Having reach the point
of consistent writer’s block, combined with having blogged so many subjects
that I repeatedly hit the “I blogged about it already and have nothing new to
add”, I’ll throttle back to every other Friday.
Moreover, I couldn’t get this one done in time and didn’t want such an
important topic to be half-assed. And it’s
three months since the anniversary. So
here you go.
We came and passed
November 22, the anniversary of John F. Kennedy’s assassination in 1963. Recently I’ve been reading Vincent Bugliosi’s
huge volume, Reclaiming History, in which he debunks countless
conspiracy theories behind the event and comes to the conclusion that Lee
Harvey Oswald did in fact act alone to assassinate President Kennedy on that
day. As an aside, Reclaiming History
is a HUGE book. It’s 1648 pages, and
although I’ve started it, I haven’t quite finished it. The initial 688 pages was also released as a
separate book, Four Days In November, which simply described the
assassination itself and the subsequent killing of Oswald by Jack Ruby (two
days later). I read Four Days and
then began reading Reclaiming History.
Four Days was also made into a movie, “Parkland”, named after the
hospital where both Kennedy and Oswald were taken after their gunshots.
FYI: two other celebrities died on November 22, 1963 as well. The author of The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, C.S. Lewis, died of natural causes on that day. And the author of Brave New World and The Doors of Perception. Aldous Huxley, also died - of natural causes - on the same day. Both deaths were, as you might imagine, ignored in the hoopla surrounding Kennedy's.
Let’s start with the
basics. On Friday, November 22, 1963,
JFK and his wife Jackie Kennedy were riding in an open limo with Texas Governor
Connally through downtown Dallas, starting westbound on Main Street. The limo then made a right turn (90 degrees)
due north onto Houston Street, then a left turn (90 degrees) onto Elm,
westbound to the freeway. As the limo
turned left onto Elm Street from Houston St, it passed underneath the Texas
Book Depository, and then down Elm Street, when a gunman shot both Kennedy and
the governor. The governor survived his
wounds, but Kennedy did not. Shortly
after, a lone gunman, Lee Harvey Oswald, was picked up in a movie theater
several blocks away to the south, and arrested – after having shot Dallas
police officer Tippits who had approached him on his way from the downtown area
where the assassination had occurred.
Two days later, a nightclub owner, Jack Ruby, came into the basement
garage of the city hall and shot Oswald, fatally, as he was about to be
transported to the main jail pending a criminal trial.
Without a formal trial
of Oswald, because he was shot by Ruby, the Warren Commission was set up
to investigate the matter and determine if anyone else besides Oswald was
involved. The Commission was a seven
member panel: Chief Justice Warren,
Richard Russell, Jr. (Senator, D-GA), John Sherman Cooper (Senator, R-KY), Hale
Boggs (US Rep, D-LA), Gerald Ford (US Rep, R-MI), Allen Dulles (CIA), and John
J. McCloy (World Bank). Future PA
Senator Arlen Spector was an assistant counsel.
The Warren Commission, after studying the issue, concluded that
Oswald did act alone. In the 1970s,
a second investigation, the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA),
also decided that he acted alone.
However, conspiracy theories persisted, and in 1991, Oliver Stone put
out a movie, “JFK”, largely focusing on a criminal trial in the late 60s, done
by New Orleans district attorney Jim Garrison, which attempted to implicate
Clay Shaw as being in conspiracy with Oswald – by proxy, to prove a conspiracy
through Shaw. Despite this, Shaw was
acquitted.
First off, who is
Vincent Bugliosi? He was the L.A.
district attorney who prosecuted Charles Manson and his “family” for killing
Sharon Tate, Jay Sebring, and friends, on August 8, 1969, then the Labianca
couple two nights later. Since Manson
himself did not get out of the car on those nights and pull the trigger,
Bugliosi needed to prove a conspiracy.
If not, Manson would walk free and corral another group of stupid
teenage girls into killing more people.
