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The JFK Assassination: The Facts and Theories
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
May 15, 2024
A COLLECTION OF VARIOUS WRITINGS GENERALLY SUPPORTING ‘CONSPIRACY’
Author Carl Oglesby wrote in the Introduction to this 1992 book, “I have organized these occasional pieces on the JFK assassination generally along the historical sketched out above. Section I presents to pieces devoted to the question of ‘conspiracy theory’ as such… Section II confronts… that analysis of events [that insists one] must choose between ‘broad historical forces’ and conspiracy. This dichotomy is false. ‘Forces’ and ‘conspiracies’ are not mutually exclusive… Section III is an edited and updated chapter from my 1976 book, ‘The Yankee and Cowboy War,’ laying out the basic details of the Dealey Plaza conspiracy arguments. This section goes hand-to-hand against the lone-assassin fantasy. Section IV deals with the congressional reinvestigation of the case in the late 1970s. This is the longest and most concrete part of the book for two basic reasons. First, the technical work done by the Assassinations Committee remains the most sophisticated and complete attempt made to date body to determine precisely what happened in Dallas by an official. Second, this was also the period of my most total absorption in the issue… Section V reprints three pieces, two of which bear directly and one indirectly on the explosive arrival of Oliver Stone’s ‘JFK,’ which immediately put the debate about the JFK assassination on a whole new footing. Section VI presents a table with several leading answers to the question, ‘If Oswald (alone) did not do it, who did?’ … Finally, a piece written for this book takes up the question of what we must do to get closer to truth and justice in the JFK assassination, how to lay the ghost to rest and be set free from this haunting case.” (Pg. 23-24)
He explains, “How strong is the evidence that Kennedy intended a Vietnam pullback? We have a few fragments, a chronology. 1. In the summer of 1961… the Kennedy circle promulgated … a ‘red-striped’ memo … [which] directed the [Joint] Chiefs to take the command of the Vietnam operation away from the CIA and commence a policy of disengagement… 3. … [The] Navy Undersecretary under JFK [said], ‘If John F. Kennedy had lived, our military involvement would have been over by the end of 1964.’ 4. Kennedy remarked… ‘If I tried to pull out completely now from Vietnam, we would have another Joe McCarthy red scare on our hands, but I can do it after I’m reelected… 6. … In an interview in late 1973, [Daniel] Ellsberg said, ‘…the major decision Kennedy had made [in 1961] was to REJECT the recommendation made to him by virtually everyone that he send combat troops to Vietnam…’ 8. … [Robert] McNamara … tell[s] the press of plans to withdraw one thousand U.S. troops from Vietnam before the year is out.’” (Pg. 65-68)
He states, “Here is the chain of evidence that convicts Oswald. The wounds to Kennedy and Connally are caused by CE399. The bullet CE399 was fired from the Mannlicher-Carcano found in the depository at the sixty-floor window. The Mannlicher-Carcano had been purchased from a mail-order gun supplier a few weeks before in the name of one A. Hidell. Oswald was carrying papers identifying him as Hidell at the time of this arrest. The astonishing thing is that this is the entirety of the case against Oswald. Besides that chain of associations, the rest of the evidence comes down to an eyewitness who could not repeat his identification of Oswald at a police line-up and a photograph of the alleged assassin published to the whole world on the cover of Life which contained as plain as the nose on Oswald’s face the ocular proof of its totality bogus character.” (Pg. 95)
He says of the media on the House Select Committee, “If the press had reported each day on the actual contributions the committee was making instead of constantly blunting everything that said conspiracy and overplaying everything that said relax, then the 80 percent of us who today sense conspiracy in the JFK death would be not only more numerous, but also more aroused and more insistent that the whole truth be found. The Committee told us that Oswald was hanging around Carlos Marcello at the very time Marcello was threatening JFK’s life, and the press hardly blinked. The committee told us it did not think Ruby got in to shoot Oswald the way Warren said but may have had help from the police in getting in, and the press sat on its pencils as though the story meant nothing. The committed ran out a never-before-heard acoustic tape in evidence, an actual recording of the gunfire, and all the press said was that there was a 50-50 chance it didn’t mean a thing… One has no doubt that a free press can help us all be free. But when it does not choose to USE its freedom, how can its freedom make a difference? And if it doesn’t make a difference, how can it be real?” (Pg. 174-175)
