Case Closed: Lee Harvey Oswald and the Assassination of JFK

by Gerald Posner

The assassination of John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963, continues to inspire interest ranging from well-meaning speculation to bizarre conspiracy theories and controversial filmmaking. But in this landmark book, reissued with a new afterword for the 40th anniversary of the assassination, Gerald Posner examines all of the available evidence and reaches the only possible Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. There was no second gunman on the grassy knoll. The CIA was not involved. And although more than four million pages of documents have been released since Posner first made his case, they have served only to corroborate his findings. Case Closed remains the classic account against which all books about JFK’s death must be measured.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, True Crime, Politics, American History, Crime, Biography

Paperback

First published August 31, 1993

About the author

Gerald Posner is an award winning journalist, bestselling author and attorney. The Los Angeles Times dubs him "a classic-style investigative journalist." "His work is painstakingly honest journalism" concluded The Washington Post. The New York Times lauded his "exhaustive research techniques" and The Boston Globe talked of Posner's "thorough and hard-edge investigation." "A meticulous and serious researcher," said the New York Daily News.

Posner's first book, Mengele, a 1986 biography of the Nazi "Angel of Death” Josef Mengele, was the result of a pro-bono lawsuit Posner brought on behalf of surviving twins from Auschwitz. Since then he has written ten other books from the Pulitzer Prize-finalist Case Closed, to bestsellers on political assassinations, organized crime, national politics, and 9/11 and terrorism. His upcoming God’s Bankers has spanned nine years of research and received early critical praise.

ohn Martin of ABC News says "Gerald Posner is one of the most resourceful investigators I have encountered in thirty years of journalism." Garry Wills calls Posner "a superb investigative reporter. "Posner, a former Wall Street lawyer, demolishes myths through a meticulous re-examination of the facts," reported the Chicago Tribune. "Meticulous research," Newsday.

Anthony Lewis in The New York Times: "With 'Killing the Dream, he has written a superb book: a model of investigation, meticulous in its discovery and presentation of evidence, unbiased in its exploration of every claim. And it is a wonderfully readable book, as gripping as a first-class detective story."

"What we need is a work of painstakingly honest journalism, a la Case Closed, Gerald Posner's landmark re-examination of the assassination of John F. Kennedy," concluded Joe Sharkey in The New York Times.

Gene Lyons, in Entertainment Weekly: "As thorough and incisive a job of reporting and critical thinking as you will ever read, Case Closed does more than buttress the much beleaguered Warren Commission's conclusion ….More than that, Posner's book is written in a penetrating, lucid style that makes it a joy to read. Even the footnotes, often briskly debunking one or another fanciful or imaginary scenario put forth by the conspiracy theorists, rarely fail to enthrall...Case Closed is a work of genuine patriotism and a monument to the astringent power of reason. 'A'"

Jeffrey Toobin in the Chicago Tribune: "Unlike many of the 2,000 other books that have been written about the Kennedy assassination, Posner's Case Closed is a resolutely sane piece of work. More importantly, 'Case Closed' is utterly convincing in its thesis, which seems, in light of all that has transpired over the past 30 years, almost revolutionary....I started Case Closed as a skeptic - and slightly put off by the presumptuous title. To my mind historical truth is always a slippery thing. The chances of knowing for sure what happened in any event - much less one as murky as the Kennedy assassination - seem remote. But this fascinating and important book won me over. Case closed, indeed."

Based in the mixed realms of politics, history, and true crime, his articles - from The New York Times to The New Yorker to Newsweek, Time and The Daily Beast - have prompted Argentina to open its hidden Nazi files to researchers; raised disturbing questions about clues the FBI missed in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing; sparked a reinvestigation of the Boston Strangler; and exposed Pete Rose's gambling addiction, which led to his ban from baseball.

Posner was one of the youngest attorneys (23) ever hired by Cravath, Swaine & Moore. A Political Science major, Posner was a Phi Beta Kappa and Summa Cum Laude graduate of the University of California at Berkeley (1975), where he was also a national debating champion, winner of the Meiklejohn Award. At Hastings Law School (1978), he was an Honors Graduate and served as the Associate Executive Editor for the Law Review. Of Counsel to Posner & Ferrar

Reviews

[Megan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I remember watching a recent History or Discovery Channel show on the John F. Kennedy assassination. They took the media from that day, the press coverage and the news anchors and even just bystanders taking video and photos of the entire day, and edited it together to form a cohesive narrative of November 22, 1963, in Dallas. It was absolutely fascinating. In many ways JFK was the first president elected due to television's burgeoning role in politics - and television is what so many people looked to after his assassination for answers.

It was media that played the primary role in establishing concerns about a conspiracy behind the killing. The Dallas police force was unused to so much media attention, and the chaos and publicity of the event led to confused eyewitness reports. It makes sense that people would consider a conspiracy. John Wilkes Booth was part of a group of conspirators, although Garfield and McKinley were likewise the victims of lone gunmen. With politics being what they were in the 1960s - people worried about Communists, minority races, homosexuals and mob hitmen - and JFK being who he was, it seems almost impossible to believe one man could have acted on his own.

It's as William Manchester is quoted in the book, and in the television special I saw: "If you put six million dead Jews on one side of a scale and on the other side put the Nazi regime [...] you have a rough balance: greatest crime, greatest criminals. But if you put the murdered President of the United States on one side of a scale and that wretched waif Oswald on the other side, it doesn't balance. You want to add something weightier to Oswald. It would invest the President's death with meaning, endowing him with martyrdom. He would have died for something."

Unfortunately, there is no conspiracy. Gerald Posner masterfully demonstrates this in his book. "Case Closed," which is rife with footnotes and citations, follows Lee Harvey Oswald and Jack Ruby from birth to death, accounting for what seems like almost every day of their adult lives. It is easy to see after reading in so much detail about Oswald why he seized the opportunity to kill the President, and it's likewise easy to see how much emotional turmoil Jack Ruby went through before spontaneously deciding to kill Oswald. Not only that, but it becomes obvious that these two were bit players, maybe not even that. They both had fantasies that they were more than they really were. Oswald wanted to be a great Marxist or Communist. He wanted to be recognized. Jack wanted to be known, as well.

