Conspiracy 101: The Lone Gunman Deception

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

On the 22nd of November in 1963, my mother was working in the kitchen listening to a small transistor radio. As I walked through the kitchen, she announced that the president had been shot. Since that event, people of my generation have been intrigued by the whole circus of antics and attitudes regarding the cult of Kennedy. Few of us have been convinced by the Warren Commission Report that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone.

Kennedy had many enemies at home and abroad. John Birchers cheered his demise, overtly at first, covertly later. They turned their antipathy for Kennedy into an asset by supporting the Soviet Plot conspiracy theory to counter the John Bircher Plot conspiracy theory. Birchers had Oswald's sojourn to the USSR in their arsenal, while their detractors claimed that Jack Ruby had mafia ties. When the Eisenhower/Kennedy attempts to assassinate Castro came to light, Birchers used it to insinuate a Castro connection in retaliation.

Skepticism toward any lone gunman theory received support after the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993. It turned out that the perpetrators had ties to the acquitted assassin of Meir Kahane. The FBI made a case for a lone gunman in that trial despite evidence of a conspiracy discovered in the perpetrator's apartment. If official investigators could have deceived the public in the case of Kahane's killing, could they not also have deceived the public in the Kennedy case?

From a prosecutorial position, a lone gunman case is easier to convict. Conspiracy dilutes the guilt of the perpetrator by turning him into a tool. It also clouds the minds of jurors by confusing them with a complex scenario. This expedient applies to the Kahane case, but not to that of Kennedy. In that case, there may be more sinister reasons to favor a lone perpetrator (think John Birch Society).

Tea Partiers might insist that the government's long record of lying to the public is a good reason to cut off its funding. A more rational approach would favor greater transparency. (This is seen somewhat in the recent overt use of assassination.) If Tea Partiers were sincere in their boycott, they would take it to the polls as well.

What is your take on political assassination? Do you believe the Warren Commission? Do you have faith in the integrity of official investigators?

Comments

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

I'm fairly sure that yes, that Commie defector to the USSR really did kill Kennedy, and that yes, it is possible for a determined killer to kill anyone he or she really wants killed. Being POTUS is no guarantee against that. The special pleading about Oswald never seems to apply to other Presidential assassins, so I think it's also got to do with the wishful, myopic view that everything good that came from LBJ was really credited to JFK, even when nothing could be further from the truth.

Some folks...

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

... are not convinced that Oswald was really a Communist. Others are not convinced that his was the only weapon used in the attack.

Re: Some folks...

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Some people are convinced that the only True Scotsmen are highlanders wearing man-skirts.

Re: Some folks...

[jerseycajun.livejournal.com]

They had a special on the History Channel on this. They went through the reasons the conspiracy movement has used for questioning the Warren report one at a time and knocked each one of them down rationally.

Oswald couldn't have fired that many shots that fast? On camera an 80+ year old expert was still able to reproduce the shot sequence within the allotted time. Oswald's military record showed exemplary marksmanship scores.

The 'magic' bullet? Not magic, but a result of the staged seating within the car Kennedy was in, changing the relative position between him and Connally. Kennedy's seat was raised and shifted.

and on.. and on..

Re: Some folks...

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

Do you believe Oswald was a rogue operator without a controlling entity?

Re: Some folks...

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Yes, there was nobody who stood to gain from Kennedy's death and the assassination itself was far too poorly-done to have been an organized hit by *any* faction.

Re: Some folks...

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

Do you speak for the person to whom the question was addressed?

Re: Some folks...

[jerseycajun.livejournal.com]

No he doesn't. But it doesn't matter in this case, as it might as well have been mine.

He and I are in agreement on this one.

Re: Some folks...

[sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com]

To me, the only thing that would seem to indicate a conspiracy is that Oswald himself was shot by a man with known Mob connections before he could be hauled before a judge.

Re: Some folks...

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

Let's not forget that Oswald had made a public remark that he was a patsy. That added to the suspicion that his death was arranged by people who did not want him to squeal.

Re: Some folks...

[sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com]

Oswald had made a public remark that he was a patsy.

Of course he did, most crooks protest their innocence from the moment they're arrested regardless of actual guilt.

The only thing that gives that claim any credibility was that he was shot before he could stand trial.

Re: Some folks...

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

Would you go so far as to say that neither Castro nor Diem's supporters held a grudge against Kennedy?

BTW, the argument for a "poorly-done" job could easily be applied to the assassination of Meir Kahane. Its poor management did not demonstrate that the culprit acted alone, but that his co-conspirators were just as inept as he was.

Re: Some folks...

