JFK Assassination Theorists

Nixon and Rather Theories don't earn much respect among serious buffs, but proponents can still get a hearing at conferences, because JFK researchers pride themselves on open-mindedness. But it forces to mind a question: Has anyone gone far enough to earn pariah status? Yes. Almost everyone disdains Bill Cooper. His detractors say he's using a blurry eighth- or ninth-generation copy of the Zapruder film to make his case, in paid lectures, that JFK's driver, Bill Greer, turned and killed the president with a handgun.

"He's got a copy that is so bad, you can see almost anything you want in it," says a clearly disgusted Robert Groden.

Reached by telephone in Arizona, Cooper said, "I used to serve in Naval Intelligence. Between 1970 and 1973, I saw documents which led to my discovery that the coup de gra~~~ce on JFK was administered by Greer, who turned and fired - with his left hand over his right shoulder - a gas-powered pistol that shot a pellet loaded with shellfish toxin. At the time, this was the most toxic substance known to man other than plutonium."

That, I remarked, is one fascinating theory.

"This is not `theory,'" he stressed. "It is fact.