What is the Kennedy Cult anyway?

[James DiEugenio]

I would like to ask, what is Hagger referring to with the Kennedy Cult anyway?

I consider myself a historian first and foremost.  In my studies of Kennedy I have tried to find out the facts about his political career and then  his presidency.  These are not at all easy to discern.  In fact they are difficult to locate.   For two reasons:

1.) There is  as much disinformation about those factors, if not more, than about his assassination.

2.) There are many, many historians on the subject who have deliberately concealed important facts in order to court praise and exposure from the MSM.  The latest example was Dallek with the NY Times..

I have studied this area for the last five years.  The shocking thing about the contours of JFK's policies is how concealed they were.  And by that I do not just mean by the MSM.  But also within the research community.  About 95% of the Kennedy assassination books would lead one to think that Kennedy's foreign policy dealt primarily with Cuba and Vietnam.  And in that he was in conflict with the CIA and the Pentagon and to a lesser extent the Mob.    But in the research I have done in this field--and its been quite a lonely endeavor--I discovered this was far from the facts and the record.  The other characteristic one finds attributed to Kennedy was that he was a mild Cold Warrior until the Missile Crisis.  And then somehow he saw the light and was transformed.  That is even the tag line on Jim Douglass' book JFK and the Unspeakable, a book I like and which i gave a good review to.  But I think Jim was wrong about that issue also.

In fact, to really begin to educate myself about this issue, I had to go outside the Kennedy assassination field.  And that is where I discovered that there were some good books on this issue.  But they were few and far between.  And there had been some good essays written on the subject.  So I based my speeches on the subject on those sources. And it surprised a lot of people.  And they have really appreciated this new information.

So what is MH talking about with his "cult".

Edited May 15, 2018 by James DiEugenio

[Mark Knight]

I'm beginning to believe that the "cult" consists of anyone not named Mervyn Hagger.

Interesting to be lumped into the same "cult" as David Von Pein and others whose views are so different from my own.

 

[Paul Brancato]

4 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

I would like to ask, what is Hagger referring to with the Kennedy Cult anyway?

I consider myself a historian first and foremost.  In my studies of Kennedy I have tried to find out the facts about his political career and then  his presidency.  These are not at all easy to discern.  In fact they are difficult to locate.   For two reasons:

1.) There is  as much disinformation about those factors, if not more, than about his assassination.

2.) There are many, many historians on the subject who have deliberately concealed important facts in order to court praise and exposure from the MSM.  The latest example was Dallek with the NY Times..

I have studied this area for the last five years.  The shocking thing about the contours of JFK's policies is how concealed they were.  And by that I do not just mean by the MSM.  But also within the research community.  About 95% of the Kennedy assassination books would lead one to think that Kennedy's foreign policy dealt primarily with Cuba and Vietnam.  And in that he was in conflict with the CIA and the Pentagon and to a lesser extent the Mob.    But in the research I have done in this field--and its been quite a lonely endeavor--I discovered this was far from the facts and the record.  The other characteristic one finds attributed to Kennedy was that he was a mild Cold Warrior until the Missile Crisis.  And then somehow he saw the light and was transformed.  That is even the tag line on Jim Douglass' book JFK and the Unspeakable, a book I like and which i gave a good review to.  But I think Jim was wrong about that issue also.

In fact, to really begin to educate myself about this issue, I had to go outside the Kennedy assassination field.  And that is where I discovered that there were some good books on this issue.  But they were few and far between.  And there had been some good essays written on the subject.  So I based my speeches on the subject on those sources. And it surprised a lot of people.  And they have really appreciated this new information.

So what is MH talking about with his "cult".

Got no idea. But Jim, could you leave a little room in your view of what caused JFK to see the light, enough to include the possibility that Mary Pinchot helped a bit? 

[Ken Davies]

Do we diverse cult members get to pick a motto, and choose a secret greeting? Do we get discounts at cult book shops when we purchase biographies?

Should we quote Groucho or Karl Marx?

 

 

 

[Ron Bulman]

Groucho.  I think we're being framed.  Denigrated.  Just like the CIA labeled "Conspiracy Theorists" in the late 60s in their instructions on how to deal with "them".  It is a famed political tactic.  Brand your opponent as whacko, idiot, irresponsible, a cult.  They're all drinking the same Kool-Aid...  Guess I'm just being paranoid, again.

Edited May 16, 2018 by Ron Bulman

[Michaleen Kilroy]

6 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

About 95% of the Kennedy assassination books would lead one to think that Kennedy's foreign policy dealt primarily with Cuba and Vietnam.  And in that he was in conflict with the CIA and the Pentagon and to a lesser extent the Mob.    But in the research I have done in this field--and its been quite a lonely endeavor--I discovered this was far from the facts and the record.  

Jim, curious how the above about JFK’s foreign policy and relationship with the security agencies is wrong.

[James DiEugenio]

Mike:

Two brief points I discovered.

1.) Kennedy's ideas about foreign policy, especially in the Third World, were formed many years before he entered the White House.  His ideas began to change with a trip to Saigon in 1951.

