Reclaiming History

by Vincent Bugliosi

  * One frequently hears that “it is impossible to prove a negative.” But this, of course, is pure myth. In some situations, as in the murder of President Kennedy, it is impossible, but in many situations in life it is very easy. For instance, in a criminal case where a defendant says he did not commit the robbery or burglary, or what have you, because he was somewhere else at the time, the prosecution routinely proves the negative (that he was not somewhere else) by establishing through witnesses, fingerprints, DNA, or sometimes even film, that he did commit the crime and was not where he said he was at the time it happened.

  On an even more obvious level, if someone were to say, “I have [or do not have] pancreatic cancer,” medical tests can disprove this (i.e., prove the negative), if such be the case.

  In the Kennedy case, I believe the absence of a conspiracy can be proved to a virtual certainty.

  * For instance, in the Kennedy case, if a brilliant man like Great Britain’s Bertrand Russell, a towering figure in the field of mathematical philosophy and intellectual thought (whose fourth wife, Lady Russell, never forgave a friend who said on television that Russell did not outshine Plato), can say with conviction that “an innocent man [referring to Oswald] was framed and gunned down” (Lewis, “Tragedy of Bertrand Russell,” pp.30, 32), you know the idiocy over this case has not discriminated against any mental category of people.

  * A far more mundane reason may simply be that the masses, trying to make some sense out of events that are not to their liking, find that a conspiracy theory they can easily understand or adopt, and which fits a bias of theirs, often explains things very well.

  * For conspiracy theorists, all discrepancies, contradictions, anomalies, et cetera, are suspicious, and are the heart and soul of the conspiracy movement. In their universe, everything proceeds perfectly and there is no such thing as human error, incompetence, coincidence, or failure of memory. There are no innocent, benign explanations for anything.

  With respect to contradictions, a godsend to all conspiracy researchers, eyewitness authority Elizabeth Loftus writes, “If a hundred people were to see the same automobile accident, no two reports [of this] would be identical” on all the details (Loftus, Eyewitness Testimony, p.153). This reality of human cognition, that different people see and hear the same event differently, has proved to be the richest of troves for the scavenging Warren Commission critics and conspiracy theorists. Author Quentin Reynolds writes in his book Courtroom, “No two persons will give the same account of an incident they both witnessed. They will paint a door black, blue and green, and give more varieties of weather for the same day than the weather bureau does for all the days of the year. They vary the time of the day by minutes or hours. They differ in their measurement of space by inches, feet and miles” (Reynolds, Courtroom, p.186). As psychologist and philosopher William James said, “Whilst part of what we perceive comes from the object before us, another part always comes out of our mind.”

  Warren Commission counsel David Belin points out that because our eyes are not perfect cameras that can recall exactly what took place in a matter of seconds, “if you get two conflicting stories with two witnesses, you can imagine how many arise when there are hundreds of witnesses to a sudden event, as there were in Dealey Plaza on November 22, 1963. Almost anyone who wants to concoct a theory can find one or two witnesses who might support his theory” (Belin, Final Disclosure, p.14).

  A substantial majority of the conspiracy community is also extremely gullible, believing every story they hear without bothering to check it to see if it is accurate or makes any sense. As long as the story helps their theory, they buy it. They would improve the quality of their research appreciably by simply embracing rule number one of the journalistic profession: “If your mama says she loves you, check it out.”

  * Morgan added, “I don’t think he knew these people [Cabell and Brown] except to shake hands with—but he knew them all at least that far. He used to say to me, ‘You know, Pat, considering my background, it’s really amazing I have come so far’” (Wills and Demaris, Jack Ruby, p.43).

  †To dilute the connection even further, Ferrie was not an investigator for Carlos Marcello. He was an investigator for lawyer G. Wray Gill, and Gill had Ferrie work on an immigration lawsuit against Marcello in which Gill was representing Marcello. Also, there is no credible evidence that Ferrie was ever a boyhood friend of Oswald’s or was with Oswald in the summer of 1963. But even if these assertions were true, so what? They certainly don’t add up to a conspiracy to commit murder.

