Mark Updegrove: the first Volley for the 60th

[James DiEugenio]

Anyone who does not think there is a battle going on for both history and American culture, please read this. 

And here is the rub, Updegrove is neither an historian or an archivist. So why was he running the LBJ Library?  

And as you can see from this article, he is not in any way an historian.  Wow, what howlers in only an article at Time. And I left something out: no one really knows why Khrushchev installed those missiles.  But JFK thought it was supposed to be his bargaining chip over Berlin.  But first CNN and an elevation of LBJ, now this jab at JFK.  Coincidence? No way. The battle for next year has already started.

https://www.kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-reviews/jfk-vs-lbj-the-msm-in-overdrive

 

Edited May 5, 2022 by James DiEugenio

[Vince Palamara]

3 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

Anyone who does not think there is a battle going on for both history and American culture, please read this. 

And here is the rub, Updegrove is neither an historian or an archivist. So why was he running the LBJ Library?  

And as you can see from this article, he is not in any way an historian.  Wow, what howlers in only an article at Time. And I left something out: no one really knows why Khrushchev installed those missiles.  But JFK thought it was supposed to be his bargaining chip over Berlin.  But first CNN and an elevation of LBJ, now this jab at JFK.  Coincidence? No way. The battle for next year has already started.

https://www.kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-reviews/jfk-vs-lbj-the-msm-in-overdrive

 

And, Jim---you are so right: it continues with these four books, one of which you know about already.

 

Amazon.com: Countdown to Dallas: The Incredible Coincidences, Routines, and Blind "Luck" that Brought John F. Kennedy and Lee Harvey Oswald Together on November 22, 1963: 9781637581940: Brandus, Paul: Books

"John F. Kennedy’s fascination with death—particularly his own—and Lee Harvey Oswald’s love of violence and desire for fame made November 22, 1963 practically inevitable.

With new details from the very latest documents declassified by the CIA and FBI!

The so-called “crime of the century”—the assassination of President John F. Kennedy—was almost preordained to happen. Like all presidents from decades before him, JFK played it loose with security—open cars, Secret Service agents at a distance, and a desire to be seen. Yet conspiracy buffs are certain the security setup on November 22, 1963 was unusual and suspicious. It wasn’t.

And what of Lee Harvey Oswald, the drifter, the vicious wife-beating, fame-seeking narcissist? Everything in his background—dating back to his violent, disturbing grade school years, including his stated desire to murder President Dwight Eisenhower—defines the real Lee Oswald. The Oswald that conspiracists rarely talk about—the Oswald who was perched in the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository as JFK drove by—was headed for this moment of infamy years before he pulled the trigger.

In Countdown to Dallas, author Paul Brandus tracks the backgrounds of both Kennedy and Oswald, the very different era in which they lived, and the incredible string of circumstances that brought them together for a few fateful moments in Dallas."

My Travels with Mrs. Kennedy: Hill, Clint, McCubbin Hill, Lisa: 9781982181116: Amazon.com: Books

 

Amazon.com: The Kennedy Assassinations: JFK and Bobby Kennedy - Debunking The Conspiracy Theories: 9781399081375: Ayton, Mel: Books

 

Thinking Critically About the Kennedy Assassination (Conspiracy Theories): Gagné, Michel Jacques: 9781032114477: Books (amazon.com)

[James DiEugenio]

I already reviewed Gagne, man was that bad. But Mantik is going after him next.

Boy that Brandus book looks like a real ringer.

Oh no, Mel Ayton again. And both cases.  His book with Von Pein did not do very well.

But yes, its a gathering storm.

[Vince Palamara]

10 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

I already reviewed Gagne, man was that bad. But Mantik is going after him next.

Boy that Brandus book looks like a real ringer.

Oh no, Mel Ayton again. And both cases.  His book with Von Pein did not do very well.

But yes, its a gathering storm.

Yes---as you said, in time for the 60th anniversary.

[James DiEugenio]

But I have to say, this year had the following:

1. The TV film that was shown on 9 ABC affiliates based. upon Thompson's book

2. Oliver Stone's JFK Revisited: Through the Looking Glass 

3. Oliver Stone's JFK: Destiny Betrayed

4. Max Good's The Assassination and Mrs. Paine

 

So its been a pretty good one for our side. And I think I said that Showtime bought the rights to JFK Revisited for two years.  In other words, they will be able to broadcast it again next year.

