Monthly Archives: April 2008

After breakfast at Hubbard’s Cafe Mike wanted to go see the Sixth Floor Museum at the Book Depository overlooking the site of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination at Dealey Plaza. The weather was perfect for the mood of such a sight – somber, quiet overcast on a Sunday. It was a good call.

The Sixth Floor Museum was not entirely unlike my visit to the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam last month. It too was at the scene of a globally known tragedy, perfectly preserved in some places with many artifacts of the day passed on to the museum. In this case, these including many, many home movies made of that day at Love Field, at Dealey Plaza and at other spots in Dallas.

Mike and I looked down from the spot where Lee Harvey Oswald fired his rifle. We examined the evidence as presented in the museum dioramas. We absorbed the historic context of the day as presented in the museum dioramas.

The books that were published in that year that were on display, the newspaper headlines, the pamphlets and the television clips. Cuban Missile Crisis, Bay of Pigs, cold war, space race, military build up, decolonization, desegregation, birth control… could anything else have been going on during that time? I mean really – I know we feel overwhelmed at times with events in our own era but looking back on that Is it any wonder that the world was about to shudder with civic unrest and war and fear? If there were any time that any one in high office might be assassinated, it’s hard for me to understand how it would surpass that one.

Mike and I looked down from where Lee Harvey Oswald fired down on Kennedy. We read the evidence as presented in the museum displays, including the film, the photos, the rifle, the magic bullet, the back stories behind Oswald and other players in the drama. We walked the grassy knoll. We looked at the “X marks” on the asphalt where the limousine rolled downhill while taking fire.

Here are a few things that Mike and I concluded:

1. Oswald could have made the shots that killed Kennedy. In fact, I believe that I could have done it myself. Standing in that window and looking down on the roadway it seems to me that the angle, the motion of the limousine and the distances involved would really not have been all that difficult with a telescopic sight. some skill and a little practice. I’ve seen performers split blocks of wood thrown in the air with a rifle while shooting over their shoulders. I’ve seen film of sharp shooters hitting quarter-sized targets over and over at long distances. Oswald could have made those shots.
2. Oswald’s actions were not solely the initiative of a politically motivated radical. He had help, more than likely as relates to the planning of the assassination. Oswald became an employee at the Book Depository five weeks before Kennedy’s visit to Dallas. We saw no explanation offered of the striking coincidence between Oswald’s employment there and Kennedy’s ride through the plaza a few weeks later. Surely Oswald knew this would happen, but how? Even if Kennedy’s visit was known beforehand, surely the details of his exact route were not published that far in advance? If they were, there was no mention of that specific fact that we could find. It seems likely that Oswald was given information to act on by someone hostile to Kennedy. There would have been plenty of opportunity. Oswald, a former defector to the Soviet Union who had returned to the US as the husband of a Soviet Intelligence agent’s daughter would have been easily connected to spies and moles it seems. The Soviets might very well have collaborated with not just Oswald, but anti-Kennedy radical groups in the US. There was some tangential evidence of this presented in the museum.
3. The magic bullet is complete and total bullshit. There is NO WAY that a bullet did all the damage that projectile is alleged to have done while remaining essentially undamaged. You can badly deform a bullet by firing it into water, for crying out loud. That thing supposedly passed through two people while breaking bones. There is simply no believable case for that bullet having done what is claimed. Then you have ask yourself – how is it that bullet was found on a stretcher in the hospital, and why?

Time to whip out Ockham’s Razor. My thinking is this – the Soviets sponsored the assassination and manipulated various individuals and groups to get the job done. Ironically, some of those being manipulated would have been apoplectic to realize there were being used as tools of the Soviets. Such is the game of high stakes espionage. The Johnson administration either knew or realized that this was the case as the investigation proceeded, and hastily and forcefully covered it up.

Think about it.

The Soviets were at the zenith of their Khrushchev-inspired belligerence. The anti-communist movement in the United States was at historic highs. Brushfire conflicts were flaring around the globe. As the Cuban Missile Crisis so clearly demonstrated, the world was on the hair trigger of nuclear apocalypse.

If the truth went public events could have and probably would have quickly spiraled out of anyone’s control. Johnson knew it. Assassinating Kennedy was an act of war that would probably have ended civilization had it come to light. Other than declaring war, what could the President be expected to do that would have been an appropriate response under the circumstances? It had to have another explanation – and fast. Everyone needed to believe that Oswald acted alone, and anything he might have said to the contrary under the duress of interrogation or prosecution was silenced forever when Jack Ruby killed him.

I believe that that simplest possible explanations are almost always the right ones. Oswald acting alone might be that explanation, but the timing of his employment at the Book Depository, the nature of his relationship to Russian intelligence, and the magic bullet simply don’t wash. An assassination conspiracy sponsored by an out-of-control Khrushchev bureaucracy followed by an American cover up to avoid Armageddon seems like the simplest possible explanation that withstands those pieces of evidence. It may not be the right explanation obviously, but it is one that doesn’t require a complex conspiracy involving dozens of people, only a handful on each side.

If this is what happened, can you imagine being in Johnson’s shoes? Would it be any wonder that he would cover up the assassination on one hand and be absolutely determined to stop Soviet expansion on the other? Would it be any wonder that he would view Vietnam the way that he did in that case?