Book: The Final Analysis

 

Doctors David W. Mantik and Jerome Corsi’s book on the JFK assassination and why the CIA was behind it, featuring a full overview of forensic evidence.

Book available here:  https://amzn.to/3xAuXED

Interview with Dr. Jerome Corsi about the book and the assassination of president John F. Kennedy at Judge Napolitano’s Judging Freedom podcast:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uk0ihHyq2U0

The Yankee and Cowboy War

A fascinating book "The Yankee and Cowboy War" by the late Carl Oglesby, published in 1976, is about the turf wars between the Old Money and the New Money. Oglesby forges a link between the JFK assassination and Watergate. Read it free online. Otherwise, it's very expensive used on Amazon with hardcover versions listing for over $100.

One thing that caught my eye is how Oglesby defined how the Federal government actually works as he did in this excerpt below:


"The trick of how the invasion could come about nevertheless, how there could be a Bay of Pigs against the will of the president, is that the president is not an absolute monarch ruling a submissive bureaucracy. Rather, a “corporate” presidency is nested within the federal power grid along with a variety of institutional strongholds, such as the Pentagon, the CIA, the Department of Transportation, the Texas Railroad Commission, etc. The president in proper person is only one among many others on the larger board of national directors – a special stronghold clearly but by no means the only power source on the scene. The presidency of the corporate state is the presidency of factional and bureaucratic coalitions that can weaken, grow old and brittle, fail in crises. The tragedy of Frontier Camelot, whose prince is said to have sought the presidency “because it’s where the action’s at,” unfolds in the princes gradual discovery of the corporate and limited nature of his office, then more particularly of its relative weakness against the will of the clandestine establishments of defense and security."

The Yankee and Cowboy War, by Carl Oglesby, HERE

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=22107

Book Review: The Interloper: Lee Harvey Oswald Inside the Soviet Union by Peter Savodnik

An over-hyped book of little substance...

As soon as I discovered that a book was being published on Lee Oswald’s Russian period I started to speculate how the author might handle the notion of Oswald defecting to be operative there.  The book blurbs on Amazon showed it was going to be yet another, lone nut book.  True enough, author Peter Savodnik states in the introduction says that Oswald acted alone and we can see how he did so by studying his life in Soviet Russia.  As he stated on page xi:

“It is the facts of his life (Oswald’s), and especially his life in the Soviet Union, that tell us what we need to know to conclude that he alone was responsible for killing President Kennedy.”

Good!  No need for an investigation then.  Towards the end of the page he follows up with this whopper:

“The Interloper is an attempt, at long last, to make sense of this person we have we have never known.”

At long last?  As if nobody else ever tried?  As if Peter Savodnik knows him by interviewing his friends.  At this point I’m wondering if Savodnik is having an attack of advanced hubris to spit this line out or the marketing department jammed it in.  Of course, there are plenty of researchers have delved into Lee Oswald, his character, and exploits before the guns went off.  Authors such as Norman Mailer, Oswald’s Tale (1995); John Armstrong, Harvey and Lee (2003); John Newman, Oswald and the CIA (2008), and space does not permit a listing of many others. 

The course is set from here and what evaluation we will find of Oswald’s character and actions could just as well come out of the well-worn pages of the Warren Report.  

Time Spent in Russia

Peter Savodnik credentials including writing for the New York Times, Harper’s, Time, Atlantic Monthly and other northeastern liberal yankee publications.  He was based in Moscow for a number of years and wrote extensively about Russian issues.  Since Savodnik spent a lot time living and working in Russia he at some point–never explained–developed an interest in Lee Oswald’s life and was able to interview a lot of people that knew Lee Oswald during his time there. The picture Savodnik paints of Oswald is a one of a sad, pathetic, and often angry figure; an out of place young man that isn't very bright, struggles with the native tongue of his newfound homeland, and is ignorant of the culture he has just landed in.

Probably most surprising, is Savodnik's assertion that Oswald was a poor Russian speaker.  In fact, I know of no other book written on Oswald that ever doubted his ability to speak, read, and write the Russian language competently.  Even the Warren Report with its faults admits to his Russian speaking abilities which he supposedly learned from a Marine officer.  According to Savodnik, Oswald needs tips and lessons from co-workers and an interpreter at some phases of his work at the Minsk TV factory.  This fits in with Savodnik's angle of Oswald being a guy that isn't very clever, troubled in mind and intellect–only it’s not true.  The author is not being honest with his readers at this point.

