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JFK Assassination Documents to be released this year
It’s so wide ranging isn’t it? So many people would have had to have been willing to go along with it and to keep their mouths closed. And as you’ve said would they have involved a guy whose actions before and after they apparently had no control over and who couldn’t have acted in a more guilty manner if he’d tried. Dodgy packages, inexplicable behaviour and obvious lies before and after the event. And all involving an event of such earth shattering importance. I’m always concerned when we have to factor in stupidity to explain a theory.
Covered Already
'It doesn't matter how beautiful your theory is. It doesn't matter how smart you are . If it doesn't agree with experiment, its wrong'' . Richard Feynman
You have raised the definitive question which can be answered using the laws of physics. When a bullet strikes a hard object such as a skull it makes a small entry wound and a larger exit wound. How large the exit wound is depends on the type of ammo being used. Military rounds have a lead core with a full metal jacket designed to pass through flesh, but they with mushroom if they strike bone. Like land mines, they are designed to wound rather than kill, as the result is one screaming victim and two or three others to carry him from the field of battle rather than a reduction of only one dead soldier. The other type is a hollow point which will fragment after hitting bone and produce a very large exit hole. The X-Rays on Kennedy's skull showed fragments below the surface at the right side temple. When a bullet blasts a skull, the debris of bone fragments, blood and brain matter go in the direction of the bullet's path. The debris for the first head shot hit the 2 motorcycle escorts on the left of the presidential vehicle, and the left side to the vehicle behind as well as Clint Hill. There was a skull fragment found about 50' away in that direction. But there was a second shot from the rear a fraction of a second later which deposited skull debris inside the windscreen.
Since you are interested in the physics rather than just the conjecture, I would suggest you might take a look at these two videos (endeavour to persevere, as there are some boring bits):
Herlock, I think Oswald was involved but doubt his role was trigger man. Can you explain how he got from the sniper's nest to the canteen in 90 seconds. The lifts were out due to the black out and two women who were on the stairs at the time testified that no one ran past them. I await your deliberations.
Cheers, George
Great post George , Some people need to get their heads out of the old Warren Commission nonsense and start getting up to speed with new information and technologies that proves it was a all a load a bullocks , hell even the people who wrote it where not happy with its conclusion.
They can thank LBJ for that, as per his instructions to make the'' Lone Gunman'' theory outcome believable at all cost .
When some finally pluck up the cougage to watch 'The Innocents of Lee Harvey Oswald'' and the Doco link you provided, we just might be spared any more of the 54 points of why would he do this and why didnt he do that narritive.
'It doesn't matter how beautiful your theory is. It doesn't matter how smart you are . If it doesn't agree with experiment, its wrong'' . Richard Feynman
You mean…….glossed over or ignored already Fishy. People are quite happy to quibble over the shape of the bullet (which wasn’t pristine btw) or angles or whether this or that witness is more reliable but the bigger question tends to fall on deaf ears. How likely was this particular ‘conspiracy?’ People are quite happy to involve multi-agencies with untold resources at their fingertips but are unwilling to question the unmitigated incompetence of this alleged plot. The apparent lack of care that their assassin might talk or that people might actually investigate the case and discover that this guy was a CIA operative who was a useless shot or that the rifle he used didn’t work properly or that he was the kind of moron who would leave the wrong kind of rifle lying around. It’s like suggesting that the Royal Family get their alcohol supply from the cheap aisles at Bargain Booze and that Camilla shoplifts fish fingers and burgers and people not giving it a second thought.
There are two sides to the debate Fishy. Conspiracy or Oswald Alone. Certainly more people tend toward conspiracy but many don’t. Although I’m extremely wary of conspiracy theories in general we have to accept of course that they do occur. People lie. Governments lie. It’s just a fact. But we shouldn’t assume that people/governments always lie and on every issue. There are many intelligent, very well informed people interested in this case who know far more than we do and they certainly don’t always agree. The amount of downright crazy theories on this case should at least give pause for thought. I could certainly be wrong and a conspiracy might have occurred to some extent but it might not have. There is a case on both sides.
I once read somewhere that people interested in the case buy and read book after book and yet not so many have read Bugliosi? Now, if you’re interested in a subject and someone brings out a 1600 page book that took 20 years write by one of the USA’s most respected Prosecutors you would think that it would have been a must have. I have to ask why that isn’t always the case? Is it because those who strongly favour a conspiracy just don’t want to hear any argument that doesn’t agree with their conclusions?
Regards
Sir Herlock Sholmes.
“A house of delusions is cheap to build but draughty to live in.”
