JFK Assassination: A Window Into The Leftist Mind (and the Kooky Right)

I have always wondered why some people believe so passionately in a massive conspiracy to assassinate John F. Kennedy.  The documented facts prove, indisputably, to the fact that Communist Lee Harvey Oswald did it, and that he acted alone.  A pathetic loser and loner, separated from his wife and living alone in a rented room, Oswald craved the attention his evil deed would bring.

Many people, mostly on the left but some on the wacky side of the right, could not accept the results of a thorough and massive investigation by the Warren Commission, which concluded that Oswald did it alone.  Benny Huang sheds some light on why the conspiracy advocates believe what they do.  In his article The JFK Assassination As A Window Into The Leftist Mind, he writes:

For a number of reasons, Oswald’s political orientation has always been very difficult for people on the Left to accept. They have convinced themselves that the so-called communist threat was largely imaginary, that actual communists were mostly do-gooders if only a little zealous, and that anti-communism was a far greater threat to all that is good and right. Consequently, people on the Left engage in a form of group therapy in which they jointly exercise their preferred coping mechanism—denial—by seeking out alternative explanations for what happened that day. The result is the cottage industry of conspiracist books and movies that surround the assassination.

Huang's analysis is spot on. However, reading through the comments to the article, it is obvious that there are many on the Wacky Right (think Alex Jones) that believe in the conspiracy too, but with a variety of named culprits: LBJ, George Bush the elder, the bankers, etc etc. Read it all at the link above.

With thanks to No Pasaran! for first bringing this article to light.

Live Video Cam View From Oswald's "Sniper's Lair" at Dealey Plaza #jfk

The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza in Dallas has a live view of Oswald's field of fire, via online webcam, at this link.

This requires an internet connection.  Here is a still capture I just made:

Oswald's View of JFK Motorcade, as It Appears Today (2013)
Red Circle Shows Location of JFK and Fatal Head Shot

Note: There is a horizontal, white line in the street that denotes the location of the fatal head shot.  I put a red circle around it.  The trees have grown up quite a bit since 1963.

Oswald had an ever clearer shot fifty years ago. See same photo back then, with a red x marking the spot of the head shot, below.  (The "grassy knoll" can be seen on the right.).  This is a photo taken on November 27, 1963, of a Secret Service reenactment of the assassination.  The photo below it is a view to the left, just before Elm Street runs under the oak tree there.  It is believed Oswald hurried his first shot here, and missed.

View From Sniper's Lair, November 27, 1963

From the Sniper's Lair, Looking Down and to the Left of the Six Floor Window
Where Oswald May Have Fired His First Shot and Missed - Photo Taken November 27, 1963

Here is the actual scene of Oswald's perch in 1963.  He stacked boxes to act as a support for steadying his rifle for the shots fired at Kennedy.  Note how much thinner the trees were in 1963.

Source:  Fort Worth Star Telegram

Burial of JFK, J.D. Tippit and Lee Harvey Oswald; My Memory of The Texas Theater

Fifty years ago today there were three funerals and burials:  that of President John F. Kennedy, Officer J.D. Tippit, and Lee Harvey Oswald.  Oswald, the murderer of the first two, was ironically buried the same day as his victims, Monday, November 25, 1963.  All three died of gunshot wounds, and all three died as a result of Oswald's heinous crimes.

Oswald was captured in the Texas Theater, a movie theater in Dallas.  It's funny, but my family drove by the Texas Theater in the summer of 1962.  I had just graduated from high school in California, and my father wanted to drive to Texas to visit relatives.  As we entered Dallas, I was sitting in the back seat of my dad's Cadillac, on the right side of the car, and looking out the window at the passing scene.  We drove by a movie theater, and it made an impression of me because of its unusual sign:  a semicircle of yellow stars with blue letters spelling out TEXAS.

This stuck in my mind, and when Oswald was arrested in the Texas Theater, I wondered if it was the same one in my memory.  For years I couldn't be sure, but then came the Internet.  Today you can Google anything and find answers instantly.  I found several pictures of the Texas Theater, and it is the one I saw in 1962.  See pictures.

JFK Assassination: Proof That Both Bullets Were Fired From Behind - #JFK

Conspiracy theorists mostly insist that the bullets that hit Kennedy were fired from the front, i.e, from the so-called "Grassy Knoll."  Their major source of "proof":  Some of the Parkland Hospital doctors who worked on Kennedy in Trauma Room 1 stated to the press that the bullets in both his head and his neck were entry wounds.

