Today is the 62nd anniversary of the JFK assassination
I consider that event Ground Zero for the popularization in the US of what one might call conspiracy culture. That’s not the best term for it, because conspiracies sometimes exist and are sometimes real. Maybe I should call it false conspiracy culture, or default conspiracy culture, which involves the assumption that conspiracies are operating in certain events even when there is little to no evidence of it.
I’ve written many many posts on the subject of the JFK assassination and the conspiracy theories that have proliferated in its wake. You can find them here, and I’d like to call particular attention to this post. In it, I quote the Bugliosi book on the subject, Reclaiming History, which can be found online here:
It is remarkable that conspiracy theorists can believe that groups like the CIA, military-industrial complex, and FBI would murder the president, but cannot accept the likelihood, even the possibility, that a nut like Oswald would flip out and commit the act, despite the fact that there is a ton of evidence that Oswald killed Kennedy, and not an ounce showing that any of these groups had anything to do with the assassination.
It is further remarkable that these conspiracy theorists aren’t troubled in the least by their inability to present any evidence that Oswald was set up and framed. For them, the mere belief or speculation that he was is a more-than-adequate substitute for evidence. More importantly, there is a simple fact of life that Warren Commission critics and conspiracy theorists either don’t realize or fail to take into consideration, something I learned from my experience as a prosecutor; namely, that in the real world—you know, the world in which when I talk you can hear me, there will be a dawn tomorrow, et cetera—you cannot be innocent and yet still have a prodigious amount of highly incriminating evidence against you…
…[T]he evidence against Oswald is so great that you could throw 80% of it out the window and there would still be more than enough to prove his guilt beyond all reasonable doubt…
The Warren Commission critics and conspiracy theorists display an astonishing inability to see the vast forest of evidence proving Oswald’s guilt because of their penchant for obsessing over the branches, even the individual branches. And, because virtually all of them have no background in criminal investigation, they look at each leaf (piece of evidence) by itself, hardly ever in relation to, and in the context of, all the other evidence.
Whenever I post about the assassination, people argue with me about my certainty that Oswald killed him and that he acted alone. It’s no surprise that this would occur, because the vast majority of Americans believe that it was a conspiracy of some sort. The most recent poll I could quickly find right now is a 2023 Gallup poll, but it says what most polls have said for many years: that a little less than a third of Americans believe that Oswald was the sole assassin. In fact, if you look at this chart, there have been times when even fewer Americans have believed that:
I’m harping on this because I’ve long thought that this strain of American life is damaging. No, I don’t automatically trust the government – that would be absurd. But I do try to look at evidence and to use logic, realizing that absolute and complete certainty is never possible.
And of course, it’s possible to ignore the evidence by saying it’s manufactured, which already presupposes the existence of a conspiracy (making up false evidence), further solidifies that belief, and then uses the resultant state of mind in the populace to plant an idea about who is really to blame.
The ways in which I’ve seen this play out in recent years are many. Russiagate was a conspiracy theory fostered by actual conspiracists on the left to hurt the right, and is believed to this day by an enormous number of Democrats. The uncovering of the perpetrators of the conspiracy theory, and attempts to describe what happened, is itself called a conspiracy theory. Likewise, we indeed were told lies about COVID, and they were damaging, but they also eroded trust so much that now people believe all sorts of things connected with the vaccine in the absence of actual evidence or through misrepresentation and/or misinterpretation of actual evidence (I’ve written a great deal about that, too; for example, here, here, and here).
There are other examples, but the most recent one is the ancient conspiracy theory about Jews running the world and being responsible for everything that’s bad. It has the appeal of being simple, and there are those on left and right busily engaged in spreading the word. Many times recently I’ve heard Candace Owens – who has gazillions of devoted followers and does indeed merit the title “influencer” – reference the JFK assassination, tie it to Kirk’s assassination, and accuse just about everyone of killing Kirk but mostly the Jews/Israelis. She explicitly says Israel killed JFK, and doesn’t even seem to feel the need to offer any evidence whatsoever, because her audience is so ready to believe anything about the killing of Kennedy.
The JFK assassination functions in the US as the Mother of All Conspiracy Theories, and it’s a very useful one indeed to those who would spread Jew-hatred – or any other hatred or distrust.
