The Good Shepherd was subtitled in its trailer, “The Untold Story of the Birth of the CIA.” This is a real misnomer, since most of the “untold” actual events are immediately recognizable to anyone who has a cursory knowledge of the history of the CIA. In another sense the subtitle is true since the story it tells is very liberally fictionalized. In that sense, it is untold, writes Philip Sheridan.

Despite its up and downs, overall this is a worthwhile and unique book. Its most important aspect, of course, is the proof of Robert Kennedy's secret quest for the truth about Dallas. That is an important contribution with which to rebut the opposition's argument of: "Well, why didn't Bobby do anything?" We can finally dispose of that question in a truthful and forceful way, writes Jim DiEugenio.

Arthur Schlesinger obituary, with additional remarks.

Jim Douglass's magisterial and moving essay on Malcolm X's final year, the threat that his new vision and mission posed to the Establishment, and the forces which arrayed themselves to bring about his murder.

[Holland's] analysis ... is fated to be washed away under a tsunami of recent scholarship ... Rooted in documents declassified in the wake of the public's reaction to Oliver Stone's film JFK, academics and researchers have discovered that the real JFK, despite his considerable flaws, was worlds away from the hawkish clown of Holland's (and Cockburn's) imagination, writes Gary Aguilar.

I wish Ambrose and Schlesinger had read the Review Board's declassified files ... [and] used them for their work in this volume. Until they do, Stone is completely justified in making these films and therefore keeping the historical establishment honest, writes Jim DiEugenio.

It is a certainty that Rabin suffered a frontal chest wound and spinal shock, neither of which Yigal Amir could physically have caused, argues Barry Chamish.

Because no one pursued the truth about Lumumba at the time, and no one found the truth about Hammarskjold's death, assassination remained a viable way to change foreign policy, writes Lisa Pease.

The following is not polemics. It is actually history. It tells the truth about an important event. But as it does so, it reveals the true character of the men who helped mold it: Eisenhower, Allen Dulles, Lumumba, Thomas Dodd, Joseph Mobutu, Hammarskjold, Moise Tshombe, Cyrille Adoula, Johnson and, primarily, JFK – writes Jim DiEugenio.

Lisa Pease explores Thomas Dodd's role in the Congo crisis and the Dodd connections to CIA and FBI assets in New Orleans in this provocative two-part article.