JFK Assassination

[Apokalupsis]

Anyone else see the History Channel's (I think that was the channel) documentary on the JFK Assassination Conspiracy myths? It was a very, very convincing documentary that showed how the conspiracy claims about this assassination are unfounded and baseless (no, the documentary was not funded by the government :) ).

I'll search around the net and see if I can find more info on it...it was pretty amazing. It had compelling evidence through the use of state of the art computer animation BASED on the Zupruder film, frame by frame. With the film digitized, they were able to move around freely in this virtual world, while the events were transpiring, and see what happened from various angles.

It also discussed at length, the claims in Oliver Stone's film JFK. It explained how Stone's film was one of the most innaccurate portrayal of events, was scoffed at by historians and experts...but also was examined in how it affected the American populace who knew this film to be the only "source" of events...even though it was untrue.

I remember watching the film when I was younger, and one of the more memorable scenes was Costner in the court room talking about the "magic bullet", ricocheting around, as would have had to have happened if only Oswald was the shooter. I remember thinking that since the movie was based on real events, and this scene must be real, and no reasonable person could believe in such a bullet, that there HAD to be something going on that we weren't being told about. From then on, I always thought that there was something more behind the assassination...how could there not be?

Well, the documentary completely debunked that issue as well as many others. It was a fascinating piece, wish I had taped it.

I'm no longer a believer in the conspiracy theories and I believe Oswald was a lone gunman. Do you believe there was more to it than this? Was there a conspiracy? What are your reasons for believing this?

[Booger]

I'm no longer a believer in the conspiracy theories and I believe Oswald was a lone gunman. Do you believe there was more to it than this? Was there a conspiracy? What are your reasons for believing this?

I'm with you on this one; Oswald was the lone gunman. Gerald Posner, an investigative journalist, wrote a book entitled, "Case Closed: Lee Harvey Oswald and the Assassination of JFK." I saw an interview with Posner (who was obviously promoting his book) about the conspiracy theories and I believe that no serious researcher still holds on to the theory that there was a conspiracy to kill Kennedy. Portions of a transcript from another interview with Posner are copied below:

"People assume that since a certain group hated Kennedy and Oswald killed him, that Oswald must have been acting on behalf of those enemies that hated him. That's where I could never find the link. My challenge to all of the researchers and those who believe there's a conspiracy in this death, is you must tie in Lee Harvey Oswald, a person that I'm convinced is the only shooter at Dealey Plaza, to the conspirators. That's where every conspiracy fails."

On Castro being behind the assassination:

"I must say that it's very unlikely that the longest term surviving ruler in the world today [Fidel Castro], the man who was running Cuba at the time that Dwight Eisenhower was president of the United States, has done so by making such fundamental great gambles as killing the president of the country next door to him, who could eliminate and flatten his entire island in a split second, and do so by relying on somebody as unstable as a 24-year-old sociopath like Lee Harvey Oswald.

Castro is no one's fool. If he had selected someone to shoot the president of the United States, the last thing that that individual would have is a history of being a pro-Castro supporter."

See the entire interview at To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 3 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

[ClearThinker]

Damn, not much of a debate on this one. I agree. I saw that show, too. It pretty much convinced me. I know it didn't convince either of my parents. I don't know. I think the people who lived during that time have a much different perspective of the event. They can grasp how big the event was, and rightfully so - a president got assassinated! But I also think this blinds them to the fact that it was simple case of murder. I like they line they quoted in the program that went something like this:

If you put the halocaust on one side of the scales, and the nazis on the other, the 2 sides balance out - The worst crime and the worst criminals. It is easy to accept that balance. But when you take the assassination of the president of the United States and the lowly Lee Harvey Oswald, the scales do not balance. And so people find it hard to come to grip with the fact that something so monumental was orchestrated by a nobody.

[Apokalupsis]

Yes, that was powerful argumentation IMO. Glad to see someone else saw the documentary. :)

[Booger]

If you put the halocaust on one side of the scales, and the nazis on the other, the 2 sides balance out - The worst crime and the worst criminals. It is easy to accept that balance. But when you take the assassination of the president of the United States and the lowly Lee Harvey Oswald, the scales do not balance. And so people find it hard to come to grip with the fact that something so monumental was orchestrated by a nobody.

Interesting point...I never really viewed it from that perspective.

[Xalpharis]

I saw the documentary, but I don't believe Oswald was a gunman at all, let alone the lone shooter. Being a deer hunter, with no military experience, I can't say for a fact that 3 shots from a WWII rifle in that short of a time period is impossible. I can say however, that a moving target at that distance is extremely hard, if not impossible. I happen to use a deer rifle manufactured recently, with a magnifying scope that is far more powerful than the one used by the alleged rifle in Dallas, and I can't come close to making those shots with the accuracy that is accredited to Oswald. Like I said before, I wasn't trained by the military, but I am a very good marksman.

[SpeedCity]

Now we're getting some balance here. What is most convincing to me was the scene where JFK's head is thrusted violently in two different directions as if being shot from two different angles.

That is the footage that convinces me. Anyone?

[F1Fan]

I saw a series called "The men Who Killed kennedy" which covered many different theories, so I wonder if you're referring to the one show that demonstrated staged shootings. If so, I agree that it did sway my judgment from numerous shooters to Oswald as a lone shooter. I didn't realize Kennedy was only 70 yards, which is an easy shot with a scoped rifle. It's easy with iron sites.

I still have some doubt, though. I find the number of witnesses saying they heard shots from the grassy knoll something compelling, and the recording of Florida Mafia bosses talking about Kennedy being assasinated in Texas a few weeks prior. Discrepancies in medical staff accounts also has me wondering. But hey, witnesses are notoriously poor evidence.

[Ebon]

I saw this film.

The only real objections I have to it is firstly, the insinmuation that Oliver Stone's movie is responsible for the conspiracy theories and that's just plain BS. Conspiracy theories were circulating almost as soon as the official report came in, maybe even before that and secondly, the insinuation that only delusional idiots would believe otherwise (that again, that's been the mainstreams approach to conspiracy theory for years). It's also worth pointing out that computer simulations will show whatever the programer wants them to show.

As for who actually shot Kennedy, I've no idea (unlike his brother who was definatly NOT shot by Sirhan Sirhan) but here's a few things that spring to mind:

The Senate Committee on Assassinations ruled that JFK was "probably" done in by conspiracy (and contrary to that bloody film, they weren't railroaded by a last-minute witness).

According to his Marine records, Oswald was a poor rifleman (yes, I know he was listed as "marksman" but look at how many ranks were below that one).

I can think of any number of people with good reasons to want JFK dead.

If Oswald managed to make that shot, three times, at that distance, through foliage, with iron sights on an old, ureliable POS rifle, I for one would be impressed. I've been around and firing weapons most of my life and I couldn't do it, certainly not within that time.

[Slipnish]

Regardless of the hype and the various accounts of such things, I still wonder, what happened to Kennedy's brain? Why were the Secret Service not closing the windows around Dealy plaza? There seem to be a few gaps in there that can be explained by either outright idiocy, incompetence, or conspiracy.

I guess when you get that many stupid things together, its easier to buy conspiracy than incompetence from so many people who are supposed to be "in charge" as it were.

BTW: Welcome aboard Ebon. How's the world treatin' ya? :)

[FruitandNut]

Much as with the death of Marilyn Monroe, there are many questions left unanswered.

In regard to those who would not shed a tear if he were dead.

1/ J. Edgar 'the transvestite' Hoover.
2/ Extreme right wing politicians.
3/ KKK members.
4/ Fidel Castro.
5/ Mafia.
6/ Drug cartels.
7/ Personnel within the Communist bloc.

Good guys as well as bad guys make many enemies.

[Atticus]

Speaking of the two bullets hitting JFK at the same time, did the documentary mention a man who claimed to have had to duck as a bullet whizzed by his head from behind JFK?

[Ebon]

Much as with the death of Marilyn Monroe, there are many questions left unanswered.

In regard to those who would not shed a tear if he were dead.

1/ J. Edgar 'the transvestite' Hoover.
2/ Extreme right wing politicians.
3/ KKK members.
4/ Fidel Castro.
5/ Mafia.
6/ Drug cartels.
7/ Personnel within the Communist bloc.

