# Did Lee Harvey Oswald assassinate JFK? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 9, 2007, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-lee-harvey-oswald-assassinate-jfk/414950 "2007-08-09T02:28:29Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![BJMoose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/5fc32e/32.png) [@BJMoose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BJMoose)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2007, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-lee-harvey-oswald-assassinate-jfk/414950/141 "2007-08-12T01:46:06Z")
Excuse me for jumping in here again, but I just came across this on the Dealy Plaza page of the McAdams site linked to above, and it’s a splendid way to cap off the earlier discussion of whether Oswald had enough time to get off the shots. > [@](#): > > FBI weapons expert Robert Frazier got off three accurate shots with Oswald’s Mannlicher-Carcano rifle in 4.5 seconds – recycling the mechanism and reaiming the rifle twice. In this hilarious sequence, conspiracy author Josiah Thompson misstates Frazier’s results, and proceeds to cycle the mechanism of the rifle in 1.83 seconds, all the while explaining that it can’t be done in under 2.3 seconds. This is followed by a link to the Thompson video. That should take care of that. ---
**Author:** ![An\_Gadai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@An\_Gadai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/An_Gadai)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2007, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-lee-harvey-oswald-assassinate-jfk/414950/142 "2007-08-12T02:28:35Z")
A slight hijack here. I have a copy of Newsweek from the week Kennedy was shot. It’s dated 22nd of November of 23rd, I can’t recall. It refers to his trip to Texas and one of the articles recounts the story of a photojournalist who approached the motorcade to take a snap. A police source I believe is quoted as saying “He could have been shot”. There’s a photo of Kennedy with “He could have been shot.” as the the caption. I wish I could find it now to scan and share with you folks. ---
**Author:** ![ngant17](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ed8c4c/32.png) [@ngant17](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ngant17)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2007, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-lee-harvey-oswald-assassinate-jfk/414950/143 "2007-08-12T17:30:33Z")
LBJ continued with Kennedy’s domestic policies, but he completely abandoned or ignored JFK’s international policies: withdrawal from Vietnam, cooperative moon mission with the Soviets, and the reapproachment with Cuba. That’s how I would define the coup in the US government in 1963, by looking at how drastically JFK’s international policies were instantly reversed, virtually overnight. As for civil rights, Johnson’s legacy was substandard at best, as a politician early in his career, he voted with his fellow Southern Democrats against civil rights measures such as banning lynching, eliminating poll taxes and denying federal funding to segregated schools. As a senator, Johnson’s opposition to Truman’s civil rights programme disgusted Texas blacks. Johnson continued to appease Southern racists in 1956 when he voted against an important civil rights bill in Congress. In later years, LBJ supported the civil rights issues only after JFK had begun it, it was easy to do it when someone has already paved the way. What could you expect from a waffling Southern redneck? He was hardly ever a revolutionary figure in America’s civil rights movement. Besides, the civil rights movement was as much part of Martin Luther King’s legacy as it was for JFK who began to initiate it, the former being assassinated also by a conspiracy. You’re totally off the mark wrt Kennedy and the CIA, Cuba and Vietnam. Historical facts don’t support your remarks. [QUOTE=Lemur866] Wait, so the Civil Rights movement was a lurch backwards? Johnson’s great society anti-poverty programs? You’re dreaming if you imagine that Kennedy was the 1963 version of Dennis Kucinich. He was a cold warrior, he loved the CIA and military special forces, he ordered the coup in Vietnam and escalated our involvement there, he ordered the assassination attempts on Castro, he took us to the brink of nuclear war during the Cuban Missile Crisis. And Kennedy didn’t give two shits about civil rights for colored people, Johnson was the one who made it all happen. I honestly can’t understand how someone could imagine that Kennedy was a left-wing peacenik, and such a threat to the reactionary military industrial complex that they had to kill him. It’s a fantasy that has no relation to reality. Of course it wouldn’t be shocking if it were true that JFK’s death was the result of a conspiracy. Conspiracies to commit assassinations occur all the time, Lincoln’s assassination was the result of a conspiracy. As I’ve said several times, the contention that Oswald, as the shooter, was part of a larger conspiracy at least doesn’t contradict known facts. The only problem with the notion that Oswald was an agent working for a larger conspiracy is that there is no evidence that he was. If you want to postulate that Oswald was working for some group, you have to somehow provide some evidence. The fact that no credible evidence has emerged over the last 40 years, plus the fact that Oswald’s life story shows him to be a deranged pathetic loner, means that most reasonable people aren’t going to expect such evidence to show up. [/QUOTE] ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2007, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-lee-harvey-oswald-assassinate-jfk/414950/144 "2007-08-12T17:50:14Z")
