JFK Revisited: Through The Looking Glass (2021) (1 Viewer)

[Winston T. Boogie]

Here's how I look at this. Jack pointed me to a page about Fletcher Prouty. I went to the page and read it. Mostly what the person that assembled that page was attempting to do was discredit Prouty and paint him as a nut. So, the goal of the page mostly appears to be character assassination so that anybody that had interaction with Prouty is also character assassinated.

This is a problem and generally indicates you should dismiss what is there. However, I was looking for information directly relating to what Prouty has said himself with regards to the JFK assassination and however that may have come to be used by Mr. Stone.

There was a link on the page that, I would say, provided good evidence that would allow us to dismiss Prouty as a valuable source or witness to anything. This was a PDF summary of him answering questions about what is attributed to him with regards to the Kennedy assassination. So, a document that shows Prouty in his own words explaining or dismissing things that he had supposedly said.

During this questioning Prouty himself makes quite clear he has no useful evidence to provide. He has theories and his own questions but he has nothing to back anything up including note he claims to have taken during a phone call.

This being clear, I think, means we can dismiss Prouty as valuable in any way to discovering anything about the JFK murder.

The end question from that, to me, is did Mr. Stone look further into Prouty and his statements? A journalist would have to in order to source the story if he wanted it published. A filmmaker would not have to and could use it as a juicy bit of info that would build a good scene.

The answer to the question is I don't know what Stone did once he had spoken to Prouty. He certainly had no reason to crosscheck and source anything Prouty said to use it in a conspiracy thriller. If he only checked out Prouty's work record and discovered he did what he said he did during the time he claimed to have worked for the government and military, that's pretty much as far as he would need to go to create the fictional X character.

Now the argument can be made that Stone, who appears to want to be a truth teller on the JFK assassination, needed to go further than that to check out what Prouty said. You need more sources, more evidence that backs up the claims, you can't just take Prouty at his word. If your goal is the truth, you must do this, and if you are going to make a documentary that purports to go after the truth you must crosscheck and source Prouty before presenting anything he said.

In the JFK movie, I don't see the X character nor what he says as particularly important. It really seems like a writing device to make sure the audience understands the questions that Garrison is chasing down. Because what happens is the movie just is throwing reams of information at the audience and it is probably questionable if they are keeping up. So, the X scene is like a moment to catch their breath, have the characters lay out these questions so the audience can then move forward from that point in the film with some understanding of what is going on.

In a lot of ways it is a scene you could cut from the picture and you maybe would cut in a film that did not throw so much information at the audience. However, in JFK the scene serves a purpose of quickly condensing a group of questions they have been attempting to point you toward. In that regard, I think it works and is fine.

 

[Jack P]

There are conspiracies to kill people. So, is it possible that a small group of CIA people helped plan and/or execute a murder...yes, that is totally possible. In fact, I think you can go as far as to say they have done that in other countries. Did they do that in the case of JFK? Well, maybe, but there is a rather heavy burden on you to prove it if that is your claim.

So, I would argue it is plausible but has Stone proved that? I would say he has not but I also have not watched this documentary so I don't know what is said in it.

Look, I have not spent any significant time in my life chasing down mysteries surrounding JFK's murder. I have come across public info, theories, and general information over time. So, yes, I understand you guys are saying his claims have been totally debunked, perhaps they have, but I have not seen his claims being totally debunked.

As I understand it, the really big point that gets debated is the whole "magic bullet" theory. That a single bullet made several wounds in two men. This one seems to have a bunch of "experts" on both sides that constantly debate this. This is outside of Stone, who obviously believes the side that says the bullet could not have done that.

The second aspect that seems hotly contested is the number of bullets fired in order to complete the task of killing Kennedy. I have seen a lot of back and forth on this but I do not recall anything definitive ever settling this argument.

The third thing related to bullets is the bullet shown in photos that is said to be the "magic bullet" and as I recall wasn't the claim on this that the bullet has vanished? So, it no longer and has not existed as evidence for some time? I may be mistaken but I think this was one of the claims I have heard along with some other evidence going missing or being destroyed. If any of that is true, it is odd considering it is evidence in one of the most famous murders that has ever taken place.

Essentially, what I am saying is I have not looked into these things and so can't say they are debunked. I mean if you guys want to point me to some things to read on these items I will happily look at them.

A few points.

"The CIA did it" is *not* plausible. It's not even a question one should ask because what basis is there for asking it other than the fact that someone *wants* to believe it for their own agenda driven purposes? Given the ideological predilections of Lee Harvey Oswald, the man who owned the murder weapon and who had no alibi and killed a police officer before being apprehended, it would be a lot more plausible to ask if he was doing this on behalf of a foreign government, namely Castro. Indeed, it's now acknowledged by scholars that the Warren Commission *did* try to downplay Oswald's ideological motive because LBJ was afraid that the public would conclude that Castro was responsible for the assassination and thus demand the US take Castro out. This is also why the Commission members who knew that the JFK Administration had engaged in assassination plots against Castro made sure that none of that ended up in the Warren Report either and why those weren't revealed until the 1970s. In the end, there is no evidence to link Oswald to any Cuban government activity or any other large organization (that also includes the Mafia). You have to study Oswald the man, his movements and his opportunities in 1963 and then you also have to realize a few other things that made the assassination possible that could not possibly have been the result of any kind of plotting:

1-How did Oswald get a job at the Texas School Book Depository to put him into position to shoot the President? Because a neighbor of Ruth Paine (whom Marina was living with) who worked at the Depository (Buell Frazier the man who drove Oswald to work that day) told her about job openings. That's not the result of government plotting or intelligence plotting, it's pure happenstance.

