Which Six Books Would You Recommend to a Newcomer?

[Michael T. Griffith]

If someone told me that they knew virtually nothing about the JFK assassination, that they wanted to understand all sides of the debate, and that they wanted me to recommend six books that would enable them to have a decent handle on the case, here are the six books I would recommend:

-- Last Second in Dallas, by Josiah Thompson.

-- The Hidden History of the JFK Assassination, by Lamar Waldron.

-- Inside the ARRB, Volume 1, by Doug Horne.

-- JFK Assassination Paradoxes, by David Mantik.

-- A Cruel and Shocking Act, by Philip Shenon.

-- JFK: The Smoking Gun, by Colin McLaren.

Which six books would you recommend?

[Lance Payette]

I will attempt to answer this seriously, without descending into the pathetically juvenile silliness that all too often characterizes my self-amusing contributions. 

I recalled this same discussion from the Ed Forum in 2018. Fred Litwin had listed the usual LN staples, and I added:

To [Fred's] list, I would add:

OSWALD'S GAME - Jean Davison
MARINA AND LEE - Priscilla Johnson McMillan
OSWALD'S TALE - Norman Mailer
OSWALD: RUSSIAN EPISODE - Ernst Titovets
LEGEND - Edward Jay Epstein

Yes, yes, I know, the first three at least are staples of the Lone Nut community.  (Epstein's work, of course, is approximately 180 degrees removed from the currently prevailing Deep Politics theories, which is why he is dismissed as either a CIA dupe or disinformation agent.)  I believe it is CRITICAL, before bogging down in minutiae and theories, to gain as much of an understanding as possible of WHO LEE HARVEY OSWALD REALLY WAS.  I would've saved myself a lot of time and money if I had taken that approach.

I still strongly agree with this. The biggest mistake anyone can make, in my opinion, is to dive into the conspiracy literature. You'll end up cross-eyed and confused, quite possibly beyond all redemption. I started with Best Evidence and High Treason, for God's sake. How I escaped, I'm still not entirely sure.

I would also strongly suggest that a newcomer spend some time in the psychological and sociological literature regarding the conspiracy-prone mindset. You might even recognize yourself, as I did! At a minimum, you will have a much better perspective when you dive into the conspiracy literature.

[Tom Scully]

None, especially Shenon's book and Garrison subject matter books by Mellen and DiEugenio.
I did not view Stone's 1992 film, JFK, until 2013. If I had read assassination themed books
or Stone's film earlier, I would not have delved deeply into the observations of the late Tom Purvis
posted on the Ed Forum calling into question the claims Garrison was a victim of sinister forces
attempting to discredit his truth. Thanks to Purvis, I found compelling evidence the opposite is closer to the truth.

https://www.jfkassassinationforum.com/index.php?topic=2296.0
.....

https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/20298-man-of-a-million-fragments-the-true-story-of-clay-shaw-2013/?tab=comments#comment-275862
Thomas H. Purvis - Posted July 18, 2013

As was long ago indicated on this forum, the Clay Shaw/Garrison case was little more than a massive "smoke screen" that was created in order to mis-direct the attentions of those who were making attempt at resolving the issues of the assassination.

In event there is any difficulty in location of these postings, one may want to look up the terminology "Land Sharks".

Tom

P.S. John.-----Glad to see that you have re-opened the forum. With the 50th anniversary of the event soon approaching there will no doubt be many who are searching for some of the factual truths.

Many of which can be found on this forum.

Authors and film producers authored products for sale. Admitting there is persuasive new research evidence tending
to prove their entire conspiracy scenarios unreliable, is not something almost any of them are inclined to do!

Stone and DiEugenio are about the last people open to or politely gracious enough to consideration of facts of sufficient weight to seriously
call into question who Garrison and his agenda truly were. DiEugenio, for example insulate himself with a belief system
intolerant to consideration that there was nothing sinister about the provenance of the postal money order linked to the
payment for the alleged assassination rifle.

The most inflexible conspiracy cult members to considering impeaching evidence are the supporters of the book authored by John Armstrong.

Instead of reading or watching products for sale, join an active JFK Assassination forum and do all of your own research.

