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.

[David]

Well with all due respect, there is a reasonable basis on which to doubt both of your propositions.

Like most of America, during the first years after the assassination, I bought the party line--something like 80% of Americans were convinced that Oswald had acted alone. However a body of evidence then appeared, developed by people with limited investigation resources, demonstrating pretty clearly that Oswald could not have acted alone; he could not even have been the only shooter; there is real doubt whether he could have been in the so called shooter's site in the book depostory; there is doubt that he was a shooter at all.

So, like the overwhelming majority of Americans, in the period after 1968, I have moved to the conclusion that JFK was removed as president by forces who have sufficient influence to control the public investigations and the flow of evidence to the end that responsibility has never been ultimately fixed.

Could I be convinced otherwise? Sure. But anyone with any experience in the real legal enviornment recognizes all of the so called investigations which have been conducted as efforts to cover up most of the significant relevant evidence. No reason to have done that absent a purpose to keep the truth from coming out.

If you wanted to really lay the issue to rest, you would conduct a real investigation although probably difficult to do now given deterioration of the evidence, with a tribunal that was free to really find out what happened. I doubt that is going to happen.

[_Jim]

He was behind the stockade fence?

The officers/detective working the crime that day say "there was no way" anybody could have escaped detection up there (grasy knoll) that day "from the amount of people up there" (officer's/detective's words) -

- contrary to the few reported 'sitings' and unlike quite a number of reputable persons who saw Oswald in the TSBD window ...

[Steel Wolf]

'Oswald killed Kennedy' is as close to the truth as we'll ever get, and at this point, I don't see that it even matters anymore. Someone appears to have pulled a fast one on history, and there's nothing to be done about it.

Oswald was a very strange cat. Could he have killed Kennedy by himself? Sure, why not? Given the information we have now, it's the only story that adds up. I'll never believe that is the whole story, but unless Castro or whoever decides that he just can't keep it in any longer, and produces some wild new evidence, it's the only story that's worth recording for posterity.

[aculeus]

I've always been amused by a simple counting error made by many. They say Oswald could not have fired three shots in 5.2 (or 6.3 or whatever it was) seconds. They use Zapruder to time the shots starting with shot number one and ending with shot number three.

Using that timing method he didn't fire three times in 5.2 seconds. He only fired twice.

He had X seconds before squeezing the trigger on the first shot then he had 5.2 seconds to fire the next two. Two shots in that time period. Not three.

This error was pointed out years ago but the mistake lives on.

[TennTuxedo]

Didn't you know? The Cigarette Smoking Man pulled the trigger.

[rmgatto]

To follow up on your comment about Ted Splash Kennedy, isn't it about time for HIM to be laid to rest? I've about had it with that immoral, incoherent drunk.

[Senator Goldwater]

"The officers/detective working the crime that day say "there was no way" anybody could have escaped detection up there (grasy knoll)"

Unless they flashed phony credentials after the deed, like Secret Service badges.

[RANGERAIRBORNE]

For a long time I was openly contemptuous of anyone who doubted that Oswald was the lone assassin, motivated solely by his own personal inadequacy and rage.

I laughed at Oliver Stone (well, OK, I STILL laugh at Oliver Stone- he took every crazy theory out there, threw them in a blender, and used the result as a movie script).

BUT- there are intelligent and well-informed folks who don't buy this line. Some of them were around at the time, knew the people involved, and really do not swallow the Warren Commission Report- except that it was probably a necessary measure to "keep the lid on" and prevent domestic violence or even the start of a World War.

JFK was not beloved by a lot of wealthy and powerful people i this country, and there was a very real fear in some quarters that he was losing the Cold War to the Soviet Union through his recklessness and lack of any real grasp of the foreign policy problems. He looked good on TV, he gave great speeches and scripted press conferences, but he was essentially a rich-boy amateur playing with the toy his Daddy bought for him. One of the very least-qualified Presidents of this century

I think that there very likely WAS a conspiracy. I also think that we will never know the details. If there was a conspiracy, it could not have included very many people, or it wpould have come out by now. Certainly there would not be more than a dozen who knew the truth- probably fewer.

