Latest / The Lone Gunman Podcast : JFK Assassination / JFK Book Reviews - Reasonable Doubt By Henry Hurt

Transcript

JFK Book Reviews - Reasonable Doubt By Henry Hurt · The Lone Gunman Podcast : JFK Assassination

0:02
Speaker 1: What's up, everybody, and welcome to JFK Book Reviews, a
0:05
Speaker 1: division of the Lone Gunman Podcast. My name is Rob Clark.
0:09
Speaker 1: Along with me is Joe Borelli. We are the co
0:11
Speaker 1: host of that podcast and this book review show. And
0:15
Speaker 1: today we're gonna be reviewing the book Reasonable Doubt, an
0:21
Speaker 1: investigation into the assassination of President Kennedy. And it's a
0:26
Speaker 1: thick boy. It's a hard boy, stick and hard Joe.
0:34
Speaker 1: And one cool thing I wanted to show everybody about
0:38
Speaker 1: this book is it's personalized and not to me. I'm
0:46
Speaker 1: gonna put this up here. Yeah to John F. Kennedy
0:51
Speaker 1: Junior with nice thoughts about you your visit to Chatham
0:58
Speaker 1: with Daryl Hannah when making Crazy People Henry Hurt.
1:04
Speaker 2: Wow, what other book did you have, Rob, wasn't it
1:10
Speaker 2: addressed that we did to? Uh?
1:12
Speaker 1: It was this one?
1:13
Speaker 2: JFK Junior. Oh that's that one.
1:15
Speaker 1: Okay, Yeah, it's this one.
1:17
Speaker 2: Wow?
1:19
Speaker 1: How cool is that?
1:20
Speaker 2: That is? That is awesome? Man?
1:22
Speaker 1: So I have John F. Kennedy Junior's official copy of
1:26
Speaker 1: this book That is Awesome by Henry Hurt. So, Joe,
1:33
Speaker 1: if you can tell us a little bit more about
1:35
Speaker 1: this book and the author.
1:37
Speaker 2: Sure copyrighted in nineteen eighty five. It was first published
1:42
Speaker 2: in hardcover by Holt, Ryan, Hart and Winston in New York,
1:52
Speaker 2: and then published in Canada a year later by First
1:56
Speaker 2: Owl Book Edition in nineteen eighty seven. So I guess
2:00
Speaker 2: it wasn't frowned upon Canada as we say, right, Well.
2:08
Speaker 1: It was an American priority, as it should be.
2:13
Speaker 2: So. Henry C. Hurt was a prominent American investigative journalist, editor,
2:18
Speaker 2: and author known for his in depth reporting on espionage, terrorism, disasters,
2:25
Speaker 2: and human interest stories. With a career spanning over fifty years.
2:30
Speaker 2: He worked as the editor at large for Reader's Digest
2:36
Speaker 2: in the seventies and the eighties. He specialized in uncovering
2:41
Speaker 2: hidden truths and crafting compelling narratives, particularly during the golden
2:47
Speaker 2: era of long form magazine. And yes, as they say,
2:56
Speaker 2: he had only he only wrote one other book, and
3:00
Speaker 2: that was called Chadrin probably, but during that the Spy
3:05
Speaker 2: Who Never Came Back, which was a book about a
3:07
Speaker 2: Soviet defector turned double agent who vanished in Vienna in
3:12
Speaker 2: nineteen seventy five. So you can kind of see a
3:15
Speaker 2: trend here. The book has fourteen chapters, five hundred and
3:24
Speaker 2: fifty five pages total, about four hundred and forty meat
3:28
Speaker 2: and potatoes. The notte section is thorough robbed, to say
3:33
Speaker 2: the least. It's eighty five pages of endnotes and sometimes
3:39
Speaker 2: chapters have hundreds of nototes and sourcing per chapter. And
3:44
Speaker 2: you know, when we review these books, we'd take into
3:49
Speaker 2: consideration when they were written. And of course this is
3:54
Speaker 2: you know, a few years after the HCA, before some
3:58
Speaker 2: of before the JFK movie and some of the documents
4:02
Speaker 2: that were released after. So it has a bibliography section
4:09
Speaker 2: about eight pages long, followed by an index section, and
4:11
Speaker 2: it also includes about thirty two pages of photographs. So
4:17
Speaker 2: if you go to Amazon, rob there is only one
4:20
Speaker 2: hardcover copy left and it is seventy six dollars and
4:27
Speaker 2: sixty six cents paperback forty three bucks. But as we
4:33
Speaker 2: like to do here, I'd like to give our readers
4:37
Speaker 2: all the you know, the good hints. You can get
4:42
Speaker 2: it on thrift books hardcover for six dollars.
