Rating: 
Summary: Assassination "Science"---Oswald is not the only lone nut
Review: If it is true that you can tell a lot about a person by the company they keep, it is also true that you can tell a lot about a person's scholarship by what they believe. If those who believed that Oswald acted alone hitched their wagons to this sort of pseudoscience they would be laughed at every time they turned around. But in the world of conspiracy theories, NO theory is too outlandish and no claim is beyond sane consideration. This book is nearly unreadable. Some of the contributors (who are touted as scientists) have received NO formal training at all. This book is written for individuals who never met a conspiracy theory they didn't like. Serious scholars who demand more than ridiculous claims and glassy-eyed plots will be left dissatisfied after reading this collection of poorly-written diatribes.
Rating: 
Summary: Historians' Responsibility
Review: This a follow up to Fetzer's Assassination Science, and the case seems to get stronger all the time for a conspiracy in the Kennedy Assassination. Much that was murky or uncertain is suddenly being seen in a new light, now that certain key breakthroughs leave the subject on the other side of a threshold of evidence, namely, the clear tampering of the medical records, the expose of the Zapruder film, and much else.
But will anything change the inertia here of public opinion?
Here is a quote from one of the essays in the book.
From "The Silence of the Historians", David Mantik p.373
For nearly four decades, historians have chosen to hide from the thorny issues posed by the JFK assassination. Their silence--actually a near abdication--has permitted the media to set the agenda for one of the major events of the twentieth century. When forced to offer an opinion on the matter, historians have chosen, with few exceptions, to recite the Warren Commission version at face value. Given the straight-jacket, they have therefore assumed that Oswald did it. That era of innocence has been dying for some time. jpwever, and by any reasonable measure is now irrevocably moribund.
Historians are faced with a troubling new challenge--how to write an accurate and responsible history of 22 November 1963, one that takes into account a great deal of new evidence....The historians' fear of ridicule has surely been the dominant motive for their silence....Regarding this fear of ridicule, Thomas Spencer Jerome has cptured the problem exceptionally well:[The historian] finds further more that there are various sorts of obligations laid upon him to refrain from truth-telling under divers penalties. He is a member of a state, a church, a party, a class, a clique, a family and in all these relations he is virtually obliged to see things as they are not, and to speak that which is false, under penalties varying from execution down to mere inaritculate upopularity, most difficult to be borne. ("The Case of the Eyewitnesses" in Robin Winks, editor, The Historian as Detective, 1968, p190)
Rating: 
Summary: Murder in a Very Small Piece of Real Estate
Review: Another book of "revealing insights." Give me a break. Once again, for all you "conspiracy buffs;" just go to Dealey Plaza and stand in front of the stockade fence and you'll see what a small area of land it is in which you seem to find so many hidden gunmen. If I was standing fifteen feet from you and fired a high-powered rifle, wouldn't you hear the blast? See me? See me frantically running away to avoid being captured for committing the greatest murder of the century? Phantoms and ghosts, except for poor old Lee Harvey, the only gunman.
Rating:
Summary: Finally, Some Fresh Perspectives
Review: Most books on the assassination today seem designed to review and summarize the evidence for an audience that hardly remembers what the fuss is all about. This book assumes that you know the lay of the land, and want some new information. Fetzer is best read by those who want some detailed information about aspects of the crime that were virtually unexplored until these pieces were made available to wider audience than assassination buffs. Having read a mountain of books on the subject, I was excited to find totally new material on the Secret Service and the fate of the JFK limo, among many other topics. The price of this book is so low, anyone with even a passing interest in the subject will find this a solid value. I was riveted by some of these essays. This is the best I've read since Bloody Treason, which I also highly recommend.
Rating:
Summary: A New Force Emerges in the JFK Assassination Debates
Review: The 1990's was quite a decade for those following the ongoing clash of ideas known to me as the JFK assassination debate. Among the notable events was the publication of Gerald Posner's "Case Closed", a much ridiculed and debunked book, the entry of George Lundberg and the AMA into the fray, the appearance of a distinguished lone nutter from the U of RI, Prof Kenneth Rahn, and (coincidence?) the appearance of another distinguished professor, James Fetzer, and his colleagues and research team. The weight of their evidence puts them in the conspiracy column, and it seems to me this group is taking up and taking things a little farther the Harrison Livingstone has. Prof Fetzer's two books and videocasette should be in everyone's library. They are absolutely essential.
