JFK 60th Anniversary of the Assassination

<p>A conversation with Warren Commission Assistant Counsel <strong>Burt W. Griffin</strong>, <em>Case Closed</em> author and Lee Harvey Oswald scholar <strong>Gerald Posner</strong>, and JFK conspiracy theory debunker <strong>Michel Gagné</strong>.</p> <p>Shermer, Griffin, Posner, and Gagné discuss: the nostalgic myth of “Camelot” • Lee Harvey Oswald and why he killed Kennedy • Cuba, Castro, the Bay of Pigs debacle • the CIA and why it is rational to be skeptical of their activities • the “magic bullet,” pristine or predictably damaged? • James Hosty and the FBI’s files on Oswald before he killed JFK • CIA and FBI coverups • General Edwin Walker • Jack Ruby • Bernard Weissman, • common themes in conspiracy theories • witness intimidation • planted evidence • evidence tampering.</p> <p><strong>Burt W. Griffin</strong>, Warren Commission Assistant Counsel was the assistant counsel to the president’s commission on the assassination of President Kennedy (popularly known as the Warren Commission) and had primary responsibility for investigating and writing the section of the commission’s report (1964) on whether Jack Ruby was engaged in a conspiracy to assassinate either JFK, Lee Oswald, or both. He lives in Shaker Heights, Ohio.</p> <p><strong>Gerald Posner</strong> is an award-winning journalist who has written twelve books, including the Pulitzer Prize finalist <em>Case Closed: Lee Harvey Oswald and the Assassination of JFK</em>. His 2015 book, <em>God’s Bankers</em>, a two-hundred-year history of the finances of the Vatican, was an acclaimed <em>New York Times</em> bestseller. Posner has written for many national magazines and papers, including the <em>New York Times</em>, <em>The New Yorker</em>, <em>Newsweek</em>, and <em>Time</em>, and he has been a regular contributor to NBC, the History Channel, CNN, CBS, MSNBC, and FOX News. His other books include <em>Killing the Dream: James Earl Ray and the Assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.</em>; <em>Secrets of the Kingdom: The Inside Story of the Saudi-U.S. Connec