Customer Reviews

Murder in Dealey Plaza: What We Know Now that We Didn't Know Then

5 star:		(35)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(17)

 

 

This is the best book ever written about the assassination of President Kennedy. And that is saying a lot since there have been some very good ones lately such as Bill Davy's new book on the Garrison case. Once I started reading MIDP I couldn't put it down. The reason this is the best book ever written is because there is absolutely no speculation here. The book is about what we now know about the hard physical evidence of the case. And what we now know is that much of the hard evidence such as the autopsy photographs and x-rays have been tampered with to give the false impression that Kennedy was killed by a lone gunman. The medical evidence is presented in a clear,concise and easy to understand manner for a non-medical person like myself. I found parts of a previous work edited by Dr. Fetzer, Assassiantion Science, to be a bit too technical. But this new book is more accesible for people like myself, which I believe should be a big plus for the general population. A big strength of the book was coming right out at the beginning and listing in a very direct point by point manner the "smoking guns" of the assassination. This proves to the reader right off the bat that there was a conspiracy. No ifs ands or buts. No room to put a spin on the fact of conspiracy no matter how hard one may try. This whets the appetite of the reader to continue further. Next comes a lengthy assassination chronology that helps the reader see what was really happening hour by hour on that fateful November day. Sort of like what Jim Bishop did in his book "The Day Kennedy Was Shot" only much more historically factual. There is a lengthy section giving evidence that the Zapruder film was tampered with. This adds a whole new dimension to the case. Perhaps the most interesting(for me)part of the book was Doug Weldon's excellent chapter on the limo that was used in the motorcade. When you think of it, it is amazing that it took so long for someone to trace the history of this very important piece of physical evidence. Weldon, an attorney, needs to be congratulated on an excellent job. The book concludes with Dr. David Mantik's justifiably scathing citicism of professional historians. Mantik explains why taking the assassination seriously has been politically incorrect in academia. With so much overwhelming evidence proving both a conspiracy and a high-level U.S. government cover-up, future historians will no longer be able to hide from the truth. I'll make sure that my son-in-law, who is working on his doctorate in history, reads this. The sequential order of the chapters is very well thought out going from intro, to the meat of the evidence, to what does this all mean. All in all, this is an outstanding contribution to our nation's true history.

Over the past 20 years I have been reading over 35 books on the JFK assassination and the information presented has basically been the same in each book. That was until now, James Fetzer has written a book that brings to light new evidence and new ideas and this book is certainly one to have.

Over 465 page updated with the most current information available the author takes you back to that fateful day in Dallas and brings to life one of the most tragic and horrific murders in American history.

The book makes you see things differently and is very eye opening in the approach to the evidence. The author's breakdown of the day of the shooting is nothing short of amazing and his attention to the details makes the reading go very fast, I finished the book in just over 3 hours.

There is complete examination of the medical evidence and the roll of the Secrete Service and well as a comprehensive assessment of the Zapruder film, frame by frame. Also the author's inspection of photographs, medical reports and other evidence makes this one of the most complete works around.

After sifting through the entire manuscript and objectively examining what you read you may be able to put to rest the mystery once and for all. Overall one the best book on the subject I have ever read.

I am very, very impressed with this book---easily in my top 5 of all time on this important case (along with "Bloody Treason", "Cover Up" by Galanor, "Treachery In Dallas", & "The Warren Omission"); perhaps THE best single volume to deal with the JFK assassination (ALL the hard evidence of conspiracy from the newly-released ARRB government documents & testimony, especially as it relates to the medical evidence)! Fetzer's first volume ("Assassination Science") was good but this is light years ahead of that tome. For starters, this volume appeals to the novice and the jaded expert, complete with a fantastic chronology of November 22, 1963 that succeeds in bringing everyone up to speed while providing fascinating new and/ or overlooked details of the crime. There are three MAJOR medical evidence sections of this book [by Drs. Aguilar & Mantik, as well as Horne from the ARRB]that contain the HARD evidence of conspiracy and coverup (comprehensive and amazing in every detail), as well as a very thoughtful analysis of the state of the case in the (blinded)eyes of history (and historians). Finally, there are powerful chapters dealing with the limousine and the role of the Secret Service that will truly enlighten and inform (and they make appropriate companions to the medical evidence chapters), along with a couple other surprises. Highly recommended reading: buy it asap!

