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The endless tangle of questions about bullets, trajectories, wounds, time sequences and inconsistent testimony that has surrounded the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963 and has obsessively fascinated, if not entirely blinded, two generations of self-styled assassination investigators, probably never will be satisfactorily resolved. Each new release of documents from the various bureaucracies involved in the nearly half century old investigation may only deepen the apparent contradictions.
Within this morass of facts. however, there is a central actor, Lee Harvey Oswald. His rifle, which fired the fatal bullet into the president, was found in the sniper's nest at the Texas Book Depository. So was his palm print. He had also bought the ammunition. His cartridge cases were found near the body of a murdered policeman on the route of his flight.
In light of such evidence, the issue that ought to have concerned Americans was not Oswald's technical guilt but whether he was involved with others in the assassination. Oswald was not a "loner" in the conventional sense. Ever since he was handed a pamphlet about the Rosenberg prosecution at the age of 15, he was a joiner, seeking affiliations with groups at home and abroad. When he was only 16, he wrote the Socialist Party, "I am a Marxist and have been studying Socialist Principles for well over five years," and he requested information about joining their "Youth League." He subsequently made membership inquiries to such organizations as the Socialist Workers Party, the Socialist Labor Party, The Gus Hall-Benjamin Davis Defense Committee, The Fair Play for Cuba Committee and the Communist Party, USA-- correspondence that brought him under surveillance by the FBI.
0swald also joined the Marine Corps. And after a two-year stint as a radar operator, Oswald sought still another affiliation: in October 1959 he became the first Marine to defect to the Soviet Union. In Moscow, he delivered a letter stating: "I affirm that my allegiance is to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics." Not only did he publicly renounce his American citizenship, but he told the U.S. consul that he intended to turn over to the Soviet Union military secrets that he had acquired while serving in the Marines, adding that he had data of "special interest" to the Russians. Since he indeed had exposure to military secrets such as the U-2 spy plane, his defection had serious espionage implications. Oswald thus had not only compromised the secret data he had come in contact with in the Marines, but put himself firmly in the hands of another country. He was now completely dependent on Russia for financial support, legal status and protection.
Before disappearing into the Soviet hinterland for a year, Oswald spelled out his operational creed in a long letter to his brother. From Moscow, he wrote presciently of his willingness to commit murder for a political cause: "I want you to understand what I say now, I do not say lightly, or unknowingly, since I've been in the military .... In the event of war I would kill any American who put a uniform on in defense of the American Government --", and then ominously added for emphasis, "Any American." His willingness to act as an assassin was now known to anyone who read this letter, which included not only his Russian hosts but American intelligence, since his letter was intercepted by the CIA and microfilmed.
Oswald returned from the Soviet Union in June 1962, joined by his Russian wife Marina, and settled in Dallas. He then acquired the means for killing. He purchased a rifle with telescopic sights and a revolver from a mail-order house under a false name. He also lectured a small circle of friends on the need for violent action rather than mere words. His particular focus was General Edwin A. Walker, an extreme conservative, who had been active in Dallas organizing anti-Castro guerrillas. For example, he suggested to a German geologist, Volkmar Schmidt that General Walker should be treated like a "murderer at large." He did not stop at fierce words. For weeks, he methodically stalked Walker's movements, photographing his residence from several angles. He then had his wife photograph him, dressed entirely in black, with his revolver strapped on a holster on his hip, his sniper's rifle in his right hand, and two newspapers, The Worker and The Militant, in his left hand. He made three copies of the photograph--one of which he inscribed, dated "5--IV-63" and sent to a Dallas acquaintance, George De Mohrenschildt (who had also seen his rifle). He then left with his rifle wrapped in a raincoat, telling his wife he was off to "target practice," but his target, General Walker, was out of town that night. Five nights later, Oswald returned to Walker's house, and fired a shot at him that missed his head by inches, demonstrating to those that saw the photograph that he had the willingness to kill.
