Cover-UpBy: Stewart Galanor The assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy Jr. was a very emotional time in our nation’s history. This horrifying incident occurred on November 22, 1963, in a motorcade procession in Dallas, Texas. At 12:30 in the afternoon the procession was going down Elm Street in Dealy Plaza, when shots were fired. One struck President Kennedy in the throat and moments later a bullet tore apart his head. At 1:00 p.m., President JFK was pronounced dead. That same afternoon, Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested as a suspect of murder. Oswald however, pleaded his innocence by stating, ” I’m just a patsy.” This caused many suspicions and questions. Was he a lone assassin? Was he innocent? Was there a conspiracy against the president? These questions called for Lyndon B. Johnson, the new president, to form the Warren Commission specifically to investigate the assassination. It was named for the Chairman, and the Chief Justice of the United States, Earl Warren. This commission, after ten months of investigation, presented their report to President Johnson. The 26 volumes of testimony and exhibits, ” overwhelmingly supported the conclusions that the assassination was no conspiracy, but the work of one unhappy man, Lee Harvey Oswald.” (New York Times) However many Americans continued to believe there was a conspiracy to assassinate President John F. Kennedy. The book Cover- Up, by Stewart Galanor, is a great description of the facts and fictions of the investigation.
The shots the president received were both incredibly fatal. The first shot to the neck was seen to be an entrance wound, however this seems to be impossible if the assassin was behind him 6 floors up. However, like usual, the Warren Commission performed a test and proved the shot to indeed be an exit wound. The test was performed using a goatskin to show that entrance and exit wounds are similar in appearance, when they really are not. The Warren Commission stuck to their beliefs, although it was obviously a false idea. The fatal wound was also discussed and questioned. Many doctors thought there really was no fatal blast to the head, just a small exit wound. However, two Parkland doctors described the head wound to be extremely fatal. One doctor stated, “As I took position at the head of the table, I was in such a position that I could very closely examine the head wound. I noted that the right posterior portion of the skull had been completely blasted, you could actually look down into the cavity itself and see that probably a third or so, at least, of the brain tissue, posterior cerebral tissue and some of the cerebellar tissue had been blasted out.” However, there arose a disagreement. Of all the interviewed doctors who attended the autopsy, and saw the photographs, some claim they do not show a large wound in the right rear portion of the skull. There is a missing piece somewhere in this investigation, but this is only the first.
After watching the Zapruder films, the investigation was faced with another problem. President JKF was shot in the throat, Governor Connolly was shot in the back, a missed shot, and the fatal shot to the president’s head. Four shots with the Mannlicher-Carcano, the supposed assassination weapon, in that time span was impossible. Olympic champion, Hubert Hammerer said that he doubted he could duplicate Oswald’s actions. How is it possible for Oswald to be a better shot than an Olympic Champion? The Commission was faced with yet another contradiction to their theory. So they resolved it by saying that the bullet that struck the President’s throat also hit Governor Connolly. Although the wounds do not line up, the Warren Commission still stated it as the truth. The bullet that struck JFK’s throat was only slightly deformed, but when a bullet was shot through a cadaver’s wrist, it was bent greatly, so this too was a contradiction. It also was a very difficult shot. From 60 feet above the ground to a moving target, by an average marksman, a direct hit seems almost impossible. Once again the Warren Commission came up with something to cover up this problem. Another option to try to disprove the lone assassin theory was to look at the Zapruder films and see where the film may be a little blurred. This would show when the person filming jumped at each shot fired. When the film was analyzed, CBS found that the first two shots differ by 36 frames. Since the film runs 18.3 frames per second that means there were less than 2 seconds between them. This is impossible with the weapon and an inexperienced gunman. Another study says they differ by 39 frames or 2.1 seconds. Either way it is disproved that Oswald firing with the Mannlicher-Carcano was the lone assassin.
