Reelz Channel's JFK: The Smoking Gun

Cafe Society
21

I said practically on his deathbed. He was critically ill but manged to recover: http://articles.baltimoresun.com/1997-09-30/news/1997273060_1_hickey-defamation-mortal-error

It doesn’t prove squat. I’m willing to bet every member of every person known in that area has been contacted a hundred times by buffs who are ‘writing a book’. I’d have a hard time taking such claims seriously after a while.

There is nothing odd about this except that somehow this poorly selling book that even the buffs mocked into the ground somehow still sits in the JFK legend.

22

I saw it and while I’m not going to say Donoghue was right, there is a certain ratioknality that if Hickey did fire a shot, that completely would explain the SS coverup since they would have heard the shot (to address Miskatonic) and realized “Oh crap, someone fucked up.” That being said part of the argument was that the bullet fragmented in the head but not the second shot. There’s a lot of difference between a bullet hitting a hard skull and a soft throat. Also with all of the video that day, it seems to me the theory would be pretty to prove yet apparently there’s only one still picture of Hickey with “the smoking gun”.

I always wonder how it would have been different if the Dallas County sheriff threatened the Secret Service with arrest for obstruction and so the autopsy would be performed in Dallas.

23

Again, you have to presuppose so many things that the “rationality” falls apart. Only if you mix the supposition with a large dose of pure bullshit can it be swallowed.

An AR-15 is a loud weapon. There is no credible way one could be fired, moments after everyone’s attention had been heightened, without a large number of observers seeing and hearing it. There are NO credible contemporaneous reports of the shot, only that part of the crowd that gave contradictory reports of the shots’ location.

A minimum of eight to ten people would have been instantly aware of the shot. All of them would have had to think it through and build a coverup, in minutes or less, that would stand an intense investigation and fifty years without knowing anything about what the real situation (Oswald, the President’s condition, the autopsy evidence) was. Start adding up the number of lucky guesses required. Use a big sheet of paper.

Every single person with knowledge would have to take an absolute vow of omerta for the rest of their lives, not one slip allowed.

And where did LHO’s third shot go, then, anyway?

The fragments of the bullet would have to match an AR-15 round and not the considerably different round fired by the Carcano, and the conspirators would know this within a short time.

Because, of course, the Marx Brothers autopsy team had no idea what they were doing. Just ask any CTer.

And the only reason for this whole absurdity is the starting point that poor dim Oswald and his toy rifle just couldna dunnit.

24

Not a CTer but:
According to the documentary, some people did report the SS was firing back. These witnesses were not called by the Warren Commission.

The bullet that caused the fatal wound was smaller than the rounds LHO used (6mm v. 6.5mm)

The bullet was different in that it fragmented inside the head. Being full-metal-jacketed, LHO bullets would not fragment. (IDK on this so I’m sure someone on SD can answer if a jacketed bullet can fragment after hitting the skull.)

The autopsy was a clusterfuck after the SS stole Kennedy’s corpse to take it back to Washington DC. What evidence was lost in the transport?
I think my point about the rationality of Donoghue’s theory is that it presupposes the lone gunman hypothesis so no mobsters on the grassy knoll or a setup by the CIA. It is dependent on a Secret Service officer having his finger on the trigger just as the car lurched and oops I blew the President’s head off. The SS realizes this considering they were right there and heard the shot and so the coverup begins.

Where he loses me is that he has a lot of facts that are not seen anywhere else. You would think the CTs would jump all over a bullet hole smaller than the ones LHO fired but they don’t. I also find it hard to believe that with all the cameras there is only one picture of Hickey with the gun in question. Ultimately, you would have to believe that the Warren Commission was either incompetent or part of the coverup and I don’t believe that.

25

The AR-15 actually fires a 5.56mm round.

[QUOTE=Saint Cad]
The bullet was different in that it fragmented inside the head. Being full-metal-jacketed, LHO bullets would not fragment. (IDK on this so I’m sure someone on SD can answer if a jacketed bullet can fragment after hitting the skull.)
[/quote]

FMJ rounds can fragment. I’ve seen plenty during my years of rifle shooting. Sometimes the jacket separates from the core but stays intact, sometimes the jacket comes apart into multiple fragments, and sometimes both the core and the jacket come apart into fragments.

