What Could N.K. Have Gained That Would Be Worth Risk Of U.S. Retaliation?

[Thomas Graves]

Hi Joe, when Thomas talks of "retaliation" I don't think he's referring to the Cuban missile crisis, I think he means retaliation if it was discovered they had assassinated Kennedy. If this is what Thomas means then I can't agree. Thomas isn't taking into consideration how much Presidents are influenced by the electorate. It would be political suicide for a President not to take military retaliation and that would certainly have meant nuclear war.

Denis,

Yes, by all means that's what I meant.

(Was I really that unclear?   LOL)

-- Tommy 

PS. In "the calculus," what's worse for a president, "political suicide," or "certain nuclear war"?

What would John Fitzgerald Kennedy have done if he had somehow been Eisenhower's VP,  Eisenhower had been assassinated, and there was strong evidence that the Kremlin had been behind it?

Launch an overt military operation against the USSR to keep the electorate happy?

[Thomas Graves]

From pages 207 and 208 (391 and 392) of Mark Riebling's 1994 book Wedge: The Secret War Between the FBI and CIA.
https://archive.org/details/WedgeFromPearlHarborTo911HowTheSecretWarBetweenTheFBIAndCIAHasEndangeredNationalSecurity/page/n389

What would the Soviets possibly gain from the death of Kennedy that would be worth the risk of U.S. retaliation?  From a pragmatic Western perspective, there seemed little profit indeed, but (Chief of CIA Counterintelligence James) Angleton thought about the problem with more subtlety.  First of all, the nuclear age precluded any massive U.S. retaliation -- as Johnson's craven cover-ups of all possible communist connections were already demonstrating.  Second, if the Soviets had truly penetrated the Soviet Division at CIA, as Angleton believed, the KGB might even have hoped to steer U.S. investigation of the crime.  As for the Soviet motive: Out was Kennedy, a charismatic leader who could "sell" a socially conscious anticommunism in the Third World, and even to Western liberals. In was Johnson, who would only "heighten the contradictions" between East and West and therefore hasten (by Leninist dialectical reasoning) the ultimate collapse of late capitalism. (emphasis mine) Angleton also took seriously the observations marshaled in a November 27 memo by defector Pytor Deryabin, who cited the Kennedy administration's opposition to long-term credits to the Soviets, which he said were vital to the survival of the USSR.  Johnson, by contrast, came from an agricultural state and had always supported grain sales to Russia.  Moreover, Western pressure on the USSR "would automatically ease up" if the KGB murdered the president.  As evidence, Deryabin noted a "conciliatory telegram" by a frightened and disorientated Lyndon Johnson to Khrushchev. A more amenable America would "strengthen Khrushchev's hand" at a time when the Soviet leader was under intensifying internal pressures because of mismanagement of the 1963 harvest and disputes with China. Kennedy's death, as Deryabin put it, thus "effectively diverts the Soviets' attention from their internal problems. It directly affects Khrushchev's longevity."  Finally, Deryabin ventured that "the death of Kennedy, whether a planned operation or not(*), will serve the most obvious purpose of providing proof of the power and omniscience of the KGB."  Much later, Angleton would obliquely compare the Soviets' probable motivation to a famous scene in Mario Puzo's novel The Godfather, in which a Mafia chieftain puts a horse's head in the bed of a stubborn film producer, in order to demonstrate "pure power." Although Angleton's critics would later excoriate him for entertaining what seemed paranoid theories, it was his job as Counterintelligence chief to consider every possibility.  "In my conversations with Jim, he never excluded that maybe we were missing something on Soviet involvement," Sam Papich (FBI's liason to CIA) recalled.  "He and I had a lot of discussions on that.  As far as we knew, Oswald acted alone.  But Jim felt we couldn't be sure until we had the full story on Oswald's possible links to the KGB.  That meant getting the full story on his stay in Russia." It also meant a fight with the FBI over whether that story could be believed, once it was obtained from a new Soviet defector -- a man who said he could resolve, fully and finally, all questions about whether Oswald had been acting as a KGB agent when he killed President Kennedy -- a (false) defector by the name of Yuri Nosenko.

.......

(*) The assassination may have been KGB-planned operation that was called off too late by Khrushchev. See Ion Pacepa's book, Programmed to Kill: Lee Harvey Oswald, the Soviet KGB, and the Kennedy Assassination.


-- Tommy 

PS  Yet another way the killing of JFK benefited the "Soviets" (in the long run) -- It sowed the seeds which, with copious KGB "fake news" input over the years, gave rise to oodles and gobs of Tinfoil Hat Conspiracy Theories (e.g., "The Evil CIA Killed Kennedy!"), which ... made us paranoid and distrustful of our own governmental institutions, which paved the way for Putin's hackers and Saint Petersburg trolls to install (with a little help from Julian Assange and Roger Stone) a Russia-friendly "useful idiot" as our president.

[Jerry Freeman]

Chairman K would have certainly taken pause at this---
Declassified Top Secret JCS report relating to the overthrow of the Castro government by USA military force....
https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/2018/docid-32423655.pdf
The Joint Chiefs of Staff was all for it.

[Walt Cakebread]

What Could Nikita Have Gained That Would Be Worth Risk Of U.S. Retaliation?What could Khrushchev gain?
What could Khrushchev lose?
Cuba.
Khrushchev is under the same restraints as the U. S. leaders. Mutual Assured Destruction.
Besides, satellite states are replaceable, right?

satellite states are replaceable, right?

Yes!...especially a "satellite" that was far out of orbit.     Cuba was a hemisphere away and a whole different culture than Mother Russia.....Khrushchev certainly would have recognized the major problems in establishing a satellite in the Caribbean.....

