These last few weeks have been a drumbeat of John F. Kennedy recollection and reflection. Thanks to Lynn Marvin Dingfelder’s documentary, “JFK in Tampa: The 50th Anniversary,” those of us who call Tampa home have had something other than Dallas to focus on. Good preceded evil.
But now it’s that day. That other “D Day.” The one that makes us all cringe. The one with unanswered–and unanswerable–questions that will outlive us all. The one that is still an open case in the court of public opinion. The one that spans a schizoid societal spectrum–from Mark Lane to Vincent Bugliosi.
Although case-closed certainty is not an option in the JFK assassination, we should still be able to acknowledge that some details are more relevant than others, some assumptions more credible than others. And the word “conspiracy” shouldn’t reflexively connote “opportunist,” “nut” or even “buff.” It should mean nothing more than a reasonable conclusion that more than one person was likely involved in a harmful or illegal act. And that other person, in this case, didn’t have to be Nikita Khrushchev or Fidel Castro.
In America, our pre-Kennedy, presidential assassins–and wannabes–have been confirmed solo acts since psychopath Charles Guiteau and anarchist Leon Czolgosz shot James Garfield and William McKinley, respectively. Nor were Squeaky Fromme, Sarah Jane Moore or John Hinckley anything but lone, disturbed would-be assassins.
Lee Harvey Oswald, easily caricatured as a communist loser-loner out to make horrific history, thus fits the archetype. Nobody, to be sure, analogizes Oswald and Lincoln assassin John Wilkes Booth, the stage actor who had multiple co-conspirators–four of whom were hanged.
I’ll pause here for a spoiler alert. Conspiring minds may want to know that this won’t be an Oliver Stone shout-out, although his flawed 1992 “JFK” blockbuster did prompt the expedited release of more classified information. What follows are a few facts to keep in mind–and in context–no matter how frustratingly evasive certitude will always be about Nov. 22, 1963. But, yes, I’m part of the 60 percent that Gallup surveys say still believe there was more than one person involved in Dallas infamy.
Some salient points:
* The 24-year-old Oswald was almost assuredly a U.S. government operative, albeit one clueless as to where he fit in America’s internecine, rogue-riddled, Cold War tool box. Hence that enigmatic “patsy” reference after his arrest. Had he wanted to ingloriously go down in iniquitous history, he arguably would have responded differently.
* While in the marines, Oswald was assigned to Atsugi (Japan), the U-2 spy base. As in Gary Powers’ Soviet over-flights. As in strict government clearance. It was no place for security risks.
* The U.S. invested in Oswald. He was sent to foreign language school where he learned Russian, which he would speak–and write–well. This was hardly the province for dullard losers, let alone those of suspect allegiance.
* Oswald would become a “defector” to–and then a “re-defector” from–the Soviet Union. Such scenarios were not unheard of during the height of “spy vs. spy”, Cold War paranoia. Post-Oswald-interview outtakes from a U.S. Embassy official in Moscow and an Associated Press reporter stationed there are illuminating. They both describe his “defection” rationale as “scripted” and “coached.”
* Oswald was, inexplicably enough, known to be involved with both anti-Castro exiles in Louisiana as well as the pro-Castro “Fair Play for Cuba Committee.” He was the only FPCC “member” in the New Orleans “branch.” In intelligence circles, such blatant imposters are known as “dangles”–would-be bait to the other side. In a parallel-universe where the CIA worked in league with the mob (to take out Castro), nothing seemingly was beyond the pale.
* After Kennedy was mortally wounded, confusion reigned. Attention was focused on the grassy knoll as well as the Texas School Book Depository. As for the knoll area, bogus-credentialed Secret Service imposters were restricting movement before and after the shooting. Among those saying a shot went whizzing overhead from behind: Abraham Zapruder. Others believing their senses about the knolly source of fire: a cop, an on-leave soldier and a Dallas Morning News reporter. None made the Warren Commission cut. In fact, the soldier, Gordon Arnold, had his film confiscated.
* The car behind Kennedy included his top “Irish mafia” assistants, Kenny O’Donnell and David Powers. Both initially testified that a least one shot came from the front–near where Zapruder was stationed. They later yielded to investigative pressure and backed off–and subsequently acknowledged taking one for the team as non-single-shooter scenarios were officially discouraged. More on this later.
