JFK Assassination Forum
JFK Assassination Plus General Discussion & Debate => JFK Assassination Plus General Discussion And Debate => Topic started by: Lance Payette on September 26, 2025, 05:05:19 PM
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Ben’s suggestion that CTers need to think in terms of a “small, very small” conspiracy – with which I agree – once again has me wondering why CTrs are almost never willing to discuss the JFKA in terms of, “What sense would that have made?”
As we see here all the time, CTers want to talk (and talk and talk and talk) about the curtain rods! the lunchroom encounter! the throat wound! that damn Ruth Paine! and so on and so forth, completely divorced from any overarching theory of, “OK, what’s your alternative explanation and what sense would that have made?”
Let’s start with this: What was the point of the JFKA? Was it simply to kill JFK or was it to kill JFK and “something more”?
If it was simply to kill JFK, nothing but a “small, very small” conspiracy makes any real-world sense at all. A pro sniper firing one shot with a pro-quality rifle from the Dal-Tex or County Records building, ba-da-boom, ba-da-bing. Pretty much risk-free. Child’s play – indeed, business as usual – for the Mafia, and no problem for anyone else, from LBJ on down, with connections to a reliable sniper.
No need for Oswald and his Carcano – either as a patsy or a knowing participant – and all the risks that he and the TSBD would entail. It simply makes no sense at all. No need for Dealey Plaza, really; there were surely opportunities that didn’t have hundreds of potential witnesses and weren’t crawling with reporters and police.
Unless … Oswald was integral to the plan. Killing JFK was either his idea or he was talked into it. It still makes little real-world sense to take all the crazy and unnecessary risks associated with the TSBD unless Oswald is calling the shots (pun intended) and doesn’t realize how much less risky (to him and the conspiracy) a shot from the roof of the Dal-Tex or County Records building would be.
This would have to be a “small, very small” conspiracy that I call LN+. Oswald “conspired” with others because he believed, rightly or wrongly, that killing JFK would get him into Cuba. He originated the idea or it was planted in his head, but what took place in Dealey Plaza was basically just the LN scenario. This puts complete trust in Oswald and his Carcano, so if the sole objective was to kill JFK the conspirators could not have been very bold or sophisticated; if they were, they would have had a pro sniper and no need for Oswald. I suppose we could add another gunman if we like, but he couldn’t have been any sort of pro or there would have been no need for Oswald and all the risks associated with the TSBD; he would have to have been someone with no more planning ability or resources than Oswald.
Let’s now say the objective was more than just killing JFK. What would the “more” have been? If the Mafia eliminated JFK, RFK would be neutralized – but a sniper on the County Records building would accomplish that. LBJ would be President – but a sniper would accomplish that, too. JFK would be out of the CIA’s hair, or Hoover wouldn’t have to retire, or the oil depletion allowance would remain in place, or those enraged by the Bay of Pigs fiasco would have their revenge, or Castro would have his revenge, or whatever – but, again, simply killing JFK with a pro sniper would have all those consequences.
The only “more” that really makes any sense to me is to kill JFK while pointing the finger at Castro and/or the Russians as the culprit(s). An invasion of Cuba would be of great economic benefit to the Mafia via the restoration of their lucrative pre-Castro empire. It would make all those enraged by the Bay of Pigs fiasco happy. It might even make the cigar-chomping, war-hungry Joint Chiefs happy. (It would make all the Cubans who had fled during Castro’s revolution and wanted to go back happy, but that’s too large and amorphous of a group to think they were involved in the JFKA. Ditto for those who simply hated JFK’s politics or religion.)
But pointing the finger would also risk World War III, precisely as LBJ feared (I believe genuinely feared). No one planning to point the finger at Castro or the Russians could have been oblivious to this possibility. It seems to me that only the cigar-chomping, war-hungry Joint Chiefs might actually have thought this was an acceptable risk.
OK, our conspirators were not only going to kill JFK but point the finger at Castro and/or the Russians. Is Oswald how they would have done this? They were simply going to trust in his background as a Marxist, a defector and a Castro supporter and assume the public would make the connection and demand justice in the form of an invasion of Cuba or attack on Russia? Doesn’t this seem like an extremely iffy and risky assumption?
Think of all the conspirators would’ve had to do in order to make this work. It inevitably leads to precisely the sort of incredibly elaborate, convoluted CT scenarios we see, with umpteen conspirators planting and faking evidence and engaging in a massive cover-up. Why would they need Oswald at all, why would they need to trust in the public to make the requisite connections and demands? Just leave pro-Castro literature and a rambling manifesto at the scene of the crime – no need to frame Oswald or involve him or the TSBD at all. Ba-da-boom, ba-da-bing.
Even when I wear my CT beanie, I simply cannot escape the feeling that 99% of CT thinking is just an ad hoc effort to deal with two realities that simply can’t be escaped: Oswald and Dealey Plaza. A real-world Presidential assassination conspiracy involving even mildly savvy conspirators would not have involved either Oswald or Dealey Plaza. There would have simply been too many uncertainties and absurd, unnecessary risks.
The only halfway plausible conspiracy involving Oswald and Dealey Plaza is what I call LN+ - either Oswald alone in Dealey Plaza, having in some sense "conspired" with one or more persons who weren’t there (who were either as pro-Castro as him or somehow convinced him they were), or Oswald and perhaps another gunman who was essentially his ideological twin and had an equally unlikely weapon (because a pro would not have needed Oswald at all, and a more sophisticated conspiracy would have equipped them both with much more likely weapons than the Carcano).
In short, a “small, very small” conspiracy, one that is scarcely distinguishable from the LN scenario and is unlikely ever to get beyond the realm of speculation unless a startling, definitive piece of evidence comes to light.
Please, convince I’m wrong. But do so with something resembling a plausible alternative explanation as to what you think occurred and not just more tired blather about the curtain rods! the lunchroom encounter! the throat wound! that damn Ruth Paine!
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Anyone else notice how any attempt at semi-rational discussion is quickly buried beneath reams of KGB Tom's, WC Sham Man Dan's and Nothing-Too-Crazy Michael's tired, repetitive nonsense? It almost seems ... conspiratorial! :D In any event, it renders a discussion forum such as this pretty much pointless. Good thing I should be off my crutches and back to real life in a few days.
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Anyone else notice how any attempt at semi-rational discussion is quickly buried beneath reams of KGB Tom's, WC Sham Man Dan's and Nothing-Too-Crazy Michael's tired, repetitive nonsense? It almost seems ... conspiratorial! :D In any event, it renders a discussion forum such as this pretty much pointless. Good thing I should be off my crutches and back to real life in a few days.
