JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters | 
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Author: James W. Douglass
Publisher: Orbis Books
Category: Book
List Price: $30.00
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Avg. Customer Rating:  24 reviews
Sales Rank: 6852
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 510
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.9
Dimensions (in): 9.4 x 6.2 x 1.8
ISBN: 1570757550
Dewey Decimal Number: 364.1524
EAN: 9781570757556
ASIN: 1570757550
Publication Date: April 30, 2008
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| Customer Reviews: Read 19 more reviews...
Remember what Santayana Said August 11, 2008
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
This reviewer raptly read Mark Lane's Rush To Judgement, Jim Garrison's On the Trail of the Assassins: My Investigation and Prosecution of the Murder of President Kennedy, and Jim Mars' Crossfire: The Plot That Killed Kennedy when they were first published. This reviewer became jaded at the fictions published by the Warren Commission and the House Select Commission on Assassinations, and like America sings in Sister GoldenHair "I got so damn depressed" that I quit reading this stuff.
Since then, even more proof has piled up against the lies our "leaders" told us. JFK was 'turning towards Peace" and the "unspeakable" evil forces aligned against him and peace didn't like it. James W. Douglas has done an excellent, Must-Read compilation of that truth, especially important now that a similair scenario could be, like Carly crooned, "Comin Around Again" with a new president ("Yes we Can!" "Change we can believe in!") bucking an evermore entrenched Military-Industrial Complex - HalliBurton et. al. - that would prefer that we stay in Iraq for the next 100 years or so.
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it"
George Santayana 1863-1952
Buy this book for you and all your intelligent friends and relatives and read it, so that we all can be on the same proverbial "Group W' bench with Arlo Alice's Restaurant: The Massacree Revisited (30th Anniversary Edition).
/TundraVision, "Hope springs eternal," Amazon Reviewer
Best JFK book yet! August 11, 2008
James does a fabulous job with loads of newly released information to make it very clear that Lee Harvey Oswald wasn't just a patsy, but could have been a hero a few weeks earlier. If anyone doubts the CIA's hand on this, they haven't been paying attention.
A thoroughly rational and heartfelt examination of America's dark side August 7, 2008
JFK and the Unspeakable is a gem of a book. Due to the obfuscation of the events of that sad day in November 1963 by our own government, we may never be able to put absolute names and faces to the forces that caused the death of our 35th President. But the circumstantial evidence is overwhelming. James Douglass does a mighty fine job of painting the landscape and filling in the details of this dark period in a masterly fashion. When our own government stonewalls investigation into the killing of a president, keeping records sealed for half a century and then releasing them drip by redacted drip, is there any wonder that 75% of the population finds its intentions highly suspect? Douglass very clearly defines the motives that have shrouded this assassination discussion for so many years. And with the motive, method and opportunity of the clandestine forces to eliminate a sitting president so blatantly in place, it is a marvel of duplicity that they have painted "conspiracy theorists" into such a curious cul-de-sac. But finely written books such as Mr. Douglass's slowly prod this most obvious of viewpoints back into the mainstream of American conscience.
The disquieting question that arises after reading this book is - Where was America while this was happening? Why are we so somnolent when forces in our own government make a mockery of democracy and American ideals by killing popular peace-leaning leaders [JKF, RFK and MLK] and bringing us into war after phony war against the better judgement of reasonable people?
Where is America when the chips are down?
Big Picture analysis of the JFK murder August 7, 2008
What an excellent book! Does not get bogged down in the relatively irrelevant details of the players on the ground in Dealy Plaza that awful day. By that I mean to say that Douglass is using a more "macro-view", if you will, regarding the Why of JFK's assassination. He is a committed pacifist and peace activist, as well as a Catholic theologian.
The book is meticulously researched and I found many excellent insights regarding the context of times in which these events transpired. It was well before my time, so I found that this book offered me a more complete picture of the political currents swirling around the US and the world at that time - while at the same time providing a balanced and insightful picture of JFK. Many writers, in my opinion, seem to want to deify or demonize the man. This book really humanized the historical character for me.
I have read many books on this subject, but found this one to be more satisfying and unique. "Satisfying" in the sense that the larger questions in my own mind were answered, at least as much as they are ever going to be. I'm sure that all of the really damning evidence is long destroyed and/or silenced. ( I hope that I am wrong....) "Unique" in that Douglass brings a fresh moral perspective to his political and historical analysis - whether one accepts all of his conlusions or not. Subsequent history bears out some of his conclusions, but dealing with and confronting totalitarian regimes and systems cannot always be wished away by hopes of peace - see the "Peace in our time" debacle in Munich in the late 1930's . Still it is a shame that Kennedy never got the chance to bring to fruition a number of his initiatives.
Finally, it offers the most credible answer to my mind about how and why so many people and gov't agencies particpated in the cover-up.
"Treason doth never prosper, for if it prosper who dare call it treason?", wrote William Shakespeare. How true. How many died in Indochina and elswhere because of that? How sad.
 Could it have happened this way? August 2, 2008
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
James Douglass presents a strong case that John Kennedy was assassinated by a CIA-controlled plot, and Lee Harvey Oswald was a 'patsy' that was set up to take the fall, aided by a CIA double. These are not new ideas, yet Douglass has careful references to document his thesis. This reader is not convinced. The contention that the shots came from the 'grassy knoll' rather than from the Book Depository are claimed by Douglass to be supported by the piece of JFK's skull that was dislodged by the fatal bullet. But, evidence shows that this bone particle came from the parietal portion of the head, and not the occipital as suggested by Douglass. As such, there is no way the bullet could have entered from any angle other than from the rear. Furthermore, the contention that the bullet entered the throat and exited the head would require a shot from the front and below, not from above as Douglass' conspiracy theory contends. There are other obvious flaws in the conspiracy argument, including eye witnesses with very shaky psychological pasts. Above all, how could it be that such a wide-ranging conspiracy involving even field agents of the CIA could have been kept a secret all these years? It is not a compelling rehash of the old evidence.
What is compelling, however, is the evil Douglass chronicles in his book that existed in the country in the early 60s. There was a deep hatred of JFK in the South and in Texas in particular. War mongering was at its height, and there is no doubt there was great rejoicing in the Pentagon and the CIA when his death was announced. This was the unspeakable that Douglass discusses in his book. In this matter he is right on. In that sense, as was discussed in the Dallas newspapers in those dark days in 1963 (I was living there at the time), we were all responsible in some way for his death by tolerating the intolerance, the outright hatred, and the talk of his demise. Furthermore, his book has the chilling effect of reminding us that we have learned nothing, absolutely nothing from that history. We have recreated over and over wars and insurgencies via the CIA or the Pentagon, and the ideals that Douglass' Kennedy represented have not found a place in the heart of the nation. For that reason, the book is well worth a read. Take in this reading, and whether or not you agree about the conspiracy, be prepared to be chilled by the animosity between JFK and the military-CIA leaders of his time.
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