L.D.C. Fitzgerald's Blog

Richard Milhous Nixon

Saving Jackie K chronicles the bitter rivalry between JFK and Richard Nixon. Was losing the presidential election to Kennedy by a small margin enough to warrant an assassination plot?

Born in 1916 in Yorba Linda, California, Richard Nixon grew up in a poor Quaker family, the second youngest of five boys. He survived the hardship of his youth to earn acceptance at prestigious Ivy League, Harvard—where JFK ultimately was schooled. But with both poverty and illness plaguing his siblings, Nixon ended up relegated to Whittier, the local California Quaker college instead. He went on to achieve a Law Degree from Duke University.

Read The Greatest Speeches John F. Kennedy – eBook

In his early political career, Nixon was elected first a US Representative, then a US Senator, from his home state of California. In 1952, presidential candidate Dwight Eisenhower chose Nixon as his running mate. A young Republican staunchly opposed to communism, Nixon also hailed from one of the most populous states, thus positioning him as a potential vote-winner.

After eight years of serving as VP alongside Ike, Nixon threw his hat into the 1960 presidential election. During the first-ever televised candidates’ debate, Nixon appeared tired and pale after recovering from a two-week hospital stay. He also refused to wear make-up. In contrast, JFK looked healthy and tan. Subsequent polls revealed that listeners on the radio tended to declare Nixon the victor, while those who watched on TV favored Kennedy. Nixon ultimately lost the election by one of the narrowest margins in history.

“Saving Jackie K” Explosive Novel by LDC Fitzgerald.
Kennedy Conspiracy Exposed

Then, in 1962, Nixon suffered another political defeat. Democrat Pat Brown won the governorship of California over a humiliated Nixon. Angered by the perceived liberal bias of the media, Nixon lashed out during his concession speech, “You won’t have Dick Nixon to kick around anymore, because, gentlemen, this is my last press conference.”

Trickety Dick

The beaten politician subsequently joined the New York law firm of Nixon, Mudge, Rose, Guthrie & Alexander, located in Manhattan. His clients from Pepsi-Cola invited him to a reception in Dallas, on the eve before what would become JFK’s fatal motorcade. After attending the party, the next day Nixon boarded a plane at Love Field Airport in Dallas, around the same time Kennedy was landing in Air Force One. Nixon flew home to New York, to Idlewild Airport in Queens. The airport would later be renamed JFK in Kennedy’s honor.

Nixon remarked that he learned of the president’s death while riding home in a cab from Idlewild Airport.

I’m Just a Patsy! Lee Harvey Oswald In His Own Words

JFK Assassination Suspects

Suspects Home
Lee Harvey Oswald
Jack Ruby
Lyndon Johnson
Richard M. Nixon
J. Edgar Hoover
Fidel Catrro
Nikita Khrushchev
The Mafia
The CIA
The FBI

JFK Conspiracy Participants

JD Tippit
Ruth Paine
Marina Oswald

The post Kennedy and Nixon Deep Conspiracy appeared first on L.D.C. Fitzgerald, JFK Novelist.

Alternate History novel Saving Jackie K outlines the power wielded by career G-man, J. Edgar Hoover. Would a threat to his FBI kingdom provide the impetus to assassinate the thirty-fifth president of the United States?

Born before the dawn of the twentieth century, J. Edgar Hoover grew up to become the first director of the FBI, and held the office for the longest term in history, from its founding in 1935 until his death in 1972. At the time of President Kennedy’s assassination, Hoover had already cultivated his empire for forty years, working alongside six administrations through ten presidential terms. Having initially been appointed to directorship of the ‘Bureau of Investigations’ in 1924, he spearheaded the transformation of the agency into the efficient crime-fighting bureau known today.

I’m Just a Patsy! Lee Harvey Oswald In His Own Words

Early in his career, Hoover promoted another young man, Clyde Tolson, to be his second in command as an associate director, and the gentlemen worked side by side from 1930 until the end. Although they maintained separate residences on the outskirts of Washington DC, the two men were driven to work together each day, with Tolson picked up first in the morning and dropped off last in the evening. Longtime companions, they frequently dined and vacationed with each other. When Hoover passed away, Tolson inherited his estate, and accepted the US flag that was draped over his coffin.

