JFK and the Unspeakable [by Oliver Stone]

JFK and the Unspeakable

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/oliver-stone/jfk-and-the-unspeakable_b_243924.html

Oliver Stone
Award-winning filmmaker
Posted: July 23, 2009

The murder of President Kennedy was a seminal event for me and for
millions of Americans. It changed the course of history. It was a
crushing blow to our country and to millions of people around the
world. It put an abrupt end to a period of a misunderstood idealism,
akin to the spirit of 1989 when the Soviet bloc to began to thaw and
2008, when our new American President was fairly elected.

Today, more than 45 years later, profound doubts persist about how
President Kennedy was killed and why. My film JFK was a metaphor for
all those doubts, suspicions and unanswered questions. Now an
extraordinary new book offers the best account I have read of this
tragedy and its significance. That book is James Douglass's JFK and
the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters. It is a book that
deserves the attention of all Americans; it is one of those rare
books that, by helping us understand our history, has the power to change it.

The subtitle sums up Douglass's purpose: Why He Died and Why it
Matters. In his beautifully written and exhaustively researched
treatment, Douglass lays out the "motive" for Kennedy's
assassination. Simply, he traces a process of steady conversion by
Kennedy from his origins as a traditional Cold Warrior to his
determination to pull the world back from the edge of destruction.

Many of these steps are well known, such as Kennedy's disillusionment
with the CIA after the disastrous Bay of Pigs Invasion, and his
refusal to follow the reckless recommendations of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff in resolving the Cuban Missile Crisis. (This in itself was
truly JFK's shining moment in the sun. It is likely that any other
president from LBJ on would have followed the path to a general
nuclear war.) Then there was the Test Ban Treaty and JFK's remarkable
American University Speech where he spoke with empathy and compassion
about the Soviet people, recognizing our common humanity, the fact
that we all "inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air.
We all cherish our children's futures. And we are all mortal."

But many of his steps remain unfamiliar: Kennedy's back-channel
dialogue with Khrushchev and their shared pursuit of common ground;
his secret opening to dialogue with Fidel Castro (ongoing the very
week of his assassination); and his determination to pull out of
Vietnam after his probable re-election in 1964.

All of these steps caused him to be regarded as a virtual traitor by
elements of the military-intelligence community. These were the
forces that planned and carried out his assassination. Kennedy
himself said, in 1962, after he read Seven Days in May, which is
about a military coup in the United States, that if he had another
Bay of Pigs, the same thing could happen to him. Well, he did have
another "Bay of Pigs"; he had several. And I think Kennedy prophesied
his own death with those words.

Why does it matter? The death of JFK remains a critical turning point
in our history. Those who caused his death were targeting not just a
man but a vision -- a vision of peace. There is no calculating the
consequences of his death for this country and for the world. Those
consequences endure. To a large extent, the fate of our country and
the future of the planet continue to be controlled by the shadowy
forces of what Douglass calls "the Unspeakable." Only by unmasking
these forces and confronting the truth about our history can we
restore the promise of democracy and lay claim to Kennedy's vision of peace.

But don't take my word for it. Read this extraordinary book and reach
your own conclusions.

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