HSienzant
Philosopher
Here's a review of Bugliosi's tome from 2007:
https://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/20/books/review/Burrough-t.html
Hank
https://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/20/books/review/Burrough-t.html
Hank
JFK Conspiracy Theories VII: Late November back in '63...
- Thread starter HSienzant
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One of the common complains about Posner's book is that he did not address everyone's pet CT about JFK. Too bad for them. I suppose if your CT was good enough (but still trash) it got a mention in Case Closed.
I read Posner's book and was happy with the detail. I have Bugliosi's but have not read it yet.
Ranb
Allen773
Graduate Poster
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Axxman300
Philosopher
Kind of over-thinking it.
All of the CT's were fully formed by June, 1964. The CIA's Mexico City Station put them all in a three or four page memo.
The simple truth is people can't stand the idea that a nobody (Oswald) killed the President.
Cuba, Castro, Mongoose, the Chicago Mob, LBJ, JMWAVE, and Vietnam are all parallel JFK issues which never intersect with the Assassination. JFK's murder has become nothing more than a parlor game similar to Jenga, wherein no matter how good you are, the whole thing comes crashing down under the weight on non-existent facts and evidence.
HSienzant
Philosopher
No, you're missing his point.
He doesn't disagree. From the second article Allen cited:
If you’re wondering what to make of the assassination of John F. Kennedy in light of the National Archives’ not-quite-final release of government documents related to the case, start with this: Lee Harvey Oswald was a loser with a lot to prove.
Oswald himself was murdered before the country got to know him as anything more than a smirk, and conspiracy theories buried the details of his personal life almost immediately afterward. But by the age of 13, he was already “turning around the topics of omnipotence and power … to compensate for his present shortcomings and frustrations,” according to a report written by the chief psychiatrist at Youth House, a New York detention facility where Oswald spent six weeks in 1953. At 17, he joined the Marines, but was court-martialed twice, once for accidentally shooting himself with a handgun, and another time for fighting. Oswald picked up Marxism, taught himself Russian, and defected to the Soviet Union in 1959, slashing his wrists in Moscow when it appeared he might not be able to stay. But after less than three years of working a lathe in Minsk, he returned to the U.S. He drifted from job to job, and from Dallas back to his hometown of New Orleans, where he got into a street fight and a catastrophic radio debate with anti-Castro Cuban exiles, then back to Dallas. There he tried to murder former Army General Edwin Walker, a prominent anticommunist and segregationist, by shooting a rifle into Walker’s home. He missed.
In an era before weaponized young loners seemed like a type, Oswald, by November 1963, was an anxiety-ridden 24-year-old who loathed America and had failed at essentially everything he tried. His one great stroke of luck came when newspapers announced that President Kennedy’s motorcade would pass the schoolbook depository building where Oswald had just begun working.
The newly released documents do nothing to alter the basic ballistics findings of all four government investigations into what happened at Dealey Plaza when Oswald finally made his mark: His Mannlicher-Carcano rifle fired three shots, two of which hit Kennedy from behind, and one of which killed the president.
Oswald himself was murdered before the country got to know him as anything more than a smirk, and conspiracy theories buried the details of his personal life almost immediately afterward. But by the age of 13, he was already “turning around the topics of omnipotence and power … to compensate for his present shortcomings and frustrations,” according to a report written by the chief psychiatrist at Youth House, a New York detention facility where Oswald spent six weeks in 1953. At 17, he joined the Marines, but was court-martialed twice, once for accidentally shooting himself with a handgun, and another time for fighting. Oswald picked up Marxism, taught himself Russian, and defected to the Soviet Union in 1959, slashing his wrists in Moscow when it appeared he might not be able to stay. But after less than three years of working a lathe in Minsk, he returned to the U.S. He drifted from job to job, and from Dallas back to his hometown of New Orleans, where he got into a street fight and a catastrophic radio debate with anti-Castro Cuban exiles, then back to Dallas. There he tried to murder former Army General Edwin Walker, a prominent anticommunist and segregationist, by shooting a rifle into Walker’s home. He missed.
In an era before weaponized young loners seemed like a type, Oswald, by November 1963, was an anxiety-ridden 24-year-old who loathed America and had failed at essentially everything he tried. His one great stroke of luck came when newspapers announced that President Kennedy’s motorcade would pass the schoolbook depository building where Oswald had just begun working.
The newly released documents do nothing to alter the basic ballistics findings of all four government investigations into what happened at Dealey Plaza when Oswald finally made his mark: His Mannlicher-Carcano rifle fired three shots, two of which hit Kennedy from behind, and one of which killed the president.
