A very detailed book of those four days in November, 1963. I have never believed there was another killer, or a conspiracy to kill John Kennedy and this book has only confirmed my feelings. A very detailed account, sometimes minute by minute, of the assassination of JFK and the 3 days following. It is sometimes a bit too detailed - I skipped most of the details about Jack Ruby after he shot Oswald. However, a very satisfying read. ( )

This is an excellently written factual accounting of the assignation of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy.

I was in sixth grade when the principal came into the room to tell the teacher what happened. I remember the somber look of the principal, and the tears of mteacher.

Later that day, I asked my father to take me to be with my grandmother. A staunch Democrat, she very much was in favor of JFK. A stanch republication, my mother also was saddened by the brutality of the murder.

On November 22, 1963, at Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas, a skinny, angry man who was working at the book depository,, close enough so that when the presidential car rounded the corner, Lee Harvey Oswald positioned his gun and shot. There would be enough shots so that the back of the president's head was blown away.

Governor Connelly was in the limo with his wife. He too was shot, though he sustained his wounds. Both Connelly and Kennedy were immediately driven in a fast manner that the car actually flew in the air en route to the Parkland Hospital.

It is there that Kennedy, while still showing a small sound of a heart beat, died. His wife, Jackie Kennedy, sat in the corner of the room. Wearing her blood stain hat, and carrying a piece of the president's brain matter, she prayed, but she knew without a doubt her prayers for his ability to continue to live were futile.

This book is fascinating in the portrayal of the events and those who also would lose their lives as a result of that day.

Robert Kennedy, his brother and Attorney General was told via phone as he was eating his tuna sandwich, that his brother was dead. Told in a cold, clip manner, the director of the CIA, J. Edgar Hoover showed no remorse in the way in which he bluntly told his enemy Bobby Kennedy.

Bobby never recovered the loss of his brother. His hatred of J. Edgar Hoover grew. He slipped into long-lasting depression.

While I knew many of the facts, there were many things that I did not know. ( )

I should have watched the 'major motion picture' adaptation instead, at least that would have been a different medium. I have read Helter Skelter, Vincent Bugliosi's account of the Manson murders, and The Death of a President by William Manchester - and never the twain should meet, quite frankly. I don't know why Bugliosi thought he would be able to silence the 'conspiracy theorists' by poking through old notes and sucking up to the Texas Police, but he didn't convince me. I don't know about 'magic bullets' and the grassy knoll, but there was something decidedly hinkey going on in the 1960s - JFK, and then his assassin Lee Harvey Oswald, RFK, Martin Luther King, Medgar Evers. Yeah, sure. All completely unconnected.

Anyway, Bugliosi's book is completely unnecessary, and far from objective. I didn't like the way he dedicated more pages to the bumptious police officers and detectives in Texas - with names like Lumpkin and Captain Fritz - than the death of Kennedy himself. At least Manchester was invested in the personal aspect of the assassination. And he's so keen to 'resolve, beyond every reasonable doubt, what happened in Dallas and who was responsible' that his own opinion regularly creeps into the familiar path of events. If he were in court, the defense would be entitled to claim that he was leading the witness/reader. His contempt for Oswald crawls off the page, for one, whereas the Dallas cops are beyond reproach - they 'have done an incredible, some would even say a near impossible job', and 'amassed evidence against him that is destined to withstand years of scrutiny' ... All the while letting the press take over the building to the point where Jack Ruby was able to slip inside and kill Oswald. And don't get me started on how 'insane with grief' he insists Ruby was when he was allowed to silence the assassin - weeping and wailing and just 'not himself' when he heard about Kennedy's death. Sure, Jan.

Bugliosi can grandstand all he wants, a lot of details about Dallas will never add up. I believe that Oswald killed JFK, but he wasn't acting independently, and actually, the only part of that fateful day that I really want to read about is the devastating loss of such an inspiring, larger than life man. Read Manchester's authorised account for a more human account of Kennedy's death. ( )

When I picked this up I thought it was going to be more about Parkland and what went on there; the thoughts and feelings of those on staff, how they felt about Kennedy and then having to deal with Oswald. It was actually more of a time line of the assassination and what when on following it. It certainly is a well researched book and Bugliosi never fails to deliver. Just thought it was going to be a bit different. ( )

Bugliosi did a great job of presenting so much information, so many facts, and so many people and locations in a well-organized manner. ( )