April 5, 1993
Dear Noam,
First I must try again to make clear to you that my motivation for persisting on this point has nothing to do with hero-worship, despite your comments about "millenarian movements," etc.
Chomsky had said (2/11/93) that what I called the "coup" theory of the assassination was supported by "no evidence at all, just faith in JFK's hidden mystical qualities." We were dealing here, he said, with "faith and doctrine, not reason." He characterized this as a "millenarian movement" in his Z article.
The coup theory, to which our discussion is directly connected, is in my opinion the most powerful intellectual force for potential revolutionary change that is likely to come along. Discussions of yet another example of despicable US policy, however often repeated and well footnoted, are nothing compared to this. If any idea can mobilize significant numbers of people and lead to radical change, this is the one. Otherwise we'll have to wait for the next big war, depression or other catastrophe. I don't think I am exaggerating.
Suppose you, for example, agreed with me. Add the thousands (literally–no need for modesty) that would follow your lead to the millions–half the US population, according to the polls–who already think Garrison/Stone may be right, and what do you think would happen? If ever there was a chance for peaceful revolution, this is it, and I see the chance slipping by. The point is not to chase down individual culprits, as the anti-conspiracy theorists contend. The point is to use this most dramatic example to expose and destroy the structure of secret government and the inherent collusion of the national security state with the anti-democratic capitalist forces which combined to make the coup, the war, and the continuing cover-up possible.
My motivation is therefore quite simply that if I can change your mind on this point, I feel I would be doing a service to what I presume is our mutual cause. JFK hagiography has absolutely nothing to do with it.
I suppose you think that besides having messianic illusions I have been overly influenced by Fletch Prouty, since I think I mentioned that I correspond with him (and met him a couple of years ago at his home).
Chomsky had said (2/11/93) that he had talked with Prouty for about 15 minutes 25 years earlier and "realized that he couldn't be believed if he said it's raining outside," and that "every other serious researcher, independent of politics, has drawn the same conclusion." This judgment, Chomsky said, was "nailed down tight by the current book" (JFK: The CIA, Vietnam and the Plot to Assassinate John F. Kennedy, NY: Birch Lane Press, 1992).
I'm not interested in defending him, but I honestly see nothing in his latest book or the previous one, or in his letters, that remotely justifies calling him a "raving fascist" or a "fraud." He is short on footnotes, yes, and his view of the world is depressing (if that's what you meant), but–appalled as you will be to hear it–not fundamentally different from yours (or mine), in my opinion. For example, you wrote in Z last July-August:
Another objective [of "the corporate sector, its political agents, and ideological servants"] is to establish a de facto world government insulated from popular awareness or interference, devoted to the task of ensuring that the world's human and material resources are freely available to the Transnational Corporations and international banks that are to control the global system.
Prouty could have written that. Chomsky calls it the "corporate sector"; he calls it the High Cabal. Others call it the "ruling class," the "power elite," the "military-industrial-intelligence complex," etc. What's the difference? You think Prouty is a raving fascist fraud, he thinks you're "on the payroll" (CIA), and I think you're both wrong–about each other–and both right about a lot else.
Chomsky had referred to Prouty as a "raving fascist" (5/21/92) and to "pure frauds like Prouty" (7/1/92). Prouty's equally inimical opinion of Chomsky–though he did not remember having met or talked with him–was expressed in a letter to me.
Which leaves me in the middle of nowhere, I guess, but that's my problem. Re. your "facts":
1. What you call "Thesis I" and "IA" do not exist. They are facts–namely, NSAM 263 and the three McNamara-Taylor recommendations it approves. These recommendations were not "basic policy" but Kennedy's last specific policy directive regarding Vietnam.
What Chomsky had called the "M-thesis" he had now re-named "Thesis I: the US should withdraw after victory was assured" (2/11/93). This was "basic policy" that "never changed" until after the 1968 Tet offensive. But "the question that continually arose was whether that policy could be implemented with a specific plan."
"Thesis IA" was fully consistent with the "unchanging policy" of Thesis I: "there was a plan to implement the policy stated in Thesis I. As NSAM 263 put it, the US should plan to withdraw 1000 men by the end of 1963 and the rest by the end of 1965 if this could be done 'without impairment of the war effort.'"
