LYNDON B. JOHNSON JOHN F. KENNEDY   and the

GREAT AMERICAN COUP D'ETAT

by L. Fletcher Prouty & Paul Kangas

On Nov 22, 1963, Lyndon B. Johnson became President of the United States of America.

On that same date, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated at Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas.

On Nov 26, 1963, President Johnson signed a National Security Action Memorandum #273, the highest level national security document, as guidance for future Vietnam plans and policy. This brief directive most significantly initiated changes reversing Kennedy's Vietnam policy of NSAM #263, Oct 11, 1963. Kennedy had decreed then that "the bulk of U.S. personnel would be out of Vietnam by the end of 1965."

Strangely, this NSAM #273, which began the change in Kennedy's policy toward Vietnam, was drafted on Nov 21, 1963...the day before Kennedy died. It was not Kennedy's policy. He would not have requested it, and would not have signed it. Why would it have been drafted for his signature on the day before he died; and why would it have been given to Johnson so quickly? Johnson had not asked for it. On Nov 21, 1963 Johnson had no expectation whatsoever of being President on Nov 26th.

On Nov 29, 1963, President Johnson met with J. Edgar Hoover, the FBI Director, to discuss the list of names compiled for the commission to investigate the assassination of John F. Kennedy. These men were: Chief Justice Earl Warren, Chairman; Rep. Gerald R. Ford, R-Mi; Rep. Hale Boggs, D-La; Sen. Richard B. Russell, D-Ga.; Sen. John Sherman Cooper, R-Ky.; John J. McCloy, New York banker; Allen W. Dulles, formerly Director of Central Intelligence, Sen. Jacob Javits, D-NY; and General Lauris Norstad, U.S. Air Force. All were approved to serve on the Commission, except the last two, who for reasons unknown did not serve with that body.

Johnson and Hoover were old friends who had lived across the street from each other in Washington for the past 19 years. They understood each other. They needed each other. As recorded in a Memorandum for the Record, written by Hoover on that date and copied for eight of his senior FBI deputies, Lyndon Johnson, who had been in the third car behind Kennedy in the Dallas motorcade, took advantage of this first White House meeting to ask his old friend some personal questions that had caused him great concern since the assassination.

He asked, "How many shots were fired?" Hoover told him, "Five." Then Johnson asked, if any had been fired at him? Hoover replied, "No, three shots were fired at the President and we have them. The President was hit by the second and fifth bullets and the third hit the Governor (Connally)." (This statement was wrong, e.g. one stray bullet hit a curbstone one and one - half blocks away and a fragment wounded a bystander. That bullet was a missed shot: therefore it was either number four, or the cause of the contrived theory about the "Magic" bullet that allegedly hit both men.)

This discussion, between the two old friends, which took place on Nov 29, 1963 one week after President Kennedy's assassination. Most important. It reveals the deep concern of President Johnson. He heard bullets pass over-head. He never forgot that sound and its significance. He had been educated at Dealey Plaza.

In early June 1971, a few days after the Pentagon Papers appeared in The New York Times, Leo Janos, formerly of the Johnson white House staff, attended a luncheon in the private dining room of the Johnson Library with the ailing ex-President and other friends. As Janos reported later, in the ATLANTIC Monthly Magazine of July 1973: "During coffee, the talk turned to President Kennedy, and Johnson expressed his belief that the assassination in Dallas had been part of a conspiracy. Be never believed that Oswald acted alone, although he could accept that he pulled a trigger." Johnson followed that with a statement that had the megaton force of a full size hydrogen bomb. He said, and Janos wrote: "We had been operating a damned Murder Inc. in Dallas."

That was June of 1971. Lyndon Johnson died in January 1973, and this Janos article appeared in July 1973. Since that date, with those words of,

(1) the man who had established the Warren Commission itself,

(2) the man who was in the motorcade behind Kennedy, and

(3) the man who, as President, became privy to the darkest secrets of the government, ...it should have become clear to everyone by now that Kennedy was killed as a result of a massive conspiracy by a team of professional killers following a consensual decision from the highest levels of power in the country, perhaps in the more modern sense...in the world.

Clearly, by late 1963, the decision had been made that:

1. "Kennedy had to be deprived of re-election."

2. "Kennedy had to go."

3. "A Kennedy dynasty had to be thwarted."

The fact of conspiracy, underscored by President Johnson himself, makes it clear that the Report of the Warren Commission, which maintains that one man, Lee Harvey Oswald, with one "mail order" rifle and five bullets killed John F. Kennedy and severely wounded Governor John B. Connally at Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas, is totally false and contrived.

