Book: HEAD SHOT (deals with JFK thing)

[TJx]

There is NO evidence he was on the 6th floor at the time of the shooting. The best evidence puts him on the 2nd floor.

 

[Tommygunn]

If Oswald did do it for the infamy, why did he vehemently deny it?

Who said Oswald did it for the "infamy?" He was a communist activist. Plus he had a love for spy novels -- James Bond in particular.
He denied it, well, basically because "he was caught." Prisons are full of murderers who were "framed" and are "innocent" ... "didn't do a thing."

History doesn't happen by accident.

Of course it can. Do you think the captain of the RMS Titanic hit the iceberg on purpose?

The Kennedy assassination was a horrible confluence of events....the plexiglass bubble that coulkd ....maybe .... have deflected the Carcano bullets was left off at Kennedy's request....the path of the motorcade designed to pass by the depository building where one lone nutcase happened to work....the scope on that carcano being off .... but in a way that actually aided Oswald in hitting Kennedy.
If a shooter had been on the "grassy knoll" he'd have hit Kennedy in the side of the head, not the "front" or the back. And also would likely have hit Mrs. Kennedy too.
The overpass? There were onlookers there. Do you think an assassin would unpack and line up a shot with a rifle at the President of the United States of America in full view of onlookers only feet away? No, I don't think so.
From one of the drainage sumps along the edge of the road? Conspirators say a shooter could have been in one of these...but researchers have proven that if a shooter had been there he would not have had a view of Kennedy at the time the shots were actually fired.
Oswald did knowingly and deliberatly assassinate Kennedy. He owned the rifle that has been ballistically matched to the bullets recovered from the crime scene. He snuck the rifle into the building and there were witnesses who saw him shoot from the window.

There is NO evidence he was on the 6th floor at the time of the shooting. The best evidence puts him on the 2nd floor.

Wrong. His rifle was found on the sixth floor with his prints on it. Plus the witnesses saw him there.
He'd been assigned to work there. There's plenty of evidence he was there.

 

[Billy Shears]

There is NO evidence he was on the 6th floor at the time of the shooting. The best evidence puts him on the 2nd floor.

He was on the sixth floor. His rifle was found there, with his prints all over it, and fibers from the shirt he was wearing at the time he was apprehended were later found on the rifle. Three expended shells were found near it. Witness on the floor below heard the shots and the sound of the shell casings hitting the floor. Witnesses all over the plaza heard the three shots fired by that rifle. The only "evidence" that he wasn't where the forensic evidence indicates he are assumptions made by people based on the inconsistent statements of Charles Givens, and statements from other who say they glimpsed him elsewhere, turned into more assumptions that he didn't have time to get to the makeshift sniper's nest on the sixth floor. Dismissed entirely by the conspiracy theorists is that these people are simply wrong about times and their recollections are a bit off. Human memory is fallible, which is why you can take reports of the same incident by multiple witnesses, and often get as many versions of the incident as there are witnesses.

 

[Billy Shears]

Billy Shears,the voice of reason.Thank you. There are over 50 points of evidence linking LHO to the murders of JFK and Officer J.D.Tippit.

After almost 49 years there is not one thread of credible evidence linking any other human being ,living or dead ,to the murders of either gentlemen.

But the conspiracy folks just want go on building those fantasy castles in the air,and selling books and DVD's,a very profitable niche racket.

Conspiracy theories do seem to be immortal don't they? But I think conservative columnist Jonah Goldberg made the best statement on the matter that I have heard:

Oh come on. I distrust the government but as a realistic conservative I think government is staffed with mostly well-intentioned but incompetent people — not because they’re dumb, but because bureaucracies are dumb. These conspiracy theorists reverse this entirely. They think government is evil-intentioned but supremely, even divinely, competent. That’s crazy-talk, Count Chocula.

You have to imagine that government (or the mob, or the Russians, or Castro, or LBJ, or the Israelis, take your pick) is supremely competent, and they managed to cover their tracks so well that in half a century, no one has ever let the cat out of the bag.

 

[TJx]

"He was on the sixth floor. His rifle was found there, with his prints all over it, and fibers from the shirt he was wearing at the time he was apprehended were later found on the rifle. Three expended shells were found near it. Witness on the floor below heard the shots and the sound of the shell casings hitting the floor. Witnesses all over the plaza heard the three shots fired by that rifle."