[Jerry Freeman]

At the meeting, General Lyman Lemnitzer, who was the Chairman of the JCS at the time, spoke of the possibility of ?a surprise attack in late 1963, preceded by a period of heightened tension?. Kennedy asked what would happen if the strike took place a year earlier and Allen Dulles (CIA) replied that such an ?attack would be much less effective since there would be considerably fewer missiles involved?. Galbraith puts it simply: ?December of 1962 was too early for an attack because the U.S. would have too few missiles; by December of 1963 there would likely be sufficient numbers.? It was true that the US had missile superiority; US intelligence knew that the USSR had ?no operational ICBMs in 1961? and did not expect them to catch up until ?64.

Years later, Roswell Gilpatric, the Deputy Secretary of Defense, in a book of Schlesinger?s said that when the Net Evaluation was presented, ?Kennedy got up and walked right out in the middle of it?. Kennedy?s disgusted remark to Secretary of State Dean Rusk is sometimes said to have followed this meeting: ?And we call ourselves the human race.?

On reviewing the book 'JFK and the Unspeakable' James Douglass
More.....   http://www.blather.net/theblather/2013/11/jfk-unspeakable/

[Thomas Graves]

On reviewing the book 'JFK and the Unspeakable' James Douglass
More.....   http://www.blather.net/theblather/2013/11/jfk-unspeakable/

Dear Jerry,

Point being?

-- Mudd Wrassler Tommy   

[Thomas Graves]

From chapter 10 of one of my favorite books, Wedge: The Secret War Between the FBI and CIA by Mark Riebling:

But what would the Soviets possibly gain from the death of Kennedy that would be worth the risk of U.S. retaliation? From a pragmatic Western perspective, there seemed little profit indeed, but the head of CIA Counterintelligence, James Angleton, thought about the problem with more subtlety. First of all, the nuclear age precluded any massive U.S. retaliation -- as Johnson's craven cover-ups of all possible communist connections were already demonstrating.  Second, if the Soviets had truly penetrated the Soviet Division at CIA, as Angleton believed, the KGB might even have hoped to steer U.S. investigation of the crime. As for the Soviet motive: Out was Kennedy, a charismatic leader who could "sell" a socially conscious anticommunism in the Third World, and even to Western liberals. In was Johnson, who would only "heighten the contradictions" between East and West and therefore hasten (by Leninist dialectical reasoning) the ultimate collapse of late capitalism. Angleton also took seriously the observations marshaled in a November 27 memo by defector Pytor Deryabin, who cited the Kennedy administration's opposition to long-term credits to the Soviets, which he said were vital to the survival of the USSR.  Johnson, by contrast, came from an agricultural state and had always supported grain sales to Russia.  Moreover, Western pressure on the USSR "would automatically ease up" if the KGB murdered the president.  As evidence, Deryabin noted a "conciliatory telegram" by a frightened and disorientated Lyndon Johnson to Khrushchev. A more amenable America would "strengthen Khrushchev's hand" at a time when the Soviet leader was under intensifying internal pressures because of mismanagement of the 1963 harvest and disputes with China. Kennedy's death, as Deryabin put it, thus "effectively diverts the Soviets' attention from their internal problems. It directly affects Khrushchev's longevity."  Finally, Deryabin ventured that "the death of Kennedy, whether a planned operation or not, will serve the most obvious purpose of providing proof of the power and omniscience of the KGB."  Much later, Angleton would obliquely compare the Soviets' probable motivation to a famous scene in Mario Puzo's novel The Godfather, in which a Mafia chieftain puts a horse's head in the bed of a stubborn film producer, in order to demonstrate "pure power." Although Angleton's critics would later excoriate him for entertaining what seemed paranoid theories, it was his job as Counterintelligence chief to consider every possibility.  "In my conversations with Jim, he never excluded that maybe we were missing something on Soviet involvement," (FBI-liason-to-CIA Sam) Papich recalled. "He and I had a lot of discussions on that.  As far as we knew, Oswald acted alone.  But Jim felt we couldn't be sure until we had the full story on Oswald's possible links to the KGB. That meant getting the full story on his stay in Russia." It also meant a fight with the FBI over whether that story could be believed, once it was obtained from a new Soviet defector -- a man who said he could resolve, fully and finally, all questions about whether Oswald had been acting as a KGB agent when he killed President Kennedy -- a defector by the name of YURI NOSENKO. 

-- emphasis mine
.......

* The assassination may have been KGB-planned operation that was called off too late by Khrushchev. See Ion Pacepa's book, Programmed to Kill: Lee Harvey Oswald, the Soviet KGB, and the Kennedy Assassination.

Which, come to think of it kinda ties in with Richard Russell's TMWKTM, doesn't it?  I mean, was Henry Hecksher ... gasp ... a "mole"?

How about omnipresent Bill Bright?

George Kisevalter?

Another way the killing of JFK ended up benefiting the powers-that-be in Russia is that it provided fertile ground for the cultivation of oodles and gobs of Russian propaganda-encouraged "Tinfoil Hat Conspiracy Theories" which not only dumbed us down, but made us uber-paranoid and distrustful of our own institutions, which in turn enabled Putin's hackers and Saint Petersburg trolls to install (with a little witting or unwitting help from Julian Assange, James "Jumbo Duh" DiEugenio, and Roger Stone, et al.) a Russian Mafia-compromised "useful idiot" as our president.

In other words, it enabled the biggest and most successful "active measures" counterintelligence operation the modern world has ever seen. (Other than the Kennedy  assassination, itself, that is.)

"Active measures"

It's a Ruskie thang.

.....