Conspiracy Theory Du Jour

[Kepler]

Re: Conspiracy Theory Du Jour

To me, it's not a matter of who did it, but WHY they did it (or who was the motive behind it).

Kennedy was going to seriously restrict the agency's scope of action to its formal mandate. The mindset that inhabited the agency viewed that as an unacceptable threat to the US ("you need me on that wall," etc). They removed an enemy.

 

[SJHovey]

Re: Conspiracy Theory Du Jour

Personally I think it would be so much more interesting if there was some sort of smoking gun or evidence of a conspiracy to kill Kennedy in the files to be released. But it won't happen. It just isn't there.

I love a good conspiracy as much as the next guy. But ignoring the "evidence," pretty much all of which has long since been debunked, I've just never thought that a conspiracy made any sense. Why kill Kennedy as he's coming to the end of his term instead of much earlier? Castro, Johnson, the Russians, the Mob, the CIA, the military industrial complex, multiple combinations of the above, etc... Can we just pick one? Pretty hard to convince me of a conspiracy when everyone has a different theory about who, how and why it was done.

 

[Kepler]

Re: Conspiracy Theory Du Jour

Do you realize how much you sound like Alex Jones and the controlled demolition crowd?

Come, now. That's not at all fair. solovsfett isn't making up non-scientific gibberish about the melting point of steel.

The mountain of circumstantial evidence that the agency was involved is not in and of itself proof. But it does swap the balance of Occam's Razor. We begin with an utterly unthinkable and enormous crime: the assassination of the president by men within a USG agency. Without context or further information the odds are just too high -- it's an untenable position.

So then I provide a motive and solovsfett provides facts which strongly indicate connections between the agency and the shooter. At that point the balance should begin to change. The "simplest explanation," eventually, at least for solovsfett and myself, switches. But the problem is the original crime seems so outlandish that for many people the normal rules of evidence collection are suspended. People make up their mind at the start and then come to a full stop: any further discussion is "conspiracy."

My speculation is this is in no way a huge conspiracy. It's a clandestine operation run out of one guy's office with a very small number of witting agents.

And the thing is: that's what the agency does. All the time. It's their job. They take down foreign leaders. At times they have run ops on domestic persons. We know all this.

They are a burglery ring -- we want them to be and they do that work all the time. We just don't want to believe they up and burgled the White House, because if that's true it's a very, very uncomfortable situation.

 

[Kepler]

Re: Conspiracy Theory Du Jour

Personally I think it would be so much more interesting if there was some sort of smoking gun or evidence of a conspiracy to kill Kennedy in the files to be released. But it won't happen. It just isn't there.

I love a good conspiracy as much as the next guy. But ignoring the "evidence," pretty much all of which has long since been debunked, I've just never thought that a conspiracy made any sense. Why kill Kennedy as he's coming to the end of his term instead of much earlier? Castro, Johnson, the Russians, the Mob, the CIA, the military industrial complex, multiple combinations of the above, etc... Can we just pick one? Pretty hard to convince me of a conspiracy when everyone has a different theory about who, how and why it was done.

You just reenacted the scene in Close Encounters where the guy mentions Big Foot and sidelines the whole discussion.

The presence of a hundred alternative theories does not affect any one theory in any fashion.

 

[SJHovey]

Re: Conspiracy Theory Du Jour

You just reenacted the scene in Close Encounters where the guy mentions Big Foot and sidelines the whole discussion.

The presence of a hundred alternative theories does not affect any one theory in any fashion.

Fine. Pick one then. Who and how? I won't even ask you to explain why they did it.

 

[Kepler]

Re: Conspiracy Theory Du Jour

Fine. Pick one then. Who and how? I won't even ask you to explain why they did it.

This was no boat accident. It wasn't any propeller; it wasn't any coral reef. And it wasn't Jack the Ripper.

It was a shark. A rogue operation within the CIA ambushed Kennedy in Dallas because they were afraid he would curtail the scope of their covert ops and investigate their former ops. While they may have been defending themselves personally I think they believed they were defending the United States in a hostile world where you have to play rough because everyone else is.

 

[dxmnkd316]

Re: Conspiracy Theory Du Jour

Come, now. That's not at all fair. solovsfett isn't making up non-scientific gibberish about the melting point of steel.

The mountain of circumstantial evidence that the agency was involved is not in and of itself proof. But it does swap the balance of Occam's Razor. We begin with an utterly unthinkable and enormous crime: the assassination of the president by men within a USG agency. Without context or further information the odds are just too high -- it's an untenable position.

So then I provide a motive and solovsfett provides facts which strongly indicate connections between the agency and the shooter. At that point the balance should begin to change. The "simplest explanation," eventually, at least for solovsfett and myself, switches. But the problem is the original crime seems so outlandish that for many people the normal rules of evidence collection are suspended. People make up their mind at the start and then come to a full stop: any further discussion is "conspiracy."

