The Great Controversy of Our Time--The Kennedy Assassination

[Griffon64]

I read some JFK sites myself, earlier this year ( you go to Wikipedia to check up on ONE little thing and two hours later ... ) and found a few dealing with different theories. One was by somebody who went to a lot of trouble to explain about the wounds. Appearantly the autopsy reports mention a gunshot wound in the neck/upper chest area? Anyway, he did experimenting with the clothes Kennedy wore ( tie, shirt, jacket ) to explain why that wound wasn't as big as it should have been, or something like that ( I'm fuzzy on the details, this was some late-night reading while most of my mind stressed about getting to the US! It was spooky reading for nighttime, too ). That's the kind of approach I tend to respect a little more, where people went to trouble to back their theories with some sort of experimental fiddling.

Anyway, all that in response to vison's remark about gunshot wounds.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I don't think any of us "know" what happened, and I certainly don't expect that we will figure it out. I think that the most that we can do is raise some questions and get each other thinking about some things. That's all that I am hoping for.

I have my doubts about the ability of one bullet having been able to cause so many wounds on two people; the physics of it does not make sense to me. But it is something so outside of my expertise that I can't really go there.

The question of whether Oswald was actually capable of hitting that target from that distance and that rifle is more problematic to me. By all accounts he was NOT an expert marksmen, and the expert marksmen hired by the Warren Commission itself were unable to duplicate his supposed feet. There is also a question as to whether the rifle that he was using was even capable of shooting three shots with the time frame that the video shows the shots were made in. That is perhaps the most compelling evidence in regard to the question of "means".

As for the question of who Oswald was, one interesting item that has come out in recent years as a result of the documents released by the Assassination Records Review Board is that Oswald was actually trained by the CIA to spy on the Soviet Union:



Does that tell us anything useful? Well, I'm not really sure. But it sure raises a red flag for me, particularly since it was covered up for 30 years.

[Jnyusa]

Thanks for posting that, Voronwë.

I was hesitating to say so without public documentation, but that was my understanding ... that Oswald's real job was CIA, and his pattern immediately preceding the assassination (concerning Cuban Americans) has all the earmarks of CIA/FBI operation. But you can't find a 'factual' presentation of the assassination that gives this simple explanation for all his border crossing and simultaneous membership in groups on different sides of an issue.

It doesn't mean that the CIA was behind the assassination. Agents go bonkers; that's a fact. It just seems to me, in retrospect, terribly imprudent to have hidden this affiliation.

What Oswald's personal motivation might have been, I have to agree with Faramond that it would be difficult to unravel. But what his job was, who his employer was at the time, who he was, in other words -- that should not have been concealed, in my opinion.

Has anyone ever speculated that the shots supposedly coming from the grassy knoll were actually aimed at Oswald?

Jn

[JewelSong]

I have speculated that the shot(s) fired from the grassy knoll were actually those of a second, independent assassin. Oswald may not have been the only guy who wanted to shoot JFK and the motorcade in Texas was a perfect opportunity for anyone with the motivation and the means.

I have never seen this theory expounded upon anywhere, but I think it is certainly within the realm of possibility.

I do not think that Oswald was part of any government plot or that there WAS any kind of conspiracy or plot surrounding the assassination. I do think that the government has covered up some of the information discovered after the fact, not due to a plot, but to hide their own inept handling of the case.

JFK's assassination is one of my most vivid childhood memories. I still get completely choked up when I see a tape of Walter Cronkite losing his composure and having to take off his glasses on air. To see a newsman break down in tears - even if only for a short moment - drove home to me, a 9-year-old, how serious and awful the incident was.

[Alatar]

I apologise for the osgiliation, but some of you might be interested in this section from Stephen Sondheim's Assassins. I can't post here, cause of the language filter, but it's a powerful read.

http://libretto.musicals.ru/text.php?te ... language=1

Search for the section starting "November 22, 1963"

[JewelSong]

Great musical...if a bit quirky. It's about the 9 people who have taken shots at various Presidents and John Wilkes Booth and Oswald are central.

It never made it on Broadway, but it really works well in a smaller venue. Worth seeing if you ever get a chance.

[vison]

What shots from the grassy knoll?

[Faramond]

vison: What shots from the grassy knoll?

Right on the mark, that question.

The grassy knoll is part of folklore by now. There is a metaphoric meaning to "grassy knoll" that everyone understands. The phrase is a part of our culture. I think this makes the idea that shots were fired from the "grassy knoll" seem more likely to be true.

What is the evidence that shots were fired from the grassy knoll?

Now, if shots were fired from the knoll, I have a few questions about that:

1. How did Oswald and the grassy knoll man make sure to fire their shots simultaneously? ( This assumes that Oswald fired some shots, of course. )

2. Why choose the grassy knoll? Is this a logical place for a second gunman ( or only gunman ) to assault the motorcade?

[vison]

vison: What shots from the grassy knoll?

