the Plot to Kill Lee Harvey Oswald

THE PLOT TO KILL LEE HARVEY OSWALD

By C. Fenway Braxton

MARTIAN PUBLISHING

Copyright 2014 by Martian Publishing Company

Smashwords Edition

All rights reserved.

No portion of this volume may

be reproduced in any format

without the express written

permission of the copyright holder.

Other books by C. Fenway Braxton:

NON-FICTION:

The Plot to Kill John Wilkes Booth

FICTION:

Eighteen Pages

Prisoners of Eden

Acknowledgments –

Like all other historians or investigators armed with pick and shovel, my efforts have been accomplished only by standing on the shoulders of giants. Without the achievements already completed by Mark Lane, Harold Weisberg, Sylvia Meagher, Mary Ferrell, Penn Jones, James Fetzer, John McAdams, Jim Marss, Bill Kelly, James DiEugenio, Sean Murphy, Greg Parker, Lee Farley and so many more on both sides of the issue, I would not have had as deep an understanding of the subject as I have. And though I can thank them for what I have learned, the blame for how it is used in this volume is entirely my own.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PREFACE

INTRODUCTION

PART ONE - THE HISTORICAL ACCOUNT

Chapter One - Camelot - Preface to Mayhem

Chapter Two - Doomsday - Black Friday in Dallas

Chapter Three - Mayhem - Giving Chase

PART TWO - THE RUSH TO ACCUSE

Chapter Four - Evidence - Needles in Haystacks

Chapter Five - Reality - The End of Innocence

Chapter Six - Doubt - Square Pegs in Round Holes

PART THREE - STRUGGLING TO FIND SOME REASON

Chapter Seven - Suspects - Too Many Culprits

Chapter Eight - Theories - An Enigma Wrapped in a Conundrum

Chapter Nine - Motive - The Basis for Any Action

PART FOUR - LEGACY

Chapter Ten - History - Lessons from What has Passed

Chapter Eleven - Parallels - Déjà Vu All Over Again

Chapter Twelve - New Improved Square One - Where We Stand

Chapter Thirteen – The Messy Little Life of Lee Oswald – Cold War Hero?

NOTES

APPENDICES

BIBLIOGRAPHY

~~~~

PREFACE

After the success of my volume The Plot to Kill John Wilkes Booth, many have said I should apply the same keen intellect to a study of the Kennedy Assassination. Uncertain as to the degree of actual keenness my intellect may possess, I merely hope to clarify many of the issues, delineate the nonsense, and bring the subject somewhat closer to the realm of reality.

Actually, it was the Kennedy assassination that led me to a study of the murder of Lincoln. I had heard in many places about the startling parallels between the two crimes and - as there was far too much to wade through in the recent tragedy - I decided to look through the historical accounts to see if I could make heads or tails of the earlier proceedings. I thought that I might perhaps make some sense of the Kennedy assassination and its mountains of documentation by poking through a smaller mountain, even if it had as many false trails as the more recent tragedy.

Yes, there are plenty of parallels between the two crimes and I believe coming to fully understand the earlier assassination has helped me separate the wheat from the chaff in the study of the Kennedy assassination.

But I will let others be the judge whether my understanding is worth anything.

This volume may perplex many. It is not just another affirmation that the Warren Commission got it right nor is it another conspiracy exposé pointing the finger at one or another nefarious group and naming each of the many shooters stationed around Dealey Plaza that day. Personally, I think neither of those sorts of books do much good to further the ongoing research into the case. So, if you are hoping for another volume that sets the entire case to rest, this is not what you are looking for.

There is not a mountain of footnotes herein as I am not building any sort of case nor am I refuting details of others. This is merely one man’s overview and runs more like an thought experiment a là Einstein

If you are expecting another pointed investigation, unmasking the names of the multiple shooters, showing their connections to Ruby, the CIA, and the Free Cuba Movement, or the Military-Industrial Complex, I am sorry to disappoint you.

Nor is this directed at supporting the Warren Commission and its dubious pronouncements of a lone, crazed shooter; Vincent Bugliosi has that market fairly well sewed-up already.

There are many earnest researchers doing commendable work that is not finding its way into mass market publications or broadcast specials on any of a number of satellite networks. You can find them at symposiums giving lectures or on the online forums. Many readers will not be able to wade through this stuff because these guys and gals get deep into the nitty-gritty details of the evidence and events. And unless you have an unhealthy love of minutiae it might seem a bit tedious.

Most of these people do their homework and do not normally make claims they cannot substantiate with evidence. They are capable of debate on the evidentiary support without recourse (generally) to name-calling or rudeness.

These are some very serious geeks.

And their work is largely unacknowledged. And my hat is off to them for the many lessons learned from all sides in this issue.

I learned years ago that data does not look the same to everyone. Some people see an interesting tidbit while another sees the ultimate key to the puzzle. Some see it as truth and others as a curious but unfounded claim.

Arguments laid out in what the author assumes is the most logical and sequential chain will still leave many scratching their heads, lost in the twists and turns along the way.

If any part of this exercise strikes your fancy then by all means utilize it.

If you find it all to be garbage, abandon it.

Hopefully it will at least amuse you and we can share a chuckle and not count the day a complete loss.

