Rob Reiner's Who Killed JFK: My Belated Review

[James DiEugenio]

So far, its a decidedly mixed bag through the first three parts.

I have finished part 2 of the review--parts 4-6-- and it will be going up tomorrow.

I was very surprised that there were no recreations, which are easy to do for radio.  And up to part 6, there is no discussion of JFK leaving Vietnam.

My substack is still free so you can read it for nothing. The link goes directly to the article.

https://substack.com/home/post/p-143648888?source=queue

Edited April 18 by James DiEugenio

[James DiEugenio]

Here is Part 2, this includes a review of Parts 4-6. Again, its still free and it links directly to the article.

At the end, I take note that it surprising to me that in their discussion of New Orleans, there is 1.) No mention of David Phillips and 2.) No mention of 544 Camp Street.

Concerning the latter, not that Oswald was there, but they don't even talk about the fact that he put that address on some of his literature!

That was really weird, especially in relation to some of the tenuous stuff they did include.

And although they make a big deal over Northwoods, I did not detect any mention of the records of the May, 1963 Sec/Def conference in Hawaii, where its made clear that Kennedy has instructed McNamara that he is getting out of Vietnam.

Third, in their review of Oswald and his possible connection to the CIA, although they include that very tenuous stuff about Hartogs--which I would not have-- there was no mention of Betsy Wolf from the HSCA, who first discovered the paradoxes in the Oswald file and talked to a few CIA officials about it.

All in all so far a decidedly mixed bag.

https://substack.com/home/post/p-143698630?source=queue

Edited April 18 by James DiEugenio

[Nathaniel Heidenheimer]

Ug.  By stuffing the show with TimeInc Propaganda about JFK's foreign policy and TimeInc obfuscation about how that foreign policy changed  after the assassination, the importance of the assassination on the long term evolution of the Democrats and the US in general is de-freighted.  Why does this not surprise me coming from the Meathead who supports a hollow shell of a human named Joe Biden who is basically DNC's Dick Cheney.  

The Meathead's essence of establishment support for DNC dictates this TimeInc narration of foreign policy.  More might see the irony if WaPost had not let Joyce Carol Oates review the recent book on the Zaprudef film, God and or polytheisms help us. 

Edited April 19 by Nathaniel Heidenheimer

[James DiEugenio]

I agree with that Nathaniel.

What Kennedy was doing in the fifties, leading up to the great Algeria Speech, was really kind of revolutionary.  And the Establishment wants us to forget about that. But its really important. I will never understand why they recruited Jon Meacham as their historian. 

Of course I really do not understand why he reached out to Soledad O'Brien either.

If you recall, when she worked for CNN she did an MLK cover up show.

[Paul Cummings]

5 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

I agree with that Nathaniel.

What Kennedy was doing in the fifties, leading up to the great Algeria Speech, was really kind of revolutionary.  And the Establishment wants us to forget about that. But its really important. I will never understand why they recruited Jon Meacham as their historian. 

Of course I really do not understand why he reached out to Soledad O'Brien either.

If you recall, when she worked for CNN she did an MLK cover up show.

O'Brien was for potential female audiences and someone who through the podcast is learning about JFKA. He probably feels she brings credibility because of her profile nationally.

[James DiEugenio]

She also did a pretty crappy podcast on Mary Meyer.

And you are correct, she did kind of play the willing student to Reiner's teacher.

As per info, I thought she added zero.  Except, she did say her mother resented Kennedy over the Missile Crisis, I think.  Evidently she is Cuban.

[James DiEugenio]

Here is Part 3 which takes us to the actual assassination, plus the death of Ruby.

Again, its quite a mixed bag.  No mention of Jolly West.

And man, first Tosh Plumlee and now Curington?

There are some good parts, like the ending quoting DeGaulle.

 

https://substack.com/home/post/p-143763031?source=queue

[Robert Morrow]

5 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

Here is Part 3 which takes us to the actual assassination, plus the death of Ruby.

Again, its quite a mixed bag.  No mention of Jolly West.