The Parkland Doctors and "Entry Wounds"
Here's the facts:  the doctors and ER personnel who worked on Kennedy were not trying to determine if the wounds were entry or exit, they were in a rush to save his life.  Kennedy's head and hair were covered with dried blood, tissue and brain matter, obscuring a clear view of the wounds.  Further, since Kennedy was lying face up, few of the doctors were able to view the back of his head or his upper back, where the small bullet holes indicate entry wounds from the rear (and consistent with shots fired from the Texas School Book Depository, or TSBD).  Moreover, gravity carried much of the blood and tissue from the front of JFK's head to the back (since he was lying on his back), making it appear that the most massive wounds were in the rear.

According to Vincent Bugliosi in his book Reclaiming History, the Parkland doctors attending Kennedy were mostly young interns and residents, as most of the experienced doctors were away that day at a medical conference.  None of the doctors present were pathologists, and none were experts in gunshot wounds.  Further, they were with Kennedy a total of only 22 minutes before he finally died from his wounds.  Therefore the initial impression of these inexperienced doctors as to the nature of the wounds is completely irrelevant.

The Opinion of 15 to 17 Forensic Pathologists carries substantially more weight than the hurried impressions of interns and residents.  The former had much more time to inspect and dispassionately evaluate the wounds from the notes, X Rays and the photographs of the autopsy.  These pathologists (17 for the head shot, 15 for the back shot) were unanimous in their conclusions that both of the shots entered Kennedy's body from the back and exited from the front, indicating a shooter from the TSBD.  Here are the factors that prove incontrovertibly that their conclusions were accurate:

1.  Abrasion Collars:  Entry wounds from bullets leave a kind of halo around the entry wound, caused by the bullet rubbing against the flesh as it enters.  This happens only if the bullet enters at an angle, however slight.  The abrasion collars on both bullet wounds that hit JFK indicate movement of the bullet from right to left, consistent with shots fired from the TSBD.  (Exit wounds do not have abrasion collars.)  Both bullet wounds in Kennedy (head and upper back) had these abrasion collars.

2.  Beveling of Bullet Holes In The Skull:  A bullet entering the skull typically creates a relatively small hole on the exterior surface, and a large hole immediately opposite on the interior surface. (The opposite effect would happen on the opposing side of the skull where the bullet exits.)  McAdams's site explains the concept:

Key Concept: Beveling. When a bullet penetrates the skull bone, it will leave a small hole on the side from which it enters, and a larger dished-out crater on the side that it exits. The existence of beveling of the bone of Kennedy’s skull allowed the autopsists — and later panels of forensic pathologists — to establish that the bullet that hit Kennedy in the head entered from behind, with at least one large fragment exiting toward the front. See JFK Exhibit F-61, from the House Select Committee on Assassinations.

Here's a photo of the beveling effect a BB makes on a plane of glass.  This photo shows the exit side effect.  The entry hole is small, the exit hole is large and beveled.

Beveling Effect of a BB on Glass
(Internal View, Exit Point)

 This beveling effect was found in Kennedy's skull during the autopsy, at both the entry and exit points, proving conclusively that the shot hit him from the rear, again consistent with a shot fired from the Texas School Book Depository.

This evidence only works on gunshots to the skull, it cannot be used on other parts of the body, such as the shot to JFK's upper back (the throat shot).

3.  Coagulation Necrosis of the Bullet Wounds:  This is a scientific term for collagen damage at the periphery of an entry wound (but not an exit wound).  The hot bullet causes damage to the collagen that is invisible to the naked eye, but which can be seen through a microscope.  Both of the bullet wounds to JFK have coagulation necrosis on the back, proving once again that both shots were fired from the rear.

With all the hoopla, claims and counter claims for and against a conspiracy, the scientific evidence is irrefutable:  no shot hit Kennedy from the front, there was no shot from the Grassy Knoll.  In short, no apparent conspiracy.

