I have a Kennedy assassination conspiracy.
I think there's a plot to keep us confused.
Is it a coincidence that new bullet evidence suggesting Lee Harvey Oswald didn't act alone comes out practically the same week that famed author/prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi's mammoth work on JFK's death, "Reclaiming History", is getting critical reviews for it's thoroughness in detailing his conclusion that Oswald acted alone?
Hmmmm.
New bullet research from Texas A-and-M purports that the tests used by the 1979 House Assassinations Committee to prove that all of the fragments from the killing came from Oswald's rifle were flawed. One of the guys behind the study had a hand in helping the FBI change the way it links shooters to crimes, so it seems the work has some cred. Read the "Washington Post" story right here:
Confused?
I am.
It shouldn't be this hard to link a gun, a bullet and a crime--if the evidence in the Kennedy case is flawed despite the reams of tests that have been done in the 44 years since he died, what then of the most mundane street crimes? How many folks are doing hard time because the same lead analysis was used to send them to the jug?
Which makes me think this is a lot of bunk.
Okay, there's nothing that links the bullets to the same box Oswald used the day he decided to change history. Is there anything there to suggest a bullet from another shooter? If I'm reading this correctly, the bullets are still made for the same type of rifle Oswald used--there's just nothing to show they came from the same box or can be ID'd individually.
And, this wouldn't be the first swing-and-miss by the Assassinations Committee, which used flawed acoustical evidence to suggest a second shooter fired (and probably missed) from the famed grassy knoll. That got debunked years later, when further analysis discredited the authenticity of an audio tape of the Kennedy shooting that was used to "map" the gunshots.
Bugliosi's book weighs almost six pounds and goes into great detail about how and why Oswald acted alone--how the evidence rules out multiple shooters. It dovetails Gerald Posner's work of several years ago, "Case Closed". Add that to new computer analysis of the famed Zapruder film of the Kennedy shooting which explains, among other things, how the so-called "magic bullet" actually did what the Warren Commission concluded: that it struck both Kennedy and Texas Governor John Connally before JFK's fatal head shot. Conspiracy buffs rallied for years around the magic bullet, saying it was proof Oswald couldn't have squeezed off all of the rounds in the amount of time given.
Now, they have new "magic bullets" to trot out, and that can make for many, many more books and a whole lot of money for people who pose legions of questions without providing any answers or evidence to back up outlandish claims.
As someone who recently went through a very major and public job change, I was struck by how fast sensitive, private information that was known by only a few people within our company was out on the internet well before other people who had a right to know it were actually brought into the loop. The theory: even a handful of people have a hard time keeping a big secret.
What secret is larger than the assassination of a world leader? If, indeed, this was some sort of plot, even between as few as two or three people, is it fathomable that the participants would be able to keep it quiet for 44 years? And, what are the odds of the secret staying private if the number of those involved is truly as large as some of the theorists say it is?
Oswald did it.
A dark, angry soul who lived the life of a contrarian desperate to make a mark on the world, he bought a cheap rifle, used his Marine skills to squeeze off a deadly round, and got killed by another fame-seeker before he could tell his story. It's opportunity plus coincidence, all rolled into one. We can't get our arms around that, though, because the thought of a sap like Oswald killing someone like JFK makes all of usthat much more vulnerable. Such a crime HAS to be bigger than it really was.
Conceding to the facts would dry up the conspiracy industry which, at last count, was one thousand books strong and probably growing, what with this week's bullet news.
Read Posner's book, or, if you want to build your assassination mind as well as your forearms, try wading through Bugliosi's. Then, let me know what you think.
I'm guessing you'll come off the knoll.
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