Don Delillo's Libra Quotes

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This is what history consists of. It's the sum total of all the things they aren't telling us. -- Don DeLillo, Libra. What is ‘history’ , who are “they,” and what aren’t they telling us? -Amy Estersohn, Class of 2010 The Quote is from Don DeLillo’s award winning novel, Libra, which was based on the 1969 assassination of the United States President, John F Kennedy. The novel, through the creative blending of both real and fictionalized characters and events, points an accusing finger at rogue elements within the CIA leadership who staged the assassination to influence an invasion of Cuba. The attempt was (unsuccessfully) meant to be unsuccessful, with Lee Harvey Oswald chosen as the ‘fall guy’ due to his open communist political leaning. In the context of the actual novel, “history” is the historically and politically significant assassination of John F Kennedy, “they” are the CIA and “what aren’t they telling us” is the true events and circumstances that led to the President’s assassination. Don DeLillo clearly states that his novel is a work on fiction not based on any actual events. The quote however can be seen to apply broadly to the age-old suspicion that major political and historical events, whether on a national or…show more content…
No single political regime in history can, with a straight face, make an honest claim of being absolutely transparent in all its dealings to its citizens. Whether it is about withholding certain more colorful aspects on the personal lives of its leaders from the people to maintain their dignified public image, to making certain political dealings and actions secret either for ‘the public good’ or due to their outright moral and/or legal illegitimacy, there is a large degree of historically significant occurrences that are either misrepresented or suppressed from the general

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