2-Why did the motorcade go by the Depository? Again, the reason has nothing to do with anything rooted in what a sophisticated conspiracy would do. THe motorcade route was dictated by the fact that JFK's speech was going to take place at the Trade Mart. Under Dallas traffic law, you can only get to the Trade Mart by going past the Depository. So who's decision was it that the speech would take place at the Trade Mart? *Governor Connally*, the man who was wounded. Now unless Conally was a plotter willing to "take one for the team" you can then see how this element couldn't rationally fit into *any* kind of conspiracy. When you add the fact that Dallas newspapers printed street maps that indicated the motorcade route, that was how Oswald (who let us recall had taken a shot at General Edwin Walker several months before) could then realize the opportunity being presented to himself.

3-Regarding the single bullet (The term magic bullet is a misnomer). No, it is not missing. It's Commission Exhibit 399, found on Governor Connally's stretcher in keeping with the fact that it dislodged from his thigh, the last thing it struck after passing through both men. The idea that Stone tries to concoct is to have Jack Ruby at Parkland Hospital planting this bullet which is another ludicrous indulgence. Exactly how in the world are these conspirators supposed to know that an obscure assistant DA from Philadelphia named Arlen Specter is going to later as a member of the WC staff come up with this "single bullet theory" when for months the initial impressions was that there were three separate shots fired by Oswald that hit? There is not a single case of trying to frame someone for murder that ever resulted from these kind of crazy games of gymnastics asserted by conspirators who are starting from the assumption of looking backward instead of looking forward from the context of events before things happened.

Conspiracy buffs never try to come up with a realistic scenario of what happened that matches the known evidence. Because trying to do so leaves us with examples that don't pass the smell test. Stone's movie that tries to put forth multiple shooters firing as many as seven bullets isn't borne out by the over 100 plus witnesses who said there were only three shots and that *no one* saw any gunman other than in the 6th floor window (Howard Brennan saw Oswald fire his last shot, other witnesses saw the rifle in the window). Also, the layout of Dealey Plaza is such that a "grassy knoll" shooter was far more likely to be out in the open and spotted by spectators than someone tucked away in the 6th floor window and who was a good shot from his Marine record (Stone's assertion Oswald was a bad shot is a lie. His Marine records show otherwise). It's because this theory is so ludicrous that's why most conspiracy books end up being not about what actually happened, but trying to nitpick anomalies in the evidence and say that "proves" a conspiracy when the burden of proof is to then come up with their alternate explanation of what happened that takes into account the totality of the evidence. On that score, the conspiracy people are batting a perfect zero.

 

[Jack P]

I will reiterate my point. It is not character assassination to look at the totality of who Fletcher Prouty is, what he has said and what he believes elsewhere. That cuts to credibility and it is information that the public has a right to know since this wasn't rooting out private files, it was looking at what's in the public record. Just like the fact that another Stone technical consultant, Robert Groden, is the same guy O.J. Simpson's defense team dredged up at the civil trial to say 30 pictures of him wearing Bruno Magli shoes were all fake.

 

[TravisR]

I think you guys should keep debating this because you're definitely going to convince the other person.

 

[Winston T. Boogie]

Ha, well in truth, Jack did end up convincing me about Fletcher Prouty. The link he posted led me to information about him I had never read. So, as a discussion, I for one, can say I have taken something out of it.

We are not really discussing nor trying to convince each other of who killed JFK. I believe, at least from my perspective, we are having a conversation about how and who has presented this information and what has merit and what does not.

I am open to different points of view. As an example, I have heard Mr. Stone pointing out that Oswald mail ordered his rifle and why would he do that when he could have walked into a Texas gun store and bought a better rifle than the one he used in Dealey Plaza that day.

Well, off the top of my head I could think of several reasons he may have done that and none are that surprising nor do I think the fact that he mail ordered the rifle points to anything suspicious with regards to Oswald committing the crime.

This puts me in the position of wondering why Mr. Stone would point to this. Something I have no answer for and which likely is an easy opening for someone to question what Mr. Stone is saying.

And they would be correct to question it.

 

[Winston T. Boogie]

"The CIA did it" is *not* plausible. It's not even a question one should ask because what basis is there for asking it other than the fact that someone *wants* to believe it for their own agenda driven purposes?

Well, based upon how the CIA is supposed to operate it should not be plausible, nor should it happen. I am not so certain you can say it would never happen. He believes it was a rogue element inside the CIA, not that the entire agency was in on it. They do and should know how to plan something like this so, they would/should have experts on how to get it done.

