Motive: To Make Sure Israel Kept the Bomb?

In the Introduction to his book, Salvador Astucia wrote that the motive for assassinating John Kennedy was clear.  It was done to end the Kennedy Dynasty: 

The reason Israel acted when they did was because Kennedy was on the verge of ending the Cold War. He was also making plans to prevent them from acquiring the Bomb. This called for a drastic response....President Kennedy had voiced strong, albeit private, opposition to Israel’s development of the Bomb. The Kennedy Administration was well-aware of Israel’s nuclear reactor in Dimona. In fact, Kennedy and Ben-Gurion got into a heated personal exchange over that issue. Kennedy was concerned about Israel’s nuclear capabilities and made a secret deal for regular American inspections of the nuclear reactor in Dimona in exchange for Hawk anti-aircraft missiles, something that Ben-Gurion wanted. Ben-Gurion allowed an inspection once, but it was a deception. The Dimona facility was disguised to look like a nuclear power plant, but the CIA advised Kennedy that this was not the case and advised the President to push for further inspections.

Astucia continued his Introduction by setting out a "scenario of how the plot against President Kennedy was conceived and accomplished":

I believe the assassination was decreed by Nahum Goldmann, founder of the World Jewish Congress and its president in 1963, after taking counsel from influential friends of Israel.

They likely included, but were not limited to the following individuals:

• David Ben-Gurion, Prime Minister of Israel and head of the Mapai Party (1948-53 & 1955-63)
• Levi Eshkol, Prime Minister of Israel and head of the Mapai-Labour Party (1963-69)
• Golda Meir, Prime Minister of Israel and head of the Labour Party (1969-74)
• Menachem Begin, former commander of the terrorist organization, Irgun Zvai Leumi (Hebrew: National Military Organization), Prime Minister of Israel and head of the Likud Party (1977-83)
• Yitzhak Shamir, former member of the terrorist organization known as the Stern Gang, also a former member of Irgun Zvai Leumi, Prime Minister of Israel and head of the Likud Party (1983-84 & 1986-92)
  
• Yitzhak Rabin, Prime Minister of Israel and head of the Labour Party (1974-77 & 1992-95)
• Samuel Bronfman, billionaire businessman, former bootlegger, owner of Seagram-Distillers Corporation; resided in Montreal
• Louis Bloomfield, international lawyer (and Bronfman’s attorney), contractor for the CIA and FBI, formerly a British Intelligence officer who served in Palestine under the command of General Charles Orde Wingate training Haganah soldiers during the Arab Revolt in the 1930s; resided in Montreal
• Bernard Bloomfield (brother of Louis), influential businessman; resided in Montreal

One can easily see Goldmann, speaking not only for himself, but as President of the World Jewish Congress that year, prophesing that President Kennedy should die for the nation of Israel. And his death would not only be for that nation, but for all friends of Israel scattered abroad. From that day forth they plotted to kill him. Louis Bloomfield was directed to manage the assassination. And he did so with the full knowledge and support of Lyndon Baines Johnson and J. Edgar Hoover.

Astucia says further that David Ferrie had flown the assassins from Dallas to Montreal in a private plane several days after the assassination, and, from there Bloomfield arranged to have them flown back to Marseilles, France." He cites as his source a statement made by Christian David to "Steve Rivele that the assassins were flown from Dallas to Montreal about ten days after the assassination (reference The Men Who Killed Kennedy). [See DVD version]. Second, it has been established by Garrison and others that Ferrie provided pilot services on an as needed basis for members of the 'cabal.'  Garrison specifically pointed out that Ferrie had flown Shaw to Montreal on numerous occasions. (Reference On the Trail of the Assassins, pp. 136-137.)"

 Part of the above theory is supported by the contents of a file resulting from a lawsuit filed in 1982 by Gary Shaw, with Bernard Fensterwald acting as his attorney. The report dated June 1981 is referred to as "A Possible French Connection," and involved a dentist in Houston, Texas named Lawrence M. Alderson. The two served in the military together in Europe and Algeria. This file can be read in person at Hood College in Frederick, Maryland, where Harold Weisberg's archives are stored.

