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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region Forums10 Facts about Lee Oswald that make 70% of Americans Wonder...
1. No Motive. Oswald was by all accounts a devoted and loving father who had a family and a long comfortable life ahead of him. There was no simmering hatred for Kennedy and apparently no delusions of grandeur or aspiration to become famous for killing JFK. No wish to impress Jodi Foster or anything similar. Nothing.
2. Oswald never confessed or took credit. Just the opposite, he asked for legal representation and never confessed to anything. Eventually Oswald said he was "a patsy." They were still trying to get a confession from him after he was shot by Ruby.
3. Oswald was a loyal Marine who given a very high security clearance and worked on the most secretive military projects of the day -- U2 spy flights over the USSR and radar operations.
4. Oswald got a hardship discharge from the USMC, allegedly to care for his mother, but then he went to the USSR instead. His mother was in good health and lived until 1981, age 74.
5. The USSR didn't believe Oswald's story or motivation for wanting to enter the USSR. They rejected his requests to defect. And then stationed him in a snowy hellhole under government observation for 3 years, until...
6. Oswald was welcomed back to the USA after his defection(?) to the USSR. He said he was "bored" and asked for his passport back and got it.
7. There was no official de-briefing of Oswald after his time the USSR. The government was running a USSR defector program to get people into the USSR, much the way Oswald went in but when Oswald came out there is no record of his being de-briefed despite Oswald being an expert on radar and surveillance.
http://jfkassassination.net/russ/jfkinfo4/jfk12/defector.htm
8. Oswald becomes the solo member of "Fair Play for Cuba" and passes out flyers for the group (of one) in one of the most heavily ANTI-Castro areas of the country, New Orleans. He gets reaction only from anti-Castro people. The only address ever given for FPFC was 544 Camp Street -- a building shared with Guy Bannister among a cluster of agency related offices and a garage used by the FBI and other alphabet entities.
9. Oswald didn't have a car and didn't drive. Oswald couldn't even go to the grocery or work without help from someone else.
10. Jack Ruby has no clear motivation to shoot Oswald. Ruby leaves a lucrative business to do so and dies in prison after saying:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Ruby
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gopiscrap
(23,758 posts)
stopbush
(24,396 posts)gopiscrap
(23,758 posts)and seeing how our gov't does things. I am half way through a masters in history with a focus on the Kennedy assassination.
stopbush
(24,396 posts)Last edited Mon Nov 11, 2013, 03:29 PM - Edit history (1)
I can't believe you would be going for a masters in history with a focus on the JFK assassination and not read the WCR. Seriously? That's like doing a thesis on the works of Dickens and never bothering to read A Tale of Two Cities for oneself, but basing said thesis on the critiques of others.
Do yourself a favor - read at least the overview of the WCR here, http://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/warren-commission-report/ ,
then do yourself a favor and read Bugliosi's Reclaiming History.
A masters with a "focus on the Kennedy assassination" indeed. What college are you attending? With those "standards," I might want to apply for a degree in neurosurgery.
grasswire
(50,130 posts)Lighten up.
stopbush
(24,396 posts)I present a few facts to a guy who criticizes the WCR without ever having read it, and I'm the one who's arrogant?
madmom
(9,681 posts)gopiscrap
(23,758 posts)I have it in paperback form sitting on my bookshelf as we speak...
RussBLib
(9,008 posts)It's not WHAT you say, it's HOW you say it.
In this case, you come off sounding like an arrogant posterior.
stopbush
(24,396 posts)BTW - there's an older saying: you're welcome to your own opinion, but not your own facts. I have yet to see any objective, factual evidence offered in this thread by the CTists. I'm not surprised by that - it's typical.
RetroLounge
(37,250 posts)You may now apologize to the poster for your assumption.
RL
Rex
(65,616 posts)We are so beneath that poster! Clearly they are far smarter then we will ever be! 
zappaman
(20,606 posts)there is something rotten in Denmark?
Not just Denmark either, yes I know it is a new CT I am working on. Has a lot to do with the Moon and a certain, stinky cheese. 
Rex
(65,616 posts)That is the ONE reason I take his posts with a large grain of salt.
gopiscrap
(23,758 posts)Once on my own and once for the graduate history I took.
SheilaT
(23,156 posts)people start with "The Death of A President" by William Manchester. Try very hard to read it in the four days that it covers and you'll get a good sense of what that weekend was actually like for those of us old enough to remember it. I was in high school.
I have never read the Warren Commission Report, but I have read the Bugliosi book. Excellent.
I get so tired of the claim that Oswald couldn't possibly have acted alone, or that there was some incredibly massive conspiracy and cover up, for which no good evidence has ever come to light.
Oswald was a loose cannon. He was unhappily married, could only find work at minimum wage meaning he couldn't actually support his family. He'd fired shots at some general or whatever just a few months before. He got lucky that JKF's motorcade went right past his workplace that day. Yeah, lots of people in Dallas weren't too fond of the President, and there was that nasty ad in the paper, but it's not some vast network of assassins at work, just one lone nutcase, which is all it takes.
Bobcat
(246 posts)Read "The Warren Commission :Accessories After the Fact" by Sylvia Meagher. It compares the testimony gathered by the commission to the conclusions in the commission report.
DanTex
(20,709 posts)Do you think you could provide maybe some links/book recommendation for someone who doesn't know much about the topic (i.e. me). My opinion has always been that it was Oswald acting alone, and the rest has always seemed like conspiracy theories without basis in fact. But this belief isn't based on real knowledge, more of just a general belief that conspiracy theories tend not to be true, and also what I've read indicates that the case against Oswald is pretty solid.
I'm not looking for some detailed point-by-point 500 page argument, just a general introduction that might convince me that a conspiracy (or whatever you want to call it) is more plausible than I currently feel.
AmBlue
(3,110 posts)I too would like a suggestion for a good starting place if I wanted to learn more.
zappaman
(20,606 posts)You might want to start there.
http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/home.htm
AmBlue
(3,110 posts) zappaman
(20,606 posts) 
Octafish
(55,745 posts)The basic information, all sourced with details and links for learning more.
AmBlue
(3,110 posts) Octafish
(55,745 posts)When you get time, you might enjoy reading what Doug Horne, a staffer on the Assassination Records Review Board, wrote on the "Why?" part of the story:
JFK’S WAR WITH THE NATIONAL SECURITY ESTABLISHMENT: WHY KENNEDY WAS ASSASSINATED
Warpy
(111,255 posts)because he didn't have much to lose--he had been diagnosed with cancer--and someone wanted Oswald shut up ASAP.
There are too many questions the WC didn't address, much less answer. Anyone who buys their "lone madman" conclusion had better settle in for a very long string of unsolved executions of public figures (which has pretty much happened).
stopbush
(24,396 posts)Apparently, he got in a time machine, went back 3 years in time and killed Oswald because he figured, "what the hell, I'm going to get cancer in 3 years anyway."
Press conference of Ruby's doctors announcing the diagnoses of his cancer:
BTW - Ruby's final statement on the Oswald shooting, made from his hospital bed on 12/19/66: "There is nothing to hide… There was no one else."
Warpy
(111,255 posts)but there were a lot of questions the WC didn't answer.
I can't answer them, either.
However, I'm delighted their conclusions have given you so much comfort.
stopbush
(24,396 posts)Why not address that fact that you (ie: Warpy) strongly implied Ruby killed Oswald because he had already been diagnosed with cancer before he killed Oswald. Why not address the fact that you're spreading CT lies about the case? Or do you have proof that Ruby was diagnosed with cancer before 11/23/1963?
BTW - you might find comfort in the WCR yourself had you bothered to read it. Obviously, you haven't, but that doesn't keep you from expressing disparaging opinions of the WCR.
I guess it's you who finds comfort in lies, in spreading the same and feeling no obligation to admit you were lying when called on it.
MythosMaster
(445 posts)Please tell.
stopbush
(24,396 posts)Read up on Ruby. He was a huge fan of JFK (RFK, not so much). He was extremely distraught after Oswald killed JFK.
The story Ruby told to Secret Service agent Forrest Sorrels 30 minutes after he executed Oswald and that he told to many others was:
“When this thing happened” — referring to the assassination, that he was in a newspaper office placing an ad for his business. That when he heard about the assassination, he had canceled his ad and had closed his business, and he had not done any business for 3 days. That he had been grieving about this thing. That on the Friday night he had gone to the synagogue and had heard a eulogy on the President. That his sister had recently been operated on, and that she has been hysterical. That when he saw that Mrs. Kennedy was going to have to appear for the trial, he thought to himself, why should she have to go through this ordeal for this no-good so-and-so.
That's what Ruby said his motivation was for killing Oswald.
MythosMaster
(445 posts)you're making me laugh...
Sounds more like a plea than a motive. He was hoping that he would get sympathy for killing the killer of our beloved president.
But you can believe that.
Rex
(65,616 posts)defending it...as you can see.
MythosMaster
(445 posts)
former9thward
(31,997 posts)Mafia operatives do what they have to do and don't have a history of drawing attention to others.
stopbush
(24,396 posts)Mafia wannabe, yes. Operative, not way.
avaistheone1
(14,626 posts)The committee also examined allegations that, even before the 1947 move to Dallas, Ruby had been personally acquainted with two professional killers for the organized crime syndicate in Chicago, David Yaras and Lenny Patrick. The committee established that Ruby, Yaras and Patrick were in fact acquainted during Ruby's years in Chicago, particularly in the 1930's and 1940's. Both Yaras and Patrick admitted, when questioned by the FBI in 1964, that they did know Ruby, but both said that they had not had any contact with him for 10 to 15 years. Yaras and Patrick further maintained they had never been particularly close to Ruby, had never visited him in Dallas and had no knowledge of Ruby being connected to organized crime. Indeed, the Warren Commission used Patrick's statement as a footnote citation in its report to support its conclusion that Ruby did not have significant syndicate associations.
On the other hand, the committee established that Yaras and Patrick were, in fact, notorious gunmen, having been identified by law enforcement authorities as executioners for the Chicago mob and closely associated with Sam Giancana, the organized crime leader in Chicago who was murdered in 1975. Yaras and Patrick are believed to have been responsible for numerous syndicate executions. including the murder of James Ragan, a gambling wire service owner. The evidence implicating Yaras and Patrick in syndicate activities is unusually reliable. Yaras, for example, was overheard in a 1962 electronic surveillance discussing various underworld murder contracts he had carried out and one he had only recently been assigned. While the committee found no evidence that Ruby was associated with Yaras or Patrick during the 1950s or 1960s, it concluded that Ruby had probably talked by telephone to Patrick during the summer of 1963.
Included among Ruby's closest friends was Lewis McWillie. McWillie moved from Dallas to Cuba in 1958 and worked in gambling casinos in Havana until 1960. In 1978, McWillie was employed in Las Vegas, and law enforcement files indicate he had business and personal ties to major organized crime figures, including Meyer Lansky and Santos Trafficante.
Ruby traveled to Cuba on at least one occasion to visit McWillie. McWillie testified to the committee that Ruby visited him only once in Cuba, and that it was a social visit. The Warren Commission concluded this was the only trip Ruby took to Cuba,39 despite documentation in the Commission's own files indicating Ruby made a second trip.
Both Ruby and McWillie claimed that Ruby's visit to Cuba was at McWillie's invitation and lasted about a week in the late summer or early fall of 1959. The committee, however, obtained tourist cards from the Cuban Government that show Ruby entered Cuba on August 8, 1959, left on September 11, reentered on September 12 and left again on September 13, 1959. These documents supplement records the committee obtained from the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) indicating that Ruby left Cuba on September 11, 1959, traveling to Miami, returned to Cuba on September 12, and traveled on to New Orleans on September 13, 1959. The Cuban Government could not state with certainty that the commercial airline flights indicated by the INS records were the only ones Ruby took during the period.
Other records obtained by the committee indicate that Ruby was in Dallas at times during the August 8 to September 11, 1959, period. He apparently visited his safe deposit box on August 21, met with FBI Agent Charles W. Flynn on August 31,(2) and returned to the safe deposit box on September 4. Consequently, if the tourist card documentation, INS, FBI, and bank records are all correct, Ruby had to have made at least three trips to Cuba. While the records appeared to be accurate, they were incomplete. The committee was unable to determine, for example, whether on the third trip, if it occurred, Ruby traveled by commercial airline or some other means. Consequently, the committee could not rule out the possibility that Ruby made more trips during this period or at other times.
Based on the unusual nature of the 1-day trip to Miami from Havana on September 11-12 and the possibility of at least one additional trip to Cuba, the committee concluded that vacationing was probably not the purpose for traveling to Havana, despite Ruby's insistence to the Warren Commission that his one trip to Cuba in 1959 was a social visit. The committee reached the judgment that Ruby most likely was serving as a courier for gambling interests when he traveled to Miami from Havana for 1 day, then returned to Cuba for a day, before flying to New Orleans.
The committee also deemed it likely that Ruby at least met various organized crime figures in Cuba, possibly including some who had been detained by the Cuban government. In fact, Ruby told the Warren Commission that he was later visited in Dallas by McWillie and a Havana casino owner and that they had discussed the gambling business in Cuba.
It has been charged that Ruby met with Santos Trafficante in Cuba sometime in 1959. Trafficante, regarded as one of the Nation's most powerful organized crime figures, was to become a key participant in Castro assassination attempts by the Mafia and the CIA from 1960 to 1963. The committee developed circumstantial evidence that makes a meeting between Ruby and Trafficante a distinct possibility. . . .
While allegations of a Ruby link to Trafficante had previously been raised, mainly due to McWillie's alleged close connections to the Mafia leader, it was not until recent years that they received serious attention. Trafficante had long been recognized by law enforcement officials as a leading member of the La Cosa Nostra, but he did not become the object of significant public attention in connection with the assassination of the President until his participation in the assassination plots against Castro was disclosed in 1975.
In 1976, in response to a freedom of information suit, the CIA declassified a State Department cablegram received from London on November 28, 1963. It read:
On 26 November 1963, a British Journalist named John Wilson, and also known as Wilson-Hudson, gave information to the American Embassy in London which indicated that an "American gangster-type named Ruby" visited Cuba around 1959. Wilson himself was working in Cuba at that time and was jailed by Castro before he was deported.
In prison in Cuba, Wilson says he met an American gangster/gambler named Santos who could not return to the U.S.A. Instead he preferred to live in relative luxury in a Cuban prison. While Santos was in prison, Wilson says, Santos was visited frequently by an American gangster type named Ruby. . . .
The committee was able . . . to develop corroborative information to the effect that Wilson-Hudson was incarcerated at the same detention camp in Cuba as Trafficante. . . .
The committee investigated other aspects of Ruby's activities that might have shown an association with organized crime figures. An extensive computer analysis of his telephone toll records for the month prior to the President's assassination revealed that he either placed calls to or received calls from a number of individuals who may be fairly characterized as having been affiliated, directly or indirectly, with organized crime. These included Irwin Weiner, a Chicago bondsman well-known as a frontman for organized crime and the Teamsters Union;83 Robert "Barney" Baker, a lieutenant of James R Hoffa and associate of several convicted organized crime executioners: Nofio J. Pecora, a lieutenant of Carlos Marcello, the Mafia boss in Louisiana; Harold Tannenbaum, a New Orleans French Quarter nightclub manager who lived in a trailer park owned by Pecora; McWillie, the Havana gambler; and Murray "Dusty" Miller, a Teamster deputy of Hoffa and associate of various underworld figures. Additionally, the committee concluded that Ruby was also probably in telephonic contact with Mafia executioner Lenny Patrick sometime during the summer of 1963. Although no such call was indicated in the available Ruby telephone records, Ruby's sister, Eva Grant, told the Warren Commission that Ruby had spoken more than once of having contacted Patrick by telephone during that period. . . .
[After opining that the timing of the long-distance calls was "consistent" with the explanation that Ruby made them to discuss his labor problems, and that "testimony" given to the committee "supported" the view that the calls were "by and large" related to Ruby's alleged AGVA labor problems, the committee then went on to note that at least some of those calls probably involved more than just a discussion of a "labor dispute":]
In light of the identity of some of the individuals, however, the possibility of other matters being discussed [during the long-distance phone calls] could not be dismissed.