The Report of the Warren Commission has been used to provide the life blood of a massive cover-story that has been kept alive by the CIA controlled media for decades to brainwash generations of Americans and others around the world. It perpetuates the American coup d'etat.

A case can be made for no conspiracy, when it can be proved that one man acted alone. As soon as more than one man is involved, the senseless act of a "lone nut" can no longer be used. A conspiracy is evidence of malice and of an evil plan to obtain an objective. This is the great significance of Johnson's statements. He confirms the conspiracy.

These points are topped by his belief that "We had been operating a dammed Murder Inc." This fact defines the nature of the crime.

Note Johnson's choice of words. "We had been operating…" The "We" has to mean the United States Government, or at least an agency or instrumentality of the government. Further, Johnson underscores that "We had been operating" this murder capability over time. He does not limit its work to a single event, i.e. the Kennedy murder. He remembers back through the years to the close of the WW II, at least, to the uncounted times when enemies of the government had been killed by this "Murder Inc." quickly, cleanly and with precision...and without their apprehension and prosecution by anyone. This is the nature of a government sponsored "Hit Man" professional operation.

Johnson chose the Mafia term "Murder Inc." to describe what he meant. This choice of words has great significance. Teams of professional "hit men" are recruited, trained, equipped and provided with a complex of "real life" identities, by this government, in order that they may live this strange existence as normal individuals. They are always available for these special duties any where and against any target. They are skilled automatons who are set in motion by a code system that does not require the identities of those who have made the "Decision."

Johnson goes one step further. He calls this unit "Murder Inc." As we know, a corporate body is eternal, if desired. These murder teams belong to an organization that is, in a special sense, timeless. Such murders are not arranged and carried out on an "ad hoc" basis. These teams are always ready.

With the above in mind, let me go a step farther. I don't know whether or not you saw the Oliver Stone film "JFK." I don't know what you thought about it, if you did. I do know that for the tens of millions around the world who did see the movie, that "Man X - Garrison" scene on the Mall, near the Vietnam Memorial, was the climax, the awakening.

Those audiences in those packed theaters began to see, and to believe that the lies and mythology they had been spoon-fed for decades by the government's Report of the Warren Commission, and by our subservient media was, and still is, false.

With this in mind, it is time to face reality. What caught their attention was the simple question, "Why?...Why was President John F. Kennedy killed? To understand the reasons why this decision had been made, we need to take a penetrating look at the Kennedy era. So much has taken place since then. So much has happened to each one of us since then. We don't remember the details. We have been misled by the media and by a flood of books that are not true history. Perhaps, we just never knew.

At the time Kennedy was elected, Nov 1960, I was an Air Force Colonel assigned to the immediate office of the Secretary of Defense, Thomas Gates. I had been in the Pentagon for six consecutive years. All had been spent as Chief of Special Operations that, in military terminology, meant, "The support of the clandestine operations of the CIA." I was with Headquarters, U.S. Air Force, 1955-1960, the Secretary of Defense, 1960-1962 and with the Office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 1962-1963.   

Paul Kangas was in Navy Intelligence based in Washington, DC, as a body guard for President Kennedy.  During the 1961 invasion of Cuba, he was transferred to NAS Patuxent River, MD.,  one of the main staging areas for the massive invasion of Cuba.   Kangas was in charge of tracking the ships, aircraft & subs surrounding Cuba for the final push in 1962.   JFK made a peace deal with the Russians & the war was over.   Kangas then received orders to Vietnam.  JFK then issued NSAM #263 & stopped the Vietnam war in Oct 1963.   World peace was at hand.

The Eisenhower period, 1953-1960, was one of prosperity and featured the build-up of the massive military industrial complex as one of the greatest concentrations of raw power and enormous wealth in the history of the world.

We should all know Eisenhower's "Farewell Address" of January 17, 1961, wherein he documented the concentration of power in the Military-Industrial complex: "The conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence - economic, political, even spiritual - is felt in every city, every statehouse, every office of the Federal Government. In the councils of government we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist...We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted..."

Like Lyndon Johnson, General Eisenhower was a man who knew. He was telling the American public about things the way they are. The United States had been involved, covertly, in the warfare in Vietnam & Southeast Asia since September 1945.  In fact, VP Nixon had spoke before the S. Vietnamese Parliament 6 times from 1952 to 1960.  We had been involved in Korea since 1945 and in warfare there during the early fifties.