After the failed assassination, another friend, Ruth Paine, drove Oswald and his family to New Orleans, where he became the organizer for the Fair Play for Cuba Committee, which opposed the efforts of the Kennedy administration to overthrow Castro. Aside from printing leaflets, staging demonstrations, getting arrested and appearing on local radio talk shows in support of Castro that summer, Oswald attempted to befriend leaders of and infiltrate anti-Castro groups that were organizing sabotage raids against Cuba. By this time, he apparently considered himself a sleeper operative, writing in August 1963 to the central committee of the Communist Party USA, and asking, "Whether in your opinion, I can compete with anti-progressive forces above ground, or whether I should always remain in the background, i.e. underground." During this hot summer, while practicing sighting his rifle in his backyard, according to his wife, he told her about his plan to hijack an airliner to Cuba, saying he might earn a position in Castro's government. Then, on September 9th, in a report that appeared on the front page of the New Orleans Times-Picayune, Castro, who had been the target of a number of assassination attempts by the CIA, warned that if American leaders continued "aiding plans to eliminate Cuban leaders ... they themselves will not be safe."
The implication of this warning was not lost on Oswald. Telling his wife that they might never meet again, he left New Orleans two weeks later, headed for the Cuban Embassy in Mexico City. To convince the Cubans of his bona fides-- and seriousness--he had prepared a dossier on himself, which included a 10 page resume, outlining his revolutionary activities, newspaper clippings about his defection to the Soviet Union, documents he had stolen from a printing company engaged in classified map reproduction for the US Army, his correspondence with the Fair Play for Cuba Committee executives, and, as if to demonstrate his lethal capability , the photographs linking him to the Walker shooting.
Oswald applied for a visa at the Cuban Embassy on the morning of September 27, 1963. He said that he wanted to stop in Havana en route to the Soviet Union. On the application, the consular office who interviewed him noted: "The applicant states that he is a member of the American Communist Party and Secretary in New Orleans of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee." Despite such recommendations, Oswald was told that he needed a Soviet visa before the Cuban visa could be issued. He argued over this requisite with the Cuban counsel, Eusebio Azque, in front of witnesses, and reportedly made wild claims about services he might perform for the Cuban cause. During the next five days, he traveled back and forth between the Soviet and Cuban embassies attempting to straighten out the difficulty. When he telephoned from the Cuban embassy to arrange an appointment at the Soviet Embassy with an officer called Valery Vladimirovich Kostikov, he set off alarm bells at the CIA, which had been surreptitiously monitoring the phone line. Kostikov was a KGB officer who had been under close surveillance in Mexico by the FBI. By the time the CIA had identified Oswald, and notified the FBI, he had left Mexico.
When he returned to Dallas, Oswald assumed a different identity--"O.H.Lee"--and, separating himself from his family, he moved to a rooming house. He also forbade his wife from divulging his whereabouts.
On October 18th, Oswald's visa was approved by the Cuban Foreign Ministry despite the fact that he had not officially received a Soviet visa, as required. Apparently unaware of this development, he wrote another letter to the Soviet Embassy, referring to his meeting with Kostikov in Mexico, and adding cryptically: "Had I been able to reach the Soviet Embassy in Havana as planned, the embassy there would have had time to complete our business." When FBI counterintelligence intercepted this letter in Washington. it urgently requested its field agent in Dallas to question him.
The FBI agent, James Hosty, unable to locate Oswald, warned his wife she could be sent back to Russia. When his wife told him about the FBI warning he threatened to bomb its Dallas office. By this time, Oswald had a menial $1.50 hour job at the Texas Book Depository, which overlooked the convergence of the three main streets into central Dallas.
On November 22nd, at 12:30 pm, as the President's car passed the book depository, a burst of rifle fire fatally wounded him. Less than two hours later, a Dallas policeman had been shot and killed, and, near the shooting, Oswald was arrested with the murder weapon in his hand. He was charged with killing the policeman and, shortly afterwards, assassinating the President. Then, on November 24th, Oswald was shot to death in Dallas police headquarters by night club owner Jack Ruby.
