JFK: Breaking the News [Hardcover]

Hugh Aynesworth (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 2003

Hugh Aynesworth, four-time Pulitzer Prize nominee, was the only reporter to witness the assassination of President Kennedy, the arrest of Lee Harvey Oswald, and the murder of Oswald. Famous among his fellow investigative journalists, he now breaks new stories in the book reporters have asked him to release for decades.

If you thought you knew everything interesting to know about the Kennedy assassination, then think again. Breaking the News is the definitive story of the assassination and its aftermath.

- Eager to appear on top of the JFK sotry, which DAllas newspaper fooled its readers with a bogus interview with J. Edgar Hoover?
- How did defense attorney Melvin Belli concoct the famous epilepsy defense for Jack Ruby?
- Why didn't the FBI tell the Dallas police that Lee Harvey Oswald worked in a building directly in the path of JFK's motorcade?
- What was New Orleans DA Jim Garrison's secret code and how did his investigators bribe a witness?

The first print reporter to interview Marina Oswald and first to establish her husband's escape route, Aynesworth also uncovered Oswald's Russian diary and was involved in first reporting how the high-profile defector paid a threatening visit to the FBI office in Dallas only days before the assassination.

Breaking the News provides over 200 photographs and artifacts from Aynesworth's peronal archive, including: his notes the day of the assassination, letters from British philospher Bertrand Russell, then Congressman Gerald Ford, and the Jack Ruby family.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Aynesworth really cracked AP and UPI wires . . . scooped all opposition - local and national. -- Editor and Publisher

Hugh Aynesworth knows more about this tragic story . . . than anyone I know. A splendid piece of work. -- Bob Schieffer, Anchor/Moderator, Face the Nation, CBS News

No one - repeat, no one - in America knows more about the Kennedy assassination. -- Michael Ruby, former co-editor US News & World Report, Current editorial page editor Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

About the Author

Four-time Pulitzer Prize nominee and bestselling author, including, "The Only Living Witness," the definitive study of serial killer Ted Bundy that the New York Daily News called one of the "ten best true-crime books ever written." Aynesworth is the national correspondent for the Washington Times and was formerly the investigative team leader for ABC's 20/20 and a Newsweek bureau chief.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 296 pages
• Publisher: International Focus Press (November 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0963910361
• ISBN-13: 978-0963910363
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 7.2 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,070,061 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Amazing Journalism, January 26, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: JFK: Breaking the News (Hardcover)

This is not just another JFK book. The author doesn't offer any conspiracy theories or apologies for investigations less than perfect. But what IS here is the most comprehensive book ever written about the people involved...from the Oswalds to the Rubys, the Warren Commission members, the cops, the Dallas kooks and the charlatans who have made a living out of fooling a saddened world.
This book is an amazing product of a journalist who has been in the front lines for 40 years -- covering every aspect of the case. It's the most human story every told about those 40 years and an honest search for the truth.
And though I thought there could be nothing new about the JFK case, I was surprised at how much really IS told for the first time here.

20 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars At Last, the Definitive JFK Assassination Book!!, January 22, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: JFK: Breaking the News (Hardcover)

If you want the unvarnished truth of what REALLY occurred in Dallas that November weekend in 1963, as well as the astonishing true story of the assassination's aftermath, you'll find plainly-written, documented answers in Breaking The News. This is a personal, hard-hitting but even-handed treatment by the single most knowledgeable assassination expert there is, Hugh Aynesworth. Teamed once again with his old writing partner, Stephen Michaud (The Only Living Witness, etc.) Aynesworth not only sets the record straight, once and for all, (and totally vanquishes the hordes of conspiracy theorists in the process) but also unveils a long list of fascinating insider tidbits, such as the outrageous way that Melvin Belli hit on the epilepsy defense for Jack Ruby, and how Lee Harvey Oswald's widow, Mariana, briefly found comfort in the arms of another man. More significantly, he reports for the first time the FBI's lame excuse for not telling the Dallas Police Department that someone potentially dangerous as Oswald would enjoy a sniper's-eye seat to Kennedy's motorcade. It wasn't a plot, but sheer laziness and stupidity that made the assassination possible. The material on bizarre New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison alone is worth the cover price.
Historians, journalists, criminal justice experts and all other intelligent students of the assassination have been waiting decades for this book. Thank goodness that Aynesworth finally got around to writing it.

10 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Facts in Perspective, May 25, 2006

By 

Robert Huffaker "Bob Huffaker" (Texas) - See all my reviews

This review is from: JFK: Breaking the News (Hardcover)

Hugh Aynesworth has done more first-hand investigative reporting on the JFK assassination than any reporter I know. He is also the only reporter who was in Dealey Plaza during the assassination, at the Texas Theater during the capture of Oswald, and in the police basement with us when Ruby shot Oswald. JFK: Breaking the News is a must-read for those who want to know the facts.