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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsKennedy's assassination: Conspiracy or lone killer, I think the fact that we even ask the question
is significant.
If someone suggests conspiracy in regard to most events, isn't our knee jerk response to get out the tin foil hats? Yet discussions of the Kennedy assassination depend on reams of carefully collected data to prove that it was a lone gunman. Why isn't the suggestion dismissed out of hand?
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JoePhilly
(27,787 posts)
LanternWaste
(37,748 posts)So is algebra.
BlueStreak
(8,377 posts)It isn't a question of conspiracy versus clear factual record. It is one theory versus another, none of which is so clear as to be considered factual.
In the case of the Kennedy assassination, the official explanation was really laughable. And that is why we are still talking about it.
In the case of 911, some of the most important questions were set off limits by the commission that was supposed to investigate, so that's why we are still talking about it.
Theories have legs when the official explanations are so flimsy.
JoePhilly
(27,787 posts)assassination, I expect a discussion if the "moon landing" to follow.
BlueStreak
(8,377 posts)In both cases, there were clearly questions that were off limits. In both cases, there were clearly government agencies that tried to conceal important information from the investigative commission. In both cases, there were parties at the perimeter of the scene who benefited greatly from the outcomes but were not investigated.
It is entirely possible that the general thesis of the Warren commission was mostly accurate -- that Oswald was the only shooter, and was actually collaborating with the Russians / Cubans. But the Warren case was hardly ironclad. Likewise for 911. It is entirely possible that there was no prior awareness by any part of the American government, and that the attackers benefited from an amazing confluence of complete screw-ups at every stage of our defenses that day. But the tale told by the 911 commission is incomplete at best.
el_bryanto
(11,804 posts)Lincoln's maybe - but the media engine wasn't so big then, and society wasn't as interested in itself.
Bryant
hack89
(39,171 posts)
whatchamacallit
(15,558 posts)hack89
(39,171 posts)same thing - they fixate on the tiny nugget that may support their theory and ignore all contradictory evidence.
CTs are the perfect self licking ice cream cones - completely consistent logic (in their minds but really batshit crazy) that allow their adherents to ignore all contradictory evidence while patting themselves on the back for "speaking truth to power" and actually understanding the "truth" that all the sheeple are too blind to see.
LanternWaste
(37,748 posts)I imagine Alfred Dreyfus, John Ehrlichman and all those involved in Iran-Contra would like to agree with your sentiment, but are compelled for reasons not to... 
whistler162
(11,155 posts)RobertEarl
(13,685 posts)Some people have their heads in the sand. Fearing any thing that questions authority. Bless the poor little buggers and just forget them.
Any decade now, the secrets from then will be allowed to be made public. Then we will know more. Why are they still secrets?
hedgehog
(36,286 posts)the assassination of Lincoln. I've read that evidence suggesting a connection was destroyed or suppressed back in 1865 because of the fear the Civil War would be re-ignited.
the fate of the Princes in the Tower has been a matter of debate for centuries, so time doesn't always answer our questions.
cpwm17
(3,829 posts)and that there is no evidence that he had help.
I'm sorry, the rapture will happen first, so you'll never get to see the evidence of your conspiracy theory. Jesus will be here any day.
RobertEarl
(13,685 posts)HooptieWagon
(17,064 posts)Oswald was only 24 at the time, and pretty much a loser. What group (CIA, Mafia, etc) is going to trust a 24 yo loser in a conspiracy to assassinate the POTUS? And Jack Ruby's murder of Oswald was as clumsy a hit as can be imagined. If some powerful conspiracy was going to knock off Oswald before he could rat them out, then I think they would have killed him before the cops caught him, in a more stealthy manner.
RagAss
(13,832 posts)
mc51tc
(219 posts)Jackie Kennedy always believed it was a conspiracy.
RFK, the attorney general, was at war with the mafia at the time.
The CIA was furious about Bay of Pigs fiasco. Pappy Bush was it`s director at the time.
The FBI was run at the time by J. Edgar Hoover.
Oswald had ties to Russia, and met his wife there. He said on live T.V. that he was a "patsy".
Jack Ruby had mob ties and killed Oswald before the weekend was over with on live T.V.
Dallas Texas was known as the city of hate with right wing nuts prevalent there then. i.e. John Birch Society - JFK himself told Jackie is was "nut country".
The Warren Report appeared to be a "white wash".
Many, many witnesses died violently afterwards. etc. etc. etc. etc!!!
The list goes on and on. It is no wonder that so many believe it had to be more than just Oswald involved.
mc51tc
(219 posts)"JFK killer was set up as 'a patsy', says his wife"
"John F. Kennedy's assassinator Lee Harvey Oswald's widow has claimed that her husband was innocent and didn't shoot the president.
Marina Oswald, who had earlier told the Warren Commission that her husband was indeed guilty, has changed her mind after reading some of the 40,000 books and conspiracy theories and is convinced there is a much more complex assassination conspiracy and cover up, the Mirror reported.
The 72-year-old now insists that her husband was set up as 'a patsy' to take the fall for plotters in the CIA and the Mafia.
