The feds show their incompetence even when they finger a patsy. What does it say about the feds’ case against Oswald, when they had their ducks all lined up about two hours after doctors declared Kennedy dead at Parkland hospital? Note in particular that they not only had their man, they were one hundred percent sure he was the only assassin. They had already closed the case! So naturally they wasted no time to try him in the media.

As it turned out, they also wasted no time to whack him. They have the president shot one day – the biggest crime of the twentieth century. Less than thirty-three hours after the president’s autopsy, their fall guy lies in a hospital bed with a bullet in his stomach. No one prepares for emergency surgery to stave off death in this case. While he lies dying, some person on the hospital staff comes over to tell him he has a telephone call. That’s great, Oswald thinks, I’ve just been shot and now someone wants to talk to me on the phone? Who is it? It’s Lyndon Johnson, new president of the United States! He wants to extract a deathbed confession from his friend Lee.

Johnson didn’t get his confession, so now he thinks about what to do next. By Monday morning, he thinks he needs a credible commission to run his lone-nut scenario up the flag pole and keep it there. Now if you wanted to play this game well, wouldn’t you conduct an investigation that actually looked like an investigation? Would you conduct an investigation, headed by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court no less, that had all of its key conclusions in line before the commission interviews its first witness? Of course you wouldn’t. You would think about what you needed to do in order to be credible.

Johnson, Hoover, and the rest of the feds had a countervailing motive. They were open about this motive in their discussions. They wanted to make sure no conspiracy theories would start to circulate. If they did not make their lone-nut case during the first forty-eight hours – and make it successfully – they would have all kinds of speculation out there. Self-appointed sleuths would be everywhere. They were highly conscious of the need to cap off that social phenomenon, which was bound to focus on forensic evidence. They knew the fear and anger that would follow should the truth emerge.

With their incredible claim that they had solved the whole case in two hours, of course, they brought about exactly the outcome they wanted to avoid. You cannot concoct a fishy story, knock off a fishy patsy with a fishy hit man, and expect everyone to believe what you feed them. As Lincoln said, you can fool some of the people some of the time… Mostly children, and people who regard government authorities as trusted mother and father figures, believe falsehoods that flow out of Washington.

Once people stop trusting you, you just have to pretend people still do. That’s where we are now. Practically no one trusts the feds anymore. Practically no one believes what they say about political crimes. Lacking trust, the feds use the only leverage they have: ridicule and censure people who doubt the government’s line. They do that through their proxies in the media. They believe that’s how you keep people orderly and subservient. During this election season, even that last ditch defense does not work.

If you still have doubts about the way our government investigates political crimes, read a long book like James Douglass’s JFK and the Unspeakable. Or read a short book, such as T. J. Hill’s Infamy: November 22, September 11. Whatever you do, don’t believe the feds because you think they would not lie to you, or because they have these big columned buildings behind them. Your trust is misplaced. Secondly, don’t fail to stand up to the feds because you fear ridicule. Threatened ostracism is a powerful lever, but that threat has evaporated now. Free yourself from this kind of fear. It’s a phantom.