True Believers: Tom Snyder Talks to Arlen Specter
An Appended, Illustrated Post of My Original Print-only Essay
Author’s note (Feb. 27, 2023): Arlen Specter (1930-2012), the Warren Commission legal assistant, and later senator from Pennsylvania, is infamous for his fabrication of what became known as the “Single Bullet Theory” (a baseless fantasy, not a theory).1 When Specter announced he was running for president in March 1995, those who knew this ballistics big lie saw it as an opportunity to confront him about it in the most public way in decades. In this essay, I critiqued one of Specter’s first nationally televised campaign appearances in which he and his media sycophants were cornered into defending it. On the GOP primary trail, Specter was dogged by critics’ questions about it for the next six months, until he was compelled to suspend his campaign and endorse Bob Dole on November 23, 1995, the 32nd anniversary of the assassination weekend. Specter narrowly avoided an upset in his 2004 Senate reelection, and lost to Joe Sestak in the 2010 primary, after desperately switching to the Democratic Party to get votes. It is a stellar example of the power of publicly asking politicians about their positions on the assassinations of the 1960s — a strategy I recommended in other essays.2
On Tuesday night, May 30, 1995, talk-show host Tom Snyder introduced his “friend” Senator Arlen Specter (R-PA) to his CBS call-in talk show, The Late Late Show with Tom Snyder. He said he knew Sen. Specter as an honest man when he last interviewed him 30 years earlier in Philadelphia. Specter spun himself as a presidential candidate who is standing on principle while others are “blowing with the wind or swinging with the political pendulum.” He half-jokingly told Snyder, “And now that you’ve interviewed me, I want you to extend that reputation of honesty, or else I may own CBS.” Snyder did, adding, “You’ve always been a straightforward and level guy. I mean, you and I both came from the Midwest, as does your formidable opponent Robert Dole of Kansas.”
Having established himself and Specter as pillars of truth, Snyder put on his trademark look of sincere bewilderment and broached the subject of the people’s mistrust of government “in the wake of Oklahoma City.” With the camera showing Specter nodding in sad-eyed agreement, Snyder added, “And in extreme cases feel the government would actually go so far as to plot the bombing in Oklahoma. How do we get rid of this malaise in the body politic? How do we bring these people back to realize that we are the government? You and me and all these people who vote, we are the government.”
Missing a golden opportunity to call for the immediate release of all files pertaining to the JFK assassination, a process begun with legislation co-sponsored by himself, Arlen Specter, the reputed author of the Single Bullet Theory, quoted political ethics advice from Richard M. Nixon about how not to alienate the electorate, then said, “So I think the first thing that people of America have to do is insist that their elected officials — the politicians — tell the same story all the time. And if they change, they have to be made accountable.”
Specter then spoke of the grave Oversight Committee error when Congress failed to investigate the executive branch after the Waco and Ruby Ridge, Idaho disasters. Specter, who has staunchly defended his own role in an executive branch self-investigation known as “The President’s Commission on the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy,” seemingly belied his own commitment to “tell the same story all the time” when he responded to Snyder’s next statement.
“But when you become president.” Snyder asked, “you will realize that the executive branch cannot fully investigate itself and that if further investigation of your administration is warranted by Congress, you as president would agree to that.”
“Well, of course I would,” Specter replied, “but the president doesn’t have to agree with it. The Senate can do it, itself. And eventually, we will but not soon enough for my taste. I think we should have done it already.” After getting Specter to admit that he had been politically damaged doing just that in the Clarence Thomas/Anita Hill fiasco, Snyder changed the subject to the flat tax and broke for a commercial.
When the show resumed, the flat tax discussion was abruptly put on hold when the first caller asked about the Single Bullet Theory. One would think that Mr. Specter would have refined his argument in favor of this theory to a razor-sharp edge over the last 31 years. One would think that, especially now that he is running for president, a task easily endangered by controversial opinions, his argument would be reasonably understandable. However, instead of a simple question followed by a simple answer, there ensued an enlightening struggle to return to more mundane ’96 campaign issues.
The first call was from Charlie in New York City. Charlie said, “Hi. I’d like to ask how Mr. Specter’s views have changed over the last 30 years since writing the Single Bullet Theory for the Warren Commission.”
“Hi. I’d like to ask how Mr. Specter’s views have changed over the last 30 years since writing the Single Bullet Theory for the Warren Commission.”
Snyder’s voice intoned pained embarrassment as he said he’d hoped that question wouldn’t come up. Specter grinned nervously and said his views have not changed at all. As if that answer was insufficient, the Senator continued, “In fact, the Single Bullet Theory has been confirmed in many subsequent studies. But [sic] the basic facts have held up.”