Bugliosi succeeded at getting Manson convicted – and Manson died in
prison serving a life sentence. This
gave Bugliosi a critical background in criminal forensics AND the nature of
conspiracy, a skill set he used to evaluate the plethora of conspiracy theories
surrounding the JFK assassination.
By now, there are
countless books on the topic. However,
as a practical matter, the most important contributor to the whole conspiracy
movement in terms of bringing all of this to public attention – those of us who can spare 3+ hours to watch a movie but not the time and attention
necessary to read all the books on the topic – is the Oliver Stone movie, JFK. It had an all-star cast, not the least of
which was Kevin Costner as Garrison, Tommy Lee Jones as Shaw, Gary Oldman as
Oswald, and Donald Sutherland as the fictitious “Mr X” who advises Garrison,
amidst various Washington DC monuments, of the vast conspiracy allegedly behind
the assassination. That movie takes as
its focus the Clay Shaw trial in Louisiana in the late 60s. Jim Garrison was a New Orleans prosecutor who
was convinced that Oswald was part of a larger conspiracy, including Clay Shaw,
so he prosecuted Shaw for conspiracy to kill Kennedy. The trial served as de facto conspiracy
trial, but Shaw was acquitted. Stone saw
fit to use the trial as a similar proxy for his own Kennedy assassination
conspiracy theory. The “Mr X” is a
fictitious character who Garrison meets (in a meeting which never actually
happened, by Stone’s own admission) in Washington DC. Basically Garrison and Stone shared a firm
conviction that, absence of evidence of a conspiracy to the contrary
notwithstanding, there WAS such a conspiracy, mostly likely by a shadowy cabal
of CIA, generals, etc. who were upset that Kennedy would not be escalating the
war in Vietnam. Garrison and Stone felt
they had to fill in the blanks, as it were, to draw the picture and prove the
case, out of whole cloth. Bugliosi
considered the Shaw prosecution an egregious miscarriage of justice and the
verdict correct – as a fellow D.A. he had choice words for Garrison. The bigger problem is that the movie serves
as most Americans’ source of information on the assassination, as a work of
fiction masquerading as the truth, serving to deliberately mislead the American
public as to existence of a non-existent conspiracy. Having an A-list cast makes the matter even
worse, lending the stars’ reputation to an undeserved implication of
credibility. It’s garbage – 3.5 hours of
fiction.
Parkland. This is
a much simpler movie, echoing Bugliosi’s shorter book and simply giving us the
basics of the assassination: the
motorcade, the assassination, the efforts of the Parkland ER dept to try to
save Kennedy, the subsequent similar effort at the same hospital to save
Oswald, and a very limited analysis of everything else. Jeremy Strong plays Oswald, Paul Giamatti
plays Zapruder, and Ron Livingston plays FBI Agent Hosty, who briefly
interrogated Oswald before the assassination.
By the way, not only did Kennedy and Oswald wind up in Parkland, so did
Ruby. After being convicted of Oswald’s
killing, he was sentenced to death. That
sentence was overturned and a new trial ordered, but while he was waiting on
that, he had a stroke and was taken to Parkland, where he died. I suppose any pilgrimage or assassination
tour of Dallas would have to include this hospital. The Book Depository actually has a museum on
the sixth floor. You’ll have to bring
your own Carcano rifle – and good luck buying it in the mail for $12.
Clearly, Bugliosi did
his homework, not only reading all of the conspiracy theory literature out
there, but actually talking in person with many of the doctors and major
witnesses who supposedly support the theories, mainly indirectly. And he devoted an entire, enormous chapter of
his book to discredit – rightfully so – the Oliver Stone film. I have to confess that as of writing this
blog, I have not finished reading the book, but have digested the initial
chapters on the assassination itself, the chapter on the autopsies – which form
much of the core of the conspiracy, as most allege the fatal shots come from
the grassy knoll, not the book depository – and the huge chapter devoted to
critiquing the “JFK” film itself. The
remainder of the book, which I have not read, focuses on Oswald’s motives and
the likely motives of would-be actors behind the conspiracy, e.g. the Soviets,
Cubans, CIA, or the Mob.
