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On the Trail of the JFK Assassins: A Groundbreaking Look at America's Most Infamous Conspiracy

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From a leading expert on the JFK assassination, we actually have new and important information that is highly relevant to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. This book is a collection of crucial material covering many aspects of the murder of JFK. It will make tired old researchers perk up and become alert and interested again; and newcomers to this issue enthralled by its fascinating historical implications.

In addition (as if the assassination of our 35th President were insufficient ground to cover), Dick Russell also unearths remarkable new Intel on the mind-control programs of U.S. Intelligence (it's not just the CIA). That sheds new light on the "Manchurian Candidate" aspects of Intelligence-sanctioned assassinations, which also splashes new light on the issues surrounding Sirhan Bishara Sirhan and Lee Harvey Oswald. Russell tackles a very thorny issue and uncovers what become revelations spoken by those who were there and who know of what they speak, in much the same process as the riveting accounts of professional assassin Colonel Bill Bishop in "The Man Who Knew Too Much." If you don't know who Colonel Bishop was, you will also love reading that book. But get this one first. So if you think Sirhan was probably yet another "lone nut" and Oswald may actually have been able to do what they said he did and "mind-control" is only a theory -- well -- do us all a favor: please read this book!!

This book is a collection of essays written by Russell concerning the JFK assassination. Just as there has been an evolution of facts concerning the event, the reader also realizes an evolution in the maturity of Russell's writing abilities and probably the intensity of his interest in the assassination. Russell's writing changes quickly and soon the reader cannot quit at the end of two, three or six chapters. I was reading more and sleeping less. There are five or six "must read" Kennedy assassination books (Russell has written one of them). This is a book which follows closely behind them and may well affect the reader more than the "required reading."

This book is both much better written than most assassination books, and more credible. Russell writes almost exclusively about what he knows or has been told by primary sources. He reports much more than he speculates.

As a consequence, I'm not sure if people looking for a smoking gun or proof-positive there was a conspiracy will be satisfied by Russell's reporting. Still, anyone reading the book should come out amazed at the number of strange characters and weird leads. The book would make a great mini-series, IMO.

Although I've never subscribed to the "single-assassin theorists are all cognitively-challenged" argument, I will venture that anyone reading this book and still feeling absolutely sure Oswald acted alone is lacking curiosity, and lacking understanding of their own lack of understanding.

As per the bard, speaking through Hamlet

"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy."

Dick Russell has showed us some of those things.

It has been with great interest that students of the JFK assassination have awaited this new book by the author of "The Man Who Knew Too Much." The first book acquainted us with the interesting case of Richard Nagel
who seemed to have firsthand knowledge of a plot and indicated so to the authorities only to be imprisoned and dismissed as a nutcase. Dick Russell's research reveals an interesting turn of the kaleidoscope that is Novemember 22, 1963, evoking more information in areas untouched by other researchers.

The new book is a very enjoyable read, as articles are organized chronologically which Russell wrote as he researched various aspects of the assassination over the years. As has been said, it is more reporting than speculation, a welcome relief when it comes to this intriguing subject. It will be particularly rewarding for those who have already read a lot about the Kennedy murder, as they will not have the retread sensation one encounters in a lot of "buff books." Russell is quite the professional journalist in this field. Indeed if we had more writer/researchers of his caliber, the progress desired by the American public might well have been achieved by now. But like a good mystery,
sometimes you don't want it to end, especially when conveyed by someone as skilled as Mr. Russell.

You will not believe the last essay in this book. It is in the form of a dialogue between Russell and the Chief Analyst for Military Records of the Congressionally appointed Assassinations Records Review Board (AARB), Douglas P. Horne.

It is entitled "Two Caskets, Two Autopsies, Two Brain Exams: The Disappearing Evidence".

Horne comments "Contained within our deposition transcripts and interview reports is unequivocal evidence that there was a U.S> government cover-up of the medical evidence in the Kennedy assassination."