In particular, the committee was not satisfied with the explanations of three individuals closely associated with organized crime who received telephone calls from Ruby in October or November 1963. Weiner, the Chicago bondsman, refused to discuss his call from Ruby on October 26, 1963, with the FBI in 1964, and he told a reporter in 1978 that the call had nothing to do with labor problems. In his executive session testimony before the committee, however, Weiner stated that he had lied to the reporter, and he claimed that he and Ruby had in fact, discussed a labor dispute. The committee was not satisfied with Weiner's explanation of his relationship with Ruby. Weiner suggested Ruby was seeking a bond necessary to obtain an injunction in his labor troubles, yet the committee could find no other creditable indication that Ruby contemplated seeking court relief, nor any other explanation for his having to go to Chicago for such a bond.
Barney Baker told the FBI in 1964 that he had received only one telephone call from Ruby (on Nov. 7, 1963) during which he had curtly dismissed Ruby's plea for assistance in a nightclub labor dispute. The committee established, however, that Baker received a second lengthy call from Ruby on November 8. The committee found it hard to believe that Baker, who denied the conversation ever took place, could have forgotten it.
The committee was also dissatisfied with the explanation of a call Ruby made on October 30, 1963, to the New Orleans trailer park office of Nofio J. Pecora, the longtime Marcello lieutenant. Pecora told the committee that only he would have answered his phone and that he never spoke with Ruby or took a message from him. The committee considered the possibility that the call was actually for Harold Tannenbaum, a mutual friend of Ruby and Pecora who lived in the trailer park, although Pecora denied he would have relayed such a message.
Additionally, the committee found it difficult to dismiss certain Ruby associations with the explanation that they were solely related to his labor problems. For example, James Henry Dolan, a Dallas AGVA representative, was reportedly an acquaintance of both Carlos Marcello and Santos Trafficante. While Dolan worked with Ruby on labor matters, they were also allegedly associated in other dealings, including a strong-arm attempt to appropriate the proceeds of a one-night performance of a stage review at the Adolphus Hotel in Dallas called "Bottoms Up." The FBI, moreover, has identified Dolan as an associate of Nofio Pecora. The committee noted further that reported links between AGVA and organized crime figures have been the subject of Federal and State investigations that have been underway for years. The committee's difficulties in separating Ruby's AGVA contacts from his organized crime connections was, in large degree, based on the dual roles that many of his associates played. (HSCA Report, Section I C 4)
Excerpts from organized crime expert John Davis's book MAFIA KINGFISH, focusing on Ruby's ties to one of the most powerful Mafia figures in the country in the 1960s, Carlos Marcello, who was known to hate Kennedy and who was heard by five people, two of them police informants, to acknowledge involvement in Kennedy's assassination
And what did the Assassinations Committee [i.e., the HSCA] discover about Jack Ruby's connections to the Marcello crime family?
First, the Ruby-Marcello connections in Dallas. The Assassinations Committee established that Jack Ruby was a friend and business associate of Joseph Civello's, Carlos Marcello's deputy in Dallas and the boss of Dallas's relatively small Mafia family, a reality that J. Edgar Hoover tried to keep from the attention of the Warren Commission and which the commission itself suppressed by not mentioning it in its report or published exhibits. Furthermore, it [the HSCA] established that Ruby was on very cordial terms with Joseph Campisi, who, the committee found out, was considered to be the number two man in the Dallas Mafia hierarchy and a man on such friendly terms with the Marcello brothers that he sent the family 260 pounds of homemade sausage every Christmas.
Campisi told the committee that he knew all of the Marcello brothers and used to go often to New Orleans to play golf and go to the track with Vincent, Anthony, and Sammy [Marcello]. It was Vincent who first introduced him to Carlos and Joe, and Carlos had taken to him to such an extent that he invited him several times to his fishing camp at Grand Isle, where Campisi would cook spaghetti for Carlos and all the brothers and their friends.
Joe Campisi, as we know, owned the Egyptian Lounge. In its interview with Campisi the Assassinations Committee obtained an admission from him that Jack Ruby had dined with him at the lounge the evening before Kennedy was assassinated. Campisi also admitted that he had visited Ruby in the Dallas County Jail eight days after the assassination.
It is one of the practices of the Mafia to visit a member of the brotherhood who has been jailed for a crime in which the brotherhood was involved soon after he first enters his cell. One of the purposes of such a visit is to remind the jailed colleague that he is to keep his mouth shut or else something unpleasant might happen to him or to a member of his family. This is usually done in subtle ways.
Joe Campisi was Ruby's first visitor after his imprisonment for murdering the President's alleged assassin. (Incredibly, the Dallas Police did not record the ten-minute conversation between Oswald's murderer and a man known to be a close associate of Carlos Marcello's deputy in Dallas.) Campisi brought his wife along with him--an unusual move, for Mafiosi almost never include their wives in meetings at which urgent matters are to be discussed, however obliquely. Former Chief Counsel Blakey speculates that Campisi brought his wife along so as not to arouse the police's suspicion. When questioned by the Assassinations Committee as to what Ruby said during their meeting, Campisi did not recall much but did remember vividly what had already become Ruby's stock answer to the question of why he killed Oswald: to spare Jacqueline Kennedy and her children the pain of an eventual trial of Lee Harvey Oswald. (Later a handwritten note of Ruby's to one of his attorneys was discovered in which Ruby admitted he was lying, that a former attorney, Tom Howard, a friend of Campisi's, told him to use the Jacqueline Kennedy story as an alibi.)
Campisi told the committee substantially what he told the FBI three weeks after the assassination: that when he and wife arrived at Ruby's cell, they found him crying: "Here I am fighting for my life and feeling sorry for myself," Ruby was supposed to have moaned, "when I really feel sorry for Mrs. Kennedy and the kids."
Campisi's original testimony to the FBI about his meeting with Ruby in jail, which, in turn, had been transmitted to the Warren Commission, had been a masterful performance. It had conveyed the impression that Mr. and Mrs. Campisi's visit to Mr. Jack Ruby was simply a visit to an old and dear friend who had gotten into a little trouble. It reinforced Ruby's professed patriotic indignation and sympathy for Jacqueline Kennedy and her kids. But fourteen years later Campisi's story did not convince the House Select on Assassinations that the purpose of his visit to prisoner Ruby was so innocent. The committee took note that Jack Ruby had dined with a Dallas-based member of the Marcello organization the evening before the assassination of the President and that the same Dallas-based member of the Marcello organization was the first person to visit Ruby after he had been jailed for the murder of the President's alleged assassin. The committee had little choice but to regard the Ruby-Campisi relationship and the Campisi-Marcello relationship as yet another set of associations strengthening the committee's growing suspicion of the Marcello crime family's involvement in a conspiracy to assassinate President Kennedy or execute the President's alleged assassin or both.
Contributing to that suspicion, the committee discovered yet another friend of Jack Ruby's with a connection to the Marcello organization. His name was James Henry Dolan, and he was a representative of the Dallas chapter of the mob-controlled American Guild of Variety Artists. The committee found out that Dolan was a close friend of Carlos Marcello's lieutenant Nofio Pecora and that Dolan had spent several days conferring with Ruby in Dallas two months before the assassination.
As for Jack Ruby's connections with the Marcello organization in New Orleans, the committee was to confirm certain connections the FBI had been aware of at the time of the assassination but had never forcefully brought to the attention of the Warren Commission. The committee was able to confirm that Ruby met with New Orleans nightclub operators and Marcello associates Harold Tannenbaum, Frank Caracci, Cleeve Dugas, and Nick Graffagnini (one of Pete Marcello's managers at the Marcello-owned Sho-Bar on Bourbon Street) in June and October 1963 and made a telephone call on October 30 to the New Orleans office of Marcello associate Nofio Pecora, whose associate, Emile Bruneau, had bailed Lee Harvey Oswald out of jail that summer. (MAFIA KINGFISH, pp. 449-451)
KansDem
(28,498 posts)At 0'32"
"Our these people in very high positions, Jack?"
"Yes."
roamer65
(36,745 posts)Roger Stone elaborates on that with quotes from Nixon in his book.
stopbush
(24,396 posts)RWers love it when Ds attack LBJ.
former9thward
(31,997 posts)I wrote a book on Chicago labor history. I did a lot of research on the Mafia encroachment into Chicago labor unions. If you go to the front page of the Chicago Tribune, December 9, 1939 you will find .... a picture of Jack Ruby -- wanted for murder of a reformist union leader, Leon Cooke, who had organized the Scrap Iron and Junk Haulers Union. After the Cooke murder Ruby helped Paul Dorfman take over the union. Dorfman was part of Tony Accardo's crew and the union became part of Teamsters, which was mob controlled soon after. Like almost all of Chicago's mob killings no charges were filed when the police caught up with Ruby. He continued to work for the mob for the next 10 years until they told him to move to Dallas as part of their effort to expand to the rapidly growing Texas cities.
I could go on and on, I have a whole chapter on it but he was no wannabe. He was the real thing (unless you think the Chicago Tribune has a time machine and in 1963 went back in time to change their 1939 paper to reflect badly on Ruby).
HooptieWagon
(17,064 posts)I'd say every single strip-club manager in Dallas in 1963 knew a couple Mafia guys.
avaistheone1
(14,626 posts)See post #132
HooptieWagon
(17,064 posts)doesn't make him a cop.
former9thward
(31,997 posts)Unless you are talking about corrupt mobbed up cops in both Dallas and Chicago. See post #142 for his activities in Chicago in the 1930s.
HooptieWagon
(17,064 posts)is attributed to his being recognized by DPD personell. Nobody questioned his being there, they knew him.
In greater context, it is entirely probable that the manager of a strip club was known, and on occassion had a limited working relationship with, both organized crime and law enforcement. To some extent, its possible he was an unofficial go-between, when either side required.
However, that does not mean he was a member of either organized crime or the police, and does not exclude the possibility of him acting independently. He was a hustler...he operated in his own self-interest. He cooperated with organized crime when it suited his interest, he cooperated with police when it suited his interest, and he acted independently when it suited his interest.
To conclude he was executing a hit to silence Oswald ignores several basic items.
1) He wasn't a hitman. Any group capable of executing a conspiracy to assassinate the POTUS (CIA, Mafia, RW Texans, Cubans) already had experienced professional killers at their disposal. Why use a rank amateur?
2) It was the most public hit possible. All of the possible conspiracy groups have histories of clandestine hits, not public ones in front of dozens of police, reporters, and photographers.
3) What is Ruby's motivation to carry out a hit on Oswald on behalf of others? He was sure to be caught and spend his life in jail. Even if he was paid (no record) he couldn't spend the money. There was no family to threaten. Threats against him were useless, as he would possibly expose the conspiracy....supposedly he was tying up loose ends (according to CTers), not creating new ones.
former9thward
(31,997 posts)Where, in fact, he was a hitman killing the reform union leader Leon Cooke. It is known that Ruby made a series of phone calls to high ranked Teamsters officials (who RFK was trying to put in prison) in the days before Nov. 22. James P, Hoffa's son testified that, "I think my dad knew Jack Ruby, so what?" But go ahead and think Ruby was just a innocent strip club owner. Once you are in the mob you stay in it.
HooptieWagon
(17,064 posts)And there is no known mob connection with that union. Your "facts" are completely wrong from the established facts...do you have evidence to back them up?
http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/ruby2.htm
former9thward
(31,997 posts)But to my knowledge they are not. The front page of the Chicago Tribune for December 9, 1939 has as its headline: Attorney Shot; Union Row There is a picture of Jack Ruby wanted for the killing of Cooke. Cooke, who had organized the union, had gone to the union office to complain about a sell out contract. Ruby was the union Secretary and there was an argument and Ruby shot him. Who took over? Paul Dorfman -- a member of Tony Accardo's crew. From there the mob took over the waste handling business in Chicago which it still controls to this very day. Where you are getting the union had no mob connection I have no clue.
HooptieWagon
(17,064 posts)Cooke was secretary of the union. Ruby was an employee. President was John Martin. Martin was found not guilty of killing Cooke by reason of self-defense. To use self-defense as a legal defense, you are admitting you killed the victim. It is quite impossible to claim self-defense AND someone else being the killer. Members of the union and businesses that employed them all say that there was no mob involvement in the union at that time. Whether or not it happened later is not stated. Ruby left his job at the union shortly after Cooke was killed. Its in the link I cited, which I assume you didn't bother to read.
It is not disputed that Ruby knew some gangsters. He was friends with the Campisis (sp?) who were mid-level gangsters at the time (late 30s early 40s). Its quite possible he did some errand-boy stuff for the mob from time to time, which wouldn't be unusual for a street-level hustler. But thats a long way from being a member of the mob. There is no evidence whatsoever Ruby carried out any hits for the mob or anyone else. Ruby had a long arrest record, but its all petty stuff...disturbing the peace, liquor license violations, etc. Nothing that would indicate mob activity.
former9thward
(31,997 posts)I just said the back issues of the Tribune are not online. How I am going to link to something not on line? I do have the paper because a picture of that issue is in a book on Chicago Labor history that I wrote. "Members of the Union and businesses that employed them all say there was no mob involvement at that time" Yeah, I'm sure they did. And all Al Capone did was run legitimate businesses. They would say that too. God, the naivete, that exists. Most mobsters in Chicago just had "petty arrests." The Chicago police at the time were completely corrupt. Mob killings were not prosecuted, including the Cooke killing.
stopbush
(24,396 posts)Have you ever read the WCR?
Warpy
(111,255 posts)At least the parts that were published in serial form in the newspaper.
stopbush
(24,396 posts)Tell us, for instance, how the bullets that were matched to Oswald's rifle weren't actually match to the same. Tell us how the beveling of the bullet wound to the back of JFK's head doesn't prove the kill shot entered from the back of JFK's skull.
You say the WC is full of holes. Well, prove it.
DesertFlower
(11,649 posts)people who said they saw oswald at ruby's nightclub.
KurtNYC
(14,549 posts)He said his father, later elected U.S. senator in New York, was "fairly convinced" that others were involved.
http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20130112/WIRE/130119896/2416/NEWS?p=2&tc=pg
duffyduff
(3,251 posts)you all know it deep down.
You who believe in such nonsense want to think JFK had to have died for "something," but in reality he was at the wrong place at the wrong time.
maxsolomon
(33,327 posts)
Jeff In Milwaukee
(13,992 posts)It's a theory, but given the time and the fact that Oswald is not around to answer questions, it's hard to say precisely what (if any) motivation he may have had.
And this theory does contradict the fact that Oswald never claiming responsibility. If he were looking to prove himself "exceptional," then it's more likely that he would have openly bragged about having done it.
maxsolomon
(33,327 posts)But given what we know of the psychology of chapman and hinckley, as well as that of men who kill their children &/or wives, it makes more sense than a lot of the other theories.
Jeff In Milwaukee
(13,992 posts)Would apply to Chapman and Hinckley. Absent a living, breathing Oswald to question, we'll just never know for certain.
I have my doubts as to whether Oswald acted alone or if he was set up to be the fall guy. But I'm pretty confident that I'll never know one way or another. One of life's little mysteries -- that and the continued existence of the Jonas Brothers.
This article is interesting, however, and it does at least give some plausible rationale for Oswald's behavior -- I've always wondered about the whole "lack of a motive" thing myself.
stopbush
(24,396 posts)Jeff In Milwaukee
(13,992 posts)KurtNYC
(14,549 posts)and very specifically didn't want her to learn English.
It offers nothing new with respect to any real motive to shoot Kennedy.
Jeff In Milwaukee
(13,992 posts)The author posits that Oswald felt that he was exceptional and (paraphrasing on my part here) bound for bigger and better things. His increasing abuse of Marina suggests, to the author, that perhaps Oswald felt is exceptional nature slipping away and that killing Kennedy would reclaim it.
I have to admit I feel a little silly just typing that sentence, so as theories go, it's crawled pretty far out on the limb.
factsarenotfair
(910 posts)HooptieWagon
(17,064 posts)And Ferrie was apparently using the CAP to troll for boys. Oswald attended several meetings, then left. Theres no evidence they remained in contact, or even remembered each other.
KurtNYC
(14,549 posts)in the months leading up to November 1963. She says Ferrie was introduced to her as a pilot for Eastern Airlines but he was also a "doctor" and was able to converse at length with her about her cancer research.
