Guardian: JFK Conspiracy Solved

[JailBush]

According to an article in The Guardian, there was no JFK conspiracy; John F. Kennedy, Lee Harvey Oswald and Jack Ruby were all drawn together by chance. http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1090457,00.html

What do you think of the author's opinion? It sounds reasonable to me if he has his facts straight; I don't know enough about the incident to form a conclusion.

The following passages could be a simple report of the facts, or it could be clever propaganda designed to embarrass conspiracy theorists:

"In more than 100 conspiracy scenarios over the last 40 years, theorists have claimed there were anywhere from three to 10 shots fired by two to six gunmen working for 30 to 40 different combinations of instigators.

"They fired rifles, pistols and even poisoned darts out of umbrellas. They shot from the depository, the adjacent Dal-Tex Building, the knoll, the railroad overpass, the roofs of at least two buildings, a storm drain, the curb and even from inside the presidential limousine.

"They worked independently or in teams under radio control. Nearly 70 people were said to be in Dealey Plaza for nefarious purposes, leaving room for hardly anyone else.

"Sponsors include Cuba, Russia, China, North Vietnam, South Vietnam, Great Britain, Israel, the Jews, the Protestants, the Catholics, the Mafia, oil-rich Texans, the FBI, the CIA, the left wing, the right wing, and the "invisible Nazi substructure."

If you eliminate the poison darts and Protestants, the theories don't sound so wild. People have taken similar potshots at Paul Wellstone and 9/11 conspiracy theorists, laughing at the wilder conspiracy theories - which may not even be genuine theories - while snubbing serious theories.

Nevertheless, this article sounds pretty convincing to me - unless I'm missing something. I am a bit taken by the fact that the head of the Warren Commission changed his mind, after which he died in an extremely mysterious plane crash in Alaska. It would be ironic if JFK's assassination was not the result of a conspiracy but the plane crash was.

[dkamin]

1. this sounds like BS to me

"the head lurched back too late for it to have been a bullet?" . on what basis?

Ruby could only have been at the courthouse by extraordinary circumstances? on what basis? nothing in here is concrete. not to mention that he describes the "magic bullet" as being strong enough to pierce an elephant or some such nonsense. my understanding is that Oswald's rifle was not very powerful at all.

this guy sounds like he has a conclusion, which he shapes the facts to fit.

[JailBush]

2. As I said, I'm not up on the JFK conspiracy stuff, but the

comment about his weapon doubling as an elephant rifle caught my attention, too. I've never heard that before, and that's something that would stick in my mind.

[Octafish]

25. That's how a cover-up artist works.

These psy-ops experts baffle the masses with just enough legitimate information to sound plausible. Then, they toss in a few common points of reference that most agree upon and dump on enough contentious information to get everyone abuzz. With gusto, they add a sprinkling of inanity in the form of outrageous and easily debunked disinformation. With solemnity, they introduce Occam's Razor or Foucault's Pendulum or Abra's Cadabra. And, vioila! They create a steaming hot turd souflee guaranteed to bury the Truth every time. A recent example is our glorious Official 9-11 Commission.

[RummyTheDummy]

3. No matter what the conspiracy debunkers say......

They will never convince me that the back and to the left shot on Kennedy could have come from behind him. It's pure BS that defies the laws of logical thought process.

I've heard physicists, gun nuts et al try to say it could happen that way and I think they're all full of horseshit. And lest we not forget the convienent offing of Oswald 48 hours after the fact. Yeah, Ruby acted alone. Suuuuuuuuuuuure.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

4. Yeah, this night club owner with Mafia ties

was sooooo grief-stricken over the death of Kennedy that he walked into the Dallas police station with a gun and shot a suspect who was literally surrounded by police officers.

Even when I was 13 years old that struck me as fishy.

