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3.7 AVERAGE
3.7 AVERAGE
informative
medium-paced
Again, I say Goodreads needs to add half-stars. Three is too generous of a rating, but two is too scathing.
I will open this review by saying I have spent a great many hours researching the assassination of President Kennedy. It became apparent to me long ago that Johnson was behind the hit. I did not pick up Roger Stone's book as a means of confirming this belief. I don't, as Mr. Stone would probably agree, think that it needs confirming at this point. The evidence of it is overwhelming. No, I bought this book because it seemed to receive nothing but praise upon its release, and it was recommend to me by a fellow conspiracy researcher.
The most compelling parts of Stone's case are not new information. True, he presents a new source of it from Nixon, but the real meat of his theory is nothing new. However, when he does present fresh theory, his citations mysteriously vanish. The other big drawback in this book is its plethora of typos and grammatical mistakes. I suppose Stone cannot take all the heat for that, as he had a co-author and an editor who should have caught some of them. One would think a sentence that repeats itself would stick out to an editor.
Anyway, Mr. Stone's book is interesting, but to someone who has already put in the time researching the assassination, it's nothing to write home about. He does present some interesting new theories, but, as I mentioned before, they don't appear to be well-sourced. There are plenty of other books that can provide you the same information found in this book. The only difference is that many of those books are much more well-written.
I will open this review by saying I have spent a great many hours researching the assassination of President Kennedy. It became apparent to me long ago that Johnson was behind the hit. I did not pick up Roger Stone's book as a means of confirming this belief. I don't, as Mr. Stone would probably agree, think that it needs confirming at this point. The evidence of it is overwhelming. No, I bought this book because it seemed to receive nothing but praise upon its release, and it was recommend to me by a fellow conspiracy researcher.
The most compelling parts of Stone's case are not new information. True, he presents a new source of it from Nixon, but the real meat of his theory is nothing new. However, when he does present fresh theory, his citations mysteriously vanish. The other big drawback in this book is its plethora of typos and grammatical mistakes. I suppose Stone cannot take all the heat for that, as he had a co-author and an editor who should have caught some of them. One would think a sentence that repeats itself would stick out to an editor.
Anyway, Mr. Stone's book is interesting, but to someone who has already put in the time researching the assassination, it's nothing to write home about. He does present some interesting new theories, but, as I mentioned before, they don't appear to be well-sourced. There are plenty of other books that can provide you the same information found in this book. The only difference is that many of those books are much more well-written.
I have never read a book that promised so much, delivered so little, and pissed me off as this one.
Ignore the claims inside about "inside information" what Roger Stone has is a couple of comments he heard second hand, and some comments that Nixon made to him personally about his feelings regarding the Warren Commission. The second hand stuff has been printed long before, and Nixon's doubts about the Warren Commission have been pretty thoroughly explored in far better books. Indeed the bibliography and note section at the end of each chapter shows this-which I will come back to later.
Taking these bits out the book is a harp song to Tricky Dick, and a slugging contest against the Kennedys and LBJ (obviously). For instance Stone tries to pin the blame of Diem's assassination on Kennedy-which isn't true. The CIA orchestrated it themselves. He goes over the alleged affairs of President Kennedy which let me state unequivocally that most of which are scurrilous fictions if one actually follows the sources backwards to their origin which Stone didn't. Stone also peddles the lie that the Kennedys and LBJ were opportunistic in the Civil Rights Movement. They weren't. They were deeply involved, and fought very hard for Civil Rights in this country. See the story of James Meredith. Stone complains about organized crime in regards to the Kennedys and LBJ-another largely scurrilous fabrication. But, the specter that needs to be addressed is LBJ. Stone's "evidence" against Johnson from other sources are very shaky-he tries to portray Johnson as a man of sociopathic tendencies, but he really has nothing solid. Johnson certainly was a bit odd, and uncouth, even eccentric I'd wager. None of that is evidence that he had Jack and Bobby Kennedy murdered. So, sorry Roger. No dice.
Now, to the fun part. Stone forgets to mention Nixon's own problems. Nixon was a notorious drunk (and wife beater by the way). He happily throws the racist card against Johnson, but doesn't mention Nixon's own anti-semitic, homophobic, xenophobic, sexist, and racist comments that unlike the second hand recollections contained in this book were actually recorded in their entirety. Plus, recall Nixon's 1968 and 1972 strategy that ran completely upon white backlash against the Civil Rights Movement. Which, Roger Stone would have been well versed in as a Nixon volunteer during this period by the way. Stone covers Nixon's secret Vietnam negotiations that prolonged the war by stating dismissively that "the war wouldn't have ended anyway," and "liberal accusations of treason" were unfounded. Never you mind that the whole point of course is that it is not the duty of presidential candidates to negotiate America's war policy at any time, whether peace is likely or not. So, yes the historical record and those "liberals" are correct when together they equate this with treason. Alas for Tricky Dick.
