Reclaiming History- The Assassination Of JFK by Vincent Bugliosi

In its review of this book, Publisher’s Weekly made the excellent point that “Gerald Posner's 1993 Case Closed made most of the same points in a much more concise way”, and further notes that Bugliosi seems to be trying to set a record for footnotes. All true, but in making this complaint, PW is missing the forest for the trees in my opinion. The sheer number (over 1,000 at last count) of books trying through illogic, misdirection, omissions and flat-out LIES to prove a conspiracy existed, coupled with the fact that more than ¾ of all Americans STILL believe there was a conspiracy absolutely DEMANDS that America’s foremost prosecuting attorney make the case for Oswald acting alone by overwhelming the skeptic with evidence.

I am a history teacher myself, and I loathe conspiracy theories. Badly thought out miasmas of idiocy that always depend on the evil collusion of the powerful and their supposed incredible ability to keep secrets. Such thinking is how we get ideas like spacemen building Stonehenge or the Jews being responsible for 9-11. However, there were a few things pointed out in the reams of B.S. that the JFK conspiracy theorists proffer that had always made me pause:

1 – Could the shooting be done with a “poor-quality” rifle in the time allowed, especially since Oswald was supposed to be a bad shot?

2 – If he was hit in the BACK of the head, why did Kennedy’s head fly backwards?

3 – How could one bullet have caused all those wounds and flown at such crazy angles?

Well, between the animation using modern computer techniques, this book, and the Penn & Teller show, I found perfectly simple answers to all the questions. Firstly, if you bother to do the research, Oswald qualified expert marksman in the USMC, and hundreds of people HAVE duplicated the shooting, using the same rifle and in less time. Secondly, it seems the jet effect of soft brains flying out a hole can naturally push a head backwards – see the P&T show to see it done with watermelons, and finally, thanks to the computer animation, it turns out that if you place the bodies in the car as they were actually placed (Kennedy’s seat was raised and offset, Connolly was turned half way around to the right), then the wounds form a perfectly straight line. And guess where that line goes back to? You got it, the schoolbook depository sniper’s nest.

So what about the Cubans and the Mafia and LBJ and the FBI and Hoover and…? It’s all crap. The sad reality for JFK and America is that a pitiful little man killed a great one, which doesn’t satisfy our need for dramatic equality. A great crime (the Holocaust, for example) requires great criminals (like the Nazis), and when something horrible is caused by a miserable little nothing for no good reason, we seem compelled to want it to be more than that. The sad reality for the conspiracy theorists is that, having devoted so much time and energy to trying to prove there was a conspiracy where none existed, they cannot abandon their beliefs in the face of reality without having to admit that have foolishly wasted their time. It is the inability to do exactly this that causes the retention of most stupid ideas. Has anyone else noticed that the people who can’t get past these theories on JFK are also always the same people who think we never landed on the moon, that there was no holocaust, and that 9-11 was the biggest conspiracy of all time?

Almost nobody trusts the Warren Report, but it turns out damned near nobody has bothered to READ it! So theorists claim ‘X’ never happened, or that ‘Y’ was never asked. Along comes Bugliosi and his thousands of footnotes, who shows you in black and white that ‘X’ DID happen, or that ‘Y’ WAS asked in Volume 3, page 349, etc. The Warren report, instead of being thought of as a huge lie, ought to be treated as a case study in how to conduct an investigation. It is fair to say Bugliosi goes to pedantic extremes to document and prove the idiots wrong, but what else can be done to convince the inconvincible? If anyone reading this still has trouble accepting the fact that Oswald acted alone, then grab some popular conspiracy books AND a copy of the Warren report, and start checking footnotes. You will notice that when Bugliosi points out lies, he can cite chapter and verse where he finds data in the Warren report that the theorists claim isn’t there. The theorists are COUNTING on the idea that you will never bother to do it, but will continue to ignorantly assume that it must be lies because the government said so. If you actually think that way, it doesn’t make ME naïve, it makes YOU a lazy idiot. Speaking for all historians and history teachers everywhere, don’t bother me with your bullshit if you haven’t done your homework.

http://www.amazon.com/Reclaiming-History-Assassination-President-Kennedy/dp/0393045250/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/002-5313856-1558468?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1176872876&sr=8-1

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reclaiming_History