H.P. Albarelli has passed away.

[James Lateer]

Thanks again, Mr. Thorne:

Where do you have access to these book sales numbers? I thought one would have to pay for an NPD Bookscan subscription to get these. If there's another such source, please advise.

Your numbers state the obvious. If one can make $400,000 (at a dollar per copy), then that's pretty big money. I have made $641.00 on The Three Barons. The important point is that prospective readers don't know in advance what the book will say when they buy it. So the huge variance between "lone gunman" books and real and important books is obviously caused by how they are marketed and not about what is inside.

Whether you know it or not, you seem to be arguing on the side of information suppression rather than revelations. Otherwise, you would be advocating for readers to have access to the most diverse set of books, and not for readers to buy based on book sales.

My goal with my book was to put my stuff out there for people "in the know" who will work hard to read it and come away with the truth about the JFK murder.

Obviously, I someone can make $400,000 in royalties by obfuscating, and only $641 by revealing the truth, then liars will be laughing all the way to the bank.

James Lateer

[James Lateer]

...I would also like to add...although the Ganis, the Caufield and the JVB books have been reviewed, that's not the same as saying that the serious issues and new ground broken by them has ever been discussed. We know that there are endless discussions about the length of Oswald's rifle, for instance, but no discussion at all about the Caufield and Baker theories, and only a modest amount regarding the Skorzeny Papers.

When attacking the J V Baker book, no one ever says "her book ties Oswald to the US Government biological weapons program." That fact is, to me, the most obvious reason her book is so virulently attacked, since that whole subject is probably the most sensitive US Government state secret. Ditto with the 9-11 anthrax attack. Subject dropped. Case closed.

And no one ever says "Dr. Caufield, the man who conclusively ties Oswald to James O Eastland and his near-miss at destroying MLK and the Civil Rights movement." By the way, I live in a city of 40,000 and I'm likely the only resident who knows about that connection. Ridiculous! Where is Oliver Stone when you need him???? Caufield's book is monumental IMHO. Should be must reading for everyone here.

The Ganis book on Skorzeny gets much more fair treatment because there has been much discussion on Deep Politics Forum about the Operation Valkyrie connection to the JFK plot. But this in-depth discussion doesn't take place regarding the Baker and Caufield material. And even the entire scenario built up by Ganis in "Skorzeny" isn't IMHO really evaluated or explained. with regard to all the people that he mentions.

What I have learned from my experience is that the truth about the JFK murder is SELF-SUPPRESSING!!! By that I mean that if people think for a moment that they have discovered the truth about the JFK hit, that they have a hot potato on their mind and WHY BOTHER??? Someone may be watching or listening... "Zip your lip " is the watch-word.

And this, of course, is a truism about 9-11, Pearl Harbor, East German Communism, The Cuban Missile Crisis, the Battleship Maine, etc.etc.etc.

Lies are the air that most people breathe, so to speak. The JFK lies have many fathers, but the truth is an orphan.

The typical JFK book has one review for every 10 sales on Amazon. Based on that, my book should have 25 to 30 reviews. That is about the number racked up by "General Walker" by Caufield whose sales are comparable to mine.

But I have had only two reviews, ONE OF WHICH WAS IMMEDIATELY WITHDRAWN!!!! So that leaves only one review. But as I said, The Three Barons has been listed in libraries around the world, in at least fifteen countries, off-and-on. Currently, it is in seven countries. The price for used copies has remained at almost the level of new copies, which is unusual for books on Amazon. So it seems that people are hanging on to their copies and not selling, donating or discarding them. (Maybe they're scared to donate them. Never thought of that!)

Finally, I don't advocate reading the indexes of JFK books in lieu of reading the actual book. My only point there is that the citations of names in the indexes is a convenient way to mathematically group the books. Obviously, the index to the Warren Commission Report would largely devoid of the names of the true plotters, and padded with the names of irrelevant witnesses. So correlation with the Warren Report is a bad sign, IMHO (regarding citations).

Granted, the Bugliosi book will have a panoply of names. But Bugliosi and Gerald Posner are the only authors I know of who have published deliberately false theories if you exclude the Warren Commission itself. For virtually all the other books, the names cited follow along the lines of the particular theory of the author regarding the JFK plot and murder. Of course, EVERY book cites JFK, RFK, Lyndon Johnson, Lee Harvey Oswald, etc. etc. etc. But if there are a lot of CIA names, in proportion, then it's a "CIA did it" book. Ditto for the "mafia did it" or "people in New Orleans did it", etc.

In summary, the only facts I would have liked to include (which I missed) is the Nazi connection to David Harold Byrd, the owner of the TBSD and the Nazi connection to the Berkeley Microbiology Lab and Clay Shaw. With these two exceptions, I think that I have documented pretty much all of facts necessary to understand the JFK assassination. But let the readers be the final judges. I'm fine with that.

James Lateer

[Mark A. O'Blazney]

You mean you think Simon and Schuster would publish the truth about Oswald, JFK etc? I'm sure they are good corporate citizens and would do the right thing.

James Lateer

...I would also like to add...although the Ganis, the Caufield and the JVB books have been reviewed, that's not the same as saying that the serious issues and new ground broken by them has ever been discussed. We know that there are endless discussions about the length of Oswald's rifle, for instance, but no discussion at all about the Caufield and Baker theories, and only a modest amount regarding the Skorzeny Papers.

When attacking the J V Baker book, no one ever says "her book ties Oswald to the US Government biological weapons program." That fact is, to me,  the most obvious reason her book is so virulently attacked, since that whole subject is probably the most sensitive US Government state secret. Ditto with the 9-11 anthrax attack. Subject dropped. Case closed.