Beyond detailing their lives up to the assassination/murder, Posner also delves into some of the concerns people have with the consistency of evidence in the assassination. The bullets, the trajectory, the number of shooters, the evidence in the Book Depository, and witness accounts are all addressed. This book came out in 1993, so it is somewhat dated, but he was able to use computer modeling to recreate some of the questionable situations. He also uses medical evidence to account for certain things such as why JFK looks like he is reacting to a shot from the front when he was shot from behind.

This is really an excellent book and a must-read for anyone interested not only in the assassination itself but also the history of our country in the 1950s and 60s and the prevailing mindset of the time.

[Sean Chick · Rating 1 out of 5]

If you think Oswald acted alone then you are either lying, ignorant, or stupid. I'm not sure where Posner fits into these categories but I lean towards stupid.

[Brian Manville · Rating 5 out of 5]

Where does the evidence lead? That is the central question in both the realms of both science and history. We can believe what we want, but it will be either with a factual basis to support it or it will not. Generally, sources that are credible, and are as close to the event as possible have the most weight in determining the factuality of an event. The use of primary sources from the time of the event is also crucial in determining the facts of the matter at hand.


The book spends its first 40% concentrating on Oswald himself. The picture that emerges is one of a incredibly small man who possesses two of the worst traits possible; arrogance and stupidity. Time and again, Posner provides eyewitness testimony to the fact that Oswald was simply a blithering idiot and/or a complete loon. His mental state one could charitably claim as disturbed, yet he never got any help. He comes to his Marxism by reading and cannot adequately defend himself against competing views except by argument. He goes to Russia, finds life there to be in opposition to the worker's paradise he envisioned, and comes home with his Russian wife and child. Upon returning home, he drifts from job to job and attempts to curry favor with the American Communist Party by being the only member of his local Fair Play for Cuba organization. He is delusional, grandiose, yet paranoid. Above all else, he wants to make a name for himself. In the end, it is that need to be famous which puts him on the sixth floor of the Texas Book Depository on that fateful day. Posner spends much time going through the timeline of the events of that weekend, along the way destroying the various conspiracy theories that have arisen in the last 50 years. Some of the competing theories have at least a kernel of logic and truth to them, but some - such as the switching of JFK's body at Love Field on Air Force One - simply defy logic and common sense. But Posner dissects all of the major alternate theories and goes about eliminating them as possible explanations. The problem with most conspiracies is they can only be kept truly secret is if only one person is left alive who knows the plot. BOTTOM LINE: This is the definitive work on the Kennedy assassination and worth reading whether you believe Oswald did it or not.

[Christopher Saunders · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gerald Posner's Case Closed makes a powerful case that the John F. Kennedy Assassination, the defining trauma of the 1960s, occurred exactly as reported: Lee Harvey Oswald fired the fatal shots in Dallas on November 22, 1963 and destroyed a presidency, and a nation's innocence in the process. Posner published his book in 1993, soon after Oliver Stone's JFK reignited popular interest in the assassination and the millions of conspiracy theories swirling around it. With over 80 percent of Americans believing some variation of conspiracy (a number that's only slightly declined since) and seemingly endless theories (blaming everyone from semi-plausible culprits - the CIA, KGB, mafia and right wing extremists - to the berserk - Lyndon Johnson, Frank Sinatra, MJ-12's Alien Cover-Up Division and the Illuminati), he faced a daunting task. The book might disappoint those looking for a thorough debunking of the most common conspiracy theories, which it mostly addresses in passim. Instead, Posner files a detailed prosecutor's brief that Oswald was fully capable, both technically and by temperament, of having killed Kennedy himself. And most readers will find it hard to argue with his conclusions.

The balance of the book focuses on Oswald himself, probing his troubled life in painful detail. Conspiracy books often deal with Oswald as an afterthought, some going so far as to depict him as a victim; one sanctimonious recent author dubs him "one of those bright, lost, fatherless boys whom society finds inventive ways of abusing." Posner has no time for this misplaced sentimentality. Indeed the product of a broken home and an overprotective mother, Oswald was no pitiable "lost boy" but a juvenile delinquent who matured into a troublemaker. As a Marine he argued with fellow servicemen and accidentally injured himself with a firearm; he became a communist and defected to the Soviet Union, only to grow almost immediately disillusioned when the "Worker's Paradise" failed to match his expectations. Returning to the US with his Russian wife Marina, he drifted between Dallas and New Orleans, physically abusing his wife, struggling to hold down his job and becoming increasingly engrossed in quixotic political activism. Oswald's minor notoriety as a pro-Castro gadfly certainly made him stand out in the heated political context of the early '60s; his attempted murder of right wing demagogue Edwin Walker cemented his credentials as a "hunter of fascists." He wasn't merely a loser acting out but a man with strongly-held, if somewhat inchoate political beliefs, inflated sense of self-importance and a propensity for violence. In other words, exactly the sort of man who might turn a gun on the President of the United States.

Posner further demonstrates that, despite decades of conspiracy lore arguing otherwise, Oswald's shooting was perfectly plausible and indeed probable. Most witnesses supported the Warren Commission's conclusion that three shots were fired; only a handful claimed to see more shots, or additional shooters, and most of the latter invented or embellished their stories years, even decades after the fact. The "magic bullet" which injured both Kennedy and Governor John Connally seems a lot less magical when Posner demonstrates that their positions in the car made it easy for a bullet to pass through them as described, with relatively little deviation of its route (none of the "bullet hovering in midair" nonsense propagated by Oliver Stone). Oswald's rifle, the much-maligned Mannlicher-Carcano, was a perfectly serviceable weapon for the task at hand (unmentioned by Posner, the cause of its poor wartime reputation was the Italian military issuing it to soldiers with improper ammunition). Kennedy's head snapping "back and to the left" was a neurological reaction to a bullet obliterating his brain; indeed, a frame-by-frame breakdown of the Zapruder film shows that he actually slumps forward first, until the brain explodes into fragments. The evidence against Oswald is largely substantial and convincing; the evidence for a conspiracy is largely conjectural, reduced to a handful of unreliable witnesses, suppositions about who benefited from Kennedy’s death and scouring photographs and videos for light and shadows that might, if you squint, resemble a second shooter.

