The Last Investigation [Paperback]

Gaeton Fonzi (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1994

Gaeton Fonzi's masterful retelling of his work investigating the Kennedy assassination for two Congressional committees is required reading for students of the assassination and the subsequent failure of the government to solve the crime. The Last Investigation is a compelling post mortem on the House Select Committee on Assassinations, as well as a riveting account of Fonzi's pursuit of leads indicating involvement by officers of the Central Intelligence Agency.

--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Fonzi's account of the Kennedy assassination, which links Oswald to the CIA, has the tension of a good spy novel.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Fonzi was a federal investigator for the congressional committees that issued reports in the 1970s questioning some aspects of the Warren Commission Report. While he doesn't know the names of the people responsible for JFK's murder, he believes that Lee Harvey Oswald worked secretly for the CIA and that there was a conspiracy involving the intelligence agency. In detailed and lively prose, he describes his far-flung investigation into the possibility that Oswald met with CIA agents before the assassination, especially David Atlee Phillips, a fervent anti-Castro agent who later became head of the CIA's Western Hemisphere Division. Like other conspiracy proponents, Fonzi also argues that the "single bullet" theory is refuted by medical evidence. He accuses the congressional committees for which he worked of backing off from the evidence they uncovered that implicated the CIA in a political murder. Amidst the hundreds of conspiracy books published in the last 30 years, this is one of the most believable, although it only offers circumstantial evidence and educated speculation. See also Harrison Edward Livingstone's Killing the Truth , reviewed below.
- Jack Forman, Mesa Coll. Lib., San Diego
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 448 pages
• Publisher: Thunder's Mouth Pr (September 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1560250798
• ISBN-13: 978-1560250791
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,712,898 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

82 of 84 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Keystone to Solving the Crime of the 20th Century, December 3, 2001

By 

"jrbednorz" (Riverside, CA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Last Investigation (Paperback)

I cannot do much better than other reviewers of Fonzi's book. But I can add a few things -- perhaps even the last word. In passing, I must say I find it strange that there are so few reviews for this book. And yet, maybe it is not so strange.

Fonzi inherited the frustration of Jim Garrison ("On the Trail of Assassins") for discovering the ultimate lead to the mystery of Dealey Plaza. Both authors had conducted separate and independent investigations: Garrison in 1968 New Orleans, and Fonzi -- working for the House Select Committee on Assassinations between 1976 and 1978. Both investigations pointed ultimately toward a rogue faction within the CIA, but Fonzi, in pursuing events surrounding Oswald's appearance on Sylvia Odio's porch in September, 1963, went farther down that trail than anyone.

The other reviews do well to summarize Fonzi's book, so I leave the reader to explore those reviews. Instead, let's take a look at the history surrounding Fonzi's book itself. He had been constrained by a non-disclosure agreement with CIA from the time they began to suppress the HSCA's activities. This was also coincident with the landmark censorship court case over Vincent Marchetti's "The CIA and the Cult of Intelligence". It was not until after the passage of the 1992 JFK Records Collection Act and its implementation by William Jefferson Clinton that Fonzi was able to publish "Last Investigation".

Another author, investigating completely different events in history, supported Fonzi's findings, and that author was free of the constraints that bound Fonzi. Donald Freed published "Death in Washington: The Murder of Orlando Letelier" in 1980 on the heels of the infamous Sheridan Circle/Washington, DC car-bombing of Orlando Letelier and Ronni Moffitt. And what is most frightening is this: David Atlee Phillips, CIA case officer and handler of Lee Harvey Oswald, left a trail of blood and carnage throughout the Western Hemisphere in the wake of his involvement in the Kennedy assassination. As a master of propaganda science, he had purchased print and broadcast media in Chile, conducting a massive propaganda campaign which brought the Allende regime crashing down. Phillips' colleagues in the States were later arrested in the Watergate scandal, and they had previously burglarized the offices of Chilean Ambassador Orlando Letelier, providing a list of Allende supporters to the Nixon administration who passed it along through Phillips to the Pinochet regime. Everyone on that list was summarily "disappeared" in the infamous Santiago soccer stadium. Phillips later attempted to cover up the work of his next protege' after Oswald -- Michael Townley -- in the 1976 Letelier bombing.

All post-war history orbits around Dealey Plaza. All serious JFK research intent on getting at the Truth revolves around Fonzi's ground-breaking findings. And a significant part of assassination books after "Last Investigation" appear crafted to obscure the trail Fonzi uncovered.

Looking at the 1990s and the ARRB declassifications under Clinton, the average citizen has been exposed to TV documentaries such as Nigel Turner's "Men Who Killed Kennedy" and a series narrated by Roger Moore entitled "The KGB JFK Assassination Files". None of these, or any other video documentaries mention Fonzi or his key suspect who planned the coverup and sheepdipping of Oswald in every detail. While Turner's series points in the right direction, it still explores many false trails, and leaves too much to the viewer's discretionary conclusion.

