Returning Special Guest: Monika Wiesak, Author of "Echoes of a Lost America: Unraveling the Murder of JFK"

🎉 Returning special guest! It was my pleasure to sit down again with Monika Wiesak regarding her latest book, Echoes of a Lost America: Unraveling the Murder of JFK. 

Topics:

➡️ What inspired this book? 
➡️ Monika labels the Kennedy assassinations as "the Rosetta Stone of our modern world." What does she mean by that?
➡️ "Cui Bono." Who benefitted from JFK's murder?
➡️ Is there a Kennedy curse? Or is this some kind of media nonsense designed to cover up the real story?
➡️ What moments stopped Monika cold while writing this book?
➡️ How deep does the narrative control go re: JFK's life and legacy?

Links:

Monika's first appearance: 
https://www.buzzsprout.com/2289560/episodes/15157547

Monika's second appearance: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2289560/episodes/15678314

Monika's latest book: https://a.co/d/edW30Ku

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Need more? You can visit the website at: https://consaracytheories.com/ or my own site at: https://saracausey.com/. Don't forget to check out the blog at: https://consaracytheories.com/blog. 

Sara's book Decoding the Unicorn: A New Look at Dag Hammarskjöld is available now! Click here to buy it on Amazon. 

Transcript

Transcription by Otter.ai.  Please forgive any typos!

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

JFK assassination, Dealey Plaza, Monika Wiesak, Echoes of a Lost America, duty, conspiracy theories, CIA, military, organized crime, narrative control, Vietnam War, Kennedy family, Robert Kennedy, Oliver Stone.

Welcome to con-sara-cy theories. Are you ready to ask questions you shouldn't and find information you're not supposed to know? Well, you're in the right place. Here is your host, Sara Causey.

 Hello, hello, and thanks for tuning in. Welcome to a special guest episode. Or I guess maybe I should say an extra, extra special guest episode, because it's my returning guest for the third time, Monika Wiesak. You may remember that she is the author of America's last president, what the world lost when it lost John F Kennedy, as well as Michael Jackson, the man the music, the controversy. She was also shameless plug, good enough to write the foreword for my book Decoding the Unicorn: A New Look at Dag Hammarskjöld. You can find all of these titles on amazon.com. Monika is also recently the author of echoes of a lost America, unraveling the murder of JFK. I'm so happy that she was able to sit down with me tonight to discuss this new book. If this is of interest to you, stay tuned.

Just a reminder, you can find Sara's book, Decoding the Unicorn: A New Look at Dag Hammarskjöld, on amazon.com the link is available in the summary for this episode. And now back to the show.

So first and foremost, Monika, thank you so much for agreeing to come back with us a third time. They say that the third time is the charm, but I don't know. We've already had a couple of great episodes together. So welcome back. Thank you for having me back. It's definitely my pleasure, so I always like to know the story behind the story, so to speak, you open the book standing at Dealey Plaza, describing it almost like sacred ground. So I'd love to know what prompted the difficult decision to write echoes of a lost America. 

Yeah, so I visited Dealey Plaza a little bit after I published my first book, which was about J case policies and his presidency, and I felt, it's hard to even describe how I felt when I was there. I felt like there was so much history there and so much meaning and so much that was like trying to scream out, in a way, like it was almost like JFK was there and he was trying to cry out for justice, but nobody was listening. In a way, it was, it was a very sort of eerie sort of feeling, and I kind of walked away from that, almost like I'm not the kind of person that likes murder mysteries. I don't like true crime series. And so I think a lot of people who are interested in the JFK assassination are interested in it because they like to solve puzzles, or they like to solve crimes. And that isn't kind of where I'm coming from at all. It was more like I just had this deep sense that this man deserves justice, and not just him, but also we as a society, because he was our leader. He was our president. He is who we elected to, you know, to lead America. And so when you have such a brutal and such a public murder, and then you just sweep it under the rug and pretend as though it didn't happen, almost, you know, pretend as though it was nothing, and pretend as though we still live in a society where the public gets to choose their leaders. It just felt, I don't know, there's something felt so wrong about it to me. There was this injustice just eating away at me. And so even though I don't like studying crime, and I certainly don't like to study the crimes committed against people I admire, that makes it 10 times worse, in a way, you know, at least, if you have some distance from it. It's a little bit better, but so it's very not enjoyable writing this book. But I was kind of driven by a sense of duty. I would have felt, you know, like if, if tomorrow was my last day on earth, and I didn't do something, having studied his presidency so in depth, if I didn't do something to try to get justice for what happened to him, I would have felt like I didn't do my duty, if that makes sense, like I would have just felt like I took the easy road and I didn't do what I was supposed to do. And so that's sort of what inspired me to write the book. It wasn't even it wasn't even inspiration so much as it was duty. It was just this deep sense of duty, that this was something I had to document and had to write. And that's kind of and so I just started, I started writing, and I was learning as I was writing. And so the book doesn't argue any thesis. And part of the reason it doesn't argue any thesis is, you know, I really was learning while I was writing, and so sort of written from the. Perspective of someone who's trying to gather 60 years of history into one book. And it was sort of difficult or frustrating, because I had to read so many books to even get an idea of what happened the last 60 years. You know, what were the various investigations? You know, what are the various theories or hypotheses on this crime? There was just so much information to absorb, and so I wanted to make it easy for a new person, you know, a younger person, you know, who's just you growing up now, who's maybe interested in how our society got to the place it got to be able to pick up a book and see, okay, well, this is what happened the last 60 years. You know, it makes sense that we are where we are as a society today, and then hopefully, you know, they can, it will inspire them to dig even deeper.