Rating:
Summary: THE SECRET SERVICE DID IT!
Review: I AM VERY IMPRESSED WITH THE WORK OF VINCENT PALAMARA IN PROF. FETZER'S WORK "MURDER IN DEALEY PLAZA"! I THINK THE BOOK AS A WHOLE IS A GREAT READ BUT ALOT OF THE OTHER WORK PALES IN COMPARISON TO THE FINE CHAPTERS BY PALAMARA. I NEVER CONSIDERED THE SECRET SERVICE A SUSPECT UNTIL NOW. IN FACT, I BELEIVE THEY KILLED JFK! HIGHLY RECOMMENDED. SECOND TO VINCENT'S WORK WOULD BE THE CHAPTERS BY AGUILAR AND MANTIC.
Rating:
Summary: Simply Dreadful
Review: A scattered collection of poorly written essays replete with poor grammer, spelling errors, run on sentences and patchwork logic. A confusing maze of paranoid intrigue awaits the reader-thrill to the theory of the (2) switched kennedy brains, swoon over the altered xrays, freak out over the faked films and switched coffins and so on--all written as absolute fact!! It would make a great fictional movie. Oh wait, it was a movie, hmmmm.
Rating:
Summary: Shedding new light on the many paradoxes
Review: Murder In Dealey Plaza by James H. Fetzer (Distinguished McKnight University Professor, University of Minnesota, Duluth) is a revelation of information about the assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy, one of America's most beloved presidents. Presenting a variety of quite carefully researched and accessibly written contributions shedding new light on the many paradoxes, evidences of conspiracies, and much more arising this tragedy of modern American history, Murder In Dealey Plaza is a scholarly, thought-provoking investigation into the crime that changed a nation, and an important and highly recommended contribution to the continuing controversies surrounding the murder of JFK.
Rating:
Summary: Don't be discouraged: Get closer to the truth
Review: If you haven't read or watched much about the JFK assassination since the mid-1990s, you probably still think that the grassy knoll and the "back and to the left" of Oliver Stone's movie are the forefront of knowledge. If so, MURDER IN DEALEY PLAZA, and its earlier companion volume ASSASSINATION SCIENCE, will simply amaze you. Building on the astounding discoveries of medical and film evidence described in the earlier volume, MURDER IN DEALEY PLAZA will introduce you to the growing body of objective scientific analysis of the assassination, which is finally beginning to provide the hard evidence for conspiracy that has remained elusive for so long. Are there mistakes in these two volumes? Absolutely. That's to be expected from any scientific work that is pushing the boundaries of our knowledge. Do these mistakes detract from the quality of the volumes? Not at all. Once you read MURDER IN DEALEY PLAZA, you realise that, for perhaps the first time since 1963, the principles of Science (in complete harmony with those of Justice) are being followed: namely, that uncovering the truth is the ONLY goal. And it is in complete accord with this approach that, when I myself pointed out mistakes to the Editor and co-authors, they thanked me for the criticisms, and indeed urged me to find and weed out any other errors. It is this boiling down of all of the irrelevancies and disinformation surrounding the assassination-a task still to be fully completed today-that pervades the pages of MURDER IN DEALEY PLAZA, and cannot help but impress even the most sceptical of readers. But don't get the idea that the book is filled with scientific techno-babble. Although there are enough details included for experts to find their way around, the story is an absolutely gripping read, and easy to follow. MURDER IN DEALEY PLAZA's strength lies in the breadth of topics addressed, and the comprehensiveness with which they are covered. The book begins with an amazing 100-page chronology of the day that JFK was assassinated, providing any newcomer to the field (such as myself!) a wealth of information and insights into the events of that fateful day. The quality of the treatment of the medical evidence in MURDER IN DEALEY PLAZA exceeds even that of the first volume, with twists and revelations that convince one that, in all but the most trivial of details, this aspect of the assassination is now almost fully understood. But it is in chronicling the development and maturation of research into the Zapruder film's authenticity that MURDER IN DEALEY PLAZA may, in the end, be best remembered, as holding out the best chance for irrefutable, scientific proof of the web of lies that engulfs this most historic of world events. Is MURDER IN DEALEY PLAZA the last word in the JFK assassination? Absolutely not. If you want to read a definitive account of everything that really happened on that day in 1963, you might have to wait a few more years for a revised history textbook. But there is good reason to believe that the truth of this dark day in American history is rapidly coming to the surface, and books like MURDER IN DEALEY PLAZA give you the best taste of why the end is in sight. So don't be discouraged by those who, let us say, have their own agendas for pooh-poohing any attempt to uncover the truth behind the JFK assassination. This really is a case where you simply cannot trust the reviews of others. Don't trust my review, either. Read the book for yourself. You'll see what I mean...
