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Posted (edited)
10 minutes ago, Liquor and Poker said:

Did you wave at Mr. McMurtry?

I was too busy eyeing the HS Football coach's wife. I heard she liked them young. 

BTW, my Dad used to own the Texaco station on the corner of the square. /csb

Edited by RPM
Posted
On 11/24/2023 at 10:35 AM, Bateshorn said:

The funny thing about this topic is how small Dealey Plaza is in person.  I thought that it would be this giant thing and Oswald made some crazy 1000 yard shot and that's why all the conspiracy theories are true.  Standing on the X on the road where the killing shot hit, it's not even 75 yards to the window in the book depository.  It immediately made me realize that anybody with a gun rest and a scope who didn't have  Parkinson's would have a solid chance of hitting a target in steady, slow moving vehicle. 

 

Oswald was 250 feet away and shooting at a moving target. He got off three rounds with an old Italian rifle in only six seconds, and scored two hits, including a head shot. He showed what one motivated marine with a rifle can do.

 

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Posted

Yeah, between Full Metal Jacket and seeing Dealey Plaza as a young kid whilst visiting Dallas to see family...it looked massive and the shot had to be impossible.  Not saying I could replicate it.  But after becoming a seasoned marksman and then you grow up and realize everything seemed massive as a little kid.  You realize 75 yards on the angle, and the motorcade moving at 10mph...it was a tough shot to get a headwound...but nothing impossible.  Now I drive by Dealey Plaza regularly and sometimes don't even realize it until I'm already through it, it's just such a small space relatively speaking.  Whitman's shots were much more impressive considering he was shooting at people running a lot faster than 10mph (albeit for shorter distances) from a range far longer than 75 yards, from a much higher vantage point with the sun beating down on his eyeballs.  

But then, Italians make shittier guns.

Posted
On 11/24/2023 at 10:35 AM, Bateshorn said:

The funny thing about this topic is how small Dealey Plaza is in person.  I thought that it would be this giant thing and Oswald made some crazy 1000 yard shot and that's why all the conspiracy theories are true.  Standing on the X on the road where the killing shot hit, it's not even 75 yards to the window in the book depository.  It immediately made me realize that anybody with a gun rest and a scope who didn't have  Parkinson's would have a solid chance of hitting a target in steady, slow moving vehicle. 

Exactly.  The first time I drove the route was my first OU weekend as a freshman.  I was shocked at how close Oswald was to the motorcade.   

Posted
15 minutes ago, HouTex said:

Exactly.  The first time I drove the route was my first OU weekend as a freshman.  I was shocked at how close Oswald was to the motorcade.   

Yeah, when you take into account both sides of the bridge, plus all the grassy areas and surrounding surface streets and overlooking buildings...it's a fair size.  But if you just look up from the general area of the motorcade and look up at the book building...it's pretty comfy environs.  Tight, even.  Almost as if, this exchange could have happened:

"Sir, we've checked this portion of the motorcade route.  Everything should be easily secured."

-Oh really, Agent Thomas?  What about that one building there which most of the floors of overlook this slow curve we're on?  Less than a football field away even on the diagonal.  Nothing else around but ground tourists we can easily monitor from the motorcade itself.  But that one building right on top of us, is that anything? 

"Don't worry sir, I checked with guy at the front desk.  They're closed tomorrow."  

 

Posted
On 11/24/2023 at 10:35 AM, Bateshorn said:

The funny thing about this topic is how small Dealey Plaza is in person.  I thought that it would be this giant thing and Oswald made some crazy 1000 yard shot and that's why all the conspiracy theories are true.  Standing on the X on the road where the killing shot hit, it's not even 75 yards to the window in the book depository.  It immediately made me realize that anybody with a gun rest and a scope who didn't have  Parkinson's would have a solid chance of hitting a target in steady, slow moving vehicle. 

Rob Reiner's JFK podcast supposedly ID's 4 shooters.  Four shooters can't fit in Dealey Plaza, somebody else is getting hit with 4 shooters. 