[James DiEugenio]

BTW, about Mark Updegrove.

I hope everyone noticed in my article that I could find no evidence that he was an archivist or historian by education or trade.

So why would one hire him to run a presidential library?  

Was it because he was an MSM insider who worked on the business side and would have a lot of connections?

That is one possible reason. Also because he could also help recruit a powerful Board of Directors. Because they sure did that also.

[James DiEugenio]

DId no one notice those incendiary comments by LBJ toward the end of the Missile Crisis? I know this board is more forensics oriented than Big Picture oriented, but I think this is really important.  And I don't think anyone has noted it here. 

I mean everyone knows how hawkish LBJ was on Vietnam.  Or you should.

But look at what he says about Kennedy's attempts to settle the Missile Crisis peacefully.  He essentially accused him of appeasement, first in Turkey and next in Berlin.  He literally says that Kennedy is setting back American foreign policy fifteen years by giving away too much.

In the face of facts like that, Updegrove is really up a tree. If LBJ had been president at that time, we would have been in big trouble.

[James DiEugenio]

Ok let me try again.  When LBJ wanted the Greek PM forced out he called in the ambassador from Greece, this is what followed:

forcing out of George Papandreou in Greece in 1965. Who can forget Johnson’s rather direct reply to the protestations of the Greek ambassador in the latter case:

Then listen to me Mr. Ambassador: xxxx your Parliament and your Constitution. America is the elephant. They may just get whacked by the elephant’s trunk, whacked good…We pay a lot of good American dollars to the Greeks, Mr. Ambassador. If your Prime Minister gives me talk about Democracy, Parliament, and Constitutions, he, his Parliament, and his Constitution may not last very long. (William Blum, The CIA: A Forgotten History, p. 244)

As William Blum shows in his book, Johnson was true to his word.

 

How about that for gangster talk, from the president of the USA.  Can anyone imagine JFK talking like this?

[Benjamin Cole]

On 5/6/2022 at 3:58 AM, James DiEugenio said:

Anyone who does not think there is a battle going on for both history and American culture, please read this. 

And here is the rub, Updegrove is neither an historian or an archivist. So why was he running the LBJ Library?  

And as you can see from this article, he is not in any way an historian.  Wow, what howlers in only an article at Time. And I left something out: no one really knows why Khrushchev installed those missiles.  But JFK thought it was supposed to be his bargaining chip over Berlin.  But first CNN and an elevation of LBJ, now this jab at JFK.  Coincidence? No way. The battle for next year has already started.

https://www.kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-reviews/jfk-vs-lbj-the-msm-in-overdrive

 

Egads. The record is clear that JFK wanted to avoid military occupations for moral reasons, but he also knew that even if only for practical reasons, to occupy South Vietnam would be perceived as the assuming the role of the colonizer, in a world where people globally were shucking off colonizers. A losing game. Beyond all that, Vietnam was not vital to US prosperity. 

Post-JFK US war actions resulted in perhaps six million deaths in SE Asia (Cambodia, Laos, Indonesia) and untold oceans of human carnage and misery. Any telling of the LBJ-Nixon years must acknowledge this reality.

BTW, in just one small toe of US military operations in SE Asia, the US dropped 250 million cluster bombs on Laos, largely under Nixon. People, largely children, still die from these bombs. 

https://reliefweb.int/report/lao-peoples-democratic-republic/mag-removes-300000th-unexploded-bomb-laos

There is no way JFK would have gotten entangled in such a large counter-productive inhumane catastrophe. JFK made mistakes, sure. The Bay of Pigs comes to mind.

But a holocaust in SE Asia? No, that would not have happened. 

Vietnam was LBJ's war, and Nixon extended the horror for four years. 

 

 

[James DiEugenio]

That is what Richard Mahoney told me after he watched the 2 hour version of the film.

He said that after JFK, the tendency is American foreign policy was militarization.  And it has stayed that way since.

Which, as you say, is something that Kennedy tried to avoid.  

LBJ, first in Vietnam and then the Dominican Republic had no qualms about it.  Even though he reversed Kennedy's policy in both areas.  And then lied about it.

When Fulbright found out about it, he decided to declare war.  And the Fubright hearings opened up.

That was the beginning of the end for LBJ.