Word: coup
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THIS MUCH, at least, is definitely true: In 1963, there was a coup d'etat brewing at the highest levels of the government of a superpower, involving both the number-two man in the succession hierarchy and the heads of the military-industrial complex, which feared the lessening of Cold War tensions if a reform agenda was allowed to go ahead. But the superpower was not the USA, and it was not LBJ out to get JFK; it was the Soviet Union, with Leonid Brezhnev preparing to depose Nikita Khrushchev. Coming soon to a theater near...
Instead, Stone leads us to believe that what happened on November 22, 1963 was nothing less than a "coup d'etat" by Lyndon Johnson and the military-industrial complex, who feared that John F. Kennedy '40 would wind down Vietnam and the Cold War and thus put them all out to pasture. This theory is based on nothing more than the say-so of a mysterious character who identifies himself only as "X" (George Kennan, maybe?) and claims to have been involved in running U.S. covert operations. At this point, we wind up, as Stone's protagonist, Jim Garrison, says...
Truly. Never mind the ballistics, watch the politics. For Stone's coup theory to work, there are a couple of historical premises that must be established. One, Kennedy really was going to wind down the Cold War and the war in Vietnam. Two, Johnson wrecked everything. Three it was all planned--so sayeth "X," who appears to be the unfortunately named L. Fletcher Prouty (what could the L. stand for that's worse than Fletcher?), a cranky aide to the Joint Chiefs of Staff...
...would have been a catastrophic mistake to provide large-scale assistance to the former Soviet Union under Mikhail Gorbachev. Dominated by communist hard-liners until the August 1991 coup, hostile to free elections and self- determination for the nations of the Soviet Union, and addicted to economic half measures, his government adopted reforms to strengthen the communist system, not to abandon it. With the final lowering of the red flag of the Soviet Union on Christmas Day, that situation changed decisively. The Soviet people finally achieved their deepest aspiration -- not reform under communism but reform without communism. Unfortunately, the West...
Much of that reluctance stems from those who overcommitted themselves to Gorbachev. Unlike Gorbachev, Yeltsin has met the conditions to qualify for aid. He led a genuine democratic revolution, winning the Russian presidency through free elections, standing heroically against the August coup, and supporting self-determination for the non-Russian nations. He has expressed a firm intention to resolve outstanding geopolitical issues in ways consistent with our interests. And with the freeing of most prices on Jan. 2, he has staked his political life on the rapid creation of a free-market economy in Russia...