How Did President Kennedy's Assassination Happen?

[Stan Wilbourne]

Upon a superficial examination, one would tend to think that the book will appeal to the Bible-thumping, right-wing populists of the John Birch fringe who despise the Rockefellers. This band of the American political spectrum, which has been known to publicize bizarre allegations of a Rockefeller--orchestrated plot to create a socialist world government, will be baffled and perplexed by one of Thy Will be Done's chief conclusions: that they've been had. According to Colby and Dennett, far from being a threat to the Machiavellian power of the Rockefellers, the Christian fundamentalists were extremely useful in furthering the global designs of the heirs of the Standard Oil fortune.

On the other hand, left-leaning liberals will find the book's conclusions even harder to swallow, since the Rockefeller philanthropies (which include the Rockefeller Foundation, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and the Rockefeller Family Fund) are among the main funding sources of liberal political activism in the US, including civil liberties, feminism and the environmental movement. Beneficiaries of Rockefeller charitable giving in recent years have included groups like Essential Information, the ACLU, the Ms. Foundation, the NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund, Environmental Action, the Student Environmental Action Coalition, the Center for Responsive Politics, the NAACP who are much more likely to say, "Wait, you're being a little unbalanced. Sure, they've done terrible things in the past, but they're funding some really terrific stuff nowadays." As much as one may try to rationalize the embarassing predicament of taking money from the ultra-rich to finance social change, the question remains: What are the prospects for an American progressive agenda when it is heavily dependent on funding from a philanthropic system that owes its forhine to commercial activities that destroy ecosystems worldwide, erode biological diversity and create a holocaust for indigenous peoples? Colby and Dennett do not pose that question to readers, but it will certainly hover ominously over the mind of any American reader whose political beliefs are at least five degrees to the left of National Public Radio or The New Republic.

Thanks, Jan.