Another scribe irritated at the prevalence of those darn JFK conspiracy theorists.
Paul Mulshine of the Newark Star Ledger says, regarding JFK’s assassination: “The truth hurts but it doesn’t sell.”
The truth being, in Mulshine’s opinion, that Kennedy was not killed by his enemies, but by one man for no reason.
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You'll want to visit:
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Warren Commission Report (1964)
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House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) Report (1979)
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I’d counter this by saying: “The truth can be found, but you can’t be lazy; have to READ to find the information.”
Intellectual laziness won’t cut it in looking at the JFK assassination. I know that Allen Dulles allegedly quipped about the Warren Commission volumes upon publication that, Americans are too lazy to read them. This goes for the good books that counter the Warren Commission as well, I might add.
The news media decided early on to take the Warren Commission report at face value and not ask questions. For any serious news outlet to now say that that was an error and to question the official story would entail a level of professional embarrassment that none of the people who work at these outlets wants to endure. It would open these media outlets to the charge that they failed in their coverage of what has been called the crime of the (20th) century. Thus the continued refusal to even consider the possibility that the official story has serious shortcomings (to say the least).
re: “Truth Hurts” article.
It’s easy to understand Mr. Carroll’s logic. Does it make sense (Mr. Carroll asks) that Ruby would jeopardize his ‘assignment’ to murder Oswald by making an unnecessary and untimely detour to the Western Union office? No.
The usual conspiracy scenario requires Ruby to have help from a Dallas insider (or insiders) with sufficient authority to control Oswald’s transfer until someone confirms that Ruby is in place. Who are the insiders, especially those at the top? (and prove it) Further, this scenario infers that a person of even greater status is ‘giving orders’ to the insider(s) mentioned above. After all, Oswald’s murder is considered a subplot within the larger plot that was meticulously orchestrated by very important men.
According to conspiracists, Oswald’s silencing was a desperate kamikaze mission. Ruby was going to be caught or killed. How could the puppet masters be so sure that Ruby – an extroverted and unstable personality – would never name names? How could they know beforehand that investigators would steer both murder cases away from conspiracy? How could they know that Ruby’s gunrunning activities and underworld connections would be ignored by FBI, and state, local, congressional and media investigators? How many Dallas cops were involved in the subplot . . . and what are the odds that none of ‘em would ever confess or leak something to family, friends or press? There are dozens of such questions.
After all these years I’m still a very committed conspiracist “screwball”, as Mr. Carroll likes to sneer. But I do understand that some of the conspiracy theories require impossible levels of precision, coordination, timing, stealth and clairvoyance, as well as improbable lifelong silence by hundreds of participants. Like it or not, that’s a problem for our side.
Hmmm….If I were one of the conspirators behind the JFK assassination, I’d want Oswald dead as soon as possible, because he was a primary source. I’d want the police to kill him in a shootout, the ideal way to “legitimately” silence him. Barring that, I’d have someone kill him. The risks of that person assigned to kill Oswald saying something or not performing exactly as I wished would have been far outweighed by my desire to have Oswald silenced. Remember, Oswald did talk, it’s just that most of his testimony, other than saying “I was just a patsy” went unrecorded, and with no notes (to ever surface) by the police interrogating him. So, with this information, what makes you so sure about Ruby and anyone’s concern regarding his talking? Your logic doesn’t seem to hold up to close scrutiny.
Captain Will Fritz of the Dallas Police Department took notes during his interrogation of Oswald.
See http://www.jfklancer.com/Fritzdocs.html
Thanks. I hadn’t seen those notes before. I’m surprised that there are no audio or film records of Oswald under interrogation. Was that standard procedure, to just write notes and leave things at that? Seems kind of lame to me, but I don’t know much about Dallas Police Dept. procedures in 1963.
Innocent generic speculation might lead one to believe Dallas police were overwhelmed by JFK’s assassination in their city and tried to heal an embarrassing civic wound by not recording details.
Let’s jump back to reality. The odor of Dallas PD’s omission still stinks today, almost 50 years after the fact. Perhaps a semi-modern Dallas PD in 1963 intentionally failed to use tape recorders, stenographers, or other technical methods of recording suspect interrogations. The glaring omission of an official interrogation transcript of questions and Oswald’s answers can lead one to assume there was a solid connection between JFK’s killers and the Dallas police.
Someday, somewhere, somehow, a hidden recording of Oswald’s interrogation might surface to serve as Oswald’s revenge. Eventually we will know more about what happened during his interrogation. The long-overdue exposure will come from insider knowledge about the plot, assassination, and cover-up minus innocent generic speculation.
I don’t know if anything will turn up from the Dallas PD or not. It would be great if some “lost recordings” did turn up of Oswald’s interrogation. But looking at the recordings made (allegedly) of Oswald in Mexico City by intelligence there, now lost, but said to not be the same voice (just as surveillance photos showed someone else posing down there as ‘Oswald’) I remain skeptical that any new recordings from Dallas would have survived. If any recordings were made, I’m betting they got destroyed, just like the Mexico City voice recordings did.
I think Bill Pierce makes some good points about logic and plausibility. But I continue to believe that Oswald’s death was the single most suspicious thing that happened in the very suspicious series of events that began around 12:30 p.m. on 11/22. No defendant, no trial.