An "incredibly improbable memoir ..., and the most incredible thing is how much of the story is demonstrably true", remarks Joseph Green, who further observes that "the author adopts a straightforward prose style and appears to be doing his best to give the truth as he sees it. For that he deserves some kudos."

Because of its innumerable textual and sourcing problems, Tye's book is neither worth reading nor buying, concludes Jim DiEugenio, who is prompted to muse:  "Why did the author write the book? Only he can answer that question".

Writing of his gratuitous ignorance of the facts of the JFK case, Prof. Fernandez asserts that "[James] Piereson likes to walk among ghosts", and that he is joined in this by Regnery Publishing, which has muddied the Castro-did-it waters with the issue of Robert Wilcox's Target JFK.

By Marc Frank and Nelson Acosta, At:  Reuters

By Bryan Bender and Neil Swidey, originally run on November 24, 2013, At:  The Boston Globe

Volume 5 of the Official History of the Bay of Pigs Operation, by Jack B. Pfeiffer (18 April, 1984)

by Alan Gomez and Gregory Korte

At:  USA Today

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.

Arnaldo follows up his original critique of Shenon's book with a reply to the article published in Politico on October 6, 2015.

None of the Shenon's sources brought a single quantum of proof for turning plausible his Castro hypothesis. Their suspicions, impressions, beliefs, admissions, second-hand tales, and suggestions are linked to long-ago debunked stories. For sticking with them along the substantiation of his hypothesis, Shenon must concoct [various] 'facts', writes Arnaldo Fernandez.