Who Killed JFK?

[IdleRich]

They say that everyone can remember where they were when they first heard about the Kennedy shooting. Certainly that's true for me, I was in the living room (must have been, it was the only room with a telly) watching a programme about history. I imagine it had a much bigger effect though if it happened during your life time and it was on the news and everything with other shows being interrupted, yeah that would have been quite shocking... actually that's probably what they mean with that saying now I come to think of it... but that's really only gonna be relevant to @Leo on this forum so I'd best think of a new way to introduce this thread.

Inspired by reading a book on the subject called 63 Closure by Anthony Frewin a day or two ago, I thought I would like to ask @william_kent if he really had to say, when it came right down to it, who would he finger as the person or persons responsible for the murder of Kennedy? And then I thought, if I'm gonna ask him, then I may as well ask all of you lot as well. Cos the way I see it, we've got our big meta-conspiracy theory thread about why conspiracies exist and we touch on the edge of the odd one here and there... but I don't think we've got any threads that really go head on into any of the really famous unanswered questions out there. We don't have a loch ness monster thread or men in black... or... well, or, a Kennedy one, so let's make that happen. I bet there is a fair bit of knowledge about it on here as well, like I didn't know about the so-called Cambridge Call until yesterday and that no doubt makes me an absolute noob to the rest of you. So let's hear what you guys do know.

And please, for your first post in this thread, can you say what you would reply if you had to give an answer now. So you can Lee Harvey Oswald pulled the trigger but at the behest of the Mafia, or cos the CIA told him too. Or you can say it was something totally different. I guess you can say "I don't know" too, you can say it was aliens or in fact if you really want to go out on a limb, you can say that Lee Harvey Oswald shot him and he was acting entirely on his own and you honestly don't understand what everyone is getting so worked up about. But let's all say where we are at the start and then later on we can see if anyone has changed their mind at all.

 

[IdleRich]

So I had better do as I said and say what my feelings are. I've haven't read details on it for a long time but I reckon there were arguments out there for being more than one shooter, also the irregularities about the way Oswald was caught suggest he may have been a patsy, but his subsequent gunning down by Jack Ruby implies that he knew at least something that someone didn't want to come out.

So I'm thinking two shooters - with LHO as a patsy and someone else actually doing the damage, they were both employed by the same person and couldn't be allowed to reveal it so some sort of organisation. The organisations that spring to mind are a) Some sort of US intelligence service b) Mafia especially cos Ruby had ties to mob guys, albeit of debatable strength c) Russia where LHO spent a lot of time as a defector.

From that Russia seems a bit kinda... why? My first thought is US intelligence services and I think deep down that was probably what it was... but just on the evidence we have, with Ruby's mob ties, and question of, if, thwas e deep state can remove a president like that, how come it doesn't happen more often?

Putting all that together I get... Mafia did it and they paid two guys to take the shot. Of those two shooters LHO was sacrificed, his location was revealed and he was the sucker who was supposed to take the whole blame, with Ruby taking him out to close the book on it.

That's my half-arsed, off the top of my head, poorly researched and through through and no doubt easily dismantled theory. Let's hear yours, which will no doubt be much better.

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

Lee Harvey Oswald

Is this a serious question? It was Lee Harvey Oswald

Every massive conspiracy theory, besides being full of holes, would require a coverup lasting decades and involving an enormous number of people

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

the interesting part of the JFK assassination isn't who did it (once again, it was Lee Harvey Oswald)

but its afterlife as the ur-text of postmodern conspiracy theorizing

when belief eclipses fact you eventually reach a place where all sources of information is equally invalid and thus equally valid

it is the first major step on the road to our own post-truth era

 

[IdleRich]

Not necessarily,, or let's be more precise and say that I am also interested in any kind of large, medium sized, small, tiny or even minute conspiracy. I mean for example (I'm not saying this is what happened, just pointing out the error in your claim) it could have been LHO and one other person say, which clearly would not involve an enormous number of people. And if the other person died shortly afterwards then no decades would be involved either.

