Executive Action (JFK assassination)

[Eloriel]

Bought the movie online the other day because my brother kept mentioning it and the list of people who'd died after the assassination itself. The movie wasn't bad -- but IMO Oliver Stone's was better. But then we're talking 1970s vs. 1990s.

In any case, the following is what I spent approx. $14.00 for (and pretty much worth it):

"In the three years after the murders of President John F. Kennedy and Lee Harvey Oswald, 18 material witnesses died.

Six died of gunfire. Three died in motor accidents. Two died by suicide. One died of a cut throat. One died of a karate chop to the throat. Three died by heart attacks. Two died of natural causes."

An actuary (in England? I think it read) calculated that there was a "ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND TRILLION to 1 chance" of those 18 deaths.

Eloriel

[Andyjunction]

1. here

Debunking the "mysterious deaths" myth:
http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/deaths.htm

[Octafish]

2. McAdams, huh? He believes the Single Bullet Theory.

Here's a more enlightened perspective on what the deaths of those witnesses means:

http://www.jfk-online.com/eyewitnesses.html

Most importantly: A hearty welcome to DU, Andyjunction!

[Andyjunction]

3. Thank you!

Thanks for the welcome. Hope I don't piss everyone off by debunking JFK assassination myths :hi:

[Eloriel]

6. LOL. You mean by TRYING to debunk them

Oh, don't get me wrong. There are a few diehard coincidence theorists here on the JFK assassination and a few other major tragedies and incidents of the 20th and 21st Centuries.

But you'll not gain too many converts, I can assure you.

Welcome to DU.

Eloriel

[RandomKoolzip]

8. Welcome to DU.

Now please counter your link's view with some alternate theories. Start with "The Last Investigation" by Gaeton Fonzi.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

18. You haven't debunked anything....

...which is typical of Warren Commission apologists.

[Andyjunction]

22. Yeah, sorry

You're both right. I'm only >trying< to debunk. Feel free to debunk my debunking. I really miss being in that crowd. It's that damn common sense thing I can't seem to ignore. We can at least keep it friendly, right?

[WoodrowFan]

39. here's more.

The House Committee that investigated the "mysterious" deaths also depuinked this bogus list. Of course that doesn't convince the conspiracy nuts.

http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/crs.htm

"When the House Select Committee on Assassinations wished to study the "mysterious deaths" associated with the assassination, they asked the Congressional Research Service — a division of the Library of Congress — to investigate a list of such deaths from published sources. The resulting CRS report is merely preliminary, but it shows the appalling number of factual errors in the conspiracy books pushing the notion, and the utterly non-mysterious nature of most of the deaths. "

[RandomKoolzip]

4. Sorry, I don't buy it.

Too many "inconvenient" people have been bumped off for me to swallow this single-bullet pusher's nonsense....unless, of course, the deaths of RFK, MLK, Lennon, Wellstone, Carnahan, Casolaro, etc. are all just "coincidentally" convenient to the establishment. Ever wonder why no Warren Commission people died under mysterious circumstances? Or any prominent republicans, eleven days before a tight election? And what about the deaths of DeMohrenschildt, Rosselli, et. al., who were about to appear in front of the Church committee, and all of whom suddenly became really depressed and committed suicide? Sorry, I don't buy it, I won't buy it, and I will never buy it.

[Minstrel Boy]

7. And the hits keep on coming...

Eladio del Valle, anti-Castro Cuban working with David Ferrie, flying clandestine missions. Sought for questioning by Jim Garrison. On the night of February 22, 1967, he's found in his car, brutally beaten, shot above the heart, his head chopped open. The same night, his pal David Ferrie, whose testimony Garrison also covets, dies. Two typed suicide notes are found, though his death's ruled "natural causes."

coincidence? :shrug:

[JackRiddler]

25. au contraire

Hale Boggs, a MEMBER of the Warren Commission, died under suspicious circumstances... in fact, his plane disappeared in Alaska and was never found. Also on it was a Rep. Begich...

