JFK Assassination 40th Anniversary Thread (1 Viewer)

[Paul McElligott]

What it would have been like if only Abraham Zapruder had had sound on his famous 26-second home movie.

So much could be cleared up regarding the case with just that one single item being added to Zapruder's film -- sound (which, of course, was unavailable on the home movie cameras of the day in 1963).

I've often wondered what it would have been like if the assassination had taken place today, when you have had 100 people in Dealey Plaza with digital camcorders and another 200 with digital cameras.

 

[BrianShort]

Eric: How big are those files? I'd LOVE to get my hands on them.

Related, but a bit OT, I'd also like to get a copy of the minute by minute coverage of the beginning of the 9/11 attacks (I wasn't awake to see it as it happened), so if anyone knows where I can get either of these, let me know

Brian

 

[Jason_Els]

I wish I could care about this. The man's dead, it's over, it's 40 years ago and I'm sure there was a conspiracy but I don't think we'll have any idea what the whole story is. Even if some super secret documents were released by the government I'm sure there'd be people out there saying they were fake. The whole situation is now so confused that we won't be able to know the truth when we see it.

I don't mean to be callous but why isn't anyone commemorating Garfield, McKinley, or Lincoln like this? We know Lincoln's death was a conspiracy. How far did it go? If it's simply based-upon the immediacy of time well then hell, I wasn't even born yet. JFK was a good movie but I take everyone that says they know what happened that day with a grain of salt.

 

[Jason_Els]

Related, but a bit OT, I'd also like to get a copy of the minute by minute coverage of the beginning of the 9/11 attacks (I wasn't awake to see it as it happened), so if anyone knows where I can get either of these, let me know

One of the most touching things is reading the logs of forums like this one from that day. Search Usenet too. You can actually see, from the first report, the development of events, what the rumors were, what was happening, how people felt. The internet has given us an astonishing and deeply personal minute-by-minute account of what was going on all over the world. 9/11 is probably the single best-documented disaster from a socio-political standpoint. Thousands of message forums all over the world document what people were thinking the minute it happened.

It is deeply moving to read them. It's like reliving a nightmare and triggered so many memories.

Here was HTF that day: http://www.hometheaterforum.com/htfo...=&threadid=507

 

[Eric Paddon]

Brian, they were streamed live so the only way I could get them was to put a tape player up to the speakers and have absolute silence in the rooom for seven hours two days in a row which I did. Sound quality isn't perfect but good enough to have all this documented on cassette.

WBAP, which aired their JFK coverage has all their 9/11 radio coverage (ABC Radio and TV audio pickups) available for downloading in fifteen minute increments at their website.

 

[BrianShort]

Eric: Thanks... I'll check out that site.

Jason: I actually did that on 9/11/03 on both the DVDTalk Other Forum, and here. It's too bad the continuation threads weren't saved.

Brian

 

[Carlo_M]

Just out of curiosity, has it been explained (by I suppose by the non-CT side) why a lot of docs re: the assassination are sealed until, I don't remember the date, 2029 or something like that?

 

[Eric Paddon]

That isn't so. All releveant documents were declassified under the 1992 JFK Assassination Materials Act. There's nothing left hidden of a relevant nature. HSCA material was to be hidden until 2039 but that was perfectly normal for a lot of committees (if you ever bothered to check how much government work, Executive and Legislative Branch going back to the 40s and 50s stayed classified for decades and sometimes still is, you'd see that JFK material is hardly unique).

 

[Michael_Q]

Actually, the previous post is not accurate. I believe there was a committee of some kind put together, which determined which records could be released and which would remain classified.

Many relevant records are and will be classified for many years.

 

[Eric Paddon]

No. All relevant materials are out except for matters of intelligence gathering and protecting the names of innocent people. There is nothing of an essential nature that one needs to figure out who killed John F. Kennedy that is classified today (and for that matter, it's been that way since 1963 on the matter of establishing who killed him).

