Massad Ayoob

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I was at the lecture, taped it completely, and Mas, Gail, my wife and I went to dinner. He was brought into the case by the family of one of the Secret Service agents who had passed away and his widow was distraught that his name would be shreaded.
Mas was able to get ahold of many files, talk to many folks including the emergency room Docs. He showed the exact layout of the vehicle, broke the Zapruder film down, (Most of you all haven't seen the end of the film because it is blanked out) Kennedy did have his head blown apart by the last round. He put together the exact bullets, (3) and showed how easy it is for a left eye dominant person who always fired as a left hander (Oswald) to work a bolt with his right hand. Oswalds mother claimed that her son was innocent because her son fired left handed and this was a right hand weapon.
The first shot was a miss and some of the brass hit a bystander who yelped. Connolly (who was a combat vet and hunter) testified he knew exactly what the sound was.
The second shot went through Kennedy's upper back and tumbled so it hit Conneley's elbow backwards causing Connelly to drop his hat. (Watch the Zapruder film closely and you can see it) This is the bullet found intact and the base of the bullet his impact damage.
The third round is the killer and blows Kennedy's head apart. Kennedy had to have known what was happening but because of Addison's disease he had been strapped int TWO corsets and was literally unable to move. Had Jackie been able to gram him and move him another 2 inches he most likely would have survived the event.
As for the Carcano, I have 3 three of them and all will put 3 shots in a 2 inch group at one hundred meters. That is not a great rifle but it will do the job.

Ayoob moves the time by the Zapruder film from 6.8 to 8.5 seconds. Using that amount of time every one who has tried can make the shoot. The furthest distance, the third shot, was 88 meters.
Try it, your wife, mother, and grandmother can make that shot.

I feel sorry for Kennedy, as a combat vet he knew exactly what was going on but because he was so strapped in he just couldn't move.
Mas doesn't go into who ordered the killing, just that Oswald did it.
 
Got home late last night. We took Mas and Gail to the Stronghold for steaks and it was fun. Emotionally I'm still a JFK person as I was in Berlin 60-62 and I was privy to the private speech he made to the 6th Infantry folks that was piped in McNair on a night it looked as if the Russians are coming. I joined his fraternity in college, and listened and believed in "Bear any Burden".
I've been one who always had a gut feeling that LBJ had something to do with it."
That said, Mas doesn't give an opinion of the who, but he has broken down the how.
His analysis does give some credance to the book written by the Cuban General who defected a few years ago who said the Castro knew that the attempt would take place but they didn't think Oswald could carry it off, but the attempt would shake Kennedy into halting the attempts on Castro.
I agree, Oswald was a looser, but a determined loser and just adept enough to carry it off.
 
Without commentary... http://www.exponent.com/multimedia/ Scroll down to and watch "U.S vs. Lee Harvey Oswald". Comments from those with marksman-level abilities?
Click to expand...
Excellent animation, except they didn't take into account that he was shooting left-handed, sitting, from a rest. They rendered the shooter as standing, and then dropping the rifle to work the bolt (watch it again). AFAIK, Oswald was sitting with the rifle supported by the windowsill, left hand on the trigger, right hand on or near the bolt. He would not have needed to lose the view through the scope while working the bolt, unlike the animation shown, and would not have needed to remove the firing hand from the trigger.
 
You folks realize that the gun used was identified as a Mauser 7.65?
Click to expand...

From the much-maligned Warren Commission Report:

http://books.google.com/books?id=Tp...&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=7&ct=result

[T]he rifle found on the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository Building was initially identified as a Mauser 7.65 rather than a Mannlicher-Carcano 6.5 because a deputy constable who was one of the first to see it thought it looked like a Mauser. He neither handled the weapon nor saw it at close range.
Click to expand...

Considering how often police officers today misidentify SKS's as "AK-47's" and whatnot, it is not surprising that a deputy who saw the gun but did not examine the markings would have assumed it was a Mauser (which were common and familiar) rather than a much more obscure Mannlicher-Carcano. Mausers and Mauser actions were common hunting guns at the time, whereas the Carcano would have been familiar primarily to gun collectors and history buffs. You see the same type of mistakes in half of news stories about shootings today.

The gun recovered from the room was/is definitely a Mannlicher-Carcano, and the bullet recovered from Mr. Kennedy's body was a 6.5mm Carcano.
 
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I don't mean to malign LEO's in any way, but I have a 2 buddies who don't know a Mauser from a Schnauzer. They can write tickets though. :eek:
 
Wow. I just posted because it was a well written article, I knew he was going to be speaking and couldn't make it because of work.

Seeing how this thread has drifted, I'll dial in my Kentucky windage and say only this;

Conspiracy theories remain as theories for one simple reason; they don't prove to be true.

Thank you 3 feathers for your summation; it makes me wish I had called in sick. :)
 
No sweat. I taped the whole talk, perhaps Mas will give us permission to show at the Ft. Huachuca Sportsman's center and we can donate a buck apiece for vets.
 
Mr. Ayoob can speak for himself.

From the sound of the OP, the main point of Mr. Ayoob's lecture was to remove the question of "Did Secret Service Agent So & So shoot President Kennedy?" Mr. Ayoob seems to have dispelled that possibility. It further seems Mr. Ayoob - from his viewing of the tapes and other evidence - thinks Oswald was the 'lone gunman' and did the killing.

