I bought this book after flying to Dallas for training. I made a visit to Dealy Plaza and was taken aback by how small the plaza was. For years I bought into the narrative from the movie "JFK," that not even an expert marksman could get off three rounds of a bolt action rifle in the time required and hit a moving target with accuracy. After standing on the sidewalk in front of the Schoolbook Depository, however, I was able to see that the distance from Oswald to his target was minimal--less than 200'. And Kennedy's limo was navigating a sharp turn from Houston onto Elm, right in front of the building. Oswald clearly had plenty of time to aim at his target and get off the three rounds in 3-5 seconds, and fatally injure our 35th President.
What I wasn't able to experience standing there were the emotions, the shock, panic, sorrow, and acceptance that the whole country experienced on that day. This book attempts to convey that, in unprecedented detail, by correlating all of the many testimonies and accounts captured on that day into a timeline that begins the morning of and continues through that night, after the Kennedy's returned to Washington and an autopsy was performed on the President. As importantly, it attempts to describe the mindset of the assassin, as he left his wife that morning, carrying to work "curtain rods" wrapped in paper, and calmly worked until the President's motorcade drew near, when he then proceeded to the sixth floor, barricaded the corner with boxes of books, set up a sniper platform with more boxes, and lied down on the platform to take aim at the man he deemed was the greatest adversary to Cuba, to whom he was supportive and sympathetic.
The author's account of how things happened paint a clear picture in the reader's mind, practically placing you there, and at times it's not at all pleasant to read. My heart broke when I read how Jackie finished this very long day, still in her pink wool outfit and panty hose, which were bloodstained and speckled with fragments of skull and brain matter, because she wanted the world to "see what they did" to her husband. You gain insight into the politics and personal conflicts between the Kennedy's and the Johnson's, and the gravity of the moment LBJ found himself facing that afternoon, and how he stumbled in his first address to the nation, failing to project confidence to a shaken and uncertain nation.
In its quest to provide as complete a chronological account of this fateful day as is possible, the book has a few lulls as, in reality, not every moment is eventful. Still, this is a page turner and is by far the best account of what happened on that fateful day that I have had the opportunity to experience. We all owe Mr. Bishop a debt of gratitude for taking the time to assemble this, from what assuredly was a mountain of random notes, testimonies, legal documents and other knowledge that, by itself, only provides one piece to the puzzle.
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Alice
Great reading. Couldn't relax till it was finished
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 29, 2014