Keya Morgan, who is Oswald's close friend and documentary film maker, said that the widow doesn't believe the official story and she has always said that her husband loved President Kennedy.
Morgan also revealed that Oswald has been inundated with bids to sell her story, including a 3 million dollar offer from a US TV network, but has refused to cash in on the shooting anniversary."
Read more at: http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/jfk-killer-was-set-up-as-a-patsy-says-his-wife/1/321533.html
HooptieWagon
(17,064 posts)He was in private business at the time. He didn't head the CIA until 76-77, under Ford.
mc51tc
(219 posts)"George H.W. Bush was working for the CIA at least as early as 1961; more than likely he was recruited in his college days, at Yale, when he was in the Skull and Bones Society. He and his wife Barbara moved to Houston where he ran an offshore oil drilling business, Zapata Offshore Co., which was a CIA front company with rigs located all over the world, making it very convenient for him to vanish for weeks at a time on CIA business where one would suspect what he was doing. Bush was a major organizer and recruiter for the Bay of Pigs invasion, which was codenamed Operation ZAPATA. Col. Fletcher Prouty, former Pentagon high ranking official, who was the basis for the “Col. X” character in Oliver Stone’s “JFK”, obtained two Navy ships for the operation that were repainted to non-Navy colors and then renamed HOUSTON and BARBARA.
George H.W. “Poppy” Bush is one of the few who could never recall where he was or what he was doing when JFK was assassinated; as a matter of fact, for over 20 years, he could not recall any details at all. He was 39 years old at the time and chairman of the Harris County (Houston) Republican Party and an outspoken critic of JFK. But on 21 November 1963, GHWB was staying at the Sheraton Hotel in downtown Dallas and spoke that very evening to the American Association of Oil Drilling Contractors. Some time later, he was reportedly at “the ratification meeting” at the home of Clint Murchison, Sr., receiving last minute instructions and toasting JFK’s murder the night before it happened. [NOTE: Madeleine Duncan Brown has written about this event in her book, Texas in the Morning (1997). It was corroborated by Nigel Turner in Part 9, "The Guilty Men", of "The Men who Killed Kennedy".]"
Zen Democrat
(5,901 posts)Because just a year later when Jimmy Carter came into office and wanted to name Ted Sorensen as DCI, he was rebuffed by the intelligence community because Sorensen had no prior experience with the CIA.
HooptieWagon
(17,064 posts)He was running his Zapata Corp at the time Kennedy was President. That was an oil company with operations around the world. The CIA has many contacts (some who likely don't even realize it)....but saying he was "in" the CIA is like saying a street informant is "in" the police department. It would be expected that the CEO of an international company would share information with the CIA.
However, my correction was to the statement the poster made that Bush headed the CIA at the time of Kennedy's assassination. He most def did not....it was over a decade later. And in the interim, he was in Congress....so he likely wasn't employed by the CIA then.
hedgehog
(36,286 posts)Hamlette
(15,411 posts)you could make a similar list under Obama
Suspicious deaths are bs
until you've read all 11 volumes of the Warren Commission Report you shouldn't call it a "white wash"
We landed on the moon
JFK was killed by a lone gunman
9/11 was done by outside terrorists.
It doesn't taste anything like butter.
HooptieWagon
(17,064 posts)Witnesses were still alive, memories were still fresh. Where the WC fell short, leading to the "whitewash" charges, is they didn't address failures of the FBI and SS. So the coverup wasn't one of a conspiracy, but of incompetence. Same as with 911 Commission.
Hamlette
(15,411 posts)Bugliosi's book is persuasive to me. Not that I wasn't persuaded before I read it.
ieoeja
(9,748 posts)is significant.
If someone suggests fundamentlism in regard to most events, isn't our knee jerk response to get out the tin foil hats? Yet discussions of Life depend on reams of carefully collected data to prove that it was Evolution. Wy isn't the suggestion dismissed out of hand?
The first part is actually not sarcasm. That we ask that question really is significant. It signifies the fact that some people will always put faith before evidence. "Asking the question" is significant of nothing else.
sabrina 1
(62,325 posts)questioning of the findings of the Warren Commission, and very few convincing answers to those questions. And so long as that remains true, there will continue to be rejection of the 'official story' of that tragic event. That seems to bother a small segment of the population to the point of obsession, but they ARE a minority so I simply view them as either having a vested interest in adhering to the extremely questionable 'official story' or people who want to believe their government would never lie to them.
I don't believe the official story, but I have no theories as to what actually happened. One doesn't need their OWN theory to see the gaping holes in the official story.
AnotherMcIntosh
(11,064 posts)The odd pleasure that some people take in repeating the phrase "conspiracy theory" with derision while insisting that no one look at the evidence, reminds me of lemmings and those who did not want anyone to look through Galileo's telescope.
sabrina 1
(62,325 posts)ONLY wrt to people questioning 'Official Stories' that people have pretty much concluded it is a Government attempt to silence people so they don't view it as an insult at all, but rather a desperate attempt to prevent any questioning of 'Official Stories'. Most people dismiss it as desperation on the part of that small segment of the population who use it.
