5 Biggest Mistakes in Bill O'Reilly's "Killing" Series

Taking the Romans' Word

O’Reilly is nothing if not unpredictable. Not only does he occasionally surprise viewers of his show with admittances of error or even unexpectedly liberal views, but he also has demonstrated a distinct talent for finding the unexpected choices. His book Killing Jesus is a prime example: No one else would have thought of investigating Jesus’ death as if it was an episode of CSI: Bible Studies. There’s so much we don’t know about Jesus and his life, making it a brilliant choice for subject matter.

The problem isn’t with the choice of Jesus—even non-Christians might find a figure who had such a profound impact on history interesting to read about—it’s with O’Reilly’s simplistic acceptance of Roman historians at their word. Anyone with even the briefest exposure to actual historical study knows that Roman historians were usually more like gossip columnists than scholars. They often crafted their “histories” in order to impugn or elevate dead emperors, to prosecute revenge campaigns sponsored by rich patrons, or to propagandize Rome’s greatness. O’Reilly often simply repeats what these dubious sources wrote, with no indication he understands the complexities involved in confirming the information within.

Going Sensational

O’Reilly also often chooses to report sensational details as fact without checking too hard, sort of the way your drunk uncle will repeat things he heard on TV as pure fact without checking into it.

Killing Lincoln reads like a thriller, and O’Reilly really does manage to make one of the most familiar crimes in American history seem exciting and interesting—but often at the expense of numerous small facts. One pretty big mistake though is in his depiction of Mary Surratt, a co-conspirator with John Wilkes Boothe in the assassination, and famously the first woman to be executed in the United States. O’Reilly claims in the book that Surratt was treated abominably, forced to wear a padded hood that marked her face and drove her insane from claustrophobia, and that she was chained up in a cell on board a ship, all while intimating that she was falsely accused. This misstatement of facts is used to support O’Reilly’s vague insinuations that Lincoln’s assassination was in part countenanced if not planned by forces within his own government—something else never proved.

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The Oval Office

Also in Killing Lincoln, O’Reilly undermines his whole argument that he’s a learned historian with one of those mistakes people who haven’t actually read an original source often make: He repeatedly refers to Lincoln holding meetings in the “Oval Office.” The only problem is that the Oval Office didn’t exist until the Taft Administration built it in 1909, nearly fifty years after Lincoln’s death.

The 25th Amendment

O’Reilly really tears into thriller territory again with Killing Reagan, which speculates—largely without evidence—that Ronald Reagan never truly recovered from his near-death after the attempted assassination in 1981. O’Reilly offers plenty of anecdotal evidence that Reagan’s capacity was sharply diminished—and claims pretty brazenly that many in his administration contemplated invoking the 25^th Amendment, which allows for the removal of a president who has become unfit or infirm. Not only is there zero evidence this happened, but many members of Reagan’s inner circle and White House staff have also stated it is simply not true.

Killing Patton

Perhaps the oddest conspiracy theory that O’Reilly passes off as fact comes in Killing Patton, where O’Reilly makes a case that General Patton, widely regarded as a military genius at least in part responsible for the success of the invasion of German-occupied Europe at the end of World War II, was assassinated.

O’Reilly’s theory is that Patton—who wanted to continue fighting after Germany surrendered because he saw in the Soviet Union an even bigger threat—was killed by Joseph Stalin. According to O’Reilly (and literally no one else), Patton was going to convince President Truman and the U.S. Congress to reject the cozy peace that eventually allowed the U.S.S.R. to set up its “Iron Curtain” of client states, and Stalin had him killed to stop this from happening.

Of course, Patton had been in a car wreck, was paralyzed, and none of his doctors was at all surprised when he passed away in his sleep a few days later. There’s absolutely no reason to think he was murdered—or that the Russians, even if they were worried about his intentions, would feel the need to when he was clearly on death’s door.