BOOK REVIEW -- "RECLAIMING HISTORY: THE ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY"

Re: BOOK REVIEW -- "RECLAIMING HISTORY: THE ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY"

As Robert mentioned earlier, the Zapruder Film positively shows the forward movement of JFK's head at the crucial INSTANT of the bullet's impact.

The following Internet Z-Film clip is by far the best clip I've ever come across to prove that JFK was shot in the head from behind, not from the front. And also take note of where all of the blood and blood spray is located...it's all to the front of JFK's head (i.e., at the exit point for the bullet).

There's not a speck of blood (or even any redness) located at the rear of the head. How in the world would that be possible if a "Grassy Knoll" gunman had just blown the BACK of the President's head wide open?

(Graphic images below....)

THE ZAPRUDER FILM -- PROOF OF A SHOT FROM THE REAR

Re: BOOK REVIEW -- "RECLAIMING HISTORY: THE ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY"

FROM THE 1986 TELEVISED DOCU-TRIAL "ON TRIAL: LEE HARVEY OSWALD" :


VINCENT BUGLIOSI -- "What was the conclusion your panel came to as to how many bullets struck the President, their point of entry, and the path they took through the President's body?"

DR. CHARLES PETTY (one of 9 forensic pathologists who served on the autopsy panel {aka the "FPP"} for the HSCA) -- "My conclusion, and the conclusion of the panel, was that the President was struck by two bullets -- one entering the right-upper back and exiting in the front of the neck; the other entering the right back of the head, and exiting what we call the right-frontal area, that is the front and side of the head."

MR. BUGLIOSI -- "Is there any doubt in your mind, Doctor, whatsoever that both bullets that struck the President came from the rear and no bullets struck him from the front?"

DR. PETTY -- "None whatsoever."

MR. BUGLIOSI -- "Let me ask you this, Dr. Petty .... assuming the President HAD been struck by a bullet from the front -- make that assumption -- could the transference of momentum from that bullet have thrown the President backward as is shown in frames 315 to 320 of the Zapruder Film?"

DR. PETTY -- "No sir, not in my opinion."

MR. BUGLIOSI -- "And why is that?"

DR. PETTY -- "Because the head is too heavy. There's too much muscular resistance to movement."

MR. BUGLIOSI -- "So the killings that people see on television and in the movies, which is the only type of killings most people ever see, where the person struck by the bullet very frequently, visibly, and dramatically is propelled backward by the force of the bullet -- that's not what actually happens in life when a bullet hits a human being?"

DR. PETTY -- "No, of course not."

Re: BOOK REVIEW -- "RECLAIMING HISTORY: THE ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY"

Mythbusters did a great test of the "blown backwards" BS. They hung a pig carcass from a chain on a rig. The rig had a horizontal bar that held the chain on by only a fraction of an inch. The slightest push on the chain would cause the pig to fall. They shot it with everything, pistols, shotguns, high-powered rifles and the pig never moved. The only thing that caused it to fall was a shot from a .50 caliber sniper rifle, one of the most powerfull shoulder mounted weapons in existence; but even that only moved the pig a fraction of an inch.

Re: BOOK REVIEW -- "RECLAIMING HISTORY: THE ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY"

Sir Isaac Newton did a pretty good pre-emptive refutation of the Hollywood "guy lifted off his feet and hurled 10 feet backwards by a shotgun blast" cliche when he formulated his first law of motion: "For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction." If it were true that the kinetic energy of a bullet or a bunch of shotgun pellets could throw the target 10 feet then it would also have to throw the shooter a similar distance, assuming the shooter wasn't specially braced and was of roughly comparable mass. This is an idea that can be demolished with five minutes of quiet reflection and a good grounding in basic science, no elaborate experiments required. (Although one should always accept any excuse to fire a 50 caliber rifle at a pig carcass. )

Regards,

Joe

Re: BOOK REVIEW -- "RECLAIMING HISTORY: THE ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY"

David, I just wanted to thank you for the incredible write up of Bugliosi's book. While I would like to dive into it, I'll have to wait some years until my free time is a bit more consistent.

