Transcripts For CSPAN3 National Security And President John. F. Kennedy Part 3 20170715

Continues to have an impact in contemporary times. This was part of a conference hosted by the future of Freedom Foundation. Some viewers may find language in the program offensive. By way of self introduction, the freedomt of foundation. [applause] many of you know we are devoted to presenting an uncompromising moral, philosophical, and theomic case for equilibrium philosophy. I practiced law for about 12 years and that shifted gears and went into the educational arena and libertarian philosophy. We have published many books, but the ones that i am really proud of our the kennedy autopsy, regime change, the jfk assassination, and the evil of the National Security state. Published a top secret classified document called a study of assassination. By reading this document, its clear that by this time, seven years after the cia had been called into existence with the National Security act of 1977 that this agency was specializing in the art of assassination how to kill people. Among the fascinating parts of this memorandum, the study, is that the cia is not only trying to figure out the best, most expeditious ways to kill people, but they were also trying to figure out how to do so in a way where people would not suspect that they committed the assassination or at least could not prove that they committed the assassinations. If we jump ahead 10 years and go into the 1960s and 1970s and move over to the school of the americas, which many Latin Americans call the school of assassins, this was the pentagon military training school, especially for military officials from latin america. They were part of rightwing military dictatorships, some of which the u. S. Government had installed into power. We find that at that school, they were teaching these military officials in the art of assassination. Iny also were teaching them the art of torture. They had torture manuals they used for the course. One of the fascinating aspect of the Assassination Program was how it had developed from 1954. One of the principles they were was that when you are committing a state assassination, killing somebody, and you dont want people to focus attention on you as the a great technique is to blame it on a communist. . Y a communist why not blame it on a capitalist or doctor or account, a businessman . To answer that question, we have to go back to 1945. World war ii had just ended. United states and allied powers had he did nazi germany defeated nazi germany. A u. S. Official said to the American People, you just cannot rest. We now have a new enemy arguably more powerful than the enemy we just defeated, and this new enemy is our world war ii partner and ally, the soviet union, and specifically, the communistcontrolled soviet union which have been communist controlled since world war i. The idea was they told americans they are in a worldwide communist conspiracy, and its based in moscow, russia, and this conspiracy entails communist that are hellbent on conquering the world, including the United States, and in order to prevent this from happening, they said it would be necessary to alter the structure of the whatcan government from was called a limited government republic where government powers are limited, enumerated, and in the open, to what is called a National Security state, which is a totalitarian type of government where government officials are able to operate essential essentially omnipotent powers, mostly in secret. As part of this idea that communist are coming to get us, they also talked in terms of the dangers of the philosophy of communism, that this was a very destructive philosophy, that was like a narcotic, a siren song, the idea that government should be taking care of people, that government should be taking from the rich and giving to the poor. That when people got a taste of this philosophy, they tend to want more of it. They want the government to take care of them to a larger extent. Threat thathis twin became part of the cold war that communist are coming to get us and this philosophy is threatening to envelop us, and as part of what became known as the anticommunist crusade, the entire National Security establishment the pentagon, began monitoring peopless activity and harassing them and infiltrating organizations, especially leftist organizations because there was a fine line between being a leftist or liberal and progressive and being a socialist and communist. A lot of leftist organizations were being infiltrated. The communist party was, but then there was also an Organization Called the fair play for cuba committee, which was just a National Organization saying we want normal relations for cuba. Of course, there was the civil movement. Martin luther king was suspected to be a communist. The Civil Rights Movement was suspected to be a communist front that would lead communist into america. We are all familiar with trumbo. Careers were ruined. The carthy hearings, that infamous question that struck fear into the hearts of anyone who had ever had any exposure to communism. Are you now or have you ever been a member of the communist party . The destroyed careers. They destroyed lives. So it is within this context that the tragedy starts to make sense. Blame it on the communists. If you start to question the official version, if you start pointing the finger at the government, they can turn around ,nd say youre a leftist pinko obviously a communist sympathizer, and it certainly tends to diminish the incentive among leftists who had had socialist proclivities from going down the road. Of assassination did not occur in a vacuum. It occurred in the middle of a regime change as part of a regime change operation in guatemala. Andt one being in 1953 iran, but what had happened in guatemala is the guatemalan people had had the temerity to democratically elect in a legitimate election a selfavowed socialist, a believed, a person who that we are going to take money from the rich and give it to the poor and this is the salvation of poverty. And he starts taking land from a giant u. S. Corporation that had major connections to the cia and two members of congress, and he starts distributing it to the poor, to peasants in guatemala. This turns all kinds of alarm bells on in washington. Gosh, a communist that has been democratically elected . Its when he starts reaching out to the soviet union and says he does not care about the cold war and will establish friendly relations with them, and he wants to establish peace with cuba. That sealed his fate. At that point, he was deemed a great threat to u. S. National security. When he was caught smuggling weapons to czechoslovakia, which was a soviet satellite state, that did it. To take these weapons and take the Guatemalan Army up through mexico and down across brownsville and take over texas and the United States . Nobody made that clear, but the idea was we needed to target him for a regime change operation. Of these omnipotent powers not listed in the constitution. Nothing important. Guatemala never attacked the United States or even threatened to. As part of the regime change operation, the cia comes up with an assassination list of people who they are other proxies who are going to start this regime its ok toation assassinate. Amazing. If we jump ahead 20 years or so, 1970 to 1973, we go to chile, which is even further away from the United States. By the way, they succeeded in that regime change operation, ousting him from power. Luckily, he was able to get out about being assassinated, but then the chilean people do the same thing. They have the temerity to democratically elect a selfavowed socialist, communist. He was a physician. He was an intellectual. His name was salvador ina salvador allenda. Salvador allende. Congress is getting ready to confirm him as president and all the alarm bells go off in washington. Here we are again, another communist democratically elected. This is not good. Then he makes it even worse because he is talking about wanting to establish friendship with the soviet union, got nothing against russia, moscow. That sealed his fate. He is deemed a threat to National Security, so the order is given. Regime change. The cia goes in. They tried to bribe the members of congress so they do not vote for him or confirm him as president. That does not work, so they Start Talking about a military coup to take control and prevent allende from coming into power, but there is one big obstacle, a man named general rene schneider, the overall commanding general of chiles armed forces. A man of impeccable integrity. Sons, and hele of says to u. S. Officials is not going to happen. Hes a soldier who took an oath to support and defend the constitution of his country, and it provides only for impeachment or election to oust a president for office. It does not provide for a military coup, and of story. The cia position was different. They are here telling schneider militaryest of the establishment, the National Security establishment of this country they have a moral duty to save this country. The country is going down with communism, with socialism when he starts adopting all these programs, and it does not matter. Dont tell us technicalities in your constitution and what the law says because its a country goes down, what good is your constitution . You have a moral duty to save your country by violently ousting your president from office and taking control and saving the country. Schneider stands his ground. So a conspiracy of arises within inhington, virginia, or both which the decision is made to kidnap schneider violently and remove him from the scene. The cia has always denied that the conspiracy involved murdering him, but they lied about every other aspect of the operation, and the denials ring also because what else could