An Open Letter to Fredrik Logevall by James DiEugenio

 

An Open Letter to Fredrik Logevall

Written by James DiEugenio

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Jim DiEugenio takes Fredrik Logevall to task for his role in both the current Turning Point series on Vietnam and his prior role in the Ken Burns/Lynn Novick series on the subject.

An Open Letter to Fredrik Logevall

Dear Dr. Logevall:

I have just watched all five segments of Turning Point: The Vietnam War. My review appears at the website Kennedys and King.com. I would venture to say it is the longest and most detailed examination of that disappointing series you will find.

I have written or contributed to five books on the JFK case. And I was the screenwriter for Oliver Stone for his two most recent documentaries on that case, JFK Revisited and JFK: Destiny Betrayed. One of the things that puzzled me about Turning Point is that I could not find a writing credit for the series. Because if one is going to do an over six-hour series on such a controversial, multi-faceted, complex subject, it is not wise to just wing it and hope the chips fall into place. And, as we will see, that is not what I think happened here. Let me explain why.

As you must know by now, the series begins with the John Kennedy administration. Which is odd in and of itself. Because America was involved in Vietnam two administrations prior: under Truman and Eisenhower. In other words, for about ten years before JFK was inaugurated. Kennedy inherited the war from those two men.

What this series does is something that is inexplicable. It leads with Kennedy, and spends the whole first segment on him. It then, in Part 2, tells us about what happened in the fifties. In other words, it flashes backwards, referring to something that should have been the lead in. And at that, it is an abbreviated treatment of those ten years. The key development, what actually got this country into Vietnam, was America’s breaking of the Geneva Accords and its installation of the Nhu family as the leaders of the manufactured country of South Vietnam. This was done by President Dwight Eisenhower, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles and Vice President Richard Nixon. It had been presaged by Dulles’s planning of Operation Vulture to prevent the French collapse at Dien Bien Phu.

There are simply no questions about any of this. America backed the French until the bitter end, and Dulles was willing to use atomic weapons to save the French empire. Dulles then broke his oral agreement at Geneva, i.e., to hold elections and then unify the country. He installed Ngo Dinh Diem as the leader of South Vietnam and kept him in power with rigged elections. This is what started the war under America and caused the rise of the Viet Minh.

To say the film skimps over all this is being much too kind. But it cannot be skimped over, because this was all a monumental miscalculation. Vietnam was never worth using atomic bombs over, and it was not worth creating a new country, led by a man who turned out to be a tyrant. A leader who spoke English, wore Brooks Brothers suits, and had an American styled haircut. This was the true origin of American involvement. And you know this. Because you wrote a book about it called Embers of War.

But as poor as that aspect was, it was not the worst part of Turning Point. Because the film jumped from the fifties to 1965. Let me repeat that: from the fifties to 1965. In other words it skipped over 1964! I could hardly believe what I was witnessing. Why? Because unlike what the film tried to depict, there was no mystery as to how all those American combat troops got into South Vietnam. They arrived there on President Johnson’s orders. And Johnson was planning this expansion of the war and its Americanization throughout 1964. But there was one problem. He had to get elected. So he lied about his planning for America’s direct entry. Some of the people who he had planning for that entry were William Sullivan and Bill Bundy. As Joseph Goulden wrote in his book, Truth is the First Casualty, Sullivan’s first paper on this for LBJ said that this American involvement was necessary in order to halt the advance of the Viet Cong. (p. 88)

But we don’t need Mr. Goulden in order to certify that 1964 was a sea change do we? Because again, you wrote a book on this very subject. It was appropriately titled Choosing War. In other words unlike Kennedy, who stated it was Saigon’s war to win or lose, Johnson was making it America’s war. As you note in your book, two milestones in 1964 made it that way. The first was NSAM 288 which mapped out an air war against the north. The second was planning for a casus belli to get America into the war. This was achieved through the Tonkin Gulf Resolution, which was written before the infamous incident happened, and which Johnson carried around in his suit coat. That was the equivalent of a declaration of war against the north. From there the first American combat troops landed at Da Nang in early 1965, as planned for by Johnson.

