In the book depository:
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“Hey, will all you guys stop pushing please, I can’t get a good angle! And I was here first.”
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“But merde! It is not fair - you 'ave got three men on ze grassy knoll, I 'ave only got two.”
- “Sacred Bleu! We are 'oist by our own petard, as the English say (spits). 'ow are we to get zis guillotine around 'is neck?”
hey Godless, regarding the keeping of secrets, maybe there are bigger carrots and bigger sticks than are dreamed of in your philosophy.
Regarding the pristine bullet, John Connally took a few fragments with him to his grave that they were not able to remove. Looking at the bullet, not that much is missing from it.
“hey, look, I found this bullet on the gurney, case closed” How dare you assume the noble appelation of skeptic?
Its not just “a handful of out of context quotes”, the Johnson white house tapes are complete, and cover his entire presidency. Every single word of every single telephone conversation was recorded. There is nothing about Johnson, or what he thought, that is unknown.
Wow, it’s a wonder Walter Miller escaped unscathed, as a Catholic writer of Dystopic Science Fiction laden with Christian symbolism. Though I think he was just in the infantry in the pacific, so perhaps not being an avia-anything saved him.
The thing that I keep getting stuck on is the “LHO acted alone” mantra that the pooh-poohers keep repeating. Yes, he fired the shots. But there are some really spooky connections and LHO’s activities prior to the assassination seem to be a bit suspect. The CIA comes to mind; they really hated JFK…
Oswald was an incompetent moron, nobody would have trusted him to carry out an assassination for them. The CIA wanted as little to do with Oswald when he returned after his defection as the KGB did when he was there. Everyone thought he was an idiot, and a completely useless one at that.
Plus, nobody knew the parade route was going past Oswald’s place of work until just earlier that week. Oswald got that job through luck, having been encouraged to apply there a month or so earlier by, IIRC, one of Marina’s friends.
If this was a conspiracy, we’d have to believe that it was organized in a few days time, that the conspirators somehow managed to find out that Oswald was working in a convenient location for the shot, and ascertained that he’d be willing to do the assassination. What did they do, walk around the Depository asking people “hey, how’d you like to kill the President this Friday?” Or we’d have to assume that Marina’s friend was in on the plot, and that she and the conspirators somehow knew the president would be going by the Depository in an open car on that parade route over a month before anybody else knew the President was even planning a trip to Dallas, thus arranging to put the volatile pro-Castro Oswald in place to make the kill.
Considering that Oswald had tried previously to kill Gen. Edwin Walker of the Birch Society, we know he was a nut with plenty of motive on his own. No need to drag a conspiracy into it.
Rex, I did not know LHO so I cannot comment on whether he was a moron or not but in his own words he was the “patsy” for the assasination. As you allude to but do not come out and say it, LHO had big connections to the CIA. Come on, in the middle of the Cold War he defects to the Soviet Union and then comes back? George DeMohrenschildt was LHO’s CIA handler until earlier in 1963. We do not know who it was after that. I am sure James Jesus Angleton knew. Regarding the motorcade route, you are right, it was decided late. Also, the military’s offer to screen the route for security was turned down. Somebody either directed it to the crossfire or the crossfire was set up when the route was decided.
Have you ever been to Dealy Plaza? When I lived in Dallas, I would take people there. Everybody with military or hunting experience picked the Grassy Knoll over the 6th Floor as the better place to shoot from, especially given where Kennedy was hit.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by mipsman *
**As you allude to but do not come out and say it, LHO had big connections to the CIA. Come on, in the middle of the Cold War he defects to the Soviet Union and then comes back?
Have you ever been to Dealy Plaza? When I lived in Dallas, I would take people there. Everybody with military or hunting experience picked the Grassy Knoll over the 6th Floor as the better place to shoot from, especially given where Kennedy was hit. **[/QUOTE
MintyGreen is needed. Take it from this former conpiracy buff: He has a near-encyclopedic knowledge of JFK conspiracy issues and could resolve your questions with ease. If you care to, do a search of the many threads relating to this topic.
