JFK Released
Reviewed by James DiEugenio
It did not take me long to understand the modus operandi behind the book JFK Released. And also, why it has no listed author. The entity behind the volume is something called Golden Oak Artworks, which is not at all elucidated in the text. How many books have no authors? Incredibly, at the end of the Foreword, it is signed by The Author. (p. 7) This apparent mystery will be addressed more closely at the end of this review.
In addition to that, there is the problem of sheer pretension. The book is allegedly centered on the files released by order of Donald Trump in 2025. (pp. 2-3) In the body of the book, it exhibits some of those documents. (But it is not until later in the book that it is explained that several of these are not quoted verbatim.)
What is so surprising about the book is that it still maintains that the Warren Commission thesis is a viable alternative in the JFK case. (p. 4) But, as we shall see, it fiddles with the evidence in order to maintain that thesis. Also, the book does not note the previously mandated releases by the Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB). In fact, in the nearly 440 pages of text, I could not detect the names of Review Board employees Doug Horne or Jeremy Gunn. (I could not double-check this since there is no index.)
The more I thought about that, the more I realized what the book was really about. Because on the cover of the book it says “The Evidence is Complete. The Verdict is Yours.” How can anyone claim such a thing without dealing with the work of those two men while they were on the Review Board?
But then in that foreword, it also says this about John Kennedy: “He authorized assassination plots against foreign heads of state” and “He approved the Bay of Pigs invasion and then abandoned the men he’d sent to die on that beach.” (p. 7). With those two sentences, one really has to wonder about the motivation behind this book. Because both of them are simply false. As the declassified CIA-Inspector General Report proves, no president was privy to the CIA/Mafia Plots to kill Castro. (See pp. 132-33) Secondly, Kennedy approved air cover in order to allow for a retreat when he saw that he had been tricked and the invasion plan had been completely stymied. (Bay of Pigs Declassified, by Peter Kornbluh, p. 318)
II
The book then gets worse. The title of chapter one is “The Man Behind the Myth”. The nameless author now states that Joe Kennedy was a bootlegger, and this allowed his son to win the presidency in the 1960 elections.
As I have shown in spades, this is pure poppycock, utter rubbish. As Daniel Okrent proved in his fine book on Prohibition, Last Call, in over 900 pages of FBI documents, there was never any contemporaneous evidence by anyone that Joe Kennedy was any such thing. As David Nasaw showed in his biography of Joseph Kennedy, The Patriarch, there were 3 main ways that Joseph Kennedy made his fortune: real estate, the stock market, and the distribution of movies. The last was the main driver by far. And that money allowed him to purchase the gigantic Chicago Merchandise Mart in 1945. When the Kennedy family trust sold that building in 1998, the combined transaction was for over 600 million dollars. It is simple nonsense to proffer that someone with that kind of legal money would venture into something illegal.
But further, this book says that Joe Kennedy had a relationship with Sam Giancana going back to Prohibition. (p. 17) Giancana was born in 1908. The prohibition amendment was passed in 1919. And any study of Giancana reveals that he did not join the Outfit until after Prohibition was repealed.
As per the 1960 election, as this site has proven many times over, the two main accusations in this regard have both been proven to be fallacious. As Dan Fleming proved in his definitive study of the West Virginia primary, three official inquiries could find no subterfuge or illegal interference in that primary election. There was one inquiry by the state, one by the FBI and one by Barry Goldwater. None of them were friends of JFK. They all came up empty. (See Humphrey vs Kennedy, West Virginia, 1960) As per the myth put out in the novel Double Cross, Professor John Binder and FBI agent William Roemer showed with statistics and surveillance coverage that there was no overt effort by the Outfit to get Kennedy elected. In fact, as Binder showed with numbers, the turnout in the mob-controlled wards was actually less than it was on average in presidential elections. Which is the contrary to what would have happened if Double Cross were true. (See Roemer’s
Man Against the Mob, and Binder’s article at Public Choice, February 2007).
III
The book then borrows a myth about the assassination from Seymour Hersh’s hatchet job, The Dark Side of Camelot. (Hersh, p. 439). Namely that the back brace Kennedy wore held him upright for the killer’s bullets. (p. 15. Hersh says the projectiles were from Oswald.) It is not very difficult to find pictures on the web of Kennedy with his shirt off, and anyone can see the brace is made of cloth, not metal.
In Chapter 3, the book deals with what it maintains is a main theory about the JFK murder. Namely that Lyndon Johnson was behind it. The volume now uses Madeleine Brown as a source, maintains there was a Malcolm Wallace fingerprint on the sixth floor of the depository building, that somehow Johnson anticipated the first shot in Dealey Plaza, and that the Warren Commission was LBJ’s creation.
Where to begin with something like this? Brown later switched claims about who the father of her son Steven was. First it was LBJ. Later it was attorney Jerome Ragsdale. Whoever it was, both lawsuits were dismissed. Again, this information is easily attainable. As per the Malcolm Wallace fingerprint, the late Joan Mellen discredited that in her biography of Johnson. (pp. 259-60) Her expert used the most current fingerprint technology and -unlike previous ones--was fully accredited. Bob Groden has strongly and convincingly contested the anticipation factor in his book Absolute Proof ( see p. 272). And Don Gibson proved with audiotapes that the Commission was not Johnson’s idea. It was foisted on a resisting LBJ by Eugene Rostow and especially columnist Joe Alsop. (The Assassinations, edited by Jame DiEugenio and Lisa Pease, pp. 3-17).
The book tries to maintain that Oswald was a real communist. Therefore he learned Russian on his own, requested a hardship discharge from the service to help his mother, and then applied for an easy visa in Helsinki into Russia. As Philip Melanson noted many years ago, a mutual Marine acquaintance of Oswald and a woman named Rosaleen Quinn arranged a meeting between the two. Quinn had been studying Russian with a private tutor for over a year in hopes of becoming a State Department translator. She and Oswald agreed to speak exclusively in Russian when they met. Quinn was shocked afterward. She told her friend that Oswald spoke better Russian than she did. (Spy Saga, p. 11) This was before Oswald defected to the USSR.
The excuse for the hardship discharge was to aid his ailing mother in Texas. Yet seven days before his release, he applied for a passport. Who needs a passport to go from California to Texas? That passport was issued the day before his discharge. His mother had been struck by a falling candy box on her nose. But Oswald used this incident to get a hardship discharge, and it was granted in just ten days. When the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) investigated this, they discovered that it usually took three to six months to grant a hardship discharge. When he got released, Oswald spent all of 72 hours in Fort Worth with his mother. He then left for New Orleans to catch a freighter to Europe. (James DiEugenio, Destiny Betrayed, second edition, pp. 135-37)
As per Helsinki, when he got there he checked into the Hotel Torni, and then the Klaus Kurki Hotel. Combined, he spent five days in those two hotels. The first is considered a high-class place, one where the likes of American presidents and Soviet premiers stayed. The Klaus Kurki is perhaps one step down. The two edifices are about three hundred yards apart. Why would someone like Oswald, who had about a bit over two hundred dollars with him, be staying at places like this?
But the worst part is this: Oswald got his visa into Russia in a total processing time of 48 hours. It was later revealed that the Russian embassy in Helsinki had direct ties into the Russian state-owned travel bureau called Intourist. In fact, it was the only city in Europe where visas could be granted that fast. Further, the American embassy had ties into the Russian embassy and could request a visa be expedited. This was all just an Oswald coincidence? (ibid, pp. 138-39)
When put together in this manner, which JFK Released avoided doing, it is much harder to accept Oswald as a genuine communist. It is much more likely that he was on a mission for his government.
IV
This avoidance ties in perfectly with how the book deals with Oswald in New Orleans in the summer of 1963. In one of the most preposterous statements in this preposterous book, the unnamed author tells us that his chapter six will give us the entire record of that summer. Well, like everything else in the volume, that statement is not accurate.
The book tries as hard as possible to minimize the 544 Camp Street address on the Corliss Lamont pamphlet that Oswald was handing out in New Orleans. For instance, the author states that there was no documented presence by Oswald at the address besides the printing on the flyer. (p. 161)
Again, this is simply not the case. For instance, Dan and Allen Campbell worked for Banister as infiltration agents. They both saw Oswald at right-wing fanatic Guy Banister’s office that summer. Dan said Banister was a bagman for the CIA. (DiEugenio, pp. 111-12) Three witnesses said that Oswald had an office there. The 544 Camp building custodian, James Arthus, reportedly absconded with what was left of Oswald’s office on the day of Kennedy’s murder. (ibid, p. 112) Delphine Roberts, Banister’s secretary, said her boss was enraged when he saw Oswald had printed his address on the Lamont flyer. Mary Brengel, who worked temporarily for Banister, told investigator Scott Malone that, about two weeks after the assassination, Roberts told her Oswald had been in Banister’s office. Tommy Baumler had worked for Banister when he was a college student. Years later, as an attorney, he told investigator Bud Fensterwald that there was no doubt Oswald worked for Banister. He said that Banister’s operation was so sophisticated that he would issue letters of marque to protect his double agents. (ibid, p. 112)
Even though the book deals briefly with the Clay Shaw trial, there is no discussion of the Clinton/Jackson incident. (pp. 175-78) The book states that Shaw was a CIA businessman and domestic contact. Nothing about his covert security clearance, his highly paid contract agent service or his work for Permindex in Italy. (Click here for that https://www.kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-articles/clay-shaw-in-italy-part-1)
Ultimately the chapter concludes that no one can figure out what Oswald was really doing in New Orleans that summer. (pp. 184-85) If you use this kind of censorship, you can write that. You can also do so if you leave out John Newman’s discovery that both the CIA and FBI were running an infiltration and destabilization program against the Fair Play for Cuba Committee. Which is the name of the group that Oswald had stamped on that Corliss Lamont flyer. And which he was the only member of in the city. (DiEugenio, pp. 158-59) On the other hand, if one places all these pieces into a mosaic, then I think you can figure out what Oswald was doing in New Orleans. And further, how it all came back to haunt him on 11/22/63.
V
Probably the worst chapter in the book is the one dealing with the medical evidence. The anonymous author begins by saying this section will give the reader the complete medical record. (p. 276) Oh really? In 26 pages? There have been entire books written on this subject which do not give you the entire medical record.
The nameless author states that Malcolm Perry said the anterior neck wound was one of entrance on the day of the assassination. But he/she goes on to say that Perry then qualified that later, and the issue was settled by the Bethesda autopsy. The book also says that Perry first talked to the Bethesda doctors the next day, and this is how the discovery of the neck bullet wound was made by the latter set of doctors. Since Perry had cut a tracheotomy over that wound. (p. 287)
Two replies: 1.) What Bethesda autopsy? As so many medical experts have determined, JFK’s autopsy was one of the worst in medical history. 2.) Malcolm Perry was on the phone that night with the doctors from Bethesda. They threatened his medical license if he repeated the entrance wound story again. (See this https://www.kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-articles/the-ordeal-of-malcolm-perry)
The book then deals with the issue of Kennedy’s brain examination. I could barely believe this section. (pp. 290-92). How can anyone discuss this issue and fail to admit that the brain was not sectioned? This was standard operating procedure in a gunshot wound to the skull case. How else can one determine the number of bullets to the head or their directionality? If the back wound was not dissected and the brain was not sectioned—and neither were done-- then how can any definitive conclusion about the direction of the shots or number of projectiles be made?
Further, in proclaiming the X-rays and photos to be genuine, the author completely omits the testimony of autopsy photographer John Stringer to the Review Board. He told Chief Counsel Jeremy Gunn that he did not take the extant photos depicting Kennedy’s brain. He did not use that kind of film or that kind of photographic process. There is evidence that these photos could have been taken by White House photographer Robert Knudsen. Knudsen said he saw pictures of Kennedy’s body with probes in it and a photo of the back of the skull with a cavity exposed. Neither is in the extant collection. (JFK Revisited, edited by James DiEugenio, pp. 164-67)
Now what are the book’s listed disclosures made in the 2025 Trump declassification that somehow outweigh all the above?
- The CIA overestimated the possibility of success for the Bay of Pigs invasion. (p. 35)
- The Agency had turned 14 of the Cuban diplomatic corps. (pp. 42-43)
- The Agency was parsing out information to the HSCA in the spirit of responding only to the letter of the request. (pp. 50-51)
- The FBI determined that Life magazine was doing an inquiry into Johnson’s relationship with Bobby Baker, and this endangered LBJ’s remaining on the ticket for 1964.
- The Agency proclaimed that the KGB said they had no relationship with Oswald while he was in the USSR.(p. 109; see also pp. 365-66)
- The Mexico City station history report said Oswald was deeply troubled, and Winston Scott had his file on Oswald transferred to Counter-Intelligence. Further, the matching process of Oswald’s voice to the tapes was not definitive, and the tapes had been destroyed. (p. 192, 201)
- James Angleton was exploring whether or not Oswald was a Russian agent in October of 1963. (pp. 207-08)
- George Joannides knew specifically about the DRE encounter with Lee Oswald in August of 1963. (pp. 372-73)
- The Secret Service is still keeping hidden whatever it knew about Oswald even today. (pp. 237-38)
Some of these are really not new: like 1,3,4,8. Some I simply think are false, like 5,6,7. John Newman has unearthed some interesting information that contradicts the KGB official story about any contacts with Oswald.
I do not believe that the CIA had evidence that Oswald was at either the Cuban or Russian embassy, let alone proof that he was there. The Lopez Report is very strong on this point. The tapes were not destroyed either. (The JFK Assassination: The Evidence Today, pp. 304-05) And no, I do not buy that James Angleton seriously contemplated Oswald as a KGB agent. I think, as does Newman, that Angleton was running Oswald as an off-the-books agent.
Which leaves number two as a neat observation which I do not see as relevant to the JFK case. The last one about the Secret Service is, and I would like to see that secrecy unveiled.
It’s a pretty unimpressive tally for a book that now says the evidence is complete. Actually, I think the book is kind of scary. In the respect that someone is still turning out books this bad well into the new millennium. It’s tangible proof that the JFK case is still relevant today since the cover-up is still ongoing.
But there is another possibility which is also kind of daunting. According to Amazon, Golden Oak Artworks has also published UAP Released and Epstein Released. The titles are obviously similar and meant to grab the reader with the promise of much new material. But yet neither of those two books has a listed author either.
If one goes to LinkedIn, the same person who is the publisher at Golden Oak Artworks is also the owner of an exterior cleaning LLC. I leave the reader to make of that information what he or she will.
