Conspiracies, as time has proven, have become a huge facet of popular, North American culture. America, with its centuries of vicious and violent history, reads like a mystery novel that is filled with elaborate twists and hidden plots. The subtle rift that is created when one's mind swaps from fact to fiction seems almost lost in the unconscious of the North American populous, as a need for a continual sense of suspense grows more tangible with every passing year. Mike Reynolds believes that conspiracy theories fuel a need to keep a story going - they “resist structure, rebut reference, and refuse…to finish” (87). They do not need to be “radical [or] reactionary” and they provide a different angle for which to continue the discourse (Knight 86). The theories that are created, act as a mirror that reflect a certain image (Knight 87). These images are then left to the general public to scrutinize and make sense of, as well as propagate (Knight 87). Paranoia about fluoride in the drinking water aside, no conspiracy theory can rival the amount of dedication and press of that of the Kennedy assassination. Even forty years later, the Kennedy story seems almost legendary in its continual retelling and revamping. Was there one shooter? Two? A magic bullet? A dark and sinister plot orchestrated by the CIA? A group of shadowy figures that have kept the truth concealed and buried under mountains of false paperwork? At this point, anything and everything is possible, and the truth - though it might be out there - seems to be inaccessible. What is known for certain is that in the latter half of the twentieth century, no single political event has captured the public's imagination like the assassination of American president John Fitzgerald Kennedy. Every story has a beginning, and for the Kennedy saga, that beginning is on November 22, 1963 in Dallas, Texas with a surgeon named Charles Crenshaw. In Crenshaw’s book, JFK: A Conspiracy of Silence, he provides a detailed version of what he witnessed in the emergency room while trying to save the lives of both President Kennedy and Lee Harvey Oswald. Crenshaw argues for a conspiracy, claiming that upon witnessing Kennedy’s body, the President had to have been shot from the front rather than from behind; thus, he concludes that the Warren Commission is inaccurate in their findings. Crenshaw’s conspiracy theory is based upon his own knowledge and findings as a surgeon and he uses scientific and medical jargon in order to strengthen and legitimate his claims. The attraction of his conspiracy theory stems from his own personal involvement in the aftermath of the assassination. Crenshaw, as a hardworking and successful surgeon at Parkland Hospital, presents himself as a credible, trustworthy source. He stresses his own authoritative and professional role in order to gain respect from his readers and convince them of a conspiracy. Crenshaw, along with providing a medical, journalistic account of the events he saw transpire on November 22nd and 23rd of 1963 in Parkland Hospital, presents other "evidence" to support his theory that a second gunman firing at Kennedy from the front had to have been involved. While Crenshaw does not place outright blame on one particular individual, he points to the FBI and Kennedy’s Secret Service entourage as suspects and suggests that following the assassination, Lyndon Johnson went to great efforts to cover up any possible evidence of a conspiracy. Crenshaw does not properly cite this information in the text; subsequently his theory of a conspiracy appears to be more speculation than fact. While Crenshaw presents a unique account of what he witnessed in Parkland Hospital during these two days, using medical and scientific evidence to support his theory of a second shooter, the validity of his other assertions- what was transpiring outside the walls of the hospital- must be put into question. As a result, the sole attraction of Crenshaw’s theory rests on his own professional title and nothing more. On that note, Edward Jay Epstein's Inquest serves a different purpose than many of the other competing books on conspiracy. His work is unique in the sense that he does not suggest there was one specific theory or even that there was a conspiracy, necessarily. What Epstein does succeed in doing, however, is to continue the conspiracy discourse by suggesting that there were grave errors in the way that the Warren Commission operated and the conclusions it reached. He does not insult the Commission, but he has a number of problems with the operations and their choice to exclusively select the evidence that supported their “lone assassin” claim. His work is more of an exposé of why the Warren Commission failed to suit America's needs - the truth is inconclusive. Epstein presents his findings in a simple manner that, unlike many other works on conspiracy, is clear, straightforward, and is based entirely on primary-sourced research. The reader is drawn to Epstein's arguments based on their compelling nature and extreme plausibility. They pose more questions than answers, and they demand a “ceaseless re-engagement” of the assassination (Reynolds 91). By questioning the Warren Commission's version of the truth, Epstein effectively demonstrates the “widespread loss of faith…in the legitimacy of the authorities who investigated the murder” (Knight 78). Epstein says that, “if the Commission had made it clear that very substantial evidence indicated the presence of a second assassin, it would have opened a Pandora's box of doubts and suspicions” (152). Instead, Epstein has