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JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died & Why It Matters
In this fascinating and disturbing book James Douglass presents a compelling account of why President John F. Kennedy was assassinated and why the unmasking of this truth remains crucial for the future of our country and the world. The title comes from a phrase of Thomas Merton, naming of the attitudes, forces and interests that generate and support international tension and conflict.
Drawing on a vast field of investigations, including many sources available only recently, Douglass lays out a sequence of steps over the last three years of his life that transformed JFK from a traditional "Cold Warrior" to someone determined to pull the world back from the edge of nuclear apocalypse. Beginning with the fiasco of the Bay of Pigs invasion (which left the President wishing to "splinter the CIA in a thousand pieces"), followed by the Cuban Missile Crisis and his secret back-channel dialogues with Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, JFK pursued a series of actions - right up to the week of his death - that caused members of his own U.S. military-intelligence establishment to regard him as a virtual traitor who had to be eliminated.
As the 50th anniversary of Kennedy's assassination approaches, the story of why he was killed - his turn toward peace - is not ancient history, and bears crucial lessons for today in the light of a decade of war and continuing revelations of clandestine national security and military activities. Douglass shows convincingly how those who plotted the death of JFK were determined not simply to eliminate a single man but to kill a vision. Douglass's book has all the elements of a political thriller.
But the stakes couldn't be higher. Only by understanding the truth behind the murder of JFK can we grasp his vision and assume the urgent struggle for peace today.
"In JFK and the Unspeakable Jim Douglass has distilled all the best available research into a very well-documented and convincing portrait of President Kennedy's transforming turn to peace, at the cost of his life. Personally, it has made a very big impact on me. After reading it in Dallas, I was moved for the first time to visit Dealey Plaza. I urge all Americans to read this book and come to their own conclusions about why he died and why - after fifty years - it still matters."
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
Drawing on a vast field of investigations, including many sources available only recently, Douglass lays out a sequence of steps over the last three years of his life that transformed JFK from a traditional "Cold Warrior" to someone determined to pull the world back from the edge of nuclear apocalypse. Beginning with the fiasco of the Bay of Pigs invasion (which left the President wishing to "splinter the CIA in a thousand pieces"), followed by the Cuban Missile Crisis and his secret back-channel dialogues with Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, JFK pursued a series of actions - right up to the week of his death - that caused members of his own U.S. military-intelligence establishment to regard him as a virtual traitor who had to be eliminated.
As the 50th anniversary of Kennedy's assassination approaches, the story of why he was killed - his turn toward peace - is not ancient history, and bears crucial lessons for today in the light of a decade of war and continuing revelations of clandestine national security and military activities. Douglass shows convincingly how those who plotted the death of JFK were determined not simply to eliminate a single man but to kill a vision. Douglass's book has all the elements of a political thriller.
But the stakes couldn't be higher. Only by understanding the truth behind the murder of JFK can we grasp his vision and assume the urgent struggle for peace today.
"In JFK and the Unspeakable Jim Douglass has distilled all the best available research into a very well-documented and convincing portrait of President Kennedy's transforming turn to peace, at the cost of his life. Personally, it has made a very big impact on me. After reading it in Dallas, I was moved for the first time to visit Dealey Plaza. I urge all Americans to read this book and come to their own conclusions about why he died and why - after fifty years - it still matters."
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
510 pages, Hardcover
First published May 20, 2008
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March 15, 2016
JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters is the most beautiful, most important, and most spiritually cogent book I have read in a decade. It deserves to be taught in universities throughout the country and reviewed in every major periodical. The book’s structure is sturdy and clear; the prose is one transparent, flowing stream; and the account of the murder’s origin and nature is strikingly broad in its good-faith inquiry. As a result, facets of the story are put in place – and their tellers acknowledged with real respect – that no previous book has been able to integrate. Douglas' writing makes it impossible for a person to take a merely political or historical interest in the assassination, its origins and consequences. This he does by continually reminding the reader of the ethical and even cosmic dimension of the story as it unfolds. On every page, this book provided me with something of value: new historical information, moments of insight, tenderness, intellectual depth, and wisdom. With regard to 11-22, there are now three books I recommend to people: this one, Peter Dale Scott’s Deep Politics and the Death of JFK, and Marty Schotz & Vincent Salandria, History Will Not Absolve Us.
Let me add one more thing: I've listed over 800 books on goodreads. I read a lot. This is the best non-fiction I've read in about ten years.
Let me add one more thing: I've listed over 800 books on goodreads. I read a lot. This is the best non-fiction I've read in about ten years.
October 8, 2023
Now (2013) that we are getting closer to the 50th anniversary of the JFK assassination there seems to be an increased animosity between those who believe the conclusions of the Warren commission about Lee Oswald, the lone gunman, and on the other hand the ones who believe that JFK was murdered by a group of people who conspired and benefited from his death.
I certainly am NOT a lover of conspiracy theories, but what makes this subject so interesting is that so far nobody has been able to present conclusive proofs about one or the other theory. Not the official commission, not the conspiracy lovers and not the conspiracy bashers. Not even the arrogant ones who titled their work "Case closed".
This extremely well-researched book by Jim Douglass is more serious and credible than most of the JFK literature out there for two reasons:
1) it doesn't try to sell you a specific theory or tell us who shot JFK (by the way, it doesn't even mention the single / magic bullet theory), but rather it tries to find some coherence in the hundreds of facts and information that we have about the assassination.
2) it doesn't focus on "who did it?" as much, while it spends most of its pages on the most important questions: "why they did it, and why does it matter today?".
Douglass makes a compelling argument that is not pointing at one single reason (for example, they shot him because he wanted to end the Vietnam war, or because he pissed off the CIA in numerous occasions). He takes a truly holistic approach at JFK's main policies in the last years of his life, and where they were headed for the years to come. In particular, JFK's determination to end the Cold War through diplomatic strategies and back-channels communications with Krushev and other communist leaders, was an extremely unpopular stance with most of the government people who surrounded him, the military apparatus and of course the CIA, that JFK had sworn he would "splinter in a thousand pieces".
What was the CIA’s specialization, after all? It was a totally uncontrolled, powerful group specialized in assassinations and regime changes. And they knew JFK wanted to “splinter the CIA in a thousand pieces”.
Or maybe LBJ was involved in this killing, and this was a pure coup de etat. Many people are convinced of that. I am, too, after reading a few more books about that insane criminal.
Anyway - the book's writing is not great, there is no doubt about that. And yes, Douglass tends to repeat concepts and entire sentences along his book.
But overall, this book strikes me as the result of really honest hard work, including in-person interviews, and - at the VERY least - it makes you question the official version that has been presented to the public about this assassination.
As for the event itself, what strikes me as really odd is not that 60% of Americans today believe there was some sort of conspiracy. What strikes me as odd is that many of the remaining 40% are aggressively promoting the Warren Commission's version of the "lone gunman".
One of the highly visible conspiracy bashers is Stephen King. His book 11/23/63 has an afterword where King states that “ anybody rational must believe at 99% probability that there was no conspiracy”. He doesn't explain why though. Very, very odd.
Another massive recent public-opinion-shaping event about this topic is Tom Hanks's big-budget movie "Parkland", which is nothing more than the reenactment of the official version of the events. What's the point of that? Why even make the movie, if not for obvious propaganda purposes? But most importantly, how can a huge movie about Parkland hospital completely ignore the documented fact that 15 doctors who saw JFK's body said that they saw an "entry wound" in his throat? Were they just all so utterly incompetent, that the production decided to dismiss that fact as non important? Odd, unless it’s propaganda, in which case it would make sense.
I would also add this: there are many possible reasons why the US government would be doing the "right” thing by keeping the truth hidden. For example, let's assume that LBJ got Kennedy killed, like Jacqueline Kennedy has always said. That is another possibility. What would the consequences of that going out to the public be, in terms of damages to the US governent's image? Would it be more important to share the truth with the public, or to protect the image of the LBJ's administration?
It would be a secret worth not only keeping, but also worth actively lying about through celebrities and movies.
The consequences could be catastrophic, not only in loss of international standing and power, but, more importantly, you would probably have people in the street in every American town, smashing stuff (which they love to do, as we’ve seen… just give them a reason) and pushing the country towards a civil war.
Some more food for thought now.
To believe that Oswald killed JFK by himself, you must also believe the following 10 things:
1- Two witnesses saw Oswald carrying a bag into the Texas School Book Depository on the morning of the assassination. They insisted that it was too small to contain a rifle and must have been mistaken.
2- Julia Ann Murcer claimed that she saw a man going up the grassy knoll carrying a rifle one hour before the assassination. She said a man looking like Jack Ruby waiting for him in a parked truck. Murcer was not called by the Warren Commission. She must have been mistaken.
3- The 51 eyewitnesses who claimed to have heard gunshots from the grassy knoll and saw smoke or smelled gunpowder coming from that direction must have been mistaken.
4- The 15 Parkland Hospital doctors who said there was an entrance wound in President Kennedy’s throat must have been mistaken.
5- Doctors and witnesses who claimed to have seen a large exit wound located toward the back of Kennedy’s head must have been mistaken.
6- Pathologists at the autopsy who were insistent that the entry wound on President Kennedy’s skull was lower than the large exit wound and that there was no entry wound high on the back of the skull must have been mistaken.
7- John Connally, who was sitting directly in front of Kennedy, and who maintained under oath and repeatedly in later interviews that he and Kennedy were injured by separate bullets, must have been mistaken.
8- The paraffin tests on Oswald’s hands and cheek indicated that he had not fired a rifle on the day of the assassination and therefore must have been incompetently administered.
9- It was just a macabre coincidence that seven top FBI officials due to testify at HSCA died within a 6 month period in 1977.
10- Although the probability is one in 100 billion trillion that at least 26 of 1100 witnesses sought in four JFK investigations would be murdered, it was just a coincidence and does not prove a conspiracy.
Having said all that, this book also works well as a history book, especially in its coverage of the Cuban crisis, the Bay of Pigs, the beginning of the Vietnam escalation, and the very tense relationships between JFK and his Joint Chiefs.
The problem of powerful internal warmongers, it seems, is a problem that every non-military leader has always had to face. Krushev had a similar situation in Russia.
-----------------------
2015 update: just seen a new documentary called "The smoking gun, Jfk" where an Australian detective confirms the theory of a ballistic expert who wrote the book "Mortal Error". Their theory is that a secret service agent fired the final shot, accidentally. I found it very disturbing that no one in the documentary ever entertains the possibility that the Secret Service was acting as part of a conspiracy.
Whatever the truth is, it is very clear that the TRUTH would embarass the US government to an unbearable degree.
——————————
2020 update
In 2018, Trump promised to release all the remaining undisclosed documents about the JFK assassination.
As soon as he looked in those boxes, he backtracked, and postponed to 2021 (meaning we will probably never see those documents).
Here is his statement:
"I agree with the Archivist’s recommendation that the continued withholdings are necessary to protect against identifiable harm to national security, law enforcement, or foreign affairs that is of such gravity that it outweighs the public interest in immediate disclosure," Trump wrote in a memorandum released by the White House.
Trump added that need for the continued protection of the documents, "can only grow weaker with the passage of time."
———————————-
2022 update: the Biden administration released an insignificant portion of the undisclosed documents, probably as a nominal and political gesture. Most of them remain secret, after 60 years. 60 years! Good luck reconciling that with the “Oswald acted alone” official version.
I certainly am NOT a lover of conspiracy theories, but what makes this subject so interesting is that so far nobody has been able to present conclusive proofs about one or the other theory. Not the official commission, not the conspiracy lovers and not the conspiracy bashers. Not even the arrogant ones who titled their work "Case closed".
This extremely well-researched book by Jim Douglass is more serious and credible than most of the JFK literature out there for two reasons:
1) it doesn't try to sell you a specific theory or tell us who shot JFK (by the way, it doesn't even mention the single / magic bullet theory), but rather it tries to find some coherence in the hundreds of facts and information that we have about the assassination.
2) it doesn't focus on "who did it?" as much, while it spends most of its pages on the most important questions: "why they did it, and why does it matter today?".
Douglass makes a compelling argument that is not pointing at one single reason (for example, they shot him because he wanted to end the Vietnam war, or because he pissed off the CIA in numerous occasions). He takes a truly holistic approach at JFK's main policies in the last years of his life, and where they were headed for the years to come. In particular, JFK's determination to end the Cold War through diplomatic strategies and back-channels communications with Krushev and other communist leaders, was an extremely unpopular stance with most of the government people who surrounded him, the military apparatus and of course the CIA, that JFK had sworn he would "splinter in a thousand pieces".
What was the CIA’s specialization, after all? It was a totally uncontrolled, powerful group specialized in assassinations and regime changes. And they knew JFK wanted to “splinter the CIA in a thousand pieces”.
Or maybe LBJ was involved in this killing, and this was a pure coup de etat. Many people are convinced of that. I am, too, after reading a few more books about that insane criminal.
Anyway - the book's writing is not great, there is no doubt about that. And yes, Douglass tends to repeat concepts and entire sentences along his book.
But overall, this book strikes me as the result of really honest hard work, including in-person interviews, and - at the VERY least - it makes you question the official version that has been presented to the public about this assassination.
As for the event itself, what strikes me as really odd is not that 60% of Americans today believe there was some sort of conspiracy. What strikes me as odd is that many of the remaining 40% are aggressively promoting the Warren Commission's version of the "lone gunman".
One of the highly visible conspiracy bashers is Stephen King. His book 11/23/63 has an afterword where King states that “ anybody rational must believe at 99% probability that there was no conspiracy”. He doesn't explain why though. Very, very odd.
Another massive recent public-opinion-shaping event about this topic is Tom Hanks's big-budget movie "Parkland", which is nothing more than the reenactment of the official version of the events. What's the point of that? Why even make the movie, if not for obvious propaganda purposes? But most importantly, how can a huge movie about Parkland hospital completely ignore the documented fact that 15 doctors who saw JFK's body said that they saw an "entry wound" in his throat? Were they just all so utterly incompetent, that the production decided to dismiss that fact as non important? Odd, unless it’s propaganda, in which case it would make sense.
I would also add this: there are many possible reasons why the US government would be doing the "right” thing by keeping the truth hidden. For example, let's assume that LBJ got Kennedy killed, like Jacqueline Kennedy has always said. That is another possibility. What would the consequences of that going out to the public be, in terms of damages to the US governent's image? Would it be more important to share the truth with the public, or to protect the image of the LBJ's administration?
It would be a secret worth not only keeping, but also worth actively lying about through celebrities and movies.
The consequences could be catastrophic, not only in loss of international standing and power, but, more importantly, you would probably have people in the street in every American town, smashing stuff (which they love to do, as we’ve seen… just give them a reason) and pushing the country towards a civil war.
Some more food for thought now.
To believe that Oswald killed JFK by himself, you must also believe the following 10 things:
1- Two witnesses saw Oswald carrying a bag into the Texas School Book Depository on the morning of the assassination. They insisted that it was too small to contain a rifle and must have been mistaken.
2- Julia Ann Murcer claimed that she saw a man going up the grassy knoll carrying a rifle one hour before the assassination. She said a man looking like Jack Ruby waiting for him in a parked truck. Murcer was not called by the Warren Commission. She must have been mistaken.
3- The 51 eyewitnesses who claimed to have heard gunshots from the grassy knoll and saw smoke or smelled gunpowder coming from that direction must have been mistaken.
4- The 15 Parkland Hospital doctors who said there was an entrance wound in President Kennedy’s throat must have been mistaken.
5- Doctors and witnesses who claimed to have seen a large exit wound located toward the back of Kennedy’s head must have been mistaken.
6- Pathologists at the autopsy who were insistent that the entry wound on President Kennedy’s skull was lower than the large exit wound and that there was no entry wound high on the back of the skull must have been mistaken.
7- John Connally, who was sitting directly in front of Kennedy, and who maintained under oath and repeatedly in later interviews that he and Kennedy were injured by separate bullets, must have been mistaken.
8- The paraffin tests on Oswald’s hands and cheek indicated that he had not fired a rifle on the day of the assassination and therefore must have been incompetently administered.
9- It was just a macabre coincidence that seven top FBI officials due to testify at HSCA died within a 6 month period in 1977.
10- Although the probability is one in 100 billion trillion that at least 26 of 1100 witnesses sought in four JFK investigations would be murdered, it was just a coincidence and does not prove a conspiracy.
Having said all that, this book also works well as a history book, especially in its coverage of the Cuban crisis, the Bay of Pigs, the beginning of the Vietnam escalation, and the very tense relationships between JFK and his Joint Chiefs.
The problem of powerful internal warmongers, it seems, is a problem that every non-military leader has always had to face. Krushev had a similar situation in Russia.
-----------------------
2015 update: just seen a new documentary called "The smoking gun, Jfk" where an Australian detective confirms the theory of a ballistic expert who wrote the book "Mortal Error". Their theory is that a secret service agent fired the final shot, accidentally. I found it very disturbing that no one in the documentary ever entertains the possibility that the Secret Service was acting as part of a conspiracy.
Whatever the truth is, it is very clear that the TRUTH would embarass the US government to an unbearable degree.
——————————
2020 update
In 2018, Trump promised to release all the remaining undisclosed documents about the JFK assassination.
As soon as he looked in those boxes, he backtracked, and postponed to 2021 (meaning we will probably never see those documents).
Here is his statement:
"I agree with the Archivist’s recommendation that the continued withholdings are necessary to protect against identifiable harm to national security, law enforcement, or foreign affairs that is of such gravity that it outweighs the public interest in immediate disclosure," Trump wrote in a memorandum released by the White House.
Trump added that need for the continued protection of the documents, "can only grow weaker with the passage of time."
———————————-
2022 update: the Biden administration released an insignificant portion of the undisclosed documents, probably as a nominal and political gesture. Most of them remain secret, after 60 years. 60 years! Good luck reconciling that with the “Oswald acted alone” official version.
April 26, 2021
«The important thing to know about an assassination or an attempted assassination is not who fired the shot, but who paid for the bullet.»
— A COFFIN FOR DIMITRIOS, ERIC AMBLER
The subtitle of James W. Douglass's outstanding book is "Why He Died and Why it Matters", and unlike the majority of books on the JFK assassination, it aims to unravel not who killed Kennedy, but who needed the President dead and why.
John F. Kennedy antagonized the military-industrial complex from the very beginning of his presidency.
At first, there was the Bay of Pigs fiasco, which the CIA never forgave him. Although Dick Bissel and Allen Dulles literally sold Kennedy on their lame plan — Dulles later acknowledged this in his never published but preserved self-justifying account of the attempted anti-Castro coup by reasoning that “[y]ou present a plan, and it isn’t your job to say, ‘Well, that’s a rotten plan I’ve presented. In presenting the merits of the plan, the tendency is always – because you’re meeting a position, you’re meeting this criticism and that criticism – to be drawn into more of a salesmanship job than you should.” — and it was solely their blame that it failed, they were shocked and deeply offended when "the fledgeling" President refused point blank, as he had explicitly warned them earlier, to send U.S troops to the rescue. Years later, during a friendly interview with a young correspondent, Dulles suddenly blurted, with very uncharacteristic for him hostility, "That little Kennedy thought he was a god." The fired director and his CIA colleagues would never forget and forgive what JFK did; this is evident in their subsequent attempts to humiliate the President by assassinating Fidel Castro and eventually, in the shocking and horrible act in Dallas.
