"The Last WordS" On The Kennedy Assassination?...

Vincent Bugliosi's 2007 defense of the Warren Commission's report "Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy" has 1612 numbered pages, 1510 of which is "text" and has his "notes" on a CD included because otherwise the book would be uh "unwieldly" eh.

I'm currently on page 98 in the first section dealing, on a pinpoint "timeline" basis, with the day of the assassination, November 22 1963 and I'm to the period between the time Oswald shot police officer J D Tippit (1:12 pm) and when CBS newsman Walter Cronkite made his noted broadcast "officially" announcing to the nation of tv "the death of the president" (1:38 pm) -- Oswald has not yet been apprehended at the Texas theater in the Dallas suburb of Oak Cliff but he has been spotted entering the movie house without paying for a ticket.

Bugliosi is of course a former Los Angeles county prosecutor who prosecuted the infamous Charles Manson case and subsequently wrote the best seller "Helter Skelter" which I have not read. (Anybody?) But I must say that Bugliosi is a very good writer; the minute account of the assassination day is really "rivetting" and revealing and builds a thorough case against "conspiracy" without leaving out incidents and info "for" such. (In his unsurprisingly long introduction Bugliosi criticizes other pro Warren books like Gerald Posner's "Case Closed" from the 1990s for "selective" presentation -- in 1510 pages I guess Bugliosi has "room enough" to be inclusive huh.)

I admit I'm "enjoying" the book, the long ago tragedy which I like so many my age (I'll be 65 in July) I recall "vividly" if not as minutely as Bugliosi can. I wasn't a great JFK fan at the time (my folks were "Eisenhower Republicans" and so I was a Nixon guy in '60) but I was finding him more and more appealing although I was kind of hoping Nelson Rockefeller would be the Repub candidate in '64. (Later I segued to Goldwater but hey I was an Arizona bred kid and loved westerns -- who ever heard of a "liberal cowboy" eh.)

I've now read two other books DEFENDING the Warren report and this one seems "the defense to end all defense" so to speak although I've been a friend of a true believer in the Oliver Stoneish conspiracy and I know that he would dismiss it all as the nefarious work of the CIA in a country in which one can't "trust" ANYTHING defending the government.

Depending on whether there's much interest I'll make some further remarks re the book as I go along but I'll recommend it right now to those who want THE "definitive" edition of pro Warren huh. THIS IS IT! You betcha!...

I read Helter Skelter when I was in my teens and enjoyed it.

I've read some scattered criticism of Bugliosi, and I think we can expect the 'definitive' anti-Warren book soon enough.

Bugliosi is a very good writer; I remember an article by him on the O.J. trial in Playboy. (Bugliosi was scathing in his assessment of the prosecutors in the trial; he boasted that he could have convicted O.J. based on the points he'd listed on one sheet of legal paper during the infamous chase. Possibly an exaggeration; but given his record as LA County prosecutor...)

What mainly is the "criticism"? And I have no doubt that there will be more "conspiracy" books -- it's an industry -- and that "the issue" will remain "unresolved."

I do suspect that more will "accept" the Warren report and then of course the Kennedy assassination, like Lincoln's, will eventually become a "curiosity" as old folks like me shed the mortal coil...

At least we have confirmation that the Walrus was Paul.

And that "Deep Throat" (other than Linda Lovelace) was FBI agent Mark Felt.

I've come to think that the Lincoln conspiracy did NOT include sec'y of war Edwin M Stanton and I now believe that Lee Harvey Oswald WAS the "single assassin" but I certainly recognize that "the end" of the tale is not yet...

>4 Michael_Welch: Sorry, Michael, I just spent a couple hours a few months ago looking into and having little knowledge of the arguments either side, nothing stuck. I think the main problem with the conspiracy theory is that while at first or for some time the things that are unknown or bizarre (as the whole Oswald story seems to be) is convincing enough that the conspiracy seems likely or possible...but eventually the theories must do more than poke holes in the 'official story'--somebody has to find some evidence.

Basically that's Bugliosi's "message," that NO ONE has really gone beyond speculation.

Interestingly in the other two books I read, "A Cruel and Shocking Act" by Philip Shenon and "History Will Prove Us Right" by a Warren commission supervisor and "editor" Howard Willens, the point is made that early critic Mark Lane was asked to testify twice -- and at neither time did he offer ANY such evidence for his allegations but only repeated them.

The idea as per the movie "JFK" that "everybody" killed Kennedy and yet NO particpant in that "conspiracy" EVER revealed or admitted it seems difficult in a world of say Daniel Ellsberg and Edward Snowden.

Of course "the story" is more compelling this way -- Jackie bemoaned that her husband would always be recalled as having been murdered by "this little communist" as an insignificant act; after all at least Lincoln was killed as an act of vengeance for a committed "southerner"; Oswald's actual motivation remains only speculative as the Warren investigators discovered; even Marina didn't have a clue.

I think that's one reason why Bugliosi begins his massive book with such a page turning account of Nov 22 -- to create or recreate "the story" as vividly as conspiracy books and Ollie Stone create their "alternative history"...

The Lincoln Murder Conspiracies puts paid to any idea that Stanton had anything whatsoever to do with the assassination of President Lincoln. Not to mention such an act was completely contrary to everything we know about Stanton and his beliefs; Fletcher Pratt's biography of Stanton makes that very clear. The on-the spot account of the conspiracy also fails to implicate Stanton in any way.

Yes that's what I understand but in the 1960s (conspiracies' "birthplace"?) that "theory" attracted some credence as folks became more skeptical about the JFK assassination and "government" hmm.

I even recall a tv movie about it (with fine character actor John Anderson playing Lincoln) that was pretty good and of course "unsettling"...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_Eisenschiml

The book was written in the 1930s, but didn't gain popularity until The Lincoln Conspiracy came out.

Otto Eisenschimi -- the "first" Mark Lane?

Actually post WWI saw far more skepticism re US history and then of course the 1930s and the great depression brought about a certain cynicism too. "Everyone" is surely intrigued by "the REAL" or "TRUE story" eh; I even read a book last year that posited "the true story of the battle of the Alamo" ("Exodus From the Alamo" by Philip Thomas Tucker) as a complete massacre of sleep deprived defenders, many of whom were killed OUTSIDE the walls as they attempted to escape. (I found indeed the thesis "intriguing.")

The author interestingly was identified as living in the Washington DC area but there was no photo. I suspect it may have been rather "dangerous" for him?...

Given the amount of Southern support for a theory that two of the chief architects of their loss of the War Between the States had gone after each other? What danger?

Well Philip Thomas Tucker would hardly be "safe" in Texas I'd say.

The southern attitude toward Lincoln I think was "modified" as he became more and more "iconic"; now a revisionist "confederate" might posit Lincoln as less "radical" than the Republican reconstruction congress which would be true enough but whether as "indulgent" of southern white ways might be a question...

I thought I'd include a few passages from Bugliosi that I think may be of interest:

"There are several reasons over and above Jack Ruby's supposedly 'silencing' Oswald and a general distrust of government and government agencies which was only intensified by the Vietnam war and the Watergate scandal, why the majority of Americans have embraced the conspiracy theory and rejected the findings of the Warren commission.

"One is that people inevitably find conspiracies fascinating and intriguing and hence subconsciously are more receptive to conspiratorial hypotheses. As author John Sparrow points out 'Those who attack the Warren report enjoy an advantage over its defenders: they have a more exciting story to tell. The man in the street likes to hear that something sinister has been going on, particularly in high places.'

"And of course we know that humans, for whatever reason, love mysteries (which to most the JFK assassination has become) whether fictional or real, more than open and shut cases....