You mean…….glossed over or ignored already Fishy. People are quite happy to quibble over the shape of the bullet (which wasn’t pristine btw) or angles or whether this or that witness is more reliable but the bigger question tends to fall on deaf ears. How likely was this particular ‘conspiracy?’ People are quite happy to involve multi-agencies with untold resources at their fingertips but are unwilling to question the unmitigated incompetence of this alleged plot. The apparent lack of care that their assassin might talk or that people might actually investigate the case and discover that this guy was a CIA operative who was a useless shot or that the rifle he used didn’t work properly or that he was the kind of moron who would leave the wrong kind of rifle lying around. It’s like suggesting that the Royal Family get their alcohol supply from the cheap aisles at Bargain Booze and that Camilla shoplifts fish fingers and burgers and people not giving it a second thought.
There are two sides to the debate Fishy. Conspiracy or Oswald Alone. Certainly more people tend toward conspiracy but many don’t. Although I’m extremely wary of conspiracy theories in general we have to accept of course that they do occur. People lie. Governments lie. It’s just a fact. But we shouldn’t assume that people/governments always lie and on every issue. There are many intelligent, very well informed people interested in this case who know far more than we do and they certainly don’t always agree. The amount of downright crazy theories on this case should at least give pause for thought. I could certainly be wrong and a conspiracy might have occurred to some extent but it might not have. There is a case on both sides.
I once read somewhere that people interested in the case buy and read book after book and yet not so many have read Bugliosi? Now, if you’re interested in a subject and someone brings out a 1600 page book that took 20 years write by one of the USA’s most respected Prosecutors you would think that it would have been a must have. I have to ask why that isn’t always the case? Is it because those who strongly favour a conspiracy just don’t want to hear any argument that doesn’t agree with their conclusions?
Hmmm ok Herlock whatever ,i just dont think you looked at it from the other side with an open mind. So be it
'It doesn't matter how beautiful your theory is. It doesn't matter how smart you are . If it doesn't agree with experiment, its wrong'' . Richard Feynman
You're missing the whole point. The aim was to establish him as a lone nut killer (a patsy) before disposing of him.
You are engaging in "If, But and Maybe" speculation. The witness evidence, medical evidence, crime scene forensic evidence, ballistic evidence and scientific evidence for more than one shooter is overwhelming (to use one of your favourite superlatives ).
More than one shooter = conspiracy!
And my point would be how anyone could have established Oswald as a lone nut killer, when they had no control over his movements on the day, either before or after the event. There were a hundred ways in which he could have been in the wrong place at the wrong time to have taken a pot shot at anyone, never mind at JFK as he was driven into view. Even if he was briefed beforehand, not realising he was being set up as a fall guy, to be exposed and disposed of as soon as the deed was done, he could have got cold feet or gone sick or even been stuck on the lavatory at the precise point when JFK was shot dead by someone else's gun. Oswald's full unwitting co-operation and attention during those vital [lethal] few seconds would have been absolutely essential for the whole plot not to go tits up. Hindsight is indeed a wonderful thing, and conspiracy theorists don't stop to consider that this only works in their own minds because Oswald made all the moves he would have made if acting alone and not at anyone else's bidding. The chances of this coming off if his strings had needed to be pulled every step of the way by one or more puppet masters have to be pretty much zero.
Just for the record I’m not completely deaf to the suggestion that Oswald ‘might’ have had some kind of partner-in-crime, a fellow disaffected oddball and that they decided to kill the President and that they’d shoot from different spots to increase the chances of success. Maybe the other guy wasn’t too bright and chose the poor location of the Knoll? So I might have considered Thompson’s updated book if it wasn’t so expensive.
But a conspiracy involving various agencies and a cover up….no.
Yep, I could go for that as an outside possibility, Herlock, but how likely would it have been for two none-too-bright gunmen, shooting from completely different locations, to hit the one moving target in such quick succession that it coincidentally gave the impression of one man's work?
Love,
Caz
X
"Comedy is simply a funny way of being serious." Peter Ustinov
Yep, I could go for that as an outside possibility, Herlock, but how likely would it have been for two none-too-bright gunmen, shooting from completely different locations, to hit the one moving target in such quick succession that it coincidentally gave the impression of one man's work?
Love,
Caz
X
Not very, I’d say Caz.
Regards
Sir Herlock Sholmes.
“A house of delusions is cheap to build but draughty to live in.”
