The Killing of a President: The Complete Photographic Record of the Assassination, the Conspiracy, and

The reason why this book is among the best written about the JFK conspiracy is because it doesn't contain so many words. Wisely, Robert Groden has elected to let the pictures, for the most part, do the talking in his book, The Killing of a President: The Complete Photographic Record of the JFK Assassination, the Conspiracy, and the Cover-Up. No crackpot theories, no half-truths supported by whole lies, no official whitewashing. If you look at the pictures--not just of the limousine--but of the crowd, there's no doubt that shots came from several directions. One of the nails on the Warren Report's coffin is the photo of the man sitting on the DalTex Building's fire escape, suddenly leaping to his feet and looking in the OPPOSITE direction of the Texas Schoolbook building during the shooting.There's no denying Groden's position on the conspiracy issue, but he reins in his usual heavy-handed prose and keeps his theory to a minimum. (However, based on other reviewers, it's apparent that there was more than one man involved in the writing of the scant text. Whatever.) AND BE WARNED: Please listen seriously to the other reviewers here when they alert you to the graphic autopsy photos. They are extremely gruesome and not for the weak-hearted.

The Killing of a President is an indispensable resource for those fascinated with the JFK assassination. Robert J. Groden is perhaps the most knowledgeable expert on the photographic record of the assassination and its aftermath. Not only does he have probably the most complete pictorial record of events, he is largely responsible for the first public showing of the critical Zapruder film of the assassination in the mid-1970s, some eleven+ years after the tragedy. It was this widely disseminated, enhanced version of the Zapruder film that played a large part in the formation of the House Select Committee on Assassinations reinvestigation of the case in 1976 (a review that, unfortunately, ended up a white wash similar to that of the Warren Report). Groden actually served as the Staff Photographic Consultant to this committee, and he explains how much of his evidence was either ignored or deleted from the final conclusions. He was also an important consultant to Oliver Stone in the making of the film JFK. You will find over 600 photographs and film stills in the pages of this book, many of them from the scene at Dealey Plaza and from the autopsy performed on JFK at Bethesda Naval Hospital. Several of the autopsy photos and X-rays are obvious forgeries, and Groden does a good job making the case for such serious allegations. He has also done invaluable work on the infamous "backyard photographs" of Lee Harvey Oswald, although others have presented a more detailed argument than that found here of the evidence of forgery on these pictures as well. The book is organized quite well. Starting with the assassination itself, Groden then moves on to the aftermath in Dealey Plaza and then to the medical evidence; it is here, he argues, that the cover-up really began. A chapter is devoted to Lee Harvey Oswald, with a good look at Jack Ruby thrown in for good measure. Among the interesting photos in this section is one which raises the possibility that Ruby was a witness to the assassination itself. Chapters on the controversial Warren Commission report, Jim Garrison investigation, and House Select Committee hearings follow. It is here that Groden really shifts into hypercritical mode, walking us through a reexamination of the most important pictorial artifacts associated with the murder and its cover-up.Naturally, Groden's photographic analysis of the assassination and autopsy are of most interest to JFK assassination theorists. The quality of the film and photos showing the motorcade and the shooting is obviously not of great quality. I simply cannot always see some of the things others do in the shadows, but Groden's work enhancing and blowing up important shots does reveal the presence of someone behind the concrete barrier of the grassy knoll (dubbed Black Dog Man by researchers) as well as figures on the sixth floor of the School Book Depository and the Dal-Tex building adjacent to it. As for the autopsy, a page of photos showing Parklan

every angle of kennedy's assination is analyzed in this book is tremendous detail. the best book on thissubject matter. the images are superb