Vince Palamara [who has now changed his mind and has gone back to being a conspiracy believer; see later text] wrote this review for Vincent Bugliosi's 2007 book, "Reclaiming History":
“Vince Bugliosi’s masterful 'Reclaiming History' is a devastating knock-out blow to those who, like me, once believed there was a conspiracy in the death of JFK. Bugliosi finishes and completes, in exhaustive and impressive detail, the work of the Warren Commission, the House Select Committee on Assassinations, and, quite frankly, all the other writers who have ever delved into the crime of the twentieth century. It is time to get a life, America: Oswald did indeed kill Kennedy, acting alone. Vince Bugliosi has done what I once thought was the impossible: he has convinced me of this notion. The conspiracy community was able to survive the Warren Commission Report, as well as the Report of the House Select Committee on Assassinations. The question is whether it will be able to survive Bugliosi’s 'Reclaiming History'.” -- Vince Palamara
"For the record: I am back to believing there was a conspiracy, thanks largely to Douglas Horne's amazing new books!" -- Vince Palamara; December 15, 2009
Footnotes:
It's interesting to note that, in addition to the above quote by Palamara, two of Dr. David Mantik's comments that are supposedly favorable toward Vince Bugliosi's book "Reclaiming History" are printed in Mr. Bugliosi's "Four Days In November" paperback book as well [which came out in 2008 and is a condensed version of "Reclaiming History", containing just the first lengthy chapter of "RH"].
But, in my own personal opinion, those comments by Mantik don't belong there in the "Praise For RH" section in the "Four Days" book.
And that's because of Mantik's overall view of Bugliosi's book, which is way, way more negative than it is positive. In fact, Mantik attempts to rip VB a new anal cavity many times within his 23-page-long review of "Reclaiming History", which can be found HERE.
Moreover, the two supposedly glowing Mantik blurbs that appear in the "Four Days In November" book have also been taken totally out of context. When Mantik said: "It is a masterpiece," that wasn't the complete comment made by Dr. Mantik in his book review. Here's the full quote, which places an entirely new meaning on the truncated version of the remark:
"In its own way, it is a masterpiece--a truly brilliant prosecutorial brief. In the end, though, the question is whether that is what we want—or need—at this stage of the case."
Mantik's other quote that appears in the "Four Days" book is this one: "It is likely that this book [RH] will stand forever as the magnum opus of this case."
But those above words take on a bit of a new flavor when we see what Dr. Mantik wrote right after those words. Here's the full quote:
"It is likely that this book will stand forever as the magnum opus of this case--though not without serious flaws."
I've gone through Dr. Mantik's lengthy review of "Reclaiming History" and culled a few passages that give the overall flavor of Mantik's opinions about Bugliosi's book. (And all of these anti-VB things written by Mantik are things that I firmly disagree with entirely, of course; but everybody's going to have their own opinion.).....
"The problem...is that he [Vincent Bugliosi] wears permanent blinders, particularly when it comes to experts, and especially so for those from science."
"[Bugliosi's] approach reminded me of a bulldozer in a garbage pile. Never mind anything, just plow straight ahead, crunching whatever lies below and ahead, and clear a path to the other side. At this, he is unsurpassed. After he is done, the road is indeed clear, but who would want to follow such a path?"
"In a very deep sense, [Bugliosi] really does not want to look at all the pertinent data--after all, he already knows the answer, so why bother? It's really just too much trouble. This again characterizes the legal mind, but not the scientific mind. And, more troublesome for him, it totally violates his own best description of his own book--a book that attempts “… to be a comprehensive and fair evaluation of the ENTIRE [sic] case….”."
"In the future, unlike [Bugliosi], let's actually examine all of the evidence, but especially those items that are central--and even the evidence we weren't quite expecting."
