Criteria for plausibility

[Bridewell]

What you are doing is narrowing the evidence for-and-against Oswald in the killing of Tippit (whom the little coward shot several times, paused, and then methodically stood over his prone body and shot him in the head) to a single, demonstrably unreliable witness.

If you or anybody examines all the available evidence you will see that it overwhelmingly favours the official version: Oswald killed Tippit.

Hi Jonathan,

I'll start a thread in the Pub Talk area, as we're moving well away from the subject of this one. (Don't want you to think I'm ignoring the above though).

Regards, Bridewell.

Addition: Thread in 'Pub Talk' : "Did Lee Harvey Oswald Kill Officer J D Tipping?" is up and running.

[Jonathan H]

To Bridewell

What you are doing is narrowing the evidence for-and-against Oswald in the killing of Tippit (whom the little coward shot several times, paused, and then methodically stood over his prone body and shot him in the head) to a single, demonstrably unreliable witness.

If you or anybody examines all the available evidence you will see that it overwhelmingly favours the official version: Oswald killed Tippit.

Not coincidentally, the same suspect pulled a loaded revolver on police in the theatre, minutes later, and tried to off a couple more.

The Oswald-as-martyr myth is a real litmus test for whether you see that not all theories are in equipoise. Some are strong and others are pathetic, to the point of intellectual fraud.

Stone's 'JFK' does not tell you that Oswald arrived at work with an oblong package, that he had changed his routine to unexpectedly go to Ruth Paine's house the night before -- where his rifle was lying under a blanket in her garage -- and that he left his wedding ring in an eggcup and all the money he had for his still sleeping ex-wife who had, also the night before, refused to take him back (understandably since he was abusive).

Leftist Buffs in the mid-60's sent the whole counter-investigation in the wrong direction, hunting as they were for evidence of more gunmen in the shadows. For if you can find another accomplice then maybe Lee Harvey was a 'patsy' as he claimed (though he meant because he had lived in the Soviet Union, not that he was being framed by some vast conspiracy).

That Oswald killed Kennedy without help in Dealey Plaza is not in serious doubt except among those who resist stubborn facts while simultaneously embracing the siren song of fantasists, who commit the buffs to fraud and fakery.

What remains a serious question is did Oswald have help, or 'encouragement' not on the day but before Nov. 22nd?

For Oswald the Communist, who had lived in Russia, who was publicly pro-Castro, who had taken a shot at General Walker (a fact strongly suspected by a dodgy, White Russian businessman who also liaised with the CIA's Domestic Contacts Division), who was seemingly impersonated in Mexico City, was an assassin made to order for certain extreme right-wingers seeking a casus belifor a second and successful 'Bay of Pigs' invasion.

That is the trail which needed to be followed by both officials and amateurs in 1963/4, among the murky, internecine world of the anti-Castro movement, one riddled with Castro's operatives, but it was not taken until -- and only fitfully -- in the late 1970's and by then it was a very cold trail indeed.

Even anti-JFK/conspiracy author Vincent Bugliosi concedes that the Odio Incident is the only tangible evidence for a possible plot; that the anti-Castro Cubans and their groupies had the means, the motive, and the opportunity, what with Oswald dropping into their midst to make it happen.

Yet he dismisses it because of a lack of hard evidence.

That's fair enough, but I believe that the Coleman-Slawson Report pointed to the possibility of a very loose 'plot' by just two wankers who met a third wanker, and fooled and misled and tempted that third oddball, eg. wound him up like a lethal toy and then let him go ...

[Bridewell]

Oswald & Tippit

He killed a police officer after he had killed President Kennedy

A witness, named Acquilla Clemons, saw the two men who murdered Tippit. She described one as “kind of heavy” and the other as “tall and thin" with "light khaki trousers and white shirt".

"Kind of heavy" doesn't fit Oswald. Nor does "white shirt" unless Oswald changed into a brown one prior to his arrest.