4:49
Speaker 1: A steal, and probably on eBay two for cheaper.
4:53
Speaker 2: Yeah, well eBay. I saw it around the twenty dollars range.
4:58
Speaker 2: I didn't look hard, but but thrift books seemed to
5:01
Speaker 2: seem to be the best.
5:02
Speaker 1: Uh, that's what she said.
5:04
Speaker 2: Option, Yeah, right, it is a hard one. And yeah,
5:09
Speaker 2: and without doubt, Rob, this book definitely has a conspiracy.
5:13
Speaker 1: Lead to it. Yes, it does, Joe. And you know,
5:21
Speaker 1: this book, as you mentioned, was written in the early eighties,
5:28
Speaker 1: and this is a time when not very many books
5:34
Speaker 1: were coming out about the Kennedy assassination. Although you would
5:38
Speaker 1: think that there would be, especially after the House Select
5:42
Speaker 1: Committee on Assassinations investigation.
5:45
Speaker 3: Yep.
5:48
Speaker 1: And I'm sure there were more than a few, but
5:51
Speaker 1: there is only a few I feel that jump out
5:55
Speaker 1: to me as being some of the best of that
6:00
Speaker 1: decade pre JFK movie when everything got set off. You
6:05
Speaker 1: have this book Reasonable Doubt by Henry Hurt, you have
6:09
Speaker 1: Best Evidence by David Lifton, and you have Crossfire by
6:13
Speaker 1: Jim Mars. Those are the three of the top eighties
6:18
Speaker 1: books if you will to me personally, that I think
6:23
Speaker 1: substantially contributed to the case. There's of course, books written
6:29
Speaker 1: out there that do not contribute significantly to the case.
6:34
Speaker 1: Now where this book departs from its ancestors, if you will,
6:41
Speaker 1: you know it does it goes through you know, the
6:43
Speaker 1: atmosphere of the day, how everything was going in Dallas
6:48
Speaker 1: and the country at the time. Of course, he touches
6:52
Speaker 1: on the Warren Commission and how dishonest of an investigation
6:59
Speaker 1: that it was, and he definitely cites examples, and as
7:03
Speaker 1: Joe mentioned, you know, this book is footnoted to the extreme,
7:09
Speaker 1: which I'm a fan of, because when somebody just starts
7:12
Speaker 1: throwing facts out there or innuendo whatever, you know, what
7:18
Speaker 1: have you, it's shit. Sorry, it's nice to see some
7:25
Speaker 1: of this stuff footnoted so you can go back and
7:29
Speaker 1: look and see where it came from, Like where is
7:31
Speaker 1: he getting this from? And this book is excellently footnoted,
7:35
Speaker 1: like as Joe said, to the extreme. But that's a
7:39
Speaker 1: good thing. Of course. He goes through the autopsy and
7:43
Speaker 1: the problems with that, and the magic bullet and the
7:45
Speaker 1: problems with that, you know, not really breaking new ground
7:49
Speaker 1: as far as his observations on these things, but just
7:55
Speaker 1: kind of giving it his own spin. And I really
8:00
Speaker 1: joy his writing style. It's very matter of fact. It's
8:03
Speaker 1: not trying to sell you something, it's it's simply relating
8:09
Speaker 1: and relying on documents. I win his testimony and all
8:16
Speaker 1: of it's heavily footnoted. I think he was the first
8:21
Speaker 1: first author to touch upon the Tippitt murder as a
8:30
Speaker 1: quote unquote Rosetta stone, you know, for trying. You know, basically,
8:35
Speaker 1: if you can figure out what happened to J. D. Tippett,
8:38
Speaker 1: it's going to open up the rest of the story, right.
8:44
Speaker 1: And his analysis of the of the tip and murder
8:46
Speaker 1: is very good for the time, because I don't know
8:49
Speaker 1: of any author before this that did that. I mean,
8:55
Speaker 1: the HSCA spent a little time on tipp It. The
8:58
Speaker 1: Warran Commission spent virtually no time I'm on Tippet, and
9:01
Speaker 1: and what they did focus on was highly influenced by
9:07
Speaker 1: the Dallas Police and their dog and Pony show. When
9:12
Speaker 1: it came to the Oswald's show ups and the lineups
9:15
Speaker 1: and the and the Tippet witnesses and all of that,
9:18
Speaker 1: he does. He does touch on Ruby a bit and
9:21
Speaker 1: the mafia connections there, which is good to see. I
9:25
Speaker 1: believe he was also one of the first people out
9:27
Speaker 1: there to coin the term Joe fingerprints of intelligence right
9:34
Speaker 1: where where you can kind of attribute certain things that
9:37
Speaker 1: Oswald does or says or has done as having fingerprints
9:45
Speaker 1: of intelligence all over him, you know, as if he's
9:47
Speaker 1: being directed like a chess piece on a giant chess board.