  * Or we’ll say, “What a coincidence,” or “What are the odds of this happening?” But in the world of conspiracy theorists, happenstance and coincidences don’t exist. What appears to be a random coincidence is really always complicity. Indeed, perhaps the only coincidence they will acknowledge is that the words coincidence and complicity each start with the letter C and each has four syllables.

  * It has to be noted that along with the allegation of planted evidence, the other main conspiracy argument conspiracy theorists have made over and over again is that much of the evidence against Oswald was forged or tampered with by the authorities. But not once have the theorists ever proved this allegation. Yet, the very group always shouting forgery and tampering has been caught on many occasions forging documents to make its point in the assassination debate. (See endnote discussion.)

  †Millions of Americans through the years have mouthed these or similar beliefs. Here’s just one example, from President Kennedy’s own longtime personal secretary, no less: In an October 7, 1994, letter to Richard Duncan, a high school teacher in Roanoke, Virginia, who had inquired of her state of mind vis-à-vis the assassination, Evelyn Lincoln wrote, “It is my belief that there was a conspiracy because there were those that disliked him and felt the only way to get rid of him was to assassinate him. These five conspirators, in my opinion, were Lyndon B. Johnson, J. Edgar Hoover, the mafia, the CIA, and the Cubans in Florida” (Duncan sent me a copy of the letter on January 23, 1997).

  This mind-numbing phenomenon is actually more the rule than the exception with everyday people who watch events from afar. At a reception following a speech I gave around the time of Princess Diana’s fatal car crash in Paris, a fifty-ish, well-coiffed woman with a doctorate in psychology told me, without batting an eye, that the Royal Family was behind Princess Di’s death. How, I inquired, had she come to this rather startling conclusion? “If Di married Dodi and had a son, the son would be half Arab and might someday become king, something they couldn’t abide.” “Oh, I see,” I said, fighting back a smile. I certainly had no difficulty picturing the Queen Mother and her family, aghast at such a possibility, deciding that “Di had to go,” and Prince Philip, perhaps, making the arrangements by calling in someone the family normally employs to “take care” of such problems.

  * Fourteen years before Stone’s movie came out, another Hollywood director made light of what Stone would take so seriously. In his 1977 picture Annie Hall, Woody Allen has his character Alvie ask Allison, “How is it possible for Oswald to have fired from two angles at once?…I’ll tell you this. He was not marksman enough to hit a moving target at that range. But if there was a second assassin, that’s it.” Allison responds in exasperation, “Then everybody’s in on the conspiracy—the FBI, CIA, J. Edgar Hoover, and the oil companies and the Pentagon and the men’s room attendant at the White House?” Alvie: “I would leave out the men’s room attendant.”

  * Indeed, a national Gallup Poll that started on the day of the assassination and continued through November 27 showed that the first instinct of most Americans was that Kennedy had died as a result of a conspiracy, 52 percent believing “some group or element was responsible,” 29 percent believing the “assassin acted on his own,” and 19 percent being “uncertain.” As indicated in the introduction to this book, this sentiment was reversed the following year with the publication of the Warren Report, a September 1964 Harris Poll showing 55.5 percent of Americans believing O
swald acted alone, 31.6 percent believing he had accomplices, and 13 percent being unsure.

