Did Castro Have JFK Killed?

[Jonathan_Chance]

@spifflog

At this point I really don’t know if you’re just trolling or not.

You can’t say another poster is trolling. Warning issued. Please don’t do it again.

[/moderating]

[Leo_Krupe]

@proudfootz

Apparently where the Lone Nut Theory would posit an entrance wound should be.

Can you please answer the question directly?

[Human_Action]

@proudfootz

As I said, lots of people worked there.

But you seem to have [inadvertantly] clipped out the bit where I discussed the issue:

“I don’t think it can be shown that Oswald was at the so-called ‘sniper nest’ on the 6th floor at the time of the shooting.”

Witnesses all seem to place Oswald on the lower floors around that time. So if it is true that someone shot from this so-called ‘sniper nest’ it’s most likely it wasn’t Oswald, because he was somewhere else.

I was referring to something you said earlier:

@proudfootz

AFAICT Oswald had no motive, no opportunity, and apparently did not fire a long gun on that day.

It just struck me as odd that working in a building overlooking the site of the assassination, and inhabiting that building on the day in question, wouldn’t count as “opportunity”. That’s all. I’ll leave to others to parse out the witness statements and other evidence, as I will be leaving work soon (I seldom post from elsewhere) and prefer to focus on the ballistics, as I am a firearms enthusiast & recreational shooter myself.

[Shodan]

@proudfootz

Unlike others here, I don’t bend over backwards denying evidence that might tend to favor other hypotheses.

I wouldn’t say this was strictly accurate.

They didn’t find anyone there standing around waiting to be arrested. They did find evidence someone was there. And now we have acoustical evidence that a shot came from that location.

Since the acoustical evidence has been rather extensively debunked, or at least you would agree is equivocal, and since there is no indication that police went there only, we need to weigh the fact that no bullet casings were found there, and the trajectory of the shots makes it impossible that either of the bullets that hit Kennedy came from there, then we need to contrast that with the fact that lots and lots of evidence was found at the TSBD.

An employee’s fingerprints were found at his place of work?

<yawn>

On the sniper’s nest from which the shots were fired? I don’t think that calls for yawning, unless you yawn when you are bending over backwards.

Are we talking about the Mauser cops swore they found, or another rifle?

I am talking about the rifle that was found to be a Mannlicher-Carcano, which Oswald obtained thru mail order, that he was photographed holding, that was shown to be a probable match to the bullets, whose design and appearance were based on a Mauser but was actually a Mannlicher-Carcano. That rifle.

This rifle you’re speaking of - you say it shot from the Grassy Knoll?

No, it fired from the Texas School Book depository. None of the bullets that hit Kennedy and Connally came from the grassy knoll.

The palm print that FBI examiner Sebastian Latona couldn’t find on the weapon?

The palm print that Special Agent Latona found was on the paper bag. You must be thinking of some other piece of BS.

The bag witnesses testified too that was too small to hold a rifle?

Bag witnesses didn’t say that.

While Frazier testified the bag was only 24 inches long, give or take several inches, he made it clear he was very unsure about the length of the bag and constantly mentioned that he “didn’t pay too much attention” (2H226-7, 240). When Oswald told Frazier it was curtain rods he remembered “the main reason he [Oswald] was going over there that Thursday afternoon when he was to bring back some curtain rods, so I didn’t think any more about it when he told me that” (2H226). Oswald “had never lied to me before so I never did have any reason to doubt his word” (13H441). So Frazier clearly was not paying attention to the package. He even stated in an affidavit that the bag from the Depository “could have been the sack or package which he saw in the possession of Oswald on the morning of November 22, 1963, but that he does not feel he is in a position to definitely state that this original is or is not the sack” (CE 2009).

and

Randle’s testimony was inconsistent. Randle drove over to the Paine house while police were there on the afternoon of November 22. Detective Stovall testified that she told him “that her brother had taken Oswald to work that morning and she said that she had seen him put some kind of a package in the back seat of her brother’s car. She told us it could have been a rifle is what she said” (7H192 — emphasis added). She also stated on the day of the assassination that the bag was “approximately 3 feet by 6 inches” (Commission Document 5, p. 320). Randle later participated in a simulation with an FBI agent walking toward her kitchen window as Oswald had, and estimated the bag to be 27 inches long. She then stuck with that estimate (Commission Document 7, pp. 298-9). On the day of the assassination she stated (in the words of an FBI interviewer) that “the Dallas Police Department had exhibited to her some brown package paper, however she had not been able to positively identify it as being identical with the above-mentioned brown package, due to the fact she had only observed the brown package from her residence window at a distance” (Commission Document 5, p. 320, emphasis added). Later when she testified, she was very sure that about the length of the bag.

