In the first half, JFK assassination expert James DiEugenio discussed JFK Revisited: Destiny Betrayed, the new documentary he created with award-winning director Oliver Stone, who joined the first hour of the program. Following the release of his 1991 feature film JFK, Stone explained, revived interest in President Kennedy's assassination—by the public as well as the US government—didn't lead to the kind of follow-up investigations by the mainstream media that he had expected. Over two decades later, Stone agreed to direct the documentary DiEugenio was writing about the assassination, and the result was extraordinary. "You'll never see a collection of experts like this in any single JFK documentary, ever again," DiEugenio asserted.
Among the topics the new documentary covers are the lesser-known attempts on Kennedy's life, the findings of the research into the medical records of his assassination, and his early involvement in Vietnam. The film also maintains that Kennedy and Robert McNamara, his Secretary of Defense, were not in favor of direct intervention in Vietnam's internal conflict, but preferred to limit American participation to the advising and training of the Saigon government. It was Lyndon Johnson, DiEugenio argued, who wished to expand the role of the United States in Vietnam far beyond that intended by Kennedy, whose death forever altered the trajectory of the war.
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Dr. Ken Hanson, scholar of Hebrew language and literature, talked about new developments related to the Dead Sea Scrolls in the second half. First discovered 75 years ago, the ancient fragments form the basis of the Hebrew Bible, and number in the thousands. Although many of these fragments were looted, lost, or sold by local treasure seekers at the time, Hanson said, Israeli archaeologists moved quickly to collect and preserve what they could. In 2017, Israel's government oversaw Operation Scroll, an effort to find additional scrolls and study them systematically. About 500 caves were excavated in the operation, including the "Cave of Horror" containing dozens of skeletons and skulls.
All in all, Hanson related, fragments of every book of the Hebrew Bible except one (Esther) have been recovered. He also noted that one particular item would be "the most important Biblical discovery ever found" if authenticated: an ancient scroll fragment (view related image), discovered over a century ago, that is speculated to be the original work of Moses himself.
At the beginning of the third hour, spiritual writer Lynne McTaggart led an on-air intention experiment aimed at bringing peace to Ukraine.
News Segment guests: Harold Bloom, Mish Shedlock