 

[Michael_Q]

I guess we just disagree about what information is relevant and essential to the case. I would say that any intelligence-related material is critical, particularly since many believe US intelligence agencies had a hand in the assassination.

 

[Eric Paddon]

Why does *anyone* believe that intelligence agencies are connected? Because of relevant evidence or because a bunch of conspiracy authors with political axes to grind like to throw out empty speculation? I think anyone who thinks that intelligence agencies are connected are frankly people with political axes to grind who find the idea of a communist being responsible for Kennedy's murder to be politically incorrect from their standpoint, which is why they will twist everything they can to find a more politically correct target, which for people of those beliefs, must always be the United States government. That ultimately says a lot more about them then it does about the nature of the evidence.

Relevant evidence in finding out who killed JFK has to do with (1) eyewitness testimony (2) medical and forensic evidence (3) physical evidence (4) ballistics evidence etc. And there is nothing from that category that is not accessible.

 

[Patrick Larkin]

But if you do believe the intelligence agencies had a part in the conspiracy, that calls into question the validity and handling of all evidence. The US Govt presents all sorts of "evidence" (WMD, Yellowcake?) that isn't necessarily true. When evidence is held under a water-tight veil of secrecy while an investigation is being done, what exactly is happening to the evidence? And could redacted parts of documents be covering up inconsistencies and contradictions in evidence? Many questions remain impossible to answer and enough "coincidence" in circumstance to cause reasonable doubt.

And your assertion that conspiracy believers are sympathetic to Communist doctrine is laughable.

 

[Eric Paddon]

"But if you do believe the intelligence agencies had a part in the conspiracy, that calls into question the validity and handling of all evidence."

I reiterate: *What* presumption can there be for such a belief without a major political axe to grind? Especially given the total absence of relevant evidence other than political bias to suggest such a thing.

"The US Govt presents all sorts of "evidence" (WMD, Yellowcake?) that isn't necessarily true."

This is a bit of bizarre post-hoc-ergo-propter-hoc reasoning
to suggest that the US government is capable of murdering its own president for no definable reason other then the fact it plays into the bizarre thinking of certain people in the fringes of the political spectrum.

"When evidence is held under a water-tight veil of secrecy while an investigation is being done, what exactly is happening to the evidence?"

First off, with regard to the JFK assassination, the burden of proof is on *you* to tell us what is missing with regard to the relevant matters of physical evidence, ballistics, forensic evidence etc. that tells us only one answer: Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. And until you do, you have no legitimate basis to make an unfounded accusation, because the operative word for that is McCarthyism.

"Many questions remain impossible to answer and enough "coincidence" in circumstance to cause reasonable doubt."

Like what? This is just a soundbite that doesn't use substantive evidence to make the point.

"And your assertion that conspiracy believers are sympathetic to Communist doctrine is laughable."

That isn't what I said. I said that the idea of someone of the Far Left being responsible for the murder of JFK is for some people a politically incorrect motive if in their minds it meant the death of someone who supposedly embodied the hopes of progressive liberalism (never mind that the real JFK was a centrist). For those people, they have to look for something sinister that validates their perspectives that the Far Left can not be responsible for such a heinous crime, and that we must find a conspiracy centering on the kind of people they wish were responsible.

If Lee Harvey Oswald had been a Klansman or a simple Goldwater supporter, these people who have made a cottage industry out of the assassination would have accepted the physical evidence for what it reveals.

 

[Patrick Larkin]

First off, with regard to the JFK assassination, the burden of proof is on *you* to tell us what is missing with regard to the relevant matters of physical evidence, ballistics, forensic evidence etc

Of course the burden is on me. The govt can float anything out there and put the burden on me to prove them wrong. For example: President/Yellowcake/Niger/Satate of the Union. Float out some bullshit and see if any of the masses is willing to call them on it. I figure in 1963, there weren't many willing.

