Was the JFK records release a dud? Is Conspiracy World on the brink?

[Lance Payette]

What really struck me in the Morley-Schnapf-Shellenberger video that Jon recently posted - an extensive portion of which was devoted to the UFO phenomenon and UFO secrecy - was confirmation of what I have always suspected: I don't think Morley is genuinely interested in the JFKA as an historical event at all. I think he knows perfectly well that Oswald killed JFK. What he is actually interested in is increased government transparency, to the extent that even the intelligence agencies would scarcely be allowed to keep any secrets. The JFKA is mostly just a vehicle for this message: OK, we didn't really learn anything new about the JFKA - BUT LOOK AT ALL THIS STUFF THE CIA HID AND LIED ABOUT THAT WE THE PEOPLE SHOULD HAVE KNOWN!!!

Equating JFKA secrecy and UFO secrecy is a bit weird. Only Shellenberger seemed to have any clue what he was talking about.

Let's take a CTer's dream and say the truth of the JFKA is: LBJ masterminded it, high-level operatives of the CIA organized it, and Hoover was on board from the get-go. OK, interesting, but it was 62 years ago. A news story with legs for a few weeks, but then we want something new and more relevant. In three months, it's a big yawn, consigned to the dustbin of history. Nothing the public can't handle or even cares much about. Even Morley's quest for vastly increased transparency is just an unrealistic pipe dream. It's never going to happen, nor should it.

Morley and Shellenberger seemed to think the truth about UFOs is probably something like "Yes, aliens are visiting us" and that the public likewise could handle this. I've been deeply involved with the UFO phenomenon since childhood (yes, childhood). In 1971, I had a startling daylight experience in the company of an arch-skeptic. My very educated guess would be that what the government would be able to reveal would actually be something more along the lines of: "Yes, the phenomenon is very real. We have tons of data we haven't shared. We have utterly no clue what the phenomenon is, what intelligence is behind it, where it is coming from (if it's coming from anywhere) or whether it is malicious or benign. It is completely beyond our understanding of physics. It suggests reality may be fundamentally different from what we have always understood it to be. We are at the mercy of whatever it is. There is nothing we can do but wait and see what, if anything, happens next."

(Stanislaw Lem's wonderful novel Solaris, which was made into a wonderfully faithful Russian movie and then a typical Hollywood schlock-fest, has as its theme that if we ever encounter a non-human intelligence we may never have the faintest understanding of what it is doing or why - or perhaps even that we have encountered it.)

It seems to me that this message might be a bit harder for the public to handle.

Anyway, that's my theory about the entire Morley wing of Conspiracy World. The JFKA is simply an event to be milked in furtherance of an agenda that has nothing to do with the JFKA per se. And, yes, I do think Conspiracy World is indeed right on the brink of going poof except in the minds of a comparative handful of Aging White Men for whom it has become a substitute religion of sorts.

[Jon Banks]

The question was about the latest release and now you're off into conspiracy wonderland where more files and more evidence supposedly exists. This is, frankly, what Morley does and he needs to be held accountable for it.

Accountability for Morley but not the CIA for lying under oath and obstructing JFK investigations? Listen to how you sound.

What do you have against holding government agencies accountable? The government's secrets belong to the American public. Hence the FOIA law.

The simplest thing the agency can do is to dispel speculation about Joannides' involvement with the DRE in New Orleans in 1963 is to declassify everything.

And really, Joannides had a home in New Orleans and that's evidence of his involvement in a counter intelligence operation using Oswald? Talk about confirmation bias.

If Joannides was working with the DRE (a CIA-funded operation) in New Orleans at the same time when they were engaging with Oswald, what's the innocent explanation for why he didn't disclose that to the Warren Commission or the HSCA?

From my POV, the only reason to suppress or omit that information is because Joannides and the agency had something to hide. What exactly? I'm not sure.

It makes even less sense today now that it's widely known the extent to which the CIA was backing anti-Castro groups.

To be clear, even if it's true that Joannides was more involved with the DRE's engagement with Oswald than has been disclosed up until now (proving that he hid that information from the HSCA), it doesn't prove that he or the CIA was involved with a plot against JFK. It's possible that whatever the New Orleans stuff was about had nothing to do with a JFK plot. But it would raise more questions than answers.

[Jon Banks]

What really struck me in the Morley-Schnapf-Shellenberger video that Jon recently posted - an extensive portion of which was devoted to the UFO phenomenon and UFO secrecy - was confirmation of what I have always suspected: I don't think Morley is genuinely interested in the JFKA as an historical event at all. I think he knows perfectly well that Oswald killed JFK. What he is actually interested in is increased government transparency, to the extent that even the intelligence agencies would scarcely be allowed to keep any secrets. The JFKA is mostly just a vehicle for this message: OK, we didn't really learn anything new about the JFKA - BUT LOOK AT ALL THIS STUFF THE CIA HID AND LIED ABOUT THAT WE THE PEOPLE SHOULD HAVE KNOWN!!!

