This week, Artvoice’s Cy Alessi interviewed attorney and author Vincent Bugliosi who was in Buffalo this week to deliver a talk at Daemen College. Bugliosi is best known as the LA deputy district attorney who successfully prosecuted Charles Manson and his “family” of the 1969 murders of actress Sharon Tate and six others. He later wrote a book about the trial called Helter Skelter.

After the aquital of O.J. Simpson, Bugliosi wrote the bestseller Outrage, criticizing the prosecutor, the defense team and the judge. And in 2001, Bugliosi published The Betrayal of America: How the Supreme Court Undermined the Constitution and Chose Our President.

This week’s interview focuses on Bugliosi’s most recent book, Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy, which was published in May. Bugliosi’s 1,612-page book lays out a case in support of the Warren Commission findings that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in the assassination of the president.

The book, which he spent 20 years working on, is the result of a 1986 London television production in which Bugliosi prosecuted Lee Harvey Oswald in a make-believe trial presided over by a real federal judge and a jury taken from the jury rolls at Dallas District Court. Bugliosi said he worked harder on the case than any other murder case in his career.

“During my preparation for the trial,” said Bugliosi, “I found out that the conspiracy theorists accused the Warren Commission of bias, distorting the evidence, suppressing the truth from the American people, and I found out it was they [the conspiracy theorists] who were guilty of these things. I found that their conspiracy theories are just pure moonshine, absolute silliness; they lied through their teeth. So I decided to do a book at that point, which means I’ve been working on this thing for over 20 years.

“The Kennedy assassination is the most important murder case in American history. Some guy from C-SPAN called me the other day and said, ‘What about Lincoln?’ And I said, ‘Well yeah, that was important, too, but more people mourned Kennedy’s death than any other human, they say, in history. There were millions more living then. Nobody said the death of Lincoln altered history, but his did…we probably would not have had the Vietnam War. So there are these cataclysmic consequences that resonate to this very day.’ Not only is this the most important murder case in American history, but I put the best of what I’ve learned as a criminal prosecutor and an author of true crime into this book.”

Alessi, an advertising representative for the newspaper, has studied the JFK assassination avidly since college. He is, as Bugliosi realized with delight part way into the interview, “A buff! You’re a buff!”

Artvoice: What inspired you to write this book?

Vincent Bugliosi: Well, London Weekend Television, a British production company, called me in 1986 and they wanted me to “prosecute” Lee Harvey Oswald on television, a docu-trial. I’d had a couple of other opportunities to appear on television in artificial courtroom settings, and my initial response was “No, I’m not interested. Thank you for thinking of me.” But they said, “Wait a while, wait a while. This is going to be totally different than anything that’s been done before. We’re going to have the real Warren Commission representatives,” which is really impressive, because by 1986 they’d been bugged for a quarter of a century. They wouldn’t talk to reporters over the phone, they shut the door in their faces. But the inducement here was flying them all to London first class with their spouse. So they were going to have the real witnesses, and they said, “We know about your love affair with your yellow pad, and that’s going to be the script.” That was the important thing. No script. The yellow pad is your script. They’d have a regular federal judge, a regular federal jury...they took them from the jury rolls at Dallas District Court. My opposition was going to be Gerry Spence, a great, great lawyer. I call him a cowboy lawyer, but I don’t use that word in denigration, it’s just that he’s a cowboy. He owns a ranch, he comes into court wearing a Stetson hat and cowboy boots. So Gerry was going to defend the guy, and we had about half a year to prepare for it. If you ask Gerry about it, he’ll tell you that each of us worked harder on this case than on any other murder case in our respective careers.

During my preparation for the trial, I found out that the conspiracy theorists accused the Warren Commission of bias, distorting the evidence, suppressing the truth from the American people, and I found out it was they (conspiracy theorists) who guilty of these precise things. I also found out that their conspiracy theories are just pure moonshine, just absolute silliness, they lied through their teeth. So I decided to do a book at that point, which means I’ve been working on this thing for over 20 years. It finally came out in May...and you didn’t know about it, that’s what a big splash this book caused (laughs).

AV: But now you’re on this tour of colleges...

VB: I’m not on a tour of colleges, Cy, I’m just here. Right now I’m working on another book in which I’ll alienate at least 30 percent of the American public. It’s going to come out in May, and it’s a very, very harsh attack on (George W.) Bush, the harshest attack yet written on him, for taking this nation to war on false pretenses. So I decided to write this book, which I’ve been working on for 20 years. Every author has his or her magnum opus, and Reclaiming History is my magnum opus, the book of my career. The Kennedy assassination is the most important murder case in American history. Some guy from C-SPAN called me the other day and said, “What about Lincoln?” And I said, “Well yeah, that was important, too, but more people mourned Kennedy’s death than any other human, they say, in history. There were millions more living then. Nobody said the death of Lincoln altered history, but his did...we probably would not have had the Vietnam War. So there are these cataclysmic consequences that resonate to this very day.” Not only is this the most important murder case in American history, but I put the best of what I’ve learned as a criminal prosecutor and an author of true crime into this book. I can’t do any better, this is the best that I can do. W.W. Norton (Publishing Company), they’ve been in existence for 80 years, and I was very honored when they told me that the old-timers back there at Norton said they were prouder of this book than of any other book that they’ve published at Norton. I’ve been fortunate to have three books make it to #1 on the New York Times list, Helter Skelter, Outrage, And the Sea Will Tell, and I never boast about any of those books, not because I didn’t think a lot of them, but because it would be in poor taste, it was unbecoming. I spoke about the fascinating circumstances upon which the books were based, but I didn’t say anything about the books themselves. But I have to say that it’s difficult for me to speak candidly about this book (Reclaiming History) without sounding boastful, and the reason is that the alternative is even worse. That if I don’t speak candidly, someone might think, “While this is just another one of the 1,000 books on the assassination,” and it’s not, it’s not. I didn’t write this book for the money, although certainly I hoped it would make money.