Nah, I’ve just read Case Closed a couple of times, and I’m not a lunatic. 
Yep, pretty much. Given that Oswald got that job in the TSB weeks before Kennedy’s visit to Dallas was even scheduled–and still further before the parade route was worked out and announced–it is inescapably a coincidence that he was in a position to kill the president.
Your claim that Oswald “very fortuitously departed the scene without answering any questions” is ahistorical. Oswald was stopped inside the TSB by a Dallas cop who was on his way to the sixth floor. When a TSB manager vouched for Oswald’s identity as an employee, the cop let him go. And immediately after exiting the building, news reporter Robin McNeil (later of PBS’s McNeil-Lehrer News Hour) bumped into Oswald and asked him where he could find a phone. And when Oswald got on the city bus that took him away from the scene, one of the other occupants was Oswald’s former landlady, which made for a rather uncomfortable situation. So all in all, it’s not like he vanished into thin air after the assassination.
As for the “unsavory types,” you’re talking about a major American city. Whether or not they had anything to do with the assassination, it was inevitable that Dallas would have plenty of them.
Now, I’m actually intrigued by your claim of a “major secuirity breakdown.” Where, exactly, is the security breakdown, by 1964 standards? What then-existing security procedures weren’t followed? I’d like to see some specifics on that, please. Most especially, what is the basis for your claim that “the military’s offer to screen the route for security was turned down.” Given that the military would have had no role whatsoever in providing security for the president–that’s the Secret Service, remember?–I am just about as dubious as can be on that one.
Yes, just like any number of other defectors who found out the Soviet Union sucked, and who were permitted to return.
And how do you know this, precisely? deMorenschildt reported on Oswald to the FBI when they asked him about Oswald, but there is zero historical evidence for the proposition that he was a CIA “handler,” except for his deathbed ramblings in which he claimed any number of other completely impossible things.
Big deal. It would have been an even better place to shoot from the passenger’s seat in the limo. Basically, you’re ignoring the real issues in favor of fantasy. Here are some of the real questions you’re skipping over: [ul][li]Was it possible for Oswald to shoot the president from the TSB? A: Yes, indisputably. It’s actually a fairly easy shot, especially with a scope. []Does the medical evidence support shots from the rear and above? A: Yes, indisputably. []Does the medical evidence support a shot from the front right? A: No, not at all.[/ul][/li]
There is, by the way, supposed to be a good new report on the assassination airing on ABC in the next week or two. Supposedly, they’ve done some sophisticated computer modeling that purports to prove (yet again) that Oswald did it. Since the Nova report on the assassination a decade ago was one of the best shows they’ve ever done, I’m curious to see what this one turns out like.
How would that happen, Agent Mulder?
Of course Johnson was involved with the investigation, he was the Vice President (then President). On what basis do you say they were rewarded? Because they later became President? That’s specious, you’d need to actually show they were rewarded somehow for “following orders” or somesuch.
Like what? LBJ’s contradictions of JFK on Vietnam and civil rights? 
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by minty green *
** *]Was it possible for Oswald to shoot the president from the TSB? A: Yes, indisputably. It’s actually a fairly easy shot, especially with a scope. [li]. **[/li][/QUOTE]
I think Minty is wondering away from his area of expertise.
It is NOT an easy shot(s), and esp with a scoped rifle.
A scope actually makes it harder to lock on target again in a short time span with very rapidly successive aimed shots, not easier.
For Oswald to rapidly fire 3 aimed scoped shots at a target that was below him, and moving away from him at an angle, with a scope, in just a few seconds, is a darn difficult thing to do. Even someone experienced shooting scoped rifles at moving targets at different elevations with the target moving away from you is hard.
It could be possible with an open sighted rifle to get off 3 aimed shots in that time span, but very much harder with a scoped rifle at a moving target in such a short time interval.
Furthermore, there is nothing to suggest that Oswald had any training nor experience at all of rapidly shooting scoped rifles at moving targets down and away such as in this instance.
