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Critique of John McAdams
Subject: Col. L. Fletcher Prouty - A True Statesman and Historian I have borrowed an excerpt from Ted Sorenson's special counsel to the late President John F. Kennedy book entitled Kennedy (pg. 4): "Kennedy was not only a scholar of history but a severe judge of historical and biographical works. He was a Pulitzer Prize winner in biography in his own right and during his research on "Profiles in Courage" he expresses surprise at the paucity of good biographies. During his years as President he remarked more than once that history depends on who writes it." It is my humble opinion that only people like Col. Prouty who have particpated in and made their contributions to history have been stamped by "authenticity" to write about it. Others of us can only quote them. Col. Prouty has written an excellent historical book, JFK. He taught me through JFK what our government's true rationale was for creating and participating in the historical wars. What our true involvement was. And, it was through this that everything regarding this country's war making rationale became clear to me, making history for the first time in my life very clear. Very horrifying, but very clear. Now I can understand the reasons why JFK most certainly had to be silenced, by any means necessary. However, I am writing this email to express my deep concern over people who hide behind the right of "freedom of speech" to openly disrespect and attack the character and the message of a person of Col. Prouty's calibur. I am speaking in particular to the individual who calls himself "John McAdams" McAdams uses a someone by the name of David Fuhrmann to also help him in his attacks on the Colonel.. These types of journalists, writers, or just plain inept pranksters have no idea of the responsibility that the right of "freedom of speech" carries with it, like a certain sense of responsibility for the content and intent of their words; and so use it to cover all manner and types of biases, prejudices, and agendas. What this means to us as the reading public is that it places mores responsibility one the Reader to become more aware of the various different types of written material and to understand the category that a particular writer(s)' material may fall into. Let's take a brief look at these types of writer(s) and define the type of written material they may choose to publish. I like to think that a great percentage of writers today write to truly inform the reading public. When one writes to inform the reading public it leaves the reading public with the opportunity to think and reach certain conclusions on their own. The next type of writer you may see a lot of, especially, where our history and biographies are concerned. The misinformed writer. They write misinformed information. In this instance you must read and interpret what their intentions are regarding the subject matter and usually you will find that they did not intentionally mean to misinform, but were just not entirely factually accurate for whatever the reasons were (i.e. loyalty or dedication to a particular person or ideology, or they just plain did not do their homework). I like to think of the misinformed writer as just a misguided writer. They, too, got swayed by not being a responsible Reader first. Normally, if you are an astute and responsible (thinking) Reader you will pick up on their little pecadillos. Now, we come to the last three types of writers which I place in the sinister category because each type has a sinister purpose for their written subject matter. The first of these three is the disinformed writer. He just outright lies about the character and/or subject matter he is writing about. That's their freedom and irresponsibility of speech as they see it, interpret it and write it. Afterall, if you are not an astute Reader what difference does it make, if you do not know the difference. This writer's next of kin is the propagandist. This type of writer through insidious means tries to gain control over the Reader's thinking processes (i.e. like some signs posted in Dallas the day the President was assassinated that claimed the President of the United States, JFK, was wanted for treason). The idea of this type of writer is to destroy the credibility of others by attacking their knowledge and if that is not good enough, then why not go for the jugglar, the person's character. (i.e. under the section on Col. Prouty at the mcadams website we have mcadams giving the Reader the impression through an insinuation that the Colonel is a nazi or an anti-semite, but then states maybe not, it's just that the Colonel needs to be more mindful of those he knows). Why would a responsible writer ever bother to include that little tidbit of information if they were not trying to make some sort of inference. My, my what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive..... These two types of writers (the disinformed and the propagandist are two of the most dangerous types of writing styles to use. These types of writings will always contain character assassination techniques and a technique used by our last type of writer, the Revisonist. This type of writer can literally change the course of history by changing a few words here and there, just enough to change the context and the meaning of the subject matter. The responsible Reader will have to be extremely astute to pick up on this. For to discover this perpetrator