patsy or perp?

I was in 8th grade on November 22, 1963. Like most people who are old enough to remember that day, I can recall most of the hours surrounding 1pm Central time with near photographic clarity.

I was watching TV when they were going to transfer Oswald and had just assured my mother that I would turn the TV off when it was over, when there was a bang and a yell. I thought Oswald had tried to escape.

In the years since then I have read many books about the Kennedy assassination and watched many documentaries. Have I made up my own mind about what happened? Not a chance.

Vincent Bugliosi, whose books I have read and whose opinions I generally respect, has just come out with a monster book called Reclaiming History, that lays out the clearest and best documented case for the Oswald-as-lone-nut theory. Of course, Bugliosi had to go through all the Warren Commission volumes while preparing his “prosecution” of Oswald for a BBC documentary years ago, so he obviously knows his stuff in that regard.

I plowed my way through that book last week. I’m a fast reader, but I must admit I didn’t manage to read every single word of it. Still, though, I was impressed by his logic.

However… I have also read Murder In Dealey Plaza, which lays out the most thorough and non-hysterical case I’ve seen for the assassination-as-conspiracy point of view. While Bugliosi came up with plausible explanations for a lot of the conspiracy-theorists’ questions, he didn’t answer them all.

All of which leaves me pretty well where I was before. I doubt we’ll ever get a definitive answer. But the books still make entertaining reading.