Zapruder Film. 26
seconds of home movie camera shot by Zapruder.
Since it was a primitive movie camera, the quality was very low, but the
kicker is that it’s SILENT. The vantage point is from the north, looking
at the limo from the right side as it passed by on Elm Street. There’s a brief obscuration of the highway
sign. The second shot is not obvious,
except that Connally is twisting back and Kennedy and Jackie are confused and
upset. The third shot – the one through
Kennedy’s head that blows his brains out – is obvious.
Gimme Three Shots &
Single Bullet & Magic Bullet. Oswald fired three
times. The first shot, as the limo
turned left onto Elm right below the Book Depository, missed; the bullet was
never found. The second shot went
through Kennedy’s back and then into Connally, who survived. The third shot went through Kennedy’s head
and blew his brains out, all over Jackie’s dress.
“Single bullet” is the
premise – correct, as it is, but disputed – that the same bullet which injured
Connally first went through Kennedy, i.e. it wasn’t two separate bullets and
thus a separate gunman from Oswald.
“Magic bullet” refers to the conspiracy theory laugh that somehow, for
that bullet to leave Kennedy and hit Connally, it had to make a 90 degree right
turn, then a 90 degree left turn. The
limo had three rows of seats. The driver
was in the front row, Connally was in the middle row, and the Kennedy and his
wife were in the back row, with Kennedy himself to the far right back corner. However, Connally was not directly in front
of Kennedy, but actually further to the middle and below. Further line of sight analysis of the Book
Depository and the relative positions of Kennedy and Connally show that the
bullet’s trajectory, far from an implausible zigzag, was actually
straight. Moreover, the entrance wound
to Connally is oval/elliptical, but the range from the Book Depository was too
close for the 2000 fps rifle round to yaw or tumble on its own. At that range, a direct hit to Connally would
have been a neat, circular entrance wound.
Thus the bullet which hit Connally did go through Kennedy first, thus
the “single bullet”, which did not have to be “magic”.
Motives for
Conspiracy. Assuming Oswald did not act
alone, and was part of a larger conspiracy, who else was behind the
assassionation?
Mob. The
“October Surprise” theory says that George H.W. Bush, in October 1980, swiftly
went from the Imperial War Museum in London to a secret meeting in Paris to
meet with Iranians to persuade them not to release the US hostages seized from
the embassy in Teheran until after the November 1980 election, in order make
Jimmy Carter look bad and improve Ronald Reagan’s chances. The sole support for this theory is a Mossad
(Israeli intelligence) agent who also echoed Mossad’s belief that the US Mob
was behind Kennedy’s assassination. The
motive? Supposedly the Mob helped
Kennedy get elected in 1960 (those “dead votes” in Chicago) but were upset when
JFK put his brother RFK as Attorney General, who then set out to aggressively
prosecute the Mob. This upset the Mob as
an act of betrayal.
The catch is that the
Mob generally did NOT target politicians, least of all popular, elected
officials, much less the US President.
Generally the mob focuses its violence on competing mobsters and
potential adverse witnesses. Some allege
that Jack Ruby had mob ties, but his ties to the Dallas PD were far more
substantial. Moreover, Lee Harvey Oswald
had zero ties to the Mob. Really, the
Mob theory is a non-starter.
Soviets. The CIA
had been monitoring East Bloc communications at the time, and from what they
overheard, the Russians and their comrades were as shocked as anyone else by
the assassination. Although LHO had
spent time in Minsk, the Russians really had no use for him, which is why he
returned to the US with his Russian wife.
The Soviets had narrowly missed a nuclear war with the US over the Cuban
Missile Crisis, so they would be equally averse to providing the US with a
legitimate ground for war, which is what assassinating our President would have
been. So there was no motive on their
part.
CIA/Military. An old
friend of mine who worked for the CIA felt blaming the agency was strange, as
Kennedy was very popular with the CIA.