He reports, “In a technical report published in May 1982, an expert panel selected by the National Academy of Sciences attacked and overturned the so-called ‘acoustics argument’ which four hears earlier had convinced the House Select Committee on Assassinations that President Kennedy was shot at by two gunmen instead of one, and hence was ‘probably’ the victim of a conspiracy. A scientifically sophisticated original claim thus delivered the Justice Department from any need to reopen the case. Many counted this a blessing… but hardier followers of the case knew that the House committee had advanced more serious if more subtle conspiracy arguments wholly independent of the acoustics evidence and logically separate from the question was suggesting that Oswald had been manipulate ay a powerful anti-Kennedy group, and if this was the case, than a conspiracy would exist whether there was a second gunman or not. Yet the NAS rejection of the acoustics evidence was taken by the Justice Department and the news media as a rejection in effect of all conspiracy evidence of any kind. Disbanded for more than three years, the Assassination Committee was in no position to answer.” (Pg.
233-234)
In another essay, he notes, “Warren defenders are doubtless correct in observing that conspiracy theorists often reflect their larger political beliefs in their attempts to explain the mystery, but that is equally true of the Warrenites. Why indeed would a George Will snarl that JFK conspiracy theorists are ‘worse than those who deny the Holocaust’ unless he were trying to drive people away from the riddle and restore the security of the official theory? Surely it is not because he believes there is nothing to argue about in the case. Quite apart from the single-bullet theory and the direction of the headshot, there are immense uncertainties about the acoustics evidence, Oswald’s intelligence ties, and Ruby’s ties to the Cuban Mafia, to name just three other examples. People do not make these uncertainties up. They arise from the official record.” (Pg. 305-306)
This is a very diverse, and rather ‘uneven’ collection of essays. It will interest some who are studying JFK conspiracy theories.
Author Carl Oglesby wrote in the Introduction to this 1992 book, “I have organized these occasional pieces on the JFK assassination generally along the historical sketched out above. Section I presents to pieces devoted to the question of ‘conspiracy theory’ as such… Section II confronts… that analysis of events [that insists one] must choose between ‘broad historical forces’ and conspiracy. This dichotomy is false. ‘Forces’ and ‘conspiracies’ are not mutually exclusive… Section III is an edited and updated chapter from my 1976 book, ‘The Yankee and Cowboy War,’ laying out the basic details of the Dealey Plaza conspiracy arguments. This section goes hand-to-hand against the lone-assassin fantasy. Section IV deals with the congressional reinvestigation of the case in the late 1970s. This is the longest and most concrete part of the book for two basic reasons. First, the technical work done by the Assassinations Committee remains the most sophisticated and complete attempt made to date body to determine precisely what happened in Dallas by an official. Second, this was also the period of my most total absorption in the issue… Section V reprints three pieces, two of which bear directly and one indirectly on the explosive arrival of Oliver Stone’s ‘JFK,’ which immediately put the debate about the JFK assassination on a whole new footing. Section VI presents a table with several leading answers to the question, ‘If Oswald (alone) did not do it, who did?’ … Finally, a piece written for this book takes up the question of what we must do to get closer to truth and justice in the JFK assassination, how to lay the ghost to rest and be set free from this haunting case.” (Pg. 23-24)
He explains, “How strong is the evidence that Kennedy intended a Vietnam pullback? We have a few fragments, a chronology. 1. In the summer of 1961… the Kennedy circle promulgated … a ‘red-striped’ memo … [which] directed the [Joint] Chiefs to take the command of the Vietnam operation away from the CIA and commence a policy of disengagement… 3. … [The] Navy Undersecretary under JFK [said], ‘If John F. Kennedy had lived, our military involvement would have been over by the end of 1964.’ 4. Kennedy remarked… ‘If I tried to pull out completely now from Vietnam, we would have another Joe McCarthy red scare on our hands, but I can do it after I’m reelected… 6. … In an interview in late 1973, [Daniel] Ellsberg said, ‘…the major decision Kennedy had made [in 1961] was to REJECT the recommendation made to him by virtually everyone that he send combat troops to Vietnam…’ 8. … [Robert] McNamara … tell[s] the press of plans to withdraw one thousand U.S. troops from Vietnam before the year is out.’” (Pg. 65-68)