Right on the mark, that question.

The grassy knoll is part of folklore by now. There is a metaphoric meaning to "grassy knoll" that everyone understands. The phrase is a part of our culture. I think this makes the idea that shots were fired from the "grassy knoll" seem more likely to be true.

What is the evidence that shots were fired from the grassy knoll?

Now, if shots were fired from the knoll, I have a few questions about that:

1. How did Oswald and the grassy knoll man make sure to fire their shots simultaneously? ( This assumes that Oswald fired some shots, of course. )

2. Why choose the grassy knoll? Is this a logical place for a second gunman ( or only gunman ) to assault the motorcade?

Precisely.
Well put.

[Jnyusa]

The grassy knoll is eupemism for 'from the direction of the grassy knoll,' in other words, from in front of the President's car rather than from behind. If shots came from that direction they more likely came from the highway overpass that the motorcade would have gone under after passing the grassy knoll.

Who says the second shot came from the front? Governor Connolly, his wife, the policeman riding beside their car in the motorcade, and fifty witnesses, plus the doctors who performed the autopsy on Kennedy. There were two shots from different directions according to the autopsy. Oswald's shot from behind went through the President's neck and fragments hit the front windshield. So they've confirmed that one shot came from behind. The identity of Oswald as that shooter is not much debated, I believe. But that shot did not kill Kennedy immediately. A second shot from the front hit Connolly and a third shot from the front then went into Kennedy's head. That was the shot that killed him.

If you read Johnson's conversation with Earl Warren, it was plain that Johnson and others were very afraid that the assassination would be blamed on Cuba and Russia, and that this would lead us into war. Warren was instructed that his commission *must* find that Oswald was the only shooter and acted alone, to prevent mass hysteria and demands for an invasion of Cuba and possibly a war with Russia. So the Warren commission disregarded or concealed a certain amount of evidence in order to get the necessary conclusion. However admirable their motivation might have been, it is one of the main reasons no one has ever believed the official story on this one. The testimony of people who were right there while it was happening was simply contradicted by the Commission's findings.

Jn

eta: corrected for a factual mistake. Mrs. Connolly apparently has never wavered from her story that the first bullet to hit Kennedy did not hit her husband. The second bullet hit her husband and she saw that happen after Kennedy had grabbed his throat and slumped over. The third bullet sprayed Kennedy's brains all over her. She has always claimed that there were three distinct shots with three distinct results, and you know what? I believe her.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

1. How did Oswald and the grassy knoll man make sure to fire their shots simultaneously? ( This assumes that Oswald fired some shots, of course. )

I don't find that particularly difficult to accept. If the plan was to fire when the motorcade stopped at that location--and they knew that the motorcade was going to stop at that location, despite the fact that it made so little sense from a security point of view for it to do so--then it would make perfect sense that they would fire virtually simultaneously. It certainly make more sense then assuming that Oswald fired all the shots himself if in fact it was physically impossible for him to do so (as appears to be the case based on the evidence I have seen).

But as Jn has pointed out, the most compelling evidence is the testimony of those who were right there on the scene.

[vison]

Eyewitness accounts?

Sure.

And for every one that contradicts the "official" version there are how many that agree?

This is the trouble with this stuff.

Every point of view is as valid as the next one.


And, it has never been "proven" that Oswald couldn't have fired all the shots. He did, and they all came from the same place.

[yovargas]

vison, why are you so confident the official story is true?

[Faramond]

The testimony of Gov. Connally that I'm reading right now says:

"The shots came, in my judgment, the two shots I heard came from the same direction, back over my right shoulder, came from behind us. Very clear to me where they came from. I don't think any shots came from any other direction. "

Did someone make this testimony up? Did he later change his testimony? Can we really expect people to know the direction of a shot in any case?

I don't know. But I have yet to see any compelling evidence that any shots came from the front. Still looking.

[vison]

Why do you doubt it? What information do you have, that you know to be true, that contradicts it?

The thing is, all this stuff is problematical, yovargas. I have read or heard or seen about 45,000,000 different ideas about the JFK assassination and after a while they all sound the same.

Nothing in the "official version" is either impossible or even improbable. It covers the known events. It is not perfect. There are inexplicable occurences: so what?

Every few years the approach changes: once it was a cabal of wealthy Texans whose wives really hated Jackie or something. Then it was the CIA because . . . . hm. Was it because JFK was too tough on Cuba or not tough enough? Or it was a gangland hit and Jack Ruby was a hitman and he took out the hitman who hit JFK. It was the Russians, at one point, and then the Cubans at another, then a conglomeration of them both.

