Whatever happened, I agree that we are still dealing with the aftermath of the successful plot to kill the President and with the same actors/interests. Personally, I believe the same interests that pulled that off were intimately involved in putting the imposter we now have on the throne in 2000. There is a book call Farewell America that purportedly was written by foreign intelligence agencies that outlines the assassination/coup. It was published overseas in 1968 and for years was not allowed in this country. You can get it now, but only over the net as far as I know. Who knows what the details are or were? I don't. I'm not sure anyone does. But why is it so far fetched for people to believe that the leader of the most powerful nation in history, deciding to take a new direction might incite powerful interests to assassination and coup de tat? It's so strange that we Americans believe our system to be so free of vice and corruption they think the people who point out the truth are the crazy ones. We may not know for certain what happened, but one thing is clear in my opinion, the official story is a blatant lie.

I don't want to start on the assassination but most Americans reject the single gun Oswald theory and I'm one of them.
One man acting alone COULD have killed Kennedy. But that is not what happened.

If you were told that an action had a "good chance" of success, what percent likelihood would you assume that meant?

That's what the Joint Chiefs told JFK about the Bay of Pigs invasion.  In their own documents, it shows that they meant . . . oh, about 30%.  This is part of what has led to some historians theorizing that the Bay of Pigs was a military desire -- and that "they" would never have tried it with Eisenhower.

JFK is one of the great "what ifs" of this country.  I think that, in retrospect, we've all idealized him as time has passed.  And his assassination has, perhaps, the most resonance of a single political event.  After all, this was the first "national tragedy" in the age of television. 

A playboy and dilletant, he had Clinton's vices but none of Clinton's intelligence.

Just search youtube for some of JFK's speeches. The man was extremely intelligent and articulate.

As for Oswald, until there is unfettered access to his CIA files as they existed in 1963, we'll never know who he really was. His public image is what the CIA wanted/wants us to believe. There's always been a lot more credible evidence for his claim of being "a patsy" than for the idea that he was an assassin of Kennedy, let alone the sole assassin.

Kennedy made me feel good.

I'm with you, Maxgowan.

You wrote:

"but none of Clinton's intelligence"

Obviously, you don't have the faintest idea what you're writing about. Anyone who could make a statement so blatantly wrong is nothing more than a pompous blowhard. The rest of your rant was essentially your own opinion, but check any source and you will find that President Kennedy was a remarkable and brilliant man. One of the most intelligent ever to serve in the office.

PS: It isn't X-files fiction when the House Committee on Assassinations and other very reputable investigations have concluded that the lone gunman theory was not only implausible, but simply incorrect.

Read Talbot's book, Brothers. I think you'll enjoy it. I agree with some of what you say and disagree with some of it. I think Talbot might convince you that you're buying into some right wing revisionist history. JFK was a very bright guy, which is why a bright guy like Clinton modeled himself on him (perhaps too closely in the case of womanizing).

Tom

"There was no conspiracy, there was no plot - there was nothing more than a crabbed, jealous, ordinary little man, who thought he was so much more intelligent than others and couldn't understand why no one else thought so too."

BevD,

I would respectfully submit that you need to do some research. One needs to go where the evidence leads.

Tom

"One man acting alone COULD have killed Kennedy."

Not unless you buy Arlen Specter's totally nutty single bullet theory.

Tom

I agree. Kennedy was a combat officer in World War II, Clinton evaded military service. Kennedy, although a lazy legislator, was Senator during a very tense period in the Cold War and was aware of the major challenges to peace and America's position in the world. He was President during a very difficult time while the USSR was arming at a fast rate (although not as fast as JFK's "Missile Gap" claimed) and people in Europe and the Third World had the (incorrect) view that Communism was a viable path to national development.
Clinton was governor of a small southern state and the comparable point in his career. He didn't face any challenges like Kennedy, so he had plenty of time to learn how to be a master intriguer and how to enrich himself by influence peddling (Kennedy had no need to do this).

The one big looming threat that raised its head during Clinton's years was the Islamist Terror, and he almost completely ignored it, leading to 9/11. (the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, the Cole incident, bombing of US Embassy in Kenya, etc).

Yes, Oswald using a cheap Italian rifle, killed the President of the United States.

Most Americans still believe in ghosts - that doesn't make them right, it just makes them gullible.

Sorry the Manlicher-Carcano he supposedly used had a scope that was not aligned accurately. Check it out.

Tom

delete

Tom

There was a minor route change on the spot, but going by the book depository was always on the route. The route they ended up taking made the President's limo a much better target and also forced the entire motorcade to slow considerably again enhancing the ability of any gunner to hit the target.