Add to that, the military-industrials who were making a fortune from Vietnam when JFK was rumoured to be considering pulling out (and it's a rumour so take it for what it's worth) and the intelligence agencies (apparently, the Kennedy family thought it was teh CIA). Problem is, the cui bono? (who benefits?) question doesn't help us in JFK's case since virtually everyone had something to gain. Hell, you could even argue that Bobby Kennedy had something to gain in that his brother's death secured him the Democratic ticket.


On Marilyn, I'm content, on current evidence, to accept the official explanation. By the end of her life, she was an alcoholic and habitual drug-user. An accidental or deliberate overdose in those circumstances wouldn't be unusual.

[KevinBrowning]

I saw the show you saw, Apok. It basically proves that the claims of multiple assassins are unfounded. I forget what it was called, though. It was around the anniversary of his death.

[GodlessSkept]

1)JFK's vehicle was moving SLOWLY adn AWAY from Oswald, tehrefore teh "moving target" factor is negligible.

2)The shot was made from...what, less than 300'?? An extremely easy shot for ANY trained marksman(go ask a militarily trained marksman and he will tell you).

3)Kennedy's head and body convulce as they do because that is what happens when you get a good portion of your head blown off. The spasm does NOT indicate multiple gunmen.

4)The show you are thinking of, which debunked the conspiracy theories was NOT a Hitsory Channel show(it aired on Court TV originally). The History Channel have been pimping The Men WHo Killed Kennedy which is a pro-conspiracy program adn terribly researched. Full of errors and bald assertions.

5)The conspiracy theories were NOT started by Stone and his movie(and no one insinuated such a thing either). They started after Watergate when the country was caught up in a wave of distrust for the government. When Speilberg's Close Encounters of teh Third Kind was released the Roswell conspiracies started up as well.

Stone's movie, however did not help matters as it was the single most historically inaccurate piece of garbage ever released.

[AuspiciousFist]

I saw a show last summer about this and it said someone dug up "Oswald's" grave and switched the skull with the real skull of Lee Harvey Oswald because they were planning to do some tests on it or something, and they didn't want anyone to figure out that the guy who claimed he was Oswald wasn't really Oswald. The real assasin was an expert sniper hired by someone.. I can't remember who they said it was, and when he got arrested they didn't want the authorities finding out who he really was, so they hired another guy to kill him.


Assasinations, secret identities, and post-mortem head-swapping! Now that's a conspiracy theory!

(one that is 100% right)



Who was the guy that killed Oswald anyway?

[GodlessSkept]

I saw a show last summer about this and it said someone dug up "Oswald's" grave and switched the skull with the real skull of Lee Harvey Oswald because they were planning to do some tests on it or something, and they didn't want anyone to figure out that the guy who claimed he was Oswald wasn't really Oswald. The real assasin was an expert sniper hired by someone.. I can't remember who they said it was, and when he got arrested they didn't want the authorities finding out who he really was, so they hired another guy to kill him.


Assasinations, secret identities, and post-mortem head-swapping! Now that's a conspiracy theory!

(one that is 100% right)



Who was the guy that killed Oswald anyway?

You are talking about The Men Who Killed Kennedy. Widely considered to be the worst researched look at the JFK assassination ever aired.

No head was swapped adn I defy you to provide evidence that such an event occured(honesly, in a country where a president cannot even get away with getting a BJ you guys thing that people,- WHO ARE NATURALLY NO GOOD AT SECRET KEEPING, are running around swapping heads of fallen presidents for some nefgarious scheme adn no one is finiding out about it oris blowing the lid off the whole thing?!?
If they just wanted to "do some tests" why not do it as part of the autopsy? Why bury him then dig him up adn swap his head???

Every single additional person you bring into a conspiracy exponentially increases the odds of that conspiracy being exposed. Here you are adding a grave robber, a sniper and a sniper to snipe the sniper(and why not a sniper to snipe him adn a sniper to snipe that one ad infinitum). Nonsense.

[GodlessSkept]

I saw a series called "The men Who Killed kennedy" which covered many different theories, so I wonder if you're referring to the one show that demonstrated staged shootings. If so, I agree that it did sway my judgment from numerous shooters to Oswald as a lone shooter. I didn't realize Kennedy was only 70 yards, which is an easy shot with a scoped rifle. It's easy with iron sites.

I still have some doubt, though. I find the number of witnesses saying they heard shots from the grassy knoll something compelling, and the recording of Florida Mafia bosses talking about Kennedy being assasinated in Texas a few weeks prior. Discrepancies in medical staff accounts also has me wondering. But hey, witnesses are notoriously poor evidence.

1)Have you evere seen the grassy knoll area? It is not only right out in the open where ANYONE could turn around or walk by and spot an assassin but on top of that there is NO LINE OF SIGHT to JFK from there at the time of the shooting. Of all the places in Dealy Plaza this would be the WORST for an assaassin.

2) MOST witnessess AT THE TIME said the shots came from the area of the TSBD. Many officers said the 5th or 6th floor to be precise). It wasn't until YEARSA(decades even) later that people started claiming otherwise and these claims we can dismiss based on two things:a) Evidence which contradicts the claims and b) the unreliable nature of human memory/pattern recognition.
Memories are not stored visually like JPEGS in our heads to be recovered whenever we need them. They are CREATED on the fly to suit OUR needs. Memory is the easiest thing in the world to manipulate. Many of those who claimed to have seen grassy knoll assassins were not even in Dallas at the time of the shooting! These people are not liars. They are just victims of their own belief mechanisms.

3)The only real discrepancies in teh medical accopunts were that the doctors initially asserted that the entry wound was in the FRONT because of how the blood pooled at the base of his skull. They were unaware that Jackie O. had turned him over and had cradled his head and triued to hold it together(literally) which resulted in teh mass of blood collecting at the base. Subsequent examination revealed the entry wound was at the rear and the exit wound in the right front temple area.

[AuspiciousFist]

hey you live in Tacoma?

I'm in Seattle right now (and will be until the end of August)

crazy.



No head was swapped adn I defy you to provide evidence that such an event occured(honesly, in a country where a president cannot even get away with getting a BJ you guys thing that people,- WHO ARE NATURALLY NO GOOD AT SECRET KEEPING, are running around swapping heads of fallen presidents for some nefgarious scheme adn no one is finiding out about it oris blowing the lid off the whole thing?!?


I dunno, the CIA seems pretty good at keeping secrets to me

*cue ominous music*


If they just wanted to "do some tests" why not do it as part of the autopsy? Why bury him then dig him up adn swap his head???

because at the time of the autopsy they didn't suspect any fowl play. It wasn't the doctors who swtched the head, it was the conspirators.

And they didn't need a guy to kill the guy who killed Oswald because they promised his family a bunch of money if he took the fall and went along with it.
It's pretty obvious once you approach it from an intelligent perspective.

[GodlessSkept]

hey you live in Tacoma?

I'm in Seattle right now (and will be until the end of August)

crazy.

Yeah...lifelong Tacoma native pretty much.





I dunno, the CIA seems pretty good at keeping secrets to me

*cue ominous music*
They MAY be. The irony is that if they WERE then you would never know they were ;).



because at the time of the autopsy they didn't suspect any fowl play. It wasn't the doctors who swtched the head, it was the conspirators.
Again, we are talking about teh government here. On one hand you are alleging that they have the resources to pull off near impossible conspiracies and yet the only time they can run teasts on a head is after he is buried and yet instead of just going to the public and saying "we have some suspicions about his death and want to run tests" then exhuming his corpse, they must resort to clandestine grave robbery at what woiuld be the most watched grave in the world at the time??


And they didn't need a guy to kill the guy who killed Oswald because they promised his family a bunch of money if he took the fall and went along with it.
It's pretty obvious once you approach it from an intelligent perspective.

*Boggle* You are defeating your own arguments here. If they could simply offer money to THAT guy then they could do the same for the firt guy and avoid having to bring more people in on the conspiracy! And the sceme must have went terribly wrong because the "guy" never took any such fall. Oswald did(whether he liked it or not)!

We are talking about a guy(LHO) who sympathised with teh pro-Castro communist movement for many years. He tries to defect to Russia(and eventually succeded) AND Cuba(who would not have him). Is arrested for inciting a riot while distributing communist pro-Castro fliers at one time. Eventually attempts to assasinate General Walker to get his political message across and does time for that(6 years IIRC). Orders a Manlicher Carcano and talks openly to his wife about killing JFK. Eventually gets a job at the TSBD and soonafter learns that(through a series of clusterf*cks and mishaps) the president's motorcade will pass within shooting distance of the 5th floor window where he works and decides he will take his shot!

