From the lively inquiring mind of my old friend François Dufour, the brains behind a successful French group of daily newspapers for children, comes a noteworthy contribution to the multi-media explosion of interest in the 50th anniversary of the assassination of President John F Kennedy.
To get the obligatory question out of the way first, my own answer is: "The Essoldo, Bishop Auckland, Co Durham. The news from Dallas was flashed up on screen during a double-A feature. I cannot remember which films I had gone there to see but have a vague memory of feeling smug for having got in for an X-rated programme when only 15."
Dufour presents his work - available in French and English - as the product of a rigorous journalistic exercise that answers, with facts not hearsay, the key questions: "who killed Kennedy and why?", "who killed Oswald and why?".
I have read extracts of the 120-page work and note that he believes firmly that Oswald acted alone, but will leave it to others to make their own judgements on the rest of his analysis and conclusions.
What I do not doubt are his credentials for taking on the project. Dufour's newspapers are models of eye-catching and enterprising but also factual coverage of current affairs for young readers - this week's editions of one of his children's newspapers, L'Actu, included the témoignage of a woman who was 13 when she witnessed at first hand the events of November 22 1963 - and he is a relentless champion of honest, challenging journalism.
Among his past books is one entitled French Journalists: Are They Really That Bad? - I recall his answer as, essentially, "yes" - and another, DSK: May 16 2011, on the disgrace in New York of another man known by his initials, Dominique Strauss Kahn. Dufour happened to be in NYC when DSK was arrested, on sex charges later thrown out while still leaving a nastyish stain on a nastyish reputation, and tweeted copiously from the first court hearing, pretty much upstaging the entire mainstream French media.
* The book and a kindle version can be found in English at Amazon: http://www.amazon.fr/The-assassination-JFK-François-Dufour/dp/2809650896/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1385050232&sr=8-2&keywords=francois+dufour
If you prefer it in French, go to http://www.amazon.fr/The-assassination-JFK-François-Dufour/dp/2809650896/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1385050232&sr=8-2&keywords=francois+dufour
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