The Silent Conspiracy

[Jon Banks]

No one is trying to have it both ways.

These are your words from a few pages ago:

“Oswald was a nut.  Nuts don't have neat "motivations" for their actions.  They don't behave in the same way as normal people.  So it is not surprising that Oswald's "motive" remains unclear.”
 
On one hand you dismiss speculation about his motive as irrelevant.

On the other, you seem to have a theory about his motive.

Motive doesn't have to be proven even in a criminal law trial.  If there is abundant evidence to convict, then we know that person is responsible.  That is the case here. 

We’re not in a courtroom.

Everyone here is allowed to speculate about different elements of the Kennedy assassination but if the speculation isn’t based on reality or facts then some people will push back.

Oswald was attracted to Marxism, in large part, because it was a fringe political element in American society.  That aligned with his own feelings of being an outsider.  He was also considered unique for purporting to be a Marxist.  It garnered attention including requests for interviews.  Something that would never have happened if Oswald was a member of a mainstream American political party.  To what extent he was a true believer in Marxist ideology is unclear.  It aligned with his own fantasy to be someone important.  How deeply he believed in the ideology can never be known.  He certainly wasn't willing to stay in the commie utopia of the Soviet Union when it involved freezing his arse off and doing menial jobs.   So a logical inference is that the depth of his political leanings were superficial but still important as a vehicle for his actions.  His fanaticism was mostly in himself.  He was an angry, disgruntled person who wanted to cause harm to the social and political system that he blamed for his anger about his lot in life.  He didn't want to view himself, however, as an angry nut.  Better to spin his impulse to commit violence in terms of a political act.  So that was a fantasy he concocted in his diseased brain.  That he was a revolutionary figure with a noble goal rather than an angry loser.  Marxism was vehicle he used.  He may have to believed in it for that reason but could easily abandon it when it didn't align with his own self-interests.

Fair points

I agree that it’s unclear how dedicated Oswald was to Marxist ideology.

I do believe he was broadly a Left-leaning Contrarian based on his own writings and the stuff George DeMorhenschildt said about his conversations with Oswald. But not a diehard Communist.

I’m not convinced that he could’ve been motivated by devotion to Castro or Communism.

[John Iacoletti]

There is overwhelming evidence of Oswald's guilt even if we can't know with absolute certainty his subjective motive.

So you keep claiming, while never offering any.

[Charles Collins]

I'm not sure it is a matter of whether Oswald "liked" JFK or not.  JFK was the president.  Oswald viewed himself as some type of revolutionary who had already demonstrated a willingness to assassinate a public figure.  The president is the symbolic representative of everything Oswald hated.  And by sheer chance the opportunity fell into his lap.  If the president had been Nixon, LBJ, or anyone else at that moment, he still takes the shot.  It wasn't the individual but the office holder that he was targeting.  I believe Oswald's political beliefs were more about himself than the political cause.  In a fringe movement like Marxism, Oswald felt he could be someone important.  A big fish because it is a small pond.  That would not be true in mainstream American politics like being a democrat or republican.  Just another sheep in his mind.  So he picks a fringe political group to associate himself with and then hopes he can make his mark.  The political cause is the means rather than the ends.   He uses it to promote himself.

Yes, I agree with that. However, after learning more details about the covert war between Cuba and the U.S. during the fall of 1963, I believe there is credible evidence that Castro at least suspected that LHO might take a shot at JFK on 11/22/63. And in keeping with the idea of an open mind, I don’t want to exclude that possibility. The evidence suggests that LHO conceived and implemented his plan without outside help. And that the opportunity did, by chance, fall into his lap. And I do believe that it is feasible that LHO actually did threaten to kill JFK while leaving the Cuban Consulate in Mexico City as reported. And if so, it is reasonable to believe that the DGI agents probably would have tracked LHO to Dallas, TX, even if only for surveillance.

[Richard Smith]

Yes, I agree with that. However, after learning more details about the covert war between Cuba and the U.S. during the fall of 1963, I believe there is credible evidence that Castro at least suspected that LHO might take a shot at JFK on 11/22/63. And in keeping with the idea of an open mind, I don’t want to exclude that possibility. The evidence suggests that LHO conceived and implemented his plan without outside help. And that the opportunity did, by chance, fall into his lap. And I do believe that it is feasible that LHO actually did threaten to kill JFK while leaving the Cuban Consulate in Mexico City as reported. And if so, it is reasonable to believe that the DGI agents probably would have tracked LHO to Dallas, TX, even if only for surveillance.

