The Problem with the Conspiracy View of the JFK Assassination

[Michael T. Griffith]

The problem with the conspiracy view of the JFK assassination is not that it is without merit or untenable. A select committee of Congress in 1979 concluded JFK was killed by a conspiracy. Many reputable, notable public figures have said they believe there was a conspiracy. A number of reputable historians and scholars have concluded there was a conspiracy. Opinion surveys show that a sizable majority of Americans and Europeans believe there was a conspiracy. So what is the problem?

The problem with the conspiracy view of the JFK assassination, and the reason that many academics and journalists reject it, is that a large number of conspiracy theorists are radical leftists who push a wild JFK murder plot and who also embrace a number of nutty, fringe conspiracy theories, such as the 9/11 Truther nonsense, the claim that the Moon landings were faked, and the claim that Princess Diana and John Lennon were assassinated by "the Secret Team," i.e., the CIA and/or the military-intelligence-industrial complex.

Just in the last year, there have been conspiracy theorists in the Education Forum who have cited websites that either outright claim the Moon landings were faked or that host authors who claim the Moon landings were faked and who also argue that the Nazis did not really perform cruel medical experiments in the death camps. When I pointed out these troubling facts, they were dismissed as "irrelevant" and "a smear."

Not too long ago, one conspiracy theorist in the Education Forum posted a thread that argued that the CIA and/or the military assassinated John Lennon and framed Mark Chapman as the patsy. Another conspiracy theorist, a rather prominent one, defended Fletcher Prouty's nutty claim that Churchill had FDR poisoned. Most far-left JFK conspiracy theorists also view the fraud and crackpot Fletcher Prouty as a trustworthy and heroic figure. W. Niederhut has actually accused me of being a CIA disinformation agent for questioning Prouty's reliability, veracity, and character.

Moreover, many conspiracy theorists, like so many other woke leftists, have become stridently anti-Israeli, to the point of claiming that Israel was involved in JFK's death, that Israel purposely attacked the USS Liberty in 1967, that Israel is oppressing Palestinians in the West Bank, and that Israel is committing "genocide" against Palestinians in Gaza.

They also embrace Prouty's erroneous claim that JFK was murdered because he was going to unconditionally and totally end U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War after the 1964 election. The likes of James DiEugenio, W. Niederhut, Greg Lavin, Robert Morrow, Jeff Carter, Sandy Larsen, Greg Burnham, Jefferson Morley, Len Osanic, and James K. Galbraith just don't care that even the vast majority of liberal scholars reject the idea that JFK intended to unconditionally withdraw from Vietnam after the election. I address this myth at length in a long chapter in my recent book A Comforting Lie: The Myth that a Lone Gunman Killed President Kennedy.

A number of Americans have formed the view that it is unpatriotic to reject the Warren Commission's essential findings, unpatriotic to believe that government officials lied about/covered up key facts about the assassination, and unpatriotic to believe that elements within the government were involved in JFK's death. They have formed this view at least partly because so many conspiracy theorists come across as anti-American--in point of fact, some of them are anti-American.

Some people will begin to read about the JFK case and will soon become convinced that there was more to JFK's death than just a disturbed lone gunman, that there was a conspiracy of some kind and size behind JFK's death. However, they then come across the wild conspiracy scenarios posited by far-left researchers and then conclude that the lone-gunman theory is more believable after all. I have known a few people like this. It is hard to blame them.

Finally, as an example of the problem posed by far-left extremists in the research community, I cite the example of James Fetzer. In the late 1990s, Fetzer, then a professor of scientific philosophy at the University of Minnesota, made a valuable contribution to our understanding of the JFK case by coordinating research with a number of experts in relevant fields. He served as the editor of two outstanding books, Assassination Science and Murder in Dealey Plaza. Fetzer was becoming a leading, high-profile advocate for the case for conspiracy in JFK's death. However, following the 9/11 attacks in 2001, Fetzer embraced the nuttiest of the wacky 9/11 conspiracy theories and also began denying the Holocaust. His advocacy of these obscene fringe views received considerable press coverage. I knew several people who abandoned the research community in disgust after Fetzer's embarrassing conduct.

[Jon Banks]

My two-cents:

- Most of the first generation Warren Commission critics were Leftists. In fact, the term "Deep State" and other broad criticisms of the US national security state were predominantly used by Leftwingers prior to Donald Trump's emergence in American national politics.

