PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG MAN

REVIEW OF THE BBC ADAPTATION OF DAVID HAIG'S MY BOY JACK

This is an absolutely shattering film, one of the most profound anti-war films ever made.

It is based on a play, and I believe the judgment shown in cutting Act 3 of David Haig's play and substituting a reading of Kipling's poem works splendidly for the film.

The acting and casting and directing are superb.

And the locations and sets, as is the standard for BBC drama, are wonderful to the eye.

Few films convey both the hopes, wishes, and ideology which go into the making of war and the utter futility and waste of its grim reality, and that is just what this masterpiece achieves.

World War I was built on glib phrases, airy patriotism, and emotional heroics - although in reality it was nothing more than a fight between two branches of a royal family over dominance on the continent of Europe.

It ended by killing 20 million people in the most grotesque fashion and setting the stage for World War II which would kill 50 million more.

The World War I generals repeated pretty much the tactics of the American Civil War, confirming the old saying about generals always fighting the last war, but they did so with such grimly efficient new killing technologies as heavy machine guns, tanks, poison gas, and flamethrowers.

The film's poignancy comes in part from the fact that World War I - unlike World War II or America's Vietnam Holocaust - saw the finest and best educated and most highly connected young men often volunteering, and dying.

I wish every dreamy-eyed schoolchild had this film in his or her history curriculum.

Recommended without reservation.

REVIEW OF THE BBC ADAPTATION OF ELIZABETH GASKELL'S WIVES AND DAUGHTERS

This surely is one of the most perfect film adaptations - and, indeed, one of the most perfect films - ever made.

It is literally flawless in its casting, acting, photography, costumes, and clever directorial touches.

Elizabeth Gaskell's novel has been described as an under-appreciated masterpiece, and I think that assessment accurate. The most remarkable aspect of her characters is that in all of them we see at least two aspects, both how they might be seen as correct or elevated or admirable in their actions or as foolish or malicious or criminal, depending upon the viewer.

It is this quality which takes the story far beyond what we might expect from a romantic book of the time. There is humor and subtlety as in Jane Austen's best earlier work, but there is also genuine insight into the human condition.

And the producers of this adaptation have captured the quality to perfection, taking the film far beyond mere costume drama. There is always depth and subtlety at work here even though the story is largely light and romantic. There are few Hollywood films which could stand being compared.

There isn't an actor cast here I would change, and that is not something you can often say about films.

The locations and sets are breathtaking.

Watching the parade of gorgeous women's costumes alone is like walking through the halls of some fabulous museum.

And the director has handled this wealth of material with the most exquisite judgment.

Humor abounds.

Highly recommended, even if you are a person who normally does not like romantic drama.

REVIEW OF KHALED HOSSEINI'S THE KITE RUNNER

I wanted to like this book. Much of the first third or so is well told, contains even some beautiful passages, and has a wonderful character in Baba, the father of the protagonist.

The book's theme I believe may be summarized as courage, and in the first third, taking place in Afghanistan, we see the courage of Baba and the cowardice of his son, Amir.

The second third or so, occurring in America, loses most of those qualities, contains serious improbabilities (as in the medical care poor migrants receive and in how the characters adequately support themselves in their small occupations) , loses opportunities to enrich the story (the enchanting possibilities of the flea market full of exotic characters), and has a genuinely cardboard cut-out of a character, the protagonist's wife, Soraya, who stops being interesting after the first charming description of her face.

The third part, back in Afghanistan and in Pakistan, continues in the vein of the second, only more so. Here there is an effort at redemption - a favorite theme of Americans, almost a national mantra  - and in my view it not doesn't work and suffers from being tedious. The improbabilities mount with two more instances of near miraculous medical care under extreme conditions and a ridiculous fight in a closed room with a Taleban commander, a scene almost from a "boys' own" book for twelve-year olds. The character of the grown Hassan is simply unbelievable. And the evil Taleban commander, revealed as the same psychopath Amir knew when he grew up in Afghanistan, is a genuine comic book character.

One very much senses the author having had the glimmer of an interesting story, and after developing it for a while with some success, simply arrived at a point of not knowing what to do with it. After the first part, the story becomes tired and loses its ability to grip or enchant. He tells us in the first portion of the book almost all he appears to have to say worth saying.

But what strikes me as dishonesty is the book's worst fault. Whether consciously or not, I do not feel this is an honest tale full of the complexities and nuances of real life. Rather he has constructed, whether consciously or unconsciously, a Potemkin Village kind of structure, essentially a piece of propaganda.

Taleban are terrible. Americans and old school Afghans are good.

Perhaps what most bothered me about the book is its unrelenting demonization of the Taleban. Don't misunderstand, I am not a fan of these or any fanatical people and well know the Taleban have done horrible things.

But then all fanatics and extreme ideologues do horrible things, and in Afghanistan that includes many of the members of the Northern Alliance, the Taleban's main enemy and America's ally. The author's sentimentalized America would, shortly after events in this book, inflict countless horrors on Afghanistan and Iraq, being responsible for the deaths of a million people, several million refugees, and the use of cluster bombs and chemical weapons on civilians, amongst other horrors.

The Northern Alliance are the folks upon whom America conferred the rule of Afghanistan, after they did most of the fighting against the Taleban on the ground while brave Americans dropped countless bombs from 30,000 feet. General Dostum, one of the warlords making up the Alliance, stands out today as resembling Vlad the Impaler, who provided the foundations for the Dracula legend. No member of the Taleban could possibly exceed his many acts steeped in horror.

Indeed, what few in the West understand, and what the author completely leaves out of events, is that when the Russians departed Afghanistan, the various warlords of what would be the Northern Alliance ruled in a kind of medieval chaos. People were shot in the streets and upon roads all the time, and you couldn't go far along any road before having to pay "tolls" to the warlord governing that region. The Taleban actually started as a "clean government" party who fought to end the chaotic conditions and indeed did so.

The author uses the rape of boys to heighten the cartoon image of a demonic Taleban, the rape of Amir's boyhood friend, Hassan, as it proves his half brother, as well as the rape later of the dead Hassan's son. But if you've followed events closely during America's brutal and pointless war in Afghanistan, you know the rape of boys is common in that harsh and desolate place. It is in no way peculiar to the Taleban.

A Canadian soldier - still shocked by things he saw there - told of an interpreter, certainly not Taleban, working for the Canadian Forces raping a boy within sight of others, hurting the child to the point of blood running down his legs, and there were others like him. Such people weres never held accountable because America needed them.

Overall, despite a bright spot here and there, this is a weak book and is not recommended.

A LIST OF MEMORABLE FILMS

MARCH 14, 2013: REVISED AND UPDATED

Here is a list of films I made recently for a younger friend unfamiliar with many classics. I will add to it from time to time.

THESE ARE ALL INTERESTING OR FUN FILMS. MANY ARE GREAT AND MANY ARE CLASSICS. NO EFFORT HAS BEEN MADE TO BE COMPREHENSIVE.

