I was sitting in Mr. Twadell's 6th grade class at PS 29 in Yonkers when Mary Ann Marcotrigiano came charging into the room screaming "the President and the Governor have been shot." I watched all of the proceedings on TV with my Dad and saw Oswald get shot. I figured the world was falling apart. Being raised in a family of Irish Catholic Democrats, JFK was my first political hero. I remember being a half-pint standing outside of Gimbel's in Cross County shopping center in Yonkers helping my Dad hand out 'Kennedy for President' literature. Today brings back memories that are different from 9/11 but are in some ways even more powerful.
I also was in the 6th grade ... only it was St. Mary's in Kingston.
We were already gathered in the assembly hall to commemorate the feast day of our principal's (Sister Mary Cecilia) namesake. The poor woman had to announce JFK's assassination. I recall it being an overcast day made more gloomy by the tragedy.
We immediately prayed ... for the First Family and for our nation. En route home, we heard someone mention that the assassin was a Russian ... our sorrow and grief instantly became fear.
My family was glued to the TV for most of the weekend and especially Monday for the funeral. The flag draped casket on the Caisson, the riderless horse with boots backwards in the stirrups and, of course, John John's salute.
JFK was a hero to all of us Irish Catholic Democrats. I met Bobby at a campaign rally in Kingston in 1960 (and later in Georgetown). I strained to stay awake on Election Day 1960 to hear the results.
Been thinking of the song "Abraham, Martin and John" this week
Didn't you love the things that they stood for? Didn't they try to find some good for you and me?
Oswald did it. A guy knee-deep in a conspiracy is not allowed to walk out a building, take a bus, take a taxi, go to his house & then walk about a business district. Any conspirators crazy enough to use him as a shooter or a patsy would have eliminated him immediately. Also, people do not bring curtain rods to their workplace - Oswald brought his Italian Carbine to the book Depository. One nut - one shooter. Enough with all of the nonsense. Ruby, nut #2, simply loved the Kennedys to the point of extreme recklessnous.
There were many inconsistencies (& holes to fill) in the investigations, people's stories, and the actions of groups and individuals (that's Life, most of the time it's not clean and explainable; and people will always be sure to cover their own asses regardless of how important or relevant their indiscretions may be), but science has clearly showed that one man could make those three shots in that short of span and that all of the shots (including the fatal third shot) came precisely from Oswald's perch on the sixth floor. One puny man did this. Others - the Mafia, the Russians, the Cubans, the Military Industrial Complex, the Secret Service itself, French hit men, LBJ, Woody Harrelson's Dad, the Birch Society and anyone else people point to - were perhaps beaten to the punch (if they were inclined to carry out such a dastardly act).
Anonymous 1:53: All of the circumstantial evidence points to Oswald but the only piece of direct evidence proves he didn't fire the fatal shot. Watch the Zapruder film and tell me how a shot from above and behind sent his head flying backwards. Oswald wasn't part of a conspiracy, he was, as he said "a patsy." I'm not big on conspiracy theories in general but the Zapruder film is irrefutable. I think Oswald did everything they say he did, including the shooting of J.D. Tippett, but he didn't fire the fatal shot. He tried to kill Kennedy but, like everything else in his life, was unsuccessful.
Science has proven that the shot came from behind - watch PBS Nova's special on it. Also watch NatGeo's special on it - in fact NatGeo has at least two interesting forensic specials on the assassination (one on the ballistics & blood spatters and one on all the photographic evidence - there were dozens of different photos and film taken during the assassination; one seems to show a shadowy, fuzzy picture of a man & a rifle leaning out the window of the 6th Floor Window of the Depository and all photos aimed at the grassy knoll & elsewhere, show no other shooter or anything resembling another shooter).
People see the President's head go back - but it is all explained. The ballistics prove the shot came from above & behind - tests even reproduce the same results (the same snapping back of the head). Bullets react differently as they go through different parts of the body - the pristine bullet (which was actually depressed & not pristine), and the second shot from which that bullet came & which went through Kennedy & Connally, were also reproduced in very precise tests (using the exact same weapon, exact same bullets, exact same angles and precise weather conditions).
There was no grassy knoll shooter. It's all make believe. There is no way those shots came from anywhere else but the 6th Floor Book Depository Building. Oswald never worked in concert with anyone on anything. Not when he tried to shoot Gen. Walker a few months earlier, not when he was handing out Fidel leaflets, not when he defected to Russia. Certainly not when he killed the President.