Anyone who thinks someone who had never done this before can get two exactly placed shots the very first time they ever try it, must also believe in “magic bullets” that can change their direction after they leave the barrel and after hitting the first target moving up to hit Connelly and still not have a mark on it after going thru two bodies and a car seat, then fall conveniently onto a stretcher all by itself.
Is it possible? Yes, “anything” is “possible”, but not likely, and certainly not “easy”.
And if you ever develop an “area of expertise”, you be sure to let the rest of us know, okay?
Okay, “easy” is a bit of an exaggeration. A more accurate (heh) description would be “easy for anyone with the proper training and sufficient practice,” which is exactly what Oswald had between his Marine training, hunting with his brother, and plenty of practice with the Carcano (including the attempted assassination of Gen. Walker). I’m no more than a reasonably decent shot, but I’m completely positive that I could recreate Oswald’s shots, given a reasonable amount of time to practice beforehand. Seriously, you’re talking about a 150-200 ft. shot at a slow-moving target headed almost directly away from you. It ain’t rocket science.
If it makes you feel any better, there’s no way to know one way or the other whether Oswald actually used the scope. I’d personally feel better using the scope rather than the iron sights, but at such short range, it’s reasonable to go either way.
But beyond that, it’s simply not that hard to pick up a target in the ~3 seconds that Oswald had to line up each of the second and third shots. Did he get a bit lucky to blow off Kennedy’s skull with the third shot? Sure. So what? The question is whether he did it, and that’s about as clear as can be.
“Exactly placed”? Don’t be ridiculous. Oswald missed completely with one shot, got one (probably) non-lethal shot, and blew off the target’s head with the third. There ain’t nothin’ “exactly placed” about any of it.
<<sigh>> Ignorance is winning, folks.
There is nothing whatsoever “magic” about the thoat/Connally shot. The inferences of directional change are due entirely to conspiracy-minded misrepresentations of the locations of JFK and Connally in the limo. Connally was not directly in front of Kennedy; he was significantly to the left of the president. It’s not worth going through all the details here, but Prof. McAdams has a pretty good primer on why the “magic bullet” argument is bullshit.
I’m guessing that only one of us has looked out the 6th floor window at the little x that marks the fatal shot. And I’m here to tell you, it ain’t that hard a shot. Seriously.
Mipsman: “Skeptic” does not mean “Agrees with popular conspiracy theories.”. If there is an aim to skepticism, it is to get at the truth or at least to avoid believing falsehoods. Many of the “connections” you see are no surprise. That is exactly how the human belief mechanism functions. We seek out patterns and “connections” (which ALWAYS exist…even for patently false assertions) to support our presuppositions and disreasgard the things which contradict those presuppositions. Skepticism is a system of checks and balaces to avoid such fallacies brought on by our biases.
Susann: All of my reference materials are packed away at the moment but going from memory here:
1)As Minty Green said those shots WERE ralatively easy(what is your own marksmanship experience may I ask?) as anyone trained as a marksman would tell you (and LHO was trained as a sharpshooter).
2)LHO practiced with the rifle he uses almost daily IIRC.
3)FBI marksman were able to reconstruct the conditions that LHO had when he fired the shots and actually outperformed him on both accuracy and rate of fire.
minty is doing an admirable job, I’d just like to fill in a couple of holes that I noticed he hadn’t addressed. First, the grassy knoll was *not * the ideal place for a shot. Any shooter there would have been seen by dozens, maybe hundreds, of people. Dealey Plaza ain’t that big. But picking the best place assumes that a shooter would be available to set up there, and the fact is that Oswald had an easy time setting up in the TSBD.
Also, the “magic” bullet, CE399, doesn’t look like it’s missing much material from the outside. But it’s been flattened partially on one side, and the lead inside the harder jacket would certainly have been squeezed out the back side like toothpaste from a tube. The fragments that Connolly took with him to his grave are no larger than what’s missing from the amount of lead that had to be squeezed out.