Hmmm ok Herlock whatever ,i just dont think you looked at it from the other side with an open mind. So be it
I still have around 45 books on the assassination. I believe that only 2 of them go for Oswald alone (Posner and Bugliosi) For the 2 or 3 years that I was really interested in the case I was convinced that there was a conspiracy. I re-evaluated after reading Posner (yes I know that his book has been heavily criticised - and rightly so, even Bugliosi criticises him) I then began to think about how likely was this magnitude of conspiracy. How likely was it that anyone would have involved Oswald in their plans? Why was the plan so poor? Why use a poor spot like the Grassy Knoll? Why no escape plan for Oswald? Why didn’t they just use one or two anonymous, highly trained snipers/assassins? This and other things led me to doubt conspiracy. Then as I continued to read the increasingly bizarre claims I came to feel that there was a whole, obsessive conspiracy bandwagon going on where every singly point is disagreed with. So it’s just my opinion that a disaffected guy like Oswald decided to kill the President and was resigned to not getting away with it. When he raised fist sign it appeared to show that he was proud of what he’d done. Many assassins believe they are doing something that would make them a hero.
Regards
Sir Herlock Sholmes.
“A house of delusions is cheap to build but draughty to live in.”
Even if he was briefed beforehand, not realising he was being set up as a fall guy, to be exposed and disposed of as soon as the deed was done, he could have got cold feet or gone sick or even been stuck on the lavatory at the precise point when JFK was shot dead by someone else's gun.
Or he could even have been in the lunchroom downstairs.....oh, wait. The setup of Oswald took place long before the actual shooting. It comes down to a choice between speculation, conjecture and supposition vs eyewitness testimony, medical evidence and scientific analysis.
This choice is even more glaring in the assassination of RFK. Everyone knows the killer was Sirhan Sirhan (right???), who was standing in front and to the left of RFK at a distance of 3-6 feet. When the autopsy was done, observed by many pathologists, it was determined that the fatal shot was from the rear, just behind the right ear and in a steeply upward direction. The range...1-3 inches, not feet, inches. An eyewitness saw the security guard, who was behind RFK in this exact position, draw his pistol and fire. But hey, we knew these pesky conspiracy theorists would try to introduce medical and eyewitness evidence to discredit our scientifically impossible story, so we'll just confiscate all photographic evidence, remove any forensic evidence and ignore any witnesses. The people will believe any old story that we tell them to believe using the "why would" speculation model. After all, who cares about scientific analysis. Curious that the defence councillor didn't even mention the autopsy result at the trial.
The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one.
Disagreeing doesn't have to be disagreeable - Jeff Hamm
The majority of those who are arsed to give an opinion may be conspiracy theorists of one flavour or another, but that might have more to do with our weird human condition, and what makes some speak out while others stare at them slack-jawed.
In a similar way, the majority of the world's population may appear to believe in a God of one sort or another, but evidence plays no part in faith, and it may be another case of atheists and agnostics not having the same need to stand up and be counted.
If there had been just the one conspiracy theory surrounding the shooting of JFK, identical down to the finest details, and one either believed or disbelieved it, the percentages involved - if we had a way of asking everyone with a view - might have told a different story. But lumping in every theory from 'worth considering' to 'barking', and calling it a majority belief that there was a conspiracy in this case, gives way too much credit to the believers as a whole.
You have raised the definitive question which can be answered using the laws of physics. When a bullet strikes a hard object such as a skull it makes a small entry wound and a larger exit wound. How large the exit wound is depends on the type of ammo being used. Military rounds have a lead core with a full metal jacket designed to pass through flesh, but they with mushroom if they strike bone. Like land mines, they are designed to wound rather than kill, as the result is one screaming victim and two or three others to carry him from the field of battle rather than a reduction of only one dead soldier. The other type is a hollow point which will fragment after hitting bone and produce a very large exit hole. The X-Rays on Kennedy's skull showed fragments below the surface at the right side temple. When a bullet blasts a skull, the debris of bone fragments, blood and brain matter go in the direction of the bullet's path. The debris for the first head shot hit the 2 motorcycle escorts on the left of the presidential vehicle, and the left side to the vehicle behind as well as Clint Hill. There was a skull fragment found about 50' away in that direction. But there was a second shot from the rear a fraction of a second later which deposited skull debris inside the windscreen.
Since you are interested in the physics rather than just the conjecture, I would suggest you might take a look at these two videos (endeavour to persevere, as there are some boring bits):
The assassination of President John F. Kennedy remains the greatest American murder mystery, decades after the official report declared Lee Harvey Oswald as ...
In 1975, Robert Groden brought Abraham Zapruder’s home movie of President Kennedy’s assassination to a national audience for an inaugural viewing on a telev...
