What do you think?
Rate this book
The People V. Lee Harvey Oswald
A speculative historical work employs evidential rules of the judicial system to explicate what is and is not known about the Kennedy assassination
- GenresNonfictionHistory
651 pages, Hardcover
First published September 1, 1992
50 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
May 15, 2024
A NOVEL DEPICTING OSWALD AS BEING DEFENDED IN COURT OF THE JFK MURDER
Author Walt Brown wrote in the Prologue to this 1992 book, “Lee Oswald never had a trial. He was convicted in the media, and subsequently by a presidential commission, without the benefits guaranteed in the Constitution, and with the only truly damning evidence coming from his widow, someone who would never have given such evidence if a trial had been held. What follows is an attempt to give Lee Oswald… a day in court. This work … assumes that … when Jack Ruby fired as Oswald… the bullet failed of its ultimate goal, although Oswald lay comatose … for many months. As the [Warren] commission was nearing the end of its labors, Oswald… was able to stand trial in late December 1964… some witnesses were too frightened to come forward then, others were given orders NOT to reveal what they knew, and still others were ignored. This book lets them, too, have their day in court.” (Pg. xiv-xv) He continues, “The only fictional events in this narrative are the survival of Oswald past November 24, 1963, and the fact that he would have had a murder trial without a Texas autopsy of the President’s remains. No witnesses are invented…” (Pg. xvii)
He adds, “what, finally of Oswald? Is this book an attempt to make him the injured party, or to give his widow reason to sue the government for … huge money[?]… No. Definitely not. The author has neither love nor sympathy for [Oswald]… However... ‘The People,’ is of great concern, as they are the essence of justice, and in a crime of the magnitude of the one committed on November 22, 1963… From Oswald’s behavior on that morning… it can be inferred that, if nothing else, he was… ‘a patsy.’ If that’s true, it means he allowed himself to be the patsy for those who pulled the triggers that were pulled that day, and for that alone, no day in court will ever wash the remaining blood off his hands. For if he had not been he patsy, the history of this nation might be very different.” (Pg. xviii-xix)
Prosecutor Raymond Matthews begins his opening statement, “you will hear the story of a pathetic life, a soul who never had anything and one which hated those who did… by his teens, he was facing psychiatric counseling and the recommendation of institutionalization… The defendant then dropped out of school, joined the U.S. Marine Corps, achieved the rating of sharpshooter, and gorged himself nightly reading the likes of Karl Marx and teaching himself Russian… Through lies and deceit, he received a hardship discharge from the Marines---a hardship discharge because his mother needed him… he rudely told American consular officers in Moscow that he desired to renounce his American citizenship… and he told those same American officials that we would give the Soviets everything he knew about the United States military… He was given a common factory job in Minsk… He had done his work well in the Soviet Union… so home he came… after John Kennedy had humiliated Nikita… Khrushchev… in the fall of 1962, we find him purchasing guns a few short months later… and then he waited…to use his marksmanship skills on the person who had humiliated Khrushchev… he became fascinated with weapons… We will hear of his hostility toward the FBI, who were merely doing their job to keep on this ‘former defector’… We will hear of a series of meaningless jobs, and … no material belongings… on that day… he carried a long paper bag into the Texas School Book Depository with him… several people saw a rifle extruding from the sixth floor window… at a time when the defendant had no alibi… he had already escaped by bus and taxi, both of whose drivers will positively identify him… and within forty-five minutes was in police custody, where paraffin tests… proved he had fired a weapon that day… his palm prints were… found to be a match to prints found on the boxes and the rifle and the bullets proved… that the weapon belonged to … Lee Harvey Oswald.” (Pg. 38-41)
Defense attorney Edward Barnes takes his turn: “[We must] ask reasonable questions about the other … twelve… individuals taken into custody in the twenty-four hours after the death of President Kennedy. Who were they?... Why were they released so fat in such secrecy?... You will meet several people with information… the medical team in Dallas, all two dozen of them, who will tell you a very different story about Mr. Kennedy’s wounds than those … who botched an event at Bethesda Haval Hospital … that does not even qualify as a legal autopsy… some people… are going to tell us about guns---especially that cheap bolt-action piece of junk on the evidence table… people with testimony about more than three bullets… The sheriff’s deputies who found a rifle in the Depository … gave no indication that the gun… they found, had been fired recently. Testimony … will cast… serious doubts about the authenticity of the cartridges, the whole bullet, and the fragments…” (Pg. 48-51) He continues, “Oswald left the building shortly after… Because he had committed the crime? No… He left because he suddenly realized that he had been set up…” (Pg. 69)
