I'm with you there, Steve. Over the years, I have evenhandedly evaluated many of the "visual" conspiracy claims. For example, there was the claim that Umbrella Man's umbrella had eight ribs, which ruled against the HSCA's witness who produced an umbrella with ten ribs. But when examined in the Willis photo and Zapruder frames, the umbrella did have ten ribs. I suspect this was one of the little findings that jarred Gary Mack and made him less suspicible to conspiracy claims.
The same with the claims that the autopsy photos showed an entry point at T3 or lower.
3D analysis of the back wound autopsy photo shows the entry wound was above the exit wound at the throat. This is the first-attempt analysis. Nothing fancy. Let the chips fall. Yes, on this particular model, the missile path clipped the C7 vertebra, but allowing for normal human variation, the missile path could just as easily have not struck bone.
The point is the critics never applied science to the problem. They're going with gross observations that fool people--including those with a sizeable platform like Oliver Stone--who can't do the science.
Look, the government lied about some of this. We know it, we admit it. The CIA didn't want to reveal their operations in MC or their really awful violations of law in mail opening et cetera. And especially about the covert attacks on Cuba and assassination plots against Castro. I think RFK wanted Dulles on the WC to help keep that quiet. There is no defense for this. Hoover was just an awful person. The Cold War enticed them to do stupid and immoral things.
The conspiracy by the government was one of failure, one of people in power covering up for their failures and for their abuses of power and, in some case, legitimate concerns. That was why they withheld information and lied.
The fact that the CIA or FBI did bad things doesn't mean they did THIS bad thing, i.e., killing JFK. Frankly, I have no idea how you could plan something like this out. Nobody said no? Nobody would expose this? JFK was admired by some people; and even those who hated him wouldn't all go along with this type of fascist coup.
The claim is that the WC covered it up. Well, Norman Redlich was the lead author of that report and the main person involved in the investigation. Redlich was a man of the political left; he attacked Joe McCarthy, he didn't care for Hoover, he was a noted civil libertarian. He's simply not going to go along with this quasi-fascist coup. He's not. Neither, in my view, were those other men, some of whom were top defense lawyers and civil libertarians. These were not gangsters or crooks; these were men of ethics.
The most obvious explanation: an angry, disaffected man who disliked the world he lived in killed the man who personified that world. He got lucky, chance helped him out. Ironically, a man who had little luck in life won the lottery of history. People don't want to accept that. So here we are some almost 60 years later.
