11-22-2023 ****************************************************** ****************************************************** My memories of the JFK Assassination. I was in sixth grade when John F. Kennedy was shot. I think it's the first major national news story I remember. ****************************************************** Back then very few Moms worked outside the home, none that I remember. The husband was the "bread winner", the wife ("housewife") ran the home and took main care of the children. My grade school would break for lunch at 11:30 and resume at 1:15. We would walk home and have lunch with our Moms and then return for the afternoon. I don't remember what I had for lunch that day, but it was usually (always?) Campbell's soup and a grilled cheese sandwich. Tomato soup was my favorite, but chicken noodle was okay - once in a while :-) I don't remember exactly what I had that day, but it was most likely that. Anyway, when I returned to school, but before the bell rang, we were standing around talking and one of the kids said that their Mother had the radio on and that someone had shot the President! (JFK was actually shot at exactly 12:30 central time but things were confused for a while). I remember the teacher looking very concerned, but MY thinking was "That's stupid - they don't shoot the President - that can't be true - so it must be wrong". I don't remember anything else until after supper going over to a friends house who had it on the TV, but I'm sure I heard about it before that. The TV networks were all in 24/7 live coverage mode, we see that all the time now, especially on the cable news chanels, but I think that was the very first time they ever did that. Actually, that was kind of boring to me as a kid, so I didn't watch much of it. :-) ****************************************************** The next memory I have was watching TV in the living room on Sunday morning. They said they were going to bring out the killer (Oswald) to move him to another jail and we'd get to see him. My memory was that it was delayed twice for like an hour each time. My Mother gave up and went into the kitchen to iron our clothes (she'd set up her ironing board there as needed) and said to let her know when it happened so she could see him too. I was watching when they brought Oswald out, Ruby popped out of the crowd and shot him. We shouted to my Mother "They shot him! - Somebody shot him!" ****************************************************** I remember we had the next day off from school and watched the funeral. I remember being bummed out because, while we got a free day off from school, all the regular TV shows were preempted - I had to just go outside and play instead :-) ****************************************************** A few months later, the Warren Commission, charged with investigating the assassination, came out with their report. The Warren Commission produced a 26 volume set of books, but summarized it into a 1 volume "report". I remember they said that alot of additional evidence was sealed (secret) for 50 years. My Dad told me that I would probably still be alive then and that I should look into this to see what it was really all about. He wasn't a conspiracy guy, but he thought something didn't seem right. He said he thought there was more to it and that they weren't telling us everything. ****************************************************** Fast forward to 1973. I was working at a restaurant while I was a student at the UofM and had just purchased a Marantz 4415 Quadradial (quadraphonic) Stereo Receiver (I later upgraded to a 4300 :-) I never usually listened to FM, but because it was new I wanted to check it out. I picked up the UofM station and they were talking with a grad law student, from Harvard I think. He belonged to a group that investigated famous crimes, specifically the JFK assassination, and said that the details in the 26 volumes of the Warren Commission don't really lead to the conclusions in the single volume "report". He was going to give a presentation about all this in Coffman Union, at the UofM, the next night or so. I'd never heard anything about this before, but it sounded pretty interesting so I went to it. He talked for a couple of hours, with slides and stuff - none of which I remember - and he had a pirated copy of the Zapruder film of the assassination. Even after 10 years that film was NOT available to the general public. He ran it several times, sometimes in slow motion and had slides of key frames. I was no expert - just a goofy college kid - but it looked to me like JFK got it from the front (from the Grassy Knoll - not just behind from the Texas School Book Depository). He didn't offer any ideas as to WHO the conspirators were, just that there must have been a conspiracy, so I left there more confused than anything :-) ****************************************************** The BIG QUESTION has always been - was JFK killed by a "LONE NUT" or a "CONSPIRACY"? And of course, if it was a conspiracy, WHO/WHY? ****************************************************** Fast forward again to 1988. The Arts and Entertainment cable channel aired a multi-part British documentary entitled "The Men Who Killed Kennedy" - which kind of indicates what they thought happened :-) The Men Who Killed Kennedy (1988 to 2003) From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Men_Who_Killed_Kennedy It's on YouTube and I really recommend watching at least the first episode. The Men Who Killed Kennedy Full Series https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0XNiu-yutk ****************************************************** That got me all juiced up to investigate this stuff for myself. I didn't really have an opinion about all this - if it was Oswald alone, okay, if it was a conspiracy, okay. I just would like to know what really happened :-) So for the next couple/three years I bought a lot of the books and watched a lot of the documentaries about this to try to figure it all out. Well, basically, after all that, I concluded - I CAN'T FIGURE THIS OUT. I can't tell you definitively lone nut or conspiracy. There's a lot of smoke - a LOT of smoke - but it blows both ways and I can't find the fire. Occasionally I'd learn some interesting tidbit and feel - this decides it - it's "this". But then as I thought about it - it could actually point the exact other way, toward "that" instead. After about a half dozen of those experiences, I just gave up. ****************************************************** If it was a "lone nut", it likely was Lee Harvey Oswald - case closed. (Either way, I think definitely Oswald was involved.) ****************************************************** There are a lot of conspiracy theories - some are outright silly. They're all over the board. The "evidence" is almost always second hand - "I knew a guy, who knew a guy, who said - blah, blah, blah". And they almost always end with "Please buy my book". :-) ****************************************************** If it was a conspiracy - here is the best I can figure out about it. (But even the ACCEPTED history of that period is total "crazytown" if you ask me. :-) ****************************************************** The MAFIA (Organized Crime - the "mob") During the 1920s and prohibition, the mob took over Cuba and used it as a base to run massive amounts of illegal liquor into the United States. After prohibition, the mob turned Havana not just into "Las Vegas on steroids" - not just "sin city" - but "SUPER sin city" :-) Anything you wanted, from gambling to live sex shows on stage - no limits what-so-ever. Then there was a Cuban Revolution from 1953 to 1959 after a military coup in 1952. By 1959 Fidel Castro took over and shut everything down and booted out the mob. The mob wasn't happy - they wanted it back. ************ Before Fidel Castro became politically "active" he wanted to be a professional baseball player. He even tried out to be a pitcher for the "Washington Senators" (which later moved to Minnesota as the "Minnesota Twins"). Too bad he didn't have a better fast ball - it could have changed the history of the world :-) Like I said - the history of this period is all crazytown! :-) ****************************************************** The CIA The CIA was locked in the Cold War struggle between the Free World and the communist one. They were worried about Castro and a communist Cuba being a foothold into spreading communism to Central and South America and on being so close to the U.S. They cooperated with the mob and planned to invade Cuba and topple Castro. This was planned and prepared during the Eisenhower administration but was not ready until very early in the Kennedy administration. The CIA launched their invasion at the "Bay of Pigs" (04/17/1961) on the south side of Cuba. It went badly - very badly - everybody was killed or (mostly) captured. The U.S. Air Force was suppose to provide critical air support - but didn't. The CIA BLAMED Kennedy for withholding it - it's not clear he really did. Then there was the Cuban Missile Crisis (October 22, 1962). Kennedy made a DEAL for withdrawal of the nukes - instead of INVADING Cuba. The CIA thought Kennedy was weak on communism. Kennedy signed the Test Ban Treaty (08/05/1963) with Russia banning nuclear tests in the atmosphere. The CIA thought Kennedy was REALLY weak on communism. ************ When I was a kid, they told us NOT to eat snow because it had radioactivity in it from nuke tests. (Hey, it's Minnesota - kids eat snow. - We just know not to eat the yellow snow :-) ************ The CIA supported the South Vietnamese general's coup assassinating President Diem after Buddhists protested numerous abuses (11/02/1963). ************ I remember when a Buddhist monk doused himself with gasoline and lit himself on fire in protest of Diem, my brother said it was no big deal because Buddhists