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PREFACE THE CONSPIRACY LURE

By Gerald Posner |

Most Americans-80 percent-believe there was a conspiracy behind the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Why?

● Eyewitnesses saw a gunman on the grassy knoll fire the fatal shot.

● The so-called “magic bullet” that struck both the President and Texas Gov. John Connally was a physical impossibility.

Oswald was a bad shot who never could have fired three rounds in the few seconds available.

More than 100 critical eyewitnesses to the assassination were killed mysteriously.

Jack Ruby was a mobster who murdered Oswald under a mafia contract.

Similar “evidence” has been printed and aired everywhere. None of it is true.

Not a single witness saw anyone suspicious on the grassy knoll. Advances in computer animation and video technology reveal that a single bullet did strike JFK and Gov. Connally almost exactly as the Warren Commission set forth. Oswald actually was a good shot who often practiced with his Mannlicher-Carcano rifle and had ample time to get off three shots- marksmen who tried to duplicate the shooting invariably did so about 30 percent faster. Not one key witness died mysteriously. Ruby was not a member of the mafia.

So why are reasonably minded people so willing to believe just about anything when it comes to the Kennedy assassination, especially if it supports a conspiracy theory?

One reason is the nature of memory itself. Scores of people had gathered at Dealey Plaza to see the President and the First Lady. The last thing that any of them expected was gunfire and the death of a president. When such a traumatic event occurs, experts dub our recall “flashbulb memory.” Our brain records a snapshot of what happened, but that shock image is subject to change. Studies show that witnesses not only change their accounts over time but also adamantly insist their latest versions are correct.

Take Jean Hill, who was standing on Elm Street as die Kennedy motorcade passed. Within half an hour of the assassination, a Dallas television crew asked her if anything drew her attention. She unequivocally said “no.” Now, she’s the author of a wild book that describes in great detail how she spotted an assassin on the grassy knoll and her dramatic chase of him.

Then there are the glory-seekers: In the past 20 years, dozens of people who claimed they were at Dealey Plaza insist they either saw one or more of the “real” assassins or had run-ins with CIA agents. Some actually have confessed to being the grassy knoll assassin. An imprisoned murderer is peddling his confession on videotape.

There are, however, real reasons for our conspiracy mania regarding JFK’s death. Since the assassination, we have learned a lot about how the government does lie to us. The government added to that impression by refusing to release case documents immediately. The original conclusion, that Oswald acted alone, came from a government-appointed commission. Today, Americans-are too cynical to let a panel determine the truth of such a momentous event.

The most popular theory is that the CIA (fearful of being disbanded by JFK) and the mafia (furious over Bobby Kennedy’s Justice Department war) banded together to kill the president. This is the same CIA that later did not know the Tet Offensive was about to be launched in Vietnam, the Shah of Iran was ready to be toppled, and the Berlin Wall was ready to fall.

When the CIA and the mafia formed an alliance in the early ’60s to kill Fidel Castro, they failed. They never got close enough to make an attempt on his life.

Still, many people believe that the same incompetent alliance that failed to kill Castro in Cuba somehow pulled off the JFK assassination.

Facts aren’t the issue. There is a deep psychological need to have a conspiracy behind the death of a great person. Historian William Manchester said it best: “If you put six million dead Jews on one side of a scale and on the other side put the Nazi regime-the greatest gang of criminals ever to seize control of a modem state-you have a rough balance: greatest crime, greatest criminals.

“But if you put the murdered President of the United States on one side of a scale and that wretched waif Oswald on the other side, it doesn’t balance. You want to add something weightier to Oswald. It would invest the President’s death with meaning. He would have died for something. A conspiracy would, of course, do the job nicely.”

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