Tag: Robert Kennedy

A Legacy of Horror

On the afternoon of November 22, 1963, after hearing his brother had died at Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas, Bobby Kennedy phoned CIA headquarters.  According to David Talbot in Brothers: The Hidden History of the Kennedy Years . . .  

Bobby’s phone call to Langley on the afternoon of Nov. 22 was a stunning outburst.  Getting a ranking official on the phone–whose identity is still unknown–Kennedy confronted him in a voice vibrating with fury and pain. “Did your outfit have anything to do with this horror?” Kennedy erupted.

RFK summoned the CIA director himself, John McCone, to ask him the same question. McCone, who had replaced the legendary Allen Dulles after the old spymaster had walked the plank for the Bay of Pigs, swore that his agency was not involved.

Kennedy Brothers Pictures, Images and Photos Despite this denial, Bobby Kennedy knew McCone was just a figurehead, he knew what the CIA was capable of, he knew all too well how many coups and assassinations the CIA had been involved in, and continued to suspect that the CIA was involved in the assassination of President Kennedy.    

In The Mother of All Coverups, David Talbot explains that Bobby Kennedy’s supportive public statements about the Warren Report “were obviously freighted with political and emotional, and perhaps even security concerns. But we have no doubt what his private opinion of the report was–as his biographer Evan Thomas wrote, Kennedy ‘regarded the Warren Commission as a public relations exercise to reassure the public.'”

RFK confided to close friends and advisers that as President, he would order a full investigation into his brother’s assassination.  His own death in a hail of assassin’s bullets prevented that, he was silenced, the truth was silenced.

It’s been said that the past is prologue.

It’s been said that those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it.

Maybe someday, Barack Obama will figure that out, maybe someday he’ll STFU about “looking forward” and enforce the rule of law so America won’t keep getting hit by one rightwing shitstorm after another.        

Keeping Dr. King’s Dream Alive — by mikepridmore

reposted with permission

Dr. King went to Democratic politicians for legislative support of his call for change. One of the most insightful explanations you will find on that is the one from Bill Moyers here: