For example: a note (right) supposedly written by Oswald and addressed to a "Mr. Hunt" surfaced during the HSCA investigation. It supposedly ties Oswald to either E. Howard Hunt, or H.L. Hunt. The HSCA gave the document to its panel of handwriting experts, and this is their report .

Citizens for Truth in the Kennedy Assassination (CTKA) recently published a document (a police report), supposedly detailing an altercation between Jack Ruby and Lee Oswald at Mrs. Bledsoe's boarding house. (Why were they fighting? Weren't they coconspirators?). "A CTKA Story?" is researcher David Perry's analysis of the document. The fact that CTKA, Jim Marrs, and Jack White all embraced the document is interesting.

Blame Your Own Father for Killing Kennedy?

Did Paraffin Tests Prove Oswald Innocent?

Conspiracy authors often cite the negative paraffin test result from Oswald's cheek as evidence that he did not shoot Kennedy. Paraffin tests may yield false positives, they say, but they don't produce false negatives. See what passages from standard forensics texts say about this issue.

In addition, the Warren Commission had the FBI conduct tests to determine the reliability of the test. Click here for a rundown of the results the FBI obtained.

Conspiracy Authors and Witnesses

Books on the assassination often assert that Helen Markham said that the man who shot Tippit was short, heavy, and with bushy hair. At least, that is what Mark Lane told the Warren Commission. Here is a transcript of Lane's telephone interview with Markham. Judge for yourself whether Markham was an easily manipulated witness, and whether Lane was an honest advocate.

If you are interested in Lane, you will also want to look at author Jean Davison's autobiographical account of her experience when she went to the Warren Commission volumes to see whether Jack Ruby's testimony actually said what Lane claimed that it did.

Julia Ann Mercer was a witness who claimed to have seen Jack Ruby and Lee Harvey Oswald together in Dealey Plaza shortly before the assassination. How Lane dealt with her testimony is the subject of this short essay. Want to see the primary sources on Mercer, and compare them to what Lane said? Click here.

An All-Purpose Conspiracy Expert? L. Fletcher Prouty, a retired Air Force Colonel, was the model for Oliver Stone's Mr. X. You can see Prouty in conspiracy documentaries posing as a expert on presidential protection, the origins of the Vietnam War, and journalism in New Zealand. Just who is this fellow? Does he actually know what he is talking about? Is he some kind of crackpot or something? Click here for the "scoop." Prouty has quite a lot of fans in conspiracy circles, and one of them has produced a web site devoted entirely to Prouty, his writing, and his opinions.

Was Ruby Going to Expose The Conspiracy in Washington?

Jack Ruby's famous "I want to go to Washington" testimony before the Warren Commission. Did he really want to blow the whistle on The Conspiracy in D.C.?

Goings On in Forth Worth

"The Cowtown Connection" -- an article by Duke Lane -- examines the Fort Worth connection in the assassination and tests the veracity of a claim by Robert Morrow about the arrest of a "Maurice Bishop" in Fort Worth. Also: the Tom Tilson auto chase. Uploaded by permission.

Invented Death Notice?

Among the "Mystery Deaths" surrounding the assassination, one that has attracted particular interest is that of Karen Carlin. Interestingly, although she appears on the "Mystery Deaths" lists, there is no evidence that she is in fact dead! This essay, by researcher David Perry, deals with a claim that author Penn Jones, Jr. placed a fake death notice in one of his books at the request of a federal agent. Supposedly, Carlin was going into a witness protection program. See what Perry concludes about this claim.

Changed Motorcade Route?

But as is often the case, conspiracy books withhold important information from their readers. Click on the map at left/above to get the full story. This issue not only shows the unreliability of conspiracy books, it's one about which Jim Garrison lied in On the Trail of the Assassins, and one that has trapped at least two suspect "witnesses" to sinister goings-on.

Bobby Kennedy's View of the Assassination

You've probably seen the much cited claim that Robert Kennedy said that "only the powers of the Presidency" would get to the bottom of his brother's death. One person who vividly remembers the speech in which RFK supposedly said this was author David Lifton. This is his own account from Compuserve, uploaded by permission.

