that the local prosecutor and the NYPD would have exclusive jurisdiction over the murder case. The Manhattan DA's office won't comment on what was done with the filesÖ but this much is certain: The bulk of the material remained untranslated and unread for nearly three years."

In addition, the source of Nosair's national security records (U.S. Army Special Forces Manuals from Fort Bragg) had been traced to Ali Mohamed, the double-agent trainer of the Blind Shek's al Qaeda cell that was responsible for the first bombing of the World Trade Center.

Just as Joseph Boreli, the chief of detectives misdiagnosed the assassination of Rabbi Kahane as the work of a deranged Lone Nut, when in fact it was the work of a covert operative and a cell of Arab terrorist, the profile of Lee Harvey Oswald as a Lone Nut has prevented the proper investigation and prosecution of those actually responsible for the assassination President Kennedy. The local police in Dallas and the FBI conducted themselves in a similar manner in both instances, prefering to go along with the cover-up and put an end to the legal and judicial maneuverings rather than properly investigate and prosecute the crime.

As John Miller tried to explain this mindset, "Now this may come as a surprise, but I consider Joe Borelli to be a friend of mine. But back in 1991 he was a loyal general, not a revolutionary, and the prevailing theory in the NYPD was, ëDon't make waves.' That is why a commander in those days who uncovered corruption was blamed for causing scandal rather than rewarded for cleaning house. And why a commander who called the media's attention to a serial rape suspect was rebuked for bringing pressure on the department instead of being applauded for warning the public. So in the Nosair case, when Chief Borelli turned a blind eye to the obvious, he was merely remaining true to the culture of the NYPD. The thinking was, don't take a high-profile homicide case that could be stamped ësolved' and turn it into an unsolved conspiracy. To do so would create a lot of extra work. Instead of getting the press and Jewish community stirred up about the bad guys still out there, it was just so much simpler to say, the bad guy got Kahane, we got the bad guy, and it's all over. No pressure, no panic, no more headlines." The same thinking that motivated the Dallas Police Department, the Dallas DA, the FBI and the Warren Commission, all "true to the culture" of corruption.

So it doesn't seem like misinformed academics like John McAdams, Ken Rahn and their posse of disciples do much harm in promoting the Lone-Nut theory of the assassination, but they do provide the wrong and seemingly rational bases for others to adopt the same positions, those in positions of power, like Joe Borelli and Todd Leventhal, and those federal attorneys responsible for investigation and prosecution of political assassinations in the USA.

That is the reason why all of the government records related to the assassination of President Kennedy must be released to the public, why Congress must carry out its oversight responsibilities and why grand juries should be convened in the appropriate jurisdictions to determine the truth and whether justice can still be served. The effort must be made in the name of national security and to prevent such political assassinations from happening again.

Just as the Kahane assassination set the stage for 9/11, and could have possibly prevented additional terrorist attacks had the murder been properly investigated, the assassination of President Kennedy was perpetrated by more than just Lee Harvey Oswald, and represents something much larger, and had it been properly investigated, could possibly have prevented other political assassinations.

And until the issue is addressed, the assassination of President Kennedy is something that will continue to come back and haunt us until it is resolved to a legal and moral certainty.


Sources and Notes

1. Todd Leventhal's blog: Rumors, Myths and Fabrications

2. John Barren – on KGB and Soviet Disinformation Dezinformatsiya; also this.

Disinformation Department (Department A) Department A was responsible for clandestine initiatives and campaigns to influence foreign governments and publics, as well to shape perceptions of individuals and groups hostile to Soviet interests. The majority of the Departments activities were implemented by other KGB elements, or other Soviet organizations.

3. Generic Definition of Disinformation

Disinformation is false or inaccurate information that is spread deliberately. It is synonymous with and sometimes called Black propaganda. It may include the distribution of forged documents, manuscripts, and photographs, or spreading malicious rumors and fabricated intelligence. ... (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disinformation)

[Note: Black Propaganda is NOT synonymous with Disinformation. See: Linebarger, Paul; Psychological Warfare – International Propaganda and Communications by Paul M. A. Linebarger (1948, U.S. Army; Duell, Sloan and Pearce, N.Y. 1954; Arno Press, 1972) Black propaganda purports to emanate from a source other than the true one. This type of propaganda is associated with covert psychological operations. http://www.stentorian.com/propagan.html]

4. Classical Definition of Disinformation

Disinformation is deliberately misleading information announced publicly or leaked by a government or especially by an intelligence agency for the purpose of influencing public opinion or the government in another nation: "He would be the unconscious channel for a piece of disinformation aimed at another country's intelligence service" (Ken Follett).

5. Conspiracy Nutter – Professor James Fetzer. ("One of the telling signs of many disinformation artists (who may or may not be gainfully employed by some "shadowy government agency") (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Henry_Fetzer - Disinformation) In Fetzer's words, "in this day and age, we all have to become experts on disinformation ... According to Fetzer, "disinformation... should be viewed more or less on a par with acts of lying. Indeed, the parallel with lying appears to be fairly precise. Misinformation Fetzer defines as "false, mistaken, or misleading information;" disinformation is misinformation propounded "in an intentional, deliberate, or purposeful effort to mislead, deceive, or confuse." Fetzer describes five levels of disinformation. Fetzer's Disinformation and the Use of False Information: (http://www.springerlink.com/content/g1u2q540010236xq/

6. The Dis-informed Lone Nutters with ties to intelligence agencies include Issac Don Levine, Henry and Clare Booth Luce, Priscilla Johnson McMillan, David Atlee Phillips, Virginia Prewett, Hugh Aynesworth, Joe Gulden, Edward J. Epstein, Gus Russo and Max Holland. (http://www.washingtondecoded.com/site/2008/06/simkin.html ).

