Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy

For over forty years the truth about the assassination of President John F. Kennedy has been obscured. This book releases us from a crippling distortion of American history.

This extraordinary and historic book required twenty years to research and write. The oft-challenged findings of the Warren Commission — Lee Harvey Oswald, acting alone, shot and killed President John F. Kennedy — are here confirmed beyond all doubt. But Reclaiming History does much more than that. In addition to providing a powerful and unprecedented narrative of events and a biography of the assassin, it confronts and destroys every one of the conspiracy theories that have grown up since the assassination, exposing their selective use of evidence, flawed logic, and outright deceptions. So thoroughly documented, so compellingly lucid in its conclusions, Reclaiming History is, in a sense, the investigation that completes the work of the Warren Commission. In it, Vincent Bugliosi, the nation's foremost prosecutor, takes on the most important murder in American history.

At 1:00 p.m. on November 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy was pronounced dead, the victim of a sniper attack during his motorcade through Dallas. That may be the only fact generally agreed upon in the vast literature spawned by the assassination. National polls reveal that an overwhelming majority of Americans (75%) believe that there was a high-level conspiracy behind Lee Harvey Oswald. Many even believe that Oswald was entirely innocent. In this continuously absorbing, powerful, ground-breaking book, Vincent Bugliosi shows how we have come to believe such lies about an event that changed the course of history.

The brilliant prosecutor of Charles Manson and the man who forged an iron-clad case of circumstantial guilt around O. J. Simpson in his best-selling Outrage, Bugliosi is perhaps the only man in America capable of writing the definitive book on the Kennedy assassination. This is an achievement that has for years seemed beyond reach. No one imagined that such a book would ever be written: a single volume that once and for all resolves, beyond any reasonable doubt, every lingering question as to what happened in Dallas and who was responsible.

There have been hundreds of books about the assassination, but there has never been a book that covers the entire case, including addressing each and every conspiracy theory and the facts, or alleged facts, on which they are based. In this monumental work, the author has raised scholarship on the assassination to a new and final level, one that far surpasses all other books on the subject. It adds resonance, depth, and closure to the admirable work of the Warren Commission.

Reclaiming History is a narrative compendium of fact, forensic evidence, reexamination of key witnesses, and common sense. Every detail and nuance is accounted for, every conspiracy theory revealed as a fraud on the American public. Bugliosi's irresistible logic, command of the evidence, and ability to draw startling inferences shed fresh light on this American nightmare. At last it all makes sense.

"Bugliosi, best known as Charles Manson's prosecutor, spent more than 20 years writing this defense of the Warren Commission's conclusion that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in the slaying of President Kennedy, but his obsession has produced a massive tome that's likely to overwhelm most readers. At times, the author seems determined to present every detail his researches revealed, even if it doesn't add to the overall picture (like a footnote on Elvis sightings). Further, while Bugliosi says even serious conspiracy theorists don't claim the FBI or Secret Service were involved, he devotes chapters to each. The book's structure — it's organized by subject, such as theories about the role of the FBI, the KGB or anti-Castro Cubans — leads to needless repetition, and, for an author who excoriates conspiracy theorists, charging them with carelessness and making wild accusations, Bugliosi is not always temperate in his language; for example, twice he makes the nonsensical claim that some Warren Commission critics 'were screaming the word conspiracy before the fatal bullet had come to rest.' His decision to devote twice as many pages to critiquing Oliver Stone's movie JFK as to his chapter on organized crime (identified by the chief counsel of the House Select Committee on Assassination as the likely conspirators) is a curious one, as is the choice to open the book with a dramatic re-creation of events surrounding the assassination rather than a straightforward chronology of the relevant facts. Moreover, Bugliosi does not always probe whether individuals who are the sole source for certain facts (for example, Oswald's widow, Marina) had any motive to lie. Bugliosi's voluminous endnotes are on an accompanying CD. Gerald Posner's 1993 Case Closed made most of the same points in a much more concise way. 32 pages of illus." Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

"It is not just that the book runs to 1,612 pages; each page is wider than one finds in a normal volume, and the print on each page is smaller. And then there is the enclosed CD with all the endnotes and source material. In 'Reclaiming History,' Vincent Bugliosi gives you everything you wanted to know about the Kennedy assassination, whether or not you were afraid to ask. Compared to it, the Warren... Washington Post Book Review (read the entire Washington Post review) Commission Report, which clocked in at 888 pages, is small stuff.

To say that Bugliosi wants to strike a nail in the coffin of Kennedy assassination conspiracy theorists is putting it mildly; he wants to drive a tractor trailer through their ranks and scatter everyone in sight. Is such an effort really necessary? I am afraid it is, which is another way of saying that we ought to be grateful for Bugliosi's obsession.

