Who Killed the Kennedy?

Nick Gillespie | January 6, 2006

The Warren Commission said it was a lone gunman, the Rolling Stones sang that it was you and me, Oliver Stone pretty much fingered LBJ.

Now a German filmmaker claims it was Castro:

"We found direct witnesses, former officers of the Cuban state security, who knew about the contacts with Lee Harvey Oswald," [Wilfried] Huismann, who spent three years researching the film, "Rendezvous With Death," told Deutschlandfunk radio in an interview on Wednesday.

(Note: German Funk Radio? Is that available via satellite?) Whole thing here.

But wait, in the recent Kennedy assassination book, A Farewell to Justice, Joan Mellen digs through recently declassified docs and presents compelling evidence that Oswald was a CIA, FBI, and Customs asset--and a hyper-anti-commie in deep cover. (Full disclosure: Mellen is a former professor of mine.)

So which is it? Oswald as patsy or gunman? And what did Peter "I want to send a Candygram" Lawford know?

Comments

|1.6.06 @ 9:47AM|#

Sorry, "Funk" is another word for radio.

theOneState|1.6.06 @ 9:57AM|#

I'm sure Nick knows that. He meant to write Deutschlandfunkfunk.

|1.6.06 @ 10:07AM|#

Ben,

Thanks for the German lesson. My knowledge of that language is strictly limited to war comics.

|1.6.06 @ 10:12AM|#

We want da funk!

|1.6.06 @ 10:14AM|#

Not to be flip, but:
Who


Gives


A


Shit?

|1.6.06 @ 10:18AM|#

German funk radio.

Now iz ze time on Sprockets vhen ve danse.

Seriously, what's the funkiest thing ever to come out of Germany? Kraftwerk? Achtung Baby? Ramstein?

|1.6.06 @ 10:24AM|#

Joe, the answer is "99 Red Balloons."

I'm just grateful to the Germans for taking David Hasselhoff off our hands.

|1.6.06 @ 10:26AM|#

Nena!

http://tinyurl.com/bwo2e

Love them!

|1.6.06 @ 10:27AM|#

Jennifer beat me to it!

|1.6.06 @ 10:30AM|#

Are those Red Balloons related to the Bottles of Beer? 'Cause if they are, pass one my way.

|1.6.06 @ 10:30AM|#

If you want the best fictional version of the Kennedy assassination read "American Tabloid" and "The Cold Six Thousand" by James Ellroy. The guy captures the flavor of pre-public accountability America like no other. He basically writes horror stories for libertarians.

|1.6.06 @ 10:31AM|#

Check out Nena's other videos as well. She was cute cute cute.

|1.6.06 @ 10:37AM|#

. . . with the possible drawback of the armpit hair, Rick. Unless one is in to that -- I'm not here to judge!

|1.6.06 @ 10:40AM|#

I figured someone would have referenced The Misfits (below) only to find talk about 99 Red Balloons.


Texas is an outrage when your husband is dead
Texas is an outrage when they pick up his head
Texas is the reason that the president's dead
You gotta suck, suck, Jackie suck

President's bullet-ridden body in the street
Ride, Johnny ride
Kennedy's shattered head hits concrete
Ride, Johnny ride

|1.6.06 @ 10:44AM|#

Phil,

It's a European thing...BTW "nena" means little girl in German.

http://www.allgaeu-concerts.de/assets/images/Nena-Buhne-big.jpg

|1.6.06 @ 10:50AM|#

Lots and lots of em.

http://tinyurl.com/c85dd

Jeff P.|1.6.06 @ 10:55AM|#

Peter Lawford was in the Rat Pack AND he wore a turtleneck. How cool is that?

Also, anyone remember the original idea for the first Trek film, where they go back in time to make sure the assasination occurs?

|1.6.06 @ 10:56AM|#

t334,

Your discretion in not posting the tasteless and offensive lines from that song is appreciated.

Yes, people, I'm being serious.

|1.6.06 @ 10:57AM|#

Ok, now what 80's New Wave group should we segway into?

|1.6.06 @ 11:20AM|#

joe,

Yeah, those lyrics are pretty intriguing indeed.

Phil, anyone,

Might the Misfits be characterized as new(er) school punk?

|1.6.06 @ 11:31AM|#

not the Misfits that wrote Bullet - I think that was when Danzig was still in the band in like '82 or so

|1.6.06 @ 11:33AM|#

"And what did Peter 'I want to send a Candygram' Lawford know?"

OK, I went to Salon, watched the commercial, got the site pass, and RTFA'd -- I still can't figure out where the "I want to send a Candygram" reference comes from.

|1.6.06 @ 11:38AM|#

joe
Don't worry joe, I'll save those for a Jackie O thread.

Rick Barton
The original line up of The Misfits broke up in the early (maybe mid) 80's. Their influences and songs are a blend of 60's & 70's pop culture and b horror movies.

|1.6.06 @ 11:38AM|#

crap - meant to say '92, so they were kind of the last legs of old punk

|1.6.06 @ 11:39AM|#

Can is kind of cool ...

|1.6.06 @ 11:48AM|#

Thanks, temujin334

|1.6.06 @ 12:11PM|#

A Candygram was a service Western Union provided at some point, at least into the '70s if I can remember right. You could order that they deliver a box of candy to someone, in the same way they would a telegram.

