This series of posts includes historical clips and commentary on President Eisenhower's Military Industrial Complex Speech, JFK's speech at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel, an interview with former President Harry Truman on JFK's assassination, and a discussion on Truman's call to eliminate the CIA. These clips highlight the warnings given by Eisenhower and JFK, which are still relevant today, as the issues they addressed continue to worsen.
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I put together some historical clips as well as some brief commentary I think you'll find interesting. The first is a clip describing the origins of President Eisenhower's Military Industrial Complex Speech directly followed but the full speech itself. That is followed by the audio of a JFK Speech he gave just a little over 3 months later at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel before the Newspaper Publishers Association, April 27th, 1961.
After that I show you a rare clip of former President Harry Truman being interviewed about his thoughts on the assassination of JFK. Finally, it finishes up with a clip from C-SPAN's Washington Journal discussing Truman's call in the wake of JFK's assassination to eliminate the CIA, the very intelligence agency he helped create.
Now over 60 years later, they remain and everything Eisenhower and JFK warned us about in their speeches has been made manifest and is worsening every year.
Video Transcript AI Summary
Former President Dwight D. Eisenhower delivers a farewell speech warning about the influence of the military-industrial complex. The speech was initially thought to be written by a speechwriter, but recently discovered documents reveal that Eisenhower's brother, Milton, played a significant role in drafting it. Eisenhower expresses concern about the growing power of the military and the arms industry, urging citizens to be vigilant and ensure the proper balance between defense and peaceful goals. The speech emphasizes the need for an informed and knowledgeable citizenry to prevent the combination of military and industrial power from endangering democracy and liberty. The video also discusses President Kennedy's assassination and former President Truman's call to abolish the CIA.
Speaker 0: I come to you with a message of leave taking and farewell.
Speaker 1: This speech did not get very much attention. When a new president is coming to power as John Kennedy was, the spotlight was not on Dwight Eisenhower.
Speaker 0: We have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry A vast proportion.
Speaker 1: There was a feeling at the time that this must have been written by some speechwriter who just sneaked into the speech.
Speaker 0: In the councils of Government, we must car guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex.
Speaker 2: 3 months ago, we got contacted by a family up in Minnesota saying that we have documents from Malcolm Moose. He was responsible in in part for drafting the military industrial company speech.
Speaker 1: These new papers give us written evidence that this was not just some caprice of Eisenhower's or something by some speechwriter.
Speaker 2: You see the evolution of a speech from from May 1959 To, 1961.
Speaker 1: And he wanted to give this speech for a long time, 2 years.
Speaker 0: Our military organization today There's little relation to that known of any of my predecessors in peacetime or indeed by the fighting men of World War 2 or Korea.
Speaker 1: There was one person in Dwight Eisenhower's life whom he really confided almost everything to, and that was his brother, Milton.
Speaker 2: There's one particular document where the speechwriters had already drafted their version of this speech, only this to see, Milton come along and totally revamp what had already been been written.
Speaker 1: When Milton Eisenhower was, taking notes and writing things on the drafts of these speeches, the speech writers knew that wasn't Milton talking, it was Ike.
Speaker 0: The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.
Speaker 1: He would see magazines with advertisements for some, You know, new war plane or some bomb. And he got so angry, he'd take the magazine and throw it into the fireplace of the Oval Office because he felt that Defense spending should not be something that would be encouraged by companies who are seeking commercial gain.
Speaker 0: We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or Democratic processes.
Speaker 2: There is an interesting document. It shows that the farewell speech will be made to congress, But yet president Eisenhower decided, no. He was gonna address the people.
Speaker 0: Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals So that security and liberty may prosper together.
Speaker 1: One test of how well a president speaks is how long the speech lives. Here we are 50 years later. We're still talking about this speech.
Speaker 0: Good evening, my fellow Americans. 1st, I should like to express my gratitude to the radio and television networks for the opportunities they have given me over the years To bring reports and messages to our nation. My special thanks go to them for the opportunity of addressing you this evening. 3 days from now, after half a century in the service of our country, I shall lay down the responsibilities of office As in traditional and solemn ceremony, the authority of the presidency is vested in my successor. This evening, I come to you with a message of leave taking and farewell and to share a few final thoughts with you, My country might.
