Reclaiming History.....A book for the ages!
YoHarvey
reviews
I have NOT read "Reclaiming History" in its entirety. There. Now I can
be accused of a inproper review or something. But I HAVE spent the
last 3 days combing through this 1600+ page tome on the Kennedy
assassination, and it is by far the most complete and thorough account
of that terrible day ever committed to print.
Back at the turn of the century (meaning 2000, it's just cool to say
it that way), I was working at a public library, and this book (back
then it was called "Final Verdict") was the number ONE requested item.
However, it kept getting delayed, over and over, until it was finally
taken off the records for requests in mid 2004. Well, now we know why
it took so long to come out. Spanning 20 years of work and research,
this massive book could easily be mistaken for yet another rambling,
kooky conspiracy theory-filled diatribe. Yet, it isn't.
In the afterward to the paperback version of "Helter Skelter",
Bugliosi made it known for the first time that he was writing a book
on the Kennedy assassination, and that he believed that Lee Harvey
Oswald acted alone. That afterword was written in 1995, and many true
crime fans were waiting, with bated breath, for 12 years for this one.
In between, Bugliosi wrote "Outrage: The Five reasons why O.J. Simpson
got Away with Murder", which I think was, at the time, his best work,
only because it cast such a different perspective on that wretched
case. This book, however, is his masterpiece.
Bugliosi not only spends the 1600 pages effictively making the case
for Oswald's guilt, he debunks virtually every single conspiracy
theory that has popped up in the last 44 years, such as "Badge Man",
"Gordon Arnold", "The Men Who Killed Kennedy", Oliver Stone's "JFK",
and my personal favorite, Dr. Charles Crenshaw, who made the rounds on
"Hard Copy" and "A Current Affair" in the mid 90's over his book,
"JFK: Conspiracy of Silence", where he, a Parkland Hospital doctor who
WAS in the E.R. trying to save JFK's life, SWORE that the President
was shot from the FRONT, contrary to other doctors on the scene that
day. The famous "Single/Magic Bullet Theory" is proved to have been
POSSIBLE, and perhaps even FACT, depending on what you believe. You
can toss that whole Oliver Stone "Bullet stopping in mid-air,
zigzagging" theory out the window. See the DVD of "The Kennedy
Assassination: Beyond Conspiracy" for a computer rendering of how it
really happened.
Much time is devoted to Oswald, his defection to Russia, his Pro-
Castro views, and, most importantly, how he could have caused ALL of
the damage to Kennedy and John Connolly that day. Much time is also
devoted to Jack Ruby, and all the theories that made him a mafia
hitman, designed to take out Oswald before he could talk.
Almost all of this has been covered in other JFK Assassination books
before, but never in a more thorough and effective manner. I'm already
seeing idiots posting "reviews" here, consisting merely of rambling
conspiracy arguements. "He didn't examine the EVIDENCE! Kennedy's
bullet wound was 3.4453232344353 millimeters in diameter, meaning the
shot had to have come from MARS!"....I know, that's SOMEWHAT of a
stretch, but it doesn't belong here.
Bugliosi spent TWENTY years devoting himself to this case, and the
detail of this resulting book shows his effort, and it is fantastic.
It IS incredibly bloated, and will now serve as Exhibit A for all
conspiracy nuts, who will attempt to debunk everything that Bugliosi
himself has debunked in this book for many years to come.
This is NOT the book to start your path on this topic. You WILL be
overwhelmed quickly. This book IS required reading AND worth owning,
but also, please check out Gerald Posner's "Case Closed", Mark
Furhman's "A Simple Act of Murder" (one of the weaker JFK books, but
still well written), ABC News' "The Kennedy Assassination: Beyond
Conspiracy" DVD, and, for the conspiracy side, "The Men Who Killed
Kennedy", "Crossfire", and of course, "JFK".
For the record, I am still on the fence about who/whom participated in
that horrible day. I must say, however, that the arguements put forth
in this book make a LOT more sense than hearing that Kennedy was shot
by a French mafia hitman wearing a police uniform, or from a manhole
cover. I still feel in my heart that there was some sort of
conspiracy, but, as Bugliosi points out, it might just be the yearning
to believe that our President was killed by something more than a lone
nut with a rifle.
