BOOK REVIEW -- "Four Days In November" By Vincent Bugliosi
David Von Pein
BOOK REVIEW:
===================================
"FOUR DAYS IN NOVEMBER: THE ASSASSINATION OF
PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY" (2008)
By:
VINCENT BUGLIOSI
www.wwnorton.com/catalog/spring08/033215.htm
===================================
Vincent Bugliosi's "FOUR DAYS IN NOVEMBER", published by W.W. Norton &
Company in late May 2008, paints a vivid word picture of the events
surrounding the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
This 688-page paperback is a reprint of the first chapter of
Bugliosi's mammoth and spectacular 2007 hardcover tome "RECLAIMING
HISTORY: THE ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY". So if you've
already got that book, there's really no reason to also purchase this
"Four Days" volume too.
The award-winning* "Reclaiming History" lays out all the evidence (in
overwhelming doses) to definitively show that Lee Harvey Oswald--
alone--did, indeed, murder President Kennedy in Dallas, Texas, on
November 22, 1963.
www.hometheaterforum.com/htf/3200858-post.html
www.google.com/group/reclaiming-history/topics
* = "RH" won an "Edgar Allan Poe Award" on May 1, 2008, as the "Best
Fact Crime" book of 2007.
www.google.com/group/Reclaiming-History/browse_thread/thread/2d609b32846ec2ed
Author and former Los Angeles Deputy District Attorney Vincent T.
Bugliosi has referred to "Reclaiming History" as his "magnum opus",
and after reading its compelling and convincing contents, such a
description is certainly hard to disagree with, in my own personal
opinion.
"Reclaiming History", as mentioned, is mammoth in size and scope,
logging in at 1,535,791 words and 2,824 total pages (which includes
the 1,100+ pages of endnotes and source citations on a CD-ROM computer
disc that is attached to the back cover of the book). That page count
also includes all of the photo pages in "RH"; and most of those same
photographs also show up in this shorter "Four Days" volume as well,
albeit smaller in size.
The narrative that we find in "Four Days In November" begins at 6:30
AM on the morning of President Kennedy's assassination (Friday,
November 22nd, 1963), and continues chronologically through the day of
JFK's funeral (Monday, November 25th).
Bugliosi provides an incredible amount of information and seldom-
revealed facts in "Four Days", much of which will probably be brand-
new to some readers.
Many portions of this book actually can be traced back to two other
similarly-styled books about JFK's assassination that were written in
the late 1960s -- William Manchester's "The Death Of A President" and
Jim Bishop's "The Day Kennedy Was Shot".
www.amazon.com/THE-DEATH-OF-A-PRESIDENT/review/RGHDDNLTB60EQ
www.amazon.com/THE-DAY-KENNEDY-WAS-SHOT/review/RYD6JTWASP90K
This is quite evident when glancing through the 49 pages of source
notes in "Four Days", with Manchester's and Bishop's books being
referenced many times within the 1,557 citations that Bugliosi
provides. ("Reclaiming History", by the way, contains more than 10,000
source citations, which is a figure that probably makes it one of the
most-sourced books in publishing history.)
To a person who isn't inclined to believe that virtually every piece
of evidence against Lee Harvey Oswald for the murders of President
Kennedy and Dallas policeman J.D. Tippit was miraculously and
magically "manufactured" or "faked" in some way, "Four Days In
November" leaves little to no doubt as to the identity of the one and
only person who was responsible for those two homicides.
Or, to put it more bluntly (as Vince Bugliosi does in this quote from
"RH"):
"I can tell the readers of this book ["Reclaiming History"] that
if anyone in the future maintains to them that Oswald was just a patsy
and did not kill Kennedy, that person is either unaware of the
evidence against Oswald or simply a very silly person. .... Any denial
of Oswald's guilt is not worthy of serious discussion." -- Vincent
Bugliosi; Page 969 of "Reclaiming History" (c.2007)
So, if you're interested in just about every last detail imaginable
when it comes to those four incredible days in November of 1963 when
America lost its President to an assassin's bullet, then "Four Days In
November" is undeniably the book to pick up.
And for an even more-exhaustive examination of JFK's assassination and
the large number of conspiracy theories it spawned (with Mr. Bugliosi
reducing each one of those theories to a most-deserved pile of
smoldering rubble), "Reclaiming History" is an absolute must-have item
for the "True Crime" home library.
Both of Vince Bugliosi's JFK volumes ("RH" and "Four Days") are books
that will (or certainly should) make anybody reading them think twice
the next time they hear the words "Oswald was just a patsy".
===================================
FROM THE LIPS OF THE AUTHOR:
"The millions of Americans who have been hoodwinked into buying
into the conspiracy illusion don't believe that Oswald conspired with
some other lowly malcontent like himself to assassinate the president.
Instead, though most don't clearly articulate the thought in their
mind, they believe that Oswald was merely the triggerman for organized
crime, a foreign nation, or conspirators who walked the highest
corridors of power in our nation's capital. ....
