PSC404, Spring 2001
Assignment 7, for Monday 2 April 2001
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? What evidence does he offer for his conclusions, and how reliable is it?

2. Who was Jack Ruby, and why did he kill Oswald? What evidence does Oliver offer, and how reliable is it?

3. How does Oliver regard President Kennedy? How will Americans remember him?

4. Who or what was behind the assassination? What is Oliver’s evidence for his answer, and how reliable is it?

5. List his three possible reasons why Kennedy was killed? Which does he favor, and why? Is his conclusion well supported?

6. Why does Oliver think that the assassination plot failed? What would have happened to citizens in the United States if it had succeeded?

7. Why was the Warren Commission formed? What will it do? How do these ideas correspond with the real WC?

8. What “moment of truth” did the assassination provide for patriotic citizens of the United States? How does Oliver define “patriotic citizen”?

9. What do we know about the secret structure of the Communist apparatus in the United States?

10. What is the “inner conspiracy” of the worldwide Communist apparatus?

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