The Assassination of JFK

[Ben]

Do you buy the lone gunman theory or did it run much deeper????????

Oliver Stone on 50th Anniversary of JFK Assassination & the Untold History of the United States

Oliver Stone on 50th Anniversary of JFK Assassination & the Untold History of the United States - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-fPpIXlmM0U)

[Stavros]

Ben it might be better to re-do this as a poll in General Discussion...I will think of something if you don't.

[Stavros]

*My apologies, following Ben's thread on this in Politics & Religion I intended to create a poll but hit the wrong button first.
The poll would ask people who they think was responsible for the assassination and include:

1. Lee Harvey Oswald, acting alone
2. Lee Harvey Oswald, acting in a conspiracy with others (see below)
3. The USSR
4. The Cubans
5. Anti-Castro-Cubans
6. The Mafia
7. LBJ/J Edgar Hoover/Secret State
8. Israel

There are probably others, or variations of these.


The Assassination of John F Kennedy 50 years this month will undoubtedly produce a lot of coverage, but I doubt it will deliver a final verdict on who was responsible for it.

Some of us on HA (more than might be thought) were alive at the time -I was in a classroom and was told about the killing by my sister during the lunch break- but it doesn't mean that I or we have any special insight into the event and who did it.

I am opposed to the conspiracy theories mostly because they deal with the cause rather than the consequence -as far as I can see, nobody benefited from the assassination, it was a desperate act by a man desperate to be taken seriously. That Oswald did what many others might have liked is irrelevant, many individuals and groups at any time would like to see their head of state -or some other head of state- obliterated, for whatever reason. It is also odd that however many people are involved in a conspiracy, none of them ever come forward to 'confess' -and make money from a book, a film, and so on.

A few thoughts.

The Russians? No -Khrushchev was already in trouble over the Missile Crisis and agricultural reform at home and was deposed less than a year after the assassination -the USSR had other and more effective ways of disrupting politics in the USA.

The Mafia? No -JFK's assassination boosted the Presidential prospects of Bobby who was more likely to deal with organised crime than his brother.

LBJ/Hoover/Secret State? Why? Kennedy was not a threat to their interests, he took the military-industrial-complex to new levels with both the Vietnam War and the development of NASA into one of the leading technology institutes in the world, one which has had a profound impact on both industry and the military.

Kennedy may have been loathed at the time because of his Irish and Roman Catholic background, and Texan schoolchildren did burst into cheering and applause when told he had been killed, but he was an establishment figure and in office a moderate policy maker -and the dividing line that has split the USA since the 1960s on issues such as Civil Rights and welfare, is the legacy of Johnson and Nixon.

Oswald did it, he was a crack shot; he shot Kennedy and then shot a policeman dead. If he didn't kill Kennedy, why did he kill Officer Tippit? He became what he always wanted to be: somebody. Pity he couldn't think of a better way to achieve it.

[Prospero]

I find myself 100 per cent in agreement with Stavros on this.

I was a kid and heard it when the BBC interrupted The Archers (long running british radio soap) to make the announcement.

I also found the Oliver Stone movie utterly deplorable - because it blurred fact and fiction. A lot of conspiracy theories exist and it is perfectly fine (indeed necessary) in my view, to explore them - to produce documentaries certainly or acceptable to produce fiction in the shape of films or books (which clearly present them as fiction). But Stone's film blurred all the edges to present something which rather purported to be factual when it was, in realty, one of the many plural conspiracy theories.

It seems no major event does not spawn a vast wave of conspiracy theories in its wake.

[Gillian]

'The Kennedy Assassination - Beyond Conspiracy' (it was revoiced for UK broadcast) convinced me that Oswald did it. A recording from an open mic on a police motorcycle on which the shots could be heard revealed a longer time between first and last shot. In the documentary, an elderly FBI investigator who was on the original case acknowledged that even he, at his age, could get the shots off in the time allowed.

I also liked the way the so-called "magic bullet" theory was discredited. Governor Connolly and his wife were seated in the limo's jump seats, removeable seats that sat lower and more inboard than the main rear seats. Position the Connollys properly, ie. not directly in front of and level with the Kennedys and suddenly the magic bullet's route isn't so magic after all.

