Dr. Jerome Corsi is probably not Facebook friends with Oliver Stone.
Corsi, author of the new book “Who Really Killed JFK?” is best known as the author of “Unfit For Command,” the 2004 best-seller that dragged the war record of Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry through the mud,
Stone is a Vietnam vet, a leftist, and director of the enduringly popular “JFK.’
But on JFK, Corsi finds common ground with the liberal cineaste.In his book, Corsi offers a conservative variation on the viewpoint advocated by Stone (as well as by Bobby Kennedy and Fidel Castro) that blames JFK’s murder on right-wing enemies within the U.S. government. And he is critical of the leading JFK author on the political right, Fox News host Bill O’Reilly.
Corsi has challenged O’Reilly, author of the best-seller “Killing Kennedy,” to a debate about the causes of JFK’s death.
“O’Reilly’s narrative portraying Oswald as the lone assassin ignores 50 years of critical research into the assassination,” Corsi told Worldnet Daily, the popular hard-right website. Corsi holds the FBI, CIA, and Lyndon Johnson responsible for JFK’s murder.
I reached Corsi by phone at his home in New Jersey recently. Here’s an edited transcript of our chat.
JFK Facts: So what do you think of Bill O’Reilly’s JFK book?
Corsi: “I think its terrible. It’s written at a very basic reader level, a high school level. It’s like ‘fascinating facts about Jack Kennedy.’ It tells the PC version of the assassination.”
JFK Facts: Your book argues that Kennedy was killed by enemies who felt betrayed by his handling of the Bay of Pigs invasion and disturbed by his reluctance to escalate in Vietnam. That’s what my friend Oliver Stone says.
Corsi: I don’t disagree with Oliver Stone. I’ve been reading and researching on this subject for 50 years and I reached my own conclusions. I find the left and right frequently meet on issues of freedom of speech and freedom of thought.
JFK Facts: I imagine your friends on the right will say, ”Is it really possible that all these people in the U.S. government got together and planned to kill the president?” What do you say to them?
Corsi: If they say that, they haven’t looked at the record. I say let me show you the minutes of the meetings where the CIA talks about killing [Guatemalan president Jacobo] Arbenz. I would say, here are records of the Church Committee. Here are their planning documents. You don’t think our military is capable of assassination? You don’t think our intelligence work with organized crime to kill people? Here are the records.
JFK Facts: Who do you hold responsible for JFK’s assassination?
Corsi: One of the major forces was Allen Dulles, who was head of the CIA under President Eisenhower. When Jack Kennedy fired Allen Dulles after the Bay of Pigs fiasco, I think that’s when he signed his death warrant.
JFK Facts: Was President Obama born in the United States?
Corsi: I don’t know.
Readers can make of this conversation what they want. I don’t think Corsi’s views discredit Stone’s. I don’t think Corsi is wrong about JFK because he agrees with a leftist. I think the assassination of JFK transcends ideological politics.
I found Dr. Corsi’s book extremely compelling and a worthy addition to the voluminous JFK literature, especially with its new content from the highest ranking member of the KGB to defect. What level have we descended to when people take pot shots at a man they agree with just because he also happens to believe in the Constitution, the Bible, and other “radical” documents
I’m well familiar with Corsi’s smears and nonsense, but, having read this book, I’m impressed. Of course there are not the “Stunning New Revelations” promised on the dusk jacket, but the narrative is solid. I’ve been asked by neophytes to reommend a good basic introduction to the JFK assassination facts, and have been hard-pressed to think of one. The best books are focused on specific aspects, or are too specialized for the general reader, or assume a prior level of knowledge (which is certainly not a criticism of any of them.) Others, like those of Harold Weisberg, were written by people who were great researchers but not good writers. Yet others are good but badly outdated. Corsi’s is, believe or not, a well-organized and easily readable book. Unforunately, it suffers from proofing errors that will make you cringe (Edward Jay Epstein becomes “Lipton” in the same paragraph; Mary Meyer goes back and forth between “Meyers” and “Meyer” four times in two paragraphs). Still, it’s a a worthwhile, up to date introduction to the subject and, what’s even more surprising, generally avoids substituting possibilites for facts. For example, after detailing LBJ’s obvious motives for wanting JFK dead, Corsi points out that this doesn’t prove that he had any hand in planning the assassination. So, regardless of what you may think of Corsi (with good reason), try this book. It’s about as far as you can get from “birther” nonsense.
