JFK: Echoes from Elm Street: A Search for Historical Accuracy on the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy

This book is very well researched and informative and does the fiftieth anniversary of the assassination much justice.

I rate this book at 5 stars because I think it delivers what a reader interested in the JFK assassination would expect in a 50th anniversary commemorative collaboration of leading researchers that focuses on the evidence, the eyewitnesses and recently released documents. The dozen or so investigators, members of the Dealey Plaza UK group, each report on a different subject of the case in the 16 chapters... more on Jack Ruby than I care to know, but very detailed and quite thorough...you be the judge dude. I believed in a conspiracy going in and this book is relished horseradish on the dog in the U.S. of Murder Inc....buy this book!

This is a very shabby book.The 500 (+) pages are filled with the usual conspiracy buff staples of fantasy, supposition, omission, innuendo, falsehood, inaccuracy, bogus ‘witnesses’, paranoia and angst. This publication is a classic example of quantity over quality.There’s far too much wrong with ‘Echoes From Elm Street’ to cover all of it here so, I’ll start at the beginning of the book and see how far I get.Paragraph four of the introduction (author uncredited) laments,“This despite a subsequent 1979 US Government HSCA finding of probable conspiracy in the murder, and lack of any credible evidence supporting the claim that Oswald was the assassin.” (p. i)The writer seems to be unaware that the ‘probable conspiracy’ conclusion that the HSCA arrived at named Oswald as part of the ‘conspiracy’ and as the only man whose shots struck Kennedy and Connally. The HSCA - like the WC before it - was satisfied that there was sufficient evidence (of all classes) to conclude that Oswald was the killer. He is named as the man who fired the shots. He was named because there was - and remains - a surfeit of evidence against him, not “..a lack..” of it.Chapter 1 by Mark Bridger“..attempts to kill Castro by clandestine means without President Kennedy’s authorisation.” (p. 2)The author of this little piece of sanitised history clearly hasn’t studied the ‘Interim Report of the United States Senate Select Committee to Study Government Operations: Alleged Assassination Plots Involving Foreign Leaders.’ (1976).The Report’s conclusion states, “..the system of executive command and control was so ambiguous that it is difficult to be certain at what levels assassination activity was known and authorised. This situation creates the disturbing prospect that Government officials might have undertaken the assassination plots without it having been uncontrovertibly clear that there was explicit authorisation from the Presidents. It is also possible that there might have been a successful ‘plausible denial’ in which Presidential authorisation was issued but is now obscured. Whether or not the respective Presidents knew of or authorised the plots, as chief executive officer of the United States, each must bear the ultimate responsibility for the activities of his subordinates.” (pp 6-7)Chapter 2, by Bill Robertson“We need to be clear from the outset that there were at least two men in the TSBD on 22 November 1963 using the name ‘Lee Harvey Oswald’.” (p. 5)This is utterly absurd. Only a fool could possibly advocate such crass nonsense. The notion that there were two or more ‘Lee Harvey Oswalds’ is ridiculous; the suggestion that these men were all inside the Book Depository at the time of the assassination is puerile.Chapter 3 by Matt Mills“The Warren Commission established that Lee Harvey Oswald fired three 6.5mm bullets from a Mannlicher-Carcano bolt action rifle, or, more accurately, carbine, in 6.5 seconds.” (p. 29)The writer’s description of the elapsed time of the shooting is wrong. The Warren Commission did not establish the shooting time to have been 6.5 seconds as Mills believes. It bracketed the time as “..ranging from approximately 4.8 to in excess of 7 seconds.” depending on which shot had missed. (WCR p. 117) The HSCA concluded that the time span of the three shots was even longer - 8.3 seconds.Chapter 4 by Mark Bridger“For a rational appraisal of the assassination however and of how [Oswald] came to be arrested we need to suspend reality and proceed as if we had never heard of him.” (p. 41)So, in order to make a ‘rational appraisal’, one has to suspend reality(?) This is one of the most ridiculous assertions that I’ve ever read or heard. However, it does explain why Mr Bridger’s ‘logic’ and factual accuracy are so poor. It would also explain why so much nonsense has made it into the book; Mr Bridger is co-editor.On page 43 we read,“The Dallas doctors would also locate two further wounds on Kennedy’s body, as well as five to Texas Governor John Connally. Kennedy was hit by a non-exiting shot in the back approximately 5 ¾ inches below the neck line..”This is false. Bridger cites the Warren Report, pages 87-88 as his source for this claim. First of all, the text which begins on page 87 of the WC Report, makes it quite clear that the Dallas doctors are not even being discussed - the Washington post-mortem is.It’s a matter of testimonial record (WC and HSCA) that no wounds were ever observed on the President’s back whilst he was in the trauma room in Dallas. The President was only ever in the supine position, he was never turned over - alive or dead - and absolutely nobody in Dallas testified to seeing any wound on his back. Bridger is hopelessly wrong. His WC citation compounds his crass error. Paragraph three of page 88 clearly states, “By projecting from a point of entry on the rear of the neck and proceeding at a slight downward angle through the bruised interior portions, the doctors concluded that the bullet exited from the front portion of the President’s neck that had been cut away by the tracheotomy.”Bridger’s ‘source’ doesn’t support his claim; it refutes it.The HSCA also determined that the shot had exited JFK’s body, in exactly the same way that the WC did. The Committee’s final Report, (page 43) declares, “The Panel further concluded that the President was struck by one bullet that entered in the upper right of the back and exited from the front of the throat..” Why