Fourth Reich Archaeology

• The Warren Commission Decided 12: Lie-beler

  Finally, we land on the original Warren Commission Defender, junior staff member Wesley J. (“Jim”) Liebeler. Liebeler, 24 years younger than his senior partner, Albert Jenner, came to the Commission from U. Chicago law school, specifically recommended by his lawschool classmate, one Kenneth Dam. Both Dam and Liebeler were acolytes of the “law and economics” school - a legal theory fusing libertarian jurisprudence with the neoliberal, neoclassical economics of the “Chicago school” of shock-doctrine disaster capitalism.We discuss how Liebeler embodied the “gunner” lawyer prototype and how he brought that attitude to his work. He was a guy who knew how to play the middle to please everybody and advance his own star. For example, even though he went on record, writing a memo to Lee Rankin raising some serious questions about the Warren Report’s evidentiary weaknesses, he also took it upon himself to tie up some of the very loose ends he was concerned with in a way that tamped down evidence tending to show a conspiracy.In this regard, we take a deep dive into the “Odio incident,” wherein Dallas Cuban Silvia Odio was visited by a man she identified as Lee Harvey Oswald in September 1963, among a group of anti-Castro Cubans talking about wanting to assassinate the President. Liebeler’s conduct in that affair paints a disturbing picture of the man and his ethics, which casts further suspicion over his long and illustrious post-Commission career defending the Warren Report in the court of public opinion all over the country. This episode ties off our excavation into the Warren Commission staff attorneys for now, so we conclude it by zooming out to revisit the question we started with way back in Episode 7: How is it possible that all of these independent-minded professional men with no ulterior motives but to find the Truth about the President’s assassination could countenance a coverup of a conspiracy?

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• The Warren Commission Decided 11: White Russians / Black Ops pt. C

  We return this week with another installment of our deep dive into the impact of Bert Jenner, the Warren Commission lawyer responsible for preparing the Report’s profile on Lee Harvey Oswald.  And boy has this one taken us places.   Recall that we started out this journey in The Warren Commission Decided Episode 10, by illustrating the deep connection between Jenner and General Dynamics, the company that was awarded a record-breaking $7 billion dollar contract to build a state of the art fighter jet out of its facility in North Texas.  When General Dynamics made this deal, Jenner was lead counsel to the company and its controlling shareholder, Henry Crown, and he also sat on its Board of Directors. This matters because a key focus of Jenner’s investigation was the White Russian colony that formed the Oswalds’ social circle in Dallas in the months leading up to JFK’s assassination, and his key witness from that milieu was Lee Oswald’s good friend, George de Mohrenschildt. We spent much of the last two episodes establishing de Mohrenschildt’s ties to the intelligence community, which had a heavy footprint in Dallas and in the Texas oil industry, and which unsurprisingly overlapped with Jenner’s corporate sugar daddy – General Dynamics.  Having taken a brief contextual detour to explore the de Mohrenschildts, their connection to the underbelly of the corrupt Texas military-industrial-oil-intelligence complex, and Lee Harvey Oswald, we return to Jenner this week and cover the nitty gritty of the work he did interrogating the de Mohrenschildts. In some ways, this episode provides a master class on how to interrogate a witness either to elicit – or avoid – certain testimony.  Whether through intimidation, exhaustion, or even weaponized incompetence, Jenner was learned in all the ways.  And in this episode, we show how Jenner deployed all these tricks to divert investigation away from the North Texas intelligence community and get George de Mohrenschildt to provide exactly the testimony he needed to prop up LHO as the deranged love scorned maniac who shot Kennedy. Remember, we are doing all of this to challenge one of the most persuasive anti-conspiracy lines deployed against Warren Commission critics, which is “how could all of those staff lawyers on the Commission really be in on a coverup? They’re independent-minded guys, and respectable attorneys, with no political bag to carry!” We tie it all back together to show that contrary to the popular argument against the Warren Commission cover up, there is ample evidence to show that all it took was a few key individuals like Jenner or Arlen Specter in the right places.  Even without imputing treasonous or criminal intentions to these cover-uppers, we illustrate how they played a crucial role in controlling the narrative of the Commission’s investigation and the ultimate conclusion that Oswald was the lone nut who capped Jack. Only our most loyal fans would have read this far, and if we’ve got that right, please consider giving us a donation on Patreon so that we can keep this project going: www.Patreon.com/fourthreicharchaeologyWe think you’ll agree when we say that now more than ever the world ought to know how and why it came to be that we are, most unfortunately, living in the Fourth Reich.

