When John F. Kennedy (JFK) was assassinated he had been locked in a serious and ongoing effort to prevent Israel from becoming a nuclear power. The JFK-Ben-Gurion correspondence, that revealed the seriousness of JFK’s efforts to obstruct Israel’s nuclear program, was kept classified. Parts of it were declassified in 1993 but the entire correspondence took over 50 years to get declassified. From the U.S. point of view there is nothing in that correspondence that should have been kept secret for so long. The real beneficiary of this prolonged classification was Israel, because, had it become known at the time of the JFK assassination, not only would there have been an enormous public pressure to stop Israel’s nuclear program, Mossad would have become one of the suspect organizations involved in the assassination.
When JFK was killed, the Vice-President Lyndon B. Johnson (LBJ), a known criminal from Texas, became President. With the assumption of office by LBJ, the nature of the relationship between Israel and the U.S. underwent a rapid and dramatic change in favor of Israel. JFK had an even handed policy in the Middle East. When JFK wrote to Arab leaders like Nasser, expressing support for the implementation of the U.N. resolution granting Palestinians the right to return to territories that had been forcibly captured by the Jews, Ben-Gurion sent a letter to the Jewish leaders in the U.S. He wrote: “Israel will regard this plan as a more serious danger to her existence than all the threats of Arab dictators and kings, than all the Arab armies, than all of Nasser’s missiles and his Soviet MIGs …. Israel will fight against this implementation to the last man.” This was a declaration of war against JFK.
JFK was assassinated on November 22, 1963. On November 26, 1963, the Director AIPAC (American Israeli Public Affairs Committee) sent a secret memo to its executive and national committees, describing Johnson’s “front rank pro-Israel positions” on a number of issues. In December 1996, author Daniel Neff wrote in the “Washington Report on Middle East Affairs” (WMREA): “Up to Johnson’s presidency, no administration had been as completely pro-Israel and anti-Arab as his.” Neff pointed out that although Truman had recognized Israel on account of Jewish support in his election, he “seemed to lose interest in the Jewish state.” Further, “Dwight D. Eisenhower was distinctly cool towards Israel, seeing it as a major irritant in America’s relations with the Arabs and America’s access to oil.” Although JFK was warmer towards Israel, “Yet he valued the U.S. position in the Arab world, particularly with Egypt’s Gamal Abdel Nasser, and as a result maintained a fairly even-handed policy despite having a number of pro-Israel officials in his administration.”
It is instructive to quote author Stephen Green from his 1984 book “Taking Sides: America’s Secret Relations with a Militant Israel”. He writes: “U.S. assistance to Israel in FY 1964, the last budget of the Kennedy administration, stood at $40 million. This was substantially reduced from the levels of assistance in previous years.” Green points out that in the FY 1965 this figure rose to $71 million and in FY 1966 to $130 million. Green adds: “More significant, however, was the change in the composition of that assistance. In FY 1964, virtually none of the official U.S. assistance for Israel was military assistance; it was split equally among the development loans and food assistance under PL 480 program. In FY 1965, however, 20 percent of U.S. aid was military in nature, and in FY 1966, fully 71 percent of all official assistance to Israel came in the form of credits for purchase of military equipment.”
Not only did the major component of aid to Israel become military aid, the nature of weaponry supplied became dominantly attack or offensive in nature. As a result, the balance of power tilted entirely in Israel’s favor. JFK had broken the ban on supplying military equipment to Israel by supplying Israel with five batteries of Hawk missiles but this was an air defense system. Once LBJ assumed power things changed drastically. Green writes: “The Johnson administration, in FY 1965-66, provided Israel with 250 modern (modified M-48) tanks, 48 A-1 Skyhawk attack aircraft, communications and electronic equipment, artillery and recoilless rifles. Given the configuration of IDF (Israeli Defense Forces) this was anything but defensive weapons. The $92 million in military assistance provided in FY 1966 was greater than the total of all military aid provided to Israel cumulatively, in all the years going back to the foundation of that nation in 1948.”
Therefore, the assassination of John Kennedy not only removed the barrier against Israel’s nuclear development, it led to the provision of sophisticated offensive military equipment to an extent that Israel was in a position to launch an attack on the Arabs in 1967. In his book on the Mossad role in JFK assassination, Michael Collins Piper quotes former U.S. Under Secretary of State George Ball: “First, the administration put America in the position of being Israel’s principal arms supplier and sole unqualified backer. Second, by assuring the Israelis that the United States would always provide them with a military edge over the Arabs, Johnson guaranteed the escalation of an arms race …. Third, by refusing to follow the advice of his aides that America make its delivery of nuclear-capable F-4 Phantoms conditional on Israel’s signing the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, Johnson gave the Israelis the impression that America had no fundamental objection to its nuclear program.”