Sources:  The JFK/Kennedy Assassination Homepage
                 Reclaiming History:  The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy, Vincent Bugliosi

Pissing on His Grave: Lee Harvey Oswald #jfk, #jfkassassination, #LeeHarveyOswald

When John F. Kennedy was murdered by Lee Harvey Oswald, I had just celebrated my 19th birthday.  I was a sophomore at San Jose City College in San Jose, California.  Young, naive and idealistic, I revered J.F.K.  He made me feel proud to be an American.

After the assassination, I was filled with a burning hatred for Lee Harvey Oswald.  After Oswald was killed by Jack Ruby, I swore that someday I would go to Dallas, find Oswald's grave, and piss on it.

I've been to Dallas a few times since then, as I have relatives there.  One night in 1975, a cousin took me to the Texas School Book Depository and I stood on the ground directly below the window where Oswald fired the shots.  I remember how close and accessible Elm Street seemed from where I was.  I could see it wind around, first slightly to the right, then slightly leftward, down towards the overpass.  I remember dark gray concrete with white highway stripes. The scene before me was largely deserted of people and cars, as it was night time.  I was shocked to see how easy Oswald's shots appeared to be.  (See a graphic of Dealey Plaza here.)

Fifty years later, I have become a conservative Republican, but I still bitterly resent Oswald's cancellation of a presidential election by bullet.  I still hate the little commie bastard.  And I really need to go visit my cousins in Dallas.  Maybe I'll finally get to visit Oswald's grave.  After several beers, I should be ready.

UPDATE:  If you are in Fort Worth and feel a need to relieve yourself, directions to Oswald's grave are at this link.

Resources for Understanding the Assassination of John F. Kennedy: Websites, Books, and Documentaries #JFK, #JFKassassination

Do a search at Amazon.com on "JFK Assassination" and a flood of conspiracy titles quickly unravel down your video screen.

Many books have been written about the JFK murder, and probably 90% of them advance conspiracy theories, many of which are completely absurd.  JFK assassination literature is similar to tabloids sold in the grocery store:  reasonable and responsible stories don't sell.  "Elvis dating Bigfoot on a UFO" sells.  "Oswald Killed Kennedy and Acted Alone" doesn't.  Not sexy.  Not exciting.  Reality is just so boring.

Nevertheless, the responsible literature on the JFK assassination all come to the same conclusion:  Oswald did kill Kennedy, and he did indeed act alone.  Below I list the best of these resources.  Commentary descriptions are taken from Amazon.

Websites:
1.  The JFK/Kennedy Assassination Homepage, by Professor John McAdams.  This is without a doubt the best online resource for responsible study of the assassination.  It contains photos, texts, illustrations and links, and refutes every major conspiracy theory.

2.  JFK Facts. making sense of JFK's assassination after 50 years. This website contains a mix of both pro and anti conspiracy authors.

3.  The National Archives, Warren Commission Records and Report.  

4.  The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza.

5.  Live EarthCam at Dealey Plaza.  See a live video cam of Oswald's view from the Sniper's Lair.  This is a live video of Elm Street as viewed from the Sixth Floor of the Texas School Book Depository.  Does this look like a difficult shot to you?

6.  Oswald Is Guilty -  Holds the position that Oswald was solely guilty of the murder of John F. Kennedy, and gives a point by point argument to that effect.

7.  The Assassination of John F. Kennedy:  A Lone-Gunman Viewpoint.  Many articles, photos and links related to the assassination, from an anti-conspiracy writer.

8.  DVP's JFK Archives.  A collection of articles, photos, videos and Warren Commission documents about the assassination.

Books:
1.  Four Days In November:  The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy, by Vincent Bugliosi.

Amazon Description:
Four Days in November is an extraordinarily exciting, precise, and definitive narrative of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963, by Lee Harvey Oswald. It is drawn from Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy, a huge and historic account of the event and all the conspiracy theories it spawned, by Vincent Bugliosi, famed prosecutor of Charles Manson and author of Helter Skelter. For general readers, the carefully documented account presented in Four Days is utterly persuasive: Oswald did it and he acted alone.

2.  Reclaiming History:  The Asssassination of President John F. Kennedy, by Vincent Bugliosi.  This is a more comprehensive account from which "Four Days In November" was derived.