The Warren Commission concluded--rightly I now believe--that Oswald fired all the shots that killed the President. But conspiracies do not necessarily require multiple rifleman to accomplish their purpose. And what the Warren Commission could not absolutely rule out, as two of its members pointed out to me, was the possibility that Oswald had acted at the behest of others. After all, he had advertised his willingness to undertake a high-profile assassination by circulating photographs connecting himself to the shooting of General Walker. Any party who was monitoring his activities in Dallas, New Orleans or Mexico City could have discerned from them that he was a potential assassin awaiting a mission. With his mind set on such violent actions as hijacking a plane, blowing up the FBI office, or killing "any American," not much would be required to prod him to violence. He had sought liaisons in dangerous quarters and someone could have provided him with an inducement. But with Oswald forever silenced by Ruby, and intelligence services capable of expunging embarrassing data about their contacts with a Presidential assassins from their files, it is doubtful that we will ever know who, if anyone, influenced Oswald to act on November 22, 1963.
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Edward J. Epstein, did your buddy James Jesus Angleton run Lee Harvey Oswald through the false defector program?
http://www
Here's the site I alluded to in an earlier post, comparing the Carcano sling mount in the controversial Oswald photo with the official pics of the rifle. It also compares the serial number pics and finds glaring differences.
http://jfk
From the difference in the sling mounts, it seems obvious to me that there are only 2 possible conclusions: either a) the Oswald photo is a fake (as Oswald claimed), or b) there were at least 2 Carcanos. Either conclusion is, imo, prima facie evidence of a conspiracy, unless you want to argue that Oswald was a brilliant enough mastermind to produce an altered photo prior to committing the crime for the purpose of his defense if he was caught-even though he wasn't brilliant enough to think of concealing the trail of the gun purchase in the first place (again, if it was in fact he who used the alias in purchasing it).
As far as trusting the veracity of the photos on the above site itself, I've seen the Oswald photo enough to know there was no hanky-panky by the site author on that one.
I must say that people on this comments thread (with the exception of mr. fetzer of course) have been very good about avoiding, ignoring, the one piece of evidence that is nearly impossible to refute. You guys go off on tangents about whether the gunshot hole in Kennedy's throat (which there is no photo of) is an exit or entry wound because it's safe - beacuse it's debatable.
There are autopsy photos, widely available, published, of the gunshot wound to Kennedy's back. It is 5.5 inches BELOW the base of his neck. No bullet traveling downward from the six floor of a building hits a man in the back and then pops up through his throat, right through his adam's apple. It's not possible. What did it hit on the way through his body to cause it to jump back up and through his throat? A rib? His belt buckle? Then it still has enough energy to go through a car seat and do all that damage to Connolly.
Also, do any of you even remember why it was so important to have a single, magic bullet hit both Kennedy and Connolly? Ask yourself now, if you're the Warren Commision, why not just say that two different shots form Oswald hit Kennedy and Connolly? Come to think of it, I'm sure, if they had to do it over, they would have thought of a way to make two shots work and not have Arlen Spectre dream up that magic bullet.
It is 5.5 inches (14cm) below the right mastoid process, not base of the neck, as recorded by the autopsy doctors.
Link to photo: http://www
Link to wikipedia article on mastoid process: http://en.
The facesheet (drawing) shows the wound lower but it is marked with the measurement. Quite simply facesheets are not drawn to scale.
About going off about the throat wound because it's "safe" - well, I heartily accept the Conspiracy Crowd's contention that it was the size of and looked like an entrance wound to any normal observer & maybe even some experts. I don't know how that qualifies as "safe." I think that's downright intellectually responsible.
My saying so doesn't make it so and I don't expect you to agree. But I say it for the others reading here - to see the dividing line, the line of battle, and to let them decide for themselves -- which side is being intellectually responsible in this debate and which is not, which side is trying to help people make a reasonable decision for themselves and which is not. Personally, & I toss this out there for others to chew on, I think it says something when one side in an argument accepts the good faith and competence of people who give evidence that may be contrary to what they are arguing rather than assign incompetence or motives of malice or belonging to a conspiracy or cover-up.
- Craig
Parro,
You avoided the basic premis of my argument once again which leads me to believe that you agree with me that the bullet wound in Kennedy's back is too low to exit his throat and because that doesn't fit your overall belief system of Oswald as lone assassin, you simply ignore it and try to change the subject.