Like every other sit like every other citizen, I wish the new president And all who will labor with him, godspeed. I pray that the coming years will be blessed with peace and prosperity for all. Our people expect their president and the congress to find essential agreement on issues of great moment. The wise resolution of which will better shape the future of the nation. My own relations with the congress, Which began on a remote and tenuous basis when long ago, a member of the senate appointed me to West Point, Have since reigned to the imminent during the war and immediate postwar period And finally, to the mutually interdependent during these past 8 years.
In this final relationship, The congress and the administration have, on most vital issues, cooperated well. To serve the nation the nation good Rather than mere partisanship, and so have assured that the business of the nation should go forward. So my official relationship with the congress ends in a feeling on my part of gratitude That we have been able to do so much together. We now stand 10 years past the midpoint of a century That has witnessed 4 major wars among great nations. 3 of these involve our own country.
Despite these holocaust, America is today the strongest, the most influential, and most productive nation in the world. Understandably proud of this preeminence, we yet realize that America's leadership and prestige depend Not merely upon our unmatched material progress, riches, and military strength, but on how we use our power in the universe A world peace and human betterment. Throughout America's adventure in free government, Our basic purposes have been to keep the peace, to foster progress in human achievement, and to enhance dignity and integrity among peoples and among nations. To strive for less would be unworthy of a free and religious people. Any failure traceable to arrogance or our lack of comprehension or readiness to sacrifice Would inflict upon us grievous hurt both at home and abroad.
Progress toward these noble goals is threatened by the conflict now engulfing the world. It commands our whole attention, absorbs our very beings. We face a hostile ideology, global in scope, atheistic in character, ruthless in purpose, and insidious In method, unhappily, the danger it poses, promises to be of indefinite duration. To meet it successfully, there is call for not so much the emotional and transitory sacrifices of crisis, But rather those which enable us to carry forward steadily, surely, and without complaint, the burdens of a prolonged and complex struggle With liberty, the state. Only thus shall we remain despite every provocation on our charted course Toward permanent peace and human betterment.
Crises that will continue to be. In meeting them, Whether foreign or domestic, great or small, there is a recurring temptation to feel that some spectacular and costly action Could become the miraculous solution to all current difficulties. A huge increase in newer elements of our defenses. Development of unrealistic programs to cure every ill in agriculture, a dramatic expansion in basic and applied research. These and many other possibilities, each possibly promising itself, may be suggested as the only way To the road we wish to travel, but each proposal must be weighed in the light of a broader consideration.
The need to maintain balance in and among national programs. Balance between the private and the public economy. Balance between the cost and hoped for advantages. Balance between the clearly necessary and the comfortably desirable. Balance between our essential requirements as a nation And the duty is imposed by the nation upon the individual, balance between actions of the moment and the national welfare of the future.
Good judgment seeks balance in progress. Lack of it eventually finds imbalance and frustration. The record of many decades stands as proof that our people and their government have, in the main, understood these truths And they responded to them well in the face of threat and stress. But threats, new in kind or degree, constantly arise. Of these, I mentioned 2 only.
A vital element in keeping the peace is our military establishment. Our arms must be mighty, ready for instant action So that no potential aggressor may be tempted to risk his own destruction. Our military organization today There's little relation to that known of any of my predecessors in peacetime or indeed by the fighting men of World War 2 or Korea. Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well.
But we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense. We have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, 3a half 1000000 men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security alone More than the net income of all United States corporation corporations. Now this conjunction Of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience.
The total influence, Economic, political, even spiritual is felt in every city, every state house, every office of the federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development, yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources, and livelihood are all involved. So is the very scripture of our society. In the councils of government, we must car guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, By the military industrial complex, the potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.
We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense With our peaceful methods and goals so that security and liberty may prosper together. Akin to and largely responsible for the sweeping changes in our industrial military posture has been the technological revolution during recent Decades. In this revolution, research has become central.
