Final_Judgment

492 The Battle of the Books [395]
in the E. Howard Hunt libel case that—get this—Lane may have been
helping cover-up for so-called Texas oil barons who were involved in the
assassination and who, Livingstone contends are the financial backers of
Liberty Lobby. (Which, I hasten to add, is just not true, Livingstone's
delirious rantings notwithstanding.)
These mammoth volumes contribute absolutely nothing to JFK
assassination research, yet a major publisher has picked up these volumes,
printed them and given them widespread distribution. Two of the volumes
even made the New York Times best-seller lists! Livingstone has alienated
all the major JFK assassination researchers with his bizarre behavior and
yet, for some reason, his books have been given this undue distribution. I
have to think that there is an agenda behind the widespread distribution of
Livingstone's nonsense: to muddy the waters further and to present
Livingstone's rather unusual persona to the general public as the definition
of what a "best-selling JFK researcher" happens to be.
I have to point out that Livingstone even suggests that perhaps
Abraham Zapruder, who filmed the famous 8 mm motion picture of the
assassination, was somehow a part of the conspiracy, placed on the scene to
provide a record of the assassination for the conspirators! However, there is
emerging evidence that the Zapruder film itself has been doctored.
Now as I say the only reason that I have even spent this much time
discussing the books by Livingstone is that I am disturbed that they have
gotten the widespread distribution that they have. I bear Livingstone no ill
will and I emphasize that I don't doubt his personal sincerity, but I question
the motivations and the wisdom of his publisher.
THE CASE OF GERALD POSNER
The case of Gerald Posner is one that deserves special analysis, to say
the least. Although the media widely hailed Gerald Posner's Case Closed as
"the last word" on the JFK assassination conspiracy, the fact is that the
book would be more accurately described, in many ways as "the first word." I
personally discovered more than a handful of blatant contradictions and
distortions appearing in the pages of the book after only a cursory review.
Then, upon actually reading the book, I realized that it was little more than a
rehash of the Warren Commission Report's biographical overview of the life
of Lee Harvey Oswald.
So with Case Closed we have indeed come full circle with this muchtouted
book being hardly more than an up-dated reaffirmation of "the first
word"—the Warren Report—coupled with fierce and malicious personal
attacks on JFK assassination researchers and witnesses whose views run
contrary to the Warren Commission.
There are lots of criticisms of Case Closed by many, many people, but
I'll outline just a few of my own random comments based upon my own
review of the book. Had I spent more time reviewing Posner's volume, I'm
sure I could have found many more contradictions, but those that I cite here, I
think, are highly representative of his highly misleading work.