On November 30, JFKFacts.org, edited by Jefferson Morley, who is suing the CIA for the release of documents related to the Kennedy assassination, published a link to a long argument for the lone assassin theory in “Against Conspiracy.” Presumably Morley did so because he considers it a responsible case for that point of view. The article he referenced is “JFK Conspiracy Theories at 50: How the Skeptics Got It Wrong and Why It Matters,” by David Reitzes.

I read it and felt that he was convincing. Then I read a November 21 essay in the New Yorker, “A Word in Favor of J.F.K. Conspiracy Theories,” by John Cassidy, and I was persuaded that there are still important unanswered questions. Cassidy argues:

…I’m willing to swallow my skepticism and accept the official story: Oswald was the lone shooter. But why did he do it, and was he maybe put up to it?…. There is also the unresolved question of how the C.I.A. may have been connected to Oswald, or, at least, how closely it was tracking his movements…. The suspicion lingers that the Agency, for whatever reason, was monitoring Oswald more keenly than it has let on….

But here’s another question that has always refused to vacate my mind when I’ve been about to close the casebook. If Oswald acted alone, without any outside influence, how and why did Jack Ruby pump a .38 slug into his gut two days later in the basement of the Dallas police headquarters?… On the face of it, doesn’t it sound more likely that Ruby, a rakish gambler and strip-joint proprietor with longstanding ties to the criminal underworld, shot Oswald to keep him silent?…

It’s hard to see Ruby as the self-sacrificing or altruistic type…. If any outsider could slip through the security lines and get to the accused shooter, it was Ruby, and it’s hardly outlandish to assume that some of his shadier associates knew this.

On the morning of November 24, he somehow managed to be present, and armed with his pistol, at the very moment when Oswald was being walked to a car for transfer to a jailhouse. Mere coincidence?…

So, were both Oswald and Ruby acting alone, for reasons of their own? It’s perfectly possible. But the conspiracy theorists aren’t being completely off the wall in suggesting that this might not be the entire story…. The horrific and endlessly fascinating forty-eight hours that brought together Kennedy, Oswald, and Ruby bequeathed too many puzzling details, weird coincidences, and shady characters for the doubters to stay silent.

Revelations about how the Surveillance State has recently taken unwarranted political actions against Occupy and certain Muslims heightens the need for a more transparent, accountable CIA. Their strange secrecy around the Kennedy assassination is another cause for concern. Even if Oswald was the sole shooter, we need to know more about the CIA’s relationship with Oswald.