However, Hale Boggs had begun to question the Warren Commission's findings in public.

[Minstrel Boy]

5. how about here

Debunking John McAdams, whose website often comes up when a coincidence theorist wants to score points:

http://ourworld.cs.com/_ht_a/mikegriffith1/id151.htm?mtbrand=CS_US

And some information on McAdams, a disrupter and font of disinformation, whose background, conduct and ties should make people wonder about his purpose:

http://www.geocities.com/justicewell/faq.htm

[Andyjunction]

9. Thanks

I will look at those and with an open mind. For most of my life I believed the conspiracy stuff. I loved it. But it just didn't make any sense in light of what can be seen on the Zapruder film. most importantly: the head shot had to have come from behind based on what we see. I really want to go back to being convinced but I've heard all the stuff before.

Anyway, thanks. I'll go read those links. All I know about the guy is he teaches a class on the assassination at Harvard I think.

P.S. This was about Ruby originally, we have been talking about the bigger picture at:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=728937&mesg_id=728937

[RandomKoolzip]

10. You and another guy on this board both see Kennedy's head endure a

shot from behind. I've seen different prints of the Zapruder film, and seen his head fly backward from a shot from the front every time. The cleaned up print from 1998 clearly shows this, at least to me....

[Andyjunction]

13. why

The reason the shot had to have come from behind is because the exit wound is in the front. Actually it's the area above and slightly forward of Kennedy's ear, since he practically has his head in Jackie's lap. Watch the explosion; the brain matter blows forward and upward. If that shot had come from the front right, it would have been the rear left portion of his head that exploded. How his body reacted is subject to many other variables, but that brain matter shooting out clearly shows where the shot came from.

[Merlin]

15. Wrong about the implications of blood blowing forward. Try this...

I'm serious.

Take a can of soda, beer or juice out to your back yard and set it on a stump. Stand about 15' away from it and fire a shot at it. You WILL get hit by the blow-back of the fluid.

Also, take a look at which way the can is driven.

The reason the fluid exits from the entry wound is because of pressure seeking the first release point.

The reason the can flies backward is because of Newton's Law.

There is simply no possible way the head shot came from the rear. It came from the right front, e.g. the grassy knoll.

I've seen (in Nam) people hit by a bullet that strikes bone. It drives them in the direction of travel of the bullet--away from the shooter.

[Andyjunction]

20. done that =P

I've shot full cans before, not as a reenactment of the Kennedy assassination though, :7 I try my best to break away from the redneck culture that surrounds me but can't always prevail =)

But you can't compare the two. That can of soda is under pressure and reacts nothing like a human skull.

Kennedy's head is already tucked into his chest when the shot comes. It can't move forward much farther than it already is. But you can see, in the first frame when the shot comes, his head pitch forward slightly. That is the impact of the bullet. Then his skull explodes and he recoils back. The motion back and to the left isn't violent or fast enough to have been directly caused by the impact of the bullet.

But all that is pointless theorizing in light of that spray of brain matter. That stuff is going to keep going along the general trajectory of the bullet unless it strikes something hard enough to stop it completely and cause it to ricochet inside the skull. This is clearly not what happened.

[Merlin]

23. Oh, come ON. Get real.

Look, do this simple little thing. Cock your head forward, just like you think JFK's was. Now take the index finger of your left hand, bring it back behind your head and strike the lower right rear of your head with it. Which way does your head move? Do you notice any recoil to the left rear? No? I didn't think so.

You've been hoodwinked. Newton's laws did not suspend themselves at 1PM on 11/22/1963 simply for the benefit of those who cannot stomach the obvious.

[Andyjunction]

24. I did it

It proved absolutely nothing.

A more realistic test would involve me actually being shot in exactly the same position as JFK from the exact same trajectory as the sixth floor window of the book depository. As much as I believe I'm right, I think I'll pass on that test.

