As we observe the 50th anniversary of John F. Kennedy’s assassination, perhaps it is also time to lay to rest the various conspiratorial theories that have been perpetuated on our nation since those three shots were fired. It was, without a doubt, our generation’s seminal moment and one of the major factors that eventually defined who we are.
For our parents’ generation, their formative event in history was undoubtedly the attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7,1941. They found closure with that nightmare when they defeated international barbarism less than four years later. Yet, our generation continues to grapple with the tragedy of Nov. 22, 1963. We have never experienced closure to that horrible event. The nation has never come to grips with the fact that a man as powerful as the president of the United States could be cut down by someone as low and meaningless as Lee Harvey Oswald, a failed defector and a sociopath. We, as a generation, continue to be in denial that someone like Oswald would be able to kill someone like Kennedy.
Even while we have been overwhelmed with conspiracy theories and scenarios claiming to have all of the answers about those awful events of 50 years ago, the truth of the matter is, Lee Harvey Oswald killed John F. Kennedy with three shots from a high-powered, Italian made rifle while lurking on the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository.
Even today, we continue to see, hear, and read all sorts of accounts on how a vast conspiracy, whether it was Cuban, Soviet, Mafioso or our own government, cut down our young president in his prime. Many people have made fortunes claiming to have the final answer to “Who killed Kennedy.” Yet, no one has ever come forth with real evidence to claim a second or third gunman. All they have are wild theories along with questionable science.
In 1991, Oliver Stone made an Academy Award nominated movie that claimed to have the answers to, at that time, the riddle of the Kennedy assassination. Hollywood loved the movie, the Oscars loved it enough to nominate it for best picture, and it made Stone, not only a ton of money, but also an “expert” on the assassination. The movie was wildly paranoid, overly sentimental and supportive of then-New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison. Kevin Costner played Garrison in the Stone movie, entitled simply “JFK,” as a dedicated, faithful and somewhat geeky individual. In reality, Jim Garrison was a bully, a liar and a fraud. He manufactured evidence, propagated lies and innuendo, and essentially intimidated his way into a cockamamie trial against an unsuspecting New Orleans businessman named Clay Shaw. He claimed that Shaw was at the head of some grand conspiracy that included the CIA, Lee Oswald and Jack Ruby, anti-Castro Cubans, our defense industry, the military and even Lyndon Johnson. However, there was one major flaw; there wasn’t a shred of truth in any of it!
While many books have come out declaring conspiracies from every corner of the Earth, two books have surfaced over the past 20-plus years that set the record straight about Oswald, Jack Ruby and the whole sordid weekend. The first one was titled, “Case Closed” by attorney Gerald Posner and the second, by former Los Angeles District Attorney Vincent Bugliosi, entitled, “Reclaiming History: The Assassination of John F. Kennedy.”
While the conspiracy theorists continue to claim that both Posner and Bugliosi are pawns of some unnamed and unreported monolithic government agency, no one has come forth to actually give a credible counter argument except to say that both attorneys are lackeys of the government and are wrong. In both books, a sociological and psychological assessment of both Oswald and Jack Ruby are given. Statements made by family and acquaintances of both men claim that there was no way either of these men could have known one another, and neither had the stature in life to indicate any kind of involvement in killing the president through some far reaching conspiracy.
Ten years ago, ABC News aired a show using computer graphics to indicate that it was virtually impossible for any other shots to be fired at JFK in Dealy Plaza that day. They also found proof to dispel the moronic “pristine bullet” theory. This is the conspiratorial notion that the second shot’s bullet that went through Kennedy’s neck and ripped into Texas Gov. John Connally, somehow remained unscathed, therefore, suggesting that that could not have been the bullet that hit both men and could not have been used in the assassination. Conspiracy buffs claim the bullet found in the emergency room was a plant, thus creating the theory of a second gunman. First, it was not unscathed, it was spent and, second, the bullet found at Parkland Hospital that day could have only come from the rifle Oswald owned and used.
Many of the conspiracy theorists also incite the Warren Commission as being a part of some sort of far-reaching scheme because of some of the facts it left out and because of its rather harried methodology to get it done. True, it was a rush to judgment. When the commission was formed and United States Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren was asked to lead it, President Johnson asked that they finish before the 1964 presidential election. They were sloppy and they did leave some facts out. There was a rush to finish, but it remains today the definitive research into the death of a president. Did it have flaws? Sure it did, but, the evidence gathering methods of 50 years ago are a far cry from what we have today. If the Warren Commission is guilty of anything, it’s guilty of going too fast through the evidence. But, for those of us who were alive and have those tragic days etched in our memories, remember that we were a nation pleading for some form of closure. The Warren Commission saw that and wanted it done. I would venture a guess that the Warren Commission would have come to the same conclusion had it taken its time and completed its investigation in, say, 18 months instead of 10. Be that as it may, its conclusion that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone has yet to be proved wrong
So, as we look back on Nov. 22,1963, and those of us who were deeply affected by those horrible, yet, unforgettable days, where are we now as a country? We see today a polarization of our political system like we haven’t seen in decades, perhaps more than a hundred years. Perhaps, even back to the days before the Civil War. We don’t have the leadership or the potential leadership that John Kennedy gave us, even as we have discovered some moral lacking in his personal life. Never-the-less, he inspired us to do more, to work harder and to care for our country. Yet, because of this polarization, we are still captive to the never ending rounds of conspiratorial claims and questions and, my generation continues to seek closure.
When we can get past the “glamorization” of those four days in November 1963 and realize that what we once had can be recaptured again, then, perhaps, John F. Kennedy did not die in vain.
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