  * The very first book written on the assassination was the little-known Red Roses from Texas by the British author Nerin E. Gun. Published by Frederick Muller in London in February 1964 (and by R. Julliard in France), before the Warren Report came out, it wasn’t a conspiracy book at all, over half of its 208 pages not even dealing with the assassination, but with the short period leading up to it. And the assassination part of the book is more a series of claims gathered from rumors, newspapers, tabloids, and newspaper articles on the case (since testimony before the Warren Commission was in private and, as indicated, not yet published). Many were inaccurate, such as that a doctor examining President Kennedy at Parkland Hospital found a bullet on his stretcher; that Dallas deputy sheriff Buddy Walthers found a “fourth bullet” in the grass near the Triple Underpass; that Oswald was not advised of his constitutional rights and not allowed to telephone a lawyer; that the presidential limousine shot down the Stemmons Freeway toward Parkland Hospital at 100 miles per hour. (Gun, Red Roses from Texas, pp.111–112, 127, 204–205; see also CE 2580, 25 H 851–852) Because it is the first book on the case, and because it is so rare, I’m told a copy of Red Roses from Texas is worth $750.

  * Another book published after Whitewash but before Rush to Judgment has been erroneously classified by some as a conspiracy book, but it is not. Sylvan Fox’s Unanswered Questions about President Kennedy’s Assassination, published in October of 1965, is merely a very superficial critique of the Warren Report. After asking boilerplate questions like what was Oswald’s motive in killing Kennedy, and how many shots were fired in Dealey Plaza, and from what direction, the author, who posits the possibility of conspiracy, concludes that the only certainty in the case is that “Oswald participated in the assassination of President Kennedy, either alone or in concert with others.” (Fox, Unanswered Questions about President Kennedy’s Assassination, pp.24, 44, 192)

  * The early conspiracy theorists were encouraged and abetted by the Russian press and intellectuals across the water, such as Britain’s Hugh Trevor-Roper, Bertrand Russell, and Arnold Toynbee—even London’s conservative Daily Mail editorialized on November 27, 1963, that “facts can be produced that a right-wing plot against the President had caused his death”—as well as French publications like Le Figaro, L’Express, and Le Monde, France’s leading paper.

  †Many of the early researchers considered themselves liberal, which is why they weren’t prepared for the disdain or indifference they received from even the liberal establishment and media (such as the estimable Nation magazine and leading lights of the Left like Alexander Cockburn and I. F. Stone), who, apart from other reasons to support the findings of such an august body as the Warren Commission, were reticent about attacking a Commission whose chairman, Chief Justice Warren, had become a liberal icon for the civil rights’ rulings of his court, and who had been the subject of vitriolic attacks by the nation’s right wing. Indeed, a liberal like Vince Salandria was astonished to find his message of questioning the Warren Commission resonating more with Republican groups than with those to the left of center. (Trillin, “Buffs,” p.46)

  * The barrage of books prompted the New York Times to comment in an editorial that “debate on the accuracy and adequacy of the Warren Commission’s work is now approaching the dimensions of a lively small industry in this country” ( New York Times, September 1, 1966, p.34; “Playboy Interview: Mark Lane,” p.42).

  * Why the members of the conspiracy community so loathe the appellation buff and consider it as pejorative as they do is not clear, since it’s not a new word that applies only to them. For many years before the assassination the word had been used, without a negative connotation, to describe a devotee or well-informed student of some subject, like a Civil War, opera, or trolley-car buff.

  †Garrison also had the nation’s attention on New Orleans, nearly two out of three Americans telling a nationwide Harris Poll in late May 1967 that they were following the investigation. And Garrison was winning in the court of public opinion. In an earlier Harris Poll conducted in February, 44 percent thought there was a conspiracy, 35 percent thought Oswald acted alone, and 21 percent weren’t sure. But the late-May poll, just three months into Garrison’s probe, found 66 percent believing there was a conspiracy. Only 19 percent did not believe there was a conspiracy, and 15 percent didn’t know. (“66% in Poll Accept Kennedy Plot View,” New York Times, May 30, 1967, p.19)

  * The 1980s didn’t get off to a good start for the conspiracy theorists. British conspiracy author Michael Eddowes, convinced that an imposter was buried in Oswald’s Fort Worth grave, actually succeeded in having the body exhumed on October 4, 1981, and examined by medical experts. The buffs had their fingers crossed but the body turned out to be Lee Harvey Oswald.

