Kennedy Assassination Info Request Advanced

NoCoPilot wrote:

SAI2 wrote:

The documentary puts to rest any doubt that Oswald was not the assassin. Iow, they pretty conclusively and neatly show he was. The question of any others being involved is not even touched on. The doc stays focused on the now digitally restored videos that exist, specific eyewitnesses at the time,  and replicating ballistic analysis with laser measurements and military expertise. The 3 shots, how and where they were shot from, and how they behaved after being shot from Oswalds rifle is sole focus of the re-enactment/experiment to determine facts of what actually happened. Conspiracy theories were really treated as irrelevant.

Or, more accurately, they prove that Kennedy was shot from the 6th floor Depository window.

They can't prove who pulled the trigger.

I agree that the grassy knoll and second gunmen theories are bogus.  I've seen the same analysis.

That does not prove to me that the very unlikely role of Lee Harvey Oswald is proven.

Eliminating the grassy knoll and second gunman theories eliminates a lot of the conspiracy theories...

Why was Oswald's role very unlikely then? The depository was ideal for Oswald since he worked there and was witnessed there by multiple people who also worked there, at the time of the assassination. What about the shooting of the police officer after Oswald left the Depository?

What do you have to suggest he wasn't the man who let off the 3 shots on the 6th floor of the depository? To make you doubt the likelihood it was him who pulled the trigger? All evidence suggests it was him - whether there were others involved or not, Oswald shot the 3 rounds from the 6th floor depository. Occam's razor.

Well I don't want to get too far into the weeds on this thing -- because frankly I don't care that much about it. I laid out some objections on the first page. Let's just stick with them.

You don't care too much about it? Coulda fooled me. The detailed knowledge you seem to have would call your lack of interest into serious doubt.

Anyhow, Howard's point regarding Oswald's sharpshooter skills is valid imho. He was an ex-marine ffs. As for not having sufficient motive... he moved to Russia with dreams of socialist citizenship dancing in his head. He devoured marxist literature, learned Russian, joined a group of Castro lovers. ... the BoPs was fresh in his memory.

What more motivation did he need?

I don't want it to seem like I'm doubting a conspiracy was possible or plausible. I'm just saying I think Oswald was the lone gunman, whether the mafia,  CIA, or both were involved. I still suspect Oswald would have acted on his own accord whether under their influence or having been used as a patsey. He may very well have handed them what they wanted on a silver platter. Either way I think he wanted to do what he did regardless.

Perhaps the CIA has got something to hide... I still say Oswald acted on his own motivations inspite of any dirty dealings or involvement by shadowy forces in the background.

We'll never know for sure as long as the CIA refuses to open the archives.

Which might be a clue.

Fair enough. I guess all I'm suggesting is that Oswald didn't need any assistance and doesn't appear to have been manipulated in any way. As everything turned out, for all intents and purposes, given all that is known, he could have, and appeared to have, acted alone - willfully executing what he wanted to do.

Your opinion. Mine differs. But they're only opinions -- the CIA is withholding the facts.

When Kennedy was killed, I was at a USN avionics school in Milington, Tenn. All liberty was cancelled for the weekend. Even the married sailors, including officers, living off base were not allowed to leave. The EM Club was packed all weekend and the conversation was all over the place. Everyone had an opinion as to who had killed the President (no one knew about Oswald at this time). Kruschev, Castro, the Mafia, Lyndon Johnson, the CIA, the Ku Klux Klan, the Baptists, the Republican Party, and more that I cannot recall.

After all these years, and all the books and documentaries and movies, I think it was Oswald.

Without intending to demean anyone, I think that it is just difficult for some to accept that the American President could be assassinated for no reason by a nobody like Oswald. They want the event to be bigger, to have some meaning. Sadly, it was just a wacko with a $20 rifle.

It could have been. Lennon was certainly killed by a lone nutcase. You can't rule it out.

