When Gerald Posner's Case Closed appeared in the summer of 1993, purporting to at last close the books on the John F. Kennedy assassination, there was a loud chorus of approval from the mainstream media in the United States. As has been widely publicized, the book concludes that Lee Harvey Oswald, acting alone, destroyed President Kennedy with three rifle shots, for no greater reason than to ensure himself a place in history.

The same media that embraced Posner has, as a group, never seriously considered the notion of a conspiracy in the JFK case. So it was no great surprise, when the thirtieth anniversary of Kennedy's death rolled around last year, that these same establishment organs were again busily trumpeting Oswald's lone guilt.

In "The Simplicity of Evil," USA Today editorialized: "No credible evidence shakes the September 24, 1964 conclusions of the Warren Commission that 'the shots which killed President Kennedy were fired by ... Oswald ... [who] acted alone.'" The paper concluded: "After all this time, accepting that is wise. Indeed, it is unavoidable."

Even President Clinton, who as a much younger man shook the hand of the doomed President, used the occasion of last year's anniversary to tell reporters, "I'm satisfied with the finding that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone."

But the same issue of USA Today that endorsed the Lone Nut scenario also published evidence that not too many people are buying that idea. According to a USA Today/CNN/Gallup poll conducted shortly before the anniversary, 86% of respondents in the 18-29 age group believe there was a conspiracy in Kennedy's death. 78% of those in the 30-49 age group believe there was a conspiracy. 71% in the 50-64 age group believe conspiracy, and 59% in the 65+ age group reject the finding that Oswald acted alone.

What do we make of this? In spite of a thirty year media blitz endorsing the Lone Nut theory --- culminating with Posner's book --- there seems never to have been a time when Americans truly believed Oswald did what the Warren Commission said he did. If there was such a time, it was a honeymoon that didn't last long.

At the same time, efforts to find an alternative truth have been fruitless. One respected researcher has written that while most Americans believe there was a conspiracy, they don't want to know there was, because that would mean having to do something about it. Others have stated more bluntly that we are in denial in this matter. Meanwhile, time continues to pass, and the chances of resolving the issue to a degree more acceptable to the legions of doubters grows increasingly slim.

Fair Play makes no pretense of having found the truth in the Kennedy case. Our aim is to keep hammering at what we believe to be self-evident: the official pronouncements in the JFK case have to date all been seriously flawed, if not downright fraudulent.

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