If Posner's book has a failing, it's not that he fails to address the likes of Mark Lane, Anthony Summers, etc. in detail, something that falls outside his purview (Vincent Bugliosi's Reclaiming History, an almost-comically detailed encyclopedia of debunking, serves that function). Rather, he assumes too much competence on the part of the investigating bodies: the FBI's destruction of the Hosty letter and other evidence of their poor handling of Oswald before the assassination, for instance, is only mentioned in passing. The CIA's refusal to hand over documents to the Warren Commission (partially in fear of exposing their operations to overthrow Fidel Castro) cast a veil of suspicion over the investigation that never faded. There was a cover-up after the assassination, but not of government complicity in Kennedy's death; instead it was bureaucratic ass covering that, by seeking to remove suspicion, only inflamed it instead. Even without considering this, however, Posner makes a near-ironclad case that Oswald was the only shooter in Dealey Plaza. And while conspiracy theories have continued to percolate through media and public consciousness since Case Closed's publication, none have adequately addressed Posner's arguments. A formidable work of rubbish-clearing; essential reading.

[Paul Spencer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Way too much detail but Posner obviously had to cross every t and dot every i in order to make a convincing argument that Oswald acted alone. He convinced me. The thing about all the Kennedy conspiracy theories (and this is true of pretty much all conspiracy theories) is they're really meant to reassure us that the world is an orderly place (even if it's an evil one). What Posner reveals is just how random world events are, so random that a loser, with little to distinguish himself in life other than his skill at marksmanship, can change the course of history.

[Timothy O'Brien · Rating 1 out of 5]

I've spoken to Posner online. I stopped short of telling him that his entire thesis is a pile of horse excrement. But it is. I believe Posner could look at dollar bill and call it a table.

Anyone with half a brain can see how empty his conclusions are.

[Chad · Rating 2 out of 5]

After the President’s Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy, better known as the “Warren Commission,” issued its final report in September 1964, according to a Gallup poll more than half of Americans still rejected the idea that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. By the mid-1970s, the number had risen to 81%, and around the time director Oliver Stone’s 1991 film JFK was released, a Gallup poll indicated a staggering 90% percent of those surveyed did not accept the “official version” of the assassination. An overwhelming majority of Americans still reject this version today.

Such widespread dissent in American society has contributed to endemic mistrust of government, perhaps nowhere more evident than in the current polarization on Capitol Hill, where proposals to establish a “January 6th commission” (to investigate what actually happened during the Capitol break-in on January 6, 2021) have gone down like lead balloons. There is no public clamor for such a commission, because there is little or no public faith that its conclusions would reflect justice. Arguably, such public mistrust was born of the Warren Commission some 57 years ago.

Gerald Posner, author of Case Closed: Lee Harvey Oswald and the Assassination of JFK, argues that “conspiracy theorists” are to blame for this mistrust. By “conspiracy theorists,” Posner means anyone who doesn’t accept the Warren Commission’s report as conclusive.

In the conclusion of his own, meticulously researched book, Oswald and the CIA, John Newman refers to Case Closed thus:

The JFK murder case cannot be truly closed before it has been genuinely opened. It was a tribute to the insanity that has surrounded this subject when, in the fall of 1993, the American national media leveled inordinate praise on a book whose author was attempting to close the case just as the government’s files were being opened. That opening was created by the passage of the JFK Records Act in 1992…

Newman added an epilogue to the 2008 edition, writing that his own views on the assassination had “evolved” over the previous thirteen years, because the six million records made available as a result of the Act, while not solving the riddle of the murder, “shed light on the nature and design of the plot and the national security cover-up that followed.”

Posner, by contrast, doubles down in the afterword of the “revised edition” of Case Closed, published in 2003, saying the only change to the title he might consider would be Case Still Closed. Posner’s sop to the truth comes in reference to Live by the Sword: The Secret War Against Castro and the Death of JFK by Gus Russo, who also concludes that Lee Harvey Oswald was solely responsible for JFK’s murder:

Russo’s work has persuaded me that I was too mild in castigating the CIA in Case Closed for its virtually non-existent investigation. The CIA not only lied to the Warren Commission, but deliberately withheld evidence, not because it feared disclosing a conspiracy against JFK, but rather because it put its own interests first and the public’s and the government’s right to know second. By so doing, CIA officials performed a disservice both to the country and to history.

Notably, Posner’s afterword distinguishes between the “CIA,” on the one hand, and the “government,” on the other. Yet in America, when we talk of “government,” we’re not referring to the “cabinet,” as in parliamentary democracies. Rather, the “government” means the “state apparatus” as a whole, including all executive-branch agencies. Since Posner is an American, differentiating the “CIA” from the “government” should make him suspect.

The overwhelming bulk of Case Closed is a biography of Lee Harvey Oswald. Posner conveys Oswald as an unhappy, uneducated, dysfunctional loner desperate for attention, and he does so largely successfully. That said, this is a relatively easy task for any author, even if Posner sinks into hyperbole throughout. Oswald was twenty-four when he died and had not even turned twenty by the time of his defection to the USSR. At the time he began working as a radar operator at a U-2 base in Atsugi, Japan, in 1957, he was seventeen. Not yet a fully formed man, Oswald was confused and anxious, proclaiming fealty to “Marxism” and “freedom.” Not terribly bright, he didn’t really know what he was doing, so the argument goes. Where Posner fails is in trying to convince us that Oswald was nothing more than an “unguided missile” with personal problems.

When Oswald returned to the United States from the Soviet Union in June 1962, he did so free from arrest or even temporary detention for his defection. Instead, he settled peacefully in Dallas with his Soviet wife and infant child, found a job, and began working. This, we are to believe, was nothing out of the ordinary: Oswald was just a loser, and the authorities were simply cutting him a break. Even if this were true, demonstrating one thing is not disproving another, and Case Closed leaves too much unanswered – even unmentioned – in the story.

Most of Posner’s analysis of the mechanics of the actual assassination can be dispensed with quickly. He describes Dealey Plaza as an “echo chamber” that, because of its layout, was bound to cause different “earwitnesses” to hear shots from a variety of directions. He then quotes from such witnesses selectively, luring the reader into believing the only reason a horde of people ran toward the “grassy knoll” right after the “kill shot” (not toward the Texas School Book Depository) was because a motorcycle cop ran that way. In other words, they were all just following the policeman! The multitude of witnesses who claimed to have bolted – reflexively – in the direction of the fence at the top of the grassy knoll would make Posner’s assertion comical were it not so hackneyed. Posner even has the temerity to quote eyewitness Howard Brennan as above reproach despite solid impeachment of his testimony decades earlier.