[Merlin]

44. What do you mean "it proved nothing?" Do you think logically?

If you can add 2+2 and come up with 4, surely you can extrapolate from the fact that if you hit your head in the back with a piece of metal traveling at a high rate of speed, it will drive your head FORWARD not backward. Hello???

[Minstrel Boy]

16. but there was spray

to the rear as well. A trailing motorcycle cop thought he'd been hit by a bullet, but it was a bone fragment. And Jackie wasn't trying to retrieve her lipstick.

The spray pattern and damage to the head makes much more sense if it was a dum dum bullet (ie, explosive, unlike Oswald's), and the metal fragmentation in the lateral skull x-ray suggests a shot from the front.

Then there are those Parkland doctors, who can't tell the back of the head from the front...

[Andyjunction]

21. sure

Brain matter and bits of skull flew everywhere. But you can't deny that the Zapruder film shows the vast majority of it releasing upward and forward, indicating a shot from behind.

[maveric]

51. The head snapped back! The flap was open to the rear and his brain matter

ended up on the back of the limo!C'mon man, its obvious that the head snapped back!! And I beleive that there was a small entry wound hole in the front.

[PAMod]

30. The "spray" was up and forward.

Any of the matter that ended up behind them was due to the fact that the motorcade was passing under and through the bloody mist.

[dflprincess]

43. Jackie left tapes with the Kennedy Library

that were not to be made public until after her both Caroline and John, Jr. were dead. It would be interesting to know what's on him. Does she dis Jack as a lousy husband or does she tell exactly what she saw in Dallas and her opinion of what happened? Either way she was concerned about protecting her kids from something she knew. It has been said that one reason she married Onassis is because she thought his security people could do a better job of protecing Caroline and John than the Secret Service.

[PAMod]

29. I think I'm the other guy, and yes...

I see a shot from behind - for precisely the reasons Andyjunction states above. I can't explain why JFK's head snaps back, however, but perhaps it was a "jet-effect" from the exiting bullet, or perhaps it was some type of neuro-muscular spasm. I just think that a strike from the front would have looked 180 degrees different than what you see on the Zapruder film.

I don't doubt a shot from the front, btw, but if there was, I cannot imagine where it went. It don't believe it struck anyone in the car, and there were no reports of any bullet strikes, etc. behind the car.

I did read an interview with a guy (I think he worked for Ford), who said the windshield strike looked like a strike from the front, though others said it was clearly from the rear.

Anyway, the lack of a "grassy knoll" shooter certainly does not preclude a conspiracy, though it makes the thought less interesting, subjectively speaking.

edit: above

[Minstrel Boy]

32. whatever you make of the direction of the head shot,

there's the throat shot to consider.

Dr. Charles Carrico, who saw the throat wound before the tracheotomy was performed over it, described it as a "penetrating wound" in his November 22 medical report.

On the day of the assassination, Dr. Malcolm Perry, the surgeon who performed the tracheotomy, said twice on national television that the throat wound was an entrance wound. When interviewed a short time later, he was asked about the report that the alleged sole assassin fired from a building which was to the rear of the limousine. Dr. Perry replied by suggesting the President must have been turned toward the building when the bullet struck his throat.

From an interview with an employee who replaced the limousine's windshield glass on the Sunday following the assassination:

"I knocked on the door and they let me in. There were two of the lab men in there and they had the windshield there. And they told me that we were to use that to – see now the car was a special built car. We were to use that windshield as a template to make a new windshield. And the windshield had a bullet hole in it, coming from the outside through. You could see it, from the way it was broken.

…

"It was a good clean bullet hole, right straight through, from the front. And you can tell, when the bullet hits the windshield, like when you hit a rock or anything, what happens? The back chips out and the front may just have a pinhole in it… This had a clean round hole in the front and fragmentation in the back.

