JFK Assassination Documents to be released this year

[Herlock Sholmes]

It’s seems that no matter how much evidence is provided conspiracy theorists still want to quote Roger Craig. Let’s look at 3 of the pieces of nonsense that he’s most known for.


The Rambler


In a November 22nd affidavit he claimed that a full 15 minutes after the assassination he saw Oswald run down the Grassy Knoll and get into a Rambler station wagon driven by a dark complexioned man. Could this have actually happened? Actually yes it could. Marvin Robinson and Roy Cooper both saw the same incident which certainly adds weight to the story. In addition Craig later claimed that he entered Captain Will Fritz office while he was interviewing Oswald and he heard Fritz say: “what about the car?” To which Oswald supposedly replied: “That station wagon belongs to Mrs. Paine. Don’t try to drag her into this.” Conspiracy theorists eyes must have lit up when they heard this because they are forever trying to find ways of maligning Ruth Paine.


Truth.


Captain Fritz said that Craig was never in his office during the interview. Conspiracy theorists tried desperately to disprove this by showing Craig seen through a frosted glass window but it was the wrong room.

Robinson and Cooper were interviewed the next day when everyone in America knew what Oswald looked like and they didn’t ID him as the man that they’d seen.

Ruth Paine did own a station wagon but it was a different type (a Chevrolet, license number NK 4041)

At the time of Craig’s sighting (12.45) Oswald was on a Dallas bus. They found the ticket with the drivers individual mark on it (Cecil McWatters) and he was seen on the bus by his former landlady Mary Bledsoe.


The non-existent Mauser.


We have Officers Weitzman and Boone, DA Wade and Craig saying that the rifle found was a Mauser and Craid said that when Fritz held it up he saw the inscription ‘7.65 Mauser.’


Truth


Weitzman actually said that it looked like a Mauser: “at a glance.”

Boone said: “it appeared to be a Mauser.”

Wade said: “ It’s a Mauser, I believe.” But he was never on the 6th floor and so was just repeating what he’d heard.

Craig didn’t mention this inscription at any of his early interviews or in front of the Warren Commission. It’s yet another ‘late addition.’ No one else saw it either.

The rifle was photographed by Tom Alyea, Officer Studebaker and numerous newspaper photographers. The HSCA photographic experts checked all of the photographs plus the backyard photos plus an up-to-date photograph of the Mannlicher Carcano from the National Archive and unanimously concluded that they were all the same rifle.

During the Garrison fiasco the LA Free Press interviewed Craig along with Penn Jones (the looney who claimed that loads of deaths involving people connected to the assassination were all ‘mysterious)


FP: Did you handle that rifle [the Mannlicher Carcano]?

Craig: Yes I did. I couldn’t give its name because I don’t know foreign rifles, I know it was foreign made, and you loaded it downward into a built-in clip. The ID man took it and ejected one live round from it. The scope was facing north, the bolt facing upwards and the trigger south. But there was another rifle, a Mauser, found up on the roof of the depository that afternoon.

Free Press: a Mauser on the roof. Who found it?

Penn Jones: I don’t know who found it, but I do know that a police officer verified its existence. No one had then or had ever done so since.


There was no Mauser found in the TSBD. And certainly not on the roof as Mr Craig claimed!



The time of Tippit’s death.


Hans Christian Craig said that just as the rifle was discovered an officer entered the 6th floor to tell Fritz that a Police Officer had been shot. Craig said that he looked at his watch and it was 1.06. The WC concluded that Tippit was killed at 1.15 so clearly Craig’s time is an issue. So was Craig correct?

Of course he wasn’t….come on….it’s Craig we’re talking about.


Truth.


The rifle was discovered at 1.22. Confirmed by Weitzman and Boone. Weitzman couldn’t be exact with his time but Boone could because he looked at his watch.

We also know that the first reports of Tippit’s death on Police radio was 1.16-1.17. Ten minutes after Craig said.

What did Craig say about this before 1971? Let’s look at the Free Press interview again.


Craig: Tippit went to Oak Cliff, and subsequently was killed. Why he went to Oak Cliff I can’t tell you; I can only make an observation. He was going to meet somebody.

