Single Bullet Theory?

Camelot at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave lasted 1,036 days. In particular, for the children in school on Nov. 22, 1963, the murder of President John F. Kennedy was stunning in a way nothing has been since.

On Nov. 24, 1963 a live national television audience witnessed the murder of the assassination’s prime suspect, Lee Harvey Oswald. There was no doubt that Jack Ruby, a Dallas nightclub operator, was the trigger-man. What made him do it is still being questioned.

Shortly after JFK’s death, columnist Mary McGrory expressed her dark feelings to Daniel Patrick Moynihan: “We’ll never laugh again.”

Moynihan, who was an Assistant Secretary of Labor then, famously replied, “Heavens, Mary, we’ll laugh again. It’s just that we’ll never be young again.”

The cynicism spawned by the cloaked-in-secrecy aftermath of the JFK assassination has tinted everything the aforementioned children have seen since those dark days. Everything.

However, I’m not at all convinced there had to have been a complicated conspiracy to kill the president and cover up the tracks. Furthermore, after he was dead, just because some people deliberately obscured related information, we don't necessarily know why they did it.

In some cases it was probably people trying to cover asses, hither and yon, for a myriad of reasons. Please don't get me wrong, though, I’m not trying to say I doubt there was such a murder conspiracy.

So, for now, let's skip past the argument over whether, or not, Oswald acted alone. For the moment, let's not speculate about whether Oswald was a dupe, or one of the greatest marksmen who ever lived. The point of this remembrance is to recognize that the secrecy that rushed in that obscured the truth about what happened in November of 1963 poisoned the American culture in a way that is still being felt. 

The President's Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy, known as the Warren Commission, published its report on Sept. 24, 1964: Essentially, Oswald was found to have been a lone wolf assassin. Which immediately unleashed the questioning of the Commission’s findings.

Perhaps its famous “single bullet theory,” which had one projectile traveling circuitously through two victims was great sleuthing. Or maybe it was just an unbelievable reach.

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In 1965 gunmen murdered Malcolm X in an auditorium in Manhattan. Three years later Rev. Martin Luther King was killed on a motel balcony in Memphis by a sniper. Only two months later, Sen. Robert F. Kennedy's presidential run shockingly ended, he was shot to death in a Los Angeles hotel. It was a shock, but in 1968 it was not a surprise.

Unfortunately, the official stories on those three shootings were widely doubted, even disbelieved. In the ‘60s more public scrutiny of how those assassination probes were conducted might have led to different conclusions. More importantly, even if more sunlight into those investigations failed to produce different outcomes, at least Americans might have felt better about the good faith of the processes.

Instead, it seemed then the authorities generally believed the citizenry didn't really have a right to see the whole truth and nothing-but. Too often it seems to have been decided on high that the public was better off not knowing some things, as if we were all children.

Of course, such secrecy can hide everyday malfeasance, as well. Shielding the citizenry from such information is the sort of thinking that went with world wars, with spies lucking about. In the 1960s, perhaps as part of the Cold War, the public more or less expected its government to routinely withhold all sorts of secrets.

That, whether the public like it, or not. Eventually, it took the rudest of revelations to snap many Americans out of blithely tolerating an over-abundance of secrecy:

• The My Lai Massacre horrors.

• The publishing of the Pentagon Papers.

• The Watergate Scandal hearings.

• The Iran-Contra Scandal hearings.

• The bogus justification for invading Iraq. 

As those events paraded by, America steadily morphed into a nation of cynics. Now, those of us who recognize the damage that's been done by official lies know better. We were wrong to ever have accepted such skullduggery in the name of keeping America safe.

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In 1997 Sen. Moynihan’s book, “Secrecy: The American Experience,” was published. In the opening chapter he wrote:

In the United States, secrecy is an institution of the administrative state that developed during the great conflicts of the twentieth century. It is distinctive primarily in that it is all but unexamined. There is a formidable literature on regulation of the public mode, virtually none on secrecy. Rather, there is a considerable literature, but it is mostly secret. Indeed, the modes of secrecy remain for the most part -- well, secret.

On inquiry there are regularities: patterns that fit well enough with what we have learned about other forms of regulation. But there has been so little inquiry that the actors involved seem hardly to know the set roles they play. Most important, they seem never to know the damage they can do. This is something more than inconveniencing to the citizen. At times, in the name of national security, secrecy has put that very security in harm's way.

