THE ASSASSINATION OF KENNEDY
Its Political Background and Aftermath
By Joseph Hansen
The upsetting effect in world politics of the assassination of President Kennedy will take some time to subside. The fear which any shift in the White House inspires is associated with the enormous power that has been concentrated there. The President of the United States -- he alone -- has final control over the button that can start up the rockets and perhaps condemn all the higher forms of life on this planet to nuclear destruction. That this god=like power should be subject to alteration by a paranoiac killer of the kind that makes up the typical lynch mob of the South testifies to the role that sheer accident now plays in determining the fate of the world,
It is quite understandable that international opinion should be alarmed at the unpredictable consequences of this assassination at the very pinnacle of the main center of capitalist society,
The American public was completely stunned. To most Americans it appears beyond belief that such an utterly irrational deed could occur in the United States. Because the country escaped becoming a battlefield in World War I or World War II, because it has not directly experienced fascism or military-police dictatorship, the general image remains of an America immune to horrible deeds of this kind. What may have occurred in the past has been dimmed by time and its connection with the present has been broken in the popular mind,
This belief in American imauntty persists even though fow weeks go by in which the TV screen fails to bring into the living room Scenes of similar violence elsewhere in the world -= Lumumba butchered in the Congo, de Gaulle the target of machine guns near Paris, Trujillo slain in the Dominican Republic, Kassem of Iraq executed in & coup d'état, the husband and brother-in-law of Madame Nhu downed in blood. . .. Such things simply do not seem quite real to Americans, They are like plots in novels about foreign countries, having nothing
WORLD OUTLO ) : | Unsigned
to do with the United States, a sanctuary from the political patterns that operate with strange logic in alien lands.
The Deliberate Cultivation of Violence
American ruling circles themselves share in this illusion, Thus in the postwar world they seemed to consider themselves exempt from any repercussions to their deployment of the full power of American. capitalism in bolstering the most reactionary regimes, beginning with the Mikado and extending to fascist butcher Franco of Spain. Under the general banner of fighting "Communism," America's ruling families built the most powerful system of interlocking military alliances the world has known and set out in a mad race to stockpile nuclear weapons in preparation for another war, Much of this reactionary foreign policy was carried out quite openly with the Soviet Union frankly named as the principal target, as if the authors were higher beings living in a sphere that could not be touched by their mundane doings. Even the Central Intelligence Agency had its enthusiastic partisans who boasted of operations in countless areas and the "cloakeand=dagger" work which had such consequences as toppling a legitimately elected government of Guatemala.
Kennedy himself assumed direct responsibility for putting into motion the abortive invasion of Cuba, preparations for which were initiated by Eisenhower, Last year the White House subjected the ee entire world to a fearful nightmare when it announced that unless pened Khrushchev backed down, the final order would be given for nuclear war. What odd minds these rulers have to imagine that fostering and prace ticing violence abroad on a rising scale for two decades, after a war that closed with Hiroshima and. Nagasaki, would not finally have its reflection in domestic politics]
Of course, the strenuous efforts to push back or "contain" colonial freedom and social emancipation movements abroad, which brought the U.S, into the Korean War, into conflict with the Cuban people, and into the morass of Vietnam, have long had a symmetrical form at home.
This began under Truman as a “loyalty purge" in 1947 and rose to an insane crescendo under Eisenhower as "McCarthyism." The worst witech=hnunt in the history of America eventually subsided but it still exists in virulent pockets and in the form of a general erosion of democracy. It engendered dozens of fascistelike organizations. Many are small groups but some exist on a nation-wide scale. One of them, the John Birch Society, has big sources of funds and tens of thous~ ands of members. In some areas it exerts considerable influence,
The witch<hunt atmosphere acted like a hot house in nurturing racist organizations of the Ku Klux Klan and White Citizens Council type. These sinister formations, with all their links to the local police and local government, especially in the South, were activated to a high degree by the most reactionary forces of the country in hope of stemming another most important development in the United States «- the rise of the Negro struggle for full equality.