…

"I worked in the industry for forty years and I’ve seen all kinds of testing on glass and I know it came from the front."

The original glass, he says, was broken up and scrapped.
(Interview from Murder in Dealey Plaza, p. 142)

The wound in the back? It had no exit.

On the night of the autopsy, all three of the autopsy pathologists concluded, after extensive, prolonged probing, both with fingers and with a surgical probe, that the back wound had no point of exit. About half of the probing was done after the chest organs had been removed. James Jenkins, one of the medical technicians at the autopsy who witnessed the procedure, has reported he could see the surgical probe pushing against the lining of the chest cavity. Says Jenkins:

"I remember looking inside the chest cavity and I could see the probe...through the pleura .... You could actually see where it was making an indentation...where it was pushing the skin up.... There was no entry into the chest cavity.... No way that that could have exited in the front because it was then low in the chest cavity."

The New York Times, on 12/18/63, quoted a source it believed was familiar with the autopsy as saying that the bullet which struck the President in the back "penetrated two to three inches." Five weeks later, the Times said the bullet "hit the President in the back of his right shoulder, several inches below the collar line. That bullet lodged in his shoulder." In accordance with this report, the Washington Post reported on 12/18/63 that during the autopsy a bullet "was found deep in his shoulder."
http://ourworld.cs.com/mikegriffith1/id126.htm

And even if you disregard the testimony of witnesses, the puff of smoke and the nature of the wounds, the acoustic evidence was found by the British Forensic Science Society in 2001 to prove, with 96% certainty, that a shot was fired from the grassy knoll.
http://www.forensic-science-society.org.uk/Thomas.pdf
The Washington Post, "Study Backs Theory of Grassy Knoll":
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A56560-2001Mar25?language=printer

[MadHound]

38. All of you coeincidence theorists are forgetting a few crucial things

1. When Kennedy gets to the Dallas hospital over forty competent qualified witnesses(doctors, nurses, techs, orderlies, etc) see a large exit would in the back of Kennedy's head, hence there had to be a shot from the front. It was a large wound, blowing out aprox 1/5 to 1/4 of the brain matter inside.

2. Simple physics(and if you do any hunting you can easily verify this). When an object, animal, or human is struck by a bullet, it is simple physics that the body part goes in exactly the opposite direction of where the bullet came from. In every print of the Zapruder film, we have Kennedy's head going back and to the left, meaning the shot HAD to come from the front and right. This is a basic law of physics and there are no exceptions.

3. To further confirm this, there was massive fluid splatter from the exit wound. When the shooting started the driver of Kennedy's car practically stopped, as did the rest of the motorcade. And yet two people, a motorcycle cop, and the Secret Service agent whom we see later climbing on the back of Kennedy's car are both drenched with blood, brains and other bodily fluids In fact in the Zapruder film we even see Jackie Kennedy half climbing onto the rear of the limo to retrieve a portion of her husband's skull that had gotten blown back by the exiting bullet.

4. There were dozens and dozens of eyewitnesses who heard and saw at least one shot from the fence on the grassy knoll. And while some of these people were lay folk, there were also many policemen, WWII and Korea vetrans and others who know intimately through personal experience the nature of gunshots, where they come from, how they look and sound. To further confirm this we see in other films many many people rushing the grassy knoll in an attempt to catch the perp. Unfortunately, and mysteriously they are turned back by "Secret Service", "police" and "FBI". In fact some of these people are rounded up and given the third degree in an effort to have these witnesses change their stories. It is somewhat effective, they shut up some witnesses. But many more stick to their guns, even until their dying day, which tragically and mysteriously comes all too soon for some of them.

5. Photographic evidence and modern technology. There is a photograph out there, taken at the exact time of the assasination. Naked eye viewing of this photo shows that there is a bright flash from the fence on the grassy knoll precisely at the time of the kill shot. Advances in photographic technology have allowed expert analysists to blow this picture up and what you see when this is done is an outline of what looks like a man holding a rifle up to his shoulder in a firing position.