The grassy knoll was a more public part of the investigation. Many witnesses when questioned as to where they thought the shots came from, answered, not the Book Depository, but the grassy knoll. Also some claimed to see a puff of smoke rise from the trees in front of a wooden fence at the top of the grassy knoll. The Warren Commission ignored these observations, and never addressed them. There were also many accounts of suspicious behavior on the knoll from denial of access prior to the assassination, to the sighting of men with guns after the assassination.
In February 1964, a picture was discovered and seen throughout the media of Oswald holding the weapon used in the assassination. Twenty-two of the nation’s leading photography experts examined this picture and found no evidence of faking in these photographs. However, Superintendent Malcom Thompson of England, went on record stating the photos were forgeries. He said there was a discrepancy in the shadows of the picture. The shadows from Oswald’s nose to his body indicate the sun is in more than one place. Thompson felt that the only way this could have been done was if Oswald’s head was put on someone else’s chin, then with retouching, the montage was covered up. The backyard photograph was compared to his mug shot, and it shows the chins are entirely different. When the Warren Commission tried to duplicate the lighting, they covered up the head of the person, and said they duplicated it; however, the discrepancy was in a shadow on the face. So the Warren Commission once again was willing to accept questionable evidence as fact as long as it supported the lone assassin theory.
Marina Oswald, Lee Harvey’s wife, at first acted as though she was completely clueless about rifles, including the one that supposedly belonged to her husband and was used to kill the president. She also stated that “Lee expressed to her that Kennedy was a good President,” and she believed he was innocent. However, she changed her story and told the Warren Commission that the Mannlicher-Carcano was the “fateful rifle of Lee Oswald’s,” and she testified that she thought her husband was guilty. Twenty-five years later on a TV documentary, Marina once again reverted back to the first story in saying that she never could buy the idea that Lee was against the President. She said that, ” Everything I learned about President Kennedy was good through Lee.” Marina stated later that she felt the Warren Commission used her, and she was a vulnerable person, which was just what they wanted. She now believes that Lee may have been working for the government, and he was just doing what he had been told to do. Lee Harvey Oswald was a very different and confused man. When he was young, his favorite show was I Led Three Lives. Oswald in a sense throughout his life did the same. He went into the Marine Corps, began to learn the Russian language, and felt that communism was the best system in the world. He then moved to Russia, with the intention to defect and divulge classified material about radar to the Soviets. After becoming bored with his life in Russia, he and his wife and little girl moved back to the US in June 1962. However he continued to profess Marxism, and in the spring of 1963 he attempted to form a chapter of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee. Oswald had a hard time keeping a job, but on October 16, 1963, he was hired at the Texas School Book Depository. He led many lives, all of which had more contradictions than his former hero in I Led Three Lives.
Jack Ruby was the man who murdered Oswald in the Dallas jail. He was not questioned until about six months after the assassination. Ruby was obviously aware of this, when he stated “Well, it’s too bad, Chief Warren, that you didn’t get me to your headquarters six months ago.” Ruby repeatedly asked ” Is there any way you can get me to Washington?” Ruby felt that the truth would only be known if he took a lie detector test, and that is why he wanted to go to Washington. After much investigation, an FBI report was uncovered in the National Archives that describe Ruby’s close connections with the Dallas Mafia. Nevertheless the Commission stated there was no credible evidence that Ruby was active in organized crime. In October of 1993, a radiation oncologist and Dr. David Mantik examined the autopsy x- rays of JFK. Dr. Mantik was extremely concerned with how white the rear of the skull was. The whiter the area, the denser the tissue, and in a previous x-ray of JFK’s skull during his lifetime, the image was much darker. After much investigation, Dr. Mantik concluded the x-rays had been altered. In his lab he tried to alter a set of x-rays, and within minutes he had done so. Dr. Mantik also disproved the lone assassin theory. He looked at a CAT scan and drew a straight line connecting the back and throat wounds of the President. He determined that clearly any bullet along that path would have shattered his spine, and there was no spinal damage. There were numerous thoughts by many Americans that the assassination was a conspiracy, and there was a cover-up. I also believe that there was a conspiracy, and all the false information given by the Warren Commission proves there was a cover up. The investigation goes so deep and was so carefully planned, that the truth may never surface because of others in fear for their life.
