kennedy assassination

[sdreid]

You can make practically any rifle accurate by zeroing in the sights for a given distance. Even when the weapon doesn't have adjustable sights, you can allow for inaccuracies by experimentally shooting at a target at the preferred distance, that is for instance, if you see that the gun is shooting 6" high then you just aim 6'' below what you want to hit. It's very easy to get used to doing that.

Regarding the time it takes to shoot three shots, some forget that the first round is already in the chamber and there's no need to eject the final casing. If a rifle has a 3 second cycle then it therefore only takes 6 seconds to fire 3 rounds.

[Pinkerton]

Someone mentioned the documentary on A&E narrated by Peter Jennings (before he died) on the JFK assassination. What they actually demonstrated in that documentary was to pick out 10 random people who were not marksmen. They gave them the same type of rifle that Oswald used, and gave them one HOUR of training on how to shoot. They they had them shoot at a car with a dummy moving at the same speed and from the same distance and trajectory, and within the same amount of time as the Oswald assassination. The majority of the people WERE able to match Oswald's accuracy. That rifle that Oswald used, though old, was a bolt action rifle. Bolt action rifles are what snipers use to this day because of their accuracy. Stan can tell you all about this I'm sure.

The JFK conspiracy is built on a series of strawmen.

"SINCE Kennedy was sitting in THIS position and governor Connally was sitting in THIS position it would have taken a magic bullet to hit both of them..."

That's right...IF they were sitting in the position conspiracy buffs claim! However they DIDN'T sit in that particular position...

Conspiracy buffs also consistently misrepresent the number of seconds it took to fire the shots.

One of the interesting things that documentary touched on that I wasn't aware of was the fact the Oswald ALSO tried to assassinate Edwin A. Walker a few months before Kennedy. That guy was a right-wing, racist, nutjob and fortunately (or unfortunately ) Oswald missed HIM...

[Stephen Thomas]

He must have removed it himself after having second thoughts. It was about the most nauseating piece of obscenity I've seen. He's also removed himself from these boards too, I believe.

Hi Graham

Yes, dougie is over on jtrforums now slagging off Casebook and you and Ally in particular. No doubt he'll be back here soon, though.

[Doctor X]

Re: JFK, I always thought that Posner was not the man to be believed for anything.

Think again.

Of course, you are free to rebut him and, particularly, similar works and reconstructions that follow. Otherwise. . . .

--J.D.

[Magpie]

I read a good Lindbergh book last spring--"Lindbergh, The Crime" or something.

I can't remember the author, but it was quite good.

[sdreid]

Do you know of any definitive book about the Lindbergh Case written since Ludovic Kennedy's 'The Airman And The Carpenter'?

No I don't but there must be one.

Fisch died 74 years ago this Saturday.

[Graham]

Hi Graham

Shouldn't that read 'Posner was not the man to be believed for nothing'?

Something like that.

Graham

[Stephen Thomas]

Re: JFK, I always thought that Posner was not the man to be believed for anything.

Graham

Hi Graham

Shouldn't that read 'Posner was not the man to be believed for nothing'?

[Graham]

Hauptmann claimed he got the gold certificates from a guy who was already dead named Isidore Fisch. Gold certificates were paper currency that was redeemable in gold until that practiced was suspended. That made the ransom money obsolete and those notes were supposed to be turned in to be replaced by the new paper money.

Hi Stan.

Isidore Fisch skipped the USA before Hauptmann came to trial, and died in Germany shortly afterwards. He seemed an unlikely master-criminal, but you never know. If Hauptmann was as street-wise as he liked to make out, I think he'd have redeemed those certificates for dollars as soon as he'd received them - yet he used some to buy gas for his car and that was how he was traced by the police. Dumb, or what?

Do you know of any definitive book about the Lindbergh Case written since Ludovic Kennedy's 'The Airman And The Carpenter'?

Cheers,

Graham

[sdreid]

Hauptmann claimed he got the gold certificates from a guy who was already dead named Isidore Fisch. Gold certificates were paper currency that was redeemable in gold until that practiced was suspended. That made the ransom money obsolete and those notes were supposed to be turned in to be replaced by the new paper money.

[Stephen Thomas]

Hi Doctor X

Do you happen to be an American?

Or should I say a US Citizen?

[Graham]

JD,

I think that Hauptmann saying that he got the US gold bonds from 'some guy' is tantamount to keeping his trap shut. However, it does make me wonder that, when faced with execution, he still refused to name names. Either he had no names to name, or he was, as I said earlier, possessed of nerves of steel. The Governer of New Jersey, no less, believed in his innocence and tried to help him, but Hauptmann kept schtum.

Re: JFK, I always thought that Posner was not the man to be believed for anything.

Graham

[Doctor X]

The problem I have with all the shooting "demonstrations" is that no matter what head substitute they use, it is alway sitting passively on some sort of platform, able to fly in any direction--unlike Kennedy's head, which was firmly anchored to a 180-odd-pound body, rife with sinews, muscles and nerves that also reacted to the impact....

Same thing happens with attached heads.

It also happens in life.

Graham: Hauptman kept claiming he got the money from "some guy."

Stephen Thomas: I would recommend Gerald Posner's take on the "death list" which, for some strange reason, never has any of the authors of the various conspiracy books on it!

My favorite claimed "Silenced Victim" is the morbidly obese lawyer who died of . . . a heart attack! As a colleague put it: "He was out of breath walking up a courthouse step!" Another was a hooker who was known to have stolen money from a mobster.

--J.D.

[Stephen Thomas]

The inherent weakness of conspiracies is that it relies on humans. Humans can rarely keep their mouths shut and if indeed there had been anything to it, I have no doubt something would have surfaced by now.

Well I read most of the JFK Assassination books available in the UK for 20 years or more and my impression was, and still is, that there were loads of people who couldn't keep their mouths shut who got their mouths shut for them, oops my electric fire just fell in my bath (or whatever), starting with that Oswald fellow (oops I just got shot dead by that Mafia fellow) etc.

Is there anybody here who isn't American who believes in the 'lone nut' explanation?

[Graham]

Hi Graham,

I'm with you in the sense that it's extraordinary if Oswald kept it all to himself. It's the same feeling I have about Hauptmann in the Lindbergh case.

Hi Stan,

Yes, hard to see how a dork like Oswald could keep his trap shut - unless, of course, there was nothing for him to say other than, "I done it all on my own!"

Hauptmann was given the opportunity to make a statement even as he was strapped in the electric chair, yet he said nothing. And as far as I can recall he said very little all the time he was in custody. If - as I have always suspected - he was covering for someone, then he must have had nerves of steel.

Yet there are many instances of people keeping quiet even under torture - I'm thinking here of Yeo-Thomas, the 'White Rabbit' of WW2, who I believe never said one incriminating word to his Gestapo interrogators regarding his activities.

Rather them than me....

Graham