JFK, Oswald and Ruby: Politics, Prejudice and Truth

In this book, former Warren Commission lawyer Burt Griffin examines anew the Kennedy assassination, its various investigations, its effects on the Cold War and the civil rights movement, and the motives of Lee Harvey Oswald and Jack Ruby. Griffin begins with his own skeptical reaction to the assassination, proceeds to the Dallas police investigation, and continues with the efforts of himself and his colleagues to sift truth from those who concealed, withheld, or exaggerated evidence. After nearly six decades of study, Judge Griffin is satisfied that Oswald acted alone. He concludes that violence in the Cold War and civil rights movement caused Oswald to believe that blame for Kennedy's death might be placed on followers of rightwing activist and former U.S. Army general Edwin Walker. Walker was an outspoken enemy of Oswald's idol, Cuban president Fidel Castro, and a firm opponent of racial integration--and Oswald had already attempted to murder Walker in April 1963. The author gives the Walker movement a more prominent place in the assassination story and traces the conflicting ambitions of Walker, Oswald, Kennedy and Ruby as they collided in October and November 1963. This book will help serious readers separate truth from fiction and to become examiners of how insignificant, unsuspected, powerless people driven by very personal needs and fears can, with the help of a firearm, alter the course of history.