He states, “Here is the chain of evidence that convicts Oswald. The wounds to Kennedy and Connally are caused by CE399. The bullet CE399 was fired from the Mannlicher-Carcano found in the depository at the sixty-floor window. The Mannlicher-Carcano had been purchased from a mail-order gun supplier a few weeks before in the name of one A. Hidell. Oswald was carrying papers identifying him as Hidell at the time of this arrest. The astonishing thing is that this is the entirety of the case against Oswald. Besides that chain of associations, the rest of the evidence comes down to an eyewitness who could not repeat his identification of Oswald at a police line-up and a photograph of the alleged assassin published to the whole world on the cover of Life which contained as plain as the nose on Oswald’s face the ocular proof of its totality bogus character.” (Pg. 95)
He says of the media on the House Select Committee, “If the press had reported each day on the actual contributions the committee was making instead of constantly blunting everything that said conspiracy and overplaying everything that said relax, then the 80 percent of us who today sense conspiracy in the JFK death would be not only more numerous, but also more aroused and more insistent that the whole truth be found. The Committee told us that Oswald was hanging around Carlos Marcello at the very time Marcello was threatening JFK’s life, and the press hardly blinked. The committee told us it did not think Ruby got in to shoot Oswald the way Warren said but may have had help from the police in getting in, and the press sat on its pencils as though the story meant nothing. The committed ran out a never-before-heard acoustic tape in evidence, an actual recording of the gunfire, and all the press said was that there was a 50-50 chance it didn’t mean a thing… One has no doubt that a free press can help us all be free. But when it does not choose to USE its freedom, how can its freedom make a difference? And if it doesn’t make a difference, how can it be real?” (Pg. 174-175)
He reports, “In a technical report published in May 1982, an expert panel selected by the National Academy of Sciences attacked and overturned the so-called ‘acoustics argument’ which four hears earlier had convinced the House Select Committee on Assassinations that President Kennedy was shot at by two gunmen instead of one, and hence was ‘probably’ the victim of a conspiracy. A scientifically sophisticated original claim thus delivered the Justice Department from any need to reopen the case. Many counted this a blessing… but hardier followers of the case knew that the House committee had advanced more serious if more subtle conspiracy arguments wholly independent of the acoustics evidence and logically separate from the question was suggesting that Oswald had been manipulate ay a powerful anti-Kennedy group, and if this was the case, than a conspiracy would exist whether there was a second gunman or not. Yet the NAS rejection of the acoustics evidence was taken by the Justice Department and the news media as a rejection in effect of all conspiracy evidence of any kind. Disbanded for more than three years, the Assassination Committee was in no position to answer.” (Pg.
233-234)
In another essay, he notes, “Warren defenders are doubtless correct in observing that conspiracy theorists often reflect their larger political beliefs in their attempts to explain the mystery, but that is equally true of the Warrenites. Why indeed would a George Will snarl that JFK conspiracy theorists are ‘worse than those who deny the Holocaust’ unless he were trying to drive people away from the riddle and restore the security of the official theory? Surely it is not because he believes there is nothing to argue about in the case. Quite apart from the single-bullet theory and the direction of the headshot, there are immense uncertainties about the acoustics evidence, Oswald’s intelligence ties, and Ruby’s ties to the Cuban Mafia, to name just three other examples. People do not make these uncertainties up. They arise from the official record.” (Pg. 305-306)
This is a very diverse, and rather ‘uneven’ collection of essays. It will interest some who are studying JFK conspiracy theories.
