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iacobus's review against another edition
1.0
Based on the title, it sounded like a potentially interesting history of the CIA during the early Cold War period (say, 1945-1960-ish). Oh how I was disappointed. Long story short: this book makes the show Ancient Aliens look like respectable.
The book is really a biased take down of Allen Dulles (who was by no means a overly "moral" man) motivated by Talbot's idealization of JFK. The book then shifts into JFK assassination theorizing and somehow becomes even more absurd.
Talbot is unable to shed an almost pathological hate of Allen Dulles. Allen Dulles was in all likelihood a cold, calculating man, a bad father, a worse husband and probably did a lot of distasteful things while he was in the CIA. That is undoubtedly true. All the same, when dealing with Dulles, we must not let our knowledge of him being, well, Allen Dulles cloud our judgement. Early in the book, Talbot discusses Dulles' work with firms in Nazi Germany as a lawyer for a US firm which is clearly support of a view of Dulles as a cold, at least passively anti-semite with no interest in the gross human rights violations in things like the Nuremberg Laws. These views continued throughout the war without change. However, this doesn't seem to be backed up by reality - Dulles returned from Germany in 1935 with disgust for the laws regarding the German Jews and wished to cease business with Nazi firms (and ultimately closed the Berlin branch of the firm). This dislike of Dulles, the enemy of Talbot's hero, leads Talbot to give credence to basically every nut job conspiracy theory he comes across, so long as it makes Dulles (or Ike or Nixon or the "power elite"/"deep state") look bad. It is telling you something when the Wikipedia articles for the relevant events/people do not mention CIA involvement.
Pervasive throughout the book was a lack of context or nuance. Starting with Dulles' actions in WWII. Dulles, and the Allied Forces more generally, were striving to win the war - stopping the genocide in Europe of the Jews and other "undesirables" was not actually important to winning the war. So of course Dulles' messages back to Washington and elsewhere don't stress the reports of the genocide coming across his desk. Talbot spins this as proof of Dulles' passive antisemitism that becomes more active at times. However, this is at best an unfair assessment of Dulles' war time activities. Likewise, Dulles was a supporter of putting (even some high ranking) Nazis in power of West Germany after the war. Given that basically anyone who could do something was more-or-less forced into being a Nazi during the war, and that West Germany could not become a failed state, this was a practical and sensible (and fairly common) view. Talbot presents it as a moral failing of Dulles and labels him a Nazi sympathizer. This lack of context or understanding continues until the final pages (e.g., Dulles and his cohorts basically invented the Cold War, the Soviet Union wasn't really a threat to the US - Dulles and his friends just made them seem that way, there was no Soviet espionage threat to the US, etc).
Talbot's approach to his sources is similar lacking in nuance or skepticism. He claims that the CIA took part in an attempt on Charles de Gaulle based on a few off-hand "what if's" or claims in alternative media at the time. There is no evidence to support these claims but you wouldn't know that based on Talbot's telling. In another section, he describes how Dulles and the CIA loaned money to a former Nazi. In the CIA records, the amount is relatively small; however, the Soviet media reported it as being much larger. The potential pitfalls of using Soviet media sources about the West is ever addressed.
Additionally, besides the sources that are from biased outlets to start with (e.g., leftist publications in the US and Europe, Soviet media), Talbot relies a lot on non-primary source and non-contemporaneous sources. Statements made years after the fact, especially by possibly drunk, possibly senile, often ill sources (such as the claims about the CIA counter-intel chief not testing Dulles) about someone who is dead is suspect at best. Talbot suffers from an extreme case of confirmation bias in these regards.
These problems get amplified by time the book approaches the JFK years and especially the JFK assassination. Instead of discussing that Oswald was certified as a Sharpshooter one of his years in the USMC and a Marksman (the standard qualification for a Marine), Talbot prefers to cite sources from Soviet coworkers of Oswald who state he was a poor shot. This is despite the fact that the USMC shooting scores are known, recorded and standardized - and also not collected after the shooting. The risk of bias affecting prospectively collected evidence is much lower. But that doesn't fit with Talbot's approach to the shooting where Oswald is, at worst, one of several shooters.
Talbot also cites, without any real qualification, the Hunt "death bed confession" and expresses surprise that it didn't get more attention. This is despite the fact that most people don't think Hunt was really "in control" during those days and was lead on by his son or a desire to leave a windfall of money for his family. These claims support Talbot's views and therefore must be accepted.
The Warren Commission comes under intense criticism for including Dulles as a member. Talbot asserts that the Commission was mislead and was a cover-up for the killing. However, Talbot fails to address that Dulles-free House Select Committee on Assassinations more-or-less came to the same conclusion as the Warren Commission. In fact, after excluding the now known to be unreliable analysis of the dictabelt recording, the House Select Committee came to the exact same conclusion as the Warren Commission.
