To Bury JFK
Martin J. Kelly, Jr.
Psychology Department
Hobart and William Smith Colleges
Geneva, NY 14456
Tel: (315) 789-5500 (O)
E-mail: MKelly@HWS.edu
This paper is a critique of the JFK conspiracy movement. It discusses the incoherence of most major objections to the Oswald-as-assassin position. The discussion draws informally on clear understanding of the implications of everyday scientific statements, on simple logic in formulating theories, on the historical record, and on notions of cognitive impairment vivified by contemporary psychology.
One of the topics discussed in the paper involves the claims of forgery made about the backyard photos and about the Zapruder film. Simple ideas from visual science show that neither of these documents is forged in the way claimed for them. The discussion also treats claims made by conspiracy visual experts about a number of visual "reads," including the sixth-floor of the Depository as shown in the Hughes film and the existence of a skull fragment on the rear deck of the presidential limousine.
Another target of the critique is the conspiracy discussion of a shot from the grassy knoll. The criticism involves a number of factors, including what might constitute evidence for such a shot. The argument will be that the conspiracy community offers evidence that actually does not constitute evidence for a shot from the grassy knoll. The geometry of the situation will also be discussed.
A third element in the conspiracy view to be discussed is the standard interpretation of John Kennedy’s politics. It has been unfortunate that conspiracy theorists have given not only a misleading portrait of Kennedy but, in fact, a strangely erroneous one. In the service of a motive for conspiracy, the assassination research community has ignored almost all the academic historical research on John Kennedy. In here, it will be possible to psychologically explore the role that an untruthful version of John Kennedy plays for a certain brand of theorist. Not unimportant here is the way in which our recent political history plays on the left-wing sensibility. Hence, the title of the paper. Can we bury JFK?
And the treatment of Oswald by the conspiracy tradition presents him as a kind of cipher—flat, unmotivated, asexual, and with no need to kill. In fact, evidence shows that Oswald seems to have been a serious Borderline Personality with clear-cut Oedipal urges. Given the existence of a psychiatric record and a record of eccentric deportment for Oswald, it is rather easy to establish his pathology.
Part of the psychological analysis will be the claim that the conspiracy community, for reasons derived from the conspiracy voice, is itself psychologically and cognitively impaired. And, more importantly, that impairment is typical for the epistemology of popular culture in America. Other revisionist-history conspiracies like the Recovery From Repressed Memory and the Alien Abduction movements will be analyzed and offered as kindred exemplars of the same type of impairment.