The Assassination Conspiracy

Of course I remember the day John Kennedy was assassinated.  It was the day of my grandmother’s funeral.   After the burial, when we got back to my grandfather’s house, the adults sent me and my sister into the TV room, while they consoled each other in the living room.  

My sister Kay and I heard the news of Kennedy’s death on the TV and ran right into the living room to let everyone know.  I was 14 at the time and the first person I told was my grandfather, who didn’t hear a word I said, and who, when I repeated myself, pulled away from me and said, “I don’t care.”

Next I told my father the awful news. “Dad,” I said excitedly, “the President’s been shot and they got the guy who did it.”  Very gently, he replied, “The guy they got didn’t do it, Doug. You can count on that.”

A few years later dear old dad handed me Mark Lane’s book Rush to Judgment, which talked about the unlucky people with knowledge of the murder who mysteriously died.  A few years later I read The Parallax View a noir novel by Loren Singer, which put those deaths in the proper conceptual context.

The Kennedy Assassination has always been about conspiracy.   And for those of us growing up in that era, those of us who were aware and involved in Civil Rights and anti-war movements, and the sex and drugs and rock ‘n’ roll revolution, it was all about the Powers-That-Be (the 1% and its lackeys) conspiring against us. 

Assassinating our minds.

It didn’t take a genius to figure it out.   The problem was choosing whether or not to join the conspiracy. 

Nothing’s changed.  Fifty years later, the conspirators and their lackeys still say there’s no conspiracy.

What else is there to say?

Douglas Valentine is the author of five books, including The Phoenix Program.  See www.douglasvalentine.com or write to him at dougvalentine77@gmail.com

Douglas Valentine is the author of The Strength of the Wolf: The Secret History of America’s War on Drugs, and The Strength of the Pack: The Personalities, Politics, and Espionage Intrigues that Shaped the DEA.