Oliver Stone: JFK and the Unspeakable

[reprehensor]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/oliver-stone/jfk-and-the-unspeakable_b_243924.html

Posted: July 23, 2009

The murder of President Kennedy was a seminal event for me and for millions of Americans. It changed the course of history. It was a crushing blow to our country and to millions of people around the world. It put an abrupt end to a period of a misunderstood idealism, akin to the spirit of 1989 when the Soviet bloc to began to thaw and 2008, when our new American President was fairly elected.

Today, more than 45 years later, profound doubts persist about how President Kennedy was killed and why. My film JFK was a metaphor for all those doubts, suspicions and unanswered questions. Now an extraordinary new book offers the best account I have read of this tragedy and its significance. That book is James Douglass's JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters. It is a book that deserves the attention of all Americans; it is one of those rare books that, by helping us understand our history, has the power to change it.

The subtitle sums up Douglass's purpose: Why He Died and Why it Matters. In his beautifully written and exhaustively researched treatment, Douglass lays out the "motive" for Kennedy's assassination. Simply, he traces a process of steady conversion by Kennedy from his origins as a traditional Cold Warrior to his determination to pull the world back from the edge of destruction.

Many of these steps are well known, such as Kennedy's disillusionment with the CIA after the disastrous Bay of Pigs Invasion, and his refusal to follow the reckless recommendations of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in resolving the Cuban Missile Crisis. (This in itself was truly JFK's shining moment in the sun. It is likely that any other president from LBJ on would have followed the path to a general nuclear war.) Then there was the Test Ban Treaty and JFK's remarkable American University Speech where he spoke with empathy and compassion about the Soviet people, recognizing our common humanity, the fact that we all "inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children's futures. And we are all mortal."

Continued...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/oliver-stone/jfk-and-the-unspeakable_b_243924.html

[John Q. Citizen]

1. That's an interesting post by Oliver Stone. Thanks

[sarcasmo]

2. Poppy Bush why were you in Dallas, please tell the truth before you die.

[davidwparker]

6. you mean like Google JFK and Bush and see if you get JFK II? I watched that

it and it settled it for me.

I always knew JFK, RFK, and King were inside jobs -- common sense. But, JFK II brings the conspiracy to the forefront.

[sarcasmo]

9. Was Poppy not the head of the CIA.

[struggle4progress]

10. Later: 76-77

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

18. Excellent video. Here is a streaming link for those who haven't seen it.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-223865000828471342&ei=shxpSuuSIcjglQeWuoRv&q=jfk+ii

[HowHasItComeToThis]

45. THANKS FOR POSTING THIS

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

46. Your welcome!

[DaLittle Kitty]

59. A FAscist Nation Even Then! THANKS! This is The BEST Compilation Ever... Cronkite #1!

although I have seen most of these pieces on youtube already... but this puts IT ALL TOGETHER! Cronkite's legacy intact on this one! There is no debate that JFK killing was an inside job!!!!!! Investigating and publicizing those responsible is our job!

[ControlledDemolition]

15. Nixon once said of GHWB, "He will do anything for the cause". n/t

[leveymg]

38. Some other sources say Nixon, LBJ met at Murchison's the night before

LBJ definitely was in Dallas on 11/23/63 - he was sworn in aboard the flight back to DC on AF-1 that day.

Nixon admits he was there for a speech he gave on 11/21 at the Cow Palace, but left the night before. That is disputed. Others have him sitting on a plane at Love Field when he got the news.

Many sources state that Curt Murchison had a party the night before, but differ about who was there. Some claim that Hoover was there, but I've seen nothing convincing to back that up. Strangely coincidental, Hoover's Personal and Confidential file on RFK's investigation of Meyer Lansky was closed on 11/22/1963. See, http://www.marquette.edu/library/collections/archives/FBI/Mss/mss-fbi-s-16.html

GHW Bush claims he was with a business associate in a small town, a 45 minute drive from Dallas, when the assassination occurred.

Anyway, does it really matter? It's not like these guys actually pulled the trigger(s).

[sarcasmo]

39. We are expected to believe that GHW Bush had no experience prior to being head of the CIA.

I think the truth about who was behind the Assassination would be a good thing, but with our Government we will never know the whole truth.

