jfk-conspiracy-oswald-patsy52 years following the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, his death remains one of the world’s greatest unsolved murders.

Despite mountains of evidence coming to light in subsequent probes and investigations proving otherwise, the conclusion of the Warren Commission that Lee Oswald single-handedly planned and executed the murder of John Kennedy is still parroted by the media.

Here are ten questions about the assassination of John F. Kennedy which remain unexplained. At the very least, they prove that Lee Harvey Oswald could not have acted alone on November 22nd, 1963.

1. THE MAGIC BULLET
2. OSWALD AND THE CIA
3. OSWALD’S ALIBI
4. CROSSFIRE
5. SECRET SERVICE FAIL
6. AUTOPSY AND THE LOST BRAIN
7. BACK AND TO THE LEFT
8. OSWALD AND THE FBI
9. THE RIFLE
10.THE WARREN COMMISSION


No.1 The Magic Bullet

How can a bullet go through President Kennedy and Governor Connally and emerge in virtually mint condition on a hospital stretcher a few hours later?

jfk-assassination-magic-bullet

The Magic Bullet, so-called for its seemingly magical properties as it traveled through two men and emerged virtually intact a few hours later. According to both official stories, the Warren Commission and the House Select Committee on Assassinations, a single bullet caused all non-fatal wounds to Kennedy and Connally despite evidence of multiple shots and bullet types.

The Magic Bullet remains one of the most compelling pieces of evidence against the government’s official story.

From the get-go, it Commission Exhibit no.399 had been a hard bullet to swallow. The FBI’s own report had assumed three different bullets. The Warren Commission had also operated under this assumption until information became public in March 1964 that concrete debris caused by a bullet (or possibly, a bullet fragment) had struck assassination witness James Tague’s cheek. Chipped concrete showing distinctive bullet marks was later discovered confirming Tague’s story.

Commission Exhibit #399 Aka The Magic Bullet
Commission Exhibit #399
Aka The Magic Bullet

This forced Warren Commission investigators to come up with an alternate explanation without damaging their predetermined conclusion that all three shots came from the southeastern window of the 6th floor of the Texas School Book Depository.

Enter the Magic Bullet.

The bullet traveled 58 meters (189 feet), hit Kennedy in the back, changed direction and made its way upwards exiting his throat, paused a few seconds before entering Governor Connally’s back and exiting through his chest. It then passed through his wrist and lodged itself in the governor’s thigh before falling onto another patient’s gurney at Parkland Hospital a few hours later.

There are multiple problems with the single bullet theory.

The Zapruder film shows Kennedy reaching for his throat when emerging from behind the road sign at frame 225. However, Connally doesn’t react until at lesast two seconds later (no earlier than frame 268) where he has no difficulty in holding his hat despite allegedly having a shattered wrist. (The Zapruder film frame rate was 18.3 frames per second)

Connally himself repeatedly claimed that the same bullet that struck Kennedy had not struck him. He distinctly remembered having time to turn around and look at Kennedy before feeling any pain.

The bullet itself sits today in the National Archives in nearly intact condition despite shattering multiple bones while travelling through two men.

The Warren Commission purposely lowered the throat wound by about an inch. A lower throat wound would have caused damages to Kennedy’s shirt and tie.

There weren’t any.

They also chose to raise Kennedy’s back wound by several inches in order to better line in up with his throat wound. Dr. George Burkley, Kennedy’s personal physician, located the back wound “at about the level of the third thoracic vertebra.

Gerald Ford also fiddled with the wound’s location and claimed he wasn’t “altering history” when he changed the words in an initial Warren Commission draft from:

“A bullet had entered his back at a point slightly above the shoulder to the right of the spine.”

to:

“A bullet had entered the back of his neck slightly to the right of the spine.”

Michigan Congressman Ford remains known for his role in deceiving the public while serving on the Commission more than for any other political position he would later held.

Gerald Ford changes to initial Warren Commission draft
Gerald Ford changes to initial Warren Commission draft

The autopsy descriptive sheet (verified) and the aforementioned shirt and jacket also support a back wound at that location, making a shot coming down at an angle of 17-18° unlikely to have exited through Kennedy’s throat.

Declassified records of the executive sessions of the Warren Commission reveal that the Magic Bullet was not unanimously accepted by members of the commission.

A serious disagreement arose at the last meeting of September 18th, 1964 in which three of the seven Commission members: Senator Sherman Cooper, Senator Richard Russell, and Congressman Hale Boggs refuse to accept the single bullet theory. Russell in particular, was adamant that his dissenting view be on the record in the Warren Commission Final Report. It wasn’t.

IMAGE: Arlen Specter playing magician ~ Warren Commission Exhibit #309


No.2 Oswald and the CIA

Who impersonated Oswald in Mexico City in the months preceding the assassination?

jfk-conspiracy-oswald-cia
Lee Harvey Oswald was impersonated multiple times in the months preceding the assassination. Most importantly, one of the fake Oswald allegedly met with Valeriy Kostikov, the KGB’s head of assassination and sabotage in Mexico City. The CIA ran surveillance on anyone who entered the Soviet embassy.

The impersonation of Oswald in Mexico is likely the most pertinent piece of evidence for conspiracy and is probably what caused powerful players in US intelligence to set in motion a cover-up.

Allen Dulles, CIA
Allen Dulles, CIA

Although this alone does not show direct involvement by the CIA in the planning and execution of the plot to assassinate John F. Kennedy, it severely limits the number of people who could have pulled such a con. Who was sufficiently informed to know that a fake Communist plot would cause the CIA to engage in a cover-up?

President Lyndon Johnson used the “Mexico Incident” to convinced distinguished Supreme Court Judge Earl Warren to lend his good name and reputation to support the preconceived conclusions of Oswald as a lone gunman and lie to the American people in order to avoid going to war with the Soviets.

Interestingly, the initial police radio description of Oswald came directly from the CIA’s file on Lee “Henry” Oswald.

