14-12-2016, 09:32 PM
Here's a letter I have published in the new issue of
Cineaste, Winter 2016. Christopher Sharrett replied
to my letter, but I don't have an electronic copy of his response.
*******
As a "cast member" in the classic 1960 documentary Primary -- I am among the three thousand people in the film's major set piece, John F. Kennedy's April 3, 1960, rally in Milwaukee -- I find it baffling that reviewer Christopher Sharrett thinks the film is set in Minnesota. Maybe it's all "flyover" country to Sharrett, but the Wisconsin presidential primary, in which I served as a volunteer, was crucial to Kennedy's ultimate success by demonstrating his appeal to voters in Middle America, outside his native Massachusetts. This gross factual error should alert readers to Sharrett's limited understanding of Kennedy's political and historical significance, as displayed in his Fall 2016 review of the Criterion Blu-ray edition of The Kennedy Films of Robert Drew & Associates.
The review attacks Kennedy as nothing more than a conventional Cold Warrior. Yes, during the campaign and in the early part of his administration, that description was accurate, since Kennedy blundered into the Bay of Pigs invasion, helped provoke the USSR into a mutually reckless confrontation over Cuba, and expanded our commitment in Vietnam with a total of 16,000 "advisers." But as Kennedy learned and grew from the debacle of the Bay of Pigs and the near-catastrophe of the Cuban Missile Crisis, which he and Nikita Khrushchev preventing from ending in nuclear war, Kennedy made remarkable strides in reversing longtime Cold War policies. He worked toward détente with the USSR and Cuba; he made his great speech at American University in June 1963 urging peaceful coexistence with the USSR; he pushed through the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty of 1963; he avoided war over Berlin by accepting the wall rather than sending troops to tear it down; he proposed a joint effort with the Soviets to avoid the costly and divisive space race; and he began the process of withdrawing troops from Vietnam in the fall of 1963, shortly before he was assassinated.
President Lyndon Johnson secretly reversed that withdrawal policy on Noevember 24, 1963, and widened the war he knew he could not win, eventually increasing American troop strength to 536,000 before he was forced out of office. Kennedy's brave attempts to bring about a new era of peace gradually earned him the respect of his former adversaries Khruschchev and Fidel Castro and the enmity of hardliners amog the Joint Chiefs of Staff and others in Kennedy's own government who viewed him as dangerous to the point of disloyalty. Kennedy resisted attempts by the Chiefs to launch a nuclear first strike against the USSR and false-flag terrorism on American soil to justify another invasion of Cuba. The attempts by Kennedy and Khrushchev to rein in the dangerous warmongering of that period resulted in both men's removal from office. In today's endless wars, we see the dire effects of the "military-industrial complex" President Eisenhower warned about in his 1961 farewell speech and Kennedy tried valiantly to wrestle into submission, at the cost of his life.
Joseph McBride
Berkeley, California
Joseph McBride is the author of the 2013 book
Into the Nightmare: My Search for the Killers
of President John F. Kennedy and Officer J. D. Tippit.
Cineaste, Winter 2016. Christopher Sharrett replied
to my letter, but I don't have an electronic copy of his response.
*******
As a "cast member" in the classic 1960 documentary Primary -- I am among the three thousand people in the film's major set piece, John F. Kennedy's April 3, 1960, rally in Milwaukee -- I find it baffling that reviewer Christopher Sharrett thinks the film is set in Minnesota. Maybe it's all "flyover" country to Sharrett, but the Wisconsin presidential primary, in which I served as a volunteer, was crucial to Kennedy's ultimate success by demonstrating his appeal to voters in Middle America, outside his native Massachusetts. This gross factual error should alert readers to Sharrett's limited understanding of Kennedy's political and historical significance, as displayed in his Fall 2016 review of the Criterion Blu-ray edition of The Kennedy Films of Robert Drew & Associates.
The review attacks Kennedy as nothing more than a conventional Cold Warrior. Yes, during the campaign and in the early part of his administration, that description was accurate, since Kennedy blundered into the Bay of Pigs invasion, helped provoke the USSR into a mutually reckless confrontation over Cuba, and expanded our commitment in Vietnam with a total of 16,000 "advisers." But as Kennedy learned and grew from the debacle of the Bay of Pigs and the near-catastrophe of the Cuban Missile Crisis, which he and Nikita Khrushchev preventing from ending in nuclear war, Kennedy made remarkable strides in reversing longtime Cold War policies. He worked toward détente with the USSR and Cuba; he made his great speech at American University in June 1963 urging peaceful coexistence with the USSR; he pushed through the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty of 1963; he avoided war over Berlin by accepting the wall rather than sending troops to tear it down; he proposed a joint effort with the Soviets to avoid the costly and divisive space race; and he began the process of withdrawing troops from Vietnam in the fall of 1963, shortly before he was assassinated.
President Lyndon Johnson secretly reversed that withdrawal policy on Noevember 24, 1963, and widened the war he knew he could not win, eventually increasing American troop strength to 536,000 before he was forced out of office. Kennedy's brave attempts to bring about a new era of peace gradually earned him the respect of his former adversaries Khruschchev and Fidel Castro and the enmity of hardliners amog the Joint Chiefs of Staff and others in Kennedy's own government who viewed him as dangerous to the point of disloyalty. Kennedy resisted attempts by the Chiefs to launch a nuclear first strike against the USSR and false-flag terrorism on American soil to justify another invasion of Cuba. The attempts by Kennedy and Khrushchev to rein in the dangerous warmongering of that period resulted in both men's removal from office. In today's endless wars, we see the dire effects of the "military-industrial complex" President Eisenhower warned about in his 1961 farewell speech and Kennedy tried valiantly to wrestle into submission, at the cost of his life.
Joseph McBride
Berkeley, California
Joseph McBride is the author of the 2013 book
Into the Nightmare: My Search for the Killers
of President John F. Kennedy and Officer J. D. Tippit.