The Last Investigation: A Former Federal Investigator for the House Select Committee on Assassinations Breaks His Oath of Silence

by Gaeton Fonzi

Book Overview

A shocking expos looking into the failure of our government to investigate the assassination of a president. Gaeton Fonzi's masterful retelling of his work investigating the Kennedy assassination for... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1560250526
• ISBN13: 9781560250524
• Release Date: October 1993
• Publisher: Basic Books
• Length: 400 Pages
• Weight: 1.94 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.7" x 6.6" x 9.5"

Customer Reviews

Thank You Gaeton!

America owes a debt of gratitude to Gaeton Fonzi, former House Select Commitee on Assassinations investigator. The HSCA was formed to give we the people the truth about the Asassination Conspiracy of President John F Kennedy, but instead, tons of HSCA documents are sealed away for decades to come! What the HSCA didnt want to make too public, and what the media has totally hidden, is that the HSCA investigation proves once and for all that Lee Oswald was being framed for the assassination MONTHS before it happened! Gaeton Fonzi is one of the few investigators for the HSCA who has gone against the grain, and who has come out to tell the American People the truth. He did so by writing this book. One of the main points of Fonzi's book, is that CIA man "Maurice Bishop", was an alias used by David Atlee Phillips, former head of the CIA's Western Hemisphere division! The identity of "Bishop" has long kept JFK assassination researchers interested because "Bishop" was seen with Lee Oswald in Dallas not long before the assassination, proving that the CIA had a link with Oswald, even though they said they didnt. Couple this with the fact that Philips ("Bishop") did work for the CIA in Mexico City WHERE AN OSWALD IMPERSONATOR FRAMED HIM (Oswald) BEFORE THE ASSASSINATION, and the JFK murder mystery becomes much clearer.

One of the three best books on the JFK assassination

Along with Dick Russell's The Man Who Knew Too Much and Garrison's On the Trail of the Assassins, Gaeton Fonzi's book The Last Investigation actually provides information that enables the reader to move a bit closer to understanding the truth about the conspiracy that killed JFK. The book contains noteworthy information about key suspects such as David Phillips and Orlando Bosch. On behalf of the House Select Committee on Assassinations, Gaeton Fonzi interviewed Bosch and was involved in assessing the possible role of Phillips as "Maurice Bishop" who was alleged to have met with Oswald prior to the assassination. The information in this book is a must for any objective reader to assess the liklihood that a conspiracy took place. One almost certainly did take place, and the information Fonzi covers is important to understand what actually happened.

The Last Investigation

Quite simply, this book is the most credible I have read on the subject. The author has pretty much confined his book to information he obtained through his own investigations into the case. I highly recommend this book for anyone interested in learning something of the truth of this tragic event.

Keystone to Solving the Crime of the 20th Century

I cannot do much better than other reviewers of Fonzi's book. But I can add a few things -- perhaps even the last word. In passing, I must say I find it strange that there are so few reviews for this book. And yet, maybe it is not so strange.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 uncovere

One of the best works on the assassination of JFK

Gaeton Fonzi, an investigator with the Senate and the House Select Committee on Assassinations, reveals the fruit of his extraordinary investigative efforts in addition to providing a penetrating critique of the conduct of the House investigation. His most significant work involves Cuban exiles Sylvia Odio and Antonio Veciana. Ms. Odio was visited in her Dallas home by two anti- Castro activists and Lee Harvey Oswald prior to the assassination of JFK. They approached her to solicit funds for their anti-Castro activities. Ms. Odio is certain that it was Lee Harvey Oswald who was present at that time. Antonio Veciana was the leader of the extremely militant anti-Castro organization known as Alpha-66. Mr. Veciana's CIA handler was "Maurice Bishop" who the author demonstrates was none other than David Atlee Phillips. When Mr. Veciana travelled to Dallas prior to the assassination of JFK to meet his CIA handler, he found Mr. Phillips in conversation with Lee Harvey Oswald, thereby demonstrating Oswald's link to U.S. intelligence. Mr. Fonzi also reveals another CIA handler of anti-Castro Cuban organizations and their operations inside Cuba, Mr. David Sanchez Morales. {Miami's CIA station handling the anti-Castro operations was run by David Sanchez Morales, Theodore Shackley, E. Howard Hunt and David Atlee Phillips}. Mr. Morales admitted to a life-long friend that "We [CIA] took care of that ... Kennedy", suggesting U.S. intelligence participation in the "hit" on JFK. Mr. Fonzi's personal interactions with Sylvia Odio, Antonio Veciana, David Atlee Phillips and others provides a human dimension to the information he reveals which sets his work apart from most other assassination literature. Mr. Fonzi's work provides readers with important, new information based upon his own personal investigative work in the field and is invaluable in its contribution toward uncovering the truth of the assassination of JFK.