Political Scientist: Kennedy Assassination Led to US Imperialist Domination

On the 60th anniversary of the assassination of US President John F. Kennedy Jr in Dallas, Texas, political scientist, podcast host and the author of American Exception: Empire and the Deep State, Aaron Good, joined Sputnik’s Political Misfits to discuss the assassination and its impact on the world.

Good said that the assassination of Kennedy changed not only America but the world for the worse by allowing the Vietnam War to continue and setting up a system that enabled American imperialism to thrive for decades.

“The case that he was pulling out of Vietnam is very strong, really all the principals around him in the highest positions pretty much are in agreement about it,” Good said. “The Vietnam war is what wrecked the Bretton Woods system and that was a system that sort of restrained Wall Street and the American military machine to some extent because you couldn’t run huge balance of payment deficits or it would drain the treasury gold,” he added.

“As horrible as Vietnam was, it led to an increase in American power but in a really imperialist and exploitive, predatory way with this new dollar regime and that is what we are seeing fall apart right now,” Good argued, noting that it allowed the US to continue regime change operations that he does not believe Kennedy would have approved, including in The Republic of Congo, Brazil and Indonesia.

Good was then asked by host John Kiriakou about Paul Landis’ recently release memoir. Landis is one of two surviving Secret Service members who worked on Kennedy's security detail the day he was murdered.

He claims that he was the one who found a pristine bullet and placed it on Kennedy’s gurney. That bullet had long been the subject of conspiracies following the assassination.

However, Good has doubts about Landis’ story, noting that while it contradicts the official story on the assassination, it seems less likely to him than the explanation that the bullet was placed there to frame Lee Harvey Oswald, the man accused of killing Kennedy before he was murdered by Jack Ruby, a mob-connected nightclub owner. Good says that if the bullet was planted, that “would point unmistakably back to the state.”

“So does Landis’ confession muddy the waters, or did it really happen? I don’t know,” Good concluded.

The conversation also touched on the war in Gaza and X’s lawsuit against Media Matters for fraud. Good told Kiriakou and co-host Michelle Witte that he believes X CEO Elon Musk has a legitimate gripe and that elites in this country are trying to impose a “censorship regime” on social media.

“It is putting them on blast in a way they haven’t been so I think [that’s why] they are all trying to censor everyone and dox college kids.”