I believe it was the mayor of Dallas who changed the route. This is interesting if I'm remembering it accurately because Mayor Earl Cabell's brother Charles was one of the military people involved in the Bay of Pigs who was most furious at JFK for cancelling the air cover in April 1961. I would say both Earl and Charles CaBELL are persons of interest in the JFK assassination. I believe the amended route was published in that morning's Dallas paper. Of course, if the gunmen knew the route was going to be changed they would have been ready at Dealey Plaza, which if you've ever seen it is the perfect ambush spot. The hairpin turn makes all cars slow way down.

The assassination was planned well in advance. When you get the Mob, parts of the CIA, and many anti-Castro Cubans mad at you you didn't have long to live.

Tom

I have seen the Zapruder film. To me it is clear that he was hit from behind. The brain matter clearly goes forward. The backward lurch of his body doesn't indicate that he was hit from the front.

The House Committee said clearly that Oswald was the lone gunman until they came across the Dallas Police recording that supposedly indicate another gunshot. As far as I know, that is the only evidence that they ever came up with that indicated there was another gunman. They also concluded that if there was another gunman, his shot MISSED, thus , even with this extra piece of evidence, which has since been largely discredited, they still concluded that all the shots that hit Kennedy CAME FROM BEHIND. Robert Blakey who was the chief counsel for the House Committee says the case against Oswald is "open and shut and actually very easy" even though the committee had all the big conspiracy people come and present their evidence to them. In the end, even after hearing all this conpiracy theory stuff, they came to the same conclusion as the Warren Commission. BTW-Gerald Ford pointed out that the WC didn's say "There was no conspiracy", they said "They found no evidence of a conspiracy".

Of course, there's the rub. 'Additional evidence' has no defensible cut-off point.

Actually, the simplest solution is finally a matter of opinion. Occam's Razor like all those other wonderful sounding theories, most of which are deductive so don't really say anything, completely ignores the indeterminate, even quixotic nature of us.

You need some new reading matter, the equivalent of 13 volumes plus. Or you can trust him that he's read every single one of the conspiracy theories and finds them pitiful delusions in comparison to the Warren report:

Who Killed Kennedy? One Man’s Answer May 14

The prosecutor who put Charles Manson behind bars now wants to solve another crime — a really simple one, he insists. So simple that it takes only 1,612 pages to prove his case.

And that is his full attention: 20 years of research, more than one million words, hundreds of interviews, thousands of documents and more than 10,000 citations. The result, “Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy” (W. W. Norton), is due out tomorrow. His conclusion: Lee Harvey Oswald killed Kennedy, and acted alone.

Why would such a simple conclusion require so much argument?

“Because of the unceasing and fanatical obsession of thousands of researchers over the last 43 years, from around the world but mostly in the United States,” Mr. Bugliosi said in an interview at the cafe of the Sportsmen’s Lodge Hotel in Studio City, Calif. “Examining under a high-powered microscope every comma, every period, every detail on every conceivable issue, and making hundreds and hundreds of allegations, they have transformed this simple case into its present form.”....

Or No Conspiracy? May 20, 2007

...Vincent Bugliosi, whose new work, “Reclaiming History,” a cellular-level re-examination of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, clocks in at 1,612 pages. That’s not a typo. One thousand six hundred and twelve pages. Plus notes. On a CD-ROM....

“Reclaiming History” is in spots a delight to read. Bugliosi is refreshing because he doesn’t just pick apart the conspiracy theorists. He ridicules them, and by name, writing that “most of them are as kooky as a $3 bill.” Bugliosi calls the dean of conspiracy buffs, Mark Lane, “unprincipled” and “a fraud.” He quotes Harold Weisberg, the author of eight conspiracy-themed books, admitting that after 35 years of research, “much as it looks like Oswald was some kind of agent for somebody, I have not found a shred of evidence to support it.”

What Bugliosi has done is a public service; these people should be ridiculed, even shunned. It’s time we marginalized Kennedy conspiracy theorists the way we’ve marginalized smokers....

No author is too obscure to escape Bugliosi’s attack...

Bugliosi nicely traces the rise of the conspiracy movement; authors began cranking out books attacking the Warren Commission before it even issued its report. He reminds us how early on the movement was taken over by left-wing journals like Ramparts; this is surely one of the left’s more wrongheaded crusades. Bugliosi knows, though, that more than politics is at work. He understands how badly many Americans need there to have been a conspiracy, that it’s difficult to accept that an American president, especially one of Kennedy’s stature, could have been killed by a pathetic creature like Oswald.