During examination of one witness, Barnes states, “You’ve for multiple---two, maybe three—shooters, and they were pros, so you may have an accomplice right there with a shooter to catch the cartridge. Then you’ve got people on the knoll being ordered around by Secret Service… and those Secret Service are counterfeit…. Then you’ve got fake witnesses…” (Pg. 157)
Ultimately, Oswald is found not guilty. The prosecutor admits to the press, “the defense … did their homework. While we were sitting contentedly on the evidence provided by the Dallas folks, they studied those twenty-five volumes AND the Dallas evidence, and literally riddled the case with holes. There were just too many inconsistencies, and the President’s Commission… let the public down… I would suspect [Oswald] will be tried for the murder of the police officer…” (Pg. 592)
In 1968, “Matthews was found hanging from the beam of his garage. The official verdict was suicide, but the coroner made no mention in his report of the skin particles found under Matthew’s nails, nor the extreme contusion on the back of his head. The public took little notice of the story… Most of them were reading about another murder, performed by James Earl Ray, another lone nut… two months later… the victim was the one living human being who, had his presidential aspirations not been derailed by an assassin’s bullet, would have had the power AND the courage to find the ultimate solution to his brother’s murder.” (Pg. 600)
Brown issues the challenge, “Even today… apologists for the official version appear on documentaries and talk shows and proclaim how they could have prosecuted Oswald and gotten a conviction without perspiring… write to the speaker, give him the name of the author of this boo, ask him to write to me… and I will debate that person anywhere and at anytime.” (Pg. 605)
This book will interest those who doubt that Oswald was the killer, and will be attracted by the author’s lively ‘fictional’ presentation of his side of the evidence. (Notwithstanding his rather 'straw man' presentation of the prosecution's case."
Author Walt Brown wrote in the Prologue to this 1992 book, “Lee Oswald never had a trial. He was convicted in the media, and subsequently by a presidential commission, without the benefits guaranteed in the Constitution, and with the only truly damning evidence coming from his widow, someone who would never have given such evidence if a trial had been held. What follows is an attempt to give Lee Oswald… a day in court. This work … assumes that … when Jack Ruby fired as Oswald… the bullet failed of its ultimate goal, although Oswald lay comatose … for many months. As the [Warren] commission was nearing the end of its labors, Oswald… was able to stand trial in late December 1964… some witnesses were too frightened to come forward then, others were given orders NOT to reveal what they knew, and still others were ignored. This book lets them, too, have their day in court.” (Pg. xiv-xv) He continues, “The only fictional events in this narrative are the survival of Oswald past November 24, 1963, and the fact that he would have had a murder trial without a Texas autopsy of the President’s remains. No witnesses are invented…” (Pg. xvii)
He adds, “what, finally of Oswald? Is this book an attempt to make him the injured party, or to give his widow reason to sue the government for … huge money[?]… No. Definitely not. The author has neither love nor sympathy for [Oswald]… However... ‘The People,’ is of great concern, as they are the essence of justice, and in a crime of the magnitude of the one committed on November 22, 1963… From Oswald’s behavior on that morning… it can be inferred that, if nothing else, he was… ‘a patsy.’ If that’s true, it means he allowed himself to be the patsy for those who pulled the triggers that were pulled that day, and for that alone, no day in court will ever wash the remaining blood off his hands. For if he had not been he patsy, the history of this nation might be very different.” (Pg. xviii-xix)
Prosecutor Raymond Matthews begins his opening statement, “you will hear the story of a pathetic life, a soul who never had anything and one which hated those who did… by his teens, he was facing psychiatric counseling and the recommendation of institutionalization… The defendant then dropped out of school, joined the U.S. Marine Corps, achieved the rating of sharpshooter, and gorged himself nightly reading the likes of Karl Marx and teaching himself Russian… Through lies and deceit, he received a hardship discharge from the Marines---a hardship discharge because his mother needed him… he rudely told American consular officers in Moscow that he desired to renounce his American citizenship… and he told those same American officials that we would give the Soviets everything he knew about the United States military… He was given a common factory job in Minsk… He had done his work well in the Soviet Union… so home he came… after John Kennedy had