According to one writer: “Can you see what’s happening here? Within two years of JFK’s assassination, Israel went from being a weak, outmatched member of a volatile Middle Eastern community that was not allowed to develop nuclear weapons to one that was well on its way to becoming an undeniable military force on the world stage. John Kennedy adamantly put his foot down and refused to allow Israel to develop a nuclear program, while LBJ bent over backwards to facilitate and bolster them.” The attitude of Johnson with regard to Israel is astounding. A 2016 book by Roger J. Mattson “Stealing the Bomb: How Denial and Deception Armed Israel” reveals that in the year 1968, the then CIA Director Richard Helms reported to LBJ that Israel had developed nuclear weapons.
How did LBJ respond to this revelation? JFK researcher James DiEugenio, who wrote about the book, states: “The man who prepared the NIE [National Intelligence Estimate] and gave it to Helms was the CIA’s chief science and technology officer, Carl Duckett. After Helms met Johnson, the CIA Director told Duckett about the President’s rather odd reaction. LBJ did not get upset, and he did not order an investigation into how it happened. Further, he did not tell Helms to let both the Defense Department and State Department know about it so they could establish intelligence inquiries or consider sanctions. Instead, Johnson did the opposite. He told Helms to keep the news secret and specifically told the Director not to let the secretaries of State of Defense know about it.”
Why did Johnson direct the Director Central Intelligence not to let the secretaries of Defense and State know about the development of nuclear weapons by Israel? The only reason that comes to mind is that LBJ wished to protect Israel’s nuclear program. Otherwise the public outcry against Israel would have made it extremely difficult for LBJ to pursue his pro-Israel policy. It was also discovered that Israel had stolen hundreds of kilograms of uranium from the U.S. This was a crime that needed proper investigation, action and punishment of those involved. But Johnson would have none of it. Nonetheless Richard Helms was forced to bring the matter to the notice of the attorney general Ramsey Clark because a crime had been committed. But LBJ put a lid on the whole thing and the lid stayed there forever allowing Israel to get away with the theft of nuclear material and becoming a nuclear power.
Johnson’s partiality towards Israel became treason when, during the 1967 war, Israeli planes attacked the U.S. spy ship USS Liberty stationed in the Mediterranean not far from Egyptian and Israeli coastlines. After verifying that the USS Liberty was an American vessel the Israelis attacked it and tried their best to completely sink the vessel and to try to ensure that there would be no survivors. The aim was probably to blame it on the Egyptians and drag the US into the war. But what was most confounding was Johnson’s behavior when he was informed of the ongoing attack. When planes from USS Saratoga took off to protect the USS Liberty Johnson ordered that the planes be recalled, exposing the entire crew to unchallenged onslaught by Israeli planes. In his 2012 book “Beyond Treason: Reflections on the Cover-up of the June 1967 Israeli Attack on USS Liberty an American Spy Ship” author Robert J. Allen has mentioned something which reveals Johnson’s astonishing behavior. One must remember he was the Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. armed forces. Captain Joseph Tully of USS Saratoga had relayed the following words of Johnson to Phillip Tourney, President of the Liberty Veterans Association: “I don’t give a [expletive] if the ship goes to the bottom and every sailor is lost. We will not embarrass our ally, Israel.” These are the treasonous words of the Commander-in-Chief of the US Armed Forces!
In the attack on the USS Liberty 34 crew members lost their lives and 175 were injured. Johnson never questioned Israel’s claim that it was a case of mistaken indentity. The Secretary of State did question the Israeli claim since the flag, the identification number and nar=ture of the vessel were clearly visible from the sky and the Israelis had verified the identity of the vessel one hour prior to the attack. Johnson never punished Israel and the entire crime was suppressed. In fact, the vessel did not sink because of the heroic efforts of the ship’s captain McGonagle. Congressman Paul Findley, who authored several books exposing the Israeli grip on America, wrote: “Why this silence about Israel? It is the continuation of the shameful cover-up ordered by the Johnson administration just after the assault. Crew members were ordered not to answer questions, and Congress cooperated in the cover-up. The award to McGonagle was hidden from public view.” The award ceremony was not held in the White House – instead the award was sent to McGonagle’s home!