So I agree with Stav that Oswald did it. Why, we may never know as he was a somewhat confused character. Do I think the conspiracy theorists will ever give up? Of course not. They're nut jobs ... :)

http://ia.media-imdb.com/images/M/MV5BMTQzMjI4ODUzMF5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwNDUyMjUyMQ@@._ V1_SX214_.jpg

IMDB link: Peter Jennings Reporting: The Kennedy Assassination - Beyond Conspiracy (TV Movie 2003) - IMDb (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0387490/)

[trish]

1. Lee Harvey Oswald, acting alone. CHECK.

For all the reasons given by Stavros (and Shelf) above. (Also I always wait to see what Prospero's going to do and then copy him).

[my my my!]

Lee Harvey Oswald acting alone.

Yep, nothing more or nothing less.

[bluesoul]

2. Lee Harvey Oswald, acting in a conspiracy with others (see below)

this.

btw: did you bring this up because of that history channel special that's coming out soon?

[GroobySteven]

Nah - not for me but I can't be arsed arguing or discussing it with you lot.

[Prospero]

LOL at Seanchai and at Trish.

Actually I did it... I confess. I also killed Archduke Franz Ferdinand. Gavrilov Princip was framed!

[dderek123]

This thread reminds me of Jackie O

http://s3-ec.buzzfed.com/static/enhanced/webdr02/2013/4/6/21/enhanced-buzz-21275-1365297636-1.jpg

Here she is with the new president getting sworn in. She's still wearing the same clothes she wore when her husbands head exploded. A bit morbid but pretty honorable.


From this site:
"6. Following the assassination, Jackie refused to take off the blood-stained suit. She told Lady Bird Johnson, “Oh, no…I want them to see what they have done to Jack.”

"7. Jackie would not take off the suit until she arrived back at the White House the following morning."

http://s3-ec.buzzfed.com/static/enhanced/webdr06/2013/4/7/2/enhanced-buzz-2560-1365317694-0.jpg

http://www.buzzfeed.com/briangalindo/12-fascinating-facts-about-jackie-kennedys-iconic-pink-suit

[nysprod]

The conspiracy is not in the killing...Oswald acted alone...the conspiracy, if there was one, involved covering up how badly the Secret Service botched the job of protection, given that Oswald was a well known entity in U.S. intelligence circles.

[Ben]

JFK and the Untold History of Oliver Stone - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_ejzGPryL4)

[Stavros]

Ben, Oliver Stone has as much right as anyone else to give his version of American history, and he can as others have done, present plausible reasons why the assassination of JFK was the work of many hands -but in the case of the latter there has yet to be any conclusive evidence of who other than Oswald was involved, while his overall historical view of the US is flawed.

In JFK for example, towards the end, the implication is made that the 'military-industrial-complex' needed the war in Vietnam that Stone/Garrison claims Kennedy was going to scale down -you then see some statistics on the subsequent post-Kennedy increase in sales of helicopters to a privately-owned corporation with the suggestion that JFK was eliminated by the 'secret state' because he threatened their economic interests. What the film does not do is present a more honest picture of the predicament JFK was in throughout 1963 owing to the apparent failure of the 'Strategic Hamlet' campaign and the growing unpopularity in Vietnam of General Diem. Mr X tells Jim Garrison in the film of a 'secret' document authorising the withdrawal from Vietnam as if this was a spark that the corporate interests could not tolerate -yet Kennedy himself announced in public on the 31st October 1963 his intention to withdraw from Vietnam by the end of 1965 on the grounds that by then the US would have successfully trained the Vietnamese security personnel (cf Afghanistan) and US 'advisers' would no longer be needed -so where is the secret? Diem was so unpopular in the country he was murdered shortly before Kennedy -with or without the help of the CIA is a matter of controversy- but Kennedy also drew up policy options which did not become implemented, something most Presidents do anyway (you can read about this in Robert Dallek's Kennedy: An Unfinished Life, Ch 19).