humiliated Nikita… Khrushchev… in the fall of 1962, we find him purchasing guns a few short months later… and then he waited…to use his marksmanship skills on the person who had humiliated Khrushchev… he became fascinated with weapons… We will hear of his hostility toward the FBI, who were merely doing their job to keep on this ‘former defector’… We will hear of a series of meaningless jobs, and … no material belongings… on that day… he carried a long paper bag into the Texas School Book Depository with him… several people saw a rifle extruding from the sixth floor window… at a time when the defendant had no alibi… he had already escaped by bus and taxi, both of whose drivers will positively identify him… and within forty-five minutes was in police custody, where paraffin tests… proved he had fired a weapon that day… his palm prints were… found to be a match to prints found on the boxes and the rifle and the bullets proved… that the weapon belonged to … Lee Harvey Oswald.” (Pg. 38-41)
Defense attorney Edward Barnes takes his turn: “[We must] ask reasonable questions about the other … twelve… individuals taken into custody in the twenty-four hours after the death of President Kennedy. Who were they?... Why were they released so fat in such secrecy?... You will meet several people with information… the medical team in Dallas, all two dozen of them, who will tell you a very different story about Mr. Kennedy’s wounds than those … who botched an event at Bethesda Haval Hospital … that does not even qualify as a legal autopsy… some people… are going to tell us about guns---especially that cheap bolt-action piece of junk on the evidence table… people with testimony about more than three bullets… The sheriff’s deputies who found a rifle in the Depository … gave no indication that the gun… they found, had been fired recently. Testimony … will cast… serious doubts about the authenticity of the cartridges, the whole bullet, and the fragments…” (Pg. 48-51) He continues, “Oswald left the building shortly after… Because he had committed the crime? No… He left because he suddenly realized that he had been set up…” (Pg. 69)
During examination of one witness, Barnes states, “You’ve for multiple---two, maybe three—shooters, and they were pros, so you may have an accomplice right there with a shooter to catch the cartridge. Then you’ve got people on the knoll being ordered around by Secret Service… and those Secret Service are counterfeit…. Then you’ve got fake witnesses…” (Pg. 157)
Ultimately, Oswald is found not guilty. The prosecutor admits to the press, “the defense … did their homework. While we were sitting contentedly on the evidence provided by the Dallas folks, they studied those twenty-five volumes AND the Dallas evidence, and literally riddled the case with holes. There were just too many inconsistencies, and the President’s Commission… let the public down… I would suspect [Oswald] will be tried for the murder of the police officer…” (Pg. 592)
In 1968, “Matthews was found hanging from the beam of his garage. The official verdict was suicide, but the coroner made no mention in his report of the skin particles found under Matthew’s nails, nor the extreme contusion on the back of his head. The public took little notice of the story… Most of them were reading about another murder, performed by James Earl Ray, another lone nut… two months later… the victim was the one living human being who, had his presidential aspirations not been derailed by an assassin’s bullet, would have had the power AND the courage to find the ultimate solution to his brother’s murder.” (Pg. 600)
Brown issues the challenge, “Even today… apologists for the official version appear on documentaries and talk shows and proclaim how they could have prosecuted Oswald and gotten a conviction without perspiring… write to the speaker, give him the name of the author of this boo, ask him to write to me… and I will debate that person anywhere and at anytime.” (Pg. 605)
This book will interest those who doubt that Oswald was the killer, and will be attracted by the author’s lively ‘fictional’ presentation of his side of the evidence. (Notwithstanding his rather 'straw man' presentation of the prosecution's case."
January 24, 2019
A very unusual book in the vast array of JFK assassination publications. However I have studied Walt Brown's other works on this subject e.g. 'The Guns of Texas Are Upon You' (2005) and all twenty editions of the massive 'Master Chronology' series on Kindle and he is certainly one of my favourite researchers of this murder mystery.
'The People v. Lee Harvey Oswald' proffers a fictitious scenario of a day in court for the alleged assassin, positing his survival in the D.P.D. garage from the snub nosed assault of Jack Ruby.
Brown's fiction is based on factual testimony from the Warren Commission, statements provided by assassination witnesses and other related evidence.
The trial is held in Lubbock, Texas, supposedly after Oswald's recovery from his gunshot wound, in January 1965. Leeway, (no pun) must be given to the author's chronology here, as in 1965 some of the defence evidence was still unavailable, e.g. the observations of Ed Hoffman, but that would be nit picking.
