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

the importance of reasonable human relationships. To my mind here lies the treacherous
fallacy of the creed Lee Oswald embraced.” 107
In the end, Ford and Stiles seemed to realize the difficulty in convincing the
public that Oswald acted alone. The authors blamed many of the “rumors” of conspiracy
on Oswald’s disbelieving mother, Marguerite, and on lawyer Mark Lane, who Marguerite
wanted to represent the dead Oswald before the Warren Commission and would later
become the godfather of conspiracy theorists with the bestselling critique of the
Commission’s report, Rush to Judgment. Ford and Stiles admitted “In retrospect, the
unbelievable coincidences that took place just couldn’t happen – and yet they did, with an
inexorability that no playwright could expect an audience to believe.” 108 Where Ford
and Stiles saw coincidence, others saw conspiracy, but the authors of Portrait of an
Assassin were confident that the Warren Commission “will stand like a Gibraltar of
factual literature through the ages to come.” 109
Two writers – William Manchester and Jim Bishop – wrote popular histories that
described hour-by-hour the events leading up to the assassination and its aftermath. Both
accepted the Warren Commission’s findings and relied heavily on the report to write their
books. Of the two, Manchester offered something new to the mix of Oswald’s motives,
while Bishop emphasized the view of Oswald as a cipher who only committed the
assassination to gain notoriety. Both writers also ran afoul of the Kennedy family.
107 Ford and Stiles, 544.
108 Ford and Stiles, 293.
109 Ford and Stiles, 538.
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