I'm convinced - CE 399 is entirely bogus!

[Lance Payette]

For purposes of this thread, we will stipulate that CE 399, Ye Magick Bullette, was:

1.   Entirely bogus! A dastardly, Oswald-framing plant by evil conspirators!

2.   Plagued by a chain of custody so flawed it would never have been admitted into evidence at a trial of Oswald!

3.   In impossibly good condition for it to have done all the damage the SBT says it did!

Good. Now we’re all on the same page as to the essential facts. No need to debate any of the above stipulations for the 14,823rd time.

Let us proceed to ask the questions that leap to the minds of epistemologically oriented CTers such as ourselves. To wit:

1.   Why did the conspirators plant CE 399 at Parkland rather than in the limousine? Why take these risks and raise these red flags?

2.   Why did the conspirators plant CE 399 in circumstances where it might not be found at all and there would always be uncertainty as to where it actually was found? Why take these risks and raise these red flags? Why not just have a DPD, FBI or SS agent say, “Hey, look what just rolled off the Governor’s stretcher”?

3.     Who planted CE 399 anyway? The DPD, FBI or SS? They had a bullet fired from Oswald’s rifle prepared in advance? Why? “Just in case” – but just in case what?

4.   Why did the conspirators plant a bullet in suspiciously good condition? Why raise this red flag? Why not plant a bullet that would be a more plausible fit for the SBT?

5.   How did the conspirators know CE 399 was “needed”? Was the SBT part of the plan even before the assassination? How did the conspirators know CE 399 wouldn’t be one bullet too many when all the fragments were retrieved? How did they know there wouldn’t be too many fragments in Connally to make CE 399 plausible?

6.   Why did the conspirators allow such a muddled chain of custody, one so muddled some participants couldn’t identify CE 399 as the bullet they’d been shown and others said it wasn’t? Despite intimidating doctors, knocking off inconvenient witnesses and whatnot, the conspirators couldn’t assemble a clean, no-problems chain of custody for CE 399?

7.   What did CE 399 actually accomplish? What did it add to our conspiracy theory? How could whatever it accomplished, if anything, possibly be worth all the risks that planting it required and all the red flags it has raised for 60+ years?

I confess, my fellow CTers, I am puzzled. A bogus, planted CE 399 is one of the linchpins of our gospel, is it not? And yet, I am deeply concerned that a bogus, planted CE 399 makes no sense whatsoever in any of the 15 or 20 conspiracy theories I’m willing to entertain. It appears to me that, once again, the conspirators were bungling fools whenever our pet theory requires them to have been so.

Help me out here. Explain how a bogus, planted CE 399 actually does make sense in the context of a conspiracy theory – any conspiracy theory.

(I am a sufficiently epistemologically oriented CTer that “It doesn’t have to make sense, dammit!” will not allay my concerns. Nor will doddering old Landis’s latter-day revelations, I must admit. CE 399 was found on the back seat of the limo and Landis allowed the WC, HSCA and 60 years of raging controversy to play out because, hey, it didn't seem like that big of a deal until he decided to write a book? It was on the back seat because it was responsible for the head wound - hello? My fellow CTers, we are better than this, are we not?)

[Steve M. Galbraith]

Conspiracy theories make sense on the surface - JFK had a lot of powerful enemies - but when you drill down into the details, into how this was done, they fall apart. It's why we have 57 different flavors of conspiracies that contradict each other.

So, as you ask: How did they plant CE399? And why on a gurney in the basement? Why not the limo? The conspiracy answer is, "Well, they just did, you idiot nutter!"

When Morley was testifying with Stone and DiEugenio I wanted a member of the committee to ask him if he found any evidence that Clay Shaw and David Ferrie conspired with Oswald to assassinate JFK. This is, broadly speaking, the Garrison/Stone/DiEugenio theory. Then I wanted that member to ask Stone and DiEugenio if they had discovered any evidence that James Angleton used Oswald in an AMSPELL counter intelligence operation to embarrass the FPCC and then use Oswald in another operation to, a la Operation Northwoods false flags, frame Castro for the assassination.

Shorter: Morley's theory is at odds with the Garrisonite's theory and their theory is at odds with Morley's. And neither has found evidence for the other.

[Lance Payette]

That is another curious aspect of Conspiracy World. CTers seem to regard themselves as members of some monolithic Brotherhood, even though there must be at least 25 full-blown but irreconcilable conspiracy theories. With the exception of a handful who occasionally gang up on the Harvey & Lee folks as being too goofy even for Conspiracy World, CTers seldom seem to squabble among themselves. "United against the Lone Nut narrative" seems to be the glue that holds them together. I might think the logical approach would be to develop a plausible, coherent conspiracy theory and work toward fleshing it out in as much detail as possible, but this doesn't seem to be the case.

One of my genuine epiphanies early in my involvement with the JFKA was how, in every conspiracy theory, the conspirators were bumbling clods who conveniently left screaming clues all over the place as the theory demanded. It seems to me that the assassination of a President at high noon in a public plaza crawling with journalists, police and bystanders with cameras would logically be the tightest, most carefully planned and controlled conspiracy in the history of the world - but no, it was just about the most fumbling, bumbling, clues-everywhere effort this side of the Keystone Cops.