I think it is possible that Oswald vowed to commit some violent act to convince the Cubans of his sincerity to the cause.  I doubt, however, that it involved a direct threat to JFK since Oswald would have had no way to know the opportunity would ever arise at the time he was in Mexico City.  It would not have been until the week of the assassination that he would have any clue that opportunity would present itself.  And he made no apparent effort after returning to the US to track down JFK.  He may have told them he was the one who tried to kill Walker to impress them with his dedication.  The Cubans likely thought he was a nut or some type of CIA plant.  After the assassination, they would be reluctant to admit that Oswald made any threat for fear it would be used against them as pretext for linking them to Oswald in a plan to assassinate JFK.   So they did some CYA.  I doubt Oswald's visit to Mexico City - even if he made promises to commit violent acts - would rise to the level of anything told to Castro before the assassination. 

[Steve M. Galbraith]

Yes, I don't read that letter as an approval.  It appears to be just reiterating what he was told in Mexico City.  That he has to the get a visa from the Soviets before the Cubans will do anything.  That makes it all the more curious if, just three days later, they granted his visa without an approval for a visa from the Russians.  It seems odd that whatever is the basis of the claim that his visa was approved - as referenced in a number of places - it is so difficult to locate.

Right, but the intriguing thing to me is that they processed his application. Why not just throw it away? He's viewed as a crank, an oddball that they wanted nothing to do with. And then they sent it on? Mirabal signed off on it; and he said that he thought Oswald might have been a "provocateur" sent to cause problems.

As to finding it: again, it would be given contingent on him presenting a Soviet visa. He shows them his Soviet visa and they give him a transit visa.

But our conspiracy friends can answer all of this: it wasn't Oswald. It was a double. Two Oswalds, two rifles, two Zapruder films (at least), two gunmen, two autopsies.....it never ends.

[Bill Chapman]

Right, but the intriguing thing to me is that they processed his application. Why not just throw it away? He's viewed as a crank, an oddball that they wanted nothing to do with. And then they sent it on? Mirabal signed off on it; and he said that he thought Oswald might have been a "provocateur" sent to cause problems.

As to finding it: again, it would be given contingent on him presenting a Soviet visa. He shows them his Soviet visa and they give him a transit visa.

But our conspiracy friends can answer all of this: it wasn't Oswald. It was a double. Two Oswalds, two rifles, two Zapruder films (at least), two gunmen, two autopsies.....it never ends.

Oswald: I'm innocent.
CT Judge: Okay, you can go.
Oswald: [SMIRK]

[Jon Banks]

Right, but the intriguing thing to me is that they processed his application. Why not just throw it away? He's viewed as a crank, an oddball that they wanted nothing to do with. And then they sent it on? Mirabal signed off on it; and he said that he thought Oswald might have been a "provocateur" sent to cause problems.

As to finding it: again, it would be given contingent on him presenting a Soviet visa. He shows them his Soviet visa and they give him a transit visa.

But our conspiracy friends can answer all of this: it wasn't Oswald. It was a double. Two Oswalds, two rifles, two Zapruder films (at least), two gunmen, two autopsies.....it never ends.

In Dallas Oswald kept a low-profile and didn't do much to draw attention to himself.

In New Orleans and Mexico City, he did everything but keep a low profile. He did lots of things to draw attention to himself.

Despite all that, there are no photos of him in Mexico City. I don't think that is coincidental.

The most obvious possibility is that it was a charade and he was being used as some sort of Intelligence asset (witting or unwitting).

The intent of the project may have had more to do with FBI/CIA attempts to sabotage the Fair Play For Cuba organization than a conspiracy to make Oswald look suspicious weeks before the Kennedy assassination.

There's too much smoke around Mexico City to say that all the weird stuff was just coincidental...

[Richard Smith]

Right, but the intriguing thing to me is that they processed his application. Why not just throw it away? He's viewed as a crank, an oddball that they wanted nothing to do with. And then they sent it on? Mirabal signed off on it; and he said that he thought Oswald might have been a "provocateur" sent to cause problems.

As to finding it: again, it would be given contingent on him presenting a Soviet visa. He shows them his Soviet visa and they give him a transit visa.

But our conspiracy friends can answer all of this: it wasn't Oswald. It was a double. Two Oswalds, two rifles, two Zapruder films (at least), two gunmen, two autopsies.....it never ends.

I wonder if it actually ever was granted.  Or whether the letter you noted has been misconstrued as granting his request and others simply repeated that over the years.  I don't know for sure.  Maybe someone here has the document demonstrating that his Cuban visa was granted.  If it was, it was likely just processed by the bureaucracy.  Maybe they had a policy to automatically do so with the understanding that the Russians were ultimately in control of whoever they wanted to allow into their country.  I vaguely recall reading something along those lines but can't remember where.