The JFK Assassination: NO Conspiracy!

It's come up again, thanks to Facebook: the assassination of President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963 in Dallas, Texas. Facebook has invited people to ask questions of director Oliver Stone about the president's assassination and Stone's three-hour big budget mythological movie of the supposed "conspiracy" surrounding it - with Stone answering some of the questions in a taped response later this week. Judging by the approximately 180 comments on Facebook, it would appear that I'm the only one who does not believe there was a conspiracy; I believe Lee Harvey Oswald alone did the killing. I'm also probably the only person among the Facebook posters who's actually read anything from the "Lone Gunman" or "anti-conspiracy" side of the argument... but that's the rub. Some 70% of Americans presently believe there was a conspiracy in Kennedy's assassination, but that's because some 70% of Americans have allowed a Hollywood movie to do their thinking for them (bought into it as historical truth when it's not), perhaps read one or two pro-conspiracy books on the subject, accepted as truth a few myths repeated to them by other misguided people, and never investigated the opposing viewpoint. If they had, I'm convinced their beliefs about the assassination would be different... because, in my experience, all it takes is one book of the "Oswald acted alone" variety to completely change your thinking on the event and destroy the house of cards which form the Conspiracy Theorists' "unanswered questions," "lingering doubts," and "mysterious/suspicious circumstances" about the assassination.

I didn't always believe what I do now about the assassination. I used to be like the Warren Report critics: I watched, re-watched, and loved Stone's JFK movie; I read a few pro-conspiracy books which supported and amplified my already-held beliefs; I could talk about the assassination with others and sound eloquent and informed - spouting out names like J.D. Tippit, Mary Moorman, Jean Hill, James Teague, and others (I still can. This entire blog entry was done from the top of my head, without a reference source nearby.); I guffawed about the ridiculously convoluted and seemingly illogical "Single Bullet Theory"; my far-fetched scenarios about "what really happened" were only supported by more far-fetched imaginings, rather than accepting the simpler answer already provided to us by the official record. I was a good little Conspiracy Theorist. But then I thought I'd expand by mind and my horizons by investigating what "the opposition" believed... and once I did, I joined the opposition and I've never looked back!

I started with Jim Moore's book Conspiracy of One. (I disagree with Moore on the exact timing of the shots, and there are now better and far more in-depth "Oswald acted alone" books than Moore's, but this was as good a place as any to start.) Moore's book began to put doubts in my mind about the Conspiracy Theorists' accounting of the event, began to steer me towards the light of truth. But old and deeply-held beliefs die hard, so it was going to take more than Moore to turn me around completely. Discussing the JFK assassination with my older brother once, he scoffed at all conspiracy talk and said to me, "There was no conspiracy. Read Case Closed." So I did, and I recommend you do, too.

My biggest arguments against the Warren Commission's version of the event (although, like most people who believe in a conspiracy, I hadn't even read it) were two: what about the Jim Garrison investigation of Clay Shaw, David Ferrie, and Guy Bannister, which is depicted in Stone's movie as factual and the hub of the whole conspiracy, and what about the ridiculous Single Bullet Theory upon which the Lone Gunman argument rests? As for the former, Case Closed by Gerald Posner includes an entire chapter about the Garrison investigation which completely discredits Garrison (and thus the Stone movie) - effectively illustrating that Garrison was a kook who believed every wild idea which crossed his desk (and even a handful of laughably far-fetched ones which he invented himself). Garrison's case for conspiracy and against Shaw, et al., relied entirely on the testimony of a "witness" named Perry Russo, whom Garrison had dug up, had drugged with sodium pentothal ("truth serum"), had hypnotized, and had then suggested to Russo what it was he (Russo) "saw." Despite what Stone's movie shows us, that's the entire Garrison case, in a nutshell. No wonder Clay Shaw was acquitted! So much for Garrison and the case against Shaw, Ferrie, and Bannister, and so much for the Stone movie: they'd been struck down in a single chapter of the Posner book.

But what about the Single Bullet Theory, the seemingly ridiculous cornerstone of the case against Oswald-as-Lone-Gunman, which posits that a single bullet from Oswald's rifle traversed both President Kennedy and Texas Governor John Connally, causing multiple woulds in both men and accounting for all the wounds except Kennedy's massive head wound? Sounds far-fetched, as Stone showed us in the movie, with the bullet doing some “magical” acrobatics: zig-zagging, pausing in mid-air, zig-zagging some more, and finally resting in Connally's leg, right? Wrong. Stone, like the Conspiracy Theorists he'd borrowed the demonstration from, had made a huge mistake (or mistakes) in demonstrating the Warren Commission’s Single Bullet Theory. Nobody, and particularly the Warren Commission, was arguing that a single bullet did all those ridiculously “magical” things, and yet the Single Bullet Theory is a Single Bullet Fact. Why? Because no "magic" was required for the bullet to cause all those wounds in both men. If I can explain...

