Kennedy Lone Gunman Theory Challenged
By David Morgan
Reuters
WASHINGTON (May 18) - Bullet analysis used to justify the lone assassin theory behind President John F. Kennedy's assassination is based on flawed evidence, according to a team of researchers including a former top FBI scientist.
Writing in the Annals of Applied Statistics, the researchers urged a reexamination of bullet fragments from the 1963 shooting in Dallas to confirm the number of bullets that struck Kennedy.
Official investigations during the 1960s concluded that Kennedy was hit by two bullets fired by Lee Harvey Oswald.
But the researchers, including former FBI lab metallurgist William Tobin, said new chemical and statistical analyses of bullets from the same batch used by Oswald suggest that more than two bullets could have struck the president.
"Evidence used to rule out a second assassin is fundamentally flawed," the researchers said in their article.
"If the assassination (bullet) fragments are derived from three or more separate bullets, then a second assassin is likely."
The Kennedy assassination set off a whirlwind of theories about who killed the 46-year-old president.
The President's Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy, known unofficially as the Warren Commission, concluded in 1964 that Lee Harvey Oswald, acting alone, fired three shots, one of which missed the president's car. There have been many challenges to its conclusions over the years.
The House of Representatives Select Committee on Assassinations concluded that Oswald was probably part of a conspiracy that could have included a second gunman who fired but missed Kennedy.
The panel's supporting evidence was a bullet analysis that said fragments collected from the site were too similar to be from more than two slugs.
But the latest report found that many bullets from the same batch used by Oswald had a similar composition.
"Further, we found that one of the thirty bullets analyzed in our study also compositionally matched one of the fragments from the assassination," the article said.
"This finding means that the bullet fragments from the assassination that match could have come from three or more separate bullets."
Re: Kennedy Lone Gunman Theory Challenged
Peter Jennings put this to rest with a 2 hour documentary in 2003, the 40 year anniversary of the shooting. It was clear cut. They used digital software, and infra-red lazors. One shooter, one gun.
I've been in the book depository, and looked out of the same window that was used by LHO. It was not that tough of a shot. It was not that far either.
I was all about the "2nd shooter" theory until I saw this documentary. I have no doubts now, none.
Now, who put LHO up to the shooting is a whole different can of worms!!!!
Re: Kennedy Lone Gunman Theory Challenged
Re: Kennedy Lone Gunman Theory Challenged
Quote:
Originally Posted by
George Foster
Peter Jennings put this to rest with a 2 hour documentary in 2003, the 40 year anniversary of the shooting. It was clear cut. They used digital software, and infra-red lazors. One shooter, one gun.
I've been in the book depository, and looked out of the same window that was used by LHO. It was not that tough of a shot. It was not that far either.
I was all about the "2nd shooter" theory until I saw this documentary. I have no doubts now, none.
Now, who put LHO up to the shooting is a whole different can of worms!!!!
Yep, easy shot for anyone who knows what he's doing with a rifle.
Re: Kennedy Lone Gunman Theory Challenged
Coinicdentally, Vincent Bugliosi just put out a 1600pg book called "Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy.".
I've not read it, or any reviews about it. From what I've gathered Mr. Bugliosi comes down on the side of the lone gunman theory.
Re: Kennedy Lone Gunman Theory Challenged
Don't worry, we'll know the truth in 2032 when all the files relating to this case are made public.
Re: Kennedy Lone Gunman Theory Challenged
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Ltlabner
Coinicdentally, Vincent Bugliosi just put out a 1600pg book called "Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy.".
I've not read it, or any reviews about it. From what I've gathered Mr. Bugliosi comes down on the side of the lone gunman theory.
I heard a couple interviews with him on the radio this week. It seems like a pretty exhaustive look at it.
Re: Kennedy Lone Gunman Theory Challenged
I've never believed in the second spitter theory. ;)
I always thought it was a mob hit and that Ruby was used to silence Oswald. But I don't know if that is true anymore.
http://www.jfk-online.com/rubydef.html
A year after his conviction, in March 1965, Ruby conducted a brief televised news conference in which he stated that "everything pertaining to what's happening has never come to the surface. The world will never know the true facts of what occurred, my motives. The people who had so much to gain, and had such an ulterior motive for putting me in the position I'm in, will never let the true facts come aboveboard to the world."
What I have found puzzling, and I remember sitting in the classroom during the assassination and the school playing the radio coverage over the loud speakers as we all sat and listened, was what was LHO's motive in killing Kennedy?
Re: Kennedy Lone Gunman Theory Challenged
Quote:
Originally Posted by
WilyMoROCKS
Bullet analysis used to justify the lone assassin theory behind President John F. Kennedy's assassination is based on flawed evidence.
