All smiles for the cameras, but behind the scenes... JFK with CIA Director Allen Dulles. Right, CIA Deputy Director Charles Cabell. Both were fired by Kennedy. Cabell's brother was Mayor of Dallas, Texas at the time of the assassination.
Comment: This New York Times op-ed was originally titled 'The Intra-Administration War in Vietnam', and was written by a well-known journalist whom Kennedy relied on to 'speak through' in his efforts to counter the massive propaganda efforts of the corporate media to portray him as a 'communist', 'anti-business', 'anti-American', a 'traitor', ad nauseum.
Washington, Oct. 2 - The Central Intelligence Agency is getting a very bad press in dispatches from Vietnam to American newspapers and in articles originating in Washington. Like the Supreme Court when under fire, the C.I.A. cannot defend itself in public retorts to criticisms of its activities as they occur. But, unlike the the Supreme Court, the C.I.A. has no open record of its activities on which the public can base a judgment of the validity of the criticisms. Also, the agency is precluded from using the indirect defensive tactic which is constantly employed by all other Government units under critical file.
This tactic is to give information to the press, under a seal of confidence, that challenges or refutes the critics. But the C.I.A. cannot father such inspired articles, because to do so would require some disclosure of its activities. And not only does the effectiveness of the agency depend on the secrecy of its operations. Every President since the C.I.A. was created has protected this secrecy from claimants - Congress or the public through the press, for examples - of the right to share any part of it.
