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Suggestions for Further Reading

Introduction

What follows is a guide for those wishing to find out more about the Kennedy assassination without wasting their time on sensationalist potboilers and paranoid everything-is-a-conspiracy craziness (although the latter does find its way into one or two of the YouTube videos mentioned).

Topics covered:

  1. Online Primary Sources and Official Documents
  2. Essential Books on the JFK Assassination
  3. Early Criticism of the Warren Report
  4. JFK Assassination Photographs
  5. JFK Assassination Blogs, Articles and Opinions
  6. JFK Assassination Forums
  7. Video: 50 Reasons for 50 Years
  8. Miscellaneous Online Resources
  9. Minority Viewpoint: Oswald Did It

Note: The majority of the following information was compiled at or before the time of the 50th anniversary in 2013, so some of the links may no longer be active. This page will be updated in due course, when time permits.

Online Primary Sources and Official Documents

Mary Ferrell Foundation Website

Almost all of the publicly available official documents and reports to do with the JFK assassination are available online at the Mary Ferrell Foundation (MFF) website, many of them in a choice of PNG and PDF formats. This is an enormous resource, invaluable to anyone with a serious interest in the case. The MFF website’s archive also contains digital copies of many research journals, some of them no longer extant.

Many of the official reports are available on paper from the MFF store.

Much of the material on the MFF site is provided by and duplicated on the History Matters and Assassination Archives and Research Center websites, which also contain a selection of informative articles.

Here are links to the main categories of JFK assassination documents at the MFF site:

National Archives and Records Administration Website

Some of the 5 million items in the National Archives and Records Administration’s JFK Records Collection are available online, including:

Other Online Collections

The National Security Archive at The George Washington University website contains documents relevant to the assassination.

The Dallas Police Department’s assassination records are located at the University of North Texas website, which presents these and other records remarkably well. This website is a magnificent achievement.

Part of the vast Harold Weisberg Archive at Hood College, Frederick, Maryland, is available online.

The W.R. Poage Legislative Library at Baylor University in Waco, Texas, contains a large amount of material donated by researchers of varying degrees of competence. This material used to be found online at http://www.baylor.edu/lib/poage/jfk/index.php?id=60315, but the website was revamped at some point and is now very difficult to navigate. If you don’t know exactly what you are looking for, you could spend hours clicking away and still not find it. Whereas the UNT website shows how collections of documents ought to be presented online, the Baylor site offers a good lesson in what not to do.

Essential Books on the JFK Assassination

Of the books which try to explain aspects of the assassination without putting forward a specific theory, two stand out:

  • Gerald D. McKnight, Breach of Trust: How the Warren Commission Failed the Nation and Why (University Press of Kansas, 2005; ISBN 978-0-7006-1390-8), is perhaps the single most important book yet published on the JFK assassination: a comprehensive and scholarly account of the genesis of the Warren Commission and the weaknesses of the Oswald-did-it theory.
  • Peter Dale Scott, Deep Politics and the Death of JFK (University of California Press, 1993; ISBN 0-520-20519-7), is a detailed account of the political milieu of the assassination.

Other titles worth examining include:

  • John Newman, Oswald and the CIA (Carroll and Graf, 1995; ISBN 0-7867-0131-5), is the fullest account of Oswald’s relationship with the organisation which played a major role in associating him with a communist conspiracy.
  • Peter Dale Scott, Deep Politics II: The New Revelations in US Government Files, 1994-1995 (Mary Ferrell Foundation Press, 1996; ISBN 0-9790099-4-4), which has also been published as Oswald, Mexico, and Deep Politics: Revelations from CIA Records on the Assassination of JFK, is a series of essays continuing the theme of Scott’s earlier book.
  • Gaeton Fonzi, The Last Investigation (Thunder’s Mouth Press, 1993; ISBN 1-56025-052-6), is an insider’s account of the House Select Committee on Assassinations investigation, and includes strong evidence linking Oswald to elements within the CIA’s Mexico City station.
  • Henry Hurt, Reasonable Doubt: An Investigation into the Assassination of John F. Kennedy (Henry Holt, 1985; ISBN 0-8050-0360-6), is a good general account of the assassination, marred only by an unnecessary chapter containing an outrageously unlikely confession.