My research impeached author Peter Janney's claims in his book Mary's Mosaic, that Mary was assassinated by a shadowy witness who testified
against attorney Dovey Roundtree's murder trial defendant in 1965 and then vanished off the face of the earth, protected by the CIA, ever since.
As a consequence Janney had to issue a revision of his book.

I found proof Garrison and Mellen's CIA people were actually first cousin brothers of Garrison's wife, Leah, and that Shaw had been informed
by one of the two, David Baldwin, shortly after Shaw's indictment, that he was Leah Garrison's Godfather as well as her cousin.
So Shaw knew this information early and author Joan Mellen, who knew Garrison personally since 1969, proved she was kept from awareness of those
relationships, IOW, never informed of them by Garrison.

Supporting citations available here,:
https://www.jfkassassinationforum.com/index.php?topic=2296.0

[Tom Scully]

I will attempt to answer this seriously, without descending into the pathetically juvenile silliness that all too often characterizes my self-amusing contributions. 

I recalled this same discussion from the Ed Forum in 2018. Fred Litwin had listed the usual LN staples, and I added:

To [Fred's] list, I would add:

OSWALD'S GAME - Jean Davison
MARINA AND LEE - Priscilla Johnson McMillan
OSWALD'S TALE - Norman Mailer
OSWALD: RUSSIAN EPISODE - Ernst Titovets
LEGEND - Edward Jay Epstein

Yes, yes, I know, the first three at least are staples of the Lone Nut community.  (Epstein's work, of course, is approximately 180 degrees removed from the currently prevailing Deep Politics theories, which is why he is dismissed as either a CIA dupe or disinformation agent.)  I believe it is CRITICAL, before bogging down in minutiae and theories, to gain as much of an understanding as possible of WHO LEE HARVEY OSWALD REALLY WAS.  I would've saved myself a lot of time and money if I had taken that approach.

I still strongly agree with this. The biggest mistake anyone can make, in my opinion, is to dive into the conspiracy literature. You'll end up cross-eyed and confused, quite possibly beyond all redemption. I started with Best Evidence and High Treason, for God's sake. How I escaped, I'm still not entirely sure.

I would also strongly suggest that a newcomer spend some time in the psychological and sociological literature regarding the conspiracy-prone mindset. You might even recognize yourself, as I did! At a minimum, you will have a much better perspective when you dive into the conspiracy literature.

Lance, I am as open minded a CT leaning researcher as you are likely to encounter, and I completely disagree with almost all of your posts, especially of
the books and authors you included. I got to know Jean Davison fairly well via online PMs. She is a sweet old lady. She claims RFK and Allen Dulles had opinions
of each other close to muitual admiration!

Epstein exposed who he was. I'd be happy to back up my opinion, if you are interested.

[Lance Payette]

I don't know about RFK and Dulles, but I have read a great deal of Jean Davison's work and many, many of her posts and have always been impressed by the quality and clarity of her thinking. My point with those listings was simply for someone to get to know Oswald as thoroughly as possible before looking beyond Oswald. Each of those books may have their flaws or agendas, but I believe they are all worthwhile. I also think a newcomer would benefit from Peter Vronsky's work on "Lee Harvey Oswald in Russia." https://web.archive.org/web/20110208121423/http://russianbooks.org/oswald-in-russia.htm I briefly corresponded with Vronsky. He said he went to Minsk with the idea of making a definitive CT-oriented documentary and came back believing "the Warren Commission basically got it right."

The problem with a newcomer joining JFKA forums is that they are dominated by complete loonies and a newcomer has no ability to separate the wheat from the chaff. People like MTG and DiEugenio and even David Josephs certainly "sound" like they are worth listening to - as I once thought they were. It would be wonderful if every newcomer had the time and energy to go to primary sources and do his or her own research, but that would be a massive task - as I have learned from spending an absurd amount of time just trying to nail down one factoid like the Postal Money Order nonsense, to wit:

https://www.jfkassassinationforum.com/index.php/topic,4962.msg178234.html#msg178234

[Lance Payette]

Lance, I am as open minded a CT leaning researcher as you are likely to encounter, and I completely disagree with almost all of your posts, especially of
the books and authors you included. I got to know Jean Davison fairly well via online PMs. She is a sweet old lady. She claims RFK and Allen Dulles had opinions
of each other close to muitual admiration!

