tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36492447189100771282024-03-13T16:31:14.113-04:00Zapruder 313My Journey Through the JFK AssassinationZ313http://www.blogger.com/profile/10519213258443951620noreply@blogger.comBlogger13125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3649244718910077128.post-23106967615540629392010-05-04T10:08:00.001-04:002010-05-04T10:20:24.770-04:00The Arrest of Jack LawrenceBefore I get into the mess that is the case against Oswald for the shooting of police officer J.D. Tippit, there is one other strange arrest from November 22 that I wanted to point out. Jack Lawrence was arrested in the late afternoon after the assassination because he exhibited some suspicious behavior after he showed up late to work. The story goes, according to Marrs, that Lawrence got the job a month before based on what turned out to be fake references from an alleged previous job in New Orleans. He never sold a car in the month leading up to the assassination, but the night before he borrowed one to use on a date. The next morning, Lawrence was late to work, showing up without the car, clothes muddied, and out of breath. It was reported that he rushed into the bathroom where he threw up. When asked about the car, he told his boss that he had to park it because of all the traffic. The car was later found to be parked behind the wooden picket fence on top of the Grassy Knoll. Lawrence was subsequently arrested for his behavior but released later that day.<br />
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<i>More after the jump...</i> <br />
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After a quick Google search on Lawrence, I found that in a 1992 article, "Jack Lawrence Responds," in which the suspect offers his side of the story, something that the Warren Commission and HSCA never bothered to do. He claims that he left for work in the borrowed car around 12:35pm but because of the motorcade, he soon ran into a ton of traffic. Not wanting to be late for work, he parked his car on the corner of Ervay and Main and walked the rest of the way. Lawrence tells us that the claims of his clothes being muddied, that he threw up, and the car being parked behind the Knoll are completely false. <br />
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There are a couple of things that stick out to me. First, the false references from New Orleans of all places. I really haven't seen much of an explanation for this, and while I'm sure he isn't the first guy to write something fake on his resume, the tie to New Orleans is suspicious. Second, what motivation would the other dealership employees have to falsely report the suspicious activity? If Lawrence didn't show up muddied and didn't throw up, why would someone report his activity to the police? Interestingly enough, of the 16 identifiable employees of the dealership on the day of the assassination, only 6 remained a few months later. I've never worked in the auto industry, but it seems like an extremely high turnover rate. Finally, in further looking into this incident, it turned out that a Lee Harvey Oswald imposter took a test drive from this same dealership along the route that the motorcade would eventually follow. The salesman who rode with this man never bothered to report it when the actual Oswald was arrested because he feared it would bring bad publicity for the dealership.<br />
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Basically, I find it very odd how someone's reported activity can be so suspicious, yet it is never looked into by either of the two primary investigations, especially when Lawrence denies nearly every claim made about his actions that day. Just another extremely odd piece of this impossible puzzle. Z313http://www.blogger.com/profile/10519213258443951620noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3649244718910077128.post-21092384954719340032010-03-11T11:33:00.005-05:002010-03-11T12:40:46.123-05:00Executive Session: January 22, 1964<div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: justify;"><a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/85/Warren_commission_cover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/85/Warren_commission_cover.jpg" vt="true" width="248" /></a>I have read in a number of sources that the Warren Commission was doomed from the start and there were meeting notes to prove it. So, thanks to History-Matters.com, I was able to obtain a copy of the official declassified transcript from the executive session meeting on January 22, 1964. The executive sessions were the closed-door meetings of the members of the Commission, and on this day, they were discussing what to do about rumors that Lee Harvey Oswald was an agent of US intelligence. You can read the <a href="http://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcexec/pdf/WcEx0122.pdf">13-page transcript </a>here. </div><div style="text-align: justify;">It is on this date, in my opinion, that the Warren Commission's desire to seek the truth died. This meeting, which took place before the first witness was ever called, begins with general counsel James Lee Rankin alerting fellow members that rumors are surfacing in Dallas that Oswald was an undercover agent of the FBI. The Attorney General of Texas had called Rankin that morning because an unknown former FBI agent had told the defense counsel for Jack Ruby about Oswald and the FBI. The members discuss the means of proving or disproving this, concluding that even if it were true, the FBI would never admit it. Since the FBI was conducting the investigation, they controlled the flow of evidence. If this rumor were true, or even leaked to the public, the implications would be