The Last Investigation

November 1, 1993
Fonzi, an investigative journalist who acted as an investigator for the House Select Committee on Assassinations in 1977-1979, casts two significant lights on the continuing mystery of the Kennedy assassination and its aftermath. The first is a wealth of inside information about the workings of the committee, and how at almost every turn it was frustrated by political infighting, budget constraints and a determination not to upset ``national security'' by questioning the CIA too closely about its knowledge of Lee Harvey Oswald. The second is his detailed account of the story told him by anti-Castro underground leader Antonio Veciana: that he once saw Oswald together with Veciana's own CIA ``control,'' a mysterious figure called Maurice Bishop. Fonzi remains convinced that Bishop was an alias for David Atlee Phillips, a career CIA officer--now five years dead--who at the time of the assassination was a key figure at the Mexico City CIA post and therefore responsible for the continued obfuscation of Oswald's alleged visit there. The book is too long for its content, and is occasionally naive in its dramatization of Fonzi's personal sense of outrage at the apathy that seems to have developed over the responsibility for the assassination. But he is a lively and convincing writer, and much of the book, with its confrontations and dramatic (and sometimes even farcical) twists, has the tension of a good spy novel. Photos not seen by PW.