HooptieWagon
(17,064 posts)But she does spin a good yarn....in some cases so fanciful even the CTs started to call BS and she had to backstroke. For example....her claim that she and Oswald planned to get away to Cancun together after the assassination. Of course, in 1963 Cancun was a couple deserted isles. It wasn't even laid on paper until 1969, and construction began in 1970. Considering all the lies she's been caught in, and a complete lack of corroberating evidence for the remainder of her stories, not to mention her bizarre behavior and claims...one can only face-palm in amazement that people can be so gullible.
KurtNYC
(14,549 posts)Admittedly, some of the things she says now are a stretch but her original story contains way to many things which have checked out to be completely dismissed out of hand. She kept her own version of "the blue dress": her pay stubs from Reily, etc:
http://jamesfetzer.blogspot.com/2010/03/14-reasons-to-believe-in-judyth-vary.html
"This is hardly compelling. A pay stub does not prove a romance. I cannot find a link to any video of the friend saying she and her husband double-dated with Judyth and Lee. And videotapes of her experience with the doctor are irrelevant to to the question of whether she had a relationship with Oswald."
http://jfkfacts.org/assassination/fact-check/fact-check-oswalds-girlfriend-is-she-for-real/#more-1232
Here is a pretty comprehensive set of reasons why she should not be taken seriously...
http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/judyth.htm
KurtNYC
(14,549 posts)than those who appear to agree and in that vein I am open to your research and opinions.
I didn't find the real knock outs at that link. Much of confirms Baker's circumstances and whereabouts and other parts simply knit pick without delivering the KO:
Baker added a word to the title of the clinic ?! Most sentences in that section are like that -- skewering strawmen and disproving details that have no real bearing on the thread of the action.
They confirmed a lot. Kind of a fun read but a hack job.
Did I miss the KO in there?
HooptieWagon
(17,064 posts)...and doesn't get the name of the clinic right? The CIA is so hard up for money they can't afford a PhD working in a secure lab, and instead hire a teen-age girl to work out of Ferrie's kitchen? There are so many flaws in her story, none of it is credible except she worked at Reilly Coffee Co same time as Oswald. So did several others. It doesn't prove a thing, let alone a torrid romance or work on a super-secret bio-weapons project. Hell, it doesn't even prove she ever SPOKE with Oswald. It sounds like she watched JFK and Forrest Gump prior to fabricating her story.
HooptieWagon
(17,064 posts)OK, she worked at Reily's when Oswald did. So did several other peep. If she has a "blue dress", then she should produce it for DNA tests...unless the dog ate it, like she claimed for other "evidence". And its quite a fanciful tale how she gets noticed by the CIA for a high school science project, and they put her to work on a super-secret bio weapons project. Horseshit. The woman is desparate for attention, and she's invented a story to get it. However, its so far-fetched she can't get a publisher. Maybe she should peddle it to 60 minutes....they do fiction.
Theres a thorough de-bunking of Baker on the McAdams website.
http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/judyth.htm
Schema Thing
(10,283 posts)It's not even close to representing what we know of Oswald!
stopbush
(24,396 posts)Last edited Mon Nov 11, 2013, 02:27 PM - Edit history (2)
Sad to see these long-debunked myths showing up every November. The CTists see themselves as fighting some battle for truth, when they're really just a bunch of dupes.
Point #2 is especially laughable - Oswald never confessed.
Right, because we all know that anyone committing a crime - especially murder - confesses immediately. That's why there are no longer any murder trials in this country: if you don't confess, you didn't do it. If you do confess. why have a trial?
But let's look at it from both sides: suppose people who murder people or who are involved with murdering people do confess. Oswald didn't confess, so he didn't do it. But wait: nobody else confessed either! Not the mob, the Cubans, the Russians or anybody attached to a US government agency. If Oswald's not confessing lets him off the hook, then the same has to be true for all of the other "players" that the CTists claim were involved in the killing of JFK. They're off the hook as well.
Welcome to the world of JFk CTist "logic."
ieoeja
(9,748 posts)The CIA did release his personnel record a year or two ago. I remember the CTs on DU posting with "I never thought I would see this day come" and "I have tears in my eyes" posts. The rest of us shrugged. Many of us responded that we always believed he was a CIA plant while in the Soviet Union, but still thought he was going it alone during the assassination.
And that is pretty much what the CIA said. They admitted sending him to the Soviet Union. The Soviets didn't buy his story. And the pressure got to him. The CIA said they pulled him out and cut him lose as a bit of a nutjob.
His CIA personnel record actually supports the lone nutjob theory.
During his entire lifetime before killing JFK and becoming famous, none of the Leftists who met him believed he was a Communist. He was a walking, talking, over the top stereotype of a Communist Radical. And Conservatives actually believe their stereotypes about other people. So nobody bought his schtick.
There was a time when it seemed every Rightist pundit claimed to have been a Liberal Democrat in college when they learned just how evil we are. Each attempt I know of to verify those claims discovered they were actually Communists, not Democrats. They simply went from one evil extreme to the other. And I have never, ever heard of one going back. The closest they come is to embracing centrism.
Since Oswald was raised by Communist parents whom he came to abhor for that very fact, Oswald would be the only known person in history to have reverted to Communism after leaving it. The evidence against him being a Communist is pretty overwhelming.
Or, rather, the evidence of him really being a Communist is ... bad. Really, really bad. Pestering his fellow Marines with pro-Communist speeches? We're supposed to believe the Marine Corps would have tolerated that in the 1950s? That his fellow Marines would have tolerated that? That the Marine Corps would have let an admitted Communist continue working in military intelligence with access to lots of sensitive material? In the 1950s?
How does one even make that argument with a straight face?
The only decent evidence for him being a Communist was his attempt to kill General Whatshisname. But the alternative explanations for that are far more sensible than any of the other he-was-a-Communist arguments. For one thing Oswald, an excellent marksmen, missed a well lit, sitting target from a short distance. Then ran after a single shot instead of taking a second shot. So was he really trying to assassinate the ex-General? Or just add to his Communist credentials?
For that matter, had he killed the ex-General, the Rightist establishment (or national security) would not have mourned his passing. His antics were embarassing to them.
stopbush
(24,396 posts)It's a personality file. There's a huge difference.
Employees have personnel records. A 201 is NOT a personnel record. It's the kind of file the CIA keeps on anybody who they think is worth tracking - actors, politicians, etc, none of who worked for the Agency.
To imply that Oswald worked for the CIA because they kept the same kind of file on him as they did Frank Sinatra is nuts.
ieoeja
(9,748 posts)to be worthless speculation.
HooptieWagon
(17,064 posts)So using "parents" as in plural is in error. His mother appears to have been unstable and domineering, although I am not aware of her politics I haven't read she was a Communist. His uncle (mother's brother?) appears to have been an errand boy for the Marcello Family gang.
If he was a CIA plant, then the CIA is worse than Keystone Kops. Given his poor education, and abysmal military record, there is nothing to suggest he'd make a competent spy...just the opposite, in fact. And he was "studying" Marxism as early as his mid-teens, according to then acquaintences. I doubt he was being trained for a CIA mission then. His acquaintences chalked up his Marxism to wanting to appear an intellectual.
IMO, he was a firm believer in Communism.
former9thward
(31,997 posts)There is no evidence of that. If you are going to rely on the discredited "expert" ranking he got in the Marines that is one of many feel good, morale building, medals, certificates,etc. the military likes to hand out like candy. I got an expert ranking in the Air Force and I handled a rifle for all of 4 hours one day. It is just BS. As far as General Walker is concerned you sound like you were a witness. Were you? You know the exact conditions and exactly what was going on there at the time. Amazing! Did you testify before the Warren Commission?
ieoeja
(9,748 posts)former9thward
(31,997 posts)But no its not.
stopbush
(24,396 posts)He attained the rank of Sharpshooter in 1956, hitting a stationary target at 200 yds 48 and 49 times out of 50 attempts. Those target books still exist. They are official USMC records. How have they been "discredited?" Shortly before he left the USMC in 1959, he was retested and was rated a Marksman, which is a lower classification than Sharpshooter.
According to the USMC records which still exist, Oswald spent a lot more than 4 hours practicing his shooting.
But his USMC rating is pretty much irrelevant. What's relevant is whether or not he could make the kill shot at a range of 265 feet (88 yds) with a scope, as he did with JFK. According to the USMC representatives who testified at the WC, that shot would have been easy for a person of Oswald's demonstrated skill. Military experts, after examining his records, characterized his firearms proficiency as "above average" and said he was, when compared to American civilian males of his age, "an excellent shot." (Source: WCR)
Hell, you could probably make that shot yourself after your 4 hours of practice.
FogerRox
(13,211 posts)former9thward
(31,997 posts)Oh I know you are a marksman too on the internet.
stopbush
(24,396 posts)and in less time than Oswald.
Your point?
BTW - Oswald's 3 shots took about 8.5 seconds to execute. Considering that the first round was chambered and ready to be shot, the clock on the 8.5 seconds starts when Oswald fires the first shot. That means that he got two more shots off in 8.5 seconds, taking an average of 4.25 seconds to chamber, aim and shoot the second & third shots. That's an incredible amount of time per shot for a trained shooter, as was Oswald.
former9thward
(31,997 posts)Plenty of people have shot three shots through maple trees at that angle with a car moving away from them at that distance under those conditions (shooting a president and wanting to get away). I'm sure there are "plenty" that have done all that. Why was Oswald seen after the assassination on the 2nd floor getting stuff out of vending machines? I guess after you have shot the President you really want a candy bar rather than trying to get out of there.
To accept Oswald as the lone gunmen you also have to accept that he was the luckiest assassin in history. Assassins usually have to go to their intended target to try and kill them. But not Oswald. He got a job at a place where --- imagine his astounding luck -- his target scheduled a motorcade right next to his building! Kennedy came to him and diverted into a slow moving circle around the Book Building. How convenient! An assassin who does not even need to take time off work to do his job!
stopbush
(24,396 posts)As far as trees go, the only tree that was big enough to block a shot from the TSBD in 1963 was an oak tree that sat at the corner of Elm & Houston. That's probably why Oswald didn't fire as the motorcade neared the turn onto Elm. The tress on Elm were a lot smaller 50 years ago than they are today. Photos taken from the sniper's perch the day of the assassination exhibit no obstruction by the trees on Elm. It's a totally unobstructed shot from the 6th-floor window to the position of the limo when JFK was hit by the second & third bullets.
Lucky shot? The limo slowed to 11mph after the first shot. Any "moving away" from Oswald by the limo was minimal. JFK was basically a stationary target from Oswald's perch. He had a high-powered scope on his rifle which - if used - made JFK appear even closer. Distance? The kill shot was a distance of 88 yards. Oswald scored high as a Sharpshooter in the USMC hitting a target at 200 yds 48 and 49 times out of 50. Why would you think he couldn't make the same shot at less than half that distance?
Oswald started work as a temp at the TSBD on Oct 16, 1963, well before the motorcade route was announced on November 18. That motorcade route had to turn onto Houston and then Elm to access the ramp to the Stemmons Fwy. Once the route was decided, it wasn't changed. Oswald being in the right place at the right time was a crime of opportunity.
As far as wanting to "get out of there." Oswald was the only employee missing from the TSBD after the killing, and he had not been excused from his job by his boss. His clipboard from that day showed that he had actually done no work at all. Yeah, he got out of there.
former9thward
(31,997 posts)Do you do that in real life?
stopbush
(24,396 posts)former9thward
(31,997 posts)stopbush
(24,396 posts)Here's RFK himself (audio only), speaking out in FULL support of the Warren Commission a mere 3 months before he himself was gunned down:
A few minutes after saying that he has seen everything in the archives relating to his brother's death, and that he stands behind the findings of the Warren Commission, RFK says that he "plans to tell the truth" in this campaign.
former9thward
(31,997 posts)So who did the former attorney general and later presidential candidate believe ultimately was responsible? The answer is unclear, but his son implied that the culprit might have been the Central Intelligence Agency. According to the following report by ABC News, when the younger RFK was offered a list of possible suspects, he admonished his interlocutor to include “rogue CIA agents” in the list.
zappaman
(20,606 posts)Cuz I see evidence that he said the opposite.
former9thward
(31,997 posts)Are you saying his son is a liar? That clearly is what you saying. Do you have evidence his son is a liar?
zappaman
(20,606 posts)former9thward
(31,997 posts)I posted my link. Why don't you post your link showing his son is a liar about this father. You should be held accountable for this accusation.
stopbush
(24,396 posts)Sorry, but I don't believe it. RFK Jr has little credibility these days, at least with me.
Notice that Jr can't get at all specific about what his father "really thought." More mystery cloaked in an enigma. No names, no places, just shadowy references that keep the CTs alive as a cash cow for the fact-ignoring authors.
And so sad to see Jr adding to the perception that his dad & JFK were spineless, feckless politicians who were afraid to say what they really felt in public, who were easily manipulated by the powers that swirled around them. The men who stared down Kruschev in Cuba and who were ready to go to the mat (ie: war) over Soviet aggression didn't have the guts to - in JFK's instance - publicly declare that he was pulling out of Nam (even though he supposedly felt that way in private), and - in RFK's instance - didn't have the guts to publicly challenge the findings of the WCR and demand further investigation of his brother's murder, when nobody in the world would have blamed him for demanding more investigation. That's what all of you "what he really said in private" CTists are averring, are you not?
Sorry, those aren't the two men I remember from my childhood.
former9thward
(31,997 posts)He is lying about his father according to you. I guess you were in the room or had bugs in there.
zappaman
(20,606 posts)RFK is contradicting his son's claims.
You think his son is telling the truth and RFK is lying in this video?
I guess you were in the room or had bugs in there.
former9thward
(31,997 posts)“He publicly supported the Warren Commission report but privately he was dismissive of it,” Kennedy said.
And as to why RFK senior didn’t come forward with these allegations? Apparently he felt it would be “a distraction” from the push for civil rights at the time.
stopbush
(24,396 posts)Let's just say he's easily manipulated and given to flights of fancy.
BTW - why do you discount RFK's own words in the matter, spoken less than 5 years after his brother's death while giving credence to Jr's words spoken 50 years after the assassination? You know, Jr was only 14 years old when his father was killed. It's a real stretch to imagine that a 14 year old could correctly interpret anything his father would have said to him at the time concerning the killing of JFK, let alone being able to precisely remember what was said 30-some years after the fact.
Like most CTists, you're eager to accept as gospel the most-tangential opinions out there if they support your CT fantasy, while dismissing and excusing away the plain words spoken by the players themselves.
HooptieWagon
(17,064 posts)Zero evidence of a second gunman is proof one existed. 
Bolo Boffin
(23,796 posts)Long, comfortable life? smh
moondust
(19,979 posts)if you buy into the narrative that Tamerlan Tsarnaev became hyper-radicalized before/during/after spending six months in Russia.
stopbush
(24,396 posts)yet most people don't bat an eye that the Boston Police captured/killed the marathon bombers in a couple of days?
And the marathon bombers didn't leave a rifle behind as evidence, a rifle that was traced back to the vendor and Oswald within 24 hours.
ProfessorGAC
(65,010 posts)The cops had the suspicious guys with backpacks an hour after the bombing
They have facial recognition software.
They can trace internet and cellphone records with proper cause.
The DPD had none of that.
You're comparing apples to giraffes. It doesn't matter if one believes the WC report or one of the CT's. Your post is illogical You can't compare 2 days in the high def video/internet age to 1963 forensics.
GAC
stopbush
(24,396 posts)The rifle found in the sniper's nest was traced to Oswald within 24 hours of the killing. Oswald was of course arrested after killing Officer Tippett, and he spent the better part of what life he had left on earth incriminating himself by telling transparent lies to the police, like saying he didn't own a rifle.
And - as most CTists will point out to you - Oswald was already under surveillance by law enforcement agencies. Not so hard to get nabbed when you're already on the radar, even in 1963.
Scuba
(53,475 posts)Really? Anybody know if that's possible?
