CTers: Do yourself a favor and focus on plausibility

[Michael Capasse]

You quoted the portion of my post before I edited it to include what a mess her WC testimony was and how it got distinctly "better" at the HSCA. I'll have to look into her statement to the ARRB that "I absolutely believe that Lee Oswald was the informant on the arrest of Lawrence Miller and Donnell Whitter on November 18, 1963" because that's news to me.

More about it here:

Inside Connection | Gun Sting
https://jfk.boards.net/post/6992/thread

[Dan O'meara]

I just reviewed that discussion, which extended over several threads over a period of months. No, I did not "storm off the forum" as a result of anything to do with your LBJ-Byrd theory. It seems to me, as I suggested back then, that the theory becomes progressively less plausible as we work our way down. LBJ and Byrd? OK, fine, plausible. Cason and Shelley? Why? Why would they risk execution by participating in the JFKA? Did Byrd have that sort of leverage over Cason and Cason over Shelley? Where is there any evidence that they benefitted in the slightest from their supposed participation? Dougherty - does he really seem like a plausible gunman? I also don't believe you emphasized at that time that you believed Oswald was actually involved, which was why I was making facetious (but exceedingly clever and humorous!)  remarks about Shelley having him in a headlock and administering noogies while some hitman did the deed. Flesh it all out and I'll listen, but on the surface it sounds less plausible to me than the Mafia or anti-Castro theories. Both of those merely required convincing Oswald he was part of a pro-Castro plot.

Your points of opposition are flimsy, to say the least.
Did Byrd have leverage over Cason, did Cason have leverage over Shelley???
What's with the leverage?
No one is being forced into this. Think of it as a small group of like-minded men who genuinely believe that JFK is something worse than the Anti-Christ (which a lot of evangelical Texans really did believe). The part of America we are talking about seems to specialise in a very extreme and violent way of looking at the world.

Who benefitted from the assassination? Do you mean financially?
If you genuinely believe you are protecting your family, your state, your country and your God, where do benefits come into it? The only people exposed in this plot are Shelley and Dougherty. These are expendable foot soldiers who believe in their own version of the Greater Good.
There is zero exposure for LBJ, Byrd and Cason.
Saying that, LBJ avoided political disgrace and prison thanks to the assassination. Not to mention becoming the most powerful man in the world.
Byrd made untold millions from it.
And Cason's wife had her fantasy of JFK being shot and killed finally fulfilled.

Dougherty - does he really seem like a plausible gunman?

100% he does.
The assassination is sloppy and unprofessional. Its success rested on a gigantic slice of luck. It was an easy shot and the assassin almost blew it. Why not Dougherty? He was in the building at the time. His movements unaccounted for. His own account of his movements is beyond belief. He freely admits to being on the 6th floor minutes before and after the assassination (amazingly, he never has to give an account of what he saw at those times).
On top of that, he seems to have had some sort of mental health issue which might have worked in the conspirators favour if he had been arrested. All Dougherty would have known about the conspiracy is Shelley. If he talked (which I doubt he would) it would have been his word against the word of Bill Shelley.

This theory is tight and plausible.
The only weak point is how Oswald fitted into it.

[Dan O'meara]

Well, yes, no professional would use that weapon. I was merely saying that, considering the weapon, the back and head shots were pretty good. If Oswald was a patsy gunman, of course, then it would only make sense to have him use the weapon he actually owned and that would be easily traceable to him. Maybe he'd get lucky and actually accomplish the mission. If he didn't, then our Mafia pro in the County Records Building would do so with ammunition and on a trajectory plausibly attributable to the patsy. Where I actually like this scenario is that (1) it provides us with bad guys with a far, far stronger motive than Oswald would have had, and (2) it doesn't require Oswald to be a half-crazy sociopath, which I don't think he was. I'm not planting my flag in it, but I do see it as a plausible, not-entirely-evidence-free alternative to the LN narrative.