And man, first Tosh Plumlee and now Curington?

There are some good parts, like the ending quoting DeGaulle.

 

https://substack.com/home/post/p-143763031?source=queue

Dick Russell told me around 2019 that John Curington had not changed his story in the 25 years that he has known him or had dealings with him.

A few years ago, I interviewed and/or spoke with John Curington many times. I think it is preposterous to think that he or Paul Rothermell was some sort of CIA plant on H.L. Hunt. Curington told me he was not that close to Paul Rothermell, who I think was a former FBI guy.

John Curington was H.L. Hunt's right hand man for 12 years. And he knew first hand all the hatred H.L. Hunt, Lyndon Johnson, J. Edgar Hoover and Sen. John Eastland had for the Kennedys - and all 4 of those men were close buddies. Not long before LBJ died, H.L. Hunt and John Eastland went to visit LBJ and that is a proven fact.

I am not saying I agree with everything John Curington has ever said, but he was in fact extremely close to H.L. Hunt, whether he was embezzling from Hunt or not. The Hunts got in trouble for illegally wiretapping Curington and there was a court case on this.

One think John Curington told me was that he and H.L. Hunt had the largest intel file in the world on the JFK assassination - that is how closely H.L. Hunt was following this case. Hunt was know to make verbal death threats in regards to the Kennedys. John Curington told me he used to liaison with the head of the Texas Rangers Homer Garrison on any new development in the JFK assassination case. Homer Garrison lived from 1901-1968 and he is buried in the Texas State Cemetery which is a choice place to be buried - https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/garrison-homer-jr Homer Garrison was also the head of the Texas Dept. of Public Safety.

Occasionally H.L. Hunt and Lyndon Johnson would have private meetings in the top suites of the Dallas Adolphus Hotel - a place I have been many times for JFK assassination conferences. Curington also said Billie Sol Estes came to visit H.L. Hunt  about 1/2 dozen times. Estes told Curington, "John, you can shear a sheep 2-3 times, but you can only skim him once." (Whatever that means, don't get too greedy it is counterproductive.)

I interviewed Curington in 2019- he said LBJ used to call H.L. Hunt and say "Good morning, Mr. Hunt, how are you?" and H.L. Hunt would reply "You can dispense with asking how I am, you can just take it for granted that I feel like talking with I call you."

Curington also said that PR man Booth Mooney was on the Hunt payroll. Mooney later went to work for Lyndon Johnson and that is one way Hunt kept track of what LBJ was up to - had an inside man in LBJ's office.

Curington said LBJ and H.L. Hunt might talk 2-3 times per day if there was a pressing issue or they might go 6 months without talking.

 

 

 

[James DiEugenio]

I just listened to the last three parts.

  Charles W  was the man behind the assassination?  I guess DIck Russell never got over that anonymous note he got when working at The Village Voice.

And Bill Harvey?  From Rome?

Astonishingly they brought back Plumlee again.  And Ralph Mowatt Larsen without saying he thinks Oswald did it.

More on this tomorrow. Sheesh.

[Kirk Gallaway]

2 hours ago, Robert Morrow said:

John Curington was H.L. Hunt's right hand man for 12 years. And he knew first hand all the hatred H.L. Hunt, Lyndon Johnson, J. Edgar Hoover and Sen. John Eastland had for the Kennedys - and all 4 of those men were close buddies. Not long before LBJ died, H.L. Hunt and John Eastland went to visit LBJ and that is a proven fact.

I'm sure you've seen this Robert. Just to flesh out this.character. Not that I necessarily believe anything he says. H.L. Hunt was at one time the richest man in the world. Didn't he once own the KC Chiefs?

I remember an interview where he once said, he was for LBJ in 1960. But he was extremely disappointed with his Presidency. I assume most of that was because of the Civil Rights Act. His wife held big Sunday Bible meetings but he was very cheap, and no philanthropist.

