Did J.F.K. Really Commit Suicide?

So you think America has lost its creative edge, that its citizens can no longer devise innovative solutions to what ails the country and the world? Well, stroll through your local bookstore and think again: no fewer than seven new books on the Kennedy assassination have recently been published. Several have made it to the best-seller lists, where they joined two paperbacks: On the Trail of the Assassins by Jim Garrison and Crossfire by Jim Marrs, both of which inspired Oliver Stone's film JFK.

The latest addition to the shelf is JFK: Conspiracy of Silence (Signet; 205 pages; $4.99 paper) by Charles A. Crenshaw. It is the first account written by a doctor who was part of the Parkland Memorial Hospital trauma team that tried to save Kennedy and, two days later, his assassin (sorry, alleged assassin), Lee Harvey Oswald.

Crenshaw says that until now, he and his colleagues refused to "rock the boat" by publicly disputing the Warren Commission's finding that Oswald was the lone assassin. But he is adamant that the head wound suffered by the President came from the front of the motorcade, thus making it impossible for Oswald to have murdered Kennedy from a sixth-floor rear perch. The physician says it is clear that "someone had tampered with the body" during its extralegal transfer from Texas to the autopsy room at Bethesda Naval Hospital in Maryland, presumably to support a single-gunman scenario. The injuries shown on autopsy photos, Crenshaw says, "are not the same wounds I saw at Parkland."

That theory isn't new, but Crenshaw's account contains a vivid anecdote that will no doubt be seized upon by those who argue that there was a government conspiracy. When Oswald, shot by Jack Ruby, wound up at Parkland, Crenshaw noted the presence of a heavyset armed man in the operating room. Moments later came a telephone call from Washington. On the other end of the line, according to Crenshaw, was Lyndon Johnson, who demanded that the medical team obtain "a deathbed confession from the accused assassin," to be recorded by the mysterious agent. When Oswald died minutes later, the man disappeared.

In The Texas Connection (Texas Connection Co.; 323 pages; $21.95), Craig I. Zirbel claims to provide the "final answer" on Johnson's role. Zirbel says Johnson probably organized the murder with a group of right-wing oilmen as a shortcut to the Oval Office. The author provides no persuasive evidence to support the allegation, relying instead on the argument that Johnson was a murderer because he had the turpitude to behave like one. Zirbel ticks off Johnson's egomania, drinking habits and philandering as examples of his "violations of moral rules." The author dismisses opposing speculations of why Kennedy was killed, saying the Mafia did not participate in the assassination because "for a hit to have been made against the President, ((Chicago Mob boss)) Sam Giancana would have had to consent."

Surprise. Double Cross (Warner Books; 366 pages; $22.95), written by Giancana's brother Chuck and godson Sam, says that is exactly what happened. Chuck Giancana played the role of underworld Candide, charting his brother's rise as the most powerful Mob boss west of the Mississippi and taking note of his snuff work for the CIA. "It's beautiful," says Sam. "The Outfit even has the same enemies as the government."