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Posted
On 11/24/2023 at 10:35 AM, Bateshorn said:

The funny thing about this topic is how small Dealey Plaza is in person.  I thought that it would be this giant thing and Oswald made some crazy 1000 yard shot and that's why all the conspiracy theories are true.  Standing on the X on the road where the killing shot hit, it's not even 75 yards to the window in the book depository.  It immediately made me realize that anybody with a gun rest and a scope who didn't have  Parkinson's would have a solid chance of hitting a target in steady, slow moving vehicle. 

Yeah I've made dozens of harder deer kill shots than Oswald made that day.

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Posted
4 minutes ago, Ten Bears said:

Yeah I've made dozens of harder deer kill shots than Oswald made that day.

I also saw a special once with an 80 year old man with the exact same rifle make 4 shots in six seconds with ease.  The Mythbusters did this and had no problem doing it.  

The reality is that it's difficult to imagine such an inconsequential person having such an impact on someone that was consequential.  Yet, that's exactly what happened.  

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Posted
52 minutes ago, BamaATL said:

I also saw a special once with an 80 year old man with the exact same rifle make 4 shots in six seconds with ease.  The Mythbusters did this and had no problem doing it.  

The reality is that it's difficult to imagine such an inconsequential person having such an impact on someone that was consequential.  Yet, that's exactly what happened.  

This is true but I don’t see why it’s so hard for people to grasp.  The famous assassins, or would be assassins, of key figures since 1968 (RFK, MLK, Ford, Reagan, JPII) were obscure people.  

Posted

Isn't that kind of the point of being an assassin?  Remaining in obscurity so as to avoid suspicion and get closer to the target?  Although, "Previously Famous Assassins" would make a good band name.  

csb/ speaking of Dallas, was talking with a friend who worked in the Bush administration years ago as an Asst. Secretary.  They live not far from the Bushes now.  She laughed at herself because first time went over for dinner (2010 or so), they just intuitively brought some appetizer or dessert or whatever.  And secret service took it from them and just buried it in the kitchen and it never made it out to the dining room.  She spaced out and forgot that even after they left office, they still mostly follow the protocol, even with known guests, of plain-clothes agents do the shopping for food at random grocers so that no one tainted food supply could make it to just the one specific target.  You'd either have to poison an entire grocery store chain (not easy to do) or get to their specific bags of items en route to home/in the kitchen (basically impossible).  Obviously ex-Presidents still go out to eat and travel and all that but it's not widely announced so as to give some would-be assassin time to plan and infiltrate a restaurant or delivery service.  But right now, there is an obscure food service delivery driver who can make himself infamous for centuries if he has the stones.  Beware the lone concessioner of a fixed property.  Or so history has taught us.    

Posted

Sure it's an easy shot when you got help from the Secret Service, the CIA, the FBI, the Cubans, the Russians, the mob (all families), the Teamsters, the AFL-CIO, Connally, Yarborough, LBJ, Nixon, Jackie, the Freemasons, the Vatican, the Crown, the Roswell aliens that were brought back to life, and the Association of Former Students.

Charlie Day Its Always Sunny In Philadelphia GIF - Charlie Day Its Always  Sunny In Philadelphia Conspiracy - Discover & Share GIFs

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Posted
2 hours ago, YGIFS said:

Yeah, when you take into account both sides of the bridge, plus all the grassy areas and surrounding surface streets and overlooking buildings...it's a fair size.  But if you just look up from the general area of the motorcade and look up at the book building...it's pretty comfy environs.  Tight, even.  Almost as if, this exchange could have happened:

"Sir, we've checked this portion of the motorcade route.  Everything should be easily secured."

-Oh really, Agent Thomas?  What about that one building there which most of the floors of overlook this slow curve we're on?  Less than a football field away even on the diagonal.  Nothing else around but ground tourists we can easily monitor from the motorcade itself.  But that one building right on top of us, is that anything? 

"Don't worry sir, I checked with guy at the front desk.  They're closed tomorrow."  