Early Criticism of the Warren Report

Informed criticism of the Warren Report began even before it was published, with Bertrand Russell, ‘16 Questions on the Assassination’, Minority of One, 6 September 1964, pp.6-8.

Much of the documentary material that undermines the Warren Report’s lone-nut explanation was withheld from the public until years after the event. The details of Oswald’s impersonation in Mexico City, for example, were not assembled until the late 1970s, in the HSCA’s Lopez Report, which was only released to the public in the mid-1990s. The first generation of critics had to rely almost entirely on the limited body of evidence made available by the Warren Commission itself, much of which was placed in the National Archives but not published. Nevertheless, several of the earliest books (if you can find them) still offer excellent critical accounts of the assassination:

  • Sylvia Meagher, Accessories After the Fact: the Warren Commission, the Authorities, and the Report (Bobbs-Merrill, 1967).
  • Josiah Thompson, Six Seconds in Dallas: A Micro-Study of the Kennedy Assassination (Bernard Geis Associates, 1967).
  • Harold Weisberg, Whitewash: the Report on the Warren Report (1965).

Howard Roffman, Presumed Guilty: How and Why the Warren Commission Framed Lee Harvey Oswald (Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1975; ISBN 978-0-498-019333-4), was written after the first wave of classified documents were made public. It is currently out of print, but the text is available online in HTML format at http://www.ratical.org/­ratville/JFK/PG/.

JFK Assassination Photographs

Photography Books

There are three essential books for anyone interested in exploring the photographic record of the JFK assassination:

  • Richard Trask, Pictures of the Pain: Photography and the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy (Yeoman Press, 1994; ISBN 0-9638595-0-1), is well-documented, and covers both still photographs and the surprisingly large number of home movies that record various aspects of the event. The book is very strong on the experiences of the individual photographers and film-makers.
  • Robert Groden, The Search for Lee Harvey Oswald (Viking Penguin, 1995; ISBN 0-670-85867-6), contains almost every extant photograph of Oswald, not to mention the Mexico City impostor.
  • Robert Groden, The Killing of a President (Viking Studio Books, 1993; ISBN 0-670-85267-8), contains a comprehensive range of photographs of all aspects of the assassination, including President Kennedy’s autopsy, but also offers some very speculative theories.

Photography Online

A huge number of photographs and still frames are now circulating on the web.

JFK Assassination Blogs, Articles and Opinions

  • JFK Facts, a website run by Jefferson Morley and Rex Bradford, is frequently updated with informative articles and news items.
  • The Mysteries of Dealey Plaza is an occasional series of articles, all of them worth reading, by Martin Hay.
  • JFK Countercoup is an occasional series of articles by Bill Kelly.
  • Oswald’s Mother is an occasional series of articles by George Bailey.

JFK Assassination Forums

The JFK assassination has generated many online discussion groups, all of them plagued by tribal loyalties and petty bickering. Despite their flaws, most of the following JFK assassination forums provide some worthwhile material:

