Thread by @martyrmade

I watched Stone’s new JFK Revisited last night. A few thoughts.

Thread. (Short, probably.)

https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1470755839610957826

The hard thing about the JFK assassination is that plausible theories proliferate because so many people had reasons to want him dead. The mob. Castro. Anti-Castro Cubans. Dulles & the CIA. Even the Zionists. Other than innuendo about Dulles, the film doesn’t explore these. /1

It may be for the better. You can get sucked down any of these rabbit holes long enough to fill a movie. Stone’s documentary isn’t about finding the killer, but making the case that the official story is a lie, and that the Warren Commission a cover-up. This it does very well. /2

A glaring omission in the doc is any focus on LBJ. Johnson, the Master of the Senate, hated being VP, especially to a young pretty boy like JFK. He and Bobby hated each other, too. Bobby wanted him off the ‘64 ticket, and was investigating LBJ’s ties w/Texas organized crime. /3

LBJ had gotten mixed up in a multi-million dollar scam on the Texas Dept of Agriculture w/an associate named Billie Sol Estes. As Attorney General, RFK was on his trail, but so was Henry Marshall, a Dept of Agriculture investigator. /4

One day, Marshall was found dead on his farm, shot 5x with his own bolt-action rifle, which lay beside him. His death was ruled a suicide, and the investigation was an obvious cover-up. The central guy in the scam, Billie Sol Estes, said Marshall was killed by a Mac Wallace. /5

Mac Wallace was a convicted murderer and old friend of LBJ. In 1952, he’d killed a 33-year-old golf club owner rumored to be having an affair w/LBJ’s sister. /6

After his arrest, LBJ’s personal attorney John Cofer, who’d represented LBJ during the 1948 election scandal, came to defend Wallace. The DA accused the sheriff of obstruction, but the jury found Wallace guilty of murder. But the judge only gave him a 5-yr suspended sentence. /7

Later, when scam artist Billie Sol Estes was brought up on charges, he was also represented by LBJ’s personal lawyer, John Cofer. Estes claimed to the end that Mac Wallace killed Marshall. Artist renderings of a man who’d been asking around for Marshall lend weight to this. /8

As VP, LBJ knew he’d probably reached the end of the road. When a President serves 8 years, as JFK was likely to do, voters almost always turn to the other party afterward. Moreover, LBJ was unlikely to have the Kennedy’s support in 1968. /9

I don’t think LBJ was acting alone, obviously. In fact, I don’t think he played any role other than going along with the plot and making sure the cover-up stuck after the assassination. But he had a Nixon-like chip on his shoulder & obsession w/power, and was not above murder./10

The Dallas mob was subordinate to the New Orleans mob, strong at the time under Carlos Marcello, the boss RFK had deported in 1961. Marcello soon made his way back to the US, making threats against JFK’s life according to undercover informants. /11

Oswald’s killer Jack Ruby (real name Rubinstein) was a Jewish gangster who’d come to Dallas from Louisiana, and was said to be running night clubs in Texas for Marcello. He visited Marcello in New Orleans just before the assassination. /12

Incidentally, Oswald also visited NOLA just before the assassination. He was supposedly working as a pro-Castro activist, but this is fishy. The address he gave was across the street from a building owned by the CIA, in a building that housed NOLA’s main anti-Castro group. /13

Understand that most CIA assassinations aren’t carried out by James Bond types. Today, they’re done by JSOC hit teams or drones. Back then, if the CIA wanted you dead, they used local organized crime. The actual shooter might not even know who he was really working for. /14

While awaiting trial for killing Oswald, Ruby was visited in private by Jolly West, a CIA psychiatrist deeply involved in Korean War brainwashing experiments & the MK Ultra program. No one knows what transpired in there, except that Ruby lost his mind. Literally. /15

West had been heavily involved in CIA’s experimentation w/hypnosis, LSD & other drugs, and other techniques to manipulate the mind. After meeting West, Ruby began ranting that Jews would be attacked and killed in America, a 2nd Holocaust was coming… he was declared insane. /16