the Reader will definitely have to do their homework (i.e. Case Closed by Gary Posner, The Warren Commission Report, etc.). Why have I written all of this? Because to identify trash you must first define what it is. I am John Q. Public. I want to make sure I am reading and being allowed to formulate my own thoughts and perceptions without someone using the "freedom of speech" to abuse them. I want concise and factual concepts to debate without being propagandized. I want the facts presented untainted by fiction and without insinuations. And, let me decide for myself what is the most accurate and fair portrayal of history. I would like to give you some idea of the mcadams website tactics as it relates to Col. Prouty. There is a section entitled: Actually Know About Motorcades which challenges the Colonel's knowledge regarding the protection requirements of a president. A Reader not knowing that this was one of the Colonel's responsibilities to understand those protection requirements would be taken in by the tactic that mcadams uses which is a former press secretary, James Haggerty, as the expert to test the Colonel expertise. And as mcadams claims a portion of Haggerty's statement is and I quote: "I have seen many motorcades....A rifle shot...from a window of a building is pretty hard to guard against." End quote. Well, what is that suppose to mean. Are we comparing "eyeballing" motorcades to legitimate procedures required when protecting the President; because the Colonel's discussion that mcadams used had nothing to do with how difficult or easy it was to protect a president. And, how does a former press secretary all of a sudden become an expert in the protection requirements of a president? My next example from this website and I only use it because again it show the insidious use of words to make certain material appear factual when it is not. The section was entitled: Proudyism #4 - Assassins Shooting Blanks: He uses information which he gives credit to some individual called Gary Nivagg who in some way is supposed to give credibility to the information. However, we are not told who this Gary Nivagg is, or what his credentials are. But mcadams used what he claimed to be this gentleman's information to dispute the Colonel's information that the President's assassins could have used the firing squad concept where one assassin is holding a blank, the others real ammo and because none of them know which one of them has the live ammo, if the assassin team were ever caught and questioned any one of them could truthfully say they did not kill the President. Mcadams felt that you could tell the difference in the recoiling mechanism of a gun fired with live ammo versus a gun firing blanks. My understanding of ammo in the form of pellets or as a missile head, to fire the cartridge it still must contain powder or some material to ignite and discharge the missile, and if that being the case the impact felt would be no different between the gun firing the live ammo and the gun firing the blank. My final comment has to do with the statement made on the mcadams website that had to do with the Colonel's comments regarding the novel, Report from Iron Mountain. With the Colonel's permission I'd like to take the excerpt directly from his book, JFK, Chapter 15, pg. 219 to address this issue. In it the Colonel writes as follows: "IN HIS NOVEL Report From Iron Mountain on the Possibility and Desirability of Peace, (it is here the Colonel places a footnote that I will quote after finishing this excerpt) Leonard Lewin writes: "War fills certain functions essential to the stability of our society," and adds, "War is virtually synonymous with nationhood. The elimination of war implies the inevitable elimination of national sovereignty and the traditional nation-state." Then in his next paragraph the Colonel writes: "Lewin has told me his book is a novel and that he had a serious message to deliver to the public." At this point I want to end the excerpt from Chapter 15 and pick up where the Colonel addresses the footnote that was earlier inserted. The footnote reads as follows: "1. Leonard C. Lewin, Report From Iron Mountain (New York: Dial Press, 1967), This book is not to be misunderstood. It is a novel; but its content is so close to the reality of those years that many readers insist that the "report" must be true. I have discussed this fully with the author. He assures me that the book is a novel and that he intended it to read that way in order to emphasize its serious content. End quote. No one should have to be a Harvard lawyer to understand what the Colonel's intent was when he introduced this material that it was to show the seriousness of the reasons why a few elitists in our society feel the need to continue war making, period end of story. In my opinion it was an excellent example to use. Obviously, by the response from people such as mcadams it must have hit a nerve......smiles. So, as a Reader today we have a considerable responsibility to ourselves to make sure we are thinking for ourselves and not just gaining our concepts only from what we are being told. I think the Colonel and I would agree on that because really when you look at his writings the underlying theme or message is to do just that, to take the facts and think for yourselves. And to all the mcadams out there I would just like to use this quote from Unknown to say, "Great minds discuss ideas; Average minds discuss events; Small minds discuss people. Sparrows |