I was a casual CTer for many years...until I read Posner's book. That convinced me that it was Oswald alone. While obviously not as detailed as VB's book, I found that an intelligent, grounded reader could take the solid case Posner built and refute just about every looney theory out there.

Re: BOOK REVIEW -- "RECLAIMING HISTORY: THE ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY"

Thank you for that compliment very much. I appreciate it. I worked for quite a while on assembling my review. (However, not as long as Vince did on assembling the whole book, which was close to 21 years.)



Point taken.

Perhaps you can bookmark this page and come back to it in the future. It'll be here. (And I'm still tweaking portions of the review as of this date too; so it's really not fully finished even yet.)

In a bit of an unrelated vein, I guess this probably also means that you won't have time to read THIS TOME/ESSAY of mine either, huh? (Assuming you're a fan of old-time classic TV shows.)



I agree completely. It's a very good book, IMO. I think, in fact, that Mr. Bugliosi is a tad too hard on Mr. Posner in "Reclaiming History" at times. (But at other times the criticism does seem to be warranted.)

Re: BOOK REVIEW -- "RECLAIMING HISTORY: THE ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY"

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Re: BOOK REVIEW -- "RECLAIMING HISTORY: THE ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNED

David VP

Your initial post is the single most impressive post I've ever seen on Home Theater Forum! Thanks so much for taking the time and effort to lay this out for us.

Oh, by the way; them boys on the grassy knoll, they were dead within three hours, I still have the shovel!

Re: BOOK REVIEW -- "RECLAIMING HISTORY: THE ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY"

Thank you, very much.





Yeah, that sounds typical of the kind of conspirators many theorists believe were involved in the "Big Plot"....i.e., just leave incriminating evidence lying all over the place to implicate the "plot", such as easily-destroyable documents that many theorists think were filed away for all time, instead of the assassins and cover-uppers merely getting rid of such evidence.

Your shovel should have ended up in the Trinity River. But, instead, it's still in your garage. Go figure.

(I'm just kidding, of course. I know darn well you don't have the shovel....because I happen to know that the Babushka Lady has it stashed in her attic, along with her undeveloped film of the shooting and the 54 bullets that magically disappeared immediately after JFK was shot by Badge Man.)

Re: BOOK REVIEW -- "RECLAIMING HISTORY: THE ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNED

Glad you got the joke!

You know, whenever I'm talking with someone who starts in on one of these conspiracy theories, i.e. the JFK assignation, the "fake" moon landings, Area 51, etc, I just say, "I'm going on a cruise this summer, I hope I don't fall off the edge of the flat earth . . ."

I think conspiracy theory in our present time is the equivalent of superstition in the middle ages. Things unknown or not easily explained used to be assigned supernatural explanations. Now elaborate conspiracy theories are constructed, gathering steam and new "facts" with each retelling. I find it amazing that now that two-thirds of the population have cell phones capable of taking pictures, there hasn't been a single credible shot of Bigfoot, Nessie, or little green men.

All my family and friends know I'm a Master Mason, and after The Da Vinci Code and National Treasure came out, (not to mention the "documentaries" on The History Channel), I had several ask, quite seriously, if the Masons were indeed hiding the Holy Grail, the True Cross, the Ark of the Covenant, the Blood Line of Jesus, or the Great Treasure of the Knights Templar; and if it was true that the Masons are conspiring to take over the world.

I tell them, "I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill you."

Re: BOOK REVIEW -- "RECLAIMING HISTORY: THE ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY"

You can watch Bugliosi's talk about his book (recorded for C-SPAN on the seventh floor of the Texas School Book Depository) here.

For those who don't have the time to read his half-million words (plus supplmental material on CD-ROM) there is the ABC News Special Report marking the 40th anniversary of the assassination, Beyond Conspiracy. (Available on DVD.)

This show used the Dale Myers computer recreation of the shooting along with the Zapruder film and a live re-enactment to bury all the "major" points of the conspiracy theorists, the ones that the general public gets from movies like JFK and television trash like The Men Who Killed Kennedy. Bugilosi takes on the thousands of books, pamphlets and websites that have been peddling the conspiracy poison, and refutes them in great detail. The ABC special is a more compact response to the more superficial treatment the case gets in visual media.

