textfiles-politics/regexConsp/art-05.xml

<xml><p>Volume : SIRS 1991 History, Article 02    
Subject: Keyword(s) : KENNEDY and ASSASSINATION
Title  : Conspiracy Theories: Doubts Refuse to Die   
Author : Bob Dudney      
Source : Dallas Times Herald (Dallas, Texas)   
Publication Date : Nov. 20, 1983 
Page Number(s) : Special Sec. 11

DALLAS TIMES HERALD            
(Dallas, Texas)            
Nov. 20, 1983, Commemorative Section, pp. 11         
Reprinted with permission from the author.         
             
    CONSPIRACY THEORIES: DOUBTS REFUSE TO DIE  
    by Bob Dudney    
   Special to the Times Herald   
       
Editor's Note: Bob Dudney, a former reporter for the Dallas Times  
Herald, has written hundreds of articles about the investigation 
of President Kennedy's assassination. He has covered   
congressional inquiries on the subject, has interviewed dozens of  
people connected with it, and has examined thousands of    
government documents.      
       
   The shots fired in Dealey Plaza on a sunny Dallas day 20  
years ago still reverberate in a bizarre way: the belief that  
President John F. Kennedy's assassination resulted from a  
conspiracy.      
       
   There is a deep, almost theological assumption by some  
Americans that the President was the victim of conspirators who  
still roam at large. The conclusion is strange because there is  
no solid evidence to support it--and significant reasons to  
believe it is false.       
       
   There is no denying the difficulty of accepting the Warren  
Commission's verdict on the events of Nov. 22, 1963--that a  
down-and-out, 24-year-old ex-Marine named Lee Harvey Oswald, with  
no outside assistance, murdered the most glamorous, powerful man 
in the world at the time.    
       
   But no matter how strong the unwillingness to believe, the  
evidence in the case demonstrates beyond a reasonable doubt that 
there was no plot. Undermining the scores of conspiracy theories 
that have cropped up over the years are three crucial factors:   
       
   - The scientific, eyewitness and medical data establishing  
that Oswald shot Kennedy.    
       
   - The absence of uncontroverted evidence linking Oswald to  
other conspirators.      
       
   - The lack of evidence to suggest that Oswald was   
unwittingly manipulated by others.     
       
   So long as these elements remain unshaken, claims that a  
sinister plot was afoot that November day will amount to nothing 
more than speculation.     
       
   Nevertheless, theories about the active involvement of  
others in the assassination thrive and multiply. Their   
proponents--some skilled and some not, some sincere and some not 
--have produced dozens of books, films and articles that purport 
to reveal the "full" treachery of events in Dallas two decades   
ago.       
       
   In fact, from the volume and variety of conspiracy theories,  
one might conclude that the possibility of a conspiracy had never  
been officially probed. The theories discount thousands of   
documents and millions of investigative man-hours devoted to that  
question by the Warren panel, the FBI and the CIA in 1963 and  
1964; the Rockefeller Commission in 1975; the Senate Select  
Committee on Intelligence in 1975 and the House Committee on 
Assassinations in 1977-1978.     
       
   The list of "suspects" the theories implicate is extensive. 
Among them: The Soviet KGB; anti-Soviet exiles; Fidel Castro;  
pro-Castro Cubans in the United States; anti-Castro Cubans;  
loyalists of slain South Vietnamese leader Ngo Dinh Diem; right  
wing fanatics; left wing Marxists; the Mafia; rogue Texas oilmen;  
labor unions; Southern white racists; the Dallas Police    
Department; the CIA; the FBI; the Secret Service; the Chinese  
communists; reactionary Army officers; and Jewish extremists.  
       
   But it is not enough to demonstrate that some group stood to  
benefit from the murder. Theorists must establish participation  
of two or more people in the murder. This they have not done.  
       
   Each theory alters the nature of Oswald's role in the death,  
but the possible changes are necessarily limited. The principle  
theories are:      
       
   Oswald is innocent: Adherents of this contention maintain   
that law enforcement officials--cynically or through honest  
error--settled on Oswald as the assassin even though there was no  
reliable evidence against him. They say Oswald could have  
exonerated himself at a trial had he not been killed by Dallas   
nightclub owner Jack Ruby.     
       
   Challenging this theory is an abundance of evidence.  
Scientific testing and physical evidence found at the scene show 
that shots were fired at Kennedy's limousine from a sixth-floor  
window of the Texas School Book Depository building.   
       
