Conspiracy Theories: The Assassination of JFK

Conspiracy theories are something I always find fascinating, however at the end of the day I consider myself a big believer in cause and effect. Stevo brought JFK up in another thread, and rather completely take over his thread I thought we could chat about it here. Next week if this goes well Ill start another topic on a different conspiracy theory.

The facts:
- On Nov 22nd 1963 JFK was shot and killed in Dallas whilst sitting next to his wife Jackie in a presidential motorcade.
- The shooting happened at 12:30, he was pronounced dead at 13:00.
- Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested at between 13:30 and 14:30.
- Oswald was himself assassinated on Nov 24th during a prison transfer.

There are multiple conspiracy theories that have been outlined over the years, best seen summarised on wikipedia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_F._Kennedy_assassination_conspiracy_theories#CIA_conspiracy

So what do you think happened?

 

So the Warren Commission was published in September 24 1964 and concluded that President Kennedy was assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald and that he acted entirely alone. It also concluded that Jack Ruby who killed Oswald acted alone.

 

Conspiracy, probably all the way to the top m8.

 

Theresa May did it.

 

Well she is responsible for everything else according to Momen.... Whoops I mean the Labour party, and our wonderful impartial media. So we might as well pin this on her as well, though she was probably being very naughty and running through a farmers wheet field at the time

Come to think of it she wasn't even PM when this report about the other London fire she was supposed to have ignored was put before the authorities, and I imagine she had probably never even heard of it before this week, and even if she had heard of it she rightly probably would have thought Cameron and co. would have looked at it and made the necessary decisions on it, long before she became PM!

So why the **** is she getting all the blame?

 

Ive read a couple of books on the killing of John Kennedy and like most people have seen Oliver Stones's JFK.. plus assorted documentaries.

What really got me thinking was reading the book Double Cross, the biography of Chicago mob boss Sam Giancana. In the book it outlined how mafia connected Kennedy sr had promised the mob immunity if they could help get his son in the White House, how JFK had instead gone after them once in power and how the mob were therefore the main driving force behind the assignation.. payback for double crossing them.
The mob arranged the hit but to cover their tracks they covertly hired Oswald to be the 'patsy' and also may have had some inside help from rogue elements inside government. The last act being Oswald's demise (before he could talk) at the hands of mob related Jack Ruby.

That all seemed plausible to me.

 

Ignore the thread hijackers trying to make themselves feel better about the people they voted for.

Regards your suggestion on the other thread. I had seen the programme after all and was quite dismissive of it if I recall. It needed, if I remember, the idea of Oswald shooting from where he did and successfully shooting through trees despite being 'Maggies Drawers' and I don't buy that theory. So to me, it eliminates the overall.

JFK had so many enemies that it's likely we'll never know.

Inside job led by Oil barons, military hardware companies and LBJ? Possibly, LBJ about turned on a lot of JFK's policies most notably the Vietnam descalement plan.

FBI led due to the Bay Of Pigs? Possibly, he made a LOT of enemies with that and being conciliatory during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Oswald didn't act like an assassin after the shooting. Calmly walking around the Book Depository, leaving, running at sprint pace to another part of town, shooting a policeman, running back to town to cinema where he apparently didn't pay to get in despite having a sum of money on him.

So many questions. So little time in a post.

 

Sorry to correct you but Oswald first took a bus after the shooting but got off after a couple of blocks because of heavy traffic. He then took a taxi ride to his lodgings (a distance of about 3 km's) After that he walked his neighborhood until shooting Tippit. The cinema was another kilometer or so away.. but further from the city center. The reason given for him not buying a ticket was that he panicked after hearing police sirens.. by then he probably knew the game was up anyway.

 

EDIT - I've found the info now.