"Not the smallest speck of evidence has ever surfaced that any
of the conspiracy community's favorite groups (CIA, mob, etc.) was
involved, in any way, in the assassination. Not only the Warren
Commission, but the HSCA [House Select Committee on Assassinations]
came to the same conclusion. .... But conspiracy theorists, as
suspicious as a cat in a new home, find occurrences and events
everywhere that feed their suspicions and their already strong
predilection to believe that the official version is wrong. ....
"The fact that Kennedy was a powerful public figure was very
relevant to Oswald's motivation for killing him. On the other hand,
murders of powerful public figures in America by the groups fancied by
conspiracy theorists--the CIA, mob, FBI, and military-industrial
complex--are absolutely unheard of. Show me a precedent. ....
"The bottom line is that evidence of Oswald's innocence in the
Kennedy assassination is about as rare as hundred-dollar bills on the
floor of a flophouse. ....
"Only people who subscribe to rules of absurdity, not rules of
life, could possibly believe that a conspiracy to kill [John F.]
Kennedy ever existed. The conspiracy argument in the Kennedy
assassination requires the belief that for over forty years a great
number of people have been able to keep silent about the plot behind
the most important and investigated murder of the 20th century. In
other words, it requires a belief in the impossible. ....
"Waiting for the conspiracy theorists to tell the truth is a
little like leaving the front-porch light on for Jimmy Hoffa."
-- Vincent Bugliosi; Pages xiv, xvi, xlii, 844, 950, and 1442 of
"Reclaiming History: The Assassination Of President John F.
Kennedy" (c.2007)
===================================
David Von Pein
May 2008
David Von Pein
>>> "None other than Vince Palamara was swayed by the book [Vincent Bugliosi's "Reclaiming History"], and he not only believes that Bugliosi has presented the best possible evidence and proved that Oswald did it alone, he praised Vince and his research for "Four Days in November". His words are there for all to see in the book itself." <<<
And Vince Palamara's review is available to read on the "Reclaiming
History" website too:
“Vince Bugliosi’s masterful Reclaiming History is a devastating
knock-out blow to those who, like me, once believed there was a
conspiracy in the death of JFK. Bugliosi finishes and completes, in
exhaustive and impressive detail, the work of the Warren Commission,
the House Select Committee on Assassinations, and, quite frankly, all
the other writers who have ever delved into the crime of the twentieth
century. It is time to get a life, America: Oswald did indeed kill
Kennedy, acting alone. Vince Bugliosi has done what I once thought was
the impossible: he has convinced me of this notion. The conspiracy
community was able to survive the Warren Commission Report, as well as
the Report of the House Select Committee on Assassinations. The
question is whether it will be able to survive Bugliosi’s Reclaiming
History.” -- Vince Palamara, Secret Service expert and former JFK
conspiracy theorist
www.reclaiminghistory.com/?page_id=8
Footnotes:
It's interesting to note that two of Dr. David Mantik's
supposedly-'RH'-favoring comments are propped up at the RH.com website
too (and in VB's "Four Days" paperback as well).
But, in my own personal opinion, those comments from Mantik don't
belong there in the "Praise For RH" section of the website (or in the
"Four Days" paperback book which came out in late May 2008 either).
And that's because of Mantik's overall view of Bugliosi's "RH" book,
which is way, way more negative than it is positive. In fact, Mantik
attempts to rip VB a new anal cavity many times within his 23-page-
long review for "Reclaiming History", which can be found at the link
below:
www.assassinationresearch.com/v5n1/v5n1mantik.pdf
Moreover, the two supposedly-glowing Mantik blurbs that appear at
www.ReclaimingHistory.com and in the "Four Days" book have also been
taken totally out of context. When Mantik said: "It is a masterpiece",
that wasn't the complete comment made by Dr. Mantik in his "RH"
review. Here's the full quote, which places an entirely new meaning on
the truncated version of the remark:
"In its own way, it is a masterpiece--a truly brilliant
prosecutorial brief."
Mantik's other quote that appears at RH.com and in the "Four Days"
book is this one: "It is likely that this book [RH] will stand forever
as the magnum opus of this case."
But those above words take on a bit of a new flavor when we see what
Dr. Mantik wrote right after those words. Here's the full quote:
"It is likely that this book will stand forever as the magnum
opus of this case--though not without serious flaws."
I've gone through Dr. Mantik's lengthy review of "Reclaiming History"
and culled a few passages that give the overall flavor of Mantik's
opinions about Bugliosi's book. (And all of these anti-VB things
written by Mantik are things that I firmly disagree with entirely, of
course; but everybody's going to have their own opinion.).....
"The problem...is that he [Vincent Bugliosi] wears permanent
blinders, particularly when it comes to experts, and especially so for
those from science."
"B’s [Bugliosi's] approach reminded me of a bulldozer in a
garbage pile. Never mind anything, just plow straight ahead, crunching
whatever lies below and ahead, and clear a path to the other side. At
this, he is unsurpassed. After he is done, the road is indeed clear,
but who would want to follow such a path?"
"In a very deep sense, [Bugliosi] really does not want to look
at all the pertinent data--after all, he already knows the answer, so
why bother? It’s really just too much trouble. This again
characterizes the legal mind, but not the scientific mind. And, more
troublesome for him, it totally violates his own best description of
his own book--a book that attempts “… to be a comprehensive and fair
evaluation of the ENTIRE [sic] case….”."