But as the defence industry in the USA is privately owned, and as war is always good business for some, where is the controversy? If it had not been for the Second World War, described by most people as a 'just war', the US economy would not have recovered as it did from the slump following the Wall St crash, and the USA would not have been in a position to bankroll economic reconstruction in western Europe and East Asia to the long-term benefit of all, not just a few fat cats in American industry. Have a look at the balance sheets of the Seven Sisters and you will find they all prospered from the war, though it must also be said their staff, particularly on the oil tankers, did suffer along with armed forces personnel. As for the Cold War, which can be dated back to 1919 rather than 1945, it is true the USA intervened in the electoral politics of France, Italy, Greece and also Germany (not mentioned by Mr X in his roll call in the film) in the 1940s, yet did not intervene to prevent a landslide Labour victory in the UK which also returned to Parliament two Communist Party MPs (Phil Piratin and Sam Saklatvala). Are we supposed to be surprised? Shocked?

Stone makes it clear through Mr X that JFK had become a 'hated figure' inside the beltway because of his attitude to the CIA and the various sackings that took place as personnel were shifted this way and that - an even more darker period is said to have taken place during the Carter Presidency when the perceived failure in Vietnam also led to a critique of the military, the CIA, the FBI and in some cities corrupt police forces -yet Carter was not assassinated as a result.

Stone in the clip you show implies that Kennedy after the missile crisis was moving through Nuclear Test ban/treaties opposed by the military and may have gone on to a more creative form of detente at which point he compares Kennedy and the USSR to Reagan and Gorbachev which shows a staggering ignorance of the USSR at this time -it was less than 5 years after the assassination that the USSR invaded Prague -a virile response to Czech demands for more autonomy. Compare the difference -Gorbachev in the 1980s was in charge of an economy in meltdown, he was looking for ways to do the opposite in Russia of what Brezhnev wanted in the 1960s -it is simply absurd to compare the 1960s to the 1980s as if what was achieved in the latter was made impossible in the former because of a conspiracy against JFK which resulted in his assassination.

Stone wants to believe in a young radical president whose impact on America and the world was going to be as profound as FDR -yet the truth is that JFK in his brief time in office was cautious, even hesitant, not unlike Obama today. He wants to believe that real change was diverted by the shadowy powers that exist in Washington and the defence industry and on Wall St, even though Kennedy came from the same insider background as the people Stone argues were so threatened by him they could only kill him to get what they wanted.

American history is complex and fascinating and always does and will continue to divide opinion, I am not persuaded by Stone, and remain to be convinced of a conspiracy to kill the President. The link below is a more considered critique of Stone/Kuznick:

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2013/feb/21/oliver-stone-cherry-picking-our-history/?pagination=false#fn-3

[Odelay]

I have to admit that I fear for our current President. There are a lot of nutcases out there, just like Oswald. And it does seem that the lone nutcases act on this impulse, i.e. John Hinckley, Squeaky Fromm, etc. I thought the far left had some pretty severe hatred for Reagan and George W, but it doesn't compare to the hatred the far right has for Obama.

[trish]

True. Conservative nuts are way nuttier.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/barackobama/5967942/Barack-Obama-faces-30-death-threats-a-day-stretching-US-Secret-Service.html

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/11/25/1164628/--President-Barack-Obama-Is-the-Most-Threatened-President-In-History#

[Stavros]

The conspiracy is not in the killing...Oswald acted alone...the conspiracy, if there was one, involved covering up how badly the Secret Service botched the job of protection, given that Oswald was a well known entity in U.S. intelligence circles.

