MG: Wow, so you wouldn't recommend a single pro-conspiracy book to a newcomer...
DVP: That's correct, I wouldn't.
And that says volumes about your credibility and objectivity.
But if I was being forced at gunpoint by a foaming-at-the-mouth conspiracy fantasist to recommend just one conspiracy-leaning JFKA book, it would be this one by Gus Russo: [Brothers in Arms: The Kennedys, the Castros, and the Politics of Murder] [SNIP]
Actually, Russo co-authored the book with Stephen Molton.
Anyway, your bombastic verbiage -- "forced at gunpoint by a foaming-at-the-mouth conspiracy fantasist" -- suggests a severe bias.
I, for one, would not need to have a "foaming-at-the-mouth lone-gunman theorist" put a gun to my head to get me to recommend a pro-WC book to a newcomer. I listed two anti-conspiracy books in my list of six books because I have enough objectivity and critical thinking skills to understand that it would show excessive bias and violate basic critical thinking principles to only recommend pro-conspiracy books to newcomers.
But there are some big problems with that book too, which I talk about HERE.
"Big problems," huh? That's curious because
Brothers in Arms was widely acclaimed--it received positive reviews from scholars on both sides of the debate, from Anthony Summers to Daniel Schorr to Seymour Hersh.
You claim the book has "big problems" because your version of the assassination says that not only was Oswald the only gunman but that he had no accomplices of any kind at any point before or after the shooting, not even accessories before or after the fact.
MG: ...and you'd recommend the Warren Commission's report to a newcomer but not the House Select Committee on Assassinations report.
DVP: That's correct.
This is another statement that says volumes about your credibility and objectivity.
In other words, you'd recommend the report of a seven-member presidential commission, with a total staff of 27, that conducted an admittedly hurried investigation (fewer than 10 months), when we now know that three of the commission members disagreed with the report's key findings, but you wouldn't recommend the report of a select committee of the U.S. House of Representatives composed of 12 congressmen (only three of whom dissented) and that had a much larger staff, that consulted a much larger number and variety of experts, and that conducted a much longer investigation (nearly 2 years).
And that's because the HSCA's Dictabelt-based conclusion that JFK "was probably assassinated as a result of a conspiracy" has since been completely discredited and disproven.
If so, why do you suppose the lone-gunman view is rejected by 2/3 to 3/4 of the Western world? It's not like the lone-gunman view has suffered from a lack of cheerleading and advocacy by many legacy news outlets. Most people just don't buy what you're selling.
And the HSCA's acoustical evidence, far from having been "completely discredited and disproven," has been confirmed by new research done by BBN acoustical scientists from 2015 to 2018.
Furthermore, it cannot be repeated too often that the NRC/NAS panel that was formed to discredit the acoustical evidence (1) admitted there's a 93% probability that the timing-movement correlations identified by the BBN scientists between the dictabelt and the Dealey Plaza test firing occurred because the dictabelt recorded gunfire in Dealey Plaza, and (2) admitted there's a 77.7% probability that the 144.9 impulse pattern, identified by the HSCA's acoustical scientists as gunfire from the grassy knoll, is in fact gunfire from the knoll.
But the first five [HSCA]conclusions that we find on THIS PAGE of the HSCA's Final Report are things that should be read by everybody. (And those 5 findings have never been proven to be wrong.)
Oh, boy. To put it more bluntly, you would cherry pick five findings that you like from a 734-page report and ignore the rest of the report.
BTW, as former HSCA staffers have explained,
before BBN's chief scientist announced BBN's
preliminary findings on the acoustical evidence, the HSCA had already found evidence of Ruby's significant Mafia ties, had already found evidence that the WC was mistaken about how Ruby entered the police basement to kill Oswald, had already found evidence that Ruby lied about why he shot Oswald, had already found evidence that Oswald was being impersonated in Mexico City in the weeks before the assassination, had already found evidence that someone was moving boxes in the sixth-floor window within 2 minutes after the assassination at a time when Oswald could not have been there, had already found evidence that Oswald associated with David Ferrie and Clay Shaw, and had already found evidence that Silvia Odio's account was credible.
But each of those books does something that no pro-conspiracy book has ever done --- i.e., follow the actual evidence in the case to where it all leads—a single gunman named Lee Harvey Oswald—without resorting to conjecture, speculation, guesswork, and unsupportable claims of fake evidence.
Actually, newcomers who read those books will quickly see that they contain plenty of "conjecture, speculation, guesswork," starting with the ludicrous and thoroughly debunked single-bullet theory (SBT).
Newcomers will also notice that pro-WC books markedly contradict each other regarding the timing of the shots, the timing of the hits, the location of JFK's rear head entry wound, the location of JFK's back wound, the trajectory of the SBT's alleged magic bullet through JFK and Connally, Oswald's motives, etc., etc.
Humm, could this be part of the reason that your view of the JFK assassination is rejected by 2/3 to 3/4 of the Western world?
Topic: Which Six Books Would You Recommend to a Newcomer? (Read 4552 times)