James H. Fetzer exposes all the altered or destroyed evidence in the murder of JFK (the replacement of the windshield of the presidential limousine, the autopsy and the photographs of the body, the alteration of the Zapruder film), the silencing and strange death of witnesses and the still exceptional resistance of the government to open their secret files. As G. Orwell said: `Who controls the present, controls the past.'

For the author, the only hypothesis withstanding the impact of these new findings is that of a large-scale conspiracy, a coup d'Etat by Lyndon Johnson, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the intelligence community and the military industrial complex, because `neither the Mafia, pro- or contra Cubans, or the KGB could have extended their reach into Bethseda Naval Hospital to fabricate X-rays, substitute another brain of that of JFK, or subject the Zapruder film to extensive alteration in order to mislead and confuse further investigations and to impose a permanent falsification of history.'

He makes the hypothesis that Lee Harvey Oswald was all alone responsible for the death of JFK completely ridiculous.
He shows the baffling cowardice of the professional historians, who are afraid of research into one of the most important events in world history given its national and international consequences, and depicts the guild of journalists as the `most amateur of professions'.

All in all, J. Fetzer's book brushes a very bleak picture of a country run by its intelligence agencies, which accept democracy only if the outcome of `free' elections corresponds to their particular interests.

A must read for all those interested in the past, the present and the future of mankind.

For students of the Kennedy assassination, Murder at Dealey Plaza offers a chilling chronology of personal movements and actual events leading up to, during, and directly after the murder of John F. Kennedy. The book packs an enormous amount of information into its 468 pages. Fetzer supports earlier premises, presented by Jim Garrison, Oliver Stone, and others, that Lee Harvey Oswald could not have kiled President John F. Kennedy.

Fetzer gives the reader times and locations of persons surrounding the assassination, building his case as he goes. Details abound throughout the book. Hobos, who were pictured in Jim Garrison's book, On The Trail of the Assassins, as riding a freight train into Dallas the morning before the assassination, arrested and released by Dallas police before the assassination took place, were identified by Fetzer, with a face and name. Fetzer also challenges Warren Commission findings on Lee Harvey Oswald as the lone gunman, presenting detailed information on Kennedy's autopsies, and disproving the "magic bullet" theory. Fetzer demonstrates through depositions and other documentation, that there were at least 6 shots fired in Dallas that day, 4 of which hit Kennedy. The author makes a convincing argument that Kennedy was hit twice from behind and twice from the front, and that he was killed with high velocity bullets-not the type of bullets used in Oswald's defective rifle. Fetzer presents evidence that could have made a case for Oswald's innocence, while describing how information was manipulated to the press at the time, for the purpose of assigning guilt for the assassination squarely on Lee Harvey Oswald.

Fetzer's book supports evidence of a plot to kill Kennedy. He notes with impecable details that warnings Kennedy might be killed in Dallas during his stay there were sent to every major city in the United States except for Dallas. Other strange scenarios the reader is told about include the 112th Military Intelligence Group at 4th Army Headquarters at Fort Sam Houston in Dallas, usually in charge of protecting the President, was told to "stand down" that day, rather than report for duty in Dallas, over the protests of the unit commander. Local sheriff's deputies and uniformed policemen were instructed to take no part in the security of the Presidential motorcade, and to stand with their backs to the crowd during the parade. Fetzer also tells the reader that Mrs. Kennedy remembered that in all their stops in Texas she was presented yellow roses, except for Dallas. In Dallas, the roses she was presented with upon arrival were red.

Was the JFK assassination a coup d'etat? The reader is left with a question.

Fetzer's style of presenting information in a minute by minute format through much of the book adds importance to facts surrounding the case. For seekers of truth on the Kennedy assassination, Fetzer's book is a wealth of information.

