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Case Closed: a letter to Gerald Posner (re: Kennedy assassination)
AMNation.com ^ | 11/23/03 | Lawrence Auster

Posted on 11/25/2003 1:51:37 PM PST by veronica

I paid no attention to the many television programs broadcast this past week on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of President Kennedy’s assassination. The reason for my lack of interest was that the questions about the assassination that had obsessed me all my life—and not only the factual questions, but the deeper moral and emotional issues left by Kennedy’s killing—were resolved for me by Gerald Posner’s 1993 book Case Closed. Here is a letter I wrote to Posner about his book ten years ago, shortly after the 30th anniversary of the assassination: December 15, 1993

Dear Mr. Posner:

I would like to tell you how deeply grateful I am to you for your magnificent book, Case Closed.

Over the years, I had shared the general sense that we did not have the truth about the Kennedy assassination. While I never gave credence to the various wild conspiracy theories, I did feel that there was probably a second gunman, and perhaps Mafia involvement. But it seemed impossible ever to get closer to the truth. A year or two ago there were new television programs and articles about the assassination with some interesting information, but trying to follow the issues that were raised only led one into a morass of confusion.

One of the problems was that, while the conspiracy proponents seemed a contemptible bunch (especially Oliver Stone, who I think is truly evil), the defenders of the Warren Commission report, such as David Belin, also seemed fishy. They just went after the most obvious weaknesses in the conspiracy theories while blandly and self-righteously insisting on the “total correctness” of the obviously flawed Warren report. (It was that same sort of bland defense of the Warren report, the glossing over of its many troubling flaws and gaps, that had helped set off the conspiracy paranoia, along with the general suspicion of our government, back in the mid 1960s.) The Warren defenders never responded to the hard questions that continued to trouble me and everyone else who thought about the issue; and they never seemed to appreciate the fact—which you certainly bring out in your book—that there were many odd events surrounding the assassination that could reasonably give rise to suspicions of a conspiracy. It was all terribly, deeply frustrating. It seemed that this mystery would last forever, and that there was no point in even trying to figure it out.

Then one day this past September, at the National Airport in Washington, D.C., I picked up the U.S. News and World Report with the long excerpt from Case Closed. Reading the article on the shuttle flight back to New York, I experienced an epiphany. The clarity of your presentation, your story of Oswald, the fascinating new information about the timing of the shots and many other things all added up to an account that for the first time in all these years had the ring of truth. The magazine excerpt, of course, did not answer all my questions (I had to wait to read the book for that), but it did satisfy me that Oswald did it alone. Oswald emerged as a totally believable, real person, not this shadowy figure upon whom the conspiracy theorists could cast any fantasy they wanted.

There is another, perhaps unintended, benefit of Case Closed. Reading it made me realize that for years, all the bedeviling issues surrounding the assassination had blocked the assassination itself—the horror and tragedy and poignancy of it—from full consciousness. The conspiracy theories had become the main historical event, not Kennedy’s terrible death and what it did to the country. But your account, by clearing away those questions, has restored the assassination itself as an event in my experience and I think our collective experience as well. It was as though I began feeling the trauma and the meaning of Kennedy’s death afresh, undiminished after three decades.

Apart from the tragedy of the event itself, it was truly a fateful turning point in our country’s history—but, I believe, in a sense exactly opposite to what Oliver Stone imagines. Rather than marking the rise of Stone’s fictional militaristic right-wing to national power, it marked the rise to influence of a left-wing culture of alienation typified by people like Oliver Stone himself. These members of the adversary culture, unable to absorb Kennedy’s murder as the terrible event it was, chose to see it as a confirmation that America itself was evil, that America would always block the exaggerated hopes for unlimited individual fulfillment and social progress that Kennedy seemed to personify for many people. It was shortly after Kennedy’s death that the deadly notion became current that the “system” was blame for everything, thus turning Americans against their own country. Of course, the rise of black rage, the Vietnam war and so on were also important parts of this historic catastrophe, but the Kennedy assassination was crucial.