[QUOTE=ngant17] JFK’s international policies: withdrawal from Vietnam [/QUOTE] > **[McAdams's Kennedy Assassination Home Page Index](https://www.jfk-assassination.net)** > [@](#): > > … JFK firmly believed in the “Domino Theory” (as he told David Brinkley in the fall of 1963), then the idea of backing away from containment was impractical from a national security stanpoint, let alone a political one. > > It was for these reasons alone, that holding the line in Vietnam was essential… [H]e totally disagreed with those who were suggesting the idea of a pullout. “I think that would be a mistake,” he said to Walter Cronkite in 1963… > > Revisionists who claim otherwise about JFK and Vietnam hinge their assertions on two points. One, are the stories told by JFK aides Dave Powers and Ken O’Donnell that JFK had privately revealed his intention to withdraw, but only after the 1964 elections, when it would be politically far more feasible to do so. This assertion has to be taken with a grain of salt. The O’Donnell/Powers story, appeared in 1971… > > More importantly, the active policymakers, including Secretary of State Dean Rusk, insisted that JFK never discussed pulling out at any time… > > In point of fact, the one person who knew JFK better than anyone else, Robert Kennedy, was willing to let history know exactly what his brother’s intentions in Vietnam had been as early as 1964 and 1965, the critical period before it had truly become “Johnson’s War.” In a series of oral history interviews for the JFK Library, RFK said that “it was worthwhile for psychological, political reasons” to stay in Vietnam. > > > [@RFK](#): > > > > “The President felt that he had a strong, overwhelming reason for being in Vietnam and that we should win the war in Vietnam…If you lost Vietnam, I think everybody was quite clear that the rest of Southeast Asia would fall.” sup[/sup] > > John Bartlow Martin point-blank asked RFK “if the President was convinced that the United States had to stay in Vietnam.” The one-word response was “Yes.” sup[/sup]… ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2007, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-lee-harvey-oswald-assassinate-jfk/414950/145 "2007-08-12T18:16:09Z")
[QUOTE=ngant17] LBJ continued with Kennedy’s domestic policies, but he completely abandoned or ignored JFK’s international policies: withdrawal from Vietnam, cooperative moon mission with the Soviets, and the reapproachment with Cuba. That’s how I would define the coup in the US government in 1963, by looking at how drastically JFK’s international policies were instantly reversed, virtually overnight. [/QUOTE] Do you have any evidence regarding a withdrawal from Vietnam other than Salinger’s _convenient_ memory published shortly after public opinion regarding the war had reversed? Do you have any citation for the cooperative space venture or reconciliation with Castro? ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2007, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-lee-harvey-oswald-assassinate-jfk/414950/146 "2007-08-12T18:19:36Z")
I hate to support a Conspiracy Theorist, but… [QUOTE=tomndebb] Do you have any citation for the cooperative space venture or reconciliation with Castro? [/QUOTE] [From NASA](http://exploration.nasa.gov/articles/cooperation.html): > [@](#): > > Say the words “space race,” and pretty much anyone in the United States, young or old, will think of the Cold War competition between the United States and the former Soviet Union to be the first to land a human on the Moon. Most people would also probably believe that during that period, from the late 1950s to the early 1970s, international cooperation in space wasn’t ranked high on anyone’s priority list. > > “But inter-national cooperation has always been there at the policy level at the White House, from Kennedy on,” says Jeff Bingham, senior adviser to the Administrator for policy and history at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C. > > In fact, Bingham notes that on September 20, 1961, President John F. Kennedy, in a speech at the United Nations, proposed that the United States and the Soviet Union work together on a joint mission to reach the Moon. Kennedy’s comments were the outgrowth of a conference Kennedy and Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev had attended in Vienna, Austria, earlier that year. But at that time, Kennedy’s proposal went unheeded, and the stage was set for the race that followed. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2007, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-lee-harvey-oswald-assassinate-jfk/414950/147 "2007-08-12T18:30:55Z")