Clark Merrill tried to track this same claim about Bobby Kennedy in news reports from the 1968 Presidential Primary campaign. This article details what Bobby actually said. Compare it to what some conspiracy authors said he said.

A Thought From a Serious Conspiracy Researcher My research has shown over 75% of all alleged facts in this case are false. Just take any book and compare the author's conclusions to another author's conclusions. Check each alleged fact in each book and see how many cancel or contradict each other. If all the alleged facts in all the conspiracy books were true, we could expect to have the following conclusions: The Grassy Knoll was a very busy place with many gunmen who never saw each other. There were at least 10 individuals depicted in the photos of the three tramps. There were at least 30 gunmen firing from 4 different buildings, the overpass, the Grassy Knoll, the South Knoll, the Presidential limo, the Secret Service follow-up car, the curb on Elm Street and the sewer. There were at least 100 conspirators in Dealey Plaza. These "facts" seem absurd and ridiculous but this is exactly what we end up with if we believe all of the conspiracy books which have been published. (Source: Bill Adams, "The Enemy Within") Do you think Adams is exaggerating? Check out David Perry's "Rashomon to the Extreme" for a list off all the persons who have been "identified" as shooters or coconspirators in Dealey Plaza on the day of the assassination. Then check out Mike Griffith's essay "Extra Bullets and Missed Shots in Dealey Plaza" for more of the kind of "evidence" that Adams is talking about.

People With "Foreknowledge" of the Assassination?

Joseph Milteer supposedly had "foreknowledge" of the assassination. A far-right extremist, he made several statements to an FBI informant -- two weeks before the assassination -- about how Kennedy was going to be killed. Did he actually know something about an impending assassination? Or was he merely a blowhard? Click here to see how conspiracy books conceal certain of his statements. Just how much does he seem to know when you look at more of what he said?

Rose Cheramie is another of the people with supposed "foreknowledge" of the assassination. Her story is in all the assassination books, but British author Chris Mills has collected new primary sources. His Rambling Rose is an essay that takes us beyond the usual treatment. Mills believes she may have had actual foreknowledge of the assassination (I think he's wrong about that), and offers a particularly strong treatment of her death.

Let's Just Think for a Minute About "Foreknowledge"

Each of these threats could be interpreted as "foreknowledge" of the assassination. Somebody talked about the president going to be killed, and the president was killed. Foreknowledge.

Bogus "Confessions"

We might expect that anybody who took part in the assassination would keep quiet about it. But interestingly, several people have some forward to "confess" a role.

• James Files, whose story is promoted in a video produced by one Bob Vernon, claims to have been the Grassy Knoll shooter. There are serious questions about his credibility, however.
• Another person who has recently "confessed" a connection with the assassination is one Tex Brown, who claims to have taught Lee Oswald and Jack Ruby how to shoot a rifle. In his review of the book Broken Silence, researcher David Perry evaluates this tale.
• One Robert Morrow has claimed a role in the shooting as a supplier of rifles and of electronic devices. Ulric Shannon, in this thorough review of Morrow's book First Hand Knowledge, questions whether Morrow's "knowledge" was really first-hand, as opposed to picked up from various conspiracy books.

Washington, DC Phone Outage

Mangling What the Warren Commission Said

In an attempt to determine whether it would have been possible for Oswald to have shot Kennedy in the time he had available, the Warren Commission requested a number of shooting trials from government agencies. What did the trials show? How do conspiracy books present the trials? Click here to find out.

Gaeton Fonzi: A Story Too Good to Be True One of the more colorful claims in Gaeton Fonzi's The Last Investigation concerns Miami-based reporter Hal Hendrix. Fonzi wants to label Hendrix a spook, and provides some interesting "evidence" of this.

The Fonzi Version The next year Hendrix got himself promoted to a more prestigious job, covering Latin America for the Script-Howard News Service. Still based in Miami, Hendrix's sources remained quite extraordinary. In a piece for Scripps-Howard dated September 23rd, 1963, Hendrix wrote a colorful and detailed description of the coup that toppled Juan Bosch, the leftist president of the Dominican Republic. If Hendrix's report didn't come from inside sources, it was an amazing display of clairvoyance--the coup didn't take place until the following day. The Last Investigation, p. 325.