What is so hard to swallow about that? If one will assert conspiracy for this incident then I can only wonder why John Lennon's death does not invoke even wilder conspiracy theories! He was much more hated and loved( at the time of his own death in 1980 or so)than JFK was in '63 ! Speaking of which, JFK was NOT going to pull out of vietnam! HE was a CONSERVATIVE democrat, not a liberal martyr! The Kennedy family is the whole reason we were in Vietnam in the first place and JFK increased troop presence there in each of his three years in office and would have done so in his fourth year!

[AuspiciousFist]

Again, we are talking about teh government here. On one hand you are alleging that they have the resources to pull off near impossible conspiracies and yet the only time they can run teasts on a head is after he is buried and yet instead of just going to the public and saying "we have some suspicions about his death and want to run tests" then exhuming his corpse, they must resort to clandestine grave robbery at what woiuld be the most watched grave in the world at the time??

I think it was a a private company that wanted to do the tests.




*Boggle* You are defeating your own arguments here. If they could simply offer money to THAT guy then they could do the same for the firt guy and avoid having to bring more people in on the conspiracy! And the sceme must have went terribly wrong because the "guy" never took any such fall. Oswald did(whether he liked it or not)!

they needed a trained sniper to kill JFK, the guy that killed Oswald wasn't a trained sniper, so he couldnt have assassinated JFK.

[GodlessSkept]

I think it was a a private company that wanted to do the tests.



they needed a trained sniper to kill JFK, the guy that killed Oswald wasn't a trained sniper, so he couldnt have assassinated JFK.

What is the point of asserting that a 'private company' wanted to do the tests? That only makes the conspiracy theory MORE irrational and bizarre by invoking ever more entities to explain the twisted conundrums! Now we have graverobbing private companies in league with the government!



Are you pulling my leg here or are you lost? The guy who killed Oswald was another lunatic named Jack Ruby and of course he wasn't the one who assassinated JFK because Oswald was(hence Oswald's murder by the eternal wanna-be and suddenly infused with patriotism Ruby).

[GodlessSkept]

Much as with the death of Marilyn Monroe, there are many questions left unanswered.

In regard to those who would not shed a tear if he were dead.

1/ J. Edgar 'the transvestite' Hoover.

Why do you think Hoover wanted Kennedy dead? Did Hoover have the vast resources necessary to pull of such a conspiracy?




2/ Extreme right wing politicians.

SInce JFK was a CONSERVATIVE, this is unlikely. THE Kennedys got us INTO the war in Viet Nam and JFK went so far as to call people who were not in support of said war unpatriotic. He increased troop presence each of the years he was in office and was going to increase the numbers again in his fourth year. JFK was, by NO STRETCH of the imagination a supporter of civil rights for minorities(Didn't he tell King to "keep his people off the damned busses"?).

What collection of "extreme right winger" had the reosurces to pullk of such a conspiracy?




3/ KKK members.
The KKK would not have cared much about JFK. They had more important enemies on college campuses across America and in cicil rights activists like King and X.

Did the KKK have the resources(or brains) to pull of such a conspiracy?




4/ Fidel Castro.

Castro probably wouldn't have minded Kennedy dying. But is there anything that warrants such an inference that he DID have something to do with JFK's death?

Could Castro have pulled off such a conspiracy involving our own government? Not likely.



5/ Mafia.

The mafia seems to have their hands in every conspiracy ever offered. There is no reason to think they would want JFK dead or had the means to pull such a thing off. People throw the 'mafia' in there because being a subversive, underground organization by itself seems to be enough to warrant the inference to the common man.



6/ Drug cartels.
Drug cartels?!? Do be serious. Why would they hate the man who was keeping them in bussiness? That's like saying AL Capone hated prohibition.



7/ Personnel within the Communist bloc.

Good guys as well as bad guys make many enemies.

'Personel within the communist block' is rather ambiguous don't you think? WHy not just put "bad people" on the list?

[GodlessSkept]

Regardless of the hype and the various accounts of such things, I still wonder, what happened to Kennedy's brain? Why were the Secret Service not closing the windows around Dealy plaza? There seem to be a few gaps in there that can be explained by either outright idiocy, incompetence, or conspiracy.

I guess when you get that many stupid things together, its easier to buy conspiracy than incompetence from so many people who are supposed to be "in charge" as it were.

BTW: Welcome aboard Ebon. How's the world treatin' ya? :)

What happened to Kennedy's brain?


Part of it was destroyed by a bullet from Oswald's Manlicher Carcano rifle. The rest is buried with him(well, the rest that was not needed in autopsies i guess).

Why didn't the secret service close all the windows...?


Imagine George Bush was going to speak at the former location of the WTC next week(the location having just been decided TODAY). Now ask yourself: Would the secret service have ALL windows of every buiolding closed along the president's motorcade route? How would they keep the windows closed? Post an agent at each of the buildings to watch for assasins opening windows? How would a window have stopped a bullet?


These sorts of "mysterious coincidences/connections/happenings always sound more mysterious BEFORE you think about them.

[GodlessSkept]

I saw the documentary, but I don't believe Oswald was a gunman at all, let alone the lone shooter. Being a deer hunter, with no military experience, I can't say for a fact that 3 shots from a WWII rifle in that short of a time period is impossible. I can say however, that a moving target at that distance is extremely hard, if not impossible. I happen to use a deer rifle manufactured recently, with a magnifying scope that is far more powerful than the one used by the alleged rifle in Dallas, and I can't come close to making those shots with the accuracy that is accredited to Oswald. Like I said before, I wasn't trained by the military, but I am a very good marksman.


If you had seen the Court TV special(not that Men Who Killed Kennedy thing) then you would already know that...

a)Whether the Manlicher Carcano was first developed during WWII is irrelevent(wasn't the M-16 developed during WWII? Weren't Ak-47s developed over two decades ago?). The rifle was still being manufactured at the time JFK was killed and Oswald bought his through a Sears catalogue IIRC.

b)Oswald had 6-7 seconds to get the shots off but marksmen have since been able to routinely get off 3-4 accurate shots with the rifle in 5-6 seconds. Oswald's shots did not display great accuracy. he missed with teh first shot, shot JFK through the neck with the second and finally got him in the head with the final. All from a pretty short distance(260 feet?).

[GodlessSkept]

I saw this film.

The only real objections I have to it is firstly, the insinmuation that Oliver Stone's movie is responsible for the conspiracy theories and that's just plain BS.

That statement you just made is BS. The program never insinuated any such thing. The conspiracy theories started up in the 1970's post-watergate when the country was caught up in a wave of distrust for the government. Stone's move helped to reinvigorate these notions when it was released and MANY conspiracy believers were getting their info from the movie JFK until historians and skeptics started to debunk the film regularly.




Conspiracy theories were circulating almost as soon as the official report came in, maybe even before that and secondly, the insinuation that only delusional idiots would believe otherwise (that again, that's been the mainstreams approach to conspiracy theory for years).
You are beating a strawman here. You try to characterise us as cynics rather than skeptics. A cynic will glibly right off a group of people as "delusional idiots" based on a presupposition that most people tend towards delusion, stupidity and untrustworthiness.
A skeptic with dissent from wild, unfounded and irrational claims BECAUSE they lack substantiation and do not hold up under scrutiny.

It is much easier to write us off as cynics than to answer the skeptical criticisms.


It's also worth pointing out that computer simulations will show whatever the programer wants them to show.
Not true. The programmer of such a simulation designs the program to react appropriately given specific quantifications(math, physics etc.) and data. A realistic flight sim will not perform unrealistically and a flight sim in which increasing your altitude sends you into a dive is NOT a realistic flight sim. The programmer of such a sim feeds in the turn radius, lift, max airspeed, max altitude etc. adn these things determine how the plane will react when the player manipulates the controls via keyboard or joystick.

A flight sim the player always lands safely or always crashes is quickly recognised as being buggy or poorly designed by the programmer.

The computer simlulations showing bullet trajectories and target positions and velocities and such are not programmed to "show that Oswald did it". That would be silly and immediately obvious. That they contradict conspiracy theories given the factual data only shows that the conspiracy theories are wonky and not supported by facts.