This book greatly expanded my knowledge of this event. I now know so much about the investigation, and the so- called cover up. Previously I didn’t know there was really a cover up. This time period was one of total distrust in the government, and a time of confusion. I think that Johnson was a very sly president who focused more on what would improve his reputation as a president, rather than helping the nation get to the bottom of the decade’s greatest mystery. As for the Warren Commission, they were really doing the same thing, except they were just looking for the easiest way out, not the truth. They should have known that one day all of their hidden evidence would be found. And it was, which caused great distrust, by the majority of Americans, in their own leaders, their government. The people in this book who went on record showing a part of the “cover-up” are very brave people, and they should be the people who the world looks to for the truth in the investigation. The information in this book was very interesting and attention grabbing. It really focused on the evidence of a conspiracy or cover- up. This book really taught me that some people will do anything to satisfy themselves, no matter what they have to do to others. All the people directly involved in the investigation seemed to give up or take over something to keep things as simple and secretive as possible. Even though the world still went on and there were more conflicts to deal with, I think the most plaguing question of the average American in this decade was, “Who killed JFK?”
Russell On Platonic Universals
The consideration of Platonic universals consequently rouses controversy amongphilosophers. Thinkers like Bertrand Russell and Thomas Hobbes contributereflective explanations for the undeniable usage of question-begging ideas inlanguage and thought. While the deliberation of Platonic universals might seemto be fruitless and, at best, obscure to the layperson, it does function as acritical foundation for metaphysics and epistemology. Whether a philosopheragrees or disagrees with the idea of Platonic universals is irrelevant to thecertain truth that he or she must form some opinion of them preceding most anyphilosophic endeavor. To attempt to summarize Platos theory of universals ina paragraph would do it a great injustice but a simple, working definition ofthe theory is necessary to move any further. Platos theory can be condensedas follows: A universal (or form) is an independently existing, nonspatial,nontemporal “something” known only through thought and that cannot be knownthrough the senses; independently existing objects of thought; that which makesa particular thing uniquely and essentially what it is. In even simpler terms, auniversal would be something like the “redness” of an apple. According toPlato, the red quality of the apple must exist because the apple is red. But”redness” itself isnt a tangible thing that can be directly experiencedwith the senses. You cannot produce “red” itself, only things that are red.
But it is not only the fact that an apple is red that distinguishes it fromother objects in the world. In addition to its “redness”, an apple is anapple. An apple is not a pear. The quality unique to the apple is its “appleness”.