Also there's the fact that if you simply present what did happen and lay out all the evidence that supports that clear sequence of events, you really shouldn't have to refute the conspiracy theorist, who simply weave fantasies out of non-facts, and which all required ignoring well-established facts. (90% of books on the shooting spend almost no time at all discussing Oswald and you won't even find the name "Tippet" in the index of the vast majority of them. The policeman's murder and Oswald's obvious guilt would have to be explained, if acknowledged, and that doesn't fit with the "patsy" role that most theories assign to the actual assassin.)

On the more general topic of conspiracy theories, their origins, their historical connections and the ideas and characteristics they share in common, you might find the Daniel Pipes book Conspiracy a terrific resource. (Lots of stuff on the Masons and the Templars, by the way, Dave. ) British humorist Jon Ronson's Them: Adventures with Extremists is another look that looks at conspiracy, albeit in a quirkier way and primarily through encounters with contemporary believers in various conspiracies. (Sometimes believers in several, often contradictory, conspiracy theories.)

Regards,

Joe

Re: BOOK REVIEW -- "RECLAIMING HISTORY: THE ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY"

REVISED & UPDATED.

(Oswald's still as guilty as ever, however. That part will never change. It's just that the review is a little prettier now.)

Re: BOOK REVIEW -- "RECLAIMING HISTORY: THE ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY"

Thanks for the link, Joe. I was amused by the Amazon reviews of those who hate the book.

Re: BOOK REVIEW -- "RECLAIMING HISTORY: THE ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY"

For anyone who might be interested.....

Here's my revised "KENNEDY PHOTO ALBUM". Some rarely-seen photos in here. Click on most images to enlarge them.

Re: BOOK REVIEW -- "RECLAIMING HISTORY: THE ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY"

You've changed your name! It's a conspiracy!

Re: BOOK REVIEW -- "RECLAIMING HISTORY: THE ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY"

I was listening to talk radio the other day and a caller called in to ask the host's opinions on some film that attempts to prove the gov't was behind the 9/11 events. After the call this book was briefly mentioned and the host said (paraphrasing) "How come we don't have any faith in our government to do ANYthing right, everything they do is a screw up, yet they're miraculously able to orchestrate intricate cover-ups like 9/11 and the Kennedy Assassination without a shred of evidence or whistle blowers ever coming out? Watergate. That was a real government cover-up and look how screwed up that was. That's how the US government performs covert conspiracies."

-paul

BTW - I had started reading this book the very day the Review here was posted. I'm a few pages in to the Warren Commission section. The Four Days in November section is, indeed, excellent.

Re: BOOK REVIEW -- "RECLAIMING HISTORY: THE ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY"

Yes. That seems to be the case.

And most conspiracy theorists fail to use any sort of ordinary common sense when attempting to evaluate the large-scale "plot" that supposedly was swirling around President Kennedy in 1963.

For example, Oliver Stone (and Jim Garrison too, of course) peddles the most idiotic "Single Patsy" assassination plot imaginable to the American movie-going audience -- a plot so intricate and complicated and peril-filled to be utterly cartoonish in nature after just a cursory examination of it.

Stone and Garrison (and many other "CTers") want the masses to believe that Lee Harvey Oswald was being set up well in advance of JFK's murder. But then, on game day (11/22/63), the covert plotters decided they would virtually ruin their whole PRE-arranged SOLO-patsy frame-up by shooting John Kennedy from three different directions, using three different rifles, of course.....thereby ensuring the failure of the one-patsy plot immediately.

Maybe the other two non-Depository gunmen were deliberately trying to miss the target...ya think?

And the most amazing part about Stone's film is -- a large pct. of people actually ACCEPT that theory as what truly happened in Dealey Plaza.