YoHarvey
By imu ilu "143" (the world of hope) - See all my reviews
A large book, maybe it'd be better if edited down by 20% so it's not
1510 pages (plus 46 pages of introduction, plus 102 pages of
bibliography and index, and plus a CD-ROM with source notes), but I've
spent a spellbound several hours going through it and none of what
I've read so far is eligible for much cutting if any. So leave it at
1510 pages of body and enjoy what you read. I've read the excerpted
Warren Commission report, I've been to Dealey Plaza, I've read lots of
the conspiracy and not-Oswald books, all in an earlier stage in my
life. Now, it was wonderful to have so much brought together,
discussed, explained, correlated, refuted, and so on. The author deals
head-on with the not-Oswald theories, and delivers a thorough,
supportable, believable, analysis of this sordid day in American
history, making it clear that Oswald was the perp, although some would
like to believe it had to be CIA, Martians, mafia, Castro, LBJ,
cooties, all or some of the above, or "something else". Thanks to
Bugliosi for undertaking this masterpiece of detailed analysis. At
this stage I'm not sure it's really operative what happened 43 1/2
years ago, but the trail still clearly points to Oswald and to nobody
else. Several hours leafing through this book have convinced me to
read it all, and those several hours showed me it will be time well-
invested in a well-written, detailed, serious book.
I have no financial interest in any item I review.
Within 2 minutes of entering this review, I had 2 folks look at it,
neither of which found it helpful, and one of which pointed out some
conspiracy theory as to why a shooter working for LBJ had the
assassination done. Hey, no one's sure about what happened 43 years
ago, but this book does do a good job in analyzing everything. That's
why we all need this book, to let those that believe that LBJ, Warren
Harding, Castro, etc., had this killing done, to look at more evidence
that their beliefs are errant, or at least very low down on the list
of what's probable. Give the author a chance (and maybe even this
reviewer) to look at the preponderance of evidence that Oswald did it,
all by his little old self. Even if maybe maybe maybe Oswald didn't
fire one of the bullets at JFK, he did fire some of them at JFK, so he
was known to be involved. And no one else has yet been known to be
involved. So Oswald shooting a rifle at the president is likely to
make Oswald an "involved" party in the killing, even if the Martians/
mafia put someone else someplace else to shoot some more. Why would
LBJ hook his precious reputation and future on arranging with the
loony Oswald to do the shooting--Oswald was more likely to emerge
saying "look what LBJ asked me to do" than to do the shooting for LBJ.
There haven't been any links established between LBJ and Oswald, so
it's all apparently made up stuff. Who do you deny-ers believe is more
plausible a shooter than Oswald, who seemed to be one who definitely
took shots at JFK?
Anyway, all this said, this is a very good book analyzing what
happened 43 years ago in Dallas when JFk was shot and killed, and the
earwitnesses looked back and up to the School Book Depository.
If you don't agree with the Oswald theory, then this book is still
useful because it goes over a lot of the stuff that happened. You are
still free to disagree with the author's conclusion, but you will have
lots more information floating around in your mind and he did a good
job in pulling together a lot of facts. I have some other books in my
library that I don't agree with, but which present information that is
helpful to have. So please look at this in the same way, that if you
don't like the conclusion the author reaches, he has pulled together
lots of information and we are each able to rearrange the dots he
gives us as we think best. He gives us so much information that this
is a good book just for that. So this is good too even for the non-
Oswald-did-it folks, and you are certainly entitled to your opinion.
Those of you in the non-Oswald-did-it category and those of you in the
Oswald-did-it folks will both enjoy the discussion of what transpired
here, it's a good read purely from that aspect.
