Like CurtC said, I agree with this. I think it also explains why Oswald had his wife take a picture of him holding his rifle and communists leaflets…he was trying to prove that he was a soldier in the communist cause. I think he was genuinely shocked and disappointed that the Cubans wouldn’t let him enter the country through Mexico, and it made him desperate to take some action that would firmly prove his devotion to the cause.
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Maybe, but I think it’s more likely that he hadn’t thought that far ahead. He was so focused on his contribution to communism that he didn’t care too much what came next. If he had planned anything, he would have slunk back into the crowd and gotten himself away - instead he wandered around Oak Cliff like a schmuck (as Bryan said), apparently not trying to hide, but not knowing what to do with himself.
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I also agree with this. He would only have had a few days’ notice that Kennedy was going to be driving by his work, so he didn’t really have any time to concoct an elaborate escape. His earlier experience with shooting at General Walker had shown him that he could get away with it if he just walked away. I believe that was as far as he had planned here.
Wild Speculation: Perhaps he went back to his rooming house, intending to lay low. But, upon hearing radio reports that may have given his description, he may have felt desperate and needing to flee. So, he grabbed his revolver and took off. But, being the schmuck he was, he didn’t have anywhere to go.
Serious handsomeharry, either participate or get the hell out of the way.
I concur with this as well. While he did leave his wedding ring behind, I think by-and-large, he didn’t think much past the assassination. And in some ways, I don’t think he wanted to run. He wanted the stage.
No, your refusal to debate or discuss while still demanding to spray your opinion unopposed all over the thread is what is in the way.
The adults are talking, if you have something important to add, do so. Repeating that you refuse to debate in a forum called ‘Great Debates’ doesn’t add anything.
Personally I think that looking for substantial, logical motifs of why Oswald killed Kennedy leads away from what actual happened, and why.
If one is familiar with the history and as far as it goes psychology of Lee Harvey Oswald (through books by Posner and Mailer for instance), and then consider that that particular person was served the opportunity to kill the president by firing a rifle he already got from the place he already worked at, I wouldn’t say “of course he would take a shot”, but chances are that he will – just because he can (considering the person he was).
There are no big, logical reasons for why this particular person shot that particular person, it’s just that this politically and psychologically confused person was served an opportunity to do something “great”, and he took it.
Which is both true and, the end, what drives the CTers. The nation took a long time to come to terms with the banality and small scale of the killer, and in the meantime, a whole industry arose to craft explanations corresponding with its results.
Fifty years later, we have a much better idea of what one “lone nut” or small group of disaffected folk can do - on a national or global scale - and no longer need vast conspiracies to explain one pathetic figure’s actions.
I’m personally curious about alternate theories, including grassy-knoll theories that purport to explain bullet trajectories better than the lone-shooter version, i.e. the mechanics of the assassination. I don’t care in the least who can be claimed to have been motivated to kill Kennedy or who can be claimed to have profited from his death.
The Warren Commission, and others, made assumptions that were later proved wrong by more thorough investigations. The single bullet or “Magic bullet” was one of them. The assumption was that Connally must have been sitting on a jump seat directly in front of Kennedy. An examination of Presidential Limousine SS100X, and motorcade photos, show Connally’s seat was inboard and lower than Kennedy’s. The lone bullet did not magically shift left or right, up or down.
Doorhinge has given a good, if select answer. The longer one is that nearly everything claimed by CT proponents is simply, factually, provably wrong. Not by countering conjecture, but by verifiable facts about the car, the route, the rifle, the bullets - whatever. Contrary theories always start with an error. Sometimes the error is in the conclusions of the original investigation, where they misunderstood the factual situation. The “zig zag bullet path” comes from such a misunderstanding, as the above post covers.
Many times, though, the error is in the CTer’s insistence on a false fact, or by omitting known facts, to create a “mystery” that only their explanation solves.
The answers really are all in the Warren Commission’s 22-volume report, and 99% of them are in the 1-volume summary. A few mistakes by those good and honest men do not undo its truth… and neither do the paranoid yammerings of those who Know the Real Truth (but can’t prove it unless they’re allowed to select their data).
Yes, and I’ve seen the recreations that put models of Kennedy and Connelly in their relative positons as best as can be estimated and the bullet trajectory lines up nicely. I’m curious about alternate-shooter hypotheses that vary from this and what bullet trajectories their proponents have in mind.
All of the alternate shooter theories begin with two assumptions: the bullet trajectories do not line up for a single shooter, and the motion/explosion of JFK’s head “obviously” indicates he was shot from the front. IF you take those two postulations as fact, a theory other than one shooter behind the car is needed. Away you go with grassy knolls, tramps, armed drivers, Secret Service screwups, etc.
Since the trajectories do line up if you interpret the data correctly, and all evidence is overwhelming that JFK was shot in the back of the head (no matter how the result looks to an amateur), you don’t need any other explanations. So pick your own false facts and whomp up an explanation. You’d be the multi-thousandth to do so.
ETA: I am not sure any of the CT theories go as far as establishing exact shooter position and bullet trajectories, since to go beyond vague claims about shooters in front and multiple shooters runs smack-dab into cold hard contradictory facts. The claims have to rely on paranoia/gullibility/ignorance and thus don’t get into easily disprovable details. Usually.
A 6.5x52mm Mannlicher-Carcano M91 Rifle, in good condition, could have hit a moving target at that distance. Especially in the hands of a reasonably good marksman.
If there was an alternate-shooter, and I don’t believe there was, they either did not fire, or fired and missed.