To summerize my basic points for the last time (do i hear champaign bottles popping?):
1) We hear plenty about the throat wound to Kennedy because conveniently their are no autopsy photos of it because of the pointless tracheodomy performed at that time.
2) The entry wound to Kennedy's back, of which their are photos that anybody can see, is plainly too low to exit his throat which is why Gerald Ford and the Warren Commission had the description of the where the wound was moved up from the back to the base of his Kennedy's neck in 1964
3) Everybody seems to have forgotten why a magic bullet that struck both Kennedy and Connolly is even needed or if there was ever a time when it was common belief that it was seperate bullets that struck each man.
Of course I wasn't alive yet at the time of the assassination, but it seems fairly evident why the single bullet theory was needed.
The single bullet theory wasn't needed at first when there were 3 shots, 3 hits. And from what I've read, that was the common explanation for a short while immediately following the assassination.
But then there emerged evidence that the bystander Tague was struck by splinters from one of the 3 shots ricocheting off the pavement. Ergo, the need for the single bullet theory arose, as then there were only 2 shots available for 3 hits.
It had to do with Connally. It seemed simpler, as it does still to most people today, that Connally was hit by a different shot than the one that first struck the President. The Zapruder film showed that wasn't possible IF there was a single gunman with the bolt-action rifle that Oswald had. Sorry, I can't remember the frame where Kennedy disappears behind the freeway sign - but between that frame and frame 234 to 235 when at the latest it is obvious that Connally has been struck, there just isn't enough time for Oswald to get off a shot.
So, yes, they had to search for an explanation that seems to work and that idea is that the same shot that struck Kennedy and went through his throat went on to strike Connally. Yes, that sounds like they're stretching to make it work. But, a) they had other sound reasons to do that anyway, and b) it does work. (In fact, it's what happened, we can now say with a great deal of certainty)
I mean, briefly, where did that bullet go that went through Kennedy's neck? At that trajectory, it has to hit something else in the car, either somebody or the upholstery or something (& the windshield, which was struck from inside, seems too far forward for that shot). Connally is the most likely solution.
Although Tague coming forward to tell his story was a part of it, the biggest reason for the need for the magic bullet was the Zapruder footage. Without that film, none of what we are discussing on this thread is necessary.
In the days (weeks? months?) after the event of 11/22/63 it was "common knowledge" that Kennedy & Connolly were struck by different bullets. Connolly testified as such. As more and more "Warren Commission types" viewed the Zapruder film (certainly the general public couldn't see it) it became clear that, because the film locks in cement the time line of the event, and because Oswalds rifle had certain limitations, the time available for the number of shots narrowed.
Let me make this clear: If the Zapruder film did not exsist to create the time restraints, the Warren Commission would have been more than happy to have as many shots as needed (from oswald of course) striking the limousine & it's occupants.
"Oswald Mystery"? What mystery? Oswald was set up and then silenced.
Why not tell us something interesting, not just resurrect the Warren Commission tripe that was even discredited by the House Select Committee. And you may have something to tell...if you wanted. Weren't you one of the the last persons to see George DeMohrenschildt alive?
For the uninitiated, DeMohrenschildt was Lee Oswald's "best friend." DeMohrenschildt had been tracked by the FBI(Hoover) as far back as WWII and had been thought to be a Nazi spy (interesting best friend for a "leftist" like Oswald). DeMohrenschildt had threatened to blow the JFK case wide open on European TV. But DeMohrenschildt lost confidence in his European contact (Oltmans), had fled Europe leaving his belongings, returned to New York, and came to Palm Beach to stay with relatives. Meanwhile, Gaeton Fonzi, a terrific investigator for the House Select Committee, was trying to reach DeMohrenschildt in Palm Beach, had found the relative's home, and had left a message for DeMohrenschildt to call. Fonzi missed DeMohrenschildt because DeMohrenschildt was being interviewed by Epstein for Reader's Digest. DeMohrenschildt went home at noon and "suicided" (shotgun) that afternoon, so Fonzi was unable to get DeMohrenschildt's testimony for the House Committee.