Click here https://kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-articles/edmund-gullion-jfk-and-the-shaping-of-a-foreign-policy-in-vietnam

This culminated with his great Algeria speech in 1957.  Jim Douglass and many others think the American University speech was his best.  I disagree, considering when this speech was made and who he was targeting, the Dulles Brothers, Nixon and Eisenhower,  and how far ahead of time it was, I think this is his best.  If you read it closely, he even hints at a possible explosion of Muslim fundamentalism due to oppression, this was 22 years before it happened.  The next year, Kennedy bought a hundred copies of The Ugly American and sent them to the rest of the senators.

2.) Because of his revolutionary foreign policy in the Third World, Kennedy was very much up against it with the Power Elite, that is the Eastern Establishment power brokers who hated him for what he wanted to do in places like Congo and Indonesia.  That is let the citizens there have access and the profits to their own resources.  And if they did not have the means to do so then get better deals from the foreign companies who were extracting their wealth.  Don Gibson's book, Battling Wall Street is pretty good on this issue.  So is Greg Polgrain's The Incubus of Intervention.

 

 

Edited May 16, 2018 by James DiEugenio

[Steve Thomas]

1 hour ago, James DiEugenio said:

Mike:

 

2.) Because of his revolutionary foreign policy in the Third World, Kennedy was very much up against it with the Power Elite, that is the Eastern Establishment power brokers who hated him for what he wanted to do in places like Congo and Indonesia.  That is let the citizens there have access and the profits to their own resources.

 

I hate saying, "Me too." It sounds too much like a cult.

*grin*

 

But, "me too".

 

Steve Thomas

[Paz Marverde]

18 hours ago, Mark Knight said:

I'm beginning to believe that the "cult" consists of anyone not named Mervyn Hagger.

👍

Well, MH said that he considers the assassination of JFK a simple footnote in History. I frankly do not understand why one with a so shameful absence of respect towards JFK is still here ...

Edited May 16, 2018 by Paz Marverde

[Cliff Varnell]

I wouldn't use the word cult but I notice JDiE's inability to call JFK out for obvious mistakes -- the green-lighting of the BOP and the overthrow of Diem.

(&And any historian who claims the location of JFK's back wound is unknowable is utterly incompetent, btw.)

There is no better example of JFK's pro-Non-Alignment policy than Laos, which he partitioned.

Was it a good idea to give the Communists the Ho Chi Minh Trail?

It would have been had Kennedy allowed Diem to stay in power and broker his own deal with the North...Just say'n...

 

Edited May 17, 2018 by Cliff Varnell

[James DiEugenio]

I forgot to put up a link to the Algeria Speech.  Here it is

https://www.jfklibrary.org/Research/Research-Aids/JFK-Speeches/United-States-Senate-Imperialism_19570702.aspx

 

This speech got something like 168 editorial notices in the press.  About 2/3 of them were negative.  Kennedy was really worried that he had made a serious practical error.  But as the Algeria War got worse and worse, Kennedy's speech turned out to be prophetic.  And in 1959 he made the cover of Time Magazine and Eric Sevareid said that his speech looks very good in retrospect.

I really advise everyone to read it.  Its hard to think that a fairly young senator could make such a speech at that time in that venue.  

[Paz Marverde]

14 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

This culminated with his great Algeria speech in 1957

Agree. It's another fundamental key to understand the assassination's roots, by the way

[Michaleen Kilroy]

19 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

Mike:

Two brief points I discovered.

1.) Kennedy's ideas about foreign policy, especially in the Third World, were formed many years before he entered the White House.  His ideas began to change with a trip to Saigon in 1951.

Click here https://kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-articles/edmund-gullion-jfk-and-the-shaping-of-a-foreign-policy-in-vietnam

This culminated with his great Algeria speech in 1957.  Jim Douglass and many others think the American University speech was his best.  I disagree, considering when this speech was made and who he was targeting, the Dulles Brothers, Nixon and Eisenhower,  and how far ahead of time it was, I think this is his best.  If you read it closely, he even hints at a possible explosion of Muslim fundamentalism due to oppression, this was 22 years before it happened.  The next year, Kennedy bought a hundred copies of The Ugly American and sent them to the rest of the senators.

2.) Because of his revolutionary foreign policy in the Third World, Kennedy was very much up against it with the Power Elite, that is the Eastern Establishment power brokers who hated him for what he wanted to do in places like Congo and Indonesia.  That is let the citizens there have access and the profits to their own resources.  And if they did not have the means to do so then get better deals from the foreign companies who were extracting their wealth.  Don Gibson's book, Battling Wall Street is pretty good on this issue.  So is Greg Polgrain's The Incubus of Intervention.

 

 

Thanks, Jim. I’ll be checking out the references you provided. Appreciate it.

One point I like to make is that I think JFK’s Irish heritage informed his world view. It was pretty obvious which side he was on when you’re talking nationalist rights vs colonialism with regards to Britain and Ireland, IMO. Plus he loved the Irish rebel tunes!

But I’m probably revealing too much of my JFK cult perspective.

[James DiEugenio]

Don't miss the Algeria speech.

You are correct about the Irish angle you cultist you.

[Cliff Varnell]

12 hours ago, Cliff Varnell said:

There is no better example of JFK's pro-Non-Alignment policy than Laos, which he partitioned.

The Reds got the Ho Chi Minh Trail and the CIA got the Kuomintang intelligence penetration into China, and the poppy fields.

In between, 30,000 Hmong ferociously enforced the partition.

The poppy fields proved far more valuable than Kuomintang intel.

What's with the no fly zone over Laos, Jim?