Bugliosi senses this. “Many other readers,” he writes, “will say to themselves, ‘Why does he keep piling one argument upon another to prove his point? He’s already made it 12 ways from Sunday, so why go on?’ To those readers I say that the Warren Commission also made its point, and well, over 40 years ago, yet today the overwhelming majority of Americans do not accept its conclusion. ... Hence, the overkill in this book is historically necessary.”

He’s probably right, which is a shame....

I agree with the writer that it's a shame that American grown-ups need an everending supply of exotic fairy tales called conspiracies to process traumatic events. To me, the majority of Americans belief in Kennedy assasination theories is part and parcel of what Al Gore is complaining about in his new book, which I have just started.

Re: Many in the CIA and the military hated JFK.

So what? Clinton was hated too on the right. No one took potshots at him. Instead the right tried to destroy him with bimbo eruptions. And they could have done that (even more easily) with JFK. In America you don't have to kill a president to be rid of him; you just have to sabotage his reelection prospects, or wait out his 2nd term.

"There is no evidence that JFK was going to pull out of Vietnam."

Actually, on this point, there is a lot of evidence, summarized here:

http://www.bostonreview.net/BR28.5/galbraith.html

and here:

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2003/11/22/vietnam/index_np.html

James Galbraith

I see now, you're just a contrarian. Good enough. You see the Zapruder film and you say it looks to you as though the shot came from behind. Uh huh. You and Arlen Specter.

Here's one question I have. If Oswald did it all by himself, why the heck didn't he admit to it? If he was such a wacko, wouldn't he have been proud of assassinating JFK? Wouldn't he want to tell everybody why he did it? Instead, Oswald said he was a patsy...

On JFK's assassination. Check this out. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XY02Qkuc_f8 Combine the order to get off the back of the car with the decision to have the motorcade make that turn on to Elm Street and you have all the evidence you need that there was a conspiracy. Add to that the facts (acknowledged by the government) that earlier in November the secret service was apprised of planned attacks to kill JFK in Chicago and Tampa and it becomes readily apparent that more than one guy was out there waiting to kill Kennedy.

"Oswald said he was a patsy"

I agree that this was an odd thing for Oswald to say unless it was true. Not that I am an expert on such things, but I can't think of any other murder case where the accused made that statement.

To say that he was a patsy was to implicate others (which would be the obvious motivation for Jack Ruby to shoot him), but it was not to deny that he was involved.

As I remember, he also made another non-denial denial. In answer to the question "Did you shoot President Kennedy," he said "I have not been accused of that." Admittedly, Oswald was a hair-splitter. On another occasion he said, "I am a Marxist, but I am not a Communist." Maybe he just enjoyed playing games with people, but given the seriousness of the accusation, it seems to me that a genuinely uninvolved person would have made more forceful denials.

Some years ago I saw a TV show where Bugliosi and Spence did a mock trial. I thought Bugliosi did a good job of showing that Oswald was guilty, but I did not think he proved that Oswald acted alone.

Every premature death in history trails behind it a miasma of conspiracy theories, based on the fact that reality by its very nature is fuzzy and full of questions and contradictions (something we normally ignore as it does not please us, usually, to see just how uncertain and ill-defined life really is). There are still historians who debate whether Alexander the Great was poisoned or died of natural causes. And of course there is the whole cavalcade of spoon-benders, astrologers, young Earth Creationists faith healers, and the like who also cleverly exploit reality's ragged and fraying edges. But the bulk of the evidence is almost always against such things, and without hard, cold facts (not insinuations and leading questions) I see no reason to buy into such fancies, and that includes these assassination conspiracies.

But if you want to tempt me to, here it is: JFK was killed not by forces within the US governmment but by a shadowy group outside it, a group dedicated to preventing nuclear war by any meanns necessary. They were scared to death by the Missile Crisis and decided both Kennedy and Krushchev had to go. Krushchev they maneuvered out via a Kremlin power struggle, but deeming Kennedy the greater danger and yet the harder to dispose of through normal political action, they chose to work through Oswald instead.

Forty-nine was Stockwell's number. (An awful lot of single car crashes, fatal "falls" in the bathtub, "suicide" in jail on ridiculous charges, and the like.) Yes, odd, but of course the light is shining on those who are in the public spotlight, too. There are more than a few odd things here, to say the least.

Maybe there is a reasonable explanation for any of these frequent, untimely deaths. Even so, as I noted earlier, none of it changes the content of the Zapruder film, the Nix film, the behavior of the Secret Service both that day and in days and weeks leading up to November 22, the fake autopsy, and the rest of this endless list.

