A HERITAGE OF STONE

by Jim Garrison ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 2, 1970

By way of exposing defects in the Warren Report, New Orleans District Attorney Garrison does a short, forceful, substantive job of arguing that Oswald did not act alone. He dwells on the Warren Commission's reluctance to examine information that Oswald was a government agent, and makes a good case that he was. But instead of resting on his evidence of an anti-Castro, lower-level CIA conspiracy, Garrison launches the further thesis that ""the power elite"" is responsible for the assassination: the CIA and the military accomplished a coup d'etat against JFK because he was ""opposed to the Vietnam War"" and promoting cold-war detente. Apart from the factual dubiety of Kennedy's intention to ""end military empire,"" this sort of cui bono reasoning is hardly calculated to convince rational skeptics. Rather, it seems an exercise in old-fashioned Louisiana anti-federal populist rhetoric, tricked out in a New Leftish ""power elite"" vocabulary. Presumably on account of pending damage suits, the Clay Shaw trial receives only a few paragraphs, to the effect that the Warren Report was not acquitted; and the reconstruction of New Orleans intrigue makes no mention of Shaw, only two references to the International Trade Mart. The style ranges from exquisite sarcasm to the somber warning that ""The government's domestic intelligence can supply chaos by stirring the embers wherever there is social discontent, and in a society depleted by years of war there will be much of that."" Assassination addicts will find no new material and a lot of loose conjectural ends (e.g. on Jack Ruby). The book should, however, empanel a broader audience.

Pub Date: Nov. 2, 1970

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Putnam

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1970

Categories: NONFICTION