JFK Assassination Forum
JFK Assassination Plus General Discussion & Debate => JFK Assassination Plus General Discussion And Debate => Topic started by: Lance Payette on June 04, 2026, 05:52:49 PM
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Ben Cole and I have articulated two tight, minimalist conspiracy theories – G2 (Cuba) and the Mafia respectively. I think we’re both talking about no more than five participants from conception through execution.
I know it’s fun to hypothesize elaborate conspiracies involving everyone but the kitchen sink, but this is just flat-out silly. Give it up, unless you acknowledge you’re just having fun and not trying to articulate a plausible theory.
This was a Presidential assassination. Anyone whose fingerprints were on it in any way was going to be executed. Every real-world conspiracy of any significance involves the minimal number of participants – and this would be true in spades of a Presidential assassination. And it sure as hell wouldn’t have involved an elaborate cover-up extending to Bethesda and beyond. This is just flat-out silly. Weird and fun, but flat-out silly.
Larry Hancock says Someone Would Have Talked – and he thinks someone did. That’s the problem with any conspiracy that isn’t the absolute minimalist scenario. Some of the people Larry thinks talked would not have been allowed anywhere near a Presidential assassination conspiracy unless the planners were Curly, Larry and Moe.
Forget all the “ideologically-oriented” conspiracies. Allen Dulles? Come on, this is science-fiction. Only the following had a real-honest-God motive for whacking JFK:
1. LBJ: perfect
2. The Mafia: perfect
3. Right-wing Texas oilmen: perfect
4. Those with an anti-Castro motive (which overlaps with 1-3 above): good, but somewhat more “ideological” than 1-3 above
5. Castro and/or his supporters: not nearly as strong, but plausible
There are only two plausible roles for Oswald:
1. Knows he’s a gunman in a pro-Castro conspiracy
2. Thinks he’s a gunman in an pro-Castro conspiracy
The key to the plausibility of any conspiracy theory is the implausibility of the SBT. The SBT is possible, but it is implausible for multiple reasons. If Oswald fired only two shots, it is entirely plausible that the rapid bang-bang heard by several witnesses was Oswald’s second shot and another from someplace like the Dal-Tex building or County Records building (as I believe) or the Grassy Knoll (as Ben suggests). I believe my two buildings are simply more plausible.
This is what I think we realistically have to work with. It is possible to construct a tight, highly compartmentalized, realistic conspiracy with any of the five candidates suggested above. Dan O’Meara suggested one with just LBJ, Byrd (who owned the TSBD building), Cason (president of the TSBD business), Bill Shelley, and a hitman other than Oswald; I thought it fell apart inside the TSBD, but it’s in the ballpark of what I’m talking about.
As Dan’s did, a tight, minimalist conspiracy could involve combinations of 1-4 above, but you’d have to make the connections in a tight, minimalist, plausible way.
Even with a tight, minimalist conspiracy, the trick is always to bring Oswald into it in a plausible way. LBJ and Oswald, the Mafia and Oswald, right-wing Texas oilmen and Oswald? Those are challenges. Pro-Castroites or anti-Castroites? Much easier. Of course, LBJ, the Mafia or Texas oilmen could have brought Oswald in via a contact in the pro- or anti-Castro community, but then we have to make a plausible connection between them and this middleman.
Anyway, if I were retained to construct a plausible conspiracy to sell to a jury or the court of public opinion, I believe I would have to work within these realistic parameters. The fact that even very prominent voices in the CT community can’t see that what they are peddling is science fiction is very puzzling. The fact that they pointedly ignore the far more realistic scenarios is not only puzzling but somewhat suspicious. The conspiracy-prone mindset does gravitate toward dark intrigue and unnecessary complexity, so this may be a large part of the explanation.