 

Here's a couple of shots I took from about a decade ago.  Me standing on the x in one, some rando on the other (which really gives it scale). 

dealey1.jpg

dealey2.jpg

Posted

IMG_1455.thumb.jpeg.59eb5e94669fa782cce80838471b92b2.jpeg

Well I wasn’t alive yet, but my grandfather was in the police academy that day. They graduated a few weeks early to get more officers on the street faster. He did a ridealong with Tippet while in the academy. Still tells that story every time I see him. 

Posted
On 11/23/2023 at 9:21 AM, mdmost said:

If you have Disney+, I highly recommend the One Day In America documentary series about his final day in Dallas. Really well done.

Thanks for the recommendation.  I watched all three episodes last night.

Posted

given that so many of the posters in this thread were actually alive, and the number of "true believers" is relatively low, and very few are dogpiling to support the "official story"....

last week i ran across a couple of artifacts that were just posted to the net within the last year


CBS aired a special on the Warren Commission the night the report was released, and that is very interesting; the "official story" was not yet cannon

if you don't think oswald was not on the top front step of the TSBD, it's not for you

nor is the following ....

if you have ever gone down the rabbit hole on this topic you know the name Mark Lane

he was one of the first to call shenanigans and the first to really do something about it

he was in dallas interviewing principle witnesses in the first 2 years, and in the case of Lee Bowers, he may have recorded the only Bowers interview before Bowers' "accident"

lane wrote a book "Rush to Judgment" which is canon; what is lost to history and only recently recovered was his documentary released in '67 of the same name

the Bowers and Holland interviews and their testimony are canon and were faithfully recreated by ITV in '88 and Stone in '91

for your viewing "pleasure".....

 

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Posted

image.png.9979d309b4186c103813f1f5d4eb31d1.png
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2025/03/19/us/jfk-assassination-files

Here’s what to know.
For years, the assumption — held by conspiracy theorists and many historians alike — was that the final tranche of documents related to the assassination of John F. Kennedy was being kept under wraps because it might reveal damning evidence showing that Kennedy was not assassinated by a lone gunman in Dallas.

But with the release over the past 24 hours of what the Trump administration said was the last of the documents held by the National Archives, including many no longer weighed down by blotted out paragraphs and sentences, it is becoming clear that something else might have been behind the decision to keep them from public view: protecting the sources and methods of U.S. intelligence gathering operations.

The roughly 63,400 documents released in two phases on Tuesday night are still being reviewed, so it’s an open question if they contain undiscovered information. But judging by one standard — those items that are no longer redacted — the real concern seemed to be more pedestrian: masking the names of C.I.A. agents and informants, agency intelligence gathering operations directed at U.S. allies, and the location of various C.I.A. stations and even their budgets.

The C.I.A. has always been very protective of the way it works. That is understandable given the nature of its mission — but also because of its history of at times unsavory practices. (Case in point: the Bay of Pigs)

But this could help to explain the shambolic nature of the release of documents. Piles of uncategorized documents were dumped into the public arena in two tranches after President Trump abruptly announced on Monday that they would be released the next day.

“The holdup was not because of the smoking guns that would help us understand Lee Harvey Oswald’s role in the assassination,” said Timothy Naftali, an adjunct professor at Columbia University and a former director of the Nixon presidential library. “It’s because ensnared in these documents were the sources and methods. We were intercepting message from Egypt during the Nasser era! That has nothing to do with who killed Kennedy.”

The latest release of dry government documents, diplomatic cables, handwritten notes and blurry photocopies offered no major revelations, at least at first glance. But scholars held out hope that the documents might expose new details or at least shed light on persistent questions about an event that traumatized a nation and remains the subject of conspiracy theories six decades later.

Here’s what else to know:

Kennedy criticism: Jack Schlossberg, the only grandson of President John F. Kennedy, criticized the release of the new trove of government files about the assassination and the news media’s coverage of it in a series of social media posts. He also said that the Trump administration did not give anyone in President Kennedy’s family a “head’s up” before the documents were released. Read more ›

Difficult reading: The documents released Tuesday were not categorized or presented in any organized way and, in some cases, they were blurred and difficult to read. That no doubt reflects their age — many of them were typed or handwritten a half-century ago — but also that they appear to be the end result of repeated photocopying of  originals.

