Who Killed JFK?

version

Well-known member
Just the first thing that stuck in my head was that I understand that his shooting records from the marines showed that he would be unlikely to pull off that shot...

A few months earlier he'd tried to assassinate a Bircher and missed too.
 

version

Well-known member
A Cuban bloke recently claimed his father confessed to having trained Oswald at a CIA camp.
It's the kind of thing someone might claim for clout, but I don't know enough to dismiss it and it wouldn't contradict Oswald being the lone shooter.

Cuban exile told sons he trained Oswald, JFK’s accused assassin, at a secret CIA camp

Almost 40 years after his death following a bar brawl in Key Biscayne, Ricardo Morales, known as “Monkey” — contract CIA worker, anti-Castro militant, counter-intelligence chief for Venezuela, FBI informant and drug dealer — returned to the spotlight Thursday morning when one of his sons made a startling claim on Spanish-language radio:

Morales, a sniper instructor in the early 1960s in secret camps where Cuban exiles and others trained to invade Cuba, realized in the hours after President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas in 1963 that the accused killer, Lee Harvey Oswald, had been one of his sniper trainees.

Morales also told his two sons that two days before the assassination, his CIA handler told him and his “clean-up” team to go to Dallas for a mission. But after the tragic events, they were ordered to go back to Miami without learning what the mission was about.
 

Leo

Well-known member
nothing to contribute on the conspiracy theory front, came to say I don't recall the newsflash but do recall the funeral. Mostly I remember being puzzled by the riderless horse with boots backwards.
 
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version

Well-known member
I once found an excerpt from one of Pynchon's letters where he talked about the assassination.

It was interesting because your first thought on finding a Pynchon letter referencing Kennedy is "Who's he going to point the finger at?" but there was nothing like that. He just expressed disgust at the state of the country and the fact someone had gone as far as to murder the president.
 

version

Well-known member
 

Attachments

  • American Blood_ A Journey through the Labyrinth of Dallas and JFK.pdf
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padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
@IdleRich

well look, I don't think it's a serious question. nor I do think it's a harmless question.

yes, Oswald shot Kennedy. I don't know specifically was in his heart when he did it - no one does - beyond some kind of discontent and possibly a desire, suggested in some of the documents declassified in 2017, to impress Cuban authorities so he could successfully reapply for a Cuban visa (the idea that Cuba or the USSR would harbor a known assassin of the U.S. president is delusional, but Oswald was no deep political thinker)

I don't think that because I think people never conspire to do bad things. I think it bc 1) people, most prominently Vincent Bugliosi, have spent decades thoroughly debunking every conspiracy theory and theorist 2) the staggering unlikelihood that such a secret could remain secret. and the onus of proof is on anyone who advances any alternate theory.

why isn't it harmless? bc again, Kennedy conspiracy thinking leads directly into conspiracy thinking about the New World Order, 9/11, Trump, QAnon, COVID, and whatever else. it is the sine qua non of the conspiratorial style in American discourse, which is so toxic and pervasive it is, or at least is a major factor in, tearing apart our society.
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
to address some of your specific questions

1) Oswald was actually an excellent marksman - a good shot for a Marine, according to his ratings while in the Marines, and an excellent compared to the average contemporary adult male. multiple different tests - FBI, military, a doctor hired by the Kennedys, etc - demonstrated that the rifle he used was quite accurate and that the feat of marksmanship achieved was attainable both in terms of accuracy and time. Incidentally, part of the House Select Committee on Assassination's conclusion that there was "probably a conspiracy" was acoustic research seeming to show the existence of a second shooter on the grassy knoll, which was later discredited

2) he was originally arrested for shooting the police officer. the cops who arrested him were looking for the officer's killer, not the assassin. he was first charged with shooting the officer, and then after several further hours of interrogation, charged with the assassination..

3) they only mentioned his original charge bc that was all he'd been charged with. there was immediate popular speculation - i.e. beginning with a crowd outside the Texas Theater, and later the press - that he was the assassin as well. he denied both charges, which is hardly suspicious or unusual of itself.

4) I agree Ruby's motives aren't really "satisfactory", but a great deal of effort has, with little success, gone into trying to tie him to the mob in a meaningful enough way to suggest that he was acting on its behalf, so his unsatisfactory given motives and other possible factors (desire for fame, amphetamine use, etc) is what we're left with.
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape

here's every single document the U.S. government has ever released on the assassination
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
@IdleRich

well look, I don't think it's a serious question. nor I do think it's a harmless question.

why isn't it harmless? bc again, Kennedy conspiracy thinking leads directly into conspiracy thinking about the New World Order, 9/11, Trump, QAnon, COVID, and whatever else. it is the sine qua non of the conspiratorial style in American discourse, which is so toxic and pervasive it is, or at least is a major factor in, tearing apart our society.

I do take these points in general, but I think the horse has bolted and we can't shut the door. And at the same time, I'd like to think that most of the dissensus are not gonna descend into NWO type bullshit. I guess I'm saying, although it's might be harmfull for the hoi polloi we are smarter than that so it's fine for us... and i think I'm ok with saying that cos it's tuure.


yes, Oswald shot Kennedy. I don't know specifically was in his heart when he did it - no one does - beyond some kind of discontent and possibly a desire, suggested in some of the documents declassified in 2017, to impress Cuban authorities so he could successfully reapply for a Cuban visa (the idea that Cuba or the USSR would harbor a known assassin of the U.S. president is delusional, but Oswald was no deep political thinker)

I agree that it's hard to imagine that would have led to a former marine doing that... very hard... but at the same time that is not an argument against him having done that. It's the same sort of analysis as "Oh he didn't seem depressed, in fact I saw him smiling so no way would he have killed himself".