they have done . They kidnapped the guy. The coup takes over. What are they going to do returned him to society . There was no chance of that. The kidnapping attempt takes place. Highpoweredles in weapons. Schneider is armed. He is a general, and he fights back against the kidnappers, and they shoot him dead. So the obstacle is removed and over a threeyour period of time, the cia starts bribing truckers not to deliver food and creating all kinds of chaos llendes socialist policies, which also work causing chaos and crisis, much like in venezuela today, so all this leads to a coup with the National Security establishment is attacking the president with infantry surrounding his isision, and allende fighting back with small arms fire, but he ends up dead. Apparently committed suicide. General pinochet takes power, proceeds to round up tens of thousands of people, kidnapping them, putting them into military dungeons, raping them his forces were committing the most gruesome sexual acts against the women that you can even imagine, disappearing them or executing them, including two americans with the complicity of u. S. Intelligence agents, and the idea was and the u. S. Was s regime atochet this point. They thought he was fantastic, that what he was doing to all these people was wonderful because they were communist. You see, if they are communist, its no problem doing this because this is a cold war. Obviously, the u. S. Was not doing this to communists in america. They were just surveilling them and harassing them and destroying their careers. In chile, pinochet was going all the way. By the way, communists were still killing u. S. Troops in vietnam at this time, so it was all considered war. If we go into the middle period 1954 and we go into 1959, theres a man named fidel castro that has taken power in cuba. Theear about a lot of dictatorship of we do not hear about the men he ousted from power, who was one of the most brutal, corrupt dictators in the world. He entered into a partnership with the mafia to run the casinos in havana. Ae mafia, as we all know, is murderous, blackmailing, extortion criminal organization, and he gets a cut of the action in return for this. To give you a real measure of the man, he has his Police Forces rounding up little girls, miners, and bringing them into havana out in the villages to favors forxual wellheeled businessman who are gamblers in the casino coming in from the United States. Not surprisingly, a lot of cubans did not like this. If you objected, you found yourself in a dungeon tortured, executed. Thus, the revolution starts. And it really was not castro that started it. He was actually in jail. A woman named teddy a sanchez her bestchez, one of friends, a young girl, 12 or 13, got raped, and she said enough was enough, and she is celebrated in Human History in cuban history as the starter of the revolution. Castro takes power, and its not real clear where he stands at first. People are kind of getting the measure of this man, but he makes it very clear from the beginning that he says, we are now independent of u. S. Control. This was a shock. This raises eyebrows in washington. Cuba had been under control of 1898, the states from spanishamerican war where we had doublecrossed them. We said we were going to help them with their independence from spain, but after the independence was won, we forgot to tell you, we are now in control. So the United States government had controlled cuba, and castro says no more. Its over. We are now independent. Then he starts to display the same socialist, communist proclivities, and this causes real alarm bells to go off. Frommunist 90 miles american shores. Whats guatemala . A couple thousand miles away. This is 90 miles away from american shores. This is a communist regime. This is a dagger pointed out. Mericas throat never mind cuba never attacked the United States, never threatened to attack the united committed an act of terrorism, they are a grave threat to United States security. Then castro sealed his fate. He starts reaching out to the soviet union, telling u. S. Oil companies that operate in cuba to refine soviet oil, and the american officials tell u. S. Oil producers not to refine that, that its communist oil, and everything spirals out of control, and castros fate is sealed. Now we had a regime change operation that would ultimately manifest itself in a partnership between the cia and mafia to assassinate castro. From intose this maelstrom comes john f. Kennedy. He had to be present at eisenhowers farewell address, were eisenhower, ironically, who had been in charge of these ousted, tells the American People, by the way, i want to warn you about something, and that is this new way of life we have here, that the militaryindustrial complex constitutes a grave threat to the democraticd process, something the people of guatemala had already discovered and the people of chile would discover, but kennedy comes into office pretty much your standard cold warrior. He embodies all the communists are coming to get us like all americans. Communism is a dangerous siren song of a philosophy. Pretty much your standard cold warrior. Not completely. But immediately, the cia presents him with a plan that had been brought up under eisenhower with the cia has gone to eisenhower and said we had two successes under our belt. Weve got iran, guatemala, so we can do this. We can do it again. Eisenhower says go for it, but they had not finished in time, and they really thought nixon was going to win, so there would just be this continuity, but nixon did not win, and suddenly, the man they considered kind of a neophyte playboy junior senator from massachusetts, they play him and present this plan to him. They say, mr. President , we have this all set up. The exiles are trained. There will be no u. S. Involvement. They will win. The cuban people are going to rise up because they do not like castro, and kennedy says lets do it, but wants to make it clear they will be no u. S. Involvement in this, except secretly. The lies are built into the plan from the beginning. They said no, no u. S. Support will be necessary. Well, they were playing him. Could notthat it succeed without u. S. Support, but they figured that kennedy would be trapped, that he would say, we cannot lose face. A communist defeating the cuban exiles at the bay of pigs how could we tolerate that . The world would lose respect for us. They knew they were manipulating him into having to provide that support. The invasion starts. Cuban exiles are getting massacred and captured. Sayhey come to kennedy and we were wrong, we need the air support after all thinking of course he would have to say yes, told you, noays, i air support, and you told me none would be necessary. Its not coming. Are defeated. Es castro is crowing about this. The whole world is marveling this little army has defeated a u. S. Trained army, and there is tremendous anger and antipathy as a result. The cia and cuban exiles were considering kennedy to be a betrayer, a trader, a person that betrayed the cuban people, the cause of freedom, the American People, everything that we stand for. He had left this that america could not survive with. Kennedy, for his part, was angry because he knew he had been played. He had figured out he had gotten doublecrossed. He said he was going to take the cia and tear them into 1000 pieces and scatter them to the wind. Words. Ere his he does the unthinkable he fires the much revered director of the cia. Guy was a world war ii intelligence veteran. Much revered within the agency. Kennedy says, youre out. Injury, he puts his brother bobby in charge of monitoring the cia, which they hated because they had had pretty much Carte Blanche under eisenhower for eight years. Here is the genesis of the war. It expanded to the military. That the military is exhorting kennedy after this. We have to invade cuba and they present him with this plan, which they were totally convinced was necessary. It was a unanimous plan that says were going to have terrorist attacks by u. S. Secret agents posing as communists, and when real people die they have to be sacrificed for the greater good kennedy will go on National Television and say, my fellow americans, weve been attacked, im going to send troops into cuba to defend america to defend your rights and freedom, the troops will be serving our country and we will get rid of this communist regime. They were convinced under this cold war mindset that america could not survive with cuba 90 miles away. So kennedy, to his everlasting credit, says no, and they were furious. Absolutely furious. Then comes the cuban missile crisis. Thelways hear from Mainstream Press these were offensive weapons. They were nothing of the sort. They were entirely defensive. If they were offensive, they would have hired them and started world war iii. They never fired them. They were there for defensive purposes. Why . Castro had gotten wind of the fact at the military and cia were still demanding that kennedy invade the island, and dumb. Was not he knew he could defeat some cuban exiles but there was no way he could defeat the u. S. Army. Impossible. So he figured his only chance to keep cuba independent and to stay alive was to bring the soviets in, bring a Nuclear Weapon to deter a u. S. Attack. Keep in mind again, cuba had never attacked the United States, never threatened to do so. Soviets say ok, but only for defense. If the u. S. Invades, youve got the weapons. During the crisis, the military, the pentagon, the cia are demanding kennedy invade. This is your chance, mr. President. We cannot survive with cuba being communist. You have your excuse now. Hey have weapons kennedy, in a moment of tremendous greatness, says no, were going to talk. He puts his brother bobby in charge of talking to the soviet emissary. You have Nuclear Weapons