That's well said. You call the Kennedy assassinations, plural, the Rosetta Stone of our modern world. And this made me think of the system that Peter Dale Scott referred to as deep politics. So I'd love it if you could unpack your metaphor for us a bit more. 

Yeah, so I've always intuitively felt when you have such a brutal and public murder of a US president who, again, is supposed to be leading the country, and you do nothing about it, that reveals like a real power that's sort of behind the scenes. And to me, it was like, if you don't, and I felt this even as a child, you know, even from a young age, I felt like, if you don't understand what happened to JFK, how can you possibly understand America? How can you possibly understand the power structure that we live under, if you don't understand why and how our leader got his head blown off and then nobody did anything about it, I mean that to me, just seems so fundamental, and that's why I was saying like, you have to understand what happened to the Kennedys in order to understand America, in order to just understand, you know, who's really empowered, and in order to understand how we got here. And I don't think you can sort of heal or resolve this corrupt system that we live under unless you understand, you know, what happened to JFK and what happened to RFK.

Absolutely. So let's go straight to the title of chapter one, Cui bono. I don't want to give too much away, because I want people to read the book. I want people to buy the book. But you discuss interests that relate to the CIA, the military, anti communist groups, Zionist causes, organized crime and Wall Street. So these are powerful forces even today. So not like they've lost any steam necessarily since the 60s. Did you feel any fear as you were writing about them?

Yes. I mean, I was very uncomfortable. It's, you know, I as I was writing it, I wasn't sure if I was ever going to publish it, or if I was just writing it for my own knowledge and my own learning and to share with family and friends. So I wasn't sure if I was ever going to make that leap to publish it. Because of that, because of that fear, because of speaking. You know, even though it's a 60 year old crime, and you think like, what kind of country do we live in that I have to be fearful of speaking about a 60 year old crime. I mean, that's just pure insanity to me, but I was, and I guess I still am, and that's because I know that this is not ancient history. I know that his assassination is not obsolete. It's very present. It lives with us on a daily basis, and I think that's why there is still concern about speaking about the topic, even though it's 60 years old. But at the end of the day, it was kind of like, again, it was that sense of duty. It was like, if I can't tell the truth, or if I can't speak about something so important, I mean, then it's almost like I'm saying that I'm okay with it like that. I'm okay that with the fact that you know that JFK was murdered, or our president was murdered, and that nobody did anything about it. And it was just, I didn't like that feeling of sort of giving up, in a sense, of saying, okay, you know, the interest that assassinated him won, so to speak, and I'm just going to sit back and not say anything about it. And I think that was just, even though there was that discomfort, and there is that discomfort, it just felt like again, if I, you know, if tomorrow was my last day on earth, I would regret not having published it. And so that's, I think, what finally kind of took me, you know, where I took that leap, and I just went ahead and put it out there.

Yeah, that reminds me of something that I think it was a professor, maybe in college or graduate school, but I remember him saying, sometimes in life, silence is construed as approval. Silence gets misconstrued, maybe even if you're trying to stay out of the fray. Sometimes. Silence can be interpreted as I agree with what happened, or I at least don't care enough to get in the middle of it, so I understand what you're saying. 

