Last Word: My Indictment of the CIA in the Murder of JFK

This is Mark Lane's final word on not only the CIA but also the Secret Service, the Warren Commission, and Vincent Bugliosi's 1,600 page, 5.5 pound opus called 'Rewriting History'. I've read about some of this before but this book added a lot of fascinating and important details.Reading about what really happened with the Warren Commission and their so called report is like wading into a putrid swamp of lies and deceit. The commission's objective was to just collect any evidence which supported Lee Oswald's guilt and not to try to investigate any other possible theories about the assassination. Which is the exact opposite of how a real criminal investigation is supposed to work.I didn't realize until now Mr. Lane helped organize the HSCA government hearings to look into the assassination. Mr. Lane recommended two other lawyers to run the HSCA investigation. But as those guys got closer and closer to the truth the hypocrisy and cowardice machine in Washington, DC kicked into high gear. Mr. Lane's friends resigned from the HSCA in disgust and were replaced by government lackey G. Robert Blakey. Blakey signed a secrecy agreement with the CIA and then proceeded to replace one fairy tale, the Warren Report, with another one about how the Italian mafia was ultimately responsible for JFK's murder. The HSCA was the last chance to uncover the truth about the JFK assassination and bring the true conspirators to justice.The image of the CIA that emerges from this book is a sponsor of international terrorism and war crimes. People tried to warn presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy to reign in this multi headed hydra of evil before it was too late. The Agency is like a dangerous creature which, when cornered, lashes out with its vast resources. And it lashed out at John Kennedy who was threatening to shut down the CIA for good.And John Kennedy was just the beginning. The list of mysterious deaths of people who knew too much about the JFK mystery for their own good and who turned up dead is very long. What's scary about these murders is they weren't done to send some kind of political message. They were done in secret and the intention was that they will remain secret forever. These are people who had become a threat to an Agency with much larger objectives and schemes. Women. Police officers. People serving in the military. Even a former director of the CIA. Nobody was safe.I don't agree with everything in this book. Mr. Lane suggests that the Secret Service agents who were driving the presidential limousine intentionally stopped the car so the snipers could blow JFK's head off. But there's a very sharp turn there in Dealey Plaza which forced the driver to come to an almost complete stop. That's where they had the crossfire set up. And the people who committed this assassination weren't amateurs. I don't care how much the Secret Service agents disliked John Kennedy, nobody is that dedicated to a cause that they would put themselves into that car if they knew what was going to happen.Also he says Lee Oswald did not travel to Mexico City. However Judyth Baker how now surfaced after many years. She says that yes they did send Lee to Mexico City to deliver an injectable form of cancer to use on Fidel Castro. But when Lee's contact in Mexico didn't show up he knew something was wrong. Although in any case it's clear that Lee Oswald never went to the Cuban or Soviet embassies in Mexico City. I guess they just wanted to create a fake paper trail of him going there.This is an excellent book I thought, one of the best I've read about the JFK case. Up until now I didn't realize that certain details about the assassination surfaced in a court room or government investigation setting. I will probably read more of Mr. Lane's books.Mr. Lane was there right from the beginning. He knew John Kennedy personally and worked on one of JFK's political campaigns. That's over 50 years of experience and knowledge about the JFK mystery. Mark Lane is up there with Jim Garrison, Fletcher Prouty, and a few other people in the list of JFK heroes.These are people who, for whatever reasons, were not willing to accept what was going on. And they all took risks in speaking out.A Deeper, Darker Truth: Tom Wilson's Journey into the Assassination of John F. KennedyOn the Trail of the Assassins: One Man's Quest to Solve the Murder of President KennedyJFK: The CIA, Vietnam, and the Plot to Assassinate John F. KennedyHit List: An In-Depth Investigation into the Mysterious Deaths of Witnesses to the JFK AssassinationMe & Lee: How I Came to Know, Love and Lose Lee Harvey OswaldThe Man Who Killed Kennedy: The Case Against LBJOfficial and Confidential: The Secret Life of J. Edgar HooverMary's Mosaic: The CIA Conspiracy to Murder John F. Kennedy, Mary Pinchot Meyer, and Their Vision for World Peace: Third EditionTexas in the Morning: The Love Story of Madeleine Brown and President Lyndon Baines Johnson2: Countdown to Darkness: The Assassination of President Kennedy Volume II (Volume 2)

