TX TX - President John F. Kennedy, 46, Dallas, 22 Nov 1963

[Richard]

I'm not sure I believe Agent Landis at all on this.

It certainly gives one pause to think.
Landis claimed that the assassination upset him greatly, and that he left the Secret Service shortly after. He says that he never wanted to read about it and had no idea about how important the "Single Bullet Theory" was in the conclusions of the Warren Commission.

 

[Charlot123]

This is HUGE if true! If Oswald didn't shoot the President, then the shooter totally got away with it. I saw the recent document that the secret service was warned that the American President and Martin Luther King, Jr. would be killed. However, anyone can change dates these days, so who knows if that's legit.

If the same group of people were responsible for sending assassins to kill Kennedy and King, the addition of King skews the motive towards civil rights. August 1963 was King's "I Have a Dream" speech and then Kennedy was shot in November that same year. The Civil Rights Act was passed in July 1964, ending segregation of restaurants, schools, bathrooms, buses, etc.

My first guess now is the Ku Klux Klan. These people were violent and were already killing anyone who supported the Civil Rights Act.

The Klan itself is just another group.
To get away with the assassination, they had to have people covering them from the very top.

This always makes me wonder.
How high was Kennedy’s chance of winning 1964 elections?

Not that high. His approval rating dropped by 20% by September of 1963. It was still a tad above 50% but with his support of the Civil Rights movement, he’d surely lose all the Atlantic South that voted for him in 1960. He’d probably lose Texas. Hence, the trip to Dallas. Maybe that’s why the open automobile, tbh.

I don’t think CIA or FBI were involved. No need to. If anything, killing Kennedy “morality-wise” politically before the election could have been enough. This FBI could do.

Also: the assassination undoubtedly paved the way for the Democrats to win for the second time in a row.

And, I know that JFK and LBJ were personally very different, but I don’t see them politically different. These two very rich politicians were both convinced democrats.

So the attitude, “let’s kill JFK and replace him with LBJ because he will be different” doesn’t work.

The Civil Rights Act:

- proposed in June 1963, but it was opposed by filibuster in the Senate.

- Kennedy was assassinated in November of 1963

- after that, LBJ pushed the bill forward.

(You see, if anything, Kennedy’s assassination expedited the process).

The House passed the bill in February of 1964

- another filibuster, but it passes the Senate in June of 1964

- Signed into Law by LBJ in July 1964

So either someone underestimated LBJ,
(not implausible - politicians are not necessarily the best planners).

Or, the conspiracy was not about the Civil rights.

BTW: LBJ is “the forgotten president”, but he did a lot of good things. He was unfortunate enough to start the Vietnam war. Had JFK lived and were he reelected, he’d be that person. The situation in Indochina was brewing up for the second decade, and in a way, that war was unavoidable. However, in terms of their domestic politics, honestly, I see JFK and LBJ quite similar.

So far, I see one group that would be 100% invested in the assassination looking like a conspiracy, post-factum.

JFK’s secret service. On an individual level, there were heroes. As the service, it totally dropped the ball.

JMO.

 

[Richard]

Regarding Lee Harvey Oswald: One has to wonder just exactly what he was thinking immediately following the shooting of JFK. Whether he was the actual shooter (or one of them), or simply a guy watching the motorcade or eating his lunch alone on the 2nd floor of the Dallas School Book Depository Building (SBDB) - it was his subsequent movements and actions which got him noticed and arrested.

There was some testimony by eyewitnesses that he was picked up by someone in a Nash Rambler station wagon and driven away from the SBDB, However the officially accepted story was that he first walked away from the SBDB several blocks and boarded a city bus which was headed back in the direction of the SBDB. It soon became stopped in all the traffic. Oswald calmly asked for a transfer slip (later found in his pocket) departed the bus and walked to a taxi stand across the street from the SBDB. He found an available Taxi but first offered it to a woman who was looking for one.

This taxi, driven by William Whaley, drove Oswald to his boarding house about 4 miles away. Oswald had him drive a block past the house and then paid $1.00 for a 95-cent fare. He walked back a block to his boarding house where he was seen by his land lady (who was watching news coverage of the assassination on TV). Oswald put on a tan jacket, pocketed a revolver and ammunition and then left the house on foot.