My speculation is this is in no way a huge conspiracy. It's a clandestine operation run out of one guy's office with a very small number of witting agents.

And the thing is: that's what the agency does. All the time. It's their job. They take down foreign leaders. At times they have run ops on domestic persons. We know all this.

They are a burglery ring -- we want them to be and they do that work all the time. We just don't want to believe they up and burgled the White House, because if that's true it's a very, very uncomfortable situation.

Except it is non-scientific gibberish. Theories discounted by peer reviewed journals. People ‘feeling’ like there were alterations. Photogographs that do nothing but show FBI agents retrieving something from the area and concluding it was an entirely separate bullet. Concluding an agency retrieved two bullets because “missiles” means bullets. Eyewitnesses’ recollections of gunshots being interpreted in two completely different ways.

A bunch on non-scientific gibberish on par with melting steel.

 

[SJHovey]

Re: Conspiracy Theory Du Jour

This was no boat accident. It wasn't any propeller; it wasn't any coral reef. And it wasn't Jack the Ripper.

It was a shark. A rogue operation within the CIA ambushed Kennedy in Dallas because they were afraid he would curtail the scope of their covert ops and investigate their former ops. While they may have been defending themselves personally I think they believed they were defending the United States in a hostile world where you have to play rough because everyone else is.

So, is it your claim that LHO was the lone gunman, but acting at the behest of the CIA?

 

[dxmnkd316]

Re: Conspiracy Theory Du Jour

So, is it your claim that LHO was the lone gunman, but acting at the behest of the CIA?

That’s about the only one I could see happening. It doesn’t require the complete and willing suspension of disbelief like the multiple shooter hogwash.

 

[Kepler]

Re: Conspiracy Theory Du Jour

Personally I think it would be so much more interesting if there was some sort of smoking gun or evidence of a conspiracy to kill Kennedy in the files to be released. But it won't happen. It just isn't there.

It's very unlikely there is. One possibility: it was all exactly as the Commission said it was, in which case there's nothing to find.

The second possibility is the Commission missed something and putting it together with later evidence and research will "cause the gun to smoke."

The third possibility is the Commission knew the truth but (probably rightfully) decided it was an existential crisis in American history and it was just too much. So they ate all the breadcrumbs for the good of the world.

The fourth possibility is the Commission knew the truth but (probably rightfully) decided it was an existential crisis in American history and it was just too much just then. So they squirreled away all the evidence for fifty years, and now we're going to open the box and find the severed head. Ew.

(Let's say, for instance, that it had been the Russians -- that the Commission found absolute proof the Russians assassinated Kennedy. If they let that out, they push the Doomsday Clock to a hundredth of a second before midnight. So they say, "Yeah, no... let's give this a Time Out. Surely fifty years from now we'll either have destroyed ourselves or figured out how to live in peace.")

 

[Drew S.]

Re: Conspiracy Theory Du Jour

How do you guys think Jack Ruby fits in?

 

[Kepler]

Re: Conspiracy Theory Du Jour

So, is it your claim that LHO was the lone gunman, but acting at the behest of the CIA?

I'm perfectly happy with that explanation. Other gunmen are like God -- "my theory does not require that hypothesis." And it explains why Oswald has to go. If Oswald is a crazy guy who kills Kennedy for his own personal reasons there is no reason to tie him up as a loose end.

 

[Kepler]

Re: Conspiracy Theory Du Jour

How do you guys think Jack Ruby fits in?

In my case Ruby shuts Oswald up. I can't speak for anybody else.

 

[Drew S.]

In my case Ruby shuts Oswald up. I can't speak for anybody else.

Do you think it was just dumb luck he shot Oswald or was he contracted by another group?

 

[Kepler]

Re: Conspiracy Theory Du Jour

Do you think it was just dumb luck he shot Oswald or was he contracted by another group?

Ruby is insurance. I doubt he knows who he's working for since that would just create another loose end. At that point I think we're just into subcontractors.

 

[SJHovey]

Re: Conspiracy Theory Du Jour

I'm perfectly happy with that explanation. Other gunmen are like God -- "my theory does not require that hypothesis." And it explains why Oswald has to go. If Oswald is a crazy guy who kills Kennedy for his own personal reasons there is no reason to tie him up as a loose end.

The problem I've always had with this is if the CIA intends to kill Kennedy, why put LHO up to the task? Did pretty much every other skilled assassin/CIA operative/killer for hire turn them down?

Some guy in Des Moines who decides he wants to kill his wife hires a d i p s h i t like LHO while chatting with him in a bar. If you are an agency who apparently is in the business of committing murders of heads of state and getting away with it, you don't hire a drifter like LHO and entrust him with the task, and then leave it up to a pimp to cover your tracks by offing the killer.

 

[Kepler]

Re: Conspiracy Theory Du Jour

The problem I've always had with this is if the CIA intends to kill Kennedy, why put LHO up to the task? Did pretty much every other skilled assassin/CIA operative/killer for hire turn them down?

