When I went to have a look at the end notes for Vincent Bugliosis masterful, recently published 1,612-page treatise on the JFK assassination, Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy, a book that emphatically tells readers once and for all why they should believe that Lee Harvey Oswald killed Americas thirty-fifth president, I found a few things that were incongruous. Ill get to that, but first, what about the author?
Mr. Bugliosi lets readers know right up front that he has a professional interest in the Kennedy assassination that dates back some twenty-one years to 1986, and theres no question that he has penned a valuable scholarly document to support his point of view -- that Lee Harvey Oswald did in fact kill John F. Kennedy. There can also be little argument that Mr. Bugliosi, a world-famous trial lawyer and the author of the international blockbuster Helter Skelter, is more of a heavyweight when it comes to these things than am I, a simple country doctor. But I also have a take on who killed JFK, one that I put forward in my latest CJ Floyd mystery, The Mongoose Deception.
Why believe my take on the assassination, one thats light years removed from that of the esteemed Mr. Bugliosi? Well, you dont have to, but its America, and even country doctors are entitled to their opinions. And by the way, I say right up front, in very Bugliosi-like fashion, that Oswald didnt do it.
More to the point, how do the two books differ? To my way of thinking, they differ in two very clear ways. Reclaiming History is a scholarly book of nonfiction supported by twenty-one years of research. The Mongoose Deception, is a book of fiction with a mere years worth of research to prop it up, as I point out on page 2 of the novel in a prominent disclaimer.
Since I started out to write my work of fiction, I didnt think it would matter that much that my world and Mr. Bugliosis didnt run parallel, especially since at the time I started Mongoose, I had no idea that Mr. Bugliosi was in the midst of writing the definitive JFK assassination book. But lo and behold, I made a tactical error. So thrash me with a wet noodle! I forgot about The Da Vinci Code and the uproar that ensued when the public, and more particularly the Catholic Church, accepted Dan Browns thriller as gospel. I forgot that in these days of docujournalism, people too often see fiction as fact. So in an attempt to see if my fiction paralleled fact, Bugliosi-style, that is, I sat down and read Reclaiming History, hoping to simply compare my take on who did it in a 376-page mystery and historical thriller with a factual 1,612-page treatise. When I finished dissecting the two books (and by the way, as you might expect, Mongoose took very little time to dissect when contrasted with Reclaiming History, I was left with two questions that Im sure Mr. Bugliosi would suggest make The Mongoose Deception pure hogwash.
First question: Who really killed JFK -- was it Oswald or someone else? Second question: What about the black Secret Service agent Abraham Bolden, a real-life person who claims even to this day that he was aware of an attempt on JFKs life in Chicago weeks prior to Dallas? Is that hogwash too? Bolden grabbed my interest early on in my research for Mongoose because, like me, he is African American. But unlike me, he was jailed after claiming he had information about a planned hit on JFK in Chicago prior to Dallas. To this day, Boldens full story remains untold. It is his historical presence that triggered a good measure of my interest in writing The Mongoose Deception. For the record, Bolden doesnt appear as a character in Mongoose, and for the record, Mr. Bugliosi gives him rather short shrift, relegating him to end-note treatment in Reclaiming History. (Incidentally, the end note is referenced in the book, but I couldnt bring it up in the end-note and source-note diskette provided with Reclaiming History.)
After stumbling across Boldens claim that there was a planned attempt on Kennedys life in Chicago, I read Lamar Waldrons book Ultimate Sacrifice in which Waldron suggests -- with very good source documentation, I might add -- that not only was there an attempt on Kennedys life in Chicago but that there was also an attempt planned for Tampa, Florida, weeks before Dallas.
I integrated this history into Mongoose, but there is essentially no Abraham Bolden, no Chicago, and no Tampa in Reclaiming History -- just Dallas! It seems a little strange for a scholarly treatise to skip over such important events, but since I (simply a country doctor) am not one to argue with a scholar, I moved on.
More to the fact, I am also no conspiracy buff, and I really dont know for certain if Oswald killed JFK, whether Kennedy was killed by the person I claim to be the real assassin in The Mongoose Deception, or if JFK was killed by the late James Brown, Popeye the Sailor Man, or the pope. What I do know is that end notes that cant be found in a purported scholarly work dont make a whole lot of sense.
Enough, you say. Spare us the mystery of the missing notes. We arent scholars either. Were the truth-starved public, and all we want is the bottom line. Who pulled the trigger? Ill get to that, but if I were the one doing the asking, Id first ask, were there really two other attempts on Kennedys life prior to Dallas? The Mongoose Deception says there were. Reclaiming History says there werent. Read both books and decide for yourself. But when you do, I suggest you take The Mongoose Deception to the beach, or at least to a comfy chair in your house, your local coffee shop, or the library. As for Reclaiming History, youll have to decide when and where to read those 1,612 pages yourself.
Finally, although I wont name names here so as not to spoil Mongoose for you, heres a final tidbit. Attorney Bugliosi claims that one of the people of interest as the purported JFK triggerman, a person thought by many to have been involved in the JFK hit, couldnt possibly have killed Kennedy because he was in prison at the time. Yet if you scan the footnotes to Reclaiming History, youll find that the esteemed Mr. Bugliosi admits that that person was actually undergoing medical treatment in France at the time -- and strangely, no one seems to be able to pinpoint the exact whereabouts of the person or those treatments. Thats something I think every country doctor needs to think about. Fodder for fiction? You bet.
So, enough with the comparisons. The Mongoose Deception is fiction, and Reclaiming History is, according to its author, pure unadulterated fact. Who really killed JFK? you ask in desperation. Read both books, and several others on the subject to be on the safe side, and then decide for yourself.
Copyright 2007 Robert Greer
Author
Robert Greer lives in Denver where he is a practicing surgical pathologist, research scientist, and professor of pathology and medicine at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center. He edits The High Plains Literary Review and reviews books for KUVO, a Denver NPR affiliate.
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