Most recently brought up if ever assassination is a lone gunman why not this one?
Was very young when it occurred yet my mom says I had a sense something bad happened. And when McArthur died about a year later she said I asked if another President died.
Never bought the conspiracy on this.
LHO acted along. Period.
I was a Senior in HS. I remember it well. On the way to English class, no one believed it, until they put the TV in the Gym. I watched on live TV Ruby shooting him.
It was just after lunch; I was in my dorm but heading out to an afternoon class when I got the news that JFK had been shot. The professor in that class was a Harvard man, and very much part of the Harvard-JFK culture.
One student listened by radio as the rest of us went though the motions of paying heed to what the professor was teaching us. Late in the class hour, news came via this one student’s radio that JFK was dead.
The professor, very affected by the news, slammed his hand on the wall, head down. After a moment or two, he simply said quietly that we can all leave now.
Were there any strictly American conspiracy theories prior to Kennedy? The only thing that comes to my mind is Hearst and the Spanish-American War.
4th grade and all of us were very confused when it was announced that school was canceled and we should all go home. Did my usual one mile walk home to find my mother with her head down, sitting in shock.
Freshman in high school. Remember girl in Spanish class crying as she gave a report that she had previously chosen to be on Kennedy. Later my family and I watched Walter Cronkite sob as he anchored the reports. Saw Jack Ruby murder Oswald.
Lots of doubters on Oswald shooter theory. Gun groups hold contests at their meetings showing how hard it is to hit a target moving away from you at the motorcade speed.
Lots of doubters on Oswald shooter theory. Gun groups hold contests at their meetings showing how hard it is to hit a target moving away from you at the motorcade speed.
==
No, they don’t, because it isn’t that difficult.
Bob Wilson:
It’s a relatively easy shot.
From Google AI:
I moved to Dallas in 1989 and had a bit of time on my hands, a month before i started a new job. One of my good friends was and is a non-fiction writer and she was given a large box of Xeroxed Dallas detective reports that had been made real fast before the original reports were all handed over to the FBI a few weeks after JFK was killed. This box had been discovered in the garage attic of a deceased head of the Dallas detectives and my friend knew we would discover some sort of a missing bit of information about Oswald and the shooting.
I spent a lot of hours reading a lot of interesting reports and the only thing that was new was the fact that Oswald had been identified zeroing in his rifle on a local range. After he had it zeroed in Oswald was told to leave the range because he was being an asshole and shooting at other targets on either side of his target, shooting well and that is never acceptable behavior on a gun range. He was too lazy to go up and reset a new target on his position. The rest of the reports were included in the books read, lots of them for a number of years. Copies of the ad Oswald used to order his gun, an Italian Carcano Mod. 91/38, a 6.5mm bolt-action for $21.45 including the scope and shipping bothered a lot of people because it was such a cheap rifle and considered junk by folks who seemed to want a more expensive setup used to kill a president.
I spoke to one of the FBI agents during the early 1990’s and found out he was working in Dallas during the early 1960’s. I asked him the question, did Oswald do it alone and the answer I received was yep, a lone gun man because if there had been others they would have talked. The agent said that no one would have been part of killing JFK and had the ability to keep quiet for decades and I think that is correct. Folks like to talk about stuff after the fact.
In the late 1980’s I was working in finance in North Dallas and one of my co-workers was an older man who told me his story about Jack Ruby, my friend was going through a divorce in 1963, he was living in an inexpensive apartment close to Jack Ruby’s ‘Carousel Club’ and my friend said he was a regular in Ruby’s place watching the girls, drinking and getting to be a regular. He told me that Ruby was nuts, noisy and liked attention and when Ruby shot Oswald on Sunday morning my friend was watching TV, like most of us in the USA, and he yelled at the TV, “What have you done Jack?” He told me that Jack Ruby was just being Jack Ruby working on impulse and emotion, the way Jack had been for months when my friend was hanging out watching him at the club.
That’s about what I know about Kennedy being killed in 1963 when I was a Freshman in college with my ROTC uniform on and being told that our ‘Commander in Chief’ had been shot. That was a most tragic day for our nation.
My reference is the book “Unintended Consequences” by John Ross, the Atlas Shrugged of the gun culture /smile.
