Deep Politics and the Death of JFK

by Peter Dale Scott

Paperback, 1996

Status

Available

Call number

364.1

Genres

General Nonfiction

History

Politics, Government, Law and Public Policy

Nonfiction

Collection

Anomaly Archives

Publication

University of California Press (1996), Edition: Revised, 424 pages

Description

Peter Dale Scott's meticulously documented investigation uncovers the secrets surrounding John F. Kennedy's assassination. Offering a wholly new perspective--that JFK's death was not just an isolated case, but rather a symptom of hidden processes--Scott examines the deep politics of early 1960s American international and domestic policies. Scott offers a disturbing analysis of the events surrounding Kennedy's death, and of the "structural defects" within the American government that allowed such a crime to occur and to go unpunished. In nuanced readings of both previously examined and newly available materials, he finds ample reason to doubt the prevailing interpretations of the assassination. He questions the lone assassin theory and the investigations undertaken by the House Committee on Assassinations, and unearths new connections between Oswald, Ruby, and corporate and law enforcement forces. Revisiting the controversy popularized in Oliver Stone's movie JFK, Scott probes the link between Kennedy's assassination and the escalation of the U.S. commitment in Vietnam that followed two days later. He contends that Kennedy's plans to withdraw troops from Vietnam--offensive to a powerful anti-Kennedy military and political coalition--were secretly annulled when Johnson came to power. The split between JFK and his Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the collaboration between Army Intelligence and the Dallas Police in 1963, are two of the several missing pieces Scott adds to the puzzle of who killed Kennedy and why. Scott presses for a new investigation of the Kennedy assassination, not as an external conspiracy but as a power shift within the subterranean world of American politics. Deep Politics and the Death of JFK shatters our notions of one of the central events of the twentieth century.… (more)

Media reviews

Toronto Star

"may well be the most thoughtful and serious-minded of the 2,500 titles on the subject published over the years."

— 4 more

San Francisco Chronicle

"the most challenging book of the year."

Kirkus Reviews

"Staggeringly well-researched and intelligent overview not only of the JFK assassination but also of the forces undermining American democracy -- of which the assassination, Scott says, is symptomatic....A kind of Rosetta stone for cracking open the deepest darkness in American politics. Will test

the most well-informed."

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Library Journal

Over the past 30 years, more than 2000 books about the Kennedy assassination have been published. While Posner and Scott come to different conclusions, their studies are important additions to the field. Providing a detailed account of Oswald's life from childhood on, Posner shows him to have been

a psychologically disturbed malcontent who was unhappy with both the U.S. and Soviet political systems. Posner counters claims of the major conspiracy theorists point by point and backs up his arguments with documentary evidence, recent interviews, and up-to-date computer analysis. Faulting conspiracy theorists for equating coincidence as evidence, Posner concludes that there was no other gunman and no conspiracy. Scott, a Berkeley English professor, approaches the assassination in its sociopolitical context, focusing on why it happened rather than on who did it. The phrase "deep politics" refers to the secret networks operating within and outside government agencies. While they do not constitute a unified shadow government, they comprise a coalition of individuals who cooperate in order to maintain the status quo. Accordingly, Scott examines Ruby's links with organized crime, army intelligence and JFK's planned withdrawal from Vietnam, J. Edgar Hoover's misuse of his authority, and the collusion of international drug traffickers with the CIA and FBI. Scott believes that Oswald and Ruby were part of this convoluted network. Both these titles offer important insights and are highly recommended for most libraries.

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Publishers Weekly

Scott, a poet, an English professor at UC Berkeley and a long-time investigator into the impact of drugs on U.S. foreign policy in Asia and Central America, has been examining the issues surrounding the John Kennedy assassination for many years. His thoughtful, extremely (and sometimes excessively)

detailed book promises more than it actually delivers. Scott's thesis is that under the surface of everyday politics is an often sinister mingling of business and criminal interests that sometimes coincide with the national interest as perceived by the military and intelligence communities; and that such a combination lay behind JFK's shooting. This is hardly a new concept, although Scott broadens the scope of the shadowy business villains considerably beyond the usual military-industrial complex to include fruit companies and law firms. His drawing of suggestive links is tireless--he is a great synthesizer--but since the "facts" on which he relies are often the result of other people's not necessarily accurate reporting, the whole structure has a ramshackle feel. The book's most useful feature is a careful discussion of how U.S. Vietnam policy changed abruptly after Kennedy's death.

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User reviews

LibraryThing member 5hrdrive

Imagine a skyscraper with thick black smoke billowing out of every window. That means there must be a fire raging inside, right? That's exactly what is presented here, so much circumstantial evidence of pre- and post-assassination shenanigans going on at the very highest levels that the very idea

that Lee Harvey Oswald and Jack Ruby were loners acting on their own initiative is ludicrous. Unfortunately, the waters were so muddied by both the FBI's and CIA's innumerable ploys and counter-ploys that we'll never be able to single out which anti-Kennedy faction was really responsible and who actually was pulling the trigger. If this was Game of Thrones Hoover would be both Varys and Littlefinger.

I do like the author's approach to "Deep Politics", the idea that you have to consider not only the actions of Local Politicians and Local Law-enforcement but also Organized Crime when attempting to figure out what's going on. No one will ever admit it, but that seems to be a perfectly logical explanation for just how the big bad world actually works.

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1 more

LibraryThing member blake.rosser

Great information, just so damn academic it's difficult to get through

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