We are pleased to reprint here an excerpt from an MA thesis, The Imperial Imperative: John F Kennedy and US Foreign Relations, presented at University of Kent at Canterbury, which the author has graciously shared with us.

From Michael's conclusion: Ganis’ book is an uncomfortable, freewheeling careen down strange dead-end tracks, with unannounced detours through cold dark streets full of faceless characters, and later, journeys through mirror-filled fun houses of speculation, with a final twist and turn that spits you out right over Niagara Falls, barrel and all.

Jim DiEugenio reviews the career of this amazing economist, statesman, academician and author, with a particular view to his close and important rapport with John Kennedy, an advisory relationship unjustly underplayed or erased by writers such as David Halberstam.

He leaned on JFK to stay out of Vietnam. Had Kennedy survived, might history have been different?

By Mark Perry, At: The American Conservative

In the second part of this multi-part series, Vasilios examines Oswald’s links to CIA-sponsored or CIA-connected anti-communist organizations and figures, and asks if it is possible that Oswald was being prepared from the outset to be an infiltrator.

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)

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 Matt Schudel, at:  The Washinton Post

By Thomas A. Bass, at Mekong Review