Here is their side.
They say the Carcano is a piece of junk and had a cheap scope that gave a small field of view. Why didn’t Oswald shoot Kennedy in the chest while the car was moving towards him? Kennedy was standing up and not behind the windshield then. Instead Oswald waited until the car turned the corner and was angling away from him with a view partially blocked by trees. Then he starts rapid firing with the bolt action rifle, and acquires and hits Kennedy twice. Plus he puts a bullet into Texas governor Connally. According to the Warren Commission he fired all these shots in 8.3 seconds. I was in the Army Reserve and rated expert and I am not a great shot.
I am agnostic on this. Just giving the other side. As we see on the Thomas Crooks Butler shooting, the government explanation leaves a lot of questions.
Neo quotes Google AI. Here is what Grok AI says
Yes, the shots Lee Harvey Oswald fired at President Kennedy were extremely difficult — especially the two that struck the president.
Here’s why they were “hard” shots, even for a trained Marine marksman:
1. Distance and movement
• First hit (frame ~160–165): ~53–60 yards (160–180 feet)
• Fatal head shot (frame 313): ~88 yards (265 feet)?The limousine was moving away at ~11 mph on a slight downward angle.
2. Rifle and ammunition
• 6.5×52 mm Mannlicher-Carcano bolt-action rifle (military surplus, considered cheap and mediocre by many)
• 4× scope that was slightly misaligned (shims were later added to correct it)
• Only 6–8 seconds total time between the first and fatal shot (Warren Commission timeline: 5.6–8.3 seconds for all three shots).
3. Obstruction
• The fatal head shot was partially obstructed by an oak tree for the first ~1.5–2 seconds after the limo came out from behind the tree; Oswald had to fire almost immediately when the opening appeared.
4. Shooting position
• Sixth-floor window, ~60 feet above the street
• Resting the rifle on a stack of boxes (not a perfect bench rest)
• Had to lean out and shoot downward at a ~17–20° angle.
Despite all of this, Oswald:
• Fired three shots in roughly 6–8 seconds
• Hit with two of them (one missed entirely)
• The second hit (the head shot) was a near-perfect strike to a moving target at 88 yards with a surplus bolt-action rifle.
By any objective standard, these were exceptionally difficult shots under extreme time pressure. Most experienced shooters who have tried to duplicate the feat at the same range, with a similar Carcano, and under the same time constraints consider it very challenging — and some say borderline miraculous if everything hadn’t aligned perfectly for Oswald that day.
So yes — the shots were very “hard,” yet he succeeded.
Bob Wilson:
I quoted Google AI merely for convenience. Neither AI, nor conspiracy sites and books, have a clue. I’ve written an enormous number of posts and comments on the JFK assassination over the years and at this point find conspiracy arguments extremely tedious to respond to for the thousandth time, so I just quoted AI because that particular passage of AI happened to represent what longer, and quite accurate explanations have also said
The shots have been demonstrated to have been easy for someone with the type of training Oswald had. They were fired from Oswald’s rifle, the rifle he retrieved from storage in a friend’s garage just a couple of days earlier after discovering JFK’s motorcade would be passing by his place of work, the rifle he concealed as “curtain rods” that he brought to work that morning. The evidence is conclusive and overwhelming. Read Bugliosi’s book. Or read Posner’s book, which is shorter. Bugliosi’s is far more detailed.
I have read many people who duplicated the shots with the same rifle and said it was not hard for someone of Oswald’s level. He was not extremely skilled but he did have some training and some skill, although some people try to say he was a poor shot.
@Bob Wilson
I am a mid JFK assassination guru at best, but what I am is an absolutely obsessive history nerd and gun enthusiast, largely focusing on the world wars. I helped beta test “Isonzo” for things like balance and accuracy, which was probably the height of the Carcano family’s success.
The Carcano is rather “mid” by the standards of its peers. It is imho clearly overshadowed by the likes of the SMLE, 1903 Springfield, M1917 Springfield Enfield, Type 38 or 99, or the better Mosin and Mauser/Kar families. But it is far better than most of its rifle and carbines of its time like the Lebel, Gras, and so on. It is a bolt-action rifle that is reliable, powerful, and accurate, and will shoot what you want. Far moreso than almost anything in common civilian or paramilitary use today.
