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Book reviews.

JFK ASSASSINATION BOOKS

FRANK RAGANO and SELWYN RAAB, Mob Lawyer (New York: Charles Scribner' s Sons,
1994), 372 pp. $22.00 hardcover (ISBN 0-684-19568-2).

HARRISON EDWARD LIVINGSTON, High Treason 2: The Great Coverup: The
Assassination of President John F. Kennedy (New York: Carroll & Graf, 1992),
656 pp. $25.95 hardcover (ISBN 0-88184-809-3).

HARRISON EDWARD LIVINGSTON, Killing the Truth: Deceit and Deception in the
JFK Case. (New York: Carroll & Graf, 1993), 752 pp. $27.95 hardcover (ISBN
0-88184-428-4).

BARBIE ZELIZER, Covering the Body: The Kennedy Assassination, The Media, and
the Shaping of Collective Memory. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1992), vii, 299 pp. $14.95 paper (ISBN 0-226-97971-7).

ANTHONY FREWIN, The Assassination of John F. Kennedy: An Annotated Film, TV,
and Videography, 1963-1992, Foreword by Martin Short (Westport, CT:
Greenwood Press, 1993), xv, 174 pp., $49.95 hardcover (ISBN 0-313- 28982-4).

GERALD POSNER, Case Closed: Lee Harvey Oswald and the Assassination of JFK
(New York and Toronto: Random House, 1993), xv, 609 pp., including
illustrations and notes, $25.00 hardcover (ISBN 0-679-41825-3).

PETER DALE SCOTT, Deep Politics and the Death of JFK (Berkeley, CA:
University of California Press: 1993), 413 pp. (ISBN 0-520-08410-1).

Americans have long had a love affair with the idea of conspiracy. Today,
aided and abetted by a daily dose of television drama, our citizenry has
come to expect ulterior motives, complex, byzantine plots with a simple
denouement worked out in the span of sixty minutes, commercials included.
Thus it is that the assassination of President John F. Kennedy has already
been the subject of over two thousand books, innumerable articles, panels,
radio and television discussion shows, and movies. Many have wondered if it
were possible for a lone gunman to have killed the president, a young vital
vibrant member of a "new generation to whom the torch had recently been
passed." The question becomes all the harder to answer positively when one
inquires into the background of the one person who is supposed to have
committed the act: the perpetrator turns out to have been a 24 year old
misfit and a failure at almost everything he had tried up to that fateful
November day in Dallas.

Anyone who has lived through those tragic days remembers the scenario with
incredulity. Almost every shared a common initial reaction: the dastardly
deed had to have been done by a foreign power or a member of some lunatic
right wing organization. When it turned out that the suspect was a person
who had spent time in the Soviet Union as an expatriate, the plot thickened
and became all the less believable. Within the span of less than 48 hours,
the perpetrator had been murdered by another person of seamy background.
Could the American system have been subverted so easily by two persons each
with such a questionable pedigree? A positive answer to this question would
make the citizenry feel endangered and vulnerable; on the other hand, a
negative response could force a differing and perhaps more dangerous
reaction: an alien power had subverted our system. In the latter scenario,
were the conspiracy to have been orchestrated from abroad, popular reaction
would inexorably force a Sarajevo-like backlash, something impossible in the
thermonuclear age. Thus, neither explanation was palatable; never mind what
had really happened.

In an attempt to deal with the already obvious conundrum, one of the first
acts of the new president, Lyndon B. Johnson, was to convene a "blue ribbon"
panel, soon to become known to all as the Warren Commission, to investigate
all the facts surrounding the tragedy and to present a report to the
American people as quickly as possible. Sadly, the group's research was
shoddy, its product badly assembled, leaving its conclusions poorly based,
providing opportunities for anyone seeking a headline, a movie or a book
contract to offer a "new and startling revelation." Within the space of
thirty years, Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard Nixon, future
Watergaters, the Central Intelligence agency, the Federal Bureau of
Investigation, Texas oil millionaires as personified by H. L. Hunt or the
Murchisons, the military establishment, the Mafia, the Russians, and the
Cubans have all been listed as dramatis personae by at least one author.
Surprisingly, only fellow travelers [in the motorcade] Jacqueline Kennedy
and Texas governor John Connally have somehow escaped being cast as
villains. Other authors have hypothesized that there may have been an Oswald
"double" and, as a result, recently Oswald was disinterred to check whether
the body was actually that of the alleged assassin.