IF... Oswald had simply sat down to watch the TV with his landlady; would police have come after him? Perhaps eventually, but only after a huge city-wide search, and then he would have been only one of many potential suspects. There were a number of possible suspects rounded up and detained by Dallas Police that day.

But Oswald was walking down the road while most other people were glued to their TV sets, or in process of their daily routines. Dallas Police officer J.D. Tippett sees Oswald and approaches him in his cruiser, Number 10 and speaks to him through the open passenger side window. As Tippett got out of the car, Oswald drew his own revolver and shot him four times, killing him. Oswald fled the scene ejected and discarded spent shell casings (linked ballistically to his gun), shed his jacket, and then entered a movie theater without paying admission. Inside, he was subsequently surrounded and arrested after pulling his revolver and attempting to shoot another Dallas Police officer.

Although there was conflicting testimony regarding some of the above events, that is how the official investigation by the Warren Commission describes it. It was those actions which confirmed in the minds of many Oswald's guilt in regard to the shooting of JFK. Two separate but connected murders.

Again, going back to the question of "What IF... Oswald had simply sat down to watch TV?" Would other suspects have been identified and arrested? Would there have been enough evidence to charge and convict Oswald of the JFK murder?

And just what was Oswald hoping to achieve by running away from his boarding house? Was he on his way to meet someone? Was he just panicking? Was he being set up?

And why was Officer Tippett cruising around in that residential neighborhood when all other Dallas Police were downtown for the motorcade and assassination?

 

[Richard]

That incident was in Stephen King's book about the assassination. It came out several years ago.

11/22/63 - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

...

Stephen King's novel, "11/22/63" is indeed a good read, and well researched in regard to the JFK assassination, and other events and daily life of the period.

The book title refers to the date that Kennedy was shot. It was made into a very good TV mini series which starred James Falco.

The main premise of the book involves a time travel portal which allows one to go back in time to a specific date in 1958, and the main character's goal of preventing the 1963 assassination.

While certainly a work of fiction, it does put the reader back in that time frame.

 

[Gruffin]

Before Lee H. Oswald turned 17, he was purportedly in possession of a first-model double-acting Iver Johnson five-shot safety automatic top-break hammered revolver that according to the auction site used .38 S&W (short) rounds. It was basically already an antique, made probably in the last decade of the nineteenth century. Lee sold it to his brother Robert for $10, purportedly in October 1956, right before Lee joined the Marines consequent to his turning 17. What's interesting about this gun is that standard opinion on internet is that the anarchist assassins Gaetano Bresci, Leon Czolgosz, and Giuseppe Zangara all used top-break hammered (it's obvious from the picture that the weapon Oswald had in 1956 was hammered, contrary to the auction description) five-shot revolvers in their assassinations of King Umberto of Italy, President William McKinley, and Chicago Mayor Anton Cermak (the last in an incident wherein FDR may or may not have been the intended target).

I believe Czolgosz used a second model .32 safety automatic top-break hammered double-acting five-shot Iver Johnson revolver using .32 short S&W rounds, made about 1900. And supposedly Zangara used basically the same gun, only it was made by US revolver, a subsidiary of Iver Johnson. There's much differing information about the gun used by Bresci. Period newspaper articles mention that a store proprietor named C. E. Florum remembered selling him the gun in Paterson (probably the center of the anarchist movement, at least around 1900) in early May 1900, and that it was a .32 double-acting five-shot revolver made in Worcester, MA. But there are pictures of the gun on internet from when it was displayed in Italy—it's a top-break hammered five-shot, and according to a placard near the gun (or the bit of the placard in the photographs), it would appear it was chambered for .38 S&W (just a tiny bit larger diameter than 9mm), like the gun Oswald had in 1956. But even though much of internet says it was an Iver Johnson, which was based in Fitchburg, MA, it actually was made in Worcester, MA, by Harrington and Richardson. The Iver Johnsons have an owl head logo on the handle whereas the H&Rs have as a logo a target containing tiny depressions suggestive of bullet holes in the target (these depressions remind me of the awl-point-like impressions Oswald engraved into the gun he had in 1956). Anyway, the gun he had in 1956 being so similar to the assassin weapons of Bresci, Czolgosz, and Zangara suggests to me Oswald might have had an obsession with assassins, and in particular anarchist assassins, even as early as 1956. Until May 1900, Bresci worked in Paterson (living in Hoboken, at least on weekends), and Zangara lived for a while in Paterson, and Czolgosz was inspired by Bresci, and Paterson is close to New York City. I am inclined to think Oswald's obsession with assassination started when he was living in NYC from August 1952–January 1954 as a young teenager. He often played hookey during that period, and no telling what sinister people he as a truant may have hung out with or gotten abused by during that period. There may be a few mistakes in what I have written about gun technical aspects, because sites that give information about these sorts of matters are all over the place, particularly as regards the weapon used by Bresci.

