View from the Cheap Seats is kind of an extension of the newsroom. Whenever our three regular reporters, Calvin Daniels, Thom Barker and Kelly Friesen are in the building together, it is frequently a site of heated debate. This week: Did Lee Harvey Oswald act alone to assassinate John F. Kennedy?
Yes
The thing that interests me most about the question whether Oswald acted alone, is not the question itself, but why people are still asking it.
He acted alone. Period. The Warren Commission examined all the evidence and deliberated for almost a year before publishing an 889-page document that came to just that conclusion.
Many officials at the time were opposed to establishing the commission out of fear that it would raise more controversy than anything else. I'm sure even those opponents could not have imagined just how right they would turn out to be.
Nevertheless, the fact that people can't let it go, regardless of how frequently and thoroughly the conspiracy theories have been debunked, does not negate the conclusion and speaks volumes about human nature.
"[People] would rather believe than know," wrote the great secular-humanist Edward O. Wilson in his 1975 book Sociobiology: The New Synthesis.
I think there is something intrinsically disturbing to people that someone as insignificant as Lee Harvey Oswald could snuff out one of the great political lights of the 20th century.
It stabs at the very heart of the very basic human need to see the universe as ordered. Even faced with overwhelming evidence, many people fall back on the argument from incredulity, one of my favourite logical fallacies: "I just can't believe it's that simple."
Unfortunately, it is that simple. No matter how much we might want to believe otherwise, frequently there is simply no rhyme nor reason for the events that unfold in this crazy world.
The JFK assassination is just one more case to which Occam's razor must be applied. Or, to paraphrase Sherlock Holmes, once you eliminate the outrageous conspiracy theories, Oswald acted alone, no matter how improbable it may seem.
-Thom Barker
Maybe
The assassination of John F. Kennedy happened 50-years ago last week, and yet it still holds our attention, almost as much today as it did when it happened.
I was only a wee child of three when Kennedy was shot and killed as the convertible he was in drove down a street in Dallas.
The death of one of the most charismatic presidents since Roosevelt shook the United States to its core. And when one of the great powers of the world shakes in disbelief, the rest of the world simply must take notice.
The death changed the perspective on the world. If the president of the United States was not safe, was anybody safe? It's a question where the answer was of course no, and that fundamental realization changes how we view our safe little world here in North America.
And then there are the lingering questions about the assassination. The Warren Commission at the time reviewed the event and concluded publicly Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone.
It was a conclusion many thought suspect from the day it was announced.
Certainly at the time the U.S. government was more 'hands-on' in dealing with perceived issues, and a cover-up of a conspiracy they thought too damning to tell the public would not be beyond belief, and frankly wouldn't be even today.
Governments lie to the public, of that I have no doubt.
In the case of the Kennedy assassination it has become as much lore and myth as hard fact, a situation perpetuated by referencing in shows such as Seinfeld.
Years ago I read a couple of books on the subject, and have seen a couple of documentaries. The shots were certainly near magical in course, although computer simulations now available have shown they could have come from only Oswald's position.
The writer in me screams for me to believe in a deep government conspiracy and cover up, and I would never rule that out completely.
But I lean toward Oswald being alone in his act, simply because in the five decades since no co-conspirator has broken the silence with anything that would truly show there were others involved.
Time would have created cracks in a conspiracy we could be peeking through to get to the truth, and that has not happened.
Still, there will always be that nagging question, did Oswald work alone, and that is why the assassination remains one of fascination for so many.
-Calvin Daniels
No
I don't buy into conspiracy theories easily. For the most part, I think they are based on people's minds running wild with very poor evidence to back them up.
However, when it comes to the assassination of John F. Kennedy, I have a hard time believing it was as cut and dry as some try to make it out to be. The story the U.S. government tried to tell was Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. They went onto try to paint him as a troubled loaner with connections to the Soviet Union.
I'm not saying Oswald wasn't involved, but I believe there was a lot more to the assassination than him. It seems to me that there were at least three or four guys involved in this operation - whether any had U.S. government connections I have no idea. Part of the plan was probably to throw Oswald under the bus. He was just 24-years-old, so he may have been a tad naïve, and he had a perfect background to be the fall guy.
The fact that Oswald was shot and killed by Jack Ruby just a couple days later is what really makes me think there was a lot more to this.
Why would the police put Oswald in a situation where someone could shoot him when it was widely known a lot of people wanted him dead? That makes me think someone right from the top may have been involved.
Moreover, I wouldn't be surprised if someone manipulated Ruby into committing the Oswald murder or he was involved in the assassination and was afraid Oswald would talk.
-Kelly Friesen
