Dead Wrong: Straight Facts on the Country's Most Controversial Cover-Ups

Dead Wrong, Straight Facts on the Country's Most Controversial Cover-ups examines the deaths of 10 well known people. According to the book they were all murdered, and those murders were then covered up in various ways to look like suicide or the acts of a lone unhinged gunman. The book is through in its coverage, outlining the major factors ("facts") that give their arguments weight. Just one example: the bullet that killed MLK did not come from the rifle recovered at the scene and said to be the murder weapon belonging to J.E. Ray. This fact is proven beyond doubt. These kinds of facts pepper this publication and several are beyond dispute.But there are fundamental problems. The sources quoted as proving many of the facts are not original sources, they are usually the works of other authors. A researcher MUST go back to ORIGINAL SOURCES. Belzer and Wayne depend, far to often, on secondary sources. One of the first sources cited is Counterpunch by Swanson. Dead Wrong accepts the "facts" in these other books as well established, when they are not. Original research is essential .Coverage of the JFK murder leaves out critical facts while over emphasizing speculation. To me, the first important fact in the JFK assassination is that evidence has been corrupted. The mere fact that JFK's brain has been taken and another put in its place, the x-rays of JFK's head wounds are gone, and the original medical reports are missing are all heavy blows to any follow up evaluation. In addition, all the photographs taken in Daily Plaza the day JFK died were confiscated by the government, no record was made of hours of interrogation of Oswald by the Dallas Police, the car the President was murdered in was immediately washed inside and out, plus later destroyed, the lack of photos of that car, and other evidentiary oversights, impair reaching the truth.The Zapruder film was almost impossible to get. The government fought fiercely to keep the film concealed. It took a US Supreme Court decision to make it public, but that film proves JKF was not killed by Oswald. Oswald was shooting full metal jacket bullets that pass through people without expanding dramatically. The bullet that hit JFK was a hollow point or lead tipped bullet with a thin jacket that allowed the bullet to mushroom instantly, most people say "explode" even though no explosive is in the bullet. The effect looks like an explosion. That is exactly what we see happening to JFK. Full metal jacket bullets do not perform in that fashion. The book makes that point, and many others. Their is no doubt there was another shooter.The brain matter could have been analyzed to see what kind of bullet hit JFK, but that is gone. The x-rays and the original medical reports could also have shown the kind of bullet that hit the President's head. All are missing. Things that don't count for much are still around, but the critical artifacts have evaporated.The book goes off track when the authors speculate a black ops team was sent to Dallas on the morning of the assassination to thwart the killing. This is dumb beyond all comprehension. One phone call to the Secret Service telling them to change the route away from Daily Plaza would have saved the President. Unfortunately, Dead Wrong is filled with these kinds of concepts. These kinds of assertions damage the believability of the rest of the book.Dr. Kelly's death is another example of poor reasoning. According to Dead Wrong, Dr. Kelly was murdered because he was releasing information showing the rational for invading Iraq was based on lies. The book goes on and on about Blair and Bush lying about WMDs and the risk of having Kelly exposing them. The problem: no MWD's were found in Iraq and both Bush and Blair admitted it. If I were willing to kill people and go to extremes to cover up pre-invasion lies, why wouldn't I fake finding WMDs in Iraq? Why not send some gas canisters to a couple of spots deep in the desert and tell everyone they were nerve gas? Why not stock a small base with radioactive material and tell the media this was an advanced atomic bomb program? That would be a lot easier than taking the political hit for a flawed invasion. If the government is so adept at lying it would be simple enough to construct the fake sites needed to pull off a continuation of the original lie.Thus, while there are multiple facts supporting the murder of Dr. Kelly, the underlying reasons given for the murder are unsound.On writing style, the book repeats word for word certain ideas over and over again. In the Marilyn Monroe segment, the fact that no refractive crystals were found in her stomach was repeated insufferably.The book has no index.In many of the 10 deaths examined, Dead Wrong shows that lone gunmen or suicides are not the real answer.AD2

