A reader writes perceptively about the “conspiracy v. gross negligence” question in the JFK story. In an email, he explains, perhaps better than I have, why I emphasize this issue.
“Funny- like Jacob I used to wonder why you were driving home the ‘negligence’ angle. But it eventually dawned on me.”
“I think this issue gets to the crux of your credo and indeed the name of the site. That is: why you may have never explicitly said you lean toward ‘the latter (i.e. conspiracy),’ I and probably many of your readers, have intuited that that’s what you probably think. However, you’ve had to build the case, however slowly, on ‘facts.’
“Thus, at this point, after painstakingly assembling facts, you can make an iron-clad argument that the CIA knew very much about LHO and could realistically be accused of negligence. Even [CIA historian David] Robarge concedes much of that.”
“This is a long way of saying that I’ve felt your ‘negligence’ approach isn’t so much for those who are already steeped in the JFK issue, but rather for those outside who think it folly to even still be discussing it now— or who say nothing came out of the files. Basically you’re establishing an unassailable beachhead for what might come next. An almost lawyerly exercise in establishing the facts. A narrative that can’t be denied.”