  • Jack’s at https://jacks.forumotion.com/ hasn’t been open long at the time of writing, but already contains a number of genuine researchers with interesting things to say. Jack’s is visible to members only, but membership is free, so there is no excuse not to give it a try.
  • The Education Forum at http://educationforum.ipbhost­.com/index.php?showforum=126 has contained probably the least depressing ratio of well-informed researchers to bone-headed time-wasters. The forum suffers from occasional purges of members and the inexcusable deletion of their posts, although those archives that survive are worth a visit.
  • Some of the more recent victims of Education Forum purges congregate at http://reopenkennedycase­.forumotion.net/f1-jfk. Although the forum seems to have only a few active members, most of them are genuine researchers. As well as producing useful research, the ROKC forum does a nice line in imaginative and entertaining criticism of other forums and their members, although some of the language used may not suit every reader.
  • http://www.jfkassassinationforum­.com/index.php?board=1.0 is busy, with a wide range of contributors. Sensible sceptics are, unfortunately, often drowned out by reactionary lone-nut fundamentalists, moon-landings-crazy conspiracy theorists, and clueless dilettantes. Most threads degenerate into personal insults before the end of the first page. There is also a related, and more civil, forum dedicated to the photographic evidence, as well as a very useful YouTube channel which includes home movies taken during the assassination weekend, interviews with witnesses, and other interesting material.
  • http://www.jfkessentials­.com/forum/ is informative, though sparsely populated. There is a very useful collection of interviews by Alan Dale with a number of eminent researchers at http://www.jfkessentials.com/­forum/index.php?board=1.0.
  • http://jfk.fanforum.co/ was set up in June 2015, and welcomes new members.
  • The Deep Politics Forum, https://deeppoliticsforum.com/forums/­forumdisplay.php?4-JFK-Assassination, attracts those who see a conspiracy everywhere they look, hence its unofficial title: the Deeply Paranoid Forum. Some of its members can be very intolerant of dissent. In particular, critics of the preposterous ‘Harvey and Lee’ theory are not welcomed here. Whether lone-nut or conspiracy, the more implausible the theory, the more religiously it is defended.
  • http://forum.assassinationof­jfk.net/ also discourages dissent, according to some of its official policies: “7. Posts that argue the case against Lee Harvey Oswald as if he was the lone assassin will be subject to immediate deletion and the poster of same will be placed on notice. … 13. Members are prohibited from even mentioning the name of the John McAdams website or the Deep Politics Forum.” Unsurprisingly, this forum also attracts believers in those conspiracy theories that benefit the most from an absence of criticism, such as the notion that President Kennedy’s body was surgically altered and that the Zapruder film is a fake.
  • Visitors to the above-mentioned forums will find it difficult to avoid the occasional example of name-calling and other abusive behaviour. Two Google newsgroups, alt.conspiracy.jfk and alt.assassination.jfk, contain little other than insults and name-calling. They can be recommended for anyone who feels the urge to let off steam, though not for anyone who wants to find out anything useful about the JFK assassination.

Most participants on JFK assassination forums would benefit from copying the behaviour of those on this thread on a comedy website: http://www.cookdandbombd.co.uk/­forums/index.php/­topic,34941.0.html. It’s well-informed, generally polite and humorous, and a good example of the way in which online discussions ought to be conducted.

Video: 50 Reasons for 50 Years

In the run-up to the 50th anniversary in 2013, Black Op Radio produced a series of programmes illustrating the current state of JFK assassination research, under the title 50 Reasons for 50 Years. The series avoids the more controversial topics, such as the ‘two Oswalds’ theory and the possible alteration of the Zapruder film, although the need to find 50 topics means that one or two episodes are more speculative and less persuasive than the rest. Overall, the series is both a valuable resource for enthusiasts and a comprehensive introduction to the subject for newcomers. 50 Reasons for 50 Years provided a worthwhile antidote to the main television companies’ generally dismal output during 2013. All 50 episodes are available at YouTube, and most are of a manageable size. The total running time is about six hours:

