SALON

Thursday, May 24, 2007 8:10 PM UTC

For more information

If you're looking for sane and intelligent online oases to explore the JFK case, check out these two sites.

By

Topics: Books,

Lone nut ideologues (and yes, there are still a few around besides Bugliosi) like to dismiss all JFK conspiracy researchers as whack jobs. And yes, it must be said that the field does draw its share of impassioned partisans, some of whose thinking definitely tilts in unsound directions. The other day, when I was a guest on Pete Wilson’s KGO radio talk show in San Francisco, one caller wanted to share his conviction that both Kennedy brothers were suicide victims — certainly one of the more novel theories floated about the Kennedy assassinations. But in my experience, most JFK conspiracy researchers are sober-minded people who stick to the facts as they sort through the mountains of information about these crimes.

In my opinion, the two best Web sites for information and discussion about the JFK assassination are the Mary Ferrell Foundation and the Education Forum. The Mary Ferrell site, named after the late JFK research pioneer, is run by a talented Massachusetts software expert-turned-Kennedy archivist named Rex Bradford. The site is an oasis of calm and orderly rationality whose deep well of resources appeals to everyone from student novices to hardcore buffs. Bradford has amassed more than 400,000 documents on the site, including many invaluable declassified government papers. And his video archive — including not only the infamous Zapruder film but a number of other more obscure home movies taken in Dealey Plaza — vividly bring that day to life. Other videos — including TV interviews with JFK and the stunning live broadcast of Lee Harvey Oswald being gunned down by Jack Ruby — also make this history seem powerful and immediate.

The Education Forum, a sprawling complex of chat rooms covering a broad spectrum of history subjects, was created by an enterprising British scholar named John Simkin. Its many discussion threads on the Kennedy presidency and its violent end are provocative and refreshingly free of the obsessive nuttiness and flame-throwing that characterize many online Kennedy circles. Simkin’s forum has attracted respected JFK researchers like Anthony Summers and Larry Hancock, as well as dozens of serious amateur historians well worth talking with, and even the occasional aging source with some firsthand information about the case.

The Mary Ferrell Foundation and Education Forum sites are both shining examples of communal learning and research — exactly what the Internet was intended to do, in all its democratic glory.

David Talbot

Salon founder David Talbot is the author of the New York Times bestseller, “Brothers: The Hidden History of the Kennedy Years,” and most recently, “Season of the Witch: Enchantment, Terror and Deliverance in the City of Love.” More David Talbot.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 7 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

vote
New Yorker launches tool by Aaron Swartz to protect leaks: Strongbox, co-created by the late technologist, is an open-source drop box for leaked documents
156 points157 points | 4 comments
vote
New Yorker launches tool by Aaron Swartz to protect leaks: Strongbox, co-created by the persecuted late technologist, is an open-source drop box for leaked documents
117 points118 points | comment
vote
Obstruction will ruin the GOP: Playing politics and abusing the system can excite the extremes, but it's a recipe for long-term political disaster
39 points40 points | 8 comments
vote
With the help of Photoshop, artist Yao Lu has made shanshui — traditional ink paintings — of China's landfills
12 points13 points | comment
vote
Revenge editing on Wikipedia: The unmasking of a writer who took advantage of online anonymity to pursue vendettas with other writers
13 points14 points | 3 comments

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: So long, Sookie Stackhouse

Recommendations