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A review of Destiny Betrayed by Jim DiEugenio
#1
I just posted this review on Amazon for the Kindle edition of Destiny Betrayed (Second edition)

I could have gone on, but I kept it brief for the Amazon review. I may write a longer review for my blog.

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This is unlike most books written about the JFK assassination. You will find very little written about the actual events in Dealey Plaza, but it remains a thrilling, fast moving yet detailed analysis of the background to the JFK case.


DiEugenio takes great care to portray Kennedy as courageous deep thinker, with origins in an overseas visit in 1951. In an era where being an American Patriot meant being resolutely anti-Communist, Kennedy saw a third way. He was at peace with allowing other countries, especially those emerging from Colonialism, to forge their own path and be independent of either US influence or Communist doctrine. In his Presidency, he supported nationalist governments in Indonesia, Congo and Laos; governments that were all overthrown with CIA assistance in the years immediately following his assassination.


This independence of thought put JFK on a collision course with Allen Dulles. Dulles took the CIA from being an intelligence gathering operation - as President Truman intended - to what became the military wing of American Big Business. Under Dulles, the CIA began to take on the mantle of promoting American business interests abroad, whatever the moral or physical cost to the indigenous people.


This divergence explains why the assassination happened, and the author also explains who the likely planners and facilitators were.


The most fascinating part of the book describes the trial of Clay Shaw in New Orleans which of course was the basis for the movie JFK. However, what the movie does not show you (understandably) is the lengths that major sections of the establishment went to in order to make sure that Shaw was not only acquitted, but that Garrison was destroyed. The book explains the links between the major media and the CIA, and how both of those parties were determined to crush Garrison.


Now, remember that Garrison charged Shaw in 1967. This was before the House Select Committee on Assassinations in 1978, and before the Assassinations Record Review Board doubled the amount of documentary evidence available. DiEugenio expresses justifiable admiration for just how close Garrison came to breaking the case. Indeed, one can only imagine what Garrison would have achieved had justice not been obstructed. One of those who obstructed the case, and in all likelihood stopped the case from ever being solved, was none other than Texas Governor John B Connally, the other man seriously wounded when JFK was killed.


Destiny Betrayed is heavily documented and footnoted. The author uses his own analysis to join the dots but this is no book of wild speculation.
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#2
Thanks a lot for this Martin. It helps.

Anyone else is free to do so.

Also, for Reclaiming Parkland. They have sent the trolls out on that one.
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#3
It's on the UK Amazon board.
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#4
I STILL have the first edition of Jim Di's Destiny Betrayed, which is copyrighted 1992, just one year after Oliver Stone released JFK to blistering attacks from the mainstream media. How welcome it was to see a prompt, full-bore defense of Garrison's case from a world-class expert on JFK's assassination. Most of my current obsessions come directly from Jim's fine work. (sigh)
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#5
Jim DiEugenio Wrote:Thanks a lot for this Martin. It helps.

Anyone else is free to do so.

Also, for Reclaiming Parkland. They have sent the trolls out on that one.

No problem Jim. I've been talking about Destiny Betrayed on Twitter too.

I noticed that your old sparring partner from the EF, Paul Baker, has vented his spleen against your books on Amazon.co.uk. I actually laughed when I read his "critique".

I don't have Reclaiming Parkland yet, but I plan to.

Actually I had some free time on Saturday so I was in one of the larger bookstores, Waterstones. The first JFK books I saw there were Killing Kennedy, and what I took to be an abridged version of the legendary cinder block by VB, now called "Parkland". To begin with, I thought they were the only JFK books that they were carrying, but then I saw the new edition of Crossfire, and tucked away in a little corner, Not In Your Lifetime.

Incidentally, has anyone read the updated Crossfire? Is it significantly updated from the original, enough to make it worth a buy?
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#6
One of the most comprehensive JFK assassination books I have read.
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#7
Also worth reading, but I've not seen it mentioned anywhere else, is the ebook by Horne "JFK's War with the National Security Establishment".

It's from this that I learned that LeMay dropped into casual conversation at a Georgetown social gathering, in July 61, that nuclear war was inevitable by the end of the year! The shocked woman he was talking to asked if there was somewhere she could take her children and grandchildren, and LeMay suggests going to brush country way out west!

I would love to see a source for that.
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#8
LeMay was probably upset that Kennedy stopped him from his god-like pyromania.
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#9
It's from David Talbot's Brothers, p66. Talbot's source is a Washington Post column by Marquis Child.


Martin White Wrote:Also worth reading, but I've not seen it mentioned anywhere else, is the ebook by Horne "JFK's War with the National Security Establishment".

It's from this that I learned that LeMay dropped into casual conversation at a Georgetown social gathering, in July 61, that nuclear war was inevitable by the end of the year! The shocked woman he was talking to asked if there was somewhere she could take her children and grandchildren, and LeMay suggests going to brush country way out west!

I would love to see a source for that.
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#10
Ivan De Mey Wrote:It's from David Talbot's Brothers, p66. Talbot's source is a Washington Post column by Marquis Child.


Martin White Wrote:Also worth reading, but I've not seen it mentioned anywhere else, is the ebook by Horne "JFK's War with the National Security Establishment".

It's from this that I learned that LeMay dropped into casual conversation at a Georgetown social gathering, in July 61, that nuclear war was inevitable by the end of the year! The shocked woman he was talking to asked if there was somewhere she could take her children and grandchildren, and LeMay suggests going to brush country way out west!

I would love to see a source for that.

Thank you Ivan. That's a book I have not read.
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