I have not said I believe. I related to this forum what my step-uncle, a highly qualified expert, said about the film clip
What is you take on the film clip and what my Secret Service step-uncle said about it?
What is your take on the clip and what my step-uncle, the Secret Service agent said about it?
Is it fair to say that experts can be wrong? Those of us in government/military service (or even corporate environments) do occasionally receive orders that strike us as nonsensical, unfair or even counterproductive, and is natural to have and display a negative emotional reaction. By itself, the film clip could easily show one such moment. If this is indeed indicative of some larger plot, what other evidence exists of said plot? One data point isn’t enough.
As a minor side note, the fact that events happened to come together in a particular way doesn’t in itself indicate that someone planned them to come together in that particular way. The following story is completely true and occurred within very recent memory:
I got off work in the south-eastern part of Montreal a few afternoons ago. I went to the gym, exercised and showered. My mother’s car is being repainted at a garage in more-or-less north-central Montreal so rather than go directly home to south-central Montreal, I took a roundabout path that would take me to the garage because Mom was concerned that the mechanic wasn’t answering his phone and the work on her car had been going on a long, long time. I stopped at the garage, which was closed, and did not see her car parked outside. I called her on my cellphone to report in. After our conversation, I travelled to a nearby bakery and bought a day-old loaf of Challah bread (aka egg loaf). After that, I travelled to a nearby Canadian Tire which had a filling station. I routinely buy my gas at Canadian Tire filling stations because doing so gets me Canadian Tire money, which I eventually spend in the stores. This particular Canadian Tire shares a parking lot with a large supermarket under the “Maxi” chain. I dismissed an earlier idea of stopping at a Provigo (another supermarket) on my way home and went to this Maxi instead - probably the first time in my life I’d ever been to this particular store (though I couldn’t swear an oath to that effect). I purchased salad, milk, bacon bits, spaghetti sauce, some other items. In the parking lot, a woman with a young girl approached me and asked for directions. If ever called upon to testify under oath, I am prepared to swear that I’ve never seen the woman or the girl before. The woman asked me if I knew where a particular street was. I did not, but I did have a Montreal mapbook in the car. We quickly found the street and I spontaneously offered to drive the pair to the address the woman was seeking. I put my groceries in the trunk (I later discovered I’d broken two eggs in the process) and drove them. During the short ride, I gave the girl (who I estimate at six or seven years of age) a thirty-minute glowstick, because I happened to have a few scattered in the car, because a few days earlier my supervisor discovered a bunch of them that were past their expiry date and rather than toss them, handed them out to those of us who were working that day. I delivered the pair to the requested street and drove home.
This is all true and I’m prepared to give specifics if anyone cares. Now for some wild speculation. When the woman and the girl arrived at their destination, whoever was there saw the glowstick, flew into a murderous rage (triggered by some glowstick-related childhood trauma), and horribly murdered them both. Their bodies have not yet been discovered, which is why the local media has no mention of the story. When it is eventually discovered, though, the police could easily begin their search for the source of that mysterious glowstick, which is certainly an unusual object for a dead seven year-old to have. Was it planted? Was it a signal? Did she steal it from the person who killed her? To someone determined to find an explanation, all ideas are fair game except something completely random, like she got it from a total stranger who was on no particular schedule and just happened to be in a supermarket parking lot and who her adult companion (possibly her mother - I never did find out for sure) approached to ask for directions.
That which conspiracy theories call meticulous planning by shadowy cabals has no place for the simple day-to-day randomness we live in most of the time. It simply is not romantic enough. Thus every minor incident surrounding the assassination must be significant. They must be relevant. It is impossible for it to be otherwise. Was there a man with an umbrella? He’s in on it. Did the driver turn his head? He was involved. Did two agents have a moment of disbelief? It must be part of the master plan.
What have you done with the rest of the glowsticks?
And jakesteele, who exactly was your step-uncle? Dates of Secret Service?
My brother who was in the State Department once spent an evening with a C.I.A. agent and no mention was made of your step-uncle, which engenders doubt.
They were taken away by government agents and secretly hung.
Sorry, I’m just trying to recapture past glory.
A cousin of my old college roommate married this guy who was in the CIA. And I heard from them that your step-uncle was wrong. That’s enough proof to convince me.
One thing we know: Oswald was a communist & Castro sympathizer.
Kennedy had tried repeatedly to assassinate Fidel Castro. This obviously offended Oswald.
Did Castro order Oswald to kill Kennedy? Did Castro even know who Oswald was?
Or did Oswald just decide to take some shots in Kennedy’s direction, & if JFK died, well, good riddance?