None other than disgraced CIA spymaster Allen Dulles, previously fired by Kennedy for his role in the Bay of Pigs fiasco, was named to the Warren Commission and quickly became the main gatekeeper and the true power behind the commission with most of the other members paying very little attention to their duties and delegating most of the workload to subordinates.

Warren Commission J. Lee Rankin wrote in a late January ‘64 memo that, amongst other Dallas officials, District Attorney Henry Wade: “…was also aware of an allegation that Oswald was an informant for the CIA and carried Number 110669.” The CIA confirmed that 110669 did follow Agency protocol for identifying assets, but that the number had not been assigned to Lee Harvey Oswald, but rather, to an Australian CIA person of interest.

The CIA was very interested in Jim Garrison’s investigation into the assassination and the trial of Clay Shaw and it was later revealed that the Agency had spies within Garrison’s inner circle feeding them information.

We now know that Clay Shaw did informed for the CIA from 1948 to 1956 and that he was cleared for Project QK/ENCHANT, which remains classified to this day.

One month following the assassination the Washington Post published an op-ed by President Harry Truman admonishing the CIA. It began “I think it has become necessary to take another look at the purpose and operations of our Central Intelligence Agency—CIA. “ The piece, entitled Limit CIA Role To Intelligence, prompted Allen Dulles to travel to Missouri for a tête-à-tête with the former President.

IMAGE: The CIA’s “Oswald” from Warren Commission Exhibit #237


No.3 Oswald’s Alibi

Why did the Warren Commission ignore evidence collaborating Oswald’s alibi?

jfk-conspiracy-oswald-alibi

“The evidence… is not very, very strong…”

― Head of FBI, J. Edgar Hoover
Telephone Conversation between President Lyndon Johnson and J. Edgar Hoover
23 Nov 1963

“I’m just a patsy.”

Lee Harvey Oswald

The Alibi

Shortly before the shooting, (~12:25pm) at a time where he was supposedly already settled in the Sniper’s Nest and at which the motorcade was scheduled to pass by the Texas Schoolbook Depository, Oswald told his interrogator that he was having lunch on the first floor of the Texas School Book Depository.

Harold Norman
Harold Norman

Oswald also claimed to have seen two of his colleagues, Harold Norman and James “Junior” Jarman pass through the room while he was having lunch.

This was corroborated by both Jarman and Norman who passed the first floor on their way to the fifth floor to get a better view of the motorcade.

Oswald could not possibly have known this unless he was where he says he was.

Oswald’s alibi checks out.

Oswald’s FBI interrogator reported:

“OSWALD stated that on November 22, 1963, he had eaten lunch in the lunch room at the Texas School Book Depository, alone, but recalled possibly two Negro employees walking through the room during this period. He stated possibly one of these employees was called ‘Junior’ and the other was a short individual…”

Fritz wrote in his interrogation notes:

“say two negr came in. One Jr. + short negro.”

However, the Warren Commission questioned Jarman about whether or not he had lunch with Oswald, which he denied, giving the Warren Commission an excuse to dismiss Oswald’s alibi. (a similar technique was used to dismiss Hugues Film showing an empty Sniper’s Nest moments before the assassination. See below)

Conveniently, Fritz notes which would have confirmed Oswald’s alibi in the absence of any recordings or other notes taken during last century’s most high-profiled murder case, remained undiscovered until 1997.

Carolyn Arnold saw Oswald on the first floor at 12:15, giving further collaboration for Oswald’s alibi. She was never called by the Warren Commission to testify.

No Eyewitness

No one saw Oswald fire a rifle from the 6th floor of the school book depository.

One witness, Howard Brennan, standing outside the Texas School Book Depository, described a man on the 6th floor resembling Oswald’s description “He was a white man in his early 30’s, slender, nice looking, slender and would weigh about 165 to 175 pounds. He had on light colored clothing but definitely not a suit.”

The Warren Commission chose to make Brennan its star witness against Oswald despite Brennan being unable to identify Oswald in a police lineup. Part of Brennan’s description of Oswald, although it could reasonably apply to Oswald, strangely resembles the CIA’s description of Oswald’s Mexico impostor. Oswald clothing that day definitely could not be mistaken for being “light colored.”

Acquilla Clemons
Acquilla Clemons

Oswald also described the shirt he had been wearing as being dark. Brennan was adamant that the shooter and Oswald had been wearing completely different clothes in his Warren Commission testimony.

Witnesses Arnold Rowland, Carolyn Walther, Ronald Fischer and Robert Edwards also described light clothes.

Arnold Rowland gave a statement that he saw a gunman at the southwestern end of the Texas School Book Depository’s 6th floor. (See video) The Sniper’s Nest was on the opposite end of the building.

This selective dismissal of witnesses who don’t collaborate the official story was also used in the investigation of the shooting of police officer Tippit in which the Warren Commission chose to accept the testimony of witness Helen Markham, while dismissing Oswald’s landlady Earline Roberts testimony which would have caused problematic timing.

The Warren Commission also decided that Acquilla Clemons did not exist.

Impossible Timing

The Warren Commission’s timeline allowed 90 seconds for Oswald to zigzag his way through stacks of boxes while he crossed the 6th floor, hid his rifle, ran down the stairs while avoiding being seen by Vicky Adams (see Girl on the Stairs) who was coming down from the fourth floor at the same time, buy a coke from the vending machine on the 2nd floor and calmly sip on it before Officer Baker (seen running into the School Book Depository in the Couch film) in the company of Texas School Book Depository manager Roy Truly briefly question him before moving on to the upper floors.

(See Warren Commission photos of the Texas School Book Depository)

Empty Sniper’s Nest

The Robert Hughes film shows a clearly empty sniper’s nest just seconds before the assassination. The Charles Bronson film taken around the same time also reveals an empty Sniper’s Nest.

Frame from Hughes Film showing an empty sniper’s nest
Frame from Hughes Film showing an empty sniper’s nest

The Warren Commission got around this by implying that the Hughes film was shot 10 minutes before the assassination, despite Kennedy’s car seen passing the Texas School Book Depository in the same sequence.


