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JFK and the Unspeakable by James Douglass (A book review)
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Book Design: Roberta Savage & John T. Roper, Jr.
Who killed JFK? It’s one of the greatest mysteries of our time—and the assassination remains one of the darkest moments in American history. Throughout the years, numerous theories have been put forth. The Mafia, the Russians, the Cubans, the CIA, the FBI, the military industrial unit, LBJ, and, occasionally, Lee Harvey Oswald (among others) have all been fingered as the guilty party, though definitive proof has remained elusive. In fact, one of the only things that can be said with near certainty is that most Americans still believe that Kennedy’s death was the result of a conspiracy.
Hundreds, if not thousands, of books have been written on the subject, with at least a handful more appearing each year. What the more recent offerings benefit from that earlier publications did not is author access to the voluminous files that have been declassified, most within the last fifteen years. Just one such book is JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters (Orbis Books, $30.00) by James Douglass. Initially released in July of 2008 and now in a second printing, the book puts the blame right on America’s doorstep.
Rooted in the philosophies of a spiritualist monk, Thomas Merton, JFK and the Unspeakable presents a portrait of a president who turned from being a Cold Warrior to an altruistic being willing to reach out to his enemies in an attempt to achieve peace in the face of nuclear war. Ironically, that transformation to what Merton would call “depth, humanity and a certain totality of self-forgetfulness and compassion” would ultimately mark Kennedy for death, as his ideals came to clash with those of his government, which supported the war with ardent ferocity.
Douglass does a masterful job of pinpointing the very acts that turned Kennedy’s own men against him. Those acts include, but are not limited to, the Bay of Pigs invasion, where Kennedy refused to send in reinforcements, and the resolution to the Cuban Missile Crisis, which led to the signing of a Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. The final nail in the coffin, however, may have been Kennedy’s plan to withdraw completely from Vietnam, a fact that his military advisers knew at the time of his death though it was not yet public knowledge. (Kennedy wanted to wait until after his reelection in 1965 to announce what was sure to be an unpopular decision, which is why he publicly professed support for a cause he no longer believed in. Unfortunately, those proclamations would later be used as rebuttals when the plan to withdraw was mentioned as a motive for murder.)
In addition, Kennedy had also begun private communications with Soviet Premier Khrushchev, and, just prior to the assassination, was looking to start a dialog with Fidel Castro, who appeared open to the possibility of rapprochement with the United States. That good will ended with Kennedy’s death. Though this openness to conversing with the perceived enemy was only known to Kennedy’s closest confidants, it could have been seen as further evidence of the president going soft on Communism—an opinion that certain factions in the U.S. government had already developed based on his prior adoption of alternative strategies to war.
And so those factions of the government conspired to kill their Commander in Chief. But not only that, they set up Lee Harvey Oswald as the fall guy—and Thomas Arthur Vallee in a thwarted attempt in Chicago before Dallas—and fabricated evidence that would have implicated the Russian and Cuban governments in the assassination, which very well could have led to a nuclear holocaust that Kennedy fought so hard to avoid. But Lyndon Johnson, who inherited the presidency, wanted to avoid such a confrontation at all costs and so, with an understanding of the powers that had taken out his predecessor, he charged the Warren Commission with painting a portrait of Oswald as the lone assassin, effectively covering up all the evidence that implicated the CIA—including what was manufactured in an attempt to lay blame elsewhere.
To some, the truth—at least as Douglass sees it—may be shocking. To others, it’s merely confirmation of what has been speculated for years. The author presents compelling and well-documented evidence as to the solution of the crime of the century. More than that, he offers caution as to where America went wrong and how to avoid repeating the same mistakes that led to one of history’s darkest moments. JFK and the Unspeakable is essential reading.
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