This is almost too silly to respond to but I will.
Because his rifle was found that must mean he fired the shots? PPPlease!
Prints all over it? Try a palm print under hand guard.
Spent shells found, heard dropping on floor, people hearing shots hardly puts LHO at scene of crime.

What I meant by history not happening by accident is political events like this, surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, Reichstag fires, 9/11, not boat wrecks, natural disasters, etc.

Believe what you want as I will, lets agree to disagree, I'm done debating point by point.

 

[Billy Shears]

This is almost too silly to respond to but I will.
Because his rifle was found that must mean he fired the shots? PPPlease!

It means there's certainly a whole lot more evidence that it was him than there is that it was some shadowy, unknown person.

PPPlease!

Prints all over it? Try a palm print under hand guard.

Yes, it's totally impossible that a former marine would ever disassemble his rifle and reassemble it, and might leave prints on the weapon in doing so.

Spent shells found, heard dropping on floor, people hearing shots hardly puts LHO at scene of crime.

Again, the evidence, such as it is, points to Oswald. What you have is speculation and conjecture based on flaws or gaps in the evidence. That's all. I'll leave it to reasonable people to decide which is more reliable.

What I meant by history not happening by accident is political events like this, surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, Reichstag fires, 9/11, not boat wrecks, natural disasters, etc.

And you would be wrong there too. To take another assassination, for example, that of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, which sparked off the First World War. The Archduke and his wife passed one assassin, who failed to act, then another, who threw his bomb and missed, and the bomb rolled under the car and failed to kill the intended victim. The Archduke's car sped away. He was safe. After learning that the assassination had been unsuccessful Gavrilo Princip, one of the plotters, went to a nearby food shop (Schiller's delicatessen), thinking their plot had failed, and they had missed their chance. When Princip emerged, he saw, much to his surprise, Franz Ferdinand's open car backing up, right in front of him. The driver had taken a wrong turn as he drove past, near the Latin Bridge. As the driver was backing up, having realized his mistake, the engine of the car stalled and the gears locked, giving Princip his opportunity, which he took. Princip, a poor shot, began spraying bullets from a little .32 pocket pistol, inflicting fatal wounds on the Archduke and his wife, and setting into motion a chain of events that led to the outbreak of World War One, and it was a freak accident. Franz Ferdinand should never have been in that spot, and it was only happenstance that one of the assassins happened to be there in the same moment.

Sometimes, things do just happen by accident.

 

[Tommygunn]

"He was on the sixth floor. His rifle was found there, with his prints all over it, and fibers from the shirt he was wearing at the time he was apprehended were later found on the rifle. Three expended shells were found near it. Witness on the floor below heard the shots and the sound of the shell casings hitting the floor. Witnesses all over the plaza heard the three shots fired by that rifle."

This is almost too silly to respond to but I will.
Because his rifle was found that must mean he fired the shots? PPPlease!
Prints all over it? Try a palm print under hand guard.
Spent shells found, heard dropping on floor, people hearing shots hardly puts LHO at scene of crime.

What I meant by history not happening by accident is political events like this, surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, Reichstag fires, 9/11, not boat wrecks, natural disasters, etc.

Believe what you want as I will, lets agree to disagree, I'm done debating point by point.

TJx, it's called evidence. There's a reason it's called that.
You conveniently ignore the testomonial evidence Billy Shears pointed out (and which I had forgotten) that people on the fifth floor heard the shots and the rifle casings hit the floor above them. Good detectives, as well as good researchers, don't just ignore evidence because it doesn't fit their preconceived notion of what happened. If they have a theory that they find cannot be supported by the evidence they uncover, they rethink and adjust the theory to find out what the truth is.
You just can't say there "is no evidence" that Oswald was on the 6th floor because, like it or not, there is.

Yes, his palm print was under th guard; the one place he could not have had time to wipe down as he hid the rifle and left. People seeing him there puts him there.
Are there any witnesses that reliably put Oswald somewhere else? Fort Worth? Austin? Honolulu? Antarctica? The moon?
I mean, how wild astray and far from the facts are we to go before we get an epiphany and "get it" that the conspiracy theories just don't wash and wishing the evidence wasn't real doesn't make it so. Please tell me. Inquiring minds want to know.

