Why was Booth admitted into the presidential box?

[loetar44]

(04-25-2015 02:30 PM)RJNorton Wrote:  

(04-25-2015 11:09 AM)loetar44 Wrote:  I mentioned the 1980s, because (with no change in evidence) Forbes was never mentioned before and after the 1980s he suddenly was.

Hi Kees. Maybe I am not understanding correctly what you are saying. Are you saying no authors mentioned Forbes' presence prior to 1980? Otto Eisenschiml, in his 1937 Why Was Lincoln Murdered, discusses Forbes' presence at Ford's in chapter 4.

Hi Roger,
What I wanted to say is that Forbes' role in the whole assassination story was “changed” after the 1980’s. Of course I do not doubt Forbes’ presence in or near Ford’s (think of Taltavull’s bar) at the moment of the assassination and that he was in the carriage that rode the Lincolns to Ford’s Theatre.

However, what I ment to say is that the consensus of opinion, which prevailed from the late 19th century until the 1980’s, was that Lincoln was “unprotected” because “Parker had left his post”. In the 1980’s this consensus was “destroyed”. Suddenly Forbes was in the Dress Circle and watched the outer door. Why this change in views? Even Jim Bishop’s “The Day Lincoln Was Shot” (1955, a huge bestseller and a great assassination account) omits reference to Forbes.

The first book on the assassination written by an academic historian was (as far as I know) Hatchett’s book in 1983 (or was it the second ?) and since Hatchett’s work was published historians, both academic and nonacademic, began to see Forbes as the man who allowed Booth to enter the presidential box. That’s why I wonder: do we now have a better understanding of events in Ford’s as a result of the post-1980 historical research of trained academic historians, while (in my thoughts) the evidence has not substantially changed.

As I have understood, prior to the 1980's, books about the Lincoln assassination all had been written by journalists or nonprofessionally trained historians, whose research usually did not extend beyond secondary sources (my thoughts). According to me, the sources are still secondary. So why that change?