The author, and Allen, is not arguing for a conspiracy, but against one.
The only thing I would argue against above is Oswald "taught himself Russian". There's no evidence for that, and in fact, his own diary notes how his Russian is improving only after he's spent nearly a year in Russia after his defection to the USSR.
Defected October, 1959:
https://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh16/html/WH_Vol16_0059b.htm
Forces himself to read self-teaching language books 8 hours a day to learn Russian Nov/Dec 1959:
https://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh16/html/WH_Vol16_0061b.htm
Still had an interpreter in January, 1960:
https://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh16/html/WH_Vol16_0062a.htm
"Russian Improves" Aug/Sept 1960:
https://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh16/html/WH_Vol16_0062b.htm
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Allen773
Graduate Poster
My point in posting those links was a reminder that the allegedly martyred-by-the-CIA Kennedy brothers were second to none in the Cold War era US government in terms of using the CIA as a covert tool for assassinating - or attempting to, at least - foreign leaders.
Given that Lee Harvey Oswald was a self-professed Castro fanboy, and given just how deeply invested JFK was in the CIA and NSC plots to kill Castro - right up until 11/22/1963 - and given that the CIA reviewed their existing files on Oswald right after JFK’s assassination, it stands to reason that the CIA (and Bobby Kennedy) would then be deeply invested in covering up their persistent and extensive covert ops to liquidate Castro and his regime.
Note that all those CIA assassination operations directed against foreign leaders shut down almost overnight after JFK was killed. To say those operations would have been bad optics for the CIA and the immediately constructed “Camelot” propaganda - especially given the battle for the ideological soul of the world during the Cold War - would be a dramatic understatement indeed. During the 1970s Congressional investigations into the CIA and its uses and abuses by Presidents, the revelation of the “Family Jewels” on assassination plots against foreign leaders - among other revelations - created such outrage that there were serious calls to abolish the Agency outright.
The bottom line is that for all the conspiracy theory talk about the CIA killing the Kennedys, it was precisely Jack and Bobby who were the worst offenders in using the CIA and its proxies as a hit squad against foreign leaders - especially the hated Fidel Castro.
Given that Lee Harvey Oswald was a self-professed Castro fanboy, and given just how deeply invested JFK was in the CIA and NSC plots to kill Castro - right up until 11/22/1963 - and given that the CIA reviewed their existing files on Oswald right after JFK’s assassination, it stands to reason that the CIA (and Bobby Kennedy) would then be deeply invested in covering up their persistent and extensive covert ops to liquidate Castro and his regime.
Note that all those CIA assassination operations directed against foreign leaders shut down almost overnight after JFK was killed. To say those operations would have been bad optics for the CIA and the immediately constructed “Camelot” propaganda - especially given the battle for the ideological soul of the world during the Cold War - would be a dramatic understatement indeed. During the 1970s Congressional investigations into the CIA and its uses and abuses by Presidents, the revelation of the “Family Jewels” on assassination plots against foreign leaders - among other revelations - created such outrage that there were serious calls to abolish the Agency outright.
The bottom line is that for all the conspiracy theory talk about the CIA killing the Kennedys, it was precisely Jack and Bobby who were the worst offenders in using the CIA and its proxies as a hit squad against foreign leaders - especially the hated Fidel Castro.
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smartcooky
Penultimate Amazing
Which is difficult to comprehend, because history shows that many people who kill or attempt to kill people of sufficient import that that action is called "assassination" rather then "murder", turn out to be nobodies.
James Earl Ray (MLK)
Sirhan Sirhan (RFK)
John Hinckley Jr (Pres. Ronald Reagan)
Mark David Chapman (John Lennon)
Gavrilo Princip (Archduke Ferdinand)
Nathuram Godse (Mahatma Gandhi)
All nobodies.
heymatto70
Thinker
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Not to mention the other Presidential assassins other than Boothe really were nobodies as well. Czolgosz, who killed McKinley, and Guiteau who killed Garfield were randos who were crazy enough and got lucky.
HSienzant
Philosopher
Sarah Jane Moore and Lynette "Squeeky" Fromme as well. Their attempts failed, but they deserve to be counted here.
Of course Boothe was a well-known actor, but he was one of only a few that were part of a conspiracy. Curious, aint it?
Hank
Allen773
Graduate Poster
Wasn’t Princip actually part of a terrorist conspiracy?