According to the autopsy report, the bullet fragments from Kennedy’s skull were “placed in the custody of Agents Francis X. O’Neill, Jr. and James W. Sibert, of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, who executed a receipt therefor.” The FBI, that is, not the Secret Service. And it’d be very possible to determine whether the fragments were from a SS-procured 5.56mm round, or a Western Cartridge Company 6.5-mm round, via a neutron activation analysis. Which was, in fact, carried out on the Kennedy fragments, and they were all found to be consistent with WCC 6.5mm rounds.

26

I don’t believe either of these statements are true.

27

I watched it.

Unlike many of the others in here that dismiss a show they didn’t see, I’ll give my opinion based on the show itself.

There were three things in the show that I found interesting.

1). The bullet jackets found at the scene. Two were supposedly newer and fresh looking, while the third didn’t match. The theory was that Oswald only took two shots, and third shell casing was ejected before he fired his first shot (a leftover from the firing range, perhaps?). This was not credible IMO, although it was the first time I heard differences in the shell casings, and i have no idea if this was true.

It did bring up a problem I’ve always had with the three shell casings personally, however. If you believe Oswald took the three shots, then the last one blew Kennedy’s head apart. Why on earth would he have wasted his time to cycle the rifle for a fourth shot? He would not have cycled the rifle, IMO. He would have seen the result of his 3rd shot virtually instantaneously after pulling the trigger. No need to cycle the rifle and eject the third shell. So to me, there should only have been two shells found on the 6th floor, and the third empty shell should have been found in the rifle.

2). The spacing of the 2nd and 3rd shots. No matter what conspiracy theory you subscribe to, the witnesses almost universally state that the second and third shots were almost in top of each other. This is from everyone, including people in the motorcade, people on the streets, and John Connelly. This theory was no different. And this theory didn’t need to have the second and third shots on top of each other, either. Mid the SS agent did stand up and shoot the President, why would the shot have to be close to the second shot? It wouldn’t. That shot would only have to come after the second shot… Interval is irrelevant. But most witnesses indicate a shot, a pause and then shot shot. That second and third shot, if correct, do more to indicate a second shooter than anything else.

  1. the most compelling part of this to me was the ballistics discussion, and the exploding bullet that was used for the head shot. I have read before that metal fragments were found in Kennedy’s head, but since the brain disappeared, there is little evidence of any bullet fragments now. However, i do think the idea of the third shot not being a missile from the Oswald rifle is possible, especially if it was indeed an exploding, or frag bullet. The discussion about the type of bullet that was found at Parkland and that was allegedly fired out of the Oswald rifle being a missile that would make holes in people but would not explode on impact was interesting.

I know Oswald WC people will tell us that a solid bullet like WCE 399 could hit and explode a head like we saw on the Zapruder film. But they can’t prove it. They just read it somewhere. But i can’t prove it was an exploding bullet, even if the Zapruder film sure indicates it was more likely to be an exploding bullet than a bullet from Oswald’s gun. I don’t know, but they discounted the idea that Oswald had mixed ammo in his rifle, and that the third bullet in his rifle would have been the same as the first two. Perhaps. I don’t know, but it sure looked like a frag bullet to me.
As for the rest of it, there was a lot of documented truth to the taking of the President’s body out of the hospital and out of Texas which was against Texas law. I don’t know if this proves anything more than the SS not wanting to hang around Dallas, and to get the President’s body back to Washington, and not really caring about Texas Law. But the fact remains that this was against the law and it was against established procedure. However, as i said, the President wasn’t a normal person, and this wasn’t a normal homicide. In the heat of the moment, I can see the president’s detail wanting to take the body to Washington.

The other part that was true was that the autopsy was a fiasco. Many account I’ve ever read about the autopsy indicates that there was a room full of people who were not supposed to be in the autopsy room. Secret Service, military, FBI, and who knows who else?