7. The Mis-informed Lone Nutters include John McAdams, Ken Rahn, Vincent Bugliosi, David Von Pein, Dave Reitzes and Max Holland. (http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/oswald.htm), (http://www.kenrahn.com/jfk/JFK.html).

8. Leventhal web chat quote on what all conspiracy theorists believe. (http://www.america.gov/st/webchat-english/2009/July/20090714143549iaecnav0.4049581.html)

9. Public Opinion Polls on Conspiracy and JFK assassination. (http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=16209&st=0&p=197414&hl=+public%20+opinion%20+polls%20+&fromsearch=1& - entry197414)

10 Real Soviet Dizinformation – Blames AIDS on USA Chemical Warfare. (http://uscpublicdiplomacy.org/index.php/events/events_detail/1593/)

11. Pulitzer Prizes for bogus mainstream media articles include the Washington Post reporter who made up a source for a heroin mother transmitting the addiction to her baby, which was withdrawn and given to Terresa Carpenter as runner-up for her story on a convict who promised to kill his wife when he got out of jail and did. Another WP reporter was fired for making up election coverage articles.

12. Scotland Daily Record article on Leventhal's web site. (From the Daily Record- Best of Scottish News 17 August 2010 http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/science-and-technology/2010/08/02/white-house-launches-new-website-to-debunk-conspiracy-theories-86908-22457938/).

(Also See: http://www.examiner.com/headlines-in-san-antonio/john-f-kennedy-assassination-and-other-conspiracies-debunked-on-new-white-house-website)

13. Robin Ramsey – Lobster UK (See: Lobster http://www.lobster-magazine.co.uk/)

14. John Judge (http://www.judgeforyourself.us/)

15. Web background on Leventhal. http://www.america.gov/st/pubs-english/2005/January/20050114144117atlahtnevel1.426333e-02.html

16. Leventhal's Report on Iraqi disinformation during the Gulf War. http://intellit.muskingum.edu/othercountries_folder/iraq_dis.htm

17. Leventhal's Report on "Soviet Active Measures in the Post-Soviet Era." (http://intellit.muskingum.edu/russia_folder/pcw_era/index.htm#Contents.)

18. Larry Chin article on Leventhal. 2006 story headlined, "Call the US State Department's –counter-misinformation' office what it actually is: official misinformation," (http://www.mail-archive.com/cia-drugs@yahoogroups.com/msg05936.html)

19. Wayne Madsen article on Leventhal. April, 2005 article titled: Bush administration's "Ministry of Truth" attacks American journalists who fail to adhere to the official line. (http://www.waynemadsenreport.com/)

20. Web Site and Partial Transcript of Web Interview with Todd Leventhal. (http://blogs.america.gov/rumors - http://www.america.gov/st/webchat-english/2009/July/20090714143549iaecnav0.4049581.html - Also see: http://www.america.gov/st/webchat-english/2009/July/20090714143549iaecnav0.4049581.html#ixzz0yCA7ddBu ]

21. Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy by Vincent Bugliosi, (Vincent Bugliosi, Norton, 2007)

22. Lee Harvey Oswald Lone Nut Profile (per Bugliosi/Leventhal) (http://blogs.america.gov/rumors/author/leventhalta/)

23. Secret Service Study – Assassination in the United States: An Operational Study of Recent Assassination Attackers, and Near Lethal Approaches. (http://www.secretservice.gov/ntac.shtml )

Also See: (http://www.secretservice.gov/ntac/ntac_jfs.pdf)

24. The Assassins, Robert J. Donovan (1955, Elek 1956) http://www.amazon.com/Assassins-Robert-J-Donovan/dp/B000UD4PG2. (Robert John Donovan (August 21, 1912-August 8, 2003) also wrote PT109 and biographies of Presidents and Eisenhower, and the introduction to a special edition of the Warren Report.

25. The Kennedy Assassination Cover-up (Donald Gibson in his The Kennedy Assassination Cover-up, 2000)

26. The Craft of Intelligence (Dulles, Allen. The Craft of Intelligence. New York: Harper & Row, 1963. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1963. New York: Signet Books, 1965. [pb] Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1977. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1985. Guilford, CT: Lyons Press, 2006.) (Dulles credits: "For my remarks on Sun Tzu I am indebted to the recent excellent translation of The Art of War with commentaries by General Sam Griffith (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1963).

27. The Art of War (Sun Tzu http://www.chinapage.com/sunzi-e.html) Also see: The Divine Skeim at Dealey Plaza http://jfkcountercoup.blogspot.com/2008/01/divine-skeim.html

28. Foreknowledge and the Assassination of President Kennedy (See: http://jfkcountercoup.wordpress.com/2009/08/22/foreknoweldge-and-the-jfk-assassination/)

29. Oswald and the Covert Operational Profile (COP) http://jfkcountercoup.blogspot.com/2009/08/covert-operational-profile.html]

30. The Cell –Inside the 9/11 Plot and Why the FBI and CIA Failed to Stop It (Hyperion, NY, 2002, by John Miller, Michael Stone, Chris Mitchell). P. 36-48.

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