chosen to open this Pandora's box for the world. It is clear that Epstein has a deep compassion for his work, but what the reader is specifically drawn to is his unrequited quest for the truth. Sadly, for every credible and plausible conspiracy theorist, there are a handful of ones that provide a hysterical and overdrawn version of `the truth'. One such example of an unconvincing account of the Kennedy assassination can be found in Jim Garrison's On the Trail of the Assassins. In this novel, Jim Garrison, a defense attorney from New Orleans, recounts the highly personal details of his investigation into the assassination of John Kennedy. From a combination of individual and legal interests that begin in his office's jurisdiction, Garrison notices inconsistencies in the aftermath of the assassination and conducts an investigation that appears to uncover what he believes to be a mass conspiracy to murder the president and then cover it up. Garrison describes ad nauseam the piling up of witnesses, the multiple covert operations, the international ties and implications, and most importantly, his collapse of trust in the government and the justice system. To say that Garrison lost credibility through his investigation and subsequent trial against Clay Shaw in 1969 would be an understatement. Tragically, his book does not help him regain it. Reading like a piece of fiction, Garrison opted to place his citations at the end of the text, requiring the reader to sort through the sources by page number. This strategy, although it allows for a seamless reading experience, makes it difficult for the reader to reconstruct Garrison's “conspiracy” from his sources. This difficulty is compounded by the fact that many of the sources are unrecorded conversations or materials that Garrison had access to only as an elected public official. While the book allows Garrison the chance to describe his investigation in its entirety, the readers feel distanced by his self-righteous assertions in the search for truth. Though, Garrison's account is attractive for the same reasons that he is discounted. The scope of his investigation penetrates every corner of the United States' major institutions, entrusting the individual with the pursuit of justice. The deep paranoia ingrained in his narrative is a feeling one rejects, but the thrill of danger in the possibility is enough for the reader to continue to consume it. The popular consumption of Garrison's conspiracy has been rehashed multiple times: in the rabid media attention surrounding his investigation and trial, in the publishing of his book, and, most recently, in director Oliver Stone's film JFK. Although Garrison's investigation has not been officially accepted by legal and political institutions it continues to be the narrative that stirs up our cultural imagination. As well, Peter Knight addresses in his book Conspiracy Culture, conspiracy theories “provide a consoling sense of closure, gravity and coherence in the face of seeming randomness” (78). They are a way for people to reconcile widely divergent articles of information that are seemingly contradictory. Like Garrison, Mark Lane seeks to capitalize on these contradictions, in his book A Rush to Judgment, to articulate not just one conspiracy theory about the assassination of President Kennedy, but a second theory about the government's deliberate cover up of this event. Lane takes evidence that was collected from various sources following the assassination and compiles it to disprove the Warren Commission's ruling regarding the `lone assassin' theory. By bringing in new witness testimony, Lane is able to demonstrate the veritable impossibility of the Commission's findings due to a number of factors. Not only do the witness accounts contradict the location and frequency of the shots fired on that fateful November day, they also make for a case against the likelihood that Lee Harvey Oswald was even a viable suspect. Much of this evidence was initially withheld from the public and was undressed at the Commission due to the “need to allay fears of conspiracy” as Lane purports (161). Step by step, Lane presents each account in its virtual entirety so as to elucidate previously concealed facts and to demonstrate the Commission's deliberate suppression of this. On various instances, when testimony was straying too far from the government's streamlined perception of the issue, Lane notes that witnesses were cut off from continuing their story. He argues, for example, that the Warren Commission “placed great emphasis on the testimony of Norman, Jarman, and Williams- which it quoted out of context- and no emphasis at all on testimony contrary to its conclusions” (Lane 94). Ironically, the fact that this material was withheld makes for a glorified and expansive “vertigo of interpretations” (Knight 99). The mere fact that the information is so varied allows for an assortment of conclusions and interpretations to be drawn. Lane presents the material rather straightforwardly, with little critical engagement other than that which supports his position that the Commission's findings were flawed. How exactly this particular conspiracy was carried out, is left up to the reader to determine. As Knight says, “many conspiracy theories about the Kennedy assassination open up a space of doubt and suspicion without ever fully closing it down. Nothing is certain; everything can be reinterpreted” (Knight 98). Similar to Lane's approach is that of Hugh McDonald, an ex-law enforcement officer who joins the brigade of Kennedy conspiracy theorists in his recount