Warren Commission and HSCA

It occurred to me that I hadn't provided anyone who reads this blog (if in fact such a person or persons exist) with a benchmark by which to judge the findings of these independent researchers. There were two major federal investigations into the assassination: there was the Warren Commission in 1964 and the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) in 1978 following the assassinations of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr.

More after the jump...

The Kill Zone: Reactions (Part 3 of 4)

One of the most confusing aspects of the events that took place in Dealey Plaza surround the actions of Lee Harvey Oswald in the Dallas School Book Depository. Dallas Police Chief Jesse Curry said it best when he admitted to newsmen "We don't have any proof that Oswald fired the rifle, and never did. Nobody's yet been able to put him in that building with a gun in his hand."

I'll start with the account given by a fellow depository worker, Bonnie Ray Williams. Williams claimed that he went to the sixth floor of the depository where he thought other workers were going to watch the motorcade. He sat down and began eating his lunch. After nobody else showed, he said he put down his lunch and left at approximately 12:20. He then joined two other workers on the fifth floor, directly below what was later determined to be the "sniper's nest." As the President's limo turned onto Elm, these three men said they heard three shots and that they "came from practically right over our heads." One of the three men even said he heard the sounds of the bolt-action rifle and "shells hitting the floor." Marrs, the author of Crossfire, immediately points out the major concerns regarding their testimony given to the Warren Commission. He notes that if the ceiling was thin enough for them to hear the shells as well as the bolt action of the rifle, how come they had not heard anyone moving around beforehand? Also, if Williams really was on the sixth floor until 12:20, how does one explain the multiple accounts that a man with a rifle was seen on the sixth floor at 12:15?

More after the jump...

The Kill Zone: Reactions (Part 2 of 4)

This second post will deal primarily with some of the oddities that occurred that afternoon but were never fully explained or examined by the Warren Commission or the House Select Committee on Assassinations.

More witnesses claim to hear more than three shots.

• A.J. Millican, who was standing on the north side of Elm reported that he heard eight shots: three from the depository, two more from between the underpass and the depository (in other words, the fenced area of the knoll), and then finally three more shots from the same direction, but further back. A co-worker of Millican's claimed he heard at least five shots. Jesse Price, who was watching the parade from the Union Terminal Annex on the corner of Houston and Main, said that "there was a volley of shots, I think five and then much later...another one."

More after the jump...

New Photos Added

I just added three more relevant photos taken during the assassination.

• The Mary Moorman Photo: Taken right before the fatal headshot. 
• The James Altgens Photo: Taken just after Kennedy is first hit. Looking through the windshield, you can see the President's arms up by his throat. The Secret Service are looking back towards the depository. 
• The Phillip Willis Photo: Taken in conjunction with Z202, this shows Kennedy right before he disappears behind the Stemmons Freeway sign in the Zapruder Film. 
• Umbrella Weapon: Diagram of possible weapon used by the unidentified "umbrella man."

The Kill Zone: Reactions (Part 1 of 4)

The first chapter of Crossfire is entitled "The Kill Zone" and, as you would expect, it deals with the events that took place within the confines of Dealey Plaza (Note: there is a link on the right-hand side that will show a map of Dealey Plaza for reference) before, during, and after the assassination. The main points that I wanted to focus on while reading this chapter are nothing new; they are the same questions that people have been asking since the first shot was fired. How many shots were there? Where did they come from? Who pulled the trigger?

With those thoughts in mind, my initial reactions are after the jump...

Stabilized Zapruder Film

This is a stabilized version of the famous film shot by Abraham Zapruder. Many experts believe that the film has been tampered with and is therefore not a reliable depiction of events. I will discuss these claims further when I get to the book The Great Zapruder Film Hoax. But for now, see if you can spot anything out of the ordinary...

My Reading List

What really happened in Dealey Plaza on November 22, 1963? Growing up, I was taught that President Kennedy was shot by a lone gunman, Lee Harvey Oswald, from a window on the sixth floor of the Dallas School Book Depository. At the time, which was many years ago, I saw no problem with this; after all, Kennedy wasn't the first president to be assassinated. As time went on, I began to realize it was not so cut-and-dry. There was talk of a conspiracy, of a second or even third gunman on an area that would become famously known as the grassy knoll. Some say it was the Cubans; others say the Russians. Some would even go so far as to say that the CIA and Lyndon Johnson had a hand in it. With all this information being tossed around, I decided that if I wanted to really understand what happened to our 35th President, I would need to research it on my own from a number of different sources spanning all the different theories and controversies. I began by picking up Crossfire: The Plot That Killed Kennedy by Jim Marrs. This book was the basis for the Oliver Stone film JFK . As of now, I'm about 200 pages into it and there is so much information in just those 200 pages that I haven't really been able to absorb it all. It's decidely pro-conspiracy, and I will be breaking down my thoughts on the first chapter of the book, "The Kill Zone," later this week.


In addition to Crossfire, I will be reading the following books: Never Again, Oswald and the CIA, Murder in Dealey Plaza, Falling Chips: A Deconstruction of the Single-Bullet Theory of the JFK Assassination, The Warren Commission Report: The Official Report of the President's Commission on the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy, and The Great Zapruder Film Hoax. I picked these books because each of them deals with a different aspect of the assassination, which hopefully will allow me to piece together as much information as possible in order to form an educated opinion on what really happened that day in Dallas.

And while I don't have them yet, Grassy Knoll Witnesses and Someone Would Have Talked are two more that I would like to add to my collection before all is said and done.

In addition to the books, I will be posting and discussing clips from documentaries, specials, and other video resources.