Dear Real Change,
Everyone should welcome the great hype and fanfare accorded Vincent Bugliosi’s fat book accusing Oswald of killing JFK. It is an opportunity to use this trashy rehash of the Warren Report to teach young people the lies and tactics to which Bugliosi has permanently given his name.
As customers, we are again supposed to be awed that the junk on sale weighs five pounds, that two magic bullets — one that makes a variety of broken bones in two men but emerges unscathed, one that drives a man’s head violently backwards when fired from the rear — are not alarming or suggestive of a miscarriage.
Bugsi claims that Oswald alone fled the scene. Perhaps he hasn’t considered the possibility that Oswald simply went home. Bugsi claims that every cop in Dallas knew Oswald killed Kennedy. How would they “know” this other than perhaps word of mouth? Perhaps he’s never heard of Roger Craig, the Sheriff’s Deputy who saw others most definitely fleeing the scene and who was silenced for doubting Oswald’s guilt, or of the many witnesses on hand who saw a sniper in the Grassy Knoll.
On Jack Ruby, he contends a strip joint owner in 1950’s Dallas has no ties to organized crime? Is he joking? Does he describe Ruby’s weird testimony or his own repudiation of the myth that he shot Oswald out of love for Kennedy? Nowhere.
He claims Kennedy’s head goes forward, imperceptibly. Is he aware that Secret Serviceman Greer had just stepped on the brakes of the limousine, or just not telling what he knows? He says the debris goes forward. Has he noted that Jackie climbs onto the rear hood picking up pieces of JFK’s skull? Note the motion and behavior of her hands in the final frames of the Zapruder film if you doubt me.
Men like Vincent Bugliosi are fighting a war of attrition, hoping their superior media firepower and the weight of their stale tomes will wear us out.
Mac Crary | Seattle, WA