Why? Because there is a lot of evidence that Oswald was a very good Russia speaker, good enough for his future wife Marina to comment that upon their first meeting she thought he was a local because he spoke with a Baltic accent.  While it is true that Oswald rarely spoke in Russian while there, the idea that this could have been a cover for his true identity is contrary to Savodnik's narrative.  Arriving back in America in 1962, Lee and Marina were befriended by the White Russian community there, and George De Mohrenschildt in particular.  De Mohrenschildt testified to Lee speaking Russian competently and reading Russian literature written in Russian.  Another Russian speaker who know Oswald said that his language skills were good enough to be a translator.  But Savodnik never tells his readers this.

Mistakes in the Narrative

For a writer good enough to be published in noted literary journals and travels the world doing research, Peter Savodnik can sure makes some goofs.  

One of the biggest involves the early days of Oswald’s life and the constant moving around he and his siblings endured.  Savodnik states that the shortest time the Oswald’s spent at a residence was six weeks in Manhattan.  Well, they never lived in Manhattan!  They lived in the Bronx.  Even the address Savodnik lists, E. 179th St., implying Manhattan, is a Bronx location (Google maps).  In actually, after getting kicked out of older brother John Pic’s apartment after Lee threatened Mrs. Pic with a penknife, they moved to 1455 Sheridan, Apt F.  They later moved to their final residence in New York at 325 E. 179th St.  Both residences are in the Bronx.  John Pic and family lived in the Bronx as well.  Marguerite Oswald did work odd jobs in Manhattan and Lee briefly attended PS117 in Manhattan, but they never lived there.  

Do publishing houses hire fact checkers anymore?

The length of time in New York is wrong too.  Lee and his mother arrived there in August of 1952 and Savodnik contradicts his tale by having them returning to New Orleans in January of 1954.  Obviously a lot more than six weeks passed here.

Of course herein lies one of the problems with the narrative.  Under the official account Lee is supposed to be attending PS44 in the Bronx in fall of 1953.  However, there is another set of educational records showing Lee attending part-time at Beauregard Junior High School in the fall of 1953 as well!  Researcher John Armstrong (see links) found this oddity in volume 22 of the collected Warren Commission hearings.  And there are more than just documents, there are a host of important events going on as well in 1953.  For example, Lee going truant, being evaluated by two psychologists, being sent to a youth home for a while, and his mother being interviewed by probation officer John Carro.  By the fall of 1953 things heat up with Carro attempting to get Marguerite and Lee in family court for counseling services and other issues, but he is checkmated every step of the way.  All of these events are happening in New York while another Lee Oswald is in school in another state in New Orleans.  Strange, huh?

As you can see, by taking the conservative approach with a simple narrative from the Warren Report, and staying out of those pesky 26 volumes of collected hearings and evidence, one can eliminate great difficulties in exploring the case.  One can direct the flow away from conspiracy very easily.  Especially if somebody doesn’t want that reported.  Logically, Savodnik can’t discuss it anyway because it disrupts his “Lee is a nobody” story.

The False Defector Program

A major omission by the author is the False Defector Program being run out of Nag’s Head, North Carolina with the sole purpose of placing operatives behind the Iron Curtain.  It’s too hot to handle because Peter Savodnik makes no mention of it.  One would think this issue should be properly explored if one were doing an honest investigation into Oswald’s Russian period.  But if you are a hack, then by all means, ignore it and type away!

Senator Richard Schweiker who had seen the classified files said,  “We don’t know what happened (in Dallas), but we do know Oswald had intelligence connections. Everywhere you look with him, there are the fingerprints of intelligence.” He further stated to author David Talbot that Oswald–“...was the product of a fake defector program run by the CIA.”  Former CIA officer Victor Marchetti stated this as well (Peter Janney, Mary’s Mosaic). 

Otto Otepka, Deputy Director of the United States State Department's Office of Security, uncovered the false defector program soon after JFK’s election. A security file listed Lee Oswald as a “tourist.” to the Soviet Union.  And while in the Soviet Union Oswald came into contact with Michael Jelisavcic, a known CIA operative at American Express.  A declassified document lists Jelisavcic as a CIA asset. 

Notwithstanding, if Oswald were a false defector this would greatly add to what his real motivations were during his Russian phase.  There is a great deal of bias for the official story that blinds the author to any other alternatives.  Oswald as false defector is an important part of the story if true, and the author finds it not worth mentioning or looking into.  He has to avoid the subject or else it messes up a nice tale.  

