Topic: King, Kennedy and Communism

[jpatrickham]

Friday, 16 September 2011 13:41 Cliff Kincaid

 
"As the official dedication of the Martin Luther King Jr. memorial in Washington, D.C. approaches, liberals in the media are in damage control over a revelation about the civil rights leader from an unlikely source—Caroline Kennedy, daughter of JFK and Jackie Kennedy. Her new book, Jacqueline Kennedy: Historic Conversations on Life with John F. Kennedy, makes it abundantly clear that Jack and Bobby Kennedy, as well as Jackie, saw through the public façade of the Reverend King and knew him to be a proven liar about his communist connections and a scoundrel in terms of his personal life. Jackie called King a “phony” in the taped conversations that form the basis of the book.

This has created a dilemma for the media, who adore the Kennedys and King. So media figures such as Andrea Mitchell of NBC News and Diane Sawyer of ABC News have decided to blame the whole mess on former FBI director J. Edgar Hoover. But the misdirection won’t work. The book stands on its own and constitutes a major indictment of a man considered a national icon.

On Monday night, Mitchell was on the NBC Nightly News covering the controversy by claiming that the “phony” comment was because of political games being played by FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover. In fact, the evidence shows that both JFK and his brother Bobby had themselves obtained and passed on information about King’s extramarital affairs and womanizing. It was information that had been obtained from wiretaps on King authorized by Bobby himself.

The book is based on recorded interviews conducted in 1964 by Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. with Jacqueline Kennedy. It quotes Jackie as saying that JFK had told her “of a tape that the FBI had of Martin Luther King…how he was calling up all these girls and arranging for a party of men and women, I mean, sort of an orgy in the hotel, and everything.” Jackie said her response to this was that such conduct was “terrible” and that King was “such a phony.” Jackie adds, “Since then, Bobby’s told me of the tapes of these orgies they have and how Martin Luther King made fun of Jack’s funeral.”

Mitchell’s false narrative ignored how the Kennedy brothers, both anti-communist Democrats, were alarmed by King’s communist associations. She explained: “At the time, FBI director J. Edgar Hoover was trying to incite divisions between the Kennedys and Dr. King, telling Bobby Kennedy that Dr. King was overheard on FBI wiretaps making crude comments about Jackie Kennedy kissing her husband’s coffin on the day of Jack’s funeral.”

http://www.rightsidenews.com/2011091614516/editorial/us-opinion-and-editorial/king-kennedy-and-communism.html?

[Pandora]

Mitchell and her lefty ilk are just gonna have to get over it -- King's immoral and adulterous behavior has been known for some time now.  What's less known is his communist leanings; people are always shocked into denial when the issue is raised, and that of his plagiarism.

[jpatrickham]

Mitchell and her lefty ilk are just gonna have to get over it -- King's immoral and adulterous behavior has been known for some time now.  What's less known is his communist leanings; people are always shocked into denial when the issue is raised, and that of his plagiarism.

I was watch O'Reilly the other night, he had on a guest who had written about this, and Bill quickly went into what a fine Man King was. Scared he was going to get mail I guess.! 

[trapeze]

I was watch O'Reilly the other night, he had on a guest who had written about this, and Bill quickly went into what a fine Man King was. Scared he was going to get mail I guess.! 

No, that's just O'Reilly being O'Reilly. Pretending to be non-partisan. Imagining that he is the wisest person in any encounter.

The truth about O'Reilly is that he knows just enough about most subjects that he feels confident to carry on as if he is an expert. Ask yourself how many times O'Reilly has ever confessed to not being an absolute expert on ANY topic. I can't remember it ever happening. I have seen him carry on numerous times bluffing his way through his ignorance on a subject. He will have an actual expert about a given subject as a guest on his show and then contradict them, talk over them and even try to ridicule them about that subject.

The bottom line is that he doesn't know very much about this part of King's personal history so he fakes it by saying something that, to him, sounds safe and wise: that King was a fine man. The expert guest sez King was a perverted sex addict and O'Reilly contradicts as if he knew him personally and was there at the time. I see it all the time. "Annoying" doesn't begin to describe O'Reilly.

[jpatrickham]

"Annoying" doesn't begin to describe O'Reilly."

Yes, and I even think he is getting worse!

[Predator Don]

Eh...I still love to watch his segments with Dennis Miller.

[jpatrickham]

Eh...I still love to watch his segments with Dennis Miller.

I still watch his show even though I agree he has gone off to Never, Never land. He has definitely lost his credibility but, People still tune in. If they are like me, I just love arguing with him. Of course talking to the Television ain't considered cool, but what do I care in my own home!

[charlesoakwood]

http://frontpagemag.com/2011/09/16/kennedys-against-king/

...The controversy highlights two methods of historical revisionism employed to harmonize the problematic policies of liberal heroes with the outlook of contemporary liberals. ...

The author actually claims that it is impossible to tie President Wilson to his own raids because he never said whether he supported them or not. Using J. Edgar Hoover to excuse Democratic presidents for trampling upon civil liberties is by now a familiar dodge.

Kennedys Against King

Posted by Daniel Flynn Bio  on Sep 16th, 2011

Just released interviews of Jacqueline Kennedy? conducted by Arthur Schlesinger Jr?. in 1964 reveal a rift between the first families of sixties liberalism at odds with the historical narrative. “I just can’t see a picture of Martin Luther King without thinking, you know, that man’s terrible,” the former First Lady explained. She labeled the minister a “terrible sex pest.” Citing reports from her husband of the minister’s bacchanalian exploits (it takes one to know one?), and gossip that a drunk King had made rude remarks at her husband’s funeral, Mrs. Kennedy labeled the civil rights leader “a really tricky person.”