   Oswald worked in the building at Elm and Houston. He was  
seen leaving it shortly after the shooting. Crates were found  
stacked by the sixth-floor window as an apparent gun brace.  
Oswald's fingerprints were on the crates. The morning of the 
assassination, Oswald was seen carrying a long, paper-wrapped  
object into the building. Wrapping paper found near the window   
bore Oswald's fingerprints.      
       
   A rifle was found hidden between boxes in the building. A   
bullet and the bullet fragments removed from Kennedy, Connally   
and the limousine ballistically matched the rifle. Oswald's palm 
print was found on the rifle. The rifle, purchased from a Chicago  
mail order house, had been shipped to a Dallas post office box   
rented by Oswald. A photograph showed Oswald holding a rifle 
identical to the one found.      
       
   Proponents of this theory retort that all of the evidence   
was fabricated and put credence in Oswald's post-arrest    
declaration that he hadn't killed anyone.    
       
   But claims that the incriminating rifle photo was doctored--  
with Oswald's head superimposed over another man's body--were  
dispelled by Marina Oswald's confirmation that she took the  
picture. And claims that Oswald's rifle was planted in the room  
after the assassination were refuted by ballistic tests that 
showed it fired the deadly shots.    
       
   Given the problems with claims of planted evidence, some  
theorists have argued that there must have been a "planted   
Oswald," or Oswald impersonator on the scene. This contention,   
however, has been difficult to reconcile with the Oswald   
fingerprints and palmprints found on the evidence.   
       
   Two years ago, conspiracy theorists, successfully pressed   
for the opening of Oswald's grave to show it contained an  
imposter--probably a Soviet agent. Subsequent examination,   
however, determined the body was the "real" Lee Harvey Oswald.   
       
   Oswald had accomplices: Faced with the weight of evidence   
indicating Oswald's guilt, quite a few conspiracy theories have  
contended he was only one of those involved.   
       
   Some theories assert that a person or persons helped put  
Oswald in position to shoot the President. They leave unexplained  
why Oswald would need such help. As an employee of the book  
depository, he had easy access to the building. After the  
shooting, according to witnesses' testimony, he sought no help in  
fleeing and left downtown Dallas by city bus and then a taxi.  
       
   Moreover, it would seem unlikely that accomplices could have  
helped get Oswald a job that put him on the motorcycle route.  
Oswald got his job at the depository on Oct. 15. White House 
planning for the President's motorcade route did not begin until 
Nov. 4, and the map of the route was not published until Nov. 19.  
   Somewhat more credible is the contention others provided  
secret financing, planning, direction or encouragement for the   
murder that Oswald carried out.    
       
   In this scenario, the chief suspect over the years has been 
the Soviet Union. After all, Oswald defected to Russia in 1959.  
He married a Russian woman, Marina Prusakova, in 1961. He was a  
vociferous Marxist. Even after he returned to the United States  
in June 1962, Oswald had several fleeting contacts with Soviet   
diplomats.       
       
   However, no evidence of Soviet complicity has been found.   
Investigators who combed Oswald's effects discovered no    
unexplained funds, no code books, no messages--nothing to suggest  
a Soviet hand in Oswald's actions. Also, had Oswald been   
recruited as a Soviet agent, the Russians would not have been  
likely to allow him to defect, as he did--thereby exposing his   
relationship with them.      
       
   The other top suspect has been Cuba. Oswald admired Fidel   
Castro; he was a member of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee in   
the United States; he visited the Cuban embassy in Mexico City a 
few weeks before the assassination, seeking a travel visa to that  
country. Because the CIA was backing assassination plots against 
Castro at the time, some speculate that Castro may have    
retaliated through Oswald.     
       
   But, as with the theory of Soviet involvement, there is no  
evidence. At one point, there did appear to be some. A young 
Central American informant told U.S. authorities he saw Oswald in  
the Cuban embassy, talking to two other men, one of whom was 
conversing in Spanish. Later, he said, Oswald supposedly received  
$6,500 to kill an important person. Under questioning, however,  
the informant admitted he had never seen Oswald and had    
fabricated the transaction, wishing to stir up American hatred   
for Castro's Cuba. Subsequently, he retracted his retraction.  
Finally, he failed a lie-detector test. Anyway, Oswald did not   
speak Spanish.       
       
   Another account suggesting possible Cuban involvement was   
provided by a Cuban exile who testified before the Warren  
commission. She said two Hispanic men and an Anglo man they  
identified as "Leon Oswald" came to her Dallas apartment 28 days 
before the assassination. She said they spoke vaguely of Cuban   
revolutionary plans before she turned them away. She identified  
Oswald in television film as the man she had seen, but federal   
investigators said they do not believe it was him. They said they  
believe that at that time, Oswald was traveling from his New 
Orleans home to Mexico in his quest for a Cuban entry visa.  
       
