JFK's Assassination

Factual Questions
1

I used to cruise alt.conspiracy whenever I needed a few laughs but
things got so silly that I couldn’t even be bothered to log on anymore.
There is one event however that makes me think conspiracy - the JFK
assassination. After thousands of pages of testimony, dozens of books,
several tv documentaries and the oh so balanced screen treatment by
Oliver King-of-the-Conspiracy-Nuts-Stone I still don’t know who did it -
was it the Communists? Castro? The Mafia? LBJ? The Illimunati? Or was
Oswald really acting all on his lonesome and everything else was just
pure coincidence? Please enlighten me on this matter.

Ciao for now

G Ursic

2

Surely Unca Cecil has touched on this topic before, anyone got the link ? Me personally I think it was highly ranked military personnel and top government officials who were all getting their pockets lined from the “non-war” in Vietnam. When they learned JFK intended to pull out of southeast Asia, they conspired with someone (Soviets ? Cubans ? Mafia ?) to make sure that their hands stayed clean so to speak. But now that I have written this, seems I should to alt.conspiracies. Who knows, I suppose someone somewhere knows the truth . . . but I doubt seriously they post on the SDMB.

“Solos Dios basta” . . . but a little pizza won’t hurt.

3

Shiva-11, angel: If we knew for sure, would it still be so contravercial? Besides, the truth is often hidden from the public.

A friend of mine suggested that IF there were a second gunman, it might have actually been Oswald’s wife. Apparently, her past is shady, and everyone’s been out looking for a man all these years. Has this angle to the theory to the second gunman theory ever been suggested?

You are correct about Stone, though. He’s just making a movie. All showbiz, not facts.

4

On a trip to Dallas about a year ago I toured the kennedy museum at the old Texas School Book Depository. I heartily recommend it to anyone who’s thinking conspiracy. The distance between the 5th floor window and the street where the motorcade was is far shorter than you can imagine – no problem at all for a reasonably good marksman to hit a slow-moving target.

On cable a couple of nights ago I saw an excerpt of a story Dan Rather did, featuring an interview with an eyewitness, shortly after the shooting, and a follow-up 25 years later. She had completely changed her account of what she had seen, leaving the question, was she right moments after the shooting, or 25 years later.

I think conspiracy theorists are just disgusted by the fact that a lone nut (Oswald, Sirhan, Bremmer, Hinkley, et al) can capitalize on a combination of luck and official incompetence and laxity to affect history.

5

I would invite you to go to a bookstore and browse thru “Case Closed” by Gerald Posner.

He takes a very systematic approach to all the legends concerning the assassination, and basically nukes them.

Once you consider the real evidence–not what writers have made up and recopied from one another–there’s very little doubt that LHO, acting alone, committed the crime.

6

Kennedy had no intention of getting out of SE asia.

7

I have to back up Kunilou on this one. I too went to the Texas Book Depository about two years ago, and thought to myself…“Geez it’s not that far to the street.” I could easily have made that shot. Personally, I’m all for the lone gunman thing.

My personal favorite conspiracy on the subject is one I saw in the book ‘Mortal Error’ which pins the kill shot on…drum roll…the secret service agent in the follow up chase car who accidentally shot Kennedy when he slipped and fell trying to turn around to see where the shots were coming from. The author, of course, names the agent, who refused to talk to him about the subject…therefore, as we ALL know (please roll eyes here) he MUST be guilty.

8

I have already shown conclusively that, other than LHO, there was only one person who had the means, motive, and opportunity to do it.

Superman

BTW, when I mentioned this theory to Gerald Posner via e-mail, his reply was “Case Reopened!”

It’s somewhere on the MPSIMS board, if someone wants to be enlightened.

“East is east and west is west and if you take cranberries and stew them like applesauce they taste much more like prunes than rhubarb does.” – Marx

Read “Sundials” in the new issue of Aboriginal Science Fiction. www.sff.net/people/rothman

9

Here’s a few documents I put together on the subject a few years ago.

http://www.rpi.edu/~vannem/jfkdocuments.html

Truth does not change because it is, or is not, beleived by a majority of the people.
-Giordano Bruno

10

The problem with the lone gunman was never that ‘he couldn’t make that shot’ but that the trajectory at least one of the bullets had to have taken was physically impossible.