The Reality In the days before the coup, Hendrix wrote a three-part series, with each article in the series dealing with a different nation. First there was Cuba, then the Dominican Republic, and then Haiti. My student Mark Rausch managed to locate three Scripts-Howard papers that ran Hendrix's series: the Albuquerque Tribune, the Rocky Mountain News, and the El Paso Herald Post. All ran Hendrix's story on the Dominican Republic one or two days before the coup. So what did Hendrix' story say? Here is the lead paragraph: The newly won democracy in the Dominican Republic is in danger of disintegrating. The government of President Juan Bosch, inaugrated only eight months ago, may not survive the year. That's a prediction that the government will fall, but it's miles from a "colorful description" of a coup. Hendrix goes on to explain the problems facing the nation, mentioning: A preoccupation "among Western diplomats and responsible Dominicans" with increasing Communist activity. Incompetence that has "riddled the Bosch administration." Bosch's own stubbornness, vanity, and "lack of administrative talent." The fact that "nearly every Dominican male" carries a concealed weapon. Dimming economic prospects. Foreign investors wary of political instability. Where in this article did Fonzi see a "colorful and detailed description of the coup?" The assumption must be that Fonzi was simply passing along hearsay, and never bothered to check out this particular story.

Another "Official Story"

Conspiracy buffs are ever suspicious of the "official story" and "government propaganda." In at least one case, however, many have been crudulous toward a piece of propaganda from a very different source. Farewell America is a book whose origins are explored in this essay by John Locke.

Those Conspiracy "Photo Experts"

They will assure you that all the evidence implicating Oswald is faked. They will assure you they see evidence of a conspiracy in films, still photos, movie footage, and x-rays. Do the conspiracy "photographic experts" know what they are talking about? Let's take a look:

• Tom Wilson -- Found a bullet entrance in the front of Kennedy's suit jacket.
• Groden and Livingstone -- An autopsy photo that shows the back of Kennedy's head blown out.
• Robert Groden -- photo of O.J. Simpson was faked.
• Robert Groden -- a "second rifle" brought down from the Depository.
• Robert Groden -- a figure in the background of newsreel footage of Oswald is Clay Shaw.
• Jack White -- Inconsistent dimensions of rifle in backyard photos.
• House Select Committee on Assassinations -- How real photo experts work.

Dallas Police Evidence Tampering?

Conspiracy books claim that the Dallas police tampered with a piece of evidence found among Oswald's possessions. It was a photo that shows the backyard of General Walker (who Oswald tried to kill), and the version that now exists has the license plate of a car parked behind Walkers house torn out. Supposedly, photographic evidence shows that the plate was intact when the Dallas cops recovered the photo. But a closer look at the evidence shows the conspiracy books jumping to conclusions.

A Crank Phone Call is Evidence? Karen Carlin (stage name: "Little Lynn") was one of Jack Ruby's stip-tease dancers. She phoned Ruby on the morning of November 24th, 1963, and asked him to wire her $25 that she needed for rent and groceries. Had she not phoned, Ruby would not have been in downtown Dallas that Sunday morning and almost certainly would not have shot Oswald. After the assassination, Carlin turned up on the lists of "mysterious deaths" -- although in fact there was no evidence she was dead. Author John Davis takes the story from there: . . . in October 1992, Karen Carlin came back from the dead. She contacted Gary Shaw, director of the JFK Assassination Information Center in Dallas, after almost thirty years living under an assumed identity, and told him she knew of a conspiracy to kill Lee Harvey Oswald, that Ruby told her to phone him Sunday morning and that an hour later he would telegraph her $25, just before shooting Oswald, to establish an alibi to justify his shooting of Oswald as an impulsive act of revenge. And who was ultimately behind the conspiracy to kill Oswald? Karin [sic] Carlin mentioned two names to Gary Shaw, Carlos Marcello and Santos Trafficante, Jr. (John Davis, The Kennedy Contract, p. 107.) Needless to say, "Carlin" has not come forward to confirm her identity, testify or answer questions, or otherwise make herself available. The whole affair is just one phone call to Shaw -- who has been involved in a variety of other dubious "revelations" in the case.