“Saving Jackie K” Explosive Novel by LDC Fitzgerald.
Kennedy Conspiracy Exposed

Under Hoover’s leadership, the FBI made significant strides over a string of violent bank robberies known as the Gangster Wars. In his own words, “Banks are an almost irresistible attraction for that element of our society which seeks unearned money.” Hoover’s agents captured or killed outlaws such as John Dillinger, Machine Gun Kelly, and indirectly, Al Capone—by the Bureau of Prohibition, which operated under supervision of the FBI.

Despite these triumphs, Hoover was widely perceived as too lenient on the Mafia, even purportedly denying its existence. During Kennedy‘s brief tenure in the White House, rumors floated that he considered dismissing Hoover, but worried that the political cost would be disastrous. Hoover allegedly maintained secret dossiers on presidents and their administrations as leverage to maintain his powerful position.

After JFK was assassinated, Hoover led an FBI investigation independent of the Warren Commission’s. His agency also fingered Oswald as the lone gunman. In 1964, as Hoover neared his seventieth birthday, then-president Lyndon Johnson waived the mandatory government retirement age of seventy for the director, thus granting him the position for life. LBJ enacted this provision just prior to Hoover’s testimony in front of the Warren Commission.

Read The Greatest Speeches John F. Kennedy – eBook

JFK Conspiracy Suspects

Suspects Home
Lee Harvey Oswald
Jack Ruby
Lyndon Johnson
Richard M. Nixon
J. Edgar Hoover
Fidel Catrro
Nikita Khrushchev
The Mafia
The CIA
The FBI

JFK Participants

JD Tippit
Ruth Paine
Marina Oswald

The post J. Edgar Hoover, The FBI and JFK appeared first on L.D.C. Fitzgerald, JFK Novelist.

Martin Luther King Jr.

Blockbuster novel Saving Jackie K narrates a thrilling fictional account of the tragic assassination of President John F. Kennedy. But when discussing charismatic leaders from the 1960s, JFK must share the spotlight with the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. Both men championed civil rights, and both were gunned down in their prime by political assassins.

An Atlanta, Georgia native, Martin Luther King Jr. was born on January 15, 1929 to Reverend Martin Luther King Sr. and Alberta Williams King. The senior King, born Michael, changed his own name and his son’s to Martin Luther in 1934, after becoming influenced by the legacy of the Protestant reformer.

Martin Luther King Jr. grew up in racially segregated Georgia, and attended Booker T. Washington High School. An exceptional student, he skipped both ninth and twelfth grades, and began his college education as a fifteen-year-old. He ultimately earned three degrees: Bachelor of Arts in Sociology (Morehouse College, 1948); Bachelor of Divinity (Crozer Theological Seminary, 1951); and Doctor of Philosophy (Boston University, 1955).

King served as a Baptist Minister, and began his career in civil rights at the young age of 26. In 1953, King married Coretta Scott, a singer and a civil rights activist in her own right. The couple had four children.

Inspired by his Christian faith and the peaceful teachings of Mahatma Gandhi, Dr. King became the leader of the civil rights movement in the United States in the 1950s and 1960s. Advocating nonviolent resistance, such as protests, grassroots organizing, and civil disobedience, Dr. King led by words and example to achieve nearly unimaginable change.

King served as spokesman for the Montgomery Bus Boycott in 1955. In order to force integration of the Alabama city’s bus lines, virtually all African-American citizens boycotted the bus for over a year, a hardship for many who had to walk miles to work each day. Ultimately, the Supreme Court declared racially segregated buses to be unconstitutional.
In 1963, he led a coalition of civil rights groups in a series of nonviolent protests against segregation in Birmingham, Alabama. The “Birmingham Campaign” involved boycotting local businesses, sit-ins, and marches. When police responded with excessive force, public outcry led to new civil rights legislation.
In a watershed moment for civil rights, Dr. King delivered his monumental “I have a dream” speech in August of 1963 during the historic “March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.” From the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC, King spoke to over two hundred thousand, rallying for racial equality and an end to discrimination.
As a result of his nonviolent efforts to effect change, Martin Luther King Jr. was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964. At 35 years of age, he became the youngest person to receive this honor.