Between when Bresci left his home of Hoboken for Europe on May 22, 1900, and when he shot Umberto on July 29, 1900, the June 30 Hoboken docks fire happened (326 dead). In 1910, NYC Mayor Gaynor would be shot on a ship while it was moored to the same docks, a ship that had also been moored to those docks during the 1900 fire.

The (rechambered) revolver Oswald used to kill Tippit shot .38 special ammunition, but was originally chambered to shoot .38s. The bullet in a .38 special shell has a slightly smaller caliber than the bullet of the .38s, which probably explains why the bullets that killed Tippit were free of definitively identifying marks—the bullets didn't fit flush in the .38 barrel. It was the marks on the shell casings that were definitively matched to Oswald's revolver, while the marks on the bullets were only consistent with being fired from the revolver.

 

[Richard]

Before Lee H. Oswald turned 17, he was purportedly in possession of a first-model double-acting Iver Johnson five-shot safety automatic top-break hammered revolver that according to the auction site used .38 S&W (short) rounds. It was basically already an antique, made probably in the last decade of the nineteenth century. Lee sold it to his brother Robert for $10, purportedly in October 1956, right before Lee joined the Marines consequent to his turning 17. What's interesting about this gun is that standard opinion on internet is that the anarchist assassins Gaetano Bresci, Leon Czolgosz, and Giuseppe Zangara all used top-break hammered (it's obvious from the picture that the weapon Oswald had in 1956 was hammered, contrary to the auction description) five-shot revolvers in their assassinations of King Umberto of Italy, President William McKinley, and Chicago Mayor Anton Cermak (the last in an incident wherein FDR may or may not have been the intended target).

I believe Czolgosz used a second model .32 safety automatic top-break hammered double-acting five-shot Iver Johnson revolver using .32 short S&W rounds, made about 1900. And supposedly Zangara used basically the same gun, only it was made by US revolver, a subsidiary of Iver Johnson. There's much differing information about the gun used by Bresci. Period newspaper articles mention that a store proprietor named C. E. Florum remembered selling him the gun in Paterson (probably the center of the anarchist movement, at least around 1900) in early May 1900, and that it was a .32 double-acting five-shot revolver made in Worcester, MA. But there are pictures of the gun on internet from when it was displayed in Italy—it's a top-break hammered five-shot, and according to a placard near the gun (or the bit of the placard in the photographs), it would appear it was chambered for .38 S&W (just a tiny bit larger diameter than 9mm), like the gun Oswald had in 1956. But even though much of internet says it was an Iver Johnson, which was based in Fitchburg, MA, it actually was made in Worcester, MA, by Harrington and Richardson. The Iver Johnsons have an owl head logo on the handle whereas the H&Rs have as a logo a target containing tiny depressions suggestive of bullet holes in the target (these depressions remind me of the awl-point-like impressions Oswald engraved into the gun he had in 1956). Anyway, the gun he had in 1956 being so similar to the assassin weapons of Bresci, Czolgosz, and Zangara suggests to me Oswald might have had an obsession with assassins, and in particular anarchist assassins, even as early as 1956. Until May 1900, Bresci worked in Paterson (living in Hoboken, at least on weekends), and Zangara lived for a while in Paterson, and Czolgosz was inspired by Bresci, and Paterson is close to New York City. I am inclined to think Oswald's obsession with assassination started when he was living in NYC from August 1952–January 1954 as a young teenager. He often played hookey during that period, and no telling what sinister people he as a truant may have hung out with or gotten abused by during that period. There may be a few mistakes in what I have written about gun technical aspects, because sites that give information about these sorts of matters are all over the place, particularly as regards the weapon used by Bresci.

