This book breaks new ground in two important areas that have yet to be
linked and explored by any JFK-assassination historian. John Koerner
argues that the CIA's secret drug trade in Laos, and the president's
effort to end it, provided the primary motive that the CIA needed to
assassinate the president. A lot of effort has been made to examine the
president's Vietnam policy, but precious little attention has been paid
to the opium trade in Laos that was making the CIA wealthy and powerful
beyond its wildest dreams. This book chronicles the president's secret
war with the CIA over Laos, a high-stakes game that cost him his life.
Koerner also links the JFK assassination and the drug trade with the
other three major assassinations of the 1960s: Malcolm X, Martin Luther
King, and Robert F. Kennedy. We will see that all four of the
assassinations are linked together, all funded and executed by the CIA
to silence the four most vocal leaders who were opposed to the agency's
pro-war and pro-drug policy in Laos and Vietnam. Finally, Koerner
examines the impact this has had on the course of history, and imagines
a world where these men had lived.