Grumpy lefties and VENONA

Charles Brown CharlesB at CNCL.ci.detroit.mi.us
Tue Dec 7 15:51:24 PST 1999


I think the short answer is that from our perspective Kennedy was a bourgeois politician and certainly a representative of the bourgeoisie, but within the bourgeoisie a sharp enough conflict developed that the most reactionary sector decided he had to go. Don't forget Eisenhower was the one who publically exposed the military-industrial complex, and he was certainly part of it as a general. So, even someone from the complex could be in something of a conflict with it.

The most reactionary sector of capital was arch-fanatically anti-Soviet. Not to mention they were making billions of dollars as merchants of death. So, what Kennedy did was class treason as far as they were concerned. This was in the context of Kennedy basically backing down in a game of chicken in the Cuban missile crisis , again from the standpoint of the most reactionary and militarist sector of the bourgeoisie. The militarists probably thought that the Soviets wouldn't have started a nuclear war over Cuba. So, they probably thought Kennedy should have invaded. The Soviets basically won it. Afterall, Cuba is still communist.

Overall, it is difficult to feel, perhaps, the fear that the U.S. ruling class, especially its rightwing, felt of the Soviets and communism then. The world was steadily falling to communism. Eastern Europe had just turned communist. The whole colonial world had just started to become independent, with the Soviet Union as the main bulwark of that independence movement. The direction of the world, the trend then was definitely toward communism. Sputnik had beaten U.S. science ! The tenor of the times was the absolute opposite of today.

On another level, Kennedy's lifestyle etc. seem sort of tamed now, but in the conservative fifties he was pretty wild, and as a president, the conservatives would see him as undermining American values. But the main motive was the militarya

The important thing is that it was a coup d'etat. The vaunted claim that the U.S. is so democratic compared to the rest of the world is false. That is the main lesson for now.

There is another book just out, _Coverup_ , I think is the name. I heard the author on radio. He focuses very much on physical evidence and the fact that Kennedy was shot from the front. But in the course of the interview he said the same thing as I do . Testban treaty and he said the evidence is clear now that Kennedy was going to pull out of Viet Nam. The generals would have hated that.

More later, if you want. gotta go now.

CB


>>> Brett Knowlton <brettk at unica-usa.com> 12/07/99 05:48PM >>>
Charles,

I agree with your main point, but I'm a little surprised at your assertion that Kennedy was assassinated by the military industrial complex - what makes you think so? After all, Kennedy was a part of the military industrial complex himself.

Brett


>After WWII the Soviets proposed banning nuclear weapons. The U.S. refused
- this after the Soviets had lost 20 million people to the Nazi invasion. Only then did the Soviets develop the Bomb.
>
>Every escalation in the nuclear arms race was initiated by the U.S.
>
>Main reason the military industrial complex assassinated Kennedy was that
he had just signed a test-ban treaty with the Soviets.
>
>U.S. is the biggest warmonger in history of humanity.



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