Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy is a book by attorney Vincent Bugliosi

Vincent Bugliosi

Vincent Bugliosi is an American attorney and author, best known for prosecuting Charles Manson and other defendants accused of the Tate-LaBianca murders. His most recent books are Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy , The Prosecution of George W...

 (Norton, 2007, 1632 p., ISBN 0393045250) that analyzes the events leading up to and including the assassination

John F. Kennedy assassination

John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the thirty-fifth President of the United States, was assassinated at 12:30 p.m. Central Standard Time on Friday, November 22, 1963, in Dealey Plaza, Dallas, Texas...

 of John F. Kennedy

John F. Kennedy

John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy , often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963....

, focusing on the lives of Lee Harvey Oswald

Lee Harvey Oswald

Lee Harvey Oswald was, according to four government investigations,These were investigations by: the Federal Bureau of Investigation , the Warren Commission , the House Select Committee on Assassinations , and the Dallas Police Department. the sniper who assassinated John F...

 and Jack Ruby

Jack Ruby

Jacob Leon Rubenstein , who legally changed his name to Jack Leon Ruby in 1947, was convicted of the November 24, 1963 murder of Lee Harvey Oswald, the alleged assassin of President John F. Kennedy. Ruby, who was originally from Chicago, Illinois, was then a nightclub operator in Dallas, Texas...

. The book is drawn from many sources, including the Warren Report. Bugliosi's 1600+ page, 1,535,791 word book (with a CD-ROM

CD-ROM

A CD-ROM is a pre-pressed compact disc that contains data accessible to, but not writable by, a computer for data storage and music playback. The 1985 “Yellow Book” standard developed by Sony and Philips adapted the format to hold any form of binary data....

 containing an additional 1000+ pages of footnotes) analyzes all aspects of the assassination and the rise of the conspiracy theories about Kennedy's assassination in the years subsequent to the event. Bugliosi argues that Lee Harvey Oswald

Lee Harvey Oswald

Lee Harvey Oswald was, according to four government investigations,These were investigations by: the Federal Bureau of Investigation , the Warren Commission , the House Select Committee on Assassinations , and the Dallas Police Department. the sniper who assassinated John F...

 acted alone in shooting Kennedy. The book won the 2008 Edgar Award

Edgar Award

The Edgar Allan Poe Awards , named after Edgar Allan Poe, are presented every year by the Mystery Writers of America...

 for Best Fact Crime.

Research

Much of the book was based on Bugliosi's preparation for a mock trial of Lee Harvey Oswald staged by British television, in which he acted as the prosecutor of Oswald, and obtained a verdict of "guilty":

My professional interest in the Kennedy assassination dates back to March 1986 when I was approached by a British production company, London Weekend Television

London Weekend Television

London Weekend Television was the name of the ITV network franchise holder for Greater London and the Home Counties including south Suffolk, middle and east Hampshire, Oxfordshire, south Bedfordshire, south Northamptonshire, parts of Herefordshire & Worcestershire, Warwickshire, east Dorset and...

(LWT) to "prosecute" Lee Harvey Oswald as the alleged assassin of President Kennedy in a proposed twenty-one hour television trial to be shown in England and several other countries, including the United States. I immediately had misgivings. Up to then, I had consistently turned down offers to appear on television in artificial courtroom settings. But when I heard more of what LWT was contemplating, my misgivings quickly dissolved. Although this could not be the real trial of Oswald...LWT, working with a large budget, had conceived and was putting together the closest thing to a real trial of Oswald that there would likely ever be, the trial in London being the only "prosecution" of Oswald ever conducted with the real witnesses in the Kennedy assassination. Through painstaking and dogged effort, LWT had managed to locate and persuade most of these original key lay witnesses, many of whom had refused to even talk to the media for years, to testify...There would be absolutely no script...and no actors would be used.

Contents

The book is divided into several major parts, including a detailed chronology of the events of the assassination, as well as an exploration of the major conspiracy theories, a chapter on the trial of Jack Ruby, and a chapter featuring his interviews with Marina Oswald.

Television adaptation

It has been announced that the book will be adapted for television. It is expected to air in 2013.

External links

• Thomas Mallon, "A Knoll of One's Own", The Atlantic.
• Ron Rosenbaum, "The Return of the Magic Bullet", Slate.
• Bryan Burrough, "Or No Conspiracy?", New York Times.
• Who Killed Kennedy? One Man’s Answer
• Video of Vincent Bugliosi discussing JFK assassination