Overview
New Orleans district attorney Jim Garrison's decision to arrest Clay Shaw on March 1, 1967, set off a chain of events that culminated in the only prosecution undertaken in the assassination of John F. Kennedy. In the decades since Garrison captured headlines with this high-profile legal spectacle, historians, conspiracy advocates, and Hollywood directors alike have fixated on how a New Orleans-based assassination conspiracy might have worked. Cruising for Conspirators settles the debate for good, conclusively showing that the Shaw prosecution was not based in fact but was a product of the criminal justice system's long-standing preoccupation with homosexuality. Tapping into the public's willingness to take seriously conspiratorial explanations of the Kennedy assassination, Garrison drew on the copious files the New Orleans police had accumulated as they surveilled, harassed, and arrested increasingly large numbers of gay men in the early 1960s. He blended unfounded accusations with homophobia to produce a salacious story of a New Orleans-based scheme to assassinate JFK that would become a national phenomenon. At once a dramatic courtroom narrative and a deeper meditation on the enduring power of homophobia, Cruising for Conspirators shows how the same dynamics that promoted Garrison's unjust prosecution continue to inform conspiratorial thinking to this day.
Full Product Details
Author: Alecia P. Long
Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press
Imprint: The University of North Carolina Press
Dimensions:
Width: 19.50cm
, Height: 2.00cm
, Length: 23.80cm
Weight: 0.333kg
ISBN: 9781469662732
ISBN 10: 1469662736
Pages: 264
Publication Date: 30 September 2021
Audience:
Professional and scholarly
,
Professional & Vocational
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: In Print
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Reviews
"A worthy addition to Kennedy assassination literature . . . Long has crafted a convincing story of intolerance and abuse of power.""--Michael Wade, Journal of Southern History Solidly researched and expertly written. . . . Not a typical screed of conspiracy-or-not arguments that characterize the JFK assassination literature. . . . It is a bit unusual to find research of this caliber in the literature on the JFK assassination. . . . Cruising for Conspirators might well be read as an inoculation against whatever fiction Oliver Stone will deliver in his new documentary.""--Washington Decoded"
Solidly researched and expertly written...Not a typical screed of conspiracy-or-not arguments that characterize the JFK assassination literature...It is a bit unusual to find research of this caliber in the literature on the JFK assassination...Cruising for Conspirators might well be read as an inoculation against whatever fiction Oliver Stone will deliver in his new documentary.--Washington Decoded
Author Information
Alecia P. Long is professor of history at Louisiana State University.