In the interests of full disclosure, from the first, this reviewer was not
inclined to believe that Lee Harvey Oswald could possibly have been the sole
assailant. Having interviewed a number of the early skeptics including
Edward J. Epstein,[1] Mark Lane,[2] and the Attorney General in New Orleans,
Earling Carothers "Jim" Garrison,[3] it was easy to be convinced that the
Warren Commission Report was a "coverup." After all, the ramifications of
many of the other plausible scenarios were so dire. The subsequent Watergate
revelations did not help bulwark or restore faith in governmental veracity.
When Gerald Ford, one of the members of the Warren Commission, became
president and promised to end "this nightmare [referring to the Watergate
controversy, not the assassination]," this reviewer speculated that at some
point he would "level with the American people" and explain that, in an
effort to avoid a catastrophic confrontation, the members had agreed to
cover up evidence of a foreign based plot to assassinate the president. As
we all$know, this never transpired; nevertheless, the lack of such an action
has not deterred the doubters from continuing to publish works suggesting
similar scenarios. Indeed, the promise of fat royalties, or box office
receipts in the case of movies, not to mention notoriety, has stimulated a
number of entrepreneurs to merchandise their idea of history. And, despite
the almost uniform lack of quality of their work, for the most part, it has
been profitable for them and their sponsors.

There are so many persons involved in the tangled web that one truly
requires a scorecard to keep all the actors straight. Fortunately, Michael
Benson has produced Who's Who in the JFK Assassination: An A- to
Z-Encyclopedia which lists over 1400 personae, dramatis and otherwise.
Unfortunately, has work panders to the conspiracy theorists and
sensationalists. For instance, the entry on JFK includes the following
passage:

"He slept with women who also slept with mobsters. He considered dumping LBJ
as his vice presidential candidate in 1964, JFK wanted to eliminate the oil
depletion allowance. . . . He threatened to dismantle the CIA . . . [he]
made plans to retire FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover." (p. 233)

And the one for LBJ alleges that

". . . during the shooting sequence. LBJ had his ear pressed against a
walkie-talkie that was 'turned down real low'. . . . According to Madeline
Brown, who claims to have been LBJ's mistress at the time of the
assassination. LBJ had foreknowledge of the assassination but did nothing
about it because of his lust for power and his hatred for JFK." (pp.
222-223)

These two samples are illustrative of the sometimes barely substantiateable
material he uses and the twists Benson gives to many entries aiding those
seeking "evidence" to establish new and convoluted conspiracies. Sadly, it
quickly became clear that much of the contents is no more than unverifiable
hearsay.

That the "mob" or the Mafia played a role in the assassination is a theory
that has been advanced from the first. Clearly, there had been grounds for
provocation; JFK's younger brother, Robert [RFK], as Attorney General, had
assembled a group of high powered investigators in the Department of Justice
with instructions to "break the Mafia." For the Mafia, murder was an oft
utilized tool to achieve its ends-in this case the end of the
investigation-something that RFK would never do; and as long as JFK was in
the White House, RFK would head Justice, not to mention have the ear of the
president. Frank Ragano and Selwyn Raab's latest expose, Mob Lawyer, adheres
to this line of reasoning. Sensational, to the point of emblazoning the dust
jacket with "Including the inside account of who killed Jimmy Hoffa and
JFK," it also plays to those with prurient interests. For instance, it
recounts a story about JFK having attended an alleged sex party in Havana in
1957 arranged by Mafia boss Santo Trafficante and witnessed by mobsters
through a two-way mirror. Apart from the second hand reminiscences of the
author, however, there is no other corroborating evidence or proof;
certainly, one would think that those involved would have known the value of
incriminating photographs. Although not mentioned in the book, the publicity
materials distributed by the publishers maintain that "Trafficante never
believed that JFK would become president and thus he had not had any
pictures taken." Clearly, something is wrong here because pictures would
have been useful even dealing with a junior senator; but, even more
important, as the runnerup candidate for the vice-presidential nomination in
1956, the youthful JFK was likely to have had other opportunities for higher
national office in the future. With such lack of understanding of the
political process by author and actor, there can be little value to the
work.

