The best all-around book on the assassination is ?

[Joe Bauer]

2 hours ago, Ron Bulman said:

Maybe the most overlooked book recently is Dr. Joseph Mc Bride's Political Truth, The Media Assassination of President Kennedy.

Your general summary of McBride's book and why you assign to it such a high importance value regards the JFKA truth Ron?

For those of us who haven't read it or have only just read certain passages JM has posted here on the forum?

[Pete Mellor]

I have recently become a committee member of Britain's U3A charity organisation and almost by accident gave a presentation on the JFKA, which has resulted in my name & this topic being added to the U.K. register of U3A speakers.  As a result I have bookings for 2024 from local U3A groups.  What books do I recommend is a question that I have been asked.  As the U3A is primarily for retired members of the older generation, my talk, lasting just over an hour, features photographs and film and press reports etc., just on historical factual information, with hardly a mention of LHO or the killing of Officer Tippit.  I can only include the whys of the Texas trip, the Fort Worth breakfast, the Dallas motorcade, Dealey Plaza and Parkland.  I hardly have time to take a breath to fit that in inside the allotted time.  However, I have been very surprised at the response, with post presentation Q & A's lasting almost as long as the presentation itself.  So, for this age demographic, most like myself, alive and remember JFK as president and the event in Dallas, what further reading do I recommend.  I point interest to 'Crossfire' and 'JFK & the Unspeakable' depending on their prior level of knowledge & availability of these books. 

[Chuck Schwartz]

I like most of the posts so far.  My favorite right now is " Coup in Dallas".

[James DiEugenio]

WIlliam:

To even try and reply to your question as to what I would ask the students to do is pretty difficult.

But if I had to do so, I would probably begin at the beginning and have them read Vincent Salandria's early work destroying the SBT.  That would be enough to get them interested.

Now that I had their attention:  I would go a bit deeper:

Presumed Guilty by Howard Roffman. Among other things, that book I think was the first to postulate that the x rays demonstrated a hunting round instead of a FMJ  bullet.

I would then shift the focus to who was Kennedy?  JFK and the Unspeakable

I would address the medical evidence with the book Trauma Room One-- here you get an eyewitness, plus Gary Aguilar's fine long essay.

Then Edwin Black's The Plot to Kill Kennedy in Chicago.

I would show excerpts from two  films, Chip Selby's on the Single Bullet Theory and Oliver's JFK: Destiny Betrayed.   (They would be too time consuming to show in their entirety.)

I would probably end with something on Oswald, taken from a combination of Destiny Betrayed, Second Edition, Chapter 7 "On Instructions from his Government" and Greg Parker's Lee Harvey Oswald's Cold War.

I think that would be a pretty decent introductory grounding.

 

Edited October 9, 2023 by James DiEugenio

[Michael Crane]

11 hours ago, Ron Bulman said:

This is a preposterous question.  Who does one not offend first?  Among the living.  In no particular order, flip a coin?  Destiny Betrayed vs SWWT?  Hard to draw a line there, different tact's.  Others, complimentarily, many of the offerings.  Historically or recent?  

In the last few years, the combination of Destiny Betrayed and Through The Looking Glass, in print and video is a historic accomplishment in presenting facts and reaching newer generations.  By the same token I was stunned to learn among other things in Tipping Point that Jack Ruby was in Vegas on the 18'th - 19th.

Tipping Point: The Conspiracy that Murdered President John Kennedy: Hancock, Larry: 9781736440902: Amazon.com: Books

JFK Revisited: Through the Looking Glass: DiEugenio, James, Stone, Oliver: 9781510772878: Amazon.com: Books

Maybe the most overlooked book recently is Dr. Joseph Mc Bride's Political Truth, The Media Assassination of President Kennedy.

Political Truth: The Media and the Assassination of President Kennedy: Joseph McBride: 9781939795618: Amazon.com: Books

From an all around younger perspective.

Amazon.com: America's Last President: What the World Lost When It Lost John F. Kennedy: 9798986556802: Wiesak, Monika: Books

Edited October 9, 2023 by Michael Crane

[Ron Bulman]

16 hours ago, Joe Bauer said:

Your general summary of McBride's book and why you assign to it such a high importance value regards the JFKA truth Ron?

For those of us who haven't read it or have only just read certain passages JM has posted here on the forum?

Hi Joe.  It's because it's addresses the big picture both then and over time to now.  How the government and the powers that be which runs it influenced us and how we got from there to here.  Yet it goes into detail.

E.G.  I don't remember reading before that Hoover's # 3 guy at the FBI, Cartha DeLoach said the first version of the Zapruder film he saw showed JFK's head going violently forward initially, like Dan Rather said at the time.  Pg. 79.  This to me lends credence to Dough Horne's detailed assertion of film alteration.  Then there is the Sidny Wilkerson, high resolution, 35-40 film experts part in support of this on pgs. 74-5.  Details matter.

It addresses it the bigger picture in terms of The Media Industrial Complex, Weapons of Mass Distraction and Coincidence Theorists (the nine common tropes of them).  Why, according to Vince Salandria, the violent overthrow of government made the U S into a military regime disguised as a democracy.  Pg. 340. 

It takes one from the JFK assassination to the January 6th 2021 insurrection.  It's about a Cold Civil War.  A fifty six years thread plus by the author only, never hijacked. 

[Joe Bauer]

25 minutes ago, Ron Bulman said:

Hi Joe.  It's because it's addresses the big picture both then and over time to now.  How the government and the powers that be which runs it influenced us and how we got from there to here.  Yet it goes into detail.

E.G.  I don't remember reading before that Hoover's # 3 guy at the FBI, Cartha DeLoach said the first version of the Zapruder film he saw showed JFK's head going violently forward initially, like Dan Rather said at the time.  Pg. 79.  This to me lends credence to Dough Horne's detailed assertion of film alteration.  Then there is the Sidny Wilkerson, high resolution, 35-40 film experts part in support of this on pgs. 74-5.  Details matter.

It addresses it the bigger picture in terms of The Media Industrial Complex, Weapons of Mass Distraction and Coincidence Theorists (the nine common tropes of them).  Why, according to Vince Salandria, the violent overthrow of government made the U S into a military regime disguised as a democracy.  Pg. 340. 

It takes one from the JFK assassination to the January 6th 2021 insurrection.  It's about a Cold Civil War.  A fifty six years thread plus by the author only, never hijacked. 

WOW...GREAT SUMMARY! GREAT BOOK!

A GREAT TRUTH CONTRIBUTION GIFT TO US ALL ON JM'S PART.

THANKS.

[Ron Bulman]

On 10/9/2023 at 10:56 PM, Joe Bauer said:

WOW...GREAT SUMMARY! GREAT BOOK!

A GREAT TRUTH CONTRIBUTION GIFT TO US ALL ON JM'S PART.

THANKS.

Joe, my review on Amazon is a tiny bit more detailed than my post.  But the second half of this article by Jim on Kennedy's and King is both a review and commentary on the subject.  Much more detailed than my effort.

How the MSM Blew the JFK Case, Part Two (kennedysandking.com)

[Michael Crane]

Surprised not to hear Doug Horne's 5 Volume Set.

[Pete Mellor]

4 hours ago, Michael Crane said:

Surprised not to hear Doug Horne's 5 Volume Set.

Agree, essential reading.

[Michael Griffith]

If someone who had never read a book about the JFK case asked me to recommend one book, I would probably recommend Gerald McKnight's book Breach of Trust: How the Warren Commission Failed the Nation and Why.

If I had to vote on the "best all-around" book on the assassination, I think I would say Doug Horne's five-volume work Inside the Assassination Records Review Board.