I was twelve at the time of the incident. I remember the aftermath. I remember thinking Oswald's death was rather suspicious in terms of timing and possible convenience.

Later in life, when I started studying firearms and shooting, I was impressed with what the remarkably poor choice of rifle, scope and ammunition for a serious assassination. I've always been uneasy with the Warren report findings.

But the bottom line remains; there is no credible evidence to the contrary. Conspiracy theories, no matter how logical or well fit, don't work without evidence. And the idea the CIA (or the Freemasons or the Illuminati or the DAR) hushed it all up, so that explains why the evidence is missing simply doesn't cut it.

But President Kennedy was one unlucky Irishman that day.
 
One of the things that he showed was thet JFK was in a very advanced stage of Addison's disease and was literall being held in the car by two tightly wrapped corsets. There is no doubt in my mind that JFK, like Connelly with their combat experience knew exactly what the first shot was. If you look closely you can see that JFK couldn't move. When the second shot hit JFK in the right upper back, tumbled and hit Connelly base end in the arm you can see Connelly's hat fly out of his hand and Connelly grab it with his left hand.
The sad thing is that yu can see JFK try to move to his left but was restrained by the corsets he was wearing. The the film gets gross, the third shot literally blows the side of JFK's head off. This film is not out of focus as most of us have seen on the history channel but is very clear.
Mas points out that Jackie jumped on the trunk not to grab for an agent but to retrieve a fist sized piece of her husband's brain.
My dear lord, the terror JFK must have gone through knowing he was the target and being unable to move.
 
It's very sobering to watch the stabilized version of the Zapruder film:
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=jfk+stabilized&search_type=&aq=f

I'll warn you that even if you've seen the original "unstabilized" version many times before, it's unsettling to watch this one.

@benEzra
Yeah, dropping the rifle to work the bolt was the first thing that jumped out at me. Seems like a huge waste of time, and contrary to some testimony.

On the other hand, it does seem to me after watching the animation (even with the flaws) that it is *possible*
 
Mas also showed how Oswald worked the bolt with his right hand and the rifle never left his shoulder and the sight never left his eyes. By extending the time to 8.6 seconds, working the rifle with the right hand but having it on his left shoulder made it easy and every one who has tried it that way easilly makes the time. Remember only the 1st shot required a lead and it missed. The second and third shots required only a quarter inch of movement by the muzzle of the rifle.
He also showed that the Carcano rifles came from a number of sources but two factories, Beretta and Turin had professional rifle makers who turned out superior rifles. Oswald had a Turin rifle. In testing it had a sub 2 inch group at 100 meters several times using issue ammo. One shot was 55 or someters the other was 88 meters. Easy shots.
Still, it looks to me as if Kennedy was trying to get to cover but the corsets held him in. Again, that must have been a terribly long 8 seconds for him.
 
It was good to see some common sense applied during the program last night. It clearly shows that several of the shots that conspiracy morons believe just simply were not possible because of the front windshield being in the way. Conspiracy theorists with guns scare me.
 
I am not convinced the official story is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, but I am also not convinced that some of the wilder conspiracy ideas are plausible either.

Most people want to believe that crimes are investigated in a consistent and professional way, and the end result of the investigation is the truth. The real way things mostly happen is the investigators pretty much decide what happened and then search for evidence to support that conclusion.

When they are unable to come up with a good storyline up front, the investigation is a mess.
But the bottom line remains; there is no credible evidence to the contrary.
Click to expand...
That is the bottom line.
 
The truth is, the bullets came from a Mexican/Italian wedding party 2 ½ miles away.
The father of the groom (Mexican) borrowed a war-surplus rifle from the father of the bride (Italian) and fired a few shots. Everyone was drunk. No one remembers it happening.

Don’t ask me how I know……
 
IT's MO deer season. Anybody who can hit a slowly moving target at 200 feet with a low power scope from a tree stand will bag a deer. And 250,000 deer will get shot this year.

It's done all the time by shooters. Get some perspective. Trash talking the messenger is cheap.

The dynamics of the shot isn't the real point, how did Oswald get enough good training to pick the spot and gain entry in an area watched by the Secret Service? Presidential snipers where a known topic when they filmed "Suddenly" in the early '50's. I have a hard time believing Oswald just walked into a Presidental parade area with a long gun and was never spotted.

I've got more to say, but the Secret Service is watching . . .
 
Good point. 250,000 deer will be shot in the head while riding in a car at 25 mph. In fact, nobody has yet demonstrated that they can dupe the shots Oswald was supposed to have made. Yeah, they work the bolt and fire, but they don't HIT.

Also this does NOT mean a huge consipiracy. It's not a binary choice between sole Oswald and a huge consipracy involving the CIA and Cuba. It can be simply 2 or 3 guys. It's not a choice between 1 guy and 1,000 guys.
 
Being in my 20's, I was nowhere near this point in history. But it does interest me. One thing that just hit me while reading this thread is that some have mentioned Kennedy was strapped into 2 corsets and was virtually unable to move. Who suggested this precaution to Kennedy? Or was it insisted upon rather than suggested? A sitting target who is unable to move...Hmmm, does that seem convenient to anyone else?
 
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