In a press release for his new JFK book author Mark Huffman tells us he is not offering a conspiracy theory. Thanks, Mark! That’s a good move.
Instead of speculating, Huffman offers four and half factually solid points about the JFK’s assassination, and one debatable assertion. My only disagreementconcerns “the magic bullet,” i.e., nearly pristine bullet said to have caused seven non-fatal wounds in the president and Texas governor, John Connally. Huffman says the bullet “doesn’t exist.”
That’s not quite right. The bullet does exist. It was Commission Exhibit 399 of the Warren Commission (shown here with a comment appended by researcher Don Roberdeau) The questions that Huffman raises about CE 399 are all spot on.
I don’t know Huffman but his refusal to theorize is healthy.
JFK conspiracy theories are a mug’s game. If you offer a theory, defenders of the official story, say you don’t have proof. And since conspiracy is a criminal charge, you actually need “proof beyond a reasonable doubt”–which no JFK conspiracy theorist (or lone gunman theorist) has.
This enables the CIA (and others) to then say, accurately enough, that the theorist has no proof–with the implication that no one (save the departed Oswald) was guilty of anything. That’s a non-sequitir that is made plausible by the understandable but unwise offering of a conspiracy theory.
If we refrain from theorizing and stick to the factual record, we will have a more useful and informative discussion of why JFK died.