New Kennedy Books (An Ongoing List)

[Guest Robert Morrow]

http://www.amazon.com/Killing-JFK-Commission-OReilly-Assassination/dp/1492248177/ref=cm_rdp_product

Killing JFK: 50 Years, 50 Lies: From the Warren Commission to Bill O'Reilly, A History of Deceit in the Kennedy Assassination

by Dr. Lance Moore

November 22nd, 2013 marks the 50th Anniversary of the assassination of John F. Kennedy... and at last we have the unbiased facts, concisely-presented by a skilled, acclaimed author who is also a credible voice: an ordained Methodist minister. Dr. Moore presents over 200 source-notes supporting a compelling case that the death of President Kennedy involved more than a “lone nut” assassin. He marshals old and new evidence to prove that there was indeed a second sniper, positioned in front of the Presidential limousine, who fired the fatal head shot. Moore points up scores of glaring contradictions in the government’s own Warren Commission Report as he solves the greatest crime mystery of the last fifty years with riveting, engaging prose. “Finally, a well-written, witty, and factual overview of the case that examines both the big picture and all the important details in the mosaic—without getting lost in a morass of tangential information. This is an important book that clearly demonstrates why the JFK assassination case is still relevant, unsolved, and intriguing.... Not just "Recommended": Highly recommended!” —Vince Palamara, author of Survivor’s Guilt: The Secret Service and the Failure to Protect President Kennedy

Edited September 18, 2013 by Robert Morrow

[Guest Robert Morrow]

So do you think the New York Times is ashamed of the coverage of the JFK assassination? They ought to be ... I would classify it in a category for decades has been the equivalent of 1950's Stalinist propaganda.

http://www.amazon.com/Kennedy-Years-Pages-York-Times/dp/1419708554/ref=sr_sp-btf_title_2_21?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1379738082&sr=1-21&keywords=jfk+assassination

The year 2013 is the 50th anniversary year of the assassination of John F. Kennedy, who still ranks as one of the top five presidents in every major annual survey. To commemorate the man and his time in office, the New York Times has authorized a book, edited by Richard Reeves, based on its unsurpassed coverage of the tumultuous Kennedy era. The Civil Rights Movement, the Bay of Pigs, the Cuban Missile Crisis, Vietnam, the space program, the Berlin Wall—all are covered in articles by the era’s top reporters, among them David Halberstam, Russell Baker, and James Reston. Also included are new essays by leading historians such as Robert Dallek and Terry Golway, and by Times journalists, including Sam Tanenhaus, Scott Shane, Alessandra Stanley, and Roger Cohen. With more than 125 color and black-and-white photos, this is the ultimate volume on one of history’s most fascinating figures.


“This book is both fascinating and poignant. It brings us back into the Kennedy years while also allowing us to reflect on what made them so emotional. I found myself totally immersed."

—Walter Isaacson, author of Steve Jobs and Benjamin Franklin: An American Life

“A deeply illuminating, journalistic romp through Camelot from the eyes and minds of the great New York Times reporters of that era and beyond. It’s an important contribution to our nation’s ever growing U.S. presidential history library. Richard Reeves has corralled the best and the brightest Kennedy scholars to offer fact-checked wisdom. Highly recommended.”

—Douglas Brinkley, author of Cronkite, The Wilderness Warrior, and The Great Deluge.

“The New York Times’ rendering of the Kennedy years provides much more than a riveting first draft of history. Here we also witness the birth of modern America. The daily presence of thepresident and his family through modern media all started with Kennedy. As we follow his presidency in real time, aided by context from Richard Reeves and others, we come to understand better much of what is happening in the country today.”

—Cokie Roberts, political commentator for ABC and NPR and author of Ladies of Liberty: The Women Who Shaped Our Nation

“A terrific introduction to the Kennedy presidency for those who did not live through it, and a startling reminder for those who did of how much happened in those 1,000 days, this compilation from The New York Times reveals the essential truth of the old adage that journalism is the rough draft of history. Commentaries by historians and current Times reporters fill in the gaps between what the journalists reported then and what we know now.”

—David Nasaw, author of The Patriarch: The Remarkable Life and Turbulent Times of Joseph P. Kennedy

Edited September 21, 2013 by Robert Morrow

[Guest Robert Morrow]

Larry Sabato's book takes aim at the Dictabelt evidence: http://www.politico.com/story/2013/10/sabato-jfk-book-kennedy-assassination-theory-98245.html

Sabato’s JFK book takes aim at House conspiracy theory
By: James Hohmann
October 14, 2013 05:05 AM EDT

A forthcoming book raises serious doubts about a key piece of evidence that led a House committee to conclude in 1979 that President John F. Kennedy was likely killed as part of a conspiracy.

