Historian Michael Kurtz pens new book on dueling theories surrounding JFK assassination

Contact: Christina Chapple

11/10/06

NOTE TO EDITORS: If you would like to follow up on this press release, Dr. Kurtz will be available for interviews. His class on the assassination meets on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 9:30 a.m. Please contact Christina Chapple or Rene Abadie, Southeastern Public Information, 985-549-2341, to arrange an interview or to sit in on a class. 

     HAMMOND – Was the Warren Commission’s one-gunman theory accurate or was John F. Kennedy’s assassination the result of a conspiracy? Will we ever know the answer to “Who killed JFK?”

     While Michael L. Kurtz believes that cover-ups and incompetency have permanently obliterated the ultimate truth, in his new book the Southeastern Louisiana University historian and noted assassination scholar sums up and critiques four decades of dueling assassination debates.

     “The JFK Assassination Debates: Lone Gunman versus Conspiracy” was published Nov. 8 by the University Press of Kansas. Kurtz describes the book, his second on the assassination, as an attempt to “bring into focus” the often heated, always provocative arguments that continue to swirl around that fateful day in Dallas, Nov. 22, 1963.

     His fellow historian and author Douglas Brinkley calls the book, “A smart, engaging history of the stormy debate … a book you can trust on a topic fraught with controversy.”

     “Practically every other work previous written about the assassination, including my own -- the 1993 “Crime of the Century: The Kennedy Assassination from a Historian's Perspective,” the first full-length scholarly study of the subject -- has taken one side or the other,” said Kurtz. “This time, I wanted to present both sides, the lone assassin Warren Commission thesis and the conspiracy side of the story. At the same time, I discuss the most reliable factual evidence regarding the assassination and deal with a couple of the primary consipiracy theories.”

     Dean of Southeastern’s graduate school, Kurtz, in addition to his earlier book, has written numerous articles on the assassination in journals such as “The Historian” and “Louisiana History.” For the past 30 years, he has taught a JFK assassination course that is perennially one of the university’s most popular electives. More than 35 students are enrolled in the course this semester.

     In “The JFK Assassination Debates: Lone Gunman versus Conspiracy,” Kurtz, while making it clear that he thinks there was a conspiracy in the assassination, underlines both the logic and the limitations of the major theories about the case. He also offers unique interpretations of the physical and forensic evidence and of existing areas of controversy, leading him to new conclusions.

     For instance, “I think that the bulk of the evidence shows that Oswald probably did shoot and kill Officer J.D. Tippett,” Kurtz said. “And I think it’s possible that a bullet from Oswald’s rifle could have caused Kennedy’s head wounds; but, by the same token, that it is not possible for one person to have fired just one shot in the assassination.”

     Kurtz devotes a chapter on the mishandling and suppression of evidence, which he says is the root of the long-standing lone gunman/conspiracy schism. He maintains that those responsible for the assassination investigation, including the Dallas police, the FBI, and the Warren Commission, “failed so miserably in their efforts that they would have been laughed off the air if they had been portrayed on any of television’s popular ‘CSI’ series.

     “The evidence was handled in such a sloppy manner that it never would have been introduced in a court of law,” Kurtz added. “The whole legal case against Lee Harvey Oswald would have collapsed like a house of cards” had the ill-fated assassin lived to have his day in court.

     Kurtz, who as a college student at the University of New Orleans had a brief encourter with Oswald, also provides new information about the accused gunman’s activities around the time of the assassination and about his double life, analyzing Oswald’s ties to the intelligence community, to organized crime, and to both anti- and pro-Castro Cuban activists.

     Mustering impressive documentation, including exclusive interviews with key figures and extensive materials declassified by the assassination Records Review Board, he both confirms and alters much previous speculation about Oswald and other aspects of the case.

     To present the clear and balanced picture, “I had to absorb everything out there,” Kurtz said, admitting that the volumes of available material presented “a big challenge” despite his years of studying the subject.

     “I don’t have any great hopes that we’re going to find out the whole truth about the assassination, but I hope that [the book] will bring the whole picture into focus,” Kurtz said.