Jfk -

I never knew that. Fascinating stuff. There is so much mystery with this event. I can still remember watching Lee Harvey Oswald being shot live on TV. Also, I have seen numerous History and other channel reenactments of the bullet paths from the depository building.

Salty, I was wondering, have you seen the Zapruder film (feel pretty sure you have). That shot that appears to sever the top of the President's head almost looks like it comes from the opposite direction, but has been explained as a recoil. What is your opinion about LHO being the lone assassin?

Another memory I have, living in Gulfport, MS growing up, is Clay Shaw being indicted by Jim Garrison, DA in New Orleans, for conspiracy to assassinate the President. Then there is the factor of Jack Ruby. Oswald called out his name as he was being shot.

Again, thanks for the new info.

 

If Oswald acted alone, why is there still so much cover-up? There is a preponderance of circumstantial evidence to the contrary.


The fact that the Warren Commission findings were not made public without the Freedom of Information Act, with sanitization and redaction of course, should indicate spiritual wickedness in high places is very much in charge of the world--the prince of the power of the air.

We are being spoon fed half-truth and falsehoods by those we have elected--nothing new. Send them all home and start over.

Even so, come, Lord Jesus.

Bro. James

 

... much of which is destroyed upon review that, in 1963, was not possible. On the 40th anniversary of the assassination, ABC News aired Beyond Conspiracy: The Kennedy Assassination which included a computer animation of the shooting. That's posted on you.tube.

Connally believed he was hit some 11 frames (in the Zapruder film) after Kennedy was struck, and conspiracy theorists have claimed the so-called "magic bullet" would have had to zig-zag through the air in order to have struck both the president and the Texas governor. But that simply isn't true.

Many fail to realize, the governor was seated on the jump seat of the 1963 Lincoln limo, and that jump seat was installed six inches inboard of the president's seat, and three inches lower. The bullet, on a straight line, easily passed through Kennedy's neck, the governor's armpit (he was turning in reaction to the sound of rifle fire at the time), nicked one of his ribs and caused a small fracture, and deflected downward where it shattered his wrist and again deflected into his left thigh.

Despite the fractures, it can be said that the bullet, by the time it struck the two bones, was traveling slow enough so as not to be misshapen by the impacts, but fast enough to cause what was really minor damage plus the flesh wounds. Connally's life was never in danger, he was hardly injured at all by the bullet, but remained in the hospital for five days, probably due to the emotional toll of November 22nd. Frankly, being shot gives anyone pause, and the emotional pain is far greater than any physical pain can be.

While that sounds right, the reality is, the only parts of the Warren Commission Report that were not released about one year after the assassination were the graphic photos of JFK's head wound, and the sidebar investigations into Oswald, Ruby, other potential suspects (while the FBI and Secret Service were, in fact, initially convinced this could not have been the work of one man, they never found anyone who could have been part of the assassination "plot") and secondary investigations into witnesses and what they said, how reliable they were, and how they might benefit from "spinning" (a term that wasn't in use then) their testimony.

The Last Words of Lee Harvey Oswald is a conspiracy theorist's effort to prove Oswald was, as the man described himself, a "patsy." But reading through the conversations he had with police, FBI, visitors, and reporters, I was struck that he comes across just like every other assassin and serial killer of the last 50 years. At one point, he even makes the classic statement -- the one every one of these guys has uttered at some point -- that "Now everyone will know who I am."

That's true. But, while I used to share your opinion that the JFK assassination was a giant conspiracy, I no longer think so. I think it happened exactly as the Warren Commission said it happened. No conspiracy can last this long, not without someone coming forward and saying something. The Watergate coverup lasted all of 37 days. Benghazi has been buried under elephant dung for over a year, but the truth is beginning to come out. The ACA website debacle and the other lies told about the implementation, the cancellation of existing policies, etc., are spilling out piecemeal almost as quickly as the administration lies, reframes lies, misdirects and lies some more.

If the Kennedy assassination was anything other than what it appeared at the time and as stated in the Warren Commission Report, it would have already come out. A coverup of an event of this magnitude couldn't possibly last this long.

 

So, in other words, you believe the following...............

That a single person, relatively unstable and quite delusional, could figure out, on his own, how to kill the President of the United States with a mail order gun from the sixth floor of a book depository. He knew exactly where Kennedy was going to be, and that the car top would be down.

That the connection between Jack Ruby and Lee Harvey Oswald had no significance.

That all the reports of gunfire from the "grassy knoll" were fabricated.

