David Reitzes runs a website
on the assassination of John
F. Kennedy called
JFK Online. Reitzes
does not believe David Ferrie or Jack
Ruby
were involved in any conspiracy
to kill Kennedy. He is also highly critical of the research carried
out by Jim
Garrison,
David
Lifton,
James
H. Fetzer
and David Mantik. His website includes
One Hundred Errors
of Fact and Judgment in Oliver Stone's JFK.
Open
Debate on the Kennedy Assassination
JFK
Online
(1)
David Reitzes, In
Defense of Jack Ruby, JFK
Online (2003)
Many take it for
granted that if there was an assassination conspiracy, Jack Ruby must
have been involved. In fact, many people believe there was a conspiracy
precisely because of Ruby's murder of Lee Harvey Oswald, which had
the effect - intentional or not - of silencing the accused assassin.
But whether there was a
conspiracy or not, there is no reason to assume that Ruby must have
been involved. In fact, logic tells us that no conspiracy could profit
by silencing Oswald in a public fashion: What's the point of eliminating
one suspect while simultaneously handing the police another? Also,
were it Oswald's intention to "talk," he'd already had nearly
48 hours in which to do so. Every minute he waited only diminished
the chance that others involved could be apprehended. By that time,
any conspirators would have to assume he'd already spilled his guts.
Another factor to be considered
is whether Ruby was the type of person to be entrusted with any responsibility,
when a single word from him could have resulted in the arrest of others
involved. Dallas reporter Tony Zoppi knew Ruby well and says one "would
have to be crazy" to entrust Ruby with anything important, that
he "couldn't keep a secret for five minutes.... Jack was one
of the most talkative guys you would ever meet. He'd be the worst
fellow in the world to be part of a conspiracy, because he just plain
talked too much." "Jack Ruby would be the last one that
I could ever trust to do anything," says Ruby's rabbi, Hillel
Silverman
(2)
David Reitzes, The
Men Who Killed Kennedy, JFK
Online (2003)
Nigel Turner's The
Men Who Killed Kennedy premiered on England's Central Independent
Television as a two-part documentary in October 1988. Three additional
installments were filmed two years later, with a sixth episode added
in 1995. Though the series was not widely seen in the United States
at first, the first five installments were shown a number of times
on the Arts and Entertainment cable channel (with Hilary Minster's
narration replaced by the voice of Chicago broadcaster Bill Kurtis),
and all six episodes have recently begun popping up (in somewhat edited
form) on another cable station, the History Channel. Whether this
is a good thing or not depends largely upon whom you ask.
Certainly, Turner's series
is nothing if not controversial, even among conspiracy theorists,
and even among those who served as some of the series' own sources
of information. For example, when President (and former Warren Commission
member) Gerald R. Ford and former Warren Commission legal counsel
David W. Belin blasted The Men Who Killed Kennedy in the Washington
Post in 1991 (in an article primarily about Oliver Stone's movie,
JFK), none other than JFK assassination research pioneer (and on-screen
interviewee for The Men Who Killed Kennedy) Harold Weisberg chimed
in his agreement. "It took 27 years," Weisberg noted drily,
"but David Belin, writing with Gerald R. Ford, has finally said
one thing with which I agree: Nigel Turner's A&E series 'The Men
Who Killed Kennedy' and Oliver Stone's current commercialization and
exploitation of that great tragedy are both very, very bad."
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