Home Theater Forum › Home Theater Forum › Other Diversions › After Hours Lounge › BOOK REVIEW -- "RECLAIMING HISTORY: THE ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY"
New Posts  All Forums:Forum Nav:

BOOK REVIEW -- "RECLAIMING HISTORY: THE ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY" - Page 7

post #181 of 221
11/20/08 at 10:53am

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

Quote:
Therefore, I'm wondering why the Discovery Channel people even bothered to speculate about those three crazy-as-all-get-out potential shooting locations in the first place?

They were trying to answer all the obvious objections, and if they had ignored the impossible (but popular) shooting locations in favor of the correct one they would have been accused presenting only one side of the story. If you're going to refute an argument or disprove a theory, it isn't enough to provide an alternate argument or theory. You have to engage the argument you're trying to counter, not merely dismiss it. Besides, it makes the fact of the lone gunman that much more obvious when you not only present all the positive evidence in its favor, but also show that the alternatives don't hold water even when taken on their own terms. Forget all the reasons why a shooter could never have set up, fired and escaped from the Grassy Knoll without being detected. Even if we put the imaginary shooter there, he still couldn't have made the shot or produced the wound patterns we see in the films and photographs. Proving this was a public service on Discovery's part, and in my humble opinion well worth the time spent in a special that didn't produce that much genuinely new evidence compared the the groundbreaking CGI reconstruction from the earlier Peter Jennings documentary.

Quote:
The Discovery people already had arranged for the police to completely close off Elm Street and Dealey Plaza for a period of time for their initial "looking through the rifle scope" tests (to see whether certain angles within the Plaza were feasible ones or not for the head shot)... so I wonder why they didn't just go the whole nine yards and perform the actual test shots that were fired into the surrogate skulls from Dealey Plaza as well?

1) No matter how good your experts are, there is danger inherent in firing guns in the middle of a downtown business area. Neither the police nor the insurance company would have allowed any such thing.

2) Even if objection (1) could somehow be overcome, there is just something ghoulish about re-enacting a murder - particularly this one - complete with exploding surrogate head and spewing grey-matter in public and on the spot of the actual killing. Just as they did not show the fatal head shot from the Zapruder film (even when doing the graphic comparison between the film and their test shot), the producers would never have done a public live-fire re-enactment in the plaza itself. It would just have been too creepy for words.

Regards,

Joe
Reply
post #182 of 221
11/20/08 at 12:12pm

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

It's odd again that there isn't more emphasis put on the notion that the "conspirators" would have had to use additional Carcano rifles. Apparently a .30-06 takes the head off. Even more to the point, recovering ANY bullets other than a 6.5 mm Carcano from the crime scene would be instant proof of a conspiracy.

I have a Carcano and a box of ammo. For non-gun-nuts, it's hard to get across what an oddball rifle it is. The cartridge is part way in kinetic energy between a .22LR and a high-powered centerfire round. If JFK had been shot with a .22LR, his head would have been intact although a shot may have been fatal. If on the other hand he had been shot with another miliary surplus round, e.g. 8 mm Mauser or .30-06, there would have been little left of his head. The reason the "magic bullet" makes sense is that the Carcano cartridge is of medium power and therefore wouldn't have disintegrated on impact. It simply had less kinetic energy to dissipate.
Reply
post #183 of 221
11/20/08 at 12:56pm

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

Quote:
Originally Posted by Dennis Nicholls
Even more to the point, recovering ANY bullets other than a 6.5 mm Carcano from the crime scene would be instant proof of a conspiracy.
But even if you use identical 6.5mm Carcanos, you're left with the problem that bullets from one rifle will not match bullets from the other, again exposing the presence of a second shooter. And that's assuming the wound tracks would not have pointed in two different directions. Again, the simplest way to pull this off is to use a single shooter, even if there were a conspiracy.
Reply
post #184 of 221
11/20/08 at 10:04pm
Thread Starter 

RE: "JFK: INSIDE THE TARGET CAR" (2008 DISCOVERY CHANNEL DOCUMENTARY)

Quote:
They were trying to answer all the obvious objections, and if they had ignored the impossible (but popular) shooting locations in favor of the correct one they would have been accused [of] presenting only one side of the story.