9:51
Speaker 2: Yes, a phrase we hear a lot in the JFK
9:55
Speaker 2: research community.
9:56
Speaker 1: Yes, And you know, for somebody to to spend as
10:02
Speaker 1: much time as he does in this book on New Orleans,
10:05
Speaker 1: it was very refreshing to see because again there was
10:09
Speaker 1: not a lot of that either. It was basically Jim
10:13
Speaker 1: Garrison pushing that narrative. You didn't see that from a
10:18
Speaker 1: lot of other writers except Harold Wiseberg. But it was
10:22
Speaker 1: very good to see that. He also spends a good
10:25
Speaker 1: bit of time on Cuba and the odd movements of
10:29
Speaker 1: various Cubans and the CIA's relationship with Cuban exiles. He
10:35
Speaker 1: talks about Jim Wave in this book in nineteen eighty
10:38
Speaker 1: five is forty years ago, folks, So very good stuff there.
10:44
Speaker 1: And where you've heard us talk about this book before.
10:48
Speaker 1: It has to do with a witness who he found
10:53
Speaker 1: named Robert Easterling. And this is the Robert Easterling story.
10:57
Speaker 1: And why is it important? Well, it's not really important
11:03
Speaker 1: as far as the entire narrative, but there are bits
11:07
Speaker 1: and pieces of it that will make you go hmm hmm,
11:12
Speaker 1: that's for sure. Well, damn, that makes sense, you know,
11:16
Speaker 1: he There has always been some kind of confusion about
11:19
Speaker 1: with the August one Oswald letter to the Fair Play
11:22
Speaker 1: for Cuba Committee headquarters in which he describes an incident
11:26
Speaker 1: that has not happened yet, and that would be a
11:29
Speaker 1: run in with some Cubans and arrest by the police.
11:35
Speaker 1: And it's always been assumed that, okay, well, either Oswald
11:40
Speaker 1: has has a you know, fortune teller powers where you
11:44
Speaker 1: can see the future, or this may have been an
11:48
Speaker 1: orchestrated event, or or there was another incident before that
11:56
Speaker 1: one that we didn't really know about until we heard
11:59
Speaker 1: from Robert Easterling and his version of events about a
12:03
Speaker 1: prior fractice if you will, then involved Oswald and or
12:09
Speaker 1: Speni as Havana Bar and getting into an argument with
12:14
Speaker 1: from Cubans. They beat him up, threw him out on
12:17
Speaker 1: the street, the cops were called, nobody got arrested, nobody
12:23
Speaker 1: filmed it. That's basically the story, but the timing of
12:30
Speaker 1: it becomes important. So highly recommend if you're going to
12:35
Speaker 1: read this book, make sure you check that chapter out
12:37
Speaker 1: because it's a wild one and at the end, you know,
12:46
Speaker 1: of course he's writing this book from a point of
12:48
Speaker 1: patriotism and love for his country and wanting to see
12:53
Speaker 1: justice done in this case. And of course he doesn't
12:57
Speaker 1: think justice was done in this case by framing Oswald
13:02
Speaker 1: as the lone Patsy to take the brunt of history's
13:07
Speaker 1: punishment for the crime. And he urges other people to
13:13
Speaker 1: continue the fight which we're doing, and to expand upon
13:17
Speaker 1: his work. And I find it interesting, Joe, this is
13:19
Speaker 1: the last book he ever wrote and died thirty years
13:26
Speaker 1: after he wrote it. He kind of he kind of
13:32
Speaker 1: did his thing, He said his piece, he wrote his masterpiece,
13:36
Speaker 1: and then he just kind of fell off. He didn't
13:38
Speaker 1: get involved in all that horseshit going on in the
13:42
Speaker 1: nineties with conferences and you know, Ricky White coming out
13:47
Speaker 1: and James Files. You know, he kind of stayed back.
13:50
Speaker 1: He wrote his book. He was done. We're done, Donski.
13:56
Speaker 1: So I admire him for that, although you know, I
14:00
Speaker 1: always I always a muse about it would be nice
14:04
Speaker 1: to see what these guys, you know, if he would
14:08
Speaker 1: have wrote another book, follow up a book in like
14:09
Speaker 1: twenty years after some of these files came out. But
14:15
Speaker 1: that being said, Joe, give us your thoughts about it
14:17
Speaker 1: in your rating.
14:18
Speaker 2: Sure much like Howard Rothman, right presumed guilty that I
14:24
Speaker 2: believe that.
