Richard J. Walton

I had been wanting to read a book about JFK that was from closer to his time. Most things I have heard on JFK are either conspiracy theorists taking about how he "actually died" or libertarian propaganda about how his whole goal in life was to experience sexual freedom and overthrow the bank-sters, or Catholic Propaganda about how he was the great example of an American Catholic. This certainly didn't fall into any of these, but still wasn't what I really wanted. Walton makes the argument, basically, that JFK is the same as any other politician. His description sounds a lot like Barrack Obama, that he was an excellent speaker, and even more than that the media was in the palm of his hands to make him look like a great bastion of liberalism. Walton, I believe, is a Communist, and spends most of the book from that perspective, that if you aren't a communist, you certainly aren't a liberal, and that JFK was just another American President going about promoting the interest of U.S. government and corporations outside of our borders. Much of what Walton would right about reminded me of the writings of DiLorenzo in "Lincoln Unmasked." Walton is a little more tactful than DiLorenzo. Instead of comments about "The Cult of Lincoln" we get messages about "intentionally uniformed Kennedy Defenders" Similiar to DiLorenzo the writing is very focused on the individual subject, and not on the great deal of history around it. The government indoctrination camps didn't do me justice in informing me of the cultural and political ongoing of the mid twentith century, and this coming from a guy with a B.S. in Political Science. It would be like reading DiLorenzo without knowing what "the war between the states" was.

The first chapter, revolving round JFK's dealing with Loas, I felt was relatively informative and benneficial. Howeer the deeper Walton got into ideals that readers of his time, the early 70s, likely would have been more familiar with the less detail he gave his later readers. This includes items like the bay of pigs and the the Cuban missile crisis. These are phrases I had heard before, but not situations I was really familiar with. While it did inspire me to read Wikipedia articles about the events, it didn't go much more than that and I still likely didn't have the understanding necessary to really get what Walton was trying to convey. It was certainly wrote for his time, and didn't plan on a long shelf life.

All in all if you where a teenager or older during the JFK years, this book is likely a deep dive into "the other side" of JFK, if you are younger than that I recommend reading something else about his presidency than reading this if you'd like too. After reading this I have not been inspired to read more. Maybe someday, but not now.… (more)