Which Six Books Would You Recommend to a Newcomer?

[Tom Scully]

All of these books will end up on history's clearance table, as they should, while the WCR will continue to stand tall as the definitive account of JFKA as it has since it was first released to the public almost 62 years ago.

https://aarclibrary.org/publib/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh2/pdf/WH2_DeclanFord.pdf
,,,,been very helpful.
Mrs. FORD. I hope so. I frankly wish I had questioned her more but I didn’t
feel it was my duty, but I wanted to tell you what she said to me.
recess.)
The CHAIRMAN. We will take a short recess.
(Short
TESTIMONY
OF DECLAN
P. FORD
The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Ford, you were given a copy of this statement were you?
Mr. Foan. Yes, sir.
....
.... No.
Representative
between
FORD. That is all.
Mr. MURRAY. Mr. Chief Justice, may I confer briefly with counsel?
The CIIAIRMAN. Where were you born?
Mr. FOBD. Los Angeles.
The CHAIR~~AN. Did you go to the publicxschools there?
Mr. FORD. I attended both parochial
and public the two schools in Los Angeles and Glendale.
The CHAIRMAN. Then you went to the University of California
Mr. FORD. Right.
The CHAIRX~AN. Where did you go after that.
at Los Ahveles? You were in the service, did you say?
Mr. FOBD. I was in the service. in Bakersfield After I got out of the service I went back
to UCLA and finished my education and then went to work in the oil industry first and in Los Angeles, Ventura, DeGollyer
and McNaughton
The CHAIRMAN. I see. ....

12 years ago I added this section to the Earl Warren Wikipedia biography, reasoning that the JFK Wikipedia bio included plenty of dirt, a substantial portion less well supported than the following, after I noted that the Earl Warren bio made him out to be an altar boy.The wikipedia minder removed the CONTROVERSY section less than an hour later.

Warren as prosecutor, had known Declan Ford's father, and as governor, had appointed Declan's brother, John, as a state judge. Warren was pleased when Judge John Ford issued a favorable ruling related to air pollution reduction.

https://www.jfk-assassination.net/russ/testimony/ford_d.htm
TESTIMONY OF DECLAN P. FORD
"....Mr. MURRAY. Mr. Chief Justice, may I confer briefly with counsel?
The CHAIRMAN. Where were you born?
Mr. FORD. Los Angeles.
The CHAIRMAN. Did you go to the public schools there?
Mr. FORD. I attended both parochial and public schools in Los Angeles and Glendale.
The CHAIRMAN. Then you went to the University of California at Los Angeles?
Mr. FORD. Right.
The CHAIRMAN. Where did you go after that. You were in the service, did you say?
Mr. FORD. I was in the service. After I got out of the service I went back to UCLA and finished my education and then went to work in the oil industry first in Bakersfield and in Los Angeles, Ventura, and then went to work for DeGollyer and McNaughton overseas.
The CHAIRMAN. I see. .."

https://www.jfkassassinationforum.com/index.php/topic,3865.msg152738.html#msg152738
I did not understand how the opportunity arose for this to happen, or why. Warren did not interfere with his daughter Virginia being a fixture on the arm of Conrad Hilton, an organized crime front and money launderer. After it was assumed Virginia Warren would marry the much older Hilton, she married John Daly, visibly an alcoholic who Warren had to have encountered, considering the amount of time Daly spent drinking at Toots Shor's.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toots_Shor
Toots Shor - Wikipedia
The then-Chief Justice, Earl Warren, considered Toots one of his closest friends. "The Chief" showed up to be photographed with a shovel full of dirt when Toots broke ground on Toots' 52nd street "joint". Third restaurant

Supporting links can be accessed at this link.
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Earl_Warren&oldid=432596658#Controversy
Controversy

Although Drew Pearson and Earl Warren were close friends and vacationed together[44] and considering Pearson's stepson, Tyler Abell and his wife Bess were employed in the Lyndon Johnson White House[45], the reporting of Drew Pearson in October, 1963, was incompatible with the proposal by Earl Warren and the endorsement of Tom C. Clark of the appointment of Albert E. Jenner, Jr. to the Warren Commission staff.

