Conspiracy (Summers)

Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:

• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)

Also, consider these LitLovers talking points to get a discussion started for Conspiracy:

1. What was the primary material evidence used by the Warren Commission to support its conclusion that Oswald was the lone gunman?

2. Follow-up to Question 1: How does Anthony Summers refute the material evidence presented by the Warren Commission? Consider the following:

• acoustical analysis
• ballistics analysis
• eye witness accounts
• the Mannlicher-Carcano rifle
• Oswald's location immediately prior to and after the shots

Does Summers raise credible doubt regarding the evidence? Or is his counter evidence too speculative?

3. Why does Summers (and the Congressional Assassinations Committee) believe that Oswald was probably connected with a branch of U.S. intelligence? What makes him come to that conclusion? Are you able to connect the dots—how all these people and organizations are connected? With each other...and with Oswald?

4. What is the mafia's role in all of this? Why does Summers conclude that it would like Kennedy dead?

5. What role did the Bay of Pigs play in Summers' conspiracy theory? And what was the role of the CIA with regards to the Cuban exiles?

6. Talk about the collusion between the mafia and the CIA? When did it begin and why were the two groups still working together?

7. Who was Jack Bannister and why does he figure so prominently in Conspiracy? What was the nature of Oswald's connection to Bannister?

8. Do you think Oswald was a communist sympathsizer? What do you make of his defection to the Soviet Union; the ease of his return to the U.S.; his distribution of pro-Cuba pamphlets; and his connection to Guy Bannister?

9. Jack Ruby—how do you explain him? What were his connections? Why do you think he shot Owsald? Was it out of patriotism and sympathy for Mrs. Kennedy?

10. What do you think of the Warren Commission's report? Was it a whitewash...or an honest effort to get to the bottom of the assassination?

11. After all the evidence, where does Anthony Summers finally land on the question of who shot John F. Kennedy? And just as importantly...where do you land?

12. Does this information matter? Is it important that we uncover the truth behind JFK's assassination? Or is it simply dredging up old wounds from a national trauma 50 years ago that are best left untouched? What do you think?

(Questions issued by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)

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