JFK Assassination Texts
A selection of writings about the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, all formatted in valid and accessible HTML:
Bertrand Russell: 16 Questions on the Assassination
Bertrand Russell: 16 Questions on the Assassination, first published in September 1964, was among the earliest critical accounts of the Warren Commission’s conduct and conclusions. Although one or two of his questions have been made redundant by new evidence, Russell raised several points which still stand and which get to the heart of the assassination controversy, such as:
- If Oswald really was the lone assassin, why all the secrecy on the grounds of national security?
- Why did the Commission not ask the fundamental question: who killed President Kennedy?
Mark Lane: Oswald Innocent? A Lawyer’s Brief
Four weeks after the assassinations of both JFK and Oswald, the National Guardian published a long essay by the lawyer Mark Lane, who pointed out both the weaknesses in the early case against Oswald and the prejudicial collaboration between the press, the police and the district attorney in Dallas. Lane later expanded his essay, and Oswald Innocent? A Lawyer’s Brief was published separately as a pamphlet.
Eric Norden : The Death of a President
Eric Norden’s long article, The Death of a President, was first published in The Minority of One in January 1964. Norden touches on a range of topics, including the question of why, if Lee Oswald was genuinely a communist sympathiser, he was not watched during Kennedy’s visit to Dallas. Norden also discusses one issue that is no longer generally considered important, the confusion over the type of rifle that had been discovered at the crime scene, as well several more important questions: the behaviour of the Dallas police, who repeatedly proclaimed Oswald guilty and then allowed him to be killed; the police’s links to Jack Ruby; and the weakness of the evidence against Oswald. Norden notes the reactions of the foreign press, which was much more sceptical of the lone-nut theory than the domestic press. He questions whether Oswald really was the left-winger he was made out to be, and expresses his lack of faith in the newly appointed Warren Commission to do an honest job.
Sylvia Meagher: Notes for a New Investigation
Sylvia Meagher’s ‘Notes for a New Investigation’ was first published in Esquire magazine in December 1966. Meagher lists many of the important witnesses to aspects of the assassination who were not considered by the Warren Commission. She expanded on this theme in her influential book, Accessories After the Fact.
Sylvia Meagher: The Curious Testimony of Mr Givens
In ‘The Curious Testimony of Mr Givens’, first published in the Texas Observer in August 1971, Sylvia Meagher examined the statements made to law enforcement officers by Charles Givens, a colleague of Lee Oswald, and concluded that Givens had been persuaded to perjure himself in front of the Warren Commission.
Roger Feinman: Between the Signal and the Noise
Roger Feinman’s Between the Signal and the Noise was prompted by Feinman’s falling-out with another of the early critics, David Lifton, author of Best Evidence.
Although Feinman spends a good many words on a rather petty, he-said-she-said description of his differences with Lifton, the book is useful for two reasons:
- He puts forward a cogent, non-paranoid account of the medical aspects of the JFK assassination. One of Feinman’s main points is that the assassination can be understood without having to resort to Lifton’s, and others’, outlandish notion that both the president’s body and the Zapruder film were physically altered to conceal evidence of conspiracy. Most of this material is in chapters 1, 4, 5, 6 and 8.
- He describes how the early critical community worked and interacted. Feinman’s account is an essential primary source for any history of the early critics of the Warren Report.
Feinman’s Preface explains some of the background to his squabble with Lifton.
- Chapter 1: You Just Don’t Understand Me, You Never Did, I Hate You. Feinman gives a good description of events at Parkland Hospital in Dallas, and how Arlen Specter of the Warren Commission worked to neutralise the doctors’ account of President Kennedy’s wounds. He introduces and criticises David Lifton’s theory that the president’s body was kidnapped and surgically altered before it arrived at Bethesda for the autopsy.
- Chapter 2: The Scent of a Woman, Part I. Feinman examines Lifton’s dealings with Sylvia Meagher (pronounced ‘Marr’), one of the most influential of the early critics.
- Chapter 3: I Don’t Pick Brains, I Eat Them. Feinman traces the development of Lifton’s ideas about the case, and describes an earlier body-alteration theory.
- Chapter 4: What’s Wrong with All of You? Why Can’t You See How Scholarly I Am?. Feinman discusses a memo by Dr Pierre Finck, one of the pathologists who conducted the autopsy. He describes his and Lifton’s attendance at a debate in Chicago.
- Chapter 5: Act of Desperation. Feinman analyses in detail Lifton’s highly implausible notion that wounds were added to President Kennedy’s back and head, and that all the shooting came from the front.
- Chapter 6: A Night at Bethesda. Feinman questions Lifton’s account of events at Bethesda, and argues that what Lifton took to be the arrival of a reconstructed presidential corpse was in fact only the use of a decoy ambulance to distract the crowd of spectators. He argues that Best Evidence exemplifies the commercial publishing industry’s bias against sober and responsible accounts of the assassination.
- Chapter 7: The Original Work of a Scholar. A short chapter in which Feinman alleges that Lifton appropriated the work of other writers without acknowledgement.
- Chapter 8: Assassination in the 4th Dimension. Feinman argues that Dr George Burkley arrived at the emergency room before President Kennedy’s throat wound was obscured by a tracheotomy, and that Burkley was therefore able to inform the pathologists that the wound was caused by a shot from in front.