"Tom Stone who teaches a course on the Kennedy assassination at Southern Methodist University says that 'by the late '90s I had come to believe that Oswald was probably the only shooter. But I found I was taking the fun out of the assassination for my students.'...

"Secondly a wide ranging conspiracy in a strange way gives more meaning not only to the president's death but to his life. That powerful national interests killed Kennedy because he was taking the nation in a direction they opposed emphasizes the importance of his life and death more than the belief that a lone nut killed him for no other reason than dementia....

"Even Jacqueline Kennedy was moved to say that her husband 'didn't even have the satisfaction of being killed for civil rights. It had to be some silly little communist. It robs his death of meaning.'

"In the unconscious desire of many to make a secular saint out of a fallen president the notion of martyrdom was inevitable. But a martyr is not one who dies at the hands of a demented non entity. ONLY POWERFUL FORCES WHO VIEWED KENNEDY'S REIGN AS ANTITHETICAL TO THEIR GOALS WOULD DO." (my emphasis) -- pp xxvi-xxvii in the Introduction...

Another passage I found interesting as per the "approving" reaction of some to JFK's death -- the parallels to the present tea bagged zeitgeist seem obvious to me:

"Ralph Emerson McGill, publisher of the Atlanta Georgia (newspaper the) Constitution, wrote of the antipathy to Kennedy before his death that spilled over among some to his demise: 'There were businessmen who in a time when profits were at an all time high and the domestic economy booming nonetheless could speak only in hatred of "the Kennedys."

"'There were evangelists who declared the president to be an anti Christ, an enemy of God and religion. This hatred could focus on almost anything the president proposed. When he asked for legislation for medical aid for the aged (i. e., medicare) for example there were doctors who succumbed to the fever of national unreason and began abusing the president.

"'In locker rooms and at cocktail parties, luncheons and dinners it became a sort of game to tell vulgar and shabby jokes about the president, his wife and his family. Most of these were repeats of stories in vogue at the time Franklin D and Eleanor Roosevelt were in the white house.'" -- p 100

Personal note: As I said I was a Goldwater kid in 1964 and I remember "stories" I later read in a biography of FDR applied that year to Lyndon Johnson. I must admit that these things "disturbed" me at the time, as did blatant racism from some other local Goldwater supporters I knew in working for his campaign as a "youth volunteer" in La Crosse Wisconsin.

I tried to ignore these things but while I never turned against Barry at the time they never sat well with me and they, among other things, marred my experience. I have always voted but I never really took a very active part in any other political campaign...

It's funny how this has gone full circle. In a sitcom in the early 90s, I remember one scene-- a trial-- where a witness is asked "who shot Kennedy?" It's seen as a test of his sanity. When he answers "Oswald", everyone breathes a sigh of relief: he is sane, after all.

Then Oliver Stone came out with his film, and suddenly anyone who believed the Warren Report was a naive fool. Now opinion seems to be swinging back, and conspiracy theories generally (remember 'truthers' and 'birthers'?) are out of favor.

>16 Michael_Welch: Kennedy wasn't as much of a liberal as his legend claims. Read MLK and Noam Chomsky on his record, RE: civil rights and foreign policy in Latin America, respectively.

I've heard Americans say things like: 'JFK would have gotten us out of Vietnam.' Based on what? His previous actions in broadening and deepening American involvement in Vietnam? Don't be absurd.

But when someone is assassinated, they suddenly become a martyr, who cannot be criticized.

And LBJ used the Kennedy assassination (along with his own considerable knowledge of where a lot of legislative bodies were buried) to push through a lot of legislation that had been stalled in Congress.

The motive for killing Kennedy became the 'fact' that he was going to pull the US out of Vietnam, based on a directive that was quashed after his death. The directive called for a removal of some troops. The problem, though, is that the decision was of rather long standing, and was not arrived at by Kennedy himself, but some of his military advisers, and was tactical, not representative of a change in policy.

NOVA: Cold Case JFK (52:57)
First Aired: 11/13/2013 (I watched it last night.)
"Can modern forensic science uncover fresh clues about the assassination of JFK?"
http://video.pbs.org/video/2365118537/

Amazing how much today's forensic scientists can extract from x-rays, bullet-path simulations, the amateur video, etc. Very watchable.

Bugliosi devastates ANY conspiracy theory just with his section on the autopsy's analysis and conclusions re the "fatal head shot" but again I recommend for sheer mesmerizing readability the first section of the book ("only" 300 pages) "Four Days in November" which gives a nearly hour by hour account of the assassination and its initial aftermath.

I think Kennedy was mulling over the "commitment" to south Vietnam and wishing he could find some way out but I think it's "fair" to say he really hadn't made up his mind although the murder of the Diem brothers only 21 days before JFK's obviously "rocked" him.

Kennedy was a "moderate liberal" who was very "conservative" about retaining his own position but he had recognized that the "Negro" civil rights movement was "a time come" no matter how much he preferred to delay it. Also he had a test ban treaty and a bettering relationship with the Sovs (a "reset" post Cuban missile eh) as well as his administration was considering what Johnson would later call "a war on poverty." Jack was "moving leftward" albeit of course he wasn't about to join the Socialist Workers party eh.

The irony was that the Kennedy folks couldn't get their bills out of congressional committees largely run by southern conservative Democrats and it was LBJ who broke the logjams (see Robert Caro's latest volume on Johnson, "The Passage of Power") and if we want an "as left as we can get" prez HE was it. No president since has been as liberal as Johnson -- none.

That's probably the greatest irony of the assassination -- the new president was more competent AND more liberal though his image was initially the opposite.

In Oliver Stone's "overlooked" movie, "Nixon," Stone presents of course the Nixon we love to hate but he also has Nixon wail "Why do 'they' hate me so?! I ended the war; I made the opening to China; I made deals with Russia --" and all of which is true; it was conservatives who hated Nixon and Kissinger too, a point even Stone makes in his film.

Nothing's really "simple" in this world which is what liberals always complained of re conservatives in those "olden days" -- "simple" answers is what Barry Goldwater was offering and simplicity and "simpleness" is the current Republican banner.

Bugliosi reminds "US" that "things happen" we can't always explain -- including WHY Oswald shot Kennedy. (Just because he could? In a way it was as "impulsive" as per Ruby shooting LHO -- another "irony.") We only know that Oswald did it...

I find it difficult to believe that ANY Democratic President could have survived withdrawing from a confrontation with Communism. Or that Kennedy, whatever he may have personally wanted to do, wouldn't have recognized the firestorm of protests he would have spurred by going 'soft' on Communism.

Kennedy MIGHT have been able to keep Vietnam from escalating to the extent it did; but given attitudes at the time, I would bet against that as well. Losing a war against Communism rampant simply wasn't an option, politically speaking.

As far as I know, there is no credible evidence for the argument that Kennedy had any independent thoughts regarding Vietnam, particularly regarding some sane reasoning regarding getting the hell out. That is simply a myth propagated largely by those looking for a motive for killing Kennedy (among those within his own government). Kennedy's career follows the path of all US presidents since WWII, the thinking, the decision making, all taking into consideration the way in which the US can maintain their primacy in the post-WW world.

For someone who never got to testify, Oswald certainly left a detailed account of his
movements in the 2 hours or so AFTER the shooting. Youʻd think he was being tailed by Wellsʻs "Invisible Man". You start to wonder why they didnʻt have any idea what he
was doing and planning to do in the two hours or so BEFORE the shooting.
To mention one of the scenarios which give "Conspiracy Theory" a bad name, there is even a
story in which he gets to work early, and is supplied
with a pistol (a defective one!)* by Jack Ruby!