In 1946, fearing for his life, Chicago organized crime leader James M. Ragen contacted Clark through newspaper columnist Drew Pearson to obtain the protection of federal agents in exchange for information. A dozen FBI agents were sent to Chicago to interrogate Ragen. After checking and confirming the details of mob activity provided by Ragen, Tom Clark withdrew Ragen's FBI protection for lack of federal jurisdiction to prosecute the suspects Ragen named. Almost immediately, Ragen was seriously wounded by gunfire. Several suspects were arrested but no one was prosecuted due to the disappearance of some witnesses and the lack of cooperation of others. Ragen's condition was improving after the shooting, but he died suddenly in the hospital of mercury poisoning. Drew Pearson hinted in his syndicated column in October 1963 that Clark had told him that the FBI confirmed Ragen's accusations of Chicago mob control by leading businessmen and politicians. This was confirmed in the posthumous publication, eleven years later, of Drew Pearson's Diaries, 1949–1959 edited by Tyler Abell.[46]; Tom Clark had told Pearson that Ragen stated that Henry Crown, the Hilton Hotels chain, and Walter Annenberg controlled the mob.[47][48][46][49][50][51][52][53][54]

Earl Warren and his family were close friends of Henry Crown's investment partner, Conrad Hilton, and Warren's daughter, Virginia was formerly involved in a close relationship with Conrad Hilton.[55][56][57][58] The year following the publication of the Warren Report, Earl Warren selected[59] as his Supreme Court law clerk, the son of Paul Ziffren,[60]former California state Democratic party chairman, forced to resign after allegations of Ziffren's organized crime connections were leveled by Earl Warren's friend,[61] Senator William F. Knowland.[62][63][64][65]

"One of the things that was embarrassing and got national coverage was the Reader's Digest article of July, 1960. It was written by Lester Velie and is called, "Paul Ziffren, The Democrats' Man of Mystery." (The author sets forth a very detailed account of "Ziffren 's connections with the underworld and gambling figures of the period,") "[66]

Despite the disturbing information about Henry Crown, et al., Drew Pearson claimed was provided to him by Clark in 1946, Justice Tom Clark appointed Crown's son, John, as one of two of his 1956 Supreme Court session law clerks.[67] In December 1963, Chief Justice Earl Warren, acting as head of the newly formed Presidential Commission investigating the death of President Kennedy, suggested that Henry Crown's attorney, Albert E. Jenner, Jr., who also, at that time employed Crown's son, John at Jenner's Chicago law firm, be appointed as a senior assistant Warren Commission counsel. Warren gave his fellow commissioners the names of two men who approved of Jenner's appointment, Tom C Clark and Dean Acheson. [68]

The appointment of Albert Jenner to investigate[69] whether either Oswald or Ruby acted alone or conspired with others remains controversial.[70][71] In 1953, Albert E. Jenner, Jr. had represented Michael Frank Darling when he was investigated by the House Committee on Education and Labor.[72]Darling was business manager of IBEW union Chicago local 1031, the first and largest union organization to contract insurance coverage with Allen Dorfman and his father, Paul, an associate of Jack Ruby. [73][74][75]

https://books.google.com/books?id=oGq1AAAAIAAJ&focus=searchwithinvolume&q=high+places
Diaries, 1949-1959, Volume 1
Drew Pearson
Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1974 - Journalists - 592 pages
"...high places. J. Edgar Hoover intimated the same thing. He said the people Ragen pointed to had now reformed. I learned later that it pointed to the Hilton Hotel chain, Henry Crown, the big Jewish financier in Chicago (involved in Cook County real estate deals with Jake Arvey) and Walter Annenberg.."

The accusation was that Crown and Hilton were Tony Accardo financiers, Howard Willens, DOJ liason to the WC who assigned the investigatory subject matter to
Albert Jenner and the othe Asst. WC counsels, was the son of a man who purchased the home in River Forest, IL, next to Accardo's and, when it was up for sale recently, a rumor emerged that the former Willens home had a tunnel connecting it to the Accardo residence!

