[LOOKAYANNER]

There's never been a doubt in my mind the Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. In my opinion there's never been one shred of credible evidence to convince me to think otherwise. To remove all doubt from your mind, if you are one that feels there was a conspiracy, read Vincent Bugliosi's 1,600 page book (which took 20 years of research) titled "Reclaiming History". Another well researched book is Gerald Posner's "Case Closed". Posner was a person who believed in a conspiracy and that theme was what his original book was suppose to be about, but once he started his research it didn't take him very long to see that he had no story because there obviously had not been a conspiracy. So he reversed gears and wrote the accurate account: a lone gunman assassination book.

There will always be conspiracy books and magazines and lecture tours, or whatever, about conspiracies in the JFK assassination. Why? Because it sells and that means money to the conspiracy pushers. So they will bend any truth, conjure up all kinds of wild stories, and spend endless hours chasing silly leads that really go nowhere but they will word it in a way to attempt to convince the reader that there more to it that there actually was. For instance, that Jack Ruby was a mob hit man sent to silence Oswald so he couldn't rat them out. Totally ludricous. Those that new Ruby said he was the biggest blabber mouth in Texas, couldn't keep a secret. And he was very emotionally unstable. Yep, the mafia's idea man for a major hit job. The truth is that the day that he killed Oswald was just a case of an angry, hurt man being in the right place at the right time. He had actually been in line at Western Union waiting to wire money to one of his strippers at the time that Oswald was suppose to have exited the police station. But because Oswald wanted to change his shirt and had asked to go back and do that, the time it took to do that allowed Ruby to be in the area where the shooting eventually took place. He had easy access to the police station areas because he knew all the officers since he had a habit of taking them sandwiches and drinks at various times. He was a strip club owner he felt it was in his own best interest to keep on their good side. He didn't draw much attention when he entered the area of Oswald's exit. When he saw Oswald, his brother later stated that Ruby told him that he felt Oswald had a smirk on his face, so he got all excited, drew his gun and shot him. Simple as that. All this while his beloved dog was in his car waiting for his return. What kind of man takes his pet to the scene of his hit?

I like the answer that was quoted on the Peter Jennings ABC special about 10 years ago about why so many people still believe there was a conspiracy in the assassination. I may not get the quote verbatim but it was something like this: "Some people just can't bring themselves to believe that some nobody like Oswald was able to kill the most powerful man in the world. It's like the Halocaust, a gigantic crime of cruelty and murder, on one end of a balance scale, and the Nazis, the most evil regime the world had ever seen, on the other end of the scale, they balance each other: most evil regime and the worst mass murder in history. But if you put the insignificant nobody Oswald on one end of the scale and the assassination of the President on the other end, it doesn't balance. But a conspiracy does the job nicely and makes the scale balance."


I remember very vividly the day that the assassination happened. I was in 4th grade and we had just returned to our room at school from lunch. So, I went through the next few days as stunned as a 9 year old could be from watching the murder of Oswald by Ruby, seeing the funeral, and all the other news on the two stations that we were able to get at that time. But even at that young age I didn't think there was a conspiracy and I still don't. They discovered his sniper's nest on the sixth floor that day. His finger prints were on the rifle. The boy that he rode to work with that morning siad he had an long object wrapped in brown paper that he said was curtain rods. The brown paper was later identified by the driver as the same that Oswald had that morning. The pistol they took from Oswald at the theater where he was arrested was the same gun used to Kill a Dallas police officer shortly after the Kennedy assassination. Oswald was the olny worker missing on roll call at the Book Depository following the assassination. And on and on. The evidence just kept piling up.

The conspiracy pushers got a little bump from a House Select Committee investigating a second shooter in 1978 when a team of acoustics scholars convinced the committee that they had proof of a second shooter by using the sound recording on a police officer's dictabelt while he was on his motorcycle. But their researched was later proved that the motorcycle was not even in the area were they claimed it to be. So, their research and conclusions were flawed and inaccurate and has now been discredited.

But the conspiracies will always live on because it's human nature. And it sell books, lectures, and movies. The insignificance of the scum of a creature like Oswald ending Camelot, it just isn't suppose to end that way. So, conspiracy advocates keep the presses hot and the rumors hotter. I saw a magazine at Walmart a few weeks ago that pointed the finger at LBJ. It will get even crazier as the 50th anniversary of the assassination is next month. Be prepared. Be objective and realistic.