Persistent doubts: Was Kennedy killed by the Mafia? By the C.I.A.? Was he an early, liberal victim of what modern conservatism has come to call the Deep State? A lot of people think so, and nothing in the archives is going to dispel the swirling fog of hypothesis, rumor and speculation. Read more › [spoilered below]

Three killings: The latest records were released through an executive order signed by Mr. Trump in January. That order also directed the nation’s security agencies to disclose any remaining documents related to the assassinations of Senator Robert F. Kennedy and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968. So far, no new information is apparent. Read more ›

 

Good read:

Spoiler

Why the newly released documents won’t put out the fire for conspiracy theorists.
On his third day in office in January, President Trump ordered the release of documents from the National Archives related to the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, his brother Robert and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. As Trump declared on the campaign trail, “It’s been 60 years, time for the American people to know the TRUTH.”

The truth is that nothing in the archives is going to dispel the fog of hypothesis, rumor and speculation that swirls around these killings. The assassinations of the 1960s — President Kennedy’s in particular — remain the source and paradigm of modern conspiratorial thinking, a style of argument to which the current president is passionately committed. Whatever details emerge now are unlikely to settle the ongoing debates, which are less about what happened in Dallas in 1963 (or Memphis and Los Angeles five years later) than about the character of the American state and the nature of reality itself.

Was Kennedy killed by the Mafia? By the C.I.A.? Was he an early, liberal victim of what modern conservatism has come to call the Deep State? A lot of people think so, and there may be unanswered questions hovering around his death. But there’s a thin line between skepticism and paranoia, between reasonable guesses and wild invention. The American imagination often gravitates to the far side of that line, and the Kennedy assassination was one of the shocks that pushed us over it.

By 1963, we were already headed in that direction. Suspicion was part of the atmosphere of the Cold War years, when what Kennedy himself called the “twilight struggle” between the United States and the Soviet Union was accompanied by the rapid growth of the American security state, which rested equally on paperwork and secrecy. Through the years of McCarthy, Sputnik and the quiz show scandals, paranoia was in the air.

Kennedy’s killing was almost immediately folded into a narrative structure that had already surfaced in popular culture as well as politics, a mode of storytelling that treated public events as the expressions of secret plots. Richard Condon’s Cold War thriller “The Manchurian Candidate” (published in 1959 and adapted by Hollywood in 1962) and Thomas Pynchon’s shaggy-dog experimental whodunit “V.” are among the best-known pre-assassination examples of this paranoid style in American fiction. (The phrase “paranoid style” comes from an influential essay on political conspiratorialism by the Columbia University historian Richard Hofstadter, originally delivered as a lecture shortly before the assassination and published in Harper’s in 1964.)

That same year, the Warren Commission Report emphatically concluded that Oswald was the sole shooter and the only party responsible for Kennedy’s killing. Yet the report did anything but close the case. Through the years that followed, the commission was subjected to a steady stream of revisionism and rebuttal, carried out first by journalists and politicians and later, perhaps more decisively, by novelists and filmmakers.

Versions of the counternarrative percolate through novels and movies from the late ’60s on, picking up steam in the ’80s and ’90s. Alan J. Pakula’s “The Parallax View” (1974), while not explicitly about J.F.K., paints a bleak, cynical picture of an American elite devouring its own, devoted to nothing beyond the preservation of power and the weaponization of deceit. Condon’s “Winter Kills,” published in 1974 and made into a movie five years later, runs a darkly comic variation on this theme, ascribing a Kennedy-like figure’s death to the moral rot and congenital dishonesty of a ruling class he had both embodied and betrayed.

