Another of my “epistemological” essays no one cares about – but at least Jake Maxwell and I are amusing ourselves and having fun, which is the whole point of jigsaw puzzles. I really think epistemology - examining whether your beliefs are rational, coherent and defensible - is the level at which much theorizing about the JFKA goes awry.
The late John McAdams wrote a book called JFK Assassination Logic: How to Think about Claims of Conspiracy. I bought it and was disappointed. I didn't think the book delivered what the title promised. I actually am interested in "how to think about claims of conspiracy" in an epistemological sense.
I was struck by Michael Walton’s statement, “I have no doubt there was a conspiracy.” This is what many of friends say. They really have no interest at all in the JFKA, but they do have a vague sense that “there’s just too much weird sh*t for Oswald to have done it alone.” There simply had to be “a” conspiracy.
What is “a” conspiracy? Conspiracy theories range from Oswald doing exactly what the LN narrative says he did to Oswald being an innocent patsy who thought Friday was just another day at work, The prime conspirators range from LBJ to CIA higher-ups to the Mafia to grungy Cubans who either hated or loved Castro to the KGB to Israelis to numerous others. Dealey Plaza had everything from Oswald shooting alone to several multi-person kill teams with snipers and spotters.
Does “I have no doubt there was a conspiracy” mean anything at all?
Do I say, “I have no doubt there wasn’t a conspiracy”? Absolutely not. I certainly have doubt, but I’m a provisional Lone Nutter because:
1. Taken as a whole, from who Oswald was to the events in Dealey Plaza and the aftermath, the LN narrative, warts and all, seems to me the most realistic, coherent, evidence-based theory.
2. The number of full-blown but completely irreconcilable conspiracy theories, and the unwillingness of their proponents to deal with the core issue of what real-world sense they would have made and how they actually would have worked, gives me pause.
3. The number of obviously absurd conspiracy theories that are embraced by seemingly educated and intelligent people (e.g., Harvey & Lee) gives me pause.
4. The sloppiness of much CT “research,” and the enthusiasm for factoids that are demonstrably false, gives me pause.
Hence, I am a Lone Nutter who is willing to entertain a coherent, evidence-based conspiracy theory that can be articulated in a way that makes real-world sense. I may not change my position, but I'll listen.
When most people refer to “a” conspiracy, they mean no more than my friends do: There’s just too much weird sh*t to believe the LN narrative (by which they really mean "the Warren Report"). “I have no clue what the conspiracy might have been, but by God there was one.”
This weird sh*t is mostly the product of CTers’ efforts to poke holes in the LN narrative. It really has little to do with any conspiracy per se. It has to do with whether Oswald would have been found guilty at a criminal trial.
A model federal jury instruction defines reasonable doubt thusly:
A reasonable doubt is a doubt based upon reason and common sense and is not based purely on speculation. It may arise from a careful and impartial consideration of all the evidence, or from lack of evidence.
Note the phrase “all the evidence.”
I personally have reasonable doubt about the Magic Bullet and the SBT. I have reasonable doubt about the alignment of the holes in JFK’s clothing with the holes in his body. I have reasonable doubt the FBI and DPD were entirely honest. Oswald’s preternatural calm after the assassination and during intense interrogation, and his demeanor at the midnight press conference, are almost enough in themselves to give me reasonable doubt about the whole case against him. My difficulty articulating a clear motive on the part of Oswald gives me pause. The obvious motive and means of some hypothesized conspirators, such as Marcello, is hard to ignore. I have little patience with Lone Nutters who seem to feel they are defending religious dogma and can’t acknowledge any issues at all with the LN narrative.
And yet, “all the evidence” is enough to put me in the LN camp. Notwithstanding reasonable doubt about a number of aspects of the LN narrative, it is the theory that is to me the most realistic, coherent and evidence-based.
My point is that “too much weird sh*t” is really no basis for saying “I have no doubt there was a conspiracy.” I think you at least need to study and reflect enough to be able to fit the weird sh*t into some theory that seems reasonably realistic, coherent and evidence-based, that explains the weird sh*t better than the LN narrative and that you can defend when challenged as to how it makes any real-world sense and actually would have worked. You need more than “a” conspiracy.
When I read polls saying things like, “73% of Americans believe the JFKA was the product of a conspiracy,” I always think, “Uh-huh, ‘a’ conspiracy, just what my friends who know essentially nothing about the JFKA also believe.” More accurately, 73% of Americans have some vague notion that there is too much weird sh*t for the LN narrative to be true.
As Walter Cronkite famously said back in the days when I was a journalism major, “We don’t feature stories about all the cats who don’t get stuck in trees and don’t have to be rescued by the Fire Department.” Ditto with the JFKA: The media doesn’t cover the LN narrative because it’s not news. Sixty years of yammering by CTers does tend to look like a lot of weird sh*t, but I really don’t think we’re closer to “the” conspiracy (if there was one) than we were 50 years ago. We just have a somewhat bigger pile of weird sh*t.
