November 22, 1963

[Beachcomber]

tomorrow marks the 45th anniversary of JFK's assasination. I just found this photo that I never saw before, taken from the front of the limo as JFK was shot and he lurched his arms up in the air:

[LanDroid]

As I recall one bullet went through his throat and he raised his hands to that spot in reflex.

I never thought much of all the conspiracy theories until I visited Dealey Plaza about 6 years ago. When you see at what close range Oswald COULD have shot Kennedy (straight down, cranium to rectum) compared to the range when he actually started shooting, the probability of the cross-fire theory goes WAY up. [img]graemlins/shhh.gif[/img]

[Lew]

My brother's interest in Kennedy and Lincoln is close to the level of GL's interest in Napoleon. He has all the books/videos on the conspiracy. I had seen GL's picture before but it is one of the rarer ones. If you look in the doorway in the background you'll see a man who some believed was Oswald himself (thus proving, of course, that it wasn't Oswald).

I've read most of the books he has, we have been to Dealey Plaza, I've watched all the videos and programs about it. I believe Gerard Posner's "Case Closed" to be the best, at least from what I've read. And quite honestly, his conclusion, i.e. Oswald was the shooter, and there's no evidence of another one, is the one to which I subscribe.

I say that, in part, because he's a lawyer and as we all know lawyers are smarterer than regular people, so of course they're going to be right most of the time. But secondly, and perhaps more importantly, Posner's reading of the conspiracy theorists has led him to conclude that they believe there was a conspiracy because they WANT to believe there was one. JFK was at the core of the so-called Camelot-myth and the fact is, in their minds, the only way such a great leader can be killed is in a manner similar to Julias Caesar, MacBeth, Hamlet, etc. It is impossible that some random a-hole could just do it on his own. That doesn't serve the myth.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying there couldn't have been some sort of conspiracy. I'm just saying, the evidence we have, when you look at it honestly, just doesn't show one. One thing that Posner did that I really liked is, he didn't care what all those "witnesses" had to say in 1965 or 1967 or 1977. He went back to what they told the Dallas police in 1963. And those statements basically tell a whole lot of nothing. People saw the motorcade, a few saw a rifle in the Book Depository window but they didn't think anything of it believing it to be security. The crowd was waving, the motorcade passed, something happened and the motorcade sped off, but at first no one was really aware what had happened. And no one was approached by men in black and ordered to open their cameras and expose their film, or any of that crap.

Well, by 1965-66, here came the conspiracy books. My brother met Jean Hill (the "Lady in Red") at a book signing before she died. It's amazing the things she remembered years after the fact that she apparently had forgotten to tell the Dallas Police.

As a movie, I love "JFK." It has a great cast, it is enjoyable to watch, if it were a piece of original fiction it might be one of the best political thrillers ever. In terms of historical accuracy, it couldn't be full of more crap if it were a Thanksgiving turkey. If you believe Oliver Stone, we're not sure how many people killed Kennedy, but we can rule out one person and one person only- Lee Harvey Oswald. Everyone else is fair game as a suspect.

[Beachcomber]

Have any of you seen photos of JFK during the alleged autopsy? The book is called "Best Evidence" and in several pics you can see where the entire back of his skull was blown away. Ballistics are very simple, no bullet entering from the BACK of his head would have done that. That was an exit wound. Someone shot him from the front as well. No question in my mind.

Should someone not wish to see such graphic imagery I didn't post it, here's the link to it:

JFK Autopsy Pics

It's pretty gruesome so fair warning.

FYI Lew, my interest in JFK and Lincoln come a very close 2nd to my interest in Napoleon. Not just their assasinations but their entire careers.

[Lew]

GL- believe it or not, the NOVA documentary from 1988 (hosted by Walter Kronkite) did a good job of explaining how the wound you described could have happened. I can't really explain it here, but they used graphics to show the bullet entering the back of the skull and essentially "breaking off" part of it as it exited. Also, they showed Army test films in which they took skulls filled with gelatin and shot them from behind, and they actually went backwards due to the "jet effect" of the lighter gelatin "thrusting" out of the front of the skull, in effect pushing it backwards. I don't know as if I'm articulating this the best way, but if you ever get a chance to see it, it's a really good program.

Posner's book is about 300 pages or so. If you want to be mired down in about 10,000 pages, Vincent Bugliosi essentially reaches the same conclusion as Posner, but his investigation was far more thorough.

I'll grant you that there is a lot of suspicion about the case. For one, I've never understood how Jack Ruby could have shot Oswald at point-blank range in a police station with 200 officers in it. But as for the assassination of JFK itself, none of the conspiracy theories are supported by evidence.

In a way, it's like the Roswell syndrome. If you're familiar with Roswell, you know that there are a great # of people who don't believe that the wreckage found was a weather balloon (which is what I believe was found). So you think, ok, UFO believers, let's see your evidence. And what you find is, they can't seem to agree on where the wreckage was found, let alone what it was. The government has one theory. The believers have about a dozen.

Same thing here. I'd have less of a problem if the conspiracy people all had more or less one conflicting story. But if you peruse the conspiracy books, you see all kinds of crap. Two killers, four killers. One on the grassy knoll, one coming out of a manhole cover. 4 shots fired, 7 shots fired. JFK's body manipulated (keep in mind he was still alive when he reached the hospital, the treating surgeons weren't doing an autopsy they were trying to save him). They're all over the map.

Now that's not to say that they're all whack jobs. There have been legitimate inquiries into this case by intelligent persons. And they've raised some good questions, and even the Posners and Bugliosis of the world admit that the Warren Commission rushed some things and didn't do as thorough a job as one would have liked.

That said, I am firmly convinced that most of the conspiracy believers feel the way they do because they WANT to feel that way, not because there has been any persuasive evidence to the contrary. And again, Posner and Bugliosi are lawyers, how the hell could anyway argue with such learned individuals? [img]wink.gif[/img]

[LanDroid]

So an exit wound is really an entrance wound if you want it to be, ay?

One of Bugliosi's main arguments against the conspiracy is if Oswald was a mafia shooter, "everyone knows, KNOWS!" the mafia would have killed him! Therefore he had no help. 1. What if it wasn't a mafia conspiracy. 2. What about Ruby? duh.

I have a high res copy of the Zapruder film, so found this interestig:

http://www.assassinationscience.com/...tro/index.html

<font color="#CC6600" size="1">[ November 25, 2008 06:14 AM: Message edited by: LanDroid ]</font>

[Raven Soul]

Wait!! Look at that picture.... back and to the left....

[Lew]

Again, I'm no physicist, but I saw the Army films of the skulls being shot from behind, and they actually went backwards because the gelatin inside (simulating brain tissue) was forced forwards, which caused an opposite reaction by the skull. You could probably shoot 100 skulls, and there would be no uniform reaction. There are any number of variables that come into play. But at least on the films I saw, they showed it is possible.

And LanD, I think I stated from the beginning that there are questions about the case, and they will probably never be answered. And yes, the Ruby thing does bother me.

But which is better critical thinking- being given the fact that Ruby killed Oswald and believing that raises suspicion worth looking into, or being given that fact and then concluding that there were about 10-12 shots fired, including a poison dart from a raised manhole cover?

As a general rule, a case must be proved in the affirmative. You can't presume things that aren't in evidence. I'll grant you that neither Posner nor Bugliosi are 100% air-tight, but I'll side with them any day over Oliver Stone or Jean Hill.