The Last Investigation [Hardcover]

Fonzi inherited the frustration of Jim Garrison ("On the Trail of Assassins") for discovering the ultimate lead to the mystery of Dealey Plaza. Both authors had conducted separate and independent investigations: Garrison in 1968 New Orleans, and Fonzi -- working for the House Select Committee on Assassinations between 1976 and 1978. Both investigations pointed ultimately toward a rogue faction within the CIA, but Fonzi, in pursuing events surrounding Oswald's appearance on Sylvia Odio's porch in September, 1963, went farther down that trail than anyone.

The other reviews do well to summarize Fonzi's book, so I leave the reader to explore those reviews. Instead, let's take a look at the history surrounding Fonzi's book itself. He had been constrained by a non-disclosure agreement with CIA from the time they began to suppress the HSCA's activities. This was also coincident with the landmark censorship court case over Vincent Marchetti's "The CIA and the Cult of Intelligence". It was not until after the passage of the 1992 JFK Records Collection Act and its implementation by William Jefferson Clinton that Fonzi was able to publish "Last Investigation".

Another author, investigating completely different events in history, supported Fonzi's findings, and that author was free of the constraints that bound Fonzi. Donald Freed published "Death in Washington: The Murder of Orlando Letelier" in 1980 on the heels of the infamous Sheridan Circle/Washington, DC car-bombing of Orlando Letelier and Ronni Moffitt. And what is most frightening is this: David Atlee Phillips, CIA case officer and handler of Lee Harvey Oswald, left a trail of blood and carnage throughout the Western Hemisphere in the wake of his involvement in the Kennedy assassination. As a master of propaganda science, he had purchased print and broadcast media in Chile, conducting a massive propaganda campaign which brought the Allende regime crashing down. Phillips' colleagues in the States were later arrested in the Watergate scandal, and they had previously burglarized the offices of Chilean Ambassador Orlando Letelier, providing a list of Allende supporters to the Nixon administration who passed it along through Phillips to the Pinochet regime. Everyone on that list was summarily "disappeared" in the infamous Santiago soccer stadium. Phillips later attempted to cover up the work of his next protege' after Oswald -- Michael Townley -- in the 1976 Letelier bombing.

All post-war history orbits around Dealey Plaza. All serious JFK research intent on getting at the Truth revolves around Fonzi's ground-breaking findings. And a significant part of assassination books after "Last Investigation" appear crafted to obscure the trail Fonzi uncovered.

Looking at the 1990s and the ARRB declassifications under Clinton, the average citizen has been exposed to TV documentaries such as Nigel Turner's "Men Who Killed Kennedy" and a series narrated by Roger Moore entitled "The KGB JFK Assassination Files". None of these, or any other video documentaries mention Fonzi or his key suspect who planned the coverup and sheepdipping of Oswald in every detail. While Turner's series points in the right direction, it still explores many false trails, and leaves too much to the viewer's discretionary conclusion.

Phillips, the Watergate boys and Maj. Gen. Ed Lansdale had all been involved in "Operation Zapata" -- the Bay of Pigs Invasion. Lansdale's focus (see Prouty, "JFK: The CIA, Vietnam and the Assassination of J__ F__ K__") had been psychological warfare; Phillips had been a propaganda specialist. One field of study and application is the subset of the other, and the involvement of these two men at the center of the plot -- between the yet-to-be-proven high-level participants and the triggermen -- should indicate to those interested at getting to the heart of the matter just how horrendously insidious and Evil the events surrounding Dealey Plaza really were.

The fact that the extensive TV documentaries steer clear of both Phillips and Lansdale can only indicate one thing: the coverup continues; its purpose is to deceive the American people; and the deceit is necessary because three major industries that had circled their wagons of interest and influence around CIA and Pentagon before 1963 have maintained their status quo all this time. Those industries are strategic minerals (oil), defense-aerospace, and the media itself. The involvement of the third leg of this industrial complex explains why Fonzi's book has been obscured; why the HSCA findings and their suppressed files only released in 1997 have received little notice in the media; and why so many books and films attempt to lead the reader in other directions: there is the "Diem-Nhu-Corsican Mob" theory, the "Mafia" Theory, the "Castro" and "KGB" theories, and of course, the "lone-nut" theory. It is in the interest of the powers-that-be that the American people ignore the Fonzi book and continue to search in all directions of the conspiracy compass -- into perpetuity. Books after Fonzi's -- such as Gus Russo's "Live By the Sword" -- are still spinning theories and resurrecting old cover stories that have been disproved by declassified documents. At the same time, the declassification of Oswald's CIA "201" file now validates and confirms every fact, assertion and premise of Fonzi's own book, and especially, the connection between James McCord (Watergate), David Atlee Phillips, and Lee Harvey Oswald.

Fonzi's book is an exciting and spell-binding reading experience. It is earnest research and sound conclusion. It is THE most important book to acquire for anyone seriously interested in the Truth about Dealey Plaza.

Buy it. Read it. Pursue its investigative leads. Tell every American and world citizen you know. And as you do so, "Last Investigation" will arm you with enough facts to convince yourself and everyone -- this is no theory. This is the light at the end of the tunnel.