devastating for the Commission and the FBI. However, there were a number of members on the Commission expressed an interest in researching this further because there were elements of Oswald's life that didn't quite add up. For example, Gerald Ford pointed out that Oswald was "playing ball, writing letters to both the elements of the Communist parties. I mean he was playing ball with the Trotskyites and with the others. This was a strange circumstance to me." Rep. Dale Boggs suggested, "It is conceivable that [Oswald] may have been brought back from Russia." Even former Director of the CIA Allen Dulles thought there was more to this than meets the eye. He stated, referring to the FBI, "They have some people, sometimes American Communists who go to Russia under their guidance and so forth and so on under their control." I find this last quote odd, because the CIA had been running the false defector program. Was Dulles trying to turn the focus away from the CIA? Was Oswald working for both agencies without the other knowing about it? </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a name='more'></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The real disturbing news is found on pages 11-13, where it is admitted that the Commission knows that the FBI has already made up their mind that Oswald was the lone gunman and there was no conspiracy. Again, the FBI made this decision before the first witness was even called. Rankin notes that this is contrary to his past dealing with the FBI and that they have reached this conclusion without vetting the various leads in Mexico and Russia. Rankin concludes, "They found the man. There is nothing more to do. The Commission supports their conclusions, and we can go home and this is the end of it." </div><div style="text-align: justify;">As if that is not egregious enough, the members decided that the record of this meeting should be destroyed. Lucky for us, someone decided against this and the record now exists. This document wasn’t declassified and released to the public until 1974, long after the Commission’s final report had been issued. We can only wonder what the public backlash would have been had this come out during the actual investigation. Perhaps then, the Commission wouldn’t have been able to ignore all the evidence, witnesses, and testimony that they did. </div>Z313http://www.blogger.com/profile/10519213258443951620noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3649244718910077128.post-29535447469038784442010-03-09T08:17:00.001-05:002010-03-10T14:20:38.495-05:00Comrade Oswald: Agent or Defector?There is no shortage of material on Lee Harvey Oswald's journey to the Soviet Union at the peak of the Cold War. As I wrote before, John Newman's <i>Oswald and the CIA</i> is on my to-do list, though I probably won't get to it anytime soon. Jim Marrs does discuss Oswald's trek into the heart of communism and the strange details about his entry, life, and return home.<br />
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For the years leading up to his defection, Oswald was a low-level Marine who, despite openly professing a support of the United States' greatest enemy, worked on a base in Japan where top secret U2 spy plane operations were underway. Oswald returned home in September of 1959, and by 1960 he was beginning his new life in Moscow. To this day, what Oswald was doing remains a mystery. Marrs points out that US intelligence, which by this point may have already recruited Oswald in some capacity, was running a "false defector" program. This program, as the name surely gives away, would plant US agents posing as communist sympathizers in an effort to gain valuable information on the inside. Was Oswald a part of this program? While we may never know for sure, let's examine the actions of the young defector.<br />
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Oswald was, by most accounts, a loner from a poor family. Surely he acquired no wealth during his brief stint in the Marines (he was making $85 a week and was fined a number of times for his altercations in Japan). For a man who seems to have nothing, he encounters little or no obstacles traveling across the globe and obtaining all the necessary documents with unprecedented ease. Remember - Oswald received his US passport less than a week after applying! Another example of Oswald's potential connection to the intelligence community took place when he went to the US embassy on a Saturday to officially defect. He was informed by senior consulate officials Richard Snyder and John McVickar that he would have to return on a weekday to make the defection official. Oswald left and never returned. While this may appear a simple mistake to some, others view it as a calculated move that would allow Oswald to retain his US citizenship and eventually return home.<br />
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During his time in Russia, Oswald does not live like the average Soviet. Nearly everything the does while abroad raises red flags. He managed to acquire a substantial monthly stipend from the Red Cross. He is introduced to and, a month later, marries a Russian woman. Then, apparently after finding out that communist life was not what he had expected, Oswald manages to get a loan from the State Department for this trip home. We must not forget that before leaving for Russia, Oswald did everything he could to convince those around him that his sympathy for the communist cause was legitimate. So when all is said and done, an open supporter of communism who defected received money from the US government for he and his Russian wife to return to the US, no questions asked (not by the CIA or FBI, as far as we know). This is even stranger when you consider that Oswald, if he truly was a defector, possessed classified information about the U2 spy planes and posed a security risk for the whole operation when he took up residence in Moscow. Why would the US government not be concerned with what this man had done while in the USSR? <br />