As for who actually shot Kennedy, I've no idea (unlike his brother who was definatly NOT shot by Sirhan Sirhan)

I know I will regret asking this but who do you think shot Robert Kennedy adn why do you not accept that Sirhan Sirhan did?



but here's a few things that spring to mind:

The Senate Committee on Assassinations ruled that JFK was "probably" done in by conspiracy (and contrary to that bloody film, they weren't railroaded by a last-minute witness).
There were numerous mistakes made by the SCoA and the culprit is simply, pattern recognition behavior.


According to his Marine records, Oswald was a poor rifleman (yes, I know he was listed as "marksman" but look at how many ranks were below that one).
Look how many ranks are ABOVE marksman *wink*. Oswald was not a "poor marksman". That is an oxymoron. You cannot achieve 'marksman' status in the military if you cannot shoot. The shots that killed JFK were easy shots for one with his training.


I can think of any number of people with good reasons to want JFK dead.

I can think of any number of people with good reasons to want Ronald Reagan dead. Does that mean he was assassinated isntead of being the victim of alzheimers?


If Oswald managed to make that shot, three times, at that distance, through foliage, with iron sights on an old, ureliable POS rifle, I for one would be impressed. I've been around and firing weapons most of my life and I couldn't do it, certainly not within that time.
1)He missed completely with the first shot, hit JFK's throat with teh second adn finally managed to catch him in the noggin' with the third.

2)There was no foliage blocking his LOS.

3)He used a scope, not iron sights(even so, the shot would have been easy WITH iron sights!).

4)The Manlicher Carcano is not a "POS rifle" or "unreliable" even by today's standards, let alone at the time it was STILL BEING MANUFACTURED and USED!

5)Oswald had up to 7 seconds to make those shots. FBI marksman have duplicated the feat with MUCH greater accuracy using the same rifle in 5-6 seconds.

[Ebon]

Godless:


4)The Manlicher Carcano is not a "POS rifle" or "unreliable" even by today's standards, let alone at the time it was STILL BEING MANUFACTURED and USED!

Ever used one? It's a POS, trust me on this. It doesn't really matter whether it was being manufactured and used at the time or not. The TEC-9 is still being manufactured and used today and that's a POS too.


I know I will regret asking this but who do you think shot Robert Kennedy adn why do you not accept that Sirhan Sirhan did?

I don't accept it because it was simply not possible for Sirhan Sirhan to make the shot, no matter how many "magic bullets" were involved. The entry wound was in the back-right of RFK's neck, below and slightly behind his ear (possibly with close proximity powder burns, there's conflicting sources on that one). Sirhan Sirhan, according to every witness, was directly in front of RFK and about four to eight feet away from him. Bullets don't travel around corners and they certainly don't do the U-turn needed to make RFK's entry wound. Applying Occam's Razor, Sirhan Sirhan did not cause the wound which killed RFK.

As for who did, I'm afraid I have no idea.


There were numerous mistakes made by the SCoA and the culprit is simply, pattern recognition behavior.

The SCoA made numerous mistakes and should be discounted but the Warren Comission, certain members of whom now admit they made mistakes and, by anyone's standards, turned in a shoddy report, should be trusted? I'm afraid I fail to see the logic here.

"
It is much easier to write us off as cynics than to answer the skeptical criticisms

Godless, this isn't easy to say since I like you and I really don't wish to cause you offence here so I'm going to try and put this gently and hope you'll forgive me if I don't manage to avoid causing offence. I think that very often, you present a viewpoint that sounds like that of a cynic rather than a sceptic. I would present as evidence the double standard applied to the Warren Commission and the SCoA. I'm genuinely sorry to say it but what I see you doing quite often, both here and in the "other place" isn't scepticism but a defense of the "establishment" line. Godless, you know me. Barring my loathing of teh Bush Administration, I'm generally not a wild-eyed conspiracy loon. Generally speaking, if I'm asking questions about this sort of thing, it's because there are questions to be asked and what I see you doing most often isn't sceptical enquiry but a (forgive me, there is no other way to say this) near-religious adherance to the "authorised" version.

Now, having possibly caused rather more offence than I meant or wanted to, I'll withdraw from this subject.

[Tombstone]

Anyone else see the History Channel's (I think that was the channel) documentary on the JFK Assassination Conspiracy myths? It was a very, very convincing documentary that showed how the conspiracy claims about this assassination are unfounded and baseless (no, the documentary was not funded by the government :) ).

I'm no longer a believer in the conspiracy theories and I believe Oswald was a lone gunman. Do you believe there was more to it than this? Was there a conspiracy? What are your reasons for believing this?


I find it very interesting and convenient that producers of television shows and movies have such a profound effect on people's perceptions. Just as "JFK" has influenced countless people, so has this History Channel "documentary".

This is cafeteria style history.

Most of the eye-witnesses to the event have now passed-away. My notions of this event were very much solidified by a now deceased family friend who was there. Not as a civilian, but acting in an official capacity.

Many of the original issues that were brought up (secrecy, lack of access to the body, the "stand-down" orders, radical change of autopsy procedures, witnesses who heard gunshots in front of the arcade, and health and welfare threats made to the original civilian and military doctors) were true in my opinion.

It seems that everyone discounts the reports of the original medical examiners. These were doctors intimately familiar with gunshot wounds and trajectory paths. Why are their reports always glossed over?

[GodlessSkept]

Godless:



Ever used one? It's a POS, trust me on this. It doesn't really matter whether it was being manufactured and used at the time or not. The TEC-9 is still being manufactured and used today and that's a POS too.

Funny...the marksmen who were able to hit a canteloupe sized object 3+ times in 4-5 second did not see it this way. You are being ambiguous again. By what criteria is the MC a "POS" rifle? Your ealier implication was that the rifle itself would have been a signifigant detrimnet to making the shots Oswald made(one out of three accurately striking his intended target). Is the barrel on a Manlicher Carcano crooked? Does it recoil wildly when fired? WHat exactly makes it so impossible to use effectively as a sniper rifle from the sort distance that Oswald fired from?




I don't accept it because it was simply not possible for Sirhan Sirhan to make the shot, no matter how many "magic bullets" were involved. The entry wound was in the back-right of RFK's neck, below and slightly behind his ear (possibly with close proximity powder burns, there's conflicting sources on that one). Sirhan Sirhan, according to every witness, was directly in front of RFK and about four to eight feet away from him. Bullets don't travel around corners and they certainly don't do the U-turn needed to make RFK's entry wound. Applying Occam's Razor, Sirhan Sirhan did not cause the wound which killed RFK.

As for who did, I'm afraid I have no idea.

As I suspected...no references/citations to substantiate your claims. Very well then...I will go research the Robert Kennedy assassination and see what I can turn up.




The SCoA made numerous mistakes and should be discounted but the Warren Comission, certain members of whom now admit they made mistakes and, by anyone's standards, turned in a shoddy report, should be trusted? I'm afraid I fail to see the logic here.
What members of the Warren Commision admited making mistakes and what were these mistakes? WHy do you think the report was "shoddy"? SImply because you have a cynical view of the government and any report which does not confirm your cynicism will be regarded as "shoddy" and "unbelieveable".

Again, references and citations are your friend. They will go a long way toward lending you some credibility.

"


Godless, this isn't easy to say since I like you and I really don't wish to cause you offence here so I'm going to try and put this gently and hope you'll forgive me if I don't manage to avoid causing offence. I think that very often, you present a viewpoint that sounds like that of a cynic rather than a sceptic.

No I don't. It is just easier to attack a cynic than a skeptic so it is the natural inclination of anti-skeptics to write us off as being merely insulting...calling believers "whacko, delusiuonal idiots". Then you don't have to answer our refutations of your claims.

Show me where I have proposed a cynical counter to your claims. Where have I responded simply by calling you a delusional idiot or somesuch without providing any substantiation?




I would present as evidence the double standard applied to the Warren Commission and the SCoA.

Not a double standard. I applied the same standards to both and found the Warren commision report to be VERY reasonable and well substnatiated. Many of the findings of the SCoA have been conclusively demonstrated to be false adn based upon misunderstandings and presuppositions but the Warren Commision report still stands up to scrutiny(of course no amount of evidence will convince a 'true believer').




I'm genuinely sorry to say it but what I see you doing quite often, both here and in the "other place" isn't scepticism but a defense of the "establishment" line.

Where have i done this? Please provide SOME SORT OF RATIONAL SUPPORT/EVIDENCE for this charge! Ironically this is EXACTLY what you are accusing the skeptics of! You accuse us of merely writing you off as delusional idiots adn then you turn around and write us off as unwitting patsies for the establishment without even attempting to back up your position!




