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James W. Douglass

JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters Hardcover – April 30, 2008

by James W. Douglass (Author)

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Print length

510 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Orbis Books
Publication date

April 30, 2008
Dimensions

6 x 1.4 x 9.3 inches
ISBN-10

1570757550
ISBN-13

978-1570757556
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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

"In JFK and the Unspeakable Jim Douglass has distilled all the best available research into a very well-documented and convincing portrait of President Kennedy's transforming turn to peace, at the cost of his life. Personally, it has made a very big impact on me. After reading it in Dallas, I was moved for the first time to visit Dealey Plaza. I urge all Americans to read this book and come to their own conclusions about why he died and why -- after fifty years -- it still matters.” -- Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

“Right now, I ask all of you—please please, read JFK and the Unspeakable! I cried all night reading it, and didn’t sleep a wink. It is a book that could make us stand up and change the world, right now. Maybe we can save the world before it blows up. Really” —Yoko Ono

About the Author

James W. Dougleass is a longtime peace activist and writer. He and his wife Shelley are co-founders of the Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action in Poulsbo, WA, and Mary's House, A Catholic Worker house of hospitality in Birmingham, AL.

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Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Orbis Books; First Edition (April 30, 2008)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 510 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1570757550
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1570757556
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 2 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 1.4 x 9.3 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #328,244 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #1,101 in US Presidents
- #1,654 in Philosophy of Ethics & Morality
- #1,749 in Murder & Mayhem True Accounts

Customer Reviews:
1,347 ratings

Customer reviews

5 star		84%
4 star		10%
3 star		3%
2 star		1%
1 star		2%

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Top reviews from the United States

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Tom L.

Not only the best JFK book I've ever read, but the best book I've read, period!

Reviewed in the United States on February 20, 2016

Verified Purchase

Not only the best JFK book I've ever read, but the best book I've read, period! Like author James Bradley wrote on the book cover, it changed the way I view the world. Thoroughly and meticulously researched, it lays out not only JFK's assassination plot, before, during, and after, but his legacy, and the state of our government in a way you won't see anywhere else. I owe a debt of gratitude to Mr. Douglass for opening my eyes. I still can't believe I was so ignorant in regards to our government and politics prior to reading this book. I recommend this to anyone interested in knowing the truth. It will change the way you see the world, unless that is you go into it with a pre-set agenda or bias, and unfortunately there are many people like that. But luckily there are more of us that simply want to know not only what happened and why, but why the government and military act the way they do and create their policies, then and now. By the way, after reading this book you probably won't be that interested in watching the news anymore, if you even were before, or watching political debates; at least that was the case for me, and you'll understand why when you're done with the book.

Tom L.

210 people found this helpful

Helpful

David Gaudrault

One of the Best JFK Assassination Books Ever Written

Reviewed in the United States on April 4, 2017

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One of the top 3 books I've read on the JFK assassination, and I've read hundreds of them. David Lifton's Best Evidence is the essential book on the how. James Douglass' JFK and the Unspeakable is all about the why and the who. Great book.They are unbeatable in tandem. Also look for the epic Inside the AARB by Doug Horne, Legacy of Secrecy by Lamar Waldron, and JFK: The CIA, Vietnam and the Plot to Assassinate John F. Kennedy by L. Fletcher Prouty. If you decide to take my advice, read them in this order: 1. Best Evidence 2. JFK 3. Legacy of Secrecy 4. JFK and the Unspeakable 5. Inside the AARB. After reading 1-4, you will have the best you can really get unless you wish to delve into the important, but at this point, old hat concerning ballistics, trajectories, single bullet theory, location of shooters, etc. There is also a Doug Horne interview on YouTube with Dino Brugione On CIA's NPIC facility (National Photographic Interpretation Center) that is a must see to establish alteration of the Zapruder film and others the weekend of the assassination and beyond.

103 people found this helpful

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Spotty

Panoramic coverage

Reviewed in the United States on May 6, 2017

Verified Purchase

Assassination occurred when I was 17, served in military from 20 to 24, always thought the Warren Commission report was strange, visited Dealey Plaza at age 21 and was stunned by the whopper we were fed as an official account of the murder. This book is both depressing for the breadth of the misdeeds and the ultimate cover-up, but encouraging by affirming that there are those who are able to uncover the dirt and inform the public.