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Meanwhile, his new bride is able to easily and quickly obtain the proper documents to leave the country with a defector, despite, as Marrs points out, some problems with her background check (wrong birthplace listed, gave the name of her father though she claimed to have never know who he was). <br />
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There are two major questions about Lee and Marina's return home. First, if they traveled back together, as all account claim they did, then one would expect that their passports have stamps from the same checkpoints. But of course, as is everything else about the JFK assassination, it is not the case. Marina's passport was stamped in Helmstedt, a checkpoint on the East German border. Oswald's passport has no such stamp. Was it during this time in the couple's travel that Lee was debriefed by the CIA? The second is the couple's baggage count. When the Oswald's landed in New York, they had seven suitcases. When they left NY, they had only five. When they arrived in Fort Worth, they had only two. I would be remiss if I did not consider that at times, luggage is lost during travel. But five of seven bags disappear at different points throughout the journey? And only while traveling within the US? I can only wonder what was in those bags...Z313http://www.blogger.com/profile/10519213258443951620noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3649244718910077128.post-10370184662920657402010-03-07T16:11:00.000-05:002010-03-07T16:11:15.306-05:00Marine Lee Harvey Oswald(skovich?)The next chapter of Marrs' book delves into the mysterious life of alleged assassin Lee Harvey Oswald. I'm going to pass on discussing this in too much detail because I have another book that focuses solely on this issue. Yet, I will give an overview of the case that Marrs makes and the troubling questions he raises about Oswald's possible connections to US Intelligence and what that means about the assassination.<br />
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<ul><li>When Oswald was sixteen years old, he joined the Civil Air Patrol where he met a Captain named David Ferrie. Ferrie was a known right-winger, and had connections with various anti-Castro groups as well as the CIA and FBI. It was after meeting Ferrie that Oswald began sharing his procommunist feelings, which many researchers have taken to mean that Ferrie may have influenced Oswald to act in such a way as a means of creating a cover to later be used as a US agent. </li>
</ul><i>More after the jump...<a name='more'></a></i> <br />
<ul><li>Oswald's next move was to join the Marines, which seems strange for someone who, over the past year, had gone out of this way to profess his procommunist stance to everyone he could. It was at Marine basic training that Oswald was dubbed "Shitbird" because he initially failed to qualify on the M-1 rifle. This was particularly interesting to learn because of the extreme accuracy that would have been needed to fire the three shots from six stories up at a moving target, which the Warren Commission believed Oswald had, in fact, done. According to Vol. 7 of the Warren Commission, Oswald would eventually qualify as a "sharpshooter" by 2 points over the minimum. "Sharpshooter" is second in the marksman/sharpshooter/expert scale. </li>
<li>Oswald went on to continue both his training and his procommunist sentiment, yet no note was ever made on his record by his superiors. Eventually, Oswald was sent to Japan to work on an air base where the top-secret U2 spy plane flights were taking place. This same base was the CIA's main headquarters in the far east. </li>
<li>While serving in Japan, Oswald would short visits to Tokyo, where he made friends with a hostess at one of the cities most expensive nightclubs. For a low-level enlisted Marine, this seemed like an awfully expensive venue to visit so often. Marrs points out that what may have been going on is that the CIA was using Oswald as a spy, believing that Japanese agents frequented the same nightclub in an effort to acquire intelligence from higher-level base personnel. </li>
<li>Perhaps the most concrete piece of evidence that Oswald may have been involved in the intelligence community are his medical records dated September 16, 1958. The records state "Urethritis, Acute, due to gonococcus #0303. Origin: In line of duty, Not due to own misconduct." In what line of duty would a young Marine be expected to contract a venereal disease? What is even more intriguing is that Oswald and his unit were transferred to Formosa (now Taiwan) on September 14th, two days before the date listen on his medical chart. </li>
<li>There was an incident earlier in 1957, shortly before Oswald's unit was to be transferred. Oswald claimed to have dropped his pistol, which accidentally discharged and grazed his arm. This required a seemingly excessive three weeks of medical treatment. Shortly after his official reprimand for the discharge incident in April of 1958, Oswald picked a fight with a non-commissioned officer and was sentenced to 45 days in the brig. Only one other Marine in the brig during that time recalled seeing Oswald. Researchers believe that these two extended periods of time away from his unit were used to further train Oswald in the ways of espionage, which would later explain his seemingly sudden proficiency in Russian. </li>