I have always respected Mark Lane and his writing. He is very good at what he does, and his JFK books are nothing short of awesome. This one is no exception. People have said other things, so I'll do 3 good, 3 bad observations. Make no mistake, EVERYONE SHOULD READ THIS BOOK. But go in with eyes open. First, the really good:1) This is a book for every level of JFK assassination knowledge, from total novice to full-on conspiracy theorist. Clearly written, fun, not bogged down with too many footnotes, it is an easier read than most JFK assassination books. Yet, it has some new information, like Mr. Lane's relationship with forming the House Select Committee on Assassinations and how the HSCA blew its mandate and screwed up.2) The MK/ULTRA stuff was not weighty and seemed appropriate and necessary for the discussion of how the CIA killed JFK. It was also done quickly enough that it didn't get bogged down, yet it contributed greatly to his points.3) He cites to a number of other works, all good, that further the discussion, and expands on the clear deficiencies of the Warren Report, which he seems to have memorized. The first half of the book is well footnoted, yet not too much to bog it down.Now the not so good:1) Those wonderful footnotes disappear halfway through the book. He makes a number of assertions that, although I know them to be documented elsewhere and easily proven (though requiring some discussion and citations), that have zero footnotes. He also cites to woefully too few other fine books out there that prove his points. It leaves the impression that Mark Lane has not read some of the better books from the last 20 years, which might be the case. This hurts his credibility when he complains, correctly, about Bugliosi's deceitful footnotes in Rewriting (sic) History. This also gives readers new to the genre the impression that he is hiding something, which he isn't.2) Why didn't the great Mark Lane even MENTION the Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB)? I have a guess - he is old, he disengaged quite a bit after his civil trial, where he defended the Liberty Lobby, the precursor to American Spectator magazine (Bane of Bill Clinton in the 1990's - politics makes starnge bedfellows, doesn't it?) in a defamation suit for claiming that E. Howard Hunt was one of JFK's killers. In that suit Lane essentially proved that E. Howard Hunt was a liar, and was quite possibly one of JFK's assassins, and was able to actually depose witnesses, call witnesses at trial, and have them testify under oath. Witnesses testifying under oath, called by someone trying to prove that JFK was killed by someone other than Lee Harvey Oswald, is something that the JFK case has seen too little of, and hadn't happened since the Clay Shaw trial. Mr. Lane documented this trial very well in his last book, Plausible Denial, which us actually a little better than this book. But writers like James Di Eugenio, William Davy, Joan Mellon, and many others have done a great job of integrating what the ARRB added to the field. Likewise the ARRB removed redactions from thousands of documents that had been examined by the Warren Commission, as well as the HSCA. In particular, a LOT of HSCA still remained classified prior to the ARRB - the ARRB released plenty of these documents, and removed many, many redactions from previously released documents. Yes, Mark Lane got his own treasure trove of documents through countless contested Freedom of Information Act requests. But the ARRB got a lot if stuff as well, especially otherwise secret stuff that the Warren Commission AND the HSCA hid or screwed up simply ignored.3) His arrogance is palpable throughout the book. Yes, he was the first publisher of Warren criticism. Yes, he was the first Warren critic of importance, and he even testified before the Warren Commission. He has earned his place in history. But it wears thin at times, and his Pollyanna idealism gets in the way of a better product. The sense of moral outrage is real, but it gets a little heavy at times.I cannot recommend thus book strongly enough. It is an excellent and concise summary of the case with an excellent integration of what has happened since. It is also very personal, detailing how the CIA tried, unsuccessfully, to silence him. His clarion call to action will hopefully find a new audience with the 99% movement.

The account is well-researched and the sections where Lane discussed the actual conspiracy and the “untimely” deaths of those who were accused of “meddling” like Dorothy Kilgallen, were informative. Some of the sections , however, were really unnecessary to the average reader. Lane spends a good bit of his time discrediting his opponents. If the opponent is important in the big picture, such as anyone in the Warren Commission, then the digression is not so distracting. Otherwise, you can find yourself reading sections that really seem to lead no where. That said, the book is worth buying. To those like me, you will want to skip around.

I'm two thirds of the way through the book. A subject I have been researchingfor over 50 years. Very interesting the way Mr. Lane presents his indictment of the CIA involvement. A coup d'etat occurred that day. I find it astonishing that although 70% of Americans know this, that they are just letting it slide... and have been for over 60 years.

Een leerzaam boek vol met onthullingen en in de originele taal. Het leest als een detectiveverhaal, maar dan met de wetenschap dat het echt is gebeurd. Heel zeker zijn prijs waard!

Nada se puede decir sobre este abogado, que fue uno de los primero en abrir los ojos y comprender claramente lo que sucedio en Dallas aque dia de noviembre del año 63. muchas gracias por todos tus libros y todo lo que nos has mostrado.

the world owes Mark Lane a huge debt of gratitude for his dedication over the last 50 years to this matter, one that most have either tried to forget or have tried to confuse with massive amounts of misinformation. Mr. Lane was there from the beginning and has become the one voice i know that i can trust. I am very happy that he has had his last word on the subject. He goes so far as to name names...The book is amazing and one that everyone should read, in addition to 2 of Mr. Lane's other books on the subject: 'Rush to Judgement' 1966, that tears up the Warren Commission point by point with the facts, and 'Plausible Denial' 1991, about his trial of Howard Hunt, that deals more directly with the CIA's involvement. 5 stars are not enough!

