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JFK Book Reviews - The Real JFK Conspiracy · The Lone Gunman Podcast : JFK Assassination

• 0:19
  Speaker 1: What's up? Everybody.
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: Welcome into JFK Book Reviews, a division of the Lone
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: Gum and podcast. And today here on the show, we're
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: gonna be doing something a little different than the norm,
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: which is just me talking incessantly. I actually have a
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: guest today. His name is Michael Pascoulo. He is the
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: author of The Real JFK Conspiracy, A Tale to End
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: All Speculation. So Michael, welcome to the show, my friend.
• 0:47
  Speaker 3: Well, thank you so much, Rob, I really appreciate being here.
• 0:50
  Speaker 3: This is excellent.
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: Thank you, Yes sir, Yes, sir, I'm glad you reached
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: out to me. I'm a fan of faction or historical
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: fiction or whatever you want to call it, whatever category
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: you want to put that in. I've been dabbling for
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: years trying to get my own book off the ground.
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: Just don't have enough time. I see you're newly retired,
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: so you got time and you did it, So kudos
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: to you for doing it. Let everybody know a little
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: bit about yourself and how you got interested in this
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: topic of the JFK assassination, if you will.
• 1:26
  Speaker 3: Please absolutely so. I was born in nineteen sixty so
• 1:30
  Speaker 3: I actually lived through the events sort of in real time. Actually,
• 1:35
  Speaker 3: the death of President Kennedy is one of the earliest
• 1:38
  Speaker 3: memories I have as a child, and then of course
• 1:41
  Speaker 3: later on his brother. And I was born in Brooklyn,
• 1:46
  Speaker 3: raised in Queen's pursued music as a career. I still
• 1:50
  Speaker 3: am active. I'm a drummer, saw a Ringo Starr and
• 1:52
  Speaker 3: The Ed Sullivan Show, and as a hedge, I wound
• 1:56
  Speaker 3: up getting a degree in computer science and mathematics, and
• 2:00
  Speaker 3: I actually had a forty year career as a technologist,
• 2:03
  Speaker 3: and as you alluded to, I did recently retire after
• 2:06
  Speaker 3: forty years in the field. And it's ironic because being
• 2:11
  Speaker 3: a math person, I was always prone to numbers more
• 2:14
  Speaker 3: than words. But about fifteen or so years years ago,
• 2:19
  Speaker 3: I started getting different ideas in my head as I
• 2:22
  Speaker 3: go about my various life activities, whether it's running or
• 2:26
  Speaker 3: raking the leaves, and I started jotting them down, and
• 2:29
  Speaker 3: this was a concept that stuck with me, and I
• 2:32
  Speaker 3: decided to flush it out. And that's really the short
• 2:36
  Speaker 3: answer of how we got here. Of course, there were
• 2:39
  Speaker 3: many steps between a concept and a book, and there
• 2:43
  Speaker 3: was many years and heartaches and pains, but we can
• 2:46
  Speaker 3: go into whatever level of detail that you would like.
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, because you know, well, you could have wrote about anything.
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: I mean, there's so many topics out there. What was
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: it about the JFK assassination in particular? I mean, is
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: this something that maybe you've always been interested in a
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: little bit kind of paying attention? Are you interested in
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: the conspiracy side of things or did you tend to
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: lean more towards near the Oswald did it camp?
• 3:15
  Speaker 3: I am more in the conspiracy camp. There there's no
• 3:19
  Speaker 3: shortage of conspiracies. And as I did the research for
• 3:23
  Speaker 3: the book, I would do extensive research and go down
• 3:26
  Speaker 3: various rabbit holes and it's just incredible the amount of
• 3:32
  Speaker 3: data that's out there, including your own podcast. I mean,
• 3:35
  Speaker 3: it's just the details that people uncover and go to
• 3:40
  Speaker 3: the extent that they go to is just really impressive.
• 3:45
  Speaker 3: I was actually inspired, you know. I had read Stephen
• 3:48
  Speaker 3: King's eleven twenty two sixty three, and the whole notion
• 3:52
  Speaker 3: of changing history is really one that stuck with me,
• 3:56
  Speaker 3: and that was admittedly the sort of of my concept.
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: You know.
• 4:02
  Speaker 3: Now, Stephen King is one of my favorite authors, and
• 4:06
  Speaker 3: I'm nowhere near going to compare myself to him on
• 4:08
  Speaker 3: any level, but he came at it more from a
• 4:12
  Speaker 3: science fiction approach, and I didn't want to take that approach.