Of course, as Kennedy himself mused, one Bay of Pigs wasn't enough to provoke the overthrow of the administration. But two or three "Bay of Pigs" would do the job magnificently, and JFK committed more than three.
Kennedy's turn away from the Cold War and toward peace was the next heavy blow for the military-industrial complex. His peaceful handling of the Cuban Missile Crisis, his secret year-long correspondence with the enemy Khrushchev and his American University address in which he rejected the goal of "a Pax Americana enforced on the world by American weapons of war", and urged Americans to reexamine their attitudes toward war, especially in relation to the people of the Soviet Union, who had suffered incomparable losses in World War II, were all signs of "appeasement" (because according to them everything short of a nuclear attack was appeasement) and endangered the lucrative production of arms. A profound lack of mutual understanding existed between the Joint Chiefs of Staff and their Commander in Chief – the Chiefs considered Kennedy crazy for not ordering an aerial strike on Cuba during the fateful 13 days of October 1961, while Kennedy obviously thought they must be the crazy ones to constantly discuss so calmly the use of nuclear weapons. On top of that, due to the Bay of Pigs fiasco, the President, whom they looked down on for being younger and more inexperienced than them, refused to heed the advice of "experts", a.k.a the State Department, the CIA etc., and insisted on checking (a.k.a "poking his nose into") everything himself, which annoyed them to no end. One of his major "Bay of Pigs" was the Test Ban Treaty, which to the military-industrial complex's horror, he single-handedly agreed on and personally controlled by getting through to Averell Harriman, his chief negotiator in Moscow, on the telephone from the White House. An "uncontrollable", "Communist-appeaser" of a president, who on top of that lowered the CIA's budget by 20% and threatened to ". . . splinter [the essential Communist-fighting agency] into a thousand pieces and scatter it into the wind", was a plague for the Cold Warriors. It doesn't matter that Americans were eager to ease hostility; it doesn't matter that peace with the Soviet Union would be safer and cheaper for the country and for the world. What mattered is that business of the "warfare state" would go down, and money would be lost.
On October 11, 1963, Kennedy approved the little-known NSAM-263 directive with recommendations by Secretary of Defense McNamara to 1) make the government of South Vietnam improve its military performance; 2) train Vietnamese soldiers "so that essential functions can be carried out by Vietnamese by the end of 1965 [because it] should be possible to withdraw the bulk of U.S personnel by that time"; 3) withdraw, as planned by JFK, 1,000 U.S military personnel by the end of 1963. NSAM-263, which was afterwards conveniently secreted for decades, confirmed the President's resolve to end the bloody, costly American involvement in Vietnam. For the CIA and the Pentagon this was the giddy limit. After the "loss" of Laos (which was actually a peaceful agreement with the USSR on the establishment of an independent Laotian government), for the military and the intelligence man it was a matter of honor and of Cold War ideology not to lose another country to "World Communism". Not to mention the fact that at the time the CIA had uncovered Fidel Castro and JFK's attempts for negotiations.
The "little Kennedy", the "Khrushchev- and Castro-appeaser", was standing in the way of two strikingly powerful organizations, so powerful that even Harry Truman, during whose presidency the CIA was created, lamented in newspaper articles that instead of remaining just an informer to the President, the CIA had been given too much freedom to do what it wanted and was used to not being accountable to anyone for its actions. The President alone could not handle the Pentagon and the Central Intelligence Agency for sure. Yet, they could handle him. He stood in their way, he was a traitor to their Cold War cause, and they were experienced in removing any obstacles. Why not remove him?
In the whirl of the Cold War, President John F. Kennedy had dared to turn toward peace, to break into the "depth, humanity, and a certain totality of self-forgetfulness and compassion, not just for individuals but for man as a whole: a deeper kind of dedication", which politicians usually lack. According to Thomas Morton, a Trappist monk, "... such people are before long marked out for assassination" by the Unspeakable, which in the Cold War history was the void in the U.S government's covert-action doctrine of "plausible deniability," sanctioned by the National Security Council directive NSC 10/2. Under the direction of Allen Dulles, the CIA interpreted this "plausible deniability" as a green light to assassinate national leaders, overthrow governments, and lie to cover up any trace of accountability – all for the sake of promoting U.S. interests and maintaining US. nuclear-backed dominance over the Soviet Union and other nations. That void of accountability for the CIA and our other security agencies made possible the JFK assassination and cover up.
JFK & THE UNSPEAKABLE is a mind-blowing book. Meticulously researched, shocking, compelling, and impressively footnoted, it offers the suspense even well-written crime thrillers often lack. Most importantly, it offers us insight into some of the true reasons behind Kennedy's assassination, and "the truth shall make you free."
— A COFFIN FOR DIMITRIOS, ERIC AMBLER
The subtitle of James W. Douglass's outstanding book is "Why He Died and Why it Matters", and unlike the majority of books on the JFK assassination, it aims to unravel not who killed Kennedy, but who needed the President dead and why.
John F. Kennedy antagonized the military-industrial complex from the very beginning of his presidency.
At first, there was the Bay of Pigs fiasco, which the CIA never forgave him. Although Dick Bissel and Allen Dulles literally sold Kennedy on their lame plan — Dulles later acknowledged this in his never published but preserved self-justifying account of the attempted anti-Castro coup by reasoning that “[y]ou present a plan, and it isn’t your job to say, ‘Well, that’s a rotten plan I’ve presented. In presenting the merits of the plan, the tendency is always – because you’re meeting a position, you’re meeting this criticism and that criticism – to be drawn into more of a salesmanship job than you should.” — and it was solely their blame that it failed, they were shocked and deeply offended when "the fledgeling" President refused point blank, as he had explicitly warned them earlier, to send U.S troops to the rescue. Years later, during a friendly interview with a young correspondent, Dulles suddenly blurted, with very uncharacteristic for him hostility, "That little Kennedy thought he was a god." The fired director and his CIA colleagues would never forget and forgive what JFK did; this is evident in their subsequent attempts to humiliate the President by assassinating Fidel Castro and eventually, in the shocking and horrible act in Dallas.
Of course, as Kennedy himself mused, one Bay of Pigs wasn't enough to provoke the overthrow of the administration. But two or three "Bay of Pigs" would do the job magnificently, and JFK committed more than three.
Kennedy's turn away from the Cold War and toward peace was the next heavy blow for the military-industrial complex. His peaceful handling of the Cuban Missile Crisis, his secret year-long correspondence with the enemy Khrushchev and his American University address in which he rejected the goal of "a Pax Americana enforced on the world by American weapons of war", and urged Americans to reexamine their attitudes toward war, especially in relation to the people of the Soviet Union, who had suffered incomparable losses in World War II, were all signs of "appeasement" (because according to them everything short of a nuclear attack was appeasement) and endangered the lucrative production of arms. A profound lack of mutual understanding existed between the Joint Chiefs of Staff and their Commander in Chief – the Chiefs considered Kennedy crazy for not ordering an aerial strike on Cuba during the fateful 13 days of October 1961, while Kennedy obviously thought they must be the crazy ones to constantly discuss so calmly the use of nuclear weapons. On top of that, due to the Bay of Pigs fiasco, the President, whom they looked down on for being younger and more inexperienced than them, refused to heed the advice of "experts", a.k.a the State Department, the CIA etc., and insisted on checking (a.k.a "poking his nose into") everything himself, which annoyed them to no end. One of his major "Bay of Pigs" was the Test Ban Treaty, which to the military-industrial complex's horror, he single-handedly agreed on and personally controlled by getting through to Averell Harriman, his chief negotiator in Moscow, on the telephone from the White House. An "uncontrollable", "Communist-appeaser" of a president, who on top of that lowered the CIA's budget by 20% and threatened to ". . . splinter [the essential Communist-fighting agency] into a thousand pieces and scatter it into the wind", was a plague for the Cold Warriors. It doesn't matter that Americans were eager to ease hostility; it doesn't matter that peace with the Soviet Union would be safer and cheaper for the country and for the world. What mattered is that business of the "warfare state" would go down, and money would be lost.
On October 11, 1963, Kennedy approved the little-known NSAM-263 directive with recommendations by Secretary of Defense McNamara to 1) make the government of South Vietnam improve its military performance; 2) train Vietnamese soldiers "so that essential functions can be carried out by Vietnamese by the end of 1965 [because it] should be possible to withdraw the bulk of U.S personnel by that time"; 3) withdraw, as planned by JFK, 1,000 U.S military personnel by the end of 1963. NSAM-263, which was afterwards conveniently secreted for decades, confirmed the President's resolve to end the bloody, costly American involvement in Vietnam. For the CIA and the Pentagon this was the giddy limit. After the "loss" of Laos (which was actually a peaceful agreement with the USSR on the establishment of an independent Laotian government), for the military and the intelligence man it was a matter of honor and of Cold War ideology not to lose another country to "World Communism". Not to mention the fact that at the time the CIA had uncovered Fidel Castro and JFK's attempts for negotiations.
The "little Kennedy", the "Khrushchev- and Castro-appeaser", was standing in the way of two strikingly powerful organizations, so powerful that even Harry Truman, during whose presidency the CIA was created, lamented in newspaper articles that instead of remaining just an informer to the President, the CIA had been given too much freedom to do what it wanted and was used to not being accountable to anyone for its actions. The President alone could not handle the Pentagon and the Central Intelligence Agency for sure. Yet, they could handle him. He stood in their way, he was a traitor to their Cold War cause, and they were experienced in removing any obstacles. Why not remove him?
In the whirl of the Cold War, President John F. Kennedy had dared to turn toward peace, to break into the "depth, humanity, and a certain totality of self-forgetfulness and compassion, not just for individuals but for man as a whole: a deeper kind of dedication", which politicians usually lack. According to Thomas Morton, a Trappist monk, "... such people are before long marked out for assassination" by the Unspeakable, which in the Cold War history was the void in the U.S government's covert-action doctrine of "plausible deniability," sanctioned by the National Security Council directive NSC 10/2. Under the direction of Allen Dulles, the CIA interpreted this "plausible deniability" as a green light to assassinate national leaders, overthrow governments, and lie to cover up any trace of accountability – all for the sake of promoting U.S. interests and maintaining US. nuclear-backed dominance over the Soviet Union and other nations. That void of accountability for the CIA and our other security agencies made possible the JFK assassination and cover up.
JFK & THE UNSPEAKABLE is a mind-blowing book. Meticulously researched, shocking, compelling, and impressively footnoted, it offers the suspense even well-written crime thrillers often lack. Most importantly, it offers us insight into some of the true reasons behind Kennedy's assassination, and "the truth shall make you free."
January 28, 2014
Politics, History, Intrigue, and Mystery.
JKF and the Unspeakable got to me in a way I didn't expect. Organizing facts in support of a JFK assassination theory is like ordering a meal at Alice's Restaurant. You can get anything you want. Still, I found this book both persuasive and deeply disturbing.
The accuracy of tomes like these is dependent upon the author's use of primary sources. I didn't check them. One chapter had nine hundred and thirty-six footnotes. The others were as well documented. Most of the sources, it appears, are virtually unimpeachable. Even leaving out tangential reports and speculation, the author presents a treacherous story that burns your whiskers off. It is a tale of democracy subverted by the government itself; it is a narrative of murder by planned ambush and political power.
The book is not without flaws. The author's prose is not economical. Some of the reporting is redundant. The same quote appears in four places in the book, for example. Because of the vast literature regarding President Kennedy's assassination, it is easy to feel, fairly or not, that the author's a priori beliefs regarding the Dallas murders drive the narrative and research.
The book, though, is worth reading. Volumes of previously unreleased documents have been made available over the last decades. JKF and the Unspeakable shows how difficult it would be, after reviewing the evidence, to believe a history-changing assassination was pulled off by a lone, disgruntled employee of a book warehouse.
JKF and the Unspeakable got to me in a way I didn't expect. Organizing facts in support of a JFK assassination theory is like ordering a meal at Alice's Restaurant. You can get anything you want. Still, I found this book both persuasive and deeply disturbing.
The accuracy of tomes like these is dependent upon the author's use of primary sources. I didn't check them. One chapter had nine hundred and thirty-six footnotes. The others were as well documented. Most of the sources, it appears, are virtually unimpeachable. Even leaving out tangential reports and speculation, the author presents a treacherous story that burns your whiskers off. It is a tale of democracy subverted by the government itself; it is a narrative of murder by planned ambush and political power.
The book is not without flaws. The author's prose is not economical. Some of the reporting is redundant. The same quote appears in four places in the book, for example. Because of the vast literature regarding President Kennedy's assassination, it is easy to feel, fairly or not, that the author's a priori beliefs regarding the Dallas murders drive the narrative and research.
The book, though, is worth reading. Volumes of previously unreleased documents have been made available over the last decades. JKF and the Unspeakable shows how difficult it would be, after reviewing the evidence, to believe a history-changing assassination was pulled off by a lone, disgruntled employee of a book warehouse.
November 22, 2015
An excellent step by step summary of events. I'm not sure I agree with some of the conclusions, but if you want one of the clearest written portrayals of events, this is it. The key is to see how JFK was changed in office. He ran on the missile gap, that we were behind the Russians, but once in office he realized he'd been fooled. The actual gap was the other way, which, in a way, made things more desperate for the Soviet Union.
Most people don't know we had nuke missiles in Turkey and Italy, very close flight time to Moscow. As part of the negotiations during the Cuban Missile Crisis, we removed those missiles, but that is rarely mentioned. Kennedy was the right man at the right time. That he was killed 52 years ago today is a tragedy. Why he was killed, how he was killed, might never be proven 100%. But the facts need to be read about and this book does it. I used many of these facts writing The Kennedy Endeavor-- especially once I learned about what Mrs. Kennedy said to Mikoyan in the Rotunda two days after the assassination-- mentioning an Endeavor her husband and Khrushchev were working on. What's fascinating is that Kennedy's former mistress, Mary Meyer (who was a stabilizing factor for him during the Cuban Missile Crisis) was killed with a shot to the back of the head less than a year after his death. And Khrushchev was forced out of power a day later. A key question is what happened to Meyer's diary? Some say Jesus Angleton of the CIA got to it first and burned it. But what if he didn't? A lot of these intriguing pieces are in this book and if your read one book about JFK, this is it.
Most people don't know we had nuke missiles in Turkey and Italy, very close flight time to Moscow. As part of the negotiations during the Cuban Missile Crisis, we removed those missiles, but that is rarely mentioned. Kennedy was the right man at the right time. That he was killed 52 years ago today is a tragedy. Why he was killed, how he was killed, might never be proven 100%. But the facts need to be read about and this book does it. I used many of these facts writing The Kennedy Endeavor-- especially once I learned about what Mrs. Kennedy said to Mikoyan in the Rotunda two days after the assassination-- mentioning an Endeavor her husband and Khrushchev were working on. What's fascinating is that Kennedy's former mistress, Mary Meyer (who was a stabilizing factor for him during the Cuban Missile Crisis) was killed with a shot to the back of the head less than a year after his death. And Khrushchev was forced out of power a day later. A key question is what happened to Meyer's diary? Some say Jesus Angleton of the CIA got to it first and burned it. But what if he didn't? A lot of these intriguing pieces are in this book and if your read one book about JFK, this is it.
August 29, 2011
This is a simply stunning book. I suppose if you were around to remember Kennedy's Assassination you will have clear views on whether the assassination was by a 'lone nut' or part of a wider and much darker conspiracy. James Douglass's interest was because he discovered Kennedy, in his final years, was moving sharply from Cold War Warrior to Statesman of Peace. This was the main reason he was killed.
Douglass, a campaigner for peace, puts together a very compelling case as to why certain powerful groups in America would feel it was their nationalist duty (to say nothing of economic duty) to see Kennedy neutralised. This involved his rapprochement with Khrushchev (documented by Khrushchev's son amongst others) and the decision to withdraw from Vietnam (unpublished at the time of his death and thwarted by his murder). Both these key factors, and the considerable ire of those who hated Castro, led to a large enough number of very powerful military and corporate individuals who would consider it their duty to see Kennedy dead.
Douglass bolsters his case be showing who in the CIA could have organised his murder, how it could have been done and then covered up. He also shows why LBJ steered very clear of certain questions in the inquiry that followed.
The case is unfolded with the pace and tension of an excellent mystery novel. There is much here that I have never come across before and I have informed myself on this topic. Not least his analysis of how Lee Harvey Oswald was set up as a patsy, with (almost certainly) someone impersonating him at crucial points to establish motive. The 'fact' that Oswald had very likely been a CIA asset, acting as a double agent in Russia, which appears nowhere in the Warren Commission Report, is soundly evidenced.
This is an excellent book, that severely undermines the 'conspiracy theory' that JFK (and his brother for that matter) were sadly shot down by lone nuts.
Douglass, a campaigner for peace, puts together a very compelling case as to why certain powerful groups in America would feel it was their nationalist duty (to say nothing of economic duty) to see Kennedy neutralised. This involved his rapprochement with Khrushchev (documented by Khrushchev's son amongst others) and the decision to withdraw from Vietnam (unpublished at the time of his death and thwarted by his murder). Both these key factors, and the considerable ire of those who hated Castro, led to a large enough number of very powerful military and corporate individuals who would consider it their duty to see Kennedy dead.
Douglass bolsters his case be showing who in the CIA could have organised his murder, how it could have been done and then covered up. He also shows why LBJ steered very clear of certain questions in the inquiry that followed.
The case is unfolded with the pace and tension of an excellent mystery novel. There is much here that I have never come across before and I have informed myself on this topic. Not least his analysis of how Lee Harvey Oswald was set up as a patsy, with (almost certainly) someone impersonating him at crucial points to establish motive. The 'fact' that Oswald had very likely been a CIA asset, acting as a double agent in Russia, which appears nowhere in the Warren Commission Report, is soundly evidenced.
This is an excellent book, that severely undermines the 'conspiracy theory' that JFK (and his brother for that matter) were sadly shot down by lone nuts.
July 29, 2023
James Douglass establishes Kennedy’s character through his PT109 experience and shows JFK remaining a hero by giving all and more in public life. As president, his growing views about the dangers of the cold war put him at odds with the “military industrial complex” which Eisenhower had warned about and with the CIA which had a vested interest in maintaining both cold and hot wars. With this as a starting point, Douglass goes deeper into the motivation and methods of JFK's assassins.
At the time of his assassination, Kennedy was working on an arms ban treaty with the Soviet Union, a visit to Indonesia to help Sukarno fend off a military coup, a negotiated settlement with Vietnam and other world peace initiatives. Support for these measures came from the general public, not from “Washington”, including lack of support from JFK’s own appointees.
Hit List: An In-Depth Investigation into the Mysterious Deaths of Witnesses to the JFK Assassination profiles 50 of an estimated 1400 people who had information on the assassins and their enablers who died under suspicious circumstances. The authors show the odds of only 15 deaths of material witnesses within 1 year of the assassination are 1 in 167 trillion.
