Who have been most influential in solving the case?

[Kit Carp]

I'm going to jump right into it, and create a new topic on my second day amongst you. Recently we have had a list of the best books on the subject of JFK's assassination. Who do you all think, in a top 5 or 10 list, are the most important writers/documentarists/film makers in contributing towards solving the case of JFK's assassination?Consider all their overall accompishments, and the period in which they did most of their work, when compiling the list, please.I'll voice my opinions shortly too. This ought to be pretty interesting.

[kenmurray]

Kit, here is a few of mine:1. Evidence Of Revision - Wing TV2. Rush To Judgement - Mark Lane3. JFK - Oliver Stone4. The Garrison Tapes - John Barbour5. The Grassy Knoll - Wim DankbaarNot necessarily in order lol.

[andries]

rush to judgement from mark lane, and the jim garrison tapes have allready solved the case, and are the key ,in case anyone has still doubtsthe likes off bugliosi,mack, von shirach pein and spector made a huge contribution without even knowing or wanting it to the publics feeling that there was more,thanks to their fantastic LSD explanations and answers.therefore we must indeed be thankfull to them i sometimes was a little scared that theremight come a day they would come up with a thing that could make sence but none off them did

[Dealey Joe]

May not be what you are looking for butPenn Jones Jr. gets my vote.He was conspiracy when it was not popular.Did not do anything great but he kept everyone's eye on the ball at first.He was also very involved with Garrison and Robert Groden.

[Kit Carp]

It's a bit more challenging trying to decide the most influential persons involved with solving the case, because you start running into what they accomplished not only in a single book, but also how they used their influence to further the search or open new doors in mediums other than the written word.My own choices, (and they are by no mean the most educated picks, as there is still much I have not read), would run something like this.1. Mark Lane. He is interwoven into the earliest days of the case. He was on hand to speak on Oswald's behalf, with Oswald's mother, and directly to the Warren Comission. He is best known for his early work "Rush to Judgement", but his documentationon film of the "neglected" and best placed eyewitnesses to the shooting is valuable beyond measuring. He was involved with the quite wonderful early film on the assassination, "Executive Action" which starred Burt Lancaster as a rogue intelligence agent running the hit on JFK...which really was a turning point for me personally in understanding that maybe the world we are shown isnt the one that actually exists.His other big book, "Plausible Denial", is both extremely entertaining as well as quite damning to the CIA. It recounts Lane's defense of a magazine that CIA man Howard Hunt tries to sue for defamation. Lane crushes Hunt's alibi for not being in Dallas on Nov. 22, and lays out the weakenesses in the official case against Oswald to the point that the jury believes Hunt and the CIA were involved in the assassination, finding the magazine innocent. Just amazing stuff.2. Sylvia Meagher.One of the most perceptive of all the early critics, she is mostly remembered for her oh so critical look at the evidence in "Accessories After the Fact, the Authorities and the Report." I think the real jewel in her crown though, the great gift she gave to researchers that is almost beyond counting is her massive "Subject Index to the Warren Report and Hearings and Exhibits". This alone puts her on this list, without her other tireless research into the case.3. Douglas Horne.I'm sure this will be extremely controversial, but I think the combination of Horne's forcing through the additional witness interviews during his stint as one of the ARRB's Supervisory Analyist', his extreme amounts of research while with that body, and his subsequent masterwork on the medical evidence in five very thick volumes constitutes a huge advancement in "solving" the case. In no other single book has so much convincing evidence been presented, so forcefully...and in no other work on the Assassination has anyone dared to tick off names of the guilty in such a complete way.Horne takes the case to a new level.4. John Newman.One could argue John Newman has never written a book about the assassination. What he instead has done is study subjects on the periphery of the assassination itself. He has written a marvelous treatise called "JFK and Vietnam", which indirctly shows us the very real way Kennedy was following his own course, one that in no way matched the course of the Joint Chiefs, nor most of the more conservative areas of the government.Newman shows us very clearly that JFK would never have moved combat troops into Vietnam, that he would have taken themout, once relected, everything else be damned. He offers more telling and logical motive for the murder of our president than any straightforward conspiracy book I've read, and he does so with convincing neutrality and intellect most books lack.Equally fascinating is his book "Oswald and the CIA". It again approaches it's subject with extreme care. There are no controversial leaps into "maybe" scenerios...it's all black and white facts and evidence of the CIA's paperwork trail...and the telling lack of it, at the most critical junctions on Oswald's strange journey through the jungles of espionage.For a book like this to be truly effective, it needs to keep a distant perspective, and Newman does this was mighty skill.In my mind, John Newman has written two of the most informative books on the assassination, all without discussing the assassination at all.Often it's books like these, full of facts that directly support the notion of conspiracy while talking about other subjects, that tend to slip by unread. Newman's stuff is among the smartest books on the topic, and he is about as thoughtful and careful a writer as I have read, which is why I include him here.5. Harold Weisberg."So justice is far from us, and righteousness does not reach us. We look for light, but all is darkness; for brightness, but we walk in deep shadows."You dont hear as much about Weisberg's contributions to the case as you once did. He wrote a goodly number of self published, averagely written but incredibly well researched books starting with the "Whitewash" series. No one could uncover documents like Harold Weisberg.No one had more zeal and fire and passion about the case. He was a sort of cranky knight who forced open doors and demanded the release of countless documents that you and I would not have read for another 20 years, without his tireless efforts.I have first printings of, I think, all of his books. His writing style was not polished, and he swung at the air occasionally, but man, there has never been a better source for digging impossible to find snippets of crucial information. Perhaps the most tireless of all the Kennedy assassination researchers, and worthy of greater praise than he recieves today.6.David LiftonI think Lifton's book "Best Evidence" marks the line between the first generation and the younger generation of researchers. His volume was one of the more popular and massive selling works on the assassination, and his theory of alteration of the body of the President forced researchers to some deeper, darker place where it is hard for anyone to go. His book struck new ground in the case, ground which is still argued over to this day.Along with his filmed interviews, David Lifton's written work, which is carefully researched yet reads like an interesting detective mystery, helped me to accept that terrible things can happen in America, and really strengthened my own resolve to completely understand what actually happened on that terrible day in 1963.7. Bob GrodenIf our own government, (and Life magazine), had had it's way, you and I still would never have viewed the Zapruder film. We can thank Robert Groden for having the guts to actually have gotten this film out on the air in 1975, and lets face it, the world has not been the same since that time.It doesnt really matter if the film has been altered or not. Either way, that shot from the front blasting the President back in his seat into Jackie's arms settled the debate for most of the world. Kennedy's reaction to the throat shot a second or so before Conally is seen to be hit is the nail in the WC coffin. Without the film, there was no need for Magic Bullets. Oswald could have been proven guilty...if not for this bit of film that Bob Groden and Dick Gregory forced into the light.Add in Mr. Groden's two excellently produced and easy to digest pictorial collections on the assassination, "The Killing of a President: The Complete Photographic Record of the JFK Assassination, the Conspiracy, and the Cover-up" and "The Search for Lee Harvey Oswald: A Comprehensive Photographic Record", and you are talking about a signifigant and enduring legacy towards getting to the bottom of the case.Mr. Groden has a knack for sticking himself physically out there in the limelight, unlike most of the other people in my list.His recent David and Goliath struggle in Dallas, trying to sell his books near that propagandistic edifice reminds me that in some ways, everyone on this list is a patriot. All have stood up, no doubt with their own fears of what might happen to them, to find out the truth and then speak it to others.God Bless America.***