[QUOTE=tomndebb] Do you have any citation for… reconciliation with Castro? [/QUOTE] I’ve been looking using “john f kennedy” “rapprochement” “cuba”. I haven’t found any sites yet that I would consider unbiased, but I did find [this image](http://www.gwu.edu/%7Ensarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB18/10-01.htm), which purports to be a CIA memo. > [@](#): > > 1. It appears that Fidel Castro is looking for a way to reach rapprochement with the United States Government, probably because he is aware that Cuba is in a state of economic chaos… Castro indicated that if a rapprochement was wanted President John F. Kennedy would have to make the first move… ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2007, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-lee-harvey-oswald-assassinate-jfk/414950/148 "2007-08-12T18:55:18Z")
I found [this](http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/diplomacy/forrel/cuba/cpreface.htm). It’s from a Yale site. > [@](#): > > In the concluding portion of the volume documenting U.S. policy in 1963, the editors focused on U.S. concern with Cuban President Fidel Castro. They also included documentation on a highly secret preliminary effort to explore a possible rapprochement with Castro through intermediaries at the United Nations, as part of the negotiations for the return of the prisoners captured in the unsuccessful Bay of Pigs invasion of April 1961. [Here](http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB103/clip.wma) is an audio clip of Kennedy discussing the possibility during a meeting with National Security Advisor McGeorge Bundy on 5 November 1963. So: [ul][li]Kennedy did broach the idea of a joint Moon mission with the Soviet Union (20 September 1961)[/li][li]Kennedy did consider rapprochement with Cuba, but it was Castro who put out the feeler (30 April 1963)[/li][\*]Kennedy **did not** intend to withdraw from Vietnam[/ul] ---
**Author:** ![David\_Simmons](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9de053/32.png) [@David\_Simmons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David_Simmons)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2007, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-lee-harvey-oswald-assassinate-jfk/414950/149 "2007-08-12T19:35:43Z")
[QUOTE=RickJay] I won’t go into all the details of the conspiracy theories prons and cons, but I do want to provide a little bit of education vis-a-vis whether or not Oswald could have made the shot itself. (Shots, in the case.) Please, if you don’t believe anything else we write, understand this critical, critical fact: **The shot Oswald took was really, really easy.** I realize you have probably read statements and claims that the shot was extraordinarily difficult, a shot beyond Oswald’s capabilities. It’s simply not true; those statements are invariably made by people who simply don’t know anything about rifles, aren’t acquainted with the facts, or don’t care about facts. 1. The distance Oswald was shooting at was less than 60 to 90 metres (depending on which of the three shots we’re talking about.) In terms of rifle accuracy, this is an amateur’s shot. _Beginners_ commence practicing at 100 metre targets. Rifles are designed to be shot with accuracy with great ease; at 90 metres pretty much anyone who has ever handled a rifle who does not have Parkinson’s disease should be able to kill whomever they’re aiming at. You give me any willing adult, who has never fired a rifle before, and I can teach them to hit a target the size of a human head at 80 metres at least four times in five by the end of the first day of training. It’s freaking east. It is frankly unimpressive that Oswald missed one out of three shots. 2. While Kennedy was moving, _he was moving almost directly away from Oswald_, and doing so very slowly - his limousine was only moving at about 15 miles per hour at the time. The deflection (the difference you have to account for in aiming at a moving target) would have been insignificant. 3. It’s often claimed that Oswald would have had to load and fire three times in 5.6 seconds to achieve his feat. First of all, in and of itself that’s not really as hard as you think. There’s only two loads in there - you could have loaded the rifle five minutes before taking the first shot - so it’s shoot-work the action-shoot-work the action-shoot. Just do it yourself with a stopwatch; 6 seconds is not THAT rushed. And of course, while conspiracy sources claim it was 5.6 seconds, THAT probably is not true, either; it may well have been more like 8.5 seconds. Whatever else is true, the shot Oswald took was a shot that someone with almost any experience firing a rifle could have made. [/QUOTE] In addition to that, even if Oswald was just plain lucky the incident still happened. To argue that there must be some hidden conspiricy just because Oswald got off what you consider a lucky series of shots is a huge _non sequitur._ ---
