[col. writ. 11/21/13] © ’13 Mumia Abu-Jamal
In the ancient Roman Empire, millions lived under the illusion that the Emperor was all powerful, and that his will alone ran, regulated and controlled the Empire.
In truth, the Praetorian Guard, an elite unit of the army sworn to defend his royal person, were in control, for Roman Imperial history is rich with instances of them killing the emperor, to make way for a politician they preferred –and, on occasion, for one of their fellow soldiers.
Why is this applicable to late president, John F. Kennedy?
Because the government – media- academic complex has pushed the lie of a lone gunman, Lee Harvey Oswald, and closed the door to the very idea of a conspiracy, or tried to blame foreign elements (hint-hint: Cuba). Instead of government agencies bent on stopping Kennedy from cutting their power and privileges.
In Ted Sorenson’s book, Kennedy, he recounts the President’s determination to control both the CIA and the military establishment. He quotes Kennedy telling an “intimate acquaintance”, “When I am reelected I am going to break that agency (CIA) into a thousand pieces…”
Do you think the CIA, which had considerable experience in coups, in killing leaders of governments, in sparking wars, would blink at getting rid of such a threat as Kennedy?
Notably, scholar/activist Noam Chomsky, in his 1993 book Rethinking Camelot (South End Press), dispenses with this notion, by pointing out that Kennedy and the cabal surrounding him were pro-war hawks, who were addicted to the CIA’s methods of global counter-insurgency.
Further, Chomsky argues, liberal media erected a mythical aura of Camelot that masked Kennedy’s real imperial record abroad of assassinations, and malicious foreign interventions. Many such elites, instead of pointing inside, have targeted outsiders (such as Cubans) as the assassins of Kennedy.
But in Clara Nieto’s fine work, Masters of War, she recounts the time that a French journalist, Jean Daniel of L’Express newspaper (of Paris), interviewed Kennedy and took a secret message from Kennedy to Cuba’s Fidel Castro. The message was a few words of praise for Castro, and an admission of years of U.S. errors in supporting dictator, Fulgencia Batista.
Daniel wrote that Kennedy’s words intrigued the Cuban leader, and he admired Kennedy so much that he considered him (potentially) the greatest U.S. president since Lincoln for his proposal of peaceful co-existence between the two nations.
Three days later, when meeting with Daniel, the two men learned of Kennedy’s assassination in Dallas. Castro was shocked, saying it affected millions around the world, including Cuba.
It was, he said, the end of this peace mission.
The Praetorian Guard, his alleged defenders, had slain the Emperor – again.
They slew him in order for the Masters of War, the defense industries, the intelligence networks, and the paranoid, right-wing, anti-communist community, to survive.
They slew him to demonstrate, to all his successors to come, who really was in control of the Empire.
–© ’13 maj
[Sources: Chomsky, Noam, Rethinking Camelot: JFK, The Vietnam War, and US Political Culture (Boston, MA: South End Press, 1993; Nieto, Clara, Masters of War: Latin America and U.S. Aggression: From the Cuban Revolution Through the Clinton Years (New York: Seven Stories, 2003): Prouty, L. Fletcher, JFK: The CIA, Vietnam, and the Plot to Assassinate John F. Kennedy (NY: Skyhorse Publishers, 2011)