Want to (dis)prove who killed JFK? Start with the 5 million pages of material in the National Archives' Assassination Records Collection¹. Better review the 26 volumes of hearings and exhibits published by the Warren Commission. And each frame of the Zapruder film². And just to be on the safe side, the operating manual for his then top-of-the-line Bell & Howell 414PD camera. (1: previously, but with outdated link. 2: related) [more inside]
posted by Trurl on Jul 23, 2011 - 73 comments

Before 9/11, the center of the conspiracy theorist's universe was the Kennedy Assassination. And probably the definitive statement on the ridiculousness of the conspiracy theories of that era was the Illuminatus! Trilogy[warning, the entire several hundred page novel in PDF], published in 1975 and written by two Playboy editors at the height of the era of flower power. It drew on many sources, but most distinctively, it drew from a little public domain pamphlet called The Principia Discordia. Many people know the catch phrases (Fnord! Hail Eris!), but not many people know the authors' very real connections to the Kennedy Assassination. [more inside]
posted by empath on Jun 29, 2009 - 76 comments

On his deathbed, the former CIA spymaster E. Howard Hunt made a startling confession. Or so says his son, Saint...Maybe the Zapruder film can tell us if there was a second gunman on the grassy knoll. Or was that a hoax too?
posted by nasreddin on Apr 15, 2007 - 40 comments

"We can't be too purist about these things"
Slate: I know there is a conspiracy theory saying that David Atlee Phillips—the Miami CIA station chief—was involved with the assassination of JFK.
Howard Hunt: [Visibly uncomfortable] I have no comment.
Slate: And there were even conspiracy theories about you being in Dallas the day JFK was killed.
Hunt: No comment.
Laura Hunt: Howard says he wasn't, and I believe him.
E. Howard Hunt talks about Guatemala, the Bay of Pigs, Dealey Plaza. And what really happened to Che Guevara. (more inside)
posted by matteo on Oct 8, 2004 - 14 comments

There was no conspiracy in the assassination of JFK, according to a new BBC documentary broadcast tonight. Offering a CG reconstruction of the plaza based on the Zapruder film and interviews with people who knew people, convincing evidence was offered that Lee Harvey Oswald was a lone gunman acting on his own. Essentially that all these people are misguided. It also carefully worked through some of the other theories, Cuban and Mob and had very few nice things to say about Oliver Stone. For example, there wasn't a magic bullet because the diagram in the film is wrong -- Texas Governor John Connally wasn't sitting directly in front of the president, but below and just off the side, so the round just went in a straight line. This was tragedy effecting millions perpetrated by one man. How often have we heard that story?
posted by feelinglistless on Nov 23, 2003 - 59 comments