But Kennedy's assassination has several red flags for me, including:

• The CIA won't release their files
  
• The Warren Commission report has several discrepancies
  
• The purported assassin never stood trial because he was himself suspiciously assassinated shortly afterward
  
• Oswald loudly proclaimed, until his death, that he was being set up and hadn't killed anyone
  
• Oswald was later accused of attempted assassination of Gen. Edwin Walker in March 1963 -- but all of the "evidence" mysteriously appeared AFTER Kennedy's assassination
  
• Oswald's second daughter, Audrey, was born October 20, 1963, barely a month before the assassination. By all accounts Lee and Marina were happily married and he was a doting father
  
• Oswald was active in the anti-Castro campaign, handing out literature on the street in New Orleans. This puts him on the same side of the issue as Kennedy
  
• Although reports surfaced that Oswald had visited Mexico City with intent to enter Cuba in September, the Warren Commission concluded they "could not rule out" that somebody else claiming to be Oswald had been the actual visitor. No hard evidence has ever been found to support this story
  
• FBI agents twice visited Marina, when Lee was at work, in early November and interviewed her. He in turn visited the FBI office in Dallas and requested the agents talk to him directly rather than talking to his wife. This doesn't sound like a man planning an assassination to me
  
• When Oswald got the job at the Book Depository (October 16), Kennedy's visit to Dallas, and the motorcade route, were not yet publicly known
  
• Kennedy was shot approx 12:30pm on the 22rd. At noon (12:10) a co-worker of Oswald's was eating lunch on the 6th floor and saw no one. At 11:50 Oswald had been sighted on the first floor, talking calmly on the telephone.
  
• "About ninety seconds after the shooting, in the second-floor lunchroom, Oswald encountered police officer Marrion Baker accompanied by Oswald's supervisor Roy Truly; Baker let Oswald pass after Truly identified him as an employee. According to Baker, Oswald did not appear to be nervous or out of breath. Truly said that Oswald appeared "startled" when Baker aimed his gun at him." [Wikipedia]
  
• "At about 12:40 p.m., Oswald boarded a city bus but (probably due to heavy traffic) he requested a transfer from the bus driver and got off two blocks later. Oswald took a taxicab to his rooming house, at 1026 North Beckley Avenue, arriving at about 1:00 p.m. He entered through the front door and, according to his housekeeper Earlene Roberts, immediately went to his room, "walking pretty fast". Roberts said that Oswald left "a very few minutes" later, zipping up a jacket he was not wearing when he had entered earlier. As Oswald left, Roberts looked out of the window of her house and last saw him standing at the northbound Beckley Avenue bus stop in front of her house."[Wikipedia] What assassin waits for the bus?
  
• Kennedy was in the middle of a big, widely-publicized and highly successful crack-down on organized crime
  
• Robert Kennedy was also assassinated some 4-1/2 years later, putting an end to the Kennedy's political power (Edward notwithstanding...)

There's no real hard evidence to support a conspiracy theory.

Just a lot of niggling details that, on the surface, don't smell right.

The problem with your collection of red flags is they can, individually and as a collection, be interpreted as non-conspiratorial. They are also slightly misleading as you have framed them.

For instance, Oswald joined a pro-Castro organization; the Fair Play for Cuba Committee, (via starting a chapter of his own after being advised by same said organization not to), which was in support of the Cuban revolution and had a hands off attitude toward U.S. intervention and was against the Bay of Pigs incident.

Oswald was pro-socialist his entire life, as was Castro, though Castro was and is considered a benevolent dictator in his own right. The speculation that Oswald made some shady deal with the CIA/FBI against the FPCC doesn't make sense given Oswald's pro-socialist background and political beliefs. If he did cooperate with the CIA/FBI, he likely did so disingenuously to confound them, acting as 'double agent'. He may have been playing the players...

Regardless, there is no reason to assume or suspect that Oswald changed his political colors. He might have been playing a dangerous game with U.S. intelligence, or he might have been oblivious of the shadowy game the CIA was playing... who knows.

He may have thought that by assassinating the president he could make the U.S. government appear like they had orchestrated the assassination of their own leader - which in my view makes more sense and seems consistent with Oswald's character and political beliefs.

