# New York Times: JFK conspiracy theorists need to be shunned. Agree? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 21, 2007, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-york-times-jfk-conspiracy-theorists-need-to-be-shunned-agree/404934 "2007-05-21T15:47:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 10
**Author:** ![Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hentor_the_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2007, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-york-times-jfk-conspiracy-theorists-need-to-be-shunned-agree/404934/181 "2007-06-20T17:29:03Z")
[QUOTE=BJMoose] (Since Bugliosi’s Endnotes are in a mere PDF file, I suspect bootleg copies of it will soon be wafting the Internet, with lawyers from W.W. Norton in hot pursuit. Serves 'em right.) [/QUOTE] Viral endnotes? I’ll believe that when I see it. ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2007, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-york-times-jfk-conspiracy-theorists-need-to-be-shunned-agree/404934/182 "2007-06-20T17:31:15Z")
And if you don’t already have, oh, pretty much everything in easily-accessed HTML and/or PDF form, they have all of the Warren Report, the HSCA report and appendices, and loads of other stuff in the archives of [History Matters Home Page](http://www.history-matters.com/index.htm) . And many of the essays have hyperlinks to the pertinent documents. Tons of fun for both/all sides of the issue! ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2007, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-york-times-jfk-conspiracy-theorists-need-to-be-shunned-agree/404934/183 "2007-06-20T18:07:24Z")
(Paging through “VI. Information not available at the time of the Warren Commission investigation”) Silvia Tirado (nee Duran) was a Mexican working at the Mexico City Cuban Consulate when Oswald came to get an intransit Cuban visa so he could continue on to the USSR. When told he couldn’t get one without a Soviet visa he said he had registered for one but it would take four months. He left and came back later, claiming to now have the Soviet visa but refusing to show it. he then got into an argument with the consul. So she slept with him. Dude may not’ve been a criminal mastermind but he had “something” and maybe it’s hidden in a back room at the Smithsonian along with Dillinger’s “something.” > [@The CIA](#): > > That the Mexican government did not disclose all the information in its possession to American raises one of three possibilities: > … > 2) Silvia Duran was a Mexican penetration agent… Sounds more like a “penetrated” agent. _rimshot_ Ms Duran had an affair with the then-Cuban Ambassador to Mexico. Who said diplomacy wasn’t fun? ---
**Author:** ![BJMoose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/5fc32e/32.png) [@BJMoose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BJMoose)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2007, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-york-times-jfk-conspiracy-theorists-need-to-be-shunned-agree/404934/184 "2007-06-21T15:53:38Z")
:rolleyes: Anyway. To return to some cold mutton: [QUOTE=gonzomax] On booktv last week ,they had a guy who wrote a book about the assassination. He said he was on the car when Kennedy got shot. (secret service). When he told the Warren Report investigators that he heard shots from the front ,they told him to change his testimony. Is it true. I do not know but it will never end. [/QUOTE] Last night while reading/sleepwalking through Bugliosi I came across this (Endnotes p. 696): In his book _Man of the House_ former House Speaker Thomas P. “Tip” O’Neill tells of a dinner he had with former Kennedy aide Kenneth O’Donnell who said he heard two shots from the grassy knoll. O’Neill, knowing that O’Donnell had testified otherwise to the Warren Commission, confronted him on it. Said O’Donnell: “Your’re right. I told the FBI what I had heard, but they said it couldn’t have happened that way and that I must have been imagining things. So I testified the way they wanted me to.” Hard to know what to make of it. It’s hard to imagine O’Neill making up a story like this. It’s also hard to imagine O’Donnell, the überloyalist, letting _anyone_ push him around. In Dallas, when Kennedy’s aides and SS agents were arguing (it was damn near a Donnybrook) with coroner Earl Rose about whether they could take the body without Rose first doing an autopsy, at one point O’Donnell flung at Rose what William Manchester rather quaintly called “a swart oath recommending monogenesis” (English translation: go fuck yourself). One suspects he would have said the same thing to anyone who tried to get him to change his testimony. Anyway, Bugliosi adds this observation: > [@](#): > > Actually, the allegation that the FBI influenced O’Donnell to change his story was first made in 1975, when a CIA “liaison man” told it to investigators for the Rockefeller Commission. When O’Donnell heard of it, he said, “The story is an absolute lie. I’m not accusing the reporter, but whoever gave that story is lying. It’s an absolute, outright lie.” (_Seattle Times_, June 14, 1975, p.A2) Since O’Donnell was riding in the Secret Service backup car at the time of the assassination, I suspect this is the story **gonzomax** heard the other day. ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2007, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-york-times-jfk-conspiracy-theorists-need-to-be-shunned-agree/404934/185 "2007-06-21T23:45:29Z")
