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I look at it like the crazy general in Dr Strangelove that is trying to start a world war I highly doubt that a secret in the caliber of “let’s kill the Presid

I look at it like the crazy general in Dr Strangelove that is trying to start a world war I highly doubt that a secret in the caliber of “let’s kill the President” can be kept by so many people for such a long time. In my experience large organizations of people just don’t work that way

rusk 3y ago
> large organizations I don’t think large organisations can act in such a coordinated manner at all but they can be manipulated. Cartels with a lot to lose can take their secrets to the grave, in particular if their constituents have a lot to lose. Everyone else has “unfortunate accidents”.
- gordian-not 3y ago
  So, just from the top of my head and rather recently: 1. the NSA lost all of its malwares/zero days to the Russians 2. The NSA lost a huge amount of documents detailing a large amount of their billion dollars sigint sources and tech catalog 3. China was able to steal US nuclear weapons design 4. The CIA itself lost its entire internal wiki 5. Top secret documents were on discord for over a month Yet somehow these omnipotent organizations can keep the secret of how they killed the US president. Without a good answer as to what was their interest to do something so extreme in the first place
  - overrun11 3y ago
    Organizations keep secrets all the time. A huge amount of American history is learned after the fact when documents are declassified.
    - gordian-not 3y ago
      So despite countless of soviet spies in the FBI and CIA, the end of the cold war, defectors and open archives The JFK assassination still remained a secret?
      - rusk 3y ago
        I think there are some secrets that don’t go on file. Often times the most crucial meetings involve subtle cues over a cup of tea.
      - squeaky-clean 3y ago
        Thousands of documents related to it still remain classified, even after a declaration to declassify them. So... Yes.
  - smegger001 3y ago
    The key to all of those is they are digital files easily copied and deseminated online. It hard to hack a mechanical typewriter and or to exfiltrate physical documents locked in a filing cabinet in a secure facility. Then distributing them en mass the way the way digital channels like discord can is just not managable unless your a major news paper publisher. Digital information wants to be free, typewriten documents want to be locked in a documents warehouse missfiled and lost forever.
    - gordian-not 3y ago
      That’s the key to the fact they were disseminated online. They still hired people that weren’t fit to keep these secrets and that’s not a new issue
  - TheGrassyKnoll 3y ago
    Don't forget the OPM hack (2015) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Personnel_Management_data_breach https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Personnel_Management...
JohnBooty 3y ago
I highly doubt that a secret in the caliber of “let’s kill the President” can be kept by so many people for such a long time. Agree. However, what if that wasn't the conspiracy? What if the conspiracy was, "let's avoid war with the USSR"? If the US Government knew of or suspected USSR involvement in JFK's assassination: their choices were essentially "war with the USSR", "look like fools who bowed down to the USSR", or "pretend that Oswald was a lone, crazy guy." In other words: not a conspiracy per se where the government was en masse covering up some specific thing they knew to be true. I agree with you that feels implausible. Especially since presumably a significant portion of the government would have been opposed to the assassination or the cover-up. But it might have been more of a concerted effort to look the other way. Like, "If we investigate Oswald and the investigation too closely, the trail might lead to Russia or one of its satellite states, and therefore war, and therefore nuclear war. So therefore let's all agree that Oswald was a lone gunman because it sure beats war with the USSR." That does not seem impractical to me. Remember, the country was still reeling from the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the chilling possibility of having narrowly avoided nuclear war.
- gordian-not 3y ago
  This is very close to my feeling on the matter, and if I remember correctly there was even a case of cover up related to the fact that he visited the embassies (which can also be interpreted as not wanting to divulge their intelligence sources). However, it seems like the well known facts about Oswald (the communist background) weren't a major issue at the time (at least from what I gathered), so maybe there wasn't anything to cover up Anyway, if the US government doesn't want to stir the cold war issues around the assassination, is it a conspiracy or just common sense statesmanship? [edit]: I think I misread you, I do not think the soviets were involved, I think this is an extremely risky move no one would do. I do think there were probably fears it would be perceived as a foreign assassination which drove some actions in the US government.
  - JohnBooty 3y ago
    I do not think the soviets were involved, I think this is an extremely risky move no one would do. I do think there were probably fears it would be perceived as a foreign assassination which drove some actions in the US government. I was vague on that because my post was overlong already and I don't have a clue or guess about who (if anybody) was involved besides Oswald. But I agree with you: I cannot imagine that Khrushchev or the leadership of the USSR wanted open war. For the same reasons the USA didn't. There is definitely a middle ground sort of possibility, where Oswald was involved with the USSR to some extent (informant, or whatever) but they truly had no idea he was going to shoot JFK. That seems completely possible. Of course, the Soviet government was enormous and not monolithic. Maybe some within it wanted war, maybe some thought that they could prod Oswald into an assassination without getting "caught." Seems possible, but zero idea how likely that is. The simplest scenario is: Oswald worked in tandem with a second rando guy who had a rifle and wanted the president dead. No shortage of those in America, a land with cheap rifles and ~16 million WWII vets who were trained to use them. Anyway, if the US government doesn't want to stir the cold war issues around the assassination, is it a conspiracy or just common sense statesmanship? Definitely common sense statesmanship. Arguably a conspiracy as well but that depends on our definition of "conspiracy." The only thing I'm really sure of is that it was in the US government's best interests to sell the idea that Oswald was a lone crazy guy. That was the least-bad scenario for America.
DANmode 3y ago
Your understanding of geopolitics is (even partially) rooted in fiction.
- gordian-not 3y ago
  Which part? The fact that a part of the executive branch can’t kill the head of the executive branch and keep it a secret? Or the fact that I assume Oswald was crazy and being a megalomaniac did actions that might have started a war?

