In all the advice and wisdom my father passed on to me over the years, most of it turned out to be totally wrong. But a few of his maxims actually turned out to be dead-on true. Here’s one:
“The first rule of a conspiracy is, someone always shoots off their mouth.”
The Kennedy assasination would have to be the mother conspiracy of all time, whether it was plotted by the Mafia, the CIA, Castro, Kruschev or Joe the Bartender down the street. And after almost four decades, no one has been able to come up with a better explanation than “a lone nut with a gun.”
Remember, this is the same U.S. government that couldn’t keep the lid on a 3rd rate burglary at the Watergate. The same U.S. government that couldn’t keep a coup of the Diem government in South Vietnam quiet.
There are enough former KGB agents who would love to have enough money to live out their and their children’s lives, enough Mafia hitmen looking for the notoriety of Joe Valachi, enough Cuban emigrees with a score to settle against Castro, enough journalists looking for the Pulitzer Prize – that SOMEONE, SOMEWHERE, could come up with a plausible story that holds up under scrutiny. It hasn’t happened in 37 years.
People just don’t want to admit that one unhinged person with a gun can hold that much power. See also:
Booth, John Wilkes
Princip, Gavrilo
Sirhan, Sirhan
Bremmer, Arthur
Hinckley, John
Well…all I can say with certainty is “who knows”, after reading a lot of books on the subject.
I did believe, and still suspect there were multiple gunmen in Dallas, but then I read Posner’s Case Closed, and his ballastic theory. (Do any Dopers own guns…is it likely that JFK, being shot in the back of the head, would have his head jerk backwards, towards the shot?)
I have wondered, though, if any writer has seriously tried to suggest that the Cubans or Soviets were responsible. I’m not suggesting this–I think this theory is untenable (given many of the things noted in prior posts in this thread)…but I wonder if the John Birch Society, for one, tried to suggest it. Given Oswald’s political sympathies, I would have suspected that that would have been one of the conspiracy theories naturally arising out of the JFK assasination…that a group of pro-Soviets or pro-Castroites did the assassination, not just the lone man.
I feel compelled to make the point that if there were someone who stood up today and said, “There was a conspiracy, and I was involved,” provided documented evidence of phone calls and letters, and had corroborating witnesses, this issue would still not go away. The government would likely denounce him a fraud and stand by the Warren Commission’s findings. People who have labored for years over their pet theories will also throw the accusation of fraud around. There is enough doubt in peoples’ minds that Oswald will never be a satisfying answer, nor will anyone else. OJ, on the other hand, is still guilty.
kunilou’s point about the fact that you can’t keep a secret is a strong argument against any conspiracy theory. Any conspiracy in Kennedy’s assasination would require hundreds of people to be in on the secret. It is completely unrealistic to think that that many people could keep the assasination of our president a secret for almost 40 years.
If you want to browse a really thorough web site about the assasination, I recommend http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/home.htm . Anyone who’s interested enough in the assasination to read this thread, should spend two or three hours looking over this material.
After reviewing many sources, including a trip to the School Book Depository, I am absolutely certain that Oswald was the only person to fire shots, and he fired three of them. The first missed, the second passed through Kennedy and Connolly, and the third was the fatal head shot. I’m fairly certain that Oswald acted alone, being generally a nut case, but I will allow some leeway here - maybe someone involved in the Cuba controversy made a remark that Oswald interpreted to mean that Kennedy should be killed.
I will aceept Pthalis’ assertion that God (or Cecil) himself could issue the authoritative report on the Kennedy assasination and some people wouldn’t accept it.
But, I believe responsible historians, journalists and informed people who examine any unified theory (which is what a true conspirator would be delivering) would come to a general consensus of “maybe we don’t have all the details, but we pretty much agree on this much.”
It simply hasn’t come together like that. Was Oswald involved at all? Was there one gunman or several? Was Ruby involved in the conspiracy, or a wild card?
And the big question, who were they all working for, and why?
These are overriding issues that anyone with any first-hand knowledge of a conspiracy could answer. And the fact that there’s no agreement on any of those questions leads me to support the “lone nut theory.”
By the way, I too have been to the museum in Dallas. Whatever your stance on the assasination, I thoroughly recommend a visit just for the history attached to it. And if you want to look out the window to where the car was and draw your own conclusions, I’d recommend that, too.
There’s no way Oswald could have gotten three deadly accurate shots off in the time it took. He was a lousy shot in Marine Corps, too. And Posner’s book is a load of crap; one of the most glaring errors he makes is the location of Kennedy’s back wound.
My money’s on the CIA.
And the secret couldn’t be kept? Look at all the key people involved that died under mysterious circumstances. The players involved would know to keep their damn mouths shut and not even consider coming forward or risk being rubbed out. And how likely is it than any one person knows everything? Each person probably knew enough to get the job done, but not enough so that even if they did go public, no one would believe them.
Oswald, a military-trained marksman, couldn’t have pulled off three shots in 8.5 seconds??? This is 4.25 seconds to eject, reload, aim, and shoot. An FBI marksman pulled off the same feat in 4.5 seconds for three shots, with very little practice handling that weapon!
I’m not sure what location of the back wound you think is correct. Could it be the drawings Rydberg did for the Warren Commission which contradict the autopsy photos?
And about those “mysterious deaths,” the logical problems with this argument are too numerous to list here. You can read them at http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/deaths.htm .