American cinema put Oswald on trial as early as 1964 and ABC produced another trial for television in 1977 and in 1986 a mock trial in London convicted Oswald. Prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi maintaining that there was ″not one microscopic speck of evidence that anyone other than Lee Harvey Oswald was responsible for the assassination of John F. Kennedy.″
Walt's effort gets four stars from me, particularly as my copy is signed.
'The People v. Lee Harvey Oswald' proffers a fictitious scenario of a day in court for the alleged assassin, positing his survival in the D.P.D. garage from the snub nosed assault of Jack Ruby.
Brown's fiction is based on factual testimony from the Warren Commission, statements provided by assassination witnesses and other related evidence.
The trial is held in Lubbock, Texas, supposedly after Oswald's recovery from his gunshot wound, in January 1965. Leeway, (no pun) must be given to the author's chronology here, as in 1965 some of the defence evidence was still unavailable, e.g. the observations of Ed Hoffman, but that would be nit picking.
American cinema put Oswald on trial as early as 1964 and ABC produced another trial for television in 1977 and in 1986 a mock trial in London convicted Oswald. Prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi maintaining that there was ″not one microscopic speck of evidence that anyone other than Lee Harvey Oswald was responsible for the assassination of John F. Kennedy.″
Walt's effort gets four stars from me, particularly as my copy is signed.
February 11, 2016
Conspiracy theorists unite! This is it: the seminal work on the Kennedy assassination. If you, like me, have always wondered what the evidence really shows, read this bear of a book. Brown puts Oswald on trial as if he hadn't died after Ruby shot him, and presents both the prosecution and defense side with only the evidence as it exists: nothing fictional here. The point is clear here, friends: Oswald didn't do it. You cannot be an objective reviewer of the evidence and still believe the lone-shooter theory. It just doesn't fly.
September 8, 2025
[Overall Score: ••4.7-5.0••]
"You know the phrase 'Time heals all wounds'? It could be easily modified to say 'Time can create strange wounds." [Pg: 531_(92' Edition)]
There are few negative aspects of this powerhouse novel. 'What if...' novels are harder to write than one would assume from the offset. This novel is so meticulous, it's so well written (from prose to structure) and so historically accurate it's astonishing. How Mr. Brown created this story, is beyond this reviewer's realm of understanding. Furthermore, how this courtroom drama is not more well known is a shame. To give Lee Oswald the trail, he never got, is a daunting task. As well, to accomplish such a task so expertly and to do it in a genuinely entertaining manner like Mr. Walter Brown did is so commendable it’s worthy of a medal.
The three main characters Ed Barnes, Ray Mathews and Frank Davis (defense attorney, prosecutor and judge), are rendered like they were famous works of art. By the end of the novel, when the trial is all said and done, as a reader you will still seem to care about them. This is not a feeling you have at the start of the novel. On top of this literary power, we follow the events of 1965 (the time of this posed trail) to a marginal degree, which includes the weather of Lubbock County. These events do not hold much barring on the over plot of this novel, but it helps pull the reader in and keeps them turning the pages. To further this point, the 'FBI wiretapping' the courtroom, is just another outside factor that more than likely would've occurred, just like the light snow in January. But again, these great characters, the back and forths they have, the character growth they all seem to go through is simply astonishing.
The only two negative aspects of this novel are small but they don't really hinder the level of enjoyability this novel provides. One, there was one slow moment in the novel (it was swiftly rectified and corrected), which occurred when Matthews rested the prosecution's case. It just slowed down, due to the witnesses losing intensity to the overall guilt of Oswald. Again, as soon as the lull hits, Barnes (the Defense Attorney), comes in like a freight train. The only other issue I can see is some of the witnesses that were presented. Mr. Brown did a fantastic job at bringing their voices out and putting testimonies on the record. However, if you've never read a JFK book or watched a single documentary, some of these witnesses might not be as powerful, without prior knowledge to who they are. Having that said, if you have a decent understanding of the 'Conspiracy', this historical ‘watershed’ moment, then excitement abounds when names like Ruth Paine, James Tague, Forrest Sorrels, James Humes, and Ed Hoffman are presented.