Is common sense really that uncommon? When the JFK case is isolated, I guess the answer to that question is a firm Yes.

http://www.google.com/group/alt.cons...e70f88404a998b

Re: BOOK REVIEW -- "RECLAIMING HISTORY: THE ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY"

Agree very much. This is what I always say to anyone who sticks to the "it's a conspiracy": no two people who've committed a crime can keep their mouths shut, and not sell each other out (ie Michael Vick) but YOU want ME to believe that millions and millions of conspiring cronies can. I don't think so!

Re: BOOK REVIEW -- "RECLAIMING HISTORY: THE ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY"

When the Stone film came out I remember reading an article by a guy who was in the New Orleans D.A.'s office at the time and forced to work on the Garrison "investigation". He said he would someday like to see someone make a movie about what Garrison's three-ring circus was really like, but that, "you could never cast the film. The Three Stooges are all dead."


"Three may keep a secret, provided that two are dead" - Benjamin Franklin

"The likelihood of a secret's being blown is equal to the square of the number of people who are in on it." - Director of Central Intelligence in Tom Clancy's The Hunt for Red October (no doubt repeating a mantra acquired from real intelligence types.)


The best line about Michael Vick came from a comedian (feel bad because I didn't catch the name) who was on the "Bob and Tom Show" recently:

"I don't know what kind of dog trainer Vick was, but whoever taught his co-defendents how to roll over sure is a genius."

Re: BOOK REVIEW -- "RECLAIMING HISTORY: THE ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY"

Plus we didn't land on the moon, and yet the Soviets didn't seem to mind that we lied. Odd, but I guess even Communists can be bribed, or are they all in on it...LOL

Re: BOOK REVIEW -- "RECLAIMING HISTORY: THE ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY"

The CIA had pictures of Brezhnev betting on dog fights.

Re: BOOK REVIEW -- "RECLAIMING HISTORY: THE ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY"

Followed by hysterical laughter.....I like the Bob and Tom show a lot, but never get to hear it anymore since I listen to XM. Sorry for the diversion.

Re: BOOK REVIEW -- "RECLAIMING HISTORY: THE ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY"

In my many philosophical discussions, I've learned that a vast majority of people believe what they want to believe. It's that simple.

People will believe in the JFK (or 9/11, or Moon Landing) conspiracy simply because it fits their worldview. It makes them feel smarter, or more reasonable, or lets them stick it to the "man" in their own little way.

The quotes above summarize the fallacy of that 95% of the time. The US government, in any incarnation (not just the current one) is incapable of such deception. Willing, certainly. Capable...not at all.

Occam's Razor is a nice thing to live by. We should certainly be willing to question what we believe, including those of us who debunk the major conspiracy theories. We should approach them all with skepticism to established facts and open minds. But evidence carries weight. We should use that to reason out events, not our own bundle of collected opinions and hypocrisies

Great posts, DVP. Nerd.

Re: BOOK REVIEW -- "RECLAIMING HISTORY: THE ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY"

In a recent radio appearance, "Reclaiming History" author Vincent Bugliosi provided the following tidbit of information concerning the proposed Tom Hanks-produced 10-hour cable-TV mini-series to be based on Bugliosi's 2007 JFK book.....

"I asked {Tom} Hanks, when do you want this {10-hour mini-series} to come out, and he said 2010. And I said, I'm glad you said 2010, because if you'd have said 2008, I'd be worried. ... If he had said 2008, I would have known that he couldn't have done justice to it. But he wants to make it something that's going to shake up America. And I think it is." -- Vincent Bugliosi; July 23, 2007; Via Radio Interview on KTLK-FM, Minneapolis, Minnesota

=================

The entire 39-minute KTLK radio interview with Vince can be accessed below:

http://a1135.g.akamai.net/f/1135/182...072307_6pm.mp3

http://www.variety.com/article/VR111...goryId=14&cs=1

http://www.google.com/group/alt.cons...8f15434aff2c26

Re: BOOK REVIEW -- "RECLAIMING HISTORY: THE ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY"

www.fwbusinesspress.com/display.php?id=6453

Re: BOOK REVIEW -- "RECLAIMING HISTORY: THE ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY"

Oswald & I had the same rifle training.
When I looked out a window of the School Book Depository into Dealey Plaza I thought it looked like an easy shot.

