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I found this thread earlier this year and began a search for the book, but it was never released in this country. Not even in my local library, which is quite big and has a wide selection. It's strange how any number of books about JFK's sex life are imported here, but not an important book like this.
Mr Matilda searched and found a new hardcover copy in a U.S. bookstore and bought it for me through Abebooks for my birthday last month. I've been reading it for the past couple of weeks - it's not a book you can skim through, you have to pay attention.
There are some things that I've read in other books or articles, such as the two Oswalds, and the changed post-mortem photographs, and also of the correspondence between JFK and Khruschev, which was detailed in "An Unfinished Life", one of the best Kennedy biogs I've read. But there were a number of things that I'd never seen documented before, such as the damage inflicted on Kennedy's policies in Vietnam by Henry Cabot Lodge (makes perfect sense), or the attitude of his own Secret Service guards. Never mind the audacity of the CIA - we have long known of their despicable role in destablising any government, anywhere, that posed a perceived threat to U.S. interests, but their role as a kind of "second government", carrying out their own policies without regard to the wishes of the president of the day, or of the American people, is truly shocking.
It's very interesting that books telling wild tales about improbable scenarios of the assassination, and that of Bobby, are freely available, yet this very carefully researched book, with meticulous references, is largely unheralded. It looks a bit as if even the publishers weren't too sure about it, as it has a slightly cheap look; the quality of the paper and print isn't very good, and there is a notable absence of photographs. That is a shame; I'd have liked to have looked at photographs of people like the Paines, who have only received scant coverage elsewhere; the duplicitous Henry Cabot Lodge; and the loathsome Chiefs of Staff (particularly Curtis le May).
I've had doubts about the events of the time since the day Jack Ruby was allowed to shoot Oswald; that was obviously part of a cover-up that the Dallas police should never have allowed to happen, and while I don't believe everything I read, I can't see how anybody with an open mind can still have doubts about a conspiracy. This book pulls all the threads together very neatly, and in a more convincing way than anything else I've read.
As the anniversary approaches, I feel the pain again as much as I did back then, a young teenager thrilled with the idealism, the inspiration, and the hope of a young president; shocked to the core by what happened. If anything, I am even more shocked and saddened now.
I believe.
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