Assassinations Books

I picked this book up a few months ago at a local bookstore for cheap. It's a wonderful little book for anyone that has an interest in assassinations. And not just the big ones like JFK, RFK, Franz Ferdinand, John Lennon, MLK, etc. They seriously have a few pages dedicated on people like Castro, Larry Flynt, Phil Hartman, Rasputin, etc. The book's a little bare-bones on a few stories, but there's enough in there to spark an interest in one and get you researching with other books. If you get the chance, pick this one up.

Books like these have fallen largely out of favor if they were ever in favor at all, now that pricey films, slick pulp paperbacks and the Internet have turned the assassination of John F. Kennedy into a major portion of a tremendously profitable nostalgia industry. The authors of "Jack Ruby" are not so much concerned with the activities of presumably sinister entities, be they Masons, Mafiosi or renegade CIA operatives.

Rather, Wills and Demaris are more interested in Texas in general and Dallas in particular as unique cultural institutions and how they shaped the attitudes and behavior of a small-time Chicago-bred nightclub owner who eventually got the public adulation he so desperately craved his entire life, but which quickly degenerated into historical infamy. The authors explain Dallas is a highly stratified, ethnocentric, self-consciously "new money" city obsessed with gaining positive cultural acknowledgement from the rest of urban America but is also planted firmly in the brash, no-holds-barred, us-versus-them frontier assertiveness that is Texas legend.

This, they claim, is what ultimately led to that live televised shooting in the basement of the Dallas police headquarters and the initial hailing of Ruby as a hero and then his pillorying as a murderer. Put simply, Ruby's "hit" was pure Texas, while his plaintive cry of "You all know me, I'm Jack Ruby!" to the police officers who cuffed him represented the secret yearning of many Dallasites who looked enviously upon the burgeoning cities of the Northeast (or even to their better-off neighbors) for social acceptance.

The book's only flaws are the lengthy parade of supporting characters and situations which are erratically introduced and dismissed and a writing style that often lapses into near-stream of consciousness. This can cause a newcomer to the already confusing world of JFK assassination historiography some distress, but the thesis and the evidence to support it are a refreshing alternative to what has become accepted (or not accepted) about the events in Dallas during the last week of November, 1963.

A book I have read was the Julius Caesar , The play was rather confusing because of the old dialog and the setting was played back in the ancient Rome. The story line was interesting and kept me thinking what was going to happen next.
There were many different characters with different Roman names , they were kind of confusing to keep track of because of the Unique Roman names. The plot was interesting, there were many people who though Caesar had to much power with were the consperitors and planed to assassinate him. It was kind of weird in my opinion that the People included in the assassination of Julius Caesar would bathe there hands on his blood so no one else would get credit for it.

Regarding the "Single-Bullet Theory"........

The cable television network "The Discovery Channel" aired the documentary program "JFK: Beyond The Magic Bullet" in November 2004, a very impressive John Kennedy assassination-related program which set out to attempt to duplicate (with all possible accuracy) the controversial "Single-Bullet Theory"; and it's a program which hammered one or two more nails into the "conspiracy" coffin.

The more and more time that passes, the firmer and more solidified the "Lone Assassin" position becomes with respect to JFK's murder in Dallas on November 22, 1963; while the "It Was A Conspiracy" side makes no headway whatsoever, with zero tests like that of The Discovery Channel's "SBT" test being performed to prove the conspiracy buffs are correct. Nor do we ever see any computer simulations for the "CT" side to "prove" their case for conspiracy (a la Dale Myers' exacting animation project, which, like the "Magic Bullet" program, goes a long way toward proving the SBT is a truism).

Several impressive things supporting the overall doability of the SBT scenario came out of the "Beyond The Magic Bullet" program.....such as the "log" test (with a bullet being fired into a solid block of wood). The test bullet looked absolutely perfect after being dug out of several feet of wood.

And, of course, the actual SBT re-creation itself....which proved beyond any doubt that a WCC, 6.5mm, FMJ, Mannlicher-Carcano bullet exactly like "CE399" (the actual bullet from the JFK case in 1963) could, indeed, take a very similar path through two "bodies", and then emerge in pretty decent shape....as we can see here:

216.122.129.112/dc/user_files/6735.jpg

The Discovery Channel test bullet was more damaged than CE399, but IMO the test proved a very important thing -- it proved that a bullet like Oswald's 399 could go through two bodies, do a lot of damage, and NOT BE BROKEN UP AT ALL.

The test bullet, just like 399, emerged PERFECTLY WHOLE (i.e., not fragmented at all). It's all in ONE PIECE. It's flattened more than 399, sure....but certainly not banged all to hell like Dr. Cyril Wecht seems to think a bullet like 399 would HAVE to have been if it went through the bodies of both Jack Kennedy and John Connally and caused seven wounds; and the "test" bullet caused an extra (2nd) rib fracture within the John Connally mock-up "body" during the re-creation as well.