[sce56]

50. Do you mean the fact that he might have been photographed outside the TSBD

[sarcasmo]

51. Exactly, you just don't get appointed head of the CIA out of the blue, stone cold killer.

[Gabi Hayes]

3. Damn that Oswald! and damn that

magic bullet

[AntiFascist]

11. Damn his ties to the CIA and the FBI...

as officially documented.

[Gabi Hayes]

17. righty-o: John Newman wrote "Oswald and the CIA"

tons of documentation

not some conspiracy-crazed bucket of swill, either, as it doesn't really reach any conclusions, IIRC, merely positing that further investigation is clearly called for

Newman, a college professor, also wrote a book about Kennedy's apparent intent to achieve rapprochment with the USSR and GFO of Vietnam, which dovetails with the theme of the book in the OP

[AntiFascist]

26. There's also G. Robert Blakey...

Chief Counsel of the US House Select Committee on Assassinations, in a 2003 Addendum to a PBS interview:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/oswald/interviews/blakey.html#addendum

I am no longer confident that the Central Intelligence Agency co-operated with the committee. My reasons follow:

The committee focused, among other things, on (1) Oswald, (2) in New Orleans, (3) in the months before he went to Dallas, and, in particular, (4) his attempt to infiltrate an anti-Castro group, the Directorio Revolucionario Estudiantil or DRE.

...

What contemporaneous reporting is or was in the Agency's DRE files? We will never know, for the Agency now says that no reporting is in the existing files. Are we to believe that its files were silent in 1964 or during our investigation?

I don't believe it for a minute. Money was involved; it had to be documented. Period. End of story. The files and the Agency agents connected to the DRE should have been made available to the commission and the committee. That the information in the files and the agents who could have supplemented it were not made available to the commission and the committee amounts to willful obstruction of justice.
...We now know that the Agency withheld from the Warren Commission the CIA-Mafia plots to kill Castro. Had the commission known of the plots, it would have followed a different path in its investigation. The Agency unilaterally deprived the commission of a chance to obtain the full truth, which will now never be known.

[Gabi Hayes]

41. problem with Blakey is that he's stuck on the Mafia as the prime mover, and pooh poohs any CIA/Intel

involvement

ever read "The Last Investigation," or something close to that, by Gaeton Fonzi, an investigator for the committee who details the way Blakey took over and led it his own way, ignoring any threads that led away from the mob

check this link:

http://www.ctka.net/2008/fonzi.html

it talks about the Fonzi book, as well as Newman's CIA/Oswald book, as well as one about RFK, which I haven't read.

it's a good summation of the two I've read, and made my blood boil all over again, in remembrance of just how well the American public has been purposely hoodwinked for nearly a half century.

[AntiFascist]

43. I think the point of the Blakey quote in the PBS interview addendum...

was that investigators were steered clear of the fact that the CIA was working with mafia hitmen and putting them on the payroll, as it were. The essential question should be, who paid for the JFK hit, and I wouldn't be surprised if the answer might be found within the nexus surrounding Nixon, his ties to the mob, and (CIA-related) Latin American business interests. Cuban casinos, the sugar industry, and certain Texas oil men were likely all part of this, part of which is evidenced in the Nixon tapes that have been released.

On Edit: Also, Nixon may have been running his own shadow government. He narrowly lost the presidency to Kennedy in 1960, but was planning a Cuban invasion at the time. The CIA continued with its plans for the Bay of Pigs, and only let Kennedy know about it at the last minute.

[berniebern]

57. Blakey is a good guy. He has recently admitted the CIA lied to the HSCA

You are right about Blakey's book placing too much emphasis on the mafia and none to the CIA, but recent discoveries have led Blakey to say publicly that the CIA lied to the hsca when it did not admit that George Joannides, who was liasion between CIA and HSCA, was chief of station in Miami in 1963, handling Carlos Bringuier and in short, probably being part of the assassination himself!

[troubledamerican]

22. To believe the Oswald mythology, you must solve this:

Oswald was sent to the Monterrey School for Languages by the Army.

Oswald was so fluent in Russian that when he first met his wife-to-be, Marina, she thought he was Russian.

Oswald had a security clearance to work with highly sensitive U-2 spy plane radar materials.

Oswald was given a no-questions-asked cash loan by the State Department when he returned to the U.S. after defecting to the U.S.S.R. and denouncing his own U.S. citizenship, at the height of the Cold War.

Suddenly this Russian-fluent, U-2 spy-plane techie gets a job working at a school-book warehouse pushing boxes.