The Violent Response to the Negroes ce ae ee ow uy ns
The mass movement of 18,000,000 Negroes in the United States, seeking recognition of their rights as human beings and citizens, has been met in the most ferocious way, and the spearhead of the reaction is in the Deep South where a riffraff exists thoroughly mentally poisoned with racist views (and "anti-Catholicism" ) overlaid by two decades and more of Vanti- Communism," - _
A whole series of lynch murders have occurred in recent years in the South, Only the two latest need be cited as reminders: the bombing of children at a Sunday School and the murder of Medgar Evers, field secretary in Mississippi of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, The latter case is particularly instructive in showing the pattern of political assassination often practiced in the South, ;
Unlike the classical political assassin abroad, who openly proclaims his views and sacrifices his own life to make known’ the reasons for his ill-advised deed, the political assassin of tthe South kills from ambush - _ and runs, Medgar Evers was murdered by one of the highly skilled marksmeny so common in this region where children grow up with sporting guns. The killer used a high-powered rifle equipped with a telescopic sight, The execution instrument, which the assassin abandoned after slaying his victim on the front porch of his home, was later traced. - The trial of the man charged wituths murccr, Byron De La Beckwith, has been "delayed" while Mississippi " justice" decides if he should have a "mental examination." The "delay" in this case as in so many similar . cases is an integral part of the atmosphere that fosters assassination.as.. a common political tool. The line between a black Evers fighting for the Negro people and a white president who seems to favor that cause is easily. crossed by an unbalanced mind, Crisis for Democratic Party
The legitimate demands of the Negro people,and the ferocious resistance of the ragists to conceding to them, gave the Democratic party a. crisis of the first order. Kennedy's attempted solution was to offer further concessions to the Negro people but strictly within the limits of "tokenism," that is, small gestures largely of symbolic value, This © attempted solution was embodied in the weak civil-rights measure now before Congress, .
The Southern Bourbons, following their traditional course of making the record against.even token concessions, which they themselves privately recognize may be inevitable, opposed Kennedy's course, Some of them did So in language calculated to inflame to the utmost their racist-minded Supporters,
The result was a decline in Kennedy's standing among bigoted white voters in the South and similar elements in the North, As part of the preparations for next year's election, Kennedy had to open a counter. campaign, This was the background to his ill-fated trip to Dallas.
wan.
Deep in the Heart of Texas
In selecting Dallas, Kennedy was not choosing just any city of the American hinterland, He’ was opening his campaign in the heartland of racism and one of its main bastions, Dallas, Texas, has a most evil repu=. tation, . aa
Under its motto of "Friendship" it provides a home for such outfits as "Texans for America," the founder of which favors lynching Earl Warren, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Another Dallas organization is the "National Indignation Convention" which has been pressuring Congress =~. not without results -- to withdraw aid to Communist nations like Yugoslavia. The John Birch Society has a network of secret members in Dallas. ‘Two. of the country's outstanding fascist-minded figures live there: Oil million~ aire H.L Hunt, close friend of the late Senator Joseph McCarthy, who has financed a weekly local television program for the past ten years reflecting his reactionary views; and Major General Edwin A. Walker who has been involved in racist disturbances in other states. Outside the general's home stand five American flags, Three weeks ago he flew them upside down. to protest the city's apology to Adlai Stevenson who was a. recent victim of demonstrators there.
tthe political temper of the city was well indicated by the Stevenson incident, When the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations visited Dallas a month ago, he was mobbed by a crowd who spat at him. A woman struck him with a picket sign. It was a kind of warning of the reception that might be prepared for Kennedy. Strange "Evidence"
In the light of all this, what kind of estimate must be made of the “evidence” that the alleged assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, a native of nearby Fort Worth, acted as a tool of "Gastro" anda the "Soviet Union" in shooting the President? ; Lo.
Up to the moment the suspect has vigorously denied the crime although | apparently subjected to third-degree methods of questioning. Whatever the truth of his involvement. may be, the references ta "Castro," the "Soviet | Union" and "Communism" are suspect on the face of it, The whole political pattern of the crime, including the place, fits in with the ideology, . temperament and long~time practices of the racists and not at all with left-wing radicalism in the United States,
The political motivation is self-evident. To the racist mind, Kennedy was "Catholic," "pro-Negro" and therefore "pro=Communist." If he were removed, Vice~President Johnson, a Southerner, would succeed him in office.
What better way to cover up such a crime, to conceal the political’ motivation, than by throwing the blame on the "reds"?