I don't think that because I think people never conspire to do bad things. I think it bc 1) people, most prominently Vincent Bugliosi, have spent decades thoroughly debunking every conspiracy theory and theorist

This is what I'm interested in here. In general most conspiracy theories can be very quickly dismissed and getting into any detail is just a waste of time. Flat earth etc etc But on the very brief bits I have looked at the Kennedy thing, what I've seen has kinda reached a threshold for me where I do want to see some kinds of arguments. I'm not saying I believe in any particular theory (to be honest I don't know what the theories are) but the things about the arrest of LHO are strange enough that I would like to see them debunked. Even if it's just a simple "Actually that didn't happen" from someone who would know. Do you have any good links to this guy's work?

Oh, I see you've gone further below thanks.
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
this is exactly the kind of metatalk Rich wanted to avoid, but one important thing to note is the overwhelming shift in American public thinking from belief that Oswald acted alone to the belief that not only was there a conspiracy but the government (or at least some part of it) was covering it up had little to do with the assassination itself and almost everything to do with the widespread loss of trust in the government due to its lying about other things - specifically, Vietnam and Watergate, both which actually were massive, and unsuccessful, attempts to hoodwink the American public. at the time the Warren Commission was widely accepted as true. it wasn't until 10 years later, after the LBJ administration's credibility gap and the endless revelations, and hamhanded Nixon response, of Watergate, that the House Assassination committee was formed and released its belief that there was a conspiracy and the cat got back out of the bag.

in that way it's like another toxic American myth - the Lost Cause of the Civil War. the large majority of Confederate monuments that we've finally - finally - got around to removing the last few years were actually built from the 1890s thru the 1950s to reinforce white supremacy in the Jim Crow south, and have fuck all to do with commemorating heritage or whatever.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
to address some of your specific questions

1) Oswald was actually an excellent marksman - a good shot for a Marine, according to his ratings while in the Marines, and an excellent compared to the average contemporary adult male. multiple different tests - FBI, military, a doctor hired by the Kennedys, etc - demonstrated that the rifle he used was quite accurate and that the feat of marksmanship achieved was attainable both in terms of accuracy and time. Incidentally, part of the House Select Committee on Assassination's conclusion that there was "probably a conspiracy" was acoustic research seeming to show the existence of a second shooter on the grassy knoll, which was later discredited

Well, I've read contradictory stories. Some people saying he was good and some disagreeing... but that is good enough for me, it doesn't rule him out basically.


2) he was originally arrested for shooting the police officer. the cops who arrested him were looking for the officer's killer, not the assassin. he was first charged with shooting the officer, and then after several further hours of interrogation, charged with the assassination..

But the thing I read was that no-one was able to explain how they fingered him for either crime. I cannot remember the details so I am being a bit annoying here myself and i do need to check it. But what I understood was that they could not explain how they knew he was the officer's killer - first they said that they knew that there was an extra person in the building cos it added to one more than the staff - but that turned out to be a lie cos half the staff were away. Then later they said it was based on a description that had been sent out, but the arrest was made before the description was out. Now maybe this is not true but for me it's reached the level where I would like to see that proven.


3) they only mentioned his original charge bc that was all he'd been charged with. there was immediate popular speculation - i.e. beginning with a crowd outside the Texas Theater, and later the press - that he was the assassin as well. he denied both charges, which is hardly suspicious or unusual of itself.

More the fact that he was surprised to learn that he was in the frame for killing the president. I mean IF he was genuinely surprised then presumably he didn't do it but there is no way to know what's genuine.

4) I agree Ruby's motives aren't really "satisfactory", but a great deal of effort has, with little success, gone into trying to tie him to the mob in a meaningful enough way to suggest that he was acting on its behalf, so his unsatisfactory given motives and other possible factors (desire for fame, amphetamine use, etc) is what we're left with.

One thing I did read about yesterday was Ruby. And it does all seem strange (like everything does with these things) but he certainly had mob links, I bet every club owner did. What kind of caught my eye is that what the Warren Commission wrote at the time seem to greatly understate his links and the number of friends he had in the mob. Whether deliberately or not but that was odd.

He seemed like a bit of a fantasist though. At first he claimed he wanted to spare Jackie at trial, then later he said that was bollocks, at times he alluded to being part of a conspiracy and I think he also believed that they injected him with cancer.

The whole thing is so weird cos who would shoot someone in front of everyone like that? I mean whatever you're paid then you won't get it cos you will be in jail. Now, if you had a terminal illness or something and you could get some money for your family perhaps, but I believe his illness was undiagnosed at that point. I have a hard time thinking he was PAID to shoot LHO. I reckon he was either just a mentallist or he was coerced in some other way than money cos money doesn't explain it to me.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
By the way @Clinamenic and @version - you both totally ignored my first rule and made no effort to say what you think happened? Even if it's "dunno" just say so cos I really want to test the water here.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Two conspiracy theorists die and go to heaven. One says to his mate "Since God knows everything, we should ask Him to clear up a few things for us", and the other agrees.

So the first one says "Hey God, who *really* killed JFK?", and God says "It was Lee Harvey Oswald, acting alone."

The second guy nudges him and says "You see? I *told* you it goes all the way to the top!"

[Apologies to Rich, from whom, if memory serves, I head that joke in the first place.]
 
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