What do you think about the assassination in Dallas, exactly forty-six years later?

[JackRiddler]

It is forty-six years to the day since President John F. Kennedy was shot to death while his motorcade passed through Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas.

[Ian David]

1. I believe there were two shooters who both showed-up on the same day by coincidence.

When else would you get a shot at a President in a convertible?

[JackRiddler]

6. This idea was supported by the NY Times after the House Assassination hearings in the 1970s.

I know I've read the editorial, but haven't located it so far. It was titled something like "Two Shooters, But No Conspiracy."

Shows you the lengths to which denial can go.

[Ian David]

11. Seriously? I thought I just made that shit up. n/t

[icee2]

12. Same coincidence, not conspiracy is a hangout for 9/11 too

If necessary, that same limited hangout will be trotted out if need be for 9/11. Yes, WTC had explosions & CD, but planes ("planes")
and fires too!

[John Schroeder]

31. Also by the Washington Post:

http://michaelparenti.org/JFKAssassination.html

"In 1978, when a House Select Committee concluded that there was more than one assassin involved in the Kennedy shooting, the Washington Post (1/6/79) editorialized:

Could it have been some other malcontent who Mr. Oswald met casually? Could not as much as three or four societal outcasts with no ties to any one organization have developed in some spontaneous way a common determination to express their alienation in the killing of President Kennedy? It is possible that two persons acting independently attempted to shoot the President at the very same time.

It is "possible," but also most unlikely and barely imaginable. Instead of a conspiracy theory the Post creates a one-in-a-billion "coincidence theory" that is the most fanciful of all explanations."

[bbinacan]

2. Oswald alone. n/t

[Sarah Ibarruri]

3. It was a Republican and CIA attempt to turn the country right wing nt

[Sebastian Doyle]

23. Attempt? I'd say they got away with it.

Well, the country isn't right wing. But the government and the media certainly are. :evilfrown:

[Sarah Ibarruri]

28. Do you think it was the death of JFK that turned the county right wing?

I don't really. I think it was churches turning into whores and bedding the GOP. Churches are the GOP's best propaganda machine. They're still the GOP's best propaganda machine.

[JackRiddler]

4. It is also six years since a Freedom of Information Act request was filed demanding that the CIA...

release files relating to its possible relationship with Lee Harvey Oswald.

C.I.A. Is Still Cagey About Oswald Mystery
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/17/us/17inquire.html

SNIP

For six years, the agency has fought in federal court to keep secret hundreds of documents from 1963, when an anti-Castro Cuban group it paid clashed publicly with the soon-to-be assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald. The C.I.A. says it is only protecting legitimate secrets. But because of the agency’s history of stonewalling assassination inquiries, even researchers with no use for conspiracy thinking question its stance.

The files in question, some released under direction of the court and hundreds more that are still secret, involve the curious career of George E. Joannides, the case officer who oversaw the dissident Cubans in 1963. In 1978, the agency made Mr. Joannides the liaison to the House Select Committee on Assassinations — but never told the committee of his earlier role. That concealment has fueled suspicion that Mr. Joannides’s real assignment was to limit what the House committee could learn about C.I.A. activities. The agency’s deception was first reported in 2001 by Jefferson Morley, who has doggedly pursued the files ever since, represented by James H. Lesar, a Washington lawyer specializing in Freedom of Information Act lawsuits.

“The C.I.A.’s conduct is maddening,” said Mr. Morley, 51, a former Washington Post reporter and the author of a 2008 biography of a former C.I.A. station chief in Mexico. After years of meticulous reporting on Mr. Joannides, who died at age 68 in 1990, he is convinced that there is more to learn. “I know there’s a story here,” Mr. Morley said. “The confirmation is that the C.I.A. treats these documents as extremely sensitive.” Mr. Morley’s quest has gained prominent supporters, including John R. Tunheim, a federal judge in Minnesota who served in 1994 and 1995 as chairman of the Assassination Records Review Board, created by Congress to unearth documents related to the case. “I think we were probably misled by the agency,” Judge Tunheim said, referring to the Joannides records. “This material should be released.”

Gerald Posner, the author of an anti-conspiracy account of the Kennedy assassination, “Case Closed” (Random House, 1993), said the C.I.A.’s withholding such aged documents was “a perfect example of why nobody trusts the agency.”