Oswald's cover story was that he was a Marxist. He was involved in Naval Intelligence. He learned Russian in the Marines. Why were the Marines teaching him Russian? So he could be a spy when he "defected".

Tom

Right. I just thought I'd spin out my own X Files plot since why shouldn't we all be allowed to play the game? But my first aragraph is what I really believe. You can make anything mysterious and ominous if you want to. It can be fun sometimes, but beware of getting hooked by such things. There may be no real dragons where the maps say "here be dragons" but there might just be other monsters from your own id. Paranoid conspiracy fears have led to some of history's greatest evils. Consider: "The Protocols Of The Learned Elders Of Zion" and what came of the fear of an International Jewish Conspiracy.

Oswald denied he killed JFK, said he was a patsy, was interrogated all night with no notes and dispatched the next day never to go to trial. Why?

A college grad engineering background part time Dallas police officer named Seymour Weitzman, on duty and among the first on the 6th floor of the Texas bldg. swore out an affidavit the next day that the weapon found was a Mauser 7.65mm not a 6.5 Mannlicher. affidavit image

Mark Lane (Rush to Judgment) commented on the rifle, and Weitzman's sworn affidavit to the Warren Commission: link

Mr. Lane.
Yes. I would like to call to the attention of the Commission the affidavit signed by a police officer, Seymour Weitzman, dated the 23d day of November 1963, the original of which was at one time in the office of the district attorney of Dallas. In that document, Officer Weitzman states he found, along with another person--a deputy sheriff, I believe, or a deputy of some sort--the alleged murder weapon, on the 22d day of November 1963, on the sixth floor of the Book Depository Building.
And in that affidavit Mr. Weitzman--Officer Weitzman--swears that the murder weapon which he found, or the weapon which he found on that floor, was a Mauser 7.65 millimeters. A Mauser, of course, is a German weapon. The rifle which is before the Commission, and which is, I assume, allegedly now the murder weapon, is, of course, not a German Mauser 7.65 millimeters, but is an Italian carbine, 6.5 millimeters.
Although I am personally not a rifle expert, I was able to determine that it was an Italian carbine because printed indelibly upon it are the words "Made Italy" and "caliber 6.5." I suggest it is very difficult for a police officer to pick up a weapon which has printed upon it clearly in English "Made Italy. Cal 6.5," and then the next day draft an affidavit stating that that was in fact a German Mauser 7.65 millimeters.

Officer Weitzman was never shown the weapon in his appearence before the WC, Lane only saw it because he said he wouldn't testify unless he did see it. Lane was a NYC lawyer and friend of JFK. Just one of many suspicious facts about the assasination.

Yes, they did want to get it over quickly (a book on the Warren Commission is due out soon). The reason they wanted it done quickly is because they feared there would be an anti-Communist hysteria which could conceivably lead to demands to attack the USSR or Cuba. Many people give President Johnson much credit for quickly calming the population and prohibiting a new outbreak of McCarthyism. Some say his decision to go big-time into Vietnam was also due to a fear of an extreme anti-Communist reaction against him, just like there was against the Democrats in the early 1950's which was the "who lost China?" hysteria. The Democrats always had to fear the "soft on Communism" charge.

Then please explain to me why "war monger" LBJ who supposedly dragged the US into Vietnam in fulfillment of the dreams of these mythical people who killed Kennedy (fearing that he was going to withdraw) DIDN'T attack Cuba?

Again, I wish that anyone who believes there was no conspiracy should go to Dealey Plaza and see the terrian for themselves.

In the meantime, look at this and figure out why the Secret Service had the death car make the turn to Elm (which required the car to slow down considerably) when it could have stayed on Main.

Has there ever been some official explanation for the last-minute change of the route? Especially since the sharp turn was reportedly against the Secret Service rules?

Yes, there is hard, solid proof that Oswald was the lone gunman. Whether he was or was not part of a conspiracy is not possible to determine to the same degree of certainty, as Gerald Ford pointed out.
Any jury sitting and listening to a case has to develop a picture of what happened which is short of absolute certainty since they didn't see the crime themselves.
As I stated in another posting, Robert Blakey, who was chief counsel for the House Select Committee on Assassinations (and who does believe there was a conspiracy), said the case against Oswald is "open and shut", an "easy case". For heaven's sake, Oswald's brother is absolutely convinced that he did it and was certainly capable of doing such an act.

In short, they have his gun, his opportunity, his flight (the only one to leave the building after the assassination), his murder of Patrolman Tippit, his resistance at the theater when arrested, his behavior during interrogation as observed not only by the police, but his brother and the Paine's. I know there are those who will claim "they are all in on it" but that is simply ridiculous.