Harrison Edward Livingston has written essentially the same book in three
different guises. First it was High Treason,[4] then, two years later, High
Treason 2: The Great Coverup: The Assassination of President John F.
Kennedy. A best seller, it was quickly followed by Killing the Truth: Deceit
and Deception in the JFK Case. According to his unlikely scenario, "Texas
oil," as represented by H. L. Hunt and Clint Murchison, Jr., helped by LBJ,
Richard Nixon and J. Edgar Hoover, were all involved, aided and abetted by a
shadow organization using the Central Intelligence Agency as a front. There
was an ambush at Dealey Square, more than one gunman was involved, pistol as
well as gun shots were fired and heard; bullets came from the "grassy knoll"
and perhaps also from a storm drain in an adjacent parking lot. Intelligence
operatives were able to fake, plant, or steal evidence. X-ray records were
doctored as were photographs and the autopsy report (High Treason 2, p. 99,
Killing the Truth, pp. 99-100). But who actually committed the act? In High
Treason 2, Livingston can only suggest that the "power elite" and Texas oil
with help from its allies in the military, and that Far Eastern Section of
the CIA were responsible; their rationale: JFK was not controllable;

elections [in the United States are rigged from the start. All of those who
have a chance of winning the presidency have long been picked by the power
elite, as had Kennedy. . . Kennedy began to rub people the wrong way, as he
became his own man. . . (p. 574, emphasis original).

In Killing the Truth, he becomes more specific, there was a conspiracy led
by LBJ or Hunt, with Murchison and Hoover as active co-conspirators. Each
had a specific task: LBJ had to lure JFK to Dallas and then "whitewash the
crime"; Hoover to pick one of the gunmen (Oswald), and the others to supply
additional soldiers for an ambush (pp. 543-5). Earlier, however, we have
been told that, because of the high degree of hate in Dallas, "Texas killed
President Kennedy" (p. 518).[5]

What sets Livingston's book apart from others of similar bent is that the
author takes the time to demolish the theories of other conspiracists and,
in the process, purports to reveal incongruous ties that allegedly has
existed between various critics and their supporters. He thus claims, for
instance, that Mark Lane, who ran for public office on New York City' s
ultraliberal west side with Socialist support, allegedly was bankrolled by
Murchison and, as a lawyer, had represented the Liberty Lobby, a notoriously
right wing pressure group (pp. xxiii-xxiv). While a lawyer can and should be
able to represent those of all political stripes without fear of
retribution, ideological or otherwise, the question of acceptance of
financial support is, however, totally different-but since satisfactory
substantiation is lacking, it is not necessary to deal with the allegation.

A university press imprint and a background as a Canadian diplomat have
combined to give Peter Dale Scott a legitimacy undeserved by the content of
his latest book, Deep Politics and the Death of JFK. Of similar
philosophical persuasion as Livingston, he quickly dismisses the theory of
Oswald as the lone assassin and he asserts that, immediately before the
assassination, Kennedy had been planning to withdraw from Viet Nam; "Two
days after the assassination" LBJ changed course (pp. 26-27). But there is
more: The assassination, plus McCarthyism, Watergate, and Iran Contra [he
calls it Contragate] were all crises that arose because of perceived threats
to the prosecution of the Cold War (p. 303). Who then killed JFK? "[A]
coalition of forces inside and outside government . . . . a deep political
system" (p. 299). Throughout the book, phrases beginning with "deep" are
utilized to substitute for substantiating charges after a buildup of barely
provable half truths and innuendo often based on the most tenuous of ties or
stories of sexual encounters.

There is no doubt that Jean Hill witnessed the assassination; she is the
woman in red recorded in the Zapruder film standing near the curbstone no
more than ten feet away from the president as the bullets hit their target.
What were her subsequent actions is a matter of some controversy and doubt.
According to her new book, JFK: The Last Dissenting Witness, allegedly the
first time she has told her story, she had attempted to greet one of the
police in the motorcycle escort, had run part way up the "grassy knoll, " had
been waylaid by a government official from a unknown agency, and had been
harassed from that point onward. (But see section concerning Posner infra.)
In spite of the forces arrayed against her, for many years, she has
maintained that she had seen a person whom she sometimes identified as Jack
Ruby shoot from the grassy knoll [and despite the fact that since the
Spanish American War smokeless powder has been almost universally used,
there was "a muzzle flash, a puff of smoke. . . ."], hitting the president
in the head and exploding his skull [likely shot number 3]; furthermore, she
is steadfast in her belief that more than three shots in all were fired,
that the shots came from at least two different directions and that Oswald
was not one of the assassins (pp. 25-30, 64-5, 248-8). Her book, introduced
by Oliver Stone, recounts the incident in detail and is the tale of how her
life allegedly was changed forever that fateful day, and how the Secret
Service, the FBI, the CIA, and the Warren Commission purportedly tried every
possible means to persuade her to modify her story.

