Ciao!

I watched The History Channel's piece on the assassination of MLK. There might be a couple of common threads running through these stories (JFK & MLK) which might set them apart from Reagan’s.

First, Hinkley (and others if you wish) did not succeed in their plot to kill Reagan. So maybe conspiracy theorists only concern themselves with dead pupils.

Second, conspiracy theories always seem to revert back to some type of underhanded govt. plot to rid themselves of important public figures. The MLK piece on the History Channel pointed to the CIA and FBI (big surprise!) and proposed that the govt. felt MLK posed a threat to the nation (mostly Caucasians I assume).

Moreover, both MLK and JFK were individuals committed to similar causes (civil rights) that arguably threatened to greatly change US Society. Reagan, on the other hand, was president during the '80's, which was a time where other issues (mainly economic) surfaced as important.

Hey Miguel, my names Brett Walker, I am a friend of Calebs, I read your blog from time to time,

anyways

Theres a documentary out there called the "Making of the Zapruder Film", (the 8mm tape of the parade filmed by Abraham Zapruder from a pillar on the grasy knoll. The documentary traces the original tape, how it was copied 3 or 4 times right after it was shot, and then sold to Life Magazine who owned the original till they sold it back to the Zapruder family after Abraham had died. They had the film archived, 1 4x5 inch color transperancy was shot for every frame of the film, then each slide was scanned and re assembled in proper order. At the end of the film, without any comments or biased opinions, they show a complete restored take of the film, and its almost painfully obvious as to what happended that day.

I think we like our conspiracy theories because we either A) can't accept the truth or B) need closure other than what the government tells us.

It's just another way to dig up, rehash & exploit "Camelot" for money...it's always about money. I guess Reagan, et al, doesn't sell as well. Or the folks who idolize Reagan maybe aren't as prone to believe foolish stories.-s

The problem the documentary I saw had w/ the Zapruder film was that it was being used as evidence to demonstrate the direction of the shot that killed Kennedy. But how a body reacts to a gunshot tells us nothing about where the shot came from. From all the other evidence, the forensics people showed the shot that killed Kennedy had to come from high & behind. Also, since Oswald was actually a former Marine sniper, making three shots in that time wasn't impossible (he'd actually been trained for such things).

As to conspiracy theories. My point wasn't that anyone tried to kill Reagan as part of a conspiracy. I believe his attempted assassination was clearly the work of a lone weirdo. And I'm also more willing to entertain a conspiracy of sorts involved in the MLK (or Malcolm X) murders. But isn't it possible JFK was just shot by some individual guy who hated him? People forget that we live in a world of crazies.

I've never seen or heard any evidence convincing enough to argue for a conspiracy. Oliver Stone's film notwhithstanding (since he doctored so much evidence, you have to ignore it all together). Most of the arguments for conspiracy use lack of evidence as proof that "someone" covered it up. That makes most arguments for conspiracy disprovable, which makes them invalid (a logical argument must stipulate the kind of evidence/arguments that would knock it down).