by Barry Krusch
From Brown’s perspective, Oswald may have been informed that a fake assassination attempt would be launched on the President, much in the manner of the Operation Northwoods scheme, and the only purpose of that attempt would be to provide a pretext for the invasion of Cuba. As Brown speculates,
Oswald had been told that the purpose of the fake attempt was that once a bullet or a blank was fired over the limousine into the expanse of lawn in the plaza, the Secret Service would swarm over the President, law-enforcement people would find the Mannlicher as planned, trace it to “Hidell” and hence to pro-Cuban forces, and the United States would clean out Castro’s rats’ nest once and for all. Oswald, who would have to leave town until the noise cleared down, was told that when all was said and done, he would be the hero of the piece, and no blame could attach to him . . .
In this line of analysis developed by Brown, the Kennedy assassination was a fully-contrived plot, a la Northwoods, complete with a full set of bogus incidents and motivations.
Recall that the Northwoods plan began with a downed American airplane destroyed remotely by radio transmitter, to be blamed on Cuba. Coincidentally, just two days before Kennedy was assassinated, there happened to be a U-2 incident that provided an Oswald/Cuban nexus (The New York Times, 11/21/63):
And these are just some of a whole host of scenarios in which Oswald could have had some possible foreknowledge without the requisite intent.
Of course, whether or not any of these scenarios are true can only be determined through an analysis of any evidence that miraculously escaped the shredder, but the fact remains is that these scenarios are certainly possible, and, being possible, provide a potential means for Oswald’s exoneration of the charge of the murder of the President.
In fact, all we really need to do from an evidentiary perspective to cast reasonable doubt on Oswald’s guilt is to show that there was some conspiracy: because the hypotheses just discussed are possible, he must be now presumed innocent in a second (conspiracy-related) case, even in light of the evidence presented against him, based on the very distinct possibility that this evidence could itself be a part of the conspiratorial matrix!
This is why the death of Proposition One is also the death of The Case Against Oswald, and any attempt to prove Oswald’s guilt would have to be a new case entirely, built on entirely different premises, using evidence that according to the Warren Commission simply does not exist.
That would be a bad case too. But that’s not this case. That is a future case that would apparently be doomed. With Proposition One doomed, this case would be doomed in the here and now.
And this is why so much effort has been expended to claim that Oswald, if he acted at all, acted alone. For the parties responsible for erecting and maintaining The Oswald Wall, establishing the validity (or lack thereof) of the “lone gunman” hypothesis is important because the lone gunman scenario itself is a weathervane that, unlike the conspiracy scenario, can point only to Oswald.
Think about it: if there is only ONE gunman, and ALL the evidence gathered points to that gunman, who else could it be, besides Oswald? The propositions are mutually confirming.
On the other hand, with multiple gunmen (or even a lone gunman supported by a network of accomplices), we have to ask this question:
If there are MULTIPLE gunmen, why does ALL the evidence gathered point to only one gunman — Oswald?
Just this question alone automatically gives us a free pass into the world of reasonable doubt, as Bugliosi himself noted above. Additionally, the observation gives us not only a presumption of innocence on the charge of conspiracy from a vicarious liability perspective, but also a presumption that would be impossible to overcome given the total absence of evidence that Oswald knowingly and willingly participated in the conspiracy.
And this concludes the discussion of our first proposition, “There was one and only one gunman in Dealey Plaza on November 22, 1963, and that gunman was neither aided nor abetted by any person or group.” With this proposition in mind, let us move to the statements that enable us to formulate our second proposition.
PROPOSITION TWO
Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone gunman in Dealey Plaza on November 22, 1963.
Again, we have several sources for this proposition, 2 official government records, and the two books previously cited which are proponents of the Lone Assassin Theory:
Warren Report, Page 19
“The shots which killed President Kennedy and wounded Governor Connally were fired by Lee Harvey Oswald.”
Warren Report, Page 195
“On the basis of these findings the Commission has concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald was the assassin of President Kennedy.”
HSCA Report, Page 51
“LEE HARVEY OSWALD FIRED THREE SHOTS AT PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY; THE SECOND AND THIRD SHOTS HE FIRED STRUCK THE PRESIDENT; THE THIRD SHOT HE FIRED KILLED THE PRESIDENT.”
Reclaiming History, Page 952
“[I]t is not humanly possible for him to be innocent . . . Only in a fantasy world could Oswald be innocent . . . If Oswald didn’t kill Kennedy, then Kennedy wasn’t killed on November 22, 1963.”
