I'm reading a work called Brothers: the Hidden History of the Kennedy Years written by David Talbot (2007), the founder of salon.com. The book focuses on JFK and RFK and the years between the 1960 election and the assassination of RFK.Talbot builds fairly equal cases against the three suspects for both assassinations: the US Military/CIA, Castro/Cuba and the Mafia.
All three are plausible cases:
- (a) The military worked in concert with Eisenhower but JFK didn't honor or obey the powerful old generals. (b)The CIA is a law unto themselves and doesn't honor or obey anybody, president included.
- (a) Castro preemptively struck Kennedy down in retaliation for American assassination attempts directed at him. (b)The fierce and passionate Cuban national resistance fighters who survived JFK's bumbling direction at the Bay of Pig could not forgive the lies they were fed to encourage them before the invasion.
- Old reprobate Papa Joe Kennedy made a deal with the mob to deliver Chicago's votes for Kennedy and as soon as the boys got into office, the tormented uber-Catholic Bobby turned that deal upside down and started prosecuting mobsters on at the federal level.
Things move along with equal focus until about the middle of the book when the author drops all pretense of impartial reporter of facts and we learn that:
- RFK thinks the CIA is responsible for JFK's assassination
- Jackie thinks the CIA is responsible for JFK's assassination
- Lyndon Johnson thinks the CIA is responsible for JFK's assassination
- Castro thinks the CIA is responsible for JFK's assassination
- Nikita Khrushchev thinks the CIA is responsible for JFK's assassination
- JFK was a peace-loving change agent - "change agent". It actually says that - who worked personally with individual world leaders to defy the forces of aggression to bring about world peace
Conclusion: The US Military complex and the CIA felt that JFK's non-aggressive ways were about to bring peace to the world and put them out of business. Being hit over the head with this litany reminded me of the Shakespeare line "The lady doth protest too much". and then I thought to myself: "Man, that Shakespeare - he really covered every human condition with those plays and sonnets, didn't he?"
But then it occurred to me that reading Shakespeare is more like reading into Shakespeare - you find in it what you are looking for. Which is the exact same characteristic needed to believe in horoscopes.
So there we have it. David Talbot looked into the known facts of the Kennedy assassination and found what he needed : a peace-loving change agent who did not support the aggressors who wanted America's intersts put first and met on a one-to-one basis with world leaders to deliver peace to the world. If only he wasn't stopped by the self-serving militaristic interests! We could have had Utopia all this time! There would have been no wall for Ronald Reagan to bring down!
Ah, if only we could have another chance - we wouldn't blow it this time. We might not have Kennedy - but maybe we can have someone Kennedy-esque. And then we'll be saved.
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