Said James R. Leavelle to Lee Harvey Oswald minutes before Oswald was shot to death, as memorialized in a photograph without which there would not be a NYT obituary for Leavelle, "James R. Leavelle, Detective at Lee Harvey Oswald’s Side, Dies at 99."
We're told Oswald responded, "You’re being melodramatic."
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I wonder what they told Epstein.
IIRC, although a former Marine, Oswald was not that good a shot. My memory may be faulty, but I believe he only qualified as marksmen, rather than sharpshooter.
"Lee, if anybody shoots at you, I hope they are as good a shot as you."
Seems like this can be taken at least two ways:
1. If someone shoots at Oswald I hope they kill him;
2. If someone shoots at Oswald I hope they hit him -- and not me, who is having to be right next to him.
and, perhaps:
3. I am the Devil and I whisper Fear into your ear about events I have arranged to transpire.
I am Laslo.
Psychic.
"IIRC, although a former Marine, Oswald was not that good a shot."
A lot of that is from decades of the Conspiracy Book Club authors downplaying his abilities -- and making it seem like it was a very difficult shot.
Conway's book covers the former, and as for the latter: I drove to Dallas from the Central Valley, California, non-stop, directly to the Texas Schoolbook Depository.
Dealey Plaza was not nearly as large as I had expected it to be from years of readings and diagrams and photos.
Standing at the adjacent window on the Sixth Floor, I realized that it was not a hard shot. Downward, with the car going away from you, with little lateral movement. Aim in that direction, fire three quick shots in the general direction, and not hard to see one-out-of-three succeeding.
I am Laslo.
Wikipedia,
"Like all marines, Oswald was trained and tested in shooting. In December 1956, he scored 212, which was slightly above the requirements for the designation of sharpshooter.[21] In May 1959 he scored 191, which reduced his rating to marksman.[21][39]"
I hope they hit him -- and not me
But he didn't know about the Single Bullet Theory wounding Connolly, so he may not have thought him a very good shot.
Looking back at that view out of the window, I believe Elvis could have fired that rifle and killed Kennedy.
Maybe not the latter day Elvis. That high rhinestone collar might've inhibited the shot.
I am Laslo.
I have stood in that window in the old School Book Depository. That was not that difficult a shot as the car was almost stopped.
I heard Ruby's shot on the radio as we were driving from one field to another on pheasant season opening day. My wife was watching the Kennedy funeral.
Elvis killed Kennedy and set up Oswald as the patsy.
Later, Nixon would invite Elvis to the White House to thank him personally.
I can work with this.
I am Laslo.
Oswald also shot and killed a Dallas cop--J. D. Tippit--in the movie theater while he was on the run.
Elvis felt a spiritual connection with Marilyn Monroe: born poor, but made it to the top by having a dream and a way with the hips.
Then that bastard JFK sanctioned her murder.
Elvis knew he had to do some TCB.
I am Laslo.
I watched the shooting happen live on TV on that Saturday afternoon. I wondered aloud if someone was going to shoot him less than a minute before it happened.
I doubt if any cop around him knew many of the details of Oswald's life in the short time he was in custody.
Laslo, sounds like the movie script is coming right along
BUT! It needs a hook, some sort of theatrical catch.
Maybe a Narrator? Someone TOTALLY outside of the plot to tie it together
I know!
The plot could be in a pulp magazine that the Narrator is reading
(we'd zoom into pix in the mag to start scenes, then pull back out to the narrator that would have some catchy lines... Hmmm Seems like our narrator should be some eye candy
(Otherwise, we're stuck with just Jackie and Marilyn)
What IF!
The narrator was in The Present Day, at some Modern Place (maybe a gym?)
She could seem kinda ditsy, but Really be insightful (and a sight for sore eyes ;)
WHAT IF! She was a girl, At a GYM!! On a TREADMILL!!!
Needs more?
What if the girl had (along with a GREAT ass), a Ponytail, that would go Swish Swish as she read?
As a rifleman I can almost guarantee that Oswald didn’t make that shot. Beyond that, who knows.
"Lee, if anybody shoots at you, I hope they are as good a shot as you." We're told Oswald responded, "You’re being melodramatic."
That would've been a good time to deny shooting Kennedy, if he didn't do it.
Back in those days, how well you shot for the military record could well depend on the condition of the rifle they handed you to shoot with.
Almost makes you wonder if Oswald was set up for a hit.
Parading him through an open area never made sense.
So,
We've agreed ...
That Oswald wasn't a Good shot (not NEARLY as good as Glen, who might have missed that shot)
That except for the times that he qualified as a Sharpshooter, he was ONLY a Marksman
That hitting a slow moving car, moving straight away from you (and fairly close) wouldn't be hard
That Oswald was given a Great Opportunity to say: " It wasn't ME! I didn't do it!", and declined
That Oswald most certainly killed AT LEAST one person that day.
That the Girl with a ponytail, on a Treadmill, should Most Definitely be the narrator
That's a wrap!
OH! and that Elvis was half the man that Chuck Berry was, and that the Only Reason(s) that Chuck wasn't bigger was on account of because he was Black
And from Saint Louis
And liked to have sex with little white girls
And stole cars
And was a Hairdresser (NTTIAWWT)
Oswald's in a jam ..
(Best photoshop evar)
From the NYT story: "At the time, two days after President Kennedy had been gunned down in a motorcade through downtown Dallas, Mr. Oswald was a suspect in the killing of a Dallas police officer, J.D. Tippit, and had yet to be conclusively tied to the assassination."
That can't be true, can it? The reason it was on TV was because he was known to be the assassin, no? In the conventionally accepted story, that's why Ruby shot him. None of that would have made sense if he was just a guy who'd killed a cop.
