Book: J.F.K. & The Unspeakable: Why He Died & Why It Matters

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BK-JFK

• “A remarkable story that changed the way I view the world.”
—JAMES BRADLEY, author of Flags of Our Fathers

• “Arguably the most important book yet written about a U.S. president … Should be required reading for all high school and college students, and anyone who is a registered voter!”
— JOHN PERKINS, author of Confessions of an Economic Hitman

• “The best account I have read of this tragedy and its significance … But don’t take my word for it. Read this extraordinary book and reach your own conclusions.” — OLIVER STONE, director

• "Jim Douglass has unraveled the story of President Kennedy’s astonishing and little-known turn toward peace, and the reasons why members of his own government felt he must be eliminated. This disturbing, enlightening, and ultimately inspiring book should be read by all Americans. It has the power to change our lives and to set us free." — MARTIN SHEEN


• “JFK and the Unspeakable is an exceptional achievement. Douglass has made the strongest case so far in the JFK assassination literature as to the Who and the Why of Dallas.”
– MARK LANE, author of Rush to Judgment


• "Douglass presents, brilliantly, an unfamiliar yet thoroughly convincing account of a series of creditable decisions of John F. Kennedy – at odds with his initial Old War stance – that earned him the secret distrust and hatred of hard-liners among the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the CIA. Did this suspicion and rage lead directly to his murder by agents of these institutions...? Many readers who are not yet convinced of this 'beyond reasonable doubt' by Douglass's prosecutorial indictment will find themselves perhaps – like myself – for the first time, compelled to call for an authoritative criminal investigation. Recent events give all the more urgency to learning what such an inquiry can teach us about how, by whom, and in whose interests this country is run."
– DANIEL ELLSBERG, former RAND Corporation whistle blower (released the classified Pentagon Papers publicly in 1971), author, "Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers"

• "For forty years Jim Douglass has been our leading North American Catholic theologian of peace. But this monumental work on the witness of JFK is something deeper still...This book has the potential to change our narrative about our country, and our lives as citizens and disciples. May we have ears to hear these truths, hearts able to bear their burden and hands willing to build a new story." – Ched Myers, author, "Binding The Strong Man"

• "Jim Douglass's spiritual and eloquent telling of president John F. Kennedy's martyrdom for peace is a peerless and extraordinary historical contribution." – Vincent J. Salandra, author, "False Mystery"

• "Douglass writes with moral force, clarity, and the careful attention to detail that will make 'JFK & The Unspeakable' a sourcebook for many years to come, for it provides us with the stubborn facts needed to rebuild a constitutional democracy within the United States." – Marcus Raskin, co-founder, Institute for Policy Studies

• Customer Review: "And We Are All Mortal" (June 8, 2008)
In James W. Douglass' outstanding new book, "JFK and the Unspeakable," the autrhor explains the title in his introduction. Coined by spiritual writer Thomas Merton, The Unspeakable refers to "an evil whose depth and deceit seemed to go beyond the capacity of words to describe." Regarding the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, the Unspeakable succeeded due to deniability by the nation's citizens of the horrifying truth of the event and to plausible deniability by the government agencies responsible for the murder. (Vincent Bugliosi's recent fictional paperweight is a perfect example of the plausible deniability that allows the Unspekable to thrive.)

Many excellent books have proven that the assassination of JFK was the result of a conspiracy. Douglass verifies the certainty of the conspiracy and, as the subtitle of the book states, explains "Why He Died and Why It Matters." He scrutinizes the historical facts surrounding the assassination, from the creation of the CIA to the gradual obliteration of the freedoms upon which this nation was founded.

This book is primarily the story of John F. Kennedy who changes from a Cold Warrior to an altruistic leader willing to risk his life to ensure that the world's children will not become victims of a nuclear catastrophe. Equal time is spent on JFK's presidency as on the assassination, but one of the many rewards of this book is the author's capacity to show the relationship between his policies and his death. And the book is a tragedy because it gradually becomes obvious that each step he makes toward peace steadily increases the hatred of his enemies who will eventually betray him.

It is also the story of the designated patsy, Lee Harvey Oswald. Moved around the country like a pawn by government agencies (as was the second "Oswald"), he was being set up as the scapegoat. Enter some despicable characters, including David Atlee Phillips, James Hosty, and, of course Michael and Ruth Paine. Simultaneously, the Soviet Union was being set up as the evil empire behind the assassination, along with its satellite Cuba.

Douglass credibly illustrates the origin of the Crime of the Century. During President Truman's administration, the CIA was empowered to be a paramilitary organization with unlimited powers. Truman's successor, President Eisenhower, fell out of favor with the CIA when he planned a summit meeting with Soviet Premier Krushchev. This was cancelled after a U.S. spy plane crashed in Russia. Eisenhower had reportedly ordered such flights cancelled and had his suspicions about who had ruined his peace plan. He subsequently issued his warning about the "military industrial complex" in his farewell address. But he didn't defy "this conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry." He left that task to his successor, JFK.