Herlock, I think Oswald was involved but doubt his role was trigger man. Can you explain how he got from the sniper's nest to the canteen in 90 seconds. The lifts were out due to the black out and two women who were on the stairs at the time testified that no one ran past them. I await your deliberations.
Cheers, George
hi george
thanks for posting those links unfortunately i cant open them as it asks me to sign in, which i cant do.
but it seems to me there is no evidence for two head shots. the zapruder film clearly shows him being struck only twice. tje first through the neck, where you can see him hunch forward and grab his neck and then the head shot.
The majority of those who are arsed to give an opinion may be conspiracy theorists of one flavour or another, but that might have more to do with our weird human condition, and what makes some speak out while others stare at them slack-jawed.
In a similar way, the majority of the world's population may appear to believe in a God of one sort or another, but evidence plays no part in faith, and it may be another case of atheists and agnostics not having the same need to stand up and be counted.
If there had been just the one conspiracy theory surrounding the shooting of JFK, identical down to the finest details, and one either believed or disbelieved it, the numbers involved - if we had a way of asking everyone with a view - might tell a different story. But lumping in every theory from 'worth considering' to 'barking', and calling it a majority belief that there was a conspiracy in this case, gives way too much credit to the believers as a whole.
IMHO of course.
Love,
Caz
X
Yes, it’s often (although not always I hasten to add) appears to be the case that people who believe in one conspiracy tend toward believing in many or all. We’ve heard so many theories that I find it impossible to understand why people are less than suspicious about the various claims. How many men have admitted to being the ‘real’ assassin? How many groups have been named as being involved? We have Bonar Menninger claiming that a secret service agent in the car shot Kennedy by mistake. We’ve had people claiming that the driver of Kennedy’s car turned around and shot him. We’ve had David Lifton writing a dense tome claiming that Kennedy’s wounds were altered aboard Airforce One. It becomes a struggle to find people that have never been accused.
I was only 2 at the time so I’m in the clear….so far.
Regards
Sir Herlock Sholmes.
“A house of delusions is cheap to build but draughty to live in.”
Sorry George, this just isn't true. Or at least not completely true. Debris will go in all directions, not just in the direction of the bullet's travel.
Watch this short video of a watermelon being hit by a bullet and tell me that debris only goes one way https://youtu.be/o1aKtshb6D8
hi jr
yes there will be splatter everywhere, but the head jerks back as does the largest part of his skull. i know tjere have been reconstructions, explanations etc that show its possible for his head to jerk back from a hit from behind but i find it hard to beleive in this case.
from personal experience, and from talking to numerous people and experts(my father, brother and I have all been in Dod/ intel) 99 times out of a hundred your body/ part will move in the direction of the bullet. ie jfks head would have jerked forward if hit from behind by a bullet. my brother who is expert firearms, former military and avid hunter said being hit by a bullet is basically like being punched hard in terms of force and direction and in jfks case it looks like a classic head shot from the front. if the shot came from behind it would been as if someone punched him in tje back of the head from behind, which should have propelled his head forward.
and to add the hit from behind neck shot propels him forward. the head shot from behind should have done the same thing only more dramatically. yet we get the opposite. it really is the main reason to suspect a possible second shooter from the GK/rrb area from everyone ive talked to about it.
Herlock, I think Oswald was involved but doubt his role was trigger man. Can you explain how he got from the sniper's nest to the canteen in 90 seconds. The lifts were out due to the black out and two women who were on the stairs at the time testified that no one ran past them. I await your deliberations.
Cheers, George
George,
It wasn’t that the lift was broken it was the case that no one had closed the door, as Oswald requested Givens to do, so that the lift could be called back up. So basically, with the door left open no one on the upper floor could summon the lift.
Officer Baker, who was a motorcycle officer in the motorcade, thought that the shots came from the roof of the TSBD. He went up the stairs with Truly and as he got to the second floor landing he saw Oswald walking away from him toward the second floor lunchroom. By the time that he reached him Oswald was inside the lunchroom. Truly backed up Baker when he said that Oswald had nothing in his hands.
The WC did 2 reconstructions from Baker’s location at the time of the first shot to when he encountered Oswald. The first was 90 seconds, the second was 75 seconds. Just after the assassination a reconstruction was done with a Secret Service agent taking Oswald’s part. They did it twice. Normal walking pace was 78 seconds, a fast walk took 74 seconds. The HSCA did the same kind of thing and got 46 seconds (this seems short but they can hardly be accused of being lone gunman apologist as they concluded that a second gunman was likely)
The WC said that at Baker’s fastest time (75 seconds) he would have reached the lunchroom 3 seconds before Oswald going at normal pace (78 seconds) but that no allowance had been made for the circumstances (a possible delayed reaction, time to park his bike, and surveying the Elm Street area - which Baker said that he’d done) Baker himself admitted that it would probably have taken him a bit longer than the in the reconstructions. It’s also reasonable to assume that Oswald walked a little quicker due to the circumstances. So he would have had ample time.