No.4 Crossfire

Why did Oswald pass on an easy shot as the motorcade traveled down Houston Street in favor of a more challenging target on Elm Street?

jfk-conspiracy-crossfire
The motorcade had to execute a difficult 90 degree turn coming from Main street onto Elm Street. The slow turn would have been an ideal spot for a shooter located at the southeastern corner of the 6th floor of the Texas School Book Depository and the view is unobstructed by any trees. Meanwhile shooter located in the Sniper’s Nest would have his line of sight blocked by a giant oak tree until at least Zapruder frame #210.

X-110, the Presidential limo used on November 22, was not equipped with any bullet-proof components whatsoever. Fortunately, it had blue mouton rugs, 2 telephone radios and interior floodlights. Both the windshield and its frame were damaged in the shooting.

Oswald allegedly chose to take shots as the motorcade was going down Elm Street. Conveniently, this put Kennedy in a crossfire between the Texas School Book Depository and another team located near the Grassy Knoll.

Unlike ghostbusting, a crossfire, or triangulation, is a good thing in the assassinating business.

Jim Dieugenio and Jim Garrison both speculated that there were three sniper teams operating a L-shaped ambush or triangulation. One team was located in (or on) the Texas School Book Depository (A), one (or two) in the Grassy Knoll (C) area (possibly including Jack Ruby) and another on the second floor or on the roof of the Dal Tex Building (B).

Where was Lee Harvey Oswald? Evidence suggest that he was on the first floor of the Texas School Book Depository.

The assassination simulator, JFK: Reloaded (Free download @IGN’s Fileplanet) is especially useful in viewing the motorcade from different locations. This interactive map is also useful.

Simulations

Texas School Book Depository
View from the 6th Floor southwestern window (from televised FBI reenactment of the assassination)
6th-floor-tsbd-southwestern-elm-pov-lg


View from 6th floor “Sniper’s Nest” (running time: 1 minute)

Grassy Knoll POV (running time: 34 seconds)

Grassy KnollBadgeman POV (running time: 28 seconds)

Dal-Tex Building (running time: 46 seconds)
View from 2nd floor

Dal-Tex Building (running time: 36 seconds)
View from roof

If oswald was a gamer. Alternative scenarios of the Assassination of John F. Kennedy. 😀


No.5 Secret Service Fail

Why was the Secret Service unable to protect President Kennedy?

jfk-conspiracy-secret-service-fail
The 1979 House Select Committee on Assassinations concluded that “The Secret Service was deficient in the performance of its duties” in its final report on the Kennedy Assassination.

Security Stands Down

An ABC affiliate in Dallas filmed Kennedy’s arrival and departure from Love Field Airport. As the Motorcade is leaving Love Field and two secret agents are jogging alongside the back of the limousine, Secret Service in Charge Emory Roberts, riding in the follow-up car, calls back the agents.

Secret Service Agent Henry Rybka is clearly confused at the order and can be seen shrugging three times as he takes position in one the follow-up cars.

Two secret agents usually ride on the back bumper of the Presidential limo and serve as human shields for the President’s protection. Strangely, Kennedy himself has been blamed for being uncooperative with the Secret Service in their effort to protect him. The assertion is not supported by facts.

Presidential Limo Slows Down

The Orville Nix film of the assassination shows Kennedy’s limo slowing down moments before the fatal headshot, contrary to all Secret Service training and protocol. The rear tail light can be seen glowing red in the Mary Muchmore film suggesting that driver William Greer was applying the brakes at that moment.

Illuminated brake light in the Muchmore film
Illuminated brake light in the Muchmore film

The slower speed also explains how Secret Service agent Clint Hill was able to reach the Presidential limo despite the wide (and fortunate for assassins) gap between it and the Secret Service follow-up car.

Destruction of Crime Scene Evidence

Although photographs were taken of the limo’s damaged windshield, witnesses reported Secret Service using a mop and bucket to wash off blood splatters from the Presidential Limousine. Additionally, the limo was quickly stripped and rebuilt.

The Secret Service might have been especially deficient on November 22nd partly because agents were partying until early morning at “The Cellar”, an all-night beatnik club.


No.6 Autopsy and the Lost Brain

Why are autopsy records missing, destroyed, or altered?

jfk-conspiracy-autopsy
Immediately following Kennedy’s death at Parkland Hospital in Dallas, Kennedy’s body was flown to Washington and brought to Bethesda Naval Hospital in Maryland. It was determined that the autopsy should be conducted in a Navy hospital, and thus the operation would be under control of the military and more importantly subject to the the military’s chain of command.

The autopsy was not handled by a forensic pathologist as is commonly the case for gunshot-wound victims. The autopsy for the most high-profile murder investigation of the 20th century was left to two general pathologists, Navy officers Drs. James Humes and Thornton Boswell, trained to determine conventional causes of death such as cancers or heart attacks. Furthermore, Humes and Boswell were little more than hospital administrators who hadn’t seen blood in years.

JFK’s head wound as described by Dr. McClelland (ARRB MD #264)
JFK’s head wound as described by Dr. McClelland
(ARRB MD #264)

By the time a qualified pathologist, Army Lieutenant Colonel Dr. Pierre Finck arrived, the team had already removed Kennedy’s brain, which was subsequently lost. Finck was intimidated by the many admirals and generals in the autopsy room barking orders at he and other physicians. He testified at the Garrison trial that one of the generals ordered him not to dissect JFK’s back wound to determine the origin of the shot.

An extra 40 minutes of audio recordings from Air Force One carrying Kennedy’s body from Dallas to Washington hints that General Curtis Lemay might have been the cigar-smoking general giving orders during the autopsy.

Entrance Wound in Throat

The autopsy team had been ignorant that doctors in Dallas had expanded the throat wound and inserted a tube in it (a tracheotomy) in order to get Kennedy breathing again.

