So I just wasted 3 hours of my life watching film of JFK's assassination. That happened. I learned from it. It's pretty amazing what conspiracies people can create with the material at their disposal.
First of all I have to say that after reading and poking around, DeLillo's novel makes more sense than about 95% of theories out there.
The first one is my favorite. There is a theory on the internet that the driver of the motorcade shot the president. Literally that he turned around and shot him in the head, then drove off. That's somebody's explanation for the front facing shot and splatter of blood from the head. Like there are a lot of believers in this theory too. This is just a YouTube comment section from one video where Bill Greer (the driver of the motorcade) gave an interview:
autocollisionman 5 months ago
WILLIAM GREER WAS THE MURDERER
OooOoo OOooo 2 months ago
burn in hell Greer
Dr J 4 months ago
PIECE OF SHIT LYING KILLER
Jacquelyn Diamond 1 year ago
This is the bastard who killed JFK, Bill Greer is a goddamned murderer!
That's all fine and good, except for the fact that there are no frames in any films that I've seen (I have found 3 good films in my little search: Zapruder, Nix, and Muchmore) that come close to condemning him. However it is clear that the driver did slow down after the first shot. Greer's explanation in an interview was that the first shot sounded like a backfire, but then he looked behind him and saw blood on Connelly and hit the gas. That story sounds plausible, but many think that even though Greer didn't shoot Kennedy, he and the rest of the secret service were in on the assassination. Like have you ever noticed how only one secret service man actually reacted quickly to the shots? Fishy...
This stuff is getting way too interesting I need to stop while I'm ahead. There's also the Grassy Knoll theory which is actually really complex and basically completely discounts Lee Harvey Oswald but is actually coherent and makes you think. To sum it up, there was a guy (James Files) hiding behind a picket fence on the grassy knoll. Files shot once and hit (the big headshot). He says he was aiming for the eye but someone else shot JFK first and he had already started reacting so he was harder to hit. Once he shot the president, Files bit the shell, put it on top of the picket fence, then proceeded to put his gun in a briefcase and calmly walk away with it. Files also said he knew who shot the police officer and it wasn't Oswald either. There are some major hints of FBI and CIA involvement in this theory as well.
Basically, nobody actually knows who shot JFK except the guy who actually shot him,... If the man in the car was ACTUALLY Kennedy that is.
*cue X-Files theme*
hahaha some of the theories you mention are crazy! I find it so interesting that the Kennedy assassination is probably one of the most scrutinized and debated events in American history. There are so many theories and I don't think any other event in American history has been debated as heavily as this. I wonder why there is so much speculation and people are able to create such crazy stories??? I think this has to do partly with the homemade video that was taken. There are so many things going on in the video, so many people moving around, that there are so many possibilities.
ReplyDeleteI warned you about the rabbit-hole that is the JFK section of YouTube (and various other resources)--as good an example of any of the postmodern idea of "worlds within worlds," as these people exist in a parallel universe much of the time. It's as if the simplest explanation couldn't *possibly* be true, and they reach for the most obscure and outlandish possibilities. (The one where a wounded Connolly pulls a pistol and shoots Kennedy point-blank, without Jackie or his wife noticing?, is probably one of the nuttier ones--and this is treated as established fact by some theorists!)
ReplyDeleteYou're getting a good sense of why the JFK corner of the internet has a reputation as a parallel-universe la-la land, and it's a good way to reflect on just how reasonable and *not* paranoid DeLillo's narrative turns out to be.
Check out the umbrella man. Why would someone open an umbrella at 12pm in a sunny Dallas day? Right before Kennedy was shot? And the babushka lady, a woman wearing a head scarf that had a camera up to her face, but after Kennedy was shot she walked up towards the grassy knoll and disappeared. A woman came forth saying she was the one who was taking film, and she gave her film to two unnamed men who said they were from the FBI. However, she received no receipt for the film and the camera she claimed to use hadn't been made until 1967, so idk.
ReplyDeleteThis is really weird - now I kind of want to look for all these theories just to see if any of them make sense, or which ones are the most ridiculous. I think in some ways DeLillo wrote Libra as a response to all the JFK-conspiracy weirdness, in that it's technically a book about a conspiracy but it's portrayed in a way that contrasts with the way people typically think about conspiracy theories.
ReplyDeleteWith all crazy theories there will be people who make joking posts about it, especially on the mess known as YouTube comments. The idea that the driver turned around and shot him seems laughable but if you're thinking about it from a conspiracy-conscious point of view, it, and anything, can be plausible.
ReplyDelete