6. Audio analysis done by professional auditory forensics has pegged at least one shot from the grassy knoll, with another one comeing from a sewer drain that is also to the front and right of the limo as it proceeded down Elm.

This and much other evidence proves conclusively that there was at least one shot coming from the front and right of Kennedy, certainly the kill shot, more than likely coming from the fence on the grassy knoll. In fact it was so convincing that the House Commitee on Assasinations(a whitewash commitee that was set up to bury the Kennedy and King cases rather than raise more questions) reluctantly was forced to conclude that yes, there was at least one more shot than documented in the Warren Report, and that this shot came from the grassy knoll. Hence there was a conspiracy, by definition.

I find it a bit astounding that there are people in this day and age who still believe the Warren Report and the version of the assasination that it presents. This is a report that was discredited from virtually the day it was complete, and has been proved time and time again to contain major errors, lies and other assorted flaws. To continue to put your faith in this obvious snow job is to willfully bury your head in the sand.

[PAMod]

48. While you are taking a well-deserved breath...

let me say that I have read the Warren Commission Report (the one volume tome, not the dozens of binders of evidence) and I have read and heard enough of what other investigators & buffs have said that points out obvious flaws in the Warren Report.

I'm not defending the Warren Commission, per se.

My problem is with the certainty of a front shooter. I am doubtful, even though I have read practically all of the books, web-sites, etc. that have been put out.

Specifically, I'm saying that if there were (a) front shooter(s) he/they missed, and if so, the bullet(s) is/are missing - gone forever. That is a huge problem for the front shooter people, (except for the storm drain people, because his shot might have ended up downtown at the angle he would have been shooting from.)

Also, beware of the weight that you give to Parkland Hospital accounts. They were not there to determine where the bullets came from - rather they were concentrating on saving a patient under unimaginable pressure and emotional strain. Forensically speaking, the exit in the skin at the front of JFK's neck could have been held together by the closed collar and necktie, making it appear to be an entrance wound. None of those people at Parkland dissected the wound, so their viewpoint is speculation, albeit professional speculation.

While we are at it, some of the doctors who "remembered" a blow out in the rear of JFK's skull, when shown the autopsy photographs many years later, admitted that JFK looked as they remembered. (I don't have a link, but if I find one, I'll add it on edit.)

The "evidence" that you describe doesn't prove ANYTHING conclusively regarding a front shooter, even if you want it to. It merely asks questions and poses possibilities, both of which are a good thing in my opinion.

I'm not raining on the conspiracy parade, I just think that any conspiracy is probably different (simpler, therefore plausible) than some of the popular ones floated over the years.

[Drifter]

37. Typically ...

the direction of head movement will point to exactly were the shot comes from. The reason for this is the explosion that occurs when the projectile exits the body. Entrance wound is small, exit wound is huge.

This has been recreated many many times. I have seen case where they proved this by shooting at a human skull with a rifle similiar to Oswalds. And remarkably, the skull jumped backwards towards the origin of the bullet. I know it doesn't seem that this should happen, but it does.

The Z film clearly shows Kennedys forehead flying off. That particular shot came from behind.

Was that the only shot (or shooter) that attacked Kennedy that day ? I doubt it.

[maveric]

52. Forehead?? I've seen that film a thousand times and the forehead

was intact. Perhaps most of us here need an eye examination? The back rear of his head was open with a flap visible.

[Minstrel Boy]

12. No problem, Andy

And welcome!

Open minds are the way to go. And I don't mean gullible or naive, or believe-what-I-believe. If you dispute conspiracy then so be it, but I think guys like McAdams and Posner are mendacious, and their agendas are suspect. They don't tell the whole story, their methodologies are dodgy and their intentions are to shut down inquiry.