And it should be noted that Oswald was not the only defector.  Robert Webster (a dead ringer for Oswald in looks) was another who left the same year, 1962, that Oswald did (Lee knew him and Webster knew Marina, facts the reader isn’t told either).  There were in fact, a whole host of American defectors, many leaving that year as well.  

Another Important Point Omitted
However, what is commonly left out of the story is who exactly decided to allow Oswald to stay after his suicide attempt.  According to Joseph J. Trento in his book, The Secret History of the CIA, it was the most powerful woman in the Soviet Union, Yekaterina Furtseva.  The first female member of the Politburo, who took a personal interest in this hapless American defector and gave the order to let him stay.  According to Soviet defector Yuri Nosenko, it was Furtseva that ordered the KGB not to recruit Oswald as a possible KGB mole.

One would think this a very important point.  But Savodnik totally ignores Furtseva’s control of this issue.  It shows that Oswald’s entry as a defector into the Soviet Union was closely watched and made the hierarchy of Soviet government very suspicious.  The Russians have a long history of espionage and are very successful at it.  They probably spotted Oswald early on as an operative and someone not to be trusted.  

The idea that Savodnik would ignore this crucial fact is a serious lapse of judgement and good research.  He has to have an Oswald that is so unimportant, and such a failure in life, that nobody would have an interest in him.  But people of great import did.

The Real Interloper

The Interloper is the standard tale of the disgruntled loser with delusions of grandeur arriving at the Socialist Worker’s Paradise only to grow disillusioned there too.  Then later, the bad thing happens.  Hey, hasn’t Norman Mailer already written that book?  At last he gets a few mentions but Savodnik treats Mailer like a grumpy old uncle, capable of committing embarrassing disruptions, and whose insights are best ignored.  Might as well be, since Mailer wrote the better book on the subject of Lee Oswald and his time in Russia.  Mailer’s research includes KGB transcripts from the Oswald’s bugged apartment in Minsk, and while basically being the bickering of a young couple, it at least offers insights into their relationship.  The Interloper adds nothing to the mix.  Even the word “interloper,” used as a mantra in this book, is just a literary device Savodnik uses to propel along a well-trodden story.  

In the end, the real interloper in this book is the author himself.  His stuffy dismissal of conspiracy or its believers shows that his search for the truth is one reined in by the Gatekeepers that praise his book on the back cover blurbs.  Peter Savodnik’s portrayal of Lee Oswald as being out of place unstable misfit, unable to find a niche in wherever he travels, has been made so many times before it’s a yawn.  Some men seek the truth and other men just go along to get along.

Savodnik, like his subject, he has no sense of place either. He acts as if the Warren Report was the only investigation and nothing has happened since.  The House Select Committee on Assassinations concluded in their final report that there was a possibility of a conspiracy but they had not the time or finances to pursue any leads.  You will not see that mentioned in this book.  He considers Oswald's lack of motive as unimportant, dismisses conspiracy all too easily with a wave of a hand, travels the world for research only to restate old details, gets simple facts wrong or important ones omitted, he interviews only the people that will tell him what he wants to hear, and the author depends on the incomplete research and record of the Warren Report for his bedrock truth.

So what new revelations is the reader going to find?  Not much.  If you have an interest in biographies of Oswald’s friends and acquaintances in Minsk, or how long it took him to walk from his apartment to his job at the TV factory, then this book is for you.  

Otherwise, this tome features nothing new, much of which is rushed and summarized to begin with.

The Interloper serves as yet another vehicle for the Establishment to maintain their stranglehold on the mainstream media’s unyielding devotion to the long gunman myth.  Conspiracy...such a naughty word these days for this bunch of true-believing herd thinkers.

Hardcover: 288 pages

Publisher: Basic Books (October 8, 2013)

Language: English

ISBN-10: 0465021816

ISBN-13: 978-0465021819

Product Dimensions: 6.1 x 9.2 inches

Addendum #1 
Although I didn’t give Norman Mailer’s Oswald’s Tale high marks, it is in retrospective a far better account of Lee Oswald’s life and search to find out the inner man, than The Interloper is.

