1968-69
Stephen White
Should We Now Believe the Warren Report?
New York: Macmillan, 1968.
A discussion of the crucial physical evidence that inevitably leads to Oswald as lone assassin. Contains text of June 1967 documentary CBS News Inquiry: The Warren Report. Introduction by CBS anchorman Walter Cronkite. (White should not be confused with the fiction writer of the same name.)
Hardcover, 309 pages, 29 photos. (larger cover scan n/a)
Jim Bishop
The Day Kennedy Was Shot
An Uncensored Minute-by-Minute Account of November 22, 1963
New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1968.
The word “uncensored” was a sly reference to the “official” book the Kennedy Family in early 1964 had authorized William Manchester to write, but later tried to impose changes Manchester could not accept. Mrs. Kennedy was reportedly upset with Bishop’s announced book title and urged others not to co-operate with his research. When the smoke over the Manchester affair cleared, RFK wished Bishop had been the chosen one.
Bishop’s account of the notorious day, with chapters arranged by the hour, is richly detailed and beautifully written. It doesn’t suffer from minutia or overdramatization. Though a “cipher,” Oswald is somewhat humanized and his actions made sense of. Contains views of the medical treatment at Parkland and autopsy at Bethesda that complete Manchester’s guarded account. Bishop suggests the President wasn’t wounded until after his arms went to his neck in response to flying debris from a missed first shot, a scenario revisited by Jim Moore in his 1991 book Conspiracy of One. Excerpted in Ladies’ Home Journal, Nov. 1968.Hardcover, 713 pages. Bantam paperback Dec. 1969. Harpercollins softcover reissue (inset) July 1993. Outlet softcover reissue Dec. 1997.
James Alonzo Bishop (1907-87)
Born in Jersey City, NJ—the son of a police lieutenant—Jim Bishop became a newspaper reporter for the NY Daily Mirror. He did some book editing, and was a magazine editor for Collier’s, Liberty and Catholic Digest. From 1957 until retirement in 1983, he maintained three columns a week, appearing in some 200 papers. He eventually moved to Miami. His long list of books include The Day Lincoln Was Shot, The Day Christ Died, A Day in the Life of President Kennedy (finished ten days before the assassination), The Days of Martin Luther King, Jr. and FDR’s Last Year.In Dec. 1965, Playboy magazine published Bishop’s article “Lincoln and Kennedy;” in Nov. 1973, the Ladies’ Home Journal published “November 22, 1963: the End of Camelot;” and in April of 1976, the Gold Coast Pictorial published “The Second Assassination of JFK.” His papers are archived at St. Bonadventure Univ. in western NY state.
Mark Lane
A Citizen’s Dissent
Mark Lane Replies
New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1968.
Though not approaching the sales of Lane’s earlier Rush to Judgment, this book is far better in that it presents new research which address specific conspiracy allegations. Selections from witness interviews for the film documentary based on RTJ are presented, along with details of Lane’s debates with Warren Commission apologists.
Unfortunately, Lane perceived the media opposition to his controversial claims as a concerted conspiracy in itself. (There was a token effort by the CIA to rebut Lane through its European “media assets” but it didn’t amount to much.) In comparison with our current mainstream corporate media, there was a refreshing, open and intellectual level of debate and coverage of issues in the 1960s.
Hardcover, 290 pages. Fawcett paperback 1969.
James Hepburn
Farewell America
Vaduz, Liechtenstein: Frontiers, 1968.
Supposedly published overseas to avoid potential libel suits, this Eurocentric enigma lays out the case for a conspiracy of ultra-right extremists, principally Texan oil interests. Highly speculative but supplemented with intriguing facts and foreign insight. Selective excerpts of Kennedy’s speeches and writings paint him as wishful peace-monger anxious to exit Vietnam.
A product of its times, released on the heels of two other major assassinations. Only four years before, a handful of European conspiracy books spearheaded critical analysis of the Warren Commission; this book’s theme of US corporatism-run-amok would soon be echoed in conspiracy books written by Americans.
According to the 1992 book Deadly Secrets, investigator Steve Jaffe in 1968 tracked down the author in Paris, who turned out to be veteran French intelligence agent Herve Lamarr. The “James Hepburn” nom de plume was a corruption of Lamarr’s admiration for the actress Audrey Hepburn: “J’amie Hepburn.” Lamarr was apparently articulating the suspicions of President de Gaulle and the French Secret Service. Chapter on Kennedy’s Secret Service breakdown allegedly based on Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s secret investigation, done at the request of RFK after Dallas. Book subject of article “The Mystery of the Black Books” in April 1973 Esquire.
Hardcover, 419 pages, 1 B/W photo, 1 illus.
Judy Whitson Bonner
Investigation of a Homicide
The Murder of John F. Kennedy
Anderson, SC: Droke House, Feb. 1969.
Some interesting photos, and selections from transcripts of Dallas police tapes. In favor of the lone assassin theory without attacking the critics.
Hardcover, 367 pages, 68 photos, 2 dwgs, 64 docs.
Paris Flammonde
The Kennedy Conspiracy
An Uncommissioned Report on the Jim Garrison Investigation
New York: Meredith, 1969.
Favorable review of Jim Garrison and his inquiry, with chapters on Garrison’s personality and career, the conspiracy theory he suspects, the characters involved, and the media hysteria. Cover art eerily suggestive of autopsy photo.
Hardcover, 348 pages, 22-page photo section.
Edward Jay Epstein
Counterplot
New York: Viking, June 1969.
Retired Dallas Police Chief Reveals His Personal File
Dallas: American Poster & Publishing, Nov. 1969.
Jesse Curry
JFK Assassination File
Writer of the 1966 book Inquest disturbed over abuse of office by New Orleans DA Jim Garrison. In response to JFK movie glorification of same, Epstein revisited theme in a 1992 article. Portions of this book previously published in the New Yorker magazine.Hardcover, 182 pages. Carroll & Graf reprinted all three of Epstein’s JFK books (see also Inquest and Legend) in an Oct. 1992 softcover titled The Assassination Chronicles.
Notable for then-rare photos and documents. Affords Dallas PD perspective of assassination weekend by man who was chief of police at the time. Curry was riding in the lead car just ahead of the Presidential limousine and can be seen in the swearing-in photos aboard Air Force One.
Large-format softcover, 135 pages, 105 B/W photos, 58 docs. (larger cover scan n/a)