From: twarner@hardy.u.washington.edu (Tom Warner)
Subject: Re: LHO MYSTERY ID
Organization: University of Washington
Date: Sun, 20 Dec 1992 04:46:26 GMT

> John McAdams
>> me

(some questions already answered in a related post are deleted)

>Or maybe you *don't* believe that his killing was at the behest of The
>Conspiracy?  Do you?

Since the consequences of the hit were severe, I doubt very much that Ruby
was simply a hit man working for money. I think he was acting under orders
from the top level of the Mafia, possibly Carlos Marcello himself. In other
words, I think he was probably forced into it, possibly because the mafia was
panicking, or possibly because Ruby was seen as to blame for Oswald getting
into police custody alive. Or he could have been trying to be a mafia hero.

>You're telling me I should believe in a conspiracy, even when nobody can come
>up with a conspiracy theory that doesn't have some fundamental flaw of evidence
>or logic?

I'm not telling you what you should or shouldn't believe. In fact, nothing
interests me less. And I say it again, there are an infinite number of
possible conspiracy scenarios, only fraction of which have a flaw that rules
them out as possibilities.

>You don't want to be "pinned down to one exact conspiracy?"  Do you mean you
>are like the lawyer whose client was accused of borrowing a pot and returning
>it cracked?  You remember the story: he addresses the jury and says "Ladies and
>Gentlemen, my client is innocent.  He never borrowed that pot.  Further, it was
>already cracked when he borrowed it.  Finally, ladies and gentlement, I intend
>to prove to you that my client returned it in perfect condition."

I'm not a lawyer, and I'm not in court. To use your analogy, I'm plenty
willing to argue that the pot may never have been borrowed if I don't know
whether or not the pot was borrowed, plenty willing to argue that the pot
may have already been cracked when it was borrowed if I don't know the
condition of the pot before it was borrowed (if it was borrowed), and plenty
willing to argue that the pot may have been returned in perfect condition if
I don't know the condition of the pot when it was returned (if it was
borrowed in the first place). I'm not trying to prove to you what did or
did not happen, I'm simply discussing the possibilities as I see them.

>So you feel free to argue at one point that Oswald knew nothing that would
>threaten The Conspiracy (thus he could be arrested as a "fall guy") and at
>another that The Conspiracy was threatened by having him in custody (thus it
>had him killed)?

No, but then, I don't know of any group of human beings that has ever
acted as uniformly logically toward a single common set of goals as you
seem to demand of "The Conspiracy."

>If there was a conspiracy, it was "one exact conspiracy."  If you can't produce
>a plausible theory about how it operated and what it did, then you shouldn't
>expect to convince anyone who's thinking rationally.

Again, there are countless possibilities, and I can't even say that I have
ever even considered enough possibilities to be sure that any I've considered
is the actual true history or even very close to it. I don't see any benefit
in deciding, without knowing all the important facts, that from now on I'm
going to be the proponent of possiblity 1378904-X or whatever.