Uncle John Kennedy. He realized early on that the purpose of the CIA and the intelligence apparatus was to create a constant pipeline of new wars.
Eisenhower, who is the outgoing president, gave what is probably the most important speech in American history, which was, you know, where. He warned against the military industrial complex.
I was at my uncle’s inauguration. I was in Washington, you know, a six year old boy, and two months later the military and intelligence came to him and said, We got to invade Cuba and he was like, I’m not going to Cuba and I’m not going to let the military And they said, Well, we got all these Cubans trained and they’re going to go and attack Castro
And he said, Well, the US government can’t be doing that. I don’t like what Castro is doing down there, but it’s not the United States job to dictate what kind of governments other countries have.
And they said, Well, as soon as they land, there’s going to be a big revolution. Everybody is going to rise up and they’re going to overthrow Castro.
And he said, Well, you can’t use the US military and they ended up bringing those guys over and in the middle of it in the night they came to him and said They’re getting wiped out on the beach and you need to send in the military and invade
And he said, We’re not going to do it He stepped out of that meeting and he realized they had been lying to him and trying to trick him.
And he said, I want to take the CIA and shatter it into 1000 pieces and scatter it to the winds.
For the next 1000 days of his presidency, he was at war with his military and intelligence apparatus.
They tried to get him to go into Laos. He said no.
They tried to get him to go into Vietnam. They said that we need 250,000 combat troops. He refused. Everybody around him want him, Don’t go into Vietnam. He sent 16,000 military advisers, and they were allowed to fight that many of them did. They both violated the rules of engagement.
In October of 1963 he heard some of his green Berets have been killed over there, and he said, I want a total casualty list from Vietnam, and his aide came to him and said 75 Americans have died, and he said that’s too many. And he signed that day a national security order ordering all troops out of Vietnam US troops, and then a month later, he was killed, Uncle John.
– Robert F. Kennedy Jr (Newphew of John F. Kennedy)