"Happy Birthday Mister President", Marilyn Monroe (May 19, 1962) This weeks theme: The JFK Assassination plus 51 I had mentioned last year that I was a sort of JFK assassination buff. While I was unable to find any "compelling" evidence that there was a conspiracy, the dirty little secret is that there isn't any compelling evidence it was Oswald acting alone either. I don't care which way it goes, I'm just curious as to what really happened. Through history about half of all assassinations were conspiracies and about half were "lone nuts" so neither is out of the question or unusual. Lincoln was killed by a conspiracy, as was Archduke Franz Ferdinand and the Nazi Reinhard Heydrich. The attempt on Hitler in 1944 was a conspiracy. On the other hand, Garfield, McKinley and the attempts on Gerald Ford and Reagan were "lone nuts". I had to conclude last year that on a scale of 1 to 5 with 1 being that "lone-nut" Oswald did it and 5 being a conspiracy - that I had to rate it a 3 undecided - the evidence could go either way. Like I said - nothing decisive or compelling either way. ****************************************** That was a year ago. There's no new evidence really, but as a result of all the 50th anniversary stuff, I learned a lot more details about things. Today I need to say that I have changed my position to a 4 - the weight of the evidence is that THERE WAS A CONSPIRACY. I guess I would still have to say that it could still be Oswald acting alone, but I think the preponderance of the evidence points to a conspiracy. Like I said last year as a "techie" kind of guy I like to see scientific evidence. So much in this case is garbage - some guy knows a guy who overheard a guy who said XYZ - totally useless in my opinion. I mentioned the paraffin test the FBI did on Oswald that showed he hadn't fired a rifle that day - no powder residue on his cheek. That's scientific evidence but I'd like to see a dozen pieces of evidence like that not just one to really decide. ****************************************** What has tipped it for me is the acoustical evidence from the 1976-78 House Select Committee on Assassinations. The Dallas police recorded all their radio communications traffic on a Dictaphone system. Evidently the microphone on one of the police motorcycles in the motorcade was stuck on and the assassination shots were recorded. I heard about this a long time ago but also heard there were problems with it and so I dismissed it as more goofed up evidence. Now I think I was wrong to do that - now I think the criticisms are wrong and the science involved is right. ****************************************** There are five gunshots on the recording and the fifth is from the Grassy Knoll. They were even able to track the position of the motorcycle at each of those shots (see the map I attached "BikeWithTheMike.gif"). They did this by placing some 30 microphones along the motorcade route - roughly every 6 feet. Then they fired test shots from the Texas School Book Depository and the Grassy Knoll. When a shot is fired you not only get the initial sound but many slightly delayed echoes off of the nearby buildings and things. The arrival times of these echoes is unique at each location depending on how far the sound has actually traveled. They identified some 28 echoes in the shots. Correlating the shots on the recording with the test shots, they were able to determine, from the best matches, where the motorcycle was during each shot. The statistics involved make this all better that 95% certain. This recent C-SPAN show explains this all better than I can, so I defer to it. I highly recommend it and you can watch it on-line at: Acoustic Analysis of the Kennedy Assassination http://www.c-span.org/video/?321702-4/acoustic-analysis-kennedy-assassination ****************************************** ****************************************** ****************************************** More about this ... Echo correlation analysis and the acoustic evidence in the Kennedy assassination revisited http://www.jfklancer.com/pdf/Thomas.pdf Acoustics Evidence https://www.maryferrell.org/wiki/index.php/Acoustics_Evidence Contrary view The acoustic evidence in the Kennedy assassination http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/odell/ Is there an audio recording of the JFK assassination? http://jfkfacts.org/assassination/is-there-an-audio-recording-of-the-jfk-assassination/ Dictabelt evidence relating to the assassination of John F. Kennedy From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dictabelt_evidence_relating_to_the_assassination_of_John_F._Kennedy Marilyn Monroe - Happy Birthday Mr. President http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EqolSvoWNck ****************************************** Personal JFK Assassination favorites MARK LANE IS INTERVIEWED BY WILLIAM BUCKLEY (DECEMBER 1, 1966) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fI7GwBtTRvc The Men Who Killed Kennedy (1990s documentary series) From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Men_Who_Killed_Kennedy The Men Who Killed Kennedy: Part 1 The Coup d'Etat http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2agPurqFJk ****************************************** You can re-live that day - TV's first big 24/7 event! It looks pretty primitive, but they'd never covered anything live like this before. CBS-TV COVERAGE OF JFK'S ASSASSINATION https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL0O5WNzrZqIMRSDT19pXjBuGLcXKqS-3r JFK'S ASSASSINATION (NBC-TV COVERAGE) (PART 1) [WITH RARE FOOTAGE ADDED] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0Oec1Gm1ew ABC-TV COVERAGE OF JFK'S ASSASSINATION https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL0O5WNzrZqINovaP2_E0t0Jau5Jam1j9x ABC reported that a Secret Service agent was also shot/killed (they said the Dallas sheriff's office confirmed that) - but that didn't happen - or did it? :-) They also said the Dallas sheriff's office said there had been 4 shots fired. They said JFK was standing up in the car when shot. Brief personal note: at about 1:04 into this is an ABC reporter Ed Morgan who said he was at lunch with Kennedy advisor Ralph Dungan when he heard the news. Ralph Dungan is the one (or his secretary :-) that answered the letter I wrote to JFK when I was a kid: http://www.winternet.com/~swezeyt/fun/swezjfk.htm http://www.winternet.com/~swezeyt/fun/swezjfk3.htm Stay Jazzed - and keep your head down! --Tom Swezey --