Evidence used to rule out a second assassin is fundamentally flawed.
In other news, the sky is blue, clouds are white, grass is green and dirt is brown.
Re: Kennedy Lone Gunman Theory Challenged
Quote:
Originally Posted by
GAC
I've never believed in the second spitter theory. ;)
I always thought it was a mob hit and that Ruby was used to silence Oswald. But I don't know if that is true anymore.
http://www.jfk-online.com/rubydef.html
A year after his conviction, in March 1965, Ruby conducted a brief televised news conference in which he stated that "everything pertaining to what's happening has never come to the surface. The world will never know the true facts of what occurred, my motives. The people who had so much to gain, and had such an ulterior motive for putting me in the position I'm in, will never let the true facts come aboveboard to the world."
What I have found puzzling, and I remember sitting in the classroom during the assassination and the school playing the radio coverage over the loud speakers as we all sat and listened, was what was LHO's
motive in killing Kennedy?
Anything Ruby says is almost irrelevant. The guy had mental problems. Hell, he had 7 dogs . . . . he called 6 of them his children and the 7th his wife. He wanted to be famous for killing LHO. Ruby killed LHO by himself and with no one else's help.
If there was ever a conspiracy in the US, this was the case. But I'm firmly entrenched into the camp that it was LHO and ONLY LHO. Burgliosi swats done pretty much every theory out there in his book. He was very diligent in writing this book as it took 20 years to complete.
Re: Kennedy Lone Gunman Theory Challenged
Quote:
Originally Posted by
OldRightHander
Yep, easy shot for anyone who knows what he's doing with a rifle.
I know what I'm doing with one, and I wouldn't call it an easy shot. Doable yes, but not easy.
Re: Kennedy Lone Gunman Theory Challenged
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Reds4Life
I know what I'm doing with one, and I wouldn't call it an easy shot. Doable yes, but not easy.
Oswald was trained by our US military as a marine. They found his old books where it showed he was incredibly accurate from like 500 yards away or something of that distance (I don't know the exact distance, but it was pretty damn far away).
Re: Kennedy Lone Gunman Theory Challenged
Quote:
Originally Posted by
DTCromer
Oswald was trained by our US military as a marine. They found his old books where it showed he was incredibly accurate from like 500 yards away or something of that distance (I don't know the exact distance, but it was pretty damn far away).
Every book that I ever read (and I read a lot, believe me) said that Oswald was awful with a rifle.
Re: Kennedy Lone Gunman Theory Challenged
No way Oswald was alone.
Multiple shooters.
Re: Kennedy Lone Gunman Theory Challenged
Gerald Posner's "Case Closed" stated that LHO, while serving in the Marines, on 12/21/56, after three weeks of training on the M-1 rifle, shot a 212, two points over the score required for "sharpshooter" qualification, which indicated that from a standing position LHO could hit a ten inch bullseye, from a minimum of 200 yards, 8 times out of 10. Shortly before he left the Marines, in May 1959, LHO was again certified on the firing range, this time scoring 191, enough to qualify as a "marksman." Sgt. James Zahm, the NCO in charge of the marksmanship training unit, reportedly said that LHO was a "good shot, slightly above average" for a Marine, and, as a civilian, "an excellent shot." Major Eugene Anderson of the markmanship branch reported said that the assassination shots "were not particularly difficult" and that LHO, based upon his Marine record, "had full capabilities to make this shot."
Posner did write that LHO's KGB file revealed that LHO's fellow workers while he was in the Soviet Union considered LHO to be a poor shot after he failed to shoot a rabbit on one hunting trip. LHO later allegedly told his brother, Robert, that the firing pin on the rifle he used in the USSR was defective. Robert is quoted as saying that LHO "was a good shot who always got his game."
I haven't read that much of the volumes of books out on the conspiracy theories surrounding JFK's murder, so I'm sure someone here can (and will) cite another source for evidence that LHO was a terrible shot.
It has always seemed to me that many conspiracy theorists are people who simply cannot accept that someone whom they greatly admired, JFK, could be taken from us by a lone nutcase such as LHO and believe that surely there was some sinister plot behind the murder. Often it just happens that the sinister plotters, by coincidence of course, are people whom the theorists are already predisposed to dislike or hate.
Well, maybe, but there sure seems to be a randomness with regard to the various American political leaders who have faced murder attempts in recent decades, including not only the Kennedy Brothers (admittedly nothing random there) but also Harry S. Truman, Martin Luther King, George C. Wallace, Gerard R. Ford and Ronald Reagan. For that matter, an additional long list of celebrity murders, attempted murders, and stalkings could be made, with the only things they seemed to have in common being that the targets were powerful or famous or both.