Godless, you know me. Barring my loathing of teh Bush Administration, I'm generally not a wild-eyed conspiracy loon.

I don't write off ANYONE as a wild eyed conspiracy loon unless they prove to me they are beyond reason. If I provide you with mounds of contradictory evidence and you respond by saying "exactly what I expect from one of the establishment's dupes!" then I can reasonably concur that you will never give credence to ANY evidence no matter what.



Generally speaking, if I'm asking questions about this sort of thing, it's because there are questions to be asked and what I see you doing most often isn't sceptical enquiry but a (forgive me, there is no other way to say this) near-religious adherance to the "authorised" version.
That is flat out ridiculous. You have not asked any questions. You have made bald assertions and when I provided evidence and insight to counter these, you turned this into a personal matter and went to attacking my character. You STILL have not answered most of the facts which contradict your precious conspiracy theory.

Incidently this is the most admirable quality of teh Court TV JFK special. They could have appealed to the 70%+ who believed in conspiracy theories adn did another of those pro-conspiracy shows. They could have spent much less resources on an 'anti-conspiracy' show and appealed to cynics(and maybe a few skeptics). Instead they invested a large sum of money and time adn effort into a neutral investigation of the ten or twelve strongest arguments/claims of conspiracy theorists.

The truth prevailed and the truth does not care what you or I want it to be. The truth just happens to be rather mundane. A lunatic who got WAY caught up in the pro-Castro communist movement attempted to assassinate a general adn then saw an oppurtunity at bigger game(the President) and finally succeded. Another lunatic who spent his life trying to be a big shot and impress people who generally thought him a fool made a decision while he was at the Dallas police station to really do SOMETHING that would make him a big shot.


Now, having possibly caused rather more offence than I meant or wanted to, I'll withdraw from this subject.

I am a fan of G.G. Allin. You cannot do much to offend me but I do suggest you bow out until you can come up with better than calling me names to support your case.

[GodlessSkept]

I find it very interesting and convenient that producers of television shows and movies have such a profound effect on people's perceptions. Just as "JFK" has influenced countless people, so has this History Channel "documentary".

*Sigh* The "History Channel documentary" is on the SAME SIDE of the issue as Stone's JFK movie! And yes, BOTH are largely responsible for contributing to the conspiracy nonsense.


This is cafeteria style history.

Agreed. Both The Men WHo Killed Kennedy adn JFK are "cafeteria style history".


Most of the eye-witnesses to the event have now passed-away. My notions of this event were very much solidified by a now deceased family friend who was there. Not as a civilian, but acting in an official capacity.
I don't know about "most eyewitnesses being deceased but again, we have the "mysterious OFFCIAL-who-was-there-but-cannot-be named" who assures us that there WAS a conspiracy but cannot substantiate the claim.


Many of the original issues that were brought up (secrecy, lack of access to the body, the "stand-down" orders, radical change of autopsy procedures, witnesses who heard gunshots in front of the arcade, and health and welfare threats made to the original civilian and military doctors) were true in my opinion.

WHy do you think they were true? Many of these have been proven false! There was no radical change of autopsy provcedures. No credible witnesses who heard gunshots in front of the arcade. No lack of access to the body or health and welfare threats made to doctors. The burden of proof is upon YOU to make your case when claiming these things.


It seems that everyone discounts the reports of the original medical examiners. These were doctors intimately familiar with gunshot wounds and trajectory paths. Why are their reports always glossed over?

If you are talking about the doctors who intially examined JFK's body at Parkland hospital then you are wrong. These doctors had never done such an autopsy before and were pretty "green"(which explains why they got the entry wounds and exist wounds wrong at first).

[AuspiciousFist]

What is the point of asserting that a 'private company' wanted to do the tests? That only makes the conspiracy theory MORE irrational and bizarre by invoking ever more entities to explain the twisted conundrums! Now we have graverobbing private companies in league with the government!

The graverobbers were the conspirators (AKA CIA), the private compan had nothing to do with the conspiracy, they were trying to figure out who really killed him.


The guy who killed Oswald was another lunatic named Jack Ruby and of course he wasn't the one who assassinated JFK because Oswald was(hence Oswald's murder by the eternal wanna-be and suddenly infused with patriotism Ruby).]
sounds like a good thing to tell the police so they won't question you more about conpiracies to me.

[Ebon]

Funny...the marksmen who were able to hit a canteloupe sized object 3+ times in 4-5 second did not see it this way. You are being ambiguous again. By what criteria is the MC a "POS" rifle? Your ealier implication was that the rifle itself would have been a signifigant detrimnet to making the shots Oswald made(one out of three accurately striking his intended target). Is the barrel on a Manlicher Carcano crooked? Does it recoil wildly when fired? WHat exactly makes it so impossible to use effectively as a sniper rifle from the sort distance that Oswald fired from?

Not impossible, just difficult. The recoil on the MC is slightly more than one would normally expect on a rifle that size, it's oddly weighted and (there's no other way of putting this) feels shoddily built. None of those make it impossible to use as a sniped weapon, just difficult.


What members of the Warren Commision admited making mistakes and what were these mistakes?

I'll have to go and look this up. There's a post to come on this.


WHy do you think the report was "shoddy"? SImply because you have a cynical view of the government and any report which does not confirm your cynicism will be regarded as "shoddy" and "unbelieveable".

I do have a cynical view of government, this is true. However, when a report is released that amounts to 26 volumes, lacks indexing and which members of teh commission have publically said they believe will be read only by a few academics and largely forgotten, and when their stated brief was to prove Oswald the assassin rather than find the truth (again, I'll get references on those last two, I'm typing as I'm working here), I think I'm entitled to call the report "shoddy".


Again, references and citations are your friend. They will go a long way toward lending you some credibility.

LOL, fair point.


Not a double standard. I applied the same standards to both and found the Warren commision report to be VERY reasonable and well substnatiated. Many of the findings of the SCoA have been conclusively demonstrated to be false adn based upon misunderstandings and presuppositions but the Warren Commision report still stands up to scrutiny(of course no amount of evidence will convince a 'true believer').

What was that you were saying about references?


Show me where I have proposed a cynical counter to your claims. Where have I responded simply by calling you a delusional idiot or somesuch without providing any substantiation?

I would think characterising me as a "true believer" and the phrase "SImply because you have a cynical view of the government and any report which does not confirm your cynicism will be regarded as "shoddy" and "unbelieveable" counts.


That is flat out ridiculous. You have not asked any questions. You have made bald assertions

My apologies, I considered it the same thing.


You STILL have not answered most of the facts which contradict your precious conspiracy theory.

Believe it or not, I actually don't have an opinion on who killed JFK or who didn't (unlike his brother, whi I do hold opinions on). However and granted I've only gone back over the posts on the last page but, apart from discounting The Men Who Killed Kennedy (which I've never read so you might be quite right to do so), I notice that you've not provided evidence or cited sources either. You've also made assertions without providing sources.


No I don't. It is just easier to attack a cynic than a skeptic so it is the natural inclination of anti-skeptics to write us off as being merely insulting...calling believers "whacko, delusiuonal idiots". Then you don't have to answer our refutations of your claims.

Where have i done this? Please provide SOME SORT OF RATIONAL SUPPORT/EVIDENCE for this charge! Ironically this is EXACTLY what you are accusing the skeptics of! You accuse us of merely writing you off as delusional idiots adn then you turn around and write us off as unwitting patsies for the establishment without even attempting to back up your position!

and when I provided evidence and insight to counter these, you turned this into a personal matter and went to attacking my character.

The truth prevailed and the truth does not care what you or I want it to be. The truth just happens to be rather mundane. A lunatic who got WAY caught up in the pro-Castro communist movement attempted to assassinate a general adn then saw an oppurtunity at bigger game(the President) and finally succeded. Another lunatic who spent his life trying to be a big shot and impress people who generally thought him a fool made a decision while he was at the Dallas police station to really do SOMETHING that would make him a big shot.

I am a fan of G.G. Allin. You cannot do much to offend me but I do suggest you bow out until you can come up with better than calling me names to support your case.

I wasn't calling you names or at least, I was trying hard to avoid that impression. If it came across that I was, I sincerely apologise. Since this has become rather more personal than I intended it to be, I'll simply apologise again for giving the impression that I was calling you names and this time, I really will bow out of the subject.