FP: Do you know what time he was killed?

Craig: It was about 1.40 -

Penn Jones: No it was a little before 1.15.

Craig: Was it?

Penn Jones: Yes, Bill Alexander -

Craig: Oh, that’s right. The broadcast was put out shortly after 1.15 on Tippit’s killer, and it had not yet been put out yet on Oswald as the assassin of President Kennedy.




So first he though 1.40 then agreed with the correction to 1.15 then in 1971 he moved it back to the more sinister 1.06 and don’t the conspiracy theorists just love old Roger for it.


Roger Craig simply cannot be trusted. He’s a fantasist. Harold Weisberg said so, Mary Ferrell said so. The evidence says so. Yet conspiracy theorists on here are more than happy to quote him though. It says a lot and is very sad.

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

ABOUT THE MAUSER

You see what I mean when I write about the use of selective quotation?


Weitzman actually said that it looked like a Mauser: “at a glance.” says Herlock Shomes.


Weitzman, in his affidavit, sworn and dated on the day of the assassination, wrote:

The rifle was a 7.65 Mauser bolt action equipped with a 4/18 scope, a thick leather brownish-black sling on it.

It would be impossible to be so specific and provide so much detail just by glancing at the rifle.

Why would he merely have glanced at what was, supposedly, the weapon used to assassinate President Kennedy?

And why would someone who owned a shop selling rifles not be interested in the make of rifle he was looking at?

Note that he did not state that it looked like a Mauser, but that it was a Mauser, giving its calibre and scope magnification.

That is the best evidence we have.

[Fiver]

[SIZE=16px]Here is a commentary on the CBS reconstruction of the shooting in 1967. The frequency of this type of Carcano rifle jamming was quite a problem.

Let's be clear. CBS initially approached a legendary marksman, Jim Crossman, and asked him to replicate Oswald’s purported shooting (2 hits in 3 tries in 5.6 seconds). In 6 attempts, he was unable to do so. CBS then brought in 11 experienced shooters and asked them to try and replicate the shooting on a mock-up of Dealey Plaza. Now, to be clear, the shots these men were asked to make were a bit easier than those supposedly made by Oswald, as their rifle's scope was in alignment, and as the target these men were aiming at was moving at a constant speed and in a constant direction. They were also provided some practice shots. Even so, the results were less than convincing. First of all, the men were unable to complete 17 of the 37 test runs due to the gun’s jamming or to the shooter’s inability to operate the bolt fast enough to fire rapidly. This left just 20 completed runs, 26 including Crossman’s earlier attempts. Let’s take a look, then, at these results (first attempts highlighted):

Lets start by noting that this commentary is from conspiracy theorist Patrick J Speer.

Speer provides no evidence to support the claims he makes about Jim Crossman or what Crossman supposedly said.

As CBS noted, most of the shooters had not used a Carcano rifle before and some had never used any bolt action rifle before. We have no idea how much practice that they were given. Plus, these shots were rushed, trying to get off 3 shots in 5.6 seconds instead of the 7.5 to 8 seconds Oswald actually had. It's hardly surprising that lack of experience with bolt action and rushing it resulted in a high level of jamming.

In spite of these handicaps, as Herlock notes, the 11 volunteer shooters frequently did better than Oswald.

Ron George: 4.90 seconds (2 hits, 1 near miss) on his 3^rd run of 3.

Al Sherman: 5.00 seconds (2 hits, 1 near miss) on his 1^st run of 5.

Howard Donahue: 5.20 seconds (3 hits) on his 3^rd run of 3.

Somersett Fitchett: 5.50 seconds (2 hits, 1 near miss) on his 3^rd run of 3.

Somersett Fitchett: 5.90 seconds (2 hits, 1 near miss) on his 2^nd run of 3.

Al Sherman: 6.00 seconds (2 hits, 1 near miss) on his 2^nd run of 5.

Jim Crossman: 6.34 seconds (2 hits, 1 near miss) on his 2^nd run of 6.