Dear Lance,
Don't you realize that the KGB* is a world-class humanitarian organization compared to the evil, evil CIA (even though it did install The Traitorous Orange Bird (rhymes with "Xxxx") as our "President" on 20 January 2017)?
*Today's SVR and FSB
-- Tom
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Ben’s suggestion that CTers need to think in terms of a “small, very small” conspiracy – with which I agree – once again has me wondering why CTrs are almost never willing to discuss the JFKA in terms of, “What sense would that have made?”
As we see here all the time, CTers want to talk (and talk and talk and talk) about the curtain rods! the lunchroom encounter! the throat wound! that damn Ruth Paine! and so on and so forth, completely divorced from any overarching theory of, “OK, what’s your alternative explanation and what sense would that have made?”
Let’s start with this: What was the point of the JFKA? Was it simply to kill JFK or was it to kill JFK and “something more”?
If it was simply to kill JFK, nothing but a “small, very small” conspiracy makes any real-world sense at all. A pro sniper firing one shot with a pro-quality rifle from the Dal-Tex or County Records building, ba-da-boom, ba-da-bing. Pretty much risk-free. Child’s play – indeed, business as usual – for the Mafia, and no problem for anyone else, from LBJ on down, with connections to a reliable sniper.
No need for Oswald and his Carcano – either as a patsy or a knowing participant – and all the risks that he and the TSBD would entail. It simply makes no sense at all. No need for Dealey Plaza, really; there were surely opportunities that didn’t have hundreds of potential witnesses and weren’t crawling with reporters and police.
Unless … Oswald was integral to the plan. Killing JFK was either his idea or he was talked into it. It still makes little real-world sense to take all the crazy and unnecessary risks associated with the TSBD unless Oswald is calling the shots (pun intended) and doesn’t realize how much less risky (to him and the conspiracy) a shot from the roof of the Dal-Tex or County Records building would be.
This would have to be a “small, very small” conspiracy that I call LN+. Oswald “conspired” with others because he believed, rightly or wrongly, that killing JFK would get him into Cuba. He originated the idea or it was planted in his head, but what took place in Dealey Plaza was basically just the LN scenario. This puts complete trust in Oswald and his Carcano, so if the sole objective was to kill JFK the conspirators could not have been very bold or sophisticated; if they were, they would have had a pro sniper and no need for Oswald. I suppose we could add another gunman if we like, but he couldn’t have been any sort of pro or there would have been no need for Oswald and all the risks associated with the TSBD; he would have to have been someone with no more planning ability or resources than Oswald.
Let’s now say the objective was more than just killing JFK. What would the “more” have been? If the Mafia eliminated JFK, RFK would be neutralized – but a sniper on the County Records building would accomplish that. LBJ would be President – but a sniper would accomplish that, too. JFK would be out of the CIA’s hair, or Hoover wouldn’t have to retire, or the oil depletion allowance would remain in place, or those enraged by the Bay of Pigs fiasco would have their revenge, or Castro would have his revenge, or whatever – but, again, simply killing JFK with a pro sniper would have all those consequences.
The only “more” that really makes any sense to me is to kill JFK while pointing the finger at Castro and/or the Russians as the culprit(s). An invasion of Cuba would be of great economic benefit to the Mafia via the restoration of their lucrative pre-Castro empire. It would make all those enraged by the Bay of Pigs fiasco happy. It might even make the cigar-chomping, war-hungry Joint Chiefs happy. (It would make all the Cubans who had fled during Castro’s revolution and wanted to go back happy, but that’s too large and amorphous of a group to think they were involved in the JFKA. Ditto for those who simply hated JFK’s politics or religion.)
But pointing the finger would also risk World War III, precisely as LBJ feared (I believe genuinely feared). No one planning to point the finger at Castro or the Russians could have been oblivious to this possibility. It seems to me that only the cigar-chomping, war-hungry Joint Chiefs might actually have thought this was an acceptable risk.
OK, our conspirators were not only going to kill JFK but point the finger at Castro and/or the Russians. Is Oswald how they would have done this? They were simply going to trust in his background as a Marxist, a defector and a Castro supporter and assume the public would make the connection and demand justice in the form of an invasion of Cuba or attack on Russia? Doesn’t this seem like an extremely iffy and risky assumption?
Think of all the conspirators would’ve had to do in order to make this work. It inevitably leads to precisely the sort of incredibly elaborate, convoluted CT scenarios we see, with umpteen conspirators planting and faking evidence and engaging in a massive cover-up. Why would they need Oswald at all, why would they need to trust in the public to make the requisite connections and demands? Just leave pro-Castro literature and a rambling manifesto at the scene of the crime – no need to frame Oswald or involve him or the TSBD at all. Ba-da-boom, ba-da-bing.
Even when I wear my CT beanie, I simply cannot escape the feeling that 99% of CT thinking is just an ad hoc effort to deal with two realities that simply can’t be escaped: Oswald and Dealey Plaza. A real-world Presidential assassination conspiracy involving even mildly savvy conspirators would not have involved either Oswald or Dealey Plaza. There would have simply been too many uncertainties and absurd, unnecessary risks.
The only halfway plausible conspiracy involving Oswald and Dealey Plaza is what I call LN+ - either Oswald alone in Dealey Plaza, having in some sense "conspired" with one or more persons who weren’t there (who were either as pro-Castro as him or somehow convinced him they were), or Oswald and perhaps another gunman who was essentially his ideological twin and had an equally unlikely weapon (because a pro would not have needed Oswald at all, and a more sophisticated conspiracy would have equipped them both with much more likely weapons than the Carcano).
In short, a “small, very small” conspiracy, one that is scarcely distinguishable from the LN scenario and is unlikely ever to get beyond the realm of speculation unless a startling, definitive piece of evidence comes to light.
Please, convince I’m wrong. But do so with something resembling a plausible alternative explanation as to what you think occurred and not just more tired blather about the curtain rods! the lunchroom encounter! the throat wound! that damn Ruth Paine!
No doubt Carlos Marcello had him killed, and if not Dallas it would have been elsewhere. Oswald and another shooter on the knoll killed JFK, Oswald killed Tippit, and Ruby killed Oswald to keep him quiet. That is your small conspiracy. 4 shots 3 hits 1 miss. The rest of the conspiracy stuff is either confusion or untrue.
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No doubt Carlos Marcello had him killed, and if not Dallas it would have been elsewhere. Oswald and another shooter on the knoll killed JFK, Oswald killed Tippit, and Ruby killed Oswald to keep him quiet. That is your small conspiracy. 4 shots 3 hits 1 miss. The rest of the conspiracy stuff is either confusion or untrue.
