General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Justice for JFK [View all]sabrina 1
(62,325 posts)to go back and read again. I'm not sure it's so much what they got wrong, for me it was more that it seemed very incomplete. But committees like that are notoriously unsatisfying in terms of investigating major crimes like this, so I didn't expect that much from them from the pov of really learning much that wasn't known already.
I actually had accepted their findings until someone gave me a book to read about it, and I could not ignore the questions raised in that book. It was after that that I read the report.
I don't have enough knowledge eg, to know whether their conclusions regarding the forensic evidence were accurate. But I had a big problem with the 'magic bullet' theory, not from actual knowledge but from common sense. It just didn't seem possible to me. It still doesn't.
Also, while they were accurate as far as we know about Oswald's experience with firearms, (they included his military record which showed he was not by any means a good marksman) I think that should have been developed further.
It's hard to believe that someone with that kind of record could have been so accurate in hitting his target that day without intensive training for months at least before the assassination. It's very hard to hit a target from that angle especially a moving target unless you are very, very good. They did say he had trained since he left the military, according to his wife.
I would have preferred that this case had gone to court . But once Oswald was killed, there was no chance of that which is why his death was such a horrible loss historically.
The House Select Committee in 1979 revised some of the findings of the WC because of new evidence. THEY concluded, and this made way more sense to me, that there probably were two shooters and there probably was a conspiracy, but they could not name the other shooter or anyone who might have been part of the conspiracy.
So while it's possible that there was only one lone gunman, even the WC like the House Select Committee acknowledged they could not rule out another gunman or a conspiracy but had no evidence to prove it.
As for the sloppiness of the security agencies and the Dallas Police, and the aftermath, I don't think even back then, things were that bad. I have met retired law enforcement people who were maybe in their twenties in the sixties and I do not believe they would have handled any case, let alone one as important as this one, the way it was handled.
You can allow some leeway for that, but things were not all that different in terms of professionalism for law enforcement or any other profession, then and now. The technical tools they have now are better, DNA etc. but I don't see where the training and attitude towards their jobs would be any different. Teachers, nurses, doctors etc are no more professional now than they were then, so why would law enforcement be any different?
After reading the WCR and the House Select Committee's findings I felt that while Oswald probably was guilty, that was probably not all of the story as there were so many unanswered questions. Which I don't think even they denied.