The nose portion of the test bullet wasn't flattened at all either, which is an important factor, indicating almost certainly it took a similar path through John Connally's "mock" torso in the test, just as CE399 most-likely took through JBC's real torso in 1963 -- indicating a bullet that smashed into most of the hard objects that it hit in a BACKWARD, END-FIRST manner, thereby keeping the nose undamaged.

And another impressive part of the "Magic Bullet" broadcast was the ending sequence which had a doctor giving his erroneous opinion that the damage he had just seen in the X-rays from the re-creation almost certainly must have been caused "by more than just one bullet".

When proven wrong in this multi-bullet belief, the Los Angeles doctor was genuinely surprised. (Do CTers think that he's a "CT plant" too...only feigning "surprise" when confronted with the test results to further the notion of the SBT?)

All-in-all....that Discovery Channel broadcast did an amazing job at replicating the damage path and general characteristics of CE399. The test bullet exited the JFK mock body much lower than the real 399 did in '63, true. I certainly cannot deny this obvious difference. But we must keep in mind that a PERFECT re-creation can never be fully achieved, with every single "human" nuance accounted for (since only mock torsos were utilized in the re-creation).

With some unavoidable limitations in mind, the SBT re-creation done by the Australian team of JFK researchers in early October of 2004 is as close to the real event that I believe we're likely to ever see. And the results most certainly do not debunk the likelihood of the Single-Bullet Conclusion. To the contrary -- the results of that re-creation enhance the viability of the Warren Commission's one-bullet conclusion greatly.

I like the book it is obvious however that the author plans on continuing the story in other books. The character development is good in the book but it does leave you wondering about some of the characters,I think that maybe there are too many characters brought into the story. I think it will be explained in future books,so I look forward to the next book in the series should there be one.

I was doing a report on the Assassination of Lincoln, and this book had a lot of information. But if someone's looking for the general big picture, then this is not the book for you. It has almost TOO much information.

elizabeth of austria live life on her on term when royal women han to confrom to their courts.she travel when she felt like it.being empress made her feel repress,so she want off on advantures.

MASONIC ASSASSINATION (1978)
by Michael Anthony Hoffman II

This is a pretty informative pamphlet on some of the darker portions of the history of Freemasonry in the United States. There are three chapters, each addressing a different controversial death connected with Freemasonry.

The first is that of William Morgan, a former Mason who controversially published many secret teachings after leaving the lodge. Through a strange series of circumstances, he was arrested and kidnapped from jail and ultimately drowned in the Niagra River. The chapter on Morgan also details connections of the Founding Fathers to Masonry and by contrast reprints a letter from John Quincy Adams which is harshly critical of the secret society.

The next section is on the death of Mormon leader Joseph Smith. Like Morgan, Smith was a former Mason who in fact incorporated many of the rituals and symbols into his new religion. Also like Morgan, Smith was murdered after being incarcerated. Hoffman alleges that the influence of Masonry was so great that it even influenced the courts and the newspapers (the accused killers were released).

The final chapter is on the death of one of America's greatest writers, Edgar Allan Poe. Before reading this pamphlet I'd heard of the Morgan and Smith affairs, but I wasn't familiar with the details of Poe's death. Hoffman quotes some writers as saying that Poe was lampooning Masonry in his fiction, especially "The Cask of Amontillado". He is also said to have laced other stories with mockeries of prominent Masons George Washington and Martin van Buren. Hoffman doesn't believe the theory that Poe died of alcohol-related illness and instead quotes a story from John Sartain as having said that Poe had overheard people plotting to murder him.

The booklet also included three short appendices on related subjects. Hoffman was with James Shelby Downard the co-author of the infamous text "King Kill 33 degrees" which deals with the Masonic symbolism supposedly present in the assassination of President Kennedy. This essay was published in the original Amok Press edition of Apocalypse Culture.

I live and work in Johnston County Oklahoma. I didn't know Loy Factor, but I know many people that did.
There are one or two of the facts concerning Factors capture I don't agree with, but other than that I find the book very believable.
A must read book for anyone interested in the Kennedy assassination.

Miss Melville and Miss Manners have a lot in common -- they both hold courtesy to be an obligation and propriety to be an art. But only Miss Melville has to decide the appropriate response to a death threat! And where else but in Miss Melville's New York would Mafiosi, Middle Eastern royalty, and our resident artist share a tea at a home for pregnant teens and chat about the problems of the residentially impaired? With wittier-than-usual writing and better-developed characters, "Miss Melville Rides a Tiger" is one of the best in the series.