JFK's still dead; Oswald still did it; NSAM-263 is not a smoking gun

I knew what today's date was. I had thought of Tweeting one of many blog posts on this issue today.

I decided not to, until I saw the #CIAKilledJFK hashtag, and then I did.

But, I wanted to update one of my more recent posts, realizing I'd not talked enough about what is a "smoking gun" for many of the conspiracy theorists. That would be the claims that a memo shows Jack was going to pull out of Vietnam. 

Wrong!

Jack had no secret plan to leave. He had a public plan to leave AFTER it was clear South Vietnam could survive on its own. That's what's NSAM-263 indicates and it's no "smoking gun." And, to make sure that the US could leave sooner rather than later, it calls for military incursions into Laos. Shades of Nixon!

Beyond that, NSAM's basis, per Wikipedia, is itself laughable. McNamara, the computer man who focused the war on body counts, and Kennedy consigliere Max Taylor were either ignorant as hell, lying their asses off, or a mix of both about how well South Vietnam was doing. The ignorance angle could be backed by MACV commander Paul Harkins lying HIS ass off. And, it's arguable that the top pair was engaging in self-deception over the likelihood of a coup against Diem when, at the same time, Ambassador Lodge said it was gaining steam. Had Jack dodged the post-Diem fallout enough to be re-elected in 1964, whether he would have stuck by his desire not to insert combat troops in numbers would have been open for debate. He was an ardent Cold Warrior, he had had "failures" on his watch so far, and looking ahead to 1968, he would have been trying to thread needles on this issue not only for himself, but assuming the Old Man would have been pushing for it, the election of Bobby in 1968.

(Also, as the end of Wiki's piece on NSAM-263 notes, further undercutting the conspiracy theorists, is that LBJ reaffirmed it in December 1963 with NSAM-273. That should make even more clear that NSAM-263 was ultimately an aspirational document.)

Even had Jack avoided the insertion of massive new troops, he surely would have put in limited numbers after his re-election, or maybe earlier, had he faced the same Tonkin Gulf incident as LBJ did. He  undoubtedly would have engaged in the same bombing campaigns as LBJ did. Bombing in Laos would have accompanied other "incursions." Like Tricky Dick, JFK might have dropped a few in Cambodia, too.

Dear Tim and Bob: "I did it. Here's the receipts." Yours, Lee.
Oh, Tim and Bob? "If you're wondering, yes that's me."

On Oswald? The evidence is clear, starting with the fact that there is no such thing as a "magic bullet." In fact, per Wittegenstein, except to reference-quote it to refute it, I refuse to use the phrase.

But, that leads to reason two.

Tim Shorrock, who was the subject of that most recent previous post, appears to believe the myth of Camelot. And, myth it was.

This is laughable, if not tragic because Shorrock believes it.

At its most essential level, “Murder Most Foul” marks the collapse of the American dream, dating from that terrible day in Dallas, when a certain evil in our midst was revealed in ways not seen for a hundred years—a day that, for Dylan, myself, and others of our generation is forever seared into our collective memory. The murder and the hidden machinations behind it, he tells us, robbed us of Kennedy’s brain, a symbol for the positive, forward-looking American spirit that he represented.

First, "hidden machinations" certainly seems to imply conspiracy theory. So, even as Shorrock is wrong, IMO, in claiming Bob Dylan's "Murder Most Foul" isn't about conspiracy theory itself, he certainly seems to be about it on his own.

Shorrock knows — and if he doesn't, fellow Nation contributor Rick Perlstein could tell him — that JFK had no such positive spirit, definitely not on Vietnam.

Nor was JFK (or brother Bobby) a positive, forward-looking American on civil rights. Martin Luther King knew that. In fact, the best thing Jack ever did for civil rights was get himself killed so LBJ could make him into a martyr.

As noted above, that's Lee Harvey Oswald, with the same Mannlicher-Carcano he had used to try to shoot Gen. Edwin Walker.

The conspiracy theories, including the CIA one? Thoroughly debunked, as I discussed three years ago at the 55th anniversary.

"But Oswald was a nut!"

And?

All of our presidential assassinations were less than fully on the beam, and all of the assassinations had political overtones, too.

John Wilkes Booth? Megalomaniac, and one of the less flighty of this bunch. Thought he could inspire a Last Riseup of the Lost Cause.

Charles Guiteau? Mentally unstable, and beyond the courtroom definition of legal insanity, possibly walking in the shadowlands of sanity. Shot Garfield because he thought he deserved a consular service appointment which he had done nothing to earn and that Arthur, representing another branch of Republicanism, would be different.

Leon Czolgosz? So unstable that Emma Goldman distrusted him. Assassinating McKinley was "anarchism of the deed."

Oswald? Well documented on the mental instability and on, in his mind, the political angle — "Fair Play for Cuba." (Don't forget that a non-insane, and arguably pretty stable, Sirhan Sirhan shot RFK as a political assassination five years later.)

Recent attempted assassinations reflect this.

Squeaky Fromme is still alive and still mad for Manson. Arguably a political angle. Sarah Jane Moore was not totally nuts, but had a Patty Hearst obsession. John Hinckley's attempted assassination had no political overtones, just schizophrenic obsession with Jodi Foster.

And, two presidential assassinations between Lincoln's and Kennedy's, plus the degree to which anarchism was in the U.S. air in 1901, would seem to undercut Shorrock there. He's 13 years older than me, and no doubt JFK's assassination seemed shocking to a 13-year-old. But, he's not 13, and he's an investigative journalist. If he can't move beyond?