Do JFKA CTs have a psychological need to believe it was a conspiracy?

[Steve M. Galbraith]

You don't think the anti-CIA / anti-Clay Shaw KGB article that was published in the Communist-owned Italian newspaper Paese Sera three days after Garrison arrested Shaw on the suspicion that he had orchestrated a homosexual thrill-kill assassination of JFK influenced Garrison to change his theory to "Clay Shaw organized the Assassination of JFK for the CIA"?

You don't think Vietnam War-traumatized Oliver Stone based his self-described mythological ("to counter the myth of the Warren Report") film "JFK" on Garrison's 1988 book, On the Trail of the Assassins, and that said film had a negative effect on our body politic -- making it more cynical, paranoiac, and/or apathetic?

You don't think the KGB would want to make our body politic more cynical, paranoiac and/or apathetic?

LOL!

Did Manchester and Jackie think it would make more sense if J. Paul Getty had killed JFK?

I don't think most Americans who believe in a conspiracy know anything about any of that at all or were influenced by it other than marginally. Certainly Stone's movie influenced opinion. Apparently Garrison's investigation did too. But it was already there; they didn't create it out of nothing. Again, right *after* the assassination - well before Garrison and that Shaw nonsense and Stone's propaganda - most Americans, over 50%, said they believed there was a conspiracy.

This was in 1963 and '64; all before the KGB started blaming the CIA or Jim Garrison or Oliver Stone were promoting their nonsense. From the early days and weeks after the assassination many believed that it was more than one person who assassinated JFK.

[Steve M. Galbraith]

My research shows that the cover-up was both for hiding actions of government agencies AND revealing the identity of the conspirators would damage national security -as has always been mooted. This does NOT mean that the CIA or FBI -or even the Dallas Police Department had anything to do with the assassination

The only thing that drives myself and fellow researchers is discovering the truth of what happened, and has nothing to do with 'psychological need' as some sort of satisfying cognitive function.

And your research says the conspirators were? Who exactly? You keep mentioning them but never telling us who they were.

It's 2025 not 1963 or '64. What national security threat or harm is there today if the government revealed that "X" killed JFK in 1963? Anyone who was involved is probably long dead. If they were in the 30s and 40s at the time they would be 90+ if even still alive. What would be revealed that injures the state, threatens US security? Besides, how have they kept it quiet all of these decades?

The question about a psychological need to believe in a conspiracy wasn't, as I understood it, just about you and your fellow researchers (whoever they are) or conspiracy activist types. It was a question about conspiracy theorists in general, those who think it wasn't Oswald alone.

[Tom Graves]

Just curious: What happened between 1966 and 1976 that caused the percentage of people who believed it was a conspiracy to rise precipitously, and the percentage of people who believed LHO did it all by him widdle Marxist self to fall equally dramatically?

Likewise, what happened between 2001 and 2003 that caused the former to fall by 6 points and the latter to rise by 6 points?

[Michael T. Griffith]

The OP is rather silly. Tom Graves has also made it clear that his conception of America compels him to reject any and all evidence of conspiracy in JFK's death. In his mind, as he has plainly admitted, the conspiracy claim is "nation-rending."

The vast majority of those who posit a conspiracy in JFK's death originally believed in the lone-gunman theory. I am one of them. Until I began to read about the JFK case after seeing Oliver Stone's 1991 movie JFK, I assumed Oswald was the gunman and that there was nothing more to it.

[Tom Graves]

The vast majority of those who posit a conspiracy in JFK's death originally believed in the lone-gunman theory.

I went from November 1963 to mid-1992 assuming LHO did it all by himself, then to watching Oliver Stone's Jim Garrison-based, self-described mythological film "JFK" and believing for about twenty-five years that it was a conspiracy by the evil, evil, evil Military Industrial Intelligence-Community Complex, then to reading about the assassination and participating at the so-called JFK Assassination Debate - Education Forum for several years (and, more recently, the "JFK Truth Be Told" FB forum) and to finally realizing that a self-described Marxist and former sharpshooting Marine U-2 radar operator by the name of Lee Harvey Oswald killed JFK, with or without the logistical help of the KGB or the DGI, by firing three shots at him over 10.2 seconds in the echo chamber known as Dealey Plaza.

Until I began to read about the JFK case after seeing Oliver Stone's 1991 movie JFK, I assumed Oswald was the gunman and that there was nothing more to it.

What was it about "JFK" that made you want to read about the assassination? After doing all that reading, how accurate did you find Stone's self-described mythological ("to counter the myth of the Warren Report") film to be? Which "details," if any, do you think he got wrong? Which (KGB-influenced) authors did you read? Joachim Joesten? Thomas G. Buchanan? Mark Lane? Jim Garrison?

At what point did you conclude that "only" 20 to 30 bad guys were involved in the planning, the "patsy-ing," the shooting, the getting-away, and the all-important (and evidently ongoing!!!) cover up?

[Steve M. Galbraith]

The OP is rather silly. Tom Graves has also made it clear that his conception of America compels him to reject any and all evidence of conspiracy in JFK's death. In his mind, as he has plainly admitted, the conspiracy claim is "nation-rending."

The vast majority of those who posit a conspiracy in JFK's death originally believed in the lone-gunman theory. I am one of them. Until I began to read about the JFK case after seeing Oliver Stone's 1991 movie JFK, I assumed Oswald was the gunman and that there was nothing more to it.

Where is your evidence that the "vast majority" of conspiracy believers originally believed in the lone gunman theory? I've never seen anything remotely supporting such a claim. Where's the support for this?

[Jon Banks]

Do JFKA conspiracy theorists have a psychological need to believe it was a conspiracy?

Speaking for myself, no.

I'm naturally a skeptic when it comes to most conspiracy theories. However, I don't deny the fact that humans do conspire to do illegal and unethical things. Which means, some conspiracy theories prove to be true, and not just a theories (ie Watergate and Iran-Contra/CIA-drug trafficking).

The reasons I lean towards the existence of a conspiracy in the assassinations of JFK, RFK, and MLK are entirely evidence-based. In all three of those cases, there's enough smoke to conclude that a conspiracy is plausible or likely.

I take a logical approach to most things in life, hence why I'm not a religious person or superstitious.

SO, again, speaking for myself only, I'm not shooting from the hip or leaning towards conspiracy for emotional reasons. I lean towards conspiracy based on the unusual amount of "smoke" surrounding the JFK assassination.

You don't think the anti-CIA / anti-Clay Shaw KGB article that was published in the Communist-owned Italian newspaper Paese Sera three days after Garrison arrested Shaw on the suspicion that he had orchestrated a homosexual thrill-kill assassination of JFK influenced Garrison to change his theory to "Clay Shaw organized the Assassination of JFK for the CIA"?

You don't think the KGB would want to make our body politic more cynical, paranoiac and/or apathetic?

What's most ironic about this thread is that you're advancing your own conspiracy theory that the KGB is solely to blame for Americans not being convinced that LHO acted alone while insulting people who disagree with your views.

I don't doubt that the Soviets/Russians at various times amplified misinformation or conspiratorial stuff in the JFK assassination. Where I think you sound kooky is how you make the Russians seem super effective and omnipotent when the reality suggests otherwise. The Russians couldn't even manipulate politics in the former Soviet countries that are in their own backyard successfully yet we're supposed to believe the Russians are good at manipulating politics in a vast country which is culturally very different from their own?

Question, do you still believe the Russians rigged the 2016 election for Donald Trump? If yes, are you aware that you believe a 'conspiracy theory'? Do you have a psychological need to believe Putin rigged American elections in Trump's favor?