 

You'll obviously need to zoom out to see exactly where this is but this is where Tippit was shot.. https://goo.gl/maps/f4PsHCxLvrP2

and this is where he was apprehended at the Texas theater.. https://goo.gl/maps/qdR4jbEdMSE2

You will see both are away from the center of Dallas.

and here's a link to the bus/taxi he took.. http://www.nbcnewyork.com/jfk-50/JFK--Map-LocationOswald-Escapes-Hails-Taxi-215531051.html

 

Sorry just saw this but i'll leave my post there as it's real interesting

One thing i didnt realise was that Oswald walked back downtown after getting off the bus.. even going past the cavalcade route.
This might be where you got mixed up.

 

Definitely the most plausable explanation. There were three shots which hit JFK. Oswald shot three times but missed with one of his shots. One of the FBI guard following in the open top car behind went to grab his rifle after he heard the first shot. He had one bullet in the rifle chamber ready to shoot but as he grabbed the gun, the car he was in suddenly jerked forward and as he lifted the rifle he accidentally fired the shot. Perhaps one in a million chance but it was suggested in the documentary that this was the fatal bullet which killed JFK. The pathology report suggests that the bullet which went through JFK's head was not fired by Oswald but by a bullet coming from a gun the type which the FBI used at the time.

 

Very interesting reading, thanks for posting. I haven't ever looked into this taxi ride information before. I've got some counter points that I'll put together when I have a bit more time. I'm sure this thread will be around for a while.

 

Simmos and happy hornet I think we all watched the same documentary, it was followed up by a film about Jackie Kennedy.

I agree to me it seems the most plausible cause. The gun used by Oswald was a carcano rifle which fired a smaller caliber round to that which did that amount of damage to his head. The secret service agent was called hickey I believe. He was not actually supposed to be in the car on that day either. To me it strikes of just super bad luck.

 

So Stevo on the other thread you suggested that the shot that killed Kennedy came from the grassy knoll?

It appears we agree that it was probably not the shots of Oswald that actually killed Kennedy correct?

 

I saw an interesting documentary about this back in 1997.
It's alleged that the actual fatal shot was from a grassy knoll. The shooter was a future version of Kennedy himself who was persuaded to do so as it was best for the US, by a group of four who had inadvertently interfered in the initial assassination attempt whilst travelling back in time to obtain some curry.

It all seemed pretty plausible to me.

 

About

About as plausible as Messi playing for Watford. It may have happened in some time travel future version of a Watford team

 

This was covered in the 'have you ever built a time machine' thread

 

It was Cuban mafia wot dun it. Certain 100%. I forget all their names, but Gaspar Jiménez Escobedo was one of them. Dead himself now since 2014.

The mafia lost their playground in Havana in 1959. They thought they'd get it back via the Bay of Pigs and were outraged when Kennedy wouldn't send regular US troops to back up the mercenaries' invasion of Cuba. Then there was his failure to press the nuclear button during the October Crisis (missile crisis to you) and obliterate the world. The extreme right in the US considered him to be too weak to stand up the Soviet 'threat' and decided he had to go.

You can imagine these people as being like the beetroot-faced nuke loving old gentlemen who appeared on question time, except multiplied by 1000.

The CIA had worked with the mafia since the second world war and the invasion of Sicily. With the mafia also hating Kennedy for not getting them back their Havana casinos and brothels, it was easy for them to conspire to assassinate the President.

The ex-Batista assassin Cubans were used as they were on many occasions in joint CIA/mafia joint ventures - notably of course the hundreds of failed attempts on Fidel's life and the Watergate scandal (Cuban burglars!). They were trained by the very same CIA in guerilla techniques and used them brutally all around Latin America and the world. Wherever there is trouble in the world, there's usually one of those Miami mafia at the bottom of it.

There were several gunmen, of course.[/quote]

 

After watching the Zapruda film in JFK (you know, "back and to the left, back and to the left") it always bothered me which convinced me the shooter had to be on the grassy knoll. I still have no idea however there was a great series by Penn & Teller call 'Bullsh!t' where they covered conspiracy theories...



I don't know the physics, however, considering LHO was in an elevated position, would the down ward trajectory have the same effect?

I'm not into conspiracy theories, I don't believe 9/11 was an inside job, however the Kennedy assasination, leaves me thinking the lone gunman scenario is a little hard to swallow.