61 people found this helpful

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J. Roth

The Seminal Work of Kennedy Assassination Research.

Reviewed in the United States on October 14, 2015

Verified Purchase

The sheer breadth and scope of Kennedy assassination research can be daunting. It’s a subgenre of nonfiction rife with inaccurate, poorly-sourced, and hard-to-access drivel. Even the most touted works (e.g., “Reasonable Doubt,” “Crossfire,” and “Reclaiming History”) are saturated with poor scholarship and misinformation. Yet there is one thread of research — built upon by authors like John Newman (“Oswald and the CIA”), James DiEugenio and Lisa Pease (“The Assassinations”), Jefferson Morley (“Our Man in Mexico”), David Talbot (“Brothers” and “The Devil’s Chessboard”), and Gaeton Fonzi (“The Last Investigation”) — that commands both clarity and credibility. This line of research — which probes Lee Harvey Oswald’s involvement with American counterintelligence — builds upon the work of the 1978 House Select Committee on Assassinations and offers the clearest and most level-headed perspective on the domestic assassinations of the 1960s. Within this body of work, there is no single book that paints a clearer, deeper, and more moving account of the history surrounding the Kennedy assassination than that of James Douglass’ “JFK and the Unspeakable.” It is, bar none, the single most readable, most concise, and most compelling depiction of that dark chapter in history. That’s why most, if not all, of the aforementioned authors regard “Unspeakable” as the seminal Kennedy research book. It’s easy-to-access (even for beginners) and impossible to put down.

151 people found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

Scriptwriter

Disorganised and repetitive but some reasonable information on the subject.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 10, 2016

Verified Purchase

Given that there are a large number of reviews citing this as the best book on the murder of President John F. Kennedy, I was rather looking forward to James Douglass' JFK and the Unspeakable but I was frankly left rather disappointed. It just scrapes three stars rather than two because it does contain some information that I was unfamiliar with - though not that much. I can only wonder how many books on the subject these five star reviewers have actually read...

The positives: author Douglass attempts a parallel narrative, covering both Kennedy's Whitehouse years, his (relevant) foreign and domestic policies, as well as the secondary narrative concerning Lee Harvey Oswald, his movements and the Dealey Plaza situation and its aftermath.

Kennedy's domestic policy concerning his battle with the US steel industry is something that I had never read before (it's actually mentioned when Marilyn Monroe sings Happy Birthday to President Kennedy) and is potentially pertinent in a cumulative way to the context of the assassination. JFK's foreign policy - his growing detente with the USSR and Cuba, the backdoor negotiations that he was exploring, get covered reasonably well, as does his Vietnam withdrawal policy.

The negatives concern the fact that so much of this material is covered more authoritatively elsewhere: the Vietnam policy, for example, is analysed in much detail in books like JFK and Vietnam by Major (retd) John M. Newman, or by Colonel (retd) L. Fletcher Prouty in JFK: The CIA, Vietnam and the Plot to Assassinate John F. Kennedy. Kennedy's overarching career is discussed with much better analysis in Brothers: The Hidden History of the Kennedy Years by David Talbot. Lee Oswald, the Dealey Plaza scenario and the rest of the mythology gets a much better hearing by the likes of Anthony Summers in JFK Conspiracy ( sometimes called, Not In Your Lifetime).

Then there's how this book starts. For some reason, possibly the author's pro-Christian agenda, Douglass introduces the musings of North American Trappist monk, Thomas Merton. Whilst Merton is as entitled as anybody else to his opinions on the Kennedy case, they are totally irrelevant to the substance of this book and yet Douglass goes on and on and on about him. It got to the point that I considered stopping reading this book, so obsessed is the author with working Merton's opinions in to the text. A good editor would have simply ripped that out and advised the author to start again.