YoHarvey
By S. M.Silver "Lobo(AW)" (Coatesville, PA USA) - See all my reviews
Having read the Warren Report (though not the 26 volumes of the
commission's documents), ten of the leading conspiracy books, and
Posner's volume, I did not think Bugliosi would have anything new to
offer. I admit I was mistaken. Rather than simply re-present evidence
gathered by others, he conducted some of his own interviews that
clarify some of the attitudes and behavior of various involved
parties. His timeline of the four days of the assassination is the
clearest presentation of the events anywhere. His willingness to point
out the flaws in the commission, the FBI, and so on, tends to
corroborate his claim of approaching the assassination with an open
mind. I doubt that this book will make much of a difference. The
damage to the American social contract the conspiracy authors
contributed to so greatly is so pervasive that it cannot be undone -
our people, adrift in a fragmented society, have no faith in each
other or the people in our government. The need to believe in a
conspiracy is not based on evidence or logic but rather on a need;
faith does not respond to logic. Nonetheless, if the truth of the
murders matters to you, then you will find this book very useful.
YoHarvey
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By Jonathan Sabin (Ellenton, FL USA) - See all my reviews
Though I would never have thought of myself as a "conspiracy buff," I
have for YEARS thought that the official story was bogus.
I guess I never really thought too much about it, but part of the
reason was that I *WANTED* to believe there was a conspiracy. It was a
lot more comforting. Who wants to think that the "leader of the free
world" can be brought down, and the course of history changed by one
deranged nutcase?
Not that the END RESULT is any different, but somehow, I, along with a
lot of other people, felt better about the idea that it took a WHOLE
BUNCH of sick, twisted people to change the course of history.
A friend of mine, who has been a judge for many years, (and whose
opinion I value a great deal, despite the fact that we are politically
opposite on just about every issue!), mentioned Bugliosi's book one
day when he saw I was reading a "conspiracy" book. ("Ultimate
Sacrifice," by Lamar Waldron.) He asked me what I thought of Waldron's
book, and more to the point, what I thought about Oswald.
I told him that "Ultimate Sacrifice" made a compelling case, and it
firmed up the belief I had that Oswald had company. But I did
acknowledge that I was willing to hear the "other side" and that I
would check Bugliosi's book out from the library when it was
released.
About a month later, I got my copy, and upon gazing at its 1500+ pages
of REALLY SMALL print, I decided right off the bat... "I hope I don't
like this!"
Well, within a day or two, I realized that not only did I think that
Bugliosi was a great writer, but his research was unparalleled, and he
COMPLETELY drew me in. He addressed EVERY conspiracy theory I ever
heard of, and a slew of them that were new to me. (Martians?
Venusians? LBJ Actually firing the fatal shot?! PLEASE!!)
Anyhow, ANY reviewer amongst the 140 or so who have already taken the
time to weigh in on this dense tome, who claims that Bugliosi IGNORES
any evidence.... HAS NOT READ THE BOOK!
I'll say that again, having finished reading the entire book today: It
is pretty clear that many of the so-called reviewers on these pages
have never cracked open the book, let alone read the thing. (Full
disclosure... I did NOT however, read any of the 1000 or so pages of
info on the included CD.)
Nonetheless, Bugliosi has left NO stone unturned with regard to the
various theories, conspirators, shooters, hangers-on, and whatever-or
whomever could POSSIBLY have ever been associated with the case.
And he did a remarkable thing. He completely changed my mind. I am
thoroughly satisfied that Oswald did it, he acted alone, and that Ruby
shot Oswald in a moment of rage. I NEVER THOUGHT THAT I WOULD WRITE
THOSE WORDS... but you know something? I feel better now, finally
**KNOWING** who killed Kennedy!
A note about the book. Bugliosi, somewhere around the beginning states
that small print was used, because if it had been typeset like a
"regular" novel (around 300 words per page), it would have come in at
about 5400 pages. This thing is IMMENSE.
If you take it out in public, and people see you reading it, they
often WILL stop and ask "WHAT THE HECK ARE YOU READING?!" I had it
happen to me in restaurants, cafes, and amongst co-workers. It's kind
of like carrying around a baby, or a puppy! It commands attention!