With the increasing superficiality in our society, and the desire for instant gratification, fewer and fewer people are reading books. If you want to make money, you don’t put out a 1,600 page book...there was a review in the New York Times a few weeks ago, and the book was 609 pages long, and the reviewer said it was “unreasonably long,” and that was probably in regular font [Bugliosi’s book is higher and wider than a normal book, and has much smaller font]. It’s very expensive at $50. With the attached CD, it’s another 1,100 pages. This is like 13 volumes of 400-page books. There are more than 10,000 citations, making it probably the most heavily sourced nonfiction book ever.

The Philadelphia Inquirer said that a hundred years from now, if historians want to know what happened in the Kennedy case, they’ll read Reclaiming History.

AV: In Helter Skelter, your conviction of Manson and his followers was achieved with a pretty far out conspiracy theory known as Helter Skelter. You didn’t accept how the police investigation was going and looked for a motive outside the box and went for that motive as the best way to get a conviction. In the case of JFK’s assassination, with all of the powerful and dangerous forces lining up against him (Bay of Pigs incident, black ops guys, the mob), why do you feel conspiracy is not a valid answer?

VB: The main reason why everyday Americans think that there’s a conspiracy in this case, and the principle argument that the conspiracy theorists use is that such and such a group had a motive, ergo they must have killed the President. That’s a child-like non-sequitur, because if you buy into that, then apparently in our society if the President is doing something that some particular group doesn’t like—like Wall Street or the unions or the CIA—then they simply kill him. I’m being sarcastic now, but that’s what we do in America. There’s a countervailing motive here...

AV: That’s an extreme option, but yes, it’s an option.

VB: That’s why I’m showing you how silly this whole notion is. We just kill him if we don’t like him...ya don’t do that. Oliver Stone, with his thinking cap turned very tightly to the opposition, he comes up with ten groups that he thought had a motive, and he has all ten involved in the assassination—even the KGB and CIA who are bitter enemies, but they got together on this one, because no one wanted Kennedy alive. As a prosecutor, I can tell you that motive is only really, really important when you can show that “This guy is the only one who had a motive.” Then it’s very, very important. I don’t know why it doesn’t get you far, because somewhere along the line you’ve got to pay the piper and you’ve got to show the jury that the person that you say had a motive is the person who committed the crime, and you can only do that by evidence.

AV: The three groups that I’ve heard about and read about since college who had the means and motive and the wherewithal to do it (who did it for fun, even), were 1) the black ops guys in the CIA, who Lyndon Johnson said had a Murder, Inc. thing going on; 2) the mob, who lost $1 billion in 1963 funds when Castro overthrew Batiste and seized the casinos, and who were then working with black ops to assassinate Castro; and then you had 3) the anti-Castro Cubans who were trained and fought at the Bay of Pigs, who felt that Kennedy didn’t supply air support when the thing was failing, and let them down. They all worked together, they all had guns in their hands...

VB: Let me show you how motive, means and opportunity means nothing at all. Kennedy flew into Dallas and he said, “We’re flying into nut country, these are right-wing crazies.” A lot of people hated Kennedy for his proposed civil rights legislation. So any of those people had a motive. Why? Because they hated Kennedy. Means—all they had to do is buy a rifle. Opportunity? All they had to do is be along the parade route. Motive, means and opportunity...I’ve heard that term. But when I was a prosecutor, I don’t remember any prosecutor ever using that term, because it’s almost a concession of defeat, because somewhere along the line the courtroom wag says, “Motive, means and opportunity...but did he do it?” You lack the evidence. There’s a countervailing motive here that you should think about. If one of these groups wants to kill Kennedy and they get caught they’re going to be executed. People don’t like to be executed. That’s a countervailing motive. But you’re right about all these groups having a motive. Just to touch on organized crime, in Sicily the mob kills everyone over there—prosecutors, judges. Are you aware that in this country, they absolutely, unequivocally do not do that, are you aware of that? It’s an unwritten rule. They don’t even kill cops. They kill each other. The mob in America does not kill public officials. Now they’re going to suddenly change all of that and start at the top of the hill by killing the most powerful man on Earth, whose brother is the top law enforcement guy in the whole country? It’s silly on its face. I’m dismissing these things out-of-hand now, but in the book I take all of these theories head-on and completely demolish them. Do you know who the head of the CIA was at the time of the assassination? John McCone, who was friends with Kennedy. Kennedy appointed him as CIA head. Maybe Kennedy didn’t invite him to a function at the White House, so McCone said, “I’m gonna kill this guy.”

AV: There’s a big Cold War factor to this whole thing. If the CIA thought that a country was going to go socialist, they had a general on standby in literally every country on the globe. As soon as they went Marxist, the CIA would support that general’s coup, he would take over the country and was corrupt, he’d clean them out. And there were a number that had been knocked off because they wouldn’t cooperate—in the Dominican Republic and South Vietnam’s President Diem. That’s what they do.

VB: Actually, the people who checked into that, the Church Committee, found no evidence that they killed any of these people, Diem or anybody else.