Like other employees, Oswald left work as no further work was done that day. Hard to characterize that as ‘fleeing’.

Also false. Oswald left work before anyone else, before the rest of the employees were dismissed. When they did a tally of employees before dismissing them, he was the only one who was there earlier and was missing.

Who else did not return to work?

Who else fled the scene, and shot a police officer?

Actually the alleged entrance wound was in the back, not the neck. It was Gerald Ford who altered the document to fudge the facts.

Well, your allegation that Ford altered the document isn’t true. Fortunately it makes no difference - if JFK was hit from the front, why were there no entry wounds on the front?

There is no persuasive evidence that the throat wound and the back wound were caused by one bullet.

Straightforwardly false. The throat wound was an exit wound, and the wound in back was an entry wound. And they were caused by the same bullet.

Observers differ as to the size and extent of the head wound. Immediately after the shooting doctors and medical staff observed what would appear to be an exit wound in the back of the President’s head.

But later examination showed that it was an entry wound, so their first-glance observation turned out to be wrong. Is there a reason to accept what the doctor thought before as gospel and reject what was established by detailed examination? Apart from what is becoming increasingly obvious.

Regards,
Shodan

[spifflog]

@Jonathan_Chance

You can’t say another poster is trolling. Warning issued. Please don’t do it again.

I didn’t see he was, I was just pondering with the evidence at hand.

Having said that, I won’t do it again.

BREAK

With that, I’ll bow out of this discussion.

If you’re determined to live in the dark, someone else can’t turn on the light for you. Think I would have learned by now.

[Shodan]

@proudfootz

I could find no claim that the Haags tried to re-create the so-called jet effect.

Not the Haags - as Human Action mentions, Luis Alvarez, and

Dr. John Lattimer reproduced Alvarez’ results with human skulls, and with a rifle and ammunition identical to those Oswald used.

So the Haags were testing something else, but the jet effect was demonstrated elsewhere, and they referenced it.

So now Occam’s Razor can be used - Kennedy was hit from behind. No other explanation fits the known facts.

Regards,
Shodan

PS - all or most of my cites are from the mcadams page, so I haven’t bothered with links as much as might otherwise be necessary.

[Human_Action]

@Shodan

Not the Haags - as Human Action mentions, Luis Alvarez, and So the Haags were testing something else, but the jet effect was demonstrated elsewhere, and they referenced it.

So now Occam’s Razor can be used - Kennedy was hit from behind. No other explanation fits the known facts.

Regards,
Shodan

PS - all or most of my cites are from the mcadams page, so I haven’t bothered with links as much as might otherwise be necessary.

In the interview, the Haags say that they have demonstrated the same thing, for what it’s worth.

[Shodan]

My mistake, then - I only read your excerpt.

Regards,
Shodan

[Bryan_Ekers]

@proudfootz

Apparently where the Lone Nut Theory would posit an entrance wound should be.

Be that as it may, back left or back right?

[Human_Action]

@Shodan

My mistake, then - I only read your excerpt.

Regards,
Shodan

Not a problem. We can agree that it’s been demonstrated repeatedly (don’t forget Penn & Teller, on Bullshit!), and is rooted in basic physics.

[Shodan]

@Bryan_Ekers

Be that as it may, back left or back right?

I believe the grassy knoll was to Kennedy’s right, therefore an exit wound would be on the left. I leave it as an exercise to the reader where the wound actually was.

Regards,
Shodan

[Bryan_Ekers]

I’m just curious if proudfootz has any thoughts on the significance of the placement of entry and exit wounds. They are, after all, pretty straightforward indicators of the sequence of events, but he seems hesitant to answer straightforward questions about them, or anything else of demonstrable relevance.

[Shodan]

But, but - what about Occam’s Razor? That would indicate that if a person is shot twice from behind, it was done by a gang firing in random directions from the bushes. And that there was a cover-up.

Wake up, sheeple!

Regards,
Shodan

[Moriarty]

I’m just going to respond to a few things to demonstrate how cherry-picked, disingenuous, and incomplete the sites you reference are.

