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Plausible Deniability Kept CIA's role in JFK Murder Hidden 10/27/2013 2:49:43 AM
As we approach the 50th anniversary of JFK’s assassination, the CIA still has not released thousands of its documents pertaining to the murder. Why is this the case? What possible reason could the CIA have for keeping those documents from the public? There is only one I can imagine—the documents would provide further proof of CIA involvement in the crime.
Hiding the truth has always been the CIA’s modus operandi. It is part of the agency’s policy of plausible deniability…any means that covert operatives can employ to remove themselves from the truth of an operation should be employed. This diabolical principle was clarified beautifully by author James Douglass at a conference commemorating the 46th anniversary of the assassination. I quote from it here:
“We, first of all, need to take the time to
recognize the sources in our history for what
happened in Dallas on November 22, 1963.
"The doctrine of ‘plausible deniability’ in an old
government document provides us with a source
of the assassination of President Kennedy.
The document was issued in 1948, one year after
the CIA was established, 15 years before JFK’s murder.
That document, National Security Council
directive 10/2, on June 18, 1948, “gave the highest
sanction of the [U.S.] government to a broad range of covert
operations” – propaganda, sabotage, economic warfare,
subversion of all kinds – that were seen as
necessary to “win” the Cold War against the
Communists. The government’s condition for those
covert activities by U.S. agencies, coordinated by the
CIA, was that they be “so planned and executed
that…if uncovered the US government can plausibly disclaim any
responsibility for them.
"In the 1950’s, under the leadership of CIA
Director Allen Dulles, the doctrine of “plausible
deniability” became the CIA’s green light to
assassinate national leaders, conduct secret military
operations, and overthrow governments that our
government thought were on the wrong side in the
Cold War. 'Plausible deniability' meant our intelligence
agencies, acting as paramilitary groups, had to lie and
cover their tracks so effectively that there would
be no trace of U.S. government responsibility for
criminal activities on an ever-widening scale.
The man who proposed this secret, subversive process
in 1948, diplomat George Kennan, said later, in light
of its consequences, that it was ‘the greatest mistake
I ever made.’ President Harry Truman, under whom
the CIA was created, and during whose presidency the plausible
deniability doctrine was authorized, had deep
regrets. He said in a statement on December 22, 1963:
‘For some time I have been disturbed by the way the CIA has
been diverted from its original assignment. It has become
an operational and at times a policy-making arm of the
Government. This has led to trouble and may have compounded
our difficulties in several explosive areas. We have grown up
as a nation, respected for our free institutions and
for our ability to maintain a free and open society. There
is something about the way the CIA has been functioning
that is casting a shadow over our historic position and
I feel that we need to correct it.’
Truman later remarked: ‘The CIA was set up by me for
the sole purpose of getting all the available information
to the president. It was not intended to operate as an
international agency engaged in strange
activities.’
President Truman’s sharp warning about the CIA, and
the fact that warning was published one month to the day
after JFK’s assassination, should have given this country
pause. However, his statement appeared only in an early
edition of The Washington Post, then vanished without
comment from public view.
What George Kennan and Harry Truman realized much too
late was that, in the name of national security, they
had unwittingly allowed an alien force to invade a
democracy. As a result, we now had to deal with a
government agency authorized to carry out a broad range
of criminal activities on an international scale,
theoretically accountable to the president but with
no genuine accountability to anyone. Plausible
deniability became a rationale for the CIA’s
interpretation of what the executive branch’s wishes
might be. But for the Agency’s crimes to
remain plausibly deniable, the less said the better.”
