Who killed Kennedy?
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Gerald Posner. Book is called Case Closed: Lee Harvey Oswald and the Assassination of JFK. Been a long time since I read it, probably 15 years, but I remember he makes a pretty compelling case that Oswald acted alone.....
To round this out a little, agent John Hickey did not exit the vehicle, but was seated in the SS convertible with his arse on the top of the back seat, with a loaded AR on the seat at his feet.
Donahue’s theory in a nutshell: Hickey grabbed the AR, hit the selector switch to semi-automatic (the first setting off of safety), turned and likely tried to stand on the soft rear-seat his feet were on, and either fell, or otherwise accidentally discharged a single round which freakishly, barely found Kennedy’s head.
As 4 SS agents were standing on the running boards of the follow up vehicle, Hickey was like a quarterback “in the pocket” and not as clearly visible to the crowd as one might think.
He testified to the Warren Commission that upon hearing shots from his right-rear, he bent over, picked up the AR and “loaded it.” That was not true. It was as loaded as was the Uzi that the SS agent wielded when Reagan was shot.
Oddly, Hickey did not file suit upon the original hard cover publication of Mortal Error, a book written by Bonar Menninger and Howard Donahue (a gun Smith), but sued when it was re-published in paperback, and received an undisclosed sum in settlement.
Hickey claimed that Donahue and the publisher had ignored an obscure film (not the Zappruder film) shot from a couple of blocks away at an angle reverse to Zappruder, saying it clearly disproved the theory of an accidental head shot. I’m not so sure it did.
I used to swap guns a bit, and spoke with Howard Donahue a few times for advice on antique guns in the mid-nineties, his name and identity in Towson, Maryland being mentioned frequently in the book.
A cool man, who gained initial notice when he was able to best Oswald’s rate of fire and accuracy during a 1967 CBS re-enactment, placing experienced shooters on a tower shooting at a cutout of Kennedy, which ran a on a small track. Several shooters equaled Oswald’s talents. Donahue smoked it, hitting the “head” three times in like 5.5 seconds.
“I shouted out ‘Who killed the Kennedy’s?’, but after all, it was you and me....”
It was later proven that the original notion that a single bullet could not account for both men being hit was invalid, and one bullet could plausibly account for both men being hit. Originally it was not understood the exact alignment in the vehicle. The "magic bullet" as it's been dubbed was the 2nd shot. The book suggests the fatal shot (by the secret serviceman) was the third shot.
Here is a link to the book this was based on and info on the research the author did:
I don’t think Oswald did it. Read a book called Best Evidence and see what u think. There is also a History Channel dvd called The Men Who Killed Kennedy. Very frightening and likely.
Always a mouth breather to hijack every thread.
Yes. Donahue actually broadly defends the Warren Commission on the “magic” and “pristine” bullet complaints. Both adjectives refer to the same bullet; cynics claiming that it took a magical path to hit Kennedy and Connelly at the angles it did. Both the WCR and Mortal Error show the real alignment of the bodies of Kennedy and Connelly, and the course of the bullet that went through Kennedy’s neck, into Connelly’s back was perfect.
The bullet had lodged into Connelly’s wrist, shallowly, and fell out onto his stretcher, being recovered by a SS agent Cynics said it was too “pristine” to have caused the wounds.
But Mark Lane, and other early cynics were not experienced shooters. As a child (8-12), I probably put 2,500 .22 long and short rifle bullets into old Sears catalogues. I then pulled the deformed bullets out. They ranged from completely flattened, split into two or three pieces, all the way to damn near re-loadable, and very pristine. Predicting the degree of deformation of a lead bullet is simply scientifically impossible.
The Warren Commission missed on a key point corrected by the ‘77 House Investigation, Donahue and Gerald Posner: Oswald’s first shot was a very bad miss, not even hitting the car. Multiple witnesses insisted they saw and heard a bullet hitting the sidewalk a few feet from the limo, seeing dust/concrete power burst upward with the sound of the bullet hitting the concrete.
Donahue and others have suggested Oswald was attempting to use the scope for his first shot: but it was off badly, and he saw where his first shot went wide. So, for his second “neck” shot, he glanced beneath the scope fixture and used the “iron” sights permanently affixed to the M-C rifle.
