I wonder about the conspiracy theories that never arise because the assassination fails. In the alternate world where Squeaky Fromme kills Gerald Ford, what would the conspiracy theory have been?
Like you, I find alternate world scenarios fascinating. I read a fascinating one several years ago about Gavrilo Princip, the assassin of Ferdinand and Sophia. It was the spark that led to WWI. The author said that Gavrilo at first couldn't get off a clean shot, so he gave up and went to a deli to have a ham sandwich. When he came out, he noticed that the motorcade was coming back and the crowd had dispersed. He got off a couple of easy shots and the rest is history. The author said (maybe partially tongue-in-cheek): "Sometimes history can be changed just by someone eating a ham sandwich."
Excellent essay! I forget who the author was, but a number of years ago I read a critique of the theory that the CIA had killed JFK. As he put it, "had the CIA wanted to get rid of Kennedy, they would have done a 'cleaner' job than the Rube Goldberg scenario that played out in Dealy Plaza." Another author collected all the way-out conspiracy theories of the JFK assassination (CIA, LBJ, Castro, Mafia, you name it). One of the craziest was that JFK was dying of cancer and didn't want to suffer the indignity of a slow death with tubes in his body, so he arranged his own assassination so he'd go out as a martyr.
I wonder about the conspiracy theories that never arise because the assassination fails. In the alternate world where Squeaky Fromme kills Gerald Ford, what would the conspiracy theory have been?
Like you, I find alternate world scenarios fascinating. I read a fascinating one several years ago about Gavrilo Princip, the assassin of Ferdinand and Sophia. It was the spark that led to WWI. The author said that Gavrilo at first couldn't get off a clean shot, so he gave up and went to a deli to have a ham sandwich. When he came out, he noticed that the motorcade was coming back and the crowd had dispersed. He got off a couple of easy shots and the rest is history. The author said (maybe partially tongue-in-cheek): "Sometimes history can be changed just by someone eating a ham sandwich."
Excellent essay! I forget who the author was, but a number of years ago I read a critique of the theory that the CIA had killed JFK. As he put it, "had the CIA wanted to get rid of Kennedy, they would have done a 'cleaner' job than the Rube Goldberg scenario that played out in Dealy Plaza." Another author collected all the way-out conspiracy theories of the JFK assassination (CIA, LBJ, Castro, Mafia, you name it). One of the craziest was that JFK was dying of cancer and didn't want to suffer the indignity of a slow death with tubes in his body, so he arranged his own assassination so he'd go out as a martyr.