Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Prouty, who was a Washington insider for nearly 20 years--in the last few of them as Chief of Special Operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff under President Kennedy--has a highly unusual perspective to offer on the assassination and the events that led up to it. Familiar to moviegoers as the original of the anonymous Washington figure, played by Donald Sutherland in the Oliver Stone's movie JFK , who asks hero Jim Garrison to ponder why Kennedy was killed, Prouty leaves no doubt where he stands. The president, he claims, had angered the military-industrial establishment with his procurement policies and his determination to withdraw from Vietnam, and had threatened to break the CIA into "a thousand pieces" after the Bay of Pigs fiasco. His death was in effect a coup d'etat that placed in the White House a very different man with a very different approach--one much more acceptable to what Prouty consistently calls "the power elite." Although he declares that such an elite has operated, supranationally, throughout history, and is all-powerful, he never satisfactorily explains who its members are and how it functions--or how it has allowed the current East-West rapprochement to take place. Still, this behind-the-scenes look at how the CIA has shaped postwar U.S. foreign policy is fascinating, as are Prouty's telling questions about the security arrangements in Dallas, his knowledge of the extraordinary government movements at that time (every member of the Cabinet was out of the country when Kennedy was shot) and his perception that most of the press has joined in the cover-up ever since. Photos not seen by PW. Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
Prouty, the mysterious "X" in Oliver Stone's JFK , promises to explain why Kennedy was assassinated. Instead, he delivers a muddled collection of undocumented, bizarre theories, most significantly that a super-powerful, avaricious power elite engineered the Cold War and all its pivotal events--Korea, Vietnam, the U-2 incident, the Bay of Pigs, and the Kennedy assassination. Although they are never identified, these shadowy technocrats, working through the CIA, allegedly had Kennedy murdered because he was on the brink of ending America's commitment to Vietnam, along with its billions of dollars of military contracts. Prouty avoids some very important issues. Would Kennedy, a Cold War warrior's warrior, have indeed ended American support for Diem? And why couldn't the omnipotent power elite ensure the election of Richard Nixon, its preferred candidate, in 1960--especially since Kennedy won by only .02 percent? A much better choice is John M. Newman's JFK and Vietnam: Deception, Intrigue, and the Struggle for Power ( LJ 3/15/92). See also James DiEugenio's Destiny Betrayed: JFK, Cuba, and the Garrison Case , reviewed in this issue, p. 123.--Ed.- Karl Helicher, Upper Merion Twp . Lib., King of Prussia, Pa.Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Prouty, the mysterious "X" in Oliver Stone's JFK , promises to explain why Kennedy was assassinated. Instead, he delivers a muddled collection of undocumented, bizarre theories, most significantly that a super-powerful, avaricious power elite engineered the Cold War and all its pivotal events--Korea, Vietnam, the U-2 incident, the Bay of Pigs, and the Kennedy assassination. Although they are never identified, these shadowy technocrats, working through the CIA, allegedly had Kennedy murdered because he was on the brink of ending America's commitment to Vietnam, along with its billions of dollars of military contracts. Prouty avoids some very important issues. Would Kennedy, a Cold War warrior's warrior, have indeed ended American support for Diem? And why couldn't the omnipotent power elite ensure the election of Richard Nixon, its preferred candidate, in 1960--especially since Kennedy won by only .02 percent? A much better choice is John M. Newman's JFK and Vietnam: Deception, Intrigue, and the Struggle for Power ( LJ 3/15/92). See also James DiEugenio's Destiny Betrayed: JFK, Cuba, and the Garrison Case , reviewed in this issue, p. 123.--Ed.- Karl Helicher, Upper Merion Twp . Lib., King of Prussia, Pa.Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Kirkus Reviews
Following Oliver Stone's JFK, Prouty (whom Stone depicted as ``X,'' Jim Garrison's secret informant on the military-industrial complex) offers an update on the assassination. Anyone new to assassination studies will find Prouty's many theses (not much different than those he discussed in The Secret Team, 1973) unsettling at the very least, and it seems unlikely that every single column of smoke Prouty points at has no fire at its base aside from a blaze of paranoia, especially when he is not given to paranoid phraseology. Here, he adds nothing new to the theories set forth by the Stone film, only spells them out. Prouty's point of view comes from his nine-year stint as a chief of special operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, carrying out secret operations against Vietnam and Cuba, among other countries. These ``Black Ops,'' which included infiltrating CIA teams into foreign countries and building up