Though the first bullet missed badly, Kennedy raised his arms, and looked alarmed; Connelly insisted to his death he heard Kennedy’s Boston accent saying, “I’ve been hit.” Had Kennedy been struck through the neck, he could not have spoken, and Connelly insisted he had not been hit by the first shot he heard, and that Kennedy said “I’ve been hit,” after the first report, and just two or three seconds prior too Connelly feeling the bullet go through his lung.
Remarkably, the first bullet that hit the sidewalk likely sent a small splinter of metal that hit Kennedy in the back of the head, at almost exactly the entry point of the “third” headshot. Kennedy would have felt it, and he raised his arms in reaction to it, and exclaimed he’d been hit.
The splinter of the first bullet was visible on the post-mortum ex-rays, and the WCR report suggested the third bullet that caused the massive head injury had “pealed off” a small sliver as it entered Kennedy’s skull.
Donahue and others have rejected this, as it is damn near impossible for a bullet to shear a splinter off upon initial contact with a skull softer than the full metal jacket surrounding the lead core of the bullet.
There would have been one conclusive piece of proof that could have shown weather the bullet that struck Kennedy in the head was of the same type as the “pristine” bullet found on the stretcher: .223 bullets in 1963 had constituent elements in the full metal jacket different from the full metal jacket of the bullets fired by the M/C rifle fired by Oswald. Whichever bullet exploded in Kennedy’s brain would have left fragments of lead and the harder metal jacket.
Unfortunately, Kennedy’s brain, stored in a thermos bottle/jug, disappeared from the National Archives at the latest by 1967, when the loss was first noted. Apparently, the materials had been examined by Robert Kennedy, and many speculate he disposed of the brain.
I just saw "Smoking Gun" tonight based off that book and I have to say it is very compelling information. I like that. Very interesting. Makes a strong case except for settling with Agent Hickey. That bothered me. You would want more than anything to get discovery with Hickey suing you so if they were solid on their theory they should have begged him to continue his lawsuit instead of settling with him.
Odd, indeed.
Prior to publication of the hardcover book, the authors and publishers wrote Hickey, and even visited his home, giving him every conceivable opportunity to give his side of the story, and/or provide an opportunity to shoot the theory down conclusively.
Ultimately, I assume settlement was entirely in the hands of the publisher, and if modest enough, might have been tempting.
A few years, ago, I saw a piece regarding the release of some info by the Clinton Administration in 1996 or 1997. Included was testimony or a sworn statement from a worker at the autopsy who testified that immediately upon the conclusion of the autopsy in 1963, two SS or FBI guys handed him a small plastic bag containing metal fragments, forcefully telling him that he was to report the fragments came from within Kennedy’s skull.
This sounds like a confirmation of Donahue’s belief that any metal fragments in the brain cavity would lead back to the AR, and a ham-fisted effort to plant fragments from Oswald’s ammo by the SS.
Regarding the publisher’s decision to settle for an undisclosed sum, one must wonder whether the “government” was willing to make a call or two, telling the publisher to settle for 50 bucks, and not get audited, etc., for their efforts.
In short, if the many oddities surrounding the assassination were simply an effort to squelch an accidental shooting, what an irony!!
An effort to prevent irrational conclusions of a “Praetorian Guard” killing, led to massive, unrelenting, distrust of the Warren Commission and our security agencies.
Of course, had an admission been made in 1963 that the SS accidentally fired the head shot, that too would have created a cottage industry of malevolent theories.
I still consider Donahue’s theory the best out there, and there are many hints that point in the direction of an accident.
During one of the numerous transfers of Oswald from one room to another within police HQ’s, whilst squeezing through dozens of reporters, Oswald loudly insisted “I’m a patsy.”
Had he, indeed, been staring down his own barrel when he saw Kennedy’s head explode, knowing it was not his shot, a natural instinct (especially for a nut) would have been to think he had been lured by some greater insidious power to be holding a gun pointed at Kennedy at the very moment someone else did the deed.
Why would a claim of being a “patsy” have occurred to him, otherwise?
She was a “Goldwater Girl” just 8 months later!!
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Who was motivated to kill the president in the 60s? Who did his family cost money in the 40s and again in the 60s? Who was going to benefit from ousting Castro?
