The DPD did not record their questioning of Oswald. It would have served no purpose. Under Texas law at the time, a confession was no good unless it was written and signed by the defendant.
It was a public building. The doors were wide open. Anybody could walk in.
This corresponds to reality in pretty much no way whatsoever.
The so-called “magic bullet.” In reality, it was fairly well deformed–flattened on one side and distended at the rear. Compare the conspiracy-buffs’ favorite picture with this one. The bullet was also full-metal jacket–intentionally designed not to fragment and deform when it hits a human target.
Nothing remotely mysterious about any of it. Do you have anything in particular you regard as “mysterious,” or do you prefer (like most conspiracists) to just allude darkly to something without explaining why you think it’s evidence of anything at all?
Such tissues are routinely retained by medical examiners when they may be needed as evidence in a criminal investigation. The brain was not “misplaced.” It was retained and then apparently taken by Robert F. Kennedy, along with other pieces of JFK’s body kept after autopsy, to prevent future display of his brother’s remains.
The Kennedy Assassination was important in ways that had nothing to do with Kennedy.
In the long run, here’s what it did:
Forced the president to become more concerned with security. There will be much less interaction between the public and the president. Security will be tighter. Even then, Ford and Reagan were both shot at.
There was a cover-up on the national level, and here’s where tragedy turns into farce. The FBI and CIA were very much concerned with keeping a lid on all information about the assassination, because of CIA activities in Cuba at the time and the FBI’s inability to spot Oswald as a threat in time. The CIA was also concerned about possible Russian or Cuban involvement, and whether, if proved, that could lead to war.
The fact that it’s the nature of institutions to keep a lid on records in general also didn’t help to make the case for Oswald as the lone shooter.
Also, what made the killing a shock was that the last successful assassination of a president was William McKinley at the turn of the century. Puerto Rican nationalists tried to get Truman, but failed. Theodore Roosevelt was shot at but hit the guy next to him. So JFK’s death (followed quickly after by Oswald’s) was a bizarre shock to a nation that had pretty much fallen asleep during the last decade. The impact was probably doubled and trebled because it was the first major event that was reported on television, back then still a new medium. Oswald’s assassination was televised, too, at a time when violence that raw simply wasn’t seen on TV.
BTW: Kennedy was not the universally beloved president that Henry B makes him out to be. The far-right Republicans like the John Birchers despised him as bad as the GOP despises Clinton today (imagine what the news about Kennedy’s mistresses would have done to him back then!) Support for Kennedy was shaky, which was one reason why he was in Texas in the first place.
Yes. I know that he was quite hated in the southern states.
With my post, I meant Europe. We were shown films (OK, propaganda films, but good ones) like where he kept his speach “Ich bin ein Berliner” at school (in Helsinki that was) etc.
It was forbidden to show propaganda films at school, but JFK was not forbidden.
He was very much liked in northern parts of Europe anyhow. And I think in other parts of Europe as well.
No-one has been able to step into those boots that he left (in my country anyhow).
Nowadays I am quite critical to US politics, but that is another story.
Wow! I knew Teddy was an athelete and a man of action, but not to this extent. Teddy hears the shot. He renders the man next to him unconscious with but a single blow. Then, Roosevelt uses the man as a human shield.
What about the reputation of the Carcano rifle that Oswald used to shoot Kennedy? It was called the “Humanitarian Rifle” as it had the annoying habit of doing more harm to the shooter than his target. (I knew a guy who was a gun nut and he claimed to have fired a Carcano and said that it was so inaccurate that you were lucky if the bullet struck in any area remotely close to where you’d aimed.) Also, Norman Mailer claimed that the KGB reports on Oswald stated that he was a ridiculously bad shot.
The most insanely funny conspiracy theory that I’ve heard is that JFK’s limo driver shot him!
Whatever the reputation of the Carcano was is irrelevant–the only question is whether Oswald’s Carcano was accurate. Post-assassination testing showed it was “quite accurate.”
Mailer’s story merely recounts the statement of one of the guys Oswald went hunting with in Russia. They were hunting rabbits with shotguns, which is a rather different feat than firing a scoped rifle at a slowly-moving target. In the Marines, Oswald was good enough to qualify as a sharpshooter.
This came from that stupid-ass JFK conspiracy show they were showing night-after-night for a while on The “History” Channel. This same show also had a guy alleging that parts of JFK’s head had been remodeled with clay for the autopsy photos so that they would show how he would have looked had he been shot by a lone gunner from the book depository. Much brain scrubbing was necessary after seeing those two segments.