[Minstrel Boy]

8. Ruby admitted he was part of a conspiracy

in remarks after his trial (from which, I believe, he'd been led to expect a much more lenient sentence):

RUBY: Everything pertaining to what's happening has never come to the surface. The world will never know the true facts, of what occurred, my motives. The people had - that had so much to gain and had such an ulterior motive for putting me in the position I'm in, will never let the true facts come above board to the world.

REPORTER: Are these people in very high positions Jack ??

RUBY: Yes.

Here's the video:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/neal.mccarthy/ruby.mpg

[Terwilliger]

5. you posted the conspiracy debunking...how about the fact sources?

and maybe some of the hard data?

[BayCityProgressive]

6. I heard

LBJ thought that Castro had him capped. This wouldn't surprise me considering we were supporting the Batistas and had tried to kill Castro.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

15. The primary problem with the "Castro did it" theory...

...has to do with the fact that Castro had no way to ensure that the cover-up was set into motion. Part of the cover-up involved cleaning out JFK's limo the day of the assassination without documenting what was done, and then sending the limo to the manufacturer the day after the assassination to be rebuilt.

If there was any proof to the assertion that Castro had ordered JFK's assassination, the U.S. would have immediately used that as an excuse to attack and occupy Cuba.

LBJ's veracity on any given subject was highly questionable, especially when it came to protecting his own legacy.

[Terwilliger]

19. It also doesn't make sense given Operation Northwoods

there were people inside the US establishment DYING for an excuse to invade Cuba...this would have been the eventuality that they could never have planned for...why wouldn't they jump on it?

[Fozzledick]

36. The Castro "theory" is cover story #2

The conspirators knew that LBJ and other government insiders weren't ignorant enough to fall for the Lee Harvey Oswald cover story so they had a second cover story prepared for them blaming it on Castro. Along with it they fed them the line that it wasn't worth starting a nuclear war over.

In a recently released tape of LBJ and J. Edgar Hoover discussing the assasination just a day or two afterward you can hear Hoover feeding LBJ the Castro story as he expresses his doubts about LHO.

[Classical_Liberal]

7. I would like to hear both sides presented

with time for rebuttals. These one sided articles pro and con don't really give a frame of reference to judge. I am more amiable to conspiracy then I was in the past having seen the neocons operate, and having seen a stolen election.

[BigBigBigBear]

9. Factually incorrect

in at least one place:

"The "magic," or "pristine," bullet, too "undamaged" to pass through both men, was deformed in precisely the manner expected for jacketed bullets hitting flesh. "

...the bullet broke one of Connolly's ribs and pulverized his right wrist.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

10. Pure garbage...

If this article sounds pretty convincing to you, then you're definitely missing quite a bit.

Additionally, Earl Warren was the head of the Warren Commission, not Hale Boggs, the individual whose plane disappeared over Alaska.

[CMT]

11. pretty much what the Peter Jennings special on ABC

concluded. I tend to concur.

[NoKingGeorge]

30. I turned off the ABC report after Jennings said that immediatly

following the shooting, Oswald was the only book depository employee
missing. Facts are that a policeman asked an accompaning supervisor if the man they were encountering in the lunch room worked there. Yes confirmed the supervisor,the man sitting there (oswald) did work there. BTW: Oswald sitting there meant he would have had to descend 5 flights of stairs and appear composed , all in 90 seconds...

[jeter]

33. But Oswald did leave

Once it was acknowledged that the shooting came from the school book depository, the police did another check and Oswald was the only one gone.

He left work without telling anyone.

I don't believe in a conspiracy. It's all nonesense to me.

[OneBlueSky]

12. have to reach back to my assassination history here, but . . .

many years ago, someone or other . . . could have been the Warren Commission . . . had three of the top marksmen in the country try to duplicate Oswald's feat . . . not only couldn't they do it, not one of them could even get off three shots in the amount of time that Oswald had to shoot . . . simply not enough time to cock the rifle and fire, never mind the second or two it would take to re-acquire a moving target . . . twice . . . simply can't be done . . .

