JFK 50 Years Later

November 22nd next week will mark the fiftieth anniversary of John F. Kennedy's assassination, as you may have seen on television. The National Geographic channel is marking the occasion by airing "Killing Kennedy," which is adapted from a book by Bill O'Reilly.
I haven't read the book, but most reviews said good things about it. And the movie wasn't that bad, either. But it did stick to the "Oswald did it" storyline, which in my mind has been thoroughly discredited. I've written about my visit to Dealey Plaza before, and my reasons for believing in a conspiracy are explained there.
There is a principle known as Occam's Razor, that in general says that the simplest solution is probably the most likely. When people come up with insanely complicated conspiracy theories about who killed JFK, they are dismissed as nuts who just can't accept that a man as great as Kennedy could be killed by a non-entity like Oswald.
But the more I have read about the assassination, the more I believe in a conspiracy. Yahoo news recently ran a story called "Ten Facts You Don't Know About the JFK Assassination." I'm always interested in learning more, so I gave it a read.
The facts are derived from a book by Brad Meltzer, History Decoded:The 10 Greatest Conspiracies of All Time. They are things that not a lot of people know, such as that the window Oswald shot from disappeared and is in the hands of a private collector. The Sixth Floor Museum has a window it says is the one on display. I don't know, maybe they're mistaken.
Another fact given is that plenty of shooter's replicated Oswald's feat of shooting three times in less than six seconds. I don't think anyone ever disputed this. I think even I could (probably) fire the Carcano in six seconds. Whether I could hit the target, or an expert could replicate the wounds that the "magic bullet" is supposed to have inflicted, is another matter.
I have seen some documentaries try to demonstrate this, but I'm still skeptical. Even with computer modelling their conclusions do not shake my conviction that a bullet struck Kennedy in the front of his head, driving him back and to the left. Simple physics proves a conspiracy.
Meltzer's fact about the magic bullet is that rather than being pristine, which he says most people believe, it is flattened on one side. After traversing the bodies of two men, smashing bones and piercing tough skin, it is flattened on one side.
I roll my eyes.
Another fact, that Oliver Stone's film "JFK" damaged history, is probably true. People may have missed Stone's statement that he merely wanted to start a conversation, or that "JFK" is a film made in Hollywood, which is also known as the "Dream Factory." Anyone who relies on Hollywood for their facts probably believes there's a dinosaur park in Central America.
Heh.
The investigation by the Warren Commission was done behind closed doors, and the Kennedy family kept some of the photographs of the autopsy (as well as Kennedy's brain, probably buried privately by Bobby). Things like this led to theories gaining more credence and taking a foothold on the public's imagination. But the Watergate scandal and the revelations that followed also gave people a sense that their government wasn't to be trusted.
There are not a lot of files left in the vaults (the government says) because of recent freedom of information disclosures.
Meltzer pooh-poohs the statement that there were a lot of mysterious deaths after JFK's murder, as if some agency or organization was trying to keep them quiet. He says a lot of these "mysterious" deaths were merely serendipitous accidents or natural causes. An interesting article about some of those deaths can be found here.
Meltzer does say that people should investigate and make up their own minds, which I agree with. Whether or not you believe that Oswald acted alone, you are going to see a lot of films and documentaries, or read a lot of books, this month that may help you make up your mind.