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

They held grudges against him, but if it had been proven that Castro was involved, there would have been a real-for-true invasion of Cuba and no Bay of Pigs foolishness, and if Saigon had ever had anything to do with it, Hanoi would have seen the USA withdraw overnight and overrun the place in a year's time. The Saigon generals were too busy killing each other to bite the hand that fed them. North Vietnam left the bulk of *its* housecleaning for the postwar era, and like Franco this meant they won the war and the peace.

Re: Some folks...

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

Good effort, but it does not prove your position.

Re: Some folks...

[jerseycajun.livejournal.com]

Yes. Adding conspiracy needlessly complicates the analysis, especially as there is documentation and records covering several of the 'holes' presented by proponents of conspiracy.

As UL stated, one does not need conspiracy to kill anyone, the president included. We like to believe it does in cases like this because it makes us feel secure that the universe can't possibly be that unpredictable. It's similar to the 9/11 conspiracies in that an apparent hole (and in many cases is only the appearance rather than the reality) gets filled in by the mind's attempt to rationalize the unthinkable.

[malakh-abaddon.livejournal.com]

Yes and no. I think Oswald was one of the gunmen. The whole magic bullet theory does not make sense, and in our reality is physically impossible. It has been a while, so forgive me, but I think there might have been more shots fired, from different positions, which caused the magic bullet theory to come into place. I also believe that had Ruby not killed Oswald, we might have a better understanding as to what actually happened. How Ruby played into the assassination, we will never know, and I do not exactly believe that he killed Oswald because he was upset and under mental duress..

We will never know the whole truth about what happened, it has been far too long, and the minds eye tends to remember what it has been told for decades, not what it actually remembers.

JFK — Crabmeat Scene

[telemann.livejournal.com]

I love Oliver Stone's film craft. And JFKis no exception. I do not for a minute consider this to be historical truth but instead a great movie (and John William's score is fantastic too).

One of my favorite scenes is New Orlean's D.A. Jim Garrison meeting with attorney Dean Andrews (who had helped Oswald with some legal issues, but in the context of the movie, at the behest of the assassination's planner, Clay Bertrand.) While Dean Andrews spins his lies, Stone uses flashback scenes to show the real 'truth.' John Candy's performance is brilliant.

Re: JFK — Crabmeat Scene

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

Oliver Stone does good drama.

[onefatmusicnerd.livejournal.com]

I used to work at Hood College, and the Warren Commission is pretty convincing.

Hood College?

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

Is that anything like the School of Hard Knocks?

Re: Hood College?

[onefatmusicnerd.livejournal.com]

Weisberg Archives

[devil-ad-vocate.livejournal.com]

I was walking with college friends in downtown Dallas the weekend before the killing. I was stopped by a guy who was 'barking' for customers to come into his business to see the 'show'. He handed me his card, which I stuck in my wallet and forgot about it. It wasn't until a couple of months later I looked at it: Welcome to the Carousel Club. Your host, Jack Ruby.

I think Oswald was alone. But my Norman Rockwell America of mom, apple pie, and Howdy Doody ended with President Kennedy's assasination.

[devil-ad-vocate.livejournal.com]

I always thought it was interesting that the first visitor Ruby had after he was put in jail was Tony Campesi, the mob's Dallas connection.

I certainly hope...

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

... you kept that card. It could be valuable some day.

I am curious. I have heard accounts of people celebrating the death of Kennedy. Did you have any such experience, even peripherally?

[op-tech-glitch.livejournal.com]

Call me radical, but I believe that President John F. Kennedy, acting alone, shot and killed Lee Harvey Oswald on 11/22/1963. Purely in self-defense, mind you.

(And that would've been the real Oswald, not the Venusian replicant that appeared fleetingly in the premiere of Doctor Who the following day and then mysteriously vanished from every subsequent airing and video/DVD edit since. J. Edgar Hoover was doing a fairly inept job of trying to dress up as the latter LHO for many years afterward whenever he went to his little parties.)

[taiki.livejournal.com]

Win.

Are you interested in my 6 volume DVD series where I prove the world trade center never went down?

[sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com]

Airplanes don't actually fly, it's all an elaborate hoax to make the public feel safe because the don't understand quantum mechanics.

I knew it!

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

Those big silver crates in the sky are actually just pigs. You have confirmed my long held suspicion.

[kardashev.livejournal.com]

What is your take on political assassination?

When politicians die for any reason, I laugh myself silly. When the common people get angry about their politicians being assassinated, I laugh even more. It's almost like medievel peasant serfs mourning the death of their feudal lords.

Do you believe the Warren Commission?

Nope.

Do you have faith in the integrity of official investigators?

Nope.

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

Political assassination is not limited to the targeting of politicians.