Jim DiEugenio Reviews Poulgrain's Incubus of Intervention

[Jim DiEugenio]

Since the other thread got a little sidetracked, I decided to post my review separately since I think this is an important book in a lot of ways. And it accents an issue that has been given little attention in the past. Plus it pushes the frontiers forward in a couple of areas.

http://www.ctka.net/2016/jfk-and-indones...ntion.html

Poulgrain does not actually deal with the coup. He puts in place all of the elements that caused it to happen. So that is why I started with it, and then worked backwards.

[Anthony Thorne]

Really good review. I don't know if it would happen but Talbot's book would benefit from some of this extra info. How many coups and assassinations does Dulles have to be shown to be a part of before critics join the dots and concede the obvious?

[Drew Phipps]

I agree 100%. Talbot is further vindicated. I hope someday to be able to buy this book from Amazon or Barnes and Nobles or something. (Hint, hint)

[Jim DiEugenio]

That is a very good point Anthony.

I don't know why Talbot did not use the Operation Celeste material from Susan WIlliams' book. He devoted several pages to Lumumba, if he had worked in this angle he would have really nailed Dulles.

[Jim DiEugenio]

BTW, because of Poulgrain, I have now ordered the Williams book about Hammarskjold.

Which I think no one has written anything about in the JFK research community.

As I have said before, everything is Cuba and Vietnam, and the rest of JFK's foreign policy did not exist.

Then, along comes something like Poulgrain's book, to prove that yes, it did exist.

[Nathaniel Heidenheimer]

Ambassador Jones to Dept of State, November 4, 1963: Note just WHEN Sukarno made his remarks about CIA making their own policy in SE Asia. Right after (during?) The CIA Diem Coup in south Vietnam.
"On November 4, when Jones was talking with Sukarno, the president raised the issue of CIA activities in Indonesia and said:
'he had been given evidence of CIA plan to topple him and his government [one and a half lines not declassified]. I denied this categorically and asked Sukarno what evidence consisted of....[eight and a half lines not declassified]. I pointed out that Sukarno had had ample evidence that President Kennedy and present administration in Washington were interested in helping not hurting the Government of Indonesia.... Sukarno acknowledged that President Kennedy and US Ambassador were not working against him. However, he was aware from the past that CIA often participated in activities of which the Ambassador was not aware and which even the White House was not aware... He was counting in Pres Kennedy coming to Indonesia. He repeated that he would give "the grandest reception anyone ever received here'" (38)
38. FRUS, Vol. XXIII, Doc 319. Jones to Dept of State, November 4, 1963
quoted in The INcubus of Intervention: Conflicting Indonesia Strategies of John F. Kennedy and Allen Dulles (2015)


Book is now kind of available on Amazon again. I say kind of because even paying the expedited faster delivery fee it still took about 13 days to get to me. But it's an absolute must read.

[Jim DiEugenio]

I should add that I made a mistake in the author's name for the Hammarskjold book.

Its Susan Williams, not Susan Miller.

Its been corrected in the original.

[Drew Phipps]

Yay. Book ordered.

[Jim DiEugenio]

Make a note, Greg Poulgrain will be on Len Osanic's Black Op Radio next week.

I think this will be his first appearance on American radio. And according to Len its a long broadcast, almost two hours.

[Jim DiEugenio]

Len Osanic did a fine interview with Poulgrain on his show tonight.

http://www.blackopradio.com/pod/black792.mp3

He has become the number oen scholar on Indonesia today.

Len's show has become by far the best in the field.