Can one man – no, can a lone scrawny Marxist misfit with no real talent – buy a $21 mail order rifle, move back to Dallas after traveling to Mexico and Russia, find a job in a building overlooking the route in which President John F. Kennedy will ride through that city, then, while telling a colleague that what he was carrying into that building was “curtain rods,” sneak that rifle into his workpace, set up a sniper’s perch in a window more than 60 feet above the street and from there kill a President?
I have spent the past few days lost in the Warren Commission Report.
I now know what Zapruder 313 means, and have seen it way more times than necessary.
I saw the movie “JFK,” which was inspired by the case prosecuted by Iowa-born district attorney Jim Garrison in New Orleans.
I have read college theses by professors who believe that Lee Harvey Oswald could not have acted alone to shoot the President with what one professor called a “cheap, flimsy rifle.”
I have heard the audio recordings which inspired the JFK Sub-Committee of the U.S. House Committee on Assassinations to declare in 1979 that Oswald was not acting alone.
After all of this, the fact that I have come to the conclusion that Oswald did, indeed, act alone in assassinating John F. Kennedy puts me in the minority.
Recent polls indicated that anywhere from 59 to 75 percent of Americans still believe that Oswald did – certainly, probably or even just maybe – have help.
My theory does sound absolutely ridiculous, I admit.
Turns out, the answer to the question in the opening paragraph is: Yes. Surprisingly, one guy could do all of those things. By himself.
And, he did.
Officers investigating the JFK assassination heard witnesses say they saw a man with a rifle in the sixth story window of the building where Oswald had begun working a month earlier. They found a 23-year-old Italian-made 6.5 mm Carcano Model 91/38 carbine.
The purpose of that rifle was killing enemy soldiers; its spec sheet indicates that it had an effective range of 656 yards.
And the fact that it only cost $21 is not that surprising, when you think of the countless thousands – millions, perhaps– of rifles left over after World War II. And countries deep in debt were eager to sell them, and did. One gun advocate web site said military surplus rifles were available for as little as $5. A quick search indicates that for about $200, rifles similar to the one used to kill JFK are available for sale via the internet now.
While it certainly was cheap, the Carcano carbine is anything but flimsy. And the 88 or so yards from that sixth-story window to the open limousine on Elm Street was well within the rifle’s range of 656 yards.
Witnesses described seeing Oswald in the window, with the rifle. When his wife heard that the President had been shot, she ran to where she knew her husband had kept the rifle, just to make sure. She later told investigators that Oswald had told her he had used that rifle to try to kill General Edwin Walker.
The Warren Commission found witnesses and evidence linking only Oswald – who qualified more than once as a U.S. Marine marksman – to every aspect of the assassination. The gun. The location. The escape. The killing of Dallas police officer J.D. Tippit.
I have no doubt that Oswald killed Kennedy and that he acted alone.
And I have a theory as to why, according to the polls, most of you disagree with me.
For one thing, it's still impossible to believe that one guy with a $21 gun can bring horror to an entire nation.
But the main reason most of you are still skeptical is this:
In the past 50 years, the federal government, which told us what happened on Nov. 22, 1963, has told us so many things that turned out to be untrue.
LBJ lied (or at least said things that turned out to be quite untrue) about Vietnam; Nixon, about Watergate (and who knows what else); Reagan’s people, about Iran-Contra; Bill Clinton, about almost everything; virtually everyone in Washington, a decade ago, about WMDs; Obama, about health care.
Our national skepticism about the Warren Report simply reflects the fact that we can’t (and shouldn’t) believe everything our government leaders tell us.
But so far, nothing I have read or heard indicates that the Warren Commission was wrong.
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This individual seems to have more information than I do and raises some questions that I think show some validity:
The assassination of President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963, in Dallas, Texas, remains one of the most perplexing and enduring mysteries of our time. Legendary political operate and strategist Roger Stone has gathered documents and used his firsthand knowledge to make a compelling case that Lyndon Baines Johnson was not only involved in JFK’s assassination, but was in fact the mastermind.
In his new book, The Man Who Killed Kennedy: The Case Against LBJ (released November 4, 2013), Stone brings to light blockbuster revelations demonstrating that LBJ had the unique motive, means and opportunity to murder Kennedy.
“I think Lyndon Johnson staged a coup d’état. We had a change in government because of the assassination of John F. Kennedy, and I think Johnson was the lynchpin of the plot to kill Kennedy. He was the man who had the most to gain. Johnson was also the man who had the most to lose because in November of 1963, he was facing oblivion. He knew that Kennedy was going to drop him from the ticket, and he knew he was under investigation in two major corruption scandals of the day, the Bobby Baker and the Billie Sol Estes scandals.”
I personally believe that Oswald was indeed involved in some way, shape or form. Did he do the shooting? Who knows. Could he have accomplished it alone? Sure, I think he COULD have, but I don\'t believe he did. A high ranking government official admitted years later that Clay Shaw had indeed worked for the CIA. Jim Garrison\'s attempt to prosecute him for involvement in the conspiracy was doomed from the start. I read Mr. Garrison\'s book, before the movie came out. What reason would he have to say that there were bugs in his office? What reason did he have to make up any of the info in his book? He was not a man that needed money. The movie, like most that are BASED on a book, takes alot of liberties to make the movie more appealing. But even before the movie was released, his book provides compelling evidence that Oswald did not act alone. Unfortunately, the American public grossly underestimates the power of our government to hide things from us. This is NOT how the government formed in 1776 was designed to work. We the people, should DEMAND to see ALL evidence and documentation. We the people do not have the ability to demand anything from our government. \"...of the people, by the people, and for the people.\" Those days, sadly, are long gone, and it shouldn\'t be this way.
Give this some thought.....President Lincoln was assasinated in 1865. Our government STILL has the instruments used in his autopsy. Does anyone actually believe that they \"accidentally\" lost President Kennedy\'s brain?? That in itself is enough to make a strong case for conspiracy.
I do not believe there was a conspiracy. I never have, and I think there is compelling evidence that Oswald acted alone that is supported by new investigative techniques. I think there is a \"conspiracy\" mindset that some people have for events like this. I think some feel the need to believe that there is more to catastrophes than what we are told. But whether its Kennedy conspiracies, 9/11 conspiracies, or as far back as the Lusitania conspiracies, I really don\'t buy them. I respect the opinions of those who do, provided that they can provide solid evidence that makes those views plausible. After seeing a series of compelling programs on Channel 12 last week on this topic, I am further renewed in my belief the Oswald acted alone.
But the biggest what if is what if Ruby had not taken the law in his hands and killed Oswald? Maybe if Oswald was tried, some of the conspiracy theories may have been put to rest. I never did understand why Oswald was allowed to talk to reporters and the rifle paraded around for the public to see. How in the world was Ruby and for that matter any media allowed to be in such close proximity to the alleged assassin of our President?
The mistakes of those days have created the controversy but with our society\'s penchant to find conspiracy at every turn, even if my questions and other would be answered, there would still be plenty of people claiming that was not enough.
Unless some substantial new evidence is released, we may never know for sure what actually happened that day. My conclusion is I don\'t know and it probably will remain a continual mystery.