[GodlessSkept]

Not impossible, just difficult. The recoil on the MC is slightly more than one would normally expect on a rifle that size, it's oddly weighted and (there's no other way of putting this) feels shoddily built. None of those make it impossible to use as a sniped weapon, just difficult.

And Oswald only hit the target he was aiming at(Kennedy's head) once out of three attempts, from short range and with the benefit of being a marksman grade shooter who practiced shooting even after leaving the military. I still see no evidence that the rifle was "difficult" or would have made the shot more difficult but ironically, even if this WERE true it would only support the fact that Oswald shot JFK!

I am sorry but when I asked for some concrete reasoning for why you felt(contrary to all the marksmen I have conversed with on teh subject) the Manlicher Carcano was a "POS rifle", I meant that I needed something more substantial than "It just feels shoddy to me" and vagueries like "It's oddly weighted" and such. I think I will take the word of professional marksman that there was nothing about the MC that made the shot more difficult. Also I HAVE seen the FBI marksman demonstrate the ease by which the shot could be made with that rifle.




I'll have to go and look this up. There's a post to come on this.

So you are NOT bowing out?





I do have a cynical view of government, this is true. However, when a report is released that amounts to 26 volumes, lacks indexing and which members of teh commission have publically said they believe will be read only by a few academics and largely forgotten, and when their stated brief was to prove Oswald the assassin rather than find the truth (again, I'll get references on those last two, I'm typing as I'm working here), I think I'm entitled to call the report "shoddy".

Not without demonstrating the report to be so. look forward to those references as this is one big pile of bald assertions without them.







What was that you were saying about references?

You made a ton of unwarranted assertions to support the conspiracy angle and since they were unwarranted, I dissented by countering your unsupported allegations with facts recalled off the top of my head(didn't have any links handy).

Most of the information I post comes from various sources and all of these can be found collected <a href="To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 3 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.">HERE</a> for the convenience of those who do not wish to chase down thousands of links from hundreds of locations. SO if I do not post a different link in the future then check that one by default.




I would think characterising me as a "true believer" and the phrase "SImply because you have a cynical view of the government and any report which does not confirm your cynicism will be regarded as "shoddy" and "unbelieveable" counts.

This is an explanation of pattern recognition behavior and how it serves the conspoiracy theorists, believers in the paranormal/supernatural etc. Basically, most people(hell, ALL people at one time or another) will draw conclusions about a claim based upon their own presuppostions adn will then seek out the evidence to 'connect the dots' that supports their predisposition. This evidence would exist whether what they believe is true or false. In other words, even if Oswald DID shoot JFK acting alone adn there was absolutely NO REASON to infer otherwise, it will change nothing. We would have the same number of conspiracy theorists citing the same "evidence" as they do.
No insult was meant by "true believer", I just got tired of typing "conmspiracy theorist" and even YOU admit you operate on cynicism towards the government.






Believe it or not, I actually don't have an opinion on who killed JFK or who didn't (unlike his brother, whi I do hold opinions on). However and granted I've only gone back over the posts on the last page but, apart from discounting The Men Who Killed Kennedy (which I've never read so you might be quite right to do so), I notice that you've not provided evidence or cited sources either. You've also made assertions without providing sources.

Which of the things I asserted do you dispute and why? WHat exactly do you want me to provide you references/citations for? I will be happy to!

I generally don't think to provide references for issues that have already been settled(e.g. If I say that trees exist, I take it for granted that no one will require a source to support this).





I wasn't calling you names or at least, I was trying hard to avoid that impression. If it came across that I was, I sincerely apologise. Since this has become rather more personal than I intended it to be, I'll simply apologise again for giving the impression that I was calling you names and this time, I really will bow out of the subject.

It was more that you were seemingly unable to counter my arguments so you attacked my person(ad hominem) that I didn't much care for. I went out of my way not to insinuate or call any conspiracy buffs here any names (especially if I could not answer their arguments, cliams and such) and then you turned around and attacked me adn accused me of doing this anyway!?

[mholtum]

I believe Oswald was the only shooter and that he was contracted by the CIA ( or other Government Agency) to elimate Kennedy.

[GodlessSkept]

Also, you misunderstand and misapply Occam's razor in the above post about Sirhan Sirhan. Occam's razor simply means that we don't unecessarily multiply entites for explanation. So called "eyewitnesses"(which you did not name or reference at all) are not good evidence for this sort of claim as they are prone to "remember" things which never happened(all too common).

But I will await your more detailed essay on the matter.


Hint: Be sure to check out the skeptical sources on this as well as the pro-conspiracy sources. You will be surprised at what you learn adn how easily you yourself were fooled into believing something completely false.

[GodlessSkept]

I believe Oswald was the only shooter and that he was contracted by the CIA ( or other Government Agency) to elimate Kennedy.

Unfortunately this is not only unsubstantiated but highly unlikely. Oswald was not the sort of character the government(or ANYONE) would want doing such wetworks. HE was a radical, not too bright, not good at keeping his mouth shut, not good at following orders adn basically unreliable. They would have used one of there own if they were even in such a business as knocking off sitting presidents.

Also you must consider that human beings are absolutely TERRIBLE at keeping secrets. Trying to pull off a conspiracy involving much of, if not the whole of the CIA is as close to impossible as ideas get. How would they even approach the men they wished to enlist?

Agent:"Psst! Hey you!"


Agent #2:"Me?"


Agent #1:"Yeah...hey, can you keep a secre4t adn do you want to do a job?"


Agent #2:" I guess so...I mean, YES! What's up?"


Agent: "Well, we are gonna kill the boss...the President! Gonna hire some lunatic, commie cluck to shoot him in Dallas. We are gonna need to pull in all sorts of people from the Secret Service, the local police, etc., any ONE of which could blow the whole deal!"


Agent #2: "Sounds a bit sketchy adn why should we want to kiill the PRes.?"


Agent:"I dunno...bored I guess."

[Darkkat]

I'm not going to try and step into the firing line between the two of you regarding JFK, because it's obvious that both of you know far more than me and would tear me to metaphorical shreds in seconds.

However...


Also, you misunderstand and misapply Occam's razor in the above post about Sirhan Sirhan. Occam's razor simply means that we don't unecessarily multiply entites for explanation. So called "eyewitnesses"(which you did not name or reference at all) are not good evidence for this sort of claim as they are prone to "remember" things which never happened(all too common).

But I will await your more detailed essay on the matter.


Hint: Be sure to check out the skeptical sources on this as well as the pro-conspiracy sources. You will be surprised at what you learn adn how easily you yourself were fooled into believing something completely false.

Ouch. That was a rather snippy final comment, wasn't it? Yelling at others for insulting you and your position and then turning round and saying things like that isn't exactly the bast way to go about things.

Anyway, Sirhan Sirhan:

This (To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 3 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.) page is admittedly biased in Sirhan's favour, but it contains some references, which is a start. Specifically:

"1. Sirhan was out of position and out of range and therefore could not have shot Robert Kennedy. The Senator was shot from behind, but all witnesses place Sirhan in front of him in a face-to-face position. All witnesses placed Sirhan's gun at between 1.5 and 5 feet from Senator Kennedy, but the autopsy findings clearly establish that the Senator was shot from a weapon held somewhere between less than 1 inch and no more than three inches away. All witnesses describe Sirhan's gun as having been held horizontally in a normal standing position, but the autopsy report describes all bullet tracks in Senator Kennedy's body as angled sharply upward, as though fired from below."

And:

"2. An armed security guard with strong anti-Kennedy views admitted that he was standing directly in contact with the Senator to the rear, that he dropped down when the shooting began and that he then pulled his gun. One witness ignored by police claimed he saw the guard fire. The guard's weapon was never checked. Meanwhile, the one person who photographed the assassination, Jamie Scott Enyart, was tackled and arrested at gun point. His camera was seized by police, and his photographs have never been recovered. Los Angeles Police secretly burned 2,410 assassination-related photographs in a county hospital incinerator long beforeSirhan's trial. A Los Angeles jury later awarded Enyart a substantial verdict for the loss of his photographs." (Yes, the first part of this point does sound hideously dubious as we have no names or any other details for this security guard, but I'm trying to quote in context.)