AV: Well, if they did their job right there would be no evidence.

VB: Well, I’m just telling you now. These people (Church Committee) were out to catch these people, and they did a completely thorough search, and they had no evidence that they succeeded in killing anyone. But that doesn’t mean that they didn’t have that intent. But you certainly see the difference between killing a foreign dictator who they don’t like and killing the President of the United States, you have to distinguish between the two.

AV: If it wasn’t a conspiracy and Oswald acted alone, why was he in the sixth floor School Book Depository window, pointing his M91 rifle with a wobbly scope at the President of the United States?

VB: I can tell by the tone of your voice that you’re a conspiracist, which is okay. You’re like 75 percent of America, who believe there was a conspiracy. Why was he there? He works there (laughs). He worked on the sixth floor.

AV: Well...

VB: There’s no well about it, he worked on the sixth floor.

AV: When you’re working in a school book depository, you could be working your two-wheeler stacking books instead of putting a sniper’s nest together and killing the President. The point is the motive, that’s what bothers me. Why, in your opinion, did he decide, one day when the President was going by, to shoot him?

VB: I had a challenge in this book, because it had always been the conventional wisdom, even among people like myself who believe that Oswald acted alone, that there would never be a satisfactory resolution to this case. There would always be some doubt. Whether you believe it or not, this book removes all doubt, it settles all questions about the Kennedy assassination once and for all, and people who’ve read the book agree with that. One question that we can’t answer is the one that you asked, why did he do it? We can’t answer that, because he’s dead.

AV: In researching your book, and trying to knock down the conspiracy theories to make your case, did you find it noteworthy to find Lee Harvey Oswald’s ties to intelligence agencies? And, most important, how do you dismiss this as not being relative to the reason he was working the Texas School Book Depository and taking those shots?

VB: You realize you departed from your original question...I’ll start by telling you about why he might’ve killed the President. If Oswald were alive today, he might not be able to tell you the dynamics going on, swirling in his mind, that caused him to do this. There are a number of reasons why he might’ve that I talk about in the book, but I’ll just touch on a couple here. This is a guy who had delusions of grandeur. His diary was called “the historical diary.” His wife, Marina, whom I met—a feisty gal—she said that he compared himself to the great historical figures about whom he read. And it’s strange because he was a dyslexic, and I thought dyslexics don’t read that much, but this guy read constantly, sometimes staying up all night.

AV: He did have a fairly high IQ. He was not well educated, but his Marine buddies thought he was a pretty interesting guy.

VB: So this is a guy who’s not just trying to create a ripple, he’s trying to change the tide of history. I agree with the Warren Commission and the House Select Committee that Castro played a role here. Oswald revered Castro, he was a very strong supporter of the Cuban revolution. You’re aware that in late-September, early-October, he went down to the Cuban consulate in Mexico City...

AV: The one big thing about the assassination is how can this gigantic conspiracy take place, that there was suppression of evidence by the FBI [VB: There was?], they wouldn’t follow leads [VB: They wouldn’t, eh?]. They wouldn’t go into leads...

VB: You’re not asking me, did they follow leads? You’re saying they didn’t, right? If we were in court, I’d say, “Your Honor, he’s assuming a fact non-evident.” You are a buff. Listen, I’m not criticizing you, you’re a buff.

AV: I’m pretty open about it.

VB: No, I think you believe in a conspiracy theory, which is fine. I’m not opposed to that, I’m just telling you it’s obvious. You’ve done a lot of research and reading, you have a lot of knowledge, but it’s all coming from buffdom.

AV: Looking at everything, the trip to Mexico City was...he went to the Soviet embassy and the Cuban embassy, and they have his voice on a recorder talking to an intelligence officer. The CIA played the recording, and the FBI guys that interviewed Castro at Dallas headquarters after the assassination said that that tape recording was not Oswald. The photograph that they showed...

VB: One of them was not Oswald, but the others were, yeah. Because they were wire-tapping the phones at the Cuban consulate and Russian embassy, right.

AV: But there hasn’t been, from what I have seen, any proof that he actually made that trip to Mexico. [VB groans] Okay, let’s speculate here. What better way to make Federal agents, who are patriots, not chase a lead?

VB: They didn’t go after the person?

AV: They didn’t go after all leads.

VB: No. Do you know when Jean Hill said that [that she saw a gunman flee from the Grassy Knoll]? She said it 20 years after the assassination. She didn’t say that on the day it happened. Oliver Stone’s movie is one continuous lie. Now I have to be fair to Oliver...he had the date correct [AV laughing loudly]. No, I want to be fair.

AV: Sarcastic, but fair.

VB: So he had the date correct and the city, but other than that, it was one continuous lie. What I’m saying is that he’s got this gal saying, “The shots came from over there, why don’t you go and check!” She said that 20 years later. And he didn’t tell his audience that. Spence wouldn’t call her to the stand [in London] because she’s such a nut!

AV: Jean Hill...this is what I gleaned from her, one of the closest bystanders. She was, if you saw photographs she was in a red coat, she was there. She said that she waved to the President, she heard a shot, [his] head exploded, she saw people behind the picket fence, she started running towards the picket fence. She saw somebody running supposedly.

VB: Yeah, everyone was running.

AV: It was chaos.

VB: She saw this person 20 years later, you’re right.

AV: She said two men in suits with Secret Service identification stopped her and said, “We’re cordoning off this area, you were right there, we need you to answer some questions.” She went to the authorities, and they asked her about it, and she said, “I saw somebody firing, or heard some firing coming from the picket fence...”