in turkey aimed at us, right on our borders. Why can we not have Nuclear Weapons in cuba aimed at you . Kennedy sees the hypocrisy of it and says your absolutely right. I will take my missiles out of turkey. They set all were doing here is we have missiles because you are threatening to invade cuba, and kennedy says ok, i give you my bow we will not invade cuba, and they say ok, we will remove the missiles, and that shows they were defensive in purpose. That was the deal that was cut. It shocked the military, shocked the cia. It is impossible to overstate their reaction. Look what kennedy had done in one fell swoop. He had pulled the carpet out from two or three years of study, report, analyses, regime change operations because they knew the only way to oust castro from power Everything Else had failed, assassination, everything was invasion. Suddenly kennedy had said that is all over. That is why was called the greatest defeat in u. S. History. Thats why he said it was appeasement of the communists. In their mind, kennedy had surrendered to the communists, that it was all over, america had lost the cold war and it was only a matter of time before communist were here. Mainstream media says crews just kruscheesk christian v blinks. Actually, he never blink. It was kennedy who blinked, and thank god he did because it turned out with the cia did not know was that soviet commanders nuclearround had armed battlefield weapons, Nuclear Weapons with battlefield authority to fire those weapons in case of an invasion. There is no doubt there would have been all that nuclear war the first time one of those missiles follow the rest the pentagon. He does not stop there. He has achieved in a giant breakthrough. There a lot of stuff going on prepares a magnificent speech. I think it is one of the best speeches in president ial history if not the best. The key speech he delivered that american university, and he does not consult with the cia, the pentagon, let them know what he is up to. He appears there and says we are hereby ending the cold war. We are going to live in peace and harmony and peaceful coexistence with the soviet union. We might not agree with their philosophy and we do not agree with ours, but we are going to get along and put an end to all of this stuff. Proposed a joint mission to the moon, sharing Missile Technology with a communist who are hellbent on destroying us. Is what had sealed that fate. Reaching out to the soviet union, the communist in a spirit of communists in a spirit friendship and peace. How can we win a nuclear war we cannot test our Nuclear Weapons above ground and belowground . You are disarming. This is a trick by the communists to cause america to disarm. Does the onnedy single. He enters into personal negotiation person to person ,egotiations with khrushchev back channel negotiations with emissaries, using circumventing the pentagon, cia, and not telling them. War, withnd the cold the embargo against cuba, establish normal relations with the communist world. He thought they were secret, but the cuban ambassador to the United Nations that was translated all of this said with 99 certainty his phones were being the cia knew, and exactly what kennedy was up to. He was selling at america to the communist world. Anknow all of this came to end on november 22, 1963. Of the fascinating aspects of that assassination was that immediately after the assassination, it was blamed on the communists. And almost immediately, within a few hours after the assassination, there was a group in new orleans called the dre the cuban exiles that started publishing advertisements, press releases, advertising we harvey wasld Lee Harvey Oswald communist bona fide. It was a group that was being generously funded by the cia. A fact that the cia kept secret from the warren commission, the house select committee, house elect committee, and kept all the way through 1990 from the aarp. Aarp. And theres everything involved with the assassination, the autopsy, the regime changes, but unexplained things like why would a communist, a genuine communist, join the marine corps as part of an establishment that has killed hundreds of thousands of people in north korea . Why would a genuine communist join an organization where he might be deployed at any moment to go kill communists . Indeed, why would a communist, a genuine communist, want to kill a president who publicly announced to the world that he wanted to establish peaceful relationships with the communist world, and elect a vice se policiesho mirrored the ones of the pentagon and cia. Things were back to normal, vietnam ramped up, the communist did not fall the dominoes did not fall, the, knows communists did not come to get and they started poking forests cornets nest hornets nests in the persian gulf war, they killed hundreds of children in iraq with the sanctions, and we got the inevitable terrorist retaliation college was used retaliation that was used as a means to data rock. Death, destruction, wars, and every increase in spending and debt that has sent our nation into bankruptcy. Thatis not the government our framers and the Founding Fathers in our american intended to bring into existence. If they were told this is the kite kind of government, the kind that would assassinate theicans with impunity, power to torture americans, to detain them unlawfully they never would have called confirmed the constitution. Is the solution to this . It seems that the solution is obvious. It is not a matter of Getting Better people in public office. It is a structural problem. The structure of government problem. What we need to do as americans is raise our vision to a higher level, and examine the principles on which this country was founded. The principles in that declaration of independence, of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and the legitimate role of government as a constitutionally limited government republic. If we can restore that and dismantle this totalitarian structure known as the National Security state, restore our original principles of liberty and free markets and unlimited government limited government , that is the way we lead the world to the highest reaches of freedom that mankind is ever seen. Thank you very much. [applause] thank you. Thank you. He was the author of three books on the assassinations in the 60s. Reclaiming parkland, 2016, and the assassinations in 2003. 19932en years, from thousand, jim was also the coeditor of what many considered on theest journalists subjects pro magazine. From 20032016, he edited the website citizens were truth about the kennedy assassination, and today is the editor and publisher of the great website sandkings. Com. The title of his talk is vietnam declassified. Please welcome our next speaker. [applause] thank you, jacob. It is great when you get to write your own introduction. [laughter] right all right. Before i get started on the main topic, i would like to talk for a minute or two about what has been declassified about the cia assassination plots against report all right . The ig , which was declassified by the jfk orid there was no rfk involvement or authorization of those plots. They deliver the kept them from the kennedys. The committee came to the same conclusion when J Edgar Hoover relieved rfk briefed rfk on the plots for the first time, he said he got really upset when he heard about this stuff. He demanded a cia briefing, and the cia briefer said the longer we talk, the more he ground his teeth into his job. He then called in Richard Holmes , and basically read him the riot act. During the Church Committee hearings, when a holmes was asked about this, he conveniently forgot the meeting. So the briefers said wait a second, here is our case book. Tment isnt that your name right there . Isnt that the time you were there . And you still do not member what he told you . You can do that stuff after somebody is dead. Lied to Bobby Kennedy and said the plots were over, when they were actually ongoing at the very time of the briefing, and they knew it. All right . Now, this is 50 yours 54 years after the jfk assassination. If someone made an incredible case that castro killed kennedy, i somehow missed it and i have been doing this for 30 years. I think that is beyond the statute of limitations. If you cannot make your case and 54 years, i think you do not have one. All right . [applause] before i get started, the last 3. 