In the final analysis, however, it doesn’t matter whether Oswald was the lone gunman in Dealey Plaza on November 22, 1963, because even if he was, it doesn’t squelch the “conspiracy” charge. Why? Posner follows Oswald’s life from birth to death, but what he neglects to even mention is that while he has only followed Oswald retrospectively, the CIA was following Oswald very closely from (at the latest) the time of his defection to the USSR in October 1959 until he was gunned down in a room full of police officers in Dallas on November 24, 1963.

Ridiculing the notion that Oswald was a “CIA operative” on account of his lack of education or sophistication is to ignore the possibility that Oswald was, nevertheless, part of a CIA operation. John Newman’s Oswald and the CIA goes into painstaking detail to demonstrate that the CIA was not only more than aware who Oswald was and what he was doing in the years, months, weeks and days leading up to the assassination, but that someone in the Agency was going out of their way to obscure the full extent of the CIA’s knowledge about him. The relevant files on Oswald (including the file automatically opened on him when he defected to the Soviet Union) were manipulated for over a year before the assassination so as to make it appear that the CIA knew far less about him than it really did in the eyes of anyone looking into Oswald after the assassination. Someone in a position of power within the Agency was ingenious enough to shape Oswald’s public image with a view to the future. They succeeded, diabolically, in distancing Oswald from the CIA enough to throw off investigators and “historians” like Gerald Posner decades later.

Some fifty-seven years after the killing, in the age of the internet, smart phones and instant communication, it is hard to imagine the level of secrecy required to conceal the truth behind a plot within the government to assassinate a president ever being maintained for any significant length of time. But in 1963, a government functionary with the highest security clearance and physical access to top secret files and dossiers could have removed, inserted, altered and even destroyed documents quite easily. The “electronic dimension” had not yet made tracing such actions automatic. Assuming a CIA official in the early 1960s had sufficient power and seniority, retention of secrecy in the manipulation of files on persons of interest would be assured. This is what happened, and while Posner does discuss one culprit, it is not as a conspirator in murder.

The best chapter in Case Closed is also its most anomalous. Chapter 3, “The War of the Defectors,” concerns the CIA’s efforts to prevent a Soviet KGB defector, Yuri Nosenko, from spreading his claim that the KGB had been totally uninterested in the “nutty” Oswald during the time the ex-Marine lived in the USSR, and that Oswald couldn’t have been acting as a Soviet agent when he shot JFK. Nosenko defected to the US in 1964 but was then imprisoned in isolation and subjected to CIA torture for three years at the urging of another Soviet defector, Anatoly Golitsyn. Golitsyn had come to the US in 1961 and quickly became a close confidante of the chief of the CIA’s Counterintelligence Staff, James Jesus Angleton. Golitsyn insisted Nosenko was a KGB plant.

History has left the impression that Angleton was under a kind of spell weaved by Golitsyn, and this may be true. But it is also true that Angleton needed no convincing where Oswald was concerned, because Angleton simply couldn’t allow the kind of information Nosenko was offering to get out. Oswald’s connections to the Soviet Union had to remain just vague enough to convince the post-JFK authorities of the need to suppress his full story. The Johnson administration’s operating principle was that any notion of conspiracy in the assassination might implicate the Soviet Union in the murder of a US president and prompt World War III. This principle became the raison d’etre of the Warren Commission. So Angleton kept detailed information on Oswald buried, for the sake of the “legend” on which the Warren Commission and subsequent investigations would rely in branding him a “lone nut,” and for making all their final reports fit the preordained conclusion. In short, though Posner doesn’t discuss it, Angleton closely controlled Oswald’s image both before and after the assassination, to the great detriment of any truth-seeking about JFK.

James Angleton was an instigator of the CIA’s “MKULTRA” project (1953-1973), involving forced use of LSD on human subjects for “national security” purposes. He was also among a select group of CIA “founding fathers” who never forgave JFK for refusing a full-scale military invasion of Cuba in 1961. Allen Dulles, who first authorized MKULTRA as CIA director (1951-1961) and was the most active Warren Commission member, was Angleton’s idol and mentor. Other “Old Boys” included David Atlee Phillips, the CIA’s chief of Cuban operations, in charge of monitoring Oswald in Mexico City before the assassination; Bill Harvey, who’d headed the CIA program to partner with the Mafia for the purposes of carrying out assassinations; and E. Howard Hunt, a CIA officer who (it was proven in court in 1985) was in Dallas on the day of JFK’s assassination. Posner would dismiss any notions of unbreakable loyalty (however warped) among a core group of CIA members, but such loyalty is hardly far-fetched. If Dulles knew how Angleton had been handling Oswald, Angleton could surely have counted on a solid ally in Dulles as a Warren Commission member, steering the panel’s investigation and directing its legal staff toward the right conclusion: Oswald had nothing to do with the CIA.

Importantly, Posner is so dismissive of Oswald as anything more than a sad little misfit with a massive chip on his shoulder that he neglects to identify any pattern extending beyond his sorry subject. Yet there was a pattern, plainly visible outside any confidential government files.

On November 2, 1963, a mentally disturbed ex-Marine named Thomas Arthur Vallee was arrested in Chicago. Two policemen had been conducting surveillance on Vallee since the day before, and when they pulled him over found 3,000 rounds of ammunition, an M-1 rifle and a handgun in his car. That day, Kennedy was scheduled to arrive in Chicago and would ride in a motorcade through the city. Vallee’s precise work location, in a warehouse directly overlooking the presidential parade route, gave him an even clearer view of the planned Chicago motorcade than Oswald had in Dallas.

