Every claim the book does not simply assert

216 labeled claims, and what each one rests on

The book labels a claim whenever it is not simply asserting it. Those labels appear beside the sentence as you read, which is right, and useless if you want to audit the judgment rather than meet it one paragraph at a time. Here they all are, 216 of them, in the order they appear in the book.

The second label on each row is a different question: not how confident the book is, but what the claim rests on. A claim tied to a record number can be opened and read. A claim resting on an account cannot, however reasonable it sounds.

Disputed The record does not agree with itself here. 113

Theory Set out and weighed, not asserted. 77

Reconstructed Built from measurement rather than testimony. 26

Document Rests on a record you can open, by its record number.

Official record Rests on the Warren Commission, HSCA or sworn testimony.

Rests on a book, an interview or contemporary reporting.

LabelRests onThe claimChapter
DisputedWas Johnson about to be dropped?1
TheoryWhat is actually unusual about his list1
DisputedAnd one of them was murdered a year later1
DisputedVietnam was a decision he had just half made1
ReconstructedThe fence is younger than the plaza3
DisputedOfficial recordVictoria Adams ran down the stairs3
DisputedOfficial recordDal-Tex, the building nobody looks at4
ReconstructedOfficial recordWhat the driver could see in his mirror4
DisputedOfficial recordAnd that number is doing more work than it should4
DisputedOfficial recordTwo rows that do not work5
ReconstructedOfficial recordBetween the surveyed points, it is arithmetic5
ReconstructedOfficial recordThe tree had to be grown backwards5
ReconstructedOfficial recordAnd here is where the model disagrees with the record5
ReconstructedOfficial recordSo I solved for the window fourteen times5
ReconstructedOfficial recordAnd the two bad rows are not the bad ones5
ReconstructedWhich leaves exactly one thing that can be wrong5
ReconstructedOfficial recordSo I asked the table which frame it thinks that row is5
ReconstructedAnd I tried hard to make that answer go away5
ReconstructedWhat that actually fixes5
ReconstructedNow the honest limits on that5
ReconstructedStep three. Convert it into something a person can feel5
DisputedOfficial record12:30:02. The first one6
DisputedOfficial record12:32. Behind the fence6
DisputedOfficial recordJean Hill, the lady in red6
DisputedThe fence, and Badge Man6
DisputedOfficial recordLee Bowers had the only view behind the fence6
DisputedOfficial recordS.M. Holland saw smoke under the trees6
DisputedOfficial recordOfficer Joe Marshall Smith and the credentials6
DisputedOfficial recordFrame 224. The lapel flips6
DisputedOfficial recordFrame 161. Was that the first one?6
DisputedOfficial recordFrame 290. The hat he never dropped6
DisputedOfficial recordThe frames nobody agrees about6
DisputedOfficial recordHow fast can that rifle be fired6
DisputedOfficial recordThe shot nobody agrees on is the first6
DisputedOfficial recordThe acoustic claim was really a timing claim6
DisputedOfficial recordHoward Brennan went home and said nothing7
DisputedOfficial recordHow many shots did they hear7
DisputedOfficial recordThe direction they pointed7
DisputedOfficial recordHe could see it and he could not say it7
DisputedOfficial recordWhat he says he saw behind the fence7
DisputedOfficial recordHe tried to tell them and it did not work7
DisputedOfficial recordRosemary Willis stops running7
DisputedThe films that were never produced7
DisputedOfficial recordChicago, and a trip that was canceled7
DisputedDocumentThree weeks earlier, a name had been used7
ReconstructedDocumentAnd a hundred and six pages nobody had read7
DisputedOfficial recordLee Bowers died two years later8
DisputedOfficial recordWhy that is not the end of the argument8
DisputedOfficial recordShe changed her mind8
DisputedOfficial recordArnold Rowland saw two men9
DisputedOfficial recordThe trip to Mexico City9
DisputedOfficial recordEverything rests on things his wife said9
DisputedAnd nobody has ever explained why he stopped that man9
DisputedOfficial recordWas Oswald ever in the club10
DisputedThe real Ruby problem is not Oswald at all10
DisputedOne reporter got to him alone10
DisputedOfficial recordHe asked for a lie detector and he took one10
TheoryAnd at the end he said he had been injected with cancer10
