Posted on 11/23/2003 6:40:47 AM PST by GaryL
CNN reporter Kelly Wallace stands in Dallas' Dealey Plaza and points to the Texas School Book Depository window where, she says, Lee Harvey Oswald is "thought'' to have shot President John F. Kennedy on Nov. 22, 1963 -- 40 years ago Saturday. Then she and the anchor chat about the various conspiracy theories surrounding the assassination and conclude that the truth will probably never be known.
That's nonsense. And worse, it's popular nonsense. The truth is known. Oswald, acting alone, murdered JFK. We know this with as much certainty as we know anything in history. And just as we don't speak of the "alleged Civil War'' or the "supposed sinking of the Titanic,'' so to give credence to the lingering and numerous wild theories about the assassination of JFK is an unwise pandering to folklore and uncritical thinking.
Rather than continue to ask if there is any validity to these imaginings, we should wonder why they are so popular in the first place.
Several answers come to mind. People equate skepticism with independence. If the government says the sky is blue, a certain slice of the population would begin to doubt it. People also seek meaning in their lives. The idea of random tragedy, of a lone lunatic being able to destroy a man such as John F. Kennedy, is difficult to accept. They would rather cling to enticing accidents of history -- did you know that Richard M. Nixon was in Dallas the day before the assassination? -- than face a world where bad things happen for no reason at all.
Credulous media coverage by shallow reporters makes the situation worse. Balancing unequal arguments seems like fairness to them. Thus the Warren Report is weighed against Oliver Stone's fevered fantasies, just as science is pitted against UFO fanatics or, occasionally, the historical record of World War II is forced to justify itself to Holocaust deniers.
There is a human need to see order in chaos. We see it in every corner of human experience. It's what causes us to see animal figures in the stars. But the beauty of Western Civilization is that we have a commitment to empirical reality, and dry fact tells us that, despite the desires of our hearts, Elvis is not alive. The Jews don't run the world. And Kennedy was killed by Lee Harvey Oswald, acting alone.
The Italians have a word, "dietrologia,'' which translates as the tendency to find shadowy motives behind the obvious. That is what is going on here. Oswald was a skilled marksman. He shot Kennedy at what amounted, for him, at close range. The endless skepticism and analysis are a waste of time, and, worse, they distract attention that might otherwise be devoted to the actual trials and triumphs of Kennedy's short-lived, long-ago administration. Forty years is long enough for wild speculation to be indulged. It's time to stop humoring the conspiracy buffs.
Well put. He was a great talker, but indecisive in critical situations. Not a good thing at the height of the Cold War with a nut like Kruschev on the other side.
I was watching C-Span yesterday and Bob Schieffer got downright angry at the mention of the book. They're doing everything they can to protect LBJ.
Convicted killer and LBJ hitman Mac Wallace's fingerprint was found in the sniper's nest.
The fact that they sealed it instead of destroyed it may mean that they knew they would be found out and they want the truth to be known about their motives. There may be explanations as to why they killed Kennedy. Maybe this scenerio isn't probable, but wouldn't it be amazing if that was the case.
The grassy knoll was forward and to the right, the opposite of the direction of JFK's head's motion.
If you agree that every action has an equal and opposite reaction, then his head moving backward and to the left may be inconsistent with a shot being fired from the front right.
My view is that the wound on the back of Kennedy's head was an entrance wound, and that the much larger wound on the front right side was an exit wound. I believe that the force of his brain and blood exploding out of front right side caused his head to move backward and to the left. The exit wound would have had a much more profound effect on the ultimate motion of Kennedy's head than the entrance wound would have, because the exit wound was so much larger.
The fox was in charge of the henhouse so all evidence that pointed to conspiracy was ignored by officialdom. The Mac Wallace print was the only print unidentified until recently. With LBJ's attourney now letting the truth out, Mac Wallace became a suspect. Being that he was a convicted killer, his prints were on file. They were compared and it was a match. It was on the History Channel. You probably refused to watch though, huh?
Re: the fingerprint:
On the word of the fingerprint expert (whose name was possibly Darby, but don't hold me to that). He was a renowned expert, and identified the print on 34 points--considered to be so high an id as to be irrefutable.
But oddly, the Feebs, when they took the information and evidence from him, after 18 months of silence on the matter, declared that it was not Wallace's print. I wonder why.
I saw the interviews with two eyewitnesses last night (Tippet murder) who claimed they saw the killer. Their descriptions of the man they saw were almost completely opposite. A decent defense lawyer would have had a field day with that crime.
Yeah, I noticed that as well. Today's newsrooms seem to be less, rather than more, skeptical of government these days.
It was interesting to see the videotapes of Oswald being led away as reporters asked him questions, right up close. Several times Oswald said, "I didn't shoot anybody." When one reporter asked him if he was in the depository building at the time of the assassination he replied, "Naturally, since I work there."
I agree with you that the killing of Oswald is the most disturbing piece of the whole puzzle.
What would James Jesus Conincidence say,.....?
Sapper: I looked at the link and noticed that the HSCA also stated:
1. Oswald fired 3 times. (According to conspiracists that's impossible given the type of rifle in time required).
You misstated. Not impossible to fire, - impossible as per the Reports single bullet theory.
2. Oswald hit JFK from behind on the 2nd. (I notice nothing mentioned about the Connelly injuries. So did the HSCA believe the "magic bullet"?)
Good question..
3. The 3rd shot FIRED FROM BEHIND killed JFK. (Impossible according to conspiracists - back and to the left.)
Again, not impossible, but back/left was improbable with a FMJ type bullet. Expansive type bullets are very liable to cause such reactions.
So if there was a 2nd shooter - What, if anything, did he hit?
The only thing we are 'sure' of, according to the Report itself, is that the so-called pristine FMJ bullet hit Connelly. All else is theory. Badly written and reasoned Commission theory. Read the Report.
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