As I have said, I remain to be convinced that the plausible conspiracies actually happened. Where you are spot on is in the inept handling of the event. The crime scene, far from being sealed off was swarming with people in the crucial first 48 hours. The day after the event, someone found a white object on the grassy bank in the middle of the road, and it turned out to be part of JFK's skull. In the haste and panic that followed the shooting, JFK's clothes were thrown into the trunk of a car, and the question of a throrough autopsy was answered no by both LBJ and the Kennedy family who were terrified that the autopsy would reveal just how physically unfit JFK was. So much time and effort had gone in to making him appear a young, virile man when the truth is he not only had severe spinal problems and wore a back-brace (which is why his movements in the car when being shot may have compromised his life), he suffered from Addison's Disease and had been taking steroids and a cocktail of other drugs at the time (which may also account for his sexual appetites). Compared to the two Bush Presidents, Clinton and Obama JFK was a weakling. The fact that so much detail and forensic evidence was lost in the first 48 hours, due to panic, cock-up and perhaps conspiracy -eg, the Kennedy's conspiring to prevent the truth about Jack's health emerging- makes a truly sober assessment of crucial moments difficult if not impossible.
Peter Ling has a short but interesting article on this in the current History Today.
http://www.historytoday.com/peter-ling/killing-kennedy-cock-ups-and-cover-ups

[Gillian]

An interesting documentary on the assassination aired in the UK last night. 'JFK's Secret Killer - The Evidence'.

We hear the expression "cock up or conspiracy" a lot but last night's programme suggested both. Like the documentary I mentioned before, it too explained the "magic bullet" as perfectly explainable once everyone was positioned correctly. However, based on the size of the fatal headshot's entry wound at 6mm (per the autopsy report), too big for Oswald's 6.5 mm rounds, and the fact that the final shot fragmented, which a full metal jacketed round like Oswald's wouldn't do, it concluded there was another shooter.

They lined up the entry and exit wounds on JFK's head with his position at the time of the shot and concluded it came from the direction of the secret service car immediately behind the JFK's car.

Published photographs show a secret service agent raising the (one and only) AR15 assault rifle as the shooting began, looking like he's about to swing round in the direction of the book depository. This documentary postulated that as the cars accelerated, the agent accidentally let a round off that hit the president in the head. Obviously a bit of a cock up !!

What followed were largely successful attempts by the Secret Service and possibly other agencies to cover up this dreadful accident. The inconsistencies these cover ups exposed have inevitably fuelled the conspiracy theories but the program certainly made a convincing case from my point of view citing, amongst others, the following ...

Several witnesses at the Warren Commission mentioned smelling gunpowder at street level which could only have come from a car shot and not the depository

The SS agents on duty that day were seen out drinking at a club until 5.00 am the night before and the suggestion is that the agent with the AR15 would usually have been on driving duties. Curiously he was never called before the Warren Commission and his statement was easily contradicted.

Add in all the inconsistencies at the autopsy, the fact that many written records and films from it have disappeared and the programme painted a very plausible argument that the authorities went into overdrive trying to cover up this dreadful accident.

Whether true or not, it seemed to me to be the most plausible alternative to the "Oswald only" explanation ...

[Stavros]

Shelf, I saw the programme too, but I don't recall any mention of the book Mortal Error, the 1992 book which first made the claim that the Secret Service agent Hickey accidentally pulled the trigger on the President. Nor did it mention that when the paperback version came out Hickey successfully sued the publishers and settled on undisclosed terms -he waited too long when the first edition was published and had to sue them twice.

What the programme also failed to ask is 1) why none of the other agents in the car with Hickey or the motorcycle riders or anyone else even heard the shot...? and 2) JFK's head when the third bullet struck was not upright but at an angle and tests have shown the bullets from the rifle Oswald used could have shattered into fragments...

Plausible, but not conclusive -cf:
Mortal Error: The Shot That Killed JFK - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mortal_Error:_The_Shot_That_Killed_JFK)

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/Shooting_holes_in_theory_that_a_Secret_Service_age nt_killed_President_Kennedy.html

[martin48]

Reminds me the headline

"Archduke Franz Ferdinand found alive. World War I, a mistake."





LOL at Seanchai and at Trish.

Actually I did it... I confess. I also killed Archduke Franz Ferdinand. Gavrilov Princip was framed!

[Ben]

Former FBI Agent Reveals Who Really Killed JFK - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSXQYvm57YM)

[Stavros]

Sorry Ben, the Milteer thesis, known of for more than 30 years has no foundation -Milteer was a known extremist who had 'predicted' the assassination of JFK -because he wanted JFK dead- before, in Miami. A notorious photo of him in Dallas on that fateful day is not only not him, the FBI confirmed he was in Quitman on the day of the shooting. Etc.

