James Reston, Jr. Reports on Personal Motive of Oswald in THE ACCIDENTAL ASSASSIN

Was the assassination of one of America's most beloved presidents an accident?

That is the shocking argument put forth by acclaimed historian James Reston, Jr. Based on years of research and interviews, this revelatory new book makes the case that Texas Governor John Connally, not President John F. Kennedy, was the intended target of Lee Harvey Oswald.

Oswald's motive was personal, not political. After he attempted to defect to the Soviet Union, his military discharge was changed from honorable to dishonorable. The proud ex-Marine protested directly to fellow Texan Connally, then Secretary of the Navy, and received a classic bureaucratic brush-off. From that day on, Oswald began nursing a deep, even murderous grudge.

Reston masterfully charts the path Oswald took toward that fated moment in Dallas, his hatred of the governor driving him to purchase a mail-order rifle, position himself in the Texas School Book Depository building, and attempt to settle his score with Connally.

There was no conspiracy.

There was Lee Harvey Oswald, a mail-order gun, and a missed shot.

Marshaling all the available evidence - some of it never before seen - Reston will change the way we understand this epochal event: In one of American history's most tragic ironies, President John F. Kennedy was as an accidental victim on November 22, 1963.

With nearly 30 photos, the book may take a few minutes to download over 3G or slower connections.

James Reston Jr. is the author of 15 books, three plays, and numerous articles in national magazines. In 1963 he graduated from the University of North Carolina on a Morehead Scholarship where he received a B.A. in philosophy. After graduation, he served as assistant to Secretary of the Interior Stewart Udall. His latest book, Accidental Victim, about the Dallas assassination is dedicated to Udall. From 1965-68 he served in the U.S. Army as an intelligence officer. His first book, To Defend, To Destroy, a novel, was published in 1971. In 1983, Reston won the Prix Italia and the Dupont-Columbia Award for his 90-minute NPR radio documentary Father Cares: The Last of Jonestown. In 1998, Reston published The Last Apocalypse: Europe in the Year 1000 A.D., a main selection of the Book of the Month Club. This was followed by Warriors of God: Richard the Lionheart and Saladin, which has sold more than 250,000 copies worldwide. Fragile Innocence, his 2006 memoir about raising a handicapped daughter, was a Washington Post top-ten bestseller. In 1976-77, he was David Frost's Watergate adviser for the famous Frost/Nixon interviews, seen by 57 million people worldwide. His account of that experience, The Conviction of

Richard Nixon: The Untold Story of the Frost/Nixon Interviews, published in 2007, was British playwright Peter Morgan's main inspiration in the making of his hit play Frost/Nixon, a drama later made into an Oscar-nominated movie directed by Ron Howard. In the movie, Reston is played by actor Sam Rockwell.

His 9/11-themed novel called The 19th Hijacker, will appear in 2014.

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