In memoriam: President John F. Kennedy

[Peace Patriot]

86. Essential reading: "JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters,"

by James Douglass, 2008, Orbis/Maryknoll Books.

You really need to read this. It's a tough read, especially for those of us who lived through it, because it takes you through all the details of the assassination and all the meandering, confusing misdirection and coverup that occurred. But it is a very lucid and enlightening expose of the crime, and, more than this, Douglass provides brilliant and original research on WHY JFK was killed--that he was in the process of becoming "a man of peace," defied and evaded the CIA with backchannel contacts with the Soviet Union's leader, Krushchev, and began forging an alliance for the elimination of nuclear weapons and the END of the "Cold War" (and all the proxy wars).

This CHANGE in JFK occurred as a result of the Cuban Missile Crisis, wherein the entire Joint Chiefs of Staff, the CIA and the MIC were telling him to NUKE Russia while the U.S. had missile superiority. He thought they were insane. It changed his whole outlook, gazing like Dante in the Circles of Hell, at nuclear annihilation of an entire people with hundreds of thousands of casualties on our east coast. He wouldn't do it. He couldn't do it. And they killed him for that and tried to throw the blame on Russia, to get "the communists" wiped out in retaliation. (LBJ gave them Vietnam instead.)

Meticulous documentation of all this in Douglass' book. Brilliant book. And he leaves "why it matters" pretty much up to the reader. Ain't it obvious? The SAME kinds of people--our militarists and war profiteers--are still in charge. Change "communists" to "terrorists" and ask yourself, who benefits from this endless state of war?

It STILL matters--and the reason is that JFK had chosen a peaceful path, in defiance of all of them. He wasn't perfect. He made mistakes. He started out as a "Cold Warrior." He lived in the confusion of poor communications (in those days), disinformation from his own intelligence agency, and other problems, surrounded by militarists in a culture of rabid "anti-communism" within the government. But he DID change. He was ABLE TO change and see much farther than those around him. He did some dramatic things--the Russian wheat deal, the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty and more--to further his (and Krushchev's!) quest for world peace. They saw that he would be re-elected (and possibly fulfill his vow to "smash the CIA into a thousand pieces&quot . They viewed him as a "traitor" and they killed him for it.

Douglass' book is utterly convincing on this point--on WHY he died; also, on who did it (he nails the CIA as far up as operations chief Richard Helms) and other points, such as the purpose of misdirection to Russia. JFK would NOT have been assassinated if he had not been--or, rather, if he had not been in the process of becoming--"a man of peace." He was going to take the whole country in that direction. They knew this. They stopped him. And then, as LBJ said, shortly after the assassination, "Now they can have their war." (He was speaking of the CIA and Vietnam.)

Please read Douglass' book before you reach any conclusions about the JFK assassination. You may not agree (although I think you will). But he speaks to your very point, eloquently and convincingly, based on a decade of research and analysis.