Jim Crossman: 6.44 seconds (2 hits, 1 near miss) on his 3^rd run of 6.

William Fitchett: 6.50 seconds (3 borderline hits) on his 1^st run of 3.

John Bollendorf: 6.80 seconds (2 hits, 1 near miss) on his 1^st run of 4.

Far from showing that the shots would have been impossible, they show that 7 of 11 volunteer shooters did better than Oswald.

[Fiver]

Castro also made the screamingly obvious point that no assassin would surely shoot a prominent political figure from his place of work where discovery would be inevitable.

Perhaps you have heard of John Wilkes Booth, a prominent actor who shot Lincoln in a theater?

Oswald's fleeing the scene is more than most Presidential assassins did to avoid capture.

1835 - Lone gunman Richard Lawrence tries to shoot Andrew Jackson and is captured immediately.
1881 - Lone gunman Charles J. Guiteau shoots James Garfield and is captured immediately.
1901 - Lone gunman Leon Czolgosz shoots William McKinley and is captured immediately.
1909 - Lone gunman Julius Bergerson is disarmed and captured before he can get a shot off at William Taft.
1912 - Lone gunman John Schrank shoots Theodore Roosevelt and is captured immediately.
1833 - Lone gunman Giuseppe Zangar tries to shoot FDR and is captured immediately.
1975 - Lone gunwoman Lynette Fromme tries to shoot Gerald Ford and is captured immediately.
1975 - Lone gunwoman Sara Jane Moore ries to shoot Gerald Ford and is captured immediately.
1981 - Lone gunman John Hinkley shoots Ronald Reagan and is captured immediately.

[Herlock Sholmes]

ABOUT THE MAUSER

You see what I mean when I write about the use of selective quotation?


Weitzman actually said that it looked like a Mauser: “at a glance.” says Herlock Shomes.


Weitzman, in his affidavit, sworn and dated on the day of the assassination, wrote:

The rifle was a 7.65 Mauser bolt action equipped with a 4/18 scope, a thick leather brownish-black sling on it.

It would be impossible to be so specific and provide so much detail just by glancing at the rifle.

Why would he merely have glanced at what was, supposedly, the weapon used to assassinate President Kennedy?

And why would someone who owned a shop selling rifles not be interested in the make of rifle he was looking at?

Note that he did not state that it looked like a Mauser, but that it was a Mauser, giving its calibre and scope magnification.

That is the best evidence we have.

If that’s the best evidence I’ll just kick it into the long grass for you.



EDDIE BARKER (CBS NEWS) -- "What kind of gun did you think it was?"

SEYMOUR WEITZMAN -- "To my sorrow, I looked at it and it looked like a Mauser, which I said it was. But I said the wrong one; because just at a glance, I saw the Mauser action....and, I don't know, it just came out as words it was a German Mauser. Which it wasn't. It's an Italian type gun. But from a glance, it's hard to describe; and that's all I saw, was at a glance. I was mistaken. And it was proven that my statement was a mistake; but it was an honest mistake."


………….


JOSEPH BALL -- "In the statement that you made to the Dallas Police Department that afternoon, you referred to the rifle as a 7.65 Mauser bolt action?"

SEYMOUR WEITZMAN -- "In a glance, that's what it looked like."

MR. BALL -- "That's what it looked like, did you say that or someone else say that?"

MR. WEITZMAN -- "No, I said that. I thought it was one."


ANd WILL YOU JUST STOP BEING SUCH A BABY BY RESPONDING TO MY POINTS WHILST SIMULTANEOUSLY PRETENDING THAT YOU’RE NOT ACTUALLY TALKING TO ME BECAUSE YOU DON’T WANT TO UPSET THE PATHETICALLY CHILDISH “DON’T TALK TO HERLOCK’ PACT THAT YOU LOT HAVE JOINED.’

…..

And here’s Boone.



JOSEPH BALL -- "There is one question. Did you hear anybody refer to this rifle as a Mauser that day?"


EUGENE BOONE -- "Yes, I did. And at first, not knowing what it was, I thought it was 7.65 Mauser."

