segment on CBS’s Face The Nation involved a discussion of the 50th anniversary of the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Host Bob Schieffer interviewed former New York Times reporter Philip Shenon, whose new book evaluates the Warren Commission. In Shenon’s view, attempts by both the CIA and FBI to withhold just how much they knew about assassin Lee Harvey Oswald may have prevented the Warren Commission from coming up with different results, or worse may have prevented police from providing the President with more security the day of his assassination.
Panelist Bob Woodard commented that not only did a powerful “secret government” exist at the time of the Kennedy assassination, but it existed during Watergate, and based on the NSA bugging scandal, the drone program, and others, it may be happening today. He warns that President Obama needs to review these secret organizations and their power within the government.
Bob Schieffer:
What is so interesting, Bob Woodward, and you know, you and I have seen a lot of these things.
Bob Woodward:
Too much.
Schieffer:
The first thing that agencies tend to do is try to make sure they can’t be blamed for something. And, clearly, that is why the FBI and the CIA did not come clean with the Warren commission, and why maybe they didn’t even tell the agents in Dallas what was going on.
Woodward:
Well, initially, in the Watergate cover-up, part of the argument was, ‘Oh, you’ll expose convert operations in Mexico,’ because they were laundering $89,000 of money that helped finance Watergate. I think there’s a theme here in all of this that you have laid out that connects somewhat to what’s going on now. And that is the power of this secret world — CIA, FBI — particularly in what you’ve looked at, Phil, the assassination plots against Castro. I mean, it’s stunning, and this information really didn’t get to the Warren commission. And it’s not saying that Castro did it, but that there’s all this secrecy and the people at the top or the people investigating the commission does not get the evidence.
We look now at what’s going on with all the NSA wiretapping and people saying, ‘Well, they didn’t know, or they did know.’ It clearly is much more extensive than people expected. You connect this with the drone strikes in Pakistan, and Yemen, which is our government conducting regular assassinations by air. You know, what’s — what’s going on here? Who is in control of it? And who can find out? You know, I think — it’s in the New York Times this morning that there is a review that Susan Rice, the National Security Adviser for Obama, has done on Mid-East policy. They need to review this secret world and its power in their government because you run into this rat’s nest of concealment and lies time and time again, then and now.
This is a copy of the full article provided by the Conservatives at Truth Revolt