Thus, by appealing to the Platonic universals one can make a distinction betweenan apple and a pear, or all other things in the world. I. Thomas HobbesNominalism Plato concluded that universals must actually exist. That is, thatwhen “appleness” is appealed to, something out there providesclassification for the thing in question. This was (and still is) a radicalnotion that demanded explanation and was highly susceptible to criticism. Amongthose critics was Thomas Hobbes, a 16th Century social and politicalphilosopher. In his work, The Leviathan, Hobbes argued that thought is a purelymaterial event and that universals are just a result of language. Hobbes was anominalist. Nominalism is the view that there are no universals over and aboveparticular individuals2. For Hobbes, one of the answers to the question ofuniversals could be found in the commonality of things. For instance, if a rockand a table are both hard, it is not because we refer to a universal,”hardness” for them, it is because we use the word “hard” to describeboth of them. Another point made by Hobbes was that humans place things intocategories in order to satisfy certain needs. Heimir Geirsson made a goodanalogy of this idea in his Metaphysics textbook, Beginning Metaphysics. He usesa weed for the analogy: A good example of this is the term “weed,” which isdefined as a plant that is not desired or cultivated by human beings and growsprofusely. This is not a natural species that would exist even if human beingshad never decided to classify some plants as “weeds.” Many human beings areinterested in having a special category for plants they dont like and thatgrow abundantly, and they create that category for plants they dont like, andthey create that category with that name and definition. If human beings had notworried about weeds, then there would be no weeds. Of course, there would stillbe plants that we now call “weeds,” e.g. dandelions and crabgrass, but theywould not be weeds. Whether or not there are weeds depends on human beingsclassifying these plants as weeds.2 Geirssons analogy is an interesting onebecause of the question it evokes. Why arent all definitions like that of theweed, i.e., human classification? Hobbes thought that they were. For Hobbes,there were no real universals. Those things, which we refer to as universals,are simply created by humans out of a need to organize the world. II. BertrandRussell on Platonic Universals Bertrand Russell attempted to defend the theoryof Platonic universals. In order to do this he first thought it necessary todistinguish between universals that were qualities of things and those that wererelations between things. The most practical way to separate qualities andrelations is to understand them through their linguistic functions. Adjectivesand common nouns express qualities or properties of single things, whereasprepositions and verbs tend to express relations between two or more things.3For example, the sentence “The dog ran around the tree.” Contains instancesof quality and relation universals. “Dog”, “tree”, and “ran” referto a universal that is a quality of the objects and the action. When we think of”dog” and “tree”, we first have neutral objects that we distinguish byattaching their respective qualities, which are “dogness” and “treeness”.
Similarly, the verb “ran”, being in the past tense, not only attributes thequality of running to a neutral action, but also refers to a point in time whenthe action took place. To think of the whole phenomenon of a dog having runaround a tree, there must also necessarily exist a corresponding universal forthe preposition “around”. This universal differs from the previouslymentioned ones in that it connects and relates the other universals to eachother. Without it, the sentence would read something like this: “The dog rantree.” In order to make any sense of the statement a relation between”ran” and “tree” must first be established. Thus, it follows that”around” must be a different type of universal than “ran”, “dog”, or”tree”. No sense can be made of anything unless there is some understoodrelationship between them. Russell thought that since inference of relationuniversals was unavoidable, there was sufficient metaphysical evidence toapprove of the ontological status given to them by Plato. In order to furthershield his argument from scrutiny, Russell also thought it was necessary toadjust the language about universals in regard to their ontological position. Hejudged that it was preferable to allude to universals as subsisting rather thanexisting. To speak of some as existing implies some sort of spatio-temporallocation. If the question is asked, “When and where does this universalexist?” the answer must be “Nowhere and nowhen,” says Russell.3 The realmof universals is rigid an unaffected by the world of perception. The term usedfor objects within the world of perceptions that refer to their obligatoryuniversal cannot be used. This is also to avoid the objection that universalsonly exist in the mind. Russell suggested that the word subsist should be usedin language about universals. This is because the term simply implies that theyhave being.3 In doing so, Russell seems to adequately preserve his logic fromHobbes-like arguments. III. Conclusion While Russells argument does seem torefute those made by the likes of Hobbes; it is not without uncertainty. A moreobvious objection to Russells argument would be that of an infiniteregression of universals. If there is a relation between “dog” and”tree”, then there must certainly also be a relationship between therelation universal “around” and the whatever (around) that itclassifies. But it might not stop there. Why would there not be yet anotherrelationship between these three relationships? Anytime there are ideas orthings; there must be some relationship between them. So, for “The dog ranaround the tree,” there must be a relationship between “dog,” “ran,”and “tree.” Those relationships are “ran,” and “around.” But ofcourse there must be an understood relationship between “ran” and”around” also for the statement to make any sense. Since realists likeRussell contend that these things refer to some universal, there must be arelationship between them and the universal. But now we have two universals andthere needs to be a relationship established between the two universals. Thatrelationship could be as simple as their equality as universals. And now thatequality must too be a universal. And there is a relationship between thatequality and its universal. This web can continue indefinitely, preventing anyobjective classification from exposing itself out of the statement, “The dogran around the tree.” As for Hobbes, his argument has a similar fate. Usinghis logic, a statements meaning would be circular in nature. Going back toGeirssons analogy of the weed, we can infer the statement “Weed satisfiesthe need for humans to categorize certain types of plants.” Geirssons ownopinion of this is that now the term “satisfy” needs to be satisfied andthus leads to a vicious circle.2 It is unfortunate that both men are dead andunable to respond to such objections. However, of the two, Russellspoint-of-view still seems to be the more persuasive. Russell, having been amathematician as well, could have fairly easily pointed out that there isnothing subject to controversy in the idea of an infinite measure of anything.
