The Assassination of John F. Kennedy
Meyer, Eugene B.
Death and Transcription The Assassination of John F. Kennedy: The Reasons Why by Albert H. Newman Clarkson N. Potter, Inc., $10.00 How many times did we read or hear it? Oswald was a nut who was...
...Yet there probably will always be that lingering doubt-maybe Oswald did have help...
...While many people said they heard three shots, the most self-possessed, Hill, the security guard who saved Mrs...
...In the last section of the book Mr...
...Has there ever been a sudden and violent occurrence of this type where all the witnesses have agreed on what happened...
...Their testimonies conflict violently at times, especially as to the number of shots fired...
...In The Assassination of John F. Kennedy: The Reasons Why, Mr...
...But he adds a new wrinkle: he believes the third bullet was fired after the motorcade sped up, when the sirens were on...
...Newman has also laid serviceable foundations for many other theses...
...Eugene B. Meyer e B. Meyer...
...The false can never be weeded from the true...
...The exact sequence of events that day in Dallas will never be known because there is too much information...
...Newman himself subscribes to the "one-bullet" theory-that is, one bullet hit Kennedy and Connolly...
...Or, Oswald was an irrational man...
...He assassinated Kennedy, shot at General Walker, and once threatened Richard Nixon (three men of very different politics), because they all shared a hard-line position on Cuba...
...Newman analyzes the complexities of the assassination itself...
...However, at last there is some solid material to answer the myths...
...But your friendly next door liberal would claim that Oswald was mentally deranged because he tried to assassinate two such different people...
...Newman has given conclusive evidence that Oswald was a Marxist driven by a love for Cuba, and while he also gives a very plausible explanation of Oswald's killing of Tippit, he proves a lack of conspiracy only by lack of evidence...
...Aside from the facts he has established beyond doubt, Mr...
...who else would first try to assassinate General Walker (a right-wing extremist) and then kill Kennedy...
...Over half the book is a chronology of Oswald from 1959 until his death...
...His theory is that Oswald planned to assassinate Walker right after Kennedy...
...yet three bullets had been fired from Oswald's rifle...
...He went home to get a gun and was in fact waiting for a bus to the Central Transfer Point (from which he could board another bus taking him within a block and a half of General Walker's home), when Tippit accosted him and was shot...
...The witnesses who testified to hearing three shots before the sirens were turned on, could well have heard a backfire or an echo or have been confused as to the number of shots during those hectic few seconds...
...Yet, in fact, a few days after the assassination, it was known that Oswald had close ties with Marxism and Cuba...
...Whie Mr...
...Kennedy, heard only two...
...Newman has shown that Oswald, far from being irrational or a nut, was a capable man devoted to an ideology...
...Newman also gives a reasonable explanation for the Tippit shooting...
...That is, if there was a conspiracy and more than one man shot at Kennedy, not only would the conspiracy have been covered up in a brilliant manner, but also the extra bullets would have been "hidden...
...Newman does, however, make it clear that he could be wrong on this point, a concession he does not make in regard to his analysis of Oswald's motivations for the assassination...
...If the third shot came after the sirens were turned on, neither Hill nor anyone else could have heard it...
...For any serious student of the Kennedy assassination his book is a must-and for conservatives who have long been pestered by the "climate of hate" theory, it is also a joy...
...While this is certainly interesting, it is, I think, somewhat out of balance with the first and last parts of the book, inasmuch as the chronology here is so detailed as to be of concern only to an expert...
...Oswald was a nut who was driven to assassinate Kennedy by the climate of hate" in the South...
...And, in that respect, this assassination is not unique...
...a second bullet hit Kennedy alone, and a third one missed...
...He offers many theories, in addition to giving the key testimonies of the eye-witnesses...
Vol. 4 • December 1970 • No. 2