As for the show, I don’t think the SS shot is probable. It seems too improbable that the agent would just happen to get off an unintentional shot that smacked Kennedy in the head without aiming or trying and blew his head off.

But hey, i guess anything is possible. But I wouldn’t bet on this theory as being correct.

28

According to the documentary they were. Incidentally, when they drilled into a skull to come up with the 6mm entry wound my first thought was that they were trying to prove LHO didn’t drill into Kennedy’s brain hence conspiracy.

Like I said, if the facts they’re claiming were true, I would think someone else would have jumped all over it in the 30 years after Kennedy’s death.

29

Terminal ballistics can be funky. The 6.5 x 52mm Carcano cartridge is notable for being extremely heavy for its caliber (either 160 or 162 grains, depending on the reference), wide for its caliber, and rather slow, as centerfire bolt action rifle cartridges go. While the Carcano is listed as having a muzzle velocity of 2400 ft./sec. in references such as David Miller’s, Fighting Men of World War II: Uniforms, Equipment and Weapons, this is out of a rifle with a nearly 31 inch barrel. Oswald had instead a Carcano *Fucile di Fanteria Mod. 91/38 * with a, near as I can determine, 21 inch barrel. This is going to drastically cut the muzzle velocity. The rule of thumb is that 25 to 50 feet per second of velocity is lost with each inch cut off of the rifle barrel. Accordingly, I’d expect a MV of between 1900 to 2150 fps, and for it to lose about 200 fps by the time it hits JFK, 265 ft away. I used this web based ballistics program to make that guess, using the Hornady 160 gr. .268 (not .264, like every other 6.5mm bullet) round nose bullet.

What does all of this mean? Well, heavy bullets for a caliber will penetrate further than lighter bullets, all else remaining equal. Further, a ‘slow’ bullet such as the 6.5 Carcano, is less likely to fragment under the stresses of impact, than a faster bullet would be. Even if that faster bullet were also a full metal jacketed one. Accordingly, of cartridges that would exhibit the behavior of the so-called “magic bullet,” penetrating feet of tissue with little bullet deformation, you’d expect something like the 6.5 Carcano to predominate.

Conversely, it would be less likely, all else remaining equal, that a 6.5 Carcano bullet would fragment upon striking a skull, than another, higher velocity and/or expanding rifle bullet. But not impossible. I have not shot the 6.5 Carcano and I do not know of any studies indicating large numbers of head simulants that have been shot by it, in an attempt to evaluate the likelihood of bullet fragmentation like that seen in the JFK head wound. High velocity 5.56 x 45mm 55 grain M193-ish (the M193 was not adopted until 1964; I am assuming the USSS used a similar round in their AR-15s) bullets, at close range, OTOH are expected to fragment a majority of the time, especially at a range under 100m. See, e.g., the gelatin cross-sections of Dr. Martin Fackler’s wound ballistics work (.pdf) for a typical example.

The bullet lead analysis, FWIW, is not quite as ironclad as the Warren Commission made it out to be. This Washington Post article from 2007 is a good introduction to the controversy. From what I can tell, the researchers aren’t saying there must have been a second gunman; they’re saying you can’t explicitly rule one out.

I still don’t believe the Mortal Error hypothesis, mainly because I don’t think an AR-15 discharge at street level would have gone unnoticed. Moreover, how much muzzle signature (smoke, flash) would a typical AR-15 firing M193 have? Wouldn’t that have been noticed too? Now, if the rifle had been suppressed, as is increasingly common practice for military users, you might be onto something. But suppressor technology for supersonic centerfire rifle cartridges was much, much more behind what it is today.

30

Another interesting question. The accepted course of events is that Oswald entered the TSD with a paper-wrapped package, that he claimed were “curtain rods.” The package was too short to accommodate a 91/38 Carcano, but a disassembled Carcano could fit. Again, I’ve never shot one, but how could Oswald know that the re-assembled rifle would hold the same zero as it did before dis-assembly? I’m sure someone must have tried it, but can anyone point out an easily clickable reference that shows that the zero wouldn’t have appreciably changed with re-assembly?

