Top Left Link Buttons
  • English

Dennis Speed — Freedom From Fear: Dr. Martin Luther King Confronts the International Assassination Bureau

Dennis Speed — Freedom From Fear: Dr. Martin Luther King Confronts the International Assassination Bureau

A time comes when silence is betrayal. In the face of today’s march toward thermonuclear war, the truth must be told about the international assassination bureau that kills American and world leaders, including today. When Franklin Delano Roosevelt, on March 4, 1933, pronounced his famous admonition that “The only thing we have to fear, is fear itself, nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance,” he had just survived an assassination attempt in Florida on February 15, 1933. This was an attempt which killed the mayor of Chicago instead. Lyndon LaRouche often pointed out that prominent figures are assassinated not so much for what they have done, as for what they are about to do. Consider that as you listen to these remarks made President John F. Kennedy at the United Nations on September 20, 1963, just over two months before he would be murdered in Dallas.

PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY: The task of building the peace lies with the leaders of every nation, large and small. For the great powers have no monopoly on conflict or ambition. The cold war is not the only expression of tension in this world—and the nuclear race is not the only arms race. Even little wars are dangerous in a nuclear world. The long labor of peace is an undertaking for every nation—and in this effort none of us can remain unaligned. To this goal none can be uncommitted.

The reduction of global tension must not be an excuse for the narrow pursuit of self-interest. If the Soviet Union and the United States, with all of their global interests and clashing commitments of ideology, and with nuclear weapons still aimed at each other today, can find areas of common interest and agreement, then surely other nations can do the same—nations caught in regional conflicts, in racial issues, or in the death throes of old colonialism. Chronic disputes which divert precious resources from the needs of the people or drain the energies of both sides serve the interests of no one—and the badge of responsibility in the modern world is a willingness to seek peaceful solutions.

It is never too early to try; and it’s never too late to talk; and it’s high time that many disputes on the agenda of this Assembly were taken off the debating schedule and placed on the negotiating table….

Finally, in a field where the United States and the Soviet Union have a special capacity—in the field of space—there is room for new cooperation, for further joint efforts in the regulation and exploration of space. I include among these possibilities a joint expedition to the moon. Space offers no problems of sovereignty; by resolution of this Assembly, the members of the United Nations have foresworn any claim to territorial rights in outer space or on celestial bodies, and declared that international law and the United Nations Charter will apply. Why, therefore, should man’s first flight to the moon be a matter of national competition? Why should the United States and the Soviet Union, in preparing for such expeditions, become involved in immense duplications of research, construction, and expenditure? Surely we should explore whether the scientists and astronauts of our two countries—indeed of all the world—cannot work together in the conquest of space, sending someday in this decade to the moon not the representatives of a single nation, but the representatives of all of our countries. [end video]

SPEED: Think of how, right now in this present political environment, how controversial and dangerous a proposal of a joint Russia-China-U.S. mission to the Moon would be. And you can thereby measure how far and how low the United States and its leadership institutions have sunk. What would have happened had that joint mission to the Moon that President Kennedy actually occurred?

The fear that has gripped American life since November 22, 1963 is palpable. Our opposition to unjust depopulation and endless war is in order today, but the fear is palpable. Throughout the trans-Atlantic world, this set cause must be taken up. We must take up the arms of creative, nonviolent, direct action against this present sea of troubles, and by opposing them, thus end them. When Martin Luther King took this cause up at Riverside Church in New York City on April 4, 1967, he realized that he was confronting his own frightened silence about the war up until that point.

MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.: “A time comes when silence is betrayal.” And that time has come for us in relation to Vietnam.

The truth of these words is beyond doubt, but the mission to which they call us is a most difficult one. Even when pressed by the demands of inner truth, men do not easily assume the task of opposing their government’s policy, especially in time of war. Nor does the human spirit move without great difficulty against all the apathy of conformist thought within one’s own bosom and in the surrounding world. Moreover, when the issues at hand seem as perplexing as they often do in the case of this dreadful conflict, we are always on the verge of being mesmerized by uncertainty; but we must move on.

And some of us who have already begun to break the silence of the night have found that the calling to speak is often a vocation of agony, but we must speak. We must speak with all the humility that is appropriate to our limited vision, but we must speak….

