17-06-2016, 02:55 AM
Jim DiEugenio Wrote:Getting back to Poulgrain, this appears to be a really important book.
He did a lot oF original research.
He had written a previous volume on the Malaysia/Sukarno confrontation. That book concluded that contrary to what many people had written, that was not started by Sukarno. It was a deliberate provocation by the British in order to grease the skids to get rid of Sukarno, who they perceived as being too charismatic of a Third World leader. Most people forget that it was Sukarno who began the whole Non Aligned nations movement. That is, countries that did not want to be part of either the Soviet or American alliance system. This was one of the major strikes against him with the Dulles brothers.
JFK did not have any real problem with that stance. In fact, he welcomed it since he thought the USA could compete successfully with the Soviets in the Third World. George Ball, called this the Kennedy Doctrine.
Needless to say, it was abandoned after JFK was killed since LBJ did not like Sukarno, and as RFK and Jackie told the Soviets, Johnson was much too friendly with business interests to continue on the third path. That is what happened in Indonesia. Many of the Power Elite who knew the incredible wealth of the country and wanted it to be exposed to American imperialism, backed LBJ in the election. He came through for them, needless to say.
Poulgrain's book looks like a milestone in the field of Indonesia studies. Its a real shame he does not have an American or British publisher. Because his book appears to fall in line with the works of Mahoney, Rakove, and Muehlenbeck as the further excavation of Kennedy's revolutionary foreign policy.
For some reason, I find some humor towards my father's simi-confession, which seems to be an unscripted letter, evidence my mother held unto for over 40 years, she never said a word, imagine that, a woman not saying a word for over 40 years? I meant in regards to her husbands activities, and, I do believe had I not found my father's material, I would have not learned who my father was and what he did. In a portion of my father's letter, part of it is erased, but then, he re-wrote something else in its place. Could what he really wanted to say was, who was involved in the Big Event? Edwin Kaiser is discreet not to give away his end mission, or is he convincing enough not to admit a full confession by providing so little evidence, however, this letter is coming from someone no ones ever heard of, written by my father himself. I suppose, if no ones heard of Kaiser, then what is Scott's father saying in the quoted paragraph below?
"The Cuban people not only had in their heart the cry for freedom, justice, a new democratic government in Cuba but also the cry for "progress" they knew that the Monroe Doctrine made by President Monroe, which was made to protect the Americans, North, South and central from infiltration from other government foreign and abroad was not Kennedy. I asked myself? Do I have to see New York, Chicago or Dallas Texas? Budapest, Algeria, Vietnam or even like that small island 90 miles off the coast of Florida run by a puppet with a beard in what is a mock drama presumably by the communist party for our benefit."