It is not the best tool for “the job” but it is doable. It won Italy most of the wars it fought in this period and plenty of battles, and it’s worth notable how sharply the JFK truther summaries of the Carcano differ from those of the troops fighting with or against it in the era (with Western Allied troops generally believing it was a cut below most of theirs but doable, and German, Habsburg, Ethiopian, and Russian troops regarding it pretty well). I am proud to own one.
As for why not aim for the chest? A Carcano shot to either chest or head will usually be be lethal, but one to the head is exponentially less likely to be survived even by those.
And most snipers or sharpshooters train to go for the head whether in service or retirement. And by all accounts Oswald was an experienced shootist but not a gifted or hugely competent one, which is borne out by the misses.
So he was not too picky and probably fell back to training.
That also might explain the angling. Depending on his training it might have been closer to the motion of targets Oswald was familiar with and so something he perversely felt more comfortable with than the target moving at him. But in any case I believe there are far bigger issues with Unintended Consequences and the general Oswald didn’t act alone narratives, and like the way these sources tend to overlook the records of the Carcanos by those that fought with or against them in war they also tend to deemphasize how most other Presidential murders in US history were by lone gunmen, and even the conspiratorial plan to murder Lincoln as part of a wider coup saw Booth alone in the theater to make the Presidential hit.
The biggest issue I see with modern Carcanos is ammo being rare and expensive, and if buying a period whether it was manufactured to official specs and thus of good quality as opposed to say something Mussolini’s puppet masters crapped out in 1945 with the usual late war problems.
Fifth Grade. Sunland Elementary School. Miss Gibson’s class. She was tuning in the radio, so that the class could listen to a special educational program after recess. A bulletin came over the radio – there were two of us in the class lingering behind to ask her a question, I think. Don’t recall the question.
We wondered why Miss Gibson began crying, though.
No grand plot, I have always believed since. Oswald was a commie nutcase with delusions of grandeur, and it was an easy shot for a former Marine.
First “real” job as a dispatcher of building materials at a multi-location concrete and materials source. I was approximately a year out of high school and the job was an expansion of a summer job. I was just 19 yo. The 3 of us in the dispatch office heard chatter from our trucks (the concrete mixers had radios) about the shooting and another occupant dug out a portable radio and news broadcasts confirmed.
Customers, both ready-mix and dry materials started calling in to cancel orders. We had to stay to deal with the mess it was an hour or more before we left. We were shut down for the next week, as I recall.
Fast forward to 1967, basic training at Ft Lewis, WA: we were shooting targets from 75m to 400m, M-14, iron sights. The 75 and 100m targets were “gimmies” on the qualification course (in the rain, no less). That shot was an easy one for a USMC trained man; those guys were fanatics on that, compared to us Army guys.
Neo
Sorry if this is a sore point for you. I really do not have a dog in this hunt. I am more concerned with defeating the Democrats in 2026 than explaining the events of that day. In the spirit of the holiday, I am thankful that President Trump turned his head and we do not have to explain another tragedy. I am thankful for many things including the beautiful fall weather here in California.
Bob
I do not mean to minimize the tragedy of the killing of Corey Comparatore during his heroic actions protecting his family and the shooting of the other two people.
My uncle lived in Dallas at the time of the assassination. That evening he went to Dealey Plaza, walked around, noticed all the LEOs and Feds investigating. He asked a few about what was going on. Got some vague answers. Went home.
Which isn’t an interesting story beyond that my uncle could roam around an historic crime scene on the day of like that.
I was just manning my A-1 at NAS North Island. A plane captain came running out of the line shack and yelled, “The President’s been shot!”
My mission was to go 100 miles offshore for carrier quals. So, it wasn’t until I returned several hours later that I learned all the bad news.
When I learned that Oswald had been stationed at NAS Atsugi in 1957, I wondered if I might have rubbed shoulders with him, as I was there twice in 1957 during a WESPAC cruise on the Hancock.
His defection to the USSR puzzled me. I knew a few Marines. They were typically gung-ho Americans. He was certainly not a typical Marine. His story increased my interest in studying Communism because I wanted to figure out why he would do such a thing.
That so many people remember that day with clarity is evidence of what a shocking historical event it was.