I’m gonna close my eyes, and do this [starts swinging arms], and if you get hit it’s your ooooowwwn fault.
Nobody was giving orders ot Oswald. He may have been a “lone nut” but he wasn’t a loner. He had a wife and socialized with people. He lived in a residential neighbourhood. He had a job. His phone records and mail were investigated after Kennedy’s death.
Nobody ever saw him meeting with secretive figures or getting mysterious messages or disappearing for unaccounted-for lengths of time or going off on unexplained trips. If Oswald was part of some conspiracy, how was he recruited and given his orders?
Well, when someone actually makes that argument on this board, feel free to respond to it. Until then, stop knocking down the straw man.
I dismissed your counter-point by bringing up the fact that the argument you were responding to had not been made by anyone.
What are you on about? You are pretending I have made an argument you want to respond to, and responding to it. I never said the government is morally above such an act. Cut it out.
Well then, feel free to make an actual argument whenever you like.
Uh, he did go to the Soviet Union in 1959 and lived there for a couple of years. He also visited the Cuban embassy in Mexico, and had at least some communication with the Soviet embassy in Washington, DC. The guy was all over the place. There would have been plenty of opportunities for him to receive orders.
That said, I have seen no evidence that he ever was given any orders of any kind. The evidence that he was the lone shooter is overwhelming. “Second gunman” scenarios are silly.
I think what happened was:
This nut goes gaga for communism.
He defects to the USSR, then returns to the US.
The CIA is aware of him at some level. I suspect they were aware of pretty much every US citizen who defected to the USSR. The KGB was also very aware of him during his stay there.
My suspicion is that the KGB wasn’t quite sure what to make of Oswald. If there was any deal made, I don’t know of it, and it would probably be of the nature of, “Well, sure, you can work for the great and glorious USSR! If you can do anything to help us, let us know.” And then promptly forgot about him, because he just didn’t seem useful at all. He had military training, sure, but it’s not like he had useful intelligence or special skills beyond what any halfway decent soldier would have. He didn’t have any special access to politicians or other powerful figures in the US. He was basically just some schmoe.
Back in the US, he’s still slightly crazy and still can’t actually do anything useful for the communist cause. Then, one day, this Soviet sympathizer has the greatest stroke of luck in his life. He can do something! Something big!
In short, he’s a lone nut who single-handedly killed the president. He didn’t do it because he was ordered to kill the president. The Soviets were undoubtedly just as surprised as anyone. I can just imagine the CIA digging through their files, “Shit, did we have a file on this guy somewhere?!” Meanwhile, halfway around the world, the KGB is frantically digging through their files saying, “Shit, comrade! We didn’t do this, did we? Don’t we have a file on this crazy bastard somewhere?!”
Quick question:- How come the Zapruder film is the only footage we have ever seen of this incident? Was he the only person in Dallas who had a movie camera that day?
Hand cameras were a rare thing in those days. The ones that were around were clunky, wind-up affairs that were hardly cheap or convenient. They also only had a couple of minutes of film, too.
In some of the still pictures, the ‘Babushka Lady’ appears to be holding a hand movie camera, but she has not come forward ( a couple of fakes claiming to be her have) and there’s no assurance that she got anything.
We’re actually lucky to have the Zapruder film, really.
On the other hand, he wasn’t the picture of stability either. He had defected to the USSR, un-defected back, lived in New Orleans, up and moved to Dallas, and traveled to Mexico City. It seems to me that he was enough of a loner to be having secret meetings if he (and another party) wanted to. I just don’t think he did.
We do have other footage taken shortly before the shooting started. Besides personal movie cameras being fairly rare, the shooting happened at the very tail end of the parade route where there weren’t as many people around. It had just passed through the heart of downtown, was on the western edge, just about to get on a freeway for Kennedy’s next event.
I don’t have the time to go thru your cite to see if it is at all credible, but let’s assume for the moment that it is.
I don’t think many on the SDMB are arguing that the government, or somebody who worked for the government, or who works for a foundation that gets funding from the government, would never do anything wrong. What we are more interested in is evidence that they did.
The Tuskegee experiment was a terrible thing, in other words, but it is not proof that the CIA killed Kennedy. Or whatever you might be advocating.
Regards,
Shodan
Thank God we at least have this one film. Without this, I can’t imagine where the CTers would be.
So, again, if the Secret Service agents really were “astounded and amazed” by the gross breach of protocol they were ordered to commit, why didn’t they report such an extraordinary fact to the Warren Commission? Why would they withhold such a useful and important piece of evidence?
It was 1963, not 2009. We’re lucky to have any film at all. How many other assassinations have been caught live on film?