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Summary: ONLY IN YOUR DREAMS, PROFESSOR FETZER!
Review: The hype begins on the back cover of this book. There we find a smiling photo of its portly editor, James H. Fetzer, along with the statement that he "also edited the highly acclaimed Assassination Science (Catfeet Press, 1998) widely praised as a rigorous and ground-breaking contribution to Kennedy Assassination research." Highly acclaimed? Widely praised? A rigorous and ground-breaking contribution to Kennedy assassination research? Only in your dreams, Professor Fetzer! A visit to the library to consult the usual sources discloses that "Assassination Science" was deemed worthy of receiving only a few reviews in the print media. Publisher's Weekly pointed out that the book was "only marred by reproductions of Fetzer's many letters of protest to the Justice Department, the New York Times and everyone else he felt distorted the truth." A brief review by Ernst-Ulrich Franzen in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel pointed out that the book wasn't "worth the time and money of the average reader." Franzen went on to say that parts of the book "are of no interest to anyone except James Fetzer, the book's editor, and his immediate family and friends." The longest review was in Humanist. Here, the reviewer pointed out that the book "is yet another sectarian attempt to win converts" and directly places Fetzer himself in his sights: "Fetzer has very little evidence for any of these claims... Fetzer also offers a preposterous tale that... This is nonsense... That Fetzer would believe such drivel calls into question his judgment on other matters." The reviewer concludes by saying: "What we do not need is the creation of fables, either by the Warren Commission or by Fetzer." It is easy to make fun of Professor Fetzer. Once again, he tells us that he graduated from Princeton nearly forty years ago. Opposite the title-page, he stakes out new grounds of professorial excess by listing not only the eminently forgettable books and glossaries he has edited, written or co-written but also those which are "forthcoming." Once again he includes a boring letter to a government official (this time to Leslie Batchelor, head of the Civil Division of the U.S. Department of Justice.) Once again he bumbles around strewing misstatements of fact in his wake (two, not three, cartridge cases were found in the Sixth Floor sniper's nest; the published motorcade route didn't include the jog under the Depository's windows; and so on). Due to its outright misstatements of fact, this book (like its predecessor, "Assassination Science") has become a hazard to navigation in the field of assassination research. On page 149 Fetzer reprints the famous Altgens photo of the assassination along with a circle in the windshield and a caption: "Circle 1 The apparent through-and-through hole in the windshield." Enlargements of this photo show clearly that there is no damage to the windshield visible and certainly no "apparent through-and-through hole." This is a fact known for thirty-five years which Professor Fetzer apparently missed. Even more serious is Fetzer's uncritical acceptance of really sloppy research from contributors. Fetzer includes a color section of photos put together by Jack White intended to show that the Zapruder film has been altered by some shadowy government agency. One of the wackiest "proofs" of this idea is the claim that Mary Moorman took her famous photo from the street and that therefore the Zapruder film (which shows her in the grass) has been altered. This proof depends on the existence of a particular line-of-sight in the Moorman photo. Fetzer published a blow-up from the Moorman photo of the purported line-of-sight and then covered up the critical area with thick red lines. When you remove the thick red lines, you can see that the claim is false, that the purported line-of-sight is not there. And so it goes. The sequel to "Assassination Science" leaves real science behind as it cooks up a new brew of speculation and purported fact.
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