Touche, F
Any one who has ever shot a gun knows there are lucky shots. That you take full credit for when people notice or congratulate you. I've had more that my fair share.
Another suspicious death! Conspiracy!
Bob baers research says there was no second shooter, oswald did it, he may have been im contact with alpha 66, but fidel may atill have been involved.
All this is reminding me of the old Dennis Miller riff about the highly vigilant security on the Lee Harvey Oswald transfer:
"Hey, boss, the guy who owns the local titty bar is here, he's got a handgun, should I let him in?"
"Yeah, yeah, get him in here."
As Oswald was being taken out of his cell at the police station to be transported to the city jail, he asked to change his shirt. So they took him back to his cell, uncuffed him, allowed him to change shirts, re-handcuffed him and brought him back down.
At about the same time this was happening, Ruby was at the local telegraph office wiring some money to one of his ex-strippers. If Oswald had not requested a change of shirts, he would have been transported while Ruby was still sending the money. The delay to change shirts allowed Ruby to arrive at the basement at just the right time, sneak past the guards and shoot him.
"Any one who has ever shot a gun knows there are lucky shots. That you take full credit for when people notice or congratulate you. I've had more that my fair share."
Indeed.
And people talk about difficulty in replicating the shots, which is true -- if you are trying to match each exact point he hit (or missed), as opposed to firing three times at the figure of Kennedy and seeing if one or two hits.
Also: Kennedy was in a back brace that kept him stiff, upright, and rather immobile.
Alternate scenario: Oswald missed all three shots in his attempt to kill Jackie.
I am Laslo.
“I have stood in that window in the old School Book Depository. That was not that difficult a shot as the car was almost stopped.”
Agreed... I have, as well. I must say it was an unsettling feeling.
I remember (as an 11 year old) sitting in our den with my father, watching tv as we ate our breakfast and seeing that shooting of Oswald real-time. And just ten minutes earlier, I had been telling my dad that the cops should be torturing Oswald for what he’d done. My values would only improve as I got older.
That Stetson he was wearing is worth millions now.
Oswald DID have an accomplice: there was a second gunman positioned in front of the car.
However, at the sound of Oswald's shot he'd decided he'd just as soon as not.
Yes: The Grassy Knoll Coward.
I am Laslo.
The jackie scenario was revealed at the end of the quantum leap episode.
Surprised the NYT hasn’t suggested Trump was on the grassy knoll.
"Surprised the NYT hasn’t suggested Trump was on the grassy knoll."
...dodging sniper fire with Hillary Rodham, Brian Williams, and Joe Biden.
"I watched the shooting happen live on TV on that Saturday afternoon."
Weird. My dad and I thought we were watching it happen live on TV on that Sunday morning.
He could have used teslas time machine, rhat his uncle was aware of.
Well, after 56 years and still counting, nobody has solved the problem. Laslo's theory is as good as any I have read, and I have read almost all of them. Going back another 100 years, we have not completely solved the Lincoln killing. Fast forward a few years, valid issues exist as to the Lindberg matter. We will never know, it was designed that way by the powers-that-be. Funny, the only matter really ever resolved was the Reagan matter, and his shooter is virtually a free man.
Mark muses: Almost makes you wonder if Oswald was set up for a hit.
Almost???
Ruby was a low-mid level Mobster, operating a Titty Bar in Dallas, under Carlos Marcello, who ran Mob operations in the south.
Usually, Mobsters didnt murder people unless they were ordered to do so, or, at a minimum, got permission from above.
Assuming Ruby conducted a mob hit on Oswald, what are the implications?
He understood what his role was:
https://kaus.substack.com/p/jeffrey-epstein-red-pill?token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjoyOTIzODI2LCJwb3N0X2lkIjoxMTQyMTQsIl8iOiJkMDlQUiIsImlhdCI6MTU2NzE3NjA4NiwiZXhwIjoxNTY3MTc5Njg2LCJpc3MiOiJwdWItMTA5NDIiLCJzdWIiOiJwb3N0LXJlYWN0aW9uIn0.DR089vVNB19BgA7Spg9CZ2oVtntoSW2sH-rbR_n3ixI
Required reading for conspiracy theorists: "Case Closed" by Gerald Posner. Cogent and convincing take-down of every conspiracy theory. Posner's conclusion: one man, acting alone, and his name was Lee Harvey Oswald.
Ruby was a low-mid level Mobster, operating a Titty Bar in Dallas, under Carlos Marcello, who ran Mob operations in the south.
Marcello ran mob operations in the city of New Orleans not all of the South. Joseph Civello ran operations in Dallas. Read about the "Apalachin Meeting" for more details. I've seen no evidence that Ruby worked for Marcello. Yes, he had connections to the mob but that's not a connection specifically to Marcello. And he was a small time operator who always had debt/money problems.
"Weird. My dad and I thought we were watching it happen live on TV on that Sunday morning."
Yep. We were on the way to church when the news came on the car radio.
Mark muses: Almost makes you wonder if Oswald was set up for a hit.
Almost???
Nope. But ...
Who do you think set him up?
I too remember watching it on live TV at home. I was a Senior in HS. Could not believe it.
Who do you think set him up?
Da mob.
First JFK is killed, then Oswald, then Ruby, and now, just 56 years later, they knock off Leavelle.
Everything is tied up like a pretty bow. The right-wing-Cuban-Mafia-Kremlin-LBJ-CIA assassins get the last laugh.
Oswald left the Texas Schoolbook building where he worked about three minutes after the last shot was fired and while spectators around the scene were trying to determine what happened. "Was JFK dead? Was he shot? What's going on?"
It was chaos.
But Oswald decides not to stay around and see what happened. No, he walks seven blocks up the street, bangs on a bus door and asks for a ride. The bus is then caught up in the traffic that was stopped by the police in the area. Oswald gets off, catches a cab and is driven to his rooming house. But he tells the driver to let him off PAST the rooming house and then walks back to it. In other words, he's checking to see if the police were there.