Why does he say they did it? Well, one of the items he cites is JFK making a statement along the line of he was going to "shatter the CIA into a million pieces" or something along those lines.

I personally think that probably would not cause some people within the CIA to plot to kill him because presidents come and go but the CIA does not. So, not so sure a president could shatter the CIA.

Do I think Stone has an agenda? For the most part his agenda seems to be a peaceful one as this is primarily what he espouses.

 

[Colin Jacobson]

Yes, what I mean when I say plausible is, this is a real world thing that COULD take place. A conspiracy to kill a person is not like saying an alien spaceship landed in my yard and little green women with big boobs stepped out and invited me to an orgy with them during which they also told me that Warren Buffet is actually a lizard disguised as a human and he runs the world.

There are conspiracies to kill people. So, is it possible that a small group of CIA people helped plan and/or execute a murder...yes, that is totally possible. In fact, I think you can go as far as to say they have done that in other countries. Did they do that in the case of JFK? Well, maybe, but there is a rather heavy burden on you to prove it if that is your claim.

So, I would argue it is plausible but has Stone proved that? I would say he has not but I also have not watched this documentary so I don't know what is said in it.

Look, I have not spent any significant time in my life chasing down mysteries surrounding JFK's murder. I have come across public info, theories, and general information over time. So, yes, I understand you guys are saying his claims have been totally debunked, perhaps they have, but I have not seen his claims being totally debunked.

As I understand it, the really big point that gets debated is the whole "magic bullet" theory. That a single bullet made several wounds in two men. This one seems to have a bunch of "experts" on both sides that constantly debate this. This is outside of Stone, who obviously believes the side that says the bullet could not have done that.

The second aspect that seems hotly contested is the number of bullets fired in order to complete the task of killing Kennedy. I have seen a lot of back and forth on this but I do not recall anything definitive ever settling this argument.

The third thing related to bullets is the bullet shown in photos that is said to be the "magic bullet" and as I recall wasn't the claim on this that the bullet has vanished? So, it no longer and has not existed as evidence for some time? I may be mistaken but I think this was one of the claims I have heard along with some other evidence going missing or being destroyed. If any of that is true, it is odd considering it is evidence in one of the most famous murders that has ever taken place.

Essentially, what I am saying is I have not looked into these things and so can't say they are debunked. I mean if you guys want to point me to some things to read on these items I will happily look at them.

Man, if "it COULD have happened" is your contribution to the discussion, then I'm moving on.

 

[Jack P]

To me, Stone's agenda is more about rewriting the history of America during the Cold War to one in which America is the bad guy for even thinking there was anything bad or threatening about global communism and all the terrors it inflicted on the world (this indeed is why in one of his big documentaries, Stone tries to whitewash Stalin's responsibility for the Cold War and tries to resurrect the reputation of 1948 Presidential candidate Henry Wallace whose entire platform was basically the Soviet agenda). That is also the reason for his obsession that the assassination is somehow tied to "keeping America in Vietnam" which isn't borne out by serious historians either.

At the time of the assassination, Kennedy had just made the fateful decision that made Vietnam an American war when he authorized the military coup that overthrew South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem (and resulted in his murder though JFK had been naively hoping Diem would just be exiled). Kennedy did this without any rational thought as to the leadership capability of the generals, and in the process he also removed from the scene the one person who might have wanted to make his own deal with the North. Bobby Kennedy said in an oral history after the assassination no decision had been made to pull out of Vietnam. That's not saying JFK might have chosen to pull out eventually then make some bigger decisions to commit but the fact is that he had made no such decision at the time of his death.

The CIA did it theory was the pet theory of the first major conspiracy buff, Mark Lane, whose fingerprints are all over a lot of Stone's work, like for instance when he has Garrison reference an eyewitness named Charles Brehm. Stone was taking a quote straight out of Lane's book to suggest Brehm heard shots from the front, but as it turned out as far back as 1967 Brehm accused Lane of falsifying what he'd actually said which was that he felt the shots came from the Depository and that Mark Lane was "an unmitigated liar." (Brehm years later appeared in the 1986 mock trial of Oswald and also reiterated his shots from behind belief).

Stone even took considerable license with his re-enactment of Stone's appearance on the Tonight Show (in which John Larroquette plays a subtly altered version of Johnny to avoid a lawsuit). Stone shows Johnny grabbing Garrison's attempt to show photos of the "tramps" that Garrison thinks were part of the hit team, when Johnny did no such thing. Complete audio and partial video exists of the real interview and Johnny is indeed skeptical and asks hard questions but he never cuts him off and lets him have his say. (Incidentally one year after the movie came out, researchers located the arrest records of the "Tramps" that Garrison and Stone were determined to make part of a hit team. It turned out they really were tramps and two of them were still alive and located).

I think there was only one positive thing about the movie and that is the fact it led Congress to pass legislation that resulted in the release of all government files from the Warren Commission and House Select Committee on Assassinations. We've now see an avalanche of material released in the last quarter century and nothing has emerged to challenge the original conclusions. That's why it's become even more impossible to take seriously the claims of conspiracy buffs who try to look for new angles to exploit (one of the worst being the attempts by a nut named Mark Shaw to resurrect a theory even conspiracy buffs of the 60s thought was ludicrous, that the death of What's My Line panelist Dorothy Kilgallen was assassination related).