 

[Eric Paddon]

"Of course the burden is on me. The govt can float anything out there and put the burden on me to prove them wrong. For example: President/Yellowcake/Niger/Satate of the Union."

Since you are starting from a bogus premise to begin with, that makes your attempt to carry it further to the argument that the government would kill the President even more dubious.

"Float out some bullshit and see if any of the masses is willing to call them on it. I figure in 1963, there weren't many willing."

That's nonsense. The cottage industry of conspiracy buffs making a buck on the assassination and deliberately distorting the evidence in the process has been there non-stop since 1964 when a crackpot named Joachim Joesten became the first to push a conspiracy book. Since Joesten was pushing the disgraceful notion that murdered police officer J.D. Tipppit was part of a conspiracy, his ideas didn't go far, but most of his techniques were borrowed verbatim by Mark Lane, the first of the major conspiracy authors, whose style has been emulated by all buff authors since then.

And incidentally, you like to talk about the government's credibility problem. Let's talk about the credibility problem of conspiracy buffs like the granddaddy himself, Mark Lane who among other things was exposed by the New York Times' Neal Sheehan (no shill for the government he) as a liar who pushed phony stories of non-existent US atrocities in Vietnam based on the "confessions" of men who never served in Vietnam. That's what is known as a substantive case of deception that makes conspiracy buffs suspect using the logic you apply (using a bad premise) to accuse the US government of murdering a president.

 

[Patrick Larkin]

Eric - You just seem to be in denial that the Federal Goverment LIES to you repeatedly. You cannot even begin to believe in JFK conspiracy theory unless you can accept that fact.

You can argue until you are blue in the face (which you seem to relish) but the very basis of "fact" that you hang your hat on is the very thing I find suspect. Incosistencies such as doctors reporting one set of injuries and then the "evidence" presenting another for instance. I know, I know, you rebuke that by saying the doctor may not have recalled it correctly. BS. You don't FORGET something like that.

 

[Eric Paddon]

"Eric - You just seem to be in denial that the Federal Goverment LIES to you repeatedly. You cannot even begin to believe in JFK conspiracy theory unless you can accept that fact."

This is rubbish. The JFK assassination should not be looked at through the lens of prejudicial views of the government, which you are operating from, but from the simple, unvarnished *facts* of the case which is what you are not doing. Kindly explain (1) the reasons for the government knocking off the President and (2) kindly explain what is wrong with the physical evidence that overwhelmingly points to LHO's guilt and (3) kindly explain where in LHO's background of being a devout communist (confirmed by none other then secret KGB files which did not see him as an intelligence operative) can he end up becoming associated with intelligence agencies. None of this you have done. All I'm hearing from you is that you hate the U.S. government and think it lies all the time, ergo there must be a conspiracy in the JFK case, because that fits your political prejudices, not because of the actual evidence of the case.

"Incosistencies such as doctors reporting one set of injuries and then the "evidence" presenting another for instance." I know, I know, you rebuke that by saying the doctor may not have recalled it correctly. BS. You don't FORGET something like that."

Gee whiz, then how come those very doctors have repeatedly stated over the years that their recollections of wound locations should not be given such overwhelming credence because they, as human beings caught up in the rush of trying to save the life of the President and not to conduct a thorough autopsy, which was not their job nor something they were trained to do? It seems that those doctors have an easier time doubting their infallibility then you do for them.

And then you are left with the problem of the Z-film confirming what the autopsy shows, not to mention the reevaluation of the autopsy photos by 19 forensic pathologists, and the confirmation of the authenticity of such photos, not to mention....oh I think you're detecting a trend now, aren't you?

 

[Chris Knox]

Wrong. That is not how the scientific process of historical methodology works. You do not make assumptions without having any factual basis for such an assumption just because the scientific tests of the evidence don't yield the answer you like.

Does anyone else see the stun gun absurdity of this coming from Eric? You preach about not making assumptions without factual basis yet you have done this repeatedly in regards to individuals as noted above. Am I the only one seeing the hypocrisy here?