A long time ago I believed in the conspiracy theory. I got over it because I realized initially that the conspirators put forth many gratuitous assertions that were not supported by reality, and then when I did the research, I realized how completly unnecessary it was to postulate wild theories about multiple agencies being involved, concealed riflemen behind fences, shots from wildly different and ultimatly impossible angles, and that Oswald, acting alone, very well could and DID fire that rifle and assassinate John Fitgerald Kennedy.
I got over it. If you really think instead of just going by blind faith you can too.

 

[Midwest]

Conspiracy theorists make a big deal about how he bought a traceable gun via mail order instead of buying something superior and untraceable locally. He may have been thinking ahead to his defense: "How could I have made those shots with this inaccurate POS?" when he knew all along that he had a very capable weapon.

Just a thought.

It has been my belief that LHO bought the gun mail order instead of getting it from another source locally because his handlers told him to purchase it mail order with the intent of using the JFK assassination for bringing on gun control legislation and ending mail order sales of firearms. Five years later the GCA become law and mail order sales were outlawed.

After Bobby and MLK were killed in 1968 the subject of mail order sales were bought up again as an example that needed to be changed. I understand some did try to end mail order sales in 1963/1964. A lot of draconian gun legislation came about in the 1960's like New Jersey's Firearms ID Card law in 1966 and Illinois FOID card in 1968 and of course 1968 GCA.

I am NOT saying or maintaining that JFK was shot solely to implement gun control legislation. I am saying, I believe that there were efforts to set things in advance and to exploit the JFK assassination to implement gun control. I believe things were set up in advance for LHO to buy a rifle through the mail, even though LHO may not have known at the time what he was going to do with that rifle. I think he was following orders.

I believe LHO had handlers and others were involved. This is my theory and belief but I have no real evidence to base this on. Lets not forget in 1963, not only one could buy a firearm through the mails. They could buy a rifle from any place. Having read other threads about how it was before 1968 GCA here on THR and elsewhere.

Guns were sold in hardware stores, gas stations, department stores, sporting good stores, general stores, tobacco shops, tire stores. He could have gone to a number of different places to physically buy that rifle. But he chose mail order which was more traceable than if he went to a hardware store on the other side of town dropped the cash and said his name was John Smith...even if he was required to provide a name in 1963.

The whole mail order thing sticks out like a sore thumb and I am not sure if any JFK author has really covered that angle.

 

[Midwest]

BTW,Midwest, who were these phantom "handlers", of which you speak?!

Why did LHO buy through mail order when he could have bought the rifle from other much less traceable sources instead? Didn't he realize that the gun would be traced back to him?

He decided he was going to do in JFK and instead of walking over to a hardware store, department store, gas station or any local place that sold guns in 1963 that only required cash, and he could check the gun out before buying instead he opted to do mail order? Whats wrong with that picture?

How do we know that LHO was not helped or handled along the way?

 

[Tommygunn]

Midwest, my take is this; Oswald ordered it through the mail because in 1963 it left the same papertrail any purchase would.
-BUT-
In any investigation, there would be no detective walking into Ronny's Rifles at 4576 Ewing Road, Dallas Texas and asking the saleman to describe the man who purchased such-and-such rifle as shown on this here receipt.
Back then mail order was pretty anonymous. Face to face....not so much.

 

[Billy Shears]

How do we know that LHO was not helped or handled along the way?

Do I really have to explain to you what's wrong with that statement? You don't start with an assumption or a preconceived notion and then figure its true if you can't find any evidence to prove it wrong. That's not how rational inquiry works. You are supposed to take an objective look at the evidence, and only then draw your conclusions based on what the evidence supports.

As Conan Doyle said, through the character of Sherlock Holmes: "It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts."

This is just what you are doing when you speak of "handlers" for which there is no evidence.

 

[TJx]

I'm not sure why this is so hard. Spent shell casings being heard by witnesses on the 5th floor, which am I no disputing, does not place LHO on the 6th floor at the time of the assassination. In fact, the last eye witness, Carolyn Arnold, places LHO on the 2nd floor at 12:15, where he was next seen by Officer Marion Baker and building superintendant Roy Truly within 90 seconds of the assassination at 12:30 drinking a Coke.
This timeline is one of the most important facts that prove that LHO didn't do it. The Warren Commission wants you to believe that after firing the final shot he cleaned rifle, hid rifle ~ 150 feet away, ran down 4 floors passing 2 people (Adams & Styles) who never saw him, entered 2nd floor lunchroom, purchased a Coke, opened Coke and started drinking it, all the while being calm, cool, and collected when seen by Baker & Truly?
There are absolutely no witnesses that place LHO on the 6th floor or anywhere near it at the time of the assassination.

