What a Conspiracy Theorist Needs to Do to be Taken Seriously.

[Joe Elliott]

Unlikely based on what specifically?

Unlikely that all those people would act against the investigation of the JFK murder. Just as it is unlikely that a large group of people would decide to assassinate JFK and keep it a secret. No one would alert the authorities so as to save the President and become a great American hero.

We know that LBJ and RFK suspected that there was a conspiracy yet still endorsed the Warren Report. That should be proof enough that there were "other" motives for sticking with the Lone Assassin conclusion beyond involvement with the conspiracy.

Why do YOU think LBJ chose to go against his personal belief that there was a conspiracy in Kennedy's murder?

I've already given my opinion based on what Johnson told Earl Warren.

Now everyone in the chain of command would drop the investigation. Some would pursue it, if only in the hopes of making the biggest break in their career. People would have to be repeatedly told the drop it. But we don’t have reports of FBI agents or policemen being told to drop it time and time again.

As far as LBJ is concerned, yes, it is clear he feared, in the worst-case scenario, that the Warren Commission, would find that Castro arranged for Kennedy’s murder. In which case, the American public would likely demand an invasion of Cuba to bring Castro to justice. Which might trigger the Soviet Union to retaliate. Like invading West Germany. But, while having these fears, there is no evidence he made certain the Warren Commission made certain they really reined in their investigation. Many who took part said they tried hard to find a conspiracy. It would be the highlight of their career. But could not find a strong link. None say that LBJ or anyone else pressured them to not find anything.

I honestly don't know. It could all be coincidental that people like Johnny Roselli, Sam Giancana, David Morales, Bill Harvey, and George DeMorenschildt (all suspected of involvement with the assassination) died around the time when Congress began re-investigating the JFK assassination. Or maybe it wasn't coincidental. 

OK. So, you are not a Small-Secret-Enduring CTers, who only believes there were two or two involved. You think there were five others. And, I bet, if I looked through your old posts, I would find a lot of other names.

And who ever heard of someone in the Mafia dying? And if someone well known in the Mafia does die, they shoot up to the top of the list of suspects in the JFK assassination. The one who is different is George DeMorenschildt. But, one of the most common forms of death in the elderly is suicide. Particularly if they are running out of money. And DeMorenschildt was under extra stress, about to testify to the HSCA where he would have to answer questions about joking with Oswald about him becoming an “assassin of Fascists”. Or why he suspected Oswald of trying to kill General Walker but just seemed to laugh it off.

And, it is strange, that if the HSCA had discovered a “bombshell”, why did they keep this a secret, even after DeMorenschildt died? Just what questions were they going to ask him that would require him to commit suicide or to be murdered? They have never said.

Not if it was an inside job.

If the truth is that individuals within the US national security community participated in the murder of a US President, that sort of thing could bring down our entire political system and cause all sorts of political disorder.

If you think Americans distrusting their government is bad now, imagine how much worse things would be if it were confirmed that Kennedy's assassination was an inside job.

Again, it’s beginning to sound like a larger conspiracy then the two or three you talked about. Just how large is the conspiracy that you suspect existed?

In conclusion, no, I don't believe the persons involved with killing JFK necessarily needed to have the same agenda and motivations as the institutions that covered up things after the assassination. It's plausible in my honest opinion to view the Conspiracy plot against JFK and the various institutional coverups as two entirely separate things...

A convenient way to pare down the size of the conspiracy. A smaller number of people who knew about the assassination beforehand. And a larger group who acted as if they were part of the conspiracy, but, by coincidence, were following their own motives that just happened to always work against a serious investigation. Whether they worked for the government or the media.

[Jon Banks]

Unlikely that all those people would act against the investigation of the JFK murder. Just as it is unlikely that a large group of people would decide to assassinate JFK and keep it a secret. No one would alert the authorities so as to save the President and become a great American hero.

Secret Service agent Abraham Bolden tried to do that and ended up in prison later (falsely accused of corruption). He tried to blow the Whistle on the Chicago assassination plot against JFK.

The US government and Press doesn't treat national security Whistleblowers like heroes. Ask Daniel Ellsberg, Daniel Hale, and Edward Snowden.

Now everyone in the chain of command would drop the investigation. Some would pursue it, if only in the hopes of making the biggest break in their career. People would have to be repeatedly told the drop it. But we don’t have reports of FBI agents or policemen being told to drop it time and time again.

That's false. People were told by higher ups to "drop it".

There are reports of FBI agents, CIA, and diplomats being told to stop investigating conspiratorial leads.