VB: You’re not listening. I’m telling you she said this about some one firing from there about 20 years later, and I guess you don’t believe me. You’re suggesting—and you’re a nice guy—you’re suggesting that you know more about this case than somebody who has worked on it for 20 years. I’m telling you, and I’ve told you several times but you keep coming back to it, she said that someone was firing from the Grassy Knoll 20 years later. She did not say it that day, all her statements are there from when she testified before the Warren Commission. You’ve got to assume that I know a little bit about what I’m talking about.

AV: Yes, I do assume you do.

VB: Now, the other thing is that when you ask questions and I start to answer them, then you go off on a tangent, you’re not getting the answer to your question about why he did this. I think that was your...

AV: Oh, the original motive question? Yes.

VB: And then you went off on this Mexico City tangent, that he wasn’t down there. Look, there are eyewitnesses that saw him, he signed in there, they took his fingerprints, they gave him a phone number to call at the Russian embassy that was found in his belongings at the time of the assassination, he told Marina that he was down there. There’s no question that he he was in Mexico City. Everything points to that fact. He himself said he was down there. Now is he a part of the conspiracy to kill Kennedy? Is he a part of it?

AV: When did he say he went to Mexico City? I’ve never heard that.

VB: Well, he wrote to the Russian embassy in November, and he spoke about Kostikov, who was a the Russian embassy, and he was very upset at the Cuban consulate and the Russian embassy, because he wanted to get this visa very desperately to get to Cuba. And he wrote this letter there. And he told Marina, and they took his photograph down there, and his fingerprints. Everything points to him being there, and you’re saying that maybe he wasn’t down there.

AV: The actual idea that he was possibly a Communist agent who was on a mission to kill Kennedy, because he was talking to Castro...

VB [sarcastically]: A Communist agent? So Russia, with the nuclear deterrent, Krushchev was trying to make peace with Kennedy, not kill him. And these people forget about their politics, these are rational people, they decided to kill the President of the United States? And they felt they’d be better off—forget about the nuclear deterrent and being blowing off the face of the earth—they thought they’d be better off with his successor? Why would they think that LBJ would be any better? Why would Russia get as their hitman someone who’s associate with them? Wouldn’t they want to distance themselves from the hitman? He defected to the Soviet Union. Of all people!

AV: So all the evidence presented by the CIA that he was in Mexico City...say, for example he was down there...[VB is laughing incredulously] so he’s going into the Soviet embassy, he’s going into the Cuban consulate, he comes back and kills Kennedy. Now this was presented to the Warren Commission and, okay, he did go down.

VB: That goes away from the idea of a conspiracy. Because if he’d gotten the visa, he’d have been in Cuba at the time of the assassination. It goes away from the idea of a conspiracy.

AV: Exactly right, but if I was an FBI guy, and it was being bounced around that Oswald was talking to the Cubans, he was talking to the Russians, he comes back and shoots Kennedy, if this came out that he possibly could’ve talked to these people...

VB: He did. Russia staffed their embassies with KGB people around the world. So he did talk to some KGB people.

AV: If I was an FBI agent in Dallas and knew that Oswald had talked to Soviets and Cuban consulates and then came back and killed Kennedy, and this came out...the Warren Commission took that little trip and put it to the side, because they wanted him to act alone, and who knows what he had in his head. They said there was no conspiracy, and he acted alone. So that would mean that it wasn’t Communist-based. But, if it was common knowledge that he had talked to these people and then killed the President, there would be a furor of indignation and bombs would fly. If the Soviets killed my President, what are you going to do about it? What are you going to do if Kennedy was killed by an agent of the Communists? Which easily could’ve been thought out, coming from where he came from. If I was an FBI agent who’s interviewing Susan at Dealey Plaza, I don’t want a conspiracy, I want him to be a lone guy who made a decision one day to start blasting for his own personal reasons, because I don’t want World War III to start. You can have a conspiracy without having a conspiracy. You can have all these [intelligence] guys thinking, ‘If somebody says they saw another shooter, and it could be a conspiracy with Communist involvement, it could be World War III and there could be a nuclear exchange, and then my family’s dead.’

VB: So all these people go together, these top-notch people and said, “Hey, we don’t want...”

AV: It could’ve been a brilliant cover story.

VB: Well, yeah, they claimed that LBJ was afraid.

AV: He was, he stated that.

VB: So basically the message to the Russians would be, “We don’t want you killing any American people, and if you do you’re in trouble, with one exception, a freebie. If you kill the President, that’s fine because we don’t want another World War. So I’ll give you a freebie on the President, you can kill him, but other than that, don’t you kill anyone else.”

AV: It would be a cover story. As an FBI agent, knowing that this was the theory being bantered around in private circles in the intelligence community, I would not look for any other answer than he was in the School Book Depository, and that is like being part of the conspiracy and not even knowing you’re part of the conspiracy. That’s my point.