Doctor Malcolm Perry who examined the wound before performing the procedure determined it to be an entrance wound. He made originally made the statement at the Parkland Hospital press conference well before the political aspects of the case had begun altering the facts.

Large Exit Wound at the Back of the Head

All doctors present in Trauma Room 1 and attending staff in Dallas remember the back of Kennedy’s head being blown out indicating a shot coming from the front of the President.


Dr. Robert McClelland
Dr. Robert McClelland
Dr. Charles J. Carrico
Dr. Charles J. Carrico
Dr. Ronald Jones
Dr. Ronald Jones
Dr. Richard Dulany
Dr. Richard Dulany

Dr. Kenneth Salyer
Dr. Kenneth Salyer
Andrey Bell, RN
Andrey Bell, RN
Dr. Charles Crenshaw
Dr. Charles Crenshaw
Dr. Paul Peters
Dr. Paul Peters

Autopsy Photographs and X Rays

Instead of using actual photographs of the autopsy, which might have conflicted with their story, the Warren Commission had artist H.A. Rydberg redraw the photos based on directions from Dr. James Humes.


Officially, the autopsy photos and x-rays remain classified and were strictly exempted from being released by the Assassination Records Review Board. However, photographs made their way into public hands and black and white bootleg copies were printed in David Lifton’s Best Evidence in 1988. These were previously obtained by Mike Crouch thought retired Secret Service agent James Fox and made available to the assassination research community.

Around the same time CIA agent Regis Blahut was busy pilfering through the safe holding classified assassination documents, including the autopsy photographs, JFK researcher Robert Groden, who had been consulting for the House Select Committee on Assassination clandestinely snapped pictures of the photographs. These colored photographs were printed in the Globe supermarket tabloid in 1991.

Missing Evidence

Dr. James Humes also took it upon himself to unconventionally burn his notes and all preliminary reports relating to the Presidential autopsy. Kennedy’s brain, key autopsy photographs, as well as skull fragment which supposedly prove the direction of the bullet which caused the fatal head wound are also conveniently missing.

Although the Warren Commission investigated unquestionably useless leads such as Marina Oswald’s supposedly bad teeth, it failed to interview Kennedy’s personal physician, George Burkley who accompanied Kennedy from the revival attempts at Bethesda Hospital in Dallas, through the flight to DC, during the autopsy and finally Kennedy’s embalming.

Burkley later became convinced of conspiracy in the assassination of John F. Kennedy and made efforts to contact the House Select Committee on Assassination to expand on information that “others besides Oswald must have participated.

Note

For everything you would ever want to know about the autopsy see:
How Five Investigations into JFK’s Medical/Autopsy Evidence Got It Wrong
Gary L. Aguilar, MD and Kathy Cunningham, May 2003


No.7 Back and to the Left

Why did Kennedy react to a shot from the front?

jfk-conspiracy-back-and-to-the-left
The Zapruder film is compelling visual evidence of a shot coming from the front of the presidential limo. Kennedy’s head clearly moves to the back and to the left following the fatal headshot at Zapruder frame 313.

Assistant Press Secretary Malcolm Kilduff indicating the fatal headshot in an early briefing to reporters
Assistant Press Secretary Malcolm Kilduff indicating the fatal headshot in an early briefing to reporters

]The film also shows chunks of brain matter projected towards the back of the car. Mrs. Kennedy is then observed desperately trying to pick her husband’s brain from the car’s trunk. Motorcycle officers Bobby Hargis and B. J. Martin who were closely following the limo were stuck so violently with fragments that they believed they themselves had been shot.

The general public was unable to view the Zapruder film.

Time-Life publisher C.D.Jackson quickly arranged to purchase the rights to the Zapruder film. Jackson was CIA and active in its Operation Mockingbird, a CIA program of media infiltration, Under Jackson’s direction, Time-Life failed to exploit the Zapruder film’s commercial potential and instead chose to lock up copies of the film in its private vault.

The public had to trust government officials and the media to tell them about the film’s content. However, its trust was misplaced..

After having the opportunity to view the film, highly-respected CBS anchorman Dan Rather lied, claiming that Kennedy’s “head could be seen to move violently forward.

Finally in 1975, a bootleg copy of the Zapruder film was shown on national television, The footage, and especially the frames following frame 313, caused a public outrage which eventually led to a second official investigation into the JFK assassination, the House Select Committee on the Assassination.

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z313
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The Committee discovered that the Warren Commission had suppressed its study by Larry Sturdivan at the Aberdeen Proving Ground who shot ten skulls with a Mannlicher-Carcano and was unable to replicate the so-called “jet effect”. He found that if you hit something (eg. a watermelon or a Kennedy’s head) from the back, it will inevitably be propelled forward.

Kennedy’s reaction to the headshot in the Zapruder footage as well as acoustic evidence from a recording of a police CB radio convinced the committee “that President John F. Kennedy was probably assassinated as the result of a conspiracy.”

However, they also determined that the shooter located on the grassy Knoll missed….

…and that everything else happened exactly how the Warren Commission says it did. 😯

Multiple Witnesses

There were over 40 witnesses to shots coming from the Grassy Knoll, including Abraham Zapruder who believed that the shots had came from behind him. Many spectators are seen running up the Grassy Knoll in the Robert Hughes film.

Famously, railroad worker Sam Holland, who was standing with a group on the railway bridge, described a “puff of smoke” coming from the trees behind the fence on top of the Grassy Knoll. His testimony was ignored by the Warren Commission.

Badge Man

Dallas police officer Joe Smith also heard shots coming from the Grassy Knoll. He ran up the hill and was able to smell gunpowder. He pull out his gun after encountering a suspicious individual but holstered his weapon after the gentleman identified himself as a member of the secret service.

Some researchers believe that Badge Man is visible in the Orville Nix film and in the Moorman Photograph, however, Badge Man can’t be seen in the Bell film of that area.