Bob Wilson:
It’s okay; no need to apologize. If I sounded a bit testy it wasn’t really meant towards you.
His defection to the USSR puzzled me. I knew a few Marines. They were typically gung-ho Americans. He was certainly not a typical Marine.
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Supposedly, he tended to emulate his brother Robert. Joining the Marines and the Civil Air Patrol was a part of that. He was a disciplinary problem in the Marines and (IIRC) he was court-martialed at one point.
==
Oswald lacked the discipline and motivation to complete high school. By some accounts, though, he was tested (presumably in the service) and discovered to have an IQ of 118, at the 88th percentile of the general population. Rather like a good high school teacher, a pharmacist, a rank-and-file lawyer, perhaps a small town GP. Throughout the period running from 1954 to 1963, Oswald had ordinary hourly jobs, from which he would be fired when his supervisor got fed up with his bad attitude. The disjunction between his self-concept and the reality of his life was immense and his wife would chuckle at that. It was brought home to him when Marina would remind him of what a crappy provider he was (which would lead to her being smacked).
Apparently, I’m still a child on this blog. I’m only 61, so I don’t have a “where I was” story from 1963.
I did, however, write a paper on the Warren report in college. History has always interested me so I dove right in. My research led me to conclude that there were some strange things that happened (evidence just disappearing or being destroyed, differing “expert” opinion about forensic evidence, things like that) but not enough to sell me on the conspiracy.
The biggest thing that convinced me there was no conspiracy was the sheer number of people who would have to have been “in the know”, at all levels of government, the medical community, the military and law enforcement, there would have to have been dozens of people who knew and kept silent about it all these years.
Not buying it.
I’ve been a shooter my whole life. I’d consider myself a competent marksman, above average, but not world-class by any means (I’ve shot against world class marksmen in competitions and I’m not that).
An 88 yard shot at a slowly moving 6″ target would be a piece of cake. That Oswald’s scope was misaligned is irrelevant as long as it was stable and provided a consistent sight picture from shot to shot. He’d practiced with the rifle, so he’d be well aware of any “Kentucky windage” he’d have to apply to get the rounds on target, but at that range, he likely didn’t need to apply any at all to still get hits on a target the size of a head. 1 minute of angle is 1 inch at 100 yards, so even if the scope was as far as 3 MOA off, aiming dead center at 88 yards would put the round within the target area.
“Why didn’t Oswald shoot Kennedy in the chest while the car was moving towards him? Kennedy was standing up and not behind the windshield then.”
Perhaps he wasn’t quite ready yet, was still getting set up, rifle loaded and locked, etc. Maybe he just hesitated and missed the chance until after they’d turned the corner. Maybe he was more comfortable with a target moving away rather than towards. Maybe his makeshift rest wasn’t oriented properly to take a shot from that angle. Any number of potential reasons for that.
“The fatal head shot was partially obstructed by an oak tree for the first ~1.5–2 seconds after the limo came out from behind the tree; Oswald had to fire almost immediately when the opening appeared.”
Most of the places I’ve seen make that argument were justifying it by using images of the view taken years after the shooting took place. One thing interesting about trees: they grow. Look at the pictures taken at the time. The trees that today completely obstruct the view from that window (I’ve been there and looked) were much, much smaller and sparser back then. Also, many of the pictures I’ve seen talking about how the trees obstruct the view were taken in summer. The shooting happened in November. What happens to trees in the fall? Their leaves fall off…which, incidentally, is the origin of the term “fall”. So, although one may not want to actually fire through branches, he could still easily see and track his target through the branches and be prepared to immediately fire as it cleared the obstruction.
“Resting the rifle on a stack of boxes (not a perfect bench rest)”
That’s just silly. Using anything as a rest vastly increases the stability of the rifle and makes the shot easier. Hunters routinely use a stick between the rifle and the ground as a rest to improve stability. They even manufacture fancy ones that you can buy. https://www.amazon.com/Allen-Company-Adjustable-mono-pod-shooting/dp/B000AU4RTU/ref=sr_1_6?sr=8-6. A stack of boxes would make a perfectly serviceable impromptu shooting rest…not that you would even really need a perfect rest at that range. Heck, in NRA high powered rifle competitions, one of the stages is shooting “offhand” (standing, no rest, can’t even use a sling to improve stability) at 200 yards. The 10 ring is 7 inches on those targets.