Working at a warehouse, while maintaining a relationship with George DeMohrenschildt, a wealthy, intelligence-connected, oil biz operator who had George H.W. Bush's telephone number in his address book.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_de_Mohrenschildt

Somehow you'd have to be an idiot to believe the Oswald "Lone Nut" Mythology.

[Gabi Hayes]

25. you forgot to mention what hadppened to GDM

another strange coincidence, like Johnny Roselli, Sam Giancana, just to name a few.

the other stuff you mention is in Newman's book, btw

[MajorChode]

35. You are seriously remiss with your assertions

Oswald taught himself rudimentary Russian. By the time he met Marina, he had lived in the country for about a year and a half. Anyone who fully immerses themselves into a language for that long is bound to learn the language reasonably well.

Oswald was a radar operator in the Marine Corps, which is obviously going to require a security clearance (as almost all specialized jobs generally do). You make is sound as if he was designing the U-2.

[Gabi Hayes]

42. so you've read either Bugliosi, Posner, or some synthesis of both....McAdams?

nice try

tell us about J. Lee Rankin's interest in Oswald's attendance at the Monterey School of the Army, and explain that away, as you attempt to so sweepingly micharacterize his 'radar operator' posting at Atsugi.

you have to do better than that, and I'm curious to see the references for your half baked assertions

[Gabi Hayes]

44. btw, if anyone cares to spend the time, there's plenty here to

give a bit of depth to the discussion of Oswald's background, regarding his learning/use of the Russian language, and his days as a 'radar operator' in Japan, amng other things, as part of a review of Bugliosi's highly deceptive prosecutorial brief

http://74.125.155.132/search?q=cache:Ygm1IMowINoJ:www.ctka.net/2008/bugliosi_2_review.html+john+newman+oswald+monterey+language+school&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us

[ControlledDemolition]

53. ... and there are Oswald's contacts with ' Maurice Bishop' ( or is that David Atlee Phillips?)! n/t

[RagAss]

61. Amen

[troubledamerican]

24. a note to AntiFascist

http://emory.kfjc.org/archive/ftr/600_699/f-644a.mp3

http://emory.kfjc.org/archive/ftr/600_699/f-644b.mp3

Two mp3s -- significant new information on Oswald.

If you listen, try the second one first. The first mp3 is exposition.

[AntiFascist]

28. Wow, the plot thickens considerably...

New Orleans was the focus of anti-Castro operations being a major trade center with Cuba and Latin America, and was threatened by the success of Castro and targeted by his missiles. Because of this, it had powerful support in Washington with the sponsorship of major covert mechanisms.

The first polio vaccine contained a cancer causing virus, but this was covered up by Jonas Salk's PR people. The SIV (Simian Immunodeficiancy virus) was mutated using a linear partical accelerator to try and develop a quick vaccine. LHO and David Ferrie were involved with these researchers developing a biological (cancer causing) weapon to be used against Castro (or communist-leaning races of people) in New Orleans?

http://doctormarysmonkey.com/

[troubledamerican]

60. We're on the Watchlist now.

Forgot to mention the consequences of listening to that mp3.

You'd think that sort of bombshell info would have more traction as a story SOMEWHERE in America, among some fringe group, if not publicly. I'm not sure, but I think it speaks volumes.

[Selatius]

4. War profiteers would've lost billions in profits if JFK had pulled out of Viet Nam.

JFK initially sent in advisors as per advice from the people around him, but he had doubts about whether it was worth it after all. He had issued directives to the effect that all advisors would be pulled out by 1965 after long deliberations and advice seeking. If he had won a second term, he could've easily avoided the bloodshed from Viet Nam altogether. With his death and the bogus Tonkin Gulf Incident, LBJ went all in into Viet Nam.

The war killed 58,000 Americans and about 1,000,000 Vietnamese with about another 2,000,000 as civilian casualties. Countless war contracts were issued to build the warplanes, helicopters, bombs, and guns used in the war. The war proved to be very profitable for the military-industrial complex, and the war became a testing bed for new technology, such as laser-guided bombs and thermal imaging equipment.

[madamesilverspurs]

8. And wasn't there something in Congress

about that time, something that played with semantics in order to avoid naming it "war" (hence 'police action'), because if there's no declared war then it isn't treason if you sell materiel to the enemy. Weren't there some members of congress who escaped serious legal consequences because their business interests could have otherwise been compromised? Hmmm, I'll have to do some digging at the library on that...

