Reply #12: Sorry, I don't agree. I think he was extraordinarily courageous to even be able to

[Peace Patriot]

think outside of the "Cold War" context in that era. His entire Joint Chiefs, the CIA operating secretly behind his back, and the rest of the "military industrial complex" (war profiteers), were entirely against him. He had only one option, and that was to get the people on his side, to make the bold moves that he was contemplating. He was planning to do that, in the 1964 campaign--to lay a major peace plan before the people. He thought the people would be for it, and I'm sure he was right. After he was killed, and LBJ ran for president in 1964, LBJ ran as "the peace candidate" (painting Barry Goldwater as a warmonger and trigger-happy). LBJ won the biggest presidential victory in history, I believe--or way up there. Something like 60% of the vote. The people WANTED PEACE. Clearly. Of course, LBJ was baldface lying. But still, JFK was right. If he had had the chance to put it before the people, he would have won big (his first vote was a real squeaker), and that mandate would have enabled him to do something like fire the entire Joint Chiefs. I don't know if you lived through that era, but meager little peace things like selling wheat to Russia (during a famine in Russia) were extremely controversial--in the establishment press (a lot of which was CIA infiltrated). A simple humanitarian gesture. Didn't I make this clear: THEY WANTED TO DESTROY RUSSIA WITH NUCLEAR MISSILES. THEY THOUGHT THEY COULD 'WIN' IT! And if he had fired them all, very likely the second rank down would have held the same position. He had to get the public behind it, and he had to do a lot of persuasion and education--to go up against such powers.

This is the last moment in our history when we really had a democracy. The CIA and the war profiteers have been running the show ever since. This is why they killed him. James Douglass makes an overwhelming case for it. Read the book and then come back and tell me that JFK was 'weak' and 'a helpless puppet.' He is a dead man, is what he is--because he was not weak and because he refused to be their puppet.