On the Trail of the Assassins [Mass Market Paperback]

Jim Garrison (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 1, 1991

The book that inspired the movie JFK recounts Jim Garrison's attempt to solve the Kennedy assassination, and describes how Garrison was harrassed because of his allegations of government involvement in Kennedy's death.

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 10 pages
• Publisher: Warner Books; 1st Warner Books Printing edition (December 1, 1991)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0446362778
• ISBN-13: 978-0446362771
• Product Dimensions: 6.7 x 4.1 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (80 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #678,912 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

58 of 66 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars The Search for the Truth June 22, 2004

By Mcgivern Owen L

Format:Mass Market Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

On the Trail of the Assassins is an excellent starting point for those trying to make sense of the 1963 assassination of John F. Kennedy, 35th President of the United States. The author was the District Attorney of New Orleans, Louisiana at the time of the shooting. He felt, rightly it seems, that his jurisdiction contained a hotbed of intrigue against J.F.K. OTA is 2 tales in one: The first marshals the virtual kaleidoscope of sinister information, actual events, recreated events, innuendo, questions, malfeasance, lying, ineptitude, charges and countercharges behind the killing. The second relates the author's frustrating attempts to convict a real life person with plotting the act. The first effort is highly successful. This is true at least to the extent that the attentive reader should be convinced that 1) Lee Harvey Oswald certainly DID NOT assassinate Kennedy on his own and 2) was in every likelihood not DIRECTLY involved with the shooting -period. Furthermore, the author proved, to this reviewer's satisfaction that 3) Oswald also did not shoot Dallas Police Officer J.D.Tipitt that fateful afternoon. Linking Tippit to Oswald is critical in determining guilt. Finally, the author effectively eliminates the Mafia as the culprits in the crime. The foregoing is no small accomplishment. Left unanswered are the mysteries that have plagued virtually anyone who is unsatisfied with the Warren Commission or subsequent House investigation into the affair. A partial list of these issues encompass: the virtual criminal activities surrounding Kennedy's so called autopsy, the presence of a second and even third (!) gunman in Dallas that day, the outright theft of the President's brain from the National Archives and the total and complete failure of the Secret Service to protect J.F.K. in Dallas. The author properly raises the right questions. Like most investigators, he is unable to provide answers. The most tantalizing questions of all concern Oswald: Who was he? If he did not shoot the President, why is he so prominent And what on the fringes of the event? He certainly was on the scene that day. Was he set up to take the fall? Was he a patsy? His own murder two days after that of the President proved that someone wanted him silenced. The second tale surrounds the trial of one Clay Shaw, a local prominent business leader. Shaw was not charged with the murder but in forming a plot to carry out the assassination. No reader should be surprised at his acquittal. Garrison's case was unspecific and not coherently put together for such a serious charge. The jury s decision does not detract from the book one iota. There are so many unanswered questions and unexplained events to the Kennedy assassination it boggles the mind. The overriding burden lies in assigning specificity . At least Garrison tried to bring someone to justice. Conspiracy theorists will have to read further to get more answers to the frustrating questions. One weak point is the inadequacy of the one map of Dealey Plaza, the murder site. A more serious detraction is that so many facts are spread out over the text, many buried in footnotes. Readers will have to work hard! These facts, like the Shaw prosecution, are not always coherently presented, a strange omission from such an experienced lawyer. In fairness to the author, this may reflect poor editing, not poor writing. One cautionary note from this observer: The Kennedy assassination is highly similar to another troubling affair: The missing POWs and MIAs from Indochina. In both instances, our Government failed us. And in both cases, the full truth will never be known. There remains no reason not to continue to seek answers no matter how frustrating. If enough of us try hard enough for long enough, perhaps more of the truth will one day emerge.

22 of 23 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Every American should read this book September 13, 2002

By A Customer

Format:Hardcover

There was abuse of power involved in this case, but it wasn't by Jim Garrison as some people would have you believe. The government's pursuit of various trumped up charges against Garrison, after the failed Clay Shaw trial, was an egregious abuse of governmental power against its citizens, in this case against Garrison. This occurred under President Nixon and was basically an extension of the abuses associated with Watergate. The discussion in the book of Garrison's experiences in this regard is a reminder of the fragile state of our freedoms. As for the heart of the book, the discussion of the conspiracy to kill Kennedy, Garrison covers a lot of ground. Appropriately, he focuses key parts of the discussion on Guy Banister. It was apparently out of Banister's office that Oswald seems to have been working in August 1963, when the conspirators set Oswald up, such that when a pro-Castro sympathizer (ie. Oswald) would get arrested in the case, they could argue for their long-sought war against Cuba. Garrison may not have been correct in everything he said, but he makes a strong case in this book that he was on the right track. He was undertaking a difficult job in resolving such a complex case, but the job was made much more difficult by the killing of witnesses and the penetration of his investigation by those seeking to obstruct justice. Up until now, the conspirators have won. Maybe if enough people read this book and demand justice, tomorrow will be different.

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Not a rehash of "A Heritage of Stone." January 27, 2007

By Herbert L Calhoun

Format:Mass Market Paperback

I avoided reading this book when it was first published thinking it was but a mere rehash of Garrison's earlier book "A Heritage of Stone." However, thirty years on, I have pleasantly discovered that I was greatly mistaken. "On the Trail of the Assassins" is not a rehash, but stands quite sufficiently on its own.

More than anything else, it is first a devastating critique of the Warren Commission's Report; perhaps the best there is so far. Second, it is written by a first-class legal mind. And whatever else one might say about Jim Garrison, it is difficult to ignore the fact that he has one of the best legal minds in this nation. Third, it is a summary report of the Garrison investigation, which again, it is difficult to ignore that Garrison, on a shoe string budget, and with a handful of mostly volunteers, did a much better job investigating the JFK assassination than all of the nation's institutional police and intelligence machinery combined. And finally, the book is Garrison's own defense of the case he lost against the only man ever to be charged with JFK's assassination, Clay Shaw.

As a critique, Garrison attacks the slipshod way in which federal and Texas investigations pursued (or failed to pursue) the evidence and suspects -- other than the "carefully prepared patsy" Lee Harvey Oswald. Among these ways is the fact that Oswald was interrogated for more than 30 hours without a transcript; that the three tramps found in the rail car a few feet from the grassy knoll were released without even recording their names; and the general lack of curiosity on the part of the FBI and Dallas police authorities in following leads, protecting evidence, and in interrogating witnesses.

Garrison's legal astuteness is on display in a number of ways in the book: in the way he corralled information from informants; the way he collated and peeled back his evidence to attain maximum courtroom effect; the way he shaped theories based on where the evidence led; and in the way he parried defense moves and the counter-moves against him made generally by the federal authorities, who curiously always viewed him as a threat and hindrance to their limp but "predetermined" investigation.

With only a handful of investigators, researchers and contributors, Garrison fell just short of cracking the crime of the century. One must wonder out loud what would have happened if, instead of trying to derail and undermine his investigation, the government would have supported him?

It seemed clear even to Garrison, that his case against Clay Shaw was a lost cause even before he entered the courtroom. However, if one looks carefully at the theoretical framework Garrison constructed, in which Shaw was just one of a number of important elements, it is clear that Garrison was on the right track; and that Shaw's acquittal was more about the lack of witnesses to confirm Garrison's evidence, than it was about Shaw's guilt or innocence. That is why after forty years, a great deal, if not all of Garrison's theory has been borne out.

.Whether you believe Garrison's theories or not, this book is a report on investigative, legal, and police work of a very high order. Five Stars.