• 4:17
  Speaker 3: I wanted it to sort of be a more of
• 4:20
  Speaker 3: a premise, you know, like like what if the few
• 4:23
  Speaker 3: the past was different? What if President Kennedy wasn't killed
• 4:28
  Speaker 3: on eleven, twenty two sixty three, what would that look like?
• 4:31
  Speaker 3: And why would that have been? And that was what
• 4:35
  Speaker 3: that was my starting point, if you will.
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's definitely very interesting aspect. And I loved Stephen
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: king book as well. He is one of my favorite
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: authors too. When I visited Maine, we went to his
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: house and of course we're standing in front.
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: Of his house.
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  Speaker 2: You know, you could take the pictures and everything and
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: did the little Stephen King tour and all that, and yes,
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  Speaker 2: very sci fi oogie boogie time travel type of thing, right,
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: But your book takes a little bit of a different approach.
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: Yes, And I was telling you before the show, you
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: know that.
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  Speaker 2: If I were to actually finish writing my historical fiction book,
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  Speaker 2: that it would probably be a manifestation of my conclusions
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  Speaker 2: and what I think actually went down and happened. Of
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: course in a fictional sense, but you know, real conversations
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: with real people and.
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  Speaker 4: All of that, well, you kind of took a different
• 5:35
  Speaker 4: bend with this, and and I was like, I was
• 5:39
  Speaker 4: telling you, I liked the conversation style.
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: If you could just talk a little bit about what
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: inspired you.
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: To do that and how you actually got some of
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: these conversations.
• 5:50
  Speaker 3: Absolutely. Yeah. So, once I came up with the premise
• 5:54
  Speaker 3: of Kennedy still being live, there was really two paths
• 5:58
  Speaker 3: that I could have gone down. One path was that
• 6:01
  Speaker 3: he was shot on that day and survived. But you know,
• 6:05
  Speaker 3: when you look at the footage of his head basically
• 6:08
  Speaker 3: exploding and combined with all the witnesses that would have
• 6:11
  Speaker 3: been in the hospital, it would have been impossible for
• 6:14
  Speaker 3: him to have survived, and if he did so miraculously,
• 6:18
  Speaker 3: to have done so in secret. So I kind of
• 6:21
  Speaker 3: ruled out that path, and I came up with the
• 6:24
  Speaker 3: path of a sort of body double substitution approach. So
• 6:29
  Speaker 3: my story is told actually from JFK's perspective. He is,
• 6:33
  Speaker 3: it's in his voice. And then as I got deeper
• 6:37
  Speaker 3: into my research, I discovered the JFK Library, And in
• 6:42
  Speaker 3: the library is and it's organized by every month of
• 6:46
  Speaker 3: his presidency, a daily agenda of everything that he did
• 6:51
  Speaker 3: on that day, whether it's take a swim in the pool,
• 6:54
  Speaker 3: have a meeting, fly on a helicopter to wherever he
• 6:58
  Speaker 3: might have flown. And I read it each day from
• 7:04
  Speaker 3: early sixty three up until November of sixty three, just
• 7:09
  Speaker 3: looking for anything that I could have really taken to
• 7:13
  Speaker 3: make it as realistic as possible. And there were names
• 7:17
  Speaker 3: not only in those daily agendas, but as I did
• 7:20
  Speaker 3: my research online that kept popping out. So you know,
• 7:25
  Speaker 3: JFK was very close to his brother Bobby, and then
• 7:28
  Speaker 3: Ted Soorz and David Powers were part of what's called
• 7:32
  Speaker 3: the Irish Mafia, and I focused in on that group
• 7:36
  Speaker 3: of people and selected those two individuals to be part
• 7:39
  Speaker 3: of the whole overall plot as it unfolds. They're not
• 7:43
  Speaker 3: introduced right in the beginning because he has to work
• 7:47
  Speaker 3: his way into trusting people of what he believes is
• 7:51
  Speaker 3: his life is in danger and how he wants to
• 7:55
  Speaker 3: prevent his own assassination. And I thought the best way
• 7:59
  Speaker 3: to sort of make that real is to have this dialogue.