Between when Bresci left his home of Hoboken for Europe on May 22, 1900, and when he shot Umberto on July 29, 1900, the June 30 Hoboken docks fire happened (326 dead). In 1910, NYC Mayor Gaynor would be shot on a ship while it was moored to the same docks, a ship that had also been moored to those docks during the 1900 fire.

The (rechambered) revolver Oswald used to kill Tippit shot .38 special ammunition, but was originally chambered to shoot .38s. The bullet in a .38 special shell has a slightly smaller caliber than the bullet of the .38s, which probably explains why the bullets that killed Tippit were free of definitively identifying marks—the bullets didn't fit flush in the .38 barrel. It was the marks on the shell casings that were definitively matched to Oswald's revolver, while the marks on the bullets were only consistent with being fired from the revolver.

 

[Richard]

Oswald also had another personally owned pistol while in the Marine Corps, stationed in Okinawa. He discharged it in the barracks and was taken to Captain's mast for it.

The revolver he had when arrested was a Smith and Wesson Victory model which was World War II surplus. Originally chambered for the shorter and wider .38 S&W round for British forces, it was re-imported to the US, where it was altered by having the chambers re-cut to accept the longer .38 Special round (actual caliber measurement .358) and the barrel was shortened from 4 to 2 inches. Oswald purchased it by mail using an alias and had it shipped to a rented post office box address.

 

[Charlot123]

I have a theory - and please tell me if it is naive, but I can't get it out of my head.

But first, let me ask, supposedly LHO shot the president and was not killed by Ruby? Would there even be a conspiracy theory?

So I assume that it is highly possible that LHO was the lone shooter but his assassination was a conspiracy, and here is why.

In 1962, a year before, the world narrowly avoided WWIII. I think the fear the world, but most of all, both USSR and USA went through was unbelievable. I think everyone, both governments, both leaders, CIA, FBI, KGB were horrified of it happening again.

And now Oswald, a former detector to the Soviet Union where no one could keep tabs on him, with a Russian wife, and a total loose cannon, kills US President.

I think they all were afraid that he'd blame it on the Soviet Union.

The SU wasn't involved, they were shell-shocked in 1962 the same way. And i don't know what CIA, FBI and all governmental structures initially thought. Probably, weighted in all possibilities. But given how unstable LHO was, everyone was afraid that he'd blame it on being co-opted by the USSR.

So in this case, people in power may decide to take a hit, "let it be blamed as our conspiracy, never mind, but let us shut him up". To avoid another serious confrontation between the two countries.

So is it possible that there was no conspiracy to kill Kennedy but a hastily put together conspiracy to kill unpredictable Oswald, out of fear?

Consider this, the replacement of Khruchev for Brezhnev in 1964, and all the nuclear nonproliferation talks, starting with Nixon-Brezhnev, all of it stemmed from sheer fear and unwillingness to ever go through something as another 13-day missile crisis.

This theory would explain why I do not see the conspiracy because alive JFK had much fewer chances to win 1964 election that the Democratic party with its slain leader. And yet JFK's assassination does have the whiff of a conspiracy, I can feel it, too.

Could a "post-assassination conspiracy" be the explanation?

 

[Richard]

I have a theory - and please tell me if it is naive, but I can't get it out of my head.

But first, let me ask, supposedly LHO shot the president and was not killed by Ruby? Would there even be a conspiracy?...
... Could a "post-assassination conspiracy" be the explanation?

There certainly could have been a number of "conspiracies" and on various levels following the JFK assassination.

It is known that the FBI and CIA each individually conspired to withhold information from the Warren Commission - and questions were asked by serious researchers about various aspects of the FBI investigations and their focus.

Some feel that the Warren Commission itself was biased and rushed its conclusions to meet a political goal of Lyndon Johnson to wrap it all up before the 1964 election.

