In May or June of 1963, he was offered a contract by Antoine Guerini, the Corsican crime boss in Marseilles, to accept a contract to kill "a highly placed American politician" whom Guerini called the "biggest vegetable"- i.e., President Kennedy. The president was to be killed on US territory. David told Rivele that he turned down the contract because it was too dangerous. After David turned down the contract offer, he said it was accepted by Lucien Sarti, another Corsican drug trafficker and killer, and two other members of the Marseilles mob, whom he refused to name. David said he learned what happened about two years after the assassination in a meeting in Buenos Aires, during which Sarti, another drug trafficker named Michele Nicoli, David, and two others were present. During the meeting, the assassination of John F. Kennedy was discussed. This is how the assassination was carried out as David told it to Rivele.

About two weeks before the assassination, Sarti flew from France to Mexico City, from where he drove or was driven to the US border at Brownsville, Texas. Sarti crossed at Brownsville where he was picked up by someone from the Chicago mafia. This person drove him to a private house in Dallas. He did not stay at a hotel, as not to leave records. David believes that Sarti was traveling on an Italian passport. David said the assassins cased Dealey Plaza, took photographs and worked out mathematically how to set up a crossfire. Sarti wanted to fire from the triple underpass bridge, but when he arrived in Dealey Plaza the day of the assassination, there were people there, so he fired from a little hill next to the bridge. There was a wooden fence on that hill, and Sarti fired from behind the wooden fence. He said Sarti only fired once, and used an explosive bullet. He said Kennedy was shot in a crossfire, two shots from behind, and Sarti's shot from the front. Of the two assassins behind, one was high, and one was low. He said you can't understand the wounds if you don't realize that one gun was low, "almost on the horizontal." The first shot was fired from behind and hit Kennedy in the back. The second shot was fired from behind, and hit "the other person in the car." The third shot was fired from in front, and hit Kennedy in the head. The fourth shot was from behind and missed "because the car was too far away." He said that two shots were almost simultaneous.

David said that Kennedy was killed for revenge and money. He said the CIA was incapable of killing Kennedy, but did cover it up. He said the gunmen stayed at the private house in Dallas for approximately two weeks following the assassination, then believes they went to Canada, that there were people in Canada who had the ability to fly them out of North America.

Assassination of John F. Kennedy Encyclopedia

The author is a retired engineer, and approaches his subject with an engineer's thoroughness (although he writes that he approaches the subject as a prosecutor convinced of conspiracy). After an obligatory retelling of the events in Dealey Plaza and the political climate of 1963, an exacting analysis begins. Twyman quite reasonably envisions a power elite threatened by JFK, and convinced it is powerful enough to both carry out the assassination and cover it up. A long list of suspects, both groups and individuals, is gradually narrowed down to just a handful of probable conspirators...

Harvey has long been considered a prime suspect in the case. And he certainly comes to mind when reading the aforementioned chapter, "The Mastermind." In this fascinating section, Twyman adopts the conspirator's point-of-view to "think through a plot that conforms to all the known evidence and could have been concocted by a logical mind." Twyman imagines this mastermind addressing the assassination's sponsors and outlining a compartmentalized plot that shields those at the top, and leaves a designated patsy, a supposed lone nut, holding the bag.

When Twyman finally names his real villains, we recognize three men whose involvement has been alleged for years: Lyndon Johnson, J. Edgar Hoover, and H.L. Hunt. The author says they acted from that oldest of motivations, self-preservation, and that "they had the the power and the money to make it happen and cover it up." It is amusing, in a sick sort of way, when Twyman says that Hoover seems to be the one person involved who had no redeeming qualities. "I have searched the literature and ... if there was something likable about him I haven't found it."

One of the central premises of Bloody Treason is that the Zapruder film was altered by members of the cabal that murdered President Kennedy, as part of an effort to at least partly conceal the plot and the plotters. This notion has gained increasing credibility in recent years, but I must concede it is an idea that part of me wants to reject outright, because I just don't get it. The Zapruder film as it has been known since the 1970s is convincing evidence of a front shooter and thus a conspiracy. To dwell on alleged alteration strikes me as counterproductive, missing the forest for the trees.

As I understand the overall argument, frames were deleted from the film in order to hide evidence that Kennedy was shot from the front, which of course would destroy the lone nut scenario. The original film was seized by the conspirators and altered using what was, in 1963, sophisticated yet rather commonplace equipment. Traces of the forgery inevitably remained, but were not ferreted out for many years.

There are undeniable problems in the film, such as whether the Presidential limousine came to a stop during the fusillade. In the conventional Z-film it plainly does not, but numerous eyewitnesses gave sworn testimony that it did, or at least that it slowed down (also not observed).

Another issue that Twyman focuses on is the speed with which limousine driver William Greer turns his head at two points in the shooting sequence. According to Twyman, the speed of this head turn is a physical impossibility, and further proof that key frames were deleted from the film. There are filmed recreations of the head turn (no subject could do it the way Greer supposedly did) and discussions of calculations intended to show it couldn't be done.

These may be Twyman's most powerful demonstrations. But at this stage I am still sitting on the fence on the question of film alteration. Suffice it to say that proving the allegation the Zapruder film was tampered with is not a simple task. Respected researchers have staked claims on both sides of the question; this is not an issue that will be resolved any time soon - if ever.