Dallas 1963

This essential work "unearths the various fringe elements rampant in Dallas" in the years leading up to JFK's assassination (Kirkus).
Named one of the Top 3 JFK Books by Parade Magazine.

By November 22nd, 1963, Dallas was brewing with political passions, a city crammed with larger-than-life characters dead-set against the Kennedy presidency. These included defrocked military general Edwin A. Walker; the world's richest oil baron, H. L. Hunt; the leader of the world's largest Baptist congregation, W.A. Criswell; and the media mogul Ted Dealey, whose family name adorns the plaza where the president was murdered. In the background were gangsters, politicos, civil rights heroes, and a millionaire anxious to save his doomed city.


Bill Minutaglio and Steven L. Davis explore the forces that led many to warn President Kennedy to avoid Dallas. They lead us through intimate glimpses of the Kennedy family and the machinations of the Kennedy White House, to the obsessed men in Dallas who concocted the climate of hatred that led many to blame the city for the president's death.


Here at long last is an accurate understanding of what happened in the weeks and months leading to John F. Kennedy's assassination. Dallas 1963 is not only a fresh look at a momentous national tragedy but a sobering reminder of how radical, polarizing ideologies can poison a city-and a nation.

Winner of the PEN Center USA Literary Award for Research Nonfiction
Named 1 of The 5 Essential Kennedy assassination books ever written by The Daily Beast.