Time to lay Kennedy conspiracy theories to rest

The Chicago Sun-TImes ^ | November 23, 2003 | Editorial

[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.

[#3Fan]

After parking at the company lot two blocks north of the Depository, Frazier saw Oswald take the long, bulky package into the building.

Actually, the driver said Oswald cupped the package between his palm and his armpit, therefore it was impossible for it to be the gun.

The sixth floor was in upheaval; workers were preparing to re-enforce the floor surface with plywood, and had opened up floor space by shifting boxes from along the west wall towards the east wall.

Yep, the building was owned by D.H. Byrd, an LBJ pal. They just happened to be redoing the floor up there during the assassination. A convenient excuse to have strangers running around the building that day setting up nests. Meanwhile Byrd was on a two-month trip to Africa. He would've stayed I'm sure had their plot been exposed (South Africa had no extradition policy). After two months he decided their little scheme had worked and returned. Plus, Byrd invested heavily in defense companies before leaving even though Kennedy had been planning to reduce involvement in Vietnam.

[willyboyishere]

Who was Oswald? Yes, good question, indeed, and the heart of the mystery. Try to get hold of Professor Peter Dale Scott's DEEP POLITICS AND THE DEATH OF JFK ( U of Cal. Press) and OSWALD TALKED by Ray and Mary LaFontaine (Pelican Publishing Co. 1996) You can disregard the ramblings of Judyth Vary Baker, who is currently working
on a novel about her "love affair" with Oswald during the period when they both worked at the Reily Coffee Co. in New Orleans. She in fact was acquainted with him (she was all of 19) but the intervening years have somehow blended modest fact with pot-boiler fiction. You may have seen her lengthy interview on the History Channel's THE MEN WHO KILLED KENNEDY, running the past week, up until yesterday.
Yet even she, who seems to have absorbed nearly ALL the cast of characters used by other conspiracy researchers, touches quite convincingly on a number of plausible scenarios as to who exactly Oswald was, who he "worked for", and how he got enmeshed, from playing both sides of the fence, into something he could not escape from. Do a Google search on her name and search out the outline of her
prospective novel, which will probably only be self-published if at all.

[Clintonfatigued]

Well, the government has itself to blame for this. The primary purpose of the Warren Commission was to restore public confidence in the government. That's not to say that the Warren Commission was corrupt, but they did hurry in their work and rush to judgement. Even "Case Closed" admits there are some omissions in the Warren Commission Report.

[#3Fan]

And just who the heck is "Mac Wallace"?

Malcom Wallace. Billie Sol Estes said he carried out hits for LBJ. His print was on a box in the sniper's nest. It went unidentified until Mac Wallace was fingered as a hitman for Johnson. Being that Wallace was a convicted murderer his prints were on file and a comparison was done and it was a match.

[#3Fan]

Who said they were a match? Was this the FBI fingerprint lab or the say-so of an author trying to sell more books?

Well of course the FBI wouldn't say it's a match, that would be basically admitting Hoover was a murderer. The History Channel hired a prodessional to do the match. Just another liar though huh? Amazing the number of liars in the world.

[willyboyishere]

Interesting info on the sixth floor of TSBD building I'd never heard before. Where did you get it? BTW, you're right, Frazier claims he saw Oswald cradle this small oblong package between his palm and under his armpit, and that would've never been possible for someone of Oswald's height, since, unless his arms, from under the armpit to the wrist/palm were apelike in length, they could've never accommodate the length of the Mannlicher-Carcano. Even broken down, the gun wouldn't have fit.

[Quix]

No theory to lay to rest!

Kennedy valiantly left the mistress to drown in the car at the bridge. Just a fact.

Oh, wrong Kennedy.

Ah welllll, the other one just had his philandering (and other activities) terminated.

Now why and who all was involved remains to be seen. But it was a LOT more than OSWALD ALONE.

[FreedomCalls]

Right. I claim one lier and you claim EVERY SINGLE FBI fingerprint expert in the entire agency, everyone in law enforcement, everyone in government, everyone related to the principals, hundreds of thousands of people, are liers and covering up a huge secret for the sake of a now dead LBJ. Apply Occam's Razor to this argument.

[Old Professer]

I summarized it here:

According to Peter Knight (from above clip), conspiracy theory is a malady of the masses useful for a short period but harmful over the long course to the ordering elements in society, i.e. the arbiters of what's good for you.

85 posted on 11/23/2003 1:08 PM CST by Old Professer

[FreedomCalls]

36 inches. I can fit 36 inches between my curled hand and my underarm.

[#3Fan]

Yes, that was Barr McClellan, a lawyer at the firm that did a lot of work for LBJ. He has come forward to implicate LBJ, although I am not sure why he waited 40 years.

Fear! They killed many in the 60s and 70s who knew the truth. He may think it's safe now.

Anyway, he was on this morning, doing a long talk promoting his theory. I'm not sure there is anything there, but since I always hated LBJ I am interested to see where this leads.

I think there is a lot there. I never knew who did it, I never thought LBJ did. But the indentification of convicted killer Mac Wallace's print in the sniper's nest and the ownership of the building by Byrd and his actions, both LBJ pals, makes it obvious to me.

What WOULD happen if it could be proven beyond doubt that LBJ was up to his bushy eyebrows in this thing?