believe in an afterlife. I still think you have to be pretty upset about something to do that! ************ Kennedy thought the CIA was out of control and needed to be reigned in. The CIA thought Kennedy was DANGEROUSLY weak on communism. Kennedy was popular and likely to be reelected in 1964. The CIA thought Kennedy MUST be gotten rid of or the U.S. was DOOMED. Bang, bang, bang - JFK is no longer a problem. Jack Ruby, with mob connections, under mob instruction, killed Oswald. All nice and neat - very professional. Sounds "reasonable", I guess, but is that what REALLY happened? Who knows? ****************************************************** As a Computer/Tech kind of guy I want to see scientific evidence. I only found two pieces of evidence that are scientific in nature. ****************************************************** The paraffin gunshot residue test. When Oswald was arrested, they performed a paraffin test on his cheek and hands for gunpowder residue to prove he had fired a gun recently. They expected to find nitrates on his cheek from firing the rifle and on one hand from firing the pistol he allegedly used to shoot Police Officer J.D. Tippit during his getaway. Instead they found nitrates on BOTH hands but NOTHING on his cheek. ************ Reports on Paraffin and Nitrate Tests of Lee Harvey Oswald https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth338281/m1/9/ ************ The FBI even used a new advanced test, neutron activation analysis, at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory which should have found even the most minuscule traces. The Warren Commission reported that these tests were "inconclusive". It has been argued that nitrates are common in the manufacture of books, which Oswald could have handled at the School Book Depository as part of his job. Either way, the lack of nitrates on Oswald's cheek, indicating he HADN'T fired a rifle recently, seemed pretty important to ME. So, Oswald wasn't the shooter? Wow! Well ... the FBI maintains that paraffin tests are unreliable for rifles and shotguns. Residue on the cheek would have been incriminating, but lack of it means nothing. ****************************************************** The Dictabelt recording. Dallas Police recorded all of their radio communications on dictabelts at headquarters. Apparently, a microphone was stuck ON, transmitting the entire assassination back to headquarters and was so recorded. In the 1960s they didn't have the technology to analyze this but by the 1976 United States House Select Committee on Assassinations, they did. In their 1978 report, they concluded "with the probability of 95% or better, there was indeed a shot fired from the grassy knoll." ************ John F. Kennedy assassination Dictabelt recording From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_F._Kennedy_assassination_Dictabelt_recording "The open-microphone portion of the recording lasts 5.5 minutes, and begins at about 12:29 p.m. local time, a minute before the assassination. Verbal time stamps were made periodically by the police radio dispatcher and can be heard on the recording." ************ Wow! Proof positive! Well, ... there are problems (of course!). ************ United States House Select Committee on Assassinations From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_House_Select_Committee_on_Assassinations "... FBI's Technical Services Division and the National Academy of Sciences Committee determining that "reliable acoustic data do not support a conclusion that there was a second gunman" in the Kennedy assassination ..." ****************************************************** In conclusion ... About all I can say with certainty is: 1. I didn't shoot JFK. 2. JFK didn't shoot himself. And you'll just have to take my word for it on 1. :-) Everything else is up for grabs. And ALL the evidence is tainted some how. Old Joke: "The complete lack of evidence proves the conspiracy is working" :-) What the heck IS a Grassy "Knoll" anyway? ****************************************************** ****************************************************** Actually, I have solved the John F. Kennedy Assassination!!! I figured it out!!! I don't know why nobody else ever thought of this before! Remember what Sherlock Holmes said: “When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.” ― Arthur Conan Doyle, The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes I call this, the "Swezey, Two Lone Nuts Theory!" I figure, there MUST have been TWO LONE NUTS not just one, NOT just Oswald! No conspiracy, they didn't know each other, they never had any contact with each other. It was by PURE COINCIDENCE that both of these TWO LONE NUTS were in Dealey Plaza that day, taking shots at President Kennedy. That explains EVERYTHING! - Well, sort of. Hey, it's no crazier than any of the other theories :-) *** Please buy my book *** :-) ****************************************************** ...