Then there’s the question of Oswald not being out of breath, as both Baker and Truly said that he didn’t appear to be. When Bugliosi asked Baker at the London trial if he himself was out of breath in the reconstruction (going upstairs remember) he said that he wasn’t. And clearly it’s less strenuous going downstairs than it is to go upstairs. Roy Truly said later “ He (Oswald) didn’t have to hurry. He just walked down from the stairway from the sixth to the second floor.” It’s also worth pointing out that immediately after striking the police officer in the movie theatre both officers said that Oswald appeared calm and cool.
I’d suggest that the two women were simply out on their timings. From other threads we both know how this can happen. Also, I’m slightly wary that one woman didn’t come forward until years later saying that she’d been too scared to come forward (despite the fact that conspiracy talk was rife even in the sixties and witnesses have come forward ever since.)
….
A final personal point is that I’d at least put a question against Bakers time. He heard the first shot surely he’d have delayed slightly just to get a grip on what was actually going on? He then has to pull over and park his motorcycle. He then did a bit of a recce of Elm Street. He then goes inside past the crowd standing around outside and those leaving the building. He bumps into and talks (briefly) to Roy Truly. He’d have checked the first floor then he went upstairs and saw Oswald…. 75 to 90 seconds. Possibly but there has to be at least a reasonable chance that it was slightly longer. As we know, gaps of time can be difficult to judge retrospectively.
Id ask a question - as the lift door was open and so couldn’t have been called up by Oswald, is it a possibility that someone had seen the open door and closed it and Oswald did call the lift up and came down in it but he himself left the door open? I don’t know if this point has been dealt with or not?
Regards
Sir Herlock Sholmes.
“A house of delusions is cheap to build but draughty to live in.”
I still have around 45 books on the assassination. I believe that only 2 of them go for Oswald alone (Posner and Bugliosi) For the 2 or 3 years that I was really interested in the case I was convinced that there was a conspiracy. I re-evaluated after reading Posner (yes I know that his book has been heavily criticised - and rightly so, even Bugliosi criticises him) I then began to think about how likely was this magnitude of conspiracy. How likely was it that anyone would have involved Oswald in their plans? Why was the plan so poor? Why use a poor spot like the Grassy Knoll? Why no escape plan for Oswald? Why didn’t they just use one or two anonymous, highly trained snipers/assassins? This and other things led me to doubt conspiracy. Then as I continued to read the increasingly bizarre claims I came to feel that there was a whole, obsessive conspiracy bandwagon going on where every singly point is disagreed with. So it’s just my opinion that a disaffected guy like Oswald decided to kill the President and was resigned to not getting away with it. When he raised fist sign it appeared to show that he was proud of what he’d done. Many assassins believe they are doing something that would make them a hero.
.
Herlock, time to re-evaluate again. The with-held records are currently being released. Don't think about likelihoods, examine the forensic evidence, the HD scans, the acoustic experiments. How can the plan be so poor when it succeeded? Sixty years later and still no one knows who did it. The grassy knoll was only one firing position. How can it be poor? The shooter succeeded and he remains anonymous to this day. Connolly stated that they were caught in a hail of bullets. Some years later a cartridge case was found on the roof of the records building when repairs were in progress. JFK was in a crossfire from at least three postitons.
In the murders of JFK MLK, RFK and John Lennon there were patsies who afterwards had no memory whatsoever of their involvement. You may not be old enough to remember the mind control experiments conducted by the CIA in the 50's, code named MK Ultra. The movies The Manchurian Candidate (1962) and Telefon were based on these type of experiments. Think about who had the most to loose if the Kennedys and MLK were allowed to continue. People who were in power and wanted to keep it that way. There will always be nut case theories, shooters in sewers or agents in support cars, but they don't bear scrutiny. Look at the carefully constructed scientifically valid theories of Thompson, Groden and Wecht rather than the speculative "What if, Why didn't" arguments.
Cheers, George
P.S. Just read your simultaneous post. My recollection is that there was a power outage in the building, but I'm not absolutely certain on this point.
It’s also worth pointing out that immediately after striking the police officer in the movie theatre both officers said that Oswald appeared calm and cool.
He had his arms up shouting "I am not resisting arrest". I would say he was expecting to be shot at that point.
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