Today, Audibly Speaking reviews the magisterial book by famed prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi, Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy. We revisit the things that make it unique and utterly unanswerable as a riposte to the crazy conspiracy theories that still pollute the writings about the 35th US President.
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In this sidebar episode tracing the movements of Lee Harvey Oswald and we step back from the forest to examine the trees of the story. In this politically portentous year of 2024, learn what the conspiracy nonsense can do to help us save American democracy. And begin to learn why the strengths of the Warren Commission and its Warren Report far out weigh the particular weaknesses examined in a previous episode on Audibly Speaking.
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Why did Lee Harvey Oswald go east from his boarding house in the aftermath of the JFK assassination, only to go west before his fatal encounter with Police Officer J.D. Tippit on November 22, 1963? The only possible answer was that his plans must have changed, along with his destination, at least temporarily. Ironically, however, his confrontation with Tippit, murderous though it was, may not have changed his destination at all, because he continued his journey west in its wake. An advertisement in the Dallas Morning News, never examined until now, may explain this mystery, as I explain in this episode.
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We have now arrived at the critical moments. What happened as the assassination occurred and what do we know of Oswald’s behavior during these most important of minutes? It turns out we know a great deal–so much in fact that we can even infer what was going on in Oswald’s mind on a minute by minute basis. In this episode, we also speculate about the most mysterious of all questions. Where was Oswald going when he left his boarding house after the assassination? Here we engage in informed speculation, with an emphasis on the word “informed.”
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How to help students understand the overwhelming evidence against Lee Harvey Oswald (and Oswald alone)? Given the power of the evidence, no help ought be needed! Perhaps a concise run-through will do the trick? Or a solemn and stately documentary? In a time when facts alone hold no sway, what is an historian to do? The answer is to marshal the evidence one more time, always one more time, until the bell, at long last, rings. Even though it has been clanging now for more than sixty years, let up look at a day in the life of Oswald, the last day before the assassination, as the camera of evidence before him and before us, followed his every step, and recorded everything we need to know to state the obvious: that Oswald did it, and that he was a man utterly without help along the way. This is a change of pace in our JFK series, a look directly at only one thing, the evidence against Oswald.
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What was Lee Harvey Oswald up to in New Orleans between his failed assassination attempt against Retired General Edwin Walker in April 1963 and his trip to Mexico City in late September in pursuit of a visa to Communist Cuba? What was the mix of motives that drove Oswald in these critical months prior to November 1963, when the president of the United States unexpectedly came into his sights. Listen to this podcast episode for some insights into these questions.
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In this final part of the three-part podcast series, we look at Oswald’s interior concerns in the days and hours before 12:30 pm CST on November 22, 1963. In so doing we elucidate the most elusive of questions, the question of motive.
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In this three-part series, we go into the mind of the assassin and try to understand Oswald’s motives. This helps us understand why conspiracy thinking about the assassination makes no sense. If you believe that Oswald lacked motive, ability or opportunity to shoot JFK, a conspiracy seems to be a necessary alternative. In fact none of these three things were lacking in 1963. There was no need for conspiracy. Oswald, however unbalanced, was actually quite smart. His plans for greatness, deluded as they were, come down to two. Colored by the Cold War and the politics of a performative president, they gave him motives and opportunities galore to assassinate JFK. The conspiracy shysters don’t tell you about these realities and the politicians and explainers in the 1960s also did not want to talk about the geopolitics of the era, factors that make the mysteries of the assassination disappear, manufactured as they were by storytellers who only wanted to tell part of the story.
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This is your host, historian Rick Reiman. Go to my YouTube Channel, “JFK Demystified,” to view the first episode of a series of short videos called “On Background: Seeking the Hidden JFK Assassination.” The series is on the evidence that is hiding in plain sight, namely the factors that block our view from the evidence that makes the assassination a simple thing to understand. We look at the confusion regarding standards of evidence and proof, the con-men- conspiracy theories that lead people astray, the historical context that sends us back to the real world, and the accumulated evidence confirmed again and again by a series of investigation, each one clearing up the few original questions that arose from a legitimate concern that some of the evidence was hidden. It was, but it is hidden no more, a simple fact that speaks volumes about how history really works. Join me on YouTube for this series, “On Background.” See you there.
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Continuing the series of JFK assassination episodes in this, the 60th year since the assassination, we look not at the thinking of the CIA, FBI, Warren Commission, Mob, Cuba, Russia or any of the other institutions that have been falsely imagined as being behind it, but inside the mind of the man who actually did it, and did it alone: Lee Harvey Oswald. It may not be the most popular theory, but facts don’t have to be popular. They only need to be true. This is an essay by myself, Rick Reiman, and narrated by myself, in response to the excellent insights of Burt Griffin, who wrote the new book, JFK, Oswald, Ruby: Politics, Prejudice and Truth. A staff member on the Warren Commission (1963-1964). Griffin challenges historians to take the assassination seriously as history, something that is simple to understand once contextualized in history. Frankly, historians have not recognized their responsibility in this regard. Historians, when are you going to do your jobs, and take this intersection of the Cold War and cvil rights, which is what the assassination was, seriously as history? Until they do, this will continue to be a blot, a stain and a disgrace for the historical profession, as it has been for sixty years.
