Richard Popkin's The Second Oswald

[John Zeroski]

This slim volume, published as a paperback by the Avon Library in 1966 to commemorate the third anniversary of the assassination, was written by a noted scholar, at the time the chairman of the philosophy department at the University of California at San Diego. It consists of 174 pages, with the introduction starting at page 9, text of book starting at page 17 and ending at page 118, appendix starting at page 121. Appendix makes no contribution to the thesis of this book.The thesis of this book is that there were, in fact, two Oswalds, one assassin being the second Oswald, with the other being on the Grassy Knoll, and the role of LHO was to "implicate himself as the assassin". All of the "sightings" of the second Oswald Popkin claims that "they are evidence that Oswald was involved in some kind of conspiracy.....", page 66.Page 92, Popkin writes the evidence is "compelling that there was a second Oswald, that his presence was being forced on people's notice, and that he played a role on November 22, 1963".Bottom of page 110, Popkin writes "If Oswald's role was to attract all suspicion, while not actually being an actual assassin......". At no point in this little book does Popkin suggest that Oswald may have been a "patsy". This brings up the question of when it became public knowledge , the famous statement of LHO which was an answer to a reporter's question. Anyone around in 1963 and knows whether that sentence made the daily newspapers? More importantly, wouldn't Popkin have heard of this remark sometime in the next three years? Wouldn't he have conversed with others who were studying the assassination, or did he work from a cave?Again, if I remember correctly LHO was supposed to have said to his interrogators at his Friday/ Saturday sessions that he never owned a handgun, never owned a rifle, and never traveled to Mexico City. At this point in his life LHO must have felt he would live to stand trial, and must have been intelligent enough to realize any lies he might tell to his questioners would be brought up at trial, this destroying his credibility. For that reason alone I would believe him.Anyone starting their look into the assassination with a reading of Marrs' Crossfire and read about LHO's "patsy" statement, and finally concluded that the Warren Commission was a coverup, might have a different view of a second Oswald. IF (the big if) LHO had been murdered on November 22, newspapers might slowly have leaked the second Oswald story as a kind of confirmation that he had, in fact, assassinated the president.If this view were correct, then the assassination was an intelligence operation, with all kind of interesting possibilities.I believe the information of LHO's "patsy" statement was available to Popkin when he wrote his little book, as the other material I mentioned. Consequently, I believe this book may have been written at this time to divert people's thinking from this possible train of thought,the assassination as a much larger conspiracy involving intelligence agencies.