Case Closed, Page 472
“Lee Harvey Oswald, driven by his own twisted and impenetrable furies, was the only assassin at Dealey Plaza on November 22, 1963. To say otherwise, in light of the overwhelming evidence, is to absolve a man with blood on his hands, and to mock the President he killed.”
While there are disagreements among these sources in terms of exactly when the bullets were fired, and which bullet hit President Kennedy or Governor Connally, these sources are unanimous: the gunman who killed President Kennedy was Lee Harvey Oswald.
With this proposition determined from these sources, and no further discussion necessary, we finally reach our conclusion.
CONCLUSION
Therefore, it is proven beyond a reasonable doubt that Lee Harvey Oswald fired the shot that killed President John F. Kennedy.
Being a conclusion, this statement itself requires no evidence, or any justification other than the truth of the propositions. If all the evidence which is required to establish the truth of the propositions has been presented, and that evidence is comprehensive, credible, sufficient, and consistent, then this conclusion naturally follows from these propositions.
But evidence is required to support the propositions. And, since the propositions themselves are subdividable into necessary components, evidence is required for those components.
This takes us to our next chapter, the elements of propositions of The Case Against Lee Harvey Oswald.
We will turn to those next.
Chapter 8
Elements Of The Case Against Lee Harvey Oswald
As noted in the previous chapter, propositions can be divided into subpropositions, to be subsequently referred to more elegantly in this book as elements (note to attorneys: this usage, as a synonym for subproposition, is more fact-oriented than the law-oriented manner in which you are used to hearing the term).
As used in this book, the term element refers to a fact subsidiary to the proposition which must be true for the proposition to be true.
Suppose you wanted to prove the general conclusion “men have walked on the moon.” You could start by creating this proposition:
“The first man walked on the moon on July 20, 1969.”
You could then analyze the proposition and determine the necessary subsidiary factual assumptions (i.e. elements) which also have to be true for the proposition to be considered true. Some of these are as follows:
“America had the capacity to launch a rocket into outer space by July 20, 1969.”
“America did in fact launch a rocket into outer space before July 20, 1969.”
“The rocket launched into outer space by America before July 20, 1969 was capable of carrying and sustaining astronauts.”
“The capacity to keep a man alive on the moon had been achieved before July 20, 1969.”
A
t that point, you could choose one of the elements (for example, “America had the capacity to launch a rocket into outer space by July 20, 1969.”), and gather all the relevant evidence, whether it supports or contradicts your element. This evidence could be comprised of the following evidence types:
Witness testimony (e.g., witnesses who saw a rocket take off from the launchpad, testimony of astronauts, testimony of engineers in the control room, etc.)
Photographs (of the launching pad, taken from outer space, taken on the moon, etc.)
Audio records
Taped video
Physical Evidence
Documentation (e.g., internal memoranda prepared by NASA)
You would then implement the same procedure for all the other elements. As would soon readily become apparent, a massive amount of evidence supporting the elements would be gathered, and the sheer weight of this evidence, along with its quality and consistency, would demonstrate the truth of the elements, and therefore the proposition, beyond a reasonable doubt.
Note that with reference to the proposition “the first man walked on the moon on July 20, 1969,” a number of subpropositions could be formulated that are not necessary, and are therefore not elements. For example, “America had the greatest desire of any country to put a man on the moon by July 20, 1969.” While this might have been true, even if false, it would not reduce the confidence level of the proposition. This would not be true of the elements: if even one of them was false, then the proposition would be disproven.
This same general approach is especially necessitated in law, which requires the meticulous organization of facts into categories to add clarity to the case (“WTO Case Review 2004”, 22 Ariz. J. Int’l & Comp. Law 99 at 215; emphasis supplied):
[A] judge ought not to fail at the task of organizing the elements of a case into widely understood cognitive categories, and the starting point of any case, in any country, at any time, is the category of “Facts.” A statement at the outset of the opinion of what exactly transpired yields a document that is more by virtue of its clarity and efficiency. In turn, the interest of justice — for the parties to the case and for lawyers advising clients in the future based on the jurisprudence of the case — is served.
With this proviso in mind, let’s once again look at the factual propositions comprising The Case Against Lee Harvey Oswald:
THE CASE AGAINST LEE HARVEY OSWALD
LEGAL ASSUMPTION
All the evidence in The Case Against Lee Harvey Oswald stipulated as admissible is authentic. This admissible evidentiary record is comprehensive, credible, sufficient, and consistent to the extent that it precludes reasonable doubt regarding both of the following propositions regarding the assassination of President John F. Kennedy:
PROPOSITION ONE
There was one and only one gunman in Dealey Plaza on November 22, 1963, and that gunman was neither aided nor abetted by any person or group.