Two and a half hours before JFK’s scheduled arrival, the trip was canceled, and Vallee became a designated “would-be assassin.” But Secret Service agent Abraham Bolden said after the assassination that the Chicago Secret Service office had received a teletype from the FBI shortly before JFK’s visit, warning that an assassination attempt would be made by a four-man Cuban hit squad armed with high-powered rifles. When Bolden later discovered that this would be withheld from the Warren Commission, he tried to report it to Washington. For his efforts, he was charged with accepting a bribe and sentenced to a lengthy prison term. Bolden, the first black Secret Service agent to be assigned to the protection of a president (JFK), had been transferred to Chicago after criticizing the laxity of the White House’s Secret Service detail. Was the model for an abortive assassination in Chicago repeated successfully in Dallas three weeks later?

Posner takes repeated aim at Mark Lane, author of Rush to Judgment, and in fact the sections of Case Closed dealing with Dealey Plaza witnesses mostly appear to be just an attempt to rebut Lane’s 1966 work. This seems unfair. Among all the “conspiracy critics,” as Posner calls them, Lane was best known for first highlighting the flaws in the Warren Commission’s methodology. Any serious attorney would do this. The Warren Report was certainly a “rush job,” as even Posner admits, just as he admits the commission was unable to secure full cooperation from federal agencies such as the CIA and FBI in collecting evidence. In fact, Lane did a genuine service to justice by questioning the official version, because the Warren Commission was neither a judicial nor a legislative body. Its “report” never had legal force, and Lee Harvey Oswald was never represented by legal counsel. The fact that he was dead by the time the investigation started was beside the point. Oswald never had a defense, and Lane acted as posthumous “defense counsel” when no one else would, much to his credit. Yet Posner’s attacks on Mark Lane rise to the level of character assassination at times.

In a bit of cruel irony, Posner would later find himself in hot water for plagiarism and would ask Mark Lane to represent him in a lawsuit. In other words, the man who was so disdainful of “conspiracy theory” actually selected an 83-year-old “conspiracy theorist” as his defense counsel, conceding that – had Lee Harvey Oswald ever been tried for murder – Lane would have won an acquittal. Lane, for his part, was never vicious or nasty toward Posner, though he had every right to be. In this case, contrary to stereotypes, the practicing lawyer demonstrated the greater virtue.

Labeling Case Closed an “anti-conspiracy” book does not fully account for its purpose. It is not designed merely to debunk the notion that John F. Kennedy’s murder resulted from a conspiracy, but to pour heavy scorn on any tendency toward conspiratorial explanations for anything. The tone of the work is so derisive and haughty that it leaves the reader feeling like a “bad citizen” for daring to question the “official version” of any historical event. To doubt the veracity of the conclusions of the Warren Commission is to side with crackpots, knaves and swindlers.

Case Closed is one of those books that never goes out of print. It comes out in a slick and fancy binding, produced by a mainstream publisher, and makes the author a pile of money as it is released in subsequent years as an updated paperback, e-book, CD, audio book and so forth. At the same time, none of the books rejecting the Warren Commission’s “verdict” ever seem to achieve commercial success nearly as easily, no matter how well written or researched. When they do become bestsellers, it is very much “against the grain.” Lane’s Rush to Judgment became a bestseller, but its 50th-anniversary edition is self-published, and its cover looks cheap and misprinted.

This state of affairs, binding historical worth to dubious “market success,” does nothing to resolve the enduring, widespread mistrust among Americans concerning the official version of the JFK assassination. It just perpetuates it and prolongs society’s pain. It also raises suspicions that financing and promotion for the publication of books like Case Closed actually come from some shadowy government agency, like the CIA, which is at the core of what is called the “Deep State” today. The Deep State, it seems, controls a bottomless pit of money and can pay to have its crimes kept secret and its lies defended, forever and ever. Public mistrust of government in America thus simply builds and builds while a nation’s wound remains unhealed, corroding society from within.

[Dick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Posner does a superior job of running down all the allegations and conspiraicies. His detailed run down of the facts, rumors and innuendoes is impressive. For those who think there was more than one person shooting that day - read this book. For those who think that Lyndon Johnson was involved - read this book. The pristine bullet is explained - which has subsequently been proven through use of computer modeling - to have hit both the president and the governor. And the bullet was not pristine - conspiracy folks will show that part of the bullet that appears undamaged.

[Ulrich Krieghund · Rating 4 out of 5]

First off, I would like to say that the case will never be entirely closed, thanks to Jack Ruby. America was done a great disservice by not having a full trial of Oswald.

While this book is meticulous it its examination of the actions, beliefs and motivations of Oswald, the author does have one annoying aspect that seeps into his analysis of the most prevalent conspiracy theories. He constantly refers to those who pursue various conspiracy stories as "buffs". This is a slight and belittles those who have arrived at a different conclusion. Would Posner the author like to be constantly called a lone gunman buff or single shooter theorist?

That small matter aside, I am convinced that Oswald was the only shooter. And I really wanted to believe that some conspiracy had to be the truth. The evidence is just not there.

Oswald was a total nobody who killed a great somebody. The man only had four bullets and managed a kill shot with the third bullet. Oswald was not placed in the Texas School Book Depository by some mafia or CIA conspiracy. Rather, he was sent there by a woman who knew his wife and was trying to help the unemployed bum.

Think like Oswald for a moment. You are a communist who was disillusioned by your brief attempt to live in the Soviet Union. As a former marine and an American defector, you expected to be treated as a special individual in your new country. Instead, you are given a menial job and relegated to the life of a common Soviet citizen. Bitterly, you return to America, a country you still hate and now view as "the lesser of two evils".

On your return to America, your political views and poor social skills ostracize you from co-workers and cost you various crummy jobs. You have an inflated sense of your intellect and become increasingly frustrated at the world's failure to realize your genius. Frustrated, you stew and abuse your wife verbally and physically. You take a sniper's shot at a retired general in his home. You miss. You admit to your wife that you took a shot at the general and missed. You stew in the dark outside your home, sitting in your underwear and making dry bolt runs with your Italian rifle. You cannot even drive a car. You are a loser.

Estranged from your wife, living apart from her and disappointed with your life, you open yesterday's paper in the break room and see that the President of the United States is coming to your city in just a few days. The entire route of the President's motorcade is in the newspaper. The route will go right by the building in which you work. You own a high powered rifle that has a scope on it.

Now, after you fire three bullets at the slow moving car containing the President and score a headshot with the final bullet, you race down from the sixth floor sniper's nest, poorly hide that rifle on the sixth floor and race down to the second floor and buy a coca-cola to appear nonchalant.

