Author of American History and True Crime books
MEL AYTON
Plotting to Kill the President
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Plotting To Kill The President is a corrective to the numerous history books and biographies which have ignored or overlooked numerous threats American presidents have faced; some serious enough to have placed the chief executive within a hair's breadth of assassination. Many stories within the study have remained largely hidden from the public; some buried in newspaper archives and others in government reports, presidential memoirs, bodyguard memoirs, Secret Service agents' memoirs and presidential libraries.
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During the period covered by this book three American presidents were assassinated (Abraham Lincoln, James Garfield and William McKinley) and, according to official publications, only one other president survived an assassination attempt (Andrew Jackson).
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Plotting To Kill The President addresses these historical events but also reveals the numerous never-before-told incidents when the president's life was put in danger, including stories of attempted stabbings, shootings and bombings.
Hunting the President
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Hunting the President is an account of the threats, plots and assassination attempts made against US presidents over an 80 year period beginning with the election of Franklin D. Roosevelt. Drawing on many previously undisclosed materials the book presents a richly informative sequence of case-studies of presidential attackers, plotters and threateners, some of whom nearly changed the course of history.
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Hunting the President is based on archived interviews with Secret Service Agents, US Presidents and family members; Oral histories from presidential libraries, police files, FBI files, government reports, newspaper archives, and court records.
The Forgotten Terrorist - Second Edition with a Foreword by Professor Alan Dershowitz (2019)
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Robert F. Kennedy’s assassination in 1968 seems like it should be an open-and-shut case. Many people crowded in the small room at Los Angeles’s famed Ambassador Hotel that fateful night saw Sirhan Sirhan pull the trigger. Sirhan was also convicted of the crime and still languishes in jail with a life sentence. However, conspiracy theorists have jumped on inconsistencies in the eyewitness testimony and alleged anomalies in the forensic evidence to suggest that Sirhan was only one shooter in a larger conspiracy, a patsy for the real killers, or even a hypnotized assassin who did not know what he was doing (a popular plot in Cold War–era fiction, such as The Manchurian Candidate).
Mel Ayton profiles Sirhan and presents a wealth of evidence about his fanatical Palestinian nationalism and his hatred for RFK that motivated the killing. Ayton unearths neglected eyewitness accounts and overlooked forensic evidence and examines Sirhan’s extensive personal notebooks. He revisits the trial proceedings and convincingly shows Sirhan was in fact the lone assassin whose politically motivated act was a forerunner of present-day terrorism. The Forgotten Terrorist is the definitive book on the assassination that rocked the nation during the turbulent summer of 1968.
This second edition features a new afterword containing interviews and new evidence, as well as a new examination of the RFK assassination acoustics evidence by technical analyst Michael O’Dell.
Dark Soul of the South
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"Mel Ayton, who has written extensively on political assassinations in the United States, now has ventured where no other writer has. With his latest book, Dark Soul of the South, he delves into the world of a racial serial killer and attempted assassin of Hustler magazine's Larry Flynt and civil rights leader Vernon Jordan. While many believe that the ugly precepts of racism expired with the successes of the civil rights movement in the 1960s, Ayton's in-depth study of the activities of those such as Franklin is a reminder that the demise of racism was,and still is, somewhat premature." Larry A. Sneed, author of "No More Silence: An Oral History of the Assassination of President Kennedy".
Justice Denied
Justice Denied - Bermuda's Black Militants, the 'Third Man' and the Assassinations of a Police Chief and Governor is the first full account of the 1972/1973 assassinations of Bermuda's Governor and Police Chief. Justice Denied points the finger of guilt at a faction of the black militant group, led by the 'Third Man', who controlled the convicted assassins. The author names the Bermuda businessman, a convicted drug dealer, who assisted the assassins in financing their political aims through drug deals and bank robberies. He also concludes that the real story about the assassinations was 'whitewashed' by consecutive Bermudian Governments in the interests of racial harmony.
Beyond Reasonable Doubt
Beyond Reasonable Doubt examines how conspiracy theories developed after publication of the Warren Commission's 1964 report into the circumstances surrounding the JFK assassination. Using the evidence compiled by the commissioners, the authors demonstrate how and why the report was rejected by the American public over the past decades and how conspiracy theorists have propagated a false history of the assassination.
· Beyond Reasonable Doubt provides new and compelling evidence which reveals not only Oswald's guilt, but his clear motive which was never satisfactorily addressed by the Warren Commission investigation.