Of course, Oswald could have been too much of a dummy that think that there’d be any change. Or care. After all, he was dumb enough to mail order the rifle, and pose with it, instead of just paying cash in some sporting goods store.

Or he could have practiced with it and demonstrated to himself that the rifle wouldn’t change zero after being reassembled. Even if it did change zero, come to think of it, his first shot that he missed could have provided enough guidance to him as to the amount of hold-off or hold-over that he would have needed for subsequent shots. That JFK wasn’t facing him probably made it psychologically easier for someone like Oswald to follow up his missed shot, unlike his earlier attempt on General Walker’s life.

31

Uh…are you serious? I think that ‘smelling gunpowder’ is pretty good the world over as some kind of evidence. Ask any cop or judge, and I’d bet they disagree with you.
(I haven’t read much of this thread, since the Conspiracy Deniers usually get too rabid, so, I don’t know how the ‘smelling gunpowder’ aspect plays.)

32

There is some argument that Oswald missed his first shot because he used the scope. This could be because the scope was misaligned or because at that range the iron sights would be more effective. I’d need to defer to a more frequent rifle shooter on that regard.

Oswald probably didn’t care about being traceable. He wanted firearms. He wanted them cheap. The mail order people were historically cheaper than local stores, especially with surplus weapons.

33

I’m quite serious. Human memory is extremely bad at recalling events and frankly people imagine things and add things after the fact. If I come upon a murder scene and say I ‘smell gunpowder’ yet the coroner says I showed up 6 hours after the victim was killed I doubt my smell memories will hold much weight with the judge & jury.

34

Oswald had done a lot of dry-firing of the bolt and frankly cycling the bolt was probably just an instinctive action at that point. He wouldn’t have thought to do it, nor thought not to do it. Once the trigger was pulled his hand was probably halfway through the cycling before his brain registered 'hey, I got him!".

35

Obvious question: If an SS agent riding with six other SS agents fired a shot accidentally, wouldn’t their first reaction be “Oh, shit, this guy’s a mole, and he just killed the President!” followed by a swift takedown of the shooter?

I think so.

Assuming they weren’t 100% on the up-and-up, would they be willing to stick their necks out to protect someone who, accidentally or not, had just committed one of the biggest crimes of the century, simply because he was “one of their own”?

I don’t think so.

36

Agreed. Oswald only had a few seconds to complete the assassination, not knowing how many shots he would actually get. He was not taking a shot, looking at the results, then taking another shot. He was probably cycling the bolt before he registered the shot actually hit.

37

I agree that a vast conspiracy involving the military, CIA, etc. is vanishingly unlikely. But a small “conspiracy” (in the legal sense of “conspiracy to murder”) involving a few people seems much more likely to me than the “lone nut” theory espoused by the Warren Commission. And what strikes me as a certainty is that the Warren Commission investigation and report was a joke, a total whitewash. I would allow for the possibility that they pulled a kind of Mark Fuhrman/OJ Simpson kind of a deal (planting evidence and rigging the investigation to wrap it up neatly and be able to assure the public there were no further culprits at large) and just coincidentally happened to be right. If that’s the case, it’s ironic because their blatant whitewash had the opposite effect as desired, flipping public opinion from 90% convinced Oswald acted alone in the early going to more than 80% convinced of the opposite position just a few years later.

38

I was going to ask you why you thought that

but never mind.

For extra points, sketch out your thoughts on the conspiracies supporting Whitman, Huberty, Sherrill, Klebold and Harris, Cho and Lanza. Since, of course, there’s no such thing as a disaffected nut who can pull off such things without a cabal of supporters.

39

Wow. I won’t even touch the Simpson thing. (I didn’t think there were still people that thought he was innocent.)

Can you explain how an 889 page, 26 volume report by among others a sitting Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court, US Senators and Representatives including a future US President constitutes a “whitewash?” Do you have any proof or specifics that this report is “a joke?” The fact that it stands up to almost 50 years worth of scrutiny will prove that it wasn’t a “whitewash” and is pretty accurate.

40

And, did he take the rifle with him? If he had just shot the president and was trying to get away I would think he would want to carry a rifle that’s ready to fire.