<li>Oswald continued to public embrace communism. It reached the point where he would answer questions in Russian and he earned a new nickname: Oswaldskovich. Despite his court-martial for improper discharging of a weapon, his incident with the non-com, and his openness about his apparent support of communism, Lee Harvey Oswald was granted a dependency discharge so he could care for his mother. He also applied for a passport, where he stated that he "might travel to various countries, including Cuba and Russia." These claims don't do much to support the story that he was going home to care for his mother, yet his passport was issued less than a week later. </li>
</ul>Less than a month after returning home to care for his mother who, medically speaking, needed no care at all, Oswald boarded a ship and set sail for Europe. By the end of the year, Oswald would be in Moscow.Z313http://www.blogger.com/profile/10519213258443951620noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3649244718910077128.post-12681264424907062052010-03-03T15:14:00.001-05:002010-03-03T15:29:06.354-05:00Orville Nix FilmThis is some video shot by Orville Nix, who was standing on the south side of Elm near Main Street. Two things stick out to me when comparing this to the Zapruder film: first, notice how Kennedy's limo nearly comes to a stop as the final headshot is delivered. This was reported by a number of eye witnesses, yet is not see in the Zapruder film. Second, notice where the crowd begins to run after the motorcade exits Dealey Plaza: the grassy knoll. One would certainly expect a part of the crowd to gravitate that way simply because it's the same direction the motorcade was going, however there are a few in the background seen running towards the area of the fence. <br />
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<a href="http://www.blogger.com/%3Cobject%20width=%22425%22%20height=%22344%22%3E%3Cparam%20name=%22movie%22%20value=%22http://www.youtube.com/v/Tuc7CJhhfos&hl=en_US&fs=1&%22%3E%3C/param%3E%3Cparam%20name=%22allowFullScreen%22%20value=%22true%22%3E%3C/param%3E%3Cparam%20name=%22allowscriptaccess%22%20value=%22always%22%3E%3C/param%3E%3Cembed%20src=%22http://www.youtube.com/v/Tuc7CJhhfos&hl=en_US&fs=1&%22%20type=%22application/x-shockwave-flash%22%20allowscriptaccess=%22always%22%20allowfullscreen=%22true%22%20width=%22425%22%20height=%22344%22%3E%3C/embed%3E%3C/object%3E"><object height="344" width="425"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/Tuc7CJhhfos&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/Tuc7CJhhfos&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object></a>Z313http://www.blogger.com/profile/10519213258443951620noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3649244718910077128.post-49649813142893254792010-03-02T22:13:00.003-05:002010-03-04T08:40:30.904-05:00The Kill Zone: Reactions (Part 4 of 4)This final post on the first chapter of Marr's book will cover a number of accounts, descriptions, events and evidence ignored by the Warren Commission and the FBI when conducting their investigation. In this case there are a number of instances so I will try to point out those that, to me, seemed the most relevant and convincing.<br />
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The first issue is that of smoke on the grassy knoll. Sam Holland, a worker at the railyard behind the knoll, was watching the motorcade from atop the triple underpass. He heard four shots and was certain the third had come from behind the picket fence the separated the railyard parking lot from Dealey Plaza. Right in that very spot was a puff of white smoke lingering in the air. James Simmons, another railyard worker, gave a similar account. In a filmed interview in 1966, Simmons told the interviewer that "there was a puff of smoke that came from underneath the trees on the embankment directly in front of the wooden fence." Despite telling the same story to the FBI, his <a href="http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/russ/exhibits/ce1416.htm">official FBI report</a> from 1964 is vague and incomplete. Re-enactments carried out by the HSCA confirmed that puffs of smoke were both possible and common from rifles that would have been used in 1963.<br />
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<i>More after the jump...</i><br />
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The second and, in my opinion, the far more intriguing account is that of James Tague. Tague watched the motorcade from the concrete median between Commerce and Main, just out from under the triple underpass. During the shooting, Tague was hit in right cheek by a flying piece of concrete. After explaining to Deputy Sheriff Eddy Walthers what he had seen, they found a mark on the curb that Walthers recognized as being the result of a bullet, and noted so in his final report. Yet this extra bullet, which based on its location would have probably been the fourth, taken as the motorcade sped away, threw a wrench in the 3-bullet theory. After initially ignoring Tague's claims, the FBI investigated further and determined that a bullet had in fact it that spot on the curb, but determined that it was not a first impact mark. I won't attempt to explain the complicated testing that goes on to determine the mass of a bullet, but based on the FBI finding, the only bullet that could have lost enough lead to leave the traces left on the curb was the one in the final headshot, which occurred over 200 feet away from the mark. If the shot was a miss, it was a terrible miss, according to Marrs it would have missed Kennedy by 30 feet. This doesn't fit with the finding that Oswald was able to deliver the other shots with such accuracy.<br />
