Myths never die.
They live forever. And ever.
Thus, the myth that Lee Harvey Oswald was part of some grand conspiracy to murder President John F. Kennedy will be with us as long as human beings populate the planet.
The nation is commemorating this coming week the 50th anniversary of the 35th president’s shocking death in Dallas. To no one’s surprise, much of the discussion will center on conspiracy theories.
Was there a second, or third gunman in Dealey Plaza that day? How did one bullet go through the president’s neck and hit Texas Gov. John Connally in the back? What about those “other gunshots” witnesses said they heard? Why did the president’s head snap backward if the shots came from behind his car?
Recent polls suggest fewer Americans today believe in these conspiracy theories than before. Still, most Americans still seem to buy into some of them … maybe all of them.
I’m not one of them.
This perhaps sounds naïve to the hard-core conspiracy crowd that keeps this myth alive, but I’ve accepted the Warren Commission report that it could find “no evidence” of a conspiracy.
Oswald was a loner and a loser who all by himself managed to fire three shots from an elevated window at a slow-moving limousine. Two of those shots hit the president, the final one being the fatal shot.
He had served in the Marine Corps and had scored reasonably well in marksmanship tests. He wasn’t a keen sharpshooter, but he was competent enough to have committed this crime.
That’s what I always have believed — and it’s what I will believe for the rest of my life.
The JFK murder conspiracy myth will outlive everyone.