VB: Let me summarize why we know that Oswald killed Kennedy, and why we know there was no conspiracy. On whether Oswald killed Kennedy: As a prosecutor I learned that if you’re innocent of a crime, chances are there’s not going to be any evidence pointing to your guilt, nothing. Why? Because you’re innocent. But now and then, because of the nature of life, the unaccountability of certain things, even though you’re innocent, there might be a piece of evidence pointing towards your guilt. And in rare situations, two or even three pieces of evidence pointing towards guilt. It’s extremely unusual, but three very strong pieces of evidence point towards your guilt, even though you’re completely innocent. But in this case here, everything points towards Oswald’s guilt. In this book, I set forth 53 pieces of evidence that point towards Oswald’s guilt, and therefore what I’m telling you is that it would be humanly impossible for this guy to be innocent in the world in which we live. Maybe in a fantasy world. And I’ll just give you a few examples of the pieces of evidence. 1) It was his weapon, a Mannlicher-Carcano [M91]. Pretty heavy evidence, come on. 2) He’s the only person that flees the School Book Depository building. They have a roll call and Oswald’s missing. 3) 45 minutes later he shoots and kills Officer J.D. Tippit. There are ten witnesses, two saw him do it and eight at the scene saw him running away. 4) A half hour later, he resists arrest and pulls a gun on the arresting officer.

AV: But the gun had a bent firing pin...it wasn’t functional. So he couldn’t have shot Officer Tippit.

VB: No, wrong. There’s nothing in any report that said that it wouldn’t fire. No report, no testimony, no nothing.

So they take him into custody and he tells one provable lie after another, e.g. “I’ve never owned a rifle.” So they show him a picture of himself with the Carcano. He’s pretty fast, and he says, “Well, that’s my head that’s been superimposed on someone else’s body.” Marina testified that she took that photo in the backyard, she told me that. She testified to it, so it’s all nonsense. So we know that Lee Harvey Oswald killed Kennedy, there’s no question about it.

Now let’s get into the issue of conspiracy. 1) There’s no credible evidence that the CIA, the mob, the military industrial complex killed Kennedy. All they come up with is motive.

AV: And means. These are pretty serious gentlemen we’re talking about.

VB: Yeah, but the means don’t mean anything, like I told you. A guy in Dallas buys a rifle and he can do it. Means doesn’t go anywhere. It’s not going to get you a cup of coffee in Buffalo for $1.

AV: $1.67, actually. Prices are going up.

VB: So there’s no evidence. I told the jury in London, and the jury convicted Oswald, I told the jury, “Three people can keep a secret, but only if two are dead.” And here we have a situation where it’s almost 44 years later, and not one word, not one syllable has leaked out from any credible source, and the reason nothing’s leaked out is because there is nothing to leak out. 2) There’s no evidence that Oswald had any connection with any of these groups believed to be behind the assassination. No credible evidence at all. The FBI interviewed him when he came back from the Soviet Union, but that’s a normal thing. But he came back June 13, 1962, and from that moment on they checked every breath that this guy ever breathed. In 25,000 interviews, they found no evidence of any connection that this guy ever had with any of these groups. 3) Assuming, for the sake of argument, that one of these groups that you mentioned, like the mob or CIA, wanted to kill the President...and I reject those out-of-hand now, but I didn’t in the book. There are chapters on these. There’s no other book that takes on all of these theories and knocks ‘em down, even the House Select Committee and Warren Report, and the Warren Report is the granddaddy of all investigation reports. I genuflect in front of them, but they did not investigate all of these theories. Assuming, for the sake of argument, that the CIA or mob said, “Let’s kill the President,” you have to know that Oswald is one of the last people on the face of this earth they would go to. Why? 1) He was not an expert shot, he was a good shot. The buff’s line is that he was a terrible shot, they say he couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn. He fired a 212, which made him a sharpshooter. He was not an expert shot. Look, if you’re the mob or the CIA and you’re going to kill the President, you’re going to get a really top-notch, expert shot. 2) He had a $12 mail order rifle. 3) He’s notoriously unreliable, extremely unstable. I mean, here’s a guy who defects to the Soviet Union pre-Gorbachev. Even today, who in the world defects to the Soviet Union?

AV: When Oswald came back, how come he wasn’t arrested?

VB: Why would he be arrested?

AV: Well, he went AWOL from the Marines.

VB: He didn’t go AWOL.

AV: He took a leave of absence to visit his mother and never came back.

VB: He didn’t go AWOL, you’ve got this all wrong.

AV: He bragged that he gave all the information he learned as a radar operator in Japan to the Soviets.

VB: Wrong. He offered it. There was nothing that he had that they were interested in. Now you’re going from one point to another. He was never AWOL. Where’d you get this? No, he had an honorable discharge, but he lied about his mother needing him. He lied about that, so they gave him a hardship. But he was never AWOL.

So he gets over there and wants to become a Soviet citizen. They turn him down, so you know what he does? He tries to kill himself. Slashes his wrists. Just the type of guy—now I’m going to be sarcastic again—that the CIA or mob would want to rely upon to give the biggest murder in American history, a total nut. 4) Assuming for whatever reason the CIA decides to kill Kennedy and they go to Oswald and he agrees to be the hitman, after he shoots Kennedy in Dealey Plaza and leaves the building, one of two things would’ve happened: there would’ve been a car waiting for him, either so he could get down to Costa Rica or Mexico, because they wouldn’t want their hitman to be apprehended and interrogated by the authorities, or, more likely, to drive him to his death.

AV: But he did die very soon, and he never faced trial.

VB: Now you’re talking about some other trial. I’m talking about what would’ve happened immediately after he left that building—there would’ve been a car waiting for him to drive him to his death. Instead he’s out on the street with $13 in his pocket, trying to flag down buses and cabs. Now that alone tells any reasonable person that there’s no conspiracy.

Even the Presidential limousine that came right in front of his window there, that motorcade route wasn’t decided until November 18. Does anyone really believe that someone would conspire with him to kill the President within four days of the President’s visit to Dallas?