He rushes in the house, sees his landlady watching events on the TV and NEVER asks her about the shooting. At no time after the shooting does Oswald EVER inquire about what happened. He goes to his room, changes clothes, picks up his revolver and rushes out. About ten minutes later as he's walking down the street, a police officer pulls over to talk. The officer gets out and Oswald shoots him.
These are not the actions of an innocent man framed for the shooting. This is a guilty man in flight.
I've never doubted that Oswald was the shooter.
true, but why did he take the revolver, if he wasn't a suspect yet, where was he going, before he ran into tippit?
Seriously, the JFK conspiracy myth, abetted by mainstream media, is arguably the greatest deliberate distortion of a single event in the history of this country.
The assassination of a president by a left-wing extremist was repackaged as one most likely committed by right-wing forces. Convincing the populace that such a massive cover-up was possible required a staggering amount of deception and could only produce a Lake Superior-size quantity of cynicism and anti-American emotion.
"Like all marines, Oswald was trained and tested in shooting. In December 1956, he scored 212, which was slightly above the requirements for the designation of sharpshooter.[21] In May 1959 he scored 191, which reduced his rating to marksman.[21][39]"
I think the numbers have changed over time, but if he scored slightly above the requirements for sharpshooter (the middle rank) that would have made him an expert on that day. I knew Marines who always scrapped by with a toilet seat (marksman) and some who always shot expert. I was all over the map (I shot at every level and even, just for fun, qualified left-handed one year)--it really depended on the day and how my eyes held-up. My final year, I made expert because they let you keep your practice round if you shot expert--They made the 2nd day of shooting optional. I always shot better in the practice day because my eyes were fresh.
Good question, narciso. And I've always believed a conspiracy was involved. And it makes for interesting conversation. ;-D Like Epstein's death [if he is, in fact, dead], there are too many convenient circumstances.
The only way "You’re being melodramatic." makes sense to me, is that Oswald is understanding James R. Leavelle to mean that he doesn't want to die from an attempt on Oswald's life. Oswald is implying that James' fears are exaggerated. I guess James had the last laugh.
true, but why did he take the revolver, if he wasn't a suspect yet, where was he going, before he ran into tippit?
Where was he going? Nobody knows, that's one of the unanswered questions. But he's clearly, to me, in flight. He left the building where people say shots were fired from. And he was the ONLY person who was in the building at the time of the shooting who left it. That's clearly a suspect. He knows it.
Remember the morning of the assassination that he left Marina his wedding ring and $170 in cash. She was stunned when she found it. It was nearly every dollar he had and was far more than he ever had left before. She said he'd leave her a "few dollars" to buy things for the children.
He's got a revolver and when arrested it was fully loaded (eyewitnesses at the Tippit shooting say they saw him re-loading it) and he had seven extra bullets in his pocket. That's a person looking for a shootout.
So he's got about $15 dollars, no means of transportation, and a fully loaded revolve with extra bullets. He's going to shoot his way out.
Look, maybe he had help (where? how?); but people who say he was innocent of this simply are ignoring a lot of evidence that points to his involvement. Maybe he was hired by the mob or manipulated by the CIA or anti-Castro people. But he's a willing participant. That's for certainty.
Marcello ran mob operations in the city of New Orleans not all of the South. Joseph Civello ran operations in Dallas. Read about the "Apalachin Meeting" for more details. I've seen no evidence that Ruby worked for Marcello.
Partially true, but too narrow. Marcello was a much bigger mob fish than Civello. Oswald toggled back and forth from Texas to New Orleans, after he "re-defected" from the Soviet Union.
Soon after JFK was inaugurated in Jan 1961, AG Bobby Kennedy forcibly deported Marcello to Guatamala, which started a blood feud between the Mob and the Kennedy Brothers. At the time of the Kennedy murder, Marcello was on trial in federal court, again, (in his view), being hounded by Bobby.
More so, Marcello and his mob ally Trafficante (who ran Miami) were enlisted into Operation Mongoose, the big Kennedy-CIA-Mob-Right wing Cuban effort to assassinate Castro, and regain their casinos.
Those operations, I believe, were on a much larger scale than any mob operations Civillo was overseeing in Dallas.
The whole sequence of events is very messy, but very interesting. Puts the current Russian-Hoax, Carter Page in Moscow bullshit to shame.
Partially true, but too narrow. Marcello was a much bigger mob fish than Civello. Oswald toggled back and forth from Texas to New Orleans, after he "re-defected" from the Soviet Union.
From what I've read, these mobsters were very protective of their territory. Hence all of these mob wars over the years.
I've never read anything about Marcello running Dallas. New Orleans, yes. And Oswald's uncle, Dutch Murret, was a numbers runner for Marcello.
There's a connection.
But I don't see any connection of Oswald to Marcello or Ruby to Marcello.
Question: Marcello (or whomever) orders Ruby to shoot Oswald. What prevents Ruby from exposing all of this? In my view, Ruby was simply not someone the mob would trust. He was volatile, emotional, and from what his friends say incapable of keeping secrets. He was, frankly, insane. After his arrest he told friends that Jews were being killed in the Dallas cells at night. He could hear their screams.
his uncle dutz murret, was a minor bookie, in the Marcello organization, greg iles natchez series, has a very byzantine take on this, involving many of those parties, if not all,
Solzhenitsyn, notes the ties of certain assasins of say Stolypin, and insinuates the Russian state security, had much to do with getting rid of him, that's in the second volume of the red wheel, august 1916
@Steve Gailbrath,
The Kennedy Murder cannot be evaluated without looking at the context of the major international conflict between the US & Cuba of that time.
