Alex Cox: Case Not Closed

Fellow scouser Alex Cox is taking on the Warren Commission, Errol Morris, and the Smithsonian.  Not only is Alex an excellent filmmaker who shaped my teenage years but he is also a great orator who can get to the heart of an issue very quickly and he has a book out called The President and the Provocateur. A great man to have involved in the onward search for truth.  I hope Jim gets to review this new work soon and I have today ordered my copy.

https://youtu.be/TL32WAzPrNk

http://feralhouse.com/the-president-and-the-provocateur/

http://presidentandprovocateur.com/2013/09/28/disheveled-moi-i-challenge-errol-morris-and-the-smithsonian/

http://vimeo.com/71655165

Just noticed Alex Cox has joined the DPF forum, hopefully he will join here also.

I hope so, Alan. The guy had a huge influence over my life as a teenager when he had his show Moviedrome. Some of his introductions to the films that were shown were often as good as the film itself and he really shaped the types of films I watched in the late 1980's and early 90's.

Here is his Moviedrome introduction to The Parallax View:

https://youtu.be/4kyjK214s-4

Has anyone read Cox's book yet, The President and the Provocateur? I just picked up a brand new copy for three quid and it looks pretty good.

Not yet, Martin, but I did go and have a few drinks with Alex tonight which was really cool.



I hope to start his book next week and will post my thoughts as I go through.  Have you read much so far?

No, I haven't started it yet either because I just finished reading/reviewing CIA Rogues for CTKA and now I'm doing Howard Willens' book History Will Prove Us Right. But it's next on the list!

Look forward to hearing what you make of it.

Lee Farley wrote:Not yet, Martin, but I did go and have a few drinks with Alex tonight which was really cool.



I hope to start his book next week and will post my thoughts as I go through.  Have you read much so far?

Cool photo, Lee. 

But where's George and Ringo?

ps

Hoped you raised one for the rest us poor sods...

Alex's book is a very good one.  The only part of it that I had a (mild) disagreement with was his analysis of the Zapuder film and indications of possible alteration - which is only a few pages of the volume, and I'm in the 'doubtful but undecided' camp so my disagreement wasn't that strong.  I much preferred Cox's book to Anthony Summers' NOT IN YOUR LIFETIME, the title of which points more to the slim likelihood of me ever re-reading it rather than any assessment of us ever finding out the truth of these matters.  My Amazon review of THE PRESIDENT AND THE PROVOCATEUR is below.  (Hi to everyone here too as this seems to be my first post!)  I hope a lot of people end up reading Alex's book as I agree with much of it and rate the book's ending very, very highly.

"This book was a joy to read. Alex Cox has written a carefully researched study of the concurrent lives of President Kennedy and agent provocateur Oswald through the years leading up to the assassination, and offers a good deal of precise and clever analysis - including evocative thoughts on Cold War politics, the nuclear arms race, and the incipient right-wing/fascist groups of the period that bedevilled Kennedy's Presidency up to the end of his life - that will have you rethinking the activities of both those men. (In particular, this book is probably the most astute study of Oswald's intelligence activities since Philip Melanson's SPY SAGA from two decades earlier). Cox makes great use of recent research on the case, including relevant AARB documentation, info from limited press journals like THE THIRD DECADE (and that magazine's later successor, THE FOURTH DECADE), rarely discussed material from the Penn Jones FORGIVE MY GRIEF collections, and recent writings by authors such as James Douglass, Jim DiEugenio and John Armstrong, among others. Beyond that, Cox additionally treats the case in a manner that greatly encourages further research (with numerous leads outlined in his closing chapter that convincingly warrant deeper study) and finishes the volume with - figuratively - a spellbinding call to arms that offers one of the most valuable suggestions in years as to 'what we can do about it'. I have to put Cox's work here in direct contrast to the recent reissue of Anthony Summer's CONSPIRACY - which Summers has now entitled NOT IN YOUR LIFETIME - which bizarrely dilutes its investigative zeal with an overall tone that seems dismissive of further research and the likelihood of finding out the truth. (I finished the final chapter of the Summers book slightly disheartened, and the final chapter of Cox's book electrified by his invigorating take on the case and the aforementioned thoughtful next steps that he suggests). The various other five star reviews on this page are all spot on. I've read several books on the JFK assassination (old and new) in the lead up to this year's anniversary of the event, and THE PRESIDENT AND THE PROVOCATEUR ranks among the very best of them. I can't imagine anyone with an interest in the case being disappointed in this book."

I'm about 150 pages in and I can't really say I'm enjoying this book. It is probably the most anti-Kennedy book I have ever read. Cox never misses an opportunity to take a swipe at JFK, painting him as shallow, disinterested and ineffectual. At one point he suggests that since JFK sanctioned MONGOOSE type sabotage raids and what not, he clearly didn't give a crap about human life so there's no reason not to believe Kennedy was behind the assassination attempts on Castro.

I don't know whether or not I'll make it to the end.

It's interesting that the book has provoked two very different opinions from two people I respect very much.

Strange outcome.

Looking forward to hearing what you make of it, Lee.

I have been a long time fan of Alex's films . Repo Man was refreshing when it came out in a sea of boring films and Sid and Nancy was done very well . I had just read the book on Nancy written by her mother called And I Don't Want to Live this Life and I felt that the film did both Sid and Nancy justice. 
I just picked his Kennedy book up at the book store but did not have the funds to buy it but I plan to go back. I did not read the parts on JFK I just read the parts on Oswald and what I read of that seemed to lay out the inconsistencies pretty well and so I felt that it would be an asset to my collection.
I do not have to agree with every author to own their book and when I cite their books I can point out what I feel is more accurate or what is total bunk or what is just a difference of opinion.

I finished the book a couple of days ago. On the whole, it's OK. There's some really good stuff in there about Oswald. But Cox's dislike of JFK is obvious and I found it grated on me very quickly. Cox also goes off the deep end on photographic forgery IMHO. I think we've all had doubts about the backyard pictures but Cox buys into Z film alteration and, if you can believe it, suggests that the pictures of Oswald holding his cuffed hands up in that famous pose are also fake/altered. As is a photo of Oswald in Russia. And photos of him on a stretcher after he was shot by Ruby!