 

[Billy Shears]

I'm not sure why this is so hard. Spent shell casings being heard by witnesses on the 5th floor, which am I no disputing, does not place LHO on the 6th floor at the time of the assassination. In fact, the last eye witness, Carolyn Arnold, places LHO on the 2nd floor at 12:15, where he was next seen by Officer Marion Baker and building superintendant Roy Truly within 90 seconds of the assassination at 12:30 drinking a Coke.
This timeline is one of the most important facts that prove that LHO didn't do it. The Warren Commission wants you to believe that after firing the final shot he cleaned rifle, hid rifle ~ 150 feet away, ran down 4 floors passing 2 people (Adams & Styles) who never saw him, entered 2nd floor lunchroom, purchased a Coke, opened Coke and started drinking it, all the while being calm, cool, and collected when seen by Baker & Truly?
There are absolutely no witnesses that place LHO on the 6th floor or anywhere near it at the time of the assassination.

Let me break it on down for you:

1) It was Harvey's rifle. Indisputably.
2) His prints were on it.
3) Fibers from the shirt that he was wearing, when he was apprehended barely over an hour after the shooting were on it.
4) Ballistics tests matched the bullets from the assassination to the rifle.
5) Evidence indicates the same rifle was by Oswald used in an attempt to kill General Edwin Walker about six months earlier.
6) After the Walker assassination attempt, Oswald left a note to his wife, in Russian, in the event he should be caught, and when he burned his notebooks, she kept the note, with the intention of bringing it to the police should Oswald again attempt to kill Walker or anyone else.
7) Oswald worked in the School Book Depository
8) Oswald was the only person to flee the School Book Depository.
9) Oswald fled with a handgun, which he used to kill a police officer who stopped him; why would an innocent person do this? IF Oswald wasn't involved, what was he running from?

EVERYTHING about this points to Oswald. With all this evidence pointing to Oswald, why would you assume that it was someone else? Where is your evidence that it was someone else? Who saw someone else? Who put Oswald's prints, and the fibers from his shirt on the gun? Why was Oswald's behavior that of a guilty man on the run?

There is NO evidence pointing to anyone but Oswald. None. You have nothing but supposition and conjecture. You see gaps or flaws in the evidence, and you assume it must be evidence of a conspiracy, rather than something accountable by human error. But when you get right down to it, you have no evidence for it.

You. Have. No. Evidence. For. It.

 

[michaelbsc]

You have to imagine that government (or the mob, or the Russians, or Castro, or LBJ, or the Israelis, take your pick) is supremely competent, and they managed to cover their tracks so well that in half a century, no one has ever let the cat out of the bag.

Why is this so hard to grasp? It's obviously the same cabal that didn't go to the moon.

 

[scaatylobo]

TJx

Member


Join Date: November 25, 2011
Location: Ky
Posts: 43
Here are a few thoughts having read over 50 books on the subject including Posner's fiction which makes me knowledgable on the subject but hardly an expert.

I can say with a high degree of confidence that JFK was assassinated as a result of a conspiracy.

LHO did not knowingly participate in the assassination.

I've always discounted JFK's bodily movements after being shot as pretty meaningless, backwards, forward, whatever, the Zapruder film was more than likely altered, JFK had a back brace on, no conclusions can be drawn from his movement.

If Oswald did do it for the infamy, why did he vehemently deny it?

I think many of guilty looking parties only looked that way because they majorly screwed up and were just trying to CYA which doesn't negate the fact that is was a conspiracy, it just means not everyone was involved.

I walked all over the plaza, a good pistol shot could have hit him from the stockade fence.

History doesn't happen by accident.


I see your valid points as I too have read a 'bit' on the subject and was old enough at the time to ask the questions that have never been truthfully answered.

Glad that some are still seeing the truth.

 

[Tommygunn]

I'm not sure why this is so hard. Spent shell casings being heard by witnesses on the 5th floor, which am I no disputing, does not place LHO on the 6th floor at the time of the assassination. In fact, the last eye witness, Carolyn Arnold, places LHO on the 2nd floor at 12:15, where he was next seen by Officer Marion Baker and building superintendant Roy Truly within 90 seconds of the assassination at 12:30 drinking a Coke.
This timeline is one of the most important facts that prove that LHO didn't do it. The Warren Commission wants you to believe that after firing the final shot he cleaned rifle, hid rifle ~ 150 feet away, ran down 4 floors passing 2 people (Adams & Styles) who never saw him, entered 2nd floor lunchroom, purchased a Coke, opened Coke and started drinking it, all the while being calm, cool, and collected when seen by Baker & Truly?
There are absolutely no witnesses that place LHO on the 6th floor or anywhere near it at the time of the assassination.

