Presenting this month’s Bitesize
Of The Month, chosen by Nick Hirst, Managing Editor.
After the excitement of last month’s Bitesize of the Month - where we chaps
learned all about how to buy underwear for our wives or girlfriends - I’ve gone
for something altogether different this time round, illustrating the diversity
of the Kwickee Bitesize concept.
This Bitesize tackles the whole conspiracy theory industry that has grown up
around the assassination of John F Kennedy, and is surprisingly comprehensive
within its 5,000 characters. It’s a good read – interesting and
information-rich. I like the way that, as I was wondering what his sources might
be, he accredits them with suggestions for further reading. The capitalised
search words in the title will resonate with a huge potential readership.
This is one of a number by writer ‘the_dark_man’ that cover topics as varied as
the best places for archive research in London to what to do if you are e-mailed
unsolicited child pornography.
“The Prosaic Truth About The
KENNEDY ASSASSINATION"
It is widely believed that the assassination of President Kennedy
in November 1963 was the result of a conspiracy, and that the man arrested for
the shooting, Lee Harvey Oswald, was either part of that conspiracy or a
“patsy”. The prosaic truth is ALL the credible evidence indicates that not only
did Oswald kill the President but that he was a “lone nut”.
Countless articles, books and documentaries have been produced about the Kennedy
assassination, most peddling the conspiracy line. Although many of their authors
are sincere, some are not, and forgeries and distortions abound.
What is often forgotten nowadays is that Oswald was not arrested for shooting
the President, but for killing a police officer who saw him acting suspiciously.
Oswald may have been trying to flee to Cuba to claim political asylum; he was
heavily immersed in extremist politics, though he had no meaningful contact with
organised leftist groups, and was not only a loner but largely ignored. After
shooting Officer Tippitt dead in cold blood, Oswald fled to a theatre where he
drew his gun on the posse that tracked him down. After his arrest, it was
quickly established that Oswald, who was a crack shot, had built a sniper’s nest
in the Book Depository where he worked, that he owned the murder weapon, that
his prints were all over it, and that earlier that year he had tried to kill
another political figure, General Edwin Walker.
Controversy and speculation were fuelled by Oswald’s curious history, and by his
own subsequent murder by Jack Ruby. Certain that they had their man, the legal
authorities paraded the captured Oswald before the press - something that would
never happen in Britain due to our contempt of court laws. Ruby, a local
nightclub owner who worshipped the President, seized the opportunity to exact
revenge. Posing as a member of the press, he shot Oswald in the stomach at point
blank range.
It would later be claimed that Ruby was a hit man whose job was to silence
Oswald. The truth is that although a small time hustler with a propensity to
violence, Jack Ruby had no connections with “The Mob”. He had expected to be
hailed as a hero for administering summary justice instead of being arrested and
charged with murder. He died in prison in 1967, by which time he was clearly
psychotic.
Although he considered himself to be a Marxist, Oswald didn’t really understand
politics. After following his older brother into the marines, from which he was
(initially) honourably discharged, he “defected” to the Soviet Union when barely
twenty years old. Had he been a general, the Russians would have welcomed him
with open arms, but they weren’t interested in a mixed up kid. It was only after
he faked a suicide attempt in his Moscow hotel room that he was granted
permission to stay in order to avoid an international incident. He was packed
off to work in a radio factory in Minsk where he married a Russian girl, Marina,
and had a daughter.
After his hero’s welcome failed to materialise, Oswald quickly tired of the
Soviet Union, and applied to return to the
US with his
family. The Soviets couldn’t get rid of him fast enough, and on his return he
eked out an existence doing menial jobs, treating his poor wife abysmally, and
fulminating his contempt for a world which failed to recognise his genius. This
rage exploded suddenly and with fatal results when purely by chance this
insignificant little man stumbled across the path of the most powerful man in
the world, and changed the course of history.
Because of the sensational nature of the assassination and its aftermath, the
government set up a high-powered inquiry under Chief Justice Earl Warren. The
Warren Commission reported in September 1964. Although it misunderstood Oswald’s
motives, the Commission did a thorough job in piecing together the true facts of
the case, but such has been the intensity of conspiracy propaganda that even
Oswald’s wife Marina succumbed to it. After initially accepting his guilt she
came to believe that the man she had married was really a Soviet double. In
1981, Oswald’s body was exhumed, and forensic tests confirmed the inevitable.
The ludicrous suggestion that Oswald had been substituted was fuelled by
discrepancies in his reported height, something which is not unusual in medical
and legal documents. Other nonsense resulted from people who didn’t understand
ballistics or acoustics (the magic bullet theory and the marksmen on the grassy
knoll).
That aside, it is still possible to find the truth about the Kennedy
assassination. If one know where to look! Two of the best books written about
the day the world changed are Questions Of Conspiracy by Mel Ayton, and Gerald
Posner’s definitive Case Closed.
John McAdam’s website which can be found at
http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/home.htm
is a superb creation which debunks the countless myths and distortions
surrounding the case with massive and impressive documentation.
May 2004