friday, november 21, 1975
daily nebraskan
page 7
Oglesby says
power struggle
caused deaths
By Ron Ruggfess
Omaha-Struggles between two govern
mental power elites were the cause of the
assassinations of John and Robert Kennedy
and the Watergate scandle, according to the
former president of the Students for Dem
ocratic Society (SDS).
Carl Oglesby told an audience at the
University of Nebraska at Omaha (UNO)
symposium "Who Killed JKF?" Thursday
night that the struggles are between what
he called a "Capital Yankee" and "Cow
boy" elites.
Fie said "Yankee" elites are govern
mental powers concerned with maintaining
strong industrial and personal ties with
European nations. The "Cowboys" are
interested in maintaining a frontier or re
gion in which a new territory may be built.
Oglesby said former President Kennedy
was a Yankee and former President Lyn
don Johnson a Cowboy.
What he called the power struggle be
tween Kennedy and Johnson began
"through a CIA plan and a misconception
by that group (CIA)" in the Bay of Pigs in
vasion of Cuba in 196 1 , he said.
Kennedy, not wanting to invade other
territories, put a damper on the invasion,
he said, while Johnson favored it. He said
the result was the "gunplay" on Nov. 22,
1963, when Kennedy was shot in Dallas.
Oglesby said the most important
Yankee-Cowboy struggle concerned the
Vietnam War, which he said Johnson es
calated immediately following his
inauguration.
Yankee forces within the Johnson Ad
ministration, he said, forced him to stop
the air war, start the Paris Peace talks with
North Vietnam and not run for reelection
in 1968.
"The anti-war movement, of which I
was a part, had not grown strong enough
to cause any trouble for him," Oglesby
said. But he added many people claimed
SDS was a prime reason for Johnson's de
cision not to run.
When Johnson decided against running,
Oglesby said, it left a vacuum for the
"Yankees" to regain power. He said their
leading candidate in the 1968 Presidential
election was Sen. Robert F. Kennedy (D
N.Y.). Turning to Watergate, Oglesby said Pres
ident Richard Nixon, whom he termed a
"Cowboy," was led to his resignation by a
"Yankee" faction within the CIA that he
said was horrified by Nixon's "gestapo
like faction" in the White House.
"There is no homogenized mixture of
the two elites in government," he said.
1 c : -2 ? ; Mn I s
I s go ft & -Si 2l Ssdi ig-g
a I I: , , , , t
6tH fte I Sum til
1.ZZ3 9Q 5 2 j, Ir-rl I JZZm a c jr s
;rE IFliTvlJi li i Pi I8?
j 1 1 rargy- L li c-B n cy m
(oS v m i - I o . ?
, r 8 5 h t IMJ ff j n n n S
Kt i 2p vk Si , I- rnj-i " 53 r ;
Cl-zai y g fi I A ; V r52? -S & -ss . 122
CTggr hu 9 I d S li n 6:9 -S? e? 5
m tiiij iim fv nim t
I? O II Mb I
f v?r''F-,r",e''w'-,'' ' iittflhlM laMMMWi""'11""1" "'"lMt" 'iMiiiMtfiiiiiiw wnwwa -mwMfini. i mttttt-t&AtiiMm MaLiWjiafea jMlteWMWftWiaifflia-i i&MMmnttm niim&mmm&w&&MWimki