  * Some of these neophytes have elbowed their mentors out of the way and have themselves become part of a new wave of Warren Commission critics presently comprising the dominant force in the conspiracy movement. They include theorist James Fetzer, who has wisely gathered the best technical minds in the conspiracy community to write scholarly scientific essays in books that he edits. Other members of the new wave include, but are not limited to, Walt Brown, Drs. Gary Aguilar and David Mantik, James DiEugenio, Vincent Palamara, and John Newman. One of the best examples of the old school working with the new is that of Josiah Thompson, one of the most respected Warren Commission critics ever, becoming a friend to and colleague of Aguilar’s, who seems to be following Thompson’s footsteps in terms of rigorous, high-quality research.

  In this book I use the terms Warren Commission critic and conspiracy theorist somewhat interchangeably, not because they are linguistically so, but because in the context of the assassination they essentially are. One could certainly be a critic of the Warren Commission without being a conspiracy theorist, and some have been, in an article or column. But show me a critic of the Warren Commission down through the years who isn’t also attached to one or more conspiracy theories or the general notion of conspiracy in the assassination. For the most part I use one or the other term for a person to describe what I perceive to be his or her primary interest—conspiracy, or being a critic of the Warren Commission’s work.

  * Book One has already examined some allegations that, if true, spell conspiracy, such as that one or more of the shots came from the grassy knoll, and that the Zapruder film was altered. I made the decision to include them in Book One because they were an intrinsic and inseparable area of inquiry that more properly fit into the subject of discussion—for example, grassy knoll, to the murder of the president in Dealey Plaza; Zapruder alteration, to the Zapruder film.

  * Ray originally pleaded guilty to the murder of Martin Luther King, but at the time Lane was representing him in 1978 he had recanted his confession, denied his guilt, and declared he was an innocent victim of a large conspiracy. In defense of Ray, Lane alleged that the HSCA’s investigators and their agents had suborned perjury, criminally received stolen property, and unlawfully tape-recorded telephone conversations, all to prevent Ray from receiving a fair hearing before the HSCA, which, along with Kennedy’s murder, was reinvestigating the assassination of King. Lane added that the HSCA itself had engaged in conduct which was part of a “conspiracy” to prevent a fair investigation. (Anthony Marro, “Mark Lane Charges Panel Conspiracy,” New York Times, August 8, 1978, p.A10)

  * With respect to the above four witnesses, conspiracy-leaning author Henry Hurt, who overall is not nearly as bad as Lane, doesn’t mention their names either in his best-selling book, Reasonable Doubt, much less say they identified Oswald as being at or running from the Tippit murder scene with a revolver in his hand.

  †Some further examples, among many, of Lane’s suggestion that the Warren Commission not only was completely unobjective about the facts of the assassination (“the Commission was biased toward its conclusion before the facts were known…The Commission worked from the a pri
ori assumption that Oswald was on the sixth floor, was the assassin, and acted alone” [Lane, Rush to Judgment, p.71]), but actually attempted to frame Oswald: “[The Commission considered] only such testimony as did not endanger [its] case”; “the symphony of conformity arranged by the most active Commission members, Warren, Dulles and Ford, their counsel Rankin, and their eager accomplices among the younger lawyers, David Belin and Arlen Specter”; “In attempting to” prove that no shots came from the grassy knoll, the Warren Commission, in its report, “ignored and reshaped evidence”; “evidence against [Oswald] was magnified, while that in his favor was depreciated, misrepresented or ignored” (Lane, Rush to Judgment, pp.193, xxxvi, 45, 378). In a related vein: “Thus, the Commission met its mandate to attempt to quell the many rumors about Jack Ruby, but it did so, apparently, by deliberately suppressing the truth” (Lane, Rush to Judgment, p.xiii).