Over the past two years, as I have moved to break the betrayal of my own silences and to speak from the burnings of my own heart, as I have called for radical departures from the destruction of Vietnam, many persons have questioned me about the wisdom of my path. At the heart of their concerns this query has often loomed large and loud: “Why are you speaking about the war, Dr. King?” “Why are you joining the voices of dissent?” “Peace and civil rights don’t mix,” they say. “Aren’t you hurting the cause of your people?” they ask. And when I hear them, though I often understand the source of their concern, I am nevertheless greatly saddened, for such questions mean that the inquirers have not really known me, my commitment or my calling. Indeed, their questions suggest that they do not know the world in which they live….

I come to this platform tonight to make a passionate plea to my beloved nation. This speech is not addressed to Hanoi or to the National Liberation Front. It is not addressed to China or to Russia. Nor is it an attempt to overlook the ambiguity of the total situation and the need for a collective solution to the tragedy of Vietnam. Neither is it an attempt to make North Vietnam or the National Liberation Front paragons of virtue, nor to overlook the role they must play in the successful resolution of the problem. While they both may have justifiable reasons to be suspicious of the good faith of the United States, life and history give eloquent testimony to the fact that conflicts are never resolved without trustful give and take on both sides. [end video]

SPEED: As King indicated, he would not make a butchery of his own conscience in the face of “nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror” that would paralyze his needed efforts to stand up against unjust war such as that in Vietnam then, or that in Ukraine today. King took the road that Hamlet refused to take to save his kingdom of Denmark. King took the narrow path—the path of Gethsemane—to save the American republic. A popular misinterpretation of Shakespeare’s play Hamlet is very widespread. Hamlet is seen as a tragic figure, and the tragedy seems to be—to the credulous—to revolve around him. That is incorrect. Rather, it is Denmark which is tragic; not Hamlet. And it is Hamlet’s acquiescence to the popular opinion and “going along to get along” in Denmark. To understand the difference, consider Lyndon LaRouche’s discussion of the content of the character of Martin Luther King.

LAROUCHE: Martin was truly a man of God. Truly. In a way that very few people are actually able to realize in their lifetime. It wasn’t just that he was a man of God: It’s that he rose to the fuller appreciation of what that meant. Obviously, the image for him was Christ, and the Passion and Crucifixion of Jesus Christ. That was his source of strength. He lived that. He had gone to the mountaintop, at a point that he knew his life was threatened by powerful forces in the United States. And he said, “I will not shrink from this mission, even if they kill me.” Just as Christ said, and I’m sure that was in Martin’s mind, at that point. The Passion and Crucifixion of Christ is the image which is the essence of Christianity. It’s an image, for example, in Germany, or elsewhere, where the Bach St. Matthew Passion is performed. It’s a two-hour performance, approximately. In those two hours, the audience, the congregation, the singers, the musicians, re-live, in a powerful way, the Passion and Crucifixion of Christ. And this has always been important: To re-live that. To capture the essence of what Christ means, for all Christians. And Martin showed that. [end video]

SPEED: As with Hamlet, where the actual tragedy was the rot in Denmark, in the case of John F. Kennedy, it was the assassination of the American Presidential system which was the target of the multi-layered, multinational conspiracy that took his life.

Lyndon LaRouche, an eight-time Presidential candidate himself, explains the true issue behind that assassination.

Q: Welcome to the International Connection. Today we continue our conversation with Lyndon LaRouche, from his jail cell in Alexandria, Virginia.

LAROUCHE: The point is this: Was Kennedy killed because he was John F. Kennedy, or was President Kennedy killed because he was President?

Q: That’s the problem?

LAROUCHE: That’s right. And I lean to the second one.

Q: Because he was the President?

LAROUCHE: That’s right. He happened to have the misfortune of being the President at the time, which is the primary reason for it.

Q: So there were forces—I mean, Kennedy even said there was a government behind his back. There was this group behind him that was orchestrating a lot of these crises.

LAROUCHE: It was essentially, it’s not unknown who they are.

Q: Well, the Rockefellers, would they be part of them?

LAROUCHE: I think the Rockefellers—that’s why I get would off either, with my own view, is that I think that’s exaggerated. Yes, the Rockefeller interest is very specific. I know the thing. I’ve done a lot in exposing it. And David Rockefeller is certainly no friend of mine! [laughs]

But I think that misses the point, because it makes it too narrow and makes it too linear.