[image error]L.D.C. Fitzgerald, JFK Novelist.

Dallas Police Officer
J.D. Tippit
November 22, 1963

Historical Thriller Saving Jackie K blends fact and fiction to chronicle the tragic assassination of President John F. Kennedy. But the novel also examines the story of another innocent man who was shot to death in Dallas on November 22, 1963.

Born in Clarksville, Texas in 1924, Police Officer J.D. Tippit was a devoted family man, a husband, and a father of three. At the age of twenty, as World War II battled on, Tippit enlisted in the army and earned a Bronze Star for combat duty. Upon his honorable discharge, he returned home and married his high school sweetheart, Marie Gasway. The veteran and his bride had three children: Allan, Brenda, and Curtis.

After working at farming and other jobs, J.D. Tippit moved his family to Dallas and joined the police force. In one memorable incident in 1956, he and his partner encountered a crazed man at a downtown club. When the visibly drunk patron drew a semi-automatic pistol, they were forced to shoot the man to protect innocent bystanders. Officer Tippit received a Certificate of Merit Award for outstanding judgment and quick thinking.

J.D. Tippit didn’t shirk his responsibilities as a provider, either. By 1963, in addition to working full-time on the police force, he was moonlighting as a bouncer at Austin’s Barbecue on weekends. He also provided security services at the Stevens Theater on Sunday afternoons.

When JFK was shot, all the downtown patrol squads were ordered to report to the Texas School Book Depository at Elm and Houston. The dispatcher then instructed Tippit—in the residential area—to cover central Oak Cliff and remain at large for any emergencies.

At approximately 1:15 pm, as Officer Tippit cruised down Tenth Street just past Patton Avenue, he spied a man who resembled the suspect in the president’s assassination. The description: a white male, weighing 165 pounds, five-foot-ten, in his early thirties; had been broadcast to all on-duty officers. J.D. stopped the car and had a short conversation through the passenger window. Officer Tippit exited the squad car and headed toward the front of the vehicle. According to several eyewitnesses, Lee Harvey Oswald shot him four times at point blank range, killing the thirty-nine-year-old dedicated law enforcement professional.

The sudden and heinous violence left a widowed wife and fatherless children to grieve as they tried to imagine life without their devoted J.D.—husband, father, and hero.

“Saving Jackie K” Explosive Novel by LDC Fitzgerald.
Kennedy Conspiracy Exposed

Read The Greatest Speeches John F. Kennedy – eBook

I’m Just a Patsy! Lee Harvey Oswald In His Own Words

JFK Assassination Suspects

Suspects Home
Lee Harvey Oswald
Jack Ruby
Lyndon Johnson
Richard M. Nixon
J. Edgar Hoover
Fidel Catrro
Nikita Khrushchev
The Mafia
The CIA
The FBI

JFK Assassination Participants

JD Tippit
Ruth Paine
Marina Oswald

The post Who Was J.D. Tippit appeared first on L.D.C. Fitzgerald, JFK Novelist.

Ruth Hyde Paine

New Conspiracy novel Saving Jackie K includes information about real-life suspects and witnesses. But what about people who were involved on the sidelines?

In 1963, Mrs. Ruth Paine was living in Irving, Texas in a tiny white ranch house dwarfed by a sprawling live oak tree on the front lawn. The mini-kitchen inside contained not only a stove and refrigerator, but also a washing machine and ironing board. Separated from her husband, the Quaker woman lived with her two toddlers, Lynn and Christopher.

