I’ve seen documentaries, read articles and essays, biographies etc, regarding the assassination, conspiracy theories and debunking facts - but never read a real f+ck off book on the subject.
Now is the time.
I thought Amazon would help me, but that site left med undecided. So what would you recommend me…? I’m interested in facts, not (conspiracy) theories, am an “avid reader”, but don’t wish for one too heavy academic work, if you know what I mean.
Case Closed, by Gerald Posner
A Simple Act of Murder: November 22, 1963 by Mark Fuhrman
Case Closed, by Gerald Posner or
Case Closed, by Gerald Posner or
Case Closed, by Gerald Posner
I just want to make sure that somebody mentions Case Closed by Gerald Posner.
I’m re-reading The Day Kennedy Was Shot-Subtitled on the jacket-“An uncensored minute-by-minute account of November 22, 1963”, by Jim Bishop 1968. Utterly fascinating!
BTW, at around 12:30 on that day I was in the office of the Maine Turnpike Authority when State Highway Trooper Ben Bean, came out of the adjacent radio shack (room) and said to all of us, “How’s it feel to be without a president?” The day and the weekend, and the country went downhill from there. Tears are again washing my face.
I coincidentally lived for a year in a Beacon Hill apartment house where JFK (and I think Jackie) had lived for a while. I served in the Navy with one of the sailors who had been on the honor guard at his funeral.
How about Case. . . oh, wait. I can point you to an interesting simulation of what Oswald did if you find the books don’t satisfy you.
Forget Case Closed. The most authoritative book on the subject (well, besides the actual Warren Commission’s 27 volumes) is Reclaiming History, by Vincent Bugliosi (all 1600 pages, plus an additional CD full of endnotes). He deals with virtually every aspect of the murder, including all of the conspiracy theories.
(I hate to spoil the ending, but it was Lee Harvey Oswald who did it.)
Case Closed, by Gerald Posner.
Ah, it was a 1920’s-style Death Ray that actually killed him…
Sehr gut!
Anyway, there’s a good listing of books on both sides of the issue on John McAdams’ web site (the whole site is worth a look; it also has links to some of the more sensable conspiracy sites and the Usegroup alt.assassination.jfk which McAdams apparently runs).
If you’d like to go straight to the horse’s mouth, so to speak, then go to the AARC Public Library. They’ve scanned in (both HTM and PDF) not just the Warren Report but also the Warren Commission’s twenty-six volumns of Hearings and Exhibits, the HSCA report and some of their other stuff, the Church Committe report, some AARB stuff, and more. That’ll keep you busy for thirty or forty years. . . .
Bugliosi’s new book is by far the most exhaustive (and exhausting) of the entire literature, and I suppose is required reading for anyone who is serious about the subject. Posner’s book is more suited to those with a casual interest.
I’m hard put to make specific recommendations about conspiracy books. Quite a few are little more than paginated nonsense - elaborate theories based on obscure conjectures, sloppy scholarship, poor grasp of the evidence, and sometimes, I suspect, deliberate fraud. Josiah Thompson strikes he as someone who generally has his act together (he’s done a paper debunking the now-popular notion that the Zapruder film has been altered), but I’ve not seen his Six Seconds in Dallas, and it is out of print, anyway. Harold Weisberg has a reputation of having been a tireless researcher who, apparently, never put together a specific “theory” of his own. (I’ve not yet read any of his stuff, but a lot of it is still out there.) Anyway, the McAdams link above will give you a nice long list to work from.
The actual verified truth. (When some guy named Posner heard the theory, he wrote back, “Case Reopened!”).
Short booklist on the JFK assassination:
[ol]
[li]Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy, by Vincent Bugliosi[/li]Towering work by former prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi, deals thoroughly with every facet of the case. The most authoritative single volume published. The individual sections on “Four Days in November” and his biography of Lee Harvey Oswald could stand alone as first-class narratives. Read the Introduction online.
[li]Case Closed, by Gerald Posner. [/li]For those looking for a book of less intimidating size, Posner covers the same ground as Bugliosi and makes a convincing case for Lee Oswald’s sole guilt. Read Chapter One online.
[li]Pictures of the Pain: Photography and the Assassination of President Kennedy, by Richard B. Trask[/li]A useful visual supplement to other texts, written with an admirably neutral tone.
[li]With Malice: Lee Harvey Oswald and the Murder of Officer J.D. Tippit, by Dale K. Myers[/li]Oswald’s other murder victim that day, killed 45 minutes after JFK. Myers’ scrupulous approach to this lesser known aspect of the assassination matches Bugliosi’s. Fills a major gap in the literature. Myers’ J.D. Tippit Web site.
[li]The Warren Commission Report: Report of the President’s Commission on the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy, by The Warren Commission[/li]A good starting point for beginners. After more than forty years, the Report’s major conclusions all remain valid. Online edition.
[/ol]
Recommended Web sites:
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[li]John McAdams’ Kennedy Assassination Home Page. For twelve years, the best JFK site on the Web.[/li][li]Secrets of a Homicide: JFK Assassination, by Dale K. Myers. Solid research and use of CGI reconstructions.[/li][li]Roberdeau professionally surveyed map of Dealey Plaza. Full of conspiracy theory annotations, but the map itself is sound and very useful. (One correction: The two men placed behind the fence on the grassy knoll on this map were actually in front of the fence, on the stairway going down to Elm St. More here.)[/li][li]Zapruder film stabilized. The best online version available. Give it a minute to download.[/li][li]Zapruder film: individual frames.[/li][li]The Kennedy Assassination Photographic Archive.[/li][/list]
Recommended documentaries:
[list=0]
[li]The Kennedy Assassination: Beyond Conspiracy. The Emmy Award-winning documentary from ABC News. Excerpt here (begins with a clip from the movie JFK). Available on DVD.[/li][li]Four Days in November. Academy Award-nominated documentary feature. Available on VHS.[/li][/list]
You can see a home movie of JFK in Dealy plaza that recently surfaced here. It’s only a few minutes long, and there’s just a couple of seconds of JFK, but the film ends with the camera man focusing on the Texas School Book Depository and people standing in front of it sobbing. After Kennedy goes by, you can see the movie camera of someone standing next to the camera. Who it is and what happened to the film is unknown.
If you are referring to the George Jefferies film, that does not picture JFK in Dealey Plaza. Jefferies was standing several blocks away at the corner of Main and Lamar, and the film was taken about 90 seconds before the assassination. The two scenes of the Texas School Depository, in Dealey Plaza, were taken later.
Wow, thank you (Walloon, especially)! - Looks like I begin with the Posner book and continue from there if I need more. Much appreciated.
One more Recommended Web site:
• JFK Video: The Dallas Tapes. Vintage reports from the KDFW Dallas archives. Kennedy’s breakfast speech in Fort Worth on Nov. 22, his arrival in Dallas later that morning, the midnight news conference with suspect Oswald, Ruby’s on-air shooting of Oswald.
Longer excerpt from the ABC News special The Kennedy Assassination: Beyond Conspiracy.