It also becomes more formalized, Complex and costly. A steadily increasing share is conducted for, by, or at the direction of the federal government. Today, the solitary inventor tinkering in his shop has been overshadowed by task forces of scientists In laboratories and testing fields, in the same fashion, the free university varsity, Historically, the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge cost involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute For intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard, there are now hundreds of new electronic computers.
The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present And is gravely to be regarded. Yet in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, We must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific Technological elite is the task of statesmanship to mold, to balance, And to integrate these and other forces, new and old, within the principles of our democratic system, ever aiming toward the supreme goals Of our free society. Another factor in maintaining balance involves the element of time. As we peer into society's future, we, you and I, and our government Must avoid the impulse to live only for today, thundering for our own ease and convenience the precious resources of tomorrow. We cannot mortgage the material assets of our grandchildren without risking the loss also of their political and spiritual heritage.
We want democracy to survive for all generations to come, not to become the insolvent phantom Of tomorrow. During the long lane of the history yet to be written, America knows that this world of ours, Ever growing smaller must avoid becoming a community of dreadful fear and hate, and be instead a proud confederation A mutual trust and respect. Such a confederation must be one of equals. The weakest must come to the conference table With the same confidence as do we, protected as we are by our moral, economic, and military strength. That table, those scarred by many fast frustrate fast frustrations, cannot be abandoned for the certainty agony Of disarm of the battlefield.
Disarmament with mutual honor and competence is a continuing imperative. Together, we must learn how to compose differences, not with arms, but with intellect and decent purpose. Because this need is so sharp and apparent, I confess that I lay down my official responsibilities in this field With a definite sense of disappointment. As one who has witnessed the horror and the lingering sadness of war. As one who knows that another war could utterly destroy this civilization, which has been so slowly and painfully built over 1000 of years, I wish I could say tonight that a lasting peace is in sight.
Happily, I can say that war has been avoided. Steady progress toward our ultimate goal has been made, But so much remains to be done. As a private citizen, I shall never cease to do what little I can to help the world advance Along that road. So in this, my last good night to you as your president, I thank you for the many opportunities you have given me For public service in war and in peace. I trust in that in that in that service.
You find some things worthy. As for the rest of it, I know you will find ways to improve performance in the future. You and I, My fellow citizens need to be strong in our faith that all nations under god will reach the goal of peace with justice. May we be ever unswerving in devotion to principle, confident but humble with power, Diligent in pursuit of the nation's great goals. To all the peoples of the world, I once more give expression To America's prayerful and continuing aspiration, we pray that peoples of all faiths, all races, all nations may have their great human needs satisfied, that those now denied opportunity shall come to enjoy it to the full, That all who yearn for freedom may experience its spiritual blessings.
Those who have freedom Will understand also its heavy responsibility that all who are insensitive to the needs of others will learn charity And that the sources, scourges of poverty, disease, and ignorance will be made disappear from the earth. And that in the goodness of time, all peoples will come to live together in a peace guaranteed by the binding force Of mutual respect and love. Now on Friday noon, I am to become a private citizen. I am proud to do so. I look forward to it.
Thank you, and good night.
Speaker 3: Remarks of the president to the American Newspaper Publishers Association, Waldorf Astoria Hotel, New York City, April 27, 1961. Mister Chairman, ladies and gentlemen, I appreciate very much your Enverse invitation to be here tonight. You bear heavy responsibilities these days. And a Article I read some time ago reminded me of how particularly heavily the burdens of present day events bear upon your profession. You remember may remember that in 1851, New York or tribune under the sponsorship and publishing of Horace Greeley, employed All it is, it's London correspondent, an obscure journalist by the name of Karl Marx.
We are told that foreign correspondent Marx Bonebroke and with a family ill and undernourished, constantly appealed to Greeley and managing Editor Charles Dana for an increase in his munificent salary of $5 per installment. A Gowrie, which he and Ingalls ungratefully label as the lousiest, petty bourgeois cheating. But when all his Financial appeals were refused. Marx looked around for other means of livelihood and fame. Eventually, terminating his relationship with the tribune and devoting his talents full time to the cause that would bequeath to the world the seeds of Leninism, Revolution and the Cold War.