Stone though will never bend when it comes to what the facts show because for Stone this is an article of religious faith that JFK HAD to be killed for a reason that fits with his broader political/worldview about Cold War America. If the facts say otherwise, then he'd be forced to question the legitimacy of other things he so devoutly believes in and that he is simply not prepared to do ever. Many conspiracy buffs are just like that.

 

[Winston T. Boogie]

Man, if "it COULD have happened" is your contribution to the discussion, then I'm moving on.

I am saying a plot and conspiracy to kill someone is not some farfetched thing. It happens. I was not saying that I believe Stone's specific ideas about the JFK murder could have happened. I see holes in things he has said, some of the holes are from a practical standpoint, some are about things like I do not believe the CIA or anybody in it would need to kill a president. There is a huge issue with that because a president can only serve up to 2 four year terms, so why kill him, a massive risk and totally over the top action, when you can just wait him out.

Realistically and logically the only reason to kill a president would be that he was going to take some immediate action which there was no possible way for you to prevent without removing him immediately. I do not see any action, at least not in the public record, JFK was going to take that would have caused people in the CIA to want to kill him.

I could understand elements in the public wanting to kill JFK but I basically feel that if you work for the CIA you would understand that killing JFK would not be worth the risk versus the reward. I believe in part that Stone lays it on elements of the CIA because he feels they could pull it off in a covert way because they have a deep understanding of covert operations and how to execute one properly. I think if it was the public killing JFK or elements of a radical group with foreign influence it would be far less likely for them to pull it off in such a way that they could cover-up what they did. Hence, far less likely to be a conspiracy that worked and remained secret.

So, for Stone's ideas to be more plausible, he basically has to involve the CIA in them...because that is the absolute best way to account for a cover-up particularly that involves people in our own government, Remove the CIA and now the conspiracy becomes much harder to justify.

Again, I have not seen this new documentary so don't know what is in it, but as far as I know Stone has never been able to show the CIA was involved...this is a big issue, for me, in believing his theories. I have already said here, and it stands, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

 

[Winston T. Boogie]

To me, Stone's agenda is more about rewriting the history of America during the Cold War to one in which America is the bad guy for even thinking there was anything bad or threatening about global communism and all the terrors it inflicted on the world (this indeed is why in one of his big documentaries, Stone tries to whitewash Stalin's responsibility for the Cold War and tries to resurrect the reputation of 1948 Presidential candidate Henry Wallace whose entire platform was basically the Soviet agenda). That is also the reason for his obsession that the assassination is somehow tied to "keeping America in Vietnam" which isn't borne out by serious historians either.

At the time of the assassination, Kennedy had just made the fateful decision that made Vietnam an American war when he authorized the military coup that overthrew South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem (and resulted in his murder though JFK had been naively hoping Diem would just be exiled). Kennedy did this without any rational thought as to the leadership capability of the generals, and in the process he also removed from the scene the one person who might have wanted to make his own deal with the North. Bobby Kennedy said in an oral history after the assassination no decision had been made to pull out of Vietnam. That's not saying JFK might have chosen to pull out eventually then make some bigger decisions to commit but the fact is that he had made no such decision at the time of his death.

The CIA did it theory was the pet theory of the first major conspiracy buff, Mark Lane, whose fingerprints are all over a lot of Stone's work, like for instance when he has Garrison reference an eyewitness named Charles Brehm. Stone was taking a quote straight out of Lane's book to suggest Brehm heard shots from the front, but as it turned out as far back as 1967 Brehm accused Lane of falsifying what he'd actually said which was that he felt the shots came from the Depository and that Mark Lane was "an unmitigated liar." (Brehm years later appeared in the 1986 mock trial of Oswald and also reiterated his shots from behind belief).

Stone even took considerable license with his re-enactment of Stone's appearance on the Tonight Show (in which John Larroquette plays a subtly altered version of Johnny to avoid a lawsuit). Stone shows Johnny grabbing Garrison's attempt to show photos of the "tramps" that Garrison thinks were part of the hit team, when Johnny did no such thing. Complete audio and partial video exists of the real interview and Johnny is indeed skeptical and asks hard questions but he never cuts him off and lets him have his say. (Incidentally one year after the movie came out, researchers located the arrest records of the "Tramps" that Garrison and Stone were determined to make part of a hit team. It turned out they really were tramps and two of them were still alive and located).

I think there was only one positive thing about the movie and that is the fact it led Congress to pass legislation that resulted in the release of all government files from the Warren Commission and House Select Committee on Assassinations. We've now see an avalanche of material released in the last quarter century and nothing has emerged to challenge the original conclusions. That's why it's become even more impossible to take seriously the claims of conspiracy buffs who try to look for new angles to exploit (one of the worst being the attempts by a nut named Mark Shaw to resurrect a theory even conspiracy buffs of the 60s thought was ludicrous, that the death of What's My Line panelist Dorothy Kilgallen was assassination related).

