U.S. Politics

[Martin Weidmann]

It hardly takes a crystal ball to figure out the world would be a much more dangerous place had Iran been allowed to develop nuclear weapons and ICBMs.

They were getting dangerously close to both. They already had missiles capable of striking every capital city in Europe and had enriched their uranium to 60%, far greater than anything needed for peaceful purposes. It was only a matter of time, and probably not very much time, before they had the capability of striking the US with ICBMs with nuclear warheads. The greatest danger the world could ever face is a radical regime who advocates for martyrdom having the capability of striking anyplace in the world with nuclear weapons. Mutual assured destruction would have little effect on such a regime. Their country is being systematically destroyed and still they refuse to capitulate. MAD won't deter madmen.

It hardly takes a crystal ball to figure out the world would be a much more dangerous place had Iran been allowed to develop nuclear weapons and ICBMs.

Actually, yes it would take a crystal ball.

They were getting dangerously close to both.

Says who?

Bush claimed Iraq had nukes and it turns out it didn't. Fear mongering is all the right wing nuts do. There isn't a country in the world that is more paranoid than the U.S.A.
They see enemies everywhere. Sometimes it's caravans full of murderers and rapists making their way to the border and then somehow disappeared in thin air after the election is won.
Nixon was completely paranoid and formed an illegal group called the plumbers to go after political enemies. Reagan sold arms to Iran and gave the profit to the contras in Nicaragua.
It goes on and on and on.... and the reality of it all is none of the bad things they predicted actually happened.

Their country is being systematically destroyed and still they refuse to capitulate. MAD won't deter madmen.

The same goes for the U.S.A.

[John Corbett]

It hardly takes a crystal ball to figure out the world would be a much more dangerous place had Iran been allowed to develop nuclear weapons and ICBMs.

Actually, yes it would take a crystal ball.

They were getting dangerously close to both.

Says who?

The Iranian negotiators did. they bragged about having enough uranium for 11 nuclear weapons. Their attack on Diego Garcia showed they already had missiles with the range to strike every European capital. It wouldn't take much advancement for them to bring the entire eastern seaboard within range.

Bush claimed Iraq had nukes and it turns out it didn't. Fear mongering is all the right wing nuts do. There isn't a country in the world that is more paranoid than the U.S.A.

This isn't about the Bush clan who all despise Trump anyway. This is about whether Iran had the capability of creating nuclear weapons and ICBMs. There would have been no need for them to hide their nuclear enrichment program under a mountain if they were using it for peaceful purposes. We would stop attacking them tomorrow if they would give up their nuclear program but they steadfastly refuse despite the devastation they have already suffered and which they will continue to suffer. That should tell you something.

They see enemies everywhere. Sometimes it's caravans full of murderers and rapists making their way to the border and then somehow disappeared in thin air after the election is won.

They didn't disappear. The murderers Biden let into our country keep killing our people.

Nixon was completely paranoid and formed an illegal group called the plumbers to go after political enemies. Reagan sold arms to Iran and gave the profit to the contras in Nicaragua.
It goes on and on and on.... and the reality of it all is none of the bad things they predicted actually happened.

We're talking about current events. Try to stay focused.

Their country is being systematically destroyed and still they refuse to capitulate. MAD won't deter madmen.

The same goes for the U.S.A.

Actually, MAD did keep the US and Soviet Union from attacking each other directly during the 40 years of the Cold War. MAD deterred both sides. MAD kept the Cuban Missile Crisis from becoming  Armageddon.

[Joe Elliott]

Well, it took a bit longer but he was right. The cities that once were, were no more!

Yes, big time.

[Joe Elliott]

I know our MAGA folks here are feeling a little down today about the news from Hungary so here's a little snappy tune to help cheer up your spirits. In any case, I would like to dedicate this song to all our MAGA folks who post on JFK Assassination Forum.