1961 - Bay of Pigs
1962 - Cuban Missile Crisis
1963 - Operation Mongoose (US/CIA/Mob efforts to murder Castro).
The salient question is this: After the US invaded Cuba (which failed) and after Kennedy ordered the CIA to make extensive efforts to kill Castro (which failed), how did Castro react in response?
Here's Castro famous speech at Brazilian Embassy in September 1963:
Kennedy is the Batista of his times…and the most opportunistic American President of all times. He is fighting a battle against us they cannot win. Kennedy is a hypocrite, and a member of an oligarchic family that controls several important posts in government.”
“We are prepared to fight them and answer in kind. United States leaders should think that if they are aiding terrorist plans to eliminate Cuban leaders, they themselves will not be safe.”
The recent book about Manson, "Chaos", has a section that gives a version of Ruby's craziness: MKULTRA psychiatrist Louis J. West (West was supposedly specialized in hypnosis and implanting false memories).
From an interview with the author:
"Ruby was seeking a retrial and his new attorney, who was also a doctor, Hubert Winston Smith, had hired Jolly (West) to go to Texas and examine him. And within the twenty-four hours of that window that West examined Ruby he had a psychotic break, and he was never the same..."
Take with a grain of salt, etc etc etc.
I am Laslo.
"That Stetson he was wearing is worth millions now."
Jack Ruby's hat sold for $53,000 in 2009.
The historian William Manchester, who wrote one of the first books on the assassination and had been a friend of JFK's, put it this way (in 1992):
"Those who desperately want to believe that President Kennedy was the victim of a conspiracy have my sympathy. I share their yearning. To employ what may seem an odd metaphor, there is an esthetic principle here. If you put six million dead Jews on one side of a scale and on the other side put the Nazi regime — the greatest gang of criminals ever to seize control of a modern state — you have a rough balance: greatest crime, greatest criminals.
But if you put the murdered President of the United States on one side of a scale and that wretched waif Oswald on the other side, it doesn't balance. You want to add something weightier to Oswald. It would invest the President's death with meaning, endowing him with martyrdom. He would have died for something.
A conspiracy would, of course, do the job nicely. Unfortunately, there is no evidence whatever that there was one."
People have an almost emotional need to balance things out. Oswald on the one hand, JFK on the other? That's impossible. The world doesn't work that way. Can it?
But it often does.
yes, that's a crazy trip down the rabbit hole, O'Neil suggests at least two lapd investigators had company ties, and Sharon tate's father was army intel, also the spahn ranch had connections to mk ultra,
Weird. My dad and I thought we were watching it happen live on TV on that Sunday morning.
I was just going from memory. I remember Kennedy was shot on a Thursday and I thought he was being moved on that Saturday. Yes, it was Sunday the 24th. And I still watched it live. So on the third day he descended again to the dead.
well how much of the picture did Manchester see, say what octavio paz's wife told state department investigator Charles Thomas, about Oswald socializing with Cuban embassy staff,
It was Sunday morning, I was nine years old, and I was uncharacteristically ready for Mass before the rest of the family. I was killing time in front of the 15-inch Zenith black-and-white. Regular programming had been "preempted" by news. I hated that. Some guys in cowboy hats were standing around, and the reporter was talking about the imminent transfer of Lee Harvey Oswald. Then came Oswald. A dark figure bounded out of the crowd, there were some pops, and everybody went crazy. I ran out yelling, "Mom! Dad! They shot Oswald!" Mom stopped me, and in her Mom-like way, said, "No, Jon, they shot Kennedy. Oswald shot Kennedy." I had to insist. I'd seen it.
The Kennedy Murder cannot be evaluated without looking at the context of the major international conflict between the US & Cuba of that time.
Yep, this is the thesis by the historian Max Holland, most of which I agree with.
Oswald was well aware through his readings of the radical publications he subscribed to (The Militant, the Daily Worker) about the conflict between the Kennedy Administration and Castro. These publications were filled with stories about it (Oswald once said: "If you read them you can tell between the lines what they wanted you to do"). They even ran excerpts of speeches of Castro's where he discussed the attacks ("Operation Mongoose"). And Oswald was an admirer of Castro's and a completely political person.
So did this motivate him to shoot JFK? I think it did, in part. Oswald suddenly didn't become "apolitical" on November 22, 1963.
Holland's argument, written in 1994, is, in part, here: Making Sense of the Assassination.
People have an almost emotional need to balance things out. Oswald on the one hand, JFK on the other? That's impossible. The world doesn't work that way. Can it?
I, for one, have no fondness for JFK but, again, 'evidence' or not, things just don't add up. At the time I was in my teens and was, like everyone else, horrified and saddened by the tragedy but sifting through some of the facts surrounding the assassination and its aftermath I was doubtful that the whole story had been told.
The same doubts exist for the Las Vegas shootings and the Epstein 'suicide'.
well how much of the picture did Manchester see, say what octavio paz's wife told state department investigator Charles Thomas, about Oswald socializing with Cuban embassy staff,
The so called "Twist Party." Chubby Checkers just introduced "the twist" and the party was one where party goers danced to it. Supposedly Oswald attended it (this was when he went to Mexico City in an attempt to get into Cuba) and Cuban agents or officials were present.
But how does this connect them to Dallas on November 22, 1963? This party was two months before the assassination before. This was before JFK had even agreed to go to Texas.
We have a Twist party, Oswald and Cuban officials and then two months later him shooting JFK. That's not much to work with.
JFK's top adviser was Ken O'Donnell. He was riding in the car right behind JFK at the time of the assassination.
He testified that the evening before the assassination that while discussing security JFK said, "Well if someone wants to shoot me from a tall building there's nothing we can do about it."
Pretty chilling. That's what happened.