Still apparently desiring to overcome some perceived inadequacy, Specter pressed on and began gesturing. “The bullet that hit the president in the back of the neck passed between two large strap muscles, hit nothing solid, sliced his trachea, came out the front of his throat, and Governor Connally was sitting right in front of him in the jump seat, and the bullet had a little yaw—that is, it wasn’t pristine—and it entered slightly to the left of the Governor’s right arm pit, passed through, grazed a rib, came out, and was sitting like this [gesturing straight forward with right hand over front of left kneecap and left hand on top of right hand], and it went through his wrist. And the truth is sometimes stranger than fiction, and it happened that way, and it’s been confirmed.”3
Specter, sporting a finally self-satisfied grin, changed his gaze from the camera back to Snyder.
“Okay,” Charlie sighed, followed by an apparent stunned silence. The camera closed in on Snyder’s amused expression as he asked, “That’s it, Charlie? Okay?” Charlie said, “Okay well, I just thought it — no, I hate to bring it up but it’s something I always think about.”
“I know,” Snyder said. “A lot of people do, Charlie. What are your thoughts on this, as long as you’re here?”
Charlie said, “Well, obviously I don’t believe the Single Bullet Theory, or I wouldn’t ask.”
“Well, obviously I don’t believe the Single Bullet Theory, or I wouldn’t ask.”
“Okay,” Snyder said with resignation. Specter jumped in as if to the rescue. “Charlie, let me tell you why you might not believe it the way the evidence has been misconstrued. The bullet on the president’s shirt would have placed a point of entry well down on his back so that some people say the bullet would have to have gone up, which of course it couldn’t do. But what hasn’t been understood is that the president had on a back brace, and he was waving, and the shirt rode up.”
As the Senator was in mid-gesture, reaching for the studio scaffolding in a futile attempt to make his shirt and suit coat behave unnaturally, Snyder felt compelled to rescue his rescuer. “You know, I’m almost in tears here,” Snyder interrupted, “because I remember sitting with you on that show in Philadelphia 30 years ago when all of this started with Mark Lane and Rush to Judgment.”
Snyder began blinking rapidly and stammering. “And...and...and I’m watching you now and you are doing the same thing with the same precision and the alacrity that you did 30 years ago — and it just almost brings me to tears...to me. But anyway.”
Specter, beaming, comes back to Snyders rescue with, “Well, don’t cry. Just let me finish.” Snyder shouts, “No, no, but tears of joy that you’re still consistent in your beliefs!”
The hole they were digging for themselves only became deeper.
“Well, listen, listen, this is the evidence,” Specter said, reaching again for the back of his neck. “The point is: This is where ...” Snyder interrupts again, still shouting, “This isn’t the Oliver Stone movie, is it!?”
“Pure fiction,” Specter shoots back. “This is real life. The bullet entered the body right at the base of the neck. And it’s not a question of where it was in the shirt because the shirt rode up. It’s a question of where it was on the body. And one other fact: The bullet found on Kennedy’s stretcher was almost intact. A hundred and fifty-eight to a hundred and sixty-one grams is what it had. And the x-rays of Gov. Connally’s wrist show metallic fragments at various levels. A Dr. Gregory, who testified — and I questioned him before the commission — showed the x-rays and those metallic fragments at various levels were postage-stamp weight consistent with coming from that bullet.”
The camera cut to Snyder, who looked out at the floor crew. The corners of Snyder’s mouth twitch before the camera cuts back to Specter.
“So that when I debated Mark Lane and [Edward] Epstein and many others,” Specter began.
Snyder interrupts again. “You took them all on?” Snyder asks.
“Well, I was prepared to do that,” Specter answered, “and I still am.”
Snyder, apparently getting signals to cut, finally put the discussion out of everyone’s misery, “I know you are,” Snyder assured Specter. “I know you are. Charlie, I’m glad you called. I wish we had — we should do a whole show on this sometime, and I’m sure Mr. Specter’s saying, “But please not with me. Charlie, I’m glad you called. Thank you.”
Specter corrects, “Charlie, I’ll be glad to do it with you and with Tom.” They went to commercial, then to the flat tax issue, but took no more calls.
By the time Snyder’s program continued on radio after the televised portion ended, the damage control mentality now familiar to political campaigns had begun to take over. It was still palpable the next night, May 31, 1995, as Snyder’s simulcast again took to the CBS TV airwaves.
The damage control mentality now familiar to political campaigns had begun to take over.
“I have found over the years,” Snyder explained, “that you can say things, and people say things to you on radio, that they will never say on television. And for the life of me, I can’t figure out why.” Snyder explained that, as the discussion of the assassination continued on radio the night before, listeners picked up on the fact that Snyder had never stated his position on the assassination. Apparently, in violation of his self-imposed TV taboo, he cleared this up for his TV audience.