And:

"4. Bullet holes in a door frame at the crime scene which are documented in FBI photographs show that more bullets were fired than could have come from "Sirhan's" gun. The police never disclosed these bullets, even though their removal by LAPD criminalists was observed by other police personnel. The door frame in question was then destroyed under color of a court order issued immediately after Sirhan's trial without notice to the defense."

This was the first site I found on a Google search for the name "Sirhan Sirhan", by the way. I would have liked to have more sources, but they all seemed to be bare-bones encyclopedia entries or not exactly the best sources someone would want on their side. So while it's not the best, it's a start, I hope.

So, how would Occam's Razor be applied here?

[Darkkat]

I should also add that I'm neither a theorist nor a skeptic (I use the term 'fortean'; don't know how widely recognised the term is). Here, I'm merely looking at some facts that I don't fully understand and would like to know more about.

Think of it as an opportunity to 'pitch' your position, if you will. :)

[GodlessSkept]

Before I begin, let me say that I have never engaged in any debate about Robert Kennedy's assassination(I have never been presented with conspiracy theories about the event before) adn do not have a wealth of resources at hand on the matter. I will instead address teh points below in more general ways, pointing ouyt flaws in argumentation and such.



I'm not going to try and step into the firing line between the two of you regarding JFK, because it's obvious that both of you know far more than me and would tear me to metaphorical shreds in seconds.

However...



Ouch. That was a rather snippy final comment, wasn't it? Yelling at others for insulting you and your position and then turning round and saying things like that isn't exactly the bast way to go about things.

I think you misunderstood me. I never yelled at others for insulting me(I could care less about insults personally), but ad hominems are a no-no in debate because it is a logical fallacy to attack the character rather than the argument presented.

For example: If I replied to your points below by simply saying "You probably believe that because you are too lazy to think about anything!", I have not addressed your points/arguments but instead chose to attack your character. The only times attacking someone's character is done is a)when reason will not support your position/you cannot answer the arguments and b)In response to someone else's childish attacks(in this case refutation of their arguments accompanies the attack or preceeds it).


Anyway, Sirhan Sirhan:

This (To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 3 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.) page is admittedly biased in Sirhan's favour, but it contains some references, which is a start. Specifically:

"1. Sirhan was out of position and out of range and therefore could not have shot Robert Kennedy.

Right off the bat we have a bald assertion. Are there any photos of the assassination that show Sirhan's position at the time RK was shot? ANYTHING aside from the alleged nameless "eyewitnesses"?



The Senator was shot from behind, but all witnesses place Sirhan in front of him in a face-to-face position.

Two or three points here:

1)Witnesses are unreliable. They become more and more unreliable with the passage of time. There are "eyewitnesses" to support EVERY claim you can imagine no matter how ridiculous. There were eyewitnesses to the grassy knoll gunmen who were not even born at the time of JFK's assassination! SOme who were not anywhere near Dallas back then!

2)In such an event where someone is suddenly shot to death, there is confusion... a LOT of confusion. It is nigh impossible to convict someone of murder based solely on eyewitness testimony, not only for the reasons mentioned in 1) above, but because it is near impossible for witnesses to asses the locations of everyone involved and the gun(s) etc. If there are twelve people on the street all doing their thing adn I suddenly pull out a gun and shoot someone, you will initially get several different stories about where the victim was standing and where I came from and which way we were facing etc.. Over time the details may coalesce due to popular/compelling notions becoming prevalent.

3)If the witnesses could make out all of this excruciating detail then why did they not see the "real assassin" walk up behind RK(inches away) and shoot him in the head?



All witnesses placed Sirhan's gun at between 1.5 and 5 feet from Senator Kennedy, but the autopsy findings clearly establish that the Senator was shot from a weapon held somewhere between less than 1 inch and no more than three inches away. All witnesses describe Sirhan's gun as having been held horizontally in a normal standing position, but the autopsy report describes all bullet tracks in Senator Kennedy's body as angled sharply upward, as though fired from below."
None of that tells me anything other than there are conflicting perceptions involved.


And:

"2. An armed security guard with strong anti-Kennedy views admitted that he was standing directly in contact with the Senator to the rear, that he dropped down when the shooting began and that he then pulled his gun. One witness ignored by police claimed he saw the guard fire. The guard's weapon was never checked. Meanwhile, the one person who photographed the assassination, Jamie Scott Enyart, was tackled and arrested at gun point. His camera was seized by police, and his photographs have never been recovered.

I will try to track down references to this but let me tell you...it sounds like fairly typical conspiracy nonsense. Everytime a major event happens these sorts of mysterious urban legends get whispered throughout bars and keg parties across the world. I would not be surprised to discover that the photographer was tackled by security to save his life when the bullets were flying and he never lost ANY pictures.



Los Angeles Police secretly burned 2,410 assassination-related photographs in a county hospital incinerator long beforeSirhan's trial. A Los Angeles jury later awarded Enyart a substantial verdict for the loss of his photographs." (Yes, the first part of this point does sound hideously dubious as we have no names or any other details for this security guard, but I'm trying to quote in context.)

Dubious to say the least.


And:

"4. Bullet holes in a door frame at the crime scene which are documented in FBI photographs show that more bullets were fired than could have come from "Sirhan's" gun.

OMFG! This is the same exact nonsense that was said about JFK by conspiracists!! They just recycled it for RK's assassination!



The police never disclosed these bullets, even though their removal by LAPD criminalists was observed by other police personnel. The door frame in question was then destroyed under color of a court order issued immediately after Sirhan's trial without notice to the defense."

This too. The same rumors were said of the vehicles in JFK's motorcade adn bullets allegedly found therein by criminalists. You will find that recycling is all too common an activity for conspiracisy theorists.


This was the first site I found on a Google search for the name "Sirhan Sirhan", by the way. I would have liked to have more sources, but they all seemed to be bare-bones encyclopedia entries or not exactly the best sources someone would want on their side. So while it's not the best, it's a start, I hope.

So, how would Occam's Razor be applied here?

Well, Sirhan Sirhan went to assassinate Robert Keendy. He pointed his gun and fired and Kennedy dropped. IIRC, all forensic and ballistic evidence points to the conclusion that Sirhan shot Kennedy(just as it pointed to Oswald in the JFK afair). Therefore OR would suggest that SIrhan killed Kennedy. Adding other gunmen, incompetent guards and the rest of the conspiracy stuff unecessarily multiplies entities for explanation.

[BennyMc]

Hello. I'm new to the forum, but I'd like to chime in if I may. After much consideration and reading and studying I am of the opinion that Oswald acted alone. There are several reasons why.

1. Witnesses to the shooting mostly say the shots came from the TSBD, at least according to the Dallas PD radio traffic right after the shooting.

2. Oswald left work. What time did he go in that morning, 7:30 or 8:00? He leaves soon after the shooting (which took place around 12:30 PM), keeping his cool so as not to be caught at the TSBD. He's either guilty as sin or I need a job at the TSBD with those hours.

3. He ends up shooting Officer Tippitt less than an hour later, maybe 3 or 4 miles from the assassination scene. He's positively ID'd as the killer and the revolver is matched to the ballistics to the point of excluding all other weapons.

4. He tries unsuccessfully to kill arresting Officer McDonald in the Texas Theater.

I also wondered for years about the ability to make those shots from the window. Oliver Stone's JFK, packed full of lies and half truths actually helps answer this. The movie's lead character, Jim Garrison (Kevin Costner) asks why not take the shot before the limo makes it turn in front of the depository. The answer is clear:

1. Moving targets are actually harder to hit when closing in on you.
2. He would certainly have been seen and probably killed on the spot if not a minute or two later.
3. Think of the car moving away down the street. It passes Oswald. Even though it's moving, the angle isn't nearly as acute as it was just a minute ago. 80 yards? A moving target? Even though the car is still moving and moving away, the target is far easier to keep in the crosshairs at this distance than say right under the window. The results were two hits of three shots including a fatal head shot. Respectable marksmanship, but not what I'd call outstanding. No disrespect to the former president intended here, I just wanted to illustrate the mechanics of ths shots as best I knew how.

The military has a thing about shooting...If you can't, you don't even pass basic training. When I was in the US Army they made that very clear to us, even the guys who had never fired a weapon in their lives were going to know how to shoot before leaving.

I know there are JFK admirers who think things would have been really peachy had he survived. He's often revered, and that's fine. But JFK was a Cold Warrior right from Ike stock. He was certainly no Civil Rights champ. If any right-wing extremists wanted to shoot someone, they'd have been better off taking a crack at the far more liberal than Kennedy LBJ, who would inherit the office. WHy kill JFK only to get something you hate worse?

