Blame

A theme that I've noticed while reading Libra is that there's always someone to blame. Win Everett is mad for being demoted from an important CIA officer to a CIA recruiter at a small college because of the CIA's claims that he's dysfunctional in some way after the Bay of Pis.s Parmenter was an opportunist who he and his friends invested a lot of money in Cuba and then lost that money in the failed invasion. Mackey is mad because he and his troops were stranded on Cuba with no rescue during the Bay of Pigs. All three of these conspirators blame Kennedy for the ruination of their lives and careers all because of Kennedy not sending in air support, instead of blaming themselves for their poor judgement and morality. It is with blame as the main driving force that kick starts their conspiracy to kill the president.

For Lee, the blame that affected him was the blame his mother Marguerite had for her ex-husbands, especially Mr. Ekdahl who cheated on her and denied her a reasonable settlement. She believes that it's because her ex-husbands that she can't keep a steady job, has to move around the states constantly, and doesn't take good care of Lee. We know well enough that a lot of Marguerite's problems are self-caused, like when she gets fired for not putting on deodorant, and she takes no responsibility and instead diverts it to her ex-husbands whenever there is trouble. This produces a rough childhood for Lee and gets him disillusioned of America.

When Lee kills Kennedy, the U.S. immediately blames Lee because of the rifle found in the School Book Depository that could be traced back to Lee. We the readers know there is a bigger picture but people just blame Lee right away and people like Jack Ruby, without anyone knowing the full story, counter-assassinates Lee in the name of patriotism and glory. This quick murder of Lee prevents anyone from truly knowing the full story of the assassination of Kennedy and the conspirators behind it.

Delillo shows how easy it is to blame someone and take no responsibility. Blaming someone produces an order of events that doesn't get anything productive done. In the case of the three conspirators, killing Kennedy did nothing other than provide revenge for Mackey which is useless. For Lee, Marguerite's constant hounding of her ex-husbands gives Lee a lackluster childhood. For the U.S., blaming Lee right away led to a quick assassination of Lee by Ruby without garnering any useful information out of him and the conspiracy.