Open Letter to Chris Matthews and Tom Brokaw
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To Chris Matthews and Tom Brokaw:
For years I have followed both of your careers and have respected your work. Tom Brokaw is a classic “old school” journalist, and Chris Matthews can peel the skin off an unprepared or lying guest on his show “Hardball”.
That said, you really let your viewers down on your November 22nd MSNBC television appearance, the 50th anniversary of the Kennedy assassination. Dating back to the Boston Marathon Bombing, Mr. Matthews was digging for involvement of a right-wing group to be responsible – and drew a parallel to Lee Harvey Oswald as being a Communist. Both Brokaw and Matthews continued that easily disproved claim on the November 22nd show. Mr. Brokaw further added to the misinformation by stating to the viewers that Kennedy was a cold war hawk. Matthews appeared to moderate that position by adding that two Kennedy advisors suggested he would have pulled out of Vietnam, but “only after his re-election”. Well, of course Kennedy would have had to wait until he was re-elected. He was facing huge cold war pressure from his military, including first-strike scenarios against the Soviet Union.
Unfortunately, Matthews and Brokaw are using 30 year-old talking points that simply do not hold up to people familiar with information released since the Assassination Records Review Board was created in 1992.
Here’s the link.
Look, we realize you guys have to stick to your corporate media feel-good nonsense about how the crime was solved and Oswald was the lone killer. But there is really too much information out there for the rest of us to believe that swill. Mr. Matthews, I even saw an interview with your mentor Tip O’Neill who said he did not believe the conclusion of the Warren Report.
If I could recommend one, just one good book that will explain Kennedy, the cold war, and the CIA’s manipulation of Oswald for you, please look at this:
“JFK and The Unspeakable: Why He Died And Why It Matters”, by James W. Douglass.
If you will take the time to read this book, you will clearly understand Kennedy’s détente with Khrushchev and Castro, and his clear intentions to pull out of Vietnam and de-escalate the cold war. That was obviously the motive for the assassination, as well as other factors that are explained in the above mentioned book.
Perhaps you would then do your viewers a favor, and interview the author, James W. Douglass.
Thank you both for taking the time to consider this.