All secret service agents were part of the motorcade and none were posted anywhere on the ground or at Dealey Plaza.

The Warren Commission ignored or dismissed all witnesses that place shots coming from a different location than the 6th floor of the Texas School Book Depository.

Assassination Films



WARNING: Contains Graphic Images
Zapruder Film (Slow Motion and Stabilized)



Assassination from railway bridge (SM Holland’s location)

Assassination from Grassy Knoll

Assassination from Badge Man’s alleged location


No.8 Oswald and the FBI

Did Oswald work for the FBI?

jfk-conspiracy-oswald-fbi

Was Lee Harvey Oswald a FBI informant?

The matter of Oswald being an informant for the FBI was one of the primary concerns of the Warren Commission. It had determined to crush rumors of any ties between Oswald and the FBI and/or the CIA, whether they be true or not.

However, the rumors were not so easily dismissed. General Counsel for the Warren Commission, J. Lee Rankin wrote in a January ‘64 memo that he knew from a good source that Oswald was a FBI informant regularly receiving $200 month though a FBI account numbered 179.

The Warren Commission held an emergency meeting on January 22nd to discuss the matter. Most of this meeting was held off-the-record and Rankin’s memo linked above is the only record we have of those portions.

Rankin admitted that they were powerless against the FBI and that even if Oswald had been an informant,he was “confident that the FBI would never admit it” and “their records will never show it…” He noted that Oswald’s use of aliases and postal boxes would be in keeping with the methods of an undercover agent.

At the same meeting, Allen Dulles suggested that the records of the sessions itself should be destroyed. (A seemingly recurring theme with Mr. Dulles)

At the following meeting of January 27th Rankin said that the Department of Justice was afraid to confront Hoover with the allegation and that he should go ask Hoover himself. but Earl Warren cautioned him against this strategy. Dulles pointed out that whoever might have been Oswald’s contact at the FBI would never talk about it anyway.

The Warren Commission failed to pursue the matter any further.

The Commission might have been onto something.

In the week preceding the assassination, Oswald had dropped off a sealed letter for Agent James Hosty at the Dallas FBI Field Office. Immediately following Oswald’s murder by Jack Ruby on the 24th, Special-Agent-in-Charge Gordon Shanklin ordered Hosty to destroy the note and a memorandum relating to Oswald. Interestingly, it was later revealed that Ruby himself had been a FBI informant.

The note’s destruction wasn’t revealed to the public until Hosty’s testimony to the Church Committee in 1975. Shanklin claimed not to recall the incident.

Jim Garrison at 544 Camp Street in Oliver Stone’s JFK
Jim Garrison at 544 Camp Street in Oliver Stone’s JFK

In August of ‘63, Oswald hired a few pamphleteers and distributed pro-Castro leaflets stamped with the address 544 Camp Street, the office of Carlos Bringuier, an anti-Castro exile. Oswald deliberate trolling of Bringuier worked. Bringuier and his buddies came out swinging and both men were arrested. The pair then appeared in a radio debate, establishing Oswald bona fides as a pro-Castro activist.

New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison discovered that 544 Stamp Street and the office of Guy Banister, former FBI turned private detective, at 531 Lafayette Street were in actuality the same building. However, his claim that both entrances led to the same office is more than likely mistaken. Garrison was interested in Banister’s work with David Ferrie, Lee Harvey Oswald and anti-Castro Cuban exiles in New Orleans.

Oswald’s previous attempts to reach out to the Communist Party USA and the Socialist Workers Party leads researcher David Kaiser to raise the possibility that Oswald was part of a FBI COINTELPRO operation to discredit the Fair Play for Cuba Committee. Oswald had written to the Fair Play for Cuba Committee in New York, but was told that New Orleans was a dangerous place and not a suitable location for a chapter. Nevertheless Oswald proceeded to rent an office and to take the role of secretary for his chapter of one. He even did a TV interview the month before the assassination further establishing his Marxist credentials.

The FBI had used similar methods in the past when it had created a fake W.E.B. Du Bois Club, a Communist youth organization, in order discredit it.

In 1978, FBI Agent William Walter testified that Oswald had been an informant to the New Orleans office.


No.9 Oswald and the Rifle

Did Oswald fire a rifle on November 22nd?

top10JFK-ozwald-rifle

“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.”

Jesse Curry, Dallas Chief of Police, 1969

Gunshot Residue Tests

Oswald was tested for gunshot residue on his hands and on his right cheek. The results proved that Oswald had not fired a rifle on November 22nd.

A few hours after entering Dallas police custody, liquid Paraffin wax was applied to both of Oswald’s hand and to his right cheek. Once the cast hardened, it was examined for barium (Ba), antimony (Sb), and lead (Pb), chemical elements left behind following a riffle or gunshot.

The paraffin casts were examined using two different methods:

A spectrographic analysis of the cast revealed traces of nitrates on both of Oswald’s hands, but not on his cheek. The negative result for the cheek proved that Oswald had not fired a riffle, meaning he could not have fired at Kennedy.

Additionally, the chemical residue found on his hands were not definite proof that he had fired a revolver as these chemicals are found in everyday items such as cigarettes, paint, soap, and more importantly, printing ink, abundant on books and boxes that Oswald had been carrying around all morning as part of his work duties.

Nevertheless, Dallas Police announced to the press that Oswald had fired a weapon that day, carefully omitting mentioning that he had conclusively not fired rifle. The news soon went national further convicting Oswald in the public’s mind.

Due to the high-profile nature of the case, the Paraffin casts were also put through a neutron activation analysis by the FBI in conjunction with the Atomic Energy Commission. The test is able to detect even smaller amounts of chemical elements. Once again, it confirmed that Oswald could not be specifically associated with the rifle.

The Warren Commission chose to dismiss all the cast samples as contaminated as well as the results of both the spectrographic analysis and the neutron activation analysis.

State of the Rifle

Commission Exhibit 139, the Mannlicher-Carcano rifle found on the 6h floor of the Texas School Book Depository was not in operable condition.