~~~~

INTRODUCTION

The Assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy has loomed large in the minds of Americans for over fifty years even if not always in the forefront of their thoughts.

Is has also been the major impetus behind the growing conspiracy theory movement. And not without good cause.

The Government's rush to judgment struck a sensitive chord in many anxious listeners and seemed a little too forced, a little too pat, a little too wrong.

Many parallels between Lincoln's assassination and that of Kennedy have been drawn over the years - for good reason! - but it is the differences that seem to matter most.

In the aftermath of the Lincoln killing, there was no large parade of suspects to point a finger at as alternate suspects. There was only one: John Wilkes Booth. But he was part of a conspiracy.

Not so with the Kennedy killing. Officially, there was only the one: Lee Harvey Oswald, the young misguided Marxist who thought his action would aid Communism or at least make a name for himself. Or so they tell us. But that is just the official account. To date, there have been no less that five admitted killers of Kennedy and there are ten times that number still suspected.

But it is not my purpose here to dissect the assassination and build a case against any of these men (or women) but to investigate how and why Lee Harvey Oswald got singled out with the dubious honor of being the lone gunman, and why it was that he had to die.

After fifty years, most of the players involved in this case have moved on to the great beyond where they can rub elbows with the ghost of the assassin, or perhaps to a place where the thermostat is set quite a bit higher. I don't know nor will any of us until we join that club.

I did not plan on presenting evidence that Oswald was innocent - except possibly by inference - as there are far too many facts to refute to convince many people. The scope of this book will concentrate primarily, as in the Booth volume, on why the supposed assassin had to meet an untimely death. Unfortunately, the one case is so intertwined with the other than separating out the smaller crime would find us without context.

Hopefully, the reason for this will become clear.

I was in shop class on that November afternoon when the Principal interrupted the classes by his announcement over the public address system that the President had been shot.

What followed was the radio broadcast of Walter Cronkite. The details were scattered, confused, terrifying. After almost half an hour riveted to our seats, the Principal interrupted the broadcast to say school was dismissed and we went to our lockers. The halls were strangely silent as we exited the building toward our buses.

The weekend was a long one, glued to the television watching the unfolding drama.

On Saturday morning, we learned the name of the man arrested for the assassination. And on Sunday morning, we watched as he himself was assassinated on live television.

The entire event was unforgettable and etched forever in my mind as well as in the minds of most Americans.

The questions were numerous. How could the President have been killed? How could the same happen to his assassin while in the custody of the police?

The citizens clamored for answers.

The new President, Lyndon Johnson, acted with speed to get those answers.

He created the Warren Commission a week after the horrible act.

They gathered and compiled all the pertinent evidence in the case and revealed their answer: Oswald was the lone crazy gunman. That was what the police had claimed even before Oswald was slain and the Commission stuck to the story. Unfortunately.