The [1961] Bay of Pigs Invasion of Cuba was planned by the CIA to regain control of the island nation and to reopen the casinos for U.S. organized crime. President Kennedy refused to provide air support for the invasion because he knew he had been lied to by the [Pentagon] Joint Chiefs of Staff and by the CIA; the invasion had been designed to fail without U.S. support, but they hadn't told this to JFK who refused to fall into their trap. During the [1962] Cuban Missile Crisis, JFK once again enraged the CIA and the Joint Chiefs by resisting their tremendous pressure on him to take military action which would have led to nuclear war.

Following that crisis, JFK became intent on ending the Cold War by establishing a peaceful relationship with the Soviet Union. However, many CIA and Pentagon personnel believed that it was better to be "dead than red." and that it was preferable to destroy civilization rather than let the Communists rule. They also knew that war generated billions of dollars into the arms industry. As a result, they would repeatedly subvert the President's policies and isolate him within his own government. Enter some more despicable characters: Richard Bissell, Charles Cabell, Henry Cabot Lodge, Lyman Lemnitzer, Curtis LeMay, and perhaps the most contemptible of all, C.I.A. Chief Allen Dulles. Ironically, JFK learned to trust Krushchev more than people within his own government.

At American University's [commencement address] on June 10, 1963, JFK spoke about his desire for world peace. He communicated his resolve to form a new relationship with Krushchev. He spoke about the necessity of a pursuit toward disarmament. He stated his intentions to establish a Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. He acknowledged his country's past faults and recognized the Russian people as wanting peace as much as the American people. "...and we are all mortal," he stated. Though this extremely important speech* was ignored in the United States, it was disseminated throughout the Soviet Union, per order of Krushchev, who was prepared to respond to JFK's peace initiative. The speech also , in avery real sense, made certain JFK's assassination. With so many powerful enemies opposing his policies and hating him, JFK didn't have a chance as he was being maneuvered into the crossfire in Dallas that November.

President Kennedy was aware of the power of his enemies and he knew the dangers facing him. But he persevered and in a Presidential Directive issued 3 weeks before his murder, he mandated that all U.S. personnel would be withdrawn from Vietnam beginning in 1964 and completed by 1965. He was determined to never send combat troops... He also refused to intervene militarily in Laos. He exchanged private letters with Krushchev, and secretly initiated plans to attain rapproachment with Cuba, which further incensed the Agency. Cuba's Fidel Castro, whom the CIA hatred as intensely as it hated Kennedy, was equally eager to begin an American-Cuba dialogue. In fact, Castro was meeting with a JFK representative when the President was murdered. JFK died a martyr and the forces of evil that killed him also killed his vision of peace.

Lyndon Johnson, the CIA's ally, assumed the Presidency. He cancelled talks with Krushchev and refused Castro's pleas to continue the dialogue. [The very week following the assassination] He reversed JFK's withdrawal plan from Vietnam as well as his plan to neutralize Laos. The military industrial complex took control of the country. The policy of plausible deniability led the way to assassinations of foreign leaders, the overthrowing of foreign governments and horrors commited all over the globe. If JFK had not been murdered, we would not have had the prolongation of the Cold War, the Vietnam War, Watergate, the purported War on Terror and the steady moral deterioration of America. Interestingly, one month after JFK's assassination, former President Truman wrote an article for the Washngton Post cautioning about the threat of the CIA taking over America.

The author meticulously examines the evidence and draws conclusions which ring with unassailable truth:
1.) The CIA coordinated and implemented the assassination of President Kennedy, an act of treason which destroyed democracy in the U.S.
2.) The Warren Commission was created to propagate lies to conceal the truth about the assassination from the American people.
3.) There has been a continued cover-up by successive administrations and their stooges in the mass media.
4.) The murder of JFK is directly related to the current domination of the American people by powerful oppressors within a shadow government that will continue to insist that only a state of permanent war can keep the country safe from its enemies. This was what George Orwell tried to warn the world;d about in his 1948 novel, "1984". This permanent government which President Eisenhower warned us about in his January 17, 1961 Farewell speech, is the Military-Industrial Complex, the un-acknowledged true enemies who steered the nation away from de-escalation of the nuclear threat, and peaceful co-existence with the U.S.S.R. Instead, continually escalating our troops in Vietnam 30-fold , insuring a decade-long quagmire in a war that took 58,000 U.S. lives and countless hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese lives, in a war we never should have been involved in. A war which has permanently polarized the citizens of our country to this day.

This is an exceptional book that will be used by future historians to determine the truth about the assassination and how it changed America. And it will also be used to honor John F. Kennedy as a courageous president who believed in doing God's work on earth. In doing so, he came into conflict with the Unspeakable and his life was extinguished.


• a DVD copy of JFK's June 10, 1963 commencement speech at American University is available in its entirety, on request, when purchasing the book from us (it is not available separately). Ask for the "JFK 6/10/63 speech DVD" in the Comments section when you order the book. (an added perk to those who bother to read all the way through to the end of this "More info..." page!
As of 11/24/2015, the Amazon.com ranking for this book, out of FOUR MILLION books they track, is: Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (580 customer reviews) Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #6,488 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)* #7 in Books - Politics & Social Sciences - Social Sciences - Communication & Media Studies
#29 in Books - Biographies & Memoirs - True Crime - Murder & Mayhem
#33 in Books - Politics & Social Sciences - Politics & Government - Political Science - History & Theory

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