PSC482G, Political Science Seminar: The JFK Assassination
Spring 1999
Brief outline, 4 November 1998
Instructor:
Kenneth A. Rahn
Center for Atmospheric Chemistry Studies
Graduate School of Oceanography
So you think you know who killed JFK? You’re sure that it was a conspiracy? That puts you in the 80–90% of Americans who have claimed from the beginning that the government got it wrong. Or maybe you’re sure that it was that crazed lone gunman Lee Harvey Oswald, for whom nobody has been able to agree on a motive. That puts you in the 10% or less of Americans who believe their government’s story. (At least the first one, from the Warren Commission. The second one, from the House Select Committee on Assassinations 15 years later, decided at the last possible moment that it was probably a conspiracy.) Or maybe you’re among that thinking group that wonders why, if the answer is so well known, so many people continue to debate the question and research it after a full 35 years have elapsed.
If you really want to know the answer, or rather how to get to the answer, this course might be for you. But beware, this course is not for the faint of heart, because its subject is tough and elusive. This course is only for students who are truly willing to keep an open mind no matter where the trail leads and who are willing to work and sweat in order to find out what happened that terrible day. This may be one of the toughest courses you will take at URI. But I will do my best to ensure that it is also one of the most rewarding. At the end, you will come as close as possible to understanding who did it and why.
This course will consist of the following five parts:
I. JFK’s political situation in November 1963. (His major programs and initiatives; whom he and his brother RFK had offended along the way; who might have wanted him dead.) (2 weeks)
II. Brief overview of the assassination. (2 weeks)
III. The two major governmental investigations. (3 weeks)
IV. The critics and the major conspiracy theories. (The three waves of conspiracists and their arguments) (3 weeks)
V. A critical reassessment of the evidence and where it leads. (4 weeks)
We will read three or four books that cover a wide range of standpoints, we will draw on supplementary material from many other sources, and will even watch a famous and influential movie (Oliver Stone’s JFK). We will have abundant written assignments and discuss (OK, argue about) each in class. To make the experience as personal and individual as possible, each student will prepare a detailed report on some aspect of the assassination, whose topics can range from a theory to a person to a writer to a piece of evidence. Each report will be presented to the class.
With a little luck, we may even get to participate in a mini-symposium on the assassination. The most active research organization in the U.S., JFK Lancer, of Grand Prairie, Texas, is planning a regional workshop for spring/summer in New England. I have told them of this course and asked them hold the meeting in Rhode Island during spring semester so that we can participate. I hope to get their answer by the end of 1998. Stay tuned!