I dunno. The thing is, Oswald was a weirdo. Everyone who knew him said he was strange. Even his own Mum. Was he a nutcase? Probably. Was he a CIA agent? Who knows? An official government document says he was? I remember seeing memos showing that G. W. Bush was a malingering twerp: he was, but the memos were faked.

I could be wrong. I don't doubt that I could be wrong. I do not sully my eyeballs too much with reading alternative views, and I am proud to say I never saw the Oliver Stone documentary.

But I'm very likely right.

[yovargas]

Why do you doubt it? What information do you have, that you know to be true, that contradicts it?

Knowing next to nothing about any of this, I don't believe or doubt anything at this point. What I do know is that sometimes people lie for their own benefit. And this seems like an easy thing for the official storytellers to lie about. So, you know, I don't doubt 'em, but I don't automatically believe them either.

[Holbytla]

I have read quite a bit on this subject, and viewed many tv specials.
I have waffled between knowing there was a conspiracy and knowing Oswald acted alone.

Sometimes we can get bogged down with the terminology.
To wit;

conspire



Main Entry: con·spire
Pronunciation: k&n-'spI(-&)r
Function: verb
Inflected Form(s): con·spired; con·spir·ing
Etymology: Middle English, from Anglo-French conspirer, from Latin conspirare to be in harmony, conspire, from com- + spirare to breathe
transitive verb : PLOT, CONTRIVE
intransitive verb
1 a : to join in a secret agreement to do an unlawful or wrongful act or an act which becomes unlawful as a result of the secret agreement <accused of conspiring to overthrow the government> b : SCHEME
2 : to act in harmony toward a common end <circumstances conspired to defeat his efforts>

All it takes is for two people to act in accordance to make a conpiracy.
It doesn't take an entire government.

Unfortunately as Jny pointed out, mention the word conspiracy and loads of loons and parasites come crawling out of the woodwork to feast.
That is a sure fire way of murking the waters of what is real and what is not.

To answer vison's questions...

Why do you doubt it? What information do you have, that you know to be true, that contradicts it?

I posess no contradictory facts, yet I find that the facts themselves raise questions that to my mind have never been satisfactorally answered.
This in no way proves a conspiracy but it does lend credence to one.
Why the changing of stories like the medical examiner and surgeon?



This bullet was found on Kennedy's stretcher. It looks nearly pristine. How did it cause so much damage or is this the shot that missed?



This is a fragment found in the limo. Isn't much left after it struck whatever person/persons.

If the first pic is the shot that missed, how did it end up on the stretcher?

This stuff goes on and on and I won't bother repeating it all here.
My point is, is that the evidence and facts raise too many further questions. Things just don't seem to add up.
No that does not mean it is a conspiracy, but there are questions and subsequent questionable acts; i.e. Jack Ruby.

People know a heck of a lot more out there than what the common person knows, and in that sense there is at least a cover up of all the facts. In my opinion of course.

[vison]

And why would they lie? Unless it was a conspiracy, of course.

I'm not so sure there was such war fever, either. Had it been shown that JFK was killed by the Russians or the Cubans, I don't think it would have led to a mass hysteria or a popular outcry for war: people were tremendously scared of atomic war, I can tell you that. After the Cuban Missile crisis, everyone except maybe the hawkiest of hawks would have gone to almost any lengths to avoid it. Things came so close! Thank god Khruschev backed down. Smart guy.

Would the murder of the president have led the American people to demand War? I doubt it. Everyone knew would that would lead to.

I remember thinking it would be war, at the moment we heard of the shooting, and while it is true I'm a Canadian and not an American, I can tell you that as far as I was concerned the Russians could have murdered every politician in North America before I would have thought it necessary to go to war with them. Had bombs been on their way? Well, they weren't. And if they had been? They would have landed and blown up whatever they were aimed at. And there would have, of course, been retaliation. But as for STARTING a war over JFK's death? No way.

Hindsight reveals much, but not necessarily what really happened.

It isn't that I want to believe the official story, it's that it always made sense and still does. Everything else involves finagling.

eta: in 1963 the Second World War was not yet 20 years into the past. JFK was a veteran, and so were many other men of his day. I remember reading at the time he was elected: "He's so young!" Well, he was older than my Dad, so I didn't think he was so young!

The War was fresh in people's minds, more so than the Vietnam War is now. The Cold War was at its height, I guess. The terror of The Bomb was far more important to ordinary people than ending Communism or hating The Reds. There were people who devoted their lives to hating The Reds, but the rest of us just wanted there NOT to be an atomic war.

[Holbytla]

It isn't that I want to believe the official story, it's that it always made sense and still does. Everything else involves finagling.

I can't agree with that.
I don't think there is a massive conspiracy, but I do believe the facts were covered up.

[vison]

Some facts may very well have been covered up, but that doesn't mean what I think happened didn't happen, is what I'm saying.