“It feeds the conspiracy theorists who say, ‘You’re hiding something,” ’ Mr. Posner said.

After losing an appeals court decision in Mr. Morley’s lawsuit, the C.I.A. released material last year confirming Mr. Joannides’s deep involvement with the anti-Castro Cubans who confronted Oswald...

SNIP

[yodoobo]

5. Its essentially impossible to know now

Instead of things becoming clearer as time goes on, its only become more crowded.

Dozens of theories and variation of theories, only one of them can be right. Of course each theory and variation has a champion behind it who has iron clad "proof" that they are right.

[JackRiddler]

7. Ask yourself who would be in the best position to create such a situation.

[stray cat]

8. Kennedy faked his death and is living a quiet life in the Amazon wilderness

since we are talking about theories with no prove anyway....

[hlthe2b]

9. What I don't believe is Thom Hartman's theory re: the mob...

and I adore Thom Hartman and believe him to be one of the most amazing and intelligent people out there.. but on this particular theory, I am totally unconvinced. The presence of GHW Bush in Dallas (well documented, but denied) and multitude of CIA connections is the most compelling aspect to the story and various theories, IMO...

I was under 5 yo at the time, but this was an event that will haunt me to the day I die. I'd like to think we'd know the truth. It pains me that Ted Kennedy seemingly accepted the official version of the story. I should think his views on the subject would be the last word, but alas, it is not for me. Perhaps he had reasons for CHOOSING not to question....:shrug:

[MadMaddie]

14. There is a documentary " The Kennedy Assassination: 24 hrs after

http://www.history.com/shows.do?action=detail&episodeId=488254

I was simply amazed by what I didn't know.

Johnson was paranoid, he actually called Bobby to get his permission to be sworn in on the plane.

Johnson was not told immediately that Kennedy was dead.

There was a scuffle between Kennedy's folks and the local Dallas PD...

It goes on and on...

It's an interesting piece of work!!

[hlthe2b]

17. I'd love to watch that... unfortunately no history channel access...

Perhaps it will be available for rental sometime soon... :shrug:

[MadMaddie]

18. On the right hand side of the page it can be purchased

You should check with your local library they might have it.

It's worth it.

[Sheltiemama]

52. I saw that. It was great.

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

38. While Hartmann lays the blame directly on the mob

and discusses two other planned assassinations in Chicago and Tampa that never came off, doesn't he also suggest that rogue elements in the CIA were there to faciliate the mob's operation?

[hlthe2b]

42. I believe so....

I just don't believe that the mob were the major instigators...

[existentialist]

10. I don't know.

It's possible that we will never know for sure. I remember that that is what my grandmother said when Ruby shot Oswald. But the truth sometimes has a way of coming out--particularly if people are listening.

[icee2]

13. You obviously know little about the case. n/t

[anonymous171]

15. The Financial elite did it.

Hippy conspiracy theories that involve evil military baby killers are stupid

[PDJane]

16. It was a combination of people........

Johnson knew it was going to happen, the CIA was in on it, and the oil boys and the financial elites wanted it to happen. Why?
i
1. Kennedy was going to reduce the oil depletion allowance.
2. He was planning to make the fed a public bank, part of the government.
3. Kennedy was planning to reign in the CIA, and
4. He had set his brother on the mobs, to try to spread justice.

[TexasObserver]

19. coup d'etat

J. Edgar Hoover and the Dulles Brothers, among others.

[Individualist]

20. Incidentally, National Geographic channel is going to air The Lost Tapes

tomorrow at 9 pm eastern time. These are tapes that supposedly have never been aired before.

[Catshrink]

21. Where was Poppy?

The only person alive that day who doesn't remember where he was.

[Zywiec]

22. So the majority of DUers think

The assassination of President Kennedy was a coup d'etat from within the national security state.

I wonder how many also believe:

- 9/11 was Planned by the US Government
- A UFO was Recovered at Roswell
- Princess Diana was Murdered by the Royal Family
- The Apollo Moon Landing was a Hoax

A simple poll says a lot about a board's members...

