Full Truth of JFK's Assassination Needs Light of Day

Review: JFK's Last Hundred Days: The Transformation of a Man and the Emergence of a Great President By Thurston Clarke

Mon 11.11.2013: JFK's political side probably brought down the wrath of Pentagon extremists after the private, secret deal he did with Khrushchev to pull US Jupiter missiles out of Turkey as a quid pro quo over Cuba

Date: 11-11-2013 16:24

William B Shavelson
Editor in Chief
Columbia Magazine

Dear Mr Shavelson

I agree with Thurston Clarke's assessment of JFK as reviewed by William Keylor about his book in "Autumn of the President." The world would be completely different today had he lived. I served in the USAF Security Service from 1961 to 1964 while JFK was in office until his tragic assassination 50 years ago. I served from the Berlin Wall's building to the election of LBJ and spent 18 months at its HQ in San Antonio during which the Cuban Missile Crisis occurred.

I had been just three weeks into my one-year tour in Trabzon, Turkey, on the Black Sea 90 miles from the Soviet border at Hopa, Georgia, when he was assassinated. I am surprised, however, by this time that the myth he "stared down" Khrushchev over Cuba is not fully recognised for what really happened. He bargained on his own with the Soviet leader and agreed to swap out the aging US Jupiter missiles from Turkey for the withdrawal of Soviet missiles from Cuba. Nobody knew about this except a few people [See James Bamford's Body of Secrets]. He kept it a secret from the American public with mid-term elections pending in early November 1962. [See Seymour Hersh, The Dark Side of Camelot, chapter 20: Missile Crisis]

This did not become public in the US for over 20 years. While I was stationed at Trabzon, I met several employees of Hawker-Siddely (diesel engines) and Marconi (electronics) who were working under NATO contract to retrain Turkish missile men into radar at Rize which was on the Black Sea half way to the Soviet border from Trabzon. They were from England, Scotland, Ireland and France. This was not classified information and was openly known. Still, I never said anything about it and never heard anything for decades until the 1980s. I worked in an area that did not officially exist and was completely unkown. I Never Said Anything for decades.

I think the secrecy was a huge mistake, and in a democracy such as the US the public should have been told. He created a political image, but his actions were different from that image which left him open to blackmail by the Soviet Union for making a secret deal with Khrushchev. This had to send some of the ultra right-wing generals at the Pentagon into the stratosphere for they surely learned about it. After all, NATO was involved.

Also, JFK wouldn't accept the Army's lie as described by Neil Sheehan in his "Bright and Shining Lie" from the beginning of 1963 when the South Vietnamese Army were not willing or able to undertake the fighting against the Viet Cong. He wanted to withdraw from South Vietnam as described, but the president of South Vietnam was assassinated just three weeks before JFK. The CIA was on the move, and Mongoose might very well have been out of control and operating beyond JFK's knowledge. I believe that the full information about his assassination has still to see the light of day.

Sincerely yours

Gary D Chance, '69 GS, '73 GSB

Virtually no military alert was made when JFK assassinated except by CINCPAC, documents altered & code books missing. [Twitter]

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