A book review

JFK and The Unspeakable: Why he Died and Why it Matters by James W. Douglass

“John F. Kennedy is dead. Now peace is up to us.”

So ends this detailed and well documented history of Kennedy’s presidency with respect to his peace-making efforts to end the cold war, the outrage and hatred that resulted among the joint chiefs, some of his staff and the state department, the CIA and other groups, Oswald’s background and lead-up to the assassination, the day of the assassination, and subsequent events.

Jim Douglass appears to be a very decent sort of man who began studying and teaching theology, then becoming a peace and justice activist and a writer on spiritual topics. For thirty years he knew little about the Kennedy assassination. He became interested in this subject after sitting in on the civil trial brought by the family of Martin Luther King, Jr. where he heard hours of testimony regarding CIA and related activities.

Douglass begins this book with reflections on the writings of Thomas Merton in the early sixties calling for disarmament. In the last chapter Douglass focuses on a meeting between Kennedy and Quaker peace activists as well as the peace-making efforts of Pope John Paul XXXIII. The book is built within a spiritual framework.

During Kennedy’s presidency, he

established a neutral policy on Laos with other involved nations,

began secret negotiations with Kruschev before the two brought the world to the brink of nuclear war,

continued those negotiations through the crisis which the two of them managed to end,

established secret contacts with Castro for future negotiation,

attempted to negotiate with Diem,

communicated with Sukarno,

succeeded in signing and getting approval for a partial test ban treaty with Kruschev in a first step toward disarmament and ending the cold war, and

signed an order to bring American advisors out of Vietnam with the goal of all US personnel out of Vietnam by the end of 1965.

All of these actions were done against the will of the joint chiefs of staff who wanted to launch a preemptive nuclear strike against the Soviet Union, to invade Cuba, and to wage an all-out war in Vietnam. Kennedy steadfastly refused to take any of these actions. The book demonstrates Kennedy’s conversion from a cold war ideology to an overriding desire for peace. It also demonstrates that in the eyes of the military, the military-industrial corporations, the CIA, and the Cuban expatriates, he became viewed as a traitor to his country and a pro Communist.

The author’s style is irritating with a constant repetition of particular facts as he builds his case, bringing in new testimony or documents to add evidence. The book could be much shorter with less repetition of points already abundantly made, but it is very clear. Many of the book’s conspiracy proofs are old ones evident from the first news stories on the assassination in 1963, but a number of others are added from more recently declassified government documents and from more recent testimony of witnesses who waited years out of fear before speaking of what they knew. One could accuse Douglass of cherry picking facts to support his hypothesis, but it is very clear that the Warren Commission did a whopping job of cherry picking to support the government’s official position. No aspersions of guilt are cast on Johnson in the book, but the fact is mentioned that on Christmas Eve of 1963 (when 1,000 advisors were supposed to have come home from Vietnam), Johnson said to the joint chiefs, “Just let me get elected and then you can have your war.”

As Thomas Merton foresaw, Kennedy broke through the narrow vision of his time and culture to a greater compassion and humanity to work for peace, and therefore he became marked for assassination. This is why he died and it matters because we still need world peace in a world of nuclear proliferation, enmity, and danger. Douglass speaks to the systemic evil of our very social context that we cannot clearly see because we are part of it and it is part of us. He approaches his subject with a clarity that is available only to those who have spiritual resources, giving them a measure of freedom to see more clearly. There is also a national denial we fall heir to, because who among us really wants to see the truth of this book, painful as it is. But there it is, the elephant in the national arena, and it is so easy to consign all those loony conspiracy buffs to the absurd corner of our minds so we may feel comfortable. But we are not truly comfortable.

“John F. Kennedy is dead. Now peace is up to us.”