An erratic, unstable angry guy gut terribly lucky, stuck a rifle out of a tall building and shot JFK.
Sometimes life is complex, sometimes it's simple. This time it was simple.
People have an almost emotional need to balance things out. Oswald on the one hand, JFK on the other? That's impossible. The world doesn't work that way. Can it?
A scrimmage in a Border Station —
A canter down some dark defile —
Two thousand pounds of education
Drops to a ten-rupee jezail —
The Crammer’s boast, the Squadron’s pride,
Shot like a rabbit in a ride!
No proposition Euclid wrote,
No formulae the text-books know,
Will turn the bullet from your coat,
Or ward the tulwar’s downward blow
Strike hard who cares — shoot straight who can —
The odds are on the cheaper man.
“Arithmetic on the Frontier” By Rudyard Kipling
Great Kipling quote, Nichevo. And I do understand the point you and SMG are making. But I still maintain there are inconveniently convenient circumstances involved.
I thought that if the Mob was going to rub out anyone, it would be Bobby. And maybe they did.
that punctuates the futility of our afghan policy, the jezail was the ghazi (jihadi's) preferred weapon of choice)
the Irishman, concerns the shooter, who supposedly capped Hoffa, he was an associate of William bufalino, who had connections back to the island, although dan moldea, is skeptical of the account made to Charles brandis,
Mockturtle, thanks. I merely offer the quote, I dont think Kipling knew about JFK obviously, but war is not only pain and death and misery, but also of waste. Think of the flower of French and English manhood fed to the poppies in Flanders et al.
Tragedy strikes low and high. Lincoln lost a son to disease. Astors and Guggenheims and Roosevelts and Morgans have all been fingered by Fate, or possibly Nemesis, why not Kennedys?
Or just think of Ernest Hemingway's shortest, saddest story ever written:
“For sale: baby shoes. Never worn.”
The difference between reality and fiction is that fiction has to make sense.
they say that, Daniel silva's latest has an interesting motive on the whole khashoggi kerfluffle, that a compromised party told the prince to order the deed, which would lead to his shame, the nature of that compromise, well you'll need to read the book,
The late Norman Mailer said it: if Oswald alone killed JFK, with that old rickety rifle, with just four bullets in his clip, with 15 dollars in his pocket, then the universe doesn't make sense. A nothing changing history like this? No, great events are supposed to have great causes or reasons behind them.
This makes no sense unless the universe doesn't. And it simply doesn't.
I think JFK, who had cheated death several times (he was given the Church's Last Rites on three separate occasions), who had seen it up close in war, knew this. That's why he told his aide: "Look, if someone wants me dead and doesn't care about his own life, there's nothing we can do to stop him."
In one of his war time letters to his girl friend Inga Arvad, he told her he was being sent back into combat. He had recovered from the sinking of his ship and was being returned to duty. He wrote to her that he was confident the first time that he was going to be okay; but this time he was afraid, he thought he wouldn't make it. But he went anyway even though he could have gotten his father to get him out of it.
That's pretty remarkable. He had many faults but, damned, what a courageous, principled man.
and that's dubious, anarchist and communists have killed French Spanish prime ministers and at least one president, that would be McKinley, Garfield was done in by a hippy sort, if one is motivated enough, they can probably do the deed,
There was a conspiracy: It had nothing to do with the assassination.
Guys at the FBI and CIA must have been shitting multiple bricks as they learned more about the shooter. That he defected to the Soviet Union, that he came back, that he was trying to get to Cuba.
That an FBI agent interviewed him in the weeks leading up to the assassination but didn't flag him.
Then there's the Secret Service. They screwed the pooch by not insisting they put the "bubble" over the limo. They didn't even have agents standing on the footplates around the car (just checked the photo in the Dallas Morning News article I googled).
Then there's the limo driver, who screwed the pooch by slowing down when he heard the first shot. If he had punched the accelerator, the sudden speed would have thrown Oswald's aim off.
So you had a lot of secret shit the CIA and FBI didn't want revealed, plus the blamestorm over the red flags.
That's what they wanted covered up.
As for Oswald's lack of an escape plan, the reason why he didn't have a plan B was because he expected the Secret Service to fire back, killing him. He expected to die a martyr.
I've read a number of true crime accounts, and one thing that homicide investigators know is that there is rarely a case in which every question has an answer. There's inconsistencies in eyewitness testimony and bits of evidence that can't be accounted for.
In one case, this guy was murdered in an apartment building in Atlanta. At the same time, a sweaty guy was racing through the parking lot underneath the building. The suspect! police think. They search for him. Never found him.
They solved the case, and it turns out the sweaty scared guy running through the parking lot wasn't involved. No idea what his story was.
And, yes, Gerald Posner's book -- which focuses only on the evidence from eyewitnesses interviewed the day of or shortly after the killing, and what evidence was found at the scene -- makes it clear Oswald did it. Everything else is just chaff.
So did this motivate him to shoot JFK? I think it did, in part. Oswald suddenly didn't become "apolitical" on November 22, 1963.
I agree. I have also read Epstein's book about Oswald, and think he has some good theories.
Guys at the FBI and CIA must have been shitting multiple bricks as they learned more about the shooter. That he defected to the Soviet Union, that he came back, that he was trying to get to Cuba.
I also agree with this.
yes the security services weren't any more on point in 1963, then they are now,
Mockturtle, thanks. I merely offer the quote
And it described eloquently what Steve is getting at: The the great can be rubbed out by the common in a flash and that it's an even more likely event than to be taken down by another 'great'. [And Kipling is, BTW, my favorite poet].
It's not that Oswald, as a nonentity, couldn't not have independently murdered JFK. It's that subsequent events look suspicious as to his possible ties and motives.