**Author:** ![Moriarty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/moriarty/32/49_2.png) [@Moriarty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moriarty)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2007, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-lee-harvey-oswald-assassinate-jfk/414950/150 "2007-08-12T19:40:19Z")
> [@denquixote](#): > > There are lots of things that might convince me of Oswald’s guilt, chief among them a confession. Secondly an eyewitness… Wow! Be sure to mention those criteria if you ever end up in a jury pool. You’ll be booted off at the first opportunity. You need the defendant to confess, and be witnessed in the act, before you’ll believe all of the other evidence supporting his guilt?! At the risk of opening up a can of worms, I wonder if you feel similarly about OJ Simpson’s innocence. > [@ngant17](#): > > To be honest, some of the replies I’ve read are so misinformed and totally off-base that I don’t waste my time to reply. You do realize that this is a debate forum, right? But you come here to tell us that we are misinformed and off-base (whereas you suspect the Nazis?!), and are too enlightened to waste your time with our buffoonery. The irony dripping from this sentence makes it the funniest thing I’ve read in weeks. **JohhnyLA** , I do sincerely appreciate your effort to provide citations. I would remind you, though, that there were lots of discussions by the Kennedy administration about how to deal with Castro (including [Operation Northwoods](http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/news/20010430/) ) so a memo discussing the possibility of negotiations with Castro doesn’t surprise me. But it is hardly evidence that JFK, the ardent cold warrior (indeed, a longtime ally of Senator McCarthy, who went to great pains to avoid censuring McCarthy even after he was disgraced), had to be killed by the U.S. government to avoid appeasement with communists. And, since we are listening to JFK’s own words on the subject of going to the moon, I’d recommend this [cite](http://tapes.millercenter.virginia.edu/exhibits/space/) , where you can listen to JFK discussing the space race. It is clear that his interest in getting to the moon was primarily (if not solely) within the context of the Cold War; while scientists were interested in learning and research, he was interested in the public spectacle of _beating the Soviets_. None of this, of course, deals with the basic facts of the murder. That is, no amount of theorizing about politics deals with the physical evidence that supports LHO’s invovlement. No matter how many “possibilities” others raise, there is still the matter of the overwhelming information supporting his guilt. Even if you can cast doubt on one of those pieces, you have not successfully eradicated all of the others. Taking this minute approach to random bits of information is truly an example of losing the forest for the trees. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2007, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-lee-harvey-oswald-assassinate-jfk/414950/151 "2007-08-12T20:12:30Z")
[QUOTE=Atomicktom] But it is hardly evidence that JFK, the ardent cold warrior (indeed, a longtime ally of Senator McCarthy, who went to great pains to avoid censuring McCarthy even after he was disgraced), had to be killed by the U.S. government to avoid appeasement with communists. [/quote] It is absolutely not. But the CTs like to say that Kennedy would have opened relations with Cuba and their opponents deny it. Whether Kennedy would have pursued rapprochement we don’t know. But there was some discussion of it. But again: This doesn’t have anything to do with the assasination, and therefore has nothing to do with a ‘coup’ by LBJ. [QUOTE=Atomicktom] And, since we are listening to JFK’s own words on the subject of going to the moon, I’d recommend this [cite](http://tapes.millercenter.virginia.edu/exhibits/space/) , where you can listen to JFK discussing the space race. It is clear that his interest in getting to the moon was primarily (if not solely) within the context of the Cold War; while scientists were interested in learning and research, he was interested in the public spectacle of _beating the Soviets_. [/quote] Nevertheless, he did propose a joint mission according to the NASA site I linked. What I didn’t say before, since it is a personal opinion, is that it was a suggestion that he _knew_ the Soviets would not take up. Basically, grandstanding. That LBJ did not pursue a joint mission that IMO was just a politcal ‘soundbite’ is not surprising – especially since relations with the USSR had changed since JFK made the suggestion. And of course, there is nothing there to link it with a coup or the assasination. CTs say that JFK proposed a joint mission. He