Also, re: the attempted assassination of Walker... why should evidence appearing after Kennedy's assassination make you jump to conspiracy - It wasn't relevant to authorities until after Kennedy's assassination because they were trying to find motivation and looking into his background; prior offences. It's a perfect example of what he was capable of and wasn't just made up. It was clear cut.

Oswald may have been a family man and doting father, but he also left his wife a note just prior to attempting to shoot Walker that he might not return. He clearly loved his family and daughter and beliefs.... enough that he was willing to die for them or kill others for them.

Not a-typical of extremists.

Family friend's neighbor's told Oswald's wife of the job at the book depository after he got back from Mexico. Coincidence - unless the CIA were that savvy to plant the job opportunity in a friend's neighbour's wife's mind just on the hope that Oswald would take it - because after all the CIA must know that the Depository was a perfect place to shoot the prez from, and Oswald would be the man to do it... if he accepted the job, and if the boss hired him, and if everyone cooperated in planting the suggestion into Oswald's noggin...   

Oswald appeared startled having a gun pointed at him, so he must have shot the president, or not, or.... Oswald appeared calm, so he must have shot the president, or not, or...   

Oswald's being the only employee to have been missing from the Depository, after one of the most heinous and by all accounts, traumatic events a country can endure - having their president shot... Oswald's being calm and leaving early to get home... is very, very suspicious. Everyone and their grandmother would have tried to stick around to see something or talk to others who might have seen something, but no.... Oswald takes a bus, then a cab, when he could have walked... goes home, briefly, walking quickly, and changes clothes, and has a weapon, only to shoot a police officer questioning him...

He was guilty as fuck.

Your details don't smell right because you presume conspiracy and are trying to make them fit that presumption.

I do suspect you may have a point regarding the CIA involvement. They may have been incidentally involved in some way they don't want anyone to know about. But again, ultimately, Oswald was a lone wolf... believing he was saving the world from anti-socialist pigs; and from his pov, Kennedy should pay, and perhaps he thought he could make the CIA or U.S. government appear like they were responsible or at least complicit.

Taken from that perspective, it appears like his ruse was successful.

Occam's razor says you're putting too much intention into Oswald's actions. Whenever there's a choice, opt for accident and coincidence rather than planning.

For instance... the shooting of Tippett was ascribed to Oswald but the only evidence is two eyewitness reports of people who didn't get a direct view of the shooting.

For instance... the Dallas PD scrambled to close three murder files with one suspect. Texas policemen tampering with evidence? Never.

For instance... Oswald was in the book depository, but on the wrong floor, 20 minutes before and 90 seconds after the shooting. With no signs of being winded or nervous, and nobody smelled gunpowder on him.

Sigh. We'll never know for sure as long as the CIA retains their secrets. Each of us is left to speculate according to our own biases.

But...
The CIA's involvement with the global poppy trade is another issue altogether. The truth will NEVER come out on that!

1,500 of the CIA documents were released today. Supposedly nothing revealed therein is news.

Biden has vowed to release the remaining 10,000 documents a year from now—which are still sealed, 58 years later.  Why?  Nobody involved—no PERSON anyway—could still be alive. Who, or what, is still being shielded?

Quote :

In October Biden delayed a scheduled release to "protect against identifiable harm to the military defense, intelligence operations, law enforcement, or the conduct of foreign relations that is of such gravity that it outweighs the public interest in the immediate disclosure."

Chances of there being a great big Mafia/Cuban/CIA plot revealed therein is, I suppose pretty slim. The Mafia is very good at covering its tracks (Hoffa anyone?) while the amateur 3x-lucky-shot loner* who mysteriously dies two days later, well, that's just easier for everyone to accept.

We will most likely never know the truth.  That makes the hit a successful one.... Whoever carried it out.


* - Wikipedia:"Like all Marines, Oswald was trained and tested in shooting. In December 1956, he scored 212, which was slightly above the requirements for the designation of sharpshooter. In May 1959 he scored 191, which reduced his rating to marksman." He was discharged from the Marines September 11, 1959 (four years before the assassination), after having served three years in a number of desk (non-combat) jobs.