[Gabi Hayes]

24. about as much as a poster whose avatar is......

you forgot to include Iran/Contra as one of your ludicrous conspiracies that no half bright news consumer would take seriously

or Watergate

or Choice Point

or, well, you get the picture

[johnnie]

25. And denial of anything but the "official" story says a lot about others

Just saying.

[tonysam]

26. Anybody who believes there was a conspiracy hasn't really studied the issue

They simply believe all of the hogwash by people in the cottage industry of conspiracy, who come up with all kinds of stupid theories, and these "researchers" are making piles of money out of people's gullibility.

[Individualist]

27. So the House Select Committee on Assassinations didn't study the issue?

I.C. 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 was unable to identify the other gunmen or the extent of the conspiracy.

http://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/select-committee-r... /

[Raster]

51. How dismissive. I believe anyone that denies conspiracy in JFK's assassination has not studied or

researched the topic at length.

[tiny elvis]

54. what were oswald's actions in the texas theater before the police arrived?

have you really studied that issue?
did your study aids mention what oswald did in the theater, other than 'watched part of the movie'?
if you read what he did in the theater, did you discount it as anomalous crazy man irrelevancy?
could you, well versed person, help me dig up the witnesses' accounts of what oswald did in the theater before the police arrived?
i am having trouble relocating that info

[JackRiddler]

29. kick for second shooters

[proteus_lives]

30. I don't know what happened. I'm not sure anyone still alive knows.

And I don't think anyone ever will.

[Blue_In_AK]

32. I tend to believe that there was a conspiracy,

and that forces within the government were involved in some way, but I don't think we'll ever know the truth.

[HamdenRice]

33. Coups announce themselves and change the order of succession, so can't vote for (1)

I think that otherwise (1) describes what happened, but having studied lots of coups in Africa and Latin America, it's hyperbole to call it a coup.

On edit: I also think Johnson was not involved and had no foreknowledge. In fact, he was scared about the assassination for the rest of his administration.

[JackRiddler]

35. This is simply not the case in modern coup theory. Read your Luttwak.

[HamdenRice]

39. You mean the guy who thinks Obama is a Muslim? Ahhh no

At any rate, I think it's an issue of semantics. My point is really about the definition of a coup -- not about whether a president was removed by violence and murder.

Having spent weeks or months in post coup societies, it seems to me an essential feature is the powers saying: "We can do this. We can disrupt the political process, kill your leaders and install our own through violence. Be afraid." My view of a coup is similar to Costa Gravas depiction in "Missing."

The odd thing about the Kennedy assassination from the coup perspective was the exact opposite -- the attempt to make it seem that the powers had not intervened, that the killer was a "lone nut" and that "the system worked."

[JackRiddler]

45. Exactly - the kind of guy who would back a coup.

Did you read PNAC's "Rebuilding America's Defenses"? Of course you did, because as you know, certain think-tank scholars (no matter how irrational or stupid their ideas) have more influence than thousands of real-live university professors.

A coup d'etat does not require an announcement. Back in 1969, Luttwak usefully defined it as follows: "A coup consists of the infiltration of a small but critical segment of the state apparatus, which is then used to displace the government from its control of the remainder." An assassination of the chief of state by a segment of the state apparatus for the purpose of effectively putting that segment into power covertly with the goal of effecting major political changes would qualify. This particular form of coup succeeds only if it can remain secret.

This is also a basic of military rule theory as developed by Louis Giuffrida (1980s FEMA director) and others at the Army War College all the way back to the 1960s and Operation Garden Plot. In his courses on domestic counterinsurgency, military rule and martial law, Giuffrida stressed that military rule does not require a public announcement. It only requires a decision by a national or regional military command that civilian officials have failed to maintain state authority and must be superceded by action under military command.

In a modern, complex society, the terror of which you speak can be generated in covert, subtle, vague and yet still effective ways, as we saw with the lockstep around expanding state power and going to war in the years right after September 11th.

I can even think of an ancient precedent for a covert coup, at least according to Herodotus (the conspiracy of the Medes in Persia).