Yeah, no, I love what you just said there, and that that sums up perfectly what I was trying to say. It's I just sort of felt like silence is approval, and that I'm contributing to this mess by, you know, having spent so much time studying his presidency, it was like, How can I not say anything when I understand very well the long term ramifications of his assassination and all you know, all the horrible things that are happening in the world today and how they relate to the JK, assassination, how can I understand that and then stay silent because it is, it would be like, giving my approval, and I just couldn't I think that was just what ultimately got to me, and was like, even though I don't like this, even though it's uncomfortable, it wouldn't be right if I didn't say anything, you know, if I stayed silent.

You've done a great job In this book of also bringing RFK senior and JFK Jr into the dialog as well. There certainly seems to be a pattern here, and it's often dismissed in the media as the quote Kennedy curse. What do you think is really at play here? Because I think for any rational person, it seems like more than just a case of bad luck.

Yeah. So I, you know, I was growing grew up in the 80s and 90s, and, you know, I wasn't paying attention so much as a kid, but I had heard tons about the JFK assassination, you know, just, kind of just hearing random stuff, kind of on the side. And, you know, I'm not just heard it referenced like, 1000 times and and then one day in the tooth. And that it was like this big debate about whether there was a conspiracy, whether there wasn't, and if there was who did it. And then one day, I think in the 2000s I think it was already in my 20s, I heard one day that, you know, JFK had a brother who was running for president who was assassinated, and it just kind of struck me. I was like, what? I was like, I've heard the JFK assassination referenced 1000 times. How come I've never heard this? Because that, to me, was just so blatantly obvious. Like, obviously, it's not 100% proof that there was a conspiracy to kill JFK. But it was such a red flag of, like, Okay, you have two brothers. One's a president, one's running to be president. What are the mathematical odds that they both just get assassinated by random lone nuts? And so I was like, Why does the media never talk about this? Why? Like, if I was talking about, you know, and I knew nothing about the assassination at this point, other than, you know, vague stories I'd heard here and there. But I was like, if I was talking about the assassination, one of the first things I would say is, hey, his brother was murdered too, and that was blamed on one lone individual too. Maybe we should look into that, because that, to me, is like, you know, just intuitively, as someone who knows nothing, it was like, Well, okay, they're killing him so he can't investigate his brother's death. That's him, you know, just like when Jack Ruby shot Oswald. The intuitive thing is, like he's shooting Oswald to shut him up. And so I don't know, I was just so amazed that, like I never heard that as a kid, that all the mentions of the JFK assassination, nobody talked about RFK. And so I wanted to make sure in my book that people understood that not only was JFK assassinated, his brother was assassinated, and his son, I don't take a position on the plane crash, you know, as to whether it was an accident or an assassination, you know, because I don't think we know definitively what it was, but there are certainly a lot of unanswered questions about that plane crash, and a certainly, you know, a lot of things that we do need answers for. So I don't rule out the possibility that he was killed, intentionally killed. And so I wanted to bring that into the conversation as well, because I think it's important to understand, you know, if, if that plane crash was not an accident, and if it was, you know, if he was killed by the same interest that killed his father, then obviously that greatly limits the suspect list, because obviously, Lee Harvey Oswald does not have multi generational power, you know, he's, he's not out there from the grave like, you know, making this plane crash. So I think it's important to include, and again, I'm not saying definitively what happened. I think there are good arguments for it being an accident, but I think there's also good arguments for it not being an accident, and I think those need to be laid on the table. And you know, people need to look at it, and I think it needs to be part of the conversation, because it is strange that you know, JFK was killed, and then his brother, who was like his first heir, was killed, and then his son, who was like his second heir, was killed as well. And I think what few people know is that JFK, Jr was virtually certain to be about to run for office, so he was on the verge of running for office, and he was also investigating various sort of crimes and conspiracies, conspiracies like he was investigating the Yitzhak Rabin assassination, who was the Israeli prime minister. And allegedly, people speculate that he was assassinated because he was trying to make peace with the Palestinians, and there were right wing Israelis that didn't want that. And so JFK, JR actually published in his magazine George an article written by the mother of the Sassan, and she was saying that her son was manipulated into killing ravine. You know, by right wing Israelis. And you know, JFK Jr told one of his attorneys that he just felt like a real connection to Rabin's murder, because he felt it connected him to his father's murder. So here's someone who's, you know, and investigating, you know, assassinations of heads of state. He's someone who, according to his high school girlfriend, you know, you know, his deepest desire in life was to one day get justice for his father. He's about to run for office, and he dies in the strange plane crash. So I think it's fair to ask questions about it. Yeah, absolutely,

Yeah, especially, I mean, for me, like I'm looking at this situation with JFK Jr, and I'm like, Well, you know, as a Hammarskjöld biographer, plane crash is certainly a mysterious plane crash wink is certainly in the playbook of, you know, ways to get rid of troublesome people. But I also remember when the plane crash happened, it really stirred up not only this media fascination with a so called Kennedy curse, but it also brought back this notion of Kennedy's as himbos like I remember hearing all this stuff and seeing all these tabloid articles of he he was attractive, but he wasn't bright, like George magazine was failing and he couldn't pass the bar, and Jackie was always bailing him out, and he was always messing around with starlets. And he was just like his dad, good looking and rich, but there was nothing going on upstairs. And it really just leads to this further idea of if we can cast these people who are murder victims or, you know, in JFK Junior's case, maybe it was a playing crowd. Oh, I don't know. But, you know, it casts this light on if we can portray this person as being vapid, unimportant, maybe nice to look at, but not very intelligent, then I think it all. It always comes back to what you and I have talked about before, all roads lead to Rome, which is, we didn't lose anything significant?

Yeah, I think that's an incredibly important point you made there, because, and in a really good argument for it being an assassination. Because, you know, if it was just an accident, there wouldn't be that need for the character assassination. There wouldn't be that need to make him look as like careless and thoughtless. And you know what I mean, like, and so it's just, it's, again, it's like you said, it doesn't matter. It's a way of saying, don't look at this accident, because it doesn't matter. You all you lost was like the male bimbo. You know, you didn't lose someone who was about to run for office. You didn't lose someone who was willing to investigate, you know, very important crimes. And it's, I think it's, you know, a really important argument to make that that is like a reason to, you know, question, you know, was he assassinated?

Absolutely. And to me, that that's what really it's all about. And one of the reasons why I have this podcast period is just to be able to ask those questions, because if we live in a free society, which is up for debate, but especially as we kind of go on marching towards some very uncomfortable drum beats, but I'm thinking of Bill Hicks and his comedy routine that if you think that you live in a free society, try going somewhere without money and see how far you get. I mean, he was his comedy was so prescient back in the day, but we have to be free and able to ask these questions. It's not even necessarily that we come to any definitive answers all the time, but if we're not in a place where we can at least raise a hand in the air and say, Hey, doesn't it seem suspicious? Why would you need to smear this guy and make him sound like he was careless and and that he was willing to commit suicide. That's another theory I've heard. Was that JFK Jr was actively going to kill himself and decided to murder his wife and a sister in law, apparently, too, in this in this plane. And I'm like, um, you know, somebody needs to be able to raise their hand and say it. This doesn't make any sense to me, and I feel like I have the right to question this narrative because it seems awfully bizarre.

Yeah, no, absolutely. Like we have to be able, as a society, to question things and, you know, and again, that's kind of what put me over the edge to publish my book. I was like, why am I scared to question a 60 year old crime? Like, I don't want to live in that kind of world where I feel like I can't question something that happened 60 years ago, like, that's just not the world I want to live in. Like, I don't know the answers, but I should be able to ask the questions.

Yes, preach it. And on that note, we are speculating to some degree, but if Robert Kennedy had lived, if he had made. To the presidency in 1968 Do you think that he would have exposed the truth behind his brother's death?

I think he might have had a chance. I think even Garrison had a chance, if his, you know, investigation hadn't been sabotaged to such a great extent. So I definitely think it's possible, because RFK was a brilliant investigator. You know, he was attorney general, you know, he was 100% loyal to his brother, 100% committed to his brother. I think he was deeply, deeply affected by his brother's murder. And I think he would have given his own life to try to get justice for his brother. So I think if anybody had the ability to get to the bottom of the crime, it would have been him. And I think the fact that he was killed, I mean, I think speaks to the fact that there were, you know, whoever was behind his brother's assassination probably had those same thoughts and probably realized that, you know, that investigation could not possibly be allowed. But Robert Kennedy cannot have the power of the presidency, you know, to find out what happened to his brother, because I think if you had a proper investigation, you might have been able to get to the bottom of it. And I think even garrison was starting to get there, you know, and he had a lot less info, because he didn't know about a lot of J case policies. He didn't know a lot of the behind the scenes stuff, but RFK would have had more to go on than Garrison did, and so I think he would have had a better chance of, you know, breaking the thing wide open. Possibly.

Yeah, yeah. It is really remarkable when you think about the limited information that Jim Garrison had the number of dots that he connected. And you're working in New Orleans and seeing all of these patterns, I it to me, it's just still, when you when you read garrisons books, and then when you watch the rebuttal that he did after, you know, the broadcasting company decided to do their smear campaign on him, and then they gave him about 20 minutes to respond to it. When you listen to the the way that he lays out his case of here's why the Warren report falls apart. It's just to me, even even now, all these years later, I think it's remarkable the amount of detective work and the things that he pieced together without having like the office of the presidency without being inside the CIA or the halls of power. I just still, yet, I think it's really remarkable what he was able to do.

Yeah and I think time has proven that he was on the right track. I mean, certainly there's a lot to show that he was on the right track, and I think he should be given credit for having the courage to pursue it. What? I mean, like, even if he had been on the wrong track, I think just the fact that he genuinely tried to seek justice for JFK when everyone else was trying to sweep it under the rug. I think for that alone, he deserves a tremendous amount of credit.

Oh yeah, those first wave of people that came through the Mark Lanes and the Jim Garrisons. It's like, we definitely pour a little out for the homies that came before us that were willing to say, hey, this stinks. Something is not only rotten in the state of Denmark, it's like a giant fish - a giant barrel of fish guts. It stinks to high heaven.

Yeah, no, I think like that, yeah, the Mark Lane book is, I think, extremely important, because that's the first book I read that kind of gave me a lot of the on the ground info of what happened and and that's where I started. I first wanted to understand, I think it was the first assassination book I read. I can't remember, but it was one of the first ones, because I thought, I need to understand what happened on the ground first, before I even, like, step out of this and look at the bigger picture. It's like, you know what actually happened that day? And I think Mark Lane did a tremendous job of covering that in his book.

Oh, yeah, absolutely. And the murder of JFK was such a watershed moment in American history, my parents can still tell you exactly where they were and what was going on when they heard the news. And there was a quote that I read from someone who was part of the silent generation. So we're talking about this generation that comes between the greatest generation and the baby boomers. And it's kind of interesting, because the silent generation so often gets forgotten about. It's like there was the greatest generation, and then the baby boomers. And it reminds me a lot of what has happened to us Xers, because there'll be news articles that talk about, well, here's what the baby boomers, the millennials and the Gen Zers think. And I'm like, so those of us from 65 to 80 just don't even exist. If you were born in that in that time frame, you just don't exist on the planet. And the silent generation was kind of like that too. But this man was talking about how he was an adult in the 1960s and from Dag Hammarskjöld's murder in 1961 to Bobby Kennedy's murder in 1968 he realized there's no more hope, there's no change, there's no peace. And anyone who really tries will be killed. Do you think that the United States ever truly recovered from that day in Dallas, or are we still living in the world that was created by JFK removal? 

Oh, I absolutely think we're still living in that world. I think so much that's happening today. You know what I mean, whether it's the border crisis, whether it's the trillions in debt, whether it's what's happening in Gaza at the moment, so much of it you can trace back to the JFK assassination, and it's just, you know, I think we would be living in a very, very different world had he not been assassinated. And you have to think about it, it's not just him, it's his brother, also. It's his son, potentially, like, it's just, you know, an America run by the Kennedys is it would be a very, very different America than the one that's run by corrupt special interests today. I mean, all the wars we've fought, you know what? I mean, all this sort of economic policies that cater to the ultra wealthy. It's just, it would be a completely different country, in my opinion. And that's why I keep saying, like, it's not, it's a 60 year old crime, but it's a crime that's very present. It's a crime that lives with us every day. And you know, there are certain irreversible things that happen on that day that I don't know if they'll ever be reversed. And so it's just, I think anyone who says it's obsolete does not understand Kennedy's policies and does not understand, you know, what changed on the day he was assassinated?

