Craig Newman
4.0 out of 5 stars I hate electronic books, but worth considering, June 24, 2013
I've reviewed the major books on the JFK assassination and list them at the end of this review.
First off, since the table of contents is not in Look Inside the Book, where it should be, here is that bit:
Preface
1. The 1960 Campaign and Election
2. Vietnam and the CIA
3. The Conspiracy and the Global Elite
4. Oswald and his Part in the Conspiracy
5. Why Johnson was only a Part of the Conspiracy
6. The Real Reasons
7. Repercussions
8. Conclusion
The book asks and tries to answer a few questions about the Kennedy assassination that haven't been asked often enough even after nearly 50 years.
Questions like, “Why?”, “Who benefited?”, and “Why the major cover-up?”.
In addressing the question Why, this short, 19,000 word book goes right back to the early days of the Kennedy family's wealth, when Joe Kennedy, JFK's father, was building his business interests. His links to the shadowy “Global Elite” are discussed, and the roots of a possible conspiracy are traced – one that would have electoral success in 1960 bought at a price of influence in policy and decisions made under a Kennedy presidency.
But, according to Craig Newman, the compliant president Joe Kennedy promised the Elite failed to materialize. Instead, President John Kennedy had his own priorities and values. He was no push-over. He had a strong will as well as an endearing personality.
So when he successfully foiled attempts by certain war-mongers in the Pentagon and the armaments industries to stumble into a nuclear war with the Soviet bloc, when he avoided the Bay of Pigs trap set for him by the CIA, and when he negotiated his way out of the Cuban Missiles Crisis, he was making enemies out of some very powerful and influential people in US politics.
And, the author continues, by the autumn of 1963 he was also seeing through the Vietnam trap as well, and preparing the way for a complete withdrawal of American troops from South Vietnam by 1965. Such a policy would not have been to the liking of certain powerful industrialists, financiers and military men who stood to make a killing from supplying the US government with all the equipment needed to fight a war in that far-away country.
So was it Kennedy's opposition to the war in Vietnam that sealed his fate? Or his determination to clip the wings of the CIA, or even abolish it altogether?
Was the deciding factor the speech JFK gave the American Press Association when he attacked the global spread of communism (misrepresented, according to the author, by a number of YouTube channels as an attack on the Global Elite itself)?
And what about the “Who?” part of the title? Was it all orchestrated by Vice President Johnson, who hated the Kennedys and coveted the presidency for himself? This possibility carries some weight, but it's more complicated than that.
A number of possible motives for the JFK assassination are discussed, but the author settles on just two main contenders, neither of which are ever mentioned in the mainstream media.
If you go along with the gist of Newman's arguments then you'll realize you live in a very complicated world indeed, where political power is a fraud, and the power behind the crooked politicians is real power, dangerous power. With the 50th anniversary of the assassination approaching, people are still asking these questions. This book points the way towards finding some of the answers.
Other books I have reviewed on JFK and MLK:
MLK
An Act of State: The Execution of Martin Luther King (Updated)
JFK
A Farewell to Justice: Jim Garrison, JFK's Assassination, And the Case That Should Have Changed History
Files on JFK: Interviews with Confessed Assassin James E. Files, and More New Evidence of the Conspiracy that Killed JFK [posted as a guest review at Phi Beta Iota]
JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters
JFK: The CIA, Vietnam, and the Plot to Assassinate John F. Kennedy
Legacy of Secrecy: The Long Shadow of the JFK Assassination
Someone Would Have Talked
Tears of Autumn: A Paul Christopher Novel (Paul Christopher Novels) unknown Edition by McCarry, Charles [2007]
The Brilliant Disaster: JFK, Castro, and America's Doomed Invasion of Cuba's Bay of Pigs (also a guest review).
I won't spoil the author's ending but my own conclusion is clear-cut: the New York banks and the Texas oil and military interests wanted Kennedy dead, CIA and the Cuban exiles agreed, the FBI went along, and LBJ led the cover-up, his lust for power easily justifying his treason against the Republic. The mafia and others played a role, but at root, the assassination of JFK was naked power and the end of any semblance of democracy in the USA. Every President since then has been a pawn, a prat boy, and known it.
Best wishes to all,
Robert David STEELE Vivas
ON INTELLIGENCE: Spies and Secrecy in an Open World
