[accessed June 13, 2011].

10. Without clear written evidence, which is not available, it is difficult to impute a motive here, but surely protection of the FBI's reputation weighed on Hoover at the time observers began to assess blame for the murder of the president.

11. Michael L. Kurtz, The JFK Assassination Debates: Lone Gunman versus Conspiracy (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2006), 21; Joseph A. Loftus, "Oswald Assassin Beyond a Doubt, F.B.I. Concludes," New York Times, December 10, 1963; Laurence Stern, "FBI Keeps Silent on Contents As Dallas File Goes to Warren," Washington Post and Times Herald, December 10, 1963.

12. Later on, I will review the evidence about this topic, including the stray bullet that hit a curb (missing the target entirely) and the timing of the shots as determined by the available film and photographic evidence.

13. Abraham Zapruder was a Dallas dressmaker who happened to be filming the president's motorcade at the exact moment of the assassination, from a well-positioned perch atop a concrete pedestal on what is now known as the grassy knoll. The Warren Commission obtained the film in January 1964. While some still frames from the film were released from 1963 into the 1970s, the public never saw the entire Zapruder film until 1975.

14. The Warren Commission initially concluded that "A bullet had entered his [JFK's] back at a point slightly above the shoulder and to the right of the spine." Ford wanted the sentence to read, "A bullet had entered the back of his neck at a point slightly to the right of the spine." The final report said: "A bullet had entered the base of the back of his neck slightly to the right of the spine." Mike Feinsilber, "Ford Altered Crucial JFK Report: His Revision Raised the Location of the Wound," Seattle Post-Intelligencer, July 3, 1997. Here's the London Independent's version of the same story: "The former U.S. president, Gerald Ford, altered a key sentence in the Warren Commission report to strengthen its conclusion that John F. Kennedy was killed by a single bullet, it emerged yesterday. The effect of his editing was to suggest that a single bullet struck the assassinated president in the neck and severely wounded Texas Governor John Connally-a crucial element in its controversial finding that Lee Harvey Oswald was the sole gunman ... Ford said last night that it was a small change, one intended to clarify the report and not to alter history." Kate Watson-Smyth, "Ford Tampered with Report on JFK Shooting," The Independent (London, UK), July 3, 1997.

15. Mark Lane, Rush to Judgment (New York: Thunder's Mouth Press, 1992), 78; Kurtz, Assassination Debates, 2122; Olmsted, Real Enemies, 128; Joe Stephens, "Ford Told FBI of Skeptics on Warren Commission," Washington Post, August 8, 2008; Mike Feinsilber, "Ford Altered Crucial JFK Report," Seattle Post-Intelligencer, July 3, 1997.

16. On two separate occasions in the 1990s, Ford told me personally that he was convinced of the commission report's accuracy and of the critics' wrongheadedness. His sincerity in this belief is unquestioned. On January 31, 1997, Ford affixed his signature to a statement on his own letterhead which read in full: "In 1964, the Warren Commission decided: 1. Lee Harvey Oswald was the assassin, and 2. There was no conspiracy, foreign or domestic. I endorsed those conclusions in 1964 and fully agree now."

17. Memorandum from David E. Murphy to the Deputy Director for Plans, April 13, 1964, House Select Committee on Assassinations Segregated CIA Collection, Box 5, NARA #104-10051-10288, Mary Ferrell Foundation website,

http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=39161&relPageId=3

[accessed September 28, 2012].

18. From the 1930s to the mid-1960s, journalists engaged in what I have termed "lapdog" journalism-reporting that served and reinforced the political establishment. During this period, mainstream journalists rarely challenged prevailing orthodoxy, accepted at face value much of what those in power told them, and protected politicians by revealing little about their nonofficial lives, even when private vices affected their public performance. Wartime necessities encouraged the lapdog mentality but it had already become well established in Franklin Roosevelt's earlier administrations. Lapdog journalism perhaps reached its zenith under John F. Kennedy. See chapter 2 of my book Feeding Frenzy (New York: Free Press, 1993), 2551.

19. Charles Mohr, "President Gets Assassination Report," New York Times, September 25, 1964; "The Warren Report: Official Summary and Conclusions of Commission," Chicago Tribune, September 28, 1964; Marquis Childs, "Warren Report: Remedy for Rumor," Washington Post and Times Herald, September 28, 1964.

20. Max Holland, The Kennedy Assassination Tapes (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2004), 250. Author and "lone gunman" advocate Gerald Posner credits Holland with debunking some of the myths surrounding Johnson's and Russell's conversation, and his interpretation is different from others': "Although some authors have cited this passage as evidence that the two men did not share the commission's lone-assassin conclusion, they were actually referring to Russell's doubts about the single-bullet theory. Holland rightly points out: 'When Johnson proclaims that he doesn't believe in the single-bullet theory either, it is a blatant example of his tendency to speak for effect. He has not studied the issue; indeed he doesn't understand what the issue is. He is just trying to agree with his old mentor Russell and get to the subject he really wants to talk about: Vietnam' " (249). Gerald Posner, review of The Kennedy Assassination Tapes: The White House Conversations of Lyndon B. Johnson Regarding the Assassination, the Warren Commission, and the Aftermath, by Max Holland, Journal of Cold War Studies 9, no. 2 (Spring 2007): 15456. Posner may be right, but it is difficult to get inside LBJ's head and assert with certainty that he is "speaking for effect." One also doubts that the highly intuitive Johnson, who had been present at the assassination and had thought a great deal about it, didn't "understand what the issue is."