What evidence is there that Marcello had him killed?
What evidence is there for a kill shot being fired from the knoll?
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What evidence is there that Marcello had him killed?
What evidence is there for a kill shot being fired from the knoll?
He confessed to having it done and I doubt he lied about it.
The hole in the back of his head didn't come from the rear, not to mention two areas of blood splatter.
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He confessed to having it done and I doubt he lied about it.
Where can one read or hear his confession? James Files confessed to having done it. Was he working for Marcello?
The hole in the back of his head didn't come from the rear, not to mention two areas of blood splatter.
Where do you see a hole on the back of the head?
(https://i.imgur.com/3c7MsEH.jpeg)
There was blood and brain matter on the forward occupants of the limo. It was on the windshield and even on the hood. How is that explained by a head shot from the front?
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LP--
My take is if "The Deep State" or globalist elite militarists even wanted to remove JFK, they would do so in the manner Nixon, Carter and Trump (2016)were deposed. The manipulation of media, partisan animosities and prosecutorial agencies.
(Set aside JFK was an ardent anti-communist, came from a wealthy family, and cut income taxes on the upper brackets. And Vietnam was just not that important to anybody in 1963.)
So...the JFKA perps were people without institutional power. Not powerful people. They had recourse only to shooting JFK, and not even in private, but when JFK appeared in public. The way any nuts would.
My guess is the JFKA perps were motived by intense ideological, nationalistic and personal animosities for perceived betrayal--the BoP vets come to mind. A long shot: Individuals angered at the Kennedy Administration-backed deposing and assassination of the Diem brothers in Vietnam. Or G-2'ers involved in revenge shooting for the many attempts on Castros life during the Kennedy Administration.
What tales the perps told LHO...who knows? LHO wanted passage to Cuba. LHO may have thought he was involved in a CIA false-flag event.
So why the WC cover-up?
Some WC'ers (Dulles) may have suspected LHO's co-conspirators were CIA assets (Diaz and Del Valle come to mind). There were thousands of CIA assets in the US at the time, Cuban exiles and others involved in Cuba. A story that LHO was assisted by CIA assets...not a good look. There was the whole Kostikov WWIII idea too.
And in fact, LHO's accomplices escaped, and LHO dead in two days. To this day no one has afforded us a convincing explanation of who perped the JFKA, while LHO is the only suspect known beyond reasonable doubt to be in DP in 11/22.
Ruby shooting LHO remains an intriguing clue---and suggests someone was worried LHO would talk.
But who?
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Where can one read or hear his confession? James Files confessed to having done it. Was he working for Marcello?
https://crimemagazine.com/carlos-marcello-and-assassination-president-kennedy (https://crimemagazine.com/carlos-marcello-and-assassination-president-kennedy)
Where do you see a hole on the back of the head?
(https://i.imgur.com/3c7MsEH.jpeg)
Here
(https://www.artnet.com/WebServices/images/ll00307lldCjmJFgOjECfDrCWvaHBOcup1F/abraham-zapruder-a-series-of-36-film-stills-and-40-color-slides-from-the-zapruder-film-of-president-kennedys.jpg)
and here
(https://i.postimg.cc/Ss8k39Hq/moorman-back-of-head-hole.jpg)
That autopsy photo is not a fake, it was taken during the reconstruction of the head IMO.
There was blood and brain matter on the forward occupants of the limo. It was on the windshield and even on the hood. How is that explained by a head shot from the front?
He was hit from behind first. The frontal shot right after threw his head back and a cloud of mist is thrown to the left rear.
(https://i.gifer.com/origin/f3/f31e3f253d672850fa51cb2cc65ef2ab_w200.gif)
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He was hit from behind first. The frontal shot right after threw his head back and a cloud of mist is thrown to the left rear.
(https://i.gifer.com/origin/f3/f31e3f253d672850fa51cb2cc65ef2ab_w200.gif)
Neither of your two photos shows a rear head blowout. Your GIF doesn't either.
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Neither of your two photos shows a rear head blowout. Your GIF doesn't either.
Well, we see things differently nothing wrong with that.
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Well, we see things differently nothing wrong with that.
We see things differently on some things. God defend the right to openly disagree with others. Of course, I'm never wrong. ;D
Unless my wife says otherwise.
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Ben’s suggestion that CTers need to think in terms of a “small, very small” conspiracy – with which I agree – once again has me wondering why CTrs are almost never willing to discuss the JFKA in terms of, “What sense would that have made?”
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It is a striking feature of the Nutter's theory about the assassination that there is no motive. It seems hypocritical for a Nutter to ask "What sense would that have made", when there is no sense to their own theory.
As I don't accept Oswald took the shots, or the Warren Commission Sham's version of events, I am a CTer by default.
The Conspiracy Theory I advocate is as small as I can imagine and begins with the only genuine motive, beyond JFK upsetting various people.
LBJ was about to lose everything. Life magazine had assembled a crack team of investigative journalists who were about to tear his life apart. His political corruption and potential involvement in murder were about to become public knowledge. The only thing keeping the sharks at bay was the fact he was Vice President. In those days the office of VP was still respected and he was untouchable as long as he was there. But he believed he was about to be kicked off the ticket and as soon as that happened he was fair game.
He wasn't just going to lose his political legacy, there is every chance he was going to prison.
LBJ had one play - and only one play - to save his career, his legacy and his life.
JFK had to be assassinated, making LBJ President.
The moment this happened he was genuinely untouchable.
The crack team of journalists dispersed.
All investigations into his dealings disappeared immediately.
Johnson was the only person who had a genuine motive for having JFK killed.
More importantly, he was the only person with nothing to lose.
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It is a striking feature of the Nutter's theory about the assassination that there is no motive. It seems hypocritical for a Nutter to ask "What sense would that have made", when there is no sense to their own theory.
As I don't accept Oswald took the shots, or the Warren Commission Sham's version of events, I am a CTer by default.
The Conspiracy Theory I advocate is as small as I can imagine and begins with the only genuine motive, beyond JFK upsetting various people.
LBJ was about to lose everything. Life magazine had assembled a crack team of investigative journalists who were about to tear his life apart. His political corruption and potential involvement in murder were about to become public knowledge. The only thing keeping the sharks at bay was the fact he was Vice President. In those days the office of VP was still respected and he was untouchable as long as he was there. But he believed he was about to be kicked off the ticket and as soon as that happened he was fair game.
He wasn't just going to lose his political legacy, there is every chance he was going to prison.
LBJ had one play - and only one play - to save his career, his legacy and his life.
JFK had to be assassinated, making LBJ President.
The moment this happened he was genuinely untouchable.
The crack team of journalists dispersed.