However, think twice about reading it in the bathroom. If you set it
on your lap for any length of time, it'll completely cut off the
circulation to your legs!
YoHarvey
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By Craig Matteson (Ann Arbor, MI) - See all my reviews
This book is a stupendous achievement and I recommend it to everyone
everywhere. The assassination of President John F. Kennedy is a very
important event in our history and remains a kind of ink-blot test for
every living person. How do you respond to the event? Do you hold that
it was Oswald? Or do you insist that it was a conspiracy of some sort?
Your thoughts about this issue do say a great deal about how you view
the world. Unfortunately, too many folks have formed their opinions
from poor information. Most folks take their "evidence" from the
Oliver Stone film or similarly dubious sources. Vincent Bugliosi has
done us a great service by putting a great deal of evidence,
timelines, and penetrating analysis between two covers.
Yes, the two covers, are separated by some 1,500 pages (and another
1,200 pages of source notes on the accompanying CD), but it is
definitely a worthwhile read. And you can use the index to go to those
issues that most interest you. However, Bugliosi has arranged the text
to be read from front to back and will yield maximum benefit to the
reader who puts in the energy to follow his lead.
The book is really two big books combined into one. The first book is
over 900 pages and lays out the evidence as it is. After the author's
very interesting and useful introductory comments, it begins with a
timeline that begins the morning of the day of the assassination and
ends with the vastly different funerals of Officer Tippit and Lee
Harvey Oswald and an excerpt from a speech Pres. Johnson gave a couple
of days later.
We are then presented with the investigations, Kennedy's autopsy and
the gunshot wounds to him and Governor Connally, the Zapruder "home
movie", the "magic" bullet & the single bullet theory, a huge chapter
on Oswald, the provenance of the rifle found on the sixth floor of the
book depository, the evidence found there and "evidence" of Oswald's
innocence, the grassy knoll and theories of other assassins, motives,
and a wonderful and compelling summary of Oswald's guilt.
The second book takes on the range of conspiracy theories that have
been put forward since the murder of Kennedy. Bugliosi devotes a
chapter to Mark Lane, the supposed mysterious deaths, the second
Oswald theory, David Lifton and the notion that alterations were made
to Kennedy's body to skew the autopsy, Ruby's supposed connection to
the mob, whether it was the mob alone, whether it was the CIA, the
FBI, the Secret Service, the KGB, the Right Wing (military industrial
complex), LBJ (which I heard as a child almost immediately after the
President's death was announced), Cuba, anti-Castor exiles, and then a
magnificent recounting of Jim Garrison's investigation and a
dissection of the Oliver Stone film, "JFK". Bugliosi then shows why
there was no conspiracy.
It is always amazing to me how people who insist on some sort of
conspiracy will often cite contradictory evidence and mutually
exclusive theories without batting an eye at the illogic of their
position(s). A prime example of this is Stone's "JFK". It contradicts
itself and holds to things that cannot be simultaneously true. Still,
believers do believe. That is what they do. I am grateful to Bugliosi
for putting all of this together in one BIG book. It is unfortunate
that so many millions hold misguided beliefs about the assassination.
In the introduction, Bugliosi expresses his hope that this book can
help persuade the persuadable to set aside the misguided theories and
reclaim the real history of this awful event. I second his wish and
very much hope that in time, succeeding generations will get the story
straight and know that it was a twisted nothing, Lee Harvey Oswald,
who shot and killed John Fitzgerald Kennedy on November 22, 1963 in
Dallas, Texas.
David Von Pein
Hey, Yo! Don't leave me out! ~wink~ .......
A 3-Parter:
www.hometheaterforum.com/htf/3200858-post.html
A shorter version (for Amazon):
http://64.233.169.104/search?q=cache:-SrYI_zoiRIJ:www.amazon.com/review/R2R0RQ0Q9AZY0M
robcap...@netscape.com
If he is so great, why does he have to lie?
On Page 111 of Vincent Bugliosi's book Reclaiming History there is a
fundamental error that is rather substantial but a necessary error if
you want to debunk the possibility of a conspiracy that includes
participation by individuals at high levels of US Intelligence.