Here , starting at 46:40 he is asked about his right wing political affiliations, about ties to the John Birch  Society , his ties to Weismann who distributed some of  the anti JFK literature around Dallas just prior to JFK's arrival, (which he denies funding, but apparently, knows him.)  General Edwin Walker, the Kennedy Assassination. and the work of the Warren Commission.

 

 

[Sandy Larsen]

On 4/18/2024 at 10:32 PM, James DiEugenio said:

I will never understand why they recruited Jon Meacham as their historian.

 

I'm sure Meacham got the history wrong. But I think his presence in the documentary adds to its perceived credibility... he is well known among political junkies. (Not that I've seen the documentary.)

Reiner certainly should have run a summary of his material past a knowledgeable person like Jim D. before producing the documentary. What a waste of time, money, credibility, and impact that he didn't take such a simple step.

 

[James DiEugenio]

Here is the final review of Part 10 plus two extra segments, one on the still classified files and an interview with Landis.

I tried to be kind to him at the end.  I think his heart was in the right place.

https://jamesanthonydieugenio.substack.com/p/rob-reiners-who-killed-jfk-pt-4

[Robert Morrow]

12 hours ago, Kirk Gallaway said:

I'm sure you've seen this Robert. Just to flesh out this.character. Not that I necessarily believe anything he says. H.L. Hunt was at one time the richest man in the world. Didn't he once own the KC Chiefs?

I remember an interview where he once said, he was for LBJ in 1960. But he was extremely disappointed with his Presidency. I assume most of that was because of the Civil Rights Act. His wife held big Sunday Bible meetings but he was very cheap, and no philanthropist.

Here , starting at 46:40 he is asked about his right wing political affiliations, about ties to the John Birch  Society , his ties to Weismann who distributed some of  the anti JFK literature around Dallas just prior to JFK's arrival, (which he denies funding, but apparently, knows him.)  General Edwin Walker, the Kennedy Assassination. and the work of the Warren Commission.

 

 

Thank you. H.L. Hunt's son Lamar Hunt founded the Kansas City Chiefs, in much the same way that the son of Clint Murchison founded the Dallas Cowboys. Both families hated the guts of John Kennedy and both families were in political alliance with John Kennedy.

Having said that there is much more information that indicts D.H. Byrd in the JFK assassination as opposed to H.L. Hunt and Clint Murchison.

John Curington - as he told me many times - was the actual person in the Hunt organization who picked the city KANSAS CITY for the start of a new football franchise. He did this by looking at a map and seeing how many semi-major cities or radio stations were within close distance of Kansas City as opposed to other candidate towns. It was purely a demographic play trying to reach the biggest base of support for the new football team.

 

 

[James DiEugenio]

That is probably correct about Meacham Sandy.  

But, I think he sacrificed something there.

To be perfectly honest, I am not so sure that Reiner disagreed with him.

When I was meeting with that group, Rob would say, "Let's not get into the weeds."

But Rob, sometimes that is where the facts are.

[Robert Morrow]

JON MEACHAM – apparently LONE NUTTER, endorsing lone nutter James L. Swanson’s End of Days: The Assassination of President Kennedy. Not completely sure about his but Meacham sure acts like a lone nutter. I have found it hard to find anywhere where Jon Meacham says anything definitive about the JFK assassination, but I do know that Meacham is a media shill for the Bush family.

https://www.amazon.sg/End-Days-Assassination-President-Kennedy/dp/0062083481

"A master of the form, James Swanson has brought his formidable storytelling skills to bear on another tragic turning point in American history. His treatment of Dallas 1963 is grand narrative at its finest." -- JON MEACHAM - Pulitzer Prize-winning author of American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House and Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power 

Jon Meacham bio -  https://www.vanderbilt.edu/unity/person/jon-meacham/

Jon Meacham, co-chair of the Vanderbilt Project on Unity and American Democracy, professor of Political Science at Vanderbilt University, and Carolyn T. and Robert M. Rogers Chair in American Presidency, is a renowned presidential historian, contributing writer to The New York Times Book Review, contributing editor at TIME, and Pulitzer Prize-winning author.