• 8:02
  Speaker 3: And dialogue for me as a writer actually comes a
• 8:06
  Speaker 3: lot easier than just regular pros. So getting into that character,
• 8:11
  Speaker 3: you know, which is it's what I did or the
• 8:13
  Speaker 3: multiple characters was interesting, and I try to write thinking
• 8:19
  Speaker 3: you know, Boston accents and things like that, so that
• 8:22
  Speaker 3: that's really how I came up with it with the
• 8:24
  Speaker 3: dialogue approach.
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: Very cool, very cool.
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I like the way it's structured in the book,
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: Like I was telling you, it makes it very clear
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: what conversations are versus you know, part of the story
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: type of thing. But essentially, and I'm not I'm not
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: giving away the horse here, I mean that's an Christian.
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: But essentially the premise is that JFK becomes aware that
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: there is an assassination plot against him and decides to
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: thwart that by letting the assassination basically take place, but
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: like you said, a body double in his place, so
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: he actually doesn't.
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: Get killed exactly.
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: And then of course there's other events you know, with
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: Bobby and everything leading into the future and some twists
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: and turns and all of that, and again it's it's
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: a very fascinating premise for sure, very thought provoking. I
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: like that, you know, I like I like reading about
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: different aspects of things, and this is not like your
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: typical uh, you know, research like Oswald, you know, deeply
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: following what he's doing, This is totally different because you know,
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: back of that time, you talk about, you know, seeing
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: his daily agendas or a personal diary type entries, and
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: I'm sure you can attest to the fact that JFK
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: had a lot on his plate in nineteen sixty three,
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: not to mention losing a child, which is horrible exactly,
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: you know, in late summer of sixty three, and you
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: know everything that's going on in the world with the
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: Russians and Cuba and you know Vietnam, and you know
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: Bobby's worried about, you know, what the mafia is doing,
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: what the CIA is doing, and it's just a perfect
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: storm for stories, you know, to come out. Yes, And
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: I think that's like one of the most fascinating aspects
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: because you know, when you talk about the assassination itself,
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: a lot of times people forget, you know, the JFK
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: was a real person with a real wife and kids
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: and a real family and people that loved him.
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: And he wasn't just a guy who just you.
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: Know, got his head blown off in Dallas one day,
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: you know, right, And I think it's important and your
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: book really paints that picture of what a real guy
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: he was, right.
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: So let's see here, when when were you able to publish?
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: This was that this year.
• 11:20
  Speaker 3: Yes, I did. I did pursue the traditional publishing route.
• 11:24
  Speaker 3: I actually had a literary agent, which is a prerequisite
• 11:28
  Speaker 3: to getting a traditional publishing deal, but he wasn't able
• 11:31
  Speaker 3: to secure me a book deal. He was telling me
• 11:34
  Speaker 3: that these days the publishing industry is really more akin
• 11:39
  Speaker 3: to people that have, especially new authors, a lodge following,
• 11:42
  Speaker 3: which which I don't. I'm not a blogger, I'm not
• 11:45
  Speaker 3: a podcaster. I'm not out there, so I don't have
• 11:48
  Speaker 3: one hundred or two hundred thousand followers. So after a while,
• 11:51
  Speaker 3: he just basically told me that he thought my best
• 11:53
  Speaker 3: path would be to go self publishing. And then that's
• 11:55
  Speaker 3: a whole other project where you have to, you know,
• 11:58
  Speaker 3: vet and do your research and learn about self publishing,
• 12:02
  Speaker 3: which I did, and then pick a company and hope
• 12:04
  Speaker 3: that you're picking a good one. And you know, Fulton
• 12:07
  Speaker 3: Books is who I went with, and they did a
• 12:09
  Speaker 3: very good job. The timeline took a bit longer than
• 12:12
  Speaker 3: I had hoped and that they had told me it
• 12:14
  Speaker 3: would take, but we ultimately got there, so that's a
• 12:16
  Speaker 3: good thing.
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, no doubt.
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm always fascinated, you know, when you're talking about
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: using real people as characters, you know in a fictional
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: life story. Is there any legal ramifications or restrictions to
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: do that. I've always wondered that question.
• 12:37
  Speaker 3: Yes, I guess The good news for me is that
• 12:40
  Speaker 3: that legal ramification kind of goes away once those people die,
• 12:45
  Speaker 3: so all of the characters in the book are no
• 12:48
  Speaker 3: longer living, so so that that made it a bit
• 12:50
  Speaker 3: easier from a legal perspective. But yeah, really good question,
• 12:53
  Speaker 3: because I wondered the same thing.
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, you know, like you know when I started
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: writing a book.