But I know most people are inclined to believe other theories as pointing to one small man is not at all intriguing.
Anonymous 8:29: Sorry but that special didn't prove anything. Do you know the Warren Report said that there's a reflex in the brain that makes the head snap backwards if a bullet hits it from behind? They couldn't find a neurologist to support it. Do you know that Hoover had the still pictures reversed from the Zapruder film and published in the Warren Report so it made it look like the head jerked forward? Later he called it a printing error. Do you know the Zapruder film wasn't seen by Americans until six years after the assassination when it was introduced as evidence at the trial of Clay Shaw. In 1965 the FBI allowed a cub reporter from CBS News by the name of Dan Rather to watch the film and report to the American people what it showed. He said it showed JFK's head jerk forward as if shot from behind. Why would he say that when the film shows just the opposite?
In the late 1980s I did a study of the people who claimed there was a conspiracy to kill JFK. I spent four exhausting days and nights in a hotel in Providence listening to every theory. I read the Warren Report and consulted many of the 26 volumes of supporting documentation. Here's what I learned: 99% of the conspiracy theories are such horseshit they're not worth the paper they're printed on. Most of the mistakes made in the wake of the shooting (e.g no on-site autopsy) were not because of a cover-up but were the frenzied reaction of traumatized people in an unprecedented catastrophe. The FBI felt the only avenue it needed to explore other than the lone shooter was whether any foreign government was involved. None was. The emotional health of the country demanded a simple answer and Oswald was it. So they closed the case but not before taking the steps I noted above to change the perception of the Zapruder film because they knew what it showed.
It showed that JFK was killed from in front of the motorcade to the right and it showed he was killed by a practiced professional shooter. Oswald was above and behind and although much was made of his passing marksman tests years before he was not, at the time of the assassination, a practiced professional shooter. The FBI recovered a bullet that hit sixty yards in front of the motorcade, missing JFK by 75 feet high and 25 feet wide. That was Oswald. I'm not saying I know who did it, although I have some ideas on the subject, only that the Oswald story is incomplete. I concede that in the emotions of the day he would have been convicted at trial by a jury of his peers. But way too much energy (and now science) has been expended trying to make us believe something that would have been obvious if the Zapruder film had shown the president's head jerked forward by the bullet that killed him. If you can stomach it, watch the Zapruder film with an open mind and see what you think.
In your first comment you claim that the Zapruder film is irrefutable. Agreed. Irrefutable to what is the question. Yes, it is irrefutable that his head jerked back. So merely viewing a film is your proof that there was a shot from in front/or the side? And the science behind that is ...? Simply viewing a film proves nothing as far as why or how something took place.
The Nova special in particular goes ahead and duplicates (& DEMONSTRATES) the behind & above shot (same everything - even using materials that mimic actual biological material as closely as possible) and proves that the head would jerk back when shot from behind (no brain reflex needed; no brain reflex was attempted to be recreated). The bullet enters & then fragments violently while within the upper brain - not upon entry. I'm estimating that you likely did not view the program of which I speak. I'll go with the true ballistic experts - experts that seemingly only have the truth as their agenda - and who demonstrate exactly how and why the shot came from above & behind. That program, in the very least, proves that the shot could absolutely come from behind & above. Analysis of the wounds also show that the kill shot came from above and behind. Analysis of the known blood splatter evidence also proves where the bullet came from.
I do have an open mind. I used to lean towards some kind of conspiracy. The more I've read and watched on this subject, the more I have come to the conclusion that it was a one man job. You claim Oswald was a patsy and yet he probably did shoot at Kenney. So someone was tailing Oswald and knew precisely what he was doing and when he was going to shoot and they timed their shot at virtually the same time? And then they just let Oswald go on his happy way? Sorry, not buying that.
Ruby was lucky to be in the spot he was when Oswald was in the process of being transferred to the County Jail. Oswald was supposed to have been transferred like an hour earlier than he was. And Ruby had only just arrived a few minutes before Oswald was actually brought out (just a few minutes before that Ruby was at a bank down the street a little bit) wiring some money. Ruby was not part of a conspiracy looking to silence Lee Harvey. If so, he would have been there earlier - in advance - ensuring that he was there to take care of the patsy. Ruby merely thought he was going to be a hero (and stated this to the police).
I'll agree to disagree with you. I know I cannot convince you. But I believe that you too should have an open mind (as you state I should). And Dan Rather? Old Dan was up to his tricks, way back as early as the 60s? That doesn't surprise me.