[ControlledDemolition]

14. He was also working to bring an early end to the cold war.

Plus, he made an offer to Kruschev in relation to peaceful collaboration in space.

[The Wizard]

29. That the President and Vice President

almost never travel together is another reason to doubt the "official' version. Maybe seeing Kennedy's brains blown out influenced Johnson's decision to go full bore into Vietnam.

"There's money good money to be made
by supplying the Army with the tools of the trade.
Just hope and pray when they drop the bomb
They drop it on the Vietcong"
(Country Joe McDonald)

[panader0]

5. Sounds like a good book.

[Raster]

7. The DU conspiracy smearists aren't gonna like this one bit.

Lee Harvey Scapegoat and the Magic Bullet. Wasn't that the book ol' Dumbya was reading the day 15 Saudis with boxcutters defeated the most advanced air security system and national defense group on the planet?
:kick:

[timeforpeace]

12. Oh, thought it was gonna be the discredited suicide theory again.

[leeroysphitz]

16. That "theory" has not been in any way discredited. In fact most experts that have looked

at the facts with any objectivity and seriousness believe it to be the truth.

[mix]

20. What suicide theory, if I may ask?

[TheUnspeakable]

13. k & r

[Ladyhawk]

19. Still not convinced JFK, RFK, MLK = conspiracy

I've read a lot of theories. I've looked at the evidence. I've heard witnesses speak, but so far, nothing has convinced me it was anything but a lone gunman.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nh6LbpTZ5Qk

Why "Back and to the Left" is bunk.^^^

[Gabi Hayes]

21. hahaha....that episode is as convincing as the one in which they "proved"

a bullet falling from the sky could NOT kill somebody, after which they interviewed a doctor who actually attended a case in which that exact thing happened (that show was on the other day, btw, so I remember it vividly)

their 'explanation' for this conundrum was just as convincing as their 'proof' that they supply here

you can find just as convincing refutations of the 'jet effect' by doing a quick google

it all boils down to whose dogma one subscribes

when the elements of government and media have, uh, conspired to lie to us in myriad ways for the measurable past, that, alone, should make one very leery of the 'evidence' they present.

you can do better than that

or can you?

[Gabi Hayes]

23. you can start here, if your stomach can take it.....real shots of live people's heads...yecchy, but

actual footage. not for the faint of heart. read the accompanying material, if that's all you can bear. I didn't watch the stuff myself. the jet effect is the basis for the 'debunking' of JFK's head movement, along with the body's 'shock reaction,' or whatever they call it. decide for yourself

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=10505

then, moving along, there's always the magic bullet, which left more metal fragments in Connally's body than was missing. how does that work, again?

[ControlledDemolition]

27. Who went on to ' terminate with extreme prejudice' over 100 witnesses and others who could shed...

... some light on the crime of the milleniums (bothe the last and the current!!!).

[freebrew]

37. I can't convince myself it's just coincidence

that most of the people assassinated are liberals.
We know cointelpro was real.
We know Nixon had his 'enemies' list.
GHW Bush was involved in CIA and gov't since the end of WW2.
His father was named as a suspect in assassination attempts on FDR.
Cheney was involved in Gov't since Dog knows when..

And who has died?
JFK & LHO & J Ruby
RFK
MLK

Jerry Rubin
Abbie Hoffman
John Lennon
JFK Jr
Mel Carnahan
Paul Wellstone
That other guy from Missouri, Emerson?

There's more those are just the ones that come to mind in a few minutes.
Can you name anyone from the right?

[AntiFascist]

49. Don't forget mob-related deaths...

Sam Giancana once bragged about being involved in the Kennedy assassination. Later, he was executed by being shot in the mouth and throat, right before he was to testify before the House Select Committee on Assassinations.

Jimmy Hoffa got disappeared:

http://www.encyclomedia.com/jimmy_hoffa.html

another theory states that there was a Jimmy Hoffa assassination. In this theory, he was apparently killed by the mob in order to prevent him from testifying in front of the House Select Committee on Assassinations.

and there's Jonny Roselli:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Roselli

On April 23, 1976, Roselli was called before the <House Select> committee <on Assassinations> to testify about a conspiracy to kill President Kennedy.<1> Three months after his first round of testimony on the Kennedy assassination, the Committee wanted to recall Roselli. However, at this point, he had been missing since July 28. On August 3, Senator Howard Baker, a member of the new SSCIA, requested the FBI investigate Roselli's disappearance.<1>

On August 9, Roselli's decomposing body was found in a 55-gallon steel fuel drum floating in Dumfounding Bay near Miami, Florida. Roselli had been strangled and shot, and his legs were sawn off.

