Rush to Judgment by Mark Lane is one of the best-selling Kennedy assassination books of all time, spending 29 weeks on the New York Times’ best-selling list. It was released in 1966, just three years after the events on the 22 nd of November in 1963, making it one of the first John F Kennedy assassination books. This is probably a big reason for its success. Debunking the Shooting The notion that Communist leaders wanted Kennedy dead but his supposed biggest enemies, ‘generals and espionage chiefs,’ didn’t rings hollow. And once someone arrives at the conclusion that ‘Communists’ didn’t hate Kennedy more than fellow Americans inside and outside of government, the thought that the greatest anti-JFK vitriol manifested in the form of a lone individual, a supposed ideologue, and not an unaccountable power center (suffering real and demonstrable loss as the result of JFK’s policies) is no longer convincing.

Talbot articulates a consensus belief of the electorate (not just academicians) when he writes, “ A growing historical consensus now sees JFK as presiding over a bitterly divided government, with Kennedy and his peace-minded inner circle on one side and a war-hungry Cold War establishment on the other. Even humdrum Kennedy historian Robert Dallek has now signed on to this view, with a new book that argues JFK’s biggest enemies were not Communist leaders but his own generals and espionage chiefs. This is a sobering conclusion, of course, because it provides a possible explanation for the bloody regime change in Dallas.”Summers’s biography of Richard Nixon revealed the tormented president’s efforts to get mental health treatment, a previously unknown and revealing story that was remarkably fair to an easily demonized figure. As a result of his fact-finding skills, “Not In Your Lifetime” is more empirical than theoretical, a rare thing in the literature of JFK’s assassination.

Published in 2013, shortly before the 50 th anniversary of the tragic event, Killing JFK is a fairly new book on Kennedy’s assassination. Lance Moore, an acclaimed author, puts together all of the facts in a conceivable and easy-to-read manner, and lists over 200 credible sources that JFK’s killing was in fact more than the act of a single actor. Once Kennedy started to waver on those Cold Warrior beliefs, the book claims he was marked for death by the military intelligence agencies that held (and still hold) huge influence over every level of government in the U.S. These forces, which Douglass call “the Unspeakable” (after Thomas Meryton), tagged Kennedy as a dangerous traitor, plotted his assassination, and orchestrated the subsequent killing and cover-up in Dallas in 1963. Leading up to October 2017, the Archives released a batch of material that July, including a total of 3,810 documents. Some 441 had been withheld in full until that point, and 3,369 previously released in redacted form. Among the released information were 17 audio files of interviews conducted with a KGB officer, Yuri Nosenko. Nosenko, who defected to the United States in early 1964, claimed to have been in charge of a file the KGB kept on Oswald during the time he lived in the Soviet Union (1959-62).Our Man In Mexico: Winston Scott and the Hidden History of the CIA by Jefferson Morley. Though not about the JFK assassination per se this book is unrivaled in how it pursues and presents Lee Harvey Oswald’s undeniably peculiar relationship with intelligence agencies. After reading it I could not help but conclude that James Jesus Angleton - chief of the CIA's counterintelligence staff from 1954 to 1975 – was running an operation in which Oswald was involved and one most likely concerning the President of the United States. What makes Morley’s writing so impressive is how skillfully he avoids speculation, like that which I just expressed (smile). To his credit he has attempted to bring a more rational approach to those within the JFK assassination study community with his ‘JFK Facts’ portaland his efforts to get remaining documents declassified are nothing short of heroic. As for substantiating Colonel Prouty – Mr. Morley told me in 2010, “Fletcher Prouty is eminently credible.” Though I wonder over Talbot’s omission of Col. Prouty, I whole-heartedly share the respect he expresses for Jefferson Morley (“ We need the facts – as Jefferson Morley, one of the few journalists to devote serious effort to the Kennedy case, has demonstrated. Morley has been pursuing a lengthy Freedom of Information battle with the CIA to pry loose more than 1,500 documents that the agency is still concealing in defiance of the 1992 JFK Records Act.”) And we are not alone – Morley’s journalistic career and authorship is widely lauded. Prouty talks about details such as all members of JFK’s cabinet being on vacation at the time of the incident, which he considers to be too perfect to be just a coincidence. Prouty also discusses his own beliefs about the elite powers that are the true rulers of America, and how JFK’s disobedience to them eventually led to his death. Lee Harvey Oswald distributes 'Hands Off Cuba' flyers on the streets of New Orleans, Louisiana. This photograph was used in the Kennedy assassination investigation.