This is substantial for my own belief that John J. McCloy and Maxwell
Taylor may have been the "Big Fish" at the top of the conspiracy food
chain.
The sentence is:
"Hosty had learned on November 1 that Lee worked at one of the Texas
School Book Depository buildings in Dallas, but he did not know which
one."
In a 1600 + page book (which I have not as yet finished) a single
sentence may seem obscure but it is more than an omission of fact. In
this case it is a distortion of the Warren Commission Testimony of
James Patrick Hosty.
In the Testimony of Hosty we find this information that contradicts
Mr. Bugliosi:
"Mr. STERN. When Mrs. Paine told you that Lee Harvey Oswald was
working at the School Book Depository, did that mean anything to you?
Did you remember the building?
Mr. HOSTY. No, sir; I knew of the building in the outskirts of the
downtown area. That is about all. I looked up the address, and I
recognized the address, but it meant nothing to me...."
"Mr. HOSTY. Oh, yes, sir. This occurred on the (November) 1st. This
was a Friday. I returned to the Dallas office. I covered a couple of
other leads on the way back. I got in shortly after 5 o'clock and all
our stenos had gone home. This information has to go registered mail,
and it could not go then until Monday morning.
Monday morning---shall I continue?
Mr. STERN. Yes.
Mr. HOSTY. On Monday morning, I made a pretext telephone call to the
Texas School Book Depository, I called up and asked for the personnel
department, asked if a Lee Oswald was employed there. They said yes,
he was."
21 Days before the assassination of JFK the FBI was aware of where Lee
Harvey Oswald was working and this information was forwarded to
Washington, DC on November 4th, before the Dallas luncheon location
was decided upon and before the final motorcade route was decided.
But in another unusual happening this Hosty note was not given a
Commission Exhibit Number nor was it ever brought before the Warren
Commission even though two previous Hosty notes were given Commission
Exhibit Numbers.
In an article written by Washington journalist Jefferson Morley, "What
Jane Roman Said, A Retired CIA Officer Speaks Candidly About Lee
Harvey Oswald," we find some interesting information revealed about
the information that James Hosty was providing to the FBI and where
that information was being forwarded too.
Quoting from Morley's article:
"I first called Jane Roman in the summer of 1994. I told her that I
worked as an editor for the Sunday Outlook section of the Washington
Post. I told her I had seen her name on some new CIA records in the
National Archives. Could she spare some time to review them with a
colleague and me?Roman said she was going away for the summer, maybe
when she got back in the fall. In October, I called her again. I
explained that it was very difficult to understand records like this,
especially for some one like myself who had never worked at the CIA. I
needed her help. I told her that I liked to work with a colleague, I
preferred to tape record my interviews and thought we could cover
everything in 90 minutes.
She agreed. She invited me to come to her house on Newark Street in
Cleveland Park on November 2, 1994."
Morley took with him a former CIA employee named John Newman.
"Newman produced a sheath of copies of the CIA cables that Roman had
signed for over the years. They were all cables about one Lee Harvey
Oswald of New Orleans and his travels between November 1959 to October
1963. Roman took her time examining them. From that point on, Roman
did not dispute that she had been familiar with Lee Harvey Oswald
before November 22, 1963. She spoke with candor.
A second thing that stands out from the interview tape: Jane Roman was
well informed about the agency's workings and its inner circle. She
mentioned that she had been to the funeral of Ray Rocca, a longtime
counterintelligence expert. She alluded to her friendship with retired
CIA director Dick Helms, then living a couple of miles away on
Garfield Street in Northwest Washington."
Digging further into the Morley article:
"As the interview proceeded, Newman sought to coax Roman into talking
about the handling of information on Oswald by the senior staff
members of the CIA's operations division and the counterintelligence
staff in the weeks before Kennedy was killed.
He showed her the cover sheet on one FBI report on Oswald that had
been sent to the agency. There was a blizzard of signatures on it.