Paul Findley writes further: “Even tombstones were affected. Six of the crewmen who died were buried in Arlington National Cemetery with a marker that originally read ‘Died in Eastern Mediterranean”. No mention of the ship, the circumstances, or Israel. The marker was later improved slightly to read: ‘Killed USS Liberty’. Still no mention of Israel.” The USS Liberty cover-up is one of the most shameful incidents in US history that reveals the claim made by Ariel Sharon in a debate with Shimon Peres on Kol Yisrael (Radio Israel) on October 3, 2001. Sharon said: “Every time we do something you tell me America will do this and will do that. I want to tell you something very clear: Don’t worry about American pressure on Israel. We the Jewish people control America and the Americans know it.”
Garce Halsell, who was posted in the White House as staff writer during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, wrote an important article in the “Washington Report on Middle Eastern Affairs” in June 1993. She wrote: “I did not ‘know,’ but could sense, that events of great portent were transpiring. I heard rumors of CIA Director Richard Helms sending a warning to LBJ that the Israelis were about to attack, and the president getting word from Moscow that if the Israelis attacked any Arab country, the Soviets would go to that nation’s defense.” But LBJ did nothing to stop Israel from attacking the Arabs – he probably desired the war and wished it to escalate into a confrontation with the Soviets. She mentions how LBJ was surrounded by Jews and pro-Israelis. “Everyone around me, without exception, was pro-Israel. Johnson had a dozen or more close associates and aides who were both Jewish and pro-Israel. There were Walt Rostow at the White House, his brother Eugene at State, and Arthur Goldberg, ambassador to the United Nations. Other pro-Israel advisers included Abe Fortas, associate justice of the Supreme Court; Democratic Party fundraiser Abraham Feinberg; White House counsels Leo White and Jake Jacobsen; White House writers Richard Goodwin and Ben Wattenberg; domestic affairs aide Larry Levinson; and John P. Roche, known as Johnson’s intellectual-in-residence and an avid supporter of Israel.”
Looking back at that time, Grace Halsell wrote the following thoughtful words in 1993: “I was, at the time, a typical American. I was convinced back then that the Arabs had started the war and deserved what they got. I didn’t try to reason how, if the Arabs had started the war, they were surprised with their air forces on the ground and how it was that Israel so easily seized all of Palestine, including the rest of Jerusalem. Instead, like millions of Americans, I was thrilled by the might of `little Israel.’ Yet, despite the euphoria around me, what I saw in the White House planted questions in my mind. As Americans we had just passed through a dangerous Middle East conflict that threatened to explode into World War III. There were two parties to the conflict, Arabs and Jews. But for weeks on end I had seen only one set of advisers who could call or see Johnson whenever they pleased. The Arabs had no voice, no representation, no access, whatsoever.”
The question arises: Why was Johnson, a gangster and a bully, willing to sacrifice American lives for Israel? The answer to this question was provided by Morris Smith in an article that appeared in a little known “5 Town Jewish Times” in April 2013. The article is titled “Our First Jewish President Lyndon Johnson? – an update”. Although the article can no longer be accessed on 5 Town Jewish Times, it has been reproduced on numerous websites. It is also reproduced on pages 112-116 of the book “The Silent Witness in Dallas” by Mel Chizedek (LULU Press 2018). This article reveals LBJ’s undeniable Jewish roots – he was, in fact, a Jew, according to Jewish law.
Morris Smith writes: “According to Jewish law, if a person’s mother is Jewish, then that person is automatically Jewish, regardless of the father’s ethnicity or religion. The facts indicate that both of Johnson’s great-grandparents on the maternal side, were Jewish. These were grandparents of Lyndon Johnson’s mother Rebecca Baines. Their names were John S. Huffman and Mary Elizabeth Perrin. John Huffman’s mother was Suzanne Ament, a common Jewish name. Perrin is also a common Jewish name. Huffman and Perrin had a daughter, Ruth Ament Huffman. Who married Joseph Baines and together they had a daughter, Rebekah Baines, Lyndon Johnson’s mother. The line of Jewish mothers can be traced back three generations in Lyndon Johnson’s family tree. There is little doubt that he was Jewish.” Not only was his maternal side Jewish, LBJ’s father’s family were Christadelphians, who believe that Jews are God’s chosen people. In view of all the above facts LBJ’s support for Israel at the expense of American lives can be understood.
The CIA Assassination of Kennedy’s Beloved Mary Pinchot Meyer