If neither of these men was Oswald he didn't kill Tippit. If one of them was Oswald, he had an accomplice - and therefore wasn't a lone assassin.

Certainly none of them was involved in the Whitechapel Murders unless the MO included use of a time machine.

Regards, Bridewell

[Roy Corduroy]

Jonathan, actually I need to read Bugliosi's book again to properly discuss it. And who knows, you could be right. Oswald seems easily led.

Anyhoo, pal, we're off the deep end here. And I gotta bus to catch.

Roy

[Jonathan H]

To Roy

Thanks for at least responding. We will agree to disagree, Old Socialist windbag that I am.

In my defence I would ask that you take another careful look at Vincent Bugilosi about this aspect -- a brilliant book I completely agree -- because he does not include all of the Report's key lines or theories.

Whereas Gerald Posner does not include it at all because, though a terriific writer and 'Case Closed' is superb too, he's still a lawyer-prosecutor arguing a brief against Silvia Odio -- rather than an historian weighing probabilities.

[Roy Corduroy]

Jonathan, your contention that Macnaghten penned as guilty a man of his own class as making the case more persuasive, either stands on its own or not. Based on the history there.

I'm in total disagreement with you about the Coleman Slawson report. In the last sentence of it, the writers said "this is probably only a wild speculation." Which it was. It's thoroughly debunked in Bugliosi.

I thought I had followed your arguments and articles up to now, but you have really taken a "left turn" with the Lee Oswald thing.

Roy

[Jonathan H]

'The Report from Iron Mountain'

To DRoy

Thanks for that.

You see what I mean about wide-eyed buffs like the previous poster who -- no doubt sincerely -- mangle history by perpetuating a mystery where there is none.

They are as reliable as my watch.

Just like with some of the Ripper buffs, though the huge difference is we have Oswald dead to rights with no alibi, and it's his rifle, and his work place, and his chip on his puny shoulder the size of Jupiter (in his lush fantasy life Lee Harvey was a Man-of-Destiny like Hitler and Mao).

Of course it was Oswald, and only Oswald, firing at the motorcade. There is not the slightest hard evidence to suggest anything else.

Oswald was a perpetual loner with a mad mother, a failed suicide, a wife-beater, a restless malcontent in Minsk and Dallas, who had tried to assassinate a right-wing general -- with the same rifle -- a few months before. He killed a police officer after he had killed President Kennedy, and tried to kill more in the movie theatre in which he was ultimately arrested but the cops had the drop on him.

Then he screamed police brutality.

But because Oswald was a leftist -- sort of, more of a cranky Futurist -- leftist buffs tried to get him, posthumously, off the hook in the years following the publication of the flawed Warren Report (flawed because in clearing the Communist world of complicity to avoid a nuclear war, it is wilfully and inevitably ignorant of the CIA-Mafia plots to kill Castro -- as they did not want that perfectly good motive publicized).

Even Garrison did not claim to meet with a mysterious (and cornily named) 'Mr X', as in Stone's movie, who reveals to the DA with all the conviction of an escaped lunatic that Oswald was a fall guy for a massive and monstrous plot -- one which included the highest ranks of the military and intelligence establishment.

'X' was really an advisor to Stone's movie who was shamelessly redacted into Garrison's tale. He was the late ex-Col. L. Fletcher Prouty, who in his well-practised, folksy humbug makes Dr. Tumblety look like a model of honesty and probity.

Prouty was also the worst kind of right-wing swine who denied the Holocaust.

Yet the best part is that the bombshell governmental report he hustled to Stone (and the director hustles to the audience via a beatifully persuasive Donald Sutherland), about how the war-machine must be kept regularly oiled with war profits, was a literary hoax called 'The Report from Iron Mountain' by Leonard Lewin.

An hoax at the centre of a movie with an hoax hero who believes in an hoax conspiracy plot.

You can't make this stuff up.