University of Virginia political scientist Larry Sabato commissioned a scientific analysis of the Dallas Police Department’s Dictabelt recording of scanner traffic from Nov. 22, 1963, as part of his research for “The Kennedy Half Century: The Presidency, Assassination, and Lasting Legacy of John F. Kennedy.”

Investigators for the House Select Committee on Assassinations relied heavily on the tape to say there was a high probability that Lee Harvey Oswald was not the lone gunman. The microphone on a motorcycle cop’s radio was stuck, so it was believed to capture a full recording from the motorcade. They detected four gunshots on the tape, and two academics told the committee that they believed one came from the grassy knoll — not the Texas School Book Depository.

(PHOTOS: Who’s who in the Kennedy family)

Dealey Plaza was even closed on a Sunday in August 1978 so sharpshooters could fire into sandbags, and the noises were recorded. Acoustics experts crosschecked those recordings against the 1963 tape.

Sabato will unveil his findings Tuesday, during a press conference at the Newseum in Washington, to coincide with the publication of a 624-page tome he has been working on for five years. He offered a sneak preview to POLITICO.

“The long-hoped-for Rosetta Stone of the Kennedy assassination is nothing of the sort,” he writes. “And the much-publicized conclusion of proven conspiracy … was deeply flawed and demonstrably wrong.”

It turns out that the motorcycle cop whose radio was transmitting was not where the investigators believed him to be when they did their tests. He was actually more than two miles away in a place where his radio could not have picked up the sound of gunshots.

The firm Sonalysts concluded that some of the sound impressions on the recordings that were interpreted as gunfire a generation ago are nearly identical to other sound impressions earlier on the tape that are definitively not gun shots.

“In fact, there are no less than twelve similar impulses in a period spanning just over a three-minute segment of the open microphone audio,” Sabato writes, guessing that they are probably “of a mechanical origin associated with the motorcycle.”

Others have previously questioned the House assassinations committee’s finding. A 1982 National Academy of Sciences panel called its report “seriously flawed” and said there “was no acoustic basis” for claiming a shooter on the grassy knoll.

Sabato ridicules the House committee’s methodology and says it relied too much on estimates. The frequent political commentator, who has written two dozen books, also strongly criticizes the Central Intelligence Agency for continuing to hold back documents about the assassination. Many potentially important government documents are not scheduled to be released until 2017.

“No one has offered a convincing explanation for the CIA’s special treatment of Oswald’s paperwork in the weeks leading up to the assassination,” wrote Sabato. “It is beyond question that the CIA lied to the Warren Commission in 1964 and then again to the House Select Committee on Assassinations in the late 1970s.”

The author, who founded and directs the Center for Politics at University of Virginia, also contracted with Hart Research to conduct a national survey about the public’s view of Kennedy, specifically his enduring crossover appeal, detailed in another section of the book.

Sabato also interviewed several key political figures, from former President Jimmy Carter to House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi, about how Kennedy’s legacy has affected them. The book includes detailed chapters about how the flame of Camelot shaped every subsequent president, from Lyndon Johnson to Bill Clinton.

Sabato concludes that “a conspiracy of some sort … cannot be dismissed out of hand.” But he said there is no doubt that Oswald was “at least one of” Kennedy’s assassins. Just because the tape could not prove a conspiracy, he explains, does not mean there was not someone on the grassy knoll.

Ultimately, Sabato believes we will never know with certainty what really happened 50 years ago. Scholars, he said, will probably still be debating it a century from now.

“The search for the truth of JFK’s assassination is like the quest for El Dorado, the mythical city of gold that tantalized European explorers in the 16th century,” he writes. “Inspired by vague clues and Amerindian legends, these explorers spent years in the wilderness hoping to strike it rich, but often died of disease and starvation instead.”

[William Kelly]

Larry Sabato's book takes aim at the Dictabelt evidence: http://www.politico.com/story/2013/10/sabato-jfk-book-kennedy-assassination-theory-98245.html

Sabato’s JFK book takes aim at House conspiracy theory

By: James Hohmann

October 14, 2013 05:05 AM EDT

A forthcoming book raises serious doubts about a key piece of evidence that led a House committee to conclude in 1979 that President John F. Kennedy was likely killed as part of a conspiracy.

