Blogs > Cliopatria > David Kaiser: Response to Max Holland & John McAdams

Apr 17, 2008

David Kaiser: Response to Max Holland & John McAdams


by Cliopatria


To the Editor of HNN:

When HNN informed me that they wanted to post something about my book The Road to Dallas, I was naturally pleased. The forum and participants they have chosen, however, make it impossible for me to contribute anything useful except the suggestion that those interested in the case actually read my book themselves.

The contributions they have printed by Max Holland and John McAdams have already appeared on Holland's web site, Washingtondecoded.com. They completely fail the first test of any review--to indicate what is in the book. Should either of them ever publish a book on the case (the only one of Holland's that has appeared is simply an edited collection of Lyndon Johnson's phone conversations), the public will be able to compare their treatment of it to mine. But that time has not come.

I wrote my book because of the massive release of millions of pages of original documentation during the 1990s. I was confident that these materials would shed new light on all major aspects of the case, and indeed they did, showing, among many other things, that organized crime killed President Kennedy. Any open-minded reviewer--such as those who have already discussed the book in Publisher's Weekly, the Library Journal, Kirkus, the Chicago Sun-Times, the Denver Post, and Playboy--will acknowledge the contribution that I have been able to make. (Excerpts and full text of those reviews are on amazon.com and historyunfolding.com). Fortunately, the broader market for truth remains robust.

Sincerely yours,

David Kaiser


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Sheldon M. Stern - 4/21/2008

Professor Kaiser's response to critiques of his recent book on the JFK assassination by Max Holland and John McAdams is remarkable. He fails to address even one of the numerous examples they cite to discredit his conclusions and simply reasserts that declassified documents prove that the underworld killed JFK. Holland and McAdams--not to mention the exhaustive analysis by Vincent Bugliosi--have demonstrated conclusively that these documents prove no such thing.
Also, Kaiser's typically "academic" dismissal of Holland's book on the JFK assassination tapes as merely an edited collection of LBJ's phone conversations is grossly inaccurate and misleading. Holland's work, in fact, is both analytical and interpretive, and thoroughly grounded in real evidence rather than unsubstantiated leaps of belief.