By the end of the eight-year Eisenhower/ Nixon era the great powers within and outside the federal government had arranged for the certain transfer of leadership from Eisenhower to Richard Nixon. They had miscalculated.

Everything had been prepared for an uninterrupted transfer of that great power to the Nixon era. This "Power Elite" was so certain of electoral success that major programs such as the make-war Vietnamese operations, the TFX fighter plane procurement project (at an estimated $6.5 billion it was the largest aircraft procurement project ever devised) and many projects of a similar nature were poised to come into fruition early in the planned Nixon period in order to continue the flow of hundreds of billions of dollars from the government to those industries.

Clandestine operations that are employed to create "make-war" situations wherever planned had increased in size and frequency during the last years of the Eisenhower terms under the direction of John Foster Dulles, the Sec. of State and his brother Allen the Director of Central Intelligence. 

At the time of the election, there was the "on-the-shelf" Cuban/Castro matter, there was the Chinese encroachment in Tibet with the impending threat to India, there was active trouble in Laos and Vietnam, and the biggest of them all, the rebellion in Indonesia that had failed in 1958 (in which a Marine named Lee Harvey Oswald had been involved) lay in waiting for another flare-up at the proper time.

These plans, worth hundreds of billions of dollars in military expenditures were set. They had been prepared for a pliant Nixon, and the experienced administration he planned to inherit.

Then came the campaign of 1960. Up from no where came this impossibly youthful, Democratic, Catholic candidate, Senator John F. Kennedy. Yet when the 66,000,000 ballots had been counted, Kennedy had won by a margin of less than 1/2 of one percent.

As an old-timer in the Pentagon, I sensed the disappointment and the fury of the incumbents. It happened that on the day before the Kennedy inauguration, while Washington was being blanketed by a raging blizzard, I was directed to go to Secretary Gates' office just before 5 P.M. with a last minute item involving the Cuban Exile Training Program (the Bay of Pigs "ZAPATA" project), whose commanding officer was Geo. HW Bush.

My office was a few doors down the hall. I arrived at Mr. Gates' office around five to find an enormous crowd of "well wishers" flooding his office to say "good-bye." His outer office and the corridor were jammed. His secretary smiled as I mentioned my appointment, looked at the huge crowd in the Secretary's office, and pointed to the door of the deputy's office. He was alone.

I walked in to find an old friend Jim Douglas. I had been through countless meetings with him over the past years. He smiled as I came in, rose from his desk and leaned against the window sill looking toward me. Over his shoulders I could barely see the city of Washington through the swirling snowflakes.

Within a few minutes I had covered the subject of my business: and then asked permission to add a question. He smiled.

I said, "Mr. Douglas, ever since the Cuban exile program began earlier this year ~ have briefed you, or Mr. Gates day to day. Tomorrow when I come in with a similar briefing, may I expect that the new Kennedy men will have been made aware of this subject, or do I have to read them into the program?"

Mr. Douglas turned slowly and looked toward the Potomac River and the White House obscured by snow, then turned to me and said, "Prouty, I'll be damned if know. We haven't met the bastards."

This may have been no more than an emotional response. I expect it was true. It accurately reflected the feelings of the long term Eisenhower/ Nixon loyalists who were being removed from their offices by the new Kennedy up-starts...the "Whiz Kids." Both sides had no desire to meet.

Such feelings give birth to pressures at the highest levels that smoldered into flame as the years rolled by.

Shortly after Kennedy took office, the Bay of Pigs program became a disaster. At the same time he was faced with a major decision concerning Vietnam, and, following a lengthy and detailed Bay of Pigs investigation by the Cuban Study Group, Kennedy signed one of the most significant policy directives of his 1,000 day tenure. Yet, it is surprising how few people know about it and how little has been written about it. How little it is known.

We have all heard that Kennedy had vowed to 

break the CIA into 1,000 pieces. 

But how many have ever heard how he planned to do it, and what policy he had established to achieve that goal?

In brief, on June 28, 1961, President Kennedy himself signed National Security Action Memorandum #55. This important order was directed solely to the Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff who at that time was General Lyman Lemnitzer. Its subject, clearly stated, was "Relations of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to the President in Cold War Operations." In layman's terminology

"Cold War Operations" meant "Clandestine Operations."

Kennedy opened that directive with memorable words:

"I wish to inform the Joint Chiefs of Staff as follows with regard to my views of their relations to me in Cold War Operations:

a) I regard the Joint Chiefs of Staff as my principal military advisor responsible both for initiating advice to me and for responding to requests for advice. I expect their advice to come to me direct and unfiltered.

b) The Joint Chiefs of Staff have a responsibility for the defense of the notion in the Cold War similar to that which they have in conventional hostilities..."