Peter Lawford must have done commercials for them, I'm guessing.

|1.6.06 @ 12:40PM|#

Only Reason blogheads could turn a post about Who Shot JFK into a cornucopia of comments about 80s German pop bands and the history of Candygrams.
What .... in .... the ... fuck ... are .... you ... people .... smoking?
Oh, and I love ya.

|1.6.06 @ 12:55PM|#

"German funk radio.

Now iz ze time on Sprockets vhen ve danse."

HAAA! Lunch through the nose!

We have a new geeky Germman Comtroller here at work and every thing he says sounds like that guy!

The fact that he incessantly wears turtleneck sweaters doesn't help!

John Crouch|1.6.06 @ 12:57PM|#

"American Tabloid" is a good fictional version of it but so is Charles McCarry's "Tears of Autumn", which makes a very strong and interesting case that Oswald was unwittingly working for Vietnam's Diem clan -- by way of North Vietnamese members of the clan and their fellow Communist revolutionaries in other countries -- in a retaliation for Kennedy's sponsorship of a coup that overthrew, and for practical purposes killed, president Diem.

|1.6.06 @ 12:59PM|#

Man LBJ, Castro, The VC...

I'm suprised JFK didn't have twenty holes in him!

Jeff P.|1.6.06 @ 12:59PM|#

Yes, Crawford did Candygram ads. He always seemed to be ordering one as an afterthought. Like he had just slipped from the arms of the unconscious stewardess (who'd reverse-cowgirl'd him 'til 2AM) without disturbing her Cointreau-induced slumber, and wanted a cursory gift delivered to her room just to highlight how insignificant she was in his sexual landscape.

|1.6.06 @ 1:04PM|#

Jamie Kelly- yeah, I'm disappointed too. I was hoping for a conspiracy theory open-thread. That would be a Friday Funfest.

I'm truly interested in hearing about Flight 93, among other things.

|1.6.06 @ 1:22PM|#

lg - Did you ever see the Onion's front page about the JFK assassination? The headline was

KENNEDY SLAIN BY CIA, MAFIA, CASTRO, LBJ, TEAMSTERS, FREEMASONS
President Shot 129 Times From 43 Different Angles

(It's in "Our Dumb Century"; doesn't seem to be on the web, unfortunately.)

|1.6.06 @ 2:16PM|#

JD No, but I snorted aloud when I read it on your post... My fellow cube farm inmates are becoming suspicious. Thanks for the Laugh.

A few years back (a lot, really) I actually read Jim Marrs' book which was pretty much the entire reference library for O'Stone's JFK. It took at least a month for my head to stop hurting! The vague sense of paranoia lasted a little longer!

Lazlo|1.6.06 @ 2:52PM|#

I'm always late to the dance on these pop-music derails. I would insist that Falco was the funkiest act to come out of Germany (check out the early LPs with the Bolland brothers for tracks like "Hallo Deutschland", "Ihre Tochter" et al.) but unfortunately for the sake of this discussion Herr Hölzel was Austrian. And Yello, although frequently mistaken for German, are Swiss.

So I'm going to say Klaus Nomi.

|1.6.06 @ 2:57PM|#

In Extremo is kind of cool new(ish) German stuff. Think Rammstein with more bagpipes.

|1.6.06 @ 3:53PM|#

Castro my ass--everyone knows it was Joe DiMaggio in revenge for Marilyn.

Okay, serious question. If we could get insanely good proof that Castro was behind the assasination, should we take military action against Cuba today?

|1.6.06 @ 4:01PM|#

Oh come on! A disgraced alternate history Kennedy was brought in to shoot his past-self from the grassy knoll after a bunch of smeghead time traveler accidently stopped Oswald.

Everyone who watches the BBC knows that.

|1.6.06 @ 4:17PM|#

After all, it was you and me.

|1.6.06 @ 4:32PM|#

Hey Pro L: If so, at least it would be a short trip to Gitmo!

|1.6.06 @ 4:41PM|#

Oh yeah, JD: here at my german owned place of employment, some of the musically inclined are threatening to start a Euro-punk-bluegrass band...
Gerhardt and The Nervous Germans

Breakthrough hit "I've Had it Up to My Umluats"
(umluat are the two little dots over the u in words like uber.)

and Jennifer, If your on, I complimented you on your hometown on the Robertson thread. Check it out if you missed it.

|1.6.06 @ 4:57PM|#

Thanks, Ig. Except it isn't my hometown, exactly; I moved there when I was almost seven.

What .... in .... the ... fuck ... are .... you ... people .... smoking?

Nothing at the moment, alas. I don't suppose you can hook me up?

|1.6.06 @ 5:06PM|#

Again with the interstate commerce regulation?

If only there were free trade with Cuba... I'm betting they could (do) grow some serious commerce down there. ;)

|1.6.06 @ 5:19PM|#

Yes, Crawford did Candygram ads...

That must have been a hell of a TV you had for you to pick up all that from black & white.

|1.6.06 @ 7:06PM|#

Hey, we were talking about Nena:

http://tinyurl.com/dhtdb

How did this thread get back on topic?

Andrew Ian Dodge|1.8.06 @ 6:29PM|#

Ironic if those pro-Castro nitwits the Germans (cause he winds up the Americans) actually pegged the Kennedy assasination on the anti-American hero.