Jim DiEugenio reviews John Avery Emison’s The Martin Luther King Congressional Cover-Up, which presents valuable information on the case, though its title is somewhat misleading.

Bridge of Spies is a well-made film.  I just wish it had dispensed with a lot of the dramatic license, which I do not think was really necessary. It would also be nice to see these two men do something a little gutsy concerning American history, opines Jim DiEugenio.

My advice about this heavily weighted apparatus [11.22.63] which produces next to nothing is to avoid it at all costs. All it really produces is more money for King and J. J. Abrams – like they need it.  It is nothing more than a stupid, demeaning waste of time, concludes Jim DiEugenio.

As one can see, Mark Lane was such an effective critic of the Warren Report that his ghost is haunted by its shameless defenders even in death.  It is they who are guilty of what they say he was: namely, presenting the facts in a one-sided, polemical way, declares Jim DiEugenio.

Jim DiEugenio pays tribute to the long and distinguished career of Citizen Lane, activist and fighter for social and political justice.

On the occasion of Mark Lane's passing, Jim DiEugenio looks back at his autobiography, concluding: "Lane’s life stands out as a man who did what he could to correct the evil and injustice in the world around him, with no target being too small or too large in that regard. This book stands out like a beacon in the night. It shows both what a citizen should be, and what an attorney can be."

Jim DiEugenio reviews the career of the University of Minnesota professor of philosphy of science, observing that his rather lax attitude toward critical analysis of scholarly sources, coupled to his taste for the "Sensational Solution", are responsible for the demise in respectability of this self-proclaimed authority on conspiracies.

If the reader is interested in knowledge about the inner workings of the radical right back in the fifties or sixties, then this is a useful book. But as far as relating that group to the murder of JFK, it is simply a dud. And a pretentious, bombastic, overlong and tedious dud at that. In this reviewer’s opinion, it is the worst book on the JFK case since Ultimate Sacrifice, concludes Jim DiEugenio.

What the author is doing has three layers.  First, he is giving us a history of the Castro revolution.  At the same time he is showing how the USA reacted to that epochal turnover, stage by stage in its evolution. Third, he is tracing certain people and movements who will return to the stage in 1963, after Kennedy changes policy, and begins a détente attempt with Cuba.  Other authors have tried this before, but never on this scale or with this intricacy, writes Jim DiEugenio.

What could have been an important and sterling volume is seriously compromised with a lot of litter. Instead of being up there with Rakove and Muehlenbeck, it stands a couple of steps downward, with Thurston Clarke’s mixed bag of nuts, concludes Jim DiEugenio.