A Farewell to Justice - by Joan Mellen (Paperback)

About the Book

Breaking their silence, witnessees expose a cover-up in JFK's assassination

Book Synopsis

Working with thousands of previously unreleased documents and drawing on more than one thousand interviews, with many witnesses speaking out for the first time, Joan Mellen revisits the investigation of New Orleans district attorney Jim Garrison, the only public official to have indicted, in 1969, a suspect in President John F. Kennedy's murder.Garrison began by exposing the contradictions in the Warren Report, which concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald was an unstable pro-Castro Marxist who acted alone in killing Kennedy. A Farewell to Justice reveals that Oswald, no Marxist, was in fact working with both the FBI and the CIA, as well as with U.S. Customs, and that the attempts to sabotage Garrison's investigation reached the highest levels of the U.S. government. Garrison interviewed various individuals involved in the assassination, ranging from Clay Shaw and CIA contract employee David Ferrie to a Marine cohort of Oswald named Kerry Thornley, who at the very least was a Defense Intelligence Agency asset. Garrison's suspects included CIA-sponsored soldiers of fortune enlisted in assassination attempts against Fidel Castro, an anti-Castro Cuban asset, and a young runner for the conspirators, interviewed here for the first time by the author.Building upon Garrison's effort, Mellen uncovers decisive new evidence and clearly establishes the intelligence agencies' roles in both a president's assassination and its cover-up, set in motion well before the actual events of November 22, 1963.

Review Quotes

"A Farewell to Justice is a fascinating and provocative book featuring one of the most unusual and compelling figures in the history of American jurisprudence. And though the book is massive, carefully researched, and intellectually persuasive, it also reads with the engaging particularity and narrative drive of an epic, tragic novel."--Robert Olen Butler, Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist and author of A Good Scent From a Strange Mountain

"A Farewell to Justice is a mammoth reconsideration of Jim Garrison's investigation of the President's assassination. As such, it is a Grand Guignol of Nawlins' archetypes--psycho-cops and sicko-spooks, corrupt pols and thugs and crusaders, oh my! A dark and sprawling book, it is packed with investigative leads, deeply researched and very, very scary."--Jim Hougan, author of Spooks: The Haunting of America: The Private Use of Secret Agents

"For seven years Joan Mellen, with determination and breathtaking courage, investigated and tested the original inquiry of District Attorney Jim Garrison into the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Single-handedly, she has taken that investigation far beyond where Garrison was able to go and has emerged from this terrifying underworld with astounding revelations. In A Farewell to Justice she brings to light the hidden witnesses and documentary record that establish the lead role of the CIA in the assassination and reveal that the setting up of alternative patsies accompanied the preparations for the shooting itself. The writing is taut and dramatic, the book indispensable."--Dick Gregory, coauthor of Murder in Memphis: The FBI and the Assassination of Martin Luther King

"Joan Mellen is a rare breed--a biographer who writes with the passion of a truth-seeker, the skill of an artisan, and the attention to detail of a well-trained scholar-researcher. She digs deep and she cares. I look forward to reading every book she writes."--Richard Layman, author of Shadow Man: The Life of Dashiell Hammett

"One of the most critical and controversial areas in the JFK case relates to Jim Garrison's investigation of Clay Shaw and Lee Harvey Oswald's pre-assassination activities in Louisiana. Professor Mellen's excellent scholarly research boldly details these events and sheds glaring light on evidence that the Warren Commission regrettably failed to explore. A Farewell to Justice is a must-read for every person who has ever entertained some doubt about who killed President Kennedy."--Cyril H. Wecht, M.D., J.D., forensic pathologist and coroner, and author of Mortal Evidence and Tales From the Morgue

"The much-maligned Jim Garrison at last receives full vindication from Joan Mellen, whose own investigation into the Kennedy conspiracy brings us ever closer to the elusive truth of what really happened on November 22, 1963."--Dick Russell, author of The Man Who Knew Too Much