I think the REAL CTs are the ones we get every time there is a major historical event, from 'official investigations'. There are more holes in most of these 'theories' from 'official findings' than in any theories ordinary people have come up with.
They can't stop people from questioning shaky 'findings'. No matter how many times they use the old, outdated 'CT' talking point. I despise talking points. Whenever I see them I am immediately interested in why they are being employed, even if the subject never interested me before. Human nature I guess, when you see this kind of obsessive effort to shut down discussion, it has the opposite effect.
HooptieWagon
(17,064 posts)...such as the Warren Commission and the 911 Commission, are not to determine what happened; but rather to coverup any government incompetence that may have been a contributing factor. IOWs, CYA. This secrecy only fuels the CTs... but better that than ruin the political career of incompetent public servants, I gather.
Zen Democrat
(5,901 posts)There's a LOT of evidence that he was framed. He was a patsy waiting for the frame. The Warren Commission was discredited in the 60's and now it's in shambles.
I think the truth is coming out. You do know that when Congress investigated in the late 70's, the CIA sent a representative to the committee to filter what they could and could not see. We NOW know that the CIA liaison, George Joannides, was the CIA officer controlling the anti-Castro Cubans in Florida in their efforts to kill Castro. If you think that's a coincidence, just stay in the dark. We're still searching for the truth because ....
JFK was murdered, his head split open, in the original nightmare on Elm Street in Dallas, TX, and the killers got away with it. And the killers most culpable were not the shooters. The shooters were hired guns. Our Democratic leaders were massacred in the 60's and the truth is still hidden.
The Warren Commission Report is so bad that I don't know whether to laugh or cry when people stand up for it. Obviously they never read the testimony in the exhibits, because, friends, the testimonies quite often bear no resemblance to the conclusions in the Report. It's as simple as that. When you read the testimonies, there's no "there" there.
zappaman
(20,606 posts)Actually, there is quite a bit of evidence.
Just because you choose to ignore it doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
http://oswald-is-guilty.blogspot.com/
HooptieWagon
(17,064 posts)The rifle was tied to Oswald by photographs, purchase, and witnesses. There was a partial palm print on the gun, plus fibers from Oswald's shirt. Three empty shell casings with the rifle at the schoolbook warehouse. Ballistics tied bullets to the shell casings and rifle. And police powder tests on Oswald gave a positive that he had recently fired a gun. Thats pretty strong evidence Oswald fired three shots. As to a second gunman, there is only disputable evidence that one may have existed, no clear-cut strong evidence that one definately was present.
Zen Democrat
(5,901 posts)He upfront states that they were never able to put "Oswald in that window with that gun." And he doubted Oswald could have been convicted in a trial. He also stated his belief that shots were fired from the knoll, because that's where all the people on the street said the shots came from.
And the Dallas doctors, to a man, said that the head wound in the back of Kennedy's head was an exit wound.
The rifle was NOT tied to Oswald ... the gun was supposedly shipped to a P. O. Box, which was against the law. The supposed money-order sent for the supposed rifle purchase, supposedly to Klein's Sporting Goods, was never cashed. There are no banking institution stamps on the back. Not one. There should have been three. And, Klein's Sporting Goods only sold 36" Mannlicher-Carcano rifles. They never purchased anything but 36" rifles ever. The supposed murder weapon was a 40". Nobody has ever been able to explain this.
The "partial print" on the gun was found AFTER Oswald was murdered; it wasn't there before he died. No fibers from his shirt were found on the rifle. The paraffin test on Oswald's cheeks showed that he did NOT fire a rifle. Preliminary comments from the Dallas Police said the tests were positive. They were not.
Eyewitness testimony is considered the strongest evidence in a court of law. At least 80 eyewitnesses gave testimony to the FBI that the shots were fired from the elevated grassy area, behind the picket fence. The closest witnesses all say that. A woman standing by the Book Depository grabbed a policeman and told him to go to the knoll area. She heard nothing from the book depository.
You are repeating a lot of early police comments that turned out to not be true. Just like Bill O'Reilly did in "Killing Kennedy." Pitiful book with absolutely no research or scholarship involved in the writing thereof.
As to the photographs, that one is so old that the beard on it has a beard. I can look at those photographs and see that Oswald's head has been photographically grafted onto the body of someone else. Oswald did not have a square chin. He also did not have a mangled left hand. The negative cut-out was found in police files many years later.
I don't know where you are getting the information you are so adamant about, but it's outdated by nearly 50 years.
HooptieWagon
(17,064 posts)...especially with the passage of time. Most of the witnesses said all the shots came from the book depository.
Marina Oswald said she took the pictures of Oswald holding the gun....the same gun found on the 6th floor, with 3 empty shells nearby. The gun and shells were ballisticly tied to the two recovered bullets.
The 38 revolver found on Oswald at his arrest was ballisticly tied to Tippits murder.
Oswald was seen at the book depository by several co-workers prior to Kennedy's shooting. Afterwards, the boss told police Oswald was the only employee not present. When he had arrived at the book depository, Oswald told co-workers the package he was carrying contained "curtain rods". The empty package was found near the gun.
