If you only read one book about the JFK assassination, it should be this one. The author has spent the bulk of his adult life actively researching everything about this horrific event, including talking to numerous witnesses about Oswald's life, and describing how the JFK administration waged a secret war against Castro.
What emerges is a definitive account of the whole sordid affair, much more accurate than the Warren Commission report. The reasons for this greater accuracy have to do with the passage of 35 years from the assassination to the 1998 publication of this book. During this period, many documents which were withheld fron the Warren Commission have been released, and many witnesses who previously kept silent have since opened up about the events in question.
Another factor is that Robert Kennedy and the other surviving members of the Kennedy Administration were anxious to preserve the Kennedy legacy. Delving into the reasons for the assassination, which have to do with JFK's secret war against Castro, would expose the ugly truth of that secret war, involving numerous assassination attempts, undertaken by the CIA at the direction of the White House.
Another reason for the cover-up was President Johnson's desire to avoid World War Three. For example, when the Dallas DA drafted the indictment charging Oswald with killing Officer Tippit, he blamed it on a "Communist conspiracy". Johnson called the DA in a rage, saying, "What are you trying to do, start World War Three". The reference to Communism was promptly deleted from the deocument. For similar reasons, all of the damning evidence of Oswald's associations with Cuban and Soviet figures just prior to the assassinatin was suppressed.
Obviously, it was important to present this tragedy as caused by Oswald, acting alone, and so this is what the Warren Commission concluded. Subsequent investigations have uncovered mcuh more of the relevant details. For example, the Church Committee in the mid-'70s investigated in detail the CIA's involvement in assassination plots against foreign leaders, including, of course, Castro. Also, the JFK Act of 1992 required that all documents related to the asassination be transmitted to the Naitonal Archives.
The book describes Oswald's pathetic life, from growing up with an uncaring, dysfunctional mother, to joining the Marines to get away from his mother, to moving to the Soviet Union and renouncing his U.S. citizenship, to returning to the U.S. and getting involved in pro-Castro activities during his time spent in New Orleans. The author does not cite evidence that Oswald was in direct contact with Castro, but he concludes that the evidence strongly suggests that there was some contact between Oswald and Cuban authorities. Also, Castro's intelligence-gathering was so effective that he knew of every one of the numerous assassination plots in detail. His agents had infiltrated the anti-Castro forces and would report back to Castro on what was being planned. Thus, it makes sense that Castro would want JFK dead, and he was on record as making comments to that effect, comments which Oswald was aware of.
The Kennedy brothers, especially Ropbert, were obsessed with gettign rid of Castro. The group in charge of this effort, known as Operaston Mongoose, was led by Robert Kennedy, who was so obsessed that he required the members of the group to meet in his office every morning at 10:00 A.M. to report to him on progress toward eliminating Castro. Naturally, Bobby had to wonder afterwards whether his Castro obsession made him indirectly responsible for his brother's death.
The efforts to limit the investigation started very soon after the president's death. Nicolas Katzenback, who was Bobby's right-hand man and who was de facto in charge of the Justice Departmenmt while Bobby was in seclusion following his brother's death, issued a memo to the White House stating, "The public must be convinced that Oswald was the assassin; that he did not have confederates who were still at large...Speculation about Oswald's motivation ought to be cut off." A similar message came from Dean Rusk's State Department. The pressure to tie the hands of investigators came from all sides, though for varying reasons. The White House wanted to avoid World War Three, while the Kennedy family wanted to preserve the reputation of the slain president. Now, with the passage of time, we have a fulloer picture, not the whole picture, because many documents have never been uncovered, but much more complete than that presented by the flawed Warren Commission report.
The whole sordid business of assassinating or deposing foreign leaders was begun unbder Eisenhower, with Guatelama, in whyich the CIA depsoed in 1953 the democratically elected Guatemalan President Jacobo Árbenz, Iran, in which the CIA deposed democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh in favour of strengthening the monarchical rule of the Shah, and Lumumba in the Congo in 1961 (an assassination ordered directly by Ike in January, just prior to leaving office). These despicable efforts continued under JFK with the Dominican Republic in 1961, Iraq in 1963 and South Vietnam in 1963. And they contineud under both Johnson and Nixon, until Gerald Ford in the mid-1990s signed an executive order prohibiting such activity by all federal employees.
Another lesson to be learned from the history presented by Russo is the folly of failing to help third-wprd countries in need, thereby throwing them into the Soviet camp. For example, Castro visited Washington to enlist aid from Ike in April of 1959, but Ike refused to even meet with him! Similarly, Edyopt's Anwar Sadat requested help in 1954 to build the Aswan Dam, but Ike refused, thereby forcing Egypt to obtain help from the Soviet Union, and leading to the 1956 Suez Crisis.
And now, as we face the crisis of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, we have the prospect of another Cold War (or maybe, this time, a hot one). Let's hope we handle this one with more wisdom and good sense than we handled the last one!