2. There is no indication in NSAM 263 that Kennedy was "hesitant" or had "reservations" about the recommendations he implemented. Your speculation as to Kennedy's reason for not formally announcing the 1000-man withdrawal does not amount to a "reservation," even if it is correct.
Chomsky had said that "JFK more or less went along with the McNamara-Taylor recommendations, though he was hesitant about committing himself to the 1000-man withdrawal, since he thought the predictions might be too optimistic." NSAM 263 "was the McNamara-Taylor plan endorsed with reservations by JFK."
3. I cannot believe you fail to see a significant difference between:
a) Mary is doing well in school. She should graduate on schedule.
b) If Mary continues to do well in school, she will graduate on schedule.
Chomsky never budged an inch in maintaining that the phrase "without impairment of the war effort" in McNamara-Taylor's Recommendation 3 was the "explicit" and "crucial condition [his emphasis] of NSAM 263 (contrary to your contention that it is merely an assumption, not a condition)."
The irony of this should not be missed. Here I was explaining the difference between an assumption and a condition to the world's most famous linguist!
a) is analogous with McNamara-Taylor, containing a prediction and an assumption, or, if you like, an implicit condition. In a), graduation is assumed to be probable. In b), which contains an explicit condition, graduation is neither probable nor improbable. You refer to McNamara-Taylor as if it were analogous to b), implying that withdrawal was assumed to be neither probable nor improbable. This is simply not true, and misleading. The implication of NSAM 263 and the McNamara-Taylor recommendations was that withdrawal by the end of 1965 was probable.
The phrase "without impairment of the war effort," which you attach great significance to, means, from the point of view of the people who made the statement (McNamara, Taylor, and JFK, confirming them), "without impairment of the effort by the South Vietnamese government, with US assistance, to suppress the Viet Cong insurgency." This was the official definition of "victory."
The quotation is from the McNamara-Taylor report (PP Gravel, Vol. 2, p. 757), the conclusion of the section entitled "Military Situation and Trends":
Acknowledging the progress achieved to date, there still remains the question of when the final military victory can be attained. If, by victory, we mean the reduction of the insurgency to something little more than sporadic banditry in outlying districts, it is the view of the vast majority of military commanders consulted that success may be achieved in the I, II and II Corps area by the end of CY 1964. Victory in the IV Corps will take longer–at least well into 1965. These estimates necessarily assume that the political situation does not significantly impede the effort.
When Kennedy issued NSAM 263, no such impairment was foreseen, and "victory" was in sight–probable–by the end of 1965.
All speculation as to how Kennedy may have really seen the situation is irrelevant to establishing the facts. My opinion is that he must have seen the writing on the wall, and was creating a context for withdrawal that would allow a "victory" of sorts regardless of the true military situation. You will disagree, but again I remind you that Bush withdrew from the Gulf after declaring a "victory" that was unconvincing to many, and Reagan withdrew from Lebanon without declaring anything at all. You insist that Kennedy would not have accepted any "victory" short of what Johnson and Nixon vainly pursued, but this is just as speculative as my opinion (and that of O'Donnell, Powers, Mansfield, etc.) that he would have.
4. The facts of the withdrawal plan are of marginal interest to you because you misstate them, in my opinion.
Chomsky had repeated that Thesis I and IA were uncontroversially true and therefore of no interest. "I take it you reject Thesis II as well," he said, "in which case our entire correspondence is a total waste of time, since that is the only thesis with any interest at all."
A crucial part of the "uncontroversial" truth of Thesis I and IA, however, for Chomsky, was the "condition" of "victory," which I did not accept.
The point is not that JFK would withdraw if victory was assured. The point is that he was withdrawing because victory was, if not assured, probable. This is the fact which has been ignored or misrepresented by most "serious historians," including the New York Times edition of the Pentagon Papers. The Gravel edition makes it clear, but it is incompatible with most secondary accounts, including yours.
5. The entire Oct. 2 White House statement was attributed to McNamara and Taylor, not just the 1000-man withdrawal.
Chomsky had said that JFK was "hesitant enough about the prospects [for withdrawal] that he dragged his feet in October-November 1963, not entirely convinced by the optimistic pronouncements of the military and McNamara." That was why "he insisted that the 1000-man withdrawal be left as their recommendation, not part of his proposal, so he wouldn't be stuck with it."