"In the future, unlike [Bugliosi], let’s actually examine all of
the evidence, but especially those items that are central--and even
the evidence we weren’t quite expecting."
"[Bugliosi] clearly wants to destroy every last scintilla of
anti-WC [Warren Commission] evidence. But even he admits that
virtually no murder case is ever that clean cut. It is therefore more
than a little bewildering that he does not give ground a little here
and there--but he simply won’t. That makes him all the less credible.
And it certainly does not give him the air of a scientist. But he does
not seem to care. He would prefer to appear omniscient. There is not
even a pretense of open-mindedness. His scorn, perhaps even hatred,
for the critics comes through page after page. Again, the reader must
decide if he can accept such a relentless bias."
[END MANTIK QUOTATIONS.]
Now, after reading those comments written by Dr. Mantik, why in the
WORLD anyone would be silly enough to take his out-of-context
"masterpiece" remark and prop it up as overall, general "Praise" for
VB's "RH" book is just something I cannot fathom for the life of me.
And it's even more ridiculous (IMHO) for those two short blurbs from
Mantik to have been reprinted as "praise" for "RH" within VB's "Four
Days In November" paperback volume that came out late last month.
Anyone reading only those blurbs (and not the entire review written by
Mantik) might very well think that Dr. Mantik, like Vincent Palamara,
had completely changed his tune with respect to his previously-long-
held beliefs in a JFK conspiracy. But nothing could be further from
the truth in Dr. Mantik's case.
To put review blurbs like those from David W. Mantik in a follow-up
volume of "RH", which was done in "Four Days In November", is just
incredibly silly, in my view...and totally misrepresents Mantik's
overall opinion of Mr. Bugliosi's "RH" book.
It makes me truly wonder if Vince Bugliosi had ever even read Mantik's
COMPLETE review from top to bottom. For, if he had read it, it's hard
to believe he would have approved of those two blurbs being placed in
his "Four Days" book (and on his "RH" website).
Returning to Vince Palamara for a moment longer.....
All in all, I'm not too impressed by Mr. Palamara's sudden turn toward
LN-ville (although his "turn" wasn't just recently; it dates back to
at least November 2007, and probably earlier, although nobody at the
JFK Internet Forums I frequently visit seems to realize this fact at
all, to hear them talk about it).
From what I've experienced of him online in personal conversations and
from looking at his shameless and non-stop self-promoting "reviews" at
Amazon.com (for JFK books where he, himself, appears in the book's
index), my overall opinion isn't really too high of Vince Palamara.
That's just my own personal opinion, of course. And, by the same
token, based on our few personal online sessions, my guess would be
that he doesn't have a very high opinion of me either. But, so it
goes. ;)
Also.....
Incredibly, on May 9, 2008 (many months AFTER he officially became an
ex-"CTer" with respect to the murder of John F. Kennedy), Vincent M.
Palamara somehow was able to find enough residual "conspiracy" left in
him to write a glowing 5-Star review for James Douglass' new pro-
conspiracy book (and he gets in a good self-congratulatory remark or
two along the way as well...as usual):
www.amazon.com/review/R1SCRUKKJ2YSKQ
And, btw, the YouTube video that Mr. Palamara uploaded on May 22, 2008
(wherein he acknowledges on camera his switch to the "LN" camp) has
now been removed from the YouTube website by Vince P. himself.
The video wasn't very well-done, IMO, and perhaps after watching it a
few times, Vince himself felt the same way. Maybe he'll put together
another similar "I'm Now A Lone-Nutter" video in the future. Could be.
At least it's an easy way to slap yourself on the back as you read
your own review from the pages of Mr. Bugliosi's "Four Days In
November" (which is what Vince P. did in his now-deleted YouTube
video).
Anyway, that's just my $0.02 (well, maybe $0.03).
David Von Pein
pjsp...@aol.com
>
> And, btw, the YouTube video that Mr. Palamara uploaded on May 22, 2008
> (wherein he acknowledges on camera his switch to the "LN" camp) has
> now been removed from the YouTube website by Vince P. himself.
>
> The video wasn't very well-done, IMO, and perhaps after watching it a
> few times, Vince himself felt the same way. Maybe he'll put together
> another similar "I'm Now A Lone-Nutter" video in the future. Could be.
> At least it's an easy way to slap yourself on the back as you read
> your own review from the pages of Mr. Bugliosi's "Four Days In
> November" (which is what Vince P. did in his now-deleted YouTube
> video).
>
> Anyway, that's just my $0.02 (well, maybe $0.03).
>
> David Von Pein
>
> www.DavidVonPein.blogspot.com
I'm glad you noticed Bugliosi's misrepresentation of Mantik's words,
David. I noticed that myself awhile back. Now if I can only get you to
realize that Bugliosi's book is filled with such misrepresentations...
David Von Pein
>>> "I'm glad you noticed Bugliosi's misrepresentation of Mantik's words, David. I noticed that myself awhile back." <<<
My guess would be that it was the publisher's doing. Probably not
Bugliosi's.