 |
Someone Would Have Talked: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy and the Conspiracy to... |
Customer Rating: 
Sales Rank: 39348
Available from Amazon |
$28.00 |
Someone Would Have Talked goes beyond proving a conspiracy to murder President Kennedy. Over 14.000 documents, White House diaries, telephone logs, and executive tape recordings detail how the new president, Lyndon B. Johnson, managed a cover-up that changed the future of our country. A second conspiracy designed to mislead the nation, the world, indeed, history. Someone Would Have Talked was written to demonstrate with available information, the cover-up, the leaks, Lee Oswald, Jack Ruby and the people that did talk, providing a cohesive and coherent explanation of events. And in doing so this book gives the reader an introduction to the history of the secret war against Castro and against Communism during the 1960s, an introduction that is vital to an appreciation of the individuals, and their motivations. Someone Would Have Talked deals with specific people who talked about their personal knowledge of a conspiracy in the murder of a President. These individuals include four men associated with the CIA s JM WAVE station in Miami Florida. Two of them were senior CIA officers, one a veteran of three years of Castro assassination projects and the other a three year prisoner of Castro - and an organizer and participant, along with a former U.S. Ambassador, in one of the most potentially explosive Cuban penetration missions ever conducted.
Let me try to be constructive without being overly critical in saying what this book, Larry Hancock's Someone Would Have Talked, is and isn't. First, it isn't a work of original research; much of the theories, allegations and evidence cited have been around for awhile. You will not find a smoking gun here. Second, you will not find an objective author; it is assumed from the start that JFK's death was part of a conspiracy. Thirdly, you will not discover a detailed and methodical analysis of the evidence. Be prepared to be bombarded by a plethora of names, organizations and events - confusing to keep track of - that in one way or another, past researchers have linked to the Assassination.
What you will find is a handy compendium of some of the more intriguing unresolved miscellanea from the Warren, Church, HSCA and related investigations of the Kennedy Assassination, cobbled together and centered around a shady character with anti-Castro, CIA and mob connections named John Martino. But Martino's role in the books serves as no more than a framing device for the author's version of the most popular whodunit theory of a Mob, Anti Castro Cuban, CIA nexus that has prevailed since at least the 70's.
But ignore the theory: this is a valuable book for researchers, not alone for it's breadth of post-HSCA evidence that has come to light, but a great source of promising areas for follow-up research as well. Indeed, Hancock bullets many of these intriguing new items. He might as well have listed some of the other dubious evidence which, like many authors of such books, he does not question the validity of. For example, one might conclude that Oswald couldn't have been on the 6th floor at the time of the shooting since he was seen by so-and-so in the lunchroom a few moments before and after, with or without a coke in his hand. What the Warren Commission asserted about witness error as to time and memory cannot be dismissed out of hand without significant proof to the contrary.
SWHT bolsters the view that Oswald was clearly being used by intelligence groups, whether willingly or naively on his part, for unclear purposes, more than likely the `dangle' the author suggests. But when Hancock once more dares venture into the Oswald-Imposter theory to create a fall-guy, we get back into the gray areas of nebulous hearsay. And the online exhibits and photos the author provides on his accompanying SWHT website do not go very far to enforce his views. For example, the Photos meant to back up Deputy Craig's Oswald look-alike at the TSBD and the mysterious Rambler are like your average Grassy Knoll shots -- not to mention your typical UFO pics: blurry and ambiguous and of better use for a `Where's Elmo' puzzle. And the exhibits are mainly of historical interest and do not really go all that far to tying the purported conspirators to Oswald, the Manlicher, bullets, wounds, or whatever crime-scene evidence one chooses to believe is important.
Moreover, like most conspiracy theorists with pre-conceived notions, contrary evidence that would spoil the theory is completely neglected. For example, Hancock does not believe Oswald fired at JFK, nor was knowingly part of the assassination conspiracy. He doesn't really say what he thought he was a part of. He certainly doesn't answer the lingering questions about what Oswald was doing in his Garage that morning - same garage where the Manlicher was -- when he got out the `curtain rods', nor where the curtain rods went and why he denied carrying them to work that day. Nor does he attempt to resolve his picture of Oswald's choir-boy innocence (vis-Ã -vis killing Kennedy at least) with previous evidence of his predilection toward assassination such as that of his taking a shot at General Walker - evidence much more solid than any presented to the contrary. And of course the author completely ignores the best scientific evidence so far presented that there was a conspiracy - the acoustics tests indicating a shot from the Grassy Knoll. Since the conclusion these tests help to draw was that that shot missed, it did not fit in with the author's view of a fake autopsy as part of LBJ's cover up and so he ignored it. Nor for the same reason apparently was the excellent work from Posner and PBS Frontline of Zapruder all but proving the single bullet theory, discussed.
Still, the worth of this book is not in the theory. It is in the many promising leads of Ruby and Oswald associations with CIA, FBI, Mob, Ant-Castro Cuban and most especially, each other.
What needs to happen now is for someone to take up just one of these leads and drill down. To prove the conspiracy, the focus must be on a small piece rather than the Big picture. We have had far too many books on the Grand Conspiracy; now that a consensus has been built on who was involved and why, it is time to prove the link with the planners by following up in detail on one of these important leads that link Oswald, Ruby and the conspirators in those last few months in Dallas.
|