By the way, I wasn’t actually sitting there watching the show. I caught bits and pieces of it while flipping around. I swear!
On a side note, it would be interesting to model the skull, brain, neck and bullet interaction in LS-DYNA, basically using a solid for the skull (with the appropriate material properties) and bullet, water for the brain, and a spring for the neck. But that would require more effort than I feel like putting into it.
Three thing about the “magic bullet” that give ammunition to the conspiracy theorists:
it’s not scarred enough to have gone through two bodies.
(minty green fielded this on in his post above)
it “changed course in midair.” But maybe not. When John Dillinger was shot in the back below his kidney, the bullet emerged from his eye socket. The scenarist with their protractors and string never take that dynamic into account.
it was recovered on the gurney at the hospital, where Oliver Stone shows it being planted. If they’re going to plant a bullet, why not a more convincing one? And the feds didn’t even have custody of the rifle, to put a balistically-matching round into a sandbag & quick plant it. At the time the bullet was found Dallas PD still had the rifle.
That last bit recalls the most blatant bit in Stone’s JFK: the B&W footage of a shadowy figure placing Oswald’s corpse’s handprint on the stock of the rifle, with Costner’s voice-over “why didn’t the Dallas police find Oswald’s prints on the rifle, but the FBI later did?”
Because the print was found UNDER the stock, stupid. The Dallas PD didn’t break the rifle down when they dusted it. And for Garrison & Stone, thoroughly familiar with the investigation, and both having gone through Army basic training where rifles are assembled from scratch all day long, to have omitted that could only have been a deliberate mislead.
But the best argument has always been the most simple: Kennedy went to Oswald - not the other way around.
Having fired one myself, I’d say your friends assessment was incorrect or based on a poor example of the rifle. Carcano’s were very accurate and very reliable. The number of injuries caused to users of Carcanos is actually much lower than injuries to people using 1903 SpringFields, a weapon with a much better reputation.
There are a lot of ‘our boys’ out in the ground during WW2 from this “humanitarian rifle”.
Ironicly, some of these "humanitarian rifle comments may have come from Musollini. He was trying to blame equipment for the failures of his sycophantic military leadership.
Timotyh Mullins, a beyond-reproach weapons expert, tested damn near every battle weapon ever made and stated that they were excellent bolt-action rifles, beat out only by the British Enfield.
Based off a hunting trip with a few friends. Oswald got startled by some small creature jumping out of the underbrush and fired at it with his shotgun. He missed. On this basis some felt he was a 'poor shot". However, many deer hunters I have spoken with say that missing the first shot is not unusual. Oswald’s shooting scores in the Marines speak well enough.
This is how the buffs invariable want to beleive “common sense” which is actually “common sense as I seen it on the TV”. We see squashed bullets removed from murder victims on TV shows all the time. However these are invariably Pistol rounds, and entirely different animal from FMJ rifle rounds
They also lie. Diagrams of the Limo in buff books show JFK and Connally on the same level and arms at their sides. The reality was much different. Buffs went out of their way to avoid ackowledgint this fact.
Its bordering on impossible. But the buffs give the conspirators magic powers when it suits them. Or they ignore the evidence linking the bullet and the rifle.
Especially amusing since Fingerprints are caused by sweat and body oils. The dead don’t sweat. BTW, the DPD foudn the print, not the FBI. Steon was implying that the FBI put the print on the rifle for the DPD to find when they returned it.
Actually, the DPD did find the palm print right away. It was a one lift job, though and then they had to turn it over the FBI. Here’s the account.
Actually, the bullet did not change course at all. That idea was based on the false assumption that Kennedy and Connaly were siting one in front of the other and at the same level. In fact, Kennedy was raised up above the governor’s level, and was sitting further to the inside. When you take the actual positions into account, the positions of the entry and exit wounds clearly define a straight path–which, incidentally, travels back to the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository.
And for all anybody could have known at the time it would have been planted, that bullet was still inside one of the victims. No rational conspirator would have taken the risk of demonstrating the existence of a conspiracy by placing an extra bullet on the victim.
Uh, no. I don’t think that’s correct. The palmprint was indeed found on the stock. Another partial palmprint, incidentally, was found on one of the boxes set up to steady the rifle at the sixth floor window.