The unresolved assassination puzzle also fed the alienating notion that truth is indeterminable, that all we can know are self-serving narratives. This idea opens the gates to all kinds of viciousness. For example, the egregious Stone could present his paranoid fantasy as a revelation of “hidden truth” to a mass audience of millions of unformed, suggestible minds, and at the same time cover himself with the elites by saying that his movie was a mere “counter-myth,” not intended to be a factual presentation. Thus he got to convince millions of people that horrible lies were the truth, while denying that that he was doing anything of the kind. With Case Closed, you have not only uncovered the specific truth of the assassination; you’ve demonstrated that truth itself exists and can be known.

But for me, what is most remarkable about Case Closed is that this old festering sore of uncertainty and discouragement surrounding the assassination, which I never expected to be cured, has been cured. In bringing the truth to light out of all that confusion, you have performed not only a great public service, but a heroic act.

Sincerely yours,

Lawrence Auster


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: caseclosed; conspiracy; geraldposner; jfk
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To: SoCal Pubbie
I'm not asking what Posner speculates or postulates. I'm asking what Oswald's motive was. Are you saying that this bit of psychochat by Posner was, in fact, Oswald's motive?
161 posted on 11/26/2003 9:12:28 AM PST by per loin
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To: SoCal Pubbie; veronica; Poohbah
Interesting items. Of course, the fact that JFK was trying to take out Castro would have endeared him to Fidel a little as well...

The facts point to Oswald as the lone shooter. He'd practiced shooting in Russia, AND one interesting item that came up in the March/April 1993 American Handgunner - Massad Ayoob noted that Oswald may have been left-eye dominant.

The rifle in question was a right-handed Mannlicher-Carcano M1891 carbine. If Oswald were left-eye dominant, he might have used his LEFT hand to pull the trigger, the right hand manipulating the bolt. Ayoob reported that TWO shooters using this technique were able to fire shots within the 1.6-second interval that was the shortest interval between shots.

Oswald went after Kennedy so he could live in Cuba. The only POSSIBLE conspiracy would be if the Cubans had made a commitment that if Oswald killed JFK and made it out, he'd get asylum in Cuba.

Massad Ayoob's done a lot of writing on this. Conspiracy angles were effectively debunked by Tom Clancy in an essay.

Between Posner, Ayoob, and Clancy, I do not see how any conspiracy other than a basic murder-for-hire writ large (the Cubans promising asylum to Oswald in exchange for whacking JFK) can be sustained by the evidence.

I suppose some folks are trying to find some way to dismiss the facts: A loser got a cheap rifle and blew Camelot to smithereens so he could live in Cuba.
162 posted on 11/26/2003 10:07:31 AM PST by hchutch ("I don't see what the big deal is, I really don't." - Major Vic Deakins, USAF (ret.))
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To: per loin
Have you never heard of "15 minutes of fame?" What was John Hinckley's motivation? Or Squeaky Frum (who attempted to assassinate Ford)?
163 posted on 11/26/2003 10:10:52 AM PST by GaryL
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To: SoCal Pubbie
VERY well put.
164 posted on 11/26/2003 10:16:56 AM PST by _Jim ( <--- Ann Coulter speaks on gutless Liberals (RealAudio files))
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To: per loin
I'm asking what Oswald's motive was.

I'm taking it that per loin is completely unfamiliar with Oswald's history ...

165 posted on 11/26/2003 10:18:16 AM PST by _Jim ( <--- Ann Coulter speaks on gutless Liberals (RealAudio files))
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To: per loin
I'm not asking what Posner speculates or postulates. I'm asking what Oswald's motive was.

Oswald is dead. Anything anyone says about his motivation is speculation. Only best guesses can be made. That, however, does not mean he had no motivation.