I can't buy the mafia bringing that kind of heat on their organisation.
Killing the President is like waging war against the country. You are taking on the armed forces, all law enforcement agencies and the citizenry. The mafia is an organisation, no one person gets to choose to do something that could bring the whole country down on the rest of the organisation and there's no way they would take that chance.
The mafia worked in silence and secrecy. It pretended it didn't even exist.

And what was the motive? That they were going to be persecuted for being a criminal organisation?
I'm pretty sure that was already going on and they were handling it just fine.

[Lance Payette]

Your points of opposition are flimsy, to say the least.
Did Byrd have leverage over Cason, did Cason have leverage over Shelley???
What's with the leverage?
No one is being forced into this. Think of it as a small group of like-minded men who genuinely believe that JFK is something worse than the Anti-Christ (which a lot of evangelical Texans really did believe). The part of America we are talking about seems to specialise in a very extreme and violent way of looking at the world.

Who benefitted from the assassination? Do you mean financially?
If you genuinely believe you are protecting your family, your state, your country and your God, where do benefits come into it? The only people exposed in this plot are Shelley and Dougherty. These are expendable foot soldiers who believe in their own version of the Greater Good.
There is zero exposure for LBJ, Byrd and Cason.
Saying that, LBJ avoided political disgrace and prison thanks to the assassination. Not to mention becoming the most powerful man in the world.
Byrd made untold millions from it.
And Cason's wife had her fantasy of JFK being shot and killed finally fulfilled.

Dougherty - does he really seem like a plausible gunman?

100% he does.
The assassination is sloppy and unprofessional. Its success rested on a gigantic slice of luck. It was an easy shot and the assassin almost blew it. Why not Dougherty? He was in the building at the time. His movements unaccounted for. His own account of his movements is beyond belief. He freely admits to being on the 6th floor minutes before and after the assassination (amazingly, he never has to give an account of what he saw at those times).
On top of that, he seems to have had some sort of mental health issue which might have worked in the conspirators favour if he had been arrested. All Dougherty would have known about the conspiracy is Shelley. If he talked (which I doubt he would) it would have been his word against the word of Bill Shelley.

This theory is tight and plausible.
The only weak point is how Oswald fitted into it.

We could go round and round, but I have a "plausibility problem" with LBJ putting 100% faith in Byrd to get this done (don't tell me how) ... Byrd putting 100% faith in Cason to get this done (don't tell me how) ... Cason putting 100% faith in Shelley to get this done (don't tell me how) ... and Shelley somehow convincing Dougherty. Once the dominoes start to fall, it's likely going to lead right back up the chain - Dougherty knows Shelley convinced him, Shelley knows Cason convinced him, etc., etc., the net result being that LBJ is actually putting 100% faith in Dougherty (or at least in "whomever Byrd finds to carry out the deed"). Is it really plausible that, faced with possible execution, Dougherty is going to remain rock-solid and take the fall or, if he doesn't, that Shelley is going to remain rock-solid and trust in his lawyer's ability to portray Dougherty as a nutcase? For this to work, the participants below LBJ and Byrd would either have to have out-of-control, foaming-at-the-mouth hatred of JFK or to have been promised some incredible financial payoff. For this to be plausible, I think you'd have to flesh out in greater detail who Cason, Shelley and Dougherty really were both before and after the JFKA - is there any evidence of this sort of hatred or payoff? And, yes, fitting Oswald into that scenario is a complete head-scratcher to me. I just can't see LBJ taking all these incredible risks; if he wanted JFK dead, I think we'd be talking about a two-person conspiracy - LBJ and some gunman known only to him, and a hit far less complex than Dealey Plaza. Just my $0.02 worth; I realize I'm not going to talk you out of this theory, but I think it would need to be fleshed out in much greater detail.

[Lance Payette]

I can't buy the mafia bringing that kind of heat on their organisation.
Killing the President is like waging war against the country. You are taking on the armed forces, all law enforcement agencies and the citizenry. The mafia is an organisation, no one person gets to choose to do something that could bring the whole country down on the rest of the organisation and there's no way they would take that chance.
The mafia worked in silence and secrecy. It pretended it didn't even exist.

