Norman Mailer was a long time supporter of a conspiracy theory as catalyst for the assassination of John F. Kennedy. He was one of the few noteworthy individuals to give a positive review to Oliver Stone's film version of the assassination. At an open house discussion about Stone's film, Mailer stated that Stone had "stumbled onto the truth." Mailer meant that the so-called "military industrial complex" was behind the assassination. Later, after He and Lawrence Schiller received permission from the Gorbechev government, under Glostnost, to review the KGB files and on Oswald, conducting interviews with the surviving witnesses and individuals with connections to Oswald, and having studied the Warren Report, all volumes, he came to the conclusion that Oswald acted alone. Why? Because it was "Oswalds' greatest opportunity." In effect, Oswald's Tale was the sequal to Harlot's Ghost. Mailer does credit the possibility - and a concession theorists everywhere - to of there being a conspiracy, and there being members of said conspiracy at Daly Plaza, but he credits Oswald with getting there first. Mailer also points out that the argument for conspiracy is one that has been dominated by the conspiracy theorists, of whom many of their theories border on lunacy, having been built, like a house of cards, or coincidences (real or imagined) and various "cherry-picked" phrases, quotes, scenarios that isolate the assassination from rational discussion. Ultimately, Oswald's Tale is an important book in the genre, because not merely because it exposes much of the absurdity inherent in the myriad theories, but it was penned by one of America's best authors, who, with leftist leanings, had been himself sympathetic to the possibility of a JFK conspiracy.