Snyder said, “It amazed me how many people still cling to the theories that go beyond the findings of the Warren Commission... . I truly believe that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone and that the Single Bullet Theory holds water. And by the way, if you want to call on radio, don’t argue with me because I’m not going to change my mind. And more importantly, if you don’t believe it, I won’t try and change yours... You have to keep in mind that if you believe the conspiracy theory in the assassination of JFK, keep in mind that an assassination does not begin a conspiracy. It ends a conspiracy. So, if that conspiracy was, in fact, intact, it ended the day JFK was shot. And secondly, knowing as we all do, that everything for America is for sale, wouldn’t you think that by now, 1995... .” Snyder stopped suddenly, sensing that he is on a TV soapbox. In an attempt to climb down, he dug another hole. “See, I think I’m on radio. I could go on for an hour about this stuff.” He seemed to have overcome his difficulty saying what he “will never say on television.”
Continuing his explanations and corrections of the events of the night before, Tom Snyder added to his contention that any conspiracy in the JFK assassination ended when Kennedy was shot. “Wouldn’t you think,” Snyder asked, “that by 1995, 32 years after the assassination, knowing that everything in America is for sale for a price, that if somebody had the secret information as to who really did it, he or she would have sold that information to somebody in the media by this time?”
As sure as he claimed to be that no conspiracy killed JFK and that if it had, pocketbook journalism would have revealed it already, and that no one will change his opinion on that, and that he desires to change no one else’s opinion, one would wonder why true believer Tom Snyder discussed the subject at all.
Challenging these statements Snyder made at the top of his show, the first caller to his May 31, 1995 TV broadcast asked Snyder if he also thinks the Watergate conspiracy ended with the break-in.
Snyder responded, “The conspiracy to break into the Watergate complex ended with the break-in, and then a new conspiracy began.” When the caller pointed to the same possibility in the JFK assassination, Snyder said, “Now, Ken, I promised I’m not going to change your mind. Don’t try to change mine.” In other words, don’t confuse Snyder with the facts.
The credibility of Snyder’s stated view of pocketbook journalism suffers equally. On June 9, 1975, Snyder taped an interview for his Tomorrow show on NBC on which W.R. Morris and Harry Dean, a former FBI-CIA agent, were guests. They discussed their knowledge of a conspiracy to assassinate JFK. Dean wore a mask and was referred to as “Mr. X.” They outlined a plot involving Oswald as a secret government operative being set up by Gen. Edwin Walker, David Ferrie, Loran Hall, and Eladio del Valle, among others.
At one point in the program, Snyder asked, “Who brought the political pressures about that keeps Mr. Hall, one of the assassins of John F. Kennedy... who brings such political pressures that he is allowed, and I assume today that he is a free man?” Dean answered that such pressure is brought about by people in the right-wing, so-called paramilitary organizations, including the John Birch Society. NBC never aired that show. Subsequent evidence supports much of what Dean and Morris said.
But even if someone attempts to tell Tom Snyder about that evidence, he claims it will not change his mind, and he will urge the person with the information to stop trying to change it. Despite such a view, Tom Snyder believes that someone—someone other than himself, apparently—would gladly pay money for such evidence of conspiracy. The fact that he will not believe it enough to pay for it, and the fact that those who have revealed the evidence have been accused of doing so solely because they are monetarily motivated, does not enter into his thinking. It can’t because he won’t let it.
Because he is a true believer, Tom Snyder almost shed tears of joy when he heard his friend and presidential candidate, Sen. Arlen Specter, declare that President Kennedy’s coat and shirt rose from the middle of his back to his neck just in time to receive a bullet hole there, then in the blink of an eye fell back into place because of a back brace that isn’t understood by others to cause this, because it has never visibly interfered with the president’s clothing.
This is the “stuff” that Tom Snyder “could go on for an hour about” because, as he said, “I truly believe that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone and that the Single Bullet Theory holds water.”
Goodbye, honest, straightforward, level-headed, Midwestern, principled guy. Hello, True Believer.
(Originally published in Jerry Rose’s journal, The Fourth Decade, Vol. 2, No. 5, July 1995, pp. 29-32; republished in Garrison: The Journal of History and Deep Politics, Issue 002, Jun./Jul./Aug. 2019, pp. 8-12.)
See my essay, “The Real Conspiracy Nuts”:
See my essays, “2020: The Deep Political Realities,” and “2020: High Crimes, Deep Politics.”:
For an honest analysis of Connally’s physical position when shot, see my essay, “Z-film: Red Frame, White Light.”