PROPOSITION TWO
Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone gunman in Dealey Plaza on November 22, 1963.
CONCLUSION
Therefore, it is proven beyond a reasonable doubt that Lee Harvey Oswald fired the shot that killed President John F. Kennedy.
The validity of the legal assumption will be determined as we analyze the evidence adduced for the propositions. Nor do we have to provide separate evidence for the conclusion; if the legal assumption and the propositions are true, then the conclusion will automatically be true via the laws of deductive reasoning (if there is only one gunman, and Oswald is that gunman, then obviously Oswald fired the fatal shot). Consequently, all we need to do for each proposition is to determine its component elements, and then analyze the evidence justifying each of the elements.
At the risk of being redundant, all of the elements must be considered as true for the proposition to be supported. “True,” in this case, must be seen in the context of reasonable doubt, which of course is a primary component of our legal assumption. Again, as noted earlier (and worth repeating), if there is reasonable doubt regarding the truth of even one of the elements (that is to say, if there is a confidence level of less than 95% for any one element), then the proposition itself cannot be proven beyond a reasonable doubt (that is to say, there is a confidence level of less than 95% for the proposition).
This primary directive related to every element having to achieve the threshold is drawn directly from the key holding determined by the Supreme Court in the Winship opinion discussed earlier (In Re Winship, 397 US 358 at 364 (1970); emphasis supplied):
Lest there remain any doubt about the constitutional stature of the reasonable doubt standard, we explicitly hold that the Due Process Clause protects the accused against conviction except upon proof beyond a reasonable doubt of every fact necessary to constitute the crime with which he is charged.
Note that the Supreme Court is unequivocal on this point: proof beyond a reasonable doubt must be achieved for every fact necessary to constitute the crime: every element of every proposition.
In fact, this is the minimum criterion to be deployed. From a probability assessment perspective, the correct procedure is to actually multiply the confidence level of the elements to arrive at the ultimate confidence level of the proposition. Thus, the Supreme Court directive would posit a necessary, but not a sufficient condition. This point will be discussed at length further in this book when we analyze Element One of Proposition One in detail.
With this critical protocol of due process in mind, let us look at the factual elements comprising Proposition One.
PROPOSITION ONE
There was one and only one gunman in Dealey Plaza on November 22, 1963, and that gunman was neither aided nor abetted by any person or group.
ELEMENT ONE
Exactly three shots were fired from the sixth-floor southeast window of the Texas School Book Depository at Dealey Plaza on November 22, 1963 — no more, no less — and the three shells found on the floor of the Depository — in the possession of the Warren Commission — were fired from Lee Harvey Oswald’s rifle, to the exclusion of all other weapons in the world.
ELEMENT TWO
All of the shots fired at Dealey Plaza on November 22, 1963 were fired from the sixth-floor southeast window of the Texas School Book Depository, and from no other location.
ELEMENT THREE
Lee Harvey Oswald was the only person on the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository at 12:30 p.m. on November 22, 1963.
ELEMENT FOUR
The shots fired at Dealey Plaza on November 22, 1963 were fired from no other weapons besides Lee Harvey Oswald’s Mannlicher-Carcano.
ELEMENT FIVE
A rifleman could plausibly have fired 3 separate shots from the Mannlicher-Carcano within the elapsed time of the shooting and corresponding with the keyframes of the Zapruder film.
ELEMENT SIX
There was one and only one bullet which struck Governor Connally, and that bullet (identified as CE 399) first passed through the body of President Kennedy.
Remember, these factual elements are all necessary — they must be true for the proposition to be true. For most, the necessity of these elements will be obvious, but there is no harm in a little analytical redundancy to achieve clarity.
ELEMENT ONE
Exactly three shots were fired from the sixth-floor southeast window of the Texas School Book Depository at Dealey Plaza on November 22, 1963 — no more, no less — and the three shells found on the floor of the Depository — in the possession of the Warren Commission — were fired from Lee Harvey Oswald’s rifle, to the exclusion of all other weapons in the world.
The Warren Commission stated that only three shots were fired in Dealey Plaza. Indeed, no more than three cartridges were ever claimed to have been found on the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository. However, if there is other evidence that demonstrates that there were more than three shots fired, or evidence that Oswald fired fewer than three shots, then obviously there was more than one g
unman, and the proposition is disproven.
