Octafish to attend JFK assassination conference. Do you think JFK still matters?

[struggle4progress]

46. It was fifty years ago. It's a very cold case. The original investigation may indeed

have had a subtext, of deflating possible Soviet or Cuban involvement, in order to avoid a major Cold War crisis -- but that, of course, does not mean that the Soviets or Cubans were involved

One problem is that we will find no shortage of possible suspects, who could have been ideologically motivated to assassinate Kennedy, or who might have had some material interest in his assassination: beyond the Soviets and Cubans, and beyond the strange figure of Oswald, one might consider (say) right-wing Texans, rogue CIA contacts furious about the Bay of Pigs, or Vice President Johnson

But today IMO no useful historical understanding is likely to result immediately from further direct assault on the Kennedy assassination itself: such work far too easily falls prey to cherry-picking details in support of one's own pet theory. Instead, one ought to try to understand various pieces of the context in as much detail as possible

How complete a picture of Oswald himself can we paint, for example? Was he likely to have been a Soviet recruit, or a CIA attempt to create a double-agent, or was he simply a disturbed young man?

What can we say about extremist opposition to Kennedy in Texas? Who was involved? How was it funded? How complete an understanding do we have of Jack Ruby's contacts?

What can we discover now about the internal politics of the CIA, or of the CIAs network of rightwing Cubans, in the late 1950s or early 1960s -- and in particular, about the reactions inside the CIA or of CIA contacts to the Bay of Pigs?

Such investigations, by providing solid and verifiable information about context, might eventually produce progress on the assassination -- but could be interesting and worthwhile, even without ultimately shedding decisive light on the assassination