With key witnesses either out of the way or intimidated, it is no surprise that a significant amount of information was held back from the Warren Commission and later from the House Select Committee on Assassinations (1978-9). Dogged investigations have found witnesses to come forward 40+ years later. Only recently, with all or most perpetrators gone, can we get a more accurate picture of the right-wing conspiracy that killed both Kennedy brothers and perhaps politically damaged another and may have downed the flight of JFK’s son.
For me, Douglass has documented, confirmed and/or clarified:
• Lee Harvey Oswald was a CIA agent. He prepared for this work as a marine. He returned to the US from Russia on the CIA payroll. This information was not available to the Warren Commission or the House Select Committee on Assassinations.
• George de Mohrensen’s Haiti contract was via the CIA, most likely payment for “minding” Oswald and handing him off to the Paine’s. (His death was an alleged suicide days before his scheduled testimony before the HSCA.)
• The mystery of the Paine’s taking the Oswald’s into their home as they did was solved: both Ruth and Michael had ties to Allen Dulles.
• Jim Garrison, the only prosecutor who brought a case against any of the alleged conspirators, was on to a lot, but important info was not available at that time.
These items were new to me:
• A Chicago assassination attempt for November 2, 1963 was foiled by a tip to the FBI from someone named Lee. Its plan (a fake shot from on a high window at a turn in a motorcade) and its scapegoat (like Oswald, a former marine with CIA ties) resembled the November 22 event.
• Oswald most likely had a double. It was the double that went to the Russian Embassy in Mexico (Oswald was fluent in Russian; the man who resembled Oswald at the embassy was not). The visit’s purpose was to tie Oswald, the scapegoat, to Russia and Cuba.
• Jack Ruby was seen delivering the Oswald double (the actual assassin) to the grassy knoll. He was also seen as an early visitor to Parkland Hospital and then the movie theater where Oswald (and maybe the double) was (were) apprehended. What are the odds that he would just happen to be at any of thee three locations?
• Richard Case Nagel was the CIA officer tasked with assassinating Oswald after the deed. He couldn’t do it and got himself arrested sensing that he would be safest in jail.
• Ruth Paine not only got Oswald the Book Depository job, she saw that he was not aware of a call about a higher paying job. Her car was seen at the grassy knoll – picking up Oswald (most likely the double). Her cover story is widely accepted, but the facts say that she or her husband, or both, were setting Oswald up.
• The story of Abraham Bolden shows the breadth of the cover up. Bolden tried to contact the Warren Commission about the Chicago attempt. His reward was a counterfeiting rap. The judge tried to sway the jury to a guilty verdict but failed. A second trial convicted him. In a separate trial a so called witness to Bolden’s alleged counterfeiting testified that he had perjured himself at the Bolden trial. The conviction was never overturned. In prison Bolden was given mind altering drugs. The day after a visit from Jim Garrison Bolden was put in solitary confinement. While in prison his home was vandalized and later set on fire. A brick was thrown at his wife.
• The story of Ralph Yates shows more cruelty in the cover up. For his testimony of having picked up a hitchhiker who looked like Oswald carrying a package of “curtain rods” and letting him off at the Book Depository, Yates lived 11 years in a mental institution where he died. While there, he received electric shock treatments. The most likely explanation for Yates's treatment is that he picked up the double who was tasked with planting evidence to make it look like Osward took a gun to the book depository. When the real Oswald was documented at other locations, Yates and his inconvenient knowledge had to be suppressed.
While we use the term CIA as the assassin, to re-purpose the NRA expression “people (not government agencies) kill people”. The Devil's Chessboard: Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise of America's Secret Government shows the life of Allen Dulles and how he had the motive (policy differences and his dismissal from the CIA) and means (ties to the agency with long experience in assassination) to carry this out. Douglass shows how Dulles got himself appointed to the Warren Commission and was its most diligent member; the only member to attend all its meetings. Douglass often documents how what witnesses reported differs from their testimony in the Commission’s minutes.
Here are some of my observations that I have never seen anywhere in print:
• Conspiracy debunkers use police and autopsy reports with no skepticism. Douglass shows how some police work was co-opted and the autopsy was not allowed to progress according to accepted practice. Police and physicians as well as witnesses were silenced, severely altering the record.
• Arlen Specter who as a staff member of the Warren Commission co-authored the single bullet theory, was a rising star in Democratic politics. In 1965 he became a Republican. Local politics are the official reason, but there are official stories for too many involved with this assassination and its cover up. Specter changed parties again – in 2010.
• There are YouTube clips of Judyth Baker ( Me & Lee: How I Came to Know, Love and Lose Lee Harvey Oswald) that chronicle her 1963 romance with Oswald. While her story is not accepted as mainstream, could her romance have been with the Oswald double? Some of the pictures she has posted show Oswald with beefier face; the Oswald at the Russian Embassy in Mexico was said to be a bit bigger than the real Oswald.
• I personally know someone who may have had prior knowledge of the JFK assassination. In the 1960's he was sent to Attica Prison for a murder and may still be there. He did not seem to be the kind of guy who would kill a woman in her kitchen. He as a driver for an important mob figure. Was he set up to get him off the stage like so many others with foreknowledge?
Douglass quotes and references Thomas Merton at the beginning and end and at places in the middle of this is a cautionary tale. He writes not only of moral values, but also Merton’s prescience about Kennedy's fate. Similarly Kennedy's Commencement Speech at American University (which appears in the Appendix) is frequently cited.
Here is a very real “deep state” of “unelected” bureaucrats. It is not a deep state not of liberals, as envisioned by the people who use these terms; but a “deep state” of "unelected" conservatives.
This is an important book. Its contents should be taught in American history classes.
At the time of his assassination, Kennedy was working on an arms ban treaty with the Soviet Union, a visit to Indonesia to help Sukarno fend off a military coup, a negotiated settlement with Vietnam and other world peace initiatives. Support for these measures came from the general public, not from “Washington”, including lack of support from JFK’s own appointees.
Hit List: An In-Depth Investigation into the Mysterious Deaths of Witnesses to the JFK Assassination profiles 50 of an estimated 1400 people who had information on the assassins and their enablers who died under suspicious circumstances. The authors show the odds of only 15 deaths of material witnesses within 1 year of the assassination are 1 in 167 trillion.
With key witnesses either out of the way or intimidated, it is no surprise that a significant amount of information was held back from the Warren Commission and later from the House Select Committee on Assassinations (1978-9). Dogged investigations have found witnesses to come forward 40+ years later. Only recently, with all or most perpetrators gone, can we get a more accurate picture of the right-wing conspiracy that killed both Kennedy brothers and perhaps politically damaged another and may have downed the flight of JFK’s son.
For me, Douglass has documented, confirmed and/or clarified:
• Lee Harvey Oswald was a CIA agent. He prepared for this work as a marine. He returned to the US from Russia on the CIA payroll. This information was not available to the Warren Commission or the House Select Committee on Assassinations.
• George de Mohrensen’s Haiti contract was via the CIA, most likely payment for “minding” Oswald and handing him off to the Paine’s. (His death was an alleged suicide days before his scheduled testimony before the HSCA.)
• The mystery of the Paine’s taking the Oswald’s into their home as they did was solved: both Ruth and Michael had ties to Allen Dulles.
• Jim Garrison, the only prosecutor who brought a case against any of the alleged conspirators, was on to a lot, but important info was not available at that time.
These items were new to me:
• A Chicago assassination attempt for November 2, 1963 was foiled by a tip to the FBI from someone named Lee. Its plan (a fake shot from on a high window at a turn in a motorcade) and its scapegoat (like Oswald, a former marine with CIA ties) resembled the November 22 event.
• Oswald most likely had a double. It was the double that went to the Russian Embassy in Mexico (Oswald was fluent in Russian; the man who resembled Oswald at the embassy was not). The visit’s purpose was to tie Oswald, the scapegoat, to Russia and Cuba.
• Jack Ruby was seen delivering the Oswald double (the actual assassin) to the grassy knoll. He was also seen as an early visitor to Parkland Hospital and then the movie theater where Oswald (and maybe the double) was (were) apprehended. What are the odds that he would just happen to be at any of thee three locations?
• Richard Case Nagel was the CIA officer tasked with assassinating Oswald after the deed. He couldn’t do it and got himself arrested sensing that he would be safest in jail.
• Ruth Paine not only got Oswald the Book Depository job, she saw that he was not aware of a call about a higher paying job. Her car was seen at the grassy knoll – picking up Oswald (most likely the double). Her cover story is widely accepted, but the facts say that she or her husband, or both, were setting Oswald up.
• The story of Abraham Bolden shows the breadth of the cover up. Bolden tried to contact the Warren Commission about the Chicago attempt. His reward was a counterfeiting rap. The judge tried to sway the jury to a guilty verdict but failed. A second trial convicted him. In a separate trial a so called witness to Bolden’s alleged counterfeiting testified that he had perjured himself at the Bolden trial. The conviction was never overturned. In prison Bolden was given mind altering drugs. The day after a visit from Jim Garrison Bolden was put in solitary confinement. While in prison his home was vandalized and later set on fire. A brick was thrown at his wife.
• The story of Ralph Yates shows more cruelty in the cover up. For his testimony of having picked up a hitchhiker who looked like Oswald carrying a package of “curtain rods” and letting him off at the Book Depository, Yates lived 11 years in a mental institution where he died. While there, he received electric shock treatments. The most likely explanation for Yates's treatment is that he picked up the double who was tasked with planting evidence to make it look like Osward took a gun to the book depository. When the real Oswald was documented at other locations, Yates and his inconvenient knowledge had to be suppressed.
While we use the term CIA as the assassin, to re-purpose the NRA expression “people (not government agencies) kill people”. The Devil's Chessboard: Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise of America's Secret Government shows the life of Allen Dulles and how he had the motive (policy differences and his dismissal from the CIA) and means (ties to the agency with long experience in assassination) to carry this out. Douglass shows how Dulles got himself appointed to the Warren Commission and was its most diligent member; the only member to attend all its meetings. Douglass often documents how what witnesses reported differs from their testimony in the Commission’s minutes.
Here are some of my observations that I have never seen anywhere in print:
• Conspiracy debunkers use police and autopsy reports with no skepticism. Douglass shows how some police work was co-opted and the autopsy was not allowed to progress according to accepted practice. Police and physicians as well as witnesses were silenced, severely altering the record.
• Arlen Specter who as a staff member of the Warren Commission co-authored the single bullet theory, was a rising star in Democratic politics. In 1965 he became a Republican. Local politics are the official reason, but there are official stories for too many involved with this assassination and its cover up. Specter changed parties again – in 2010.
• There are YouTube clips of Judyth Baker ( Me & Lee: How I Came to Know, Love and Lose Lee Harvey Oswald) that chronicle her 1963 romance with Oswald. While her story is not accepted as mainstream, could her romance have been with the Oswald double? Some of the pictures she has posted show Oswald with beefier face; the Oswald at the Russian Embassy in Mexico was said to be a bit bigger than the real Oswald.
• I personally know someone who may have had prior knowledge of the JFK assassination. In the 1960's he was sent to Attica Prison for a murder and may still be there. He did not seem to be the kind of guy who would kill a woman in her kitchen. He as a driver for an important mob figure. Was he set up to get him off the stage like so many others with foreknowledge?
Douglass quotes and references Thomas Merton at the beginning and end and at places in the middle of this is a cautionary tale. He writes not only of moral values, but also Merton’s prescience about Kennedy's fate. Similarly Kennedy's Commencement Speech at American University (which appears in the Appendix) is frequently cited.
Here is a very real “deep state” of “unelected” bureaucrats. It is not a deep state not of liberals, as envisioned by the people who use these terms; but a “deep state” of "unelected" conservatives.
This is an important book. Its contents should be taught in American history classes.
February 20, 2017
This author, James W. Douglass, is a non violence activist and Christian theologian, one time professor of religion at the University of Hawaii. 'JFK and the Unspeakable', copyright 2008, is a profound and deeply spiritual journey along the Kennedy presidency, that, accompanied with a thorough and up to date knowledge of the assassination conspiracy genre, provides readers with 'back channel' insights that led to JFK's martyrdom for peace.
I concur fully with Gaeton Fonzi's review of this book, when he writes, 'by far the most important book yet written on the subject.' Important, not only because Douglass has incorporated a vast collection of past works from critics of the government whitewash of Dallas '63, but has also provided many new interesting snippets that I have not come across before. Also no less important are the truths that this book imposes on us all today. Why he died and why it matters. John Kennedy was executed, in broad daylight, because he had turned away from the unspeakable, was opening secret peace channels with Moscow and Cuba, pulling out of Vietnam and working to free the world from nuclear terror. The Commencement Speech at American University, given on June 10th '63 is referred to throughout and reproduced in full covering seven pages of the appendix. His assassination took place, in a coup d'etat, initiated by military Chiefs, incorporating CIA and Secret Service operatives, with FBI & LBJ complicity in the cover up, who stood against this agenda of peace. That is why he died. Why it matters is because the unspeakable remains with us all today.
My copy of this book was signed by James Douglass in Dallas in 2013. I stood in line behind Dr. Cyril Wecht and Doug Horne. Says it all really!
I concur fully with Gaeton Fonzi's review of this book, when he writes, 'by far the most important book yet written on the subject.' Important, not only because Douglass has incorporated a vast collection of past works from critics of the government whitewash of Dallas '63, but has also provided many new interesting snippets that I have not come across before. Also no less important are the truths that this book imposes on us all today. Why he died and why it matters. John Kennedy was executed, in broad daylight, because he had turned away from the unspeakable, was opening secret peace channels with Moscow and Cuba, pulling out of Vietnam and working to free the world from nuclear terror. The Commencement Speech at American University, given on June 10th '63 is referred to throughout and reproduced in full covering seven pages of the appendix. His assassination took place, in a coup d'etat, initiated by military Chiefs, incorporating CIA and Secret Service operatives, with FBI & LBJ complicity in the cover up, who stood against this agenda of peace. That is why he died. Why it matters is because the unspeakable remains with us all today.
My copy of this book was signed by James Douglass in Dallas in 2013. I stood in line behind Dr. Cyril Wecht and Doug Horne. Says it all really!
November 21, 2015
Not only presents monumental proof President John F. Kennedy was murdered in a plot orchestrated by the CIA--with the support of the Secret Service, the FBI, the Dallas police and sheriff's departments, the Army, Navy, Air Force, congressmen, senators, the Chief Justice of the Supreme court, and Vice President Lyndon Johnson--but why he was killed. He was killed because if he had lived, he would have not only stopped the Vietnam War, but stopped the Cold War: he was secretly negotiating with Kruschev toward disarmament and normalization of relations with the USSR and Cuba. He also supported true independence for countries in the "third world" such as Indonesia and the countries of Africa. If Kennedy had lived, several very wealthy and politically powerful owners of mining companies and weapons manufacturers would have lost an opportunity to gain lots of easy extra wealth. If Kennedy had lived, the Vietnam War would have ended before the worst of it began: 3 million people would not have died in the war. 4 million more people would not have died in the Khmer Rouge purges. Indonesia would not have been forced by the CIA and U.S. military into a military dictatorship friendly to corporate mining plunderers. So he had to die. To perpetuate the perpetual war and domination that feed the greed of the rulers of the national security state. The anti-communist orthodoxy of the time was the excuse of the time for the war machine. Since then, there have been other excuses. It would have been a very much different, and very much better, world if JFK had lived. RFK was killed by the same people for the same reasons: He would likely have been elected in 1968, and would've been the same kind of president his brother was. Sirhan Sirhan was an expendable CIA asset as were Jack Ruby and Lee Harvey Oswald. If Teddy Kennedy had ever seemed likely to be president, he would've been murdered as well.
January 22, 2023
Written from the perspective of someone who believes peace on earth is a worthwhile objective, and one within our reach if we are able to change our mindset and confront the "unspeakable" — that is, the potential in all of us to be corrupted by evil.
Thoroughly researched, the position here is that JFK was killed by the forces of the national security state when he strayed too far off course. Peace, you see, cannot be tolerated and there were those who felt JFK's positions were dangerous and treasonous.
Thoroughly researched, the position here is that JFK was killed by the forces of the national security state when he strayed too far off course. Peace, you see, cannot be tolerated and there were those who felt JFK's positions were dangerous and treasonous.
June 4, 2014
“What kind of peace do I mean? What kind of peace do we seek? Not a Pax Americana enforced on the world by American weapons of war. Not the peace of the grave or the security of the slave. I am talking about genuine peace, the kind of peace that makes life on earth worth living, the kind that enables men and nations to grow and to hope and to build a better life for their children – not merely peace for Americans but peace for all men and women – not merely peace in our time but peace for all time.”
-John F. Kennedy, American University Commencement Address, June 10, 1963, (1)
Robert Ellsberg of Orbis Books, who published JFK and the Unspeakable, passed on the manuscript at first because of both its length (over 500 pages) and its subject matter. But changed his mind after getting positive feedback from several historians and analysts he'd passed it to.
Much of the book is based on declassified government documents obtained via the Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992, including secret correspondence between Kennedy and Khrushchev from 1961 – 1963, transcripts of Kennedy's secret recordings of his meetings with his Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCOS) and other national security advisors during the Cuban Missile Crisis, and KGB documents regarding Kennedy's assassination that were unexpectedly handed over to President Clinton by Boris Yeltsin.
Dense in terms of information and sources, it is also wrenching. Although the writing is compelling and suspenseful – at times, I had to put the book down for a while because it was just too overwhelming, even for a reader who is weary of the U.S. political class in general and foreign policy in particular.
The book elicited a profound respect for the moral courage demonstrated by both President Kennedy and his Cold War counterpart, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, at moments when so much hung in the balance. The bond these two men developed as a consequence of their taking humanity to the brink and the terror they both felt from looking into the abyss led to a mutual desire to negotiate an end to the Cold War and work toward disarmament.
It is a story of great promise that we all know ends in tragedy. This book underscores both the promise and the tragedy of what might have been.
Although I find the assassination itself compelling and necessary to understand, I actually found the story of Kennedy's turn from Cold Warrior to peace advocate to be even more intriguing and will focus my review on that aspect of the book.
The Kennedy-Khrushchev-Castro Détente
Ironically, Kennedy's first impression of Premier Khrushchev during their meeting in Vienna in 1961 where they agreed upon a neutral government for Laos was unfavorable. Reportedly, Khrushchev sat stone faced in response to Kennedy's stated concerns about the human costs of a possible nuclear war between their respective nations.
Kennedy would be forced to revise that opinion when Khrushchev initiated a secret back channel correspondence with him in September of 1961 – a correspondence he felt he had to keep hidden from the Kremlin and the Soviet military establishment due to hardliners in his government who would view such a project as alarming and weak. Kennedy would eventually learn that the very same dynamics were going on in his own government. By 1963, he would have to bypass his own State Department to continue his correspondence with Khrushchev.
Khrushchev's first letter, 26 pages long, expressed regret at their inability to connect at the Vienna meeting, most likely due to distrust, which prevented them from working on more mutually beneficial goals.