The Oct. 2, 1963 statement read:
Secretary McNamara and General Taylor reported their judgement that the major part of the U.S. military task can be completed by the end of 1965, although there may be a continuing requirement for a limited number of U.S. training personnel. They reported that by the end of this year, the U.S. program for training Vietnamese should have progressed to the point where 1,000 U.S. military personnel assigned to South Viet-Nam can be withdrawn (Documents on American Foreign Relations 1963, Council on Foreign Relations, New York: Harper & Row, 1964, p. 296).
Again, you can speculate as to Kennedy's reasons for putting it this way, but it does not mean he "dragged his feet" or was "hesitant" or "not entirely convinced" of their recommendations, which he approved three days later and officially implemented, secretly, by NSAM 263 on Oct. 11. This is your interpretation.
My interpretation is that Kennedy wanted the withdrawal to look as much like a sound military strategy as possible so as to contain the backlash of the hawks in his own administration, in congress, and in the public at large. He failed, as the events of November 22 showed.
I would be interested to see your documentation of JFK's "distancing himself from the withdrawal plans publicly announced by the military, and refusing to commit himself to them" after Oct. 11.
"In public," Chomsky had said, "he indicated his hesitations right through November, always distancing himself from the withdrawal plans publicly announced by the military, and refusing to commit himself to them.
He certainly committed himself to them with NSAM 263, and as I've said, I know of no evidence whatsoever that Kennedy himself changed his assessment of the war, much less his withdrawal plans, after Oct. 11. If such evidence exists, I will reconsider my position, but it would have to be directly attributable to JFK, on a par with NSAM 263.
And not attributable, for example, to a document drafted by McGeorge Bundy and that we are supposed to assume JFK would have signed.
I see no reason to reject Thesis II–that JFK intended to withdraw short of "victory." This, unlike what you call Thesis I and IA, is indeed a thesis, but none of the "evidence" you have reviewed undermines it. There can be no evidence of JFK's secret intentions or of what he would have done. The closest we can come to "evidence" in this case is what O'Donnell et al. said Kennedy told them he would do, and it supports Thesis II.
You accuse me of continually switching from Thesis II to Thesis IA.
Chomsky had said I was evading the question he had asked about Schlesinger et al. Since they mentioned JFK's withdrawal plan only after Tet 1968, were they 1) "lying, pre-Tet," 2) had JFK kept it a secret from his closest advisers, or 3) were there in fact "no plans to withdraw without victory"? "A rational person," Chomsky said, "will, naturally, assume (3)." I, however, was "continually evading the question by shifting from Thesis II to Thesis I (or the specific implementation of I, IA), which is too uninteresting to discuss."
The truth is that you are continually switching from the plain facts, which you insist on calling a "thesis" and dismiss as "uninteresting," to Thesis II. Then you say, in effect, "Either you defend Thesis II, or our correspondence is a waste of time"!
This is quite unfair. I believe Thesis II is correct, but I am trying to get to first base first, which is to get you to accept the facts as they are. You do not accept the facts as they are if you continue to insist that "there was no policy reversal." You can't have it both ways. You want to say: Of course the withdrawal policy was reversed, but this is totally uninteresting; the only thing that is interesting and important is that it wasn't really a policy reversal. It is you who are playing a word game.
If not, you would willing to state your position thus (as I have been urging you to do): LBJ did reverse JFK's withdrawal policy, but it was because conditions changed; their basic policy of victory remained the same. I suggest you ask yourself again why you find this formulation unacceptable.
6. Optimism may have declined after Diem's assassination on Nov. 1, but again, I know of no evidence that JFK changed his assessment of the war or his withdrawal policy after NSAM 263.
Chomsky had written that after the Diem coup, "it became clear that the optimistic projections were built on sand." Doubts mounted through November and "were aired among the top advisers" at the Nov. 20 Honolulu meeting, and in the draft 273, which "everyone expected" JFK to sign, "some modifications can be detected."
On the contrary, whatever one thinks of the Bundy draft and NSAM 273 itself, both confirm the policy announced on Oct. 2. I agree with Scott and (now) Schlesinger, who say Paragraph 2 of NSAM 273 is a lie, and I think Bundy wrote the draft for Johnson, but I need not insist on either point, for the purpose of our discussion.
Para. 2 of NSAM 273, in both versions, reads:
The objectives of the United States with respect to the withdrawal of U.S. military personnel remain as stated in the White House statement of October 2, 1963.