So, if you're the same Edward Epstein, why not tell us of your meeting with DeMohrenschildt? That could be of historical interest.
One more thing I've learned since becoming a deer hunter:
In vertical terrain, it can be nearly impossible to tell where the shooter is from the direction the shot sounds like it's coming from. Shots echo like crazy, and the closer they are, the worse the directional distortion can be. So, I tend to look askance at all the "sounded like shots came from X direction" comments.
Entry wounds are generally small, round, and can go nearly unnoticed, while exit wounds are generally exponentially bigger and much messier. Rarely are there bullets or bullet fragments left in the target. I guess that can all vary depending on the size of the gun & type of bullet.
I see no added difficulty with a "retreating target". It's better for a target to be stationary, but if given a choice between an advancing one or a retreating one, I'd choose the latter.
Again, it's just a shame a proper sweep wasn't done before the President's visit, and then a real shame about the cover-up afterward. I certainly hope the FBI, CIA, NSA, SS, and whomever is in charge of that these days does a better job.
Rather than a conspiracy, I'd say it was more like a confederacy. Of dunces.
If (and right now it's a big if) it is true, as I have read in various places on the interweb thingie, that George Herbert Walker Bush said in public that he doesn't remember where he was that day, that calls into question either his veracity or his mental health back then and subsequently, and opens up a whole new can of worms.
How can anyone who was at least old enough to be in grade school in '63 not remember where they were when they heard the news?
See Nelson Montana's Profile
I can't keep addressing every retort, especially when most them them keep asking the same questions that have already been explained.
So I'll say this.
Of course the investigation was botched. Most are. The O.j. investigation was botched and that's why he got off. But he did it.
Yes, circumstances are fishy. Yes, Oswald intentions and ties are questionable. This is all stuff we'll never know. But what i'm opposed to is all the speculation of a smoking gun from the grassy knoll and the secret service who were in on it and the claims that the gun couldn't be shot that fast, magic bullets, etc, etc etc. it's all nonsense. it's grasping at straws. Come up with some real evidence and we'll talk. In the meantime, it is not up to someone to DISPROVE and accusation. It is the responsibility of the accuser. Not with speculation. Not with notions. Not with complaints. With facts. So far, there are none that have any credibility IMO. And that's that. I'm done.
Google "Reasoning about Assassinations" for a study demonstrating that the "magic bullet" theory is not only false but provably false and, indeed, not even anatomically possible. Michael Baden, M.D., chair of the medical panel for the HSCA, has observed that, if this theory is false, then there had to have been at least six shots from three directions. The shirt, the jacket, the autopsy diagram, the FBI sketch, the president's personal physician's death certificate, and reenactment photographs prove that the shot hit his back 5 1/2 inches below the collar, not at the base of the back of the neck, as the "magic bullet" theory requires. Records released by the ARRB revealed that Gerald Ford, (R-MI), a junior member of the commission, had the wound re-described to make the theory more plausible, a disclosure that even made The New York Times. David W. Mantik, M.D., Ph.D., has demonstrated that it is not even anatomically possible. JFK was hit four times--in the back from behind, in the throat from in front, and twice in the head (from behind and from in front), while John Connally was hit at least once and another shot missed and injured James Tague. So Baden was right: we have proven the theory false and there were at least six shots from three directions. These findings were presented during a conference at Cambridge University and published in a peer-reviewed international journal. Enough is enough!
Thank you James Fetzer.
All of my posts on this exact subject (the "best evidence" as they say) were ignored.
The only thing I would add to your great post is that it's difficult to "prove" a shot from the front to Kennedy's throat because of the tracheotomy performed.
Am I wrong in assuming that you are the same James Fetzer associated (at least at one time) with the 911 Truth movement?
If you are, wow, it's weird to find myself on the same blog with someone who packs such a, shall we say, provocative punch. I'm not a JFK assassination expert or anything, but it does interest me an awful lot.