In 1936 Nahum Goldmann was in Geneva, elected chairman of the administrative committee of the first World Jewish Congress.  Judge Julian Mack of New York was elected honorary president, with Rabbi Stephen S. Wise named chairman of the executive committee. The meeting adjourned on August 15 that year, and in the years after the war, as chairman of the Jewish Agency for Palestine and president of the Conference on Jewish Material Claims, Goldmann negotiated  the German- Israel restitution agreement with West Germany for it to pay $805 million in reparations to Israel, which was signed in September 1952. He also succeeded Rabbi Wise as president of the World Jewish Congress.

As for Louis Mortimer Bloomfield, Astucia cites David Goldman and Jeffrey Steinberg research that Bloomfield was "recruited into the British Special Operations Executive (SOE) in 1938, during the war was given rank within the US Army, and eventually became part of the OSS intelligence system, including the FBI’s Division Five. Reportedly, Bloomfield became quite close with J. Edgar Hoover." 

[See book about Rabbi Wise.]

He also includes in another footnote (fn. 3) a reference to the book written by Louis' brother, Bernard Bloomfield, Israel Diary (1950), p 5. Stating that "Louis had been a major in the Army Service Corps," before the two brothers traveled to Israel in 1949, Bernard had written: 

"We had dinner at the hotel and then went to a night club. There Amos [brother-in-law*] met a soldier whom he hadn’t seen for twelve years. They were at that time involved in the same arms smuggling plot, back in 1936, for which Amos was sent to jail. They had quite a reunion. He was a fine big fellow, a major, married, with children. When he learned Louis was a major in the Army Service Corps, in which he also had served, he became more communicative and told Louis and Amos that he was fed up with life—all his friends having been killed or wounded. He couldn’t get out of the army because he was such a good soldier; they wouldn’t release him. He said he received 38 [Israeli pounds] per month as pay, and it cost him 75 [Israeli pounds] to live. He made a very good impression on us—a decent and serious fellow."

 Astucia also cites Michael Marrus book, Sam Bronfman: The Life and Times of Seagram’s Mr. Sam (1991, p. 112) as the source for the following statement:

Sir Mortimer Barnett Davis [owner of the Canadian Industrial Alcohol Company] was a whisky supplier to Sam Bronfman during prohibition.

THE DAILY GLEANER - January 26, 1933

A REVIEW OF THE WHOLESALE
LIQUOR TRADE

A depressing picture of the fate of those interested in depots for the American trade appeared in a London morning paper the other day. This report, which was dated from Nassau, opened with the cheerful news that "the days of dry America are numbered, and in their passing passes also the bootlegger, the rum-runner, and the highjacker." The result for one Colony, we are told, is debt and destitution.

The truth of the matter is that the wet victory in the United States has nothing to do with the depression in the West Indies. Several years ago it was found that Canada proved a more satisfactory base for operations. with the result that the West Indies lost much of their former prosperity. In a few hectic years one Colony had replaced rock ruts with roads; waterworks were substituted for wells; public wharves and schools were built. Naturally, it is now feeling the difference.

So, too, is Canada, for that matter; for as a result of the enactment vetoing shipments of liquor consigned to United States ports, the trade is now operated from the French Islands of St. Pierre and Miquelon. The American market is so important that strong influences are at work to induce the Dominion Government to rescind the Export Act. Such a step would give a great impetus to the Canadian liquor trade, and Scotch whisky would also benefit to a lesser extent.

ATLANTIC WHISKY COMBINE.

According to a pronouncement from the leading independent distilleries in Canada, a merger of the Canadian and Scoto-Canadian interests "on an equitable basis," still depends on a good deal of compromise from the extreme bargaining position taken up by principals of the various companies. When several years ago the Distillers' Corporation (the Canadian subsidiary of the Distillers Company, Ltd.. Edinburgh) united with Joseph Seagram and Sons, following the merger of Hiram Walker with Gooderham and Worts, a larger amalgamation was only frustrated, it is believed, by the opposition of the Canadian Industrial Alcohol Company. Since that time, business has been poor, and larger stocks of liquor have been accumulated by all the competing concerns; competition for the irregular United States trade having combined with the high internal taxes to reduce profits.