09-07-2015, 06:09 PM
Jim DiEugenio Wrote:Well, I hate to say this since I gave the book a very laudatory review, but today I think the main thesis of the book is incorrect.
Especially in the mass market trade paper advertising.
Today, after doing some research and coalescing that with the most current studies of JFK's foreign policy, I don't think there was really any serious "turning" of Kennedy after the Missile Crisis.
In my studied opinion, Kennedy's foreign policy ideas were pretty much set by 1960. This is when he became the unofficial Ambassador to Africa for the US Senate, and he mentioned Africa something like 479 times during the campaign.
And if you study what he did upon entering office, you will see that he began to overturn the Dulles/Eisenhower policies almost immediately.
The problem is that in the JFK research community all that anyone talks about are Cuba and Vietnam. And everyone ignores the rest of the globe. So we missed the forest for the trees.
Kennedy's foreign policy was the most radical and forward leaning since FDR. And no one has come even close to him since.
I know that you and Jim Douglass differ on just WHEN JFK "turned" toward peace, but really Jim, the relevant thing here is not when he turned but that he did so and it cost him his life. Just because Douglass did not use the exact same sources you did regarding JFK's foreign policy, we have his debates and his cold warrior stance prior to his election. And once in office all that changed. I do not think that the fact that you can show JFK was deeply anti war well before he became president does anything to harm the importance of Douglass' masterful book.
Dawn