KurtNYC
(14,549 posts)Scuba
(53,475 posts)Jeff In Milwaukee
(13,992 posts) Scuba
(53,475 posts)
hack89
(39,171 posts)hack89
(39,171 posts)he was assigned to Marine Air Control Squadron 1 - their mission was to provide aerial surveillance and air traffic control for aircraft assigned to Atsugi. Which means they controlled U2 flights.
Rex
(65,616 posts)during the height of the Cold War. No wonder people are gullible enough to believe the WC.
stopbush
(24,396 posts)Rex
(65,616 posts)No wonder everyone is ignoring you.
stopbush
(24,396 posts)but who have no problem criticizing it as if they had read it.
I expect such behavior from RWers, not DUers, most of whom tend to be fact-based in their life views. Magical thinking like the kind that swirls around the JFK CTs is almost identical to talking about "death panels" and the birther shit.
oswaldactedalone
(3,491 posts)either mean nothing or are easily disputable. People are just going to have to wake up to the fact that Oswald was a deluded and lost soul who acted alone. There is no credible proof that anything but this is the truth.
former9thward
(31,997 posts)A video could be produced with the second gunmen and you would still say he acted alone.
oswaldactedalone
(3,491 posts)I believed in the conspiracy theories until about '04 or so. With all the meticulous testing and simulations done in terms of sound analysis, enhanced video and sound, and bullet trajectories, , it just became apparent to me that Oswald acted alone. If someone had a video of a second gunman then that changes everything.
As Oswald's brother said, you have to look at who he was and his life prior to the shooting to realize that he was perfectly capable of killing the President. His brother said that when he heard Oswald's name as a suspect, he had no doubt he had done it. He had tried to assassinate General Walker just a short time before and I believe if he'd of pulled that off he wouldn't have gone after Kennedy. The window frame that deflected the bullet away from Walker's head changed world history in my honest opinion.
Spider Jerusalem
(21,786 posts)Oswald was a paranoid and unstable narcissist with a violent temper who beat and raped his wife. He may have been "a devoted and loving father" but he certainly wasn't a very devoted and loving husband; he didn't allow his wife to learn English, in order to maintain his control over her. And he thought he was destined for historical greatness; he believed he was a man of destiny. The fact that you can say this means you have probably never actually read anything about the real Lee Oswald; "Marina and Lee" would be a good start, or Norman Mailer's "Oswald's Tale", or even the biography of Oswald that forms an appendix to the Warren Commission report.
And? His rifle was used to shoot Kennedy. Bullet fragments recovered from the limo and the intact bullet from Connally's stretcher were ballistically matched to Oswald's rifle, to the exclusion of all other weapons. Multiple eyewitnesses saw a rifle protruding from the sixth-floor TSBD window. Some of those witnesses had an angle to see the man holding it. At least one of those picked Oswald out of a lineup. And he shot a police officer. Shell casings recovered from the scene of that shooting were matched to the revolver Oswald had on him when arrested, to the exclusion of all other weapons. Multiple eyewitnesses saw him fleeing the scene. Several of them picked him out of a lineup. If he'd lived and been tried, he would've been found guilty on the basis of the overwhelming circumstantial, eyewitness, and physical evidence linking him to the crimes.
Oswald was repeatedly punished for infractions of military discipline and reduced from PFC to buck private; his security clearance was "confidential", the lowest level, which was the minimum for the assignment he had. See report from the Houe Select Committee on Assassinations: http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/oswald5.txt
Oswald had been unsuccessful in his attempt to renounce his citizenship; he wsn't "welcomed back" so much as let back in because as a US citizen he couldn't be turned away.
Oswald wasn't debriefed because he didnt know anything useful. See here: http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=OibCmEpOqDwC&pg=PA86&img=1&zoom=3&hl=en&sig=ACfU3U1v8RZtZWvx-KGC8VVAk8DLrT-ktw&w=685&w=800
10. Jack Ruby has no clear motivation to shoot Oswald. Ruby leaves a lucrative business to do so and dies in prison
Ruby's business wasn't that lucrative. Ruby furthermore is on record as a man with a violent and explosive temper; he'd blow up at customers and kick them out of his club, he had a repuation for being a bit nuts and probably having a few screws loose. And the day he shot Oswald? He went to a Western Union office to wire money to one of his employees. The counter was closed. He left and went to the police station, with every evident intention of coming back...and it happened to be just when the police were moving Oswald to the county jail. There's nothing to suggest that it could possibly have been anything more than coincidence and sudden impulse.
The only reason people wonder is because they're ignorant of the facts and only know vague half-truths and the distortion of Oliver Stone's absurd film.
randome
(34,845 posts)
[hr][font color="blue"][center]There is nothing you can't do if you put your mind to it.
Nothing.[/center][/font][hr]
stopbush
(24,396 posts)You forgot to mention that Ruby had his beloved pet dog Sheba with him when he went to the WU office, and that he left her in the car when he walked to the Dallas Police Station. Does that sound like the action of a man who is going to kill Oswald? That he'd leave a beloved pet in the car when he would have known he wouldn't be coming back to the car?
Also, Oswald's transfer from the Dallas PS to county was supposed to happen an hour earlier, but was delayed because Oswald wanted to change his clothes. If that transfer had gone as planned, Oswald wouldn't have been at the Dallas PS when Ruby showed up, and Ruby only showed up at all because he had come down to wire money from the WU office.
As far as Ruby dying before he could tell the truth - he died over THREE YEARS after he killed Oswald. Does anyone believe he didn't "tell the truth" because he was snuffed out before he had a chance to talk?
KurtNYC
(14,549 posts)Hard to wire money AFTER you get arrested for shooting Oswald.
Does anyone really believe that Ruby "wanted to spare Jackie K another trip to Dallas" ? so what then was Ruby's motive for ending his own freedom and killing a man who was going to be convicted and executed anyway?
stopbush
(24,396 posts)Your not knowing that simply proves the fact that you've never read any of the sources that contain the evidence in the case.
Your comment about Ruby "wanting his dog found and cared for" is proof of the stretches of credulity you CTists will sink to in an attempt to put the square peg in the round hole. If that was true, why didn't he bring all of his dogs with him to the WU office?
Oh, you didn't know he owned more than one dog, because you've never read any of the credible source material. You also didn't know that Ruby killed Oswald at 11:21am but that his car wasn't found and impounded for another two hours. If Ruby's mindset was that he wanted his dog to be found and cared for, why didn't he tell the police to go and get her? You probably don't know that Ruby referred to his dogs as "my children." Do most people leave "their children" unattended in a car for any length of time?
Occam's Razor: what's more likely? That Ruby brought his most-beloved pet with him on his pre-meditated mission to kill Oswald, even though Oswald should have been gone from the DPS for over an hour by the time Ruby got there, and that Ruby left his favorite pet in his car knowing he would never return to her, OR, that he went to the WU office to send money, left his dog in his car because he didn't expect to be at the DPS for all that long, encountered Oswald who should have been long gone and killed him as a crime of opportunity?
zappaman
(20,606 posts)I'm sure you are already aware of them, but here they are again...
Mr. RANKIN. It isn't entirely clear how you feel
that your family and you yourself are threatened by
your telling what you have to the Commission.
How do you come to the conclusion that they might be
killed? Will you tell us a little bit more about that,
if you can?
Mr. RUBY. Well, assuming that, as I stated before,
some persons are accusing me falsely of being part of
the plot--naturally, in all the time from over 6 months
ago, my family has been so interested in helping me.
Mr. RANKIN. By that, you mean a party to the plot
of Oswald?
Mr. RUBY. That I was party to a plot to silence
Oswald.
All right now, when your family believes you and knows
your mannerisms and your thoughts, and knows your
sincerity, they have lived with you all your life and
know your emotional feelings and your patriotism--on the
surface, they see me only as the guilty assailant of
Oswald, and by helping me like they have, going all
out.
My brother who has a successful business, I know he is
going to be killed. And I haven't seen him in years.
And suddenly he feels that he wants to help me, because
he believes that I couldn't be any further involved
than the actual ----
When I told him I did it because of Mrs. Kennedy, that
is all he had to hear, because I would never involve my
family or involve him in a conspiracy.
Everyone haven't let me down. Because they read the
newspapers away from Dallas that stated certain facts
about me, but they are untrue, because they wouldn't
come out and put those things in the newspapers that
they should be putting in; and people outside of Dallas
read the Dallas newspapers and are all in sympathy with
me, as far as the country itself.
That they felt, well, Jack did it. They probably felt
they would do the same thing.
That sympathy isn't going to help me, because the
people that have the power here, they have a different
verdict. They already have me as the accused assassin
of our beloved President.
Now if I sound screwy telling you this, then I must be
screwy.
Yes, he sounds screwy...
http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/ruby1.txt
KurtNYC
(14,549 posts)Oswald had no bald spot. (And no motive.)
Spider Jerusalem
(21,786 posts)And what was Oswald's motive for trying to kill Edwin Walker? Just because you can't see what motive there may have been doesn't mean there wasn't one. And there's the evidence of the rifle, the bullets, the Tippit shooting. Handwaving and "but no-one can definitively place him in that sixth-floor window!" doesn't make that go away.
stopbush
(24,396 posts)What is the "motive" of mass murderers who walk into schools and kill a bunch of children they don't know?
Uncle Joe
(58,355 posts)Ruby's business wasn't that lucrative. Ruby furthermore is on record as a man with a violent and explosive temper; he'd blow up at customers and kick them out of his club, he had a repuation for being a bit nuts and probably having a few screws loose. And the day he shot Oswald? He went to a Western Union office to wire money to one of his employees. The counter was closed. He left and went to the police station, with every evident intention of coming back...and it happened to be just when the police were moving Oswald to the county jail. There's nothing to suggest that it could possibly have been anything more than coincidence and sudden impulse.
Spider Jerusalem
(21,786 posts)He was in the habit of carrying large sums of money and habitually also carried a pistol. You might as well ask "why was he wearing a hat?"
zappaman
(20,606 posts)Why WAS he wearing a hat?
A secret signal to his co-conspirators, perhaps?
Uncle Joe
(58,355 posts)points out.
There was premeditation, this wasn't a spontaneous killing.
Spider Jerusalem
(21,786 posts)The cops knw him and thought nothing of his presence. He was a cop groupie, basically. He liked to suck up to police officers and give them free drinks at his club. The fact that he went to the police station when he went to the police station all the time anyway proves absolutely nothing.
Uncle Joe
(58,355 posts)while having the assassin of the President in their custody?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Ruby
Similarly, a PBS Frontline investigation into the connections between Ruby and Dallas organized crime figures reported the following:
In 1963, Sam and Joe Campisi were leading figures in the Dallas underworld. Jack knew the Campisis and had been seen with them on many occasions. The Campisis were lieutenants of Carlos Marcello, the Mafia boss who had reportedly talked of killing the President.
—[17]
A day before Kennedy was assassinated, Ruby went to Joe Campisi's restaurant.[18] At the time of the Kennedy assassination, Ruby was close enough to the Campisis to ask them to come see him after he was arrested for shooting Lee Oswald.[19]
(snip)
The House Select Committee on Assassinations in its 1979 Final Report opined:
…Ruby's shooting of Oswald was not a spontaneous act, in that it involved at least some premeditation. Similarly, the committee believed it was less likely that Ruby entered the police basement without assistance, even though the assistance may have been provided with no knowledge of Ruby's intentions… The committee was troubled by the apparently unlocked doors along the stairway route and the removal of security guards from the area of the garage nearest the stairway shortly before the shooting… There is also evidence that the Dallas Police Department withheld relevant information from the Warren Commission concerning Ruby's entry to the scene of the Oswald transfer.
—[52]
Spider Jerusalem
(21,786 posts)Ruby didn't know Oswald was being moved then. There's no reason to doubt that; Oswald had been scheduled to be transferred earlier. This argument of conspiracy doesn't hold up. At all. So: Ruby goes to the Western Union office, comes out, sees a crowd at the police station, goes through the open garage door...a security breach, but then look at what had just happened; security was generally much laxer in 1963. Applying modern ideas of standard procedure doesn't really work. There's too much coincidence involved for there to have possibly been a conspiracy. If there had been, Ruby wouldn't have turned up at the last minute, as he did. And you seem to be ignoring: Ruby knew and was friendly with many of the Dallas cops. If he showed up? One of them probably thought, oh, it's Jack, he's kind of a kook but he's harmless, and let him in.
Uncle Joe
(58,355 posts)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Ruby
…Ruby's shooting of Oswald was not a spontaneous act, in that it involved at least some premeditation. Similarly, the committee believed it was less likely that Ruby entered the police basement without assistance, even though the assistance may have been provided with no knowledge of Ruby's intentions… The committee was troubled by the apparently unlocked doors along the stairway route and the removal of security guards from the area of the garage nearest the stairway shortly before the shooting… There is also evidence that the Dallas Police Department withheld relevant information from the Warren Commission concerning Ruby's entry to the scene of the Oswald transfer.
I'm not ignoring that Ruby was friends with the police nor the mafia.
Nor am I ignoring that the CIA wanted to use the Mafia to assassinate Castro, they knew the Mafia hated Castro as well.
The Mafia threatened to assassinate JFK because of RFK's increased prosecution of them and failure from the Bay of Pigs.
So why would the Mafia want to kill Oswald when he basically did what they wanted?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Ruby
Another motive was put forth by Frank Sheeran, allegedly a hitman for the Mafia, in a conversation he had with the then-former Teamsters boss Jimmy Hoffa. During the conversation, Hoffa claimed that Ruby was assigned the task of coordinating police officers who were loyal to Ruby to murder Oswald while he was in their custody. As Ruby evidently mismanaged the operation, he was given a choice to either finish the job himself or forfeit his life.[55]
Within hours of Ruby's arrest for shooting Oswald, a telegram was received at the Dallas city jail in support of Ruby, under the names of Hal and Pauline Collins.[56] In one of the Warren Commissions exhibits, Hal Collins is listed as a character reference by Ruby on a Texas liquor license application.[57]
Uncle Joe
(58,355 posts)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Ruby
Ruby (also known as "Sparky," from his boxing nickname "Sparkling Ruby"[44]) was seen in the halls of the Dallas Police Headquarters on several occasions after the arrest of Lee Harvey Oswald on November 22, 1963; and newsreel footage from WFAA-TV (Dallas) and NBC shows Ruby impersonating a newspaper reporter during a press conference at Dallas Police Headquarters on the night of the assassination.[45] District Attorney Henry Wade briefed reporters at the press conference telling them that Lee Oswald was a member of the anti-Castro Free Cuba Committee. Ruby was one of several people there who spoke up to correct Wade, saying: "Henry, that's the Fair Play for Cuba Committee," a pro-Castro organization.[46][47] Some speculate that Ruby may have hoped to kill Oswald that night at the police station press conference.[48] Ruby told the FBI, a month after his arrest for killing Oswald, that he had his loaded snub-nosed Colt Cobra .38 revolver in his right-hand pocket during the press conference.[49][50]
(snip)
The House Select Committee on Assassinations in its 1979 Final Report opined:
…Ruby's shooting of Oswald was not a spontaneous act, in that it involved at least some premeditation. Similarly, the committee believed it was less likely that Ruby entered the police basement without assistance, even though the assistance may have been provided with no knowledge of Ruby's intentions… The committee was troubled by the apparently unlocked doors along the stairway route and the removal of security guards from the area of the garage nearest the stairway shortly before the shooting… There is also evidence that the Dallas Police Department withheld relevant information from the Warren Commission concerning Ruby's entry to the scene of the Oswald transfer.