5 years i have spent in my life studying kennedys Foreign Policy outside of vietnam and cuba, because he did not i studied things like the middle east, egypt, africa, indonesia. Conclusion that you cannot look at vietnam or cuba isolated. Kennedy had a Foreign Policy the day he was inaugurated. And as he goes on, you can see it manifest itself. Everything had a place. Got back toon i vietnam is because there are a lot of documents classified about these other two guys. One way you find out about a president is not just qualitative analysis, it is about comparative analysis. How does he compare with the guys who came before him, and how does he compare to the guys you came after . Who came after. Most current numbers i could find. This is based upon a 2008 british study. Is theber on the left military, the number on the right is the total. Civilian and military. Cambodia, which i think you have billion add another million. It is the greatest Foreign Policy american disaster of the 20th century. I do not think there is anything else that comes close. Image,cularly like that because it conveys what the Mainstream Media, their picture ,f vietnam for about 20 years that the guys in the state department, the eastern elitists , got together with the whiz kids in the Defense Department and we plunged into this inevitable tragedy. Well, something happened to screw up that image. That was one day mr. X met mr. Garrison at a park bench in washington. X, he said in the fall of 1963, i was working on kennedys withdrawal plan from vietnam. That was a 1000 man withdrawal at the end of the year, and all of the other advisors come back by 1955. There was a serious problem 1965. There was a serious problem with what he was saying, that it was a violation. Dana halen was a historian who wrote a wonderful book, where he studied seven years of news stories on the vietnam war. He came to the conclusion that this is the way the Mainstream Media works. , thisve inside the circle is conventional wisdom, the accepted story. Even if it is false, because Lyndon Johnson lied his eyes out about the gulf of tonkin, but they reported it as if it was true. It was the accepted story by the reporters. And then he said outside that, you have an area of debate. He said Something Like the invasion of cambodia would be something get the two talking heads, left, right, whatever, whether thek about cambodian invasion was good or not. But he said and this is his most important discovery there is an area of deviance that is not accepted, even if it is true. It does not matter. You are not getting anywhere with that story. That is what happened to my buddy mr. Stone when he put this in his movie. So what happens . He starts getting attacked. Lardner in the Washington Post, seven months before the movie premieres. Talking about killing the kid in the crib. That is unheard of. George lautner made a very interesting comment in his column. He said there was no evidence to kennedyt change between and johnson on vietnam. He did not say where he got the information. He is and that inner circle. He does not have to prove it. In that inner circle. He does not have to prove it. This was not based on some fantasy, it was based upon this. It had been declassified one year before. He had it, because john newman was a Technical Advisor on the movie. He was about to publish his revolutionary book jfk in and someone else had worked on this plan. I do not know how any people know this, but the Mcnamara Taylor report, which this is based on, was not written by mack camera mcnamara and taylor. It was written in washington other under the direct supervision of robert kennedy, under the request of kennedy because they did not trust him to bring back the information he needed to begin with the withdrawal. When they got it in hawaii, it was already bound. They jetted in and read it on the way in. The firestorm about this movie caused everybody to create the arb. In my opinion, one of the most single most important documents, if i had to put together a top 10, this would be in there, is the record of that conference may 1963. Wouldas when mcnamara bring in all of these guys from the cia,nto honolulu, and would get a status report. You said this one was not getting a status report. He was getting a progress report. Kennedy had already started the withdrawal program. Mack camera mcnamara was a guy who is doing it. Meeting, he is checking on these withdrawal schedules. We will turn this thing over to vietnamese. We are getting out of here. Schedules,s all the do you know what he says . Too slow. We have to speed it up. I do not have enough time to go into why he said that, but that is what he said. Now, this evidence was so powerful that it knocked over haman spears, which was an unbelievable event. What happened. The New York Times said kennedy had a withdrawal plan. The Philadelphia Inquirer said guess what . The Washington Post did not say anything. Your defeat to deny is to not say anything. Now, the Mainstream Media relied a lot upon helper shams 1972 book, athis 1972 massive bestseller, 1. 8 million copies. Idea of thee the inevitable tragedy, something we could have avoided. Today, this is what he says. This is how mack camera mcnamara got tagged with it being his work. The next page, he writes that mcnamara had no different assumptions and the pentagon did then the pentagon did. If you are asking the pentagon to get out of vietnam, i think you have different ideas than what the pentagon did. Obviously he did not do enough digging, or he was talking to the wrong people. There were a lot of people doing a lot of cya when he is writing this book. Here is some more evidence. Evidence that this was mcnamaras withdrawal plan. This is a conversation between taylor, kennedy, bundy, and mcnamara. October 2, he is describing the withdrawal plan right there. Bundy says what is the point of doing it . That is the important part of this conversation, which i will return to. I do not see how much clearer you can get than that . 63, thisve ncm to meeting, you have this meeting, george lard and knows better. The takeaway line is the middle one. Why is that so important . Because when monday read this, bundy read this, he was preparing a book called lessons in disaster. Says i this, and he think i know what happened. Kennedy knew that i was too much of a hawk on vietnam, and did not trust me to do this. So we went to mcnamara to implement the withdrawal plan. We know that for a fact today because kennedy was very upset in november 1961, when the big twoweek debate took place in the white house about whether we are going into vietnam or not. He was essentially the only guy saying no. And you said you guys, why are you comparing this to korea . It is not korea. This is not an aggression from north korea to the south, this is a civil war. You do not want to get in the middle of Something Like this. Told went ahead and he them to go to saigon and write a report, because he knew what they would come up with. They come up and his typical writing says what the heck are you doing in this country . There is no way we will win this thing. Him in inthen calls april and says i want you to give that report to mcnamara and tell him i told you, ok . So he is one witness. Mcnamaras, assistant said mcnamara told him that kennedy gave him orders to wind down the war. John did, another mcnamara assistant, said the same thing. And i have already told you about monday. Unfortunately, he passed away before the book was finished bundy. Unfortunately, he passed away before the book was finished. What happens after kennedys assassination . This is what happens. Johnson is the new sheriff in town, and he makes it very clear that to mcnamara that he does not like what he was doing. Off, and that is the key statement at the bottom. If you read that, you cannot count on a war you are losing in. To kennedy, South Vietnam was part of National Security interest in the United States. With johnson, it was. It was a part of it. We cannot lose to the commies, no matter where it is. Mcnamara should have quit right after that, because two weeks later, this is really amazing, johnson wants him to write a memorandum saying that you did not really mean those things you said back in october 1963, even though it is all right there in black and white. He wants him to take it all back, because what is happening here, of course, is that johnson realizes he is breaking with kennedys policy, and he wants to blur the line. Kennedypens is that the rollovers in the white house, they understand what he is doing. , johnsonis a meeting gets wind of it, and he says these guys are saying that im putting the vietnam war on kennedy, which is exactly what he was doing. But he does not want anybody to realize that. So what happens, of course, is that one by one, all of these guys start quitting. And mcnamara is the last guy to leave. And somehow the press does not realize this. The vietnam war is spinning out of control, and all of these guys are leaving the white house. Maybe it is because they do not agree with what johnson is doing. And so then odonnell and powers , and they make it explicit in the book. They spent about seven pages going over this. Johnsons vietnam policy was not kennedys vietnam policy, and 63y actually discuss ncm to 263, and say johnson reversed it, which is what he did. Now Richard Nixon always used to say i am not going to blame vietnam on kennedy and johnson. [laughter] like that is how we got there. This is how we got there. These are the guys who got us into vietnam. Brothers, ike, and Richard Nixon. It is very simple to understand that they begin to subvert the thatn geneva accords worst established in the first French Indochina war. They made up a country called South Vietnam, which did not exist, they made the 17th parallel permanence, which was never supposed to be, and they got rid of the french standin and put in their standin. That is how we got into this thing. Whenever i read this, it really stuns me. No matter how many years it goes by. Could anybody be more wrong than this . Gin then flew this man was a blessing in disguise. It takes the cake for eastern establishment arrogance. Foo bienfun fell, they were going to bail out the besieged French Garrison with operation bolter, which was vulture,ive air which was a massive air armada with three atomic alms. When eisenhower vetoed it, he tried to give the bombs to the french themselves, and he said will wait a second. If we use these things we will blow up our guys at the same time we blow up them. Forget it. We do not want any part of this thing. Richard nixon is actually the first guy to actually advocate for entering american combat troops into vietnam. He actually said this during the siege. If the french lose, we should go ahead and commit americans, because it will be another disaster an utter disaster. The South Vietnamese presence is a powerful country. They will take the philippines, australia, and Everything Else. When oliver stone made this movie, this movie about nixon, at the time he made this, which was 1994 he started or Something Like that 1994. Ok. When nixon left office, his body, jerry ford, actually gave , jerry ford, actually gave him control over these tapes. He could incinerate them if you wanted to. When Congress