Saturday, November 20, 2010

KENNEDY ASSASSINATION ODDITY

The 47th anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in Dallas has revived discussion of the grim event and all the theories about who shot him in 1963 . The Little Darwin library has a somewhat unusual book, Who Killed Kennedy, by Thomas G. Buchanan,G.P.Putnam’s Sons, New York,1964, a special edition printed for the friends of Petersen Engineering Inc.,California, producer of Pengo products –earth boring augers ,earth digging teeth ,tension stringing equipment.

There is a 10 page pictorial catalogue of its equipment, along with an illustration of penguins ,at the front of the book. In a foreword , the company’s president , Gerald Petersen , said when he toured Europe and the Near East in 1964 the assassination of President Kennedy was still an active subject of discussion.


While most Americans believed Lee Harvey Oswald had shot the president, this seemed completely illogical to the rest of the world . Petersen had discussed the subject with 130 people overseas and with one lone exception, every one was convinced the assassination had been planned, directed and executed by a powerful organisation and that one man could not have done it alone. Could the newspaper stories in the US be inaccurate , he asked. During his readings he had come across this book by Buchanan and felt its contents should be known throughout the world, copies distributed to libraries and friends. The author had worked for the French weekly, L'Express