A Comment for the Fiftieth Anniversary

During the past decade, a steady stream of new work by independent investigators and authors hasreached the conclusion that Oswald acted alone.

In a 2002 ABC special, Peter Jennings Reporting: The Kennedy Assassination—Beyond Conspiracy, Dale Myers used the latest computer graphics and forensics analysis to determine what happened at Dealey Plaza (and later won an Emmy for his work). He confirmed the sequence of shots I originally set forth in Case Closed.

In 2007, former Charles Manson prosecutor Vince Bugliosi published Reclaiming History, a 1650-page book that ultimately concluded I got it right in 1993.

When Case Closed was first published, I went on Bill O’Reilly’s FOX program to discuss the book. Before the show went live, we spoke for a few minutes. O’Reilly told me he had not yet read it, but that he was personally convinced the mob had killed Kennedy. However, nineteen years later he wrapped the Case Closed conclusion of a lone assassin into a short populist book—and sold a million copies.

Three major Hollywood movies about the assassination will be released later this year. In sharp contrast to 1991 when Oliver Stone’s distorted faux history, JFK, dominated the box office, two of the new ones are first-ever “Oswald acted alone” features.

Public opinion polls have slowly shifted away from conspiracy. According to an AP-GfK poll this past April, 60 percent of those surveyed believed that “multiple people were involved in a conspiracy to assassinate JFK,” while 25 percent thought Oswald alone had killed Kennedy. Ten years earlier, on the fortieth anniversary, 75 percent thought it was a conspiracy. Near the time of Stone’s JFK, a remarkable 90 percent or more embraced a conspiracy.

The millions of pages of government documents released about the assassination since Case Closed was published have not provided any solace to the conspiracy industry. The theory most in vogue during the past decade is that JFK was killed as payback for his own attempts to kill Cuban president Fidel Castro. What that theory ultimately lacks, as do others, is credible evidence.

Fifty years after the assassination, the biggest casualty has been the truth. It has been mangled and often lost under an avalanche of false information, distorted memories, and unrestrained speculation. Playing a parlor game of “Who Killed Kennedy?” is a disservice to history and as well as to the memory of JFK. Conspiracy theories might sometimes be entertaining, but nothing is more compelling than the real story of what happened on November 22, 1963. For those willing to approach the subject with an open mind, the overwhelming credible evidence points to only one man: Lee Harvey Oswald.