Anonymous 5:43: I have an open mind on this and I enjoy reading your comments. I do think there's a lot to be said for what your eyes show you. In fact it's the basis of our entire legal system where eyewitness testimony is considered to be primary. I don't think Oswald was being followed but it is possible that a number of people knew what he was planning. Don't make the mistake of thinking Ruby's was a random attack. In the late 40's Ruby was sent down from Chicago as part of the first wave of organized crime moving into the growing city of Dallas. During that period he was brought up on racketeering charges. One of his co-defendants was a Dallas cop - they were acquitted - who later happened to be in charge of station security on the day Ruby slipped into that station and shot Oswald. The Ruby angle alone tells you there's more to the story than we know.
The organized crime angle is interesting. They are widely credited with winning the West Virginia primary for JFK and they clearly had a hand in the Chicago shenanigans that gave Kennedy Illinois and the presidency. Upon being elected he made his brother Attorney General and RFK repaid their favors by launching a crusade against organized crime. When JFK took office, Hoover had more than 100 agents in the NY office dedicated to sussing out the communist threat and only 4 agents working on organized crime. Bobby Kennedy reversed that ratio. In 1962 he had the New Orleans don Marcello illegally seized on a city street and deported to Latin America. Marcello had to sneak back into the country. Marcello is the name most commonly associated with the organized crime possibility. If you believe, as I do, that the shooter was a pro and you consider that Ruby was sent to silence Oswald before he could explain his role there is something to be said for this angle. I think this is the most plausible alternative explanation to Oswald but it's far from proven and must also be considered speculation and nothing more.
But as I said previously, I don't really know what happened. I do know the Oswald story is incomplete and I also know that authors and filmmakers who believe he did it are far more likely to be funded or published than those who see it another way. Scientists who can demonstrate why it couldn't have been Oswald won't ever appear on Nova. Because there are holes in every theory, including Oswald, I choose to believe what my eyes see on the Zapruder film so I remain convinced we don't know the truth. That's what I mean by an open mind. But as we both prove in this exchange, it's a fascinating problem.
I was sitting in Mr. Twadell's 6th grade class at PS 29 in Yonkers when Mary Ann Marcotrigiano came charging into the room screaming "the President and the Governor have been shot." I watched all of the proceedings on TV with my Dad and saw Oswald get shot. I figured the world was falling apart. Being raised in a family of Irish Catholic Democrats, JFK was my first political hero. I remember being a half-pint standing outside of Gimbel's in Cross County shopping center in Yonkers helping my Dad hand out 'Kennedy for President' literature. Today brings back memories that are different from 9/11 but are in some ways even more powerful.
ReplyDeleteI also was in the 6th grade ... only it was St. Mary's in Kingston.
ReplyDeleteWe were already gathered in the assembly hall to commemorate the feast day of our principal's (Sister Mary Cecilia) namesake. The poor woman had to announce JFK's assassination. I recall it being an overcast day made more gloomy by the tragedy.
We immediately prayed ... for the First Family and for our nation. En route home, we heard someone mention that the assassin was a Russian ... our sorrow and grief instantly became fear.
My family was glued to the TV for most of the weekend and especially Monday for the funeral. The flag draped casket on the Caisson, the riderless horse with boots backwards in the stirrups and, of course, John John's salute.
JFK was a hero to all of us Irish Catholic Democrats. I met Bobby at a campaign rally in Kingston in 1960 (and later in Georgetown). I strained to stay awake on Election Day 1960 to hear the results.
Been thinking of the song "Abraham, Martin and John" this week
Didn't you love the things that they stood for?
Didn't they try to find some good for you and me?
- Pete Stenson
Oswald did it. A guy knee-deep in a conspiracy is not allowed to walk out a building, take a bus, take a taxi, go to his house & then walk about a business district. Any conspirators crazy enough to use him as a shooter or a patsy would have eliminated him immediately. Also, people do not bring curtain rods to their workplace - Oswald brought his Italian Carbine to the book Depository. One nut - one shooter. Enough with all of the nonsense. Ruby, nut #2, simply loved the Kennedys to the point of extreme recklessnous.
