Last Second in Dallas

by Josiah Thompson

Overview

In this long-awaited follow-up to his critically acclaimed 1967 classic, Six Seconds in Dallas, Josiah Thompson reveals major new forensic discoveries since the year 2000 that overturn previously accepted “facts” about the Kennedy assassination. Together they provide what no previous book on the assassination has done—incontrovertible proof that JFK was killed in a crossfire.

Last Second in Dallas is not a conspiracy book. No theory of who did it is offered or discussed. Among the discoveries: The test showing that all recovered bullet fragments came from Oswald’s rifle was mistaken. Several fragments could have come from bullets of any manufacturer and any caliber. The sudden two-inch forward movement of the president’s head in the Zapruder film just before his head explodes is revealed to be an optical illusion caused by the movement of Zapruder’s camera. This leaves without further challenge clear evidence that this shot came from a specific location to the right front of the limousine. Detailed analysis of film frames matched by the newly validated acoustic evidence show a second shot struck the president’s head from behind less than a second later. Result: two killing shots to the head from opposite directions in the final second of the shooting—hence the book’s title.

At once a historical detective story and a deeply personal narrative by a major figure in the field, Last Second in Dallas captures the drama and sweep of events, detailing government missteps and political bias as well as the junk science, hubris, and controversy that have dogged the investigation from the beginning. Into this account Thompson weaves his own eventful journey, that of a Yale-educated scholar who in 1976 resigned his tenured professorship in philosophy to become a private investigator in San Francisco, developing a national reputation.

Profusely illustrated, Last Second in Dallas features dozens of archive photographs, including Zapruder film frames reproduced at the highest clarity ever published.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780700630080
Publisher:	University Press of Kansas
Publication date:	02/15/2021
Pages:	544
Sales rank:	222,641
Product dimensions:	6.50(w) x 9.40(h) x 1.50(d)

About the Author

Josiah Thompson investigated numerous high-profile murder cases during his thirty-five-year career specializing in criminal defense, including the Oklahoma City bombing as defense investigator for Timothy McVeigh. Thompson’s publications include two books on the Danish existentialist thinker Søren Kierkegaard and a memoir about his jump from professor to detective, Gumshoe. He and his wife Nancy live in northern California.

Table of Contents

Foreword Richard Rhodes xi

Preface xv

Acknowledgments xxi

Part 1 Beginnings-The 1960s

Chapter 1 Dealey Plaza 3

Chapter 2 Life Magazine 16

Chapter 3 Witnesses: The Bystanders 30

Chapter 4 Witnesses: The Police Officers 49

Chapter 5 Witnesses: The Railroad Men 61

Chapter 6 "A Matter of Reasonable Doubt" 83

Chapter 7 Puzzling the Pieces 92

Chapter 8 Six Seconds in Dallas 104

Chapter 9 Shooting Melons … and Coconuts, Pineapples, and Water Jugs 114

Part II Aftermath-The 1970s

Chapter 10 Changes-and a Good Night America Shocker 133

Chapter 11 Acoustics 145

Chapter 12 The House Select Committee on Assassinations 164

Part III Breaking the Impasse-The 2000s

Chapter 13 Breaking the Impasse: The Puzzle Piece That Wasn't 183

Chapter 14 Breaking the Impasse: The Blur Illusion 197

Chapter 15 Breaking the Impasse: The Crucial Piece-the Final Shot 221

Chapter 16 The Medical Evidence 245

Part IV The Signal in the Noise-2013-2017

Chapter 17 The Ad Hoc Committee on Ballistic Acoustics 275

Chapter 18 The Crosstalk Silver Bullet 290

Chapter 19 The Resurrection of the Acoustics 301

Chapter 20 "I'll Check It" 308

Chapter 21 Ramsey Panel Redux 319

Chapter 22 Journey to the Lair of the Master 323

Chapter 23 In the Cold Light of Science 333

Chapter 24 The Last Second 351

Epilogue 359

Appendix A Quantitative Analysis of Crosstalk Found in Audio Recorded during the JFK Assassination, James Barger 363

Appendix B Signal Processing Results for Both DPD Audio Files, Richard Mullen 377

Kotes 387

Illustration Credits 445

Index 453

About the Author 476

Editorial Reviews

What Thompson’s narrative contributes to the nation and the field is original forensic data, and the most comprehensive, up-to-date study ever published on both the science and the scientists behind the scene of the investigation into the assassination of President Kennedy.”—M.C. Armstrong in The Brooklyn Rail

“An eminently worthwhile addition to the literature that includes some game changing research into one of the Kennedy assassination’s key pieces of evidence.”—Martin Hay in Kennedysandking.com

From the Publisher