Check out this thread, too. You may find some stuff you haven't seen before:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=726944

[FlaGranny]

28. No matter where that bullet

"appears" to have come from, there is one undeniable fact - ALL the emergency room personnel described an entry wound in the front of the neck and an entry wound in the forehead. They all described a 7-cm hole (that's close to 4 inches, I think) in the BACK of Kennedy's head. I very much doubt these emergency room physicians cannot tell an entrance from an exit wound. Last night I even watched the news conference announcing JFK's death. The physician pointed to his the right side of his own forehead in describing where Kennedy was shot.

Conspiracy theories be damned - these physicians took care of Kennedy in the emergency room - they are the ones who saw the wounds first and they say the entry wounds were in the front.

All these physicians' and ER personnel's testimonies were ignored by the Warren Commission, but many of them are on record with their findings.

[PAMod]

31. The emergency room personnel described one "entrance" wound on the front..

of the neck. They surmised that a bullet entered there and exited out the top/back of his head. They saw no entrance wound on the head and they did not turn him over to look at the back of his head or the back of his body.

The massive wound on the head was on the top, but with JFK's long hair on top and the blood & matter dripping "behind" his head could have looked similar to the gaping wound on top.

Of course, all of this would have been cleared up if Dr. Rose had been allowed to perform the autopsy as Texas law mandated.

By taking the best evidence back to Washington, they were (if innocent) asking for trouble.

OR...

(if involved in conspiracy) they were participating in the biggest cover-up in the history of everything.

[Minstrel Boy]

34. Well, on tape, Nixon did call the Warren Commission

"the greatest hoax ever perpetrated," so I think you may be on to something.

[FlaGranny]

35. One of the doctors drew a diagram of the head wound.

The top of the wound was at the crown of Kennedy's head, on the right side. It extended to the bottom of the ear and nearly to the midline of the back of his head, 4 inches in diameter! The physician in the press conference pointed to his right forehead, between his eye and the hairline as the entrace wound.

[dflprincess]

41. Not just a physcian,

The acting White House Press Secretary also pointed to his temple when describing to the press in Dallas where Kennedy was hit and calling it an entrance room. He also mentioned the wound in the throat. This press conference was held at Parklawn immediately after JFK was pronounced dead. And the tape of this was shown on the History Channel Monday night.

[DiverDave]

26. So,

all those folks standing, in numerous photo's, and pointing to the "grassy knoll" were wrong...heh, mass hallucination I suppose :eyes:

[TruthIsAll]

27. Mathematica proof to confirm the actuary's calculations ...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=6304

[TruthIsAll]

50. The overwhelming circumstantial case for a JFK conspiracy..

I just posted this on a separate thread.

[KoKo]

11. I heard Michael Bechloss (pundit historian) on Imus this morning say that

"most people don't know that Johnson had the Presidential Limo that Kennedy was shot in (blood, brains, etc.) cleaned up, reupholstered, repainted a dark blue, and that he used it after it was refurbished and every President through Jimmy Carter used and rode in that Limo!"

That made me sick to hear that. He also wove into his conversation with Imus that Barbara Bush brought "one of her sons" to see the motorcade because she thought it would be interesting. He said that Poppy was in Dallas for a meeting. THEN...to top it off he said that with the release of the Johnson papers there's a speech that Johnson was going to make when he met JFK in Austin, TX after they left Dallas that day where Johnson was going to start off with a "Joke" that said: "Well, glad you made it out of Dallas alive, Mr. President."

I was going to post this on DU this morning, because I'd not heard any of that before, but had stayed up watching "History Channels" show on JFK and the whole thing was too much for me to deal with.

I don't usually watch Imus, either, but was surfing and saw Bechloss's photo up on Imus and heard him talking so I stayed tuned.

Bechloss wove it into the conversation with lots of "oh there was no conspiracy theory and what I was doing when I heard Kennedy was shot," stuff to appease RW Imus, but he got those three bombshells (to me, anyway) in the conversation.