But, just to be clear, your response is that Lee Harvey Oswald was the killer and he worked entirely alone. I'm glad we got at least one person

 

[IdleRich]

the interesting part of the JFK assassination isn't who did it (once again, it was Lee Harvey Oswald)

but its afterlife as the ur-text of postmodern conspiracy theorizing

when belief eclipses fact you eventually reach a place where all sources of information is equally invalid and thus equally valid

it is the first major step on the road to our own post-truth era

Hopefully that's what it will lead into. For me I know very little about this. We covered it at school briefly and for me that's pretty much it. I've not seen the Oliver Stone film or anything. So I don't really know what the thinking is - maybe everyone here will reply as you did, maybe they will reply the exact opposite. I really don't know.

The reason I'm starting this thread is cos I read a book on the topic yesterday. But it was a novel, a fiction and so obviously, while it was an interesting book, I'm not assuming what it said was true or anything. Also, although it was sort of about JFK, in another sense it wasn't at all, it was said in the UK in the 90s so I have nothing extra to say on the topic that came to me from that book.

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

I mean for example (I'm not saying this is what happened, just pointing out the error in your claim) it could have been LHO and one other person say, which clearly would not involve an enormous number of people. And if the other person died shortly afterwards then no decades would be involved either.

it is not an error in my claim

I said every massive conspiracy theory, bc JFK conspiracists don't traffic in any other kind

or please by all means someone point me to the theories about Oswald's anonymous friend who died a week later

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

@IdleRich I mean look bud yr OPs are full of the Mafia, the CIA, Russia, etc. like JFK theorizing virtually always is.

if Lee Harvey Oswald and a group of poker buddies or whatever hatched a plot, no one would care

the conspiracy theories have juice specifically bc they involve the deep state, mob, exiled Cubans, etc

the whole point is that it's far more comforting to believe that some sinister cabal or mastermind is pulling strings than it is to admit to yourself that existence is basically chaos and no one is actually "in control"

 

[william kent]

I don't know who killed JFK. The more you look into it, the muddier it gets. There's all sorts of intriguing details and tidbits, e.g. Jolly West, noted MKUltra psychiatrist, visiting and treating Ruby after his arrest.

 

[william kent]

the whole point is that it's far more comforting to believe that some sinister cabal or mastermind is pulling strings than it is to admit to yourself that existence is basically chaos and no one is actually "in control"

If a bunch of spooks and military people successfully took out, say, Corbyn, I'd find that much more frightening than some random doing it.

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

the Oliver Stone film or anything

as a film, it's entertaining

as history, it's not only absolutely terrible but dangerous, bc it's the defining view for so many people and it perpetuates so many myths and outright inventions. Stone wanted to have it both ways - sell an entertaining fiction while presenting his film as a truth to power document and split the difference by referring to it as a "countermyth to the Warren Commission" (like I said - if all facts are simply competing myths then nothing is "true"). the money shot is a famous scene where Donald Sutherland appears as a kind of ex-special ops Deep Throat breaking down the supposed deep state coup d'etat to murder to Jim Garrison (Kevin Costner). it includes a shot of LBJ saying point blank to a bunch of spooks and generals that if they put him into power he'll give them their war in Vietnam. it's fucking preposterous.

 

[IdleRich]

it is not an error in my claim

I said every massive conspiracy theory, bc JFK conspiracists don't traffic in any other kind

or please by all means someone point me to the theories about Oswald's anonymous friend who died a week later

Come on, I just said that I'm not saying that that is what happened. I'm just saying that there are countless conceivable scenarios which would differ from the official narrative and which would not involve a huge number of conspiracists or a large amount of time.

I wasn't really drawing a distinction between the sizes of conspiracy in my original point. I don't really see the point in identifying a specific type of conspiracy that was not identified in the original post and then ruling only that out.

In fact it felt as though you wanted to say "there was definitely no conspiracy and it was just LHO" which would be a much stronger point and worthy of the dismissive tone, but sort of halfway through the sentence you realised that the reason you were putting forward didn't hold unless you inserted that qualifier which made the whole thing much much weaker if not totally triviial.