True to so many of the works that have cried conspiracy, JFK: The Last
Dissenting Witness contains a section that recounts the untimely deaths of
various "important personages." "[M]ore conspiracy and coverup?" The book
asks pregnantly referring to the passing in I989! of three of the policemen
who had ridden motor cycles flanking the presidential limousine, thus
conveniently ignoring the fact that over a quarter of a century had elapsed
since the assassination (p. 251). Were one to consider accepting the clearly
implied possibility of foul play, the least one would have expected to find
would be some sort of explanation as to why it took so long to get around to
silencing them; there is no such passage.

Barhie Zelizer's Covering the Body: The Kennedy Assassination, The Media,
and The Shaping of Collective Memory is a most thought provoking work. Not
so much a book detailing the actual assassination, as it is about how
American journalists have told and retold the event both to the public and
to themselves. Not simply satisfied with reporting the news, reporters are
more interested in legitimizing themselves as "the story's authoritative
spokespersons" (pp. 1-2); interestingly, however, she never uses the term
"primary source" but if they had actually been on the scene, they would
surely qualify as such. The work is divided into four parts with the first
being an introduction providing the context including a fascinating portrait
of the changing state of early 1960s journalism and a description of how the
reporters were able to promote themselves as "authoritative spokespersons
for the events of JFK's death." Part II details how the story evolved in the
weeks immediately following the event.

Part III covers the journalists attempts to self-promote as the
assassination's "preferred retellers." The final section analyzes how the
media has protected its hard won turf and managed to solidify its role as
the "authoritative reteller." The lack of agreement as to exactly what
happened on November 22, 1963, gave each actor an opportunity to try to gain
personal stature while, at the same time, tell the story from his or her own
specific perspective. The title is derived from the phrase used by all
journalists given the assignment of following every step of a touring
president; in this case there was a gruesome addition.

Zeilzer is at her best when reviewing the treatment JFK, Oliver Stone' s
cinematic treatment of the event. Although described as a "fictionalization"
(p. 202), Stone clearly took himself far more seriously presenting his film
as history or, at minimum, a call for a new investigation. The Wickers and
Rathers who, in an attempt to remind their audiences of their central role
in the reporting of the events, "credential" themselves before debunking
Stone come across as self centered little children attempting
one-upsmanship. This section should be required reading for all television
interviewers and journalism students if only so they can learn how to avoid
similar egotistical journeys.

The extent of literary coverage of the vent has been duplicated in the field
of television and film. Indeed, for many, this is the only source of
information. Knowing the ideological tilt of a work can be of especial use
to teachers utilizing film as a teaching tool. Anthony Frewin has compiled a
massive listing with useful, and delightfully acerbic, descriptive
paragraphs covering 283 entries. Although the author avers that "there is no
evidence at all that can put a rifle in Lee Harvey Oswald's hands on the 22
November 1963" (p. xii), The Assassination of John F. Kennedy: An Annotated
Film, TV, and Videography, 1963-1992 apparently has not left out listings of
works with differing perspectives. The various cross-indices allow one
searching for a specific work to find it with a relative degree of ease.
Sadly, the physical appearance of the work will probably have an adverse
effect on its influence and utilization: it appears to have been photo
offset directly from an incompletely edited laser printed text. It is not
even right justified.

Remarkably few books have been published which support the Warren Commission
findings that Oswald alone killed the president. Gerald Posner's Case
Closed: Lee Hawey Oswald and the Assassination of JFK is the best of the
group. Much to the disappointment of the conspiracists, it has been well
received in both popular and scholarly circles. To "close the case, " it is
necessary to answer and refute beyond a shadow of a doubt the arguments of
all those who question the Oswald-as-sole-assassin scenario: this task
Posner attempts with skill, using text, footnotes and endnotes. For the most
part, the endnotes provide the regularly expected materials such as
interview and other source citations while the footnotes are utilized to
provide auxiliary evidence to buttress arguments in the text.

