30-11-2012, 11:40 PM
Finished the book this week. The presentation of how the CIA and its assets became obsessed with derailing the Garrison case - and Garrison himself - is beyond damning. If there was no meat to Garrison's accusations, why the hell did they spend thousands of man hours, over several years, in an attempt to shatter the trial and smear Garrison's reputation? Why would Helms (likely) authorise a program of intimidation (or worse) against potential witnesses? Why would they corral an army of propagandists to write story after story distorting Garrison's arguments? The protestations by the CIA in recent years of non-involvement in the assassination - I recall seeing an official CIA statement a couple of years back circa Jefferson Morley's FOI requests for documents - are shown once again to be a sick joke.
The opening four chapters are extremely persuasive. Some of the story of JFK and his back-channel negotiations has obviously been told in JFK AND THE UNSPEAKABLE, but Jim puts the narrative together in a way that flows and - a valuable addition - adds notations regarding the motivations of the key players, when they likely met, and what the viewpoints and driving motivations of the conspirators to JFK's actions would have probably been through the months leading up to that November. I plan to read the book again shortly but learned a number of things from this section.
The chapters covering Garrison's trial are just as well done, but obviously frustrating from the point of seeing the conspirators and their cronies force an ever growing con job on the US and world public. I felt increasingly pissed off as I read it. What's beyond argument though is Garrison's key status as a figure who opened the door on presenting the assassination for what it was, and who cleared the way for our understanding of what the various players were up to. Again, however, it's eye-opening and frustrating to see blunt evidence of how the cover-up continues through various parties acting in bad faith. It's frankly nauseating to see how close we came to losing the transcripts of Garrison's trial.
I'll note hear that I did read the earlier hardcover of DESTINY some years back and still have it on my bookshelf. This whole section of the book still felt largely new to me. It really does feel like a totally different book to the earlier one.
I wish the book was longer (in a good sense, it doesn't really feel abbreviated or missing too much stuff, I was just enjoying the detail and the acuity of arguments) and I'd be very happy if Jim has more JFK books in him down the track, like a collected version of the Bugliosi study. I'd put this new edition of DESTINY BETRAYED in my top 10 of books on the subject and think that it's an essential part of the canon. It's about the Garrison case, and the detail shown regarding that event is damning beyond measure, but the detail and that narrative are all part of the bigger story as to what happened in November 1963, and reading the book you can come to a strong new understanding of who was likely involved and how the overall event probably happened. The names and players and events cited also make enough of an impression to give a clear idea of what areas - who, what, when - we need to research further to hopefully get to the bottom of the case. A great, very readable and extremely worthwhile book.
The opening four chapters are extremely persuasive. Some of the story of JFK and his back-channel negotiations has obviously been told in JFK AND THE UNSPEAKABLE, but Jim puts the narrative together in a way that flows and - a valuable addition - adds notations regarding the motivations of the key players, when they likely met, and what the viewpoints and driving motivations of the conspirators to JFK's actions would have probably been through the months leading up to that November. I plan to read the book again shortly but learned a number of things from this section.
The chapters covering Garrison's trial are just as well done, but obviously frustrating from the point of seeing the conspirators and their cronies force an ever growing con job on the US and world public. I felt increasingly pissed off as I read it. What's beyond argument though is Garrison's key status as a figure who opened the door on presenting the assassination for what it was, and who cleared the way for our understanding of what the various players were up to. Again, however, it's eye-opening and frustrating to see blunt evidence of how the cover-up continues through various parties acting in bad faith. It's frankly nauseating to see how close we came to losing the transcripts of Garrison's trial.
I'll note hear that I did read the earlier hardcover of DESTINY some years back and still have it on my bookshelf. This whole section of the book still felt largely new to me. It really does feel like a totally different book to the earlier one.
I wish the book was longer (in a good sense, it doesn't really feel abbreviated or missing too much stuff, I was just enjoying the detail and the acuity of arguments) and I'd be very happy if Jim has more JFK books in him down the track, like a collected version of the Bugliosi study. I'd put this new edition of DESTINY BETRAYED in my top 10 of books on the subject and think that it's an essential part of the canon. It's about the Garrison case, and the detail shown regarding that event is damning beyond measure, but the detail and that narrative are all part of the bigger story as to what happened in November 1963, and reading the book you can come to a strong new understanding of who was likely involved and how the overall event probably happened. The names and players and events cited also make enough of an impression to give a clear idea of what areas - who, what, when - we need to research further to hopefully get to the bottom of the case. A great, very readable and extremely worthwhile book.