COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE GUARDIAN
The best books about
the JFK assassination, from Norman Mailer to Don DeLillo
Will the release of
the latest cache of classified papers unleash a slew of books about the death
of the charismatic Kennedy?
Sorry, but what an impoverished list this is.
As someone who has always had an interest in these events,
who has read a great deal of the literature, and who has published essays on
the subject, I feel it fair to so characterize it.
Norman Mailer's book was a fraud.
He certainly was assisted by CIA in writing it.
I imagine his big fat book on the CIA, which would have
needed all kinds of cooperation to write, was quid pro quo for the Oswald book.
The CIA very much does work this way with publishers and authors.
Gerald Posner's book was packed with errors and it was
written at a time the author had no new evidence of consequence to work with.
Jerome Corsi's book is pretty close to a set of bad dreams,
not worth opening the cover.
There are a number of books I could recommend, but the
finest book ever written on the subject was Anthony Summers' original
“Conspiracy.” The then-great investigative reporter's work is well worth
reading still despite being published in 1980.
Its later “updates”, under the title “Not in Your Lifetime,”
1998 and 2013, represented an entirely new work and not really a new edition.
It is inferior to the original in many respects, lacking its encyclopedic
examination and being heavily influenced by "the Mafia did it" crowd,
an idea I find unconvincing.
David Lifton’s book, “Best Evidence,” is an important one
which focuses on the handling of the President’s body and its autopsy. Published
in 1980 and later updated.
Another valuable and well-written book is “Mary's Mosaic
(3rd edition)” by Peter Janney. It offers some very important sidelights and
additional strong motives for the assassination.
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