When Kennedy was killed there was not one more combat troop in Vietnam than when he took office. Which means there were none. As everyone who has studied the war understands, and as Maxwell Taylor and McGeorge Bundy were explicit about, Kennedy was determined not to commit combat troops into Vietnam. And he did not. Even though, as Gordon Goldstein has shown in his book about Bundy, he was confronted with this proposition nine times. Yet he refused each overture. Johnson did not need to be so encouraged.

You would have been an excellent interview subject for what Johnson did in 1964. Instead you uttered the phrase that Vietnam was not Kennedy’s shining moment. Oh really? Compared to who? Compared to Lyndon Johnson, who started Rolling Thunder and committed a half million ground troops into theater? Or compared to Richard Nixon? Who invaded both Laos and Cambodia; the latter bringing a holocaust to that country. President Nixon also dropped more bomb tonnage over Indochina than Johnson did. Or shall he be compared to Eisenhower; who was going to use atomic weapons at Dien Bien Phu, but he could not get the British to back him on that. Ike also told Kennedy that Laos was worth going to the brink over in Indochina. Thankfully, Kennedy rejected that advice.

I first encountered you and your work through the book Virtual JFK. In the transcripts that make up that volume I thought you were a well informed and objective scholar. You then got involved with Ken Burns and Lynn Novick. They had you do the reply to people like John Newman and David Kaiser and Jamie Galbraith on Kennedy’s withdrawal in the book that accompanied their bloated and utterly mediocre series. Galbraith replied to you on that issue quite strongly and appropriately. Yet you have now repeated that performance. Again, you are part of a film that ignores NSAM 263, the McNamara/Taylor Report, and Johnson’s conscious reversal of Kennedy’s policy. Maybe you did not know what this film was going to be like. After all there does not seem to have been a script. But you sure do know now.

I’d wish you well on your relatively new high profile. But it's not the profile I had imagined for you.

( This letter will be sent directly to the director and one of the producers of Turning Point.)

Source:  https://www.kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-articles/an-open-letter-to-fredrik-logevall

JFK Trivia

 

Updated post from Oswald's Mother 10/13/2009

Amaze your friends!  Confound the skeptics!  It’s time for friends for Kennedy Trivia revolving around the .  Actually, more like one coincidence and mystery piled upon another.

• Texas oilman, D.H. Byrd was the owner of Texas School book depository. Interestingly enough, he was the founder of the Civil Air Patrol. Lee Oswald was a member of the CAP as a teenager. Ironically enough, he would be in the same building owned by Byrd the day of the assassination and later implicated in the crime.
• The person hired to write the final draft of the Warren Commission Report was a German named Otto Winnacker. He was brought to the US after WWII under Operation Paperclip. He was officially one of 26 Nazi historians that worked personally for Adolph Hitler, compiling the history of the Third Rich. A former Nazi finished the final report.
• Lee Oswald, through being a defector to Russia, got a loan from the State Department for almost $500. Him, his wife Marina, and their month old Daughter June, traveled back to America on the SS Maasdam, a Holland America luxury liner. There is an SS Maasdam ship still in service, though a completely rebuilt vessel from the one Oswald and family sailed on.

Full article at Substack:

https://open.substack.com/pub/georgebailey/p/jfk-trivia

How Life Magazine Manipulated Zapruder Film Frame Sequences

James Finn’s article exposing Life magazine’s tampering with Zapruder film frames to make sure the public believes the Warren Commission.  A must read for explaining this issue and the mainstream media’s intent to deceive the public.

If the official story is true, why manipulate Zapruder film frames to create a false narrative?

At Substack:

https://open.substack.com/pub/georgebailey/p/how-life-magazine-manipulated-zapruder

 

The Takedown of Otto Otepka

Otto Otepka, Deputy Director of the State Department Office of Security.

What can result from an innocent inquiry.  