Amazon Description:
There have been hundreds of books about the assassination, but there has never been a book that covers the entire case, including addressing every piece of evidence and each and every conspiracy theory, and the facts, or alleged facts, on which they are based. In this monumental work, the author has raised scholarship on the assassination to a new and final level, one that far surpasses all other books on the subject. It adds resonance, depth, and closure to the admirable work of the Warren Commission.
Reclaiming History is a narrative compendium of fact, forensic evidence, reexamination of key witnesses, and common sense. Every detail and nuance is accounted for, every conspiracy theory revealed as a fraud on the American public. Bugliosi's irresistible logic, command of the evidence, and ability to draw startling inferences shed fresh light on this American nightmare. At last it all makes sense. 32 pages of illustrations.

3.  Case Closed, by Gerald Posner.  This is the first really good refutation of the conspiracy theorists.  It was released in 1993.

Amazon Description:
The assassination of John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963, continues to inspire interest ranging from well-meaning speculation to bizarre conspiracy theories and controversial filmmaking. But in this landmark book, reissued with a new afterword for the 40th anniversary of the assassination, Gerald Posner examines all of the available evidence and reaches the only possible conclusion: Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. There was no second gunman on the grassy knoll. The CIA was not involved. And although more than four million pages of documents have been released since Posner first made his case, they have served only to corroborate his findings. Case Closed remains the classic account against which all books about JFK’s death must be measured.

4.  A Conspiracy of One, by Jim Moore.  This is one of the very first rebuttals of the conspiracy theorists (and the first one I read).  It is not as comprehensive as the first three books listed, but is worth the read.  Moore was a researcher who was determined to root out the conspiracy and discover the true perpetrators.  However, the more he learned, the more he came to the conclusion that Oswald did it and acted alone.

Documentaries:  There are many documentaries, including some that are absurd, which seems to be a trait of conspiracy theorists.  Here are the best that I have seen:

1.  Beyond Conspiracy, History Channel. Uses 3D graphic models, including a digital reconstruction of Dealey Plaza and the JFK limousine.  

2.  Beyond the Magic Bullet, History Channel.  Reconstructs the shooting of Kennedy using the same height and angle of Oswald in the Sniper's Lair.  Uses a rifle identical to that used by Lee Harvey Oswald, as well as bullets from the same batch that he fired at Kennedy, as well as gelatin and animal tissue to simulate a human body.  Shows how Oswald's shots traveled and tumbled, and how they made the wounds on Kennedy and Connally.  

3.  CBS Test of the Mannlicher Carcano Rifle, 1967.  CBS had 11 shooters test the Oswald rifle (using identical rifles, not the original) by shooting at a moving target at the same distances that JFK was from Oswald.  Here's a description of that test from Wikipedia:

CBS conducted a firing test in 1967 at the H. P. White Ballistics Laboratory located in Street, Maryland. For the test 11 marksmen from diverse backgrounds were invited to participate: 3 Maryland State Troopers, 1 weapons engineer, 1 sporting goods dealer, 1 sportsman, 1 ballistics technician, 1 ex-paratrooper, and 3 H. P. White employees. CBS provided several Carcano rifles for the test. Oswald's rifle was not used in this test. The targets were color-coded orange for head/shoulder silhouette and blue for a near miss. The results of the CBS test were as follows: 7 of 11 shooters were able to fire three rounds under 5.6 seconds (64%). Of those 7 shooters, 6 hit the orange target once (86%), and 5 hit the orange target twice (71%). Out of 60 rounds fired, 25 hit the orange (42%), 21 hit the blue portion of the target (35%), and there were 14 misses on the target (23%).

One volunteer was unable to operate his rifle effectively so the following statistics are based on the 10 remaining shooters. The average time of all 10 was 5.64 seconds. The mode was 5.55 seconds and the mean was 5.70 seconds. The average for the top five shooters was 5.12 seconds, and for the bottom five shooters 6.16 seconds. There was a high occurrence of jamming during the test. On average the rifles jammed after 6 rounds. The most rounds fired without jamming were 14, 11, 10 in a row. The least was 0 (back to back).

The first shooter to lead off the experiment was Al Sherman, Maryland State Trooper. The record of his effort: 5.0 sec: 2 orange, 1 blue / 6.0 sec: 2 orange, 1 blue / NT (jam at 3rd cartridge)/ 5.2 sec: 1 orange, 2 low / 5.0 sec: 1 orange, 2 blue. Sherman was able to fire 8 rounds before his rifle jammed. Of all shooters, the fastest times were: 4.1 sec, 4.3 sec, 4.9 sec, 5.0 sec. The best accuracy was 3 orange in 5.2 seconds. The rifles were oiled and allowed to cool down between shooters. CBS reporter Dan Rather attended this experiment.