> [@ralph124c](#): > > So now, we know that the president was killed by a cabal of unlikely allies: Cuban communists, mafia bosses, and Texas Rightwing nutjobs . So what? What would historians do with this? > [@BJMoose](#): > > What would historians do? I suspect most of them would laugh their bloody arses off. . . . And then they’d correct you, saying it was Anti-Castro Cubans, not the communists. And tied together by the CIA, which a competant historian, or anybody who has read a newspaper the past forty years, would know had documented connections with the Cubans (think Bay of Pigs) and who tried to kill Castro with the help of the Mob. The Rich Texas connection is harder to make but all four groups were chock full of the most rabid anti-communists around and the CIA, Cubans, and Mob all were very angry at JFK. Motive, means, and opportunity are easy to find with all of those groups and most had a DOCUMENTED history of working together. An historian would not find that combination funny at all. ---
**Author:** ![BJMoose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/5fc32e/32.png) [@BJMoose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BJMoose)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2007, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-york-times-jfk-conspiracy-theorists-need-to-be-shunned-agree/404934/186 "2007-06-22T17:33:12Z")
Ok. But to borrow a line from the marketing departments of Wendy’s and Mondale for President: Where’s the beef? Where is the evidence that this is what happened? Do these four groups have a DOCUMENTED history of working together to assassinate presidents? You know, motive, means and opportunity alone are not enough to prove that X committed such-and-such crime. Example: on 22 Nov. 1963 anyone in Dallas who despised the president (motive) and owned a gun (means) had the opportunity to kill Kennedy, who was a sitting duck. (In one of the grandest ironies of history, JFK acknowledged this fact just a few hours before his death.) Guess we should add all the Dallasites who belonged to the John Birch Society and the NRA to the list of assassins. . . . ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2007, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-york-times-jfk-conspiracy-theorists-need-to-be-shunned-agree/404934/187 "2007-06-22T20:22:46Z")
Motive, means, and opportunity are not the sole needs for a conviction, but together they should make a person or group “a person of interest.” Writing off such possibilities without first looking into them is a sign of an incomplete investigation. As for documentation of those groups working together, we may learn more when the CIA releases [its "family jewels.](http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB222/index.htm) However, it has been known since [1975](http://history-matters.com/archive/church/reports/ir/pdf/ChurchIR_3C_ExecAction.pdf) that, starting in November '61, the CIA and the Mob worked together on planning “executive action,” or assasinations of heads of state, under the ZR/RIFLE project. I’m trying to verify what I read about membership in the John Birch Society being a virtual requirement in the Dallas PD. ---
**Author:** ![melvin\_coznowski](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b487fb/32.png) [@melvin\_coznowski](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/melvin_coznowski)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2007, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-york-times-jfk-conspiracy-theorists-need-to-be-shunned-agree/404934/188 "2007-06-23T01:44:46Z")
I firmly believe that one of the best ways to discover what happened, if not the best way, is to simply exhume JFK’s remains and properly examine them. I also firmly believe that it’s extremely unlikely it’ll happen anytime soon. It nearly 150 years before Zachary Taylor’s remains were exhumed. [http://www.ornl.gov/info/ornlreview/rev27-12/text/ansside6.html](http://www.ornl.gov/info/ornlreview/rev27-12/text/ansside6.html) I don’t see any member of the Kennedy family approving exhumation anytime in the foreseeable future; maybe not for generations, if ever. But if it could be done, I’ve no doubt it would answer a lot of questions (even if it opened more). ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2007, 3:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-york-times-jfk-conspiracy-theorists-need-to-be-shunned-agree/404934/189 "2007-06-23T03:54:50Z")
