My own fascination with the JFK, Oswald, Ruby, the Warren Commission, the Texas School Book Depository, the Grassy Knoll, the Zapruder film and all the other "characters" in this epic began in high school. Only a decade after the event it was all still seemingly very fresh. The questions about what exactly the Warren Commission thought it was doing, the "magic bullet", the autopsy reports, the beginnings of the serious conspiracy theories, it was the ultimate mystery to dive head first into. Thirty years later it lured my daughter into the murky depths of the question of - was Oswald alone?
What journalist Posner has done here is offer the best look at the question I've ever encountered. He acknowledges the conspiracy theories and takes most of the major ones on head first. The story follows Oswald step by step. Everything that we KNOW, meaning that it can be documented or verified by witnesses who are not easily impeached, is laid out before the reader. When you begin there many of the conspiracy theories quickly fall away. In the end he presents a clear and compelling case that as much as we don't want to believe it there is only one answer. Oswald was alone.
I can't remember if this is in the book or in something else I've read recently about the assassination but someone recently pointed out that we don't want to believe that a great man can be brought down by someone as unimpressive as Lee Harvey Oswald. Great men must be defeated by other great men or by great conspiracies. Sometimes it is Occam's Razor that will cut to the truth. The conspiracies require a level of complexity and numbers of conspirators that simply isn't sustainable. In the end the only answer is a disturbed man who was once a Marine, a much better than average shot in the right place at the wrong time.
The biggest struggle with the book will be Posner himself. Unfortunately his track record includes some dubious professional decisions at one point in his career. The best response he can offer is the careful documentation of each point. Just the way my old high school Geometry teacher required, Posner shows his work. The result is simply compelling and complete.
I had two problems with the ebook version I read. Both of them are the result of the publisher staying too true to the style of traditional books. Posner breaks his footnotes into categories - documentation notes that are technically end notes and detail notes that are treated as foot notes. The problem is that the foot notes are bunched at the end of each chapter. So when you complete reading the chapter you have to flip through multiple pages to get to the next chapter. While you have to do that in a traditional book there is absolutely no excuse for it in an ebook. The other problem also involves these innumerable notes. Often something will both kinds, which requires two links. I found it very annoying to not be able to get the one I wanted without hitting the other one. Simply adding a space to give a little room for those of us with thicker fingers would have made the experience significantly better.
Beyond that Gerald Posner has written the book that should bring the long discussion to an end for the vast majority of us. With careful scholarship and clear story telling he delivers just what the title promises.
After many long years the case is closed.
"Case Closed" is available at bookstores right now.
Rating - **** Recommended
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