Doc K says: "I agree. I have also read Epstein's book about Oswald, and think he has some good theories."
Epstein is one of the clearest thinkers/writers on this subject. His first book on the Warren Commission, "Inquest" is a classic and shows that the Warren Commission didn't know what they were doing.
The challenge is that there are so many crappy books, and so many wild conspiracies, and so much politically-charged competing agendas, that it's hard to separate fact from fiction.
My take is simple. I form no opinion on whether LHO acted alone or conspired with others. But the topic -- the violent death of a US President in the midst of the Cold War -- really interests me.
Who do you think set him up?
Oswald was in police custody. The police decided to bring him through an open area.
Wouldn't take much for someone in the police to tip off shady people about prisoner movements.
Wouldn't take much for someone in the police to tip off shady people about prisoner movements.
And how would they do that in 1963? This was a last minute change.
The evidence is that Oswald was going to brought to the garage/basement of the station to be transferred while Ruby was still sending money to an ex-stripper. But Oswald requested that he change shirts.
So they brought him back to change shirts. Ruby complete his transaction, left the office and saw the commotion outside the station and walked in. If Oswald hadn't requested the shirt change he would have been out of the place while Ruby was still completing his transaction.
This is how life is. Chance, luck, fortune...we're born, we die. Yes, conspiracies happen and sometimes events are controlled. But events often happen on their own. No one is directing them.
"I wonder what they told Epstein."
They gave him a book on how to tie knots.
Regarding Oswald and Ruby's meeting: weird shit happens.
From the Smithsonian:
"..The appalling combination of implausible circumstance that resulted in assassination is one; Franz Ferdinand had survived an earlier attempt to kill him on the fateful day, emerging unscathed from the explosion of a bomb that bounced off the folded roof of his convertible and exploded under a car following behind him in his motorcade. That bomb injured several members of the imperial entourage, and those men were taken to the hospital. It was Franz Ferdinand’s impulsive decision, later in the day, to visit them there—a decision none of his assassins could have predicted—that took him directly past the spot where his assassin, Gavrilo Princip, was standing. It was chauffeur Leopold Lojka’s unfamiliarity with the new route that led him to take a wrong turn and, confused, pull to a halt just six feet from the gunman.
For the archduke to be presented, as a stationary target, to the one man in a crowd of thousands still determined to kill him was a remarkable stroke of bad luck, but even then, the odds still favored Franz Ferdinand’s survival. Princip was so hemmed in by the crowd that he was unable to pull out and prime the bomb he was carrying. Instead, he was forced to resort to his pistol, but failed to actually aim it. According to his own testimony, Princip confessed: “Where I aimed I do not know,” adding that he had raised his gun “against the automobile without aiming. I even turned my head as I shot..."
I am Laslo.
As for the bigger question --
I was never a fan of the Big Conspiracy for the assassination. When I was at Dealey Plaza, I stood in the middle of the road (during a pause in traffic) where JFK's car would have been. As noted above, it would not have been that hard of a shot from the book depository.
The angle from the "grassy knoll" on the other hand, was way, way off. No way that could have been shooting place.
And those who talk about JFK's head jerking backward don't know anything about physics. It actually confirms the shot came from behind.
This is how life is. Chance, luck, fortune...we're born, we die. Yes, conspiracies happen and sometimes events are controlled. But events often happen on their own. No one is directing them.
That is a true and sweet general sentiment -- but it doesn't apply to Oswald's actual life.
He's born in 1939, to a broken, poor, dysfunctional family, without a father.
He flunks outta high school and serves in the Marines from 1956 -1959.
During his Marine Corps service, he is court-martialed twice, but somehow learns to speak fluent Russian and gets assigned to work on the CIA's most secret and important project -- the U-2 spy planes in Atsugi, Japan
So, how did that happen? I love the Marine Corps, but fuck-ups like Oswald, usually don't magically transform into professional linguists or CIA radarman, from such humble beginnings. They usually end up on KP duty or as cannon fodder.
So, in 1959, he is discharged from the Marines, and then, at age 20, doesn't go home to Texas to work at the local burger shop -- he defects to the Soviet Union?!!? And, more bizarrely, the Soviets accept him for 3 years behind the Iron Curtain? How often did American servicemen defect to the Soviet union during the Cold War?
Right there, it's hard to say chance, luck, fortune -- strange things are happening. That he re-defects back to the US in 1962, but isn't immediately arrested by the FBI for espionage, is again strange. Oh yeah, the next year he somehow figures out a way to murder the President in Dallas, alone.
I do believe in chance, luck and fortune, and see it happen all the time. This doesn't look like that. It looks like hijinks, similar to what we saw with that asshole ex-spy Christopher Steele.
Of course, it's only my very, very soft opinion, and I could be completely wrong. I love the topic though, and have no emotional attachment to any conclusion.
”That would've been a good time to deny shooting Kennedy, if he didn't do it.”
He had already said he didn’t kill anyone, and that he was being set up as a patsy.
One of the funniest moments in stand-up I ever saw was when Jeff Altman (on the Letterman show, as I recall) said that there was some doubt about the real Lee Harvey Oswald being buried where he was supposed to be buried. So, Altman said, to settle the matter they dug up Oswald's body, Sure enough, it was the real Oswald in the grave. They knew it was him, Altman said, because the body was still in THIS position , , , (mimes Oswald's just-got-shot position in the famous photo),
It got groans but then lots of laughs.
Texas Schoolbook Depository, November 22, 1963, morning:
“Lee! Gonna be an exciting day today, isn’t it?”
“I have no idea what you mean, Eddie.”
“C’mon, Lee! The President of the US of A is gonna drive by right where we work! That’s pretty big!”
“I had no previous knowledge that this event was going to transpire.”
“Seriously? Everyone in the shop has been talking about it.”