Indeed, in dealing with Dulles' inclusion on the Warren Commission, Talbot highlights his own problems with confirmation bias. According to LBJ, RFK suggested Dulles be on the Warren Commission panel. However, Talbot points out that LBJ made this statement years after the death of RFK, who, being dead, could not dispute it and thus we cannot trust this statement's veracity. Yet, many of Talbot's sources suffer from this same problem and he never is concerned then.
After reading Vincent Bugliosi's Reclaiming History, I find that I'm much less willing to entertain theories about JFK's death as they are so easily falsified. However, even before reading Reclaiming History, I think that I would have been rolling my eyes as frequently while reading Talbot's version of events.
On a final note, unrelated to the quality of the scholarship, the book is bloated far beyond any reasonable size. The writing is overly verbose and was in need of serious reduction by an editor. The content (do I really need the detailed life history of every single minor player mentioned in the book?) needed to also be restricted. The book could be shortened by at least half without lose of information. And if you wanted to restrict it to only "probably" true things, maybe 10 pages.
Skip this book entirely, unless you can believe claims that have no more evidence supporting them than those that appear on shows like Ancient Aliens.
The book is really a biased take down of Allen Dulles (who was by no means a overly "moral" man) motivated by Talbot's idealization of JFK. The book then shifts into JFK assassination theorizing and somehow becomes even more absurd.
Talbot is unable to shed an almost pathological hate of Allen Dulles. Allen Dulles was in all likelihood a cold, calculating man, a bad father, a worse husband and probably did a lot of distasteful things while he was in the CIA. That is undoubtedly true. All the same, when dealing with Dulles, we must not let our knowledge of him being, well, Allen Dulles cloud our judgement. Early in the book, Talbot discusses Dulles' work with firms in Nazi Germany as a lawyer for a US firm which is clearly support of a view of Dulles as a cold, at least passively anti-semite with no interest in the gross human rights violations in things like the Nuremberg Laws. These views continued throughout the war without change. However, this doesn't seem to be backed up by reality - Dulles returned from Germany in 1935 with disgust for the laws regarding the German Jews and wished to cease business with Nazi firms (and ultimately closed the Berlin branch of the firm). This dislike of Dulles, the enemy of Talbot's hero, leads Talbot to give credence to basically every nut job conspiracy theory he comes across, so long as it makes Dulles (or Ike or Nixon or the "power elite"/"deep state") look bad. It is telling you something when the Wikipedia articles for the relevant events/people do not mention CIA involvement.
Pervasive throughout the book was a lack of context or nuance. Starting with Dulles' actions in WWII. Dulles, and the Allied Forces more generally, were striving to win the war - stopping the genocide in Europe of the Jews and other "undesirables" was not actually important to winning the war. So of course Dulles' messages back to Washington and elsewhere don't stress the reports of the genocide coming across his desk. Talbot spins this as proof of Dulles' passive antisemitism that becomes more active at times. However, this is at best an unfair assessment of Dulles' war time activities. Likewise, Dulles was a supporter of putting (even some high ranking) Nazis in power of West Germany after the war. Given that basically anyone who could do something was more-or-less forced into being a Nazi during the war, and that West Germany could not become a failed state, this was a practical and sensible (and fairly common) view. Talbot presents it as a moral failing of Dulles and labels him a Nazi sympathizer. This lack of context or understanding continues until the final pages (e.g., Dulles and his cohorts basically invented the Cold War, the Soviet Union wasn't really a threat to the US - Dulles and his friends just made them seem that way, there was no Soviet espionage threat to the US, etc).
Talbot's approach to his sources is similar lacking in nuance or skepticism. He claims that the CIA took part in an attempt on Charles de Gaulle based on a few off-hand "what if's" or claims in alternative media at the time. There is no evidence to support these claims but you wouldn't know that based on Talbot's telling. In another section, he describes how Dulles and the CIA loaned money to a former Nazi. In the CIA records, the amount is relatively small; however, the Soviet media reported it as being much larger. The potential pitfalls of using Soviet media sources about the West is ever addressed.
Additionally, besides the sources that are from biased outlets to start with (e.g., leftist publications in the US and Europe, Soviet media), Talbot relies a lot on non-primary source and non-contemporaneous sources. Statements made years after the fact, especially by possibly drunk, possibly senile, often ill sources (such as the claims about the CIA counter-intel chief not testing Dulles) about someone who is dead is suspect at best. Talbot suffers from an extreme case of confirmation bias in these regards.
