High Treason 2: The Great Cover-up: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy

by Harrison Edward Livingstone

This book's nine weeks on the New York Times bestseller list reflects the public's need to know the facts of the assassination of JFK. The author's new evidence & astute analysis point toward a conspiracy to kill JFK, the act itself & the cover-up that followed. Illustrations.

Genres: History, Conspiracy Theories, True Crime, Nonfiction

656 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 1992

About the author

Best Selling author Harrison Edward Livingstone has researched, written and published six major works on the Kennedy assassination and has long led the investigation into the murder of President Kennedy. His most recent books on the case are The Radical Right and the Murder of John F. Kennedy: Stunning Evidence in the Assassination of the President; and The Hoax of the Century: Decoding the Forgery of the Zapruder Film.

Reviews

[Natalie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was disappointed in this book, especially in light of the first High Treason. Part 2 was written without Part 1's co-author Robert Groden. His absence is notable here, because he apparently kept Part 1's narrative on track. Harrison Edward Livingstone writing on his own in High Treason 2 is unfortunate, because this book is a mess. Livingstone spends more than 300 pages rehashing the medical evidence in the Kennedy case, focusing an inordinate amount on the forged X-rays and autopsy photos. He interviews many of the medical personnel involved both at Parkland Hospital in Dallas and Bethesda Naval Hospital in Maryland; I understand he wants to point out that these peoples' testimony matches, but in several instances Livingstone includes the exact same quote twice. Most if not all of this medical evidence was covered extensively in Part 1 and did not need to be repeated here.

Furthermore, Livingstone uses this book as a platform to criticize other members of the assassination research community, and his former partner Robert Groden in particular (it is indicated that there was a falling-out between them, but whatever it was isn't specified). He spends an entire chapter taking a shit on Oliver Stone for his 1991 film JFK; I haven't seen the film so I don't know if this criticism is justified, but I'm fully aware that Stone is a heavy-handed egomaniac and the film isn't historically accurate. Livingstone also is a huge apologist for Kennedy and his shortcomings, and one gets the impression that Livingstone has canonized Kennedy in his mind.

What I am impressed by - and it's nothing much to do with the book itself - is how much research the writers of the X-Files and noir author James Ellroy did with their own versions of the Kennedy assassination tale. A particular favorite X-Files episode of mine, 'Musings Of A Cigarette-Smoking Man,' has the Cancer Man villain assassinating Kennedy from a sewer beside the Presidential limo, after being given a sign from a mysterious black-clad man who raised an umbrella twice. Lee Harvey Oswald's 'curtain rods' story is mentioned, and he refers to his contact as 'Mr. Hunt,' all of which is part of the historical record. James Ellroy, in his amazing Underworld USA trilogy, also uses quite a few obscure historical details from the Kennedy presidency, Bay of Pigs, Vietnam, and the assassination.

I'm not really turned off of researching the Kennedy assassination based on one bad book, but Livingstone's personal vendettas, suppositions and 'could haves,' and poor writing and narrative style did not impress me. Jim Marrs' Crossfire is next in my Kennedy queue, and I'm hoping for a little more substance from it.

[Pete daPixie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Anyone familiar with my reading habits will not be at all surprised that I have jumped into the sequel, 'High Treason 2' and missed out the national bestseller, 'High Treason'. So, if you have read the first book and are looking for a comparative review of the second...apologies.
Harrison Edward Livingstone is clearly someone who went all the way with JFK! He makes his feelings known right from the start, and as they echo my own, I didn't have a problem with that.
Getting on for six hundred pages, this book is a monster. As it's guns opened fire I began to get the impression that this author was setting out to obliterate Lifton's 'Best Evidence'. Yet, evidence is what Livingstone offers to the reader here. He gives short shrift to conflicting rumour, manufactured forgeries or conspiracy surmise. The author even has his own investigators on the case. I would certainly recommend this publication, from 1992, to anyone interested in the Kennedy assassination. (i.e. the medical aspects of JFK's injuries, the autopsy fiasco as well as the records now in the National Archives.) The first three hundred pages culminate in the Dallas Conference meeting in 1991, where Livingstone gathered together Bethesda autopsy witnesses with Parkland medical staff, when incredibly this was the first time this happened!
Perhaps at this point in the book the guns should have fallen silent and the smoke been allowed to clear. Instead Mr Livingstone, I presume, was just getting the scent of blood. His case convicts the plotters when he writes, "The real government of the United States does not work the way we were taught in school. That is all a front. The real government of the United States is elsewhere, other than in Washington, and the real power brokers have so much power that mere politicians are just flunkies. We now have a weak government, like Japan. If someone slips through the cracks and gets elected without sanction by the power brokers, that person will be taken under control one way or another, or neutralized or eliminated." So the broadsides keep coming. A shot at the RFK murder, then onto MLK, Watergate, Garrison and finally Oliver Stone. A relentless fusillade, perhaps two hundred pages too long, before the ammunition runs out. I forgive him. It's all from deep down. It's from the love of the man.
"Kennedy's death was the most terrible loss this country has ever suffered. We are still traumatised by it, and there is a great vacuum in our affairs because of it. And I don't think many of us will ever get over the assassination. I don't think this nation will get over it or be the same for a long time, if ever. It has left a black cloud in our national life and history that will forever be with us and cost us, and some of us will forever be trying to solve the mystery of John Kennedy's death.
God bless him."

[Erik Graff · Rating 2 out of 5]

Like its coauthored predecessor, High Treason 1, this book, while creditable for some of the original research it represents, is very poorly written. The emphasis here, again, is on the photographic evidence, much of which the author shows to be suspect. In addition, much attention is paid to the testimony of persons present at the Dallas and/or Bethesda examinations of the body, testimony which overwhelmingly indicates that a conspiracy occurred in that the President was shot from both front and back, the greatest damage being incurred by the former.