One example was ambassador Thomas Mann. He said he was told to stop investigating Oswald's visit to Mexico City. CIA agents in MC received similar orders:

"...within days of the assassination, the ambassador received an astonishing top-secret message directly from Secretary of State Dean Rusk. According to Mann’s testimony years later to congressional investigators, Rusk ordered the embassy to shut down any investigation in Mexico that might “confirm or refute rumors of Cuban involvement in the assassination.” No reason was given for the order, the ambassador said.

Mann told the congressional investigators that he was under the impression that the same “incredible” shut-down order had been given by the CIA to the spy agency’s station chief in Mexico, Winston Scott."

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/03/jfk-assassination-lee-harvey-oswald-mexico-116195/


A decision was made early in the investigations not to pursue conspiratorial leads (ie the Katzenberg memo). It likely started at the White House and flowed down through the various bureaucracies from there.

[Joe Elliott]

Secret Service agent Abraham Bolden tried to do that and ended up in prison later (falsely accused of corruption). He tried to blow the Whistle on the Chicago assassination plot against JFK.

. . .

OK. Clearly you are not being honest with us. Nor to yourself.

You claim that you are not a Large-Secret-Enduring Conspiracy believer. That the original assassination conspiracy only involved two or three people in Dealey Plaza. Then, you inadvertently revealed five people who had to be killed off in the 1970’s to conceal the plot. Hardly sounds necessary when “only two or three” were involved. And now, once again, you inadvertently reveal that not only was there a plot to kill JFK in Dallas, there was another one in Chicago, and that the Secret Service was involved in both plots, or at least the one in Chicago.

Come on. Come clean with us. Admit that you are a Large-Secret-Enduring Conspiracy Theorist. Even when you try to pare down your beliefs, you can’t go more than a day or two before you reveal that it’s bigger than a conspiracy of just two or three guys. You just can’t help yourself.

I don’t want anymore distractions where you bring up mysterious deaths. Or any alleged Secret Service plots. I just want you to make the case that you really believe the JFK assassination plot consisted of only two or three people who tried to kill JFK and no more than that. Can you do so for more than a day or two? Or will your real beliefs come out because you just can’t help yourself, even when your trying to appear to be only a small conspiracy believer. I wonder if you now claim the conspiracy didn’t involve two or three, but really more like ten or twenty, if a month from now you will be trying to convince us that the conspiracy involved no more than forty to fifty.


The truth is, JFK CTers are Large-Secret-Enduring Conspiracy believers. All the major movies and TV shows, most prominently “JFK”, all the major CT books, push a Large-Secret-Enduring Conspiracy.

A challenge for any CTer here:

1. Name me one prominent CT movie that does not push a Large-Secret-Enduring Conspiracy.

2. Name me one prominent CT TV show that does not push a Large-Secret-Enduring Conspiracy.

3. Name me one prominent CT book that does not push a Large-Secret-Enduring Conspiracy.

4. Name my one CTer who posts at this forum, who at least initially did not get sucked in by a Large-Secret-Enduring Conspiracy belief?

[Jon Banks]

OK. Clearly you are not being honest with us. Nor to yourself.

Terms like "large" "big" "small" are all subjective. Therefore, my definition of a "large" conspiracy isn't necessarily the same as yours.

How many people were involved with Iran-Contra? Was that a "Large Enduring Conspiracy"?

[Joe Elliott]

Terms like "large" "big" "small" are all subjective. Therefore, my definition of a "large" conspiracy isn't necessarily the same as yours.

A defense that can be made for any Large-Secret-Enduring Conspiracy Theory. All of them will claim, when pressed, that they are really not that large. None of them provide an estimate of how many people were involved in the conspiracy. I don’t know of any JFK conspiracy book or movie that does so. Any more than I know of any such book on the Stolen 2020 Election, or the U. S. Government run 9/11 attack or the Apollo Moon Landing Hoax conspiracy theories.

I would just like there to be a book that really grabs people, a best seller, on the JFK assassination, that lists all the sub tasks the author thinks were done, and the number of people required to do so. You will never see such a book. Large conspiracies grab the imagination. That is why they have been so successful over the centuries. But the author isn’t going to provide the details that show how implausible it is. Hence, there will be references to the CIA being involved, the FBI being involved. No one could alert the authorities because the police and the press were all involved. And the conspiracy had a large goal, to start a war. Naturally, a book on all this is not going to come up with an estimate of the number of people involved in all this. It would involve too many people to be plausible.

How many people were involved with Iran-Contra? Was that a "Large Enduring Conspiracy"?

No. How many years was this conspiracy kept hidden? 50 years? 40 years? No. It fails to meet the criteria because, while it may have been Large and Secret, the secret did not endure for long. This is a classic example of why Large-Secret-Enduring conspiracies do not exist. With too many people involved the secret is bound to be exposed, sooner rather than later.