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The final instance is the account of Ed Hoffman, a 26 year old deaf mute. Hoffman watched the motorcade from a position about 200 yards west of the parking lot behind the picket fence: the perfect vantage point to see what, if anything, was going on behind the grassy knoll. Being deaf, he was unaware of the position of Kennedy's motorcade, but he was quite clear in stating that he saw a man in a suit and overcoat running west along the back of the fence with a rifle in his hand. At the end of the fence, he passed the rifle off to a second man in the uniform of a railyard worker, who promptly disassembled the rifle and placed in a bag, and then walked off to the north. The man in the overcoat headed back towards the knoll, walking calmly. Unsure of what was going on, Hoffman looked to the motorcade where he saw the President slumped over and bloody.<br />
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Hoffman tried numerous times to alert the authorities, unsuccessfully. Finally, in 1967, Hoffman visited the Dallas FBI. Much like with James Simmons, the FBI report does not accurately express what Hoffman had told others. Again in 1977, a coworker of Hoffman's contacted the FBI because he felt the agents must have misunderstood Hoffman in 1967. This time, with the coworker as translator, Hoffman gave the account as he did to his family in 1963. Unofficially, Hoffman claimed to have been intimidated by FBI agents who told him to drop his story or "you might get killed."<br />
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In conclusion, based on the testimony of numerous witnesses from various vantage points in Dealey Plaza, the following is clear: the majority of people heard shots from the area of the grassy knoll, there is evidence that shots where fired from two different positions (the knoll and the depository), and no one can place Oswald on the sixth floor at the time of the assassination, yet three people can place him on the second floor less the 90 seconds after the shots were fired.Z313http://www.blogger.com/profile/10519213258443951620noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3649244718910077128.post-9857612189686671992010-02-28T15:03:00.001-05:002010-02-28T15:12:18.905-05:00Warren Commission and HSCAIt 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.<br />
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<i>More after the jump...</i> <br />
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In short, the Warren Commission concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone gunman. He fired three shots, the first of which missed the target. The second shot hit President Kennedy in the back and exited through his throat. It then proceeded to hit Governor Connolly in the back, exit through his chest, hit his right wrist, and planted itself in the Governor's left thigh. This is also know as the "Single Bullet Theory." The third shot was the shot to Kennedy's head as shown in Zapruder film frame 313. The investigation was conducted primarily by the FBI. In the links section on the right-hand side, there is a link to many of the Commission's exhibits, included clothing, pictures, and statements made by witnesses. <br />
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The HSCA began it's investigation in 1976. Their findings were for the most part very similar to that of the Warren Commission. They, too, found that Oswald delivered the shots that hit the President, and agreed with the single bullet theory, though they determined to took place at a different time than the Warren Commission. However, based on acoustical evidence used during a re-enactment of the assassination, it was determined that there was in fact a second gunman on the grassy knoll who took the third of four total shots. It was determined that this shot missed due to the lack of any evidence of a bullet (this, of course, was investigated 16 years after that actual event.) They concluded that President Kennedy was most likely murdered as a result of a conspiracy, but noted that the Soviet and Cuban governments, organized crime, the FBI and CIA were not involved. <br />
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Most assassination researchers agree that as government agencies, the CIA and FBI did not authorize or conspire to commit the assassination. They have not ruled out that individual members of these organizations had a part to play.Z313http://www.blogger.com/profile/10519213258443951620noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3649244718910077128.post-9248765710845736432010-02-27T13:44:00.002-05:002010-02-27T13:46:32.714-05:00The Kill Zone: Reactions (Part 3 of 4)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><br />
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."<br />
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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 <i>Crossfire</i>, 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?<br />
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<i>More after the jump...</i><br />
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If there really was a man with a rifle on the sixth floor at 12:15, how is it that Carolyn Arnold, a secretary, saw a man she clearly recognized as Lee Harvey Oswald sitting in the second floor lunchroom at that very same time? Oswald was last seen on the sixth floor at 11:55 AM by a group of workers who raced both elevators to the first floor. The Warren Commission concluded that he remained there to commit the assassination. How is it then that Williams did not see him on the sixth floor but Arnold did see him on the second floor lunchroom, the very same place he was seen moments after the shooting by Officer Marrion Baker and Superintendent Roy Truly?<br />