—[52]
(snip)
Ruby's explanation for killing Oswald would be "exposed … as a fabricated legal ploy", according to the House Select Committee on Assassinations. In a private note to one of his attorneys, Joseph Tonahill, Ruby wrote: "Joe, you should know this. [My first lawyer] Tom Howard told me to say that I shot Oswald so that Caroline and Mrs. Kennedy wouldn't have to come to Dallas to testify. OK?"[42][54]
Another motive was put forth by Frank Sheeran, allegedly a hitman for the Mafia, in a conversation he had with the then-former Teamsters boss Jimmy Hoffa. During the conversation, Hoffa claimed that Ruby was assigned the task of coordinating police officers who were loyal to Ruby to murder Oswald while he was in their custody. As Ruby evidently mismanaged the operation, he was given a choice to either finish the job himself or forfeit his life.[55]
Uncle Joe
(58,355 posts)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_Kennedy_assassination_conspiracy_theory
Documents never seen by the Warren Commission have revealed that some Mafiosi worked with the CIA on assassination attempts against Cuban leader Fidel Castro.[25] CIA documents released in 2007 confirmed that in the summer of 1960, the CIA recruited ex-FBI agent Robert Maheu to approach the West Coast representative of the Chicago mob, Johnny Roselli. When Maheu contacted Roselli, Maheu hid the fact that he was sent by the CIA, instead portraying himself an advocate for international corporations. He offered to pay $150,000 to have Castro killed, but Roselli declined any pay. Roselli introduced Maheu to two men he referred to as "Sam Gold" and "Joe." "Sam Gold" was Sam Giancana; "Joe" was Santo Trafficante, Jr., the Tampa, Florida boss and one of the most powerful mobsters in pre-revolution Cuba.[26][27] Glenn Kessler of The Washington Post explained: "After Fidel Castro led a revolution that toppled a friendly government in 1959, the CIA was desperate to eliminate him. So the agency sought out a partner equally worried about Castro—the Mafia, which had lucrative investments in Cuban casinos."[28]
Jimmy Hoffa, president of the Teamsters Union, and mobsters Carlos Marcello, Sam Giancana, Johnny Roselli, Charles Nicoletti, and Santo Trafficante Jr.—all of whom say Hoffa worked with the CIA on the Castro assassination plots—top the list of House Select Committee on Assassinations Mafia suspects.[29]
It is also alleged that Mafia criminals may have wished to retaliate against John F. Kennedy in response to the increasing pressure put on them by Robert Kennedy, who had increased by 12 times the number of prosecutions conducted under the administration of President Dwight Eisenhower. Carlos Marcello allegedly threatened to assassinate the President to short-circuit Robert Kennedy, who was serving as US Attorney General and leading the administration's anti-Mafia crusade.[30][31]
In his memoir, Bound by Honor, Bill Bonanno, son of New York Mafia boss Joseph Bonanno, disclosed that several Mafia families had long-standing ties with the anti-Castro Cubans through the Havana casinos operated by the Mafia before the Cuban Revolution. Many Cuban exiles and Mafia bosses disliked President Kennedy, blaming him for the failed Bay of Pigs Invasion.[32] They also disliked his brother, the young and idealistic Attorney General Robert Kennedy, who had conducted an unprecedented legal assault on organized crime.[33][34] This was especially provocative because several of the Mafia "families" had allegedly worked with JFK's father, Joseph Kennedy, to get JFK elected.[citation needed] Both the Mafia and the anti-Castro Cubans were experts in assassination, the Cubans having been trained by the CIA.[35] Bonanno reported that he realized the degree of the involvement of other Mafia families when he witnessed Jack Ruby killing Oswald on television - the Bonannos recognized Jack Ruby as an associate of Chicago mobster Sam Giancana.[36]
Information released around 2006 by the FBI indicates that Carlos Marcello confessed in detail to having organized Kennedy's assassination.[37] The FBI then covered up this information, which it had in its possession. This version of events is also supported by the findings of a 1979 Congressional Committee investigation that Marcello was likely part of a Mafia conspiracy behind the assassination, and had the means and the opportunity required to carry it out.
Spider Jerusalem
(21,786 posts)Or to do with all of the physical and circumstantial evidence that says Oswald's rifle was used to shoot Kennedy and that Oswald himself pulled the trigger?
Wikipedia clearly needs better editors, because the HSCA found no such thing. They found that Oswald killed Kennedy, that there was no question that the bullets known to have struck Kennedy and Connally were fired from Oswald's rifle, from the sixth floor of the TSBD, and, by process of elimination, by Oswald. The finding of possible conspiracy did not point to the Mafia or any other specific conspirators and hinged entirely on a dictabelt recording presumed to have been made in or near Dealey Plaza at the time of the assassination that recorded "impulses" taken for gunshots. Subsequent analyses of that recording have shown that it cannot be simultaneous with the assassination, that it cannot have come from a police motorcycle in the motorcade, and that the impulses aren't gunshots.
Uncle Joe
(58,355 posts)He had the connections to the CIA via his "friend" and the CIA had connections to the Mafia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_de_Mohrenschildt
George de Mohrenschildt (in Russian: Георгий Сергеевич де Мореншильд
(April 17, 1911 – March 29, 1977) was a petroleum geologist and professor who befriended Lee Harvey Oswald in the summer of 1962 and maintained that friendship until Oswald's death, two days after Oswald allegedly assassinated U.S. President John F. Kennedy. His testimony before the Warren Commission investigating the assassination was one of the longest of any witness.[1]
(snip)
De Mohrenschildt dabbled in the insurance business from 1939 to 1941, but failed to pass his broker's examination.[15] In 1941, he became associated with Film Facts in New York, a production company owned by his cousin Baron Maydell who was said to have pro-Nazi sympathies. (De Mohrenschildt denied any Nazi sympathies of his own, claiming he helped raise money for the Polish resistance.) De Mohrenschildt made a documentary film about resistance fighters in Poland.[16] However, when the United States entered World War II, his application to join the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) was rejected. According to a memo by former CIA director Richard Helms, de Mohrenschildt "was alleged to be a Nazi espionage agent."[17]
(snip)
Lee Harvey Oswald and his Russian-born wife Marina Oswald were introduced to de Mohrenschildt in the summer of 1962 in Fort Worth, Texas. De Mohrenschildt had heard of the Oswalds from one of the Russian-speaking group of émigrés in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. George and Jeanne befriended them, tried to help them as best they could, and introduced them to the Russian community in Dallas. In his Warren Commission testimony in 1964, de Mohrenschildt stated that he believed he had discussed Oswald with J. Walton Moore, who de Mohrenschildt described as "a Government man — either FBI or Central Intelligence",[28][29] and who had debriefed de Mohrenschildt several times following de Mohrenschildt's travels abroad, starting in 1957.[29][30] (According to a CIA classified document, obtained by House Select Committee on Assassinations, J. Walton Moore was an agent of the CIA's Domestic Contacts Division in Dallas.)[29] De Mohrenschildt asserted that shortly after meeting Oswald, he asked Moore and Fort Worth attorney Max E. Clark about Oswald to reassure himself that it was "safe" for the de Mohrenschildts to assist Oswald. De Mohrenschildt testified that one of the persons he talked to about Oswald told him that Oswald "seems to be OK," and that "he is a harmless lunatic." However, de Mohrenschildt was not exactly sure who it was who told him this.[31] (When interviewed in 1978 by the House Select Committee on Assassinations, J. Walton Moore denied that de Mohrenschildt had asked for his permission to contact Oswald.)[29] It should be noted that during this time, tens of thousands of American citizens were routinely debriefed by the CIA after traveling to countries such as Yugoslavia, as de Mohrenschildt did.[32]
(snip)
In March 1963, de Mohrenschildt received a Haitian government contract for $285,000 to set up an industrial enterprise with other investors, which included surveying oil and geological resources on the island. In May, he met in Washington, D.C. with CIA and Army intelligence contacts to further his Haitian connections.[37][38] De Mohrenschildt moved to Haiti in June. He never saw Oswald again. After Kennedy was assassinated, de Mohrenschildt testified before the Warren Commission in April 1964. (For this testimony in the hearing record, see Testimony of George S. de Mohrenschildt.) In 1967, de Mohrenschildt left Haiti and returned to Dallas. Also in 1967, New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison interviewed George and Jeanne de Mohrenschildt as part of Garrison's prosecution of Clay Shaw.[39]
(snip)
On March 16, 1977, de Mohrenschildt returned to the United States from his trip. His daughter talked with him at length and found him to be deeply disturbed about certain matters and had expressed a desire to commit suicide. On March 29, De Mohrenschildt gave an interview to author Edward Jay Epstein, during which he claimed that in 1962, Dallas CIA operative J. Walton Moore had given him the go-ahead to meet Oswald. "I would never have contacted Oswald in a million years if Moore had not sanctioned it," de Mohrenschildt said. "Too much was at stake."[50] On the same day as the Epstein interview, de Mohrenschildt received a business card from Gaeton Fonzi, an investigator for the House Select Committee on Assassinations, telling him that he would like to see him.[51] The HSCA considered him a "crucial witness".[52] That afternoon, de Mohrenschildt was found dead from a shotgun blast to the head in a house where he was staying in Manalapan, Florida.[53][37] The coroner's verdict was suicide.[54]
P.S. I don't know what makes that smilie face appear in the post above.
Spider Jerusalem
(21,786 posts)There was not very much of a Russian community in Dallas. It's natural that his wife should be drawn to people to whom she could speak as he wouldn't let her learn English. There's not any evidence to support the assertion that De Mohrenschildt was some sort of intelligence agent who was running Oswald. There's no evidence to support the assertion that Oswald had any intelligence connections. There's coincidence and happenstance. Oswald only got the job at the TSBD seven weeks earlier, and only because Ruth Paine, a friend of his wife's, knew someone who was a supervisor there, and told him they were hiring. It's not like he was placed there by a sophisticated conspiracy. Random chance put Oswald in a position to kill Kennedy. Not the sinister machinations of some imaginary Mafia/CIA/right-wing Cuban cabal.
HooptieWagon
(17,064 posts)That de M was introduced to the Oswalds by the Russian ex-pat community in order to help Marina adapt to life in the US. de M was a petroleum engineer, and travelled abroad frequently. It would not be unusual for him to convey information he learned while abroad to the CIA, but that only makes him a source not an operative. He may or may not have been giving CIA information on Oswald, its not known. But again, thats likely as a source not an operative or handler.
His suicide seems fairly straightforward. He suffered from depression, his wife had previously had him committed to a mental hospital, and he had attempted suicide 4 times previously. Its doubtful he was killed.
cynatnite
(31,011 posts)
JVS
(61,935 posts)
nyquil_man
(1,443 posts)
longship
(40,416 posts)Which is all that any conspiracy theory has to grab hold of.
"But... But... But... What about this? You can't explain that!!!!"
No, I can't. But history is full of such vagaries and minutia which are unexplainable. The human social/political/psychological order is anything but orderly. However, the forensic evidence is fairly conclusive that one shooter killed Kennedy, all Oswald's political connections and other minutia notwithstanding. Furthermore, evidence places Oswald at the scene. As flawed as the Warren Commission was, I think they basically got it right. It very much looks like Oswald acted alone. We may never know for sure. But the official story is a lot more believable than some of the outlandish crapola I've read over the years.
"But... But... But... You are just a shill..."
heckles65
(549 posts)I work in criminal law, and I can tell you at least -half- the people who are accused of serious crimes claim that they're the 'patsy' of a shadowy conspiracy involving the local police, their brother-in-law, some "really big drug dealer" they can't name.
Naming the CIA, the Mafia, the White House, the Russians, the Loch Ness Monster etc. is unusual, but I have experienced it.
Oswald in captivity November 22-24th 1963 fits right into the template, with a greater-than-usual amount of arrogant prick-ness.
gopiscrap
(23,758 posts)nyquil_man
(1,443 posts)There are similarly long lists with questions about the theory of evolution, for instance. "Where's the crocoduck?!?" Yet when it comes to producing their own theory, the anti-evolutionists come up with one (intelligent design) which won't stand up to even half of the scrutiny they apply to evolution.
It's good to question theories. I don't see what value it has, though, if the end result isn't a better theory.
longship
(40,416 posts)HooptieWagon
(17,064 posts)I'm not going to adress it item by item, but I'll counter a few claims.
Oswald was not a loving husband and father. He was rather indifferent. He refused to hold a job more than a couple months to support them. He beat Marina on many occasions.
Oswald was also a failure as a soldier. He was court-martialled in a year for shooting himself with an unauthorized weapon. Then again for fighting his Sargent. He was indifferent to his assignments. The Marines were probably very happy to get rid of him. Although he was a radar technician, its unlikely he worked on cutting edge projects. And I don't think the U-2 flights had even started at the time he was in the military
The Fair Play for Cuba Committee was Pro-Castro, not Anti-Castro. Oswald was turned down to create and lead a NOLA chapter by the national office. He created an ad-hoc unofficial chapter, of which he was the only member. His encounters with the Anti-Castro groups appear to be efforts to infiltrate or provoke them. They back-fired.
Oswald was interviewed/questioned several times upon returning to the US, by the FBI. FBI was also supposed to be watching him in Dallas before the assassination, but apparently dropped the ball. IMO, its logical to assume he was also being monitored by CIA and military intelligence. Theres evidence he was being watched by KGB when he was in Mexico City.
KurtNYC
(14,549 posts)Eisenhower approached Pakistan about hosting the U2 flights in May of 1957 -- the same month that Oswald's security clearance comes through. By September the U2 is flying out of Atsagi and Oswald gets transferred there.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Oswald#Marine_Corps
I should have left "devoted father" out of point one. It clouds the main point there: Oswald has no motive to shoot Kennedy.
Do you have a link for your last paragraph?
maindawg
(1,151 posts)But I read every book in the library on the topic. I watched the film about 100 times. I saw the President being shot and I know that he was hit in his forehead. Anyone can see that. I think Oswald was involved. I think he was a patsy just like he admitted. I believe that Kennedy was murdered for the same reason and by the same people who murdered his brother. I also think that our current President has been shown the 'writting on the wall' so to speak.
If you want to believe that our world ,our nation is run by the people we elect who are merely influenced by lobbyists, then you are very naive. The billionaires run the world ,they always have. Billionaires who maintain their own secret security forces, their own armies, their own empires. Before you tell me there is nothing to see here, explain the reason we left 50,000 dead soldiers in Vietnam? Why is it so important to destroy millions of lives over a plant that can be used for anything that oil can be used for plus a thousand other uses. Explain why we need a central bank.
The Warren report is a political tool. I have no use for it.
stopbush
(24,396 posts)A slo-mo look at the Zapruder film clearly shows JFK's head moving FORWARD at the impact of the head shot at frames 311-316 (impact between frames 312-313), then recoiling backward. Do a web search and see for yourself. That fact was established back in 1964 by the WC, and confirmed in a frame-by-frame analysis of the Zapruder film done in 1965. It's been confirmed many times over in the computer age.
In fact, the motion is so clearly forward then back that many JFK Ctists claim the Zapruder film has been altered to cover up a head shot entering JFK's forehead.
Here's a computer study that proves that a shot to the forehead of JFk was impossible based on possible bullet trajectories: http://www.jfkfiles.com/jfk/html/concl4.htm
A shot from the grassy knoll would have hit JFK in the front-side of the head and exited into Jackie, based on the physics of bullet trajectories.
You've read every book in library on the JFK killing? Tell me, what did you think of Bugliosi's Reclaiming History and Posner's Case Closed?
And you have no use for something you've never bothered reading, ie: the WCR. Where are we, Free Republic?
deaniac21
(6,747 posts)clearly removed the Zapruder frames that showed Bush 41 firing a rifle from the grassy knoll.
zappaman
(20,606 posts)Bush was there that day..
The BFEE strikes again!
stopbush
(24,396 posts)villager
(26,001 posts)his brother."
Yes. The Lone Nut theorists are desperate that no one look at the larger pattern: That the same general group of political actors -- who even these Lone Nut theorists will acknowledge were not above rigging elections (Nixon in Saigon, Li'l Bush, et al) -- who all "coincidentally" prospered by virtue of these assassinations...
...were somehow, virtuous as they are, not involved in any of these "coincidental" assassinations at all.
They all happened exactly as we were told they happened, all done by wildly successful "lone nuts," each of whom carried out a killing that just "happened" to benefit pretty much the exact same group of actors, each time.
The Lone Nut theorists prefer instead that one not look at such glaringly obvious patterns, and instead lap up the pablum, while calling it cake.
MFM008
(19,808 posts)On Travel channel last sunday night showed how some guy working at a small building behind the fence next to the grassy knoll saw a flash and smoke. They recreated it to prove he could have seen it from where he was standing.
Their premise was the fatal shot (s) came from behind the fence facing the road by the grassy knoll and host Mike Baker (yeah I know hes a fox news git) showed how it would have been an easy hit on the limo as it passed.