During the investigation by the House Select Committee on Assassinations (1976–1978), the lead attorneys for the Committee, Robert Blakey and Gary Cornwell, were allowed to use WC-139 at an FBI firing range. The attorneys wanted to see how fast the bolt action could be operated. Blakey was able to fire two rounds in 1.5 seconds and Cornwell fired two rounds in 1.2 seconds. This was an experiment to test a possible theory that Oswald in his excitement may have pointed and fired, as opposed to aimed and fired. Some critics of the Warren Commission had claimed it was impossible to fire a Carcano rifle in less than 2.3 seconds. Both the CBS and HSCA tests proved conclusively this claim is not accurate.^[67]

4.  JFK Assassination:  Father & Son Probe the Single Bullet Theory - Another video proving once again that the second bullet (the so called "Magic Bullet") did indeed strike both Kennedy and Connally.  Shows how the bullet "yawed" (began tumbling end over end) after exiting Kennedy's throat, hitting Connally at an oblique angle.  [The bullet did not disintegrate like the third bullet in the fatal head shot, because its velocity was slowed by the soft tissue of Kennedy's neck.]

Essays and Articles 

1. Killing Conspiracy by Fred Kaplan of Slate.  Kaplan describes his disillusionment with the conspiracy theorists when he realized how badly they were distorting the facts.  He rebuts the Grassy Knoll head shot theory and the "Magic Bullet" theory.  All of this is old news, but he adds to the discussion by describing the factors that motivate conspiracy theories:

The Appeal of Conspiracies - Conspiracy theories thrive—about every big event in history—for several reasons. First, there’s a natural human instinct to fantasize about the hidden. As my Slate colleague Ron Rosenbaum (who’s plumbed these depths as immersively as anyone) put it in his brilliant collection, The Secret Parts of Fortune, “The search for the hidden hand, the hidden springs, the hidden handshake behind history attracts a certain kind of glory seeker, Ancient Mariner, mad scholar, Wandering Jew.”Second, there is comfort in this search for unseen mainsprings. If horrible events can be traced to a cabal of evildoers who control the world from behind a vast curtain, that’s, in one sense, less scary than the idea that some horrible things happen at random or as a result of a lone nebbish, a nobody. The existence of a secret cabal means that there’s some sort of order in the world; a catastrophic fluke suggests there’s a vast crevice of chaos, the essence of dread.
As the old adage has it, “Big doors sometimes swing on little hinges.” John F. Kennedy’s murder was a big door—had he lived, the subsequent decades might have looked very different—and Lee Harvey Oswald was a preposterously small hinge. The dissonance is wildly disorienting. It makes for a neater fit, a more intelligible universe, to believe that a consequential figure like John Kennedy was taken down by an equally consequential entity, like the CIA, the Mafia, the Soviets, Castro … take your pick.

2.  JFK - Casualty of the Cold War, by James Piereson.  This article describes how the left tried to tie the assassination to "right wing extremism."  However, the author provides plenty of facts that prove a communist murdered JFK, possibly because the assassin felt he was protecting the life of Fidel Castro.  [I personally do not believe political motivations were Oswald's primary motive.  I believe he simply wanted to be noticed, to be famous, to show off for his estranged wife, and to express his hatred for America.]

I may add to these lists as additional resources become known. 

How To Sell a JFK Assassination Theory (and Sell Books!) #JFK #JFKAssassination

In 1997 a JFK assassination writer created a FAQ about the Kennedy assassination and the claims of the conspiracy theoriests.

Locke describes the process for advancing a conspiracy theory:
8.1 Sell emotion first. 

8.2 Scare the reader away from primary documents. 

8.3 Distort the evidence. 

8.4 Emphasize eyewitness testimony. 

8.5 Emphasize unsworn witnesses. 

8.6 Raise non-essential issues. 

8.7 Omit the complete context of the evidence. 

8.8 Promote yourself to expert. 

8.9 Don't solicit the other side of the story. 

8.10 Accuse the defenseless. 

8.11 Emphasize preliminary information. 

8.12 Recycle discredited evidence.

Locke also lists the major myths and facts about the assassination.  Read his FAQ online here.