Now, I consider myself a bit of an expert on the subject of the JFK assassination, I guess as much as any researcher can be an expert without actually interviewing witnesses themselves. And I literally thought I had seen/read/heard it all when it came to that fateful day in Dallas, Texas some 50 years ago next month. So when I started delving into what I thought was just going to be another recap of information with which I was already quite familiar, I was astounded at what I discovered very early on between these pages. Because it was always my understanding that nobody had really publicly questioned the findings of the Warren Commission until Jim Garrison, the District Attorney of New Orleans, launched his investigation into the alleged CIA asset Clay Shaw in the late 1960's. The Garrison investigation is what the Oliver Stone film “JFK" based it's storyline on and was the first time that millions of Americans ever learned of the alternate eyewitness stories about what actually happened that day in 1963. But it turns out that very soon after the Warren Commission published it's report, much earlier than the Jim Garrison investigation, another man made some heavy waves by publicly criticizing the official story in what became a best-selling book “Rush to Judgement". A respected lawyer and former friend of John F Kennedy, Mark Lane stirred a shit-storm with the release of his book in 1966 by raising questions about the suspicious and unconstitutional manner through which Lee Harvey Oswald was convicted in the public eye of murdering the president without a trial and after being consistently denied legal counsel. After extensive questioning of many of the closest eye-witnesses to the JFK murder, he collected a heavy body of evidence that the conclusions of the Warren Commission about Oswald being the lone shooter were terribly flawed and in need of review.

Many times when I've been digging around online for information about the assassination I've come across some amazing television interviews with eye-witnesses from that day at Dealey Plaza. Most of which offered heavily conflicting testimony to what the Warren Commision reported after their supposed extensive investigation into the whole debacle. And it was never clear to me just where these interviews came from or who had recorded them. But as I read Lane's new book “Last Word" I discovered that these interviews were excerpts from a documentary by Lane himself released in 1967. Watching the “Rush to Judgement" documentary is chilling because it is a plain-as-day raw conversation with countless witnesses who not only give VERY different accounts of what transpired on November 22nd in Dealey Plaza, they also demonstrate that their statements were falsified and twisted by the Warren Commission investigators.

Now, nearly 50 years later, Lane's new book documents his story of taking an unpopular path in his pursuit to find the truth of what actually happened on Nov 22nd, 1963. And almost as incredible as the evidence unearthed by eyewitness interviews, are the stories of what Lane has been through in his lifelong battle to get to the bottom of things. Perhaps the most intriguing section of Lane's new book is in his examination of the CIA's influence on popular media. Now, I was completely unaware of this fact, but Lane scored the first real victory in unearthing government secrecy in his lawsuit to use the Freedom of Information Act in his investigation of the CIA, FBI and the Warren Commission. After striking a shocking victory in the Supreme Court, he gained access to tens of thousands of CIA documents, many of which the CIA didn't have enough time to black out incriminating evidence before the Supreme Court deadline to turn them over to Lane's team. And during this investigation Lane and his assistants uncovered insanely shocking information demonstrating the CIA's blatant influence over mainstream news sources and even finding their instructions to their paid assets inside specific media outlets on how to destroy Mark Lane's credibility in the public's mind and how to go about reviewing his book. It's incredible. This was one of the most amazing and incriminating things I have read demonstrating exactly how government institutions like the FBI and CIA are able to control the dialogue about important subjects that are threatening to the establishment.

In one part of the book Mark tells his story of being invited as a guest on the popular CBS interview show ‘Firing Line' to take part in an open debate with the show's host William F. Buckley Jr. Lane describes his fears of going into the debate because after a little research he discovered that Buckley's brother worked for the CIA. So Lane went in prepared and ready for a battle. What transpired was nothing short of creepy. Amazingly, I found the broadcast interview on Youtube. But even more incredible is that years down the road Lane indirectly discovered that William F Buckley Jr was actually a paid CIA asset himself. Think about the implications of this discovery.These are highly respected celebrity news people who are telling us our daily news and they are not only influenced by the government some of them are actual paid assets.

This book is HIGHLY recommended to anybody who is mildly informed about the JFK conspiracy. I would also highly recommend it to readers who have doubted the official story but always wondered how in the world such a conspiracy could be kept secret for so long.
Mark Lane put himself at incredible risk by pursuing his investigations for all of these years and even though this newest book was published in 2011 he even recently found that media assets in popular publications were still using CIA drafted defamatory practices to muddy his credibility and soften the blow of his book.
Please read this book so we can debate and discuss it on TOA soon.