As the subtitle clearly indicates, Posner is also most interested in the
Oswald persona. The picture that emerges is one of a pathetic loser wanted
by neither the USSR or American intelligence networks (p. 56). Drawing on
new and personal interviews with Oswald's wife, Marina, other intimates, and
recently declassified materials from KGB files, Posner paints Oswald as an
unhappy introverted youngster in the oft-broken home of a wandering
domineering mother (pp. 8-17). The onset of maturity did not lead to a
better outlook, neither did his stint in the Marines. Seeking stature, he
then opted to live in Russia. Despite having found a wife, and living better
than the average citizen, he was still dissatisfied and resolved to return
to the United States in his ever-elusive search for the "better life and
acceptance." Later when he attempted to repeat his defection, but this time
to Cuba, he was, to his dismay, rebuffed (p. 195). In the immediate period
before the assassination, Oswald would attempt unsuccessfully to kill
General Edwin Walker [ironically failing to hit an easy stationary target].

Posner uses recent scientific advances which have afforded researchers the
ability to pinpoint the exact moment when the President and Governor
Connally were struck by the bullets. Utilizing this information, plus
computer enhancements to determine the exact trajectory of the second
bullet, Posner, validates Dr. John Lat-timer's earlier carefully drawn
conclusions about the "Kennedy-Connally Bullet,"[6] [what has come to be
known as the "magic bullet"]. In the process, he is able to prove that the
shot could only have been fired from one of only five windows in the Texas
School Book Depository: included in this group is the Warren
Commission-sanctioned location of Oswald's Sniper's Nest on the sixth floor
(pp. 476-7). Unfortunately, however, this careful analysis covers only the
second bullet. To prove the Oswald-as-sole-assassin contention conclusively
would require a similar treatment of bullet #1 [impossible because it missed
its target and has never been recovered] and #3, which hit the President in
the skull. Analyzing the Zapruder film, Posner is also able to prove that,
contrary to Ms. Hill's story, she did not run up the grassy knoll
immediately after the shots were fired [later frames of the film reveal her
not to have strayed from where she had stood as the president arrived in the
motorcade); her romantic tale of having stepped into the roadway as she
tried to make contact with a member of the president's motorcycle escort
withers to wishful thinking under the Posner scrutiny of the film [enhanced
frames of the film do not indicate that she attempted to make any contact,
verbal or otherwise, with any of the police] (p. 251).[7]

On the surface, one of the conspiracists most convincing arguments is that
many of the witnesses to the assassination, or, for that matter,
investigators who were getting "close to the truth," seem to have died
mysteriously, and before their time. By the late 1980s, the total of persons
alleged to have met such a fate had ballooned to 103.[8] Oliver Stone' s JFK
accepts the statistic as fact, near the end of his film highlighting the
names of many to dramatize his conspiracy theory. Posner carefully
demolished the charge: First, he notes that none of the early Warren
Commission critics suffered such an untimely and, in fact, surprisingly, as
of the writing of his book, all were still alive and well. Jim Garrison and
Oliver Stone himself were never "bothered" even though they both tried to
"expose the lies." And Jean Hill was able to write her expose only last year
(pp. 483-4). To close this part of the case, Posner digs further,
cataloguing the exact cause of death for each person on the Marrs list (pp.
485-499). He found that fully 53 of the 101 [carelessly, two persons had
been listed twice] were found to have died of natural causes. While 14 had
died within a year of the assassination, it turned out that three had died
of natural causes and, of the remaining eleven, their ties to the event
turned out to have been so inconsequential as to prove little other than
coincidence. As time passed, as might be expected, more and more of the
victims came to have died of old age. As John Lattimer stated about the
Lincoln assassination, "All of the witnesses to the Lincoln killing are dead
today, but that does not prove the conspiracy!"[9]

Posner devotes an interesting chapter to the background of Jack Ruby, in the
process refuting the charge of his alleged ties to a conspiracy. There is
little included to contradict the evidence that Ruby had underworld ties.
That they existed, albeit something not admitted by Posner, does not mean
that everything he did was done at the behest of the Mafia. Key to the
theory of his involvement in an assassination plot is a record of long
distance telephone calls made by Ruby. Posner carefully analyzes the list.
It turns out that the suspicious calls had likely been made as part of his
nightclub business (perhaps to underworld or union connections [a hypothesis
of this author, not Posner]) before Kennedy had been scheduled to come to
Dallas. Posner goes on to suggest that were there to have been such a
conspiracy, it would have been unlikely that Oswald would have been allowed
to get away alive from where he had made the shots; furthermore, in the
event of his apprehension, there would have been no way of divining where
Oswald would have been held (p. 365). Therefore, unless the plot were to
have been so large that it involved conspirators with entre to all possible
locations in which Oswald might have been incarcerated, the
Ruby-as-conspirator theory would have little validity. Finally, even if one
were to grant such a hypothetical: namely, that there were persons who could
have gained access to each possible holding area; the conspiracy would have
had to have been as large that it would have been difficult for it to have
remained secret to this day. For instance, just envision the number of books
on the subject that could have been written over the last thirty years!
Furthermore, he reminds us that one must also note that as of this date not
one person has come forward to claim responsibility for the act.

