One of the most respected researchers and writers on the political assassinations of the 1960s, Jim DiEugenio is the author of two books, Destiny Betrayed (1992/2012) and The JFK Assassination: The Evidence Today (2018), co-author of The Assassinations, and co-edited Probe Magazine (1993-2000). See "About Us" for a fuller bio.
Jim DiEugenio reviews the career of the University of Minnesota professor of philosphy of science, observing that his rather lax attitude toward critical analysis of scholarly sources, coupled to his taste for the "Sensational Solution", are responsible for the demise in respectability of this self-proclaimed authority on conspiracies.
If the reader is interested in knowledge about the inner workings of the radical right back in the fifties or sixties, then this is a useful book. But as far as relating that group to the murder of JFK, it is simply a dud. And a pretentious, bombastic, overlong and tedious dud at that. In this reviewer’s opinion, it is the worst book on the JFK case since Ultimate Sacrifice, concludes Jim DiEugenio.
What the author is doing has three layers. First, he is giving us a history of the Castro revolution. At the same time he is showing how the USA reacted to that epochal turnover, stage by stage in its evolution. Third, he is tracing certain people and movements who will return to the stage in 1963, after Kennedy changes policy, and begins a détente attempt with Cuba. Other authors have tried this before, but never on this scale or with this intricacy, writes Jim DiEugenio.
About the first fifty pages of Undeniable Truths is pretty much undeniable. The next fifty pages are a decided mixture of truth and question marks. Most of the last 200 pages do not at all merit the title. In fact, that part is, in large measure, nothing more than conjecture. And much of that conjecture is ill-founded, concludes Jim DiEugenio.
In light of the recent developments in our understanding of JFK's foreign policy vision, Jim DiEugenio writes: "In sum, this is not a bad book. And I think some of its faults can be explained by Shaw’s association with the Wall Street Journal and the Hoover Institute. But in my opinion it could have been much better".
We all owe thanks to Paris Flammonde for sailing against the current. He didn't care about being "respectable." He understood that, with the MSM, there really was no such thing as being respectable on the JFK case. For the simple reason that they had prostituted themselves on the subject in every way, and from the very start, writes Jim DiEugenio.
As I mentioned in the second edition of Destiny Betrayed, when David Phillips was trying to convince Vincent Bugliosi to write a book on the JFK case, he mentioned two examples to follow. ... The second was Oswald's Game. In the upside down world of Jean Davison on the JFK case, it would not surprise me if she took the suspect conspirator's recommendation as a complement, writes Jim DiEugenio.
I didn't agree with John and Mike on every issue. But most of the time they were on the right track. Beyond that, they provided a serious and credible counterweight to the nonsense of the dying MSM. We are all a bit poorer with their leaving us, writes Jim DiEugenio.
Slideshows for three presentations on JFK's foreign policy given in 2013, 2014, 2016 and 2018.
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