Heard about this, they said it was outrageous. He had to resign. So they pass a law saying that the National Archives would take control. Ixon did not like that so he hired a whole fleet of lawyers to fight that decision until the day he died. 1994. When he starts this movie, he only has 3 of the audiotapes and 15 of the papers have been declassified. This is 20 years after next the left office. So i will show you now why nixon did that. I would have done the same thing. And why the way, did you know Henry Kissinger was a movie critic . [laughter] take a look. The l. A. Times let him review oliver stones movie, it is like jim garrison jim harrison reviewing jfk. Pass of the study referendum. Everybody responds to it, including abrams. They all said this is hopeless. This is a stalemate. Yet, nixon still expands the war, way beyond what johnson was doing, and he starts carpet bombing cambodia and invades both countries. What is the reason for that . Because he had learned at the foot of john foster dolls john foster dulles, who called it the uncertainty principle. He called at the man man theory. If you do enough irrational stuff, and unpredictable stuff, the other side will just give in. Except it was not going to happen this time. Kissinger had this great coat great quote. It is always great when you get because you cannot deny he said this idiotic stuff, you know . For the first time this was the growing problem though. For the longer the war went on, the more the army disintegrated. Colonel robert final wrote an article in 1971, examining the phenomenon of fragments. In his movie, you could justify what Charlie Sheen did. These are guys who are not going to be ordered anymore. 500 cases in three years. How can you run an army when that many people are mute meeting mutiny yang mutinying . Some pilots refused to fly the vietnamese were getting very specific antiaircraft equipment. How many people have read this book . Meanwhile, it was the biggest example of what happened to civilians in vietnam. There were many, many other cases, smaller scale, which happened that the pentagon decided to either d6 the documents or not bring charges against the military officers. Now, i had the unfortunate experience of reading this book. [laughter] book could only be written in secrecy. It could never have been written with the declassified record. Neitherin their that him or kissinger ever seriously considered bombing or using atomic weapons. Well, we have kissingers assistant who said he did think of using atomic weapons at the chinese pass. But here is another audiotape during the easter offensive, when the north is threatening to take over. [no audio] [laughter] does it get any worse than that . When kissinger has to head you off where are you coming from then . [laughter] all right. Now, nixon had come to this Conclusion Even earlier than 1968, that there was no way to win the war. So what happened is they then decided on the decent interval strategy. Is that saigon can fall, but our guys cannot be there when it happens. We have to have an interval between us leaving and saigon collapsing, and by the way, kissinger even wrote this in a briefing book with the chinese, because it is what he told the chinese. For the chinese going to tell . Theyre going to tell the north vietnamese. Why . Why did he demand a decent interval . Nixon refused to be the first president to lose a war. Sort of like johnsons rationale also. Fourthgrade this country defeat the United States. Thirdrate country defeat the United States. Everyone are members this image, members this image, right . That evening, Henry Kissinger called up an old friend from the academic circles, and said we should have never been there. True, but you got there a little late, henry. This guy said this in 1952. Military of american assistance in indochina can conquer an enemy which is everywhere and at the same time nowhere. An enemy of the people, which has a sympathy and covert support of the people. 35 years old. Foreign policy visionary, and there has not been anybody like him in the white house and i do not think there will be. [applause] set up here on the site. A table here on the side. Ok. Thank you. [applause] [indiscernible] ok, the right back. Be right back. [indiscernible conversations] all right, we are ready to get started again. Oliver stone, the hollywood producer and director received an Academy Award for best director for his war drama the tune, which received the best atoon, award plsto which received the best picture award. Wallher movies include natural born and the most recent movie, snowden. He also produced and directed many documentaries, including showtimes untold history of the United States and in 1991 direct in the movie jfk, starring donald sutherland, based on the assumption that the orchestrated the assassination of jfk. This led to the declassification of a number of records. And he has put together what promises to be a fantastically interesting, fascinating documentary that consists of a fourpart series coming out on fourpart,at is a onehour series on showtime, night after night, in which oliver stone interviews vladimir putin. Is going to give us some preliminary comments, and then will be seated for a which ition with jim, will moderate. Please welcome oliver stone. [applause] mr. Stone thank you. Happy that jim could be here. I specifically asked jacob to bring him, because there are many good books, but aside recently from the James Douglas book, im a big fan of jims book. Terrible title, but it is called [laughter] reclaiming parkman. Mr. Stone how many people have read it . Just curious. A minority, certainly. It is a welldone book, and it is so important that it reminds us after so many years, he is a thirdgeneration researcher, i guess you would call it. 3, 3 and a half. Heartland, the reason reclaiming part ready foras getting this huge public reaction to the movie. He thought it would be the antidote to jfk, and he wanted to cut that off because he knew a lot about that movie, and knew a lot about parkland, the hospital. It was the wrong title, and the publishers tried, but nothing doing. I keep mentioning. We are going to get it republished in the spring, i think. Im working on it. The same publisher who is doing the put and interviews as well as snowden. To putin interviews as well as snowden. It is the most convincing argument that there was not in fact one iota of that evidence that holds up. Beginning, the clues were there, but there was no computer to do our work for us. The clues were there, and they missed it. Perhaps mark lane might have seen it. Argue whenfficult to people have seen martians in the room or Something Like that. You cannot argue. This whole thing comes from the basic misconception, and jim traces the misconception so beautifully. Please read it. It is well worth it. People care, and they still care. 19we come to this moment in , iwhere are we 2017 stumbled into this with ellen ray in cuba, havana. She was a great person, and her husband. Schaap. Ll what wonderful people. She gave me this book. In garrisons trial, covered 60 1967, 1968. An gave it to me in elevator. I have to listen to this lunatic telling me gerson, garrison. On the trailk, of the assassins. I read it about 3, 4 months later and it is a hell of a floral or thriller. That is where it starts. You get deeper and deeper until the honeypot comes up and grabs you. It is elaborate, a maze, a delight as a mystery fan, but the deeper you go it becomes clear that there is a huge, huge miss doing miss doing in the manner. I feel that go by, more and more strongly, a even as i see the world today and the United States government. Everything that we had with this crazy election in 2000, and several more crazy elections culminating right now. But as we have come to know the deep state we did not know it in. It is so apparent, and should be apparent to every american who is awake, and it is that the most dangerous point, we are there. The threat has been laid down to us, and if you cannot see the markings of the secret state, the intelligence agencies doing this kind of leaking and work behind the scenes to destroy the credibility of the russians as president , who many of them hate. This is an interesting game that is going on, a similar one that that an ran into in 1969 lane graves presented me with. That ellen ray presented me with. You cannot go against a Covert Intelligence apparatus like the cia, because nobody in the real world understands how they work, manipulate, and they have a lot of money and a lot of media with them, corporate media. Jim, butrry i love it was hard because he had a case and, as jim knows, it was a case that was a minimum to go to court, but when he got to court three years in, so many people were missing, dad, change their , change theiread testimony, and the cia had an active file on garrison to jupiters mise him to delegitimize him completely. My goal is to meet this man who had never given up fighting, written this new book 20 years , and believed in the right thing he did to turn his story into a successful film that was seen all over the world , much to the eye or of the original people, who had spent so much money and time destroying his reputation. I was them and simply venomously attacked by many people who wrote me nasty pieces. He was obviously a very articulate, cultivated man, a theatergoer and all that. He had all of the new yorker crowed. New yorker crowd. [indiscernible] [laughter] one could do a movie about all of the people around the case. You know, if we believe, as the establishment keeps telling us, these intelligence agencies, that russia really hacked the selection and russia is everywhere and everything, we have really lost it. This is really what is going on, and it is so disturbing to me to know anything about it. Ray mcgovern is here. Ray . [applause] and a cryptologist like jeffrey carr, who is very top of the game. They have written so many articles now. It is alice in wonderland, because this is the first time i have seen such a Major Investigation going on where there is no evidence. Usually you have some shred of evidence. [laughter] almost as if is were going to investigate and find a shred of evidence. So this is a bizarre logic and backed by all of our media, the muscle of our country, and the belief in the military system that despite all of this, we need 58 billion more on the budget to keep going with our military state. This is exactly what kennedy warned us against, and one of the Great Stories of jfk was that he was not in the military. None of these new guys have been, and as a result, the clintons, obamas bushes, full very quickly to what the military tells them. It is disgusting that donald trump would say, we would give you the best generals with the most medals, and it is almost like they are a toy set for him. These shiny new generals will run the wars as opposed to the obama type people who try to control them. I will give the American People the bang for the buck. We have a war, he said, we will win it. He said that. You know the applications of that in a Nuclear Situation implications of that in a Nuclear Situation. And avira. Many people here believe in Nuclear Winter. I do, and my coauthor from ,ntold history, who is not here would tell you about Nuclear Winter at length. It is really scary, because we do not know what trump is going to do from day to day. Toody knows what he is going do. He does not know. It depends on his dream. His dream the night before. I think it is great theater, my god, we are seeing the best Reality Television we can and he is living up to it. But the problem is when he senses their ratings will fall off and the interest level walls falls, how to keep the show going . Who can he fire, how does he keep the interest . He is aware of the interest, as opposed to the boring eisenhower playedncy, where the guy golf today, shot a whatever it was, and they liked ike because he does not do anything. He was a donothing president not really, but that is what they thought at the time. Everything was backwards. In on thejfk came basis that he would make this country stronger because we were failing in cuba, and of course we know that is all backward and he knew better, but he said it for election reasons, and nixon was pictured as a softy, a donothing, eisenhower tech candidate type candidate. Mistakes, but now they have thrown in the president and said he is a dupe of the russians, a manchurian candidate. This is something Burt Lancaster would think up in the one where Fredric March seven days. Mr. Stone thank you. He includes accuses Fredric March of being a dupe, practically a spy for the russians because he wants a Nuclear Treaty in the 1960s. That was the basis of the Kennedy Khrushchev deal. What is wrong with peace . I cannot figure it out, but here we have everybody in the establishment, the respect of all establishments telling us that any kind of deal with russians is bad. This is unbelievable. I have never heard it through the 1960s, 1950s. It was some kind of peace party of some kind. It scared me in the election of 2016 where is the peace party . Who are the peace people . There was no one represents officially that position. Sanders was very weak on Foreign Policy, very weak. He said a few commonsense things, but since then he has joined the heard, the establishment that is right down the road here. This is a crisis time if people think like this, and were all making our i am not worried, but certainly it is sad to have lived through this whole cycle from the 1940s until now, and see the same repetitions. Anyone who was in vietnam or in korea recognizes the same kind , the same kind of split. America first, america patriotic , all that stuff. We heard it, and we heard it again on a rock, one and two. And by the way, a rock one was a huge mistake. Iraq one ande two. And by the way, iraq one was a huge mistake, and the destruction of libya was a gigantic mistake. The refugee situation in europe, this is serious, serious destabilization. We have completely destabilize the west, and hold up our hands and say russia did it. [laughter] mr. Stone russia has destabilized every election, it is behind everything. This is shameful and a lack of what it is, a lack of responsibility. It is like a child that breaks something in the room and says he did it. You cannot do that, but that is what they are doing. It is a must as if there is no game plan. The game plan, as many of you have suggested, i have read in your articles, very smart and very perceptive have suggested that the United States goal is much more intelligently to find eurasia,ing one to own own the proprietary rights to that part of the world because it is the richest part of the world. That makes some sense, and we put it out the open. Cheney did as much as anybody. If that is our goal, we are in for a good luck. Good luck, because we are in for a lot of turbulence and chaos. Military, weup the spend 10 times more than the russians. Twice, three times as much as 10 times morend than the russians and we are scared of then . Have you ever thought of the work reverse possibility if you are a russian and you were surrounded by the amount of missiles and abms and phalariss and submarines from alaska all ,he way to lithuania, latvia the borders and certainly in czechoslovakia and romania excuse me, romania and poland. The polls have done the again poles have done it again. They have waited to strike for brezinski, but now he is dead i have somehow fears that poland will once again be the initiator of a third world conflict. Have a lot to think about. Im going to go sit down now with jim, i wish you would ask him some questions as well as me. [applause] sit down and i will bottom it moderate. Mr. Stone ok, good. Actually, actually, i would be happy to see a conversation between these two guys, one wino who i know have been friends for a long time. Oliver, im curious i will start out with a question to you i think it is safe to say that you and donald trump do not share the same economic or political philosophy, and yet it seems like you are able to draw a distinction between a man whose policies and politics that you have no respect for, but yet draw this distinction between whole antirussia crusade this whole antirussia crusade that the National Security state seems to waging against trop. Trump. Can you comment on that . Mr. Stone you have to realize that every been everything i think microphone . You can take it out of there. Mr. Stone you have to realize, and please, i have a disclaimer to make. Everything i think, feel, and do, is as a pragmatist. This is my first role dramatist. This is my first role. I look for the story and the narrative, and the first thing that attracted me to jfk was the possibility of a great narrative here, and i tried to put that into the film. The hunt to the clues of who had killed him and why . The story. I think story. Whonot a political analyst sits and does his work, read the boring papers. No. What i have to say about mr. Putin, he reads everything. He is very dry, reads a lot, does a lot of research. Good people do that. Course in early unfortunately, trump does not read. Several people have confirmed that now. It is unbelievable. He has got attention deficit disorder. That fascinates me is a dramatist. He is such a beautiful dramatization of a child playing whole pointnd the of his life is, in a sense, being credited, being applauded, standup, be proud, all of the parents, everyone knowing who he is. If you walks into a room and nobody knows who he is, he would salt and retreat quickly. Ulk and retreat quickly when you see his wife not touching his hand, you feel sad for the guy. Stories but his new years party in maralago i was there. It is like going to a national park, you can get in as long as you pay, and you can see the president , and he mixes with the crowd and all of that, but it is like a museum. It is like a strange place. It is like he should be dead, a mummys tomb but he is still there. It will be a tomb one day. I got off the point, but what was i saying . Put an end russia. Putin and russia. Mr. Stone oh, new years eve. Just the image of him sitting as the clock struck midnight, he was sad. He was the only one of the table. Everyone was kissing, dancing. He was alone. Nobody was sitting at the table with him. Wants to be alone. I think you bury yourself in talking to people. If you know real estate people, i am a new yorker, they are the dealmakers. They are immediately looking around, who can they talk to, who can make it ahead with, how to make a buck. I find most of them have no morality. [laughter] oliver probably what is behind me, of the bull excuse it would not surprise me if at the end of the day, like two years of investigation and how many millions of pages of bull shit with a realize and they would realize what this russian lawyer. You can always talk about influence, influence and elections. Everybody influences an election, but we all know that it hashe israeli lobby, a lot more influence than any russian could possibly have if they had all the money in the world. [applause] and influence is a big word. So is hack. Back to your question. Tell me about putin, how you came to oliver putin, do not say pooti n. Ok. Tell us a little bit about how you got to the interview stage. Oliver i cannot. It is a state secret. I have to keep it under wraps. I would say, please watch it. It sets a mood. It is an on dishes thing for me to do, a fourhour documentary, i know that. But i had 35 hours of material, giving 80 reason and letting it flow, it was like unwrapping an onion or a russian doll always another thing inside. In the first hour he answers