If you don't know the answers to those questions, the 2 scapegoats (Oswald and the SS agent) will sound good to you.
There were at least 3 shots fired. Kennedy was hit from the back and the front. Connelly from a separate shot. Then there was the shot that missed the car completely. One person couldn't have fired them all.
In the end it ripped the veil of security wide open. People realized they could do what they want without repercussion, and our people have been ripped off ever since then. There's nothing that can stop it.
If you don't know the answers to those questions, the 2 scapegoats (Oswald and the SS agent) will sound good to you.
There were at least 3 shots fired. Kennedy was hit from the back and the front. Connelly from a separate shot. Then there was the shot that missed the car completely. One person couldn't have fired them all.
In the end it ripped the veil of security wide open. People realized they could do what they want without repercussion, and our people have been ripped off ever since then. There's nothing that can stop it.
I have previously pretty much been satisfied with the Warren Commission and have dismissed all the cover up stories because anyone who has ever worked in and around the Gov knows they will instinctively shut everything down then screw half of it up whenever something major happens, so the conspiracy angles were not credible to me.
However, the science involved in the Secret Service agent accidentally discharging an AR15 while trying to raise his weapon and return fire just as the limo accelerates is backed up by the size of documented entrance wounds and the behavior of the rounds at impact which point to a full metal jacket 6.5mm round from Oswald's gun creating a 7mm entrance wound and passing through 2 people which is exactly what that round is designed to do and a .223-caliber round from the AR15 creating a 6mm entrance wound and exploding Kennedy's head leaving his brain full of fragments which is exactly what that round is designed to do. Different rounds, different entrance wounds, different angles, different results. Plus the angle of that third shot being lined up directly from the Secret Service Limo behind Kennedy. Combine that with the very credible case that Oswald only fired twice, not 3 times.
I've never found any of the other 2nd gunmen theories all that credible as the ballistics and physical evidence didn't support them, but the accidental shooting one is very interesting and makes a whole lot of sense and checks off a lot of boxes. I wish they could have pressed that agent more. That definitely should have been investigated vigorously instead of all the evidence around it being purposefully ignored or lost/destroyed/stolen. Interesting that the only mention of Agent Hickey in the Warren Report is as follows:
"Special Agent George W. Hickey, Jr., in the rear seat of the Presidential follow-up car, picked up and cocked an automatic rifle as he heard the last shot. At this point the cars were speeding through the underpass and had left the scene of the shooting, but Hickey kept the automatic weapon ready as the car raced to the hospital."
Donahue owned a copy of the full Warren Commission Report, and worked/collected info. for 25 years prior to the publication of Mortal Error in 1992.
His interest in the case began in earnest when he was selected as a test shooter for CBS’s reenactment, which proved good gunmen could equal or exceed Oswald’s shooting proficiency.
During his 20 plus year “hobby” of studying the assassination, his primary theory was that a shot from behind and to the right of the limo would not have produced a wound entirely on the right-hand side of Kennedy’s skull, actually traversing slightly farther to the right at it’s exit than from it’s entrance. Instead, he concluded that Oswald's round would likelier have exited the center of Kennedy’s skull, or perhaps even to the left of the centerline of the skull.
Along with the main theory, he collected a multitude of small “hints,” that have not been widely published. Pierre Salinger in a fluffy “Camelot” book wrote of calling Robert Kennedy from Parkland Hospital to tell him of the “accident.”
As noted by Trumpling, the entry wound in the back of Kennedy’s head was measured to be 6 mm, slightly smaller than the 6.5 mm bullet fired by Oswald, and slightly larger than the .556 bullet in the AR-15. No one has ever credibly suggested that a bullet would leave a smaller hole in bone than the size of the bullet causing it.
On a subsequent hunting trip on LBJ’s ranch, riding with VP Hubert Humphrey in a convertible, Johnson stopped his car, called Roy Kellerman forward from the SS car that was trailing, and told him to back off a few hundred yards, “because I don’t want one of you trigger happy SOB’s to blow my brains out.”
The insistence by the Secret Service detail in removing Kennedy’s body has been widely published: Kellerman and his honchos pushed the gurney/coffin nearly running over a Texas State Official who was endeavoring to enforce Texas law requiring an autopsy. If the SS had reason to fear their man fired the headshot, they had all the more reason to get to the plane . . . where they had sole access to the body during the flight.