And what was the motive? That they were going to be persecuted for being a criminal organisation?
I'm pretty sure that was already going on and they were handling it just fine.

Apparently, the structure of the Mafia at the time was such that a hit on JFK would not have required full "Commission" approval. From what I have read, Marcello and Trafficante could have undertaken it, and certainly with the concurrence of Giancana. I could see something not unlike your scenario - "Just get it done, Carlos [Marcello], and don't tell us how." Marcello in particular had good reason for a visceral hatred of RFK - and he just happened to be the Don of New Orleans and pretty much in control of Dallas. All of the Mafia despised JFK and RFK because RFK's campaign against organized crime was not only a threat but was viewed as a betrayal of promises they thought they had been made when they helped Joe Kennedy get JFK elected. Lastly, a pro-Castro patsy was literally perfect. If the JFKA not only led to the end of his Presidency and the installation of a President whose hatred of RFK knew no bounds but also led to an invasion of Cuba and the restoration of the Mafia's incredibly lucrative Cuban operation - well, WOW! I just don't see any point in the Mafia-did-it scenario where I bump up against a serious plausibility problem. The only serious plausibility issue I have is with those who try to insist the Mafia would've had any use for a loose cannon like Ruby. This leaves me only with the same problem you have: how do bring Oswald into the plot?

[Dan O'meara]

We could go round and round, but I have a "plausibility problem" with LBJ putting 100% faith in Byrd to get this done (don't tell me how) ... Byrd putting 100% faith in Cason to get this done (don't tell me how) ... Cason putting 100% faith in Shelley to get this done (don't tell me how) ... and Shelley somehow convincing Dougherty. Once the dominoes start to fall, it's likely going to lead right back up the chain - Dougherty knows Shelley convinced him, Shelley knows Cason convinced him, etc., etc., the net result being that LBJ is actually putting 100% faith in Dougherty (or at least in "whomever Byrd finds to carry out the deed"). Is it really plausible that, faced with possible execution, Dougherty is going to remain rock-solid and take the fall or, if he doesn't, that Shelley is going to remain rock-solid and trust in his lawyer's ability to portray Dougherty as a nutcase? For this to work, the participants below LBJ and Byrd would either have to have out-of-control, foaming-at-the-mouth hatred of JFK or to have been promised some incredible financial payoff. For this to be plausible, I think you'd have to flesh out in greater detail who Cason, Shelley and Dougherty really were both before and after the JFKA - is there any evidence of this sort of hatred or payoff? And, yes, fitting Oswald into that scenario is a complete head-scratcher to me. I just can't see LBJ taking all these incredible risks; if he wanted JFK dead, I think we'd be talking about a two-person conspiracy - LBJ and some gunman known only to him, and a hit far less complex than Dealey Plaza. Just my $0.02 worth; I realize I'm not going to talk you out of this theory, but I think it would need to be fleshed out in much greater detail.

It's just an idea, it's just speculation, it's just a theory.
Your counter-arguments are just really weird.
What's all this about "100% faith"?
It'd be good to have a reasonable discussion about it but you don't seem willing to accept that a small group of people with the same views could organise something so incredibly simple...firing a rifle!
LBJ and Byrd benefitted beyond measure. Cason was on the FBI radar for a reported comment about shooting JFK.
Shelley and Dougherty 'believed in the cause'.
Fire a rifle out of a window and blame someone else. That's it. You don't seem to appreciate the simplicity of it because I suspect you don't want to. Here's a good example:

"I just can't see LBJ taking all these incredible risks;"

Firstly, he has taken zero risks as has already been explained but you deliberately refuse to acknowledge that because you need to come up with some kind of argument, no matter how weak.
In the scenario I have proposed name one 'incredible risk' LBJ has taken.
LBJ, Byrd and Cason have zero exposure. A few private conversations of which there can be no record.

