Monthly Archives: May 2024

NEW! Summary of Chapter Six of “The Warren Report:” “Investigation Into Possible Conspiracy”

JFK Assassination, John F. Kennedy, Kennedy Assassination, Lee Harvey Oswald, Memory, United States history, Warren Commission, Zapruder

This chapter may be seen as the Big Enchilada of the Report.  Did the Warren Commission provide a credible investigation of the possibility of conspiracy in the crime?  The staff wracked its collective brains to see where any possible conspiracy might have emerged given the facts in the case. It also tracked down leads offered by private citizens that seemed the least bit credible.  This chapter of more than 130 pages, the longest in the Report, is the fruit of their work.  One thing seems clear from this chapter and this podcast episode: Jack Ruby’s shooting of Oswald either was not premeditated or was reached just seconds before he rushed up to Oswald in the basement of the Dallas city jail and set countless conspiracy theories into motion.

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NEW! CHAPTER FIVE of “The Warren Report:” Detention and Death of Oswald

American HIstory, JFK Assassination, John F. Kennedy, Kennedy Assassination, Lee Harvey Oswald, Memory, Oswald, Warren Commission, Zapruder

Continuing our summary of The Warren Report investigation into the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, we come to Chapter Five.  The whole tenor of the investigation changed with the subject of this chapter.  It concerned the events that led to the federalization of the investigation itself, the violation of Oswald’s civil liberties in the Dallas jail climaxing in the assassination of Oswald himself by Jack Ruby during the transfer of Oswald from one jail to another.  The events of this chapter transformed the assassination from something seemingly weird to something seemingly unbelievable. In this summary, host Rick Reiman discusses the oddities of a criminal justice cast of characters in Dallas more concerned with reputation and appearance than the requirements of law and truth.  Chapter Five reminds us that the assassination and Dallas’s part in it were shaped by the realities of time and place, a very different time and place than any we are familiar with today.

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A Question for Gerald Posner and Fred Litwin: Can Informed Speculation Equal Evidence?

JFK Assassination, John F. Kennedy, Kennedy Assassination, Lee Harvey Oswald, Memory, Oswald, Politics, Warren Commission, Zapruder

A recent podcast episode by the excellent historians of the JFK assassination, Gerald Posner and Fred Litwin, prompted this podcast episode of mine. Given the need to speculate about so much that is important about the behavior of Oswald on November 21 (pre-assassination) and November 33 (post-assassination), is it possible to employ speculation as a technique for getting at the truth of why Oswald assassinated JFK, and what his post-assassination purposes might have been?  Can informed speculation ever rise to the level of good evidence?  And if so, what are the standards that such evidence must meet to achieve this state? Questions, questions, questions. I hope that Messers. Posner and/or Litwin respond to these questions, which are expanded upon in this episode of Audibly Speaking.

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NEW! Summary of “The Warren Report’s” CHAPTER THREE: “The Shots from the Texas School Book Depository”

JFK Assassination, John F. Kennedy, Kennedy Assassination, Lee Harvey Oswald, Memory, Oswald, Politics, Warren Commission, Zapruder

It’s core findings remain untouched.  Its conclusions have stood the test of time. In this episode we see the tour de force that lies at the foundation of this seminal chapter in The Warren Report: Chapter Three.  While subsequent research has expanded on the insights we gain from this chapter, which distilled the most important work of the Warren Commission, nothing has seriously contradicted its fundamental conclusion. What has deteriorated is not the Warren Report conclusions. No, those have stood the test of time.  What has deteriorated is the American people’s ability to separate fact from fiction and to accept fact even when it is staring them in the face–as it is here.  Will Americans continue to follow the carnival barkers of conspiracist thinking?  Americans through “Their government,” as FDR would say, has, with the Warren Report, done them the favor of representing them well.  Will the Americans people in the age of Trump accept the truth or follow the carnival barkers?

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NEW! Warren Report Summary, CHAPTER TWO, “The Assassination”

JFK Assassination, John F. Kennedy, Kennedy Assassination, Lee Harvey Oswald, Memory, Oswald, Warren Commission, Zapruder

Today I summarize the Warren Report’s Chapter Two, “The Assassination.” It is a chapter that promises much but really delivers less than meets the eye.  Focusing on the details that form the background of the assassination, and continuing by trading in the shadowlands of lacunae about the event, chapter two is a mere overture to the real opera of the assassination, the fireworks that begin with Chapter Three, “The Shots from the Texas School Depository.”  Stay tuned for that chapter in our next summary episode on Audibly Speaking.

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