The weekend of November 22nd was the 52nd anniversary of the Kennedy assassination in Dallas, 1963. As luck would have it, we were visiting my favorite used bookstore in a nearby town and found a real score; “The Search for Lee Harvey Oswald – A Comprehensive Photographic Record” by Robert J. Groden. Groden has been a long-time assassination researcher who at times has been controversial himself. He is considered one of the best photo analysts in the JFK murder case, and was the sole dissenting photo analyst testifying before The House Select Committee on Assassinations, as well as a similar panel, The Rockefeller Commission. The book itself is large, a real armful. My copy is hardcover, I don’t know if it also was published in paperback. The photos are plentiful, informative and carefully chosen and presented. Groden has other books that delve deeply into the maze of information surrounding Kennedy’s assassination, but in this book he presents hundreds of fascinating pictures and builds snippets of documentary evidence around those pictures. The book doesn’t attempt to solve the crime, but is best used as a supplemental for researchers that have background knowledge of the case and provides a vivid visual texture that the written word can’t quite touch. In it, we travel through Oswald’s childhood, stint in The Marines, his “defection” to The Soviet Union, New Orleans to Mexico City, to the assassination and beyond.
As said, there are literally hundreds of pictures, including those of documents important in the case. Included are unusual photos such as that of the bathtub in Russia where Oswald likely faked a suicide attempt, Civil Air Patrol pictures with whack-job David Ferrie, some of General Walker – the kingpin of The John Birch Society in Dallas – and tons of photos of evidence. These include evidence contrary to the findings of the Warren Commission, such as a picture of an Enfield rifle that was also found in the School Book Depository and others.
Groden remains a somewhat heroic figure in the assassination research community. He first worked on film for the movie of the legendary Woodstock concert, after which Life Magazine gave the company a contract to work on the Zapruder film that captured the assassination as it happened. Groden secretly kept a copy of that film which he kept hidden for years, fearing for his life. He was the first to present it on a national television program, and has enhanced this and other photographic evidence of the assassination. He has continued to battle with the City of Dallas over rights to provide an information forum at the scene in Dealey Plaza. Looking through Amazon.com, there are many copies of this book available, new and used at very good prices.
If you are an assassination researcher and would like to get a better visual on every aspect of the case, this is the book for you. Here’s a link to Amazon if you would like to check the book out and see other reviews:
