Yesterday

I picked up--with difficulty, as it is a 1,600-page book with a CD--Vincent Bugliosi's new book about the JFK assassination, a book that took him twenty years to write, Reclaiming History. As he notes in this interview of a couple of months ago, it took a tremendous toll on him, not least because he wrote THE ENTIRE BOOK IN LONGHAND (and had a secretary type it up for him).

The book, as he mentions, was not intended to be read from end to end, though it could be. It's intended to be a reference book, with sections on virtually every conceivable part of the assassination, including a major section on virtually every conspiracy theory out there. Bugliosi, just as he did in the 1987 docu-trial, On Trial: Lee Harvey Oswald, demolishes the conspiracy theories with the greatest of ease.

The Kennedy/Tippit killings were routine murder cases. Thc cases would have been a prosecutor's dream. If it weren't for the prominence of Kennedy, it would have been a simple cut-and-dried murder conviction. But thanks to nutjob Jack Ruby, the American people were denied the opportunity to see Oswald tried, convicted, and probably executed in the most slam-dunk murder case in the history of the country. Instead, Ruby's murder of Oswald helped spring about the cottage industry of conspiracy theories of every stripe. The rebels without a cause looked at perceived holes in the Warren Commission investigation and report, and came up with their own explaination of "what really happened" that afternoon in Dallas. This despite the fact we already knew within 48 hours of the killing EVERYTHING there ever was to know about the case. As a result of the cottage industry, the American people have fallen sucker to this nonsense.

Hopefully, Bugliosi's book will set the record straight once and for all.