For starters, let's dismiss Stone's (and the conspiracy theorists') argument that Oswald's Mannlicher-Carcano rifle was a terrible shoulder weapon. It was, in fact, a more powerful rifle than any the United States Army had ever used; it had a muzzle velocity of 2,000 feet per second. Any bullet from the Carcano which hit the president's back would naturally continue forward, through the president, and go on to strike the man seated in front of him. (Ask the Conspiracy Theorists where else the bullet could've gone!) But moreover, for their demonstration, Oliver Stone and the Theorists have seated the two victims in the presidential limousine entirely wrong. The Single Bullet Theory is only a ridiculously "magical" zig-zagging bullet if you seat the two gentlemen as Stone did - one directly in front of the other. But Governor Connally was actually seated on a "jumpseat," lower than President Kennedy, in-board of the side of the limousine, and turned sharply to his right. As computer animator and assassination researcher Dale Myers effectively showed us in an ABC television special (which, as it turned out, was aired while I was reading Case Closed - solidifying my rejection of the "conspiracy"), when the two men are seated in the limousine properly - seated as they actually were at the moment of the gunshot in question - all the wounds to both men line-up perfectly. In fact, a straight line can be drawn through all of the wounds' entry and exit points, and we can continue to draw the straight line backwards... back to the northeast corner of the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository building, where Oswald sat. You can see for yourself, in this clip and in the first six minutes of this clip.

What else did Stone get wrong about the shooting? The timing of the shots, for one thing, and the number of shots for another - Stone theorizes six, but there were only half that. Oswald's first shot most likely hit a tree in front of the Depository building, which blocked a clear shot at the motorcade. Oswald’s second shot is the “Single Bullet Theory” shot which caused wounds in both men, and his third shot was the fatal head shot (at frame 313 of the film taken by witness Abraham Zapruder). It was a fragment of this third and last shot which probably struck the curb in front of the motorcade, causing concrete to kick up into the face of witness James Teague. Three shots, and all the evidence confirms it.

It's frustrating to argue the assassination with people who've already made up their minds without researching both sides of the arguments and who'll grasp at anything - no matter how patently ridiculous - rather than accept the simpler conclusion: Oswald, and Oswald alone, assassinated the President of the United States. All the evidence points in that direction, and - nearly fifty years later - still no credible evidence has come forward to point in another. They'll tell you that evidence existed but was destroyed as part of the conspiracy "cover up," but you can see how that idea needs no supportive evidence in their minds, either! Wild imaginings, myths, and lies have been created and repeated and built upon, when the answer was there all along. Must you imagine one wild scenario and then support it with further and still further wild ideas, each absent of evidence, to get to "the truth"? No. Do you really believe that tens of thousands of people (given the scope of the "conspiracy," as forwarded by Stone and others) conspired to kill the president and cover it up, and all have kept the secret for almost fifty years? If Oswald is "just a patsy," do you really believe he brought curtain rods to work with him that day (his explanation for the rifle-shaped package he was carrying)? To believe in a conspiracy in the assassination of the president, one must dismiss all of the voluminous evidence against Lee Harvey Oswald and create fantastical scenario upon fantastical scenario to build a case (without any evidence!) against another party or parties. This is absurd. Conspiracy Theorists continue to claim that they’re only seeking the truth, but why then do they ignore the simple solution before them and continue to look peripherally for non-existent shadow figures in the bushes?

But the myth is more fun to believe, so still you deny the truth. You still have niggling questions about the assassination which I haven't addressed here. You're still saying "But what about...?" (The Mob? The CIA? Castro? Jack Ruby being part of the conspiracy, hired to silence the assassin before he could spill the beans about the conspiracy?) Please read Case Closed by Gerald Posner, or - if you're feeling particularly adventurous - the 1600 page book Reclaiming History by Vincent Bugliosi. (At the very least, read about the 100 or so inaccuracies in Stone's movie, here.) All the wild pet theories are addressed and then shot down with logic and common sense... and after reading just one of these anti-conspiracy books, your beliefs about the assassination of President John F. Kennedy will be forever changed for the better. You’ll find the truth, and it will set you free.

Isn't it about time to surrender the wild fantasies and admit, as Occam's Razor tells us, that the simplest explanation is probably the most correct? Distrust the government all you want (I do), but it didn't kill its president, destroy all the evidence, cover it up, intentionally botch the investigation of it, and then keep quiet about it for fifty years. Lee Harvey Oswald did it, and did it alone. Simple. Case closed.