HITCHCOCK

FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT (1940)

LIFEBOAT (1944)

NORTH BY NORTHWEST (1959)

PSCHO (1960)

REAR WINDOW (1954)

SHADOW OF A DOUBT (1943)

STRANGERS ON A TRAIN (1951)

SUSPICION (1941)

YASUJIRO OZU

FLOATING WEEDS ( JAPAN – 1959)

THE ONLY SON (JAPAN – 1936)

TOKYO STORY (JAPAN – 1953)

TOKYO TWILGHT (JAPAN – 1957)

HENRY-GEORGES CLOUZOT

DIABOLIQUE (FRENCH – 1955)
WAGES OF FEAR (FRENCH – 1953)

THE RAVEN (FRENCH 1943)

MIKHAIL  KALATOZOV

LETTER NEVER SENT (RUSSIAN – 1959)

THE CRANES ARE FLYING (RUSSIAN – 1957)

STANLEY KUBRICK

2001 SPACE ODYSSEY (1968)

DOCTOR STRANGELOVE (1964)

PATHS OF GLORY (1957)

CLAIRE DENIS

THE INTRUDER (FRENCH – 2004)

WHITE MATERIAL (FRENCH – 2009)

CLAUDE BERRI

JEAN DE FLORETTE (FRENCH – 1986)

MANON OF THE SPRING (FRENCH – 1986)

THE TWO OF US (FRENCH – 1967)

HOWARD HAWKS

MONKEY BUSINESS (1952)

THE THING FROM ANOTHER WORLD (1951)

FRANK CAPRA

ARSENIC AND OLD LACE (1944)

IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE (1946)

MR. SMITH GOES TO WASHINGTON (1939)

JOHN HUSTON

AFRICAN QUEEN (1951)

MALTESE FALCON (1941)

TREASURE OF SIERRA MADRE (1948)

ELIA KAZAN

EAST OF EDEN (1955)

FACE IN THE CROWD (1957)

ON THE WATERFRONT (1954)

ALAIN RESNAIS

HIROSHIMA, MON AMOUR (FRENCH – 1959)

LA GUERRE EST FINIE (FRENCH – 1966)

PROVIDENCE (BRITISH-FRENCH – 1976)

CAROL REED

ODD MAN OUT (BRITISH – 1947)

THE FALLEN IDOL (BRITISH – 1948)

THE THIRD MAN (BRITISH - 1949)

DAVID LEAN

BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI (BRITISH – 1957)

LAWRENCE OF ARABIA (BRITISH – 1962)

INTERESTING ODDITIES

A MAN ESCAPED (FRENCH – 1956)

ADVISE AND CONSENT (1962)

AGUIRRE, THE WRATH OF GOD (GERMAN – 1972)

ALPHAVILLE (FRENCH – 1965)

AMADEUS (1984)

AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON (1981)

ATLANTIC CITY FRENCH 1980)

BABETTE'S FEAST (DANISH 1987)

BLOWUP (BRITISH – 1966)

BURNT BY THE SUN (RUSSIAN - 1994)

CINEMA PARADISO (ITALIAN - 1988)

CRACKS (BRITISH – 2009)

CYRANO DE BERGERAC (FRENCH - 1990)

DAY FOR NIGHT (FRENCH - 1974)

DECEPTION (1946)

DIARY OF A COUNTRY PRIEST (FRENCH – 1951)
DIVA (FRENCH - 1981)

DOCTOR MABUSE (GERMAN – 1922)

DOCTOR STRANGELOVE (1964)

FACE IN THE CROWD (1957)

FACES (1968)

FEARLESS VAMPIRE KILLERS (1967)

FISTS IN THE POCKET (ITALIAN – 1965)

FLOATING WEEDS ( JAPAN – 1959)

HATFUL OF RAIN (1957)

IN THIS OUR LIFE (1942)

INVESTIGATION OF A CITIZEN ABOVE SUSPICION (ITALIAN – 1970)

I’VE LOVED YOU SO LONG (FRENCH – 2008)

JUNK MAIL (NORWEIGAN - 1997)

KOYAANISQUATSI (1982)

LADIES IN LAVENDER (BRITISH – 2004)

LES BONNES FEMMES (FRENCH 1960)

LETTER NEVER SENT (RUSSIAN – 1959)

LOCAL HERO (BRITISH - 1983)

MARRIAGE OF EVA BRAUN (GERMAN – 1979)

MILAGRO BEANFIELD WAR (1988)

MONKEY BUSINESS (1952)

MOTHER KUSTERS GOES TO HEAVEN (GERMAN – 1976)

O LUCKY MAN! (BRITISH – 1973)

OF MICE AND MEN (1939)

PARIS (FRENCH 2008)

REPULSION (BRITISH-FRENCH – 1965)

ROOM AT THE TOP (BRITISH - 1958)

RUN LOLA RUN (GERMAN – 1998)

SECRET SUNSHINE (KOREAN – 2007)

SEDUCTION OF MIMI (ITALIAN – 1972)

SEVEN BEAUTIES (ITALIAN – 1976)

SUMMER HOURS (FRENCH – 2008)

SUNDAYS AND CYBELE (FRENCH - 1962)

TATIE DANIELLE (FRENCH -1991)

THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES (1946)

THE CELEBRATION (DANISH – 1998)

THE CONFORMIST (FRENCH - 1970)

THE DARLING (BRITISH – 1965)

THE MAKIOKA SISTERS (JAPAN- 1983)

THE ONLY SON (JAPAN – 1936)

THE PRINCESS BRIDE (1987)

THE RAVEN (FRENCH 1943)

THE RED SHOES (BRITISH – 1948)

THE REMAINS OF THE DAY (BRITISH - 1993)

THE RETURN (RUSSIA – 2003)

THE SERVANT (BRITISH – 1963)

THE TENANT (FRENCH - 1976)

THE TWO OF US (FRENCH – 1967)

THE WRESTLER (2008)

TIME AFTER TIME (1979)

TIME BANDITS (1981)

TOKYO STORY (JAPANESE – 1953)

TOKYO TWILGHT (JAPAN – 1957)

TWENTY-FOUR EYES (JAPAN – 1954)

UGETSU (JAPANESE – 1953)

WAGES OF FEAR (FRENCH – 1954)

WATER (INDIA – 2005)

WOMAN IN THE DUNE (JAPANESE – 1964)

SHAKESPEARE ADAPTATIONS

CHIMES AT MIDNIGHT

HENRY V (BRITISH – 1944)

RICHARD III (BRITISH – 1955)

ROMEO AND JULIET (ITALIAN-BRITISH – 1968)

JUST FUN FILMS

A HARD DAYS NIGHT (BRITISH 1964 - THE BEATLES)

ABBOT AND COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN (1948)

AFTER THE THIN MAN (1936)

BREAKING AWAY (1979)

BYE BYE BIRDIE (1963)

CHAMPAGNE FOR CAESAR (1950)

FRIENDLY PERSAUSION (1956)

GOOD BYE LENIN (GERMAN – 2003)

HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES (BRITISH - 1939)

IT STARTED WITH EVE (1941)

IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE (1946)

JOHNNY STECCHINO (ITALIAN – 1992)

LADY ON A TRAIN (1945)

LAUREL AND HARDY - THE SHORTS MADE IN 1920S (SILENTS) AND 1930S

    (SOUND) CONTAIN MANY HILARIOUS SCENES – EXAMPLES: THE CHIMP,

    THE MUSIC BOX. THE SOMEWHAT LONGER 60-MINUTE FILMS, LIKE SONS

    OF THE DESERT AND SWISS MISS, INCLUDE SOME GREAT SCENES.THEIR

    FEATURE-LENGTH FILMS WERE THIN.