Allen773
Graduate Poster
Both of them women, both in Northern California, both in the same month, both targeting President Ford. Weird.
smartcooky
Penultimate Amazing
He was, (a member if "Young Bosnia" which IIRC had ties to the "Black Hand") but he was still a nobody.
pgwenthold
Penultimate Amazing
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I've said it before, but the idea that a nobody couldn't assassinate the President is completely wrong, and, in fact, opposite of the truth. Basically, ONLY a nobody could do it. A "high flyer" is going to have way too much attention on them to be able to get away with it, as would (at least in modern times) some massive conspiracy (the secret service learned from Lincoln). The only way anyone can get close enough to the President with ample ability to assassinate is going to be a quiet lone nut.
.. who got incredibly lucky. His co-conspirators suffered a comedy of errors to say the least, with my personal favourite being Čabrinović. First his bomb bounced off the Archduke's car, then he attempted suicide with an old cyanide pill, which only made him ill, and then he tried to throw himself off a bridge and drown himself, only to land in 13 cm of water...
bknight
Master Poster
Of course history/reality proves this but then the CTs don't read about history as they merrily dance is la-la land believing nonsense theories.
Axxman300
Philosopher
I am currently binge-watching "Narcos". It relates to this thread because it is a Masters Class in assassination. You learn about planning, and execution, and all the things that will go wrong before, and after.
You learn the obvious: Every successful assassination is conducted in the simplest way possible - at close range.
You learn the obvious: Every successful assassination is conducted in the simplest way possible - at close range.
Allen773
Graduate Poster
The first three presidential assassinations happened at close range, while Oswald, a man who had training in shooting a rifle courtesy of the US Marine Corps, killed JFK - who was riding in the back seat of a slow-moving open convertible, completely exposed - with a high-powered rifle from several floors up a building right next to the presidential motorcade route (a route which had been public knowledge for several days prior) at a distance of a few hundred feet, in broad daylight. He fired three shots, of which the second two hit Kennedy - the third, of course, being the instantly fatal shot to the head.
So that’s three presidential assassinations at very close range, and one at close enough range for a man trained with a high-powered rifle who faced favorable conditions for his task. And of the four US presidential assassins, only one - the first - was part of a conspiracy, and that was a small conspiracy that unraveled rather rapidly.
Conspiracy theories and speculation might be fun or intriguing for some folks, but at the end of the day, 99 times out of 100 an assassin is a single troubled and marginal individual, with most of the remaining 1 percent being a conspiracy of a few people who more often than not fail miserably. To the extent that high-level assassination plotting happens - at least, by the US government - the scenario is stuff like the beloved Kennedy brothers using the CIA and NSC in a vendetta against Fidel Castro.
That’s the bitter irony of the Kennedy assassination conspiracy theories; Jack and Bobby were the PERPETRATORS of assassination plots involving the CIA, not the victims. I’m actually angry at the “Camelot” revisionism and its associated assassination conspiracy theories, and I’m pretty liberal/left of center in American politics. It’s a historical lie perpetrated by grifters like Mark Lane and Oliver Stone, and judging by public opinion polls about the Kennedy assassination, it’s been remarkably successful. And it’s certainly been financially lucrative for said grifters - which only adds to my disgust and resentment.
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HSienzant
Philosopher
The Common Potato
Muse
I signed up to Amazon Prime today and have just watched Conspiracy Theorists Lie.
HSienzant
Philosopher
Yes, that's pretty much my conclusion too, after an exhaustive reading of all 26 volumes of the Warren Commission Hearings and Exhibits.
https://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/contents.htm
What led me to read all that was that reading the various critics, they would sometimes come to different conclusions after citing the same evidence. All of them, however, argued the Warren Commission got it wrong, but none pointed out how other critics got it wrong too.
I wanted to resolve it to my own satisfaction, and hence began my reading. Originally I was spending time on my lunch hour, after work, and Saturdays reading the volumes at the NYC Public Library (the big one - I worked in mid-town). But I eventually sprung for my own set of the 26 volumes - I bought that from The Presidents Box Bookshop in the 1980s for $2500 (that was back when $2500 was real money, at least to me). I wound up reading the volumes through twice and spent a lot of nights up until two or three in the morning. My conclusion was Conspiracy Theorists Lie.
They were, in short, committing every sin they claimed the Warren Commission committed, and then some.
Hank
PS: Here's the two trailers concerning the film:
https://www.d-word.com/documentary/725-Conspiracy-Theorists-Lie
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