nternational expert on terrorism and political violence categorizes assassinations from Henry IV to Aldo Moro, revealing patterns and trends. Three primary models are detailed: “Murder of the Mighty,” “To Strike at the State” and “Revolutionary Assassination.” Political, partisan and institutional killing are evaluated as to means, expectations and results. The page’s worth on the Kennedy assassinations accept the lone-assassin findings. Valuable overview that places the Sixties in historical perspective. Hardcover, 310 pages.

JFK conspiracy buffs were not the first to charge public officials with assassination and cover-up. Hanchett notes that some Lincoln conspiracy buffs resurrected their Catholic theory when JFK announced his run for the Presidency. Hardcover, 303 pages, 11 B/W photos. Univ. of Illinois softcover Sept. 1986.

ritish children’s book begins and ends with the assassination weekend. Jack’s early life full of competition, his military and political forays treated adventurously. Bay of Pigs “scarcely Jack’s fault”; Missile Crisis made him popular at home and abroad. All that’s mention of Oswald is that he was “an unhappy and embittered man who had once lived in Moscow”; one would think he was a Russian immigrant. Even more fanciful are some of the illustrations; one shows Oswald shooting at Kennedy from a window of a building on the knoll—that would clear up a good bit of the mystery. Part of the “Great Lives” series. Illustrated by Richard Hook. Hardcover, 32 pages, 7 color photos, 11 B/W photos, 15 illus.

ASSIVE Life magazine undertaking to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the assassination, of which a chapter each is devoted to Dallas and the funeral. The 30-page “Assassination” chapter includes several (some previously-unpublished) images from appearances in San Antonio, Fort Worth and at Dallas’ Love Field. Most are familiar, but important, photos from the magazine’s famous coverage and investigative issues. There are home-movie frames and amateur stills showing the Kennedys smiling during a stop, approaching the Texas School Book Depository and under fire on Elm; ten color Zapruder frames convey the horrific sequence. Shown large is the abandoned Vice-Presidential convertible, LBJ’s swearing-in, the casket being brought home and commuters reading the news. The 18-page “Saying Goodbye” chapter showed many large color photos of the funeral and ceremony. Theodore White’s “Epilogue” from the December 6, 1963 issue is printed intact. There are a few errors in the text, but the selection and layout are most pleasing. Remainder of book celebrates Kennedy’s family life, meteoric rise to national politics and the Camelot Years; throughout which Life played a fairly significant role. Some mention at front of how the Zapruder film deal was struck and the “coup” of the Oswald family story. Kunhardt, a former Life editor, co-authored the massive 1992 Lincoln: An Illustrated Biography. Large-format hardcover, 319 pages, over 500 B/W and color photos.

ommendable book-for-children that examines a difficult and controversial subject with candor and sensitivity. As a nod to its audience, woven into the story are references to the large family that JFK came from, and to his own small children, including a photo of the son saluting at the funeral. Oswald’s family gets no mention. Nice selection of photos, including one by Capt. Cecil Stoughton never-before-published of the grassy knoll with the Newman couple and their two small children (another nod to readers) still sprawled on the grass fearing more gunfire. No remarks on autopsy or major theories presented; just the pro and con of the basic physical evidence. Recommended. Softcover, 48 pages, 18 color photos, 14 B/W photos, 1 illus.

he remarkable life and political ascension of Texas politician John B. Connally. From his humble roots in the Texas dust bowl, to rising expectations at the University of Texas, and onto the national stage and behind-the-scenes powerbroker. Connally was a major figure and advisor to three Presidents, beginning with Lyndon Johnson’s Senatorial domination and cumulating in Connally’s own promising run at the White House in 1980. As Texas Governor in 1963, Connally was nearly killed in the gunfire that took the life of President Kennedy. As if in admiration, Reston suggests Connally may have indeed been Oswald’s primary target; if true, then Connally drew the fire that claimed Camelot. Reston reveals Connally also was the catalyst in Johnson’s decision not to seek reelection in 1968. Even away from Washington, Connally was drawn back to public service as Nixon’s Secretary of the Treasury. Then a rollercoaster of political and financial setbacks that demonstrate the man’s strength and eloquence. Chapter on assassination appeared in 1988 as excerpt in Time. Hardcover, 691 pages. HarperCollins softcover March 1991.