There is no index; so it can only be asserted that in here, somewhere, is the news that Gerald Posner retained lawyer Mark Lane to represent him when faced with charges of plagiarism. Their opportunism is proof; not that both men might after all be reasonable, but that, since the assassination of JFK a lot of water has flowed from the Trade mart under the triple underpass. We can agree to disagree.We are bovine, intent upon each member of our herd for a hint of which direction to roam for food or shelter. We've spent so long with drovers and cowboys that we rarely have to think for ourselves as we budge up in the cattle stalls. If we could jump over the moon, or get far enough away from JFK assassination theories, perhaps we could discern the overarching pattern that we all make; where the drive to conform finally becomes one with the drive to dissent. At any point we take our place in a murmuration of starlings. As T S Eliot said: "That was a way of putting it--not very satisfactory: A periphrastic study in a worn-out poetical fashion." You need to be an atheist like Amazon reviewer J.P.Ryder "Barry" not to see something divine yet impenetrable from beyond in the display.Harold Weisberg, the most venerable of those have who criticised the Warren Commission Report, despised the suave Mark Lane. "As liars and conmen go, Mark is one of the most persuasive." Harold is dead, but Weisberg's monomania in file boxes full of words, is now lodged online with Hood College; incontrovertible proof that, for Harold, unlike Mark Lane, practice at communication, or at typing at least, does NOT make perfect. Harold's writing unravels as soon as it gets going. It is unfortunate that those who believe that Kennedy was killed by a conspiracy have been so badly served. Our best gladiator, Mark Lane is secure now in his fame and has earned his fortune and his honour, and hopefully will still be alive on the fiftieth anniversary of the assassination on November 22, 2013, to give us a few soundbites and an update on the beautiful dogs that feature in this work.Lane is a lawyer who believes only truth that may be extrapolated from fair trials. Yet in this book (Page 245) he praises Obama for killing Osama. In another time, Mark Lane might have offered to represent Bin Laden as an innocent man until proven guilty. Viewing film of the raid, Hilary Clinton instinctively put her hand to her mouth in horror when the film of that killing was shown; while her affable president, at ease, affects not to gloat at his own diplomacy. The angle that Lane assumes is to praise Obama for over-riding his CIA advisors; by having opted to send in the Seals death squad under his own personal command. The book concludes with the author's open letter to this deadly man asking him to control the CIA, implying "Yes, you can."Single starlings can be represented by each member of the "research community" that make up the JFK Assassination "buffs". The word "buffs" is to be pronounced with the contempt which Martin Fido confides to his cassette tape listeners. Having read Mark Lane's "Rush To Judgement" soon after it was available in England; after I found it among the returned books at my local library; I never believed the news again. One of the finest books I ever read. A few years later, I read David Scheim's book and believed completely anew that the Mafia did it; then I came across Crossfire and Robert Groden. By the time I had made it in the world, and I was dining in Paris in Joel Robuchon's restaurant on the rue de Lamerie; I was well-read enough to respond to a lawyer from Los Angeles who was dining there. He was curious how a rake like me, likely to drop cutlery upon such hallowed ground, had been allowed in. I laughed, "You are the people who can kill your president!" The personable man turned white; but we exchanged addresses and my wife was never sure that we ourselves would not be next in line for elimination. Two years later he sent me the work of Martin Fido, who after swallowing whole Gerald Posner's rehash of the WCR , in his book "Case Closed" detracted from an already dubious reputation by imposing his thoughts upon the audio tape entitled "Who Killed JFK?"The lawyer Mark Lane has always been the most accomplished and the most entertaining of critics of The Warren Commission. He alone of "the buffs" is mentioned in the Warren documents. One chapter destroys fellow lawyer Bugliosi's "work for the ages" better than the most committed of the Amazon reviewers that he praises. Bugliosi who thinks that insistence and insults are a good form of argument is an also-ran and a loser, but we hear from Lane that maybe in 2013 we will see the estimable Tom Hanks produce an anniversary work for TV based upon Bugliosi's "cinder block". It is good to get the latest gossip.Now that the whole Warren Report and the supplementary 26 volumes of depositions and illustrations is available online there is no excuse for us to not have an opinion. I'm saving all that work up for a rainy day, although the time involved assimilating it all I am sure could be better spent. We have tools enough to divine if we have ever been told the truth.In this breathless book Mark Lane not only gives us his last words; he names "the shooters" of Kennedy. There were four of them, the six foot eight Gerry Patrick Hemming, Guillermo and Ignacio Novo and the little known Pedro Diaz Lanz. All these years later we read that David Atlee Phillips died a broken man and that E Howard Hunt bequeathed us a deathbed confession. All the ends are tied up now. Is this the end?