Put it his way, if there were other shooters, most likely they would have been dead within a few hours.

 

[/QUOTE]

sounds very sketchy to me. Why would the mafia want kennedy to press the nuclear button? In fact why would anybody want Kennedy to push the nuclear button?

 

I agree this proves quite eloquently that the shot probably came from behind. However the interesting thing about this is the calibre of bullet that could cause that kind of damage to Kennedy's head. Most recent studies suggest that you would need a FMJ round to cause that kind of damage, the only FMJ rounds in use that day were in the secret service assault rifle.

 

From what I heard, during the October crisis, they specified a certain parallel that Soviet ships must not cross en route to Cuba. Kruschev sent the order out for them not to cross that parallel, but there was some mix up or one ship didn't get the signal or something and crossed the line.

When the news was relayed back to the Whitehouse that a ship had crossed the parallel, all the chiefs of staff and military were urging Kennedy to push the button. He broke down and cried and wouldn't do it. He said he couldn't be responsible for the end of humankind.

For that reason they considered him soft and incapable of standing up to the Soviets if/when it came to it, so they wanted him gone.

 

I'd suggest watching 13 Days with Kevin Costner...excellent film, based on the Oval office recordings.

 

Well i did say "or not" but yes my overall thought having first seen Oliver Stones film and then several documentaries, plus written articles, is that the lone gunman idea is hard to swallow.

The main reasons i'd suggest that are that Oswald was known to have been a poor marksman.. that he would have needed superhuman reaction time to get off the shots he was supposed to have (using an old bolt action rifle) and the whole scenario of what each shot was supposed to have achieved.

If you dont buy the lone gunman idea and think about what happened that day then it also makes sense that Dealey Plaza would have been the best place to set up the "triangular crossfire" that's been suggested by many. Other places along the motorcade route not having the perfect mix of open space, with raised banking and some high rise buildings. Some have also suggested other gunmen placed in other areas of Dealey Plaza.
By the way if want to see what it was like on the grassy knoll have a look here.. https://goo.gl/maps/VhZnuMqpHS42
Note how much scope there was for a clean getaway from that area.

 

JFK, whilst entertaining, was a horrible representation of what 'happened'.

http://www.jfk-online.com/jfk100menu.html

 

Indeed, on Bobby Kennedy's book no less. I'd recommend it to anyone with a passing interest in JFK or the internal posturing during situations like the Cuban Missile Crisis.

General LeMay genuinely wanted to invade Cuba. 'The big red dog is digging in our backyard and we are well within our rights to shoot him' was not a made up quote.

The General's wanted to take Cuba. They felt the Soviets were weak and wouldn't retaliate if they had invaded, which they'd wanted to long before the Bay Of Pigs, which caused them huge embarrassment whilst Kennedy was not particularly effected in the eyes of the public.

 

Correct. The threat of a second invasion after Playa Giron (Bay of Pigs) was enormous. Tins were rattled on street corners in Miami and potential invaders trained in the Florida swamps in full public view. There was lots of lobbying of the US government to do a full-scale invasion.

For that reason, the most important thing to come out of the Missile Crisis settlement was a US promise not to invade Cuba. That is often overlooked when (western) people foolishly say things like "Kruschev blinked first!" and portray it as a marvellous victory for the USA.

In fact, of course, Kruschev probably saved our bacon. He was the sensible one who stepped back from the brink. Many in the USA were fired up for war.

The USA also agreed to withdraw their nukes from Turkey - on the border of the USSR. Which seemed only fair.

The whole thing was blown up from USA hubris right from the start. Why shouldn't Cuba have nukes to defend itself from the imminent and obvious threat of invasion from overseas? It's a sovereign country and able to make its own decisions in the same way the UK has decided to be a station for US nukes. I really don't see what the difference is.

I think the mistake of Kruschev was not to do what Fidel wisely advised. They should have moved the nukes to Cuba openly and not under cover. It was something that was fully in line with international law and a completely permissable deal between one sovereign country and another.

