Farewell America: The Plot to Kill JFK [Paperback]

James Hepburn (Author), William Turner (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 22, 2002

Originally published in 1968 in France under the title L'Amerique Brule (America Is Burning), Farewell America quickly became a best-seller in Europe in eleven languages. It was the inside story of the assassination of President John Kennedy. Although borrowing heavily from published critics of the Warren Commission Report, the book describes the roots of the Cold War, the linkage between large corporate and banking interests, the ever-growing American intelligence apparatus, and the international petroleum cartels that were lined up with a bevy of military brass and Mafia chieftains against JFK.

A combination of these powerful interests called "The Committee" coordinated all aspects of the murder, from setting the time and place of the shooting to the recruitment of the gunmen and the coverup of the conspiracy afterward. The bottom line was that enemies of JFK collaborated with the CIA to erase the perceived threat to their interests by John and Robert Kennedy.

Heady stuff for 1968. So incendiary, in fact, that importation of the book through Canada was squelched, allegedly at the instigation of the FBI. Farewell America wasn't just another book about the assassination conspiracy; it bristled with restricted information about U.S. intelligence agencies, the White House, global business, and military and political affairs that had to have come from a knowlegdeable source, in this case, French intelligence. It also represented the surreptitious intrusion by those in French government circles into American politics, namely, the 1968 presidential elections.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Originally published in Europe in 1968, this is a once-notorious, now-dated look at John Kennedy's assassination and an excoriation of the American scene in its aftermath. Turner (Rearview Mirror, etc.) explains in his introduction that the book was first published under mysterious circumstances and was "aimed at advancing the 1968 presidential campaign of Robert F. Kennedy," but its U.S. distribution was rapidly curtailed after RFK's death. The authors ("James Hepburn" is a pseudonym) conducted clandestine research among KGB and Interpol agents and French petroleum espionage specialists and relied on a rare, unmodified print of the famed Zapruder film. The book seethes with aggrieved passion in defending the Kennedys and their ideals, and seeks to defrock the "lone gunman" theory of JFK's assassination. Most of the text is a damning jeremiad, portraying pre-1964 America as a vicious, discriminatory oligarchy controlled by alliances of Big Steel and Big Oil, the military and organized crime, which all had reason to fear JFK's proposed reforms. According to "Hepburn," these interests combined with ultra-right-wing paramilitary groups like the Minutemen and Cuban exile groups to plan the assassination. Chapters discussing the assassination itself will be grimly convincing to some readers, with excellent analyses of the Secret Service's failures and the ambiguous roles played by the CIA and FBI during this tumultuous era. This is a pungent historical document, but its conspiracy theory is familiar by now, and its information has been surpassed by more recent studies such as Murder in Dealey Plaza, edited by James Fetzer.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

Penmarin Books deserves high praise for allowing Farewell America to reach a new and expanded audience. --Ed Tatro, JFK assassination expert

Penmarin Books deserves high praise for allowing Farewell America to reach a new and expanded audience. --Ed Tatro, JFK assassination expert

Penmarin Books deserves high praise for allowing Farewell America to reach a new and expanded audience. --Ed Tatro, JFK assassination expert

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 394 pages
• Publisher: Penmarin Books (November 22, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1883955327
• ISBN-13: 978-1883955328
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.8 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #119,779 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

32 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars great account of state of union during kennedy times, September 8, 2003

By 

Sterling R. Braswell "Sterling" (College Station, TX United States) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Farewell America: The Plot to Kill JFK (Paperback)

I first read Farewell America in 1996, when I was loaned a copy of the book from a business colleague. I was unable to purchase a copy of the book at that time, i was told it was not for sale. This was true at the time.

The book as i read it 7 years ago was intriquing, and the fact i was unable to find the book or buy the book legally lead me to believe more in conspiracy about the JFK assassination, and to read as many books as possible about JFK and the state of the nation during and after that time.

The fact that this book was researched and written so close to the time that the assassination and 'coverup' happened is the most compelling reason for reading Farewell America. After reading it again now that it is available, I still rank this book as the best source of information on this subject. I recommend this book to anyone who wants to step back with an open mind and look at the facts that were known in the first five years after Kennedy's death. There are excellent books which follow in later years, but the closer to the source, the less the distortion.

