PSC404, Spring 2001
Answers to assignment 7
Pre-WCR Reactions by the Right: Revilo P. Oliver

Read: “The Paranoid Style,” by Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, then “Marxmanship in Dallas I” and “Marxmanship In Dallas II,” by Professor Revilo P. Oliver of the University of Illinois and the John Birch Society. Read Oliver’s biography to get some further background.

Answer these questions (briefly):
      1. How does Prof. Oliver view who Lee Harvey Oswald was and whom he served? Oswald was a “young punk” who served the “Communist Conspiracy.” What evidence does he offer for his conclusions, and how reliable is it? That he defected, I suppose, and that he was able to reenter the U.S. too easily. Maybe also because Minsk was the location of a KGB school for international agents, and that Oswald married the daughter of a Russian with connections to Soviet intelligence. This evidence is totally unreliable because it is too indirect.
      2. Who was Jack Ruby, and why did he kill Oswald? Ruby was a member of the underworld who paid off the Dallas police to keep his club going. He killed Oswald so that he could not confess all. What evidence does Oliver offer, and how reliable is it? Oliver offers no evidence for the motive for the killing.
      3. How does Oliver regard President Kennedy? With a great deal of scorn, even hate. He “procured his election by peddling boob-bait to the suckers,” among other things. How will Americans remember him? They “will curse him as they face the firing squads or toil in a brutish degradation that leaves no hope for anything but a speedy death.”
      4. Who or what was behind the assassination? The Communist Conspiracy. What is Oliver’s evidence for his answer, and how reliable is it? The details about Oswald in (1). The fact that “patriotic Americans” were beginning to receive threats not too long before the assassination. Unreliable because it is far too indirect.
      5. List his three possible reasons why Kennedy was killed? (a) He was planning to “turn American.” (b) It stemmed from a rift in the higher echelons of the Communist Conspiracy. (c) The assassination was part of the Conspiracy’s systematic preparations for taking over the United States. Which does he favor, and why? He favors (c) because (1) competent observes predicted in 1953 that 1963 was the year the conspiracy had scheduled to take over the U.S.; (2) an experienced American military wrote that the CC planned a major national shock before Thanksgiving; (3) Taylor Caldwell predicted the assassination a month beforehand; (4) Kennedy was becoming a liability to the CC; (5) financial scandals were beginning to hit Washington; and (6) scandals involving moral turpitude and even treason were about to hit. Is his conclusion well supported? No—much too indirect.
      6. Why does Oliver think that the assassination plot failed? Human error somewhere—not even the Communist Conspiracy functions flawlessly. What would have happened to citizens in the United States if it had succeeded? Breakdown of law and order everywhere; looting, burning, and murdering; Americans hacked to pieces and dragged through the streets; the traitors in Washington would have ruled pseudolegally; legalized violence against Americans everywhere.
      7. Why was the Warren Commission formed? To thwart the legally justified investigation by the Senate Subcommittee on Internal Security and by the Texas Attorney General. What will it do? It will be turned into Soviet-style kangaroo court. It will cover up the Communist Conspiracy, permanently suppress the FBI’s report, conceal Jack Ruby’s true links with Communism, harass the Dallas police as much as possible, smear and intimidate loyal Americans, extort testimony from unwilling witnesses, provide propaganda for other Communist projects, and to cooperate with the Communist Conspiracy the next time around. How do these ideas correspond with the real WC? They bear no relation to it. The real WC proceeded carefully and deliberately. The anti-Oswald bias that some have claimed was denied vigorously by the staff members, who were told to start their examination from zero.
      8. What “moment of truth” did the assassination provide for patriotic citizens of the United States? It has awoken us to the reality of the Communist menace and how close they are to taking over the United States. How does Oliver define “patriotic citizen”? Although he doesn’t define it formally, it is clear from the context that he assumes it to mean Americans with right-wing anti-Communist beliefs similar to his.
      9.What do we know about the secret structure of the Communist apparatus in the United States? Many small cells that operate nearly independently; the direction comes from the Soviet embassies and consulates, which get their orders from Moscow; and the Secret Police watch over it all.
      10. What is the “inner conspiracy” of the worldwide Communist apparatus? Even the Boss in the Kremlin is subordinate to someone of something higher and more secret, generically known as the Communist Security System—the true inner circle of the Conspiracy. Most of these people live outside the Soviet Union, and in fact conquered Russia in 1917 from outside. This center may be related to the hypothesized “Force X.”

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