The full account is in the link --the conclusion reads:

Rather than having any "foreknowledge" of the assassination, Milteer gave a generic assassination scenario virtually identical to one that John Kennedy himself articulated. Mixed in were wacky elements that conspiracy books conceal from their readers. No Miami motorcade was cancelled because of his ranting, and he was not in Dallas on the day of the assassination. Given Milteer's extreme right-wing politics and his hobnobbing with potentially violent types, it's tempting to believe that he must have "gotten wind" of some real assassination plot. The problem is that there just isn't any evidence of it. The "Milteer story" has been known for over 30 years, and researchers have been unable to connect him or his associates to any of the "usual suspects" in the assassination — the CIA, anti-Castro Cubans, Texas millionaires, defense contractors. He was "connected" to the FBI alright. They were spying on him.
Although Milteer's rag-tag racist associates were capable of violence, they lacked the technical expertise to pull off an elaborate assassination plot. And they lacked the friends in high places that would have been necessary to pull off a "coverup" of a killing they did.
By 1967 the Secret Service decided that Milteer was not dangerous or a security risk. He was, quite simply, a crackpot who shot off his mouth and in doing so gained an entirely unmerited place in Kennedy assassination conspiracy books.

http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/milteer.htm

[Ben]

JFK Magic Bullet Theory Debunked:

JFK Magic Bullet Theory Debunked - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQ19QmcefQc)

[Ben]

Author Vincent Bugliosi debunks JFK assassination theories - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5VmRZkSrSwg)

[Ben]

Sorry Ben, the Milteer thesis, known of for more than 30 years has no foundation -Milteer was a known extremist who had 'predicted' the assassination of JFK -because he wanted JFK dead- before, in Miami. A notorious photo of him in Dallas on that fateful day is not only not him, the FBI confirmed he was in Quitman on the day of the shooting. Etc.

The full account is in the link --the conclusion reads:

Rather than having any "foreknowledge" of the assassination, Milteer gave a generic assassination scenario virtually identical to one that John Kennedy himself articulated. Mixed in were wacky elements that conspiracy books conceal from their readers. No Miami motorcade was cancelled because of his ranting, and he was not in Dallas on the day of the assassination. Given Milteer's extreme right-wing politics and his hobnobbing with potentially violent types, it's tempting to believe that he must have "gotten wind" of some real assassination plot. The problem is that there just isn't any evidence of it. The "Milteer story" has been known for over 30 years, and researchers have been unable to connect him or his associates to any of the "usual suspects" in the assassination — the CIA, anti-Castro Cubans, Texas millionaires, defense contractors. He was "connected" to the FBI alright. They were spying on him.
Although Milteer's rag-tag racist associates were capable of violence, they lacked the technical expertise to pull off an elaborate assassination plot. And they lacked the friends in high places that would have been necessary to pull off a "coverup" of a killing they did.
By 1967 the Secret Service decided that Milteer was not dangerous or a security risk. He was, quite simply, a crackpot who shot off his mouth and in doing so gained an entirely unmerited place in Kennedy assassination conspiracy books.

http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/milteer.htm

Oh, I haven't reached any conclusion.
Was it Oswald? Was it a vast conspiracy?
I mean, we still don't know conclusively. And this has been going on for 50 years.
Anyway, this will go on and on and on. Much like 9/11.
What about RFK? Conspiracy?
It seems conspiracy theories are, well, uniquely American. Much like celebrity culture.

CNN BackStory: Bobby Kennedy Assassination Conspiracy - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLvtNurS4fM)

[sukumvit boy]

The new PBS NOVA : "Cold Case JFK" is quite good.
http://video.pbs.org/video/2365118537/
A fascinating review using modern ballistic and forensic techniques.

