James W. Douglass

Martyrs to the Unspeakable: The Assassinations of JFK, Malcolm, Martin, and RFK

Here at last is the long-awaited sequel to James Douglass's bestselling work, JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters. That book, unlike most books that posit a conspiracy in JFK's assassination, focuses less on "who dunnit" as on "why they dunnit." Douglas's answer was to trace the steps by which JFK moved from being a traditional Cold Warrior to a prophetic commitment to peace, willing to risk his own life in order to avoid nuclear war. In particular JFK's partnership in pursuit of peace with ostensible adversary, Nikita Khrushchev, caused him to be regarded as a traitor by elements of the military-industrial-intelligence complex who deployed the mechanisms of the National Security State--which had previously targeted foreign "threats"--to neutralize the President of the United States. This new volume necessarily returns to the story of JFK, and demonstrates how the same story was enacted again and again in the deaths of his brother, Bobby Kennedy, as well as the killings of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr. In each case, American figures who made a prophetic commitment to peace and social transformation were regarded as enemies of the state who had to be eliminated. Douglass believes that this hidden history holds a key to recovering and advancing their mission, and setting our country and the world on a path to peace.