@proudfootz

One of Oswald’s co-workers saw him enter the building, and did not observe anything in his hands, let alone a rifle-sized parcel.

showDoc.html

Another ‘indisputable fact’ bites the dust. :smack:

You claim that you refuted an “indisputable” fact by virtue of citing to one interview.
That interview is also here. And, indeed, it is true that Jack Dougherty says that he didn’t see Oswald carrying a bag when he enters. Of course, that is contradicted by the guy who actually drove Oswald to work, but for now let’s just question whether Dougherty’s recollection is independently credible.

How carefully was Dougherty looking at Oswald when he came in to work?

@Testimony

Mr. Ball: Now, do you remember that you gave a statement to the FBI and to a man by the name of Ellington or a Mr. Anderton, the day after - the 23rd of November?
Mr. Dougherty: Yes - I talked to so many of them - it is kind of hard to remember.
Mr. Ball: And there is a statement that they took when they talked to you and in it you said, “I recall vaguely, having seen Lee Oswald, when he came to work about 8 am today.”
…
Mr. Ball: Now, is that a very definite impression that you saw him that morning when he came to work?
Mr. Dougherty: Well, oh - it’s like this - I’ll try to explain it to you in this way - you see I was sitting on the wrapping table and when he came in to the door, I just caught him out of the corner of my eye -that’s the reason why I said it that way.

And how certain is Mr. Dougherty’s memory, anyway?

@Testimony

Mr. Dougherty: Well, then immediately I heard a loud noise - it sounded like a car backfiring and I came back down to the first floor and I asked Eddie Piper, I said, “Piper, what was that?” I says, “Has the President been shot?” He said, “yes”
Mr. Ball: You didn’t say - did you say, “Has the President been shot?” - you told the FBI agent that you went down to the first floor and you saw a man named Eddie Piper and asked him if he heard a loud noise.
Mr. Dougherty: I asked him that too.
Mr. Ball: And Piper said he heard three loud noises and told you that somebody had just shot the President; is that right?
Mr… Dougherty: That’s right.
Mr. Ball: Who mentioned the fact that the President had been shot first - you or Eddie Piper?
Mr. Dougherty: Eddie Piper
Mr. Ball: Did you say anything to Piper about the President being shot?
Mr. Dougherty: No, sir

And, just for fun, where did Dougherty think the shots had come from?

@Testimony

Mr. Ball: And while you were on the fifth floor, you heard a loud noise?
Mr. Dougherty: That’s right - it sounded like a car backfiring.
Mr. Ball: And did you hear more than one loud explosion or noise?
Mr. Dougherty: No; that was the only one I heard.
Mr. Ball: You only heard one?
Mr. Dougherty: Yes
Mr. Ball: And where did it sound like it came from?
Mr. Dougherty: It sounded like it came from overheard somewhere.
Mr. Ball: From overheard?
Mr. Dougherty: Yes

Another one bites the dust, indeed.
…

@Proudfootz

By 1963, as confirmed by Assistant Defense Secretary Roswell Gilpatric and Defense Department analyst John McNaughton, Kennedy had decided that he was going to use Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara as his point man to go ahead and implement a withdrawal from Vietnam. McNamara’s instructions to begin planning the withdrawal of U.S. military personnel had been relayed to Saigon in summer 1962.

At a key meeting in Hawaii in May 1963, McNamara was presented with an update on the planning for the withdrawal. He deemed the plans too slow and asked them to be speeded up. (James DiEugenio, Destiny Betrayed, pgs. 366-367) But the point was that the plan was in place. Kennedy activated it in October 1963 by signing National Security Action Memorandum 263, stating that the withdrawal would begin in December of 1963 and be completed in 1965.

Here is National Security Action Memorandum 263. Please do point out where it says what your source quotes. I read a reference to withdrawing 1,000 troops by the end of 1963. That’s it. Notably, JFK makes a point of stating that no formal announcement is to be made, giving political cover if he changes his mind.