If only this capitalistic New York newspaper I treated him more kindly. If only Marx had remained a foreign correspondent, History might have been different. And I I hope all publishers will bear this lesson in mind. The Next time they receive a poverty stricken appeal from a small increase in the expense account from an obscure newspaper Paper man. I have, selected as the title of my remarks tonight, President and the press.
Some may suggest that this would be more naturally worded, the president versus the press, but those Those are not my sentiments tonight. It is true, however, that when a well known diplomat from another country demanded recently that our state Ahmad repudiate certain newspaper attacks on his colleague. It was unnecessary for us to reply that this administration was not responsible for the press, for the press had already made it that it was not responsible for this administration. Nevertheless, my Purpose here tonight is not to deliver the usual assault on the so called one party press. On the contrary, in recent months, I I rarely heard any complaints about political bias in the press except from a few Republicans.
Nor Or is it my purpose tonight to discuss or defend the televising of presidential press conferences? I I think it is highly beneficial to have some 20,000,000 Americans regularly sit in on these conferences to observe, If I may say so, the incisive, the intelligent, and the courteous qualities displayed by your Washington Respondents. Nor finally, Are these remarks intended to examine the proper degree of privacy which the press should allow to any president and his family? If If in the last few months, your White House reporters and photographers have been in have been attending church services with Regularity. That has surely done them no harm.
On the other hand, I realize that your staff and wire service may be complaining that they do not enjoy the same green privileges, the local golf courses, which they Once did, it is true that my predecessor did not object as I do to pictures of one's golfing skill in action. But Either on the other hand, did he ever been a secret service man. My, topic tonight is a more A sober one of concern to publishers as well as editors. I wanna talk about our common responsibilities in the Face of a common danger. The events of recent weeks may have helped to illuminate that challenge for some, but the dimensions of its have loomed large in the horizon for many years.
Whatever our hopes may be for the future, for reducing this threat, or or living with it, there is no escaping either the gravity or the totality of its challenge to our survival and to Our security, a challenge that confronts us in unaccustomed ways in every sphere of human activity. This This deadly challenge imposes upon our society 2 requirements of direct concern, Both to the press and to the president, two requirements that may seem almost contradictory in tone, but which must be reconciled and fulfilled Bill, if we are to meet this national peril, I refer first to the need for far greater public information, and second to the need for far greater official secrecy. The very word secrecy is repugnant in a free and open party. And we are, as a people, inherently and historically opposed to secret societies, to secret notes and the secret proceedings. We decided long ago that the dangers of excessive and unwarranted concealment of Certain facts far outweigh the dangers which are cited to justify it.
Even today, there is Little value in opposing the threat of a closed society by imitating its arbitrary restrictions. Even today, there There is little value in ensuring the survival of our nation if our traditions do not survive with it. And there There is very grave danger that an announced need for increased security will be seized on by those anxious to expand its meaning to the very limits of official censorship and concealment. That That I do not intend to permit to the extent that it's in my control. And no official of my administration, whether his rank is high I or low, civilian or military, should interpret my words here tonight as an excuse to censor the news, to for dissent to cover up our mistakes or to withhold from the press and the public the facts they deserve to know.
But I do I ask but I do ask every publisher, every editor, and Every newsman in the nation to reexamine his own standards and to recognize the nature of our country's Arrow, in time of war, the government and the press have customarily joined in an effort based Largely on self discipline to prevent unauthorized disclosures to the enemy. In times of clear and present danger, the courts have held that even the Parts have held that even the privileged rights of the first amendment must yield to the public's need for national security. Today, no war has been declared. And however fierce the struggle may be, it may never be declared in the traditional fashion. Our Our way of life is under attack.
Those who make themselves our enemy are advancing around the globe. The Bible of our friends is in danger, and yet no war has been declared. No borders have been crossed by marching troops. No missiles have been fired. If the press is awaiting a declaration of war before imposes the self discipline of combat conditions, then I can only say that no war ever posed a greater threat to our security.