Stone though will never bend when it comes to what the facts show because for Stone this is an article of religious faith that JFK HAD to be killed for a reason that fits with his broader political/worldview about Cold War America. If the facts say otherwise, then he'd be forced to question the legitimacy of other things he so devoutly believes in and that he is simply not prepared to do ever. Many conspiracy buffs are just like that.

Well, a lot to unpack in that post. I have company at my house so can't go deep on this at the moment. I will say these few things:

1. I do not at all think Stone's intent with his documentaries is to portray the United States as the bad guy. Nor to portray communism in a good light. That would be an oversimplification of his thoughts. In his Untold History of the United States he does talk a lot about mistakes made and bad things US leaders have done. However I think his point with that is to allow for the fact that US leaders are not always doing things for altruistic reasons and that they are always the good guys. His point in acknowledging this is to allow for how the rest of the world sees us. Which frankly is not as the good guy all the time. I mean I see comments on his Putin interviews and I think some people are so disturbed by them that they do not view them for what they are. Which are not some attempt to gush over Putin or paint him as a wonderful person.

2. I did not intend to get into an extended discussion of Stone's politics but the theme that seems to run through all he says and does on these topics is he seems to want a better more peaceful world. Which again goes to the idea that we acknowledge our mistakes as well as our successes. I am certain he feels that most Americans do not have a clear picture how we became the country that we are and they have been taught and through our media are given a really rosy picture of our country always being the good guys. Which frankly is neither realistic nor true. So, I generally see much of what he does or says are partly misunderstood.


3. On where and how Stone got his information, did his research on the assassination, well, this is something I don't know. Reading Mr. Prouty's own testimony did specifically make me wonder about how closely Stone looked at that because when Prouty spoke about it in the document I read there was nothing there to cause a person to think Prouty had valuable information outside of his position. I however don't find Prouty central to the things Stone generally cites with regards to the assassination. So, I wonder did Stone just use him in inventing X because it made a good character/story device. I would be curious to see if he mentions or cites Prouty in this new documentary. I would guess he would not but how do I know until I see it?

 

[Winston T. Boogie]

Also a general question about this documentary, in the opening post here it states that this is 115 minutes long but I read that the version coming out on Blu is 5 hours long...are there two versions of this?

 

[Winston T. Boogie]

OK, I just started watching this last night. It is packed with info so I am going to watch it in sections and attempt to address some of the items stated here with what is said in the documentary. I am not trying to convince anyone of anything, just trying to be clear on what is presented in this to make clear what Stone and his fellow filmmakers are saying or looking at.

So, in the section I watched they begin with a replay of events using a lot of news footage of Oswald and how the news covered that up to and including Ruby killing Oswald. Then Stone appears and talks about his JFK picture a bit and the declassification of documents related to the assassination and the Warren Commision.

The primary things they got into in the section I was going through were the gun, the bullets, the single or magic bullet theory, documents that were changed, information that was altered, and people that were involved in the Warren Commision and basically did not agree with what it said or how it was put together.

On some points brought up so far in this thread:

It is mentioned very early on that Oswald shot a cop when he was being apprehended. I think earlier in this thread it was said that Stone always leaves that out, but it is right up front in this documentary.

On claiming that the photo of Oswald holding the rifle that his wife took was fake, it is not stated in this documentary that was faked but it shows a version of that photo with Stone mentioning a ring on Oswald's hand being on the opposite hand in one version of the photo. However, the documentary treats that photo as if it is genuine because it is part of the discussion of the gun Oswald owned that was said to be the murder weapon. There are several issues with the gun brought up that basically point to the gun that was brought out of the book depository after the shooting not being the same gun Oswald is seen holding in the photo and that the gun does not match the gun that Oswald filled out an order form for.

Related to the famous photo of Oswald posing with the gun, the gun Oswald holds in the photo shows where the strap attaches to the gun is in a different place than where the strap attaches to the gun that was carried out of the book depository. They show photographic evidence of the gun being carried out of the book depository and that gun had the strap attachment on the bottom of the rifle butt whereas the gun that Oswald poses with in the famous photo has the strap attachment on the side of the butt.

So, mainly, the photo of Oswald posing with his rifle is treated as genuine and not as a fake. There are a variety of other issues mentioned with the gun, including that Oswald ordered specifically a gun with a 36 inch barrel but the gun logged into evidence from the depository is listed as having a 40 inch barrel. Also evidence is presented with regards to prints being pulled off of the gun. In Dallas they claimed there was a palm print from Oswald on the gun but when the gun gets to the feds the claim is there are no prints on the gun. Basically, the point here is they are questioning what went on with the gun and was evidence changed or altered in any way.

3-Regarding the single bullet (The term magic bullet is a misnomer). No, it is not missing. It's Commission Exhibit 399, found on Governor Connally's stretcher in keeping with the fact that it dislodged from his thigh, the last thing it struck after passing through both men. The idea that Stone tries to concoct is to have Jack Ruby at Parkland Hospital planting this bullet which is another ludicrous indulgence. Exactly how in the world are these conspirators supposed to know that an obscure assistant DA from Philadelphia named Arlen Specter is going to later as a member of the WC staff come up with this "single bullet theory" when for months the initial impressions was that there were three separate shots fired by Oswald that hit? There is not a single case of trying to frame someone for murder that ever resulted from these kind of crazy games of gymnastics asserted by conspirators who are starting from the assumption of looking backward instead of looking forward from the context of events before things happened.