  1. https://www.youtube.com/watch­?v=XrerYIwNVqI (4′ 57″)
    Osanic points out that the Warren Commission’s image of Oswald as a deranged loner is unsupported by any evidence, and L. Fletcher Prouty claims that Oswald’s career fits the profile of an intelligence agent.
  2. https://www.youtube.com/watch­?v=7K7I1gIvsuc (3′ 29″)
    John Armstrong provides documentary evidence of more than one person claiming to be Lee Oswald long before the assassination. Rather than introduce Armstrong’s highly implausible Two Oswalds theory, the narrator concludes that Oswald was a member of a false defector programme.
  3. https://www.youtube.com/watch­?v=sfAO6dY83G4 (5′ 22″)
    Bill Simpich, author of State Secret, argues that Oswald was a false defector.
  4. https://www.youtube.com/watch­?v=r6IvEZaX_Pg (5′ 15″)
    Joan Mellon describes Oswald in New Orleans in the summer of 1963, perhaps overstating his links to the FBI and CIA.
  5. https://www.youtube.com/watch­?v=AAdS-QAXsSE (5′ 05″)
    Armstrong points out the lack of solid evidence that Oswald was in Mexico City, and claims that the evidence that does exist, namely Oswald’s Cuban visa application form, was faked.
  6. https://www.youtube.com/watch­?v=IDbjJGf74WQ (4′ 58″)
    James DiEugenio, author of Destiny Betrayed, gives a succinct account of the Silvia Odio incident, which, if Odio is to be believed, provides what Sylvia Meagher called “the proof of the plot”.
  7. https://www.youtube.com/watch­?v=t2biuFq5JmM (5′ 36″)
    Dick Russell discusses Richard Nagell, the subject of his book, The Man Who Knew Too Much.
  8. https://www.youtube.com/watch­?v=XWXTeZYo2y8 (5′ 29″)
    A filmmaker, Ted Yacucci, gives a summary of an alleged plot to kill JFK in Chicago, and describes its similarities to the Dallas event three weeks later.
  9. https://www.youtube.com/watch­?v=eFEV0onbASE (4′ 50″)
    DiEugenio discusses the case of Rose Cherami, who may have predicted the assassination.
  10. https://www.youtube.com/watch­?v=5WsS8yCU8wI (4′ 42″)
    L. Fletcher Prouty recounts his experience of receiving news of the assassination in New Zealand, and finds it sinister that the Christchurch Star newspaper published a detailed account of Oswald’s life six hours after the assassination.
  11. https://www.youtube.com/watch­?v=LSAbhc9K39A (4′ 58″)
    Robert Groden, author of The Search for Lee Harvey Oswald, points out that the three home movies taken in Dealey Plaza that depict the fatal head shot, by Abraham Zapruder, Mary Muchmore and Orville Nix, are consistent with each other, falsifying the claim that the Zapruder film has been substantially altered. He also points out that all three films have been damaged or lost while in the possession of media companies.
  12. https://www.youtube.com/watch­?v=SXkouTolX8U (6′ 06″)
    Pat Speer reminds us that the HSCA’s photographic panel, the only official panel to examine the photographic evidence, concluded that JFK and Connally were hit by separate shots spaced too closely together to have been fired by the sixth-floor rifle.
  13. https://www.youtube.com/watch­?v=zEbgS9YtRYA (4′ 10″)
    Osanic discusses James Tague, the third man wounded in Dealey Plaza, whose wounding obliged the Warren Commission to invent the single-bullet theory.
  14. https://www.youtube.com/watch­?v=6GCuA30RJvQ (3′ 44″)
    Robert Groden shows the many news and home movies that show that the grassy knoll, not the TSBD, was the centre of attention in the immediate aftermath of the assassination.
  15. https://www.youtube.com/watch­?v=nP_Spr6t_dg (6′ 24″)
    Barry Ernest, author of The Girl on the Stairs, discusses the experience of Victoria Adams, who should have seen or heard Lee Oswald as he descended the stairs from the sixth floor, but did not.
  16. https://www.youtube.com/watch­?v=AdFgPDTr458 (4′ 09″)
    James Fetzer on the failure of the Secret Service.
  17. https://www.youtube.com/watch­?v=L_qOFqDdhpo (7′ 20″)
    Osanic and the poor state of the evidence accumulated at and around the sniper’s nest.
  18. https://www.youtube.com/watch­?v=2-3OhUsVa6Q (5′ 31″)
    Prouty claims that General Edward Lansdale was featured in at least one of the photographs of the three tramps in Dealey Plaza.
  19. https://www.youtube.com/watch­?v=8J-JU1vRJT0 (7′ 37″)