Otto Otepka was born in Chicago of Czech-born immigrant parents, had spent most of his life working in security.  In 1953 he started working for the State Department and his big break came in 1957, when he was promoted to Deputy Director of the State Department Office of Security.  This made him the chief security evaluator at the Department of State and his main task was to review and issue security clearances to various officials coming into government service.  

The Otto Otepka story is one of those side stories buried in the minutia of JFK assassination research.  But it’s an important one as it shows some of the inner workings of the government—known these days as the Deep State.  It’s the story of an otherwise capable and honest public servant who starts taking note of things he was not supposed to and the attention it garnered in the Deep State.  When it came across the wire that there was a large group of young men defecting to the Soviet Union in 1960, some 18 of them, that is something take notice of.  And one in particular was listed as a tourist—Lee H. Oswald.  He was listed as a tourist. What young man went to the Soviet Union as a tourist during the Cold War?  Also noted was his good fortune in being able to get a visa and a passport rapidly.  

As researcher Joan Mellon said, “CIA was on the distribution list for the file listing the ‘defectors.’ Mr. Otepka’s job was to correlate the existing files of people whose names were on that list of defectors, Lee Oswald, ‘tourist,’ among them.”

Eventually, Otepka learned that Oswald’s file designation was #39-61981.  In this case, “39” being an intelligence file number.  Otepka took note and began assembling a file on Oswald and making inquires up the chain.  

This triggered a series of events that made its way towards two powerful agencies—the DOJ and the CIA.

And that’s when the trouble started.  And it came from Robert Kennedy, the president’s brother, the then Attorney General at the Department of Justice.  Otepka had his only meeting with Robert Kennedy in December of 1960.  Bobby was his usual anal self, not apologizing for showing up late.  They had a row over a Kennedy loyalist, W. W. Rostow, that Otepka had not given a security clearance to. Otepka had never felt right about the man and had been denied an earlier clearance, twice, back in the mid 1950s.  Bobby left in a huff, without ever getting his man a security clearance.  He also knew from this exchange Otepka was a man of principle that was not going to be pushed around.

It’s a long path from being a respected and valued civil servant to being fired and then brought up on charges of espionage.  So the high, and low, events are in the following bullet points.

• Otepka’s office phone was bugged and his trash was inspected.
• Otepka was surrounded by Robert’s flacks to watch him.
• His main source of harassment was Walter Sheridan working under the oversight of AG Robert Kennedy.
• Relieved of his security duties and given make-work jobs.
• His office safe was broken into and his file on Lee Oswald stolen.
• He was offered other positions in the State Department but turned them down.
• Eventually fired.
• After being let go, the DOJ toyed with the idea having Otepka indicted on espionage charges, but nothing ever came of it since there was no proof he had done anything wrong.

Apparently, Robert Kennedy had a deep interest in this defector, Lee H. Oswald.  It’s a central mystery of the Otepka case.  We now know the CIA ran a false defector program into the Soviet Union and other countries such as China.  Did Kennedy know this?  Counter Intelligence Chief James Angleton was concerned enough to establish a SIG 201 file on Oswald solely for gathering and controlling information related to him. 

However, knowledge about Oswald, what his mission was if any, was apparently so intense that it drove one government agency (DOJ) to break in a safe and steal documents from another agency (DOS). There is enough evidence now, some circumstantial and some not,  this originated with AG Kennedy.  

Bobby’s funk he experienced at the death of his beloved brother takes on a new meaning since it is most likely he may have known the name of the man named to be his brother’s killer long before events unfolded. 

As Joan Mellen asks:

“The Otepka case, not least, keeps alive a question that cries out for further investigation. How was Bobby Kennedy using Oswald? Was he Oswald’s ultimate handler? Was Bobby protecting and utilizing Oswald at the same time as the CIA, unbeknownst to him, was laying the groundwork for framing Oswald for the murder of his brother?”

And Mellon finishes with:

“Robert F. Kennedy had enlisted Walter Sheridan, and others, to damage his career in his effort to conceal that he was using Oswald in his anti-Castro activities, Otepka concluded. Otepka was a threat because he could expose who Oswald was. It was at least ‘plausible,’ he says, remaining cautious, that Oswald was a false defector in the Soviet Union. Had they allowed him to uncover Oswald, investigate him as he investigated all those whose names were sent to him in his capacity as Deputy Director, and even as Chief of Evaluations, at the State Department Office of Security, history might have been different.”