So, on this stretcher bullet, the claim in this documentary is that this bullet was found on a stretcher that JFK was brought in on, not Connally. One of the Navy doctors that did the autopsy on JFK speculates that the way this bullet became dislodged was when they were performing CPR on Kennedy the pressure caused the bullet to come out the wound on his back. Another forensic expert says this is impossible. There is other speculation that the bullet somehow passed through Kennedy and ended up stuck in his clothing and then dropped out onto the stretcher. This is essentially shot down by people that speak during the documentary.

There is of course, discussion of the condition of the bullet and that it is in fantastic shape for a bullet that passed through two men and hitting bone. Problem with this is, if this bullet was found on the JFK stretcher it could not have hit Connally. There is extensive discussion of the single bullet or magic bullet theory and so this can't have been that bullet.

There is also a lot of discussion of the autopsy and photos related to it. In autopsy photos we see there was a wound in Kennedy's back, which is noted in the Warren Commission documents but then changed by Gerald Ford to say the wound was in Kennedy's neck, which it was not, but they speculate that Ford changed it to the neck because they believed nobody in the public would ever see the photos of the autopsy and that the neck matched the angle they needed for the single bullet theory to make more sense.

I will leave it there for now.

 

[Winston T. Boogie]

1-How did Oswald get a job at the Texas School Book Depository to put him into position to shoot the President? Because a neighbor of Ruth Paine (whom Marina was living with) who worked at the Depository (Buell Frazier the man who drove Oswald to work that day) told her about job openings. That's not the result of government plotting or intelligence plotting, it's pure happenstance.

OK, on this there is discussion of Oswald being in Dallas and working at the book depository. It includes discussion of the route Oswald is said to have taken as he made his way downstairs after the shooting and who was in the stairwell at that time. This come into play in several ways. There was a woman that testified about being in the stairwell to the Warren Commision. The problem that Stone and the people in this documentary have with this is the woman told them she did not descend the stairwell alone, another woman was with her, and the Warren Commision did not want her testimony.

The primary thing about Oswald that the documentary is looking at is who was he and was he an intelligence asset. The people in the documentary including Stone seem to feel he was. The ease with which Oswald travelled to Russia and returned being a factor in this. So, they treat him as if he had a role in the conspiracy. It is interesting that they bring up two other trips Kennedy was supposed to make, one to Florida and one to Michigan. They bring up two more Oswald types that they claim likely would have been the "patsy" had assassination attempts been made on those trips. So, there was a Michigan patsy and a Florida patsy set to go. One of the potential patsies has a background quite similar to Oswald as an ex-Marine that trained Cubans.

I will go back to review what is said about Oswald and his book depository job.

I guess the thing I would point out here is the majority of the info presented in this documentary does not come from Stone, it is from several other people that appear on camera, documents, and people that participated in the Warren Commission and other attempts to investigate the assassination. None of it plays as crazy because they actually show documents on screen and cover things said by various people involved.

There is bizarre information presented. As an example showing the document where Gerald Ford changes the entry wound in Kennedy from his back to his neck. Ford crossed out and hand wrote that in. Also related to Ford, it is stated he himself contradicted the Warren Report telling the French president that Kennedy was killed by a group not Oswald alone. Interesting thing for him to say after his work on the Warren Report.

I think for Stone, the big reason he chases this is not to prove a conspiracy but rather it has to do with his sense of loss and that the killing of Kennedy was a world altering event. His strong belief seems to be that if John and Robert had served two terms each as president we would be living in a much better world at this point. There is heavy melancholy at play in this documentary.

 

[Jack P]

I really don't have the time to have to go back and quote lengthy segments debunking Stone's latest attempt to regurgitate long-discredited stories but I'm going to make an exception on this one regarding the stairwell "witnesses." This is Victoria Adams and Sandra Styles. Vincent Bugliosi, who was the prosecutor in the 1986 mock trial of Oswald wrote the most comprehensive accounting of the assassination in 2007, a 1500 page book supplemented by an additional thousand pages of end notes. On pages 468-469 of the end notes he addresses the problems with these accounts. It chiefly boils down to the fact that the totality of Adams' statement also describes additional details about encountering other Depository employees afterwards that don't line up with *their* accounts regarding what time it could have been. In addition, there is other testimony contradicting Adams claim that she would have been coming down at the time just after the shooting from Eddie Piper, who saw Officer Marrion Baker and Building Supervisor Roy Truly go up the stairs where they encountered Oswald. Piper was emphatic *no one* had come down the stairs before Baker and Truly had gone up and Adams and Styles would have to have done so since neither was seen by Baker and Truly.

