JFK Assassination 40th Anniversary Thread (1 Viewer)

[David Von Pein]

Brian .... You've got another pesky extra "period" in one of your links in your post #134, too.

(It's a "period" conspiracy...you'll NEVER convince me otherwise!! Brian's posts have been surgically altered by the Mob and the CIA! )

 

[Jack Briggs]

What gets me is that no one is probing the obvious links between The Beatles and EMI's American label, Capitol Records, to the event. It's all there:

Capitol saw no way to market The Beatles in the U.S. during those heady, optimistic days of the Kennedy Administration. So their first records were passed off to obscure labels like Vee-Jay and Swan — and they went nowhere!

Small surprise, then, that the band's second U.K. album, With the Beatles, was released on ... November 22, 1963. See? The connection is obvious.

And what happens after the events in Dallas on that same day?

Well, it looks pretty darn sinister. The Beatles started getting significant airplay on some American radio stations on the East Coast.

See, EMI knew that America had to be jolted out of its optimistic stupor, then smothered in mourning so as to be easily bouyed by new and different sounds coming from England. America needed to be made sad in order to be made happy again, and The Beatles were just the thing to do it — as well as to fill the coffers at EMI corporate.

So, I'd like to know why Capitol Records has said nothing — absolutely nothing! — about where its top executives were on November 22, 1963, the very same day that With the Beatles was released.

The Beatles did it. I know it.

Now ...

Chris, I'm sorry you found my comments "insulting." But I find this relentless drive for "the truth" to be insulting, too. Why? We just may already have the truth. The evidence points to it and nothing else.

I loved John Kennedy. Cried all that weekend. His death felt personal. It was hard not to be swept up in that era's sense of optimism, which seemed to come to a crashing halt that weekend.

My 24-year-old daughter recently e-mailed me, telling me that she is joining the Peace Corps after accepting her degree in microbiology. When I read her message, I couldn't help but think about John F. Kennedy still influencing young people today.

I was so proud of Rachell for taking this step.

John Kennedy was a complex, urbane, witty, charming man who could play an incredible game of politics. He might have very well become a great president on the level of an FDR. It's an ongoing source of sadness to me that the man did not live long enough to live up to our dreams and hopes for him.

So, when I read about "faked autopsy photos" and "tampered evidence" (up to and including the president's remains), yes, I get offended. Not by you personally, but by the entire cottage industry that the "conspiracy theory" crowd has become. They don't care for the man who was murdered; they seem to love a mystery — even one that was solved the day it occurred.

 

[David Von Pein]

Couldn't agree more, Jack. Not about the Beatles thing. But, instead, about this quote.......

They don't care for the man who was murdered; they seem to love a mystery — even one that was solved the day it occurred.

You are so correct here.

To re-inforce this statement.....Upon listening to much of the "As-It-Happened" Dallas radio coverage from WBAP and KLIF this weekend, it's really quite remarkable just how spot-on accurate the initial reports of 11/22/63 turned out to be.

The very first eyewitness report of the assassin (from Howard Brennan, who had an excellent view of the 6th-floor window from his perch at the corner of Elm & Houston Streets) turned out to be very accurate, with Brennan, just minutes after the murder, telling police of a slender white man in the window, age approx. 30, 5-feet-10, about 160-165 pounds. Oswald was 5-9, white, slender, young (24), and about 150-155 pounds.

Now, IF it WASN'T Oswald that Brennan saw withdrawing that rifle from the 6th-floor window, then the "plotters" certainly did a great job of placing a very close look-alike assassin on that floor.

There were a few errors in the initial reporting of the traumatic events of that horrible day in Dallas...but that's certainly to be expected in almost any event of this gravity.

There were the erroneous reports of the Secret Service Agent being killed. And the incorrect version of Officer Tippit's death, where the press thought Tippit was gunned down INSIDE the theater in a "gun battle" with Oswald.

And the mistaken report that LBJ might have also been injured (because he was seen "holding his arm" when entering Parkland Hospital). But Lyndon might have been jostled around a bit when SS man Youngblood jumped on him in the VP's car.