Wikipedia wrote:

• Expert: 220-300 (AR-1 Target), 290-300 (BMC Target)
  10 shots standing, 10 shots prone, and 10 shots kneeling
  
• Sharpshooter: 130-200 (AR-1 Target), 188-200 (BMC Target)
  10 shots standing, 10 shots prone
  
• Marksman: 110-129 (AR-1 Target), 175-187 (BMC Target)
  10 shots standing, 10 shots prone
  

Evidence surrounding the Kennedy assassination continues to trickle out, most recently in Rob Reiner's new podcast "Who Killed JFK?"
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/who-killed-jfk/id1714611578?i=1000634106826

Bottom line, so far in the podcast (episode three of, maybe, four or five?): Oswald likely got off a couple shots, the one that missed the motorcade altogether and the second shot that hit Kennedy in the shoulder.

The kill shots, the one that went into his neck and the one that took off the back of his head, almost certainly came from the front of the limousine.  That shooter (or shooters) disappeared into the woodwork after the assassination.  The CIA has made sure that avenue was never investigated, for reasons known only to themselves.

By the way, Jack had publicly called for the dismantlement of the CIA after the Bay of Pigs fiasco, which they botched so horribly.

SAI2 wrote:

I do suspect you may have a point regarding the CIA involvement. They may have been incidentally involved in some way they don't want anyone to know about. But again, ultimately, Oswald was a lone wolf... believing he was saving the world from anti-socialist pigs; and from his pov, Kennedy should pay, and perhaps he thought he could make the CIA or U.S. government appear like they were responsible or at least complicit. 

When Oswald joined the Marines at 17, he ended up stationed in Tokyo, working on the U2 spy plane radio network. Three years later in September 1959 he received a hardship discharge (to take care of his mother), after which he was assigned to the Marine Reserves. He had only $200 in his bank account.

Nine days later, he spent at least $1500 to take a ship to France, then fly to Great Britain, from there take a flight to Helsinki, and finally take a train to Moscow... where he waited five days attempting to defect to the USSR.  Where did he get the money?  Why would he do this, while his mother was ailing?

According to Episode 4, he'd been recruited by the CIA as a double agent, a "fake defector" who would attempt to infiltrate Soviet intelligence by offering information on the U2 program. He was immediately sniffed out as a spy by the Soviets, who refused to do business with him.  He was sent away to Minsk, where he was given a job at a radio factory, given his experience in the Marines.  He also got a free government-provided apartment, which was highly unusual. In Minsk he met 19-year old Marina Nikolayevna, who happened to be living in Minsk with her uncle Ilya Prusakov.  Prusakov just happened to be a colonel in the Soviet Ministry of Internal information, their equivalent of the FBI.

Lee and Marina married six weeks later, and a year after that, in June 1962, they (and their new baby) emigrated back to the US, settling in Dallas.  

For a young man who had very publicly renounced his US citizenship, then lived in the Soviet Union for two years, he had no trouble returning, no security briefings, no espionage charges.  His wife was also allowed into the country without restriction despite her origin and family connections. In fact, the US government paid for their repatriation.

Why?  Speculation is it was all arranged by the CIA.

In Dallas Lee became active in the anti-communist underground, including some right-wing organizations that also espoused segregationist views.

Not quite a year later, April 1963, Lee & Marina moved to his birth town on New Orleans. The next month he started a New Orleans branch for Fair Play for Cuba, a pro-Castro advocacy group.  Castro was, of course, rather well known as a communist. Lee was arrested in August for passing out leaflets and "disturbing the peace."  In September he boarded a bus for Mexico City, with the intent to fly to Cuba, and from there return to the Soviet Union -- leaving his pregnant wife & young daughter behind.

Why?  Speculation is it was all arranged by the CIA.

In October, having been rebuffed in his plan, he bussed back to Dallas and got a job at the Texas Book Depository.  His 2nd daughter was born October 20. The FBI twice visited Marina in Dallas, having learned Lee visited the Soviet embassy in Mexico City, after which Lee told the FBI to stop bothering his wife and come straight to him if they had any questions.

Why?  Speculation is he felt he had CIA protection.

In November, somebody shot the president.  That'll be covered in Episode 5.