Okay, so you say Oswald did it. What was his motive, and why didn't he admit to it afterwards? What's the point of killing a president if you won't tell anyone why?

Keep in mind that if Oswald was involved in any way (which he almost certainly was), he would have had a good reason to flee the depository and resist arrest regardless of whether he'd killed JFK or not.

I don't think they're all in on it. A successful conspiracy has to be very small. But it's not like there have never been any conspiracies to assassinate a US president before, is it.

There may be sufficient evidence that Oswald was a gunman. That's not the same thing as saying he was the lone gunman, let alone that there was no conspiracy.

International terrorists of today have websites and video clips where they tell the whole world exactly why they did what they did, and what they're going to do next. Where's Oswald's equivalent?

According to Anthony Summers' Conspiracy (p. 70 of my edition), there was a palm print of Oswald's found on a part of the rifle accessible only when the wooden stock was removed. It does seem Oswald had handled that Mannlicher-Carcano at some time when it was disassembled. By the way that print could not be detected on the rifle when it reached FBI headquarters.

Buell Frazier and his sister saw Oswald with a long package ( p. 71 Summers). Frazier's description of the package raises doubts if it was the rifle.

Once one catches the pattern, it is important not to take a lot of time on the minutiae of the JFK assassination. In other words, I saw the Phillies play Arizona in Philadelphia last night. If you tried to check that out everything tickets, news accounts, etc. would jibe. If you tried to prove the game was in Fresno, California, nothing would check out because it's not true. This is what happens with every aspect of the "Oswald did it because he was a lone nutty Commie" theory. It falls apart in every area when you start to check it out.

So playing Agatha Christie for too long on this takes you away from the big question Talbot tackles in Brothers - who did it and why?

Tom

Oswald was a mediocre shot in the Marines, but no sharpshooter has ever duplicated what he is supposed to have done.

Tom

I believe the Dallas Police were saying it was a Mauser the next morning also, after the assasination, they changed the gun later. I would give Weitzman the benefit of the doubt, the affidavit is very specific, and leaves no doubt on the identity of the rifle. Lane points out the clear identification on the gun in his cursory look at it while testifying before the Commission. Lane implies a switch in the murder weapon when he says:

...The rifle which is before the Commission, and which is, I assume, allegedly now the murder weapon...

Oswald was a mediocre shot in the Marines. He frequently got "Maggie's drawers" - missed the target. CBS News has been a terrible source on the assassination (as has the NY Times & NBC) since Dan Rather misrepresented what the Zapruder film showed immediately after the assassination (Conspiracy p. 31). What study shows the shots occured over 8 seconds rather than 6?

Tom

Artappraiser, thanks for mentioning Bugliosi's book. He is always interesting.

On tlees's suggestion I recently read Anthony Summers' 1980 book Conspiracy, on the JFK assassination. I have a hard time seeing that as "part and parcel of what Al Gore is complaining about in his new book." Its attention to the factual record, rigor of reasoning, and refusal to identify occasional speculation as anything other than speculation, are salutary IMO.

While I have no doubt that many of the conspiracy theories are not plausible, that does not mean that none of them is or will turn out to be plausible.

Asserting that "many American grown-ups need an everending supply of exotic fairy tales called conspiracies to process traumatic events" may or may not be true. But either way it is a non sequitur. It is irrelevant to what happened in the specific case of JFK's assassination.

Unless one is asserting that, as an historical matter, there have not been conspiracies to kill political leaders, and that conspiracies are not possible, it seems to me that one is obliged to look at the facts and the evidence in each instance and draw independent conclusions.

Personally, I have no emotional investment whatsoever in either a lone gunman or conspiracy theory.

I was 4 years old when he was killed. In earlier days I didn't want to see JFK's warts. But as one gets older, hopefully, one is less prone to "all or nothing", up or down judgments about people. Today I have a quite favorable view of him overall. Warts and all.

Similarly, I was unwilling to believe, for the longest time, that Martin Luther King had affairs. I didn't want to believe it and chalked up the assertions to opponents of his views who were desperate to discredit him any way they could.

Now I accept that it's true. And still believe he was one of the greatest Americans. To acknowledge that he was flawed is simply to acknowledge that he was human, not to minimize his positive deeds and their consequences.

I have come to think that our standards for what one has to do be a hero or a heroine are entirely unrealistic. It's almost as though someone has to be perfect, or at any rate entirely unblemished in the public eye, to be seen as heroic. Otherwise they are just another bum who--how *dare* they?--disappointed us. This can lead not just to disappointment but disillusionment, cynicism, or resignation when no one is able to come close to living up to hype and expectations.