We could go on about the details, but it all boils down to this: *all * the hard evidence points towards Oswald being the only shooter, and *all * evidence indicating he wasn’t is extrapolated from human memory. There are quite a few kooks who have exploited this crime to make themselves famous, and there are others who simply have misremembered events - neither are surprising, knowing what we do about humans and eyewitness testimony. But what would it take for the hard evidence to be wrong? Thousands of people would have had to work on the conspiracy to pull off the shocking murder of a US president, and kept quiet about it for 40 years. This is a landslide slam-dunk for the person who considers himself to be a skeptic, in other words to any straight doper.
That’s actually a pretty good point. While the “grassy knoll” would be a good place to fire from, it is terribly exposed to witnesses. Indeed, there were more than a few spectators on the GK (including the famous Mr. Zapruder) during the assassination. The wall behind the GK certainly provides cover, but there’s nothing behind it to conceal a guy with a rifle, and no escape route.
If anyone’s ever in Dallas, I highly recommend a tour of the Sixth Floor Museum and Dealy Plaza. They are, to say the least, highly educational about what could and could not have happened that day.
By the way, the ABC show is at 9ET/9CT Thursday night. There’s also a PBS Frontline show on Oswald that night (at least here in Dallas). Kick back with some popcorn and Dr. Pepper (hey, it’s Texas we’re talking about here!) and test out Mr. Occam’s Shaving Implement for an evening.
Did anyone catch that thing on CNN last night? It was not an expose’ on conspiracy theories or anything but was pretty interesting. Showed a lot of not often seen footage of Oswald being paraded by police & the transfer that resulted in him being taken out by another nutjob(Jack Ruby). Supposed to be a specila episode of The FOrensic Files(or one of those forensic type crime shows) this Wednesday also on the JFK assassination. Hopefully it won’t pander too much to the CT’s.
I was just thinking about the standard anti-skeptic response of “Why do you guys fear the truth?”(the alleged ‘truth’ always being some men in black, wildly complicated conspiracy theory of course). It seems to me that the “truth” more often than not in life tends to be simpler and less exciting than what C.t.'s would claim. IF anyone is ardently railing against truth it would have to be conspiracy theorists! I mean, if the skeptics were wrong and it turned out that somehow this massive conspiracy was pulled off and Oswald was a patsy, then we just have to say “woah!Guess we were wrong but how in the hell did they pull that off?!?”. But if the C.T.'s are wrong they have to admit to themselves that the world is not quite as fantastic as they imagine it and it seems they have a lot invested in the idea that shadowy conspiracies are rampant and only THEY have the dogged perseverance to expose them!
Someone, I think William Manchester, once said something to the effect that, if the “critics” were to be believed, the object of the conspiracy was not so much to assassinate Kennedy as it was to frame Oswald.
Curt, I disagree that it would take thousands of people to accomplish the assassination. It might have taken millions of dollars but as I said earlier, the situation called for bigger sticks and bigger carrots than most people are expose to. I completely disagree with your review of the pristine bullet. IIRC there are only a few slivers missing and very little deformation. Have you heard anybody say the fragments left in Connally were of the same magnitude as what is missing?
From behind the current fence at the Grassy Knoll (I do not know what the 1963 version was like), it was a straight shot to the limo and you would not have to have aimed downward. If you had somebody covering you (literally) it is not exposed. There was somebody on the railroad tracks who identified the “three bums” in the area behind the Grassy Knoll. For what it is worth, given accoustics and shock, there were witnesses pointing at the Grassy Knoll immediately after the shots were fired.
Godless, if IIRC, Marina Oswald denies that LHO owned the Mannlicher, and that the famous picture of him with is a forgery.
Marines are all Sharpshooters (otherwise I believe you get beat up), it is the Marksman rating that is strived for. So while saying he was a trained marksman sounds like he was in Assassin school, it is a bit of a red herring.
The statement that LHO fired the shots at General Walker is COMPLETELY unsubstantiated but I guess it makes a good case for you conspiracy folks.
