Henry,
History's not your forte, huh? Here's a reminder of US politics in the 1960s.
Excerpt from 'Plausible Denial', by author Mark Lane, Thunder's Mouth Press, New York, (c)1991.
[p.326]
''Some time ago I met with Oliver Stone's representative in Los Angeles to discuss his film. Stone was interested in my work; unfortunately, he also reserved the right to alter or modify the events to make the film entertaining. I withdrew from discussions with his company and declined to meet him further. Since the condition precedent was founded upon his right to utilize the material I had uncovered as he wished.
I have since read the working screenplay for the film JFK. It was a brave attempt to explore a mystery of momentous consequence. While the original script may be flawed in detail, it is accurate in its broad strokes and therefore could have made a historic contribution to the debate. Stone, however, has publicly stated that he has rewritten the script following the attempts in the media to discredit him; JFK will now attempt to reconcile different views, thus serving the interests of the box office and the film critics rather than history.
After the Lardner article was published, Stone wrote a letter to the Washington Post. The paper made ''major deletions,'' in its own words, and then published the letter as an article on June 2, 1991. The article was followed on the same page by yet another Lardner attack.
The screenplay had dramatized Lyndon Johnson's decision to reverse Kennedy's policy to withdraw troops from Vietnam. Lardner had called the scene ''nonsense.'' In his second assault upon Stone, Lardner quoted from Johnson's NSAM 273 as follows:
''The objectives of the United States with respect to the withdrawal of U.S. military personnel remain as stated in the White House statement of October 2, 1963 [approving among other things 'plans to withdraw 1,000 military personnel by the end of 1963'].''
Lardner referred to the Stone film as ''just a sloppy mess,'' asserted that while the ''facts speak for themselves Stone doesn't seem to know them,'' and concluded, relying upon a person he identified only as ''Historian Gibbon'' that Kennedy ''would have done it just as Johnson did it.''
Lardner's source seems to have secured data available only through paranormal psychology. A journalist not relying on clairvoyance would have to conclude that Kennedy had ordered the withdrawal of troops from Vietnam during the last days of his life, and that he had promised that they would all be home by the end of the next year. Contrast Kennedy's words and deeds with those of his successor.
Six months after he assumed office, Johnson, in a May 18, 1964, message to Congress, urged that there by an increased appropriation to prosecute the war. In that message he stated that ''sixteen thousand Americans'' were then in Vietnam. A year later, at a news conference on July 28, 1965, entitled ''We Will Stand in Vietnam,'' Johnson announced that he had ordered more troops to Vietnam and that ''our fighting strength would therefore be increased ''from 75,000 to 125,000 men almost immediately.''
Lardner was correct --the facts do speak for themselves. When Kennedy was assassinated, there were approximately 16,000 Americans in Vietnam. Before the war ended three times that number had died there.
[...]
Kennedy's personal and sexual liaisons, we are told, had underworld overtones courtesy of Frank Sinatra and Sam Giancana. Sinatra, it will be recalled, was inelegantly, publicly, and permanently barred from the White House by Kennedy. The trauma inflicted on the aging singer resulted in an aggravated abandonment of principle: Sinatra became a Republican. He subsequently supported the Reagan-Bush ticket and found himself in the White House quite regularly, both for public functions and private lunches. The [Washington] Post has not yet called for sanctions against Ronald Reagan, George Bush, or Sinatra's lunch partner, Nancy Reagan.
I believe it is the view of most Americans that it was not better that the handsome young president died a mythical, if not actual, ''hero'' that day in Dallas. Most of us, I suspect, prefer the electoral process and the ballot box rather than the concealed rifles of snipers, as engines to move our democracy.''
Mark Lane is an author, lawyer, teacher, lecturer, and filmmaker. He has written eight books on contemporary legal issues, ranging from an analysis of the assassination of Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., to an account of the facts surrounding the Jonestown massacre. Mark Lane's highly acclaimed bestseller, Rush to Judgment, a critique of the Warren Commission Report, marked the beginning of Lane's 25-year pursuit of the facts behind the Kennedy assassination, and Plausible Denial presents the startling results of that pursuit.
Mark Lane has served in the New York State Legislature, and worked as a New York City campaign manager for John F. Kennedy during his 1960 presidential bid. He taught law at Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., and has lectured throughout the United States and Europe. Lane represented the American Indian Movement at the historic Wounded Knee trial, and was the only public official arrested as a Freedom Rider.
Recently, Lane has concentrated on trying cases involving the laws of defamation, even appearing before the U.S. Supreme Court. |
