Book Review: JFK and the End Of America: Inside the Allen Dulles/LBJ Plot That Killed Kennedy, by Tim Fleming
This book gives a summary of what independent researchers now know about the JFK assassination. It is a tightly-framed, well-argued, conscience-rending, fact-based, soliloquy-like, well-researched essay about the meaning of the assassination to our democracy today.
The best summary of the book is to be found in its coda, appearing on page 326. With passion, the words write themselves as they roll off the page. As a summary of the book, I doubt Fleming's own words can be improved upon. So, I quote them here verbatim:
"Unraveling the truth of the Kennedy assassination has been like peeling back layers of an onion that seems to have endless layers. As we get closer to the center, more obstacles present themselves, and there are more layers to strip away. That was the mastermind's plan all along to make it a multi-layered puzzle. On the surface it appears that Oswald did it alone; the planted evidence indicates that. But dig a little deeper and you'll find other layers of partial truths; 1) the anti-Castro Cubans planned it and Oswald was supposed to stop it; 2) Carlos Marcello and the mob planned it, with the help of some lower-level CIA factions; 3) Texas oilmen executed the plot; 4) Rogue CIA and FBI agents pulled it off with the help of disaffected Secret Service agents; 5) Kennedy's military chiefs were to blame. At each of these levels one can find evidence to indict someone. But the full truth lies deeper. One must slice into the core at the rawest, most dangerous place to find Lyndon Johnson, Allen Dulles and their sponsors. And it was their sponsors who ultimately gave the go ahead. These were men who really ruled America. They owned most of the riches and resources and still do. They financed the careers of front men like Johnson and Dulles, men who were the gatekeepers of government. They amassed vast fortunes in oil, communications, weapons manufacturing, finance, transportation and engineering. They profited immensely from war and saw no future in a peace economy. That's why Kennedy had to go."
Fleming knows the assassination literature by heart, and cites it chapter and verse here. And whether one agrees with him or not, he has a coherent story to tell, perhaps the last complete one we will ever know.
His soliloquy comes to a close on page 380:
"When they killed Kennedy, they killed his vision for America peace, and an age of enlightenment. Fifty years on, we have seen the America the plotters wanted hatred for science, constant war, denigration of social programs for the old and the needy, hatred for minorities. Rampant corruption in politics, gerrymandering, voter suppression, wanton and excessive military spending, and protection of the rich and greedy come to pass."
The author followed the logic of this torturous and brutal 60-year trail like Ahab chased the great white whale. And in the end, after finally harpooning Dulles and LBJ, any serious reader will leave the book wondering: Well, he hit something big for sure, but was it the great white, or something else? Although always logical and coherent, at times Fleming's story is spell-binding and mind-twisting, still leaving the reader with many questions and doubts.
That said, one thing all readers will agree on is that the assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy fundamentally changed America. It knocked us off course and we have yet to find our way back.
On that beautiful sunny Friday November day, while I was gobbling up my lunch, to rush off to teach my 1:00pm Calculus I class at Washington University in St Louis, I heard a group of women screeching and crying as they were huddled around the TV in the lobby of the cafeteria. Leaving my unfinished lunch. I rushed up to them and ask what had happened? Between uncontrollable sobs one of them managed to get out: "The President has been shot in a motorcade in Dallas." I then asked: Where was he hit? She answered: I am not sure, but they think it was in the head. Shortly thereafter, a teary-eyed Walter Cronkite announced that JFK was dead. Classes were dismissed for a week.
I was 23 and the world has not been the same since. I will be 81 years old on my next birthday, and have yet to see the truth about JFK's assassination come forward. Like many Americans, since 1963, for 58 years, I too have been chasing this great white whale. It seems that the truth will not be revealed before I kick the bucket. But I hope brave researchers like Tim Fleming will continue the quest after I am gone.
In the prologue, Fleming says that truth is a dangerous thing, but suggests that an informed electorate is even more dangerous. Our electorate must become more informed, or our democracy is dead.
It is rumored that there is a famous placard in the entrance to the CIA that says: "And ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free." Isn't it finally time that we be set free of this long shadow hanging over our democracy and know the truth? Five stars
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