Dude, the JFK assassination was over 60 years ago. Should there be no expiration date for how long the government can keep secrets?

Honest question.

I'm a true believer in government transparency and find it perplexing that some Americans don't support government transparency. Public officials are more honest when they know the stuff they do in secret might eventually be revealed to the public.

If that's your attitude on government transparency, then you deserve a corrupt President like Trump.

Equating JFKA secrecy and UFO secrecy is a bit weird. Only Shellenberger seemed to have any clue what he was talking about.

Michael Shellenberger seemed to be the most interested in the UFO stuff and he admitted that he's not as well versed on the JFK assassination as Morley and Larry Scnapf.

In the big picture, I too support government transparency on the UFO/UAP stuff too (although I have doubts that there's as much substance in the UFO stuff).

Shellenberger also mentioned the Epstein files.

Let's take a CTer's dream and say the truth of the JFKA is: LBJ masterminded it, high-level operatives of the CIA organized it, and Hoover was on board from the get-go. OK, interesting, but it was 62 years ago. A news story with legs for a few weeks, but then we want something new and more relevant. In three months, it's a big yawn, consigned to the dustbin of history.

The thing is, most Americans, at least 2/3's, are already convinced that there was a conspiracy in the Kennedy assassination and that the government is covering it up.

Most of the damage is already done so far as the decline of public trust in the government and institutions like the traditional news media.

No one seriously believes anyone will be held accountable for conspiring to kill JFK. But the lack of trust in the government and the media paved the way for a conspiratorial politician like Trump to become President of the USA.

Anyway, that's my theory about the entire Morley wing of Conspiracy World. The JFKA is simply an event to be milked in furtherance of an agenda that has nothing to do with the JFKA per se. And, yes, I do think Conspiracy World is indeed right on the brink of going poof except in the minds of a comparative handful of Aging White Men for whom it has become a substitute religion of sorts.

Don't overthink it. Maybe you don't care about government transparency but millions of Americans DO care and that's why people like Morley and Shellenberger have big enough audiences to earn a decent living as independent journalists.

[Lance Payette]

Accountability for Morley but not the CIA for lying under oath and obstructing JFK investigations? Listen to how you sound.

What do you have against holding government agencies accountable? The government's secrets belong to the American public. Hence the FOIA law.

The simplest thing the agency can do is to dispel speculation about Joannides' involvement with the DRE in New Orleans in 1963 is to declassify everything.

Well, you're going right down the path Morley would like you to go.

BTW, the FOIA is riddled with so many protections for the government that it's scarcely an Open Sesame for secrets.

Think about it: Politicians come and go, and a large percentage are incompetent fools with no qualifications for the positions to which they are elected. Ditto for their appointees. Would you really want Bill Clinton, Dubya, Old Joe, The Donald or The Kamala privy to everything the intelligence agencies know? Would you really want the public privy to it? You WOULD?

I have no problem at all with professional, career intelligence types - or even other agency types - making a judgment call and saying, "No, The Donald isn't going to be in office in four years and he simply can't be trusted with THAT. What he might do with THAT is potentially too damaging. THAT will not be disclosed to him unless it becomes critical for him to know it in order to avoid a catastrophically bad decision."

Regardless of whether I have a problem with it, it's what happens all the time and always will.

[Jon Banks]

Think about it: Politicians come and go, and a large percentage are incompetent fools with no qualifications for the positions to which they are elected. Ditto for their appointees. Would you really want Bill Clinton, Dubya, Old Joe, The Donald or The Kamala privy to everything the intelligence agencies know? Would you really want the public privy to it? You WOULD?

Under most circumstances, the public doesn't have a "need" to know about classified or top secret programs or operations that are happening now or very recently.

But there are few good reasons for keeping government secrets for decades as we've seen with the JFK files. 

For example, despite it being widely assumed that the CIA overthrew Iran's President in 1953, it took about 50 years for the CIA to officially open their records on that operation. Why?

I'm aware that the US government has an over-classification problem. So the majority of government secrets aren't really "secrets" I assume. The same can be said of many of the recently published JFK files. Most arguably are unremarkable and didn't necessarily need to be kept secret this long. 


But on the otherhand, there's also the problem of government agencies and the White House keeping secrets for political reasons, not legit national security reasons. Presidents and government agencies don't like to be embarrassed and forced to answer difficult questions.

We saw that during the Obama administration after the Snowden leaks. He revealed how extensive and illegal the NSA's domestic surveillance programs were. And exposed as liars the Obama administration, after they denied that mass domestic surveillance was happening.

Regardless of whether I have a problem with it, it's what happens all the time and always will.