[danthepoetman]

I always had the greatest doubts concerning such conspiracies. But recently, came to my attention that a plot to kill JFK had been dismantled by the Secret Services in 1960. Of course, times were very different, and the security around political figures was far from what it became. Of course, this act was obviously seen as the action of a lone man, probably more or less senile, who was indeed confined to an asylum after being discovered. But I'm still a little bit surprised that after such a plot, no more measures were taken to protect the president's life. Why would you let the man you protect drive around in a convertible when you know some people hate him enough to attempt at his life? To me, this seems quite a bit suspicious.
Then again, when we look back to the era, people seem so ill equiped to face such a reality, they seem so incredibly unprepared and in fact, innocent in their very perspective, that it might just have happen the precise way history has it.
The fact is, JFK's assassination was probably the greatest injection of lucidity possible; innocence was lost at that precise moment for America.
Anyways, here is the story, for those interrested...
The Kennedy Assassination Attempt You Never Knew About - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBXLsOI1wFA)

The man who did not kill JFK
By Bob Greene, CNN Contributor
October 24, 2010 9:32 a.m. EDT

Editor's note: CNN contributor Bob Greene is a best-selling author whose books include "Late Edition: A Love Story" and "Duty: A Father, His Son, and the Man Who Won the War."
(CNN) -- In a few weeks a noteworthy anniversary will arrive: fifty years since the election of John F. Kennedy as president of the United States.
Much will be made of the fact that half a century has passed. Photographs of the young president and his family will be republished, retrospective essays will be written. Inevitably, as the Kennedy years are freshly examined, the name of the assassin Lee Harvey Oswald will be mentioned in the context of what might have been, if only Kennedy's path and Oswald's never had intersected.
But there is another name that you have likely never heard: a man who might have changed history as drastically and irrevocably as Oswald did. Kennedy was elected in November 1960; a month later, this man came very close to making sure that Kennedy never served a single day in office.
His name was Richard Pavlick.
From an Associated Press dispatch, December 16, 1960, dateline West Palm Beach, Florida:
"A craggy-faced retired postal clerk who said he didn't like the way John F. Kennedy won the election is in jail on charges he planned to kill the president-elect.
"Richard Pavlick, 73, was charged by the Secret Service with planning to make himself a human bomb and blow up Kennedy and himself."
Pavlick came much closer to killing Kennedy than most news reporters realized at the time. He was arrested in Palm Beach on December 15, 1960, in a car loaded with sticks of dynamite. Kennedy; his wife, Jacqueline; his daughter, Caroline; and his son, John Jr., were staying in the Kennedy family mansion in Palm Beach, preparing for the inauguration the next month.
Because Pavlick didn't get near Kennedy on the day he was arrested, the story was not huge national news. The announcement of his arrest coincided with a terrible airline disaster in which two commercial planes collided over New York City, killing 134 people, and that was the story that received the banner headlines and led the television and radio newscasts.
It wasn't until later that the complete story of a first Pavlick assassination attempt, a few days earlier, began to get out. It was that first one that might have changed American history.
Pavlick, who had lived in New Hampshire, spent much of his time writing enraged and belligerent letters to public figures and to newspapers. He resided in Belmont, New Hampshire; Belmont was at one time called Upper Gilmanton, and Gilmanton itself, four miles away, was reputed to be the model for the New England town in Grace Metalious' scandalous 1950s novel "Peyton Place." Thus, Time magazine, in its report of Pavlick's arrest in Florida, headlined the story: "The Man From Peyton Place."
It reported:
"One day last month Richard Pavlick decided to do something worthy of inclusion in 'Peyton Place': he made up his mind to kill a president-elect. He took ten sticks of dynamite, some blasting caps and wire, and began to shadow Jack Kennedy. He cased the cottage in Hyannisport, sized up the house in Georgetown, headed south for Palm Beach." The magazine quoted Pavlick: "The Kennedy money bought him the White House. I wanted to teach the United States the presidency is not for sale."
Here is what was not reported at the time, and was disclosed later by a top U.S. Secret Service official:
On December 11, 1960 -- four days before he was arrested -- Pavlick drove his car to the Kennedy home in Palm Beach. He held a switch wired to the dynamite, which, according to the Secret Service official, was "enough to blow up a small mountain." His plan was to wait for Kennedy's limousine to leave the house for Sunday Mass, then to ram it and blow up both the president and himself.
What stopped him?
Kennedy did not leave the house alone. Instead, he came out the door with Jacqueline, Caroline and John Jr.
Pavlick later told law enforcement officials that he did not want to hurt Mrs. Kennedy and the children. He only wanted to kill Kennedy himself.
So he waited a few days. A postmaster back in New Hampshire, troubled by some postcards that Pavlick had sent, alerted the Secret Service. That is how notification of the license plate of Pavlick's car made it down to Florida -- and that is why he was stopped and arrested on December 15. "I had the crazy idea I wanted to stop Kennedy from being president," he told reporters from his jail cell.
What if Pavlick had gone ahead with his plan on that first day -- what if the sight of Mrs. Kennedy and the two children had not dissuaded him?
As reporter Robin Erb, writing in The (Toledo, Ohio) Blade years later, put it:
"Had Pavlick been successful, [the assassination by Lee Harvey] Oswald and his murder by Jack Ruby would never have occurred. Had Mr. Kennedy been killed, Lyndon B. Johnson would have been sworn in as president in January, 1961. How would he have handled U.S. involvement in Vietnam, the Cuban missile crisis, or the civil-rights movement in the South?"
Next month a book about Kennedy's Secret Service detail in Dallas on November 22, 1963, co-written by a member of that detail, is scheduled to be published; advance publicity for the book has centered on the events surrounding that day in Dallas. It will be interesting to see if the Richard Pavlick story is mentioned, and, if so, if any new light is shed on the events in Florida in December of 1960.
As it was, Pavlick was ordered to be confined to a government mental-health facility. He would die in 1975.
And the Kennedy family remained in Florida during those final weeks of 1960. Allowed to live, they prepared for Christmas. United Press International reported that the tree in their home was donated by the West Palm Beach Optimist Club. The president-elect received, from his family, gifts of cigars and hand-knitted socks. All seemed safe and right in their world.