Through a desire to improve East-West relations in the world community, Mrs. Paine studied the Russian language for several years, and participated in a Soviet pen-pal program sponsored by the Quakers. Because of her interest in speaking Russian, Mrs. Paine was invited to a party in February of 1963, where she met Lee Harvey Oswald and his wife, Marina. Oswald had learned the foreign language on his own, and married Marina, a Russian girl, during the time when he defected to the USSR.

Mrs. Paine and Marina, another young mother, became fast friends. When it became clear that Marina needed a place to stay, Mrs. Paine invited her and her two infant children to live in the Paine home, despite the cramped quarters in the two-bedroom house. Although Marina barely spoke English, Mrs. Paine favored the arrangement as way to practice her Russian skills. Meanwhile, Lee Oswald rented an elfin room in Dallas under an assumed name—Mr. O.H. Lee—a fact he kept hidden from his wife.

On the Sunday before the presidential assassination, Mrs. Paine dialed Oswald’s rooming house at 1026 North Beckley Avenue, at the request of Marina. “Is Lee Oswald there?” A man answered the phone and reported that there was no such person living there. The next day, Oswald called his wife, furious that she might have revealed his true identity. He didn’t want his landlady to know his real name because she might read in the newspapers that he had lived in the Soviet Union and had been questioned by the FBI.

On the night before the assassination, Mrs. Paine spent time sitting in her garage, painting alphabet blocks for her children. She was unaware that Lee Harvey Oswald’s bolt-action Mannlicher-Carcano rifle lay rolled up in a blanket on the floor.

On November 22, when Mrs. Paine learned that the president had been shot, she lit several candles. Marina asked her if it was a way of praying. Mrs. Paine said it was, in her own way.

In an interview after the assassination, Mrs. Paine described Lee Harvey Oswald: “I thought of him as a dissenter, a pamphlet passer, a person not contented with society as it was nor with himself . . . He certainly had very little training, so that he was not able to get jobs that interested him . . . He was not a particularly capable person.”

JFK Conspiracy Suspects

Suspects Home
Lee Harvey Oswald
Jack Ruby
Lyndon Johnson
Richard M. Nixon
J. Edgar Hoover
Fidel Catrro
Nikita Khrushchev
The Mafia
The CIA
The FBI

JFK Murder Participants

JD Tippit
Ruth Paine
Marina Oswald

“Saving Jackie K” Explosive Novel by LDC Fitzgerald.
Kennedy Conspiracy Exposed

Read The Greatest Speeches John F. Kennedy – eBook

I’m Just a Patsy! Lee Harvey Oswald In His Own Words

The post Ruth Paine Friend of Oswald appeared first on L.D.C. Fitzgerald, JFK Novelist.

Saving Jackie K is a thrilling novel that explores the JFK assassination – with a twist. What if the snipers killed his wife Jackie instead?

In the real world, the JFK assassination is the most contentious controversy of the twentieth century. Was Lee Harvey Oswald a lone nut who assassinated the 35th US president? Or was Kennedy the victim of a conspiracy plot?

Convened by President Johnson in 1963, the Warren Commission spent ten months investigating the assassination, and concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. Oswald himself was not part of the inquiry, since he was silenced by Jack Ruby two days after being arrested.











Lyndon Baines Johnson Receives the Warren Commission Report

Subsequent official investigations corroborated the Warren Commission findings, until the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) was formed in 1976. Their report in 1979 confirmed Oswald’s three shots from the Texas School Book Depository, the third of which proved fatal to President Kennedy.









House Select Committee on Assassinations

However, the HSCA also stated that “Scientific acoustical evidence establishes a high probability that two gunmen fired at President John F. Kennedy,” and that “Kennedy was probably assassinated as a result of a conspiracy.” Despite these conclusions, “The committee was unable to identify the other gunmen or the extent of the conspiracy.”

Five decades after the shocking assassination, most Americans agree that a conspiracy struck down the president. Countless books, articles, and websites are dedicated to uncovering the truth. Many different theories have been postulated as to who might be responsible for orchestrating the assassination, including individuals such as Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, and J. Edgar Hoover, as well as organizations such as the CIA, the FBI, and the Mafia. Foreign nations are also suspect, including Cuban President Fidel Castro, and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev using KGB agents.

