The JFK assassination is like the Maine coastline: craggy, uneven, full of serration, points, inlands, islands, amenable to endless exploration and quickly obscured by sudden fogs. There are so many side trips and any one of them is a potential life's work.
Let me give you some examples.
Countless hours have been spent trying to identify the so-called "three tramps" arrested in the train yard near Dealey Plaza on the day of the assassination. And, some of that time was spent arguing that they could have been later Watergate figures such as E. Howard Hunt or Frank Sturgis or even Woody Harrelson's estranged father Charles, an organized crime figure and convicted murderer.
So, that's all a tantalizing time waste.
On the other hand, the President's brain is-as far as we know-still, inexplicably missing from the National Archives.
As we approach the 50th anniversary of the release of the Warren Commission report, the number of Americans who believe there is a conspiracy behind the assassination of President John F. Kennedy remains high. This, despite the report's final conclusion that the assassination was the work of one man, Lee Harvey Oswald, with no conspiracy, foreign or domestic.
Is the American belief in a conspiracy unreasonable?
When secrecy and uncertainty surround an event that shakes the foundation of our culture we, as a society, seek to fill the void. The Warren Commission report left many questions unanswered, sparking a rush to find answers that would right America's course.
Guests:
- Patrick Nolan is a forensic historian, freelance writer and the author of “CIA Rogues and the Killing of the Kennedys: How and Why US Agents Conspired to Assassinate JFK and RFK.”
- Jerome Corsi is a staff reporter for WND, World News Daily and the author of several books including “Who Really Killed Kennedy?: 50 Years Later: Stunning New Revelations About the JFK Assassination”
- Mark Fenster is a professor at the University of Florida Law School and the author of “Conspiracy Theories: Secrecy and Power in American Culture”
- Peter Knight lectures in American Literature at the University of Manchester and is the author of several books including “The Kennedy Assassination” and “Conspiracy Culture: From Kennedy to the X-Files”