We already know that he killed Marshall and nothing happened. Democrats would poo poo it and the media would call it ridiculous and that would be the end of it. And that is what is happening.

I honestly don't know- I suspect that there would be no possible level of proof that would convince diehard Democrats, and it would break down along Party lines, like everything else in this country.

I respectfully disagree. This is like a sports team to a lot of people. People have their beliefs and they're wedded to them, it doesn't matter what evidence you show them. They can't change their mind about the JFK assassination because it would prove to themselves that they were wrong about something important.

[GaryL]

You mean you summarized that entire massive post in these two little lines?? Unfortunately I still don't quite understand what it means. O well!

Thanks...I guess!

[texasbluebell]

Your 166 makes a lot of sense. I can see how that could happen, and it ties in with something I was thinking about.

It seems like no one has been talking about shots from a couple of the other buildings near the TSBD, at least not on the threads I've been reading these past few days.

But there are others who question the WC's veracity, who have problems with a couple of buildings where rear-shots could have come from, I'm trying to remember the name now, but was one called the Dal-Tex building? I'm not up on this part at all. There was one other building that was also a possibility for a rear-shot.

I don't know, we're never going to know for sure, we'll have to guess the rest of our lives because our govt doesn't think we can handle it, even at this late date, I suppose.

[_Jim]

Here's one for ya:

Question:

Who, if anyone, knew that Lee Harvey Oswald was an assassin prior to November 22,1963?

Answer:

On April 10, 1963, Lee Harvey Oswald attempted to assassinate General Edwin Walker, a right- wing leader in Dallas with a high-powered rifle, after aborting a previous attempt on April 5th.

The evidence of this assassination attempt includes

1. the testimony of his wife, Marina Oswald,
2. a note in his handwriting Russian describing what Marina should do, after the Walker shooting, if he were arrested, killed or had to go into hiding,
3. photographs of Walker's house from the sniper's position taken by Oswald's camera and pasted into Oswald's scrapbook, and
4. a Neutron Activation test that showed that the metallic elements found in the bullet that was recovered in Walker's home matched the ammunition used in Oswald's rifle in the assassination of Kennedy (This technology for this test, done in 1977, did not exist in 1963).

Oswald had told a number of people he knew that someone should shoot Walker a month prior to the shooting, and, on April 5th, when he made his first attempt, he had Marina take a photograph of him dressed in black, armed to kill with a rifle and telescopic sight, and holding in his hand the radical newspaper, The Militant. Those who reportedly knew that he was a self-styled assassin include:

1) Marina Oswald. She testified to the Warren Commission that when Oswald returned on the evening of April 10th, he explained to her that he had just attempted to kill General Edwin Walker with his rifle.

2) George De Mohrenschildt. He had seen Oswald's sniper's rifle. He had heard Oswald make rabid threats against Walker the prior month. He had received the photograph which was signed "For George, Lee Harvey Oswald" and dated April 5th, 1963 (Oswald's first attempt on Walker). If he had any doubts why Oswald was holding the rifle in the photo, Marina had scribbled on back in Russian "Hunter of Fascists. Ha. Ha" After he heard on the radio that a sniper had fired a shot at General Walker and, next day, he went over to Oswald's house to find out what had happened to the rifle. According to Marina's testimony, he had rushed up the stairs, and said "Lee, how did you miss General Walker?"

3) Jean De Mohrenschildt. According to Mohrenschildt, he had told his wife in April 1963, when he left Dallas to go to Washington DC.

4) J. Walter Moore, a CIA officer working in the CIA's Domestic Contact Division in Dallas, according to De Mohrenschildt. De Mohrenschildt told me that he had reported the Walker assassination attempt and the telltale "Hunter of Fascists" photograph to Moore.

5)Eusebio Azque, the Cuban counsel in Mexico City. Marina testified that Oswald brought photos of the Walker shooting to Mexico to support his request for a visa to go to Cuba. According to witnesses at the consulate, Oswald showed these photographs to Azque, and became involved in a heated argument with him about his bona fides as a Pro-Castro revolutionary.

http://edwardjayepstein.com/question_oswald2.htm

[_Jim]

It's frustrating, isn't it?

Absolutely MIND NUMBING at times ...

[jwalsh07]

Scroll down to the graphic with the reference lines on the three frames of film. The forward head movement from the initial hit and the rear movement from the jet effect, chin rebounding off chest and/or neurological reflex are quite well illustrated with reference lines drawn agaisnt the car for forward motion of the vehicle as a baseline.

McAdams on President Kennedys assasination

[#3Fan]

I think you're irresponsible and incapable of working with logic, facts and certainly intricate details that make a night and day difference. Please do not post to me with anymore of your hair-brained and unresearched ideas or 'theories'. All I have to do to get your perspective is loose about 100 IQ points ...

You're just a namecaller who can't discuss this rationally and "proves" things that no one denies. No one has denied that shots were fired from the Depository.

[Havoc]

I say we put it to rest after we get to the truth of who did it. Oswald did not shoot Kennedy. Furthermore, the more paperwork comes out as declassified, the more credible Stone's movie is. I say it's high time all the evidence was presented and handled in court in an official capacity.

[GaryL]

I like this one better:

http://graffiti.virgin.net/paul.seaton1/jfk/diagrams/kennedy_graphics5.htm

[_Jim]

You're just a namecaller who can't ..

Yes, and all my posts prove it time and time again.

Now, go away ...