· Using police files, FBI files, government reports, newspaper archives, court records and JFK assassination archival material the authors challenge important allegations that conspirators implemented a vast cover-up of the crime.
· The authors also examine new evidence which points the finger of guilt at Fidel Castro's intelligence agents who purportedly met with Oswald in the months before the assassination and were allegedly the true authors of the crime.
· Beyond Reasonable Doubt includes a new examination of the JFK acoustics evidence by JFK researcher Michael O'Dell.
The JFK Assassination - Dispelling The Myths
Dallas 1963 : What really happened? In a thoroughly-researched book, published to coincide with the 40th anniversary of the assassination, British historian Mel Ayton examines the multitude of conspiracy theories put forward over the past 40 years and exposes how decades of misinformation have distorted the public perception of ‘the crime of the century’ - to the detriment of the genuine historical record. Mel Ayton's 2002 book is the ideal one-stop-shop for anyone who hasn't yet got into reading the JFK assassination and wants to. The author's overview of the case that now bears no resemblance to the actual events of 1963 is thorough and highly reliable.
Questions of Controversy - The Kennedy Brothers
Intense controversy surrounds the legacy of the three Kennedy brothers.In Questions of Controversy, Mel Ayton has sorted fact from fiction and established the truth about this tragedy-laden family. The author's work examines:
The Bay of Pigs affair
The Cuban Missile Crisis
The assassination attempts against Fidel Castro
JFK's relationship with Marilyn Monroe
JFK's alleged links to the mafia
JFK's relationship with Judith Campbell Exner and his friendship with Frank Sinatra
Robert Kennedy and the Vietnam War
RFK's alleged affair with Marilyn Monroe
RFK's assassination
Edward Kennedy and the Camelot Legacy
The Kennedys and J Edgar Hoover.
His research about RFK and the Vietnam War was described by JFK aide, Professor Arthur M Schlesinger, as "persuasive".
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Over many years, Mel Ayton has examined all the more substantial JFK and RFK conspiracy theories. Through careful analysis of documents and eyewitness statements, he has demolished each one. In each case, Mel Ayton presented the results of his detailed investigations in periodicals as he worked through the various theories. These have now been brought together to provide a comprehensive analysis of all the main theories as to who, how and why the two Kennedy brothers met their deaths in such unusual circumstances.
Protecting the Presidential Candidates is the first book of its kind to examine how presidents and presidential candidates were protected during the presidential election cycles – from JFK to Trump. It is also the first book of its kind to tell the story of the role of state troopers and private bodyguards in protecting presidential candidates. Protection for candidates changed and evolved from the free-wheeling style of the 1950s and early 1960s, which afforded presidential candidates little or no protection, to the growth of bodyguard personnel, increased intelligence facilities and state of the art technology employed today to keep the candidates safe.
In the milieu in which the Secret Service operates, bodyguards have witnessed the terrors of election campaigns when presidential candidates have waded into crowds to shake hands with their supporters, rode in open-top cars, and made sudden but risky changes to their schedules – oblivious to the fact that in every campaign there have been people stalking candidates with ill intent. Many stories revealed in Protecting the Presidential Candidates have remained largely hidden from the public; some buried in newspaper archives and others in oral histories, presidential libraries or official government documents. The author draws on numerous sources, including FBI files, presidential biographies, vice presidential biographies, civilian bodyguard memoirs, Secret Service agent memoirs, White House staff memoirs and more so that these stories can now be told. The book also allows readers to gain an insight into the personal as well as professional relationships between the candidate and the bodyguards who protected them.
The Man Who Killed King is the first full account of Martin Luther King's murder based on the FBI MURKIN files, the 1976-1979 US House of Representatives investigation (HSCA), The 1977 Department of Justice Task Force Investigation, the 1998 Memphis Attorney General's investigation, the 2000 US Justice Department investigation, the James Earl Ray Scotland Yard file and James Earl Ray’s Prison Record held in the State of Tennessee Archives.
The book is an investigation into the circumstances of the assassination, the evidence against the convicted assassin, James Earl Ray, and a review of the conspiracy theories which have been promoted for 54 years.
For the first time documentary evidence is presented which establishes the truth about the role Ray’s brothers, John and Jerry Ray, played in the assassination of King and of how Ray lied about his purported ‘patsy’ role in the murder of King. The author also presents evidence which establishes Ray’s motive for the crime beyond any reasonable doubt.
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