If we are to believe every conspiracist, there were at least 30 shooters and 100 conspirators present at Dealy Plaza. They would have been tripping all over each other. Yet there is no photographic evidence, nor any reliable witnesses, who can positively place an assassain on, under, or above Dealy Plaza. Nor has their been one single shell or bullet recovered that wasn't ballisticly tied to Oswald's rifle.
No one has claimed the official investigations are THE definitive answer. They are the best guess based on the available evidence and information. There is NO evidence or information to support the CTs. None. Blockbusting unreleased information is frequently promised, but it never materializes. What "evidence" does get published turns out to be bogus or just flat wrong.
IMO, Oswald was a loser who was in the right place at the right time to be able to squeeze off a few reasonably skilled shots that killed the President. Ruby was also a loser, but his motivation isn't clear. Perhaps he thought he was being a patriot, perhaps he thought Oswald was with the Mob and he was doing them a favor. I doubt the Mob put him up to it. That would be the messiest mob-hit in history. More their style to be subtle....Oswald would have simply "disapppeared", like Hoffa. And if Oswald was working with CIA, etc, they simply would have had a hit-man hidden on the 6th floor, ready to nuetralize Oswald just after he fired. Who would have questioned a G-man killing an assassin in the act?
Zen Democrat
(5,901 posts)On the 1st floor lunchroom immediately before, and in the 2nd floor breakroom drinking a Coke about 90 seconds after.
Most of the "evidence" repeated today was early postulations that turned out not to be true. The parrafin test, e.g., which Curry said "I understand to be positive," when the final report was that he did not fire a rifle that day.
Oswald was an intelligence pawn, sent to the Soviet Union by Naval Intelligence and CIA, which is why he got a quickie discharge from the Marine Corp and left within a week or so for the Soviet Union. He was part of a fake-defector program. Read Oswald and the CIA by John Newman. There are lots of genuinely great expositive books on the assassination, but only the Bugliosis, Posners and Russos are hyped so they can hoot at serious students and researchers of the events of 11-22-63.
Also, read "JFK and the Unspeakable" and then tell me that JFK was responsible for the death of Diem. I guarantee, anyone who reads that book will get an education. A education with massive footnotes that are just as interesting as the text.
AnotherMcIntosh
(11,064 posts)manufacturing sites which used whatever serial numbers that they wanted instead of coordinating their efforts and using one set of unique serial numbers.
In '63, it was possible to buy two, three, ... Carcano rifles with the same serial number. They might not all be 36 inches, however.
Rosa Luxemburg
(28,627 posts)CIA that killed him.
zappaman
(20,606 posts)Oswald as Part of a Communist Conspiracy
Oswald and a Right–Wing Conspiracy
The LBJ Killed JFK Conspiracy Theory
J. Edgar Hoover or the FBI Killed JFK
The Secret Service Killed President Kennedy
Anti–Castro Cubans Killed President Kennedy
Right–Wing Extremists Killed JFK
The Mafia Killed President Kennedy
The Military Industrial Complex Killed JFK Conspiracy Theory
The BFEE kill JFK
Many more.
Pick your favorite!
Hey, maybe they are all right!
Everybody killed JFK!
whatchamacallit
(15,558 posts)yours must be right. Hooray Zappaman, Hooray!
zappaman
(20,606 posts)These theories don't have to be proved impossible, when the evidence clearly points to Oswald.
But go ahead and prove one.
Pick your favorite and let's discuss.
I eagerly await your findings!
Zen Democrat
(5,901 posts)That means that these people do not believe in the possibility of conspiracies.
There was a conspiracy to kill Lincoln.
There was a big conspiracy by the Nixon White House. It was called Watergate. Everybody denied everything and would have gotten away with it, sans the tapes.
There was a conspiracy to steal the 1980 election from Jimmy Carter. The exiled Iranians later told the story of Reagan's devil's bargain with Khomeini to hold the hostages til after the election, in exchange for spare parts for weapons systems the Iranians had bought from the US under the Shah.
There was a conspiracy to take the money received from the illegal selling of arms to Iran and illegally transfer it to the insurgents in Nicaragua.
There was a conspiracy to overthrow the elected leader of Iran, Mossedegh, by the CIA in 1953.
There was a conspiracy to overthrow Arbenz in Guatamala in 1954 over the takeover of the United Fruit Co. Both Allen Dulles and his brother John Foster Dulles, were major stockholders in United Fruit.
There was a conspiracy by the CIA to lie to Kennedy about the Bay of Pigs invasion and at the last minute to attempt to force him to send in the Marines and the Air Force.
There was a conspiracy within the CIA and military to overthrow Allende in Chile.
There was a conspiracy within the CIA and military to overthrow Sukarno in Indonesia.
There was a conspiracy to remove Henry Wallace from the Democratic ticket as vice president in 1944.
There was a conspiracy to overthrow the government of the United States by fascist industrialists in the '30s. The names were stricken from the record, but DuPont is known to be one. The group tried to hire two-time Medal of Honor winner, Gen. Smedley Butler, to be the figurehead President after they removed Roosevelt. Butler went to Congress, where secret hearings were held, led by a man who would one day be House Speaker, John McCormack.
