# The case against Lee H. Oswald **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 24, 2023, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-against-lee-h-oswald/993643 "2023-11-24T18:35:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2023, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-against-lee-h-oswald/993643/41 "2023-11-24T23:39:32Z")
> [@slicedalone](#): > > How does a bullet strike seven different bones, organs, and muscles and keep the shape of its tip so well? After the bullet strikes the first solid bone, it’s going to start tumbling and likely not strike tip-forward. I’ve seen lighter weight and faster moving .25 and .28 caliber bullets pulled out of game that aside from rifling marks could probably have been reloaded and fired again (albeit with some significant loss of accuracy). The 162 gr 6.5x52mm Carcano is a big beefy slug of a bullet that isn’t going to fragment or expand just because it touches a rib. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2023, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-against-lee-h-oswald/993643/42 "2023-11-24T23:48:32Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > There is a photo of the limo out there taken right after the assassination which clearly shows just how much further inboard and how much lower Connolly was compared to Kennedy. - This? [![](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/ff/e1/97/ffe197380017e170a1a4b64309429f84.jpg) ](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/ff/e1/97/ffe197380017e170a1a4b64309429f84.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2023, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-against-lee-h-oswald/993643/43 "2023-11-24T23:51:29Z")
It was also a fully jacketed bullet, which will not disintegrate or flatten like an unjacketed lead bullet. If it went through soft tissue first then hit Connolly’s rib sideways, that would be consisten with the damage to the bullet. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2023, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-against-lee-h-oswald/993643/44 "2023-11-24T23:51:42Z")
That is the one I pointed out in a previous post, to see it one has to expand the post I pointed out in Quora. But thanks for posting that. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2023, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-against-lee-h-oswald/993643/45 "2023-11-24T23:53:51Z")
That’s a good one! But it’s not quite it. The picture I’m talking about was shot from above and from behind the rear passenger side, making all the relationships very clear. But your photo does show how much lower the jump seats were. I thnk the rear seat is still in ‘parade’ position. ---
**Author:** ![John\_DiFool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_difool/32/19543_2.png) [@John\_DiFool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_DiFool)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2023, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-against-lee-h-oswald/993643/46 "2023-11-24T23:56:26Z")
Plus this was a very THICK jacketed design, as the photo above very clearly shows. ---
**Author:** ![Dissonance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85f322/32.png) [@Dissonance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dissonance)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2023, 12:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-against-lee-h-oswald/993643/47 "2023-11-25T00:26:04Z")
> [@Dropo](#): > > That said, “What doesn’t seem to add up,” said JFK Subcommittee Chairman Richardson Preyer (D-N.C.) in early January, “is how other conspirators might have picked somebody as unstable as Oswald to carry out their plot.” > > This statement gets me wondering just how “unstable” Oswald truly was and how much it might have been exaggerated by those with an interest in presenting him to the world as a “lone nut.” Conspiracy 101: evidence that a conspiracy isn’t true (Oswald’s documented instability) becomes evidence that there is a conspiracy going on (his documented instability must have been faked or ‘exaggerated’ by those whose purpose said instability serves). ---
**Author:** ![Dropo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ce7236/32.png) [@Dropo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dropo)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2023, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-against-lee-h-oswald/993643/48 "2023-11-25T00:48:52Z")
Except that I clearly wrote “wondering” and did not draw any presumptuous conclusions like you did. ---
**Author:** ![Moriarty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/moriarty/32/49_2.png) [@Moriarty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moriarty)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2023, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-against-lee-h-oswald/993643/49 "2023-11-25T00:59:36Z")
> [@Dropo](#): > > Marcello, Trafficante and Hoffa all had motive, means and opportunity to assassinate the president, that the three were sufficiently close for individual motivates to have combined to produce an assassination conspiracy, and that **they had access to Oswald and Ruby in the half year preceding the assassination.** ” (My bold) What in the world does _had access_ mean? That because Oswald lived in New Orleans, any mobster associated with the city _could have_ made contact with him? There were no suspicious calls or meetings made by Oswald. He didn’t have unexplained money. He didn’t have unaccounted for access to weapons. Hell, he didn’t even have a car. Other than a claim that it was within the realm of possibility, there is _no shred_ of credible evidence to support a connection between Oswald and the underworld. ---
**Author:** ![Dissonance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85f322/32.png) [@Dissonance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dissonance)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2023, 1:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-against-lee-h-oswald/993643/50 "2023-11-25T01:12:47Z")
Yes, yes, yes, you were Just Asking Questions. ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2023, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-against-lee-h-oswald/993643/51 "2023-11-25T02:30:19Z")
