# Conspiracy Buffs: Why Kill JFK? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 28, 2015, 5:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conspiracy-buffs-why-kill-jfk/713832 "2015-02-28T05:26:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 9
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2015, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conspiracy-buffs-why-kill-jfk/713832/162 "2015-05-13T17:12:58Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > Plum already said it plainly: “The government lies to us.” Therefore the official account _must_ be a lie. All else is [del]finding[/del] [del]inventing[/del] fabricating details to make that so. > > Heh. Can you imagine being Oswald’s drinking buddy/co-Commie who talked the ideas through with him, and spending the rest of your life waiting for the knock the door? Right. The official account is lies, all lies. Kennedy wasn’t really president. He was shot by a curare poisoned blowgun, not a rifle. He wasn’t killed, he’s still alive. He wasn’t riding in a limousine, but on elephant back. He was secretly a woman. And he wasn’t even in Dallas at the time of the non-assassination, which was actually three days later. If we start with the axiom that the official account is a lie, then what next? Oswald can’t be what he appears–a lone nut with a gun. He must–MUST–be something else, because otherwise the official account is true, and we know that it can’t be true. But if that’s the only thing we know for sure, that Oswald was not a lone nut with a gun, then we’re left with nothing, since nothing else makes any sense. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2015, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conspiracy-buffs-why-kill-jfk/713832/163 "2015-05-13T19:14:54Z")
> [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#): > > Oh, come on, you’re being needlessly mean. His point is valid,\* assuming a conspiracy\*. > > I believe Plums is basically describing the “Parallax View” version of the conspiracy. In this, a “patsy” is maneuvered into position to look like he is an assassin, and to be killed before he can reveal anything to prove he is not. > > In this case, “they” found the perfect one in Oswald. He’s already close to actually assassinating JFK anyway, so they use him as the patsy. Oswald bought the rifle, but “they” couldn’t be sure he would actually shoot, or actually hit JFK, so they used their own shooter. When Oswald ISN’T the shooter, he realizes he’s being set up. He believes (correctly, _assuming a conspiracy_) that he will be killed before he can talk, so he runs. When he gets stopped by the trooper, he incorrectly assumes the trooper is one of “them” and he is about to be killed. Turns out he was wrong. But, in Plums’ theory, there _was_ someone intending to kill Oswald, he just didn’t get a chance before Oswald was arrested (or, he was Ruby.). > > The beauty of this kind of CT is that the facts of the actual assassination fit whether or not Oswald was the shooter. It’s the perfect closed-loop scenario. You don’t even have to specify who “they” is. > > Don’t let my user name fool you - I don’t believe this. But it isn’t as eye-rollingly bad as you imply. The problem with this theory is that Oswald wasn’t living the life of a stereotypical crazed loner. He was a married family man who worked a regular job. If he was recruited by some mysterious conspiracy group, somebody would have noticed. But Oswald never received secretive phone calls or letters or met with any mysterious strangers. If Oswald was recruited as a patsy, who was giving him his orders? ---
**Author:** ![doorhinge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a5b964/32.png) [@doorhinge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doorhinge)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2015, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conspiracy-buffs-why-kill-jfk/713832/164 "2015-05-13T20:01:57Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > …If Oswald was recruited as a patsy, who was giving him his orders? (post shortened) Lyndon Baines Johnson, of course. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2015, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conspiracy-buffs-why-kill-jfk/713832/165 "2015-05-13T20:39:11Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > The problem with this theory is that Oswald wasn’t living the life of a stereotypical crazed loner. He was a married family man who worked a regular job. …handed out communist literature on streetcorners, took sudden trips to Mexico City to try and get into Cuba, posed for pictures with his guns in the backyard, took nighttime sniper shots at generals, had basically deserted as a Marine, married a Russian woman and then been thrown back out of the USSR… yep, Joe Sixpack. I don’t see any reason he couldn’t have been conspiring on the QT from his “normal guy” life. But the utter lack of evidence that anyone was in on the planning or even encouragement means you could substitute almost anything for “JFK assassination” - being gay, communicating with aliens, planning