An elementary principle of mathematics is that no matter what number you have,one more can always be added. Just because this infinite amount of relationshipsseems to make anything impossibly complex, does not make it illogical orinconceivable. Consequently it is my conclusion that, while not error-free,Bertrand Russells concept of relationship universals is, so far, mostimpressive.
The Human Population Bysome
The viewed as an environmental problem. There are also those who do not view it as aproblem. In my opinion the human population is not yet, butis soon becoming a large problem. This is because very soon we will run out of room and resources for the amountof people who will be living on this planet. Because the worlds population is increasing at a rate between one andtwo percent, we expect it to double within the next 35 to70 years. At this rate it will be impossible to support everyliving being on earth. In fact, many people starve to deatheach day. Although this happens in America, this starvationmost often occurs in third world countries. This is becausethese countries are under-developed and extremely poor,which is why they are called third world countries. Thesecountries dont have the jobs to support their citizens.
These citizens and their families dont receive the support they need, so they are forced to live in horrible conditions. Although these conditions are horrible and should bechanged, I believe that there is a way to argue in favor of this problem. If the world is going at such an amazing rate,it is apparent that we will not be able to support all thepeople who are to be born and live on this earth. Well then theoretically do we not need a way to get rid of some ofthese people? I in no way condone mass genocide ofpeoples, races, or countries but this is a problem. The mostobvious answer is to kill the extra people on earth. I knowthat I myself would have a great deal of trouble killing theextra people on earth.
Even selecting the people I thoughshould be killed would be impossible for me. I believe many people would also have this problem. Even if someone could be found who was comfortable selecting andkilling people, who is to say that this person is correct. Idont believe that any human has the right to decide whoshould die in a situation like this. Well then, how should wego about solving this problem? Are acts of Mother Nature such as AIDS, earthquakes, etc. our worlds way ofdealing with this problem? Is this not natural selection?Although the starvation of these third world peoples is ahorrible thing, I believe that changing it is not necessarily theanswer.
We now know that we need to do somethingabout the rapid growth of our population. Are the growth and death rates, the poverty and starvation in the countries, our earths way of doing that? Or even if it is not, is it notan answer? Do we really need to worry about the conditions in these countries? We need to slow down the growth of the population and that is exactly what ishappening. Although it sounds like a horrible thing to say,the world is in danger and needs help. The world however is doing fine right now. It is within the next 70 years that wewill begin to see and feel the actual consequences of havinga population too large for the earth to support.
In my opinion it is a very good idea to start working on thisproblem now, because when it becomes a reality, it may be too late. And when it does become a reality, what can bedone then? A mass extermination would solve the problemvery easily, but who is to decide who should die? So then,are these natural catastrophes such as earthquakes and floods a good idea? In a way, yes. As long as thepopulation does not grow at an incredibly fast rate, we willnot have a problem. So then, an event in which members ofthe population disappear is in fact helping to extend the lifeof the earth, and the human population by taking away fromthe total number of people. So things that we often refer toas horrible, such as the degree of poverty in third worldnations, is actually helping the earth in the long run.