With the knowledge of what I’ve just told you, we can go on with the framework that we know Oswald killed Kennedy. I say in the book that I don’t know that there’s no conspiracy. I know that Oswald killed Kennedy, because it would be humanly impossible for him to be innocent with 53 pieces of evidence against him. But it’s a little more difficult to prove a negative. When people say you can’t prove a negative, that’s nonsense, but it is a little more difficult to prove. Oswald is dead, though, so I’m satisfied beyond all reasonable doubt that there’s no conspiracy.

AV: The ballistics and the forensics of the assassination has always been the smoking gun of the case, pardon the pun. It has been the single biggest reason for so many skeptics and books opposed to the Warren Commission findings, which state three shots, and only three shots, were fired from Oswald’s M91 rifle. The first shot missed the limousine, hit a curb and a piece of concrete hit James Taque in the cheek, drawing some blood. There are two shots left, and now the Pandora’s box of controversy opens up. One shot was the headshot and the other was the one that hit John Connally. So one shot missed and the remaining two did all the damage in Kennedy and Connally. This has got to be a major portion of your book, the whole single bullet theory and the magic bullet.

VB: What do you want to know about it? I’ll explain it to you.

AV: In your opinion, does this version of events make any scientific or practical sense—that one bullet went through two bodies, went through the back and out the neck and hit Connally, shattered a rib, shattered his wrist, went into his leg and came out pristine? Does that really make sense?

VB: What you should ask me is, did it come out pristine? You said it did come out pristine.

AV: It pretty much looks pristine. The magic bullet we’re talking about is Commission Exhibit 399.

VB: You know this case [laughing].

AV: I did research.

VB: You’ve got a zillion numbers. I mean, come on. You’re giving me exhibit numbers. So you look at conspiracy books, and they tell you Exhibit 399, and they very cleverly only show you a side-profile of the bullet. In my book, you see the base of the bullet, which is badly damaged. The original bullet weighed 161 grams. The bullet is now at the National Archives, and it weighs 158.6. So it lost 2.4 grams.

AV: Shattering a rib and shattering a wrist...

VB: Okay, number one it passed through soft tissue in Kennedy, so it’s not going to be too damaged there. As far as Connally, it grazed his fifth right rib. It did cause a comminuted fracture of the wrist, and I’ve been told—I don’t know these things—that the wrist is one of the softest bones in the body. But you’ve got to realize this was a military-type bullet, fully metal jacketed. It was the very type of bullet designed to cause a lot of damage without doing a lot of damage to itself.

AV: The front was pristine, though. How could it look like that, even after passing through skin tissue, neck, rib, wrist?

VB: It obviously flipped around. In fact the entry wound to Connally is ovoid, indicating that it’d been hit by some intervening object. I know the point that you’re making. Actually, the biggest point on the magic bullet theory is that Connally wasn’t seated directly in front of Kennedy.

AV: One thing Dr. Cyril Wecht said during the House Select Committee was, “The angles at which these two men were hit do not permit a straight line trajectory on Exhibit 399, the ‘magic bullet.’ Indeed, quite the opposite is true. In order to accept the single bullet theory, it is necessary for the bullet to move at different vertical and horizontal angles, a path of flight that has never been experienced or suggested for any bullet known to mankind.” This was the President of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences.

VB: Yeah, but eight out of nine said, “Cyril, you’re wrong.” Okay, the thing with the conspiracy theorists is that I’ve never seen such intentional misinformation in any thing I’ve ever read. They just flat-out lie.

AV: Would you want to debate some of the researchers? For example, Mark Lane or Jim Marrs. Would you debate him in an open forum?

VB: Yes, if we can have national exposure. I don’t have time for these other things, absolutely not. I work on a book deadline now. If I have national exposure, though, yes. These people have nothing to say. I have a whole chapter on Mark Lane. Anyway, I want to show you how these people lie.

You see this sketch right here? Spence and Wecht used it in London, and it puts Connally directly in front of Kennedy. So they say a bullet coming from the right to the left, passing through soft tissue would have to make right turn in mid-air to hit Connally, and then make a left turn to go on. The problem is Connally was not seated directly in front of Kennedy. He was seated to his left front. So if you start out with an erroneous premise, then everything that follows makes sense, but it’s an erroneous premise. The bullet that passed through Kennedy has nowhere else to go but to hit Governor Connally. And, by the way, there’s an endnote on Arlen Specter, he’s taken all the credit for the magic bullet theory, and I’ve learned that he was just one of many.

So now we’re in London, and Gerry Spence says to Wecht, “Would you characterize this bullet?” And he says, “Well, Mr. Spence, this bullet made a right turn in mid-air, and made a left turn. Bullets don’t even do that in cartoons. It was a magic bullet.” So I said, “Dr. Wecht, the prosecution has its own magic bullet and, frankly, we’re proud of it. But now apparently you’ve got your own magic bullet. If this bullet is coming down from right to left, passes on a straight line through Kennedy’s body, which you agree, if it did not go on to hit Governor Connally’s body, as you claim it did not, how come it didn’t tear up the interior of the limousine or hit the driver or anything else?” He said, “I don’t know why. I didn’t conduct this investigation, and you’re asking me?” I said, “No, I’m just asking why it didn’t tear up the interior of the limousine, because it’s coming from high to low, right to left, passes through Kennedy and, as you say, didn’t hit Connally. Why didn’t it tear up the limousine?” He said, “Why? I don’t know, I didn’t conduct the investigation.” I said, “I’ll tell you what, Doc, apparently you have your own magic bullet, because if this bullet passed through Kennedy in a straight line, didn’t hit Connally and didn’t tear up the limousine interior, it must have zigzagged to the left.” He said, “It did not zigzag to the left.” I said, “Well, did it hop, skip and jump over the car?” He said, “No, it may not have performed any magical feat.” I said, “Then, Dr. Wecht, tell this jury, after the bullet exited the front of the President’s throat, what happened to that bullet?” He said, “I don’t know.” So, if we’re to believe the conspiracy theorists, after the bullet exited the front of the throat, it apparently vanishes without a trace into thin air. That’s the magic bullet. And yet they’ve taken they’re magic bullet theory and wrapped it around the neck of the Warren Commission for 44 years. They are the ones who have the magic bullet. This is Wecht, who’s the lead doctor for the conspiracists, saying after the bullet exited the President, he doesn’t know what happened to it. Well, it must’ve vanished into thin air.