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<a href="http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/russ/jfkinfo3/exhibits/ce1118.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/russ/jfkinfo3/exhibits/ce1118.jpg" width="263" /></a>Let's suppose for a moment that Oswald left the lunchroom shortly after being seen at 12:15 to go to the sixth floor. Kennedy's motorcade was running approximately five minutes late, which means that an assassin would have to have been prepared to take his shot at 12:25. That would have left Oswald with less than ten minutes to get to the sixth floor, rearrange the boxes into the "sniper's nest," and prepare himself to commit the "crime of the century." Mind you, this was all being done with three people directly below him who heard no sounds that they can recall. (NOTE: It is clear that there was in fact at least one shot taken from the depository, which makes the testimony of Williams and the other two all the more strange.) After taking three shots, Oswald would then have had to rearrange the boxes again (it was proven through photo evidence that the boxes were moved within two minutes of the last shot), run all the way to the west side of the building to stash the rifle, run down five flights of stairs to make it back to the lunchroom on the second floor where he was seen less than two minutes after the final shot was fired. He was described as not being "excited or overly afraid." Officer Baker also recalled seeing a Coke in Oswald's hand. So in addition to everything else, add "fumbling around for change to purchase a coke" to his actions between firing the last shot and being seen next in the lunchroom.<br />
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As you can see, the claim that Oswald was in fact the lone gunman on the sixth floor of the depository is anything but airtight. Another example of intriguing testimony casts doubt onto the concluded actions of Oswald in the moments following the shooting. During Oswald's alleged descent down the back stairs, he would have had to have passed two other depository employees, Victoria Adams and Sandra Styles, who "told the FBI they both ran from the building down the back stairway after viewing the assassination from their fourth floor office window."<br />
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Some other notes of interest:<br />
<ul><li>Mrs. Robert Reid also saw Oswald on the second floor, Coke in hand, after she ran back to her office from the front steps immediately following the shots. You can see above the Warren Commission Exhibit No. 1118 which shows the proposed path of Oswald on the second floor. </li>
<li>Oswald claimed to have seen the two other men who were on the fifth floor, Harold Norman and James Jarman, on the first floor after following down the other who raced in the elevators. Oswald said he didn't remember their names, but thought one of them was nicknamed "Junior," which was in fact Mr. Jarman's nickname. </li>
<li> Both elevators were on the fifth floor when Officer Baker and Roy Truly ran into the depository. Presumably, one was taken by Jarman and Norman, and the other taken by Williams. This is important because it confirms that if Oswald was the shooter, he had to have taken the stairs both ways, something that no one can say that they saw. It also decreases the amount of time Oswald would have have to set up between being seen in the lunchroom at 12:15 and the scheduled arrival time of Kennedy as 12:25. </li>
</ul>Z313http://www.blogger.com/profile/10519213258443951620noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3649244718910077128.post-7850664785168636732010-02-26T12:35:00.001-05:002010-02-26T12:53:29.992-05:00The 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.<br />
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More witnesses claim to hear more than three shots. <br />
<ul><li>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."</li>
</ul><i>More after the jump...</i><br />
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There were two very suspicious men along Elm Street between the depository and the underpass; the "umbrella man" and the "dark-complected man."<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.jfk-assassination.de/images/umbrella.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="210" src="http://www.jfk-assassination.de/images/umbrella.gif" width="320" /></a></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.jfk-assassination.de/images/umbrella2.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="204" src="http://www.jfk-assassination.de/images/umbrella2.gif" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><ul><li> The existence and the actions of the umbrella man and the dark-complected man are facts, to the extent that we know the umbrella was closed before and after the motorcade passed their positions. As seen in the Zapruder frame above, the umbrella is open, and other videos that day show him pumping it twice into the air. The man to his right can be seen pumping his fist into the air at the same time. There are two main theories concerning what these men were doing. The first is that the umbrella was actually a weapon, containing a tranquilizing dart that fired when opened (See photo titled "Umbrella Weapon" in the links box). Testimony by CIA officials confirm this type of weapon was in existence in 1963. It could also explain Kennedy's relative lack of movement during the assassination. The second, and more widely accepted theory, is that both of these men were providing visual signals to the gunmen. This would mean, contrary to the findings of the Warren Commission, that President Kennedy was "killed by a crossfire coordinated by radiomen."What is even stranger is that after the assassination, the two men just sat down on the curb, as show in the top photo. Louis Steven Witt claimed to be the umbrella man in 1978, however the statements he gave in regards to his actions and positioning were found to be vague and inaccurate. </li>