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: Definitely, you know a lot of these people in there,
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: and it's like, I don't know, Well, I guess you know,
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: if they're dead, they can't sue you.
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: Right, that's a good point.
• 13:12
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I guess there are states might but I do
• 13:15
  Speaker 3: put right up front this is a purely fictional work.
• 13:17
  Speaker 3: I make no bones about it, and hopefully that's also
• 13:20
  Speaker 3: a legal disclaimer that covers me.
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: And this was your first book, correct it is?
• 13:27
  Speaker 3: Yes, I do have other things in a work which
• 13:29
  Speaker 3: which are completely different, but yes, this was my first baby.
• 13:32
  Speaker 3: If you will, because it really does become you, you
• 13:35
  Speaker 3: feel ownership of it, you know.
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so you have plans to write more. Is it
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: in the same vein or are you going to branch
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: out a little bit into some other topics.
• 13:48
  Speaker 3: No, there are the top more more suspense.
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: You know.
• 13:51
  Speaker 3: I'm I'm a big observer of people, and sometimes I'll
• 13:54
  Speaker 3: be sitting at a restaurant and just imagine, you know
• 13:57
  Speaker 3: what it is the stories of the people that I'm
• 13:59
  Speaker 3: looking at, and those are the things that I come
• 14:01
  Speaker 3: home and take notes on and then and those are
• 14:03
  Speaker 3: those become the foundation for a future work. So I've
• 14:06
  Speaker 3: wanted too that I'm working through right now.
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: Cool, cool deal.
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: So have you been bitten by the JFK research bug?
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: Is this something that you were able to put down
• 14:16
  Speaker 2: a walk away from or have you got bitten by
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: the bug?
• 14:20
  Speaker 3: No, I'm definitely bitten by the bug, and even now
• 14:23
  Speaker 3: post publishing, as as I'm doing things like this and
• 14:26
  Speaker 3: trying to get the word out. You know, I spent
• 14:28
  Speaker 3: some time on on you know look, listening to and
• 14:31
  Speaker 3: watching some of your prior blogs and it's just it's
• 14:34
  Speaker 3: incredible that the depth of knowledge that you and your
• 14:37
  Speaker 3: partners have and it's it just spins my head. I
• 14:40
  Speaker 3: mean it's incredible. So yeah, you kind of have to
• 14:42
  Speaker 3: like pull yourself away because there's just only so many
• 14:46
  Speaker 3: hours in the day and there's so many topics out there.
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, trust me, I know, I know, like five hundred
• 14:52
  Speaker 2: shows of topics and there's no end in sight.
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yes, there's always something to look at.
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: There's a new corner to you know, peak around and
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: see what's going on somebody, somebody new, some new character
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: to talk about when all this comes and there's some
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: fascinating characters. Yes, believe me when you start talking about
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: this topic. Yes, that you can write you know, twenty
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: books on it's crazy easily.
• 15:15
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: But uh, Mike, thank you so much for reaching out
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: to me. Let the people know where they can find
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: more about you. I know you've got a website. What
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: is the website and where can they go buy this book?
• 15:28
  Speaker 3: Yeah? Well great, thank you. My author's website is Michaelppesculo
• 15:33
  Speaker 3: dot com. It'll take you right to my author's website
• 15:36
  Speaker 3: and there are links there as to where you can
• 15:37
  Speaker 3: buy the book. But it's it's on Amazon and Bonds
• 15:41
  Speaker 3: and Noble in the hard copy if you will, and
• 15:44
  Speaker 3: then of course it's on Kindle for the e book,
• 15:46
  Speaker 3: So that's where it's available right now.
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: Nice, and I'll link up everything down the description and
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: make it real easy for people to find you. Great, Mike,
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: thank you again for for reaching out and agreeing to
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: come on the show and sharing your story and your
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: book with us. And I hope everybody out there gives
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: it a chance. It's an excellent read. It's about three
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: hundred pages, you know, it's not like you're gonna get
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: bogged down for months reading and.
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: It goes by very quickly.
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: So that with that being said, Mike, thank you so
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: much for joining us here on our first ever author's
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: corner in JFK Book Reviews.
• 16:20
  Speaker 3: Ron thank you so much. I really appreciate it.
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: Thank you, Yes, sir, hang out one second for me
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: while we wrap this thing up and.
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: We'll be right back.
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: Thank you folks for hanging out with us, and we'll
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: see you next time on the next JFK Book Reviews