Syllabus
PSC482G, Spring 1999
Political Science Seminar: The JFK Assassination

Instructor: Kenneth A. Rahn
Center for Atmospheric Chemistry Studies
Graduate School of Oceanography
CACS Room 212, 874-6713
E-mail: krahn@uri.edu
Home page: http://karws.gso.uri.edu/PSC482G/Index482G.html

Goals
The main goal of this course is not to tell you who killed JFK or whether it was a conspiracy-you will see that there is abundant evidence on both sides of the question. Rather, this course is intended to show you how to think about the subject rigorously. Thinking skills are unusually important in this case because enough evidence has been generated over the years to support just about any interpretation you want. In order to distinguish the reliable from the unreliable or the irrelevant (most of it), you need to be able to think critically and analytically, in ways that perhaps few of you are familiar with. In understanding the JFK assassination, what you know (or think you know) is much less important than how you come to know it. In fact, this course might legitimately be entitled "Epistemology of the JFK Assassination."

This course has five parts. The first part surveys the important facts of the case and how the two major governmental investigations (the Warren Commission and the House Select Committee on Assassinations) established them. The second part reviews the major critics of the official conclusions and summarizes their conspiracy theories. The third part deals with analytical thinking. It surveys the types of evidence and how to draw reliable conclusions from them. Time permitting, it will also discuss the all-important scientific evidence. The fourth part is preparing for the Providence conference (see below) and attending it. The fifth part reviews the conference and considers the continuing effects of the assassination in American life. By the end of the semester, you should have an excellent idea of just where the evidence in this case really leads.

We go to such trouble to understand the assassination because it was a seminal event that changed attitudes all over the country and helped usher in the sixties and the seventies. The more that we understand such an event, the better. Also, the thinking skills you acquire will serve you for the rest of your life.

Materials
            · The Warren Commission Report, Longmeadow Press, Stamford, 1992
            · Jim Marrs, Crossfire: The Plot That Killed Kennedy, Carroll & Graf Publishers, Inc., New York, 1989
            · Oliver Stone and Zachary Sklar, JFK, The Book of the Film; The Documented Screenplay, Applause Books, New York, 1992.

The Warren Report is the granddaddy of JFK books. Its conclusion that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone remained unchallenged for only a few months until a band of vocal critics began attacking it. Today it is dismissed wholesale by conspiracy theorists, many of whom call it a work of fiction.

Crossfire, by Jim Marrs, offers an excellent example of the conspiracist approach to the assassination, including a broad overview of the main conspiracy theories. This book was also one of the main sources for Oliver Stone's important film JFK. But did Marrs bare too much of himself when he recently published Alien Agenda, a book that unashamedly claims that extraterrestrials have visited earth repeatedly?

Oliver Stone's JFK was an exceedingly influential film that among other things led directly to Congress's establishing the Assassination Records Review Board, which in its brief lifetime declassified and released more than one million pages of records related to the assassination. How did Stone formulate the views portrayed in his film, and what was he trying to do there? By presenting the original screenplay, Oliver Stone's research notes, and a comprehensive collection of articles pro and con that appeared around the time the film opened, Stone and Sklar's JFK, The Book of the Film; The Documented Screenplay offers us an important look into Stone's mind and provides surprising answers to some of these questions.

In addition, we will deal with important special topics such as the physics of JFK's movements after the killing shot, the chemical analysis of the bullet fragments, and the acoustical analysis that led the House Select Committee on Assassinations to declare a probable conspiracy. Handouts will be used here.

The 1999 Providence Conference of the JFK Assassination
A special feature of this course will be participating in the 1999 Providence Conference on the JFK Assassination, which will be held at CCE (Shepard Building) 16-18 April 1999. We anticipate that about 50 people will be attending this New England conference. Each of you will participate by attending and presenting a brief talk, individually or in pairs, on some aspect of the assassination that you have found most interesting. This presentation will substitute for a term paper. You will each have 5-10 minutes to describe the topic, why it interests you, why you think it is important to understanding the assassination, and how it has affected your view of the assassination.

Format, homework, exams, grading
We meet MWF at 11 a.m. in Washburn 309. Typically, we will first discuss the homework or the reading for that day and then introduce the material to be read for the next class. Discussion will often be lively, as different points of view clash. Class participation is very important in this seminar, and differences of opinion will be respected provided only that they can each be defended logically. Our only rule is: you propose it, you defend it.

Assignments will be due for many of the classes, and will be graded and returned at the next class. Most will be questions about material you will have read. Quality of writing is important-sentences and paragraphs are to be constructed to the highest standards of written English. I reserve the right to help you improve your writing skills because I teach graduate writing on the Bay Campus. Handwritten answers are acceptable as long as they are easily legible. Late assignments will be penalized by 50%. By putting full effort into all homework assignments, you can keep up with the work and earn a high final grade.

Be prepared to work hard for this class because the evidence on the assassination is full of twists, turns, and contradictions that take time to sort out. I would be doing you no favor by offering a class that was less than rigorous. Plan to spend up to three hours outside class for each hour in. But I do not ask more than nine outside hours in any given week-if you reach that level, you may quit without penalty, and I will assume responsibility for making the assignments overly long.

There will be a regular final exam on Friday 14 May, 3-6 p.m. If you really want a midterm exam, I can be persuaded to give one. If there is a midterm exam, the final grade will be 30% on homework, 20% on the midterm, 20% on the oral presentation, and 30% on the final. If there is no midterm exam, the final grade for HPR102A will be 40% on homework, 20% on the oral presentation, and 40% on the final.

Provisional Schedule

Key to textbooks

WCR = Warren Commission Report 1964
CF = Crossfire (Marrs) 1989
JFK = JFK The Book of the Film (Stone, Sklar) 1992

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