Going back to the Dallas conspiracy, and I hate to go back to that, but I forgot to note in my last post that Ruby repeatedly said that he could not tell the truth as long as he was in Dallas, and asked to be transferred to Washington.
A prior post noted that many of those who knew about the conspiracy were rubbed out, although a following post purported to pooh-pah that. Many who had knowledge, however, were not eliminated, and they have been interviewed on TV, including the guy that said that he knew the hitman, but the hitman died (I thought he said he died somewhere in Central America, but the OP said it was France.)
Anyway, to connect Marilyn Monroe, JFK, Bobby, Ruby, and all the others who were killed (or committed suicide) and unite them into one vast conspiracy sort of satisfies the mind, which wants to tidy things up and makes for interesting speculations. Whether true or not.
I think too many people confuse the Warren Commission report with the lone gunman theory. It is entirley plausible that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone but that the Warren Commissions accounting of the facts are all screwed up, including the “magic bullet” theory.
I recommend the book, Conspiracy of One, that gives the case for Oswald being the lone shooter and the Warren COmmsion not having it right either.
Oswald was a lousy shot? He qualified as a sharpshooter in the Marine Corps. This meant he could hit a ten inch bull’s-eye from a minimum of 200 yards eight times out of ten with an M-1 rifle. It is the second highest marksman qualification in the Corps. This is all without a scope. Kennedy was 100 yards away from Oswald when he made his kill shot, added to the fact that he had a 4X scope attached to the rifle, made it an easy shot for Oswald. Also, how much time did you think he had? If there were 8.4 seconds between shot’s one and three, Oswald had plenty of time.
Posner’s book a load of crap? Care to elaborate? Also, I don’t know what you mean by back wound. It is my understanding that Kennedy was wounded in the neck and the head, not the back. Perhaps you mean Connally.
Tretiak: As a counter, I propose that anyone presuming a conclusive opinion on the JFK assassination first read Rush to Judgment and Plausible Denial, both by Mark Lane. The former utterly destroys the Warren Report and its version of the lone gunman theory, while the latter offers an interesting alternative.
I’ll point out, too, that virtually none of the objections raised in these books are addressed by Posner in Case Closed–a tract which seems as dogmatic, at times, as the most vigorous conspiracy theory.
I haven’t yet checked out Conspiracy of One. I’d be interested to see how it can postulate a single gunman absent the Commission’s tortuous logic.
As an aside, I think it’s facile to focus on the moment of assassination itself–whether Oswald could have made the shot, etcetera–when there are so many intriguing aspects of events before and after the fact. The fact of Oswald’s intelligence ties, for one, and his curious egress from the USSR; the way that (as documented by Lane) it appears as if an argument was being assembled for Oswald as assassin before the assassination even happened, which is a neat trick; the documented confusion as to the make of the rifle and the location of the head wounds (initial observations flatly contradict the Warren Report’s later findings); hell, Jack Ruby’s substantial ties within the intelligence community and the mob, if it comes to that, and Howard Hunt’s curious “nonpresence” in Dallas.
I dunno. I don’t have any particular axe to grind–no pet theory, no favorite villain–but there are two many holes in the “Oswald as crazed loner” hypothesis which I’ve never seen suitably addressed. (This is another book that I’m told presents an extremely strong documentary case against Oswald acting alone, though I’ve not yet read it myself.)
Have any of y’all who recommend Posner’s book read Lane’s takes? I’d love to know your opinions.
Argh. Too many holes, not “two many holes.” Damn thee, homonyms.
Dr. Lao: I believe the point at issue re: back wounds is that there’s a bullet hole in Kennedy’s jacket which would be impossible given the angle of the Depository. Posner explains it by claiming that the jacket was rumpled and thus the angle of entry was different than it appears–despite no documentary evidence to the affirmative.
Here’s one for all you guys who think Posner’s book is crap, who deny that Oswald was your basic nebbish assassin even the Marines finally decided was a fuck-up, who want to drag in Marilyn Monroe and Howard Hunt and the mayor of Dallas and god knows who else:
Three men were in Dallas the day of the assassination who served as president. JFK, of course, who came home in a box. LBJ, who authored civil rights legislation,established the Great Society and got us ass-deep in Viet Nam. And the third? None other than that dark prince of post-war politics, the man they couldn’t kill, Richard Milhous Nixon himself. He claimed he was there doing business with Pepsi for his law firm, but come on. He could have been there any day, but Nov 22? It strains credulity to believe that twisted, resentful, unloved man, who fit the mold of nebbish assassin pretty well himself, picked that day to be in Dallas. I don’t believe it and I don’t expect you conspiracy advocates to believe it either.
So come on guys. Show us a conspiracy worthy of the name. Put Dick in the picture. Do it for yourselves, or for history, or for capital-T truth, but do it.
We know someone else must have put Oswald up to it, because Oswald said, “I’m just a patsy!”. I mean, a recently-captured madman assassin wouldn’t lie, would he?
Damn, nothing slips past you, does it? Maybe we could have a McNeil Room mini-dopefest someday.
As to the memo you quote, the fact that the government was unwilling to consider the alternatives doesn’t have any bearing on whether Oswald actually did it. As a matter of fact, the Warren Commission report has probably been completely counter-productive in its intent of convincing people that Oswald acted alone.