24 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars AN OUTSTANDING NEW BOOK, December 14, 2002

By 

Lee W. Merideth (Sunnyvale, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Farewell America: The Plot to Kill JFK (Paperback)

This is a wonderful book (a birthday gift last week). It confirms what I suspected for a long time: that a large collection of special interests (oil, corporate, mafia) conspired to kill JFK. This has been argued before all from second hand writers, but "Farewell America" confirmed this in the 1960s right after Kennedy's death. That surprised me. The book was written
by French intelligence officers under a pen name (Hepburn is not a real person). A fresh look with lots of detail and support. The story makes more sense, and is more plausible than any I have seen.

The introduction or Forword is by William Turner, who was an FBI guy with ties to Jim Garrison. Turner helped locate an overseas opy of the Zapruder film. This was important because no one had seen it before in public. Only a few pictures were published in the mainstream media. When people saw it, it seemed evident that Kennedy's headshot was from the front (Grassy Knoll area). Farewell America" discusses this and even has a map on the location of the shooters. This is important because this was written a long time before the public realized the truth of these statements. Turner also had access to Kennedy people and has written about similar things in FBI circles before. All in all a fascinating book I cannot endorse enough. It did not change my mind, but it confirmed my beliefs with a lot of logical evidence.

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Snapshot of the New Frontier, July 7, 2004

By 

Acute Observer (By the Shore NJ) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Farewell America: The Plot to Kill JFK (Paperback)

This brings back memories, like forty-year snapshots. The author begins Chapter 2 by citing the morality of Calvin and Wesley as to amassing as much wealth as they can, and an 18th century traveler as to the worship of self-interest (also true of other peoples?). There is also the tradition of frugality and plain living, which made a virtue out of a necessity. The author betrays a naive and ascetic outlook in claiming the Roosevelts entered politics for "unselfish reasons" (p.22). Government power leads to riches, in all times and places (Kevin Phillips "Wealth and Democracy"). The author says John F. Kennedy opposed the Titans of Wealth (p.23). But every President represents some parts of the ruling classes, and act for its interests. It is also true that JFK represented change, and a threat to parts of the ruling classes and their "order of things" (p.28). JFK's father was one of the twenty richest men in America, but JFK attracted a huge majority from the minorities (p.31). JFK's politics were to be friendly with everyone. His wealth and power created fear among many Americans. One change was the flaunting of wealth and style, a change from Truman and Eisenhower (p.42). Critics sniped at Jacqueline's spending, the lifestyle of the rich and famous.

Chapter 4 notes the changes of the Kennedy administration, more striking in retrospect. The author talks of the "aristocratic and plutocratic conception" of the Kennedy family, and their resentment by many of the well-to-do (jealousy or envy?). Chapter 6 tells of the gangland murders in the Boston area (p.89), and the contacts between "millionaire pillars of the community". [Are they still protected by politicians? Does this explain the Massachusetts laws against Second Amendment rights?] Pages 112-113 list JFK's novel Cabinet appointees; some could have served in Eisenhower's Administration. Page 132 tells of the Defense Dept. control of the American economy. The taxes of the many support the corporations owned by the few. These 'make work' projects prevented another after-war economic depression (p.151). Peace would bring a terrific blow to the oil industry (p.153). The "Alliance For Progress" led to more military coups, and forced capital to flow to the U.S. (p.158). Big Business feared the Kennedy administration (p.174). Chapter 10 explains how Big Oil controls governments (p.189). [You'll never read this in newspapers and magazines!]

Chapter 13 is the heart of this 1968 book - it says the assassination was driven by politics and arranged by a "Committee". It depended on powerful men in the Government who would no interfere (p.288). Chapter 16, and others, are an antidote to the fiction of the Warren Report. Chapter 20 ends the book. The deaths of JFK and RFK were not accidents. [What about JFK Jr.?] The 1960s saw many changes in America (p.375). [One index of the 1960s is that people were economically better off than the decades before or after.] But this chapter's ending became outdated. Thirty-five years later some youthful protesters are now part of the Establishment. Some things have changed, but it still remains the same. The prediction about China is now amusing (p.380). Ten years later the Select Congressional Committee re-opened the investigation; they concluded that there were two shooters (refer to pages 356-7), and effectively demolished the shoddy cover-up of the Warren Commission. More books were written because this was no longer a "controversial topic" that was censored by the Establishment. We've also seen other scandals: Watergate, Contra-gate, Iran-gate. The smiling mask on the Establishment wears thin.