JFK Assassination Documents to be released this year

[Fiver]

This was not Buell Fraser or Jack Dougherty. This was a man who had defected to the Soviet bloc, been interviewed on local radio and who was (for reasons as yet unexplained) being impersonated in Mexico City.

You admit that there is no discernable reason to impersonate Oswald in Mexico. It would take significant effort. It wouldn't gain anything for a Conspiracy. And we have both a rough and final draft of Oswald writing that he had gone to Mexico, as well as two witnesses, one his wife, that Oswald had written the letters.

Seems far more likely that it was a case of mistaken identity rather than impersonation.

[cobalt]

Genuinely Cobalt I really can’t understand this deep-seated desire to see ‘conspiracy’ everywhere?

It's not so much a desire HS, more an instinctive reaction to a political murder.

If the assassin was Lee Harvey Oswald then his political motivation is as unignorable as the proverbial elephant in the room. No amount of amateur psychology can disguise Oswald's verified involvement in politics; politics that publicly criticised the government of the day in regard to its foreign policy. If Oswald was the assassin then his political reasoning might have been wrong-headed, misguided or incoherent but the assassination would have been politically driven just the same.

This was not Buell Fraser or Jack Dougherty. This was a man who had defected to the Soviet bloc, been interviewed on local radio and who was (for reasons as yet unexplained) being impersonated in Mexico City. On arrest Oswald had the opportunity to reveal his political motivation (or his psychological demons if you prefer) but did not do so.

Of course, if Oswald was not the assassin but was framed to be the assassin then the political element speaks for itself. Hence the existence of conspiracy theories either way.

[Herlock Sholmes]

The Zapgruder film wasn't held back *too* long. I attended a California high school between 1969 and 1973. I distinctly remember viewing this startling home movie in an assembly. I can still hear the gasps from my classmates at the images of the assassination.

Now, I don't know much about the eternal controversy about the theories and evidence, but I doubt the film would have been released for educational use if it was determined to contradict the findings of the Warren Commission.

Hi Pat,

It’s difficult if not impossible to see how the Zapruder film can be considered as proof of conspiracy. Actually it’s a bit of a buffet of picking and choosing on the part of conspiracy supporters.

a) They think that the fact that Kennedy’s head went backwards proves a shot from the front (despite the initial movement being forward and an army of scientists explaining the backward movement)

b) In glaring technicolour we see the back of Kennedy’s head and can’t fail to see absolutely no gaping wound as claimed.

So, according to conspiracy theorists, the film is….

good…because it shows the backward movement therefore..bingo..conspiracy.

faked…because it doesn’t show a massive wound to the back of Kennedy’s head therefore..bingo..conspiracy.

And people wonder why so many people in the world have been hoodwinked into assuming that a conspiracy occurred.

[Pcdunn]

I don’t know why it wasn’t shown Cobalt but this was the 60’s. A different time. The likeliest suggestion for me would have been taste. You couldn’t show that kind of stuff on TV. Plus a concern for the family might have come into it. Nothing remotely suspicious though.

The Zapgruder film wasn't held back *too* long. I attended a California high school between 1969 and 1973. I distinctly remember viewing this startling home movie in an assembly. I can still hear the gasps from my classmates at the images of the assassination.

Now, I don't know much about the eternal controversy about the theories and evidence, but I doubt the film would have been released for educational use if it was determined to contradict the findings of the Warren Commission.

[Fiver]

'Back and to the left' as Jim Garrison said.

Garrison also said that the fatal shot came from a storm drain and that it was a "homosexual thrill killing".

As to the "back and to the left", this isn't Hollywood.