1. Courtland Gross was the former President of Lockheed. His company stood to make profits building military aircraft if the Vietnam War progressed. In his declining years his brain leaked out his mouth, so the housekeeper, the wife, and he all paid the price. [1]
2.a. In 1957 Jupiter nuclear missiles were stationed in Turkey. [
2]
2.b. (Or NOT 2.b.) Early in the Kennedy Administration, he asked about the military value of the missiles and Atomic Energy Commission’s (AEC) Joint Congressional Committee observed that the weapons were “unreliable, inaccurate, obsolete, and too easily sabotaged.”
[3] But no orders were given regarding the disposition of the stationed missiles.
2.c. In Spring of 1962, Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, John A. McCone, speculated that the Soviet Union might deploy nuclear missiles in Cuba. He reasoned that a Eastern Europe satellite nation deployment could result in a potentially disastrous Moscow re-targeting. However, in Cuba, the 1,000 mile range pre-empted this prospect.
[4]
2.d. In August of 1962, Kennedy requested that the Jupiter missiles be removed, but apparently never issued an order. [5]
2.e. After the Cuban Missile Crisis, Kennedy learned to
put his Directives in Writing.
3.a. In early 1960 the CIA proposed the overthrow of Castro to the Eisenhower Administration
3.b. In April of 1961 Kennedy approved "
Operation Pluto" based upon the CIA's optimistic projection of success.
3.c. After the failed invasion, Kennedy learned
not to trust the CIA's projections.
4.On October 2, 1963 Kennedy
refused to believe the CIA's Vietnam projections, and gave the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Maxwell Taylor
written guidance to start drawing down 1,000 troops to commence within two months, and the balance of the troops to be withdrawn within the following 12 months.
[6]
5.a. Kennedy was assassinated on November 22, 1963.
5.b. It took the CIA 7 weeks and 2 days to arrange for an open top motorcade.
6.a. William Colby was with the Office of Strategic Services during WWII, and converted to the CIA after the war.
6.b. During the Vietnam War William Colby served as chief of station in Saigon and was responsible for fielding the Program,
Operation Phoenix, comprised of Army Green Beret, Navy SEALS, and South Vietnamese Rangers working in conjunction with informants, where they covertly, without trial, ‘neutralized’ a total of 20,000 civilians who were suspected of being members of the Communist underground -- some by arrest, many by death.
[7]
Some critics and historians have estimated that the Phoenix Program
killed upwards of 20,000 and
imprisoned some 70,00 people. An analyst wrote in the January 1975 issue of
Foreign Affairs: “Although the Phoenix program did undoubtedly kill or incarcerate many innocent civilians, it did also eliminate many members of the Communist infrastructure.”
[8]
[1] Walter J. Boyne, "
Beyond the Horizons: The Lockheed Story"
[2] Brugioni,
Eyeball to Eyeball, Random House, NY, 1991, p. 467
[3] Elie Abel,
The Missile Crisis, J.B. Lippincott Co., NY, 1966, p. 190 p. 18
[4] Elie Abel,
The Missile Crisis, J.B. Lippincott Co., NY, 1966, p. 190
[5] Clarence Lam,
Kennedy and the Other Missiles of 1962,
https://roundtable.menloschool.org/issue20/4_Lam_MS_Roundtable20_Winter_2015.pdf
[6] Ian Brodie, “
Kennedy Ordered Troops Out Of Vietnam,” The Times Newspapers Limited, - online, Dec. 23, 1997
[7] William Colby,
Lost Victory, Contemporary Books, NY, 1989, p. 333
[8] Maynard Parker, “
Vietnam: The War That Won’t End,”
Foreign Affairs, NY, January 1975, p. 352
Now having been assigned to Saigon where assassination proficiency was required, -- who better than someone with demonstrated proficiency?
And as previously cited where Courtland Gross couldn't keep his thoughts from coming out of this mouth, so too, apparently this Former Director of the CIA. He wife was away when he called her from the house and said he was tired, was going to do the dishes, and then off to bed. The next day they found his body in a river where the police said that the canoe and body were in impossible locations.
-- The government can't have people spilling the beans. The "
cover story" must hold.
Bobby Jo