Addendum #2 
Easy made it to my list of worst JFK Books.  LINK

Available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Kindle, iBooks/iTunes

Book Review: Destiny Betrayed - JFK, Cuba, and the Garrison Case

Vincent Bugliosi in his End Notes for his book, Reclaiming History, calls Jim DiEugenio “a sincere conspiracy theorist.”  When reading DiEugenio’s second edition of his book, Destiny Betrayed, one is struck with just how little theory is involved.  It’s all a solid mix of history, fact, and proper historical context for the events that are to follow.  Jim DiEugenio said in a recent interview on Black Op Radio that he didn’t want to caught up in the minutia of details regarding the assassination in this new volume, but instead wanted to pursue an examination of how and why it happened and how it got covered up.  And that is what readers  will experience as they read this book.  

Destiny Betrayed begins in the Cold War shadow wars, a mix of skullduggery and dirty deeds where even the President is kept in the dark in regards to what is going on.  As DiEugenio shows, CIA Director Allen Dulles was attempting to dupe Kennedy into foreign policy and military actions he was not wanting to be a part of.  Dulles took the Central Intelligence Agency far from its original intent of intelligence gathering to a machiavellian, duplicitous outfit overthrowing democratically elected governments under the guise of combating communism, replacing them with controllable right-wing dictatorships, and for the most part, setting the stage for the profiteering of American corporations.  So manipulating Presidents for CIA objectives has become the modus operandi of the Agency that lasts to this day.  Meanwhile, the American public sleeps through these affairs being distracted with the communistic threat, the baby boom, pop culture, sports and so on.  The National Security State descends and much of American history becomes a secret locked away in warehouses.

As DiEugenio’s documents in the first part of his book, the leaders of the National Security State knew early on they had a problem with John Kennedy.  He wasn’t for war mongering, turning down attempts to pump troops into Vietnam and launch preemptive nuclear strikes.  Kennedy was not a believer in the Domino Theory.  The Bay of Pigs fiasco, well detailed in Destiny Betrayed, is a CIA run military op destined to fail so American troops could be called in it finish the job. Kennedy found out none of this till he ordered an inquiry into what happened and  the ever duplicitous Allen Dulles and other top CIA officials lost their jobs. 

The Pioneers Get All The Arrows

The star of the book is Jim Garrison.  His coming around from true believer in the Warren Report to a believer in conspiracy and pursuing a trial against an alleged conspirator is an compelling story.  He was flawed man, but a brave man who paid a terrible price for seeking the truth with his future career in politics destroyed.  The full weight of the federal government fell on his head like a ton of bricks.  His reputation was pillared by a hostile press, some of whom were government informants, who were to attack and expose his every move in the national media.  Kennedy bagman Walt Sheridan (former ONI, FBI, and NSA) was sent down to harass witnesses and later put together a slanderous, over the top attack on Garrison on NBC (which was so bad they had to let Garrison have an on-air rebuttal). And the attacks on his character raged from 1967 to this very day. (For example, Gerald Posner in his 1993 book named Garrison a child molester and Vince Bugliosi in his 2007 book labeled him, “symptomatically psychotic.”)  After the trial of Clay Shaw was over, and lost, Garrison was indicted twice and acquitted.  As you can see, charging headlong into the Status Quo is not for the faint of heart.

As Jim DiEugenio points out, in actuality, Jim Garrison’s attempt to prove conspiracy in the Kennedy assassination was flawed before it started.  Even his staff advised against it after lead witness David Ferrie died.  But Big Jim decided to press on. It didn’t help his cause much by trusting people that he should have left alone.  Men such as Bernardo Detorres, William Gurvich, and Gordon Novel. These men were not rubes–they were all experienced operatives and functioned as spies embedded within his investigative operatus, funneling information to Garrison’s chief tormentor, Walter Sheridan, and journalist/government shills such as Hugh Aynesworth and James Phelan.  DiEugenio documents in great detail how the FBI and CIA were formally engaged to see this Louisiana state trial of Clay Shaw fail.  

And this of course raises the biggest question of them all–if the Warren Report is correct and Lee Oswald is the only assassin, and there is no conspiracy, then why does the government, along with allies in the press, have to take these extreme measures to make sure a conspiracy verdict is not reached in a state trial?  The Justice Department sent down their lawyers to coach witnesses in how to answer questions at taxpayer expense, bug the District Attorney’s phones and transcribe everything said, plague his operation with informants, and have the DOJ successfully killed off subpoenas to top officials. It was a Federal government takedown from top to bottom.  If Garrison is wrong then why not let him fall on his own sword if their account of the President’s death is true?  What would they have to fear?

