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Countdown to Dallas

The Incredible Coincidences, Routines, and Blind "Luck" that Brought John F. Kennedy and Lee Harvey Oswald Together on November 22, 1963

Audiobook
1 of 1 copy available
1 of 1 copy available
The so-called "crime of the century"—the assassination of President John F. Kennedy—was almost preordained to happen. Like all presidents from decades before him, JFK played it loose with security—open cars, Secret Service agents at a distance, and a desire to be seen. Yet conspiracy buffs are certain the security setup on November 22, 1963 was unusual and suspicious. It wasn't.
And what of Lee Harvey Oswald, the drifter, the vicious wife-beating, fame-seeking narcissist? Everything in his background—dating back to his violent, disturbing grade school years, including his stated desire to murder President Dwight Eisenhower—defines the real Lee Oswald. The Oswald that conspiracists rarely talk about—the Oswald who was perched in the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository as JFK drove by—was headed for this moment of infamy years before he pulled the trigger.
In Countdown to Dallas, author Paul Brandus tracks the backgrounds of both Kennedy and Oswald, the very different era in which they lived, and the incredible string of circumstances that brought them together for a few fateful moments in Dallas.
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    • Publisher's Weekly

      January 9, 2023
      USA Today columnist Brandus (Under this Roof) debunks conspiracy theories surrounding JFK’s assassination in this persuasive if somewhat ponderous history. Drawing on recently declassified documents, Brandus characterizes Lee Harvey Oswald as a violent, politically extreme, and mentally disturbed man. Revisiting well-known aspects of Oswald’s biography—including his troubled childhood, his desultory service in the Marines, his attempted defection to the Soviet Union—Brandus notes that after being denied citizenship in the U.S.S.R., Oswald returned to America with a young Russian bride, convinced that Cuba was the ideal communist state and deeply angered at President Kennedy’s policies regarding Castro. Brandus relies heavily on FBI surveillance reports and other postassassination investigations to piece together the year leading up to the murder, showing how financial difficulties, turbulence in the marriage, and mental instability pushed Oswald over the edge. Though the mountain of material Brandus wades through slows things down, he builds a well-supported and well-reasoned case that Oswald acted alone. Still, this one’s best-suited to JFK completists.

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  • English

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