A prosecutor revisits JFK's assassination
By Edward Wyatt
Published: May 15, 2007

LOS ANGELES: The prosecutor who put Charles Manson behind bars now wants to solve another crime, a really simple one, he insists. So simple that it takes only 1,612 pages to prove his case.

Vincent Bugliosi, whose prosecution of Charles Manson in 1970 led him to write the best-selling true-crime book "Helter Skelter," has now turned his attention to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

And that is his full attention: 20 years of research, more than one million words, hundreds of interviews, thousands of documents and more than 10,000 citations. The result, "Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy" (W.W. Norton), was due out this week. His conclusion: Lee Harvey Oswald killed Kennedy, and acted alone.

Why would such a simple conclusion require so much argument?

"Because of the unceasing and fanatical obsession of thousands of researchers over the last 43 years, from around the world but mostly in the United States," Bugliosi, 72, said in an interview in Studio City, California. "Examining under a high-powered microscope every comma, every period, every detail on every conceivable issue, and making hundreds and hundreds of allegations, they have transformed this simple case into its present form."

Bugliosi likes to tell a story illustrating why he believes this book is necessary. In 1992, less than a year after the debut of Oliver Stone's conspiracy-minded film "JFK," Bugliosi was addressing a group of trial lawyers when a member of the audience asked him about the assassination.

Bugliosi asked for a show of hands of how many people did not accept the findings of the Warren Commission, which had investigated the assassination and concluded that Oswald was the killer. Close to 90 percent of the 600 lawyers raised their hands, he recalled. Then he asked how many had seen "JFK" or read an account that argued in favor of a conspiracy; a similar number raised their hands. Finally, he asked how many had read the Warren Commission report. Only a smattering of hands went up.

"The first national poll that came out shortly after the assassination showed the majority of Americans accepted the Warren Commission," he said. "But all people have seen throughout the years is one book after another propounding the conspiracy theory. It has penetrated the consciousness of the American people and convinced them that the Warren Commission's a big joke, and that Oswald was either innocent or just some patsy who was framed by some exotic group of conspirators, ranging from anti-Catholic Cuban exiles to organized crime working in league with U.S. intelligence. And the majority of Americans now, 75 percent, believe there was a conspiracy."

Prominent proponents of alternative assassination theories are already prepared to dispute Bugliosi's conclusions. Stone, for example, said that most Americans believed the assassination was more than the work of Oswald alone "from the very beginning."

"President Johnson didn't believe the Warren Commission; nor did Robert Kennedy, as David Talbot's new book 'Brothers' shows," Stone said in an e-mail message. "In 1979, the House of Representatives Select Committee on Assassinations determined that President Kennedy 'was probably assassinated as the result of a conspiracy.' The Warren Commission, deservedly, has not stood the test of time."

But Bugliosi maintains that the American public has been conned into believing Oswald was framed, and that among the victims is Oswald's widow, Marina, whom Bugliosi interviewed in 2000. After telling the Warren Commission that she believed her husband was guilty, she has slowly changed her story over the years.

"She's never changed the facts upon which her initial conclusions were based," Bugliosi said. And, he added, he is convinced that the tempestuous nature of Lee and Marina Oswald's relationship played a part in the murder. The night before the assassination, Bugliosi writes, Oswald, then separated from his wife, visited her and asked her to come back to him, which she refused to do.

In 1986, Bugliosi participated in a mock trial of Lee Harvey Oswald in London, produced by a British television company. Acting as prosecutor, he faced off against Gerry Spence, the famed defense lawyer. The case was tried before a jury of Americans who were flown over for the event. The jury found Oswald guilty.

That experience led Bugliosi deeper into the assassination files. In addition to the Warren Commission report, he scoured the files of the House committee on assassinations and dug into reams of other documents in the National Archives. He conducted scores of interviews. In addition to his 1,612-page book, he compiled nearly 1,000 pages of endnotes, which are included on a CD-ROM.

"No one was thinking in terms of a book like this coming out and laying all questions to rest," he said. "Even questions that people wouldn't dream about, I think, are answered in this book. It's the only book that covers the entire case."