The Limo thing alone is enough to creep anyone out. I can't imagine anyone wanting to ride in that Limo that Kennedy was assassinated in! Ever, and did any of the other Presidents know....How could they???

[Merlin]

14. The limo was hauled out by plane to Detroit the next day.

Incredible that they didn't even wait for a careful, meticulous analysis of it. Huge amounts of evidence lost forever.

Same was true of JFK's clothing. It was actually sent to a dry cleaner, as was LBJ's.

This is the classic modus operandi of black-op clean-up artists in the intelligence services.

[apsuman]

33. yeah, but...

First off, I thought (although I have no source for this) that the Secret Service prohibited the use of convertibles after the Kennedy assasination.

I am not sure what you would expect to find in Kennedy's clothing, and I agree that it should have been kept. But really, unless there is a source for this I just could not imagine clothes that were more than likely cut the hell up when he was taken to the hospital were anything more than thrown away.

Finally, there is no reason for LBJ's clothes not to go to the cleaners. What would you expect to find on them?

[Octafish]

36. Gaeton Fonzi of the HSCA said physical evidence was conclusive.

The lead criminal investigator for the House Select Committee on Assassinations, Gaeton Fonzi said the physical evidence represented by the clothing alone was sufficient to prove conspiracy. The clothes reveal President Kennedy was shot more than two times. The shirt and jacket reveal a shot in the back, lower than reported by the Warren Commission. The shirt and tie indicate a shot from the front in the throat.

Then there's the infamous Zapruder film and the fatal head shot. One bystander was wounded by shrapnel from a miss that struck the curb, witnessed by a policeman who saw the bystander beginning to bleed.

Of course, there's the evidence regarding the limousine (bullet hole in windshield, dent in window frame). No wonder J Edgar Hoover wanted the car scrubbed, eh?

Here's a good resource:

THE SINGLE-BULLET THEORY AND THE HOLES
IN THE BACK OF PRESIDENT KENNEDY'S SHIRT AND COAT

Michael T. Griffith

In order to attribute the murder of President Kennedy to a lone gunman, the Warren Commission (WC) found it necessary to formulate the single-bullet theory. According to this hypothesis, a single bullet, also known as the "magic bullet," struck Kennedy at the base of the neck, exited his throat, passed through Governor John Connally, causing all of his wounds, yet emerged in nearly pristine condition, suffering only a slight flattening at its base and losing no more than three grains of its substance. This bullet is officially labeled as Commission Exhibit (CE) 399.

Critics of the Commission's claims were quick to point out that the holes in the back of Kennedy's coat and shirt refuted the single-bullet theory, or at the very least showed it was highly doubtful. They noted that there was a bullet hole in the coat 5.375 inches from the top of the collar and a corresponding hole in the shirt 5.75 inches below the top of the collar, proving that the missile struck the President's back much lower than where the WC said it did.

Defenders of the single-bullet theory have never been able to satisfactorily explain how a bullet that entered at or near the base of the neck could have made the holes in JFK's coat and shirt. These holes are hard physical evidence that the single-bullet theory is invalid.

There is a considerable amount of evidence, in addition to the clothing holes, that JFK's back wound was much lower than where the WC placed it. In 1979, the medical panel of the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) concluded the back wound was nearly two inches LOWER than where the Commission had located it (and where Humes located it in the Ryberg drawing). However, the clothing holes, along with other evidence, prove that the wound's actual location was even farther down on the back than where the Select Committee placed it--that it was, in fact, 5 to 6 inches below the neckline. What other evidence is there of the back wound's low location? Here is brief review of it:

CONTINUED...

http://www.conspiracy-net.com/archives/articles/conspiracy/assassinations/CNCka021.txt

BTW: You make a good point about the SS not liking convertibles after Dallas. A day late, huh?

PS: A hearty welcome to DU, apsuman! Down with Bushler!

