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Truth Withheld: A Survivor's Story - Why We Will Never Know the Truth about the JFK Assassination

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Finally, someone who DOESN'T claim to know who killed President John F. Kennedy, although he was there. He was even hit! James Tague is one of the last surviving witnesses to the horrible events of November 22, 1963, and his book "Truth Withheld: A Survivors Story - Why We Will Never Know the Truth About the JFK Assassination" explains with conviction why the murder will undoubtedly recede into history unsolved.

James Tague's day began innocently enough, until traffic and his curiosity made him park his car beneath the triple underpass in Dealey Plaza to watch Kennedy's motorcade. As JFK's limo approached him, the shots rang out, and Mr. Tague's cheek was hit. From that moment on, Tague's life--and America--changed forever. Mr. Tague describes in vivid detail his interrogations--by the FBI and the Warren Commission, among others. And Mr. Tague conveys his sense that something wasn't right. It's difficult to dismiss his story.

The book leaves one with an eerie feeling, like some insiduous creature lurking in the darkness behind your back. This must have been very difficult for Mr. Tague to relive and recount, and we should be grateful that he did.

I've enjoyed reading this book and even took a day off just to finish reading it. James Tague was the only person injured outside of the president's limo in the shooting on 11-23-63 and his story is one that will amaze you and will help shed light on what really happened that day in Dallas. Mr. Tague doesn't provide the answer of who was behind the shooting but does show interesting FACTS of a conspiracy. If you are going to read a book on the JFK assassination this is the one I would recommend!!!

Tague was a salesman whose car got caught up in the massive traffic james enveloping the Dallas downtown area on the morning of November 22, 1963. Reading his account of that strange, fateful day, we begin to see for the first time how the darkness that surrounds us is due to a combination of factors which collided with a crash. Tague is a likeable narrator and gives you the feeling that he is a reliable witness, though in the back of your head you are always thinking, well he was the top car salesman ion the South, how honest could he really be ha ha? He befriended Harold Weisberg, one of the guys who came to Texas steeped in conspiuracy theory, and Tague's recollections of his late friend are somehow touching and direct in their simplicity. It is plain that Tague cared for his friend and that his 2002 death left him with a hole in his affections. So it wasn't just a collaboration between Kennedy aficionados, it was an abiding friendship.

Tague was injured during the assassination! Not severely, but enough to cause quite a commotion. A bullet came out of the grass and shot into the curb he was standing on, leaning all his weight on the stone that exploded into his face. Good thing he wasn't wearing short pants!

The strange thing is, the Warren Commission was keen to discredit Tague, even though he was one of the more upstanding witnesses to the Kennedy assassination. There's no arguing with people whose minds are made up ahead of time.

NOT THAT Tague is sure about what happened that day. There was no smking gun left at the crime. Oh wait, yes there was! in TRUTH WITHHELD, one of the last people to still be alive to tell his tale finally does so, complete with several interesting photographs which which challenge your eyesight and your "received wisdom." What happened? Who did it? When did suspicion harden into the cold wax of reality's seal? Tague knows the answers to some of these questions, and for the rest, he's refreshingly honest and refuses to pull empty answers out of his ass. I saw Oliver Srone's JFK and thought he went wway too far, impugning the good name of some and glancing right over the obcious points he might have made. Tague takes a middle balance, and his shot through the ambuscades just may be the most accurate of all.

As other reviewers note, there is something creepy about this book, with its hidden menace, as though Lovecraft were present that day in Dealey Plaza.