But, I digress. Roger Stone does not present a very convincing case towards Johnson's involvement in the Kennedy assassination, whilst the rest of the book is merely just a condensing of other, better researchers' work. Ultimately, Stone himself contributed perhaps two paragraphs worth of questionable, and ambiguous material and pirated the rest.
Ignore the claims inside about "inside information" what Roger Stone has is a couple of comments he heard second hand, and some comments that Nixon made to him personally about his feelings regarding the Warren Commission. The second hand stuff has been printed long before, and Nixon's doubts about the Warren Commission have been pretty thoroughly explored in far better books. Indeed the bibliography and note section at the end of each chapter shows this-which I will come back to later.
Taking these bits out the book is a harp song to Tricky Dick, and a slugging contest against the Kennedys and LBJ (obviously). For instance Stone tries to pin the blame of Diem's assassination on Kennedy-which isn't true. The CIA orchestrated it themselves. He goes over the alleged affairs of President Kennedy which let me state unequivocally that most of which are scurrilous fictions if one actually follows the sources backwards to their origin which Stone didn't. Stone also peddles the lie that the Kennedys and LBJ were opportunistic in the Civil Rights Movement. They weren't. They were deeply involved, and fought very hard for Civil Rights in this country. See the story of James Meredith. Stone complains about organized crime in regards to the Kennedys and LBJ-another largely scurrilous fabrication. But, the specter that needs to be addressed is LBJ. Stone's "evidence" against Johnson from other sources are very shaky-he tries to portray Johnson as a man of sociopathic tendencies, but he really has nothing solid. Johnson certainly was a bit odd, and uncouth, even eccentric I'd wager. None of that is evidence that he had Jack and Bobby Kennedy murdered. So, sorry Roger. No dice.
Now, to the fun part. Stone forgets to mention Nixon's own problems. Nixon was a notorious drunk (and wife beater by the way). He happily throws the racist card against Johnson, but doesn't mention Nixon's own anti-semitic, homophobic, xenophobic, sexist, and racist comments that unlike the second hand recollections contained in this book were actually recorded in their entirety. Plus, recall Nixon's 1968 and 1972 strategy that ran completely upon white backlash against the Civil Rights Movement. Which, Roger Stone would have been well versed in as a Nixon volunteer during this period by the way. Stone covers Nixon's secret Vietnam negotiations that prolonged the war by stating dismissively that "the war wouldn't have ended anyway," and "liberal accusations of treason" were unfounded. Never you mind that the whole point of course is that it is not the duty of presidential candidates to negotiate America's war policy at any time, whether peace is likely or not. So, yes the historical record and those "liberals" are correct when together they equate this with treason. Alas for Tricky Dick.
But, I digress. Roger Stone does not present a very convincing case towards Johnson's involvement in the Kennedy assassination, whilst the rest of the book is merely just a condensing of other, better researchers' work. Ultimately, Stone himself contributed perhaps two paragraphs worth of questionable, and ambiguous material and pirated the rest.
This book was a very interesting read. If you like learning about the Kennedy assassinations this book will definitely peak your interest. Quite a lot of information that is rarely told, but really makes sense. After reading this book I now have a different opinion about what I think happened.
emotional
informative
reflective
Whether or not he had a hand in killing JFK, Lyndon Johnson was a disgusting human being.
Ugh.
I should've known better than to pick this up, based on the author. Curiosity bored the cat. This is just one raging republicans attempt to crap on JFK and LBL in one long winded and self congratulatory tome. Books never take me this long to read but I dreaded delving back in each time I sat down with it. I kept giving it the benefit of the doubt and 100% shouldn't have. It got more and more ludicrous as it went on. And on. And on. Horrendous. This is the shower drain hair of books.
I should've known better than to pick this up, based on the author. Curiosity bored the cat. This is just one raging republicans attempt to crap on JFK and LBL in one long winded and self congratulatory tome. Books never take me this long to read but I dreaded delving back in each time I sat down with it. I kept giving it the benefit of the doubt and 100% shouldn't have. It got more and more ludicrous as it went on. And on. And on. Horrendous. This is the shower drain hair of books.
as a left wing person and someone who has read the entire robert caro lbj series so far i was pleasantly surprised by the quality of this book especially considering roger stone is a right wing gadfly
I'm not much of a conspiracy buff, but this was really fascinating.
Whether or not he had a hand in killing JFK, Lyndon Johnson was a disgusting human being.