Conspiracy theories that try to drag in EVERYONE who hated Kennedy, from the Cuban emigre's to the Mafia to Big Oil barons in Texas, as well as the CIA, FBI, Dallas Police, etc etc (and probably little green men from Mars, to) are just nuts.

[RANGERAIRBORNE]

Re your Post #21- I think that we agree on this- I also think that, a generation from now, ours will be the "conventional wisdom" view (that is, that there was a limited conspiracy of some sort, but the chance to uncover it was lost with the Warren Commission cover-up).

[RANGERAIRBORNE]

Hmmm- has anyone else noticed that the cries from prominent Democrats to "move on" and stop trying to investigate this assassination have increased very markedly since a new book implicating LBJ in a conspiracy to kill Kennedy appeared?

I don't know if it means anything- if it does, it probably just indicates that the Democrats would really not want to see LBJ's REAL record of corruption and malfeasance investigated- bad for the Party, you know.

[texasbluebell]

Now, on the subject of 'your govt' that day - it was in the form of the Dallas Police Department - officers that day put their lives on the line in finding the culprit, Oswald, and attempting to apprehend him - ONE of those officers that day paid for that effort with his life (Officer JD Tippet)....The detectives working that case (JD Tippet's murder) and the Kennedy Assassination (it wasn't a federal crime to shot the presient at that time) have said that they "had enough evidence to convict Lee Harvey Oswald and get the death penalty" - there were NO DOUBTS in their minds who shot JFK ...

I know this won't matter to those who believe the WC etc. But just a few minutes ago, I was listening to phone tapes on CSPAN, made just days after the shooting. One of them was between Eugene Rostow, the Dean of Yale Law, and Bill Moyers, at that time aide to LBJ.

Rostow advised that in the face of the American people already not believing the Dallas PD that a commission should be set up to investigate the shooting.

There were already questions about the Dallas PD in those early days. This is not to say that most of them weren't doing the best they could, but there were massive problems recognized from the start, and that shouldn't be ignored.

I'll wait now for someone to shoot this down.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

I'm no fan of Peter Jennings but his 2 hour piece on ABC this past week wrapped this up in a neat bundle. Jennings also thoroughly demolished Oliver Stone's film which improperly wove actual footage of JFK's motorcade with Stone's fiction.
Too bad Jennings couldn't feel the same way about "the Reagans."

[E. Pluribus Unum]

One Zapruder film clip is worth a thousand words.

From which directions does the head shot come?

That is the only question you need to answer to know whether the Warren commission was right.

The Warren Commission said the head shot came from the rear.

My eyes say it came from the front.

[Pepper's_Paw]

One correction, please. The commission that investigate the assassination was the PRRESIDENT's Commission, not the Warren Commission.

[texasbluebell]

I think that's probably the only way this will ever be resolved in the future. To realize that there was some sort of conspiracy, but the players will remain unknown due to bungling of the WC.

The HSCA actually later determined that there was a conspiracy of some sort, and WC proponents always seem to gloss over that fact.

Why? Just because the WC came out first? Why do people ignore the HSCA report? I don't get it.

[upcountryhorseman]

That's great folks, but may I point out that Oswald never
went to trial and was never convicted of anything!

[RANGERAIRBORNE]

Of course you are correct- but "Warren Commission" has become pretty universal usage, and it works well as shorthand for the whole cover-up effort...

[upcountryhorseman]

Bravo! You win the jackpot.

[Pepper's_Paw]

On Jeopardy a couple of years ago, the question (or rather answer as the show goes)was something like this, "The Commission that investigated the Kennedy assassination was named this". The "correct" question was stated as "What was the Warren Commission". Obviously wrong. I would think that Jeopardy would insist on the correct reply.

Of course, that is not the only mistake made on Jeopardy.

[RANGERAIRBORNE]

" thoroughly demolished Oliver Stone's film "

I have started to wonder if perhaps a lot of these incredibly stupid, easily-debunked assassination conspiracy theories are not, in fact, part of a larger campaign of disinformation.

It is a classic technique to start rumors which can be easily disproven, in order to discredit the hard truth that you do not want to come to light. Magicians call it "misdirection".