did. They say he would have opened relations with Cuba. Maybe. There’s no way of knowing. But he did talk about it. My main beef with **ngant17** ’s post was the assertation that JFK would have pulled us out of Vietnam. I think it is clear that the evidence shows that this is not true. The way I see it is this: **ngant17** uses LBJ’s ‘failure’ to continue JFK’s policies as evidence that Kennedy was assasinated and that some secret cabal was replacing him with someone more to their liking. But when we look at the assertations we see that A) Kennedy did suggest a joint Moon mission. _However_ (as you pointed out with your link) that the priority was to beat the Soviets to the Moon. Thus his 1962 suggestion was political grandstanding and that he knew the Soviets wouldn’t agree to it. B) Kennedy did have discussions about reconciling with Cuba. But we have no way of knowing whether he would have or would not have. And C) Kennedy would _not_ have withdrawn from Vietnam. Therefore the idea of a conspiracy to keep the U.S. from cooperating with the Soviets, to keep the U.S. from reconciling with Cuba, and to keep the U.S. in the Vietnam war is ludicrous. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2007, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-lee-harvey-oswald-assassinate-jfk/414950/152 "2007-08-12T20:21:51Z")
How frequently has any president, stepping in to take over the office after the untimely death of a predecessor, followed his predecessor’s policies? I know that Lincoln’s plans for rebuilding the South went straight out the window after his night at the theater. How different were Truman’s policies from Roosevelt’s? Did Chester A. Arthur follow the mandates left by James Garfield? Were Teddy Roosevelt’s policies a continuation of William McKinley’s? And if not, is this evidence that all those people were assassinated as part of an internal political coup? “Different presidents follow different policies,” does not strike me as much evidence of anything, except the truth of the old maxim about politics and strange bedfellows. ---
**Author:** ![Moriarty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/moriarty/32/49_2.png) [@Moriarty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moriarty)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2007, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-lee-harvey-oswald-assassinate-jfk/414950/153 "2007-08-12T20:31:24Z")
**Johnny L.A.** , I agree with your post wholeheartedly. I would just add that, as Operation Northwoods (and the rest of Operation Mongoose)shows, and Kennedy’s own interactions (Bay of Pigs, Cuban Missile Crisis) with Cuba would suggest, it is probably remote that JFK would have gone through with reapproachment with Cuba, a conversation to the contrary notwithstanding. Admittedly, only my opinion. But it would certainly have been out of character. ---
**Author:** ![ngant17](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ed8c4c/32.png) [@ngant17](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ngant17)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2007, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-lee-harvey-oswald-assassinate-jfk/414950/154 "2007-08-12T20:34:30Z")
I can’t believe the total vacuum of information about JFK’s international policies, especially in late 1963. The ignorance here is almost depressing. I thought JFK’s proposal at the UN in 20 Sept. 1963 was common knowlege here. Of course, I shouldn’t fault anyone for not knowing about NSAM 271 , after all, it was classified secret for 20 years, for reasons having little to do with national security and everything to do with keeping their trails in the conspiracy against JFK covered. However this is now beginning to be public knowledge and it should be made available to everyone as much as possible. I’ll supply a few links here, which might help to enlighten some of you. [http://www.prouty.org/271a.html](http://www.prouty.org/271a.html) [http://www.prouty.org/271.html](http://www.prouty.org/271.html) A short quote from the links: “I would like you to assume personally the initiative and central responsibility within the Government for the development of a program of substantive cooperation with the Soviet Union in the field of outer space, including the development of specific technical proposals. I assume that you will work closely with the Department of State and other agencies as appropriate.” JFK’s secret NSAM 271 to NASA, dated 12 Nov. 1963. BTW the interesting photo from a link supplied on this message board, showing NASA deputy administrator Robert Seamans, Dr. Werner von Braun, and President Kennedy at Cape Canaveral, mid-November 1963, fails to put it into context of the 2 links I supplied above. Remember that Pres. Kennedy had already ordered NASA to begin “substantial cooperation with the USSR”. Herr von Braun was probably seething mad at Kennedy at that moment, you can almost see it in that photo, and as the Torbitt Document exposes, he likely was directly involved with other ex-Nazis who