AGAIN, there ARE witnesses who place Oswald in the 6th floor window at the time of the shooting. To say none is simply to deny factual evidence that is in the historical record of the event.

Please see the earlier posts above mine about Oswald and his preference for Dr. Pepper....and he accidently buys Coke. He did that by mistake -- so was he really as calm & collected as you think?

There's an excellent book that traces the event as it happens inside the depository building. It was written by Jim Moore and the title is Conspiracy of One.
The title is a razz at the conspiracy theorists; Moore demonstrates Oswald had time and opportunity to do everything the Warren Commission stated he did inside the depository building. The time period works, the timing works, everything. Oswald didn't even have to run, he actually had time left over!
Believe in the conspiracy theory if you wish but you are believing things that aren't true and it is blatantly evident you are denying the actual facts as they are .... since you claim "no witnesses" saw him on the 6th floor.....

 

[k-frame]

By coincidence I saw a re-creation last night (on History channel I think) in which a 23-year-old guy was timed as he replicated Oswald's movements and path through the depository. From the time he fires the last shot to the time he appears on the second floor - 43 seconds. And not even walking fast. Plenty of time and that includes hiding the rifle.

 

[Billy Shears]

I see your valid points as I too have read a 'bit' on the subject and was old enough at the time to ask the questions that have never been truthfully answered.

Glad that some are still seeing the truth.

Some people are just impervious to reason. "I know what I know. Don't bother me with facts."

If people are going to read anything about the assassination, I recommend Vincent Bugliosi's books on the matter Four Days in November, and Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy, there is no more thoroughly researched book on the matter than the second of those two.

Another book I recommend, though not specifically about the assassination is
Camelot and the Cultural Revolution: How the Assassination of John F. Kennedy Shattered American Liberalism by James Pierson. But I think the phenomenon the book describes does much to explain the appeal of the conspiracy theories to many people. For anyone interested, here is a review of this book I posted on amazon.com:

This is a book I cannot recommend highly enough. Not only is its central thesis well and convincingly argued - that Kennedy's assassination proved to be the catalyst for a dramatic leftward shift in American liberalism in general, and in the democratic party in particular; that this New Left embraced an often anti-American political philosophy and worldview; and that this philosophy and worldview were actually squarely in opposition to the views of John F. Kennedy, a man this New Left (rather ironically in light of his actual views) came to regard as its martyr. But Mr. Piereson also writes in a clear, concise, highly readable style that makes it difficult to put this book down. Moreover, Piereson's thesis also explains the apparent immortality and widespread acceptance of the conspiracy theories surrounding JFK's assassination.

Fittingly, Piereson begins by explaining what some of Kennedy's actual views, and the actual policies and programs he promoted were, and thus reminds us that Kennedy, far from being a liberal in the current popular use of the term (like his recently deceased youngest brother Edward Kennedy), was actually a moderate with some views that would today be classed as fiscally conservative (and indeed some of his policies were later adopted by conservatives), as well as a truly ardent cold warrior, whose hawkish stance on anti-communism and national defense would also be embraced by conservatives. Also, while JFK was generally liberal in his views on civil rights, support of labor unions, and some other matters, these views were not extreme in him, and his support for some liberal causes, such as desegregation for example, was cautious, since he feared alienating Democrats in the South, and thus imperiling his ability to accomplish things in the areas which really were priorities for him. Given these facts about the man, it's rather ironic that John F. Kennedy was posthumously made into a martyr for the civil rights movement, and a symbol for late 20th century liberalism.

Piereson argues convincingly that Kennedy was recast in this image after his death, by liberals trying to come to terms with his assassination and the way it challenged some of their most deeply held core assumption about the United States and its society. Liberals had long regarded the right as paranoid for its insistence on the danger that communism represented, not just as a foreign threat, but also as a domestic one. The true danger to American society, they had always believed very deeply, was not from communism, but from the right's overreaction to communism. McCarthyism, for example, was regarded as far more dangerous to the American way of life than communism ever was (and to be fair, they were certainly not entirely wrong in this either.) With JFK dead at the hands of a communist, however, suddenly those on the right looked a lot less paranoid and extreme in their views, and liberals were confronted with the uncomfortable possibility that they hadn't judged matters as well as they had thought. This is the seed of the subsequent remaking of JFK into a liberal martyr of the civil rights movement, and victim of the hateful, bigoted elements of American society.