Notice any pattern?

[sce56]

52. How about the evidence from the scene of the crime?

There was more than three shots fired that day PERIOD!

the following three photos are why they came up with the magic bullet theory




Among the central findings of the Warren Commission therefore, the only one that appears to be true is the least important, namely that bystander James Tague was hit by debris from a bullet that missed its target, struck a distant curb instead and caused him minor injury. Visit the website of

Lee Harvey Oswald fired a total of THREE bullets.

Unfortunately for the Commission, not more than three bullets could have been fired, for it was determined from the Zapruder film and the time needed to reload the Carcano bolt-action rifle, that Oswald could not have fired more than three shots in the 6 seconds from the first shot to the final headshot. For its conclusion, the Commission contended that three spent shell casings were found under the window of the sixth floor of the School Book Depository.
Again, it is surprisingly simple to demolish this conclusion, based on the Commission's own evidence, for the original FBI receipt of the shell casings showed only TWO spent casings and ONE live round. Hence, not more more than two bullets could have been fired from that window.





These documents prove again that only TWO shell casings and ONE LIVE round were obtained. The Warren Commission changed the number of spent casings to three and left out the live round. Note the 3 in the line talking about three shell casing then look at all of the other trees on the page! They are smaller than the one three! We know Jerry Ford moved the back wound up three inches so did Arlen Specter change the two to three?
It is also important to note that Specter invented the single bullet theory ONLY AFTER the Warren Commission could no longer ignore the testimony of James Tague. Before that, they had three hits (Kennedy back, Kennedy head and Connally). Now, the logical and responsible investigative approach when you have to account for an extra miss and explain all those wounds with just two bullets, is to go and look for more shots and thus more gunmen. Instead they desperately clung to their "lone nut" and concocted the pristine magic bullet, accounting for all wounds of BOTH JFK and Connally. In addition, It can now be proven they LIED and TAMPERED to pull it off.

The following show the windshield damage from bullets the glass was hit as was the top of the window frame proof positive the commission lied to us







Then notice in the following gif from the Zapruder film the driver hears the gunshots looks back sees his boss in agony does he take defensive action no he still looks back only after the head shot does he hunker down and start speeding up all this while bullets are flying by him hitting the windshield and window frame even the rear view mirror.



Also note as he emerges from behind the sign he is reaching for his throat where he has already been hit from the front in the neck then you see him lurch forward most likely from the back wound!

[ControlledDemolition]

54. Excellent post sce56. n/t

[druidqueen]

30. Douglass's book

This is an excellent book, with facts to back everything up. This book is the first of a trilogy for Jim Douglass....the next ones will be on Dr. Martin Luther King's murder & Booby Kennedy's murder.

[cureautismnow]

31. Does the testimony below match the Zapruder and Nix films?

"* James Chaney ( motorcycle patrolman on right rear of the Presidential limousine ): “I went ahead of the President’s car to inform Chief Curry that the President had been hit. And then he instructed us over the air to take him to Parkland Hospital and that Parkland was standing by.”

* Bobby Hargis ( motorcycle patrolman on left rear of the Presidential limousine ): “The motorcycle officer on the right side of the car was Jim Chaney. He immediately went forward and announced to the Chief that the President had been shot.”

* Winston Lawson ( Secret Service Agent in the lead car in front of the Presidential limousine ): “A motorcycle escort officer pulled along side our Lead Car and said the President had been shot. Chief Curry gave a signal over the radio for police to converge on the area of the incident.”

* Forrest Sorrels ( Secret Service Agent in the lead car in front of the Presidential limousine ): “A motorcycle patrolman pulled up alongside of the car and Chief Curry yelled, ‘Is anybody hurt?’, to which the officer responded in the affirmative.”

* Chief Jesse Curry ( in the lead car in front of the Presidential limousine ): “. . . about this time a motorcycle officer, I believe it was Officer Chaney, rode up beside us and I asked if something happened back there and he said, ‘Yes,’ and I said ‘Has somebody been shot?” And he said, ‘I think so.’”

http://www.i-newswire.com/pr149771.html
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I don't see this happening in either of these films. Does anyone else? :shrug:

The Muchmore film cuts off too soon to tell.

