Death of the Rising Sun: A Search for Truth in the JFK Assassination

Goodreads Top 200 Best 21st Century Nonfiction, 2022. Pulitzer Prize in History nominee, 2018. Ranked Second on Amazon Bestseller list, Presidents category, 2017.

While numerous books cover the 1963 crime-of-the-20th-century from a conspiracy or lone-assassin viewpoint, this work by veteran journalist Kevin James Shay presents the facts in an objective manner to allow readers to better understand what happened. The moving, compelling account is infused with behind-the-scenes details that have been brought to light in recent years through new government documents and other sources.

Shay grew up in Dallas and has researched the tragedy since 1978. He witnessed President John F. Kennedy’s funeral in Washington, D.C., where he was born on JFK's birthday. He first became interested in the case when eyewitness Bill Newman entered his college newspaper office and led him on a search.

The book details new facts related to potential plots against Kennedy that occurred in Chicago, Tampa, and other cities shortly before the November 1963 assassination. For instance, suspect Thomas Vallee was arrested right before Kennedy was to visit Chicago on November 2, matching some of the same characteristics as Lee Harvey Oswald. Vallee was in Tennessee at the same time that a gunman approached Kennedy in that state in May 1963. Then Vallee soon moved to Chicago and took similar actions there as Oswald did in New Orleans and Dallas. Vallee later wrote to FBI Director Hoover, who amazingly wrote him a polite response shortly before the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy.

A different suspect in the November 18 Tampa plot, Gilberto Lopez, also featured a similar background as Oswald. Lopez traveled from Texas into Mexico soon after JFK was killed, along an escape route that Oswald tried to take, and then flew to Cuba. There were also gunmen along the proposed presidential motorcade routes in Chicago and Tampa, with Vallee and Lopez believed to be set up to take the blame should an assassination attempt be successful.

New government documents also detailed many other threats, such as statements shortly before JFK's assassination by a CIA courier on how Kennedy and his presumed assassin would both be killed. Another aspect not covered in most books is the involvement of Willie Somersett. The Klan leader opposed the racial violence in the 1960s to the point that he risked his life exposing and helping to prevent it as a government informant. He likely helped save and prolong the Kennedys' and King's lives.

Finally, this book shows how some justice in the case has been served. Several prime suspects in the Mafia, CIA, and Cuban community received prison sentences for other crimes, similar to how gangster Al Capone was imprisoned for tax evasion.

Kevin James Shay, 63, has worked or written for more than 45 newspapers, blogs, and magazines, including The Dallas Morning News, The Washington Post Co.'s Gazette, Minority Business News USA, Texas Catholic, and Medium.

His books include Death of the Rising Sun: A Search for Truth in the JFK Assassination [2022], It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad Trip: On the Road of the Longest Two-Week Family Road Trip in History [2022], Walking through the Wall [2022], A Parent's Guide to Dallas/Fort Worth [2003], and And Justice For All: The Untold History of Dallas [2000]. 

He has received awards from numerous professional and community organizations, including Lincoln University's Unity Awards in Media, Maryland-Delaware-D.C. Press Association, Dallas Press Club, Bethesda Literary Festival, Texas Press Association, American Cancer Society, Local Media Association, Suburban Newspapers of America, Medium, and Mental Health Association.

An avid traveler, he drove his kids through 22 states and 6,950 miles across the United States and back in 17 days. He also walked some 5,000 miles across the United States and Europe in 1984 and 1985 as part of a group that set a record for the longest group walk for a cause.

He graduated from the University of North Texas with a bachelor's degree in journalism and also attended the Richland campus of Dallas College.