21. "Television: Why the Aliens Keep On Coming Back," Sunday Times, November 14, 2004,

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/article389474.ece

[accessed April 7, 2011].

22. "John F. Kennedy's Assassination Leaves a Legacy of Suspicion," ABC News Poll: Who Killed JFK? November 9, 2003,

http://abcnews.go.com/images/pdf/937a1JFKAssassination.pdf

[accessed April 8, 2011].

23. Americans are now probably conditioned to believe conspiracy theories. A 2004 Zogby poll found that 49% of New Yorkers say that government officials knew about the 9/11 attacks in advance. See Cass R. Sunstein and Adrian Vermeule, "Conspiracy Theories," Harvard University and University of Chicago Public Law and Legal Theory Research Paper Series,

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1084585

[accessed May 26, 2011].

24. Telephone interview with Nancy Pelosi, May 26, 2011.

25. The London Daily Mail Online, April 19, 2011,

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1378284/Secret-memo-shows-JFK-demanded-UFO-files-10-days-assassination.html

[accessed April 19, 2011].

26. Personal interview with Jerry Dealey, January 14, 2011, Dallas, Texas.

27. The basement is mostly abandoned now, along with the old city jail where Oswald spent his last nights. It is obvious that the basement should have been cleared of all but police personnel and a small pool of reporters and cameras. But in 1963, the Dallas police made the fatal mistake of allowing a crowd to gather in the basement, large enough to enable the murder of the most historically significant prisoner they would ever hold.

28. Kurtz, Assassination Debates, 2326; William E. Scott, November 22, 1963: A Reference Guide to the JFK Assassination (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1999), 29; Warren Commission Hearings, vol. XXIV, CE 2011, p. 411, Mary Ferrell Foundation website,

http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do

[accessed June 12, 2012].

29. Interview with Bill and Gayle Newman, July 10, 2003, conducted by Stephen Fagin, Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza, Dallas, Texas.

30. Almost forty-seven years after the assassination, when I interviewed the Newmans in Dallas on September 24, 2010, Bill Newman clarified that he thought the shots had come from behind him, but not necessarily from the grassy knoll. "What I try not to do, if I'm talking to a group of people ... and I make the statement that I thought the shot came from behind-the 'shot' meaning the head shot-it was a visual impact that it had on me more so than the noise. Seeing the side of the president's head blow off, see the president go across the car seat into Mrs. Kennedy's lap, in her direction, it gave me the sensation that the shots were coming from directly behind me where I was standing. So, I said 'behind,' and I leave it at that, and then a lot of times, the interviewer or whoever it may be will say, 'Behind to your left?' meaning the School Book Depository. 'Behind to your right?' meaning the picket fence. And I just leave it. I won't define it."

31. "Full Gayle & Bill Newman Interview by Jay Watson," YouTube,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3fPpLegSn1k

[accessed April 14, 2011]. Officer D. V. Harkness, who was interviewed by the Warren Commission, recalled a similar scenario. "The first shot, Kennedy I think grabbed like this (motions). I was looking right at him. And then the next one he jerked (motions), [and] that was the second shot. And then [the] third one went wild, I think, I don't know." Interview with David V. Harkness, June 29, 2006, conducted by Stephen Fagin, Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza, Dallas, Texas. This is quite different from the assessment of the Newmans. In fact, witnesses reported many combinations of the number of shots, the impacts of the shots, and the directions from which they came.

32. Interview with Bill and Gayle Newman, July 10, 2003, conducted by Stephen Fagin, Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza, Dallas, Texas. Also, personal interview with the author, September 24, 2010, Dallas. We often forget the impact that a trauma like 11/22 can have on a family. Bill Newman told me that for several nights following the assassination, he huddled his family together in one bedroom, his 20-gauge shotgun nearby. "My concern was that [the shooter] might have thought we were a threat and could have testified against them in court." Their young son, Billy, asked his mother several days later, "Why did they shoot that man? Did you see all that blood?"

33. E-mail from Gary Mack, June 29, 2011.

34. Personal interview with H. B. McLain, March 17, 2011.

35. Interview with Marilyn Sitzman, June 29, 1993, conducted by Wes Wise with Bob Porter, Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza, Dallas, Texas; "Abraham Zapruder Film," Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza website,

http://www.jfk.org/go/collections/item-detail?fedoraid=sfm:1999.042

[accessed April 25, 2011].

36. "Filming Kennedy: Home Movies From Dallas, Elsie Dorman,"

http://www.jfk.org/go/exhibits/home-movies/elsie-dorman