Category: Review

The Ultra-Reactionaries: Global Analysis of the Dallas Coup 

As we turn to another anniversary of November 22nd, the media narrative of the public skepticism is that these “wild conspiracy theories” fueled a lack of trust in government, and somewhere along the way morphed into current right-wing conspiracy theories such as QAnon. As Thomas Mallon, author of Ruth Paine’s Garage put it, “I have lately found myself wondering if the dangerous fact-free business of election denial doesn’t have some of its origin in the more fantastical theories that grew up around the assassination decades ago.”¹

This cheap theory of American history only looks at the public reaction to the Kennedy assassination in a vacuum, refusing to understand why so much of the public felt the government was lying to them. It cleanses the hands of J. Edgar Hoover, Allen Dulles, and Richard Helms, while casting anyone who dare doubt those luminaries as deranged fanatical right-wingers.

Source: The Ultra-Reactionaries: Global Analysis of the Dallas Coup | by marina | Nov, 2022 | Medium

What readers are saying

Dear Jeff

I am currently reading Scorpion’s Dance and just wanted to let you know how much I am enjoying it! Really interesting and can’t wait to finish. Starting Chapter 14 later tonight. Good stuff!! I need to order The Ghost next. I enjoy your writing and insight. Best, Ed

‘The centrality of Nixon and Helms to so many pivotal moments in history.’

Book List on Scorpion’s Dance:

“As the Senate Intelligence Committee prodded the CIA over all sorts of issues, including the JFK assassination and attempts on the life of Fidel Castro, Helms became increasingly defensive of his agency’s conduct over the years. The centrality of Nixon and Helms to so many pivotal moments in history makes Morley’s revelations about their sparring even more intriguing.”

Publisher’s Weekly on Scorpions’ Dance 

In this eye-opening investigation, journalist Morley (The Ghost) scrutinizes the CIA’s involvement in the Watergate scandal. Drawing on taped conversations between Richard Nixon and CIA director Richard Helms, Morley claims that “the Watergate affair originated in the clandestine collaborative relationship” between the two men.

Source: Nonfiction Book Review: Scorpions’ Dance: The President, the Spymaster, and Watergate by Jefferson Morley

Watergate @ 50: a new history

In the New York Times, historian Douglas Brinkley praises Garrett Graff’s new history of Watergate scandal, that convulsion of American politics in 1972-74 that culminated in the only resignation of an American president. Brinkley also notes some key questions that Graff’s book does not answer. He asks:

Were such central players as Howard Hunt and James McCord cooperating with the C.I.A. even as they orchestrated the break-in?

It’s a central issue that my forthcoming book on the CIA and Watergate, Scorpions’ Dance: The President, the Spymaster, and Watergate, answers that question with a definitive yes.  Both Hunt and McCord had backchannel relationships with CIA director Richard Helms before their arrest.

To get the whole story, pre-order Scorpions’ Dance here.

Source: Book Review: ‘Watergate,’ by Garrett M. Graff – The New York Times

Lost in Silence

Jacobin magazine astutely assesses the JFK story in 2022, starting with Oliver Stone’s JFK Revisited.

While the original 1991 movie was met with a full-on media pushback at the time, the response in 2021 to the documentary has been far more fitting for our era: ignored or waved away as pure conspiracizing and fake news. For months after it came out, the closest thing to a politically minded legacy media outlet in the United States that actually reviewed the film was the Daily Beast; the country’s major establishment news outlets simply pretended it didn’t exist. It has fared better across the Atlantic, where it got positive reviews from the Financial Times and Telegraph, and negative ones from the Irish Times, Guardian, and the London Times.

Source: Oliver Stone’s JFK Assassination Documentary Shouldn’t Be Dismissed

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