I'm still waiting for those answers, and until I get them, I'll assume that the continuation of this debate with you is pointless.

 

[Eric Paddon]

"WRONG, WRONG, WRONG..."

But right, right, right. We have constructed the scenario of how this moment in history unfolded. You say this is not how this one moment in history happened. Okay, but now the ball is in your court to explain just exactly how that moment in history unfolded, because this is not a game where you can change the rules of historical scholarship and say that your only responsibility is to play defense counsel for Lee Harvey Oswald and just create "reasonable doubt" and that is the end of it. The burden is on YOU and all other conspiracy buffs to put up, or shut up, with regards to telling us in plain English just HOW this moment in time unfolded on November 22, 1963 in Dealey Plaza. And copping out behind a lot of "dog ate my homework" excuses by blaming the government for destroying evidence that you can't even prove exists to begin with that would be relevant to proving how this event happened, is only going to get you a nice fat F when it comes to your powers of historical scholarship.

"The onus is on THEM to answer for the inconsistencies in THEIR report."

We have answered them one by one, and we have also in so doing asked your side to account for many instances of flagrant deception and distortion that is far more serious then any of the inconsistencies in the evidence attributed to the WC conclusions, and on this you and the buffs remain silent and refuse to address the repeated lies of conspiracy authors and advocates from Mark Lane to Jim Garrison to Robert Groden to the present day. Start sticking up for their defective scholarship and try to say with a straight face where they have any credibility.

"I am under NO such obligation to come up with something else."

Oh yes you are. Because if you aren't willing to show some guts and provide some answers to what happened based on what you insinuate must have happened if the WC conclusions are wrong, then you are tacitly conceding by default that there is not ONE plausible answer to explain how events unfolded at that moment in time that can be reconciled to the full body of evidence that exists.

"You attack credible, reputable individuals"

Give us some names, please. You are just engaging in soundbites without substance. OTOH, it doesn't faze you to attack the credibility of 19 forensic pathologists who are better trained in the ability to read x-rays then you or I ever will and who will say categorically that the "altered x-ray" charges are nonsense.

"You attack them often from various angles and usually without any real authority or merit on the matter (save for a few nods to the Gerald Posners of the world)."

Wrong. Often my attacks are based by simply going back to the documented record which is not what I often see from you.

"You attack Mantik, whom you never even heard of prior to this discussion,"

Actually I am familiar with him. A person who associates himself with two charlatans named Jack White (he, the so-called photo "expert" who when he appeared before the HSCA, didn't know what photogrammetry was) and Robert Groden (O.J.'s last desperate hope at the civil trial) has zero credibility in my book since the company he keeps says plenty about what his professional credentials are.

"You refuse to even hear anything anyone else might have to say about it."

Nonsense. If anything I'm the one who always asks the buffs to explain themselves further with regard to what they're arguing, like right now for instance, I keep asking you to provide a plausible answer to what happened, and I can't help it when people like you won't answer the question

"My citing just one of your follies (Crenshaw) is but one example of just how little you really know in regards to the assassination of JFK."

Bunk. I have independently studied this for 25 years of my life, but because I don't spend every waking moment of my life with the WC index at my fingertips I can sometimes make a trivial error when I'm relying only on my memory. I made a trivial goof on Crenshaw when I said he wasn't there, when he played a not significant role compared to the doctors who testified before the WC. And I stand by my comments that Crenshaw is a liar on the matter of LBJ calling him on 11/24 because there is concrete evidence that points to that.

"I'm sorry, but all I've heard from you is the regurgitation of data that is, at times, indefensible to the tune of rage against perceived stupidity."

And this is a nice way of how buffs try to deal with the evidence that undercuts their arguments. Ignore it with a soundbite.

