Dear Mr. President, It's Time to Obey the Law: Release the JFK Secret Service Records and End Other

[unhappycamper]

http://smirkingchimp.com/thread/thom-hartmann/58627/dear-mr-president-its-time-to-obey-the-law-release-the-jfk-secret-service-records-and-end-other-needl

Dear Mr. President, It's Time to Obey the Law: Release the JFK Secret Service Records and End Other Needless Secrecy
The Obama Administration | Government
by Thom Hartmann | September 29, 2014 - 8:52am

~snip~

Because of the needless ongoing secrecy practiced by the Secret Service, CIA, FBI, and other agencies, you probably don't know that just four days before President Kennedy was killed in Dallas, there was a major threat against JFK's life during his long motorcade through Tampa, Florida. While the Secret Service and other agencies withheld information on that attempt from the Warren Commission--and all of the later government investigating committees--long-overlooked newspaper files and Tampa law enforcement officials have now allowed that attempt to be well-documented You probably also don't know that in the weeks and days before JFK's assassination in Dallas, the US government had a special subcommittee of the National Security Council making plans for what to do regarding the "possible assassination of American officials." Only a few pages of those files were released decades later, though they indicated the existence of hundreds more pages from the various government agencies who had representatives on that sub-committee.

Our concern about needless secrecy that has persisted for decades is not merely academic. As indicated earlier, the Warren Commission was only the first--and least informed--of several government investigating committees. In the late 1970s, the House Select Committee on Assassinations, with access to much more information, concluded that JFK was likely killed by a conspiracy. The Committee even named two Mafia godfathers--Carlos Marcello, who controlled organized crime in Louisiana and Texas, and Tampa's Santo Trafficante--as having "the motive, means, and opportunity to assassinate President Kennedy." They couldn't be more definitive because once again, the Secret Service, CIA, FBI, and Naval Intelligence withheld crucial information from them, as later confirmed by Committee investigators.

America's ongoing 54-year-old Cold War with Cuba is another painful side effect of all that needless secrecy. That Cold War essentially began in the summer of 1960, when then-Vice President Richard Nixon ordered the CIA to hire the Mafia to assassinate Cuban leader Fidel Castro, before he had to face then-Senator John F. Kennedy in the 1960 presidential election. Those CIA-Mafia plots eventually included Santo Trafficante and Carlos Marcello, and Congressional testimony confirms those plots continued into the Kennedy Administration (and into 1963), only without the authorization of President Kennedy or his brother, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy.

Evidence indicates that Mafia godfathers Marcello and Trafficante planted phony evidence implicating Fidel Castro in JFK's murder, and sadly, some former CIA officials have continued to put forward that idea for decades. They can only get away with that because the Agency--along with the FBI, the Secret Service, and Naval Intelligence--continues to withhold so much crucial information about the CIA assets like Marcello and Trafficante, both of who later confessed their roles in JFK's murder, late in life, to close associates. Part of Marcello's confession was even taped by an FBI informant, but the FBI has refused to release any of those tapes or transcripts. Marcello and Trafficante's close associate in the CIA-Mafia Castro plots--Mafia don Johnny Rosselli, of the Chicago Mafia--likewise confessed, shortly before he was gruesomely murdered on Trafficante's orders. However, US officials from President Lyndon Johnson to former Secretary of State Alexander Haig believed those false "Castro killed JFK" reports, resulting in the stalemate between the countries that exists today. That Cold War with Cuba drains valuable US intelligence and security resources that could be used for far more serious threats. In addition, opening up trade with Cuba--as the US has done with former enemies like China and Vietnam--could be of tremendous benefit to the US economy.

[blkmusclmachine]

1. transparency you can beLIEve in