If Oswald is the actual assassin, and if he did belong to the "Fair Play for Cuba Committee" as some papers report, and the "Communist party": as different ones allege, then. his other associations should be probed to ascertain if he did not play the role of a provocateur, The allegation in
some accounts that he "tried" to join an “anti-Castro" organization throws: still further uncertainty on his real political allegiances,
Tne heaping up of "Communist associations" is in itself most suspici~ ous, The Fair Play for Cuba Committee is largely a campus organization engaged in publicity work whose efforts have been supported by such figures as the late C, Wright Mills. Among its members can be found socialists but very few members of the Communist party. This is due to policy differences which the Communist party had. from the beginning with the Fair Play for Cuba Committee and wnich led it to largely boycott its activities,
An assassin whose political crime fits in with the racist violence. of the South and who yet belonged to both the Communist party and the Fair Play for Cuba Committee? The combination reduces the charge to an absurd= ity. A police department that presents this as "evidence" should be immediately subjected to thorough investigation itself for links with the racist=-minded organizations of the South capable of plotting a major : political crime of this kind, Another grimmer possibility is that this note has been struck to turn the assassination to account in a fresh revi~ “val of the witeh-hunt. The New President |
Whet does the accession of Johnson to the Presidency. portend?.. Does it imply an abrupt shift in American foreign policy and a drastic turn in domestic politics?
Johnson is a political representative of the Southern Bourbons. He represents the reactionary Southern wing of the Democratic party. It would be an error, however, to conclude from this that a big shift in policies can now be expected, ‘especially toward the right,
"Kennedy was no "leftist." This was dramatically shown at the Demo~ cratic convention that nominated him, for his personal choice for the vicepresidential candidate was Johnson, a decision which the bureaucrats of the labor movement had difficulty stomaching,
Kennedy made no significant changes in the policies followed before him by Truman and Eisenhower, He continued the preparations for another wer, He continued to back reactionary regimes abroad. He continued "“yight-of=center™ policies in the United States, What he added was the verbal gloss of liberalism which is the stock in trade of the Northern wing of the Democratic machine.
Johnson can be expected to follow the same basic course without much deviation, It is the mainstream of imperialist politics as practiced by . both Republicans and Democrats when they are in control of the White House and Congress, .
Some particular variations will, however, soon become evident. John= son, a man who worked his way up from the bottom, happens to be one of the most skilled practical politicians in the trade, a professional of the school of Southern Bourbonism with a background of generations in the art of rule, For all his autocratic and egoistic reputation, he is as calcu-
lating a politician as is to be found in any country.
As the representative of a sector of the American ruling class he will do his utmost to advance its particular interests but not at the expense of the class as a whole, His main special problems are: (1) To prove: that the Southern Bourbons, after being excluded from the White House for a century, are capable of skillfully handling. the general interests of the capitalist class. (2) To put the Democratic party in position to win the next. election despite the loss of Kennedy. (3) To win the nomination at the next convention of the Democratic party as Truman did before him,
The principal threat to these ambitions is Nelson Rockefeller, whose public image, despite his name, comes closest to that of Kennedy,
Rather than torpedoing the course charted by Kennedy; that is, of appearing as the advocate of civil-rights legislation, Johnson is quite capable of the tactic of attempting to appear as the inheritor and executor of the Kennedy program. Moreover, he has a rather better chance than | Kennedy of putting it over since it really consists largely of demagogy anyway, and any radical statements he makes will be much more: readily discounted by the Southern racists than when they were offered in the accent of Boston and Harvard, dene
How Will the Negro People React?
The one great unknown is how the assassination of Kennedy may eventu~ ally affect the movement among the Negro people to orgenize an independent political party of their own.
This thovement can be quickened by the appearance of a direct repre= sentative of the Bourbons in the White House, a development that emphasizes the unsuitability of the Democratic party to express the political inter ests of the Negro people and the allied layers.of the population,
In this major area of American politics, an area of great unrest and uncertainty at the moment, the assassination of Kennedy enters as a new imponderable. Johnson will undoubtedly place this problem at the top of . his political agenda, for the Negro vote is now decisive in the key cities of the North, .
One consequence of the assassination will most surely be a strengthening of the wing of the Negro movement that has become convinced of the futility and positive danger of relying on "non-violent" means; that is, Foregoing effective measures Of self-defense,
"What the assassination most clearly points up is how much the pattern of violence, characteristic of societies in decay, has now da an element of the American political scene,
November 24, 1963
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PEASANTS ATTACKED IN PERU ——