Jim DiEugenio reviews Columbia University economist and author Jeffrey Sachs' latest book, which examines Kennedy's famous 1963 American University speech. 

A Federal appeals court says the CIA doesn't have to reveal information about the Bay of Pigs.

by Josh Gerstein, At: Politico

Taken as a whole, this is a valuable book. When coupled with Muehlenbeck's Betting on the Africans, much needed light has now been cast over the specifics of Kennedy's dealings with the Third World: how these broke with the past, and how LBJ and Nixon then returned them to their previous state, 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.

An excerpt from the first volume of Greg Parker's study of the historical backdrop of Lee Harvey Oswald's intelligence related activities.

Dallek has designed both of his books along the lines that Larry Sabato did in The Kennedy Half Century. They are not full and complete works which try and capture all nuances and tendencies in an objective manner; a manner which will actually elucidate for and enlighten the reader. Like Sabato, Dallek wishes to constrict the biography he is writing to keep Kennedy from being any kind of liberal icon, writes Jim DiEugenio.

Except for where he notes some of the problems with the JFK assassination's evidentiary record, this book is pretty much not just without distinction, but so agenda driven as to be misleading. On the 50th anniversary of Kennedy's murder, we needed a lot better, writes Jim DiEugenio.

Self-promotion by adopting the right talking points characterizes the work of people like Sabato, eager to become televised mouthpieces of establishment propaganda in an age of dying empire, writes Mike Swanson.

Ron says "that all is uncertainty, that we'll never know who killed Kennedy or why to any degree of certainty." Well, with Ron leading the way that is probably true. ... To people who know something about the JFK case, and the ARRB declassified files, it is Ron who is the wingnut theorist. The idea that JFK was killed as a result of a high level plot is not a theory. It is a provable fact. End of story, writes Jim DiEugenio.

By showing the difference between Kennedy and what came before and after him, [Muehlenbeck] helps us understand why the prime minister of Somalia later said that "the memory of Kennedy is always alive in us Africans", writes Jim DiEugenio.