*defective: presumably because (in the theory) Ruby, a co-conspirator wants to insure
that LHO wonʻt shoot his way
out of his pre-planned arrest.
Whether he reactivated the pistol enough to shoot J. D. Tippitt, this scenario doesnʻt say.
Reply | More

#24
Youʻre right. Megalomaniacal.
Self correction when proud leaves a divided mind/soul/body hard to control/influence by long term goal visions. Thereʻs greatness and a losing of soul.
Most of us may love Things, the concrete side of Power, too much, having just got both recently.

Ah here's the post I actually responded to on the "climate change" topic -- sorry but I won't repeat but ask folks to go to that topic for said response if you're interested.

I can agree that Kennedy's "options" may well have been limited by the cold war zeitgeist of the time and it would have been risky politically to dump the south Vietnamese government although K reputedly was thinking in terms of POST Nov 1964 rather than post WWII in that AFTER he won the election he could THEN huh.

I recall that um post the Nov '63 coup (the one in Vietnam, not the US hmm) there were several "musical chairs" governments in Saigon that caused LBJ in his inimitable style to remark "What's all this 'coup' shit?" Kennedy may have had the same response if he had lived and eventually he might have opted out of an unpopular situation OR escalated as per Johnson in order to "convince" the north Vietnamese to ratchet down and back off.

It's fair to suppose Kennedy with the same frustrations as Johnson -- he wants out but doesn't know how without a political catastrophe and then he has a catastrophe BECAUSE he won't get out or blast the livin' shit outta "them."

Another "irony" of course was that Eugene McCarthy came as close to defeating LBJ in the New Hampshire primary in '68 because those who wanted a "harder" war to be won voted for McCarthy as their protest of the war that wasn't...

Another "point" I was getting to albeit somewhat elliptically above is that Nixon probably did what was "possible" to end the war -- end it while continuing to fight it -- because it wasn't a given that even if Bobby K had lived and been nominated that he'd have won the election that year or been able to "end it" as quickly as McGovern later promised.

Humphrey got traction by moving just a bit farther toward negotiating a way out than Johnson already had but then it may well be that the Wallace-LeMay ticket (the "American party") gained votes from Humphrey in the still partially Democratic south by emphasizing a "win the war" position which is why LeMay was Wallace's choice for vice -- in order to spin on that "hard" war aspect and not just his old "states' rights" racism which made LeMay uneasy.

So if K couldn't "end it" neither could Nix I guess except that Nixon worked out a "plan," "secret" or not and it fast became not so secret, that actually "worked" and was affirmed without a doubt by the '72 election result. Of course thousands "had to die" before it all worked but then as per everybody's politics (Ho Chi Minh's as well) "nobody's perfeck"...

As I'm continuing through Bugliosi's great big "bible" of the JFK assassination I've reached "the book of Lee Harvey Oswald." Some may know that the initial section, "Four Days in November," has been excerpted as a book in its own right, unsurprising as per its readability and hour by hour "suspense."

Well B has repeated such in this extremely thorough "Everything You Wanted To Know About Lee Harvey Oswald But Hadn't Thought Of It" -- I don't know how "complete" was Norman Mailer's "Oswald's Tale"; has anyone read that? Still I have to recommend this rather disturbing "portrait of an assassin" (I never read Gerald Ford's book either -- anyone?) as an extremely alienated but perhaps surprisingly bright but dyslexic boy suffering from Doc Freud's momma domination and then from his own steely revolt from such.

Oswald was born as was the also "violent" Andrew Jackson after his father's death and while he had two older brothers he was farmed out to orphanages, military and religious schools as well as relatives by a mother who "did her best" but resented having to do so.

By the time he was thirteen a previously "engaging" and sympathetic boy became "a rock, an island/and the rock feels no pain and an island never cries" eh.

The current zeitgeist re "shooters" is that they ought to be "ignored," barely mentioned even when speaking of their acts so as to deny them their perverted "glory" but of course there's no better question to murderous actions than to ask "Why?" because "why" is what we REALLY NEED to know and we can never know if we take no interest in the "killer," as repugnant as we may find him.

Oswald is not exactly "likeable" ("I like no one" he told his psychiatric counselor after refusing to go to school at all, consequently being sent to a "reform" school in New York City as a chronically recalcitrant child) but one does acquire sympathy for a kid who lived so assiduously and stubbornly in "his own world" in defiance of "all." "Peter Pan gone bad" but yet "Peter"...

I don't know how interesting this is to folks but I'm continuing in Bugliosi's "mini bio" of Lee Harvey Oswald and it seems very complete although the most "religious" (those dedicated to "the conspiracy" have practically made a religion of it I think) will always find a way hmm.

Oswald as a defector Bugliosi notes turned out to be far more interested in attending dances in Minsk than in studying Marx -- in other words as a twenty year old he was (surprise!) more excited by picking up girls than learning "dialectic." His job at the electronics plant was "minimal"; he didn't really know much or learn much but he collected his pay and also a "special" dividend from the Soviet "Red Cross" (not really related to the International RC at the time). He had a "private" apartment which was unusual; he skipped the various workers' "meetings" and obligations and made few friends, mostly female.

Before he even married Marina he was already (by the end of 1961) tired of his Soviet "utopia" and attempting to go back to the US, i. e., he was writing the American embassy in Moscow and as EVERYTHING he did was kept track of by the KGB his "Red Cross" subsidy stopped with that!

Once he finally got back to Texas he had a Russian wife he wasn't especially enamoured of but at least she'd given him a child and she was distinctly put off by his volatile emotions, criticism of her housekeeping and his sexual selfishness -- she never had orgasms; he was always too quick.

He bopped her around -- A LOT it seems -- and yeah she was "mouthy" but he was also scary, controlling, isolated her by never encouraging her to learn English and by his resentment of her friendships with "white Russians" in the Dallas-Fort Worth area and their trying to help her financially as well as emotionally.

The only one who seemed to like Lee was the famous or infamous George de Mohrenschildt who was a rather fascinating figure with connections with various "spy networks" before and during WWII. There's an interesting footnote (p 660) --

"Though de Mohrenschildt was impressed with certain character traits of Oswald's {e. g., his "independence" and his apparent indifference to whether he was "liked"}, he did on the other hand discount the possibility that Oswald was a Soviet spy, saying 'I never would believe that ANY GOVERNMENT would be stupid enough to trust Lee with anything important....an unstable individual, mixed up individual, uneducated individual, without background. What government would give him any confidential work? NO GOVERNMENT would. Even the government of Ghana would not give him a job of any type.'" (my emphases)

(I have no idea why "Ghana" especially came to de M's mind but I imagine a certain amount of racism?)

Another revealing quote:

"For the moment {during the year 1963} Lee and Marina were locked in the deadly symbiotic embrace of emotional neediness, each of them utterly reliant on the other to fulfill this need. The descending spiral of the battered woman syndrome, neediness leading to ever dwindling self esteem and lack of confidence, is well known.

"Priscilla McMillan {author of the dual biography "Lee and Marina"} had come to believe from exhaustive conversations with Marina that Lee was in fact much the weaker of the two. The proposition is easy to entertain. One has only to imagine which of the two would have thrived if he or she had come to the United States separately: Marina with her new found friends who were so willing to help, or Lee whose abrasive personality and towering ego, unsupported by even normal capabilities, made him so offensive to everyone.

"Lee seemed doomed to fail at everything, including his marriage which he was keeping together by intimidation and brute force. And he seemed to be keeping himself together as he had as a child by his turn to fantasy...and if the world would not present him with the grand position he imagined his due he would invent one all his own." (pp 670-71)...

So, Michael, do you ever take a break from the Jack Kennedy assassination question to consider other controversial questions?

E.g., what is your take on Holocaust Revisionism?

How about the moon landing "hoaxes"?

The face on Mars?