DisputedDocumentAnd the President had authorized both10
DisputedAnd ten weeks earlier he had said something people never let go10
DisputedThe French president did not believe it either10
DisputedOfficial recordAnd the sight on it was almost worthless11
DisputedOfficial recordAnd it argues in two directions at once11
DisputedOfficial recordThe bullet that was almost undamaged11
DisputedOfficial recordThe palm print that arrived late11
DisputedBoth readings of that, and I lean to the dull one11
DisputedOfficial recordThe sight on it did not work properly11
DisputedOfficial recordNobody agrees which stretcher it was on11
DisputedOfficial recordSeven. He had done something extremely like it before11
TheoryAnd here is the only place I still get off11
DisputedA man found a piece of skull in the grass the next day11
DisputedOfficial recordAnd the palm print was taken where a body was11
DisputedAnd it has never entirely stayed dead11
DisputedThe man who told them not to come up11
ReconstructedOfficial recordWhat a reconstruction can and cannot show11
DisputedOfficial recordWhy the number of shots is so hard11
DisputedOfficial recordThat is the moment worth staring at12
DisputedOfficial recordThe same men, sixty years apart12
DisputedOfficial recordWhich sits very badly beside something you already know12
DisputedThey said the head only went backward. It does both.12
DisputedAnd in the doorway there is somebody nobody named12
DisputedWhy the identity of a blur matters this much12
DisputedOfficial recordTwo ways to read a soft landing13
DisputedOfficial recordAnd he left her almost everything he had13
DisputedOfficial recordWhat the colony actually tells you13
DisputedOfficial recordThe address stamped on the leaflets13
DisputedOfficial recordWhat that summer actually shows13
DisputedAnd he said he asked permission first13
DisputedOfficial recordThe man who gave him a lift13
DisputedOfficial recordThree men at a door in Dallas13
DisputedOfficial recordWhy the Odio incident will not go away13
DisputedOfficial recordAnd thirty years later she said the opposite13
DisputedOfficial recordThe single-bullet conclusion14
DisputedOfficial recordHe drove to Texas in a thunderstorm to go ice skating14
DisputedOfficial recordHe died four days after the case became public14
DisputedOfficial recordEverything hung on a name in a phone call14
DisputedOfficial recordDestroyed before anyone could ask14
DisputedOfficial recordMexico City is where the record got thicker14
DisputedOfficial recordThe officer who was sent to help Congress14
DisputedOfficial recordWhat that does and does not mean14
DisputedHe made it because he thought the film was wrong15
DisputedAnd the paper stops at the border, which is odd16
DisputedOfficial recordAnd the tapes were gone, except when they were not17
ReconstructedAnd sixty files are not even named properly18
ReconstructedSo the first job was turning pictures back into words19
ReconstructedAnd I want to defend the head pages, then admit what they cost19
ReconstructedThen you search for the machinery rather than the story19
DisputedDocumentWhich makes the question sharper, not softer19
TheoryAnd it is the same shape as everything else in this book19
DisputedDocumentAnd in the same file, a cryptonym I cannot identify19
TheoryBut it sharpens the question rather than closing it19
ReconstructedThen I asked the question the other way round19
ReconstructedAnd the order is not what anybody would guess19
ReconstructedAnd then a queue of one19
ReconstructedSo I taught a machine to read for it19
ReconstructedAnd the first thing it found made me wrong19
ReconstructedBecause the Agency had it printed on the stationery19
ReconstructedWhat the count is worth, and what it is not19
DisputedDocumentWhy this is not the last word20
DisputedThe officer who met him in Mexico City wrote a book20
DisputedOne empire opened its files and the friends did not20
TheoryThe man in the sewer21
TheoryOfficial recordThe second Oswald21
TheoryThe Babushka Lady21
TheoryBadge Man behind the fence21
TheoryOfficial recordThe umbrella was a weapon21
TheoryOfficial recordThe driver turned and fired21
TheoryOfficial recordEverybody's favorite culprit21
TheoryOfficial recordThe body was altered21
TheoryOfficial recordRuby was sent to silence him21
TheoryOfficial recordWhy these never die21
DisputedOfficial recordTake the stone out of my shoe21
