The Poison Patriarch

Focusing for the first time on why attorney general Robert F. Kennedy wasn’t killed in 1963 instead of on why President John F. Kennedy was, Mark Shaw offers a stunning and provocative assassination theory that leads directly to the family patriarch, Joseph P. Kennedy. Mining fresh information and more than forty new interviews, Shaw weaves a spellbinding narrative involving Mafia don Carlos Marcello; Jack Ruby (Lee Harvey Oswald’s killer); Ruby’s attorney, Melvin Belli; and, ultimately, the Kennedy brothers and their father. Shaw addresses these tantalizing questions: Why, shortly after his brother’s death, did a grief-stricken RFK tell a colleague, “I thought they would get one of us . . . I thought it would be me”? Why was Belli, an attorney with almost no defense experience (but proven ties to the Mafia), chosen as Jack Ruby’s attorney? How does Belli’s Mafia connection call into question his legal strategy, which ultimately led to the Ruby’s first-degree murder conviction and death sentence? What was Joseph Kennedy’s relationship to organized crime? And how was his insistence that JFK appoint RFK as attorney general tantamount to signing the president’s death warrant? For fifty years, Shaw maintains, researchers investigating the president’s murder in Dallas have been looking at the wrong motives and actors. The Poison Patriarch offers a shocking reassessment—one that is sure to alter the course of future assassination debates.

Was journalist Dorothy Kilgallen murdered for writing a tell-all book about the JFK assassination? Or was her death from an overdose of barbiturates combined with alcohol, as reported? Shaw believes Kilgallen's death has always been suspect, and unfolds a list of suspects ranging from Frank Sinatra to a Mafia don, while speculating on the possibilities of reopening the case.

If there had been no cover-up of Robert Kennedy’s complicity in the murder of Marilyn Monroe in 1962 and he had been prosecuted based on compelling evidence at the time, the assassination of JFK by Bobby’s enemies would not have happened—changing the course of history and preventing the murder of media icon Dorothy Kilgallen. In a breakthrough book that is sure to be relevant for years to come, bestselling author (The Reporter Who Knew Too Much) and distinguished historian Mark Shaw investigates the connection between the mysterious deaths of motion picture screen siren Marilyn Monroe, President John F. Kennedy, and What’s My Line? TV star and crack investigative reporter Dorothy Kilgallen. A former noted criminal defense attorney and network legal analyst, Shaw provides an illuminating perspective as to how Robert Kennedy’s abuse of power during the early 1960s resulted in the murders of Marilyn, JFK, and Dorothy. Praise for Mark Shaw Books The Reporter Who Knew Too Much “The compelling story of Dorothy Kilgallen, the celebrated journalist once called ‘the most powerful female voice in America.’” —Nick Pileggi, author of Wiseguy and Casino Denial of Justice “A worthy sequel to the mysterious whodunit that snuffed out the brave reporter, Denial of Justice is a true crime thriller that seeks to undo the label attached to Ms. Kilgallen’s untimely demise. Mark Shaw has done an admirable and exemplary job in his work. Do not miss!” —San Francisco Book Review

Why is What’s My Line? TV star and Pulitzer-Prize-nominated investigative reporter Dorothy Kilgallen one of the most feared journalists in history? Why has her threatened exposure of the truth about the JFK assassination triggered a cover-up by at least four government agencies and resulted in abuse of power at the highest levels? Denial of Justice—written in the spirit of bestselling author Mark Shaw’s gripping true crime murder mystery, The Reporter Who Knew Too Much—tells the inside story of why Kilgallen was such a threat leading up to her unsolved murder in 1965. Shaw includes facts that have never before been published, including eyewitness accounts of the underbelly of Kilgallen’s private life, revealing statements by family members convinced she was murdered, and shocking new information about Jack Ruby’s part in the JFK assassination that only Kilgallen knew about, causing her to be marked for danger. Peppered with additional evidence signaling the potential motives of Kilgallen’s arch enemies J. Edgar Hoover, mobster Carlos Marcello, Frank Sinatra, her husband Richard, and her last lover, Denial of Justice adds the final chapter to the story behind why the famous journalist was killed, with no investigation to follow despite a staged death scene. More information can be found at www.thedorothykilgallenstory.com.

Chronicles the life of the Kennedy patriarch, including his childhood, courtship of Rose Fitzgerald, Hollywood involvements, time as ambassador to Great Britain, dealings with Al Capone, and affair with Gloria Swanson.