Shortly thereafter, you exit amid the chaos in Dealey Plaza right through the front door and walk a few blocks to catch a bus. You are the only one who leaves your job at the Texas School Book Suppository. You go to your boarding house room and pick up a pistol. A policeman tries to stop you. You shoot him dead and start running.

Now, it is a fact that Oswald was arrested with a pistol and tried to shoot the arresting cop. If he wasn't guilty, why did he leave work and pick up a pistol from his boarding house room?

There are still some troubling aspects of the assassination of JFK. Why was the car immediately cleaned? It was the scene of a murder. Why were there so many non-doctors in the autopsy room? What colossal incompetence let Jack Ruby walk up and shoot at point blank range the most important murder suspect in the history of the world? Imagine if Jack the Ripper had been caught. Oswald was more important than that.

[Brittany · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although I enjoyed this book, I still am undecided about any final conclusion. Throughout the book, it felt like the author had an agenda- he wanted to prove that Lee Harvey Oswald was the sole assassin and presented the evidence with that in mind. That's not to say I didn't think Posner's research was impressive and did blow some conspiracy theories out of the water, because he did. I have heard that Vincent Bugliosi's Reclaiming History is the definitive book out there for the lone gunman theory and I wish I would have read that first.

Posner had this very pompous and dismissive way of writing about every single author and even witnesses that don't support his theory, going so far in his footnotes to comment on their privates lives. While that isn't a valid criticism on his theory, I just think it's a crappy thing to do and makes me think less of Posner in general.

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Before this book, I didn't have much previous knowledge about the intricacies of various conspiracy theories and hadn't formed my own opinion on the matter. I decided to pick it up because of my new Dallas residency and all the hoopla surrounding the 50th anniversary. And my office is next door to the book depository, so the event has become much more real.

This book was recommended as "THE" book to read - most respected, most thorough, best research etc. And now that I've finished it, I agree.

This book is like drinking from a firehose for someone like me who didn't have much prior knowledge. Posner leaves literally NO stone unturned. His exhaustive research disproves, discredits or at least shows the high improbability for pretty much every conspiracy theory out there.

Posner quotes William Manchester, historian and author of Death of a President, said, ..."But if you put the murdered President of the United States on one side of the scale and that wretched waif Oswald on the other side, it doesn't balance. You want to add something weightier to Odwald. It woudl invest the President's death with meaning, endowing him with martyrdom. He would have died for something." This is the true essence of our longing for a conspiracy - it just can't be that such a moron took away a leader with so much promise. But based on what I've read in this book, I'm reluctantly convinced that that is the case.

[Pete daPixie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I must have around two hundred books covering the JFK assassination, both on my home library shelves and on my Kindle reader. I am also a member of a U.K. research group. (Dealey Plaza U.K.)
Needless to say, this is my favourite topic of reading material. Finally getting around to 'Case Closed', I was surprised at how much I liked this book. It comprehensively covers a very large range of topics of the case. Oswald's biography is fairly well detailed, the evidence against him in Dealey Plaza, the Tippit killing and the shooting at General Walker follows Warren to the letter, but there are flaws and omissions.
I've been convinced of Ruby's mafia links and I do not go along with Posner that his killing of LHO was pure chance.
Chapter 19 "What happened to the truth" is a very good chronology of the investigative research efforts post W.C. and prior to the A.R.R.B., which should fill the void for readers new to the subject.
I found many opinions in common with the author regarding mafia guilt, Lifton's body theft, the Garrison trial, Jean Hill, Beverley Oliver, the Murchison party, Roscoe White, Dr Charles Crenshaw, Aubrey Rike and others.
Where history has been poorly served is in regard to ballistics evidence and JFK's autopsy. 'Case Closed' omits detail in these areas. Chapter 6 'Hunter of Fascists' tells us that the bullet fired at General Walker has visible markings and good probability it was fired from Oswald's Carcano. What is not mentioned is that in 1978 General Walker wrote to the H.S.C.A. denying that the bullet being reviewed by the committee was the same bullet that had been fired into his home.
Vince Palamara includes in his 'Survivor's Guilt' a statement from limo driver Greer to a motorcycle policemen Nick Principe on the evening of Nov 22nd that "shots were coming from all directions, and one even came through the windshield." We do not read in this book of the witnesses at Parkland who stated that they saw a small through and through hole in the windshield.
Chapter 13 'He had a death look' states that nobody at Parkland turned JFK over to witness the back wound. (A wound that is continuously referred to here as a neck wound.) In fact English nurse Diana Bowron did turn him over when washing JFK's body prior to placing the body in the coffin. She provided diagrams to Harry Livingstone which placed the bullet hole in the same location as the original autopsy diagrams done at Bethesda. Ambiguities that persist and cloud issues. Baden's statement, "and if they say there was a large hole in the rear of the head, they don't know what they are talking about since there is nothing there but the entry injury in the rear cowlick." That statement is true in regard to the autopsy photographs, where the rear of JFK's skull is intact, but is not what Secret Service agent Clint Hill witnessed on Elm Street when he climbed onto the back of the limo, or what Parkland's trauma room personnel originally reported.
As Warren Commission member Burt Griffin said, "there is plenty there that would allow a reasonable person to speculate about a conspiracy theory."

[Scott · Rating 5 out of 5]

Should be required reading for every American high school student. Quite a disappointment for conspiracy theorists everywhere. An honest and direct approach to this tragic episode in American history. I clearly remember many of the events from November 1963. After I read the book and visited the 6th floor of the Texas book depository I find myself in complete agreement with Mr. Posner, "case closed."

[Fred Forbes · Rating 5 out of 5]

The book title can probably be taken literally since the assassination is examined from virtually every angle. Sorry for the conspiratists but I think Posner got it right - at least I have seen no creditable source who has been able to debunk any of this material. Not that they don't keep trying all these years later. Guess it is just tough to believe a lone American crackpot could bring down an American President.

[Chris · Rating 2 out of 5]

Posner can eat one. He raises more questions than answers and doesn't provide very convincing arguments as to how Oswald could so easily get in and out of Russia with a Russian bride during the Cold War.