The Premier likened their situation with “Noah’s Ark where both the ‘clean’ and the ‘unclean’ found sanctuary. But regardless of who lists himself with the ‘clean’ and who is considered to be ‘unclean,’ they are all equally interested in one thing and that is that the Ark should successfully continue its cruise. And we have no other alternative; either we should live in peace and cooperation so that the Ark maintains its buoyancy, or else it sinks.”
Kennedy responded with a lengthy and receptive letter of his own in which he agreed with Khrushchev’s analogy about their problem: “I like very much your analogy of Noah’s Ark, with both the ‘clean’ and the ‘unclean’ determined that it stay afloat. Whatever our differences, our collaboration to keep the peace is as urgent – if not more urgent – than our collaboration to win the last world war.”
Thus began a delicate but crucial exchange between sworn enemies in a mythical battle for the world.
By October of 1961, Khrushchev had intuited enough about Kennedy to suspect that the crisis at the Berlin Wall was brought about by elements of the U.S. government without Kennedy’s knowledge or approval. When Kennedy became aware of the intense standoff between American and Soviet tanks at the Wall, he immediately utilized the back channel established with Khrushchev to work out a withdrawal plan. This turn of events would prove prophetic in averting future crises.
The road toward peace the two leaders had embarked on, however, was littered with compromises and regressions. Both leaders had to deal with hardliners in their respective governments and Kennedy had to throw an occasional bone to the Cold War hawks around him.
In March of 1962, Kennedy made a statement during an interview with the Saturday Evening Post that “Khrushchev must not be certain that, where its vital interests are threatened, the United States will never strike first. In some circumstances, we might have to take the initiative.” Khrushchev interpreted this as a first-strike threat, which resulted in a Soviet military alert. When Kennedy’s press secretary tried to reassure Khrushchev during a visit to Moscow a couple of months later, the leader was not convinced and began to reexamine his military position. Placing missiles in Cuba would have the two-fold purpose of deterring the invasion of an ally and providing parity with the U.S. installation of nuclear missiles in Turkey on the USSR’s borders.
By October, a full-blown crisis had emerged that threatened a nuclear holocaust.
The best insight into President Kennedy's reaction and concerns during the darkest moment of the Cuban Missile crisis, when Soviet ships were approaching Cuba and nuclear war seemed imminent, come from Robert Kennedy: “His hand went up to his face and covered his mouth. He opened and closed his fist. His face seemed drawn, his eyes pained, almost gray. We stared at each other across the table. For a few fleeting seconds, it was almost as though no one else was there and he was no longer the president.” Robert goes on to explain that what most haunted the President was the fate of all the children who’d had no say in what was happening and would have no chance to grow up and make something of the world.
The miracle that ended the tension was Khrushchev's order for Soviet ships to stop dead in the water before breaching the U.S. blockade, thereby providing more time for negotiation. The crisis ended when, after a visit from Robert Kennedy to Soviet Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin that included Kennedy’s message that the President’s military advisors were pressing for escalation and that things could spiral out of the President’s control, Khrushchev agreed to remove the missiles. In exchange, Kennedy made a secret promise to remove U.S. nuclear missiles from Turkey on the Soviet Union's border. Kennedy upheld his promise of removal of the missiles within six months and never gloated about Khrushchev's "retreat."
There is some debate about the extent of the spiraling threat that Robert Kennedy conveyed, but Nikita Khrushchev believed, as stated in his memoirs, that Kennedy feared a military coup.
When asked by journalist Norman Cousins in December of 1962 how it felt to have his finger so close to the nuclear trigger during the Missile Crisis, Khrushchev said:
"The Chinese say I was scared. Of course I was scared. It would have been insane not to have been scared. I was frightened about what could happen to my country – or your country and all the other countries that would be devastated by a nuclear war. If being frightened meant that I helped avert such insanity then I’m glad I was frightened. One of the problems in the world today is that not enough people are sufficiently frightened by the danger of nuclear war."
Despite the halting progress being made by Kennedy and Khrushchev, by 1963 they had reached an impasse on terms of a nuclear test ban treaty over the number of inspections that would be allowed. The Soviets feared inspections were an opportunity for espionage and had reluctantly agreed to three. The Kennedy administration soon realized that Congress would not approve any treaty requiring less than eight. Kennedy, however, sensed that most of the American public had drawn the same conclusion that he and Khrushchev had from the Cuban Missile Crisis, that of a need to turn toward peaceful co-existence, disarmament, and cooperation in whatever areas were possible.
Nevertheless, Kennedy had become aware of numerous factions in his own government that would undermine his peace policies. In an effort to circumvent these obstructionists, he enlisted advisor Theodore Sorenson to write an ambitious speech that would outline a vision of peaceful co-existence and disarmament. That speech was his American University Address quoted above in which he insisted that peace was possible if broken down into manageable and concrete steps, acknowledged the shared humanity of the Soviet people despite political differences, and encouraged Americans to self-reflect on their own attitudes that could impede progress toward peace.
Kennedy had gotten word to the Soviets ahead of time that he would be giving a significant speech. The Soviet Unions' response to the speech was described as follows:
"The full text of the speech was published in the Soviet press. Still more striking was the fact that it was heard as well as read throughout the USSR. After fifteen years of almost uninterrupted jamming of Western broadcasts, by means of a network of over three thousand transmitters and at an annual cost of several hundred million dollars, the Soviets jammed only one paragraph of the speech when relayed by the Voice of America in Russian, then did not jam any of it upon rebroadcast – and then suddenly stopped jamming all Western broadcasts. Equally suddenly they agreed in Vienna to the principle of inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency to make certain that Agency’s reactors were used for peaceful purposes. And equally suddenly the outlook for some kind of test-ban agreement turned from hopeless to hopeful."
Furthermore, “Khrushchev was deeply moved. He told test-ban negotiator Averell Harriman that Kennedy had given ‘the greatest speech by any American President since Roosevelt.’” He proposed to Kennedy the consideration of a treaty that would ban nuclear testing in the air, space and water, obviating the need for inspections, as well as a non-aggression pact between NATO and the Warsaw Pact.
In the U.S., however, the speech was largely ignored or greeted with skepticism.
Around this same time, Kennedy was contemplating a rapprochement with Castro in which he would acknowledge Castro's government in exchange for a promise to not sponsor more revolution in the western hemisphere. Castro was prodded by Khrushchev to take the risk of trusting Kennedy enough to consider a dialogue with him. A back channel of communication was being established by November in the form of Norman Cousins who, during a days-long interview of Castro, discussed with him the possibilities of a negotiated peace with Kennedy on November 19, 1963. Castro's response, after a several minutes of reflection, was incisive and prescient in terms of truly understanding Kennedy's predicament:
"I believe Kennedy is sincere. I also believe that today the expression of this sincerity could have political significance…I haven’t forgotten that Kennedy centered his electoral campaign against Nixon on the theme of firmness toward Cuba. I have not forgotten the Machiavellian tactics and the equivocation, the attempts at invasion, the pressures, the blackmail, the organization of counterrevolution, the blockade and, above everything, all the retaliatory measures which were imposed before, long before there was the pretext and alibi of Communism. But I feel that he inherited a difficult situation; I don’t think a President of the United States is ever really free, and I believe Kennedy is at present feeling the impact of this lack of freedom. I also believe he now understands the extent to which he has been misled."
Another peace emissary, Jean Daniel, was present a few days later when a stunned Castro received the news of Kennedy's assassination and lamented: "Everything is changed. Everything is going to change."
Vietnam
Kennedy's reluctance with respect to military engagement in Vietnam and his eventual desire to get out was largely rooted in a trip to Vietnam he took with his brother Robert in 1951, during which they spoke to Edmund Gullion, an official at the U.S. Consulate. Gullion told them: "In twenty years there will be no more colonies. We're going nowhere out here. The French have lost. If we come in here and do the same thing, we will lose, too, for the same reason. There's no will or support for this kind of war back in Paris. The homefront is lost. The same thing would happen to us." Kennedy never forgot Gullion's words, but he was in a conundrum as to how to prevent a deeper military engagement in light of his understanding that such a view was further isolating him from the influential hardliners who wanted to escalate the Cold War at every opportunity, as well as a CIA that defied and undermined him, particularly after the Bay of Pigs when the CIA realized it couldn't manipulate the president into invading Cuba. As pressure mounted on the issue, Kennedy’s friend Larry Newman said he told him in October of 1963, “This war in Vietnam – it’s never off my mind, it haunts me day and night.” By November, Kennedy told Malcom Kilduff that Vietnam was "not worth one more American life…After I come back from Texas, that’s going to change." He said essentially the same thing to a few others, including Senator Mike Mansfield. He documented his decision with National Security Action Memorandum 263, which called for pulling out 1,000 American servicemen from Vietnam by the end of 1963 and all of them by the end of 1965.
Cold War Mythology and the CIA
The creation of our current national security apparatus, including the CIA, can be traced back to the National Security Act signed by Harry Truman in 1947 designed to “contain” the Soviet Union, which Truman and his staunchly anti-Communist advisors had decided was the next enemy after WWII. Truman later lamented in a Washington Post piece after Kennedy’s assassination that the CIA had essentially turned into an unaccountable Frankenstein, explaining that it was only intended to serve as a source of intelligence gathering to enable the president to make informed decisions. Although this is somewhat disingenuous on Truman’s part as his Secretary of State George Marshall had warned him at the time of the potential unaccountability and abuse of the agencies being created by this legislation, stating that it especially granted the CIA powers that were “almost unlimited.” The egregious line cited by most critics of the Act is one that allows a president to direct the CIA to "perform such other functions and duties related to intelligence affecting the national security." (2)
Another point against Truman in the creation of the CIA Frankenstein and the Cold War mythology that allowed it to operate is that, as historian Peter Kuznick points out, had Truman not replaced Henry Wallace as FDR's vice president, there's a decent chance there may not have been a Cold War as Truman, a political neophyte, overturned FDR's more balanced approach to his Allied partners and took a more bellicose stance against the Soviet Union. This likely could have been avoided if Truman had understood Soviet defense interests better or been willing to listen to advisors who did. The Soviets had been invaded twice in thirty years and suffered over 20 million deaths and saw the devastation of much of its county in beating back the Nazis. Both FDR and Wallace had a more nuanced understanding of the situation, but Truman refused to listen to Wallace's views and instead went along with the extreme anti-Communist ideology of some of his other advisors. (3)
Perhaps Truman realized some of his mistakes in hindsight. In any event, by the time Kennedy took office, the Cold War mentality and the reach and unaccountability of the CIA had risen to ominous levels. It didn't take Kennedy long to realize what he was dealing with.
According to Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., during the Bay of Pigs fiasco, Kennedy told him: “It’s a hell of a way to learn things, but I have learned one thing from this business – that is, that we will have to deal with the CIA…no one has dealt with the CIA.” He had also commented to others that he wanted to “splinter the CIA into a thousand pieces and scatter it to the winds.” Consequently, Kennedy signed National Security Action Memorandums 55 and 57 stripping the CIA of authority to conduct military type operations and affirming that the JCOS were the president’s principal military advisors during peace and wartime. He also forced director Allen Dulles, the deputy director and the deputy director general to resign.
By this time, military leaders and national security advisors had acquired an extremely militant stance rooted in an almost theological belief that we were the white knights fighting an evil foe, Communism, that must be vanquished at all costs. They were relentless in their desire to escalate the Cold War. In addition to constantly pressuring Kennedy during the Missile Crisis to bomb and invade Cuba with the potential catastrophic consequences dismissed, these hawks periodically suggested a nuclear first strike on the Soviet Union. The first time was during a 1961 meeting in which the President walked out in disgust. At a later meeting, his advisors casually discussed the estimated deaths of 130 million Soviets and up to 30 million Americans from reprisals. In 1962, the JCOS presented him with the Operation Northwoods plan, which included potential false flag operations by the CIA intended to provoke the American public against Cuba.
Kennedy somehow withstood the pressure and nixed all of these nefarious plans. But his desire for a negotiated end to the Cold War represented surrender and, therefore, treason to his internal opponents.
1. JFK’s American University Address, June 10, 1963, available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrspH...
2. "The Life and Times of the CIA" by Chalmers Johnson; TomDispatch, 7/24/2007. http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/17482...
3. "How America Became an Empire" by Jim DiEugenio; Consortium News, 1/1/2013. http://consortiumnews.com/2013/01/01/...
*The insanity the nuclear first strike ideology lives on: http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2014/...
-John F. Kennedy, American University Commencement Address, June 10, 1963, (1)
Robert Ellsberg of Orbis Books, who published JFK and the Unspeakable, passed on the manuscript at first because of both its length (over 500 pages) and its subject matter. But changed his mind after getting positive feedback from several historians and analysts he'd passed it to.
Much of the book is based on declassified government documents obtained via the Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992, including secret correspondence between Kennedy and Khrushchev from 1961 – 1963, transcripts of Kennedy's secret recordings of his meetings with his Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCOS) and other national security advisors during the Cuban Missile Crisis, and KGB documents regarding Kennedy's assassination that were unexpectedly handed over to President Clinton by Boris Yeltsin.
Dense in terms of information and sources, it is also wrenching. Although the writing is compelling and suspenseful – at times, I had to put the book down for a while because it was just too overwhelming, even for a reader who is weary of the U.S. political class in general and foreign policy in particular.
The book elicited a profound respect for the moral courage demonstrated by both President Kennedy and his Cold War counterpart, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, at moments when so much hung in the balance. The bond these two men developed as a consequence of their taking humanity to the brink and the terror they both felt from looking into the abyss led to a mutual desire to negotiate an end to the Cold War and work toward disarmament.
It is a story of great promise that we all know ends in tragedy. This book underscores both the promise and the tragedy of what might have been.
Although I find the assassination itself compelling and necessary to understand, I actually found the story of Kennedy's turn from Cold Warrior to peace advocate to be even more intriguing and will focus my review on that aspect of the book.
The Kennedy-Khrushchev-Castro Détente
Ironically, Kennedy's first impression of Premier Khrushchev during their meeting in Vienna in 1961 where they agreed upon a neutral government for Laos was unfavorable. Reportedly, Khrushchev sat stone faced in response to Kennedy's stated concerns about the human costs of a possible nuclear war between their respective nations.
Kennedy would be forced to revise that opinion when Khrushchev initiated a secret back channel correspondence with him in September of 1961 – a correspondence he felt he had to keep hidden from the Kremlin and the Soviet military establishment due to hardliners in his government who would view such a project as alarming and weak. Kennedy would eventually learn that the very same dynamics were going on in his own government. By 1963, he would have to bypass his own State Department to continue his correspondence with Khrushchev.
Khrushchev's first letter, 26 pages long, expressed regret at their inability to connect at the Vienna meeting, most likely due to distrust, which prevented them from working on more mutually beneficial goals.
The Premier likened their situation with “Noah’s Ark where both the ‘clean’ and the ‘unclean’ found sanctuary. But regardless of who lists himself with the ‘clean’ and who is considered to be ‘unclean,’ they are all equally interested in one thing and that is that the Ark should successfully continue its cruise. And we have no other alternative; either we should live in peace and cooperation so that the Ark maintains its buoyancy, or else it sinks.”
Kennedy responded with a lengthy and receptive letter of his own in which he agreed with Khrushchev’s analogy about their problem: “I like very much your analogy of Noah’s Ark, with both the ‘clean’ and the ‘unclean’ determined that it stay afloat. Whatever our differences, our collaboration to keep the peace is as urgent – if not more urgent – than our collaboration to win the last world war.”
Thus began a delicate but crucial exchange between sworn enemies in a mythical battle for the world.
By October of 1961, Khrushchev had intuited enough about Kennedy to suspect that the crisis at the Berlin Wall was brought about by elements of the U.S. government without Kennedy’s knowledge or approval. When Kennedy became aware of the intense standoff between American and Soviet tanks at the Wall, he immediately utilized the back channel established with Khrushchev to work out a withdrawal plan. This turn of events would prove prophetic in averting future crises.
The road toward peace the two leaders had embarked on, however, was littered with compromises and regressions. Both leaders had to deal with hardliners in their respective governments and Kennedy had to throw an occasional bone to the Cold War hawks around him.
In March of 1962, Kennedy made a statement during an interview with the Saturday Evening Post that “Khrushchev must not be certain that, where its vital interests are threatened, the United States will never strike first. In some circumstances, we might have to take the initiative.” Khrushchev interpreted this as a first-strike threat, which resulted in a Soviet military alert. When Kennedy’s press secretary tried to reassure Khrushchev during a visit to Moscow a couple of months later, the leader was not convinced and began to reexamine his military position. Placing missiles in Cuba would have the two-fold purpose of deterring the invasion of an ally and providing parity with the U.S. installation of nuclear missiles in Turkey on the USSR’s borders.
By October, a full-blown crisis had emerged that threatened a nuclear holocaust.
The best insight into President Kennedy's reaction and concerns during the darkest moment of the Cuban Missile crisis, when Soviet ships were approaching Cuba and nuclear war seemed imminent, come from Robert Kennedy: “His hand went up to his face and covered his mouth. He opened and closed his fist. His face seemed drawn, his eyes pained, almost gray. We stared at each other across the table. For a few fleeting seconds, it was almost as though no one else was there and he was no longer the president.” Robert goes on to explain that what most haunted the President was the fate of all the children who’d had no say in what was happening and would have no chance to grow up and make something of the world.
The miracle that ended the tension was Khrushchev's order for Soviet ships to stop dead in the water before breaching the U.S. blockade, thereby providing more time for negotiation. The crisis ended when, after a visit from Robert Kennedy to Soviet Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin that included Kennedy’s message that the President’s military advisors were pressing for escalation and that things could spiral out of the President’s control, Khrushchev agreed to remove the missiles. In exchange, Kennedy made a secret promise to remove U.S. nuclear missiles from Turkey on the Soviet Union's border. Kennedy upheld his promise of removal of the missiles within six months and never gloated about Khrushchev's "retreat."
There is some debate about the extent of the spiraling threat that Robert Kennedy conveyed, but Nikita Khrushchev believed, as stated in his memoirs, that Kennedy feared a military coup.
When asked by journalist Norman Cousins in December of 1962 how it felt to have his finger so close to the nuclear trigger during the Missile Crisis, Khrushchev said:
"The Chinese say I was scared. Of course I was scared. It would have been insane not to have been scared. I was frightened about what could happen to my country – or your country and all the other countries that would be devastated by a nuclear war. If being frightened meant that I helped avert such insanity then I’m glad I was frightened. One of the problems in the world today is that not enough people are sufficiently frightened by the danger of nuclear war."
Despite the halting progress being made by Kennedy and Khrushchev, by 1963 they had reached an impasse on terms of a nuclear test ban treaty over the number of inspections that would be allowed. The Soviets feared inspections were an opportunity for espionage and had reluctantly agreed to three. The Kennedy administration soon realized that Congress would not approve any treaty requiring less than eight. Kennedy, however, sensed that most of the American public had drawn the same conclusion that he and Khrushchev had from the Cuban Missile Crisis, that of a need to turn toward peaceful co-existence, disarmament, and cooperation in whatever areas were possible.
