What are your top 5 JFK assassination books?

[Margaret Kelly]

So hard to get this down to five but here are mine:

Conspiracy - Anthony Summers
Oswald And The CIA - Newman
Our Man In Mexico City - Jeff Morley
Marina And Lee - By Mrs Oswald
The Death of A President - William Manchester

What are yours and why?

[Tom Scully]

So hard to get this down to five but here are mine:

Conspiracy - Anthony Summers
Oswald And The CIA - Newman
Our Man In Mexico City - Jeff Morley
Marina And Lee - By Mrs Oswald
The Death of A President - William Manchester

What are yours and why?

"Marina And Lee - By Mrs Oswald" Why do you consider that book to be "authored" by Oswald's widow? In wording the "authorship", why, since that book was finally published a dozen years after she became Mrs. Porter, do you type "Mrs. Oswald"? Not a criticism, only wondering if you had a reason other than to avoid confusion of the "Mrs. Porter", who's that?!

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=81&relPageId=306&search=priscilla


Michael Clark recently answered a request for book recommendations with words to this effect, "Do not read books about the JFK Assassination, instead do your own research. Seek out original or as close to original sources as possible."

I could have written that in perhaps different words conveying the identical sentiments as Michael's. IMO, if you read JFKA books and see JFK-the Movie, I think you develop a bias or a predisposition different from mine. I am "predisposed" because I was just old enough to understand and retain some of what was reported at the time, and since .... IOW, just having lived through the JFK admin., recalling https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaughn_Meader , Jackie's White House tour, and seeing a JFK motorcade in person, a week before the Cuban missile crisis became public, instigates a bias I also attribute to books. The predisposition interferes with openmindedness and replaces it with confirmation bias.

The authors, in too many instances, feed the reader what they believe the readers expect to read. If the book enjoys brisk sales and much other attention it could either be because it gives the confirmation bias reader his money's worth, or because it is chock full of truth. Hard to anticipate, why take a chance, when original materials for 25 years now, have been accumulating online?

Any able writer can view JFK-the Movie and be adequately trained by it to then write a manuscript and pitch it to Trine Day or Sky Horse.
It is, unfortunately, that formulaic. More so than "CT formulaic" ? Probably not .... See Bill O'Reilly's "Killing Kennedy", just one of the O'Reilly "Killing" books series.

Who are the five most reliable, accurate, best supported by the facts presented, book authors?, seems  a companion question to the OP question.

[Margaret Kelly]

"Marina And Lee - By Mrs Oswald" Why do you consider that book to be "authored" by Oswald's widow? In wording the "authorship", why, since that book was finally published a dozen years after she became Mrs. Porter, do you type "Mrs. Oswald"? Not a criticism, only wondering if you had a reason other than to avoid confusion of the "Mrs. Porter", who's that?!

Without Mrs Oswald, there wouldn't be a book - just Priscilla McMillan giving her own opinion. I don't use Porter in case some people don't know who that is. 

[Tom Scully]

Without Mrs Oswald, there wouldn't be a book - just Priscilla McMillan giving her own opinion. ...

I think the question anyone interested in events related to the 13 years long "book project" should be asking is, was it a book, or an "Op" intersecting other "Ops"? I hope this post is a brief but accurate presentation of what the government, witnesses such as Priscilla, book authors, and the "PTB" have "fed us" one seemingly disjointed but, at least indicated by the evidence, actually interlocking pieces of a rather complex and still lacking enough detail to fully understand PUZZLE, spoonful at a time, for 56 years!

http://archive.is/esTuB
.....

https://archive.is/o/esTuB/www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=95330&relPageId=42

.....

The last sentence in this article makes an argument that the net effect of Priscilla and her publisher, Harper's, on the American people was to keep Marina bottled up and away from public discourse for fourteen years....





Guess who "assigned" Jerre Hastings with the task of "accompanying" Priscilla and Marina? It's not difficult to ascertain via online resources to confirm that David Davenport was Priscilla's first cousin and that Davenport was divorcing his wife and had moved to Alaska from New Mexico in 1964. Hastings was driving Davenport's car....





Margaret, do not misunderstand.... Marina took the book advance and initially assumed she had latched on to another of several lucrative deals.
Priscilla's cousin David, and POTUS advisor Clark Clifford's aunt's husband, Hastings could play rough when necessity dictated it.

