JFK Assassination Forum

I have one question for everyone who is fretting about whether LHO was acting on behalf of the Cubans, Soviets, CIA, Mafia, etc. How did any of these entities know in advance that Oswald would end up working in a building overlooking a motorcade route that had not even been planned when he was hired. If you can't answer that simple question, I have no idea why any of you would want to go down any of those rabbit holes.

I agree that the timing of events makes it almost impossible to envision Dealey Plaza as a conspiracy. It’s also near-impossible for me to envision any plausible conspiracy that has Oswald and his rifle on the sixth floor of the TSBD as the lone gunman or even one of the participants. It just makes no sense. Oswald as a patsy “works” only if his Russian background, Marxist sympathies and open support for Castro would have pointed away from the conspirators. This works nicely for the Mafia, which had the motive and means in spades – but here, as you say, we bump up against the timing problem for starters. And why would any conspiracy that had Oswald as either a participant or patsy run all the risks associated with him catching a ride to Irving with Frazier the evening before and sneaking his rifle into the TSBD? It just makes no sense. With Oswald, the Soviets or Cubans would have been choosing a participant or patsy who would have pretty much pointed the finger of suspicion directly at them – and what sense would that have made? The Mafia, Soviets and Cubans would all surely have been capable of pulling off the assassination of JFKA in circumstances less preposterously risky than Dealey Plaza and with no need for a cluck like Oswald in any capacity. I’ve voiced mild support for LN+, by which I mean possible “What if?”-type conversations between Oswald and anti-Castro types (as their patsy) or pro-Castro types (as their tool if he was dumb enough to try it) that might technically have qualified as a conspiracy, but it’s hard to picture these as official conversations of any sort or as involving planning of the actual events in Dealey Plaza (due to the timing problem).

The problem for CTers - always always always - is that they are stuck with Oswald and Dealey Plaza. Those are two HUGE hurdles to overcome when trying to formulate a plausible conspiracy theory.

Try as I might, I can never envision any conspiracy that takes us plausibly from A to Z. I can envision lots of them that sound superficially plausible until you try to puzzle out how they actually would have worked. I can envision ones that work at steps A-D and U-Z, but not at E-T. I'm reminded of the old "And then a miracle occurs" cartoon, which is how conspiracy theorizing often seems to work.

Keep in mind, at anytime in the 1960s, the KGB and G2 had hundreds of assets, plants, double-agents, agents, and informants in the US. It is legend how thoroughly Castro had infiltrated the Cuban exile community.

So why would they need Oswald, who would point the finger of suspicion right at them?

LHO appears to have been one of those G2-KGB assets, and he had a job in the TSBD. So he was utilized.

Easy to say, but how would this have worked? How would they have "utilized" Oswald in the tight window between the announcement of the motorcade route and the JFKA? What evidence is there that anything unusual happened in Oswald's life during this window? If this were true, why would they have accepted all the risks that Oswald's trip to Irving and return trip to the TSBD would have entailed? Why would they have trusted to the sixth floor being empty and Oswald being able to accomplish his mission, and why would they have not provided a foolproof means of escape? When we start trying to fill in the blanks, it seems to me that it falls apart very quickly. Woolsey notwithstanding, what evidence is there in Oswald's pathetic, poverty-stricken life after his return to the U.S. that he was anyone's asset?

JC--

I think the US right-wing largely went down the LN theory-rabbit-hole with the release of the WC report in 1964. In the right-wing of that era, there was a near-reflexive reverence for authority, and the WC represented authority.

The WC in 1964 struck exactly the tone the right-wing wanted to hear: a soured Marxist leftie loser lone-nut perped the horrid JFKA, but not on instructions from Havana of Moscow. No nuke war needed.

The modern-day right-wing is a different animal, and sometimes reflexively rejects authority, and so you get a different reaction to official JFKA theorizing, with just as much justification.

The agenda write the narrative.

Keep in mind you have former CIA Director James Woolsey's book, Operation Dragon: Inside the Kremlin's Secret War on America, presenting the view that LHO was a Russian operative. Woolsey was a CIA director, and a right-winger. Woolsey is a deeply knowledgable fellow when it comes to spy work. You and I are admitted hobbyists next to Woolsey.

