Robert Kennedy Quotes

The meeting was about the Congo. Patrice Lumumba was an extremely popular Congo leader who had just led the independence fight against Belgium and been elected Prime Minister and one of the few African leaders at the time who was not corrupt but he was a socialist. The mineral rich Katanga Province then seceded just a few weeks after Independence. Lumumba asked the UN. for supplies and trucks to allow him to keep the country together but the UN was bogged down in debate where the US thought that he might become, Russia then unilaterally offered the aid. Thinking that the Congo might become part of the Soviet Bloc, President Eisenhower called the meeting. Lumumba had not only claimed that he was not a communist but stated that Communism was just as bad as colonialism. A few weeks later the CIA engineered a coup of the Congo Military which had previously been organized and led by Colonial Belgium. The coup deposed Lumumba in favor of a corrupt incompetent Army Officer, Joseph Mobuto. Lumumba was arrested, and the UN Secretary General demanded that he be treated properly while Russia demanded that he be released as he could not have committed any crimes as he had been in office such a short time. While under "arrest" Lumumba was mysteriously murdered. The United States denied that America had anything to do with the murder. Johnson gave similar testimony under oath before the Senate Church Committee Investigating the Intelligence Agencies.

Johnson tasked Clark with finding out what the FBI knew of this story. The story was true. Worse, the CIA had hired members of the Mafia to do the assassination. (The Mafia resented Castro as he ended the Gambling Mecca that Cuba had been when his revolution succeeded. Before the Castro revolution, he Mafia got a “piece” of the profits from each Cuban casino for “protection.”) It might have been that the Kennedy Assassination was retaliation by Castro. However, the CIA withheld this from the Warren Commission and Robert Kennedy never revealed it even though he was a member of the Commission and the Commission had security clearance. See {637465}.

There was a military coup in 1973 which was supported by the United States -- {640618} . Many Chilean left wingers were tortured, murdered or disappeared. Also, two American citizens in Chile were murdered at the time. This case finally brought the murderers of the Americans from the military junta to account. However, it turned out that the murders of the Americans was part of a conspiracy between the Chilean junta and United States military / intelligence officers in Santiago at the time. The American murder victims were fingered by an American Naval Captain, Ray E. Davis, as leftists and they too were killed. Captain Davis had been indicted with the two Chileans, but he died before the trial. The Chilean judge was not able to indicate how high up the decision by the American officers to have the Chileans kill leftist Americans went. One important historical aspect of this case was meaningful because when the trial was finally conducted, there was a major policy debate in the United States over the right of the American government to kill American citizens abroad and under what circumstances with most people thinking that this was a new policy issue brought about by the development of drone technology and the War on Terror. However, this judge’s release of the information showed that Americans had been previously killed before drones. One major difference is that in the War on Terror case the President, Attorney General and other officials were the major decision makers while in the 1973 case in Chile, it may have been limited to a few rabid, over-zealous, mid-level officers, acting on their own. Or perhaps the kill decision went further. The documents relating to the murders are highly classified and the government has not yet released them at the time of this quotation.

It was later disclosed that some in the CIA had, working with some Cuban exiles, arranged with American organized crime for them to assassinate Fidel Castro. They failed, and the CIA then tried to cover up the truth. They even lied to the Warren Commission investigating John F. Kennedy’s murder. See {642341}.

It was unusual for anyone to call for the assassination of a foreign leader, but for a leading Christian cleric, this was a strange way of “turning the other cheek.”

The US organized a revolution

The statement was made with respect to the possible overthrow of President Diem of South Vietnam, who was murdered anyway during the coup.

This quotation comes as a major surprise to most people who perceive modern CIA as the MAJOR U.S. spying and covert action organization. It is a marvelous case study of agency “mission creep”.

This was the reason that the FBI withheld information from the Warren Commission investigating JFK’s assassination. J. Edgar Hoover, the FBI Director was concerned that some people might conclude that the FBI bore some of the responsibility for the assassination for losing track of him. The CIA also withheld information to the commission to cover some of their misdeeds.

Dulles was a master of fending off calls for CIA reform. In this case he pretended to look for another agency to take over covert operations, but found in each case that they could not keep secrets well enough. In the 21st century, the CIA was still handling covert operations and have relinquished nothing.

This quotation would not be memorable but for the fact that one of the other “passengers” on that Central Intelligence Agency “train” was Saddam Hussein, who later became the dictator of Iraq and the enemy of the United States. This was a classic example of unintended consequences of covert operations. The Cia covertly put the Baath Party in power in Iran, and some years later, the Iraqi Baath Party became a major enemy of the United States.

See {637464} for the trigger for the FBI to write this report. It was the report that verified that the CIA had hired the Mafia to assassinate Fidel Castro which President Johnson had heard but the CIA never revealed it to Johnson or the Warren Commission investigations JFK’s assassination. The full document was kept secret and was not yet declassified in 2014 when this quotation was entered in the collection.

If Casey had listened to Sofaer as the State Department did, President Reagan would have been spared the worst Scandal of his Presidency—Iran Contra. Casey had a great antipathy to lawyers. See {637470}.

Lumumba was too socialistic for Dulles. He was not only removed from power by a covert CIA operation but the allies we selected to succeed him, then murdered him as they feared they had no one to match Lumumba’s popularity with the people.