[Tom Graves]

Nixon was completely paranoid and formed an illegal group called The Plumbers to go after political enemies.

History 101:

The reason Nixon formed The Plumbers was because a Kremlin-loyal KGB officer at the FBI's NYC field office, Major Aleksey Kulak -- J. Edgar Hoover's shielded-from-CIA FEDORA -- told him that the Kremlin had a complete copy of The Pentagon Papers (it didn't).

ME: Did the Kremlin acquire a complete copy of The Pentagon Papers before Nixon formed The Plumbers?

GROK: No, there is no credible evidence that the Kremlin (or Soviet Embassy) acquired a complete copy of the full classified Pentagon Papers before—or even around the time—Nixon formed the White House Plumbers (officially the White House Special Investigations Unit).

Key timelines

Pentagon Papers leak and publication: Daniel Ellsberg provided portions of the ~7,000-page classified study (officially "United States–Vietnam Relations, 1945–1967") to The New York Times, which began publishing excerpts on June 13, 1971. The Washington Post followed on June 18. A temporary restraining order against the Times was issued around June 15.

Plumbers' formation: The unit was created in direct response to the leak, established within a week of the June 13 publication (so by roughly June 20, 1971, per historical accounts). Some sources place related staffing or operations in July (e.g., Egil Krogh’s involvement around July 20), but the unit’s purpose—to plug leaks and investigate the Pentagon Papers disclosure—began immediately after the public revelations.

The Soviet claim

The only reference to a Soviet “complete set” comes from a 1973 Washington Post report (cited in contemporary coverage). It alleged that, in June 1971 (after the Times restraining order), an unidentified man using an alias handed the Soviet Embassy in Washington a full set of the top-secret documents.

The Soviet Embassy immediately and explicitly denied this on June 5, 1973, calling it “a fabrication” unrelated to improving U.S.–Soviet relations.

The story appears to have stemmed from FBI information tied to a supposed source in the KGB. However, the FBI later determined this source [Kulak / FEDORA] was fake or unreliable (detailed in a 1981 Washington Post article).

No declassified U.S., Soviet, or independent archival evidence has ever confirmed that the full classified study reached Moscow via this (or any other) channel in June 1971. The published newspaper excerpts were publicly available worldwide after June 13, but the complete 47-volume classified version is a different matter.

Context and why the claim doesn’t hold

The Nixon administration’s extreme reaction to the leak (including forming the Plumbers, the Ellsberg psychiatrist break in, and eventual Watergate ties) was driven by paranoia about further leaks and domestic political damage—not by any verified foreign acquisition. Nixon and aides viewed the leak as potentially aiding adversaries like the Soviets or Chinese, but their internal discussions and later investigations never treated a pre-Plumbers Soviet copy as a confirmed fact.

In short, the June 1971 Soviet Embassy story was a single, unverified (and denied) press report based on flawed intelligence. It does not establish that the Kremlin obtained the complete papers before the Plumbers existed. The full Pentagon Papers were not officially declassified until 2011.

ME: Did KGB Major Aleksey Kulak at the FBI's NYC field office mislead Hoover and Nixon into believing that it had?

GROK: Yes, according to declassified accounts and the FBI’s own later assessment, KGB officer Aleksey (Aleksei) Isidorovich Kulak—codename “Fedora” (sometimes referred to as a major or colonel)—was the source of the specific claim that a complete set of the classified Pentagon Papers had been delivered to the Soviet Embassy in Washington in June 1971.

Kulak had first volunteered to the FBI’s New York field office in March 1962 while serving under UN diplomatic cover as a KGB scientific/technical officer. The FBI ran him for over a decade (with a second New York tour beginning in 1971) as one of its most valued Bureau sources on Soviet operations. FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover and the Nixon White House treated his reporting as highly credible.

