Reclaiming Parkland

Revised and expanded: A bold and persuasive look at "how Hollywood and the mainstream media are getting the Kennedy assassination all wrong" (Jesse Ventura, author of They Killed Our President).

Reclaiming Parkland details the failed attempt of Academy Award-winning actor Tom Hanks and producer Gary Goetzman to make Vincent Bugliosi's mammoth book about the Kennedy assassination, Reclaiming History, into a miniseries. It exposes the questionable origins of Reclaiming History in a dubious mock trial filmed for British television, in which Bugliosi played the role of an attorney prosecuting Lee Harvey Oswald for murder, and how this production formed the basis for the epic tome.

Author James DiEugenio details the myriad problems with Bugliosi's research. He also explores the cooperation of the mainstream press in concealing many facts during the publicity campaign for the book and how this lack of scrutiny led Hanks and Goetzman—cofounders of the production company Playtone—to purchase the film rights. DiEugenio then explores how and why their film, entitled Parkland, diverges from Bugliosi's original work.

Reclaiming Parkland reveals fascinating connections between Washington and Hollywood, as well as the CIA influence in the film colony today, and includes an extended look at the little-known aspects of the lives and careers of Bugliosi, Hanks, and Goetzman.

"Highly intelligent . . . This important work reassures me some Americans really do still care about the truth." —Oliver Stone, Academy Award–winning director of JFK