The lesson is that one's theory of the JFKA should be informed exclusively by statements contemporaneous with the event or within a matter of days thereafter. Whether we're talking about CT-friendly witnesses or LN-friendly ones, it's absolutely inevitable that stories change, always in the direction of getting "better" and usually more elaborate, as time passes and the witness is exposed to other material and starts to enjoy his or her 15 minutes of fame. This is true across all areas of weirdness in which I've been involved. I even have to guard against this in my own recollections of anomalous experiences I've had. I've occasionally been asked to recount them for books or studies, and I definitely have to rein myself in and avoid the temptation to make them just a bit "better." There is also, of course, the fallibility of memory; as we are exposed to other material, we unconsciously start to incoporate it into our own "memories" and believe it really happened to us. Yet, how much JFKA theorizing is predicated on these long-after-the-fact statements and supposed recollections?