The real search for answers continues.

There have been conspiracy theorists before the Kennedy Assassination in November, 1963, but I consider this event to have been the watershed moment for that lunatic fringe. After that date, there have been more and more conspiracy theorists to contend with. So much so that the irrational tide carries along better than 80% of the American Public. The events of 9/11, the USS Liberty, the Gulf on Tonkin, and such have many conspiracy theories as well but they are more modest numbers. Especially when compared to the Kennedy Assassination.

And new wacky aspects of the case are still coming forward. Now one of the Secret Service was supposed to have accidentally shot the President while another group supports a man who claims to have delivered the killing blow himself, working with the Mafia. And then there is also the woman claiming to have been Oswald's mistress during this crucial period.

Yes, the incident certainly can still sell books!

You might also say there is still a gullible segment of the population ready to buy into whatever hair-brained theory is put forth.

This may sound like I am one of those who began as a conspiracy theorist but have since gone over to the dark side, i.e. those who believe in and agree with the Warren Commission. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Most of the supporters of the Warren Commission's Report claim that it is backed up by the evidence and becomes the only plausible explanation.

Ah, but the evidence!

The conspiracy theorists attacked the evidence claiming it is tainted. And then there was a battle of the experts... one side claiming the Warren Commission got it right and another claiming the evidence has been altered.

Now it has come down to either side attacking the experts themselves. And that is, all in all, very - *yawn!* - exciting, isn't it?

Online you can find a site for every different theory out there (and some of them are really, really out there) as well as quite a few of the skeptic sites that support the Warren Commission wholeheartedly. I have included a sizeable list in the bibliography.

On one of the sites that support the Warren Commission, I found an interesting article by Mel Ayton and I think it pretty much sums up the attitude of the supporters of the government's case.

First of all, it paints conspiracy theorists in the worst possible light, asserting that they only adhere to the idea of a conspiracy because their puny intellects cannot grasp the idea that something might not make sense. They truly need to know that the universe is operating under completely rational laws and that someone of importance like Kennedy could not have been killed by a non-entity like Oswald.

You know, the typical rationalist skeptical technique of making their opponents seem less capable in the mental department.

Of course, this article was written several years before Kent University (among others) completed a study showing that - on the average - the conspiracy theorist had a much more agile and supple mind that rationalistic thinkers. You know, those sort who generally adhere to the idea that the universe is operating under completely rational laws and such outrageous things as conspiracy could not possibly upset their applecart of gradual and rational existence. * see notes

University studies notwithstanding, I found Ayton's article all the more interesting because the author does not confine himself to knocking the Kennedy Assassination conspiracy theorists. No, he has to include the other major killings of the same decade: Martin Luther King & Robert F. Kennedy.

He points out that the conspiracy theorists in both those tragedies claim that the convicted killers (James Earl Ray & Sirhan Sirhan) were in reality nothing more than patsies. The author says nothing could be farther from the truth because if they had been patsies, the conspiracy behind each one would not have allowed them to live. By no means! If they had been patsies, he writes, they would have been assassinated themselves!

Perhaps he had too much a head of steam on the argument but it seemed to me as though he said - in essence - that those two killings were not conspiracies because the killers lived... implying, of course, that JFK was killed by a conspiracy because the patsy had indeed gotten murdered. Pretty neat how he seemed to start out deriding the conspiracy theorists and then seems to join them.

And that is what this book is all about: the killing of the patsy, and what it all means to the study of the Kennedy Assassination.

In this volume I will not be naming the various shooters that performed the assassination. I know of many authors who do just that and, with absolute authority, place certain persons in the various positions around the kill zone and can even enumerate each of the shots fired by each of the shooters. I cannot and will not embark on such a course.

I would have a greater degree of confidence in those other authors if the names of their shooters corroborated the accusations of other researchers. Alas, they do not and without a wealth of firmer evidence I do not know how anyone can truly identify all the participants so exactly, so cavalierly.