</ul>Next in the list of intriguing characters is the woman identified as the "Babushka Lady," seen in Zapruder frame 288 standing behind Charles Brehm and his son.<br />
<ul><li>She was later indetified as Beverly Oliver. But what is most interesting about her is that she knew Jack Ruby. In fact, not long before, Ruby had introduced Ms. Oliver to a "Lee Oswald of the CIA." </li>
</ul>A few frames later in Z300, you can see Jean Hill (red coat) and Mary Moorman standing about two feet back from the curb as Kennedy's limo passes by.<br />
<ul><li>I have posted the photo Mary Moorman took just before the fatal headshot in the links section. Frame Z300 shows both of them standing on the grass, however Jean Hill claimed that in order to get the President to look her way, she jumped into the street and yelled "Hey Mr. President, look this way. We want to take your picture." Yet they are never shown to do so in the Zapruder Film. </li>
<li>Jean Hill also claimed to have seen a man fire a rifle from across the street, behind the picket fence on the grassy knoll. She also said she heard "four to six shots." </li>
</ul>The last discrepancy that I made of note of can be seen in the James Altgens photo (also posted in the links section).<br />
<ul><li>The Altgens photo was taken moments after the first shot hit President Kennedy. You will notice the two Secret Service men on the passenger side of the follow-up car turn and look back at the depository. The agents on the driver side, as well as the two motorcycle officers, appear to look to the front right side of the limo [towards the grassy knoll]. </li>
<li>There is a clear shot of the doorway to the depository. You can see a man standing on the far left side with a dark shirt worn open with a white t-shirt underneath. This man bares a striking resemblance to Lee Harvey Oswald. The Warren Commission identified this man, based on testimony of other depository workers, as Billy Lovelady. There are some inconsistencies in this finding. Lovelady claims to have been sitting on the steps, yet the man in the picture is clearly standing. Also, Lovelady recalls that his shirt was buttoned at the neck, yet as you can see in the picture, the shirt of the man in the photo is clearly open at the top. </li>
</ul>In Part 3, I will discuss the many possible locations of Lee Harvey Oswald in the depository before, during, and after the assassination. <br />
<ul></ul>Z313http://www.blogger.com/profile/10519213258443951620noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3649244718910077128.post-22144941408441947222010-02-25T20:05:00.001-05:002010-02-26T12:03:55.062-05:00New Photos AddedI just added three more relevant photos taken during the assassination.<br />
<ul><li>The Mary Moorman Photo: Taken right before the fatal headshot. </li>
<li>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. </li>
<li>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. </li>
<li>Umbrella Weapon: Diagram of possible weapon used by the unidentified "umbrella man." </li>
</ul>Z313http://www.blogger.com/profile/10519213258443951620noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3649244718910077128.post-26179801773026186072010-02-25T18:20:00.009-05:002010-02-26T12:36:13.667-05:00The Kill Zone: Reactions (Part 1 of 4)The first chapter of <i>Crossfire</i> 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?<br />
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<i>With those thoughts in mind, my initial reactions are after the jump...</i><br />
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First, let's deal with the testimony of the those closest to the action: those riding in the Presidential limo.<br />
<ul><li> Secret Service agents William Greer (driver) and Roy Kellerman were in the front seat of the limo. Both had similar accounts. Greer recalls hearing what sounded like "motorcycle backfire" first, then a second noise that he recognized as a gunshot, followed by a brief pause, then 2 shots right on top of each other. Kellerman first heard a "pop" followed by a "flurry of shells" coming into the car. These accounts are important for those who oppose the lone gunman theory as they claim that there were more than the 3 possible shots that Lee Harvey Oswald could have taken. They also point out a common theme in nearly all testimony taken by those in Dealey Plaza: the odd sound of the first shot. Many would categorize it as sounding like a "firecracker" even though they recognized the following sounds quite clearly as shots. In the lead car, nearing the underpass at the time the shots were fired, Agent Lawson recalls hearing a "bang" first, then gunshots. </li>
<li>Texas Governor John Connally, however, immediately recognized the first sound as a shot from a "high-powered rifle." Also of importance, he heard the first shot, but was not hit by it; at least he claims as much. According to his Warren Commission testimony, he turned to his right, and as he began to turn back to his left he felt the second shot hit him. Also of importance, the Governor felt the car accelerate AFTER hearing the final, fatal shot. </li>
</ul>Next, let's look at where the shots were believed to originate: <br />