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Most of the thousands of books on the JFK assassination are re-cyclings and re-spinnings of the foundational myths of the first generation of conspiracy fabulation tales. To hear Rob Reiner’s repetition of the tired magic bullet trope that we have heard before–you know the one that has long since been debunked–it seems that the half-story hoaxes that I discussed in my first Warren Commission episode two weeks ago are not just historical relics of the past. They continue to be retailed to an unsuspecting public. Here is the rest of the story of the very-unmagical second shot in the assassination, as well as the first shot, told in the epistemological technicolor of the truth.
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One of the chief reasons why people still believe the nonsense of a conspiracy in the assassination of John F. Kennedy is because of the fiendishness of those, out of malice or effort at pecuniary gain, deliberately lie to their readers and tell only half of a story they know too well to be false. We examine two of the many half-story hoaxes, as I call them, which try to spread the lie of conspiracy by covering up the proofs of no-conspiracy which have grown to mountainous proportions in the 60 years since 1963.
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Tom Buchanan moves his sad life from East Egg to New York City, and all those in his orbit pay the price in chapter two of this archetypal novel of the Jazz Age. The contrast between the glitter and the gutter, and the sadness of the last chance is seen in Myrtal, another person used and discarded by Tom.
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F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel, The Great Gatsby, was both a product of, and epitaph for, the Jazz Age of the Roaring ’20s. Journey to West and East Egg again, as your host Rick Reiman narrates one of the great American novels of the twentieth (or any other) century.
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No one has caught the similarities between the Biden Oval Office Speech on Israel and Ukraine of 2023 and the FDR “Arsenal of Democracy” Speech of 1940, other than the use of the phrase “Arsenal of Democracy.” Yet the parallels are eery and uncanny. They are also portentous for revealing the resonance of the world situations of 1940 and that of today. Listen and learn how the Biden speech drew on two FDR speeches, one in 1940 and one in the wake of Pearl Harbor (no, not that one, not the “Day of Infamy” speech but one a few days later) and you will agree on the striking similarities. I hope you will also agree on the gravity of their meanings as discussed here.
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I narrate the watershed indictment, the first federal prosecution of a former President of the United States in American history. Every American should read this document to understand and appreciate the gravity of the crimes alleged to have been committed by Donald F. Trump. This is necessary because Trump’s defenders have been distorting the charges. Audio narrations of the indictment are available elsewhere. This one is narrated by an historian.
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The January 6th report by the Select Committee to investigate the January 6th attack on the US Capitol was published December 22nd, 2022. The document consists of eight chapters of more than 800 pages, documenting President Donald Trump’s attempt to thwart the will of the people by overturning the election of 2020 with lies plots, frivolous legal claims, and even the orchestration of mob violence. Never before had a president stood in the way of the legal certification of an election in blatant disregard for the commands of the Constitution. When lies did not work and spurious legal fiction failed, Trump tried to shut down the transition to a dually elected new administration by brute force, waging war against an independent branch of the federal government.
To say that he disregarded his oath of office to make sure that the laws were faithfully executed is to state the obvious.
The January 6th report is a fast moving document and a devastating indictment. Still, it is a dense document and a PDF that will not be read by millions of Americans more than will have the time and technology to read it. Many Americans cannot read it for various reasons, including disability.
This audio recording is a narration of Chapter One only “The Big Lie,” For those who cannot read the free pdf at House.gov or who prefer to listen rather than read. This narration does not include a reading of the footnotes.Please refer to the published document for these.
Every word of Chapter One is included. This document is in the public domain. My name is Richard Reiman. Depending on the number of clicks or downloads, I may record more chapters. Remember, there are eight chapters in all, and this is only the first of them. I heartily recommend that all who can do so read all eight chapters. Download the free report from House.gov and read the full report.
Lastly, a disclaimer: Because this Report includes quotations by some who participated in the Big Lie, it includes offensive language at times.
And so click on the link below to listen to Chapter One of the Report By the House Select committee on the Attack on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.
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The shocking attacks against Asian Americans in 2021 are outgrowths of a long history of bigotry against these, our fellow citizens. Besides bringing shame to America’s claim of “liberty and justice for all,” these attacks flow from the ignorance of too many Americans in this history of bigotry, especially of the worst violation of civil liberties in all of American history, the relocation and internment of Japanese Americans in World War II. To defeat this legacy of bigotry and to break with this sorry past, Americans must first learn to remember.
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