Doesn't matter if you have read 50 books on the assassination, you will be amazed. Also Russ Baker's Family of Secrets is an absolute must. Amazing new stuff on H.W. in Dallas and Watergate. Really new. With links that leave the personal level and get to issues of structural economic power real quick.Family of Secrets: The Bush Dynasty, the Powerful Forces That Put It in the White House, and What Their Influence Means for America

Finally, finally, someone has made sense of that masterpiece of obfuscation, the AUTOPSY! It comes at the end of the book, (and frankly, I was growing weary of the ever-lengthening list of names that claimed to have something to do with/know something about the assassination), but it was well worth waiting for! Mr. Russell has taken the various statements of the autopsy technicans, the Secret Service, the FBI, the X-ray technicans, the photographers and the doctors and made a thoroughly plausible whole out of the pieces. I do not claim to have read 450 books on the assassination of JFK, but I have read many. Throughout my reading I have continued to look for something that indicates that pertinent questions were asked of the autopsy doctors. Mr. Russell may not have had the opportunity to ask the questions, but he does extremely well at answering some of them. The book is worth the price for that alone.

Dick Russell is a meticulous writer and may go into too much detail for some. This book is a continuation of his previous book The Man Who Knew Too Much. He jumps around quite a bit and there are points at which it is not clear if you are reading an original article from the 70's or the commentary on them from later on.

However, Russell's work in connecting some of the dots in this mystery is very important. The intelligence community's autonomy and lack of accountability is really frightening and paints a picture of a group of rogue and ruthless people whose control over world events has led us to a mis-trusting and contentious world. In retrospect, their actions were at best short-sighted and mis-guided. The world today is still us against them (fill in your own players in that contest) and the actions of a few have long endangered the lives of all.

Russell's writing is not for everyone, but he presents part of the story that needs to be told.

I knew this book would be good because he (Dick Rusell) wrote another book about the same subject(The Man who knew too much) and during his extensive research he dug all of the items in this book up.
Very much worth the price and I have found that I use it for reference myself.

Enjoy,Scott

During the 1960s into the 1980s, I read many of the books that did a good job of "proving" that the JFK assassination was a vast conspiracy and cover-up. But then I stopped reading. I bought this book because I thought with a publishing date of 2008, it would have lots of new updated material. I was very disappointed to learn that this is basically just a scrapbook of the author's various newspaper and magazine articles starting with one from 1975. These articles have been culled from The Village Voice, Argosy, Harper's Weekly, New Times, Gallery, etc. I had read most of these articles when they first appeared, so there was not much that was new. There are a few updated introductions and some short chapters between articles that try to bring things up-to-date. The problem, however, is the constant repetition. If he has to explain the entire Silvia Odio-Leon Oswald incident in one article for one readership, he then has to repeat it in a later article for a different magazine, and then later again for yet another magazine. I really got tired of reading the same information about Richard Case Nagell over and over.

The final chapter (#41) was the most interesting part of the book since I hadn't read these various allegations before of switched brains at the autopsy, of switched copies of the Zapruder "original" film, of conflicting autopsy reports that had to be destroyed and why. I also like the main idea that there were at least six different organized and well-funded groups of people who wanted Kennedy dead and they were all working independently of each other, and no group knew what the other was doing, so when the assassination took place, everyone was confused about who really did it. But for this theory (and most other JFK assassination conspiracies) to hold water, there would have been thousands of people involved, and some of them would have talked and received wider attention. Just because an individual here and there says, "I was involved. I know who did the shooting," doesn't mean that person is telling the truth, so we probably shouldn't believe him.

I will grant that rereading all of the stuff about Oswald in Russia makes me wonder even more about whether he was a plant, a double agent, a triple agent, or someone who had a lookalike double running around confusing everyone. If you are young and have never read anything about the JFK assassination, this might get you started on what all the mysteries and theories are. But if you are of a much older generation (as I am), this book is mostly just stuff you've already read.

The two books on JFK that I have found compelling are:
JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters
Someone Would Have Talked: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy and the Conspiracy to Mislead History

Add to this our government's unspeakable betrayal of our own people:
An Act of State: The Execution of Martin Luther King
The Attack on the Liberty: The Untold Story of Israel's Deadly 1967 Assault on a U.S. Spy Ship

and you begin to get the picture. We have a government that at the political level lies to the public, and at the bureaucratic level "goes along." Compare that with these three quotations:

Thomas Jefferson: A Nation's best defense is an educated citizenry.

James Madison: Knowledge will forever govern ignorance; and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.

Fedor Dostoevsky: A man who lies to himself, and believes his own lies, becomes unable to recognize truth, either in himself or in anyone else.