Reviews of Bugliosi's Kennedy Book: The Great, the Laughable, and the Jerk from the Times

Vincent Bugliosi wrote what I consider one of the 10 best true crime books ever and is one of the best trial lawyers of his era - witness his closing argument in the Charles Manson trial. Not to mention his two Edgar awards and a half-shelf's worth of books, including several true crime titles and scathing critiques of the US Supreme Court.

I don't have to read his new War and Peace-length book debunking Kennedy assassination myths to be glad he wrote it. Indeed I may never get the chance to read it. I'm too busy enjoying the reviews!

(Art: from Barcode's Charles Manson cover collection)

I loved the take on the book by The Ferrett (who for some odd, early morning, no-coffee-yet reason looks familiar):

I'm going to be the rare person who reads this book not because I have a deep interest in JFK - I don't - but rather because I'm a huge Vincent Bugliosi fan. And I'm willing to bet that the phrase "Vincent Bugliosi fan" generates a fairly small list of matching people as these things go.

That said, Vincent's impressed the hell out of me with his true crime writings before, because as the guy who put Charles Manson away and then wrote the book on it, he's got a good eye for the legal system. And he won me over in his incredibly compelling book on O.J. Simpson's guilt, wherein he claims that most people don't do a very good job, no matter how well paid they are.

I tend to agree with him. 99% of people don't follow up on all the obvious leads, crossing all the "i"s and dotting the "t"s; instead, they do some percentage of the work and hope the rest works out. In fact, Outrage (said book on OJ) shows how both the prosecutors and the defending attornies made chump moves that a first-year law student (or, hell, a casual bystander) would have known to avoid, if only they'd been paying attention and following through in the way that people should.

Then there's the 10-word ditties about Bugliosi's book popping up as Amazon "reviews." My favorites --

(Five Stars) Three cheers for Gerald Posner, Peter Jennings, Vince Bugliosi and anyone else brave enough to face the multitudes of rabid morons who can't face the facts after 44 years.

(Five Stars) Messed up your little theories didn't it?

(One Star) For a book of this magnitude it's AMAZING how many FACTS this seasoned prosecutor ignores.

(One Star) "Reclaiming History?" Vince needs to reclaim his brain.

And now for the New York Times, which will publish -- let me guess; mmm, seven full reviews of Bugliosi's new book, all before the year is out (and they say that newspapers don't devote as much space to book reviews as they once did). One Bryan Burrough is our narrator for the Times' very first snotty review of the book --

This is an awfully easy book to mock. When a 13-volume-length study of the Kennedy assassination is published, one expects it to be the life’s work of an Arthur Schlesinger or a Robert Caro. Bugliosi’s career suggests a poor man’s Alan Dershowitz, a peripatetic lawyer who cranks out a book every few years on the tabloid topic of the moment; his interests have run to tomes on O. J. Simpson and Paula Jones. None have exactly roiled the national conversation. Worse, his research originated with an imaginary trial of Lee Harvey Oswald on British television in the halcyon days of the 1980s. Bugliosi prosecuted. Judge Wapner should’ve presided. Gerry Spence mounted the defense, lost, then vented to Arsenio Hall. Or maybe it was Pat Sajak.

How can anyone write a review of a Bugliosi book without mentioning Manson, Helter Skelter? How can anyone call him the author of a tabloid book about Paula Jones? The title was No Island of Sanity: Paula Jones v. Bill Clinton - The Supreme Court on Trial. And once again let's leave it to the New York Times to piss all over someone for (sniff) not having a couple Pulitzers, for not being a presidential historian like Arthur Schlesinger and Robert Caro. Curiously, the review is, overall, terrific, but before he gets to that, Burrough has to take this swipe at an author for calling it true crime rather than presidential history. Burrough is like the high school dork who turns to his mates and says, "Yeah, I asked her to the dance, but that don't mean I like her."

Comments

[Fiz]

Rude words to the anti VB -ites! I'm still buying it!

[Katie]

I agree! I have been absolutely blown away by Bugliosi's past writings. Tabloid???? I think not. The exact opposite, actually, I mean, that's like saying he writes a gossip column or something. He is incredibly thorough and relentless. One of my favorite books is "Helter Skelter." I read it in three days, I was so intrigued by it and very admiring of it. I guess there's always got to be one awful review somewhere. I haven't read the new book yet but I certainly will and I'm sure it'll be great. VB always goes above and beyond, and in comparison with the type of work I've read/seen, VB always stands out by DOING ALL THE WORK he possibly can. It makes for really engrossing reading. I'm always hooked!!!!!

[Timothy Doe]

Are you the huge Vincent Bugliosi fan? So am I. He was directly responsible for getting my 1st book published, and has remained a friend. I'm currently negotiating to ghost a book on the costliest and longest criminal trial in American history, and am looking forward to talking to Vince about it.

[Gary Aguilar]

The reviewers chosen by the "mainstream" media to review Vince Bugliosi's new anti-conspiracy book about JFK's murder, whether the NY Times, the W. Post or the L.A. Times, have no demonstrable knowledge of the extremely complex subject.

How can one tell? Simply by checking Bugliosi's huge index. Virtually anyone who has ever written on the subject, for good or bad, is listed in it. None of those chosen by our "responsible, sober" journal editors to review the book are listed in the index and their reviews betray their unfamiliarity with the subject.

In the past week my review of "Reclaiming History" was published in the Nov/Dec issue of "The Federal Lawyer." It is by far the longest of any I've seen, and it is thoroughly annotated. Oh, and, yes, I am listed in his index. [He actually treats me more kindly than he does many nonbelievers.]

The review is available on-line at http://www.ctka.net/bug_aguilar.html

Many of the footnotes are hot-linked to source documents that are available on-line.

Gary

Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy

By Vincent Bugliosi
W.W. Norton & Co., New York, NY, 2007. 1612 pages plus CD-rom, $49.95.

Reviewed by Gary L. Aguilar*

Federal Lawyer, November/December 2007

[Roundhead]

Mr. Gary Aguilar,

but wouldn't it be a conflict of interest for someone who is actually in a non-fiction book, to review it?