Within the covers of "LBJ and the Kennedy Killing', James Tegue tells a story supported by fact or witnesses that should be disturbing to everyone who reads it. Regardless of your feelings about the politics of John Kennedy, or the the official insistence that the events in Dallas TX on November 22, 1963 do not involve a conspiracy, it's frightening, at the least, to think that agencies and officials of our government may have executed a sitting President and caused a dramatic change in the political direction this country was following under John Kennedy's leadership. Tegue builds a case revealing little if any meaningful investigation having been done by the Dallas Police, or FBI, into the perpetrators or nature of the Kennedy assassination. In fact, they viewed their role as "closing doors, not opening them." Evidentiary avenues that should have been investigated were ignored at all levels that mattered. Just four minutes following the fatal shots Lee Harvey Oswald was determined to be the assassin and from that moment on the mission of law enforcement (FBI) was to convince the nation he had done it, and not to investigate further if the assassination was a broader conspiracy involving more people and institutions. It's a little known fact that Tegue was the third person injured during the gunshots by a shot that richoched off a concrete curb he was standing on in front of the presidential motorcade. He was there quite by chance. Pieces of concrete sprayed up and slightly injured his cheek. The shot, however, missed the entire motorcade and changed the theory put forth by the Warren Commission and FBI, that only three shots were fired. In their own opinion the rifle allegedly used couldn't have fired four shots within the time it took to assassinate the president. Because of that missed shot it's certain another shooter was on the sixth floor of the Texas Book Depository Building firing at the President. In fact, film exists which shows the infamous sixth floor during the time of the shooting and shows not one but two people present, neither of which fit Oswald's description. Minutes later, following the assassination, two men were seen running through the back door of the Book Depository and more than one witness attests to this fact. It was totally disregarded by the FBI. Instead, an APB was put out on Lee Harvey Oswald just four minutes following the final shot. How did the Dallas Police know he was the one employee of the Book Depository, or for that matter the one person in Dallas, Texas that day, falling under immediate and intense suspicion? Tegue makes clear that Oswald is not innocent. More likely, he became involved in something way over his head and was set up as a patsy, being used by others involved. In fact, CIA records show that Oswald was a paid informant of the CIA. The man that would kill him just two days later, Jack Ruby, was a paid FBI informant as shown by FBI records. A little known fact about Ruby is that he begged Chief Justice Earle Warren to transfer him from the Dallas County Jail where he did not "feel safe" to a facility in Washington where, he said, he would reveal the whole assassination conspiracy, including names and reasons. Earl Warren and the FBI ignored Ruby and he soon died of cancer taking the story with him into eternity.

Tegue will not win any awards for his writing. He's simply written what he considers the well founded truth he accumulated through an investigation that spanned forty years. The book contains a certain amount of repetition of facts but is a clear historical record of those terrible days in Dallas and, unfortunately, what followed after. J. Edgar Hoover was in charge of all communications both in and out of Dallas following the assassination and went so far as to change news stories filed by well known reporters, and altered statements taken from witnesses. Enraged by the formation of the Warren Commission, he controlled the flow of information to them and provided the Commission with only half of the documents the FBI had developed concerning the events of November 23, 1963. The reader will be shocked to find the amount of information repressed by the FBI in the "interest of convincing the country of Lee Harvey Oswalds guilt." Hoover considered the Warren Commission a nuisance and treated them as such. Much is known about the treachery of J. Edgar Hoover, however, this book brings out more evidence that he was as much a criminal as those he supposedly apprehended and prosecuted throughout his career. Hoover was secretly supported by organized crime, according to Tegue, and was complicit in carrying out the official disinformation campaign following Kennedy's assassination.

While the nature of the book is investigative, Tegue does go into the political goals Kennedy was trying to achieve during his two years in office. Kennedy was breaking up the Mafia. He'd made known within his Administration that he wanted to materially lessen the powers and authorities of the CIA. He was trying to remove the oil depletion allowance that sheltered the first 27% of oil income which affected Texas, an oil state, dramatically. In other words a lot of people and institutions had cause to dislike Kennedy and he was, possibly, trying to change too much too quickly. Most of those concerned with Kennedy's policies and goals were afraid he might attain them, and therein lies some of the motivation for his killing and the people that wanted him dead.

Tegue presents a case that Lyndon Johnson, who became President, was involved with those who planned the tragic event. Evidently, LBJ drank a great deal and told more than one person the entire story over the troubled years of his presidency. As those six years of his Presidency dragged, for him and the Nation, LBJ was allegedly breaking down mentally, according to Tegue. He not only had Kennedy's blood on his hands, he had the blood of 56,000 American soldiers that died in Vietnam, a questionable war that divided the country and haunted LBJ until the day he died. Much of the evidence Tegue offers about LBJ's involvement consists of interviews of people that knew LBJ, knew enough facts to be credible, and again, Tegue documented these well. This part of the story, is however, in Tegue's own words, left to future historians to more fully develop. Obviously, he developed enough documentation of fact to point investigators in this direction with a head start, however, it's clear this needs more vetting and, it's hoped, one day a historian will finish this sordid connection. There certainly is enough circumstantial evidence to follow up on, but, more solid facts are needed before proving the case on LBJ and this is admitted by the author.

Over 2,000 books have been written on the Kennedy assassination, so many that telling the real story would be difficult. Who could be considered credible enough to tell the truth, any truth. Having read a good many of these books I find they all have something valuable to add to the picture, but the picture never quite becomes clear without leaps of faith by the reader. Let me state that this is not just another conspiracy book about the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Tegue is not writing for the money or the fame. Rather, he' writing to create the history of a presidents assassination. James T. Tague has created a historical accounting of the events, the people and the complete abrogation of duty by the investigative bodies of this country in being unwilling to solve the case of the murder of President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963. Worse, the American people let an unspeakable event happen and never DEMANDED an answer from a government that never acted to protect our national security.

This book is well worth the read and, no matter your feelings going into it, you will not feel the same after absorbing the facts offered in it. What happened in Dallas that day was a coup d'etat that removed a sitting President from office and was the first step in changing the course of this country and history. The ramifications of that day are still being felt to this day. ( )