Douglass book is extraordinarily well-documented, well-written and well-argued, and he is extremely cautious about who he points the finger at. He cannot directly nail CIA Director Allen Dulles--the one whom JFK fired over the "Bay of Pigs" (the occasion for JFK's promise to break the CIA "into a thousand pieces"
--but he gets as high as Richard Helms (CIA Operations Chief). There is no question in my mind who the perps were, after reading Douglass' book.
You are right that Douglass' particular excellence is that he explains (and fully documents) WHY the CIA murdered JFK. But I thought I would point out that he also solves the crime--in the course of which he disentangles all of the CIA's elaborate misdirections.
He does not finger LBJ, except for involvement in the coverup for which LBJ had some arguably valid reasons, huge mistake though it was. It seems, according to the evidence, that LBJ did not know who did it until a short time afterward when J. Edgar Hoover (FBI) informed him of the CIA misdirection to Russia. The CIA and MIC anti-communist "patriots" were fuming at JFK's refusal to nuke Russia during the Cuban Missile Crisis. The CIA, the Joint Chiefs and the entire MIC were in favor of nuking Russia during that crisis. They believed that they had "missile superiority" and would "win" such a war with "only" 300,000 casualties on the east coast of the U.S. JFK thought they were insane and stood alone against them (with RFK as his only ally).
The CIA designed one of their misdirections to force his successor's hand (LBJ's) to nuke Russia in retaliation for the assassination. LBJ, though much more sympathetic with and tied to the MIC, did not want to be pushed into that horror and got involved in the coverup trying to suppress (false, CIA-planted) details of Russia's involvement. There was no likelihood that he would blow the CIA's cover. He was a "Cold Warrior" (while JFK, who began as a "Cold Warrior," was in the process of turning toward world peace and "detente" when he was assassinated--one of the most brilliant parts of Douglass' book; puts this murder in a whole new light, indeed, floods it with light). As a "Cold Warrior" and friend of war profiteers, LBJ had to satisfy the MIC. Three days after JFK's assassination, and after he was informed of the Russia misdirection, LBJ said, "Now they can have their war." He was speaking of Vietnam.
It is quite heartbreaking--having lived through it all--to contemplate the many ways that JFK was quickly changing from a "Cold Warrior" into peace lover. These included his backchannels to Krushchev and Castro (established to get around the CIA), the Turkey missile deal (withdrawing U.S. missiles from Turkey, which targeted Russia on its border, in exchange for Russia withdrawing its missiles from Cuba), the Russia wheat deal (Russians starving after a failed wheat crop; U.S. came to their aid), the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (first effort to control nuke weapons), his peace speech at American University (rarely cited), his expression of sympathy for Cuba's revolution (against the horrible Batista regime), his signed orders to start withdrawing troops from Vietnam (where the CIA was actively fomenting war and chaos and subverting his orders), and probably the Space Program ("hammering swords into plowshares" and much more--most of it vehemently opposed by the CIA and the MIC. Some of this was visible at the time; some of it not. Certainly JFK's isolation within the MIC was not visible. But the truth is that the American people would have backed JFK's peace platform with a big majority in the 1964 election.
LBJ won the 1964 election with one of the biggest victories in presidential history, running on a peace platform. I remember this well. It was my first vote for president. I voted for peace, like most other Americans. The trouble was that LBJ was lying. And the tragedy is that JFK would not have been lying.
That is OUR tragedy. We had a president who could see past the "Cold War" and who had balked at slaughtering millions of people and poisoning the earth (we now know it would have destroyed the earth) over economic ideology. A young man whose conscience about social justice and about the horror of nuclear warfare was awakening. A leader with a vision of directing the country away from militarism and into a better world. A REALISTIC leader and a POLITICIAN--no starry-eyed idealist--who was responding to the deepest desires of most Americans for peace and social justice. A hugely popular, winning politician.
Bang-bang, shoot-shoot.
Douglass' book is extremely painful to read. But we must face this, however late in the day it is to turn back toward democracy and good government. We, as a people, cannot make that "turn"--so like the turn JFK himself was making--unless we face these facts: who killed JFK and why.
Douglass has a trilogy planned. He has taken on the RFK and MLK assassinations for books 2 and 3. I believe, with the OP poster, that the same perps are lurking there, behind this decapitation of the progressive movement in the U.S. in the space of five years (1963 to 1968). I don't know if Douglass will be able to prove it as well as he does the JFK murder. The CIA had five years to perfect their misdirection techniques and their manipulation of the government, the press and our people. The latter two assassinations are, for me, still a matter of belief (i.e., same perps, the CIA) and many questions, not proof. As for JFK, Douglass proves it beyond any doubt. And that means that this country has been living a lie for half a century. Is it any wonder that we ended up with the horrors of the Bush Junta and the collusion of our political leadership in their many, many crimes?
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