PECIAL REPORT from Lyndon LaRouche’s Executive Intelligence Review devotes 23 pages to Permindex, mainly in the form of a chapter-length excerpt from book Dope, Inc. Clay Shaw, as director of the New Orleans International Trade Mart, was an officer of Permindex (Permanent Industrial Expositions), allegedly a front for money laundering and bankrolling assassinations. Shaw was the Permindex “case officer” for the seven-member rifle team deployed in Dealey Plaza, gathered from a Mexico-based assassination unit secretly established by FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, and British superspys William Stephenson and Louis Bloomfield in 1943 under the umbrella of the American Council of Christian Churches (ACCC). Members of the ACCC included minister Albert Osborne, who ran the assassination facility, and “priest” David Ferrie, who in 1956 recruited Lee Harvey Oswald. RFK aide Walter Sheridan, in 1967 head of a private investigative agency, exposed as hired thug used by NBC to wreck the Garrison probe as it focused in on Permindex. The rationale: NBC’s President was Robert Sarnoff who, as wartime chum of Stephenson, owed one to Permindex. One incidental error leapt out at me: “Jerry Smallwood” should read Joey Smallwood, the legendary “Codfather” who brought Newfoundland into Canadian Confederation; too bad the article overlooked Smallwood being early to visit Castro’s Cuba to forge trade links. An opening brief links Permindex to that year’s attempted assassinations of Reagan and the Pope. Scary (see detailed analysis at McAdams’ site).

RESPONSE to then-current wave of “negative revisionism” towards Kennedy, this eight-page article conducts a retrospective that weighs achievements against myths. Problems started with JFK’s administrative inexperience, compounded by his drawing in intellectual hard-liners who paved the way for Vietnam and defined current pattern of Congress as adversary of White House. Supportive of JFK’s prudence with Khrushchev, but acknowledges Kennedy’s role in sanctioning Bay of Pigs, sparking nuclear arms race, sending 16,000 troops to Vietnam and overthrowing Diem. Mythmaking began with assassination when “fascinating process of canonization ensued.” First President to utilize TV; in return videotape “sanctified his memory.” Assassination had “dual effect”: enabled his agenda to pass while opening a “trap door” to “riots and war and assassinations and Watergate.” Mentions Schlesinger’s theory that a Presidential “activist cycle” occurs ever 30 years or so; and so it seemed fulfilled when the two-for-one Clintons entered office with high expectations in 1993. Hugh Sidey’s “The Presidency” column, a Time staple, devotes a page to Kennedy’s sense of purpose and (at times) romanticized vision that urged Americans to greater challenges, such as going to the moon. During the Camelot Years, Time was very-often editorially critical of Kennedy, and Sidey relates an incident when JFK let him have it. Last President Time conducted a reassessment of was Lincoln in 1963.

ne of those “Where were you” articles, with celebrities like Tom Wicker, Pierre Salinger, Julia Child, John Forsythe, William F. Buckley, Jr., John Updike, Alistar Cooke, Joseph Heller, Maureen Stapleton, Art Buchwald, Eugene McCarthy, F. Lee Bailey, Ed Koch and Barbara Jordan. Bill Bradley, a 2000 Democratic Presidential candidate, was studying at Princeton and first thought the campus president was the victim. Mary Travers (of Peter, Paul & Mary) was in a car approaching Dallas for a concert the group would cancel. Lee Remick was in Texas filming a funeral sequence for the film Baby, the Rain Must Fall. Dr. Marion Jenkins recalls his role in treating the dying President, suggesting that only Dr. Carrico and himself were aware of the fatality of the head wound. And yes, that’s Jackie and Ari being married on the cover. Articles on Truman election upset, Alger Hiss, Caril Ann Fugate, quiz show scandals and Beatles arriving in America make this a great all-round issue.