It wasn't that liberals cynically and opportunistically tried to exploit JFK's death in order to advance their agenda (though there may have been some cynical enough to do this - Lyndon Johnson comes to mind), it was merely that JFK's assassination at the hands of a pathetic, maladjusted nobody like Lee Harvey Oswald, who was also an ardent, dyed-in-the-wool Marxist, so completely shook their core assumptions, that deep down, on a fundamental level, many of them just couldn't accept it. If Oswald shot Kennedy, and Oswald was a communist acting from ideological motives, then it followed that communism was the cause behind the assassination, and maybe they hadn't taken this threat seriously enough. No, it just had to be something else. It HAD to be! And then they started looking for what that something else was.

Jackie Kennedy, in the immediate aftermath, was perhaps the first to express this perception of things, saying, upon learning of Oswald's arrest: "He didn't even have the satisfaction of being killed for civil rights. It had to be some silly little communist. It even robs his death of any meaning." She had earlier assumed that it was right wing reactionaries, responding to suggestions that she change out of her bloodstained clothes for the cameras "No, I want them to see what they've done." "They" were the forces of right wing reaction who had opposed desegregation, founded the John Birch Society, and other things. Then, within days, the editorials and commentaries began to appear, casting Kennedy as the victim of a current of rage and hatred in American society. NY Times columnist James Reston weighed in with a piece titled "Why America Weeps: Kennedy Victim of Violent Streak He Sought to Curb in Nation." Two days later, he added an article titled "A Portion of Guilt for All," in which he wrote that there was a "rebellion in the land against law and good faith," and laid the blame for JFK's murder at its feet. Martin Luther King Jr. said that JFK's death had to be seen against a background of violence in the South in reaction to the Civil Rights Movement. Numerous commentaries and eulogies picked up this theme, and before very long, it was accepted wisdom. John F. Kennedy was a victim of a streak of anger, bigotry, hatred, and revanchism that deeply corrupted American society.

But how does one square this interpretation of events with the fact that JFK was apparently killed by a single man whose life story shows with abundant clarity that he was very, very far from representative of American society? Well, really you can't, so it must follow, must it not, that someone or something else was behind all this? Oh Oswald was involved, certainly, the evidence makes that clear. But there must have been someone else. He didn't act alone. In fact, it's not too far a jump from here to making Oswald just a pawn in a greater conspiracy. And that's precisely what happened, and today, a majority of American's believe it.

But this interpretation of JFK's death had another unintended consequence as well, and one that's far darker. If, after all, the nation itself were in some way responsible for Kennedy's murder, then a mood of punishment and chastisement was a more appropriate attitude to take toward that nation than the mood of self-confidence and optimism that had prevailed up to that time. If American values are in fact so deeply corrupted that they led to the slaying of so noble and idealistic a leader, who was trying to make the country a better, freer, more just nation, then does it not make sense to reject those values? Why would one embrace or defend a society that is so polluted and so rotten? And many of the liberals who had had their assumptions so badly shaken asked this very question, and began to drift toward radical, even anti-American views. And since many suspect the CIA, or other elements of the U.S. government itself, of being involved, does it not follow that our country's government is deeply corrupt, and highly untrustworthy? And if this is the case, it might lead you to a whole new view of American policy in general -- a view in which this corrupt, untrustworthy government seldom if ever acts from good or admirable motives (and is this not precisely how the far left today does think of America)? And to this trend Piereson attributes the rise of the New Left, whom he names punitive liberals, many of whom were among those who grieved most deeply for Kennedy, and then went on, in another great irony, to embrace views which were deeply antithetical to those of the slain president himself, but sometimes quite close, ideologically, to those of the man who had murdered him.

This is Piereson's thesis. And he argues for it so persuasively, and with so many detailed notes and references, that I do believe he has produced a remarkable and accurate work of scholarship that elegantly explains both the anti-American current so evident in modern liberalism, as well as the durability of conspiracy theories about JFK's assassination. This is a book that should be in anyone's library.