[dflprincess]

13. True, a convincing case can be made that Oswald was the lone shooter

That still wouldn't mean he was the only one in on it.

The most convincing argument for conspiracy is that the wounds shown in the autopy photos do not match the wounds the doctors in Dallas saw. And the wounds the doctors described point to a shooter from the front.

[adriennel]

14. Warren Commission Papers

I'm not a JFK expert, but in a former job I had the pleasure of reviewing reels and reels of Warren Commission documents. You would not believe the number of ridiculous claims reported and investigated by the commission (i.e. my neighbor is a homosexual and I think he is also a communist and I'm sure he shot JFK!)

According to interviews with family and friends, there was also the possibility that Jack Ruby was "not all there", as they say, ya know, in the head? I don't find this very hard to believe after reading more about his life.

I often wonder if Oswald maintained his ties to the USSR and if this somehow led to Kennedy's assasination. But this is the only conspiracy angle I think may hold a grain of truth.

Of course, a lot of people think the Warren Commission was bunk too. I did find it interesting to read the actual interviews and testimony from eyewitnesses, though.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

20. Would it effect your thinking if you knew that Oswald had a...

...201 personnel file with the CIA? Those files are for use with people who work as contract agents.

How about the crypto clearance he had while he worked as a USMC radar operator at the Atsugi Air Force Base in Japan? Did you know that his job was to track the U-2 spy planes in and out of radar range of Atsugi, and that he also stood guard duty outside the U-2 hangers? The U-2 was at that time the most closely guarded CIA program.

When Oswald was arrested, his belongings were inventoried twice and photographs were taken at each event. The Dallas Police inventoried them first, and happened to list a small Minox camera among his belongings. The belongings were shipped off to the FBI who also did an inventory. The Minox camera was not listed in the FBI list, nor did it appear in any of the FBI photos. Turns out that the CIA liked using the Minox for intelligence operations.

The Warren Commission, based on input from the FBI, used quite a bit of innuendo to attempt to make several people appear unbalanced. This was the modus operandi of the FBI in those days when they wanted to smear someone in the press.

[MadHound]

16. Man, the Warren Commission apologist are out in force this week

Just wanting to assure us that there was no conspiracy to kill Kennedy, it was just the lone nut assasian. Because if a conspiracy is proved to have occured forty years ago, then OMG, that means conspiracies can occur now. Can't have that little thought rolling around in the publics' psyche now can we.

I've posted endlessly on these anti conspiracy threads this week, and I'm not going to repeat myself here. However I will leave you with something to consider. If, as these WC apologists maintain, the shots all came from the back, then not only is the behaviour of the bullet miraculous, but so is the wound. For this would be the first gunshot wound in the history of man where the entrance wound is much larger than the exit wound. A physical impossibility.

I guess it was a magic wound, to match the magic bullet that caused the wound.

[adriennel]

18. I am not an apologist

just sharing my experience. sorry this offends you, as you seem to know it all.

[MadHound]

24. Doesn't offend me in the least

You have your beliefs in this matter, I have mine. But if you and the other anticonspiratorial folks around here would back up your lone nut assasian theory with some facts it might help to prove your point. So far you folk have been long on scolding and theory, but notoriously short on fact.

[yowzayowzayowza]

17. Neither Rugy nor Oswald had anything...

to do with scrubbing the crime scene. Sending the limo to Detroit to be cleaned and stripped within 48 hours of the murder is the conspiracy smoking gun. What criminal investigator, FBI or Secret Service, would allow ANY crime scene to be handled like that? Imagine what the lost blood and bullet evidence would have revealed.

[KFC]

21. If there were a second shooter they would have caught him

Just like they caught Oswald. No way any shooter gets away in that crowd. Without a second shooter in hand, the conspiracy theories are just smoke.

Also, the shots were amazingly easy from the book depository - go to Dallas and you will see. A blind man could have made those shots.