But all-in-all, the general media reports of what happened that day all turned out to be correct .... Oswald was the lone shooter; 3 shots were fired (and heard); and even very early hints (correctly so) that a "single bullet" caused multiple wounds to one of the victims (Connally).

Gov. Connally's doctor, in a press conference just hours after the assassination, announced to the world that all of Connally's wounds "were caused by one bullet".

I'm not entirely familiar with ALL of the various shooting scenarios that are spouted by conspiracy theorists (heck, who COULD keep up with all of them), but I believe that many people think Connally was hit by multiple shots, and not just a single bullet, even though Connally's own doctor, on the very day of the shooting, claims that all of the Governor's wounds are entirely consistent with having been caused by just a single missile.

How many more years of conspiracy theories??
How many more theories will there be before we observe the whopping 50th Anniversary of this tragic event??
Too many probably. It's too engrained in many people to stop now.

But none of the conspiracy balderdash will change this writer's opinion (and what I believe, as Jack eloquently stated above, is a crime that was solved on the day it was committed) .... that a 24-year-old loon named Lee, by himself, fired at the President and ended his half-lived life.

Footnote: A small bit of irony on the 40th anniversary is that the lone surviving member of the Kennedy nuclear family, Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg, will, on November 27, 2003, turn 46 years of age...the exact age of her father when he was gunned down in Dallas.

 

[Patrick Larkin]

Jack. I'm sorry I was born 4 years after Kennedy's assasination! People like myself may just be a bit skeptical of our government and its covert activities. After all, I did live through Watergate, Iran Contra, and WMDGate. I've also lived through many devious covert operations all over the world - assasinations, orchestrated revolutions, lengthy FBI files on so-called enemies of the state etc etc. Not everyone can sit and be fed what we are given. Some find this behavior irksome. Some call it savoring democracy. When an investigation is as botched and cloaked as this one was, and the investigative body includes the very institution in question, I question it. The inconsistencies across the board directly cause the inquries. Welcome it!

Stone begins his film with Ike's "Military Industrial Complex" farewell speech. I find it especially fitting given how the last 40 years have transpired. Now, I have no macabre fascination with JFK but to suggest my and other's opinions don't count because we weren't weeping when JFK was brutally murdered is blatantly unfair.

We just may already have the truth.

Interesting that you chose the word "may." I'm personally not willing to accept not knowing without vanquishing all doubt. Not because of the man, but because I want to trust my government.

 

[Robert Crawford]

Jack,
You talk about being offended then you paint a portrait of people who don't share the same view as you using such a wide brush that you offend them as I see it. Not good!

By the way, when the man was murdered in 1963, I cried along with the rest of my family members and when I watched several of those JFK programs this week, my eyes still welled up with tears of sadness for not only his family, but for our country.





Crawdaddy

 

[Eric Paddon]

The problem is that conspiracy buffs invite such a broad brush to be applied to them because too often they are just repeating the same disinformation about the assassination over and over again. When questions about the "changed motorcade route" keep getting asked when they shouldn't, the broad brush is sometimes needed.

My passion about this issue has nothing to do with my feelings about John F. Kennedy. I was born long after his death, and from the objective standpoint of what kind of leader he was, I would not count myself as an admirer of him, though there are qualities of him I respect. To me, this issue boils down to the misuse of the process in how we study history and the techniques used by a group of conspiracy authors who trample on the accepted guidelines of responsible historical research. Were the techniques of conspiracy buffs employed with any other topic in history, the shallowness of their methods would become all the more evident.

 

[RobertR]

People like myself may just be a bit skeptical of our government and its covert activities.