Oh and they guy who saw all this was killed in a car crash withing 6 months of this revelation on a back road when he 'slammed' into a concrete road divider. Nothing to see here move along.... Witnesses in the book building said Oswald wasn't even near the stairs minutes after the shots were fired, he was in the cafeteria.
Ok Oswald might have owned the gun that killed Kennedy but that doesn't mean he fired it.
zappaman
(20,606 posts)So JFK was killed with a musket?
KurtNYC
(14,549 posts)Or Ed Hoffman who had a similar / overlapping field of view...
you do not understand. The Warren Report MUST be believed, or you are a fool, a dupe and a CT nut.
MinM
(2,650 posts)Of course on his way to the USSR, instead of visiting his 'ailing' mother, Lee Harvey Oswald made a quick stop in Switzerland (Albert Schweitzer College)...
PBS is running God in America where they skim the surface on the roots of the Religious Right. Roots that began in Switzerland with the Albert Schweitzer College, and the L'Abri Fellowship. Of course they neglected to mention, as George Michael Evica's A Certain Arrogance details, that these roots were planted by The CIA (specifically the Dulles Brothers)...
http://journals.democraticunderground.com/MinM/291
http://reopenkennedycase.forumotion.net/t37-what-was-going-on-at-albert-schweitzer-college
MinM
(2,650 posts)
?@TimothyS: AP story linking Lee Harvey Oswald with Jack Ruby, from a Tokyo newspaper, Nov. 24, 1963:
:largereddread
(6,896 posts)just doesnt quite fit with the fairy tale.
But, who cares anyway?
Assassination is official party policy.
these days.
zappaman
(20,606 posts)Staff Report of the Select Committee on Assassinations
U.S. House of Representatives
Ninety-fifth Congress Second Session
March 1979
The Warren Commission concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in the assassination of President John f. Kennedy, that he was not tied to any intelligence agency, and that none of his associates were tied to the assassination. Nevertheless, speculation continued to center about one of Oswald's associations: George de Mohrenschildt and de Mohrenschildt's background. The Warren Commission concluded about de Mohrenschildt: The Commission's investigation has developed no signs of subversive or disloyal conduct on the part of either of the de Mohrenschildts. Neither the FBI, CIA, nor any other witness contacted by the Commission has provided any information linking the de Mohrenschildts to subversive or extremist organizations. Nor has there been any evidence linking them in any way with the assassination of President Kennedy.
http://jfkassassination.net/russ/jfkinfo4/jfk12/hscademo.htm
reddread
(6,896 posts)Resorting to magic bullets and intact shells wedged into gurneys?
Best hew the line, when you have nothing to stand on.
what about him, yourself?
cowards.
zappaman
(20,606 posts)reddread
(6,896 posts)cuz you aint even got a rock in your empty pockets
zappaman
(20,606 posts)What about him?
dionysus
(26,467 posts)
Rex
(65,616 posts)Probably a hygiene thingy.
stopbush
(24,396 posts)Intact shells wedged into a gurney? The 3 shell cases were found on the 6th floor of the TSBD, just where one would expect to find them. A bullet was found on the gurney, not a shell. A shell or cartridge consists of the bullet and the case which holds the propellant.
Magic bullets? Hmm. The trajectory of the bullet from the TSBD through JFK and into Connally is exactly what you'd expect it to be based on the laws of physics.
Better to be called a coward for reporting facts than to write what you did and reveal yourself to be an idiot.
reddread
(6,896 posts)sure nuff.
stopbush
(24,396 posts)
NutmegYankee
(16,199 posts)In criminal law, a conspiracy is an agreement between two or more persons to commit a crime at some time in the future.
It both amuses and saddens me that people can accept that one guy would plant a bomb and then drive to a movie theater to shoot it up; one guy wipes out two classrooms full of children; one guy chains a university building shut and shoots everyone inside; one guy blows up a school building in Bath killing over one hundred children - but one guy who from personal history was obviously not completely right in the head couldn't have possibly shot the President himself? Especially given the long history of just one guy doing so: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_presidential_assassination_attempts_and_plots
reddread
(6,896 posts)sorry if that wasnt clear to you.
former9thward
(31,997 posts)
Retrograde
(10,136 posts)what does Oswald's lack of a car or ability to drive have to do with a conspiracy?
KurtNYC
(14,549 posts)Allegedly Oswald rode the bus when the shot was taken at General Walker. So that theory is Oswald rides the bus out, shoots, misses and then stands around waiting for the bus for 45 minutes? with a scooped rifle next to him no less?! and the crime goes unsolved until months after Oswald's death.
It also generally suggests a person who is not independent, as when "Leon Oswald" visited Silvia Odio with 2 other men.
Retrograde
(10,136 posts)Oswald was a young, reasonably fit man - he could have covered a lot of ground by foot, like walking to or from a bus stop some distance away if he wanted to.
So not having a car makes one not independent? A fair number of city dwellers (especially in NYC) don't have one, yet manage to survive. In 1963 I was living in a large Rust Belt (though then not so rusty) city: it was possible to get within a few blocks of anyplace by bus.
Octafish
(55,745 posts)Dallas Police Officer Marion Baker, accompanied by Building Manager Roy Truly, encountered Oswald (probably way) less than 90 seconds after the shootings, sipping an open pop.
KurtNYC
(14,549 posts)had to use to get from the 6th floor window to the lunchroom and they didn't see Oswald on those stairs.
Octafish
(55,745 posts)Accidental History:The Girl on the Stairs by Barry Ernest
Reviewed by Joseph E. Green and Jim DiEugenio
At first she thought it was firecrackers. But when she saw the chaos and the terror on all the faces below, she knew it was something far worse. She turned from the window and grabbed the arm of a co-worker. “Come on.” She whispered. “Let’s find out what’s going on down there.” In this split second, her innocence—and that of a nation’s—came to an end.
Th e above is how Barry Ernest begins his interesting and unusual book, The Girl on the Stairs. The JFK assassination, like any historical event, had a ripple effect on the history of the country and, indeed, the world. And while many of these effects were foreseeable—for example, the expansion of the war in Vietnam—there were an infinite number of others that were not. Some of the most tragic stories that emerged in the wake of the assassination concern the deaths of those who became accidental players by hearing and seeing things they were not supposed to, and whose documentation began with Penn Jones in his Forgive My Grief series. Still others involved those who were not murdered, but instead were forced into a life of hiding and jumping at shadows.
Barry Ernest’s book tells two stories. One is about himself: his journey from being a believer in the Warren Report to that of being a fierce critic of that now, quite discredited, volume. Therefore he begins the book at a rather appropriate place and time. In fact, it is actually beyond appropriate. It is almost symbolic. Barry was a student at Kent State in 1967. This is the college where the expansion of the Vietnam War would, in three short years, lead to the infamous shooting of students by the National Guard and produce one of the most iconic photographs of that tumultuous era. The first scene of the book is him sitting outside the cafeteria. A fellow student named Terry approaches and asks him about a dialogue from a previous class where Barry actually defended the Warren Report. The student then asks Barry if he had ever seen or heard of the Zapruder film, and if he had read the entire 26 volumes of the Warren Commission. Barry said no to each. The student left him a copy of an interview by Mark Lane, and said, “Read this.” Barry did—right then and there. Hours later, in twilight, he then went to a bookstore and searched for Lane’s book, Rush to Judgment. This is how the first story—that of personal discovery and evolution—begins.
And it was through Lane’s book that Barry was introduced to the heroine of the second story he will tell. That second story is about the plight of one of these ordinary people who was swept up by events: Victoria Adams, the notable “girl on the stairs.” She was an employee who worked in the same building as one Lee Harvey Oswald. The problem caused by her presence is very simple and easily summarized. Adams, along with her friend Sandra Styles, stood on the fourth floor of the Texas School Book Depository at the moment of the murder. She testified to hearing three shots, which from her vantage point appeared to be coming from the right of the building (i.e., from the grassy knoll). She and Styles then ran to the stairs to head down. This was the only set of stairs that went all the way to the top of the building. Both she and her friend took them down to the ground floor. She did not see or hear Oswald. Yet, she should have if he were on the sixth floor traveling downwards. Which is what the Commission said he did after he shot Kennedy.
This is the first problem, in a nutshell. Why did Adams not see a scrambling Oswald, flying down the stairs in pursuit of his Coca-Cola? Because of the Warren Commission’s timeline, we know Oswald had to have gone down the stairs during this period in order to be accosted in time by a motorcycle policeman. In addition, as we are later to discover, Adams also reports seeing Jack Ruby on the corner of Houston and Elm, “questioning people as though he were a policeman.”
CONTINUED...
http://www.ctka.net/reviews/accidental_history.html
Thanks for the heads-up, KurtNYC!
HooptieWagon
(17,064 posts)Lunch room was on the second floor. If it took Baker 74-90 seconds to enter the building and ascend to the second floor lunchroom, then its entirely possible for Oswald to descend to the second floor lunchroom from the 6th floor in the same time span.
Baker did not observe Oswald with a coke. That observation was made by an employee a minute or so later.
The exits were secured about 3 minutes after the shoting. Oswald had time to slip out before the building was secured, though no one observed him leaving.
Octafish
(55,745 posts)
HooptieWagon
(17,064 posts)The only unknown is when he assembled the rifle and constructed the snipers nest. He could have done so right before shooting, or done so earlier, left, returned and picked up the rifle and started shooting. There was time and opportunity for either. He wasn't continually observed, nor were there CC cameras that documented his movements.
Anyway, there is sufficient evidence to satisfy me he was a shooter. He owned a rifle, that was kept on the Paine property. The night before, he was driven to the Paine property to pick up "curtain rods". His boarding room already had curtain rods. He was seen in the Depository with the package of "curtain rods" prior to the shooting. Shortly after the shooting he was seen in the Depository, sans "curtain rods". He was the only Depository employee not present when they were assembled after the building was secured. His gun (with his palm print) was found on the 6th floor. The empty package that contained the "curtain rods" was found nearby, with his fingerprints on it. When police went to Paine house, Marina pointed to blanket in shed where Oswald kept his rifle. When blanket was unfolded, there was no rifle in it.
There is ample evidence that the rifle was in Oswald's possession from the night before, until the shooting. There is no evidence the rifle was in anyone else's possession during that time. After the shooting, the rifle was abandoned. Oswald was only unaccounted for person after building was secured. Rifle discovery had witness. Rifle was photographed at the scene. There were no fingerprints on rifle other than Oswald's. Rifle was identified as being the one Oswald owned, by unique identifying marks visible in photos Marina stated she took.
Octafish
(55,745 posts)Not many people can navigate said distance and buy a Coca Cola in the lunchroom four flights away in a minute or in 90 seconds.
Want you to know: I respect you stating the Warren Commission has convinced you.
stopbush
(24,396 posts)A minute and a half is an eternity. Just listen to any Sarah Palin speech.
Oswald worked in the building, so he would have had no trouble moving quickly through it. How fast can one get from one floor of their office building to another if they already know the way? Pretty quickly.
As others have pointed out, the Coke is irrelevant to the time frame as the cop isn't the one who said he saw Oswald with a Coke. And how do we know Oswald bought the Coke after he killed JFK? We don't.
Bigger question is why did Oswald leave the building almost immediately after the cop saw him? Why not stay and enjoy his Coke? No other employee left the building.
His flight is evidence of guilt - fleeing the scene of a crime he knew he committed.
zappaman
(20,606 posts)The myth of the Oswald 'Coke' bottle
It now seems almost an unchallenged part of Lee Harvey Oswald folklore that he was holding a bottle of Coca-Cola when confronted by DPD Patrolman Marrion Baker and Building Operations Supervisor Roy Truly on the second floor of the TSBD shortly after the shots in Dealey Plaza. Indeed, there have been published comments and discussions claiming that this was somewhat odd since Oswald preferred Dr Pepper to Coca-Cola.
If those researchers who have written that Oswald was holding a bottle of Coca-Cola when challenged by Baker had taken the trouble to go back to the primary sources they would have learnt that this is yet another myth.
Consider the following brief exchange during Baker's Warren Commission testimony as he describes that meeting:
MR BELIN: "Was he carrying anything in his hands?"
MR BAKER: "He had nothing at that time." (3H 251)
Roy Truly confirms this in his own testimony:
MR BELIN: "Could you see whether of not Lee Harvey Oswald had anything in either hand?"
MR TRULY: "I noticed nothing in either hand."
MR BELIN: "Did you see both of his hands?"
MR TRULY: "I am sure I did, I could be wrong, but I am almost sure I did." (3H 225)
We have some added confusion here in Marrion Baker's FBI statement of 23rd September 1964 (CE 3076). This was apparently written down at Baker's dictation and includes the words 'I saw a man standing in the lunch room drinking a coke.' Those last three words, however, have been crossed through and initialled by Baker.
Lee Harvey Oswald, as far as I am aware, was never asked any similar question and there were no other eyewitnesses to this.
The origin of this widely-believed myth may come from the testimony of Mrs Robert A Reid, a TSBD Clerical Supervisor who occupied an office on the second floor. In her testimony, she describes that she ate an early and hurried lunch in the second floor lunchroom at around noon and then went downstairs to street level where she watched the passing motorcade. She does not describe what she saw but she mentions hearing three shots. She stated that she thought 'they came from our building' but then ran into the building to 'get out of this line of shots.' She ran up the front stairs to her second floor office.
MR BELIN: "And then what did you do?"
MRS REID: "Well, I kept walking and I looked up and Oswald was coming in the back door of the office. I met him by the time I passed my desk several feet and I told him: 'Oh, the President has been shot, but maybe they didn't hit him.' ..... He had gotten a coke and was holding it in his hands ..... The only time I had seen him in the office was to come and get change and he already had his coke in his hand ..... " (3H 274).
Mrs Reid's journey on foot from the front of the TSBD to her office had subsequently been timed by stopwatch at approximately two minutes, showing that she encountered Oswald after his meeting with Baker and Truly. (3H 275). Later in her testimony, she stated that the coke bottle he was holding was full. (3H 278).
http://spot.acorn.net/jfkplace../09/fp.back_issues/25th_Issue/myth.html
stopbush
(24,396 posts)zappaman
(20,606 posts)You see, every "fact" has been manipulated to become part of the conspiracy.
So, a CTer can just look at this and say "Obviously he was told to change his answers by the BFEE."
JVS
(61,935 posts)A hellhole is somewhere like Perm, Omsk, or some industrial city in the Don Basin. Minsk was a capital of the Belorussian SSR and up there with cities like Kiev, Odessa, and Smolensk
treestar
(82,383 posts)is Ruby's shooting Oswald. Since there could never be a trial of Oswald, we can never know if he would have been found guilty or not. Ruby didn't just deprive Oswald of the right to a fair trial. He deprived the entire country of closure.
The other thing that bugs me is letting him come back from the USSR without strings. This was the cold war era, a time when you'd think someone who actually defected and lived there would not be able to just come back and take up again.
Response to KurtNYC (Original post)
A-Schwarzenegger This message was self-deleted by its author.
bluedeathray
(511 posts)http://jfklancer.com/index.html
http://jfkfacts.org/
http://www.maryferrell.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page
The world will never know the truth. More and more of the people who know the truth are dead or close.
Our Government still allows pertinent documentation to be hidden by the CIA.
Some people get a real bang out of acting smug and superior in the absence of facts. On BOTH sides of the conspiracy argument.
Rex
(65,616 posts)What American goes to the USSR during the height of the Cold War, comes back like nothing happened...then travels to Dallas and murders the POTUS! Yeah...lone gunman...whatever.
duffyduff
(3,251 posts)Hell, his WIFE wouldn't have him. He was a loser, had a death wish, and wanted to "go out" in a blaze of glory.
HooptieWagon
(17,064 posts)The guy was unreliable, so he would be the worst possibly spy or conspirator.
Its quite possible he was unwittingly used by both CIA and Russians to test each other....to see how easy it was to enter Russia, for example; or to test counter-intelligence methods; and similar.
However, his entire history is one of not working well with others, and failing on his own. IMO, that eliminates him being a conspirator or agent for any group.
Rex
(65,616 posts)I think he was a Russian agent.
Rex
(65,616 posts)nt.
JVS
(61,935 posts)Rex
(65,616 posts)nt.