does Mark Bridger not know this?Bridger writes that the wound in Kennedy’s back was “..approximately 5 ¾ inches below the neck line..” (p. 43) This assertion is also wrong.The Bethesda surgeons measured the wound to be 5 ½ inches (14 centimetres) “..below the tip of the right mastoid process, the bony point immediately behind the ear.” See WCR p 88, II H 361; CE 387 and 391. The mastoid process isn’t in the ‘neck line’ or anywhere near it; It’s much higher.Mark Bridger’s error places the wound much lower than it actually was.All of this dross (and much more) occurs within the first forty-one pages of the book. That’s less than 10% of the total number of pages. Doesit get any better further on? No it doesn’t. ‘Echoes From Elm Street’ simply regurgitates scores of hackneyed and disproven conspiracy myths as the writers give full reign to unfettered imaginations in a silly show of faux expertise.Chapter nine is written by Stuart Galloway and is entitled ‘J. D. Tippit: A Troubled Police Officer’. This chapter provides ample proof – not that Tippit was a troubled officer – but that Galloway is an inept ‘researcher’.He writes, “J. D. could be tied in very closely to Jack Ruby..”. (p. 236) That’s not true, of course. There isn’t a shred of evidence to show that the two men ever even met. Ruby acknowledged knowing officer Gayle Tippit, but said that he didn’t know J. D. On page 259, Galloway attempts to pontificate on the ‘Revolver and the Shells’ which were connected to Tippit’s murder. He writes, “Sergeant Gerald Hill at the scene of the murder went on air and described the weapon used to shoot Tippit as an automatic – the markings on the first cartridge found early in the investigation clearly indicated this.”This assertion is untrue.The markings on the shells are as plain as day and they show that the shells were NOT automatics but were, stamped, ‘38 Special’.Galloway goes on to say, “Oswald purportedly purchased the weapon only a short time before..” Really? Who said that? Certainly not Oswald. Oswald told Fritz that he’d bought the revolver ‘..several months before in Fort Worth, Texas.’ (WCR p 606). That was untrue, of course. It had been purchased from Seaport Traders, by mail and was dispatched to Oswald on March, 20, 1963. (WCR p 174) Neither Oswald’s lie nor the established truth could be considered as being ‘ a short time before.’ as Galloway contends.The dullest part of the book is chapter ten written by Aleric Rosman. This chapter is entitled, ‘A Man Of Unusual Training: The Oswald Enigma.’This verbose, meandering, inconclusive and pointless ‘exposition’ takes-up a soul-destroying thirty-seven pages (seventy three sides). It truly is chloroform in print. It goes nowhere and proves absolutely nothing; except, perhaps that Mr Rosman is a man who will never use one word when twenty will suffice.In addition to verbosity, Rosman is also prone to dishonesty. On page 334 he writes,“Oswald never told anybody how he learned Russian, not even his brother.”This is false.Oswald told Pricilla Johnson how he learned. These extracts are from Johnson’s WC testimony given to Slawson:MISS JOHNSON: “ It was [Oswald] who volunteered about his linguistic competence, and I think that he said that while the Berlitz method had helped him learn to read and write, [...] it hadn't taught him to speak. And he indicated considerable helplessness in the language. […] I had the feeling that he felt quite helpless in Russian, not that he hadn't studied it but he simply didn't find the study was useful in his day-to-day getting around the city.Mr. SLAWSON: Your article quotes Oswald as saying that he used Berlitz methods in learning the language. Does your memory have anything to add to that as to what exactly he might have meant?Miss JOHNSON: Yes. […] he said, "I started learning Russian a year ago along with my other preparations." […] He said, "I was able to teach myself to read and write from Berlitz. I still have trouble speaking."As if this were not enough, Oswald himself actually wrote of how he learned the language. In his own, faltering syntax, he said, “I leared the Russian Language during my almost three years residence in Moscow and Minsk USSR October 1959 – July 1962 I study russian elemantry and advanced grammas from text books with English speaking Russian intourist teacher by the name of Rosa Agafoneva, Minsk Jan – May 1960 [...]” (Vol XVI, p., 340.There we have it; Oswald told Johnson and wrote of how he learned the language, it’s as plain as day.Rosman is also prone to outright buffoonery. He ends his ‘investigation’ by writing, “The answer to the Oswald enigma is possibly that Oswald never existed as an actual person. He was, in large part, a CIA creation.” (p 340)Oswald never existed as an actual person?? Priceless.The cover-blurb of ‘Echoes’ assures its reader that those who have contributed to the book are ‘leaders in their field’. Perhaps they are. Unfortunately, ‘the field’ is densely populated with charlatans, liars and lunatics. The publisher’s boast brings to mind the idiom, ‘In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king’.*Note. For anybody who wishes to follow the ‘comments’ below, you’ll see that the flow of the exchanges seems rather disjointed. This is because Barry Keane - who co-edited 'Echoes From Elm Street' - chose to delete his posts and the resultant gaps make for very confused reading – as does the entire book.barry ryder

This refreshing collection of articles from the English publication "Dealey Plaza UK" contains articles about the jfk assassination from researchers from the UK, many of whom have unique approachs to the evidence. Like most jaded Europeans, these authors are comfortable with the idea of conspiracy, and make their points based on examinations of the existing documents and interviews with often overlooked witnesses. My personal favorite is an article by well regarded UK researcher Alaric Rosman about Oswald's fluency in the Russian language,and a timeline regarding same.

This outstanding book, a meticulous review of the JFK assassination, looks to be the great new reference book to the tragedy. I am buying several copies as gifts to friends who never believed the cock and bull story about Lee Harvey Oswald being the lone gunman. Can not recommend this work highly enough----TEN STARS!