Strangely, Posner's book attempts to rehabilitate Marina Oswald. Perhaps
that is due to his having had the opportunity to interview her, something
which has eluded most writers on the subject. Sadly, however, he falls into
the trip of accepting many of her statements at face value, despite her well
known reputation for having given sometimes misleading and conflicting
testimony to the Warren Commission. What is especially distressing about
this is that here we find a selectivity on the part of Posner, a charge he,
himself, has leveled at many of the conspiracists. Thus, while he is
apparently willing to accept Marina Oswald's statements, he quickly
dismisses [and in this author's view, correctly] those of Jean Hill which
are equally suspect, but which did not support his thesis.

In the final analysis, Posner set for himself an almost impossible task. Any
event of similar complexity would have produced differences of opinion as to
who did what, when, and how they accomplished it. In the 1920s, Clarence
Darrow demonstrated that persons running through a court room could produce
wildly different interpretations of exactly what had happened. Absent
complete recorded coverage of the assassination, one should expect little
less of the event in Dallas. The problem is compounded by the fact that
today, nearly everyone has a preconceived notion on the subject buttressed
by an almost universal acceptance of the Camelot myth. This easily has been
extended to a belief that "JFK had to have died for something," that one
single person could not have accomplished the deed, and consequently, a
group of conspirators was required. Furthermore, Posner had to deal with a
story that is so complicated that no one could possibly have written a
"flawless" piece.[10] Finally, to "close the case," Posner had to prove
guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, as opposed to innocence. And it is the
reasonable doubt factor along with the errors that will surely be discovered
by authors of opposing views which ensures two things: That there will
continue to be more books and films on the subject, and that the authors and
producers will be paid sizable royalties. Thus, the case can, alas, never be
closed.

Notes

1. Author of Inquest: The Warren Commission and the Establishment of the
Truth (Bantam Books, New York: 1966), Counterplot (Viking Press, New York:
1968), and Legend: The Secret World of Lee Harvey Oswald (Readers Digest
Press/McGraw Hill, New York: 1978). At different times, Epstein, Lane and
Garrison were the reviewer's guests or panelists on Nighttalk, a radio
discussion show heard at varying times on a number of radio stations
throughout the country, including WOR (New York City), WBAL (Baltimore),
WCLV (Cleveland), WIND (Chicago), and WAVA (Arlington, Virginia).

2. Author of Rush to Judgement (Holt Rinehart & Winston, New York: 1966).

3. A Author of A Heritage of Stone (Putnam, New York: 1970) and New Orleans
District Attorney who indicted and unsuccessfully prosecuted Clay Shaw for
conspiracy to assassinate JFK. His theoretical scenario was used by Oliver
Stone in his film JFK.

4. (Baltimore: The Conservancy Press, 1989).

5. But contrast this to the friendly reception JFK received from the crowd
leading Nelli Connally, the Governor's wife to remark just minutes before
the assassination, "Mr. President, you can't say Dallas doesn't love you"
[quoted in Rae Correlli, "Special Report: An American Tragedy," Macleans,
vol. 106, #47, (November 22, 1993), p. 47].

6. Kennedy and Lincoln: Medical and Ballistic Comparisons of Their
Assassinations (New York and London: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1980), pp.
284-291.

7. Ms. Hill has not taken advantage of an opportunity to rebut these
charges. The author has left several messages on her telephone answering
machine offering her the chance to respond to Posner's assertions; she has
never returned the calls.

8. Jim Marrs, Crossfire: The Plot to Kill Kennedy (New York: Carroll & Graf
Publishers, 1989), pp. 555-556.

9. Interview with author taped for Nighttalk, November 22, 1980.

10. Peter Dale Scott, "Case Closed? Or Oswald Framed?" [review of Case
Closed] 18 San Francisco Review of Books (November-December 1993), p. 6.

~~~~~~~~

By THEODORE P. KOVALEFF
Chair, Community Board 9



Copyright 1994 by Center for the Study of the President. Text may not be copied without the express written permission of Center for the Study of the President.

Kovaleff, Theodore, Book reviews.., Vol. 24, Presidential Studies Quarterly, 09-01-1994, pp 901.


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