entitled Appointment in Dallas: The Final Solution to the JFK Assassination. Like Lane, McDonald does not attempt to answer all the questions his theory presents. Instead, he answers the questions with more questions, establishing a relationship with the reader based on a continual opportunity for the readers' active participation. McDonald's book is set up so that the readers are granted immediate access to his purposed conspiracy: the truth of a “real assassin”, with the code name is Saul who was hired to murder President Kennedy. The bulk of McDonald's story details his pursuit of this man; culminating in a face-to-face confession. Interestingly, the book ends with the exact same information with which it began, the only difference being its source. This is McDonald's greatest feat as a conspiracy theorist. He leaves room, the entire novel in fact, for the reader to build his or her own fantasy and to fill the gaps as he or she chooses. Throughout the course of the novel, McDonald raises questions as to who hired the real assassin, what their motives were, and the extent of the plot (i.e. the events post-assassination). By the time McDonald has tracked down the hit man and listens to his confession, the reader becomes susceptible to believing the conspiracy simply because it has become a product of his or her own desires. Having chased down his suspect, McDonald's search for truth ends by re-iterating the role of conspiracies as the chance to create our own ending and as “[providing] a consoling sense of closure, gravity and coherence in the face of seeming randomness” (78). McDonald's theory is an offered alternative, claiming that someone other than Lee Harvey Oswald shot the President. This is the extent of the theory. The appendices that follow Saul's confession at the end of the book are documentation of how McDonald chose to fill in the gaps. In some cases his speculation is warranted, as his guesswork is supported by inconsistencies in the Warren Report or events leading up to the assassination. However, McDonald's possible answers simply serve as a framework within which our own ideas may manifest. Appointment in Dallas is a perfect example of the mechanics of the mind on which conspiracy is founded, seeing as how truth matters little to its validity. While one may or may not choose to believe McDonald's ideas or even Saul's confession, those who finish the novel are surprised to find that they themselves have become part of the conspiracy. Through their participation, each reader credits the theory simply by entertaining its possibilities. As one can see, the Kennedy assassination conspiracies vary from one extreme to the next. Lane states the Warren Commission is flawed and deliberately rushed its findings. Both Crenshaw and Epstein find sufficient disproof for the much-speculated 'magic bullet' theory. Garrison claims there is an entire group of people responsible for Kennedy's death; McDonald presents the possibility that Lee Harvey Oswald was simply the scapegoat for a real assassin. What is safe to say is that conspiracy theories become self-indulgent ways in which individuals are able to connect to a culture of mystery and intrigue. In a way, they become the dividing line between two very diverse sides of a spectrum of information. Which side of the spectrum one falls on, relies entirely on the limits of one's imagination. Conspiracy: The Eternal Kennedy Vigil Professor Berkley Kaite The Kennedy’s in the Media and Film McGill University March 14, 2007 Allison Bland: Jim Garrison Michelle Lewis: Charles Crenshaw Kate Mattocks: Edward Epstein Kate Ruscito: Jim Garrison Amara Watkin-Anson: Mark Lane Lex Zouzal: Hugh McDonald Works Cited Crenshaw, Charles A. JFK: A Conspiracy of Silence. Penguin Books, NY: 1992. Epstein, Edward Jay. Inquest. New York: Viking Press, 1966. Garrison, Jim. On The Trail Of The Assassins. New York: Sheridan Square Press, 1988. Knight, Peter. "Plotting the Kennedy Assassination," Conspiracy Culture: From the Kennedy Assassination to 'The X-Files'" (London and New York: Routledge, 2000). Lane, Mark. A Rush to Judgment. Penguin Books: Harmondsworth, Eng. 1967. McDonald, Hugh C. Appointment in Dallas: The Final Solution to the Assassination of JFK, The Hugh McDonald Publishing Corporation: New York, 1975. Reynolds, Mike. "The Glassy Knoll: Identity, Identification, and Desire in Kennedy Narratives," Journal for the Psychoanalysis of Culture and Society, 6:1 (Spring 2001). "Jim Garrison Playboy Interview". Playboy vol. 14 no. 10. 10 October 1967. Crenshaw, Charles A. JFK: A Conspiracy of Silence. Penguin Books, NY: 1992. Surgeon Charles Crenshaw writes a detailed and direct account of the events he witnessed at Parkland Hospital in Dallas on Nov. 22nd and 23rd of 1963. Within these two days, he played an active role trying to save the lives of both President Kennedy and Lee Harvey Oswald. His book is arranged chronologically, beginning in the early morning of November 22nd and ending the night of November 23rd. While he writes of his own experiences during these days in the hospital and presents this information in journalistic style entries, he also presents information on what was occurring outside the hospital doors with relation to Kennedy’s assassination. Information on Oswald’s whereabouts as well as the actions of Jack Ruby, Lyndon Johnson, and numerous accounts from eyewitnesses are some of the details Crenshaw provides. While it can be argued that many of these accounts are in fact speculation, Crenshaw presents them as conclusive, objective facts. Crenshaw uses a number