a question, then we come back to it three hours later and you begin to feel him and understand how he thinks. I think that is the role of the, not really a documentary as much as a oneonone, a conversation over four hours long. In different places. It is subtitled, but he is understandable in his body language. I will make a point that it is far better to keep him in his native language, because once he is dubbed, in the United States, you get the voice of the after. If you pick somebody that sound like a football coach, you like when charlie rose speaks, it is not the way he speaks. You get his boast and the interpreter voice and the interpreter, he was able to interpret pretty accurately. Trained by the kremlin. Jim [indiscernible] oliver that is not what it is about. It is about listening to him. Ok. Lets do something unorthodox and take questions. You are fine. Jim, i was going to ask you a question. Oliver mentioned 7 days in may. Tell us the story of that, what kennedy, the world role he played and what happened. Jim it was funny, i talked about Henry Kissinger. Kennedy really liked the movies. Them. It a lot of he really liked the book, he liked it so much that he knew said, why doand he you guys shoot it here. I will get everybody out of your for a weekend. And he can come in and issue the interiors at the white house. That is how much he wanted to see the movie get done. He really liked the message of the picture, that the military really thought they could take until the government of the United States. Because he had been through so much. That is why kennedy, by the way, that is why he taped the white house. Because the white house he felt everybody had bailed on him after the bay of pigs, that they were all blaming him for what had happened and it really was not his fault. He said, you guys he did not tell them this, but he said you are not going to do this anymore because im taping every conversation and i will know what really happened. When i am out of here, we will hear about it. That is why he put in the taping system. I did not know that. Jim yeah. Is that true . [indiscernible] [laughter] jim by the way, he cannot talk about this special, but you can talk about ukraine on fire, because he was one of the executive producers. Unfortunately the movie heaven has not gone a national release, but it is a good analysis of how the United States press has completely distorted what went on in the ukraine and crimea. Alright. And if you get a chance, [indiscernible] i think it will come out soon. Jim good. Raine on fire. What about snowden . We have the debate on whether he is a patriot or a traitor. And looking at the establishment what is your reaction . You met him personally. Tell us about him as a person. Snowden was very movie is a result of his information, his interpretation. He spoke with us nine different times. We went to moscow, i did most of all. But he, you know, it is his right to get the story right from his point of view. I said from the beginning this is his point of view, not the nsa point of view. You have to recognize that. They see the story differently. They say it is paid up. , we do not know what really happened, but after spending time with them i do not believe he is an actor. He told the story to the best of his knowledge. This is the movie of that. Through him i got to know mr. P. , because iran into him at a social event i ran into him at a social event. He was a patron of a theater group. He was in a folk tales kind of thing, very interesting. I do not speak russian. I sat through about two and a half hours and fell asleep waiting for him in the back. I met with him in the back room of the theater where he was, i asked him very nicely about , knew i was doing snowden not in moscow but in germany. I asked him questions. His answers were surprising. I will not tell you what they are. You will see his discussion with me about snowden in the second hour. And he certainly talks about the diplomacy,a uh, not diplomacy but policies on extradition which is important to the case because there have been so many russian criminals that have taken off from russia with money, state money or embezzled money, and landed in other countries, so it is a big issue for them. Pardon me for revealing what could be a state secret, but i did hear that, maybe leaking something unauthorized, the trailer to this putin interview series is oliver asked exkgb, yet here is a guy that has revealed secrets of the u. S. National Security State so how can you consider him a patriot . It,i think that he answers which may be a reason to watch the series. Ok, we are going to change the format. If i call on you all i ask is if is that you do not make a speech. Ask a question. Sir . Guessquestion concerns i what we would regard as a taboo subject. Can you comment at all on the correspondence between jfk and the first Prime Minister of israel, regarding the french built a power plant and jfks desire to have International Inspectors check out the Nuclear Energy situation there. More generally speaking, do you believe our relationship over israelt 6070 years with and the Zionist Movement has been detrimental to americas natural security National Security . I do not see any reason why it would not be worthwhile to discuss. [laughter] jim, grabbed the microphone. Grab the microphone. Hot potato. Look ok. Guys inu talk to these the cia and the state department, and if you did what i did and do a comparative analysis, they will tell you that kennedy was the last president who really wanted to stop israel from getting the bomb. He did not think there should be any atomic weapons in the middle east at all and he was absolutely furious when he found out that they were lying to him. He said, i will do everything i can to obstruct the Weapons Program from here on in. Closey had a really who hehip with gamel, had admired very much because he thought being a secularist and a socialist, that he could channel the middle east into a more modern world, a more modern framework. How close they, were when nasser got the news kennedy was killed he went into a monthlong depression and demand that his funeral be shown four times on National Television. Because he knew it would be the end of an era. He breaks relations with the usa in 1966. Ok. But kennedy wanted to build the framework, what he perceived as the moderates in the middle east, because in a Second Administration he was going to move for a solution on the palestinian problem. Ok . When is the last time anybody said anything like that . By the way, i cannot take credit for this. [indiscernible] robert has an interesting book. It is an excellent analysis of that whole subject. So those are my thoughts. Jim, you reminded me of a big contribution you made. You opened my eyes to it. I said kennedy was a standard cold warrior mostly, but you pointed out that in terms of these nationalist movements, the anticolonialist movements, they were perceived to be procommunist because they were getting independence from western powers. You said kennedy was sympathetic to those movements. The most important if you want to understand kennedy, let me give background. I was in that school also. One day i am in a bookstore in a town called a julian, and i am on vacation. I go in the bookstore and i see the cover of a book called jfk africa. On the cover is the famous hearing ofkennedy the death of. He has his hand over his face and he is weeping when he is getting the news. I am thinking, what is this guy doing crying over the death of a black revolutionary in africa . Johnson wouldnt do that. Alright. And so i said, how the heck did that happen . To understand that reaction you have to go back to a guy named edward goliad, who is the state Department Official inside saigon in 1951. And kennedy had a brief relationship with him in the United States. So when he went to saigon he sought him out and they had a meeting at the top of an outdoor restaurant. He asked, are we on the right side in this income are we going to win . And he says, there is no way frances going to win the war. Ho chi minh has fired up young viet men to the point where they would rather die than go under colonialism. France will never win the war of attrition, because the homefront will never support it. You take that and you put it into a 1965 scenario, somebody should of told that to johnson. In aill lose this country, war you can never win. That is why i used that quote. Kennedy would have never said that unless he had met gulian. And he was openminded enough to take that it was a transforming experience for him. I tried to figure that out. Why would he be so impacted by this guy . And some of the conversation that kennedy had with the leader of india, and he is lecturing kennedy on the evils of colonialism. Kennedy puts up his hand and says, stop, nobody have to tell me about colonialism. I come from a people that are colonized work on ice for 800 years. He was talking about the british and ireland. That is why it hit home with him the way it did. Yes . [indiscernible] putin . Ake place with mr. February, 15 from june 15, 2015 until 2017, right after the election. Oliver, i want to ask about jfk. You got a lot of adverse reaction and yet, yet, you were responsible that movie, the blurb at the end of the movie talking about the secrecy and records, it was responsible for jfk,monumental law that the records act has been so instrumental in helping us to understand the nature of the National Security state, especially during the cold war, operation norwood. I am curious to your reaction on the horrible attacks you received, at the same time knowing you had achieved something positive. Oliver that is a tough question, something for maybe an autobiography. [laughter] oliver in terms of my career, it hurt my career in many ways. Although my name is recognizable, it did hurt