“I said I had no previous knowledge that this event was going to transpire. I keep to myself.”
“Yeah - you’re not really an outgoing kinda’ guy, are ya?”
“The people here at work all think I’m a Communist.”
“Well, I kinda thought you were, too.”
“I am not a Communist. I just want Fair Play for Cuba, and the fall of our corrupt American capitalist system in the hopes of it being replaced by a government where the workers control the means of production: that doesn’t make me a Communist.”
“If you say so, Lee…”
“I DO have pamphlets….”
“No thanks, Lee…. Say: what’s that in the bag?”
“What bag, Eddie?”
“The long one you got cradled between your palm and your armpit.”
“Curtain rods, Eddie: this bag contains curtain rods.”
“Why are you bringing curtain rods to work?”
“I’m a smart man, Eddie: I know what you are implying.”
“Huh? What am I implying?”
“You want to know why I just happen to be carrying into the building a long bag with a stiff object in it, on the same day the President is going to drive directly below the window where I work.“
“Uh - I just asked why you were bringing curtain rods, Lee.”
“The curtain rods have nothing to do with the President’s visit, if that is what you’re asking, Eddie. And a rifle wouldn’t fit in this bag, in case you were wondering. There’s no way I could be carrying a rifle in this bag.”
“Just curtain-rods: I get it. But it IS exciting, getting to see the President! Are you going to come down to the street to watch?”
“Nah. I’ll have a pretty clear sight on him from the sixth floor window.”
“Sure — but wouldn’t it be better to see him up close?”
“I’ll see him just fine. In the bag I have… binoculars.”
“Binoculars? That bag doesn’t look wide enough to have any binoculars in it.”
“They’re… Mexican binoculars. From when I was in Mexico. You only use them with one eye.”
“You mean like a telescope?”
“Yeah: like a scope, Eddie.”
“Well, it’s your choice, Lee. I just think it’d be a shame for you to miss the President.”
“You know, Eddie: I think it’d be a shame for me to miss the President, too…”
I am Laslo.
"I'm surprised that no one here seems familiar with the book I mentioned above, Gerald Posner's "Case Closed: Lee Harvey Oswald and the Assassination of JFK."
I've read it. Pretty spot-on, in my opinion. What I would recommend for people who have grown tired of trying to find the gunman in the Roschach test of Grassy Knoll trees photographs.
I am Laslo.
Hi Laslo --
I deleted my post at 3:20 re Posner because I discovered, after writing it, that several people here are familiar with his book. My oops.
He had already said he didn’t kill anyone, and that he was being set up as a patsy.
Let's go to the tape:
Reporter question to Oswald: "Did you shoot the President?"
Oswald: No, they've taken me in because of the fact that I lived in the Soviet Union...I'M JUST A PATSY!"
"....because of the fact that I lived in the Soviet Union."
Of course the Dallas Police picked him up in the movie theater as a suspect in the shooting of a police officer. At that time they didn't know him from the proverbial man in the moon.
My parents tell me I watched Ruby shoot Oswald on tv after returning from Mass, but I don't remember.
oliver stones false narrative, which came largely from a soviet dezinforma campaign, largely through French and Italian papers, bill kurtis about three years earlier, used a researcher Stephen rivele, who had the three Corsican shooters, one of the problems was they were all in jail on the date in question,
Again, Oswald leaves the building about three minutes after the shooting. He tells the police that his supervisor gave him the day off. His supervisor testified that he never saw Oswald after the shooting and didn't give anyone the rest of the day off.
So he leaves the building at a time of absolute mayhem. People are running around, the police have their guns drawn....it's chaos. Rumors are JFK was shot, but maybe not. Nobody at that point knows with any certainty what happened. But something historic did.
Is Oswald interested in finding out what happened? He's a political person. But he leaves without talking to any of his co-workers who were outside about the event. He walks seven blocks up the street and gets on a bus. That gets caught up in the traffic as the police cordon off the area. He then gets on a cab and goes to his rooming house. Where his landlady is watching television to learn about the shooting.
Does he stop to inquire about the shooting? No, he goes to his room, changes clothes and grabs (apparently) his revolver. Along with about 12 extra bullets.
This is a man fleeing the scene of the shooting. It's obvious why.
Any topic that brings out Laslo is worthwhile! :-D
Laslo should probably make a film reenactment of the Kennedy assassination. It would be hilarious.
Robert Cook, who has decided on a career of LYING, said...
He had already said he didn’t kill anyone, and that he was being set up as a patsy.
SO, according to Robert Cook (a known LIAR), we should believe that a man being held for killing a Police Officer (in front of witnesses)... Hadn't Killed ANYONE?
AND that the Only Reason the Police were holding him was because he (Like Cook?) was operating for the Soviet Union?
When the news came over the radio that JFK was killed, I was eating lunch in the dorm dining hall at UW Madison. The network radio guy announced that the President was dead, and then they must have intended to cue up the Funeral March from the second movement of the Eroica. Instead, they played the first movement of the Pastorale, which is of an unsuitable character for such a grave occasion. But it got the waterworks going, so it's all good.
I was eating lunch in the dorm dining hall at UW Madison.
I was walking into the Autopsy Lab at LA County. They had a radio going and they said "shots were fired."
They had a radio going and they said "shots were fired"
"Shots rang out" is the correct technical term.
In December 1956, he scored 212, which was slightly above the requirements for the designation of sharpshooter. In May 1959 he scored 191, which reduced his rating to marksman
Rankings go Expert (best), then Sharpshooter, then Marksman (worst)
Nothing special about his scores either. I shot 226 (out of 250) my first time, had never really fired a rifle, learned how shoot in Boot Camp (which probably made it easier - the guys with a history of hunting had the worst time, because they had so many bad habits to unlearn)
Once in the fleet, my scores settled around 236, which is still not that impressive to anyone who really knows how to shoot. For reference, to get a school seat for Marine Sniper School, you needed to shoot at least 248 of 250.