All investigations into his dealings disappeared immediately.
Johnson was the only person who had a genuine motive for having JFK killed.
More importantly, he was the only person with nothing to lose.
As Fate would have it, I've been reading about the Mafia in books entirely unrelated to the JFKA. The Mafia is fascinating. Utterly and completely brutal, violent and amoral - except in the context of their own internal morality and code of honor. If Marcello or Trafficante or Marlon Brando had wanted JFK dead, JFK would have been dead. Neat and clean, ba-da-boom, ba-da-bing. The idea of the Mafia making use of Oswald, either as a gunman or a patsy, is one of the few things that might have caused Carlos Marcello to collapse in giggles (right after he told Guido to slit your throat for suggesting it). No, sorry, Marcello undoubtedly had the motive and means, but Dealey Plaza looks nothing like a Mafia hit ("And that's how we KNOW it WAS a Mafia hit, Lance, you dolt!").
As Fate would also have it, yesterday I was reading about Marcello and his supposed confession. This led me briefly down a rabbit hole with which I wasn't familiar and you may not be. The rabbit hole is named Hank Killam. I won't bore you with the story, which you can read for yourself. Here it is in about 200 words, but there are all kinds of materials about it, including a file in the John Armstrong Collection at Baylor: https://ricksblog.biz/history-the-pensacola-connection-to-the-jfk-assassination/. What had me giggling like Carlos Marcello was the absolutely goofy connections that keep popping up again and again in the JFKA. My guess is that this all means absolutely nothing, but look at this:
1. Killam was a low-level criminal type in Dallas, nothing too exciting.
2. But wait, his wife Wanda just happened to work for Jack Ruby and had, off and on, for 15 years.
3. At the time of the JFKA, Killam was working as a house painter.
4. But wait, his friend and fellow house painter was a guy named Carter, who just happened to be living at 1026 N. Beckley at the same time as Oswald.
5. Shortly after the JFKA, Killam left Dallas for Pensacola, muttering that he knew too much and was a "dead man" but no longer cared.
6. His family knew he had drug and mental problems and was going to have him institutionalized.
7. But wait, on the morning of his death his mother heard him receive a call at 4 AM and be picked up by a car.
8. In the wee hours of that morning, he went through a second-story plate glass window of a department store and was found dead on the sidewalk.
9. But wait, he had only one injury - a 3" slash to his jugular - yet blood was found 4' into the room.
10. The police called it a suicide, the coroner called it an accident, the family wanted him exhumed, and there ya go.
Again and again, YOU CAN'T MAKE THIS STUFF UP! It's like some cosmic jokester was in charge of the JFKA. Anyway, there's a lead for you: Hank Kellam, Key to the JFKA. I tell ya, these mystery deaths make you wonder how Michael Paine lived to be 90 and Ruth lived to be 92.
Oh, Dan's quote about a motive ... I would disagree that only LBJ had a motive. Half the country had quite plausible motives. Right-wing loonies. Big money oilmen. The Mafia. The Joint Chiefs. The assorted folks enraged by the Bay of Pigs. Various foreign interests. This is precisely why there are 25 or more superficially plausible conspiracy theories. Articulating "motive" and "means" is child's play. Fitting Oswald and Dealey Plaza into the theory is the difficult part.
LBJ had unfettered access to JFK. For God's sake, JFK was going to visit the LBJ Ranch the very day of the assassination. Does anyone seriously think that if LBJ were involved in eliminating JFK the hit would have involved Oswald or looked anything like Dealey Plaza??? It's absurd and entirely ad hoc because you can't avoid the reality that it did involve Oswald and Dealey Plaza.
No LN motive, Dan says? I have articulated it before and have no problem doing so again. Oswald was an intelligent and interesting guy, well-read but uneducated, who viewed himself as a deep thinker destined for great things. Alas, there was little prospect of that in the U.S. He went to the USSR with an entirely naive view of Soviet Marxism and thought he would be greeted as a celebrity and groomed for a high-profile political role. He got slapped in the face with the reality of Soviet Marxism and his grunt-level job in a Minsk factory. He came crawling back to America, thinking that at least his status as a former defector would open a lot of doors. Not only did it not open any doors, but he could barely find minimum wage work and even Marina ridiculed him. He vented his free-floating anger with an attempt on right-wing bigot Walker, but that was a dud. What was left? Cuba, where the real Marxists would be found and he would achieve recognition at last. He embarked on a frenzy of activity to establish himself as a friend of Cuba and headed off to Mexico City with high hopes. Alas, another slap in the face. Back to more grunt-level, minimum wage work at the TSBD - humiliatingly thanks to Ruth Paine. Then Fate spoke at last, or so it seemed. JFK would be passing right in front of the TSBD! Was this perhaps Destiny speaking, his ticket to a place in history or at least to Cuba? He goes to the Paine house still ambivalent. He'll take one last shot at repairing his marriage. Marina rebuffs him. Eff it, Destiny has spoken. He's going to carry out the JFKA, pretty much without regard to what happens to him thereafter. Boom-boom-boom, and he is utterly astonished to find himself alive, outside the TSBD, and getting on a bus.
Royell rightly chided me and other former members of the Ed Forum for even mentioning the silly place, but you simply MUST read the currently active thread, "DiEugenio Essays on the Ruth Paine Case," https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/31729-dieugenio-essays-on-the-ruth-paine-case/. If THAT doesn't make you embarrassed to be part of a CT community, NOTHING will. We're not talking about mere "conspiracy-prone mindset" on that thread. We're talking flat-out lunacy on the part of folks who are embarrassments to the HUMAN RACE. Hint: The last couple of pages are about whether Michael and Ruth should have been "waterboarded" as DiEugenio suggested or merely criminally prosecuted and put to death.
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As Fate would have it, I've been reading about the Mafia in books entirely unrelated to the JFKA. The Mafia is fascinating. Utterly and completely brutal, violent and amoral - except in the context of their own internal morality and code of honor. If Marcello or Trafficante or Marlon Brando had wanted JFK dead, JFK would have been dead. Neat and clean, ba-da-boom, ba-da-bing. The idea of the Mafia making use of Oswald, either as a gunman or a patsy, is one of the few things that might have caused Carlos Marcello to collapse in giggles (right after he told Guido to slit your throat for suggesting it). No, sorry, Marcello undoubtedly had the motive and means, but Dealey Plaza looks nothing like a Mafia hit ("And that's how we KNOW it WAS a Mafia hit, Lance, you dolt!").