Again this reviewer cannot gush enough about this beautiful novel Walt Brown has created. For "what if(s)...." this novel takes the number one, champion trophy, by a landslide. To this reviewer, this is the very best 'posed' historical novels ever, no contest! With the exception of Stephen King's cross-examination; "what if" novel on the assassination. ‘11/22/63” held the medal for a long time, but a new champion of "alternative Kennedy history" has taken the crown. It's a Gold Medal novel! Sorry King but for now on, you get Silver in the ‘What If Kennedy Books’. In a final comparison, this novel hits so close to home, it feels like it really happened. Whereas King's was so pleasantly wacky and intoxicating it leaves you with a hangover. Both are worth the read.... But read this one first! God this was a great, phenomenal read!
"You know the phrase 'Time heals all wounds'? It could be easily modified to say 'Time can create strange wounds." [Pg: 531_(92' Edition)]
There are few negative aspects of this powerhouse novel. 'What if...' novels are harder to write than one would assume from the offset. This novel is so meticulous, it's so well written (from prose to structure) and so historically accurate it's astonishing. How Mr. Brown created this story, is beyond this reviewer's realm of understanding. Furthermore, how this courtroom drama is not more well known is a shame. To give Lee Oswald the trail, he never got, is a daunting task. As well, to accomplish such a task so expertly and to do it in a genuinely entertaining manner like Mr. Walter Brown did is so commendable it’s worthy of a medal.
The three main characters Ed Barnes, Ray Mathews and Frank Davis (defense attorney, prosecutor and judge), are rendered like they were famous works of art. By the end of the novel, when the trial is all said and done, as a reader you will still seem to care about them. This is not a feeling you have at the start of the novel. On top of this literary power, we follow the events of 1965 (the time of this posed trail) to a marginal degree, which includes the weather of Lubbock County. These events do not hold much barring on the over plot of this novel, but it helps pull the reader in and keeps them turning the pages. To further this point, the 'FBI wiretapping' the courtroom, is just another outside factor that more than likely would've occurred, just like the light snow in January. But again, these great characters, the back and forths they have, the character growth they all seem to go through is simply astonishing.
The only two negative aspects of this novel are small but they don't really hinder the level of enjoyability this novel provides. One, there was one slow moment in the novel (it was swiftly rectified and corrected), which occurred when Matthews rested the prosecution's case. It just slowed down, due to the witnesses losing intensity to the overall guilt of Oswald. Again, as soon as the lull hits, Barnes (the Defense Attorney), comes in like a freight train. The only other issue I can see is some of the witnesses that were presented. Mr. Brown did a fantastic job at bringing their voices out and putting testimonies on the record. However, if you've never read a JFK book or watched a single documentary, some of these witnesses might not be as powerful, without prior knowledge to who they are. Having that said, if you have a decent understanding of the 'Conspiracy', this historical ‘watershed’ moment, then excitement abounds when names like Ruth Paine, James Tague, Forrest Sorrels, James Humes, and Ed Hoffman are presented.
Again this reviewer cannot gush enough about this beautiful novel Walt Brown has created. For "what if(s)...." this novel takes the number one, champion trophy, by a landslide. To this reviewer, this is the very best 'posed' historical novels ever, no contest! With the exception of Stephen King's cross-examination; "what if" novel on the assassination. ‘11/22/63” held the medal for a long time, but a new champion of "alternative Kennedy history" has taken the crown. It's a Gold Medal novel! Sorry King but for now on, you get Silver in the ‘What If Kennedy Books’. In a final comparison, this novel hits so close to home, it feels like it really happened. Whereas King's was so pleasantly wacky and intoxicating it leaves you with a hangover. Both are worth the read.... But read this one first! God this was a great, phenomenal read!
Want to read
May 20, 2016#
NC
Own in hardback.
FS: "On Friday, November 22, 1963, shots were fired in Dallas, Texas, at the motorcade carrying President John F. Kennedy, his wife, Texas Governor John Connally and his wife, and two Secret Service Agents."
LS: "Above him is the eternal flame. All around him is the eternal doubt."
NC
Own in hardback.
FS: "On Friday, November 22, 1963, shots were fired in Dallas, Texas, at the motorcade carrying President John F. Kennedy, his wife, Texas Governor John Connally and his wife, and two Secret Service Agents."
LS: "Above him is the eternal flame. All around him is the eternal doubt."
June 2, 2012
An attempt to give Oswald a trial in absentia. Acquitted. American justice on trial. Guilty of incompetence.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews