On this November 22 anniversary, we can honor President Kennedy not only by remembering his life but by defending the truth surrounding his death.

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As with December 7 and September 11, that calendar date remains salient in American memory, particularly for anyone who recalls exactly where they were in 1963 upon learning of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination.  

In addition to solemn remembrance, however, November 22 also brings an annual tide of mindless conspiracy theories that corrode our collective remembrance.  Six decades after the assassination, more than twice as many Americans believe in a conspiracy than the reality that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone.  (Fortunately, younger Americans actually appear more inclined toward the truth of Oswald’s guilt.)  

Why does that matter in 2025?  Because if we can’t agree on what occurred in Dealey Plaza – a crime investigated more thoroughly than any other in American history – we become less able to reach consensus on far more complex issues of our time.  A nation unable to accurately understand its history becomes less able to navigate its present and future.  

Fortunately, for those interested in historical accuracy, two excellent books – “Case Closed” by Gerald Posner and “Reclaiming History” by famed former prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi – offer definitive resources for those who remain interested in the Kennedy assassination and value evidence over distortion.  

Posner’s “Case Closed” offers a more succinct yet nevertheless methodical dismantling of common conspiracy mythologies.  Through easy-to-understand review of ballistic evidence, eyewitness accounts, medical findings, Oswald’s well-documented record and other substantial evidence, Posner demonstrates that broadly speaking, the Warren Commission investigation got things broadly right.  

Although an exhaustive recitation of the evidence is impossible here, the physical evidence placed Oswald on the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository with the same rifle that fired the fatal shot.  Oswald’s fingerprints were on that weapon, and boxes were arranged to conceal his sniper’s nest.  Multiple eyewitnesses saw him at that spot just before the shooting, and within minutes of the assassination Oswald murdered Dallas Police Officer J.D. Tippit while fleeing – behavior obviously consistent with a fleeing criminal.  

Posner also details how Oswald was hardly the sort of blank cipher or efficient agent whom conspirators would choose as their hitman.  Rather, he was a sloppy self-styled Marxist who had defected to the Soviet Union, renounced his American citizenship, returned to the United States resentful and disillusioned and later tried to assassinate retired anti-communist General Edwin Walker.  Oswald’s deep record of activities, writings and personal history show a man angrily alienated, ideological and self-important.  

In other words, Oswald was the same sort of disturbed lone assassin who had killed or attempted to kill figures like Abraham Lincoln, William McKinley, John Lennon, Pope John Paul II, Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump twice just last year.  

If Posner’s “Case Closed” takes a hammer to JFK conspiracy theories, Bugliosi’s “Reclaiming History” provides a bulldozer.  

At over 1,600 pages with thousands of endnotes, the late prosecutor who famously convicted Charles Manson brings his overwhelming prosecutorial force to the assassination.  He demonstrates that the sheer universe of evidence proving Oswald’s guilt dwarfs anything else in U.S. criminal history, let alone the weak evidentiary reeds on which conspiracy theories rest.  

Again citing some examples from that ocean of evidence, the Mannlicher-Carcano rifle that fired the fatal bullet belonged to Oswald, was purchased by him and was found exactly where the shots originated in the School Book Depository.  Bugliosi also debunks acoustic “evidence” later used to concoct conspiracy theories, and shows how the medical evidence actually proves a rear-entry shot consistent with Oswald’s position, not a frontal shot from the “grassy knoll.”  

Bugliosi offers another invaluable contribution in demonstrating why JFK conspiracy theories bizarrely persist in the face of the evidence.  He explains why so many cannot psychologically accept that a figure as important as Kennedy could be taken from us by a discontented loser with a mail-order rifle:  The mismatch between the scale of the event and the smallness of the murderer creates psychological dissonance.  Conspiracies feel more emotionally proportional, while reality often does not.  

Bugliosi also methodically dismantles various conspiracy theories that rely upon unrelated anomalies, misunderstandings and commonplace bureaucratic mistakes, which conspiracy theorists weave into elaborate narratives that collapse under sober scrutiny.  In his inimitable manner, Bugliosi walks readers through dozens of theories – such as the alleged “magic bullet” – and repeatedly demonstrates how each evaporates under rational examination.  

Conservatives, who emphasize individual responsibility and intellectual sobriety over blind passion, can play an important role in the ongoing historical debate.  Although skepticism toward government power is healthy, conspiratorial nihilism is not.  Conservative thought elevates evidence, reason and the humility to accept reality even when it contravenes preferred narratives.  

Accordingly, on this November 22 anniversary, we can honor President Kennedy not only by remembering his life but by defending the truth surrounding his death.  Oswald acted alone, and the evidence proves that beyond any reasonable doubt.  Accepting that truth isn’t an act of blind faith in government or authority, but of trust in the power of facts.  That’s something American society must protect if we hope to remain worthy of our founding.