ReplyDeleteThere were many inconsistencies (& holes to fill) in the investigations, people's stories, and the actions of groups and individuals (that's Life, most of the time it's not clean and explainable; and people will always be sure to cover their own asses regardless of how important or relevant their indiscretions may be), but science has clearly showed that one man could make those three shots in that short of span and that all of the shots (including the fatal third shot) came precisely from Oswald's perch on the sixth floor. One puny man did this. Others - the Mafia, the Russians, the Cubans, the Military Industrial Complex, the Secret Service itself, French hit men, LBJ, Woody Harrelson's Dad, the Birch Society and anyone else people point to - were perhaps beaten to the punch (if they were inclined to carry out such a dastardly act).
Anonymous 1:53: All of the circumstantial evidence points to Oswald but the only piece of direct evidence proves he didn't fire the fatal shot. Watch the Zapruder film and tell me how a shot from above and behind sent his head flying backwards. Oswald wasn't part of a conspiracy, he was, as he said "a patsy." I'm not big on conspiracy theories in general but the Zapruder film is irrefutable. I think Oswald did everything they say he did, including the shooting of J.D. Tippett, but he didn't fire the fatal shot. He tried to kill Kennedy but, like everything else in his life, was unsuccessful.
ReplyDeleteScience has proven that the shot came from behind - watch PBS Nova's special on it. Also watch NatGeo's special on it - in fact NatGeo has at least two interesting forensic specials on the assassination (one on the ballistics & blood spatters and one on all the photographic evidence - there were dozens of different photos and film taken during the assassination; one seems to show a shadowy, fuzzy picture of a man & a rifle leaning out the window of the 6th Floor Window of the Depository and all photos aimed at the grassy knoll & elsewhere, show no other shooter or anything resembling another shooter).
ReplyDeletePeople see the President's head go back - but it is all explained. The ballistics prove the shot came from above & behind - tests even reproduce the same results (the same snapping back of the head). Bullets react differently as they go through different parts of the body - the pristine bullet (which was actually depressed & not pristine), and the second shot from which that bullet came & which went through Kennedy & Connally, were also reproduced in very precise tests (using the exact same weapon, exact same bullets, exact same angles and precise weather conditions).
There was no grassy knoll shooter. It's all make believe. There is no way those shots came from anywhere else but the 6th Floor Book Depository Building. Oswald never worked in concert with anyone on anything. Not when he tried to shoot Gen. Walker a few months earlier, not when he was handing out Fidel leaflets, not when he defected to Russia. Certainly not when he killed the President.
But I know most people are inclined to believe other theories as pointing to one small man is not at all intriguing.
Anonymous 8:29: Sorry but that special didn't prove anything. Do you know the Warren Report said that there's a reflex in the brain that makes the head snap backwards if a bullet hits it from behind? They couldn't find a neurologist to support it. Do you know that Hoover had the still pictures reversed from the Zapruder film and published in the Warren Report so it made it look like the head jerked forward? Later he called it a printing error. Do you know the Zapruder film wasn't seen by Americans until six years after the assassination when it was introduced as evidence at the trial of Clay Shaw. In 1965 the FBI allowed a cub reporter from CBS News by the name of Dan Rather to watch the film and report to the American people what it showed. He said it showed JFK's head jerk forward as if shot from behind. Why would he say that when the film shows just the opposite?
ReplyDeleteIn the late 1980s I did a study of the people who claimed there was a conspiracy to kill JFK. I spent four exhausting days and nights in a hotel in Providence listening to every theory. I read the Warren Report and consulted many of the 26 volumes of supporting documentation. Here's what I learned: 99% of the conspiracy theories are such horseshit they're not worth the paper they're printed on. Most of the mistakes made in the wake of the shooting (e.g no on-site autopsy) were not because of a cover-up but were the frenzied reaction of traumatized people in an unprecedented catastrophe. The FBI felt the only avenue it needed to explore other than the lone shooter was whether any foreign government was involved. None was. The emotional health of the country demanded a simple answer and Oswald was it. So they closed the case but not before taking the steps I noted above to change the perception of the Zapruder film because they knew what it showed.
It showed that JFK was killed from in front of the motorcade to the right and it showed he was killed by a practiced professional shooter. Oswald was above and behind and although much was made of his passing marksman tests years before he was not, at the time of the assassination, a practiced professional shooter. The FBI recovered a bullet that hit sixty yards in front of the motorcade, missing JFK by 75 feet high and 25 feet wide. That was Oswald. I'm not saying I know who did it, although I have some ideas on the subject, only that the Oswald story is incomplete. I concede that in the emotions of the day he would have been convicted at trial by a jury of his peers. But way too much energy (and now science) has been expended trying to make us believe something that would have been obvious if the Zapruder film had shown the president's head jerked forward by the bullet that killed him. If you can stomach it, watch the Zapruder film with an open mind and see what you think.