Neither King nor the Kennedys emerge from the airing of the half-century-old dirty laundry entirely clean. The Kennedys appear as peeping toms at best and as slanderers at worst. Perhaps King is entirely innocent of the accusations, but coming from his ostensible political allies they seem harder to dismiss than smears from racists.

So when the two-hour ABC News program on Jackie Kennedy’s long lost interviews blamed neither King nor the Kennedys for the mutual enmity but J. Edgar Hoover?, the contention left viewers perplexed. Mrs. Kennedy, after all, maintains on the tapes broadcast on ABC that she derived all of her political opinions from her husband. She made no mention of the FBI director’s sway over her.

Caroline Kennedy? told Diane Sawyer that her mother’s negative assessment of the civil rights leader demonstrates the “poisonous” influence of J. Edgar Hoover. She continued that “the idea that this is going on at the highest levels of government is really twisted.” Historian Michael Beschloss claimed that Mrs. Kennedy’s harsh words for King resulted from J. Edgar Hoover’s manipulation of the First Family. The FBI director “did everything possible to make Dr. King look like somebody from another planet,” John Lewis, sixties civil rights activist and current congressman, claimed. “I cannot believe that Dr. King ever said anything in a negative manner about President Kennedy.”

Ever? Even when the president attempted to strongarm King into canceling the March on Washington? When he sicced FBI snoops upon the minister? When he put civil rights legislation on the backburner?

The Kennedy brothers ordered J. Edgar Hoover to investigate Martin Luther King. The way the Kennedys, a court historian, and political allies tell it, the FBI director ordered the attorney general and the president around. To believe this upside-down story one must reject what we know about the structure of relationships between underlings and bosses; we must assume mesmeristic powers in J. Edgar Hoover and invertebrate weakness in the Kennedys; we must suspend reality for political comfort.

The controversy highlights two methods of historical revisionism employed to harmonize the problematic policies of liberal heroes with the outlook of contemporary liberals. The first imagines J. Edgar Hoover as the marionette pulling the strings of every Democratic president from Woodrow Wilson? through Lyndon Johnson. The second projects beliefs fashionable among today’s liberals upon liberal icons, such as John F. Kennedy and his famous family.

The first tactic was on display when the Washington Post revealed in 2009 that President Lyndon Johnson had authorized an investigation into his friend Jack Valenti?’s personal life. The paper claimed he did so only “under FBI pressure.” A 2007 book by Kenneth Ackerman takes the Hoover-made-me-do-it theory to preposterous extremes by blaming the Palmer Raids? on a then 24-year-old, mid-level bureaucrat. “J. Edgar Hoover had been [attorney general A. Mitchell] Palmer’s special assistant when the raids began on November 7, 1919, and he had his fingerprints all over them,” Ackerman insists. The author actually claims that it is impossible to tie President Wilson to his own raids because he never said whether he supported them or not. Using J. Edgar Hoover to excuse Democratic presidents for trampling upon civil liberties is by now a familiar dodge.

So, too, are attempts to warp Kennedy history to fit the beliefs of their current admirers. Joe McCarthy? serving as godfather to Kathleen Kennedy Townsend?, the Kennedys illegally wiretapping Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Hanson Baldwin, and President Kennedy’s involvement of U.S. troops in Vietnam are among the inconvenient truths that present-day liberals excuse away or airbrush entirely.

History isn’t a play to be tweaked to suit the audience’s fancy. The stories we live aren’t as neat as the stories we pay to see. The person offstage may differ from the center-stage persona. The leading actors that we like don’t always like each other.

In the wake of the assassinations of John Kennedy? and Martin Luther King, the pair would find themselves linked in history and on the living room walls of many admirers. But to hear Jackie Kennedy talk, she couldn’t glance upon MLK’s visage later so often beside her husband’s without concluding: “that man’s terrible.”

About Daniel Flynn
Daniel J. Flynn is the author of numerous books, including "Blue Collar Intellectuals: When the Enlightened and the Everyman Elevated America," forthcoming from ISI Books this fall. He writes a Monday column for HumanEvents.com and blogs at flynnfiles.com.

[LadyVirginia]

"Annoying" doesn't begin to describe O'Reilly."

Yes, and I even think he is getting worse!

O"Reilly fancies himself a "journalist" and that is his background but he found a gimmick as "Mr. Independent" so up against the rest of the lame media he looks conservative.  But if you listen to him he takes it straight down the middle most of the time.  He wants to be a the "reasonable" journalist.

[Predator Don]

"Annoying" doesn't begin to describe O'Reilly."

Yes, and I even think he is getting worse!

O"Reilly fancies himself a "journalist" and that is his background but he found a gimmick as "Mr. Independent" so up against the rest of the lame media he looks conservative.  But if you listen to him he takes it straight down the middle most of the time.  He wants to be a the "reasonable" journalist.

I believe his show can be entertaining....More so than watching Meet The Press or some of the other lefty crap. I enjoy his " I am above the fray" moments with libs and his panels. It's good TV. LOL

[Pandora]

"Annoying" doesn't begin to describe O'Reilly."

Yes, and I even think he is getting worse!

O"Reilly fancies himself a "journalist" and that is his background but he found a gimmick as "Mr. Independent" so up against the rest of the lame media he looks conservative.  But if you listen to him he takes it straight down the middle most of the time.  He wants to be a the "reasonable" journalist.

Emphasis on the "reasonable", which is why O'Reilly is the poster-boy for every moderate "independent" squish out there.

It was bad enough when he had conservatives on and would talk over them, but the lefties presences just gave me heartburn.