Hence the ‘magic bullet’.

11

But the “magic bullet” is a lie. The trajectory it had to take was a straight line, slightly deflected by hitting a solid object like JFK’s skull.

The problem with the discussion is the conspiracy people keep repeating things that just aren’t true. No matter how often they are corrected, the continue to repeat the same lies. They are willing to believe the most outrageous claims without a single shred of proof and, at the same time, ask for ridiculously high levels of proof from the other side. If one person, no matter how wacky, makes a claim that supposedly disproves LHOs guilt; they believe it.

If I were to claim I was the gunman that day, 50% of all conspiracy buffs would repeat that claim as truth. The fact that I was 12 years old and have never been in Dallas in my life would do nothing to keep them from spreading the story.

“East is east and west is west and if you take cranberries and stew them like applesauce they taste much more like prunes than rhubarb does.” – Marx

Read “Sundials” in the new issue of Aboriginal Science Fiction. www.sff.net/people/rothman

12

Since this is The Straight Dope message board, we can assume everyone in here wants to calmly look at the evidence. If you do that, there is no doubt that LHO was the lone gunman. Read Case Closed for the details, but it’s the first JFK book I know of that’s rational.

If you then ask why did he do it, then we have to start making some educated guesses. LHO was clearly a nutcase, making it fairly believable that he might do it himself. Looking at it from the other side, it’s very hard to imagine any organization wanting him to do their dirty work. All the evidence of the man point to someone who might have done this by himself, and any conspiracy argument just doesn’t hold water.

Has anyone here ever managed a project of any kind? To pull off any coordinated effort, you have to have lots of communication between the players. Any conspiracy involving government or industry personnel would have to include dozens or hundreds of people to pull it off, all of them keeping quiet for 30 years. This theory is completely impossible.

Although it probably can never be absolutely proven (unless someone figures out time travel), Occam’s Razor points clearly to the “acting alone” theory.

13

Kunilou said:

I think that pretty much hits the nail on the head. Something that had so much impact and caused such a massive change (like the assassination of a president) must have been the work of a vast conspiracy. To say that one nut can so change the world is to say that the world is almost too chaotic to comprehend. Some people don’t like that idea.

Ignorance is Bliss.
Reality is Better.

14

Hmmm… I must be a nut then…

I’ve seen a couple of references to “Case Closed”. I’ve also read a couple of Oliver Stone slams. If I may, (and since I’m a registered member, I may), my thoughts.

The movie JFK came out and it bothered me greatly. I mean… think about it… what if it was true? The government may have been part of a conspiracy to kill its leader, or at the very least covered up the truth as to what really happened. Talk about shaking some fundamental beliefs to the core.

I heard all of the media reports about Oliver’s “fiction”, so I decided to read the books the movie was based on… “On The Trail Of The Assassins”, by Jim Garrison and “Crossfire” by Jim Marrs. Has anyone out there read both of these books? If you did, you’d find that Oliver’s depiction of the key events are fairly close to both books… granted, he took some creative license and changed periphial things to make a better movie. But the underlying premise of these books were accurately depicted. I encourage anyone that is interested in this subject to read Garrison’s book especially. Whether or not you are a conspiracy buff, it’s IMHO a terrific read, and an extremely interesting story. Whether you chose to believe it or not is up to the reader, but personally, I found no reason not to believe that he was a part of an amazing period of this country’s history and was trying to find the truth. If he was a nut case or an egomaniac, I don’t know. That’s just my take on the man.