I recently stumbled on a blog purporting to discover evidence that the Carcano rifle purportedly owned by Oswald was not the same rifle in the official pics. It showed that the controversial photo of Oswald holding the rifle had a different shoulder strap ring than the Carcano in the official photos. It also posted pics showing differences in the serial numbers-while the serial numbers were the same, the engraving was of a different style for several in the series. This was a discrepancy I'd never before seen examined.
I'd imagine that you were already aware of this discrepancy but if you weren't I thought I'd bring it to your attention, because if true it clearly proves that either the Oswald photo was faked or that there were two Carcanos.
If you are indeed Dr. Fetzer, I have a question I would like to ask you.
Even assuming for the sake of argument that there WERE US gov't-involved conspiracies in both the JFK assassination and 911 (and on both I'm inclined to believe there were), my question is, what the heck good does it do to uncover evidence exposing them when nobody will believe you anyway?
Whenever I find myself dropping down one of those rabbit holes and reading more information on either of the subjects, the thought almost always occurs to me that it's nothing more than just a frustrating exercise in futility-because the people behind such conspiracies have proven quite good at controlling the focus of any inquiries and directing them toward an acceptable "mass conclusion".
It ultimately just frustrates the heck out of me, because even though I smell something fishy I know there's not a damn thing I can do about it.
So what, in your mind, is a good reason for continuing to search for ever more information? Because I can't really think of any.
Your comment only makes sense if you didn't read or are ignoring James Fetzer's post. I'm assuming you're ignoring the points he makes for the same reason people didn't comment on my own posts on the subject, namely, they are not refutable if one looks at the physical evidence.
Two questions-
1) If Oswald wasn't involved in the killing of Kennedy, why did he leave work after the shooting? Did he decide to go to the movies during his lunch break?
2) From the angle of the Zapruder film, at the time of the head (kill) shot, Jackie's head was bent in front of John's. If you viewed them from the book depository, her head was directly in line with the bullet. Did the bullet lodge in Kennedy's brain? Why wasn't Jackie's face spattered with his blood?
Agree he was in Army-----5-6 years before this! Agreed he shot guns,but the only one time we know of his firing a weapon since was ehen he shot at Gen. Walker----missed and he wasn't a moving target.
The NOVA I saw indicated that Marina said he had been spending a lot of time practicing before the assassination and before shooting and just missing Walker.. Also, Walker was shot through a window, perhaps from further away, and may have moved just as the trigger was pulled for all we know.
First I heard of this!!??? I am not saying Oswald did fire at the President,but until that day he could stand before me and tell me that he,and he alone,was the shooter that killed the President. Noone will every convince me of this.
if he shot at walker. it is odd that he supposedly fired at two political figures who were political opposites and enemies. walker was such a likely suspect he walked around telling people at the time-- you see me here you are my alibi. very odd. just chalk it up to that repository of utterly random conduct -lee h oswald.
Are you saying that Oswald was in the Army? According to everybody else it was the Marine Corps.
As for Gen. Walker, sources indicate he got lucky because the bullet clipped the window frame, although he still sustained some injury. Also, at least one source says he was working on his income tax return and happened to bend over to pick up a dropped pencil at just the right time, so I don't think we can be assured that Oswald was a poor shot.
That is a no brainer if you have recently fired a gun,but to have never fired this gun and hit a moving target would be a pretty good streach don't you think! Hit the car---maybe,but "warm body inside===doubtful.
A question I have always wanted an answer to. Was how a person buys a "war surpluse",never knows if it will even shot,never fires a single shot with it(never read he had,anyway),doesn't "sight it in"to see any type of group shots,doesn't practice to improve hitting anything,but can with no training what-so-ever kill anything?
See Nelson Montana's Profile
That's like saying, how can anyone who never drove a particular car, get in and drive it somewhere? Oswald was in the Army. He's shot guns. Kennedy's car was traveling 10mph and was less than 100 yards away from the warehouse window. That's not such a tough shot.
Yes, Oswald was a Marine and quite a good shot according to records. Its pretty well documented that he practiced for hours using that rifle prior to the assassination. I don't think it was any miracle that he was able to hit Kennedy. The car was moving slowly and steadily, during all of the audible shots, and even after Kennedy was struck in the neck, he did not duck out of the way, he stayed sitting upright in the same position after raising his hands to his neck.