Nevertheless, Kennedy had become aware of numerous factions in his own government that would undermine his peace policies. In an effort to circumvent these obstructionists, he enlisted advisor Theodore Sorenson to write an ambitious speech that would outline a vision of peaceful co-existence and disarmament. That speech was his American University Address quoted above in which he insisted that peace was possible if broken down into manageable and concrete steps, acknowledged the shared humanity of the Soviet people despite political differences, and encouraged Americans to self-reflect on their own attitudes that could impede progress toward peace.
Kennedy had gotten word to the Soviets ahead of time that he would be giving a significant speech. The Soviet Unions' response to the speech was described as follows:
"The full text of the speech was published in the Soviet press. Still more striking was the fact that it was heard as well as read throughout the USSR. After fifteen years of almost uninterrupted jamming of Western broadcasts, by means of a network of over three thousand transmitters and at an annual cost of several hundred million dollars, the Soviets jammed only one paragraph of the speech when relayed by the Voice of America in Russian, then did not jam any of it upon rebroadcast – and then suddenly stopped jamming all Western broadcasts. Equally suddenly they agreed in Vienna to the principle of inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency to make certain that Agency’s reactors were used for peaceful purposes. And equally suddenly the outlook for some kind of test-ban agreement turned from hopeless to hopeful."
Furthermore, “Khrushchev was deeply moved. He told test-ban negotiator Averell Harriman that Kennedy had given ‘the greatest speech by any American President since Roosevelt.’” He proposed to Kennedy the consideration of a treaty that would ban nuclear testing in the air, space and water, obviating the need for inspections, as well as a non-aggression pact between NATO and the Warsaw Pact.
In the U.S., however, the speech was largely ignored or greeted with skepticism.
Around this same time, Kennedy was contemplating a rapprochement with Castro in which he would acknowledge Castro's government in exchange for a promise to not sponsor more revolution in the western hemisphere. Castro was prodded by Khrushchev to take the risk of trusting Kennedy enough to consider a dialogue with him. A back channel of communication was being established by November in the form of Norman Cousins who, during a days-long interview of Castro, discussed with him the possibilities of a negotiated peace with Kennedy on November 19, 1963. Castro's response, after a several minutes of reflection, was incisive and prescient in terms of truly understanding Kennedy's predicament:
"I believe Kennedy is sincere. I also believe that today the expression of this sincerity could have political significance…I haven’t forgotten that Kennedy centered his electoral campaign against Nixon on the theme of firmness toward Cuba. I have not forgotten the Machiavellian tactics and the equivocation, the attempts at invasion, the pressures, the blackmail, the organization of counterrevolution, the blockade and, above everything, all the retaliatory measures which were imposed before, long before there was the pretext and alibi of Communism. But I feel that he inherited a difficult situation; I don’t think a President of the United States is ever really free, and I believe Kennedy is at present feeling the impact of this lack of freedom. I also believe he now understands the extent to which he has been misled."
Another peace emissary, Jean Daniel, was present a few days later when a stunned Castro received the news of Kennedy's assassination and lamented: "Everything is changed. Everything is going to change."
Vietnam
Kennedy's reluctance with respect to military engagement in Vietnam and his eventual desire to get out was largely rooted in a trip to Vietnam he took with his brother Robert in 1951, during which they spoke to Edmund Gullion, an official at the U.S. Consulate. Gullion told them: "In twenty years there will be no more colonies. We're going nowhere out here. The French have lost. If we come in here and do the same thing, we will lose, too, for the same reason. There's no will or support for this kind of war back in Paris. The homefront is lost. The same thing would happen to us." Kennedy never forgot Gullion's words, but he was in a conundrum as to how to prevent a deeper military engagement in light of his understanding that such a view was further isolating him from the influential hardliners who wanted to escalate the Cold War at every opportunity, as well as a CIA that defied and undermined him, particularly after the Bay of Pigs when the CIA realized it couldn't manipulate the president into invading Cuba. As pressure mounted on the issue, Kennedy’s friend Larry Newman said he told him in October of 1963, “This war in Vietnam – it’s never off my mind, it haunts me day and night.” By November, Kennedy told Malcom Kilduff that Vietnam was "not worth one more American life…After I come back from Texas, that’s going to change." He said essentially the same thing to a few others, including Senator Mike Mansfield. He documented his decision with National Security Action Memorandum 263, which called for pulling out 1,000 American servicemen from Vietnam by the end of 1963 and all of them by the end of 1965.
Cold War Mythology and the CIA
The creation of our current national security apparatus, including the CIA, can be traced back to the National Security Act signed by Harry Truman in 1947 designed to “contain” the Soviet Union, which Truman and his staunchly anti-Communist advisors had decided was the next enemy after WWII. Truman later lamented in a Washington Post piece after Kennedy’s assassination that the CIA had essentially turned into an unaccountable Frankenstein, explaining that it was only intended to serve as a source of intelligence gathering to enable the president to make informed decisions. Although this is somewhat disingenuous on Truman’s part as his Secretary of State George Marshall had warned him at the time of the potential unaccountability and abuse of the agencies being created by this legislation, stating that it especially granted the CIA powers that were “almost unlimited.” The egregious line cited by most critics of the Act is one that allows a president to direct the CIA to "perform such other functions and duties related to intelligence affecting the national security." (2)
Another point against Truman in the creation of the CIA Frankenstein and the Cold War mythology that allowed it to operate is that, as historian Peter Kuznick points out, had Truman not replaced Henry Wallace as FDR's vice president, there's a decent chance there may not have been a Cold War as Truman, a political neophyte, overturned FDR's more balanced approach to his Allied partners and took a more bellicose stance against the Soviet Union. This likely could have been avoided if Truman had understood Soviet defense interests better or been willing to listen to advisors who did. The Soviets had been invaded twice in thirty years and suffered over 20 million deaths and saw the devastation of much of its county in beating back the Nazis. Both FDR and Wallace had a more nuanced understanding of the situation, but Truman refused to listen to Wallace's views and instead went along with the extreme anti-Communist ideology of some of his other advisors. (3)
Perhaps Truman realized some of his mistakes in hindsight. In any event, by the time Kennedy took office, the Cold War mentality and the reach and unaccountability of the CIA had risen to ominous levels. It didn't take Kennedy long to realize what he was dealing with.
According to Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., during the Bay of Pigs fiasco, Kennedy told him: “It’s a hell of a way to learn things, but I have learned one thing from this business – that is, that we will have to deal with the CIA…no one has dealt with the CIA.” He had also commented to others that he wanted to “splinter the CIA into a thousand pieces and scatter it to the winds.” Consequently, Kennedy signed National Security Action Memorandums 55 and 57 stripping the CIA of authority to conduct military type operations and affirming that the JCOS were the president’s principal military advisors during peace and wartime. He also forced director Allen Dulles, the deputy director and the deputy director general to resign.
By this time, military leaders and national security advisors had acquired an extremely militant stance rooted in an almost theological belief that we were the white knights fighting an evil foe, Communism, that must be vanquished at all costs. They were relentless in their desire to escalate the Cold War. In addition to constantly pressuring Kennedy during the Missile Crisis to bomb and invade Cuba with the potential catastrophic consequences dismissed, these hawks periodically suggested a nuclear first strike on the Soviet Union. The first time was during a 1961 meeting in which the President walked out in disgust. At a later meeting, his advisors casually discussed the estimated deaths of 130 million Soviets and up to 30 million Americans from reprisals. In 1962, the JCOS presented him with the Operation Northwoods plan, which included potential false flag operations by the CIA intended to provoke the American public against Cuba.
Kennedy somehow withstood the pressure and nixed all of these nefarious plans. But his desire for a negotiated end to the Cold War represented surrender and, therefore, treason to his internal opponents.
1. JFK’s American University Address, June 10, 1963, available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrspH...
2. "The Life and Times of the CIA" by Chalmers Johnson; TomDispatch, 7/24/2007. http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/17482...
3. "How America Became an Empire" by Jim DiEugenio; Consortium News, 1/1/2013. http://consortiumnews.com/2013/01/01/...
*The insanity the nuclear first strike ideology lives on: http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2014/...
July 14, 2023
For well over a year after I purchased James W. Douglass’s book JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters, I delayed opening it. In a strange way, I feared having my worst suspicions about the circumstances surrounding his death confirmed. Once I finally begin reading, however, I quickly became caught up in a masterfully told, and scrupulously researched, tale of alternating darkness and light. I recommend this book to all who wish to understand why JFK was murdered, by which web of conspirators, and why it still matters 50 years later.
Douglas believes that Kennedy’s execution cannot be understood apart from the political and cultural context of the time. It is Douglas’ argument – supported by mountains of footnoted data – that powerful figures in the intelligence and military establishments came to believe JFK’s gradual turning away from the rigid tenets and course of Cold War thinking – including America’s reliance upon nuclear weapons – constituted a very real threat to the survival of the United States. How this state of affairs came to be is what makes this book so very interesting and, despite Kennedy’s murder, oddly hopeful.
For those of us born in the ‘40s and reared in the ‘50s, Douglass brings back with remarkable freshness many things about those times we may have forgotten, or deliberately buried in our memories. Younger persons, for whom JFK is only a figure from the past, will likely be both fascinated and horrified by some of the attitudes and actions of those in authority at the time. While our popular culture’s portrayal of those days has nostalgically pictured the ‘50s and ‘60s as a period of prosperity, tranquility, and even as a fun time to be alive, it was actually a time of considerable international and domestic tensions. JFK’s election in 1960 occurred precisely when several of these smoldering wicks were about to burst into flame.
What makes the story of Kennedy’s journey away from the violence of war, and the ideologically rigid view that fueled it, so remarkable is that he – like all of us alive then – was clearly a product of the virulent anti-communism permeating American society. It is painful to remember how dramatically stark was the division between “us” – the United States and West in general – and “them” – specifically Russia and China, but also including those in “the Soviet bloc” (and, for many conservatives, even the self-anointed “nonaligned” states).
Recall, for instance, these markers of the time:
• The “fall of China” to the Communists in 1949 with Mao’s defeat of Chiang Kai-shek, and the seeming irresistible spread of Communist ideology through poor and troubled countries;
• The bloody struggle between UN forces (largely American in composition) and Chinese and North Koreans in the Korean War, beginning in 1950;
• Senator Joseph McCarthy’s strident claims throughout the early ‘50s about how communists had infiltrated many departments of the federal – and perhaps even state – governments;
• The House Un-American Activities Committee’s subsequent witch-hunts and black-listings of authors, movie producers, and many others;
• Americans’ widespread fear of the Soviet Union’s intentions with its recent acquisition of atomic weapons; and,
• How the South believed that “outside trouble-makers” represented a “threat to order” by stirring up the black people of the South.
Like all of us, JFK was a complex person. What Douglass’ book reveals, however, is the amazingly strong – and highly admirable – strength of moral character that shaped and governed his actions. He also had the remarkable capacity to learn from experience and, accordingly, to grow in understanding and to alter his behavior accordingly. (I realize that the foregoing comments will offend those convinced of Kennedy’s moral “failings” as evidenced by his many extra-marital affairs. One of the saddest features of our current time, however, is how we seemingly have lost all perspective concerning morality and public ethics. While not condoning JFK’s womanizing, such frankly pales before those who – while remaining publicly chaste and pious – would, nonetheless, lie and connive to take us to war and to the inevitable killing fields that would follow. JFK, unlike many otherwise “moral” political and military leaders, had an abhorrence of war, and nuclear war in particular. That he had the wisdom and courage not to succumb to Cold War ideology and “nuke” the Soviet Union, plus his stubborn resistance to be taken in by those eager to use massive force under the slightest pretext, says a great deal about his true moral center and I, for one, salute him for it.)
Kennedy’s mistrust of the military-intelligence community began early with the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba in April 1961. The entire operation, actually planned in the closing months of Eisenhower’s second term by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), was based upon a key falsehood: that the invasion forces (of Cuban exiles living in the United States) would be sufficient to overcome Cuban resistance. Both the CIA and their allies in the military establishment knew this was untrue; the invasion was actually intended to trigger US naval and/or air involvement when it became clear that the invading forces were floundering. Instead, to their chagrin, Kennedy refused to commit US assets. The subsequent failure of the invasion created long-lasting resentment against the Kennedy clan among the Cuban exiles and planted poisonous seeds of doubt in the minds of the intelligence-military community about Kennedy’s ultimate loyalties. Whose side was he really on?
The real turning point came however, during the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962. Only in recent years have we learned how very close we came to all-out nuclear war that autumn. Both JFK and his Soviet counterpart, Nikita Khrushchev, balked at the horrors that any misstep might unleash; both sent conciliatory messages and, through frantic negotiations, took mutual steps to reduce tensions. It was following these tense days that discussions between the two men began, many of them channeled through, and mediated by, Pope John XXIII (who was then dying of cancer). From that time through the end of his life (which was only 13 months away), JFK took deliberate steps to diminish – with the hope of eventually ending – the deadly standoff between their two nations which was fueled by the false black/white polarities of the Cold War.
Douglass marvels at – and celebrates – that Kennedy was able to do this, given that he had grown up as a believer in – and utilizer of – the same rhetoric. He credits his ability to do so with both his strong commitment to Catholic Christian moral teachings and to his personal acquaintance with death and suffering during World War II.
We learn some admirable things about Mr. Khrushchev’s own capacity to learn and change, too, largely unknown at the time, thanks to his subsequent revelations and insightful recollections by one of his sons. In sum, we were all fortunate that each country had leaders who, in essence, were neither self-righteous nor ideologically rigid. Had it been otherwise, we might not be here to talk about this.
Throughout the remainder of Kennedy’s presidency, he had to constantly battle the ongoing pressure of his military and so-called intelligence advisors, all of whom distrusted the Soviets and who seemed to embrace the idea that “the only good Communist is a dead one.” Because the CIA had agents everywhere, it was aware of Kennedy’s ongoing exchanges with Khrushchev and took this as growing evidence of JFK’s drift toward dangerous liberalities of thought. (As late as the spring of 1963, his generals were urging him to grant them the go-ahead to launch a surprise first strike against the Soviets – their gains in weaponry will soon rule this out as an acceptable-risk maneuver, they told him. When he asked them about the numbers of casualties the generals were talking about, they replied that they expected up to 160 million Soviet citizens vs. an “acceptable loss” of up to 40 million Americans. JFK stormed out of that particular meeting muttering, “Those ‘s.o.b.’s. And they call us members of the human race!”)
Kennedy also left ample evidence that he intended to withdraw all troops from Viet Nam following his hoped-for re-election in 1964, and his turn towards breaking the Cold War cycle was no more clearly evidenced than in his remarkable and still deeply-moving commencement address at American University in 1963.
"I have, therefore, chosen this time and this place to discuss a topic on which ignorance too often abounds and the truth is too rarely perceived--yet it is the most important topic on earth: world peace.
What kind of peace do I mean? What kind of peace do we seek? Not a Pax Americana enforced on the world by American weapons of war. Not the peace of the grave or the security of the slave. I am talking about genuine peace, the kind of peace that makes life on earth worth living, the kind that enables men and nations to grow and to hope and to build a better life for their children--not merely peace for Americans but peace for all men and women--not merely peace in our time but peace for all time.
I speak of peace, therefore, as the necessary rational end of rational men. I realize that the pursuit of peace is not as dramatic as the pursuit of war--and frequently the words of the pursuer fall on deaf ears. But we have no more urgent task…
"… I also believe that we must reexamine our own attitude--as individuals and as a Nation--for our attitude is as essential as theirs. And every graduate of this school, every thoughtful citizen who despairs of war and wishes to bring peace, should begin by looking inward--by examining his own attitude toward the possibilities of peace, toward the Soviet Union, toward the course of the cold war and toward freedom and peace here at home.
" First: Let us examine our attitude toward peace itself. Too many of us think it is impossible. Too many think it unreal. But that is a dangerous, defeatist belief. It leads to the conclusion that war is inevitable--that mankind is doomed--that we are gripped by forces we cannot control. We need not accept that view. Our problems are manmade--therefore, they can be solved by man. And man can be as big as he wants. No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings. Man's reason and spirit have often solved the seemingly unsolvable--and we believe they can do it again..
There is no single, simple key to this peace--no grand or magic formula to be adopted by one or two powers. Genuine peace must be the product of many nations, the sum of many acts. It must be dynamic, not static, changing to meet the challenge of each new generation. For peace is a process--a way of solving problems.
"With such a peace, there will still be quarrels and conflicting interests, as there are within families and nations. World peace, like community peace, does not require that each man love his neighbor--it requires only that they live together in mutual tolerance, submitting their disputes to a just and peaceful settlement.
"…So let us persevere. Peace need not be impracticable, and war need not be inevitable. By defining our goal more clearly, by making it seem more manageable and less remote, we can help all peoples to see it, to draw hope from it, and to move irresistibly toward it…
"Second: Let us reexamine our attitude toward the Soviet Union… No government or social system is so evil that its people must be considered as lacking in virtue. As Americans, we find communism profoundly repugnant as a negation of personal freedom and dignity. But we can still hail the Russian people for their many achievements--in science and space, in economic and industrial growth, in culture and in acts of courage.
"Among the many traits the peoples of our two countries have in common, none is stronger than our mutual abhorrence of war…
"In short, both the United States and its allies, and the Soviet Union and its allies, have a mutually deep interest in a just and genuine peace and in halting the arms race. Agreements to this end are in the interests of the Soviet Union as well as ours--and even the most hostile nations can be relied upon to accept and keep those treaty obligations, and only those treaty obligations, which are in their own interest.
" So, let us not be blind to our differences--but let us also direct attention to our common interests and to the means by which those differences can be resolved. And if we cannot end now our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity. For, in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children's future. And we are all mortal."
In these words we glimpse some of the profound changes which occurred in Jack Kennedy in the short period from his inauguration to mid-1963. While they may have stirred hope in the hearts of his listeners – including those in Khrushchev’s intimate circle – those in control of America’s intelligence and military forces viewed them with growing alarm.
This musing is not intended as a blind paean to JFK; I am aware of his shortcomings as a fellow human being. But I do join with James Douglass in celebrating the man’s moral compass, his great courage in the face of overwhelming adversity and mortal dangers, and his willingness to attempt to call (or pull) his fellow citizens along with him in turning the corner away from blind and rigid formulations of belief structures and towards the recognition of the common interests all human beings share, no matter what their nationality or ideology.
Douglass also takes much hope from this story: if JFK – and his adversary/friend Khrushchev – could take such steps, despite all of their structured and ideological entanglements, perhaps – just perhaps – so can we. The need to do so is as urgent today as it was 50 years ago, but where or where are the leaders with the vision to take us there?
Douglas believes that Kennedy’s execution cannot be understood apart from the political and cultural context of the time. It is Douglas’ argument – supported by mountains of footnoted data – that powerful figures in the intelligence and military establishments came to believe JFK’s gradual turning away from the rigid tenets and course of Cold War thinking – including America’s reliance upon nuclear weapons – constituted a very real threat to the survival of the United States. How this state of affairs came to be is what makes this book so very interesting and, despite Kennedy’s murder, oddly hopeful.