Epstein exposed who he was. I'd be happy to back up my opinion, if you are interested.

Hmmm ... when you said you "completely disagree with almost all of my posts" I wondered if you might have me confused with someone else. My posts are so all over the map, LN-wise and CT-wise, that it would be difficult to strongly disagree with almost all of them.

Now I wonder if you have Jean Davison confused with someone else. I did both Google and Ed Forum searches and could not find anything substantiating what you describe as her views about RFK and Dulles.

In fact, the only thing I really found was a post by you on this very forum from 2023 in which you quoted a post by Jean in the comments section at JFK Facts as follows:

JEAN DAVISON
APRIL 5, 2016 AT 11:17 PM
“Anyone who actually believes that the Kennedy’s and Dulles held each other in high regard is mortally naïve or utterly disingenuous.”

[Michael T. Griffith]

I will attempt to answer this seriously, without descending into the pathetically juvenile silliness that all too often characterizes my self-amusing contributions. 

I recalled this same discussion from the Ed Forum in 2018. Fred Litwin had listed the usual LN staples, and I added:

To [Fred's] list, I would add:

OSWALD'S GAME - Jean Davison
MARINA AND LEE - Priscilla Johnson McMillan
OSWALD'S TALE - Norman Mailer
OSWALD: RUSSIAN EPISODE - Ernst Titovets
LEGEND - Edward Jay Epstein

Yes, yes, I know, the first three at least are staples of the Lone Nut community.  (Epstein's work, of course, is approximately 180 degrees removed from the currently prevailing Deep Politics theories, which is why he is dismissed as either a CIA dupe or disinformation agent.)  I believe it is CRITICAL, before bogging down in minutiae and theories, to gain as much of an understanding as possible of WHO LEE HARVEY OSWALD REALLY WAS.  I would've saved myself a lot of time and money if I had taken that approach.

I still strongly agree with this. The biggest mistake anyone can make, in my opinion, is to dive into the conspiracy literature. You'll end up cross-eyed and confused, quite possibly beyond all redemption. I started with Best Evidence and High Treason, for God's sake. How I escaped, I'm still not entirely sure.

I would also strongly suggest that a newcomer spend some time in the psychological and sociological literature regarding the conspiracy-prone mindset. You might even recognize yourself, as I did! At a minimum, you will have a much better perspective when you dive into the conspiracy literature.

I wonder if you realize how extreme and biased you make yourself look with this kind of polemic.

You couldn't even list six books, but only five. Then, you just had to get on your soapbox and repeat your talking point that everyone who disagrees with you has a "conspiracy-prone mindset." In other replies, you've stated that those who disagree with you have warped minds, faulty neural pathways, and even a form of mental illness. In one reply, you said Greg Doudna was part of the "lunatic fringe." In another reply, you said that Dr. David Mantik sees things that no one else sees.

And notice the difference between the balance in my list and the lop-sided nature of your list. You list a very old book (Epstein) that questions the Warren Commission but posits a conspiracy theory that virtually no one believes anymore, and you list a book on Oswald in Russia (Titovets) written in 2021 by a guy who knew Oswald during his few years in Russia from October 1959 to June 1962. I would have been hard pressed to think of two weaker pro-conspiracy books. Your three pro-LN books are not terrible--I can think of several that are worse--but two of the authors had rather weak credentials to be writing about the JFK case, and it shows in their books (McMillan and Davison).

In my list, I included a recent and robust scholarly defense of the Warren Report, an exposition on the mortal-error theory (which disagrees with both the lone-gunman view and the conspiracy view), a book that focuses on the nature of the shooting and goes no further than to argue for multiple shooters without speculating on suspects), a book on the historic ARRB disclosures written by a former senior ARRB analyst, a book on the forensic and ballistics evidence written by a radiation oncologist and physicist who's also licensed in radiology, and a book on the evidence of Mafia involvement written by an award-winning investigative journalist.