Transcript, courtesy of David Giglio and Our Hidden History, of an interview with Roger Hilsman, who confirms that JFK's policy concerning Vietnam was essentially different from Johnson's. Note that he made these statements in 1983, nearly a decade before the publication of John Newman's book.

(Click here for video link)

We have also appended an important addendum, another interview with Hilsman from 1969.

What happens when the Left abandons its concern for such things as accuracy, morality and fact-based writing? What does one call such reporting then? Does it then not become—for whatever reason—another form of propaganda? Jim DiEugenio once again blasts Counterpunch for its pig-headed blind spot concerning the Kennedys.

[photos courtesy of National Press Club (Silverstein) and Amazon.com (St.Clair)]

(See also this article about Counterpunch and Cockburn from 2012 by author Douglas Valentine)

Jim reviews what he deems to be the best of three recent TV documentaries on Martin Luther King, Jr.

A thoroughly mediocre rendering of a tumultuous year. Mediocre in every way, including aesthetically, concludes Jim DiEugenio.

Listen to the interview with David Giglio (Our Hidden History)

By Thomas A. Bass, at Mekong Review

The history of the Vietnam War is invariably delineated by historians as a continuum of escalating involvement from the administrations of Eisenhower through Nixon. This essay by Prof. Norwood challenges that notion by demonstrating how the vision of John F. Kennedy was consistently and vehemently opposed to conventional warfare there.

Written and produced
by Len Osanic & Jeff Carter

Episode 9 is now available.

Jim DiEugenio carefully takes apart and corrects another misguided and misinformed attempt by Paul Street to characterize JFK as economically anti-progressive, complicit with southern racists, and a militarist abroad.

Once again, the factual basis of Chomsky's statements is allowed to go unchecked by his interviewers, as Jim DiEugenio demonstrates in yet another critique of his praxis of historical elision and distortion.

CounterPunch  is at times a valuable journal. But apparently they cannot outgrow the legacy of Alec Cockburn. What he represented on Kennedy and Vietnam was a gross distortion of historical fact, which is a shame when it’s done by the Left as well as the Right, laments Jim DiEugenio.