Rating: 
Summary: Posner uses common sense to dispell ignorance
Review: For years, the conspiracy notions of people involved with the JFK and Martin Luther King assasinations have bothered me. It seemed that there was nothing being done about the alligations of conspiracy and murder. After speaking with several history experts at my college, I decided to read Killing the Dream. Posner delivers the logical side of this terrible story. He doesn't really lead you in any direction until the end where he offers his own opinion. The book merely states the facts of the case and exposes the reliability of all the involved witnesses. Once you read it, you have an intimate knowledge of the background of James Earl Ray, and then you can more acurately decide about the truth of the assasination. Posner outdoes himself and is a valuable asset to the sane, logical people of the literary world.
Rating: 
Summary: Building a case with facts instead of conspiracy theories
Review: Gerald Posner's attention to detail and his insistence on building a strong case to support his position is refreshing. With so many crazy theories on the Kennedy and King deaths, it's often difficult for some to know what to believe. I have never read a conspiracy book that looked at James Earl Ray's life in such detail and that spent so much of its time building the case for his having been the killer. His lifelong pattern of deceit and false identities is more convincing than his stories about a mysterious conspirator named Raoul. I would love to see Posner tackle the Sam Sheppard case as his next assignment!
Rating:
Summary: We need more Gerald Posners!!
Review: We need more Gerald Posners because he approaches his topics in a competent, intelligent, and most importantly, a dispassionate manner. In his book KILLING THE DREAM, Posner does not allow his admiration for Martin Luther King to cloud his judgment of the facts. Martin Luther King (and JFK) were murdered by surly little egotists. Posner reminds us that truth is the best tribute to great men.
Rating: 
Summary: Is Posner reliable?
Review: Is Posner reliable? In my opinion he certainly wasn't with Case Closed. Each book however is different, and he does a good job in detailing Ray's extremely sordid life. Did Ray pull the trigger? I doubt it for these reasons- there was only one jailbird witness who provided any info. on Ray even firing a rifle- within the last several years before the assassination. Is this person credible? Of course in Posner's eyes anyone that advocates anything different than the official story is nuts or lying.The only witness to see someone leave the rooming house Charles Stephens, when shown a picture of Ray by CBS in 1975 couldn't identify him.(Grace Walden) his roomate said he was drunk at the time of the killing passed out and told Mark Lane ( after Lane found her in an Asylum; courtesy of the Feds) that she saw the man not Charlie,it was not Ray. There were no fingerprints of Ray found in his supposed room or the bathroom, yet they just happen to be on this bundle of junk and the rifle. Ray wore a Black and white dress suit that day. Now would an Assassin go into a public bathroom wearing this when anyone could have walked in, or see him flee? Remember the Assassination occurred at 6:00 PM. Also Ray had returned the rifle to the owner and got another one, implying his lack of knowledge of firearms.Two white Mustangs leaving the area should have stood out conspicuously- these are a few questions that Posner must avoid, although they are hardly conclusive of Ray's innocence they do point that way in his incredible incompetence seen in his capers. Posner may well be right on the Military aspects not being true, but we have to take his word for it. I think Posner runs into the most trouble when he attempts to debunk the Mafia as the chief culprits. The evidence for involvement by them with likely Hoover foreknowledge- and certain lack of complete investigation is much stronger than Posner's fallback Ray's brothers or obscure racists isn't convincing. Someone from the Local D.A.Office Mark Gankler told the Auth! or that Jowers was trying to get 300,000 dollars for his story and no evidence is provided.I think the person who wants the truth must read both William Pepper's Orders To Kill and this one simultaneously to best ascertain the truth.After the futility of trying to close the JFK case Posner deserves no more respect than Pepper.
Rating:
Summary: Killing the dream woke me up
Review: Living on the other side of the ocean, it's often hard to understand why and at what range discussions go and flow on 'historical killings' in American history. Having read numbers of books (for instance 'Lincoln' by Gore Vidal and 'Rush to Judgement' by Mark Lane) and being aware of piles of information on the killings of JFK and MLK, I - for a while - had the idea (also being fed by Stone's movie 'JFK') that in both killings conspiracy was the key word and that a nation like the U.S.A. should be ashamed for not being able to uncover all the cover ups. Reading Posners 'Killing The Dream' (and having almost finished 'Case closed', dealing with the assassination on JFK'), it struck me that what seemed to be 'true' and 'obvious' more looks like " we can't or won't accept that great men like Kennedy or King are killed by nuts, freaks, weirdo's or loners without any connection". I accept that the idea is unsettling or frightning, but a society should be able to face up to the facts. Posner delivers the facts. Straightforward and crystal clear. Leaving a lot of 'conspiracy buffs' with the challenge to face facts and to challenge them (and Posner). Posners books make great reading. But the facts give you the shivers.