[William · Rating 1 out of 5]

A restatement of the Warren Commission report - with the same mistakes and faulty reasoning.

[John Bullock · Rating 1 out of 5]

Anyone who believes LHO was a lone assassin acting on his own merit and volition needs a check up from the neck up.

[Vidur Kapur · Rating 4 out of 5]

The notion that John F. Kennedy's assassination was the result of a conspiracy was probably the conspiracy theory that I put the most stock in without actually thinking it to be true. Before reading this book, I was 30% confident that two or more people were involved in the assassination. I'm now 10% confident in this belief. Posner is incredibly thorough and doesn't shy away from taking on the strongest arguments against the official position that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. I had a list of questions that I wanted answers to and he addressed basically all of them.

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

I came into Case Closed a believer in the lone gunman theory, but I had some nagging doubts. After reading Posner's work, many of those doubts were assuaged and I am very skeptical of the arguments for any conspiracy.
Oswald's youth, military service, defection to Russia, and return are marked by delusions of grandeur and violence. Oswald is vociferously pro-communist and anti-capitalist/American in the military, in Russia, and back in the United States.
Posner alleges that numerous conspiracy authors leave Oswald out of their books almost entirely or neglect to mention key details about his background like those mentioned above. He also claims that conspiracy theory books are unlikely to acknowledge Oswald's attempted assassination of General Walker or his murder of the police officer J.D. Tippit. And that makes sense, it would be hard to argue that a volatile man who has made one assassination attempt already and kills a police officer on the day JFK is killed (he's also the only worker in his office building who is missing later in the day) is innocent.
After examining Oswald’s life, Posner shifts his attention to witnesses on the day of assassination, available physical evidence, and specific conspiracy theories about the events. He combs through testimony to offer data about how many shots were heard, explores the Zapruder film, and does a deep dive into the medical records.
Posner alleges more dishonesty among conspiracy authors such as describing testimony in dishonest ways (e.g. as to their recollections about the location of gunshots), leaving things out of testimony, picking and choosing from contradicting accounts to create a narrative, not revealing background info that discredits witnesses, and otherwise taking seeming charlatans at their word.
One thing that bothers me about Case Closed is that Posner can be perhaps overzealous in his attacks on the character of some witnesses. Perhaps he has to be, though. There's so many obvious bad actors. Even if you believe one of the conspiracy theories, you still have to believe that 90% of those claiming to be witnesses or have information are liars because there are so many contradictory theories.
I also thought it curious that Posner is so critical of the CIA and FBI, but he's very certain they're not covering up a conspiracy. His argument could be better developed as to why their reticence and lack of cooperation is just bureaucratic incompetence and/or a jealous guarding of assets and secrets.
Finally, I enjoyed Posner's musings on why conspiracies take hold of the public imagination and why they maintain their popularity in the face of weighty evidence.
I would recommend this book both to those who buy into the lone gunman theory and conspiracy theorists alike. The first type of person will find ample information that bolsters their argument. And the latter will at least know exactly the argument they will have to disprove in order to convince skeptics.

[Brian Groover · Rating 1 out of 5]

Posner's case appears to be rock-solid and incontrovertible, but major issues of integrity have been raised about it. Still reading other sources, and trying to put things together. It shouldn't be this hard to validate something where this much public information is available.

I'll update this review when I've read more recent material and compared it back.

Okay, done. Do the follow-up research; it won't take much. The integrity issues appear to me to be VERY well-justified. I recommend "JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters" for a clearer understanding of what happened and why.

[Aaron · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is of course impossible to review a book on this topic. Everybody's a True Believer of one stripe or another when it comes to JFK. Nevertheless....

If you want to come at the subject with an open mind and tackle a reference that attempts a fair and comprehensive analysis, this would be the way to go.

As for me, I accept that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone and shot JFK. If this book doesn't finally convince you of that, then you cannot be convinced.

Few books can plausibly claim to be a definitive work. This one comes damn close, probably as close as possible. Case Closed, indeed.

[Joy D · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book provides a clear and insightful analysis of the Kennedy assassination based on facts and evidence. It dismantles the many conspiracy theories that existed at the time of publication (1993). The version I read also contains an Afterword in which the author provides the latest update (with no change to his conclusion). It is a biography of Lee Harvey Oswald and, to a lesser extent, Jack Ruby. It covers all the bases, especially elements that have been disputed, such as number of shots, bullets, trajectories, the Book Depository evidence, acoustics, and position of the victims. Some of the content can get a bit gruesome, especially the analysis of the autopsy reports. It is extremely detailed, as one of the author’s goals is to disprove the conspiracy theories, so he goes to great lengths to ensure all the possible interpretations are covered. It is exhaustively researched, meticulously documented, and convincing. The footnotes about the evidence are as interesting as the text. It also provides a historical perspective of how much has changed since the early 1960s.

[murph · Rating 5 out of 5]

An absolute must read for the skeptical mind.

A lot has been written on the subject of Pres. Kennedy's death - and far too much of it has taken the format of reading the Warren Commission looking for language that justifies the author's pet theory.

Posner turns this model on its head and goes after the theories that claim a conspiracy (vast or otherwise) was the the death of JFK. Many of these theories have been quoted so often for so long that their questionable origin escapes scrutiny.

Posner takes conspiratorial sacred cows like the "magic bullet" and basically beats them senseless.

Moreover, and more importantly - Posner follows the life of Lee Harvey Oswald in exhaustive detail. In his estimation, Oswald's pathetic existence is not one destined to be a man of mystery, a CIA spy, or even a pasty.

Whatever your take on the assassination of JFK, experiencing the counterpoints to the conspiracies will add a great deal to your understanding of what really happened in Dealy Plaza.

[Steven Wilson · Rating 1 out of 5]

If I were reviewing this as a doorstop or perhaps as a paperweight I would give it 5 stars. Case Closed is a heavy, useless object that would be perfect for either of those mundane functions. As a book I would have to give it 1 star because it does have numbered pages full of words held within a cover with a title on the front. Unfortunately, everything on the pages within this book is absolute tripe.

[Alison · Rating 2 out of 5]

If this was the first book you ever read on the JFK assassination I could see where Posner might be able to convince you that it really was just Lee Harvey Oswald acting alone. But I'm several books into this now and found his thesis pretty tough to swallow. Beyond that, Posner frequently resorts to ad hominem arguments to discredit witnesses or critics, which I find very frustrating.