Fifty-six years after the murder of JFK, it’s high time to stop tolerating unnecessary secrecy in government at all levels. After all, secrets that invite speculation and provoke conspiracy theories serve a nefarious agenda just as well as a lie. 

Justice Louis D. Brandeis wrote: 

"Publicity is justly commended as a remedy for social and industrial diseases. Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants; electric light the most efficient policeman."

Today, to trust official conclusions, we need plenty of Brandeis' sunlight. We not only need investigations, we need to be able to see into the investigations. So expert testimony at Congressional hearings is a good thing.

Just the process of an honest search for truth can be beneficial. The ongoing impeachment hearings in the House Intelligence Committee have been good for the USA, regardless of how the whole process pans out. Here's why: Millions of young Americans got to see several heroic federal government workers at their best, righteously concerned with the commonweal. Because they have been exposed to the truth, now it will be harder for those young viewers to ever buy the conservative boilerplate propaganda that casts diplomats and other government experts as fuzzy-thinking eggheads and incompetent goldbricks.

Lastly, for democracy to have a chance of working properly and delivering good government, we the voters need to know whose money is behind every politician's ploy. Knowing who paid for what always helps. Brandeis was spot on about the power of sunlight. 

Taking it home: Single bullet theory, you say?

Great name for a punk era band.

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Remembering No. 32

Photo by Dan Dunivan

At the Siegel Center just before noon today a former basketball player who recently died was honored before the game. The player was Edward H. Peeples, Jr. (1935-2019), a longtime Virginia Commonwealth University professor, who actually played his basketball for RPI (Richmond Professional Institute), the forerunner to VCU. The public address announcer spoke briefly about Dr. Peeples' long distinguished career, mentioned that members of his family were on hand and called for a moment of silence.

The record shows Ed Peeples was co-captain of the first RPI men's basketball team to finish the season with a winning record; it was the 1956-57 team. And, I'll get back to Peeples, but first I have to report that the Rams ran the visiting Jacksonville State University Gamecocks out of the gym.

Six of VCU's players scored in double figures to pave the way to a crushing victory: VCU 93, JSU 65. The game really wasn't as close as the score might suggest.

In the tilt's first five minutes the revved-up Rams forced five turnovers, facilitating a 16-0 run. In all, they made 58 percent of their shots from the field, which of course, always helps. Meanwhile, their aggressive defense forced 21 turnovers, blocked 13 shots and held the befuddled Gamecocks to a 38 percent shooting percentage. On offense VCU had 23 assists on 38 total baskets. After the game VCU's head coach, Mike Rhoades, was happy about the 23 assists.

Eleven Rams were on the floor for over 10 minutes. This was such a team effort there's no place here for any individual statistics. It was what some observers like to call a "complete game." Moreover, for Rhoades' VCU team to look this polished on offense and relentless on defense in mid-November is quite noteworthy.

Here's more about Ed Peeples from a webpage about his book, "Skalawag." To see the whole page go here. 

Dr. Edward H. Peeples, Jr. [was] Emeritus Associate Professor of Preventive Medicine and Community Health at Virginia Commonwealth University where he taught for more than 30  years. Peeples made most of his academic contributions in the fields of medical behavioral science, public health, epidemiology and sociology. But much of his research and writing dealt with contemporary issues of social justice and he spent most of his adult life as a civil rights advocate involved in a variety of human rights reforms in Virginia and other places across the south.

Now I wonder if that brief pre-game tribute to Peeples helped set the tone. Which spawned an idea: Would dedicating the rest of the season to Peeples be a good move to make? It doesn't take much to say that's what you're doing.

And, not that I'm superstitious, but I wonder if a circular black and gold patch, maybe about two inches wide, with a 32 on it (for Peeples) worn on the Rams uniforms, from here on, would help inspire more complete games.

Some players like good luck charms. Coaches, too.

Maybe it would be good fortune of a sort to occasionally boost basketball game announcers on television into explaining to their viewers what the No. 32 is about. Who Peeples was, etc.

Hey, wouldn't that story put VCU, as a whole, in a rather flattering light? It might even be fun to hear it told at the NCAA tournament.

Just a thought.

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