These problems get amplified by time the book approaches the JFK years and especially the JFK assassination. Instead of discussing that Oswald was certified as a Sharpshooter one of his years in the USMC and a Marksman (the standard qualification for a Marine), Talbot prefers to cite sources from Soviet coworkers of Oswald who state he was a poor shot. This is despite the fact that the USMC shooting scores are known, recorded and standardized - and also not collected after the shooting. The risk of bias affecting prospectively collected evidence is much lower. But that doesn't fit with Talbot's approach to the shooting where Oswald is, at worst, one of several shooters.
Talbot also cites, without any real qualification, the Hunt "death bed confession" and expresses surprise that it didn't get more attention. This is despite the fact that most people don't think Hunt was really "in control" during those days and was lead on by his son or a desire to leave a windfall of money for his family. These claims support Talbot's views and therefore must be accepted.
The Warren Commission comes under intense criticism for including Dulles as a member. Talbot asserts that the Commission was mislead and was a cover-up for the killing. However, Talbot fails to address that Dulles-free House Select Committee on Assassinations more-or-less came to the same conclusion as the Warren Commission. In fact, after excluding the now known to be unreliable analysis of the dictabelt recording, the House Select Committee came to the exact same conclusion as the Warren Commission.
Indeed, in dealing with Dulles' inclusion on the Warren Commission, Talbot highlights his own problems with confirmation bias. According to LBJ, RFK suggested Dulles be on the Warren Commission panel. However, Talbot points out that LBJ made this statement years after the death of RFK, who, being dead, could not dispute it and thus we cannot trust this statement's veracity. Yet, many of Talbot's sources suffer from this same problem and he never is concerned then.
After reading Vincent Bugliosi's Reclaiming History, I find that I'm much less willing to entertain theories about JFK's death as they are so easily falsified. However, even before reading Reclaiming History, I think that I would have been rolling my eyes as frequently while reading Talbot's version of events.
On a final note, unrelated to the quality of the scholarship, the book is bloated far beyond any reasonable size. The writing is overly verbose and was in need of serious reduction by an editor. The content (do I really need the detailed life history of every single minor player mentioned in the book?) needed to also be restricted. The book could be shortened by at least half without lose of information. And if you wanted to restrict it to only "probably" true things, maybe 10 pages.
Skip this book entirely, unless you can believe claims that have no more evidence supporting them than those that appear on shows like Ancient Aliens.
zezozose_zadfrack_glutz's review against another edition
5.0
Honestly this is the most in-depth biography I've ever read. I didn't even want to know what a horrible father Allen Dulles was, yet here I am. Just a great read and so vividly portrays what kind of gobshites were running the show in postwar America.
bennyandthejets420's review against another edition
3.0
There are a couple ways to take this book and the general idea of the idea that the CIA killed Kennedy.
1) Completely reject it. The arguments here are familiar and generally run the gamut from "someone would have said something" (which Talbot spends a paragraph on) to "the CIA can't even do X do you think they could assassinate Kennedy?" Talbot doesn't spend much time trying to convince you. He assumes that if you're here, you're at least open to the idea of learning more about the subject. As such, Talbot's hand here is one of arrangement. He presents motives, players, histories, and associations in a measured, careful way and leaves you to draw your own conclusions, a rhetorical approach I found a bit underwhelming. He doesn't really address any embedded criticisms nor does he outline any orienting approaches to the subject. In fact, there's not a whole lot to answer the idea of "why you should care." He frames his book as "the facts that are." This leads to the second approach.
2) Accept it, but don't really do anything about it. Honestly, what can you do? If one spends any time reading stuff like Thomas Pynchon or watching any of the movies from the post Watergate or really just grappling with the enormity of the idea that a rogue branch of the US government, employing thousands of people with an overhead of millions if not billions of dollars, assassinated a sitting president, one gets the impression that it's hopeless. I am reminded of the real truth of a movie like Chinatown, which basically comes down to "there's nothing you can do to stop the cycle of exploitation, violence, and abuse. If you do try to fight it, you'll just end up hurting someone you love and the cycle will continue unabated." So, you just kind of accept it and move on. If you spend any time engaging with serious Kennedy researchers or serious researchers regarding deep state, or deep politics, it is this conclusion that they are most afraid of. That people accept the truth of what happened and just decide to ignore it. Their alternative is that real truth about the CIA's involvement in American life and the ability they have to move unsupervised would lead to a kind of political uprising, much like the opinion of some close followers of the murder of Jeffrey Epstein. But no such political uprising appears to be on the way. This leads to the third approach.