Marring the evidential exposition is a subsidiary parallel text representing the author's beliefs and opinions regarding other matters. First, there is his high regard for Kennedy and rather credulous belief that all would have been well in SE Asia had he lived. Second, there is a long chapter devoted to attacking the movie JFK and Oliver Stone, its director. In addition to this there are also sidesteps into other political assassinations such as MLK,RFK, John Lennon and Allard Lowenstein--even of such failed attempts as those directed at George Wallace and Ronald Reagan. If all of this material had been organized, several books might have been produced.

[Jenna · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am a complete history nerd and the JFK assassination is one of the most fascinating events in history to me. Parts can be a little slow, hence the 4 stars, but altogether it has GREAT information and sums up the Warren Commission Report well while also adding its own conspiracy theories and conclusions. Pictures were well labeled and added a whole other sense of mystery. Great read (especially for a history geek)

[Brian · Rating 1 out of 5]

Livingstone tells us that he detests Oliver Stone's JFK. This is a particularly fascinating judgement given that he's never seen Oliver Stone's JFK. Oh, I have no doubt that he's watched the images flashing on the screen, heard the words spilling from the speakers, but that's not quite the same thing. Not when every image and every word is concurrently totted up against the bill of his own beliefs. I don't think that Livingstone (or anyone as thoroughly invested in the assassination as he is) is capable of truly seeing the movie.

This is human and this is to be expected, and I wouldn't dream of faulting him for it. What I fault him for is his failure to grasp this concept and for attacking the film on its historicity. There's a reason you won't find JFK in the Documentaries section of your local video store. Did Stone mess with the facts? You bet he did. Does that make it a bad film? Of course not. Let's call it "alternate history" and be done with it.

"The issue has been raised whether Oliver Stone had the right to make his film without public discussion beforehand, then to release that film and subject it to normal criticism," Livingstone writes. "Most people in the media don't think so, and neither do I." I guess film critics don't count among the media. Rotten Tomatoes gives an 84% "fresh" rating from "all critics" based on 58 reviews. Most film critics are happy he made the movie. But that's neither here nor there; what matters now is Livingstone's opinion.

It's funny how some Warren Commission critics equate the assassination with an attack on democracy and the American way of life, then turn around and say something like this, that American artists aren't protected by the Bill of Rights. Stone does the same kind of thing himself. In the film, Stone has Garrison (played by Kevin Costner) adjure the jury not to "forget your dying king." This line is a call-back to a quote Garrison gives from Tennyson, a British poet. For any American, the mere suggestion that Kennedy was a king should be abhorrent. It's flagrantly anti-American. Didn't we fight a war to rid ourselves of royalty? These people just don't get how hard it is to BE an American.

But I guess you're here because you want to know about the larger portion of Livingstone's book, High Treason 2. Which is too bad, really, because I'm not going to say much about it beyond a few observations.

* It's over 600 pages.

* It's over 600 pages partly because it's remarkably
redundant. We read the same observations and recollections from the same witnesses time and time again.

* This is but one example of Livingstone's inability to properly organize his work. Another would be the strange and inexplicable placement of photos far from the text describing them.

* It's poorly -- even bizarrely -- written at times, leaving one to wonder what conspiracy was behind the disappearance of the editor.

* Kennedy, according to Livingstone, was shot both from behind and from in front. The frontal headshot killed him and blew out a large part of the back of his skull. We don't see this in the X-rays, the autopsy photos, or the Zapruder film because they have all been altered.

And this brings us back to the movies. For several years I stopped reading the critics. This started when I heard the first theory of Zapruder film alteration. What could be more mercenary, more cynical than that the very community that once touted the film as clear evidence of a conspiracy now was saying the film was itself part of the conspiracy? What better way to keep yourself in business?

But then I got bored and got over it. It was genius, in a way, because what it did was keep the mystery alive, keep the party going. I wish Mr. X's son had been able to do that with 24.

Some will object to my language above. How can anything so horrendous as the assassination of a president be called a "party." Well, I'm not calling the assassination a party, I'm calling all these books about the assassination a party. One of those murder mystery cruises like the one Scooby and the gang took. Even Livingstone admits that some of the critics haven't got a clue what they're talking about. (He hasn't got the courage to name them, but he admits it just the same.) According to Vincent Bugliosi, none of the critics have a clue what they're talking about.

Looking for truth in this thing (even if it's just the truth as to how and why a great deal of it was so poorly handled) is not just problematic, it's damn near impossible. In part, this is so because much of what these books contain isn't true to begin with. Livingstone's book, for instance, contains that old chestnut, a photograph of Assistant Press Secretary Malcolm Kilduff pointing to his temple, supposedly indicating where a bullet struck Kennedy. Now go ahead and google "Malcolm Kilduff" and you can see the video yourself. What you'll find is that he isn't pointing to his temple -- as in, He was hit in the temple -- but pointing at his head -- as in, He was hit in the head. You will also discover something none of the critics ever tell you, and that is that Kilduff also says that Connelly "was shot twice. Once apparently in the side, and once in the wrist." What this tells you is that, even if he had been pointing at his temple (which he wasn't), this would have no evidentiary value, as he obviously doesn't yet (only a half hour after Kennedy was pronounced dead) have all the facts. And if Livingstone, who claims to be one of the honest critics, is perfectly willing to perpetuate this lie, how can we possibly find truth?

[Dena]

this is not the right cover for this book