Tag Archives: Warren Commission

national security

Memories of JFK’s death came pouring forth

DALLAS — Exhibits such as the one my brother-in-law saw today have this way of triggering so many memories.

We ventured to the Sixth Floor Museum, the one overlooking Dealey Plaza in downtown Dallas, where the 35th president of the United States, John F. Kennedy, was murdered in front of the world.

The exhibit has been improved greatly since first time my wife and I visited it in the mid-1980s. It contains many more pictorial displays, more text, a wonderful audio tour, film and, of course, the window where the gunman fired on the president and Texas Gov. John Connally.

I was struck by the amount of attention paid at this museum to the slew of conspiracy theories that have kicked around since the Warren Commission filed its report in 1964. The new president, Lyndon Johnson, appointed Chief Justice Earl Warren to lead the panel to examine every detail it could about the assassination.

It returned with what I believe is the soundest plausible explanation: Lee Harvey Oswald, the disgruntled Marxist, sat in the window on the sixth floor of the Book Depository Building and fired three rounds from a bolt-action rifle, killing the president and wounding the Texas governor.

I was not quite 14 years of age when the world got the news.

My own theory in the moment was cut and dried: The Russians killed the president and were going to attack and invade the United States at any moment. That was how a 13-year-old mind worked in real time way back then. I guess I forgot that we would have a new president within minutes of the 35th president’s declaration of death. That’s what happened aboard Air Force One, when U.S. District Judge Sarah Hughes swore in President Johnson, who then asked for strength and prayers from the nation he was about to lead through this horrific tragedy.

I never have paid attentin to the idiotic conspiracy theories. I don’t believe any of them. I have retained faith in the commission headed by the nation’s chief justice.

Still, I was impressed to realize that the museum organizers saw fit at least to give many of those conspiracies a sufficient airing to at least present the many “other sides” of this most intriguing tragedy.

I remain convinced today, though, that Lee Harvey Oswald pulled the trigger … and that he did it all by himself.

national news, Uncategorized

JFK murder conspiracy theorists will come out … again

jfk

Wait for it.

It’s coming. I almost can guarantee it. New “information” about what a late CIA director knew about President Kennedy’s murder in 1963 is certain to ignite more speculation — as if there needs to be more of it — over whether someone other than Lee Harvey Oswald had a hand in the crime of the century.

John McCone, who died in 1991, reportedly withheld information from the Warren Commission — appointed by President Johnson — that might have shown that Oswald had help in killing JFK.

Stop, already!

Oswald did it. Of that I remain convinced.

And, yes, he almost assuredly acted alone. He was a Marxist, former Marine, lone wolf nimrod who was pretty good with a high-powered rifle. He was good enough with the weapon that he fired three shots from the School Book Depository Building in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963 and killed the 35th president of the United States.

McCone, though, didn’t tell the Warren Commission about the CIA’s repeated attempts to kill Cuban dictator Fidel Castro and overthrow his communist government. The commission was unable to ask probing questions of witnesses about whether the Cubans had a hand in JFK’s murder.

Readers of this blog know that I am no fan of conspiracy theories. I’ve rested quite comfortably for the past nearly 52 years believing that Oswald did the terrible deed all by himself.

I also continue to believe that the never-ending conspiracy theories are the work of people with (a) too much time on their hands and (b) who just cannot abide by the notion that a loser such as Oswald could take down the Leader of the Free World.

Let’s just accept that he did.

national news

Long live conspiracy theories?

Conspiracy theories cannot die. They live forever. No matter how much evidence one provides to debunk them, someone else comes along with another notion that breathes new life into these theories.

Assassinations seem to be the most common target — please pardon the poor pun — of conspiracy theorists.

Who killed Lincoln? Or JFK? Or Martin Luther King Jr.? Or RFK?

Let’s throw in whether FDR actually encouraged the attack on Pearl Harbor or whether the feds blew up the World Trade Center on 9/11. Hey, I’ll even mention whether LBJ closed the Amarillo air base simply because he hated the Texas Panhandle.

Well, tomorrow marks the 51st anniversary of President Kennedy’s murder. Guess what? A former Mafia hit man says he — not Lee Harvey Oswald — shot the president to death in Dallas.

http://www.newsmax.com/newswidget/john-kennedy-assassination-confession-mafia/2014/11/20/id/608736/?

The goon’s name is James Files. He told Newsmax TV that he worked with other Mafia guys and actually fired the fatal shot. Newsmax.com’s link attached to this blog post supports the Files-did-it notion.

That’s a new one. He’s been quiet for more than five decades. Now he tells us.

I’ve never been a conspiracy theory addict. Maybe it’s a now-naïve belief that when you assign someone with a serious task, such as determining who killed the Leader of the Free World, that the person or people tasked with that duty will perform all their due diligence and get to the truth.

I believe the commission headed by Chief Justice Earl Warren did the job it was asked to do. It pored over all the evidence it had and determined Oswald was the lone gunman.

I’m betting there is no mention of James Files anywhere to be found.

 

 

 

national news, political news

JFK conspiracy? I still doubt it … seriously

A few of my closest friends and members of my immediate family know that Robert F. Kennedy was the first politician I grew to actually admire.

I watched him grow from a ruthless operative to a serious leader of Americans looking for a serious change in the political landscape.

An assassin ended that dream in June 1968.

I am dismayed, then, to read that RFK harbored some doubts about the official findings associated with the death of his brother, President John Kennedy, who also was cut down by an assassin on Nov. 22, 1963.

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/10/was-bobby-kennedy-a-jfk-conspiracy-theorist-111729.html?hp=pm_1#.VDvTQFJ0yt8

According to author Philip Shenon, Bobby Kennedy believed the mob had a hand in his brother’s death. The Warren Commission, charged by President Johnson to examine the details of the assassination, didn’t interview RFK, who reportedly had this notion that the mob figures working with Cuban dictator Fidel Castro played a role in the murder in Dallas.

I cannot pretend to know all the details. RFK, then the attorney general of the United States, had access to information very few Americans ever will have. Who am I to doubt his view that Lee Harvey Oswald was part of a grand conspiracy?

Well, I keep going back to this fundamental question: How does anyone keep quiet about such a monstrous act over the course of 51 years?

The answer I keep getting is this: Because there’s no one to blab; the one guy who did the deed was himself shot to death in the Dallas Police Department basement two days after he killed the president.

Still, this notion presents another set of questions.

What precisely did RFK know? If he knew something was amiss, why in the world didn’t he say something publicly at the time when the Warren Commission released its findings?

We cannot know the answer to either of those questions. Robert Francis Kennedy is the one man with the answer. We cannot bring him back.

Thus, these theories live on.

Uncategorized

JFK murder myth will live forever

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.