Oswald's scores were subpar.
For reference, to get a school seat for Marine Sniper School, you needed to shoot at least 248 of 250.
I'm a good source on this because I worked S-3 (Operations and Training) for 3rd LAR BN. One of our jobs was to distribute school seats (Ranger, Jump, Scuba, SERE, etc) down the the Company level and screen applicants (so we didn't show our ass by wasting taxpayer money on someone who would wash out).
We got maybe 4 Sniper School quotas per year, they were like Wonka's Golden Ticket. And one of the school's screening requirements was a 248+ range score.
Fen?
You say Marksman was the worst; Did it have a minimum?
I mean, EVERYBODY in the Marines is supposed to be a rifleman; are they all (at least) marksmen?
Did you have to make some score to graduate boot camp?
I thought Oswald was kind of hot. I like the beaten up look.
“I was eating lunch in the dorm dining hall at UW Madison.“
I was taking a spelling test in Frank A Burtsfield Elementary School, West Lafayette. 4th grade. Principal announced over the P.A. President Kennedy has been shot in Texas. Teacher told us to put down our pencils, bow our heads and pray which was unconstitutional according to SCOTUS just a year previous. I was a Nixon man just like my dad and my grandpa. So I just prayed that God’s will be done. And that was that. Stupid old JFK.
“I thought Oswald was kind of hot. I like the beaten up look.”
You’re being melodramatic.
You say Marksman was the worst; Did it have a minimum?
I don't remember the minimum score to make Marksman, as I was fighting to score above 225 (I think?) to get Expert. I think the brackets were something like:
176-199 Marskman
200-224 SharpShooter
225-250 Expert
Or very close to that. I want to say 225 was the beginning of Expert because I remember making it by the skin of my teeth. I tried to google to refresh my memory, but apparently they have changed the bracket values since I was in (1990-98).
https://www.sandboxx.us/blog/marine-corps-rifle-qualification/
BELOW Marksman you go "unc", unqualified. We had a Captain who's career was destroyed because he failed to qualify with the M16A2 one year. They kicked him out. Although they are harder on officers than on enlisted. I think if enlisted failed to qual they would reduce him in grade back down to Private, put him on severe restrictions and shit detail, and run him through remedial rifle instruction till he got his shit together.
I mean, EVERYBODY in the Marines is supposed to be a rifleman; are they all (at least) marksmen? Did you have to make some score to graduate boot camp?
We had to qualify in boot camp (Marksman or higher). If you failed to do that you got dropped down to another platoon (back a few weeks) that was just starting to "snap in" (hours of practicing shooting positions, bone support on concrete, very painful until about a week of it when you just got used to it). Dropping down to another new platoon that was just starting it's qual on the range added another 2-3 weeks of boot camp for you. Very undesirable. I'm not sure, but I think if you failed THAT second chance then they kicked you out. Although I never heard of anyone failing their second run at the rifle range.
Little secret: the DIs will NOT let you fail. They won't pass you through either, but they won't let you quit, they will keep at you until you get it right. When I entered boot camp I couldn't do more than 5 pull ups. The DIs put me though a punishing remedial after every chow and for my final PFT I did 26 (20 was perfect score back then). You really do learn that the limits you place on your body, what think you can and can't do, are artificial.
And the PMIs (Primary Marksmanship Instructors) on the range are some of the best in the military (sans Sniper School). If they can't teach you how to at least qualify, then there is something wrong with you, medical or mental.
And if you've got someone enlisting, best advice you can give them about Rifle Quals is to pay close attention during "snapping" in week. Like every other sport, form is 99% of success. Your range score is really determined before you start shooting, on that hard concrete teaching your body proper positioning and muscle memory.
It sucks (to get a sense of it: lay down on your driveway, 3 points stance bone supported by your elbow, knee and ankle bone turned out, now hold that for 30 mins, rinse and repeat). But if you dedicate yourself 100% during snap in week, you'll not only qual but probably also qual expert.
OKay I did find the old scoring brackets (likely the same for Oswald)
190-209 Marksman
210-219 Sharpshooter
220-250 Expert
And that looks right to me now that I see it.
And people talk about difficulty in replicating the shots, which is true -- if you are trying to match each exact point he hit (or missed), as opposed to firing three times at the figure of Kennedy and seeing if one or two hits.
Exactly. It's not hard for me to put 3 arrows in the bull at 30 yards with a recurve.
Putting 3 more arrows into those 3 arrows is a whole different level.
Thanx Fen!
my entire knowledge of Marines is that they're all supposed to be riflemen
That was funny Meade. You surprised me.
”SO, according to Robert Cook (a known LIAR), we should believe that a man being held for killing a Police Officer (in front of witnesses)... Hadn't Killed ANYONE?”
Can you comprehend what you read? I didn’t say Oswald didn’t kill anyone, he did. Someone else commented Oswald had an opportunity to deny shooting the president, as if he hadn’t. In fact, he had.
Thanx Fen! my entire knowledge of Marines is that they're all supposed to be riflemen
No prob. And yes, that's true.
If you've ever been to Dealy plaza it isn't a very long shot.100-125 yds max. It probably would have been easier with open sites.
Can you comprehend what you read? I didn’t say Oswald didn’t kill anyone, he did. Someone else commented Oswald had an opportunity to deny shooting the president, as if he hadn’t. In fact, he had.
8/31/19, 12:21 AM
Well, you repeat yourself endlessly, and "I didn't kill anyone" seems like a good point to re-emphasize. What was he going to plead, "I already told you?"
Has Brian Williams (or Biden) given his first hand account?
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