REVIEW: The JFK Assassination Chokeholds

During my many years of teaching at different universities, nearly all my colleagues insisted that Lee Harvey Oswald alone assassinated President Kennedy, even while the general public questioned such a conclusion. This disparity between gown and town always amused and informed me that something in the “higher education” world was low indeed.

Despite the fact that we agreed on many political matters, my academic colleagues laughed at all my writing and courses that presented overwhelming evidence that there was a conspiracy to kill JFK, led by the Central Intelligence Agency.  They reveled in their certitude, good humored as it was, but refused to research the matter. They were smug.

Here is an excellent book that, if they would read it with open minds, would, as its subtitle says – inescapably prove that there was a conspiracy – and if Jack Ruby had not killed Oswald and he had been given a fair trial, Oswald would have been acquitted.  Written by James DiEugenio, Paul Bleau, Matt Crumpton, Andrew Iler, and Mark Adamczyk, The JFK Assassination Chokeholds lives up to its claim and then some.

For most readers of the general public, the amount of information it contains that proves the official version of the assassination is clearly false may be overwhelming, but for anyone with any scholarly pretensions or who has a particular interest in the JFK assassination, this book is essential.  It will last a long time as a key historical document.  For the general reader, one or two chapters should suffice to convince them that the authors have emphatically proven their points.  And to grasp these points and fully realize that President John F. Kennedy was assassinated by elements of his own government led by the CIA and that the mass media were accessories after the fact to this terrible crime – to let this really sink in – well, nothing is more important in understanding what is going on today.

The five authors, two prominent JFK researchers (most notably Jim DiEugenio) and three attorneys, combine forces to create a volume backed by 700 references that provides ten different arguments, or chokeholds, that prove “1. There was a conspiracy in the murder of JFK, and 2. That the chokehold issues provide more than a reasonable doubt that would have made it impossible to convict Lee Harvey Oswald in a criminal trial.”

By chokeholds they mean a body of evidence that leads to an indisputable conclusion since their lists of evidence are so powerful.  Additionally, they further their arguments through the concept of consilience: “That even if one element cannot prove a fact on its own, the concordance of evidence from unrelated sources converges on a conclusion.”

From beginning to end, through each of the ten chapters in between, they build and build and build their case so powerfully, not through conjecture but with solid confirmed evidence, that by the time one is finished reading, it is impossible to not realize that the assassination of the president was a government hit job and that Oswald was exactly what he said – “a patsy.”  If like me, you need no convincing and believe that engaging in pseudo-debates about the assassination only plays into the hands of the killers – as if to say we don’t yet know the truth – you still should read this excellent book with admiration for the authors’ thoroughness and unique method of argumentation.

The evidence presented throughout has been accumulated for 60 years, not just by official government investigations but by independent researchers, accelerated greatly due to Oliver Stone’s brilliant 1991 film, JFK, that forced the U.S. government to pass the 1992 JFK Assassination Records Collection Act and then in 1994 the Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB) that resulted in the declassification of tens of thousands of documents.

If a reader just read Chapter 7, “The Evidentiary Mess of the Twentieth Century,” by James DiEugenio, a chapter of just 16 pages but supported by 47 footnotes about the medical evidence and the official autopsy, one would immediately realize that only government officials were capable of patching up the back of Kennedy’s head wound to make it appear intact and forging photos to conceal the massive cavity caused by a bullet from the front.  That conspiracy about the larger conspiracy is all a reasonable person needs to know to prove the assassination was a government operation from beginning to end, and that Oswald did not kill John Kennedy.

But the book contains chapter after chapter like that one.