But that was part of my previous point -- they did ignore several of the "popular" shooting locations (per the conspiracy kooks) -- e.g., the Dal-Tex Building, the Records Building, the retaining wall location ("Black Dog Man's" position), and they even ignored a location favored to this day by Gary Mack (who practically narrated the documentary)--and that was the "Badge Man" location, which is further east of the location from where Yardley did fire two shots.

So, your argument above makes little sense, given what was shown on the Discovery Channel program.


Quote:
No matter how good your experts are, there is danger inherent in firing guns in the middle of a downtown business area. Neither the police nor the insurance company would have allowed any such thing.

You could be right. But, IMO, this is a very weak argument.

They were already right there, in Dealey Plaza, doing several "through the scope" tests on site.

They could have avoided the inevitable CTer whining about "it's not good enough" and "how do we know they measured that distance correctly?" by merely taking those shots right there at the murder site, instead of staging them on a California rifle range.

And the Plaza's been closed off in the past -- many times, including in 1991 for Oliver Stone's film, and for other film projects over the years, and for the HSCA acoustics tests (with guns blazing away) in 1978.


Quote:
Even if objection could somehow be overcome, there is just something ghoulish about re-enacting a murder - particularly this one - complete with exploding surrogate head and spewing grey-matter in public and on the spot of the actual killing. Just as they did not show the fatal head shot from the Zapruder film (even when doing the graphic comparison between the film and their test shot), the producers would never have done a public live-fire re-enactment in the plaza itself. It would just have been too creepy for words.

This, again, is a weak argument, IMO (especially considering what could have been gained by doing physical tests like these right at the murder scene).

Anyway, it was pretty ghoulish as it was -- staged in California. Placing the exploding heads where they should have been placed for a scientific demonstration like this one -- in Dealey Plaza itself -- was certainly not an impossible task. And it would have provided quintessential accuracy (with respect to heights, distances, angles, etc.). It's a shame they missed a golden opportunity to duplicate the fatal head shot with even more accuracy than we could have hoped for out in California.

Don't get me wrong, the Discovery Channel program was very good, as I said in my review. It proved beyond virtually all doubt (with not just one "Knoll" test shot, but two--using two different type rifles) that JFK was not and could not have been shot in the head from the Grassy Knoll area of Dealey Plaza.

IMO, those "Grassy Knoll" simulated shots were really the best part of the whole program, because those two shots proved that the head damage that would have been sustained by either of those shots would have been totally different than the wounds sustained by JFK in '63.

And when you've eliminated the Grassy Knoll as a firing point (which the Discovery special certainly did do)--then what's left? Certainly not the crazy SOUTH-side firing choices.

What remains, therefore, is the truth of the matter -- JFK was shot in the head from behind and only from behind.
Reply
post #185 of 221
11/21/08 at 7:37am

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

Quote:
But that was part of my previous point -- they did ignore several of the "popular" shooting locations (per the conspiracy kooks) -- e.g., the Dal-Tex Building, the Records Building, the retaining wall location ("Black Dog Man's" position)


I guess we're putting a different emphasis on the word "popular". I had in mind what the general public (the nearly 60% of people who have come to believe in a conspiracy more-or-less through osmosis) is aware of. The average guy on the street has heard of "The Grassy Knoll" and if he thinks there's a conspiracy, that's probably where he thinks the shots came from. He's never heard of the Dal-Tex Building or the "Badge Man" or "The Black Dog Man" or any of the rest of it. The guy I have in mind, Joe Populi, is neither a "Buff", as Calvin Trillin dubbed Mark Lane and his ilk, nor is he an informed skeptic. But he is the target audience for Discovery Channel, so it made sense to spend time addressing the MAJOR alternate theory that everybody's heard of, while not muddying the issue with every other crackpot theory that has a following.

Quote:
They could have avoided the inevitable CTer whining about "it's not good enough" and "how do we know they measured that distance correctly?"

Yeah, because the CTers would never have claimed that the reconstruction was inaccurate, or that the wind conditions were different or the sun got in their eyes...

Face it: If you could take some people back in a time machine and let them stand in every possible shooting spot they still would find something to nitpick and they'd go off to craft yet another theory.

And I don't think the HCA simply shot up Dealy Plaza. I'd have to check the details but I believe their acoustic tests were either done with blanks or by shooting into balastic slug-catchers a few feet from the barrell of the gun.

