Sean Munger argues that Lee Harvey Oswald was the sole gunman killing John F Kennedy and there was no conspiracy. It argues well for Oswald being a gunman but stumbles somewhat in convincing the viewer that there was no conspiracy.
We agree on some points:
Oswald was seemingly a complete screwup who couldn’t do anything right
The idea that he succeeded in killing John F Kennedy seems like an unfortunate accident to mr Munger but it can also cast doubt on Oswald being a complete screwup. I would have liked a more thorough investigation into his history. How come he left the Marine Corps? How come he was so warmly received on his defection to the Soviet Union? How come he married the daughter of a Soviet military officer? How come he defected back to the US and was interviewed for 90 minutes before being let go? How come Oswald’s wife was allowed to join him in the US?
Oswald was a gunman directly involved in the assassination of John F Kennedy
Yes, that seems pretty well established. Even if we disregard his fingerprints and palmprints on the gun the fact that he wasn’t seen by anyone else at the time of the murder is a big red flag. If he truly wasn’t involved in the shooting, how was he kept in the right location(away from witnesses) at the right time?
The Secret Service didn’t do it
Well, obviously not… They could have made it look like a heart attack that killed him in his sleep. Why the hell would they jump through hoops to shoot him? I like the theory that they shot him by accident as it reduces things to slapstick and is clearly disproven by the Zapruder film.
We disagree on some points:
It’s important that Oswald’s gun can be shot three times in the allotted time
I argue that the proper question is if a shooter of his skill can shoot a moving target the size of a head twice in the allotted time.
Handwriting analysis is presented as reliable
I argue that it is not. I don’t doubt that Oswald’s signature in any of the presented evidence is the work of Oswald himself, but handwriting analysis is still very hit-and-miss.
Oswald’s refusal to indicate any co-conspirators while in police custody shows the absence of such co-conspirators
I argue that the Dallas Police showed themselves incompetent in how they interrogated him, how they paraded him in front of cameras for two days and how he was killed while in their custody. One should not rely on any written document from them. We have no audio-recording of Oswald nor did he make any statements with a lawyer present. What Oswald did or did not say between his arrest and his untimely demise is unknown.
The Warren commission is exhaustive
They relied heavily on existing investigations, some of them from the Dallas Police Department, the FBI and the CIA. They weren’t expected to find anything. It would be madness to set up a commission that started rummaging through US agencies, even if they didn’t find anything.
John F Kennedy was not opposed to the Vietnam war
His brother asked the Rand corporation to figure out how to win the Vietnam war. They went to Vietnam and on their return said effectively “The proper question is ‘CAN we win the Vietnam war’ and the answer is that we can’t”. JFK accepted this conclusion and was intending to wind down US involvement in Vietnam. As a side-note: this was the right decision, the US had no hope of winning the Vietnam war. Other countries in that part of the world could stop the steam-roller of communism but not Vietnam.
Some stuff that I can’t disprove due to a lack of evidence:
The CIA didn’t do it
Entirely possible. No one put any effort into investigating that(for good reason) so the absence of evidence isn’t exactly evidence of absence.
The FBI didn’t do it
Entirely possible. No one put any effort into investigating that(for good reason) so the absence of evidence isn’t exactly evidence of absence.
The military didn’t do it
Entirely possible. No one put any effort into investigating that(for good reason) so the absence of evidence isn’t exactly evidence of absence.
The mafia didn’t do it
They probably didn’t. It’s difficult to see how they would stand to gain anything from that or how they would pull strings necessary to stitch things together. Still, I doubt the FBI would have been keen to stand up after the assassination and say “Oh, the mob did it. We have them on tape. Should we have told someone?” So the argument “the FBI says no” isn’t very convincing here. It’s more convincing that the mob made money from gambling and drugs and risked complete annhilation if they were caught doing this.
Conclusions
Mr Munger relies heavily on the facts established by the US government. But when people argue that there was a conspiracy behind the assassination they typically go on to hypothesize that the parts of the US government were involved in the conspiracy, which makes the statements of the US government along the lines of “there was no conspiracy” less weight.
I don’t think any branch of the US government was involved in this crime. But independently of that it would have been hugely disruptive for different branches of the US government investigating one another for involvement in Kennedy’s murder.
And you can’t investigate a conspiracy and a priori exclude all branches of the government yet still have the investigation taken seriously. So you have to conclude at the earliest opportunity that there was no conspiracy. How fortunate *cough-cough* then that the gunman made only a few independently verifiable statements before being shot dead while in police custody.
Zapruder film:
Sean Munger’s documentaries on the subject:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DC8tO16xdrY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ptt1ti63IiE