<ul><li>The majority of agents and passengers in the motorcade, as well as police stationed in other areas along the route claim that when the shots were fired, their attention was drawn not to the book depository, but an area near the underpass on the northwest side of Dealey Plaza: the grassy knoll. Agent Paul Landis, who was riding in the Secret Service follow-up car, heard the first shot come from "somewhere towards the front, right-hand side of the road." </li>
<li> One particular event stood out to me as being particularly ominous. Julia Ann Mercer drove through Dealey Plaza 2 hours prior to the motorcade. At this time, she passed a green pickup truck where a man retrieved a long slender package that she believes contained the outline of a rifle. This man then proceeded up to the area of the knoll. She alerted the local authorities and continued on her way. After the assassination, she was contacted again by authorities where she picked out the two men she saw earlier that day. She IDed one of them as Jack Ruby. She would not be the only one to say that they saw Ruby at Dealey Plaza that afternoon.</li>
<li>There were some, however, who recall hearing the first shot come from the depository. A number of people claim to have seen two men on the sixth floor, one with a rifle, about 15 minutes before President Kennedy was to arrive. Officer Marrion Baker saw birds fly off the depository roof after the first shot was fired. Moments later, he raced into the building with Depository superintendent Ray Truly. When he reached the second floor breakroom approximately 90 seconds after the final shot was fired, he encountered a calm and collected Lee Harvey Oswald, who had just purchased a Coke from the vending machine. </li>
<li>A number of witnesses, both within the confines of Dealey Plaza and the motorcade itself, recall smelling gunpowder as the proceeded out of the plaza and through the underpass. This seems more plausible if shots were fired from roughly ground level in front of the motorcade, not from six stories up and behind. </li>
</ul>Other notes: <br />
<ul><li>Hugh Betzner, a bystander taking pictures of President Kennedy, heard four shots. Additionally, he claims, as others will, that Kennedy's limo had almost come to a complete stop when the fatal headshot was delivered. (Note: if you have seen the Zapruder film, which I have posted below, you will notice that car never appears to slow down, let alone come to a complete stop. This will be the source of major controversy to be discussed later.) Betzner also reported that he saw policemen "digging around in the dirt as if they were looking for a bullet." </li>
</ul>So what I have gathered so far is that there were at least three shots, possibly more. The first shot had a distinctly different sound than those that followed. The majority of witnesses heard the sounds come from the area of the grassy knoll, though some saw a man with a rifle on the sixth floor of the depository. What is particularly odd, and unsettling if you believe the Warren Commission findings that Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone gunman, is that when Officer Baker and Superintendent Truly entered the depository moments after the shots were fired, they found Oswald in the second floor breakroom. Also, Jack Ruby's presence in Dealey Plaza raises addition questions about his possible role in a conspiracy.Z313http://www.blogger.com/profile/10519213258443951620noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3649244718910077128.post-48421915857723528102010-02-24T22:06:00.001-05:002010-02-25T18:29:49.300-05:00Stabilized Zapruder FilmThis 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 <span style="font-style: italic;">The Great Zapruder Film Hoax</span>. But for now, see if you can spot anything out of the ordinary...<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dwssBmll6KK1qY_zaRsENMLesU8qTOPKcNMkgxPyIFdTlDqyvl-O_r-tO1qEpG1FP95bIJ1iodh91GMc4aRIw' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe>Z313http://www.blogger.com/profile/10519213258443951620noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3649244718910077128.post-20934583573840930892010-02-24T21:25:00.007-05:002010-02-26T12:07:28.657-05:00My Reading ListWhat 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 <span style="font-style: italic;">Crossfire: The Plot That Killed Kennedy </span>by Jim Marrs. This book was the basis for the Oliver Stone film <span style="font-style: italic;">JFK </span>. 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.<br />
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In addition to <span style="font-style: italic;">Crossfire</span>, I will be reading the following books: <span style="font-style: italic;">Never Again</span>, <span style="font-style: italic;">Oswald and the CIA</span>, <span style="font-style: italic;">Murder in Dealey Plaza</span>, <span style="font-style: italic;">Falling Chips: A Deconstruction of the Single-Bullet Theory of the JFK Assassination</span>, <i>The Warren Commission Report: The Official Report of the President's Commission on the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy</i>, and <span style="font-style: italic;">The Great Zapruder Film Hoax</span>. 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.<br />
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And while I don't have them yet, <i>Grassy Knoll Witnesses </i>and <i>Someone Would Have Talked</i> are two more that I would like to add to my collection before all is said and done. <br />
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In addition to the books, I will be posting and discussing clips from documentaries, specials, and other video resources.Z313http://www.blogger.com/profile/10519213258443951620noreply@blogger.com0