MA VIE EN ROSE (FRENCH - 1997)

MISTER DEEDS GOES TO TOWN

MORGAN! (BRITISH - 1966)

MY LIFE AS A DOG (SWEDISH – 1985)

NO TIME FOR SARGEANTS (1958)

PLANES TRAINS AND AUTOMOBILES (1987)

RED BALLOON (FRENCH 1956 - SHORT)

SINGING IN THE RAIN (1952)

STOLEN KISSES (FRENCH – 1968)

THE COMMITMENTS (BRITISH - 1991)

THE MAN WHO LOVED WOMEN (FRENCH – 1977)

THE SLINGSHOT (DANISH - 1993)

TRAFIC (FRENCH - 1971)

CRIME, SUSPENSE, COPS & GANGSTERS

BLOW-UP (BRITISH/ITALIAN – 1966)

BREATHLESS (FRENCH – 1959)

CACHE (FRANCE – 2005)

CAPE FEAR (1961)

CRIME D’AMOUR (FRENCH – 2009)

DARK PASSAGE (1947)

DAY OF THE JACKEL (BRITISH – 1973)

DEAD RECKONING (1947)

DIABOLIQUE (FRENCH - 1955)

DOUBLE INDEMNITY (1944)

DRAGON TATOO TRILOGY (SWEDISH – 2009)

DRESSED TO KILL (1980)

FRENCH CONNECTION (1971)

LEJOUR SE LEVE (FRENCH – 1939)

M (GERMAN – 1931)

MADIGAN (1968)

MARATHON MAN (1976)

PIERROT LE FOU (FRENCH – 1965)

POLICE (FRENCH – 1985)

RUNAWAY TRAIN (1985)

THE INTRUDER ( FRENCH – 2004)

THE SCAR (1948)

THE SNORKEL (BRITISH – 1958)

THE THIRD MAN (BRITISH -1949)

THE VANISHING (NETHERLANDS – 1988)

WHILE THE CITY SLEEPS (1956)

WITNESS FOR THE PROSECUTION (1957)

SPY FILMS

DAY OF THE JACKAL (1973)

IPCRESS FILE (1965)

SMILEY’S PEOPLE (BRITISH - 1982 - MADE FOR TELEVISION)

SPY WHO CAME IN FROM THE COLD (1965)

THE INTRUDER (FRENCH – 2004)

TINKER, TAILOR, SOLDIER, SPY (BRITISH - 1979 - MADE FOR TELEVISION)

WESTERNS

HIGH NOON (1952)

ONE-EYED JACKS (1961)

SHANE (1953)

WAR FILMS

ATTACK! (1956)

BALLAD OF A SOLDIER (RUSSIAN – 1959)

BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI (BRITISH - 1957)

DAS BOOT (GERMAN – 1982)

GRAND ILLUSION (FRENCH -1937)

KING AND COUNTRY (BRITISH – 1964)

MY BOY JACK (BRITISH BBC – 2008)

PATHS OF GLORY (1957)

PLATOON (1986)

THE STEEL HELMIT (1951)

THE CRANES ARE FLYING (RUSSIAN – 1957)

WAR AND PEACE (RUSSIAN 1968)

ZULU (BRITISH 1964)

INTERESTING SCIENCE FICTION/ MILD HORROR

2001 SPACE ODYSSEY (1968)

ALIEN (1979 – NONE OF THE AWFUL SEQUELS)

AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON (1981)

BLADE RUNNER (1982)

COLOSSUS: THE FORBIN PROJECT (1970)

FEARLESS VAMPIRE KILLERS (1967)

FRANKENSTEIN (1931)

INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS (1956)

IT! THE TERROR FROM BEYOND SPACE (1957)

KING KONG (1933)

NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD (1968)

NOSFERATU (GERMAN – 1922)

PLANET OF THE VAMPIRES (ITALIAN – 1965)

QUEEN OF BLOOD (ITALIAN - 1966)

ROSEMARY'S BABY (1968)

THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL (1951)

THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING MAN (1957)

THE THING FROM ANOTHER WORLD (1951)

ROMANCE FILMS

AN AMERICAN IN PARIS (1951)

BROKEN BLOSSOMS (SILENT – 1919)

NOW, VOYAGER (1942)

ROMEO AND JULIET (ITALIAN-BRITISH – 1968)

SABRINA (1954)

TENDER MERCIES (1983)

THE QUIET MAN (1952)

UMBRELLAS OF CHERBOURG (FRENCH – 1964)

WIVES AND DAUGHTERS (BRITISH – 1999 MADE FOR TELEVISION)

OTHERS, UNCLASSIFIED

AMADEUS (1984)

CRACKS (BRITISH – 2009)

HOOP DREAMS (DOCUMENTARY – 1964)

INNER CIRCLE (RUSSIA - 1991)

JEAN DE FLORETTE/ MANON DES SOURCES (FRENCH 1986 – TWO FILMS)

LAWRENCE OF ARABIA (1962)

PELLE THE CONQUORER (DANISH 1988)

THE LIVES OF OTHERS (GERMAN – 2007)

TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD (1962)

TRIP TO BOUNTIFUL (1985)

TUNES OF GLORY (BRITISH - 1960)

TWELVE ANGRY MEN (1957)

UMBERTO D (ITALIAN – 1952)

VIEW FROM THE BRIDGE (1961)

WHITE MATERIAL (FRENCH – 2009)

REVIEW OF JOAN MELLEN'S FAREWELL TO JUSTICE

The blurb inside this book tells us that Joan Mellen is a professor of English and creative writing at Temple University, and sadly that fact confirms my darkest fears about American education, because Ms. Mellen, as amply demonstrated by significant portions of this book, often cannot write a literate paragraph. It is appalling how many badly written pages are in this volume.

Why did I continue to read it? I am a great admirer of the late Jim Garrison, who incidentally was a pretty fine writer, and being aware of the hatchet-job books done on his efforts in the Kennedy assassination, I wanted to read something of a defense. Ms. Mellen's book is one of the few, so I persevered through her muddy paragraphs in hopes of reaching a bit of clear water and learning something.

Well, it does get somewhat better through the middle of the book, and there are some interesting points and details raised here.

I very much believe that Jim Garrison stumbled upon something big in New Orleans, something very big, part of the conspiracy to kill John Kennedy, a conspiracy carefully ignored by the Warren Commission and later by The House Select Committee.

Garrison was a very intelligent and able man, but no individual, no matter how bright and brave and dedicated, could have completely withstood the assaults of a Washington establishment determined to smear and mislead and destroy him. The imbalance of forces was terrifying, and the efforts likely shortened Garrison's life. This book does document some of that in its better-written portions.

I never shared Garrison's belief that the CIA as an organization killed Kennedy, although it just could not be clearer to people who've read enough on the subject that the CIA always worked to manipulate and distort evidence in this matter. Indeed, it continues to do so to this day.

For Jim Garrison, fighting all the dirt and abuse, it would naturally seem that they were covering their own responsibility. I believe rather that they have been covering what would have been explosive information in the 1960s: that their private army of Cuban terrorists killed the President, aided more than likely by the direct or indirect help of the CIA handlers responsible for arming, training, and paying that gang of cutthroats in their long efforts at mayhem and murder in Cuba and in Florida.

People today almost cannot imagine the fetid political atmosphere in the United States of the 1950s and 1960s. It was poisonous, so much so that in many other places people were deeply concerned that the United States would do some terrible things. That view was part of what informed spies the Britain's Cambridge Circle. The United States in that era seriously considered a pre-emptive nuclear attack on the Soviet Union and later on China and it thought nothing of invading a country like Cuba or of overthrowing even democratically-elected governments like those in Guatemala and Iran.

Discrediting the CIA in any way at that time, much as it was deserved, was regarded almost as treason, and that was why the CIA lied and cheated its way through every effort at genuine investigation. The CIA was up to its armpits in collusion with mobsters and thugs of every description to achieve the overthrow of Castro, and when its secret army of Cuban fanatics killed the President, with or without the assistance of their professional CIA handlers, it simply could not be revealed. Truth be known, I feel confident many of the CIA's career men were glad when he died, believing he did not possess the blind faith they embraced.

