Mintpress (one of my favorite new sources) has published an interview of Lisa Pease whose new book on the RFK Assassination, entitled A Lie Too Big To Fail, is said to be the new best reference on the RFK Assassination Conspiracy.
Meanwhile, Mel Ayton has a long putdown review of the book, citing a number of factual points (after a long section merely blasting all assassination conspiracy theories, which almost had me writing off this guy as a crank).
I'm still a believer in the conspiracy theory. However, it seems too complicated, and it's a less clear cut than the JFK assassination conspiracy, which was almost certainly a conspiracy.
A difficult part in both JFK and RFK assassination conspiracy theories, is that Oswald and Sirhan had to have been doing something--exactly what were they doing?
For Oswald, he was curiously on the FBI payroll, and according to many accounts watching the likely CIA assassins for Hoover personally. However, shots were fired up there by someone, and for what purpose? Was Oswald acting for himself at that point? Were the shots being made by someone else (a claim sometimes made)? Was he a willing part of a "team" of assassins who were all taking their best shots? Was his plan (as far as he knew) simply to "shake" Kennedy up, putting the fear of Hoover (or something) into him? I would only say fairly confidently that the team of shooters was not Oswald's team. Oswald--a mere bit player--was almost certainly not the shooting team leader, by many stories that was Bay of Pigs cover "oilman" George HW Bush, with the ultimate conspiracy director certainly being the legendary but recently fired superspy Allen Dulles. As the intended patsy, Oswald would know few if any of the other shooters--he may even have originally thought he was acting alone (probably to create an incident, not an assassination), but he knew who his CIA handler was, which could unravel the entire conspiracy back to Dulles if it had been widely known in 1963. Oswald's capture put the coverup in danger, but Meyer Lansky's dying friend Jack Ruby took care of that.
Sirhan has long claimed he had no idea what he was doing, nor did he remember, he was hypnotized.
A far simpler theory is that Sirhan was "hypnotized" not in the sense of having total control and memory loss, but of having been plied with drugs and hypnotic experiences, riled up about Kennedy, and then put into position by capable handlers, without having time to fully cognitively process what he was doing. This is all made easier because he did not necessarily need to fire the fatal shots, someone else far more qualified would have been there to do that. He was more needed to be the patsy than anything else.
The complexity of RFK conspiracy theories comes primarily, I believe, from trying to completely exonerate Sirhan Sirhan, no doubt because, unlike Oswald, he is still alive. Few theorists of the JFK assassination worry too much about completely exonerating Oswald, except from being the ultimate killer of Kennedy, which he could not have been.
It's still almost certain Sirhan did not fire the fatal shot, even if he was a not-entirely-unwilling asset of the conspiracy. This is not quite as certain as with Oswald and JFK, but still quite strongly so.
Meanwhile, Mel Ayton has a long putdown review of the book, citing a number of factual points (after a long section merely blasting all assassination conspiracy theories, which almost had me writing off this guy as a crank).
I'm still a believer in the conspiracy theory. However, it seems too complicated, and it's a less clear cut than the JFK assassination conspiracy, which was almost certainly a conspiracy.
A difficult part in both JFK and RFK assassination conspiracy theories, is that Oswald and Sirhan had to have been doing something--exactly what were they doing?
For Oswald, he was curiously on the FBI payroll, and according to many accounts watching the likely CIA assassins for Hoover personally. However, shots were fired up there by someone, and for what purpose? Was Oswald acting for himself at that point? Were the shots being made by someone else (a claim sometimes made)? Was he a willing part of a "team" of assassins who were all taking their best shots? Was his plan (as far as he knew) simply to "shake" Kennedy up, putting the fear of Hoover (or something) into him? I would only say fairly confidently that the team of shooters was not Oswald's team. Oswald--a mere bit player--was almost certainly not the shooting team leader, by many stories that was Bay of Pigs cover "oilman" George HW Bush, with the ultimate conspiracy director certainly being the legendary but recently fired superspy Allen Dulles. As the intended patsy, Oswald would know few if any of the other shooters--he may even have originally thought he was acting alone (probably to create an incident, not an assassination), but he knew who his CIA handler was, which could unravel the entire conspiracy back to Dulles if it had been widely known in 1963. Oswald's capture put the coverup in danger, but Meyer Lansky's dying friend Jack Ruby took care of that.
Sirhan has long claimed he had no idea what he was doing, nor did he remember, he was hypnotized.
A far simpler theory is that Sirhan was "hypnotized" not in the sense of having total control and memory loss, but of having been plied with drugs and hypnotic experiences, riled up about Kennedy, and then put into position by capable handlers, without having time to fully cognitively process what he was doing. This is all made easier because he did not necessarily need to fire the fatal shots, someone else far more qualified would have been there to do that. He was more needed to be the patsy than anything else.
The complexity of RFK conspiracy theories comes primarily, I believe, from trying to completely exonerate Sirhan Sirhan, no doubt because, unlike Oswald, he is still alive. Few theorists of the JFK assassination worry too much about completely exonerating Oswald, except from being the ultimate killer of Kennedy, which he could not have been.
It's still almost certain Sirhan did not fire the fatal shot, even if he was a not-entirely-unwilling asset of the conspiracy. This is not quite as certain as with Oswald and JFK, but still quite strongly so.
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