Marley, with the exception of Carter, Reagan, and Clinton, governors not Washington “insiders” all of the other Pres’s had something to do with the investigation (I forget if Bush was with the CIA then), Bush Jr is included by association. Check your history books to see what else Johnson changed. Johnson was for sale to the highest bidder. Read the history and spare me your Smiley’s.
Minty, when I said that LHO departed the scene I meant he was killed without saying more than he was a “patsy”, not that he was Not Guilty, but that he was a “patsy”. What does that mean to you other than he knew he was being set up? And are you saying the deMorenshildt was not with the CIA?
Once last ad hominem attack. Why not keep a civil keyboard in this discussion? You have no idea what Susanann’s expertises might be. Your heartfelt sigh is a contemptible artifice especially when who is ignorant here has not yet been determined.
I love discussing this subject, both pro and con, but I detest those who say it is all cleared up, cut and dried, LHO got up that morning and whacked Kennedy all by himself. I truly believe you have an agenda. CUI BONO?
YDNRC. There is nothing “pristine” about the bullet, as this photo shows. Conspiracists, as is their standard practice, completely ignore the fact of the bullet’s clear deformations in favor of the highly deceptive side view.
What’s that, you say? A bullet that went through Kennedy’s neck, Connally’s chest, and Connally’s wrist would show even greater distortion? The experimental evidence shows that’s simply not the case. And don’t miss this bullet, which shows how little distortion there is when a round collides with a human wrist at 1100 ft/sec, the approximate speed of Oswald’s shot after it had passed through Kennedy’s neck and Connally’s chest.
As for the “magnitude of what is missing,” I’m afraid it just ain’t that much.
That is false. Ground level at the fence is roughly (by my personal observation) 7-10 ft. above the level of the road. But more importantly, who cares? There’s nothing magic about shooting downward. The issue is the apparent movement of the target from the perspective of the shooter. But more importantly than that, so bloody what? It would have been easier still to blow Kennedy’s head off from the passenger seat. The issue, which you have studiously ignored, is whether the evidence shows that is what happened.
This claim is utterly ridiculous, and merits no serious discussion. If a reasonable person wishes further explanation, please just ask.
BFD. Two or three times as many witnesses, even those on the GK, pointed to the TSD.
What Marina “denies” today is of no serious import, particularly given that she’s been worked over by the nutjobs for 40 years and that she has a rather personal interest in downplaying Lee’s involvement. All of her statements at the time of the assassination, and for years afterwards, clearly identified the Caracano as Lee’s, and the backyard photos as those she had taken herself at Lee’s insistence. Further confirmation of the rifle’s identity comes from Ruth Paine, the woman who sheltered Marina in the months before the assassination, and whose garage also sheltered the rifle until Lee took it to work the morning of Nov. 22.
This is simply false. Sharpshooter is a higher rating than marksman. Moreover, your downplaying of Marine training is highly disingenuous. It ought to be pretty well obvious that anybody good enought to qualify as a Marine “sharpshooter” is head and shoulders above the average Manny, Moe, or Jack. The point is inescapable: Oswald knew how to fire a rifle, and was pretty good at it. http://www.archives.gov/research_room/jfk/warren_commission/warren_commission_report_chapter4.html#marine
And the ignorance just keeps on rolling. Once again, simply review Marina Oswald’s sworn testimony, in addition to the note Lee left behind when he went out to shoot the General and the bloody photographs of Walker’s backyard that the FBI found among Oswald’s possessions (though hidden by Marina, who figured she was deported for sure if they found out she had known about Walker). http://www.archives.gov/research_room/jfk/warren_commission/warren_commission_report_chapter4.html#walker
It means he was a complete pussy who was still trying to weasel out of his two murders. What, you believe every murderer who gets caught red-handed, then denies he did it?
Damn straight. Put up or shut up.
Because I’m fighting ignorance, not coddling it. And when a thread gets this covered in the thick slime of willful ignorance, I take it personally.
Now put some bloody facts on the table or shuffle yourself off to some other board where nobody cares what kind of nonsense you spew. This is not such a place.
Damn straight I have an agenda. In All Things, Let Cecil Be Your Guide.