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January 06, 2009

Panetta, Papa Bush and JFK

I'm intrigued by Obama's pick of Leon Panetta to head the CIA. I've kind of vacillated in my opinion of it as I've read the comments on Carla's post at Blue Oregon. But my initial reaction was to echo the concern expressed by such diverse individuals as Senator Diane Feinstein and Pat Buchanan - what qualifies Panetta for such a job?

But then I read a comment citing a TPM post which quotes an email from a long-time veteran of the CIA expressing approval of the Panetta pick. Which got me to thinking that Papa Bush (aka George H. W. Bush, Bush 41, etc.) was appointed by President Ford to head the CIA without any obvious intel experience and he seemed to do an at least adequate job of it. So that sent me to Google because I couldn't remember exactly when he'd been appointed - whether it was Nixon or Ford who appointed him. And since I was considering writing a post about it I wanted to do some fact checking first.

Surprise, surprise, surprise! I found something that I was wholly unprepared for.

The conventional history for Papa Bush says that from 1954 through 1964 he was president of an oil company... and nothing more. But apparently some believe that he was secretly working for the CIA during that period. Which would obviously cast his later appointment in a much different light. But that's not the crazy part.

The crazy part (or is it?) is the allegation that Papa Bush was directly involved in the assasination of JFK in 1963. Well... not directly involved in the actual assasination. Rather than he was a member of the CIA cover-up squad who immediately sprang into action to blame it on Oswald.

They even have a photo of what appears to be a memo from FBI Director Hoover dated exactly one week after JFK's assasination naming "George Bush" by name as the member of the CIA who delivered some intel to Hoover concerning expatriot Cubans living in Miami and their feelings about JFK having been assasinated.

Now, if you accept that Papa Bush really was a CIA agent in 1963 then it's just a short hop, skip and a jump to believing that he was earlier involved in the Bay of Pigs fiasco and later involved in Watergate - which is exactly what this site alleges.

All of this still leaves the question of Panetta's qualifications an open question. But... holy crap, batman! Papa Bush involved with JFK's assasination!?!?

If I were still a drinking man I think I'd be pouring myself a stiff one right about now.

Posted by Kevin at January 6, 2009 04:02 PM