JFK: A President Betrayed

This was one of the most significant documentary films I've ever seen, ever. I've always had so many questions regarding the life of JFK, some accurate, but much missing. This incredible piece of filmmaking brought to light aspects of this great man that have increased my respect and admiration of this great president to levels that before I could not have imagined. Only now do I fully realize and appreciate the degree of courage he had facing down the most brutal powers of the 1960's, a decade of decision that not only formed the basis for the absolutely necessity of negotiation if public and international affairs, but a quality seemingly lost in politicians of this generation. Had the Military Industrial Complex of today been in power in Kennedy's day, we would have inevitably gone to war, an atomic conflict that would have destroyed every civilized country on earth. This is JFK's legacy, one for the ages.

Fact is JFK was one of our most hawkish and militaristic presidents, certainly more so than Eisenhower before him or Johnson or Nixon after him. His own writings show this, including everything released to date. JFK wanted to ramp invade Cuba, ramped up Vietnam, put McNamara in place, and he certainly did not want to work with" Nikita Khrushchev.

This documentary, written and directed by Cory Taylor for Agora Productions, with narration by Morgan Freeman, is one that anyone with an interest in the presidency of John F. Kennedy or American history should see. It's nothing short of brilliant. With a declassified memorandum, top-flight experts commenting on the background of JFK's administration and the Cold War, and combined with memorable film clips, it makes a compelling argument that Kennedy's quest for world peace made him a target of enemies within our own government. Kennedy wanted to trust his gut and find ways to extend an olive branch to Russian premier Nikita Khrushchev, but received terrible advice from his hawkish colleagues. JFK: A President Betrayed will stand proudly among all other respectable and responsible journalism on the subject.

JFK is one of those people from near history that have attained an aura beyond their true standing. He was not betrayed, stabbed by the senate in the Roman sense or misled in any way by advisors. He was a glamour President, but President none the less, all events portrayed pertain to his final decision. Did he want peace, yes, but he was quite prepared to wage war by proxy. Bay of pigs and early Vietnam were his choice At the start he was a novice, sometimes a little naive in regard to Realpolitik, but he learned. His greatest hour will always be the Cuban missile crisis. But remember he was supported and advised at that time by many who this lopsided documentary suggest betrayed him. He had potential to be a great President, unfortunately he became a legend instead.

I watched Ken Burns' Vietnam, and this was a documentary over 20 hours long, and they used a large team of people to do the research for that documentary, and went into depth what different presidents thought, and what they did, and every president involved with Vietnam thought exactly the same thing, and are in fact recorded in conversations with different people, some in their cabinet, and others with different political leaders.

This is the consensus, among ALL the presidents, with the exception of Eisenhower, who wasn't in power long enough to see how badly this was going to go, but from the very beginning even he saw problems with taking Vietnam over from France.

We don't like it, it's an unwinnable war, but if Vietnam falls to Communism, other Southeastern Asian countries are going to fall, and we will appear weak.

There, that was the thought of EVERY president, as recorded saying exactly that, over different conversations, or as reported by those around them, and JFK was no different. In fact he said we should pull out, but he felt he would lose the 1964 election by doing so. He also repeated the same thing about other countries falling to communism if Vietnam did.

So, my feeling of this documentary is, it wasn't researched well enough, and there was a bias when going in to make it, and that bias never changed, which means they were looking for certain data, and not anything else. You listen to good documentary makers, and you often hear that they started to make a documentary on one thing, and as they were going along, they knew the documentary had to become something different. I don't know the details of the research that was done for this, but I have a lot of faith in Ken Burns, who's done MANY great, well researched, and very thorough documentaries, so I trust the information in that one more than this. Trying to say he was GOING to pull out of Vietnam isn't backed up by ACTUAL moves on his part, while in fact the opposite is true, in that he sent in more troops than was already there. It's not the same as what Johnson did, but Johnson's situation was different, as the situation in Vietnam changed over time. Without a FULL understanding of all the events that surrounded Vietnam, it's too easy to walk away from a doc. like this in full belief of what the authors wanted you to think, so I would highly suggest watching the 20+ hour documentary on Vietnam by Ken Burns. It's the most complete documentary on the topic, and will give you all kinds of insight to the tragedy that was Vietnam. But, information comes at you fast and hard, so that 20+ hour documentary will quickly overwhelm your brain if you aren't ready to pay close attention. I had to go back and watch quite a few parts.