[Frederik · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tung, ultra-detaljeret, men yderst effektiv afvisning af den største konspirationsteori af dem alle: mordet på JFK. Måske ubegribeligt for mange at et så lille menneske kunne myrde USAs præsident, men Oswald handlede alene, og bogens minutiøse analyse af alle hovedargumenterne er yderst overbevisende.

[Dave Maddock · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've been interested in the JFK assassination since the 90s, probably due in large part to the Oliver Stone movie. (Indirectly. I was pro-conspiracy before actually seeing the film.) I'd read Jim Marrs' Crossfire, Fletcher Prouty's JFK: The CIA, Vietnam and the Plot to Assassinate John F. Kennedy, Murder in Dealey Plaza, and others. None of the various conspiracy stories seemed quite right, but it seemed to me that there was enough oddities to the official story that "where there's smoke there's fire," as the saying goes.

Marrs' book in particular had so much detail that impressed me at the time. Many years later, I discovered to my dismay that Marrs also had similar books about aliens and other crazy conspiracies--Rule by Secrecy and Alien Agenda--which made me begin to question my earlier estimation of the quality of his research in Crossfire.

With the assassination 50th anniversary media blitz, I decided to actually read a book which supported the "lone gunman" view. Case Closed was recommended to me by skeptic Kenneth Feder, one of my professors in college. Posner didn't disappoint. Not only is the book very well-written and engaging, he covers many of the issues which caused me to lean pro-conspiracy all these years. He does an admirable job explaining, without defending, the missteps and obfuscations of the FBI, CIA, etc. while clearing up a lot of misinformation masquerading as evidence of conspiracy.

In one passage that stuck with me, an interviewee stated that the assassination has become almost a religious experience, complete with relics, sacred texts, and a holy site that people pilgrimage to. I think this comparison is more accurate than he perhaps realized. I'd add that the conspiracy narrative also has a heavy dose of mythic power that resonates with people in the same way that religion does. It is truly an American myth--and with an extremely well-documented event. Can you imagine how easily such myths would overwhelm the truth in history where they cannot be debunked by surviving evidence?

So yes, I now think Oswald acted alone. The government wasn't co-opted by an evil conspiracy, it was just a bureaucratic rat's nest of petty infighting and incompetence. *sigh*

[Michael Dorosh · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have read many of the conspiracy based books, from the sublime (Garrison's ON THE TRAIL OF THE ASSASSINS) to the ridiculous (Lifton's suggestion that the body of JFK was surgically altered before the autopsy). I too strongly believed that a conspiracy was responsible, and I enjoyed the film JFK.



However, I think Posner does a very good job of refuting many of the conspiracy theories, even those approaching credibility. The book, as pointed out by other reviewers elsewhere, is not perfect. And I admit I don't have a firm grasp on the minutiae of the case that has propelled so many theorists into infamy. However, on a basic "gut" level, the book feels right.



My endorsement of the book goes beyond feelings. The case is made with solid documentary evidence, though much of it comes from the Warren Report itself (which may invalidate it in the eyes of the harshest critics.)



New research, such as Max Holland is doing with the LBJ tapes, is bringing much to light, and the passing of Jacqueline Kennedy and John Kennedy Junior may hasten the opening of some files within my lifetime. It is hard to imagine that these files would contain anything startlingly out of sync with the "official" explanation behind the assassination.



Posner does expect the reader to have a working knowledge of some facets of the case beyond that of the layman, so be advised the book may not be aimed at them. The language is not overly scholarly or dense, however, and there are some interesting appendices, diagrams and photographs to support some of the discussion.



The book is logically organized into different areas of interest, and is easily read.



The book may seem superficial to entrenched conspiracy theorists, who would probably need a more detailed point-by-point rebuttal of their pet theories, which is fine. As a general knowledge book, I think Case Closed successfully demolishes several theories quite handily, though in a very generalized manner. Posner could be busy for the next 99 years if he decided to refute each single theory or book about the assassination one by one.



Given the amount of ink that has been spilled over this issue, no single volume could ever hope to refute all that has been written. Nor is it likely that one single volume (and several have been written making the attempt) can refute CASE CLOSED either.



Recommended to all, whether you are a conspiracy theorist, a backer of the Warren Commission, or honestly undecided or completely ignorant of the entire case. All you need is an open mind to get value from the book.



A better book is Bugliosi's RECLAIMING HISTORY, though it is longer (at 1600 pages), or his shorter version of same, and Bugliosi talks about some of the shortcuts that Posner allegedly took in his research. All the same, much food for thought.

[Jeff · Rating 5 out of 5]

With an open mind, readers of Case Closed should find it hard to disagree with Posner's conclusions, but most Americans today still believe there was a conspiracy of some kind to kill President Kennedy. Posner addresses most of the favorite and more viable conspiracies, but still faced a backlash that led to additional explanations in his 2013 edition of this book. The first half of this text is a biography of Lee Harvey Oswald, as evidence convincingly identifies him as the murderer, and one must know his character to be able to assess his reliability as a conspirator and his claim to be a patsy. Then there are chapters solely dedicated to the second-by-second story of the horror in Dealey Plaza and the forensics of the case afterward. Posner calls out where many mistakes were made along the way, each of which has become the basis for one conspiracy or another. Posner is sometimes quick to dismiss statements from witnesses, but it is easy to understand the desire for people to become part of the story--and to sell their own. Personally, I am not sure how open my own mind was, so this book was preaching to the choir. But I know of dozens of conspiracy theories, many of them conflicting with each other, and have learned that most of them would require too many participants to make them practical. I am a believer in Occam's Razor: When many hypotheses exist, the simplest one tends to be the best choice. The facts as Posner presents them (as well as the people closest to the events, and science itself) agree completely.

[Randy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thoroughly dismantles any ideas about a conspiracy to kill JFK. While the book can be tedious at times, it's no fault of the author; instead, it's evidence of his dilligence. This should be required reading for anyone who believes there was a conspiracy to kill JFK, but it's also a fascinating insight into how historians are able to reconstruct an incredibly complicated event that happened more than 50 years ago.