For those of us born in the ‘40s and reared in the ‘50s, Douglass brings back with remarkable freshness many things about those times we may have forgotten, or deliberately buried in our memories. Younger persons, for whom JFK is only a figure from the past, will likely be both fascinated and horrified by some of the attitudes and actions of those in authority at the time. While our popular culture’s portrayal of those days has nostalgically pictured the ‘50s and ‘60s as a period of prosperity, tranquility, and even as a fun time to be alive, it was actually a time of considerable international and domestic tensions. JFK’s election in 1960 occurred precisely when several of these smoldering wicks were about to burst into flame.
What makes the story of Kennedy’s journey away from the violence of war, and the ideologically rigid view that fueled it, so remarkable is that he – like all of us alive then – was clearly a product of the virulent anti-communism permeating American society. It is painful to remember how dramatically stark was the division between “us” – the United States and West in general – and “them” – specifically Russia and China, but also including those in “the Soviet bloc” (and, for many conservatives, even the self-anointed “nonaligned” states).
Recall, for instance, these markers of the time:
• The “fall of China” to the Communists in 1949 with Mao’s defeat of Chiang Kai-shek, and the seeming irresistible spread of Communist ideology through poor and troubled countries;
• The bloody struggle between UN forces (largely American in composition) and Chinese and North Koreans in the Korean War, beginning in 1950;
• Senator Joseph McCarthy’s strident claims throughout the early ‘50s about how communists had infiltrated many departments of the federal – and perhaps even state – governments;
• The House Un-American Activities Committee’s subsequent witch-hunts and black-listings of authors, movie producers, and many others;
• Americans’ widespread fear of the Soviet Union’s intentions with its recent acquisition of atomic weapons; and,
• How the South believed that “outside trouble-makers” represented a “threat to order” by stirring up the black people of the South.
Like all of us, JFK was a complex person. What Douglass’ book reveals, however, is the amazingly strong – and highly admirable – strength of moral character that shaped and governed his actions. He also had the remarkable capacity to learn from experience and, accordingly, to grow in understanding and to alter his behavior accordingly. (I realize that the foregoing comments will offend those convinced of Kennedy’s moral “failings” as evidenced by his many extra-marital affairs. One of the saddest features of our current time, however, is how we seemingly have lost all perspective concerning morality and public ethics. While not condoning JFK’s womanizing, such frankly pales before those who – while remaining publicly chaste and pious – would, nonetheless, lie and connive to take us to war and to the inevitable killing fields that would follow. JFK, unlike many otherwise “moral” political and military leaders, had an abhorrence of war, and nuclear war in particular. That he had the wisdom and courage not to succumb to Cold War ideology and “nuke” the Soviet Union, plus his stubborn resistance to be taken in by those eager to use massive force under the slightest pretext, says a great deal about his true moral center and I, for one, salute him for it.)
Kennedy’s mistrust of the military-intelligence community began early with the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba in April 1961. The entire operation, actually planned in the closing months of Eisenhower’s second term by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), was based upon a key falsehood: that the invasion forces (of Cuban exiles living in the United States) would be sufficient to overcome Cuban resistance. Both the CIA and their allies in the military establishment knew this was untrue; the invasion was actually intended to trigger US naval and/or air involvement when it became clear that the invading forces were floundering. Instead, to their chagrin, Kennedy refused to commit US assets. The subsequent failure of the invasion created long-lasting resentment against the Kennedy clan among the Cuban exiles and planted poisonous seeds of doubt in the minds of the intelligence-military community about Kennedy’s ultimate loyalties. Whose side was he really on?
The real turning point came however, during the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962. Only in recent years have we learned how very close we came to all-out nuclear war that autumn. Both JFK and his Soviet counterpart, Nikita Khrushchev, balked at the horrors that any misstep might unleash; both sent conciliatory messages and, through frantic negotiations, took mutual steps to reduce tensions. It was following these tense days that discussions between the two men began, many of them channeled through, and mediated by, Pope John XXIII (who was then dying of cancer). From that time through the end of his life (which was only 13 months away), JFK took deliberate steps to diminish – with the hope of eventually ending – the deadly standoff between their two nations which was fueled by the false black/white polarities of the Cold War.
Douglass marvels at – and celebrates – that Kennedy was able to do this, given that he had grown up as a believer in – and utilizer of – the same rhetoric. He credits his ability to do so with both his strong commitment to Catholic Christian moral teachings and to his personal acquaintance with death and suffering during World War II.
We learn some admirable things about Mr. Khrushchev’s own capacity to learn and change, too, largely unknown at the time, thanks to his subsequent revelations and insightful recollections by one of his sons. In sum, we were all fortunate that each country had leaders who, in essence, were neither self-righteous nor ideologically rigid. Had it been otherwise, we might not be here to talk about this.
Throughout the remainder of Kennedy’s presidency, he had to constantly battle the ongoing pressure of his military and so-called intelligence advisors, all of whom distrusted the Soviets and who seemed to embrace the idea that “the only good Communist is a dead one.” Because the CIA had agents everywhere, it was aware of Kennedy’s ongoing exchanges with Khrushchev and took this as growing evidence of JFK’s drift toward dangerous liberalities of thought. (As late as the spring of 1963, his generals were urging him to grant them the go-ahead to launch a surprise first strike against the Soviets – their gains in weaponry will soon rule this out as an acceptable-risk maneuver, they told him. When he asked them about the numbers of casualties the generals were talking about, they replied that they expected up to 160 million Soviet citizens vs. an “acceptable loss” of up to 40 million Americans. JFK stormed out of that particular meeting muttering, “Those ‘s.o.b.’s. And they call us members of the human race!”)
Kennedy also left ample evidence that he intended to withdraw all troops from Viet Nam following his hoped-for re-election in 1964, and his turn towards breaking the Cold War cycle was no more clearly evidenced than in his remarkable and still deeply-moving commencement address at American University in 1963.
"I have, therefore, chosen this time and this place to discuss a topic on which ignorance too often abounds and the truth is too rarely perceived--yet it is the most important topic on earth: world peace.
What kind of peace do I mean? What kind of peace do we seek? Not a Pax Americana enforced on the world by American weapons of war. Not the peace of the grave or the security of the slave. I am talking about genuine peace, the kind of peace that makes life on earth worth living, the kind that enables men and nations to grow and to hope and to build a better life for their children--not merely peace for Americans but peace for all men and women--not merely peace in our time but peace for all time.
I speak of peace, therefore, as the necessary rational end of rational men. I realize that the pursuit of peace is not as dramatic as the pursuit of war--and frequently the words of the pursuer fall on deaf ears. But we have no more urgent task…
"… I also believe that we must reexamine our own attitude--as individuals and as a Nation--for our attitude is as essential as theirs. And every graduate of this school, every thoughtful citizen who despairs of war and wishes to bring peace, should begin by looking inward--by examining his own attitude toward the possibilities of peace, toward the Soviet Union, toward the course of the cold war and toward freedom and peace here at home.
" First: Let us examine our attitude toward peace itself. Too many of us think it is impossible. Too many think it unreal. But that is a dangerous, defeatist belief. It leads to the conclusion that war is inevitable--that mankind is doomed--that we are gripped by forces we cannot control. We need not accept that view. Our problems are manmade--therefore, they can be solved by man. And man can be as big as he wants. No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings. Man's reason and spirit have often solved the seemingly unsolvable--and we believe they can do it again..
There is no single, simple key to this peace--no grand or magic formula to be adopted by one or two powers. Genuine peace must be the product of many nations, the sum of many acts. It must be dynamic, not static, changing to meet the challenge of each new generation. For peace is a process--a way of solving problems.
"With such a peace, there will still be quarrels and conflicting interests, as there are within families and nations. World peace, like community peace, does not require that each man love his neighbor--it requires only that they live together in mutual tolerance, submitting their disputes to a just and peaceful settlement.
"…So let us persevere. Peace need not be impracticable, and war need not be inevitable. By defining our goal more clearly, by making it seem more manageable and less remote, we can help all peoples to see it, to draw hope from it, and to move irresistibly toward it…
"Second: Let us reexamine our attitude toward the Soviet Union… No government or social system is so evil that its people must be considered as lacking in virtue. As Americans, we find communism profoundly repugnant as a negation of personal freedom and dignity. But we can still hail the Russian people for their many achievements--in science and space, in economic and industrial growth, in culture and in acts of courage.
"Among the many traits the peoples of our two countries have in common, none is stronger than our mutual abhorrence of war…
"In short, both the United States and its allies, and the Soviet Union and its allies, have a mutually deep interest in a just and genuine peace and in halting the arms race. Agreements to this end are in the interests of the Soviet Union as well as ours--and even the most hostile nations can be relied upon to accept and keep those treaty obligations, and only those treaty obligations, which are in their own interest.
" So, let us not be blind to our differences--but let us also direct attention to our common interests and to the means by which those differences can be resolved. And if we cannot end now our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity. For, in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children's future. And we are all mortal."
In these words we glimpse some of the profound changes which occurred in Jack Kennedy in the short period from his inauguration to mid-1963. While they may have stirred hope in the hearts of his listeners – including those in Khrushchev’s intimate circle – those in control of America’s intelligence and military forces viewed them with growing alarm.
This musing is not intended as a blind paean to JFK; I am aware of his shortcomings as a fellow human being. But I do join with James Douglass in celebrating the man’s moral compass, his great courage in the face of overwhelming adversity and mortal dangers, and his willingness to attempt to call (or pull) his fellow citizens along with him in turning the corner away from blind and rigid formulations of belief structures and towards the recognition of the common interests all human beings share, no matter what their nationality or ideology.
Douglass also takes much hope from this story: if JFK – and his adversary/friend Khrushchev – could take such steps, despite all of their structured and ideological entanglements, perhaps – just perhaps – so can we. The need to do so is as urgent today as it was 50 years ago, but where or where are the leaders with the vision to take us there?
February 8, 2011
The sub-title to this book is "Why He Died and Why It Matters" and "He Chose Peace. They Marked Him for Death".
This book was highly acclaimed when it came out in hardcover, and whatever your feelings are regarding John Kennedy, one should read this book, not for the person but what can happen when our military and intelligence establishments are not controlled.
The book is well documented, and even though there are some gaps and unsubstantiated parts of the book, the author puts together a pretty convincing story of how JFK was murdered by the warmongers in our military and intelligence community.
The story is told in two parts. The first part is the transition of JFK from one who was in support of the policies of the Cold War, to one who searched for peace even among our enemies. The second part is the one gun, one killer, magic bullet theory that was put forth by the Warren Commission.
The turning point for Kennedy was the "Cuban Missle Crisis". It is here that Kennedy and Khrushchev came close to bringing the world to apocalypse. They both took away from the experience a real desire to end the Cold War and work towards peace. A friendship grew between them and led to the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. It is this move towards peace that Douglass feels sealed the fate of Kennedy. The military and intelligence community now viewed Kennedy as a traitor that had to be eliminated.
The second part of the story involved the assassination of Kennedy. Douglass goes into great detail explaining why Lee Harvey Oswald was not and could not have been the person who killed Kennedy. He destroys the fact finding Warren Commission and puts up a pretty good case as to why, how, and who carried out the assassination.
This is an excellent book for readers of history and politics, but can be enjoyed by anyone who is the least bit curious about this time in American History.
This book was highly acclaimed when it came out in hardcover, and whatever your feelings are regarding John Kennedy, one should read this book, not for the person but what can happen when our military and intelligence establishments are not controlled.
The book is well documented, and even though there are some gaps and unsubstantiated parts of the book, the author puts together a pretty convincing story of how JFK was murdered by the warmongers in our military and intelligence community.
The story is told in two parts. The first part is the transition of JFK from one who was in support of the policies of the Cold War, to one who searched for peace even among our enemies. The second part is the one gun, one killer, magic bullet theory that was put forth by the Warren Commission.
The turning point for Kennedy was the "Cuban Missle Crisis". It is here that Kennedy and Khrushchev came close to bringing the world to apocalypse. They both took away from the experience a real desire to end the Cold War and work towards peace. A friendship grew between them and led to the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. It is this move towards peace that Douglass feels sealed the fate of Kennedy. The military and intelligence community now viewed Kennedy as a traitor that had to be eliminated.
The second part of the story involved the assassination of Kennedy. Douglass goes into great detail explaining why Lee Harvey Oswald was not and could not have been the person who killed Kennedy. He destroys the fact finding Warren Commission and puts up a pretty good case as to why, how, and who carried out the assassination.
This is an excellent book for readers of history and politics, but can be enjoyed by anyone who is the least bit curious about this time in American History.
August 16, 2012
I read this as my 3rd book in a series of 3 about the assassination. I found it to be a great finale. It is thoroughly researched and all-encompassing. The author makes a pretty straight-forward case: JFK "saw the light" and began communicating privately with Kruschev and Castro about long-term peace. He was ready to get out of Vietnam. He was ready to do whatever he could to end the Cold War and to dramatically diminish the power of the Pentagon, and the CIA in particular, while working towards true World Peace. Therefore, the "powers that be" conspired to end his life.
The evidence strongly supports his argument.
As far as Lee Harvey Oswald as a lone assassin is concerned, I learned a lot from this book that the other two books I had read on the subject did not cover. One example is the argument that there was an identical assassination plot in Chicago for 3 weeks prior to 11/22, and the patsy that was in place for that plot couldn't have been more alike Oswald if he tried. They had similar military training and expertise, a similar loner personality, arguably similar CIA affiliations, and they both just so happened to obtain jobs in buildings overlooking the President's motorcade route just shortly before the President was due to arrive. Had the Chicago plot not been uncovered by a local police officer who heard about a strange guy in a coffee shop, and a tip from an anonymous "Lee" about a sniper-team that was apprehended, the world might now know the name "Vallee" as the assassin of JFK instead of Lee Harvey Oswald.
The author also does a wonderful job of introducing us to the fact that the witnesses of Lee Harvey Oswald caused a huge problem for the Warren Commission when it heard their testimony. Time after time, there was viable evidence that Lee Harvey Oswald was in the 2 different places at once. Obviously, the author suggests that the conspiracy involved a double for Oswald, but he doesn't speculate as to who that might be.
Last, but certainly not least, is the fate of so many of the witnesses to the assassination and its cover-up. It is truly scary how many of them suffered horribly for telling the truth and for not changing their story, even though changing their story to suit the scenario painted by the Warren Commission would have been so much easier.
At times this book got a little too religious for me, but other than that, I found it to be exceptional.
The evidence strongly supports his argument.
As far as Lee Harvey Oswald as a lone assassin is concerned, I learned a lot from this book that the other two books I had read on the subject did not cover. One example is the argument that there was an identical assassination plot in Chicago for 3 weeks prior to 11/22, and the patsy that was in place for that plot couldn't have been more alike Oswald if he tried. They had similar military training and expertise, a similar loner personality, arguably similar CIA affiliations, and they both just so happened to obtain jobs in buildings overlooking the President's motorcade route just shortly before the President was due to arrive. Had the Chicago plot not been uncovered by a local police officer who heard about a strange guy in a coffee shop, and a tip from an anonymous "Lee" about a sniper-team that was apprehended, the world might now know the name "Vallee" as the assassin of JFK instead of Lee Harvey Oswald.
The author also does a wonderful job of introducing us to the fact that the witnesses of Lee Harvey Oswald caused a huge problem for the Warren Commission when it heard their testimony. Time after time, there was viable evidence that Lee Harvey Oswald was in the 2 different places at once. Obviously, the author suggests that the conspiracy involved a double for Oswald, but he doesn't speculate as to who that might be.
Last, but certainly not least, is the fate of so many of the witnesses to the assassination and its cover-up. It is truly scary how many of them suffered horribly for telling the truth and for not changing their story, even though changing their story to suit the scenario painted by the Warren Commission would have been so much easier.
At times this book got a little too religious for me, but other than that, I found it to be exceptional.
December 12, 2009
Anybody who gives this book less than five stars is a disinfo agent working for the government, or that person lacks brains. Douglass has brilliantly revealed the sickening details about the Coup that most thinking Americans today know killed Kennedy. Douglass knows what happened to Kennedy, why it happened, and why it is important today. And he knows--as do most intelligent Americans --that Lee Oswald was carefully manipulated to become the scapegoat. He outlines how it happened. Everything. He also correctly notes that an FBI informant named "Lee" saved the President's life in Chicago by sending information that could not be ignored--though attempts to ignore it were made-- and several assassins were even allowed to go free to do their dirty work in Dallas. There a man "Lee" was arrested by Dallas police only 70 minutes after the assassinaton. Within hours, he was charged 9without access to any lawyer) with Kennedy's murder, and all investigations were called off. Two days later, Lee Oswald was shot by a Mafia man -- Jack Ruby --closing that hero's mouth forever. I know Lee Oswald was a hero because I knew Lee well. Douglass' book tells it like it is, in dignified, clear language, with precision research, and with a clear vision as to how our Presidents, ever since, have had to cave in to the military industrial complex, to their generals, to their handlers, to wage wars and to allow profiteering from wars, unless they want to die, too. If America is to regain its moral compass, the truth must be known. Even the Huffington Post stated that Lee Oswald shot Kennedy. A Dartmouth professor's claim that a backyard photo showing Oswald with the killer rifle was 'not' a fake has been found to have been yet another hatchet job on Oswald (search OpEd News: Dr. James Fetzer and Oswald Backyard Photos, to see the truth). So long as our sold-out media closes its eyes and perpetuates lies about Oswald and covers up the truth about who actually killed Kennedy, we have a gauge that tells us the accuracy and honesty of our media. Right now, it stinks. Make sure you buy this book and read every page. Then get Edward T. Haslam's excellent book --Dr. Mary's Monkey, and my book --(preorder it_--Me & Lee--How I Came to Know, Love and Lose Lee Harvey Oswald. I also reocmmend Crossfire, by Jim Marrs, and all of Dr. Jim Fetzer's books about the assassinaton and how we were lied to. Once we realize that our President, to have any real power to STOP waging war, needs our full support against the bankers, military-industrial complex, and the corrupt congressional members who work against him, perhaps we can start moving away from the brink of fascism into a true democracy. The whole world would breathe a sigh of relief if we did so.
December 8, 2020
First of all I have to say that I was somewhat reluctant to even add this book to my list, just because if you're even partly convinced by its contents you have to wonder if your name will end up on some sort of list just by talking about it. Of course just the fact that I purchased it would probably already have earned me a place on such a list, so what the hell. . .
I've read many accounts of this event and from pretty much the very beginning have been convinced that the official story doesn't hold up. All it really takes is watching the video to see that it came from in front of him. And surprisingly, Douglass doesn't even address the "magic bullet," which is damning enough of the official account in its own right.
However, what this book did so well (and differently from all the others I have read) was to weave all of the mysterious inconsistencies and loose threads into a coherent and convincing narrative. Even something like Peter Dale Scott's Deep Politics and the Death of JFK, though perhaps more exhaustively researched, still does not present a single scenario in such a comprehensive format.
The result is mostly depressing and scary, but also gratifying in the way it describes JFK as that all-too-rare thing: a leader with the brains to know the right course of action and the courage to pursue it. Some of the most moving parts of the book are the different foreign leaders' thoughts on Kennedy; indeed his greatest "enemies" (Kruschev, Castro, Sukarno, Diem, etc.) were often the most effusive in their praise. And reading their reactions to his death and what it would mean for the Cold War was heartbreaking.