[Tom Scully]

All of these books will end up on history's clearance table, as they should, while the WCR will continue to stand tall as the definitive account of JFKA as it has since it was first released to the public almost 62 years ago.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Joseph_Ford
,,,,,From 1934 to 1941, Ford was a professor at Loyola Law School—the school where his father was the founding dean.[1] From 1941 to 1943, he was the Chief Enforcement Attorney in Los Angeles for the Office of Price Administration, the newly established federal agency responsible for rent and price controls (the OPA was abolished in 1946).[1]

In 1943, Governor Earl Warren appointed Ford to the Los Angeles County Municipal Court, where he served until 1948 when Warren elevated him to the Los Angeles County Superior Court.[1] Ford left the Superior Court when Governor Pat Brown appointed Ford to the California Second District Court of Appeal, Division Three in 1959.[1] Brown elevated Ford to Presiding Justice of the same court in 1966.[1] Ford retired in 1977 and died in Newport Beach, California in 1982.[1]

Childhood
Ford was one of three children of father William Joseph Ford and Margaret McCarthy. The other 2 were Robert and Margaret. Ford's mother died when he was four years old. Ford's father later remarried Cecily Chambers and had 7 more children: Liam, Moira, Patrick, James, Declan, Joe Brendan, and Derrick. John Joseph Ford went on to graduate from Loyola High School. Robert "Bob" Ford, Moira Ford, Patrick Ford and James Ford also became practicing attorneys in California.

12 years ago I added this section to the Earl Warren Wikipedia biography, reasoning that the JFK Wikipedia bio included plenty of dirt, a substantial portion less well supported than the following, after I noted that the Earl Warren bio made him out to be an altar boy.The wikipedia minder removed the CONTROVERSY section less than an hour later.

Warren as prosecutor, had known Declan Ford's father, Wkilliam, and as governor, had appointed Declan's brother, John, as a state judge. Warren was pleased when Judge John Ford issued a favorable ruling related to air pollution reduction.

https://www.jfk-assassination.net/russ/testimony/ford_d.htm
TESTIMONY OF DECLAN P. FORD
"....Mr. MURRAY. Mr. Chief Justice, may I confer briefly with counsel?
The CHAIRMAN. Where were you born?
Mr. FORD. Los Angeles.
The CHAIRMAN. Did you go to the public schools there?
Mr. FORD. I attended both parochial and public schools in Los Angeles and Glendale.
The CHAIRMAN. Then you went to the University of California at Los Angeles?
Mr. FORD. Right.
The CHAIRMAN. Where did you go after that. You were in the service, did you say?
Mr. FORD. I was in the service. After I got out of the service I went back to UCLA and finished my education and then went to work in the oil industry first in Bakersfield and in Los Angeles, Ventura, and then went to work for DeGollyer and McNaughton overseas.
The CHAIRMAN. I see. .."
[/quote]

[David Von Pein]

Vincent Bugliosi’s huge book is worth at least five other books. So, I think essentially this should equal six books. 

Yes, at least six. Possibly up to 10! 😉

Pack a lunch and dive into this review below: 😁

[Michael T. Griffith]

I wouldn't recommend 6 books. The WCR is all that is needed to know the truth of the JFK assassination. If one wants to deal with the myths of the JFKA, they can read Reclaiming History by Vincent Bugilosi. He does a thorough job of demolishing those myths and addressing all the objections made about the WCR, at least the ones that had been invented up to the time he wrote the book. Newer and nuttier ones are being invented all the time.

Yes, this! And I will add that Vincent Bugliosi’s huge book is worth at least five other books. So, I think essentially this should equal six books….

Yes, at least six. Possibly up to 10!

And this kind of severe bias and echo-chamber group think is why you guys are in a decided minority in the Western world; it's why your version of the shooting is rejected by 2/3 to 3/4 of the Western world.

Here you have simply been asked to list six books that you think would give a newcomer a decent understanding of the JFK case, and you can't even bring yourselves to do that.

I started the thread by listing six books, four of them pro-conspiracy and two of them anti-conspiracy, and two of the four pro-conspiracy books do not attempt to identify any suspects but just focus on the evidence relating to the shooting and JFK's wounds.

Now, as for Bugliosi's book, I would bet good money that not one of you has read any of the scholarly critiques of the book. These critiques document that Bugliosi made many erroneous claims on important issues, and that the book's errors far outweigh its valid points.