[Art_from_Ark]

58. But you are talking about countries that are used to instability

It's one thing to have an open coup in Chile or Argentina, it's quite another to try an obvious coup in an armed society that prides itself on its democratic traditions

[EFerrari]

43. Why do you think coups announce themselves?

[Uncle Joe]

44. A third party coup.

I don't believe Johnson was involved either, but suppose a shadow power group; possibly associated with the same military industrial corporations; that concerned former President Eisenhower to such a degree that he felt the need to warn the nation about them in his farewell speech, were to determine that a President Johnson would be much more preferable to a President Kennedy.

The object wouldn't be to take direct control risking rebellion or civil war but for lack of a better term to perform a "Sting" in such a manner, that the target; in this case the American People wouldn't know they had been stung.

Johnson would need to fear nothing from them so long as he pursued war policies; the military industrial complex approved of.

The question I wonder about is, at what point did Secretary of Defense Mcnamara know the Vietnam War was un-winnable?

Furthermore if President Johnson and his Secretary of Defense knew the Vietnam War was un-winnable early on but pursued it regardless to appease the shadow power player military industrial complex, would said industrial complex surmise that Johnson would be hurt politically easing the way for an even more corporate sympathetic Republican Party to gain power?

Thus the Sting or Shadow Coup would be complete.

[taught_me_patience]

34. I believe there is a conspiracy

among the conspiracy theorists to make money off of gullible people.

[JackRiddler]

36. This thread is making me rich, I tell you.

[Ken Burch]

37. I voted for "coup d'etat", but there should have been another option:

"The reason for the last GOOD Kevin Costner movie".

[provis99]

40. a coup d'etat?

who the heck would think this was a coup d'etat? The assassination replaced an ineffective, relatively conservative Kennedy with the effective, liberal Johnson, and civil rights and Great Society programs passed that wouldn't have under Kennedy. Looks like this poll is swamped with conspiracy nuts and 9/11ers.

[JackRiddler]

46. See post 45 and have a look at the world outside domestic issues once in a while, okay?

[azmouse]

41. Oswald acted alone.

It's difficult for many to believe that a loner with a $12 gun could take out a popular young President so they need conspiracies.

[JackRiddler]

47. Thanks for the diagnosis doctor. Totally persuasive.

It's also difficult for "many" to believe that elements of the national security state could murder a popular young President, so they need to believe in patsies - dead ones.

[cowcommander]

57. I would have to agree

Remember, the same thing almost happened to Reagan a few years later, with a crazy guy and a cheap revolver.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reagan_assassination_attempt

[OneBlueSky]

59. no expert marksman shooting the rifle Oswald used could get off three shots . . .

in the amount of time Oswald had, much less acquire and hit a moving target hundreds of yards away . . . these tests were done shortly after the assassination, but apparently the results have been forgotten or buried somewhere . . . the rifle wasn't all that accurate, either, and none of several experts could come close to matching Oswald's supposed accuracy using that particular weapon . . .

I'm just sayin' . . .

[pleah]

48. Vote 100 for #1 n/t

[Stinky The Clown]

49. We don't really know. And we may never know.

[gleaner]

50. I chose option one ....

because there are too many questions which were never answered, too many inconsistencies in the information given at the time versus the information given by the Warren Commission, too much of the information given the Warren Commission was sealed from public view for long periods of time. This includes the testimony of Jacqueline Kennedy who had no national security issues to disclose, but who was an eyewitness to the events that surrounded her husband's death.

Also, the findings of the Warren Commission were too inc edible to be believed and too many of the witness and others who had testimony which contradicted the Commission's findings died soon after the assignation of causes which did not seem natural.

The whole direction of the country and its policies changed under Johnson who made a full out commitment to the Viet Nam war which JFK had been trying to disengage from.

[tyedyeto]

53. Wasn't the Warren Commission report supposed to be...........

'sealed' for 50 years?

Whatever you and I may think, the investigation into Kennedy's assassination will be revealed in 4 years.

I believe we, the public, will be astounded by what it says. That the one shooter (Oswald) theory will be debunked. I'd still like to know what Bush (GeorgeHW) was doing that day and who his contacts were.

[misanthrope]

55. I think a POTUS got his brains blown all over a public road...

...under some of the worst security this nation has seen since John Wilkes Booth crept up a stairwell in Ford's Theatre.

[dgibby]

56. I think I'd like to know why Poppy Bush can't remember where he was that day. n/t

[JackRiddler]

60. kick for third shooters