of medical details in an attempt to convince readers that the JFK assassination conspiracy is indeed plausible; he is certain a second shooter had to have been involved. Having witnessed the President’s demise and the various wounds on his body, he concludes that the magic bullet and lone assassin theory is simply not scientifically possible. Epstein, Edward Jay. Inquest. New York: Viking Press, 1966. Inquest is a work of critique of the Warren Commission’s Report on the investigation of the assassination of President Kennedy. Epstein, an American investigative journalist educated at Cornell University, questions nearly every part of the Report, including the circumstances surrounding it, the procedures involved, and the actual document itself. Ultimately, Epstein concludes that the Warren Commission acted not to find the exhaustive truth about the assassination, but “to reassure the nation and protect the national interest” (152). The book is divided into four main sections: Political Truth, The Investigation, The Report, and the Appendices, which contain partial text of the FBI’s Summary Report on the assassination. Epstein first provides a month-by-month overview of the investigation, and then proceeds to further analyze the Commission’s conclusions. His analysis of the Commission’s findings is quite shocking, especially given the amount of testimony he has investigated that the Commission ignored, whether deliberately or not. Epstein’s main argument stems from what he determines to be the three limits of the investigation: weak communications with the FBI, the forensic problem of lawyers acting as independent investigators as well as counsel, and the pressure of time – the deadlines “limited not only the quantity of the investigation but also its quality” (103). Epstein argues that the Commission’s investigation was “an extremely superficial investigation limited in terms of both time and manpower, and consequently limited to the more prominent evidence” (77). Epstein’s work was one of the first published criticisms of the Warren Report. It is extremely concise, thorough, and, given the large scope of his primary-sourced research, credible and believable. Epstein does not deny the credibility of those in the Commission, but rather the circumstances. He does not propose that there was a conspiracy, just that the circumstantial evidence and basis for the claims is not well-founded. Lane, Mark. A Rush to Judgement. Penguin Books: Harmondsworth, Eng. 1967. Like Jim Garrison, another prominent lawyer following the assassination, Mark Lane seeks to disprove the ‘lone assassin’ theory as corroborated by the Warren Commission. By raising questions unaddressed by the commission and providing a greater bank of witnesses and evidence, Lane makes a case against the findings of the commission. He argues instead that a number of findings were deliberately covered up in an attempt to streamline the government’s position in determining Lee Harvey Oswald the sole murderer of the president (and Officer Tippet). By deconstructing each aspect of the assassination, as well as the preceding and following moments, Lane is able to structure his case. He proves how Oswald could not have been the only shooter due to inconsistent witness testimony, the ‘magic bullet’, and chemical and physical impossibilities. Each of these elements are corroborated by documented evidence, but most of these accounts never made it to the commission floor or were severely abridged; thus it is through Lane’s book that they come to the fore. Lane furthers his discussion by delving into the life of Oswald and his family, as well as into the life of Jack Ruby- Oswald’s killer. Throughout the book, Lane is sure to include substantial evidence and clearly references each, to give a credible account of the assassination and subsequent investigations. The book reads as a more of a legal document than a piece of fiction, which perhaps lends itself well to be considered a legitimate argument. The author is able to distance himself fairly well from the material and thus the reader is left to draw his or her own conclusions; however, the somewhat disjointed and repetitious nature of the evidence leaves room for doubt. McDonald, Hugh C. Appointment in Dallas: The Final Solution to the Assassination of JFK, The Hugh McDonald Publishing Corporation: New York, 1975. The author, a veteran law enforcement officer, presents the details of his search for JFK’s real assassin. Invoked by a leak from a colleague who hinted at the possibility of conspiracy, McDonald revisits the events surrounding the assassination, essentially developing an obsession with the case and its discrepancies. As it hops continents, McDonald’s book documents his hot pursuit for the covert yet well-known hit-man he christens “Saul”, gradually developing into a dangerous plot of deadly secrets. McDonald finds himself situated within the supposed conspiracy as a result of his appointed position as director of security control for Republican Presidential candidate and Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater, in 1964. The job required McDonald to assemble a security team, which led him to past boss and friend, Herman Kimsey (a former high ranking CIA official). Kimsey discloses his knowledge of the “real” hired assassin responsible for Kennedy’s murder, claiming his leak as a preventative measure to secure the safety of Senator Goldwater, who might also be targeted. Making it clear that he will deny the story should it go public, Kimsey leaves McDonald no choice but to keep his investigation