President Kennedy entered the Oval Office in January 1961 as a noted anti-Communist Cold Warrior. Because of his initial support for the clandestine agency, JFK didn’t immediately perceive the hazards posed by the agency’s behind-the-scenes maneuvers.
That all changed when he was briefed by the CIA on a secret plan to use Cuban exiles to invade Cuba and overthrow the Castro regime.
Jacob G. Hornberger of the Future of Freedom Foundation has written the following:
He experienced his first dose of reality a few months after being sworn into office, when the CIA presented its secret plan to invade Cuba and effect regime change there.”
The plan had previously be authorized and approved by the outgoing Administration of President Dwight Eisenhower. It called for using CIA-trained Cuban exiles as the invading force so the U.S. government could deny any role in the operation.
Kennedy’s job under the CIA plan, would be to lie about U.S. involvement in the invasion, thereby making him America’s liar-in-chief (and indirectly subjecting him to blackmail by the CIA).”
Historical accounts tell us JFK’s initial reaction was to wonder if any air support might be needed and if Cuban exiles flying from another Latin nation could provide it.
The CIA told him the air support wasn’t necessary for success, knowing full well that once the invasion got underway JFK would have to authorize air support from an offshore U.S. carrier to salvage the operation.
Known as the Bay of Pigs invasion, the April 17 attempt resulted in complete failure. JFK easily figured out he had been set up by the CIA and would up firing CIA Director Allen Dulles and key Dulles deputies. In a show of anger to his aides, Kennedy vowed to “splinter the CIA into a thousand pieces and scatter it to the winds.”
This incident put JFK on a path to further confrontation with the CIA as well as a military establishment that was eager to overthrow the Castro government and intensify the Cold War with the Soviet Union.
It also may have put JFK in the crosshairs of those who didn’t like his policy shifts toward détente with the Soviet Union and disengagement from Vietnam.
That wasn’t the worst of it. After the Cuban Missile Crisis, Kennedy changed directions completely. Recognizing the Cold War for the nonsense it was, Kennedy decided to end it and to have the United States and the Soviet Union (i.e., Russia) live in peaceful coexistence. He announced the change at his now-famous Peace Speech at American University, which he prepared without consulting with or advising the national-security establishment.
He also entered into a Nuclear Test Ban Treaty with the Soviets (i.e., Russians) over the vehement objections of the military.
He also began ordered a withdrawal of U.S. troops from Vietnam.
Worst of all, from the standpoint of the Pentagon and the CIA, Kennedy entered into secret personal negotiations with Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev and Cuban leader Fidel Castro to end the Cold War.
In other words, by the time he was assassinated, Kennedy was at full war against the U.S. national-security establishment. He was challenging all of their Cold War assumptions. He was proposing peaceful coexistence with what the CIA and the military had said was an implacable foe that was determined to take over America. And he was doing the unthinkable — making friends with the Soviet Union (i.e., Russia), Cuba, and the communist world.
In the process, he was threatening the existence of the entire national-security establishment. The contractors. The subcontractors. The generals and other officers. The weapons producers. All the people who were on the warfare-state largess. Without the Cold War against the Soviet Union (i.e., Russia), Americans would have undoubtedly asked in the 1960s, “What do we need a Cold War apparatus for if there is no Cold War?”
With his assassination, Kennedy lost the war and the national-security establishment prevailed. They got the continuation of their Cold War. They got their Vietnam War. They got continued regime-change operations against Cuba. They got an ever-burgeoning warfare state, which continues to this day, notwithstanding the fact that the Cold War ended decades ago. And, of course, they got their continued Cold War animus against Russia.
Ironically, we now have a president-elect who seems to have much the same critical mindset toward the CIA as Kennedy did when he was president.
Now that President Trump has taken office and appointed Mike Pompeo as CIA Director, the initial friction that began just after the election might begin to dissipate. Hopefully the President can avoid the treachery that JFK encountered.
Source: Ron Paul Liberty Report
JFK