The bottom line here is: either Lee was batshit crazy, pulling stunts and making wild decisions that made no sense... or, somebody else was pulling his strings.

Without the CIA records we'll never be able to prove anything.

So, I was wondering about the sightlines.  When the killshot came, would the windshield have been between Kennedy's head and the grassy knoll?

Turns out there's a very nifty 3-D graphic (in Dutch) which lets one see all of the angles.  The conclusion is definitive.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/an-interactive-3d-model-of-the-jfk-assassination-site-grassy-knoll-and-all-180947812/

Episode Five dropped today, and it details the myriad of confusing ties between Oswald and the CIA.  Part of their spy craft is to obscure everything, of course, and the spider's web surrounding him is opaque at best.  But it explains how Lee, a vehement anti-Communist, ended up founding a pro-Castro group ("membership: one") in New Orleans and why he was filmed handing out leaflets in an anti-Castro neighborhood of Cuban refugees.

What news organization films a lone nobody handing out leaflets?

The scary thing about Reiner's new podcast is that it raises tHe possibility of one fairly small conspiracy, rather than several very large ones as previously supposed.

The CIA had Oswald as a field actor—not necessarily an "agent" but a person they were grooming—since 1959.

The doctors at Parkland Hospital whose autopsy described Kennedy's neck and forehead bullet holes as entrance wounds were, by their own admission, convinced or coerced into changing the autopsy report—by the CIA.

The Warren Commission which investigated the assassination and concluded Oswald was the lone gunman, included the former head of the CIA Allen Dulles. 

The CIA keeps coming up at every question mark.  They certainly had access to trained sharpshooters, having attempted or completed assassinations in Iran, The Congo, Indonesia, Cuba, Dominican Republic, South Vietnam, Chile, and others.
https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP84-00499R001000080001-7.pdf

It's gutsy to take out the US President, but remember, Kennedy had vowed to dismantle the CIA after the BoP, and he was working behind the scenes with Khrushchev on test ban treaties and warhead limits. Leadership there probably felt he was a viable threat to them.

There's another podcast, "The Rest is History," running a Kennedy assassination re-examination at the same time. It posits the usual "vast conspiracy" involving the CIA, the FBI, the Secret Service, Russia, Cuba, local law enforcement, the Warren Commission, the press, the Senate, the House, yadda yadda yadda.  This is probably EXACTLY what the CIA wants -- plausible deniability through batshit crazy conspiracies.

And it's worked for sixty years.

On the flip side there's a new Hulu series on the assassination (this being the 60yr anniversary), with lots of previously-unseen newsreel footage and bystander film of the events leading up to, and immediately after, the shooting.  Interviews with all of the surviving Secret Service detail and some bystanders and correspondents.

Unlike the Rob Reiner podcast, and unlike the "The Rest is History" podcast, this one hews to the official line that Oswald acted alone, and the Dallas police were the heroes of the day by identifing him within the hour and scooping him up.

Again, confusion and competing stories play into the hands of the plotters -- if plotters there were.

Episode 7 of Reiner's podcast talks about the Cuban exiles (who had fled Cuba) and the Mafia, who has lost a shitpot of money when Castro nationalized the casinos in Havana. Both groups wanted Castro out.... and Jack wasn't helping.

I wonder if Kennedi's assassination was meant as a signal to all future presidents about who you daren't cross once in office.

NoCoPilot wrote:

Oswald was in the book depository, but on the wrong floor, 20 minutes before and 90 seconds after the shooting.  With no signs of being winded or nervous, and nobody smelled gunpowder on him.

If you believe episode eight—which is only one of hundreds of competing stories—Oswald was seen by two witnesses calmly having lunch (a Coke) in the Texas Book Depository's second floor lunchroom at 12:25, the time Kennedy's motorcade was scheduled to pass.

But Kennedy had been held up by crowds, and didn't enter Dealey Plaza until 12:30.

15 seconds after Kennedy was shot, a Dallas Police officer entered the TBD and encountered Roy Truely, the manager, on the first floor.  They climbed the stairs to the second floor, where Oswald was still calmly drinking his Coke. Truely told the officer not to bother with Lee, because he worked there.

