Friday 22 November 2013

Who shot JF?

50 years ago. The first modern president, TV era president was assassinated.
With him died the belief that the government might be telling the truth. It has never come back. 
Only this week we find Prime Minister Blair was signing secret spying agreements with the Americans to let them snoop on British citizens who were convicted or even suspected of nothing.
So government has a long history of lying.
Secret IRA negotiations. The EEC is only a trading club. Immigration is just a net 2 people a year.  MP's have had tiny pay rises, etc.

 Few are expecting the Iraq report to be anything but pages and pages of long black redacted lines.
And its all JFK's fault. Well..the Warren commission. And the Dallas police department. Because they did botch their jobs. The Warren Commission because they seemed to think it was just a murder enquiry. And the Dallas police for A} not properly guarding the President.{secret service detail aside}  And B} Not guarding his killer..

When I chanced on a documentary on the death of Marilyn Monroe I became interested in conspiracy theories. The Monroe one is still the best as there are quite a lot of unexplained details and suspicious events. When I saw Oliver Stone's JFK I was amazed. How could a government have, at best  lied about and then covered up the murder of the commander in chief, and at worst, committed the deed themselves?
Later on, when I did some research, I discovered that JFK was just a movie. Billed as a documovie it is nothing of the sort. It takes liberties with facts, events, times, statements and the actual people. It leaves out anything that doesn't support the multi-gunmen theory.  Oswald's brutish and abusive behaviour to his Russian wife is ignored. What his co-workers thought of him. What the Russian and Cuban he hung out with thought about him. And  the really key and mostly unknown, attempted assassination of General Walker which the FBI, Oswald's note and Oswald's wife, say was carried out by Oswald. If that is true, then Oswald looks much more like a wannabe assassin than a patsy.
 As a film,JFK is 9/10. Very powerful. Great cast. Superbly crafted. But as a version of historical events..it is poor. Powerful, but poor.

I might be one of the few people to have read

Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy

I won't recommend it. Its unbelievably long and heavy going. The author decides to leave no stone unturned. All double checking and cross checking and rumour removing, hearsay chucking and lie deleting. So.. based on that and a few other volumes, I am pretty sure Oswald fired the shot that killed. Even Stephen King, genius author, lifelong Democrat, and JFK adorer, is convinced as he says at the end of his own, weight and stodgy 11/22/63. A book dedicated to time travel and saving the president from the assassin. - I'm not recommending that book either. 5/10 unless you are a REAL Kennedy fanboy.

But .. its conspiracy day. And our governments have a history of cover ups.. so .I may well be very wrong, so...have at it.

But you must say why. Not enough to cry -- its the Bilde-a-bears!. Its a Bilde-a-Bear conspiracy! As I think some red neck just said on C4 news. 


17 comments:

Anonymous said...

How could he be shot in the forehead n have the back of his skull blown open by a man supposedly six floors above and behind him? Why was JackieKennedy scrambling to exit that limo over the trunk n had to be held back by SS Agents? It wasn't conspiracy, it was drugs, money, and big oil, driving the men who wanted more rigid control of the white house! Rotten politicians big banks-everyone focused on the head rat while the Texan delivered the Coup de Gras! Wake up and I'll tell you The Rest of the Story!!

CCCP said...

Yuri Gagarin was behind it all.
He was pissed about the space race.

dearieme said...

He was killed by a half-baked communist sniper. The US media have never forgiven right-wing Dallas for this unpardonable breach of stereotype.


P.S. I saw a claim recently that JFK is the only US President whose measured IQ is known. It happened to be the same as Oswald's. I did grin.

Ryan said...

One of the interesting things about Oswald is that he was portrayed as a rather pathetic character, which of course led people to believe he couldn't have been the assassin. In fact he was an expert marksman, and obviously a rather capable person albeit a bit barmy. The more I have got to know about Oswald the bigger his personality seems to become. He was clearly quite capable of murdering JFK.

Nick Drew said...

The first time I went to the USA (in the 80s) I was quite taken aback to meet so many people (WASPS) who absolutely hated the Kennedys - all of them from Old Man Joe onwards

after encountering that, nothing surprised me any more

andrew said...

I like the one where the AG for Northern Ireland pops us on the Today program and tells us that we should forget the past and any prosecution that far in the past has little to no chance of success so he probably wont bother

... and then on Thurs night we see that there were britis army units in NI murdering innocent civilians.

no, no - no connection there.

Odin's Raven said...

