JFK and the Unspeakable

I've never been big on conspiracy theories.  In college, I picked up Holy Blood, Holy Grail, the book on which Dan Brown based The Da Vinci Code, and knocked it out in a matter of days.  However, after a brief enchantment, I began to note the wide gaps and assumptions made by the authors and easily dismissed them, just as the scholarly community had decades before.  I don't believe in aliens and I think Bin Laden is dead.  So the grassy knoll JFK stuff was not really up my ally.  However, given that I had gotten to know the author's wife, and given that he'd spent 12 years on the book, and given that Jim is a Ph.D. and former university professor, I thought I would give the book a try.  It didn't hurt that names like Oliver Stone had given strong reviews.

JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters by James W. Douglass quickly drew me in.  However, in contrast to the medieval lore and mystery of Holy Blood, Holy Grail, Douglass captured my attention with thoughtful reflections on Christianity and the military-industrial complex.  The book is told through the lens of Thomas Merton, a Trappist monk from Kentucky, who as a poet and writer championed peace and faith.  In 1962, not long before the Cuban Missile Crisis and only a year and half before Kennedy's assassination, Merton wrote these haunting lines regarding nuclear war:

"What is needed is really not shrewdness or craft, but what the politicians don't have; depth, humanity and a certain totality of self-forgetfulness and compassion, not just for individuals but for man as a whole; a deeper kind of dedication. Maybe Kennedy will break through into that some day by miracle. But such people are before long marked out for assassination..."

Douglass writes with tireless consistency, and provides a feasible rationale as to how Kennedy would have beeen marked for death.  Using the resources that have been made available in the last decades, Douglass also provides a coherent and detailed narrative for how the event occurred.  Striking contradictions are neglected by the Warren Report, the government's official investigation of the case, which involved Allen Dulles, the former CIA director who was fired by Kennedy.  From Lee Harvey Oswald's intelligence connections to the remarkably similar plot uncovered by Chicago investigators only a few weeks before the assassination, Douglass brings to light numerous loose ends worth considering.


More than the how of the story, the why of the narrative is where Douglass invests most of his time.  He chronicles Kennedy's conversion from a hawkish presidential candidate running on the platform of "closing the missile gap with the Soviets" to, at times, the lone voice against preemption in his cabinet.  In the wake of the Cuban Missile Crisis, perhaps the moment nearest to apocalypse in the history of the world, Kennedy turned from his cold-warrior mentality in pursuit of lasting peace.  He engaged in secret correspondence with his chief "enemy," Nikita Khrushchev.  He stood against leaders in his government advocating for deceit and violence as a means of winning the Cold War.  He championed Third World liberation, and was ultimately marked as a traitor by those who could not see peace as a viable option.

Can I say for sure that Douglass's postulate is the absolute truth?  No.  But the theory he unfolds is remarkably thorough and consistent.  Even with the critical eye that quickly dismissed previous theories, I have a tough time refuting much of his information.  It has re-shaped the way I comprehend national defense, intelligence and the workings of the military-industrial complex.  The book is certainly worth your consideration.  Highly recommended.

By the way, if you have some time, check out this interview.