Plenty apparently.  It appears they overplayed their hand.

The Shaw Trial

Destiny Betrayed does a good job in describing the intricacies of the trial, the legal wrangling, and what Garrison could of done in hindsight.  Important witnesses either died or faded away; other witnesses were assaulted or intimidated into changing their stories by the Sheridan Machine.  Lots of witnesses were never called such as the 16 people Garrison had in regards to Clay Shaw’s Bertrand alias (something that he was never allowed to prove in court). 

While too intricate to go into here, there were some highlights.  One important incident was when autopsy physician Dr. Pierre Fink admitted that he, and the other two other physicians present at the Kennedy’s autopsy, were under control of another military authority, whose name he couldn’t remember.  Another was a screening of the Zapruder film that Garrison had to wrestle from Time-Life.  A film up to that point few had seen, and it was a shock for all witnesses present in the courtroom.  Too bad it took till 1975 before the general public got to see it on Geraldo Rivera’s TV show.  

The End

Jim DiEugenio paints a vibrant world of 1960's New Orleans, a place of clandestine activity, informants, intelligence operatives, down and outers, sexual adventurers, conspirators, Cubans, hookers, misfits, and suspicious entanglements.  It's quite a contrast to the worlds envisioned by the Warren Report defenders where everything suspicious is an illusion, where every contrary witness is wrong, and everything is conveniently explained.  Their selective harvesting of the details strips the soul out of how fascinating all of this is and how a conspiracy to murder a President could really take shape.  

Destiny Betrayed is fascinating work, well paced, expertly organized, and properly sourced.  New document releases from the ARRB and other sources bolster the narrative and explain who is telling the truth and who is not.  It’s the definitive book on Jim Garrison and how tantalizingly close he came to blowing the case wide open.

Available now in bookstores and online at Amazon, Barnes&Noble, and in ebook format for the Kindle and iPad. 

Details

ISBN-13: 9781620870563

Publisher: Skyhorse Publishing

Publication date: 11/15/2012

Edition description: Second Edition

Edition number: 2

Pages: 496

Gerald McKnight interview up at Black Op Radio

Gerald McKnight, author of Breach of Trust, has been interviewed by Len Osanic at Black Op Radio.  Breach of Trust of probably the best book on the machinations and back room dealings of the Warren Commission in their investigation of the death of President Kennedy.  A highly recommended book.

Listen online or download the MP3 at Black Op Radio. Real Media plug-in needed for online listening.

NOTE:  The .mp3 is over 200 megs in size.  Keep this in mind if you have a slow connection or monthly data bandwidth limits.  


Show #632
Original airdate: May 30, 2013
Guests: Gerald McKnight
Topics: Breach of Trust

Book Review: Hit List

Hit List: An In-Depth Investigation into the Mysterious Deaths of Witnesses to the JFK Assassination by Richard Belzer and David Wayne.

The mysterious deaths of witnesses and participants in the aftermath of John Kennedy’s assassination has given rise to much speculation over the years.  Jim Mars in his classic book Cross Fire, documented the untimely deaths of many of the witnesses.  Warren Commission defender Vince Bugliosi in his mammoth tome, Reclaiming History, just dismissed the deaths as largely from natural causes and not in any way suspicious.  Of course, for someone as biased as Bugliosi, an ardent cherry picker of the evidence, nothing is shifty in the case of Kennedy’s assassination.  However, the cases I’ve looked into show there is more going on with the deaths of these people, which Jim Mars wrote comes in waves and those waves usually center around up and coming investigations.

In Hit List, noted actor Richard Belzer, along with co-author David Wayne, have completed probably the most comprehensive investigation into the deaths of these people.  Fifty people are documented from the famous and powerful to the poor and obscure.  Each entry is broken down by name, bullet points, and the various details involving their demise.  Each entry is throughly documented from sources in print, web, and author correspondence with family or acquaintances of the victims.

There are many thought provoking chapters in the book.  Two of which caught my attention and taught me some new things are the deaths of police officer J.D. Tippet and columnist Dorothy Kilgallen.  The authors do a good job documenting Tippet’s comings and goings, curious behavior, and then the Warren Commission’s machinations in dealing with issues they couldn’t prove in their attempt to link Oswald to the murder.  It’s probably the best recording of Tippet’s movements before his death and the resulting evidence that contradicts Oswald having been his killer.