Okay, the conspiracy advocates have narrowed the suspects to: the Mafia, the Teamsters, the CIA, the Cubans, the KGB, Lyndon Johnson, the far right wing, Richard Nixon, and a host of minor players. Isn’t it possible, and of course I’m Just Asking Questions here, that after 60 years, all the evidence that’s been uncovered by all the investigations should have narrowed down the list of suspects to one or at most two who seem most likely? Meanwhile, there’s an unstable man with a grudge (and a Marksman rating from the Marines) who worked at the Texas School Book Depository, left his job shortly after the shooting, stopped at his rooming house, and shot a cop to death when he was discovered hiding in a movie theater less than 45 minutes later. ---
**Author:** ![dirtball](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dirtball/32/18772_2.png) [@dirtball](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dirtball)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2023, 2:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-against-lee-h-oswald/993643/52 "2023-11-25T02:47:00Z")
> [@Kent\_Clark](#): > > Meanwhile, there’s an unstable man with a grudge That’s what kills the whole “Oswald as part of a conspiracy” thing for me. Working at it from the other direction, put yourself in the place of a mob boss or any decision maker for an organization that might have felt some motivation to get rid of JFK. Is Lee Harvey Oswald, of all people, your guy? Really? History shows us he really was capable of doing the job, obviously. But beforehand, would he have looked like somebody who would be reliable enough to carry it out? For a job of this magnitude, wouldn’t you want to conspire with someone more experienced? Someone with a track record? Someone who would have some credibility as a professional? Someone a little more stable? If there was a conspiracy, it couldn’t have amounted to much more than a coworker helping him move boxes into place at the window. And why would he need that? ---
**Author:** ![Moriarty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/moriarty/32/49_2.png) [@Moriarty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moriarty)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2023, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-against-lee-h-oswald/993643/53 "2023-11-25T02:50:59Z")
> [@dirtball](#): > > Working at it from the other direction, put yourself in the place of a mob boss or any decision maker for an organization that might have felt some motivation to get rid of JFK. > > Is Lee Harvey Oswald, of all people, your guy? Really? You’d go the complete opposite route: a woman, like Judith Exner, who could get close to Kennedy and then kill him intimately. > **[The Mistress Who Carried Messages Between JFK and the Mob Did It for Love](https://www.thedailybeast.com/judith-campbell-the-mistress-who-carried-messages-between-jfk-and-the-mob-did-it-for-love/)** > > Judith Campbell, dubbed the “mob moll” by the media, had a passionate affair with JFK, and fell in love with him. She also became a conduit between the White House and the mob. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2023, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-against-lee-h-oswald/993643/54 "2023-11-25T02:53:23Z")
> [@Kent\_Clark](#): > > Isn’t it possible, and of course I’m Just Asking Questions here, that after 60 years, all the evidence that’s been uncovered by all the investigations should have narrowed down the list of suspects to one or at most two who seem most likely? Unless…they all did it. Together. Eight men in a rifle. It’s the only solution that makes sense. “Now I must go and wrestle with my report to the police and with my conscience.” Stranger ---
**Author:** ![Dropo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ce7236/32.png) [@Dropo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dropo)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2023, 3:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-against-lee-h-oswald/993643/55 "2023-11-25T03:03:10Z")
> [@Moriarty](#): > > What in the world does _had access_ mean? That because Oswald lived in New Orleans, any mobster associated with the city _could have_ made contact with him? It means the people named in the article had ample opportunity to contact Oswald through subordinates known to associate with him. Keep in mind your original assertion: “There is no evidence that loner Lee Oswald had any mob contact of any kind.” As the article points out, this assertion is incorrect. > [@Moriarty](#): > > There were no suspicious calls or meetings made by Oswald. He didn’t have unexplained money. He didn’t have unaccounted for access to weapons. Hell, he didn’t even have a car. We don’t know what was discussed between Oswald and his mob associates. Apart from that, I don’t see how any of this precludes mob involvement in the assassination. > [@Moriarty](#): > > Other than a claim that it was within the realm of possibility… It is within the realm of possibility and we will likely never know the truth of it. > [@dirtball](#): > > History shows us he really was capable of doing the job, obviously. But beforehand, would he have looked like somebody who would be reliable enough to carry it out? For a job of this magnitude, wouldn’t you want to conspire with someone more experienced? Someone with a track record? Someone who would have some credibility as a professional? Someone a little more stable? What made Oswald ideal for the job were his connections to Cuba and the Soviet Union. This effectively left the U.S. a choice between putting the assassination all on Oswald, the lone nut, or blaming the commies and risking WWIII. Presumably, not every potential killer had those connections. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2023, 3:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-against-lee-h-oswald/993643/56 "2023-11-25T03:09:14Z")
> [@Dropo](#): > > It is within the realm of possibility and we will likely never know the truth of it. Anything that isn’t physically impossible is “within the realm of possibility”, and “we will likely never know the truth” of a vast array of possible actions due to the fact that nobody recorded or collected evidence about them. That doesn’t mean that there is any good reason to believe that spurious claims without any substantial evidence are likely to be true. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![Moriarty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/moriarty/32/49_2.png) [@Moriarty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moriarty)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2023, 3:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-against-lee-h-oswald/993643/57 "2023-11-25T03:12:51Z")
