Reclaiming History by Vincent Bugliosi

         Last year I was teaching about JFK in my US History class. Most of the students knew little about him, but they knew he was shot. So, we started discussing some of the things he did as president and then we got to his assassination. Diving into this, even briefly, had me wanting to learn more. We talked about Lee Harvey Oswald and Jack Ruby, and most of them knew that there were a lot of conspiracies surrounding the assassination. And I wanted to learn more.

              During my lunch break that day I got onto Audible and found the book I was looking for, Reclaiming History by Vincent Bugliosi. I chose this book because I wanted to learn what happened prior to and on that fateful day in Dallas. I wanted as much info as I could get, without reading the thousands and thousands of pages of the Warren Report. But I also wanted a book that would shoot down any and all conspiracies.

              I love a good conspiracy as much as the next guy, but I had always had the thought that Oswald acted alone on that day in Dallas. Bugliosi does an amazing job of convincing me 100% that he was the lone gunman. But not only that, I learned so much more about Oswald, Kennedy, and the whole situation.

              One of my favorite things to do years ago, when I was living in the DFW area, was to go to Dealey Plaza and listen to the conspiracy theories that some of the people were spouting off about. Their passion, regardless of how misguided they may be, really was interesting and contagious. Even for a split second they might have you thinking they are on to something. Then you come back to reality and realize there is no way that whoever they are saying (Castro, CIA, FBI, LBJ, Russia, etc…) was the cause of the JFK assassination. It is still fun none-the-less.

In the coming weeks, perhaps during the Thanksgiving or Christmas break, I want to make another trip up to Dallas and see if anyone is still there with their conspiracies.

Soon I’ll write a full book review of what I thought of Reclaiming History.