Having said that, it is still very possible that Oswald was working with others, or set up to take all of the blame.
"Oswald was in the Army. "
And, of course, by Army you mean United States Marine Corps.
The most important piece of evidence against the warren commission is the "magic bullet." Does anyone remember that in the days right after the assassination (the week?) it was commonly being reported that two different bullets had struck Kennedy in the back and had hit Connolly?
That's because before the Zapruder film set the time frame for the event in cement, "officials" were free to add an extra shot being fired at the car (by oswald) without any way to be disproved (technically, they were free to have almost any amount of shots to fit their set of assumptions). Think about how different the whole event in Dallas would be remembered without that home movie.
Only when they were forced by the time constraints set up in the film and the physical limits of Oswald's rifle did they need to come up with a magic bullet that could do so many things.
HuffPost's Pick
You should watch more TV (!) The path of the magic bullet has been rather easily reproduced in field tests by investigators.
I read, I don't watch TV (okay i do watch tv, but only educational tv and pbs, okay not just educational tv & pbs).
The point is that all recreations of the path of that magical bullet distort Kennedy's body to point of turning him into a hunchback. Did you know that the Warren Commission used sketches, not photos, as exhibits for their report? Did you know that they moved the bullet entry would on Kennedy's back up six inches so it would match up better to the exit would in his throat? Did you know Gerald Ford (yes, that gerald ford, the one nobody voted for) freely admitted years later that he went in and altered the record of where the bullet entered Kennedy's back before the exhibit was made public?
I wonder why he'd do that?
You should watch "The Men Who Killed Kennedy" (in 9-parts, can be seen on You Tube), a History Channel documentary you seem to have missed, which painstakingly details the facts.
Everyone should take the time to see it.
See Nelson Montana's Profile
They don't get it. They just like saying "MAGIC BULLET."
I saw a quite a good NOVA on Oswald, which had many of the points included in this article. If I recall correctly, one shot missed, one hit Kennedy in the neck, which is clear since he raises his hands in the Zapruder film. By this time, Connolly had turned to look at Kennedy, and so, the bullet which passed through Kennedy's neck did not have to travel in an odd direction at all to injure Connolly in the way it did. There is a quite compelling 3-D graphical illustration of this. The final shot killed Kennedy. In spite of Jim Garrison's "back and to the left", Kennedy's motions are consistent with a shot from the rear. Complicating things are that a lot of material from his head is ejected forward, and that Kennedy was propped up by a brace on his back, I believe related to his back pain issues.
I've long been interested in this topic, and this NOVA really clarified a lot for me. I recommend you seek it out.
Daphydd,
See my comments above about the magic bullet.
The issue is not how the bullet traveled front to back, it's how it traveled down to up. That trajectory (bullet's path) was thought so important by the Warren Commission, that they had Gerald Ford (again see above) go and change the doctor's description of the entry would on Kennedy's back to "the back of the neck." There's a very simple yet significant reason for why that was done.
there was a change of government by violent means. the supposed lone nut denied guilt and claimed to be a patsy. his motivation especially in relation to total conduct has always been the most significant problem. two days later a person who has some apparent mob connections kills him. in both instances we are told that these were the actions of lone nuts. in both instances we had the unfortunate "coincidence" of security having oddly failed allowing the lone nuts to succeed. then the government conducts a investigation that had more holes than swiss cheese. bullets casings do not have the marking that were put on them at the scene, bullets appear on stretchers, wound locations are marked one place at the autopsy and that is later said to be mistaken. we could list many many more irregularities. while excuses for each of these problems has been developed and any one or all of them may be true; in cases where the government changes by violence we should be substantially more skeptical. but we are actually less skeptical in this case. by accepting the lone nuts explanation we have made our country vulnerable to manipulations and coups.