If you think we have a two-tier system of justice.  Think again.  It’s always been this way.  Just out in the open now.

Endnotes

Some researchers concentrate on the CIA side of the Otepka controversy and others delve into the DOJ side of it. I have not ran across anybody that combines the two. Probably because of Robert Kennedy’s skullduggery is more readily accessible as opposed to CIA chief James Angleton’s actions which are shrouded in layers of classified National Security cover.

Former CIA officer Philip Agee said regarding the SIG 201 file that the first part contained “true name” documents.  The second part contained operation information.  Armstrong, p. 307

Walter Sheridan was Robert Kennedy’s fixer.  Think of the character Mike in the TV series, Breaking Bad.  When RFK needed some dirty work done Sheridan was always up to the task to get the deed done. 

Sources

Otto Otepka, Robert F. Kennedy, Walter Sheridan, and Lee Oswald By Joan Mellen.

http://joanmellen.com/wordpress/kennedy-assassination/otto-otepka-robert-kennedy-walter-sheridan-and-lee-oswald/

What Did Otto Otepka Know About Oswald and the CIA? by Lisa Pease, 1997.

https://www.kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-articles/what-did-otto-otepka-know-about-oswald-and-the-cia

Books

Harvey and Lee, John Armstrong, p. 306-308, 390 

JFK Assassination Records - 2023 Additional Documents Release

From The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA).

NARA

“The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) is processing previously withheld John F. Kennedy assassination-related records to comply with President Biden’s Memorandum for the Heads of Executive Departments and Agencies on the Temporary Certification Regarding Disclosure of Information in Certain Records Related to the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy, requiring disclosure of releasable records by June 30, 2023. The National Archives has posted records online to comply with these requirements.”

https://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/release2023

Of Spacesuits and Helmets

Neil Armstrongs's alleged spacesuit. Note the blue overboots.  They are gray in the moon images.

NASA documentation shows that Apollo spacesuits offered little to no radiation protection.

Studying the Apollo moon landings is about like studying the JFK assassination.  Down one rabbit trail after the other.  A very contradicting trail.  Some of the official statements and published documents that describe how the feat of building complicated space craft to land men on the moon in just 8 years, comes off as a poorly written science fiction drama where the author cannot keep his plot threads from conflicting.  In other instances, no explanation is available at all.  This not only includes NASA at the time of the Apollo program, but years later when the goal shifts back to returning to the moon with the Orion program.  

Spacesuits And Radiation

Radiation is probably one of the most hazardous conditions affecting manned space flight.  The fist hurdle is the Van Allen Radiation belts, the earth’s donut shaped force field.  It traps numerous particles and blocks the solar wind.  It is widely known that the belts are a great hazard and hence, impediment to manned space flight.  Dr. Van Allen stressed this fact in science articles in the late 1950’s.  Ironically, none of the astronauts in their books have an issue with these radiation belts, passing thru them, to and fro, with no harm.  Frank Borman commander of Apollo 8 stated in his book Countdown, that they traveled thru the thickest part of the Van Allen belts and the radiation exposure was the equivalent of a chest x-ray.  Even before Apollo, in 1966 Gemini flight 11 reached a record altitude of 875 miles above earth which would place them in the first of the two belts.  Once again, no harm was reported.

Once past that, the moon presents a toxic hazmat zone filled with an unrelenting flow of radiative particles such cosmic radiation, gamma rays, microwaves, x-rays and on on.  Even the ground soil is radiated.  A study of the Apollo spacesuit and its development and use, not much is said regarding the radiation shielding in the suit.  In NASA’s spacesuit manual, they list numerous layers of aluminized mylar film used in the suit interior to protect the astronaut.  The manual specifically makes note that multiple layers of aluminized mylar were used for the protection of thermal radiation.  Thermal is heat.  You can experience that on a sunny day at the beach.  But that is not nuclear radiation.  In this case, NASA is defining the suit as protecting the astronaut from environmental conditions which is needed with the moon surface temperature in direct sunlight ranging form 260 to 280 degrees Fahrenheit (123-137 C). 