If you are awaiting a finding of clear and present danger, then I can only say that the danger has never been more clear, and its Presence has never been more imminent. It requires a change in outlook, a change in tactics, a change in missions by the Government, by the people, by every businessman or labor leader, and by every newspaper. For we are opposed around the world by a monolithic and ruthless conspiracy that relies primarily on 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 Takes a buried, not headline. Its dissenters are silenced, not praised. No expenditure is questioned. No No rumor is printed. No secret is revealed.
It conducts the cold war in short with a wartime discipline no No democracy would ever hope or wish to match. Nevertheless, every democracy recognizes the necessary restraints of national security. And the question remains whether those restraints need to be more strictly observed if we ought to oppose this kind of attack as well as outright invasion. For the facts of the matter are that this nation's have openly boasted of acquiring through our newspapers information they would otherwise hire agents to acquire through theft, bribery, or espionage. Fire through theft, bribery, or espionage.
The details of this nation's covert preparations, the count Out of the enemy's covered operations have been available to every newspaper reader, friend and foe alike, that the size, the strength, the location, and the nature of our forces and weapons, and our plans and strategy for their use have All been pinpointed in the press and other news media to a degree sufficient to satisfy any foreign power. And But in at least one case, the publication of details concerning a secret mechanism whereby satellites were Followed, required its alteration at the expense of considerable time and money. The newspapers which printed these stories were Loyal, patriotic, responsible, and well meaning. Had we been engaged in open warfare, they undoubtedly would not have published such items. But in the Absence of open warfare, they recognized only the tests of journalism and not the tests of national And my question tonight is whether additional tests should not now be adopted.
That question is for you alone to answer. No No public official should answer it for you. No governmental plan should impose its restraints against your will. But I would be failing in my duty to the nation in considering all of the responsibilities that we now bear and all of the means at hand to meet those Those responsibilities, if I did not command this problem to your attention and urge its thoughtful consideration. On many earlier occasions, I have said, and your newspapers have constantly said, that these are times that appeal to Every citizen's sense of sacrifice and self discipline.
They call out to every citizen to weigh his rights and against his obligations to the common good. I cannot now believe that those citizens who in the newspaper business consider themselves exempt from that appeal. I have no intention of Publishing a new office of war information to govern the flow of news. I am not suggesting any new forms of censorship or new types of security classifications. I have no easy answer to the Thirty classifications.
I have no easy answer to the dilemma that I opposed and would not seek to impose it if I I had one, but I am asking the members of the newspaper profession and the industry in this country to reexamine their own to consider the degree and the nature of the present danger and to heed the duty of self restraint, which that danger imposes
Speaker 0: upon us all.
Speaker 3: Every newspaper now asks itself, Oases upon us all. Every newspaper now asks itself with respect to every story, is it news? All All I suggest is that you add the question, is it in the interest of national security? And I hope that every group in America, unions and businessmen and Public officials at every level will ask the same question of their endeavors and subject their actions to this same exacting test. And should the acting test.
And should the press of America consider and recommend the voluntary assumption of specific new or machinery. I can assure you that we will cooperate wholeheartedly with those recommendations. Perhaps there will be no recommendations. Perhaps there is no answer to the dilemma faced by a free and Perhaps there is no answer to the dilemma faced by a free and open society in a cold and secret war. In Times of peace, any discussion of this subject, and any action that results are both painful and without Of precedent.
But this is a time of peace and peril, which knows no precedent in history. It It's the unprecedented nature of this challenge that also gives rise to your second obligation, an obligation which I share, and That is our obligation to inform and alert the American people, to make certain that they possess all the facts that they need and understand them as Well, the perils, the prospects, the purposes of our program, and the choices that we face. No president should fear public scrutiny of his program. For from that scrutiny comes understanding. And from that understanding comes or opposition, and both are necessary.
