A monolithic and ruthless conspiracy: What was John F. Kennedy referring to?
A monolithic and ruthless conspiracy: What was John F. Kennedy referring to?
What was John F. Kennedy referring to when he said “a monolithic and ruthless conspiracy”?
Excerpt
For we are opposed around the world by a monolithic and ruthless conspiracy that relies primarily on covert means for expanding its sphere of influence--on infiltration instead of invasion, on subversion instead of elections, on intimidation instead of free choice, on guerrillas by night instead of armies by day. It is a system which has conscripted vast human and material resources into the building of a tightly knit, highly efficient machine that combines military, diplomatic, intelligence, economic, scientific and political operations.
Its preparations are concealed, not published. Its mistakes are buried, not headlined. Its dissenters are silenced, not praised. No expenditure is questioned, no rumor is printed, no secret is revealed. It conducts the Cold War, in short, with a war-time discipline no democracy would ever hope or wish to match.
He's talking about the Soviet Union. This would have been clear to anyone at the time. Conspiracy just means more than one person working together.
It was mostly before my time, so I don't have that kind of insight. When I read it, it sounds to me a lot like what we see happening in the U.S. today.
It’s pretty funny to see this thread filled with wrong answers by lemmy.world users and those same smuglibs downvoting anyone that suggests otherwise when it’s pretty universally accepted that he was killed by the CIA.
The CIA even did a distinctive CIA-style cleanup job , eliminating all parties with knowledge of the hit afterward.
What for many years seemed unthinkable has turned out to be true after all.
There was a CIA cover-up. The CIA did suppress information. The CIA did stonewall both of the official government investigations of the JFK assassination. And as a consequence of this Agency misconduct, both investigations were compromised in important respects-particularly in regard to the fundamental issues of whether the assassination resulted from a conspiracy and whether Lee Harvey Oswald (alleged to be the sole assassin in the Warren Report and alleged to be one of multiple assassins in the Report of the House Assassinations Committee) was affiliated with the CIA.
Russian and Chinese communism
Probably the oligarchs. They have been trying to install fascist dictatorships for a very long time.
He was talking about worldwide communism. This was during the Cold War and no one would even think America was an oligarchy at the time. The audience knew it was the Soviets he was talking about primarily.
Bookmark worthy, thanks!
it seems like you didn't quite get the responses you were hoping for.
i appreciate your questioning and attempt to reframe the JFK speech in a modern context. it makes sense to me that he might have been speaking about some underground conspiracy which is still in operation today.
👍
I was looking for something that would click in my mind, like when you just know puzzle pieces fit together... and, no, I haven't heard anything like that yet.