The only other radiation listed in the manual is ultraviolet radiation which can damage the astronaut’s eyes, solved by the use of the gold visor.  

Nuclear radiation hazards are never mentioned or addressed for the safety of the astronaut wearing the suit.

Even TV documentaries are silent about this issue, such as the episode of Moon Machines on the SCI Channel discussing the development of the Apollo spacesuit.  It never mentioned radiation shielding in the resulting design.  One would think this would be an important feature to develop for the safety of the astronauts.  But once again, it is never mentioned. 

Researcher Marcus Allen, a believer in the moon hoax theory, said he contacted a contractor building spacesuits and inquired about the radiation shielding used in the suit.  They told him to contact NASA as they didn’t build shielding in the suits they constructed for use by the astronauts. 

The moon itself is radioactive.  NASA’s science site (see link below) states that gamma rays cause nuclear reactions in the soil making it radioactive.  Astronauts said the moon dirt got all over their suits and gear, with one astronaut stating that some got in his mouth.  Yet, none of them ever got radiation sickness or resulting health issues from exposure to moon dirt. 

How do the “experts” deal with these conflicting issues?  They simply state that the astronauts were not in the intense radiation zones (Van Allen belts, cislunar space, the moon) long enough to experience any serious effects from life threatening radiation.  Which is nonsense.  Russian scientists about in the 1960’s concluded that the radiation was severe enough to require 4 feet of lead shielding which is utterly impractical.  It is hard to understand how the astronauts could have survived in such a toxic environment regardless of how long they were there in EVA on the moon and not suffer serious consequences.  The proper shielding is not there as stated in NASA documents.  None of the Apollo astronauts who were alleged to have flown to, or landed on the moon, were ever effected by radiation sickness during, or after, the missions.  And all of this with spacesuits, as stated above in multiple NASA technical reports, that did not have proper radiation shielding!  These suits could not be used for Hazmat work on earth during a nuclear power plant emergency, so why would they be any good for use in the most dangerous radiation zone of them all—the surface of the moon?

Apollo 8 astronaut Bill Anders.  Note the lack of shielding or insulation in his plastic helmet.

The Helmet

Besides the lack of radiation shielding from the suit, it should be noted that the spacesuit helmet, crafted from Lexan polycarbonate (i.e., plastic), has no shielding from either thermal or nuclear based radiation, nor insulated from conditions of extreme heat or cold.  The only safeguard is the gold visor for the afore mentioned ultraviolet radiation, which is the only type of radiation protection, besides thermal, which is heat, listed in NASA’s documentation.  The polycarbonate material is rated to handle temperatures up to 297 degrees Fahrenheit, safe enough for surface temperatures on the moon, although it will deform at above 240 degrees Fahrenheit (something never seen or documented by NASA).  There is no data on this form of plastic in conjunction with below freezing temperatures.

Underneath the suit the astronauts wear a liquid cooling garment (LCG) featuring water filled tubes for keeping the astronaut cool. (It is unknown how this cooling system turned warm for the severely cold shadow areas on the moon.) It fully covers the body and is used in spacesuits to this day.  However, while the tubing extends to the feet, it does not cover the head or the hands. As already stated, there is no thermal insulation in the helmet but the outside is covered in beta cloth which is flame resistant, but it is not explained how this protects the person inside from the severe extremes of temperature and radiation on the moon’s surface.  It seems unlikely that the astronaut’s hands would be safe in the temperature extremes with the type of insolation protection the suit’s gloves provided.  

The end result is a helmet that offers little way of protect from the moon’s extreme environmental conditions.  Even NASA’s gamma ray experiments on the helmet showed no protection at all, with the gamma rays easily passing through the thin polycarbonate structure.  