[Stavros]

Dan I think you will agree that at any one time someone in the USA is planning to assassinate the President, even if it doesn't get beyond the bedroom door or the garage. I don't understand the point about 'innocence', after all, other Presidents were also assassinated, no? The 1960s wasn't exactly a decade of 'innocence' either...!

[danthepoetman]

That's what we think TODAY! But were people thinking like that in 1960? I'm not so sure, Stavros. You're right: there were assassination acts and plots before, but in the end, not that many before Kennedy. Consult the Wiki list I leave at the end of bottom of the post and you might get surprised, Stavros. And all these attempts (before Kennedy) seem to have taken place for particular, circumstancial reasons - that's what it seems to me; you tell me if you disagree.
As to the "innocence" concept, I do find that the political perspective radically changed in America somewhere between JFK's assassination and the Watergate. How could it not? American to this day are probably the Nation who believe the most in its institutions.
But it's easy to see just how it has desintegrated since. Growing political movements on the left or right (Tea partyism, Occupyism, Libertarianism, "Militias" of all kind, etc.) are thriving. A multitude of catastrophic political scenarii are given credibility by unbelievable numbers of people, nowadays, something that would have been absurd and totally unthinkable in the 50's. Can you imagine the survivalist paranoia in the 50's, under Eisenhower?
I grew up during the Cold War, something young people today have no idea about; we were certain to be doomed, but never were we so cynical about the political institutions. How many people today believe in conspiracies of all kinds? It's up to the point where America is becoming ungovernable. Anything done politically today is suspected of being motivated by dark, secret, even evil intentions. It's reached ridiculous lenghts.
All of this in my opinion, largely originate from that relatively short, 10 years period, between the assassination of JFK in 63 and the Watergate in 72-74. In fact, I think the very origin of the conspiracy theory comes from the pure sentiment of shock caused by the assassination: "how could such a great president and a great human being be killed by a mediocre individual with a bad italian rifle?" "How would it be possible that such a little man put an end to such a great era in our history?" Nixon's team anctics (which by the way were regarded through out the world as something not that serious and rather common) was only, to use the image, the cherry on top of a sunday.

