The National Security State and the Assassination of JFK

[TLR]

An excellent article that didn't get enough attention back in 2010:

http://andrewgavinmarshall.com/2011/07/15/the-national-security-state-and-the-assassination-of-jfk/


Just 47 years ago, on November 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas. This marked the turning of the American National Security State apparatus against its own leadership. After having overthrown, assassinated leaders, and orchestrated coups around the world, the moment its growing power was threatened by the civilian leadership in America, the apparatus of empire came home to roost.

The National Security State

The apparatus of the National Security State, largely established in the National Security Act of 1947, laid the foundations for the extension of American hegemony around the globe. In short, the Act laid the foundations for the apparatus of the American Empire. The National Security Act created the National Security Council (NSC) and position of National Security Adviser, as well as the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JSC) as the Pentagon high command of military leaders, and of course, the CIA.

[echelon]

Jacob Hornberger over at The Freedom Foundation:

Kennedyʼs worst offense, from the standpoint of national security, was his decision to try to bring an end to the Cold War after the Cuban Missile Crisis. The national-security establishment believed that that was impossible given the nature of the enemy. Like most other American anti-communists, they were convinced that no communist could ever be trusted and that nuclear war with the Soviet Union was inevitable.

Thus, Kennedy was viewed as hopelessly naïve. Rather than saving America by going to war against the communists, he was effectively disarming America and surrendering to the communists with talk of peace and peaceful coexistence, nuclear test ban treaties, and intentions to withdraw from Vietnam. What greater threat to national security than that?

As an aside, ironically Kennedy was the original conspiracy theorist. Well, actually, Eisenhower was, when he pointed out that the military-industrial complex, which he observed was new to the American way of life, posed a grave threat to Americaʼs democratic processes. Kennedy, when asked whether a military coup was possible in the United States, answered that such a danger did exist. He even encouraged that the novel Seven Days in May be made into a movie as a warning to the American people. And of course, there was former President Truman, a man thoroughly familiar with the ways of the CIA given that he was the president who brought the CIA into existence in 1947, who published an op-ed in the Washington Post 30 days after the assassination observing that the CIA had become a sinister force in American life.

Compounding the problem were Kennedyʼs many sexual escapades, including with a Mafia girlfriend, the ex-wife of a high CIA official, a White House intern, and an unstable Hollywood starlet. Imagine the potential for blackmail. In fact, who could say with any certainty that Kennedy wasnʼt already being blackmailed into disarming America and surrendering the country to the communists?

If all that isnʼt a threat to “national security,” what is? Certainly, no one with that background would ever be issued a security clearance at any level.

On top of all that is the circumstantial evidence that Kennedy was smoking dope and possibly even taking LSD, specifically during his affair with Mary Pinchot Meyer. What greater threat to national security than a president who might be under the influence of mind-altering drugs when Soviet nuclear missiles came unexpectedly flying into the United States.

When defenders of the Warren Report get indignant over the suggestion that national-security state officials would kill the president, they just donʼt get it. Itʼs not that national-security state officials would have considered themselves bad people for effecting regime change within the United States. On the contrary, they would have considered themselves the ultimate patriots — risking their lives and liberty precisely to protect national security by removing the threat from office, the same justification, by the way, used by the military in Chile and more recently in Egypt when they ousted their heads of state from office.

Thatʼs what the Warren Commission, however, couldnʼt confront — the idea that an out-of-control, super-patriotic, Cold War national-security state apparatus orchestrated the assassination of the president of the United States and the cover-up of what it did, in order to protect “national security”.

(Emphasis added).

http://fff.org/explore-freedom/article/the-national-security-states-assassination-of-john-f-kennedy/


President Eisenhower considered the military-industrial-complex "a grave threat to Americaʼs democratic processes"?

What a pity he didn't do anything about it, especially in the early years and especially in his role as military insider.  Or am I being unfair to him?