As Fate would also have it, yesterday I was reading about Marcello and his supposed confession. This led me briefly down a rabbit hole with which I wasn't familiar and you may not be. The rabbit hole is named Hank Killam. I won't bore you with the story, which you can read for yourself. Here it is in about 200 words, but there are all kinds of materials about it, including a file in the John Armstrong Collection at Baylor: https://ricksblog.biz/history-the-pensacola-connection-to-the-jfk-assassination/. What had me giggling like Carlos Marcello was the absolutely goofy connections that keep popping up again and again in the JFKA. My guess is that this all means absolutely nothing, but look at this:
1. Killam was a low-level criminal type in Dallas, nothing too exciting.
2. But wait, his wife Wanda just happened to work for Jack Ruby and had, off and on, for 15 years.
3. At the time of the JFKA, Killam was working as a house painter.
4. But wait, his friend and fellow house painter was a guy named Carter, who just happened to be living at 1026 N. Beckley at the same time as Oswald.
5. Shortly after the JFKA, Killam left Dallas for Pensacola, muttering that he knew too much and was a "dead man" but no longer cared.
6. His family knew he had drug and mental problems and was going to have him institutionalized.
7. But wait, on the morning of his death his mother heard him receive a call at 4 AM and be picked up by a car.
8. In the wee hours of that morning, he went through a second-story plate glass window of a department store and was found dead on the sidewalk.
9. But wait, he had only one injury - a 3" slash to his jugular - yet blood was found 4' into the room.
10. The police called it a suicide, the coroner called it an accident, the family wanted him exhumed, and there ya go.
Again and again, YOU CAN'T MAKE THIS STUFF UP! It's like some cosmic jokester was in charge of the JFKA. Anyway, there's a lead for you: Hank Kellam, Key to the JFKA. I tell ya, these mystery deaths make you wonder how Michael Paine lived to be 90 and Ruth lived to be 92.
Oh, Dan's quote about a motive ... I would disagree that only LBJ had a motive. Half the country had quite plausible motives. Right-wing loonies. Big money oilmen. The Mafia. The Joint Chiefs. The assorted folks enraged by the Bay of Pigs. Various foreign interests. This is precisely why there are 25 or more superficially plausible conspiracy theories. Articulating "motive" and "means" is child's play. Fitting Oswald and Dealey Plaza into the theory is the difficult part.
LBJ had unfettered access to JFK. For God's sake, JFK was going to visit the LBJ Ranch the very day of the assassination. Does anyone seriously think that if LBJ were involved in eliminating JFK the hit would have involved Oswald or looked anything like Dealey Plaza??? It's absurd and entirely ad hoc because you can't avoid the reality that it did involve Oswald and Dealey Plaza.
No LN motive, Dan says? I have articulated it before and have no problem doing so again. Oswald was an intelligent and interesting guy, well-read but uneducated, who viewed himself as a deep thinker destined for great things. Alas, there was little prospect of that in the U.S. He went to the USSR with an entirely naive view of Soviet Marxism and thought he would be greeted as a celebrity and groomed for a high-profile political role. He got slapped in the face with the reality of Soviet Marxism and his grunt-level job in a Minsk factory. He came crawling back to America, thinking that at least his status as a former defector would open a lot of doors. Not only did it not open any doors, but he could barely find minimum wage work and even Marina ridiculed him. He vented his free-floating anger with an attempt on right-wing bigot Walker, but that was a dud. What was left? Cuba, where the real Marxists would be found and he would achieve recognition at last. He embarked on a frenzy of activity to establish himself as a friend of Cuba and headed off to Mexico City with high hopes. Alas, another slap in the face. Back to more grunt-level, minimum wage work at the TSBD - humiliatingly thanks to Ruth Paine. Then Fate spoke at last, or so it seemed. JFK would be passing right in front of the TSBD! Was this perhaps Destiny speaking, his ticket to a place in history or at least to Cuba? He goes to the Paine house still ambivalent. He'll take one last shot at repairing his marriage. Marina rebuffs him. Eff it, Destiny has spoken. He's going to carry out the JFKA, pretty much without regard to what happens to him thereafter. Boom-boom-boom, and he is utterly astonished to find himself alive, outside the TSBD, and getting on a bus.
Royell rightly chided me and other former members of the Ed Forum for even mentioning the silly place, but you simply MUST read the currently active thread, "DiEugenio Essays on the Ruth Paine Case," https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/31729-dieugenio-essays-on-the-ruth-paine-case/. If THAT doesn't make you embarrassed to be part of a CT community, NOTHING will. We're not talking about mere "conspiracy-prone mindset" on that thread. We're talking flat-out lunacy on the part of folks who are embarrassments to the HUMAN RACE. Hint: The last couple of pages are about whether Michael and Ruth should have been "waterboarded" as DiEugenio suggested or merely criminally prosecuted and put to death.
Mike Majerus, author Phantom Shot, went to law school at Georgetown in DC and attended all the HSCA hearings. He said when Marcello came into the hearing room nobody would look him in the eyes. In general, he said everyone was actually just afraid of him.
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Mike Majerus, author Phantom Shot, went to law school at Georgetown in DC and attended all the HSCA hearings. He said when Marcello came into the hearing room nobody would look him in the eyes. In general, he said everyone was actually just afraid of him.
While we tend to picture Marcello more in his later Godfather role, in his early days he was perfectly capable of personally slitting your throat if the linguini was overcooked.
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LP--
My take is if "The Deep State" or globalist elite militarists even wanted to remove JFK, they would do so in the manner Nixon, Carter and Trump (2016)were deposed. The manipulation of media, partisan animosities and prosecutorial agencies.
(Set aside JFK was an ardent anti-communist, came from a wealthy family, and cut income taxes on the upper brackets. And Vietnam was just not that important to anybody in 1963.)
So...the JFKA perps were people without institutional power. Not powerful people. They had recourse only to shooting JFK, and not even in private, but when JFK appeared in public. The way any nuts would.
My guess is the JFKA perps were motived by intense ideological, nationalistic and personal animosities for perceived betrayal--the BoP vets come to mind. A long shot: Individuals angered at the Kennedy Administration-backed deposing and assassination of the Diem brothers in Vietnam. Or G-2'ers involved in revenge shooting for the many attempts on Castros life during the Kennedy Administration.
What tales the perps told LHO...who knows? LHO wanted passage to Cuba. LHO may have thought he was involved in a CIA false-flag event.
So why the WC cover-up?
Some WC'ers (Dulles) may have suspected LHO's co-conspirators were CIA assets (Diaz and Del Valle come to mind). There were thousands of CIA assets in the US at the time, Cuban exiles and others involved in Cuba. A story that LHO was assisted by CIA assets...not a good look. There was the whole Kostikov WWIII idea too.
