The Kennedy
Assassination
"He didn't even have the satisfaction of
being killed for civil rights . . . . It's — it had to be some silly little
Communist." — Jackie Kennedy, on hearing that a leftist had been arrested
for her husband's murder.
It's the most controversial case
in modern American history. Did Lee Harvey Oswald kill John Kennedy by himself,
or did a conspiracy do it? And if a conspiracy did it, did the conspiracy
include Oswald?
If you are like most Americans,
you believe that a conspiracy killed Kennedy. And if you are like most
Americans, you have heard a vast number of bogus factoids about the case.
This web site is dedicated to
debunking the mass of misinformation and disinformation surrounding the murder
of JFK. If you are believer in Oswald as a lone gunman, you are likely to enjoy
this web site, since most of that misinformation and disinformation has come
from conspiracists. But if you are a sophisticated conspiracist, you likely
understand that the mass of silly nonsense in conspiracy books and
documentaries does no service to the cause of truth in the assassination, and simply
buries the "case for conspiracy" under layers of bunk.
Regardless of what you believe,
several web sites, mostly conspiracy-oriented are worth checking out. And you
may also want to check out my list ofrecommended books on the assassination.
What sort of evidence is there?
What about those witnesses? Didn't
everyone hear shots from the Grassy Knoll? What about the Tague wounding? Who
was the "Umbrella Man?" Was the rifle recovered really a Mauser? Does
"acoustic evidence" show a shot from the Grassy Knoll? Were the Three
Tramps suspicious? How could Kennedy's head go "back and to the
left?"
You've seen Kevin Costner give the
conspiracy version of the Single Bullet theory. You know: Connally seated
directly in front of Kennedy, at the same height, and facing straight ahead.
Was that really what happened?
What sort of person was he? Did he
really have "Top Secret" security clearance? Did he shoot at General
Walker? Were there two Oswalds? If Oswald shot Kennedy, what
was his motive? Was the man exhumed in 1981 really somebody besides Oswald?
Did Oswald really share an office
with Guy Banister? Did Clay Shaw really use the alias "Clay
Bertrand?" Why did Oliver Stone make a movie about the Shaw trial and not
even mention Perry Raymond Russo? Did David Ferrie die a "mysterious death?"
What about Jim Garrison and the Mafia?
Did the bullet that hit Kennedy in
the back penetrate only an inch and fall out? Was Kennedy hit in the head by a
bullet from in front? Are the autopsy photos and x-rays faked? Did all the
doctors at Parkland Hospital believe that Kennedy was hit in the front of the
neck, and if so, are their opinions decisive evidence that that is what
happened? Was the back of Kennedy's head blown out? Are the autopsy photos
faked?
Did you know that all the evidence
in this case proven to be forged has been on the conspiracy
side? One key piece originated with the KGB! Did you know that the
"mysterious deaths" are virtually all not so "mysterious"
when you look at them closely? Do you trust authors like Mark Lane to tell you
the truth about what witnesses said?
The "lone nut" theory of
the assassination is really the "two lone nuts" theory. What sort of
person was Jack Ruby? A mobster? An intelligence agent? A small-time hustler?
The sort of volatile character who might really have shot Oswald out of
righteous anger?
We expect Hollywood movies to take
some liberties with the historical record. But what do we think when Hollywood
turns history on its head? Oliver Stone wants to overturn the verdict in the
Clay Shaw trial. The jury found that District Attorney Jim Garrison had no case
— so Stone invents a case on celluloid. Just how honest was Oliver Stone,
Shaw's Hollywood prosecutor?
For some in the conspiracy crowd,
John Kennedy was a liberal saint, who was going to implement policies that
would bring America into a new Utopia. So, of course, a threatened Power Elite
had to kill him. Was Kennedy the kind of left liberal who threatened
established interests? Was he a hero of Civil Rights? Had he decided to pull
out of Vietnam? Historian Eric Paddon dissects these claims in a series of
essays based on his posts on the Internet.
Some notions about logic,
probability and statistics necessarily underlie all discussion of
"conspiracy" or "lone assassin." Does the lone
assassination theory involve too many implausible "coincidences?" Are
there a suspicious number of "connections" between various figures in
the case? Is the Single Bullet Theory highly "improbable?"
In writings about the assassination,
as in real-world criminal justice, witness testimony looms large. But just how
reliable are the witnesses? How many witnesses are just flat out telling tall
tales? How often are apparently sober and reliable witnesses just flat wrong?
A woman named Judyth Baker has come
forward claiming to have been Oswald's adulterous lover in in summer of 1963,
to have participated with him in a secret bioweapons program aimed at killing
Castro, and to have inside knowledge of Oswald's "patsy" role in the
assassination. It's a good story, and she got a chance to tell it on the
History Channel in November 2003. But is it the truth?
What we think about the
assassination is dependent on what we think about history, and about the
behavior of government officials and bureaucrats. Was Kennedy a radical who
threatened the status quo? Did top administration officials order a coverup of
a conspiracy soon after the assassination? If the FBI and the CIA withhold
documents, does this mean that they are protecting assassination conspirators?
This has long been the cry of the
conspiracy theorists. Supposedly, the documents show that a conspiracy killed
Kennedy. In fact, the government in the 1990s released a massive number of
documents. The Assassination Records Review Board had a mandate to identify and
oversee the release of documents in government hands, and in private hands.
Recording devices monitored the two radio
channels used by the Dallas Police Department, and these recordings are a vivid
"real time" account of the frenzy of activity that followed the
shooting. Here are selected audio clips beginning a couple of minutes before
the assassination and ending with the arrest of Oswald in the Texas Theatre.
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