I just want to pipe in with a gripe about the hijacking of investigations into the JFK assassination by the crop circles, cattle mutilations, Loch Ness Monster, Illuminati, and (it’s rarely “or”) Bigfoot crowd. They cause reasonable, thoughtful people who feel they have valid questions to be lumped in with paranoid schizophrenics who feel they have valid questions, the difference being the first group’s questions range from nutty to incisive while the second group’s questions range from nutty to incoherent. THOSE are the ones the NYT guy may want to shun, though they’re tons-o-fun and, anyway, we shouldn’t shun those who’ve missed their meds the past 30 years. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Hildo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/bbce88/32.png) [@Johnny\_Hildo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Hildo)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2007, 7:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-york-times-jfk-conspiracy-theorists-need-to-be-shunned-agree/404934/190 "2007-06-23T07:30:00Z")
[QUOTE=Zoe] Because I realize after forty-three years of scrutiny and mind-changing that I will never be solidly convinced one way or the other, you have taken it upon yourself to draw conclusions that that means: **I want there to be a conspiracy.**. [/QUOTE] No, this means you are lazy with your research and you are wrong. The evidence is there for anyone who doesn’t wear a tinfoil hat. ---
**Author:** ![BJMoose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/5fc32e/32.png) [@BJMoose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BJMoose)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2007, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-york-times-jfk-conspiracy-theorists-need-to-be-shunned-agree/404934/191 "2007-06-23T18:02:43Z")
[QUOTE=dropzone] Motive, means, and opportunity are not the sole needs for a conviction, but together they should make a person or group “a person of interest.” Writing off such possibilities without first looking into them is a sign of an incomplete investigation. As for documentation of those groups working together, we may learn more when the CIA releases [its "family jewels.](http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB222/index.htm) However, it has been known since [1975](http://history-matters.com/archive/church/reports/ir/pdf/ChurchIR_3C_ExecAction.pdf) that, starting in November '61, the CIA and the Mob worked together on planning “executive action,” or assasinations of heads of state, under the ZR/RIFLE project. I’m trying to verify what I read about membership in the John Birch Society being a virtual requirement in the Dallas PD. [/QUOTE] I take it, then, that you haven’t any actual _evidence_ that any of the groups you’ve named conspired together to kill Kennedy. When there is no evidence linking someone to the crime, a “person of interest” quickly becomes a “person of disinterest”. Again, where’s the beef? ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2007, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-york-times-jfk-conspiracy-theorists-need-to-be-shunned-agree/404934/192 "2007-06-25T15:38:38Z")
Dude, I’m working on it and will let you know, though standard practice appears to be to get a book deal before saying anything. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2007, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-york-times-jfk-conspiracy-theorists-need-to-be-shunned-agree/404934/193 "2007-06-25T17:31:21Z")
[QUOTE=Johnny Hildo] The evidence is there for anyone who doesn’t wear a tinfoil hat. [/QUOTE] Did you drop a LOT of poison in that well? Look, there are quite a few people without tinfoil hats who believe some variation of a conspiracy in the JFK assasination, some of whom know a hell of a lot more about forensics than any of us. Don’t be too fast dismissing all of them on the basis of a couple books that support your own viewpoint and ignore or, worse, laugh at any others. ---
**Author:** ![BJMoose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/5fc32e/32.png) [@BJMoose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BJMoose)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2007, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-york-times-jfk-conspiracy-theorists-need-to-be-shunned-agree/404934/194 "2007-07-03T16:08:50Z")
[QUOTE=dropzone] Dude, I’m working on it and will let you know, though standard practice appears to be to get a book deal before saying anything. 😉 [/QUOTE] ::sound of drumming fingers:: Well, we’re still waiting. Or does this mean you’ve been unable to find a smoking squirtgun in last week’s CIA document dump? (And if you can’t get the book deal, you can always self-publish, as so many conspiracy folks have. 😉 ) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-york-times-jfk-conspiracy-theorists-need-to-be-shunned-agree/404934.md?page=9)