The only way this type of evidence would be convincing is if it demonstrated that it was highly improbable that it could be done. Although that listing of complicating factors may sound convincing to someone who’s not an experienced shooter: to me, they don’t prove a thing.
Some of the factors mentioned are just non-issues. Some of them would make the shot more difficult, but none of them make the shot improbable. Definitely a do-able string of shots for anyone with a little experience and practice.
This is a truly excellent post (and not your first) on the subject of conspiracy theories in this country. I share your concern. I know at least one MAGA supporter who casually endorses 9/11 conspiracy theories. I was still in my 20s post-9/11 and already busy refuting this nonsense online, in blogs and on forums. My sense then was that it was mostly coming from the Left and in essence a Marxist trope. Now it’s the (far) Right peddling this stuff.
My attendance here is far too intermittent. I’ll be changing that now.
Infantry here. Looked out the window–tourists can do that–easy shot.
One particular gripe is that assertion that Oswald fired three shots in such-and-such a number of seconds. False. The clock starts at the first shot and it’s two shots in such a time.
A head shot is plausible, but the point is the ordinary aim point would be “center of mass”, which is to say the center of what part of the target you can see. So if you’re off by a couple of inches, you still have a chance of hitting. For example, a guy sitting in an open-top vehicle with the seats usual at the time would show, above the seat back, from the top of the shoulder blades and up, more or less depending on height. Viewed from the rear, Center of mass would be a few inches above that.
The fact that JFK was hit in the head doesn’t means it was meant to be a head shot with all the attendant horrid difficulties presented. Center of mass and a few inches high.
Given the timing, Oswald didn’t get his job in that building anticipating JFK’s route past.
Lots of nutcases would have liked to take a shot at Kennedy. Some of that group would have, given the opportunity. But that’s a small number.
Now we come to probability…likelihood of said nutcase being in a position to shoot. Most folks have a probability monitor; beyond which chance is less plausible. It differs from one to another, inveterate lottery ticket purchasers probably have one from most of us.
For those whose monitor goes off here….another explanation is needed.
Then Ruby shows up. What it takes to get this nutcase in a position to kill Oswald will also set off some probability monitors.
So that’s two unlikelihoods, the second one being entirely unnecessary in killing JFK but it’s there anyway.
So it’s possible to see why some folks want a different explanation than cascading nutcases.
As regards Covid; Lots of conspiracy theories are justified, given that Authority has lied and lied.
For example, we eventually found out about the NIH funding gain-of-function research–through a cut-out–at the notably leaking Wuhan lab via congressoinal hearings. Up until that point, if you didn’t believe it was due to pangolin piss or whatever at a wet market, you were a science denier.
So it was the NIH’s idea we should all get sick?
Debra Birx said all deaths WITH Covid should be coded as deaths BY Covid. From the get-go then, we knew we wouldn’t be getting the truth. Go in to hospital with…anything and crank a PCR positive and….it’s a Covid admit and a Covid death. We knew this from the beginning.
Stay away from big crowds and even family gatherings. Unless you’re a big shot. Then the virus gave you a break. This wasn’t obvious?
Going to church would kill you but strip clubs and protests were okay. Did nobody figure the ordinary person would not see a problem here?
The vaxes were issued under an Emergency Use Authorization. One of whose premises was that if a reliable therapeutic was available, it would be better to let the disease–whatever it was–run loose and to treat the afflicted. As opposed to getting shot with this untried vaccine. That’s not a lot of official confidence backing up mandates. Might have been why physicians reporting good results from HCQ were threatened? Remember the Myth of Heterosexual AIDS? The government lied about that. Why not Covid?
Astra -Zeneca, on withdrawing one of their offerings, acknowledged it caused thrombosis. Remember those weird, stringy blood clots morticians were reporting (they were probably redneck Trump supporters)?
Myocarditis and pericarditis were, now, not any big deal. Couldn’t afford to have parents getting antsy about their kids’ heart issues.
So what is it when a conspiracy theory turns out to be true?