Regards,

Joe
Reply
post #186 of 221
11/21/08 at 8:07am

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

Ah youse guys just don't understand how fiendish the conspiracy really was. The other shooters were just backup for LHO. They were only going to shoot from the grassy knoll if LHO missed. But when they saw the effects of LHO's shots, they promptly skedaddled out of there. This left LHO holding the bag - a "patsy" as it were.
Reply
post #187 of 221
11/21/08 at 8:48am

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

Quote:
Originally Posted by Joseph DeMartino
And I don't think the HCA simply shot up Dealy Plaza. I'd have to check the details but I believe their acoustic tests were either done with blanks or by shooting into balastic slug-catchers a few feet from the barrell of the gun.
Good point. They also represented Congress, not a cable channel. That probably gave them a little more leeway when it came to firing live ammo.

I don't think it could have been blanks because part of the report of a rifle is the mini sonic boom generated by the bullet actually breaking the sound barrier. You would at least need the bullet to fly a few feet to do an accurate sound test.
Reply
post #188 of 221
11/21/08 at 8:53am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Face it: If you could take some people back in a time machine and let them stand in every possible shooting spot they still would find something to nitpick and they'd go off to craft yet another theory.

Yes, Joseph, you're probably right about that.

I'm sure you've probably heard the joke about the JFK case....which goes:

Even if God Himself sent down word from heaven that Oswald was the lone assassin, the conspiracy believers would be mumbling to themselves -- "Gee, it looks like this conspiracy goes even higher up than we thought."



Hey, just for laughs, let me tell you about one of the conspiracy kooks I battle regularly at the alt.conspiracy.jfk newsgroup (I'm not making this up, I swear):

This guy/nut is firmly of the opinion that JFK was shot in the throat by a frontal gunshot (apparently being fired by a cloaked sniper in the middle of Elm Street, because I cannot see any other way of this occurring) at the equivalent of Zapruder Film frame #161 (which is what is shown in a photo taken by bystander Robert Croft).

This conspiracist in question also says that the Croft photo proves his theory. He claims that that photo (linked above) shows a piece of white shirt coming out of JFK's back, thus proving that Kennedy was hit by a shot from the front--entering his throat and exiting his back (a Single-Bullet Theory in reverse, sort of, minus Governor Connally's wounds).

Kennedy then continues to smile and wave to the crowd for about 30 more Z-frames (about 2 seconds) after he was just skewered by a bullet.

The same kook also believes that witness Howard Brennan claimed that the TSBD shooter was located on the WEST side of the Depository, instead of where Oswald was (the east end). And, naturally, the shooter Brennan saw wasn't Oswald, per the conspiracy believer. Of course, Brennan never testified to anything even close to what that kook said -- the conspiracist is just making up his own crazy brand of evidence and testimony.

And that's what is so maddening about people like that -- they don't even have the decency to feel the slightest bit embarrassed when confronted with the obvious fact that they are attempting to rewrite history in their own unique way with their non-stop silly theories about things that never happened. And they surely--deep down--must know that these things never occurred...but I guess they've convinced themselves that they need to interject their OWN theories about the case, theories that differ from all the others in some ways.

Mark Fuhrman is a good example of this type of thing from the "lone assassin" POV, too. Fuhrman wrote a book on the JFK murder that came out one year before Vince Bugliosi's (called "A Simple Act Of Murder"), in which he decides that the SBT is all wrong, but that Oswald did it alone anyway.

In my review of Fuhrman's book, I provide many, many reasons why his anti-SBT theory cannot possibly be correct. In other ways, however, Mark wrote a good book. At least he doesn't subscribe to the theory that has TSBD employee Danny Arce (who was 18 years old at the time) shooting Kennedy from a FIFTH-floor WEST-end window, while fellow TSBD worker Bonnie Ray Williams was waving a useless, unfired rifle out of a FIFTH-floor EAST-end window to--get this!--attract witnesses' attention to the WRONG FLOOR of the building before the motorcade arrived, in order to frame the proverbial "patsy", who will be framed with evidence (later) on the SIXTH floor.

The above scenario is yet another ultra-nutty one that I have encountered on the Internet in the last few years.

The CTers' favorite TV show must be The Twilight Zone -- because they enter that Zone each time they open their yaps.