I am not asking your newspapers to support an administration, but I am asking your Oh, and the tremendous task of informing and alerting the American people. For I have complete confidence And the response and dedication of our citizens whenever they are fully Formed, I not only could not stifle controversy among your readers, I welcome it. This administration intends to be candid about its errors. For as a wise man once said, an error doesn't become a mistake until you refuse to correct it. We intend to accept full responsibility for our errors, and we expect you to point them out when we miss them.
Without Without debate, without criticism, no administration and no country can succeed, and no republic can survive. That That is why the Athenian lawmaker, Solon, decreed it a crime for any citizen to shrink from controversy. And that That is why our press was protected by the first amendment. The only business in America specifically protected by the constitution, not Primarily to amuse and entertain, not to emphasize the trivial and the sentimental, not to simply give the public what it wants, but to inform, to arouse, to reflect, to state our dangers and Our opportunities to indicate our crises and our choices to lead, mold, educate, and Sometimes even anger public opinion. This means greater coverage and analysis of international news, for Or it is no longer far away and foreign, but close at hand and local.
It means greater attention to improved understanding of the news as well as improved transmission. And it means finally, that government at all levels must meet its obligation to provide you with Provide you with the fullest possible information outside the narrowest limits of national security, and we intend to do it. It It was early in 17th century that Francis Bacon remarked on 3 recent inventions already transforming the world, the Compass, gunpowder, and the printing press. Now the links between the nations, first by the compass have made us all citizens of the world. The hopes and threats of us all.
In that one world's effort to live together, the evolution of gunpowder to Its ultimate limit has warned mankind of the terrible consequences of failure. And so it is to the printing press, to the recorder of Order of man's deeds, the keeper of his conscience, the courier of his news, that we look for strength and distance. Confident that with your help, man will be what he was born to be, free and independent.
Speaker 4: Oh, well, I was, Very much, shocked and hurt when I heard of the passing of the president of the United States. He was a good man, an able presence, and he did a good job. And it's too bad that those things have to happen, particularly by some good for nothing fellow who didn't have anything else to do but to, try to take the head of the Stay away from us, but, we have to make those things. It's been done time, time and again before. It was attempted one time when I remember it very well, but it didn't succeed.
Speaker 3: I imagine that reminds you of a time 20 years ago. How can you Advise mister Johnson, as
Speaker 4: prepared to Mister Johnson needs any advice. He'll ask me for it. He's the president of the United States. The man doesn't volunteer, information to the president unless he asks for it. Too many of you did that to me, and I didn't pay any attention to you.
Speaker 0: Have you been asked to call on the president now? I have not.
Speaker 4: Have you talked to president Johnson
Speaker 3: He's taken off. I have.
Speaker 4: I've talked to him.
Speaker 3: Could you tell us something about the conversation?
Speaker 4: Will not because that's confidential. You ask the president if you wanna What are
Speaker 3: your plans right now, sir?
Speaker 4: Go to the hotel and sit down if I can.
Speaker 0: Answer that caller. Thank you.
Speaker 5: Yeah. You know, A month after Kennedy's assassination, former president Harry Truman, the 33rd president, wrote an editorial in the Washington Post In which he called for the abolition of the CIA. Now Truman did not talk about JFK's assassination in that column, And he never publicly linked his opinion to Kennedy's assassination. But there's no doubt that Truman's Call for the abolition of the CIA was a direct response to the assassination of Kennedy. Harry Truman knew more about the CIA than anybody.
He was the one who signed it into existence in 1947. Let me say reluctantly. Initially, Harry Truman was against the creation of a central intelligence agency, a peacetime intelligence agency. He said in 1945, We don't want an American gestapo because a peacetime and secret intelligence agency, he viewed as a threat to the democratic process. 2 years later, The Cold War is heating up.
Truman wants a source of information, and he's he agrees. He relents and allows the the the creation of the CIA, and he signs it into existence. When he's signing the CIA into existence, he's saying we have to make sure that we don't have an American Gestapo. He still had that same concern about a secret police. 14 years later, Kennedy was killed.
Truman had had enough, and he said, let's abolish the CIA. Okay. So the concern about the CIA and the Kennedy's assassination started immediately, and it started at the top of the US government.