The point I was making–simple enough, one would think, but obviously not in this conversation–was that one only has to take this sentence at face value to establish the fact that the withdrawal policy was reversed at a later time (and therefore also after the assassination, of course).
7. Agreed that it was clear from late December that the withdrawal plan was doomed.
As Chomsky had put it, "From late December it became clear that withdrawal could not be carried out 'without impairment of the war effort.'" Therefore, "the plan to implement withdrawal on condition of military victory had to be cancelled by early 1964." None of JFK's top advisers "had any criticism of LBJ for departing from JFK's position–the reason being, of course, that they sensed no departure."
Note too, however, that Johnson began to have "doubts" about it in early December (according to PP Gravel), that is, within days of the assassination. The fact that JFK's advisers sensed no departure from JFK's policy–assuming we can know what they "sensed" at the time–is of no significance. NSAM 273 stated that there was no departure. In order to "sense" a departure, in contradiction to stated policy, one would have to have been psychologically willing and able to deal with the implications: that the new president was a liar and that the murder of the old one may have been a coup. People have trouble enough dealing with those implications now. How many do you think could have managed it then? Remember too that we are talking about military and government careerists, who are not generally noteworthy for their independence of mind, and this "sense of departure," given the implications, would require them to be revolutionaries.
This is also the answer to your argument that no conspiracy of such grand proportions could have occurred.
Chomsky had repeated his belief that the conspiracy I envisioned "must be huge," simply because there is "not a hint, not a phrase" in the "declassified record, which involves a very large number of people and their private conversations," that any of these people "even gave a thought to the possibility of any high-level involvement in the assassination." There could be only two explanations for that, Chomsky said: "either they were astonishingly well-disciplined in internal discussion, or the entire record was completely sanitized and rewritten–in which case the conspiracy reaches to a good part of the historical profession." It is also "necessary to assume that the physics profession is in on the plot, and has therefore concealed the truth about the analysis of alleged evidence about the assassination conducted by the National Academy of Sciences and others," and that the medical profession too has been concealing the truth about how the doctors and analysts allegedly falsified the record." This would require astonishing" "discipline among the high level planners, the historians, physical scientists, the medical profession, etc.," since "not one word has leaked, even in private gossip, for 30 years. Truly a miraculous series of events, absolutely unprecedented in history or personal experience."
How do you think the lie that US national security was at stake in Vietnam was propagated and maintained? That was not a deliberate lie, and thus not a conspiracy, for the great majority, even at the upper echelons. Lies work not because most people are liars but because most people believe them, if they support, rather than challenge, the general political mythology ("All Americans are on the same side," "American policy is always well-intentioned," "If there was a scandal the free press would expose it," "A coup d'état is impossible in America," etc.).
Conspiracies, which are conglomerations of lies, work for the same reason. The number of actual conspirators does not have to be–cannot be–large. What is necessary for a conspiracy to obtain grand proportions, while initiated and maintained at the center by a relative small number of knowing participants (liars), is that the capacity of the human mind to shift "paradigms," as Thomas Kuhn calls them, or propaganda models, as Chomsky calls them, be quite limited ("Orwell's problem").
Schlesinger is a case in point. I believe I answered your question, but to repeat, the answer is: None Of The Above. I don't believe Schlesinger contends there was a "secret plan" to end the war. He is merely admitting the truth that he failed to recognize in 1965–that LBJ reversed the withdrawal policy. He knew there was a public plan to end American participation in the war, and a secret implementation of that plan (NSAM 263), but he failed to "sense" LBJ's reversal of the policy because it clashed with the imperative propaganda of the time, which was that there was "no change in policy." When the war had been clearly lost and it became permissible to blame Johnson and Nixon for it, and simultaneously exonerate JFK and, by implication, himself, his sense of reality changed accordingly. If he goes beyond that, now, and speculates as to what JFK would have done, that is also permissible now, but it remains speculation, just as your contention to the contrary is speculation.
Schlesinger was not lying, in 1965 or now. He knew the "facts," then and now–just as I think you and I know them, despite our discussion. The only thing that has changed, in Schlesinger's case, is that he no longer feels compelled (unconsciously) to maintain the myth that there was no policy reversal. He now permits himself to recognize that there was a policy reversal, but at the same time he does not permit himself to recognize its possible connection with the assassination. Since the latter position is obviously naive, he must defend it with the kind of hysterical name-calling he resorts to in his review of the Stone film, without even attempting justification.