Reply
post #189 of 221
11/21/08 at 9:05am

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

I'm beginning to believe that JFK was killed by Colonel Mustard in the library with the candlestick.
Reply
post #190 of 221
11/21/08 at 9:07am
Thread Starter 

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

No, no, Paul -- it was Jimmy Files in the conservatory (close to "Depository") with a dart-throwing umbrella.
Reply
post #191 of 221
11/21/08 at 9:29am

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

You know... if we were really sick, we could probably come up with a JFK Conspiracy board game, sort of like Clue but with all the locations in Dealy Plaza (with side trips to New Orleans, Miami, Mexico City and Havana). Whoever uncovers together the largest conspiracy wins.

We'll be rich, I tell ya, rich!
Reply
post #192 of 221
11/21/08 at 10:00am

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

Unfortunately (for us and for the sad, sick CT'ers), it is a self-fullfilling prophesy. The more outlandish the scenario, the more "unique" the person coming up with the theory appears and, in turn, the more "special" their level of "knowledge" must be. For people who so obviously crave recognition, it's easy to see how their tenous grasp on reality can readily slip away.
Reply
post #193 of 221
11/24/08 at 12:16am

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

Interesting. The two-hour Kennedy Assassination special on the History Channel tonight was just the Peter Jennings ABC special for 2003, but without Peter Jennings' narration. It's nice that the channel has taken some steps to correct the damage done by their interminable airings of The Men Who Killed Kennedy, but odd that they went through the trouble to replace Jennings' voice with someone who, frankly, sounded a lot like Peter Jennings.
Reply
post #194 of 221
11/24/08 at 12:57am
Thread Starter 

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

Yes, Paul, I've also heard portions of that re-dubbed Jennings special that aired on non-ABC networks. Didn't they use a British narrator in the History Channel version?

And, of course, the newer version was forced to drop the "Peter Jennings Reporting" part of the title.
Reply
post #195 of 221
12/4/08 at 10:35pm
Thread Starter 

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

Some interesting images from the 2008 Discovery Channel
"Unsolved History" documentary,
"JFK: Inside The Target Car":


http://reclaiming-history.googlegrou...eePd 7zpGv9tg


REVIEW -- "JFK: INSIDE THE TARGET CAR" (2008 DISCOVERY CHANNEL DOCUMENTARY) - alt.conspiracy.jfk | Google Groups
Reply
post #196 of 221
12/19/08 at 12:13am
Thread Starter 

MISC. JFK-RELATED VIDEOS:

MY KENNEDY PHOTO ALBUM:



CBS-TV COVERAGE OF JFK'S ASSASSINATION:



1964 CBS SPECIAL -- "THE WARREN REPORT":



1966 NBC WHITE PAPER -- "THE AGE OF KENNEDY":



DISCUSSING THE JFK ASSASSINATION:
Reply
post #197 of 221
12/19/08 at 4:18pm

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

What a pair of idiots. The "Mauser" issue (or, "German Mauser" issue - like there were lots of non-German Mausers floating around) is laughable and always has been. It isn't like there were many people in the United States in 1963 who would recognize a Carcano at a glance. It was a seriously obscure weapon that looked more like a Mauser than it did any of the common American bolt action rifles that a bunch of Dallas cops or citizen would be familiar with. So the witnesses did what people normally do - they assumed. It looked like a Mauser at first glance, it must be a Mauser.

Imagine a bunch of witnesses and even cops being interviewed after a drive-by shooting. Many of the people refer to the handgun used as a Glock 9mm. When the suspect is arrested he is found to have a 9mm that is a cheap imitation of a Glock. How far do you think his lawyer is going to get claiming that this "mistake" sinks the prosecution's whole case - especially if the guy in question had no alibi for the time of the shooting, was seen in the area, had previously attempted another drive-by shooting and in the course of escaping the scene of the current crime, shot and killed a local cop in front of witnesses?

And that lots of news reports carried the mistake is equally meaningless to anyone who knows how the news business works. One AP or UPI story or one Dallas PD press release with that tidbit in it and every news report would have called the gun a Mauser - until a correction came down.

I'm sure there was even worse ahead, but I stopped the recording about halfway through, because my gag reflex was kicking in.

Regards,

Joe
Reply
post #198 of 221
12/20/08 at 3:30am
Thread Starter 

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

Quote:
I'm sure there was even worse ahead, but I stopped the recording about halfway through, because my gag reflex was kicking in.