Yeah, yeah, yes, yeah. It's just the reverberations of it are still so deep. And I agree with you I and I agree with frankly, what that man from the silent generation said. I mean, I feel like as an X or the things that we witnessed, because I remember when the Berlin Wall came down in October of 89 and for me, that was like my i g y moment. You know, Donald Fagan had that song about IGY. There was going to be all of this, like information sharing between the Soviets and the US. And he envisioned this world like you can go underwater from New York to Paris in 90 minutes, and we're going to have flying cars, and there's going to be all these robotics. And then, you know, at some point you have what I call the Don Henley end of the innocence moment where it's like, oh, wait a minute, on second thought, maybe we're not going to have flying cars. Maybe we're not going to have world peace. And for me, that really happened with 911 and then it gets cemented again by Enron and too big to fail. And it's like, you just you have this generation of of x ers, as well as some of the elder millennials that are sitting back going, there's nothing for me to believe in when it comes to world peace. There's nothing that I can point to of stabilizing the economy of somebody that really cares for the little guy. Because it just seems like, if anybody gets even close to the presidency, and they seem like maybe they're a stand up person, maybe they're actually going to try to fight for the little for those of us that are the little people, the peons and the plebs, that the rich people look down on, it's sort of like that's just not going to happen. And I think that that's one of the other things that has reverberated from the 1960s quite frankly, is this sense that there isn't hope. I remember, if you'll allow me a small digression, there's this great book called cruel optimism. It does get awfully academic. It does get awfully dry at times, but Lauren Berlant talks about Obama, and one of the things that she says is there's so many people that thought, Okay, hope and change. The Audacity of Hope. This is what we need, especially after the bush Cheney years. But she said a lot of people didn't realize that he had gone off to the University of Chicago, he had drank the neoliberal Kool Aid, and all he was going to do was warmonger and make a continuation of the same things that we had had during bush. Cheney and I feel like we can really draw a direct line between this idea that it's okay for politicians to talk about hope and change, but if you actually, you know, like, try to do it, then you're shown the Zapruder film, and you're told, Well, this is what really happens if you think that you're going to affect change. 

Yeah, and I just, I bought into it, like the whole Obama thing, for at first, like, I was, you know, in 2008 I was still pretty naive. I would say, you know, I wasn't really, I think, I mean, I had some awareness of how corrupt things were, but I don't think I had any real awareness of how corrupt it was, yeah, so I still kind of bought into it. But there was something off about him. There was something like superficial about him. And I remember my dad saying, once, like he's running on change, but he's like, change could be a million things. What's he actually running on? And then I thought about, I was like, yeah, that is very vague. I mean, what does he actually stand for, you know? And, and then, of course, you know, as he got into office, and over time, you know, I became more and more aware of sort of, what's happening in the world. And I realized, like, this guy's just a. Puppet. Because the other weird thing to me at the time was like, Why is he being so heavily promoted? He came out of absolutely nowhere, suddenly, like all of the corporate media is like pushing him. And so I knew enough then to not to trust the corporate media, like I was very so I was very, kind of uneasy about how much they were pushing him. And I thought, this is like a front man, this is like, you know, like a pretty picture to calm the public, but Is he really going to implement policies that help the public?

That's so well said. And yet again, we kind of go back to the OGs in this movement, because Jim Garrison talks about this so plainly that if you allow this kind of coup d'etat to happen on American soil, then the President is not really a president. He's not or she, it turns out to not really be the leader of the free world. It's just a sock puppet. 

Yeah, and that's what I mean. Like, it's so I feel like that's what I mean by, it's the Rosetta Stone of our world. It's like, it's fake. Like everything is fake, like, by the JFK assassination just makes everything a farce. And it's like, until you get to the bottom of it, you live in sort of this illusion, this farce. And I think, you know people, we have to get to the bottom of that assassination, and we have to have a truth and reconciliation, otherwise we're just, you know, an empire with, like, a pretty picture in front.

Yes, I want to get back to more of the story behind the story. What surprised you the most while you were researching this book, like, was there any particular moment that just stopped you cold?