The author Norman Mailer wrote a long and well researched book titled "Oswald's Tale" in which he goes into great detail about Oswald's life history. Mailer came to the conclusion that Oswald probably did shoot Kennedy, but goes into detail about possible conspiracies which may have been in play at the same time.

As hard as it is to determine a motive for Oswald, it is equally difficult to find a motive for Jack Ruby stalking and killing Oswald. Mailer felt that the Mafia may have put out a contract on JFK, and feared that Oswald may have been carrying out that hit. But instead of Oswald getting away or being killed, here he was on National TV alive and claiming to be "just a patsy"!

Mailer's theory is that the Mafia, fearing Oswald would blame them, had him silenced.

 

[Richard]

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard has admitted to using an artificial intelligence program to help determine which of the documents to declassify about the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

LINK:

Tulsi Gabbard's Team Fed The JFK Assassination Files Into AI To Figure Out What To Declassify

Trump's intelligence chief said AI reviewing the documents was significantly faster than humans looking “at every single one of these pages.”

www.aol.com

 

[Gruffin]

Oswald also had another personally owned pistol while in the Marine Corps, stationed in Okinawa. He discharged it in the barracks and was taken to Captain's mast for it.

The revolver he had when arrested was a Smith and Wesson Victory model which was World War II surplus. Originally chambered for the shorter and wider .38 S&W round for British forces, it was re-imported to the US, where it was altered by having the chambers re-cut to accept the longer .38 Special round (actual caliber measurement .358) and the barrel was shortened from 4 to 2 inches. Oswald purchased it by mail using an alias and had it shipped to a rented post office box address.

I had forgotten about the weapon that supposedly accidentally discharged when it fell out of his locker on October 27, 1957, the bullet wounding his elbow. I see Warren report indicates the pistol was a .22 made by Derringer. Booth shot Lincoln with a Derringer, and so I suppose it could have been his wanting to be akin to assassins in his choice of guns that caused him to choose a pistol of that manufacture.

 

[Charlot123]

There certainly could have been a number of "conspiracies" and on various levels following the JFK assassination.

It is known that the FBI and CIA each individually conspired to withhold information from the Warren Commission - and questions were asked by serious researchers about various aspects of the FBI investigations and their focus.

Some feel that the Warren Commission itself was biased and rushed its conclusions to meet a political goal of Lyndon Johnson to wrap it all up before the 1964 election.

The author Norman Mailer wrote a long and well researched book titled "Oswald's Tale" in which he goes into great detail about Oswald's life history. Mailer came to the conclusion that Oswald probably did shoot Kennedy, but goes into detail about possible conspiracies which may have been in play at the same time.

As hard as it is to determine a motive for Oswald, it is equally difficult to find a motive for Jack Ruby stalking and killing Oswald. Mailer felt that the Mafia may have put out a contract on JFK, and feared that Oswald may have been carrying out that hit. But instead of Oswald getting away or being killed, here he was on National TV alive and claiming to be "just a patsy"!

Mailer's theory is that the Mafia, fearing Oswald would blame them, had him silenced.

All I can see is that in real political assassinations, be it that of Sergey Kirov by Stalin, or Roehm by Hitler, no matter how professionally done, there are enough documents left as proofs later.

Here there are tons of theories, but nothing tangible yet to prove the assassination. Mostly, “too many witnesses or people around it died”, but were there that many? Statistically?

There would be enough data accrued about JFK for “character assassination” towards the elections. In fact, JFK being assassinated in full public view gave rise to “the Camelot myth”. It strengthened the family.

Of course, any separate group could kill JFK because they are usually not thinking in advance about the consequences. But I see no “major player” because I assume that in Kennedy’s time, the CIA, the FBI and the government were seasoned enough.

 

[Charlot123]

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard has admitted to using an artificial intelligence program to help determine which of the documents to declassify about the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

LINK:

Tulsi Gabbard's Team Fed The JFK Assassination Files Into AI To Figure Out What To Declassify

Trump's intelligence chief said AI reviewing the documents was significantly faster than humans looking “at every single one of these pages.”

www.aol.com

Was she happy with the job AI did and if so, what was the AI? I need to buy a new one for work and could use a good one