The Power to Serve

[Daveparts still]

The Power to Serve
By David Glenn Cox


I want you to read this as if it's a Tom Clancy spy novel. I want you to imagine that this is another country, far, far away, across the oceans. Americans believe, that’s all, Americans just believe. When drug wars erupt in Mexico they shake their heads and say, “Tsk, tsk, if only they had a government as true blue as ours." They never ask themselves, “I wonder where all that cocaine is going?” So, it is far beyond the bounds of expectation that they would ever ask, “If tons of cocaine are being sold on American streets, how do the profits get back to the drug lords in South America?”

Americans are not dumb; many Americans just live in fables of make believe and rivers of denial. Of pure good and pure evil, of good guys and bad guys, they are never taught that there is only power. Power, be it government or commerce or military, defends itself from all threats. Power does not give up easily because it is far easier to maintain power than it is to gain power. Because of this red, white and blue book of fairy tales, I must ask you again to read this like it's a fictional spy novel. Otherwise, I would be labeled a kook and a conspiracy theorist.

Americans don’t care much for conspiracy theorists, but if you ask the relatives of the 40,000 who died in Guatemala at the hands of CIA-backed rebels, or the thousands more in Argentina or El Salvador or Nicaragua or a dozen other countries, they believe! As an example of American’s infinite ability to believe in pixie dust, a majority of Americans still believe that Saddam Hussein was affiliated with Al Queada and had plans to do harm to the United States.

In April of 1961, CIA-backed Cuban exiles invaded Castro’s Cuba with the goal of overthrowing his Communist government. The planning had begun during the Eisenhower administration, but unbeknownst to the coup-plotters the Soviets knew the date of the invasion and were ready for it. Publicly the Kennedy administration took the blame for the fiasco. Privately John Kennedy fumed and told his brother, “They tried to mislead me into a war.” They being the CIA. Airplanes from the Alabama Air National Guard had already been scrambled but were called back.

The landing had gone badly; the CIA-backed rebels never stood a chance. The CIA had tried to get Kennedy to commit US air assets, making it not a rebel operation but a US-sponsored invasion of Cuba and an unprovoked act of war. Kennedy, who had been in office less than three months, overestimated the power of the Presidency and underestimated the strength of those in power.

Kennedy would have been forced to go before the American public and try to explain away the sudden, unprovoked invasion of Cuba. As the youngest President ever elected many had already questioned whether he had the experience to be President in the first place. To those in power in the CIA, Kennedy had screwed them, he had said no! The CIA didn’t like being said “No” to and began to draw up future plans to topple Castro.

During the cold war The CIA was considered America’s front line troops in the war against Communism. Imagine the whole world as a checkerboard covered with red checkers and blue checkers. The CIA's goal was to flip as many red checkers without allowing any of our blue checkers to be flipped. The easiest way to keep from having our checkers flipped was by supporting the banking and business interests in any particular nation. Transnational American businesses welcomed this immensely.

If United Fruit was paying workers nine cents an hour to pick bananas and some labor organization popped up trying to organize the workers to strike for fifteen cents an hour, the answer was to have the labor organizers arrested as communists, and in most cases done away with. In Panama workers for Coca-Cola went on strike; the police were called. When the police arrived they calmly asked to speak to the leaders of the strike. When the strike leaders approached, the police shot them in the head in front of the striking workers.

The police then announced, “This strike is over! Back to work!” Why didn’t Walter Cronkite ever tell us? The media only tells you what they want you to know, only the good things that your tax dollars do, with stories that always begin with once upon a time. Franklin Roosevelt’s comment, “That Somoza may be a son of a bitch but he was our son of bitch,” became the unofficial foreign policy of the United States.

Kennedy responded to the CIA by firing its head, Allen Dulles. Charles Cabell, his deputy director, resigned in solidarity with his boss. I wanted to stay away from using names because it detracts from the story. It becomes too easy to say, “You’re just bashing X or Y.” But Allen Dulles is important because he was a powerful man. We see these people on TV and never realize the unelected power that they hold.

Dulles was on the Board of Directors of United Fruit. During WWII he helped to spirit out much of the Nazi intelligence apparatus. It was Dulles who planned the overthrow of Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh of Iran in 1953 and Guatemala's President Arbenz in 1954. It was Dulles who presented Operation North Woods, a plan to gain popular support for an invasion of Cuba by staging a phony airliner hijacking. This was a powerful man and not to be trifled with. Charles Cabell is interesting for only one detail, his brother was Earl Cabell, the mayor of Dallas, Texas. Out of 180 million Americans it was Cabell’s brother Earl alone that changed the parade route of the presidential motorcade.