A woman who worked on the 4th floor had come down the stairwell (the only way up or down) when she heard shots, and had seen nobody on the stairs.

The rifle was found hidden, and wiped clean of fingerprints, after a search on the sixth floor.

The co-worker who had driven Lee to work that day said the package Lee carried was too small to fit the dimensions of the Carcano rifle used in the shooting, not even if it had been broken down.

Lee's cheek was tested for gunpowder residue.  It tested negative.

When Lee was arrested in the movie theater—based on a physical description provided by one man who had been across the street from the TBD—he told the officers he had been set up as a patsy.

Mythology. Conflicting stories. Illogical details.  Smells like CIA disinformation from top to bottom.

Parts of Kennedy's skull and brain are splattered as far away as the Secret Service vehicle which followed his limousine, driving between the president's car and the vice president's car (with Lyndon and Lady Bird Johnson).

If the shot came from behind him, would debris be thrown behind him 12-20 feet?

Part of his skullcap came to rest on the trunk of the limo.  This is what Jackie in her shock was crawling to retrieve.

Episode nine dealt with Jack Ruby's extensive mob connections.  Also the established evidence that he knew Lee Oswald, and knew him well -- contrary to the Warren Commission Report.

Episode ten is the concluding episode, and lays out the best theory for what really happened.

There were probably four shooters:

• Herminio Diaz Garcia, a member of the Cuban exile movement, trained as a sharpshooter.  Formerly a gangster in Havana, he participated in the plot to kill Jose Figures, the president of Costa Rica, in 1957. He entered the US in July 1963, and the day after the assassination was quietly escorted out of the country. He ended up dying in 1966 while on a mission to kill Castro.
  
• Jean Souetre, a gunman in the French OAS who entered the US 19 November, 1963 under an assumed name, and was arrested in Dallas later on the same day that Kennedy was shot. He was deported back to France on 9 December without being questioned by Dallas police or the Warren Commission.
  
• Charles Nicoletti - a hitman for the Chicago mob under Sam Giancana. On the day of his scheduled testimony before the House Select Committee on Assassinations (29 March 1977), he was assassinated in his car. Giancana's 1992 memoir "Double Cross" talks extensively about Nicoletti. Giancana had ordered the Kennedys (Jack & Bobby) be assassinated over their crackdown on the Mafia.
  
• Jack Canon - who ran a 'black ops' group for the CIA called the Z Unit or Canon Agency which was responsible for several assassinations in Japan 1947-1952.
  
• One of the assassins was on the 6th floor of the Book depository. One was at the picket fence on the grassy knoll.  One was stationed on the overpass (and likely pulled the 'kill shot' ). The fourth shooter, well the show is a little vague on that. Exactly who was where is unknowable.  The one fact on which everyone agrees was that Lee Harvey Oswald was in the second floor lunchroom the whole time.
  

It is likely none of these shooters were aware of each other. Allen Dulles, as former head of the CIA (1953-1961) must have authorized the multi-pronged hit (remember, he was placed on the Warren Commission) and he was at The Farm, a secret CIA facility for training clandestine officers, on the day of the assassination. But it was probably organized by James Jesus Angleton (Oswald's handler) and David Atlee Phillips, two rogue CIA directors who feared Kennedy's pledge to dismantle the CIA. They coordinated with Bill Harvey (well-documented Kennedy hater) and General Charles Willoughby.

Instead of a huge multi-agency conspiracy, you have a nice, neat, motivated plot involving only nine men.

Nothing's provable.  Everyone's dead now.  The hit was a success, in that they 'got away with it.'

But it's eerily plausible.

NoCoPilot wrote:

• Kennedy was in the middle of a big, widely-publicized and highly successful crack-down on organized crime
  

Do ya ever notice that nobody talks about "organized crime" anymore?  It's all immigrants and disaffected Blacks and troubled teens and Muslim terrorists.

Has the Mafia, the Cosa Nostra gone away?

More likely they've gone mainstream, and now control the Republican Party and the courts.