Revisiting four famous assassinations.

Americans tend to be ignorant of history, particularly American history. The public has been conditioned to dismiss any domestic event labeled a "conspiracy theory" while simultaneously blindly accepting plots against the Republic involving such unlikely allies as the secular dictatorship of Saddam Hussein and the militant fundamentalists of al Qaeda.

With the release of Oliver Stone's JFK, a sizeable portion of the American public got a glimpse of the inner workings of our national security state. The film's revelation that thousands of documents related to the assassination were still sealed triggered a sufficient public outcry that Congress created the Assassinations Records Review Board. The ARRB subsequently declassified and released a great many of these documents. A great many remain under seal, but the material released should dispel any notions of "lone nuts" or coincidence not merely in the JFK assassination, but in the assassinations of Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr., and Robert Kennedy as well.

Jim DiEugenio and Lisa Pease created a journal called Probe in 1992 to provide a forum for the analysis of this flood of new material. This anthology contains a selection of those articles as well as material written after Probe ceased publication and went online at www.webcom.com/ctka, where they continue to present new information. These articles cut a clear path through the thick jungle of disinformation that has grown around these events and expose the truly hideous teratomas that thrive and bloom under the canopy of "national security."

The sections on Malcolm X, MLK and RFK stand very well on their own and would not overwhelm the reader unacquainted with the finer details of these cases. Names are named and lines of finance and control are delineated masterfully, particularly in the cases of the two great black martyrs. The sections on the JFK assassination and the complicity of the Fourth Estate in the cover-up and subsequent disinformation campaign might swamp out the novice owing to the quantum leap in scale involved.

Both Stone and Jim Garrison are fully vindicated by the new material. For those with an interest in Lee Harvey Oswald, the numerous anomalies and seeming contradictions of his life are presented here. The several analyses of the declassified material related to him are stunning in the simplicity of how the Oswald legend was created. The artist is finally revealed as James Jesus Angleton, a true American monster and his collaborator, David Atlee Phillips, is another fine example of the kind of hubris to which members of the American intelligence community are susceptible.

As that community swells and gains in power, it is vital that the citizenry inform themselves as to the nature of that power, how it operates, and the ends to which it may be put. Feral House is to be commended on their courage for publishing this book in these dark times.

The Assassinations: Probe Magazine on JFK, MLK, RFK and Malcolm X Edited by James DiEugenio and Lisa Pease Feral House, 677 pages, $24.00