MR. BALL -- "Who referred to it as a Mauser that day?"

MR. BOONE -- "I believe Captain Fritz. He had knelt down there to look at it, and before he removed it, not knowing what it was, he said that is what it looks like. This is when Lieutenant Day, I believe his name is, the I.D. man was getting ready to photograph it. We were just discussing it back and forth. And he said it looks like a 7.65 Mauser."


…….




Fitz made an error an others followed suit. The conspiracy theorists do their usual

[Fiver]

I stand by what I wrote - that Roberts, Kellerman and Greer were parties to the conspiracy and that Kellerman did his best to spill the beans, not only to the Warren Commission, but to his own family.

So they're active participants in a conspiracy to murder JFK, yet they gave testimony that disagreed with the conspiracy's plan to set up a lone gunman?

[Herlock Sholmes]

Perhaps you have heard of John Wilkes Booth, a prominent actor who shot Lincoln in a theater?

Oswald's fleeing the scene is more than most Presidential assassins did to avoid capture.

1835 - Lone gunman Richard Lawrence tries to shoot Andrew Jackson and is captured immediately.
1881 - Lone gunman Charles J. Guiteau shoots James Garfield and is captured immediately.
1901 - Lone gunman Leon Czolgosz shoots William McKinley and is captured immediately.
1909 - Lone gunman Julius Bergerson is disarmed and captured before he can get a shot off at William Taft.
1912 - Lone gunman John Schrank shoots Theodore Roosevelt and is captured immediately.
1833 - Lone gunman Giuseppe Zangar tries to shoot FDR and is captured immediately.
1975 - Lone gunwoman Lynette Fromme tries to shoot Gerald Ford and is captured immediately.
1975 - Lone gunwoman Sara Jane Moore ries to shoot Gerald Ford and is captured immediately.
1981 - Lone gunman John Hinkley shoots Ronald Reagan and is captured immediately.

You might add John Bellingham who shot PM Spencer Percival in the lobby of the House of Commons. He just sat down on a bench after he’d done it.

And Nathuram Vinayak Godse who killed Gandhi in the middle of a crowd and was captured there and then.

Or Mehmet Ali Agca who shot Pope John Paul II in a St Peter’s Square crowd and was immediately captured.

[cobalt]

I didn't refer to the claimed comments attributed to Crossman prior to the CBS reconstruction in my post. Speer says he sourced them from a document obtained by Weisberg.

I wrote some time ago that no one ever bettered the assassin's shooting performance at a first attempt and I think the CBS results confirm that. I'm sure if the presidential limousine had reversed back up Elm Street and made a few more runs then the assassin would have improved his speed and strike rate. And of course none of the CBS marksmen were shooting at the president of the USA facing the prospect of execution as a result.

https://youtu.be/47fu1NQ-wls
Mark Lane having a bit of sport during a debate in January 1967. He deals with the quality of the rifle and the ammunition in the earlier part of the recording. At around 1hr 40 min mark he explains the need for a ‘patsy’ as part of the conspiracy.
Liebeler, his opponent, in his closing speech blames the refusal to accept the WC on people like Mark Lane writing books.

[Herlock Sholmes]

So they're active participants in a conspiracy to murder JFK, yet they gave testimony that disagreed with the conspiracy's plan to set up a lone gunman?

How can you ‘try your best’ to spill the beans?

He had a mouth. He had a voice. He wasn’t locked in solitary confinement for the rest of his life.

He didn’t ‘spill the beans’ because there were clearly no ‘beans’ to spill.


You just can’t get reasoned thinking out of a conspiracy theorist.

ps. as you’ve guessed, the above is referring to PI’s post.

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

So they're active participants in a conspiracy to murder JFK, yet they gave testimony that disagreed with the conspiracy's plan to set up a lone gunman?

I would say Kellerman was a reluctant participant.

It may be that he decided he had no choice.

As I pointed out, he and Greer gave false testimony about doing their utmost to get Kennedy to safety, whereas the Zapruder film shows them looking at Kennedy and doing nothing to help him, in Kellerman's case watching the President's brains being blown out at a time when he claimed in his testimony that he was facing the front and unaware of what was happening behind him.