    DiEugenio on Ruth and Michael Paine, two of the more interesting characters in the assassination story.
  20. https://www.youtube.com/watch­?v=-uVW9wPQmYM (7′ 46″)
    Osanic and Armstrong discuss the Tippit murder and Oswald’s apparent journey from Dealey Plaza to Oak Cliff.
  21. https://www.youtube.com/watch­?v=lUrkdGmAdMk (3′ 21″)
    Armstrong looks at what went on inside the Texas Theatre, where Oswald was arrested, and the evidence that he was already inside the cinema when Officer Tippit was murdered.
  22. https://www.youtube.com/watch­?v=jzrDxSTAvOc (6′ 39″)
    Jim Marrs on how Oswald became the centre of the police’s attention.
  23. https://www.youtube.com/watch­?v=hhWLPZcQgr0 (6′ 57″)
    John Judge on events in Washington DC.
  24. https://www.youtube.com/watch­?v=YOC4zMS_YDs (4′ 49″)
    The eminent pathologist, Dr Cyril Wecht, on the problems with JFK’s autopsy.
  25. https://www.youtube.com/watch­?v=ROP74vQtjsw (3′ 57″)
    Robert Groden on the head wound.
  26. https://www.youtube.com/watch­?v=hmHZ0QzdzlI (8′ 23″)
    Pat Speer on the location of the back wound.
  27. https://www.youtube.com/watch­?v=J-3uOr6en1M (8′ 03″)
    Osanic on how the evidence against Oswald was treated over the weekend of the assassination.
  28. https://www.youtube.com/watch­?v=hreBWIdzHoA (7′ 26″)
    Ruby’s murder of Oswald.
  29. https://www.youtube.com/watch­?v=bdXBbYyycp0 (5′ 51″)
    Osanic on the media.
  30. https://www.youtube.com/watch­?v=EKQy8DndON8 (6′ 35″)
    The goings-on in Mexico City.
  31. https://www.youtube.com/watch­?v=8vYwTxJbwtk (8′ 00″)
    DiEugenio on how evidence against Oswald magically appeared when required.
  32. https://www.youtube.com/watch­?v=IEOchyA8qVc (7′ 33″)
    Walt Brown on the Warren Commission.
  33. https://www.youtube.com/watch­?v=GBsxqisnuD8 (7′ 43″)
    Gerald McKnight, author of Breach of Trust, discusses the Warrren Commission’s treatment of rumours that Oswald had been an informant for either the FBI or the CIA.
  34. https://www.youtube.com/watch­?v=meBS4_eydXE (6′ 39″)
    Mark Lane on how the Secret Service’s credentials were supplied by the CIA.
  35. https://www.youtube.com/watch­?v=b0GG55NEyeU (7′ 03″)
    Walt Brown on the Warren Commission’s treatment of witnesses.
  36. https://www.youtube.com/watch­?v=mo3g4w-7qTs (8′ 18″)
    Joseph McBride on the murder of Officer Tippit.
  37. https://www.youtube.com/watch­?v=A1_DbeN6b48 (7′ 12″)
    The single bullet theory.
  38. https://www.youtube.com/watch­?v=CZ-C74ip2xY (6′ 03″)
    The Mannlicher Carcano rifle.
  39. https://www.youtube.com/watch­?v=3wWowP7dpuE (9′ 05″)
    John Armstrong on the incomplete paper trail linking Oswald with the rifle apparently discovered on the sixth floor.
  40. https://www.youtube.com/watch­?v=3dslC2FAReg (5′ 29″)
    Commission Exhibit 399, the magic bullet.
  41. https://www.youtube.com/watch­?v=O0J60fsa9Pk (8′ 29″)
    Gerald McKnight on Senator Richard Russell.
  42. https://www.youtube.com/watch­?v=vgLX1IL-wUY (7′ 39″)
    Richard Belzer discusses some of the suspicious deaths associated with the assassination. Warning: this programme includes gory photographs of the bodies of George de Mohrenschildt and Sam Giancana.
  43. https://www.youtube.com/watch­?v=XDYloSv2YZU (9′ 08″)
    DiEugenio on the Garrison investigation.
  44. https://www.youtube.com/watch­?v=CNmMG28wufw (13′ 14″)
    Dan Hardway, author with Edwin Lopez of the HSCA’s staff report, Oswald, the CIA and Mexico City, discusses the CIA’s less than helpful attitude to the HSCA investigation.
  45. https://www.youtube.com/watch­?v=zFQRM7PC13E (13′ 50″)
    Len Osanic on the media’s treatment of Oliver Stone’s film, JFK.
  46. https://www.youtube.com/watch­?v=JuixsAxJJwU (14′ 19″)
    Joseph McBride on the role of the media.
  47. https://www.youtube.com/watch­?v=F4jqMhQyb24 (10′ 05″)
    Bill Kelly discusses one of the most promising lines of current enquiry: the tape recordings of conversations on Air Force One during the flight from Dallas.
  48. https://www.youtube.com/watch­?v=7OTDJVkS34c (18′ 43″)
    Doug Horne on the ARRB and the medical evidence.
  49. https://www.youtube.com/watch­?v=UqGutdTCPFw (13′ 53″)
    Jefferson Morley on the files relating to George Joannides.
  50. https://www.youtube.com/watch­?v=EDjk3Sh2gIU (20′ 47″)
    Oliver Stone on the political context of the assassination; David Ratcliffe.