In my little thought experiments of a plausible conspiracy involving any combination of LBJ, Hoover, CIA operatives, the FBI and/or SS and/or DPD, the Mafia or billionaire right-wing oilmen, the assassination looks absolutely nothing like Dealey Plaza and always has a far less risky venue than Dealey Plaza. But since even CTers are stuck with Oswald and Dealey Plaza, wacky ad hoc theorizing is the order of the day!

Why am I betting no CTer makes a sincere effort to address my little questions about CE 399? Can we not even build a plausible foundation for this one kernel of conspiracy gospel, folks? Aren't these the very sorts of questions we should WANT to answer, or is the sad truth that we don't even care whether any of this CT stuff makes sense?

[Jim Hawthorn]

In my little thought experiments of a plausible conspiracy involving any combination of LBJ, Hoover, CIA operatives, the FBI and/or SS and/or DPD, the Mafia or billionaire right-wing oilmen, the assassination looks absolutely nothing like Dealey Plaza and always has a far less risky venue than Dealey Plaza.

Again, why assume that the plot to kill and the engineering of the cover-up were organised by the same entities?

[Lance Payette]

Again, why assume that the plot to kill and the engineering of the cover-up were organised by the same entities?

I don't assume that at all. As previously stated, another of my epiphanies was Larry Hancock's point that there may well have been (and surely were) high-level cover-up activities that were all about covering up incompetence and malfeasance and had nothing to do with the assassination per se. I even accept that there was a considerable effort to minimize Oswald's Soviet and Cuban connections for precisely the reasons (i.e., fears) LBJ expressed.

OK, if you like, we will stipulate that the planting of the bogus CE 399 was part of a cover-up organized by different persons or entities from those who organized the assassination itself. Where does this get us? Care to try to answer my questions in that context? Surely the planting of CE 399 as part of a separately organized cover-up raises the same questions - if not more - does it not?

[Charles Collins]

That is another curious aspect of Conspiracy World. CTers seem to regard themselves as members of some monolithic Brotherhood, even though there must be at least 25 full-blown but irreconcilable conspiracy theories. With the exception of a handful who occasionally gang up on the Harvey & Lee folks as being too goofy even for Conspiracy World, CTers seldom seem to squabble among themselves. "United against the Lone Nut narrative" seems to be the glue that holds them together. I might think the logical approach would be to develop a plausible, coherent conspiracy theory and work toward fleshing it out in as much detail as possible, but this doesn't seem to be the case.

One of my genuine epiphanies early in my involvement with the JFKA was how, in every conspiracy theory, the conspirators were bumbling clods who conveniently left screaming clues all over the place as the theory demanded. It seems to me that the assassination of a President at high noon in a public plaza crawling with journalists, police and bystanders with cameras would logically be the tightest, most carefully planned and controlled conspiracy in the history of the world - but no, it was just about the most fumbling, bumbling, clues-everywhere effort this side of the Keystone Cops.

In my little thought experiments of a plausible conspiracy involving any combination of LBJ, Hoover, CIA operatives, the FBI and/or SS and/or DPD, the Mafia or billionaire right-wing oilmen, the assassination looks absolutely nothing like Dealey Plaza and always has a far less risky venue than Dealey Plaza. But since even CTers are stuck with Oswald and Dealey Plaza, wacky ad hoc theorizing is the order of the day!

Why am I betting no CTer makes a sincere effort to address my little questions about CE 399? Can we not even build a plausible foundation for this one kernel of conspiracy gospel, folks? Aren't these the very sorts of questions we should WANT to answer, or is the sad truth that we don't even care whether any of this CT stuff makes sense?

Sadly, we (John Q. Public), in general, appear to prefer mysteries, intrigue, and never ending questions to solutions. The Warren Commission investigation and all its supporting volumes provide a never ending source for these things. The last thing the CT crowd really wants is solutions. It is enough (for them to sell their ideas in their books, movies, etc.) just to ask the questions and attempt to create doubt. If and when they decide that they want real answers, they end up being converts to the other side of the argument.

[Lance Payette]

One theory along the lines of what Jim is suggesting, I suppose, is that a large, identifiable fragment that actually caused Connally’s wounds was found in the limousine – but it wasn’t from Oswald’s rifle! It was so obviously not from Oswald’s rifle that it absolutely screamed conspiracy! Ergo, because LBJ and Hoover were determined not even to allow the specter (no pun intended) of Soviet or Cuban involvement to raise its fearsome head, they set in motion the planting of CE 399 and the development of something like the SBT.

I don’t know, this strikes me as ad hoc to the point of sounding like science fiction. How on earth would all of this have played out on the day of the assassination? Why wouldn’t the evildoers have simply flushed the real fragment and substituted CE 399 in the limo? How does it really answer my original questions - and doesn’t it raise about 75 additional ones, as ad hoc explanations have a nasty habit of doing?

Sorry, my fellow CTers, I remain perplexed. Unless you help me out, I think I’m being forced into the corner of “It doesn’t have to make any sense, dammit!” Ouch. Maybe I just lack the CT gene, ya think?