I would have given the book a perfect 5 but for Douglass's writing style which became quite grating by the end. On the one hand, I'm glad he appears to have dumbed it down a little in order to create a more impactful narrative. But on the other hand he was maddeningly repetitive at times, especially with the regurgitation of entire speeches or quotes, as if he couldn't depend on the reader to remember what he was referring to. Also, his narrative choice of the last chapter was perplexing at best, where he interspersed the dissection of events immediately surrounding "the event" with repetitive descriptions of JFK's ongoing pursuance of peace with Russia. Not only could those latter things have been said much more effectively in a prior chapter, but they served to completely interrupt the momentum of a very compelling analysis.
Ultimately, this is an important book. It makes a convincing argument that JFK was taking dramatic steps to end the Cold War, which threatened the newly established and already hyperactive military-industrial complex, which responded by neutralizing the threat. The take away message is that our country is run by the organization-that-must-not-be-named and any effort to change those circumstances will probably fail. Really makes me wish Truman hadn't been so dense as to create it in the first place. . .
Not Bad Reviews
@pointblaek
I've read many accounts of this event and from pretty much the very beginning have been convinced that the official story doesn't hold up. All it really takes is watching the video to see that it came from in front of him. And surprisingly, Douglass doesn't even address the "magic bullet," which is damning enough of the official account in its own right.
However, what this book did so well (and differently from all the others I have read) was to weave all of the mysterious inconsistencies and loose threads into a coherent and convincing narrative. Even something like Peter Dale Scott's Deep Politics and the Death of JFK, though perhaps more exhaustively researched, still does not present a single scenario in such a comprehensive format.
The result is mostly depressing and scary, but also gratifying in the way it describes JFK as that all-too-rare thing: a leader with the brains to know the right course of action and the courage to pursue it. Some of the most moving parts of the book are the different foreign leaders' thoughts on Kennedy; indeed his greatest "enemies" (Kruschev, Castro, Sukarno, Diem, etc.) were often the most effusive in their praise. And reading their reactions to his death and what it would mean for the Cold War was heartbreaking.
I would have given the book a perfect 5 but for Douglass's writing style which became quite grating by the end. On the one hand, I'm glad he appears to have dumbed it down a little in order to create a more impactful narrative. But on the other hand he was maddeningly repetitive at times, especially with the regurgitation of entire speeches or quotes, as if he couldn't depend on the reader to remember what he was referring to. Also, his narrative choice of the last chapter was perplexing at best, where he interspersed the dissection of events immediately surrounding "the event" with repetitive descriptions of JFK's ongoing pursuance of peace with Russia. Not only could those latter things have been said much more effectively in a prior chapter, but they served to completely interrupt the momentum of a very compelling analysis.
Ultimately, this is an important book. It makes a convincing argument that JFK was taking dramatic steps to end the Cold War, which threatened the newly established and already hyperactive military-industrial complex, which responded by neutralizing the threat. The take away message is that our country is run by the organization-that-must-not-be-named and any effort to change those circumstances will probably fail. Really makes me wish Truman hadn't been so dense as to create it in the first place. . .
Not Bad Reviews
@pointblaek
March 26, 2015
As you read this book, a deathly cold and deepest sadness pervades the room as you realize just how formidable the wall against progress is. I didn’t witness the assassination and don’t hold a full-time job investigating it and so can’t say what really went down that day but, aware of what humans are capable of doing to each other, the plethora of suspicious incidents chronicled in this riveting presentation certainly raises distressing red flags. Nevertheless, this book is primarily about WHY Kennedy was killed and why it matters to us survivors. The Unspeakable is a systemic evil so horrifying it defies speech. It is a “theology of redemptive violence” which still reigns today: we feel safe only if we can threaten and wage escalating violence. Arising from the Unspeakable was the CIA’s “plausible deniability” and green light to overthrow governments, assassinate national leaders, and lie to cover up any trace of accountability for the sake of promoting U.S. interests and maintaining our nuclear-backed dominance over other nations. Kennedy, a good and well-grounded and very special man, did many things that put him in conflict with the Unspeakable and he paid the ultimate price for this. Indeed, his actions should merit him a place inside his own book, Profiles in Courage! Just behold his Bay of Pigs holdback, or the Cuban Missile Crisis where he rejected the incessant calls for a first strike, or his commencement address at American University in which he had the temerity to hail the Russian people for their many achievements while placing them equal with us in a mutual cherishing of all our children’s lives, and so on. Here are a few significant lines from the Preface of JFK and the Unspeakable: “That reconciling method of dialogue—where mutual respect overcomes fear, and thus war—is again regarded as heretical in our dominant political theology. As a result, seeking truth in our opponents instead of victory over them can lead, as it did in the case of Kennedy, to one’s isolation and death as a traitor.” “There is no better reason for it than loving one’s enemies—not a sentimental love but, first of all, respect. Respect means recognizing and acknowledging our enemies’ part of the truth, whether or not that makes life more difficult for us.” In the Introduction, the author states, “The belief behind this book is that truth is the most powerful force on earth, what Gandhi called satyagraha; in living out the truth, we are liberated from the Unspeakable.” Initially, I rated this book four stars because it seemed some of the writing was troublesome to me (sometimes vague, sometimes verbose, for example), but with time have upgraded it to five because of its significance and importance and the fact that it is the kind of book that needs to be returned to time and time again, offering hope that more and more of us will confront and ultimately be liberated from the Unspeakable.
August 27, 2009
Really should be 3 1/2 stars - I couldn't honestly give 4 here as it got so very dense at times.
First of all, yes, it is a "conspiracy book", but so well laid out that a reader would need a super-glued shut mind (think: Pee Wee Hermann and the "I can't hear you!" scene) to accept Oswald pulling it off on his own (if at all). The autopsy scene, with non-medical military honchos telling the doctors exactly what they could, and could not do, (such as investigate obvious entrance wounds from different directions) was enough right there, along with the "official" skull X-Rays that contradict every single report from on-the-scene medical personnel, plus Jackie herself!
The assassination plot re-construction goes from fascinating to harrowing to sad, regarding Oswald and Ruby's patsy trainwrecks. I found it slow going at first; Douglass writes from (what I'll label) a Roman Catholic perspective, lots of emphasis on Thomas Merton, which didn't interest me at all. This gets largely dropped in favor of Oswald's background (and path to Dallas), and the clash between JFK and the CIA over Cuba and Vietnam. The latter gets bogged down at times; I admit I sometimes skimmed ahead to get back to the alternating, more suspenseful story of the plotters.
I found the endnotes almost as interesting as the book - Douglass often follows up the noted point with anywhere from a couple of sentences to a couple of paragraphs!
First of all, yes, it is a "conspiracy book", but so well laid out that a reader would need a super-glued shut mind (think: Pee Wee Hermann and the "I can't hear you!" scene) to accept Oswald pulling it off on his own (if at all). The autopsy scene, with non-medical military honchos telling the doctors exactly what they could, and could not do, (such as investigate obvious entrance wounds from different directions) was enough right there, along with the "official" skull X-Rays that contradict every single report from on-the-scene medical personnel, plus Jackie herself!
The assassination plot re-construction goes from fascinating to harrowing to sad, regarding Oswald and Ruby's patsy trainwrecks. I found it slow going at first; Douglass writes from (what I'll label) a Roman Catholic perspective, lots of emphasis on Thomas Merton, which didn't interest me at all. This gets largely dropped in favor of Oswald's background (and path to Dallas), and the clash between JFK and the CIA over Cuba and Vietnam. The latter gets bogged down at times; I admit I sometimes skimmed ahead to get back to the alternating, more suspenseful story of the plotters.
I found the endnotes almost as interesting as the book - Douglass often follows up the noted point with anywhere from a couple of sentences to a couple of paragraphs!
June 6, 2019
This is a superb account of the reasons for and dynamics of the murder of President Kennedy written by a Catholic intellectual. An unusual amount of attention is paid to JFK's moral and religious sense, to the thinking of Thomas Merton, to the influence of some Quakers, to that of Dorothy Day and the Catholic Workers, and to the intervention of Pope John XXIII in facilitating Kennedy's efforts to deescalate tensions between the USA, the USSR and Cuba. While the reconstruction of the plot to murder of president is well done, the author's contention that the Cuban missle crisis transformed JFK (as well as Khrushchev) from a moderate Cold Warrior to a peace activist at odds with most of his government, especially the military and CIA, is relatively questionable, albeit plausible. In any case, author Douglass provides a lively sense of the limitations of the presidency and the power of the military-industrial complex. Unlike most studies of the assassination this one conveys a strong sense of moral outrage at the opportunities for peace quashed by the plotters both here and in, among other places, Indonesia and SE Asia.
The documentation for the author's contentions is good, he having done some of the interviews with principals himself. Included as an appendix is Kennedy's commencement speech of 6/10/63 at the American University. Missing, sadly, is a (preferably annotated) bibliography.
The documentation for the author's contentions is good, he having done some of the interviews with principals himself. Included as an appendix is Kennedy's commencement speech of 6/10/63 at the American University. Missing, sadly, is a (preferably annotated) bibliography.
December 14, 2012
When you view the piece of home movie film taken by Abraham Zapruder, understanding the relative positions of Oswald and the President, your gut tells you, "Something is amiss". No, it screams, "WAKE UP!!"
But when you move forward to read and find out exactly what isn't right, the flood of books by "Oswald Did It" shills and crazed nuts claiming shooters in storm drains, in the limosine and in the rafters beneath the underpass serve only to obfuscate the truth. At this point, many throw up their hands and give up. They should read this book.
Douglas lays out a coherent, logical case for who did it and more importantly, why. He explains the smokescreens that have been laid down and leaves you walking away feeling that finally, someone has laid this thing open for the world to see.
This is a "Must Read"
But when you move forward to read and find out exactly what isn't right, the flood of books by "Oswald Did It" shills and crazed nuts claiming shooters in storm drains, in the limosine and in the rafters beneath the underpass serve only to obfuscate the truth. At this point, many throw up their hands and give up. They should read this book.
Douglas lays out a coherent, logical case for who did it and more importantly, why. He explains the smokescreens that have been laid down and leaves you walking away feeling that finally, someone has laid this thing open for the world to see.
This is a "Must Read"
October 12, 2020
With newly declassified information and some novel research and interviews, Douglass convincingly argues that the CIA and the mafia conspired to kill JFK in 1963. Drawing on declassified CIA cables and documents, White House recordings of the JFK administration, information revealed after the Warren report in the 1975 Church Committee hearings, and parallel Soviet and Cuban accounts of the events leading up to JFK's death, Douglass paints a picture of an increasingly disintegrating relationship between a president and his intelligence, security, and military services. While JFK’s public declarations about the Cold War rarely deviated from bellicose orthodoxy, Douglass reconstructs a private portrait of JFK as a man fundamentally changed by the near apocalypse of the Cuban Missile Crisis. We now know that JFK was engaged in extensive talks with his Cold War counterparts in Cuba and the USSR and was making what seem like unimaginable strides toward ending the Cold War.
As many other critics of the CIA have contended, Douglass describes the CIA as an organization so vast and unchecked that it constitutes a kind of shadow government embedded within our own national government. What was intended to be a strictly intelligence gathering organization by Truman in 1947 almost immediately expanded beyond its initial mandate under the leadership of Allen Dulles. The CIA quickly gave itself the license to pursue espionage, sabotage, political assassination, and eventually paramilitary wars and coups of democratically elected foreign governments. These developments within the CIA metastasized mostly unchecked until 1961 and the failed Bay of Pigs invasion that Kennedy inherited from Eisenhower.
The CIA, like most of the senior military leadership of the time, found the idea of a communist government 90 miles from the United States unacceptable and believed it necessary to destroy the Castro regime by any means necessary. This included undermining and deceiving a sitting US president. Sensing JFK’s wariness of something as audacious as a full scale invasion of Cuba, the CIA planned the Bay of Pigs invasion as a first step in a series of escalations that would force JFK to authorize an invasion and coup lead by the marines. Rehearsing a lie that we would hear repeated throughout the 20th and 21st century, the CIA assured JFK that the invading Cuban exiles would be greeted as liberators and a domestic uprising would quickly sweep across the island, resulting in a mostly Cuban-led coup of Castro and Che. Allen Dulles and the CIA didn’t care if this statement was true because they were confident that even an initially disastrous invasion would force Kennedy to escalate the conflict with American troops, tipping the first domino that would inevitably end with the “liberation” of Cuba. When Kennedy read the situation correctly and let the invasion fail without further US intervention, a divide between the administration and the agency formed that would last as long as he lived.
What may have began as a personal pissing match between a sitting president and the most powerful director in CIA history quickly became a bitter cold war of its own. Kennedy responded by firing Dulles and his most powerful loyalists, cutting the CIA budget, and signing an executive order delegating all non-intelligence gathering decision making to the military, reducing (at least legally) the CIA to its initial 1947 mandate. While Kennedy’s radical broadside against the CIA may not have signed his death warrant, it created a death spiral between the Kennedy brothers and the hardliners within the CIA and senior military leadership. Kennedy’s experience of CIA deceit and manipulation lead him to view all of his military and intelligence advisors with heightened suspicion and he cannily avoided a series of traps laid out for him by the hardliners within his cabinet. At the same time, understanding their willingness to undermine his own policy decisions, Kennedy attempted to conduct his own strategy of rapprochement with Khrushchev and Castro in secret, hiding his communications from his own State Department and CIA.
Whether or not you believe that Kennedy was killed by a conspiracy, Douglass amply illustrates that the CIA, when interested, can and has conducted its own shadow foreign policy, even when that policy directly subverts a contemporaneous administration’s expressed plans. In a particularly shocking series of events, Douglass shows from declassified cables, notes and recordings from Kennedy, and public reporting at the time, that the CIA initiated and conducted the coup of South Vietnamese president Ngo Dinh Diem against Kennedy’s stated wishes. Cooperating with Kennedy’s disloyal ambassador in Vietnam, the CIA secretly planned Diem’s coup with its assets within the South Vietnamese military. First, the CIA, through its elements within USAID, withdrew material support from the Diem regime, an event that rebel groups within the South Vietnamese military knew was a public signal of American no confidence in the Diem government. Kennedy, as it is revealed by White House recordings, was shocked to find out, after the fact, that his own military and intelligence leadership made this decision without even consulting him. Kennedy’s ambassador in South Vietnam then failed to communicate any of Kennedy’s overtures to Diem, leaving Diem out in the cold as a coup was gaining momentum around him. As the CIA oversaw the coup operations that would lead to Diem’s murder via on the ground advisors, Diem was told that the US was doing its best to support him and keep him safe. In a particularly vicious ‘fuck you’ to Kennedy, who had consistently demanded that the US insure that Diem never face anything worse than exile in France, the CIA intentionally refused to intervene to save Diem and his brother, letting them be shot and stabbed to death without trial in the belly of an armored personnel carrier in Saigon.
Douglass convincingly argues that a peaceful resolution to the Cold War died in Dallas with Kennedy. Kennedy’s increasingly diplomatic relations with both second world (USSR) and third world (the non-aligned countries Africa, Latin America, and Asia) were snuffed out the instant that Kennedy himself died. Johnson had no interest in continuing Kennedy’s carefully cultivated diplomatic relations and Johnson’s actions, directly and indirectly, allowed the US to pass a bloody point of no return in its foreign policy. As crazy as it sounds, it is not improbable that literally millions of lives may have been saved if Kennedy’s attempt to end the Cold War had been successful. Instead, that possible future was traded for trillions of dollars in military-industrial profit, US state and corporate hegemony in the developing world, and a unipolar world where the US exists essentially unchecked by any other world power or coalition of world powers. In the end, the world that Kennedy envisioned, while more peaceful and humane for the vast majority of humanity, had less to offer a ruling elite insulated from the worst by power and wealth.
Douglass approaches JFK’s story as a Catholic and he interprets JFK's final years as a story of redemption and martyrdom. After staring into the abyss of nuclear Armageddon, JFK chose to throw himself onto the gears of power rather than risk murdering all life on the planet. Toward the end of his life, JFK frequently speculated about his own death, and even assassination. His closest confidants reported that he believed that his actions against the CIA and his obstinate refusal to follow the hawkish desires of senior military leadership would come at a cost, but it was a cost that he was willing to pay.
JFK’s murder, like the murders of his brother Bobby, Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcom X, Fred Hampton, and countless other radical leftists in the 1960s and 1970s, undermined the US left at the height of its power. Outright murder was necessary to maintain a balance of power that favored the ruling elite until the popular power structures that under-girded the US left had been legally dismantled. Violent death has significantly decreased among the leaders of the US left in subsequent decades because it is no longer necessary to impede or neutralize its agenda. The destruction of the US labor movement that began in the late 1970’s and the migration of left leadership into the barren enclave of the American academy has nearly check-mated any opposition to the status quo. Without a popular base of power, Sanders and the Our Revolution movement have been effectively neutralized, not worth the effort of violent intervention by US intelligence and security services. The lengths that the CIA and other elements within our government went to to stop Kennedy’s plans to end the Cold War at least shows us that something different was possible. Any movement to radically change the world has to reckon with how far we have to go to recapture the basic conditions necessary for change on the scale Kennedy attempted, and what will inevitably come for anyone who makes this attempt.
As many other critics of the CIA have contended, Douglass describes the CIA as an organization so vast and unchecked that it constitutes a kind of shadow government embedded within our own national government. What was intended to be a strictly intelligence gathering organization by Truman in 1947 almost immediately expanded beyond its initial mandate under the leadership of Allen Dulles. The CIA quickly gave itself the license to pursue espionage, sabotage, political assassination, and eventually paramilitary wars and coups of democratically elected foreign governments. These developments within the CIA metastasized mostly unchecked until 1961 and the failed Bay of Pigs invasion that Kennedy inherited from Eisenhower.
The CIA, like most of the senior military leadership of the time, found the idea of a communist government 90 miles from the United States unacceptable and believed it necessary to destroy the Castro regime by any means necessary. This included undermining and deceiving a sitting US president. Sensing JFK’s wariness of something as audacious as a full scale invasion of Cuba, the CIA planned the Bay of Pigs invasion as a first step in a series of escalations that would force JFK to authorize an invasion and coup lead by the marines. Rehearsing a lie that we would hear repeated throughout the 20th and 21st century, the CIA assured JFK that the invading Cuban exiles would be greeted as liberators and a domestic uprising would quickly sweep across the island, resulting in a mostly Cuban-led coup of Castro and Che. Allen Dulles and the CIA didn’t care if this statement was true because they were confident that even an initially disastrous invasion would force Kennedy to escalate the conflict with American troops, tipping the first domino that would inevitably end with the “liberation” of Cuba. When Kennedy read the situation correctly and let the invasion fail without further US intervention, a divide between the administration and the agency formed that would last as long as he lived.