Zapruder: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rIqvdqU1Aw&feature=related

Nix: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OvbvvAYimgM

Muchmore: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vbgwB3_C4s

Hargis 1995: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8KnjSEEf3D4&feature=related

[RufusTFirefly]

32. Read the book and recommend it highly

It is well-researched, highly reasonable, and compassionate.

It's an elegy of sorts for a man and an America we lost on November 22, 1963.

[jakeXT]

33. I haven't seen his lates movies, but was there anything useful in "WTC" or "W" ?

[Echo In Light]

34. Rec'd ... although I have mixed views re Stone, and his various pro/anti CT positions

[mirrera]

36. This book is amazing...

I am reading it now.

[anonymous171]

40. JFK was a nationalist and was killed because he realized the Cold War would destroy America

while making a select number of individuals extremely rich.

[TheCentepedeShoes]

47. Excellent book

Concise and logical
Well researched
Said things I had never heard before

[Swagman]

48. why did I cry as a 14 year old on the other side of the world when I heard Kennedy

had been asasssinated ?. I must have instinctively known something very evil had happened.

[ControlledDemolition]

55. I rarely attribute the word 'hero' to anybody. JFK is a glaring exception. n/t

[TheUnspeakable]

56. Great question from Huffpo comments...

"I forget. Was this the Kennedy that was shot from behind by someone in front of him, or the one who was shot from in front by someone behind him?"

[Time for change]

58. JFK and the Unspeakable

Best book I've read in a long time. I'd love to see it be required reading in high school history classes. God knows, the American people need to know more about this.

[KingsMeadow]

62. Oswald did it, alone

Oswald killed JFK. He did it alone.

There is no evidence for any other involvement.

No one would be stupid enough to choose Oswald as a partner in crime.

He tried to kill some John Bircher just a few months earlier. He just wanted to kill someone of some importance, you see.

He would not have been chosen as a reliable partner in any venture. Name some task (other than the military) that he ever completed.

JFK was killed in a manner that was typical of an impetuous and opportunistic fanatic.

It is too bad that JFK was killed. It was:

The result of a deviant personality;

The result of a ballistic weapon designed to kill a person;

The result of a person trained to kill another person;

The result of circumstance and actions of a small man. That is the power of a weapon, it gives small people staggering results.

It was easy shooting with the intended hit twice with both the second and third shots. Another person was also hit just down range by the second bullet (slowed by the soft flesh of the intended victim). The first bullet missed. It probably hit a tree branch, that unexpectedly came into view as the rifle was tracking the limo, then it may have deflected into a curb of the street. Another shot could have been made but the telescopic view showed that it was hardly necessary.

When you conspiracy fanatics, with your lack of critical thinking skills, are in the last few years of your lives you will notice that I am right.

At the least, you certainly will not see any proof otherwise. You will pass into the dim twilight as so many of you already have.

Get a life.

Solve a problem.

Make a contribution to humanity.

[MinM]

63. Real History Blog: Guest review of Jim Douglass's book "JFK and the Unspeakable"

Real History Blog: Jim Douglass, Lisa Pease, and Jim DiEugenio will speak at COPA conference in Dallas this November

Real History Blog: Guest review of Jim Douglass's book "JFK and the Unspeakable"

Democratic Underground - Featured on HBO's Real Time w/Bill Maher via Oliver Stone - Democratic Underground


:kick: & R

[Octafish]

64. Book review from James DiEugenio

I saw Oliver Stone discuss James Douglass' book on Bill Maher. It was historic.

Here's an excellent review of the book from an expert in the field:

JFK and the Unspeakable

by James W. Douglass

Reviewed by James DiEugenio

This book is the first volume of a projected trilogy. Orbis Books has commissioned James W. Douglass to write three books on the assassinations of the 1960's. The second will be on the murders of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, while the third will be on the assassination of Bobby Kennedy.

This is one of the few books on the Kennedy case that I actually wished was longer. In the purest sense, Jim Douglass is not a natural writer. But it seems to me he has labored meticulously to fashion a well organized, thoroughly documented, and felicitously composed piece of workmanship that is both comprehensible and easy to read. These attributes do not extend from simplicity of design or lack of ambition. This book takes in quite a lot of territory. In some ways it actually extends the frontier. In others it actually opens new paths. To achieve that kind of scope with a relative economy of means, and to make the experience both fast and pleasant, is quite an achievement.

