GHW Bush, JFK's assassination, the CIA and drugs

[Peace Patriot]

100. "JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters" is the best book

on the JFK assassination, as mentioned by DUer Jim Warren (comment #41, above). It draws upon all the other books and previous research and goes further, with new research and meticulous disentangling of the assassination plot, and into the very soul of history--WHY it happened and WHY it is still with us, today.

Its author, James Douglass, is not a "moron." Someone above says that anyone who believes that Oswald did not act alone is a "moron." More than any other author on the JFK assassination, Douglass addresses the psychological condition of those who would call people like Douglass--an extremely intelligent man, a topnotch researcher, an excellent and cautious writer who asserts nothing that he cannot prove, and also a man with a deep soul--a "moron."

James Douglass proves--to my mind, beyond any question--that the CIA assassinated President Kennedy. He nails the CIA up to Richard Helms (Director of Operations). It is likely that Allen Dulles, whom JFK had fired as CIA Director over the disastrous "Bay of Pigs" invasion of Cuba, was behind the plot, but there is not enough evidence to nail him directly, so Douglass doesn't do so. He does not go outside of the evidence. He is also cautious about LBJ. The evidence suggests that LBJ was NOT involved in the assassination plot, but WAS involved in the coverup and had some weighty reasons (from his own point of view) for the latter.

Very importantly, Douglass disentangles the CIA's misdirections--for instance, their attempt to point blame for the assassination at Soviet Russia--and, most important of all--explains and documents WHY they did this. JFK had refused to nuke Russia during the Cuban Missile Crisis--with the entire "military-industrial complex" (all of the Joint Chiefs, the CIA and everybody in his cabinet except Bobby) strongly pressuring him to do so. By pointing to Soviet Russia on the assassination, the CIA was trying to force JFK's successor, LBJ, to nuke Russia in retaliation. They wanted to nuke Russia--to wipe it off the face of the earth--while the U.S. had missile superiority. JFK wouldn't do it. (He did a backchannel deal with Krushchev to avoid it.) They thought LBJ would do it--or that they could force him to do it. And THIS is why LBJ, three days after the assassination, said, "Now they can have their war." He was speaking of the CIA and Vietnam!

"Now" meaning that, now that the coverup was in train, and the tracks to Russia were being muddied over, they "could have their war" with Communism elsewhere--without, for instance, hundreds of thousands of deaths on the east coast of the U.S. from a nuclear war with Russia.

When you see the events leading up to the JFK assassination IN CONTEXT, in a coherent narrative of the times, in a coherent narrative of JFK's presidency and in a coherent narrative of JFK's life--his in-progress transformation from a "cold warrior" into an advocate of world peace--then the facts of the assassination and its muddled coverup fall into place like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, and it becomes VERY CLEAR who did it, why they did it and WHY IT STILL MATTERS.

Focus on the assassination itself IS NOT ENOUGH. You have to focus on those facts--really focus on them, in a disentangling process--AND on the Bay of Pigs, the firing of Dulles, the Cuban Missile Crisis, Kennedy's backchannel communications with Krushchev and Castro, the Russian Wheat Deal, the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, JFK's executive order withdrawing U.S. troops from Vietnam--and, also, a vital factor for which Douglass provides original research--Kennedy's religion (for instance, his contact through Ethel Kennedy with the anti-nuke Trappist monk Thomas Merton). Kennedy had become a threat to the U.S. "military-industrial complex." He wouldn't take their dictates--even if it meant him standing against them all alone, with his brother as his only ally. In 1960, when he ran for president, he spoke like a "cold warrior." In late 1962 and 1963, he was a very changed leader (as a result of the Cuban Missile Crisis) and was seeing beyond the "Cold War" and intending to END the "Cold War" (the MIC's, the CIA's and the Joint Chiefs' gravy train).

NOW you begin to understand WHY the CIA sent their very duped, Navy spy-trained asset, Lee Harvey Oswald, to Russia--and then readmitted him to the U.S.A. to create the "Fair Play For Cuba Committee."

This is a very great book--"JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters." It is must reading for every American--whether you "believe" that Oswald did not act alone or whether you think that those who "believe" this are "morons." To the latter, I say this: I'm sorry but James Douglass is NOT a "moron." He is one of the most brilliant historians that I have ever read, for his depth of understanding, not only of the details of history but of the soul of history--its meaning, that which remains among us, influencing future generations, to the end of time and certainly a mere half a century later. You owe this man a reading especially if you think he is a "moron." He spent ten years of his life doing nothing but this book. It is thoroughly researched and beautifully written. You owe him. We all do.

The MIC is still with us, creating "gravy train" wars all over the planet. The CIA is still with us, now arming the "rebels" in Syria, as they armed the fascists in South Vietnam, or summarily executing anonymously targeted "terrorists" all over the planet. These forces that are draining our treasury and destroying our democracy are still in charge. They are reaping the benefits of the JFK assassination to this day.

That is "why it matters."