The FBI too was glad. Hoover hated the Kennedys beyond describing. And with CIA backing and other political backing, it felt safe to cover and even destroy evidence in its almost laughable race to find poor Oswald guilty, and it was very convenient to portray Oswald as a "Commie nut" since the lifelong passion of Hoover was to lynch as many Communists as he could, even while he was friends with American gangsters.

For some while after the assassination, the CIA tried - through articles and books by its assets in American publishing - to blame Castro for the assassination, but that pathetic story pretty much withered away, Castro being far too clever to have hired someone like Oswald or to have given America's establishment the excuse it wanted to cover an invasion.

It is well known in intelligence operations that you not only prepare a primary fall-back story - the Castro story - but a secondary one should that fail to gain traction, and that second one is blaming the mafia. The inept Robert Blakey, largely responsible for the feeble efforts of the House Select Committee investigation, put that idea forward. So too did others in a series of contrived books.

It is still around today, with new proponents surfacing periodically. What the story ignores is the virtual impossibility of getting the various mafia clans - the mafia not being a single organization but a group of loosely cooperating families - to agree on so extreme an act, putting all their billions in assets at risk and giving law enforcement the perfect excuse to shut them down completely.

Again, in Bertrand Russell's profound question, "If, as we are told, Oswald was the lone assassin, where is the issue of national security?" So we pretty much know ipso facto that Oswald cannot have been the lone killer, and that's apart from his lack of motive and talent and an almost complete lack of sound evidence.

So what is the CIA hiding? Its own embarrassment and incompetence and criminal behavior with terrorist groups like the Cuban refugees, as well as the extreme danger to a free society of having such a well-financed organization with almost no responsibility to anyone.

REVIEW OF JUDYTH VARY BAKER'S ME AND LEE

I simply cannot believe some of the reviews I see for this book on Amazon.com praising it as genuine, authentic, and heartwarming stuff about Lee Oswald, but I know that it has become a widespread abusive practice for friends, colleagues, and business associates, early on, to lard up the review section for any book with five-star praise, making it difficult for readers to find genuine reviews.

If there were an award for the most incomprehensible, confusing book ever written about the Kennedy assassination, Ms. Baker's book would surely be a serious contender.

Here you will find a unique blend of how I spent my teen years, the cheesy 1950s television series "I Led Three Lives," Laurel and Hardy playing spies, and a bodice-ripper from Harlequin Romance books. It is an indigestible mass out of which emerges absolutely zero insight into the personality of Oswald or into the background of the assassination.

The first hundred pages or so of this book have nothing whatever to do with Lee Oswald or the assassination, covering as they do the early life of Ms. Baker, especially her teenage years. Ms. Baker or whoever it is who wrote this material tries impressing the reader with her early brilliance, and it does seem she was a gifted young woman.

Her early school science projects and the recognition she gained for her work with mice and cancer cells are matters of which she is deservingly proud, but about a hundred pages of it in a book on an entirely different subject? A single slim chapter or introduction would have established her bone fides as a competent researcher.

One assumes that here the publisher was attempting to establish her as a truly worthy witness, intelligent and scientific-minded. The only trouble with that is that once we are into the matter for which people are reading the book, all pretense of science and logic evaporates.

I note also a rather cheap publisher's trick used here. Ms. Baker's story of her remarkable youth is documented with dozens of cuttings and documents, making it unmistakable that she is telling us a true story. But when we get to New Orleans and Oswald, these insertions become mostly completely generic and lacking in any connection with her, things like backgrounders on certain people or newspaper photos of places in New Orleans.

When Ms. Baker comes finally to New Orleans and Lee Oswald, I gasped at the idea that now she might offer some insights, but the truth is that there is nothing about her words that convinces the reader that she and Oswald were even acquainted, let alone intimate friends. I don't say they were not, but the author's words lack substance and indeed descend into a kind of logic-lacking fog differing considerably from the unnecessarily long but at least fairly lucid first hundred pages.

The confusions are too many to go into, and when reviewing a ghastly book one hesitates spending too much effort after the unpleasant realization you have wasted time and energy reading it.

Ms. Baker in the course of endless back-and-forths on streetcars, day and night, going to bizarre boarding houses, bizarre offices, and bizarre entertainments with Oswald manages, in a book supposedly telling us what Oswald really was like and written to support his supposed views, to plant every unproved accusation about Oswald you can find in the various hack books attacking him.

He was, according to her, a crack shot, demonstrating his prowess to her with an air rifle at an amusement park. He loved guns and weapons, taking her to a small arsenal in the Bannister agency's building and selecting a pistol, and wanting to take her for fun shooting birds. He was violent towards his wife, confirming never-proved assertions of an unbalanced Marina Oswald. He ran errands for Marcello mob interests, including a rather well known scene where a witness in the assassination literature says he saw Oswald taking a wad of money under the table from the man running the Town and Country Motel (some researchers suggesting another individual, a criminal, who slightly resembled Oswald as the person in the incident if it even happened). In Ms. Baker's version, she is there right next to Oswald, keeping her face demurely down and seeing the money being passed under the table.

All of Ms. Baker's story about Oswald and New Orleans, except for the silly romantic assertions, could have been derived from the popular literature. There is no unmistakable authenticity in any of it, so when it is combined, as it is, with laughable lines and events, the result is an unpleasant and indigestible mush.

Oswald, as portrayed by Ms. Baker comes off as a bizarre little man full of delusional ideas, a reading which entirely works against the picture I have of him through many books.

I should tell readers that I received an appreciative e-mail from Ms. Baker not long ago: she was thanking me for defending her in a deluge of comments on the Toronto Globe and Mail's website pertaining to an interview in the promotion of her book. I had not read her book, nor was I familiar with her background, but I simply opposed attacks based on "Oh, not another conspiracy theory!" believing as I do that we have never received the truth concerning the assassination and remaining open to the idea that there are still people from whom we have not heard who know important things.

Well, now that I have read Ms. Baker, I remain convinced we have never received the truth, and you can delete Ms. Baker's name from the list of those who could come forward with new information.

REVIEW OF BARRY ERNEST'S THE GIRL ON THE STAIRS

This is a modest book both in its aims and in its physical size, but it is a book which makes a genuine contribution to understanding the Kennedy assassination, and  it is the best thing I have read on the subject in some years.

The central finding of the Warren Commission was that Oswald was Kennedy’s assassin. So while Mr. Ernest’s aims seem modest, calling into question Oswald’s movements in the wake of the shooting, they work powerfully against that central finding.

Here is a self-published book written by a man who originally had not even planned to write a book, and it contains genuinely new and significant evidence.

You will find here no unproved theories against the officially accepted explanation, nor will you find phony efforts to protect the official story. Books of both those types have been published in abundance for decades, indeed to the point where I long ago sickened of reading them.

Mr. Ernest documents his long-term, off-and-on again efforts to satisfy his own curiosity concerning the assassination and, particularly, to locate a significant witness the Warren Commission went out of its way to minimize, slight, and ignore, Ms. Victoria Adams. Ms. Adams worked in an office on the fourth-floor of the Texas Book Depository in November, 1963. From a remarkable vantage point, she and some fellow workers watched Kennedy’s motorcade enter the Plaza and approach the fatal area. Then they heard noises like fireworks and saw the president’s car begin to rush away.

As a side note here, just the fact that a group of people, only about 40 or 50 feet above the motorcade, could gather and open a window to look down on it tells us a great deal about the terribly poor security arrangements made that day by all police and protective agencies.

Ms. Adams and a co-worker suspected something was wrong and quickly sought the stairs to the ground floor – the same stairs Oswald is supposed to have taken immediately after the shots, indeed the only full-height set of stairs in a building whose elevator at the time did not operate. Her seemingly insignificant act proved to have many serious implications.