James Tague, the Author of "Truth Withheld" is far more important to history than most realize.
You see, BEFORE they learned about James Tague, the Warren Commission were going to tell us that President Kennedy and Governor Connally were hit by seperate bullets, which of course proved conspiracy in the case, although the Commission were going to try and work around that whole "conspiracy" talk, since they were created to find a lone gunman, regardless of the evidence, in order to protect us from nuclear missiles 90 miles off the coast of Florida in a country called Cuba. However, in a way, it would have "sold" the Commission's lone gunman theory better if they had never learned about Tague, because Tague posed a serious problem to the Commission....one that would force the Commission to theorize something so nonsensical that it essentially proved conspiracy by it's mere absurdity. It was only AFTER they learned about Tague, that the Warren Commission were forced to put "square pegs in a round hole", and lamely tried to explain how one bullet could have went through the bodies of BOTH Kennedy and Connally..........how a bullet could have gone through the bodies of two grown men, turn in mid-air multiple times, break a rib and a radius (wrist) bone, and then come out in nearly pristine condition with NO RESIDUE OF BLOOD, BONE or SKIN, thus one of the most ridiculous theories in the history of U.S. Politics was born...... the theory that ONE "magic bullet" caused 7 wounds to Kennedy and Connally.
We know by the Commission's own timing of the gunshots in the assassination, based on the film shot by Abraham Zapruder, that a piece of junk mannlicher carcano rifle could not have fired fast enough to account for BOTH Kennedy and Connally's wounds, and their actions after being wounded. The importance of this cannot be overstated: IF ONE GUNMAN DIDNT HIT BOTH KENNEDY AND CONNALLY WITH ONE BULLET, THEN THAT MEANS THAT THERE WERE TWO GUNMEN FIRING FROM BEHIND THE MOTORCADE, BECAUSE ANY GUNMAN USING THE MANNLICHER CARCANO COULD NOT HAVE FIRED TWO BULLETS IN THE SHORT TIME SPAN BETWEEN WHEN KENNEDY WAS HIT AND WHEN CONNALLY WAS HIT.
ADD TO THIS, ATLEAST ONE GUNMAN IN FRONT OF THE MOTORCADE, ON THE GRASSY KNOLL, AND WE NOW HAVE AN ABSOLUTE MINIMUM OF THREE GUNMEN!!

Since they were created to find a lone gunman, the Commission had to "get" one bullet to do what no other bullet in history has ever done. And the great magic bullet myth was born.

All because James Tague was hit by a piece of deflected concrete, near the Triple Underpass in Dealey Plaza, that hit been struck by a bullet that MISSED the motorcade completely. Although James Tague would obviously have liked to have been standing someplace else that day, he unwittingly made one of the most important contributions to American history: If it wasnt for Tague's story, the Commission would have had a bit more flexibility in their "lone gunman" theory, and more Americans probably would have believed them at first. And while the true evidence in the case would have probably come out eventually, because of James Tague, the Commission was forced into a corner, and had to announce a theory so foolish, that to disbelieve the theory, meant conspiracy, by definition (I.E. atleast TWO gunmen involved in the assassination .......not taking into account gunman #3 behind the picket fence on the grassy knoll.)
*As a sidenote, Tague was among the majority of witnesses who heard atleast one shot fired from the grassy knoll.*

To be able to read a book by a man who is the only one, besides Kennedy and Connally, to be injured due to bullets being fired in Dealey Plaza on that infamous day, is a rare opportunity. He is truly a survivor.......because he felt the wrath of assassins' bullets that day......thus Tague felt the wrath of the men who killed Kennedy. And by choosing to stand where he did, to watch the motorcade, Tague unknowingly was one of the biggest reasons why those assassins werent able to hide their complicity in the Kennedy killing. Because, they could only hide their complicity in the assassination if the government let them do so, and Tague made that impossible for the Warren Commission to do.

Because of James Tague, Americans were made aware of the fact that, until they were forced to do so, EVEN THE WARREN COMMISSION THEMSELVES DIDNT BELIEVE THAT ONE BULLET HIT KENNEDY AND CONNALLY. Thus even the Warren Commission themselves believed that Kennedy and Connally were hit by seperate bullets, which meant that the Commission believed that a conspiracy took the life of America's 35th President. Whether they understood the implications of the seperate bullets striking Kennedy and Connally before James Tague became known to the Commission, only they know. The Warren Commission were formed "to close doors, not open them", so they had to try and pin it on a man who was eating lunch at the time that Kennedy was killed. But that's another story and I dont have room to discuss it here.

As stated before, James Tague unknowingly threw a large wrench in the Commission's machinery. The rest is.......... "history". As we know, "History, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder, so certainly be careful what your eyes behold".

