Not looking to litigate the various theories on the JFK assassination or even discuss the details.
I want to ask this because it seems there’s been a recent surge in mainstream interest regarding the JFK assassination. I also feel like it’s proponents are beginning to present themselves in a more mature, professional fashion by scraping off the kitsch “conspiracy theory” subculture deitritus that’s built up over the last 60-ish years around it. I’m thinking in particular about recently released and respectable works like The Devil’s Chessboard and JFK And The Unspeakable. It really feels like there has been an effort to take back discussion of the JFK assassination from the weirdos and offer a compelling, realistic motivation and explanation. It isn’t just the psychotic ramblings of a disturbed mind anymore. Not for nothing there is a deluge of circumstantial evidence of a conspiracy surrounding the event but of course no smoking gun and therefore no satisfying resolution. Perhaps too it should be expected that there would be unexplainable details and coincidences involving the murder of the most important man in the world.
Im getting off track now. To return to my question: I’m not a historian of course but I am curious how actual Cold War historians teach and present the assassination and with what context? Do historians ignore the conspiratorial claims? How do they deal with the Ur-Conspiracy theory?
Seconding what u/jbdyer said. I can only relate the line of argumentation we went through in graduate seminars (though this was in the 90s):
- There is not enough reliable cross-verifiable written evidence to the contrary of the most likely and widely accepted hypothesis (lone gunman = Oswald), at least insofar as historians are concerned.
-Historians do not engage in counterfactual speculation, but only take into account actual available evidence. As part of a historians work, we separate the (often immediately after the event) myth-making and hearsay published at the time from what is available in reliable sources and corroborating evidence, and do not draw conclusions beyond those unless pointing out specifically if something is "likely" or "unlikely" and what could be inferred from that. With regard to the Kennedy assassination this means that, if any doubt exists, and while it cannot be fully ruled out that the "lone gunman" is off, one has to settle for a "matter is likely settled, but probably unknowable" kind of conclusion. The many speculations and doubt on the "real" background behind the assassinations has, alas, only contributed to the obfuscation and fog on the matter (like the infamous FBI's fiddling with the Zapruder original film which happened because of public criticism of a "weak" investigation, making authorities nervous, and then releasing the material with the original bullet impact clip put accidentally back in backwards, which lead to the creation of the body moving in the wrong direction etc etc -- if that part is true).
It is often the hardest part for a historian (and in that regard for anyone who does serious intellectual analysis): sometimes you have to leave a crucial question as "undecidable", and move on in your argumentation, having to take into account that something isn't fully settled, and might never be. You may take a position on what you find the more credible answer, but without corroborating good evidence you move knowingly into the grey area of (potentially ridiculous) speculation. Good historians shy away from that for good reason -- it makes for bad history, wishful thinking, strawman theories, and every other bit of bad baggage that comes with such practices all too easily. This can sometimes put historians on the backfoot when it comes to widely believed explanations, but that is what good science (and I am very carefully using that term here) does: if a statement is not verifiable, it is not scientific. And all that boils down exactly to the answer u/jbdyer has given above.