[Minstrel Boy]

22. the whole idea of a patsy

is to pin the crime on one guy. Hoover said within hours there was no one else to look for. The mandate of the Warren Commission was to confirm Oswald's guilt as the sole perpetrator. Other shooters? They never looked.

Shots from the Depository "amazingly easy" - "a blind man could have made those shots"? Stick to the chicken, KFC.

[Octafish]

27. They caught Oswald in a movie theater.

... about an hour and a half after he left the Texas School Book Depository, his place of employment for oh, about, six weeks. He never had a chance to explain WTF he was doing there before he got the silent treatment.

Regarding a second gunman: What makes his or her capture a certainty? By what logic would the shooter fire from the crowd? Why not shoot from another high rise or another protected, concealed position? That's how the pros do it.

[MrPrax]

23. Let's face it...

no 'mainstream' media outlet is going to 'entertain' JFK conspiracy theories other than debunk them...and ridicule them for not accepting the 'official story'.
Hell I have talked to people that think it is a 'conspiracy' to mention that Bush's family did business with Nazis...you show them refs to a 'court' case involving Prescott and Trading with the Enemy by his OWN government...
They change the subject to...'Are you calling Dubya a Nazi?'

That is why they get 'experts' and 'researchers' like Dave Perry

[Wapsie B]

26. I'll say it again.

If there was no conspiracy, open the WC files. If there was no conspiracy what is there to hide? If Oswald was the lone gunman with the magic bullet and all that and the WC report is the truth, what is in those documents that would be so earth shattering?

[WhosNext]

28. Why did the FRONT of Kennedy's head explode?

That's my problem. If he were shot by Oswald from behind, then why did the front part of his head explode? Also, was Jackie going after a piece of his head when she crawled on the car? thanks

[MadHound]

29. The front of his head didn't explode

It was the back of his head that blew out, from a shot coming from the front. The doctors and aprox forty witnesses saw that the back of his head was blown out at Parkland Hospital. And yes, that was a piece of JFK's head that Jackie crawled onto the trunk of the car to retrieve. She later handed it to an attendant at Parkland.

[WhosNext]

31. That must have been really traumatizing.

Your husband gets his head blown off right next to you, and you have to go get a piece of his head.

To me it looked like the front part of his head blew out. I havent seen the tape that many times though.

[Spider Jerusalem]

34. No...there was a large exit wound in the right front of his skull.

Visible in still frames from the Zapruder film and also visible in the same location in autopsy photos.

Compare this image:

With this autopsy photo:

[ET Awful]

32. Don't you mean why DIDN'T the front of his head explode?

If the shot was from the front (which I believe it was)the exit wound would be to the rear (which it was) and his head would move back (which it did).

[vision]

35. IMO there are many reasons to disbelieve Oswald as the killer

but the biggest is the magaic bullet. The weight of the bullet and the amount left in the bodies don't add up.

http://grandsubversion.com/jfk_assassination/single_magic_bullet_theory/magicpg1.htm

"More bullet fragments where surgically removed from the Governor then could have been lost by this bullet. . . The bullet was examined by the FBI, a microscopic inspection determined that it was as clean as a whistle. NO MICROSCOPIC FIBERS, BLOOD, ANYTHING."

http://grandsubversion.com/jfk_assassination/single_magic_bullet_theory/magicpg3.htm

Oswald as the sole assassin just doesn't hold up. Let's say that he was able to get off all the shots and make them in the time needed. How can the bullet both leave fragments in Connaly, JFk AND come out clean? It just doesn't add up.

"Mr. Frazier. Yes, sir; except for the marking of my initials and the other examiners. There is a discoloration at the nose caused apparently by mounting this bullet in some material which stained it, which was not present when received, and one more thing on the nose is a small dent or scraped area. At this area the spectographic examiner removed a small quantity of metal for analysis."
http://grandsubversion.com/jfk_assassination/single_magic_bullet_theory/magicpg3.htm