In your first comment you claim that the Zapruder film is irrefutable. Agreed. Irrefutable to what is the question. Yes, it is irrefutable that his head jerked back. So merely viewing a film is your proof that there was a shot from in front/or the side? And the science behind that is ...? Simply viewing a film proves nothing as far as why or how something took place.
ReplyDeleteThe Nova special in particular goes ahead and duplicates (& DEMONSTRATES) the behind & above shot (same everything - even using materials that mimic actual biological material as closely as possible) and proves that the head would jerk back when shot from behind (no brain reflex needed; no brain reflex was attempted to be recreated). The bullet enters & then fragments violently while within the upper brain - not upon entry. I'm estimating that you likely did not view the program of which I speak. I'll go with the true ballistic experts - experts that seemingly only have the truth as their agenda - and who demonstrate exactly how and why the shot came from above & behind. That program, in the very least, proves that the shot could absolutely come from behind & above. Analysis of the wounds also show that the kill shot came from above and behind. Analysis of the known blood splatter evidence also proves where the bullet came from.
I do have an open mind. I used to lean towards some kind of conspiracy. The more I've read and watched on this subject, the more I have come to the conclusion that it was a one man job. You claim Oswald was a patsy and yet he probably did shoot at Kenney. So someone was tailing Oswald and knew precisely what he was doing and when he was going to shoot and they timed their shot at virtually the same time? And then they just let Oswald go on his happy way? Sorry, not buying that.
Ruby was lucky to be in the spot he was when Oswald was in the process of being transferred to the County Jail. Oswald was supposed to have been transferred like an hour earlier than he was. And Ruby had only just arrived a few minutes before Oswald was actually brought out (just a few minutes before that Ruby was at a bank down the street a little bit) wiring some money. Ruby was not part of a conspiracy looking to silence Lee Harvey. If so, he would have been there earlier - in advance - ensuring that he was there to take care of the patsy. Ruby merely thought he was going to be a hero (and stated this to the police).
I'll agree to disagree with you. I know I cannot convince you. But I believe that you too should have an open mind (as you state I should). And Dan Rather? Old Dan was up to his tricks, way back as early as the 60s? That doesn't surprise me.
Anonymous 5:43: I have an open mind on this and I enjoy reading your comments. I do think there's a lot to be said for what your eyes show you. In fact it's the basis of our entire legal system where eyewitness testimony is considered to be primary. I don't think Oswald was being followed but it is possible that a number of people knew what he was planning. Don't make the mistake of thinking Ruby's was a random attack. In the late 40's Ruby was sent down from Chicago as part of the first wave of organized crime moving into the growing city of Dallas. During that period he was brought up on racketeering charges. One of his co-defendants was a Dallas cop - they were acquitted - who later happened to be in charge of station security on the day Ruby slipped into that station and shot Oswald. The Ruby angle alone tells you there's more to the story than we know.
ReplyDeleteThe organized crime angle is interesting. They are widely credited with winning the West Virginia primary for JFK and they clearly had a hand in the Chicago shenanigans that gave Kennedy Illinois and the presidency. Upon being elected he made his brother Attorney General and RFK repaid their favors by launching a crusade against organized crime. When JFK took office, Hoover had more than 100 agents in the NY office dedicated to sussing out the communist threat and only 4 agents working on organized crime. Bobby Kennedy reversed that ratio. In 1962 he had the New Orleans don Marcello illegally seized on a city street and deported to Latin America. Marcello had to sneak back into the country. Marcello is the name most commonly associated with the organized crime possibility. If you believe, as I do, that the shooter was a pro and you consider that Ruby was sent to silence Oswald before he could explain his role there is something to be said for this angle. I think this is the most plausible alternative explanation to Oswald but it's far from proven and must also be considered speculation and nothing more.
But as I said previously, I don't really know what happened. I do know the Oswald story is incomplete and I also know that authors and filmmakers who believe he did it are far more likely to be funded or published than those who see it another way. Scientists who can demonstrate why it couldn't have been Oswald won't ever appear on Nova. Because there are holes in every theory, including Oswald, I choose to believe what my eyes see on the Zapruder film so I remain convinced we don't know the truth. That's what I mean by an open mind. But as we both prove in this exchange, it's a fascinating problem.