Perhaps the agency was a bit upset about Kennedy pulling the plug on the
Bay of Pigs operation, but that came nowhere close to the hostility necessary
to take out the President. Moreover, LHO
had no connection with the CIA.
The military angle, as
suggested by “JFK”, is that the top brass wanted a war in Vietnam, whereas JFK
was about to remove the US advisors in there, and would certainly not be
sending in troops. Yet as Bugliosi
notes, there was no guarantee that Lyndon Johnson, who would take over as
President after JFK was killed, would be any more inclined or cooperative in
sending troops to Vietnam. As it was, he
did, but then he refused to run for re-election in 1968. For that matter, Nixon would have had a huge
target on his back, as not only did he oversee the withdrawal of US forces from
Vietnam, but he also cozied up to Mao.
If the military was willing to have Kennedy – a very popular president –
assassinated, surely it would not hesitate to do the same with Nixon.
Oswald had been in the
US Marines, but had no connections with the military at the time of the
assassination. Obviously he burned his
bridges when he defected to the Soviet Union.
Oswald as Patsy. One
reason for suspicions of a conspiracy is that Oswald himself was very
eccentric, unpredictable, and not particularly bright. In the two days between his arrest on Friday
and death on Sunday, he was interrogated several times, and each person who
talked to him was frustrated by his obtuseness.
He talked about “not saying anything without an attorney” but refused to
accept any legal representation. Neither
the Marines nor the Russians had any use for him. So how could this guy, all by himself, take
out the President?
Oddly, the prior
assassins were mostly lone wolves.
Charles Guiteau (Garfield, 1880), acted alone, as did Leon Czolgoz
(McKinley, 1901). Oswald simply needed
to perch himself on the sixth floor, take three shots down at the limousine,
and then leave. He was picked up in a
movie theater after walking from the Depository and killing a Dallas police
officer.
The primary conspiracy
concept is that there was another gunman at the grassy knoll ahead of the
limousine who actually fired the shots which killed Kennedy. Of course, Bugliosi managed to determine that
both bullet wounds to Kennedy – his neck and his head – came from behind, i.e.
from the book depository. He devotes an
entire chapter to determining that the majority of the pathologists concluded
that both wounds came from behind, and what minor discrepancies may have
existed – and were blown out of proportion by conspiracy theorists – can be
reconciled and explained fairly simply.
When the dust clears, so to speak, we’re left with conclusive evidence
that both shots came from behind.
Assuming there was
another gunman at the grassy knoll, what was Oswald’s role? To be a patsy, a decoy in the Book Depository
to hide the existence of the second gunman at the grassy knoll. Well then, WHY would Oswald agree to put
himself in the position of being the scapegoat for the assassination? Leaving aside Ruby’s intervention, assuming
he wasn’t killed leaving the Depository, or being arrested after leaving, he’d
still be on the hook for the death penalty after a criminal trial. Why would he agree to do so? Moreover, as Bugliosi points out, if it’s
implausible to believe the man was capable of killing the President by himself,
it’s equally implausible that whoever did plan the assassination would rely
upon him to be the patsy – to go to the Book Depository at that date and time
and carry out the fake assassination as requested. And then to be left to leave the Depository
by himself and picked up all by himself at the movie theater.
And as a UNWILLING
patsy, acting completely independently of the second gunman? Completely unbelievable. If Oswald would be an unreliable willing
participant in this whole thing, why would anyone set up an entire operation
hoping that Oswald would carry out his own attempt without any coordination or
agreement? That’s just too bizarre.
No Leaks, Garrison, and
Stone. A conspiracy of this magnitude
would have resulted in some leaks at some point, but nothing happened. If the answer is, “all potential leakers were
‘taken care of’,”, that begs the question of why Jim Garrison wasn’t “taken
care of”, or Oliver Stone. The bigger
picture is that whether we want to believe or accept it or not, Oswald acted
alone.