Re: BOOK REVIEW -- "RECLAIMING HISTORY: THE ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY"

Tom Clancy said the same thing when he first got a look at the view from the sniper's nest. He also suggested that all the controversy about the Carcano's scope and how accurate it was is beside the point because Oswald probably didn't use the scope - at that distance, with a clear shot at a virtually motionless target the open metal sights would have been more than enough for a good shot.

(And Oswald, of course, was a good shot. He was arguably merely "average" by Marine Corps standards, but that translates to "damned good" in the civilian world. Even when he was getting ready to leave the Corps, and had little motivation to shoot well, he got a passing score on his last proficiency test with a rifle. And he spent months dry-firing the Carcano for hours a day leading up to his attempted murder of Gen. Walker - another event most conspiracy books totally ignore - and again before the Kennedy killing.)

Regards,

Joe

THE SCOPE VS. THE OPEN IRON SIGHTS

Indeed.

My theory is this....

Oswald probably used the scope for shot #1. The scope was slightly mis-aligned, which resulted in shots hitting high and to the right of the intended target. Although, granted, it's possible that the only reason the scope was mis-aligned was due to the possible harsh treatment of the gun after the assassination; i.e., Oswald might have tossed the gun to the floor between boxes as he fled the 6th Floor after he shot JFK, resulting in the slight scope damage; we can never know for sure.

If the scope was slightly off for Shot #1, it could be the reason Oswald missed the whole car. I feel that shot hit the oak tree at Z-Film frame 160 (that oak tree, by the way, would have been located to the RIGHT of Oswald's line of sight at approx. Z-frame 160, as illustrated in the top "Rifle Scope" photo below, which is a picture that was taken from Oswald's "sniper's nest" at a point that equates to Z-frame 166, pretty close to Z160). .....



No one can know for certain why Oswald missed with his first shot, of course. It should, theoretically, have been LHO's BEST shot, but it turned out to be his only total miss.

Per my theory, Oswald, after missing with his "scope" shot, changes to the iron sights (at the end of the Carcano's barrel)....with shot #2 (at Z224) being the SBT shot, striking both JFK and Governor Connally.

Shot #3 (using the iron sights again) hits JFK in the head at Zapruder Frame #313.

Another potential reason for the third shot being the only "perfect" shot could very well have been due to LHO having a little more time to re-aim and fire after shot 2. He had 3.5 seconds between shots 1 and 2 (per my scenario here; other people's mileage will vary on exact timing); while he had 4.86 seconds between shots 2 and 3.

So, he had almost 5 full seconds to recycle the bolt and aim again at the President after the second shot. Certainly not the impossible task that many conspiracists make the shooting out to be.

If you'd like to see just how fast a person can fire three shots from a manual, bolt-action Mannlicher-Carcano rifle like Lee Harvey Oswald's, check out the following video clip from a Penn & Teller program. The three-shot "feat" is accomplished in 3.45 seconds on camera:



The Luis Alvarez-proposed "jet effect" theory is substantially proven via a melon test in the above short video too, with the melon moving just as John Kennedy's head did, i.e., TOWARD THE GUNMAN WHO FIRED THE GUNSHOT.

Three minutes to debunk two enduring conspiracy factoids/myths. Not a bad three-minutes' work, I'd say.

"Second gunman?....my achin' ass."




Exactly. But many conspiracy lovers (for some reason) think the word "Sharpshooter" translates to "piss-poor shot". Strange skewed logic there indeed.

Book TV - Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy

Re: BOOK REVIEW -- "RECLAIMING HISTORY: THE ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNED

For those unfamiliar with the Marine Corp rifle/pistol rankings:
Marksman (fair)
Sharpshooter (better)
Expert (best)

Re: BOOK REVIEW -- "RECLAIMING HISTORY: THE ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNED

Charles Whitman, the infamous sniper who killed 14 and wounded 31 others at the University of Texas at Austin in 1966, was also a former U.S. Marine.

From the film Full Metal Jacket