were plotting JFK’s death which occured almost a week later in Dallas. Also Robert Seamans had the secret NSAM 271, but as an American citizen he must have felt a loyalty to his commander-in-chief that ex-Nazi von Braun never had, so I’m sure he would have followed the Presidential directive despite the objections from the rest of management and especially from all the German Nazis in NASA at the time. How convenient that JFK would be dead in the following week in Dallas! There were reports of assassination plots against him in Florida, but the conspirators probably didn’t have the opportunity or enough manpower in place to pull it off at that moment). Dallas was their moment of glory. I could go on about Cuba and Vietnam, too, but since the posters here are totally out of the loop on essential facts wrt JFK and the cooperative moon missions (i.e. the Apollo Programme), what’s the point of pointing out facts to people who are so close-minded? The information about JFK’s policies wrt communist Cuba and communist Vietnam is out there, you just have to be willing to read it and make an independent judgement yourself with these historical facts. There would have been no space race and no Vietnam War had JFK lived. And it’s reasonable to assume normalization with Cuba would have happened quickly after his re-election in 1964. The coup d’etat reversed the course for Ameria, it brought about everything he was opposed to and against: a war in SE Asia, a space race, hostility against the Republic of Cuba and Fidel Castro. [QUOTE=Johnny L.A.] I found [this](http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/diplomacy/forrel/cuba/cpreface.htm). It’s from a Yale site. [Here](http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB103/clip.wma) is an audio clip of Kennedy discussing the possibility during a meeting with National Security Advisor McGeorge Bundy on 5 November 1963. So: [ul][li]Kennedy did broach the idea of a joint Moon mission with the Soviet Union (20 September 1961)[/li][li]Kennedy did consider rapprochement with Cuba, but it was Castro who put out the feeler (30 April 1963)[/li][li]Kennedy **did not** intend to withdraw from Vietnam[/ul][/li][/QUOTE] ---
**Author:** ![Moriarty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/moriarty/32/49_2.png) [@Moriarty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moriarty)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2007, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-lee-harvey-oswald-assassinate-jfk/414950/155 "2007-08-12T20:58:13Z")
> [@ngant17](#): > > what’s the point of pointing out facts to people who are so close-minded? Again, I ask you: you do realize that you are in a debate forum, correct? > [@ngant17](#): > > There would have been no space race and no Vietnam War had JFK lived. The space race and our military involvement in Vietnam began _as a result_ of JFK. > [@ngant17](#): > > And it’s reasonable to assume normalization with Cuba would have happened quickly after his re-election in 1964. Why? As for Colonel Prouty, who’s website is devoted to selling his merchandise, and who’s reputation is sullied [here](http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/prouty.htm) …you know what? Never mind. I’m debating someone who has resorted to reading the minds of people based on their photographs > [@](#): > > Herr von Braun was probably seething mad at Kennedy at that moment, you can almost see it in that photo I have better things to do with my time. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2007, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-lee-harvey-oswald-assassinate-jfk/414950/156 "2007-08-12T21:08:39Z")
[QUOTE=ngant17] How convenient that JFK would be dead in the following week in Dallas! There were reports of assassination plots against him in Florida, but the conspirators probably didn’t have the opportunity or enough manpower in place to pull it off at that moment). Dallas was their moment of glory. [/quote] I should point out that there are assassination “plots” (or more accurately, threats) against every president - [here’s a partial list](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_Presidential_assassination_attempts). _Secret Service Chief_, the memoir of U.E. Baughman, who was head of the service from 1944-1962 (protecting four presidents during his tenure), has a whole chapter describing a small fraction of the various kooks making threats against the president and his family. > [@](#): > > I could go on about Cuba and Vietnam, too, but since the posters here are totally out of the loop on essential facts wrt JFK and the cooperative moon missions (i.e. the Apollo Programme), what’s the point of pointing out facts to people who are so close-minded? The information about JFK’s policies wrt communist Cuba and communist Vietnam is out there, you just have to be willing to read it and make an independent judgement yourself with these historical facts. Well, you have quotes, we have quotes, but beyond various _statements_ Kennedy made, what