DisputedOfficial recordWhy this is the strongest one and still is not enough21
DisputedOfficial recordThe rifle was not a bad rifle21
DisputedOfficial recordHe was not a bad shot21
DisputedOfficial recordThe head moves back, and that is complicated21
DisputedNobody stood in the storm drain21
DisputedThe most cited name on the list21
DisputedOfficial recordThe Secret Service was not told to stand down21
DisputedOfficial recordWas the film altered?21
TheoryThe man who said he did it, then said he was joking21
TheoryWhy people thought he was one of the tramps21
DisputedOfficial recordJulia Ann Mercer and the man on the curb21
DisputedGordon Arnold, the soldier who was never there21
DisputedOfficial recordDeputy Roger Craig and the station wagon21
DisputedOfficial recordThe strongest version is a woman stuck in traffic21
DisputedAnd what she said about her own affidavit21
DisputedWhy that one is harder to wave away than most21
DisputedOfficial recordAnd the schoolteacher in the red coat said she was leaned on21
DisputedOfficial recordTwo of them, though, are not on the list by accident21
TheoryOfficial recordA clerk on the night shift, five days early21
TheoryOfficial recordWhat he says it said21
TheoryIf it is real, nothing else in this book matters much21
TheoryOfficial recordThrown from a car on a Louisiana highway21
TheoryOfficial recordWhat she is said to have said21
TheoryOfficial recordAnd afterward the officer believed her21
TheoryOfficial recordCastro did it first21
TheoryHe was going to leave Vietnam21
DisputedWhat the withdrawal memorandum actually said21
TheoryOfficial recordThe man in the doorway, again21
TheoryHe was killed over the Federal Reserve21
TheoryThe one about the nuclear program21
TheoryA woman who says she was with him that summer21
TheoryOfficial recordAnd men who say they pulled the trigger21
DisputedNobody knows where the hat is22
TheoryI do not look at this the way most people do23
TheoryThey let him have the parade first23
TheoryDoing it that way was not necessary23
DisputedOfficial recordThe colonel was in New Zealand that week23
DisputedAnd the ordinary explanation mostly works23
TheoryWhat I hear him saying23
TheoryWhich is why I keep coming back to it23
DisputedOfficial recordThe investigations nobody ran23
TheoryWhat I actually believe23
TheoryAnd this is where I stop being checkable23
TheoryAnd here is the trap in what I just said23
TheoryIt is not the coup, it is the manner23
TheoryA public execution23
TheoryWhat else got stopped23
TheoryNone of the usual suspects behaves like this23
TheoryThe thesis, in one paragraph23
TheoryThe Service would have found the Bureau23
TheoryThe arrest ran like it was rehearsed23
TheoryAnd that costs me something23
TheoryCould have is not did23
TheoryOfficial recordWhy I think he was somebody's23
TheoryAt most he was the second man, and here is why not the shooter23
TheoryOfficial recordNinety seconds, a rope elevator and a Coca-Cola23
TheoryAnd there is a figure in the doorway nobody has ever named23
TheoryAnd the palm print is still the problem with all of it23
TheoryI think the name was worn by more than one person23
TheoryOne impersonation is not a program23
TheoryHoover had it inside a day23
TheoryThe last one is not like the others23
TheoryIf it was a message, that is what a message looks like23
DisputedAnd the ordinary version fits just as well23
TheoryDocumentWhich is what makes nothing so hard to swallow23
TheoryWhich is exactly the shape I keep finding23
TheoryAnd then the thing I cannot argue away23
TheoryWhat actually bothers me is the size of the response23
TheoryEverybody asks the wrong who23
TheoryIt is not the Agency and it is not the Bureau23
TheoryRead the aftermath, not the plaza23
TheoryWhat I think it points at23
TheoryThings like this do not just happen23
TheoryAsk what did not happen instead23
TheoryI used to think the payday was Vietnam23
TheoryI have come to think it was personal23
TheoryKennedy threatened that from both directions23
TheoryAnd I have no document for any of that23
TheoryBoth answers are worth having, and one of them is very hard23
TheoryIf there is nothing there, how are we seeing fingerprints23
TheoryThat is why I hold it open and lean anyway23
TheoryAnd none of that is proof23
TheoryThis is a theory and I am labeling it one23
TheoryIt should have been the hunt of all hunts23