3) Become a Kennedy investigator yourself. This is the approach Talbot clearly favors. One of the rare bits of overt editorializing (rather than implicit, like his choice of sources and presentation) occurs on page 494 when Talbot is describing the lead up to Kennedy's assassination in Dallas. Worth quoting in full:
This is the closest Talbot gets to showing his full hand, which is namely: that the American press establishment pales in comparison to valiant independent researchers and that you, yes you Reader, should do the same. In this he does get something completely right, that the press establishment is unextractably embroiled in corporate interests and so cannot be relied upon for the Truth in these cases. But this approach also suggests, that while there may be no smoking gun to this whole thing, one can arrive at a sort of truth by practice, one can rifle through sources, draw connections, disprove official statements enough that the truth becomes manifest through habit. If you watch the Oliver Stone documentary that came out recently (either 2 or 4 hour version, the four version goes into detail on evidence contradictory to the Warren Commission which Talbot summarizes in, like, a single paragraph) that's the impression you come away with. These people believe in this truth through finding it out for themselves and by telling you about it. I find that kernel of knowledge to be rather fascinating. In the absence of a kind of revolutionary politics that stems from the mass reveal of destabilizing truth, the most we can hope for is a kind of individualized revolution of habits wherein people decide the truth for themselves.
1) Completely reject it. The arguments here are familiar and generally run the gamut from "someone would have said something" (which Talbot spends a paragraph on) to "the CIA can't even do X do you think they could assassinate Kennedy?" Talbot doesn't spend much time trying to convince you. He assumes that if you're here, you're at least open to the idea of learning more about the subject. As such, Talbot's hand here is one of arrangement. He presents motives, players, histories, and associations in a measured, careful way and leaves you to draw your own conclusions, a rhetorical approach I found a bit underwhelming. He doesn't really address any embedded criticisms nor does he outline any orienting approaches to the subject. In fact, there's not a whole lot to answer the idea of "why you should care." He frames his book as "the facts that are." This leads to the second approach.
2) Accept it, but don't really do anything about it. Honestly, what can you do? If one spends any time reading stuff like Thomas Pynchon or watching any of the movies from the post Watergate or really just grappling with the enormity of the idea that a rogue branch of the US government, employing thousands of people with an overhead of millions if not billions of dollars, assassinated a sitting president, one gets the impression that it's hopeless. I am reminded of the real truth of a movie like Chinatown, which basically comes down to "there's nothing you can do to stop the cycle of exploitation, violence, and abuse. If you do try to fight it, you'll just end up hurting someone you love and the cycle will continue unabated." So, you just kind of accept it and move on. If you spend any time engaging with serious Kennedy researchers or serious researchers regarding deep state, or deep politics, it is this conclusion that they are most afraid of. That people accept the truth of what happened and just decide to ignore it. Their alternative is that real truth about the CIA's involvement in American life and the ability they have to move unsupervised would lead to a kind of political uprising, much like the opinion of some close followers of the murder of Jeffrey Epstein. But no such political uprising appears to be on the way. This leads to the third approach.
3) Become a Kennedy investigator yourself. This is the approach Talbot clearly favors. One of the rare bits of overt editorializing (rather than implicit, like his choice of sources and presentation) occurs on page 494 when Talbot is describing the lead up to Kennedy's assassination in Dallas. Worth quoting in full:
Those resolute voices in American public life that continue to deny the existence of a conspiracy to kill President Kennedy argue that "someone would have talked." This line of reasoning is often used by journalists who have made no effort themselves to closely inspect the growing body of evidence and have not undertaken any of their own investigative reporting. The argument betrays a touchingly naive media bias--a belief that the American press establishment itself, that great slumbering watchdog, could be counted on to solve such a monumental crime, one that sprung from the very system of governance of which corporate media is an essential part. The official version of the Kennedy assasination--despite its myriad improbabilities, which have only grown more inconceivable over time--remains firmly embedded in the media consciousness as unquestioned as the law of gravity.
This is the closest Talbot gets to showing his full hand, which is namely: that the American press establishment pales in comparison to valiant independent researchers and that you, yes you Reader, should do the same. In this he does get something completely right, that the press establishment is unextractably embroiled in corporate interests and so cannot be relied upon for the Truth in these cases. But this approach also suggests, that while there may be no smoking gun to this whole thing, one can arrive at a sort of truth by practice, one can rifle through sources, draw connections, disprove official statements enough that the truth becomes manifest through habit. If you watch the Oliver Stone documentary that came out recently (either 2 or 4 hour version, the four version goes into detail on evidence contradictory to the Warren Commission which Talbot summarizes in, like, a single paragraph) that's the impression you come away with. These people believe in this truth through finding it out for themselves and by telling you about it. I find that kernel of knowledge to be rather fascinating. In the absence of a kind of revolutionary politics that stems from the mass reveal of destabilizing truth, the most we can hope for is a kind of individualized revolution of habits wherein people decide the truth for themselves.