November 5, 2017
I was not all that impressed with this book about the conspiracy to kill JFK. The author was a one of the leading figures in pushing for additional investigation into the assassination which does bring a lot of credibility to his words. However, he wrote with a tone of “I am smart, and those that don’t agree with me don’t know how to think”.
Throughout the pages, the author states the case that JFK was murdered, probably by the Mafia. They hated the Kennedy’s for infringing on their business, especially since they felt like they helped him get elected in the first place. He also states that it could have been the CIA, or at least a rogue branch of the organization who were upset about the way Kennedy handled the Bay of Pigs invasion. Then again, it could have been Castro, who hated the fact that Kennedy tried to have him assassinated. However, maybe it was Khrushchev who was upset that he lost the Cuban Missile Crisis confrontation to Kennedy. While researching the conspiracy angles, he brings up a good point in that the Warren Commission did not thoroughly investigate all the angles and leads that should have been; such as how Oswald could have been in 2 places at the same time; such as how one bullet could have caused so much damage to 2 people, and why was a person such as Oswald who supported Castro passed out flyers from the same address that an anti-Castro office was also located.
This book did not resonate with me, but I think this is a book that people have to read and decide on their own as to whether it is enjoyable and as fact based as the author states it is. People who enjoy conspiracy theories will enjoy this, but it was a little too preachy for me to enjoy this.
Throughout the pages, the author states the case that JFK was murdered, probably by the Mafia. They hated the Kennedy’s for infringing on their business, especially since they felt like they helped him get elected in the first place. He also states that it could have been the CIA, or at least a rogue branch of the organization who were upset about the way Kennedy handled the Bay of Pigs invasion. Then again, it could have been Castro, who hated the fact that Kennedy tried to have him assassinated. However, maybe it was Khrushchev who was upset that he lost the Cuban Missile Crisis confrontation to Kennedy. While researching the conspiracy angles, he brings up a good point in that the Warren Commission did not thoroughly investigate all the angles and leads that should have been; such as how Oswald could have been in 2 places at the same time; such as how one bullet could have caused so much damage to 2 people, and why was a person such as Oswald who supported Castro passed out flyers from the same address that an anti-Castro office was also located.
This book did not resonate with me, but I think this is a book that people have to read and decide on their own as to whether it is enjoyable and as fact based as the author states it is. People who enjoy conspiracy theories will enjoy this, but it was a little too preachy for me to enjoy this.
May 1, 2015
Carl Oglesby has a long association with the JFK assassination. He began writing and lecturing as far back as the early 1970's. He helped form the Assassination Information Bureau that took up headquarters in Washington D.C., eventually becoming a co-director.
An activist in the fight for truth in the case, Oglesby incorporates early articles and lectures as well as previously published pieces from his 'The Yankee and Cowboy War' in this 'The JFK Assassination-The Facts and the Theories' from 1992.
A very good revision on the progress and controversies from the Garrison case, the Schweiker-Hart report, the H.S.C.A. probe, all the way to the early 90's release of Oliver Stone's 'JFK'.
An activist in the fight for truth in the case, Oglesby incorporates early articles and lectures as well as previously published pieces from his 'The Yankee and Cowboy War' in this 'The JFK Assassination-The Facts and the Theories' from 1992.
A very good revision on the progress and controversies from the Garrison case, the Schweiker-Hart report, the H.S.C.A. probe, all the way to the early 90's release of Oliver Stone's 'JFK'.
May 2, 2008
I find this subject to be very interesting so I loved this book because it gives you all aspects up the point the book was published.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews