Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 364.1524092
EAN: 9780393332155
ISBN: 0393332152
Label: W. W. Norton
Manufacturer: W. W. Norton
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 704
Publication Date: 2008-05-29
Publisher: W. W. Norton
Studio: W. W. Norton

"As good a second-by-second reconstruction of the assassination and its aftermath as I've read."—Bryan Burrough, New York Times

Four Days in November is an extraordinarily exciting, precise, and definitive narrative of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963, by Lee Harvey Oswald. It is drawn from Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy, a huge and historic account of the event and all the conspiracy theories it spawned, by Vincent Bugliosi, famed prosecutor of Charles Manson and author of Helter Skelter. For general readers, the carefully documented account presented in Four Days is utterly persuasive: Oswald did it and he acted alone. 81 illustrations.

Customer Rating:
Summary: Irrelevant
Comment: Vincent Bugliosi brought Charles Manson to justice. Wow. Big feat. I think a retarded chimp probably could have done that. Manson's hairdo alone could have put him away. Considering how many revelations on Manson's real motives continue to come out, even on such channels as MSNBC (cough, cough), I can't say he really did anything definitive there. His career has coasted on this accomplishment ever since. Correction: the chimp would've lacked the gumption to cash in with a book & movie deal. Pretty easy to get the rights when all your principals are dead or in prison. Most recently, you might know him as the crazy old duffer who is calling on the district attorneys across America to charge George W. Bush for murder with regards to Iraq. Huh, o.k. But we already have a non-armed revolution outlet for such dissent and enforcement of the Constitution. It's called "impeachment". Congress didn't do it; so hate Bush & Cheney, but blame Congress.

Creating a long, "exhaustive" volume that essentially just regurgitates the Warren Commission final report and bores us with a speculative real-time timeline, does not give us a conclusion of no conspiracy or definitively support the lone gunman theory. Now, Discovery Channel just did the best ballistics test yet conducted to check the grassy knoll verses the Book Depository. Very compelling stuff. While they didn't address the drain culvert shoot position or the Dal-Tex building, and they were vague as to their methods in the CGI compositing match at the end, it still has to force any rational person to conclude there is a good possibility the kill shot came from the depository. I am very open to the possibility it was from that spot the kill shot came and/or Oswald acted alone.

Is this the whole story, though? Not really. At the very least, there is guilt in the cover up after-the-fact. FOIA and ARRB releases show LBJ and Hoover called Dallas PD telling them if it wasn't pinned on Oswald, then we'd have WWIII since they said the Russians had done it. Memos also show they said the same thing to Secret Service, FBI, and the commission. Earl Warren admitted it in his biography, even. Real tear jerker. Oh, they were such patriots back then. Willing to lie and cover-up for the good of the nation and maybe even the world. It was a royal put up job. Memos between Hoover and LBJ, however, point to their strong suspicion that internal intell & military right-wing elements pretending to be communists more likely did it in a "false-flag" operation. Such tactics were what had just gotten the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs demoted and sent off to Europe. It was those extreme-right, pro-Zionist tendencies that had gotten Edwin Walker fired. Funny how we're still dealing with the aftermath even now with these types pushing certain policies, isn't it? The victors write the history books, after all.

Edwin Walker himself had ties to the anti-communist JM/WAVE and military's Cuba Project. Oswald is cited in an internal CIA memo where case officers immediately recognized him upon arrest as someone who'd been pitched for recruitment. They were unsure as to whether he'd accepted or what operation it was for or even which agency/branch. Well, the base in Japan he was stationed, with the U2 flights running out of, where he supposedly started "teaching himself Russian" (close friends say fluent, commission and casual friends say badly), was one of the premier oversees intell training sites for the ONI and civilian agencies. Think Camp Perry and its ilk. All other documents pertaining to this were either destroyed when head of Clandestine Services at the time Richard Helms became Director or are still under lock & key in the National Archives until...whatever. We do know CIA said at the time they had surveilled Oswald and someone posing as him in Mexico City who called a KGB hitman. LBJ/Hoover say in print CIA never informed them of that. CIA said they did. CIA destroys all pertinent documents pertaining to that. Military buries all paperwork regarding plans to murder Americans and blame it on Castro to start WWIII that incidentally Kennedy found out about and started canceling ongoing anti-Cuban ops and calling for detente.

In fact the KGB officer in residence at the embassy who interviewed him has since said Oswald was trying to get "recruited"...again. He didn't buy the guy was a real Marxist for even a minute, especially since Oswald had actually brought his own dossier...on himself. What do we make of all this? Was there some big conspiracy and Oswald was just the patsy? Was Oswald involved and expected to leave the country? Or instead was it Oswald & him alone, former intell employee or not, and all the resulting cover-up was a combination of government stupidity, Cold War paranoia, and their own self-guilt for unrelated dirt? A sort of blow back, blow up, or blow it out of proportion? Any three of these scenarios is plausible and at this point none of them can be discounted. And I think it's quite frankly presumptive, no matter how wordy and conservative you want to be, given the admitted cover-up (hey, isn't that what usually gets you?), the destruction of documents, and the National Archives access restrictions on the paper trail that remained. It's certainly possible the Warren Commission just got lucky and the core conclusions were correct in spite of their bias.

However, there are actually people out there now claiming Jim Garrison was a pedophile (OH, come on!!!), and we now know Walter Sheridan of NBC (Bobby Kennedy's friend whose illegal tactics got Hoffa an early release) went through Phase 1 CIA field training before being picked up by the NSA. Bet `ya didn't' know that, either. Stinky, stinky, stinky. I'll choose to keep an open mind until 2029 or 2039, or whatever it's supposed to be.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Excellent History Lesson
Comment: I lived through the event, then had to listen to all the speculation in the media about what happened for the next four decades. There was much confusion at the time, and I really don't think the media ever got it right. But this book puts every facet of the story in perspective. Although I "knew the ending" I could not put this book down because of the masterful writing of Bugliosi, and the detailed, time-lapse approach to just what happened. This is the kind of reporting we need in all public media today. He reported the facts, and let the reader decide what to make of it. Great job!

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Stunning
Comment: I grew up with the movie JFK and like many fell for its conspiracy theories but after reading this book I cannot imagine why anyone would even hesitate to believe Oswald didnt do it by himself. The evidence presented in this meticulously researched and beautifully crafted book is completely compelling. It literally takes many events and breaks them down minute by minute, covering that tragic day and the three days following.
The most shocking part, of course, is the shooting of President Kennedy and I felt like I was there, watching it all happen, so immersed in it that I felt I could stop it somehow. Any book that can involve the reader to that degree deserves the highest praise.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Reclaiming History..Assassination of John Kennedy
Comment: Exceptional masterpiece...couldn't hardly put it down. I am now convinced Lee Oswald acted alone. Thank you Vincent Bugliosi for setting the record straight with the FACTS. I have read all of Vincents books and it's like he is talking to you and you understand everything thanks to his details of the facts. Worth every cent you pay to get the book!
Pat Norris, Medina, OH

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Brilliant !
Comment: Given that this book is essentially covered by the reviews of its primary source "Reclaiming History" from which it is extracted, I can only reiterate the majority view here that this book is well worth reading - especially if you have not the time for the 1700 pages plus of the aforementioned RH. That said Four Days in November is still in itself a comprehensive study of the events of the weekend of November 1963 and stands alone as fine and thoroughly researched counter view to the hundreds of pro conspiracy books written on this subject.

What struck me most about this book are the many (some 25 or so) reviews of Reclaiming History in the opening pages. Why is this relevant and important you may ask ? It is probably fair to say that a good many of the reviewers represent established and scholarly if not at least dependable organizations - and that these reviewers were open minded or perhaps even reflected the majority of the American public on this subject - that Kennedy was killed as a result of a conspiracy.

But what do they now say....well words to the effect that Reclaiming History (and therefore Four Days in November) establishes beyond a reasonable doubt and in truth beyond a doubt that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone - that the majority have been duped by pro conspiracy wishful thinking for some 40 plus years. To convince so overwhelmingly is a genuine achievement and one must reflect that if so many people - who's job it is to evaluate subject matter such as this - are convinced by Bugliosi after all this time, then he must be worth reading.

So after all this time Oswald "did it after all". Is that true one may well ask ? There is no reason for the many dozens of reviewers to praise the book and still not disagree with its conclusion, but the fact is they do agree with the conclusion. Why ? Because one, they have actually read the book and two they have thought about what they have read. The fact is, if you do actually read the book you will almost certainly agree with its conclusions. Even the chances that a small conspiracy with the tiniest "c" occurred, is dismissed with ease leaving the thoughtful reader in no doubt that Lee Harvey Oswald alone killed John F. Kennedy.

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