Corsi is way out of his depth on JFK. I have not read the book but heard several interviews…he mispronounces names and gets so many things wrong. He claims RFK had access to Angleton’s Oswald file before the assassination and was familiar with it, that a Garand rifle was no more expensive than the Mannlicher, that Hosty destroyed his file on Oswald when it was in fact an Oswald note. There was more but you get the point I’m making…
I am a progressive liberal thinker, and while I cannot definitively state where Obama was born, I can say that his long form birth certificate released by the White House is a provable forgery. Seymour Hetsh, no right wing nut, has courageously called Obama’s Bin Ladin operation a hoax.
Truth does not take sides, right or left, and John Kerry is a lackey for imperial policy, and a bonesman at that.
To all those who are caught in the web of artificial constructs, whether painted by MSNBC or FOX, I ask you to question your every assumption. Are your views derived from any form of secondary influence, whether cultural or otherwise? Who here is bold enough to put his life and purse on the line for integrity and truth?
Perhaps fear motivates some, while for others, there is a prize to be had in confirming with a corruption of reality.
But we live in a beautiful age when former gatekeepers no longer have totalitarian control over information, history, and the national conversation. I wonder what famous sell- outs say after a few drinks to a trusted friend. But if they do not contribute to truth by lending their weight to the official record, we only corrupt the knowledge base of society and sabotage our own civilization.
What world do we want to create? How large can we grow our circle of empathy such that the egalitarian ideals we profess become the birthright of every person born on this earth.
What happens when officially sanctioned lies carry the veneer of truth long enough to allow a new generation of ignorant citizens, separated from their own true potential, aspirations, and that highest form of all – wisdom?
I will tell you what happens. We have collapse. And we are all guilty to one degree or another. We are not a reflection of the image of God, but serfs in a feudal prison that is maintained chiefly through mind control.
Mind control is not the bizarre thing we assume it is, but something much more mundane. It is merely the maintainence of our consensual reality, of which only a previous few are privy to pierce through the gnostic intuition and rational faculties of man.
We are all so many silly people arguing this way and that way, each full of hubris, but none aware of the full revolting horroribke truth kept from us. To leave Plato’s cave is to impossible in this technoyronic age where all power and prestige conspires against virtue and honor.
To me, no other day encapsulates our Anerican guilt than November 22, when we looked the other way, and in the process, left the light of our possibility to dwell in the shade for all these decades.
May we all be wiser, and stop thinking we know anything at all, when we know so very little Dave our own ignorance and shame.
Progressively liberal and yet the Obama Birth Certificate is a forgery? Just because Corsi puts out a conspiracy book you swallow that tripe?
Dr. Corsi may join the rest of us in anticipation of David Talbot’s next book, The Devil’s Chessboard. Following the success of his first book, Brothers: The Hidden History Of The Kennedy Years, Talbot has chosen Allen Dulles as the focus of his next investigation into the Kennedy story, scheduled for completion within the next two years.
My interview with David Talbot will soon be available here:
http://www.jfklancer.com/audioconversations.html
“I think the assassination of JFK transcends ideological politics.” Very true!
Go ahead and believe this “birther” if you want to, but if his JFK research is anything like his research on virtually everything else he has written about you might as well put up Baron Munchausen as a credible source.
Oliver Stone’s military record is beyond reproach.
He was a soldier of exceptional courage.
His left-wing politics,however,do seem incongruent with a reported net wealth of $50 million : he is what we British would call a “champagne socialist.”
I guess for that kind of wealth,we’d ALL be socialists.
As for O’Reilly’s book : I never read it ,being put off by Barry Krusch’s review. Is there anything worthwhile in it? Maybe,but O’Reilly’s proclamation about Oswald “constructing” the sniper’s nest,quite at odds with David Belin’s writings,seems rather sloppy. No author gets a thumbs-up(or cash!)from me =just because= they share my LN belief.
I may not agree with his politics but love his comments on O’Reilly’s book and his view on JFK assassination.
Who says liberals and right wingers can’t agree on something
I remember George Orwell remarking somewhere that there are basically two political parties in the world– the authoritarian party and the libertarian party, and both of them have their left and right wings. It seems to me that the struggle to establish the truth about JFK’s assassination brings right wing and left wing libertarians together on the same side. Conversely we can note the left wing authoritarians who still back the warren report.
Amen to transcending ideological politics. Let’s not even go down those tired roads because the dark implications of this murder affects us all.
I’ve not read Corsi’s book, but at face and after reading this post I struggle to imagine it will find a place amongst the best works on the assassination. It’s one thing to criticise O’Reilly’s book, criticism that is justified, but I would be somewhat surprised to say the least if a book on the assassination by the author of “Unfit for Command” and someone who can’t understand a basic fact such as the birthplace of the current President were to become a major contribution to the case. The question of Obama’s birthplace is not an ideological question, it’s a statement of fact. If he can’t get that right, what on earth will he make of the complexities of the assassination?