Meacham’s latest book, His Truth Is Marching On: John Lewis and the Power of Hope, published in August 2020. The Soul of America: The Battle for Our Better Angels, was published by Random House in May 2018. His Destiny and Power: The American Odyssey of George Herbert Walker Bush, published in November 2015, was a #1 New York Times bestseller and is available now in hardcover and paperback from Random House. He is currently at work on a biography of James and Dolley Madison.

Meacham’s book American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House, was a New York Times bestseller. Awarded the Pulitzer Prize for biography in 2009, the book was cited as an “unlikely portrait of a not always admirable democrat, but a pivotal president, written with an agile prose that brings the Jackson saga to life.” His other New York Times bestsellers include Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power, Franklin and Winston: An Intimate Portrait of an Epic Friendship, exploring the relationship between the two great leaders who piloted the free world to victory in World War II, and American Gospel: God, the Founding Fathers, and the Making of a Nation.

A member of the Council on Foreign Relations and of the Society of American Historians, Meacham is a distinguished visiting professor at Vanderbilt University. He is a contributing writer to The New York Times Book Review, a contributing editor of Time, and has written for The New York Times op-ed page, The Washington Post, Vanity Fair, and Garden & Gun. Meacham is also a regular guest on “Morning Joe” and other broadcasts.

Meacham’s biography of President Bush was named one of the ten best books of the year by The Washington Post and one of the best books of the year by The New York Times Book Review, Time, National Public Radio, and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Destiny and Power was also honored for excellence in “Politics and Leadership” in 2015 by the Plutarch Committee of BIO, the Biographers International Organization.

Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power received the 2013 Fraunces Tavern Museum Book Award from the Fraunces Tavern Museum and the Sons of the American Revolution in the State of New York, a prize that “recognizes books of exceptional merit written on the Revolutionary War era.” Franklin and Winston was honored with the Colby Award of the William E. Colby Military Writers’ Symposium at Norwich University. Meacham was also honored with the 2015 Nashville Public Library Literary Award; other winners include John Lewis, Robert K. Massie, Margaret Atwood, John McPhee, Billy Collins, Doris Kearns Goodwin, John Irving, Ann Patchett, John Updike, David McCullough, and David Halberstam.

A former executive editor at Random House, he published the letters of Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., and books by, among others, Al Gore, John Danforth, Clara Bingham, Mary Soames, and Charles Peters. After serving as Managing Editor of Newsweek for eight years, Meacham was the Editor of the magazine from 2006 to 2010. He is a former editor of The Washington Monthly and began his career at The Chattanooga Times.

Born in Chattanooga in 1969, Meacham was educated at St. Nicholas School, The McCallie School, and graduated from The University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee, with a degree summa cum laude in English Literature; he was salutatorian and elected to Phi Beta Kappa.

A trustee of the Thomas Jefferson Foundation, the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, The McCallie School, and The Harpeth Hall School, Meacham chairs the National Advisory Council of the John C. Danforth Center on Religion and Politics at Washington University. He has served on the vestries of St. Thomas Church Fifth Avenue and of Trinity Church Wall Street as well as the Board of Regents of The University of the South. The Anti-Defamation League awarded Meacham its Hubert H. Humphrey First Amendment Prize. In 2013 the Historical Society of Pennsylvania presented him with its Founder’s Award; in 2016 he was honored with the Sandra Day O’Connor Institute’s Spirit of Democracy Award. Meacham also received an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from the Berkeley Divinity School at Yale University in 2005 and holds honorary doctorates from Middlebury College, Wake Forest University, the University of Tennessee, Dickinson College, Sewanee, and several other institutions.

He lives in Nashville with his wife and children.

Education –

St. Nicholas School, a very fancy, expensive Episcopal elementary school https://www.stns.org/www

The McCallie School – Christian non-denominational college prep school.

University of the South, B.A. English literature, summa cum laude, salutatorian of his class and Phi Beta Kappa

Edited April 20 by Robert Morrow