> [@Dropo](#): > > the people named in the article had ample opportunity to contact Oswald through subordinates known to associate with him. Names, please. Who was known to associate with Oswald? > [@Dropo](#): > > We don’t know what was discussed between Oswald and his mob associates. He had no such associates. > [@Dropo](#): > > I don’t see how any of this precludes mob involvement in the assassination. How were they involved? What assistance did they provide? Money? Weapons? A getaway car? What was their involvement? > [@Dropo](#): > > It is within the realm of possibility and we will likely never know the truth of it. In criminal trials, they talk about _reasonable_ doubt, as opposed to all doubts. You comment is philosophically correct, but functionally meaningless. > [@Dropo](#): > > What made Oswald ideal for the job were his connections to Cuba and the Soviet Union. This connection increased the likelihood of triggering world war 3. How could these connections have benefited the mob? > [@Dropo](#): > > This effectively left the U.S. a choice between putting the assassination all on Oswald, the lone nut, or blaming the commies and risking WWIII. I don’t follow how this connection makes him a _preferable_ choice? And choice for whom, exactly? Are you now blaming “the U.S.”? Are they doing this _with_ the mob? (If the government had wanted to kill JFK, they could have just offed him in private, and blamed a stroke or something) ---
**Author:** ![Dissonance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85f322/32.png) [@Dissonance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dissonance)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2023, 3:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-against-lee-h-oswald/993643/58 "2023-11-25T03:17:11Z")
> [@Dropo](#): > > What made Oswald ideal for the job were his connections to Cuba and the Soviet Union. This effectively left the U.S. a choice between putting the assassination all on Oswald, the lone nut, or blaming the commies and risking WWIII. Presumably, not every potential killer had those connections. So, the ideal plan for the mob to kill JFK was to pick an unstable loner, convince him to kill Kennedy, and be protected by the ideal shield of him either being written off as a loner or WWIII happening (somehow, I think the possibility of WWIII happening would make him a rather _less_ than ideal assassin). No possibility existed that an actual mob connection could be found and traced back to him exposing the mob having been behind the hit. Oh wait, except of course that there apparently _is_ evidence that he was connected to the mob when it’s convenient to Just Ask Questions, I mean they had access to him and Ruby in the half year preceding the assassination, whatever that means. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2023, 5:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-against-lee-h-oswald/993643/59 "2023-11-25T05:06:00Z")
> [@sb1953](#): > > If you read the book " **I heard you Paint Houses"** by Charles Brandt, Brandt is recounting the claims of Frank Sheeran, and Sheeran was lying about most things. ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2023, 11:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-against-lee-h-oswald/993643/60 "2023-11-25T11:41:06Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > The picture I’m talking about was shot from above and from behind the rear passenger side, making all the relationships very clear. But your photo does show how much lower the jump seats were. I thnk the rear seat is still in ‘parade’ position. There used to be cabs with these in bigger cities. I’ve sat in them. They weren’t limos either, just bigger than the usual Checker Cabs. I’m assuming they went along with the Checker Cabs themselves. Also, a couple things, from someone who personally thinks Oswald acted alone: Something Oliver Stone kept grinding on was the fact that in the Marines, Oswald was a “marksman.” I’m not completely certain what that term meant in the marines in the 50s, but in the US army in the 1990s, it was the _lowest_ range of scores you could get when qualifying, while still qualifying. The highest was “expert,” and the middle was “sharpshooter.” A marksman could hit as few as 29 out of 40 pop-up targets and still qualify. Hit only 28, and you failed to qualify. The last was something I know from my family having lived in the Soviet Union in the 1970s. The US government investigated pretty much _every_ American who went to the USSR, with an eye to seeing if that person might become some sort of informant. My father was actually approached about doing some work. They were kind of like the volunteer firefighters of the CIA. I doubt Oswald was ever approached, especially after his suicide attempt to coerce the government into keeping him, but the US probably nonetheless had some kind of _file_ on him – and every adult male, and many women who went to the Soviet Union in the 50s, 60s, 70s & 80s. Conspiracy theorists are kind of like the people who want to prove that someone other than Shakespeare of Avon wrote the “Shakespeare” plays. They know the plays themselves in and out, and the works, and well as what is to be known or their personal candidate, but very little about Elizabethan England, or the literature thereof in general. I think a lot of conspiracy theorists know tons about the assassination itself, and about Kennedy and Oswald, but not a lot about the US, and the US government at the time. My father, born in 1930, with a PhD in PoliSci, specializing in the Soviet Union, and a US-born citizen, who had a specific memory of hearing of the assassination, and was watching on live TV when Oswald was shot, always thought Oswald acted alone. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-against-lee-h-oswald/993643.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-against-lee-h-oswald/993643.md?page=4)