Which they teach in schools as historically accurate, or if not the whole truth, well, there's no smoke without fire (it's called steam, like what was coming from the Grassy Knoll).

But I myself, who am left-wing too, do subscribe to a conspiracy theory regarding JFK.

That in New Orleans, Oswald fell into the company of two anti-Castro Cubans who convinced him that they really worked for Castro as his deep cover agents. They 'encouraged' Oswald to kill Kennedy as they claimed (falsely) that it would please his hero, Fidel -- and they (code named 'Leopoldo' and 'Angelo') then tried to ensnare a rival anti-Castro group, JURE, one which was too leftist for their tastes, by having Oswald introduced to one of its members: Silivia Odio.

These dangerous adventurers had no further contact with Oswald, which is why the latter had to catch a bus after the assassination.

Incredibly this two or three-man plot worked, but the fanatical anti-Castroites' utlimate objective, to trigger the re-invasion of Cuba because JFK had been killed or at least shot at by a Fidelista, was a failure.

Fanatical anti-Red Edgar Hooveer wanted nothing to do with a political motivation because it could have cost him his job, hence the pivoting of the solution as that of a lone nut when Oswald was seriously political.

This theory comes from the Coleman-Slawson Report of 1964, a controversial and contrary sub-section of the Warren Report which was only allowed to be declassified in 1975, and then mostly ignored because, ironically, the Zapruder film was finally shown on television -- and that was misunderstood as showing a shot from the Knoll.

In terms of historical methodology the Coleman-Slawson Report as a primary source goes right against the expected bias because those two lawyers knew the agenda of the Commission was to find that Oswald was a lone loonie, and so in going against this institutional bias it is arguably, even heroically reliable.

I argue the same is applicable re: Scotland Yard Sleuth Sir Melville Macnaghten, in his choosing as 'Jack the Ripper' a man from his own class, race, and religion -- and a suicide who was inconveniently deceased two years before the 'final' murder -- rather than fixing on a handy foreign wretch.

[Cogidubnus]

Or (hard evidence lacking otherwise) it might just be as it was originally presented...believe as you please (in the end it matters not)...

Good wishes

Dave

[Wickerman]

The Marxist Marine, Lee Harvey Oswald obviously killed JFK acting alone in Dealey Plaza,

As is often the case when an "obvious" solution is proposed it is usually the result of a personal belief.

The "grassy knoll" was just a distraction, nothing of consequence happend there.
Kennedy was certainly shot from above & behind, but not necessarily from the suggested window at the School book-depository.

Whoever did take the shot would have been chaperoned out of Dallas well within the hour. We'll never know his name but someday his bones will turn up in some cement foundation just outside the city.
The 'Family' most certainly covered their tracks with this one.

Lonely misguided Oswald takes the fall, served up on a platter with no-one in his corner, but thats how it was intended to be.

Nothing "obvious", except that obviously things were not what they appeared to be. Much the same can be said of the Ripper investigation, only in this case it is primarily due to lack of official information, not intentional deception.

Regards, Jon S.

[Wade Aznable]

Wade A:

"we have almost no clue about the "people's suspects"

Which is probably just as well, considering what we DO have! I think the main interest in having them presented to us would be a lot more interesting in terms of human deviations than it would be truly useful in the search for the real killer...

All the best,
Fisherman

Which, more or less, is my point (BTW, nice to meet you, Fisherman!): the fact is, in the beginning my interest in JTR was "confined" in the "whodunit" area - but the more I got "acquainted" with the case, the more I found my interest expanding to everything that revolves around Jack, with a particular soft spot for the historical and social aspects.
Now, and even more THEN, "vox populi" not necessarily matches "vox dei": but to know what the "vox populi" said, during those months in '88 and after, would be extremely fascinating, although probably useless in catching the real Jack.

