NOTES OF CONCERN....
... JACK BLAIR
“ Don’t Let the People Know “
There has been way too much information about spying lately to permit any of us to feel secure. We are told that every time we place a phone call internationally, it is noted by our government. We are told that everything we type on our computers is probable information shared with our government. We are told our closest allies have had their private phone calls monitored.
To make matters worse, we have a second-tier employee of a non-government company (a management consulting firm) being used by the government to help get the work done that seems to be far too challenging for the millions of real government employees we already pay.
This guy, Snowden, not only got to do the highly secret work, he got to download and copy and take out of the building all the nation’s most sensitive secrets.
Then he got to board a plane and take those secrets across the globe to a place where he could safely hand them out to our enemies and our shocked friends.
So far, twenty-one nations have approached the United Nations over our spying on their leaders. And that number will just grow.
The accepted defense against the U.S. wearing the “BAD BOY” label is that spying has gone on since the beginning of time, and no one should be surprised. With that kind of defense in this international game of perception-vs-reality, we are sure to lose.
I am far less concerned with our spying than I am with our historical involvement in keeping important facts from our own people. Our government has gotten so good at hiding truth that we citizens do not even attempt to get the real information.
Between playing at “smoke and mirrors,” and classifying material to be kept secret for 50 or more years, our government really can, and does, keep information from us.
The stories are plentiful, and my readers could have a lot of fun trying to uncover the real truths of almost any government claim, but when you are constantly being told that things that happened really didn’t happen, and being advised that only “kooks” buy into conspiracy theories, you distance yourself from the hunt for truth.
For instance, down deep somewhere do you not probably think something unusual really did happen at Roswell? Aliens? Who knows?
In your saner moments, do you really believe there is not sustainable life on other planets? It is much harder to assume there is not.
Are you still buying the “one shooter” theory from the Kennedy assassination? Even when Governor Connally, riding in the same car, said there were more?
Are you not suspicious that “way back when,” we might have actually sunk the “Maine” for our own purposes?
The list is endless.
But what I want to highlight in this column are times when seriously important stuff is kept from us...stuff that would alter the way we think and the decisions we make.
Recently, information from 50 years ago has been released on President John F. Kennedy. Let me share a small portion of it with you (you can read much more in the historian Robert Dalleck’s most recent book: Camelot’s Court: Inside the Kennedy White House (from which I have gathered much of the newly released information informing this column).
John F. Kennedy, when running for president of the United States, suffered from Addison’s disease, which is described as a potentially fatal malfunctioning of the adrenal glands. He suffered from chronic back pain and had endured major unsuccessful surgeries in his young life. He endured spastic colitis that brought on bouts of diarrhea, prostatitis, urethritis, and allergies.
According to the recent release, Kennedy also suffered from peptic ulcers and osteoporosis of the lumbar spine. He had been hospitalized 44 days between 1955 and 1957. And he was only 43 years old when he ran for the presidency.
Was this the “mind picture” you had in 1960 when he was asking to be the president?
We were treated to a picture of touch football, brave Navy service, writing of books with major impact, and a huge extended and rich family life.
Why did the voter never hear about any of the weaker sides to a presidential candidate? The medical issues alone would have called into question his suitability for high office.
When you add these conditions to the information about infidelities and rash actions, you could build a pretty good case that the Democrats should have fielded a better candidate.
It is not my intention to demean John Fitzgerald Kennedy.
It is my intention to call to your attention that the citizens of this great nation are the recipients of a very long existing cover up of truth, perpetuated at the highest levels of government, abetted by the national press, and sealed under classification for a period designed to outlive the primary players by the government.
I am not naive enough to believe this was limited to information about John Kennedy. The release of this information now does make me wonder how much more information on others of our leaders is filed away somewhere, marked “Top Secret--Eyes Only,” and scheduled to see the light of day when we are long gone and our grandchildren are disinterested.
What about Franklin Roosevelt’s possible advance knowledge of an attack on Pearl Harbor?
What about Dwight Eisenhower’s gift farm from wealthy businessmen?
What about Harry Truman’s cozy relationship with the mob bosses in Missouri?
What about Richard Nixon’s acceptance of funds from wealthy Californians in 1952?
The list of unproven rumors and potentially false accusations is limitless.
But the practice of concealing, securing, and the release decades later of information is not one which, in my opinion, serves us well.
And then there are the campaigns of disinformation. But that is the subject of a future column.
Perhaps the bottom line here is that we are right to be suspicious, to ask questions, to demand truth.
Let's do more of that.