These lists are by no means exhaustive. Scores of other individuals and groups have been implicated by various researchers and authors. To date, no one has proposed a widely accepted answer to the mystery of the most notorious assassination of the twentieth century.

Citizens of the world may well be left

to wonder for decades to come.

“Saving Jackie K” Novel by LDC Fitzgerald.

Speeches John F. Kennedy eBook

I’m Just a Patsy! Lee Harvey Oswald In His Own Words

The post JFK Conspiracy Plot appeared first on L.D.C. Fitzgerald, JFK Novelist.

Jack Ruby

New novel Saving Jackie K discusses the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Lee Harvey Oswald was accused of murdering JFK, but didn’t live to stand trial. Jack Ruby gunned him down two days after his arrest. Who was Ruby? Was he involved in a conspiracy? Why did he kill Oswald?

Born in Chicago of Polish immigrant parents, Jacob Rubenstein legally changed his name to Jack Ruby in 1947, the same year he moved to Texas. A lifelong bachelor, Ruby owned and operated two Dallas nightspots—the Carousel Club, a downtown nightclub featuring striptease dancers, and the Vegas Club, a rock-and-roll establishment in the Oaklawn section of Dallas. Although a friend to local law enforcement, the hot-tempered Ruby allegedly had ties to organized crime.

On the day of the Kennedy assassination, Jack Ruby went about his customary business. While visiting the advertising offices of the Dallas Morning News to submit his regular weekend ad, he heard the gut-wrenching news that his president had been shot.

Two days later, on November 24, 1963, Jack Ruby entered the basement of Dallas Police Headquarters, where Lee Harvey Oswald was being escorted to an armored car for the journey to a county lock-up. Bypassing a cordon of police officers, Ruby shot Oswald in the abdomen, an act inadvertently captured on live television by reporters filming the prisoner transfer.

Ruby was convicted of Oswald’s murder and spent his remaining days in prison. He disavowed any participation in a conspiracy plot: “I am as innocent regarding any conspiracy as any of you gentlemen in the room.” His lawyers appealed his death-sentence conviction on grounds of lack of a fair trial in Dallas, but Ruby expired from lung cancer while waiting for a new court date.

Conspiracy theorists allege that the Mafia ordered Ruby to kill Oswald in order to ‘silence’ him. Ruby himself claimed he wanted to spare L.D.C. Fitzgerald, JFK Novelist.

In daring new novel Saving Jackie K, the clock ticks down as the tension mounts up, propelling the characters on a non-stop thrill-ride to an inescapable destination: Dealey Plaza in Dallas. The site of JFK’s brutal assassination back in 1963, the park has remained virtually the same over the past fifty years.

“Saving Jackie K” Novel by LDC Fitzgerald.

George Bannerman Dealey—longtime publisher of the Dallas Morning News—used his influence to campaign for redevelopment of the plaza, which had become neglected and run-down in the 1930s. His efforts inspired revitalization of the park, and as a result, it bears his name. A larger-than-life statue of the powerful business mogul in the plaza pays him homage.

Dominating the park on the northwest corner of Elm and Houston Streets is the Texas School Book Depository Building, formerly with its fabled Hertz billboard and clock on the roof. The seven-story brick building was a regional textbook storage and redistribution center in 1963. Employee Lee Harvey Oswald allegedly fired his Mannlicher-Carcano rifle from the sixth-floor southeast window at the president’s motorcade.

North of Elm Street is a concrete structure called the Pergola. About one hundred feet long, the rounded concrete trellis has a semi-enclosed back and top with a latticework of gaping rectangles. The Pergola sits atop a sloping hill known as the Grassy Knoll. Many conspiracy experts theorize that shots were also fired from the Grassy Knoll or from behind the stockade fence.