Newman had deciphered the writing and identified the officials in
various offices in the Directorate of Plans, as the covert operations
division was then known. He read off the names of all the people who
signed the routing slips for the Oswald file in September 1963.
"Is this the mark of a person's file who's dull and uninteresting?" he
asked. "Or would you say that we're looking at somebody who's--"
"No, we're really trying to zero in on somebody here," Roman
acknowledged."
But what of Hosty's notes? The article continues:
"Newman then reviewed the routing slips on two documents about Oswald
that Roman herself had received in September 1963.
The first was the FBI report from agent Hosty in Dallas. Hosty
reported on Oswald's address in the summer of 1963 and his recent
leftist political activities, including his subscription to the
Socialist Worker newspaper."
Continuing:
"On top of that cable was the cable and routing slip that showed she
had just a few days before signed for the two FBI reports on this same
Lee Harvey Oswald. She had signed for the second of these reports on
Oct. 4, 1963."
"Newman's implication was clear. If Roman had read the FBI reports,
then she knew on October 10, 1963 that Oswald had just a few weeks
earlier been handing out pamphlets on behalf of the FPCC, the most
prominent pro-Castro organization in the United States. Moreover,
Oswald's pro-Castro activism had embroiled him in an altercation with
members of the Cuban Student Directorate, one of the agency's most
favored front groups in the anti-Castro cause. All of this information
was on Jane Roman's desk in October 1963."
My question is, "What would motivate Mr. Bugliosi to misstate this
information about what Hosty knew and when he knew it, especially in
light of the fact that Hosty's information was being routed to the
highest echelons of the CIA?"
Jim Root
lazu...@webtv.net
David Von Pein
I doubt that Bugliosi "misstated" anything there. You, as most CTers
are wont to do all the time, are concentrating on nit-picking
everything to a pulp.
That segment you culled from Page 111 of VB's book (re: Hosty not
initially being aware of which of the two TSBD buildings Oswald worked
in) isn't necessarily a misstatement of fact at all.
In fact, via the Hosty testimony that you yourself (Rob) provided, we
can see that it's quite possible indeed that Hosty did NOT know for
sure which exact TSBD building Oswald worked in right after he talked
with Mrs. Paine on 11/1/63 (although Hosty does use only the word
"building" [singular], instead of "buildings" [plural] in his
testimony; so maybe you can nitpick that to death too, if you want to;
but I'm not sure where any of this Depository goose chase really leads
a CTer, seeing as how Hosty, even if he had been 100% certain of where
the TSBD warehouse was located at 411 Elm on 11/1/63 still would have
had no solid reason for considering Lee Oswald a "threat" to the
President as of that date, or even as of Nov. 22nd).
In any event, we can see from his testimony that Hosty was definitely
uncertain as to the exact location (address) of the building where
Oswald worked as of 11/1/63. He said he had to look it up.
Upon re-reading Page 111 of VB's book, I traced the Source Note for a
series of paragraphs on Pages 111 and 112 to this Source Notation on
the CD-ROM:
Source Note #589 From Chapter #1: "Hosty with Hosty, Assignment:
Oswald, p.16."
It would seem, therefore, that everything AFTER Source Note #588 (but
prior to Note #589) would be covered, in some fashion, by Source Note
589. Which means you'd need to read Page 16 of Mr. Hosty's book
"Assignment: Oswald" (which is a book I cannot reference, because I
don't have it).
Perhaps the answer to Rob's incessant search for meaningless chaff in
this particular Hosty regard rests there.
YoHarvey
RH is now the definitive reference work for the assassination. Case
closed.
aeffects
> lemme check the header...
this Mark Lane review has them running after their tails
lazu...@webtv.net
I'll get the gist of it here somewhere.
Burly...@gmail.com
Wrong. The book, RH , had you guys chasing your tails the moment
it hit the shelves.
tomnln
on 11/22/63 were identified by
"Lapel Pins" that changed shape and color every day.
Those Lapel Pins were shown to every DPD officer who worked the motorcade
that day.
<Burly...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:030ef589-3b28-4ee6...@f63g2000hsf.googlegroups.com...