Letter to the Editor, Concord Monitor, MA: So much yet to study about JFK assassination

Letter: So much yet to study about JFK assassination
For the Monitor
Friday, November 29, 2013

There has been a lot written and broadcast lately about the assassination of John F. Kennedy 50 years ago. Many of these essays, letters and editorial cartoons have emphasized the foolishness of anyone considering alternative possibilities to the “who” and “why” of this act – the loony conspiracy theorists wearing beanies with windmills. In the legal world, people who commit crimes are found guilty by a jury and are therefore unquestionably guilty.

Except, as we’ve seen repeatedly, when DNA evidence proves otherwise years later. There is no new DNA evidence in the JFK murder, but there are hundreds of government documents, eyewitness accounts, personal diaries and stories that have become available that point to other possibilities.

We’ll probably never know for certain exactly what happened or why, but it is indeed foolish to discount this mountain of evidence without looking at it and publicly discussing the findings and the ramifications.

Jim Douglas, in his book JFK and the Unspeakable, documents much of this previously unknown evidence and includes thousands of specific footnotes – more than 100 pages – listing sources that tell a much different version than the one widely disseminated after the tragic act. These notes, including fascinating writings from the personal diary of former Massachusetts senator, UN and Vietnam ambassador, and 1964 presidential hopeful Henry Cabot Lodge, also describe Kennedy’s term in office, his personal transformation, his challenges and his hopes for the future of this country.

This vision is especially important now. Between the endless War on Terror, the unveiling of the NSA, the race for more and more fossil fuel sources no matter the cost, the budget crisis both made up and real, and the overarching challenges of global climate change, we are looking at a world with overwhelming problems.

John F. Kennedy had a vision of a different world, one we need to find again. Discounting as looney the people who are publicizing and studying newly available evidence of his assassination, what it means and what we can learn from it, is indeed foolish.

BOB IRVING

Salisbury