I think the part that kind of really got me was when I found out that Arnon Milchin funded the film JFK, and that he had very clue. And I didn't realize I knew he was some kind of Israeli spy, but I didn't realize how intimately tied in he was to Israel's nukes program, like he was literally recruited by the guy who was lying to JFK face about it in 1963 and that Shaw was actually working for someone who was financing that same program. So it just kind of hit me like, How deep does the narrative control go? Because that film generated the whole debate of, was JFK pulling out of Vietnam? Was he not pulling out of Vietnam? And so it's crossed my mind. And I don't know the answer to this question, but it crossed my mind is like, was a false debate created? Does it matter what the answer to that question is? Because did Vietnam have anything to do with this assassination? Like, maybe that question in terms of assassination don't maybe the answer to that question doesn't really matter. And so I sort of, like, the older I get, the more I realize that narrative control is everything, like truth doesn't exist, but narrative does. And so it just kind of, you know, made me question why mil Shawn would a, finance that film and B, why he would not disclose, you know, that he was closely tied to someone that Shaw was closely tied or, you know, an interest that Shaw was closely tied to, and that benefited tremendously from JFK staff, at the very least, that should, you know that should have been disclosed as a potential conflict of interest, if nothing else. And so I was kind of, I don't know that kind of, really was jarring for me and and I do want to make clear that I do think Oliver, you know, 100 made that film out of 100% genuine, you know, desire to get justice for JFK. I don't see how on earth he would have been aware of any of this information back then. And so, you know, I think most people that research the assassination are, you know, very genuine. And I hate that term controlled opposition, I think. But I think the term promoted opposition or steered opposition. I think it's a fair question to ask is, you know, are certain debates promoted over other debates, or are certain conversations promoted over other conversations? And Mills on like, when I found that out, he just reminded me of the kid at the playground who points at the other kid and says, Look what he's doing. Don't look what I'm doing. You know what I mean? Like two five year olds on a playground. And again, I don't know the answer to these questions, but it sort of just made me wonder, like, how much narrative control is there around this whole thing? So that was quite jarring for me. I think.

Yeah, that is deep. That is a that's a really interesting question to contemplate, because, you know, one of Noam Chomsky's criticisms has been that from his evidence, you know, I'm using evidence in air quotes here, but from his evidence, he doesn't feel that there's any reason for anybody to think that JFK was going to pull out of Vietnam, or that history would have played out any differently in terms of Vietnam had JFK lived then, I think you're asking a really intelligent and important question here, which is, does that even matter? Visa V his. Assassination, because it does throw some sand in the question, right? Because then we start to get into this debate of, was Kennedy, or was Kennedy not planning to avoid the entire Vietnam War? And then we start debating these policy issues, and we start looking at the memorandums, and it's a little bit like, well, maybe in that case, we're focusing so myopically on one particular topic that we're not focusing on any of the other topics that might be even more important, just as it relates to his murder. 

Yeah, no, I think so, because there's so many policies that changed and, you know, and I absolutely think that he was pulling out of Vietnam and and I think Vietnam was horrific, you know, the ramifications of it, just, it's a horrific, horrific war. But I think, you know, you do have to ask the question is, like, are we having the right conversations about the assassination? Should we be talking about all these other policies that you know he was involved in? And that's why, in my first chapter, I tried to put in, you know, a Cui bono, like, all the interest that benefited from his assassination. And when you think about it, or when you look at it, it's really staggering. It's staggering the amount of interests and the varied interests that benefited from from his death. And it also, it just also, you know, it makes you realize how much we lost, you know, like that, so much could change after one man's death that he could have so much impact on this world. Granted, he was president of the United States, but still, the impact he had on this world was tremendous in so many different areas. 

Yes, yes. And in a previous episode that we recorded, we discussed your book, America's last president. We talked about JFK speeches and his policies. How was it writing about his death? Like, how did this impact you emotionally and intellectually? Like, you have this book that's about his policies, about his speeches, about his life, and then now you're writing about his murder. How did that impact you?

Oh, it's horrible. I didn't enjoy it at all. I I don't enjoy, like, crime stories in general, but especially studying the, you know, the murder of someone that I greatly admire. I found that very difficult because I the first book, I was so inspired. I wrote it a lot faster. I was, like, up late every night. I was just so inspired writing the first book, because I was so inspired by JFK and who he was and what he stood for, and his policies, you know, his intelligence, his wit, his like, depth, all of it. I was incredibly inspired writing the first book, but this was just really written out of duty. More than anything, it was just more like, I don't know, it's like, sometimes you feel like you have to do something and you just do it. It's like, the best way I can explain it. But, you know, it wasn't that pleasant. I had to take a break from it, you know, I think, you know, I started writing it even before I wrote my Michael Jackson book, and I had to kind of step away from it, because it was not pleasant writing it. I mean, nobody wants to think daily about the death of someone they admire. It's just, you know, and I understand how, like, family members don't want to investigate the crime and whatnot, because it's, it's very unpleasant, you know, it's like, I'd rather my mind be focused on JFK and the things he stood for, then my mind be focused on all the interests that you know, that were different from his, that were potentially involved in assassination, and all these sort of characters that planned and worked, you know, to get rid of him like it's just not anything that's pleasant to think about. But I think we have to force ourselves to think about these things and to have their converse, these conversations, no matter how uncomfortable they are or how unpleasant they are, because at the end of the day, you know, things will not improve if we're not willing to look at the dark side like I love being in the light, but you can't stay in The light or that light isn't genuine if you're not willing to look at the dark at the same time. If that kind of makes sense, yes.