Now you want to talk about the other issue. 1) The bullet hole was ragged, it was slightly ragged.

AV: That’s not what the Parkland Hospital said. It was totally different in the autopsy room, because they used is as a line to cut a trache tube, and then it was distorted.

VB: Wait, wait, wait. Now I’m writing a book for the ages.

AV: I remember the ages, right.

VB: And I’ve worked on it for 20 years, and you’re telling me that’s not what...did you read the Warren Report and the Warren Commission volumes?

AV: Yes...well, I didn’t read the 26 volumes, no.

VB: Okay. Did you read the testimony of Dr. Carrico? Carrico was the first surgeon who took care of the President. He said it was ragged, and you’re telling me it’s not. So I’m learning stuff from you. When this comes out in a second edition, I’m going to have to change a lot of stuff. The only problems is when I give a citation, I’m going to say “Cy.” Okay, I’m getting sarcastic, but why don’t we talk about the doctors who were there? They said it was a small, ragged wound. Why was it small?

AV: Because it was an entry wound.

VB: No, because it was soft tissue. There was testimony before the Warren Commission that it was ragged. There was also testimony that it was not ragged, so there was conflicting testimony. But nobody was looking at that hole, really.

AV: It was chaos.

VB: Right, they were trying to save his life. They’re not pathologists.

AV: And the bullet wound itself didn’t remain the same for long. They used the incision over the hole for a trache tube, which they later pulled out. Whatever that bullet wound looked like was only seen for approximately two minutes before they put the trache tube in.

VB: Except the House Select Committee blew the photos up, and they saw a little bit of a remainder of the exit wound, and it was a little jagged.

AV: If you were not too young to be the prosecutor in 1964, and you had the evidence that was available, could you convict Oswald as a lone gunman? With all the people who were coming forward, saying they thought they heard shots coming from the Grassy Knoll, could you convict Oswald? If there were a number of people, which a defense attorney would bring up, who said there was a front gunman...for example, the story from that 1987 book by Tip O’Neill, Man of the House. In it, he says that Kenneth O’Donnell and Dave Powers both heard two shots from the front. O’Neill asks of them, “Why didn’t you tell the (Warren) Commission investigators?” And they revealed that the FBI convinced them, for the good of the Kennedy family and the good of national security, they should just talk about the shots from Oswald. That’s what they told Tip O’Neill, and he put it in his book. If Dave Powers and Kenny O’Donnell, two Irish guys who loved their buddy Jack, came on the witness stand and said they heard two shots from the Grassy Knoll...

VB: One of them thought that it could’ve come from there; the other did not say that. O’Donnell did not say that, but Powers said, “I don’t know where it came from; it could’ve come from the front.”

AV: I’m thinking two words: reasonable doubt. If your tack as a prosecutor is that he was in the School Book Depository firing alone, and you had all these people—in ’64 there were still plenty of people who said they thought they heard shots on the Grassy Knoll, Jean Hill and all those people—if that was the case, could you have gotten a conviction as a lone gunman? Or would you have said that he had possible conspiratorial ties with somebody, maybe he was part of a conspiracy, but we’ve got him. Then all of the multiple bullet theories, all that, it doesn’t matter, because he’s part of it. Where would you have gone? Coming from Helter Skelter world, where you were saying the Beatles were telling the Mansons to kill, from that conspiracy theory, would it have been possible for a conviction as part of a conspiracy instead of a lone gunman?

VB: We had the virtual duplication of what you’re hypothesizing in London, and the guy who was defending Oswald was the top criminal defense attorney in the entire country. He was talking about all these things, about shots coming from the Grassy Knoll. If Oswald had been prosecuted in real life...if you think that Gerry Spence, with his record, would’ve taken this case thinking he was going to lose, you’re wrong. He thought he was going to win. If you saw the film, we were both very, very serious about what we were doing. In real life, Oswald would not have been prosecuted for a conspiracy. Why? Because the prosecutor would not think that there was a conspiracy, but that he acted alone. In London, then, the only question was did he or did he not kill the President? But the conspiracy thing was interwoven, there’s no way to keep it out.

AV: I don’t think there would’ve even been a Warren Commission if Oswald were alive and had been prosecuted. It would’ve been you with the evidence you had, with the evidence for Oswald and all the other witnesses. Would you have prosecuted him with that, though?