And your "faced with possible execution" argument means nobody did it.
The assassination never happened because you don't accept that anyone could possibly do such a thing faced with possible execution.
According to you nobody has ever been murdered!!

And your suggestion that LBJ would use a gunman who he knew is bananas.

LBJ was about to lose literally everything. His single hope was that JFK died and he became President. This was his one and only hope of avoiding utter disgrace and imprisonment. This is the motive.
So he made it happen.
Is it a coincidence that JFK was shot from the building owned by one of his best friends or that this best friend was awarded one of the first military contracts of the LBJ era? Or that this best friend founded the Civil Air Patrol of which Oswald had been a member or who was a good friend of De Morenschildt, the man who befriended Oswald? The same best friend who made a killing buying stocks in his own company weeks before the assassination and who happened to be out of the country for the first time ever at the time of the assassination?
Of course all this could be coincidence but it can also be used to suggest a theory regarding the assassination.

You are 100% correct when you say you won't be able to talk me out of this theory but that's not to do with the strength of the theory, it's to do with the weakness of your arguments.

[Lance Payette]

I will try once more and then I won't beat it to death. You may have the last word. I'm truly puzzled as to why you view your scenario as completely plausible and I'm having difficulty seeing it.

Yes, your theory has minimal participants, so that’s a plus. But those five participants extend from the Vice President of the United States to a possibly mentally challenged guy who is still a lowly shipping clerk after eleven years of employment at the TSBD. (Dougherty lived until 1994, even though in your scenario he would seem to have been a prime candidate for an almost immediate "mystery death."  )

As I understand it, each participant has to have complete trust in the participant immediately below him. LBJ has to have complete trust that Byrd will somehow get the job done without knowing the details. Byrd has to trust Cason and deals only with him, Cason has to trust Shelley and deals only with him, and Shelley has to trust Dougherty. In other words, LBJ and Byrd do not sit down and hatch a plot involving Cason, Shelley and Dougherty – is this not correct? This is what I mean by each having “100% faith” in the participant below him.

Or is the theory that Byrd did outline his entire plot for LBJ and that Cason and Shelley and perhaps even Dougherty were fully informed, at least about everything except LBJ's involvement? I thought the idea was to keep each stage as fully compartmentalized as possible for purposes of deniability – Dougherty knows nothing but Shelley, Shelley knows nothing but Cason, Cason knows nothing but Byrd.

Either way, LBJ is either knowingly putting his fate in the hands of characters like Cason, Shelley and Dougherty or in “whomever Byrd finds to carry out the task.” Even in LBJ’s precarious circumstances, this seems to me like a fantastic risk for LBJ to take. As I said, I can see LBJ using his many connections to find a single gunman answerable only to him and under his complete control more easily than I can picture him involved in a plot such as this. I don't see how this qualifies as "bananas."

Next what I’m talking about is any evidence that Cason, Shelley and Dougherty actually were near-insane right-wing fanatics who would have been readily amenable to an assassination plot on strictly ideological grounds. The “shoot JFK” statement attributed to Cason at a party two years before the JFKA seems like pretty thin gruel.

My main issue is that you write as though this would have been practically business as usual, as though they were planning the robbery of a Circle K in Plano: Byrd suggests to LBJ let’s whack JFK, LBJ says go for it, Byrd tells Cason to whack JFK, Cason tells Shelley, Shelley tells Dougherty, and Dougherty says OK I’ll do it. In my mind, there is something missing as to why Cason, Shelley and Dougherty would just cheerfully agree to put their lives at extreme risk by assassinating the President. You make the connection with their supposed fanatical hatred of JFK, but where is any evidence of this? And then they all just return to their mundane TSBD existences the next day? It just doesn’t strike me as being as plausible as it obviously does you. For the Mafia, on the other hand, this really would have been business as usual.

(The new avatar is my actual maternal grandfather, Theo Skladany, who is the only member of the family who was not green and did not have webbed fingers or insectoid eyes. We don't know where the heck he came from.)