The Lewinsky Affair was a vast right-wing conspiracy. Linda Tripp, anyone? Lucianne Goldberg?
Any murder-for-hire is a prima facie conspiracy. It happens every day.
However, it's not everyday when the conspirators are the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff who thought JFK was a traitor for not starting a nuclear war with Russia "while we had the lead in nuclear weapons," and the Director of CIA, recently fired by JFK. Johnson was in on the cover-up, but whether that was because he was part of the conspiracy, or just scared shitless of the perps, we don't know that. But he did give him their damned war, in spite of saying over and over that he didn't want to go into Vietnam but he HAD to.
zappaman
(20,606 posts)There are plenty of conspiracies as you have noted.
I don't think most people think ALL conspiracy theories are crackpot.
Every theory should be evaluated on it's own terms, and not just be accepted because "conspiracies happen".
And in this case, all the evidence points to one man killing JFK.
AnotherMcIntosh
(11,064 posts)
He's the one seated on the far right.
hedgehog
(36,286 posts)kill JFK that I am pointing out. There were people with motive and apparent means, even if they didn't do it.
Bolo Boffin
(23,796 posts)AnotherMcIntosh
(11,064 posts)it was a "lone gunman."
From the beginning, notwithstanding all of the hundreds of thousands in Dallas, the authorities were only looking for one person and claimed that Oswald was the only one involved.
If Oswald was the only one involved and used an Italian-made Carcano with a full-metal jacket 6.5 mm round that hit both Kennedy and Governor Connally, and if he purportedly also shot Kennedy, why did the second round explode upon impact like a frangible bullet? Two different types of bullets were used. Either that or the second full-metal jacket cartridge used by Oswald had an odd and unprecedented manufacturing defect.
The significance of the Carcano is that the Italians manufactured their rifles in more than one factory and re-used serial numbers with the result that multiple versions existed with the same serial number.
HooptieWagon
(17,064 posts)passed through Kennedy without striking bone. Thus, much energy was already expended.
The head shot hit skull bone on first impact, thus the bullet was mangled.
Lets take 2 race cars that leave the track at 200 mph. The first car travels through a 100 yd long gravel pit, killing speed before hitting the wall at 50mph. The second car hits the wall immediately after leaving the track, at 200 mph. Which car is going to be more damaged?
Archae
(46,314 posts)"Shit happens."
A nutcase with a severe grudge against anyone anti-Castro shoots Kennedy.
A guy convinces himself in his madness that Jodie Foster will love him if he kills Reagan.
Just look at the past Presidential assassins.
Booth was a rabid racist pro-Confederate.
Guiteau (who killed Garfield) convinced himself Garfield owed him a cushy government job.
Leon Czolgosz was an anarchist who thought the US would be less business-friendly if he killed McKinley.
whatchamacallit
(15,558 posts)Wonder what scares them shitless?
Pretzel_Warrior
(8,361 posts)because there have been many conspiracies well documented. Those are conspiracies that are unraveled with reams of proof, people blowing the whistle, etc.
The difference is when years of the actual events and facts to explain in a straightforward way what took place are completely rejected in favor of baseless speculation and presentation of psuedo-information like "Jack Ruby went to the same barber as.....therefore..."
hedgehog
(36,286 posts)Oswald called himself a patsy. IIRC, every other assassin, successful or unsuccessful, took credit.
nyquil_man
(1,443 posts)Or the last.
hedgehog
(36,286 posts)because his/her actions have accomplished a greater purpose - saved the country, extracted revenge, made grievances known, etc.
nyquil_man
(1,443 posts)Both Guiteau and Czolgosz were caught at the scene of the crime with their weapons on hand. So there really wasn't a need to confess. Same thing with Hinckley.
That leaves Booth, who didn't openly confess and in fact seemed to be making a concerted effort to avoid being caught.
hedgehog
(36,286 posts)nyquil_man
(1,443 posts)Pretzel_Warrior
(8,361 posts)lololol.
hedgehog
(36,286 posts)curious that so many people who seem to be rational on other topics are convinced that there was a conspiracy involved.
Don't forget - the conspiracy theories evolved years before the internet, suggesting to me that many people came to this conclusion on their own simply because of the zeitgetz in 1963.
Nuclear Unicorn
(19,497 posts)randome
(34,845 posts)Something to keep in mind.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]There is nothing you can't do if you put your mind to it.
Nothing.[/center][/font][hr]
LanternWaste
(37,748 posts)And a significant number of people (Pat Buchanan among them) still believe that nothing improper was done during the Watergate affair.
Another something to keep in mind.
wercal
(1,370 posts)But I don't think Oswald acted alone.
Frankly, I think there has to be a suspension of disbelief to keep going along with the 'loner' theory. We are supposed to watch the video of Jack Ruby shoot Oswald, and dismiss it as the act of yet another 'loner' exacting revenge.