That Jim Garrison, district attorney of New Orleans, was delusional, and fabricated the whole conspiracy theory although a grand jury brought indictments.

That the United States government was telling the truth.

That this was beyond the character of Johnson, the CIA, Castro, and other foreign elements to be involved.

That the final shot came from behind while the Zapruder film should Kennedy's head forced backwards.

That all available evidence was given to the Warren Commission, further, that the Warren Commission was capable of telling the truth.

So how long did you believe Nixon was innocent after Watergate broke?

 

How hard is it to figure out that your place of employment is on the motorcade route and that you can fire out an open window at the president's car? Much has been made of the plexiglass bubble top being taken off at Love Field, but the fact is, even a medium-range muzzle velocity of 2000 feet per second like Oswald's 6.5 mm Mannlicher-Carcano bolt-action rifle would have been more than sufficient to blast through plexiglass at the distance of 275 feet that Oswald had available to him. At that speed, the bullets reached their mark in a tenth of a second or less.

Other than Oswald being in Ruby's strip club on a couple occasions, there's no credible evidence anywhere that the two knew one another, or that they were part of a huge conspiracy.

Don't know why this is still being debated. It was explained years later, and had nothing to do with gunfire.

'Smoke' on the grassy knoll'​

That one I can answer emphatically: Yes, Jim Garrison was a nutball conspiracy theorist.

As Oswald acted alone, and was not a patsy, nor a paid gunman, nor part of a large and impossible-to-manage conspiracy, yes, they were telling the truth.

Beyond the character of those persons/governments/organizations? No. Did they do it? No.

Believe it or not, this too is an assumption made that doesn't hold up under the best evidence available: The Zapruder film. You can’t see it by looking at the film at real-time speed or even slow motion. You have to look at the individual frames. Investigators have done this over the years, and the "head snaps backwards" story is another mistaken conclusion.

At frame 312, the president’s head is okay. At frame 313, which is 1/18 of a second later -- the Zapruder film was shot at an odd speed of 18.3 fps (8mm cameras were notorious for shooting at odd speeds due to some being spring wound and others running off batteries, which grow weak) -- you see the president struck in the head, the literal explosion of his head. In frame 313, the President’s head is not pushed backwards, which would be consistent with the head snap theory, but it’s pushed slightly forward, 2.3 inches forward, indicating a shot from the rear, where Oswald was. If you can get a copy of the film, or an Internet posting of the individual frames, you can see this for yourself.

If anything, the gruesomeness of that head shot is much more impactful to the psyche than what you see on the film at full speed. That frame 313 shows the president’s head pushed forward is also very clearly shown in the photo section of "Reclaiming History" by criminal prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi, who got the Manson conviction. Also, a high-contrast photo of frame 313 shows a horrible spray of blood and tissue all to the front, indicating a shot from the rear. It isn't until a full 10 frames later -- a mere six-tenths of a second, but much too late for it to be a reaction to a frontal shot -- that JFK's head snaps back, and it is most likely from Jackie's violent reaction and recoil from her husband's fatal wound, that makes that motion occur.

You may not want to hear it, S/N, but yes, I believe the Warren Commission was unbiased, not under orders to come to a particular finding, and told the truth.

I didn't. But then, Nixon didn't act alone, did he?

 

Thank you for a balanced response based on facts and reason, not retrospective speculation.

 

You're welcome. As I said earlier, I was once convinced it was all a giant conspiracy, too, but the facts simply don't bear that out. Oswald acted alone, being the mental case that most assassins and serial killers turn out to be, upon investigation.

 

I'm going to second that motion by C4K.

Also, the questions asked by SN remind me of the Rush Limbaugh school of innuendo and leading question. And I apologize to SN ahead of time because I know how he adores Rush.

Examples of more:

So, you believe it was just a coincidence that there were Russian satellites in space that fateful day in November 1963?

Isn't it odd that there was live TV coverage of a prisoner transfer, allowing the entire country to see Oswald get murdered?

Why is there a man wearing (what appears to be) a Texas Rangers baseball cap in the Zapruder film when that team will not even exist until 1972?

Why weren't the limousine's headlights on? HUH? WHY NOT?

 

Let me guess, you reached this conclusion from extensive experience working for various federal governmental agencies.

 

OK, I can accept some of your reasoning about certain areas. The grassy knoll is probably the weakest. However, conclusions in other areas are opinion and conjecture on your part. If Jim Garrison was a delusional conspiracy freak, how did he become DA in the first place, and how did he convince a grand jury to indict Clay Shaw?

