Vincent Bugliosi - More radical than you'd expect

[Gerry Down]

Some points about Bugliosi that often go unnoticed:

- I watched the below video of an interview of Vincent Bugliosi. At 1 hour and 7 minutes in he says that Nixon was not part of the Watergate incident. These seems like a radical position to take.
- According to his Wikipedia page "Bugliosi is on record for believing that Senator Robert F. Kennedy was the victim of a conspiracy."
- In his book Reclaiming History, Bugliosi makes the case that the Odio incident might well have happened (even though the WC and HSCA thought it didn't happen).

These all seem like radical positions to take and not in keeping with the conservative tone one would expect from him.

Perhaps we got Bugliosi all wrong?

[Richard Smith]

I think Bugliosi conjured up the "Helter Skelter" business in the Manson case to provide a narrative for that crime for the jury.  It had little to do with his race war theory.   Manson was attempting to cover up a drug-related murder by one of his associates by making it appear that the person responsible was still on the loose and committing similar crimes while his associate was in jail.  The messages left at the crime scene were intended to make the police believe the crimes were all linked.  Instead Bugs used them literally as a motive for the crime.  My only criticism of his analysis of the JFK assassination is that he allows the CTers to drag the discussion down into the gutter.  It is understandable to become frustrated at the lack of logic and insanity applied to the basic evidence in that case, but in the context of writing a book on the subject it makes him sometimes come off as petty when ranting against those nutty claims.

[Martin Weidmann]

I think Bugliosi conjured up the "Helter Skelter" business in the Manson case to provide a narrative for that crime for the jury.  It had little to do with his race war theory.   Manson was attempting to cover up a drug-related murder by one of his associates by making it appear that the person responsible was still on the loose and committing similar crimes while his associate was in jail.  The messages left at the crime scene were intended to make the police believe the crimes were all linked.  Instead Bugs used them literally as a motive for the crime.  My only criticism of his analysis of the JFK assassination is that he allows the CTers to drag the discussion down into the gutter.  It is understandable to become frustrated at the lack of logic and insanity applied to the basic evidence in that case, but in the context of writing a book on the subject it makes him sometimes come off as petty when ranting against those nutty claims.

it makes him sometimes come off as petty when ranting against those nutty claims.

So, you've got something in common with Bugs   

[Joe Elliott]

Well, it is unclear in my mind if Nixon was involved right from the beginning. Certainly, after the initial burglary, he became involved in the coverup to protect his lieutenants and his own reputation. Admittedly, it would be strange for his lieutenants to order the burglary without authorization from the very top, but Nixon and his lieutenants kept the ultimate truth from us. I suspect Nixon did order the burglary beforehand.

Certainly, I strongly disagree with Bugliosi on the 2000 Presidential Election. I don’t see the U. S. Supreme Court stealing the election from Gore. Instead, I see the U. S. Supreme Court trying, as best they could, to clean up the mess created by the Florida State Supreme Court. What people forget is that initially, the Florida court tried to change the law so that instead of having a fair statewide recount, which Florida law allowed during the Contest phase, they would have an unfair, biased recount of just 4 strongly Democratic counties. Only very late in the game, December 8, did the court finally allowed the original Florida law to start a statewide recount. By this time, it was too late. The Florida legislature was up in arms and was ready to appoint its own slate of Electors when the U. S. Supreme Court shut the whole sorry process down.

Bugliosi was wildly wrong to buy into the RFK assassination conspiracy theories.

While very knowledgeable about the JFK assassination, spent more time than anyone else studying it (I believe), and came to the correct conclusions, his overall approach was impossible. To shoot down every conspiracy theory. The CT community can produce far more false scenarios than any one man could ever disprove. He truly was attempting one of the labors of Hercules which could never by accomplished by any mortal.

I think that in general, Bugliosi was not real skillful in finding the truth.

[Richard Smith]

it makes him sometimes come off as petty when ranting against those nutty claims.

So, you've got something in common with Bugs   

Yes, we both deal with nuts.  In his case, he is writing a book for the public.  In my case, I'm responding directly to them. 

[Martin Weidmann]

Yes, we both deal with nuts.  In his case, he is writing a book for the public.  In my case, I'm responding directly to them.

And both of you arrogantly and mistakenly believe you know it all (when in truth you have no answers to the easiest of questions) and both are extremely petty.

In his case, he is writing a book for the public.

No. He wrote it for the money. Judging by how badly it sold, the public wanted nothing to do with it. Whenever somebody needs a book of that size (so many words) to explain a simple case of a guy in a window shooting a guy in a car, it's pretty obvious that something is up.

In my case, I'm responding directly to them.

No, you don't responde to anything. You just regurgitate the same old crap over and over again.

[Jon Banks]

Some points about Bugliosi that often go unnoticed:

- I watched the below video of an interview of Vincent Bugliosi. At 1 hour and 7 minutes in he says that Nixon was not part of the Watergate incident. These seems like a radical position to take.
- According to his Wikipedia page "Bugliosi is on record for believing that Senator Robert F. Kennedy was the victim of a conspiracy."
- In his book Reclaiming History, Bugliosi makes the case that the Odio incident might well have happened (even though the WC and HSCA thought it didn't happen).

These all seem like radical positions to take and not in keeping with the conservative tone one would expect from him.

Perhaps we got Bugliosi all wrong?

From what I understand, Nixon wasn't involved in the Watergate burglary but he did attempt to cover it up.

The RFK thing definitely isn't radical at all. It's probable that there was a conspiracy based on the forensic evidence.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/true-crime/wp/2018/06/06/the-bobby-kennedy-assassination-tape-were-13-shots-fired-or-only-8/

The Odio incident is one of the loose ends that point to Oswald potentially having co-conspirators. I appreciated his honesty in admitting that it might've happened.

None of the examples you cited seem radical to me...

[Charles Collins]

No matter what you think about Bugliosi, he did manage to convince a jury that LHO was guilty. Yes, it was a mock trial. However, it appears to me to have been the most objective of all the mock trials of this case that I have seen.