Another good accounting is the sudden death of columnist and TV game show star Dorothy Kilgallen.  (My article on her passing happens to be the most popular article on this blog.)  The authors go into exhaustive detail involving the strange and out of place events that occurred before her death and surrounding her passing, from being found on the wrong floor of her townhouse to the chemical make-up of the heavy-duty barbiturates which are supposed to have taken her life.  This chapter alone is probably one of the best written anywhere in regards to Kilgallen’s alleged drug overdose, although it does leave out a few issues that I document in my article, The Lonesome Death of Dorothy Kilgallen.  In spite of that, it’s a fascinating and very detailed accounting.

The death of Dorothy Kilgallen is important as it displays the meme for most of the deaths listed.  Since people carry on common routines in life, most of the people indexed exhibit the occurrence of doing things outside of their normal life patterns.  Such as, the person that is found death from a gunshot with the gun in the right hand--they are left handed.  It is as if the killers setting this up are not informed about all of the victim’s personal habits.  So anomalies always abound in these things.

Robert Kennedy?
I did find it incongruous that one final death on the list was that the president’s brother, Robert Kennedy.  I don’t see his death in the same category of the others since most of the deaths reported are very private in nature.  RFK’s murder was quite public with a world watching in horror of the unfolding event.  There is no display of out of place behavior as with the others on list.

Besides Robert Kennedy, there is J. Edgar Hoover and Jimmy Hoffa.  While those two men both having suspicious events surrounding their demise, never the less, either of these men could have been placed in a different accounting (meaning another book) of untimely deaths, or in the case of Hoffa, disappearing altogether. They had 50 slots so I guess the needed filler.

I was disappointed that Edward Voebel’s name was left out.  He was Oswald’s best friend in junior high and gave testimony to the Warren Commission of his time with Oswald in school.  He essentially had nothing bad to say about him.  He was just a normal kid.  What may have put Ed Voebel in the crosshairs is that he gave an account of visiting Oswald and meeting his mother at the 126 Exchange Place address.  Under the official narrative, they were supposed to be living several miles further away.  Voebel has Oswald’s mother working at bars for tips which she wasn’t supposed to be doing at the time (1954-55) either.  Voebel took ill in the early 1970’s and was at one point asked by his doctor had he been around any poisons.  Voebel replied he had not.  He took a turn for the worse and soon died.


Verdict
Hit List: An In-Depth Investigation into the Mysterious Deaths of Witnesses to the JFK Assassination, is a good entry into a well trod field of dubious witness deaths.  Well sourced and documented, it makes for a good source volume for any JFK researcher delving into this issue.  Stand-out chapters are the ones on Dorothy Kilgallen and Officer Tippet.  It’s also a good book for keeping the general pubic informed on this important side-history of the assassination.  It’s an impressive effort and highly recommended.


Addendum
This review is from the e-book version purchased via iTunes.

Addendum 5.7.13
There is a mistake on page 401 of Hit List claiming that country singer Jim Reeves knew Jack Ruby and Lee Oswald.  This is not correct, according to Larry Jordan's excellent biography, Jim Reeves: His Untold Story–which is sourced in Hit List.  As stated in the biography, Reeves knew Ruby but had only seen Oswald in the crowd at the Longhorn Ballroom, twice (p.885).  No dates given for this.  Reeves was known to have a photographic memory for names and faces, hence his telling friends he had seen Oswald before.  But Reeves never knew Oswald personally.

Amazon
http://www.amazon.com/Hit-List-Investigation-Mysterious-Assassination/dp/1620878070/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1366468469&sr=8-1&keywords=hit+list

Book Review: Reclaiming History by Vincent Bugliosi, Jr.

Reclaiming History is ultimately a flawed masterpiece. It’s a huge, heavy book of 1600+ pages (not to mention another 1,000 pages of end notes on disc). Bugliosi, the famous prosecutor of Charles Manson, attempts in grand style to deal with every detail ever written about in the assassination of John F. Kennedy. A “book of the ages” as the author boasts in interviews. However, like the Warren Commission that he so doggedly defends, this is not an objective search for the truth. Bugliosi states right up front that Oswald is “guilty as sin” and it spirals down from there in a long, detailed, prosecutorial brief in defense of the Warren Commission.