His interest in the case began in earnest when he was selected as a test shooter for CBS’s reenactment, which proved good gunmen could equal or exceed Oswald’s shooting proficiency.
During his 20 plus year “hobby” of studying the assassination, his primary theory was that a shot from behind and to the right of the limo would not have produced a wound entirely on the right-hand side of Kennedy’s skull, actually traversing slightly farther to the right at it’s exit than from it’s entrance. Instead, he concluded that Oswald's round would likelier have exited the center of Kennedy’s skull, or perhaps even to the left of the centerline of the skull.
Along with the main theory, he collected a multitude of small “hints,” that have not been widely published. Pierre Salinger in a fluffy “Camelot” book wrote of calling Robert Kennedy from Parkland Hospital to tell him of the “accident.”
As noted by Trumpling, the entry wound in the back of Kennedy’s head was measured to be 6 mm, slightly smaller than the 6.5 mm bullet fired by Oswald, and slightly larger than the .556 bullet in the AR-15. No one has ever credibly suggested that a bullet would leave a smaller hole in bone than the size of the bullet causing it.
On a subsequent hunting trip on LBJ’s ranch, riding with VP Hubert Humphrey in a convertible, Johnson stopped his car, called Roy Kellerman forward from the SS car that was trailing, and told him to back off a few hundred yards, “because I don’t want one of you trigger happy SOB’s to blow my brains out.”
The insistence by the Secret Service detail in removing Kennedy’s body has been widely published: Kellerman and his honchos pushed the gurney/coffin nearly running over a Texas State Official who was endeavoring to enforce Texas law requiring an autopsy. If the SS had reason to fear their man fired the headshot, they had all the more reason to get to the plane . . . where they had sole access to the body during the flight.
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If you want to go down a rabbit hole --> there is a plausible connection between the Manson murders and the JFK assassination. Check out Chapter 11 of CHAOS by Tom O'Neill.
In summary, Jolly West was a psychiatrist heavily involved in CIA mind control experiments like MKULTRA. He was involved in a Haight-Asbury free clinic that recruited people like the Manson family for LSD experiments. After Oswald was killed, Jolly West psychiatrically examined Jack Ruby alone in his cell before Ruby was scheduled to testify for the Warren Commission.
After West's "examination", West reported that Jack Ruby had a severe psychiatric breakdown and Ruby's testimony was nonsense.
In 1962 West gave a zoo elephant a lethal does of LSD as a part of a failed mind control experiment, so it isn't ridiculous to believe that he gave Ruby enough LSD to melt his brain before he testified.
In summary, Jolly West was a psychiatrist heavily involved in CIA mind control experiments like MKULTRA. He was involved in a Haight-Asbury free clinic that recruited people like the Manson family for LSD experiments. After Oswald was killed, Jolly West psychiatrically examined Jack Ruby alone in his cell before Ruby was scheduled to testify for the Warren Commission.
After West's "examination", West reported that Jack Ruby had a severe psychiatric breakdown and Ruby's testimony was nonsense.
In 1962 West gave a zoo elephant a lethal does of LSD as a part of a failed mind control experiment, so it isn't ridiculous to believe that he gave Ruby enough LSD to melt his brain before he testified.
Did the elephant die? Because there are no known instances of a human dying from overdosing on lsd.
Deader than disco. whether it died from LSD or from another cause is unclear. Probably best regardless. No one wants to deal with an elephant listening to the Grateful Dead and talking about crystals.