And in fact, LHO's accomplices escaped, and LHO dead in two days. To this day no one has afforded us a convincing explanation of who perped the JFKA, while LHO is the only suspect known beyond reasonable doubt to be in DP in 11/22.
Ruby shooting LHO remains an intriguing clue---and suggests someone was worried LHO would talk.
But who?
One of the sidelights to my reading about Hank Kellam (as mentioned above) was a couple of stories his wife Wanda told about Jack Ruby. Wow. I'm not sure we give enough credit to what a violent, volatile, erratic character Ruby could be (surely with some mental problems). I still laugh at whoever it was - I had thought it was Trafficante, but it wasn't - who was testifying before some committee, probably the HSCA, and was hit with the question, "What if I told you Jack Ruby was working for the Mob?" His response: "I'd say the Mob needs a new Personnel Director."
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Two final points:
1. Think about the consistency or lack thereof in your conspiracy arguments. For example, everyone loves Joseph Milteer’s mysterious “foreknowledge” of the JFKA. But wait, Milteer was a notorious, national-level, high-profile, right-wing, KKK bigot who was so indiscreet that he blabbed to a nobody like Somersett in the latter’s kitchen. As I pointed out on the Milteer thread, if you think HE had advance knowledge of the specifics of the JFKA, you’re pretty well locked into a conspiracy theory that simply doesn’t mesh with most of the preferred suspects. No one in his right mind this side of the Dixie Klan would have brought Milteer into the loop. You can’t simply assemble a bunch of free-floating factoids (“What about Milteer!”) and pretend it’s a coherent theory.
2. Oswald’s actions on 11-21 make sense only if the JFKA was a last-minute, what-the-hell decision. He bummed a ride to the Paine home to either make peace with Marina or retrieve the only rifle he owned on 11-21, clunky as it was. They don’t make sense in any other scenario. We know from the cash in his pocket and what he left Marina that he had plenty of money to buy a quality rifle. In 1976, I bought a pristine Remington 30.06 with a 4X Weaver scope for $75. If the JFKA had been anything other than a last-minute decision, Oswald could have obtained a far better assassination weapon with NO problem and no paper trail and have avoided the need to go to the Paine home (with all of the associated risks) at all. If he were actually part of a conspiracy even a week in advance, SURELY either he or the conspirators would have made sure he had a more plausible assassination weapon to get the job done and safely had it in the TSBD well in advance; what sort of Three Stooges conspiracy would have trusted in him bumming a ride with Frazier the evening before the assassination, successfully sneaking the Carcano out of the garage, pretending he was carrying curtain rods, and successfully sneaking it into the TSBD only hours in advance? If he were a completely innocent patsy, the conspirators could have planted a better rifle in the TSBD and left a phony bill of sale or other incriminating evidence in his room on Beckley (ammunition! a gun cleaning kit!) FAR more easily and with less risk than whatever you think they did to retrieve the Carcano from the Paine garage and plant it in the TSBD. These other scenarios simply make no sense.
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LP--That's true. Jack Ruby appears to have been an unstable person. Although, obviously capable of a mob-style hit, at close range, while wearing a fedora.
OTOH, if we assume the True Perps of the JFKA wanted LHO dead and quickly, they may have had to resort to what tools were available in the time and place. Who was available who could penetrate DPD security?
Jack Ruby does seem like more of a tangential mobster than a CIA asset, although he may have been an FBI informant at one time.
I do not know what motivated Ruby. He may have been stalking LHO, or just curious.
Like everything about the JFKA, Ruby can be woven into a tapestry, as elaborate as you wish to weave.
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OK, we have Ben's theory, which is basically my LN+ with some acknowledged loose ends.
We are also offered the Mafia and LBJ, both with the objective of simply killing JFK. The question I raised in my original post is what Oswald and the TSBD are doing in a scenario where anyone as sophisticated as the Mafia or LBJ simply wanted JFK eliminated.
Did the Mafia or LBJ need a patsy, with the incredible level of complexity and risk this would add to the hit? Do professional hits require a patsy? No, your guy simply walks into the County Records building looking like any other citizen with his disassembled weapon in a nice briefcase, ascends to the roof during the noon hour, takes the shot, disassembles the rifle in seconds, and walks out and blends into the chaos. People can speculate it was the Mafia or LBJ for the next 100 years, but no one will ever know.
I just don't think you can make these other scenarios work, except on an ad hoc basis: "Well, they DID IN FACT use Oswald - fantastically unlikely as this may seem." This is what old William of Ockham was talking about when he said that you don't unnecessarily add layers of complexity when a simpler explanation will do.
"Oswald shot JFK" is neat and tidy. If you want to expand upon this, you need to think in terms of "small, very small" - not "fantastically elaborate, convoluted and risky."
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OK, we have Ben's theory, which is basically my LN+ with some acknowledged loose ends.
We are also offered the Mafia and LBJ, both with the objective of simply killing JFK. The question I raised in my original post is what Oswald and the TSBD are doing in a scenario where anyone as sophisticated as the Mafia or LBJ simply wanted JFK eliminated.
Did the Mafia or LBJ need a patsy, with the incredible level of complexity and risk this would add to the hit? Do professional hits require a patsy? No, your guy simply walks into the County Records building looking like any other citizen with his disassembled weapon in a nice briefcase, ascends to the roof during the noon hour, takes the shot, disassembles the rifle in seconds, and walks out and blends into the chaos. People can speculate it was the Mafia or LBJ for the next 100 years, but no one will ever know.
I just don't think you can make these other scenarios work, except on an ad hoc basis: "Well, they DID IN FACT use Oswald - fantastically unlikely as this may seem." This is what old William of Ockham was talking about when he said that you don't unnecessarily add layers of complexity when a simpler explanation will do.
"Oswald shot JFK" is neat and tidy. If you want to expand upon this, you need to think in terms of "small, very small" - not "fantastically elaborate, convoluted and risky."
The conspiracy I am advocating couldn't be less sophisticated.
And obviously a patsy was required. In fact, two patsies would be preferable.
The function of a patsy is to focus the spotlight of investigation elsewhere. In the case of Oswald, the investigation was solely focused on him to the exclusion of almost any other possibility. It worked like a dream.
Before the investigation had barely begun, Hoover was dictating the result of the investigation - Oswald was to be shown to be the sole assassin. This sounds like some kind of sick joke but it is a reality.
The assassination itself was sloppy and unprofessional. It relied on as much luck as it did proficiency with a rifle (two of the three shots missed the target from very close range for a rifle shot).
Killing the President wasn't like taking out a man who was in the way.
It was an attack on the office of President.
It was an attack on America; it's armed forces, it's intelligence agencies, it's law enforcement and its citizenry.
To imagine the mafia would draw that kind of heat on its operations is naive, to say the least.
This wasn't just a shooting on a street in Dallas.
It directly affected every single person in America at the time, not to mention its global impact.
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No doubt Carlos Marcello had him killed, and if not Dallas it would have been elsewhere. Oswald and another shooter on the knoll killed JFK, Oswald killed Tippit, and Ruby killed Oswald to keep him quiet. That is your small conspiracy. 4 shots 3 hits 1 miss. The rest of the conspiracy stuff is either confusion or untrue.
62 years later, this nonsense still exists. Simply unreal.
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The conspiracy I am advocating couldn't be less sophisticated.
And obviously a patsy was required. In fact, two patsies would be preferable.
The function of a patsy is to focus the spotlight of investigation elsewhere. In the case of Oswald, the investigation was solely focused on him to the exclusion of almost any other possibility. It worked like a dream.
Before the investigation had barely begun, Hoover was dictating the result of the investigation - Oswald was to be shown to be the sole assassin. This sounds like some kind of sick joke but it is a reality.
The assassination itself was sloppy and unprofessional. It relied on as much luck as it did proficiency with a rifle (two of the three shots missed the target from very close range for a rifle shot).
Killing the President wasn't like taking out a man who was in the way.
It was an attack on the office of President.
It was an attack on America; it's armed forces, it's intelligence agencies, it's law enforcement and its citizenry.
To imagine the mafia would draw that kind of heat on its operations is naive, to say the least.
This wasn't just a shooting on a street in Dallas.
It directly affected every single person in America at the time, not to mention its global impact.
Nope, doesn't work.
In a professional hit, a patsy is not required. Your guy does the deed and is gone. It doesn't matter who suspects you, because they are never going to prove it. This would be especially the case with the JFKA, where there were probably 50 diverse and plausible suspects.
A patsy vastly complicates the scenario and invites questions that you don't need. Especially a live patsy. If anyone involved with the JFKA had actually been thinking in terms of a patsy, said patsy would have been some dead Cuban who was planted with the rifle with a "suicide" round in his head. Even I, a rank amateur at planning assassinations, can grasp this.
Whoever and whatever LBJ, the Mafia, the CIA, Army Intelligence, Yada Yada were, they weren't amateurs. They weren't the Three Stooges.
Your mind is stuck in ad hoc gear. Think small, very small - and rational, if that's possible.
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OK, we have Ben's theory, which is basically my LN+ with some acknowledged loose ends.
We are also offered the Mafia and LBJ, both with the objective of simply killing JFK. The question I raised in my original post is what Oswald and the TSBD are doing in a scenario where anyone as sophisticated as the Mafia or LBJ simply wanted JFK eliminated.
Did the Mafia or LBJ need a patsy, with the incredible level of complexity and risk this would add to the hit? Do professional hits require a patsy? No, your guy simply walks into the County Records building looking like any other citizen with his disassembled weapon in a nice briefcase, ascends to the roof during the noon hour, takes the shot, disassembles the rifle in seconds, and walks out and blends into the chaos. People can speculate it was the Mafia or LBJ for the next 100 years, but no one will ever know.
I just don't think you can make these other scenarios work, except on an ad hoc basis: "Well, they DID IN FACT use Oswald - fantastically unlikely as this may seem." This is what old William of Ockham was talking about when he said that you don't unnecessarily add layers of complexity when a simpler explanation will do.
"Oswald shot JFK" is neat and tidy. If you want to expand upon this, you need to think in terms of "small, very small" - not "fantastically elaborate, convoluted and risky."
I don't think Oswald was to be a "patsy", but nobody expected his encounter with Tippit and killing him. Who was the "SS agent" behind the fence? Why was ruby at Parkland? So many questions with no answers.
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Nope, doesn't work.
In a professional hit, a patsy is not required. Your guy does the deed and is gone. It doesn't matter who suspects you, because they are never going to prove it. This would be especially the case with the JFKA, where there were probably 50 diverse and plausible suspects.
A patsy vastly complicates the scenario and invites questions that you don't need. Especially a live patsy. If anyone involved with the JFKA had actually been thinking in terms of a patsy, said patsy would have been some dead Cuban who was planted with the rifle with a "suicide" round in his head. Even I, a rank amateur at planning assassinations, can grasp this.
Whoever and whatever LBJ, the Mafia, the CIA, Army Intelligence, Yada Yada were, they weren't amateurs. They weren't the Three Stooges.
Your mind is stuck in ad hoc gear. Think small, very small - and rational, if that's possible.
Nope, doesn't work.
In a professional hit, a patsy is not required.
Honestly, dealing with you is like trying to help some doddering old man across the road.
You counter that the scenario I've presented doesn't work because a patsy is not required in a professional hit.
???
Didn't you read the post you are responding to or had you just forgotten what was written in the time it took you to respond.
I wrote - "The assassination itself was sloppy and unprofessional".
I literally used the word UNPROFESSIONAL.
And your amazing response is that the scenario doesn't work because a patsy is not required in a professional hit, as though I was arguing it was a professional hit.
Bizarrely, the way you've phrased it implies that a patsy IS required for an unprofessional hit, in essence agreeing with what I've posted.
Take a nap.
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I don't think Oswald was to be a "patsy", but nobody expected his encounter with Tippit and killing him. Who was the "SS agent" behind the fence? Why was ruby at Parkland? So many questions with no answers.
99% of all murder investigations have unanswered questions. Perhaps, just perhaps CT’s expect to much when the answers are staring them in the face.
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“The thing I am most concerned about — and so is Mr. Katzenbach — is having something issued so we can convince the public that Oswald is the real assassin.”
—J. Edgar Hoover (as quoted in a White House memorandum recording a telephone conversation) November 24, 1963.
If this comment from the "top cop" doesn't suggest something big... it would seem rational conversation is over.
Also, if these photos below are not a concern, it would seem LN'ers are just as insistent as Hoover to pin the dirty deed on Oswald...
Gunman on the bridge...
(https://i.ibb.co/v9RsH6N/Screenshot-2025-09-20-at-7-08-26-PM.png)
Gunman at the Zapruder perch...
(https://i.ibb.co/JRpgMLLy/Screenshot-2025-07-25-at-10-25-09-AM.png)
Zapruder on a walkie talkie...
(https://i.ibb.co/ZRWMdhQ9/Screenshot-2025-07-11-at-6-42-42-PM.png)
Gunman behind the wall...
(https://i.ibb.co/zTvRKJpY/Screenshot-2025-09-29-at-8-06-56-PM.png)
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LBJ had one play - and only one play - to save his career, his legacy and his life.
JFK had to be assassinated, making LBJ President.
Hoover was dictating the result of the investigation - Oswald was to be shown to be the sole assassin.
The assassination itself was sloppy and unprofessional. It relied on as much luck as it did proficiency with a rifle (two of the three shots missed the target from very close range for a rifle shot).
Didn't you read the post you are responding to or had you just forgotten what was written in the time it took you to respond.
I wrote - "The assassination itself was sloppy and unprofessional".
I literally used the word UNPROFESSIONAL.
And your amazing response is that the scenario doesn't work because a patsy is not required in a professional hit, as though I was arguing it was a professional hit.
Oh, OK, now I see. In order to become President of the United States, LBJ recruited the Three Stooges to carry out a sloppy and unprofessional assassination! He would, of course, be disgraced and executed if the slightest hint of his involvement came out, but Curly, Larry and Moe nevertheless seemed like a better choice than a pro. Moe had this patsy character named Oswald and he was confident he could plant all sorts of evidence and make it work. Hoover could be relied upon to tidy up any messes after the fact, albeit at the risk of execution himself.
Let's see, LBJ was known to be the ultimate savvy operator. When Henry Marshall needed to go bye-bye, all LBJ needed was Mac Wallace - and Mac's handiwork was tidy enough to pass as a suicide. But when it came to JFK and certain execution if caught, LBJ decided to go the sloppy and unprofessional route just to make things exciting. Instead of just having JFK neatly whacked by a pro, he added to the fun with a patsy is the TSBD. Uh-huh, works for me. Silly me just assumed that an assassination with LBJ at the helm would resemble a professional hit.
As you always do, you introduced your ad hoc "sloppy and unprofessional" theme after being made to look like a dolt. Your post about LBJ and Hoover said nothing about sloppy and unprofessional. Because your silly theory requires all sorts of chicanery and fakery, up to and including a completely innocent Oswald, you are forced to declare it "sloppy and unprofessional" even though LBJ was at the helm. Nope, doesn't work.
Your theories aren't merely ad hoc. Your posts are ad hoc. Indeed, I fear your brain is ad hoc. You embarrass yourself over and over and over and almost seem to revel in it.
(https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSxfSd9opbpJm8zH8taufaEOswxtOjwVax_ZA&s)
Gee, ya think?
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Oh, OK, now I see. In order to become President of the United States, LBJ recruited the Three Stooges to carry out a sloppy and unprofessional assassination! He would, of course, be disgraced and executed if the slightest hint of his involvement came out, but Curly, Larry and Moe nevertheless seemed like a better choice than a pro. Moe had this patsy character named Oswald and he was confident he could plant all sorts of evidence and make it work. Hoover could be relied upon to tidy up any messes after the fact, albeit at the risk of execution himself.
Let's see, LBJ was known to be the ultimate savvy operator. When Henry Marshall needed to go bye-bye, all LBJ needed was Mac Wallace - and Mac's handiwork was tidy enough to pass as a suicide. But when it came to JFK and certain execution if caught, LBJ decided to go the sloppy and unprofessional route just to make things exciting. Instead of just having JFK neatly whacked by a pro, he added to the fun with a patsy is the TSBD. Uh-huh, works for me. Silly me just assumed that an assassination with LBJ at the helm would resemble a professional hit.
As you always do, you introduced your ad hoc "sloppy and unprofessional" theme after being made to look like a dolt. Your post about LBJ and Hoover said nothing about sloppy and unprofessional. Because your silly theory requires all sorts of chicanery and fakery, up to and including a completely innocent Oswald, you are forced to declare it "sloppy and unprofessional" even though LBJ was at the helm. Nope, doesn't work.
Your theories aren't merely ad hoc. Your posts are ad hoc. Indeed, I fear your brain is ad hoc. You embarrass yourself over and over and over and almost seem to revel in it.
(https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSxfSd9opbpJm8zH8taufaEOswxtOjwVax_ZA&s)
Gee, ya think?
As you always do, you introduced your ad hoc "sloppy and unprofessional" theme after being made to look like a dolt.
What on earth are you talking about?
I actually started a thread entitled "The Assassination Was Sloppy and Amateurish"!!
YOU TOOK PART IN THE DISCUSSION, YOU DITHERING OLD FOOL.
I see you agree that LBJ was a corrupt psychopath who had no qualms about murder as a solution.
His involvement with the likes of Mac Wallace was just about to be made public. He was about to lose everything.
His one and only way out of his predicament was the assassination of JFK.
There was literally no other solution.
Your notion, that LBJ would be involved in the planning and execution of the assassination of the President of the United States, demonstrates your tenuous grasp of anything remotely resembling common sense.
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Ben’s suggestion that CTers need to think in terms of a “small, very small” conspiracy – with which I agree – once again has me wondering why CTrs are almost never willing to discuss the JFKA in terms of, “What sense would that have made?”
This is just surreal. It is further evidence of the shallow nature of your research. If you would ever bother to read some of the better scholarly books that argue for an assassination plot, you would find that they spend a great deal of time, dozens of pages, explaining the motives and goals of the plotters.
It is just baffling that you would get on a public board and pretend that WC skeptics are "almost never" willing to discuss "what sense" killing JFK "would have made."
Let me briefly summarize some of the points that skeptics have made on this issue:
Major elements of the Mafia had two powerful motives for wanting JFK dead: survival and revenge. JFK, through RFK, was threatening the Mafia's very existence, and JFK-RFK had humiliated Carlos Marcello and other major Mafia figures.
Many CIA-backed anti-Castro Cubans and their CIA handlers viscerally hated JFK over the Bay of Pigs and viewed JFK as a traitor or a dangerous pro-communist dupe. One of their motives, and probably the main motive for many of them, was certainly revenge. The other motive was the hope that the more conservative, hawkish LBJ would enable them to topple Castro's regime. Some of them clearly framed Oswald as a Castro-loving commie who shot JFK in the hope that the killing of the president by a pro-Castro Marxist would lead to a U.S. retaliatory invasion of Cuba.
Violent right-wing extremists, some of whom had ties to anti-Castro Cubans and the CIA, despised JFK for several reasons, especially his civil rights initiatives, which enraged them. These folks had already proved themselves quite willing to use violence. Joseph Milteer, a wealthy leader among these extremists, got wind of the JFK murder plot and revealed it to someone he thought was a trustworthy friend but who was actually a Miami police informant.
Most conspiracy theorists contend that the plot involved elements of these three groups, just as many other plots throughout history involved a coalition of various elements, some of whom were not always on friendly terms with each other but who agreed to work together under the concept of "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" to remove a common foe whom they viewed as the most dangerous threat.