Ms. Adams saw no one on the stairs. She heard no one, even though the creaky and echoing nature of the stairs and stair well meant that you always heard other steps on them, no matter how many floors away. She was accompanied by one of her co-workers, Sandra Styles, who could thus certainly corroborate or contradict any of Victoria Adams’ testimony, yet Ms. Styles was never interviewed by any of the agencies investigating. The FBI made no attempt to re-stage and time the path of these women, as they did for a number of other people.

The author, after finally finding Ms. Adams, gaining her trust (often a requirement with significant Kennedy-assassination witnesses who have been badgered and even intimidated in the past) and having her tell her brief story in fine detail, succeeded also in finding her former co-worker, Ms. Styles, who, indeed, corroborates Ms. Adams perfectly. She also provides a detail of just what was happening in the Plaza when they decided to go down, providing an amazingly accurate time marker for their descent’s start.

Ms. Adam’s own words – recorded e-mail exchanges - tell any perceptive reader that she was (she died a few years ago) an intelligent and perceptive observer, the very kind of witness any attorney or prosecutor likes to put on the stand.

The author also discovers a transmittal letter at the National Archives that has Dorothy Garner, office manager of the same text-book publishing company for which the two women worked, seeing Roy Truly and Officer Marion Baker arrive on the fourth floor after Victoria Adams and Sandra Styles left, an important fact because these two had previously stopped on the second floor where Officer Baker had a brief confrontation with a relaxed Lee Oswald in the cafeteria as they raced up from the ground floor to inspect the building.

Ms. Adams not only saw no one on the stairs, but when she and her friend briefly went outside, she did see Jack Ruby, a man she did not know until she saw the television pictures later of him shooting Oswald.

Many of the more unhelpful and even crazed books on this subject I sometimes think likely come under the auspices of the very agencies who have worked so hard to promote the official story: lunatic books help discredit all critics of the official story. When I say lunatic books I mean books along the lines of The Man Who Knew Too Much or JFK and the Unspeakable.

Worthless books which seem to serve the opposite side include Gerald Posner’s Case Closed, which offers the pretence of tough-minded analysis, or Reclaiming History by Vincent Bugliosi, which is just a giant prosecutor’s brief supporting another prosecutor’s brief, or Edward Jay Epstein’s Legend and Counterplot, both efforts to confirm the main conclusions of the Warren Commission after the author’s having gained some credibility with his Inquest, a book which supports limited and late criticism of the Commission.

For people coming to the assassination for the first time, Mr. Ernest provides a few nice little summaries of fact, the most important being J. Edgar Hoover’s virtually immediate acceptance of Oswald’s guilt, his then  having prepared within weeks a report setting out the flimsy case. Lyndon Johnson’s appointment of the Warren Commission made the publication of his report inappropriate, but that report provided the structure on which the commission report was built, the commission itself never doing any genuine investigation of its own. Indeed, since the entire Warren Report was created in a few months, there is a prima facie argument for its complete inadequacy to so demanding a task.

Readers who wish to know more after reading Mr. Ernest’s book cannot do better than the books of Joachim Joesten, the finest and certainly the sharpest of all early critics, and Anthony Summers’ Conspiracy, which although dated remains the best single book ever written on the subject. Interestingly, both these authors came from Europe. The Warren Commission Report itself offers a valuable comparison for these and any other books on the subject.
My only serious criticism of Barry Ernest’s book is that he failed to provide an index, an important omission. However, except for that fault, I recommend this book virtually without qualification to all people curious about the greatest unsolved crime of its time.

I take this opportunity to remind readers of Bertrand Russell’s penetrating question, still never answered: “If, as we are told, Oswald was the lone assassin, where is the issue of national security?”

Further, I remind them that if a matter so important as the assassination of an American president in the mid- 20th century could be handled in so careless and dishonest a way by government agencies, why would anyone expect something more with other sensitive issues and what are the limits of government’s lying? That is why the assassination of 48 years ago remains a timely matter.

REVIEW OF SHLOMO SANDS' THE INVENTION OF THE JEWISH PEOPLE

This is one of the most important non-fiction books (outside of science) published in years, dealing as it does with a topic which has caused immense pain and difficulty to so many, particularly in the last century. 

A great many non-fiction books today are little more than essays or magazine articles padded into the size of books. Many are true disappointments to read, let alone failing to be genuine contributions to thought.

Here, though, is a book in which every chapter says something challenging and interesting.

And do not skip the introduction – something of which I am often guilty, being anxious to get to the heart of the matter – for in this case the introduction is fascinating, and Mr. Sand could not have provided a subtler or better way to introduce the nature and complexity of his topic.

The book was written in Hebrew – I know it caused quite a sensation in Israel a couple of years ago – and only now has been translated into English. Just one of the things which surprised me was the clarity and flow of the language, something for which social scientists are not noted, Mr. Sand being a historian. I don’t know whether Mr. Sand is that unusual thing, a social scientist who is a truly excellent writer or whether he has found a gifted translator. Perhaps it is both.

Mr. Sand has not done original research into the topic, but he has done a massive and perceptive review of the literature, the kind of effort which in medicine often proves extremely valuable in bringing together the results of scores of scattered original studies, and, as the reader will discover, the author is an impressive scholar.

I knew just one of the topics which caused such upset in Israel was the idea that today’s Palestinians are at least in part the actual descendents of the children of Israel, it being a well-known fact that Rome in her conquests never disturbed the original people of a place unless they refused to acknowledge Rome’s authority. While Roman Palestine did have a couple of revolts, they were by zealots and not the population as a whole, and there is absolutely no historical record of the resident Hebrews having been expelled.

But the author covers much more of interest than that one topic and weaves a cohesive story of the history of the Jewish people which is both challenging and fascinating. He covers the Khazars, the people of a ninth and tenth Jewish kingdom in what is today the Crimea and part of Ukraine. There is no evidence of their having any ancient Hebrew ancestry, and, on the contrary, there is good evidence that the kingdom was the product of Jewish evangelism.

Jewish evangelism sounds mighty odd to a modern ear, but the evidence is there. After all, Christianity started as merely a sect of Judaism and has evangelized much of its history. Christianity’s first great evangelist was Paul, a converted Jew. And we know there were even different early sects of Christians, such as the authors of the Dead Sea Scrolls, documents which show considerable differences with the content of the accepted Gospels.

There is also the fascinating possibility that Khazar migrants settling in Poland and Germany and other places in Europe are the actual source for the European Jews we call the Ashkenazi. The author cites many clues which suggest this, including clues in the Yiddish language, and in the dress and customs of Eastern European Jews. And it is an idea of which some determined Zionists were aware but chose to ignore or excuse away.

The book is dotted with interesting anecdotes such as quotes from early documents which show Jewish warriors fighting for the Moors in Spain, being perhaps part of the substantial Jewish population from North Africa – again a people with no ancestry to ancient Israel - as well as providing the foundation of what would come to be the Sephardic Jews, later deported from Spain by Ferdinand and Isabella.

This is a book which will stimulate discussion and additional research for a long time, and what is a more important criterion for a truly important book?

Mr Sand has a few pretty hair-raising quotes from some Zionists which in almost no material way differ in attitude and outlook to the early gutter literature of the Nazis – stuff about blood and destiny. It is one of the author’s major themes that a combination of Zionists and modern Israeli history professors, conspiring to justify the foundations and practices of modern Israel, have worked assiduously to promote the old idea – he calls it a myth - that the Jews were thrown out of their ancient land and have wandered for centuries without a home.

Small wonder the book stirred a controversy in Israel. I can only say that were Mr. Sand any less a scholar and writer, he would have been crushed, but here his research and ideas spring to life for readers everywhere to consider.