Perhaps I just don't read the correct authors, the explainers....

https://www.nytimes.com/1998/10/11/us/clark-clifford-a-major-adviser-to-four-presidents-is-dead-at-91.html
Clark Clifford, a Major Adviser To Four Presidents, Is Dead at 91
By Marilyn Berger Oct. 11, 1998

...President Johnson was hardly in office 24 hours when he called for Mr. Clifford. Faced with the sudden and enormous task of running the country after Kennedy's assassination, Johnson talked with Mr. Clifford for two hours, then three, then four. It was late in the evening, Mr. Clifford remembered, when Lady Bird Johnson entered the Oval Office and reminded her husband, ''Just because you're President now doesn't mean you don't have to eat dinner.''...

.....
2-1/2 years later, Clark Cilfford's first cousin JoAnne McAdams
filed a lawsuit against that man, her stepfather Jerome Jerre Hastings Hasty, his friend David Davenport,
and several doctors for involuntarily committing her to the State of New Mexico mental hospital.

No one reacts to those facts because they do not know what to make of them despite the uncontested
facts that support all of that as true!

Caprio and company must read it in a 40 year old book to embrace it unconditionally.

Las Vegas Optic from Las Vegas, New Mexico on July 31, 1967 ? Page 1
https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/35602601/
Miss Me Adams, who is not represented by an attorney in the suit relates in the complaint that she had come to Santa Fe to visit her mother, Mrs. Marguerite McAdams Hasty, and her mother's husband, Jerome Hasty, and David Davenport, a friend of Hasty, induced her to consult Dr. Roscnbaum. As a result, she claims, the ...

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/author-85-knew-jfk-killer-oswald-article-1.1525293

Marina Oswald (left), widow of Lee Harvey Oswald, with friend Jerre Hastings (center) and Priscilla Johnson McMillan. McMillan befriended Oswald after the assassination of JFK. (JOSH REYNOLDS/JOSH REYNOLDS PHOTO)

1954 Obit:

http://www.newspapers.com/newspage/449857/
Alton Evening Telegraph ? 21 December 1950 ? Page 18

....Miss Margaret Clifford Weds in Chevy Chuse The marriage of Lt. William
Henry Lanagan, jr., United States Marine Corps, and Miss Margaret
Pepperell Clifford, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Clark, McAdams Clifford, were
married Wednesday at 4 o'clock in All Saints Episcopal Church, Chevy
Chase, Md. A reception was held at the recently acquired estate of the
Cliffords, 8551 Rockville Pike, Bethesda, Md., after the wedding. Guests
included the bride's paternal grandmother, Mrs. Frank A. Clifford of St.
Louis, and uncle, William D. McAdams of New York.

Chicago Tribune - Aug 16, 1954
RIES William Douglas McAdims Services for William Doug- las McAdams, 67, of 734 Lin- coln av., Wlnnetka, who died Saturday in his home, will be held at 10 am Wednesday in the Congregational churc4, Winnetka. He had been a Winnetka resident for forty years and also maintained a home ..Mr. McAdams leaves his wife, Marguerite Bowman McAdams; a son, William D. ... three daughters, Joan A. McAdams, Mrs. IVarilyn Barton and Mrs. Marguerite Borregaard.....

1940 U.S. Census snippet of a household in New Trier (Winnetka)Illinois:

On April 26, 1940, Jerome A Hastings was a 29 year old man who was born in Wisconsin and was employed as a buyer at a country club. His education level was C2, two years of college. Hastings' annual income was just over $300. In 1935 his residence was in Flemington, NJ.

On May 18, Jerome Hasty was a 29 year old man who was born in Wisconsin and was employed as a officer at a country club. His education level was C1, one year of college. Hasty's annual income was just over $600. In 1935 his residence was in Carmel-by-the-Sea, CAL.

26 years later, Jerome Allen Hasty files a notice of legal change of name from Hasty to Hastings:

[Margaret Kelly]

I think the question anyone interested in events related to the 13 years long "book project" should be asking is, was it a book, or an "Op" intersecting other "Ops"?

The book "Marina And Lee" though more or less matches her testimony. It also matches Norman Mailers interviews of her for his book "Oswalds Tale" in the 1990's. I don't think Marina had anything of value to hide if the assassination was a government organized assassination. Lee never seemed to keep Marina in on his activities.

[Steve M. Galbraith]

The book "Marina And Lee" though more or less matches her testimony. It also matches Norman Mailers interviews of her for his book "Oswalds Tale" in the 1990's. I don't think Marina had anything of value to hide if the assassination was a government organized assassination. Lee never seemed to keep Marina in on his activities.

The second part of "Oswald's Tale", as you know, is about the Oswald's lives upon his/their return to the US. The first part is about Oswald in the Soviet Union and about the lives and histories of many of the people he met when there. And about the efforts by the KGB to figure out who this odd Oswald person was.