14:24
Speaker 1: Was his only book as well, right, yeah, yeah.
14:28
Speaker 2: JFK book or only book but for.
14:33
Speaker 1: For this jaff Yeah.
14:36
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think you know, this book touches on almost
14:41
Speaker 2: all aspects of the JFK assassination. You know, it goes
14:44
Speaker 2: through you know, the Magic Bullet, Oswalt, Sniper and the
14:49
Speaker 2: Sniper's Perch, puzzles of Daily Plaza, the Tippet Murder. Like
14:53
Speaker 2: you mentioned Jack Ruby, figure Prince of Intelligence, New Orleans,
14:59
Speaker 2: and I I believe you're writing it was the first
15:01
Speaker 2: one to publish the Easterly claims, which I think were
15:05
Speaker 2: probably the most controversial rob because he was later committed
15:12
Speaker 2: to a mental institution I believe in seventy six, so
15:17
Speaker 2: that there are some doubts about the legitimacy of his claims.
15:21
Speaker 2: But you know it's for written almost forty years ago. Man,
15:28
Speaker 2: it still holds up. It holds up.
15:31
Speaker 3: And I actually think it's like a really maybe top
15:38
Speaker 3: ten book for people getting into the JFK assassination, just
15:43
Speaker 3: based on like the broad topics he covers and the
15:48
Speaker 3: really great way he writes.
15:51
Speaker 2: His writing style is great. So I am going to
15:56
Speaker 2: give this a very, very solid and Rob has said,
16:00
Speaker 2: I can't do zero point five's anymore. I was going
16:04
Speaker 2: in between eight and nine. I'm gonna give it a
16:07
Speaker 2: solid eight guns up from the Joe B. So what's
16:13
Speaker 2: here with a triple B?
16:15
Speaker 1: Wait to round it down, Joe, Ah, Yes, I.
16:22
Speaker 2: Want I want to keep my nines, you know, yeah, rare, rare, you.
16:27
Speaker 1: Know, you know, some of the stuff we didn't touch
16:32
Speaker 1: upon in this book. But he also did a lot
16:34
Speaker 1: of interviews with Oswald's marine buddies in person. There's a
16:39
Speaker 1: lot of pictures of them, guys, you know how they
16:41
Speaker 1: look at the time of the book forty years ago,
16:45
Speaker 1: and a lot of them have some very interesting insights
16:48
Speaker 1: about their interactions with Oswald while in the Marine Corps.
16:52
Speaker 1: So for that alone, I mean, that's that's that's great.
16:55
Speaker 1: And uh, as Joe mentioned, you know, this is a
16:58
Speaker 1: great primer for those who are just coming into the
17:01
Speaker 1: assassination and aren't really familiar with a lot it. It
17:05
Speaker 1: goes to a lot, but it's all the important stuff
17:08
Speaker 1: that you need to know, and it really hasn't lost
17:11
Speaker 1: anything over time. It holds up well, you know, of course,
17:16
Speaker 1: it doesn't have any of the new documentation in it
17:19
Speaker 1: to bolster his positions, but and that would help. But
17:25
Speaker 1: it's a very good primer for what it is. And
17:29
Speaker 1: I really enjoyed this book, and I'm going to have
17:34
Speaker 1: to give it Joe Man for what it is for
17:43
Speaker 1: when it came out, for the work done on it.
17:48
Speaker 1: All that being said, I'm going to give it a
17:52
Speaker 1: solid eight guns up as well. I won't go nine
17:59
Speaker 1: because no, it's not quite there yet, but it definitely
18:04
Speaker 1: is not seven worthy, So eight it is. It's a
18:08
Speaker 1: great book. I highly recommend it, so make sure you
18:13
Speaker 1: check it out and pick it up if you can.
18:15
Speaker 1: It's a good one. With that being said, if you
18:18
Speaker 1: enjoy this book review, you're gonna love the podcast we do.
18:21
Speaker 1: It's called the Lone Guming Podcast, and it's all about
18:25
Speaker 1: investigating the murder of John F. Kennedy and all of
18:28
Speaker 1: the various bit players and places and things, you know,
18:33
Speaker 1: just surrounding the entire assassination. We go off on different
18:36
Speaker 1: topics every week, So if you dig this, you're gonna
18:39
Speaker 1: dig that. With that being said, we thank you for
18:42
Speaker 1: watching the book review and we'll see you next week.
18:46
Speaker 1: In the meantime, check out some of these videos, Joe.
18:51
Speaker 2: Definitely do and may hope to see you on Friday
18:55
Speaker 2: night and next time.
18:57
Speaker 1: That's right, piece folks.
18:59
Speaker 2: Later