JFK Assassination Still Matters (5/20/07)
by Dean Hartwell
I am an admirer of Vincent Bugliosi’s work. He has written classic books such as Outrage, which criticized the O.J. Simpson verdict, Betrayal of America, which picks apart the Bush v. Gore Supreme Court decision and the lesser-known No Island of Sanity, which rebukes another Supreme Court decision, Clinton v. Jones.
Now he has a new book about the assassination of President Kennedy, Reclaiming History. His 1,600 page work supports the official government version that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone to murder the President.
I haven’t read the book and don’t know if I will. Since I have read the Warren Report twice and other books supporting the official version such as Case Closed by Gerald Posner, I feel comfortable asserting that Oswald not only did not act alone, he did not act at all in the assassination.
But Bugliosi has my respect and I may buckle down and at least read excerpts of the “case” against Oswald that interest me most. I did this with A Simple Act of Murder by Mark Fuhrman, another great author. Bugliosi is a straight-shooter and has also expressed reservations about another official government belief, that Sirhan Sirhan acted alone to murder Robert Kennedy.
The mere fact that people still write and discuss the JFK assassination strongly indicated that a controversy still exists over the subject. Bugliosi, a famed prosecutor, may well win over a great number of people to the lone gunman hypothesis. But other information, such as a new study that challenges the premise that one person shot JFK, may yet sway others in the opposite direction. See this link
Sometimes I see polls that indicate a majority of people say they do not believe Oswald acted alone. But the pollsters either do not ask or do not reveal how many of those polled have read both sides of the story. The pollsters could ask a few background questions to ascertain the respondent’s familiarity with the subject.
Lee Harvey Oswald never received a trial because another man, Jack Ruby, killed him before a trial could begin. If he committed this crime, he changed the course of history. But if he didn’t, he was framed for something others did. For both our own knowledge of history and for our sense of justice, we deserve to know the truth. Instead of asking someone to give it to us, we can and should read both sides of the story.