- You seem to ignore or downplay how conspiracy theories in general have become more common among Rightwingers today. Q-Anon, Pizzagate, Jewish Space Lasers, The Great Replacement theory, Obama was born in Kenya, etc are all theories that gained popularity on the Right over the past 5-10 years. So let's not pretend that conspiracy theories are exclusively a Leftwing problem.

- Prior to Trump's emergence on the political scene, the JFK assassination CT community was mostly non-partisan. Sadly, that has begun to change as Democrats now generally defend the national security state as part of their opposition to Trump while Republicans more commonly criticize the FBI and CIA due to the handling of "Russiagate" and other national security scandals involving Trump.

- I have long been aware of your conservative political views but still read your essays and respected your research on the Kennedy assassination in spite of our political differences.

- Are you disappointed in the way Trump has handled the Epstein stuff?

[Royell Storing]

  Say what? The Dem's are now claiming that the 2024 POTUS Election was rigged. The Dem's have absolutely Nothing going for them. They're so bankrupt in the area of ideas that they are Now repeating Trump claims. The "conspiracy" claims are now the property of the Dem Party. Lock/Stock/Barrel

[Jon Banks]

  Say what? The Dem's are now claiming that the 2024 POTUS Election was rigged.

Examples?


I'm not at all arguing that Democrats don't engage in conspiracy theories. I believe "Russiagate" counts as a conspiracy theory that many Democrats subscribe to.


But I haven't heard any prominent Democrats claim that the 2024 election was "rigged".

[Tom Graves]

The problem with the conspiracy view of the JFK assassination, and the reason that many academics and journalists reject it, is that a large number of conspiracy theorists are radical leftists who push a wild JFK murder plot and who also embrace a number of nutty, fringe conspiracy theories, such as the 9/11 Truther nonsense, the claim that the Moon landings were faked, and the claim that Princess Diana and John Lennon were assassinated by "the Secret Team," i.e., the CIA and/or the military-intelligence-industrial complex.

Given the fact that a former sharpshooting Marine and self-described Marxist by the name of Lee Harvey Oswald killed JFK by firing three shots at him over 10.2 seconds in the echo chamber known as Dealey Plaza, how is your "sane" murder plot different from the Leftists' "wild" murder plots?

[Royell Storing]

Examples?


I'm not at all arguing that Democrats don't engage in conspiracy theories. I believe "Russiagate" counts as a conspiracy theory that many Democrats subscribe to.


But I haven't heard any prominent Democrats claim that the 2024 election was "rigged".

     "Prominent"? Here we go again with the verbiage interpretation stuff. The electorate showed they have No Use for this tired tactic in 2024. Like I said, "Same Old, Same Old".   

[Jon Banks]

     "Prominent"? Here we go again with the verbiage interpretation stuff. The electorate showed they have No Use for this tired tactic in 2024. Like I said, "Same Old, Same Old".   

I'm on the Left. Mostly consume "Liberal media". I haven't heard or seen anyone claim the 2024 election was "rigged".

That's why I asked you to share some examples.

[Lance Payette]

After I'd participated on the Ed Forum for a few months, I was struck by the dominance of those with a genuinely left-wing perspective on everything, not just the JFKA. This required no discernment on my part - it was screamingly obvious. I started a thread questioning whether the entire CT community was really just a front for a left-wing agenda, with the "JFKA debate" really just a vehicle to further that agenda. Understandably, that thread was highly unpopular. I felt like a Jehovah's Witness, or maybe a militant atheist, in a Catholic church (which led to my epiphany that the CT community is a quasi-religious one with its dogma, sacred texts, priests and deacons and all the rest).

Now we see right-wing JFKA conspiracy promoters. Despite the right-wing orientation, the agenda is really no different. As I just said on another thread, we see this all the time in the UFO/UAP community and are seeing it now. Agendas overlap or coincide and we end up with some very unlikely bedfellows. The UAP debate may be somewhat more UAP-oriented than the JFKA debate is really JFKA-oriented simply because the UAP question is far more consequential than a 62-year-old assassination, but much of the UAP debate, like virtually all of the JFKA debate, is driven by agendas having little or nothing to do with the UAP phenomenon.

I also think we cannot overlook, as CTers wish for us to do, the predominance of the conspiracy-prone mindset within the CT community. This is, I believe, a bigger factor than any left-wing orientation. This is a well-identified psychological profile, supported by a large body of professional studies and literature, and it is absurd to pretend it doesn't exist and is not predominant within the CT community. It is, as I said in another thread, the elephant in the room.