The best book on the Kennedy assassination is probably Michael Collins Piper's 'Final Judgment'.

Final Judgment

Not from Tel Aviv said...

Final judgement fails immediately in the credibility stakes.
Israel was behind the assassination as Kennedy did not support their nuclear program. On the grounds given this would be exceedingly doubtful.ridiculous even.

Add in the fact that if it was true, and Mossad was found out, the USA, Israel's only supporter in the world, would disown them completely.

So the reason to kill the president is weak.
And the consequences are probable extinction.

I think this needs to sit in the same bargain bin as the one that says Mossad initiated 9/11 and the Pope's assassination attempt, Obama becoming president, The Ayatollah, and the troubles of Gaddafi/Assad/Mubarak/Hussein/Gandhi/Chavez/Castro/ Mugabe...

Mark Wadsworth said...

It was not a conspiracy to kill him before the event, it was a cover-up afterwards!

Sad truth is, some trigger happy secret service guy in the following car picked up an automatic weapon to fire back at Lee Harvey Oswald and shot JFK in the back of the head (which duly exploded in a shower of blood and grey matter) by mistake.

There was a programme on Channel 5 about this and of all the appalling conspiracy and cover-up theories, this one looked pretty close to being plausible.

Kilgore Trout said...

I fear I will be forever tarred as a kook around these parts if I venture an opinion on this bottomless subject. Oh well.

I don't think I have seen anything that proves Oswald was the killer. Presumption of innocence and all that. Lots of evidence, but no proof.

And a lot of evidence appears to contradict the one-man-three-bullets theory.

Start with the rifle. An old Carcano hunting rifle with a defective sight that had to be repaired before the FBI and US Army even attempted to re-create the killing (that should have been a red flag).

The 're-creation' involved firing at stationary targets from a lower elevation than the school book depository and still none of the US government's federal or military sharpshooters were able to replicate the three shots in six seconds detailed in the Warren Commission Report.

Nitrate and neutron activation analysis tests found no trace of barium or antimony on Oswald's face. The FBI neglected to perform the simple swab test that would have confirmed the rifle had been fired by anyone on that day.

Since when did the world's premier law enforcement agencies become so negligent? This was the President of the United States, they would have wanted to risk acquittal on the basis of a technicality would they.

The bullet that apparently passed through Kennedy's throat, broke Connolly's ribs and wrist and then burrowed into his thigh, before being found in near-pristine condition on the floor beside a stretcher in Parkland Hospital, does not look like bullet that has ripped through flesh, bone, cartilage, etc.

Odin's Raven said...

Another site deals with the same issue.

John Friend

In the final chapter of Final Judgement, Piper identifies some of the top individuals involved in organizing and executing the assassination, which include:

David Ben-Gurion, former Israeli Prime Minister who had a major dispute with JFK over Israel's nuclear weapons program
Yitzhak Shamir, assassinations chief for the Israeli Mossad
Louis Bloomfield and Tibor Rosenbaum, two key individuals connected to Permindex, a Mossad-connected company involved in the assassination conspiracy
James J. Angleton, the CIA Counterintelligence chief and head of the Mossad desk who had intimate ties to the Jewish state
Meyer Lansky, the leading figure in organized crime and a strong supporter of the state of Israel
George deLannurien, a French intelligence officer with ties to Israel's Mossad

The fact of the matter is that Israel and her international network of partisans and agents not only had the ability to organize and execute the assassination of JFK, they also had the ability to cover it up and direct attention on to others (Oswald, "the mafia", rogue elements of the CIA, anti-Castro Cubans, Castro himself, the KGB, etc.). On this 50th anniversary of the murder of JFK, it is time that all of the facts pertaining to the assassination of the last genuine American president are made clear to the American public, including the fact that the state of Israel and a wider network of criminals with intimate ties to the Jewish state were indeed deeply involved in the conspiracy to eliminate President John F. Kennedy.

Kilgore Trout said...

* ... they would NOT have wanted to risk acquittal on the basis of a technicality would they?...

Ryan said...

Like I say, the best thing to do is start with Oswald and his amazing back story. There is a very good summary on Wikipedia. Most of the conspiracy theorists like to play down Oswald because once you know a bit about him you realise he was quite capable of doing it all by himself and was highly motivated.

Oswald was a political nut with a severe case of meglomania. He was a top marksman. He was seen in the book depository before and after the shooting. He was witnessed killing a policeman shortly after the assassination.