I do think that Oswald was the only shooter, and I think all the attention to magic bullets etc. has clouded the larger issue.
mc51tc
(219 posts)says the second shot to the President was an exit wound (the graphic shot to the head). Thus, the second shot had to come from the front of JFK, not the back as the Warren Commission stated. This doctor from Parkland is still alive and just said this recently to a Dallas T.V. station.
I will try to find his name.
mc51tc
(219 posts)"A surgeon who half a century ago was among the doctors who tried to save President John F. Kennedy's life said Thursday that the Warren Commission got it wrong in determining a lone gunman assassinated JFK in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963.
Speaking via teleconference to a Duquesne University symposium marking the 50th anniversary of the assassination, Robert N. McClelland said he was the first doctor in Parkland Hospital's Trauma Room One to notice the massive wound in the back of Kennedy's skull and that a trauma of that size had to be an exit wound.
"The whole right side of his skull was gone. I could look inside his skull cavity. Obviously, it was a mortal wound," he told a spellbound audience of legal, medical, forensic and investigative experts and the public who packed the university's Power Ballroom.
Dr. McClelland, now 83 and professor emeritus at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, said that because it was an exit wound, it logically followed that it had been fired from in front of the president's limousine. And, in turn, that meant a second gunman was involved in the assassination, contradicting the Warren Commission's finding that there was but one assassin."
Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/education/2013/10/18/Surgeon-in-ER-insists-2-gunmen-shot-JFK/stories/201310180137#ixzz2k033eJHK
wercal
(1,370 posts)So I'm not convinced there were two shooters. At the time of the shooting, it was always a search for one gunman...so at the time, it would seem that all the doctors and others involved agreed with this.
But it really doesn't matter. I think it was a larger conspiracy...Jack Ruby didn't just kill him for the fun of it. And that's all that really matters - whether or not others were involved. The exact number of triggers being pulled doesn't really doesn't matter.
jberryhill
(62,444 posts)
hedgehog
(36,286 posts)
nyquil_man
(1,443 posts)That's how David Brinkley put it.
The murder of President Kennedy was traumatizing enough. Then came the murder of Oswald, flashed across screens for everybody to see. Finally came the realization that, guilty or not, Oswald would never have the opportunity to stand before a jury - to stand before the world - and defend himself. Our jury system is far from perfect, but the idea of an accused person being denied the opportunity to even present a defense rankles our collective sense of justice.
I think that realization is what drives the conspiracy theories. Had Oswald lived to stand trial, there would still be alternative theories. However, I think they'd be far less pervasive.
Rex
(65,616 posts)Thus a conspiracy is born.
SidDithers
(44,228 posts)
Sid
sabrina 1
(62,325 posts)of a Democratic President. Since a majority of Americans do not believe the official CT, it will be discussed every day and night around the country FREELY. In fact, while not particularly informed on the subject, I am becoming more and more interested as friends and relatives, who apparently have been watching documentaries aired on TV here in the US, tell me they do not for a minute believe we were told the truth about that murder.
I will be watching those documentaries myself and will certainly give a whole lot more credibility to some of this country's most reputable people than to someone on a relatively small internet forum who appears to be deeply disturbed by the growing interest in this historical event of Americans in their own history. Schools too are talking about it, as they should.
You can't control it, the subject is getting more and more attention as the years go by. And this year more than ever due to the refusal of the Govt to release the documents that were supposed to be released after 50 years.
I have no idea who killed Kennedy, but I join the millions of Americans who are demanding that those documents be released. There is no rational excuse for the people to be deprived of this information.
Warren DeMontague
(80,708 posts)Some conspiracies are real, and yet there is a tremendous amount of bullshit out there under the heading of conspiracy theories.
As far as JFK, I don't know. I find the Warren Commission report hard to swallow. I think Oswald is an exceedingly odd character. I believe there was more going on there than the official story suggests.
KurtNYC
(14,549 posts)we did some research and helped back up her assertion that Rupert Murdoch et al were acting in concert to hinder the Clinton administration and her efforts on healthcare specifically (bc that is the context of the infamous quote).
When TDS does a montage of the cable news phrase of the day do we say 'that crazy Jon Stewart with his CT nonsense. ?
The Kochs, Rove, Monsanto -- Plenty of other examples if you really look. "Conspiracy" has become a loaded word so what should we call the passage of HR 368 and the subsequent shutdown?
SolutionisSolidarity
(606 posts)You don't hide the evidence for half a century for no reason.
CK_John
(10,005 posts)during the yrs of the "Red scare" and just after Sen McCarthy hearing yrs, goes off to the USSR and comes back and shots JFK.
Didn't buy it then and still don't, the key is who shot officer Tippit.
HooptieWagon
(17,064 posts)It seems they were more than happy to get rid of him. The Russians didn't really want him, he slashed his wrists in order to go to hospital and overstay his visa. Russians then shipped him off to work a menial job in a toaster factory in Minsk. After becoming disillusioned with Russian communism, he wanted to return to US. Russians were more than happy to let him go.
Every group he latched on to hoping to be accepted in, was more than happy to see him leave. That kind of indicates that he wouldn't have been accepted as a reliable key figure in an assassination conspiracy.
Octafish
(55,745 posts)If it was more than one, perpetrators got away.