[FlaGranny]

40. Standard operating practice

in a murder is to do forensics on everything, "especially" the clothes the victim was wearing, no matter what they might expect or not expect to find on them. SOP to save them, not discard them.

[Merlin]

45. I meant Connally, not LBJ. Connally's clothing was very important.

Connally's clothing--prior to dry cleaning--would have been able to be tested to determine if in fact the same bullet that penetrated his back and exited his rib cage then angled downward through his wrist, then angled backward to strike his leg, then bounced up to lodge in his groin, then dislodged later on a hospital gurney, to be discovered by an orderly a couple of hours after the murder--who found the gurney unattended on an elevator--and found the bullet in nearly pristine condition. That was SOME bullet! Oh, and if it wasn't the same bullet, then there's no way there was a lone gunman. There had to be more than one shooter if there was no magic bullet.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

17. The limo was sent off to the main plant about three days after the...

...assassination and was essentially rebuilt with lots of body parts replaced. Bechloss simplified what was really done to that limo.

Speaking of photos of the limo, here is a set of photos of the limo leading up to, and after the assassination. Some are pretty graphic.

<http://www.jfklancer.com/LimoMarsh.html>

[KoKo]

19. Lot's of body parts replaced....yeah but not the ghost of the man who died

I still think it's totally gruesome. Johnson must have been cheap as hell or there was something bizarre going on there!

[FlaGranny]

42. One more thing about conspiracies -

isn't it totally mindboggling that there are so many people who can dismiss any and all conspiracies, when a conspiracy is just a group of two or more who get together to plan a criminal act? I wonder too about how dozens of witnesses can be entirely dismissed out of hand as mistaken - by a commission that picked and chose what parts of a witness's statement they would include in their report and which they would discard according to their desired outcome. It must be nice to believe there can be no conspiracies at all, that we are living in a universe where only one person can possibly plan any given assassination. It is not always a crazy, lone gunman. Sometimes the gunman has backers.

I absolutely do not believe that everything is part of a conspiracy and I'm not a paranoid person, but Oswald did not act alone. I'm just as certain of that as I am that our government was been hijacked by conspirators of the corporate, right-wing type.

[Merlin]

46. You are so right.

It's really amazing how many people have the notion that "it could never happen here." These are the same people who complain that all politicians are corrupt, and many are ruthless and don't give a damn about the US constitution.

Americans simply don't want to open their minds to reality when it comes to their own nation, which--they believe--is protected by God Almighty, so they just don't have to worry about it.

[Minstrel Boy]

47. Imagine any other nation

which, in the space of five years, sees its most prominent liberal leaders gunned down. Then imagine its government quickly pinning the crimes on "lone gunmen," destroying evidence, attempting to silence doubters by conducting investigations of itself, orchestrating media campaigns by intelligence assets to support the official story....

What would Americans call such a nation, and such a government?

[Merlin]

53. So True. And imagine any nation appointing the head of its secret police

(CIA), who had been fired by the assassinated leader just a year earlier, to the panel to investigate the murder!

[Jackson Daley]

49. Forgive my ignorance on this, but as I understand it, the show on The

History Channel the other night was a documentary positing that LBJ was involved in JFK's assassination. Maybe this has been discussed previously, and if so, I apologize for being redundant, but why wasn't there an outcry about this documentary before it aired? (As opposed to all the hubbub caused by the Reagan movie.) Seems to me accusing a former VP/Pres of the assassination of his predecessor is pretty damn serious.

[Bridget Burke]

54. Because the Reagans are/were Republican

(Not sure that Ronnie's much of anything any more.) Johnson was a Democrat.

Intimating that Republicans are not nice is an atrocity. Intimating that a Democrat was complicit in murder is OK!

[Minstrel Boy]

55. GRAPHIC: autopsy photo looks like the rear of the skull is missing

But see for yourself:



Funny how none of the autopsy photos give a clear picture of the extent of the head wound. For instance, we have JFK's undamaged full left profile. Yet no full right profile?