Reply From a Conspiracy Believer

by Gaeton Fonzi

Vincent Bugliosi must be exhausted.  He not only churned out more than 1600 pages of tautologically strained contentions to support his book’s  pretentious title, ''Reclaiming History'', he must be weary from wrestling with the multitude of distortions and twisted conclusions he was forced to make to support his primary assertion.

His primary assertion?  Swallow that mouthful of  Dr. Pepper before you read this:  “...it has been established beyond all doubt that Oswald killed Kennedy.”

Fearful of endowing his abhorrent duplicity with any hint of legitimacy, I hesitate to take the time and effort to respond to all the ungrounded contentions he makes about my role as a federal investigator in the case and about certain areas of evidence with which I was involved.  There are, however,  two very significant segments of the investigation that Bugliosi, with clever  distortion and selected omission of facts, defiles truth and history.  And having cited as a source my own book, ''The Last Investigation'', he had to be well  aware of its documented adherence to the historical facts.  (Former U.S. Senator Richard Schweiker graciously provided a jacket  blurb citing the book for exactly that : “A rarity among Kennedy assassination books, [it] does not indulge in sensational or bizarre conspiracy theories.”)

One key contention that Bugliosi repeatedly makes is that my approach to the investigation was biased  because, before I was hired by the HSCA, I “had long been a conspiracy theorist.”  Bugliosi uses the term “conspiracy theorist” with the same poisonous implication  that Joe McCarthy used when he stigmatized  anyone who defied him as a  “Communist sympathizer.”  In my case, Bugliosi was forced  to characterize my viewpoint as anything but objective in order to distort the validity of certain evidence I had discovered – evidence that knocked hell out of his and the Warren Commission’s crucial single bullet theory and the branding of Oswald  as the lone assassin.

Bugliosi is wrong.  I was never a “conspiracy theorist.”  I went from an agnostic to a ''conspiracy believer''.  Like millions of Americans and almost all journalists whose Fourth Estate responsibility mandates that they maintain a critical oversight of our Government, I didn’t question the Warren Report when it was published.  Didn’t even read it.  Its assertions and conclusions came to me from the daily press and the national news networks.  And the most respected and nationally influential newspapers – including ''The New York Times'' –  editorially praised the Report and instantly endorsed its conclusions.  This despite the fact that the 26-volumes of evidence which the Commission claimed backed its critical conclusions weren’t available to the press until more than two months after the release of the Report.

Read the full essay at www.maryferrell.org.

Comments

[Ed J]

Holy crap. I can't believe someone actually started up a website to air their mindless maunderings on Bugliosi's book. He must scare the bejeesus out of you guys.
The "single bullet" isn't a theory, it's a fact - get over it.

[Rod Curtains]

The single bullet theory is a fact?
Why wasn't i told about this!, thanks for the heads up Ed J, just goes to show that you CAN actualy break the laws of physics.

[Ed J]

Which of Mr. Newton's laws were violated?

[Brian and Beth]

Metallic fragments were found in Kennedy's neck region. Now, just how did 399 leave those? Dump them out the back?
These fragments, first highlighted by a medical panel thrown together by Ramsay Clark in 1968, cannot have been left by CE 399.
Further, Dr. Joseph Dolce of the Army's Edgewood Arsenal, tested the single bullet theory for the Warren Commission with "Oswald's" ammunition and the rifle found on the 6th floor and in each and every instance the bullet was severely deformed just striking a cadaver wrist.
Therefore, Dr. Dolce, was never called to testify before the Warren Commission.
The report---which Dolce was not allowed to write---and the damaging bullet photos were withheld from research for 8 years.
Gee, I wonder why?
And, note, Dolce, the top expert on the issue of wounds ballistics, is nowhere mentioned in the body of Bugliosi's work.
You can't even begin to discuss the single bullet theory without discussing Dolce's devastating critique of the single bullet theory in the April 21, 1964 Warren Commission meeting.

[Ed J]

I remember when the conspiracy buffs had a problem with the PATH of the single bullet. There was much mumbo-jumbo about the bullet jumping up and changing direction and doing a little dance. Now that the path through Kennedy and into Connally is demonstrably the ONLY path the bullet could have taken, you folks have moved on to pick other nits.
A bullet striking just a cadaver wrist would obviously be much more deformed than one which had been slowed by passage through other bodily tissue.
You folks keep grasping for straws.

[emanate]

I wonder why a Communist would assassinate a President who wanted to negotiate with the Soviets? I wonder why if Oswald were the lone assassin, he wouldn't just shoot Kennedy coming up Elm Street?

[Peter McGuire]

The Single Bullet Theory can not be proven. It was used to "heal the nation" , most people have never believe. Why do we keep getting it shoved down our throat.

Understand? We don't believe this nonsense. Now what part of "we don't believe it" didn't you understand?

[mike orr]

Oswald did not shoot kennedy and then stroll down to the lunchroom and get stopped by a policeman while he was drinking a coke. When drs. at parkland say the back of his head was blasted out then it was blasted out. It is the only way Johnson became President. How much more crap can a country have shoved down its throat .You can't get shot in the front from behind. You know that the mannlicher carcano was known as the humane weapon because of its not shooting real well. I also like the carcanos that the test shooters use with a huge scope and a stationary target(JFK)