By RUSS TARBY, Liverpool, NY
Before there was Sept. 11, 2001, there was Nov. 22, 1963.
Only one man died in that day's attack, but the echoes of the gunshots that rang out that day in Dallas continue to reverberate 38 years later.
In fact, a study by the University of Chicago's National Opinion Research Center said the 1963 assassination was more
emotionally devastating for Americans than the recent terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon.
Several recent books continue to shed new light on that dark day in Big D. One of the most compelling is "Murder in Dealey Plaza: What We Know Now that We Didn't Know Then" edited by James Fetzer (Catfeet Press, Chicago; paperback - August 2000), the follow-up volume to Fetzer's 1997 book "Assassination Science: Experts Speak Out on the Death of JFK."
Both of Fetzer's compilations of essays go a long way to debunk the medical, ballistic and photographic evidence which
1964's Warren Commission used to frame 24-year-old Lee Harvey Oswald's for the president's murder.
Two of the most eye-opening chapters in Fetzer's new books are those by Vince Palamara, hinting strongly at Secret Service complicity in the crime; and Jack Whites extensive analysis of the infamous Zapruder film, which argues that someone intentionally altered/edited the chilling 8mm color film, distorting images of the kill shot, etc. But no matter how much the Z-film may have been messed with, the conspirators couldn't erase the image of First Lady Jackie Kennedy crawling out onto the treunk of the Lincoln limousine to retrieve a portion of her husband's skull which had landed on the BACK of the car, clearly indicating that the fatal bullet origiinated from in FRONT of the
president.
The photographic record of the murder of the man accused of killing JFK also reveals much more than normally known. A revealing CBS-TV videotape from Nov. 24 delivers solid evidence linking Oswald to the man who silenced him, nightclub operator Jack Ruby.
Oswald's shooting less than two days after Kennedy was hit even aired live on NBC-TV from the basement of the Dallas Police Department.
At the Museum of Radio & Television in Manhattan visitors NBC reporter Tom Pettit's live report on Sunday, Nov. 24, 11:21 a.m. Dallas time, can be seen again, and it vividly captures the pandemonium that enveloped that unlikely killing ground. Even more interesting, however, is a CBS-TV videotape called "One Sunday in November," which also details the Oswald shooting.
Although NBC-TV aired Oswald's murder aired as it actually happened, CBS producers chose to broadcast live funeral services from Washington that morning rather than the routine transfer of the prisoner in Dallas. Nevertheless,cameraman George Phenix, of the Dallas CBS affiliate KRLD-TV, dutifully shot what was supposed to be the simple delivery of the prisoner to a car waiting to take him to the County Jail a mile away. Phenix -- positioned just a few feet behind Ruby as the assailant awaited his prey -- squeezed off several feet of clear lack-and-white footage depicting a manacled Oswald, flanked by two big plainclothesmen, emerging into the basement.
Texas-bred CBS reporter Dan Rather, whose career blossomed quickly after his on-the-scene coverage of the events in Dallas, narrated Phenix's film as it flickered before the national viewing audience on the afternoon of Nov. 24:
"Now we will show you the film of Oswald being shot, still-framed," Rather says. "Watch the hat in the right-hand corner of the frame. Watch Oswald's eyes as they seem to catch the eye of the assassin {Ruby}. His head turns, he looks at the
assassin and his eyes never leave him. The assassin moves in...and a few inches from {Oswald's} abdomen, fires a shot."
As Rather throws the broadcast back to anchorman Charles Collingwood in New York, he describes Dallas as "grim, solemned and shamed." Collingwood, meanwhile, reminds viewers that the murder of Lee Harvey Oswald only "deepens the mood of national misgiving." Certainly, many viewers who saw the film of that shooting, especially the CBS version which showed Oswald looking at Ruby, became instant conspiracy theorists.
In his book "The Search for Lee Harvey Oswald," former U.S. House of Representatives and Senate photographic expert
Bob Groden printed several images from Phenix's film, with one close-up captioned, $Q seems to be thinking,'What are you doing here, Jack?'"
The ever-careful historian Richard Trask -- author of the well-researched "Pictures of the Pain" -- warns, however,
that "It's all but impossible to ascertain with any degree of accuracy the direction of the eyes of any photographic subject." Trask interviewed former Dallas Police Department detective Jim Leavelle, the policeman in the white suit who was handcuffed to Oswald's right arm during the shooting. Leavelle--who knew Ruby by sight--claimed that the television lights were so bright in that basement that he couldn't recognize anyone in the crowd. Phenix's film, however, shows light spilling onto the first line of reporters and cops immediately to Oswald's right, a group that
included Ruby.
Mary LaFontaine, co-author of "Oswald Talked," which argues convincingly that Oswald and Ruby collaborated in a
pre-assassination gun-running scheme, recalls her reaction to that Sunday shooting: "When those of us who are old enough saw Ruby shoot Oswald, we knew there was something wrong. There was some kind of conspiracy, and this man was being silenced."