Nor is that the intent of this volume.

Since a lot of this stuff is the product of my own fevered imagination, I will reference the sources as I come to them and try and present the remainder of the sources in a cogent manner in the Notes section following. I do not list a plethora of footnotes usually found in volumes of this genre as I am not debating certain points and details of the case.

Einstein had his thought problems and Jesus used parables. What I use is probably less intelligent than the former and less inspired than the latter but, hopefully, it will suffice in its meager purpose.

~~~~

PART ONE

THE HISTORICAL ACCOUNT

Before we begin the breakdown of what happened in the details of the case itself, here we will take an overview of the event and what led up to it.

This account is pretty much like you would find in any history book. It cannot cover all the bothersome little details in the short space allotted in a volume that has to cover so very much in a very few pages.

Though a large number of questionable details may go unmentioned, I hope to include all the salient points in the case.

~~~~

CHAPTER ONE

CAMELOT

Preface to Mayhem

Kennedy was the youngest elected President at the time and the first belonging to the Catholic faith. This may not seem like much of a deal breaker today but it was really a big deal at the time.

The election of 1960 was hotly contested and many accusations of the wealthy elder Kennedy buying votes were heard after the results came in. Still, one only needs view the Kennedy-Nixon debates to see how the young Kennedy could have swayed many voters. One could not say the man did not have a boatload of charisma. And sex appeal.

Today, we know that also translated into his many alleged romantic interests, though nothing was mentioned publicly about that at the time.

And one should not discount the support garnered by the appearance of his wife, Jacqueline. Though many people considered her to be, and act, a little too aristocratic - especially with her Europe-centered upbringing - she was definitely a trend-setter. And her husband contended she won him quite a few votes.

Smart man.

Rotting Pork

Early in his term, Kennedy was faced with the problem of Cuba and was the authority behind the Bay of Pigs debacle.

Many conspiracy theorists I have seen have thought this fiasco was drummed up to make the young President look like an idiot. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Departing President Eisenhower had begun working on the invasion during the latter days of his term. As the details were not completed before the new President took office, Kennedy was brought up to speed on the affair and he endorsed it whole-heartedly.

Why all the concern over Cuba, you ask? Other than the fact that it was Communism ninety miles from our shores, I mean.

Since the Spanish-American war at the end of the nineteenth century, the island had been a territory under the protection of the United States. Though they had gained a deal of independence and had their own elected government, the United States was still a major player in the economy of the island. Large hotels and casinos were established by American businesses - i.e. the Mafia - and others dominated the tobacco and sugar interests of the island just as other American concerns had done in other banana republics.

Apparently the standard of living for the locals was abominable and Fidel Castro found ample support in his revolution to overthrow Trujillo and free the island.

Finding a Marxist regime so close to our border was galling, certainly, but these American businesses had suffered huge economic losses with the change of regime. Finding themselves with a mutual enemy made the Mafia and the government very awkward friends but they figured they could work together to turn the situation around.

That's what the Bay of Pigs was all about. The intelligence community (the CIA) had already determined that when the invasion occurred there would be a general uprising against Castro and the Communist regime would come crashing down.

Unfortunately, it seems the locals preferred their chances with a new social order rather than continuing the degradation of near-slavery conditions under the American corporate interests.

How could the CIA have missed this?

When the invasion occurred, the locals rose up to defend their soil against the invaders. It was a complete and massive flop.

The supporters of the invasion urged Kennedy to assist by sending in the Air Force. He balked, understanding they had backed him into a corner to force him into escalating the degree of American involvement.

He refused to go there but he would not forget their attempted manipulation.

Sugar, Cigars, and Gambling

Having lost Cuba through the revolution brought by Castro, and having failed to regain the island through the auspices of the American-backed invasion, both the Mafia and the CIA continued their association in the hopes of finding another avenue to bring about the deposing of the cigar-smoking Marxist.

Even the FBI was affiliated in this endeavor. Though J. Edgar Hoover hated the CIA's head