[Sample B: Approval/Signature Sheet] - George Mason University

some sense, true and false in some sense, true and meaningless in some sense, false and
meaningless in some sense, and true and false and meaningless in some sense.” 320
In fact, Thornley’s ideas about the JFK assassination changed over time like his
political beliefs. His testimony to the Warren Commission and his non-fiction book
supported the view that Oswald was the assassin. However, a long-time critic of the
Warren Commission, David Lifton, whose book Best Evidence is a detailed examination
of the forensic evidence and of a bizarre alleged plot to alter the President’s body to hide
the fact of a conspiracy, convinced Thornley that he was wrong, and he became an ardent
opponent of the Commission’s findings. In another bizarre turn, Thornley became
enmeshed in New Orleans’ District Attorney Jim Garrison’s investigation of the
assassination. Thornley became a subject of some of Garrison’s conspiracy theories as
someone who tried to frame Oswald.
Garrison believed that Thornley wrote his novel The Idle Warriors before the
assassination to establish in the public mind that Oswald was a communist and a lone nut.
The problem with this theory is that the novel was not published until decades after the
assassination. However, Thornley had expressed virulently anti-Kennedy opinions while
in New Orleans, and found himself in close proximity to many of the figures that feature
in assassination theories. Thornley was acquainted not only with Oswald, but while in
New Orleans, came in contact with right-wing activists Guy Bannister and David Ferrie.
During a later stay in Los Angeles, Thornley became acquainted with mobster Johnny
Roselli -- a key figure in the CIA-mafia plots to kill Castro. Garrison thought all these
320 Quoted in Gorightly, 10.
144