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

alike, a common practice in intelligence work,” and that the CIA and FBI withheld “vital
information about Oswald’s and Ruby’s backgrounds” from the Warren Commission. 513
Anson accused the CIA and organized crime of carrying out the assassination. He asked
“Cui Bono?” Who benefits. His answer is that the “Key beneficiaries were linked in a
common cause. The cause was Cuba. The beneficiaries were organized crime and the
Central Intelligence Agency.” 514 Anson claimed the mob and CIA wanted to set up
Castro’s Cuba to take the blame for the assassination, but their plot did not succeed in its
main goal of provoking a U.S. invasion of the communist nation.
In many ways, aside from his imposture theory, Anson’s study can be termed a
mainstream conspiracy book: he offered some of the standard tropes of the literature,
including an analysis of the forensic evidence. He also supported what can be called “the
peace thesis” of the assassination: that Kennedy was killed because of his efforts to
ratchet down the tensions of the Cold War, seek a rapprochement with the Soviet Union
and Cuba, and end the war in Vietnam. This idea will be discussed more extensively in
the following chapter, since it is a key argument of much of the assassination literature,
especially by authors who believe Oswald had ties to U.S. intelligence.
Anson argued that Oswald’s life had all the earmarks of an intelligence career –
from his time in the Marines to his double-dealings among the pro- and anti-Castro
Cubans in New Orleans. Anson pointed to a series of indications of intelligence work:
“works at a CIA base” at Atsugi Japan, “defects to Russia with no money,” “marries the
513
Robert Sam Anson, “They’ve Killed the President!:” The Search for the Murderers of
John F. Kennedy, (New York: Bantam Books, 1975), 7.
514
Anson, 11-12.
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