"It died an hour and 40 minutes after the LSD was given.[11] Later, many theories developed about why Tusko had died. Some researchers thought that West and his colleagues had made the mistake of scaling up the dose in proportion to the animal's body weight, rather than its brain weight, and without considering other factors, such as its metabolic rate.[12][13] Another theory was that while the LSD had caused Tusko distress, the drugs administered in an attempt to revive him caused death. Attempting to prove that the LSD alone had not been the cause of death, Ronald K. Siegel of UCLA repeated a variant of West's experiment on two elephants; he administered to two elephants equivalent doses (in milligrams per kilogram) to that which had been given to Tusko, mixing the LSD in their drinking water rather than directly injecting it. Neither elephant expired or exhibited any great distress, although both behaved strangely for a number of hours.[14]"
"It died an hour and 40 minutes after the LSD was given.[11] Later, many theories developed about why Tusko had died. Some researchers thought that West and his colleagues had made the mistake of scaling up the dose in proportion to the animal's body weight, rather than its brain weight, and without considering other factors, such as its metabolic rate.[12][13] Another theory was that while the LSD had caused Tusko distress, the drugs administered in an attempt to revive him caused death. Attempting to prove that the LSD alone had not been the cause of death, Ronald K. Siegel of UCLA repeated a variant of West's experiment on two elephants; he administered to two elephants equivalent doses (in milligrams per kilogram) to that which had been given to Tusko, mixing the LSD in their drinking water rather than directly injecting it. Neither elephant expired or exhibited any great distress, although both behaved strangely for a number of hours.[14]"
Who gives a **** whether LSD killed the elephant? That same doctor visited Ruby alone in his jail cell before Ruby was set to testify to the Warren Commission and after the doctor's visit, Ruby went insane. And that same doctor was connected to mind control experiments like MKULTRA and may have been involved with whatever the hell happened with the Manson Family.
Pretty odd set of facts.
Pretty odd set of facts.
I read the book the documentary came from. When the head of the Secret Service detail called Johnson he reported 'There's been an accident', not 'someone shot the President' or similar. 'There's been an accident'. The head wound could not have been caused by the ammunition Oswald was using (full metal jacket). It exploded on contact, exactly matching the ammunition the Secret Service agents were carrying. BTW, the book concluded that the neck wound inflicted by one of Oswald's shots was most probably a mortal wound although the subsequent head shot from behind made the neck wound redundant.
According to that book, there was no 'magic' bullet. Connelly was sitting at an angle to Kennedy and the trajectory of Oswald's shot hit Kennedy and proceeded on an almost exact straight line (a bit of deflection from passing through Kennedy's neck?) to hit Connelly. No magic required.
This is correct. Any honest person reading this book will be convinced. Oswald acted alone.
I happen to be friends with a guy named Hugh Aynesworth. He was a young reporter in Dallas when Kennedy was killed -- eyewitnessed it. Hugh had a lot of important firsts, got Oswald's diary, was there when Oswald was arrested (he overheard a cop's radio report while at the Book Depository and made his way to the theater) and so on. Anyone interested can look him up on wikipedia. Hugh spent years looking into this, first at the Dallas paper then at Newsweek magazine. He was 100 percent convinced Oswald acted alone simply because every single piece of 'evidence' to the contrary could be disproved if you were honestly willing to look closely at it.
For example, he told me that in the days right after the killing dozens of reporters at the Dallas paper took detailed statements from every single person who could be identified at Dealey Plaza from photos or film. Those early day statements yielded no witnesses who said they believed it was anybody but a shooter from the Book Depository. Then, over the years, as memories faded and people sought notoriety THE SAME PEOPLE INTERVIEWED EARLY ON began to come up with all these accounts of shooters at the grassy knoll and so on. The conspiracy theorists just dismissed the fact that these people had already talked when memories were fresh and the urgency was real and said nothing about that.
I have always supported the "Oswald acted alone" as well but the stuff on a 3rd shot from Secret Service Agent Hickey by accident is really good stuff. First time I've seen any theory answer all the questions. Now if I could just figure out why they settled out of court with him?
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I’m very much in favor of a dessert storm. Could I start out with a hot fudge sundae with nuts?
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Many conspiracy theorists have focused on the many oddities of Jack Ruby, and have likely concluded things were amiss . . . without knowing a whole lot about the whole circumstances involving Ruby.
Ruby ran a “night club,” that was a strip joint, essentially. Young Dallas cops loved his establishment, and he was in tight with the whole law enforcement establishment. In one
picture of the theatre-like crowd of reporters allowed to briefly interview a seated Oswald, Jack Ruby is about the 8th row back.
He had free reign at police headquarters and was on a first name basis with the cops. If you watch a quality clip of the Oswald assassination, the cop in the broad-brimmed hat actually has an initial look on his face with Ruby’s approach that is not one of concern . . . he knew Ruby, well. When he spots the gun he gets a panicked look, whilst lunging forward to grab at the gun.