And I think therein lies perhaps the bulk of the problem. Some people have become so disenchanted with some of our major institutions that they have a strong tendency to embrace any idea which tends to undermine their credibility, and to instead embrace the notion of "sinister forces" controlling our lives. Hence, the JFK conspiracy types rally around the "cause" with the same fervor (and the same lack of scientific rigor and critical thinking) as believers in UFOs or a "face" on Mars, DISbelievers in the Moon Landings, believers in the Illuminati, etc. It isn't enough for them that the scientific evidence doesn't support their beliefs, because Science itself is viewed as a corrupted tool of Big Government, Big Business, the One World Conspiracy, or whatever sinister forces are said to be at work. They think one lie or group of lies demonstrates that no one from the evil "they" can be trusted or has credibility. They think EVERYTHING bad that happens MUST be the result of the bad "they" causing it to happen. People such as Jack and myself don't view the world that way. We know about principles such as Occam's Razor. We know that scientific facts and methods and rules of evidence do NOT change according to political or economic motives. Facts are facts. Monsters under the bed originate in people's minds, not in reality.

 

[Grant B]

Well I have to admit I am very greatful to the 40th hype. I have been watching some of the specials on the history channel and caught a segment that talked about Kennedy thinking about reinvading Cuba from the Dominacin Republic but 1st he wanted to send agents acting as normal everyday people to Cuba for intelligence. That's the same time my dad dragged my mom to Havana for their honeymoon. He also had a history of disappearing for days and then calling my mom from the DR. I still have the honeymoon photos of soldiers, cannons and places where invasion forces would land.
Even my mom says it make sense.
He died in a strange fishing accident in the middle of noplace soon after I was born except Social Security says he never existed.
I think it's as close to an answer I will ever get.

 

[RobertR]

I've just finished watching an excellent Court TV program on the assassination. It used a lot of scientific analysis, including computer analysis, to investigate what happened. It demolishes the claim that the single bullet which hit Kennedy and Conally had to be a "magic" bullet. This is shown by computer animation of the trajectory and the fact that Conally turned toward Kennedy, making the trajectory of the bullet NOT the convoluted mess claimed by the conspiracists. Also, tests show that the bullet did not hit Conally head on, instead making an oblong hole in his back, thereby explaining why its head is pristine and it is flattened on one side. Test shots from behind into human skulls filled with animal matter showed that they indeed move BACKWARDS due to the jet effect, just as Kennedy's head did. Finally, analysis of the position of the limousine with respect to the grassy knoll showed that it was nearly parallel to the grassy knoll at the time of the fatal shot. Therefore, if that big bloody shot everyone sees in the Zapruder film was an entrance wound, there would have to be a corresponding exit wound on the LEFT side of Kennedy's head, and photos and x-rays show no such wound.

Court TV also did its own analysis of the "policeman's radio tape", and showed compelling evidence that there are no gunshots on it.

 

[Patrick Larkin]

RobertR - Incorrect. People like myself embrace science even so far in that it displaces religion. The piece you seem to be missing is believing with apparent blind faith that they are telling you the truth - that the evidence is not altered/replaced, that the testimony was not coerced with force or payment, that whole story has been told and all witnesses have had their say. Its the same blind faith that drives religion around the world. Critical thinkers can think outside the rigorous framework that has been defined for us by political, religious, and media institutions. Alas, it is the ability to question what we are being told that keeps us from being a totalitarian state.

And again, even if LHO was the lone gunman and was able to get a head shot with iron sights and get off 3-4 shots in 8.x seconds, it is still not unreasonable to speculate and investigate a conspiracy.

Of course, the lone gunman theories could be absolutely true and the conspiracy theories completely wrong. I'm willing to accept that if all reasonable doubt could be exhausted.

 

[BrianShort]

Patrick: I think most people here who believe that LHO was the lone gunman, including myself, would tell you that they don't believe that because that is what the government tells them, but because that is what the forensic evidence says. I myself thought there was some sort of conspiracy, though not as big as some people make out, until I started looking at some of the actual evidence several months ago. Also, LHO wasn't using iron sights, his rifle had a scope.

Brian

 

[Eric Paddon]

"The piece you seem to be missing is believing with apparent blind faith that they are telling you the truth - that the evidence is not altered/replaced"

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. You must *prove* there is evidence of alteration, coercion etc. and the fact is that no such evidence exists in the factual record. OTOH, the documented record of lies and distortions by conspiracy buffs speaks for itself, because I can point to specific evidence when citing their distortions, and that can not be done with regard to your assumptions of "coercion" and "altered evidence."

