Steamshovel Press Review
CD-ROM: The Collected Works of Col. L. Fletcher Prouty
The Collected Works of Col. Fletcher Prouty
With the right hardware and web browser, readers can spend hours
exploring the depths of L. Fletcher Prouty's research on and
first-hand experience with the JFK assassination and the
politics of conspiracy that have followed it for the past
thirty years.
Prouty served for nearly a decade in the
Pentagon and twice that in military service with the Joints
Chiefs of Staff, the Secretary of Defense and the U. S. Air Force.
Donald Sutherland played Prouty in a much abbreviated
version of his relationship with Jim Garrison in
Oliver Stone's JFK movie. His work detailing his view of secret
government has come under fire because it has been published and
reprinted by everything from the Liberty Lobby to the Scientologists.
It has never been substantially refuted for its content.
At long last an enormous amount of that writing, some of it
quote obscured by its publication in alternative sources,
has it has been collected here through the laudable efforts of
Len Osanic. That includes the complete texts of Col. Prouty's
most well-known books, The Secret Team and JFK: Vietnam, the
CIA and the Assassination of President Kennedy, with new
introductions, a thorough review of the pre-emptive media
backlash against Stone's movie, and over six hours of audio
and video interviews.
Prouty's view of the power elite is
shaped by no less a figure than R. Buckminster Fuller, while
at the same time his no-nonsense analysis, particularly on POW/MIAs
fallout of Vietnam, will appeal even to strident patriot readers.
One example from the CD-ROM's selection of articles:
"[Robert] McNamara and his closest aides were able to take over
such key crafts as the iron-bound procurement processes of the
military. For more than a year a new fighter plane had been
a number #1 requirement of the Air Force. Its primary sponsor
was Gen. Frank Everest. At the close of the Eisenhower budget
period, carefully executed plans had reserved money in the 1961
budget, for Nixon, that would make more than $3 or $4 billion
available for its procurement from the pre-ordained manufacturer,
the Boeing Company. Nixon lost, and even after the election of
Kennedy and the early arrival of McNamara, it was considered a
foregone conclusion that this "Everest" fighter-plane purchase
would go through, as planned. We all had much to learn.
It was Nov. 22, 1962, before the McNamara procurement system had
run its politically oriented course, with the Secretary of Labor
Arthur Goldberg's clever assistance. We learned that the "largest
single military procurement program ever" for the TFX or F-111
aircraft, by then a joint Air Force-Navy project based on the
concept of "commonalty", and for no less than $6.5 billion,
had been awarded, by McNamara... not to Boeing, but to General
Dynamics-Grumman.
The shock waves in the Pentagon were about the equal of an H-bomb
test in the megaton range. McNamara had made his mark, precisely
one year before Kennedy died.
To those in the Pentagon, those on Capitol Hill and to others all
over the country allied with the Boeing scheme of things,
who had planned to help Nixon and his old team spend that $6.5
billion this was an unforgivable blow. One thing those of us in
the neutral ranks noted clearly was that the Kennedy "Honeymoon"
had ended. "Kennedy" was a dirty word... and this was only 1962."
This same set of circumstances was recently reported by Seymor
Hersh as fallout from blackmail efforts against JFK. (See "Previous
Latest Words: JFK on THX.") That's a small sample from an extremely
well-done--virtually no technical glitches--and valuable addition to
the research library.
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