HIGH TREASON 2: The Great Cover-up: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy

by Harrison Edward Livingstone ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 15, 1992

Massive companion volume to livingstone's massive 1989 study (not reviewed) of JFK-assassination evidence, now a paperback bestseller. Livingstone (David Johnson Passed Through Here, 1972) takes a narrow focus here, concentrating largely on the medical evidence, and his review of the autopsy photographs and the X-rays of JFK's body--as well as of alleged tampering with the Zapruder film--leads him to conclude that the photos and the X-rays were forged. As with other assassination books, the reporter and his methods become part of the story told: Livingstone's strongest moments come in talks with the morticians who prepared JFK's body for burial. The author has much new evidence to offer, and is good at exploding evidence put forth by others--e.g., the contention by Oliver Stone (in JFK) and his expert Fletcher Prouty that a New Zealand newspaper that appeared hours after the assassination carried too much advance information on Oswald not to have been planted: Livingstone reviews that edition and points out that its Oswald info was taken from Oswald's arrest records and files in newspaper morgues and only in a most general way describes his background. The author comes down hard on JFK and Stone, whose myth-making, he believes, has set back Kennedy studies by ""major assassination researchers"" (himself included) by ten years. Livingstone argues that the FBI must know that there was more than a lone gunman. He also suggests that a bullet was stolen from Kennedy's body between Parkland and Bethesda (or perhaps in Walter Reed) hospitals, and shows how the lead fragments retrieved from Governor Connally's wrist in no way match up with the notorious ""magic bullet."" livingstone further reveals his own deep feelings about the government: ""Nobody, but nobody, gets to be president without being a puppet of the powerful business interests that own America."" Warmly written with much to weigh, not all of it fantasy.

Pub Date: May 15, 1992

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: 640

Publisher: Carroll & Graf

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1992

Categories: NONFICTION