The Kennedy Assassination And The Persistence Of Conspiracy Theories -- Part II
/“Conspiracy theory” — the label evokes connotations of something so preposterous that it couldn’t possibly be true. With an obvious simple explanation for some incident easily at hand, generally involving a single perpetrator or a natural cause, the alternative “conspiracy theory” posits that a large group of people plotted to bring the incident about. The very size of the posited group alone makes the conspiracy theory seem unlikely, because such a large group could never hope to keep the secret. And then, in the classic conspiracy theory, the large group of conspirators consists mostly or entirely of agents of the government, who have allegedly acted in nefarious and illegal ways against the interests of the people they are sworn to serve, and have then also covered up their illegal conduct. Our government employees and officials may not be perfect, but surely they would not carry out, and then cover up, massive illegal conspiracies against the interests of the people.
Put these factors together, and you can see why sticking the label “conspiracy theory” on a hypothesis has long been an effective way to dismiss that hypothesis out of hand. It’s a “conspiracy theory” — and therefore it is so preposterous that there is no need to deal with its specifics. And, generally speaking, far more often than not, the obvious simple explanation of the incident is likely to be correct.
But not always. And indeed over the last several years we have seen one after another hypothesis initially branded as a “conspiracy theory” later established to be true, at least within the limits that truth can be known in our imperfect world. In multiple cases the conspiracy theories have been vindicated after years of having been vociferously denounced and belittled and censored by the media. To list just a few of the most notorious:
The theory that members of the FBI conspired to obtain illegal warrants and then to spy on the 2016 Trump campaign for President.
The theory that members of the Hillary Clinton campaign, together with friendly law firms and campaign consultants and researchers, conspired to produce and pay for and spread to the media fake opposition research painting Donald Trump as having “colluded” with Russia during the 2016 campaign.
The theory that there was a massive government sponsored censorship apparatus that conspired with social media platforms during the Biden administration to suppress speech of conservative speakers.
The theory that the Covid-19 virus was created in a lab in China substantially funded by U.S. taxpayers, and that a leak from that lab led to the worldwide pandemic that killed millions.
And thus, there is now little dispute that some “conspiracy theories” are indeed true.
But which ones? Is there any method by which an informed citizen, by applying some critical thinking, can come to a view of which conspiracy theories are unlikely, versus ones that may at least potentially turn out to be correct?
My first answer is that there is no definitive method to make the distinction, particularly if you are relying only on publicly available information. The most important information may well be concealed. That’s one reason why so many conspiracy theories flourish, and justifiably so.
But there is one useful criterion that can be used to get an idea whether there may be something to a conspiracy theory in a particular circumstance. That criterion is, look to see if there are anomalies in the publicly available information that appear inconsistent with the official alternative explanation of the facts being offered. In other words, it is not the facts that are consistent with the official narrative that are important; it is the facts, if any, that are inconsistent with the official narrative, or at least arguably so, that matter.
What do I mean by such inconsistent “anomalies”? As an example, consider the origins of Covid-19. The alternative hypotheses are (1) “official theory” that the virus arose by natural mutation in bats, and spread to humans who purchased recently-killed infected bats at a wet market in Wuhan, and (2) the “conspiracy theory” that the virus was intentionally created in “gain of function” research at the Wuhan virology lab, and spread to humans via a leak from the lab. “Anomalies” arguably inconsistent with “official theory” (1) include that initial Covid-19 patients resided near the virology lab and on the side of town with the virology lab, rather than the side of town with the wet markets; and that the alteration of the viral proteins that made the virus far more lethal occurred at a so-called “furin cleavage site,” which had not been a site of previous mutations, but was the specific site of intentional alterations made in the gain of function research. As defenders of theory (1) have failed to provide adequate answers to these and other anomalies, theory (2) has gradually gained increasing acceptance (even as the Chinese authorities continue to withhold relevant information).
In the case of the government-led mass censorship of social media, the “anomalies” consisted of conservative speakers reporting that their content was taken down, or de-monetized, or “shadow-banned,” or made difficult to “like” or “share,” or otherwise suppressed. Denials of the conspiracy continued until Elon Musk bought Twitter, and released what have come to be known as the Twitter Files. Those showed explicit government efforts to silence speech in various disfavored categories.
Note that where conspiracies are present, there may not be any publicly available “anomalies” to give a hint of the conspiracy. As far as I know, that was the case with the FBI spying on the Trump campaign. That conspiracy almost certainly would never have been revealed to the public if Trump had not become President in 2017.
Now, let’s apply this logical approach to the case of the Kennedy assassination.
With the Kennedy assassination, there are many anomalies that are at least arguably inconsistent with the hypothesis of the “lone gunman” Lee Harvey Oswald. Here are four such, which I will only mention briefly here:
Lee Harvey Oswald bio: After serving a tour in the Marine Corps, he defected to the Soviet Union in October 1959. Then, after two and a half years, he returned to the U.S. in June 1962, and moved to Dallas, where he lived with little interest from the U.S. government.
George de Mohrenschildt.
The trajectory of the fatal bullet.
Jack Ruby.
In a subsequent post, I will discuss why each of these anomalies poses substantial problems for the official narrative.
But for now, here is the point: If you want to write something meaningful arguing in favor of the official narrative, these anomalies, or others like them (there are others) are the key points that you must address. Spare us the litany of Oswald buying the gun and firing some shots. Yet as an example of those arguing for the official narrative, look at the Epstein write-up that I linked in the last post. You won’t find any effort to deal with the anomalies. Instead, it is a litany of evidence showing that Oswald was clearly deeply involved in the assassination — he owned the gun, he bought the ammo, he was in the Texas Book Depository, he set himself up in a sniper’s nest, and so forth. None of that really addresses the issue at hand. Any worthwhile conspiracy theory here clearly must concede that Oswald was deeply involved in some way. The issue is whether he was the only one involved, and if not, who the others were and what roles they played.
In the next post I will discuss the most plausible alternative hypothesis. Then I will look at how the “anomalies” bear as between the two hypotheses.