Books like Plausible Denial: Was the CIA Involved in the Assassination of JFK?

Ultimately, Mark Lane's book comes off as more self-serving than it does truthful or provable. Much of the text is self-praise for a court victory against E. Howard Hunt in a civil case. Hunt, for those who don't know, was a former CIA operative who, after bungling operation after operation and earning a reputation as one of the most ineffective agents in the history of the CIA, an arguably ineffective organization, went on to bungle a third-rate robbery of a then little-known hotel called The Watergate. Catching E. Howard Hunt in a lie is not a hard thing to do by any stretch, and Lane's belief that doing so represents proof that Hunt killed Kennedy is more than a little far-fetched. In the court case, Lane represented the right-wing group Liberty Lobby (his previous legal work including representing Jim Jones, in case you're wondering how ethical the author is as a lawyer). Liberty Lobby was a group being sued by Hunt for implicating Hunt in the assassination of J.F.K. Hunt initially sued and won a settlement, but Lane had this overturned on appeal. Hunt already had CIA connections established, and had been one of the "Plumbers" arrested in the Watergate break-in during the Nixon administration, so it's not like Lane was going after Mother Theresa here. By winning his case in defense of Liberty Lobby's right-wing newspaper, Lane claims he had proven that the jury believed the allegation that Hunt had been involved in the assassination of J.F.K. His arguments in the book are largely based on this case. What Lane fails to mention is that the jurors saw the case as an issue of freedom of press and found that the article, though repugnant and untrue, was printed without "actual malice". Lane hints at this truth but manages to dance around it and weave a tale of the CIA's supposed plot to assassinate JFK out of nothing. The fact is, even if Hunt WAS involved in the assassination, it wasn't proven in this court case, and the final verdict had absolutely nothing at all to do with JFK or his death. It was a "freedom of the press" issue from start to finish for the jury, who sided in Liberty Lobby's favor even though Liberty Lobby is perhaps even more reprehensible than E. Howard Hunt (if such a thing were possible). Lane's legal work may be substantial but his journalistic work is not, and no matter how he tries to spin it, he did not "prove" that E. Howard Hunt was involved in a plot to assassinate the President. (Hunt, meanwhile, may have confessed as much near his death; that doesn't change the fact that Lane didn't "prove" anything, and neither does this book. It's also worth noting two facts: that deathbed confession was most likely a lie propogated by an estranged son, and secondly, if the CIA were going to assassinate the President of the United States - no small task - they'd have not handed the task to an agent that was, by that time, regarded almost universally as one of the most inept in the entire business. Look how he handled the Watergate burglary for Nixon - you think they'd hire THAT guy to kill JFK?) After reading this book, I found it more likely that Mark Lane was a C.I.A. disinformation agent himself than that he'd proven any conspiracy to murder President Kennedy. Essentially, this book is nothing more than a mediocre slight-of-hand trick by a third-rate magician posing as a lawyer. NC