Is there a list of the best Lincoln Assassination Consp. books for our library?

[Rhatkinson]

(05-28-2013 09:01 AM)Gene C Wrote:  This is off subject, but I never really followed the JFK assassination story much except as a teenager. How does Jim Bishop's "the Day Kennedy was Shot" and William Manchester's "Death of a President" rank?

Gene, Jim Bishop's book is AMAZING and very much worth your time. Laurie, I read O'Reilly's book and thought it was very good to be honest. It has some of the same "insinuations" that his Booth book did so I would imagine there are some factual issues just as it was in that book. Still, it was a good read. If you are choosing between the two, by all means get Bishop's book. It is truly one of the best historical books that I have ever read.

One eerie connection to Lincoln's assassination in Bishop's book was a story that he relayed of speaking with JFK in the summer of 1963 about Bishop's "The Day Lincoln was Shot" which JFK had read and enjoyed so much that he invited Bishop to do a "behind the scenes" book of his presidency. Kennedy and Bishop discussed Lincoln's assassination and JFK noted that he agreed with Lincoln that if a man was willing to forfeit his life to assassinate the president, then there was nothing anyone could do to stop him. 4 months later, those words proved very much true.

The difference between Bishop and Manchester's books are that Manchester was the "officially blessed" book of the Kennedy family, while Bishop's was not. Jackie and RFK had a falling out with Bishop over his book because they wanted it edited to omit any faults or critiques of JFK. Bishop was originally the "chosen" author (since he had already started work on his behind the scenes book when JFK was killed) but, as I mentioned, fell out with the family, so he was shut out from any further family cooperation half way through his book and they instead turned to Manchester. Both are good, but in my view, Bishop's is a masterpiece. His chapter about the returning of JFK's body to the White House that night is very moving. It reminds me of James Swanson's chapter in "Bloody Crimes" of the scene at the Petersen house.

Heath