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The Return of the Magic BulletTwo new JFK books clash over conspiracy theory.

By Ron RosenbaumPosted Friday, June 1, 2007, at 5:29 PM ET

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Ron Rosenbaum and Andy Bowers discuss a home video shot moments before JFK's assassination. David Greenberg argues that Barack Obama is like JFK, and considers the origins of today's political paranoia. Witold Rybczynski revisits Philip Johnson's John F. Kennedy Memorial in Dallas.

I just had the feeling that Jim Garrison was pulling a name out of the air (or elsewhere). Garrison had already been discredited. But there was something about the way he picked out this poor dude to blame for the head-shot that killed JFK that made me wonder, long after I should have: Why am I taking these people seriously? Looking back on it, I recall it as the moment I felt the spell had broken. I wanted an answer to the most basic of questions, and when I got it, it only made me skeptical again.

But on the other hand, it's paradoxical but true that false conspiracy theories can lead to the uncovering of true conspiracies. The investigative climate of suspicion that was engendered by the JFK conspiracy theories played its part in leading to the revelation of some shocking facts about the subterranean world of U.S. intelligence operations in the '60s. Lee Harvey Oswald may not have conspired with the mafia or anti-Castro Cubans to assassinate JFK, but, as David Talbot's book reminds us, the Kennedys, the mafia, and anti-Castro Cubans collaborated in real assassination plots against Castro. At the time of the revelations, it seemed incredible: the Kennedys in bed with the Mob to foment assassination. But Bobby Kennedy was haunted by the possibility that Kennedy involvement in Castro-assassination plots backfired and led to his brother's murder.

And my own trajectory of belief has changed direction a bit, magic-bullet style. When I think back on it, I attribute an overreaction on my part against conspiracy theory for one of my own great missed opportunities as a journalist. During the 1986 midterm elections, I was covering a campaign swing by then-veep George H.W. Bush, and I was in a room with some Bush aides when news of a plane downed over Nicaragua reached the traveling party. Something about a CIA pilot.

There was a lot of bustling back and forth between the inner sanctum, where Bush was closeted with his advisers, and the outer rooms, where the lower-level aides were responding to press inquiries.

I heard words to the effect of "we're not saying anything about it," or possibly something even more weasel-worded: low-level guy, no connection to us. I can't remember exactly now. But it sounded suspicious to me. I had a sense that something was not being fully disclosed, that they knew more than they could say about a conspiratorial connection.

But by that time, my instincts had been blunted by overexposure to bad conspiracy theorizing. I had come to be perhaps too critical of the impulse.

So, I left it alone. And that's how I missed my chance to get in on the beginning of Iran-Contra. I blame the magic bullet.