![]({"https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/514RLpF2fdL._SY344_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg":[235,346],"https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/514RLpF2fdL._SX337_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg":[339,499]})
This book has an interesting history. The authors and publisher went through a long legal battle to force the CIA to even allow the book to be published. There are lines in the book in bold print that say things like '10 LINES DELETED'. Those are the lines they were apparently never allowed to include in the book.
The authors are two guys who became disillusioned with the way the CIA was operating at that time and also with events in Vietnam. The Watergate fiasco with Richard Nixon and the White House plumbers was ongoing when this book was written.
I read this book as part of my ongoing research about the John Kennedy assassination. Other books corroborate many of the statements in this one. For me Fletcher Prouty's two books have been very important in understanding what exactly was going on with the CIA during John Kennedy's abbreviated presidency and the Vietnam era. Fletcher Proutys' books present an American government in chaos at that time with a CIA that had infiltrated every aspect of the government with their spies and liars.
I figured as I did more research the true motivations for the JFK assassination would become clearer for me. Maybe they are but if what I believe now is really true it's a very strange situation.
I guess to put it simply these characters in the CIA viewed the Bay Of Pigs invasion of Cuba and the Gulf Of Tonkin incident in Vietnam as new Normandy D Day invasions. They seemed to want to create a perpetual state of global warfare and create a million D Days all over the entire world.
Many of the original CIA guys had been members of the OSS which was America's intelligence service during World War II. For them it seems the war never really ended. Adolf Hitler had his dream of a 1,000 year Third Reich. We had Allen Dulles, Lyndon Johnson, and all the others with their dreams of a never ending state of covert warfare and the blank check that came with it. And 'all the others' was American corporations, Wall Street, and the American military. All of those groups taken together is what Dwight Eisenhower ominously referred to as The Military Industrial Complex during his farewell address.
After the disastrous Bay Of Pigs Cuban invasion John Kennedy said he wanted to shatter the CIA into a thousand pieces and scatter it to the winds. The conclusion at the end of this book more or less says that was a good idea. Maybe it still is even today.
Fletcher Prouty explains how the CIA intentionally caused the initial beach landing during the aptly named Bay Of Pigs invasion to fail by not allowing the supporting American aircraft to take off. These planes would have easily destroyed Castro's meager air force on the ground. But instead they wanted the initial landing force to start failing so that John Kennedy would then send in the American Marines or authorize an air strike from an American carrier. But JFK didn't panic and do this.
Fletcher also says the Gary Powers U2 spy plane that was forced to land in the Soviet Union was sabotaged by the CIA to derail Eisenhower's peace summit. I guess it was about that time that Ike invented his new word called The Military Industrial Complex.
Eisenhower and John Kennedy had to publicly take the blame for these two CIA blunders. But they both secretly knew what happened as did others around the world. But those two presidents could not admit to the entire world that they had lost control of their own military establishments and intelligence services.
The question is what are the implications of the John Kennedy assassination for us today if any. Has anything really changed since this book was written ? Or did the United States, as Jim Garrison said, become a fascist state on November 22, 1963 ?
My copy of this book is an old paperback that has completely fallen apart. Try to find a newer one if you can.
This book has given me a good foundation about the CIA. Now I'm going to read this one:
Oswald and the CIA: The Documented Truth About the Unknown Relationship Between the U.S. Government and the Alleged Killer of JFK
A Deeper, Darker Truth
On the Trail of the Assassins: One Man's Quest to Solve the Murder of President Kennedy
JFK: The CIA, Vietnam, and the Plot to Assassinate John F. Kennedy
The Man Who Killed Kennedy: The Case Against LBJ
Mary's Mosaic: The CIA Conspiracy to Murder John F. Kennedy, Mary Pinchot Meyer, and Their Vision for World Peace
Me & Lee: How I Came to Know, Love and Lose Lee Harvey Oswald
The Man Who Knew Too Much: Hired to Kill Oswald and Prevent the Assassination of JFK
Crossfire: The Plot That Killed Kennedy
The First Circle
- Hardcover: 398 pages
- Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf; 1st edition (June 24, 1974)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0394482395
- ISBN-13: 978-0394482392
- Package Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.9 x 1.8 inches
- Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
- Customer Reviews: 19 customer reviews
-
Amazon Best Sellers Rank:
#361,984 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #401 in Espionage True Accounts
- #284 in Public Affairs & Administration (Books)
Would you like to tell us about a lower price?
If you are a seller for this product, would you like to suggest updates through seller support?
If you are a seller for this product, would you like to suggest updates through seller support?