rusk 3y ago

> large organizations I don’t think large organisations can act in such a coordinated manner at all but they can be manipulated. Cartels with a lot to lose can take their secrets to the grave, in particular if their constituents have a lot to lose. Everyone else has “unfortunate accidents”.

gordian-not 3y ago
So, just from the top of my head and rather recently: 1. the NSA lost all of its malwares/zero days to the Russians 2. The NSA lost a huge amount of documents detailing a large amount of their billion dollars sigint sources and tech catalog 3. China was able to steal US nuclear weapons design 4. The CIA itself lost its entire internal wiki 5. Top secret documents were on discord for over a month Yet somehow these omnipotent organizations can keep the secret of how they killed the US president. Without a good answer as to what was their interest to do something so extreme in the first place
- overrun11 3y ago
  Organizations keep secrets all the time. A huge amount of American history is learned after the fact when documents are declassified.
  - gordian-not 3y ago
    So despite countless of soviet spies in the FBI and CIA, the end of the cold war, defectors and open archives The JFK assassination still remained a secret?
    - rusk 3y ago
      I think there are some secrets that don’t go on file. Often times the most crucial meetings involve subtle cues over a cup of tea.
    - squeaky-clean 3y ago
      Thousands of documents related to it still remain classified, even after a declaration to declassify them. So... Yes.
- smegger001 3y ago
  The key to all of those is they are digital files easily copied and deseminated online. It hard to hack a mechanical typewriter and or to exfiltrate physical documents locked in a filing cabinet in a secure facility. Then distributing them en mass the way the way digital channels like discord can is just not managable unless your a major news paper publisher. Digital information wants to be free, typewriten documents want to be locked in a documents warehouse missfiled and lost forever.
  - gordian-not 3y ago
    That’s the key to the fact they were disseminated online. They still hired people that weren’t fit to keep these secrets and that’s not a new issue
- TheGrassyKnoll 3y ago
  Don't forget the OPM hack (2015) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Personnel_Management_data_breach https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Personnel_Management...

JohnBooty 3y ago

I highly doubt that a secret in the caliber of “let’s kill the President” can be kept by so many people for such a long time. Agree. However, what if that wasn't the conspiracy? What if the conspiracy was, "let's avoid war with the USSR"? If the US Government knew of or suspected USSR involvement in JFK's assassination: their choices were essentially "war with the USSR", "look like fools who bowed down to the USSR", or "pretend that Oswald was a lone, crazy guy." In other words: not a conspiracy per se where the government was en masse covering up some specific thing they knew to be true. I agree with you that feels implausible. Especially since presumably a significant portion of the government would have been opposed to the assassination or the cover-up. But it might have been more of a concerted effort to look the other way. Like, "If we investigate Oswald and the investigation too closely, the trail might lead to Russia or one of its satellite states, and therefore war, and therefore nuclear war. So therefore let's all agree that Oswald was a lone gunman because it sure beats war with the USSR." That does not seem impractical to me. Remember, the country was still reeling from the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the chilling possibility of having narrowly avoided nuclear war.

gordian-not 3y ago
This is very close to my feeling on the matter, and if I remember correctly there was even a case of cover up related to the fact that he visited the embassies (which can also be interpreted as not wanting to divulge their intelligence sources). However, it seems like the well known facts about Oswald (the communist background) weren't a major issue at the time (at least from what I gathered), so maybe there wasn't anything to cover up Anyway, if the US government doesn't want to stir the cold war issues around the assassination, is it a conspiracy or just common sense statesmanship? [edit]: I think I misread you, I do not think the soviets were involved, I think this is an extremely risky move no one would do. I do think there were probably fears it would be perceived as a foreign assassination which drove some actions in the US government.
- JohnBooty 3y ago
  I do not think the soviets were involved, I think this is an extremely risky move no one would do. I do think there were probably fears it would be perceived as a foreign assassination which drove some actions in the US government. I was vague on that because my post was overlong already and I don't have a clue or guess about who (if anybody) was involved besides Oswald. But I agree with you: I cannot imagine that Khrushchev or the leadership of the USSR wanted open war. For the same reasons the USA didn't. There is definitely a middle ground sort of possibility, where Oswald was involved with the USSR to some extent (informant, or whatever) but they truly had no idea he was going to shoot JFK. That seems completely possible. Of course, the Soviet government was enormous and not monolithic. Maybe some within it wanted war, maybe some thought that they could prod Oswald into an assassination without getting "caught." Seems possible, but zero idea how likely that is. The simplest scenario is: Oswald worked in tandem with a second rando guy who had a rifle and wanted the president dead. No shortage of those in America, a land with cheap rifles and ~16 million WWII vets who were trained to use them. Anyway, if the US government doesn't want to stir the cold war issues around the assassination, is it a conspiracy or just common sense statesmanship? Definitely common sense statesmanship. Arguably a conspiracy as well but that depends on our definition of "conspiracy." The only thing I'm really sure of is that it was in the US government's best interests to sell the idea that Oswald was a lone crazy guy. That was the least-bad scenario for America.

DANmode 3y ago

Your understanding of geopolitics is (even partially) rooted in fiction.

gordian-not 3y ago
Which part? The fact that a part of the executive branch can’t kill the head of the executive branch and keep it a secret? Or the fact that I assume Oswald was crazy and being a megalomaniac did actions that might have started a war?