There's a lot I could say about your comments about religion, but that is best left for another forum.

And BTW, it is not healthy to "question" when such "questions" do not have a legitimate basis for being asked, as in the case of "Why was the motorcade route altered?" or other examples of the "Have you stopped beating your wife?" kind of questions that buffs usually start with.

 

[andrew markworthy]

As a psychologist, I find it fascinating that in the first opinion poll on the matter conducted on the weekend after JFK was murdered, the majority of the American public thought it was a conspiracy already. There is a simple explanation for this. With major distressing events, people don't want a simple explanation (i.e. a lone deeply disturbed individual did it). They want to know that the explanation for their grief is equally big. And once the mindset is in place, it is very difficult to shake off. A culture springs up, and future generations buy into it uncritically.

Ah well, you guys have your grassy knoll conspiracists, we Brits have the 'Diana was murdered and was a saint' brigade (ignoring the fact that public opinion polls in the week before she died were deeply critical of her behaviour and the crash can be explained by two simple factors - drunk driver and failing to wear safety belts). In neither case will cold hard facts dissuade those who want poetry rather than prose.

 

[Lew Crippen]

After all, I did live through Watergate, Iran Contra, and WMDGate. I've also lived through many devious covert operations all over the world - assasinations, orchestrated revolutions, lengthy FBI files on so-called enemies of the state etc etc. Not everyone can sit and be fed what we are given. Some find this behavior irksome. Some call it savoring democracy. When an investigation is as botched and cloaked as this one was, and the investigative body includes the very institution in question, I question it. The inconsistencies across the board directly cause the inquries. Welcome it!

It is precisely these incidents (and many others) that to me, prove to be the most damaging to the various conspiracy theories. Aside from the amount of forensic evidence, I don’t believe that the number of people required to keep quiet in order for any of these theories would have all stayed silent for 40 years.

As has already been pointed out, lots and lots of assassinations have been carried out (or just attempted) over the years by lone, unbalanced gunmen.

 

[AjayM]

Of course, the lone gunman theories could be absolutely true and the conspiracy theories completely wrong. I'm willing to accept that if all reasonable doubt could be exhausted.

Is that really true? Have you read the entire, unabridged Warren report about the events of that day?

Andrew

 

[BrianShort]

Where can one find the entire 26 volumes? I don't suppose it's on the net anywhere?

Brian

 

[David Von Pein]

Where can one find the entire 26 volumes? I don't suppose it's on the net anywhere?

http://www.jmasland.com/testimony/

 

[BrianShort]

Thanks!

Brian

 

[David Von Pein]

Just imagine......

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).

But the only sound we're treated to really wasn't even connected to the case -- the Dallas Police dictabelt recording. (Which was actually recorded by a motorcycle microphone at the Trade Mart! Although, of course, many CTers still debate this claim.)

Very frustrating, indeed, to only be able to see, and never hear the assassination. If only 2003 technology existed in 1963....then the plethora of conspiracy books might not ever have been written.

Thanks!

S'Alright.

Some of that Warren testimony is rather fascinating. I especially enjoyed reading Mr. Zapruder's testimony. Plus, the remarks of Buell Wesley Frazier (the 19-year-old stock clerk who drove Lee Harvey Oswald to work the misty, gray morning of November 22nd) are also rather telling.

 

[Eric Paddon]

I think there was one radio station that in the early hours of the assassination may have had a legit recording of gunshots but the tape was erased over later that same afternoon. However, the reporter who made it and heard it that afternoon told either Jim Moore or Gerald Posner (I forget which) that there were three shots on that tape. Granted, that is hearsay testimony and not definitive, but I think it validates what the majority of earwitnesses thought which was three shots.

This was a banner weekend for adding to my JFK broadcast archive with seven hours of 11/22/63 radio coverage from WBAP-Dallas and seven hours of 11/22/63 coverage from KLIF-Dallas. I never tire of having multiple broadcast versions of a famous event in history.