Immanuel Velikovsky's explanations of most of the "miracles" related in the bible?

>31 JGL53:

As MW is not available daily, I will take on the responsibility to respond to this bizarre cheap shot myself. He is reading Bugliosi's giant book on the event. He is reporting back. He has taken a break from other political books that he has written about on LT to read this one. His writing is interesting. He writes far more about movies than anything else.

Otherwise, JGL, good to see you back.

Well I appreciate Rick but maybe "JGL" is just "interested" -- I USED to "believe" in conspiracies by the dozen but I'm whittlin' them down. Bugliosi does a good job at popping the balloons and I recommend the book even at its great length but hey if you've ever read the WHOLE Bible or even "Gone With the Wind" you can get through it.

The parts on the more "technical" stuff -- bullets and trajectories and state of the bullets and autopsies can be a little hard going but the sections on the assassination itself and the "bio" of "Marina and Lee" are fascinating and very well written.

Re "holocaust" I'm a'gin it -- I simply find the "denial" of such to be so off the wall I can't imagine a real "debate" although I used to be friends with a guy who could.

"Everyone's gone to the moon" but it isn't as interesting as H G Wells made it. Norman Mailer came to the rescue of space travel with his "Of a Fire On the Moon" but what's "up there"? Not "God" it seems.

I believe in "miracles" but she STILL doesn't love me. What IS Velikovsky's explanation -- I'd be interested...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immanuel_Velikovsky

Basically, various planetary bodies go joy-riding through the solar system, causing havoc upon Earth in accordance with Biblical accounts.

If you ignore the inconvenient, minor detail that the theory violates numerous physical laws of gravity, stellar mechanics, meterology, biochemistry (the 'manna' that sustained the Hebrews was hydrocarbons in the Venusian atmosphere (on its close approach to Earth) being converted to carbohydrates; the late Dr. A observed this sounded good linguistically, but wasn't possible, really), and probably a few others that I've missed, then there's nothing at all wrong with Dr. Velikovsky's (degree in Medicine, practiced psychiatry) ideas...

JGL is, without any thought, being a dick in post 31. Those are gibes, your reward for reading a book too long for most and reporting back to a site devoted to books.

Oh and as per "the movies" Rick has put his long finger on my REAL "religion" and here's something that combines movies with "conspiracy," on pp 764-65 -- Rick could've made something of this in his first published novel, "Sleep of the Aborigines":

"On Saturday evening of that weekend (in October 1963) Lee and Marina shared a banana and she put her head on his lap...while he watched old movies on television, two films back to back, 'Suddenly' and 'We Were Strangers.' She watched the latter film but not the former although she knew the first one involved 'an attempt to kill a president at a railroad station with a rifle from a house.' Eerily both movies involved political assassinations.

"'Suddenly' was a nine year old B-thriller (1954 so Ike was the "target"?) starring Frank Sinatra and Sterling Hayden (!). Directed by Lewis Allen from a script by Richard Sale, Sinatra plays a psychotic ex-serviceman who has been hired to assassinate the president of the United States when he gets off the train in the small western town of Suddenly for a vacation in the nearby Sierras. (Ike liked vacationing in Colorado.)

"Sinatra and and two accomplices masquerading as FBI agents (!!!) take over the house of an attractive (this is Hollywood after all) young widow whose family they hold hostage. The house overlooks the train stop and the upper windows provide a perfect location for a shooter with a high powered sniper's rifle with a telescopic sight (!!!!!!!). From the window one sees a dark limousine about two hundred yards away waiting for the president to arrive.

"In the end the president's train passes through Suddenly without stopping and the would be assassin eventually meets his death at the hands of the local sheriff played by Hayden.

"The second film, 'We Were Strangers,' directed by John Huston and written by Peter Viertel, was even older, dating from 1949 (REALLY "old"!) and based on the overthrow of the Cuban dictator Geraldo 'the butcher' Machado in 1933 but it was a better film with splendid performances by John Garfield, Jennifer Jones and a cast of pseudo Cubans such as Pedro Armendariz, Ramon Navarro and Gilbert Roland.

"Garfield plays an American expatriate who takes up the cause of China Valdez (Jennifer Jones) who joined the Cuban underground after her brother was killed by the chief of the secret police. Garfield develops a plan involving the building of a tunnel to blow up the dictator and his entire cabinet when they congregate for a state funeral. His plot fails and Garfield dies a hero's death which sparks a popular uprising and the film ends with the Cuban people dancing in the streets with the fall of the dictatorship.

"The impact of these film's on Lee's fantasy life cannot be known. He never discussed them with anyone beyond remarking to Marina that the content of the Cuban film was similar to the actual situation then existing in Cuba (?) and that he did not like the conspirators' plans in 'We Were Starngers' because as he said 'that was the way they did it in the old days.'

"However as to the movie 'Suddenly,' with someone possessing the unbalanced and homicidal (remember the attempt on General Walker's life) mind Oswald did, there is no way that his seeing the movie can casually and automatically be dismissed...as having played no part in his forming the intent to kill Kennedy from the sniper's nest window at the Texas School Book Depository the following month.

"Author John Loken in his book 'Oswald's Trigger Films' in which he includes 'We Were Strangers' and 'The Manchurian Candidate' also starring Frank Sinatra which the author speculates Oswald may have seen when it was shown in Dallas in late December of 1962, wonders about the effect (the movies) could have had on a psyche as combustible as Oswald's and said that if (they) 'provided only five to ten percent of the stimulus for the act their influence would still be momentous.'

"After all it was a newspaper clipping about the murder, by gunshot, of the king of Italy that helped inspire the murder of President William McKinley in 1901. It is noteworthy that Marina told author Priscilla McMillan that while watching one or both movies every now and then Oswald would sit up straight and strain toward the television set, greatly excited.

"One person we know felt there may have been a connection or at least a possible one between 'Suddenly' and the assassination -- Frank Sinatra. Sinatra had enough clout in the movie industry by 1963 to have 'Suddenly' 'taken out of distribution after hearing that President John F. Kennedy's assassin Lee Harvey Oswald had watched (it) only days (weeks) before November 22, 1963." (Sinatra also did the same with "Manchurian Candidate")...

As for the "gibe" well I can "live" with it; thanks of course for defending me.

Thanks to Mr Coulson too for providing basic info re Velikovsky. I tend then to see more clearly "the gibe"...

M, The Sleep of Aborigines was third, Driftless Zone was first, Billy Verite second.

Although there IS evidence that God can play a mean game of pool...

http://www.universetoday.com/13560/evidence-of-asteroid-impact-for-sodom-and-gom...

FWIW, I'm finding the excerpts from Bugliosi's book interesting.

Oops!

Well yes then "Driftless Zone" with the Oswald character -- sorry! (I'm just getting old I guess.)

And thanks again BC; I hoped people would...

You know part of my "problem" here is although I have had ostensibly "a college education" at mind and at heart I'm really a form of autodidact with the pluses and minuses of such, i. e., someone from the low middle and working classes who reads books but who isn't uh shall we say "sophisticated"?...

We shall. Skunk Lane Forhension makes his appearance in Billy Verite--however, the sloth a deux of Lee and Marina is reminiscent of Spleen and the Sneering Brunette of The Driftless Zone.

Marina was often the Sneering Blonde but Bugliosi makes the observation that of course it is not "hate" which is the opposite of "love" but "indifference" (Shaw has the understanding pastor Anderson say the same in his lively paly "The Devil's Disciple") and of "indifference" to each other Marina and Lee can never be accused.

Oswald it seems to me at THIS point in the book (at just over 800 pages) was an emotionally bereft child who never felt "loved" who created for himself his own world as many of us do when feeling "unappreciated" for ourselves eh. He was intelligent but never had the opportunity or perhaps the encouragement to develop his intellect in any "systematic" way -- yes an "autodidact" but one without well "hope" except what he was able to discern in what Marxist philosophy he could understand, i. e., that "the wretched of the earth" (and who was more "wretched" emotionally than he) would come into their own if only the "right" circumstances were provided.

Obviously he didn't feel those circumstances were American but IMAGINED as SO MANY did before but not so many by the 1950s eh that this "perfect" place would be the Soviet Union, a self proclaimed "Marxism."

Actually going there manifests I believe some determination most of us don't have but he as oh a number of disillusioned ex communists could have told him would find that "the place" isn't really "there"; it's just another semi prison with a few "extras." "They" told him to "sing while you slave and" he "just got bored"?

But Cuba! Cuba became his new shining light -- he had had a parallel fascination with it all along too -- and THIS was going to be "the place" where he would "shine" and be appreciated as the truly superior person he was as LHO was NOT, definitely NOT, one of the "masses" but a rugged individualist in more or less psychic isolation if it weren't for the Russian girl he refused to teach English to so she would be HIS and solely HIS alone!

Interestingly as per above -- the movies hmm -- it seems as if Oswald decided to kill Kennedy on a whim -- he had planned the attempt on Walker and it ALMOST worked and after his abortive try to go to Cuba in late September and early October via Mexico (THEY didn't want him, either the Cubans or the Russians, finally) how could he "show" the Cubans (and the world!) that "superiority" -- well he could assassinate the president of the strongest nation in the world and at the time Cuba's bete noir.

Finding out that the route of the presidential motorcade through Dallas would go literally right under "his" window it was only a matter of sneaking the rifle into the building (disassembled as "curtain rods" he told one fellow worker), securing it on a floor that was being remodeled and so not much used, putting it back together in just a matter of seconds (like reassembling one's marine issue rifle and Oswald WAS familiar with guns and knew how to handle them) and waiting for "the best shot" when everyone else was watching below him.

A president hadn't been shot in sixty two years (though both FDR and Truman were shot AT) and Kennedy didn't like the secret service all around him nor did he want the "bubble top" as long as the weather had turned sunny -- THIS was a POLITICAL trip after all and you don't get votes "hiding" behind the curtain, not in a "democracy." And in fact the reception in politically right wing Dallas revealed nonetheless A LOT of folks who well "liked" the Kennedys and showed some real enthusiasm at seeing the "movie star" presidential couple.

Passing beneath the building he barely noticed, headed in a matter of seconds for the freeway to the Trade Mart and his next speech JFK must have felt real satisfaction and nodded to Nellie Connally, the governor's wife, when she remarked "You can't say Dallas doesn't love you Mr President!" and then --...

I generally enjoy talking to myself so I'll include some more excerpts that maybe Bruce Coulson and Rick Harsch might find "interesting":

This from a footnote on page 947:

"That {General Edwin} Walker {whom Oswald attempted to kill} was Kennedy's opposite was made clear in many pronouncements by the right wing zealot. For instance in a speech before the Annual Leadership Conference of the White Citizens' Council of America on October 25 1963 in Jackson Mississippi Walker declared 'The Kennedys have liquidated the government of the United States. It no longer exists.... The best definition I can find today for communism is Kennedy liberalism.... He is the greatest leader of the anti Christ movement that we have had as president....'"

Gee -- some Republicans today could take that and just substitute "Obama" for "Kennedy" eh.

Page 949:

"If anyone ever had the psychological profile of a presidential assassin it was Oswald. He not only had a propensity for violence but was emotionally and psychologically unhinged. He was a bitter, frustrated and beaten down loser who felt alienated from society and couldn't get along with anyone including his wife; one who irrationally viewed himself in an historical light, having visions of grandeur and of changing the world; one whose political ideology consumed his daily life, causing him to keep time to his own drummer in a lonely obsession with Marxism and Castro's Cuba; and one who hated his country and its representatives to such an extent that he defected to one of the most undesirable places on earth...."

Do you think Edward Snowden really "enjoys" living in Russia? Just a thought.

Page 975:

"The belief in conspiracy (derived from the Latin word 'conspirare,' 'to breathe together') has appealed to those of liberal as well as conservative mind, to the uneducated as well as the intellectual elite* {here Bugliosi cites conspiracy believer Bertrand Russell the great English philosopher in a footnote} and has been with humanity -- if not in name then in the sensing of it -- since the beginning of time. Witness for example the title of a 1798 book by one John Robison, a professor of natural philosophy who was the secretary to the Royal Society of Edinburgh: 'Proofs Of A Conspiracy Against All Religions And Governments Of Europe, Carried On In The Secret Meetiings Of Free Masons, Illuminati, And Reading Societies.'"

I know a man who might well "know" this book above hmm.

Page 1026:

"A reported sighting of Oswald took place over two years later in March or early April of 1963. On November 30 1963 a Sparta Wisconsin barber named John Abbott told the FBI that he had given Oswald a haircut back in March or April. Oswald said he was in town to visit the mother of a drinking buddy of his in Dallas named Philip Hemstock who was from Sparta.

"While getting his haircut Oswald told Abbott that he had been blackmailing at fifty dollars a crack some unidentified Texas nightclub operator he used to work for. Oswald stated that when a politician needed a job done he (Oswald) would do it if the pay was right and told the barber that he planned to use the blackmail money to buy himself a gun to settle a score he had with the United States.

"Hemstock's mother told the FBI that no friend of her son's had ever visited her and that her son lived in Victorville California, not Dallas. The Sparta chief of police told the FBI that Abbott the barber was considered 'peculiar' by many townsfolk and came from a family with a history of mental instability though Abbott had no such record {of mental illness}."

Rick Harsch could make quite a story out of the above I think.

Page 1057 re a footnote concerning author David Lifton whose best selling 1980 work "Best Evidence" (Macmillan) posited that President Kennedy's corpse was "altered" in a secret autopsy under some rather "elaborate" circumstances:

"'I never got married' Lifton told a reporter in 1993 because 'there always came a point when the woman realized I was more interested in {Kennedy's} body than in {hers}'...."

There's an aspect I think, indicated above, that Lee Harvey Oswald has as per Elvis Presley entered into the category of "urban legend."

By the way Bugliosi remarks on "sightings" of Oswald by comparing them in another footnote (on page 1056) with such sightings of Elvis. I include it as an interesting "curiosity" in itself:

"Elvis sightings have been reported in forty out of the fifty states. For instance he's been seen since his death on a parachute ride at a carnival in Denton Texas; ordering food at a Burger King in Philadelphia; living in a secluded cabin in Orlando Florida {visiting Disney World on occasion?}; listening to a rock band in a bar in Riverhead New York; in a hotel lounge in Atlanta Georgia; in a 1969 Plymouth with Colorado tags in Tennessee; and at a laundromat in East Lansing Michigan {even Elvis has to do his laundry!}.

"Author Gail Brewer-Giorgio compiled all the evidence of Elvis still being alive in her 1988 book 'Elvis Alive' which remarkably got up to number eight on the New York Times best seller list. With all these sightings many Elvis fans are 'all shook up,' believing the King...is still among us. Following Brewer-Giorgio's August 6 1988 appearance on Fox tv's 'Late Show' viewers were asked to call in and vote whether Elvis was alive or dead. Of 30,000 calls more than 25,000 or 84 percent believed Elvis was not dead...."

until now the most interesting Wisconsin Spartan I was aware of was arrested for masturbating in daylight at a gas station. Someone, I imagine, told him to go tell the Spartans and left it to his interpretation.

Maybe it was Elvis...

I know you can hardly wait but I have a few more "nuggets" from Bugliosi's massive tome to uh "share." (Thanks for SHARING Mike! You're welcome!) And maybe Rick will read them.

From page 1126 a footnote that "sums it up" -- Bugliosi really likes his footnotes, as if the book weren't big enough as it is:

"...Ruby said he acted alone in killing Oswald. He told the FBI on the very day he killed Oswald that he was not involved in any conspiracy with anyone, that no one asked him or suggested to him that he shoot Oswald.... On December 21 1963 he told the FBI 'I told no one I was going to kill him. No one knew I was going to shoot him. I didn't discuss anything with anyone about shooting him'...."

From page 1130:

"...Ruby wasn't a member or even an associate of organized crime.... Ruby's roots were in Chicago and few knew more about the mob in Chicago than Lenny Patrick the 'Jewish capo' of the...mob.... Right after Ruby killed Oswald the late William Roemer, the senior FBI agent assigned to investigate organized crime in Chicago, contacted Patrick whom he had hounded for years.

"Patrick, Roemer said, 'was a very personable guy except that he had killed six people {maybe he was a "little" onery eh}.' Roemer said that Patrick was not a mob informant...but Roemer added 'I had done a big favor for Lenny so I could talk to him.' Patrick told Roemer that he knew Ruby and that Ruby wasn't part of organized crime in Chicago, going on to call Ruby unstable and unreliable. Of course if the mob had Ruby kill Kennedy, Patrick couldn't be expected to tell Roemer the truth. But Roemer knew Patrick well and said that what Patrick told him 'was convincing'....

"Jack Clark, an investigative consultant for the Chicago police department told ABC {tv} in 2003 'I knew Sparky {Ruby's childhood nickname} in the '40s and '50s. He was in all the gymnasiums with all the boxers. It was WELL known that Jack was 'meshuga' {Yiddish for "crazy"} -- that Jack wasn't playing with a full deck.'... Clark said 'The Chicago mob had nothing to do with Jack Ruby. Jack was working with the rag-tag guys on the street, downtown.... Some...were bookmakers. They were just guys who made a buck through their wit or charm. But they were not gangsters.'"

From page 1146 a bit of background on "the mob" or the "mafia" or "la cosa nostra" ("our thing"):

"...In the early years no mafia don could have roots anywhere other than Sicily. Indeed the biggest and most powerful Italian mobster of all, even exceeding Charles 'Lucky' Luciano, was Chicago's Al (short for Alphonse) Capone who ruled Chicago in the 1920s like no other gangster ever ruled any American city. Capone was helped by the estimated $15 million in payoffs he made annually to city and state officials, including the Chicago police department, for protection.

"'Scarface Al,' who once noted 'You can go further with a kind word and a gun than with a kind word alone'{eh!}, was born in Brooklyn of parents who immigrated from Naples...and he always wanted to be a mafia boss. But as mob historian Frederic Sondern has written 'He couldn't because he was a Neapolitan.' The irony was that Capone was so big he could designate who the mafia boss would be in Chicago (e. g., Antonio Lombardo) but he couldn't (at least in those days) be that person himself."...

> 48

The part I always found amusing is what Rudy did that morning in the hours immediately before he walked into the police station and shot Oswald.

On the way to the police station Ruby stopped at a Western Union location and wired $25 to a female employee of his club.

He also brought his little pet dog with him in the car.

I am not an expert on the subject of professional mob assassins but all this sounds VERY unprofessional to me.

But maybe Ruby was NOT a mafia hit-man. Maybe he was just a nut, like everyone who knew him personally thought.

Yeah. I think I will go with the preponderance of evidence here.

But then, I'm not some sort of conspiracy nut-job. I will leave it to the conspiracy nut-jobs to explain how, nevertheless, Ruby was a highly-competent mafia hit-man.

lol.

Bugliosi makes the same observations.

The money was wired to the stripper "Little Lynn" and if it had taken Ruby another minute or so to do it he'd have never arrived at the jail basement in time to shoot Oswald.

He called his dogs his "children" and his favorite that he indeed left in the car, "Sheba," his "wife." (Gulp!) Both this and the above show that his actions were completely impulsive and reflected his mercurial nature and could NOT have been part of any "plan" because Ruby was virtually incapable of "planning" much at all...

On the other hand, of course, Ruby sounds like just the dupe to choose--and of course, as Michael says, who in the mob is going to say, sure, Jack was one of us...

> 51

"...his actions were completely impulsive and reflected his mercurial nature and could NOT have been part of any "plan" because Ruby was virtually incapable of "planning" much at all..."

I think the same could pretty much be accurately said about Oswald, right? - Especially in the fact that he was not particularly systematic in living his life - he seems to go from one idea to another and then on to another.

The trip to Mexico in an attempt to immigrate to Cuba for one thing. Or hanging out in New Orleans looking for a job and then his wife serendipitously moving to Dallas with a friend who tried several times but finally gets him a job at the Book Depository.

Anyone who claims any of this was part of some master plan would have to be just plain ignorant of the facts or a conspiracy nut - or probably both.

Well if one HAD to bump off Oswald before he "talked" (and he talked a lot to the police nonetheless in his last two days of life but none of it implicated anyone but himself) Ruby was probably one of the last guys you could COUNT on. Sure if he does it fine; if he doesn't who cares? If that was the mafia's attitude toward killing Oswald, picking Ruby "makes sense."

And yes I'd agree that Oswald also was "mercurial" although more determined (he actually GOT to Russia huh and "made" THEM do what he wanted -- beating the Kremlin at its own "game" eh) and more intellectual albeit uneducated in any formal way.

Oswald focused on the Soviet Union but held Cuba kind of "in reserve" as his "alternate paradise" but he was really (again like Ruby) such an eccentric and often disagreeable individualist that of course why would the Castro Cubans "want" him? Killing Kennedy, Castro's bete noire at the time and a guy who was after all trying to KILL Fidel eh, was going to be Oswald's bona fide but that would have made him "rat poison" in double doses for the Cubans even if he had been able to escape to Mexico and go proudly to the embassy to say "I KILLED KENNEDY! Ain't I your worthy hero now?!"

Interestingly (another parallel) Ruby also thought killing Oswald would make him a national hero and get him publicity and praised as a great patriot and even get him on tv! It did the latter certainly hmm.

Note to Rick: Chip has NEVER mentioned this book, even to diss it, and it was published in '07 when he still "talked to me"...

Then it must be accurate.

"Ruby was virtually incapable of planning anythimg
at all . . ."

Well, they werenʻt looking for a planner. But someone who was known as a "police buff" and had access to police premises would be ideal for them. You can say that so did a lot of other people, as members of a crowd, have the opportunity that Ruby had. (It appears that security wasnʻt
a major consideration, anyway, with the Dallas Police right at that time).

Actually security was a big deal and the move was well planned all and all and while Ruby was well known among many of the police he "slipped in" as the car that was to carry Oswald to the county facilities was being backed up a ramp. An officer saw Ruby (but may not have recognized him) go into the basement and said "Hey you!" but the officers bringing LHO were literally a matter of seconds away and no one pursued Ruby who as I stated if he had been just a matter of seconds himself "late" wouldn't have been able to shoot LHO.

(There were a number of reporters allowed to watch and film the transfer so perhaps the officer thought the guy was a reporter?)

Of course it LOOKED like a complete fuck up by the Dallas dept and it was in result but then the secret service also fucked up major too -- they were to protect the prez and they "lost" him. (In 1975 there were TWO incidents about two weeks apart in which they nearly "lost" Jerry Ford.)

Things don't always turn out the way they're supposed to and there's no situation that is "mistake proof" eh...

"security was a big deal."
(56)

OK Iʻll take your word for it, and thanks.
It doesnʻt prove the existence of a conspiracy, but, to me, it pinpoints all the more a conspiracyʻs need* for
for someone who, in all
probability, wouldnʻt even be
have "Hey you!" yelled at him.
I was influenced by the still pictures Iʻve seen, which, regardless of his time of arrival, make Ruby look like just another member of the crowd.

*More than just a need, in fact a "too good to be true" situation -- from the point of view of someone who was
thinking, "If only some nut would come along and kill Oswald!"

Well that's precisely the point eh -- Ruby looked "like just another member of the crowd"; he didn't come in yelling "I'M gonna kill Oswald!" He just pulled the gun he always carried (because he usually had large amounts of cash on him from his strip club) and shot LHO out of extreme distress at the murder of the president plus his desire to "spare Mrs Kennedy" testifying at a trial and because Ruby was simply "out to lunch" re any control over his emotions.

Ironically I think MOST people wanted a trial, i. e., they wanted to know WHY and putting Oswald on trial was the apparent only way. The Warren commission after all was able to prove that Oswald "did it" but couldn't really say why...

On motivation:

Even Bugliosi has trouble with Oswaldʻs motivation: he finds his motivation for unsuccessfully shooting AT Edwin Walker to be perfectly explainable:
a political explanation.

"Successfully" (from LHOʻs point of view) shooting
at Kennedy is more of a problem to VB. He acknowledges that Oswald falls somewhat short of a
zealous partisan of JFKʻs two
international opponents: Cuba and the Soviet Union. LHO had personal gripes with both of them.
From law enforcementʻs point of view, thereʻs less evidence that he did shoot
at Walker! (How was Walker so suddenly able to identify the very soon-grabbed suspect as the one who had shot at him 7 months earlier?) Most accounts,
both conspiracy-favoring and Warren Commission-favoring say that George De Morenschildt* teased him
for "having missed", and limit themselves to that not very revealing anecdote about the
Oswald v. Walker case.
Iʻm trying through use of the index to find out what
Bugliosi thinks about the
Walker aspect and the De Morenschildt aspect of the case - - if any.


*And, of course, Warren Commission fans donʻt
think De Morenschildt was
anything of a conspirator.

Actually Bugliosi pretty much accepts that Oswald shot at Walker and de Morenschildt evidently did tease him about it but without knowing that it was Oswald -- he just "hit it" with his joke and Marina said that LHO was rather shocked by de M's "perspicacity."

De Morenschildt had some apparent connections with various intelligence services during WWII but he was an "oil man" by the early '60s and involved in various deals that worked out and some that didn't. That he was a CIA "handler" of Oswald Bugliosi of course doesn't buy...

I think LHO's "motivation" may have simply been an inferiority complex buried under a thick layer of narcissism.

Bingo!

Bugliosi basically says the same thing (however it takes him MANY MORE pages to say it!)...

I've actually come to within 50 pages of the end of this book(!) and I find Bugliosi "convincing" although he spends a lot of pages making disparaging remarks about those who disagree -- well he respects SOME conspiracy theorists but he markedly regards most as "crazy"; he has a point but he repeats it too often.

His section on "Jim Garrison's Prosecution of Clay Shaw and Oliver Stone's Movie 'JFK'" pretty much devastates Garrison as an unscrupulous exploiter of vulnerable folks in order to "solve THE case" under the rubric that the means justify.

He also "deconstructs" Stone's popular film as more an "alternative fantasy" than an "alternative history" and quite destroys it as something to take seriously although Bug's animus is so great that he can't seem to even see that Stone's MOVIE is a "great movie" even though it's bullshit. Sigh!

I must admit that (no surprise eh) my "prejudice" for films had strongly influenced my own "conspiracy" beliefs after I saw "JFK." That and the influence of a once very good friend whose life is "living for conspiracy" and nothing will ever change that for him or for that "conspiracy community" that has literally devoted DECADES to studying "THE case" and now all for nought?! No way! Besides it's still a going concern commercially though I think it's actually "hit the wall" as a "growth industry."

IF you ever heft this tome I recommend: read the first section, "Four Days in November," a riveting account of the assassination and its immediate aftermath, and then the "biographies" of both Oswald and Ruby and then yes the section on Garrison and "JFK." That'll be enough if you don't want to go the whole route though there are "rewards" in doing so.

The criticism I have has to do with that continual disparagement (finally though the DEFENDERS of the Warren report get to "sound off" after a half century of attack from the other side hmm) and a kind of "I'm smarter than you are!" self satisfaction Bug emanates at times.

But he has accomplished what his title boasted -- he's "reclaimed" the history of that terrible "incident" that while its result wasn't as devastating as the murder of Lincoln, it did "change history" and not always for the "better"...

> 62

But I have never read a single page of Bugliosi's book. So he agrees with me? Well, maybe it is a case of "great minds think alike". lol.

Most of my knowledge base is Posner's book, plus all the crap one can find on the internets, plus several TV documentaries, some crazy, some sane.

BTW, if Bugliosi in his book didn't specifically point out that Oliver "back and to the left" Stone is a crazy P.O.S. then let me point that out here: O. effing S. is a crazy P.O.S.

Well Bugliosi finds Stone "creative" but while insisting his movie is "the real thing" he also admits to inventing a great deal of it "for dramatic (and no doubt political) purposes." Bug generally believes in the "sincerity" of both Garrison AND Stone but he certainly suggests Garrison had screws loose (indeed Garrison had a history of some mental difficulty, as the film actually indicates albeit in a low key way) and he thinks that Stone bought the entire nine yards as part of his leftist "distrust government" attitude.

Bug by the way criticizes Posner often for errors and misunderstandings which I guess is why VB thought that his "comprehensive" volume was needed. (I too read Posner's book some years ago but I honestly can't recall much of it.)

A movie of course tends to overwhelm, especially when it's as good as "JFK"; Jack Nicholson once demurred about playing the great American playwright Eugene O'Neill in Warren Beatty's "Reds" because he thought he (Nicholson) didn't look "gaunt" enough. Beatty's perceptive reply which convinced him to take the part was that after people saw the movie they'd think O'Neill looked like Nicholson!

For those of us who never really READ the Warren report Stone's movie made that "irrelevant and immaterial" because it convinced so many of "US" that the report was inordinately sloppy and bogus which it was not...

And Diane Keaton walked from northern Norway, across Finland to Petersburg to see 'Jack Reed'

Sure she did! I saw it at the movies!

Anyway "Reds" is a pretty good picture too...

Thanks to Henry Miller

Henry Miller was great sure but "Reds" had more than that. It dealt with "leftist" politics better than most films although of course Beatty made it more an "American" version of "Doctor Zhivago" which was I think a better picture re the Russian revolution and aftermath.

Still Beatty made a good movie about what is now an "obscure" time though I didn't like the overly "romantic" stuff as you pointed out...

This "summing up" of the conspiracy section is (almost) Bugliosi's "last word" so I'll leave off by excerpting it:

"After over forty years {fifty now} of the most prodigiously intensive investigation and examination of a murder case in world history certain powerful facts exist which cannot be challenged:

"Not one weapon other than Oswald's Mannlicher-Carcano has ever been found and linked to the assassination. Not one bullet other than the three fired from Oswald's rifle has ever been found and linked to the assassination. No evidence has ever surfaced linking Oswald to any of the major groups suggested by conspiracy theorists of being behind the assassination. And no evidence has ever been found showing that any person or group framed Oswald for the murder they committed.

"One would think that faced with these stubborn and immutable realities the critics of the Warren Commission...would finally fold their tent and go home. But instead, undaunted and unfazed, they continue to disgorge even more of what we have had from them... -- wild speculation, theorizing and shameless dissembling....