Q: Right, in other words, it’s the idea of the fondi, there’s a group of associates.

LAROUCHE: There’s a social formation to the effect that no one individual, and no one individual group determines the group. It’s the inner within the group that determines what the group does.

Q: And that’s why they can’t put the finger on who killed Kennedy, those kind of things, they can’t…

LAROUCHE: It wasn’t that. I think it’s—the problem is more than that: When you organize an assassination of that type, of the President of the United States, a conspiracy which operated on the scale of which that thing operated—remember, the killing of Kennedy enveloped an overlay, efforts to assassinate Charles de Gaulle. The same operation, in effect.

So, it’s a vast conspiracy. Then, when you get a vast conspiracy, what makes a conspiracy work is a lot of perceptions in the conspiracy, and a lot of exploitation of the particular motivation of people who are drawn in to playing particular roles. So that if you interrogate somebody, who, say, who pulled a trigger, and say, “Why was the President of the United States killed? Why’d you shoot him?” this fellow might have a motive. He might simply say, “Because I was paid to do so”! Or, somebody else might explain a motive. That might have been the motive for their behavior, or the induced motive. That doesn’t mean that’s why the thing happened.

So it comes to a question—the people who planned this, and I don’t think I should name it on the air, but the people who planned this were functioning at a very high level. So they knew what they were doing, unlike people on a lower level, who may not have known fully what they were doing, apart from the killing—and even some didn’t know they were involved in the killing!

Q: Say that again?

LAROUCHE: They knew that they were destabilizing the institution of the Presidency of the United States.

Q: You just said those people who didn’t know what they were—?

LAROUCHE: They didn’t know the full implications of what they were doing.

Q: —they were doing.

LAROUCHE: They knew what they were doing, but they didn’t know what somebody else intended this to lead to.

And what they were doing was destabilizing, particularly with the cover-up, the Warren Commission cover-up—the combination of the assassination with the cover-up, actually did destabilize the United States; destabilized the institutions of government of the United States, destroyed the presidency as an efficient instrument of government, the constitutional instrument. And the fellows who organized the thing at that level knew they were doing this! So therefore, I would say, they weren’t out to kill Kennedy, though somebody may have come up with motives for killing John F. Kennedy: They were out to kill President Kennedy, because he was President.

Q: The institution?

LAROUCHE: The institution. [end video]

SPEED: So, was John F. Kennedy killed by Clay Shaw, whom Jim Garrison indicted and brought to trial? Was he killed by Louis Mortimer Bloomfield, the coordinator of the assassination according to some people, from his position in the organization Permanent Industrial Expositions?

Well, as Harley Schlanger indicated at the beginning, Lyndon LaRouche and his associates during the 1970s, particularly through their publication of the book Dope, Inc., looked at and demonstrated that the same networks that were then involved in the transformation of the international drug trade into an offshore secret government slush fund, were the forces of international terrorism and assassination. Institutions such as the Hongkong and Shanghai Bank Corporation (now known as HSBC), were at the epicenter of the opium trade and various forms of mercenary activity throughout history. Hong Kong’s colonial status under British rule was an imperial legacy of the two Opium Wars that had been fought by Great Britain against China in the 19th century. President Abraham Lincoln opposed that British policy of the destruction of the minds and bodies of the Chinese nation. He sent an ambassador in 1861, the first year he was in office, Anson Burlingame, to the still-subjugated China as a sign of solidarity with China against imperial Britain. In that same war, one of the closest of American allies was the nation of Russia and its Czar Alexander II; who famously sent a fleet to both New York and San Francisco harbors in order to allow the Union side in the American war to continue its interdiction of traffic coming from Great Britain and France to the South. Lincoln, of course, was assassinated; and was assassinated in a conspiracy for which four people were hanged and John Wilkes Booth of course was also apprehended and died.

When you’re looking at today’s United States and the issue of the assassination bureau, things like for example the Ukrainian Center for Countering Disinformation; the fact that many of the panelists on today’s program are on that hit list, you’re not looking at Ukraine, and you’re not even looking merely at NATO. You’re looking at an international assassination bureau which has never been brought to light.

It is in that cause that we are here assembled today, and we are attempting to give you a picture, a perspective on an America and a world that you’ve never been given before. We think that Martin Luther King, John F. Kennedy, Malcolm X, Robert Kennedy, and others deserve no less and would expect no less.

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.