The book is highly recommended to all those with an interest in the affairs of the Middle East, the history of Europe, the history of religion, the history of ideas, the nature of political movements, the eccentricities of human nature, human psychology, or those who just enjoy a stimulating read.       

REVIEW OF MARK NORTH'S BETRAYAL IN DALLAS

There are so many bad books on the Kennedy assassination - and that statement spans the whole breadth of views - when a new one comes along, I need a special reason for reading it.

Years ago, I read Mark North's Act of Treason, and, while it does not stand out as a major contribution to understanding the assassination, it did cover some new ground and it documented its central theme that J.Edgar Hoover almost certainly knew in advance of a planned attempt on Kennedy and did nothing to prevent it.

Of course, that does not mean Hoover directly had anything to do with the assassination. We already knew that Hoover hated the Kennedy brothers, and that the Kennedy brothers hated him. Animosities do get in the way of duty for many people with great power, and how easy it might be for Hoover when his agency isn't the one charged with presidential protection.

The new book is a very thin one physically, and, as far as this reviewer goes, it is even thinner in terms of genuine information, making no contribution to the case.

Basically, the author sets out one somewhat plausible set of events and participants and pats himself on the back for solving the case. There is no proof here of the author's overall thesis that the local Dallas Mafia, aided by the New Orleans' Mafia and some French drug contacts, carried out the assassination. The author further believes, again without proof, that they did this in some unspecified manner in secret collusion with Lyndon Johnson. 

Many have come to the conclusion that the assassination was a mob hit, although I still regard the idea as only one of three candidates and not the strongest, but few have thrown Lyndon Johnson into the mix, although there was a now-forgotten play written a few years after Kennedy's death called MacBird!. The title says everything you need to know.

Johnson was a hateful and crooked politician, and the Kennedy brothers had the same kind of relationship with him that they had with Hooover, and Johnson was facing possibly career-ending revelations from aggressive investigations into the Texas way of doing business and politics. That said, it is a very long way to go to asserting that Johnson entered into a plan to kill the president. Five days left blank and unaccounted for in Johnson's diary which the author discovered prove nothing in a court of law.

I have no hesitation in saying Johnson's ethics would allow him to do such a thing - he was an unholy piece of work - but I have always regarded Johnson as quite a coward for many reasons, and cowards do not act so boldly.

The author has several annoying habits apart from reaching the most extreme conclusions with little or no direct evidence. He keeps writing about all the powerful individuals who "betrayed America" in Dallas. I find that kind of whining quite unpleasant, and I have no idea what it even means to "betray America" in this context.

One of the reasons I have against the "mafia theory" is simply that there are many indications that Jack Kennedy was on good terms with the mob. We know he received a briefcase with a million dollars in cash from them during his campaign for president, a gift reportedly in recognition of his father's past long association. We know that Jack Kennedy enjoyed friendships with the likes of Peter Lawford, a member of the "rat pack" often associated with mob-run casinos. Lawford is also said to have acted as a major procurer of women for Kennedy.

We also know that Kennedy had an intimate relationship with a woman named Judith Exner who just happened also to be the girlfriend of Chicago's mob boss, Sam Giancana. There was also the relationship with Marilyn Monroe, a messy one involving both Kennedy brothers, and Marilyn was a woman who also knew Sam Giancana.

So the total relationship between the Kennedy brothers and the mob remains murky and complex. Yes, Carlos Marcello, New Orleans boss, definitely had it out for brother Robert who embarrassed and hounded him. But mobsters do not take on gigantic earth-shattering tasks like assassinating a president without overwhelming general approval from their major associates. The act would put all their assets at risk.

The book lacks even an index, an important part of any book purporting to deal with history.

Recommended only to be avoided.

CHUCKMAN'S BAKED ACORN SQUASH STUFFED WITH FRUIT

CHUCKMAN’S SPECIAL BAKED ACORN SQUASH

A truly beautiful and tasty dish.

INGREDIENTS

1 large Acorn Squash – cut in half and remove seeds

Butter or Margarine – enough to generously coat insides of Squash with a bit to spare

Salt - to taste

Cinnamon – at least 2 Tablespoons

Apples – Granny Smith - 1 or 2 depending on size of Squash and Apples
   cut into eighths and cored – you are going to stuff the Squash with 
   them and you want a generous pile to start since they cook down

Cranberries – frozen or fresh whole – about a small handful

Raisins – Golden – about a small handful

Jam – any red fruit jam or use Swedish Loganberry Preserve – at least 4 Tablespoons

METHOD

Butter all inside surface of Squash. Reserve some Butter for last step. Lightly Salt and sprinkle with Cinnamon, reserving a little Cinnamon for use when Squash is all stuffed.

Cut Apples and core – peel if you prefer. Arrange them inside the Squash generously. Then add Cranberries, Raisons, and top with Jam. Sprinkle remaining Cinnamon over top. Place little dabs of butter over fruit.

Bake in a 350 degree oven in a baking dish uncovered. Bake until top is getting golden with touches of brown – usually about an hour.

VARIATIONS  

Nuts – walnuts or pecans – are delicious additions. Add them – chopped – over top in last ten minutes or so of cooking.

Currents are a nice alternative to raisins.

You may also use Brown Sugar either instead of or in addition to Jam if you like more sweet.

CHUCKMAN'S FAVORITE MEAT LOAF

CHUCKMAN’S FAVORITE MEAT LOAF

Again an adaptation, after many experiments, of one of my mother’s old recipes, a Sunday dinner we always enjoyed as kids.

INGREDIENTS

Ground Beef – about a pound

Ground Pork – about a pound

3 medium Onions

4 Tablespoons Tomato Ketchup

Panko Breadcrumbs – about three handfuls – you may use ordinary 
     breadcrumbs, but texture will suffer.

2 Eggs

Salt and Pepper to taste

Oil for sautéing onions

Cup of Beef Stock

ALTERNATIVE INGREDIENT

2 pounds of Ground Beef/Pork/Veal often sold today in supermarkets

In any case, you must have Pork for a great meat loaf.

METHOD

Salt and saute Onions until beginning to brown slightly. Add Beef Stock, bring to boil, then reduce heat to medium. Allow Beef Stock to reduce away, leaving Onions to absorb the intense flavour. Set aside to cool.

(The above, by the way, is an excellent method for other uses of cooked onions, especially as a hamburger topping.)

Mix Beef, Pork, Breadcrumbs, Eggs, Ketchup, Salt and Pepper in a bowl. When Onions are cool, add them.

Form mixture into a nice loaf about three inches high in a baking dish. 

Bake at 350 degrees about one hour.

Delicious with Baked Potatoes made in the same oven and a green salad.

Also delicious with my special Acorn Squash recipe found on this site.

CHUCKMAN'S FAVORITE ROAST PEAR SALAD

CHUCKMAN'S FAVORITE ROAST PEAR SALAD

I’ve developed many salads and salad dressing over the years, but I think this is my favorite, and everyone who has ever tried it enjoys it.

INGREDIENTS – FOR TWO INDIVIDUAL SALADS

2 large Bosc Pears – sliced into thick slices – at least a ¼ inch

1 small head Leaf Lettuce – green or red – enough to cover two salad plates

1 handful of Walnut pieces

Fontina Cheese – grated – at least enough to lightly cover each salad, or more

METHOD

Place Pear slices on a cookie sheet – best to use parchment paper underneath – rub tops with a bit of oil. Roast in oven at 350 degrees until getting a bit golden, just browned edges – likely in the range of 40 – 50 minutes, depending on thickness of pears and accuracy of oven temperature.

Note: if you prefer, remove seeds from pear slices, but you do not need to do so as they will virtually disappear during cooking.

In the last 10 minutes or so of pears cooking put walnuts in oven on a little tray.