So I was 2 and change at the time so no memories of that sort. As noted elsewhere, the shots seem well within the reach of a trained shooter in practice, which Oswald apparently was. Ruby is more annoying to me. At first, his action kind of feels like a mob hit of some sort. Except what hitman is going to be so sloppy as NOT to have an exit strategy and also do it in front of cameras. That argues far more that Ruby had decided to be a hero or wanted attention, as someone else noted. Yes, we have two (mildly) improbable events, but sometimes 5 flips in a row show up heads and the coin isn’t rigged. We just love to see patterns and the amazingly sloppy work of the FBI and other agencies just helps us see patterns in the shadows that aren’t there.
Ruby I would also note was apparently something of a super fan girl of JFK who idolized him from afar (and let’s be frank LOTS of people still do now, let alone at the time when we did not know many of the flaws beneath the whitewashed Camelot). Who was also a temperamental drunk and mid level crook with a violent temper. All of which meant he was absolutely crushed by the murder and visibly in a bad way as many witnesses attested, even moreso than most people (and let’s be clear lots of people were). He was in the area for something else when he saw Oswald and apparently he saw red.
It may seem absurd to imagine him just being right there, and to be fair it is quite the coincidence. But it is less so when you start asking yourself how many people – even normal, far more even keeled and upstanding citizens than Ruby – would have at least been seriously tempted to kill JFK’s murderer. This is often overlooked but it is pretty widely known by law enforcement and other security specialists, as well as those studying the histories. The Habsburg rule in Bosnia-Herzegovina at the turn of the last century was by no means universally popular, but that did not mean even many or most Serb nationalists or Panslavists or Muslim preachers wanted to kill the Slavophile – in a very, VERY literal sense – if ultra Catholic heir to the Dual Monarchy and his Slavic wife as they visited (and indeed Princip and his co-conspirators claimed they did not intend to murder Sophie, only her husband Prince Franz Ferdinand and the hated military Governor, Oskar Potiorek, which for what it is worth I do believe). One reason why the utterly amateurish, intentionally under supplied expendables actually managed to do it (along with lots of mistakes by security) was that the crowd reacted to the designated primary bombers and triggermen after the first failed attack and *jumped* on the perps, heavily wounding them to the point where the police and military garrison had to wade in to save them for future questioning and imprisonment/execution, leaving them confused, out of position, and under strength for the other members of the plot – including Princip – to move to their secondary positions.
I do not think Ruby intended to die or kill, and did not intend to run into Oswald. But when he saw the man pegged as murdering his idol the alcohol in his system and his natural – and in a lot of ways JUSTIFIED – wrath and trauma mingled with his criminal and violent inclinations to make him decide that he would do at least one “good thing” for America.
Jack Ruby was a man with impressive virtues (shared with his brothers) and powerful shortcomings. His impetuosity fueld both. He was on a banal errand to buy money orders (his much loved dog in the car waiting for him). In his nightclubs, he acted as his own bouncer. He had a short fuse and was not afraid to mix it up.
Art
Point is coincidence between place and time of money order purchase, and the brief moment of Oswald’s exposure, place and time.
Bugliosi thought that Oswald didn’t use the scope on the rifle—just aimed on the iron sights. After all, he would have been trained on iron sights in the Marines, and probably in the moment reverted to his training. That renders that the misalignment of the scope moot. Of course, we don’t know whether Bugliosi was right. But we do know that the rifle found on the sixth floor Oswald’s finger and palm prints on it, and was the weapon that fired the so-called “magic bullet” found on the gurney (but placed there by Secret Service agent Paul Landis after he found it in the limousine) that went through Kennedy’s neck and Connolly’s torso. There were also three spent cartridge casings found in the sniper’s nest. Whether Oswald was a good marksman or not, there were three shots fired from the book depository, two of which hit Kennedy, and no evidence of any other shooter anywhere!
I agree with you, Neo, that the most troubling aspect of Kennedy conspiracy thinking is how it shows a widespread abandonment of logic and reason. I thought Gerald Posner had the best explanation for this abandonment (paraphrasing here): it’s simply too jarring to our sense of universal justice to accept that a miserable loser and nonentity like Oswald, armed with a $22 mail-order rifle, could alter the course of history as he did. Instead of acknowledging that it’s in the nature of things for something like that to happen, people build a complex narrative that imagines huge, powerful forces at work—the CIA, the Mafia, the military-industrial complex—that bring the cause and effects of such an event into proportion. We just don’t want to believe that a muttering nut job (Oswald was heard saying “Poor damn cop” or “Poor dumb cop” after he murdered Officer Tippett) could—in the blink of an eye—set the world on a different path.