Here's the government's one-shooter theory -- the bullet on the far left (CE 399) caused seven wounds in two men, including piercing several bones and was found on a stretcher at Parkland Hospital. The other bullets (left to right) were shot into cotton wadding, water and through a leg of lamb bone:
Details: http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=1877545
Here's one important piece of evidence which indicates conspiracy: This man, according to the CIA, claimed to be Lee Harvey Oswald while making threatening statements at the Cuban embassy in Mexico City a few weeks before the assassination.
Details: http://www.maryferrell.org/wiki/index.php/Oswald_in_Mexico_City
The guy in Mexico City also mentioned a KGB officer -- a man suspected of handling assassinations -- by name. What a coincidence.
zappaman
(20,606 posts)Looks pretty smashed up to me...
Octafish
(55,745 posts)That shows the wear expected when a bullet has been fired.
Compare CE-399 to the bullet that hit bone. Even you will note a big difference.
Bolo Boffin
(23,796 posts)And according to the cables, if I'm reading them correctly, the mistaken ID on that guy coming out of the Soviet embassy lasted about a day. They corrected it themselves.
Another question you won't answer: if the CIA faked Oswald at the embassy, why would they release a picture of the guy they got to fake being him? Don't they know that's not him? Seems to me this is strong evidence they did nothing of the sort.
nyquil_man
(1,443 posts)AnotherMcIntosh
(11,064 posts)Supposedly, both CE399 and a second bullet were fired by the Lee Harvey Oswald that was arrested.
One bullet was exceptionally durable. The second one exploded upon contact like all other frangible bullets. All that was found were the fragments.
Bolo Boffin
(23,796 posts)the way the bullet that struck JFK in the head did?
Is that something you really want to assert? A FMJ bullet NEVER shatters into fragments?
AnotherMcIntosh
(11,064 posts)Bolo Boffin
(23,796 posts)FMJ bullets will never, ever fragment. That's your story and you are sticking to it?
AnotherMcIntosh
(11,064 posts)Bolo Boffin
(23,796 posts)AnotherMcIntosh
(11,064 posts)n,
http://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/bony+tissue
bone tissue
n,
http://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/bone+tissue
disingenuous
adj,
http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/disingenuous
Bolo Boffin
(23,796 posts)Can you look up "pedantic" as well?
I was going for a more colloquial definition of tissue, actually. But now that we are getting into technicalities, answer my question, please: are you trying to imply that full metal jacket bullets never fragment? Of course you could not be. That would be a most foolish position to take. But the way you keep insisting that JFK's head wounds could only have been caused by a frangible bullet implies that a FMJ bullet could not fragment, especially when striking bone. The skull in particular.
AnotherMcIntosh
(11,064 posts)You want someone to look up "pedantic" for you?
Do your own homework.
Bolo Boffin
(23,796 posts)Something thus far lacking in this silly notion of a frangible bullet hitting JFK and causing his head wounds that you continue to assert.
AnotherMcIntosh
(11,064 posts)Bolo Boffin
(23,796 posts)The notion that a frangible bullet caused the head wounds is quite unsupportable. I don't blame you for trying to change the subject one bit.
mc51tc
(219 posts)"So who believes that Lee Harvey Oswald didn’t act alone in the assassination of John F. Kennedy? Turns out, Secretary of State John Kerry. According to CNN and the Daily Mail newspaper, Kerry told NBC’s Tom Brokaw for a piece on 50th anniversary of the JFK assassination: “To this day, I have serious doubts that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone.”
“I certainly have doubts that he was motivated by himself, I mean I’m not sure if anybody else was involved — I don’t go down that road with respect to the Grassy Knoll theory and all that — but I have serious questions about whether they got to the bottom of Lee Harvey Oswald’s time and influence from Cuba and Russia,” Kerry said.
Kerry dismisses the idea that CIA or the government was involved. But he said Russians and the Cubans might have been. “I think he (Oswald) was inspired somewhere by something.”
In 1962, Kerry was a volunteer on Ted Kennedy’s first senatorial campaign. During the interview with Brokaw, the former Massachusetts senator said he had one encounter with President Kennedy at the White House."
http://trailblazersblog.dallasnews.com/2013/11/john-kerry-has-doubts-oswald-acted-alone-in-the-jfk-assassination.html/
RagAss
(13,832 posts)
DesertFlower
(11,649 posts)but i do believe the kennedy assassination was a conspiracy.
Benton D Struckcheon
(2,347 posts)By far the most likely explanation, because it's the simplest and explains ALL of it, is that Oswald wasn't aiming for Kennedy. He was aiming for Connally, and he missed.
That explains his deadly accuracy. That and the fact Kennedy was wearing a back brace that would have forced him to remain upright even after being hit. Connally, by contrast, fell into his wife's lap and so was not in the line of fire for the subsequent bullets.
As I have posted twice before, Connally was Sec'y of the Navy under Kennedy. Oswald was a Marine, which falls under the Navy, and had been less than honorably discharged. He wrote asking for it to be made an honorable one.
He got a form letter from Connally in response.
Marina's first reaction was that he killed Connally, not Kennedy. She testified to the Warren Commission about this as well.