[Jon Banks]

A defense that can be made for any Large-Secret-Enduring Conspiracy Theory. All of them will claim, when pressed, that they are really not that large. None of them provide an estimate of how many people were involved in the conspiracy. I don’t know of any JFK conspiracy book or movie that does so. Any more than I know of any such book on the Stolen 2020 Election, or the U. S. Government run 9/11 attack or the Apollo Moon Landing Hoax conspiracy theories.

The best JFK assassination books I've read are the ones that don't propose any theory at all (ie "Accessories After The Fact" by Sylvia Meagher). It's possible to be skeptical of the Warren Report and take apart the LN narrative without proposing an alternative theory of who really killed JFK.

It's not possible at this point to know "Who did it" but there seems to be enough holes in the official narrative that we can conclude that the case remains unsolved.

Earlier in the thread I proposed a theory of "what might've happened" but I'd be lying if I said, "I know what really happened". All I said was that I think a minimum of ten people would need to be involved and that not everyone would agree that ten people is a "large conspiracy".

I also noted that the conspiracy and cover-ups are two different categories involving two or more different groups of people with different, and sometimes conflicting motives.

For example, if the intention of blaming a "Communist" who had lived in the USSR for JFK's murder was to provoke a war between the US and Cuba/Soviets, that conflicted with Lyndon Johnson's desire to avoid a military confrontation with the Soviets. So I can see a scenario where Johnson's reaction might've conflicted with the motives of JFK's potential assassins.

If the Mob played a role in a plot against Kennedy, the CIA's motive for a cover-up would be to hide their relationships with Mobsters that were occurring in the early-60s while they were trying to kill Castro. 

Those are just two examples to show how different institutions could have different reasons for silence or cover-ups.

I'm honest enough to admit that I don't know what really happened and am always willing to listen to new information. 

I would just like there to be a book that really grabs people, a best seller, on the JFK assassination, that lists all the sub tasks the author thinks were done, and the number of people required to do so. You will never see such a book. Large conspiracies grab the imagination. That is why they have been so successful over the centuries. But the author isn’t going to provide the details that show how implausible it is. Hence, there will be references to the CIA being involved, the FBI being involved. No one could alert the authorities because the police and the press were all involved. And the conspiracy had a large goal, to start a war. Naturally, a book on all this is not going to come up with an estimate of the number of people involved in all this. It would involve too many people to be plausible.

Who has the power to investigate the CIA, or FBI, or Dallas PD? Usually law enforcement and intelligence institutions 'investigate themselves' and almost always, those institutions conclude that they 'did nothing wrong' when they investigate themselves.

Yes, there were attempts by Congress to investigate the CIA and FBI in the 1970s and we learned a great deal about some awful things that those agencies had done but Congress only grazed the surface because the CIA and FBI controlled the information that was shown to Congress.

Another obstacle is the fact that people within certain institutions are discouraged from becoming Whistleblowers. In recent years, several national security Whistleblowers have been prosecuted, not celebrated as heroes:

Chelsea Manning exposed US war crimes in Iraq.
Daniel Hale exposed war crimes in the Drone Assassination program.
Reality Winner exposed Russian meddling in the 2016 election.

All three were sent to prison for unauthorized disclosure of national security secrets.

Edward Snowden would've been prosecuted if he stayed in the US. Daniel Ellsberg was prosecuted but he won his case. However, he's the exception, not the rule for national security Whistleblowers. 

Against those odds, why do you expect that people in the know inside those institutions would come forward to expose corruption or actual crimes?

Doing so risks one's career, freedom, and in some cases, their life. A few might take the risk but most won't.

The national Press is different from the government. If you report on certain subjects that the political or national security establishment doesn't want to discuss, you simply won't be published. There are a number of examples of reporters who were demoted or fired for covering topics that they were discouraged from reporting on.

Gary Webb had his life and career ruined after his reporting on the CIA's involvement with the cocaine trade.

No. How many years was this conspiracy kept hidden? 50 years? 40 years? No. It fails to meet the criteria because, while it may have been Large and Secret, the secret did not endure for long. This is a classic example of why Large-Secret-Enduring conspiracies do not exist. With too many people involved the secret is bound to be exposed, sooner rather than later.

Iran-Contra was exposed accidentally like Watergate. In both cases, we still don't know all the details of what happened as there was some stone-walling by intelligence agencies and enduring cover-ups in those examples still continue. 


On a side note, 55 years later it has been all but concluded that the FBI and NYPD manipulated evidence and covered-up details about the 1965 Malcolm X assassination.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/17/nyregion/malcolm-x-killing-exonerated.html?smtyp=cur&smid=tw-nytimes

Conspiracies happen. Cover-ups happen. The remaining question in the Malcolm X case is "Why did they do it?"