Best regards!
W

[towboydds]

TomTom,
I have always been under the school of thought that a 'Person of Interest Pool' Could only be drawn up by first understand the the Sociology & Psychology of each separate case of the 1-20 murders that have been attributed to one single person. Once that has been done in each and every separate case then it is quite ordinary to look at the Religious overture, and Medical tone, at the same time but do not base the search on history books alone but other written literature at the time as well, because they show a moral sense of how society thought and felt at the time. I have thought that this would be a great place to start to gain a PIP from and then see if any names show up more than once, if any at all. But then again I am a newbie and could be barking at a tree that isn't even there.

[DRoy]

Jonathan H:

I see your point now, although I don't necessarily agree that it was not a mystery, an enigma nor a puzzle at the time for the same reasons you mentioned...that not everyone accepted it was closed. If the top brass says its closed then its closed but it doesn't mean its actually closed. Saying that though doesn't mean I won't accept that it was solved back then...but I'm not convinced yet.

However, I do tend to agree with your argument and all others who put clout in contemporary "evidence" and suspects.

I am still a fan of the quote in all its variances. I've heard it on The Simpsons and a couple of comedy t.v shows as well. Whether appropriate in my post or not...if someone were to ask me to summarize the Jack The Ripper "mystery" and I had eight words or less to answer...that's how I'd answer

By the way, you should write movie reviews...that was awesome!

[Jonathan H]

To DRoy

I'm not sure how we disagree?

I am arguing that Jack the Ripper, in its broad outlines (eg. who Jack was; why he was not arrested) is not a mystery, or an enigma, or a puzzle; eg. not one that was insoluable to the poice at the time.

In the late Victorian and Edwardian eras it was case closed as it was allegedly solved, and publicly declared as such (yes, it was messy because police did not agree, but that does not mean that they automatically cancel each other out).

When we talk of the Ripper mystery as a mystery this is a notion first propagated to great and lasting effect in the 1920's.

'JFK' the demagogic movie illustrates my point.

That hyperbolic scene has David Ferrie uttering lines he never said, making confessions he never made, and being murdered by confederates when he died of natural causes.

Putting its merits as a work of cinema to one side, Oliver Stone's movie is historically worthless as even a loose dramatization of either the Assassination of President Kennedy, or the Garrison 'Inquiry', or the trial of Clay Shaw.

Worse than worthless because it's hysterical, right-wing lies mislead millions to this day (A sincere leftist Stone, I believe, was manipulated by a dying but still potent Garrison, who exploited the frenetic director's personal anguish over the Viet Nam tragedy).

The Marxist Marine, Lee Harvey Oswald obviously killed JFK acting alone in Dealey Plaza, Jim Garrison was obviously an unhinged fraud, and Clay Shaw was obviously a victim of a malicious prosecution (though thankfully speedily acquitted).

But wide-eyed buffs keep the notion of a monolithic, high level conspiracy alive.

[DRoy]

Bridewell & Hunter:

Thank you kindly for the welcome wishes!

Jonathan H:

I think you may be reading too much into my use of the Churchill quote. I did not mean it in it's literal sense, nor did I mean to make light of his meaning when he said it. I could have (and maybe should have) instead quoted Joe Pesci from the movie JFK who said "...It's a mystery wrapped in a riddle inside an enigma". Forgive my ignorant use of the quote...my point being that the same could be said about Jack The Ripper.

As mentioned in my first post, I wouldn't use Occam's Razor as a means to establish who Jack was, but to filter out who he couldn't be.

I am a new student to the case as I've only been involved for a few years but I have purposely not chosen a "favorite suspect". My friends and family cannot fathom how I could spend so much time on this yet not even give an opinion on who it may be. I have however been able to drop people off the suspect list because of Occam's Razor.

Yours truly,
DRoy

[Fisherman]

Wade A:

"we have almost no clue about the "people's suspects"



Which is probably just as well, considering what we DO have! I think the main interest in having them presented to us would be a lot more interesting in terms of human deviations than it would be truly useful in the search for the real killer...

All the best,
Fisherman