Also, explaining the President's head being forced backwards "by Jackie's violent reaction and recoil from a rear shot in conjecture.

Now, you talk about the truthfulness of the Warren Report. Either one believes in government reports or one does not. How do you explain the 1976 Congressional Investigation of the Kennedy and King assassinations that conclude that Kennedy's death was a conspiracy. Do you choose not to believe that one? If so, when it comes to governmental reports, you have selective belief.

The conclusion that Kennedy was killed by one person and one person alone is built on circumstantial evidence and falls way below reasonable doubt.

 

Apology accepted. Rush is about as low as humanity gets. I gave a counter reason for believing in a conspiracy in the post above. An investigation in 1976 came to a different conclusion than the Warren Commission. It concluded that it was a conspiracy not involving Cuba, Russia, the CIA, or FBI. It did leave out one person, President Johnson. It is well known that Johnson and Kennedy hated each other. It is also a fact that Kennedy was warned by several people not to travel to Dallas. In whose interest was it that Kennedy be removed. None other than Vice President Johnson. Kennedy was horrible in the morality department, but governed the nation from the right by today's standards fairly well. Johnson was nothing but a model of politicians today, a self serving, greedy crook. No one can prove he was involved, but the neither can the other side prove LHO was the lone gunman.

Of course your three reasons above are ridiculous, and take away from the credibility of the theory. Two things to say, one is I am not a conspiracy person. How many times have Poncho and I clashed over conspiracy. Secondly, to add to your funny reasons above, Richard Nixon was in Dallas the day Kennedy was killed.

Oh, and thanks for linking me and Rush. I love you too. LOL

 

It doesn’t require that much sophistication to kill someone, especially if you don’t think you have anything to lose. Squeaky Fromme (a devoted follower of Charles Manson) was/is a nutcase who managed to get close enough to President Ford to pull a large caliber revolver on him. A bystander apprehended her, but she could have easily fired off a round if she had had a round chambered.

Gavrilo Princip, the Serbian radical that assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand sparking World War I (and then the consequences of that war that initiated the Communist Revolution in Russia, World War II, the expansion of communism, the Cold War, the Korean Conflict, the Vietnam War, and the current Wars on Terror), thought he had missed his opportunity to assassinate Ferdinand because of a previous botched attempt that morning by another Serb with a grenade. The parade was cancelled and Princip had lost his opportunity. In a highly improbable twist of fame, he went to a local restaurant to have lunch and when he stepped out on the street again, he saw the ArchDuke’s car about five feet away from him, stalled in the street after having taked a wrong turn. He pulled out his revolver and fired, sparking a chain of consequences resulting in the violent deaths of tens of millions of people, and we are still feeling the consequences today.

That the gun was mail order is irrelevant. I have ordered firearms on the internet and they are certainly lethal. He knew where Kennedy was going to be because it was published in the newspaper. He did not necessarily know the bubble top would not be installed, but you are assuming that he would not have been ready to make an attempt either way.

Why does it have to have significance for Oswald to be guilty?

If you have ever been in Dealey Plaza (I have MANY times – including the time when Oliver Stone was filming the assassination scenes for his movie JFK, when all of the road signs, etc. were carefully recreated and positioned), you will know that there are a lot of tall structures surrounding the plaza which provides numerous echoes. Also, the “grassy knoll” would be a natural place for a sniper to shoot, so the mind can easily make unwarranted associations/assumptions based on unexpected stimuli. Lots of people think very horizontally (front, behind, and to the sides) and don’t think about looking up (in three dimensions). I’ve stood behind the picket fence on the grassy knoll where people allege that there was a gunman on several occasions. It would be just about impossible for someone to take shots from the knoll and get away.

Why not? Grand juries often rubber stamp what District Attorneys want to prosecute.

What evidence do you have that they were not?

I don’t think it was beyond that character of any of these men or organizations, but just because they could benefit from JFK’s death, does not provide any positive evidence that they were involved in any way. In fact, Castro was extremely upset about the murder because he was afraid he would be blamed and the U.S. would claim it as justification for invasion. The Soviet Union was also very concerned and took unprecedented steps to investigate whether or not any of their operatives had anything to do with it. We actually knew this at the time because of our NSA surveillance of these country’s internal communications.

Kennedy was wearing a back brace which kept his upper body erect. The exit wound from the skull ejected a mass of tissue and bone forward, which stabilizes the body to some degree. Also, the Zapruder film is an 8mm film exposed at about 18 frames per second. That is somewhat slower than standard film formats today, so there are things that happen between the frames that are not captured.