So I defer to Woolsey or you? 

As for LHO being in the TSBD, that was luck or circumstance, as was the decision to have the JFK limo make a hairpin turn in front of the TSBD. You are making the obviously baseless assumption that a JFKA CT required the knowing placement of LHO in the TSBD in preparation for the motorcade. Rather, LHO was there by chance, and G2 or KGB took advantage of that situation.

Keep in mind, at anytime in the 1960s, the KGB and G2 had hundreds of assets, plants, double-agents, agents, and informants in the US. It is legend how thoroughly Castro had infiltrated the Cuban exile community.

LHO appears to have been one of those G2-KGB assets, and he had a job in the TSBD. So he was utilized.

You all just refuse to think as far out of the box as Jake obviously does. It could be that the ENTIRE group of people there on the bridge are conspirators.😵‍💫

Yes, I think you are correct… It takes a little bit of investigative curiosity even to look for these things…

It is both a hobby and an addiction to me that I have quit cold turkey for years at a time. I first became hooked back in 1991 shortly after the movie JFK came out which also coincided with my first ISP subscription, Prodigy. I was a newbie to both the JFKA and the internet at the time. I knew just enough about both to be dangerous. In the 1980s I had briefly become a CT but shed that affliction after just a few years. I was lucky because for most people, it is a chronic condition. I came to the online discussions with a willingness to learn and the ability to apply common sense which allowed me to hold own against the veteran CTs. The Prodigy group was a lively bunch and had a few participants whose names others may recognize, Michael T. Griffith, Tony Marsh, Jean Davidson, Bob Artwohl just to name a few. David Lifton even posted there occasionally. Bob Artwohl came to that group as a CT and ended up an LN. He's the only one I know of who ever switched sides in any of the discussion groups I have participated in. Our Prodigy group broke up when Prodigy announced they would no longer allow unlimited posts. There would be a limit each month after which one would have to pay a premium to make additional posts. I don't think anyone was going to stick around so we all said our good-byes and went our separate ways.

I would occasionally argue with friends on the subject of the JFKA but it wasn't something that came up very often. In 2008, I visited Dallas for the first time not counting changing planes at the Dallas/Ft. Worth Airport. I made it a point that I was going to visit Dealey Plaza and the Sixth Floor Museum while there. It wasn't hard as I was driving up I-35 from San Antonio and I looked out to my right and there was the TSBD. I went on by and up north past the Trade Mart, exited where Parkland had been, turned east and stumbled across Love Field. From there I drove what I guessed approximated the motorcade route until I hit Harwood, turned right on Main on to Dealey Plaza. After spending several hours there including a visit to the 6th floor Museum, I headed over to Oak Cliff. I started at Oswald's rooming house and walked down Beckley to where I guessed Oswald might have turned to go to 10th and Patton.  From there I took Oswald's route to Jefferson and then headed toward the Texas Theater. As I walked along Jefferson, I remember hearing lots of salsa music being played. That was about the extent of my visiting the key places of the JFKA.

That visit rekindled my interest in the JFKA. When I got home, I found John McAdams' forum on google groups and the companion unmoderated alt.conspiracy.jfk which I soon learned had been given the well deserved nickname of "the nuthouse". It was a free for all with no rules. You had to be able to take it as well as dish it out if you wanted to hang out there. I spent much more time on the moderated group where my main foil was Tony Marsh who I remembered from the Prodigy days. I saw from the archives a number of other Prodigy members but none of them were still active after I joined. I think after 3 or 4 years there, I tired of it and dropped out. Several years later, I had a relapse and got involved again. I stayed with the McAdams forum until his untimely passing about 5 years ago and since he was the only moderator left on that forum, it was effectively killed. I think it was only a few months later that Google announced they were doing away with all google groups which ended the nuthouse as well. I dabbled into a few other online forums but decided it would be a good time to drop the hobby and spend my time on other interests. That worked for about 4 years until one day I got bored and start doing searches for JFKA discussion groups and happened to land in this one. So here I am. Again.

I can relate to Michael Corleone's line from The Godfather III. "Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in!"

This laughable, nonsensical, surrealistically absurd thread has 325 replies and 68,346 views. How is this possible??? Maybe I'll just kill myself.