I have to admit that I really wanted to dislike this book because I don't share his views about the Zapruder film. But facts are facts-this is a truly great book and it's the best one I ever read on this complicated subject. I thought his first book was kinda a hodge-podge of info. that was kinda jumbled around-not this one! Much, much, much better! Phenomenal chapters on the limousine (Weldon), Secret Service (Palamera), medical area (Aguillar, Mantik, Horne), and a whole lot more. I urge anyone and everyone to read 'Murder in Dealey Plaza'. I can't wait to read it again-it's that good!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I've probably read 30 books on the assassination and got this to bring myself up to date with what has been learned over the past few years. The editor and the contributors have solid academic and/or professional credentials -- the editor is a professor who appears to have authored or edited a number of mainstream scientific works. The book includes a very lengthy and helpful hour-by-hour "time line" of the events surrounding the assassination, as well as a great deal of analysis of the Zapruder film and the autopsy photographs and x-rays. The focus is primarily on the evidence that was altered or destroyed and the agencies and individuals that would have had to have participated in order for it to be altered or destroyed. I frankly bogged down in some of the medical/scientific analysis, which eventually becomes mind-numbing unless you're a Certified Assassination Freak. I got more enjoyment out of things like the lengthy section on what happened with the Lincoln in which JFK was riding (which includes some startling revelations from a former Ford executive). Not only is this book 400+ pages, but the type is quite small -- there is a LOT of material here. You're sure to find many parts fascinating, and you may find the whole thing fascinating if you're interested in this level of detail. It will also steer you to most of the other classic works in this field if you haven't read them. As the editor says, we're much closer than we were even a decade ago to understanding what really happened -- and what DIDN'T happen is that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. I've studied enough to firmly believe that Oswald was precisely what he said he was: a "patsy" who would probably be more accurately described as "a minor cog in the machine" than as the "mastermind" or the "assassin."

Yes this book has its flaws and perhaps many that escape me for my lack of expertise in any of the areas of forensic inquiry. One quirk that can be an annoyance to the reader can actually be interpreted as a strength of the compendium: redundant conclusions by contributors pursuing independent investigation. The results of judicious examination reinforce the same conclusions. Jack White's essay about the Zapruder film and other photography of the crime scene seemed very disjointed and hard to follow.

In light of events of the last two years, this study warrants reading or re-reading. Some reviews profess a lack of credibility by the reader because of the sheer scale of participation in any alleged coverup if not the crime itself. To those "doubting Thomases", I would suggest they contemplate the widespread conspiracy that deceived a nation and its Congress into backing a military assault into Iraq on completely false premises. That conspiracy entailed offices of the White House, CIA and Departments of Defense, State, and Energy. Its tenets were largely un-scrutinized by major players in American news media. "The lid" stayed cemented in place until an ex-diplomat wrote a guest column in the New York Times about his knowledge of a forged document that was used as rationale for invasion in a President's State of the Union message. The article appeared several weeks after the conclusion of the march into Baghdad. Conspirators went to great lengths to enforce a coverup. A CIA agent was "outted" probably to notify members of the intelligence community that dire consequences would result from any disclosure.

In the post 9/11 era, Dr. Mantik's appeal to historians and journalists takes on special provenance and poignancy. It would seem the civic process is deficient when those most skilled in gleaning traditions in abuse of power fail in their charge and calling to inform the rest of us. How many more "Iraqs" will it take before historians assign themselves the responsibility of evaluating the power and influence of America's vested interests and relate to its citizens professional opinions on the outcome to our self-governing processes?

I look forward to reading "the Great Zaprudr Film Hoax".

Most books on the assassination today seem designed to review and summarize the evidence for an audience that hardly remembers what the fuss is all about. This book assumes that you know the lay of the land, and want some new information. Fetzer is best read by those who want some detailed information about aspects of the crime that were virtually unexplored until these pieces were made available to wider audience than assassination buffs. Having read a mountain of books on the subject, I was excited to find totally new material on the Secret Service and the fate of the JFK limo, among many other topics. The price of this book is so low, anyone with even a passing interest in the subject will find this a solid value. I was riveted by some of these essays. This is the best I've read since Bloody Treason, which I also highly recommend.