examples do you have of his _policies_ toward the USSR, Cuba and Vietnam, i.e. legislation he signed or actions his administration or the military took? It’s hardly shocking that a politician would say one thing and do another. > [@](#): > > There would have been no space race and no Vietnam War had JFK lived. The space race was ongoing while JFK was alive, what with him receiving Mercury astronauts at the White House and all. I’m not aware of him hosting any cosmonauts, though if you can find a reference, I’d like to see it. As for Vietnam, I expect that if JFK lived, he’d have escalated it as LBJ did and been ground down by it, as LBJ was. > [@](#): > > And it’s reasonable to assume normalization with Cuba would have happened quickly after his re-election in 1964. That’s assuming he _was_ re-elected in 1964, of course. His very public and sudden martyrdom prompts rosier feelings about him, I find. The same thing happened to Lincoln, a controversial and at times unpopular president, after his death. > [@](#): > > The coup d’etat reversed the course for Ameria, it brought about everything he was opposed to and against: a war in SE Asia, a space race, hostility against the Republic of Cuba and Fidel Castro. I don’t see any compelling evidence he was against _any_ of that, just some excessively glowing idealized vision of what he might have been but clearly wasn’t. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2007, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-lee-harvey-oswald-assassinate-jfk/414950/157 "2007-08-12T21:11:03Z")
[QUOTE=ngant17] I’ll supply a few links here, which might help to enlighten some of you. > **[Commentary regarding NSAM-#271](https://www.prouty.org/271a.html)** [/quote] ‘By Nathan Gant’? Pull the other one! ‘My post is my cite’ is not valid. Look, I’m not disagreeing that Kennedy made such a proposal. If you recall, I pointed out with a _credible_ link that he did. As for LBJ not following through after Kennedy’s death I again point to [NASA](http://history.nasa.gov/SP-4209/ch2-4.htm), which personally I take as a credible reference to the Space Program: > [@](#): > > Johnson attempted throughout the winter of 1963 to keep the door to cooperation open. On 2 December, Ambassador Adlai E. Stevenson told the Political Committee of the U.N. that the President had instructed him to reaffirm the Kennedy proposal for a joint Soviet-American expedition to the moon. So Johnson failed to follow through… how? :dubious: [QUOTE=ngant17] [H]e must have felt a loyalty to his commander-in-chief that ex-Nazi von Braun never had, so I’m sure he would have followed the Presidential directive despite the objections from the rest of management and especially from all the German Nazis in NASA at the time. [/quote] Oh, please. Wernher von Braun only joined so that he could keep working on rockets. From [Bad Astronomy](http://www.badastronomy.com/bablog/2007/02/26/joe-rogan-me-and-penn-and-the-moon-hoax-take-iii/): > [@Wernher von Braun](#): > > I was officially demanded to join the National Socialist Party. At this time (1937) I was already technical director of the Army Rocket Center at Peenemünde … My refusal to join the party would have meant that I would have to abandon the work of my life. Therefore, I decided to join. My membership in the party did not involve any political activities … in Spring 1940, one SS-Standartenführer (SS Colonel) Müller … looked me up in my office at Peenemünde and told me that Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler had sent him with the order to urge me to join the SS. I called immediately on my military superior … Major-General W. Dornberger. He informed me that … if I wanted to continue our mutual work, I had no alternative but to join. [QUOTE=ngant17] The information about JFK’s policies wrt communist Cuba and communist Vietnam is out there, you just have to be willing to read it and make an independent judgement yourself with these historical facts. [/quote] I don’t suppose you’d like to favour us with some _credible_ sites, would you? :dubious: [QUOTE=ngant17] The coup d’etat reversed the course for Ameria, it brought about everything he was opposed to and against: a war in SE Asia, a space race, hostility against the Republic of Cuba and Fidel Castro. [/QUOTE] As has already been pointed out (_with citations_), Kennedy was committed to the war in Southeast Asia. He _did_ stress the importance of getting to the Moon before the Soviets (after he suggested they work together – but it’s clear from an earlier link that we were in a race and he wanted to win it). As for Cuba, I personally think we would have come to an agreement. But we don’t know. And none of this would be reason enough for a coup. Not that that matters, since the evidence indicates that you’re wrong. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2007, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-lee-harvey-oswald-assassinate-jfk/414950/158 "2007-08-12T21:47:54Z")