I believe Watchmen covered this.

 

[solovsfett]

Fine. Pick one then. Who and how? I won't even ask you to explain why they did it.

Allen Dulles at the top. He meets Paulino sierra Martinez in march/April 63, after that meeting Martinez suddenly becomes a wealthy benefactor to anti-Castro groups. Oct 63, Dulles meets with treasury secretary Doug Dillon which may have resulted in Dillon removing secret service protection from dealey plaza.

James Angleton head of counterintelligence who'd monitored Oswald since at least November if 1959 and likely used him for his mole hunt is tasked with orchestrating cover.
Bill Harvey head of ZRRifle (CIA assassination team) is tasked to find the get the shooters. He was seen in Dallas a week prior to 11-22 despite being allegedly on duty at the Rome station at that time.
David Phillips (propagandist, misinformation specialist) and George Joannides (psychological warfare chief from miami) are tasked with sheepdipping oswald as a communist. To that end Joannides manipulates CIA assets the DRE (Cuban student anti-Castro group) into a confrontation with LHO and green lights their calls to radio and tv people where the DRE tags LHO a communist. Phillips handles the misinformation on oswald's mexco trip.phillips also handles post-assassination misinformation and that was discovered by the HSCA.
It's possible David Morales (operations chief at the psychological warfare branch in Miami) was involved but small group. 6-7 total knew about the extent of the plan.

Harvey died in 1978 and instructed his wife prior to that to destroy all of his files which she did.
Angleton was pushed out in 1974 due to his illegal htlingual program monitoring the mail of thousands of citizens. When CIA officers opened his safe they found autopsy pictures of RFK, and files in both JFK and RFK. They destroyed all of it.

The details are coming out slowly, year after year. It may take 2-5 years just to understand what's in these new documents given cryptonynms and other coded jargon etc

One fact from july's release. Dallas mayor earl cabbel who changed the parade route was a CIA asset.

 

[Kepler]

Re: Conspiracy Theory Du Jour

Allen Dulles at the top. He meets Paulino sierra Martinez in march/April 63, after that meeting Martinez suddenly becomes a wealthy benefactor to anti-Castro groups. Oct 63, Dulles meets with treasury secretary Doug Dillon which may have resulted in Dillon removing secret service protection from dealey plaza.

James Angleton head of counterintelligence who'd monitored Oswald since at least November if 1959 and likely used him for his mole hunt is tasked with orchestrating cover.
Bill Harvey head of ZRRifle (CIA assassination team) is tasked to find the get the shooters. He was seen in Dallas a week prior to 11-22 despite being allegedly on duty at the Rome station at that time.
David Phillips (propagandist, misinformation specialist) and George Joannides (psychological warfare chief from miami) are tasked with sheepdipping oswald as a communist. To that end Joannides manipulates CIA assets the DRE (Cuban student anti-Castro group) into a confrontation with LHO and green lights their calls to radio and tv people where the DRE tags LHO a communist. Phillips handles the misinformation on oswald's mexco trip.phillips also handles post-assassination misinformation and that was discovered by the HSCA.
It's possible David Morales (operations chief at the psychological warfare branch in Miami) was involved but small group. 6-7 total knew about the extent of the plan.

Harvey died in 1978 and instructed his wife prior to that to destroy all of his files which she did.
Angleton was pushed out in 1974 due to his illegal htlingual program monitoring the mail of thousands of citizens. When CIA officers opened his safe they found autopsy pictures of RFK, and files in both JFK and RFK. They destroyed all of it.

The details are coming out slowly, year after year. It may take 2-5 years just to understand what's in these new documents given cryptonynms and other coded jargon etc

One fact from july's release. Dallas mayor earl cabbel who changed the parade route was a CIA asset.

I'm just going to let solovsfett handle all of this. He or she knows far more about the mechanics than I do.

I only know generally what everybody who has looked at this knows: everywhere you turn there are agency connections. It is enough that it makes no sense to me to ascribe all that to blind chance. Every person in America in 1963 wasn't a CIA asset, so how come seemingly every person who has been verified to be connected to the assassination even by those who don't believe there was an operation just happens to turn out to be an asset?

 

[SJHovey]

Re: Conspiracy Theory Du Jour

I'm just going to let solovsfett handle all of this. He or she knows far more about the mechanics than I do.

I only know generally what everybody who has looked at this knows: everywhere you turn there are agency connections. It is enough that it makes no sense to me to ascribe all that to blind chance. Every person in America in 1963 wasn't a CIA asset, so how come seemingly every person who has been verified to be connected to the assassination even by those who don't believe there was an operation just happens to turn out to be an asset?

But the other problem is that the "connections," once dug into, don't exist or don't exist like claimed. It always turns out something like "CIA operative X was in Mexico City the same day as LHO." Mexico City is a big farking city, and the CIA had/has "assets" in a great many metropolitan areas, both here and abroad, I'm guessing. That's why I don't buy it.