This theory is ridiculously unpopular because it kills the conspiracy theorists and their nice little industry. Too bad. It just happens to be the simplest explanation for what happened.
In all these years, no second shooter has been id'd. No conclusive proof of any sort of conspiracy has been put forward. The idea that a conspiracy would survive the most investigated crime ever is ludicrous in the extreme.
The Warren Commission reported only on who did it, not why he did it, because they figured that would be speculative given that Oswald was dead and therefore, inconveniently, not available for questioning on the subject. But based on the history he had with Connally, this is by far the most likely motive.
Zen Democrat
(5,901 posts)That wouldn't have kept him upright. And certainly didn't stop that bullet in his back just below the shoulder blades. Kennedy and Connally had ten bullet holes in them from two bullets. The third one hit the curb and injured James Tague's cheek.
Nobody but Conspiracy Deniers believe that's even possible. Because it isn't. Exhibit 399, the stretcher bullet, has less metal missing from it than was removed from Connally's wrist. He had bullet fragments remaining in his arm and leg that he took to the grave.
None of it adds up. None of it. Nothing. Zero. Nada.
I'm interested to know why a small minority of people refuse to face reality about the murder of our President. He was murdered by right-wing Republicans.
Let's say something unspeakable happened to a Democratic President in some unnamed city in the South. And they told you the deed was done by a Commie. No crazy Bircher types, or gun nuts or racists (the people making threats against said President), but a leftie, with a strange background that didn't make sense. Would you buy that story upfront? What if the investigation was ended two days after the murder when the accused was killed in the police station of the most right-wing city in America. And there was no further investigation. Instead a blue-ribbon commission was appointed to write a report, and the members are Chief Justice John Roberts, General Petraeus, Jamie Dimond, Sen. Bill Nelson, Sen. Orrin Hatch, Rep. Marsha Blackburn and Rep. Steny Hoyer. And a few years later, after the truth has been murdered, Nelson and Hatch and Hoyer admitted they had never believed the cockamamie theories of the case, but had been forced to sign the report with the understanding that their concerns would be addressed in the final printed document. Only they weren't addressed at all.
Well, would you defend that dog of a Report? Would you wonder why anybody still wanted to get to the truth after 50 years? Or would you suspect the people who really wanted him dead and said so, and to whom tons of circumstantial evidence pointed directly? Or would you swallow the random little commie story, hook, line and sinker.
On the morning of November 23, 1963, J Edgar Hoover telephoned LBJ to report a problem with the Mexico City evidence because the CIA had pictures of the man visiting the Cuban and Russian embassies in Mexico City identifying himself as Oswald. And they had voice tapes too. Neither the pictures or voice tapes matched the man in jail in Dallas. Hoover was concerned about this not only because they couldn't offer proof that Oswald had been in Mexico City, but they could prove that someone was using Oswald's name at the two embassies about 7 weeks before the murder. LBJ changed the subject. But then, he knew he was taping himself.
Oops.
Bolo Boffin
(23,796 posts)
And the bullet didn't hit him below the shoulder blades. That's a gross misstatement of where the bullet hit. It was in the lower part of the neck, just above the shoulder blades. Some of the autopsy photos are out there, and the location of that wound is without question. You can see it's above the shoulder blades, not below.
AnotherMcIntosh
(11,064 posts)Bolo Boffin
(23,796 posts)Now, about frangible bullets causing such injury or causing injuries in individuals. I happen to be a coauthor of the only paper that has ever been written about the wounding capabilities of frangible bullets. Frangible bullets are bullets that are designed to be used in shooting galleries. These are bullets that are specifically designed to break up on the backdrop of the shooting gallery, so as not to ricochet and cause injury to either the shooters or to the people who work in the gallery.
Such bullets usually are formed of iron filings or small granular pieces of iron bound together by some organic substance, so that upon breaking up they break into numerous pieces. Such bullets and the breakup products of bullets are easy to detect in X-rays. There are no such fragments in the X-ray of the late President's head.
There was no frangible bullet fired.
I might also add that frangible bullets are produced in 22 caliber loads and they are not produced in larger weapons.
There is no evidence in the X-ray of the President's head of a frangible bullet shot. If there were, I would expect to see square appearing particles of which are not present and, furthermore, if such a bullet were fired into the side of the head, through the aperture caused by the exiting large bullet, I would expect those pieces of the frangible bullet to have continued over to the left of the head and there would be material, metallic material easily identifiable seen in the left side of the brain.
There are no such fragments present.
From the HSCA testimony of Dr. Charles Petty.
The Midway Rebel
(2,191 posts)Its a middle class hobby. An industry so to speak. They sell books, recordings and t-shirts and go to convention to share their fascination with the mystery, paranoia and immunity to the facts. More ink has been spilled on this topic than any other in American history except for the Civil War. I suppose it is part religion as well. A psychological re linking with the past that soothes something in the brain.
valerief
(53,235 posts)Maybe a number of things. Who cares what specific schmuck/s did it?
That's why some pols are wusses. Fear of being whacked. Plus, it's a good whoring gig.