Rip Lettuce and spread on plates. Place roasted Pears on top, then sprinkle on Walnuts. Sprinkle Cheese. Drizzle with desired amount of Dressing.

Salad is nicest with Pears and Nuts warm, but it is still delicious when they are cool.

DRESSING

¾ Cup Canola Oil

¼ Cup Balsamic Vinegar

1 Teaspoon Dijon Mustard

Light Soya Sauce – about 1 Teaspoon

I like to use an old glass bottle with a screw cap for mixing dressings, and I save nice ones for the purpose. Just put all ingredients into  the bottle, close cap, and shake vigorously. Or, if you prefer, wisk in a bowl.

VARIATIONS

A Blue Cheese, instead of Fontina, is also good.

Real sautéed bacon bits, instead of Walnuts, are delicious, but I think over-the-top.

CHUCKMAN'S SAUERKRAUT SOUP - A VARIATION OF MY MOTHER'S RECIPE

CHUCKMAN'S SAUERKRAUT SOUP

This is a slight variation of a childhood favourite which my mother made regularly. I’ve tried various experiments over the years, and this is the version I like best.

INGREDIENTS

1 Large Can of Sauerkraut

1 Medium Can of Lima Beans.

1/3 Pound of Bacon or more – cut into bits

1 Medium Onion – diced

3- 4 Cups of Chicken Broth

1 Tablespoon or more Caraway Seed

3 Tablespoons Flour

2 Tablespoons Oil for frying – Canola is my everyday

METHOD

Saute Onion and set aside.

Fry Bacon gently with oil until golden. Remove Bacon pieces from pan and retain Oil-Bacon grease mixture. Add Flour to mixture and make a roux that is nutty brown. Do not stop before you have a good browning or you will lose half the flavour.

Start adding Chicken Stock to roux and stirring until all incorporated. Add fried Onions, Bacon pieces, Sauerkraut, Lima Beans, and Caraway.

Simmer for at least half an hour with lid on pan. I tend to simmer all soups longer for full blending of flavor.

TASTIEST VARIATION FOR A COMPLETE DINNER

The way my wife and I usually have it.

You may eat the soup as is above with anything you like, such as pork chops, or, before starting to simmer, add about 2 pounds of Pork Spareribs, cut into reasonable-sized sections.

In this case you simmer the soup for at least an hour, or until meat is almost falling off the bones.

Ideally served with rye bread and butter.

ANOTHER VARIATION FOR COMPLETE DINNER

Instead of Pork Ribs, add about 11/2 pounds of Polish Sausage before simmering. Simmer for about an hour.

A few chunks of potato boiled in the soup/stew are also good.

REVIEW OF ANTHONY SUMMERS' THE ELEVENTH DAY

I have long been an admirer of the work of Anthony Summers, one of the world’s great investigative journalists.

His biographical notes on J. Edgar Hoover, Official and Confidential: The Secret Life of J. Edgar Hoover are required reading for an understanding of how the center of American power operated for a major portion of the 20^th century.

His first book on the Kennedy assassination, Conspiracy, is the greatest book ever written on that event, and it has never been surpassed for the depth of its analysis and gripping nature of its writing. Indeed, because so little new evidence of any importance has emerged since that time, it remains the definitive study.

When I read that he was publishing a book on 9/11 - an event around which swirl clouds of doubt and mystery as great as the ferocious storm of dust which swept through lower Manhattan when the World Trade Center collapsed - I was ready to devour it.

And while there is a good deal to admire in the new book, my lasting impression is one of disappointment. It simply does not measure up to what I think of as the standard of excellence set previously by Mr. Summers.

There are assumptions here I cannot accept without better evidence, much of the main thread of detailed facts contained come ultimately from American torture of countless people in the CIA’s “rendition program,” a bureaucratic euphemism for an international torture gulag, and there are important facts not even touched on.

I have never accepted notions like insider plots and false flag operations pertaining to this event, but anyone who has followed matters over the last decade knows that a great deal remains obscured and unexplained, almost certainly deliberately so by the American government.

Mr. Summers believes it is essentially for several reasons: one is to cover up the close to utter incompetence of the CIA and other agencies leading up to the event. Another is to cover up the almost criminal incompetence of the Bush administration both before and after the event. And another is to guard the long and deep and fairly secret intimate relationship America has with Saudi Arabia.

I accept all of these, but none of them comes as news to critical observers over the years and I do not believe they add up to an explanation of what happened on 9/11.

The CIA has flopped countless times – failing to correctly read the Soviet Union’s economic and military power, failing even to predict its collapse, failing completely in either preventing or investigating Kennedy’s assassination, and being the author of countless lunatic plots like the Bay of Pigs Invasion. The agency has squandered vast amounts of money in often counterproductive schemes since its creation following World War II, so its failure with regard to 9/11 was for me the expected norm.

The same Bush administration, which gave us a world record limp and pathetic performance for a government during Hurricane Katrina, could not be expected to operate in an entirely different mode around 9/11, and it most certainly did not.

The relationship with Saudi Arabia is one of those not-much-discussed matters in America, but it is a necessity so long as America keeps building three-car garages out into the desert of the Southwest.

New facts Summers presents us with are interesting and not contemptible, but they are inadequate to our curiosity. Some of those involved in 9/11 from Saudi Arabia may well have been double or triple agents for Saudi intelligence. Osama bin Laden was paid handsomely by Saudi princes to keep his various operations off Saudi soil, thus indirectly funding 9/11. After dumbly dawdling at a school-reading photo-op, Bush was finally whisked away in Air Force One where the commander-in-chief was virtually out of the loop with remarkably faulty communications. His Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, the number two man in a wartime chain of command, was for some time wondering around the Pentagon unavailable to military commanders needing his authority.

Summers pretty well accepts the official version of 9/11, with the important proviso that the official version, the commission report, includes such matters as the fact that there was little cooperation from Bush officials during the investigation, and the CIA certainly did not explain itself adequately.

The collapse of building 7, which was not hit by an airplane and which occurred after the collapse of the North and South Towers of the World Trade Center, is attributed to debris falling from the other towers. I just don’t know, but it did bother me that Mr. Summers seemed to go out of his way to poke fun at some of the scientists or engineers who doubt that.

The large effort of Israeli spies around 9/11 is not even mentioned in the book, and I found that a disturbing omission.

There was a group of five Israeli spies who were seen on the roof of their truck taking pictures of the explosions and then behaving in a raucous congratulatory manner, yelling and high-fiving. The police were called and they were arrested, but we know nothing of their purpose or achievements. There was another large group of Mossad agents posing as art students who travelled around the country apparently following some or all of the 9/11 plotters. They, too, were arrested and later deported, but we know nothing of them.

Summers accepts the “let’s roll” scenario for the fourth high-jacked plane which crashed in Pennsylvania, but I have always doubted it. First, the photos of the debris field certainly suggest to a non-technical person that it may have been shot down. Second, after three deliberate crashes into buildings, it seems almost unbelievable that the huge air defenses of the United States had not finally taken action. Third, on at least one occasion, Donald Rumsfeld spoke to the press inadvertently using the expression “shooting down” the plane over Pennsylvania in discussing the high-jackings. Fourth, only naturally, the United States’ government would not publicize the shooting-down of a civilian airliner because the resulting lawsuits would be colossal. I am willing to be convinced otherwise, but Mr. Summers does not succeed in doing it for me.       

Another, important fact is not mentioned in the book. An American consular official at the time was complaining in public about all the visas they were issuing in the Middle East owing to pressure from the CIA. It was not a headline story, but it was an important clue to something unusual going on.