At first, Bugliosi's logic is quite impressive. His powers of deduction are unimpeachable, as if he were a flesh and blood version of Sherlock Holmes. He slices his way through conspiracy theories (and their authors) one after the other with skill and precision that he honed for years as a prosecutor. No rank amateur he. Off with their heads! But ultimately, the author’s arguments are straw men, easily burned when exposed to the flame.

Here is an example: In regards to the mysterious deaths of Kennedy assassination witnesses, Bugliosi states that in his experience as a prosecutor, a criminal suspect would most likely rather kill a witness before they speak. In this case, the witnesses have all talked repeatedly for many years. Makes sense. However, Bugliosi leaves out the other side of the argument. If this were true, then there would be no need for Federal witness protection programs. And what are they for? For material witnesses who gave their testimony and are under threat of death from the bad guys—after they talked. Here, Bugliosi simply ignores the other side of the argument to preserve his own.

And it’s like this over and over again.

For someone writing a book for the ages, many details are surprisingly flawed, even simple ones. On one page Bugliosi states there are 13 warehouse workers in the schoolbook depository building. On the same page, next paragraph, he states there are 16. He asserts that Huntley and Brinkley reported from ABC when they were on NBC. In the book he correctly refers to Dr. Ebersol as the acting chief of Radiology at Bethesda Naval. Then in the endnotes on disc he refers to him again but this time as an x-ray technician. Quite a demotion there! Sorry to be so picky but after all, this is the Book of Ages, meant to end all discussion, right? Hardly.

In some sections Bugliosi seems to have no grasp of the subject matter. For example, he agrees with HSCA pathology panel’s positioning of Kennedy’s back wound, with it being lower than the neck wound. He then goes on to say there are autopsy photographs which show the opposite—higher back and lower throat—which he then precedes to agree with. A Google search brings up the very same photo in question and shows this not true at all. Go see for yourself. In fact, he is being quite sloppy here. Why? Is somebody else doing the writing? At times Bugliosi acts as if we, the reading public, don’t have access to the Internet that allow us to double check what he is talking about.

More alarming are the blatant misrepresentation of facts (too numerous to go into here). Here is one of my favorite examples: Bugliosi claims that the Secret Service did not wash off the presidential limousine at the Parkland Hospital (before the FBI could examine it) and there were no witnesses to this event. Again, a simple Google search proves otherwise. Not only are there pictures of this washing taking place (a NY Times photographer was there) but there were three journalists who witnessed the event that have reported this event (the most famous—Tom Wicker of the NY Times who described the incident taking place in 1963). Needless to say, it is quite a goof on Bugliosi's part as it is easily disproved. Ironic, as he spends so many pages looking down his nose at conspiracy theorists, treating them as rank amateurs, while he does his fair share amateurish deeds as well.

Perhaps, in his zeal to set the record straight and assure the public that the Warren Commission got it right, any errors by them have to be overlooked or ignored. Such as when it was discovered by independent researchers that somebody had altered the transcript of Mrs. Kennedy’s interview—some thirty times and involving some crucial information on the number of shots and the Presidents fatal head wound. Bugliosi gives the Commissioners a pass, declaring that it was proof that their “heart’s were not made of stone.” Please! This is falsification of sworn witness testimony.

Bugliosi’s vain, boastful, personality almost overrides the narrative. He is a maze of contradictions. He is openly disdainful of conspiracy theorists calling them nuts, and kooky, and so on. He chastises them for making rooky mistakes, all the while making plenty of his own. After reading hundreds of pages of the continual vitriol on almost every page, it gets old. It’s as if he is not reclaiming history but settling scores. Oddly, Bugliosi is on the record for supporting a conspiracy in the death of the president’s brother, Robert Kennedy, which of course, makes him a conspiracy theorist too. Interesting that he gets one and not the other.

Despite it’s faults, Reclaiming History remains an excellent source book for students of the JKF assassination. The first section has a very good play-by-play score of events leading up to and past the crime. But one has to take it for what it is. Ultimately, one must do one’s own research into this issue, as cloudy and confusing at it can get. Bugliosi makes some valid arguments in defense of the official version of events, but often has to resort to ignoring contradictory evidence, cherry picking witness testimony, and at times, downright deception in order to arrive at his conclusions. At other junctures he flat out misrepresents evidence or presents assumptions as facts. Finally, Bugliosi makes too much of his right to be the author of the definitive truth on the Kennedy assassination. This, from a man who was sued for slander in the early 1970s and had to settle out for court for $15,000.