[S.T. Patrick]

On 10/8/2023 at 6:42 AM, Sean Coleman said:

eases you in comfortably 

I have to agree with this. When newcomers, college kids, whoever, ask me what book to start with or what the one book is to buy, I always suggest Crossfire by Jim Marrs. When someone has a casual interest in a topic enough to read a book on it, they don't want you to give them something that has 300 pages of document numbers and cryptonyms that read like a foreign language. As much as the hobbyists love that, the first-timer wants the story, the characters, the mystery, and the case. This is where Marrs excels. I've heard people suggest Meagher as a first choice and I think this is a mistake. For a first-timer, I also think "One witness said THIS to Warren," but in an interview with such-and-such researcher, they said they really said THIS. Again, incredibly valuable if you have 30 books or 100 books, but for the one and only book they may ever read on the case... no. And because so many researchers have now gone down their own rabbit holes to solve the case, 95% of the books are too focused on one thread of the case to be a great first-timer overview. Sure, Marrs was written before the ARRB but the case was resolved before 1970. It wasn't Oswald. Period. Marrs does the best job at writing a large survey that I believe shows this pretty clearly and in a way that reads like a good true crime book. Not to be under-stated, the way Marrs parses his sections into short subsections is also incredibly valuable to a first-timer or someone who is buying one book. It makes the story much easier to follow. Even the way he clearly explains the chapter topic in the table of contents. Too many researchers/writers want to get too clever in their tables of contents and they want to use partial quotes or something that tell the reader nothing about what's in the chapters. (Pet peeve.) Marrs (and my favorite mainstream history writer, AJ Langguth) organize their TOC clearly, which is a godsend for someone who wants to find a chapter quickly. If someone were going to read one book on the case due to a casual interest, or if someone were starting, Marrs is the way to go, and I don't even think it's close.

   

Edited October 13, 2023 by S.T. Patrick

[Pat Speer]

51 minutes ago, S.T. Patrick said:

I have to agree with this. When newcomers, college kids, whoever, ask me what book to start with or what the one book is to buy, I always suggest Crossfire by Jim Marrs. When someone has a casual interesting a topic enough to read a book on it, they don't want you to give them something that has 300 pages of document numbers and cryptonyms that read like a foreign language. As much as the hobbyists love that, the first-timer wants the story, the characters, the mystery, and the case. This is where Marrs excels. I've heard people suggest Meagher as a first choice and I think this is a mistake. For a first-timer, I also think "One witness said THIS to Warren," but in an interview with such-and-such researcher, they said they really said THIS. Again, incredibly valuable if you have 30 books or 100 books, but for the one and only book they may ever read on the case... no. And because so many researchers have now gone down their own rabbit holes to solve the case, 95% of the books are too focused  on one line of the case to be a great first-timer overview. Sure, Marrs was written before the ARRB but the case was resolved before 1970. It wasn't Oswald. Period. Marrs does the best job at writing a large survey that I believe shows this pretty clearly and in a way that reads like a good true crime book. Not to be under-stated, the way Marrs parses his sections into short subsections is also incredibly valuable to a first-timer or someone who is buying one book. It makes the story much easier to follow. Even the way he clearly explains the chapter topic in the table of contents. Too many researchers/writers want to get too clever in their tables of contents and they want to use partial quotes or something that tell the reader nothing about what's in the chapters. (Pet peeve.) Marrs (and my favorite mainstream history writer, AJ Langguth) organize their TOC clearly, which is a godsend for someone who wants to find a chapter quickly. If someone were going to read one book on the case due to a casual interest, or if someone were starting, Marrs is the way to go, and I don't even think it's close.

   

I would agree that Marrs' book is the best when it comes to sucking in newbies. It sure worked on me.

So I guess it depends on the audience. 

For a young person or newbie not sure where they stand: Marrs. 

For someone like your mom who loves to read but is drawn more to personal stories: Fonzi. 

For an educated person who likes CSI-type stuff: Thompson.