 

[Skribs]

How many people here remember widespread reports on radio and on television before JFK arrived in Chicago early in November 1963 about an alleged plot to kill him there? His trip was cancelled. Pierre Salinger said that Kennedy had "a cold."

I was born 25 years later, so I am not one of these people

I've come to think of the JFK shooting as something that we will never know the details of, but is interesting for people to speculate in fiction. My favorite was the Red Dwarf bit where they go back in time and prevent the shooting, leading to several scandals JFK was involved in becoming public and the country falling into disarray. They realized that JFK had to die in order for time to go on as it should have, and convince the JFK from a few years later that he has to go back in time and kill himself. Thus, the shooter behind the grassy knoll was JFK.

 

[Billy Shears]

I've come to think of the JFK shooting as something that we will never know the details of, but is interesting for people to speculate in fiction. My favorite was the Red Dwarf bit where they go back in time and prevent the shooting, leading to several scandals JFK was involved in becoming public and the country falling into disarray. They realized that JFK had to die in order for time to go on as it should have, and convince the JFK from a few years later that he has to go back in time and kill himself. Thus, the shooter behind the grassy knoll was JFK.

I read a short story where Kennedy actually survived, but was brain damaged and sequestered in his now childlike state in his family's home in Massachusetts, periodically visited by Jackie and his brother Ted, and the rest of the world thinking he was killed in Dallas.

 

[TJx]

I think the Beatles did it, think about it they became popular right around that time.

Seriously, I did buy the Bugliosi's book, it was literally sitting on the floor with stacks of other books that were being blown out for around $6 at Borders. After reading the reviews that Posner's book, which I've read, basically is a condensed version of it, I have not gotten around to reading it, it is a tome to say the least.
Mark Fuhrman also "solved" the crime by the lone nut in a 300 page book which I have not read nor intend to.

I'll name names:
Masterminds
General Charles A. Willoughby
General Edward Lansdale

One of the shooters:
Lucien Sarti

Someone mentioned the moon. Most people don't know Kennedy approached Khrushchev in the fall of '63 about pooling their resources and going to the moon together. At first Khrushchev was reluctant but about a week before the assassination he told his son Sergei, now a Senior Fellow Brown University, that he was going to move forward working with JFK to go to the moon which of course could have had significant nuclear disarmament implications which elements within the government and military industrial complex could not accept.
There is a famous photograph of LBJ after being sworn in on Air Force One appearing to share a wink with Congressman Albert Thomas who was responsible for funding NASA. It makes that photograph interesting considering the Khrushchev revelation.

Do your own research rather than 1 or 2 books that agree with the WC.

 

[Billy Shears]

Do your own research rather than 1 or 2 books that agree with the WC.

I have done my own research, and I have read more than 1 or 2 books that agree with the Warren Commission. You, on the other hand, do not appear to have done the research, or read the books that disagree with your preconceived notion.

The evidence does not support a conspiracy. All the conspiracy theories rely too much on supposition and conjecture, and almost always ignore key pieces of evidence that contradict their pet theories. Too many people have approached this question from the point of view of assuming a priori that there is a conspiracy, and then looking for (in other words, cherry picking) the evidence that supports it, rather than approaching the question the right way: look at the evidence and then accept only what the evidence supports.

 

[michaelbsc]

I read a short story where Kennedy actually survived, but was brain damaged and sequestered in his now childlike state in his family's home in Massachusetts, periodically visited by Jackie and his brother Ted, and the rest of the world thinking he was killed in Dallas.

This not true. He is actually in South America kept alive in a secret Nazi compound along with Hitler (who would be a hundred and how many now?).

The super intelligent Nazi scientists are working feverishly to combine their genetic materials into an evil mastermind who is personable on TV.

 

[slow944]

I was 12 or 13 the first time I saw Jack Ruby. My sisters and brother and I were walking to school one morning and as we turned the corner at Lemmon Ave. and Oaklawn Ave. where Jack's club was located, the police were hauling him out of the club for threatening a patron with his gun. There was a book out several years ago titled "JFK and Beyond". Very interesting reading. It's probably out of print but if you can find it, get a copy. Kennedy died at Parkland Hospital. Lady that lived next to my grandmother was an ER nurse there and assisted with the attempt to save him.

 

[Sav .250]

If he would have said," it was the Tooth fairy behind that Win 220 Swift,
I`d have jumped on board. Ya, right!