Oh, and the Memorandum makes reference to this, which is a Telegram to Ambassador Lodge. I’ll let you decide where this telegram references full withdrawal, too. (Hint: it doesn’t)

@From JFK to his ambassador regarding plans for Vietnam

2. Actions are designed to indicate to Diem Government our displeasure at its political policies and activities and to create significant uncertainty in that government and in key Vietnamese groups as to future intentions of United States. At same time, actions are designed to have at most slight impact on military or counterinsurgency effort against Viet Cong, at least in short term.
   3. The recommendations on negotiations are concerned with what US is after, i.e., GVN action to increase effectiveness of its military effort; to ensure popular support to win war; and to eliminate strains on US Government and public confidence. The negotiating posture is designed not to lay down specific hard and fast demands or to set a deadline, but to produce movement in Vietnamese Government along these lines. In this way we can test and probe effectiveness of any actions the GVN actually takes and, at same time, maintain sufficient flexibility to permit US to resume full support of Diem regime at any time US Government deems it appropriate.

[proudfootz]

@Human_Action

Here’s the section of the interview I am referencing (my bolding):

FLATOW: Something that’s very graphic in the Zapruder film is that the president, as he - as the head shot happens, his head goes backwards as if he’s getting shot from the front. It arches backwards. How do you explain that?

HAAG: Oliver Stone’s one of the ones who I just saw recently stand up and say we can all see that the president’s obviously shot from the front because his head moves back. There’s two explanations for this. One’s given by the lifelong wound ballistician named Larry Sturdivan, who worked for the wound ballistics lab. It may be neurological response. I’m not prepared to affirm or refute that at all. There’s a physical explanation called Newton’s third law of motion. And Mike and I have demonstrated this a number of times.

A doctor - Professor Alvarez also demonstrated it. It’s basically if a bullet goes into the back of Kennedy’s head and propels a quantity of brain matter that we see in frame 313 out the front, it’s basically a propulsive effect, a jet effect, action reaction. Not the consequence of a frontal strike. The momentum of a bullet stopping in a human being barely moves him at all. And if that were true, if Oliver Stone were right, then there’d be a bullet in there because there’s no exit in the back or in the left side of Kennedy’s head.

Thanks for the clip.

I’d be interested to see this demonstration if it happened.

[proudfootz]

@Human_Action

I was referring to something you said earlier:

It just struck me as odd that working in a building overlooking the site of the assassination, and inhabiting that building on the day in question, wouldn’t count as “opportunity”. That’s all. I’ll leave to others to parse out the witness statements and other evidence, as I will be leaving work soon (I seldom post from elsewhere) and prefer to focus on the ballistics, as I am a firearms enthusiast & recreational shooter myself.

As I made clear in the post you edited - I am referring specifically to the unsubstantiated assertion that shots were fired from the sixth floor ‘sniper nest’ and that it was Oswald who pulled the trigger.

If Oswald was* not* where the supposed crime occurred, at that location at that time, he had no opportunity to commit said crime.

But it is not up to me to disprove the theory that ‘Oswald did it’ held by a distinct minority of people. The burden of proof can’t be shifted onto the skeptic to ‘prove a negative’ - and no need to if Lone Nut Theorists can’t prove their positive case.

I do hope this fully explains what I plainly wrote to your complete and utter satisfaction.

[proudfootz]

@Shodan

I wouldn’t say this was strictly accurate.

Perhaps I exaggerate a little.

Since the acoustical evidence has been rather extensively debunked, or at least you would agree is equivocal, and since there is no indication that police went there only, we need to weigh the fact that no bullet casings were found there, and the trajectory of the shots makes it impossible that either of the bullets that hit Kennedy came from there, then we need to contrast that with the fact that lots and lots of evidence was found at the TSBD.

You think the acoustic evidence was debunked, I think it was vindicated, and at best we have a draw. But even so, witnesses reported a shooter there, which would tend to lend credence to the findings of acoustical specialists that indeed a shot came from that location.

There is nothing impossible about the trajectory of a shot hitting Kennedy in the head from that location. That is yet another unsubstantiated claim you’re trying to smuggle in as if it were a ‘fact’.

:smack:

On the sniper’s nest from which the shots were fired? I don’t think that calls for yawning, unless you yawn when you are bending over backwards.

You don’t know that Oswald’s job involved shifting boxes? His fingerprint was supposedly found on a box in the building where he shifted boxes? No need to bend in any direction to be bored by this irrelevancy.

I am talking about the rifle that was found to be a Mannlicher-Carcano, which Oswald obtained thru mail order, that he was photographed holding, that was shown to be a probable match to the bullets, whose design and appearance were based on a Mauser but was actually a Mannlicher-Carcano. That rifle.

Gish Gallops again! Virtually all these factoids have been addressed already.