The 1971 Pentagon Papers claim

During the height of the public furor over the New York Times and Washington Post publications (mid-June 1971 onward), Kulak/Fedora informed his FBI handlers that an unidentified man had handed the full 47-volume classified study to the Soviet Embassy. The FBI passed this to the White House. Nixon administration officials (including those overseeing the legal effort to block further publication) and the FBI accepted it as factual, heightening official paranoia about foreign exploitation of the leak. This occurred in the same weeks the White House Plumbers unit was being stood up to investigate and plug leaks.

CIA Director Richard Helms, however, privately discounted the report when briefing a Plumbers official. He told David R. Young (one of the unit’s chiefs) that the CIA knew the source and had “doubts about them.”

FBI’s later conclusion: disinformation.

By the mid-1970s the FBI had grown suspicious that Kulak was a KGB-controlled double agent feeding false information. A full re-evaluation after his 1976 return to Moscow (where he declined a CIA exfiltration offer) led the Bureau to conclude by 1981 [sic; in 1976 according to former CIA officer Tennent H. Bagley; this determination was overturned by counterintelligence-hating James Geer in the FBI around 1983 with help from CIA "analysts" provided to him by probable "mole" Leonard V. McCoy, Deputy Chief of CIA Counterintelligence] that Fedora had been “always on the Soviets’ side.” The Pentagon Papers story was cited as a prime example of the disinformation he supplied. No independent U.S., Soviet, or archival evidence has ever corroborated that the Kremlin actually received the full classified set via the Embassy at that time.

In short: Kulak did mislead Hoover’s FBI and the Nixon White House into believing the Kremlin had obtained the complete papers. The information was treated as genuine at the highest levels in mid-1971 precisely because it came from a long-trusted FBI asset—who was later judged to have been a Soviet plant all along. This episode contributed to the atmosphere of suspicion that surrounded the leak response, even though the core claim proved unfounded.

[Tom Graves]

History 101:

The reason Nixon formed The Plumbers was because a Kremlin-loyal KGB officer at the FBI's NYC field office, Major Aleksey Kulak -- J. Edgar Hoover's shielded-from-CIA FEDORA -- told him that the Kremlin had a complete copy of The Pentagon Papers (it didn't).

ME: Did the Kremlin acquire a complete copy of The Pentagon Papers before Nixon formed The Plumbers?

GROK: No, there is no credible evidence that the Kremlin (or Soviet Embassy) acquired a complete copy of the full classified Pentagon Papers before—or even around the time—Nixon formed the White House Plumbers (officially the White House Special Investigations Unit).

Key timelines

Pentagon Papers leak and publication: Daniel Ellsberg provided portions of the ~7,000-page classified study (officially "United States–Vietnam Relations, 1945–1967") to The New York Times, which began publishing excerpts on June 13, 1971. The Washington Post followed on June 18. A temporary restraining order against the Times was issued around June 15.

Plumbers' formation: The unit was created in direct response to the leak, established within a week of the June 13 publication (so by roughly June 20, 1971, per historical accounts). Some sources place related staffing or operations in July (e.g., Egil Krogh’s involvement around July 20), but the unit’s purpose—to plug leaks and investigate the Pentagon Papers disclosure—began immediately after the public revelations.

The Soviet claim

The only reference to a Soviet “complete set” comes from a 1973 Washington Post report (cited in contemporary coverage). It alleged that, in June 1971 (after the Times restraining order), an unidentified man using an alias handed the Soviet Embassy in Washington a full set of the top-secret documents.

The Soviet Embassy immediately and explicitly denied this on June 5, 1973, calling it “a fabrication” unrelated to improving U.S.–Soviet relations.

The story appears to have stemmed from FBI information tied to a supposed source in the KGB. However, the FBI later determined this source [Kulak / FEDORA] was fake or unreliable (detailed in a 1981 Washington Post article).

No declassified U.S., Soviet, or independent archival evidence has ever confirmed that the full classified study reached Moscow via this (or any other) channel in June 1971. The published newspaper excerpts were publicly available worldwide after June 13, but the complete 47-volume classified version is a different matter.