I was the officer instructed to staff this paper, and two others, MSAM 156 and #57; and to brief the Chairman and the Chiefs at their next meeting. First they were surprised to discover that : this order had been addressed directly to them and was signed by the President. It had not come through the Secretary of Defense, and had not been sent to other top-level addressees such as the Secretary of State and the Director of Central Intelligence. This procedure was rare, and meaningful.

Next, they were amazed to hear that the limits of their lawful

function were being broadened to include "Cold War Operations." Needless to say these policy statements created a great discussion, and then were sealed in TOP SECRET files for further analysis and study.

Interpreted as the President intended, this policy, if carried to its conclusion and not interrupted by his death, would have brought about an enormous change in the way the Vietnam situation, that from 1945 to 1963, had been under "operational control" of the CIA, would have been pursued. Without question this new policy was the major stepping stone on the way to Kennedy's promise that "the bulk of all U.S. personnel would be out of Vietnam by the end of 1965."

This blunt statement of the Kennedy policy may well have been the ultimate pressure point that created the climate in which the decision was reached to do away with the President. Another example highlights how his changes impacted on the military industrial complex where they were the most sensitive.

During the last years of the Eisenhower era, the Air Force and Navy were deep in plans for new fighter aircraft. The Air Force proposal was for a swing-wing fighter designated the TFX. The processing of this procurement program had been all but completed during 1960; but the budget people bowed to Eisenhower's request to stay within the scope of his budget. They moved the project into the expected Nixon term. Everyone concerned knew that this project was a natural for the Boeing Company and that it would begin at a 44 billion figure and rise from there. The TFX was on the threshold, along with Castro and Vietnam as the election came .

But...Kennedy won. McNamara entered the office of the Secretary of Defense and Arthur Goldberg, a brilliant political strategist, became the Secretary of Labor. Between them they came up with a procurement philosophy that would allocate that enormous sum offer money in procurement to areas that were the most sensitive on the political map a. determined by the Labor Dept'. voting patterns.

McNamara announced a new round of studies and the bidders wore signaled that their production projects and sub-contractors physical plant locations should be spread over the most desirable array of county voting districts.

Finally, in November 1962, after delaying for nearly two years, ~ McNamara announced the TFX award, which by that time included the Navy and its funding, to the General Dynamics-Grumman team of bidders. Their proposal had been structured to approximate the Goldberg plan. 

The shock of that award, for the reasons mentioned, was terrific. The TFX battle was fought in Congress well into 1963. 

This gambit, along with other changes brought about during the Kennedy, years, created the kind of opposition that is beyond control.

Increasingly, in the Clubs and Boardrooms of the wealthy, the powerful, the munitions makers...augmented by their bankers and their lawyers, voices began to rise as they mentioned that "God Damned" Kennedy, and worse. In the halls of the Pentagon, in the CIA and other centrally effected areas tensions rose. 

Finally a consensus coalesced and from that impersonal initiative a decision was reached.

Those few, who knew the methodology and the codes, that activated what Lyndon Johnson called "Murder Inc." pushed the button. 

The deadly system was set in motion. Like the deadly Ghurka scimitar, it is never extracted from its sheath without drawing blood.

The time and place was decided. The intricate and detailed cover story was outlined and made ready, not only for the day of the crime; but for the years to follow. 

Kennedy’s whole cabinet was tricked into going on a junket to Hawaii, on Nov. 20, 1963, so they would be totally out of the picture.  JFK would be totally isolated.   

The site was selected and prepared. The professional team moved into place. The elements of the plan went into effect, the carefully manipulated motorcade moved into position, and the shots were fired.

All phone lines in Washington, DC were shut down for 2 hours, as soon as the bullets were fired in Dallas, to allow total control of the story to the CIA in Dallas.  

The news media, interrupted ongoing programs to announce:

"President Kennedy has been shot dead, gunned down during drive through Dallas."

"Five bursts of gunfire, apparently from automatic weapons, were heard." (Except for these first moments, this type of gunfire was never repeated. )

"Secret Service men immediately unslung their automatic weapons and pistols." (Also an incorrect statement. )

As special under seas cable had been installed to Japan & the whole Pacific.  It was not used, until one 5 minutes after JFK was murdered.   The first news story transmitted to Japan & the world, via this new cable was “President Kennedy is dead.”

These same words were flashed around the world. The Thousand Days of the Kennedy era had come to an end.

The great American coup d'etat had taken place. It was November

22, 1963.