In short, what happened is that Adams and Styles, based on the *totality* of the statements made by other Depository employees and their additional remarks, were simply mistaken about what time they came down the stairs and that based on their remarks regarding the other employees they encountered when they came out of the building and *their* statements, it was at least five to ten minutes later which would have been long after Oswald had come down the stairs and was encountered by Baker and Truly. What Stone is doing is taking a small fragment of a tree and leaving out the totality of the forest of the available statements that *collectively* must be taken into account. In addition, you have the fact that the evidence definitely points to the fact that shots were fired from the 6th floor window, so if not Oswald where does THAT man disappear to? Not a single employee of the Depository ever saw a stranger in the building in the time before or after the assassination so the buffs, rather than focusing on these nitpicky anomalies that can be explained when you dig further, have a bigger problem on their hands of how they can account for a phantom gunman who gets in without being seen and who gets out without being seen.

 

[Winston T. Boogie]

I really don't have the time to have to go back and quote lengthy segments debunking Stone's latest attempt to regurgitate long-discredited stories but I'm going to make an exception on this one regarding the stairwell "witnesses." This is Victoria Adams and Sandra Styles. Vincent Bugliosi, who was the prosecutor in the 1986 mock trial of Oswald wrote the most comprehensive accounting of the assassination in 2007, a 1500 page book supplemented by an additional thousand pages of end notes. On pages 468-469 of the end notes he addresses the problems with these accounts. It chiefly boils down to the fact that the totality of Adams' statement also describes additional details about encountering other Depository employees afterwards that don't line up with *their* accounts regarding what time it could have been. In addition, there is other testimony contradicting Adams claim that she would have been coming down at the time just after the shooting from Eddie Piper, who saw Officer Marrion Baker and Building Supervisor Roy Truly go up the stairs where they encountered Oswald. Piper was emphatic *no one* had come down the stairs before Baker and Truly had gone up and Adams and Styles would have to have done so since neither was seen by Baker and Truly.

In short, what happened is that Adams and Styles, based on the *totality* of the statements made by other Depository employees and their additional remarks, were simply mistaken about what time they came down the stairs and that based on their remarks regarding the other employees they encountered when they came out of the building and *their* statements, it was at least five to ten minutes later which would have been long after Oswald had come down the stairs and was encountered by Baker and Truly. What Stone is doing is taking a small fragment of a tree and leaving out the totality of the forest of the available statements that *collectively* must be taken into account. In addition, you have the fact that the evidence definitely points to the fact that shots were fired from the 6th floor window, so if not Oswald where does THAT man disappear to? Not a single employee of the Depository ever saw a stranger in the building in the time before or after the assassination so the buffs, rather than focusing on these nitpicky anomalies that can be explained when you dig further, have a bigger problem on their hands of how they can account for a phantom gunman who gets in without being seen and who gets out without being seen.

On Adams and Styles, the point they seemed most concerned about in the documentary is not so much what they saw but that the Warren Commission did not want to question Ms. Styles.

When dealing with eyewitnesses to a huge event like this where things likely turned hectic, it can be difficult to nail down people to the same descriptions of what they saw.

Most of what is in the documentary is going through various accounts and documents. Where they basically head with that is that even people that were on the Warren Commission dispute what it presented. Which is strange. Of course they mention later the committee on assassinations and that their findings were there likely was more than Oswald involved and that there likely was a conspiracy to kill Kennedy.

My main point on Stone is he is basically presenting documents, evidence, and accounts from other people. There are a number of bizarre pieces of information presented that show a variety of discrepancies in accounts from people involved. I think these things cause Stone to believe what he believes. He is not inventing information he is just presenting it and then asking the questions...to which he appears to think we won't get any definitive answers.

Lots of names come up that were in his film, like Clay Shaw, who was shown to be working for the CIA. Prouty does not come up but they do show a clip of Sutherland playing X but not as an informational thing but just showing X and Garrison pondering why Kennedy was killed. The documentary then goes into an extensive section on what JFK was planning to do in Vietnam.

 

[Jack P]

The fact Style didn't appear before the WC isn't relevant. Her original statement *was* read by the WC and is part of the report (CE 1381) so it's not like they were trying to suppress her existence. No one disputes they were together, the point is that *collectively* the statements by the other employees that both of them talked about seeing after they exited the building correlates to a point in time much later than just after the shots were fired. You can not logically put them on the stairs just after the shots were fired or else they would have had to come out and be seen by another witness, Billy Piper who said no one had come down the stairs before Officer Baker and Roy Truly dashed up the stairs and then had their encounter with Oswald in the 2nd Floor lunchroom.

Clay Shaw, I would note, did *not* work for the CIA. He was simply one of many American businessmen in that era who after being overseas would furnish information about what he'd seen to a non-clandestine group, the Domestic Contact Service. The HSCA noted in their investigation that such briefings do not rise to the level of any kind of actual CIA relationship. And all of these briefings spanning from the late 40s to 1956 were about International Trade, the nature of Shaw's work. I'd be more interested to know if Stone is finally man enough to acknowledge the existence of Perry Russo, the star witness of the Garrison trial and whose total lack of credibility exposed the duplicity of Garrison's case. Stone thought in 1991 it was necessary to change Russo into the imaginary Kevin Bacon character to make credible the idea that Shaw was connected to the assassination, but if the evidence had *really* been there to connect Shaw to the assassination or the CIA for that matter, then Stone wouldn't have had to resort to such convenient selectiveness and deliberate falsification to begin with.

