Oswald and the CIA (Hardcover)

by John Newman (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
This meticulously documented expose gives the lie to the official CIA position that it had no relationship of any kind with Lee Harvey Oswald, alleged assassin of President John Kennedy. A former U.S. military intelligence officer for 20 years, Newman (JFK and Vietnam) relies primarily on newly released government documents made available within the last three years under the JFK Assassination Records Act, passed in 1992, which mandates that the U.S. government make available all its information on this case. Using CIA, FBI, military and American embassy files to reconstruct Oswald's activities from his 1959 defection to the Soviet Union up until his murder, Newman shows that the CIA was spawning a web of deception about Oswald weeks before the president's murder. For example, the agency has denied that it knew about Oswald's 1963 visits to the Cuban consultant in Mexico City, but Newman refutes this, using interlocking CIA and FBI cables and reports. The evidence presented here, though fragmentary and based on heavily censored and edited documents, strongly suggests that the CIA had a keen operational interest in Oswald, that it kept tabs on him and that Oswald, either willingly or as a patsy, was deeply involved in CIA operations. CIA documents suggest that the agency had a hand in Oswald's defection to the Soviet Union and monitored his activities there and his return home in June 1962. This heavily annotated tome, which reads like an intricate spy thriller, serves as a corrective to Norman Mailer's Oswald's Tale.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
JFK assassinology revived recently with the release of some newly declassified files, and Newman is the first of several researchers to sift through and capitalize on several hundred thousand pages of documents as they pertain to the murder and the prime suspect. Although the page count is convincing testimony to bureaucratic procedures (record and report every contact), the gargantuan paper trail produced by the State Department, FBI, and CIA looks mighty curious to the conspiracy-minded. Newman, formerly a military intelligence officer, is qualified to examine the mass of raw information--virtually all of it pertaining to the disaffected Oswald's defection and redefection--and is unconvinced that various gaps in the records and censored items are really due to bureaucratic glitches or legitimate protection of intelligence sources. Newman's suspicion peaks with a "smoking file," which he implies contains suppressed CIA knowledge that Oswald met a KGB assassin in Mexico. Mirrors abound in the abundance of detail, but perhaps debunkers of the lone-nut theory should view Magritte's painting "Ce n'est pas une pipe" ; a pipe or an Oswald can be what they appear to be. Gilbert Taylor

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 627 pages
• Publisher: Carroll & Graf Pub; 1st Printing edition (May 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0786701315
• ISBN-13: 978-0786701315
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.8 x 2.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,359,346 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The documents speak for themselves, July 15, 1997

By A Customer

As a intern for Dr. Newman on this particular book, I spent countless hours searching for documents in the National Archives - I know first hand the length he went to provide accurate details. Dr. Newman recounts the interesting story of a dark point in our nation's history. He is very careful not to speculate on the assassination of Kennedy - he deals only with the facts before him - CIA and FBI documents that display what they knew about Oswald. He leaves the rest to the 'assassination buffs'

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Oswald and CIA: was there a connection? Author thinks so., May 12, 1996

By A Customer

This is an important book in the Kennedy assassination genre. It contains the text of CIA documents not previouslypublished, attempting to establish a CIA connection withLee Harvey Oswald and subsequent efforts on the part of the CIA to conceal this connection through tampering with itsOswald files. The book is flawed by poor editing, andfrom time to time the author makes great leaps in his logic,but for all that, it is well worth the time spent reading.The book breaks off after Oswald's death. One can onlyhope that Mr. Newman writes another volume addressing post-assassination events, including the controversy surroundingthe bona fides of KGB defector Yuriy Nosenko and his claimto have been the KGB officer supervising the Oswald file inRussia

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars 5 stars for content, 2 stars for style, January 15, 2006

By	Vince Palamara "SECRET SERVICE/JFK/STEELERS/M... (South Park/Bethel Park, PA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

While Dr. John Newman is to be commended for the SUBSTANCE of this book, he is no writer---this is a real challenging book to get through, rivaling some of Harold Weisberg's books. For the RESEARCHER out there, highly recommended, so much so that anything less than 5 stars is heresy. For those who want a good "read", avoid like the plague! I know this seems like a contradiction, but it isn't (!)
vince Palamara