The editing, however, is another place where this book falls woefully short: this book is terribly disorganised. It has six basic chapters which make sense (such as Washington and Dallas) but within each of those chapters, the narrative is all over the place. One minute Jack Ruby is being discussed at Parkland hospital, the next we are back with a living JFK who is mourning his son's death, then we're looking at Oswald's activities in Mexico City, then it's back to JFK and his secret negotiations with Khrushchev and off the book goes again. It's so disorganised that it's hard to discern what the author really wants to tell us. Yet conversely, this book is also incredibly repetitive: Douglass will give us a direct quote and a sentence or two later, he'll repeat exactly the same quote again, like he thinks we've forgotten.

Any book on the Kennedy case cannot hope to cover everything: all authors must choose what to include and what to leave out but again, here, Douglass' judgement is questionable. While I cannot agree with another critic's one star review of this book because he dislikes the author's selective use of witnesses, I do find it strange that Douglass seems to lean heavily on the "two Oswalds" theory. Not the well-established fact of an Oswald impersonator at the shooting range or test-driving a car recklessly, in both cases drawing attention to himself (though the author does quite rightly mention these) but rather the strange stories of a second Oswald being seen leaving the Texas School Book Depository and getting in a car immediately outside, or seen leaving the back exit of the cinema whilst Oswald was being arrested and taken out the front entrance, or the story of Oswald getting on a plane in Dallas and leaving the city just after the shooting. In the author's attempt to convince the reader of an intelligence operation being conducted around Oswald, of which there most certainly was one, the author draws from some questionable sources.

Overall, I found JFK and the Unspeakable disorganised and repetitive, with some adverse choices of sources and some irrelevant Christian-oriented commentary. Yet despite these issues and despite there being many better, much more comprehensively researched books on the multiple facets of this case, author James Douglass just about manages to redeem himself and pull off a basic overview of the complexity of this murder investigation. There are many other books on the subject I would recommend before this one but neither is this one to be avoided either.

20 people found this helpful

J

Perhaps the most important book of all time.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 29, 2018

Verified Purchase

Amazon has failed to list some of the most important endorsements for this book, to be found on the publishers' website. Namely:

"In JFK and the Unspeakable Jim Douglass has distilled all the best available research into a very well-documented and convincing portrait of President Kennedy's transforming turn to peace, at the cost of his life. Personally, it has made a very big impact on me. After reading it in Dallas, I was moved for the first time to visit Dealey Plaza. I urge all Americans to read this book and come to their own conclusions about why he died and why--after fifty years--it still matters.”-- Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

"An unfamiliar yet thoroughly convincing account of a series of creditable decisions of John F. Kennedy--at odds with his initial Cold War stance--that earned him the secret distrust and hatred of hard-liners among the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the CIA."--Daniel Ellsberg, author, Secrets: A Memoir of the Vietnam War and the Pentagon Papers

"Douglass writes with moral force, clarity, and the careful attention to detail that will make JFK and the Unspeakable a sourcebook for many years to come, for it provides us with the stubborn facts needed to rebuild a constitutional democracy within the United States."--Marcus Raskin, co-founder, Institute for Policy Studies

Marcus Raskin was JFK's top nuclear advisor.

This book proves without a shadow of a doubt that JFK was assassinated by the CIA as part of a wider conspiracy due to his planned withdrawal from Vietnam, concerted efforts to thaw the Cold War and improve relations with the Soviet Union and Cuba (to the point of establishing a secret back-channel between both himself and Khrushchev and himself and Castro, and with plans, believe it or not, for a joint moon mission with the Soviet Union).

Its nearly 3000 academic citations, interviews with crucial figures and witnesses to the JFK assassination, precise and compassionate tone, make it stand out as one of the greatest books of all time. It has been recognised as such by important figures and historians as the endorsements show. All that remains is for people to read it, and the world can finally move on from its stagnant state, in which the vast majority of the population are totally unaware of the power their President lacks, which the shadow government and the CIA commands instead, on behalf of Wall Street banks and oligarchs. Only then, should such a time occur, can any change hope to occur in this world.