When giving their testimony about the number of shots, however, they had no need to lie.

And in that respect, Kellerman could not have been a more difficult witness for Earl Warren.

He went out of his way to contradict the Single Bullet Theory.

He was obviously trying to spill the beans and we have it from a reliable source that he spilled them to his own family too - his own family.

[Fiver]

Again, I am amazed by your apparent indifference to crucial matters of evidence.

It matters very much whether the jacket allegedly discarded by Oswald was grey or brown.

Since you are supposedly so familiar with the evidence, you ought to know what colour the discarded jacket was, without even looking at the photograph of it.

Whether Callaway, who, like you, claimed that Oswald discarded his jacket, claimed it was grey or brown is vitally important.

You say he was an unproblematic witness.

I suggest he was a problematic witness because he said the man he saw wore a brown jacket, not a grey one.

He claimed Oswald wore a jacket of a colour which even according to the case against Oswald was wrong and which Oswald did not even own.


That is not nitpicking, but paying attention to detail.

You have made three mistakes: you have claimed that I omitted Callaway's evidence, that I did so deliberately, and that his evidence was consistent with the physical evidence, when it evidently was not.

Mr. CALLAWAY. I told them he had some dark trousers and a light tannish gray windbreaker jacket, and I told him that he was fair complexion, dark hair.

Calloway was an unproblematic witness. He said Oswald wore a light tannish gray windbreaker jacket, not a brown one. Marina Oswald identified the jacket as belonging to her husband.

[FISHY1118]

I’ve just made a long post about this very subject so where is this silence. Lane is a liar. The only silence is from you, George, Fishy and Cobalt refusing to answer questions.

Don't forget Jemenges in this allustriious group . After all his been quoted as saying " Oswald didn't kill Kennedy " goodness gracious me please don't forget the boss .

[Herlock Sholmes]

I would say Kellerman was a reluctant participant.

It may be that he decided he had no choice.

As I pointed out, he and Greer gave false testimony about doing their utmost to get Kennedy to safety, whereas the Zapruder film shows them looking at Kennedy and doing nothing to help him, in Kellerman's case watching the President's brains being blown out at a time when he claimed in his testimony that he was facing the front and unaware of what was happening behind him.

When giving their testimony about the number of shots, however, they had no need to lie.

And in that respect, Kellerman could not have been a more difficult witness for Earl Warren.

He went out of his way to contradict the Single Bullet Theory.

He was obviously trying to spill the beans and we have it from a reliable source that he spilled them to his own family too - his own family.

If he wanted to spill the beans why didn’t he just do it and publicly? He didn’t because there was nothing to tell. Typical conspiracist rumour and hearsay. So and so told Fred’s auntie Mary. But there’s never any real evidence is there? I wonder why not?

[Herlock Sholmes]

Don't forget Jemenges in this allustriious group . After all his been quoted as saying " Oswald didn't kill Kennedy " goodness gracious me please don't forget the boss .

I can’t believe that you’re STILL trying your childish attempt to get me censured in some way by Jon.

[Herlock Sholmes]

I didn't refer to the claimed comments attributed to Crossman prior to the CBS reconstruction in my post. Speer says he sourced them from a document obtained by Weisberg.

I wrote some time ago that no one ever bettered the assassin's shooting performance at a first attempt and I think the CBS results confirm that. I'm sure if the presidential limousine had reversed back up Elm Street and made a few more runs then the assassin would have improved his speed and strike rate. And of course none of the CBS marksmen were shooting at the president of the USA facing the prospect of execution as a result.

https://youtu.be/47fu1NQ-wls
Mark Lane having a bit of sport during a debate in January 1967. He deals with the quality of the rifle and the ammunition in the earlier part of the recording. At around 1hr 40 min mark he explains the need for a ‘patsy’ as part of the conspiracy.
Liebeler, his opponent, in his closing speech blames the refusal to accept the WC on people like Mark Lane writing books.

And still someone believes Lane. Bugliosi had him for lunch and spat out the bones.