Reasonable Doubt: The single bullet theory Assignment Select one claim that was discussed in the movie, and analyze that claim using Toulmin’s framework. For example: Identify and discuss the strength or correctness of the claim that: 1. Governor Connolly was shot by a second bullet; 2. The mafia shot JFK; 3. Castro was responsible for JFK’s assassination; 4. The CIA arranged for JFK’s assassination; 5. The Pentagon ordered JFK’s execution; 6. Cuban anti-communists arranged for JFK’s death; 7. The Soviet Union’ KGB engineered JFK’s assassination. 8. Select any other claim from the information provided. Identify and explain clearly the parts of the argument, and evaluate the strength of the argument as a whole. You do not need to believe the argument. You are evaluating its strength. Your evaluation should be around two pages long, so select a claim that is not so large as to require a book-length essay to explain. Include a cover page, outline, body, and a works cited page. Use either MLA or APA format. The film is titled Reasonable Doubt: The single bullet theory and the assassination of John F. Kennedy, written by Chip and Mike Selby, and produced and directed by Chip Selby. CS Films, Inc., 1988. THE SAULT STAR — SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 20, 1993 AS Who shot JFK? T3UNI)R.EDS OF BOOKS and articles I lexamining John Kennedy’s assassi nation have raised doubts about the Warren Commission’s official version THE PENTAGON that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone, Conspiracy theory: Concerned that They have put forward numerous the JFK was ready to end American involv&I ment in Vieam, the military establIsh-.’ ories to explain the killing, most of debunked by various ment had him killed. Some theorists, - which have been including Elm-maker Oliver Stone, also federal investigations. involve L.vndon Johnson in the plot. Here are the main six conspiracy the Official version: No concrete evi aries and the official response to each: dence the president was considering a Vietham pullout, nor that LilT was THE MAFIA involved in the conspfracy Conspiracy theory: Angry at a Kennedy administration crackdown on CUBAN ANTI-COMMUNISTS the Mafia helped’ organized crime after Conspiracy theory: The Cuban ex 1960, mob bosses put JFK get elected in patriates who survived the Bay of Pigs, out a contract on the president’s life. A invasion, believing et was angry JFK them up and variation holds that the mob then abandoned them, joined with ths did not make a serious effort to that JFK affected CIA agents to get revenge. -. overthrow Fidel Castro and restore their’ lucrative Cuban casino and drug busi- -, Official version: The main perpetrator’ nesses. - of this theon was discredited by a con gressional investigation. Official version: FBI wiretaps of lead-. ing mobsters uncovered no plot against JFK. Also, most experts believe Oswald, SOVIET UNION too unstable to interest the Mafia as a hitman. Conspiracy theory: N&ita Khrushchev, at the height of the Cold War and recently humiliated by the CASTRO Cuban missile crisis, ordered the KCB’ The recruited Oswald, Conspiracy theory: The Cuban leader to kill JFK. KGB who lived in Russia for several years, to had JFK killed to avenge numerous U.S. the job. attempts to oust him, including the do botched Bay of Pigs invasion. Official version: Recently declassified Soviet documents suggest the KGB, Official version: Castro had to know while aware of Oswald, made no effort that if he was linked to the assassina to enlist him as an assassin. Indeed, tion, it would be followed by a major they indicate he was to be avoided at U.S. invasion he could not stop. all costs.” The CIA Conspiracy theory: The CIA, worried about JFK’s threats to disband the agency after the Bay of Pigs fiasco, ordered his death. Official version: While assassination, was nothing new for CIA, there is no solid evidence of any agency treason - against JFK. JFK: WHAT’S FACT, WHAT’S NOT? o Introduction Who killed JFK? The question has generated its own mini-industry — hundreds of books, innumerable “theories,” two major government inquiries, countless documentaries, and several films. New terms and expressions such as ‘grassy knoll, ‘magic bullet, “lone nut,” “patsy,” “Dealey Plaza,’ ‘best evidence,” and ‘six seconds in Dallas” have come into common usage. Evidence has been analysed and reanalysed; witnesses questioned and requestioned. A consensus on the answer to the question still evades us. No generally accepted “truth’ has yet to emerge, and some say it never will. And now the debate has been resurrected intensified and by Oliver Stone’s S-K) million j movie JFK, which, many say, deftly mixes truth, fiction, fact, and fantasy. November 22, 1963, Dallas, Texas, 12:30 p.m. The moment is frozen in time. Any person who was older than ten at the time remembers not only the shock of hearing of the assassination but exactly what he or she was