Assume Nothing

Curiosity led Edward Epstein to investigate some of the greatest political mysteries of our time, such as the JFK assassination in Dallas, the Vatican banking scandal in Rome, and the diamond cartel in South Africa. Seeking more information, he often found himself a fly on the wall at the highest reaches of the establishment, observing how presidents, tycoons, bankers, and media moguls secretly greased the wheels of power. This memoir recounts his life as a pursuer of lost truths.

Some accuse Epstein of being a conspiracist, but that is incorrect. He is a puzzle solver. Instead of accepting the received wisdom, he searches for the missing pieces of the picture, such as the autopsy photographs of President John F. Kennedy that were kept from the investigation conducted by the Warren Commission. Finding suppressed or overlooked evidence may result in overturning an established narrative, as happened with the publication ofInquest, Epstein’s book about the official probe into the JFK assassination. But that is very different from looking for a conspiracy.

Sometimes, Epstein’s work has in fact uncovered a deep conspiracy, as with the world diamond cartel. Other times, it has discredited belief in a conspiracy, as when he delved into the murders of numerous Black Panthers. After his findings were published in theNew Yorker, newspapers including theWashington Postand theLos Angeles Timesissued editorial apologies for their own reporting on the murders, which had suggested that an FBI conspiracy was behind them.

Epstein’s primary interest has never been to advance an agenda, but rather to spot gaps in the conventional narrative and fill them in.Assume Nothingis the story of a lifelong quest for missing puzzle pieces, and also a story of self-actualization.

Author Biography

Edward Jay Epstein was born in 1935 in New York City. He received his BA at Cornell University, his PhD at Harvard University, and taught political science at MIT and UCLA, where he was Regent Professor of Government. He was a staff writer for the New Yorker and a columnist for Manhattan, Inc and Slate. Viking Press published his undergraduate thesis under the title Inquest: The Warren Commission and the Establishment of Truth in 1966. His PhD thesis, which was excerpted in the New Yorker, was published by Random House as News from Nowhere: Television and the News. Dossier, his biography of Armand Hammer, also excerpted in the New Yorker, won the Financial Times/Booz-Allen-Hamilton award as both the best biography and the best business book. He has published 18 books and lives in New York City.