John F Kennedy Assassination: Is it a CT?

The Conspiracy:

On November 22 in 1963, John Fitzgerald Kennedy was shot in the head while riding through a campaign parade through downtown Dallas Texas. He was the current president at the time when he was killed. There were many assumptions made at the time of who killed him. Assumptions were made that Lee Harvey Oswald did not act alone, the “Umbrella Man”, the Cubans and Soviets, The Mob, Ted Cruz’s father and even people who worked for him were in on the job. Most of the theories were debunked as the government found out evidence to prove them wrong. One theory that still sticks is that Lee Harvey Oswald did not act alone, but he just so happened to be the one who got arrested and shot shortly after the shooting. Many thought that Oswald had co-workers and close friends to help him with the shooting, but Oswald did actually shoot John F Kennedy himself.

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Basham’s Definition
Basham defines a conspiracy theory as “an explanation of important events that hypothesizes the intentional deception and manipulation of those of those involved in, affected by or witnessing these events”. He conjoins and talks about Keely’s example of an “unwarranted conspiracy theory” or UCT. He states that most conspiracy theories are usually thought to show nefarious and evil purposes as well. Basham says that “we live in a highly secretive, hierarchical social system,” in which that would apply to this conspiracy theory well. With the combination of “enormous financial and technological resources with extensive mechanisms of secrecy, both preventative and punitive.” Because of the secrecy we have in the higher up society and government, it causes problems for cases like the Kennedy assassination. It allows for speculation among groups such as conspirators to hold such conversations as the one stated. He also comes back to explain that there are two patterns that are used to weaken a conspiracy theory. The first is indicated as that conspiracy theories tend to weaken the official story and another one that states whether or not conspiracy theories and their considerations in between offer distinctions within the structure where they come out congruent.

Conjoining Basham’s Definition and JFK Assassination
In this part, it is crucial to find out whether his definition of a conspiracy theory actually lines up with the speculations of the John F Kennedys assassination conspiracy. In order to do that, we will compare the JFK assassination conspiracy to Basham’s definition of a conspiracy theory. The first part of Basham’s definition states that as “an explanation of important events that hypothesizes the intentional deception and manipulation of those of those involved in, affected by or witnessing these events”. As we look further into the theory of JFK, it does seem to be an action of intentional manipulation as the shooting was planned out by not only Lee Harvey Oswald, but maybe more people. The shooting was a historic event and to not only be planned out, but for it to be actually carried out by someone seems like a foolish idea. It raises questions for people to ask as to why it actually took place if he was not that bad of a president. It was intentional by not only a little bit, but a lot. The plan to shoot John F Kennedy came into action way before a week in within the actual shooting. Since the conspiracy that Lee Harvey Oswald did not act alone, he had to find multiple people before to plan out how many people would be involved and who was doing what exact job. The second part is that it had to be a hypothesis of intentional deception. This comes into play where after the shooting had happened, Oswald went on living his life without any guilt on his mind. After he was confronted about the accusation, he lied and said that he did not do such a thing and that he was just a patsy. That also brings up the question as to why would he do it out of all people? There had to have been motive of maybe a personal reason. Was Oswald a crazy person or did he do it intentionally? Or could it be a reason that one of the people who was in on the assassination had a problem with Kennedy? The other part to the definition was whether it was showing evil and nefarious of something at a hierarchical social level. That comes into play because not only was this a historical event, but it was the president at the time. It did indeed involve something evil and nefarious as of an assassination of one of the most important people at that time. The last part to his definition adds the two “patterns” that weaken an official story and it gives reasonable yet conspiratorial considerations that would differentiate between the structures. This would explain whether he acted alone or not.

Final Decision… Is it a Conspiracy Theory?
For this decision to be made, there needs to be more evidence provided as to why Lee Harvey Oswald would have needed more people involved. According to Basham’s definition of the two patterns, is does not weaken the official story in a sense that whether or not he acted alone would not have made a difference whether or not the shooting would have occurred. We do not know whether or not Oswald was a crazy man or just had a personal reason as to why he did it. Kennedy was killed by Oswald and he was the only one who got caught. Nobody else seemed to be blamed or caught in the act. Even if there had been speculations, there was no real evidence provided that more people were involved. The only different consideration between the original story and the conspiracy, was whether or not he acted alone in the assassination. Overall, there is not enough evidence to be making the conspiracy that Oswald did not act alone.

Bibliography
: Basham, Lee. 2001. “Living with the Conspiracy.” Philosophical Forum 32(3): 265-80 : full source reference
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