The US Army had to add metal shims to the telescope in order to use it, and even then, it would not stay true to target after being fired. The bold action mechanism and the trigger also proved to be defective.

Tower-Texas School Book Depository comparison Document 24, Cover-Up
Test Tower-Texas School Book Depository comparison
Document 24, Cover-Up

At the behest of the Commission, the FBI and US Army conducted tests at the Army’s Ballistic Research Laboratory at the Aberdeen Proving Grounds. Expert marksmen were unable to replicate Oswald’s feat, despite shooting from a spacious perch half the height of the Texas School Book Depository’s 6th floor and shooting at stationary targets.

Expert marksmen struggled to hit stationary targets within the Warren Commission’s timeframe of up to 7.9 seconds. However, since the Commission concluded that Oswald would not have shot at the President before Zapruder frame #210, due to his line-of-sight being obscured by an oak tree; and with the final head shot at Zapruder frame #313, this leaves only 5.6 seconds for the full sequence of shots. (313-210=103, Zapruder’s camera shot 18.3 frames per second, so 103÷18.3=5.6)

This alone is enough to debunk the Warren Commission’s version of events, unless we are to believe that the Tague shot came after the fatal blow. All witnesses in Dealey Plaza reported the head shot as the final shot.

None of the experts were able to replicate Oswald’s timing and precision. Keep in mind, Oswald was not an expert marksman.

Fingerprints

While examining the 6th floor rifle recovered on the afternoon of the assassination, Dallas Police department Lieutenant J.C. Day noticed possible fingerprints on the trigger as well as on the finger guard of CE 139, so he dutifully photographed it, placed cellophane over the prints and send the rifle to the FBI forensic lab in Washington, DC.

The FBI found the two prints to be unusable. They carefully examined the rifle for any other fingerprints and concluded that they were no usable prints. None of the 3 spend cartridges found in the sniper’s nest had prints either. They returned the rifle to Dallas on the 24th.

Five days later, Lieutenant Day suddenly remembered that he, totally alone and isolated, had lifted a complete and perfect print from the rifle’s barrel with scotch tape during his initial November 22nd examination. He had also omitted to take a photograph before taking the print on orders of Police Chief Jesse Curry. He also neglected to send it to the FBI crime lab along with every other pieces of evidence related to the case. On the 29th, he sent the newly-rediscovered print to Washington with a note “off underside gun barrel near end of foregrip C2766”. Sure enough, the print (CE 639) matched Oswald’s right palm perfectly. .

In 1978, an FBI memo revealed that the Warren Commission had been skeptical of Lieutenant Day’s claims. It failed to mention it in its final report.

A Convenient Paper Trail

 AJ Hidell ID card
AJ Hidell ID card

The mail ordered rifle (CE 139), AJ Hidell mail order coupon (CE 135), the backyard photographs (CE 133a, 133b, 134), the rented mail box (CE 818), and the AJ Hidell ID card (CE 796, 797) all conveniently pointing back to Oswald.

If this had been a really cheesy movie, the police would have found an advertisement with the rifle circled on it. Oh wait… they did.

The only reason Oswald would order a rifle through mail order from Chicago in open carry – no id required Texas would be to leave a paper trail. Could Oswald have been building up is bono fides as part of his mission to infiltrate and sabotage the Fair Play for Cuba Committee movement? Note that the FBI’s COINTELPRO used agent provocateurs to infiltrate otherwise peaceful groups and incite them into doing violence.

The FBI was easily able to trace the sale back to a mail order house in Chicago made to A.J. Hidell, the false personality created by Oswald for his non-existent New Orleans chapter of Fair Play for Cuba. He apparently chose the name Hidell, because it rhymed with Fidel. (no relation to the present author)

Marina Oswald’s testimonies were used to tie Oswald to the rifle. Unfortunately, her claims have been wildly inconsistent. Marina was swiftly isolated from the public following her husband’s death and kept under constant watch. She was routinely questioned by the FBI and the Secret Service, and constantly threatened with deportation back to the Soviet Union.

She initially claimed that she had never seen Oswald with the rifle and that he never practiced. By the time she testified to the Commission she had reversed her statement and claimed she had seen Oswald cleaning and sighting the rifle.

She also testified to hearing Oswald telling her that he was going out to practice with his rifle in early March. However, Oswald was not yet in possession of the Mannlicher-Carcano rifle.


No.10 The Warren Commission

Why did the Warren Commission operate with the foregone conclusion of Oswald as the lone assassin?

jfk-conspiracy-warren-commission

“Warren Report was not… an accurate presentation of all the evidence available to the Commission or a true reflection of the scope of the Commission’s work, particularly on the issue of possible conspiracy in the assassination. It is a reality to be regretted that the Commission failed to live to its promise.”

House Select Committee on Assassinations Final Report

On November 29th, President Lyndon Johnson passed Executive Order 11130, forming what would become known to history as the Warren Commission to evaluate all the facts and circumstances surrounding the assassination of Kennedy, including the subsequent violent death of Lee Harvey Oswald.

But they were a few caveats…

First, it had to be done by the election of 1964.

Fair enough, no President wants to drag dirty business into an election year.

Secondly, the commission had to conclude that Oswald was the lone assassin.

Wait… What? Why did the most powerful office in the United States insist on a preconceived conclusion of Oswald’s guilt?

Millions of lives were at state. Maybe.

The President and other powerful Washington players felt that if the assassination of John F. Kennedy could be tied to a communist conspiracy, either involving Cuba or the Soviet Union, it would inadvertently lead to Word war 3. The assassination happened little over a year following the Cuban Missile Crisis and with schoolchildren still doing the duck and cover in American classrooms, the scenario might not have been so farfetched.

preconceived conclusions of Oswald as a lone gunman and lie to the American people in order to avoid going to war with the Soviets. Ruby acted alone.

