The best evidence for the triumph of neoconservatism, including over PBS, is to compare the 1983 series, Vietnam: A Television History, with the Burns/Novick version. The former is more honest, more hard-hitting, and more complete on the facts of the war. In a very real way, that comparison tells us how the Nixon/Kissinger view of Vietnam and the world eventually eclipsed JFK's, concludes Jim DiEugenio.

As depicted in Athens or at the Globe Theater, with tragedy there is always an element of both rage and violence. Johnson assiduously worked to spring his own trap on himself. And that is what is missing from this film, writes Jim DiEugenio.

With their defense of the Dulles brothers as “decent people” in Part One, the disappearance of Kennedy’s withdrawal plan and the championing of Vann and Sheehan in Part Two, so far the net value of this documentary is something less than zero, writes Jim DiEugenio.

How can one tell the story of American involvement in Vietnam without mentioning the Dulles brothers or General Edward Lansdale? With a full 18 hours at one’s disposal, I would have thought such a thing would be impossible. Yet with Burns and Novick, the impossible becomes the possible, writes Jim DiEugenio.

At:  WorldBeyondWar

In the first part of this projected multi-part series, the author reviews Oswald's "defection" to the USSR in the light of Cold War games and his possible connection to them, and proposes an interesting twist on what the role of his stay there may have been.

Presentation by Jim DiEugenio of an excerpt from Greg Poulgrain's book on the Indonesia coup.

Jim DiEugenio calls this book "a provocative revisionist history of why the epochal coup in Indonesia happened as it did in 1965 ... [and which] has enlightened us on the crucial figures of Allen Dulles, Sukarno, Dag Hammarskjold and John Kennedy, how they played with and against each other and how this nexus led to a horrible tragedy."

An excerpt from Greg Poulgrain's book on United States policy toward Indonesia, reprinted here with the kind permission of the author.

Bridge of Spies is a well-made film.  I just wish it had dispensed with a lot of the dramatic license, which I do not think was really necessary. It would also be nice to see these two men do something a little gutsy concerning American history, opines Jim DiEugenio.