Lee Harvey Oswald, acting alone, killed John F. Kennedy. Absent a trial proving his guilt, Bugliosi, author of 'Helter Skelter,' has offered the next best thing: a prosecutor's airtight brief that leaves no reasonable doubt. A short review cannot possibly do justice to the case he assembles, so let me just offer a taste of Bugliosi's methods. The first thing he does is to describe, in exhaustive detail, everything that happened on the day Kennedy was shot. Then, in the second half of the book, Bugliosi takes each of the leading conspiracy theories — that there was a second Oswald, that the mob plotted the assassination, that the CIA did it and so on — and demolishes their claims.

No one can prove definitively the nonexistence of a conspiracy. Still, it does not take a genius to understand, as Bugliosi puts it, that 'no group of top-level conspirators would ever employ someone as unstable and unreliable as Oswald to commit the biggest murder in history, no such group would ever provide its hit man with, or allow him to use, a twelve-dollar rifle to get the job done, and any such group would help its hit man escape or have a car waiting for him to drive him to his death, not allow him to be wandering out in the street, catching cabs and buses to get away, as we know Oswald did.'

If you read, or even read around in this book and still come to the conclusion that Oswald was part of a conspiracy to kill Kennedy, you are likely to believe that black helicopters have been sent by the feds to enforce the Endangered Species Act. Yet since at least one member of Congress, the late Helen Chenoweth, was certain the helicopters were up there, it is doubtful that even Bugliosi's prosecutorial skills will deter conspiracy theorists from their speculations. If anything, the publication of his book is likely to be followed by the appearance of numerous refutations. For those in the business of debunking the case that Oswald acted alone, 'Reclaiming History' is too tempting a challenge to avoid.

Why do conspiracy theories surrounding JFK's assassination never die? One possible explanation is that even if there was no conspiracy in place to assassinate him, real conspiracies have proliferated since. Watergate, the Iran-Contra Affair, the decision to fire eight U.S. attorneys — all of them were carried out in secret by governmental officials telling the public one thing while doing another. Perhaps we project a conspiracy back onto the Kennedy years as a way of coming to terms with the more unseemly realities of contemporary politics: Seeing evidence of sinister motives now, it is easier to attribute them to people then.

Conspiracy theorizing, in addition, offers an element of closure to an otherwise inexplicable tragedy. In their own rather odd way, conspiracy theorists insist that there is reason in the world; a person of accomplishment is killed, not because some crazy guy got hold of a rifle, but because some organized interest — the Mafia, the anti-Mafia, the communists, the anti-communists — wanted him killed. There may not be any evidence for the charge. But compared to those who believe that nothing is real or rational — a position held by some on both the religious right and the postmodern left — conspiracy theorizing is an attempt, however flawed, to bring order out of chaos.

And then there is the unavoidable political question. Kennedy's was the first of three political assassinations, and whatever your views, John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr., were all men of eloquence and courage cut down in the prime of their lives. With their deaths, American liberalism suffered a blow from which it has not recovered. It is one thing to mourn their deaths and another to mourn the death of ideas of equality and justice; many more Americans do the former than the latter. Still, for those Americans who find themselves unhappy with the conservative direction of American society, raising questions about Kennedy's death may be a futile, if understandable, effort to keep Kennedy alive — and in that way to live an alternative history of the United States in which liberal ideas live on.

Bugliosi is right that this case is, and ought to be, closed. And I share his distaste for the wild finger-pointing and often paranoid reasoning of the Warren Report's critics, from the overweening New York State Assemblyman Mark Lane in the 1960s to the irresponsible filmmaker Oliver Stone in the 1990s. Still, maybe there should be a place kept for the conspiracy theory buffs. After all, they care passionately about one of the most important political events in our history. In an age of indifference, their attention to public life, however corrosive, can be more valuable than apathy and indifference.

Alan Wolfe is director of the Boisi Center for Religion and American Public Life at Boston College and author of 'Does American Democracy Still Work?'

" Reviewed by David S. BroderAlan Wolfe, Washington Post Book World (Copyright 2006 Washington Post Book World Service/Washington Post Writers Group)
(hide most of this review)

"[F]ew books are as gripping in their narrative, or as telling in their fine detail....Bugliosi's book...has the ring of truth, and I predict will be the line that historians a hundred years from now will take on this story." Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

"Reclaiming History is in spots a delight to read....Bugliosi knows how to construct a narrative, and his 316-page retelling of those 'four days in November'...is as good a second-by-second reconstruction of the assassination and its aftermath as I've read." Bryan Burrough, The New York Times Book Review

"When Bugliosi's storytelling skills click in...his richly textured work is as engrossing as it is convincing.... But the overall structure that Bugliosi has fashioned for his book is cumbersome and disjointed....His book's greatest value may be as a comprehensive vetting tool." Boston Globe

"After reading what may be Bugliosi's crowning work...one thinks: At last, someone has done it, put all the pieces together....Bugliosi's presentation of this material is so deft, so strong, that there is little need for him to turn his skills against the conspiracy theorists who argue otherwise." Los Angeles Times

"One cannot help admiring Mr. Bugliosi's zeal, drive and conscientiousness. Still, the cumulative effect of putting serious issues on a par with every cockamamie assertion that has ever been uttered is, in the end, mind-numbing....Someone forgot to tell Mr. Bugliosi that less is sometimes more." Wall Street Journal

The book that lays all questions to rest.