If you think that was bad, you should hear about all the stuff he mangles in Parts 3 and 4 of my "Battling A Kook" series. It's hilarious. And pathetic. (Particularly when such distortions are coming from a person--DiEugenio--who supposedly is highly informed about the facts of the case.)
Reply
post #199 of 221
12/20/08 at 3:33pm

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

Quote:
Originally Posted by Joseph DeMartino
but I stopped the recording about halfway through, because my gag reflex was kicking in.

Regards,

Joe

To change the subject for a tiny second: Happy Birthday, Joe!

Now take that pie (to revert your gag reflex)!


Cees
Reply
post #200 of 221
12/20/08 at 4:30pm

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

Quote:
Originally Posted by Cees Alons
To change the subject for a tiny second: Happy Birthday, Joe!

Now take that pie (to revert your gag reflex)!


Cees

Thanks. I opted for ice cream cake.

Joe
Reply
post #201 of 221
12/20/08 at 8:55pm

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

You know, it seems these people think that no human endeavor is ever made without mistakes. Apparently the Police are supposed to be infallible, and yet I missed my exit today and had to take the next one. Oh, to be a cop and be perfect! LOL Just because he said Mauser first doesn't mean it was one. What kind of twisted logic is that?
Reply
post #202 of 221
12/22/08 at 12:22am

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

You should hear the Moon Landing nuts. Hundreds of hours of audio tape, scores of hours of videotape and film, thousands of photographs from six manned landings, three manned flybys, nine living moon-walkers (at least one of whom will punch you in the face) &c. &c., and they still claim it didn't happen. That's a superior grade of nuttery.


As far as the Kennedy issue is concerned, I think the problem is one of symmetry. Nobody except a few hardcore loons doubts that Oswald shot at the President with the intent to kill him (or conceivably someone else in the motorcade). Certainly he had attempted something similar before, and certainly he, shortly afterward, shot and killed a police officer in broad daylight and full view of witnesses — it's a well-known fact of life in Texas that killing a policeman is a capital offence only if they bother to bring you in alive, whereas a white man carrying a loaded gun in Oak Cliff in 1963 would have been of only minor interest to the authorities. On the other hand, as people have no trouble seeing, it is astoundingly unlikely that Oswald could have made that one shot, after his others went wild, from that position, managing with that one bullet not only to kill the President with a perfect headshot but to wound the Governor as well.

What they fail to see is the at least equally fantastic unlikelihood of its having happened any other way. Every indication is that Oswald acted alone, and that he was such a fantastically contrary person that, if someone had suggested it to him, he would have done something else instead. If his wife is to be believed, he only began to think about trying for the President after reading in the newspaper, earlier in the week, what the parade route was to be, and discovering that it ran right past his workplace. In other words, we are forced to assume either a completely separate conspiracy which just happened to pick that exact time and place for its attempt (which is so improbable as to be totally ridiculous), or a conspiracy which had seized upon Oswald ahead of time to act as a patsy, and had determined with exactitude the one time and place at which he could possibly have a chance at shooting the President, and beat him to it (which is almost worse).

Faced with two competing absurdities of roughly equal magnitude, Occam suggests we pick the simpler one. Some people's minds just don't seem to work that way.
Reply
post #203 of 221
12/22/08 at 6:15am

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

Quote:
On the other hand, as people have no trouble seeing, it is astoundingly unlikely that Oswald could have made that one shot, after his others went wild, from that position, managing with that one bullet not only to kill the President with a perfect headshot but to wound the Governor as well.

Christopher, it wasn't one shot. It was three. The first missed (probably due to tree cover and angle of deflection, because it was fired when the car was closest to the window). The second shot (the "Magic Bullet") entered Kennedy's upper back, exited his throat, hit the Gov. in the back, exited his ribs, hit his wrist and embedded itself in his leg, just below the skin. The third shot, at the greatest distance, but probably the easiest because the angle was almost straight on with no deflection, was into the right rear side of JFK's head.

Neither the second nor third shot was judged to be all that diffcult for an experienced shooter, which Oswald was (despite what the CTers say).
Reply
post #204 of 221
12/22/08 at 8:38am

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

In fact, all of the shots were fairly easy. This is what I've been told by ex-military folk who have been to the 6th floor and handled Carcanos:

The limo was moving very slowly, on a slight downgrade, and almost directly away from Oswald. Except for the target becoming slightly smaller with distance due to foreshortening, it was the next best thing to a stationary target. (This is also why all the ink spilled on how accurate the rifle's scope was and whether or not it was mounted properly is such a waste. Oswald didn't need the scope and didn't use it. The gun's iron sights would have been more than enough for the situation that day in Dallas. It was that easy a shot.) By contrast a shot from the Grassy Knoll or almost any of the alternative locations proposed by the CTs would have been much more difficult.

