The Virtual JFK DVD is now available For more information on the film companion to the book, visit http: //www.virtualjfk.com/ It Matters Who Is President--Then and Now At the heart of this provocative book lies the fundamental question: Does it matter who is president on issues of war and peace? The Vietnam War was one of the most catastrophic and bloody in living memory, and its lessons take on resonance in light of America's current devastating involvement in Iraq. Tackling head-on the most controversial and debated "what if" in U.S. foreign policy, this unique work explores what President John F. Kennedy would have done in Vietnam if he had not been assassinated in 1963. Drawing on a wealth of recently declassified documents, frank oral testimony of White House officials from both the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, and the analysis of top historians, this book presents compelling evidence that JFK was ready to end U.S. involvement well before the conflict escalated. With vivid immediacy, readers will feel they are in the president's war room as the debates raged that forever changed the course of American history--and continue to affect us profoundly today as the shadows of Vietnam stretch into Iraq.

The Virtual JFK DVD is now available! For more information on the film companion to the book, visit http://www.virtualjfk.com/ It Matters Who Is President—Then and Now At the heart of this provocative book lies the fundamental question: Does it matter who is president on issues of war and peace? The Vietnam War was one of the most catastrophic and bloody in living memory, and its lessons take on resonance in light of America's current devastating involvement in Iraq. Tackling head-on the most controversial and debated "what if" in U.S. foreign policy, this unique work explores what President John F. Kennedy would have done in Vietnam if he had not been assassinated in 1963. Drawing on a wealth of recently declassified documents, frank oral testimony of White House officials from both the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, and the analysis of top historians, this book presents compelling evidence that JFK was ready to end U.S. involvement well before the conflict escalated. With vivid immediacy, readers will feel they are in the president's war room as the debates raged that forever changed the course of American history—and continue to affect us profoundly today as the shadows of Vietnam stretch into Iraq.

In this updated and revised edition, James DiEugenio dissects the new Oscar-nominated film, The Post, and how it disingenuously represents the Pentagon Papers saga, to the detriment of the true heroes of the operation. The story of the film stems from the failed attempt of Academy Award–winning actor Tom Hanks and producer Gary Goetzman to make Vincent Bugliosi’s mammoth book about the Kennedy assassination, Reclaiming History, into a miniseries. He exposes the questionable origins of Reclaiming History in a dubious mock trial for cable television, in which Bugliosi played the role of an attorney prosecuting Lee Harvey Oswald for murder, and how this formed the basis for the epic tome. JFK: The Evidence Today lists the myriad problems with Bugliosi’s book and explores the cooperation of the mainstream press in concealing many facts during the publicity campaign for the book and how this lack of scrutiny led Hanks and Goetzman—cofounders of the production company Playtone—to purchase the film rights. DiEugenio then shows how the failed film adapted from that book, entitled Parkland, does not resemble Bugliosi’s book and examines why. This book reveals the connections between Washington and Hollywood, as well as the CIA influence in the film community today. It includes an extended look at the little-known aspects of the lives and careers of Bugliosi, Hanks, and Goetzman. JFK: The Evidence Today sheds light on the Kennedy assassination, New Hollywood, and political influence on media in America.

This book traces the events of Kennedy’s assassination and Lyndon B. Johnson’s subsequent ascension to the presidency. Covering both the political shifts of the time and the cultural fallout of the national tragedy, this book introduces both an iconic event and the context in which that event was heralded as iconic. Drawing on newspaper articles, political speeches, letters, and diaries, the author critically re-examines the event of JFK’s death and its persistent political and cultural legacy.

