“Coup in Dallas” by Hank Albarelli Jr (coauthors Leslie Sharp and Alan Kent) is both the most important and the most difficult book I have read in my 68 years on this planet. The genius of the book is that it investigates the true plotters of the assassination, which occurred at a very high level. Having finished reading it for the second time, I find reviewing it to be as difficult as reading it. Although I have read hundreds of books on the assassination of President John F Kennedy by the National Security State, there are many researchers who have read so many more. For example, Hank Albarelli, who has tied various people and events together in a comprehensive way in this book. He has left no stone unturned, as they say, yet is very careful in his analysis.

The book is based on a datebook written by Pierre Lafitte, who was the project manager for the assassination of the President of the United States. Albarelli carefully explains how he was granted access to this document, and the limitations imposed. Leslie Sharp writes “Coauthor's statement on the provenance and authenticity of the Lafitte datebook”, which explains why these brilliant researchers and writers spent so much time on this important book.

Three of the plotters and planers referred to in the datebook are the usual suspects Alan Dulles, James Angleton and Frank Sturgis. Familiar names of George DeMohrenschildt, Clay Shaw, General Edwin Walker and Jack Ruby reoccur throughout the Lafitte's datebook. Serious students of the event know the name Jean Souetre, but fewer know about Otto Skorzeny. Among the many connections to the planning and execution are obscure names of Tracy Barnes, General Charles Willoughby, Jack Cannon, Robert Storey, Victor Oswald, Algur Meadows, Issac Levine, George Hunter-White, Philippe T deVosjoli, Thomas Eli Davis, and Jean Paul Robert Filliol. These are names I have rarely come across in my 30 years of studying this event.

Some might question the authenticity and importance of Lafitte's datebook prior to reading the book, but most will be convinced after reading 460 pages of analysis, or the hundred pages of notes following the book itself, including writing by Leslie Sharpe, Alan Kent, and Charles Drago.

Because the National Security State in America still considers it necessary to keep it's secrets regarding JFK's killing, studying the event is akin to putting together a large jigsaw puzzle with many pieces missing. Yet the mind of Albarelli and those who helped in this effort have made substantive determinations based on evidence and solid reasoning.

Otto Skorzeny was a German Nazi, famous for orchestrating the escape of Benito Mussolini from an Italian prison towards the end of WWII. He was one of many Nazi's rescued from Nuremberg prosecution due to Dulles's intervention in particular and Operation Paperclip in general. Skorzeny set up shop in Madrid and Ireland, where he proceeded to interact with virulent anticommunists around the world for decades, including all the names mentioned above. Skorzeny and his wife Ilse are a constant presence in the datebook and in Alberelli's analysis. The background and history of most of these people who planned and executed the assassination, and were safely removed from the scene of the crime were unknown to me.

Until reading “Coup” I believed the shooters were Charles Harrelson, James Files, Charles Nicoletti and Mac Wallace. I now believe that the shooters included Jean Souetre, Jack Cannon, Gerald Litt, Laslo Vango, Alice Lamy and Hungarians Varga and Marton . (pg 413) as well as others, since there would have been teams of assassins at four different locations. Frank Sturgis and Felix Rodriguez could have been shooters or support.

Albarelli was careful in his analysis and unwilling to name the key figure who's entry “T” occurs throughout the datebook. Included in the appendices of the book is Alan Kent's analysis of the mysterious “T” who, along with Lafitte himself, was at the very highest echelons of planning. Kent concludes this was most likely CIA head of Domestic Operations Division Tracy Barnes.

After decades of my own study, I believe that previous researchers have touched on the highest levels of government operatives such as Alan Dulles who facilitated the assassination and especially the cover-up that followed. Few can doubt Dulles's complicity, summarized so well by David Talbot in “The Devils Chessboard”. James Douglas, in “JFK and the The Unspeakable” describes the forces against Kennedy's foreign and domestic policies, revealing the motive for his killing. Dick Russell, author of “The Man who knew too Much” first touched on some of the obscure names revealed in “Coup”. John Newman has studied and explained the CIA documents, shedding light on the obfuscations in the record. Various authors have covered the roles of J Edgar Hoover, General Curtis LeMay, President Lyndon Johnson and others in the cover-up.

Until “Coup in Dallas”, few if any researchers have learned or even speculated who planned the assassination, recruited and placed the shooters, put the patsy Lee Harvey Oswald in place, and spirited out the assassins quickly after Kennedy's death. Albarelli was granted access to Lafitte's datebook, and thus opened an entire new chapter in the analysis of the assassination of our 35th President.