The doctors who tried to save President John F. Kennedy at Parkland Hospital in November of 1963 agreed-either out of respect or fear-not to publish what they had seen, heard, and felt. Then in 1990, one of the Dallas surgeons who worked on JFK in Trauma Room One, Dr. Charles Crenshaw, decided after much deliberation that the American people ought to know the truth. "The wounds to Kennedy's head and throat that I examined were caused by bullets that struck him from the front, not the back, as the public has been led to believe," says Crenshaw. When the first edition of this book was published in 1992, under the title JFK: Conspiracy of Silence, Crenshaw revealed what he never had to opportunity to tell the Warren Commission. In the aftermath, the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) called Crenshaw's book "a fabrication." But JAMA's claim did not hold up in court and Crenshaw subsequently prevailed in a defamation suit against JAMA. In the process, a number of new medical disclosures and discoveries have emerged on the startling medical cover-up of the JFK assassination. CHARLES A. CRENSHAW, M.D. (1933-2001), a Texas native, was Chairman Emeritus of the Department of Surgery and a member of the Board of Directors of the Tarrant County Hospital District in Fort Worth. He received his BS from Southern Methodist University and his MS from East Texas State University. He worked on his Ph.D. at Baylor University Graduate Research Institute in 1957 and, in 1960, he earned his M.D. from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School in Dallas. He interned at Veteran's Administration Hospital and completed his residency at Dallas's Parkland Memorial Hospital, where he worked for five years. He taught at many institutions, including the UT Southwestern Medical School. He was honored with inclusions in numerous medical and professional societies and was published extensively.

Melvin Belli was a rogue, a charmer and a rule bender in the courtroom. He led the way for many of the multimillion-dollar lawsuits we see today in the news. Known for his controversial representation of Jack Ruby, Belli pioneered legal strategies and wrote many books revealing his unconventional courtroom wisdom. He was a crusader notorious for his scandalous court cases, and won large awards for his clients often with unorthodox tactics. Dubbed King of Torts by Life Magazine, Belli represented the likes of Lana Turner, George Foreman, Mickey Cohen, and the Rolling Stones.

Fifty years ago on November 22, 1963, in Dallas's Dealey Plaza, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the 35th President of the United States, was assassinated while traveling in a motorcade with his wife, Jacqueline. LIFE magazine, the weekly pictorial chronicle of events in America and throughout the world, was quickly on the scene. The Kennedys had been our story: Jack and Jackie made the cover in his sailboat before they were married and he was a fresh-faced senator from Massachusetts, and the White House doors had remained open to LIFE throughout his presidency: Cecil Stoughton's photographs of Caroline and John-John in the Oval Office, Jackie's tour of the renovation, tense behind-the-scenes moments during 13 days of the Cuban Missile Crisis-all of this appeared in LIFE. We needed to be in Dallas. The famous Zapruder film first appeared in LIFE, after being acquired by LIFE's Richard B. Stolley. Stolley also interviewed at the time Dallas police, Kennedy administration officials, members of the Oswald family, workers at Jack Ruby's bar. Jackie's first conversation after the murder was with Theodore H. White for LIFE, and in it she told the American people, for the first time, about the Camelot her late husband had imagined. All of that is revisited in this commemorative book, including: · All 486 frames of the Zapruder film in print for the first time · An essay by Richard B. Stolley on how he exclusively obtained the iconic film for LIFE · An essay by Abraham Zapruder's granddaughter, Alexandra, who writes for the first time about how the film affected her family over the generations · Personal stories about where they were when they heard the news from Barbra Streisand, Maya Angelou, Jimmy Carter, Tony Bennett, Willie Mays, Sergei Khrushchev, James Earl Jones, John Boehner, Tom Brokaw, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Alec Baldwin, Bill O'Reilly, Dan Rather and many more · Rarely seen photos from the TIME/LIFE archive of Allan Grant's photo essay of the Oswald family on the night of the assassination · A foreword featuring a conversation with historian David McCullough · A full reprint of LIFE's 1963 issue covering the tragic events in Dallas · LIFE's Theodore H. White's famous "Camelot" interview with Jackie (which she gave shortly after the assassination), as well as the story behind the interview and the words that never ran · A new essay on 50 years of conspiracy theories by J.I. Baker, author of The Empty Glass The Kennedys: A LIFE story for more than 50 years, and still today.