"You seem to know nothing about ballistics, trajectory, or the dynamics of what a rifle or a bullet can and cannot do"

I never professed to be such an expert. All I do is quote the documented record of what those who are qualified to make such judgments have said, and unfortunately for you, you don't like to be reminded of what the experts have had to say.

"yet you try to speak with authority on the matter of
Oswald's performance."

That's based on the relevant physical evidence that you keep ignoring and ducking constantly.

"This is why you have purposely avoided my questions I laid out earlier (post 69)"

As I said before, repeating an untruth multiple times does not make an untruth true. I answered your points which is more then I can say for what you've done with challenges repeatedly made to me, not to mention your stubborn refusal to construct your alternate scenario of how events happened, which to me is intellectual cowardice of the first order.

"You parrot absolute stupidity regarding things that are theoretic phenomenon never having been witnessed by a single human being in the history of mankind (single bullet theory, jet effect, etc.)"

Yet borne out and validated by Drs. Lattimer, Baden and a host of others who are more competent then you and I have no problem trusting their judgments, especially since it happens to fit with the totality of the evidence such as (1) LHO was seen by Howard Brennan firing a gun (2) LHO's fingerprints were on the rifle (confirmed by Dr. Scalice in 1993) (3) LHO fled the scene, had no alibi and then murdered J.D. Tippit and attempted to kill another officer when arrested. And I could go on until this reaches triple digits, and I am quite certain you would then not address a single one of them.

"and would be viewed with incredulity by anyone with a shred of common sense"

Another soundbite that is devoid of factual substance since 19 forensic pathologists said otherwise, not to mention the rest of the HSCA investigation that sought in vain to prove conspiracy and then found the WC conclusions were correct after all.

"yet you attack those with more sensible alternate theories."

What alternate theories are those? I keep asking you to present one and you don't. All I hear is some nebulous McCarthyite charge accusing the government of faking evidence and that's about as sensible as arguing the moon landings were faked.

"(Your remarks regarding Garrison not giving the opening or closing speech in the Claw Shaw trial, and his supposed drugging of witnesses, him being a monster, etc.)"

To anyone with a sense of decency, Garrison was a monster. What he did to Clay Shaw was the most disgraceful chapter in the history of American jurisprudence, and the fact that he doped up Perry Russo to get the evidence he needed to proceed with an indictment of Shaw is not subject to dispute. Kindly consult the works of Milton Bremer, Jay Epstein and Patricia Lambert sometime.

"I'm not sure that it was you personally) accuse Stone of doctoring the Z-film for his movie which is a lie"

Quote that, if you please because I never said any such thing.

"The majority of people in this country deny the accuracy of the Warren Report because it is a flawed document"

No, they doubt the accuracy because too often they get the evidence spoonfed to them by dishonest men like Mark Lane, Garrison, Oliver Stone etc. who have lied and lied repeatedly about the evidence instead of going back to the full body of evidence that is there. The imbalance of conspiracy books to non-conspiracy books on the JFK assassination is on the order of 10 to 1 and when that imbalance exists it's going to make an impact on public perceptions.

"made up of pitiful leg work and indefensible investigations by those who were not fully qualified and had no business being on the commission in the first place."

ROTFLMAO! I happen to think the WC staff did an outstanding job given the constraints they operated under and because they were simple lawyers asked to do a tough job in which proving a conspiracy could have netted them fame beyond their dreams, they instead let their integrity rule the day and let the facts speak for themself. And their work has been upheld by all subsequent investigations that have taken advantage of advances in science to realize that for whatever constraints they operated under that led to some errors and flaws, their basic conclusions were accurate.

"You don't see this kind of outcry over Robert Kennedy's murder."

Wrong. Many of the same JFK buffs have written about RFK's murder (Philip Melanson) and no less then Stone was trying to link them by having Garrison say that "They will kill Bobby because he wants to avenge his brother" (this in spite of the fact that the real Garrison had accused Bobby of being complicit in the cover-up of his brother's murder prior to RFK's assassination). You wouldn't believe how much conspiracy fodder about RFK came up because a disturbed person named Sandra Serrano told NBC's Sander Vanocur an hour after the shooting that a woman in a polka-dot dress came out saying giddily, "We shot him!"