"[Bugliosi] clearly wants to destroy every last scintilla of anti-WC [Warren Commission] evidence. But even he admits that virtually no murder case is ever that clean cut. It is therefore more than a little bewildering that he does not give ground a little here and there--but he simply won't. That makes him all the less credible. And it certainly does not give him the air of a scientist. But he does not seem to care. He would prefer to appear omniscient. There is not even a pretense of open-mindedness. His scorn, perhaps even hatred, for the critics comes through page after page. Again, the reader must decide if he can accept such a relentless bias."
[END MANTIK QUOTATIONS.]
Now, after reading those comments written by Dr. Mantik, why in the world anyone would be silly enough to take his out-of-context "masterpiece" remark and prop it up as overall, general "praise" for Mr. Bugliosi's JFK book is just something I cannot fathom for the life of me.
And it's even more ridiculous (IMHO) for those two short blurbs from Mantik to have been reprinted as "praise" for "RH" within VB's "Four Days In November" paperback volume that came out late last month.
Anyone reading only those blurbs (and not the entire review written by Mantik) might very well think that Dr. Mantik, like Vincent Palamara, had completely changed his tune with respect to his previously-long-held beliefs in a JFK conspiracy. But nothing could be further from the truth in Dr. Mantik's case. [And as we can see from Palamara's 2009 quote shown earlier, even Palamara has now decided to wander back into the conspiracy camp, being RE-convinced of a massive conspiracy by the likes, incredibly, of Douglas "Two Brains" Horne.]
To put review blurbs like those from David W. Mantik in a follow-up volume of "Reclaiming History", which was done in "Four Days In November", is just incredibly silly, in my view...and totally misrepresents Mantik's overall opinion of Mr. Bugliosi's "RH" book.
It makes me truly wonder if Vince Bugliosi had ever even read Mantik's COMPLETE review from top to bottom. For, if he had read it, it's hard to believe he would have approved of those two blurbs being placed in his "Four Days" book (and on his "RH" website [which is no longer there]).
My guess would be that Bugliosi's publisher (W.W. Norton) put the Mantik blurbs in the "Four Days" book, possibly without Vince even knowing they were going to be put there. I could, of course, be dead wrong about that assumption, however.
Returning to Vince Palamara for a moment longer.....
All in all, I'm not too impressed by Mr. Palamara's sudden turn toward LN-ville (although his "turn" wasn't just recently; it dates back to at least November 2007, and probably earlier, although nobody at the JFK Internet Forums I frequently visit seems to realize this fact at all, to hear them talk about it).
From what I've experienced of him online in personal conversations and from looking at his shameless and non-stop self-promoting "reviews" at Amazon.com (for JFK books where he, himself, appears in the book's index), my overall opinion isn't really too high of Vince Palamara.
That's just my own personal opinion, of course. And, by the same token, based on our few personal online sessions, my guess would be that he doesn't have a very high opinion of me either. But, so it goes. ;)
Also.....
Incredibly, on May 9, 2008 (many months AFTER he officially became an ex-"conspiracy theorist" with respect to the murder of John F. Kennedy), Vincent M. Palamara somehow was able to find enough residual "conspiracy" left in him to write this glowing 5-Star review for James Douglass' new pro-conspiracy book (and he gets in a good self-congratulatory remark or two along the way as well, as usual).
And, btw, the YouTube video that Mr. Palamara uploaded on May 22, 2008 (wherein he acknowledges on camera his switch to the "lone assassin" camp) has now been removed from the YouTube website by Vince P. himself.
The video wasn't very well-done, IMO, and perhaps after watching it a few times, Vince himself felt the same way. Maybe he'll put together another similar "I'm Now A Lone-Nutter" video in the future. Could be. At least it's an easy way to slap yourself on the back as you read your own review from the pages of Mr. Bugliosi's "Four Days In November" (which is what Vince P. did in his now-deleted YouTube video).
Anyway, that's just my $0.02 (well, maybe $0.03).
David Von Pein
June 1, 2008
September 13, 2012