In Summary

There is a disturbing lack of concern for the hazards astronauts encounter in space and on the moon. Astronauts in their interviews and written accounts say precious little regarding this mortal danger. And no proper explanation is coming forth form NASA as their documentation is sorely lacking in solving this issue.  Basically, the spacesuit’s purpose is to offer protection from extremes of heat and cold, micrometers, vacuum of space, low gravity and visual protection.  One will never read about protection from x-rays, gamma rays, ionized protons or any other types of radiation that will be present on the moon’s surface.  It is as if radiation hazards do not exist at all!

If NASA put men on the moon they were using classified technology to accomplish the mission.  There is apparently no radiation protection in their suits.  Or else, they didn’t go at all and the moon landings were one big charade on the American tax payers and the world.  Or, the true nature of space and it’s properties and hazards has not been explained to us at all.

If people don’t believe that man landed on the moon it is NASA’s fault.  Go to their web site and do some research and you will see why.

Sources

Spacesuit manual

https://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/alsj-EMU1.pdf

Space Helmet

https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19710005127.pdf

Lexan Polycarbonate

https://www.acplasticsinc.com/informationcenter/r/what-is-lexan

Moon Soil Radioactive

https://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2005/08sep_radioactivemoon

NASA Technical Docs Site

https://ntrs.nasa.gov

Aluminum Shielding

https://inis.iaea.org/collection/NCLCollectionStore/_Public/43/107/43107414.pdf

Aluminum not a good block for Gama rays

https://www.quora.com/How-does-aluminum-block-radiation

A Word on Birth Certificates

With the hubbub surrounding President Obama's birth certificate going on for years back and forth, one birth certificate that hardly ranks a mention is the one belonging to Lee H. Oswald, the alleged assassin of President John Kennedy.

Despite the massive amount of information published in the Warren Commission's 26 volumes of collected evidence and hearings, there is no publication or listing of Oswald's birth certificate.  One would think this is an important piece of evidence in the case to establish for certain who Lee Oswald was and his origins.

There were two types of birth certificates issued in the state of Louisiana at the time of Oswald's birth (10/18/39).  A Certificate of Birth and a Declaration of Birth.  That later was issued for a non-hospital birth with no attending physician.  Meaning, someone born at home or in rural area such as a farm or ranch.  The Certificate of Birth was issued by a hospital and and signed by the attending physician.  In this case, for Oswald's birth, it would be the Old French Hospital in New Orleans.

Here's the tricky part.  In 1978 the FBI released a batch of documents and included in the files was a Declaration of Birth for Lee Harvey Oswald.  Odd, as he is supposed to have been born in a city hospital and not out in the boonies somewhere. Like many issues in this case, it makes no sense.  John Armstrong in his book, Harvey and Lee, states this certificate is an FBI copy of an unknown source document (p.17).  An internet search does not reveal a picture of this particular birth certificate.  None of the JKF online archives such as the Mary Ferrell Foundation or History Matters have an image of this document in the their huge document collections.  At least none that I have found.  If anyone finds one please send me the link.

The end result: The official Certificate of Birth for Lee Harvey Oswald has never been released.

There are other issues with this birth certificate. Warren Commission member Senator Richard Russell had the poorest attendance record of any member.  Not only was he busy with his duties in the Senate but he came to the conclusion early on that the Commission hearings were largely a dog and pony show with the conclusion already decided.  He would later be leading critic of the lone gunman theory and never put much stock in the lone bullet theory.  In that case, Russell decided to conduct his own independent investigation on the side.  For this task he contacted Army intelligence officer Colonel Phillip Corso (yes, that Colonel Corso of Roswell UFO crash fame) and Sen. Russell asked him to quietly look into the assassination.

Colonel Corso reported back to Senator Russell that his sources had shown there were not one, but two birth certificates for a Lee Harvey Oswald and both had been used by two separate people.  The account of this was related to researcher John Armstrong in a personal interview with Colonel Phillip Corso in 1996 (pps. 17 & 332, note 66).

How is that for high strangeness in the Kennedy assassination?  You dig into one mystery just to discover something even more mysterious.