What may have began as a personal pissing match between a sitting president and the most powerful director in CIA history quickly became a bitter cold war of its own. Kennedy responded by firing Dulles and his most powerful loyalists, cutting the CIA budget, and signing an executive order delegating all non-intelligence gathering decision making to the military, reducing (at least legally) the CIA to its initial 1947 mandate. While Kennedy’s radical broadside against the CIA may not have signed his death warrant, it created a death spiral between the Kennedy brothers and the hardliners within the CIA and senior military leadership. Kennedy’s experience of CIA deceit and manipulation lead him to view all of his military and intelligence advisors with heightened suspicion and he cannily avoided a series of traps laid out for him by the hardliners within his cabinet. At the same time, understanding their willingness to undermine his own policy decisions, Kennedy attempted to conduct his own strategy of rapprochement with Khrushchev and Castro in secret, hiding his communications from his own State Department and CIA.
Whether or not you believe that Kennedy was killed by a conspiracy, Douglass amply illustrates that the CIA, when interested, can and has conducted its own shadow foreign policy, even when that policy directly subverts a contemporaneous administration’s expressed plans. In a particularly shocking series of events, Douglass shows from declassified cables, notes and recordings from Kennedy, and public reporting at the time, that the CIA initiated and conducted the coup of South Vietnamese president Ngo Dinh Diem against Kennedy’s stated wishes. Cooperating with Kennedy’s disloyal ambassador in Vietnam, the CIA secretly planned Diem’s coup with its assets within the South Vietnamese military. First, the CIA, through its elements within USAID, withdrew material support from the Diem regime, an event that rebel groups within the South Vietnamese military knew was a public signal of American no confidence in the Diem government. Kennedy, as it is revealed by White House recordings, was shocked to find out, after the fact, that his own military and intelligence leadership made this decision without even consulting him. Kennedy’s ambassador in South Vietnam then failed to communicate any of Kennedy’s overtures to Diem, leaving Diem out in the cold as a coup was gaining momentum around him. As the CIA oversaw the coup operations that would lead to Diem’s murder via on the ground advisors, Diem was told that the US was doing its best to support him and keep him safe. In a particularly vicious ‘fuck you’ to Kennedy, who had consistently demanded that the US insure that Diem never face anything worse than exile in France, the CIA intentionally refused to intervene to save Diem and his brother, letting them be shot and stabbed to death without trial in the belly of an armored personnel carrier in Saigon.
Douglass convincingly argues that a peaceful resolution to the Cold War died in Dallas with Kennedy. Kennedy’s increasingly diplomatic relations with both second world (USSR) and third world (the non-aligned countries Africa, Latin America, and Asia) were snuffed out the instant that Kennedy himself died. Johnson had no interest in continuing Kennedy’s carefully cultivated diplomatic relations and Johnson’s actions, directly and indirectly, allowed the US to pass a bloody point of no return in its foreign policy. As crazy as it sounds, it is not improbable that literally millions of lives may have been saved if Kennedy’s attempt to end the Cold War had been successful. Instead, that possible future was traded for trillions of dollars in military-industrial profit, US state and corporate hegemony in the developing world, and a unipolar world where the US exists essentially unchecked by any other world power or coalition of world powers. In the end, the world that Kennedy envisioned, while more peaceful and humane for the vast majority of humanity, had less to offer a ruling elite insulated from the worst by power and wealth.
Douglass approaches JFK’s story as a Catholic and he interprets JFK's final years as a story of redemption and martyrdom. After staring into the abyss of nuclear Armageddon, JFK chose to throw himself onto the gears of power rather than risk murdering all life on the planet. Toward the end of his life, JFK frequently speculated about his own death, and even assassination. His closest confidants reported that he believed that his actions against the CIA and his obstinate refusal to follow the hawkish desires of senior military leadership would come at a cost, but it was a cost that he was willing to pay.
JFK’s murder, like the murders of his brother Bobby, Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcom X, Fred Hampton, and countless other radical leftists in the 1960s and 1970s, undermined the US left at the height of its power. Outright murder was necessary to maintain a balance of power that favored the ruling elite until the popular power structures that under-girded the US left had been legally dismantled. Violent death has significantly decreased among the leaders of the US left in subsequent decades because it is no longer necessary to impede or neutralize its agenda. The destruction of the US labor movement that began in the late 1970’s and the migration of left leadership into the barren enclave of the American academy has nearly check-mated any opposition to the status quo. Without a popular base of power, Sanders and the Our Revolution movement have been effectively neutralized, not worth the effort of violent intervention by US intelligence and security services. The lengths that the CIA and other elements within our government went to to stop Kennedy’s plans to end the Cold War at least shows us that something different was possible. Any movement to radically change the world has to reckon with how far we have to go to recapture the basic conditions necessary for change on the scale Kennedy attempted, and what will inevitably come for anyone who makes this attempt.
March 5, 2014
JFK and the Unspeakable is one of the best books I have ever read. It is difficult to summarize it in a review, and the conclusions it reaches are overwhelming in their impact. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of books about the JFK assassination, and the many conspiracy theories. I have read several of them, and I thought I had a pretty good grasp of what happened and why, but this book encapsulates everything better than any other I've read. JFK was clearly not a saint, and to some extent I fully believe that any person that aspires to the highest office in the U.S. has sold their soul.
However, JFK got his soul back. Mr. Douglass articulates very well, and extremely convincingly, how JFK "turned" toward a path of peace. This was a result of other incidents too, like certainly the Bay of Pigs, but also JFK's own life experiences and his growing belief in his gut instinct and the counsel of a few trusted others.
Douglass alternates the story back and forth between JFK's dealings with his own chiefs of staff, security council, etc., and political maneuvers...to the assassination cover up, Oswald, CIA, Ruby et al. Douglass covers some ground already covered in some other texts, but also breaks new ground (at least to this reader) in terms of how he links facts and timelines together is such a way that it is very tough to argue with his conclusions. The facts are there, and although the Warren Commission apologists have claimed that nothing could be covered up this long...well many have come forward, even much later, at great risk to reveal what really happened. Documents have been revealed, and stories that have been shut up are now mostly out there. People have been killed to hide the truth, many of them under mysterious circumstances.
A lot of the book talks about Vietnam, and JFK's decision to get the US involved. He greatly regretted it later. After basically handing Laos over to a puppet communist regime, the military/industrial complex in the US was not going to allow JFK to pull us out of Vietnam. It was simply not going to happen. LBJ was part of it, as was the CIA and ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge (Lodge comes off in the book as a particularly manipulative and awful human being).
But the CIA is fingered more than anyone else as the ones that actually carried out the assassination and cover up, with the complicity of the FBI, Secret Service, local law enforcement in Dallas, LBJ, and Hoover. Kennedy knew he was in dire danger, and previous assassination plots were discussed, especially the one that was aborted in Chicago. Also, the way that Oswald was set up as the fall guy was completely fascinating and convincing. It is extremely credible that there was at least one other "double" going around identifying himself as Oswald, and I now believe it is very possible the man we know as Lee Harvey Oswald was very likely never even on the 6th floor of the School Book Depository building, and was never in the sniper's nest when Kennedy was killed. Much of the interrogation of Oswald in the hours and days following the assassination was destroyed and never made public.
Kennedy is portrayed as a courageous man willing to die for his convictions. The book is very well researched and well written, and easy to read. It is ultimately a book of hope, that where truth is found, we find God. I believe this is why it is still so important to continue to uncover what happened on Nov 22, 1963, and to hold those responsible accountable. It is also worth noting how instrumental Khrushchev was in the process, and just how much he admired Kennedy. They were in similar positions. Also the role of Pont. Max. Johannes XXIII, especially Pacem in Terris. Both Kennedy and Khrushchev read it carefully and certainly they both tried in their own ways to make it happen. The power of darkness prevailed in that battle, but there is still hope.
Every single American and every single immigrant that desires to be American, should read this book.
However, JFK got his soul back. Mr. Douglass articulates very well, and extremely convincingly, how JFK "turned" toward a path of peace. This was a result of other incidents too, like certainly the Bay of Pigs, but also JFK's own life experiences and his growing belief in his gut instinct and the counsel of a few trusted others.
Douglass alternates the story back and forth between JFK's dealings with his own chiefs of staff, security council, etc., and political maneuvers...to the assassination cover up, Oswald, CIA, Ruby et al. Douglass covers some ground already covered in some other texts, but also breaks new ground (at least to this reader) in terms of how he links facts and timelines together is such a way that it is very tough to argue with his conclusions. The facts are there, and although the Warren Commission apologists have claimed that nothing could be covered up this long...well many have come forward, even much later, at great risk to reveal what really happened. Documents have been revealed, and stories that have been shut up are now mostly out there. People have been killed to hide the truth, many of them under mysterious circumstances.
A lot of the book talks about Vietnam, and JFK's decision to get the US involved. He greatly regretted it later. After basically handing Laos over to a puppet communist regime, the military/industrial complex in the US was not going to allow JFK to pull us out of Vietnam. It was simply not going to happen. LBJ was part of it, as was the CIA and ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge (Lodge comes off in the book as a particularly manipulative and awful human being).
But the CIA is fingered more than anyone else as the ones that actually carried out the assassination and cover up, with the complicity of the FBI, Secret Service, local law enforcement in Dallas, LBJ, and Hoover. Kennedy knew he was in dire danger, and previous assassination plots were discussed, especially the one that was aborted in Chicago. Also, the way that Oswald was set up as the fall guy was completely fascinating and convincing. It is extremely credible that there was at least one other "double" going around identifying himself as Oswald, and I now believe it is very possible the man we know as Lee Harvey Oswald was very likely never even on the 6th floor of the School Book Depository building, and was never in the sniper's nest when Kennedy was killed. Much of the interrogation of Oswald in the hours and days following the assassination was destroyed and never made public.
Kennedy is portrayed as a courageous man willing to die for his convictions. The book is very well researched and well written, and easy to read. It is ultimately a book of hope, that where truth is found, we find God. I believe this is why it is still so important to continue to uncover what happened on Nov 22, 1963, and to hold those responsible accountable. It is also worth noting how instrumental Khrushchev was in the process, and just how much he admired Kennedy. They were in similar positions. Also the role of Pont. Max. Johannes XXIII, especially Pacem in Terris. Both Kennedy and Khrushchev read it carefully and certainly they both tried in their own ways to make it happen. The power of darkness prevailed in that battle, but there is still hope.
Every single American and every single immigrant that desires to be American, should read this book.
September 16, 2013
There have been dozens of books written about the JFK assassination, but this one is particularly unique and noteworthy. This is far from being the first book to argue that JFK was killed by Cold Warriors in the CIA and/or Pentagon. The main thing which makes this one stand out is Douglass' presentation of and emphasis on the big picture. His command of the details of the case (timelines, bullet trajectories, eyewitness accounts, film, photos, audio recordings, autopsy reports, X-Rays, etc.) is comprehensive, up-to-date, and well documented in the extensive footnotes. But much of the strength of his argument is in his thorough behind-the-scenes presentation of the conflicts which developed between JFK and the hardliners in his own administration--regarding the Soviet Union, Cuba, Vietnam, Laos, Indonesia, and the Congo, and including such events as the Bay of Pigs invasion, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the assassination of the Diem brothers.
Douglass also writes from an interesting perspective--a religious pacifist perspective. He evaluates various stances taken by JFK and others with an anti-militarist yardstick. He places great value in courageous stands taken both by JFK himself and by witnesses who told the truth as they saw it even when they believed that doing so would cost them greatly. I did finish the book with some questions unanswered. For example, I would have liked to see a bit about JFK's China policy to help contextualize the sections concerning Khrushchev and the Soviet Union. But in the end, my biggest concern about this book is that not enough people will read it.
To his credit, while Douglass has a first-rate command of the facts, he refuses to get drawn into tit-for-tat shadow-boxing with the lone-nut-did-it, mafia-did-it, or Castro-did-it types. He lays out the facts, starting with the big picture and drilling down from there, and shows where they lead. I encourage people to read this book and draw their own conclusions. My own response is that while many finer points remain murky, the essence of the JFK assassination cannot rightly be called a mystery by anyone willing to see.
Douglass also writes from an interesting perspective--a religious pacifist perspective. He evaluates various stances taken by JFK and others with an anti-militarist yardstick. He places great value in courageous stands taken both by JFK himself and by witnesses who told the truth as they saw it even when they believed that doing so would cost them greatly. I did finish the book with some questions unanswered. For example, I would have liked to see a bit about JFK's China policy to help contextualize the sections concerning Khrushchev and the Soviet Union. But in the end, my biggest concern about this book is that not enough people will read it.
To his credit, while Douglass has a first-rate command of the facts, he refuses to get drawn into tit-for-tat shadow-boxing with the lone-nut-did-it, mafia-did-it, or Castro-did-it types. He lays out the facts, starting with the big picture and drilling down from there, and shows where they lead. I encourage people to read this book and draw their own conclusions. My own response is that while many finer points remain murky, the essence of the JFK assassination cannot rightly be called a mystery by anyone willing to see.
February 10, 2020
There are three books on the Dulles Brothers (The Brothers by Stephen Kinzer, the Devil's Chessboard by David Talbot, & JFK and the Unspeakable by James Douglass) that I've read over the past several years laying out the almost too-crazy-to-believe cloak-and-dagger web that they spun in the 1950's and 1960's which was capped off with the assassination of BOTH Kennedy brothers. Apparently, the reason behind the relatively new onslaught of books on the matter is that (by law) much of what had previously been classified has now been (reluctantly) released by the government following the 50 year anniversary, and the dots that this new information helps to connect is nothing short of mind-blowing.
If you take these three books as a whole I think you'll find there to be little doubt that the theory of Lee Harvey Oswald being the lone assassin of JFK can now be completely disproven. It's actually pretty stunning if you stop and think about it.....that Alan Dulles and the CIA played a direct role in JFK's assassination, and that LBJ himself unknowingly put Dulles on the Warren commission to help produce an investigation whose sole purpose was to appease a public on edge as quickly as possible with a report that told everyone what they wanted to hear, (that there was no conspiracy.)
While the Brothers and the Devils Chessboard are great reads, if you really want to cut to the chase then check out this book (JFK and the Unspeakable by James Douglass.) It will blow your mind regarding the myriad of facts and witness accounts that were conveniently ignored by the Warren Commission (steered by Dulles) which have only recently come to light through declassification now that 50 years has come and gone since the incident.
Of course, all of those who buy into this stuff are going to be branded as crack-pots themselves when they publicly speak about it, but something tells me that's exactly how Alan Dulles drafted it up way back when....
If you take these three books as a whole I think you'll find there to be little doubt that the theory of Lee Harvey Oswald being the lone assassin of JFK can now be completely disproven. It's actually pretty stunning if you stop and think about it.....that Alan Dulles and the CIA played a direct role in JFK's assassination, and that LBJ himself unknowingly put Dulles on the Warren commission to help produce an investigation whose sole purpose was to appease a public on edge as quickly as possible with a report that told everyone what they wanted to hear, (that there was no conspiracy.)
While the Brothers and the Devils Chessboard are great reads, if you really want to cut to the chase then check out this book (JFK and the Unspeakable by James Douglass.) It will blow your mind regarding the myriad of facts and witness accounts that were conveniently ignored by the Warren Commission (steered by Dulles) which have only recently come to light through declassification now that 50 years has come and gone since the incident.
Of course, all of those who buy into this stuff are going to be branded as crack-pots themselves when they publicly speak about it, but something tells me that's exactly how Alan Dulles drafted it up way back when....
November 10, 2019
What a book! And what courage to write and publish this especially in the light of some of the many revelations contained within. When you have read this book it suddenly throws more light on the internal machinations of the hawks and their organisations in the highest levels of power. And also the intermeshing with the many business interests. Thomas Hauser's "Missing" can also now be seen in a new light. But the real story is not how JFK died but the many and varied ways employed to keep the true facts from either seeing the light of day, or being totally discredited and, also the folly of unfettered dispensation of powers to organisations such as the CIA. Indeed, there are still many accounts, orders and instructions, and reports that are still under embargo or totally missing.
This book is a fascinating and riveting account, completely plausible (and in my opinion totally correct) that requires reading and re-reading many parts to ensure the entire sequence of events is fully understood. We should not forget that the military brass can only be promoted by promoting conflict. Even before reading this book I was aware that Curtis LeMay wanted to nuke both Havana and Hanoi. And withdrawal from Vietnam would not enable the "Brass" to advance either. Even today it is easy to understand the business interests being happy to promote their weapons abilities under real situations rather than the testing grounds. Any person that thinks their government, and in particular the American government, tells the public the truth will be disturbed reading this book. But read it you must and you will soon see why alternative accounts and in particular "Lone gunman" accounts continue to proliferate in an attempt to negate the truth. Five stars because I cannot give six!
This book is a fascinating and riveting account, completely plausible (and in my opinion totally correct) that requires reading and re-reading many parts to ensure the entire sequence of events is fully understood. We should not forget that the military brass can only be promoted by promoting conflict. Even before reading this book I was aware that Curtis LeMay wanted to nuke both Havana and Hanoi. And withdrawal from Vietnam would not enable the "Brass" to advance either. Even today it is easy to understand the business interests being happy to promote their weapons abilities under real situations rather than the testing grounds. Any person that thinks their government, and in particular the American government, tells the public the truth will be disturbed reading this book. But read it you must and you will soon see why alternative accounts and in particular "Lone gunman" accounts continue to proliferate in an attempt to negate the truth. Five stars because I cannot give six!
March 19, 2010
This book is a well-written account of the events and circumstances that are likely at the heart of the JFK assassination. Shocked at how closely the world had come to the disaster of nuclear annihilation during the Cuban missile crisis Kennedy escalated his efforts to reach out to both the Soviet Union and Cuba with the hopes of ratcheting down the cold war tensions and ultimately moving toward world peace. This put him increasingly at odds with his own government, particularly the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the CIA. The author makes a strong case that Oswald went to the Soviet Union in the employ of the CIA and demonstrates how he was set up along with the Soviet Union and Cuba to take the fall for the assassination. The author follows the two narratives to their ultimate collision course, along the way discussing the case of Thomas Arthur Vallee, a troubled Marine who was going to shoot Kennedy in Chicago until the plot was exposed by a whistle blower named Lee, and the legion of Oswalds that were running around Dallas shooting up the rifle ranges, leaving the TSBD alternately by bus or by car, being escorted out both the front and rear of the Texas Theater, and my favorite; driving in to work with different people on different days while in possession of curtain rods. One set was likely German and the other Italian. Check it out; it reads like a thriller so even the coincidence theorists will be entertained.
January 20, 2013
This book is in one word, unprecedented. A book every American citizen should read. Douglass gives us an unobstructed view of Kennedy's presidency and the many difficulties it faced. With painstaking detail he illustrates through documented facts and events during that time how President Kennedy struggled for peace against the Cold Warrior mentality within his own government. It gives readers a frightening look at the types of operations agencies like the CIA are permitted to run with seemingly zero accountably for the laws of this nation. It is a MUST READ for anyone that cares about what has happened and is continuing to happen to this country.
March 28, 2009
Read it for a book club. Tedious reading, detailed, author jumps around a lot and repeats himself as if he wants to make sure the reader gets it. It is about the conspiracy theory behind Pres. John F. Kennedy's assassination. The author combines lots of resources for his information and leaves no doubt that many people united to kill JFK. It was good to read just to settle once and for all that there was a conspiracy. Amazing.
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January 16, 2009Very provacative. It could happen again. Most people don't want to think about this.
August 29, 2011
If you only read one book about JFK, this is it.
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