to blow up a supermarket, having an affair… ---
**Author:** ![42fish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/4/b487fb/32.png) [@42fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/42fish)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2015, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conspiracy-buffs-why-kill-jfk/713832/166 "2015-05-14T17:47:10Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > Right. The official account is lies, all lies. … He was shot by a curare poisoned blowgun, not a rifle. Ironically, that’s not too far from an actual conspiracy theory: “Another theory proposed by Robert Cutler and endorsed by Colonel L. Fletcher Prouty is that the umbrella may have been used to fire a dart with a paralyzing agent at Kennedy to immobilize his muscles and make him a “sitting duck” for an assassination.” ([Umbrella man (JFK assassination) - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umbrella_Man_%28JFK_assassination%29)) ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2015, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conspiracy-buffs-why-kill-jfk/713832/167 "2015-05-14T17:53:54Z")
> [@42fish](#): > > Ironically, that’s not too far from an actual conspiracy theory: “Another theory proposed by Robert Cutler and endorsed by Colonel L. Fletcher Prouty is that the umbrella may have been used to fire a dart with a paralyzing agent at Kennedy to immobilize his muscles and make him a “sitting duck” for an assassination.” And, as any devoted reader of this and other JFKCT threads know, it would have been completely unnecessary, since his massive back brace essentially paralyzed him anyway and contributed to making the kill shot possible. This one’s up there with an elaborate conspiracy that places JFK in a parade float carefully made up to look like a Lincoln Continental… ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2015, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conspiracy-buffs-why-kill-jfk/713832/168 "2015-05-14T18:06:00Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > …handed out communist literature on streetcorners, took sudden trips to Mexico City to try and get into Cuba, posed for pictures with his guns in the backyard, took nighttime sniper shots at generals, had basically deserted as a Marine, married a Russian woman and then been thrown back out of the USSR… yep, Joe Sixpack. You’re missing my point, which is that we know all this stuff about Oswald. Yes, he was alone when he shot Kennedy but he didn’t live alone. He was always around people like his wife, his family, his friends, and his co-workers. So we can reconstruct pretty much everything he did in the final weeks of his life. If Oswald had been part of a conspiracy, we’d know about it. There would have been times when he slipped away to meet people or when he talked to people on the phone. If he was being set up to take the fall, somebody would have had to tell him where to be when Kennedy was killed. And if any of this had happened, the people around Oswald would have seen it. But nobody saw it because it didn’t happen. ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2015, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conspiracy-buffs-why-kill-jfk/713832/169 "2015-05-14T18:13:14Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > So we can reconstruct pretty much everything he did in the final weeks of his life. Understood; concur. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2015, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conspiracy-buffs-why-kill-jfk/713832/170 "2015-05-15T16:47:00Z")
Poor Oswald. He was an angry failure at practically everything else he tried in life. The one time he succeeds, and people are trying to find someone else to pin it on. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2015, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conspiracy-buffs-why-kill-jfk/713832/171 "2015-05-18T15:46:23Z")
The Kennedy thing has been done to death, but I still have two questions: -are any Federal documents relating to the event or investigation still “sealed”-till when? -I have long suspected that Oswald had some very strange relationship with the CIA-has anything on this ever been published? ---
**Author:** ![CurtC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ce73a5/32.png) [@CurtC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CurtC)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2015, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conspiracy-buffs-why-kill-jfk/713832/172 "2015-05-18T20:10:26Z")
The [Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/President_John_F._Kennedy_Assassination_Records_Collection_Act_of_1992) stipulates that: > [@](#): > > The Act requires that each assassination record be publicly disclosed in full, and be available in the collection no later than the date that is 25 years after the date of enactment of the Act (i.e., October 26, 2017), unless the President of the United States certifies that: (1) continued postponement is made necessary by an identifiable harm to the military defense, intelligence operations, law enforcement, or conduct of foreign relations; and (2) the identifiable harm is of such gravity that it outweighs the public interest in disclosure. About Oswald’s relationship with the CIA: Oswald was in the Marines, had defected to the USSR, and then came back, was busily doing his penny-ante advocating for the communists in Cuba, and had tried to get into Cuba through Mexico. So of course the CIA was aware of Oswald. On the other hand, they would have to be nuts to be using him as any kind of asset. ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2015, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conspiracy-buffs-why-kill-jfk/713832/173 "2015-05-19T15:10:11Z")