I doubt the path the country was on was much altered by replacing Kennedy with Lyndon Johnson.
Point is coincidence between place and time of money order purchase, and the brief moment of Oswald’s exposure, place and time.
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It interests you, but it is not significant.
— Art Deco
More or less this^.
There were real differences between JFK and LBJ, I would argue that in some ways LBJ was better. But the idea that the Kennedy assassination ‘changed history’ in some profound way is itself a symptom of emotional overengagement and ex post facto mythmaking (some of it deliberate). It certainly affected a lot of details, but there is little reason to think it changed the fundamentals.
I do wonder though about the Civil Rights Act.
All those yellow-dog Democrats were essentially hog-tied by LBJ and the reverberations following the assassination.
Gotta wonder, too, about LBJ’s escalation in Vietnam. Would Kennedy have agreed to that?
Would he have taken the advice of all the experts…especially after the Bay of Pigs fiasco and his response to that?
Furthermore, can one posit: if no JFK assassination then no RFK assassination (and no MLK Jr. assassination)?? And if so, what about the ensuing race riots and the destruction, fear, nihilism and uncertainty that ensued?
All the dashed hope?
And if no JFK assassination, then how might one gauge the possibility of a JFK second term? And following that second term the chances of RFK ascending to power for one term? For two?
Etc.
All this for starters…
Short version: no one can possibly know for sure what would have happened.
No one.
Funky,
It is not right that a giant be brought down by a pissant.
@Barry Meislin
I can speak for the former. Namely that JFK was already escalating in Vietnam and Indochina in general, hence the ramp up in advisors and support for the RVN. The speech he was planning to give on the day of his murder is known, we have the script. https://www.jfklibrary.org/archives/other-resources/john-f-kennedy-speeches/dallas-tx-trade-mart-undelivered-19631122
So I think the question is if JFK’s escalation would have been different or handled better than LBJ’s. I think Bill Whittle is at least somewhat correct that McNamara would not have dazed or awestruck him as he did LBJ (even if the latter still had the whip hand between himself and McNamara). But ultimately I do agree with those who greatly overestimate what difference Kennedy would have had in the Presidency, and the idea he would have kept us “out of Vietnam” strikes me as flat fantasy and even retroactive.
and the idea he would have kept us “out of Vietnam” strikes me as flat fantasy and even retroactive
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IIRC, characters like Arthur Schlesinger were promoting the idea in magazine articles ca. 1971. Sleazy pieces of mass entertainment like the film Executive Action traded on the notion that JFK was planning to withdraw from VietNam. (The principal producer of that film also produced other red haze fables like Missing. The three writers were Dalton Trumbo, Donald Freed, and Mark Lane).
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See Henry Kissinger’s thesis on the fall of Ngo Dinh Diem. It was his view that the consequent purge of the civilian government workforce (and their replacement by soldiers) badly damaged the capacity of the military to prosecute the war because they were more and more preoccupied with politics, intramural rivalries, and civilian administration. The Kennedy people stuck Johnson and Nixon with that dog.
A late response to the very interesting viewpoints in this thread.
IF you buy into the belief that Satan (whatever actual entity we designate by that name) takes a hand in earthly events, a “pissant” killing Kennedy and being killed in turn by a “patriot” in an improbable turn of events would (a) amuse him immensely; (b) clean up loose ends that might be unraveled if Oswald had lived to be questioned and tried.
It is true that “no one can possibly know for sure what would have happened,” but that doesn’t stop people speculating.
IF you are a fan of the “What if?” alternate history genre, my contribution is to note that Kennedy, if he had lived through another term, and afterward, would have had a lot more of the “Camelot” patina* scraped off sooner, as people began to learn about his problems while he was still around; there is a great tendency to dismiss failings after someone is dead, especially if tragically so.
*IIRC, the Camelot analogy was initially proposed by Jackie Kennedy after JFK’s death.