The rifle used in the shooting belonged to Oswald. It was not old it was brand new, bought by Oswald just 7 months prior. It was not a hunting rifle but a Carcano M91/38 military rifle. These are known facts. Unfortunately there is absolutely nothing to stop people making up facts and ignoring other facts in the pursuit of a conspiracy theory aimed at selling books.

Bill Quango MP said...

Well...I made my case already and wasn't really going to answer anymore as this leads to anger, death threats, accusations of wilfull blindness and , eventually - "You're one of them! You're part of the cover up you Jew-Catholic-petro-military-Lizard-Mafia-Banker-Republican- etc.."

but - it is a good topic and i'm not taking it too seriously.

Anon - the evidence of a forehead shot is explained by his back brace --now, don't foam..I didn't write it. but it is credible.

As for Mrs Kennedy being pushed back into the car by the SS? I'm not sure that is what you meant but if you do mean the secret service are trying to keep her in the car, well, that's a brand new theory, and that takes some doing, so all credit to you.

CCCP - I think you are onto something. With hindsight it was the Russian Space program that lost out the most. But did Gagarin fire the shot? or Korolov?

Dearieme - I wonder what George Bush jnr IQ was? Higher or lower than Oswalds.
Dallas is less right wing today? Don't know, but Paul Mason in his new role at C4 seemed to imply that.
Tickled me to think that the very right wing element he was interviewing
had no idea he's an old commie himself.

Ryan - yep. Agree. But also more people now believe he was abusive and poor company - Boring in fact. Still..he's one of the few to defect into Russia and back out again during the cold war. No wonder he yaked on about it all the time.

ND - I found the same about some people and Roosevelt. Hated him.

Andrew - our leaders only ever have our best interests at heart. i expect the Iraq war will be like the Kennedy assassination. No one is going to change their minds no matter what the evidence. Entrenched views.

Odin's Raven - Sorry Odin. I'm with Not Tel Aviv. Doesn't appear credible at all..but i haven't read about it much. Only a deconstruction of the theory somewhere that I no longer remember.

Not Tel Aviv - see above

Bill Quango MP said...

MW - its as plausible as the one where Lyndon Johnson was on the Grassy Knoll.

Kilgore Trout
Its good you pick this evidence as they are the bits that are the hardest to dispute.

Except a lot of them have been disproved but the semi-mythical content of them remains
Such as Oswald not being a good shot. His Marine rifle scores are above average.

The rifle being old and damaged is also not true -I'll include this piece, its wiki but if you were desperate to you could find it elsewhere.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_F._Kennedy_assassination_rifle

Its very interesting.
If you rely on the Donald Sutherland part of the JFK movie, it does seem improbable Oswald could have hit the target and the feat couldn't be duplicated.
But -- and if you think about it, obviously so; fifty years have elapsed! - the tests have been repeated dozens of times by government agencies and documentary makers.
Almost half the shooters {untrained in some cases} get two hits on target out of three.

And - in that same article is a link to the general Edwin Walker, which is well worth a read.
Because if Oswald was involved in that little known event, then he must have been alone. because only a madman would jeporadise the major mission for a secondary target of no importance.

Since when did the world's premier law enforcement agencies become so negligent? This was the President of the United States, they would have wanted to risk acquittal on the basis of a technicality would they.
I agree. Its stunning incompetence. But I feel an awful lot of panic and inter-agency infighting and arse covering and ball dropping went down.

The magic bullet theory. There are answers. It remains the weakest part of the story however.
but , as with the rifle, tests have been done many times since. And the results have been almost , but not quite, replicated. So the magic bullet theory is not impossible, just ..extraordinary.

*That was my problem with the JFK film. Any contradicting or explanatory evidence is not permitted so the evidence seems overwhelming that it was a 3 man team. Whereas the evidence is not that over whelming at all. Even the time of 5.5 seconds to shoot 3 times is now much more widely believed to be 8.5, which makes a big difference.

However - great points and well made.

dearieme said...

"Dearieme - I wonder what George Bush jnr IQ was? Higher or lower than Oswalds."

Probably higher when he was young - he passed the tests required to train as a fighter pilot. After years of booze and coke, who knows? Unlike JFK, W had no need to get someone else to write his undergraduate dissertation for him; unlike Teddy Kennedy, he had no need to send in a "ringer" to take an exam for him. Unlike Al Gore, he didn't fail two goes at doing a Masters degree. Ain't youth wunnerful?

lilith said...

I think this catchy tune by the gorgeous Laura Cantrell provides some further insight and a little light relief.