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One Page of Notes Turns Into a Book
Powerful People – Outrageous Lies assembles a case challenging the official explanation of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination and the investigations that followed. How long had you been researching the assassination before you realized you wanted to write your own account?
I started researching after watching an interview about 4 years ago with Oliver Stone, where he discussed his movie “JFK” and described his own experience in combat duty in Vietnam seeing soldiers getting their heads shot. I then watched the movie “JFK” carefully and started seriously researching the incident about 3 years ago. What started as a one page note to get my own ideas straight ended up with “Powerful People – Outrageous Lies“.
One recurring difficulty in assassination research is distinguishing deliberate concealment from bureaucratic confusion, incompetence, secrecy, and institutional self-protection. How do you make that distinction?
I try to put myself in the position of the person involved. For example I was amazed by the response of Dallas Motorcycle Policeman Bobby Hargis when interviewed by Stephen Fagin of the 6th Floor Museum. After describing how he wiped a piece of bone stuck to his upper lip while JFK was in front, 15 feet away, Hargis still stuck to the official line that the shot was from behind !! The look on his face was of a simple man who didn’t want to rock the boat. He told the truth as he saw it, but he closed his mind to the obvious. I tried to imagine LBJ was just scared of starting WW3 by accusing the Russians and tried to cover up the assassination for noble reasons. That idea fell apart when I realised that LBJ was the only person who could have ordered such an elaborate scheme to steal JFK’s body from Jacky Kennedy’s custody and all the cover up actions by the Secret Service, FBI and CIA. I cannot help but see that as evil.
You examine the Warren Commission, the House Select Committee on Assassinations, and the Assassination Records Review Board. Of those three official investigations, which came closest to the truth — and which did the most damage?
The most damaging is easy – it was the Warren Commission. The HSCA concluded that there was a conspiracy to assassinate JFK, but still got the 4th shot completely wrong. Only the ARRB came closer to the truth, but they still kept many records hidden away for “National Security” reasons. Douglas Horne went on to do some brilliant work; as most humans do, he jumped to some slightly incorrect conclusions. As time went on and more secrecy agreements expired and people retired, more information dripped out. So the later investigations got closer to the truth. Now we have the confession about the “magic bullet” of Paul Landis in 2023 and the release of documents under the 1st and 2nd Trump administrations.
Why do you think the Kennedy assassination continues to fascinate people when so many other major historical crimes have largely settled into accepted narratives?
The JFK assassination had an effect on a wide range of people around the world. Australian Prime Minister Harold Holt when he visited Washington DC told LBJ that Australia would “Go all the way with LBJ”. As a result, I was called up to serve in the Australian Army, but deferred due to university study. Friends who served in Vietnam were badly affected. A recent Gallup Poll shows that 65% of the US population thinks that JFK was assassinated by a conspiracy. The US population cannot agree on any other subject to such a high degree !!!
Author Links: GoodReads
60 years after the assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy, a Gallup Poll shows that 65% of the US population believe there was a conspiracy. This book contains original observations based on up to date information including files released during the second Trump Administration.
The Warren Commission Report was presented to President Lyndon B Johnson in 1964. It was one of the most audacious lies in modern history.
The shocked actions of Mrs. Kennedy during the Assassination were important evidence which have never been properly analyzed, especially by the Warren Commission.
Mrs. Kennedy’s actions, the Zapruder film alterations, the deception of two caskets flown to Washington, the pre-autopsy surgery and the incompetent autopsy all add up to confirm there was a coverup.
The coverup shows that many things were very wrong with the official story as presented in the Warren Commission Report.
Powerful People – Outrageous Lies
Powerful People – Outrageous Lies is a wide-ranging investigative account that challenges the official explanation of President John F. Kennedy’s murder. The author argues that the assassination involved more than one shooter and that a larger group of officials and institutions later helped conceal what happened. The book begins with a focused question about Jacqueline Kennedy’s actions in the presidential limousine, then expands into the Zapruder film, the transportation of Kennedy’s body, the Bethesda autopsy, Lee Harvey Oswald’s background, Jack Ruby, and the official investigations that followed. Its central purpose is stated plainly: “The main reason for writing this book was the complete lack of a credible explanation from authorities, experts and authors for the actions of Mrs. Kennedy.”
The treatment of Mrs. Kennedy’s actions is one of the book’s two most convincing sections. After the fatal head shot, she climbed onto the limousine trunk and reached toward material that had landed behind and to the left of the president. The author argues that this instinctive movement matters because it provides physical evidence about the direction of the shot. Her reported words, “They have killed my husband. I have his brains in my hand,” give the scene a terrible immediacy while also supporting the author’s reconstruction of where the material landed. By connecting her actions with the blood spray, skull fragments, and witness descriptions of the rear head wound, the book builds a clear forensic argument for a shot from the right front.
The evidence of Dino Brugioni forms the other especially persuasive part of the book’s case. Brugioni was the CIA’s Chief Information Officer at the National Photographic Interpretation Center and one of its leading photographic interpreters. He supervised the preparation of briefing boards from the Zapruder film on the Saturday night after the assassination, while a different team prepared another set the following night. The two teams didn’t know about each other’s work at the time. The book argues that the film passed through the CIA-linked Hawkeye Works facility between those two sessions and returned in an altered form. Brugioni later maintained that the version he studied differed from the surviving film, especially in its depiction of the head explosion, which he remembered as appearing across more than one frame. Because of his expertise, position, and direct contact with the film, his testimony gives the book’s cover-up argument unusual weight.
From those two central pieces of evidence, the book develops a much longer reconstruction of the assassination and its aftermath. Separate chapters examine Oswald’s military service and time in the Soviet Union, his associations in Dallas and New Orleans, his trip to Mexico City, the murder of Officer J. D. Tippit, Ruby’s killing of Oswald, and the work of the Warren Commission, the House Select Committee on Assassinations, and the Assassination Records Review Board. Later chapters discuss intelligence figures, alleged participants, mortuary evidence, Dallas officials, and suspicious deaths connected with the case. The structure feels like a case file assembled gradually, with photographs, witness statements, timelines, and recurring details used to reinforce the author’s larger theory.
The book’s greatest strength is its insistence that physical details and witness actions deserve careful attention. Its discussion of Mrs. Kennedy and its presentation of Brugioni’s evidence give the overall argument a strong foundation, since both relate directly to the direction of the fatal shot and the possible alteration of the most important visual record. At times, though, the author moves quickly from possibility to certainty, and the lack of a full reference list makes some claims harder to assess independently. The author acknowledges that the information comes from internet sources and that some material may have been falsified or misinterpreted. Even with those limitations, Powerful People – Outrageous Lies offers a detailed, forceful, and often absorbing account of why the assassination and the conduct of the authorities afterward remain so deeply contested.
Pages: 172 | ASIN : B0FK2CB7B9