VB: Would I have prosecuted Oswald? Of course, my God. I just told you there are 53 pieces of evidence...it was his weapon, he ran away, he lied, he killed someone else. You’ve got to be kidding me, of course I would’ve! Earl Warren, who used to be the DA up in Oakland, he said, “This would be two, three day murder case if the victim hadn’t been the President.” Of course I would’ve prosecuted Oswald. But on the issue of conspiracy, no one’s ever going to prove beyond all doubt...I’ve proven beyond all reasonable doubt in this book that there’s no evidence. But he’s dead now. About the trial, you raise an interesting issue here. How do we know that Oswald would’ve taken the witness stand? [Oswald assassin] Ruby didn’t take the witness stand. Many defendants don’t. And he may have continued to deny. Also, at a trial, Marina furnished an enormous amount of evidence against Oswald, because she lived with him, she knew him better than anyone else. Because of the husband-wife privilege, at the trial none of that would’ve come out. It came out in front of the Warren Commission. So I can’t categorically say that if he had lived that...

AV: I have a reasonable doubt issue that would’ve been a prosecutor’s big problem. Putting [Oswald] up here [referring to the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository] for people seeing things down there [on the Grassy Knoll] would’ve been the issue.

VB: The majority of people felt that the shots came from the Book Depository, but quite a few people thought the shots came from the Grassy Knoll. But you’re aware that Dealey Plaza resounds with echoes. And the Grassy Knoll doesn’t make any sense for all types of reasons. 1) Forget about [Jean] Hill, because she came up 20 years later. No one saw anyone with a gun behind the picket fence at the time of the assassination. 2) No weapon. No expended cartridges from a weapon were found there. 3) It would’ve been a difficult shot. If you go up to the window, it’s almost a straight shot.

AV: Yes, I went up there. I found out it’s not as big as I thought it was going to be. It was a very intimate place for this to happen in. But there is an oak tree in the line and a highway sign that was up at the time.

VB: That’s right. You really know this case, whoa.

AV: And I was at the picket fence. It was about a ten-foot shot.

VB: It wasn’t ten. It was more like 30 yards. This is the only book, and I can’t figure out why, that has a scaled map of Dealey Plaza. Now let me show you something here, and see if this makes sense to you. The bullet was a very large bullet. If the shot came from here [indicating the Grassy Knoll], first of all it’s traveling from right to left. But the bullet traveling and hitting the President, as the buffs say, on the right side of his head...Cyril (Dr. Wecht) says that the bullet exploded here, but—he doesn’t know—there may have been a simultaneous shot. If the bullet is coming from here, it’s going to pass through Kennedy’s head and at the absolute minimum it’s going to traverse the left hemisphere of the President’s head. The autopsy showed no damage to the left side of the President. The left hemisphere of the brain was intact. But at 30 yards you’re shooting him with this rifle and it enters the right side of his head, as the buffs say, and it doesn’t go into the left side of his brain? It doesn’t even make any sense.

AV: So it’s 45 years later, and all we can do is speculate. You have very compelling evidence. And many conspiracy researchers think they have very compelling evidence. I’m glad that someone of your standing is coming out and presenting this perspective, because it can only raise awareness and rebuttal. I would like to see a debate of some sort...

VB: We could debate, but it’s just embarrassing these people and the way they’ve distorted the evidence. Have you ever heard of Dr. David Mantik?

AV: No, I haven’t.

VB: Dr. Mantik is considered to be in the top two or three members of the conspiracy community in America. He wrote a 30-page review of Reclaiming History. He said, “Reclaiming History is going to be magnum opus of the Kennedy assassination forever.” This is David Mantik. These conspiracy theorists, this is a big part of their life.

AV: It’s an all-consuming thing. It’s the crime of the century.

VB: They go to conventions...

AV: You spent 20 years of your life on it. That’s a big chunk of your life.

VB: I was consumed by it because I got sucked into the abyss and I couldn’t get out. But I had an objective. These people do it because it’s their life. They subscribe to newsletters. I’m going to be able to extricate myself now. But, I’m telling you, for these people it’s their whole life, they believe it, they’re allergic to anything that points away from it. I tell people, “Listen, if your child wants to get involved in this case, it’s toxic. Keep them away from this case.” It’s destroyed many lives—bankruptcies, divorces, suicides and everything else.

AV: I was never that into it. I just thought it was an interesting case.

VB: No, you know a lot about the case. I’m not accustomed to people that interview me knowing so much about it. But you’ve gotten most of your information from conspiracy books.

AV: I read the Warren Commission, but not the whole 26 volumes. That’s a little...as Lyndon Johnson said, “It’s heavy.”

VB: I came up with something recently, because my book’s not thick enough. I want to make it thicker. I started thinking that Kennedy himself might be partly responsible for the continuing fascination with this case. People loved John F. Kennedy. He was mourned by more people than any other human in history. Only one country did not mourn his death—China. But they loved Jack Kennedy, even the people that voted against him. Not Bobby...they loved him, too, but he had a lot of enemies. Nellie Connally (Texas Governor John Connally’s wife), she was married to a handsome man, ya know. She said, “I thought I knew charisma until I met John F. Kennedy.” So what I’m saying is that they loved this guy so much that maybe these conspiracy theories are one way to hang onto him, maybe they just don’t want to see him die. I postulate this question, and I don’t know the answer, though I think I do: If LBJ had been murdered under the same, identical, precise circumstances as JFK, do you really think that 44 years later there’d be the same interest? I don’t think so. Kennedy was special. He was one of these people...it’s like Marilyn and Elvis and Kennedy. So in a very strange and ironic way, maybe he himself is partly responsible.

Dr. Susan Feneck, forensic psychologist, attended the Bugilosi interview as an observer.