Prochnau on JFK

 

A column by William Prochnau was recently distributed by Reuters. It is about JFK. According to him, an assessment of JFK occurred the day of his death to the effect that JFK would not be remembered. This lack of remembrance was asserted because his administration did not last long enough and he had accomplished nothing. Others have said he was all starts and proposals. [Doesn't it all start somewhere, somehow?]

Prochnau denies that he was a great president. He wasn't much of a president but he was a hero. He was "modern, handsome and princely" with words and gestures others did not have. He was glamorous, a celebrity, and a media president. [Anything of substance is denied him. He didn't "detail" himself for the tube. Recall that "TV" as an entity was much different then.]

Jackie Kennedy created Camelot, a false view of the president and his meaning for us. She wanted to counter those who sought yet another false, bitter, view of him. Assassination conspiracy theorists created still another view that was less and less about him and more and more about them. [Who says gentle perversity or a raging lie is the last word on JFK? He set a standard as yet unequaled.]

Like TV was as an entity unlike today, Vietnam was an entity unlike how it is known today. Prochnau says JKF started it all for Vietnam. [Others affirm he would have stopped it. There was much, too much, that he wanted to change. Government was not the enemy, as Prochnau notes, and some feared his power to change what he said he would change. So he was murdered. The government not being the enemy worked against him.]

[Once upon a time, if you saw it on TV, that TV of long ago, it had to be true, "I saw it on TV". They used to ask, "Can I say that on TV?" Camelot and conspiracy were on TV. Even then, among those people then alive, neither Camelot nor conspiracy was fully accepted. Each had elements of truth and still do. Then and now if it is in print it must be worried over. The printed word is still accepted by some as what "is". It is reality. Reality then was never a Camelot. Did anyone ask them about it? They knew reality could be sordid, vile, dangerous, and horrid. Those today, idealists that think the contrary, indulge in a fantasy as stupid as the one they condemn. Reality never is a take-all and a cake walk and an endless torture chamber. Not, anyway, for most, then. But they have gone away. They can't tell you there was never a Camelot for them nor conspiracy, if wacko.

The intervening decades contain people born and raised lacking education - in school and life - such that they care little about "the nature of things" be it Camelot, Vietnam, assassination, Hollywood, reality TV, D.C., the Simpsons, housewives of La-La Land, nor any appreciation of style, grace, power, smarts, and the arts. They didn't have homes, family, and adventure. Hard work never accomplished anything for them. It was never about the loss of "innocence", it was about a loss of confidence in the trust of things wholly too large to know well.

Once is was, "Spring came on forever" - to borrow a phrase from the Civil War. We are in the autumn depicted by Keats. Winter is not far off.]

DeGroot, the Telegraph, and the death of JFK

 

Gerard DeGroot, in the Telegraph, comments on a group of books about the assassination of JFK.

DeGroot, given free rein, writes of Jim Garrison that he was "a paranoid fantasist, a publicity hound, and a crooked DA". Of course, not all sources, some reputable, agree with this attack. Though I would think "publicity hound" might have some credence.

If Garrison comes off badly as far as DeGroot is concerned, then Oswald fares perhaps worse, as he is characterized as being "a pathetic loser". But at least he was trying to get at the truth during his less than friendly association with the Dallas Police Department. His remarks and requests made while he was confined by the Dallas Police demonstrate that he thought he had a chance. But then he had no chance against Ruby. He also had no chance with the Warren Commission's portrayal of him.

The Warren Commission need not be considered to be a cover-up. Most, even those friendly to the Oswald-as-assassin notion, think the Commission was incompetent. In a light-year jump, DeGroot gives the assassination over to aliens. Any port in ignorance serves as well when it comes to assassination theory of any stripe. The latest on the Commission, taken to be a serious work, is "A Cruel and Shocking Act", and I am told it, makes much of Oswald's presumed trip to Mexico City. DeGroot dismisses the book because it maintains, according to DeGroot, that the CIA wasn't entirely truthful about what its agents knew of the assassination. So it is "Ho-hum". So I would say it is "everyone knows" the CIA agents are liars.

Wait, there's more, the movie, "JFK" by Oliver Stone, is termed "preposterous". If so, how or why is it preposterous? The death of JFK is accounted for in the movie. No mention is made in the film of JFK's letters and Oval Office recordings. The end of JFK isn't equated with an age of innocence. JFK, per DeGroot ,was cynical and boasted of sexual conquests. DeGroot indirectly asserts he was packaged and sold as a mythical deal worth millions despite his shortcomings. The corrosion of the American spirit cannot be the resultant of truth and lies as DeGroot wants it. It is either truth or lie and has been so for many years. When these become ancient times, JFK will still be known.

DeGroot is quite right about the ready market for JFK assassination books. So long as it may last, the mystery propels along the improbable, the impudent, the wildly improbable, and insults to one's intelligence. But then the lack of acceptance of the obvious record of the assassination - that one being the Zapruder film and the other films or photos of those seconds in Dallas- show multiple shooters were at work. Especially relevant is digital processing of the Zapruder emulsion in order to reveal the tracks of the bullets in the film.