doing at the tithe, John F. Kennedy was the youngest and first American president born in this century, the embodiment of the idealized “Camelot,” of liberalism, and of the New Frontier. He was visiting the city of Dallas in order to mend political fences prior to launching his 1964 re-election campaign. The rifle shots fatally wounded Kennedy and injured Texas Governor Jolm Connally. This historical certainty however soon gave way to a multitude of hypotheses, theories, official reports, and elaborate scenarios purporting to explain the how and why of the assassination. Lyndon Johnson, Kennedy’s successor, appointed a commission of seven credible public figures to delve into the assassination. Unbeknownst to the public at the time, Chief Justice Earl Warren broke a 3-3 tie vote on the Commission’s findings and the Commission that bears his name concluded that one assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, fired three shots from the southeast corner of the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository Building, killing John Fitzgerald Kennedy. The three dissenters never wrote a minority report. The strongest visual evidence is the now famous eight-millimetre home movie footage of the actual assassination taken by a man named Abraham Zaprnder. This piece of evidence, other eyewitness accounts, and conflicting accounts of what happened after the assassination have led many people to raise disturbing questions and to propose various “conspiracy theories,’ chief among them, that of Jim Garrison, the District Attorney for the city of New Orleans and the protagonist in Oliver Stone’s movie. What was Oswald’s motive? Did Oswald kill Dallas police officer J. 0. Tippit? How was local nightclub owner Jack Ruby able to gain access to the basement of the Dallas police headquarters, where he murdered Oswald on live television? What about the alleged murder weapon, a forty-year-old Italian rifle, which was labelled ‘a humanitarian weapon” because of its notorious inaccuracy? What about the timing of the shots — three shots within 5.6 seconds at a moving target? In fact, how many shots were fired? What about the violent snapping of the President’s head backward and to the left? Didn’t the latter indicate that a shot must have come from the front and to the right, from the so-called “grassy knoll”? What about the smoke on the knoll reported by several witnesses? What about the mysterious men with rifles some people say they saw behind the picket fence at the top of the knoll? What about the unannounced and March 1992 — 48 — CBC-W News in Review unnecessary last second change in the motorcade route — the right turn onto Houston and the left onto Elm? What about the questions surrounding the autopsy of the President? What happened to the lead motorcyclist? What about the man opening an I fl umbrella on a sunny day? What about Lee Bowers, Officer Billy Harkness, Dorothy Kilgallen, and the more than 130 witnesses who supposedly had important evidence who died or disappeared under seemingly mysterious circumstances. These and other unanswered questions eventually preoccupied numerous individuals and an American public traumatized by the assassination and its implications. The depth of uncertainty created fertile ground for speculation and a legitimate need for further explanations. A 1979 House subcommittee, whose mandate was to investigate assassinations, reviewed all the evidence of the Kennedy assassination, eye-witness accounts and ballistic, acoustic, and medical facts. The subcommittee concluded that a fourth shot had indeed come from behind the grassy knoll. The conclusion that there had been four shots and the timing of them meant that more than one person was involved, and thus a conspiracy was highly likely. Subsequent studies, however, using evidence released through the Freedom of Information Act and computer-enhanced evidence, have confirmed as well as contradicted the subcommittee’s finding. According to proponents of conspiracy theories — theories based on circumstantial evidence — there are a number of possible perpetrators. Motivation is an important component of the hypotheses, as are the resources required to engineer the original assassination and the presumed cover-up. Numerous candidates have been suggested: the military-industrial complex, which includes the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Pentagon, and big business, which profits from a foreign policy supporting international conflict. Also suggested were the FBI, the CIA, pro-Castro Cubans, anti-Castro Cubans, the Mafia, and even other politicians. Thirty years later, however, all we still know for sure is that John F. Kennedy was assassinated by gunfire in Dallas, Texas. And yet a desire for greater “truth” persists. Fuelling and heightening the public’s need to know more are numerous ‘conspiracy book? and most recently a powerful and controversial film, Oliver Stone’s JFK.