Schlesinger's current position, though naive, is more tenable than yours, in my opinion. If he is driven by JFK hagiography, perhaps you are driven by an exaggerated anti-hagiographical reaction to the Cameloters (and a particular antipathy towards JFK?), and a general aversion to conspiracy theories. You simply cannot change the fact that JFK's assessment of the war and consequent plan to withdraw remained in place and on the record as his policy until it was reversed by Johnson sometime between Nov. 22 and March 1964 (at the latest). You can call it "Thesis IA" and "uninteresting" –though admittedly true–on the one hand, then dispute it by insisting there was "no policy change," and then accuse me of being irrational, playing word games, evading the issue, "shifting theses," etc., but with all respect, aren't you putting the shoe on the wrong foot?
Sincerely,
Michael
In his letter of 6/1/93, Chomsky repeated his claim that JFK "reluctantly authorized withdrawal on the explicit condition that victory was guaranteed," that NSAM 263 "endorses the McNamara-Taylor recommendations for withdrawal, but only if this can be done 'without impairment of the war effort'–that is, on condition of victory."
All of my efforts to challenge his interpretation of that phrase as an "explicit condition," as opposed to an "assumption" or at best "implicit condition," were in vain. This was merely my "tortured revision" as an "attempt to show that NSAM 263 doesn't mean what it says." My argument concerning conditions vs. assumptions "does not merit further discussion."
"We've left the arena of rational discussion far behind," Chomsky concluded, "and it seems pointless to persist."
Shortly thereafter I sent Chomsky a copy of Looking for the Enemy, in which I had included his letter of 2/11/93. In a brief reply (6/21/93), he said he was "surprised, in fact, shocked" that I had done this without permission, "even more so than by the quality of the material."
This is where things stayed for the next year or so, until after the first COPA (Coalition on Political Assassinations) meeting in October 1994, where I had been invited to give a talk on the Bay of Pigs (see Appendix). John Newman, about whom I had my misgivings, was on the governing board, and believing the best way to express my suspicions was openly and publicly, I sent "An Open Letter to John Newman" (Oct. 20, 1994) to all the members of the board. I also sent a copy to Chomsky. See Addenda 2-4.
Newman did not reply. Michael Parenti sent me an "Open Letter," to which I responded with an "Open Reply." I sent copies of these letters, too, to Chomsky. He replied briefly on February 9, 1995, fully exasperated, but "for the record" enclosing "a few excerpts from the book that you misquote with your usual consistency, which also extends to your treatment of the historical and documentary record." He then quoted, without further commentary, the following from Rethinking Camelot:
Meanwhile [early Nov., 1963], evidence that undermined the optimistic assessments was becoming harder to ignore. A week after the coup, State Department Intelligence, with the concurrence of the CIA, reported that by late October the military situation had sharply deteriorated, predicting "unfavorable end-1963 values" for its statistical factors. The new government confirmed that the GVN "had been losing the war against the VC in the Delta for some time because it had been losing the population." A top-level meeting was held in Honolulu on November 20 to consider the next steps. The US mission in Vietnam recommended that the withdrawal plans be maintained, the new government being "warmly disposed toward the U.S." and offering "opportunities to exploit that we never had before." Kennedy's plans to escalate the assault against the southern resistance could now be implemented, with a stable regime finally in place. McNamara, ever cautious, stressed that "South Vietnam is under tremendous pressure from the VC," noting a sharp increase in VC incidents after the coup, and urged that "We must be prepared to devote enough resources to this job of winning the war to be certain of accomplishing it..." At an 8AM White House meeting on November 22, Bundy was informed that "for the first time" military reporting was "realistic about the situation in the Delta" (pp. 81-82).
… On Nov. 13, Jack Raymond reported that Defense officials say that the 1,000-man withdrawal plans remain unchanged. Two days later, he reported that at a news conference, while keeping the "official objectives announced on Oct. 2 to withdraw most of the troops by the end of 1965," Kennedy weakened the withdrawal plans, reducing the estimate for 1963 to "several hundred," pending the outcome of the Honolulu meeting. JFK again emphasized the need to "intensify the struggle" (p. 83).