At 12:29 pm on November 22, 1963, President Kennedy’s motorcade made a sharp left onto Elm Street from Houston Street, entering Dealey Plaza. American and presidential flags billowed from the front quarter panels of his specially designed Lincoln convertible. As the spectators cheered, President and Mrs. Kennedy smiled and waved at the crowd. At 12:30 pm, shots rang out, echoing throughout the plaza. The motorcade sped away, transporting the fatally wounded president to Parkland Memorial Hospital. He was declared dead thirty minutes later.

I’m Just a Patsy! Lee Harvey Oswald In His Own Words

Conspiracy Home
JFK Assassination
Dealey Plaza
JFK Assassination Timeline

Speeches John F. Kennedy eBook

The post Dealey Plaza, Site of JFK’s Assassination appeared first on L.D.C. Fitzgerald, JFK Novelist.

JFK Assassination

Although the majority of Americans alive today had not yet been born when John F. Kennedy was assassinated, you can bet most have a theory about who killed the thirty-fifth president of the United States. Relentlessly researched novel, Saving Jackie K, weaves actual events with fictional scenes to reveal the “truth.” But what do the historical records purport?

At 12:30 pm on November 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy was struck down by sniper bullets as he rode through Dealey Plaza, Dallas, in an open limousine. Hundreds of horrified spectators heard the staccato gunfire, and witnessed the fatal headshot that spattered his Lincoln convertible with bloody tissue.

Speeches John F. Kennedy eBook

Eighty minutes later, Lee Harvey Oswald – an employee of the Texas School Book Depository in Dealey Plaza – was arrested for murdering dedicated Dallas police officer, J.D. Tippit. He was later accused of the presidential assassination as well. Oswald allegedly fired his bolt-action Mannlicher-Carcano rifle at JFK from a window on the sixth floor of the book warehouse.

Despite the charges, Oswald never faced trial. Two days later, burlesque club owner Jack Ruby shot and killed Oswald in the basement of police headquarters, as lawmen prepared to transfer the suspect to the county jail. The violence shocked an already grieving nation, when network television cameras inadvertently broadcast the execution on live television.

Kennedy’s successor, President Lyndon Baines Johnson, appointed Chief Justice Earl Warren to chair a committee tasked with investigating Kennedy’s assassination. After ten months of testimony and hearings, the Warren Commission concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald acted as the lone gunman responsible for all the shots. However, the majority of Americans blame a broader conspiracy, and suspect a massive cover-up of the truth.

“Saving Jackie K” Novel by LDC Fitzgerald.

In a recent interview regarding the conspiracy, JFK author and assassination historian L.D.C. Fitzgerald said, “The dialogue of the past half a century needs to continue. Whether you’re a staunch lone-nutter or an avid conspiracy theorist, the JFK assassination is a topic that will continue to fascinate, infuriate, and frustrate for decades to come.”

I’m Just a Patsy! Lee Harvey Oswald In His Own Words

Saving Jackie K

The post The Truth About The JFK Assassination appeared first on L.D.C. Fitzgerald, JFK Novelist.

The Mafia

When JFK was inaugurated in 1961, he appointed his kid brother, Robert Francis Kennedy, to the post of US Attorney General. The choice proved controversial. Eight years the president’s junior, the thirty-five year old seemed young, inexperienced, and unqualified for the cabinet-level position. However, in the late 1950s, he had already squared off against organized crime as chief counsel for the Senate Labor Racket Committee. And, he published the book, “The Enemy Within,” a treatise on corrupt practices within the Teamsters’ Union.

Despite cries of nepotism, RFK accepted the role and became JFK’s closest advisor. He immediately began a relentless crusade against the Mafia. Bobby Kennedy set his sights on Jimmy Hoffa, known Mafia boss and president of the Teamsters’ Union. As head of the largest union, with over 1.5 million members, Hoffa was widely recognized for corruption both inside and outside the organization.

Robert Kennedy’s goals to bring down the Mafia clashed with those of FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, who was seen as lenient on organized crime. Nevertheless, RFK continued his pursuit of mob bosses and influencers, with the cooperation of his brother and president, John F. Kennedy.

L.D.C. Fitzgerald, JFK Novelist.