The first shot was almost certainly deflected by hitting some part of a tree, rather than missing because it was poorly aimed, so Oswald probably fired three quite accurate shots in a short period, which is what you'd expect from a trained shooter who had been "dry firing" to rehearse for the day.

The "Oswald was a lousy shot" canard is based on the his last Marine Corps shooting proficiency score. Oswald was tested after he had applied for an early discharge from the Marines, and probably after he had already decided to defect to the Soviet Union. He was a short-timer with no reason to want to score well, and in fact scored below his previous tests, yet he got a passing score. That's "passing" by the combat shooting standards of the U.S. Marines. Merely getting a "passing" score on that test makes you a better rifle shot than most shooters. And in the days leading up to the Kennedy assassination (as in the days leading up to the attempt on Gen. Walker's life) Oswald deliberately honed his shooting skills, something he wouldn't have bothered doing before his last USMC proficiency.

Regards,

Joe
Reply
post #205 of 221
12/22/08 at 10:03am

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

Correct that none of the 3 shots were all that difficult, but the first did involve increased deflection in the aimpoint, due to the car moving more perpendicular to the window. The next two had the vehicle moving straight away, so the target was basically stationary from Oswald's perspective.
Reply
post #206 of 221
4/29/09 at 11:44pm
Thread Starter 
FYI -- An updated list of JFK-related books, DVDs, and videos:

KENNEDY-RELATED BOOKS, VIDEOS, DVDs, AND CDs

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

A few sample videos:

6 HOURS OF CBS-TV COVERAGE FROM 11/22/63:


YouTube - 2009 INTERVIEW WITH BILL PAXTON (RE: PRESIDENT KENNEDY'S ASSASSINATION)

YouTube - DavidVonPein's Channel
Reply
post #207 of 221
4/30/09 at 12:48am

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

Quote:
"German Mauser" issue - like there were lots of non-German Mausers floating around

Actually there were quite a few Mausers made in other countries - even considering the famous model 1898 alone. After WWI the allies stripped Germany of its munitions factories. The tooling at the Mauser factories was literally crated up and given to the Fabrique Nationale in Belgium and to the Czech rifle factory at Brno. (One of the reasons Hitler was hot to grab Czechoslovakia was to get his hands on that Brno factory.) The Japanese made some in a factory in Manchuria. Even the Turks got into the game, creating a factory to make their own rifles after previously buying them from the Germans and the Czechs.

See for example Mauser Military Rifles of the World by Robert Ball.
Reply
post #208 of 221
4/30/09 at 8:52am

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

Quote:
Originally Posted by Jeff Gatie
Correct that none of the 3 shots were all that difficult, but the first did involve increased deflection in the aimpoint, due to the car moving more perpendicular to the window. The next two had the vehicle moving straight away, so the target was basically stationary from Oswald's perspective.

Which is probably why Oswald missed with the first shot, hit with the second and inflicted the fatal wound with the third.

Regards,

Joe
Reply
post #209 of 221
4/30/09 at 9:48am

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

Quote:
Originally Posted by Joseph DeMartino
Which is probably why Oswald missed with the first shot, hit with the second and inflicted the fatal wound with the third.

Regards,

Joe

It's exactly why Oswald missed, wounded, and killed; in that order. The final shot, which was practically dead on and moving away, was like fish in a barrel. An average-to-good shot wouldn't even need the scope, it was quite easily accomplished with simple open sights.
Reply
post #210 of 221
4/30/09 at 12:08pm

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

Quote:
Originally Posted by Dennis Nicholls
Actually there were quite a few Mausers made in other countries - even considering the famous model 1898 alone.

I stand corrected. Thanks for the history lesson.

Joe
Reply
New Posts  All Forums:Forum Nav:
  Return Home
  Back to Forum: After Hours Lounge
Home Theater Forum › Home Theater Forum › Other Diversions › After Hours Lounge › BOOK REVIEW -- "RECLAIMING HISTORY: THE ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY"