Oswald in the doorway: the blog of the Oswald Innocence Campaign, by Ralph Cinque

Dr. Schotz wrote this response to my article about his book:

Hi Ralph,

Thanks for the kind words, but I must offer one correction.  I must reject the notion that I am "uniquely qualified" to say anything of real importance about the assassination.  Vince has always maintained that he simply used the reasoning powers he had as an Italian peasant.  That is what qualified him.  One of my heroes is the great 19th Century Russian revolutionary Nikolai Chernyshevsky, who once wrote,  "I have no particular talent, but I can follow an argument, and I know what leads to what."  That is how I see myself.  When my son was about 10 years old he wanted to know what was all this stuff about the Warren Report.  So I started to describe the magic bullet theory.  He stopped me immediately, "Dad that's ridiculous. No one would believe that.  What did they really say."  There you have it.  It is a case of "The Emperors New Clothes."  But what the fable does sufficiently emphasize is the force that lies behind mass denial, the way people fear having their identity challenged, and coming face to face with their true political responsibilities.  I think your notion that there is a religion here "statism" in valuable, along with the religion of anti-communism,  which David Talbot lays out so beautifully in his new book, The Devil's Chessboard.

Best wishes,

Marty