The Reporter Who Knew Too Much by Mark Shaw

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These photos were taken up near the Golan Heights where the Yom Kippor war took place.  Below is a bunker.

On top of a Soviet Tank

The Reporter Who Knew Too Much: The Mysterious Death of What's My Line TV Star and Media Icon Dorothy Kilgallen by Mark  Shaw
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
Since I became addicted to watching What's My Line on Youtube-I mean the old version from the fifties and sixties- I have become interested in the panelists and stars that appeared on the show.

Dorothy Kilgallen was a well-known reporter back then, although obscure today. What intrigued me, though, was that she died from a barbiturate and alcohol overdose. Nowadays that doesn't surprise us at all, since famous people not only make no effort to appear decent, but actually try to seem even more outrageous than they actually are as a way of promoting their career.

We all have come to realize that a famous person dying "unexpectedly" is code for an overdose or suicide.

As clean cut and classy as Dorothy came across on TV, she abused alcohol and drugs, had multiple affairs (one of her children may not even be her husband's) and was a tigress when reporting.

I will take this moment to say that, even though no one was any more innocent back then than they are now, I found the veneer of decency that was required of television shows and personalities back then to be a relief. I don't care who is sleeping with who or who made a video mostly naked. Oh, to return to a time when classy, not trashy, was fashionable.

Mark Shaw has written a book that I suspect he is hoping will get him a Pulitzer, or at least credit for re-opening an investigation on-not only Kilgallen's death- but also President Kennedy's.

According to Shaw, Kilgallen was murdered by the mafia because she knew that JFK was not really killed by a lone crazy person craving notoriety, but a plot by the mob to avenge the push-back Robert Kennedy gave to certain crime bosses.

To be honest, I don't know. But I can't say that Shaw's book persuades me one way or another. It primarily consists of speculation, peppered with a lot of sentences beginning with, "What if...?" and "Common sense dictates..." or "therefore it is logical to infer..."

What I liked came in the first half of the book: a biography of Dorothy Kilgallen. Smutty dark underbelly aside, she was an interesting person. She was also an ambitious, hard-nose, relentless and at times, savage, reporter and writer. One would not suspect that from the sweet persona one sees on What's My Line.

Shaw probably did not intend this, but the conclusion I formed of Kilgallen is that she chased after a Kennedy conspiracy like a pit bull because she couldn't resist seeing her name in lights. No doubt she imagined a Pulitzer or even Nobel Peace prize as the spoils of her efforts. I think she wanted her name to go down in history as the one who blew the lid off the Kennedy assassination cover-up.

Instead, she is primarily known as a panelist on a game show.

The second half, if I may be so blunt, comes across as Shaw's starry eyed notion of himself as Kilgallen's savior. He hopes that justice may finally be served as more and more people, especially "young, educated, intelligent" people come to understand how "ludicrous" and "absurd" the notion is that Oswald acted alone.

By the end of the book, his writing reads like a man who has stayed up late at night, drinking numerous bottles of whiskey. He gets increasingly maudlin and grandiose as he winds up his book. It got a little silly.

It is also interesting to note that Kilgallen's children, all of whom are alive, refused to speak with this author.

As I mentioned before I have no idea if Oswald acted alone or was part of a conspiracy. To me President Johnson had the most to gain from Kennedy's death. He was from Fort Worth and got voted in through corrupt cronyism and organized crime outfits locally. Why has no one suggested him as a suspect? He was a lousy president. Thanks to his "war on poverty" an ever-growing portion of our population has become increasingly dependent on government assistance and we now have generations of families who no longer understand what a work ethic is.

But I digress. In conclusion I found it to be an OK read, hence the two star rating.

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