Of course, other books have reached the same conclusion, including Gerald Posner's "Case Closed" in 1993. While Bugliosi called that book a "valuable contribution" to the assassination literature, he criticized Posner's methods, accusing him of taking quotations out of context and omitting contrary evidence.

As a deputy district attorney in Los Angeles, Bugliosi tried more than 100 cases, winning nearly all of them. That experience, he said, gives him a unique ability to address a case as sprawling as the Kennedy assassination. "The assassination literature is so vast that people spend years of their lives just concentrating on one little aspect of it: Oswald, Ruby, the Warren Commission, Jim Garrison's prosecution of Clay Shaw in New Orleans, the CIA, the Mob," he said. "I took on the whole thing here."

The Warren Commission, for example, did not deal with the issue of acoustics. Bugliosi addressed that in a 65-page endnote, which itself has dozens of footnotes. The House committee, he added, did not deal with all the conspiracy issues.

Bugliosi said he did not expect anyone to sit down and read the book from beginning to end. The way it is broken into sections makes it an easily accessible reference book (albeit one that is priced at $49.95).

And if anybody does read the whole thing, Bugliosi said, one conclusion will be inescapable. "It's my view that it's impossible for any reasonable, rational person to read this book without being satisfied beyond all reasonable doubt that Oswald killed Kennedy and acted alone," he said.

Bugliosi says he does not believe he will persuade all the conspiracy-minded people out there. But as for the 75 percent who believe there was more to it than Oswald, he said, "I think we're going to knock it down substantially."

Willis: 'JFK's Killers Still At Large'.

14th May 2007 02:01:02

Willis: 'JFK's Killers Still At Large'.

Hollywood actor BRUCE WILLIS has warned former US President JOHN F KENNEDY's killers are still at large, insisting LEE HARVEY OSWALD did not act alone.

Oswald was, according to four US government investigations, solely responsible for the 1963 assassination of Kennedy in Dallas. Oswald was shot dead two days after the murder on his way to Dallas County Jail.

However, Willis insists it's likely that Oswald was made a scapegoat for the assassination, telling Vanity Fair, "They still haven't caught the guy that killed Kennedy. I'll get killed for saying this, but I'm pretty sure those guys are still in power, in some form. The entire government of the United States was co-opted.

"I don't think my opinion means jack s**t, because I'm an actor. Why do actors think their opinions mean more because you act?"

...once your start, you'll want to read every page. This is an outstanding book and an important publishing event on several counts, not least of which is its storytelling.

The cornerstone of the book is its first 300 pages, titled "four Days in November," which chronicle the vents of Nov. 22-25...the grief and pageantry of those four days shift to the background, and the focus is on the who, what, where, when and how of the criminal case.

The first half of the book is devoted to the evidence, to "What Happened" and its section on Oswald is a full-length biography in itself.

"Book Two" is devoted to the conspiracies, to "What Did Not Happen," and these line up like pins to be knocked down: Organized Crime, FBI, KGB, Right Wing, LBJ, Cuba.

Bugliosi's book, which denies all conspiracies, has the ring of truth--scrupulous, irrefutable truth--and I predict it will be the line that historians a hundred years from now will take on this story.

From this point forward, no reasonable person can argue that Lee Harvey Oswald was innocent; no sane person can take seriously assertions that Kennedy was killed by the CIA, Fidel Castro, the Mob, the Soviets, the Vietnamese, Texas oilmen or his vice president, Lyndon B. Johnson...Each may be guilty of crimes, but none had anything to do with Kennedy's assassination. "Reclaiming History" may finally move those accusations beyond civilized debate.

HBO miniseries to be based on Reclaiming History
June 07, 2007

Variety reports that HBO and Playtone are near completion of a deal to turn Vincent Bugliosi's Reclaiming History into a 10-part miniseries. The series will depict Oswald's journey to becoming an assassin and his eventual murder by Jack Ruby.

Tom Hanks, Gary Goetzman, and Bill Paxton will serve as executive producers on the project. "I totally believed there was a conspiracy, but after you read the book, you are almost embarrassed that you ever believed it," Goetzman said.

David. As comprehensive a book review as Bugliosi's work is a book.