KONSPIRACY KLASSICS KORNER - THE YANKEE AND COWBOY WAR - PART ONE: THE CLANDESTINE ELITES

KONSPIRACY KLASSICS CORNER!

THE YANKEE AND COWBOY WAR

The Astonishing Link between the JFK Assassination and the deposing of Nixon 

Conspiracies from Dallas to Watergate and Beyond

by Carl Oglesby

A few years back, a friend loaned me his copy of Carl Oglesby's The Yankee and Cowboy War, and after reading it I was stunned that I had previously neither read it nor even heard about it. I found it both moving and profoundly impressive. In his masterful dissection of the mid-70's American political milieu, Oglesby gives us nothing less than an absolutely convincing operating model of the forces clashing behind the scenes in post-World War II America, as well as a detailed diagnosis of exactly where and why things went terribly wrong. He presents valuable ideas that have found their way into the works of later authors, most notably Sidney Blumenthal, whose 1986 best-seller The Rise of the Counter-Establishment reads almost like a sequel.

I believe The Yankee Cowboy War is essential reading for anyone searching for honest answers about the origins of our current condition. Unfortunately, the book is long out of print. I also understand that most of you reading this are busy people who don't have time to read every worthy book that there is to read. Therefore, I have decided to use this space to publish my "reading notes", taken during my second reading, so that interested parties can get the gist of the book's main theses, the numerous topics it covers, as well as the individuals and events discussed in it.

I will be posting these reading notes periodically over the next few days. Obviously, this is a poor substitute for reading the book, itself, but it's a decent primer, and for the researcher in a hurry, it should do in a pinch. Watch for further installments, coming soon!

PART ONE: THE CLANDESTINE ELITES

· Watergate and the JFK assassination were not isolated incidents, but linked parts of a secret war between two American Elites: the Yankees (Eastern Establishment) and the Cowboys (Sunbelt, New Money, Counter-Establishment).

· A hidden drama of coup and counter-coup, intrinsically linked conspiracies, inner oligarchic power sphere, invisible gov’t, above the law, beyond moral rule… a clandestine American state, embryonic police state.


· Operation Garden Plot, COINTELPRO, Operation Chaos.

· CIA contracting ITT to oust Allende in Chile is an example of ruthlessness, just like crimes and cover-up at Dealy Plaza and the Watergate.

· What are the origins of these internal government divisions?

1. CIA intel division vs. CIA operational division.
2. Pentagon vs. FBI
3. CIA vs. Pentagon
4. CIA vs. FBI
5. POTUS and all of the above

· Destabilization of the post-Reconstruction unity, which, in turn, was made stronger by FDR in the WWII period (post-war consensus). 60’s, 70’s tumult.

· The intensification of clandestine, illicit measures against racial and anti-war dissent coincided with the use of these methods within the state as post-war consensus failed.

· Dallas/Watergate: breakdown of the incumbent national coalition… Greater Northeast powers with the greater Southwest powers, the post-Civil War, post-Reconstruction coalition, the New Deal, the Yankees and Cowboys.

· Cold War tensions between two separate and distinct and contradictory domains of World Historical Truth: Northeast “détente” and Southwest “militarism”.

· In Europe, we could evidently live with communism, whereas in the Third World, we evidently could not. “Spheres of “détente and violence”… an untenable paradox.

· When it became clear that the USA couldn’t win militarily in the Third World without risking war in the North Atlantic, consensus dissolved.

· Dallas, Nov 22, was an elite power collision, both sensed and real.

· Dichotomous Disunity: The Southwest was pro-escalation, on balance, Frontierist, taking the China-lobby position.

· Dichotomous Disunity: The Northeast was pro-pullback, on balance, Atlanticist, CFR, NATO-conscious position.

· YANKEES:
1. David Rockefeller
2. Ivy League
3. Exclusive clubs of Manhattan, Boston and Georgetown
4. CFR, Round Table
5. Eleanor Roosevelt
6. The Dulles Brothers
7. Massive Retaliation Doctrine
8. The Kennedys

· COWBOYS:
1. Howard Hughes
2. NFL
3. Exclusive clubs of New Orleans, Dallas and Orange County (both sides)
4. LBJ
5. Conally and Hunt
6. Bay of Pigs team
7. Nixon

· The persistence of Civil War splits in the current situation.

· Carroll Quigley had already talked of these themes before Oglesby in his Tragedy and Hope.

· Disintegration of Wall Street influence as the Southwest and Far West influence increase, commensurate with a dissolving of the Middle Class and a rise in bourgeoisie.

· Northeast Establishment: Semi-aristocratic.

· Southwest Counter-Establishment: Petit Bourgeois.

· Southwestern money was dependent on government investment: oil, military, aviation, space, natural resources. This is a paradox.

· Oglesby argues that the Atlanticist / Frontierist split is primal, and that it runs under everything… 1960.

· YANKEE:
1. Global Scope
2. At home in the Great World
3. Regards it as a whole, in context
4. Good World Order = Relations with allies
5. Relations with Western Democracies
6. USA seen as a continuation of Europe’s culture
7. Europe as key world theater
8. Fate of USA linked with Europe
9. White cultural destiny transcending boundaries of nation
10. The West = One World
11. Monopolists who broke faith with the Vietnam project because of the high probability of failure
12. Monopolist East Coast Establishment

· COWBOY:
1. Ties to Europe NOT obvious
2. Old World vs. New World
3. Rejects Atlanticism in favor of Frontierism
4. Expanding wilderness frontier and “Pacific strategy”
5. Cowboy entrepreneurs fought to keep faith alive because of the necessity of success
6. Tycoon (Western)
7. They supported Johnson and Nixon all the way towards a final military solution
8. “Only the strong survive”

· What were the roots of the union in the first place? The frontier which allowed for the continued emergence of  entrepreneurs long after the establishment of the first monopolies.

· Marx never studied states that had so much frontier.

· The frontier was a reprieve for democracy… and capitalism! All it took was genocide.

· Energies of expansion took two centuries… finally taking Alaska and Hawaii. We have no way of knowing how important this expansionism was in keeping the natural American Cowboy/Yankee divide under control.

· The success of various Asian revolutionary movements proved a perplexing dilemma to the USA. With Asians successfully defending themselves as self-modernizing, post-colonial entities against American influence, America had run out of frontier.

· To comprehend the assassination of JFK (as with Lincoln) is to understand a basic event in modern government. It’s a necessity to understand… an “absolute pre-condition” to self-government, the first step towards the restoration of a legitimate state.

· Today’s frontier is the fact that there is no more frontier.

PART TWO COMING SOON!