Mailer paid, if I recall correctly, about $60,000 to Priscilla McMillan Johnson Johnson McMillan for the rights to use her work in his book. Almost all of that second part of his work, as I see it, is straight out of her book "Marina and Lee." There's very little original material from Mailer other than his own interpretations and conclusions about what happened.

Mailer said that Marina's memory was "almost completely shattered" by all of the media and books that have come out. So I don't think her account, for him, was worth much. It's a useful but terribly flawed book. "Marina and Lee", on the other hand, is for me tremendously valuable.

Another good book to me is Thomas Mallon's "Mrs. Paine's Garage." This is quite helpful on explaining - as best as we can figure it out - Oswald's thinking those last two months leading up to the assassination. Mallon is also a terrific prose writer too; so it's a good read.

Mailer discussed his interviews with Marina here: https://www.c-span.org/video/?64863-1/oswalds-tale-american-mystery&start=1946. It's at the roughly 33:00 minute mark.

[Tom Scully]

The second part of "Oswald's Tale", as you know, is about the Oswald's lives upon his/their return to the US. The first part is about Oswald in the Soviet Union and about the lives and histories of many of the people he met when there. And about the efforts by the KGB to figure out who this odd Oswald person was.

Mailer paid, if I recall correctly, about $60,000 to Priscilla McMillan Johnson for the rights to use her work in his book. Almost all of that second part of his work, as I see it, is straight out of her book "Lee and Marina." There's very little original material from Mailer other than his own interpretations and conclusions about what happened.

Mailer said that Marina's memory was "almost completely shattered" by all of the media and books that have come out. So I don't think her account, for him, was worth much. It's a useful but terribly flawed book. "Marina and Lee", on the other hand, is for me tremendously valuable.

Another good book to me is Thomas Mallon's "Mrs. Paine's Garage." This is quite helpful on explaining - as best as we can figure it out - Oswald's thinking those last two months leading up to the assassination. Mallon is also a terrific prose writer too; so it's a good read.

Mailer discussed his interviews with Marina here: https://www.c-span.org/video/?64863-1/oswalds-tale-american-mystery&start=1946. It's at the roughly 33:00 minute mark.

Okay then, Steve.... I'll just have to accept the "tightness" of this "ball of yarn" as mere coincidence, or is it you who simply ignores what cannot be dealt with comfortably and conveniently? The FBI hierarchy and WC managers got a much closer look at Marina when it mattered and certainly disagreed with Margaret's, and I assume your similar high (or neutral) opinion of her.

Using just these two items as contradictory benchmarks to your opinions, I have to wonder if the three of us, so far participating in this thread, breath the same air, on the same planet.

The first item is the background of Priscilla's HSCA testimony that her progress on the book was impeded by the "concealed suicide" in 1969 of her father, Stuart. I would think the background details of the last person to see Priscilla's father alive, considering her HSCA testimony, the same individual who reported Stuart as missing, to police, would be an object of increased interest to HSCA, but instead, Priscilla's testimony was classified as secret, and was "buried".



The second is this, unless you can make yourself believe Priscilla did not know, in 1978, that her first cousin David Coit Davenport was CIA, but WC witness Sam Ballen, a friend of DeMohrenschildt, did just happen to know that Davenport was CIA.





Two people, Priscilla and Sam, who had met and briefly interacted with an obscure, "lone nut" who was simply attempting to make a name for himself that he anticipated would live on in infamy.... reunite at a dinner table. If the walls had ears.....


Unless I am misreading Davenport's obit, doesn't the top portion of the middle column describe a "career in intelligence"?



I've already documented that Priscilla placed herself and Marina in Davenport's "custody" in anticipation of the imminent release of the WCR, and that Davenport assigned his Santa Fe friend Jerome Allen Hasty AKA Hastings to shadow the two ladies, and that Hastings and Davenport were accused by the first cousin of Clark Clifford of setting her up, a year later, in 1965, for involuntary commitment to a New Mexico state mental institution.

More on Tom Devine..... https://www.maryferrell.org/php/cryptdb.php?id=WUBRINY-1
his M.I.T. frat mate happened to become Priscilla's CIA handler....

Students Don Ear Muffs to Shut Out Band Music
Daily Boston Globe - Aug 14, 1947

... rhumba music yesterday asked the Boston Licensing Board to shut down
the Hotel ... one of 16 Tech students livings in the adjoining Sigma Chi
fraternity house ... Other student were Thomas Devine of Rochester who
told of taking refuge in ..