Chapter 1  – “The Official Record Impeaches the Warren Commission” – by JFK researcher Paul Bleau opens the book with a thorough review of all the official investigations that demolishes any remaining pretense that even government officials believe the Warren Commission’s fictions.  He writes after reviewing them:

The overwhelming consensus that there were serious flaws with the Warren Commission conclusions and that there was a likely conspiracy does not come from independent authors who are trying to sell books. It comes from written reports of subsequent investigations and the statements of a very significant cross-section of over 90 insiders that participated in the investigations including the Warren Commission: Senators (some Republican, some Democrats), legal counsel, staff members, attorneys, researchers, medical personnel, autopsy physicians, historians, archivists, investigators, jury members, FBI, DPD and Louisiana State law enforcement agents. These include some of the highest-ranking members of the Warren Commission, Church and HSCA committees and the ARRB.

Bleau follows this up in Chapter 2, “Oswald’s Intelligence Connections: He Was No Lone Nut,” with a wealth of details showing that Oswald, a Marine trained in the Russian language and U2 spy plane technology, was a false defector to the Soviet Union as part of a CIA program; that his last attempted call from the Dallas jail was to a former Special Agent in U.S. Army Counterintelligence; that he had contacts with 64 plausible or definite intelligence assets such as David Ferrie, Guy Bannister, George de Mohrenschildt, David Atlee Philips, et al.  The evidence presented completely debunks the lone nut propaganda proffered by the Warren Commission and all its media accomplices such as The New York Times, CBS, Life magazine, etc.

In addition to the work of JFK researchers DiEugenio and Bleau, the attorney authors – Crumpton, Ller, and Adamczyk – contribute in ways that focus on legal arguments that would clearly lead to an acquittal for Oswald if he ever had been given a real trial.  They make clear that Oswald had to be killed by Jack Ruby who was “on a mission” for the government conspirators to prevent that from happening. It is, as far as I know, the only book that offers that ingenious legal angle on the assassination.

Matt Crumpton writes about all the times Oswald was impersonated when he was elsewhere, for which there is vast evidence, and which would never have happened if he were a lone crazy assassin.  Crumpton’s tale about Ralph Yates and his testimony about the impersonator of Oswald with the “curtain rods” and his treatment by the FBI which led to his abuse with 40 shock treatments will make your blood boil.  Crumpton writes:

Ralph Yates is where the analysis of the case really starts to diverge between the conspiracy researchers and lone gunman researchers. For people who are suspicious of Oswald acting alone, the Yates story is a showstopper. The Feds committed this man to a mental institution without due process all because he told what was an inconvenient truth.

It is elementary, My Dear Watson, that if Oswald was being impersonated many times and there were double Oswalds, even “seven separate claims” when the real Oswald was in the Soviet Union, then there was a sophisticated conspiracy run by others using Oswald.  Crumpton writes:

There is no plausible reason why a lone gunman would be impersonated so many times. The frequency of these instances clearly increased in the days, weeks and months before the assassination, and also on the day of the assassination, which clearly shows a designed plot to lay the blame on Oswald within hours of the assassination.

The JFK Assassination Chokeholds covers other key matters: why Oswald could not have been on the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository when the shots were fired, how the single bullet claim is absurd, the official lies about Jack Ruby and why he killed Oswald, the prior plots to kill JFK, the overwhelming evidence for a frontal shot, Presidents Trump and Biden’s continuing refusal to abide by the JFK Records Act and release all the files, and the media’s ongoing complicity in the coverup, etc.

It is so comprehensive and thoroughly convincing in its evidence and logic that anyone reading it – unless they were dishonest and in bad faith – would have to admit that these chokeholds should silence once and for all anyone claiming that Oswald was a lone nut who assassinated President Kennedy.

Ironically, the evidence and argument of this excellent volume actually refute its concluding sentence:

This is why this case cries out for a new investigation.

While the book is terrific, I must say I do not agree that we need a new investigation.  The facts have long been clear: President Kennedy was assassinated by the U.S. National Security State led by the CIA.  What we need to do is draw the implications from that fact.  They are profound.

Edward Curtinis an independent writer whose work has appeared widely over many years. His website is edwardcurtin.com and his new book is Seeking Truth in a Country of Lies.

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