"The purpose of this book has been twofold. One, to educate everyday Americans that Oswald killed Kennedy and acted alone, paying for his own bullets. And two, to expose as never before the conspiracy theorists and the abject worthlessness of all their allegations. I believe this book has achieved both of these goals." (page 1461)

And so do I...

You're probably right, Michael, but I believe YOU, not him or anyone else, so far. And I hate the argument that since '50 years have passed and...' I mean, a proper conspiracy should have a relatively short half-life.

Well I was convinced after all by Bugliosi because like almost everybody else on the planet I never read the Warren report, even the single volume version that I once had.

I can't help but recall your "wise arse" remark that time in Iowa City when I "compelled" you to watch the Stone movie and your initial response was "it looks like EVERYBODY killed Kennedy" right down to "the white house washroom attendent."

Certainly we know that You Know Who as well as any other confirmed conspiracist will insist Bug's book is just another CIA production meant to keep the country from knowing "the truth" that's "out there" but I for one have been disabused of this constant paranoia.

I also once read an account of 9-11 by Anthony Summers, ironically or interestingly a JFK conspiarcy guy with a book to "prove it," in which Summers deconstructed the US government "conspiracy" re that "event." I mentioned the book to Chip and again at a time we still communicated got no response...

I saw a 9-11 conspiracy documentary that 'showed'' explosions as the buildings collapsed, but they didn't look like explosions--they looked like shit blown out of a collapsing building.

There are of course real conspiracies in the world. As regards POTUSs I think the assassinations or attempted assassinations of Jackson, McKinley, Garfield, FDR, Kennedy, Ford, and Raygun were all by lone nuts (including the rabbit attack on Carter) and the assassination or attempted assassination of Lincoln and Truman were conspiracies. Is that right?

The conspiracy I am most concerned about now is the one by the oil companies (and the politicians they have bought) to shut down, as much as possible, solar power, electric cars and any other alternative energy source.

They are pretty effing blatant about it, so it is not like a hidden conspiracy - it is one out front for all the world to see - and they couldn't give less of a shitte that everyone can see it.

Also the conspiracy of most of the republican party to suppress voting rights, targeting those cohorts of the voting public that tend greatly toward voting democratic. And, again, republicans are pretty blatant about it - quite a public conspiracy that anyone with a brain and eyes can discern.

I don't know if there is anything anyone can do to beat down and defeat these conspiracies but if I were religious I would be praying my ass off to god every day that somebody would.

well I must disagree about President Ford, Lynette Fromme, was not a lone nut, She was one of a cluster.

>

I have not heard of any evidence that Fromme was in contact with Charles Mason subsequently and that he gave her the order to shoot Ford, or that some other Mason family member knew what she was planning, supplied her with the gun, etc. Something like that might have happened. If it ever comes out that that did happen then I would not be all that surprised.

"Squeaky" didn't even get off a shot although she got within 2 or 3 feet of Ford. Who knows why she did not fire? Maybe she was so high she thought just pointing a gun at someone would kill them. She was a god damn hippie, not a Marine.

Nutcase #2 Sara Jane Moore DID fire a shot at Ford three weeks later and if some guy in the crowd had not intervened and hit her hand Ford would probably have been shot.

Here's the 2 minute youtube of the combined attempts on Ford:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=da668XwQLuY

I remember National Lampoon or some other comedy magazine published a rather rude joke after the second attempt - they reported that Ford was shot point blank in the head but was in the hospital and recovering nicely, due to go back on the job in a couple of days, while the bullet was in intensive care and not expected to make it.

Jerry -- once quite a good football player and even a male model! -- used to stumble occasionally on airplane ramps which gave some to speak about walking and chewing gum and alike and there's something about the somewhat uh "goofy" (albeit obviously serious) attempts to kill him (by "the goofy" it seems) that goes along those lines.

The thing is at the time folks might well have understood an ATTEMPT on say Nixon but Jerry! It just didn't make sense -- how "nefarious" could JERRY be?! Not in that uh "league" huh and not so on the "good" (Lincolnian, Kennedyan) side either -- just a reasonably "good" prez following the "long national nightmare" eh.

In retrospect I even think it'd have been better for the country to elect Jer in '76 rather than Carter as the result might well have been no Reagan in '80 -- just as electing Dole in '96 might have eliminated George W hmm.

As for 9-11 Rick knows I was once quite a proselytizer for "conspiracy" but now I have definitely ran out of that string -- not because I have the expertise to explain the collapsing twin towers (or the "single bullet" for that matter) but because as the Buffalo Springfield so aptly and even prophetically put it "paranoia strikes deep" and I hardly expect that since some paranoids actually do have "real enemies" reading Bugliosi will change anything BUT it changed me...

The 11-9 controversy rapidly gained currency because of the tv cop line--which makes great deal of sense, actually--'who stands to benefit?' Well the Bush gang and those they represent did quite well. I haven't come across much on that conspiracy lately: I think it was done in by bad film and hyperbolic claims of things 'right before our eyes' that we couldn't quite see.

Bugliosi repeats and repeats that one may discover many "motives" but one REQUIRES "evidence." He continually makes the point that the conspiracy believers make a great deal of "motive" but have no (viable) evidence for...

The major issue I had with Bugliosi was that he comes on to much like the "Economist" in the old Reagan anecdote:
R Rʻs definition of an economist was: "somebody who observes that something works in practice, and wonders if it WOULD work in
Theory.
Bugliosi would have us believe that Oswald definitely WAS capable of killing Kennedy in practice, but WOULD NOT have been capable of it in theory --and hence no one would have hired him to do it. Hence: no conspiracy. (Though he does say, somewhere else, that Oswald was "a perfect
profile of a presidential assassin". )
The Boston Globeʻs headline on the Warren Commission Report, as I remember it was a 3-worder:
"OSWALD ACTED -- ALONE".
The third word is the hard one to prove. (Some extreme conspiracy theorists belong to what i"ve called the "OdnF*
School"*. All theyʻve accomplished is to give conspiracy theory a bad name. And I can see how
Bugliosi might brush them off quickly.*)

*OdnF: "Oswald did not fire"/Oswald nʻa pas tireʻ ", perhaps traceable to a French article.

You're right -- Bugliosi repeatedly notes that no "organization," i. e., CIA, FBI, mob etc., would have trusted Oswald as a hired gun, yet the irony is that according to the Warren report investigation and Bugliosi's own research, Oswald DID do it! And likely on an "impulse" which makes his act all that more "unbelievable" for many many eh.

Well things don't always come out the way they're supposed to; the planet doesn't always operate "logically" huh.

I just agree with "Vince" that it takes a lot more to BELIEVE in the various and myriad "theories" than in the Warren commission's conclusion but hey not even Bugliosi thinks his book will "end" the conspiracy stuff -- but I think it's the "beginning of the end" because otherwise "the case" remains "unsolvable"...

/
/* (by @rolandperkins). I wrote without realizing which membership I was in!

". . . on an impulse, which makes (Oswaldʻs) act all that more ʻunbelievableʻ ..." (81)

I donʻt think that alleged impulsive acts are intrinsically "unbelievable". Their comparative probability is another question. Iʻve never said that any old conspiracy theory is more believable than the Warren Commission version. The Commission is disproved if just ONE of them is right. Then thereʻs the possibillity that the truth hasnʻt emerged as either official report or conspiracy theory. they donʻt ALl have to be right, and in fact contradict each other. Thatʻs obvious without any input from Bugliiosi.
I suppose you could even call it "poetic justice" that an even more impulsive "lone nut" happened to come along and kill Oswald!

> 82

I call it what it apparently was - a case of Lee shooting Jack, and then Jack shooting Lee.

Were others involved in the actual shootings? Apparently not.

That's what takes Bugliosi 1510 pages of text to say!...