HooptieWagon
(17,064 posts)Desparation is pushing a conspiracy theory completely unsupported by any known evidence. I'm completely open to considering a conspiracy if there were any facts to support it. Thus far, there are none.
Rex
(65,616 posts)Seriously you lone wolf guys crack me up with your BS theory.
HooptieWagon
(17,064 posts)The Russians were watching him 24/7. They probably had figured out he was a nut-job, and were glad to see him leave.
Rex
(65,616 posts)Because that is what the Russians said was going on? No wonder it is so easy for some to believe the WC. You simply did not do what Oswald did and come back to America as if nothing happened.
HooptieWagon
(17,064 posts)Not too many Americans went to Russia to work in a toaster factory. Takes a special kind of loser.
Rex
(65,616 posts)How anyone can trust the enemies word during the Cold War, but then again no wonder some (few) blindly believe whatever they are told. People are just way to gullible and want to believe the whitewash of the WC.
HooptieWagon
(17,064 posts)Its been 50 years now, and the evidence Oswald was a lone-nut gunman acting alone remains strong. To believe Oswald was part of a conspiracy requires ignoring all the evidence to the contrary, and merely believe as an article of faith... just like the birthers.
JVS
(61,935 posts)Could also be CIA.
Rex
(65,616 posts)To pretend that he is some ordinary loser, loner is the height of stupidity imo.
JVS
(61,935 posts)associates to jump up and say "Oh yeah, we were really close!"
KGB: Obviously wouldn't want to claim him.
CIA: Ditto
As far as the loner angle, Marina was willing to leave everything she knew behind and come with him to the US and didn't leave him here. He had a family. I see no evidence of any casual acquaintances distancing themselves from him BEFORE the assassination, in fact Marina was an annoyance to the Russian exile community for sticking with him. And then of course after the assassination there is little good reason for her to emphasize her relationship with one of the greatest villains in recent history, although she says she doesn't think he acted alone.
HooptieWagon
(17,064 posts)Absolutely none that he was 007.
Rex
(65,616 posts)Sorry but you know that is not true.
duffyduff
(3,251 posts)Jack Ruby stated repeatedly why he killed Oswald, and that was to be seen as a hero and to spare Mrs. Kennedy a trial.
Oswald took the bus and carpooled with others to work. He took the bus when he was seen by several eyewitnesses murdering Officer Tippit. BTW, since you are such an expert on the JFK assassination, where are those curtain rods Oswald said he had in the package when he carpooled with a co-worker to work on November 22, 1963? Why were they never found?
Oswald acted alone. Deal with it. All of the misinformation and falsehoods in the world won't change the truth.
KurtNYC
(14,549 posts)because Ruby was so fond of Jackie Kennedy then you are welcome to but there is no evidence for that. Ruby was mob connected and the Kennedys and the Mafia were at war in 1963. It would make absolutely no sense for Ruby to be motivated by his unknown love for Jackie K at the time when her brother in-law, RFK, was putting mafia bosses in prison.
The co-worker was Frazier. He described the bag Oswald has as being a standard grocery bag, about 2 feet at it's biggest span and therefore too small to obscure the rifle even in disassembled form. -WCH Vol 2, page 226. The curtain rods were found in Ruth Paine's garage. WCH Vol 5 page 424. (Sourced it from the Warren Commission for you.)
You seem to be the one with misinformation -- the curtain rods WERE found.
Happy to answer any other questions you have.
Logical
(22,457 posts)Crack me up!
Rex
(65,616 posts)nt.
cbdo2007
(9,213 posts)HooptieWagon
(17,064 posts)The mountain of evidence pointing to Oswald is ignored or claimed to be faked. No evidence supporting a conspiracy theory is presented...we're expected to accept it as an article of faith.
No wonder there's a mountain of books and movies promoting CTs...there's no limit to the gullibility of people willing to shell out money and believe that crap.
ProfessorGAC
(65,010 posts)... a lot of conspiracy theories don't exclude Oswald as A shooter. Just not THE shooter.
You may have forgotten that.
HooptieWagon
(17,064 posts)Those that claim Oswald was framed, and a greater number that claim Oswald was one of multiple shooters. I have not seen any conspiracies citing Oswald as a lone gunman...after all, its hard to establish a conspiracy with a lone gunman.
As to Oswald's involvement, there's just too much evidence of his guilt to believe he was framed. That would require ALL the evidence to be fabricated, which is too preposterous to believe.
As to Oswald being one of the gunman, in theory it is possible. Certainly if their was a conspiracy to assasinate in an ambush fashion, it would be logical to have multiple gunmen setting up a crossfire. That not only increases the chances of a hit, but also creates confusion which inhibits the response to an extent. However, there is no concrete evidence of any gunmen other than Oswald. No shells, no bullets, no gun spotted. What we do have: Some (a minority) of earwitnesses think they heard shots from the knoll. Some (a minority) of earwitnesses thinking they heard more than three shots. Since some earwitnesses candidly admit they couldn't tell how many shots, or from which direction, due to echos; the possibility exists that those who heard more than 3 shots or shots from the knoll were simply mistaken.
Then there is photographic evidence, supposedly revealing hidden gunmen or puffs of smoke. These aren't conclusive...people who want to believe see them, those who are skeptical don't.
Then there are the people on the knoll. Zapruder and his secretary were standing on a pedestal close to the fence. They could likely see over much of the fence, they did not see any gunman or possible fleeing gunman. The motorcycle cop who ran up the knoll did not see any fleeing gunman, and he checked behind the fence, the stockyard, and the parking lot. Other witnesses who looked did not see any fleeing gunman. One witness reported encountering a SS back there, who was tentatively ID'd as Lew Jones. He jumped out of the car in the motorcade, started to run to the Presidential limo, which took off before he reached it. Rather than stop his car to get in, he waved them on to follow the Presidential limo. He then was seen on the knoll by the witness. He didn't put this in his report, presumedly because it was a serious breach of procedure. SS are for protection only. Anyway, if there was a second gunman, he simply vanished into thin air leaving not a trace behind nor any witnesses to his presence. Most likely, no grassy knoll gunman ever existed.
This leaves us with Oswald as the sole gunman, and a quandry for the CTists. Its hard to prove a conspiracy with only one gunman. Trotting out a lineup of boogy-men (CIA, LBJ, Mafia, Cubans, etc) is an easy target and certainly sells books and movies. Each has at least some motive, and each has presumedly the capability. But that doesn't prove they did it.
KurtNYC
(14,549 posts)Warren Commission document CD87, a hand written note by Secret Service Agent Maxwell Phillips from 11/22/1963
Zapruder also believed that his footage showed the fatal shot coming from the front because the President's head went backward.
2 witnesses who had a view behind the fence, in their own words:
cbdo2007
(9,213 posts)Obviously not physics if his reasoning for thinking the shot came from behind him because JFK's head went back.
JVS
(61,935 posts)Retrograde
(10,136 posts)There are Lincoln assassination conspiracy theories (e.g., Secretary of War Stanton was in on it), but I don't think anyone disputes the actual small conspiracy that tried to kill Lincoln, VP Johnson, and Secretary of State Seward on the same night. The assassins assigned to the last two failed.
cbdo2007
(9,213 posts)or Secretary Stanton were involved.
Booth did essentially act alone. As preposterous as it sounds, he walked right up behind Lincoln and shot him in the head with no problem.
Octafish
(55,745 posts)Oswald's apparent CIA handler also was a friend of George Herbert Walker "Poppy" Bush, coincidentally.
Too bad he died the day Gaeton Fonzi went to interview him on behalf of the HSCA, a suicide by shotgun.
zappaman
(20,606 posts)Oh, right...you don't.
On September 17, 1976, the CIA requested that the FBI locate de Mohrenschildt, because he had "attempted to get in touch with the CIA Director."[42] On September 5, 1976, De Mohrenschildt had written a letter to the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, George H. W. Bush asking for his assistance. He was acquainted with the Bush family; George H. W. Bush had roomed with de Mohrenschildt's nephew, Edward G. Hooker, at Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts.[43] The letter said:
You will excuse this hand-written letter. Maybe you will be able to bring a solution to the hopeless situation I find myself in. My wife and I find ourselves surrounded by some vigilantes; our phone bugged; and we are being followed everywhere. Either FBI is involved in this or they do not want to accept my complaints. We are driven to insanity by the situation. I have been behaving like a damn fool ever since my daughter Nadya died from [cystic fibrosis] over three years ago. I tried to write, stupidly and unsuccessfully, about Lee H Oswald and must have angered a lot of people — I do not know. But to punish an elderly man like myself and my highly nervous and sick wife is really too much. Could you do something to remove the net around us? This will be my last request for help and I will not annoy you any more. Good luck in your important job. Thank you so much.[44][45]
George Bush wrote back:
Let me say first that I know it must have been difficult for you to seek my help in the situation outlined in your letter. I believe I can appreciate your state of mind in view of your daughter's tragic death a few years ago, and the current poor state of your wife's health. I was extremely sorry to hear of these circumstances. In your situation I can well imagine how the attentions you described in your letter affect both you and your wife. However, my staff has been unable to find any indication of interest in your activities on the part of Federal authorities in recent years. The flurry of interest that attended your testimony before the Warren Commission has long subsided. I can only speculate that you may have become "newsworthy" again in view of the renewed interest in the Kennedy assassination, and thus may be attracting the attention of people in the media. I hope this letter had been of some comfort to you, George, although I realize I am unable to answer your question completely. George Bush, Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. [CIA Exec Reg. # 76,51571 9.28.76][46]
On November 9, 1976, Jeanne had him committed to a mental institution in Texas for three months, and listed in a notarized affidavit four previous suicide attempts while he was in the Dallas area. In the affidavit she stated that George suffered from depression, heard voices, saw visions, and believed that the CIA and the Jewish Mafia were persecuting him.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_de_Mohrenschildt
Octafish
(55,745 posts)BUSH, GEORGE H. W. (POPPY), 1412 W. OHIO ALSO ZAPATA PETROLEUM MIDLAND.
Bush And The JFK Hit, Part 5: The Mysterious Mr. De Mohrenschildt
By Russ Baker
WhoWhatWhy.com on Oct 14, 2013
EXCERPT...
Bush and de Mohrenschildt Families: Deeply Intertwined
In 1920, Ferdinand’s nephew Dimitri von Mohrenschildt, the older brother of George, arrived in the United States and entered Yale University. His admission was likely smoothed by the connections of the Harriman family, which soon persuaded the Bolshevik Russian government to allow them to reactivate the Baku oilfields. At that point, the Harriman operation was being directed by the brilliant international moneyman George Herbert Walker, the grandfather of Poppy Bush.
The Soviets had expropriated the assets of the Russian ruling class, not least the oil fields. Though ultimately willing to cooperate with some Western companies, the Communists had created an army of angry White Russian opponents, who vowed to exact revenge and regain their holdings. This group, trading on an American fascination with titles, was soon ensconced in (and often intermarried with) the East Coast establishment. The New York newspapers of the day were full of reports of dinners and teas hosted by Prince This and Count That at the top of Manhattan hotels.
Dimitri von Mohrenschildt plunged into this milieu. After graduating from Yale, he was offered a position teaching the young scions of the new oil aristocracy at the exclusive Loomis School near Hartford, Connecticut, where John D. Rockefeller III was a student (and his brother Winthrop soon would be). There, Dimitri became friendly with Roland and Winifred “Betty” Cartwright Holhan Hooker, who were prominent local citizens. Roland Hooker was enormously well connected; his father had been the mayor of Hartford, his family members were close friends of the Bouviers (Jackie Kennedy’s father’s family), and his sister was married to Prince Melikov, a former officer in the Imperial Russian Army.
While Dimitri von Mohrenschildt clearly enjoyed the high-society glamour, in reality his life was heading underground. Dimitri’s lengthy covert resumé would include serving in the Office of Strategic Services wartime spy agency and later cofounding Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty. In 1941, Dimitri also founded a magazine, the Russian Review, and later became a professor at Dartmouth.
When the Hooker marriage unraveled, Dimitri began seeing Betty Hooker. In the summer of 1936, immigration records show that Dimitri traveled to Europe, followed a week later by Betty Hooker with her young daughter and adolescent son.
Betty’s son, Edward Gordon Hooker, entered prep school at Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts. There, he shared a small cottage with George H. W. “Poppy” Bush. Bush and Hooker became inseparable. They worked together on Pot Pourri, the student yearbook, whose photos show a handsome young Poppy Bush and an even more handsome Hooker. The friendship would continue in 1942, when both Bush and Hooker, barely eighteen, enlisted in the Navy and served as pilots in the Pacific. Afterward, they would be together at Yale. When Hooker married, Poppy Bush served as an usher. The relationship between Bush and Hooker lasted for three decades, until 1967, when Hooker died of an apparent heart attack. He was just forty-three. Six years after Hooker’s death, Poppy Bush would serve as surrogate father, giving away Hooker’s daughter at her wedding to Ames Braga, scion of a Castro-expropriated Cuban sugar dynasty.
CONTINUED...
http://whowhatwhy.com/2013/10/14/bush-and-the-jfk-hit-part-5-the-mysterious-mr-de-mohrenschildt/
And then there's that you got from Wikipedia.
zappaman
(20,606 posts)Maybe Jackie was in on it too?
After all, she might be the only person you have yet to connect to the assassination...
Octafish
(55,745 posts)You know who really knows a lot about De Mohrenschildt?
Joan Mellen
Joan Mellen’s Explosive New Book, "Our Man in Haiti," Includes a 1992 CIA Document that Declares Clay Shaw, to Have Been a “Highly-Paid Contract Source.”
Joan Mellen’s explosive new book, "Our Man in Haiti: George de Mohrenschildt and the CIA in the Nightmare Republic," includes a 1992 document from the CIA’s own History Staff that declares Clay Shaw, to have been a “highly-paid contract source.”
Walterville, OR (PRWEB) October 30, 2012
Joan Mellen’s explosive new book, "Our Man in Haiti: George de Mohrenschildt and the CIA in the Nightmare Republic," includes a 1992 document from the CIA’s own History Staff that declares Clay Shaw, to have been a “highly-paid contract source.”
The allegation of Shaw actually being paid by the CIA has been denied for years and was one reason for Shaw’s acquittal on the charges of conspiracy to assassinate John F. Kennedy that were brought against him by New Orleans District Attorney, Jim Garrison in 1967.
In a November 1969, Penthouse interview, Shaw declared, “I have never had any connection with the CIA.” Shaw died in 1974. Former CIA Director Helms, in 1979, stated under oath that Shaw had been simply a part-time contact for Agency and had volunteered his information, but this 1992 document clearly states Shaw was “highly-paid.”
Joan Mellen reveals more in this excerpt from, "Our Man in Haiti":
Later de Mohrenschildt said J. Walton Moore (CIA officer in Dallas) had “assured him that it was safe” for him to assist Oswald. Following the protocol set for CIA by Allen Dulles – that agents or assets or employees are not obliged to tell anyone anything, let alone the truth, that CIA need be loyal only to its own culture – Moore would deny he had ever discussed Oswald with de Mohrenschildt. Moore lied too obviously. He insisted that he had met with de Mohrenschildt on only two occasions. One was in the spring of 1958 when the subject was “China.”
Soon Moore was forced to correct himself. He had interviewed de Mohrenschildt in 1957 after his return from Yugoslavia and had “periodic contact” with him over the years for “debriefing” purposes, Moore later admitted. This was standard CIA-speak, the same formulation CIA used for its New Orleans employee Clay Shaw, as CIA’s history section finally acknowledged in the 1990’s. No one was a CIA asset; businessmen in contact with the Agency were innocent travelers being “routinely” debriefed. “Routinely” was another CIA buzz word.
The Shaw example is worth pondering. In 1992, CIA’s history component, a section of the Agency devoted to chronicling CIA’s own history, would reveal – after years of denials, and obfuscation by CIA assets – that Shaw was not merely a businessman being “debriefed” after his travels by CIA. This document declares that Shaw had been a “highly paid” CIA asset. Issuing from CIA’s “PROJFILES,” it adds: “Our survey found nothing in these records that indicates any CIA role in the Kennedy assassination or assassination conspiracy (if there was one), or any CIA involvement with Oswald.”