This book finally helped me to finally understand what really happened within Warren Commission and the FBI to create a 40 year controversy. A well documented book with many FBI documents.

I just purchased and finished reading "Truth Withheld". This book is fast paced and the author signs each copy. It might be best for a person to understand the overall JFK assassination history before getting this book as this addresses a very specific part of the events from an eyewitness to the murder. Here are a few observations.

1. The Warren Commission (WC) and FBI was committed to the three bullet theory for the first 8 months of deliberation: the first bullet hit the back of JFK, the second bullet hit Connally, and the third bullet was the headshot. It was only after Tague went public with the facts of a bullet hitting the curb at his feet did the WC suddenly change its tune to the Single Bullet Theory (SBT) because now they had to admit a missed shot. So, for 8 months they said a separate shot hit Connally and then they changed it again to fit the "evidence".

2. The FBI smeared Tague's name, tried to ignore the curb shot, covered it up as best they could (the curb was later tampered with in an attempt to fill in the bullet hole), the FBI conducted surveillance of Tague (it is illegal to conduct surveillance of a U.S. citizen without their consent or a court approval, FYI), "someone" broke into his home and stole a video of Dealey Plaza he shot a month after the murder.

3. An analysis by the FBI of the curb, only released after a private citizen sued the FBI through the FOIA, showed that there was no copper residue on the curb...only lead and antimony, indicating that a non-FMJ bullet hit the curb...in other words, not a jacketed copper bullet from the throw away Mannlicher-Carcano, in other words, a different bullet from a different gun.

4. Tague heard one shot and then two shots in quick succession...so close that a single bolt action rifle could not have fired them.

5. Gerald Ford, while part of the WC, was an informant for Hoover and the FBI, keeping them abreast of the WC findings/decisions/direction.

6. Tague thinks Jacob Rubenstein (Jack Ruby), with his mafia connections and status as an informant for the FBI/Hoover, shot Oswald in an act of spontaneous revenge.

7. The magical pristine bullet found at Parkland hospital was never confirmed to have come from Connally's stretcher, in fact, the sole eyewitness believed it came from JFK's stretcher, but conceded it may have come from either one but he was not 100& sure. The WC tried to badger him into admitting it was Connally's.

8. Governor Connally and his wife both stated the Governor was hit with a separate shot from the first one hitting JFK's back and throat...thus making for at least 4 bullets.

Other than that, Tague covers subjects that have already been addressed in depth in other literature, but his contribution is his personal insight to the bullet striking the curb that forced the WC to turn on a dime and adopt the SBT. I think Tague is very naive, which is refreshing, and he talks about being taken advantage of by various news organizations with ambush interviews and also him trusting the FBI to do the right thing during the investigation. I found it most interesting that Tague, who personally meet Ruby on several occasions and even went to one of his clubs, thought Ruby killed LHO in a spontaneous moment.

In the last chapter Tague says he did not think the CIA or FBI were involved in the assassination or a cover up, but then he describes how the CIA and FBI were involved with the assassination and the cover up. He says the CIA had long-term connections to Oswald, had connections to anti-Castro Cubans who wanted to kill JFK, but they thwarted the post murder investigation for CYA purposes as they would be embarrassed for their connections to Oswald. Tague then goes to describe, which the entire book also did, how Hoover and the FBI essentially framed Oswald, tampered with evidence, obstructed justice, and pressured witnesses, but Tague discounts this all as Hoover having a big ego and wanting to CYA because Ruby was an FBI informant and would embarrass the FBI if this came out. Huh? Extremely naive thinking at best and contradictory from the start.

An excellent book. Five Stars all the way.

This book promises new information on the assassination, but it basically has nothing new. We all knew about James Tague's cheek wound that occurred during the assassination, he just fills in more detail here. It's somewhat interesting but mainly same old stuff we already know. It's the first book written from this witness' point of view. Finally people can talk about the assassination without dying in mysterious car "accidents", so they are, but their memories are half a century old and clouded by 50 years of very real fear.