I have always regarded it as a strong hypothesis that the high-jackers were part of a secret CIA operation which badly backfired, an operation which saw many questionable people receiving visas and being allowed to do some pilot training. Risky CIA operations have a number of times backfired, and they even have nickname for that happening, blowback.

Of course, we could see the entire matter also as blowback from the CIA’s secret war against the Soviets in Afghanistan in the 1980s. Fundamentalist Muslims in Afghanistan, Mujahideen, were recruited, provided training and money and sophisticated weapons to fight the Soviets. Several billion dollars were poured in. Osama bin Laden was himself part of the business, but, as Mr. Summers agrees, he later did not see the United States as any different to the Soviets when they sent troops onto the sacred soil of Saudi Arabia.

Mr. Summers is trying to place a good deal of blame on the Saudis for their funding and secret operations, and while I regard it as an interesting observation that certain members of the royal family paid him, I do not regard that as a stunning fact. After all, Saudi Arabia’s countless billions come in good part either directly or indirectly from the United States and Osama bin Laden’s family was a very successful wealthy contractor there, so you could say in the same sense that the United States subsidized Osama’s operations. And it goes deeper than that, for Saudi business connections in the United States, including connections directly with the Bush family, go back many years.

This reader for one would like to see some hard proof of some things that Mr. Summers takes as fact. First, that bin Laden even was responsible for 9/11: the public has never been provided a shred of good evidence. Second, that bin Laden was not in fact killed in the unbelievable bombardment at Tora Bora, his death being kept hidden to prevent martyrdom. Third, that the recent assassination in Pakistan was genuine, not the effort of a president down in the polls and feeling that after ten years he could afford to make the claim.

Fourth, that there ever was an organization called al Qaeda. I know that sounds odd to people who assume everything they hear on television is true, but there are good reasons for doubting it. While Mr. Summers gives one translation for the Arabic word, people who speak Arabic have said it commonly means toilet, and surely no one running a terror organization would use such a name. Indeed, we have several very prominent people quoted in the past, including former British Foreign Minister Robin Cook, saying that al Qaeda was just a derogatory catch-all term used for various “bad guys” out there. That is a tremendously meaningful difference between the two things, but Mr. Summers does not touch the issue.

Again, I cannot stress how important it is for all decent-minded people holding to democratic values to accept neither the CIA’s international torture gulag nor the results of its dark work. Yet the bulk of Mr. Summers’ idea of events is based on evidence deriving ultimately from torture, the people being tortured never receiving the benefits of counsel, fair trial, or even opportunity to rebut.

In summary, a book worth reading, if only to get mad at, but it hardly represents a definitive effort on its subject.

REVIEW OF AMIRA HASS'S DRINKING THE SEA AT GAZA

The subtitle of this book, "Days and Nights in a Land under Siege," accurately describes the subject. The period covered is roughly from the first intifada, 1987, through the first election of Benjamin Netanyahu, 1996, and effectively the death of the Oslo Accords. It is not about the current situation in Gaza, but it provides valuable background material.

Of course, the misery of the people of Gaza documented here has grown only worse now that we are into the fourth year of Israel's blockade.

Ms. Hass is an Israeli journalist, living in the West Bank, who spent a great deal of time in the Gaza Strip, a situation giving her a unique perspective.

Ms. Hass has a clear journalistic style and an eye for detail, and her story is full of facts and observations you do not typically find in our press concerning Gaza and Israel. She definitely gives you a powerful sense of the frustration and pain of being a Palestinian in Gaza.

Here are just a few of her interesting facts. According to the organization, Physicians for Human Rights, during the five years of the intifada, a Palestinian child under the age of six was shot in the head every two weeks. According to United Nations Relief records, nearly 1,100 people treated at its clinics during the first four years had been shot in the head, with about 15% of that number being women. During the four years, over sixty thousand Gazans were shot, severely beaten , or tear-gassed.

With Israel's tightening of work permits - one of the important themes of the book - Palestinian per capita income fell by 7.14 % in 1992 and by 26.53 % in 1993 - this in a poor and overcrowded place.

The truly frightening thing that emerges in the book is Israel's gradual creation of a stultifying system of electrified fences, elaborate application requirements for work permits, refusal to grant all but a small portion of the applications, and frustrating line-ups for those with permits to use them,. Even the few with work permits had to show up at the exit check-point only at specified hours, then they often waited for hours to have their permits checked. The slightest thing out of order saw them ordered to return home. The logistics of getting back and forth to their work places often are horrific - once there were large numbers of taxis but even taxis are reduced to a small number - and Palestinians are not allowed to stay over at their place of work even if their employer desires it.

It is important to appreciate that with Israel's original driving of Palestinians off their land and out of their villages - and Ms. Hass describes some of the Israeli army's tactics to drive Palestinians out - Gaza became effectively a crowded refugee camp, inadequate to sustain a modern economy, and for many in Gaza, work in Israel is their only hope for a meager livelihood. With Israel's control of borders and even the sea, it is by default the only accessible market for the products and services of Palestinian businessmen.

Even before the current blockade, Israel literally had created a stranglehold on the (now) one and half million people of Gaza. They could not visit family in the West Bank or East Jerusalem without difficult-to-obtain and restrictive permits. They could not go to hospitals without the permits, and even when the permits were received in a timely fashion, parents often were not allowed to accompany children or spouses their mates, and for people on a course of treatment, as say chemotherapy, they must obtain new permits each time. Young people also cannot attend university or technical schools without permits.

When workers do obtain permits, they are not allowed to stay overnight in Israel, even though their employers may be eager to have them do so, as when working on a rush job. After waiting since dawn at the check-point to exit Gaza, and that often for hours, they travel with difficulty to their jobs, work for wages lower than an Israeli would receive, and must return home each night - an exhausting and costly routine, yet one these impoverished people are only too glad to do if allowed.

Israel also issued permits only to certain classes of people, men under thirty not being eligible. Imagine a society in which all the young men to the age of thirty cannot work, and we must remember that with high birth rates, Palestinian society is a young society with a relatively high proportion of young people.

During the period of the Oslo Accord, Israel had wanted to see businesses created in Gaza to employ people, yet they set the conditions that ultimately made this difficult or impossible. Israel began strangling the opportunities for businessmen in Gaza - farmers and small manufacturers - to export to Israel through its great increases in restrictive security measures. Although it was advertised in Israel as a part of the period of adjustment to Oslo, the entrepreneurs in Gaza found themselves starved of markets.

Israel gradually imposed immensely complicated rules for produce and goods being transferred from Gazan trucks to Israeli trucks. Given also the requirements for inspections and the often hit-or-miss nature of other arrangements, truckloads of produce not infrequently ended up wasted. The many small businesses doing things like running sewing machine workshops for Israeli clothing firms found themselves shutting their doors, putting people out of work.

While Ms. Hass does not use the term apartheid, that is precisely what we see established here. Gaza is a Bantustan in which large numbers of people are kept penned up, separate, and with almost no hope ever of building a viable economy.

As you read these pages, you ask yourself, what possible future is there for people bottled-up in this way? And I cannot see an answer. Israel simply has created a situation which is not tenable over the long term, although for today or tomorrow the Palestinians manage to cope.

They have been artificially removed from their original homes' and all their traditional ties of work and farming have just about been severed. Ms. Hass tells us how the older Palestinians, as when traveling through Israeli territory for work, know precisely the places now demolished and/or renamed as Israeli places and just where their homes and farms were located. Severed, too, were the family connections with the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and the Palestinians are people for whom extended family is quite important.

It is a bleak, go-nowhere situation, which since Israel's savage attack and blockade has become only bleaker. The book offers no prescriptions or recommendations. Ms. Hass remains throughout that fairly rare being, a truly objective journalist.