A major revision of our understanding of JFK’s commitment to Vietnam, revealing that his administration’s plan to withdraw was a political device, the effect of which was to manage public opinion while preserving US military assistance. In October 1963, the White House publicly proposed the removal of US troops from Vietnam, earning President Kennedy an enduring reputation as a skeptic on the war. In fact, Kennedy was ambivalent about withdrawal and was largely detached from its planning. Drawing on secret presidential tapes, Marc J. Selverstone reveals that the withdrawal statement gave Kennedy political cover, allowing him to sustain support for US military assistance. Its details were the handiwork of Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, whose ownership of the plan distanced it from the president. Selverstone’s use of the presidential tapes, alongside declassified documents, memoirs, and oral histories, lifts the veil on this legend of Camelot. Withdrawal planning was never just about Vietnam as it evolved over the course of fifteen months. For McNamara, it injected greater discipline into the US assistance program. For others, it was a form of leverage over South Vietnam. For the military, it was largely an unwelcome exercise. And for JFK, it allowed him to preserve the US commitment while ostensibly limiting it. The Kennedy Withdrawal offers an inside look at presidential decisionmaking in this liminal period of the Vietnam War and makes clear that portrayals of Kennedy as a dove are overdrawn. His proposed withdrawal was in fact a cagey strategy for keeping the United States involved in the fight—a strategy the country adopted decades later in Afghanistan.

Based on Oliver Stone's documentary, JFK Revisited, read the transcripts and interviews that will change the way you think about the John F. Kennedy assassination. JFK Revisited: Through the Looking Glass contains the two working original screenplays for Oliver Stone’s JFK Revisited; both the two-hour version, Through the Looking Glass, and the four-hour version, Destiny Betrayed. These films are the first documentaries to feature the work of the Assassination Records Review Board. The Assassination Records Review Board worked from 1994–98 releasing records that the government has classified in whole or in part on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. They ended up releasing about two million pages or approximately sixty thousand documents. They also pursued an investigation into the autopsy and medical evidence in the JFK case. Although their releases and discoveries were quite important to the evidentiary record, they received very little exposure in the mainstream media. They also released documents relating to Kennedy’s foreign policy in both Cuba and Vietnam. In the former case, these were plans by the Pentagon to create a pretext to invade Cuba. In the latter, documents proved Kennedy was implementing a withdrawal plan from Vietnam. This book is unprecedented. It contains a compendium of information originating from the widest range of authorities on the JFK case ever assembled. This includes luminaries from several fields: pathology, surgery, ballistics, criminal investigation, neurology, history, and journalism. Never before have people like forensic pathologist Cyril Wecht, criminalist Henry Lee, Professor James Galbraith, author David Talbot, journalist Jefferson Morley, intelligence analyst John Newman, Professor Robert Rakove, and more appeared in one book; never have this many illustrious authorities been interviewed about their views on the policies and the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. The book also includes important witness interviews with Dr. Donald Miller about his colleague Malcolm Perry, Jim Gochenaur of the Church Committee, and Edwin McGehee of both the House Select Committee on Assassinations and the Jim Garrison investigation. The combination of this newly released information plus expert interviews changed the database and calculus of the JFK case. The scripts are included in this book, which were the backbone for Oliver Stone's films. It also includes important excerpts from the many interviews which did not make it into the final cuts of the films. JFK Revisited will challenge everything you thought you know about the JFK assassination.

As a young White House correspondent during the Kennedy and Johnson years in Washington, D.C., Godfrey Hodgson had a ringside seat covering the last two great presidents of the United States, John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson, two men who could not have been more different. Kennedy’s wit and dashing style, his renown as a national war hero, and his Ivy League Boston Brahmin background stood in sharp contrast to Lyndon Johnson’s rural, humble origins in Texas, his blunt, forceful (but effective) political style, his lackluster career in the navy, and his grassroots populist instincts. Hodgson, a sharp-eyed witness throughout the tenure of these two great men, now offers us a new perspective enriched by his reflections since that time a half-century ago. He offers us a fresh, dispassionate contrast of these two great men by stripping away the myths to assess their achievements, ultimately asking whether Johnson has been misjudged. He suggests that LBJ be given his due by history, arguing that he was as great a president as, perhaps even greater than, JFK. The seed that grew into this book was the author’s early perception that JFK’s performance in office was largely overrated while LBJ’s was consistently underrated. Hodgson asks key questions: If Kennedy had lived, would he have matched Johnson’s ambitious Great Society achievements? Would he have avoided Johnson’s disastrous commitment in Vietnam? Would Nixon have been elected his successor, and if not, how would American politics and parties look today? Hodgson combines lively anecdotes with sober analyses to arrive at new conclusions about the U.S. presidency and two of the most charismatic figures ever to govern from the Oval Office.