And no one ever says "Dr. Caufield, the man who conclusively ties Oswald to James O Eastland and his near-miss at destroying MLK and the Civil Rights movement." By the way, I live in a city of 40,000 and I'm likely the only resident who knows about that connection. Ridiculous! Where is Oliver Stone when you need him???? Caufield's book is monumental IMHO. Should be must reading for everyone here.

The Ganis book on Skorzeny gets much more fair treatment because there has been much discussion on Deep Politics Forum about the Operation Valkyrie connection to the JFK plot. But this in-depth discussion doesn't take place regarding the Baker and Caufield material. And even the entire scenario built up by Ganis in "Skorzeny" isn't IMHO really evaluated or explained. with regard to all the people that he mentions.

What I have learned from my experience is that the truth about the JFK murder is SELF-SUPPRESSING!!! By that I mean that if people think for a moment that they have discovered the truth about the JFK hit, that they have a hot potato on their mind and WHY BOTHER??? Someone may be watching or listening... "Zip your lip " is the watch-word.

And this, of course, is a truism about 9-11, Pearl Harbor, East German Communism, The Cuban Missile Crisis, the Battleship Maine, etc.etc.etc.

Lies are the air that most people breathe, so to speak. The JFK lies have many fathers, but the truth is an orphan.

The typical JFK book has one review for every 10 sales on Amazon. Based on that, my book should have 25 to 30 reviews. That is about the number racked up by "General Walker" by Caufield whose sales are comparable to mine.

But I have had only two reviews, ONE OF WHICH WAS IMMEDIATELY WITHDRAWN!!!! So that leaves only one review. But as I said, The Three Barons has been listed in libraries around the world, in at least fifteen countries, off-and-on. Currently, it is in seven countries. The price for used copies has remained at almost the level of new copies, which is unusual for books on Amazon. So it seems that people are hanging on to their copies and not selling, donating or discarding them. (Maybe they're scared to donate them. Never thought of that!)

Finally, I don't advocate reading the indexes of JFK books in lieu of reading the actual book. My only point there is that the citations of names in the indexes is a convenient way to mathematically group the books. Obviously, the index to the Warren Commission Report would largely devoid of the names of the true plotters, and padded with the names of irrelevant witnesses. So correlation with the Warren Report is a bad sign, IMHO (regarding citations).

Granted, the Bugliosi book will have a panoply of names. But Bugliosi and Gerald Posner are the only authors I know of who have published deliberately false theories if you exclude the Warren Commission itself. For virtually all the other books, the names cited follow along the lines of the particular theory of the author regarding the JFK plot and murder. Of course, EVERY book cites JFK, RFK, Lyndon Johnson, Lee Harvey Oswald, etc. etc. etc. But if there are a lot of CIA names, in proportion, then it's a "CIA did it" book. Ditto for the "mafia did it" or "people in New Orleans did it", etc.

In summary, the only facts I would have liked to include (which I missed) is the Nazi connection to David Harold Byrd, the owner of the TBSD and the Nazi connection to the Berkeley Microbiology Lab and Clay Shaw. With these two exceptions, I think that I have documented pretty much all of facts necessary to understand the JFK assassination. But let the readers be the final judges. I'm fine with that.

James Lateer

You seem to be fine with everything, Mssr. Lateer.  That's what a good MLM-style 'gatekeeper' does so well.  Can't wait for the next JudyFest !!!  I wonder who shall be the top speaker this year?  Oliver?  With a guest appearance by his son and Jesse's?  Beyond the pale, sir+

[Anthony Thorne]

James, thanks for your response. The numbers I cited are Amazon listings of sales rankings (ie #1 is the top bestseller, #10 is in the top ten, and #400,000 has another 399,999 books on Amazon that are selling better than it). These are listed on each product page for every book on Amazon. I listed the rankings simply to note that Albarelli’s new book would probably do okay, and not hugely better or worse than many others. Earnings aren’t implied so I don’t know why you’re discussing people earning $400,000 from writing a JFK book. If DiEugenio and others were earning that much from a single book, they’d probably be writing a JFK volume every year, instead of once a twice a decade.

If I lived in the US I’d call Skyhorse for you and enquire, but I’m not going to pay for an international call out of hours for this subject (I did once chat to Jon Elinoff re his Colorado corruption investigation for two hours). As it is, call me an optimist but I expect to be reading Albarelli’s book in May or June - or, if some dumb publicist decides books sell better on anniversaries no matter how long the wait, November.

Chris Lightbown’s JFK book suffered much worse. I believe he wrote most of it, but age or research issues or both led to it never reaching the finish line. You can still see the cover solicited on Amazon though, years after it was first announced.

[James Lateer]

Oops----I get it now. The 400,000 is the ranking, not the book sales. That makes more sense to me because I don't think JFK assassination books are selling in those numbers, except for Bill O'Reilly "Killing Kennedy" [and "Killing Reagan"].

I wouldn't mind calling Skyhorse, but I kind of keep a low profile in some such matters. I only give free copies of my book to people in whom I have some trust and not to people who would misuse it against me.

I can tell you that Skyhorse rejected a 250 page version of my book--Fortunately, Mr. Kris Millegan and TrineDay also rejected it, but told me to do more research. So I wound up with a 550 page book. Thank goodness Mr. Millegan knows his conspiracy theory stuff. Much better outcome for all concerned. I should also say that Skyhorse took a fair amount of time before they rejected my manuscript. I can't say Skyhorse was unfair to me, but also, they didn't encourage me to go deeper and didn't have any feedback on their reasons other than "it wouldn't be successful".

James Lateer

[Anthony Thorne]

I had a similar non response after McFarland first wrote to me and said they were keen to get involved with a spaghetti westerns book project I’d once proposed, and that I should leave it with them for a while and they’d get back to me. The book industry, eh?