   The most publicized theories involving Oswald accomplices   
are those that have featured other gunmen.   
       
   These various versions have assassins firing from other 
windows in the depository building; from the Dal-Tex building;   
from sewer drains, a grassy knoll near Dealey Plaza, the railroad  
bridge over Elm, Main and Commerce streets and the Dallas County 
Courthouse roof; and firing with silencers or automatic weapons. 
       
   The arguments surrounding these claims:   
       
   - One-man, one-bullet: The first shot that wounded Kennedy  
in the neck did not also hit John Connally, as the Warren  
Commission concluded. Rather they were struck by individual  
bullets simultaneously, requiring that there be two shooters. A  
team of experts, including a National Aeronautics and Space  
Administration engineer, conducted an exhaustive study of this   
question in 1978. The panel's conclusion: It is not only   
possible, but almost certain that Kennedy and Connally were hit  
by the same bullet.      
       
   - Filmed accomplices: Photographs of Dealey Plaza taken at  
the time of the assassination show a dim form behind a wall on a 
grassy knoll to the right and in front of the presidential   
limousine. However, investigators found no spent cartridges, 
weapons or footprints in this area. A panel of photography   
experts concluded in 1978 that the images on the film were   
shadows.       
       
   Films and photos also show a man in Dealey Plaza opening and  
closing a black umbrella. Conspiracy theories suggest he was 
signaling gunmen or that some weapon was hidden in the umbrella. 
But at a hearing of the House Assassinations Committee in 1978, a  
mild-mannered Dallas insurance worker identified himself as the  
mysterious "umbrella man" and said he was only trying to harass  
Kennedy.       
       
   - Head movement: The famous Zapruder film of the  
assassination clearly shows President Kennedy's head lurching  
backward when it was struck by the fatal gunshot. If the shot had  
come from behind, conspiracy theorists reason, the impact would  
have driven the President's head forward. Nonetheless, a panel of  
medical experts concluded in 1978 that Kennedy's head wounds were  
caused by a shot from the rear. Moreover, a panel of   
wound-ballistics scientists concluded that the backward motion   
was caused by the sudden tightening of the President's neck  
muscles.       
       
   - Tape-recorded sounds: Sound transmitted through the   
microphone of a motorcycle patrolman in the motorcade, and   
recorded at Dallas police headquarters, shows four noise   
"spikes." At the behest of the House Assassinations Committee in 
1978, three acoustical experts conducted three test gunshot  
firings in Dealey Plaza, compared the sounds and concluded it was  
95 percent certain that four shots had been fired. The Warren  
Commission had concluded that no more than three shots had been  
fired from the window. The source of the previously unknown one, 
the acoustical experts said, was the grassy knoll area.    
       
   The finding was the first scientific evidence supporting a  
conspiracy theory and stirred an uproar. But it, too, was later  
discounted. Twelve experts assembled by the National Research  
Council reviewed the tapes and concluded the "spikes" were   
actually recorded about a minute after the assassination.  
       
   The Assassinations Committee also grappled futily with the  
prospect of a likely colleague for Oswald. "The question is with 
who," said one member of the now-defunct committee. "If there's a  
conspirator, then who could it have been? We asked ourselves over  
and over: What associates did Oswald have, where was there   
evidence of conspiracy? We found none."    
       
   Oswald was manipulated: These theories suggest that Oswald, 
and perhaps other operatives, were unknowingly influenced in 
their actions.       
       
   There can be only one reasonable candidate to mastermind  
such a project--the KGB. It would have been the only organization  
with the scientific means and the extended access to Oswald. Even  
some Warren Commission lawyers and CIA members briefly toyed with  
the possibility. Because Oswald spent some time in a Soviet  
hospital while residing in Russia, there was the suspicion he  
might have been brainwashed.     
       
   Once again, the problem is that there is no evidence to 
suggest Oswald was brainwashed. Moreover, the CIA believes KGB   
"mind conditioning" techniques at the time were primitive.   
       
   Surely, it is impossible to rule out the prospect of a  
conspiracy in the assassination. The Warren Commission itself did  
not do so. "Because of the difficulty of providing negatives to a  
certainty," the panel said, proving there was no conspiracy  
"cannot be established categorically." However, the panel said,  
"if there is any such evidence it has been beyond the reach of   
all the investigative agencies and resources of the United   
States."       
       
   Twenty years later, that is still the case.   
       
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