Part Two: Reclaiming Parkland: Tom Hanks, Vincent Bugliosi, and the JFK Assassination in the New Hollywood
By James DiEugenio | Reviewed by Eric Renderking Fisk | September 2018
Here are only a few points Mr. DiEugenio addresses that Bugliosi ignored…
On the issue of The CIA, Allen Dulles and other rogue agents within the agency, Vincent Bugliosi chooses to ignore the volumes of books on the topic of the corruption within that agency, all the documents that have been released via FOIA that actually prove the CIA’s wrongdoing, and chooses to actually lie about Jack Kennedy’s relationship with Secretary Dulles leading up to and including the Bay Of Pigs incident. Using "Bugliosi Circular Logic" The CIA couldn’t have been partly responsible for President Kennedy’s assignation, because Jack and Allen were pals! How do we know this, because Vincent wrote it? That’s why.
On the topic of Oswald, Mr. Bugliosi chides readers to either ignore or discredit the mountain of evidence that Oswald had a checkered past, ignoring what New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison’s team discovered about Oswald’s time in that region, and denies his connection with Guy Bannister, Dave Fiery, and Clay Shaw. Only a dummy or people trying to profit off of the conspiracy theories would believe any of the lies about those good people of New Orleans!
When it comes to the topic of Jack Ruby, Vincent claims that Mr. Ruby is no more a member of the mob that you or he… and discredits evidence to the contrary. All the ties to the mob that’s been proven – even in The Warren Report – are literally ignored because these are inconvenient facts that are inconvenient to the assumption that Jack Ruby wasn’t involved with organized crime.
Mr. DiEugenio goes to great lengths to reintroduce us to the ballistics that took President Kennedy’s life and how incredulous we all should be at the assertion that one bullet could have done that much damage to TWO men and remain virtually intact when it was found on a stretcher in Parkland Hospital that was never occupied by either President Kennedy nor Governor Connelly.
How exactly does a tree branch strip the copper jacket off a bullet? Doesn’t matter… using "Bugliosi Circular Logic" proves the fact that it happened should be enough, and that’s all you need to know according to crazy Uncle Vinnie!
Again, in fear of being accused of being repetitive - Vincent Bugliosi demands that since it's in The Warren Report it must be true and you must believe it or stand accused of being stupid, Bad American.
The Exclusion Principle
Also addressed in “Reclaiming Parkland” is the glaring omissions in Vincent Bugliosi's book of the findings from The Church Committee and United States House Select Committee on Assassinations, the FOIA documents that other investigators have received or the countless documents that can be found on The AARC website that supports the findings that Oswald did not – and could not – have killed President Kennedy on his own. Anything that disproves his argument that Oswald was the lone gunman or that he was an informant for The FBI or CIA simply doesn’t exist according to Vincent Bugliosi. Via "Bugliosi Circular Logic," if it contradicts The Warren Reports conclusion, it's obviously wrong.
Thus, this is why Mr. Bugliosi is able to say that there is absolutely no evidence that proves there was a conspiracy to kill President Kennedy, he pretends none of that evidence exists.
As illustrated by Mr. DiEugenio – and documented in countless other books about the assignation – all of the witnesses who were actually there and tried to report what they witnessed were shunned by the FBI, Secret Service, and local police and but if the were able to get interviewed then what they reported to The Warren Commission was either distorted or omitted in the final report. Even though there is a mountain of evidence and eyewitness that prove that there was a shooter behind the picket fence behind the grassy knoll on Dailey Plaza, it doesn’t matter, Bugliosi insists that none of that happened because The Warren Report says it didn’t happen that way.
On the scant occasion that he does address any of these documents or findings, he has an easy explanation; none of those things say what you think they mean. You’re not a lawyer, are you? If you’re not, then how could you understand what they mean! You’re silly, you’re not an attorney!
Or he will take great pains to explain that because of this “false document,” and because you’re just too stupid to understand why it’s false, it's "your fault" that nobody trusts The Warren Commision and its final report. It’s your fault for believing such an obvious 'lie,' by "Bugliosi Circular Logic."
It’s moments like these I wonder why nobody calls this book “Gaslighting History.”
For Bugliosi, it’s Personal.
Mr. DiEugenio attempts to try to explain why does Vincent Bugliosi defend The Warren Report with such fervor and venom for its critics like this; To be wrong about who killed President Kennedy means you have to address why he was killed. If there were more than two people who shot at Kennedy, that means that there’s a conspiracy. And if the assassin wasn’t a lone nut, and that the men who killed Jack Kennedy had support from rogue agents in our own government than that means that everything else we trust about The United States government is debatable.
And it’s pretty scary to know that the government and the media purposefully lie. Unless it’s for your own good.
The author of this book also shares the biggest reason why there are so many errors in “Reclaiming History…” starting with the fact that Mr. Bugliosi has been collecting all of his bits of information for more than 20 years and refused to remove or update it when necessary and refuses to use modern technology to help him verify his facts or keep an accurate index.
Mr. DiEegenio isn't alone in chronicling the countless errors in this book's index that have incorrect page numbers or the index references topics that don't exist on specific pages it says are there.
If that’s not bad enough, Mr. DiEugenio shares with us a couple of anecdotes from some of Mr. Bugliosi’s co-authors who said they need to remove or change portions of the book because the source of the information has been revealed to be either false or pure disinformation and Bugliosi demands that it’s true because it has to be since his entire argument depends on it.
Another basis of his argument is the concept of "the lying witnesses." If a witness says they were forced to provide investigators of The Warren Commission false testimony to adhere to the investigators preconceived conclusions (and I’ll get to the concept of preconceived conclusions in a bit,) and that witness tells multiple people like book authors and documentary makers what really happened, most people would believe what the witness most recently admitted to being the actual truth. In Vincent’s World – that person is “obviously lying” and falls back to the original testimony the witness gave to The Warren Committee even though that witness said it’s wrong.
In short, people who come forward to say they lied in the past but tell the truth now are "obviously" lying now and what they said in the past is the actual truth because it holds up his argument. Another example of "Bugliosi Circular Logic."
They must be wrong, or he’s wasted more than 20 years on a falsehood, and if he’s wrong about who and why John Kennedy was killed and the verdict in the mock trial he won on that British television show was wrong and predicated on falsehoods, then maybe Vincent Bugliosi’s other work is wrong… and maybe Charlie Manson was innocent and we put the wrong man in prison for life… and the very fabric of society falls apart while the reputation of Bugliosi unravels...
"Reclaiming History" is really "Reclaiming Legacy and Reputation."