The disasters of Vietnam and Watergate, along with revelations about the covert activities of the C.I.A. and F.B.I., fed a distrust of the state that would fester on the left and the right. The assassination was seen from both sides as central event in the secret history of our times, a loose thread that, when pulled, would unravel a skein of sinister plots involving intelligence agencies, the Mafia, Howard Hughes, J. Edgar Hoover, Lyndon B. Johnson and various clandestine organizations and shadowy actors. The cumulative moral of these stories was that nothing was ever what it seemed, and that American institutions were warrens of treachery and deceit.

In the 1988 baseball comedy “Bull Durham,” Kevin Costner’s Crash Davis, in a character-defining monologue, declares: “I believe Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone.” That’s what a smart, sexy, grown-up romantic lead played by an up-and-coming movie star would say. Three years later, Costner starred in Oliver Stone’s “JFK” as Jim Garrison, the real-life New Orleans district attorney pursuing a case that implicated a vast web of conspirators, including Kennedy’s successor, Johnson. “We’re through the looking glass here, people,” he said. “White is black and black is white.” In 1991, that was what a righteous warrior for truth played by a double Oscar winner would say.

The conspiracy zeitgeist was shifting. Between “Bull Durham” and “JFK,” Don DeLillo published “Libra,” his novel about Lee Harvey Oswald; Norman Mailer published his 1300-page “Harlot’s Ghost,” intended as the first volume in a chronicle of modern American espionage that would stitch the Kennedy assassination into a larger history of covert operations and double-crosses; the Soviet Union collapsed.

Now everything was an inside job. The Kennedy assassination would continue to be a source of fascination in its own right — it anchors James Ellroy’s synoptic Underworld U.S.A. trilogy and figures as a plot point in numerous fictions about espionage and organized crime — and it would also become a template, a model for explaining everything.

At the end of the ’90s, the internet blossomed, “The Matrix” opened in theaters and the normalization of conspiratorial thinking accelerated. The online, post-9/11 world is teeming with “truthers,” free-range skeptics who reflexively doubt what seems to be the obvious account of events. That, say, Al Qaeda operatives flew hijacked planes into the World Trade Center; that a gunman slaughtered teachers and children at a school in Connecticut; that Joe Biden won the 2020 election fair and square; that followers of Donald Trump stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

Elaborate, preposterous alternative scenarios — involving false flags, black ops, hacked voting machines and Deep State machinations — proliferate on social media where they become the basis for algorithmically fueled pseudo-research.

Spurious theories can be refuted over and over again — in the news media, in sworn congressional testimony, in the civil and criminal courts — but such fact-checking often has the effect of amplifying the falsehoods. It isn’t just that we disagree on the facts or what they mean; we lack a common definition of what a fact even is. Generalized mistrust of authority and expertise turns us into epistemological free agents, making up the world as we blunder through it. We’re just asking questions, doing our own search engine-optimized investigations, huddling in ad hoc Warren Commissions of our own devising.

Occam’s razor, the venerable philosophical principle that the truest explanation is likely to be the simplest, has been thrown away. We’re living in the age of Occam’s chain saw, when the preferred answer is the one that makes the loudest noise and generates the most debris.

Richard Hofstadter warned that “there is a great difference between locating conspiracies in history and saying that history is, in effect, a conspiracy.” Recent history includes a lot of people saying exactly that, in ways that make the old paranoid style look downright sensible.

To change the metaphor, it can seem as if the civic landscape is nothing but rabbit holes. The rabbits will never go back into the hats. Paranoia, in Hofstadter’s definition — in a phrase he borrowed from the British historian L.B. Namier — involved the lack of “an intuitive sense of how things do not happen,” a sense that history unspools within knowable parameters. That grounding in reality has been grievously undermined, and no cache of documents is going to restore it.

 

Posted (edited)
6 minutes ago, Sgt Hulk said:

Lots of info spilling out. Gonna be some wild reading 

As somebody who was really into it before the Oliver Stone movie and for a few years after, probably not. Well, not about the assassination itself, but maybe info on Jack Ruby and some of the other stuff. There's going to be a lot of disappointment.

But so far everything I've seen that would be interesting has been mentioned in books going back 30+ years.

Edited by atomheartbevo

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