Worth mentioning then that this is one of the most censored shows of all time, with RFK Jr being censored off the Charlie Rose show for bringing up the book, and Alec Baldwin losing his regular show on MSNBC entirely (!!) for filming a three hour documentary based on the book. Baldwin has been denied access to the footage filmed at the time of his dismissal. Further, much like RFK Jr.'s recent memoir "American Values: Lessons I Learned from My Family" the book has received no coverage whatsoever from mainstream media, even being omitted from the best-selling charts on which it should rank. As such, it is our duty as citizens to promote this superlatively important book wherever possible. I encourage all to forward the book's endorsements from figures the whole world respects to everybody they know. Anyone who knows this book exists, and knows who people like Daniel Ellsberg and RFK Jr. are, will want to read it.

10 people found this helpful

Larry

One of the very best books I have read about JFK's policies & The mechanics of the assassination.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 8, 2021

Verified Purchase

Since the film JFK was released in 1991 it set me a course that would last 30 years. I read too many accounts of the assassination, but I never really knew anything more about himself.. Over the years I started to read about his policies, his life, and his stuggle with the CIA. All of those years I only had half of the puzzle but I couldn't fill in the other half, until I read this book!!
This book completed the puzzle for me and explained WHY & HOW he was assinated. He gave us information that answered most of my doubts that I have harboured for 3 decades now all those pieces of priceless information makes perfect sense to me, and I am not an easy person to convince.
On the negative side, I do agree with the other reviews that it became repetitive and jumped around a bit. I hung on because I knew it would be worthwhile in the end. Now I can't stop telling people about the book. FANTASTIC BOOK!!!!

2 people found this helpful

Ni Vuiris

WOW! A full on impact the truth finally is told like no other...

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 9, 2019

Verified Purchase

I have never come across such a brilliant book. The truth as to JFK's assassination is truly shocking. It goes right back to the Pentagon and CIA and well known political jokers.The depth of cunning, deception and false claims that lead up to JFK being a pawn in the hands of the pentagon is just mind bending. Unbelievable coverups that this incredible writer uncovers is superb. The telling of the truth in this book had me turning page after page and NOT wanting to put it down night after night. It truly gripped my imagination to put into place a mental picture of what the writer had just described. I was shocked at the truth, the naming of well known figures all wanting JFK dead. The books author James Douglass has dug deep to give us all the truth, finally someone has had the courage to do so. Thank you.

One person found this helpful

Keith G

Excellent book that explains how and why what happened 50+ years ago is still relevant today.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 8, 2015

Verified Purchase

This is a real tour de force in collating the various threads of the Kennedy Assassination but without too much sensationalism. Rather than focus on the immediate circumstances and period around the murder of Kennedy, Mr Douglass builds a compelling view of the pre-history that guided Kennedy to his fate in Dallas and the motives and barbaric purposes of those who were charged with the protection of democracy, yet failed in pursuing their own agenda which evil continues to contaminate the world we know today.
Hindsight should be a powerful analytical tool and the threads that are pulled together here are quite convincing even without overt evidence to support the conclusions - the motives and the way history itself has developed in the past 50 years speak louder than anything. I wanted something that spread wider than just the murder itself (I read this in tandem with Gaeton Fonzi's book, The Last Investigation, which covers a lot of that material in more depth) and this book fulfilled that by drawing on much more circumstantial evidence for the apparent threat that Kennedy was evolving into for his own military-industrial establishment. And while the motives may have been circumstantial, the actions are there for all to see who are prepared to look and reason with an open mind. The great scandal of what happened in 1963 and the few years after Kennedy's untimely end, is the complete lack of authoritative and bold action by successive administrations in addressing the effective coup d'état that took place at that time, and bringing those responsible to justice and to account for their crimes.
Douglass' style is sometimes a little unstructured and repetitive, but he gets there in the end, and with a mass of evidence in one place that clearly brings the various threads together in a clear, but very scary, conclusion.
There seems to me a great parallel and connection in the events that took place back then with those that occurred during the first years of this century in that same bastion of the 'free' world - and I hope it's not another 50 years before the truth is exposed fully on both Kennedy's demise, the extremism of the state mechanisms that are implicated in that crime, and the further horrors of the past 15 years in bringing the world to further unrest. This book should be read with an open mind and one eye on current affairs - we lost a great man and a swathe of history has been the worse for his absence.