There was a symposium at Oxford University last year to mark the 50th anniversary of the Missile Crisis. I wanted to go as I have read about it extensively, but it was £350 or something stupid.

I tried to blag my way in as a member of the Cuban press (I still have my old UPEC Cuban journalists' union card) but they weren't buying it. I tried everything. They wouldn't even buckle under threats of the outrage being reported back to the Central Committee in Havana. So I couldn't go. A shame we poor are always excluded from taking part in things like this because our opinions are apparently of no interest.

 

Maybe so.. but it introduced a lot of people to the subject upon release.
We didnt have intenet back then so conspiracy theories were thin on the ground and i cant recall seeing too much on tv either. We all knew of doubts surrounding the death of JFK but not many of us understood what they were until we'd seen the film.
Ok it was a Hollywood production and like all movies no doubt messed around with reality quite a bit.. but it also brought up many points that have been argued by various theorists before and since and showed us the 'mechanics' of what happened that fateful day.

It was the starting point for many of us.


PS That link will take months to go through but from the few parts i have read now they seem to be replacing one unsubstantiated idea with another.

 

Agreed completely. It was my first real introduction to the case and I've watched it many times. It's a great movie, especially for someone who doesn't believe Oswald was the killer, like myself.

I've spent many hours studying that website and it's quite shocking how much that Stone basically made up. It's well worth your time. Will take you a while though.

 

So lets talk about the grassy knoll then. I agree with you Steve there is plenty of space for an individual to make an escape from there? However in a wide open space like that surely someone would have seen someone running away or holding a gun? For the round to cause that kind of damage to Kennedy's head it would need to be a round of a decent calibre, and a gunshot like that is going to be noticed by the individuals around. Also it would be a bloody difficult shot with Jackie sitting where she was?

 

Any shot from the grassy knoll would have come from the front/right hand side of the car. So Jackie sitting on the left of JFK would not have come into the equation. John Connally sat in front of the president might have.. but looking at pics of the presidential car shows how spacious it was and how far back JFK was sat..



He really was very much out in the open and seemingly shots from the right and quite far forward of the car still would have been possible. Added to which Connally was slumped to his left when the fatal head shot hit, giving even more scope for shots from the front right.
BTW that pic came from this quite remarkable pictorial record.. http://kennedy-photos.blogspot.no/

As for angles of any potential shots taken from the area are concerned you can find lots of diagrams by searching for "grassy knoll diagrams" on Google images. Here is one such diagram.. https://ratical.org/ratville/JFK/images/TUM7.jpg

The area behind the picket fence of the grassy knoll was at the time apparently a Dallas Police Department parking lot which with supposed restricted public access. So.. to believe any story about shots coming from there you'd have to either believe there was some kind of police cooperation or the unlikely event that the shooter(s) got lucky and the area was free of police and public. The area behind the picket fence is quite secluded from the road and dark due to the trees there.
You should also look up the story of the three "hobbo's" that were supposedly apprehended in that area.

As for people noticing shots.. well there were several public statements suggesting they heard gunfire from that direction. That could well have been echo of course especially so near the underpass. Also any weapons could have been fitted with silencers... i guess you can get them for rifles? Many people rushed towards that area after the shooting and you'd have to ask why? Were they being brave and trying to apprehend the gunman? Were they running away from the book depository? Or was there just mass hysteria and confusion?
This photo shows how many people went to the area of the grassy knoll/train tracks in the aftermath.. https://i2.wp.com/jfkfacts.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/Screen-Shot-2015-01-30-at-5.48.50-PM.png

Ok more later but i'll let you digest that first!

 

Wow that Kennedy photos website is quite intense isn't it. So weird seeing pictures of him that morning, with what follows in the early afternoon. I see what you mean about the grassy knoll there are plenty of opportunities for shooting angles from that location. However no reliable witness has ever reported seeing an individual legging it from there or one who was carrying a firearm? Surely with the amount of people in attendance someone would have seen something? In addition to civilians you have secret service agents on the car behind looking in all different directions for potential threats. Of course we have to consider cover-ups but I consider it exceedingly unlikely that nobody notices anything.