> [@CurtC](#): > > The [Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/President_John_F._Kennedy_Assassination_Records_Collection_Act_of_1992) stipulates that: > About Oswald’s relationship with the CIA: Oswald was in the Marines, had defected to the USSR, and then came back, was busily doing his penny-ante advocating for the communists in Cuba, and had tried to get into Cuba through Mexico. So of course the CIA was aware of Oswald. On the other hand, they would have to be nuts to be using him as any kind of asset. What leads you to think that the CIA would not have used Oswald? The CIA itself was led by mentally unstable types-like James Angleton (whose obsession with Soviet moles nearly destroyed the agency). They also recruited criminals, sex offenders, and other unsavory types, over the years. I have very little faith in the CIA-despite all the money spent on them, they often deliver bad or plain wrong information. ---
**Author:** ![spifflog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c5a1d2/32.png) [@spifflog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spifflog)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2015, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conspiracy-buffs-why-kill-jfk/713832/174 "2015-05-19T19:20:54Z")
> [@ralph124c](#): > > What leads you to think that the CIA would not have used Oswald? Why would they? This wouldn’t have been some third world deputy dictator in a small Latin American county that no one had heard of that you were trying to assassinate. This was, well, the leader of the firck’n free world. If this gets out, the entire CIA might have been closed down, or at the very least, torn down to the studs. Are you putting this whole operation and the secrecy that was required in the hands of a nut bag attention whore ---
**Author:** ![CurtC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ce73a5/32.png) [@CurtC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CurtC)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2015, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conspiracy-buffs-why-kill-jfk/713832/175 "2015-05-19T20:30:15Z")
> [@spifflog](#): > > If this gets out, the entire CIA might have been closed down, or at the very least, torn down to the studs. Are you putting this whole operation and the secrecy that was required in the hands of a nut bag attention whore I don’t think he’s proposing that the CIA was using Oswald for the assassination, just that there was some previous cooperation between them. I highly doubt that because Oswald was such a flake and in no position to help the CIA. ralph124c, sure, the CIA had relations with unsavory types, but those people were in a position to be used for the CIA’s goals. Oswald was a nobody. ---
**Author:** ![Plums1974](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/bc79bd/32.png) [@Plums1974](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Plums1974)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2015, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conspiracy-buffs-why-kill-jfk/713832/176 "2015-05-24T17:20:47Z")
Speaking of the CIA lying to us, did you see the Frontline on the torture questions? Problem is there are two stories about how it went down and if torture produced actionable intelligence. One story is being told by the CIA the other is being told by Senate investigators. Who’s telling the truth is anybody’s guess. ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2015, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conspiracy-buffs-why-kill-jfk/713832/177 "2015-05-24T18:53:52Z")
> [@Plums1974](#): > > Speaking of the CIA lying to us, did you see the Frontline on the torture questions? I am not a moderator, but please start a new thread if you want discussion on this. This thread is of continuing value on its topic and is NOT a general “evil gummint” omnibus. ---
**Author:** ![Plums1974](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/bc79bd/32.png) [@Plums1974](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Plums1974)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2015, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conspiracy-buffs-why-kill-jfk/713832/178 "2015-05-25T18:14:38Z")
Of course you’re correct. I’m sorry. I’ll keep this in mind for the future. Plums [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conspiracy-buffs-why-kill-jfk/713832.md?page=8)