I suspect the reason he's not mentioning Prouty today is because even Stone knows he shouldn't be hitching himself to him any longer.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

I think you guys should keep debating this because you're definitely going to convince the other person.

What’s that, you say?

 

[Winston T. Boogie]

I really don't have the time to have to go back and quote lengthy segments debunking Stone's latest attempt to regurgitate long-discredited stories but I'm going to make an exception on this one regarding the stairwell "witnesses." This is Victoria Adams and Sandra Styles. Vincent Bugliosi, who was the prosecutor in the 1986 mock trial of Oswald wrote the most comprehensive accounting of the assassination in 2007, a 1500 page book supplemented by an additional thousand pages of end notes.

I have not read Bugliosi's book, mainly because I have never been a fan of the guy. He has a reputation as being a legendary crackpot himself, that would invent and lie at the drop of a hat. Now, you have said that you felt stories about Prouty went toward his reputation and discredited him. I think Prouty eliminates himself simply with his testimony that he had no relevant info.

Rather than writing a bunch of the Bugliosi stories here, I will shortcut to this video which is pretty hilarious stuff and I wonder if stories like these call into question Bugliosi in your opinion?

 

[Jack P]

Excuse me, but that's really irrelevant. Bugliosi has written things that I have major disagreements on, particularly when he feels the need to start opining on the existence of God or about the 2000 Election. What *can't* be disputed about the man is that he was a brilliant prosecutor who got results that wouldn't have been possible if he *hadn't* been a brilliant prosecutor. When he approaches the JFK Assassination, he's doing it from the area he has training in and he backed that up when he successfully prevailed in the 1986 mock trial of Oswald which had another heavyweight name on the other side in Gerry Spence. When it comes to lying prosecutors, Jim Garrison was in a class all by himself on that score. No one can claim to be a serious student of the JFK Assassination without reading Bugliosi's book *and* the lengthy footnotes which are cited chapter and verse to let discerning scholars consult the original sources and judge accordingly for themselves. That's something I might note that conspiracy authors as a general rule do *not* do.

Regarding the matter of Adams and Styles, all Bugliosi did is conveniently point out the obvious. If we have a statement by another employee that no one came down the stairs before Baker and Truly went up the stairs then Adams and Styles weren't there just after the assassination and the fact they didn't see Oswald has zero relevance. If Adams and Styles then say they saw certain other employees after they came down the stairs and exited the building and the accounts of *those* employees all connect to a time frame much later, then the weight of the evidence means that Adams and Styles have no relevance to the matter of did Oswald come down from the 6th floor. That's how the scientific method works and the fact that Bugliosi knew how to properly utilize that is the important thing. Stone didn't.

 

[Winston T. Boogie]

Excuse me, but that's really irrelevant. Bugliosi has written things that I have major disagreements on, particularly when he feels the need to start opining on the existence of God or about the 2000 Election. What *can't* be disputed about the man is that he was a brilliant prosecutor who got results that wouldn't have been possible if he *hadn't* been a brilliant prosecutor. When he approaches the JFK Assassination, he's doing it from the area he has training in and he backed that up when he successfully prevailed in the 1986 mock trial of Oswald which had another heavyweight name on the other side in Gerry Spence. When it comes to lying prosecutors, Jim Garrison was in a class all by himself on that score. No one can claim to be a serious student of the JFK Assassination without reading Bugliosi's book *and* the lengthy footnotes which are cited chapter and verse to let discerning scholars consult the original sources and judge accordingly for themselves. That's something I might note that conspiracy authors as a general rule do *not* do.

Regarding the matter of Adams and Styles, all Bugliosi did is conveniently point out the obvious. If we have a statement by another employee that no one came down the stairs before Baker and Truly went up the stairs then Adams and Styles weren't there just after the assassination and the fact they didn't see Oswald has zero relevance. If Adams and Styles then say they saw certain other employees after they came down the stairs and exited the building and the accounts of *those* employees all connect to a time frame much later, then the weight of the evidence means that Adams and Styles have no relevance to the matter of did Oswald come down from the 6th floor. That's how the scientific method works and the fact that Bugliosi knew how to properly utilize that is the important thing. Stone didn't.

I agree that it has nothing to do with the JFK assassination, it just goes to character in terms of Bugliosi. So, it reveals nothing about the murder, it only goes toward questioning Bugliosi and what he might present.

In the documentary the question they raise is why was Ms. Styles not questioned. What is pointed toward in this conversation is they did not question her because they wanted to focus on discrediting Ms. Adams and so they told her they did not need to question Ms. Styles.

I think it is a fair question to raise in an event like this, the killing of a US president, why they would intentionally pass over questioning someone that was in the building and in the stairwell, when these events were occurring. Not a strange question to raise. There was a third woman as well, their boss, that confirmed their story and when they entered the stairwell. She followed them to the stairs.

That would be three accounts of that that matched up.

They could all be wrong. I am not a scholar on the assassination. I am just trying to examine what is in this documentary and compare some notes.