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["I absolutely believe that Lee Oswald was the informant on the arrest
of Lawrence Miller and Donnell Whitter on November 18, 1963."
-- Marina Oswald Porter (Oswald's widow), in a 9/17/96 letter to
the Assassination Records Review Board demanding all FBI files on the arrest]
Just for fun, try reading several conspiracy books simultaneously, ten pages each at a sitting.
Guess what? Kennedy was killed by a machine gun burst from a jittery Secret Service agent... but only after being paralyzed by an umbrella-launched poison dart and shot by his limo driver on behalf of the Saucer Nazis.
It's like Tom Clancy on Space Cake.
One theory even says Dallas was part of an arcane Masonic death ritual. The proof? Well... there are 33 levels in Masonry. And Dealey Plaza is a trident-shaped intersection at the 33rd parallel, near a triple underpass beside the Trinity River.
Let's see... I'm 33 years old, and I chew Trident gum. The Trident missile is really big, and so is Kareem Abdul-Jabbar... who wore [number 33]. Coincidence? [I think not!]
History is so much more fun when you make it up.
Compared to all that, the official version sounds possible: Lee Harvey Oswald, an awful marksman with no motive and a defective rifle, caused seven entrance wounds with only three bullets. Oswald then escaped by catching a city bus, only to be murdered in police custody by [another] lunatic acting alone.
According to polls, only about 15 percent of you folks buy that one. Twice that many believe in witches, and ten percent think Elvis is still alive.
Thirty-three years later (hey, maybe it [was] the Masons), should we still care?
Absodamnlutely.
There's no need for parlor games. We have archives and libraries and the right to see the internal record of our past. You'd be surprised how much is available.
For example, declassified documents prove that the FBI only gave the Warren Commission stuff that reinforced the shaky case against Oswald; other leads were quietly ignored when they weren't destroyed. The media was leaked the same garbage, regurgitated it, and has fought for credibility on the subject ever since.
Think that can't happen today? Two words: Richard Jewell.
See, good JFK research isn't about catching some grassy knoll gunman or kickstarting Camelot. It's about revealing stuff that's still happening today: CIA covert wars, FBI political surveillance operations, domestic propaganda exercises -- all explained in government documents. No theories needed.
Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to believe Tom Brokaw.
Right this minute, the Assassination Records Review Board is expediting the release of classified Kennedy stuff. There's some stonewalling -- on Oswald's Naval Intelligence file, for example -- but, combined with earlier releases, over a million pages are now public.
Some really sharp needles are in that haystack:
*Not only did the CIA have operational counterintelligence files on Oswald before the assassination; the FBI's files on Oswald start in 1960, and Jack Ruby was an FBI informant on black market activities as early as 1959.
*In November of 1963, some CIA-financed Cuban exiles in Dallas and New Orleans were preparing to attack Cuba. To muffle dissent, an earlier CIA companion op targeted the leftist Fair Play for Cuba Committee. That's the group Oswald pretended to join.
*Some of the Cubans' black market weapons came from a militia-type gun ring, who stole rifles from Texas military armories. One of their fences was apparently Jack Ruby.
*Just before the assassination, two of these gunrunners were arrested by the FBI, thanks to a tip. Who was the informer? Re-read Marina's statement, above.
*Bang, bang... The "magic bullet" and shells at the scene were from a fairly rare type of ammo admittedly owned by one of the gunrunners.
*The CIA's anti-Castro guys instantly alerted the media to Oswald's (false) ties to Cuba, demanding retaliation.
After that, a festival of ass covering: Ruby killed Oswald, the FBI denounced them both as lunatics -- incidentally defusing the CIA effort to blame Castro -- and LBJ created the Warren Commission to pacify public outcry for a real investigation.
Simple, really.
Remember, this picture is forming [in the internal record].
The ARRB's mandate expires next year. It was created solely as a response to public demand, and it will press for the release of U.S. history only as long as the demand continues.
Call your Congressional Representative and holler. Thirty-three times if you have to.
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Bob Harris is a political humorist who has lectured at over 275 colleges nationwide. He's also the co-author of the CD/ROM [Encyclopedia of the JFK Assassination].
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