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• The Warren Commission Decided 3: Commissioners Assemble

  Last week, we talked about how President Lyndon Johnson came to put together a top-flight blue ribbon commission to cover up the Kennedy assassination. For the next two episodes, we go around the table and introduce the listener to each of the seven members of that  commission. As we do, we also receive a masterclass on how to lie, manipulate, coerce, and outright strongarm to get your way. At the head of the class is LBJ. Along with its chairman, Earl Warren, the Warren Commission consisted of two members from each chamber of Congress: one Democrat and one Republican. The Commission also had “two members of the public.” This week we cover the Warren Commission’s chairman, its members who served in the House of Representatives, and its Democrat Senator. First, we introduce Chief Justice Earl Warren, who was the ringleader of the ragtag team of spooks, drunks, racists, and rats. Warren was the perfect man to lend his name to the cover-up. He had spent the last 10 years building the public’s trust by overseeing the most progressive shift in the history of Supreme Court jurisprudence, including classics like Brown v. Board of Education and Gideon v. Wainwright. For his Democratic Senator pick, LBJ chose Senator Richard “Dick” Russell of Georgia. Russell mentored LBJ in the Senate and was a logical pick to serve as LBJ’s “inside man.” There was just one problem. Russell was a Dixiecrat and staunch segregationist, which made him Earl Warren’s arch-nemesis. LBJ bullies him like a boy. We play the tapes. It’s incredible.For the Democratic Congressman, LBJ picked Hale Boggs of Louisiana. Where Russell was an offensive pick, Boggs was a defensive one. In the days leading up to the announcement of the Warren Commission, Boggs - who had been a great admirer of the slain JFK - was vocal about the need to initiate an independent, unbiased investigation. To nip that in the bud, LBJ neutralized Boggs by bringing him in the fold. And you know we had to save the best for last. Our day one homie, Jerry Ford. Jerry was the Republican Congressman pick, and LBJ chose him for all the reasons we’ve discussed in Jerryworld. At this point Jerry was a national brand, with a reputation for being a team player, a hard worker, and a straight shooter. In fact, in LBJ’s eyes, Jerry looked like the perfect mark to be his bagman–after all Jerry was still a young up and comer. Little did LBJ know that Jerry was playing him for a fool and serving as mole to none other than J Edgar Hoover.

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• Jerryworld 1: Origins

  Published on the 50th Anniversary of his ascension to the highest office in the world, this is the first installment of our excavation into the life, times, and meaning of the presidency of Gerald R. Ford, Jr.  Ford is an ideal case-study for the consolidation of the Fourth Reich through the vessel that is the quintessential modern American everyman. In this episode, we first discuss some of the major recurring themes that mark our exploration of Ford's life. Those are:American Exceptionalism (aka American Imperialism) and settler colonialismThe "Greatest Generation" and the myth of Good Guys (Freedom & Democracy) vs. Bady Guys (Totalitarianism)Freemasonry, other Secret Societies, and their role in American political lifeAmerican expansionism and the promise of unending growthWe will also explore the early years of Gerald Ford’s biography. We touch on the traumas from Jerry’s early days and the horrific events that indelibly marked his psyche: the fraught relationship between his birth parents, the settler-colonial ideology and pedigree of his forebearers, and his ultimate upbringing in a household striving to ascend the socio-economic ladder in middle America straddling the first world war. Support us on Patreon: www.patreon.com/fourthreicharchaeology

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• Jerryworld 2: Leatherhead

  In this episode, we start off with a geographical and cultural tour of Grand Rapids, Michigan - Jerry's real hometown - with a little narrative help from the words of Grand Rapids native, Paul Schrader, spoken by the great George C. Scott. The class-based and ethnic lines demarcating the city's neighborhoods, plus the Calvinist work ethic pervading its business community, shaped the man Jerry would grow into.We consider Jerry's choice of the working-class South High School over the more affluent Central High, and run into his early anti-communist sentiments and actions. Jerry became a football star, and with that stardom came popularity. His popularity (and a little willingness to bend the rules) would eventually win him his first trip to the nation's capitol. But it wasn't all sunshine and rainbows for young Jerry - we'll also dig into Jerry's traumatic reunion with his deadbeat birth-father, Leslie Lynch King, and discuss how Jerry began balancing his budding sense of class-resentment with his instinctive political knack for maintaining good terms with all potential allies.After graduating high school in 1931, it was off to the University of Michigan for Jerry, where he worked his way through school, worked his way into a popular fraternity, and worked his football team to back-to-back national championships. We'll explore the much-mythologized relationship between Jerry and his Black friend and teammate, Willis Ward with a little cameo from none other than George W. Bush.Finally, we will follow Jerry's relationship with the man he'd later refer to as his "real father" forward in time and watch him put his conflict-resolution skills to the test. Patreon: www.patreon.com/fourthreicharchaeology

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