* Speaking of a shooter other than from an above-and-behind perch, it’s hardly inconsequential that all key emergency room personnel at Parkland Memorial Hospital diagnosed Kennedy’s neck wound as one of entry. After being advised by Bethesda autopsy personnel, they then added instant equivocation to the mix.
* Approximately 90 seconds after the Dealey Plaza shots, a Dallas motorcycle cop, Marion Baker, is first into the Texas School Book Depository and locates supervisor Roy Truly. They immediately head upstairs after noting the elevator was not available. They get to the second floor, where the lunchroom is. They see Oswald quaffing a soda at the Coke machine.
Ofc. Baker inquires as to his identity, and Truly vouches for him. Baker detects nothing symptomatic in the calm demeanor of a person who would have had to diagonally cross a spacious 6th floor to hide a rifle, wipe it down, then rapidly descend four flights of stairs and not manifest anything–from sweats to a post-crime-of-the-century adrenaline rush–to a police officer on a manhunt.
* From the handling of three shell casings and “sniper-perch” boxes to the (“murder weapon”) bolt-action Mannlicher-Carcano rifle, which was initially identified as a “Mauser,” the evidence identified on the TSBD 6th floor would be subject to jurisdictional subplots and generic sloppiness. The upshot: Chain-of-evidence custody and crime-scene tampering would have been a prosecutorial nightmare had Oswald ever lived to be tried.
* Oswald’s ostensible escape plan included the Texas Theater. Such public venues were classic rendezvous venues among the cloak-and-dagger set. Oswald’s behavior, after entering without paying admission, was, to say the least, curious. According to a concession witness and several patrons, Oswald bought popcorn and then–in a theater holding 900–sat next to one of the approximately 20 patrons there at that mid-day hour to watch “Cry of Battle.” Then he relocated twice more to position himself next to a patron. Then the police entered.
Was he there to meet someone? Or was this–after leaving his rental room–just part of his logistically-baffling version of fleeing?
* Of all the assassination variables–from testimony inconsistencies and suspicious happenstances to flat-out, conspiratorial predispositions to disagree–nothing resonates more quizzically than the inclusion of Jack Ruby. He personifies the involvement of others. His underworld connections–from when he relocated from Chicago–were as much of a given as his strip club ownership and insider status with the enabling Dallas Police Department. His supposed motivation for killing Oswald was that he was so emotionally overwrought about the death of President Kennedy and the impact of a trial on Mrs. Kennedy that he took it upon himself to carry out vigilante justice. That cover story started bleeding credibility with skeptics as soon as his mob background was outted.
* The Warren Commission’s motivation for its cherry-picking of testimony and witnesses was likely not early black-ops conspiracy–more like heavy-handed but pragmatic, national security concerns. The world had dodged a nuclear bullet the year before over Soviet missiles in Cuba. The Dr. Strangelove crowd, including Gen. Curtis “Bombs Away” LeMay, was still around.
As President Johnson made clear to an initially uncooperative Chief Justice Earl Warren: If there’s more than one shooter–and your main suspect once defected to the Soviet Union–who knows where this will lead? That main suspect is dead and untried. He was on his own. Leave it at that. Do you want the casualties of World War III on your conscience?
* It’s worth noting what the House Select Committee on Assassinations concluded in its 1979 report. It said: “The Committee believes, on the basis of the evidence available to it, that President John F. Kennedy was probably assassinated as a result of a conspiracy. The Committee is unable to identify the other gunman or extent of the conspiracy.”
That’s still sobering–and frustrating–34 years later. Too much of the assassination iceberg remains unsurprisingly under the surface. The passage of a half century hardly helps. Among the findings of this congressional body that heard from witnesses as disparate as Marina Oswald, John Connolly and Santos Trafficante:
“Since the Warren Commission’s and FBI’s investigation into the possibility of a conspiracy was seriously flawed, their failure to develop evidence of a conspiracy could not be given independent weight.”
“The Warren Commission was, in fact, incorrect in concluding that Oswald and Ruby had no significant associations, and therefore its finding of no conspiracy was not reliable.”
And we’ll have to leave it there–although in a way, it would be so much easier on all of us if we could just be convinced that it really was some Commie loser-loner who was responsible for the most horrific home movie ever. We would have mournfully moved on as a society at least relieved that our most traumatically tragic event didn’t also reveal our darkest side.