Rating:
Summary: Posner's great book makes clear that Ray was lone assassin.
Review: Like his prior book, Case Closed, Posner combines clear writing with thorough research and logic. Like a well prepared lawyer, Posner examines the facts, addresses the issues and supports his main points: James Earl Ray was the lone assassin of Dr. King and that conspicarcy theorist are charlatans. The book on tape is also excellent.
Rating:
Summary: The voice of reason returns
Review: Once again Gerald Posner, who, along with Vince Bugliosi, seems to be one of the few remaining "voices of reason" in this strange land, sets the record straight as to what most likely happened in the first of two tragic acts in 1968. This presentation is done in a barage of facts (all footnoted and documented) that sustains itself, even projects itself, in the manner of a "page turner". It is nearly impossible for any clear thinking person to come away from this book with any reasonable doubt that James Earl Ray, who may have had an even more squalid youth than Lee Oswald, was the lone assassin of Dr. Martin Luther King. If a government cannot even cover up a "third rate burglary" such as Watergate, how have they managed to do it, not once, but twice, with JFK and MLK? Theories and supposition are fascinating, but history deals with facts. Posner provides facts.
Rating:
Summary: Questions Answered: LIFE IS GOOD
Review: You might wonder if the author of "Case Closed" deemed it merely obligatory to debunk yet another batch of conspiracy theories, this time surrounding the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. Not so. Some of the same conspiratorial characters who cascaded in and out of the murky John F. Kennedy tale have transitioned into the Martin Luther King tragedy without so much as a blink of an eye. Gerald Posner takes them on once again with no less fervor and no less a flair for exhaustive research than he did in "Case Closed," the fruits of which are compellingly told to a fact-hungry America. If you're tired of tabloidisms about the Monica Lewinsky/Ken Starr mess, jump right into Gerald Posner's highly readable "Killing the Dream." I loved it.
The footnotes themselves are a richly textured book within a book, sprinkles of wisdom delivered with the sledgehammer of truth.
In "Killing the Dream" we find that James Earl Ray is not only a petty criminal, he's a jerk (parks his pale yellow Mustang sideways taking up two spaces so as not to expose his precious getaway car to bumps and bruises; a liar ("He was the most reluctant, sarcastic, overbearing liar I ever saw," said Alton police chief Harold Riggins in 1954); and a bigot.
And -- you will meet the real Raul in Posner's disturbing account of intrusion on an innocent by sarcastic, overbearing conspiracy buffs.
This exceptional book has put the Martin Luther King assassination in proper perspective, elevating it at the same time to its rightful place in history.
Rating:
Summary: If you want the facts of the assassination -- this is IT!
Review: Killing the Dream is a great read as well as being animportant book about this tragic assassination. Even though Posnerhas meticulously documented everything in the book he keeps the detail out of the reader's way. The author keeps a nice flow in the narrative while making it easy to check the documentary references. Posner's ability to make a well documented book fun to read is a great skill that not many authors possess. Through this book we get to know James Earl Ray at every stage of his life. We see Ray becoming a petty criminal by growing up in a family of criminals. We follow his life as a fumbling loner and see that this is his nature both before and after the assassination. Ray's present pathetic attempts at vindication become understandable as part of his lifelong efforts to avoid responsibility for his criminal acts. Posner wisely lets Ray's actions and the documentary evidence speak the truth rather than vainly speculating about the assassin's psychology. We see for ourselves the type of person Ray is and the choices he made while avoiding accountability for his crimes. By seeing the context of Ray's entire life the monstrous act of killing Dr. King becomes understandable as the misbegotten attempt of a loser trying to make a big score. Sometimes it is hard to accept the mundane nature of evil, but Posner has done us the service of telling us the truth. The simple dignity of reality gives an historical weight to this telling of the crime that none of the sensationalists will ever achieve. People who want to know the truth will want to read this book. Others will endlessly babble their fantasies and allow themselves to be exploited by Oliver Stone and his ilk.
Rating:
Summary: very good investigation
Review: This is a very good examination of the King assassination. I especially liked the part about Ray. I really didn't have a strong feeling about this case beforehand, but am now convinced that Posner is right.
|
