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Vincent Salandria


Vincent Salandria, a pioneer of the movement to obtain the truth surrounding the assassination of President Kennedy, died on August 23 at the age of 92. A tribute was posted at americantruthnow.org entitled Farewell to the "First Researcher.

A lawyer from Philadelphia, Salandria was one of the original researchers, as chronicled in John Kelin's book Praise from a Future Generation. Congressional investigator Gaeton Fonzi, author of The Last Investigation, credited Salandria with sparking his interest in the case. Salandria's early work included two seminal articles on the medical evidence published in 1965; he went on to write more broadly on the JFK murder and its meaning, including in his book False Mystery, a collection of essays including those linked below and many others.

On the medical evidence, the following three essays were first published in 1965 and 1966; they have stood up remarkably well over time given how early they were written, before the Clark Panel, before the HSCA, before publication of autopsy photos and x-rays:

A Philadelphia Lawyer Analyzes the Shots, Trajectories, and Wounds, originally published in Liberation, IX, No. 10, January 1965.

A Philadelphia Lawyer Analyzes the President's Back and Neck Wounds, originally published in Liberation, Vol. X, No. 1, March 1965.

The Separate Connally Shot, originally published in The Minority of One, April 1966 – Number 77 (Volume 8, No 4).

Other essays broadened Salandria's analysis to the context and meaning of President Kennedy's murder.

The Design of the Warren Report: To Fall to Pieces, People and the PURSUIT of Truth, April 1977.

The JFK Assassination: A False Mystery Concealing State Crimes, given at the 1998 COPA conference and published in Fair Play magazine, #27, March-April, 1999.

Vincent Salandria's work on the medical evidence was detailed and penetrating, and his broader analysis worth pondering. His COPA address above made the case for the JFK assassination as a state crime. In that essay, Salandria made note of Theodore White's book The Making of the President, 1964 in which White wrote that he had listened to tapes of Air Force One and they revealed that the Presidential party "...learned that there was no conspiracy, learned of the identity of Oswald and his arrest...". This is stunning given that a determination of "no conspiracy" within a few hours of the shooting in Dealey Plaza on November 22 would be ludicrous. Subsequent releases of edited versions of the Air Force One recordings do not contain that statement from the White House Situation Room, a stark reminder of what is still missing from the record after all this years. And now Vincent Salandria is gone, and will be missed.

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