Polls reveal that over 75 percent of Americans believe there was a conspiracy behind Lee Harvey Oswald; some even believe Oswald was entirely innocent. In this absorbing and historic book — the first ever to cover the entire case — Vincent Bugliosi shows how we have come to believe such lies about an event that changed the course of history. 32 pages of illustrations.

Bugliosi, brilliant prosecutor and bestselling author, is perhaps the only man in America capable of "prosecuting" Lee Harvey Oswald for the murder of John F. Kennedy. His book is a narrative compendium of fact, ballistic evidence, and, above all, common sense.

For over forty years the truth about the assassination of President John F. Kennedy has been obscured. This book releases us from a crippling distortion of American history.

For fifty years the truth about the assassination of President John F. Kennedy has been obscured. This book releases us from a crippling distortion of American history.

At 1:00 p.m. on November 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy was pronounced dead, the victim of a sniper attack during his motorcade through Dallas. That may be the only fact generally agreed upon in the vast literature spawned by the assassination. National polls reveal that an overwhelming majority of Americans (75%) believe that there was a high-level conspiracy behind Lee Harvey Oswald. Many even believe that Oswald was entirely innocent. In this continuously absorbing, powerful, ground-breaking book, Vincent Bugliosi shows how we have come to believe such lies about an event that changed the course of history.

The brilliant prosecutor of Charles Manson and the man who forged an iron-clad case of circumstantial guilt around O. J. Simpson in his best-selling Outrage Bugliosi is perhaps the only man in America capable of writing the definitive book on the Kennedy assassination. This is an achievement that has for years seemed beyond reach. No one imagined that such a book would ever be written: a single volume that once and for all resolves, beyond any reasonable doubt, every lingering question as to what happened in Dallas and who was responsible.

There have been hundreds of books about the assassination, but there has never been a book that covers the entire case, including addressing every piece of evidence and each and every conspiracy theory, and the facts, or alleged facts, on which they are based. In this monumental work, the author has raised scholarship on the assassination to a new and final level, one that far surpasses all other books on the subject. It adds resonance, depth, and closure to the admirable work of the Warren Commission.

Reclaiming History is a narrative compendium of fact, forensic evidence, reexamination of key witnesses, and common sense. Every detail and nuance is accounted for, every conspiracy theory revealed as a fraud on the American public. Bugliosi's irresistible logic, command of the evidence, and ability to draw startling inferences shed fresh light on this American nightmare. At last it all makes sense.

This extraordinary and historic book required twenty years to research and write. The oft-challenged findings of the Warren Commission--Lee Harvey Oswald, acting alone, shot and killed President John F. Kennedy--are here confirmed beyond all doubt. But Reclaiming History does much more than that. In addition to providing a powerful and unprecedented narrative of events and a biography of the assassin, it confronts and destroys every one of the conspiracy theories that have grown up since the assassination, exposing their selective use of evidence, flawed logic, and outright deceptions. So thoroughly documented, so compellingly lucid in its conclusions, Reclaiming History is, in a sense, the investigation that completes the work of the Warren Commission. In it, Vincent Bugliosi, the nation's foremost prosecutor, takes on the most important murder in American history.

At 1:00 p.m. on November 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy was pronounced dead, the victim of a sniper attack during his motorcade through Dallas. That may be the only fact generally agreed upon in the vast literature spawned by the assassination. National polls reveal that an overwhelming majority of Americans (75%) believe that there was a high-level conspiracy behind Lee Harvey Oswald. Many even believe that Oswald was entirely innocent. In this continuously absorbing, powerful, ground-breaking book, Vincent Bugliosi shows how we have come to believe such lies about an event that changed the course of history.

The brilliant prosecutor of Charles Manson and the man who forged an iron-clad case of circumstantial guilt around O. J. Simpson in his best-selling Outrage Bugliosi is perhaps the only man in America capable of writing the definitive book on the Kennedy assassination. This is an achievement that has for years seemed beyond reach. No one imagined that such a book would ever be written: a single volume that once and for all resolves, beyond any reasonable doubt, every lingering question as to what happened in Dallas and who was responsible.

There have been hundreds of books about the assassination, but there has never been a book that covers the entire case, including addressing each and every conspiracy theory and the facts, or alleged facts, on which they are based. In this monumental work, the author has raised scholarship on the assassination to a new and final level, one that far surpasses all other books on the subject. It adds resonance, depth, and closure to the admirable work of the Warren Commission.

Reclaiming History is a narrative compendium of fact, forensic evidence, reexamination of key witnesses, and common sense. Every detail and nuance is accounted for, every conspiracy theory revealed as a fraud on the American public. Bugliosi's irresistible logic, command of the evidence, and ability to draw startling inferences shed fresh light on this American nightmare. At last it all makes sense.

Vincent Bugliosi, prosecutor of Charles Manson and author of Helter Skelter, Outrage, and other #1 bestselling books, lives in Los Angeles.