I should inform the reader at the outset: this is not just a book about JFK's assassination. I would estimate that the book is 2/3 about Kennedy's presidency and 1/3 about his assassination. And I didn't mind that at all, because Douglass almost seamlessly knits together descriptions of several of Kennedy's policies with an analysis of how those policies were both monitored and resisted, most significantly in Cuba and Vietnam. This is one of the things that makes the book enlightening and worthy of understanding.

One point of worthwhile comparison would be to David Talbot's previous volume Brothers. In my view, Douglass' book is better. One of my criticisms of Talbot's book was that I didn't think his analysis of certain foreign policy areas was rigorous or comprehensive enough. You can't say that about Douglass. I also criticized Talbot for using questionable witnesses like Angelo Murgado and Timothy Leary to further certain dubious episodes about Kennedy's life and/or programs. Douglass avoided that pitfall.

One way that Douglass achieves this textured effect is in his quest for new sources. One of the problems I had with many Kennedy assassination books for a long time is their insularity. That is, they all relied on pretty much the same general established bibliography. In my first book, Destiny Betrayed, I tried to break out of that mildewed and restrictive mold. I wanted to widen the lens in order to place the man and the crime in a larger perspective. Douglass picks up that ball and runs with it. There are sources he utilizes here that have been terribly underused, and some that haven't been used before. For instance, unlike Talbot, Douglass sources Richard Mahoney's extraordinary JFK: Ordeal in Africa, one of the finest books ever written on President Kennedy's foreign policy. To fill in the Kennedy-Castro back channel of 1963 he uses In the Eye of the Storm by Carlos Lechuga and William Attwood's The Twilight Struggle. On Kennedy and Vietnam the author utilizes Anne Blair's Lodge in Vietnam, Ellen Hammer's A Death in November, and Zalin Grant's Facing the Phoenix. And these works allow Douglass to show us how men like Henry Cabot Lodge and Lucien Conein did not just obstruct, but actually subverted President Kennedy's wishes in Saigon. On the assassination side, Douglass makes good use of that extraordinary feat of research Harvey and Lee by John Armstrong, the difficult to get manuscript by Roger Craig, When They Kill a President, plus the work of little known authors in the field like Bruce Adamson and hard to get manuscripts like Edwin Black's exceptional essay on the Chicago plot. Further, he interviewed relatively new witnesses like Butch Burroughs and the survivors of deceased witnesses like Thomas Vallee, Bill Pitzer and Ralph Yates. In the use of these persons and sources, Douglass has pushed the envelope forward.

But it's not just what is in the book. It is how it is molded together that deserves attention. For instance, in the first chapter, Douglass is describing the Cuban Missile Crisis at length (using the newest transcription of the secretly recorded tapes by Sheldon Stern.) He then segues to Kennedy's American University speech. At this point, Douglass then introduces the figure of Lee Harvey Oswald and his relation to the U-2 (p. 37). This is beautifully done because he has been specifically discussing the U-2 flights over Cuba during the Missile Crisis, and he subliminally matches both Kennedy and Oswald in their most extreme Cold War backdrops. He then switches back to the American University speech, contrasting its rather non-descript reception in the New York Times with its joyous welcome in Russia, thus showing that Kennedy's efforts for détente were more appreciated by his presumed enemy than by the domestic pundit class.

These artful movements would be good enough. But the design of the book goes further. As mentioned above, in his first introduction of Oswald Douglass mentions the Nags Head, North Carolina military program which launched American soldiers into Russia as infiltrators. Near the end of the book (p. 365), with Oswald in jail about to be killed by Jack Ruby, Douglass returns to that military program with Oswald's famous thwarted phone call to Raleigh, North Carolina: the spy left out in the cold attempting to contact his handlers for information as how to proceed. But not realizing that his attempted call will now guarantee his execution. Thus the author closes a previously prepared arc. It isn't easy to do things like that. And it doesn't really take talent. One just has to be something of a literary craftsman: bending over the table, honing and refining. But it's the kind of detail work that pays off. It maintains the reader's attention along the way and increases his understanding by the end.

CONTINUED...

http://www.ctka.net/2008/jfk_unspeakable.html

Thank you for another excellent OP and thread, reprehensor. Truth stops the Machine dead.