For those of you who think that a conspiracy doesn’t exist because the ability to cover it up wasn’t possible, you are mistaken. The US intelligence apparatus (like any other country’s)is very good at living in a world of smoke and mirrors… and allowing you to see what they want you to see. That’s their business. They live in a world of compartmentalized information and secrets. Whether or not they were a part of this assassination, I don’t know. But I’ve read enough on this subject and know enough about how the intelligence community works to have my doubts about the Warren Commission’s conclusions. Most people have no idea what is going on in the world behind the scenes. And quite frankly, most of us don’t want to or need to. For most of the world, ignorace is bliss. But don’t kid yourselves.

Detailed discussion of specific points would probably require this to be moved to great debates. However, I think that whether or not you believe that Oswald pulled the trigger, you can certainly understand the motives of the US government to pin it on one person and close it quietly. I suspect that they didn’t really want to find the truth. Even if they had other leads, who would have wanted to follow them? Most of the conspiracy scenarios (Mafia, CIA, Cuba, KGB) if true, would have been distasteful to say the least. The results of discovering the truth would have to have generated a reaction… if it was a foreign government, what would that be? War? And if it was our own government, then what? We couldn’t even handle a bugging of Watergate and that came a decade later. Imagine finding out the CIA killed the President! From a purely pragmatic point of view, the Oswald solution was the cleanest and allowed the country to move on.

We perhaps will never know what really happened. Perhaps we already do. In any event, I sure find it interesting. If time travel was possible, I have a feeling I’d go back to Dallas that faithful day with a video camera and find myself a secluded spot behind the picket fence.

15

Anyone who is postively certain that Oswald acted alone has to explain his assassination at the hands of Jack Ruby - or at least offer a plausible explanation.

16

Cooper, et al:

It’s covered in “Case Closed,” as well as all the other conspiracy “evidence.”

17

That theory is covered on this website: Ten Wackiest Theories

My favorite Wacky Theory NOT covered on that site is that Oswald blamed John Connally for getting kicked out of the Marine Corps, because Connally was Secretary of the Navy at the time. Oswald was actually trying to kill Connally, who was seated directly ahead of Kennedy.

Which means he actually missed his intended target three times. Which would cover the “Oswald was not a good marksman” argument.

I’d better mork on MY alibi, Chuck. I’m from Dallas and clearly remember the excitement when we learned Kennedy was making his visit. Being even younger than you, I said, “Is he gonna sleep here?”

Mom and Dad laughed, and said, “Oh, sure! Daddy’ll sleep on the couch and Momma in your room and they’ll sleep in our bed!” I was completely convinced this would happen and was disappointed when they didn’t show up on the 21st of November!

I was with my Dad on our farm when it happened. We actually didn’t know what had happened until we got home because we didn’t have a portable radio with us. (Remember when they were called “transistor radios”?)

kunilou: It was the 6th Floor, not the 5th.

>< DARWIN >
__L___L

18

“‘mork’ on my alibi?” How did I do that?

>< DARWIN >
__L___L

19

You’ll all think I’m nuts…LOL that’s ok.
Ask Moira Prophet what happened. She and her mother claim that she is the reincarnation of JFK.
Really!

20

Kudos to Chuck, Kunilou, Curt, Mjollnir, and David for talking some sense here. Posner’s Case Closed is the final word. Wiggum, Posner destroys Garrison and his theories and makes you wonder why Garrison is still credited by some people (among other things, Posner shows that Garrison himself was on the take from the mob).

Regarding the “magic bullet”, which Posner rightly calls the single bullet, I have my copy of Case Closed at hand. Oswald’s second shot (which the Warren Commission wrongly determined was his first shot) hit Kennedy in the back at about 1800 ft/sec and came out through his throat, when it started tumbling. It hit Governor Connally in the right shoulder at about 1550 ft/sec and left a large entry wound and an even bigger exit wound below his right nipple. It then went through Connally’s wrist at 900 ft/sec and bounced off his thigh at 400 ft/sec, barely breaking the skin. The only change in the bullet’s trajectory was a slight angle when it hit one of Connally’s ribs. Posner points out that one of the forgotten aspects of the JFK assassination was that Connally was very nearly killed, too, and only heroic efforts by a team of surgeons kept him alive.

Then, of course, Kennedy was mortally wounded by the third shot to the back of the head.