I agree with a lot of what you said in your comment. Ruby's elimination of Oswald will always be extremely suspicious. Perhaps the evidence which is least reliable by now are the autopsy photos and descriptions of the wounds. The only evidence which is compelling to me anymore is the Zapruder film and Oswald's weapons, since these require less faith in other people's interpretations, and are less subject to manipulation and deception. I do agree with your point about the need for ongoing skepticism in this case, and I will be shocked, but not surprised if there are revelations in the future, particularly declassified documents. In the absence of this however, the trail seems to stop, for now, with Oswald.
perhaps the trackers have erased the trail. i dont find much of any evidence reliable. we know a few things for sure - that oswald tried to escape but had left his money with marina, that when captured he claimed to be a patsy, that ruby shot him before he could be tried or give details about his claim, that security had two lapses allowing the two lone nuts to succeed. i expect proof that this was not a coup. we all should expect clear proof. it is not there.
I couldn't get past the first three paragraphs without being able to cite, with hard evidence and voluminous collaborative testimony that i have, ON TAPE, on my hard drive, as I type, where virtually every statement is 100% wrong.
Some people will never let the facts effect their judgement. Perhaps pure evil, existing in their sacred institutions is just too awful to contemplate. I don't know what motivates them.
I know this however; they just love resurrecting, and re-assassinating JFK. they re-assassinate his character. They rub it in our faces that the Warren Commission Fraud is still the official story.
It's flame bait and those that do it in this manner, no full well that the vast majority of Americans do not believe them. They do it for the response. They do it to try to isolate us from one another, like FOX news pollsters telling us Americans support the War. They do it to associate themselves with power and rub it in our faces, that we cannot get justice. They do it to isolate us and try to make us believe there is something wrong with us for not accepting the official version.
They do it for kicks.
I used to think all of the conspiracy theories were off-base and their believers lunatics, but I just can't get past these three facts, caught on film, that I saw for myself:
1) Oswald's demeanor and comments in no way indicated a guilty man, and I would be hard-pressed to believe that you could train a main to appear so innocent.
2) Reporters are allowed to ask a suspected presidential assassin questions? As casually as some man-on-the-street interview?
3) Jack Ruby.
I remember this all very vividly.
1) I don't think that one can tell much by demeanor.
2) Press interactions were much less strictly staged than we are used to now. This was normal. There weren't the ubiquitous PR people like we have now.
3) Ruby's action never 'smelled right' to anyone at the time.
At the time we were all very suspicious of Oswald's mysterious time in the Soviet Union. The popular culture was full of Cold War, Manchurian Candidate paranoia. Many people considered it entirely possible that Oswald was a trained, brainwashed hit man. Given the state of confrontation after the Cuban Missile Crisis and so on, it was conceivable. It would have been very destabilizing to the world if there had been a Soviet or Cuban connection proven.
This was an era of proxy wars and covert ops with much less communication, transparency or 'audit trails' of records than we have now. It would have been possible to have covert ops pulling the strings of a number of different players who would have no traceable connections to each other. While the Soviet-Cuba connection is so obvious with Oswald, one can get even more paranoid and ask whether that was true or one of a series of red herrings.
I agree that these loose ends are why the mystery still stands.
Finally, a well-reasoned comment.
Thank you, Laocoon142 .....
My impression is that you're right and the mystery stands simply because we're now unable to get answers from a few central personalities. Paranoia and conspiracy theories lie down the path of "finding" answers, but solid journalism can shed some light on the matter without leading into those weeds.
I'm not sold that the implication is 100% right, but the first part of Russ Baker's recent book (Family of Secrets) pretty convincingly suggests that the Bush family was closely connected to every aspect of Oswald's actions as well as key external details. He (Baker) never outright accuses anyone of conspiracy to assassinate Kennedy, which is probably key to maintaining any credibility, but his documentation of the various players' whereabouts is a lot more concrete than this article. Specifically he points out that, despite his Warren Commission testimony, G. de Mohrenschildt was a lot more closely involved with Oswald than commonly understood, and that this was a direct connection to the CIA and a military/corporate intelligence community that orbited Dallas (particularly oilmen and White Russian emigres) and the Bush clan.
Youtube is failing me so you'll need to find it yourself, but you could do much worse for a soundtrack to such researches than Camper Van Beethoven, "Jack Ruby".
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