Ruby has taken his poodle dogs
(yeah) to be groomed across the street from the opening to the police garage, was issued a receipt like 2 minutes before he shot Oswald, noticed the hub-bubb at the garage opening as he exited the business he’d visited, walked down the incline of the garage, likely speaking to any officers he saw by name, and saw Oswald and freaked out.
The idea that anyone would engage in a conspiracy with folks as bizarre as Jack Rubenstein and Oswald is a stretch, and one of the weaknesses of any conspiracy theories.
Some persist in thinking Oswald did
nothing. But he was captured in the middle of the workday in a walk-in theatre, and pulled a gun when cops got near. That gun matched the ballistics of the bullet that had killed a traffic patrolman (Tippitt) shortly before Oswald entered the theatre.
If Oswald was a full patsy, why did he wander away from his job mid-day, and shoot a cop?
Ruby ran a “night club,” that was a strip joint, essentially. Young Dallas cops loved his establishment, and he was in tight with the whole law enforcement establishment. In one
picture of the theatre-like crowd of reporters allowed to briefly interview a seated Oswald, Jack Ruby is about the 8th row back.
He had free reign at police headquarters and was on a first name basis with the cops. If you watch a quality clip of the Oswald assassination, the cop in the broad-brimmed hat actually has an initial look on his face with Ruby’s approach that is not one of concern . . . he knew Ruby, well. When he spots the gun he gets a panicked look, whilst lunging forward to grab at the gun.
Ruby has taken his poodle dogs
(yeah) to be groomed across the street from the opening to the police garage, was issued a receipt like 2 minutes before he shot Oswald, noticed the hub-bubb at the garage opening as he exited the business he’d visited, walked down the incline of the garage, likely speaking to any officers he saw by name, and saw Oswald and freaked out.
The idea that anyone would engage in a conspiracy with folks as bizarre as Jack Rubenstein and Oswald is a stretch, and one of the weaknesses of any conspiracy theories.
Some persist in thinking Oswald did
nothing. But he was captured in the middle of the workday in a walk-in theatre, and pulled a gun when cops got near. That gun matched the ballistics of the bullet that had killed a traffic patrolman (Tippitt) shortly before Oswald entered the theatre.
If Oswald was a full patsy, why did he wander away from his job mid-day, and shoot a cop?
Well done, sir. Well done. I looked at my post a couple times and kept thinking something was off but couldn't spot what it was !! Your skill of observation is sweet............get it ? Sweet - dessert.......HaHaHaHa
My issue with the WCR were the massive discrepancies between the parkland hospital doctors/nurses/staff’s descriptions of Kennedy’s wounds and the “official” autopsy reports produced at Bethesda. Those two groups were either looking at a different body, or someone altered Kennedy’s body before it got to Bethesda, or the Bethesda reports/info were created to infer a desired result.
my apologies, but there were several books written about this in the early 90’s. Can’t recall the name of the book, but I want to say the authors name was Livingston. Absolutely worth the time and read.
my apologies, but there were several books written about this in the early 90’s. Can’t recall the name of the book, but I want to say the authors name was Livingston. Absolutely worth the time and read.
There were wide discrepancies that worried me, until I ended up representing a couple of doctors as “second chair” in a malpractice suit.
Our clients won, but in the weeks of prep and two weeks of trial, I lost any and all “excessive” respect I might have ever had for doctors.
They are very human, very capable of mistake and disagreement, but tend to be very cocky (and argumentative) regarding their own opinion.
At least one doctor in Texas (I read a book or two on them), confidently described seeing the very back of Kennedy’s head open, but shown autopsy photos decades later concluded that a combination of stress, the backwards flow of gore and brain material, and the simple fact he was not really treating the massive head wound, but doing a tracheotomy on the neck, led to his error.
I never took the early testimony of the Parkland medical team seriously, after having watched the shocking Zupruder film: Kennedy’s head opened above his right ear, forward to near the right temple. The wound that can be clearly seen in it’s inception, matches the wound in the autopsy photos released in 1979, and the remarkable Ida Dox artistic renderings released during the House investigation.
While some conspiracy theorists have hooked onto the statements from the Parkland staff and gone farther to suggest tampering with the Zappruder film, this was the mid-sixties, and the film looks legit.
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