The Man Who Killed Kennedy: The Case Against LBJ Paperback – September 2, 2014

This book is a perfect Christmas gift for anyone with an interest in American history or politics. It also makes a perfect Halloween gift for anyone affiliated with the LBJ Library, particularly Tom Johnson who channels the ghost of Jack Valenti, the longtime LBJ sychophant, who was letting his wife sleep with Lyndon Johnson.

Roger Stone has definitely made a fine contribution to the historical record of the JFK assassination with this effort. #1 he tells you that Richard Nixon immediately knew who Jack Ruby was the moment he saw him shoot Oswald on TV on 11/24/63 just 48 hours after the JFK assassination.

Nixon recognized Jack Ruby as a "Lyndon Johnson man" from the 1940's who LBJ had place on the HUAC committee as a paid informant. That one blockbuster nugget is worth the price of admission for this book.

It proves LBJ was using one of his mafia goons to do some "clean up" work on the JFK assassination so that the posthumous and now discredited "blame it all on Oswald" canard could begin, conveniently leaving LBJ and his Texas oil men out of the picture.

Stone indicts four groups in the JFK assassination: Lyndon Johnson, LBJ's Dallas, TX oil men, the mafia especially Carlos Marcello and the CIA.

My only quibble with that is I think Air Force generals Curtis LeMay and most especially Gen. Edward Lansdale were key players in the JFK assassination. I think both Allen Dulles (CIA and fired by JFK) and J. Edgar Hoover (so close to LBJ) were perps as well. Cuba policy, more so than Vietnam, was a big reason for the JFK assassination, especially among those folks doing the actual firing and shooting.
There is high quality material in Roger Stone's book that is nowhere else in JFK literature. It is a MUST-READ for any student of American history and politics.

At this point I feel compelled to let you know what pure and utter b_____t many of the elite American historians and political commentators are feeding you on the JFK assassination. People such as Chris Matthews, Bill O'Reilly, Larry Sabato, Robert Caro, Robert Dallek, George Will, Michael Barone, Rachel Maddow, Michael Beschloss, Evan Thomas: these people are the moral and intellectual equivalents of Holocaust deniers.

It really is both frightening and disgusting to witness the lies or the spectacular ignorance that is spouted by these high profile commentators on the JFK assassination. They don't know their asses from a hole in the wall about American history, politics or the biggest event in modern American history. The JFK assassination was bigger than 9/11 because it *really was* an inside job. It was an orderly transfer of power to the murderer, but a coup d'etat none the less.

Listening to Matthews, O'Reilly, Caro, Dallek and Sabato spout the Big Lie that a lone nut commie killed JFK is about like listening to David Duke tell me what happened with the Holocaust.

Roger Stone gives you the truth and the inside skinny - appalling as it is; it is also much more interesting and satisfying to truth seekers.

Lyndon Johnson was a vicious, evil man. Not only was he a murderer, he was a serial murderer and a man who can be fairly described as a "functional lunatic" with a hatred of the Kennedys with the intensity of a 100 suns.

Roy Cohn and Tony "Fats" Salerno of the Genovese mafia family (ties to LBJ buddy Clint Murchison) told Stone "LBJ and the mafia - Carlos Marcello" did it. Killed JFK, that is.

Texas attorney general Waggoner Carr told John Mitchell - LBJ did it.
Henry Cabot Lodge: Nixon's VP candidate in 1960 and JFK's ambassador to Vietnam: LBJ, CIA and mafia murdered JFK.

Roger Stone in his youth was very close to the Lodge family and found this out through John Davis Lodge, the brother of Henry Cabot Lode.

Roger Stone brings all this new material to the historical record of JFK literature.
Stone reveals for the first time that not only was Richard Nixon convinced that Lyndon Johnson murdered John Kennedy, but both Barry Goldwater and the KGB came to the same conclusion. Nixon's moment of revelation came on November 24th 1963 as he watched Jack Ruby, in yet another LBJ-directed murder, kill Oswald. Nixon immediately recognized Ruby as a "Johnson man" and a paid informant for the House Un-American Activities Committee from the 1940's.

I knew Billie Sol Estes pretty well. Everything in this book he corroborated prior to his death. There is actually some new stuff that are not in the other books.

I also worked in advertising with a guy who worked with M. Brown. 20 plus years ago he was telling me this stuff. All other their stories match.

I am dumb stuck by the people who still don't understand. It's a great book.

Tom

There is a case to be made about LBJ and his role in the Kennedy Assassination, but I'm not sure this book makes the case. We are told that Roger Stone is a Washington insider of the first order. The back jacket of the book has comments like 'Notorious', and 'The most dangerous man in America...' without reference to any particular book. Apparently, Mr. Stone wants to appear fearsome to his readers. The inside flap shows a dapper man in a fashionable suit with a quizzical smile, and informs us that he also writes a 'Ten best and worst dressed' column for the Huffington Post.

I checked this book out of the library, so I do not own it. I'm still reading it, but I'm not sure if I'm going to finish it or not. It reads not so much like history, or even conspiracy theory, but like the all-time motherload of salacious Washington gossip relevant to the era. No one escapes unscathed. Bobby Kennedy is a ruthless short-tempered crusader alienating and sidelining professionals in the Pentagon and the White House with reckless abandon. John Kennedy is a sex-crazed diseased hypochondriac whose rise (due to the nefarious dealings of his mobster father) manages to make an enemy of nearly everyone on capitol hill in 1960, and Johnson...

Goodness. Where do I start? A homicidal maniac? A penis-twirling neanderthal of the first order, a slavering cut-throat murderer, embezzler, extortioner and lecher to rival Shakespeare's worst villains, but without a single redeeming quality. I'm trying to think if there is a calumny not leveled at LBJ by Roger Stone.

Throughout the first few chapters we are treated to snatches of dialogue, anecdotes and pronouncements by our intrepid insider that give unimpeachable weight to his case, that LBJ killed Kennedy for political gain. State Department briefs, secret conversations, wire-taps, confidences all combine to form a damning and relentless condemnation of the Texas Senator. But a quick look at the notes to these chapters reveals that the source for these quotes is nearly always not the original document cited, but yet another Assassination book written by a prior author. In some cases, Stone quotes journalists and writers directly, as though a reporter reporting on an investigation somehow constitutes 'evidence.' And these citations are from books with titles like 'Bad Blood' and 'Troubled Brothers,' so that what emerges is a kind of echo chamber of accusations floating without substantiation. If one is going to go on record as citing a White House Press Release, or a Department of Justice brief, or a Pentagon memo, why not cite the original source? Why cite yet another author? It's disingenuous to say the least, and certainly doesn't constitute scholarship.

Not that the book gives any impression of scholarship. Mixed in with the blizzard of damning and cryptic quotes from across the political spectrum, many of the most salacious claims burst suddenly on the reader without any reference at all, so that an injudicious reader might actually believe all of this is as reliable as it appears to be.

I began the book sympathetic to the idea that LBJ indeed plotted against Kennedy. I believe there is evidence to that effect. But if there is a definitive case to be made on that head, this is not the book that makes the case. It's so mean-spirited, so callously unfeeling in exposition, so disorganized and vindictive that one leaves off feeling soiled by the experience.

LBJ might well be the villain Stone claims him to be, but the method of the book, the tone of its expose, and the mixture of rumor, gossip and hearsay with genuine evidence so damages the author's stated intent, that he winds up foiling his argument. In the end, what we're left with is a hatchet job, a (one must conclude) politically motivated character assassination intended to leave no nuance left for the reputation of LBJ.