Why didn't they want the real killers caught?

[Joe Elliott]

The best JFK assassination books I've read are the ones that don't propose any theory at all (ie "Accessories After The Fact" by Sylvia Meagher). It's possible to be skeptical of the Warren Report and take apart the LN narrative without proposing an alternative theory of who really killed JFK.

Am I out of line to describe JFK CTers as Large-Secret-Enduring Conspiracy Theories? The vast majority of JFK CTers certainly are.

What is the biggest influence of CT opinion? The movie JFK.

Let’s take a look at the dialog by “X” (the fore-runner of “Q”, in the popular imagination) at around 1:30:

 . . . It is the best indication of a massive plot in Dallas. . . .

This whole dialog is not about a small conspiracy, but a massive one. This is because massive conspiracy theories are what seizes the imagination. That is why conspiracy theories are so persuasive to the masses.

But even the “good quality” books that you mention, which are not read by ten per cent of the CTers, don’t spell out what the conspirators accomplished, what evidence was faked. Nor provide a reasonable estimate on the number of conspirators needed to do this. The only reference to the size of the conspiracy is “Massive” in the movies and books about it. At least the movies and books that appeal to the masses.

. . .

Who has the power to investigate the CIA, or FBI, or Dallas PD? Usually law enforcement and intelligence institutions 'investigate themselves' and almost always, those institutions conclude that they 'did nothing wrong' when they investigate themselves.

Yes, there were attempts by Congress to investigate the CIA and FBI in the 1970s and we learned a great deal about some awful things that those agencies had done but Congress only grazed the surface because the CIA and FBI controlled the information that was shown to Congress.

Another obstacle is the fact that people within certain institutions are discouraged from becoming Whistleblowers. In recent years, several national security Whistleblowers have been prosecuted, not celebrated as heroes:

Chelsea Manning exposed US war crimes in Iraq.
Daniel Hale exposed war crimes in the Drone Assassination program.
Reality Winner exposed Russian meddling in the 2016 election.

All three were sent to prison for unauthorized disclosure of national security secrets.

Edward Snowden would've been prosecuted if he stayed in the US. Daniel Ellsberg was prosecuted but he won his case. However, he's the exception, not the rule for national security Whistleblowers. 

Against those odds, why do you expect that people in the know inside those institutions would come forward to expose corruption or actual crimes?

Against what odds? I thought this was only a Small-Secret-Enduring Conspiracy, as you claim. Against such a small conspiracy, there shouldn’t be too much danger in approaching the Secret Service or the Dallas Police with the information about when and where the assassination attempt was to take place.

I think you are trying to argue it both ways. The conspiracy was too large to make it safe to inform on it. But we should still think of this as only a small conspiracy of only about ten people.

. . .
Iran-Contra was exposed accidentally like Watergate. In both cases, we still don't know all the details of what happened as there was some stone-walling by intelligence agencies and enduring cover-ups in those examples still continue. 

Which is exactly what one would expect to happen to a Large-Secret Conspiracy. And may happen to a Small-Secret Conspiracy. “Accidents” tend to happen when too many people are involved.

A better example, if you can come up with one, on how a Large-Secret-Enduring Conspiracy can work, is to come up with one that held its secret for twenty years or so, and then fell apart. If it can keep its secrets for twenty years, maybe another could keep its secrets for fifty years or more. Coming up with examples that fell apart within a year or two does not help you make your case. Which is why skeptics have always been skeptical of Large-Secret-Enduring Conspiracies. When they are attempted, they fall apart.

On a side note, 55 years later it has been all but concluded that the FBI and NYPD manipulated evidence and covered-up details about the 1965 Malcolm X assassination.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/17/nyregion/malcolm-x-killing-exonerated.html?smtyp=cur&smid=tw-nytimes

Conspiracies happen. Cover-ups happen. The remaining question in the Malcolm X case is "Why did they do it?"

Why didn't they want the real killers caught?

I don’t think there has ever been much mystery about who brought about the death of Malcolm X. Elijah Muhammad wanted him dead.

But this is the best example of a Large-Secret-Enduring Conspiracy? Elijah Muhammad was suspected of being behind it right from the get go. You may have other sources claim that it was the government, that it was the police. But I don’t believe them.

Where is the evidence that Thomas Hagan was not one of the shooters?


Basically, what I want is a Large-Secret-Enduring Conspiracy, that kept its secret for twenty years. Or at least ten years. And, like the Iran-Contra, we all know it happened. Not supporting one dubious CT theory (JFK, not killed by Oswald) with another dubious CT theory (Malcolm X, not killed by the Nation of Islam).