JFK: The Cia, Vietnam, and the Plot to Assassinate John F. Kennedy

by L. Fletcher Prouty

Book Overview

With an Introduction by Oliver Stone, the director of the hit movie JFK and a Foreword by Jesse Ventura, author of the New York Times Bestseller, They Killed our President, here is an insider's view of JFK, the CIA, Vietnam and the plot that led to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

Colonel L. Fletcher Prouty, the former CIA operative known as "X," offers a history-shaking perspective on the assassination of...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1616082917
• ISBN13: 9781616082918
• Release Date: April 2011
• Publisher: Skyhorse Publishing
• Length: 416 Pages
• Weight: 1.14 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 5.9" x 8.9"

Customer Reviews

Eyewitness to the Coup

Col. Prouty was the CIA's liaison with the JCS at the Pentagon. He was responsible for providing the CIA with whatever military hardware they required, planes, guns etc for the many CIA coups, assassinations and secret wars overseas. Prouty provides significant insider evidence showing how JFK was assassinated by the CIA in November 1963. This is the real history of the post WW2 US in significant part.

A great book among others

I want those readers who have not read this book to read my opinions below.First, this is a great book simply because Prouty has provided more inside ammunition for researchers to mine the depths of our secret government. This is the government of men who controlled the secret programs of assassination, the secret slush funds of counterintelligence, the operatives who dilligently carried out their secret orders,their programs of stealth, quasi-law breaking, and other publically inaccessible information. Prouty's book quite correctly points the finger at Dulles, Lansdale, and others in CIA, who were paranoid about communism and Castro. They viewed Kennedy as a traitor and he stood in the way of the war machine they were operating, both overtly, but especially covertly. The termination of raids to Cuba, the failure of follow-up air support at the Bay of Pigs, the promise not to invade Cuba after the Cuban missile crisis, were all blamed on Kennedy. The firing of Dulles, Cabell, and Bissell contributed to the intelligence community wanting JFK removed from command. It is astonishing that so few have commented on the contrast between now and then: in 1963 we were fed lies depicting Oswald as a crazed nut, a loner, and defector. These days we have mountains of evidence he was much more than these pictures of him. He associated with Clay Shaw, David Ferrie, anti-castro cubans, and others. He returned to the US without a hitch, but in those days a defector would have been hounded and closely watched. If this were true,then why wasn't the FBI catching all his associations and illegal activities? Prouty has produced the superstructure of the conspiracy by showing the history, and context of the cold war and the CIA.If one can view a supposed loser like Oswald pulling off this assassination as being totally ridiculous, then one can entertain other possibilities. Why was Lyndon Johnson reversing NSAMs so quickly concerning Vietnam? Why did Johnson appoint Warren, Dulles, Ford, et al? Why wasn't the Dulles appointment perceived as a conflict of interest? Here is the fired subordinate investigating the dead boss! Dulles definitely kept information from the panel, especially about the assassination plots being orchestrated by the CIA, with the Mafia as the gunmen. In this connection, another book of importance should be read and that is by Peter Dale Scott: Deep Politics and the Death of JFK. It is a difficult book because he describes a quasi government,over-and-above government institutions, which controlled the plot and the outcome. This corresponds to some observations about Prouty's book, which fails to name names. But that isn't quite correct. Prouty does name many persons who were in command positions and had the power to orchestrate the assassination.Two prominent persons were Dulles and Lansdale. Any clever and alert reader who watched Stone's movie JFK will see a very short (about 2 second)sequence in the movie w

Mr. Prouty's book is excellent as autobiography

Mr. Prouty served in the Pentagon's Office of Special Operations during a significant portion of his professional military career. In this role, he observed first-hand how the CIA arranged/staged coups d'etat in the Phillipines and other nations around the globe. In the Office of Special Operations, Mr. Prouty was responsible for providing U.S. military support for CIA operations. This experience serves as the basis for Mr. Prouty's strong inference that the assassination of President Kennedy was a CIA-style coup d'etat. The "why" of the coup d'etat is strongly established by Mr. Prouty. JFK intended to withdraw 1,000 military personnel from Vietnam by the close of 1963 and hoped to complete the full withdrawal of U.S. military personnel from Vietnam by the close of 1965. To do this, JFK needed to get re-elected. His decision to withdraw from Vietnam was based upon the McNamara-Taylor report of early October, 1963 and codified in National Security Action Memorandum#263 of October 11, 1963. [For a thorough, scholarly analysis of the evolution of JFK's Vietnam policy, see "JFK and Vietnam" by John M. Newman (New York: Warner Books, 1992). Mr. Newman is a professional historian and a faculty member at the University of Maryland]. Powerful interests in the CIA, Pentagon and the corporate world were "gung ho" in favor of large-scale military intervention in Vietnam. The prospective war promised billions of dollars in military contracts for the defense industry. JFK's intention to withdraw from Vietnam would deny these elements in the CIA, Pentagon and corporate communities their pot of gold. Immediately after the assassination of JFK, LBJ issued NSAM#273 on November 26, 1963 which was a complete reversal of JFK's policy. NSAM#273 authorized U.S. military raids into North Vietnam. These raids precipitated the Gulf of Tonkin incidents of July-August 1963, led to Congress' Gulf of Tonkin Resolution and massive U.S. military intervention in Vietnam. LBJ gave the CIA, Pentagon and defense contractors what JFK would have denied them: billions of dollars in defense contracts in support of the full-scale war in Vietnam. For Mr. Prouty, the ultimate inference is irresistible: to effectuate the complete turn-around of Vietnam policy proposed by JFK, a CIA-style coup d'etat was carried out in Dallas on November 22, 1963. LBJ's NSAM#273 reversing JFK's Vietnam policy [from withdrawal to establishing the foundation for massive U.S. intervention] was issued on November 26, 1963. The goals of the coup were obtained immediately following the assassination. Prouty gives us the "why" of the coup. Further research remains to be done in order to give us "who" and the "how". Prouty's work is a valuable starting point for further inquiry and deserves our appreciation for its autobiographical honesty and heartfelt analysis.

The key to the mystery of the crime of the century.

As a United States Marine in the Vietnam war, I never challenged my country's intentions to stem the tide against communist aggression throughout the world. After my extended tour of duty in that war zone, I came home to ponder how we became involved in such a protracted war that divided the country (USA) so. It all points back to the tradgic event on 22 November 1963. With the death of our beloved President Kennedy, the powers to be had free reign to curtail the planned withdrawl of the small amount of troops in that zone. Only 16,000 at that time. This book is an excellent reference to how real events were managed to create so much grief for the people of South Vietnam and the United States. As a former Marine who left enough of his friends to pay the ultimate sacrifice, I highly recommend Colonel Prouty's fine book. "Those of us who made it have an obligation to find the goodness in man and make this world a better place in which to live." Long live the memory of JFK. Semper Fidelis