University of Virginia political scientist Larry Sabato commissioned a scientific analysis of the Dallas Police Department’s Dictabelt recording of scanner traffic from Nov. 22, 1963, as part of his research for “The Kennedy Half Century: The Presidency, Assassination, and Lasting Legacy of John F. Kennedy.”

Investigators for the House Select Committee on Assassinations relied heavily on the tape to say there was a high probability that Lee Harvey Oswald was not the lone gunman. The microphone on a motorcycle cop’s radio was stuck, so it was believed to capture a full recording from the motorcade. They detected four gunshots on the tape, and two academics told the committee that they believed one came from the grassy knoll — not the Texas School Book Depository.

(PHOTOS: Who’s who in the Kennedy family)

Dealey Plaza was even closed on a Sunday in August 1978 so sharpshooters could fire into sandbags, and the noises were recorded. Acoustics experts crosschecked those recordings against the 1963 tape.

Sabato will unveil his findings Tuesday, during a press conference at the Newseum in Washington, to coincide with the publication of a 624-page tome he has been working on for five years. He offered a sneak preview to POLITICO.

“The long-hoped-for Rosetta Stone of the Kennedy assassination is nothing of the sort,” he writes. “And the much-publicized conclusion of proven conspiracy … was deeply flawed and demonstrably wrong.”

It turns out that the motorcycle cop whose radio was transmitting was not where the investigators believed him to be when they did their tests. He was actually more than two miles away in a place where his radio could not have picked up the sound of gunshots.

The firm Sonalysts concluded that some of the sound impressions on the recordings that were interpreted as gunfire a generation ago are nearly identical to other sound impressions earlier on the tape that are definitively not gun shots.

“In fact, there are no less than twelve similar impulses in a period spanning just over a three-minute segment of the open microphone audio,” Sabato writes, guessing that they are probably “of a mechanical origin associated with the motorcycle.”

Others have previously questioned the House assassinations committee’s finding. A 1982 National Academy of Sciences panel called its report “seriously flawed” and said there “was no acoustic basis” for claiming a shooter on the grassy knoll.

Sabato ridicules the House committee’s methodology and says it relied too much on estimates. The frequent political commentator, who has written two dozen books, also strongly criticizes the Central Intelligence Agency for continuing to hold back documents about the assassination. Many potentially important government documents are not scheduled to be released until 2017.

“No one has offered a convincing explanation for the CIA’s special treatment of Oswald’s paperwork in the weeks leading up to the assassination,” wrote Sabato. “It is beyond question that the CIA lied to the Warren Commission in 1964 and then again to the House Select Committee on Assassinations in the late 1970s.”

The author, who founded and directs the Center for Politics at University of Virginia, also contracted with Hart Research to conduct a national survey about the public’s view of Kennedy, specifically his enduring crossover appeal, detailed in another section of the book.

Sabato also interviewed several key political figures, from former President Jimmy Carter to House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi, about how Kennedy’s legacy has affected them. The book includes detailed chapters about how the flame of Camelot shaped every subsequent president, from Lyndon Johnson to Bill Clinton.

Sabato concludes that “a conspiracy of some sort … cannot be dismissed out of hand.” But he said there is no doubt that Oswald was “at least one of” Kennedy’s assassins. Just because the tape could not prove a conspiracy, he explains, does not mean there was not someone on the grassy knoll.

Ultimately, Sabato believes we will never know with certainty what really happened 50 years ago. Scholars, he said, will probably still be debating it a century from now.

“The search for the truth of JFK’s assassination is like the quest for El Dorado, the mythical city of gold that tantalized European explorers in the 16th century,” he writes. “Inspired by vague clues and Amerindian legends, these explorers spent years in the wilderness hoping to strike it rich, but often died of disease and starvation instead.”

The HSCA acoustical study focused on the echo unique echo patterns produced by the sound of a high powered rifle being shot - and they shot their own guns and taped them and compared them to what's on the tape and when one of the acoustical scientists who conducted the story was asked if he was told the sounds on the tape were produced somewhere else - he replied that he would want to be taken there and find an exact duplicate of Dealey Plaza.

The only way the HSCA study could be seriously refuted would be to duplicate the experiments, and I don't think they did that. They did just what debunkers and the NSF did and put out a report saying it is wrong.

The HSCA conclusions concerning conspiracy did not depend on the acoustical evidence, but they in fact came up with other evidence of conspiracy even though they were the target of a CIA disinformation operation and lost their congressional support.