Who Killed Kennedy?

Recommended JFK Assassination Books

Below is a list of books I recommend to people who are just getting started studying the assassination. In putting together this list, I've used the following rules:

• The list is ordered from the most general to the most specific. If you've read nothing, the books at the top of the list will give you an overview of what the issues are.
• These aren't necessarily the "best books" on the assassination. Some of them are rather bad books — but books you will want to read to get all sides of the arguments.
• There is a rough balance between conspiracy books and lone assassin books. You could read books on just one side of the debate, but why would you want to?
• This is far from all the JFK assassination books worth reading. If you want to dig very deeply into the literature about the assassination, you can find a much more comprehensive bibliography here.
• All the books on the list are in print as of this writing. That means that many excellent books aren't on the list. But keep your eyes open — at garage sales, used book shops and at your local library — for the following titles:
  • Josiah Thompson — Six Seconds in Dallas
  • Priscilla McMillan — Marina and Lee
  • Jean Davison — Oswald's Game
  • David Lifton — Best Evidence

Warren Commission Report Don't be put off by the fact that the conspiracy types bash the Commission's work, nor by the fact that this is a government report. It reads better than you would ever expect a government report to read. It has some marked weaknesses and it can't deal with conspiracy arguments raised in the years since it was issued. But it has some signal strengths too. Click here to purchase.
Crossfire Jim Marrs. The virtue of this volume is its comprehensiveness. Marrs seems never to have met a crackpot witness he didn't believe nor run across a conspiracy factoid he didn't accept. You'll get the full case for "conspiracy" here, the good, the bad, and the downright wacky. Click here to purchase.
Case Closed Gerald Posner. A comprehensive "lone assassin" synthesis, and massive debunking of conspiracy factoids. Its real strength is a compelling portrait of Lee Harvey Oswald the man. Click here to purchase.
The Killing of a President Robert Groden. The text is a mish-mash of conspiracy factoids, but the pictures are a treasure in this large-format volume. Click here to purchase.
JFK Assassination Logic John McAdams. From the webmaster of this site, it's subtitled "How to Think About Claims of Conspiracy." This is not a book about what to think about conspiracy theories, but how to think about conspiracy theories. Mostly, it demolishes claims of conspiracy books, but it also has some guidelines for distinguishing conspiracy theories that are merely wacky from those that have a bit of plausibility. Click here to purchase.
Reclaiming History Vincent Bugliosi. This massive volume debunks the claims of conspiracists right down to the most trivial seeming (but large to the conspiracist mind) details. Read it when you have been exposed to a huge number of conspiracy factoids, and are ready to see them shot to hell. Click here to purchase.
Not In Your Lifetime Anthony Summers. Summers is an honest and open-minded researcher who unfortunately is too easily bamboozled by suspect witnesses with "interesting" stories to tell. The book's strength is New Orleans and Oswald's 1963 summer there. Click here to purchase.
Assassination Chronicles Edward Jay Epstein. Actually three books (1) Inquest, Epstein's early critique of the work of the Warren Commission (2) Legend, a biography of Lee Oswald, and (3) Counterplot, a fine account of the Garrison investigation. Click here to purchase.
High Treason Harrison Livingstone and Robert Groden. A good introduction to the conspiracy view of the medical evidence, and much more besides. Rife with inaccuracies and wacky assertions, but fascinating too. Click here to purchase.
Deep Politics and the Death of JFK Peter Dale Scott. Not so much a book about the assassination as about everything else going on in American politics. In Scott's view, almost everybody was corrupt, and almost everybody probably had a role in the assassination. Click here to purchase.
Jack Ruby Garry Wills and Ovid Demaris. Well-written account, anchored in extensive witness interviews, on Jack Ruby the man, Jack Ruby the murder case, Dallas the city — and Dallas the state of mind. The real Jack Ruby was nothing like the cardboard character of the conspiracy books. Click here to purchase.
Cover-Up Stewart Galanor. A brief and relatively sensible presentation of the case for conspiracy. Pretty mainstream, avoiding the wilder stuff that Jim Marrs (above) includes. Has a good photo section. Click here to purchase.
Pictures of the Pain Richard Trask. Nominally only deals with the photographers who photographed the assassination and aftermath, and their photos. In reality a detailed, accurate, and compelling account of what happened "on the ground" in Dallas and especially in Dealey Plaza that day. Click here to purchase.
False Witness Patricia Lambert. The definitive debunking of the Garrison investigation, based on the full documentary record (much of it recently released) and extensive witness interviews. Shows the real Jim Garrison. Click here to purchase.
Who's Who in the JFK Assassination Michael Benson. A comprehensive tome with entries for everybody you have heard of in connection with the assassination, and many you haven't. Uncritically accepts the stuff in badly-researched conspiracy books. Think of it as the Encyclopedia of Assassination Factoids, and you'll appreciate its usefulness. Click here to purchase.
With Malice Dale Myers. This book may be more than you wanted to know about the Tippit murder, but here it all is in great detail and fine scholarship. Click here to purchase.

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