The bond of the 16 Sigma Chi frat housemates was apparently strong and quite enduring, even 64 years later!

https://web.archive.org/web/20160406175946/http://sigmachi.mit.edu/docs/beaver_sigs/BeaverSig-spring2009.pdf
Page four, left column:

Later, in Maryland,
we visited Barbara Coit, the recent
widow of another Alpha Theta Sig,
Garry Coit ’46, who died in February
2008.”

Lawsuit over little bridge still cutts wide chasm in Shore town
https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/bs-xpm-1992-07-31-1992213129-story.html
Jul 31, 1992 - ... opposing the bridge are Mr. Becker, a retired aviation lawyer; L. Garry and Barbara M. Coit, two former Central Intelligence Agency officials; .

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=95706&relPageId=3
PARTIAL CONTACT REPORT ON MEETING WITH PRISCILLA JOHNSON 30-31 JAN 196 pg 1
WITH PRISCILLA JOHNSON 30-31 JAN 196 N 3/3/1964 COIT GARRY

"Dear Priscilla" https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=14786#relPageId=2&tab=page
CIA FROM GARRY TO PRISCILLA TITLE LETTER RE
RIF#: 104-10135-10090 (03/02/65) CIA#: 80T0135
LETTER, "I AM TRANSFERRING TO ANOTHER SECTION" AND GIVING NAME OF ANOTHER PERSON TO CONTACT IN THE FUTURE pg 1
Found in: HSCA Segregated CIA Collection, Box 49
ORIGINATOR CIA FROM COIT GARRY TO PRISCILLA TITLE LETTER "I AM TRANSFERRING TO ANOTHER SECTION AND GIVING NAME OF ANOTHER PERSON TO CONTACT IN THE FUTURE DATE 06/18/65 PAGES 1 SUBJECTS
RIF#: 104-10135-10092 (06/18/65) CIA#: 80T01357A

https://books.google.com
The China Diary of George H. W. Bush: The Making of a Global ...
Jeffrey A. Engel - 2011 - ‎History
Bemis, Lias and Devine had a meeting regarding my political future—very thoughtful of them.5 All I know now is to do the best job one can here. There is no ...

Dec. 6 specially decorated Bush '41 Train engine, was Billy Joe Lord on board?
https://www.jfkassassinationforum.com/index.php?action=post;quote=38753;topic=1439.0

.....
All that Lord described that is directly material to the charge of Bush and those closest to him literally muscling Lord
in 1976, is on the table. However, I am now convinced after this week the haves are so far ahead, it cannot even be
a contest, anymore.

First, the core accusation, hyper curiousity displayed by team Bush towards Lord knowledge, as the HSCA geared up
and it had become clear republicans would lose control of the presidency and of the CIA. This answers the question
of why risk rattling Billy Lord's cage if you were among the innermost Bush circle?


....
Jim Beamis, full of advice for Hurt as described in the Lord letter is a slam dunk match for Bush Kennebunkport
summer neighbor and lifelong friend.:
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/65388323/fitzgerald-bemiss
FitzGerald Bemiss
BIRTH   2 Oct 1922
DEATH   7 Feb 2011 (aged 88)
BURIAL   Hollywood Cemetery
Richmond, Richmond City, Virginia, USA

A question I asked Dr. John McAdams during a discussion about Billy Joe Lord's early 1977 letter to President Jimmy Carter....

https://jfkfacts.org/exchange-on-the-bush-did-it-theory/#comment-861586
Tom S. March 7, 2016 at 5:47 pm
....

http://jfk.hood.edu/Collection/Weisberg%20Subject%20Index%20Files/L%20Disk/Lord%20Billie%20Joe/Item%2001.pdf – page 2,
Feb 2, 1977 – was in the offing through two Midland men: Mr. Jim Allison, publisher of the ultra- … Mr. Beamis (?), chairman of the Republican Party in Virginia and owner of “a string of hotels” in that state, for help in persuading me to tell ….. Billy Joe Lord on 11/30/63, and two copies of an affidavit of a Billy Joe Lord as it

The researcher (Henry Hurt) said he had asked an acquaintance, a Mr. Beamis (?), chairman of the Republican Party in Virginia and owner of “a string of hotels” in that state, for help in persuading me to tell what I know, about Oswald….

....Forgive me, but my expectation of a reasonable person is if they were actually considering what I presented and responding to it, they might ask, “why do you think “Jim Beamis” was Bush’s extremely close friend and close political advisor, Gerry Bemiss?

continued

[Louis Earl]

6 Seconds in Dallas
Accessories After the Fact
Rush to Judgment
Death of a President
The Manchester Affair