Then comes the extraordinary admission: “These records do reveal, however, that Clay Shaw was a highly paid CIA contract source until 1956.” (In many CIA documents, the end date of service is more often than not standard disinformation, so that the 1956 date has to be treated skeptically). In Shaw’s case, it was certainly not accurate.
In 1964, after the Kennedy assassination, just to be on the safe side, CIA destroyed de Mohrenschildt’s personnel file.
“I would never have contacted Oswald in a million years if Moore had not sanctioned it,” de Mohrenschildt told author Edward J. Epstein years later, and this rings true. J. Walton Moore had requested that de Mohrenschildt “keep tabs on Oswald.” Later de Mohrenschildt claimed that Moore had assigned him to “find out about Oswald’s time in the USSR.”
In a quid pro quo, Epstein suggests, Moore would assist de Mohrenschildt in setting up an oil survey contract with Papa Doc.
There is no direct evidence of CIA’s role in implementing de Mohrenschildt’s deal with François Duvalier.
Nonetheless, the contract was executed in March 1963, a month before Oswald left Texas for New Orleans. CIA had another assignment in mind now for de Mohrenschildt.
Lest there be any lingering doubt that George de Mohrenschildt played for CIA in Dallas and Fort Worth the same role Clay Shaw did in New Orleans – that of handling and shepherding and monitoring Lee Harvey Oswald in his daily life – a further piece of evidence has emerged. Two large CIA Office of Security (OS) files reside at the National Archives. They date from 1967, the time of Jim Garrison’s investigation and indictment of Clay Shaw in a conspiracy to assassinate President Kennedy involving Lee Harvey Oswald.
These OS files, brimming over with more than two hundred documents and photocopies of clippings pertaining to the Garrison case and Shaw, are not marked “Garrison” or “Shaw.” Rather, the file jackets read: “George de Mohrenschildt.”
pp. 54-55
Joan Mellen is a professor of English at Temple University in Philadelphia. She is the author of twenty books, ranging from film criticism to fiction, sports, true crime, Latin American studies and biography. She has written for a variety of publications such as the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and the Philadelphia Inquirer. She has also lectured widely at universities and symposiums. In 2004, she was awarded one of Temple University’s coveted Great Teacher Awards for outstanding achievement.
"Our Man in Haiti: George de Mohrenschildt and the CIA in the Nightmare Republic" is being released by TrineDay, November 1, and is available wherever fine books are sold.
###
“I would never have contacted Oswald in a million years if Moore had not sanctioned it,” de Mohrenschildt told author Edward J. Epstein years later...
So, thanks for reminding me, zappaman.
zappaman
(20,606 posts)You obsession however...?
HooptieWagon
(17,064 posts)And your premise still doesn't connect Bush to Oswald. In math terms, if set A overlaps set B, and set B overlaps set C, it cannot be concluded thet set A overlaps set C. In an anectdotal analogy, I have friends and acquaintences in high society regarding wealth, legal, and political power. I have friends and acquaintences at the absolute bottom (including homeless at times). There is very little overlap between the two.
There is no indication Bush knew Oswald in 1963. There is no plausible explanation why any assassination conspiracy, if it existed, would employ as a key component an unstable, erratic, difficult to get along with, inexperienced person like Oswald when they surely had better options. Think about it....Oswald is the best hitman the CIA could come up with? The Mafia? Texas oilmen or LBJ? Oswald was the best man for the job? And he did so for free? That just defies logic.
HooptieWagon
(17,064 posts)and lived in Dallas, it is quite possible they knew each other. I haven't seen any evidence they were friends.
That deM and Oswald were "friends" is only a matter of degree. All evidence indicates Oswald was very difficult to get along with. He didn't appear to have any long-term close friends. So anybody who had some tolerance of him and was willing to talk to him might be considered a "friend". Others might call that an acquaintence. There are several possibile reasons for deM's "friendship.
Yes, deM committed suicide. Of course, some consider this suspicious. However, he suffered from depression...his wife even had him committed to a mental hospital at one point...and he had 4 previous suicide attempts. While its certainly possible his suicide was arranged, his history would indicate a low probability of that.
Camballo
(73 posts)I am reading "Four Days in November" right now; Bugliosi is so thorough and the story itself is so gripping, I can hardly put it down!
I wonder...if the Warren Commission had decided any one of the countless conspiracy theories out there was the truth, would the conspiracy theorists grab hold of the evidence that supports Oswald as the lone assassin and write countless books about how the Commission got it wrong and it was really this guy who worked at the book depository?
KurtNYC
(14,549 posts)Connally is unwavering in his belief that he knows the instant that he was hit and it wasn't from either of the 2 bullets that struck Kennedy.
The way Connally experienced it: Bullet hits Kennedy in the throat, Connally looks right, then left then he is hit, then JFK is hit in the head. The Magic Bullet theory has Connally hit by the same bullet that goes through Kennedy's neck but Connally's experience and the Zapruder film contradict the theory thereby invalidating it.
Here is Connally in his own words with the Zapruder footage overlaid (it is cropped but you can see Jackie react to the first shot hitting Jack's throat and you can see Connally clearly slumping after he is hit):
I have to believe that Connally knows when he was hit and it wasn't, according to him, at the same time as either of the bullets that struck Kennedy.
Camballo
(73 posts)Not sure if you will find this at all swaying, but I was glad to find it anyway. I am perhaps not far enough into the book to find out what Bugliosi thought on this matter, and it's also possible one would have to read the much longer book from which "Four Days in November" is excerpted, "Reclaiming History."
Warren Commission: "The commission determined that a single bullet hit the president in his upper right back, exited from his throat, and then caused the three wounds to Connally’s chest, wrist, and thigh. It was the only conclusion possible in light of the bullet’s trajectory after it exited the president’s throat and Connally’s location in front and slightly to the left of the president. The medical testimony, focusing on the entry and exit points and the course of the bullet, supported this conclusion. Wounds ballistic experts testified before the commission that Connally’s wounds were not the result of a pristine bullet and that, in fact, the wounds would have been more serious if the bullet had not lost velocity in passing through the president’s body. The reenactment conducted by the FBI and Secret Service under the supervision of the commission in May 1964 confirmed that the president and the governor were positioned in the car when viewed from the assassin’s location in the depository so that the bullet would necessarily have hit Connally after exiting from the president’s body. The commission heard further testimony about the differences in reaction time by persons struck by a bullet, which might explain why Governor Connally was so confident that he was hit by a second shot after he heard the first one" (WC Report, 97-109). - See more at: http://howardwillens.com/tag/vincent-bugliosi/#sthash.5KD8g60U.dpuf
KurtNYC
(14,549 posts)This is a huge subject with all kinds of potential tangents so I thought that focusing on Oswald might help keep it narrow. A proper investigation was not done and there was no trial. The autopsy was done by 2 guys with no experience and Kennedy's brain went missing along with whatever bullet frags were in it. The official autopsy photos of JFK's head don't match up with the damage we see in the Zapruder film.
Any valid theory of the assassination must account for ALL of the evidence. The WCR doesn't seem to do that. In this case, if Connally has no blood on the front of his shirt and his wrists are clearly on top of the seat at the :43 mark then he can't be hit yet. So the choice would seem to be either believe Connally and my own eyes, or believe the WCR.
Much of the WCR reads like the case against Saddam Hussein -- the "facts" get fixed around the goal of proving guilt but proper investigations don't work that way. Evidence rules out certain conclusions -- NOT: conclusions rule out certain evidence.
I find the whole period a fascinating subject and I respect all those who research and reach their own conclusions (or leanings) and I certainly enjoy respectful exchanges of information and opinions like this one with you.
zappaman
(20,606 posts)Putting aside that I don't necessarily agree with that statement...what theory, in your opinion, does account for ALL of the evidence?
KurtNYC
(14,549 posts)That is the basis of science.
With respect to Dealey Plaza you have Zapruder who believes and testifies under oath twice that he believes the headshot came from behind him. Zapruder's location at the time of the head shot is firmly established. No doubts there. He had a prime position and has no known motive to say anything he believes to be untrue. Quite the opposite -- the WC doesn't want to hear this but Zapruder goes to his grave saying that shot came from behind him.
Add to that the railroad workers on the triple overpass, who all ran to the fence. Then add the 2 motorcycle cops who went up the hill instantly and on instinct.
I don't think it is reasonable to conclude that all of these people are crazy. They were there. They all reacted in the same way and all point to the same location. Most of them are Texans, and God bless them Texans KNOW their gunfire. I have heard live gunfire also and in an urban environment like that plaza. It is not that hard to tell shot from the echo. It just isn't. If it was one or two people and everyone else said they all came from the TSBD then perhaps those few are mistaken but it isn't two people. It is 39 people. I just can't believe that 39 Texans ALL can't tell the shot from the echo. It is easy to tell the difference because the shot comes first and is louder by a good magnitude than any echo. Sam Holland seems very sober and sure of his recollection here:
To accommodate the evidence that all of these witnesses including 2 police men bring forward, I have to conclude that the head shot comes from the fence.
As for who did it and why, I don't know. Kennedy had a shitload of powerful and violent enemies -- Trafficante, Allen Dulles, LBJ, the entire Mafia and the anti-Castro cabal. That's a mess. I ain't going there in this thread but at least 2 shooters involved because that is what the witnesses, Connally and the Zapruder film show us.
Thanks for your note. I feel really silly because I replied to your post thinking it was a pro-lone shooter analysis, but I think someone else posted a "10 facts..." like that this morning. Sorry if it seemed out of place. I think I have just enough information on this subject to make me dangerous. I'll keep an open mind and keep searching.
stopbush
(24,396 posts)The WC erroneously believed that JFK was hit by the first bullet, that the second bullet missed and that the third shot killed JFK. In reality, the first shot missed - a shot Connally heard - the second shot hit JFK and Connally, and the third shot hit JFK in the head. The HSCA report confirmed that Oswald's second & third shots struck the president.
The shot sequence is also born out in the Zapruder film, where JFK and Connally are both clearly seen reacting to being struck by the second bullet at the same time.
Connally and his wife never agreed with the WCR conclusions. They believed that the first shot hit JFK, the second shot hit Connally and that the third shot killed JFK. The problem with that is 1. the Zapruder film shows both men being hit at the same time, and 2. there's no way a bullet could have entered Connally where it did without first passing through JFK. Now, THAT would have been a magic bullet.
Springslips
(533 posts)That 70-percent of you are illogical and have weak reasoning ability. No wonder our society is like it is; no wonder there was 8 years of Bush II, the Iraq War, the fact that 1percent owns 90.
Nothing in those 10 statements makes a reasonable person wonder about anything; to see them as reasons to believe in a conspiracy can only happen if you believe in the conspiracy first place.
70 percent need to do what is best for the society and withdrawal from all debate as they do not possess the cognitive abilities needed and so only make things worse. Conspiracy theories show this clearly; for the good of the world, please, recognize your weakness here and withdraw!
Please end ant-intellectualism.
stopbush
(24,396 posts)"The paranoid message will give more and more, and then it will give even more. The entertainment resources of the paranoid message are unrivaled. It offers puzzles, drama, passion, heroes, villains, and struggle. If the story-line can be tied to an historical event, especially one that involves romantic characters and unexpected death, then fiction, history, and popular delusion can be joined in the pursuit of profit. The story, moreover, need never end. If evidence appears that refutes the conspiracy, the suppliers of the discrediting material will themselves be accused of being part of the conspiracy. The paranoid explanatory system is a closed one. Only confirmatory evidence is accepted. Contradictions are dismissed as being naive or, more likely, part of the conspiracy itself." - Political scientist Robert S. Robins and psychiatrist Jerrold M. Post in "Political Paranoia as Cinematic Motif: Stone's 'JFK'" which was presented at the 1997 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association.
Rex
(65,616 posts)What is ant-intellectualism? Do tell? I LOVE watching all the blindly faithful echo chamber each other in this thread! I am happy that at least 70% of Americans think for themselves..unlike the 30% that are gullible enough to believe anything the govt tells them.
Thankfully they are few and far between on DU.
Springslips
(533 posts)Do not believe in, use correctly, argue about, or show disdain for, the laws of logic, reason and science. When adequately used the above tools show clearly that a conspiracy to assassinate Kennedy, of any depth, is highly unlikely, and every argument for a grand conspiracy is at best, very, very weak, and is usually invalid.
The OP show lots of anti- intellectualism, but I will point out were it rears its ugly head in yours: the idea that somehow to think for yourself means coming to the conclusion that is opposite of the government's, and that to come to a pro-government conclusion is to be 'blindly faithful.' Yet you don't seem to understand the possibility of someone thinking for themselves AND coming to a agreement with the government story independently. That's because you have a cognitive biases to that point of view and refuse to use reason to see other possibilities. You are anti-intellectual.
I also feel that DU supports science, logic, reason, and skepticism in general so I disagree with your last sentence. I do not have any proof that I am right, but the image I get from reading the board aligns with my values supporting intellectualism, if that's just an air and reasonable people are far in between here, then it hypocrisy. I don't believe that is the case.
roamer65
(36,745 posts)"I know that guy."
Turns out he elaborated to Roger Stone that Jack Ruby was sent to him to serve as an informant in 1947. Nixon was told he was one of "Lyndon Johnson's boys" and they put him on the payroll.
Nixon quote "Both LBJ and I wanted to be president, the only difference between us is I wouldn't kill for it."
Nixon to Senator Howard Baker on his asking what do you know about 11/22/63..."You don't want to know."
Hey, hey LBJ...how many kids did you kill today.
H2O Man
(73,537 posts)There are many, many other reasons to "wonder" about the first official theory about Lee Harvey Oddball and Dallas. And I say that, after having read the Warren Commission's Report, Vince Bugliosi's big book, and some of the hundreds of formerly classified documents that have been made public in the years since the WCR and Vince B's book were published.
undeterred
(34,658 posts)How long did Oswald live after JFK was shot? How much did he have a chance to say to anyone? How long was eventually?
stopbush
(24,396 posts)Hard to imagine that "they were still trying to get a confession from him" when he's laying in there unconscious.
struggle4progress
(118,282 posts)to expect everyone to act in understandable ways, as even current news reports regularly show
"2. Oswald never confessed." This also is probative of nothing. A confession by Oswald would not have been proof of his guilt, as false confessions occur with some frequency. OTOH, if one could expect reliable confessions in almost all cases, the criminal justice system would be much less busy
"3. Oswald was a loyal Marine." He was court-martialed twice, demoted, imprisoned in the brig for a time -- and after discharge defected to the USSR where he went to the US embassy and renounced his US citizenship ...
meh
ucrdem
(15,512 posts)1944: Joe Jr. (brother), small plane, killed.
1948: Kathleen (sister), small plane, killed.
1963: JFK, "lone nut," killed.
1964: EMK (brother), small plane, survived.
1968: RFK (brother), "lone nut," killed.
1969: EMK (brother), Chappaquiddick, survived.
1999: JFK Jr. (son), small plane, killed.
And that's just one family. . .
KurtNYC
(14,549 posts)and many of the motives are not at all political. Booth wanted to free Confederate prisoners, Hinckley wanted to get Jodi Foster's attention, Lynette Squeaky Fromme waved a gun with no chambered round at Gerald Ford because she was concerned about the Redwood forest, Jahred Loughner was influenced by hate radio, and according to studies many simply want notoriety or infamy.
http://www.npr.org/2011/01/14/132909487/fame-through-assassination-a-secret-service-study
According to the Fein and Vossekuil study, assassinations of political figures are almost never for political reasons. They further concluded that most assassins were motivated by feelings of invisibility, failure and wanting "to be somebody." That doesn't seem to be Oswald's potential motive because he fled the scene, denied shooting any of the 3 victims and called himself "a patsy."
3. Oswald refused to return to the US Embassy to renounce his citizenship and this helped him return to the US. He did not effectively renounce his citizenship when he easily could have. - WCR, Appendix 13, pages 693-695:
http://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/warren-commission-report/appendix-13.html
BootinUp
(47,143 posts)Derp.
Holly_Hobby
(3,033 posts)will never forget that day. I will never believe the official story and never will. I don't think we'll ever learn the truth, but I thank you for your contribution to the subject.
IMO, there are conspiracy theories around major events because we can't and don't trust the government to tell us the truth. The official stories of these events are laughable.