[bob franklin]

In addition, I'd also throw John Hankey's name into the excellent list of people mentioned in this thread. Without them, we'd be stumbling around in the dark. They're all impressive.

[Bob]

Nice list Kit. I can't really argue or debate that too much. Here is my short list (for what it's worth)...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wm6NeM-6vBE"There's a man with a gun over there..."Mark LaneJim GarrisonPenn Jones Jr.Robert GrodenJim MarrsDavid LiftonOliver StoneWim DankbaarJim DouglassDoug Horne

[Phil Dragoo]

KitInteresting way of walking back the cat.Here we are with your prompting and excellent acknowledgments.On Wim's site where I find James Files very much the solidification of the flank.My earliest awakening was sitting on a Taos bed in New Mexico when Geraldo Rivera showed the Zapruder film; when the head exploded I was blown onto my feet toward the television, the first known instance of the “jet effect.”The biggest initial impact from text was David Lifton, Best Evidence. Two coffins; two arrivals, photos of an intact head, and the obstruction of Liebeler to Lifton's inquiries. I objected to our friend the former professor of law with military intelligence service, who assured me, “We had dinner with the Liebelers; they're very nice people,” and, “Kennedy was very dangerous.”Weisberg was tenacious, making a barnacle or a bulldog half-hearted in its commitment by comparison. His Case Open shows what a shallow schmuck is Posner.Mark Lane, whom the professor from G-2 called “a Communist,” whose Rush to Judgment blows up the beaver dam of the Warren Report into splinters washed downstream, whose “Two Men in Dallas” is a heart breaker and a rage-maker, whose Plausible Denial is an indictment of Hunt and CIA.Groden's Killing of A President is the best illustrated guide to the assassination, and his collaboration with Stone made JFK the tectonic shift, forcing the JFK Act, ushering in the torrent of released documents, and sounding the Horne.Doug Horne, who had spent his life preparing for the gauntlet of getting the job of a lifetime doing the deed of the generation.Wim and Jim, who will quietly undo the wax seal on the Great Pyramid of Lies.Jim Douglass, who spoke the unspeakable, as an extension of the sins of the thirty-fifth as cited by Prouty, Mr. X, Donald Sutherland in his finest role.And many thanks to Allen Dull Ass for blasting “that little Kennedy. . .he thought he was a god” and assuring himself “no one reads.”Oh, but we do now, don't we.

[tom jeffers]

gentlepersons,i understand the purpose of this thread but in my opinion the case is not solved or we all wouldn't be debating all of the many issues listed on this forum as well as other misguided closed minded forums. (sorry but "SLICK" comes out without any notice)if you really want to know who is responsible for pulling together our current understanding of what we now know, then you have to say the most important person is jimmy files. without his confession, we would not be here. in fact it goes to reason that nearly equally responsible would be him, chauncey holt, tosh plumlee, and judith baker are all equally responsible for bringing out our total understanding in fitting all the pieces together.

[Dealey Joe]

Tom you raise a question I have been thinking on some.Evidentally there are degrees of Solved in our minds.In other words at what point is it solved.Is knowing who pulled the trigger solve the murder?I think most of us are more into the why and how rather than the simple answer of who?