Applying Logic and Critical Thinking to the JFK Assassination

[Andrew Mason]

-- Oswald spoke a fair amount of Russian before he went to Russia, and his Russian got even better after living there for over 2 years. The fact that you don't know this indicates your research has been inadequate.

I said he could not speak Russian.  I didn’t say he didn’t know some basic words and phrases. Oswald had a self-taught primitive understanding of Russian. Oswald had studied Russian phrasebooks and the Russian alphabet.  He could order soup in Moscow and find places like the US embassy when he arrived. I use phrasebooks when I go to Italy so I can say “ Dove informazioni turistico?” and order “pizza con formaggio, per favore”.  I don’t say I speak Italian.

- No, Oswald was not a nut. He was actually highly intelligent and a voracious reader. You assume he was a nut and then you accuse me of not thinking critically because I did not also assume this! I did not assume this because it is not true, because the evidence shows he was highly intelligent.

I didn’t suggest otherwise.  Do you think only unintelligent people can be mentally ill?

It is odd and rather comical that you would cite Oswald's defection as evidence of his supposed mental illness while ignoring the many aspects of his defection that indicate he was a false defector working for U.S. intelligence.

Oh. I wasn’t aware there was evidence that he was a false defector working for the US.  I am sure you will let us all know what that evidence is.

-- Yes, I would certainly expect Oswald  to have admitted his guilt if he had killed JFK to make a name for himself in history.

Just like he owned up to shooting at General Walker? Or do you think Marina was part of the conspiracy to frame Oswald?

Maybe he wanted to be a hero but not until he was living in Cuba.

Now that we've established that Oswald was not a nut, what is your theory about his motive?

Oswald was impulsive.  What was his motive for shooting at General Walker or shooting Officer Tippitt? Impulsive people are not always acting with rational motives. He may have had a motive that made sense to him at the time but there is not sufficient evidence to conclude anything.

-- Your claim that pro-conspiracy JFKA books "present no evidence" proves that you've read few if any of them. A key component of critical thinking is to genuinely and thoroughly consider both sides of an argument before reaching a conclusion. You clearly have not done that.

You are right that I have not read all the pro-conspiracy books. But if they presented real evidence I am pretty sure would have heard about it. I don’t read books by Holocaust deniers either.

One of your comments deserve special notice, because it reveals your bias and lack of research:

One, where do you get "60+ years"? Fonzi's book, for example, came out in 1993, 30 years after the assassination and was substantially based on information that he obtained during the 1970s. Many of the accounts of Mafia leaders being involved in the assassination surfaced in the 1970s and 1980s--and, again, some were based on informant reports and wiretaps.

So where is the evidence of the wire taps? Then where is the evidence to prove that the things said in them are actually true?

[Michael T. Griffith]

In his 2009 article on evidence that Cuban intelligence had foreknowledge of the assassination and that Castro approved/allowed the hit on JFK, Gus Russo claims that while Oswald was at the Cuban Embassy in Mexico City, he wept and proclaimed that he would prove his revolutionary loyalty by killing "that bastard, Kennedy":

At the Cuban Embassy in Mexico City, Oswald pulled a gun, wept, and claimed that he would prove his revolutionary loyalty by killing "that bastard, Kennedy." ("Did Castro Okay the Kennedy Assassination?", American Heritage, winter 2009, https://www.americanheritage.com/did-castro-okay-kennedy-assassination)

This was the basic fable that was energetically pushed by elements of the Intelligence Community and the news media soon after the assassination, i.e., that Oswald the devout Marxist killed JFK in the service of or in support of the Soviet Union and Cuba. This tale is still peddled by some lone-gunman theorists to this day.

Yet, this tale makes it all the more puzzling that Oswald did not do what other ideologically motivated presidential assassins have done, namely, proudly take credit for his deed and justify his deed as a worthy act done in support of a noble cause and/or done as a necessary act to combat evil. 

Oswald did the exact opposite. He adamantly insisted he was innocent. He fiercely denied shooting JFK and/or Tippit. He said the evidence against him was fraudulent. He even said he was a patsy.

[John Corbett]

In his 2009 article on evidence that Cuban intelligence had foreknowledge of the assassination and that Castro approved/allowed the hit on JFK, Gus Russo claims that while Oswald was at the Cuban Embassy in Mexico City, he wept and proclaimed that he would prove his revolutionary loyalty by killing "that bastard, Kennedy":

At the Cuban Embassy in Mexico City, Oswald pulled a gun, wept, and claimed that he would prove his revolutionary loyalty by killing "that bastard, Kennedy." ("Did Castro Okay the Kennedy Assassination?", American Heritage, winter 2009, https://www.americanheritage.com/did-castro-okay-kennedy-assassination)

This was the basic fable that was energetically pushed by elements of the Intelligence Community and the news media soon after the assassination, i.e., that Oswald the devout Marxist killed JFK in the service of or in support of the Soviet Union and Cuba. This tale is still peddled by some lone-gunman theorists to this day.

Yet, this tale makes it all the more puzzling that Oswald did not do what other supposedly ideologically motivated presidential assassins have done, namely, proudly take credit for his deed and justify his deed as a worthy act done in support of a noble cause and/or done as a necessary act to combat evil. 

Oswald did the exact opposite. He adamantly insisted he was innocent. He fiercely denied shooting JFK and/or Tippit. He said the evidence against him was fraudulent. He even said he was a patsy.

Why do you keep insisting that there is a rule book that all assassins are supposed to follow? The three previous presidential assassins use a handgun at close range. Oswald carried out his assassination with a rifle at a longer range. So what. He chose a different method and had different reasons than the others. So what?

[Lance Payette]

I thought this thread was supposed to be about applying logic and critical thinking? It appears that a more apt title would have been Rehashing the Same Old Crap.

Given the circumstances of the JFKA, a logical supposition would be that Oswald did not expect to survive (and perhaps didn't care if he did). He was clearly thinking in this vein with the Walker attempt, which was vastly less risky.  If this were true, his failure to leave some sort of manifesto or at least a note is puzzling to me as I have previously stated. Extremely puzzling, in fact. Once he survived and was in custody, bragging about his deed would not have been in his legal or ideological interests. It appears to me that the wheels started turning immediately, which is why he wanted Communist Party showman Abt to represent him. My guess is that he was thinking in terms of a grand show trial that would cement his place in history as a hero of the Cuban people and a deep Marxist thinker.