Context and why the claim doesn’t hold

The Nixon administration’s extreme reaction to the leak (including forming the Plumbers, the Ellsberg psychiatrist break in, and eventual Watergate ties) was driven by paranoia about further leaks and domestic political damage—not by any verified foreign acquisition. Nixon and aides viewed the leak as potentially aiding adversaries like the Soviets or Chinese, but their internal discussions and later investigations never treated a pre-Plumbers Soviet copy as a confirmed fact.

In short, the June 1971 Soviet Embassy story was a single, unverified (and denied) press report based on flawed intelligence. It does not establish that the Kremlin obtained the complete papers before the Plumbers existed. The full Pentagon Papers were not officially declassified until 2011.

ME: Did KGB Major Aleksey Kulak at the FBI's NYC field office mislead Hoover and Nixon into believing that it had?

GROK: Yes, according to declassified accounts and the FBI’s own later assessment, KGB officer Aleksey (Aleksei) Isidorovich Kulak—codename “Fedora” (sometimes referred to as a major or colonel)—was the source of the specific claim that a complete set of the classified Pentagon Papers had been delivered to the Soviet Embassy in Washington in June 1971.

Kulak had first volunteered to the FBI’s New York field office in March 1962 while serving under UN diplomatic cover as a KGB scientific/technical officer. The FBI ran him for over a decade (with a second New York tour beginning in 1971) as one of its most valued Bureau sources on Soviet operations. FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover and the Nixon White House treated his reporting as highly credible.

The 1971 Pentagon Papers claim

During the height of the public furor over the New York Times and Washington Post publications (mid-June 1971 onward), Kulak/Fedora informed his FBI handlers that an unidentified man had handed the full 47-volume classified study to the Soviet Embassy. The FBI passed this to the White House. Nixon administration officials (including those overseeing the legal effort to block further publication) and the FBI accepted it as factual, heightening official paranoia about foreign exploitation of the leak. This occurred in the same weeks the White House Plumbers unit was being stood up to investigate and plug leaks.

CIA Director Richard Helms, however, privately discounted the report when briefing a Plumbers official. He told David R. Young (one of the unit’s chiefs) that the CIA knew the source and had “doubts about them.”

FBI’s later conclusion: disinformation.

By the mid-1970s the FBI had grown suspicious that Kulak was a KGB-controlled double agent feeding false information. A full re-evaluation after his 1976 return to Moscow (where he declined a CIA exfiltration offer) led the Bureau to conclude by 1981 [sic; in 1976 according to former CIA officer Tennent H. Bagley; this determination was overturned by counterintelligence-hating James Geer in the FBI around 1983 with help from CIA "analysts" provided to him by probable "mole" Leonard V. McCoy, Deputy Chief of CIA Counterintelligence] that Fedora had been “always on the Soviets’ side.” The Pentagon Papers story was cited as a prime example of the disinformation he supplied. No independent U.S., Soviet, or archival evidence has ever corroborated that the Kremlin actually received the full classified set via the Embassy at that time.

In short: Kulak did mislead Hoover’s FBI and the Nixon White House into believing the Kremlin had obtained the complete papers. The information was treated as genuine at the highest levels in mid-1971 precisely because it came from a long-trusted FBI asset—who was later judged to have been a Soviet plant all along. This episode contributed to the atmosphere of suspicion that surrounded the leak response, even though the core claim proved unfounded.

Yep, the KGB*, the same folks who, along with GRU and Putin's professional St. Petersburg trolls, installed Donald Trump as our "president" on 20 January 2017.

*Today's SVR and FSB

[John Corbett]

Yep, the KGB*, the same folks who, along with GRU and Putin's professional St. Petersburg trolls, installed Donald Trump as our "president" on 20 January 2017.

*Today's SVR and FSB

That is a truly bizarre theory. It's amazing what TDS can do to a person's mind.