We spend far too much time looking through the lens of left wing and right wing when all that matters is who serves power. Had Fidel Castro been willing to become our lackey he could have built the most brutal Communist dictatorship in the world, as long as the fruit got picked and the sugar cane harvested. The "Today" show would have spent a week in Havana testifying to Fidel’s miracle. The power leans to the right but only because the right services the power.

Kennedy issued Presidential directives curbing the power of the CIA and also of the Federal Reserve. His goal was not to eliminate either one. He feared that if he leaned too hard on the CIA that they wouldn’t give him timely intelligence and he would be walking blindfolded through a mine field. Likewise, if he had eliminated the Federal Reserve with the stroke of a pen the banking industry would revolt. These are centers of power and they don’t just say, “Okay, you win," and go home. Allen Dulles was also a cousin to the Rockefeller family; yes he was a powerful man indeed.

Kennedy’s actions at the Bay of Pigs made him unpopular with the agency but his actions during the Cuban Missile Crisis made him suspect with the agency and within the military establishment. Kennedy’s actions narrowly averted a nuclear war but to the agency and the Joint Chiefs of Staff Kennedy had backed down in the face of Soviet aggression. He had secretly traded missiles in Turkey for missiles in Cuba at the same time the Joint Chiefs were calling for air strikes on Cuba. As Russian freighters steamed towards the American fleet blockading Cuba, they were escorted by Russian submarines loaded with nuclear-tipped torpedoes and their captains already had permission to fire on any American provocation.

As Mark Twain said, “To a man with a hammer everything looks like a nail.” I suppose to those with hammers those not willing to hammer look unfaithful, unreliable and untrustworthy. Look at the situation from the eyes of the CIA and the military. Kennedy had backed down in their eyes twice; he had allowed a blue chip to be flipped red. And then came Vietnam.

In May of 1961 Vice President Johnson visits South Vietnam and calls President Diem the “Winston Churchill of Asia.” Over and over the military warns the administration of the importance of holding Vietnam. But the Winston Churchill of Asia is becoming more unpredictable. He sends fighter planes to bomb his own people and is almost overthrown in the process. He cracks down on the Buddhist minority and then declares martial law when they react.

In July of 1963 general Tran Van Dong contacts the CIA about the possibility of supporting a coup against the Winston Churchill of Asia. It is clear that the country is spinning out of control and is in jeopardy of flipping its checker from blue to red. In August the US ambassador meets with President Diem and tells him in no uncertain terms to fire his brother from the government and to get his house in order. Diem refuses and the go ahead is given for a CIA-backed coup against Diem.

During October the White House vacillates hot and cold about the coup, and when the coup ends with the murder of Diem and his brother on a roadside, the White House vacillates again. As the President wrote in his diary, “"I feel that we must bear a good deal of responsibility for it." Duh, really?

From the White House perspective they saw themselves as caught in a scissors. They feared the CIA was trying to manipulate and undermine them. They feared the military was trying to generate a pretext to expand a war. The military had fought with the administration on the nuclear test ban treaty. Our own government began to fear a coup. During the Cuban Missile Crisis talks, Robert Kennedy had warned Soviet Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin, “An irreversible chain of events could occur. My brother does not know how long he can hold out against the generals. He is not sure that the military will not overthrow him and seize power.”

Perhaps the statement was just high stakes bargaining or perhaps it was an honest warning. Kennedy was seen inside the halls of power as a threat to the vital national security interests of this country. There was also a growing worry that the President would drop Lyndon Johnson from the ticket because of Johnson’s financial dealings and growing scandals.

We all know what happened November 22, 1963.

On November 24, 1963, President Johnson tells the cabinet “We will not lose Vietnam.” And power breathes a sigh of relief.

Brutus murdered Caesar because of the fear of Caesar’s power.

“Romans, countrymen, and lovers! Hear me for my cause, and be silent, that you may hear: believe me for mine honour, and have respect to mine honour, that you may believe: censure me in your wisdom, and awake your senses, that you may the better judge. If there be any in this assembly, any dear friend of Caesar's, to him I say, that Brutus' love to Caesar was no less than his. If then that friend demand why Brutus rose against Caesar, this is my answer: --Not that I loved Caesar less, but that I loved Rome more.

Had you rather Caesar were living and die all slaves, than that Caesar were dead, to live all free men? As Caesar loved me, I weep for him; as he was fortunate, I rejoice at it; as he was valiant, I honour him, but, as he was ambitious, I slew him. There is tears for his love, joy for his fortune, honour for his valour, and death for his ambition.

"Who is here so base that would be a bondman? If any, speak, for him have I offended. Who is here so rude that would not be a Roman? If any, speak, for him have I offended. Who is here so vile that will not love his country? If any, speak, for him have I offended. I pause for a reply.”

[Demeter]

1. Yes. And Corrolary Lesson, Beware of Texans

Why is there a Texan at the foot of every disaster in this country?