"You don't see this kind of outcry over Lincoln's murder."

Wrong again. Lincoln murder conspiracy junk has been around for more then a hundred years, and from the 30s to the 80s it was quite popular for people to push garbage concerning Lincoln's Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, which even led to a bad movie called "The Lincoln Conspiracy." It was only when Civil War scholars finally revealed that the documents used by Lincoln conspiracy buffs for decades to push their junk were hoaxes did it finally begin to die down. With JFK, history is merely repeating itself as so often many buffs have had to resort to hoaxes in order to push their viewpoints.

"You don't see this kind of outcry over the death of Monroe,"

I've seen plenty of authors pushing conspiracy over that one too, including ones accusing no less then JFK and RFK of being responsible for that.

"When it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and looks like a duck..."

Yeah, the only problem is there are too many instances where conspiracy buffs keep calling a duck a goose when it comes to the nature of the evidence, like in the matter of that "changed motorcade route" to name just one example.

"Why would the person who took the pictures need to be a pathologist to determine whether or not the pictures they are looking at are NOT the same ones they originally took?"

Because it demonstrates first off that the person is not qualified to make a medical judgment about the wounds. And second, there's the inconvenient problem of the photographer saying something different in 1967 as is documented by the HSCA.

"Yet you have no problem slandering Garrison, Stone, Mantik, and all of the rest to bolster your own opinion."

Because I can document their lies and deceit quite thoroughly as have reputable scholars. And you have shown a curious refusal to answer the objections made to their conduct.

"I simply have questions that I want answered."

Yet you remain curiously unwilling to provide an alternate answer of what happened when challenged repeatedly to do so. That isn't the mark of someone who wants questions answered if you ask me.

"Again, your characterization of Garrison as a crackpot in light of the fact of his career record demonstrates your ignorance."

Excuse me? What career record is that? We are talking about his shameful conduct in a case that he couldn't get a conviction in, and for which he was sued for defamation by Shaw, and were it not for Shaw's untimely death, that case would have resulted in Garrison being barred from ever writing a book or making a nickel off his witch hunt. He was an evil man, period. And I have read the works of Bremer, Epstein, Lambert etc. which you evidently have not.

"Why don't you admit that you have no real working knowledge of Garrison?"

I won't because that would be lying. Garrison was an evil man who tried to frame an innocent man named Clay Shaw. Period. If you want to make a hero of someone like that, when the trial record, and the documented studies of authors like Bremer, Epstein, Kirkwood and Lambert are there for you to see, you demonstrate quite vividly why I can not take your arguments seriously.

"I can produce three-fold a list of very reputable, respectable individuals that admired him and his work throughout his career."

Let's see them go on the record and say they admired what he did to Clay Shaw and how he conducted himself in that case, because that's the issue at hand.

"You refuse to address my previous questions as outlined in #69, saying that you do not have to address them because you think you found a couple of chinks in the armor of my post. You say that this excuses you from answering the tough questions that I have provided. Then, you turn around and demand that I answer questions for you when you refuse to look at my own. Why? I will be more than happy to address those questions AFTER you finish answering the ones that I provided for."

Evasion, evasion, evasion, evasion. I expected nothing less from someone whose hand is caught in the cookie jar on the matter of the "changed motorcade route" and the "timing question" you put and knows he's in trouble.

"Please, go back and read post 69 and then answer them one by one (or just the ones that you have yet to address). I think I deserve that."

I answered your questions, and I am not going to accept your evasions of questions put to you because you didn't like the answers you were given. If you really have the courage of your convictions, you will answer that question about the phony "changed motorcade route" issue right now.

But I suspect I shouldn't hold my breath waiting for an answer.