The Warren Commission was definitely a politically-charged committee, but that does not mean that they were incapable of telling the truth. Furthermore, evidence has to be sorted through and relevance determined as part of the investigation. Just as a number of your assertions in your post are irrelevant (“mail order gun”, etc.), there has to be a vetting process.

I was a kid during Watergate, but I waited until the evidence was in before I jumped to conclusions.

 

What more of an eyewitness do you want, other than Abe Zapruder's secretary who helped him steady his camera, and saw the pop bottle fall?

Grand juries are sheep. They go whatever direction the DA or prosecutor wants them to go. And again, Garrison was nothing more than a wild-eyed conspiracy nut:

New Orleans, and the Garrison investigation​

If you watch the film, you can see the reaction, and it becomes more than conjecture, but pretty much fact. And the fact of the gory spray going forward after the head shot cannot be disputed (though diehards have recently claimed someone "replaced" Frame 313 with a cleverly constructed forgery -- gimme a break!)

You also have to take into account the president's back brace, which the vast majority of people don't even realize he wore constantly. It prevented him from protecting himself by bending over below the sight line of the rear deck of the limo, and could have caused him, according to back surgeons and doctors, to flinch in unnatural ways upon impact by a bullet anywhere above the waist.

It was 1979, and they didn't have the technology available to them, or potential expert witnesses who could use that technology to analyze the evidence as it has been since the late 1980s.

Hardly. Just because I can't accept some government reports doesn't mean I reject them all. It take them one at a time. There are some competent people in government, and while the Warren Commission made mistakes, they nonetheless reached the right conclusion.

Actually, that describes the evidence of a "conspiracy." The solid evidence points to one man, Lee Harvey Oswald, as the lone gunman.

 

There are too many folks these days that are obsessed with their conspiracy theories. But it is especially alarming that professing Christians are suckered into the same shams too.

 

Here is a digital, remastered, stabilized version of the Zapruder film. Be sure to click on the gear in the tray of the YouTube box and select 1080p (if your monitor supports it) and click full screen.

http://youtu.be/Sqk3sdfXFkc

 

Thanks for your suggestion about how to watch the Zapruder film. While I still disagree with some of your conclusions concerning Oswald's abilities, the connection between Oswald and Ruby, and others, everything taken as a whole, I have to agree with you. It has been decades since I thought about this subject. The head does go forward and the residue does also. Much as I hate to admit it, LHO probably did it alone, maybe by a series of lucky breaks, but he did it and acted alone. The balance of the evidence is on your side

Believe it or not, while watching some of this stuff, I came across a theory that said that John Conley had a pistol in his hand and shot the President on the second shot. The author claimed a black line across the video hid the gun. Anyway, the best one I saw besides the Zapruder film was a computer animation that showed Conley sitting lower and inboard of the President, which gave an exact straight line for the supposed "magic bullet."

 

He did qualify at one point as a sharpshooter, though low in the range for that rating. However, he had the ability to aim and fire the rifle with some degree of accuracy, and I think that head shot was probably about the luckiest the man ever got in his life.

Yeah, I mentioned that one in my first or second post, I think. Isn't it amazing what gets repeated often enough that everyone believes it, when a simple investigation would show them that what they have been told is completely wrong?

Sounds familiar, doesn't it? :laugh:

 

Yep, it does. What was your take on John Conley, Governor of Texas at the time, as being one of the theories that he had a gun and turned around and shot the President? The only one worse was Richard Nixon being in Dallas that day having some meaning. What finally dawned on me was the amount of time that had passed since I had even thought about the subject. Anyway, thanks again for presenting the evidence in a logical manner.

I have not bothered to look it up, but what happened to Jim Garrison the rest of his life? I assume he has died by now.

 

Among the theories on the assassination that fit neatly into the "nutty" category, that is undoubtedly the nuttiest.

Yeah, I'd forgotten about that one. What, was he taking his revenge for having the election stolen by the Chicago machine? If that's the case, where's Romney tonight?

OK, sorry, that was in bad taste.

No problem -- occasionally I can be fairly logical. :tongue3:

Interestingly, he was tried in a kangaroo court of another attorney's making in 1973. as Gerald J. Gallinghouse of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana got him indicted for bribery, allegedly receiving kickbacks to protect illegal pinball machines. He was found not guilty. Later that year, he lost his reelection bid to the DA's office, defeated by Harry Connick, Sr., the singer's dad. In 1978, he won a special election for the state Circuit Court of Appeals and was on the bench until he died in 1992.