Miscellaneous Online Resources

  • Kennedys and King, formerly known as Citizens for Truth about the Kennedy Assassination, also covers the other political assassinations of the 1960s.
  • Pat Speer has written a lengthy online account, A New Perspective on the Kennedy Assassination. The website contains a good deal of useful information, although navigating within the site is not straightforward.
  • JFK Lancer publishes books and research materials.
  • Prof. John Goldsmith, a linguist and computer scientist at the University of Chicago, gave a lecture series on the JFK assassination in the 1990s. His rough notes are a useful introduction to the main issues: http://hum.uchicago.edu/~jagoldsm­/Papers/JFK/JFK.html (N.B. The eleven items are all PDFs, none larger than about 200 KB. The address of item ten is wrong; you will need to change ‘10_Event.pdf’ to ‘10_Garrison.pdf’).
  • Kenneth Rahn’s Academic JFK Assassination Site offers a wide range of material covering many aspects of the topic.
  • Dave Ratcliff’s website does the same from an explicitly pro-conspiracy viewpoint.
  • For obvious reasons, a very large majority of JFK assassination websites are in English. One exception is Pierre Nau’s site, JFK: l’assassinat, les questions, which provides Francophone readers with a fair overview of the subject.

Minority Viewpoint: Oswald Did It

It isn’t only newspapers and television programmes that promote the lone-gunman explanation:

  • David Reitzes offers a selection of essays, including criticism of Oliver Stone’s film, JFK.
  • Secrets of a Homicide contains an attempt by Dale Myers, an award-winning animator, to use a computer simulation to breathe life into the single-bullet theory. Of course, a computer simulation is only as accurate as the data it uses. You could show that Richard M. Nixon shot John F. Kennedy while being given a piggy-back ride by Elvis A. Presley, if you used a sufficiently creative set of data. Pat Speer and, in video format, Robert Harris criticise Myers’s approach. Russ Baker and Milicent Cranor place Myers’s work in context in their article, ‘The Mystery of the Constant Flow of JFK Disinformation’.
  • John McAdams mounted a rearguard action in defence of the lone-nut theory. His site is good at debunking poorly supported conspiracy theories, but not so good at questioning the official account.
  • Wikipedia can be a useful source of information, but the website should not be trusted for anything controversial. Several of the Wikipedia entries related to the JFK assassination are superficial and uncritical. More worryingly, at least one entry appears to be under the control of one person, and so is unlikely to be substantially improved. See https://kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-articles/will-the-real-wikipedia-please-stand-up for the weaknesses of this entry and of Wikipedia in general. Wikipedia’s Byzantine editing system ensures that pages dealing with both controversial and uncontroversial topics can be hijacked by cliques or interested parties.