No, it fired from the Texas School Book depository. None of the bullets that hit Kennedy and Connally came from the grassy knoll.

Yet another unsubstantiated assertion. Though I would agree that whatever bullets may have struck Connally probably did not come from the Grassy Knoll - we have only evidence of one shot coming from there. That shot appears to have struck Kennedy in the head, the impact of the bullet pushing his head back and to the left and leaving the exit wound observed by Parkland medical personnel.

The palm print that Special Agent Latona found was on the paper bag. You must be thinking of some other piece of BS.

Latona inspected the rifle. You are misstating the facts.

Bag witnesses didn’t say that.

Indeed they did. Again you are misstating the facts.

No one can take you seriously if you serially demonstrate a contempt for the facts.

The paper sack described by witnesses (nothing like the paper-wrapped parcel in evidence) is said to have been about 2 foot long, while the rifle in evidence is over three feet long.

That leaves over 12 inches of rifle peeking out.

Also false. Oswald left work before anyone else, before the rest of the employees were dismissed. When they did a tally of employees before dismissing them, he was the only one who was there earlier and was missing.

How could they do a tally of the employees when so many of them did not re-enter the building after the assassination? You’re not thinking clearly.

Who else fled the scene, and shot a police officer?

There is no indication anyone ‘fled the scene’ - workers no longer needed to work went home.

I don’t believe Oswald shot any police officer, and even if he did it has no bearing on the Kennedy case.

You need to think carefully before posting, it would save you a lot of embarrassment.

Well, your allegation that Ford altered the document isn’t true.

It’s only what has been universally reported in the papers. And the originals show it in his own handwriting. So if you’re now going to claim some conspiracy was afoot to implicate Gerald Ford you should do so. DAs across the land are awaiting your call!

Fortunately it makes no difference - if JFK was hit from the front, why were there no entry wounds on the front?

If you are claiming there are none, I’m happy to entertain your evidence.

As it is I have already linked to the testimony of numerous medical professionals who had the opportunity to observe the President’s condition and they say he had what appeared to be an exit wound in the back of his head.

They also reported an entrance wound in the President’s throat.

So it would appear that you are once again misrepresenting the facts.

Straightforwardly false. The throat wound was an exit wound, and the wound in back was an entry wound. And they were caused by the same bullet.

Pure conjecture on your part, without persuasive evidence.

Even if one were to draw an imaginary line from the back wound to the throat wound, you would have a trajectory that points away from the so-called ‘sniper nest’ in the TSBD.

But later examination showed that it was an entry wound, so their first-glance observation turned out to be wrong. Is there a reason to accept what the doctor thought before as gospel and reject what was established by detailed examination? Apart from what is becoming increasingly obvious.

The only thing that has become increasingly obvious is you willingness to invent ‘facts’ and ignore evidence to support your faith in the discredited fringe belief in the Lone Nut Theory.

Kindest regards,

Proudfootz

[proudfootz]

@Shodan

Not the Haags - as Human Action mentions, Luis Alvarez, and So the Haags were testing something else, but the jet effect was demonstrated elsewhere, and they referenced it.

I see, so the people being interviewed weren’t the ‘ballistics experts’ that were referenced.

So now Occam’s Razor can be used - Kennedy was hit from behind. No other explanation fits the known facts.

The ‘jet effect’ is a theory, not a fact. Moreover, it is a theory that doesn’t seem to hold water.

http://jfklancer.com/pdf/Jet_Effect_Rebuttal_II_(4-17-2012).pdf

Another observations regarding this hypothesis:

http://www.jfklancer.com/galanor/jet_effect_text.html

Deepest regards,

Proudfootz

[proudfootz]

@Bryan_Ekers

Be that as it may, back left or back right?

Medical professionals observed what appeared to be an exit wound on the right rear of the President’s head.

Unless Oswald had some new kind of boomerang ammunition that passed Kennedy and struck him from the front it seems the Lone Nut Theory has a problem.

[proudfootz]

@Shodan

I believe the grassy knoll was to Kennedy’s right, therefore an exit wound would be on the left. I leave it as an exercise to the reader where the wound actually was.

Regards,
Shodan

That would be an excellent observation if it was required that any bullet striking the head to pass through the dead center.

But even the Lone Nutter Theory has the President being struck on the right and the bullet exiting the right.

:smack:

How could they be so stupid?

So it seems not everyone has your deep knowledge of wound ballistics.