my career. But the condemnation made me feel bad, firstly because i have always been quiet in my nature. I never sought out to be controversial. I was shy in school and i have remained a conformist. I was mixed up, a mixed bag. The attacks they hurt and a scarred me. The truth of the legislation of which i am supposed to be proud is that it was passed really in reaction to the film in order for congress to deny i was on the right trail. [laughter] oliver the idea was, we will dump a lot of papers and will be so confusing, it will take 10 years to go through and people will forget about it. That is what they do with pretty much any investigation and they hope that the Russian Investigation will end up that way. In a mess of societys hysteria. At the time, it was hurtful. I tried to be strong and i kept going and i do not look back. The next movie, right away i turned around and made a classical movie about a vietnam ese peasant woman, it was called heaven and earth. It had tommy lee jones. It is beautiful. I love it. It is one of my favorites. And it goes between two cultures, between communists and capitalists. She lives during the war, she is spying, not spying, almost killed. She is tortured. The women refugees, she ends up in the United States with an American Special ops guy who has a dark past. Outs a hero, but as we find he turns into a darker man. Like Many American war veterans at that time, having real problems. Still do real problems like suicide. It goes to that place. America is corrupted by the war, by the vietnam war. And i love that country. It was very daring, critical. And of course it flopped at the box office. [laughter] to his credit, he answered every single one of those attacks on his movie. And if im correct about this, they did not want you to answer. You had to threatened to take out an ad. They do not want to run anything by you . The lautneras piece. Mankiewicze phone, was my advisor and he had been the press secretary for Bobby Kennedy. He knew what he was doing. He felt that we should respond. Bradley atcalled ben the Washington Post, he took my call and, you know, he acted like he hated me without even knowing me, because he was a good friend of jack kennedy and did not believe in anything of this nature. So the National Security correspondent was a vulture. He had a history of defending interventions all over the world, very good at it. You know his past better than me, nicaragua, guatemala. The point is the Washington Post was they still are, who are we kidding . Where is the Washington Post . [indiscernible] [laughter] oliver it does not matter who owns it. It is running on its own petrol of lies. [indiscernible] oliver they had to. We are going to run this whole thing. We are going to embarrass you for not publishing it. It is the only way it works with those guys. They are tough and they are nasty and they are living in a tough world. You know, miserable. It is a tough job. When you read that reply oliver getting the scoop, it does not matter what is the truth, it matters getting the scoop. It becomes a cynical business, as bad as advertising. Right . Would you say anything else, ray . You want to add on that . Your member the Washington Post in those days you remember the Washington Post in those days . They were making themselves big heroes after woodward and bernstein. It is part of that front, it is a big publicity for the newspaper business. What happened, the owner, Katharine Graham according to this new book, had such a bad reaction to the liberality of the 1970s she cracked down and went conservative with the post. Vietnam, did in you ever go back . Oliver i went back many times. How is that . Oliver i went back. I was going to do a movie in 2007, only two weeks from making it and we had built the whole village and we had all of the extras, everything was there and it was in thailand but it was a vietnamese tribal group. What was it like . Oliver it was a ghost town. The country. I believe you were in officer. Oliver i was not an officer. There mustve been some kind of emotional reaction to come back. Oliver by that time i had done platoon. I got it out of my system with that movie. Lucky, i wasi am able to exercise those problems. I had problems when i came back. I still do. I do not feel integrated into the society because society reminds me of the army. There is a corruption and a level of lies in the army, as you know. And as in any bureaucracy. It is frustrating because most of the good men do get cut out. They do not make it to the top. They have ideas, they are bold, they take chances, they lose sometimes. You do not see those guys become chiefs of staff and all that. And those of the guys that, they are not known as brain scientists. When you think them for testifying in front of congress and talking about russia is the biggest threat. Study his eyes. You can see there is deadness. There is a blank. He learned his lines. He looks like a korean war prisoner. The new guy, mattis, he scares me. He is striking looking. He is a dominant man. He walks in and you have got to agree because he talks in that voice. I am sure he armed twists very well. We have a problem. If anybody knows now, how many bases do we have . I do not know. 800. Oliver every one of them looks like one time of day. Guantanamo. We have a few more minutes. Thank you. Oliver my son wrote a book. Go ahead. Oliver what was it called . [laughter] i am terrible with titles. It is a wonderful story. Forget titles. One thing that changed my life when i saw your movie as a younger man, i was stupefied and by what i the attacks thought were the right and left, republicans and democrats, both sides. Which made me change my political orientation and i wanted to thank you for that. Oliver i think that was an interesting time. I began to feel like the left was no longer what i thought the left was. They started to go with the war in commission warren commission. I always thought the left was thinking more about these issues. I think it started to change my point of view that there were no allies. I think the same thing happened, what is going on right now, the real left, those that really have a heart and compassion and do not believe in wars and interventions and we have to be muscular and all this, those people are still there. But they do not have a voice. They do not have organization because the fake left has taken over. With the clintons, it really starts with the clintons. And it really was pervasive in the obama era. And when they got every president to get up there and make a speech about vietnam, what an honorable war it is, why we were doing it for peace and democracy. Ist dialogue, that script old and outdated but they still use it. Is there another script in preparation . Ray, do you know . [laughter] i hate to be the bearer of bad news, but we are out of time for todays program. Oliver ah. [laughter] i will say that over the years those that are familiar with the Freedom Foundation know that we have employed people of all ideological persuasions to speak at our conferences. Glenn greenwald has been a prominent, he has played a prominent role in our programs and we have had a lot of liberals and conservatives speak at our libertarian conference and we have been criticized for it. My answer has always been the same, what matters to me is what they are saying as long as what they are saying is mirroring what i am saying, we are on the same page. Kennedys read was profile in courage. I campaigned for kennedy. I actually went to the ranch of Lyndon Johnson and shook hands with him. Not proud of that. [laughter] i did not get to meet kennedy, but he was a big thing for me when i was growing up as a kid. One of my favorite books was profiles in courage about people who had stood up with their conventions convictions, no matter how high the price. With that in mind, oliver, we have commissioned a work of art for you. The future Freedom Foundation has it is jack here . Standup. Jack is a noted artist in annapolis. His work is being shown in annapolis right now at a big gallery. Also in washington and virginia. And we have commissioned him to do in oil painting of john kennedy for you. This is the pencil rendering that has been done by jack and the oil painting will be done based on that. [applause] that is for you. It will be shipped to you. [indiscernible] oliver nixon [laughter] who painted that . I do not know. Does anybody know . In that vein i want to ask is there a . Is he here . He was here earlier. There you are in the back. Oliver can i talk with you . And ray, if you could come. Thank you. Thank you for the work that you have done over the years. You have been so inspiring. [applause] thank you for coming to the conference. And thank you for the speakers. Meeting adjourned. [applause] interested in American History tv . Visit our website, cspan. Org history. You can view the schedule, preview upcoming programs and watch College Tours archival films and more. American history tv, at cspan. Org history. Chris derose next, talks about his book, congressman lincoln the making of americas greatest president. He recounts lincolns single term as a representative from illinois. He examines the future president s political thinking and personal life during his early career. This was recorded in 2013 at the changing hands bookstore in arizona, just over one hour. [applause] good evening, everyone. Thank you for being here tonight. If you are looking for what is real food i regret to inform you it is later in the month. This is the meeting for, congressman lincoln the making of americas greatest president. Thank you so much to cspan for hosting authors like me and letting us talk about what we do. And thank you for changing hands. This is the second event we have done here in over a year. Chris having bookstores like this is such a treasure. Nobody can