Lets see, oh yes. On November 22, 1963 President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas Texas, the crime of (that old) century. For the last 17 years of said century, my mind was largely engrossed in research on that crime, in an interval in which (between 1984 and 2001), I edited and published The Third Decade and The Fourth Decade. And yes, the perspective within which I and most of the other contributors to these research journals operated was a firmly “conspiracist” one, our work almost invariably proceeding from an observation of the physical impossibility of the lone-assassin perspective and a relentless and sometimes contentious search for the real perpetrators of this crime. (For any bottom line of “who did it?” you’ll have to look outside the confines of this article. But be forewarned: this is highly addictive material, and a little exposure to it can result in extended obsession—ask the 9/11 “conspiracists” of today.)

Having re-planted my intellectual feet in the present and projected civic life of our country and world, I want to use this “anniversary” posting to reflect a question that is often raised in today’s discourse: the likelihood that President-elect Obama would be subjected to an assassination conspiracy with any similarity to that which may have brought down JFK. To do so might throw some light on an aspect of Obama’s campaign and transition to the presidency: his “betrayal” as many have seen of responsiveness to his progressive base.

Of the many “theories” of the JFK assassination, there are two which seem worthy of examination for light thrown on the danger of an Obama assassination. The first we might call the Oliver Stone theory, familiar to anyone who may have seen his movie JFK. Stone, whose research team used some Third Decade and Fourth Decade material for background, developed a scenario that had, as JFK’s “fatal mistake,” the defiance of his own Joint Chiefs and Staff and others in the “military-industrial complex,” his double offense indicated by his weakness in the face of the country’s enemies. Having betrayed the Freedom Fighters at the Bay of Pigs in Cuba in not helping them “get the job done” (as Bush I didn’t “get the job done” with Saddam Hussein with the Gulf War), he betrayed as well the mission of halting Communism in Asia by his contemplated withdrawal of our forces from the hopeless “quagmire” in Viet Nam. For this offense he paid with his life, as these forces planned and executed his murder.

Though I’m not a great fan of the Oliver Stone theory, he certainly did define a dangerous situation for any President who would entertain seriously any effort to rein in the power of the military “establishment” in the United States. Among Obama’s progressive followers, there is a tendency to recognize the dangers to himself were he to advocate too openly for immediate withdrawal from Iraq, holding peace talks with Iranian or Cuba leaders, reducing military budgets, etc. He can promise these things, as he promised for example, an assault on NAFTA in a primary contest in a blue collar state, but he had aides who would whisper in Canadian ears that the assault was only “campaign rhetoric.” The mantra of “Progressives for Obama” was that, once elected, he would revert to his true feelings, which are presumably as pacifist as those of the progressives who supported him.

The fallacy in this thinking might be that it assumed that the mantle and the Secret Service protections of the presidency would insulate him against the reprisals of his hawk enemies. The JFK case, in which his own palace guard of presidential security may have been a factor in his demise, should give pause to any who would hope for such an emboldening shield of the presidency. Rather, I should think one could be a little understanding if also disappointed at the array of hawk advisers who have gravitated to his transition team and his prospective cabinet and staff. These people may be acting as a kind of bodyguard to the presidency, however much their influence guarantees that President Obama will never attain the freedom to act in progressive ways on foreign policy.

Let’s turn then to a related but somewhat different scenario of the JFK assassination, and look toward its relevance to assessing the likelihood of a life-threatening action against Obama. In this view (one which seems to me considerably more credible than the Oliver Stone theory), the JFK assassination was above all a “provocation” designed to produce a military assault of the United States against one of the “enemies” of the country. This version emphasizes the frustration of anti-Castro Cubans in America in their inability to promote an action against the Cuban regime to follow up on the failed effort at the Bay of Pigs. In this frustration they were joined by such “native” proponents of anti-communism as the New Orleans-based Information Council of the Americas (INCA). In this view, Lee Harvey was simply the “patsy” for the assassination, the one to be blamed, convicted and/or annihilated for a “lone assassin” act that was actually the result of a sophisticated anti-Castro operation. For this purpose, it was necessary to have Oswald become a well-publicized anti-Castro zealot during the prelude to the assassination, during what I have called “the red summer of 1963,” in which Oswald very publicly and provocatively associated with people and organizations like INCA in New Orleans. Immediately after the assassination, these forces were ready to spring into action to identify Oswald the anti-Castro nut job and attempt to parlay this identification into an immediate invasion of Cuba. The stage was even set for some possible provocateurs to “investigate” the assassination (and find a “communist” agency behind the assassination), a result neatly circumvented by LBJ’s appointment of the Warren Commission with a mandate for a “no conspiracy” conclusion.

One requisite for carrying out such an audacious provocation was that the President had to be an enormously popular figure, one whose death would stimulate a massive popular demand for revenge being taken on the “assassins.” Here is where the JFK/Obama comparisons grow ominously similar. Any assault on Obama, even an unsuccessful one, could well create this reaction, given his enormous personal appeal, both nationally and internationally. The reaction could well be an equivalent of the almost universal outrage from the 9/11 attacks (which may also have been the work of provocateurs) that led to a U.S. invasion of Afghanistan with nearly unanimous congressional approval (one vote against) and nearly universal international approval. Let’s say some plotters (the reader can imagine the identity thereof) wanted to stimulate a nuclear attack on, say, Iran. Let’s say they found a “patsy” candidate (maybe a malleable version of Ahmadinejad) who would noisily threaten to wipe an ally of the U.S. off the map. After a successful or attempted assassination, this patsy is captured and the whole brunt of MSM condemnation falls on the head of that patsy and the country or other agencies that support him. Do you think it likely that such an assault on Iran might occur? Would it succeed where an Obama threat or promise of “diplomacy” with Iran failed to stop the country’s existential threat against another country? (Remember please that a hawkish President Biden might be left to carry out this “retaliatory” action against the “patsied” country.)

Just asking. And I’m wondering whether our readiness to ask such questions might have helped avoid the twin disasters of the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.

Jerry D. Rose – Editor, The Sun State Activist