Phillips, the Watergate boys and Maj. Gen. Ed Lansdale had all been involved in "Operation Zapata" -- the Bay of Pigs Invasion. Lansdale's focus (see Prouty, "JFK: The CIA, Vietnam and the Assassination of J__ F__ K__") had been psychological warfare; Phillips had been a propaganda specialist. One field of study and application is the subset of the other, and the involvement of these two men at the center of the plot -- between the yet-to-be-proven high-level participants and the triggermen -- should indicate to those interested at getting to the heart of the matter just how horrendously insidious and Evil the events surrounding Dealey Plaza really were.

The fact that the extensive TV documentaries steer clear of both Phillips and Lansdale can only indicate one thing: the coverup continues; its purpose is to deceive the American people; and the deceit is necessary because three major industries that had circled their wagons of interest and influence around CIA and Pentagon before 1963 have maintained their status quo all this time. Those industries are strategic minerals (oil), defense-aerospace, and the media itself. The involvement of the third leg of this industrial complex explains why Fonzi's book has been obscured; why the HSCA findings and their suppressed files only released in 1997 have received little notice in the media; and why so many books and films attempt to lead the reader in other directions: there is the "Diem-Nhu-Corsican Mob" theory, the "Mafia" Theory, the "Castro" and "KGB" theories, and of course, the "lone-nut" theory. It is in the interest of the powers-that-be that the American people ignore the Fonzi book and continue to search in all directions of the conspiracy compass -- into perpetuity. Books after Fonzi's -- such as Gus Russo's "Live By the Sword" -- are still spinning theories and resurrecting old cover stories that have been disproved by declassified documents. At the same time, the declassification of Oswald's CIA "201" file now validates and confirms every fact, assertion and premise of Fonzi's own book, and especially, the connection between James McCord (Watergate), David Atlee Phillips, and Lee Harvey Oswald.

Fonzi's book is an exciting and spell-binding reading experience. It is earnest research and sound conclusion. It is THE most important book to acquire for anyone seriously interested in the Truth about Dealey Plaza.

Buy it. Read it. Pursue its investigative leads. Tell every American and world citizen you know. And as you do so, "Last Investigation" will arm you with enough facts to convince yourself and everyone -- this is no theory. This is the light at the end of the tunnel.

31 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the best works on the assassination of JFK, September 21, 1999

By 

Theodore M. Herlich - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Last Investigation (Paperback)

Gaeton Fonzi, an investigator with the Senate and the House Select Committee on Assassinations, reveals the fruit of his extraordinary investigative efforts in addition to providing a penetrating critique of the conduct of the House investigation. His most significant work involves Cuban exiles Sylvia Odio and Antonio Veciana. Ms. Odio was visited in her Dallas home by two anti- Castro activists and Lee Harvey Oswald prior to the assassination of JFK. They approached her to solicit funds for their anti-Castro activities. Ms. Odio is certain that it was Lee Harvey Oswald who was present at that time. Antonio Veciana was the leader of the extremely militant anti-Castro organization known as Alpha-66. Mr. Veciana's CIA handler was "Maurice Bishop" who the author demonstrates was none other than David Atlee Phillips. When Mr. Veciana travelled to Dallas prior to the assassination of JFK to meet his CIA handler, he found Mr. Phillips in conversation with Lee Harvey Oswald, thereby demonstrating Oswald's link to U.S. intelligence. Mr. Fonzi also reveals another CIA handler of anti-Castro Cuban organizations and their operations inside Cuba, Mr. David Sanchez Morales. {Miami's CIA station handling the anti-Castro operations was run by David Sanchez Morales, Theodore Shackley, E. Howard Hunt and David Atlee Phillips}. Mr. Morales admitted to a life-long friend that "We [CIA] took care of that ... Kennedy", suggesting U.S. intelligence participation in the "hit" on JFK. Mr. Fonzi's personal interactions with Sylvia Odio, Antonio Veciana, David Atlee Phillips and others provides a human dimension to the information he reveals which sets his work apart from most other assassination literature. Mr. Fonzi's work provides readers with important, new information based upon his own personal investigative work in the field and is invaluable in its contribution toward uncovering the truth of the assassination of JFK.

27 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Thank You Gaeton!, August 13, 2003

By 

Matthew DeLuca (Tulsa, OK) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Last Investigation (Paperback)

America owes a debt of gratitude to Gaeton Fonzi, former House Select Commitee on Assassinations investigator.
The HSCA was formed to give we the people the truth about the Asassination Conspiracy of President John F Kennedy, but instead, tons of HSCA documents are sealed away for decades to come!
What the HSCA didnt want to make too public, and what the media has totally hidden, is that the HSCA investigation proves once and for all that Lee Oswald was being framed for the assassination MONTHS before it happened!
Gaeton Fonzi is one of the few investigators for the HSCA who has gone against the grain, and who has come out to tell the American People the truth. He did so by writing this book.
One of the main points of Fonzi's book, is that CIA man "Maurice Bishop", was an alias used by David Atlee Phillips, former head of the CIA's Western Hemisphere division!
The identity of "Bishop" has long kept JFK assassination researchers interested because "Bishop" was seen with Lee Oswald in Dallas not long before the assassination, proving that the CIA had a link with Oswald, even though they said they didnt.
Couple this with the fact that Philips ("Bishop") did work for the CIA in Mexico City WHERE AN OSWALD IMPERSONATOR FRAMED HIM (Oswald) BEFORE THE ASSASSINATION, and the JFK murder mystery becomes much clearer.