Yes, it does. It does. How do you respond to critics who say that looking into JFK death is just some kind of weird exercise in the nostalgia or obsession. You know, with the release of the JFK files, we've heard a number of critics say there's nothing new. There's no smoking gun. His assassination was more than 60 years ago. Let it go. It won't bring him back. What do you say to such things? 

I think people who make those claims have no understanding whatsoever of JFK's presidency is kind of how I take it, you know, because he was promoting peace around the world, you know, he was supporting third world nationalism. He was trying to bring, bring the world out of poverty. He was trying to, you know, create a really robust production based economy in the United States. Or. Um, you know, if you look at just the Middle East, and you look at what's happening in Gaza now, and you look at, you know, there's talk of war with Iran, because Iran might have nukes. Well, I don't have no idea if Iran is trying to get nukes or not, but if they are, it's probably because Israel has nukes, which they wouldn't have if JFK had not been assassinated. So it's just between the Middle East wars, between the trillions and that that's been used to fund all these crazy wars the last 60 years. You know, between our economy, our sort of wealth gap, between the border crisis and the border crisis is there because we treat other countries like crap. Basically, we exploit them, and that's why they're trying to come here for some a better life, and we didn't exploit them. If we helped them, like JFK tried through things like the Alliance for Progress, there would be no border crisis. And so I just feel like when people say it doesn't matter, it's because they don't understand his policies. They don't know anything about his presidency. And you know, you can go down a long list of policies and say, you know, this would be very different if he had lived and you know, they kind of go back to the Israel nuclear issue. I mean, that could have impact for millennia, like, you know that could, because once the country has nukes, like you're not going to take those nukes away. Do you know what I mean? But I think if he had stopped it, I'm not sure they would have ever gotten nukes, because, you know, there's a lot of sort of question marks about where they got their materials from, and things like that, and all of that would have been uncovered, you know, had he done his inspections that he was trying to get. So I just think, especially in the Middle East, the last 60 years would have been completely different. And perhaps the next several 100 years would would have been completely different, if not the next 1000 years. And so I think people really, really have to think about the long term ramifications of all these policy changes. And just how, you know how powerful the national security state in the US is, it's just, I don't know, there's no sort of checks and balances at all. You know, we live in a very different world than than the world JFK envisioned.

Yes, we do. Sadly, that's that's nothing to feel good about. Because, yeah, when we and I'm thinking now also, if what Sergei Khrushchev said, Nikita Khrushchev's son, that there was going to be this cooperation between the US and the USSR, and that had Kennedy lived, we would be living in a different world. And it's like, you know, when the son of your apparent opposition has that to say about you that really speaks volumes, just in and of itself.

Oh, absolutely, because the cold war might have ended in the early 1960s you know, and then you would have just had with, you know, with the cold war ending, you would have less need to spend on military now, JFK was a big military spender, but it was because he wanted to have military strength as negotiating power, you know, because he felt Like he couldn't negotiate things like the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, if he wasn't big on defense spending, like he would have just never gotten that through Congress, and so he viewed it as sort of a way of negotiating to ultimately pursue some sort of disarmament. And so who knows, maybe we would have had nuclear disarmament. Maybe we would have been able to spend that money on Americans, instead of on all this tension with the Soviet Union, which is not good for America or or, you know, the citizens of the Soviet Union, it's not good for anybody.

Exactly, yes. If somebody is hearing this episode, this is resonating for them and they want to find a copy of Echoes of a Lost America, where can they go to pick up the book?

So it's on Amazon, thriftbooks, Barnes and Noble, all the usual outlets. And there will be an audiobook that will be out probably in the next week or so. And so it's in all the formats, paperback, hardback, ebook, and shortly, in audio.

Awesome. Well, I know that you're busy, and I definitely know what it takes to do a book launch, and it is an exhausting experience. It is not a sprint, it is a marathon, but it still sometimes feels like a marathon full of sprints. I really appreciate you taking time out of out of your busyness, to come here and talk with us about the book. As always, it's been a great pleasure.

Thank you for having me back on.

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