I was in the fourth grade when JFK was assassinated. I grew up in the late 1960s as conspiracy theories about ‘who killed Kennedy’ flourished. Jack Ruby’s murder of Oswald made me suspect the mafia played a role. After Oliver Stone’s controversial 1991 JFK film, I convinced a publisher to allow me to reexamine the assassination. I did not expect to solve the case. Halfway through my research, however, I realized there was an answer to ‘who killed Kennedy.’ It was not what I had expected. I discovered that the story of how a 24-year-old sociopath armed with a $12 rifle managed to kill the president was a far more fascinating one than I could have ever envisioned.
I wrote...
Case Closed: Lee Harvey Oswald and the Assassination of JFK
By
Gerald Posner
What is my book about?
Case Closed is the definitive reexamination of the JFK assassination. Published in 1993, on the 30th anniversary of America’s most infamous political murder, it was a New York Times bestseller and a finalist for the Pulitzer in History. I testified before Congress about the findings of my book: that Lee Harvey Oswald had, indeed, acted alone in killing JFK.
Historian Stephen Ambrose said about Case Closed: “Posner has done a great service, in the process proving that a single researcher, working alone, is always preferable to a committee. This is a model of historical research. It should be required reading for anyone reviewing any book on the Kennedy assassination. Beyond the outstanding job of research, Posner is a dramatic storyteller. The recreation of Oswald's, and Jack Ruby's, personalities are wonderfully well done. This case has been closed by Mr. Posner's work.”
When you buy a book we may earn a small commission.
The Books I Picked & Why
Marina and Lee: The Tormented Love and Fatal Obsession Behind Lee Harvey Oswald's Assassination of John F. Kennedy
By
Priscilla Johnson McMillan
Why this book?
Author Priscilla McMillan was at the crossroads of history. She worked as a junior aide for Senator John Kennedy before she went to Moscow as a reporter during the height of the Cold War. There, in 1959, she interviewed an American marine who had recently defected to the Soviet Union. He was Lee Harvey Oswald. After JFK was killed in 1963, McMillan befriended Oswald’s widow, Marina, and spent hundreds of hours interviewing her. The result of McMillan’s unprecedented direct access to the Oswalds is an unmatched personal study of a troubled young man who turned into one of history’s most notorious assassins.
When you buy a book we may earn a small commission.
Mrs. Paine's Garage: And the Murder of John F. Kennedy
By
Thomas Mallon
Why this book?
Award-winning novelist Thomas Mallon explores the serendipitous world of Ruth Paine, the Quaker who befriended Lee and Marina Oswald in the fateful months leading up to the assassination. In this fast-paced nonfition read, Mallon takes the reader through the tumultuous nine months before the assassination and then along for the often-bizarre years following in which Paine’s largesse is interpreted and twisted by conspiracy theorists to somehow accuse her of being in the middle of a giant plot against Kennedy.
When you buy a book we may earn a small commission.
False Witness: The Real Story of Jim Garrison's Investigation and Oliver Stone's Film JFK
By
Patricia Lambert
Why this book?
Director Oliver Stone based his 1991 movie JFK on the failed late 1960s JFK assassination probe of New Orleans district attorney, Jim Garrison. In this investigative book, Lambert methodically deconstructs Garrison’s investigation and exposes it as a total fraud. Her prodigious original research both archives and interviews is woven into a faced-paced book that is utterly convincing.
When you buy a book we may earn a small commission.
On The Trail of Delusion: Jim Garrison: The Great Accuser
By
Fred Litwin
Why this book?
In a similar vein to False Witness, Litwin not only exposes the shortcomings of the Garrison investigation into the JFK murder but in the process uncovers the fraud and false information that are cited to support some of the currently popular conspiracy theories about the assassination. It is filled with new information from Litwin’s own extensive research.
When you buy a book we may earn a small commission.
Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy
By
Vincent Bugliosi
Why this book?
Bugliosi, the famed former Los Angeles prosecutor of Charles Manson, directs his attention to dismissing the conspiracy theories in the JFK murder in his massive (1648 page) tome. Bugliosi writes with the caustic tone of a prosecutor and covers just about every issue in some detail. It is a great reference book and concludes that Oswald alone killed Kennedy. Published 14 years after Case Closed, I often refer to it as Case Still Closed.