I remember asking my dad about the Kennedy and subsequennt LBJ years. He told me Kennedy was more liberal than his sensibilities, but that LBJ was far more liberal than was JFK. Dad says there was no comparison-that JFK was far more desirable for southern conservatives although LBJ was southern himself.

In closing I'd like to say I think that Jim Garrison's prosecution of Clay Shaw was a sham, if not downright fraudulent. Oliver Stone apparently will never get over the fact that a scrawny, nerdy (even by 1963 standards), radical leftist with Marxist beliefs did this. Maybe making the movie was his only way to bash people on the right, blaming them for depriving all of us of the Kennedy Presidency.

BennyMc

[Pibs]

I'm not that up on US presidents but was this the same Kennedy that came in after Eisenhower?

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“The idea may have actually originated with President Eisenhower in the last days of his administration. With the Cold War hotter than ever and the recent U-2 scandal fresh in the public’s memory, the old general wanted to go out with a win. He wanted desperately to invade Cuba in the weeks leading up to Kennedy’s inauguration; indeed, on January 3 he told Lemnitzer and other aides in his Cabinet Room that he would move against Castro before the inauguration if only the Cubans gave him a really good excuse. Then, with time growing short, Eisenhower floated an idea. If Castro failed to provide that excuse, perhaps, he said, the United States ‘could think of manufacturing something that would be generally acceptable.’ What he was suggesting was a pretext—a bombing, an attack, an act of sabotage—carried out secretly against the United States by the United States. Its purpose would be to justify the launching of a war. It was a dangerous suggestion by a desperate president. Although no such war took place, the idea was not lost on General Lemnitzer. But he and his colleagues were frustrated by Kennedy’s failure to authorize their plan, and angry that Castro had not provided an excuse to invade.” (Ibid.; pp. 82-83.)"

Seems to Pibs there's some plans that once floated, if not accepted, kinnda leave you in the lurch, ya know?

Like Operation Northwoods.



P.

[FruitandNut]

I have just seen a programme on UKTV History channel that gives powerful light and circumstantial evidence as to 'The Mob's' involvement in the Kennedy assassination.

Prophecies like 'He's going to be hit'.
Deathbed confession of Trafficante's, 'that it was the Mob'.
Comments from Hoffa and about Hoffa and the Teamsters.
The deals and corruption later that linked to the US legal system at the top and the then current administration right up to Nixon.
Newfield's origional scepicism that on further investigation has turned into a belief of Mob involvement.
Blakeley (former legal prof. at Notre Dame Uni.) said that the 'death bed' revelations were just an affirmation of much other circumstantial evidence that included the Mob's motive, means and opportunity to kill Kennedy.
Perhaps the official version is more palatable than the truth. That at the very least, corruption had reached its fingers into the Administration and had conspired for one reason or another (or both) to cover up the truth about the President's murder.
Perhaps yet again history and the truth diverge.

[dead kennedy]

i grew up in dallas let me first say and i still live here
i have a few issues with some things said so ill just put it down here
first have you ever been to dealy plaza? this is the one thing most conspirators never do
one guy from germany was telling me how it was and had never even been there, dealy plaza is small, although it looks huge in the pictures it is not.
secondly could oswald make the shot? easily, his military records show that in a rapid fire test he took twice,he hit 7 out of 8 shots at 200 yards,the shot in dealy plaza was 80 yards and did the same on each test,now that may not be sniper material but definately shows he coulda made the shot, many military people ive talked to said it was an easy shot.
3rd the rifle,suggested to be a pile o crap by conspiracy buffs,this isnt actually true, especially if you have someone trained to use a rifle and knows how to set it up,oswald had the gun for 8 months,plenty of time to familiarize himself with the charectoristics of the gun. they found oswalds palm print on the barrel under the stock from obviously having it apart cleaning tinkering tunning it up
4th and this is a good one,general walker,this missed shot is one of the big reasons the buffs say he couldnt make the shot,they say walker who was only 20 yards away and sitting still, and oswald missed at that distance no way in hell he shot the prez.
well it is true he missed, not from being a bad shot though,he missed cause the bullet hit the wood pane and deflected missing walker by only inches, the buffs never say that when they bring up the ole general,also someone said here oswald did time for the shooting
he never did and dpd never figured out who did it till after the jfk assasination.Marina testified that he told her he shot walker(he thought he had hit him) hid the gun and rode the bus home and was laughing at the police for being so stupid,i believe he did this to see what the cops would do after the shooting as to be prepared for the big kill later,my speculation of course
5th oswald was the only one missingfrom the sbd,not true either,several people were missing from the sbd,they had gone out to see the prez,the building was sealed and they couldnt get back in oswald was the only one who didnt go outside that was on the 6th floor
his boss turned him in when they asked who was all on the 6th floor everyone else was accounted for oswald was interviewed by police then he left,susequently when they went to talk to him again he was gone that raised suspicion of the police.the question here if he had nothing to hide why did he leave?
6th the tippit shooting,buffs say not enough time due to EYEWITNESS testimony of the time it occured,well three different people had three different times that the shotting occured
also one of the buffs came to dallas to do the walk and couldnt do it in time. the things i see wrong with this is, number one the guy was 45 years old not 24 ,secondly he didnt live there hence he didnt know shortcuts and alleyways and the area has changed with new fences, houses torn down ect. he knew what he thought was lee's route.to make my point when oswald fled the scene of the tippit shooting he didnt walk down the street he cut through parking lots and yards to get away same as he was doing when he encountered tippit ,the question here is where was he going?
7th the grassy knoll,was there a shot fired from there? no, zapruder was standing right next to it with his secretary balancing him on the pedastal niether said they heard gunshots from the knoll or behind them
8th the head shot supposedly back and to the left shows a second gunman from the front,no it doesnt it actually proves the point that the shot was fired from behind ,alot of people dont know kennedy had a bad back and was wearing a back brace once the force of the shot pushed him foward,the brace held him up only place to go was back this is what made him recoil back if he was shot from the front the back of his head would be blown off not the front
9th if he was shot from the grassy knoll a definate hole would be present on the left side of the skull there is no such evidence of a hole on the left side of his head
10 single bullet theory,not a theory it is a fact,only the buffs call it a thoery why ,well first off they have conally facing foward at the time of the shot,he wasnt, he was turned to see what the noise was after the first shot missed,secondly they have him at the same elevation as kenedy in the car,he was not,he was in the jump seat which actually sat several inches lower than kennedy thirdly the zig zag is totally ludicris as conally set off to the side of kenedy by a few inches as well, as that is how the jump seat is set up to make it easier to get in and out of the back seat
11there has never ever been any other evidence that anyone else did it none,of course the buffs say it was manipulated or destroyed ect. but they can never produce any solid
evidence and the evidence against oswald shows is more than a shadow of a doubt
there are tons more these are just some of my observations of the buffs theory,none of them hold water but they continue to add stuff as you knock it down. so heres my theory after reading everyone elses.
oswald wanted to be famous or the eye of attention,hence his trip to russia he stayed as long as he thought he was the man,after the new wore off and he was just another peasant and figured out he would only be just a peasant he came back.then with nothing to show for himself he figures the best way to be famous is kill someone famous,i think he wanted to be caught personally,heres is some of my reasons why,the bus station is 4 blocks from dealy plaza he coulda simply easily vanished into thin air and been in another country by the next day ,oswald went home and got a gun.he left the gun at the sbd scene and didnt hide it very well, he left shell casings a no no ,he ordered the gun through a paper trail easily linked to him,he left marina a note that morning and his wedding ring and payed up all the bills,like he knew he was not comming back.he thought he would go to jail and tell his story for many years being the amn that shot the prez.he didnt anticipate ole sparky
here is one conspiracy page i think you should all read it is so funny the reason why i give it no credance is if you read where this guy parked and the way he left the area it isnt possible first off the parking lot never existed and secondly houston street the one he left on was closed off no way he drove down it minutes after the shootng . the web page is
jfkmurdersolved.com
another conspiracy page is jfklancer.com this is a one sided forum you will be dragged throught the mud and insulted if you dont believe a conspiracy exists they call us the trolls
this has always been my favorite subject as i live in dallas and after 39 years here i still say oswald did it all by himself and wanted to get caught so he to could be famous
and id say he acomplished this, we are still talking about him 40 years later.