For those who might be interested, here are some of the critical scholarly reviews of Bugliosi's book:

Dr. Gary Aguilar's review:
https://www.maryferrell.org/pages/Essay_-_Review_of_Reclaiming_History.html

Dr. David Wrone's review:
https://www.maryferrell.org/pages/Essay_-_Vincent_Bugliosis_Misnamed_Reclaiming_History.html

Michael Green's review:
https://www.maryferrell.org/pages/Essay_-_Besmirching_History.html

Pat Speer's review:
https://www.reclaiminghistory.org/speer_2007-07-24.htm
 
Dr. Don Thomas's reviews:
https://www.maryferrell.org/pages/Essay_-_Rewriting_History_-_Bugliosi_Parses_the_Testimony.html
https://www.maryferrell.org/pages/Essay_-_Debugging_Bugliosi.html

Former HSCA investigator Gaeton Fonzi's review:
https://www.maryferrell.org/pages/Essay_-_Reply_From_a_Conspiracy_Believer.html

Dr. Jerry McKnight's review:
https://www.maryferrell.org/pages/Essay_-_Bugliosi_Fails_to_Resuscitate_the_Single-Bullet_Theory.html

Dr. Josiah Thompson's review:
https://www.maryferrell.org/pages/Essay_-_Epic_Book_Resurrects_Finding_That_Oswald_Acted_Alone_in_killing_JFK.html
 

[John Corbett]

And this kind of severe bias and echo-chamber group think is why you guys are in a decided minority in the Western world; it's why your version of the shooting is rejected by 2/3 to 3/4 of the Western world.

I'm sure it gives you a great deal of comfort knowing that a woefully uninformed public thinks like you do about the JFKA.

[Lance Payette]

To be honest, the WC clearly had a mandate and agenda not to look too closely at certain possibilities. It was heavily FBI-reliant, staff-reliant, and operating under pressure to "get the damn thing done." The WR report is an impressive piece of work under the circumstances, but there is no way it can be viewed as an impartial, full-scale investigation and vetting of all the relevant issues; it just can't.

Reclaiming History is a prosecutor's brief from the title to the last page of the index. Bugliosi was neither an historian nor a scholar. In addition to being a successful prosecutor, he was a massively self-promoting publicity hound; that's just the reality. In my experience, prosecutors and defense counsel both tend to have a one-dimensional view of every case.

Yes, the WR and VB would be the place to steer a newbie if one wanted to frontload him with the LN narrative, but I fail to see how that would be any more reasonable than a CTer steering him to Horne's books. Almost everyone in the JFKA is such a fanatic that the inclination is to frontload a newbie with "the Truth" - be it LN Truth or CT Truth - before he encounters anything else. That's why I say (1) learn everything you can about Oswald the man, because he's central to the case and every theory, and (2) at least learn a bit about epistemology and logic lest you be wowed by smart and articulate people saying crazy things.

[John Corbett]

To be honest, the WC clearly had a mandate and agenda not to look too closely at certain possibilities.

I must have missed that memo. Can you cite it.

It was heavily FBI-reliant, staff-reliant, and operating under pressure to "get the damn thing done."

I'm always suspicious when I see a word or phrase quoted out of context. It makes me wonder what is being omitted.

 

The WR report is an impressive piece of work under the circumstances, but there is no way it can be viewed as an impartial, full-scale investigation and vetting of all the relevant issues; it just can't.

Because you say so.

Reclaiming History is a prosecutor's brief from the title to the last page of the index. Bugliosi was neither an historian nor a scholar. In addition to being a successful prosecutor, he was a massively self-promoting publicity hound; that's just the reality. In my experience, prosecutors and defense counsel both tend to have a one-dimensional view of every case.

On the contrary, Reclaiming History is a thorough and meticulous defense of the WCR.

Yes, the WR and VB would be the place to steer a newbie if one wanted to frontload him with the LN narrative, but I fail to see how that would be any more reasonable than a CTer steering him to Horne's books. Almost everyone in the JFKA is such a fanatic that the inclination is to frontload a newbie with "the Truth" - be it LN Truth or CT Truth - before he encounters anything else. That's why I say (1) learn everything you can about Oswald the man, because he's central to the case and every theory, and (2) at least learn a bit about epistemology and logic lest you be wowed by smart and articulate people saying crazy things.

The WCR and Reclaiming History are where to steer anyone who wants to know the truth of the JFKA without having the waters muddied by a bunch of nonsensical conspiracy crap. Reclaiming History is especially valuable in the debunking of most of the popular conspiracy myths that had been propagated in the 43 years since the release of the WCR. I saw most because new ones have cropped up since it's publication.