166 posted on 11/26/2003 10:32:43 AM PST by Tares
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To: The Wizard
My middle finger is raised towards you.
167 posted on 11/26/2003 10:42:20 AM PST by Az Joe
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To: GaryL; Tares
I suggest that both of you learn to distinguish between the terms "motive" and "motivation".
168 posted on 11/26/2003 11:10:44 AM PST by per loin
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To: _Jim
I'm taking it that per loin is completely unfamiliar with Oswald's history ...

And I'd guess that not to be your first mistaken assumption.

169 posted on 11/26/2003 11:12:55 AM PST by per loin
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To: SoCal Pubbie
I wasn't sure so I erred on the conservative side. I really can't imagine a badly wounded person moving two to three inches in 1/18TH of a second.
170 posted on 11/26/2003 11:28:42 AM PST by Shooter 2.5 (Don't punch holes in the lifeboat)
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To: per loin
Ok...Oswald was a nutcase whose "motive" was "15 minutes of fame," like John Hinckley and Squeaky Frumm and other nutcases who have workded their way into history. Is that better for you?
171 posted on 11/26/2003 11:51:53 AM PST by GaryL
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To: All
On this same point: Can anyone please tell me why is it that we have to go into these elaborate psychological contortions trying to figure out what exactly was the motivation...Oops, sorry, per loin! I meant "motive"... for this nutcase Oswald?

Nobody seems to care why John Hinckley tried to assassinate Reagan, other than the guy was an obvious nutcase. But Oswald! We must know exactly what was going through his mind!!

If Hinckley had succeeded, would we be doing this same elaborate psychological analysis on him? Somehow, I doubt it.

Could it possibly be that we do this because Kennedy was a liberal media darling, and Reagan?...well, he was just a lowlife Republican. Just a rightwing reactionary. No need to analyze why someone would try to take him out. Or so it seems.
172 posted on 11/26/2003 12:17:15 PM PST by GaryL
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To: GaryL
That's a bit better. Now, looking at Oswald on November 15, 1963, would a person, reasonably informed of the public events of Oswald's life, likely say that he had a motive to kill Kennedy?
173 posted on 11/26/2003 1:22:16 PM PST by per loin
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To: SoCal Pubbie
As I'm sure you know, ALL the doctors who actually worked on JFK in a vain attempt to save his life all were allowed years later to view the autopsy photos in the national archives. Each and EVERY one agreed that the wounds were the same as what they saw that day in Dallas.

Interesting that you should mention that. I assume you were watching the same Nova special I saw. All of those same doctors, when asked where the head wound was, indicated that the back of his head was blown out. I'd be curious to see those autopsy photos that corroborated those statements.

174 posted on 11/26/2003 1:26:45 PM PST by Junior_G
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To: per loin
O Lord!...I give up! Someone else please pick this up! I give up!
175 posted on 11/26/2003 1:59:58 PM PST by GaryL
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To: GaryL
You're too easy. Next!
176 posted on 11/26/2003 2:05:50 PM PST by per loin
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Comment #177 Removed by Moderator

To: iamfarouk
After a full week of non-stop debate on this I am worn out. It seems that every and any theory anyone comes up with somehow does not fit the available evidence enough to close the case.

There is a truth there but I don't know for sure what it is. I think that Oswald did it alone from the TSBD. I think that fits most of the evidence. Doesn't mean I am not open to new evidence or new technologies examining new evidence and coming up with new conclusions.

Is there a stranger case in all the annals of crime? I don't think so.
178 posted on 11/26/2003 3:50:48 PM PST by Az Joe
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To: Az Joe
No stranger case...

That's why I like it, like an ongoing chess game that everyone can play with new way the players can move as time goes on.

i.e. I'm new to the Oswald gets to be a hero in Cuba thing.

How's that go?

Did some handler promise him a ride?

Somebody from the George DeMorsechild (sp?) oil/CIA camp?

179 posted on 11/26/2003 6:05:26 PM PST by norraad
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To: Az Joe
There are so many theories and even people confessing, I don't think we'll ever know the truth to any certainty.
180 posted on 11/26/2003 6:10:40 PM PST by breakem
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