After the murder of Lee Harvey Oswald on Live TV, pressure on the White House increased to form a “blue-ribbon commission” to investigate the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

We know a lot about the government’s reaction to the assassination from the White House phone recordings of November 22nd to November 30th.

The morning following the assassination, J. Edgar Hoover called President Johnson and informed him that the CIA had wiretap conversations and photographs of a man pretending to be Oswald at the Soviet embassy in Mexico. The 10:01 am Hoover-Johnson phone call has been erased from the White House Tapes. However the 14-minute gap survives in transcript form.

Johnson’s White House immediately realized the implications and quickly went into cover-up mode. Johnson would henceforth refer to Oswald’s impostor as the “Mexico Incident”.

On November 25th, Nicholas Katzenbach, de facto head of the Justice Department issued his infamous memo in which he wrote:

“The public must be satisfied that Oswald was the assassin; that he did not have confederates who are still at large; and that evidence was such that he would have been convicted at trial.”

A November 27th phone call with Joe Alsop, a CIA media front man with deep Mockingbird involvement reiterates the need for a blue-ribbon commission capable of satisfying (i.e. fooling) the American public.

The blue -ribbon commission would be headed by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court Earl Warren lending his reputation, and eventually, his name to the group.

Johnson used his knowledge of the Mexico tapes to play out a doomsday scenario to convince Earl Warren to join the commission. He reminded Warren of the repercussions if Khrushchev or Castro were blamed for the assassination.

On November 29th he tells Senator Richard Kuchel:

“Why Khrushchev moved on us… he could kill 39 million in an hour and we could kill 100 million in his country in an hour and… now, I just don’t think you’d want to do that.”

Half an hour later he tells his friend and mentor Senator Richard Russell:

“… we’ve got to take this out of the arena where they’re testifying that Khruschev [sic] and Castro did this and did that and check us into a war that can kill 40 million Americans in an hour…” Russell is obviously not pleased with the President conning him into joining the commission.”

It is unknown whether or not Russell and Warren knowingly covered up what they honestly believed to be a communist conspiracy.

With a Democrat senator and a Republican senator, two members from the House, also from each party, the Warren Commission was to appear as impartial and bipartisan as possible.

He also named John McCloy of the World Bank, because back then, that was something respectable.

The President also chose disgrace CIA spymaster Allen Dulles to the commission who had recently been fired by Kennedy over the Bay of Pigs fiasco to serve on the commission. It was apparent then, and even more so now where Dulles allegiance lied.

jfk-conspiracy-warren-commission-members

The seven commissioners were not directly involved with the day-to-day operation of the Warren Commission with the exception of Allen Dulles who was significantly more devoted than the others due to his role at gatekeeper for the CIA.

Gerald Ford was the second most involved member of the commission. He acted as the FBI’s eyes and ears on the commission and routinely leaked information to J. Edgar Hoover.

The commissioners expected to meet a few times and that they would simply rubber stamp an upcoming report being prepared by the FBI. However when the 5-volume report was finally published in December, 1963, the Warren Commission quickly realized that the public was not going to buy any of it.

At the executive session of December 16, 1963 individual commissioners expressed outrage that the report had nothing on the crime itself or on Oswald’s motives.

They hired council J. Lee Rankin which in turn hired 16 lawyers. With most members simply lending their names and reputations to the commission, the task of conducting interviews and assembling information from the CIA and the FBI fell to 6 young, low-level, and non-influential researchers.

The commission had no field investigators and had to rely on the secretive CIA, FBI and Secret Service to assist them in field work.

Dulles had knowledge of multiple CIA operations that could have been a motive. He knew of Operation Mongoose, a plan to assassinate Fidel Castro. He was also aware that Castro knew of the plots. He knew of AM/LASH, a CIA cryptonym assigned to a senior Cuban official recruited in 1961 to murder Fidel Castro. From the Agency’s point of view, it was possible that the assassination was a blow back from a fail black op.

Allen operated under the CIA mindset of not divulging any information, no matter how relevant. (e.g. The CIA’s fake defector program) His role was coordinating CIA interviews and even coaching them in advance of appearing before the commission.

Ignored, dismissed, distorted, or misrepresented Evidence

In order to maintain its version of the events of November 22nd in which Oswald and Jack Ruby had both acted completely alone and independently of each other in their actions, the Warren Commission was forced to ignore or downplay evidence which contradicted their story.

To this end they classified, under the guise of national security thousands of files and documents until 2039. A number of these were released from 1995 to 1998 following Oliver Stone’s JFK which resulted in the creation of the Assassination Records Review Board and the passing of the JFK Records Collection Act.

Back and to the left – The Warren Commission does not mention Kennedy’s violent backward head movement following the final shot. (z313) Despite having seen the Zapruder film, not a single member of the committee described Kennedy’s violent backwards movement.

Theories that CIA was pulling its Mockingbird strings gained legitimacy when Life Magazine went on to buy the rights to the film and chose not to exploit the most precious piece of film in history, but instead, opted to keep it hidden in its vault for the next twelve years.

CBS’s Dan Rather also described the President slumping forward after getting a private viewing of the Zapruder film. A lie.

Gunshot Residue Tests: Both the NAA Analysis and the spectrographic analysis of the paraffin casts proved that Oswald had not fired a rifle on November 22nd. The casts and the spectrographic analysis were dismissed as contaminated while the NAA analysis was classified for 17 years for national security reasons.

The autopsy photographs and X-rays of Kennedy were not used by the Warren Commission. Instead they used cartoons in which they raised the back wound to align better with the throat wound.

Exit vs. Entry Wound – In order to dismiss contradicting testimonies made by staff at Parkland Hospital, the Warren Commission claimed that their tests revealed that exit and entry gunshot wounds are indifferentiable from each other. Exit wounds are clearly distinguishable from entry wounds on their own published goatskin tests.

Ignored any collaboration of Oswald Alibi – James Jarman and Harold Norman collaborated Oswald alibi of being in the lunchroom at the time of the murder.