I got this book because I recently heard a radio interview with Belzer & was fascinated by the conversation. Dead Wrong is good, in my opinion, but not great & I'm disappointed that reviewers have not made more mention of the repetitive organization of the book.Every chapter is about a different historical event & every event is described at least 3 times; first in an essay type narrative, then with bullet points, then in a colored text box & sometimes there's another style shaded text box with the same information. I found I liked the colored text box, I flipped thru each chapter, read the points then went back & looked at the narrative essay type part to see if I missed any details. I don't mind repetition if it serves a purpose but all three "systems" are too close in style & information to make it seem nessecary. If the essay-type part had more quotes or descriptive narration it would have made sense to have both essay & bullet points (with "just the facts, ma'am") but they're much too similar, then add the 3rd text box & it just seems like filler.Having said that, I did enjoy reading it. Either I'm super stupid or the typos have been fixed (or maybe they were in the parts of the book I didn't read) but I don't recall seeing any or, at least, I wasn't annoyed by them like some reviewers. The information is consice & straight forward. Some cases I know a little about from reading other books, like Frank Olson, JFK & Vince Foster, but some are new to me. Because I have read a little about Frank Olson, & he's the first chapter in Dead Wrong, I was able to judge how biased Belzer might be & I was happily surprised that Belzer was able to keep his personal, political opinions in check. Again, just the facts. I, was then, able to read the rest of the book with a little more confidence that I wasn't going to be assaulted by theory, opinion & conjecture.But then there's "the rub". Belzer lays out facts already in evidence & makes no attempt at why these crimes were committed. I've always been suspicious of Vince Foster's death & while Belzer certainly makes a valid case that Foster death, or rather the scene where Foster's body was found, doesn't make sense, doesn't match the evidence found at the scene & wasn't handled properly or even professionally, he doesn't even speculate as to what might have happened. I had wondered if, maybe, Foster, being depressed, had killed himself in the White House. Imagine that hornet's nest. If Foster had brought a gun into the White House, so close to the president, I could see how the Secret Service would do anything to make it appear that the president is safe, including moving a body out of the building. But Belzer assures us that Foster wasn't depressed or suicidal, actually the opposite. His sister was in town & he had plans for them to lunch in his White House office together. So, I'm convinced. Foster was murdered. But where, when & why? Foster, leaving his office after lunch, tells Linda Tripp, "I'll be right back". Where did he go? Was he meeting someone or just running errands? Did someone make an appointment to murder him? Or was it an accident? Or crime of opportunity? Belzer doesn't guess, hypothesize, theorize or speculate. Props to the investigative journalist who co-wrote the book with Belzer but Belzer's an actor & comidian & I guess I was hoping for some creative speculation & wild theorizing. Instead he sticks to the safe information provided in other books & widely available on the web.All-in-all it's Conspiracy Theories 101. Safe & verifiable. I'm glad it's written in a style that's easy to read & absorb but I'd love just one paragraph for each chapter where he takes the gloves off & tells us what he *thinks* happened hinting at a little insider knowledge or, at the very least, an active imagination. Hemmingway said that only 10% of the information he amassed ever made it into one of his stories & I get the same feeling here. Belzer & his co-author, David Wayne, have obviously worked very hard to get the facts straight, but when they go on about "pink carpet fibers" on Fosters underclothes, switched guns & car keys that disappear & reappear, etc I get the feeling they want me to put the pieces together & see a certain picture but maybe I'm just not that smart. I'm not seeing the picture.It did occur to me that maybe the reason these crimes seem so schizophrenic, poorly executed or mishandled is because there are so many people involved & *none* are particularly very good at killing or cleaning up the mess. One more thing the government bungles.A really good book about Frank Olson is A Terrible Mistake: The Murder of Frank Olson & the CIA's Secret Cold War Experiments by H. P. Albarelli jr.

I was riveted by this book - just found myself reading it at every opportunity I was granted. It is written in a way that speaks to everyone - its easy to follow timelines and theories, you don't need to have spent time reading and understanding the backgrounds of the people discussed in this book before starting. You can just open it and start!So that's what I did.It is well referenced, enabling those of us who want to read on and watch associated videos an easy pathway.It lays out facts - doesn't tell you what to think, but presents the actual facts - and I felt that in each case, I came away with enough background to form my own conclusions.That's exactly what a book of this kind should do. Richard Belzer and David Wayne communicate well to the reader and present you with facts that allow you to form your own opinion.Pick this up and read it - you won't want to put it down!

Extremely readable & full of non disputive facts. Read and come to your own conclusions.

This subject matter is rigjt up my street but i haven't been able to get into this book because of the mish mash layout on each page.

Received the book very quickly excellent quality.

Great book, though I don't neccessarily agree with every conclusion.