In Dr. David W. Mantik's pre-recorded appearance for the March 22, 2012, "Black Op Radio" program (embedded above), Mantik devoted the whole program to attacking John McAdams' 2011 book, "JFK Assassination Logic: How To Think About Claims Of Conspiracy".
Naturally, since Dr. Mantik is a devoted conspiracy theorist when it comes to the topic of President Kennedy's assassination, it's no surprise that he can find no worthwhile or redeeming features in Professor McAdams' book whatsoever. So that's no real shocker. [Mantik's complete review of the book is here.]
I jotted down a few notes while listening to Dr. Mantik's radio appearance, and here are a few observations that I think should be made:
1.) Mantik's comparison between McAdams' hypothetical 20 conspirators in the JFK case and the real-life 19 conspirators who hijacked the four jetliners that were used as flying bombs on 9/11 is not a valid comparison at all.
McAdams' hypothetical example involving "20 conspirators" in the Kennedy case was obviously referring to the likelihood of any of those 20 plotters spilling the beans AFTER the assassination had taken place.
Whereas in the 9/11 instance, it's quite obvious to everybody on the planet (except perhaps James Fetzer) that the 19 hijackers had no intention or desire to "hide" their conspiracy from the world after the four planes struck their targets in Washington and New York.
Since there were FOUR planes being used as terrorist bombs on 9/11, does Dr. Mantik think that the hijackers themselves could have kept their plot secret from the world after the planes reached their targets (even though each hijacker would be silenced for all time when they each died in their respective crashes)?
Mantik's "9/11 vs. JFK" comparison is simply laughable.
2.) Mantik berates McAdams for supposedly ignoring all of the so-called "new" evidence of conspiracy in the JFK case that has surfaced since the Warren Report came out in 1964.
But I want to know what "new" physical evidence Dr. Mantik or any conspiracy theorist has unearthed since '64 that would undermine the conclusion that Oswald acted alone? I have yet to see any hard, physical evidence that would prove the Warren Commission got it wrong.
And the reason we haven't seen any such "conspiracy" evidence (of a physical nature) is because no such evidence exists--and it never did. It didn't exist at the time of the Warren Commission's investigation and it doesn't exist now.
All Dr. Mantik has are his suspicions and his theories about conspiracy. But in the final analysis, the physical evidence hangs Lee Harvey Oswald. That evidence proved Oswald was guilty of killing JFK and Tippit in 1963; and that same evidence proves he was guilty today.
The evidence against Oswald hasn't suddenly VANISHED in the intervening 49 years, even though many conspiracy theorists seem to believe there's no hard evidence against their prized patsy whatsoever--in EITHER the JFK case or the Tippit case.
So if somebody wants to say that I, too, am "stuck in the 1960s" regarding my views on this case, I don't really mind. Because being stuck in the 1960s when it comes to the JFK assassination is being stuck in the place where all the real evidence is.
David Von Pein
March 22, 2012