insurgencies, in many ways married the CIA to the military-industrial complex. Prouty outlines how the government has carried out policies meant to swell defense contracts while maintaining low-intensity wars since 1945; tells how, in that year, he watched US equipment stockpiled on Okinawa being shipped to Indochina, where we armed all sides for their upcoming conflicts--all support for his contention that there's an elite power-base behind the US government, which knowingly or unknowingly fulfills its needs. On the assassination, Prouty restates many themes whose familiarity and thinness of detail here in no way lessen their force. But one finds spotty scaffolding that brings into question whole sections of the assassination plot. Conspiracy? Perhaps. Carried out for the reasons Prouty suggests? Maybe. But does he present the facts? No, just theories. The big picture, in large strokes, by a man of unusual courage in going out on limbs. -- Copyright ©1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
Following Oliver Stone's JFK, Prouty (whom Stone depicted as ``X,'' Jim Garrison's secret informant on the military-industrial complex) offers an update on the assassination. Anyone new to assassination studies will find Prouty's many theses (not much different than those he discussed in The Secret Team, 1973) unsettling at the very least, and it seems unlikely that every single column of smoke Prouty points at has no fire at its base aside from a blaze of paranoia, especially when he is not given to paranoid phraseology. Here, he adds nothing new to the theories set forth by the Stone film, only spells them out. Prouty's point of view comes from his nine-year stint as a chief of special operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, carrying out secret operations against Vietnam and Cuba, among other countries. These ``Black Ops,'' which included infiltrating CIA teams into foreign countries and building up insurgencies, in many ways married the CIA to the military-industrial complex. Prouty outlines how the government has carried out policies meant to swell defense contracts while maintaining low-intensity wars since 1945; tells how, in that year, he watched US equipment stockpiled on Okinawa being shipped to Indochina, where we armed all sides for their upcoming conflicts--all support for his contention that there's an elite power-base behind the US government, which knowingly or unknowingly fulfills its needs. On the assassination, Prouty restates many themes whose familiarity and thinness of detail here in no way lessen their force. But one finds spotty scaffolding that brings into question whole sections of the assassination plot. Conspiracy? Perhaps. Carried out for the reasons Prouty suggests? Maybe. But does he present the facts? No, just theories. The big picture, in large strokes, by a man of unusual courage in going out on limbs. -- Copyright ©1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
Product Description
Colonel L. Fletcher Prouty, the former CIA operative known as 'X,' offers a history-shaking perspective on the assassination of president John F. Kennedy. His theories were the basis for Oliver Stone's controversial movie JFK. Prouty believed that Kennedy's death was a coup d'etat, and he backs this belief up with his knowledge of the security arrangements at Dallas and other tidbits that only a CIA insider would know (for example, that every member of Kennedy's cabinet was abroad at the time of Kennedy's assassination). His discussion of the elite power base he believes controlled the U.S. government will scare and enlighten anyone who wants to know who was really behind the assassination of John F. Kennedy.
About the Author
L. Fletcher Prouty (1917–2001), a retired colonel of the U.S. Air Force, served as the chief of special operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the Kennedy years. He was directly in charge of the global system designed to provide military support for the clandestine activities of the CIA. He was also the author of The Secret Team: The CIA and Its Allies.
Colonel L. Fletcher Prouty, the former CIA operative known as 'X,' offers a history-shaking perspective on the assassination of president John F. Kennedy. His theories were the basis for Oliver Stone's controversial movie JFK. Prouty believed that Kennedy's death was a coup d'etat, and he backs this belief up with his knowledge of the security arrangements at Dallas and other tidbits that only a CIA insider would know (for example, that every member of Kennedy's cabinet was abroad at the time of Kennedy's assassination). His discussion of the elite power base he believes controlled the U.S. government will scare and enlighten anyone who wants to know who was really behind the assassination of John F. Kennedy.
About the Author
L. Fletcher Prouty (1917–2001), a retired colonel of the U.S. Air Force, served as the chief of special operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the Kennedy years. He was directly in charge of the global system designed to provide military support for the clandestine activities of the CIA. He was also the author of The Secret Team: The CIA and Its Allies.
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