Acquilla Clemons and Earline Roberts’ testimonies cast doubts on the Warren Commission version of the Tippet murder but the commission chose to go with the changing/unreliable testimony of Helen Markham.

Easy Shots – The Warren Commission and the media made a shot from the Texas School Book Depository was an easy shot despite the FBI and Army’s best marksmen unable to duplicate the feat.

Intact Magic Bullet – After the Edgewood Arsenal Ballistics tests suggested that the Magic Bullet (CE 399) could not have done what the report says it did without being significantly more damaged, the study was promptly classified for 10 years.

Cherry Picked Testimonies – The Warren Commission chose Marina Oswald’s version of events that fit in with the official story and ignored her numerous inconsistencies. For example, her claim that she had kept her husband from murdering Richard Nixon but locking him in the bathroom.

Grassy Knoll Witnesses: All witnesses who claimed to have heard shots from the Grassy Knoll were assumed to be mistaken. Their testimonies were misreported or falsified.

Similarly, all witnesses who claimed that the last two shots came in a quick succession were also assumed to be mistaken.

Puff of Smoke – The seven railroad workers who saw a puff of smoke were also said to have mistaken the steam from a distanced steam pipe for gun smoke.

Secret Service on Grassy Knoll – The commission ignored the testimony of officer Joe Marshall Smith who drew his gun on an unidentified man in the parking area behind the picket fence. The man showed Smith his Secret Service badge and Officer Smith let him go. Since the Secret Service was able to account for the location of all its people that day, and none of them were on the Grassy Knoll, the account and collaboratory evidence were dismissed.

Jack Ruby’s Mafia ties – The commission waited half a year before interviewing Ruby, ostentatiously, one of the most important witnesses in the case. Ruby had been sentenced to death, but the decision was overturned. in June of ‘64, as the Warren Report was already being drafted, Warren finally flew to Dallas to interview Ruby in his jail cell.

Unfortunately Ruby would barely give out any information claiming that he wasn’t safe and that he should be taking to Washington so that he could testify to the commission.

“I can’t speak here. My life is in danger. Take me to Washington.”

Rather, than accommodating Ruby as the Warren Commission had previously done for hundreds of witnesses, Warren simply told him to stop talking if he felt that his questions put him in any danger.

In the weeks prior to the assassination, Ruby had called practically every high-level player in Robert Kennedy’s list of American Mafiosos. The Warren Commission dismissed this as Ruby’s attempt to settle a union dispute with his strippers. The Mafia ran a racket where club owners were charged exorbitant union fees for dancers.

The Commission brought in Ruby’s friends and business relations in order to determine whether are not Ruby had any established ties to the “criminal underworld”. Each witness told the commission in turn that Ruby was not connected to organized crime. What the Commission failed to note, was that most of Ruby’s friends and partners that they interviewed were themselves active members of organized crime!

They were the Mafia connection.

The Warren Commission also failed to disclose that Ruby was an FBI informant and that the Dallas Police Department had also used him as an informant.

On Jun 9th 1964, Hoover sent Council Rankin a letter stating that Ruby had been and informant for the FBI. When interviewing Hoover, the commission never asked him questions related to Ruby’s FBI connection.

In 1979, the House Select Committee on Assassinations concluded that “Ruby’s shooting was not a spontaneous act”.

Palm Print on Rifle: The Warren Commission and the FBI’s doubts surrounding the providence of Oswald’s palm print on which conveniently tied Oswald to the murder weapon. Nevertheless, it included the evidence in its final report as evidence against Oswald.

The Dissension of Commissioner Russell – Senator Russell, who had been coerced into joining the Warren Commission by President Johnson, grew increasingly displeased with the Warren Commission. At the December 16 executive session, Russell made it clear to Allen Dulles that he didn’t trust the CIA.

Russell, Senator John Cooper, and Representative Hale Boggs, refused to endorse the Magic Bullet theory. Senator Russell took it a step further and he wished for their dissent to be on the record and noted in the Final Report of the Committee. At the Commission’s last meeting, he read his dissent in order to put it on the record. Unfortunately, the final report did not note the three commissioner’s objection to the magic bullet, and Russell’s speech was not in the final report, the executive sessions records, or the 26 volumes of hearings and exhibits.

We know of Russell’s dissent thanks to the effort of Harold Weisberg here and here. The episode would cause a permanent break between Senator Russell and President Johnson.

Dr. George Burkley Never Interviewed – , Kennedy’s personal physician who followed his body to Parkland and then to Bethesda Naval Hospital could have easily addressed the discrepancies between doctors in Texas and Maryland. However, he was never asked to testify. Dr. Burlkey believed he could give evidence of a conspiracy.

Destruction of Evidence

FBI Agent James P. Hosty destroyed his pre-assassination files on Oswald as well as a threatening letter Oswald had left at the Dallas field office in the weeks preceding the assassination.

James Humes, the chief pathologist on Kennedy’s autopsy destroyed his notes.

The US Army destroyed its file on Oswald.

Allen Dulles even suggested destroying the meeting records of January 22nd, after the group learned that Oswald had possibly worked as an informant for the FBI.

The Warren Commission Report was delivered to President Johnson on September 24, 1964, with a CBS documentary timed to come out simultaneously. It was instantly praised by all sectors of the media and generally continued to do so to this day.

The report appeared highly detailed and thoroughly researched. The heavy Warren Report volume was supplemented with 26 volumes of supporting evidence. (see Argumentum ad tl;dr)

In 1979, the House Select Committee on Assassinations disagreed with the Warren Commission’s conclusion based on (questionable) acoustic evidence and Kennedy’s head movement in the Zapruder film. The committee determined that four shots were fired that day, including one from the Grassy Knoll. They concluded that Kennedy was killed “As a result of conspiracy”.

However, they also concluded that the shot from the Grassy Knoll missed and otherwise generally agreed with the Warren Commission’s version of events, including the Magic Bullet Theory. Nevertheless, the US government currently has two official explanations of the Assassination of John F. Kennedy.