But I think you really think that there was no conspiracy don't you? Not just there was no large conspiracy... surely.

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

In fact it felt as though you wanted to say "there was definitely no conspiracy and it was just LHO" which would be a much stronger point and worthy of the dismissive tone, but sort of halfway through the sentence you realised that the reason you were putting forward didn't hold unless you inserted that qualifier which made the whole thing much much weaker if not totally triviial.

No Rich, I'm sorry but you are wrong, point blank. The distinction is the opposite of trivial.

JFK conspiracy theorizing is only what it is bc it involves these seemingly large, powerful, nefarious entities.

 

[william kent]

Why would a JFK conspiracy need to be massive? Oswald was obviously involved on some level, whatever you believe happened, through presence alone, but you wouldn't need that many more people to be in on it.

 

[IdleRich]

@IdleRich I mean look bud yr OPs are full of the Mafia, the CIA, Russia, etc. like JFK theorizing virtually always is.

if Lee Harvey Oswald and a group of poker buddies or whatever hatched a plot, no one would care

the conspiracy theories have juice specifically bc they involve the deep state, mob, exiled Cubans, etc

the whole point is that it's far more comforting to believe that some sinister cabal or mastermind is pulling strings than it is to admit to yourself that existence is basically chaos and no one is actually "in control"

Well I'm just getting the ball rolling, obviously I quoted the standard things (also aliens). I mean, If I'd said it was either Australian intelligence, West Ham players or a gang of television producers it would be a bit weird.

Yes the starndard line with conspiracy theories is indeed the idea that it's more comforting for there to be a nice neat explanation for what happened and so on, and I tend to agree with it as a rule. But you're being very lazy trotting it out here cos it's clearly not the case here is it? If the deep state killed the president then that would be much more frightening than some random nutter shooting him. That's obvious.

Either way it's a point for the other thread that's been well gone into. In fact pretty much everything you've said so far could go in that thread. I'm hoping that people can be aware that that thread exists and sort of understand that those arguments have all been made many times, and start at the point where I asked here.

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

Why would a JFK conspiracy need to be massive? Oswald was obviously involved on some level, whatever you believe happened, through presence alone, but you wouldn't need that many more people to be in on it.

shooters, people giving orders to those shooters, an entire infrastructure to then frame Oswald or at least make him a sacrificial goat

the ability to suborn or subvert the Warren Commission

etc

 

[william kent]

Some people point the finger at Dulles as he had the connections, despised Kennedy and was appointed to the Warren Commission.

 

[IdleRich]

No Rich, I'm sorry but you are wrong, point blank. The distinction is the opposite of trivial.

JFK conspiracy theorizing is only what it is bc it involves these seemingly large, powerful, nefarious entities.

I'm not saying the distinction is trivial. I'm saying you tried to slip it in as though it was trivial... it felt like you wrote

"Every conspiracy theory, besides being full of holes, would require a coverup lasting decades and involving an enormous number of people"

which would be a very strong claim... but then you, rightly, realised it wasn't true as you said it and stuck that word "massive" in there, which totally changed, and in fact weakened, your original sentence from being a strong claim to a rather trivial one. I agree that no hugely complex and unfeasible conspiracy happened, we're on the same page, now let's see what people think about the options that remain cos we're getting increasingly bogged down in very tedious detail that belongs in the other thread. I wanna hear what people think about JFK, not your thoughts on how people should approach it.

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

But you're being very lazy trotting it out here cos it's clearly not the case here is it? If the deep state killed the president then that would be much more frightening than some random nutter shooting him. That's obvious.

it's not about whether "the deep state" murdered the president. it's about believing someone is in control.

it is not a lazy point. it is borne out in essentially all major conspiracist thinking, from 9/11 to QAnon to whatever else.

not sure why your tone is consistently insulting in this thread btw, especially since your own arguments aren't exactly dynamite

like you read a novel and speculated some bullshit

if you just want to have fun that's fine. if you want an actual answer, it was Lee Harvey Oswald.

 

[william kent]

RFK's an intriguing one too.