And passive attitudes like yours are why America's democracy is being stress-tested by someone like Trump.

If politicians and government agencies can evade accountability, we'll see more government corruption, not less.

[Lance Payette]

And passive attitudes like yours are why America's democracy is being stress-tested by someone like Trump.

If politicians and government agencies can evade accountability, we'll see more government corruption, not less.

How do we square your attitude with The Donald's orders for massive quantities of records to be released?

Show me a CTer with TDS and I'll show you a three-legged chicken that moos like a cow! Shouldn't The Donald be your hero?

Are you aware - I posted it here somewhere - that the last World War ONE records were declassified by the CIA in something like 2011 and that millions of World War TWO records are still classified by various agencies? I have no idea why, but I have some level of trust that the agencies know what they are doing.

(From my earlier post: "I just happened to be reading a 1991 memo from the National Archivist (Wilson) to the FBI Director (Sessions) concerning classified World War Two records. He explained that more the 27,000,000 pages remained classified. In just the previous year, some 10,270,000 pages were declassified – but more than that were added. Thousands and thousands of cubic feet remained at the CIA, FBI, DOJ, Army, Navy and numerous other agencies. He described the Archives’ task as essentially impossible.")

What people like Morley are all about is what we lawyers call "fishing expeditions." He really has no idea what he's after, or whether it relates to the JFKA, but by God he'll find some "good stuff" and make hay with it in furtherance of his unrestricted transparency agenda. That's pretty much how government transparency should not work. Hey, I want all the records related to the neutron bomb so I can make one in my basement or maybe sell them to North Korea. I mean, come on, the neutron bomb was developed before JFK was assassinated!

Your attitude reminds of the hippie era, which I lived through in my bellbottoms and beads. The hippie attitudes were laudable utopian fantasies. When the hippie leaders realized they were fantasies, they became Wall Street investment counselors.

[Steve M. Galbraith]

Accountability for Morley but not the CIA for lying under oath and obstructing JFK investigations? Listen to how you sound.

What do you have against holding government agencies accountable? The government's secrets belong to the American public. Hence the FOIA law.

The simplest thing the agency can do is to dispel speculation about Joannides' involvement with the DRE in New Orleans in 1963 is to declassify everything.



If Joannides was working with the DRE (a CIA-funded operation) in New Orleans at the same time when they were engaging with Oswald, what's the innocent explanation for why he didn't disclose that to the Warren Commission or the HSCA?

From my POV, the only reason to suppress or omit that information is because Joannides and the agency had something to hide. What exactly? I'm not sure.

It makes even less sense today now that it's widely known the extent to which the CIA was backing anti-Castro groups.

To be clear, even if it's true that Joannides was more involved with the DRE's engagement with Oswald than has been disclosed up until now (proving that he hid that information from the HSCA), it doesn't prove that he or the CIA was involved with a plot against JFK. It's possible that whatever the New Orleans stuff was about had nothing to do with a JFK plot. But it would raise more questions than answers.

Nowhere did I say or ever have said don't hold the government accountable. Every time we've discussed these files I said release them all. Let them out with the proviso that nobody's life was endangered, e.g., mob informants.

Again: release them. Release Harvey's files. Release Joannides' files. And if there's evidence of criminality hold them accountable (although they are all long dead). But if they don't show criminality hold the people who accused them of criminality accountable too. Democracy isn't just about holding the government accountable; it's about holding our institutions and the people in them accountable too. Like the media.

So here we are and they are all out and all of the conspiracy claims over the years by people like Morley about what they are hiding have shown to be wrong. Let's be clear here on what he is doing: He accuses people of murdering JFK, of conspiracy to murder, of framing Oswald, of obstruction of justice, of perjury. Essentially he says Angleton and Joannides and whatever latest name pops into his head of treason. Murder and treason. And he said there's evidence for this in the files and their release would show it. He didn't suggest it. He explicitly said it. Well, they were released and it doesn't show it.

If you don't care whether he's reckless because his motives are good then fine. I think otherwise. I don't think accusing people of murder is something to be waved away. It's a serious charge. And he doesn't take it seriously. You want to hold Posner accountable but not Morley. I say both should be. Morley testified before Congress as some sort of expert. He's quoted and cited in the news media. This is not some person simply posting on the internet. 

As to the suppression of files or information and your claim about hiding something: These were suppressed/redacted over the decades. And now have been released in full. You can go back and see the original redacted or fully withheld files and the later unredacted and released ones. There was nothing sinister or criminal withheld. The claim that the only reason they could have been withheld is because of something sinister has been proven wrong.

The fact that the only reason you could think they were withheld is because they indicate something illegal or wrong is really an indictment on your thinking, Jon. That's the confirmation bias you mentioned. And it's what Morley has been doing for years.