a secret. The bulk of the text traces the journey from the time McDonald acquires the information up to Saul’s confession, placing the most value on the beginning and end of the novel. Dividing the information into two parts, The Set-Up and The Kill, McDonald delivers Saul’s account of the events surrounding the assassination. Saul concedes that he was commissioned to kill the President as well as his cover—Lee Harvey Oswald. His confession explains what went wrong that day in Dallas, and also offers possible clarification for the mysteries of the assassination that have spawned so much speculation. While McDonald probes Saul for the truth about who hired him, Saul insists that he never knew the identity or the motive of the conspirators. With a promise for vendetta should he be exposed, Saul ends his meeting with McDonald. As McDonald lacks the full story, he closes his book with several appendices that answer to questions of how and why the government treated the case as it did. He uses his in depth research and inquiry into the investigation of President Kennedy’s death as a means to strengthen the integrity of Saul’s statement, and follows up his conclusion by pages decorated with reproductions of his credentials—a claim for authenticity and a plea that his theory be taken seriously. Garrison, Jim. On the Trail of the Assassins. New York: Sheridan Square Press, 1988. This text is Garrison’s personal journey from total trust in and loyalty to the United States government and its other major institutions to total paranoia. As the defense attorney of New Orleans, Garrison falls into his investigation after discovering that Lee Harvey Oswald had spent time in his jurisdiction before the assassination. Immediately, Garrison begins to discover the inconsistencies in the official story of Kennedy’s death. Witnesses, leads, and crucial connections were either over- or under-investigated in Garrison’s eyes. Garrison uses the Warren Commission’s report and the actions of Oswald in New Orleans as the starting point for his investigation. He uncovers Oswald’s odd history, including multiple people who appeared to impersonate him, and his apparent ties to American intelligence agencies. In New Orleans, he discovers what seems to be a plot to kill the president unfolding under the nose of the city’s intelligence community. The main players in this plot, according to Garrison, were David Ferrie, Clay Shaw, and Guy Banister. In conjunction with the U.S. government and intelligence agencies, they had various vested interests in the president’s murder, stemming from Kennedy’s interest in making peace with Cuba and withdrawing from Vietnam. As Garrison’s investigation continues, he describes the media hysteria surrounding it and their subsequent obstruction of his efforts, which, compounded with a negative reaction from government institutions, led him to believe that the media was involved in the cover-up of the Kennedy assassination. Garrison’s 1969 trial against Bernard Shaw is somewhat anticlimactic, given the wide-reaching implications of this vast conspiracy. The text ends with Garrison’s appeal to the next generation and the search for the truth. "Jim Garrison Playboy Interview". Playboy vol. 14 no. 10. 10 October 1967. In this candid, 1967 Playboy interview, renown Kennedy conspiracy theorist and investigator, Jim Garrison, explains his theories on who killed John Kenney. He goes into great detail while justifying his facts and proof and presents them clearly, even though at times, his conclusions seem illogical. The main problem with the interview, while being chalked full of information, reads like a John Grisham novel. By the end of the article, one gets the distinct impression that Garrison is frantically pointing his finger at every political group and government organization, blaming them for the death of John Kennedy. Sadly, Garrison spends too much time trying to dispel the notion that he is an unreliable source of information. Every time the interviewer asks him a direct question that would serve to clarify unanswered questions, Garrison claims he is not at liberty to reveal any information “at this moment” but asks the reader to take his word that he has the information and that it is real. Yet, even if the reader were to trust Garrison, the interview becomes a ‘grab bag’, pell-mell arrangement of conspiracy theories that are so disconnected and disjointed, that one cannot help but think Garrison is simply a paranoid man with a soap box. For instance, Garrison offers up the theory that a guerilla team of about seven men killed President Kennedy. He and goes as far as to say there were different shooters positioned in at least three different and strategic areas of downtown Dallas and that some of the men in the guerilla team had the specific job of picking up the discharged shell casings from the shots fired, as well the pieces of bullet that would have splintered after killing President Kenney. Though, for all the outlandishly farfetched and unbelievable theories Garrison presents, he does manage to present a completely sane and valid explanation as to why Lee Harvey Oswald could not have been Kennedy’s lone assassin. Garrison provides ample information that proves the rifle found on Oswald the day of the murder could not have been the rifle used to assassinate Kennedy. With that piece of information alone, Garrison pokes a hole in the Warren Commission’s final and irrefutable report, thus piquing the curiosity of the readers, making them wonder what else the Warren Commission could have potentially overlooked.