- Chapter 9: I Had to Have that Document. A storm-in-a-teacup account of how Feinman and Lifton acquired copies of the transcript of the press conference at Parkland Hospital during which Dr Malcolm Perry described JFK’s throat wound as one of entrance.
- Chapter 10: I Can’t Stop Dreaming About Roger Feinman, Yet He Rebuffs Me. A very short chapter in which Feinman discusses Lifton’s attitude to him.
- Chapter 11: Hooray for Hollywood!. Feinman describes his and Lifton’s relations with Oliver Stone during the planning and making of the film JFK, as well as the attitudes of other Warren Commission critics to the film.
- Chapter 12: Come to Me with your Problems. Bring Your Manuscript. Feinman laments the autobiographical nature of Best Evidence. He reports Lifton’s early beliefs, according to Sylvia Meagher’s memos, that photographs were doctored, that conspirators were hidden in the foliage in Dealey Plaza, and that the two Secret Service agents in Kennedy’s car were impostors.
- Chapter 13: The Scent of a Woman, Part II. Feinman briefly describes the end of Sylvia Meagher’s dealings with David Lifton.
- Chapter 14: In the Shadow of Dealey Plaza. Feinman laments the harm that far-fetched conspiracy theories do to the public image of critics of the lone-nut fiction. He describes Lifton as “ the perfect public spokesman for the assassination research community, only if we look at things from the perspective of both the government and the established news media.”
George de Mohrenschildt: I Am a Patsy!
George de Mohrenschildt and his wife, Jeanne, befriended Lee and Marina Oswald in Dallas in 1962. George de Mohrenschildt’s memoirs are self-serving and, in places, unreliable, but they include some credible information about the Oswalds’ domestic life.
- Preface in Haiti: De Mohrenschildt hears the news of President Kennedy’s assassination and of Oswald’s arrest.
- Getting to Know the Oswalds: De Mohrenschildt’s first impressions of Lee Harvey Oswald.
- First Meetings with Lee: Oswald’s defection, and his impressions of Minsk.
- Further Conversation with Lee in 1962: The Oswalds get to know the de Mohrenschildt family.
- The Oswalds in Minsk: How Lee and Marina Oswald emigrated to the USA.
- We Are Becoming Close Friends: De Mohrenschildt wonders whether Oswald had been an undercover agent while in Minsk.
- Contrasts Between the Oswalds: Trouble between Lee and Marina Oswald.
- Increased Animosity: Marina’s lifestyle, and Lee Oswald’s views on race and segregation.
- Idea of Separation: The Oswalds begin to live apart.
- Separation and More Trouble: Lee Oswald’s views on President Kennedy, and George de Mohrenschildt’s views on the FBI.
- Lee Oswald and the US: Oswald tells de Mohrenschildt about his threat to blow up the FBI office in Dallas. The FBI incident was genuine, but de Mohrenschildt’s account was false; his last meeting with Oswald took place several months earlier.
- Effects of the Separation: The Oswalds move back in together.
- Our Meetings at the End of 1962: The Oswalds attend a Christmas party.
- Rare Meetings in 1963: Ruth Paine, who took over from the de Mohrenschildts, enters the picture.
- Lee and Admiral Chester Bruton: Lee Harvey Oswald meets a former admiral.
- Easter of 1963: The de Mohrenschildts notice that Lee Oswald possesses a rifle.
- Our Move to Haiti: George de Mohrenschildt claims that a CIA official vouched for Oswald’s reliability.
- The Warren Commission: Albert Jenner of the Warren Commission interviews the de Mohrenschildts.
- Our Return to Haiti: A book claims that George de Mohrenschildt is attached to the CIA; he denies the accusation.
- Effects on Our Lives: De Mohrenschildt disapproves of the NBC TV series, The Warren Report.
- Our Return to the United States: They return to Dallas; George claims that Oswald was indeed a patsy.
- A Message from Lee: The de Mohrenschildts discover an incriminating photograph taken in the back yard of the Oswalds’ house in Neely Street. Marina Oswald refuses to have anything to do with Ruth Paine.
- Unusual Visitors: A reporter and a photographer, falsely claiming to be from Life magazine, visit the de Mohrenschildts.
- Who Are the Real Criminals?: De Mohrenschildt is upset with the Warren Commission, and again calls Oswald a patsy.
- Willem Oltmans and His Clairvoyant: An account of how Oltmans, a Dutch journalist, was dissuaded from investigating the JFK assassination.
- Why Lee and I Agreed on the FBI: De Mohrenschildt’s joke about Oswald having shot at General Edwin Walker.
- I Am a Patsy: De Mohrenschildt claims that Oswald “was an actor in real life.”
- Conclusion: George de Mohrenschildt repeats his denial that he had been employed by the CIA.
Lee Oswald: Speech in Alabama
Lee Harvey Oswald gave a speech in Alabama in July 1963, in which he may or may not have revealed his honest opinions of political matters. His hand-written notes survive, along with recollections about his speech by a member of the audience.
Jim Garrison: Interview with Playboy
Jim Garrison: Interview with Playboy: The magazine gives Garrison a platform to respond to some of his critics in the corporate media.
Bill Hicks: JFK Assassination Routine
The stand–up comedian Bill Hicks’s JFK assassination routine, dating from the early nineties.