I had hoped that Bill Kelly would understand, better than many other long-time researchers, that the term “Mastermind” has been misconstrued into a meaning that is nowhere to be found in any dictionary definition of that word: Nowhere does it say a mastermind must design, direct, manage or sign off on every subpart, and/or personally select every person who will become involved in the operation. Do they have no conception of how executives of any private or public organization delegate such things to their trusted aides, managers or accomplices? Do they really think that oversight of every last detail of every assigned task is monitored by the person at the top?
But Kelly did not, and thus proceeded to walk over the cliff, falling into “the abyss of the deluded deniers,” joining all of the other similarly-confused critics. In deliberately re-defining a word to fit their narrative, they expose the fallacies of their own arguments.
Webster’s definition of “Mastermind”: “A person who supplies the directing or creative intelligence for a project.”
Given that definition, even a person who only had the original germ of an idea and the ability to communicate / sell it to others, delegating to them the authority to plan and execute the operation — but had nothing whatsoever to do with its execution—would still qualify for that title.
See my December, 2019 blog Why I Dared to Use the Term “Mastermind” — And Why Many People Dislike That Choice HERE, for a more complete explanation of this rather elementary point.
Within his August 29, 2021 (1700+ word) blog “LBJ Mastermind of the JFK Assassination?” at his JFKCountercoup website are two specific paragraphs which reveal how he has framed his rebuttal of the essence of my book LBJ: The Mastermind of the JFK Assassination:
- Paragraph #1: “I put off reading this book because of the title, since I knew LBJ was not the mastermind of the Dealey Plaza Operation mainly because he rejected the original cover-story that Fidel Castro was behind the conspiracy and redirected the inquiry to the equally false deranged lone nut scenario.”
- Paragraph #11: “LBJ was not the commander of the operation. What occurred at Dealey Plaza was not the result of a plot, or just a conspiracy, it was a much more specific covert intelligence operation, one that included psychological warfare aspects, a cover-story and was much too complicated – in the word of Gene Wheaton – too convoluted, for LBJ to comprehend let alone concieve” (sic).
In the first paragraph he states that the “original” cover-up story was to blame it on pro-Castro Cubans while offering no proof of that assertion; in doing so he ignores the fact that the plot was designed with at least two cover-up options, both filled with anomalies, and arguably the “Cuban” one was so fraught with disconnects (that are still being debated—e.g. Did LHO even go to Mexico City?), it would have been even more problematic (and obviously, potentially dangerous to pursue) than the “lone nut” option. Johnson was too much of a coward to ever put his own life at risk, which is exactly what blaming Castro would do.
His attempts to portray Johnson as too stupid to comprehend all the “psychological warfare aspects” is the old tried-and-true gambit that many others have used to attempt to discredit the book over the last decade since it was originally published. In fact, Lyndon Johnson was quite familiar with the worst of those operations.
Anyone who doubts that point should read my books (with a mind more open than Mr. Kelly’s) on his many devious acts as President (see LBJ: From Mastermind to The Colossus, Remember the Liberty and Who REALLY Killed Martin Luther King Jr.). Kelly still does not understand that LBJ was a narcissistic sociopath, who experienced many periods of psychotic breakdowns.
Anyone who would plan an attack on his own ship, with the intent to have it sunk, taking the 294 men on board to the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea — an operation that included dispatching bombers with nuclear warheads to bomb Cairo (cancelled at the last minute when those aircraft were minutes away from Cairo) — should be positive proof of that. The details of that are documented within my books, and the 2020 video Sacrificing Liberty, for anyone who doubts how dangerous LBJ was.
Bill Kelly’s rambling essays—always drifting into journeys down long cow paths, and trips into and out of rabbit holes—sometimes produce a new insight or two of whatever his subject might be. However, at least in what I’ve read, nothing of much consequence, certainly nothing one can call an ephinay.
In missing the most critically-salient points of my original book, it is no surprise that his latest essay winds into an astonishing ending: That the Beatles, attempting to replicate LBJ’s ride through Dealey Plaza, all chose to “duck” as they passed through the kill zone.
It was an amazing find that Kelley uniquely reported in what he considered a serious and scholarly essay. I suppose he deserves some credit for discovering that “fact.” (Or, perhaps the correct verb, rather than “discovered,” is “invented”)??
LBJ: Master of Deceit 