It’s worth pointing out that in 1963 and beyond, and especially after the loss of the _Apollo 1_ astronauts in January 1967, it looked quite likely the Soviets were going to get to the moon first. It’s not surprising in the least that JFK and LBJ would drop hints to leave open the possibility of a cooperative mission, because tying is better than losing. What may have allowed the Americans to ultimately “win” was the USSR’s own fatality, that of cosmonaut Vladimir Mikhailovich Komarov aboard _Soyuz 1_, two months after _Apollo 1_, giving _them_ a delay of their own and shaking the myth that the Soviet program was unstoppable. Of course, why anyone would see any this as reason to kill a president remains unclear and unproven. ---
**Author:** ![BJMoose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/5fc32e/32.png) [@BJMoose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BJMoose)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2007, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-lee-harvey-oswald-assassinate-jfk/414950/159 "2007-08-12T22:37:36Z")
[QUOTE=ngant17] LBJ continued with Kennedy’s domestic policies, but he completely abandoned or ignored JFK’s international policies: withdrawal from Vietnam, cooperative moon mission with the Soviets, and the reapproachment with Cuba. That’s how I would define the coup in the US government in 1963, by looking at how drastically JFK’s international policies were instantly reversed, virtually overnight. As for civil rights, Johnson’s legacy was substandard at best, as a politician early in his career, he voted with his fellow Southern Democrats against civil rights measures such as banning lynching, eliminating poll taxes and denying federal funding to segregated schools. As a senator, Johnson’s opposition to Truman’s civil rights programme disgusted Texas blacks. Johnson continued to appease Southern racists in 1956 when he voted against an important civil rights bill in Congress. In later years, LBJ supported the civil rights issues only after JFK had begun it, it was easy to do it when someone has already paved the way. What could you expect from a waffling Southern redneck? He was hardly ever a revolutionary figure in America’s civil rights movement. Besides, the civil rights movement was as much part of Martin Luther King’s legacy as it was for JFK who began to initiate it, the former being assassinated also by a conspiracy. You’re totally off the mark wrt Kennedy and the CIA, Cuba and Vietnam. Historical facts don’t support your remarks. [/QUOTE] As Vince Bugliosi would say, “_So what?_” It looks like you’re arguing, “Since the change of administrations also resulted in a change in government policy, then the assasination _must_ have been the result of a conspiracy of some folks in government.” Do you really believe this? If so, please explain how it works. You’ll merit a PhD in political science if you can pull that off. [QUOTE=ngant17] To be honest, some of the replies I’ve read are so misinformed and totally off-base that I don’t waste my time to reply. [/QUOTE] Okay. How about the replies that were well-informed and on the mark? And why not respond to the misinformed crap? We government-commission-toady-lickspittles have been doing that, with no ill effects. ---
**Author:** ![BJMoose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/5fc32e/32.png) [@BJMoose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BJMoose)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2007, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-lee-harvey-oswald-assassinate-jfk/414950/160 "2007-08-12T23:02:45Z")
I’ve just looked at the OP and noticed that, so far as I can recall, the last question has not been addressed: [QUOTE=ngant17] - - - Could he have proven his innocence in court based on a number of other circumstantial evidence? [/QUOTE] First a clarification: Oswald was under no obligation to prove his innocence. All his counsel had to do to warrant a not-guilty verdict was to show reasonable doubt. Now then. I think that what, in practical terms, constitutes “reasonable doubt” is the opinion of the folks making that judgment call. Witness the jury in the Simpson criminal trial. And the jury in the Simpson civil trial. Ultimately, something constitutes reasonable doubt if someone thinks it does. Otherwise not. What sort of evidence could Oswald have presented in his defense? I can think of two things offhand: a good alibi for the time of the shooting, and positive evidence that someone else did it. Well, he had no alibi. Whether any of the stuff thrown out by the CTs over the years rises to the level of positive evidence appears to me to be a matter of opinion. I do not think anyone has ever found anything that objectively amounts to a “smoking gun”. (Or even a smoking squirtgun.) You think otherwise. I would vote to convict Oswald. You would vote to acquit. _Que sera, sera_. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-lee-harvey-oswald-assassinate-jfk/414950.md?page=7) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-lee-harvey-oswald-assassinate-jfk/414950.md?page=9)