Anyways, here is that list, Stavros. I was surprised, I'm sure you will be as well if you don't already know all of this (which knowing you wouldn't surprise me):
List of United States presidential assassination attempts and plots - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_presidential_assassination_a ttempts_and_plots)

[Stavros]

[QUOTE=danthepoetman;1422450]
You're right: there were assassination acts and plots before, but in the end, not that many before Kennedy.
-Of the 20th century Presidents before Kennedy, the only ones who seem to have escaped assassination attempts were Taft, Wilson, Harding and Coolidge and they were mostly one-term Presidents. My remark wasn't a scientific one anyway.

As to the "innocence" concept, I do find that the political perspective radically changed in America somewhere between JFK's assassination and the Watergate. How could it not? American to this day are probably the Nation who believe the most in its institutions.
But it's easy to see just how it has desintegrated since. Growing political movements on the left or right (Tea partyism, Occupyism, Libertarianism, "Militias" of all kind, etc.) are thriving. A multitude of catastrophic political scenarii are given credibility by unbelievable numbers of people, nowadays, something that would have been absurd and totally unthinkable in the 50's. Can you imagine the survivalist paranoia in the 50's, under Eisenhower?

I grew up during the Cold War, something young people today have no idea about; we were certain to be doomed, but never were we so cynical about the political institutions. How many people today believe in conspiracies of all kinds? It's up to the point where America is becoming ungovernable. Anything done politically today is suspected of being motivated by dark, secret, even evil intentions. It's reached ridiculous lenghts.
All of this in my opinion, largely originate from that relatively short, 10 years period, between the assassination of JFK in 63 and the Watergate in 72-74. In fact, I think the very origin of the conspiracy theory comes from the pure sentiment of shock caused by the assassination: "how could such a great president and a great human being be killed by a mediocre individual with a bad italian rifle?" "How would it be possible that such a little man put an end to such a great era in our history?" Nixon's team anctics (which by the way were regarded through out the world as something not that serious and rather common) was only, to use the image, the cherry on top of a sunday.

-Richard Hofstadter wrote a famous article, and then a book which looked at paranoia in American politics, and it is far from new -
-from 1855:
. . . It is a notorious fact that the Monarchs of Europe and the Pope of Rome are at this very moment plotting our destruction and threatening the extinction of our political, civil, and religious institutions. We have the best reasons for believing that corruption has found its way into our Executive Chamber, and that our Executive head is tainted with the infectious venom of Catholicism.

-from 1895:
Every device of treachery, every resource of statecraft, and every artifice known to the secret cabals of the international gold ring are being used to deal a blow to the prosperity of the people and the financial and commercial independence of the country.

-the original paper is here:
http://harpers.org/archive/1964/11/the-paranoid-style-in-american-politics/

Tony Tanner, in City of Words (1971) discusses paranoia and conspiracy in the context of post-war American literature but as part of a more general American view of politics. Outstanding book.

Nothing new under the Sun, or the Sundae for that matter...

[danthepoetman]

LOL
All of this is new to me. I still have the feeling that in my life time, a bit more over a half century, perceptions have largely changed. But indeed, Stavros, nothing I'm saying has any positive value, of course. Might just be pure perception... :)

[Stavros]

Perceptions do change, but the agendas in politics probably less so. It is rather like the daft idea that nobody had sex before the 1960s or that drugs were something new and interesting -it was all part of the sense people had with a young President that a new age had dawned and it belonged to the young. In fact, pot, LSD and Speed had merely replaced the Opium of earlier years (vide Sergio Leone's opium dens in Once Upon a Time in America); Aldous Huxley's idle rich were smoking pot in the 1920s/30s in Eyeless in Gaza (1936). But it is rather harsh on yourself to say 'nothing I'm saying has any positive value' as your contributions are anything but.

[Ben]

Bill Hicks on the JFK Assassination - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1LcvNM7oc7k)

[Stavros]

Does anyone know if the release of previously unseen or heavily redacted documents on the assassination of JFK will tell us something we don't know, or just underline that Lee Harvey Oswald was a nutter who wanted to 'be somebody' but was turned away by the Russians and the Cubans precisely because he was unstable?

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/oct/22/kennedy-assassination-conspiracy-theorists-release-jfk-files

[Stavros]

For those of you who are interested in exploring them, the files on JFK released to the public can be found here:

https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/